Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A synopsis: On the first month of war, my true love sent to me,

One depraved doctor, two troubled boys, three Italian Fronts, four dancing monkeys...five commandos… six Hydra bases, seven soldiers swimming, eight shades of red, nine goggled goons, ten dancing dames, eleven eagles circling, twelve gunners gunning and A Partridge in a Pear Tree.

BUCKY

They pull him from the cages a week or so in, he thinks, a few hours past dawn.

He remembers thinking he’d be next when the aches moved from his bones to his chest; when he began sweating in his sleep and plegmn began to clog up his throat. God forbid he’s seen Steve hack up enough mucus before to know pneumonia when he felt it. They dragged the sick - and sometimes the healthy - away in pairs when they couldn’t work, or were particularly belligerent. He's barely been fit to work for days, and knew he was done for when the hose spray of the shower sent him spiraling down the rabbit hole, and felt more than heard Dugan cursing out his mother as he caught him from cracking his head open on the tile.

Everything since then has been a bleary patchwork of memory through touch, smell and sound. He drifts off wet and cold, is wrestled back into stained skivvies by rough hands, hissed words and German commands. This is the soundtrack to his life now; clanging cages, laughing Krauts and the buzz of electrical bulbs as a mirage of accents bicker around him; waiting for the German fuckers to call his number. And it will be his number, Bucky knows, the fascist assholes can probably smell the Gypsy in his blood.

“Christ boys, don’t let them see him.”

“Fat chance of that, half a dozen of them saw him go down in the….and the rest saw….frog-march back. ‘e’s fucked; couldn’t tell his ass from a his elbow right now. Look at ‘im!”

“Better him than one of us, Corporal.” comes a voice, thick with a Texan accent; from somewhere to his left in the next cage over. Lieutenant Blackwood from the 106th, Bucky thinks, and wonders when he’d ended up in a cage nearby.  He thought he was in a cell block across the workroom. He fights his way to awareness; feels a blouse under his head, bars against his side and someone’s knee pressing into his thigh.

“Sarge? You with me?” Jones’ baritone pierces the fog, louder and closer than he’s expecting, somewhere above his head. He can hear Dugan too, quiet but fierce, a few cells away. Bucky has a vague memory of the man trying to bully his way into the same cell as him, Jones’ hands under his armpits, before one of the goggled guards electrocuted the guy and shoved him in another. 

There’s something wet on his forehead, lukewarm and sickly. It disappears - he can feel Jones shuffling beside him with his boots as the Krauts approach - the squelch of a damp sock squeezed out. Bucky at least had the decency to tear the corners off his bed sheets to make cold compasses for Steve on occasion, though he supposes you make do with what you have. He shivers, and groans.

“Barnes! You gotta get up.” Jones snaps, and whatever vision Bucky had whites out as someone shakes him, and he has to swallow back bile as it rushes up his throat, wheezing almost as loud as Steve used to. “Goddammit to hell, Barnes!”

He can hear the clanging of the guards opening the pens for the days work over the muttered arguments going on around him, but most of all, all he can hear is the sound of his own pathetic gasping. Rolling and rolling he presses his face against the cold concrete below, and fumbles until he’s clinging to the chain of his dog tags; burrowing his serial number into the skin of his palm.

Perhaps if he presses hard enough he can alter his heart line, then his life line; reforge the broken line of fate stretched across his palm into one whole. Or perhaps if he pretends just for a moment that the greasy metal tag is a balavas charm, as he’s done firefight after firefight with his ears still ringing and ash in his mouth - it might make some difference. He’s never had one himself, but his ma had one - a battered coin hanging from her neck from frayed twine instead of the gold chain she’d had when he was young. It had never given her the good luck in life his ma’s ma had always promised her, so why it’d  help a poshrat like him whose never so much as seen the inside of a caravan, he doesn’t know.

“Ich sagte nach oben!”

It’s funny, Bucky thinks, that with seven years of Sunday School and four years of playing piano as his sisters sung chorus, it’s his mothers whispered teachings he remembers as the spectre of Death looms ever closer. He can recite a thousand Ave Maria, gratia plena’s kneeling amongst mud and dirt and it would mean nothing, because it isn’t God and pearly white gates he thinks of as bullets rain down like the plagues of Egypt, coming for the firstborn, second-born, third and fourth-born sons. Painted doorways of lambs blood hadn’t saved all the children of Egypt; had killed as many Israelites as it had heretics, so perhaps God isn’t as merciful as He pretends to be.

Instead he thinks of Jainism, and bibaxt and muló, where the church is the Universe and the priest the open fields and sky - a belief that has always seemed so far away in a city of car exhausts and skyscrapers - with the spectre of bad luck and sickness shadowing the unclean. He remembers his ma always washing her hands, remembers the way she would wash the glasses first and the saucepans last, the way she wouldn’t touch nor speak ill of the sick - of Steve - for fear of marime spreading to her bloodline. He’d thought it foolish as a child, the way she’d make him bathe and scrub himself raw whenever Steve caught a fever, would lecture him endlessly about the tainted and the impure whilst sipping her sixth gin in under an hour; the only one of her tribe. She’d slapped him once, when he’d yelled at her, because surely of the two of them he wasn’t the unclean one; he wasn’t the one who’d been excommunicated and abandoned. What would she think of you now, Bucky wonders, would she turn away from you in body and mind the way she’d done with the Rodgers’ now that you are the one wheezing and choking - abandoned by luck, talismans and God too? 

If the sacrifice of a hundred lambs hadn’t saved the innocents of Egypt, why would green fatigues and shiny pressed steel bearing the names of sinners and killers save him or anyone else now?
He should remember the same of his ma’s side, to forget childhood dreams of amulets, destiny and the Evil Eye ever-watching. The only thing real is the curses; and the honest to God truth was, they were all cursed one way or another.

32557038. 

32557038. 

32557038 runs through his head and his palm, synchronized and strong - enough to drown himself out, harsh gasps turning to dry hacking.

“Barnes, shut it!”

“Christ Sarge-”

Aside from Jones, hovering at his head, they sound more resigned than anything - tired and half-hearted admonishments. There’s no longer any righteous fury as there was when Lohmer belted him across the face, no grim satisfaction as Lohmer bled out from under two hundred pounds of collapsed steel three days later; no aghast outrage when Bucky swung a metal bar at a guards groin just for the hell of it. That’s what had started this thing, followed sharply by the beating, all because he couldn’t keep his head and his temper in check. It seems he left all of his suckered patience with Steve when he shipped out after-all. They know it too he supposes; this had been his fault and now he was paying the price, bibaxt coming back full circle to bite him in the ass, and they’d done their part. They’d hidden his fever through the night, stopped him from dropping ammo boxes on himself in the day and given him extra meat in his stew from their own, but there isn’t much point hiding it now. 

“Holt ihn auf! Auf den Füßen!”

He wonders if his cellmates, friends and unhappy acquaintances alike, have slept since the shower the day before - if he’d kept them all awake through the night. Leathered hands haul him up to his feet. He hopes they have a communal nap without him. That would be nice, Bucky thinks - hopes they appreciate the extra share of meaty soup they’ll be getting without his dead weight weighing them down - hopes the pneumonia will finish him quickly. There’s little chance of that, he realizes moments later, as he conveniently upchucks on a guard’s boots.

Someone hits him, and he vomits again, on his hands and knees, spilled halfway out the cell door where they’ve dropped him; his vision a wash of grey and white, vomit and bile dripping down his chin.

“Starte den amerikanischen Abschaum auf!” (Get up American scum!) Someone snaps down at him, grabbing and yanking him down the corridor by his hair. He cries out, blind and confused - tries to grab at the arm and succeeds on the fourth swing, fingers locking feebly around the wrist there.

Someone breaks his fingers.

He doesn’t know how he knows, or how many - God save me, how many have they broken - but he chokes on a pained gasp and starts hacking his misery away instead.

“You Kraut fuckers!” Dugan yells from the next cage over, hands on closest bars. The men from his cell stay exactly where they are, German guns levelled at them, shuffling their feet and watching him with pity. Lieutenant Brackwood is looking between him and behind him with dislike, pity, a little disgust - he doesn’t particularly look his best at the moment - and relief. They’ve pulled another healthy prisoner from across the hall and are frogmarching him past Bucky on the floor. They always take two when the guards do the rounds, sometimes taking them from separate blocks and sometimes from the same, extracting one healthy and one sick. He doesn’t know why.

Just wait, Bucky thinks almost savagely, catching the Lieutenant’s eye, they might come for you next. A moment later he almost vomits again - dry heaving - sick at his own thoughts.

“Steh auf!” The same guard, the one who has hold of his pulsing fingers, snaps and Bucky hears Jones bark something in German back from inside the cell, taking a step back when another one cocks his weapon. Bucky has only been in Europe for five months, but Steve’s tenement had more languages canned together than Clark Gable had leading ladies. He’s heard enough of Mrs Bakker shrieking in Dutch at her drunk of a husband through the walls, and from his German phrasebooks during his extra training to realize Jones is telling them ‘he can’t get up’.

The prisoner, the healthy one - the unlucky one this fine harvest day - is struggling ahead of him with his own pair but is having no more success than Bucky is. The guard on the prisoner’s left sticks him in the side with a prod, like he’s cattle; because that’s all they are to these Nazi fuckers, and sets off an electrical charge to bring the guy to his knees. They haul him back up, cursing and trembling, and drag him like they are with Bucky for the rest of the way.

He’s not sure how long they march him for, stumbling as he is through the maze of corridors endlessly turning this way and that but at some-point they seem to have descended a floor, and the factory walls turn from smooth plaster to exposed brick. 

The sun through the windows light what the bulbs don’t -----

“Warum will er diese überhaupt? Sie sind besser dran mit einer Kugel auf das Gehirn, es ist nicht, wie sie arbeiten können.”  (Why does he even want these ones? They're better off with a bullet to the brain, it's not like they can work.”)

“Doktor Zola sagt, dass sie ihre Verwendungszwecke-so schwach sie auch sind-besser als ein totes Subjekt haben." The one at his armpit replies, “Deshalb nimmt er sich zwei Mal Zeit, etwas über eine experimentelle Steuerung.”
(Doctor Zola says they have their uses - weak as they are - better a live subject than a dead one." The one at his armpit replies, “That's why he takes two a time, something about a experimental control”.)

“Und es spart die Zeit, einen anderen herauszuziehen, wenn er sie früh tötet, mit dem Weg, den er durchläuft. 
(“And it saves the time of dragging another one out when he kills them off early, with the way he goes through them.”)

Bucky understands little of what they say, their rapid fire conversation too much for his elementary German and spinning head to follow, but he supposes he’ll find out soon enough. The guard, the motherfucker holding his fingers hostage laughs harshly, continuing. “Wenn es nicht für diesen fdoctor wäre, könnten wir so viele wie wir wollen schießen, ohne sich Gedanken darüber zu machen, dass die Arbeit nicht getan wird." (“If it wasn't for that doctor we could shoot as many as we like without worrying about the work not getting done.")

“Korporal schließen." The other one mutters, “Werner sagt, Doktor Zola macht Gottes Werk, die Arbeit, die sie die Welt verändern werden-”
(“Shut up, Corporal.” The other one mutters, “Werner says Doctor Zola's doing God's work, work that’ll change the world-”

“Wir haben bereits die Technologie, um die Welt zu verändern." (“We’ve already got the technology to change the world.”)

“Das ist mehr als die Waffen und die ...  " here he seems to pause, jolts Bucky upwards as he reaffirms his grip, “Die Entdeckung des Obergruppenführers. Sein neuer biologischer Arbeitszweig wird das Gesicht von allem verändern, es ist mehr als der Krieg, mehr als der arische Staat-Hydras größte Schöpfung.”
(“This is more than the guns and the…” here he seems to pause, jolts Bucky upwards as he reaffirms his grip, “Lieutenant General Schmitt’s discovery. Doctor Zola’s new biological branch of work will change the face of everything, it's more than the war, more than the Aryan state - Hydra's greatest creation.")

He’s heard them mention Hydra before here, was that the insignia that was printed on every shell and shipping box? 

The other one snorts, “Sag mir, wenn ich mir nicht jeden Tag die Hände von Untermensch schälen muss, scherzt einer von ihnen an ihren eigenen Organen-hast du die letzte Woche gesehen?” He speak over Bucky’s head, “Sagen Sie mir, dass, wenn er nicht tötet sieben pro Woche und läuft aus dem Test Thema."
(The other one snorts, “ Tell me that when I don’t have to wash my hands of subhuman shit every-time one of them chokes on their own organs - did you see the ones last week?” He speaks over Bucky’s head, “Tell me that when he's not killing them weekly and running out of test subjects.")

His voice quietens as they reach the middle of a damp hallway and hear the guards ahead of them speaking. A nasally voice answers. Bucky has no idea which part of the building they are in now, but thinks it must be the Isolation Ward in the East Wing; where soldiers would reappear sometimes rotting on trolleys for the prisoners to shove in the furnace; stinking of vomit and sour chemicals. He hasn’t had that privilege yet whilst he’s been here - probably won’t now, he thinks, considering you’ll be the one burning - but he’s met a few of the prisoners who have.

That French fellow - the one who’d ‘accidentally’ set off that shell under the stairway Lohmer had been standing atop of and the one Jones translated for, has done. They’d been in the same cell for the first four days before the Krauts rotated them out - he’s been here longer than the 107th has - months, and Bucky can remember him telling them the bodies smelt worse burning than they do on the battlefield. He’d had to burn the prisoners twice, three at a time with guards at his back, and their bodies had been carved open after death, insides blistered like his pop’s arm had blistered when ma had thrown the still-hot iron at him; missing eyes, teeth and sometimes arms and legs. Dernier; that was his name, had told Jones privately that the first four he’d burned had their tongues cut out, and that hadn’t been after they’d died.

Rosie Skyes, from Skye’s Bakery on 22nd street had a French cousin on her mothers side come stay with her once, and she spoke very little English. Her name was Colette and she educated young James Barnes many a day on the superiority of the French language of love.

The French word for tongue was ‘langue’ and beautiful Colette had educated him much and often on that matter also; older, alluring and more experienced, and so Bucky had listened to the two of them whispering whilst he pretended to sleep a few feet away. The next afternoon he’d taken a loose pipe, picked his target, and swung hard enough he doubted the Kraut would ever be able to get it up again. 

Steve doesn’t like bullies; he’d be so proud of you. God almighty, he missed Steve goddamn Rodgers.

He wonders what Steve’s doing now, hopefully not too sore sitting at home and hopefully missing another couple of papers stamped 4F - but really, who was Bucky kidding? He hopes he’s working, has picked up one the spare jobs going in the city now, and hopes he isn’t spending too much time hunched over The Times or listening to Mr Esposito’s radio obsessing over Hitler like he’s done before and after Pearl Harbour. He doesn’t want that fanatical life for Steve, almost as much as he doesn’t want this war for Steve either.

“Setzen Sie ihn dort,” comes the voice he heard through the doorway. There’s a short bespectacled, weasel of a man in front of him, gesturing to the other prisoner. This man, chubby and smartly dressed; looks harmless.

 “Das ist der Kranke? Ich sehe ihn.” (“Put him over there….This is the sick one? Let me see him.”) The doctor questions, turning to look at him and grasping his jaw unexpectedly, turns his head left and right. Surely with how much he’s thrown up and how tight his chest feels he can muster up something to spit in this guy’s face? As if hearing his thoughts the guard behind him deliberately closes his hand over Bucky’s fingers, twisting another one - not broken yet - backwards. Bucky bites his tongue.

Oh God, Were they going to cut out his tongue? Was this weasel man the one who sliced out the tongues of the other men? Bucky suddenly swallows, feeling very small and very scared. He doesn’t want to die, not like this; not at all.

The man shines a light in his eyes, left and right, and Bucky flinches back from the brightness; starts coughing as the man then tries to look in his mouth.

“Hm.” The man hums, then speaks in English. “You have fluid in the lungs, soldier. A fever too, where are you from?” 

Snapping his mouth shut around a cough he grinds his teeth together, “Barnes. Sergeant. 325--” 

“--An American then.” The doctor cuts him off, looking unimpressed, and Bucky realizes it isn’t a German accent he’s speaking with. “I’m not surprised,  you American soldiers don’t have the constitution to deal with wet winters on this side of the world.”

Bucky bristles. Unsure over why he feels so insulted by that - who was he? Steve Rodgers and his oversensitive temper? - he snaps out: “Barnes, Sergeant, 325570-----”

“Yes yes yes, I’ve heard it all before Sergeant. Put him with the other one.” The doctor directs the last part to the men around him, and turns away. The guards either-side of him steer him to the right, past the doctor, and Bucky finally focuses on his surroundings. There’s a man strapped down on a table at the centre of the room, moaning and slurring, a metal contraption hovering menacingly over his head. The guys trembling, bucking pathetically against the restraints as uncomfortable aftershocks ripple through his muscles.

The metal contraption - Bucky can’t see what it is at this angle and doubts he’s ever likely to have seen one before, is tall and arched, paired with a large round surgical light and trolley. Sunlight from the windows glints chillingly against the silver objects sat on the trolley tray, enough for Bucky to know he doesn’t want to know what they are. There’s a desk and a blackboard at the other end of the room - equations and calculations scrawled across it in chalk, a map of Europe printed on the wall with six triangles pinned to it. Shelves and more tables and lights - there’s two tables, Bucky realizes, one at the centre of the room and another tucked adjacently to the wall with a glass door leading to another office. He doesn’t get to glimpse anything else as the men turn him all the way, head already swiveled as far as it can go. He looks through the window instead, sees more brick buildings and water tanks, and beyond that up a hill; barbed wire fence and trees.

 Its eerily silent down here, no sound of workers or construction or German soldiers walking the perimeter - and Bucky wonders if there’s an exit door down here. Wonders if he could find it, if he could run and make it with no one the wiser now there’s not a dozen guards watching his every move as they’d done upstairs. The grunts of the other prisoner draw his thoughts back into focus, feeling more awake now than he has since Jones tried to get his attention. They’re taking him through another door, and Bucky realizes too late as he’s taken over the threshold that it’s another cell attached to the lab, this one with concrete walls, no electricity and one tiny window. They shove him to the ground and he drops, trying to catch himself on his hands and skinning the side of his chin on the concrete when he doesn’t quite succeed. The other man’s being held face down; bent over, hands behind his back; face squashed onto a lumpy thin mattress laid atop a slab - serving, Bucky supposes, as a bed. How very generous.

The guards holding the man down are pushing and snapping at him to shut up in German every time he curses and tries to struggle free. Keeping pressure on him, they turn to look above Bucky at his armed marchers, waiting for a nod to release the man so they can leave and lock the door behind them.

Bent over on the floor Bucky coughs wetly into his elbow and curls up around his fingers, pulsing in time with his heartbeat, and catches the other soldier’s eye as they let him go; the man’s eyes are crazed. Two pistols cock above him, and the buzz of electricity sounds as one of the guards who’d freed him steps forward with his prod threateningly when it looks like the man’s going to charge at them.

“Fuck ye!” The man snarls, spitting a mouthful of blood at them.

The guards don’t dignify him with a response, just back off and swing the door shut; the lock clicks in place. The only light in the cell, an L-shaped room the size of a couple of broom closets with just enough room to lay down in, is a strip of yellow sunrise peaking through the tiny window in line with the ceiling. The darkness feels thick but is a relief for his head. 

“I’m nae dying in ‘ere ye Jerry scunners, I’ll murder th’ lot o’ ye! Ye hear me, ye cocksuckers?!” The man bangs on the door with his fists, yelling in a thick accent Bucky realizes must be Scottish through the sudden pounding of his head. Unable to think of something that doesn’t sound incredibly rude like ‘you wanna shut your pie hole, you inconsiderate piece of shit' - Bucky coughs. 

(Sarah Rodgers used to tell him he would ‘never get a girl if you keep that foul mouth up James Barnes, it won’t endear you to anyone, let alone a respectable young lady.’ 

Having felt angry and particularly vindictive one afternoon at thirteen years old, Bucky had shot back, ‘I’m sorry, have you met my mother?’ Steve had nearly slugged him for speaking to his ma that way, and Bucky isn’t proud of it, but when he thought back now (and then, he supposes) Sarah had looked like she’d bitten her tongue to keep from saying back ‘your mother isn’t a respectable lady’.

 His ma; his temperamental, beautiful ma with the biggest potty mouth he knows, and Sarah; calm, collected and weary beyond her years Sarah, were as different as could be. It was for the best that Sarah had held her tongue when she did, even if Bucky knew what she had wanted to say, because he wasn’t sure how he would have reacted back then if she hadn't - bewildering and complicated as his relationship had been with Mrs. Barnes at that age. 

In the end though, as usual, Sarah had been right, and he didn’t get anywhere near as many swats on the hand from Sister Joan’s ruler as he had before he’d learnt to be a ‘nice respectable young man’. 

I know you’ve got it in you James; and you do too, so stop pretending to be something you’re not.)

The Scotsman carries on undeterred by Bucky’s coughs, cursing out the Germans and their mamas and their papas and their country in the most colourful language he’s ever heard - and his ma’s record is hard to beat.

“Hey!” Bucky yells hoarsely, ready to throw the empty food tray by his foot at the guy if he doesn’t shut it. “That ain’t going to work, so cut it out would ya? You’re giving me a headache.”

“A'm givin' ye a headache?” The guy scoffs, “Well fuck ye, but getting outta 'ere is mar’ important tae me that yer sore bloody head. Let us out o' 'ere ye cocksuckers-”

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky mutters, picks up the tray.

“Don’t even think about it, ye Yank.” The Scotsman warns, cutting off his cursing to point at Bucky.

Bucky says, “You think if you curse out their mothers enough they’ll come apologize and let you out? All you’re gonna’ do is piss them off and get yourself shot.” The man growls at him, “Seriously, pal.” Bucky repeats, his voice cracking in the middle.

The man growls one last time and bangs his fist once more against the door, spins and collapses on the cot, head in his hands. 

Like the darkness, the silence lies heavy as Bucky tries to push himself up. His fingers twinge painfully as they catch on the ground when he moves. His hiss of pain devolves into a coughing fit and he sits there, broken fingers cradled to his chest, hacking into his other elbow.

“Ye alright?”

Bucky looks up as he’s finishing, the other prisoner is watching him. He tries to grin sardonically before grimacing as he tries to wiggle his fingers. “I’ve been better,” is all he says, then closes his eyes and tips his head back. The guy still doesn’t get the message to shut up.

“Who ye with?”

“Huh?” Bucky asks, opening his eyes.

“What regiment? Ye’r American, aren’t you?”

“You’re the one who called me a Yank, so you tell me.” Bucky rebuts, then takes a breath. “The 107th.”

The man doesn’t seem to have recognized it, so he says, “Where we’r you caught?”

Bucky coughs once into his fist, “Azzano.”

“They caught hundreds o’ ye then; must a’ been a big battle a’ suppose.” The man nods, “You been ‘ere then, what, two weeks? A week?”

“Yeah? Who the hell knows, man.” Bucky forces himself to ask, “What ‘bout you?”

“Couple o' weeks ‘fore, we were reinforcing part o' th' 46th infantry. Us 'n' another unit - Parachute Brigades. About 30 o' mah division survived it, none o' th' other ones did, ‘cept th' Major in charge.”

Bucky grimaces, “Harsh.”

“Shouldn't have gotten a' o' his men killed then. He was th' commanding bobby; when only th' bobby survives it’s not shit Intel or shit luck, ‘t’s bad command. Farsworthy or something like that.”

“Right.” Bucky says, seeing as talking is apparently what they were doing now.

“You seem awful calm...for someone who's just been taken some kind o' lab.” the guy then adds, looking at Bucky suspiciously.

Bucky tries to think how to explain; thinks about not, then tells himself he doesn’t need an enemy in the same cell. “Expected it I guess.”

“What th’ fuck ye on about?”

“You heard me hacking just now, right? I’m sick. They take the sick ones, I knew I was done for when the fever started. My guys tried to hide it for a while but I knew I’d get caught. They always”--cough--”take the sick - French guy said so, and how they--” Bucky cuts himself off, the guy doesn’t need to know what else they do to them. “Besides, I was already on their radar.”

“How’s that?”

“You know about Lohmer? The commander in the camp with the purple--”

“The one th’ stairway fell on top of. Ye I know him. Ah thought that was a group o’--”

Bucky shakes his head to stop him, “Retaliation,” he explains, “For him beating me half to death after I swung a shell at his second in command’s dick.”

The man starts laughing inexplicably, guffawing like he can’t help it.“Jesus Christ,” the guys finally cracks, shaking his head. After another moment, he says. “The tak’ the’ healthy ones too ye know, a’m ‘ere, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” Bucky admits, “But they always take the sick.”

“You said yer guys tried to hide ye - ye an Officer?”

“Sergeant.” Bucky quips, rubbing at his pounding head, mindful of his fingers.

“You g’t a name Sergeant?” He cracks his eyes open to see the guy watching him expectantly, and slightly mockingly.

“Barnes. Buck---James Barnes.”

“Barnes.” The guy hums, “Not so nice tae make ye’ acquaintance Barnes. Andrew McNair. Corporal, her Majesty’s 78th Division; fresh from Africa.”

Africa. His pa died in Africa.

“Not so nice to meet you too, McNair.”

The guy pulls him up by the hand once he’s shaken it and Bucky stumbles into him. “Easy, ye goddamn Yank. Ah know I’m a bonny bit but na need tae throw yerself at me.”

“Fuck off” Bucky responses, almost smiling. He feels like he hasn’t smiled in so long.

The man, McNair, steadies him and then offers him the cot. “You look lik’ yer need it more than I do.”

. . .

McNair likes to talk. Bucky learns this very quickly. When he’s angry, when he’s confused, when he’s worried and when he’s pretending to be calm; all in the space of an hour. The sun breaches the horizon high in the sky on their side of the building and it gets lighter in the cell.

With the extra light, Bucky can make out more details. There’s a food slot at the bottom of the door, and another at eye-level, that the Krauts can slide open on their end. There’s a bucket; for shitting, and a drain; for pissing and a bucket of drinking water sat under leaking tap. There’s three trays on the floor. He doesn’t think anything of it at first or that two are dirty but empty of food and one is full. The foods old, looks like it’s been sat there for days, so it isn’t as appealing now if it ever was before. Bucky’s hungry, as he always is, but is too nauseous to keep anything down. McNair doesn’t have nausea holding him back, or even that high standards it seems, and Bucky catches him staring longingly at the tray.

“Fucking don’t.”

“A’m hungry.”

“That stuff will kill you before the Krauts will. Don’t.”

“I could avoid th’ worst bits, besides it’s nae that---”

“Oh my God McNair, don’t.”

Now, Bucky is used to scrounging for food, especially during the worst years of the Depression when even ma paused trying to decide whether to buy cabbage or knock-off hooch, but he also has common goddamn sense. You don’t eat meat or fish, whether it’s new and in the dumpster or old and in the dumpster, or anything Mrs Crammer offers you ever unless you want to shit your guts out of your ass. You absolutely don’t eat poultry that’s a few days old and out of the fridge. You can cut off the mold on bread and eat that and leafy greens are generally okay if you cut off mold and wash them for good measure, but he has his limits. Standards for not killing himself over a measly bit of corner beef. Sarah Rodgers taught him, his ma, and his sister well when they had to move from their house after they lost their savings. She’d taught them how to survive on a five dollar budget, how to feed a family of six and still have extra food left over for the working man of the house, and how to make stew last for days.

She has a lot of neat tricks, that Sarah Rodgers, his pa used to say as Becca and his ma pickled onions they picked up from the church pot-luck and stirred chipped beef into the pasta he’d managed to slip into his pack from the base’s canteen on his way out - following the instructions Steve’s ma had written out. She may not have known it, but Sarah Rodgers had saved the Barnes those first years after the Crash when his father’s cut down hours were unable to.

“What th' bugger is that?”

McNair’s voice breaks him out of his thoughts and Bucky turns, wheezing now, to see him staring trance-like at the L part of the cell, the corner shrouded in darkness. Bucky twists to look, leaning forward; food forgotten. 

There’s a pair of booted feet, shoe-laces untied.

“What the hell?” Bucky whispers.

McNair stands, “Hello?” he calls.

Bucky keeps blinking, waiting for the feet to disappear - that maybe the fever’s making him see things. There’s another prisoner in the cell. How did they not notice another prisoner in the cell? Why hadn’t he spoken up? “Is he sleeping?”

McNair kicks at a foot in response to Bucky’s question.

“Jesus Christ Mc---”

His admonishment is cut off as the prisoner, face and body still in the darkness, jerks backwards like he’s been burned and starts keening. The foot disappears with him into the darkness.

“Shit.” Bucky mutters and pushes himself off the cot as quickly as he can without fainting. He veers into the wall, catching himself on his palm before thudding down to the guy’s level. He notices McNair behind him. “Hey. Hey.” Bucky says soothingly, in the voice he used to use on Lily and Jenna when they had nightmares. “Take it easy, pal. We’re not--were not gonna hurt you---we’re not Krauts, you get that?”

The man keeps keening, the incoherent sounds turning into long moans. 

“Hey.” Bucky tries again, getting closer and reaching a hand out slowly, telegraphing his movement. He squints into the dark, trying to see more of the guy, but the sun’s at the wrong angle and the window’s so small that it’s still too dark to see properly. He thinks the guys got red hair - ginger like a carrot, and he’s covered in boils and some kind of rash. He’s not looking at Bucky, and doesn’t seem to be able to even if he wanted. Avoiding the rash he goes to touch a sleeve-clad arm. “Easy pal.”

“Barnes, ah dinnae think that’s a good idea.”

“Shut up McNair.”

“But--”

“I said shut it.”

The man has his arms held up on either side of his head. Bucky touches his arm as lightly as he can. “Hey pal, what happened - what they do to you in---”

The guy howls, mouth open wide.

Bucky flinches back onto his butt, scarpering two feet away like he’s been struck. McNair, already defensive, is stood between them telling the guy to “fucking calm down ye kook, he's just trying tae help --Barnes?”

“Shit shit shit shit shit” Bucky rants, still scrambling back until he hits the corner of the bed. He breaks off his own cursing to cough into his good hand; presses it over his mouth in horror afterwards.

---The man has quietened again and is moaning and slurring intelligibly in the corner, turned away from them----

“Barnes, Barnes what? What's it Jimmy?”

Bucky shakes his head, staring at the dark corner that has swallowed all view of the other prisoner. He can’t un-see it. He can’t un-see it.

McNair switches to ignoring the guy, like he’s ignoring them. He crouches to Bucky’s level, but doesn’t touch him. Bucky, like the keening man, doesn’t think he can deal with touch at the moment. “Barnes, what---”

“He has no tongue.”

McNair freezes, “What?” 

“He has no tongue. He has no tongue, they cut out his tongue - oh god it’s real he was right. Dernier was right, he wasn’t lying - oh god, fuck, shit shit shit---” He keeps going, over and over, panic finally setting in over the resignation. McNair doesn’t stop him, completely frozen, staring at him having a panic attack. “Shit shit shit - oh god, I can’t I can’t breathe. I can’t--”

McNair’s head rockets to the corner, then to him and he moves, takes Bucky by the forearm. “Barnes, Barnes, are ye sure--”

“Of course I’m fucking sure. I saw - oh god they cut---they cut---”

McNair looks sick.

He looks over at the corner again, presses the back of his hand against his own mouth as if to protect it. He turns and yanks Bucky up and physically turns them both from the corner. “Breathe Barnes. Breathe.”

“I can’t---I can’t.”

Bucky’s crying. That’s what he realizes first. He’s so sick and so scared all of a sudden he’s crying. They cut out his tongue. The first four had their tongues cut out. Does that mean they’re going to---He gasps for breath. McNair slaps his back until it forces him to start hacking and inexplicably the new coughing fit snaps him out of his panic. The man in the corner has quietened down completely - gone back to sleep.

Bucky breathes, recovering - and clings to his dog-tags the way he always does, tries to remember any magical Romanai curses he’s heard his ma speak off so he can curse them. So he can curse every last one of them.

“Ye good?”

Bucky nods, opens his eyes from where they’re squeezed shut. “I’m sorry” he gasps.

“Don’t pal.” McNair says after a moment, looks over his shoulder. He doesn’t look hungry anymore. “ Ye weren’t---ye weren’t expecting that--” The guy shakes his head, and whispers under his breath, “Bloody hell.”

. . .

After an intermittent time later, when Bucky’s calmed down, McNair breaks off from telling him about his family and the familiar tapping sequence Bucky’s keeping up against the bed frame slows. He’s half-sat-half-laid-up on the cot, McNair sat on the floor opposite. They both have their backs to the corner - neither of them willing to turn and acknowledge the sick man in the corner. 

“What did ye mean before?” Bucky raises his head, quirks an eyebrow in askance. “When ye were---”

“Shitting myself like--”

“When ye wer’ panicking.” McNair continues, giving him dignity he doesn’t deserve.”You said a - Deriniman or something was right - that h’ weren’t lying.”

Well, you might as well tell him now, now you both know the truth - no avoiding the horror anymore.

“Dernier.” Bucky corrects, “he was a French guy, the one who blew up the staircase. He’s the one who told me they take the sick before I saw it for myself.” McNair nods in understanding. “They’ve made him burn a bunch of the bodies from - well, from here. He told us what state they were in--you don’t need to--”

“Yes I’ do.” McNair cuts him off, “I need tae know what’s b’n done to them, ah need tae be prepared.”

“I don’t think---”

“'n' I didnae think touching that kook was a good idea but ye did 'n' look what happened. You know, I don’t. Time to level th' playing field Barnes. What dae ye know?”

Bucky swallows, knows this isn’t going to go down easy. “Cut open after they’ve died, insides burnt up,” he sums up. “Missing stuff like eyes and feet and---”

“An’ tongues.” McNair finishes, looking green.

“Among other things,” Bucky swallows again, mouth dry. “He said it looked like that had all happened after they died - wounds were fresh, you know? - apart from the tongues - he thought that might have happened before.”

“Bloody hell,” McNair whispers again, “To stop them talking, dae ye think?”

“I don’t know.” Bucky tells him. “I wasn’t supposed to hear that bit. The guy only speaks French and Jones - one of mine I guess, can speak it, so he was translating for us when needed. But I know a bit from a - from a girl back home a few years ago. I don’t think they realized I could understand them.”

McNair wipes a hand down his face and looks away. Bucky thinks he might be trying not to cry like he did. He curses to himself as he usually does. They’ve been in here all day - it must be late afternoon now. They can’t hear anything through the metal door, McNair’s already tried and checked it twice.

“Well, it'd be a bit pointless for th’m tae cut out our tongues.” McNair comments. Bucky looks to him, eyebrow raised at his faux-upbeat tone. “If they cut out our tongues we cannae give th’m intel.”

“What if they don’t want intel?”

“They do. They always do, that’s what th’y teach ye, 'n' ye'r a Sergeant.”

“So?”

“So that guy? Was a Priavte - ah’ clocked ‘is rank on his tags.”

Bucky calls bullshit, “How did you see that? I was closer and I didn’t even see that much.”

“You were a lil’ preoccupied wi' th' fact he had nae tongue. He's a private 'n' so he doesn’t know jobby. But ye'r a Sergeant, ye know more o' th' bases, orders 'n' formations 'n' that - they'll actually have th' chance to be able tae get answers th’y need out o' ye. Cannae do that if ye have na tongue.”

Bucky shakes his head, scoffing, but can’t help pointing out the one flaw in his logic. “You’re not a officer.”

McNair tips his head up in challenge, “I’d like them to try and take it.”

Bucky closes his eyes, “Please don’t say that to them” because McNair actually would, the reckless motherfucker.

.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

He doesn’t notice the small unassuming doctor he's already met until they’re about to strap him down to a leather-lined slab, eyes instead catching on another prisoner shivering on the other table, whose obviously been there a while. There’s spots of blood, old and new, on the floor beneath the guy. He bucks, trying to get away, but they’d clipped some kind of collar around their necks, his and McNair’s, and then latched the clip of his to a guard’s metal rod as tall as Steve. He’d been dragged and maneuvered bodily by his neck, two other guards taking him by the arms once the cell door was shut and McNair’s shouts had faded. He does notices the doctor when they heave him up onto table, frowning down at a brown leather records book in displeasure. He turns to look at him and looks even less pleased as Bucky fails to kick a guard before they strap down his thighs, tight enough to cut off the circulation, his nose running.

Wriggling helplessly against the straps the guards force him down by his neck, yanking at the restraint collar until he chokes, shocked, and lands hard on the metal table. Pain rockets from the tips of his broken fingers to his knuckles as his other hand scrabbles at it pointlessly. He feels more leather and buckles strap him down at the shins, stomach, chest, shoulders and wrists. What did they think he was, some kinda' superhero from the comics, to be able to get out off this? As his coughing subsides, the man slides his thumb under the leather to press against his good wrist, counting his pulse while looking at a battered watch. 

“You a doctor?” Bucky coughs; would spit if his mouth wasn’t so dry. “Yeah you. Get away from me, I don’t need no Kraut doctor near me, you hear that, you Nazi Fuck? Get away----”

A gloved hand backhands him across the face, and Bucky bites back from crying out. He licks his lip, tastes blood and glares at the guard, “That the best you god Stinzel? My sister can hit harder than that.” 

He hears the doctor vaguely snap in German at the guard when he raises his hand again. The guard responds in a rapid-fire that Bucky can’t follow, but manages to grasp the doctor ordering the guards to get out. The man obeys, if grudgingly. Huh, Bucky thinks, who would have thought this smuck was in charge?

He releases Bucky’s wrist, the spot clammy and uncomfortable when he does. The doctor turns away for a long moment, doing something with his hands that Bucky can’t see - he turns back holding a syringe, something yellow inside. It doesn’t look like medicine.

“What the hell is that? What the hell is that - get away---”

The doctor ignores him, and sticks him with it. It burns with cold, like when he used to stick his bare hands in piles of snow until they went tingly and numb to see which of his cousins would last the longest, but it starts from his elbow and moves to his fingers instead of the other way round. He doesn’t make a sound through it, just feels his whole body start shiver as it spreads. His silence changes as the doctor pulls out another, filled with a milky liquid and moves so Bucky can see a whole tray of them - vials, needles, forceps and shiny scalpels. Bucky snarls and wrenches against the straps, starts snapping and shouting in all the German he does know. The Nazi quack rolls his eyes, like he’s bored by Bucky’s violent struggle - Bucky can’t imagine it’s all that impressive -  but he puts the milky-filled needle down, picks up another one and jabs it hard into his thigh. Bucky half yelps out a curse, still slamming his body and head against the table until he nearly gives himself a concussion trying to flip it over.
His tongue abruptly goes thick in his mouth, and for a moment Bucky thinks it’s swelling up before he realizes it’s just numb and sticking to the roof of his mouth. His head rocks back, and he slurs out a “Fuuucc’ ‘ou"; feels his mind go cloudy and his muscles slacken. The doctor hums in triumph and turns him at the neck so his cheek’s laid out against the padded table. Bucky’s eyes drift until he’s staring at the other solider shivering glassy eyed across from him, and feels the doctor slide another needle home into his jugular vein. 

He moans softly as the doctor does it, and thinks that’s not going to happen to me.

. . .

He drifts awake again; concrete under him, a Scottish voice above him as someone - McNair? - drags him across the floor and onto a springy cot.

“Huh?” he mumbles incomprehensively, swinging his arm out.

“Relax pal, relax. ‘is me, McNair, tak' it pumpin' easy, Christ.”

Bucky stops swinging out, his vision blurry, and curls his hand around his dog tags and presses, as he usually does. Someone’s splinted his broken fingers.

“What did thay do tae ye in there?” McNair asks seriously, once Bucky’s sat up, more awake and not coughing his lungs out of his own throat. Bucky wipes the blood from his mouth, lip stinging, and pushes out the words McNair needs to know; his tongue still thick. The red-haired prisoner is still curled in the corner, in the same spot, slurring to himself. 

“They--the doctor, stuck me with needles.” He says, rubbing at the most painful spot on his neck “He said---knew I was sick, said as much when they brought us here. But it wasn’t medicine I don’t think, not any kind I ever saw before - and I saw a lot with Ste--with my pal back home, he’s sick a lot. It wasn’t medicine.” He finishes, sure of it now.

“Just wi’ needles? Nothin’ else? They ask ye anythin’?”

Bucky shakes his head, still feeling a little fuzzy. “No . No. He, the doctor didn’t say anything to me anyway. He stuck me with something that made me sleepy when I started fighting…I don’t remember anything after that, must have passed out.”

“Huh.” The guy says, “I thought fur’ sure they’d ask questions. G’t intel. That’s what they always say will happen.”

“I dunno pal,” Bucky says, closing his eyes and tipping his head back, starts silently counting how many holes he can feel in his elbow.

McNair curses quietly, as he usually does Bucky’s come to learn, and says, “A’d offer ye a cuppa but I’m all out, ‘m afraid. Gotta hauld yer horses for the Jerry fuckers tae feed us.”

Bucky huffs, half hysterical. “Where’ve you been the last few weeks? No way out outta' here unless you wanna’ top yourself.”

“Bugger that shite. I ain’t dying ‘ere, n’, ye ain’t either.”

Bucky glances at their delirious cellmate, the what about him, clear. “You really believe that? That other fella strapped down out there, you’ll see --it’ll be us - you - next.”

“I ain’t dying ‘ere.” He repeats, “Ye start thinking that n’ ye’r lost already- Barnes. I ain’t dying ‘ere.”

. . .

The second time Bucky’s taken to the lab McNair’s been in there three times. They ask him questions on the third, but none before that, just like Bucky. Like Bucky, he’s given several shots, but no yellow vials - and they keep him awake, so he knows exactly what’s gone in him. Unlike Bucky he’s given a vial with green serum that burns hot when it goes in, not cold, and makes his heart pound and his blood rush straight to his brain until he feels almost dizzy with energy.

“Huh.” Bucky says when he tells him, watching his blown pupils warily. They studiously ignore the prisoner in the corner, the way he does them.

When they do ask McNair questions, about the British Army and British formations; it’s the type of questions they did expect, which is and isn’t a relief. It’s SS officers in all their medal-led glory that ask the questions while their lackeys administer punishment; not the doctor. They cover McNair’s face with a towel and pour water onto it until he thinks he’s drowning, which is horrifying even if it again, is expected. The doctor, whose name is Zola, Bucky finds out, apparently seems to be unhappy and more than a little annoyed by the officers’ presence - and stops them when they go to cut off McNair’s little finger.

Bucky feels ill and frightened, not at all mollified when McNair comes back with four fingers splinted instead and a tale of how Doctor Zola stopped them because he was a test subject first - and if they cut off his finger it could skew his results somehow.

“Maybe he only cuts off parts wh’n they’re already dead, lik’ yer French guy said,” McNair says, scratching at a new rash on his arm with his unbroken fingers. “So it doesn’t skew his test results.”

“That’s not any better."

“Can’t feel it if ye’r already dead,” McNair quips back.

Eyes closed, Bucky retorts, “Thought you weren’t dying in here.”

. . .

They ask him questions the second time, and Bucky see’s what McNair means about these spotless medal-led smucks who look like they smell something dirty when they bring Bucky in. They probably do. He hasn’t washed in days; has only been able to smell carbolic soap and sour chemicals since Zola’s first injections, which a small relief from his own stink.

Now’s the time to see if these perfect Aryan men actually can smell the gypsy in my blood, he thinks savagely and remembers the curse he tried to place on them. He wishes the grandmother he’s never met hadn’t excommunicated his mother when she married his pa now, because then maybe he would have learnt more of their traditions. Maybe he actually could curse someone properly, have them fall down a well and brain themselves on the stone on the way down.

Zola stops them from doing the water thing within seconds. "Dieses Thema leidet schon an Pneumonia, das hilft nicht weiter," he tells them in German - which isn't much help to Bucky. (“This subject is suffering from pneumonia already, this will not help,” he tells them in German - which isn't much help to Bucky.)

The men respond, “Er ist ein Gefangener, seine Gesundheit ist für uns wenig wichtig.”  (“He’s a prisoner, his health is little matter to us.”)

“Es ist mir wichtig---”  (“It matters to me---”)

“Er ist Gefangener--”  (“He is a prisoner--”)

“He is a Testthema” Zola switches to English. “My test subject. The Obergruppenführer has left me in command here, and this solider is under my care” --is that what we’re calling it?---”Schmitt approves and is kept well informed of developments here, you understand? You may ask your questions, then you can leave. I have work to do, work the Obergruppenführer is expecting swift results from.”

They ask their questions: “who is your Commanding Officer, what were your next orders after Azzano”, leave off the water and stick to his face on account of his still healing ribs and ratty lungs. He can’t see out of one eye when they leave but is proud of himself; his rank and serial number still on his lips because goddammit he’s a three-time welterweight boxing champion - he knows how to take a punch. Zola mutters what he’s pretty sure is an “about time” from the tone in a language that isn’t German when they leave.

The needles start again - yellow, milky and yellow again. Bucky stays awake this time, and hears Doctor Zola order the usual guards to do something. He vaguely sees them over and above him with his one eye as they lay a leather strap directly across his forehead. He hears them buckle, but not tighten it, by his ear. Yet.

“Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes. Sergeant 32557038.”

There’s a big commotion elsewhere in the room away from the Zola’s dictation, which sounds like wheels squeaking across the floor. Bucky cuts of his recitation a moment to recognize that whatever they’re wheeling towards him is heavy and made of metal. Like a cylinder, or a large engineered pipe, Bucky feels them wheel it over him until he -- and the table -- are in it’s centre. Zola appears by his head - when did he get there? - and attaches some kind of frame over the collar he’s wearing. “What are you----” Bucky cuts himself off and forces himself to revert to what he’s been trained to do - to find bravery in it. “Bar-Barnes. Sergeant 32557038.”

Zola lifts the dog tags up from where resting on his chest over his heart. Bucky bites back a snarl. Zola looks at the metal, canting his head sideways to read them. “Sergeant Barnes.” he muses, like Bucky hasn’t been spitting it at his face for hours. He pulls them off, slides them over the frame and over his head. “You won’t want to be wearing these when my Vita-Kammer is turned on Sergeant, the heat will burn the metal right through your skin. Don’t worry, I’ll give them back later.”

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, “Barnes. Sergeant 32557038.”

They slide the machine over his chest, up to his collar bone. They attach it to the frame Bucky’s wearing like some kind of Elizabethan collar and slide more casing over it so his whole body’s confined from feet to neck. It’s bulky, and ugly and as it latches him inside. As the air is suctioned out of it Bucky inexplicably pictures an ‘iron lung.’ He’s never seen one in person before but he knows they exist; great cumbersome beasts that hospitals shove boys and girls with polio in and never take them out. Archie Leopold caught polio when they were five and Bucky vaguely remembers the panic of the teachers and the parents as they pulled all the children out of school for fear of it spreading. It spreads like wildfire, he learns later once he’s older; it paralyzes your muscles and then your lungs and there’s no cure. Only time and treatment. He didn’t know it at the time, was too busy enjoying the long days of playing in New York snow, but Archie Leopold lost all feeling right up to his hips, and the hospital put him in one of those machines. He lived in that same machine, a mirror hanging above him, for three years before he died anyway.

 He waits for it to force air back into his lungs and breathe for him but nothing happens. One of the guards grabs him by the cheeks to force his mouth open and he starts struggling; all the while knowing he’s going nowhere. Zola slides something in his mouth between his teeth. 

“Bite down.” He says.

Bucky doesn’t and the guard forces his mouth closed, ties something under his chin and the top of his head until he’s clenching the plastic with his teeth and can’t move his jaw. The guard knots it at the back of his skull and Bucky slams his head down on the guard’s hand, hard, until his vision whites out for a moment. 

The guard swears, clutching his hand - moves forward.

“Get out.” Zola orders promptly. He rebuckles the strap on his forehead so it's so tight Bucky can't even frown. He turns to the other one. “Turn it on.”

They power up the machine and it shakes, rods clanging together like kitchen pans in a childhood musical. He feels the heat for the first time - he feels his blood boiling.

. . .

He comes to shaking. His head is buzzing, fuzzing in and out, and he’s already talking, saying something he can’t hear. He’s still on the table, still strapped down but the strap on his forehead, the mouth guard and the frame attached to his neck are gone.

He’s hot, that’s his second thought, like someone’s shoved a hot poker down his throat right the way to the base of his guts, and it’s burning to get out. If he opens his mouth can he breathe smoke, breathe fire? It feels that way, like his blood is bubbling up like soup in a saucepan ready to blow the lid off in an explosion of steam. He can’t see - that’s his third thought, he’s blind in one eye. They’ve taken it. It’s gone, it’s gone like that kook’s tongue is - they’ve scooped it out with a spoon and his eye’s gone.

All at once he remembers the beating, and remembers his eye swelling up halfway through. It’s okay, it’s still there. At the same time his hearing snaps back into focus - someone’s keening and choking out incoherrant slurs. They’ve brought the other one out, is what Bucky thinks at first, then realizes it’s coming from him.

He can’t stop.

Someone, Zola, is touching him; he recognizes the clammy touch; the only one who wears gloves that aren’t made out of leather. Bucky thinks he feels more free - less constrained. They’ve pulled out his arm from the restraint and are - measuring it?

Zola’s reading out, “25 Zoll, 14 Zoll; Dicke, 11 Zoll Unterarm”  (“25 inches, Thickness; 14 inches, 11 inches forearm)” and someone’s scribbling down his dictation. Bucky tries to move to take advantage of the freedom but he can’t get even the one arm to stop trembling let alone throw a punch or to undo any buckles. With no warning Zola finishes and just lets go - Bucky’s arm drops like a deadweight, hits the table and slides off the edge of it until it hangs limply.

He’s breathing and hiccuping in time with the trembles. Zola starts measuring his chest.

Something groans. He recognizes that too; the hinges on the door of their cell. He’s staring at the ceiling, he’s trembling and he doesn’t understand what he’s still trying to say. 

“Ah yes, load him onto the other one. I’m almost finished.” Zola says.

“Barnes? Barnes!”

McNair?

“Barnes, Barnes yer arms are free - move! Shift ye bloody idiot - you’re free!”

I can’t move. I can’t. I want to but I’m so hot. Is this what Steve feels like when they call the priest on him, like he’s so hot he’s going to burn up and turn to ash?

“Barnes!---” McNair’s voice cuts off into a choke; there’s a struggle he can’t see; buckles click into place. 

Zola moves into his eyeline, “Sergeant Barnes?” he calls, and flicks him at the centre of the forehead.

. . .

He wakes again, his arm hanging off the edge of their cot like it did on the table. There’s three people slurring; only one of them is him. The usual culprit is still in the corner, hasn’t moved or eaten in days - they’d tried to feed him but he just howls from the ruin of his mouth whenever they touch him - so he’s wasting away. The other one, the other one is the one he’d seen blitzed out on the table the first time round - lying flat on his back.

“Hey.” Bucky croaks and falls hard off the bed onto his knees. He grunts, barely missing his scraped up chin. He’s still trembling - to the point he can’t feel his broken fingers. He rolls himself so he’s sat down, bed frame keeping him upright; and nudges the other solider with his foot with as much dexterity as he can manage. He wraps his arms around himself like dames used to do as a comfort, around the chest and up over his shoulder; digging his fingers into his sweaty shirt. He kicks again at the guy, harder. The man rolls with the force and Bucky grimaces on his behalf at the bed sores he glimpses on the small of his back. Keeping one arm tucked to his chest, he heaves the guy onto his side, grunting. He doesn’t wake from whatever delirium he’s in, just keeps moaning to himself. Bucky goes to check the sores but his hands are shaking so much he can’t get a firm grip on the shirt to pull it up.

He gives up - he’ll have McNair look.

When he looks a it, the bed - so far, he can’t bring himself to commit to the mountain he’ll have to climb to get back on-top either, so he tucks his knees into the side and curls both hands close to his chest between them instead. He breathes into his hands, the puffs to be sure, like he's blowing out candles - no smoke; no fire.

He remembers Dernier’s words and the home-movie imagery that had sprung from it, about blistering insides; hundreds of pockets of pus sealed over with a layer of skin. He thinks about his mother’s iron. Dernier had been right. Whatever had been done to those men had burned right through them - not like a fever but like wildfire racing through the veins - literally burning them alive.

He knows this because they’re doing the same to him.

. . .

McNair wakes him once more from a sleep he doesn’t realize he’s fallen into - looks very drawn and very pale. He’s crouching, shuffling on his feet - there’s no room with four of them in here. “You wi’ me now, Barnes?”

Bucky’s whole body shudders involuntarily; McNair grimaces on his behalf. “Bucky.”

“What?”

“Call me Bucky.”

McNair takes him under the armpits and heaves him up clumsily. Bucky mutters an apology when he inadvertently grabs the guys bruised and bloody elbow and he yelps. “I thought yer name w’s James?”

“’t is.” Bucky slurs, “But everyone calls me Bucky.”

“That’s th’ stupidest thing ah ever heard.” McNair tells him, lowering him back on the cot. Bucky squirms, uncomfortable.

“But it’s my name,” he half-moans.

“Yer names James.” McNair says, like he’s introducing Bucky to himself; who laughs dazedly out loud at the thought. “I’m nae callin’ ye bloody Bucky. ‘N’ if that’s what were daein’ James,” he says meaningfully, “then it’s Andrew. Go t’ bed, pal.”

“’Kay,” Bucky mutters.

Three minutes into sleep he realises he's forgotten to tell him to turn the other prisoner over to check the sores there.

. . .

Zola gave back his dog-tags, must have put them back on after. He keeps his promises.

. . .

He remembers to tell Andrew about the new-but-old prisoner’s bed sores but when Bucky wakes up the guy’s gone.

“They took him back an ‘our go.” Andrew tells him on the floor at the foot of the bed. He’s scratching at his forearm again, and looks miserable. 

Bucky’s feeling more stable now; can smell food. “Get up here,” he says, “Switch.”

Andrew rolls his eyes at him, but moves and clearly tries and fails not to laugh when Bucky falls off the bed again.

“Shut up.” Bucky snipes; then goes straight for the food. He drains half the bucket of drinking water before he makes himself stop - picks up the mush that is their dinner. He passes Andrew his, kicks the other one at the red-haired prisoner for him to ignore. Andrew shakes his head. “You’re not hungry?” Bucky asks, around a mouthful of questionable meat, “You?”

He’s starving.

Andrew shakes his head, “You have it. A’m feelin’ tae sick.”

Bucky seriously considers it for half-a-moment. “Nah, save it for later - you might be feeling better then. Not like it can go any colder.”

Andrew smiles half-heartedly at him, “Ye’r a good guy James.”

Bucky scrunches his face, “Ugh, who are you, my mother?”

. . .

Turns out, Bucky’s machine, the ‘iron lung’, is specifically for him - Andrew has another one - specifically for him too. They already knew Zola was giving them different treatments, is using them for different experiments, but it’s this that drives the point truly home.

Andrew’s machine just goes around his head, and latches onto his right jaw to hold him in place while some kind of casing covers the left side of his forehead down to his cheekbone. “It's not th' same as yers, a’ clocked it when they brought me in, when ye w’re free” -- he’s still not over it, even though Bucky’s told him five times he couldn’t move----”It was near yer feet, they must have just wheeled it off. Ye said that one burned, lik' yer insides?” 

Bucky nods. Andrew’s machine shocks him and his brain instead; makes him forget things for a while. Bucky has evidence. The guy’s asked him the same question four times in the last day.

Zola asks them different questions too; to Andrew if he feels angry or calm, or stronger, and can he remember the pictures he showed him earlier? To Bucky he asks him if he’s feeling any better like a very concerned childhood doctor, or if he’s feeling worse and what exact sensations does he feel as he uses the machine at different voltages.

They have a stupid argument they both regret later, about who has it worse.

. . .

Their beloved roommate, the one who slurs and never stops making noise even though he can’t speak; whose nothing more than skeletal now, is finally taken the next morning.

Bucky feels bad for feeling relieved, but he can see the tension draining from Andrew’s shoulders too, so he knows he’s not alone.

. . .

In the afternoon they bring Bucky back in, collared as usual, and they’re just finishing mopping up blood and wiping the table down for him.

Well that settles that.

It’s a good day - just needles. 

It’s a bad day for Andrew, and Bucky feels guilty for his good luck.

.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

Bucky dreams of his mother. It’s not what he thought he’d dream about while he’s being tortured, strangely, but he does after all. They’re good dreams, memories he hasn’t thought of in a long time - since he was twelve and ma brought Fred Highmore home for the first time while his father was away at base, and introduced him as a ‘friend.’ He’s sat at his Great Aunt’s piano, his mother sat behind him and she’s guiding his small hands with her own over the keys. There’s sunlight streaming through the window, lighting her up from the side, and her loose morning hair glints honey in the yellow light as it hangs over his shoulder. They’re in their old house and she’s smiling. She doesn’t speak and he doesn’t either, listening to the piano keys echoing around them. Bucky thinks it’s Debussy, his ma loves Debussy the best.

Then his mother’s hands become larger and wrinkled and then warm, brandy-scented breath tickles at his ear and it’s Mr Sullivan, St Augustine’s organ player, behind him in his mothers place. 

“That’s it James, C minus next and then the tenors switch…nice and smoothly, nice and smooth…” the voice swells and fades and Mr Sullivan’s hand moves and his father’s yelling and ripping him from the stool, tells him to run home - “now James, go home now” and he’s falling through the floorboards and it’s dark and it’s cold.

He can’t see his pa.

He wakes and he’s staring at a monster. It’s not Zola.

Zola is small with a weasel face and he’s terrifying when he’s holding a scalpel or a needle but he’s not a monster in the physical sense. What he’s looking at right now is, like one of those mutated demons in the horror comics his cousin stole from his other cousin that they flicked through when they were far too young. 

It’s the other prisoner, the one whose been in the lab and stayed in the lab nearly this entire time, strapped to the same table he always is, staring at nothing, but he’s heaving in huge grizzly breaths. The whites of his eyes are bloodshot; irises cloudy and blind, shallow in their sunken sockets. His face is slightly skull like from malnutrition, his head bald from stress, but also swollen up as though he’s drowned and swallowed water until his cheeks puffed up. He’s purple, his fingers black; the flesh dead, and veins stand out on skin stretched over tense muscle. The man, skinny and skeletal as he’d been before is gone, instead something three times his size - built purely from grotesque muscle is in his place.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.

This is hell, it has to be. There’s no way this is real life. He’s read the scripture, knows the stories of damnation as much as he knows Noah’s Ark and David and Goliath and this must be it. It must be hell or some awful figment of his imagination - he’s seen Steve, Becca and his pa stood over him before, blurry and watching him sadly; could have sworn he’d woken up before to his ma’s laugh and Lily and Jenna banging on his chest playing ‘nurses and doctors’ on top of him, so its not so out of the picture for it to be. 

He blinks and blinks until his eyes water, waiting for the hallucination to disappear. It doesn’t. He lies awake, unable to move his head, the usual spot on his neck throbbing, and stares at the thing that used to be a real person as the sunset turns to dusk outside. He lies in silence for hours, staring, the only sound the awful heaving breaths and the drip drip of a leaky pipe.

“Ah, you’re awake.” Zola says, strolling into the room, and turns his head from the sight until it lolls forward. Zola takes his chin, observing his eyes and slack mouth. “Or as close as you can be.” 

He does some other checks, injects him with “A steroid, solider, I have a feeling you’ll need it” and completely ignores the blind monster three feet away. “Throw him back with the other one - with any luck they’ll keep each other alive and useful.”

.

He’s back in his cell.

He doesn’t remember them undoing the straps or dragging him or opening the door but he’s back in the cell, lying on his side in a ball. Andrew’s moved a whole foot since Bucky saw him last at what he thinks must have been lunch time for regular people, sat up where he was lying down before. He doesn’t get up to offer Bucky the cot as he usually does when Bucky returns to their little hovel, or the other way round, just stays sat with his knees curled up to his chest, scratching at his arms. It’s the most quiet Bucky’s ever heard him in a single sitting before. He swallows, coughs wetly into his hand and rubs at his achy swollen neck - Andrew had spent the morning session in the lab; Bucky the afternoon and evening.

“Did….you….Did you see it---him?” He asks quietly, voice slurring slightly on the vowels.

Andrew doesn’t answer; doesn’t look up at him even for a moment. Bucky goes to close his eyes, tries to let the noise of the leaky tap lull him to sleep as he feels his head start to ache. 

“Aye, a’ saw it.” Andrew says numbly, eventually, eyes and body still deathly still. Bucky opens his eyes fully, heaves his aching tense body from the corner and pads the five feet to the cot. He sinks down next to where Andrew’s got his knees curled up against his chest, slumping against the wall. The mattress groans beneath his weight. He takes Andrew’s hand silently. The solider - his friend? - squeezes it. “I'm so’ scared, Barnes” he whispers, like it’s a secret. Like Bucky isn’t as scared as him every goddamn second of every goddamn day. “I dinnae’ want that tae happen tae me.”

His tired brain says, We can’t stop it. If that's what he wants to do to us, that’s what he’ll do. We can’t do anything to stop it. The other part of him, the part of him that’s part-his-pa, part-Steve and part his training officer from Wisconsin opens his mouth and says, “We won’t let him.”

Andrew scoffs wetly, “What happened tae th' 'no-way-out-unless-you-wanna-top-yourself?”

That's a fair point, how is he supposed to come back from that freely admitted sentence? Screw that, another part of him says from within.

Buck up Barnes, he thinks, suck it up. Steve fought pneumonia three times and won. Steve fought Rheumatic and Scarlet Fever and his asthma and bullies every goddamn week and won. So shut up complaining you pathetic lump of meat, don’t let a little cold beat you.

Don’t let a fat little quack bully you down. Be more Steve. Everyone can do with being more Steve.

Bucky gives it a full minute before he answers, “my pal back home - he’s small but he’s a right little punk, would start fights with every neighbourhood thug if he thought it would make a difference. He’d lose every one of those fights -- He’s brave but I never said he was smart,” he adds when Andrew looks up at him. “He doesn’t like bullies, see? Doesn’t matter how big they are. ‘Cause of him I’ve fought nearly every boy our age and half the older ones too - and I used to be a boxer, but most of my matches were in back alleys. His ma used to go spare every time he came home with a black eye or some shit, kept asking him why he kept starting fights he knows he won’t win. He says to her once while I was there - holding a hanky to my nose, mind you - simple, ‘that if no-one stands up to them they’ll be bullies forever’, so it might as well be him. She asks ‘im, ‘aren’t you scared of being hurt worse, and what about your asthma?”

“What di’ he say?”

Bucky grins toothily at the memory, “The little shit, without even pausing says back ‘Of course I’m scared, but if I run away when I’m scared I’ll be running forever. They'll never let you stop. The best thing when you're scared is to pretend not to be, even when you're shaking, pretend to be brave and maybe the bullies will think twice next time; I can pretend if I need to’. And this guy, let me tell you, is the worse goddamn liar on the planet, but he was right, some of them boys did think twice….and Zola’s a bully. A different kind of bully than I’m used to but still a bully. So we don’t let them beat us--we need to teach them a lesson.”

“And how would we dae that?”

“We kill ‘em.” Bucky replies immediately, staring at the wall - he forces his voice to be strong. “Fuck it, we kill them all. As many as we can.”

Andrew’s head shoots to look at his profile, face disbelieving. “Are ye serious?”

Bucky turns to look at him, makes sure he does it square in the eye when he does - “My pals the good Catholic boy outta' the two of us, not me. Doesn’t sound it but he is. I’m the half breed gypsy rat, and I don’t like bullies either.” He bites his lip, “What do you say we get outta here?”

Andrew blinks, stares at the same wall Bucky was, a small smirk growing on his face. “I said I wasn't going tae die 'ere, r’member? So aye, we can be lik' yer friend, 'n' bugger th' rest o' them. We'll get out o' 'ere, 'n' we take' down as many as we can when we do.”

He squeezes Bucky’s hand tight.

“We’ll kill them all.” he repeats, a vow if Bucky ever heard one, and holds onto to Bucky’s hand for the rest of the night. The guards force them apart in the morning.

. . .

They talk about nonsensical things to pass the time in-between - Andrew’s family in a town called Paisely and Bucky’s in Brooklyn, animals and pets, and what they did before the war. They argue about the difference between chips and fries, and whether it’s ‘dinner’ or ‘teatime’ and the proper amount of time to dunk a biscuit in tea. Andrew pulls a face as Bucky explains the combination of fried chicken and waffles and he does the same when Andrew starts talking about haggis.

Steve used to say Bucky could never goddamn shut up, even for a minute, always moving or making some kind of sound if he wasn’t already blabbing his lips apart. He has nothing on Andrew; who can talk the ear off a donkey, stitch it back on and talk until the thing fell off again. The guy deserves a goddamn gold medal for it if you ask Bucky, who’s infinitely grateful for Andrew’s cursing and his yabbering - keeping Bucky from sinking into the cold lonely silences he falls into when he’s alone. He keeps the cell feeling alive with his yapping and Bucky’s tapping fingers, instead of letting it turn into a silent mausoleum. 

They keep each other sane.

Vague plans form, some bloodier and some utterly ridiculous until they’re both either riled up and ready to act or laughing hysterically into each other until they can’t breathe. Nothing concrete, and nothing that actually really stands a chance of working - but it’s somewhat entertaining to think of smuggling out a letter to Bugs Bunny and watching the guy rain havoc on the Nazis with carrots and underground burrows.

Bucky gets the yellow serum, Andrew the green. It’s a life, not a great life; an awful life if he’s honest, but a life nonetheless. One they keep on surviving together.

Bucky comes down with a few more things following the pneumonia, feels like spitting in Zola’s face and going ‘ha, you’re failing motherfucker,’ but nothing that really sticks other than making him a little more miserable for a few days - and he’s got Zola for that already.

 Andrew tells him it’s probably the dank cell, “Bleedin' Christ, who knows what's crawling up th' walls 'n' getting us tae breathe them in in 'ere, like some mutated fuckin' germs, mutated like that dead fella.” 

(They keep trying to joke about it to lighten the mood. It’s never funny; especially when they come into the next sessions to see him sliced and diced as Zola pulls his now dead body apart piece by piece.)

“Ah mean, we shit in a bucket two feet from where we kip, Barnes, 'n' piss down th' drain next tae it - 'n' I know I've missed a time o' two in th' dark, so ah dinnae even wanna fuckin' think about you.”

“Fuck off Andrew, I’ve got great aim.” Bucky shoots back, massaging his temples.

“Like arse ye do.”

“Better than you, motherfucker. I’ve got sniper training to back me up, what have you got, a line of girls in therapy for all the times you missed and got ‘em in the eye instead.” 

Andrew sprays his gulp of water clear across the room, laughing. “Shooting a gun stra’ght doesn't mean ye kin piss stra’ght, James.”

“Fucking watch me McNair, I’ll get you in the eye and then you’ll know how all those poor gals back home feel.”

. . .

Andrew seems to be getting stronger where Bucky’s getting sicker. He tells Bucky they let him off the table sometimes, lock him in another room filled with stuff he thinks he’s supposed to break or some shit. “I ain’t a prized bull in a fuckin’ china shop, James,” and instead sneaks out a jagged piece of metal and tries to stab Zola in the eye with it. He doesn’t get far, the guards shock him until he’s on his stomach and has bitten his tongue bloody and he ends up back on the table anyway. Zola keeps asking, he says, if the shots feel hot or cold, if he feels angry or energized or stronger after.

Andrew starts chatting absolute shit, military protocol be damned, spouting off old wives tales about Scottish giants walking across the sea and raising them as facts. He’s so brave, Bucky thinks sometimes, he’s taken Steve’s catchphrase to heart like he hadn’t expected him to and put his own stamp to it. Trying to stick to the same conviction they make it a game; a General of some kind stands in to observe Zola’s work and barks at him. “Wo ist die nächstgelegene alliierte Basis? Was sind Schwächen?” (Where’s the closest Allied base? What is it’s weaknesses?”)

Bucky bites out, “Tom fucking Sawyer, 32557038” and “have you met my dog Toto? He’s probably with the munchkins, the rest of his people -” he nods at Zola, who, damn looks pissed as hell - “down the yellow brick road. Just follow the yellow brick road and you’ll find him and he can bite your balls off and shit them back out agai----”

Someone backhands him so hard his vision blacks out for a moment and he’s pretty sure he might have just fractured his jaw, but later he hears a guard muttering in confused German about ‘yellow brick roads’ until another smacks him over the head with what he’s pretty sure is “It’s a movie, you imbecile.”

Andrew just about shits himself when Bucky tells him, vows to one up him.

The day that Andrew manages to bend iron barns he absolutely should not be able to, they start planning again. Andrew thinks, “If ah can bend them bars, ah can get out o' those leather straps. Get off that table.” 

Bucky tells him not to be an idiot, the space of time between when he’s put on the table and when Zola starts his drug cocktails is too short and he’s at a disadvantage there.

“We’re always at a disadvantage.” He argues back.

“You’re stronger now, but your strongest after he’s given you the green stuff--”

“Unless he puts me in th' machine - th' other one, nor th' one he uses on you.” He hates the second machine, has made his opinion known loudly and often. Bucky hasn’t seen it properly yet, but he knows Andrew hates it, so that’s enough for him.

Bucky hums, “What about when they don’t? When they take you to that other room, that's after the shots, isn’t it? When it’s kicking in?”

“Just ‘bout.” Andrew answers.

“Then that’s the best chance, before they lock you in --if you can bend a iron beam and smash bricks with your bare hand you can snap a coupla’ necks.” 

“What about ye though? What about when they open th' cell door?” 

“Haven’t you listened to a thing I just goddamn said, you’re strongest after the shots; I’ve seen you.”

“After then. When they're takin’ me back tae swap us over.”

Bucky looks away, “There’s more of them around then, when they know there’s two of us and…and they sometimes shoot me with some kinda’ dart or something before they bring you back in.”

Andrew blanches.

“Th' hell ye goin’ on about?”

Bucky pauses a moment before giving up and telling him, “When you’ve been too much work getting onto the table or ‘cause they’re just feeling lazy, they come before they bring you back and shoot me through the food slot with something that makes me dizzy…I don’t even remember us swapping or them strapping me down half the time.”

Andrew punches the wall. Unfortunately, it’s reinforced concrete so it just crumbles a little, leaves a bloody mark on the wall, a small dent and dust on the floor.

“Are ye joking? How come ye didnae tell me?”

“It didn’t seem important until now,” Bucky defends, excuse sounding weak even to him, “And if it makes you feel any better I think most of the time they’re also doing it to see how quickly it wears off.”

“It doesn't mak' me feel any better, ye git, is that how come ye look outta yer mind so much when they throw me back in? Ah thought that was th' fever making ye dizzy.”

“I haven’t had a fever in days.” Bucky informs him solemnly, and gets right back to it. “Anyway, that’s not the point. There’s too many of them then; when they take you to the other room is the best time.”

“I will say it again, what about ye? We're getting out together.”

Bucky doesn’t want to be left here in any shape or form but Andrew is the only advantage and only chance they have. ”Do you know the way? From the lab to the other room?”

“Aye, I ‘hink so.”

“And the lab to this cell?”

“Obviously Barnes, we've done th' trip enough times.”    

Bucky nods, tells him: “Achter has the keys; the one with the purple patch on his arm. Wagner has the second set - he’s the idiot who walked into a door and cracked his goggles---”

“I’ know who ye'r on about.” Andrew cuts in, “They have th' keys, ye'r sure?”

“I’m sure” Bucky confirms, “I’ve been watching them to figure it out when I can and it’s always the same two that open the door and it’s always the big one - I don’t know ‘is name - who comes in first. He carries a grenade on his belt. That could help. The rest of them just have guns and---”

“And the batons.” Andrew says, starting to grin.

Bucky says, “Do you think you can get the keys and make it back here - quickly, before they raise the alarm?”

“I can bend iron six inches thick, Jimmy, a'm sure ah kin manage a light jog.”

“You’re such as ass.” Bucky tells him.

“We’ll need a weapon.” Andrew finally says, looking thoughtful, “You too, just in case, something ye can have in 'ere.”

“We’re prisoners, no weapons is kinda the point, Andy.” When he devolved to calling him ‘Andy’ without it being a thing he doesn’t know.

“Unless,” he ponders, goes onto his knees and then onto his back, sliding under the cot before starting to work at something in the corner.

“What are you---”

Andrew yanks hard at the bed frame and Bucky hears something snap before Andrew rolls out from under the cot holding a dulled shard of the metal bracing. He snaps it in two with no difficulty until they’re just bigger than his hand, and pulls out two mattress springs.

“And our bed was uncomfortable enough already, thanks” Bucky deadpans.

“Shut up.” Andrew fires back as usual. “We can hide it where ah just pulled it from, that way they cannae see it an' we can sharpen it at night. When th' time comes -- make sure ye enjoy sticking ‘em with it -- just dinnae stick me.”

“This is it then?” Buck says, finally. “We’re really doing it?”

“We're daein' it Jimmy, 'n' we're not stopping 'til we're out.”

. . .

They plan it for the next week, when they know from eavesdropping that there’ll be no visiting officers or extra security, giving them time to sharpen the bed poles until they’re wicked sharp. Switching so one of them is working at it while the other keeps watch on the door,  as usual, they talk. About everything and nothing. Girls, famous and non-famous; the gorgeous dames in their neighbourhoods become the topic one night while Bucky’s sawing at the side of the metal drain grate with the pole.

“You’ve bin wi' a lass, haven't ye Jimmy?"

“Yeah, why?” Bucky asks, grunting, “Thought you had too.”

“Cours’ I fuckin’ have,” Andrew scoffs and Bucky grins at the familiar back and forth, used to the topic from the front lines. All the green-boys at the trenches wanted to talk about was their dames back home. “You git a hen?”

“A what?”

“A lass, Barnes, Jesus Christ.”

“Oh, like a sweetheart? Nah, not properly. Not for a while anyway. Never really had the time these last few years-” Couldn’t even think about girls right after pa died, and then next thing he knew was shipping off to Jersey and then Wisconsin and then Europe. “You?”

“Maybe.”

Bucky laughs, “How can you ‘maybe’ have a sweetheart?”

“Well I had someone but we ne'er made any promises tae each other or anythin'. Dinnae think she wanted tae get too attached in case I smoked it.”

“Smart girl.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“What’s ‘er name?”

“Why should ah tell ye, ye won’ tell me yer pal’s name.”

“My pals not my sweetheart."

“Neither is Ailsa.”

“Then what you tellin’ me for?” Bucky stops sawing to snap. Andrew doesn’t say a word so Bucky goes back to it.

Then Andrew says, “Because we dinnae make any promises ta’ each other.”

The sawing stops, Bucky pauses; freezes, almost. After a moment he starts up again.

Later when the moons gone past their tiny high window and shrouded them in darkness, they sit on the bed together. They’ve stopped sawing for the night, it’s time to get what little shut-eye they can; considering they’ve got to stay capable enough to run and fight if they want to make it out of the building. They can’t see one another, but Andrew takes his hand like Bucky did to him before, turns his head and kisses him slow and soft.

It’s not desperate or sexual, two guys beating one out, jack-hammering like rabbits for one last fix - it’s nice.

It’s a kiss of affection and companionship, and Bucky doesn’t care about the sin of it when it’s such a relief. He lets the tension go out of his shoulders, reaches his other hand up to cup Andrew’s jaw. They part, as soft and slow as they started and stay close to each other, ignoring their own breath and stink for the moment.

They linger, Bucky’s hand on Andrew’s bearded jaw - Andy Andy - and kiss again. They peck once more after that, and then lower themselves down onto the narrow bed facing each other, slotted together like jigsaw pieces.

They sleep.

. . .

The guards pull their hands apart again the next morning, and the morning after that. And the morning after that; in every moment of waking when their together.

.

Chapter Text

STEVE

Steve has a lot of opinions.

This is something about himself he's very aware of. However; he does pride himself on the fact that all of his opinions are important opinions about important subjects and events. Not like Bucky, who also has a lot of opinions, but has opinions on subjects that no-one should have such unconscionable opinions on, let alone even be thinking about; like salami and prime numbers. Steve remembers him telling him once, when he was eleven or twelve, right after the Barnes’ had to move to Steve’s church because it was closer to the tenement building they now shared - to watch out for organ players. To this day, he’s never given him an explanation other than “organ players aren’t nice in the same way pianists like me are, Steve, you need to remember that.”

His friend, when he wasn't waxing wise about Steve keeping out of trouble, could be awful strange sometimes.

No, Steve had important opinions about important things. He had opinions about God and where and what exactly should be a sin, and behaved appropriately. He had opinions about segregation and negroes and opinions about what ‘true Americans’ said about immigrants like his ma, Irish or otherwise. He had important opinions about the war and taxes and socialism - god forbid he’d driven his poor mother up the wall in 36' when he’d gotten hold of a SWP flyer from a rally he wasn’t supposed to be at. He had opinions about how dames should be treated, and whether or not they should or shouldn’t be allowed to work once they were married.

No, he had a lot of opinions, especially about the war and Hitler and what he was doing to the Jews; the poor Jews. The news had broken in this morning’s early paper - there had been rumours about it, boy had there been rumours, about the secret police and the ghettos but nothing had been concrete until this morning.

And Steve knows not to believe everything in the papers and the press - hell, he practically is part of the press now, but he believes it. He knows it’s true, as sickening as the idea is. He knew something like this was building; has been for years, since long before the first declaration of war was made - and long before the US decided to get involved. He's been saying it loud and unbridled with clear frustrated aggravation to people when didn't listen to him, or in quiet worried murmurs of conversation with friends and academic artists often enough, but he didn’t expect this.

Of all those innocent people; fathers, mothers and children in Poland and Czechoslovakia; all over Europe being rounded up and kept in pens like animals. Being starved and shot on a whim whenever the Nazi’s feel like it - all because of their blood, because of their religion.

It’s always about religion.

In one sense or another, from the Crusades to the Irish Rebellion to the Thirty Years War to ever-changing Monarchies; it’s always religion. Religion and purity.

It’s those words, ‘the unpure’, in the ‘rounding up the unpure to build a new Aryan race’ quote that does him in. That’s what they used to say sometimes about his Irish mama, and his friend from the SWP Joseph Momoa ’s dark skin and wide nose; and sometimes Bucky’s family on account of his mother's Romani heritage. It makes him furious because he’s hit (or tried to hit) every single person whose ever said shit about his ma or the Barnes’, to his face or behind his back, but he can’t hit Hitler. Not the real Hitler, and it’s not fair on Lewis if he actually does deck him in the middle of a show on account of the fake moustache he’s wearing. He can’t punch Hitler and he can’t punch the Nazi’s, because he’s stuck here - wearing tights and dancing like a glorified show pony.

“Steve, honey, please calm down.” Josie says.

“How can you ask me to do that? Have you seen this?” He shakes the newspaper at her, pacing back and forth. His knuckles are clenched so tightly he’s crinkling the paper and the words printed there. 

“Of course I have, we all have.” Josie returns, clearly trying to keep her calm through Steve’s agitation. She’s stood to his right, hands on her hips, half-dressed for their morning rehearsal. The rest of the girls are either watching him or whispering to each other, heads buried in the articles as well. No one’s doing their hair or their makeup. 

He’s in Ohio.

“And it’s awful Steve. It’s awful I know, but getting this riled up isn’t going to help--”

“Like hell it isn’t!” Steve almost snarls back without meaning too, then takes a step back, affronted by his own behaviour. His nerves have been taunt all week, he doesn’t know why - feels like someone’s cut open his stomach and stapled it back together again.

“Steven Rodgers!” Josie shouts, voice sharp. All the girls go quiet; Steve does too. He opens his mouth to apologize but before he can she huffs, kicks off her heels and grabs him by the arm, tugging him bodily until they’re behind a curtain. Steve follows obediently.

He likes Josie, probably one of the best out of all the USO girls. She beautiful and talented and as smart as a whip, like Agent Carter, but she hides it behind her lipstick and her perfect curls so no-one really knows it. She hides her temper behind that too, and Steve can understand that one a little more than the other at least. Like the other girls she’d ooh’d and ahhh’d a little over him the first time they met in San Francisco, but unlike the others had backed off quickly when she realized he was getting uncomfortable. She still flirts, but it’s so brazen and sly that Steve knows not to take it seriously, and she likes to rile him up for fun. After four mouths he’s learnt that’s just her way; she does the same with half the girls too, and it’s surprisingly refreshing. She always has a comeback on the tip of her tongue, and she’s funny. 

She called him a boring toerag on her birthday when he wouldn’t dance with her, took his whisky from his hand, drank it in two gulps, and spent the rest of the night dancing as provocatively as she could get away with against Veronica in full view of him, smirking and laughing at him all the while.

She reminds him a little of Bucky, and he wonders if that’s why he likes her so much; a piece of home while he’s far from it. She’s also not afraid to yell at him, God bless her mother for teaching her not to take any man’s shit. 

“You listen to me Steven Rodgers,” she says, when they’re as alone as they can be, “what is in that paper is awful. No one’s denying that. It’s awful and sick and it scares me to think they might do that to us too. It scares me and it makes me angry---” 

Steve opens his mouth. She cuts him off before he can speak. “---You think I’m not angry? You think all those girls in there aren’t angry? You think some of us didn’t walk into the nearest government building, like you boys did enlistment centres after Pearl Harbour and after our sweethearts and our brothers shipped out? You think we didn’t apply to help out any way we could, overseas or at home or even asking to be trained up in goddamn espionage or a code-breaking so we could make a real difference? You think we all didn’t get turned away because ‘you got good legs sweetheart, but not the stamina for that kind of work, or the shorthand skills needed for the other kind’, just like you did? No, you didn’t!” She half shouts the last part, all in one breath, then takes a moment to breathe.

“Josaphin---”

“I’m not done!” She holds up a hand. “I don’t know why they didn’t take you when you obviously want to go, especially when you,” she gestures to all of him, “look like this.”

----Steve looks down, unable to tell her; unable to tell anyone about Project Rebirth-----

“But the fact of the matter is Steve, they didn’t, for whatever reason, and have you doing this instead the same way they have us girls. We can’t type shorthand but we can ‘can-can’ to the high heavens, and it helps. It helps the war, helps our side and our brothers and our sweethearts, in whatever small way - it does. And that has to be enough.”

Steve looks back up, but still down, at her. “What if it’s not?”

“If it’s not,” she sighs, “then it’s not Steve, and I can’t change that for you. But getting angry and worked up - with good reason - but not being able to box it back up isn’t helping anyone - especially not you. It doesn’t change where you are and what you’re doing - it just makes you feel worse.”

And what if I can't shove it down? He wants to ask, but doesn't think she'll be able to come up with an answer he'll accept.

Steve laughs, surprised at how broken he sounds, “I’ll warn you now I’ve never been all that good at keeping a lid on it, or my fists to myself.”

“Oh Steve,” Josie says, patting his cheek. “ I could tell that the moment I met you. We’re cut from the same cloth, you and me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. So it’s a good thing I’m here,” she pulls one of the rollers from her hair with a flourish. Curls bounce in rings around her chin perfectly. She turns, pulls the curtain open and spins to look back at him. He’s still upset, and a little embarrassed now, but his fight-or-flight response has cooled off. He wonders what it’s like to know yourself so well that you can see so deeply into others. “Stick with me, I’ll find you your little red box. Remember what we just talked about!” She adds faux-threateningly at last before twirling again to begin pulling out her other hair rollers, and humming to herself in the mirror. 

Steve sighs, pushes his temper back down as much as he can and gets dressed. He dances and showboats and punches Hitler like he does every single night to the cheers of mothers and children. Josie smiles at him mid-kick, lipstick bright red like her hair. He pastes a smile on his face and pretends not to feel like he’s dying, worse now than it was when he was too sick to fight for his country.

He tries not to think about how they’re rounding up Romani and gypsy people in those camps too.

I hope your safe, Buck. I hope to God your safe.

. . .

BUCKY

Bucky doesn’t dream about his mother anymore, or Mr Sullivan or even his pop. Occasionally he see’s Steve or his sister Becca, throwing something at him and telling him to get out of bed. Mostly he dreams about the grass he saw that first time he came to Zola’s lab through the window, and the trees tall and maze-like past the fence. We can get lost in there, he thinks when it gets too much, when we make it past the fence we can get lost in the forest like Hansel and Gretel and they’ll never find us.

He dreams of himself and Andrew, running with their hands clasped together through the corridors and the brickwork, through a door and out into the real open air he hasn’t really appreciated since their last summer trip back to Indiana when he was twelve. Lily and Jenna are too young to remember any of them.

He dreams of touching the trees and feeling the sunlight on his face.

Sometimes they kill the guards and Zola in his dream as they go, his subconscious thinking that maybe the part of his brain that is angry, that is furious with what's been done to them will be satisfied but he finds out it’s not. In real life, yes - but this isn’t real life, and he just wants to get away and be safe in his dreams.

. . .

Andrew keeps getting stronger, Bucky stops getting sicker. His shiv is very sharp now.

. . .

Andrew’s getting desperate; he keeps talking about moving up the plan days in advance even when they both know it’s not safe. There’s visiting SS officers again, different ones to before, but these ones are only passing through; a flying inspection. They’ll be gone either tomorrow or the next day. Andrew doesn’t care. He wants to go now.

Bucky hates having to say no to him. The truth is, he’s not sick anymore; he can fight. It’s not all on Andrew any longer and he wants out of here too - still hot and flustered after being in the iron lung earlier, but it’s not time. It’s not the plan.

“I dinnae care ‘bout th’ plan!”

“Too bad, shithead, we’re sticking to it now shut up or they’ll hear us.”

“We can go - we can go tomorr’a, in th’ mornin’ when they open th’ cell-”

Bucky shakes his head; they’ve been over this. The best chance is if Andrew takes the opportunity when they transfer him, when he’s hopped up and wild on adrenaline and the green serum. When he’s strongest - not when they’re still sleep deprived, and when there’s more security waiting in the lab then there usually is.

The problem is, Andrew will do it. He’ll do it Bucky knows, because he has no restraint or self-preservation when he’s angry and scared, and he’s desperate. He doesn’t want to go back in the other machine Zola uses just on him, and not on Bucky. There’s bruises along his cheekbone and the left side of his forehead from where the casing restraints sit, and his body is still jittery from the shocks, hours later.

“We have to wait. McNair----Andrew. Please. Please, just trust me. We need to wait, stick to the plan. It’s just a couple more days.”

. . .

They shouldn’t have waited. He should have listened to Andrew and gone when he said he was going to, should have stabbed the guards in the neck and gone for it anyway.

They shouldn’t have waited.

.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

Sometimes they leave the transportation collar on; sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they strap his forehead down to bring in the ‘iron lung’, as Bucky’s dubbed it; sometimes they don’t. Sometimes Zola works on him and then leaves him strapped down while he scribbles on his blackboard for hours; sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes they bring both him and Andrew out at the same time; sometimes they don’t. Sometimes it’s just needles and screaming as his insides shrivel with icy cold; sometimes it’s not. Sometimes they ask him questions and burn him when he doesn’t answer; sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they burn him when he does; sometimes they don’t.

This time.

This time they take off his boots and his soiled socks, and he thinks well, at least this is new.

They strap his forehead down, and so he stares at the ceiling as Zola readies his experiments.

“Barnes. Sergeant, 3255-” he starts reciting, not caring whether it’s one of those days or not. Stay strong, two more days and we go. Two more days. We’ll make it out. We can - you saw what Andrew can do. They’ll make it. Two more days. You can last two more days.

“I’m not interested in that today Sergeant,” Zola cuts him off, “my supervisors are not here to observe or are expecting results of such kind - so no need to waste either of our time.”

“Barnes. Sergeant 32557038.”

Zola laughs, amused, “From my count you were Moby-Dick yesterday and Huckleberry Finn the day before. Or have we reverted back to yourself; out of imagination and classic literary figures?”

Bucky bites his lip on a ‘Sergeant’, some old sense of arrogant backchat coming out in a wave of bravery. “Who says I’m pretending, you Nazi asswipe? Maybe I’m Jesus, and my daddy’s gonna smite you with holy lighting - see how you like being Lucifer’s bed fellow then - that’s where your going. I’ve heard he’s all red and scaled, bald and skull like-” Inexplicably Zola’s amusement fades and something sour and extremely uncomfortable comes across his face, as though Bucky’s struck a nerve he doesn’t know about. Emboldened, he continues, voice savage. “Claws at your back and eats your stubby little fingers, throws you into the burning furnace alive and awake, where there will be a weeping and a gnashing of teeth.” He starts reciting. He doesn’t need to swear or blasphemise as Andrew does for this, he'll bring him down with holy conviction like the nuns used to do every Sunday.

“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers - the fat pug-faced little doctors like you - the sexually immoral, those who practice wicked arts - look you again, the idolaters and the liars; they’ll be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. It’ll be your third and your fourth and your fifth cause he’s not giving you up, the Devil, you’ll be his forever and al----”

“That is enough,” Zola snaps, “We have a schedule to keep to.”

“Fuck your goddamn schedule,” Bucky snaps right back, immediately forgetting his vow not to curse and take the Lord’s name in vain; nobody said he was a particularly good Catholic. Has all the words but none of the patience to follow through, Father Matthews always used to say. They let him play the piano during service once or twice a year but the Barnes’ standing with the church had never been all that high. He supposed that happened when the woman of the house regularly missed Sunday services, wore red, and swore unreservedly in front of the nuns. In all honestly his pa had never particularly held her back either, her ‘spunk’ one of the things he’d loved the most about her, which probably hadn’t helped their reputation. It had never really changed when they moved to St Ann’s near Steve, all of them too set in their ways, though Steve’s constant questioning, contradictions and opinions diverted much of the unhappy attention to him. Steve had always had an ever-changing and stubborn relationship with God, finally settling in his twenties, where he believed wholeheartedly in some scripture and blatantly ignored the rest that didn’t agree with his stubborn perception of the world. 

Bucky had always rather liked the stories and the art over the holy scripture teaching you to live without sin. He supposed in a wrathful God-sense that this was why he had ended up here and not some good Catholic boy.

“Today we will be observing something different Sergeant,” Zola continues, “Like most things it will probably be above your understanding so I will try to, what do you American’s say, dumb it down.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Bucky snaps back, now absolutely forgetting the usual military protocol, still feeling affronted every-time Zola calls him stupid or dim. He was halfway through his 2nd year classes in engineering and architecture at the Brooklyn Pratt Institute for fucks sakes, so take that you Nazi fuck. When your speaking and writing in English I’ve understood far more of your shitty mechanical research than you realize. I know your ‘iron lung machine consists of coupling separate laser beams to generate single coherent beams on each side of the casing and you’re amplifying it by using the electrical fields. I know you’ve had to reinforce said casing with lead and steel to stop your contraption from conducting too much electricity and short circuiting the whole building. I know more than you know. He can see and has worked out how that machine runs and is slotted together, even if he doesn’t know exactly what it does apart from make his blood boil and fry up like an egg yoke.

“You’re immune system and new resistance to illness is well documented by now - you overcame the Syphilis and the Scarlet Fever with surprising speed.”

----wait what? What? When did he have---? The little-----oh god he gave him syphilis, he gave him syphilis---

“---you see? So we are moving onto the next stage - physical regeneration.”

Head still spinning with the knowledge that the doctor had literally and intentionally infected him with syphilis and Scarlet Fever just to see if he would or wouldn’t die, he misses Zola moving down to his feet. His wet clammy touch brings him back to focus, thumb pressing against the arch of his foot. Used to the cold touch of sharp metal, Bucky knows there’s a scalpel there.

Oh God. Oh God.

He starts cutting.

“Did you know the soles of the feet are one of the most painful areas in a mans body, lots of nerves all in one place you see-”

Bucky keeps trying to buck against the straps. He can’t get away; he can’t get away. His feet his feet - they’re mutilating my feet. Zola keeps slicing and slicing and slicing and Bucky can’t breathe, keening out long hurt sounds he can’t hear over his own panic. His mouth's moving and there's sound but not anything he can distinguish. Zola moves to his other foot.
 
----No.

He manages to jerk the ankle free, not far, but enough that Zola loses his position. The problem is - he jerks inwards instead of away and the scalpel stabs deep into Bucky's right heel. 

He howls.

“Stop stop stop stop-”

“Oh for Gods- that was unnecessary Sergeant.” The doctor yanks it out, and the sound Bucky now hears himself make lets him know he has no dignity left. Drug him. Drug him, please just drug him, he begs inwardly. I can’t - please, please drug me - why haven’t you drugged me like usual?

“That would defeat the purpose solider,” Zola explains promptly, and pours rubbing alcohol indiscriminately over his bloody feet. Bucky can’t even scream any more, his mouth so dry and burnt out, can barely see the metal beams on the ceiling through his tears - the burning soles of his feet so encompassing that he can’t feel where they start and end. “This is also an experiment to test and record pain stimulation and tolerance. You don’t have much of a tolerance - though you have gotten better”- the doctor adds, almost as an afterthought; the only compliment he’s ever given him. “If I gave you something for the pain---” when have you ever done that---”or to knock you out there would be no data to record.”

Even so, as he talks, he shoots him up with something else through the days old tube in his elbow that feels cold, like everything bar the machine does here, as it goes in.

“A steroid.” Zola informs him, as if he’d asked, somewhere to his right. Bucky stares at a stain on the ceiling, takes a breath and clears his throat wetly. 

“Bar--Barnes-s, S-S-Ser," he gulps, still crying, "-gean-nt, 32--2557...0-038.”

His voice shudders with each vowel and syllable. As a response, Zola injects him again. He pulls out two of his toenails to see how fast they grow back.

. . .

As the hours go on and on, the tears have stopped streaming; though his voice is dry and scratchy. The pain has changed from sharp flashes of action; grows constant and pulsing, and the bandages on his feet grow grimy with blood and the dirt from the cell. He can’t even stand, can barely move; let alone run and fight. He tells Andrew who’s resting on the only cot, cradling his head as a migraine rules his afternoon. He’s calmer today, not as frantic. 

“We’ll delay’ then.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, aware Andrew’s not even looking at him to see, jaw tight. “You can’t delay. We had a plan--”

“Yeah! We did!” Andrew yells, voice sharp with pain. He opens his eyes to glare at Bucky leaning against the opposite wall. He stinks of urine and vomit - had pissed himself when he had some kind of fit on the table earlier and hasn’t been able to do more than mutter and throw the food tray at him until twenty minutes ago. Bucky doesn't hold it against him, considering the guy had to carry him and hold him up when he had to shit in the corner bucket yesterday on account of his feet.  “Us. We made th' plan tae escape th'gither. So we ‘re goin’ tae fuckin’ escape th'gither. Ye git that?”

“Andrew.” Bucky sighs, trying to stay calm. “Your head will be better by morning, you’ll be up and strong again when the time comes - I won’t be. They cut my feet up yesterday, stabbed me and pulled out my toenails yesterday. I can’t stand - they won’t be healed for weeks, no matter that that asshole thinks - I can’t go with you.”

“That’s why we’ll wait about 'til ye can."

“Didn’t you hear me? I won’t be healed for weeks, we’ll already by dead by then if we stay. You’ve got to get out while you can.” Bucky finishes sadly, helplessly, eyes starting to water. He feels likes he’s cried twice as many cups of water out as he's drank.

Andrew words his jaw for a moment, holds back what he automatically wants to shout - his temper has been worse, like his memory, since Zola started messing with the voltage on that machine. Instead he says, “Would ye leave’ Steve?”

Bucky blanches, wiping his eyes. “What?”

“Steve. That's th' name o' th' pal ye bin telling me about, right? A've heard ye mumbling his name 'n' yer lass' name back home, Becca, a couple o' times."

“Urgh,” Bucky scoffs, disgusted, tries not to think about calling out for Steve in his delirium. “Becca’s my sister, not my---”

“Alright, not yer jammy lass then.” Andrew laughs, half-smile-half-grimace of pain on his face. “But a'm right, aren't ah? About yer best pal. His name's Steve?”

“Yeah.” Bucky replies hesitantly.

“Wel, would ye? If ye were in mah stead 'n' Steve was in yers, would ye leave’ him?” 

“That’s different!” He splutters, automatically attempting to heave himself up, and winces as his left foot twinges nastily when he shifts. "Ah!" He bites out sharply, bending his knee to lay his foot on his thigh; it vibrates with pain. He leans over it, thumbs pressed into his ankle bone to regain a semblance of composure. Andrew waits, he breathes in to himself, continues: “For one, Steve’s ninety pounds soaking wet, I could just pick him up and carry him out if I needed and--and it’s different, it’s not like you could carry me and still fight like we planned---”

“Whether he's ninety pounds or two hundred that's nae th' point. If 't was Steve 'ere, would ye leav’ him  when ye had a chance tae get th' both o' ye out later?”

“There might not be a chance to---”

“Would ye?” Andrew pushes forcefully.

Bucky swallows, “No.” He says finally, and knows it’s the truth. He raises his head from his crossed over legs to meet Andrew's eyes. “No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t leave him.”

It’s still not the same though, a part of his mind whispers, I’ve known Steve and I’ve loved Steve since we were ten years old. I’ve known you for three weeks, a month? (he thinks, maybe more), not years (though it feels like it). There’s no way I could be to you what Steve is to me.

“'An' I wouldn't leave mah brother.” Andrew replies without preamble, “Your pal is tae poorly tae join this war, far as I can tell anyway, 'n' mah brother's tae young yet, thank god. But if he wur 'ere, ther's na chance in bloody hell I'd leave him.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything for one long moment. He thinks he can hear a rat scrabbling through the vent. Eventually, he says; numbly, “I’m not your brother.”

Andrew opens his mouth to say something then seems to change his mind. “But yer someone's brother, 'n' if Joey wur 'ere in this fuckin' hell-hole, too weak tae escape on his own, I'd hope that somebody would wait 'til he could. I'd hope they wouldn't leave him tae die lik' this....We planned this th'gither, we get out th'gither. That was, 'n' still is, the plan. We clear?”

Bucky sighs in resignation, twists so his feet are in the air. He crawls across the floor on his elbows, “Yeah, we’re clear. We wait.”

. . .

When Zola redresses his feet, Bucky as usual can’t see him, but hears him hum contemplatively. The doctor flicks his big toe like its a game. 

Andrew’s getting worse and better at the same time - stronger and more energized some days; but angrier too; pacing and banging against the walls and the door and keeping Bucky up all night. Bucky spends long days locked in the dark cell - alone and lonely (and forgotten) as Andrew spends hours and sometimes days in the lab - Zola’s favourite. All he does now with Bucky is check the healing rate on his feet, occasionally injects him with steroids and other unknown cocktails of drugs, and once cuts and cranks open Bucky’s stomach while he’s awake but dizzy and routes around his guts like he’s looking for something, before stapling him back together like some kind of macabre doll. 

Andrew on the other hand rants and yells and swears until he looses his voice, then tries to start fights with him when he comes back until whatever he’s on wears off. Two days before, he came back; wolfed down both portions of food without stopping, and still hungry - darted forwards to catch a rat trying to scurry back to the vent and bit into it, ripping it apart with his teeth. Both he and Bucky throw up that night, Andrew’s high switching off as if Zola had clicked; an awful magic and by an awful magician. He sobs and apologises to Bucky for eating all the food.

“A'm sorry, a'm so’ fucking' sorry Jimmy. Whit's wrong wi' me, whit th' hell is wrong---”

When he’s not hyped up and angry, he’s dazed, clammy and delirious, and that's when Bucky knows Zola used the machine on him that day. While he’s crawling across the floor on his hands to wet the flannel in their drinking water to try and bring down Andrew’s fever, the Scotsman says, “You look  a lil' like him, yanno? Joey ---Wee Joey. Ye look lik’ him, wrong accent but th' same hair, th' same chin. Ye look lik' how ah think he would as a man, th' way a’m wantin' tae see him look when he's older, when I go home.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say, what to even think to that confession other than maybe this was the real reason he wouldn’t leave. Andrew jabbers on and on and forgets Bucky’s there; starts talking to him like Bucky really is his little brother, like he’s back home in Paisley. Bucky says, “I miss you too Andy. I can’t wait for you to come home,” as he mops his brow.

If they don’t get out of here soon they’ll be no plan, no plan at all that will work. The plan relies on Andrew and he won’t last forever.

“You’re a great brother. The best.” He says, praying for the first time that Zola’s experiments start working.

. . .

He does.

He’s healing faster than a regular man now, had peeled back the bandages on his feet when he woke to find another rat trying to eat his little toe. He had reacted nowhere near as strongly as he should have; saves the privilege of panic and screaming for those that deserve it; for Zola and the iron lung. 

Not a rat, even if it is trying to gnaw off parts of his body. With no light, and to the soundtrack of Andrew’s snores, Bucky peels back the bandages and feels long his heels, his toes and the arch of his foot. The pain of them just lying down has been constant, to the point they have become numb in comparison to the staples pinching the muscles of his belly closed and he realizes that his feet don’t hurt at all anymore. Now, through his fingers he realizes there are old scabs on his feet, mostly healed; the dead skin starting to peel off. He takes in a slow breath, lies back down, lifts his shirt and feels along the vertical line cut into his belly. There are metal staples one inch thick in length and three inches apart. 

Zola had stapled him together, not stitched, because he plans to go back in: “there’s no point stitching you if I’m just going to undo all my work, no, this will do in the meantime, I think.” The skin underneath and in-between is still raw and Bucky imagines red and swollen, but he can feel a thin layer of skin starting to grow over the top. If he closes his eyes and concentrates, focuses on that one spot of his body he can almost feel it; skin and muscles fusing together to create new flesh.

What am I?

In the daytime - or what he calls the time-span when the guards drag out Andrew and leave him in the dank cell - when he’s alone, he leans against the cot and levers himself to his feet. He feels a flashes of twinges, but that’s it, and after a few moments grows used to it. It's not the worst pain he's feeling right now; sweaty and stomach cramping from not having the usual cocktails in several days. He tests it again, walking; then jogging in the same spot. Hurts, but an acceptable hurt, so he sits back down and pulls his socks and boots on for the first time in a week. He hopes Zola doesn’t use the machine this time, he needs Andrew strong. 

It’s time.

.

Chapter Text

STEVE

Steve’s home.

He does shows from Yonkers, to Manhattan to Staten Island, to the Bronx and Brooklyn all in the space of a couple of days. The schedule studiously avoids Harlem, which Steve isn’t entirely happy about, but he’s not happy the majority of days anymore if he’s being honest; he's certainly not satisfied. They have one show in Brooklyn, a matinee, and then they have the rest of the afternoon off.

It’s nice, and Steve appreciates the break in schedule at least because while his body isn’t tired by the constant travel and short-stops; his mind is exhausted by the repetition. He practically skips down the steps from the Williamsburg Theatre in a nondescript brown jacket and flat-cap.

He walks familiar streets.

He gets a lot of looks, for his size and his face but also his sex - there’s no men around anymore, just the stooped-backed fellas that hover near the shoe-shine pop ups. Steve never thought he would ever say Brooklyn could be considered quiet but impossibly it almost seems so compared to the hustled markets he’s used to. Woman in clipped heels and handbags, and woman in work-boots and hair ties; smeared with oil as they make their way to the factories, signify Brooklyn’s new working class now. Steve hates to think what it’s like in places like London and Liverpool where the children have been evacuated out as well, how quiet it must be. He see’s a group of five boys, bikes stacked next to them, playing Fivestones like he used to on the sidewalk, and further down a brother teaching his sister how to ‘Two Balls up The Wall’. Steve doesn’t recognize any of them until he’s further from the main squares and closer to Red Hook, then sees who he’s pretty sure is one of the Prowman brothers; the youngest, bouncing his own ball against a stairway.

He’s almost enjoying himself in this new eerie city, right up until he waves at little Harry Prowman and the boy doesn’t recognize him. Steve swallows and keeps going.

Last year Johnny Prowman came in nearly everyday to buy a lottery ticket for his pa at the grocers Steve worked extra shifts at to cover the rent while Bucky was away training. Steve knew him well, and half the time he brought his little brother Harry too. Steve used to sneak him sweets under the counter when Johnny wasn’t looking until his boss caught him and told him if he did it again he’d be out on his ear. It didn’t matter that Steve was putting a nickle in the till every time he did it. The boy used to smile and laugh, gap in his teeth, and stuff the candy down his stitched pockets. Now he doesn’t even recognize him.

Well, why would he? The Steve Rodgers he knows is two foot shorter and a hundred and fifty pounds lighter. Every day that he’s in this body and people forget that there’s a Steve Rodgers in here with the Captain-America-the-fake-war-hero-patriot-of-the-nation makes his old self feel less and less real. If he’d ever even existed at all. Clearly the old Steve Rodgers is not missed.

He continues past familiar streets, closing his eyes at the first gold star in the window he sees - realizes that if he does that he’ll have to keep his eyes closed and walk blind for the next two miles. His heart pumps hard in his chest as he looks and see’s blue and gold stars in every window - more gold than there was last time he was here.

He hasn’t had a letter or telegraph from Bucky for nearly two months - and Becca hasn’t either.

He’d told the girl - young woman now Steve, she’s all grown up - that he’d gotten a job out of state. When she asked him why go and get a job out of state and away from home when he could just get a job here, he told her that this one lets him feel like he’s making a difference; and that’s something he needs right now. She understands that,  or at least has heard Steve lamenting and Bucky probably complaining enough to know Steve’s sore that he can’t go to war.

He doesn’t dare tell her about Basic (or god-forbid anything else) in case she writes Bucky - who he still hasn’t bucked up the courage to tell; not even through code. He might be brave about some things, but he can be a coward about others too. She keeps in contact with Steve following that letter, which he didn’t expect and is truly honest-to-god touched at, and is annoyingly persistent when she drills him about why his letters always have different state stamps. He tells her he travels a lot, for his job.

Right. For the job you won’t tell me about. Of course how silly of me, she writes, Steven-the-travel- extraordinaire. Bullshit. You’ve got a high-school education and went to goddamn art school, Rodgers, what could they possibly have you doing to ‘make a real difference?’ As always she is shockingly and unapologetically honest to the end; ignoring the perceived insult, Steve bites his lip; smiling at her words and the familiar cursing she’s inadvertently picked up from Mrs Barnes. 

It’s to do with art, doing designs and that, He lies. Now shut your trap, Becca Barnes, and stop being nosy.

Stop being nosy my ass. You’re in Texas now? What the absolute fuck Steve? Does Bucky know about this?

You’re a goddamn wild ride Steve Rodgers, who knew? She’d written at last, sparking a familiar memory, and Steve had started laughing so hard he couldn’t stop for ten whole minutes in his dressing room. She really is a lot more like Bucky than she likes to admit, which he takes great delight in telling her.

She lives in Jersey now. She’d moved out and in with some girl friends three years ago, which her brother and little sisters haven’t let her live down since. “The rents cheaper there,” she used to say whenever they brought it up, and Jenna Barnes, all of nine years old had sniped back, “Yeah, but it’s still Jersey” with the most disgusted look on her face Steve has ever seen.

She also has a sweetheart now he’s heard, one she’s been keeping quiet in the Navy somewhere out near Betio island in the Pacific. He wants to marry her when he comes home, and Steve’s heart swells with pride at her happiness as much as it worries him. She, like Bucky, has always been rather particular about relationships once she’d moved away from the awkwardness brewing in their parent’s apartment, fed up of keeping Winifred Barnes’ secrets.

Her guy, whose name she won’t tell Steve out of spite for not giving her all the details she wants, is okay as far as he knows - she gets regular letters from him. Bucky’s letters have gone from irregular to non-existant. 

She tells him not to worry, my brothers terrible when it comes to keeping in touch, so cool your horses; you know the asshole ‘forgot’ - his words not mine - to write his favourite sister through all of Basic and most of Wisconsin when he was writing you - so don’t sweat it.

I take offence to the favourite sister part, Jenna Barnes’ younger handwriting is scrawled diagonally underneath, he didn’t forget to write me, so what does that tell you, you cow, go back to Jersey.

Steve can’t help it, he does sweat it, for every week that goes by with no striped airmail. He knows letters come more frequently from the Navy than they do for the infantry in Europe, but he’s paranoid. While he trusts Becca, has watched her grow up from a little madam to a responsible woman, to tell him about any telegraphs; the dreaded telegraph would go to a Brooklyn address and not a Jersey one. Paranoid and unfairly biased on Bucky’s side as he is - he doesn’t trust that the news would make it to Becca immediately, who has made a point of avoiding her ma for close to two years now - ever since George Barnes’ empty casket went into the ground.

He half runs to the Barnes’ new building, having moved again since their eldest flew the nest, until it comes into view and he falters. There’s a gold star in the window. A gold star and a blue star.

Holy Mary, mother of god.

 Thank you.

He closes his eyes, breathes, feels uncomfortable and perturbed by the panic that had come over him so quickly. This quiet eerie Brooklyn, he decides, is not the home he knows. He looks one last time at the second floor window, thinks about going in to see Lily and Jenna who aren’t so little anymore either; but he’s too scared they won’t recognize him as well; even if they did see his stupid face nearly everyday from birth to age seven. He salutes George Barnes’ star in the near empty street and goes for a jog, and runs all the way to Manhattan until he’s standing outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

He’s not even sweating.

It’s busier here, more tourists and art lovers but also familiar territory for Steve, which is a relief.

“Steve!”

He turns automatically at the voice, and sees Josie waving at him happily across the street and running forwards to cross without looking.

“Josie!” Steve shouts, shooting forward before he has a chance to wave back at her. He grabs hold of her right as she reaches his sidewalk, pulling her mid-prance off the road. Cars honk angrily behind her, “Oh shove off!” she shouts over her shoulder at them.

“What are you--are you crazy? You can’t just--”

“Oh relax Steve,” she says, slapping his arm, “they move twice as fast in California and I haven’t been run over yet.” She grins at him. 

He shakes his head; he honestly can’t believe half the stuff that comes out of her mouth. She’s wearing a green fur-trimmed reefer and hat, with gloves to match, and Steve does a double take - has never seen her in anything that isn’t her costume or blue birthday dress before - let alone winter wear.

“Fancy seeing you here, huh honey?” She carries on, winking at him as usual, “Maybe it’s fate.”
 
“Stop it.” He tells her, trying not to smile at the brazen flirting.

“Oh but it’s so fun to see you squirm,” she replies, “Geez, it is cold. Is it usually this cold here?”

Steve raises an eyebrow, “In New York?”

“No, on the moon. Of course I mean New York.”

He laughs quietly, looks up at the tall buildings. He shrugs, “Normally it’s colder.”

“Colder?!” Josie asks, sounding scandalized.

“It’s only just turned November.” He replies, trying not to laugh at her expression.

“Only Novem--” she splutters, “any colder and my legs are going to turn into popsicles, only November, are you serious?”

“It’s not that cold!”

“There’s snow on the ground, Steven!”

“There’s always snow here,” he protests, “It’s New York.”

“Well in Los Angeles we’re not used to snow - we’re used to sun all year round I’ll have you know.” She fires back, and then switches back to her old point. “Not that cold?” she scoffs again, “says the fella whose wearing a jacket thinner than my tights. How are you not freezing?”

Steve shrugs, grinning. It seems Becca and Josie, the only two woman still in his life are the only ones who can make him smile anymore. “Maybe I’m just used to it,” he excuses, “What are you doing here?”

“Why seeing the sights of course,” she tells him, spreading her arms out to encompass the whole city. “I’ve never been to New York before.”

“You haven’t? Never?” Steve asks, surprised. They travel so much, he’d just assumed.

“Like I said, I’m a Californian girl through and through. And you know what they say about Californian girls,” she adds again, relentless, looking sly until Steve rolls his eyes at her.

“What have you seen so far?” He asks instead, pulling her out of the way of a harried looking businessman and out of the wind. She catches her hat from flying off with one hand and pulls out a crumpled pamphlet. Steve laughs at the sight of her squinting at the map.

“Well,” she says, ”I saw the Statue of Liberty of course, from the bridge not the islands, obviously, I actually want to have time to see other things--”

“The ferries probably aren’t running in this weather.”

She waves off Steve’s words like they mean nothing, “and I think I saw the Empire State Building, that’s the new-ish one, isn’t it, the one built in the ‘30s?”

“What do you mean you think you saw the Empire State? How is there a think in that sentence?”

Josie huffs dramatically, “There’s a lot of really tall buildings here Steve, you’ll have to excuse me if I get a little confused.”

Steve laughs and tugs her round the corner, “Where are we going?” She asks as they come to the end of the block. 

Steve turns her and points over the top of Central Park, “That’s the Empire State.”

She cocks her head, observing it’s steeple. “Oh,” she says, “That’s not the one I was looking at at all.”

A spray of laughter comes out of him abruptly, and it keeps going, unrestrained, as soon as he gets a look at her dejected face. She calls him a toerag again while he leans into a wall and tries to get a handle on himself. “Okay okay,” he relents, holding his hands up. Josie pouts at him, and goes back to looking at her map. 

He laughs one more time. “Are any of the other girls with you?”

“Huh? Oh no. Well, some of them went out, I think, but they’ve been here before so didn’t want to spend the afternoon ‘traipsing across the city to look at old buildings’.” She rolls her eyes, “Please, Clara wouldn’t know sophistication if it hit her in the face.”

“Hey” Steve admonishes, “That’s not nice.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Steve opens his mouth to retort, then closes it, because she does kind of have a point. Not that you should ever said it aloud, even to other people. He changes the subject. “Where else do you want to go?”

“Well I came here, ‘cause it’s on the map and because of the art, and obviously it’d be nice to see the park I suppose which is also here, but I’m not fussed. I mean, how nice can a park in the middle of a city really be, when you’ve been to Montana” ---true---”and there’s the bridges and Rockefeller Center, ooh that’s a must, I hear they have ice-skating and a Christmas tree - I love Christmas - and of course Broadway, who can forget the Theatre district---”

“That’s a lot of stuff to fit into one evening,” Steve cuts in, smiling as Josie rants. It grows when she pouts and looks almost distressed.

“You don’t think I can do it all?”

“In one night?” Steve's smile turns apologetic, “It’s not going to be easy; a lot of that stuff is in different parts of the city.”

She sighs in disappointment, “That’s what I was worried about, I knew it was too much. I didn’t really plan anything, just kinda’ decided I was gonna go - I guess I didn’t really think it through.”

“It’s a nice idea.”

“I wish we were here for longer. It’s not the same exploring a new city on your own, you need a local who knows all the tricks and trades--" Her expression changes as something seems to occur to her. "--Say Steve, are you doing anything tonight?”

Her switch from dejection to excitement is so fast Steve almost gets whiplash, and he widens his eyes - a startled deer-in-headlights expression on his face.

Josie’s excited grin dims a little, “You can say no, don’t worry, it was just an idea--”

“Where do you want to go first?”

She breaks out in the widest smile Steve’s ever seen on her, three times as bright as the one she wears on stage, “Where do you suggest; tour guide of mine?” She asks, linking arms with him and rocking on her heels.

“You said you love Christmas - even though you hate snow,” here he rolls his eyes, “and I don’t know if the lights will be on but the tree could be there - so how bout we go see that Christmas tree? And head to Broadway after?”

“That sounds absolutely wonderful. And ice-skating?”

“And maybe ice-skating.”

“Oh Steve, you gentleman, you.” Josie teases as she follows him, tucked close to him in the cold. “Anyone would think you’re being sweet so you can have your way with me later - oh what will I tell the girls?”

“Stop it,” he laughs again.

She winks at him from under the fur of her hat, “Never.”

 . . .

Steve’s in Delaware. They’ve done close to every city in every state in the United States now, and the tour is moving overseas. Europe, Italy first he thinks, to rally the troops at different field bases; the closest he’s going to get to a battlefield, and then to a series of shows in London and elsewhere. They sail out in a week’s time.

New York, and the Christmas Tree and the impromptu ice-skating was four days ago. He remembers telling Agent Carter how his conversation in the car with her was the longest conversation he’s ever had with a woman, knows it not true now - even if Josie spent most of the time ice-skating laughing at him on his ass and the worry on his face when she’d fallen on hers. 

He likes to think he’s better now, and might even impress Ms Carter if he ever sees her again, which he doubts, with a whole two or even three conversations.

Bucky on the other hand would be busting his chops for not making the move on Josie that she obviously wanted that night, when they’d ended up in a milk bar of all places after the city went into dim-out. He always used to tell Bucky, as he’d told Agent Carter, that he was waiting for the right gal, the right partner; but his friend had never really respected it. 

He meant well of course, he always meant well. With the double dates -”I’ve told her how swell you are Steve, she can’t wait to meet you” - and the sly comments -”It’s nice and respectable to wait Steve, but at the same time I’m sure your perfect partner might appreciate you knowing what you’re doing - I can give you a few pointers if you want” until Steve threw a book at him, were always meant well.

He just never quite got it, no matter how hard he tried. Bucky could get angry on his behalf, had blacklisted dames sometimes “for your honour Steve”; ”shut up you asshole”, but he could never quite understand - not when he looked the way he did. 

People used to say he was a ladies man: “that Barnes boy, I saw him with Connie’s girl last week and Abby Rosco yesterday - when will those girls learn to stay away from fellas like that” - but the truth is, he isn’t. He was friendly with a lot of the girls in the neighbourhood and he liked to dance. That was it really. He loves music and he loves dancing - could do it all night until the sun rose in the west and set in the east if he wanted to, and so he would invite dames out to dance and walk them home after.

“He never brings any home,” Becca Barnes told him once before Steve’s ma passed; that’s how he tracks the times; before and after Sarah Rodgers.

“He could be going back to theirs.” Steve had responded and Becca had rolled her eyes at him like he was the dimmest person in all of Brooklyn.

“As if Rodgers. He just takes them dancing, that’s it.”

She later told him Abby Sullivan had told her, that she heard from Louise Clarke that her older sisters had told her - honestly, girls - that Bucky was safe because he was up for having a good time but ‘not that kind of good time’ and girls never had to worry about him trying anything on - not unless they wanted him to.

And if they did and Bucky wanted to as well - then he went steady with them like he did with Rosie Skye’s French cousin that summer. 

“He won’t bring them home, or go to theirs; he knows better than that;” than walking into a family home and having a dame introduce him as a ‘friend’. As much as they argued and as much as Becca underestimated him and Bucky her, they were surprisingly - or unsurprisingly - matched on this one particular topic.

Bucky once took Susie Maisel to the dance halls every week for a month, when they both knew she and Lucy Coulson were carrying on with each other - but she liked to dance too. So they danced together and Buck ignored everyone else in that hall like he used to ignore disgruntled fathers and jealous fellas, grabbed Lucy Coulson and twirled her so many times she lost her balance and fell into Susie in time for the slow dance. Steve had seen him do it, seen him slip away into the crowd for a glass of tap water and knew then and there that Becca was right.

Bucky would have taken Josie dancing, would have asked her if she wanted it - kissed her - and asked if she wanted to do the same again the next Friday.

He isn’t Bucky. He can only dance slightly better than he can ice-skate and he’s kissed dames in teenage games before but he’s never done that. Never taken someone or been taken home himself, and they weren’t in New York any longer for him to take her home to his shoebox apartment.

He’s in Delaware. He still hasn’t had a letter from Bucky, not since he was in Cleveland, so he scrunches up the letter asking for advice and throws it in the trash-can - he won’t answer this one either.

. . .

Josie knocks on his door after the show.

. . .

“Have you ever done this before?” She asks him later.

“No,” Steve admits, embarrassed and nervous.

“It’s okay honey. Don’t worry.” She grins at him, not a mark out of place. She's wearing nothing else but her red lipstick. Steve can admit it’s a little - a lot - more overwhelming than he thought it would be.

“I’ll make it good for you, I promise. Trust me first-timer, you won’t know what’s hit you.”

.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

Bucky doesn’t have to say anything when they bring Andrew back in and unlatch the hooks from the collar they are wearing as permanent fixtures now.  Andrew looks at him sat on the cot, and his eyes flick down to his feet; back up to his face. He’s wearing his boots after all.

He raises his eyebrow. Bucky cants his head a centimetre - they’ve gotten good at their own unspoken language. Andrew keeps his face straight so as to not give anything away and curses at the last guard as he leaves to keep up appearances.

He sits beside Bucky in silence.

“How long ago did they-”

“Hours ago. ‘ts worn off by no’ mostly.”

“No machine?”

Andrew shakes his head, though the fact that he was standing and walking upright when they brought him in gives it away. “No t’day. Na th’morrow either.” He starts to explain before Bucky can turn his head questioningly. “I think they keep forgetting ’m there ‘n’ can hear them, or they dinnae care - making the plans fur th’ next trials. They’re taking me back ‘n again tomorrow.”

“To the other room?”

“Let’s hope.” Andrew says, and boots Bucky’s foot with his own. If you did that a week ago he would near about pass out. He watches Bucky’s face for any twinge of pain and Bucky looks back at him, face flat, because it doesn’t hurt. “What about yer tummy? I know they cut ye up so dinnae try ‘n’ go denying it - I heard them say so.”

“My stomach’s fine.”

“Show me.”

“Andrew       ”

“Show me.” 

Bucky rolls his eyes and shuffles backwards to pull his shirt up, quips, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“Why dinnae we save that ‘til we’re out, ye impatient bastard.” Andrew retorts, mutters, ”shit,” when he looks at Bucky’s stapled stomach, cut from diaphragm to just under his belly button.

“It’s fine.”

“It doesn’t look fuckin’ fine.”

“It’s healing.”

“Like hell ‘ts healing, I heard them cut ye open only the day before or somethin' like that. Stop lying to me ye bast       ”

“Andrew.” Bucky cuts him off. “I’m healing. I promise you, I’m healing. I can feel it.”

Andrew looks at him the same way Bucky looked at him after he ate that rat, which is a little unfair, Bucky thinks, when you compare the two scenarios.

“Ye ca     ye can feel it?”

Bucky nods slowly, takes his hand and presses it against the top gap in the staples so he can clearly feel the scab starting to form at the edge. Andrew yanks his hand back like he’s been burnt, staring at the metal in horror. “That’s fucked up James.”

“What isn’t here?” He rockets right back, “I can probably pull them      ”

“Don’t, dinnae fucking pull them out!” Andrew snaps at him in a strange deja vou of the first day they met - when Bucky stopped him from poisoning himself on rotten food. Since when did he become the one that needed to be held back?

“I’m serious, I told you I’m healing. I can probably     ” He moves his hand to his stomach, Andrew catches his wrist sharply, his grip tight enough to break bone.

“I said don’t!”

Bucky yanks on his wrist sharply, away from the super-human pressure, grimacing. Andrew lets go just as abruptly. He wipes his hand on what’s left of his trousers, which is a way to distract himself Bucky knows. He knows all of Andrew's bluffs.

“Are ye sure     I don’t       ”

“Andrew, I’m sure. I’m as ready as I’m gonna be.”

“We can wait a bit a’ longer     ”

“We’ve already waited too long!” Bucky hisses, frustration sparking. “We wait any longer and we’ll never get out. Stop putting it off!”

“I’m not bleedin’ putting it off!”

“Yes you are - you did it before and you’re doing it now - I don’t know if your scared      ”

“     now hang about      ”

“      but I don’t fucking care Andrew, alright? I don’t fucking care. I want out   ”

“So da’ I.”

“Then get with the program. I’m ready, you’re ready - now - tomorrow. If we skip it and they cut me up again and put you back in that machine and you forget this conversation I swear to god.”

“A’ wouldn’t forget this - what th’ hell ye talking about? And I’m not the one we were having to wait for’, with your poor ickl’ wickl’ feet     ”

“Yes you do! You forget shit all the time. All the time! Every time you come out of that machine you’re worse, not that you know it because you fucking forget! Over and over! And you didn’t have to wait for me, I told you to go!” 

He’s yelling by the end; doesn’t know when he started or when he stood up so that he’s taller than the Scotsman, but he has done. Andrew yanks him back down, looking over his shoulder, panicked, at the door. “Jesus Christ, tak’ it down a notch.”

“You take it down a notch.” Bucky retorts petulantly, like a child, slumping back into the wall. He’s so done. He feels so funky without the drugs he kinda' wants them back in him to take the edge off. “I want out. I’m ready.” He repeats, quieter, but still harsh, messing with the tube port stuck in his elbow. “They’ll cut me up again and shove you back in if we wait. We’re going. Tomorrow.”

Andrew sucks in a deep breath, nods sharp and quick.

. . .

Later, they go over the plan again so they’re absolutely clear.

“What about yer stomach?”

Bucky keeps his temper, “It’s fine. It’s healed, doesn’t even hurt.” He lies for the fourth time, knowing Andrew has forgotten what it looks like.

“Are you sure you know the way from the room back here?” Bucky himself asks, for the fourth time.

“I already told ye Jay, aye, I’ know th’ way - I’m nae gonna’ forget about ye, for fucks sakes.”

There must be something on his face because Andrew frowns at him and takes his hand. “Hey. James. I’m nae gonna forget about ye a’right, ah swear.”

Bucky swallows and looks away, wishes he could believe it - he used to trust Andrew explicitly, doesn’t know when in the last week it changed. But it has.

“James! We’re getting out th’gether, I’m comin’ back fur ye, I’m always gonna' come back fur you.”

Bucky pushes the doubt off his face, “Okay.”

. . .

They try to sleep. It’s clear neither of them can. Andrew starts sawing at his self-made knife by the drain again.

“It’s sharp enough, Andy.”

Andrew cants his head, “Could be sharper.”

. . .

The waiting is torture, and with little else to do they wash themselves for the third time with the bucket and harsh soap the guards left in their cell, scrubbing at each other’s backs and rinsing each other’s beards. Andrew spends the entire time avoiding Bucky’s stomach when he’s bare-chested so he rolls his eyes and grabs the sponge off him.

He starts rubbing harshly at the wound while he stares eye to eye at Andrew.

“Fucking baby.” He calls him, and Andrew turns to look at him, annoyed, until he sees the smirk on Bucky’s face.

. . .

He makes Bucky do push ups and sit ups to prove his stomach is fine enough to run and fight with. Bucky clenches his stomach the whole time so no one moment is more painful than another. He manages ten each before his arms go too wobbly to hold himself up from hunger and weakness. In order to conserve energy they haven't been exercising while in here; just sleeping, or sitting, or sharpening bed poles, or laying down, or kissing, or doing other stuff; and so he's entirely unfit. The unfittest he's ever been. His arms collapse under him when he attempts the eleventh push-up, and he bites back the grunt as he hits the floor. The fall is not because of his stomach, at least.

Andrew grudgingly admits he’s capable, if barely.

. . .

“Were ye serious before?” Andrew asks when they’re sat on the floor, not the bed, so they can look at the night sky through their tiny window. They can see one single star.

“I’m always serious, I’m a serious cat.”

“Sure ye are Bugs Bunny.” Andrew breaks off, never one to let Bucky have the last word. His face steels itself into something cold and hard. Here we go. “Ye said I keep forgetting things, ‘n’ then forgetting I’m forgetting them. Was that true? Or just ye trying to win th’ the pumpin’ argument?”

It’s a fair question. Bucky’s done it before, to Steve and his sisters and to Andrew; has made something up that never happened so he wouldn’t lose. He hates losing, even stupid petty arguments. Steve hates losing the same way, so their fights are truly a spectacular sight to behold. 

This isn’t one of those times. 

“You’ve asked me four times tonight why I’m wearing my boots when my feet are cut up,” he admits. “You forgot my name the other day, and I had to introduce myself again like we were meeting for the first time. Just about scared the shit outta' me.”

Andrew’s quiet for a long time.

“I dinnae remember that,” he says finally.

“I know.” Bucky tells him, “It’s okay.”

“No, ‘ts not.”

“I suppose not,” Bucky admits, crossing their feet at the ankles, and pointing at their window. “You reckon that’s the North Star?”

“No.” Andrew replies flatly, and smacks at Bucky’s chest until he looks at him - he knows all of Bucky’s bluffs too. He says, serious-like, “I won’t forget ye tomorrow. I’m coming back.”

Bucky smiles, tries to keep the pain off his face. “I know.”

Andrew smiles back and takes his jaw in both hands, and Bucky knows what’s coming - he welcomes it. 

This is only the second time Andrew has begun their nightly kisses. Though he was the one to start the cycle on that first day; it's been Bucky's kisses he's been chasing since. It's always Bucky who takes the responsibility of choosing the moments; eyes aware and sincere, deciding whether Andrew needs this or that. The last few days have been that, recently, as Andrew has needed comfort and quiet - laid with his head on Bucky's lap or in his arms; hidden away from the eyes of rats and dripping drainpipes - more than kisses.  It feels right now though, for him to be the one to start tonight off when they don't know what'll come tomorrow - come round full circle.

Andrew likes to play with his hair and trail his fingers over the back of Bucky’s neck - deep in his hair and feather-like on the spine, so it almost tickles. Bucky likes to wrap his whole body around Andrew until they almost feel like one person, skin flush and warm. It's the only time he feels truly comfortable in this terrible life of theirs, when he's so close he can hear the other's heartbeat, or when Andrew's fingers are deep in the thick tendrils of his knotted hair, brushing it out in gentle sweeps. He kisses Bucky again, hands still framed on his cheeks, and when he pulls away Bucky chases him; pushing forward. Andrew follows the lead, stepping backwards and backwards and      They bash into the corner of the bedframe with the momentum; it clatters; they laugh; they rinse and repeat. Repeat again. They end up in switched over positions, still kissing, Andrew’s hands in his hair and Bucky’s hands against the new bulging muscles of his back.

This is all he wants, now and forever if this cell is all forever will bring.

Bucky's the one who pulls away this time, “We could die tomorrow.”

“We could die every day.” Andrew retorts, trying to pull him back in, hand smoothing and feeling up his chest under his shirt. Bucky lets him for another minute, sinking, then moves to catch his breath against Andrew’s throat. He kisses him there lightly.

“We don’t escape everyday - we don’t plan to run into the forest and get lost like Hansel and Gretel,” he murmurs with none of his usual filter.

“What ye on about now--”

“--Or kill as many Krauts as we can with a bed pole.”

Andrew groans into him, pulling back. “James seriously, stop. I’ dinnae want to be thinking about tha’ now. That’s th’morrows task. Lets just live fur tonight.”

Bucky likes the sound of that. He really really likes the sound of that - its one of the most glorious things he's ever heard, in fact.

 “Yeah.” He says breathlessly. “Let’s just live for tonight.” 

He pushes Andrew onto his back; his friend’s eyes are wide. He looks scared for a moment, probably like Bucky does, and then something happily desperate comes over his face.

“We could die th’morrow.” he repeats.

“We could,” Bucky says, closer.

“But nae tonight. Tonight we live.”

Bucky smiles tearfully, “Tonight we live.”

He says it like a prayer. He leans down and over, kissing one, two - and on the third: deep and searching, deeper than he’s ever done - night after night after glorious night. Their hands roam further than they have before too, exploring gentle and soft; clenching aroused and powerful into skin and wiry left-over muscle. They don't simply help each other out when they're hard tonight. Soon enough; Bucky's boots are taken off again as is much of everything else. Andrew kisses him against his bristly throat, noses at his ear from behind; hugging him close. Bucky strains his neck back to return the kiss under his chin, twisting his face into the crook of Andrew's neck. He smells like carbolic soap - and...and love.

"Keep going." Andrew says when the thought catches and he pauses in surprise.

It's not really an order, but Bucky obeys as his guy focuses on slicking up his hand, and then especially his fingers with what little they have. Bucky litters his neck with kisses, then his arms, nuzzling him. Andrew moans out a sigh at the bite, other hand clenching around his ribs, open palmed. A hand brushes against his groin, slick with spit, it tugs a couple of times, massaging. Bucky moans, oh yeah, because fuck me, he's already way past hard; and so is Andrew, he can feel the pressure; erect, near the small of his back.

"You pulling a sword on me in the dark, there?" He can't help it.

Andrew laughs, "You're terrible, that was - fuckin' terrible, you asshole."

Bucky returns it. "Just saying, you gonna stick me with it good, aren't ya, so I    "

"That's worse, how did you ever get a lass with lines as shit as those?"

Bucky captures him in another backwards kiss. "My face." He answers.

Andrew considers that, cocking his head, then considers him, framing his face with his other hand. He leans in for a quick peck, Bucky returns it, rubbing his other hand over Andrew's bearded jaw, bringing them closer. "Yea' alright," he admits, taking a breath when Bucky pushes his luck on making the kiss deeper. "Good fuckin' point."

Bucky opens his mouth, about to spin a, 'are you calling me handsome, good kind sir'      right as Andrew tugs making perfect eye contact, and the words die. Andrew's always been so fucking good at this. Likely been helping himself out for longer than Bucky has. He moans again, and reaches; then Andrew slaps his hand away when he tries to search to repay the favour. "Just wait, I've got a plan, a good plan for me," he says, going higher to where Bucky's beginning to leak; and rolls his fingers.

"Oh, do you now--okay no, your plan. Your-plan-is-good,-your-plan-is-great."

Andrew's grins, all teeth, and his hand uses the pleasurable distraction to move further back. And           Bucky grunts as he's opened up. Oh, woah, woah    the sound he makes is unexpected and strained against Andrew's pulse-point. 

The smile goes; Andy ducks his head down quick at the sound as soon as it's out, worried, almost pulling back. "Woah, 'ey, are yer    Do ye want me to stop    "

Bucky shakes his head frantically into his neck. "No, no," He moans; already feeling a part of himself shaking. "Just, not expecting..." he gasps, "just     keep going. It's fine, it'll get better just    it's fine, good. You're amazing."

A laugh rumbles out of his favourite throat as he noses against it, "I could say that to you too, with that irresistible face tha    " 

Bucky captures his mouth in a kiss before he can finish. Andrew kisses him back softly to ease the discomfort with an assurance of "I'll go slow," and it’s already too much after nothing for so long, and it’s not enough at the same time, too filthy and too pleasurable. This - wow, it's new, so new - he wasn't expecting it to feel like   Andrew kisses him again, deep, distracting. He's so warm, he's so good. Bucky wants him. It works for a little while, then he has to pull away, shuddering into the cot and into Andrew, who holds his position, but pauses.

“You're a monster,” he gasps, and Andrew has the audacity to laugh, a breathy sound against his face. "You absolute     fucking      tease."

He releases the wide palmed touch over Bucky’s ribs to smooth his hand back through his hair as he adds a second finger. Bucky, as his name proclaims; bucks into the touch.

Andrew works him open slowly, methodically almost, until Bucky is writhing beneath him and angling his legs to pull Andrew’s hips closer.

"Have you   did you lie? Have you done this before?"

Andrew shakes his head, "not w'th a fella. Learning on the job and all that is kinda' me' bit."

Bucky laughs, shaking into him, backing up further and further as Andrew works, squeezing the arm he has trapped under him. "Don't   don't think you got anything to learn, Andy-Pandy."

"Now who's kissing me' ass?"

Bucky shudders out a, "I wish," which makes Andrew's smile widen. "I haven't    Me neither." Bucky admits, which is probably pointless considering it's so obvious. It's funny, how they've never actually talked about going this far before   but why haven't they? Why haven't' they been doing this all along - they were already sinning just with that first deviant kiss, so why not sin all the way? He'd say this couldn't be a sin, not when it's made him the happiest he's been in a long time, but that's how the devil gets you, ain't it? He doesn't care, he's going down not up when he goes eitherway.

"A know, 'hat."

"Glad we could--I'm glad we can, can do this...together too." He manages after a few false starts, breathing heavily. "So glad. I    "

"Me too." Andrew interrupts, softly but insistently, and they kiss longing and deep. The way he's looking at Bucky now after those words, when he leans back just above him, says it all. It's something special. They're so lucky to have each other.

"Still good?" Andrew asks again, which is such a stupid question Bucky can't even tell you. There are all sorts of needy sounds escaping his throat as he clings to the side of the bedframe for dear life, imprinting the corner angle into his skin, but he doesn’t care anymore, not really, not when Andrew is looking at him like this, all blown pupils and dark reverence. He bites his lips, then a growl rips it's way from him as Andrew begins to move his hand, slow and steady pushes with his fingers inside of him until he's knuckle deep - then stops for a moment. Bucky twists his body to reach further back and lay another one on his lips, or maybe bite his own mark into his neck and           and Andy's fingers twitch. It connects to something        oh god, screw the sin. Fucking screw it to all hells and all heavens. He shoves his head into the crook of Andy's neck, crying out in all sorts of pleasure, unable to speak. He threads his hand through Andy's instead as reassurance, laid over Bucky's diaphragm, and squeezes in time with Andrew's pulses.

"That's one way tae do it." Andrew mumbles into him, sounding wrecked himself at the new learning-curve Bucky's just thrown at him this time. It carries on, slow and careful, and it's pretty damn wonderful; honestly. 

"Hmm," Bucky hums, and Andy must feel him clench around the digits inside as well as outside, because he moans too. Bucky says: "I'm ready, I'm ready."

"Ye sure?"

Bucky nods; pulling away so Andrew's hand is released from its quest. He turns over, takes his jaw in both hands; and smacks one on him real good as a proper answer. Andrew chases him, Bucky can feel the smile through the kiss, and it makes him giddy until he's grinning from ear to ear. He wants to keep eye contact, but the angles not right when Andrew's still so sore even when Bucky's doing all the work, so they compromise, and Andrew hugs him tightly from behind, slotted together on the tiny cot; and Bucky litters his arms with open-mouths kisses, leaving his own marks to replace Zola's. Andrew's other hand threads through his too-long hair; and he pushes forwards and in. They become truly one.

It's beautiful.

. . .

Bucky’s on his knees at Andrew’s feet. Andrew’s hand cradles through his hair.

Bucky glances up at the touch, smiles briefly, and then goes back to tucking Andrew’s shiv into his sock where the Krauts won’t see it.

“You’ll keep yer’s on ye, ready to go, yeah?”

“’Course.” Bucky responses, moving his head when Andrew hits a  ticklish spot by his ear.

“If anythin’ goes wrong - if they come to tak’ ye ‘fore I do--”

“That won’t happen.”

“If it does - dinnae hesitate, dinnae let them tak’ ye again, ye understand me?”

Bucky pulls Andrew’s trousers over his boots, checks again to make sure you can’t see the outline of the blade or the spring they’ve wrapped around it like a handle. He stands, “We’re getting out together, remember.”

“But if--”

“If that happens,” Bucky continues, “I’ll stab them with my bed pole and run until we find each other. Okay?”

Andrew nods.

It’s dawn. They’ll come for him soon.

“I’ll come back fur’ you.” Andrew repeats once again. 

Bucky pulls him close and they cling to each other at the centre of the dawning sun beam for a long long time.

“Thank you.” Andrew whispers in his ear. “For last night and everything else. Thank you.”

The lock on the door unlatches, “Right boot,” Bucky whispers the reminder, and they part like they were never hugging to begin with.

The door opens, the big one comes in; Achter after him, keys jangling from his hand. Andrew’s eyes follow their path. The third guard, Wagner, who has new unblemished goggles steps in behind him and cocks his gun at Andrew. This is normal.

“Schaut ihn.” (“Check him.”) Achter orders and the Big one comes for Bucky.

Oh shit.

The big guy comes alone without a collar pole but with a readily-charged baton. Lohmer almost killed him with one of those batons. He shoves Bucky back at the wall, traps his body and his way out, baton pushing painfully into his Adam’s apple across his throat and chest. Bucky on instinct goes to throw a punch, an uppercut or to go for the groin (can’t play dirty in boxing matches but you can in back alleys) as he does.

“Do that and he dies!” Achter snaps out in heavily accented English. Wagner steps closer with the gun levelled at Andrew’s head. “Stand down.”

“James!” Andrew snaps, look on his face that says ‘don’t do it, don’t stand down’.

Bucky submits anyway, holding his hands up and grunts as the guard pushes harder against his chest and throat. Achter steps carefully towards him, pinning the keys to his belt on the ring there - Bucky tries not to follow it. He picks up the collar pole where it’s leaning in the doorway. He looks at Bucky’s feet.

They’re fucked. They’re fucked. 

The plans off, they’re fucked.

Do they know?

“Check his belly,” Achter orders in easy German. Bucky’s pretty sure the big guy growls at him from behind his mask before he yanks his shirt up to expose Bucky’s midsection. The staples are ugly, but Andrew takes in a quiet but sharp breath, and that’s how Bucky knows there’s been an obvious change, even just over night.

Oh no.

“Er heilt,” (“He’s healing.”) the big one barks out, staring at the closing wound. Achter pulls off his goggles and mask, and Bucky see’s his face for the first time. He’d be quite handsome, if he wasn’t a tremulous first-grade asshole. Andrew’s subtly shaking his head at him, like he knows what Bucky wants to say.

The man leans forward, frowning, and pulls his glove off. He reaches forward like Bucky tried to, but Andrew’s not there this time to catch his hand before he pulls one of the staples out - slowly but firmly. Bucky feels himself bleeding a little, but he also feels his skin immediately start to pucker.

“Herr Doktor hatte recht,” (“The doctor was right.”) Achter seems to murmur before he jerks his head at the big one. He pushes into Bucky harder and Achter reaches for his boot - Andrew starts forward.

“Bleiben Sie, wo Sie sind!” (“Stay where you are!”)

Bucky tells him ‘no’ with hard eyes. He stops, clearly unhappy, and worried. Bucky flicks his eyes to the corner of the bed and Andrew gets the message.

He doesn’t have his shiv on him or in his sock. It’s still under the bed, in their hiding place. Thank god.

So much for bibaxt now huh, ma?

Achter pulls his sock off - he no longer has scabs on his feet - threaded pink scars in their place. Well, that was quick.

He nods sharply and stands back, leaving Bucky hovering barefoot over the filthy floor, then picks up the collar pole; the big one releases him. Then he punches him hard in the stomach, right to the side of where the staple was just pulled out. Bucky cries out without meaning to, dropping to his knees. There’s blood on his hand.

“James!” Andrew starts forward again and Bucky hears another gun cock, knows this one’s pointed down at his bowed head. The message is clear, with guns aimed at both of them.

They must know. They must know, how do they know?

“James are ye--”

“Mund halten, Abschaum!” (“Keep your mouth shut, scum!”) 

Andrew cuts himself off. Achter locks Andrew’s collar onto the pole, “Wir bringen diesen Ort dorthin, wo er geplant ist, informieren Herr Doctor über den anderen-er wird sich selbst sehen wollen.”  (“We'll take this one to where he's scheduled, inform Herr Doctor about the other one - he will want to see for himself.”)

Bucky and Andrew understand enough. They’ve got away with it - they don’t know the plan and don’t know about Andrew’s knife but they know about Bucky’s healing. Zola will know soon, and they’ll take him to the table today after all. They'll take him early.

I’ll be quick, Andrew tries to say with his face as he’s led off and the door locks behind then; Bucky on his knees on the floor.

. . .

He scrambles quickly after they leave. He wipes the blood on his hand onto his trousers - ignores his bleeding stomach; tugs his boot back on as quickly as he can. He scrabbles under the bed, barely misses catching his fingers on his own blade as he pulls it loose.

He backs himself in the space next to the back of the door, and waits.

He’s forgotten me.

What if he’s forgotten me? His paranoid brain spirals around like it has been doing all night despite Andrew’s assurances.

 What if he forgets I exist and he leaves me here? What if he does remember but they come for me before?

Wait.

They have a plan for that, they talked about it last night, before. Before.

Bucky clenches his hand around the knife, tries to remember where the weaknesses in the guards’ uniforms are and the quickest and quietest ways to kill a man. Are these thoughts considered a sin?

Those men are a sin, his un-Catholic brain tells him, they’re parasites, a sickness. Wipe them out - the devil will be pleased to have them.

What if he’s forgotten me?

What if he hasn’t and he’s already dead?

The door unlatches and slams open. Bucky goes in swinging and twists his blade at the last second to avoid Andrew’s neck.

“Oh God. Andy. Andy.”

“Go! We need tae go!” Andrew orders, looking wild, his pupils huge and frenzied. They gave him the serum before they locked him up, the idiots. He’s covered in blood, and in the moment he has Bucky checks to see if any of it is his. It doesn’t look like it, and his friend’s transportation collar is ripped as though Andrew literally tore it by the sheer force of his neck.

Jesus Christ, Andy.

“Come on!” Andrew grabs him by the forearm and yanks, forgetting his own strength. Bucky doesn’t care, barely feels it over the blood pumping adrenaline. He shoves and twists until he’s holding Andrew’s hand instead.

They’re running, just like in his dream.

Bucky yanks Andrew round, hard, and uses his own momentum. The guard runs straight into his blade, and Bucky stabs deep again and slashes it across the guy’s chest until he’s spurting blood and drops to the ground. He kicks at the side of another one’s knee who grunts and falls and Andrew uses his hands and not his knife and crushes the guy’s skull. It’s quick work at least. Andrew kicks another one when he goes for his radio and the guy slams hard into the wall twelve feet away. Bucky cuts his throat, pulls the grenade from his belt, pulls the clip and flings it at the guards he hears coming round the corner.

Andrew grabs his hand again and they pelt it down the corridor. The grenade was one of the ones filled with glowing blue energy that he saw at Azzano. He trips and is thrown into the wall from the concussive blast as it goes off behind them. Andrew heaves him up - they keep going.

“Achter?” Bucky snaps out, shoves a guard back so Andrew can snap his neck like a toothpick.

“Dead.”

“The others?”

“Dead. But th’ have cameras, they would ha’e seen me.”

Bucky took the radio of the man whose throat he cut. They’re calling in an assault team - they’ve killed eight already with a broken bed pole and their bare hands. Bring it, he thinks savagely, remembers when Andrew said ‘let them fuckin’ try ‘n’ tak’ ma’ tongue.’

       He wonders if any of the others - his men; Dugan, Jones, Arnery, McNintosh, even the French Dernier; if they’re even still alive, heard that blast go off this deep down in the building         

He doesn’t remember the trip here or how or near or far it was - or where they are in the factory at all. All he knows is there’s windows in Zola’s lab and there’s grass and trees outside.

“Andy! There!” Bucky shouts, pointing at an exit door. Andrew turns, still looking wild. He tries to yank on the door to open it - it groans with his strength but doesn’t shift and he fumbles with Achter’s keys after. “Give them to me.” Bucky says, whose hands are more steady. He tries each key frantically - none of them fit. Andrew growls and tries to charge the door while Bucky tries them all again.

There’s guards rounding the corner.

“Leave it!” Andrew yells and grabs him by the shoulders, drags him off his feet bodily to the left. Bullets ricochet off the door right behind them. They keep running, turning nearly every corner they find, lost, just trying to get away from those following them.

Bucky thinks about the grass through Zola’s windows.

“What about a window?”

Andrew grabs his arm again and keeps running. Bucky yanks them both into an alcove in the shadow of two lights of an inner corridor. Guards run straight past them either side; both ways. Bucky’s panting with effort, trying to keep quiet, exhausted from the first exercise he’s done in who knows how long. He's almost sagging against the wall and his friend; Andrew's hands slide under both his forearms and press upwards to help firm him.

Andrew’s barely even winded. “We cannae stay--”

Bucky shushes him. A guard steps back into view, Bucky stabs him under the jaw and Andrew drags him into the alcove. The man would have lied to them if they asked for a way out. They search him, but he's only got a baton on him. The man drops to the floor by their knees, blood pooling under him and against the stiff fabric of their trousers. They need a moment just to pause and think; work out where they are; how to get back to an outer wall where they'll be a window. Bucky's panting is quieter, but still incensed; his weight drops towards the wall, and he nearly joins the dead guard beneath them. Andrew's hands, quick and sudden, are back in the same warm spots; so he leans his weight against the forearms under him instead.

"James--"

"m' sorry." He whispers, chest heaving; Andrew moves to take his full weight a moment longer. Maybe stopping wasn't the best idea. Bucky sighs out in thanks.

"W're nearly t'ere, Jay." He assures. "Nearly t'ere. We gonnae keep going."

Bucky nods against him. "I know. I know. m' sorry."

He feels Andrew shake his head above him, as if rebutting the unwanted apology. He presses his lips against the back of Bucky's bowed head, then leans down to speak into his ear. "You got this. We got this. Ti'gether."

He forces his weight away from Andrew and back on himself. "Together." He vows, just like Andrew did all those weeks ago.

Andrew squeezes his arms. "You got this." He reminds him at last. "We just gotta get out."

They check the way is clear both directions; moving silently along the edges of the walls; one after another; connected; hands on each other's forearms - then have to run again they realize a camera has focused and is following them. They dart out of sight and keep going. There's a shout and --Andrew shoves him sideways as the bullet spears between them. Bucky slides across the ground, skidding. Andrew throws his shiv - sluice; it tears through the guard's side, and he chokes, loosing his footing. Andrew leaves Bucky to run at him, knocking him to the ground. He yanks the knife out, turns and slashes deep across the inner thigh of the guard's partner - shredding apart the femoral artery. There's lots of spurting - enough to slip in; which is what the other guard does when he tries to get up and go for his dropped sidearm before Andrew finishes him. Andrew checks over his shoulder, turning to go for him if he needs to, but Bucky's already forced himself back up; right behind him.

He reaches for the man’s gun, Andrew tugs his arm away. “No time.”

“But I can shoo--”

“No time James - a window, like you said.” He pulls Bucky away before he can grab the pistol. 

That’s nine, or is it ten now; or eleven or --- how many did Andy kill before he came for me?

It’s morning. He can see the sun, and the rain pitter pattering against the glass.

“James!”

“I see it!”

They run for it and Andrew flings a metal trolley at the window mid-run. The glass smashes and clatters to the ground; they already know we’re out, there’s no point hiding. Bucky steps onto Andrew’s clasped hands as he levers him so he’s high enough to climb through. He catches his forearm on the glass - Andrew takes his hand when he's braced and balanced on the sill, and climbs vertically up the concrete wall.

They both stumble a little when they land and Bucky - Bucky feels soft blades of grass under his fingers and the rain in his hair. He looks down, up, then either side. The window he’s been dreaming about from the lab is six meters to their left - they’re in between the two buildings and the water tank at the edge of the compound. There’s a forest just past the fence.

“The trees, the trees.” Bucky says, pulling Andrew up this time, he's the only one still with his knife in his other hand. He doesn’t know where Achter’s keys have gone. Andrew, once he’s moving and not having an orgasm over the grass, easily out-paces him but they’re getting closer.

Bang!

Bucky yelps sharply and falls, blood spraying sprinkler-like in front and behind him. He hits the ground hard. He tries to shove himself up; one leg faltering as he cups the squirting hole in his thigh while the other slips in the already blood-slick mud.

He can’t get up.

“I’ve got ye.” Andrew comes out of nowhere - comes back - heaves him to his feet so he can carry him. “We’re getting out o’ toget                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Blood sprays like a shock wave all over his face. No. No no no no no, no no no no no! He hits the ground hard a second time - on top of Andrew. No no no no no no no no no! He’s covered in blood and brain tissue, feels fractured shards of skull bone in his hair. 

He shakes his friend frantically. “Andy. Andy, get up. Get up!”

He can see a pink mist hovering in the air around them; can’t see anything out of his right eye except a film of red.

“Andrew get up,” he begs, sobbing. “Get up you asshole, get up.”

It’s over. He knows it’s over.

He latches onto Andrew’s slick shirt; if he’s going he’ll go with him. If they’re taking him back to the cell; then they’re taking the both of them.

“Andrew please.”

There’s German shouting behind him.

“Please,” he begs, fingers catching on green and red tags.

It’s over.

He makes a choice as they shove his head into the puddle of blood between Andrew’s neck and head and lock his hands behind his back.

If he closes his eyes: it’s early in the morning and they're hugging again for the first and last time.

“Please.”

.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

Blood sprays like a shock wave all over his face. No. No no no no no, no no no no no! He hits the ground hard a second time - on top of Andrew. No no no no no no no no no! He’s covered in blood and brain tissue, feels fractured shards of skull bone in his hair. Get up, please get up - he's not getting up. Neither are you. He starts crying, sobbing.

“Andrew please.”

There’s German shouting behind him.

“Please,” he begs, fingers catching on green and red tags.

He wakes. He's alone; sat up against the wall of the same stupid, awful, terrible cell; slumped against it; his head fuzzy and grey; his brain as thick as his tongue in his mouth. His right eye is swollen shut; his fingers - he thought were broken too; but maybe not - or not anymore? Who knows? Who cares any more? He's so tired and so awful and so guilty. He should be.

His stomach aches from thirst and hunger, and from being cranked open again - the staples are fresh and his head pulses in the blend of fogginess he's residing in. They hit him in the same swollen eye again yesterday when they realized he was beginning to be able to see through it again. The collar is back on - if it was ever off, except now it's buckled tight enough to strain the skin; it hurts to swallow. It was punishment - for....for daring to dream of freedom.

So much for that.

Even Bucky doesn’t dream to think he’d survive a bullet to the brain, or heal from it, and Andrew had been given the strength trials of Zola’s experiments, not the resistance and healing. That was Bucky’s role in the strange limbo they’d lived in together. 

Zola’s still angrier than he’s ever seen him; the loss of his subject with the most potential, and, he told Bucky, had every member of that assault group responsible shot and buried in unmarked graves in retaliation.

"You're not the only one whose paying for it, Sergeant. If you find some consolation in that."

Bucky blinks heavily, chapped lips open and slack. Shivers rack his body as the usual floods his system, he's so cold.

"Ooh," Zola makes a mocking surprised sound; turns back to cock his head downwards at him laid horizonal on the table. "Nothing to say today? Now that is new."

The cell is streamed with a beam of light from the window; though Bucky sits in the L; in the darkness. His eyes drift, open, closed; unfocused, open, closed, open - it's hard to...it's hard to do anything; to even think. Zola wants it that way, he guesses. He needs the body; not the thing that lives inside it, whoever they--it is, or was. The cell is as silent as a mausoleum. Tears have stopped trickling down with each dull blink as he grew more and more dehydrated; but with each moment absent of noise he grows more empty and more mute.

Bucky has Andrew’s identity discs in his pocket, the red and the green. He pulls them out at night in the dark when the drugged darts they shoot him with have worn off, when he can’t see the colours, but can feel the imprints; the essentials facts of the life of Andrew McNair, from Paisley, Scotland.

MCNAIR . A. R

1440638

BAP

Tracing the BAP in the nights, Bucky finds out Andrew was a Baptist, and his middle name began with R. He didn't know those things about his friend, if that was what they even still were to each other in the end. 

When he can think, he’s unable to think of anything else; that, and the spray of blood and bone covering the side of his face and neck, pooling underneath them both. He dreams of it constantly too - he wants his ma and her piano back. He wants his ma back so so much, he'd give anything, his whole life, just to have her cup his face and kiss his nose; or rub his belly and tuck him in. They've patched up his arm and his leg - the bullet went through and though - and they've taken the cot in the cell away so he can’t make another knife. He doesn’t wash or wipe the blood away until they force him, and attacks them when they do, forcing them to drug him to oblivion the way he almost wants. He keeps the itchy shirt with Andrew’s dried blood on it as a macabre memorial to the companion who almost got to go home to his brother.

He hopes Joey knows how brave his brother was, right until the end, somehow.

. . .

STEVE

It’s true, she’s right, he doesn’t know what’s hit him.

 Not until after, once he slips away after covering her with a blanket he finds in the dressing room closet. Josie naps on the couch. It happened just over an hour ago, his first time. Steve can’t forget the feeling, both physically and introspectively. He slips his trousers back on and a jumper that’s over-large but still slightly too small for his shoulders. He wastes a whole two minutes trying to think of what to write to Josie in the aftermath of what they just did - of what he just lost.

Thank you for tonight.

I’ll be back later.

He writes in the end, knowing it’s not enough, and leaves it under the mirror with her lipstick. He slips outside, glances at the clock in the corridor - it’s nearly seven in the evening, and they don’t need to be out until nine. He has time - time for a walk and time to clear his head before he needs to go back and wake her.

He see’s Veronica and Ashley still milling around and they smile at him in greeting. He flushes, embarrassed, do they know? They turn back to their conversation moments later, none the wiser to his and Josie’s escapade - for once it seems the woman has been subtle. He hopes it stays that way - doesn’t know what to do or how to act if they all knew - but his mind stalls on the idea of telling Josie to keep their soiree quiet, to not tell her friends. It goes against nearly all his opinions of what fellas should and shouldn’t be telling dames to do - but - but he’d really appreciate the gossip not going further than his dressing room.

He slips out the back and he’s forgotten his hat but it’s okay. He’s in Delaware and it’s dark. There’s a park not far from here - he saw it on the way in; thought about going there to sketch before they made their way to the port later in the week. Steve sits under a tree and listens to the evening sounds of a smaller city. He thinks about ice-skating, snow and Californian girls. She knew what she was doing, like Bucky always claimed he did, and Steve wonders how many Bucky Barnes’ she has in her past.

How many Agent Carter does, as inappropriate as the thought is.

Twenty four years of waiting for the right partner, through all the lonely nights and through all of his best friend’s teasing, and that’s it: over.

Gone.

He doesn’t regret it - definitively doesn’t regret what she did with her mouth and her legs and what she brought out as a part of him he didn’t know existed - but. He doesn’t regret who he did it with - Josie’s a great gal; beautiful and funny and confident and kind; kind about it most of all. She kept stopping, checking in with him, if he was okay; and he said yes every time. He doesn’t regret it - but. But there’s a small part of him that’s disappointed in himself. Disappointed that he gave it up so early - he didn’t, twenty four years he waited - and that he didn’t hold on like he always said he would until marriage. 

He likes Josie; he really does - but it’s dark curled hair he sees, not red, when he thinks about slow dancing like Susie Maisel and Lucy Coulson. The same lipstick though.

Agent Peggy Carter is gone. 

She’s a professional; an Army woman in league with one of the most secret affiliations within the Allied Powers - and at war - she was never at that army base to be your dream girl Steve Rodgers.

She’s her own woman, and you’ll never see her again. Get over it, live your life - a better life than the one your used to - the life where dames throw themselves at you and you still don’t know what to do with them. He forces himself to think. Live that life - free of arrhythmia and deafness and asthma and enjoy, appreciate, this gift from God and science and stop wallowing in self pity.

If this really is a gift from God though, the other part of him thinks, for a better life with a better body - then why does he feel more alone than ever before?

. . .

 
He comes back to the theatre at eight-thirty to get his stuff and awkwardly shuffle in and wake Josie, but she’s gone when he slips in. She’s picked up her clothes from the floor and folded the blanket over the back of the couch. She’s written on the note Steve left her.

No need to thank me, honey.
I’ll see you Tuesday on the boat.

There’s a red lipstick kiss over the corner of the ‘t’ in boat.

Steve feels incredibly guilty.

. . .

Senator Brandt claps him on the shoulder or as high as he can reach as he always does, and has his staff take thirty photos of them together outside the cargo boat due to take them to Europe. 

To the war.

He hasn’t spoken to Josie yet; had gone to the docks two hours earlier to escape the hotel walls closing in on him, but it turns out the Senator’s there doing interviews before they depart - and Steve walks straight into his unwitting trap.

He spins the company line, “Bond sales take a 10% bump in every state I visit and with the success of the films and the comics, let’s hope we can bring some moral to the troops as we’ve done for the American public.”

“Oh you will, son, I’m sure of it!” Senator Brandt laughs, slapping him again and calling for one more photo, this time while Steve holds an American flag to match his costume. Wonder what he’d think if he knew the symbol of the American Propaganda machine was a socialist? Steve thinks to himself to bring out a sarcastic smile, then he really would be a true American joke.

. . .

(It’s late November, 1943. In Berlin, the Allied strategic bombing campaign is beginning to rack up heavy causalities; the day before the wreck of an opera house had made the American and European papers, and more homes are levelled on both sides. South of Rome, the heavy rain over the last week or so is delaying the Allied advance and the rest of the country is caught in the crossfire of the Allies and the Luftwaffe both. France is worse.

The first ever Captain America at Sea comic was printed yesterday, to join in with the others, and Casablanca premiered today. The war, though Steve doesn’t know it yet, is more than half over.)

. . .

Josie links arms with him unexpectedly at the prow of the ship as he’s watching the waves. This’ll be a long ten days. He wonders if he’ll get seasick, he’s never been on a boat like this before. He doubts it, with the serum. Bucky wrote him that he threw up for the first five days when he crossed the Atlantic, and lived off salted crackers while the other Sergeant in his squad laughed at him - until the guy ate some bad chicken and the roles were reversed.

I guess karma isn’t a myth after all, Steve, who would have thought? Bucky had written in his third to last letter, while Steve was busy lying to him about being in Basic. Though maybe Karma only exists on boats - in Poseidon's domain, not the almighty - it’s not like any of those assholes back at home got what was coming to them. What do you say to that?

I think your fists are what those assholes got coming to them, and that’s the only compliment I’m gonna give you. And Poseidon's domain?  Steve had written, and underlined it so Bucky would read the scoff in the words; come on pal, stop trying to turn me against God already, would ya, or I’ll tell Sister Joan.

That’s playing dirty Steve, Bucky wrote back a month later. I thought you were my friend, you traitor. Go back to Jersey and cry to Becca, seeing as the two of you are peas-in-a-pod now. Reckon maybe the sis’ is sweet on you, good luck - you’ll need it.

Honestly. You’re as bad as each other, Steve had opened his next letter with, as though they were having on of their usual everyday conversations in letter form.

“Hi Steve.”

“Hey Josie.” He says quietly, shifting his feet. He’s probably as red as a tomato right now. 

Josie snorts at his face, which tells Steve he's right. “Honestly, what are you carrying on about now?”

Steve sighs awkwardly, nervously. “About the other night….”

“What about it? I liked your note.”  She doesn’t sound sore about it. Steve opens his mouth to start a slew of apologies he has no idea how to phrase: for the note, for leaving, for Peggy Carter. She speaks before he can, “Did you have a good time?”

“Um,” Steve clears his throat, “I did.”

She raises an eyebrow at him, “You sure about that?”

“No--Yeah. I mean definitely. Definitely. It was,” he sighs at the memory, “it was great. Really great.”

Josie smiles gently, “Good. I’m glad.”

“Was it - was it good for you too?”

“It was.”

“Even though I didn’t---didn’t really know what I was---”

“You were a quick learner,” Josie winks at him, “I had a lovely time - your face in and of itself was great entertainment.”

Steve flushes. She laughs, elbowing him. “I’m only teasing you Steve,” she tells him, then repeats “I had a really nice time.”

“Really?”

“Really.” She leans up and kisses his cheek. “You’re going to make some lucky gal feel real special one day. I hope whoever you’re sweet on knows how swell you are.”

Steve pulls back to look at her in silence for a moment, not knowing what to say. She still has that gentle smile on her face, there’s nothing there to hint that she means any different.

“Josie,” he starts.

“Don’t you sweat it Steven Rodgers, I had a lovely time and you did too - which was important to me - and if you ever want any more practice,” she waggles her eyebrows, “then I’d be honoured. Just you make sure---” She pauses, then un-links their arms and turns him to face her directly. The sea breeze whips at her hair until it looks windswept and unkempt for the first time since Steve’s known her. She takes both of his elbows and looks him directly in the eyes. 

“Just you make sure that you never forget how swell you are Steve, and never let anyone tell you that you’re not. You’ve got me, your pal, and your pal’s sister from the sounds of it in your corner - and your mama’s looking down from heaven and agreeing with me here - we want you to be happy. And I hope that maybe I helped a little in the here and now - and that you cheer up soon - because someone as sweet as you doesn’t deserve to be so sad.”

Steve smiles at her, grateful. “You’re a real swell girl Josie,” he says her own words back at her, because they’re true. She flicks her hair as if to say, I know. “I had a great time.”

She kisses his cheek again, “I’ll see you inside?” She asks, turning to wander back in. Steve nods. “Don’t wait out here too much longer - any colder and your legs will turn into popsicles!”

He laughs at the familiar joke when she winks at him. He calls after her, “You Californian girls can’t handle the cold!”

BUCKY

He’s become the red-haired prisoner from a hundred years ago, the one that hid, curled up in the darkened corner and never spoke to anyone. The difference is, he has a tongue. He can talk but he doesn’t want to - doesn’t want to hear the voice of a reprehensible survivor. 

In a strange sense of self-realization, he feels like a widow; not a soldier whose comrade died in front of him, but a grieving widow mourning the loss of their partner. He hurts, like a pain in his chest that won’t leave, as bad as when his pa died - worse even. He didn’t see his pa’s brain splatter like an overripe tomato right next to him, onto him; only read the words ‘we regret to inform you.’

His pa had four children, a wife, a golden star, an empty casket and a real carved headstone that cost a whole month’s rent to remember him by. Andrew, his Andrew, has battered identity tags on a torn string in the pocket of a half-dead-half-human man whose still wearing his blood on his skivvies. That’s all.

He is Barnes, Sergeant 32557038, Subject #63 and he is never getting out of here. He is Barnes, Sergeant and he can heal a simple bullet wound in four days, completely in five; he has a dead pa, an unfaithful ma, three sisters and a best pal he’ll never see again; and he’s a widow.

The personification of him into the red-haired prisoner happens when they throw two fresh bloods in; one healthy, one sick, who have no idea what’s going on. Bucky starts laughing and can’t stop at the irony of it, right up until they get over their heart attacks and try to talk to him.

“What’s going on, man? What do they do to you in here?”

He turns away and closes his eyes, still laughing hysterically even when they yell at him, and rubs his finger over the ‘R’ of the green aluminium until he falls asleep and Zola calls for him again.

. . .

 He always gives back Bucky’s dog-tags.

Zola doesn't know about Andrew's tags, but if he does, well then he doesn't take them at all. They stay in Bucky's pocket when Zola puts him back in the iron lung to see if he can speed the process up even more; and they burn right the way through the fabric; blistering and burning right the way through seven layers of skin and muscle; scarring him for life. Zola was right about that; but for the life of him, Bucky; when he numbly investigates the searing bleeding hurt when he wakes and stops shaking; can't regret the burn. Now he has something else to carry with him; it's a kind of hurt he feels won't ever heal properly.

. . .

“He gave me a bunch of shots, but that was it--”

“Like medicine?”

“I don’t know; they strapped me down for it, but apart from that it….it wasn’t that bad.”

Bucky starts laughing again, “Just wait,” he croaks; the first time he’s made a sound since he lost his voice in the iron lung two days ago. “You’re in hell, you’ll see.”

. . .

The new soon-to-be-dead-men are called Private Campbell and Private Harris, not that Bucky bothers to introduce himself.

. . .

Zola still measures him after every session; seems to come to the conclusion that yes, his Vita-Kammer works and has triggered the yellow serum which has attached and become part of Bucky’s flesh, blood, and immune system, but it can’t trigger serum that he hasn’t been given yet. This is how he finally finds out what his machine does, that it’s been triggering and forcing the yellow serum deep into him until they become one single entity - he’s finally got the voltage and the dosage right - it’s why Bucky suddenly started healing so fast.

Achter was correct the day he died, when he said “Herr Doctor hatte Recht”. (“Herr Doctor was right.”)

Zola measures him because he’s looking for any physical changes - like Erksine’s, whatever that means. Except now that he’s not bothering to eat, or barely drink, even now they're allowing him food, he’s getting thinner not stronger. Zola decides to change that, and gives him a full bag of the green serum, clipping it to the tube in his elbow.

Apparently one of Zola’s other subjects - the monster - Bucky realizes, swelled up after Zola combined the green serums with the Vita-Kammer into the biggest - almost inconceivable physical change Zola ever expected. 

“It was an accident, you see? I didn’t know it would have that effect.” Zola tells him, as he always does now; the pathetic lonely little man. The other ones in the ‘Vitalität Trial’, until himself (#Subject 63), just burnt up and died from the radiation, either from the voltage or an unstable serum. Zola hasn’t attempted the other combination again, doesn’t want to risk attempting it another time until he’s got a second viable subject of the ‘Vitalität Trial’, which is what Private Harris is for - trying to replicate what he created in Bucky to take forward into the next step. At the end Andrew started physically changing, and he knows Zola knows that too - it’s why he was so angry when they shot #Subject 64. 

Andrew was right about the serum, even if he was wrong in thinking going back for Bucky was a good idea.

It buzzes like a hornets nest, (it’s the only way explain it) and the insects swarm into an unbeatable hoard whizzing through his blood and they stab stab stab until they penetrate his brain stem and invade, down every blood vessel; into his very thoughts. Everything turns to white noise, an old radio on the fritz, and Bucky listens and listens to the voices of the hornets as they whisper the secrets to heaven and hell. His body goes hot then cold then hot again, and his blood vibrates instead of burning from the venom until he’s bucking at the restraints, his heart pounding.

He wants to hurt something.

Zola asks him next if it feels hot or cold when it goes in, and when Bucky answers both he hums like it’s the most interesting thing he’s heard - it was just hot for Andrew, not cold, so he wonders what that means for him; if the two serums are fighting one another because he’s been cold every moment of everyday unless he’s coming out of the iron lung.

Zola asks him, “Do you feel good? Do you feel angry?” and he wants to laugh because he’s been to this movie, listened to this symphony before through Andrew’s words. 

The green serum burns all day, night and the day after, and when mixed with other cocktails he starts hearing voices in the white noise that belong to people he knows, makes him want to run to them - but he doesn’t hear the voice he wants. There’s no memory after death in the serum to tie it’s victims together. When Andrew doesn’t come for him - when he’s learnt his lesson that Bucky’s not worth the bullet to the brain - he begs for Steve in life and he begs for his pa in death. Zola tells him to stop whining, and orders him to, “Describe the sensation precisely.”

 He tries, he tries so hard but it’s so loud and distracting he can’t get the words out when he’s not angry - so Zola has the guards hit him when he starts shouting gibberish instead. They threaten to take his tongue like they’ve done to so many others but before Bucky can respond Zola waves them off. 

“While it would be interesting to see if he can grow it back I need his answers for my data, he’s the only one whose ready for the next stage now.” The only one after you idiots shot my other, is implied.

Zola has looked at him with a new kind of strange respect since he watched the video footage of their escape and realized Bucky killed five of the nine, or ten or eleven or whatever it was, that day.

“And that was before you were gifted with the alternative, second Stehvermögen trial.” The true gift would be death. “That combined with your already enhanced immune system….” Zola looks purely gleeful, like the cat who ate the cake, if that’s the correct expression.

“Make a dame look that happy and maybe I’ll be more impressed.” Bucky croaks at him before he starts the day’s experiments.

. . .

"It will improve," Zola says sometimes, but never to Bucky. "I just need a bit more time."

When did he get here? Did he - did he even go back in the cell last night, or did he stay and sleep on the table? He's thirsty. Zola says something else to his assistant, some kind of dictation.

What will improve, Bucky wants to ask.

. . .

The spaces in between when he’s on the table and in the cell become less memorable, to the point Bucky forgets about them altogether. He and Campbell, the other one getting the green serum, are often shot with darts through the food slot of the door to keep them down when the guards enter, much to Harris’ shock the first time it happens while he’s still in the room. You can say what you want, but these new motherfuckers aren’t as stupid as the ones whose heads Andy cracked like hard candy.

The serum’s kicked in for both him and Campbell in different but similar ways already - so they’ve learnt from their mistakes and are culling down their awareness and ability before they start getting as strong as Andrew was. The problem with that logic is; they used to do this to Bucky before the green serum when they didn’t need to: and his new mutated self recognizes the drug and recovers even quicker than usual to the point that it barely works at all - maybe finally choosing Bucky’s side. Though if the serums really were sentient and on his side then they would have let him die by now.

Still buzzed and feeling reckless from the day before, Bucky wonders how many guards he will have to kill to get them to shoot him, and pretends to pass out when the dart catches him in the kidney. 

Campbell and Harris ignore him like he and Andrew used to do to the ginger - they get the message in a way Andrew never did in that he wants to be left alone. They back up to the wall ready for the men to come in when the slot slides open and the rifle muzzle appears - and hold their hands up like normal men do when guns are pointed at them.

Bucky stops tapping Choplin’s Berceuse against his leg with one hand and carving ‘Barnes & McNair were here’ into the wall with the other, and ‘sleeps’. 

They clip the pole onto his collar while their new ‘big one’ gets him under the arms. He twists. Then kicks. The third goes down with the hit to the solar plexus and he slams his right forearm into the pole attached to his throat. He feels the bone in his arm fracture down the middle but it breaks and he uses the broken end to stab it’s holder. He elbows the big one in the face hard enough to make his head snap back and on the recoil pulls off the guy’s mask and hood in one. He punches him again at the angle and placement he knows will break the guy’s nose and send the bone stabbing up into his brain.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Campbell yells.

The man falls without a sound, and Bucky pulls the knife from his belt as the man hits the floor. Campbell, the smartest of the two newbies takes the opportunity to shove Harris so they can run while they have the chance. 

He throws the knife with his left hand and it hits one of the squad that has started running towards the cell.

“Shit!” Harris yelps, voice cracking, head rocking back to glance at him when the knife strikes deep into the throat of the guard whose electrical baton was an inch away from the man’s ribcage.

Campbell manages to wound two of them - one seriously - before they’re overwhelmed. Bucky stands in the cell with bodies and one still choking guard around him - dares them to shoot him.

“Do it!” He screams, Andrew’s blood still under his fingernails.

“Nicht schießen! Schießen Sie nicht auf diesen Gefangenen!” (“Do not shoot! Do not shoot that prisoner!”) shouts Zola’s new, actual medical, assistant. They ignore him and cock their weapons.

“Go on, shoot me! Do it!”

“Nicht schießen! Er ist Herr Doctor's, schießen ihn nicht!” (“Do not shoot! He is Herr Doctor's, do not shoot him!”)

“Feuer einstellen!” (“Hold your fire!”) Zola’s sharp, for once commanding, voice orders and some of them hesitate. He’s Zola’s most successful subject now; they know what happened to the last assault team that didn’t hold their fire.

Zola won’t let you die, not on your terms, only on his. Bucky snarls and runs forwards. One of them shoots and he ducks sideways, bullet skinning his shoulder and somehow - he doesn’t know how - he yanks the gun from his hands and pistol whips him with the barrel. He shoots another in the arm, the snaps the muzzle at Zola's head right as the new Lieutenant shoves a super-charged baton into his back.

Shock, frazzle, electric-bang! Ow ow ow hurt hurthurthurt - black!

He wakes up on the table.

“That was a nice try, Sergeant        you won’t get that chance again.” Zola says with no bullet hole in him.

He locks him in a new, smaller cell on his own. There’s no window in this one, only darkness.

.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

The idea of faces become a bizarre faraway concept when he can’t see his own, or any other cellmates’, or the guards real faces behind those dark goggles. He supposes that’s the point - the only face he see’s regularly is Zola’s until it becomes the only one he actively recognizes.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been in the dark hole since Zola first threw him in here, a day, a week, a month - time is also a bizarre faraway concept. There’s no point carving lines in the walls to mark the days when he can’t see them or when he doesn’t have someone else to tell him when he’s missed a couple. Andrew once spent a whole hour, when time meant something to him, obsessing over the four extra lines Bucky had carved in, because he didn’t remember them - and then he forgot that he forgot so Bucky managed to get some sleep that night after all. There are no days and nights here, only darkness and lab-time, which he spends more and more time in; sometimes three times in one cycle like a yo-yo. He knows this because Zola’s wearing the same tie.

On that day; the same day; Zola takes note of his dark, pigmented urine; and taps his cheeks - side to side - several times, making his head rock and flop. He observes the disorientation and drowsiness his drugs are not responsible for for once. He feels at Bucky's chapped lips, parting them; and pads against his flaky lacklustre skin; almost massaging where he's beginning to break-out around his beard and scalp. He diagnoses dehydration, and tells Bucky off like a school child for not drinking the water they so generously give him. You drug the water you give me, he thinks back blearily, eyes dropping, or at least I think you do.

He does something to Bucky's belly again, cutting, pinching, injecting; who knows - "another tube," Zola says, oh, like I don't already have enough. Thanks so much. "Directly to the organ - we will find another route if you refuse to use the one God has given you." He says.

Bucky croaks out a laugh, what would you know about God and all things right and holy? 

Zola doesn't deign him an answer to the silent spiteful question, he merely ignores what was supposed to be sarcasm in laugh form, coming out more of a crack of air if anything. Instead Zola floods his body through his stomach-tube-port with water, several times; overnight on the table. He does the same nearly everyday. Bucky is disgusted at the feeling, but he feels much better. Dammit.

They bring him into the lab when one of the other prisoners is already in there, and his is the first face he’s seen since Zola’s in what feels like an age. He knows Harris and Campbell exist locked away in his old cell but he can’t remember what they look like - doesn’t think he’d recognize them if he saw them again. He thinks this might be one of them, who probably looks the same aside from the beard and the syphilis rash, but the entire time Bucky spends staring at him he seems like a different man. 

He spends the next terror-stricken cycle of darkness trying to remember Becca’s face, then Steve’s face, then Colette’s face - and when he has their vague face shapes and expressions held in his memory he draws them out in lucid hallucinations where they talk about eyeglasses. They start listing all the different kinds until the three of them are arguing about where half-moons should go in the pro’s and con’s table they’ve drawn up on the back of a cereal packet.

He’s so hungry. It's his own fault, because he's still not eating; not really.

Of the three of them he doesn’t know which is which - only knows which one’s Becca by how much the hallucination swears.

Then they all put on the dark ugly goggles the guards wear and it startles Bucky so much he throws his wash bucket at them until he’s sitting wet in sudsy water.

. . .

He spends the next cycle surrounded by dogs of all different breeds, some with wings and some with beaks and scales and that’s entertaining at least in that he has to guess which are real and which aren’t.

The answer is: none of them are real, but he likes the mangy street mutt with a cat’s bushy tail the best.

. . .

He starts...he's not eating, but he's not getting thinner anymore. If anything, he's carrying a bit more weight than he was; he can still feel his wrist bone and collarbone when he pokes it, and may be able to see it if he had light but - they don't feel as prominent. But he's not...he's not eating; so how is he putting on weight? He blames the tube-port in his stomach Zola uses to flood his system into hydration, it must be that; because he doesn't remember eating. He doesn't. He remembers specifically not eating by his own choice; to starve or because he's just too tired; well, he wouldn't be able to tell you. He does remember them kicking his full plate of food at him when they opened the door and it was uneaten; when in fact there was four plates there; the oldest already going mouldy in the infested room. 

They were very angry; one of them held him down and another had taken a handful of mash and shoved it in his mouth, and he spat it right back in his face. They beat him, mash still splattered on one of their masks - and then something-something happened, then the collar clicked and they carried him out. They talked to Zola, who told them something-something, and then nothing. His throat hurt after, and his bones ached, but then they always ache. But he spat the mash back up, he didn't eat; he didn't. So how is he--wait, how long ago was that now?

Where, when is he?

The tube-port. In his stomach. Right - that's the culprit. He's already going to miss all that free hydration during lab-time, he always feels so much better after, but sacrifices sacrifices. He fiddles and fiddles, then pulls it out - he presents the medical apparatus stuck in the middle of the carrot mash for the fuckers in the morning. He adds in a smiley face made from peas underneath it.

The guards are angry again. Zola is amused. Zola puts the apparatus right back in.

And then he... how long ago was that? Where, when is he?

The mangy street mutt comes to sit with him again. He's thirsty.

. . .

Zola tells him he’s stabil und lebensfähig and he’s progressing nicely, and Bucky feels like he accomplished something.

Zola also tells him Harris is dead, which makes sense, seeing as he must be the faceless corpse he doesn’t recognize on the table next to him. Zola seems confused, because he used the same voltage and dosage on him that worked on Bucky, but he never recovered from the sickness or the radiation.

“Guess that’s what happens when you combine syphilis and Typhoid Fever and Chlorea,” Bucky says, because that’s exactly what Zola did. His blitzed out brain says, “Maybe you need to keep up the serums and the steroids for longer so the body gets used to it before you go for the big finale. Like you did with me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Zola scoffs, but later Bucky see’s him doing exactly that with Subject #67 and having success.

“Told you,” Bucky boasts from his table. Zola gives him a dirty look and a sedative for his intelligence - which is nice of him.

. . .

He thinks Campbell’s still alive, but at the same time he could also be the one on the trolley in the corridor ready for the furnace. That could also still be Harris if they haven’t gotten round to him yet.

He doesn’t know.

. . .

His favourite dog has puppies; each tail bushier than the last and he names all of them - calls the ugliest one Becca so she’ll throw a book at him so he can read it in the dark. He wishes he was blind, so he could read Great Expectations in Braille. No wait, what is he thinking, he hates Great Expectations - it's super duper boring, no matter how good Charles Dickens is. He wants a Flash Gordan - but, that's mostly pictures and he can't see - so useless. Olaf Stapleton then. He wishes he was blind so he can read Olaf Stapleton in Braille - there, that's better.

One of the puppies eats a smiley face of peas floating in the soup next to him. He leans his head against the wall and watches the puppy's tongue lick up the soup inexpertly, flicking it across the floor and all up it's nose. Bucky smiles in amusement. He's always wanted a dog like his Aunt and Uncle had, but they had a bigger house with a bigger yard; and dogs need to be free to run. He feels sorry that all of these are stuck in here with him.

A few hours later he goes to slurp the soup and it's gone, the plate is empty. Oh. Those puppies must have been hungry.

. . .

He realizes he's begun forgetting things.  He may have been for a while, but he can't remember, so he can't know for sure.

It’s small at first - no big revelation or panic like with the faces he doesn’t recognize - just small things, like when did they replace the port in his elbow or his waste bucket and when did he throw up? Why does he feel sick when he sees smiley faces made from peas, why does he sometimes come back to himself sat in a chair, not a table, that isn't in the lab but somewhere else; tied up and head strapped right the way back. When that happens, why are his cheeks wet and why does his throat pulse like---

Something catches, his body convulsing, gagging--where, when is he? Who was Colette? Who was, what do, how, should, what? Who is Subject #63 - Subject #63 is him.

It takes a couple more days and more than a couple of sessions with short recovery times after the revelation to realize it started when Zola first used Subject #64’s machine on him - the one that closes around the left side of his face and makes his muscles twitch. 

Zola’s assistant asks, “What was the picture I showed you before?” in his Austrian accent. And then, “What kind of animal was it? What kind of gun was it?”

Then it clicks. Subjects #64's machine; memory, forgetting, yes. Oh dear. Oh no.

The questions get more and more specific and more and more helpful but Bucky still can’t remember if it was a picture of a beaver or a bear or a cat or a elephant because he’s never seen an elephant or a beaver or a bear in real life before. He starts laughing mid Sergeant in deja vu at the deja vu of it, knowing he’s done it before. He wonders if the red-haired prisoner would have laughed at the familiarity of the familiarity if he could - if his story was the same story as Bucky’s just two months earlier.

He saw the date on the assistant's clipboard earlier, the 9th of November, 1943. He’s been in this factory for fifty-nine days, and in this lab for for fifty-one days but it feels like his whole life.

He longs for his pa taping his knuckles his up and his sisters’ bitching. He longs for Steve’s never ending rants about Norman Thomas, “I’m telling you Buck, if he makes it to office - the difference it’ll make for the working classes and civil rights is just - you just don’t understand!” and for his Great Aunt’s piano and the smell of his ma’s soap over his shoulder. He longs for what he and Subject #64 did in the dark; the night before they should have died together.

He presses his restrained wrist against his hip as much as he can until his fingers press against the mysterious ‘R’ through the fabric of his pocket’s pocket. 

The Richard, Robert, Ronald, Raymond, Rodger, Russel, Robin, Ross, Romeo, Rodney, Randall, Rubin, Rowan question quietens the hornets in his head - distracts from the ssswisnh energy powering up behind his skull. It doesn’t distract him from his twitching cramping muscles after but Bucky’s long ago stopped believing in miracles. 

He can’t remember the words of the Hail Mary, or what happened to the Israelites after they crossed the sea, or how many O Lord, Jesus Christ, Redeemer and Saviour’s he needs to recite to atone for murdering a man. He thinks the point is that you can’t atone for that kind of thing - not even with final confession. He does remember the hot voltaic energy he feels when the green serum slides home in his arm or drip drips from the bag above his head, and how it excites his body in all kinds of ways as much as it rejects it.

Sometimes, on the come-downs which are thirty to ninety percent worse than the iron lung depending on the day, he wishes for the second machine because while it’s awful when it happens it means he’ll either forget the day’s work or he’ll pass out so he doesn’t have to feel it. 

He understands why his friend ate the rat now.

“What was on the picture I showed you?”

“A donkey,” he says even though this time he knows it was a tree. “Clark Gable,” even though it was a tank. “Mrs Coulter’s Peach Pie,” even though it was a banana.

. . .

The assistant takes him at his word but Zola knows him better than that and rips the results from the clipboard and puts one too many pinching staples in his body than he needs to on the next cycle. He takes the tube-port out, and Bucky goes very thirsty again. No, give it back.

. . .

"I'll eat. I'll drink. I will, I promise. I'll eat now , anything you give me - just please don't                

. . .

Sarah, his favourite companion, likes to sit next to him and lean into his ribs until she unbalances them both and he falls on his side. Her pups are old enough to be weened, and they run around his feet and whine when their brothers and sisters win at play fights. It brings Bucky a small amount of joy to watch them, while Sarah; the best mother, watches him watch them with a keen eye as Bucky scratches behind her ears. He feels like her pup sometimes too, when he’s so upset and so tired from the come-downs and the vomiting, and she pads over and licks his face until he starts smiling again.

The first time she speaks with her namesake’s voice he just about has a fit, and she licks his scraggly cheek until he’s calmed down and tells him he needs to wash the blood off his shirt and skivvies properly, or he’ll get an infection.

“No I won’t,” he replies, defensive about the blood, “I’ll heal before any infection starts;” and  pulls out a new staple in his stomach to prove it. 

She looks at him with an unimpressed expression, like she used to when he was thirteen and twitches her nose - when did she get whiskers? - says, “James Barnes, what young lady will want you when you smell and look like that?”

“Thought it was my foul mouth that was going to scare them off, not my face.” He retorts and she turns her back on him and makes all the puppies go with her.

He’s never felt more betrayed.

. . .

They start taking him to a room filled with old pallets, cabinets, tables, chairs and cameras and he thinks he’s supposed to break things. He feels like a bull in a china shop, for some reason, even though he’s flesh and bone and not a two-thousand pound cow and the room is nearly as big as Zola’s lab. They lock him behind thick bars, and order something in clipped German he doesn’t bother to listen to. 

There’s bloodstains on the threshold of the door and around the bars, stained deep into the concrete so it won’t come out no matter how much the Krauts scrub it. He wonders what happened, how many men died here, why the stains look like German blood and why he feels so vindicated when he looks at them.

He smashes three cabinets and six pallets, his head pounding and the hornets buzzing - he feels great - and does what the Krauts want him to do without even realizing it. There’s a small clock on the wall and he throws it hard enough to crack the observation screen when he tries and fails to read the time.

It’s a long cycle but he’s still pumped; Zola gave him two doses today to track his endurance and how long the best - or worst - symptoms of the serum last. They shoot him with a dart, a new sedative; stronger than the last through the bars and he wakes up on the table again as he usually does. Zola switches on his big circular surgical light, shines it on his face until he flinches from the brightness. He’s not used to light anymore.

“Turn it down, you motherfucker.” He slurs, tongue still thick, while the insects buzz at the back of his throat. He keeps thinking if he opens his mouth the hoard will come out in a swarm, like the Egyptian plague, and eat Zola instead of the crops until all that’s left is his stupid little spectacles and white coat. He opens his mouth again to let them out - they’re coming this time, he swears - and Zola pours water past his lips.

He’s so grateful and thirsty he forgets about his plague and gulps it down until it stops. He keeps his mouth open, like a baby bird waiting for more, but Zola puts a familiar mouth guard between his teeth instead. He wheels the new machine over his head and plugs it in, checks the wires and ports - slides the restraints under his jaw and the blue light piece down over his left eye and forehead and ear. He whines; he doesn’t like light anymore - especially when it’s stabbing him in his retina and making his head fuzz out until he’s trapped in his own fitting body.

. . .

What, where, when is he?

. . .

“Are you ready to combine the green stuff with the iron lung again yet?” Bucky asks him on an easy day, when all he has to look forward to is needles and measurements and he can’t be bothered with Barnes, Sergeant 32557038. 

Zola’s sat at his desk, taking notes, and Bucky has to ask him louder a second time until he hears him. Zola hums from his desk; he knows ‘the iron lung’ is what Bucky calls his Vita-Kammer.

”Not yet.” He answers, and Bucky hears his pen dip into the ink pot beside his notes before he goes back to them. “I am still encountering the same problem; I need at least two viable subjects so I don’t waste one of them if it has the same effect.”

“Shame,” Bucky says casually, his arms itchy. “Would have been fun to watch one of those monsters rip themselves off the table to swash you like a grape. Swiisshh.” He makes the sound effect for good measure.

Zola’s pen stops and Bucky can feel his eyes on the bottom of his chin from where he’s sat at his desk. His assistant drops something on the other side of the room. 

The scribbling starts back up again, “You know Sergeant, most of my subjects don’t talk as much as you.”

“Most of your subjects keep dying,” Bucky retorts, “But not me.”

Zola harrumphs in agreement, “Yes, Sergeant, but not you.”

. . .

Campbell is still alive - he was right. The two of them pass each other in the corridor, clipped collars on them both as Bucky is dragged by the armpits, dart in his neck, on the way back from the room with the bloodstains. Campbell looks at him for a long time as they pass, pupils blown and straining against the guards as he goes for his turn.

He’s a lot bigger than Bucky - and he doesn’t think it’s from better food. Bucky eats now; he throws up afterwards often enough - especially when he binges, but he hasn’t put on muscle from just eating and he knows there’s only so many push-ups you can do in his old cell. Huh, I guess Zola isn’t failing with all of his subjects after-all, he thinks. Bucky’s not the only success. 

He wants to ask Zola why Campbell is getting physically bigger, more muscled, than him when they’re on the same trial now and why it’s happening quicker with him than it did with Subject #64. He doesn’t in the end; doesn’t need to - he remembers his thoughts about his hot and cold flushes - about both serums fighting each other in his one body. 

He’s stronger and faster and he dented a iron bar the other cycle so he knows Zola’s green Stehvermögen trial is working, but he’s not swelling up with muscle like Campbell is. 

He thinks Zola’s come to the same conclusion when he stops measuring him and instead starts taking vials and vials of Bucky’s blood and spending hours looking at them under a microscope.

. . .

Sarah’s back and has forgiven if not forgotten, and she curls up by his feet and whines when he lies on his back and feels along his belly to start pulling out the new staples again. She bites his hand and tells him she and the pups will leave again if he pulls out another one so he stops. Little white Stevie the runt is curled up on his chest and he doesn’t want Stevie’s mama to wake him because of Bucky’s bad behaviour. Sarah also plays dirty, because she knows his weaknesses and will use them against Bucky - which is a little malicious if you ask him.

“I’m firm but fair,” she says to answer his thoughts, then snaps, “I said stop James!”

“I’m not James.” He says.

“You’ve always been James, you foolish boy. To me, to your mama, to----”

“I’m not James.” 

Sarah sighs, “Bucky---”

“I’m not Bucky either.” He contradicts dully, and taps Berceuse against the grimy floor again. Sarah says nothing. “I’m Barnes, Sergeant 325570--”

“You are not, Bucky Barnes!” Steve’s voice snaps out loud, somewhere by his left ear. He jumps up, stumbling, swats at his ear and spins to find Steve but he can’t see him in the dark. 

“Steve?” he calls out hesitantly, then blinks, hand on his chest because where did Stevie go? He was sleeping right here. Bucky’s sure of it, stroking the warm patch leftover from the sleeping pup, laying over his beating heart. 

“Stevie?” He calls for the pup, “Georgie? Winnie?” and then the others, even the ugliest, “Becks?”

He can feel the walls closing in, the darkness so encompassing that his eyes will never adjust. He tries to push back the hot tears burning behind his lids; fails and wraps his arms around himself. He whines, starting to weep again. “Stevie? Sarah I---”

“I’m right here James,” Sarah says, her bushy tail brushing against his leg. Pure relief bursts out of him and he gasps out a sob, drops to his knees again as Sarah buts her head against his pinched stomach, rubs against his scarred itchy arms. 

“Sarah. Sarah, please. Please don’t go. Please don’t go, I’ll stop, just don’t go.” 

She pushes him back with her paws and spins in a circle to get comfy, and he curls himself around her as tightly as he can. “You really need to wash, James.” She says after a minute.

“I know,” he murmurs back quietly, “but I don’t want to lose that part of him.”

He falls asleep until the next cycle curled around Sarah the mother mutt and her litter, her bushy tail tickling his nose. He dreams, he thinks, but can’t remember what about.

. . .

Sarah’s gone.

He jolts at the sudden emptiness and the coldness that comes rushing in the circle of his bare arms, and looks up, squinting in the sudden brightness. A dark silhouette is stood in the doorway, back lit by the buzzing bulbs. The last couple of hornets buzz in response to the sound - is it time already?

Sarah’s stood in front of him, hackles raised, growling at the guard in the doorway.

“What are you doing?!” He hisses at her in panic. She normally shoos her pups into the corner to avoid the danger like a good mother would. 

What is she thinking?

“Auf die Fube!” (“On your feet!”) The silhouette says, hand tightening on the handle of his baton - they don’t carry guns anymore, not these ones anyway, so Bucky and Campbell don’t try to shoot anyone else. Sarah bristles and bares her teeth like a mama bear, makes herself as big as she can - bushy tail ramrod straight and huge.

“Sarah get back!” He hisses at her, crawls onto his knees to follow the orders. “Your puppies Sarah!” He reminds her, “You’ve got to protect your pups!”

“Halt den mund! Ich sagte, auf die Beine kommen!” (“Shut up, I said get on your feet!”)

She cants her head to look at him for less than a moment, and her eyes are the fiercest he’s ever seen them; on both their faces. She says, growl building deep in her chest, “I am protecting my pup.”

At the sound of the baton charge she grows three times her size and launches herself forward at the enemy.

“No!” Bucky screams, darting forward helplessly.

A kick. A backhand. A baton strike. Sarah and he yelp as one, and he hits the floor in the spotlight of the doorway, face pulsing while his muscles spasm.

Sarah slams into the cell wall with a deafening crack. She slides and slumps lifelessly to the ground and shrinks to her original size as she dies. He stares at her lifeless little body, ribcage caved in; stain of red on her sandy fur under her head.

They slam him into the ground, three of them, and he stares at Steve’s dead mama. “No, no,” he cries before they shock him into unconsciousness.

. . .

When he wakes, he’s in the bloodstained room and he knows he’ll never see Sarah or her puppies ever again - knows he as good as killed her too.

“Hey.” Someone croaks, “Barnes, isn’t it?”

He turns his head and blinks at the muscled man in rotting clothes across from him.

 “At least, that’s what your tags said. I looked. Sergeant Barnes - didn’t know you were a Sergeant when you were in the cell with us.”

He doesn’t recognize him.

“It’s Campbell.” The man says.

“Right.” 

“We were in---”

“No I know, I know we were.” He replies, it starting to come back to him. “I just didn’t recognize you,” he then admits, because why not?

“Yeah I know,” the guy grimaces, looking down on himself. “I don’t exactly look like I used to - some would say it’s an improvement but-” The guy looks away, fist tightening until his veins stand out, “-but nothing that sick bastard does is an improvement. God!” He shouts at the end and Bucky watches him warily, eyes glancing at the spot of red on the inside of his elbow, his slowly widening pupils. Why is he in here with him?

He checks his own elbows, but it’s hard to tell with the port Zola put in to stop his veins collapsing. There’s no residue as there usually is; Zola’s green serum has grown consistently thicker.

“I think Harris is dead,” Campbell growls, “he hasn’t come back to the cell in ages.”

Bucky glances up at him then keeps checking the rest of his usual injection sites. “He is.”

“And how the fuck would you know?”

“I saw him.” Bucky tries to pull the reactionary annoyance out of his voice as he checks the staples on his stomach. There’s a buzzing near his left ear, annoying and persistent until he starts swatting at it. The side of his neck is burning. He touches it and like a flood opening up he starts to hear familiar insects.

“Surprised you’re talking to me now,” Campbell continues, standing and harshly shoving a rogue cabinet out of his way. There’s not that many left now. “As far as you were concerned we could fuck off and go to hell before - what’s changed now, huh?”

“Nothing!” Bucky snaps back, standing himself and spinning in a circle. He doesn’t trust this quiet, or the hornets - did Sarah know something he didn’t?

“Fuck off, you coward.” Campbell snarls at him, his anger building like a wave, “You never cared about us!”

Why would I, Bucky bites back; hands starting to shake with the rising energy. He’s never been alone with anyone when he’s been hopped up like this before - not unless he’s been tied down. “Gave you that chance to run, didn’t I? It’s not my fault you screwed it up.”

“Screwed it up?!” Campbell scoffs furiously and throws a drawer from the cabinet at him in one swing. Bucky ducks, his blood starting buzz with narcotic energy. “You didn’t do that to let us escape - you did it to get them to shoot you! I heard ya, you pathetic coward---what kind of solider are---”

“Soldiers! If you would!” Zola’s voice comes over the tannoy above them. “My experiment does not require your egos or petty arguments - that is the only warning I’ll give you. Now I am going to give you a series of tests under the same conditions to measure and compare your results------”

Bucky stops listening, who is this fucking guy? He snarls instead, picks up an oak side table and flings it against where he knows the reinforced observation deck is. Zola falters for a second over the tannoy as the wood splinters, then starts up confidently again, “I have given you both identical dosages----”

He doesn’t hear what else the doctor says - Campbell lets out a scream of rage and tackles him clear across the room. 

Zola’s voice cuts off.

 Campbell grabs at his leg, fingers clenched tight and flips him so he lands on his back, spittle flying everywhere. Bucky groans in pain, coughing, and darts his head at the last second.

“You never cared!” Campbell screams, his eyes wild; face ugly with anger. The concrete cracks into a crater under his fist by Bucky’s ear. “You never cared!”

He aims a fist again at Bucky’s head who kicks him, getting his knee up so Campbell’s swing goes wide as he grunts. He snarls at Bucky, not unlike how Sarah did, and slams his head into the concrete before Bucky can stop him and goes for his throat. Hands close around his windpipe, a mountain sits on his chest.  

His vision whites out like someone’s hit a switch and sound is gone; it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist just like Sarah, Georgie, Winnine, Becca, Stevie, Lils and Jenna didn’t. The only thing that exists is the pressure over his throat.

He’s choking when he comes back to himself, Campbell pressing down on top of him until Bucky feels like his neck is about to fracture.

He’s going to kill me. The guy’s out of control.

He tries to kick him again, anywhere he can, but Campbell’s moved up and trapped his legs - he can’t breathe he can’t breathe - he can’t--------

His left arm snaps up from Campbell’s wrist around his throat and he punches him. It’s the wrong angle and Campbell doesn’t even grunt - so he takes a note from the guys own book and goes for the neck. Campbell cuts off whatever he’s yelling when Bucky chops him with the side of his hand in the throat, bucking against him. He chokes for a moment, the mountain of a man, and his grip loosens a little so Bucky tries to slam one of his arms free to get traction.

You can’t breathe, you can’t breathe. He’s gonna’ kill you, he’s gonna’ kill you. 

You want to die but not like this.

Not like this.

His other scrabbling hand catches on a table leg. He snaps it clean off and cracks it across the side of Campbell’s head until it splinters. The growls cut off and the enemy cries out, his grip finally slackening and Bucky gasps in relief.

There’s a wooden splinter pierced deep into the enemy’s eyeball -he doesn’t know pain like you do - show him. 

Now that he has traction Bucky twists himself and punches the enemy in the ribcage until he hears something crack and he’s free. He keeps moving, half climbing up the man’s side until he’s half on his shoulders. He get hold of either side of his head, goes to snap his neck clean in two.

He slams back into the ground on his side as Campbell manages to flip him off and throws him into a cabinet. He gasps, coughing; winded.

“You’re dead! You’re dead!” The enemy screams and charges him again - blind in one eye and blood running down his face. Still winded on the floor Bucky darts clumsily to one side. They’re different sizes, the enemy’s stronger and you’re smaller but you can be just as fast, like Steve is - and kicks him in the side of the knee, like he feels he’s done before. This time, the enemy’s entire knee joint dislocates and he goes down screaming.

The tannoys on - Zola’s shouting orders - guards are coming.

Bucky cracks another chair against the small of the enemy’s back to keep him down and goes for his neck again. He can’t even feel his own throat from where it has almost completely closed up, hand-prints bruised deep. 

It’s not as much of a fight as a struggle - both of them too close to one another, and too angry to throw the proper punches Bucky knows how to do. The hornets are so loud and his hearts pumping so hard he doesn’t even feel it when the enemy cracks him in head so there’s blood in his eye as he tries to dislodge him. He’s grabbing and scrabbling at Bucky’s arms so much Bucky can’t get a firm grip on the guy’s jaw, and then the enemy grabs him under the armpit to flip him again. Bucky kicks him backwards in the diaphragm to try and stop him. It doesn’t work, so he lets his balance go and uses the momentum to send them both to the ground instead. 

The enemy goes to gouge his eyes out and Bucky grabs a broken shard of wood the size of a baseball bat, remembers the feel of a sharpened bed-pole in his hand.

He does it before he thinks about hesitating and drives it deep into enemy’s chest until it comes out the other side.

Campbell’s good eye sparks then goes glassy. He chokes, and coughs; blood and spittle splatter across Bucky’s face and chest like Andrew’s brains did. He slumps backwards and hits the ground, still choking on the blood bubbling out of his mouth.

Bucky’s angry high goes off like a switch. 

Shit, shit. 

He scrambles on top of Campbell and tries to plug the front hole but the wooden shaft is there and the damage is already done.

“Shit, shit, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Bucky rants, grabbing at him helplessly until the light goes completely out in the soldier’s face. 

He’s so young, Bucky’s mind screams as his mouth mumbles, looking down on the unshaven face, unblemished by anger, of an eighteen year old boy.

The guards shoot him with three darts on Zola’s panicked order and he slumps sideways off the body of the child he just murdered. 

. . .

It turns out - they weren’t supposed to kill each other. Zola’s irate like he was the last time someone other than him killed one of his subjects - but he’s only got himself to blame for putting two steroid enhanced soldiers with a predisposition for violence together when they’re hopped up on megalomaniac serum. It’s his own fault, and Bucky’s too; who he can’t kill because now he really is the only remaining successful subject in both his trials.

The come-down lasts for an age when he wakes up on the table, and after, while he’s still strapped down the guards shave his beard and catch him with the blade as often as they can.

It’s the middle of the night, and its in the quiet darkness that they frog-march him, drugged and stumbling to the shower blocks and hose the blood off him. They strip him of his clothes and he grabs at his trousers until they rip.

“Wie zum Teufel hat dieser von den beiden uberlebt?” (“How the hell did this one survive out of the two of them?”) One of them comments above him as he wrestles for this trousers back.

He’d like to know that himself.

They rip the remains of his trousers off him by punching him in the stomach. It’s not that hard, even with him sliced down the middle but he goes down, curling up so he can slip green and red under his tongue. He lets the remaining fabric of his ripped pockets fall. He lets them drag him naked back to his cell. Before they shove him into the black hole they drop him until he catches himself on the wall with one hand, and order:

“Sie setzen auf.”

Bucky’s head is too thick and fuzzy to understand.

“Put them on!” Another one orders in accented English and he see’s another prisoner’s green fatigues hanging off a trolley.

It’s only after, once he spits out the identity tags without Sarah to lecture him; that he realizes that he doesn’t have his blood stained skivvies anymore.

. . .

They bring him to the room for the last time afterwards, once he’s been under the second machine for a whole cycle to….do he doesn’t know what.

The room’s a ruin with smashed cabinets and tables and pallets, with bloodstains on the floor, both old and fresh.

Zola, standing behind four guards, points at the scarlet blood over the brown. “What happened here Sergeant?”

Bucky stares blankly at him, left eye red and watering. He tries to swat at his ear but the guard who has his arms locked behind him is firm. The guard with the collar pole shakes it until he focuses.

“What happened here Sergeant?” Zola repeats until Bucky looks back at the stain. “What happened here?”

Bucky mumbles.

“Speak up. I can’t hear you Sergeant.”

“Someone died.” Bucky says louder, slurring a little.

“Someone died,” Zola affirms, “Do you know who died here?”

Bucky shakes his head, no.

. . .

More subjects and ‘cellmates’ must come and go, Bucky doesn’t bother to learn their names. They’ll just die and leave him alone again until the guards toss Zola another one like a prized fish, because that’s the thing; he keeps on surviving them, over and over.

He knows it must be due to the resilience and healing trials at the beginning; when Zola turned his immune system into some kind of steamroller, but that seems so long ago - years ago - when he thinks back on it now. 

Was his childhood all some fantastical dream with his strong father, swell best friend and bratty sisters, when really, he was born on this table the same way he planned on dying on it? 

He keeps recovering and the others don’t. They wallow and they cry and then they die.

. . .

Zola tells him he’s proud of him.

Whether he’s proud of his biological successes or proud of Bucky for forgetting to scream, he doesn’t know.

What does it matter?

. . .

Zola’s getting more impatient. Bucky can tell, because he keeps killing all the new subjects by accident and then having to cut them up in front of Bucky to see where he’s gone wrong.

Currently his only true success, still Zola’s favourite, Bucky rarely leaves the table any more - barely remembers the cell and the rat that kept trying to eat his extremities. That’s how he knows Zola’s been skipping some of the slower steps he meticulously mapped out and logged with Bucky’s, Subject #64’s and the others’ first trials, trying to speed up the process - or even turn it into one procedure instead of two hundred. Recovery times are getting shorter and shorter too. 

The others can’t hack it like he can.

Zola is stressed; anxious; as though he’s suddenly on a quick to close schedule, and Bucky overheard the guards talking - his German has improved tremendously - when he was pretending to be passed out. Something about a visit from the Obergruppenführer, which Bucky thinks is some kind of Lieutenant General, called Schmitt or something. Then the prisoner next to him had started coughing and Bucky couldn’t hear and then he forgot he was supposed to be listening.

The results of this impending visit - or impending doom for Zola as far as Bucky can tell - seem to come to fruition when Bucky’s still trembling and fuzzy from the shocks. His new trousers wet with piss after being under Subject #64’s machine for an intermittent amount of time, he’s reciting paragraphs from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to himself when the new-ish prisoner on the other table cuts off mid-scream. Bucky manages to roll his head until it thuds back against the table in the right direction, still mumbling, to see the sandy-haired solider (he looks nothing like Steve - it’s okay) dead, mouth hung open. Zola swears like Andrew used to swear and throws what can only be described as a honest-to-god temper tantrum until the guards at the door leave in awkward silence. He doesn’t bother to cut that one up, allows the man that dignity, just orders the guards to toss him in the furnace with the others.

. . .

He fades in and out, wakes up frozen and stone-like in his body more times than he can count; doesn’t even feel the angry energy he used to feel racing through his veins when Zola gives him the green serum anymore.  He has vague memories of the guards shaving him and hacking off some of his greasy hair, which he guesses is kinda' nice of them; but feels like he's three steps above them when they start and finish. He always feels like that now.

Zola sometimes feeds him through a tube in his nose since he doesn't leave the table anymore, which is another miraculous Nazi medical invention Bucky is amazed at as much as he’s disgusted. This one arrived in a package from elsewhere; he saw Zola opening it, so he knows it's not one of his inventions. It's likely, he knows now, that the hydration-tube one wasn't either. Zola's speciality is engineering, this serum stuff is like a side-hustle. He thinks they used to force a metal tube down his throat and funnel down soup and slosh until he swallowed it, that's where the chair in his vague memories comes from, he thinks--but he kept throwing up on himself and smelling out the room more than he already did after so they stopped. His body remembers it even if his mind doesn’t.

His hunger is never satisfied and neither is he, it’s a shitty life and he’s tired of it - wants it to end already. He’s not scared of dying anymore, not like he was before - doesn’t even care if Zola mutilates him after - just wants it to stop.

He can tell Zola’s getting worried he’s regressing back to the weak sickly ‘unresilient’ state he was in before he came here, that his precious serums aren’t as permanent as he thought they were. The doctor takes several hours before he decides to go back to the beginning. He tells Bucky he needs to test if his rate of healing has remained or regressed and in a strange state of deja vou starts taking his shoes off.

He has no socks, can’t remember if he even had them to begin with. Zola cuts his feet up - from the heels to the tip of his largest toes - in long deep strokes and smaller nicks, and contemplates whether to take a toenail as well. He decides on no, but has the guards put out cigarettes and cigar tips on his hip to track the healing rate of the burns instead. Bucky barely even feels him do any of it.

Strangely, after the rubbing alcohol and some half-hearted dressing they put his shoes back on, yanking on the laces until they’re tight enough to throb from the pressure. 

“We don’t want to rats getting at them and contaminating the results.” He thinks he hears Zola say - he knows about the rats?

“Of course I know about the rats Imbecill, half my subjects were turning up missing parts of their fingers - they’re getting bolder - the disgusting vermin.” 

You’re the disgusting vermin. 

He gives Bucky another shot, the type that he kind of likes because it makes him see stars, followed by the usual steroids. In the last moment he realizes it’s quiet in the darkening lab and that he can’t remember the last time there was another test subject.

He’s the last one.

“The Obergruppenführer is here Herr Doctor” someone says. 

Zola sighs, “Ah yes, I better go see to him then.”

. . .

When he comes back to himself he’s mumbling again, and Steve. Steve-big-strong-tall-Steve is stood over him and shaking him.

He says, “It’s me. It’s Steve. I’m getting you out of here,” like some kind of golden avenging angel.

Maybe there is a God afterall.

.

Chapter Text

STEVE

Ave Maria, gratia plena, let me make this jump, let me land, let me sail over this fire and brimstone as Noah sailed the flood; let me save him. Let him make it out.

Let us both, because he won’t leave without you, you know he won’t. Steve can be many things - impulsive, short-tempered, bossy and overbearing at times - but one thing he Is not when it comes to James Buchanan Barnes - is a fool. The stubborn jerk hasn’t walked away from finishing a fight with him since he was eleven years old and he won’t start now, Steve knows, even with Hell raining down upon them. He doesn’t know why he’d even tried to be honest - and Bucky always called him the stubborn asshole.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, 

Ora pro nobis, peccatoribus, let me do the impossible, more than you already have, please God, let me sail. Let me fly.

He feels the steel shock-wave through his shin as it hits the railway, feels his right foot land on the first rung, his left above it; leg bent at the knee - Buck’s fingers in his collar; heat at his heels.

- God Almighty, he’s done it - 

He slams hard and fast, propelling himself onto Bucky and rolling, rolling, rolling away from the Devil’s fire, prayers forgotten as he covers every inch of Bucky’s frame with his own, dented shield above his head. As a last ditch effort he kicks at a trolley until it skids in front of him. 

The flames rush past him, hitting anywhere exposed, burning and singeing through the shoulders of his jacket. Sharp pain races through his forearm as shrapnel slices through the flimsy shield, but he hardly feels it over the wave of heat around them. The burn’s gone as quick as it comes, replaced by choking clouds of smoke and lingering heat. Steve hesitantly lowers the blackened shield; the trolley a burned out wreck in front of him. The fires rage around the balcony, roaring like the fireworks every year on his birthday, building and building for another Grand finale.

Bucky’s trembling beneath him.

Steve grunts and shakes out his arm, splattering blood across the balcony as he rolls off his friend and frantically checks him over. Bucky’s eyes are scrunched up tight, his broken fingernails clutching at Steve like a drowning man, barely making a sound. There’s a jagged hole ripped through the metal beam a foot away from where his head had been.

“Buck!” Steve shouts over the noise, running his hands over his friend’s chest and trying to unlatch him from his collar. “Bucky!”
 
As quick as he had latched onto him Bucky lets go, a hand scrabbling to clutch at the dog tags hanging from his throat while his other reaches downwards to Steve’s forearm. Steve clutches him back just as firmly.

“Steve?” Bucky coughs; struggling into his knees.

“Yeah Buck, I’m here. Come on, we gotta’ go.” Steve replies.

“’our bleedin’” 

He looks down to see Bucky frowning dazedly down at his blood slicked forearm, fingers tightening unconsciously over the tear in the fabric. 

Steve winces, “ It’s fine! It’ll heal in no time, you’ll see. Had worse when I dropped a light on myself trying to help out one of the USO stage hands.”

Bucky blinks in bewilderment at him, “Huh?”

“Nothin’. Never mind.” Shaking his head to clear it; they need to move - Steve hauls him to his feet. “Come on, pal. Up we get.”

He dodges a half-hearted swat Buck doesn’t seem to be aware of and slings his friend’s arm over his shoulder as he’d done earlier. Even with his support Bucky sways unsteadily next to him and Steve can see whatever adrenaline rush had possessed him before is fleeing as quickly as it had come. 

“One step in front of the other, Buck.” Steve says, pulling him towards the burnt out husk of a doorway, the door hanging precariously from it’s hinges. He leads them down three corridors, turning left, then right, then downstairs as he tries to remember the way he’d come; what exits he’d seen from the outside. They must be in the North Side of the factory by now, they’ve travelled all the way from the Isolation Ward on the opposite end. Surely it isn’t far.

Steve jerks to a stop as the corridor opens up to a crosswalk, Bucky tripping over his feet, and wishes he’d glimpsed a blueprint of the warehouse - or something - as he’d done with the map in that Godforsaken lab; then he might have some idea where he was going. His ma had always said he swung with his fists before thinking with his head, and while leading with his heart was a noble enough cause, unthought action would only win out so many times. Not that he’d won many fights that was. Bucky had always said something similar about his reckless abandon, but his ma’s words had always been the kinder of the two. He’s been winging it from the moment he knocked out those goons in the truck, had gotten lucky again and again since, albeit one heart-stopping moment once he’d realized Bucky wasn’t in the cells with the others. 

How had they gotten out?

Steve had freed a good few hundred from several blocks of cells, most of them able-bodied and he can hear gunshots, yelling and what sounds an awful lot like tank fire from outside. 

“Buck!” Steve calls, and shakes him for good measure when he doesn’t snap to attention quick enough. “You worked here before….” he swallows shallowly, “before the lab. You must know some of the building. How do you get out?”

“Um…” Bucky mumbles, turning his head left and right, seems to squeeze the dog tags in his palm tighter to draw the world in focus. He pauses for a moment too long and Steve sighs harshly, scared and panicked. It’s been a miracle they haven’t crossed any more German soldiers that weren’t already engaged, but their luck won’t last forever, not with the fire spreading behind them. He goes to move forward, a half determined decision to continue straight onwards.

“No. Wait-” Bucky seems to plant his feet for what little it’s worth, and tugs him to the right.

“You sure?”

He doesn’t look sure. “Yes.”

Steve huffs a laugh, “Right it is then.”

Later he supposes he’d wonder why he’d followed Bucky’s obviously dubious sense of direction, but with gunfire and literal fire echoing from every side with little chance to discern where it was coming from, why not? Buck had very rarely led him wrong before.

The sound of explosions are getting louder and louder; the vibrations enough to knock a smaller man off his feet. The concrete walls around them begin cracking from the heat, plaster dust falling from the ceiling and red emergency lights flashing every two hundred feet.

“Still going straight, Buck?”

“Ugh…yeah.” His friend replies, pausing around a cough, “straight. I think there should be a window.” 

Steve hauls him higher over his shoulder, ready to run through the walls at this point, consequences be dammed. They’re running out of time, Steve thinks, then - moonlight glimmers ahead, glinting off broken glass scattered across the hallway. Steve yanks them into an alcove with seconds to spare as soldiers bearing the Hydra ensemble armed with glowing guns cross the hallway in front of them, boots clanging on the ground as they pass. Steve hears the distinct sound of energy powering up - the guns? - and Bucky seems to flinch a little from where he’s slumped against the wall. Casting a quick worried glance at him, Steve peeks round the corner.

There’s six of them, all armed, two with glowing Merkel Shotguns of some type, and what looks like glowing grenades hanging from their belts. The Lieutenant, for he was clearly a Lieutenant with the patches on his uniform, is barking orders as the rest of them line up on either side of a black exit door. The gunfire’s closer here, a mere wall away as bullets pierce through the remaining glass in the window ahead of them. Steve supposes he could take them now, and maybe he would have done earlier; but not with Buck in such a state next to him. With any luck if he just waits for them to move forward through the exit they’ll run into a hail of bullets. It would be easier to take them from behind.

Decision made, ducks back into the alcove and listens to the barked German commands, tries to translate what he can.

“Gehen Sie in Zweien raus und runter, Mueller nach links, Fischer nach rechts.” the Lieutenant snaps, “Du hast deine Befehle, tötest so viele wie möglich!” ("Get out in twos and go down, Mueller to the left, Fischer to the right." The Lieutenant snaps, "You have your orders, kill as many as you can!")

Something blue blasts from the other end of the corridor, and Steve feels the sheer heat of it against the bare patches of skin on his shoulders where his jacket’s been singed away. He tucks himself as close to the wall as he can, the force of it trying to tear him away.

“- Umzug, jetzt bewegen. Gehen!” ("- move, move now. Go!") Comes the sharp command as it clears, men grunting and groaning, and Steve hears the groan of the door as it’s forced open, followed by gunfire, loud and sharp. Over the slight ringing in his ears, he can hear people screaming outside.

He peeks round the corner once again, “Okay, time to go.” He orders, grabbing a hold of his friend’s arm. They run almost like they did in the school yard with two of their feet tied together, Steve can’t help but picture, in those three-legged races with the neighbourhood children. Even at ten years old he had been the smaller of the two of them, and the height difference always worked against them in those childhood games. It’s startling to suddenly be taller than him.

 Steve doesn’t think they’d ever won any of those races over the years - not a single one.

Flashes of blue light up the sky through the broken window like a storm, and through the gunfire he hears it - the hum of that same energy charging up the only warning he has. A beam the size of a small tree rockets through the brick two feet behind them and he feels Bucky shove him forward at the same time he does, ducking as low as they can. Steve grunts unhappily as a large chunk of stone cracks in two against the small of his back, followed by a rainstorm of pebbles and dust.

“Steve?” Bucky asks worriedly, pale and dusty. There’s blood trickling from his left ear, and for the life of him Steve can’t remember if it had already been bleeding when he was on that table.

“I’m fine.” He mutters, pulling himself and Bucky from their knees. There’s hooting and cheers, and Steve, who recognizes a New York accent when he hears it, turns to see one of the soldiers he’d freed through the hole in wall sat atop a Hydra tank, inexplicably wearing a bowler hat, firing at anything that moves. Steve shakes his head in wonder and keeps moving to the door.

“We could go out the-”

“We’re still at least three floors up, I’d rather not jump for my life again if you don’t mind. Plus they’d probably shoot us on sight if we come spilling out of there right now.”

“They’ll shoot us on sight if we go out that door just the same, pal.” Bucky counters right back.

He tries to shrug good-naturely, “Least there’s a ladder.”

Bucky grunts next to him, pushing away briefly to pull two Mauser pistols from a Hydra guard lying collapsed before the doorway. He hadn’t made it far. Steve reaches for the glowing grenade on his belt.

“Leave it!” Bucky snaps next to him, unexpectedly handing him one of the pistols instead without meeting his eyes. “Only a punk like you would storm a goddamn enemy base alone without a goddamn weapon - Jesus Christ -”

 “I had a gun.”

“Oh yeah? Where?” Buck shoots back without missing a beat, continues without giving him a chance to answer. “The point is to not loose it at the first opportunity, to maybe, I dunno, actually shoot a Kraut. Oh no, I’m sorry, can you fire bullets through your fingers now?”

“My eyes actually.” Steve jokes, huffing a laugh, pulling Bucky against the wall to the left of the door, and peers outside to avoid friendly fire. At least Bucky’s well enough for the moment to gripe at him, Steve thinks, even if he can’t walk straight. 

“Not that advanced, Buck. “ He adds, “Last time I checked we weren’t in one of your Olaf Stapleton books, and science-fiction was, you know, still science-fiction.” 

Bucky snorts before coughing from the dust. “A guy peeled off his face in front of us, the way you peel a orange, you do remember that right?” For a flashing moment in the light of the battle, Bucky looks uncharacteristically vulnerable before Steve answers, as if unsure that Steve had seen the same bizarre and terrifying sight he had.

“Suppose’ you’ve got a point there. On three?”

His friend nods, and on two Steve moves so he’s in front, fighting the urge to take the outdoor stairs two at a time. Outside, the air’s thick with smoke and blood, begging and dead men alike lying on the ground either-side. It’s in many ways one of the worst and one of the most exhilarating sights he’s ever seen and yet, somehow, he thought there would be more bodies. Unexpectedly, as if answering his silent thought, a prisoner in the scraps of a French uniform fires one of the enhanced guns across the field of fire. The Hydra guard, with no time to scream is engulfed and obliterated in a flash of blue and burning flesh. The only remaining marker that he’d been there at all is a blackened splatter caught against the armoured truck he’d been running for. 

Steve feels sick, that this was what the small glowing gadget he’s taken for Stark in his pocket is being designed for.

A rapid bang bang fires out from a pistol behind his left ear, and he see’s two masked guards in black - guns aimed at him - collapse backwards as he turns his head. The first seems to hit the man in the solar plexus, the second; in the throat. The man chokes loud enough that Steve hears him across the way as blood sprays out like the Bethesda fountain. He goes down choking and trembling, clutching at the ruin of his throat before going still.

Buck’s stood dazedly behind him four steps up, clinging to the railing with one hand, gun raised with the other. He’s still squinting with one eye, and looks as though he’s as surprised at his aim as the dead men are. Blinking rapidly, he seems to stumble down onto the next step, fingers fumbling against the trigger. Another shot goes off as loud as the first one.

Steve catches him under the armpits, shoving his arm out and down. “-Christ Buck!” The bullet sinks safely into the dirt after clanging off the stairway. “Bucky!” Steve yells, straightening him up and shoving them both back down just as quick as a wayward blue beam fires over their heads to explode a few floors up. More men, Hydra and Allies each are rounding the corner on this side of the building. A blue explosion takes out what looks to be an entire corner wall followed by the same boisterous laugh, which tells him the American solider with the tank is just round the bend. Any one of them could shoot them or the stairway out from under them if they don’t get off it and to cover soon. Steve pulls Bucky back up as he’d just done, and hardly hears himself over the noise and the smell, telling him they have to move and - “Can you walk?”

Clinging to the sleeve of Steve’s jacket his best friend nods and takes another - more steady - step down. He doesn’t let go and Steve doesn’t make him, aside from numbly flicking the safety back on on Bucky’s gun, and follows Bucky’s pace, a hand hovering worriedly at the small of his back. 

 Steve glances around them - more coming - at the building behind - fire spreading - at Bucky’s feet - unsure and stumbling. They arrive at the next level of stairs and turn, ready for the next two levels down - hopefully faster than the first.

Halfway down. “Steve?”

Bucky flinches back from a rush of hot air, a grenade going off fifty feet away; seems to loose his footing again. He doesn’t fall far with Steve’s hand waiting behind him, but he suddenly seems overwhelmed by the brightness and the noise around him - blinking rapidly, muscles taut.

How long has he been locked in that lab with no stimulation?

Without speaking above a murmur Bucky’s hand slips along the sleeve of Steve’s jacket, and he shakes his head and seems to try to rub at his left eye and the scabs there with his other, forgetting he’s still holding the pistol.

“Buck!” Steve stops him, getting frustrated now, but Bucky doesn’t seem to want to move - is ignoring him - keeps trying to rub at his eye and shaking his head to clear it. Steve slips the shield from his back to his other arm and moves to the front, grabs Bucky by the arm and slings him bodily over his shoulder.

With a cut off choke of pain Bucky cries out as he lands. ‘Probably his ribs’, Steve thinks guiltily, and Bucky drops the gun from his fingers. It clangs once, twice, thrice as it bounces down the steps and over the side. That’s twelve steps up as Steve makes quick work of the rest, begging Bucky not to struggle. 

He’ll give you Hell for this later, Steve knows, because when has Steve himself ever allowed Bucky the liberty of carrying his insolent battered body up the stairs to their apartment? By the Grace of God his friend doesn’t fight, barely even curses Steve out among his grunts and groans before he seems to force his body from it’s tense position, going lax.

“Sorry Buck- “

“Captain!” The unexpected shout - in the most impossibly English accent he’s ever heard - comes from the right as he jumps the last three steps as gently as he can. The man, moustached and wearing a faded red beret, is running towards him from the stolen tank, and turns quickly to fire his own stolen pistol at a guard. Another man pops out from the inside of the tank to replace the man running towards them. As he reaches them, ducking under gunfire, Steve realizes this was the man he’d spoken to in the first set of cells. He can’t recognize his rank from what’s left of his uniform before the man seems to do a double-take once he realizes Steve isn’t alone.

“Is that..? By God, you found him, he’s still alive?”

“Yeah, he is.” Steve says in defiance, ignores what he thinks is a mumbled ‘punk’ from his shoulder.

The man blinks at him disbelievingly, then: “To the treeline, Captain! The wounded have fallen back to the treeline where they can whilst the rest of us give the Devils hell-”

As if on queue a larger than life laugh - a beam of light - followed by a “Choke on your own guns, Kraut fuckers!” disintegrates half a hoard of Hydra guards trying to reorganize themselves.  Spying the rest of them moving forward, Steve leaps into a run, and shoves the Englishman behind a truck piled with crates as they open fire. It lasts mere seconds as second and third rounds of shots echo from the tank rounding the corner. 

He nods to the man, “I didn’t see any more guards still in the building, and any that are still there won’t be in a minute.” He shouts, looking back towards the building at the flames drowning out the light of the moon.

“Our guys that went back in are out now too, from one of the delivery doors on the West side!”

“Then there’s not many left! Only those out here, how many men do we have?”

“Enough I reckon if we hit them right, but we’re losing more every minute from the long range guns and the snipers. Fair to say we’ve lost the element of surprise by now!” 

“Snipers?” Steve questions. Men are running across the bodies and dirt, kicking up ash and blood as they go. Four of them go down under Hydra guns and Steve bristles inwardly, ready to act.

“They’re reconvening on the East side of the building to come round - we’ve got one of their radios - “ A blue blast disintegrates three of their men and the solider cuts himself off to swear - “but we can’t get close to hit them; not with those Jerrys’ up there in the watchtower.”

 Here he points round the crates to an tall outbuilding Steve had noted when he’d scouted the place earlier in the evening, separate from the main factory, and annoyingly not on fire. There had been two watchtowers on opposite corners of the compound - the other seemed to already be smoking - with men walking the perimeter every two minutes, which was why Steve had had to sneak in with the truck - the only way to get in without being seen. As he watches he can see two muzzles flashes - one white, one blue - through the dark windows of the tower. The spotlight is pointed East to light up the way for the Hydra reformation. 

Sprays of bullets strike the corner of the next crate over from them and Steve sees both legs of an American men shot off from under him at the knee in a sickening squelch of flesh and bone. A machine gun then, probably some kind of MG15, along with one of those blue cannons. The man begins screaming and begging, trying to get onto feet that are no longer there. Steve starts forward to help him - somehow help him - for a moment forgetting Bucky on his back and the man at his side.

In his moment of hesitation another round of matching fire shoots the man in the face.

Steve turns away as he man’s face caves in and his brains splatter on the floor around him - glares at the flashing muzzle in the dark. “Tell them to hold their positions, it’s useless charging and throwing away lives like that” he orders, because surely this Englishman isn’t a private and has given orders himself before. “I’ll take care of it!”

The Englishman gapes at him, “You’ll take care of it?!” He shouts back in disbelief “There’s no way-”

“I’ll take care of the watchtower.” Steve repeats, “when I give the signal hit them hard and hit them fast, use that tank to blow a hole through them.” With that last command, the soldier silent beside him, he barks - “The treeline you said? Where?”

The Englishman points past the torn fencing and Steve can see a solider being dragged by another across the ground in stops and starts as the other man tries to avoid bursts of bullets. Steve steels himself, “Hold your positions!” He repeats, and runs.

He runs fast, faster than he’d done after that Hydra spy months ago before he’d chomped down on that little white pill. He isn’t thinking about Erskine this time, has someone else in mind, and this time he isn’t going to fail. Sprays of bullets spit dirt and wood behind him, but he’s too fast - faster than bullets, Steve thinks giddily, and he swings out his arm and feels the shield shatter the goggles of a Hydra man as he comes from the right. The guard flies up and backward, hits the underside of an overturned truck with a crunch and doesn’t get up.

By God, he's invincible.

He dodges between crates, still too fast, over the lip of the torn fence, past the wounded soldier being dragged. He slows as he breaches the treeline but keeps going until he sees men moving and groaning on the ground. There’s a soldier running between them all and a truck they’ve crashed through the trees - and probably the fence too - missing the red cross he would normally wear on his arm. Steve jogs to the side of the truck, bends down and lowers Bucky off his shoulder against the back wheel, readying himself for an argument he’s going to have to shut down quickly. He’s ready for the shouting, the cursing and a repeat of the ridiculous ‘Not without you!’ debacle earlier but its silent from Bucky’s end when he sets him down.

His friend slumps bonelessly against the wheel, eyes closed, and when Steve tilts his neck up he feels soft breaths huffing against this face. He must have passed out on your back without you realizing. Steve sighs; lets Bucky’s head loll, pats his leg and is off again.

Darting back quickly he hauls the wounded man from the other soldier’s arms and yanks him out of the way of a German goon making pot shots, and launches a rock from the ground at him. The soldier next to him blinks and starts running full pelt at the treeline after a push, and the wounded man, a Sergeant, groans as Steve runs back with him just as quick. He passes the same man and beats him there, pivots back round after handing the other one off.

He breaches the treeline and the fence again and sees the solider in the bowler hat have to duck back inside the tank, bullets ricocheting off the lid as he screams at someone inside to “Goddamn fire back at them!”

Steve turns sharply as bullets rocket at the body of the tanks again - coming from the watchtower. A Hydra tank without the enhancements, A Tiger from the looks of things, rounds from the other side of the compound and levels it’s gun at the stolen one. Steve goes to shout, or run towards it but the ‘American’ tank rivets itself backwards as the other one fires. The single shell misses the tank by inches and soars over Steve’s head into the darkness with a sharp whistle. They’ve seen the enemy Tiger and moved to fire back; the ‘trunk’ swivel-ling to face the other. Their tank can’t take out the watchtower while it has that enemy Tiger to contend with, god knows they were practically impossible to breach themselves, and they certifiably can’t ‘blow a hole’ through the Hydra troops as Steve had said whilst that watchtower still stood.

Right then, Steve thinks, you might as well see what this body can really do.

The windows left on every floor of the factory burst with an explosion of fire and blue light - the heat had clearly set off whatever was left in the building - and in the space following he jumps a stationary smoking tank and sees the English soldier holding a hoard of armed prisoners back behind a block of crates, watching him disbelievingly - head swivel-ling to follow his path.

Steve doesn’t think of it outside of taking that watchtower out.

.

Chapter Text

STEVE

Taking in the treeline as he coordinates the groups of half-starved men flocking to him like sheep to a Shepard, Steve takes a moment to breathe it all in. Half his mind is spinning with the intensity of it, the reality of succeeding at something so impossibly impossible; of throwing this new body at a mission and succeeding - while the other half stilts on one unavoidable thought - now what?

His eyes flicker over to where he left his best friend, his silhouette shadowed against the truck, within sight if not arms-reach for the moment, battered and bruised. Steve realizes at this moment that this time he’ll be on his own - there’s no Barnes backup waiting round the corner alley. Usually Bucky gets him out of, or most usually takes part in his hare-brained schemes - he was as bad as Steve honestly - but not this time. With the sky dark above him the only light striking through the gaps in the trees is the burning orange and grey smoke; the remnants of the wrecked watchtower. He can see it’s bent and burned husk through the trunks, and hear it setting off smaller explosions every now and again.

Men are looking at him with star-stuck expressions, some whispering and pointing to each other, especially those who’d seen him bring the tower down single-handedly. Steve doesn’t know how to feel or how to act with those looks directed at him, has only ever been looked at like that by eight year olds while wearing tights, or Peggy Carter, hovering over his new body as he stepped from Erskine's machine. 

Be clear and precise, know your fellow NCO’s and use them to your advantage. You can’t win battles single-handedly, a platoon is a team, not a one man army. That’s the first mistake most hot-heads make - and usually their last. Trust your men.

With George Barnes’ words echoing in his head, Steve gains his courage; and through his mother’s composure; his strength.

 “Men fall in!”

The quickest of those to arrive are the Englishman who’d helped him coordinate before, followed by many others, both American and European; coloured and white. Steve scans their uniforms for any commanders; especially for any of those who ‘outranked’ a fake Captain. Technically all of them, not that they had to know that. He recognizes a few patches and pins, those that are left on old uniforms, but when he looks at the faces they belong to - he see’s more fortitude in some of the Private’s faces than the officers.

“First point of protocol is to get moving, and get the wounded seen to. We’re in enemy territory, and they know our position, so we need to get somewhere else.”

“Captain.” The Englishman says, and introduces himself formally when Steve looks at him in askance. “Major James Falsworth, of Her Majesty 3rd Independant Parachute Brigade.” A major, great way to start there Rodgers. “Do you know where we are?”

“Krausburg, Austria. Thirty miles north of the line, and another fifty miles to the closest Allied base from that. You - or the 107th at least, were taken here from Azzano I believe….” Steve pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts, “How many medics do we have here, does anyone know? We need to get the wounded seen to.”

"I've seen one or two around here for sure!" Someone shouts from the back.

"Bates, where the hell are ya', man?" Someone else hollers ineffectively away from the group.

“I for one know all the men would feel a lot better if we were further away from here - they’ll surely be some Kraut cockroaches ready to come out of the woodwork.” A moustached man counters to his right, and Steve recognizes him as the man who’d effectively taken out a Tiger tank whilst also just as effectively employing every swear word in the English dictionary all at the same time. 

Steve nods, “And I understand that, and we’ll prepare for it. But were not leaving or loosing anymore men than we already have if we can help it….”

“Sergeant Dugan.” The man replies gruffly, clearly having little to no restraint in questioning a supposed superior officer. Steve blinks, recognizing the name from Bucky’s letter to him, having mentioned an a solider called Dugan - older and more experienced - with a big mouth. He also looks as though he may be one of the most pro-active, and the least held back by injury. He could be useful.

“Load the wounded onto the trucks, and the tank.” Steve orders, trying to compromise, “anyone who can’t walk. Any who can - will. Do the rounds, see how many that is and how many others have any kind of aid training. There’s at least one medic I’ve seen,” he continues, straining his neck as he searches out the man he’d seen and points - several men’s heads follow.

"Yo, there he is! That's Bates, man." The same man hollers, waving. Bates, the medic, glances at him but then turns away to continue running between six men on the ground, clearly prioritising them over Steve - which he can hardly argue with.

“We move out in twenty minutes latest, so hustle, and we keep going until dawn - then we’ll stop and regroup.” Steve continues, eyes on the men and then the wounded men trying to get up behind.

“Yes Sir,” Dugan nods, apparently content with that plan, and pulls an African American solider with him. “Jones, with me.”

“He was right about the stragglers Captain,” Falsworth jumps in, “we’ll lose that light in the forest and then any fires will be like beacons for them. We’d be inviting a fight, with Jerrys or whoever these men were-”

“Hydra.” Steve replies, summing up as quickly as he can. “They’re an independent Nazi Scientific Branch of the Reich, outside of the German army.” His knowledge of the enemy seems to reassure the men further that he knows what he’s doing.

Like hell he does, Steve thinks manically. “Then keep any fires low and minimal, use the trucks lights instead, our eyes will adjust eventually.”

“It’ll be rough going.”

“It’ll need to be done. We’re getting as many of you home as we can, whatever way and with whatever means it takes. I’m willing to keep going until it’s done. We can’t stay here, that’s not an option.” Steve says, resolutely. Whatever it takes. “And send out scouts in front and behind us - who else is an NCO here?”

A few men identify themselves from all the armies standing on offer, some more hesitantly than others - Falsworth possibly in the latter half. Too bad, Steve thinks, I recognized him first, he was the next point of call and then most specialist trained - outranking him but following orders without hesitation. Steve focuses on the more confident ones - orders them to find as many of their platoons as they can - to send out the men with the most field experience as scouts.

As it's suddenly done and dusted and a good chunk of them begin to move off to start the assistance he thinks: Christ, he really shouldn’t be ordering around real qualified officers here. But hey, Louis Calloway always used to say you were a cocky little shit. You're hardly going to watch your mouth now.

“We’re probably going to end up in a firefight anyway, but we’ll do our best to avoid it.” Thinking quickly he says, “We need to take as much Hydra tech back as we can afford, and try to establish contact with the Allied base.” The communicator Peggy had given him was busted at some point in the fighting, he doesn’t know when but it had been one of the first things he checked. “Does anyone have any…”

“Radio experience?” A Japanese-American soldier says, “That might be a job for me, I moved up in analog communication before I shipped out. I’ll see what I can do. And that Frog there-” here he nods to a man wearing less of a uniform than all the others, but from the ‘Frog’ phrase Steve assumes he must be French, “figured out how to work those blue guns and grenades in under a minute.” He advises, before jogging away to find a radio.

Right now, Steve really wished he hadn’t shrugged off so many of Bucky’s offers of double dates with that French ‘gal of his and her cousin, then maybe he wouldn’t be so out of his depth with the language. 

"J'en ai utilisé un au combat, pas si difficile après quelques tripotages. Voulez-vous que je voie ce que je peux ramasser en toute sécurité? Ou apprendre aux gens à tirer?” The Frenchman chatters, must to Steve’s bewilderment, but seems to understand completely what Steve needs him to do once an Italian man relays a few words to him, and off he goes. The men all now move off with orders except for Falsworth, a Lieutenant and the same small thin Italian man - who pulls him to one side. It turns out, through stilting English, the man was Italian resistance, caught sabotaging a German supply line with his sister and he knows the area on both sides of the border well; and can map out a route on the Italian side which will bypass nearly all of the main German patrols.

Steve takes his name, grateful and impressed, with a view to seeking him out later when they reach the border. They just have to get out of Austria first.

By now, as he runs over to help the medic and to load the heavier crates onto the trucks as quickly and efficiently as he can, the crazy adrenaline possessing him from the watchtower is finally starting to sour on his tongue. His mouth is too dry to spit, there's ash thick in his mouth and thick on his tongue and his legs ache with each pound of his heart. He doesn’t want to think about what the other men are feeling. While his body can handle the adrenaline without the crash, the world around him still seems to be moving completely in and out of sync at the same time.

It's called Battle Frenzy, boy. 

George Barnes had told the two of them about it once, man-talk while their mothers and Buck’s sisters were out - and Steve had wondered if his father had felt any of that righteous blood pumping fury as he died; if the mustard gas had allowed him that much dignity. Before Mr Barnes’ quiet war stories he used to think it a righteous and honourable way to die, used to look up at his father’s photo on the wall like an icon as his mother brushed his teeth and washed his face in the sink.

War made men heroes where they wouldn’t be otherwise.

He still feels that way to a certain extent, especially after Pearl Harbour, but also strictly beforehand too. It’s always only been right to do his part but he doesn’t favour it as fanatically as he used to. Bucky had always heard more of his pa’s stories than Steve did; had actually grown up with a father serving in both wars and the isolation in between. He had known and loved a father before he died bloody under German gunfire (and only a year and a half ago, Steve reminds himself sadly) whilst Steve's only had a picture in a frame to look up to like a holy idol, and so he’s always thought Bucky had a different opinion.

Bucky’s father had been a First Sergeant for years at Fort Hamilton, and when Bucky had been bumped up for more training and promoted to Sergeant himself before Wisconsin, Steve remembers he’d said Buck’s father would have been proud of him. Seven months after Operation Torch shipped out and five months after the awful telegraph of 1942 Bucky had gone almost startlingly quiet. Steve hadn’t known what to think - if he’d said the wrong thing or the right thing or just a complicated thing. For at the time wasn’t that why Bucky had enlisted, to avenge the father who taught him to walk and to box, the man whose son’s loyalty to him ran to the ends of the earth? 

Bucky had lied to him about enlisting. He knows that now, but has never told his friend he knows. He’s never seen the papers himself but Becca had told him, still snappish and grief-stricken while Bucky was training in Wisconsin that he had been conscripted for service. That she thought their father had known he would be called up and had tried to quietly prevent it both in the ranks and with pressuring Bucky into more classes at the local colleges. You could get a deferment to continue your education after-all, and she’d been right; while having to register for the Peacetime Draft in 1940 Bucky hadn’t actually been called up until late 1942, after his father had died in Africa. They’d never gotten his body back but they had stories from the G.I’s from childhood that had still served with him at the end, and they had the two letters to the family from him. In both, he’d made a point of telling Bucky to stick to his classes and to do well. After that visit to see the girls Steve had wondered on it, first why Bucky had lied to him - did he think he’d be disappointed, or ashamed? - and then to whether his friend knew what Becca thought his father had tried to do: if that had been why he’d gone quiet that one time. Becca didn’t think he knew, but then again Becca has always been one to notoriously underestimate Bucky half-seriously and half-jokingly.

Steve shakes the thought from his head along with the frenzied feeling, as much as he can, and takes another moment to take in his surroundings properly.

There’s less wounded than he has any right to expect - he finds out later the reason there’s so few wounded men is because those blue weapons wiped out the others completely, and the rest had already bled out. They are weapons with no option to wound, only to kill.

Thou shall not kill: and whoever kills shall be liable to judgement. 

Steve has killed today.

It doesn’t take long to get them loaded onto the few trucks they have, and in the hurried scramble of the makeshift camp, Steve finds a moment to slip away. Bucky’s still slumped where he left him as men ignore and step over his prone legs in the rush to get moving. It doesn’t look like anyone’s  noticed him there yet with all the unmoving men on the ground, let alone seen to him.

I should have checked on him first, Steve thinks guiltily.

“Bucky?” He calls, landing lightly on his knees as his friend seems to slowly stir - fighting to open his eyes - head rocking to the side. Steve reaches out a hand to palm it against his cheek. Bucky flinches at the touch, right hand snapping up and twisting Steve’s wrist until he yelps more from surprise than pain. He also tries to kick him in the groin for good measure. Well, that seemed to have done the trick. His friend’s eyes shoot open, pupils wide and glassy, looking wildly around him----

“Hey hey, easy, easy. Easy Bucky, it’s me. It’s Steve.”

Bucky’s eyes seem to hone in on him and he loosens his grip. “Steve?” He questions, in a mockery of their earlier conversation in that godawful lab. His friend blinks dazedly at him a couple of times, as though trying to draw him into focus, and lets go of Steve’s wrist to pull his knees up from where Steve has caught his foot. “Steve.” Bucky repeats, less of a question this time. Looking more aware, he turns his head to look past Steve and starts rubbing at his left eye.

He was doing that during the escape too, Steve realizes, as if it’s irritating him.

Steve looks closer, now able to check him over properly without a building exploding around them. His pupils are blown wide; drugged, his brow bone and arch of his cheek bruised and scraped. He keeps rubbing at it- a head injury? - and Steve’s seen the needle tracks on the inside of his elbows, along with similar bruised skin over his jugular vein. He’d had to pull out one needle still stuck in him, along with some kind of tube. His shirt’s grimy and ripped, his hair greasy but bluntly cut with five o’clock shadow growing on his jaw, and he stinks of vomit and urine. Steve can feel a fever. 

Oh, Buck.

“Where….where are we?”

“Outside of the base, past the fences - we’re getting ready to move out to the nearest Allied Base. It’s about sixty or so miles north.”

“We…we’re outside…” Bucky asks, looking unsure and extremely confused. Steve pauses, about to explain again, but instead catches Bucky’s hand when it goes for his eye again.

“Come on pal,” he says, pulling Bucky to his feet and steadying him. “Let’s get you on a truck-”

“What? No. No.”

“Buck come on, you’re not in any state-”

“No. No, no, no, no, no.” Bucky starts, mumbles turning to upset ranting. “No, no, no. I can walk. I’m walking. Let me walk! Please Stevie. Please. I can walk. I can walk.”

Steve shakes his head, staying calm for Bucky’s sake, “I’d feel a lot better if you-”

“This isn’t up to you!” Bucky suddenly snaps and Steve flinches back a little a the change of tone; begging to angry. “Okay! This isn’t up to you. I want to walk---- let me walk, I swear Steve. This is my choice, mine, not yours. I’m walking.” He pushes away from Steve roughly, stumbling back and repeats, “I’m walking.”

He’s adamant, and Steve knows it. He knows there's no arguing when Bucky's like this, not unless he wants to make it ten times worse, and his repetitive ranting is already worrisome enough.

“I’m walking. I’m walking, I swore to pa that I would-”

“Okay Buck. Okay.” Steve soothes, steadying him at the shoulders when he startles, furiously rubbing at his eye again. “Okay, you can walk. You can walk,” he says, not happy about it at all, “but you’re gonna’ have to see a medic, get checked out-”

“I don’t need-”

“Yes you do.” Steve cuts him off, firmly and forceably. He’ll allow Bucky to walk, will give him an inch but that's where he draws the line. He was seeing a doctor, no way around it. “The medic’s name is Bates, let me flag him down-”

“No, no, no. Steve.” Bucky mumbles in the face of Steve’s certainty. “You don’t need to-”

“Wait a - Sarge?”

The voice comes from behind them and Bucky turns with him after a seconds delay, seemingly recognizing the disbelieving voice. The African American solider is stood with Sergeant Dugan, smacking the man across the chest frantically to get his attention whilst staring at the two of them.

It seems to work and the Sergeant does a double-take, shouts, “Jesus Christ, Barnes?! That you Bucky?”

Suddenly Dugan's in front of them. The man moves forward quickly, half slapping and half trying to hug his friend, almost pulling him off his feet until Bucky loses his balance. Steve catches him from behind as he trips. “Easy boys,” he warns, eyes harder than he means them to be. “Take it easy with him.”

The man seems to catch his meaning and pulls back, realizing belatedly that Bucky has tensed from the unexpected contact. Bucky mumbles in bewilderment, “Dum Dum?”

Steve frowns, “Um Buck, that’s not his-”

“Nah it is.” Dugan reassures, grinning, “To my friends. ‘s Not like goddamn Bucky is his God-given name.” He snorts.

“Fuck you.” Bucky slurs after inadvertently cringing for a moment. “Father Richards christened me all well and holy as Bucky Buchannan Barnes, Dum Dum, you uncivilized piece of shit.”

Steve snorts, “He did not, you liar.”

“You weren’t there, were you? So what would you know?”

“I know your ma never stumped to calling you Bucky once in our whole lives, James Barnes.”

Dugan laughs, and Jones says “God-given or not Sarge, we didn’t think we’d ever be seeing you again. Thought you were a goner’ for sure - dead weeks ago.”

“Weeks?” Steve shoots in quickly before Bucky can, who altogether looks rather sick at the thought of it. “That’s how long he was gone for?”

“It’s hard to tell the time passing in that place, you know? And we saw him getting dragged off - different cell blocks; the Krauts would rotate you out if they noticed guys getting too chummy - but yeah, ages ago. Maybe a month? That right, you think Jones?” Dugan clarifies, turning to the African American man.

“Over.”

“Over a month?” Steve says numbly, heart stone cold in his chest.

“Yeah. Six or seven weeks, or there ‘bouts, I’m pretty sure, I was counting the sunrises. And the prisoners never last long, not more than a few weeks, and they kept taking more after him. We figured one of the others had probably already shoved his body in the incinerator.”

Steve bites his tongue, angry and sick to his stomach; unable to look a Bucky for a moment. That was why no one, including these men had reacted when he’d asked about his friend, they thought he was looking for ashes - because as far as they were concerned he’d died a month back.

 But he didn’t, Steve has to remind himself, he hasn’t. He’s standing right next you you, he’s alive. He’s standing beside him, eyes wandering around between the trees like he can’t quite believe it. Me too pal, me too. 

He squeezes Bucky’s shoulder in response, forces the fear and nausea off his face now he’s got the information he wanted - needed - to know, pulling Bucky’s focus back onto him. Bucky looks at Steve with the same expression, rests a hand against his bicep nervously. Steve smiles at his friend and turns back to the others, “Clearly they underestimated him. Becca would have a field day, wouldn’t she Buck?”

Bucky doesn’t seem to grasp the joke, or if he does he doesn't react, just keeps staring at Steve and the canopy above them. He suddenly looks like he’s somewhere else.

“Sarge? You okay there?” The private, Jones, asks the question he can’t get out.

Bucky’s head bobs, “Huh?”

“He asked if you were okay, you idiot.” Dugan replies gruffly, but worriedly. “Well, are ya?”

Bucky sniffs and he says slowly, still slurring slightly. “Yeah…yeah… I just,” Bucky starts then rubs at his eye until it begins to water, reassuring absolutely nobody. He turns to Steve, dragging his eyes from Steve’s chest to his face. “Can I talk to you?”

“You’re talking right now, pal.”

“No I mean…” his eyes flicker to Jones and Dugan shiftily, the ‘can-I-talk-to-you-alone’ clearly implied this time.

“Hey, well we gotta’ sort out the rest of the scouting and loading up,” Dugan jumps in convincingly, “but come find us later before we move out, we’ll save ya’ a spot First-Class on the best truck; sandbag pillow and all-”

“Buck’s gonna walk for now,” Steve cuts him off calmly before Bucky can start again, trying portray to the other dubious looking men that this was how things were going to go - whether he and they were happy about it or not. “But we’ll find you later when we get moving, I’m sure it’ll be good to have some familiar company on the walk.”

“Absolutely Captain,” Says Private Jones, nodding and pulling Dugan with him; the moustached man watching Bucky worriedly and warily. “We’ll see you in a minute Barnes.”

Steve turns back to his friend, who seems to have lost his train of thought again whilst ignoring the other soldiers, staring again at the leaves of the tree-canopy and clutching at Steve’s jacket sleeve. The light of the fires are reflecting through the trees onto the arches of his face, drawing even more focus to his glassy eyes and dilated pupils.

“What did you wanna’ talk to me about alone, Buck?”

Bucky turns to look blankly at him for a moment as though he’s forgotten, before hissing in a breath, eyes clearing as much as they can in their drugged haze. He looks over Steve’s shoulder, tugs him unsuccessfully and unsteadily by his arm away from the truck at his back. “Pal? What are we-”

Bucky clenches his fingers tighter, and pulls him until he follows, stumbling against a tree farther away from the hustle. He lets go to practically hug the bark of the tree, looks up at the canopy and around him again. Steve, thinking him delirious, reaches out to check his temperature. Bucky’s eyes shoot to him as he does, bright and possessed. 

“Is this real, Steve?” He asks, sounding like he’s almost begging. “Is this real? It feels real, like, like the tree and ---and you,” he clenches a hand around the zip of Steve’s jacket, digging the metal into his palm like Steve saw him do with his dog-tags earlier. “But not you at the same time. But you feel…Is this...? Tell me it’s real.”

Steve feels his face collapse, “God Bucky, yes, yes, this is real. I’m real. The tree is real, you are goddamn real, pal.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I promise.”

“So I’m not…am I dead? It can be real - or feel real - if I’m dead with the after-life and all. Sister Judith always said-”

“You are not dead.” Steve says as firmly as he can before Bucky can start rambling, trapping Bucky’s sweaty head in between his hands until he looks at him properly. “You are not dead.”

He still looks unsure, “I’m not? I thought I was. I thought it was finally over…” Hands suddenly trembling, Steve pulls Bucky close to him, hugging him as tightly as he can. This time Bucky doesn’t tense - instead he clings back and continues mumbling. “I thought it was over, I thought it was finally-”

“-It is over Buck-”

“-No, No, it’s never over, no, it’s never-”

“-It’s over, I swear it to God, on my ma’s grave. It’s over, Buck, they can’t hurt you anymore - I won’t let them. You’re alive, you’re out, we escaped; all of us and it’s over.” Finally, after what feels like an age, he feels Bucky nodding into his chest. Undeterred he continues; needs to go further, “Do I feel real right now?”

Bucky nods against his collar bone a second time.

“Do you feel real?” A pause. Bucky shakes his head hesitantly, and Steve squeezes him and loosens his grip, pulls back just a little. “Does the fresh air out here feel real? Does the sight of the grass and the tree behind you feel real? Yes, they do, because they are.… Do you believe me?”

Bucky pushes him backwards gently, eyes glassy with drugs or tears Steve doesn’t know. “I believe you.” Steve sighs in pure relief as Bucky looks around at the soldiers loading trucks with pilfered supplies, as though with new eyes. Bucky says, softly, wonderingly; “Jesus Christ, Steve…What did you do?”

He can’t seem to fight the self-deprecating smile appearing on his face, “It’s a long story. I can’t wait to tell you about it later…but we’ve got to get moving. So what do you say, still up for walking or---”

“I’m not…I’m not changing my mind.”

Steve’s huffs out a resigned laugh, “I had a feeling you wouldn’t, but it was worth a try.” He smiles, almost tearful, squeezes the back of Bucky’s neck, “Come on, let’s find some of your old men.”

Find someone to keep an eye on you when I get called away - he can already see Falsworth motioning to him - because you’re not okay, no matter what you say. 

“And the medic too.” He adds for good measure. Bucky groans unhappily beside him.

.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

He doesn’t feel cold anymore. That’s new, he thinks; from the ghostly frost creeping from Zola’s hands to his skin, through his flesh and down to his veins underneath. A dozen points of contact; ‘contagion zones’ now and forever - like a New York winter lingering long after it’s outstayed it’s welcome. He hasn’t been cold since the burning factory dream-not-dream, he realizes, as though the fire had slipped in through his mouth, down his throat and followed him outside - another unwelcome parasite. A thick cloying heat shivers and drapes itself around his aching body instead like a blanket; a barrier keeping him on one side and the world on another. Has he felt this before?

“Come on Sarge, keep moving.”

Tongue still feeling thick in his mouth, he doesn’t answer and feels a hand on his back fuel his shuffling steps forward. 

“He good?” he hears, somewhere behind him, a voice he doesn’t recognize.

Someone snorts, “Debatable.”

Steve is somewhere in front of him, his voice clipped, having an argument with someone unknown. Ah, something familiar then. Bucky blinks, and tries to get ahead to his friend because lets face it, an arguing Steve always leads to a bodily fight whether they’re in a Brooklyn alley or in a European warzone.

Someone crosses across his vision, and he looses sight of whatever it was he was starting forwards for. So he keeps walking as the horizon sky purples violet and blue with the beginnings of dawn, stars still glinting above their heads.

. . .

Steve comes to check on him, puts his hands on both of his shoulders, peers into his eyes. Bucky smiles, fever bright.

“You’re my balavas.” he says.

Steve quirks an eyebrow. “Your what now?”

“My balavas,” Bucky repeats with certainty, still grinning. 

Steve still looks doubtful, looks equally amused and concerned. “Okay Bucky,” he says conspiratorially, patting his shoulder. “Whatever you say. Think you can go a little further?”

Bucky nods, because he can go anywhere Steve goes no matter how far, or how long. He can follow, it’s as easy as following the sun.

. . .

He tunes in and out like a radio, a companion always at his side. Sometimes it’s Dugan, sometimes Jones, - Dernier too, the crazy motherfucker - chattering loudly and constantly at the edge of Bucky’s vision as he did in their cell. He can feel the man’s eyes on him, up and down, up and down, like he’s a particularly interesting piece of pork. He’s probably thinking, why didn’t this smuck’s insides burn up like the others? But the thing is, they did, before the frost of his new flesh cocooned him like a caterpillar and saved him, and before the fire spat him back out - a new kind of insect. Bucky doesn’t hold it against him though - smiling and laughing and happy when Dernier kisses him on each cheek and says, “Marchez avec moi comme un ami.” (“Walk with me as a friend.”) 

He staggers along, tries to surround himself in the comforting patter of half formed conversation and away from the sweltering heat, listening to the birds and the crickets chirping. He couldn’t hear the birds on his--their first failed attempt. He palms the small weight still resting in his new pocket.

They’re stopping, someone tells him, they’re taking a moment to check provisions. Someone leads him over to a tree, says he could use some shade, and he stares at the clouds drifting in the sky.

It looks peaceful, like most things are outside of honking roads and busy street markets. It’s funny, how he never appreciated it before. Someone tries to set him down next to a tree and he shoves them off because he remembers the deal he made with himself so long ago before and after #Subject 64 died. Let him stay standing, straight-backed and proud like his friend and his father. Let him feel the sun on his face and the cool breeze against his hair; bright and warm and nothing like a damp cell stinking of shit and old carbolic soap. Let him feel the blades of grass, wet with morning dew in-between his toes - the way his ma used to every summer before The Crash like clockwork in the fields of Indiana.

He gets half a boot off and over-balances before someone - the same someone - steadies him from behind.

“What’ you doing, Sarge?” Jones asks warily, one hand on his shoulder, the other on his leg. 

“The grass…” Bucky mumbles, unable to find the words, English or otherwise to describe how inexplicably important it is to feel the grass on his bare feet. He wants to scrunch them in and out, in and out until he sucks in all of Mother Nature through the slices on the soles of his feet. Wants to take his boots off and throw them and the blood, thick and cloying between his toes, off a cliff or maybe at the bottom of a river. He can walk back barefoot, at one with nature in a way he has never been before.

“Right.” Jones says, tries to sound reassuring, “Okay Sarge, okay,” and starts manhandling his shoe back on his foot, waving someone over.

“No…no… I need-”

“What you boys doing over here then?” Dugan asks mid stroll, looking at Jones when Bucky won’t return his gaze, wrestling with Jones over his boot. 

“He’s trying ‘o take his shoes off - Sarge stop - I don’t know why, he just-” Jones grunts as Bucky elbows him in the ribs, his heel almost free. Dugan brushes a hand against the side of his hot cheek. 

“He’s burning up again, Christ.”

“He won’t stop - Sarge seriously.” Jones snaps at him.

“Barnes! Listen to me…Bucky.” He looks up at his name, still struggling, and his boot falls off before Jones can get another hold of it. ”What you doing man?” Dugan asks him, shaking his head in bewilderment like Bucky’s the one who’s lost his mind.

Bucky almost growls at him. “I told you. I want-”

“Hey ace, how about some water?” Head snapping across to the new voice and the sound of liquid sloshing against metal, Bucky blinks rapidly, eyes on the canteen held aloft in the man’s hands - mouth dry. 

--------In his distraction Jones steadies the Sergeant at the waist while Dugan takes the opportunity to bend down, clasping a thick hand around Bucky’s shin, and pulls the boot back on with his other hand---------

“Okay ace,” The Japanese soldier with the American accent says, handing him the canteen. “Just filled it up from a river I found across the way. ‘t’s still cold.”

He probably shouldn’t pour this on his head, should he? It’d be a waste (and wouldn’t wash away the chemicals sitting dormant in his blood), and so instead he aims for his mouth and guzzles as much as he can before they take it away from him.

(They always take it away.)

Dugan’s lowering his boot-clad foot to the ground, tying his laces - why was everyone so obsessed with his feet?

He doesn’t care about anything else other than the canteen in his hand.

“He’s got cuts on his feet,” Dugan murmurs lowly, looking behind Bucky at Jones. “Like someone's cut them up, the bastards. He’s been bleedin’ through his boots.”

Has he? Who cares? It’s not like you can feel them, Bucky thinks deliriously, and what does it matter when you’ve got this liquid gold in your hands; down your throat.

“Il va se rendre malade s’il ne ralentit pas.” (He’ll make himself sick if he doesn’t slow down.)

“Easy Sarge,” Jones says when Dernier comes to stand on his left, appearing from the trees, hand going for the canteen. “Take it slow. You’ll make yourself-----”

He spins, and punches Jones in the solar plexus. 

“Jesus Christ!”

Unsteady as he is the punch is still strong and desperate and he’s angry. Bent over from where he’s stumbled forwards away from everyone, Bucky clings to the canteen. He not letting anyone have it. This is the most water he’d had in as long as he can remember and he is not giving it up.

Jones is coughing and gasping, Dugan and Dernier hovering at his side from where they’d shot up, helping him stand upright. The Japanese-American solider, the one Bucky now remembers introducing himself as Jim Morita, how you doing? You take any smokes from the Krauts before you killed em? - is stood between them, hands held out entreatingly.

“---- What ---- the -----fuck ----- Barnes -----”

“You son of a bitch -----Jones you alright?”

Bucky steps back, stumbling, when Morita seems to move forward before freezing and raising his hands higher. ”Easy man, take it easy. You’re good, we just don’t want you throwing up later.”

“Nous ne vous le prendrons pas.” (We won’t take it away from you.) Dernier says from behind. Bucky watches them distrustfully, and backs away further until he’s behind the tree and facing away from them - brings the canteen to his lips and starting gulping it down again.

“We’re getting ready to move out again boys…Everything okay over here?”

Jesus, would everyone just leave him alone? He was fine, he was fine; just leave him alone with the dawning sun and the trees and his water and he’d be fine. Just let him be, for Christs sake, for five fucking minutes while he drowned the fever out of himself. 

He can feel Morita’s eyes warily fixed on what’s visible of him behind the tree, “You might want to come back to us in five on that one, Cap.”

“Peut-être plus,” (Maybe longer,) Dernier murmurs behind him. Bucky backs himself further against the tree, tips his head back and locks his knees; hiding. 

“Why, what’s going on? What happened there…where's--?”

“I’m pretty sure your Jimmy-boy just broke his ribs,” Dugan snaps, interrupting, hand on Jones’ shoulder, “that’s what just happened.”

Steve seems to blanch, “Wait what----where’s----?”

Dernier says, “Là-bas capitaine,” (Over there Captain,) and Bucky hears leaves crunching underfoot as someone turns his way, followed by a long moment of silence aside from Jones’ quietening coughs.

Steve says, “You soldiers give us a minute? Sit him,” - Jones he means - “somewhere, get him something to drink. There’s medic around here somewhere.”

“It’s alright Captain, I should be all good.” Jones replies, voice strained. Bucky doesn’t dare turn round the tree to look at him.

“Even so, get checked out anyway, Private.”

Everyone begins shuffling off until the leaves rustling in the wind and murmurs of conversation from soldiers across the way are the only sounds he can hear. He can’t see the drifting clouds through the tree-bed above him anymore.

“Buck?” Steve asks calmly; carefully. Bucky can feel himself panting, and presses the canteen to his lips again to drain it’s last mouthful and let the vestiges drip against his face. Is he sweating? “Buck, talk to me.”

He closes his eyes, chest heaving. He just needs a minute. Give me a minute Steve, I’m okay.

“You don’t seem okay.” When did Steve learn to read minds - was this another fantastical ability? - or maybe he had said it aloud? Steve pushes the hair off his forehead, coming round to his side of the tree. His hand’s cool, but not cold as he’d expected - what season was it - which feels blissful against his sweaty forehead. Bucky sighs in contentment. “You’ve got a fever.”

Steve’s frowning unhappily at him when he opens his eyes.

“So’ve you.” Bucky murmurs back conspiratorially, still pleased that Steve’s here, come to get him, in whatever form he comes in. The frown between his eyebrows, above his honker of a nose, deepens self-consciously.

“No I don’t,” he says, his voice unsure. “At least I don’t think I------”

“You’ve always got a fever.” Bucky continues as if he hasn’t spoken, eyes drifting closed. The most important thing, the most important thing in the world, is he still has his canteen. “Always in winter--from the cold, whether we can afford heating or not. You always…you’ve always got a fever in winter ------ it is Winter right?”

Steve squeezes the back of his neck, fingers reaching all the way round. They couldn’t do that before. “Yeah Buck, it’s still winter.”

Bucky hums, “How long,” he coughs, clearing his throat. “How long until Spring?”

“It’s still November so ---”

“I didn’t miss Christmas then?”

There’s a sad pause, and Bucky can feel Steve’s upset in the air around them. “No Buck,” Steve replies quietly, “you didn’t miss Christmas.”

Bucky swats at Steve’s chest ineffectively. “Stop.” He tells him.

“Stop what?”

“Can feel you frowning at me. Stop it.” Bucky opens his eyes and, yep guess what; frown central, what is this, a dramatic scene with Scarlet O’Hara? He raises his free hand, fingers poised to smooth away the wrinkle. Steve catches his wrist gently, other hand on the canteen Bucky’s just swatted at him with. He tightens his fingers reflexively.

Steve’s eyes flick from his face to his hand and back again. ”It’s empty, pal.” Bucky tugs it back stubbornly and Steve releases his hold, good guy that he is. “ ‘s that what this was about? They tried to take the water back? That why you slugged, what’s ‘s name - Jones?”

Looking away Bucky shrugs, feeling that he should be embarrassed or guilty, probably both - but isn’t. “I just….” 

He doesn’t know how to finish, how to put in words that everything feels like he’s underwater during bath-time, the water hot and stifling but slightly murky from his sisters’ washes before; his parents stubbornly reusing the water. How to explain how he feels scrubbed raw from his pa’s unintentional harsh ministrations - but not clean. How he can’t think outside of that he’s hot, tired, dizzy and someone had given him water and then tried to take it away. It’s the worst thing they can do to him outside of locking him back in a dark cell curled up in a ball or strapping him back down flat - and why couldn’t they see that? Why couldn’t they stop touching him and telling him to lie down and stopping him from doing the things he wanted to do. He doesn’t want to sit down and he doesn’t want to lie down (that’s when they strap him down, he can’t move when he’s strapped down).  

He wants to stay standing and moving even when he’s down for the count, like #Subject 64 and like his pa on the African plains the year before, walking two miles on a broken leg and still raising his gun when the enemy came back ‘a’ knockin’. He wants to take his fucking shoes off.

“I was thirsty.” He finishes inadequately; lamely.

“I can fill it back up again before we go like with the others. There’s a fresh river just over there,” Steve replies positively, motioning over his shoulder. “It’ll be quick, no time at all.”

He hovers his hand back over the canteen but doesn’t touch. Bucky’s fingers stay firm and he shakes his head, wipes what he thinks is sweat from his brow. “No I’m…its-----” 

Bucky stops speaking as some Limey, a Lieutenant or something of some kind, starts shouting everyone to attention, eyes sliding over to Steve’s now bulky frame visible through the trees. “Alright lads, pack it up again----” 

He stops listening, and says to Steve, “I think you should go, they’ll need you to coordinate.”

“I’ll go in a moment.” Steve replies distractedly, frowning at his left ear. Feeling an itch Bucky scratches at it self-consciously and dry brown blood sheds off his skin and sticks under his nails like dandruff. He needs to distract Steve.

“You’re the commanding officer, aren’t you?”

“Technically I’m not actually a Captain…”

“But they think you are - that’s what matters - you need to go.”

Steve sighs, turns his head by the chin so they’re facing each other again. “Are you sure you don’t want to----”

“I’m not lying back down and don’t you ask me to.” Don’t you dare ask me to, Steve.

“There’s some room on the trucks - and there’s the tank----”

“Steve.”

His best friend huffs in annoyance, crouches down a little so he can look him in the eyes again for a moment and tracks his pupils. “You’re a stubborn asshole sometimes, you know that?”

“Says you.” He shoots back, wobbling a little when he pushes away from the tree. Steve takes his hand gently, tugs him back to their self-made road and lets go just before the clearing as they come into view. 

“I’m gonna go see if I can find you something to eat, yeah? Get something in your stomach.” Steve says as the Limey calls him over, his eyes catching on Bucky’s exposed collar bone. He tugs his eyes away, turning, “One of you boys okay to keep him company for a bit again?”

Dernier steps forward. “Oui, Captaine'.”

Steve nods to him, pats Bucky on the shoulder reassuringly and jogs over to speak to the Lieutenant-man-person. 

“Vous sentez-vous...better?” (Are you feeling better?)

Bucky blinks at the man, falling into step - albeit slightly slower - as the engines around them start up again, and then watches his feet take one step in front of the other. He musters himself; answers in silting French. ”Pas vraiment. Mais c’est bien d’être au soleil.” (Not really. But it’s nice to be in the sun.)

Dernier jolts at his response, looking pleased despite his atrocious accent. He slows his pace to match Bucky’s, watching Bucky watch his feet. “Oui, oui!” He replies, grinning and speaking slower so Bucky can follow.  “J’ai manqué le soleil aussi, les arbres aussi. Je pensais ne plus jamais respirer l’air frais - c’est James, oui? Votre prénom?” (Yes yes! I have missed the sun too, the trees too. I thought I'd never breathe fresh air again - it is James, yes? Your first name?)

“Tout le monde m’appelle Bucky.” (Everyone just calls me Bucky)

Dernier laughs, “Trop de James, hein? Je connais tant de Jacques à Lyon que ma femme criait et tous les hommes de la rue se tournaient pour répondre... C’est bien de revoir ton visage.”  (Too many James', yes? I know so many Jacques in Lyon my wife would shout and every man on the street would turn to answer...It is nice to see your face again.)  He finishes, the glad I didn’t have to burn you too lying unspoken between them, though Bucky supposes he could be being overly paranoid.

He looks up from his feet to see Dernier with his hand out, nodding at him with a smile, a second introduction. He shakes his hand, and his smile isn’t as thin on his face this time round. “You too, Jacques. You too.”

The Frenchman starts up a comfortable one-sided conversation beside him, which Bucky follows sparingly now he isn’t committing his concentration solely on the French translation, but Dernier doesn’t seem to mind. He spares a moment to mutter a ‘Sorry Jones’ when the man falls back to answer a question.

The man merely slaps him on the shoulder, sending him swaying a foot sideways, with a “No hard feelings, Sarge. Guess you’re as good with your fists as you are with a rifle.”

“I should hope so too,” the familiar voice says as his friend jogs back over, motioning with his thumb at Bucky. “We've got a three-time Welterweight boxing champion over here, did you know that?” He turns to Bucky and passes over a German bread ration with knackebrot printed on the front, along with a bag of lemoned candies. “One of the guys from the 107th pulled these off a guard, figured it be quicker than unpacking the trucks to find the food. Here, take it.”

He looks to the knackebrot ration to Steve nodding at him in encouragement and back to the ration, his stomach feeling tight and queasy. He slips them into the pocket without the hole in, ignoring the look on Steve’s face. “Thanks.” He pauses, a thought occurring to him, wiping his forehead again whilst he curls his arm around his stomach. “Where’s my gun gone?”

“What gun, Sarge?”

“I had a…on the stairs. Steve you know, we took them from the…” he waves his arm in explanation, trailing off; Steve will know what he means.

“Ugh,” Steve replies, looking shifty. “You dropped it Buck.”

“What----I dropped it?” He asks disbelievingly. “When?”

“You,” Steve clears his throat, starts walking to keep pace with them. “You tripped and pulled the trigger by accident, remember? I think you were dizzy, and then you dropped it. Then you passed out.”

“Oh.” Bucky says, embarrassed. He doesn’t remember that at all, but can believe it now that he’s heard it. There’s quite a few things he doesn’t remember, like how Private Campbell died for one - yes you do - and he tries not to think about it, stomach squirming. “Can I have yours?”

“Um.” Steve has on the face says ‘no, but-I-don’t-want-to-tell-you-no’. Well fuck me, Bucky thinks, it’s normally me wearing that face like a second skin (another face living under his skin like a demon, ready and waiting to peel off - don’t think about that either). 

“Why not?” Bucky challenges.

Dugan clears his throat behind them. “Walk in a straight line Jimmy, and ask us that again in an hour.”

Bucky spins, ready to glare the doubt right off the guy’s face and do something else too, and overbalances. Steve catches him round the waist before he can fall under the wheels of the moving truck bracketing the side of them. “Whoa easy!” Steve says out loud, mutters a “Seriously, Buck? Come on, pal” in his ear as he rights him.

He can hear Dugan snorting, “I think that says it all Jimmy-boy.”

“Fuck off!” Bucky snarls, unable to control his temper with Steve’s arm still around his middle - who hisses a “Buck!” in warning. Dugan merely raises an eyebrow, looking amused.

“Does he normally go cross-eyed when he’s being pissy or is this a new development?”

(Do you normally scream so much when a doctor gives you a shot, Sergeant, or is this a new development? Now tell me, does this feel hot or cold?)

Bucky turns away, shaking with anger and nausea both. He shakes Steve off and throws an arm out to steady himself when he misses a step. His legs hurt, his back aches, he feels sick and his hands won’t stop trembling.

He can’t sit down. He can’t sit down.

.

STEVE

He’s worried about Bucky.

The journey back to base is painfully slow, slower than he likes with a hundred semi-wounded men and the rest suffering from a combination of exhaustion and starvation, especially on the winding road off the beaten track the Italian Resistance member has led them down. The temperature drops and Steve makes a point of trying to get Bucky to put on his jacket, not that his friend’s having any of it. Just keeps snapping that he’s too hot and keeps pushing away from everyone’s hands whenever they come too close. And as much as Steve hates it, he had to agree - his friend’s sweating and Steve can feel the heat coming off him from feet away. He resolves to keep an eye on him - what else has he tried to do since this started - and slip the jacket on when Bucky isn’t paying attention. God knows there has already been moments where it looked as though Bucky was somewhere else far away in his own head, or not focused on anything but moving - as terrifying as that was.

As annoying as it was too -

Bucky wouldn’t sit down for a moment, let alone rest up; kept saying he could and would keep walking. So shut up Steve. After the third time he keeps up this mantra, mumbling under his breath and to Steve over and over as if he’s forgotten he’s spoken the second beforehand, Steve has to stop him.

He’s bleeding from his left ear.

That’s what’s worrying Steve the most; that and the blazing fever that seems to be getting better and worse in spades like a Vivaldi symphony. He keeps swatting at the air around the same ear as though there’s an errant fly, not that he thinks Bucky has noticed himself doing it, and rubbing at his left eye socket until the skin and white of his eye is red and teary.

What have they done to you? Steve thinks, sick and angry at once. What have they done to his sturdy best friend to have him swaying and confused one minute, angry and snappish another, then smiling brazenly at him like he’s the sun the next? It’s as though he can’t seem to decide what face and persona to pull on, and while Steve knows almost all of those personas: family man, ladies man, dancer, fighter, boxer and sleep-grumpy; he doesn’t know this interchangeable person in front of him at the moment.

He wonders if Bucky’s thinking the same about him.

“How we doing, Bucky?”

His friend jolts next to him at his voice, like he’s forgotten it’s been Steve wandering by his side for the last half hour - an unprecedented time period he’s managed to escape from the lead position of the march. “Huh?”

Steve thinks about trying his luck again, what little chance it has of turning his way in this matter. “You want a rest---”

“---No.” Bucky cuts him off, looking stubborn and annoyed, swatting around his ear again.

“How about some water then? Or the rations in your pocket?” 

Let no-one ever say Steve doesn’t go down without a fight.

His friend shakes his head, palms under his eye with the same hand, curling his other tighter round his stomach. “Feel sick.”

“Like you’re gonna’ throw up?”

“Always feel like I’m gonna’ throw up.” Bucky mumbles under his breath, probably thinking Steve can’t hear him. He says, louder, turning to Steve; a brittle smile on his face, “Water maybe.”

A less bright smile: he’s definitely feeling worse. “Sure Buck, here.” Steve says, handing him another canteen and taking the opportunity to check his eyes while he’s at it. Pupils still as wide as saucers; little has changed apart from Bucky’s fever growing higher and his memory growing faultier. Aside from that and the slight sway in his step - and Steve is checking his feet the first chance he gets after what he’d overheard from Dugan an hour before - he’s still moving. Silting and uncomfortable, which all the men are, but still moving. The simple fact is - he shouldn’t be.

Seven men have collapsed so far on the walk - three dead now, hearts and bodies giving up from the mistreatment, and they hadn’t been tortured and experimented on for who knows how long like Bucky had been. He’d seen the inside of that lab, seen everything with his memory as it is now, and he’d seen the needles, the vials of green and yellow and most importantly unused blue serum. And he’d seen meticulously labelled vials of blood marked before and after, different subject numbers on each pair.

He knows what Schmitt and his Doctor were trying to recreate, and quite possibly had managed some part of it - because goddammit Bucky should not be walking.

“I want a gun.”

Steve sighs again; this argument was old by the fourth time he’s had it, let alone what now was the sixth. “We’ve got armed guys on either side and the front and back of the march, and we haven’t had any firefights-”

“-So far-”

“So far,” Steve allows, “So until then try not to worry yeah?”

“I want a gun, Steve.”

His friend still isn’t steady on his feet and right now Steve doesn’t trust him not to turn and shoot one of theirs accidentally if he startles. Steve has already seen him go for where his holster would be when a bird flew out of the trees in front of him.

“Not right now.”

“Steve! I-”

“Not right now Bucky!” Steve snaps back loudly, and feels immediately guilty when Bucky clearly tries to restrain a flinch, still not used to Steve’s big size. He keeps looking at his chest before raising it to his face, eyes catching on where Steve’s eyeline used to be. “Just…Not at the moment pal, if we run into any trouble we’ll come back to it.” Steve says, calmer. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.”

“Who thought it would be such a crime to want to defend yourself?” Bucky grouches, half joking and half bitter, face like he’s swallowed a lemon. 

Jesus Christ, he can’t make this easy, can he? Take the damn apology while you’ve got it Barnes, you stubborn little asshole. Steve ignores that part of his temper, and bumps his shoulder with Bucky’s, gentle enough that he doesn’t loose his footing. “How about you let me defend you for once, huh? Give you a break from chasing me down from my hare-brained ideas?”

“Doubt I’ll ever get a break from that pal,” Bucky replies back after a moment, shaking himself as a tremor rocks through his whole body. “I mean, Christ, you have eyes don’t you? You do see where we are, what you just did in the middle of Nazi Germany? Give me a break my arse.”

Steve snorts a laugh. “Half a break then - you don’t need to break anyone’s noses for me anymore at least.”

Bucky blinks at him again, a strange expression on his face. “Right.” He says, and goes quiet.

There’s something wrong with his best friend, and he might be part of the reason.

.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

He’s not sure how it happens.

He’s not sure where was he was before he blacked out, and is not entirely sure where he is when he comes back to himself ---Morita snapping fingers in front of his nose. Steve’s gone. Where is Steve?

“Barnes? You hear me?”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Dunno pal, he was walking and then just checked out, it’s like no one’s home….doesn’t look like he’s seeing much.”

“Not hearing much either, I reckon.” Morita’s mouth was moving, but the words didn’t seem to sync up. 

“Any ideas, doc?”

He can feel someone pressing down on his wrist, and feel his pulse point pounding in time with his head, rocketing from the back of his eyeballs to the top of his spine - like Mr Douglas hammering in those Godforsaken shelves on the other side of the wall for hours on end. The same someone moves up his arm and rolls his worn shirt up, thin fingers brushing and prodding at the needle tracks there. An unfamiliar face appears in the line of his vision. Morita backs off. The man at his front clicks his fingers in front of his face again, watching his eyes. Bucky blinks slowly.

“Well?” Dugan pesters.

The man does the same either-side of his head, clicking near his ears. Bucky flinches this time, but can’t do anything else; limbs like a deadweight. “He was walking before?” the man questions, his fingers still thumbing at the achy inside of his elbow.

Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me. I don’t know you, don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.

“Walking and talking in turns, he’d be alright one minute telling me to go shit in a bush somewhere, and tryna take off his shoes the next…”

Bucky can feel himself drifting again, voices washing over him and away, his eyes stuck on the fixed point in front of him. Waking up to find his eyes already open and watering, his body slow and distant like this  isn’t new. This has happened before, he knows, on the table and on his cot and in the dank corner, but it’s no less terrifying no matter how many times it happens.

“Clearly not right….was walking but stumbling all over….didn’t notice until we stopped…”

“’ was like he couldn’t hear us or see us……..then realized…..been trembling but didn’t say nothing. We shook him and he let us lead ‘im down here….been staring at us like he’s dead.”

“And he’s had the fever all day?”

Please let me go. I can’t move. Please let me go.

(You are not going anywhere Sergeant Barnes, do be quiet, I’m trying to concentrate.)

He suddenly feels the bile rising up the back of his throat, feels the panic lightening up and down his body when he can’t open his mouth any wider - tries to force and swallow it back down. He’s going to choke., he's going to---

He’d thrown up in Zola’s lab before, not the first time and not the last time, but once he threw up whilst strapped down on his back. 

When he was young, before he met Steve - brave impulsive Steve - he used to be scared of a lot of things. He used to be scared of thunder and his neighbours, Sister Judith and his ma’s scary stories, bullies and cockroaches and for a short amount of time; pigeons, when they’d swarmed him when he was four near the Hudson river. He’d been scared of Becca replacing him, been scared his parents wouldn’t love him anymore, been scared of leaving the house he’d grown up in when the banks lost all their money.

Then his father had taught him to box, taught him to be a man - ‘you’ll be the man of the house one day, lad’ and he wasn’t scared of bullies anymore. His mother taught him that the thunder was far away and couldn’t hurt him, and that if you cook your neighbours a casserole they’ll spend so much time eating it they’ll forget to call you a hooligan when you pass by their gate. Becca taught him that all sisters are little brats, so really what the heck were you worrying for? And Steve taught him to be brave; even when you were scared - pretend to be brave and they’ll never know the difference.

He forgot to pretend on that table. 

He used to think the worst way to die was by stoning, that was how God punished the infidels and the sodomites after-all, but on that table he realized he was wrong. The worst way to die was drowning, not on water or smoke, but on your own vomit. Zola had turned to look at him, face impassive as he watched and the guards at the door had laughed at him. And he choked and he choked and he sobbed, hot tears streaming down his face and thought: this is it. This is the end.

Come get me papa, I want you to take me home.

I want you to make me brave again like you did before; wrap my knuckles up tight in the  morning sun, correct my footwork, and ruffle my hair; fall faux-groaning to the floor as the  Great Buchanan seizes victory once again, the sole successor of all bedroom boxing rounds.

I’m so tired pa, so tired. Come get me.

His pa, God rest his soul, hadn’t come through his begging and sobbing and his choking, but Zola had. He ordered the guards to turn him on his side and strap him back down like that just as Bucky’s vision began blackening at the edges, and for one sickening moment he’d been grateful for the swat little doctor. He’d been so tired, so weak, he hadn’t been able to turn his head to help himself even after they’d removed the machine and he’d stopped bucking against the leather.

He forgot to pretend on the table, but thinks that maybe he can learn to pretend again. After all, his father wasn’t the only one who’d taught him bravery.

“Buck?”

He can see a giant emerging from the glare of the sunset in the corner of his eye, starting forward - wasn’t it just morning? - blonde and tall, bathed in orange and pink like St Michael returning from battle, and honestly, where was this goddamn smuck getting his suspiciously holy lighting from, some kinda’ magic can?

Steve. Steve I feel sick. I can’t move and I think I’m gonna be sick.

Making quick work of the distance between them Steve drops like a stone to his knees - was he sitting down? When did he sit down? Steve grabs his jaw and tugs it towards him almost possessively away from the medic. Bucky’s head lolls too far, ends up staring at Steve’s muddy footprints, and feels his body sliding sideways off the side of the tank he’s leaning against. Steve tugs him back up into the same position, traps his head between his hands; puts himself directly in Bucky’s eyeline. He stares at the green in Steve’s blue eyes, feels his senses sharpen.

“Captain---”

“How long has he been like this?” Steve snaps out, still looking at him but unable to keep the accusation out of his voice. “He wasn’t like this before!”

“We only noticed about twenty minutes ago - but it could have been hours---”

“Could have been----how do you not notice this?!” This time, there was a poorly concealed glare on his face when he turned to the men Bucky couldn’t see.

“Well, he was walking Cap, not saying anything - but we figured he just didn’t wanna’ talk. It looked like his fever was going down…” Though Steve held his tongue, maybe you did listen to your ma occasionally after-all Steve-o, it’s clear as day to Bucky that he’s biting back a few choice words about how this was hardly any better than a fever. I don’t feel any colder, Bucky thinks deliriously. 

“He stared straight past us when we stopped him - we called the medic over when we couldn’t snap him out of it.”

“Well, what did you think when you saw him earlier?” Steve asks, turning to the medic next to him as Bucky manages to get his vision to widen. He’s let go of his elbow but Bucky can still feel the weight of the man’s stare on the marks.

The medic, surprise evident, replies, “This is the first time I’ve seen this solider. I knew one had come from that ward but no one pointed him out to me until now.”

Steve’s eyes flash in front of him, “I told him to see a medic before I got called away, he told me after he’d gone with you.” This time he turns to Dugan, and Bucky can see the man grinding his teeth in frustration even at this distance, probably more at him than Steve. That one’s on me.

“He told me he’d already been seen with you before we found him.”

“Goddammit Bucky!” Steve growls, expression flickering from anger and annoyance to fear and back again. “His ear’s been bleeding, could it be that? Something wrong---- something wrong with his brain?” Steve doesn’t know about the machine; about the electricity, Bucky makes a point of reminding himself. Steve does looks incredibly guilty for some reason though. “If he hit his head?…He could have done...when I jumped I landed on him. It wasn’t gentle, he could have--he could have hit his head.”

This wasn’t you Steve, you egotistic jerk, this wasn’t you. It’s okay, my ear was already bleeding when you jumped, this wasn’t you. It’ll wear off. It’s worn off before.

“Well he has a bruise,” the medic says, motioning the left side of his forehead, “but I don’t think that's what this is. I can tell he’s drugged to the gills, but I have no idea with what especially from what the rest of you described to me…” 

It was slightly troubling that Steve looked like he did.

“His pupils are blown wide, see, and with this kind of stupor he’s not tracking anything.” the medic continues, and Morita jumps in.

“He was tracking before, when he was talking. Looked confused, like he kept forgetting where he was a few times but he was talking back to us, following the conversation at least---”

Steve shakes his head, “His pupils have been huge from the start, since I….” since I pulled him from that table. ”That’s why I wanted him to see a medic.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair; looks stressed in a way he hasn’t been before. Turns back,

“Bucky? Bucky please, how can we help you, pal? What’s going on, huh?” The last part is quieter than the rest.

“He can’t see you Cap.”

“I think he might be able to hear you though.” The medic jumps in, looking for all intents and purposes like he has no idea, despite what he’s saying. Can’t fault him though, Bucky muses tensely, he’s right. “Look. I don’t get a reaction when I,” here he snaps his fingers in Bucky’s face again but all Bucky’s stuck on is Steve’s big fat nose, “but when I click by his ears ----”

Click. Click.

Bucky flinches again, twice, his body jerking properly with him this time. Stop it. 

Stop it.

Steve’s watching his eyes worriedly. Bucky forces two blinks at him, slow as you like, to get it through Steve’s big head. His friend frames his head between big hands again, frowning; seems to narrow his vision to match Bucky’s. It’s both terrifying and a relief to block out the rest of the world even more than he already is; Steve his eyes and ears. “Buck, can you hear me? Blink twice if you can hear me.”

Hallelujah.

Steve lets out a long breath as Bucky does, and looks like he’s going to cry. “Can you move?” Bucky blinks once; he’ll get it.

Steve.

Pursing his lips, Steve holds his fixed gaze around the uncomfortable silence surrounding them, then turns away. “Falsworth!” He calls; the same Limey comes over. “Can you see that everyone’s settled within the vehicles and organize a perimeter and patrol--”

“We’ve got the patrol Captain,” says Morita, taking the hint and pulling Dernier with him.

“Me too.” Jones.

Steve nods gratefully, turns to the medic. “Set up this area for the wounded, get them as comfortable as possible whether it’s in the trucks, in the tank or on the ground. Whatever’s best. Have a few of the other soldiers check your provisions, tear up shirts if you run out of bandages.”

“Yes sir.”

“Falsworth. We’re just under twenty miles from the base in Krausberg and have about the same or just over to go before we hit the Allied line at least. We’re settling here for the night like we spoke about before it gets too dark. What can we do about the food situation?”

“We’ve got some supplies that survived the battle loaded on the trucks, but now that I’ve looked, it seems like most of them were blown to hell when the watchtower came down. We’ve got some - but not enough to feed four-hundred men. We could ration it again, try to spread it out…”

Steve shakes his head firmly, “No. These men, all of you, need food. No rationing if we can help it, you’re all malnourished enough - how about hunting? Traps?”

“I can do you one better than traps, Cap. Spent every summer hunting with my old man out in Yellowstone as a boy. Leave it with me, we’ll have something before dark.” Steve looks at Dugan in pure relief, and Bucky can almost see with Steve’s eyes earlier as he must have realized the four-hundred men around them were faltering as the hunger crept in with the darkness. 

“Don’t go alone.” Is all he says, trusting the man.

“Oh, I won’t be the only one. There’s bound to be some farm boys round here somewhere - not all of ‘em are city slickers like you two.” Here he nods, seemingly at both of them from the corner of Bucky’s eye, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he leaves, eyes lingering on Bucky.

“Can you see to the organization, get everyone settled in rounds?”

“You’ve got it, Captain.” The Limey with the name Falsworth says.

“Thank you. Dismissed.”

Good Goddamn Steve, look at you, I knew you had it in you. Shoulda known you can boss a bunch of G.I’s around even when you have no idea what your doing. Bucky feels like shaking him and laughing with pride.

Steve turns back - they’re finally alone. “Okay Buck, just you and me now. You doing---- you feeling any better at all?”

No.

He purses his lips again, looking pained, puts himself eye-to-eye once more when he realizes Bucky’s staring at the top of his ear. “Okay. Okay. You just need a moment, yeah? Or maybe a bit longer? Just some quiet.”

Bucky feels like crying. Yes, yes, yes, finally. Finally someone who gets it, he thinks, eyes growing inexplicably hot with tears. 

Steve seems to notice, paws at his neck again. “Just you and me, pal,” his best friend repeats, pulling his right arm up and sliding in behind him; chest to back. Bucky can see the sinking sun, orange on a pink and dusky sky, faded ghosts of Italian mountains far in the distance. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. 

“Shoulda’ worked it out earlier really,” Steve speaks in his right ear, the one without dried blood cracking against his earlobe, in a classic Steve not-calm-but-trying-to-be move. “You always used to take yourself off somewhere quiet when you were upset or needed a break from your ma. I used to hear you all the time; climbing through the window out on the fire-escape. Used to lean outta’ my window sometimes to check on you - you know, when…”

When ma lost her marbles and started throwing things in the apartment, or when she’d  bring home a ‘friend’ and take him into his parent’s bedroom while his father was away at  the base, leaving Bucky and Becca to look after the twins.

Yeah Steve, I know. Thank you.

“I didn’t know if you knew that.”

I did. 

“I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve got no idea what I’m doing here.” I know that too. You’re doing great. “I mean, I’ve got Basic under my belt and well, about four months of dance and speech training - can you believe that? ---- apparently I was a little too Brooklyn for em’, wasn’t pronouncing my words well enough to be America’s mascot. You’ll never let me live it down I can already tell,” Steve laughs, “ and with the dancing - at least when you call me a Tinkerbell I'll know you mean it as a compliment with how much of a dead hoofer I was before.” 

Doubt you could get worse pal, so I’ll take your word for it.

“Bet you I could give you a run for your money now, how’s about that? When we go back state-side, or maybe in a Allied city if we can get you some leave - we go to one of those Jazz clubs you love? I won’t even sit on the sides or at the bar sulking anymore, not now that I’ve got money on it, eh?”

In the shade as they are and not in the hectic centre of the camp, they manage to escape the notice of most of the soldiers as Steve shifts behind him in disquiet at the silence, rocking him forward and settling an arm around his belly. With his other, he takes Bucky’s right hand and lays them down at their sides, clasped together. Bucky stares vacantly ahead at the sun disappearing beyond the hills.

“As long as you need Buck,” he says, squeezing. “I’m not going anywhere.”

STEVE

In the end, he speaks about Doctor Erkstine and the Serum, his training and Peggy. Agent Peggy Carter. He’s speaks about her a lot, probably more than he should, but once he starts he can’t seem to stop - talking about her wit and and her strength, her sarcastic humour and her beauty. “…clever too. I have to say though hand-on-heart, the best moment of my life for the last six months was when she socked Gilmore Hodge in the middle of roll-call. He went down like a sack of potatoes, I swear, like how Charlie McGuiness went down in your second final, you remember? I almost choked on my own tongue. That would not have been a good look in front of the officers on the first day, let me tell you Buck. Christ.” He almost grins at the thought of it.

“You’d like her I think,” I hope and pray to God you do, he thinks, she’s beautiful Buck. She’s everything I never thought I’d have, and you’ve always tried to find me a gal, but I guess I found one all on my own. “She’s the one who helped me come out here, to find you. I found out about the 107th…she told me without knowing, and when Colonel Philips said he’d signed a telegram with your name on it and there was no rescue mission...” He shakes his head, “I couldn’t think of anything but---but bringing you home, one way or another, for your sisters if not for me. They deserved that, after your pop. She stormed her way into my tent, asked me if I was planning on walking there - next thing I know she’d cornered Howard Stark into flying us over enemy lines in a civilian plane and I was pulling open my para-cute.

“She’s something else I’m telling you, it’s like ma always used to say, ‘There are some people who can hear you speak a thousand words and still not understand you. And there are others who will understand you without even saying a word’ Think she might be one of them”.

For years he’d taken that saying to heart, over and over, ignoring his ma telling him ‘you’ve got to actually speak to them Steven, otherwise how are you going to know? Honestly James, what does he think - they’re going to drop out the sky?’ and through it all had thought that yeah, she was right. 

The thing was, he’d found his ‘others’ already, in her and in Bucky, and it wouldn’t have been fair to have another if it meant someone else couldn’t. He didn’t need anyone else. He needed a lot of other things, like new lungs and a new heart and a honest-to-god whole new body if he was being realistic, to help his ma out with the rent and keep her from rubbing her rosary down to nothing every winter - but he didn’t need another person. He had a home, his mother, a photograph of his father on the mantle and a best friend down the hall and up the stairs. He was loved. He was content.

Then his ma had passed, and it hadn’t been quick and it hadn’t been pain free. There had been months leading up to it because after four years working the ward she knew she had it, probably before the doctors did, and took herself off early to the sanatorium; knowing it was probably a death sentence. She hadn’t wanted to infect him, and despite his rages and his begging he knew as much as she did he couldn’t keep Tuberculous away out pure foolhardy stubbornness. He’d been older then, both he and Bucky; whose ma didn’t bother to try to keep him away anymore, and they’d seen her off together; the funeral small and affordable. In the last months of her life that saying of hers had spiralled around and around in his head; wouldn’t shift, because if his ma died he’d be down one of his ‘others’, and did that mean he was getting another one?

Maybe, he’d thought for a while once some of the grief had passed and life moved on to a series of poorly held-down jobs one after another. After a year, then two and nearly three and still no one standing up to call for the not-so-great honour, he stopped thinking about it. 

Things had changed recently or so he thought; or maybe they would if things went the way he wanted them to. But for that to happen he needed to get over four-hundred drained and bone-weary men to an Army base nearly fifty more miles away, so the chances were looking a little slim. 

The most important of the four-hundred, his one ‘other’, still living and breathing against all the odds was sat laid-up in front of him and terrifyingly, seemed to be trapped in his own body.

He seemed to be have been trapped in his own head for half the day already, but this, this, this is infinitely so much worse. He must be so scared, Steve can't help but think; knows that his friend is at least semi-aware of his surroundings even if he isn’t able to respond, because Steve had seen the tears welling up in his eyes. 

“What do you reckon, think you can make room in your life for her, I did for what’s her name - Colette and Dot and the others? I mean, it’d only be fair, pal.”

How long have they been sitting here now? An hour? Longer? Or did it just feel that way, in this strange span of time sat with Bucky without his constant yapping? That was something he’d discovered when he and Bucky had moved to their shoebox apartment a few blocks over once his ma had died; the guy, as much as he loved him, never shut up. Whether he was running his mouth, whistling a tune, chatting to himself while he did the crossword and Steve ignored him, or tapping his foot to a nonsensical rhythm - he was always making a sound. His most prolific habit was drumming his fingers in complicated melodies against the bedside table, the arm of the couch, or his knee like he was at home at the piano the Barnes’ inherited off his great aunt, and had never sold no matter how far their savings depleted. Steve’s ma used to wonder sometimes to Mrs Mcintosh next door quietly when Steve was supposed to be in bed if Winifred Barnes would let her children starve before selling the antique; the only thing left of her estranged family.

But Debussy melodies and Beethoven’s symphonies echoing through the walls two floors up was a staple of his childhood, as much as the pneumonia and cabbage stew were, and so, he was always glad they never had. 

But still, being Bucky’s best friend whilst living a few hallways away and suddenly living with him were two very different things. They grated on each others’ nerves more than they ever had before that first month, with Steve, still grieving his mother’s calming quiet presence unable to deal with Bucky’s pure manic loud energy in his space. His friend had tried, to his credit; had held back from leaving his dirty socks all over the floor and dirty dishes in the sink for a whole two months, what a saint, and had tried to hold back his impulses so Steve could sketch silently. But the truth was - going from a boisterous home of six filled with childish games and big personalities to a single grieving roommate was no easy feat either. Within a few months, with them both employed and with more petty arguments than Steve liked to count, they settled into an easy co-existent life. Steve got used to Bucky’s noise and his dirty laundry, jokingly throwing socks at his head their code for him to pick his junk up; and Bucky got used to Steve’s grumpy morning moods and his awful cooking that stunk up the apartment for days on end. Steve’s pencil scratching on paper and Bucky’s constant tapping and the childish singing of little Lily Barnes when she came to visit became the new staples in his life - and their personalities complimented each other more than they ever had before.

Buck’s noise and energy juxtaposed Steve’s restraint and brought him out of the shell he’d cocooned himself in at his ma’s apartment while she withered away at the sanatorium, and Steve’s steady honesty chilled out Bucky’s more jittery fly-away tenancies he’d developed from his teenage years during the controversial time of the Barnes’ residence. It was good for both of them to get out of that building Steve knew; for him to escape the shadow of his ma’s long-awaited death associated forever in that tenement apartment, and for Bucky to get out and away from the thumb of his mother’s infidelity and father’s feigned ignorance which had been slowly sending him up the walls and out the door for years before.

His friend, already used to Steve’s sometimes unrestrained temper soothed and redirected his anger to safer targets more than ever, or tried, knowing they no longer had a nurse to patch them up back home now. And Bucky already knew enough about Steve’s yearly sicknesses to care unrestrainedly and efficiently for him while bed-bound, even if he wasn’t a whizz at fixing broken noses. 

He continues jabbering on as the sunset turns to dusk, a strange and unfamiliar role reversal and keeps an eye on the soldiers settling down and building several central campfires to the right of them, giving them, intentionally or otherwise, some privacy. He wonders what they think of this, of Bucky for those that don’t already know him or what has happened to him. Or maybe they don’t care; don’t care about anything other than the rabbits the other men have started to bring back few by few - it seems that way. He needs to get Bucky to eat something too.

Bucky’s hand twitches against his. Steve looks back down at their clasped hands, watches as Bucky’s fingers twitch around his again, as though they're regaining their natural reflexes. Steve swallows, hoping against hope that this is it; his best friend coming back to himself.

He squeezes his hand, like he keeps doing when the worry gets too much. He says, “You think you could maybe teach me some more moves - boxing this time, not dancing; like I said I’ve got one left foot instead of two now. Like you taught me before, when you trained me up when I first tried to enlist. I was impatient as hell then, wanting to sign up as quick as possible, and there was so much more you coulda’ taught me. It’s a lot different you know, watching you fight and train when you were fourteen and actually doing it yourself. I’d love that, when you’re feeling more up for it. Maybe you could train me while Agent Carter gives pointers from the side, that would be a right laugh.”

A sound, music to his ears, penetrates the air around them as familiar as Buck’s dirty socks. Bucky grunts, the sound croaky and dry.

“Hey Buck, hey.” He calls, ecstatic. “Hey, you coming back to us, pal? I got you, I got you. You thirsty? I got some water right here.” Keeping that in mind, Steve reaches around to the canteen he has, and tips it gently against Buck’s lips, still holding his other hand. For a moment the water dribbles down past Bucky’s lips and off the tip of his chin onto his lap and Steve grimaces over his shoulder, about to pull the water away……

 Bucky starts swallowing, not all of it makes it past his lips but Steve see’s his Adam apple bob, faster and faster as Bucky manages to crack his lips wider and tries to gulp it down. “Easy Buck, take it slow pal, there’s no rush.” He says, aware of how Bucky had reacted earlier to the others with the other canteen. “I won’t take it away. Just take it easy.”

With no response or sign of Bucky slowing down, Steve gets ready to slide himself to Bucky’s front again to check his eyes, and asks, “Bucky, can you still hear me?”

He squeezes Steve’s hand, hard. Steve almost bursts into tears around his smile right then and there - and he’s not the crier out of the two of them. Bucky whines from deep in his throat and chokes, water spraying down his front as he tries to swallow too much. 

“Shit.” Steve curses, lets go of his hand, leans him forward, and starts slapping him on the back. A few heads turn to look but Steve ignores them, keeps slapping Bucky’s back through his coughing the way he used to do for Steve. Bucky whines again; almost a keen, and sounds purely panicked. Steve twists him sharply as he sees liquid rushing back up his throat.

Bucky vomits a second later and it splatters over the half-frozen mud beside them, a few spots landing on Steve’s cargo trousers. He tries not to grimace and twists them both further until Buck’s upper half is hanging sideways from Steve’s arms.

Bucky keeps vomiting, and doesn’t seem like he’s going to stop.

Then he moves.

 For the first time in hours, he moves - one arm grabbing panicked at Steve’s. He’s vomiting so much he can’t breathe, Steve realizes, and he turns them fuller so he’s hanging more over his front, trying to coax him through it as calmly as he can. Eventually, finally, he stops. Or the vomit does, Bucky carries on dry heaving - nothing left in his stomach - his whining turning to dry sobs.

“Shh, shh, Bucky, okay shh. It’s okay, you just had to get it all up, yeah? Get all the nasty stuff out.”

Get all that awful stuff they did to you out. Get all the stuff that’s made you feverish and ill and frozen inside your own body - turned you to a statue - out; get it out.

“Just get it out Buck, you’ll feel better- you’ll feel better I promise.” Steve says, not knowing if it’s true but saying it and lying anyway. Bucky jerks sideways, trying to get free and Steve lets him, only pulling him out of the way of the pile of green-tinged vomit. He falls onto one elbow when his other, his left, gives out on him and crashes harder than Steve wants him to to the ground. Still sobbing, but quieter now, Bucky pants in shuddering breaths, bile and saliva dribbling off his chin.

“That’s it, that’s it Buck.” Steve soothes, hand hovering over his back, and after a moment takes his shoulders in hand and pulls him so he’s sitting up again. Bucky seems to try to fight him, limbs clumsy, until he lets himself be directed like he’d done before. His eyes are closed now. They haven’t been closed in hours. “C’mon, Buck, eyes open, keep em’ open, look at me, c’mon.” Steve begs, wiping his mouth with a cloth from his pocket and patting his cheek. 

His friend opens his eyes blearily.

“Steve?” He slurs.

Steve cradles Bucky’s head in his palm, “Hey pal. You gonna stay with me?”

Bucky nods, and both hands move, one clasping onto Steve again as his other rises up. Steve thinks he’d going to go for his eye again, but instead he scrambles clumsily for his neck to find the dog-tags there. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” He gasps out, “I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t you apologize, Bucky. Don’t you dare apologize, not to me, not for that. I’m just glad your back.” He brushes his fingers over Buck’s arms, his wrecked elbows, his face - he’s still hot but not deliriously so anymore.

“I’m sorry-”

“What did I just say, huh? No apologies.”

Bucky pauses before he deliberately nods at him.

“You still feel sick?” Steve asks, hesitantly handing him the canteen again.

“Not-” Bucky swishes water from Steve’s canteen round in his mouth and spits it back out to wash away the taste, mumbling, “Not as much.”

Steve tries to grin, “See, I told you, you just gotta' get all the bad stuff out; it’s what ma used to always say.”

“Your ma used to say a lot of things.”

“She was always right though.”

Bucky smiles softly, eyes slipping closed; a real honest Bucky Barnes smile, “Yeah, she was.”

“God, I missed you.” Steve bursts, unable to hold it back anymore.

He yanks Bucky into him, trapping one of his friend’s hands between their chests and hugs him until he forgets the sinking feeling in his chest he’s had the moment he found out about the 107th. He hugs him tight enough to squeeze the unwanted drugs and sickness out of his best friend’s body until he’s back to being himself again. Bucky startles for a moment, tensing, then heaves out a breath and lets his head sink into the crook of Steve’s neck, free hand coming up behind to clasp him back.

“I missed you too, Steve.” Bucky mumbles into his skin. He pauses in silence for a few seconds, and Steve revels in this should-be impossible moment. “Even if you are an idiot.”

A laugh bursts out of Steve unintentionally, and he pulls back. “You always have to ruin the moment, don’t you?”

“Only way to keep your head from getting any bigger.” Bucky rebuts automatically in their old routine, thudding back against the tank. He starts numbly scratching at the arm still holding onto his dog-tags.

Steve scoffs.

“It’s a tough lot in life,” Bucky continues, still slightly sluggish, but committed to having the last word, “But someone’s gotta’ do it.”

“Oh, that’s how it is?”

“Way it’s always been, Steve-o, time for you to get with the times. I can’t keep making excuses for you.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Takes one to know one, pal.”

“Guess I learnt from the best then, huh?”

Bucky cracks another smile, eyes closed. “Don’t talk about your ma that way, Steve, God rest her soul. Honestly, the disrespect of youth these days.”

Steve smirks, “I’m older than you by three months, you jerk. And actually I was thinking of your ma, if you must know.”

Bucky kicks him.

Steve’s the only one allowed to joke about Bucky’s ma, not even Becca does it; and Steve does it sparingly, saving it for the best moments.

“You’re such a punk.” Bucky mutters when Steve flicks his other arm to stop him from scratching.

“Takes one to know one, pal.”

Bucky kicks him again.

Steve catches his foot, still smiling at him, and starts undoing his laces. He gets all the way down to the last one and is about to start pulling the boot off when Bucky says:

“What are you doing?”

“Checking your feet,” Steve answers promptly without bothering to look up at him, not pausing in his movements.

“Why?” Bucky sounds incredulous and tries to pull his foot back purely out of spite. They can be a very spiteful bunch, the Barnes Children, as bad as each other.

“Sergeant Dugan said--” Steve starts, then changes the tone. “You were trying to take your shoes off earlier; figured I might as well see what the big fuss was about.”

Bucky frowns at him, “No, I wasn’t.”

Steve glances up at his face and see’s his confusion is genuine. “You did pal, early this morning.” He contradicts, ticking off another mark in his head of something else Bucky seems to have forgotten. He wants to ask him if Bucky remembers Schmitt’s real face, to confirm for himself that he wasn’t hallucinating like Bucky thought he was inside the base.

Bucky keeps frowning, Steve can feel the weight of it without looking. He asks, “Why would I do that?”

“No idea, so we might as well find out.” Steve shoots back, having to loosen the boot further when he realizes how tightly they’ve been pulled, and tries to wriggle it off once he’s done.

“Screw that.” Bucky utters, trying to pull his foot back again; Steve stubbornly keeps his grip. “You’re just bullshitting me.”

“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not.” 

Steve knows better than to try and argue with him, because it’ll won’t get them anywhere and it’ll probably end with Bucky making something up like he does when he thinks he’s losing the argument. Plus, by the time Bucky does respond he’ll already have his way and have the boot off. As the thought strikes it comes off, adding to the smell of four hundred sweaty men confined all in the same space.

“What the hell Steve?”

The ‘bigfoot feet’ comment dies on his lips as he looks at the crumpled bandages hanging loosely off the underside of Bucky’s entire foot, stained red and brown with blood. They’ve come away from the majority of his toes and the underside of his heel, only clinging stubbornly to the arch of his foot. He peels back an edge gently. Instead, he says, “When did this happen?”

Bucky’s face scrunches up self-consciously, and he tries to pull his foot back again. Once more, Steve stays firm. He asks again, “When did this happen?”

Bucky shrugs, looking off to the side, “I dunno’, before, when you came to the factory.” He says vaguely.

“So yesterday?” Steve tries to clarify, “Or the day before? Or before that?”

Bucky huffs, “If that’s when it was, then sure, maybe. What’s it matter anyways?”

Steve lowers Bucky's foot so it’s resting against his knee as he picks the boot back up to put it back on. 

“It matters,” he mumbles to himself under his breath; because he overheard what Dugan said to Morita when he went to get Bucky some rations. And even if Bucky has got his timings mixed up, which is possible, he’d heard Dugan - Bucky’s feet were sliced from heel to biggest toe, practically freshly cut, and he was still bleeding. That was seven hours ago, and Dugan hasn’t spent the day delirious with fever. Bucky’s feet are caked with dry blood and the beginnings of nasty looking blisters; but there’s no cuts; no open surgical slices.

Just pink puckered scars and scabs stretching across the soles instead in the patterns, from heel to biggest toe, that he’d expected. With Steve’s now perfect vision, he can see older, thinner silvered scars crisscrossing the new; scars that look years old that Steve knows weren’t there before.

“What did you say?”

Steve looks at him and shakes his head, “Nothing. Never mind.” He answers and slides a hanky into Bucky’s boot as a clean layer before he pulls his friend’s foot back into the shoe. Dugan was right, from the state of the insides he was bleeding through his boots; but not anymore. He flicks his eyes around them to make sure no one has seen; he has no idea how to explain this.

Bucky yanks his foot back, finally succeeding, and mutters a couple of curses and a vague insult in Steve’s direction. Steve winces on his behalf as he yanks on the laces almost violently, clearly embarrassed. 

“Yeah well, you knew that about me already. So you shouldn’t be surprised.” It falls flatter than the others did. He desperately wants to check the other foot and line that boot with another hanky too; but knows Bucky won’t even hear of it, let alone let him do it.

“My feet are fine.” He says, struggling to tie his laces. Like the rest of me, goes unsaid.

 Liar.

Steve smiles shallowly at him, “I can see that. I feel better, now that I’ve checked.”

Bucky snorts, “Yeah you look it,” he says, then clearly tries to distract Steve in a move Steve knows well. “So a Cartier or something, right?”

Steve huffs around a forced smile. “Carter.” He corrects, knowing full well as Bucky does that his friend already knows her actual name. He allows Bucky’s distraction to slide, and tells himself this is the last time. “Agent Peggy Carter. You heard all of that then?”

His friend ignores the second part, and he laughs in bewilderment, ”Dames are ‘agents’ now?”

Steve bristles a little and snaps out, “This one is.”

“Take it easy. It was just a question.” Bucky holds his hands up, wincing a little when he bends one elbow too much. He grimaces before bravely lowering his arm and pats the ground next to him. “Tell me more?”

It doesn’t look like an effort to distract Steve anymore; he looks genuine.

“I already told you a bunch.”

“So? Tell me more,” he shoots back, canting his head and scratching at the back of his neck. “I always told you about mine.”

Steve rolls his eyes, giving him a look. “Yeah, normally more than I ever wanted to know.”

“That’s how I know you’re a true friend, you complained but you only left the room once. Plus, they were---”

“They were not lessons.” Steve cuts him off dully, before he can say it. “And they weren’t appreciated.”

“Shame.” Bucky replies, and smacks the ground again, not looking embarrassed or guilty in the slightest. “But I still told you it all, so it’s time to repay the favour. So sit the fuck down and tell me about ‘Agent Peggy-the-queen-of-england-and-the-love-of-your-life-Carter.”

Steve rolls his eyes again and stands, “I take it back, I didn’t miss you.”

Bucky grins toothily at him, only a hint of drugged haze still peeking through, “Yes you did.”

Steve can’t repress a smile.

“Now I said---”

“Not here, I’m not sitting next to your vomit;” he eyes the splattered pile, the unnatural green tinge and thick residue in it. “We’ll go near a fire, where it’s warm.”

Bucky blinks and looks down at it too, “Oh, right. Sorry. I forgot it’s not normal to--” He clears his throat, and takes Steve’s hand as he carefully pulls him to his feet. “And then you’ll tell me about your new sweetheart?”

Steve stops him scratching again and herds him, stumbling, to the nearest fire circle as the darkness of dusk finally creeps in, confirms: “And then I’ll tell you more about her --- and she’s not my sweetheart.”

“But you want her to be?” Bucky waggles his eyebrows suggestively at him, “Oh Steve, marry me Steve Rodgers, get down on one knee and---”

“Shut the fuck up, Bucky.” Steve says, and shoves him gently, smiling at Bucky’s gleeful (drugged) laugh before he starts up again.

. . .

“And you haven’t kissed her?”

“No.”

“But you want to - obviously you do, look at you Christ; so I take it you and her also haven’t--”

“No. We haven’t done that either.”

Bucky squints at him, “You have actually spoken to her right?”

Steve smacks him, “Of course I have! I told you she was the one--”

“Okay, okay! I was just checking, cool your chops. Well, have you flirted in these ‘talks’?”

“Yeah.” Steve replies, nodding, and remembers the letter asking for advice he’d torn up in his dressing room. Having it in person is so much better. “Or, well, yeah - no I did. I tried to flirt and---”

Bucky groans into his hands, “You tried to flirt?”

Steve gapes at him, “Well I wouldn’t say it like that--”

“Did you, or have you ever, listened to a single piece of advice I’ve given you?”

“When I wasn’t washing my ears our with soap, you mean?”

“Yes, when you weren’t foolishly sticking your head into the sand.” Bucky agrees, then shakes his head. “You’re useless. Honestly Rodgers, you are absolutely useless - you tried to flirt - I swear to God---”

“Alright, Alright I get it!” Steve laughs, thinking about telling him his concerns about Stark and Peggy fondueing, but decides against it so he doesn’t ruin the moment of Bucky laughing at his expense. “But she wouldn’t have helped me break the law and come rescue you if she didn’t like me back somewhat - and I could tell we had something before the serum.”

“That’s true I suppose,” Bucky allows, starting to scratch at his hair and neck again. He doesn’t seem to notice Steve finally slipping his leather jacket over his shoulders, or snagging his other wrist before he can start with that too. Dugan, whose just finished lugging back an actual fully grown doe to camp, nods at him approvingly. Bucky continues, “We’re getting back to the serum and the ‘volunteering’ later by the way - but the fact she helped you break the law and parachute past enemy lines isn’t filling me with hope about her choice of judgement - oh god.”

Bucky goes pale.

“What?” Steve barks out worriedly, both arms reaching for his friend.

“She helped you break the law and parachute past enemy lines - you, the guy who once tried to take on half a baseball team for calling one of the nuns an inbred prude. This is terrible.” Bucky says, staring into the fire with a horror-struck expression on his face. “She’s as bad as you.”

Morita sprays water out of his nose across the campfire at Bucky’s face, laughing.

Steve laughs lightly himself, rolling his eyes again, and argues, “You once took on all the Midgely brothers on account of them kicking a stray.”

“That’s different.”

Steve makes a face, “Is it?”

“Yes. Because you were seventy-five pounds soaking wet and they kicked a dog.” Steve snorts under his breath, stray back-alley mutts have always been Bucky’s weakness. “No Steve no, you need a dame who’ll stop you from doing reckless shit, not encourage you!”

“Oh, what?” Steve scoffs, “Like you stop me?”

“I didn’t say I was any good at it!” Bucky bursts into protest and Steve laughs fully this time, comfortable in a way he hasn’t been since Becca’s letter, knocking his and Bucky’s shoulders together.

“Guess you’re doomed, pal. Sorry.”

Bucky mutters, “You could at least sound like you mean it.”

“Why would I, when I don’t?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Exactly. Maybe he can give you some pointers, seeing as your going to need all the help you can get in self-sacrifice to keep me in check now.”

. . .

“So what does she actually do, in this ‘agent’ role?”

Bucky’s questions continue as the hour goes on, ignoring Steve’s attempts to stop him scratching or to get him to eat something by passing the deer meat skewered on a twig to the next man in a mockery of a relay whenever Steve passes him one.

It’s getting old fast; the food relay, but the questions aren’t. His friend, he can see, is obviously excited for him despite the dramatics earlier, and Steve’s touched (like he was with Becca) at Bucky’s unrestrained interest.

“Well she---I don’t actually know.” Steve allows, passing Bucky half-a-rabbit speared on a tree branch. “It’s all classified. I’ve already told you way more than I should have, about me, and the serum and everything.”

Bucky passes this one off again and Steve gives his friend the kind of look he can’t ignore, no matter how much he tries.

“So not just a code-breaker or--”

“She doesn’t work in an office, no. And she can handle herself; I told you about Hodge, but she can shoot too. I’m pretty sure she carries more than one gun on her most of the time too.”

“Careful Cap,” Morita quips, “you don’t want to give him another heart attack.”

“We’re passed that, pal. He’s been giving me heart attacks since we were fifteen.” Bucky shoots across, a small edge to his voice Steve thinks might be due to the interruption. Something seems to occur to him, “Do you actually know anything about her?”

Steve smacks him on the thigh, affronted. “Of course I do. She’s waiting for---” Waiting for the right partner too, she likes dancing, she cares about her career and the war, she’s compassionate and she’s kind to both of his selves; small and large. I’m pretty sure she’d already lost someone in this fight, someone important, even though she hasn’t told me as much. But he doesn’t want to, can’t, won’t break Peggy’s confidence and privacy like that in front of all these other men. Maybe not even all of it to just Bucky, who makes him laugh and is always good to him, but doesn’t have the quiet impassioned understanding he, Peggy and his ma used to have. “I know stuff about her.”

Bucky, at least somewhat seems to understand the first cut off part of his silent confession as the other men try to rally him into speaking more; having heard the start of that phrasing before, and he nods to himself before looking down, seeming to smile.

He waves the others off as Dugan plants himself heavily on Bucky’s other side, holding more pieces of meat that Steve can see is now being passed around with some German rations throughout their camp stretching across the dark horizon. He passes one to Bucky and chomps down on his. He orders gruffly, “Get goddamn chewing Jimmy” In-between bites.

“I told you, stop calling me that.” Bucky replies and stupidly, tries to pass it off to the other-side to Steve without seeming to realize. 

Steve looks at him, eyebrows raised, “Not happening, pal. Eat up.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You think I give a shit?” Dugan snaps with no nonsense. “Eat it or keel over, and then I’ll make you eat it anyway.”

Bucky seems to jerk at the idea of being force-fed, but then takes an unhappy, feeble bite.

“Take it slow,” Steve advises, remembering what Bates the medic said to him earlier before they settled and food became a priority. “Then you shouldn't throw up again. That goes for all of you.” He adds for good measure, louder. “Like with water, if you eat too fast when you haven’t been getting food regularly you’ll just make yourselves sick.”

Dugan hisses through his teeth, “Tough order that Cap,” he says, grinning, “I could eat for years and years.”

“Do it slowly and you might make it to your fiftieth.”

“As long as I get to keep eating then that’s good enough for me, ha. You should eat too Captain, you’ve barely stopped all night and day.”

In answer, before he can stop himself, his stomach rumbles almost painfully. He hasn’t eaten since before the USO show. Bucky offers him his silently, like he always used to try to do during winter when money was tight and heating scarce. 

“Not a chance.” He admonishes from the side of his mouth as he accepts and thanks another solider who passes him a serving. “Keep eating,” he orders, “there’s water by your foot if you need it. And stop scratching.”

“So goddamn bossy,” Bucky mutters, fingers clenching and flexing self-consciously. He gingerly takes another bite of the meat like it’ll come back to life and bite him instead. Steve watches him take three more before he starts his, satisfied.

For a few minutes, their entire camp is silent as the majority of the men, bar those on patrol for the moment, dig into their fresh hunt. It’s surprisingly peaceful, listening to the men’s grateful grunts and chewing, with the fires crackling as a second backdrop. He barely even notices the evening midges buzzing around. 

It’s been such a long fifty-something hours when Steve thinks back, and lets his mind finally cool off completely since it all started. Since he was booed off the stage and spoke to Peggy, then Colonel Philips, then Peggy again. Since he went up in that plane and jumped out of it, ran eight miles to the Hydra base and however long inside of it; freeing men, fighting and stealing his best friend back like a hero of old childhood fairy tales. Since he brought that watchtower down and people started looking at him like he was a God, and watched Bucky walk nearly twenty miles, delirious and dazed, on apparently ruined feet. Since he spent a whole night and day with no sleep, ordering around officers and leading four-hundred men home through the Austrian landscape.

It’s been a long couple of days.

And for the first time since coming out of Stark’s machine and coming out with Erksine’s serum in his blood, he feels exhausted; physically and mentally. He still can’t quite believe he’s done it - just fifty something more miles to go.

Bucky rocks his shoulder into Steve’s, the meat on his lap. Steve goes to tell him to keep eating, again, but Bucky speaks before he can, looking him dead in the eye.

“I’m happy for you, Steve.” He says quietly, so none of the others can hear them. “I’m happy for you.”

Steve smiles at him, grateful in a way he won’t understand, “Thanks Buck.”

.

Chapter Text

. . .

(MOST IMMEDIATE. Krausberg Base destroyed. Forward onto Herr. S8, T9, and R5 and others. Divert all shipments to 32000298857 CYCLONE 747. Herr Red Skull to be expected. Lock Project Mastermann; await instructions.)

(SENDER: HERR. A ZOLA                                  RECIPIENT: VISCOUNT)

. . .

STEVE

Dusk becomes night quickly and darkly, and the two deer and collection of rabbits dwindle just as quick until only the furs and bones are left. The men start handing around German rations, sharing them one per group of six to make them last. 

Despite the meat it’s in many ways still a meagre portion and Steve’s continues on, quietly hungry. His stomach’s stopped growling at least, but he can feel the hunger pains clenching and churning in his belly. He can tell the men feel the same, and that some of them are a little sore that the wounded soldiers have been given extra - if not full - shares to keep them going.

When he comes back from checking the perimeter to switch the men out so they can eat theirs, and checking on the wounded laid up on the backs of trucks, he’s furious to find out someone confronted Bucky about the bread ration still in his pocket from earlier in the day.

He’s almost just as furious to find out Bucky gave it up without a fight.

 In the commotion; apparently Jones saw the solider take it and raised issue - which hadn’t gone well with his race and all - Bucky has disappeared. He’s out of sight for the the first time since they left the base.

Steve’s swearing and pacing, checking every face standing, sitting and lying down as Sergeant Dugan does the same on the other side of the camp, running his hands through his hair and across his jaw, trying to find his friend. Bucky was more lucid at dinner than he has been all day, but the fever still hasn’t been flushed out and from how miserable he still looked when Steve left him by the fire, he’s obviously feeling rough from some kind of comedown.

Or withdrawal, Steve’s mind stills as the thought hits, because Bucky was in that lab for nearly seven weeks, they think, and from the tube and the state of his elbows and hands and neck; and his everywhere; who knows how many times he’s been dosed up - if there was even a time where he wasn’t.

Steve knows about opioid addiction; one of the doctors from Kingsbrook hospital his ma was friendly with for a time became addicted to the stuff, and was fired (or arrested, Steve can’t remember) when he accidentally killed a patient while he was hopped up on the stuff. He knows what it can to do the body when someone suddenly goes cold turkey - how the heart pounds and the muscles cramp and the fever flushes make the person either desperately paralyzed with pain and angry for a fix or blinded in disorientation.

If that’s what’s happened, if Bucky’s wandered off and gotten lost, after everything, Steve doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He can’t even go out shouting for him properly, not without risking any German patrols hearing them.

There’s a man standing in the shadow of an oak tree, still within the camp perimeter, but alone and away from all the other men. He has one hand in his pocket, one hand around the dog tags at his neck, and he’s staring at the night sky. Steve recognizes the pose, and the jacket.

“Bucky!” He snaps, and half runs until his body disappears into the shadow of the tree-canopy as well. His friend ignores him, eyes wandering around as he squints at the stars. 

“Bucky!” Steve snaps again as he reaches him, grabbing him by the shoulder. Bucky jolts at the touch, turns fist raised on instinct before he see’s Steve. He lowers it back down, hand returning to his pocket to palm something there, and goes back to staring at the sky. “What the hell Bucky?”

---He waves at Jones near one of the fire-pits as a signal, and the man nods and goes to find Dugan to tell him to stop searching.---

Steve shakes his friend, still furious, when Bucky doesn’t immediately apologize. That at least seems to get his attention as his eyes snap back from the sky to Steve’s face.

“What?”

“What? What?” Steve snaps incredulous, “Are you serious? You can’t just walk off do-ally and disappear---”

“---Last time I checked I was a grown man and I can do what I want.” Bucky retorts, voice going hard. “I’m not a child or a dog for you to call to heel. If I want to go for a walk I’m gonna’ go, and you can’t stop me.”

Steve tries to contain his temper, but knows he hasn’t done a good job of it when Bucky bristles immediately after he starts speaking. “That’s not the point. You can’t just go, just--just walk off--Not without telling anyone, for gods sake what were you--”

Bucky cuts him off again, “Oh, I’m so sorry?” He snaps waspish, sounding anything but. ”I’m sorry I left your mother-hens without asking their permission for five goddamn minutes to myself!”

“You’ve been gone for half an hour at least!”

“So what? Who cares? What, you don’t trust me now?”

“No! You’ve given me no reason!” Steve half-shouts before he can stop himself. 

Bucky flinches back, his face shuttering off. 

He turns away, hand curling around his belly while he seems to almost try and hug himself with the other, staring past Steve stubbornly. Steve’s never seen that expression on his face before.

Steve heaves in a breath, “I’m sorry Buck, I didn’t--I didn’t mean that. I trust you.” He says, and reaches for him.

Bucky dodges the hand.

“I think you should go.”

“Bucky--”

“Leave Steve.” He repeats, voice flat. “Just leave me alone, I need a minute to myself. All I needed was a minute to myself.” He adds quietly, last.

Steve steps back, mollified and ashamed at himself. That wasn’t fair Rodgers. This isn’t Bucky’s fault, and you do trust him. You know you do, without question, just not his hazy state of mind at the moment. He swallows, and glances down at Bucky’s not quite empty pocket.

“I heard someone took your bread ration--”

“I said leave, Steve.”

Steve nods to himself, “Okay, okay. I’m going - I’ll be just over there - just, you’ve still got the lemonened candies at least, haven’t you?”

There’s a long pause, “I still have the candies.”

“Good. Good. I’ll go now, and I’ll get you some more rations -- I’m going, I swear.” He switches quickly, hands raised, when he see’s Bucky’s fist clench over his bicep as Steve keeps talking. “I do trust you Buck. I do.” He says quietly. “I was just worried. I didn’t mean it.”

He wanders back into the centre of camp; thinks about settling by the largest fire-pit in easy sight, but realizes he needs a walk and a moment to himself too. For nothing else to do he wanders back and see’s Bates still moving about - and watches him close a dead man’s unseeing eyes. Steve sucks in another breath through his nose, breathes out harshly.

“Capitaine?” Jacques Dernier asks, his accent thick as usual, frowning at him worriedly. Is he that obvious?

“Hey Dernier, “ Steve says, before a thought comes to him. “Could you do me a favour -- a um, une faveur?”

“Oui Capitaine,” Dernier answers immediately and puts down whats left of his meal. 

“No no, keep eating -- don’t let me stop you.” Steve immediately starts, waving his hands. Dernier frowns at him quizzically. “It’s only, could you keep an eye on Sergeant Barnes for me - he’s over by that tree. Don’t go over there or anything, or make it obvious; he needs a minute to himself, but if you could--”

“I will…keep an œil (eye) on him, Capitaine.”

Steve smiles thinly, but gratefully at him and his effort to speak in English. “Thank you.”

He leaves, giving Bucky the time he needs, so digs a grave for the dead man and helps Bates bury him as the medic takes his dog tags - A Lance Corporal Fletcher from the British Army - for identification records. There’s around two-hundred and seventy left of the 107th, and twenty of other American units in this camp, with just under eighty British Forces and fourty-five French, along with a couple of dozen civilians from local villages who don’t speak to anyone aside from the resistance fighters in the group. There’s just about four-hundred and fifty of them altogether. Now there’s one less, and probably will be even more losses before they reach safety. Loosing men under your command, whether you know them or not is a hard task to swallow and he understands a little now why Major Falsworth looks haunted and almost desperate for Steve to take charge, and to follow his orders. From speaking to the men he’s heard Falsworth was the only one of his Brigade squad to survive the original Hydra Capture, and how he was their new commander. The British men in particular, especially the platoon that survived where his squad didn’t, have a few things to say about that; a lot of them already having been shipped out to Africa in early 1941.

George Barnes died in Africa during the first three weeks of Operation Torch, and his family never got his body back, the same as Lance Corporal Fletcher’s family won’t get his back - buried deep in the frozen Austrian mud.

He asks Bates if there’s anything he can do, if there’s anything else he needs to try and keep these men alive. The man, who’s attentive while quite shy, goes to deny him, but then seems to change his mind. He tells him one of the men’s legs has become severely infected from catching unlucky machine gun fire in the escape, and if they want the man to live they’ll need to take his leg.

“Can you hold him down while I do it?” Bates asks, young face brave.

That’s how Steve spends the next hour, encouraging the man to bite down on his belt, pushing him down while the medic saws off his dying leg below the knee with no pain relief. It’s a bloody and awful job, even after the man passes out and stops begging, but Bates tells him as long as they keep the wound clean the man is likely to live - a cripple - but he’ll live. That almost vindication settles in Steve’s stomach and allows him to feel useful; a good man if a terrible friend, for tonight at least. 

He returns to the largest fire after checking in with the patrols again before he runs out of distractions and sits; starts scratching out the Italian mountains in the distance in the dirt with a stick. Most of the other men, aside from those obsessively counting ammo have settled down and curled up in the warmth near the other fire-pits - attempting some shut-eye.

He’s gotten to drawing an imagined fort on one of the mountains when Dernier gets up from across the fire and nods at him as he leaves.

“Bonne nuit Capitiane.” (“Goodnight Captain.”)

Steve nods back and keeps drawing as Bucky plops down beside him, still wearing his jacket; one arm curled around himself. He looks pale in the firelight, and is scratching weakly at his arm again.

He nods at Steve’s mountain rendition, “Looks terrible.”

“Better than you could do.” Steve responds and Bucky takes his drawing stick from him to start his own. Sharing is caring after all, and that other solider should have known better.

“I’ve gotten you another bread ration. It’s not as full as the last one but---”

“I don’t care about the ration, Steve.”

“Right. Sorry.” He says after a moment, and smiles to himself at Bucky scribbling ‘Barnes and Rodgers were here’ like he used to do on their school desks in the dirt. “Sorry about the other part too. I didn’t mean it.”

“Then why’d you say it?”

Steve sighs, “I don’t know to be honest - I don’t Bucky, really. It’s not an excuse, and you know how terrible I am at apologies….”

“The worst.” Bucky agrees unreservedly.

“But I am. I’m sorry. I was just upset--angry--not at you.” He adds quickly when Bucky looks at him. His friend quirks an eyebrow. “Okay I was, a little, but mostly it was about people taking the food I gave you - even if you didn’t want it. And the fact that I’d left and they’d lost you---”

“They didn’t ‘lose me’. I’m not a----”

“Not a dog. Or a thing to lose and find again. I get that. It’s just,” Steve sighs, “You still have a fever, and I can tell you feel lousy, so don’t try and deny it - and no one knew where you were. I was…I was scared that you’d gotten confused with the fever again and wandered off somewhere. I was worried, and it wasn’t fair of me to take it out on you.”

Bucky nods to himself, adding a fancy but wobbly flourish to the ‘G’ and the ‘S’s’ in the ‘Barnes and Rodgers’. “You’re getting better.” He says at last.

“What?”

“At apologies. You’re getting better.”

Steve harrumphs, “That’s a valuable skill in life I suppose.” he says and takes the stick back from Bucky again. “I do trust you, Buck.”

“Just not very much right now.” 

It’s not a question; more of a statement.

“It’s okay,” Bucky says quietly after, “I wouldn’t trust me much either right now.”

“That doesn’t mean--”

“I know.” Bucky adds, cutting him off and bumping their shoulders together like before. He stays half-leaning into Steve this time, staring blearily at the sky. “I’m sorry I wandered off. I just needed a moment. On my own, you know?”

Steve nods.

“I like the guys, and I get that they’re keeping an eye on me for you---”

“---For them too, not just me.”

“---but it was getting too much. Them being around all the time, touching me and leading me places - always talking - and I know how that sounds coming from me - I just needed a moment on my own to breathe - and to think.”

Steve nods again, finishing his muddy masterpiece. “I get that now. I didn’t quite before - but I get it, even if I don’t completely understand how you’re feeling.”

He glances at Bucky again, watches his friend watching the sky and rubbing at both eyes now. “Why don’t you get some sleep, Buck?”

Bucky shakes his head, “Not tired.” Steve rolls his eyes and Bucky mutters, “Shut up” to the silent reply, then adds, “Not yet.”

Steve leans back into him and tilts his head up to look at the stars with him. “What are you looking for?”

“The North Star.”

Steve points out the biggest and brightest star and Bucky hums noncommittal. 

“Do you know any more?” He asks, knowing Steve does.

Steve points out the Ursa Major, the Canis Major and Orion and Perseus and the shapes and characteristics of each, until Bucky drifts off against his side. He looks down at his friend, smiling sadly, and lowers him down gently onto his side near the fires warmth, slipping a pack under his head. “Goodnight Bucky. I hope you feel better in the morning.”

. . .

BUCKY

(“He is a Testthema” Zola switches to English. “My test subject."  He is Barnes, Sergeant. He is Subject #63 - Bite down---Get out---Let them try an' make ma tongue---you're a great brother. The best.

Sergeant Barnes?

25 Zoll, 14 Zoll; Dick, 11 Zoll unterarm. Call me Bucky.

"That is enough,” Zola snaps, “We have a schedule to keep to.” ---The best thing when you're scared is to pretend not to be, even when you're shaking, pretend to be brave---Can't hurt you if you're already dead.

Sergeant Barnes?

Does this feel hot or cold? Because we dinnae make any promises ta' each other--- Turn it on---‘N’ if that’s what were daein’ James, then it’s Andrew. Go t’ bed, pal.---I'll  give them back later-----I won't forget you tomorrow. I'm coming back. (Are you? Will you? No, you're not. I'm alone alone alone. I'll die here. I'll die here; burn burn burning to ashes and dust. I won't rise from the ashes, I am no Phoniex, I am Barnes - Serega--No. I am Subject #63.)

If I gave you something for the pain there would be no data to record---Do not shoot! He is Herr Doctor's, do not shoot him! (He is the friend of Steven Grant Rodgers, he is not alone; he is free.)

Herr Doctor was right----I am protecting my pup---Lets live for tonight.

Zola moves into his eyeline, “Sergeant Barnes?” )

. . .

He does and doesn’t feel better the next morning, sleeping both deeply and fitfully at the same time if that’s possible. He doesn’t wake until someone drops an ammo box right by his head and then Dugan shakes him for good measure to get him up and a’tem.

“Christ Jimmy, with how much you were twitching before dawn you wouldn’t think it would be so hard to get you off your lazy arse.”

“Shut up,” Bucky mutters, rubbing his eyes. He slept; he must have done from where his waking memory ends with Steve and the Canis Major, but he doesn’t feel well rested. He can’t remember the last time he was - not even when he thinks he slept for three whole drugged days on the table. “Where’s Steve?”

“Up helping load the trucks back up while the rest of us hide the fires and our tracks.”

Bucky snorts, “There’s hundreds of us and we have a tank. I don’t think there’s much chance of hiding our tracks.”

“Gotta try though, don’t we?” Dugan says, bouncing on his feet, and from the five months overseas with him Bucky knows he’s itching for a fire-fight. He yanks him to his feet. Not expecting the force Bucky trips into the guy - grunting at the sharp pinch at the center of his stomach.

“Barnes, you good?”

Bucky grimaces at the ground before he straightens, nodding, and belatedly, forcefully stops himself from scratching at his ear. He’s itchy, like there’s bugs running up and down his skin.

Dugan looks doubtful, “Let’s go get you checked out before we get moving.”

“Get checked out? With the medic? I got checked out yesterday.”

Dugan gives him a look he can’t quite decipher. “You remember that then?” He asks gruffly, as usual, but Bucky can tell he’s discomfited at the fact that Bucky must have been aware that entire time he was absent from his body. “Even so,” he says, “not really. Not properly anyways, we were a little distracted by the…you know.”

Bucky looks away when he tries to catch his eye. 

“Your feet too--”

“My feet are fine.”

“They weren’t when I looked. They were bleeding all over the goddamn place.”

“Steve checked them already; he bandaged them.” Bucky half lies, since it’s semi-true.

“The Captain checked them?” Dugan asks, dubiously.

“When I ‘woke up’ - he must have heard you fretting across camp - he bandaged them up again, washed out the boots--”

“Well you shouldn’t be walking on them. You shouldn’t be able to.”

Well shit.

Bucky still doesn’t remember trying to take his shoes off, has no idea what he was thinking if he even was at all, but he has a vague memory of Zola by his feet.

(I need to investigate whether your rate of healing as remained or regressed.)

He’s done it to you before. He could have done it again. Bucky’s willing to bet, from the way Steve reacted and the lack of pain as the drugs he’s been on have worn off, that he hasn’t regressed.

“I was outta my head yesterday, Dugan.” He tries to reassure, “I didn’t really feel any of it.”

“And now?”

Bucky tries to hide his apprehension, “I’m more distracted by my headache than my feet at the moment. More worried about how I’m unarmed in the middle of enemy territory.”

“You’re not having a gun.” Dugan fires back immediately, “and I’m not having this godawful conversation with you again Bucky.”

He closes his mouth without a sound, and thinks with whatever must be on his face Dugan realizes there’s been another lapse in memory somewhere. 

Dugan sniffs in a deep breath, says; “We know what they did to you in there Sarge, what they did to the others. We saw a couple of the bodies, so we understand…we understand what they did…What it must have been like---”

Bucky’s ears white out with cold fury.

“You have no idea what they did to me in there, Dugan.” Bucky cuts him off, voice hard, and takes a step back. Dugan, for once, seems to realize he’s overstepped.

“Bucky--”

“You have no idea, none of you do, so don’t you dare tell me that you do; that you understand what it must have been like - fuck you.”

He reaches out for him and Bucky slaps his hand away harshly, and shoves him almost savagely backwards. There’s enough strength behind it to put the two-hundred pound man on his arse, and he hits the ground with a grunt; his bowler hat falling off.

“Hey! Sarge!” Jones yells twenty meters away, starting forward.

“Fuck you.” He snarls down at him again, then turns to Jones. “I need him not to be anywhere near me right now.”

He walks away, heart pounding in time with his temper and the slack grip he has on it. 

Calm down. Calm down.

Screw that, and screw them. Another voice answers in his head; and he feels like there really is the cliché of an angel and a devil on his shoulder. He has no idea. Fuck them, fuck Zola, fuck everyone that isn’t you or Subject #64. Even the subjects before and after for not being Zola’s successes - fuck them too - maybe then they would have just shot him instead of taking him to that lab and turning him into this. 

Into whatever kind of creature he is now - who murders children, pushes away his friends and who can’t die because he just keeps healing over and over again.

If I peel off my skin, carve and flay it off, will new flesh grow over the top to complete the metamorphosis into the monster Zola was trying to turn me into?

Fuck everyone, and fuck himself too.

He can feel himself sucking in sharp breathes as he storms across the camp back to the same oak tree, his anger turning into something else. He lets himself thud against the tree, one arm holding him up; hand splayed flat against the bark. He bends over, panting in anger and pain as his whole body aches and itches, split down the center like he’s been gutted. 

How did he not feel this yesterday? 

Still hissing in harsh breaths through his teeth he lifts his new-for-him shirt up, Steve’s jacket heavy on his shoulders. He’s carved down the center again, like he thought he might have been - from diaphragm to under his slack waistband now - staples layered and pinching. He doesn’t remember Zola cutting him, though he thinks he maybe remembers the vague pain of it from one too many times. The doctor kept stapling, not stitching, but he kept healing so the man had to hack away at the new flesh half the time anyway; so it was all pointless. He remembers the second time more than the first or the third, or apparently the fourth, when he’d woken to find himself already mumbling and swearing he was a ghost looking down as Zola dissected his body like a frog.

He can still feel the clammy hands through the gloves shoved deep inside of him; picking him apart one cycle at a time. He never found out what Zola was dissecting him for, why he kept going back in, it’s one of the few things he never discovered. 

He’s healing around the staples. Slower than his feet by far, this wound is deep and has been clamped and stretched open like a gaping maw, but he’s healing around and over the staples. The flesh is swollen, red; new and it hurts more than he’s used to without a layer of cloudy drugged mist hovering over him like a rain cloud. There’s a thin layer of transluent new skin encompassing the first staple by his ribs.

Subject #64 and Sarah the dog told him not to pull them out - but if he doesn’t his body will keep growing around them like a fungus. He sucks in another breath, his hand starting to shake as he leans against the tree out of sight - pretend to be brave. Even when you’re scared, pretend to be brave. 

You’re out, you did it. You’re in the woods, Hansel without Gretel but you made it, you’ve got no reason to be scared anymore.

Buck up, Barnes.

Do it for Andrew. Do it for pa. Do it for ma so she can hug you again and you can hold her tight and smell her soap and your own forgiveness.

He needs a knife for the first one, his nails bitten to stumps, so he’ll have to come back to that one. The second and the third though - he clasps his fingertips around the metal and pulls. This one he feels, and he bites his lip as he does it, forcing himself to concentrate hard enough that he can’t feel it.

He once did press-ups and sit-ups with his stomach like this, when the wound was smaller - and clenched it the whole time so he didn’t make a sound - but he realizes now that entire time he still had chemicals in his blood and he doesn’t much anymore. He’s coming down and he’s coming down hard - needs to do this before the trembling and the nausea starts.

He allows himself a small grunt as it comes free, skin puckering pink as blood trickles from the deepest points. To keep his momentum up he goes for the third before he can hesitate. This one bleeds more when it comes loose and he drops it in the dirt; leans forward further so the blood lands on the ground and not on his trousers. No one can see this.

The fourth one - worse, and he can see the surrounding areas of the slice welling up from the deep. He’s not healed enough for the other ones - not yet, he can’t pull them out unless he wants maw himself open again - insides spread wide to the open Austrian air. He thinks about doing it anyway.

“Don’t, dinnae fucking pull them out!” Subject #64 says from inside his pocket and Bucky stops, panting, and lets the blood keep dribbling onto the ground until it stops. Steve’s gone to all this effort to get you out, it wouldn’t be fair to him if you gut yourself by accident after all of that.

He breathes, alone with his thoughts again like he wanted. He wipes his bloody fingers on some leaves and ducks around the side of the tree when one of their own patrol comes into sight, looking sharp and antsy. The man looks like he’s itching for a fight - trigger happy like Dugan. It’s this that tells him something’s going on.

He peers around the tree at the make-shift camp again with new eyes. The men are half-jogging everywhere, possessed and focused, dragging their feet and stamping out the evidence of the fires - the trucks are getting ready to start up.

He checks his stomach again, wipes that with another leaf, and drags his aching body into a speed-walk until he runs into Morita.

“What’s going on?”

Morita seems to do a double-take at his words, “No one told you?”

“Told me what?” Bucky snaps back, “Why is everyone--”

“A couple of German scouts spotted us about an hour ago, after dawn. Our patrol managed to bring down one of them without firing but the other one got away - which means--”

“The Krauts will know we’re here. Shit. We need to move - get as far away as possible.”

“Yeah, no kidding!” Morita half-shouts, pulling him with him. Bucky winces when Morita’s thumb catches his elbow and almost smacks him in retaliation. “Can you keep up?”

“Of course I---”

“I’m serious Barnes - we’re moving and we’re moving fast, if you can’t keep pace you need to be on a truck.” Morita continues, “No comments, no judgement if you can’t, but you need to tell us or the Captain now if that’s gonna’ be a problem.” He stops Bucky by the tank at the edge of the main circle of trucks. He asks again, “Can you keep up?”

Bucky opens his dry mouth - he promised his pa he’d keep walking - but hesitates as he feels his hands start to tremble. That seems to answer the question for the man he met the day before.

He nods, “On a truck then, ace. Come on.”

He leads Bucky, who can feel goosebumps rising on his skin as the itch gets worse, to one of the half-packed trucks, men moaning in rows of three.

“Bucky!” Steve calls with relief from the other side - tossing a fifty kilogram box of ammunition onto another one with one hand. Jesus Christ, Steve. He looks stressed again, oil grease on his cheek.

“We’re getting on a truck, Captain.” Morita tells him.

Steve raises his eyebrows, looking at Bucky. “We are?”

Bucky can’t look at him, embarrassed, and Morita shoves him forward lightly but in a hurry, and he has to catch himself on the side. “He’s smart enough to know and admit when he can’t keep up.” Both he and Steve open their mouths but Morita keeps talking when they do, “and there’s no shame in it. Up Barnes, now.”

Bucky grunts painfully as he climbs, his muscles protesting, and feels Steve steady him from behind. He knows by now how it feels to lose - he was an idiot for thinking they’d all allow him to keep having his way. They won’t give him a gun, he can’t keep up and he’s a liability. He knows it and they do too, but he appreciates what Morita’s trying to do in his straightforward way at least, in preserving what little dignity he has left after yesterday.

Bucky bites his tongue to stop the grunt from turning into a moan as his stomach twinges and he slaps his arm around it to hide the blood welling up; turning so he’s sat against the cabin of the truck next to a man with a bullet hole in his side. The man slaps him on he leg in pained camaraderie, flat on his back, even if he can’t immediately see what’s wrong with the new arrival. Bucky doubts he’s going to make it.

“There ace, get comfy. It’ll be a bumpy ride.” Morita says, and slams the back board of the truck up in place and jogs off to help Falsworth rally the last of the men into moving - even some of the officers. Steve pats his shoulder from the side of the truck as he goes to walk past.

“Thanks for the astrology lesson.” Bucky says.

Steve attempts to smile at him, “Maybe if you ever went into the library to actually read something instead of just to distract me, you might have learnt something and actually be able to point out the biggest and brightest star.” Steve winks, conveniently leaving how he could say the exact same to Steve when it came to Maths, and Science and History. “Try to take it easy, yeah? Don’t worry, we’ll be outta’ here and home--back to base in no time.”

Bucky catches him as he goes to hurry away, looks him up and down. “Steve, please, please pick up a gun. Don’t walk around without one.” He says seriously.

Steve’s eyes soften, “I will.”

“I mean it Steve, you need a gun!”

“I’ll get one!” Steve calls, running off.

Bucky prays to god the punk actually listens to him this time.

.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

They travel fast, like Morita said, and the man was also right in that Bucky wouldn’t have been able to keep up. The trucks are keeping pace with the men but it’s not a crawl anymore and most of the able-bodied men are jogging, if not running. Anyone who walks risks falling further and further behind. He’s looked over the cabin of the truck twice to see Steve both at the head and the back of the formation, forcing himself to run slower than he’s able and encouraging the men; from Private to Major, to keep going - and taking as many heavy packs from them as he can. Occasionally Steve, and a few of the others manage to find some room on a truck or on the side of the tank to dump them when the men start flagging, and Jones has been by twice to double check if there’s any room on Bucky’s truck to dump some, even though he knows there isn’t.

He’s as see-through as Steve is.

Bucky is somewhat satisfied to see Dugan keeping his distance, even if Bucky’s pretty certain Jones - the only other survivor from their smaller squad - is reporting back to him. 

There is absolutely no room on his truck - another ‘medic truck’ two vehicles ahead of his blew two tires out on one side from a German trap around two hours in; and everyone in the vicinity raised his weapon at the loud pops - thinking it an ambush. Bucky, whose one hand has been clasped around his middle for hours over every single painful bump, whilst his other scratches relentlessly at his neck, doesn’t quite realize what’s happened until their truck jerks to a sharp stop. Nearly all the men in his truck had groaned and jerked forward with the movement, sliding across the bed of the truck. Bucky cracked the back of his head against the cabin when it snapped back. The men loaded as many of the wounded onto the remaining trucks, and as much food as they could in ten minutes, and left the blown-out truck where it stood.

He has another man crammed into the space between him and the man with the bullet in the side, so he’s pressed up against the edge, and a second half-draped over his shins. In a lot of ways he feels trapped - strapped down again - helpless with the weight pressing down on him. His body aches deep and painful, and itches like there’s insects running across his skin. He closes his eyes in the end, trying to imagine he’s home in bed at sixteen on a Sunday, and Jenna and Lily are collapsed complaining about getting up early for church out of his father’s earshot. It seems to work somewhat, allowing his body to rock with the bumps instead of tensing up so much. He checks his belly a couple of times slyly when everyone else near him is unconscious to see the area around the absence of the fourth staple clogged up with dry blood. He’s just glad he’s stopped bleeding and has managed to contain the stain on his shirt. He presses unhelpfully on where is knows the first staple is buried until he has to stop - and uselessly searches the wounded solider next to him for a knife. He’s unsuccessful, and the man with the bullet in his side is staring at him warily when he catches his eye under the other’s armpit.

He turns back to sitting straight and stares at the backwards moving landscape, men jogging ahead and to the side of him. He wonders how far away they are from the Austrian-Italian border and rocks his head back against the truck, closing his eyes and pushing past the lemonened candies in his pocket until he finds red and green.

He drifts off to the thrum of the vibrating engine, and Steve encouraging men older and younger than him to keep going in the background.

. . .

He wakes up to a familiar sound. A familiar sound he hasn’t heard for a long time, and for a moment he forgets he’s in a truck and not the trenches.

Bang! Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!

He ducks low, moving before he thinks, hands coming up over his head.

He stays like that for several seconds, ducked as low as he can, cringing as bullets fly over his head. He hears men choking and crying out before the return fire starts up and people duck to cover, swearing, but before he can look bullets rock against the side of the truck.

They pierce the metal and the man lying over his shins catches two to the gut.

“Shit! Shit!” Bucky yells, ducking and trying to get out from under the guy. 

Bullets raze over his head again, kicking up dirt and splintering trees and metal. He’s not the only one swearing. Several other men who have been jolted awake are scrabbling uselessly to get out of the trucks too, and soldiers taking cover on the other side are taking turns firing back and pulling those men over the side.

He can’t see anyone he knows.

Not anyone who isn’t the man with the bullet wound to his side and Bucky grabs him, also wild eyed, and tries to heave them both after he kicks the dead man off his feet. He’s unarmed.

He’s unarmed and men are trying to kill them. He’s a sitting duck and he’s unarmed - he knew this would happen. They should have given him a gun. 

Right as he’s managed to get traction and caught the eye of a man heaving the wounded men over the other side of the truck - the world turns - the truck with it. It flips with a loud crush of screeching metal and Bucky feels himself get flung over the side - loosing himself and the world into a wash of white then black.

He comes to on his left side after who knows how long, heart pounding and face scraped up. There’s heavy returning fire echoing over the ringing in his ears from both directions and he rolls until he’s back into cover of the overturned truck, coughing. The joint of his shoulder twinges painfully and there’s blood in his eye.

The already wounded men are face down on the ground; groaning, dead, or crushed under the truck with some of the men who had tried to help. He slaps at his ears to get rid of the ringing and left-over buzz; then clasps his dog-tags for half a second.

 32557038. Barnes, Sergeant.

He thinks of his mother’s lucky talisman on a frayed string and on a gold chain. 

It’s enough.

He coughs and scrabbles again to his feet, keeping low, and runs to the man he made eye contact with - heaves his good shoulder against the broken truck bed with strength he knows he shouldn’t have. His stomach screams but he ignores it and pulls the man out from under it with numb hands. The soldier coughs, gasping, as Bucky pats him down looking for shrapnel before he yanks Bucky down. Bullets and engine oil burst through the metal above them. The man, skinny and blond, is young with hollowed cheeks; the way Steve’s used to be at the crux of his yearly sicknesses. Bucky yells at him without being able to hear what he’s saying.

The soldier’s face firms and he pulls a pistol from his belt and a Thompson from the dead man beside him. He hands the Thompson to Bucky; he has a gun. They move together to different cover before the leaking oil of the truck catches. 

Bucky shoots four men, trying to preserve his ammo, and the man shoots two, one in the leg and one in the shoulder before Bucky see’s someone he knows. Dernier and Morita, the dream team as they've dubbed themselves, are behind the main tank. Morita shoots cover while Dernier seems to spark something - a homemade grenade - and runs sharply right to throw it into the trees. Morita shoots a man in the chest who comes out from behind one to shoot the Frenchman. Dernier twists back behind the tank as the trunk swivels ninety degree’s but doesn’t fire, and starts again - tying and sparking.

For a second Bucky forgets what he’s just seen him throw, then he remembers the staircase with Lohmer and what Dernier managed to make with two wires, a recycled switch, an empty shell and a couple of ounces of engine oil. He pulls the blond down as it goes off. Three trees splinter and quite a lot of Krauts die. There’s a hole the size of a two market stalls in the treeline and Bucky can see them scuttling like cockroaches as they realize their main cover is gone.

Dernier’s sparking another one while the tank itself is occupied, and they seem to know it too. 

Bucky hits the ground low on his knees, raises the gun and picks them off, shoots cleanly through two unlucky sods. He rolls as soon as he’s done to avoid return fire and fires again as soon as he’s up and moving, adrenaline pumping. The blond solider is right behind him, and shoots a Kraut coming up unseen on Bucky’s right.

He sucks in a breath, clutching his pulsing stomach as he feels the staples shifting as soon as he gets back to cover - forces his awareness out again.

“You good?” The solider yells, glancing at Bucky hunched over, firing around the wheel of the food truck they’re behind. Bucky huffs out a breathy nod but lets himself sink lower; makes himself forget about his stomach and aching muscles like he forgot about his feet - lets more than adrenaline take him.

“He’ll throw another one in a minute.” Bucky yells back, motioning to Dernier who they can see more clearly now at this angle. “When he does it’s gonna’ be an open field, you understand?” The man nods sharply. “Take as many down as you can, doesn’t matter if you kill them, if the Krauts see enough of theirs go down when they’re supposed to be covered they might pull back and retreat.”

He still doesn’t know how many there are - it’s impossible to tell with them hiding behind the trees and hidden low in armed dig outs.

“What if they don’t?” The man questions.

He laughs harshly, “Then it’s still an open field, and you get to shoot them instead of them shooting you.” Bucky orders; “Get ready!”

“Yes sir!”

Dernier throws another; it’s not as powerful as the last and it’s a closer call for him, but it’s still effective. Bucky in particular aims for the one whose bullet just seared a line down Dernier’s arm and keeps going; an open field. He ducks down again and grabs a new magazine from the blonde’s belt as he’s still shooting, and reloads. Then they switch, Bucky shooting while he reloads his pistol again. Later he leans across and snags another Thompson from a spilled out crate nearby and passes his current companion a more effective weapon. The soldier’s gun runs out; he takes it without looking. A German grenade pings of the tank, then explodes and showers it with soil.

Dernier and Morita hit the ground coughing from the force; the distraction giving the German’s a chance to regroup.

Come on.

The main trunk of the tank swivels thirty degrees suddenly. The ringing in Bucky’s ears fades to the background; catching on something else; he can hear the men inside switching from curses to yelps of success. He hears something click, spark; the tank powers up with a familiar - unwanted - swwwiiiissshhh sound and blue light bursts out of the muzzle.

“Yes!” The solider behind him cheers as they get it working; Bucky, flinches and ducks lower - feeling inexplicably flushed at the sound. He can hear the Krauts yelling in panic as the tank starts firing at their soldiers and they start disintegrating. These men have clearly never seen this before - like the one’s at Azzano they’re regular Krauts - not Hydra. Bucky doesn’t know if that’s better or worse for their side. 

Dernier and Morita are back on their feet and Dernier has a shotgun now, seeing as he no longer has to cover the tank on his own. Bucky shoots some more - ignoring the Krauts shouting in the too far distance about losing all contact with their Eastern flank with no major gunfire in that direction - and glances to the left to see his old truck burning.

Then he sees Dugan fall; the blow back of a German grenade. The German’s start to break cover and run forward into the now stationary march. A pair aim for Dugan’s head as he turns back onto his knees - Bucky see’s his eyes widen from where he is - he can’t get his Winchester out from under him in time.

Blood and brains splatter into and down the insides of their helmets, followed by the one behind them who Bucky hits in the chest. Dugan’s head swivels in his direction and he does a double take - glancing from him to the burning truck and back again.

“Get up you goddamn asshole!” Bucky yells at him, shooting another two. The blond soldier’s still back to back with him. Dugan grins and lets out a long boasting laugh, stands, shoves his bowler hat back on - because that’s the priority, of course it is - and picks up his shotgun. 

“For Gods sake,” Bucky curses and goes to force himself to move forward, then hears Jones yelling at his supposed - laughing - superior officer before he can get a chance.

“Dugan! Get to cover, seriously!”

“Dugan!” They both yell together after and the guy finally moves, falling back to Jones.

“Jesus Christ!” Bucky keeps yelling, mainly at him.

Dugan laughs - yards away. “Jesus Christ? I could say the same to you, what a shot Bucky!”

“I swear to God!” Bucky and Jones yell at him again, in sync. They both jolt to look at each other before ducking and Jones joins Dugan laughing. 

“Didn’t think we’d ever get into another firefight like this altogether again, did you Sarge?”

“Is this really the time?!”

Dugan keeps on laughing as the Krauts start to flee.

“Where’s Steve?” Bucky yells at him instead, because he hasn’t seen any sign of his friend since this started.

“Heading to take them out at the wing last I heard. To make their command falter and get a proper look at numbers!” Dugan breaks off to yell.

Bucky freezes and the blond solider kicks at his knee to drop him onto his backside as a Kraut armed with a Browning falls with his finger still on the trigger. He grunts sharply but doesn’t feel his stomach twinge this time. He does remember what he heard the German officers say over the radio in the distance. “What wing?!”

Not the East. Not the East. Not alone.

“The East!” Jones yells.

Goddammit Steve.

. . .

STEVE

Steve’s running again.

This time he’s not running through a burning building or outside one, but through trees. It’s no less a war-zone. He’d seen five men fall near him during the initial assault ten minutes ago, and two more since he managed to get the others to cover - and that’s enough.

He’d listened to Bucky and taken a pistol from a moving truck an hour ago, and thank god he had - thank God he listened even if it had taken him nearly four hours to do so. Without it and the cover fire he was able to provide more of the men under his charge could have fallen - and he’d be dead.

He’d shot a man moments before the German solider pulled the trigger aimed dead centre at the white star on blue at the centre of his chest. Without his jacket both his burnt-out shield and outfit is a clear as day bullseye, which isn’t helpful because while it draws attention to him it doesn’t draw attention away from the other men laying defensive fire.

The heaviest assault seems to be aimed at the centre and back of the march from the right side - targeting the main supply trucks and the stragglers; the weakest; and Steve’s furious at the strategy even if he understands it.

He’d tried to get closer to where the men needed it the most, but as a blue and red eyesore and with the German semi-machine guns punching holes through cover and the air in between he realized it was impossible. Their men had rallied in seconds and reacted the way they’d been trained, but the Germans are undercover behind thick trees and digouts; and they’re prepared. The men can’t shoot what they can’t see - and every missed shot is less ammunition for their already dwindling supply.

Steve and Falsworth know this because they counted, even if the majority of the men don’t and are reacting the only way they know how - firing blindly at the enemy in a panic. 

At his fourth attempt to breach into the centre of the march, a whole corner chunk of his stage shield explodes outwards; forcing him back, and he realizes the German’s strategy in it’s entirety. It’s an insurgent separation with a flare of attrition warfare - like in his books - aiming full force at the centre and flank whilst forceably separating and blocking reinforcements from the front until the advantage is taken.

He, nor any of the others can get past the twenty metre separation the German’s are peppering with continuous gunfire and grenades . They can’t reinforce their centre and from the lack of blue energy or the sound of it powering up the men haven’t been able to get the Hydra tank up and running - so they don’t have that advantage either.

It’ll be a massacre, Steve knows, if he can’t bring down those MG42’s and if the enemy doesn’t falter. That’s what makes his decision, and that’s how he finds himself curving round the other side - brown tarp tied at his neck to cover the red and blue - to break past their defences where they can’t see him a quarter mile ahead before running back.

Some of the others saw him and know, and Falsworth has his orders - it was half his idea after all - targeting the main command and communication. Steve’s to bring down the MG42’s in the dig outs before moving onto the protected command and communication areas, and quite simply; cause havoc. No one had contradicted his plan, not once, not after the watchtower.

He’s running, tree’s flying in and out of his vision as he breaks world records once more and shoves the first Germans he sees into the sides of tree trunks. He doesn’t break pace - knows they're down for the count from the cracks he hears loud and deafening, and takes out eight more before someone finally realizes he’s there. The man see’s him but can only get half a yell out before Steve’s on him, and he doesn’t make it to the radio's - none of them do. He counts only nine shots that go off - none from him yet - but they all miss or he dodges and the men still fall. 

He keeps going silently, tarp tied around his neck like a cape. He feels ridiculous - but it’s working - he blends in and even when he doesn’t he’s too fast and the men around him go down without the rest of their squad noticing until it’s their turn. He skids to a stop behind an oak as he hears Falsworth’s shouted orders sixty meters away; he’s back where he started just twenty meters behind the German front-line. He ducks down and curves around the tree, letting his hearing narrow down to which dig-outs have the MG42s. 

There are several men hidden low behind trees closer to the opening of the clearing - but he can see camouflaged dig-outs hidden under tarps from the flashing muzzles poking out. Of the two closest to him; the second is armed with FG’s over the MG42s, which are the real targets and the ones keeping the reinforcements apart; and also the gun that nearly shot his arm off when he attempted it. The rest of the men are firing potshots at his, taking them out whereever they can but not moving forward. Compared the racket he can hear just over half a mile away at the centre and back of the march, there’s not much gunfire going on over here in comparison. 

Steve peers around the tree again at the men he’ll have to cross to get to the dig-outs and picks up two heavy stones from nearby instead of his gun. If he shoots it could give away his position before he’s ready.

He throws both at the two soldiers the furthest away as he breaks from the oak tree and punches three more bare-handed. One rockets back into the first dig-out from the force, collapsing the twiggy tarp onto those beneath. He kicks another as the German tries to come out from under it and drops a live grenade in. He drops another as he jumps the second dig-out, lands and keeps running - punching and shoving men with his shield before they can raise their guns. He thinks he hears men start to panic as the grenades land in the dirt before they blow to high heaven but he can’t be sure.

That gets the German’s attention, for sure, as all heads turn to the explosions. The fight is suddenly more furious and he’s having to impossibly dodge bullets coming at him from all directions, and his hearts pounding like it did when he jumped up three flights of stairs in that watchtower with one leap or when he jumped above that inferno - it’s exhilarating in a way he’s never felt before and he knows Peggy was right - he’s worth more than just playing at being a dancing monkey. 

He draws his pistol and two more grenades from the belts of Germans when the shots become too frantic to dodge and the men too far away - and he throws the grenades in both directions; flings himself into another German dig-out. He takes out the men there before he ducks low to avoid the searing heat of the grenades he just set off above. He smashes the MG42 and the two FG’s there before letting himself listen above the pounding of his heart.

Falsworth’s moving with squads from the front, heading South to reinforce their own in an attempt to pincer the German flanks. 

Come on Steve, keep going - part two.

He sucks in a sharp breath, picks up another gun and a couple of knives from the incapacitated Germans under him and peaks out over the top. He ducks sharply as six different kinds of bullets pepper the edge of the dig-out - kicking up dirt into his hair and eyes. Well, that’s great. They know he’s here now. He slides his flimsy stage shield to his front and pulls the clips on four grenades. He tosses them in the general direction of the shots.

Men yell - boom - and he’s off - shield only catching a sprinkle now. Steve hisses through his teeth as one cuts through the metal and narrowly misses catching him in the side, and starts firing back over the top of the striped starry shield. His aim’s okay - he’s a decent shot though not overly experienced as most boys are when they’re first shipped out he supposes - and he misses a couple of times but the rest make contact. He zigzags both ways and reverses it, ducking and jumping unexpectedly to avoid direct shots, even though he’s moving too fast for the others to come close to him.

He smashes both radios he sees as he passes, and shoots another twice as a solider reaches for it to keep the German superiors blind to what’s happening on this wing. There’s only a few left in this area - the rest he can see moving out of the treeline and into the centre of the ambush. There’s a lot of smoke. 

He grabs the last one by the collar and disarms him in one swoop; slams him into a tree. The man groans from the back of his throat and tries to hunch over. Steve keeps him upright and off the ground, and glances over his shoulder as his mind flicks back through his German phrasebook and Mrs Bakker shouting at her husband through the walls.

“Where is your command based?” Steve barks in lousy German, “What’s their position?” 

“Hail Hit--” The solider tries to stutter.

“What is their position?” Steve yanks the helmet off the mans head as he snaps out the question again. The man, if you could call someone so young a man - he can’t be more than eighteen surely, Steve thinks, looks at him with terrified eyes and short sworn hair. His eyes dart to the right, and his hand shakes in the direction of south-east.

“Zurück…” He stutters again, and switches to mumbling in slow accented English instead, “Back…Don’t kill me…Please, please don’t---”

Steve knocks his head against the back of the tree trunk and the boy sinks unconscious to the ground. 

“Stay down, kid.” Steve mutters, and takes off in that direction. It’s as Falsworth thought - the Lieutenants and the Captains are commanding from the back of the ambush. 

If I bring them down surely the assault will crumble.

A mile south-west he hears a familiar tank powering up - Steve grins. There we go boys, that’ll do it. If anything will send the German’s running it’s that thing. He hears them before he see’s them - barking and shouting about a loss of contact with the North-Eastern flank. That’s on me - Steve thinks and slams himself into the side of a carefully concealed ammunition truck so it rocks violently into another four feet away. There’s flashes of blue in the distance to join in with the grenade explosions. He rocks back as soon as he’s hit it; shoves his hands under the frame and heaves until it flips and takes half the command area out. There’s suddenly a lot of shooting, at him instead of around him and he has to duck and dodge again, his gun in one hand half-forgotten as he uses the shield as a weapon - shoving and slamming it into gun barrels and men alike.

Someone grabs the back of his brown cape and yanks, and more from the shock of the knot tightening around his Adams Apple than the pain, he almost falls backwards. He forces himself to twist as he falls, trying to make it deliberate with a move he’s never seen nor done before and manages to get a hold of the cape himself. Steve rips it from his neck and bodily tosses the German Lieutenant on the other end over three rows of men trying to line up.

Note to self: no cape. 

He rolls and kicks several off their feet until he’s back behind a large rock, jumping down and firing behind him. Shards of stone scatter over his hair as they keep shooting and he thinks, here we go.

They’ll throw a grenade. This is how you die; and this time there’s no priest to stand over you and give you last rites like when you were two, four, five, and fifteen. Bucky had refused outright, stubborn and selfish to call for Father Matthews when he was twenty in the Winter of ‘39.

Steve had wanted to slug him for it for weeks once he was better for denying him that Sacrament, despite his friend’s faith in his survival.

Through this holy anointing, may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit.

May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.

Oh Lord, oh holy Father, I’ve sinned these past few days - these past few weeks - I confess it. I’ve taken human life and disobeyed those above me, I’ve stolen and I’ve lied. I’ve slept with another outside the sanctity of marriage. Dominae lesus, forgive me my sins, save me from the fires of Hell. I am deeply sorry, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy.

Dominae lesus ----

Bright blue - flash  - hissing and cleaving through the trees. The centre of two trees to the right of him disintegrate the same way a man would - leaving the stumps and heavy branches above. They drop with heavy gravity onto those below.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Steve ducks to his stomach as an entire ten foot branch snaps off on the way down, cracks down the middle as it hits the rock behind him. Then he darts to the right to avoid it crunching his skull in two, and catches his leg on left-over shrapnel from another explosion. There’s a sharp snag of pain, like there was on his arm in the factory, enough to make him wince, but he’s not going to ignore this miracle - and the advantage it gives him. He’s up from the rock - whatever is left of the command  is minuscule at best. There’s more blue flashes further back - targeting specifically now - the other one must have been a missed shot that just kept going the distance until it hit something. The gunfire on their side is louder too as the German continue to move in, but it’s less controlled without continuing orders at their back. Steve spies two smoking gaps in the tree line a quarter mile south and somehow knows that wasn’t the tanks work. It’s the size of two market stalls, and there are men on the ground and scuttling back into the trees for new cover.

Someone - one of theirs - is picking off the runners with stunning shots. 

They’re not always shots to kill but they’re deliberate - and every time one goes down with a shot to the shin, kneecap or small of the back Steve knows they aren’t misses or less than perfect. Whoever it is is aiming to incapacitate, so the German’s go down in full view of their men; one after another. Steve huffs an inconceivable breath at the obvious strategy; at this ace shot with a rifle attempting to draw more out from cover to help the wounded. 

It’s not Falsworth or the other officers’ strategy - it can’t be - there’s no way they’ve made it this far down the formation for it to have anything to do with them - but it’s working. In the few seconds he allows himself to watch and think as he starts moving - a squad of soldiers behind a thick elm jerk as another goes down feet away, followed by one more attempting to help whose bullet to the side deliberately has him fall closer to where the gunman must know they’re hiding.

There’s no way this is anyone but a trained sniper, Steve thinks, there’s no way - he’s got to be. 

Steve throws his shield at three men and dodges some more bullets from the left, spins to pick it up from the ground and shoots with his pistol until he’s out of bullets at any remaining in the command area. The German assault is faltering - there’s no more orders coming from command and Steve see’s the lower SS officers pull themselves up and try to take charge in the meantime. 

He moves on, speeding closer to the treeline and the clearing their men were attacked in, aiming to literally take them from behind - one by one. They start going down, and Steve can see the men suddenly start panicking as their smaller group takes shots in both directions. Four men run at him at once from all sides once he dodges one too many bullets with only a sear to the arm and he fights them off the same way he saw Bucky try to fight off all the Midgley brothers - both large and small. He blocks like he saw George Barnes do when sparring with his best friend during training, protecting his head and chest. After ducking another swing and slugging a solider in the jaw, he realizes, damn - he’s out of practice, but his footwork has improved drastically.

A sixth that he doesn’t see slashes at his arm with a wicked knife - tearing the fabric but missing his skin (barely) in obviously trained movements. Steve tries to back up but there’s more behind him - and he hadn’t even seen the knife until it almost cut him. A seventh is also armed, and goes for his side as he dodges the sixth’s second and third slash.

A bullet sears through the seventh’s forearm and he screams out a curse as he drops the knife - takes another to the other shoulder after barely a beat. It sends him to the ground, hard.

Shocked, Steve focuses back on the sixth but that one goes down too with a shot to the switch at the back of the head. Steve tracks the trajectory this time; the bullet speared through a half foot spacing in the forest from somewhere below on the ground. Steve spies the muzzle of a gun and a scratched up hand holding the barrel steady from underneath a truck with sunken blown out tyres, but is otherwise  invisible. No wonder the German’s can’t work out where the shots are coming from. 

Steve hits the last of them before the man has to waste another bullet on saving his life, while still unsure on how the solider even saw his predicament from this far away. It must have been the eyesore that is your costume, you mook - he excuses, you lost your cape, you’re a walking bullseye.

Thank god the sniper recognized the costume from this distance - there’s no way he has a scope on that gun to make out Steve in detail. He darts back to cover and pulls the shield off the ground and onto his back again, picks up his stolen gun and palms a knife he’s never used before. Behind him, the tank turns twenty-five degrees - it has a new target and Steve’s probably in the way.

He starts running again; from the German’s coming at him and the energy he can hear powering up behind him. He leaps sideways and the soldiers coming towards him catch the unlucky energy blast. He keeps moving, shooting from behind the German’s lines to confuse them, further South, then back North so they can’t target where the shots are coming from. Men are fleeing through the forest as their Sergeants and other SS officers pull them back, running frightened as the blue energy shells pick up the pace. 

They haven’t seen this stuff before either, Steve realizes, it’s as new to them as it is for the Allies. That’s interesting - Hydra aren’t sharing their technology. He remembers Jones telling him that the 107th thought the tank was one of theirs because it shot apart the German charge first before it turned on them. What were these people playing at?

Turning back North again he almost runs straight into Falsworth’s squad of available men - successful in taking out men from the flanks in a pincer move. He slams a German solider, as he’s learnt to do, into falling seven feet away as he reaches the squad.

 Falsworth sees him - and yells. “It’s working Captain!”

“Seems like! We’re not done yet though!” Steve calls back, jogging to a halt in front of them. “Keep going - all the digouts are gone and the men are falling back in groups with what’s left of the officers. Just keep driving them out. And be careful about a quarter mile down - near the tank - for that and the sniper.”

“Sniper?!” One of them snaps out, “Where?”

“About a quarter mile South.” Steve repeats, “one of ours, covered under a truck. He’s been taking out the men strategically - the officers especially. He’s making long range shots though, without a scope, and with no radios on our side he or the tank might not know we’ve breached the treeline as well.”

Falsworth nods, “They’ll see men moving in fatigues and think we’re the Jerrys’ too, they could shoot us without even realizing it.”

“What, our own men are gonna shoot us now too?” One of the stronger of the prisoners bites out, brow creased and voice sharp.

Steve ignores the comment, “I’m going to try and get word to them and sort communication out now you squads are through but keep flushing them back, just be careful. I don’t know how long it’ll take to get word to them.”

“Ha!” Falsworth laughs, then scoffs as he begins to move forward again. “How long it takes? You’ve just taken out all of the dig outs and the Jerry’s eastern command in under five minutes, somehow, getting word to our own side doesn’t seem like it’s going to be much a problem.”

He moves off with the others, and Steve takes his new assignment in hand - and pelts at full speed to the centre assault of their formation.

“Captain!”

Several men shout at once, Sergeant Dugan among them, as he kicks and stabs at German soldiers still stubbornly moving forward from behind. Multiple men immediately move to cover his approach, moving forward or switching their aim so he can make it near Timothy Dugan and Private Gabe Jones.

“Who’s in the tank?” He yells above the continuing stuttuctto of gunfire.

“No idea!” Jones shouts back, “we were too far away; nearer the front when the bastards hit us. We only got back to this area not too long ago.”

“They took their bloody time getting it running though!” Dugan shouts over his shotgun barrel, without taking his eyes off the treeline. “’thought they’d never get that thing working with how they were going on about it - it’s only in German for Gods sake!”

Jones barks out a laugh, “You swore up a storm and had no idea when you first got in Dugan; I was the one who could read it!”

“Well every squad needs a Jones then, don’t they?” Dugan shoots back automatically and Steve see’s Jones do a double-take at him.

Originally, Jones wasn’t a part of the 107th, because of course the US Army wouldn’t dare mix up white and coloureds in one unit - they aren’t even supposed to be in combat. US laws state instead that they are to be assigned to combat-support roles such as cooks, quartermasters or to the unlucky job of grave digging and registry - and those are always Segregated units themselves too.  The 92nd Infantry Division is the only All Black Division to see combat - which was Jones's unit, but in a close battle before Azzano, Steve's heard, Jones threw himself into the thrall, and saved Dugan and three other men that day. Their units were positioned alongside each other until Azzano, larger and three times worse than that first skirmish, took them all prisoner. In their months of capture, only one of four black men of the march, they've grown close, and has more than gained Dugan's loyalty. Steve’s inexplicably pleased at Jones expression and the comment, because at first glance hadn’t considered the heavier-set man to have the unpopular liberal opinions he did after the Japanese comment made by the cells.

He switches back to the priority before they get distracted. “The tanks up and working now; but we need to get word to them and the others - we have men in the trees now - be careful who you shoot!”

Dugan swears and mutters “friendly fire” to himself. 

“There hasn’t been any kills yet,” Steve continues, vividly remembering his close escape with the blue energy beam, “but that doesn’t mean there won’t be - especially with whoever is in that tank - they’re just shooting at anything!”

“Right. We’ll try and get word to them - Jones, pass on to the rest of them. If they say shit about it, tell ‘em ‘Captain’s orders.’”

Jones blinks at him, then gives him a small smile with a determined set to his brow. “You got it.”

“Morita - the Jap-” He’s not a Jap, Steve thinks, “might have a better chance at getting word to the tank - he and Dernier were blowing holes in the trees with homemade grenades until the idiots started pulling their weight - ‘ey seemed to have some sorta’ understanding. I’ll try to--”

“Don’t!” Steve cuts him off. “Let me, you stay here and keep passing the message round.” 

He turns to do exactly that and freezes at the burning husk of an overturned truck. This is the first time he’s let himself notice the devastation around him; the burnt out pits, the small fires, the shells and the shrapnel littering the ground; the bodies. There’s over thirty at least; a good cluster of them the wounded men - crushed and dead under the overturned truck or shot to hell in the other. The overturned truck he knows well.

No. No, no, no. I don’t see him, I don’t see his body--

He’s halfway to hissing in a breath---

“Barnes is good!” Dugan calls from behind him and Steve spins to see the man with his eyes away from the treeline and looking serious for once.

“What?!”

“Barnes! He’s good - fuck me if I know how - he must have got out of the truck before it flipped - he’s with another Private just along the way. Gotten hold of a Thompson and a rifle last time I saw him; covered me when I thought for sure I was a goner.” Dugan suddenly grins, “Trust me, Cap, I was more surprised than you are.”

“Where?” Steve snaps out quickly once he’s caught his breath.

“Over that way,” Dugan nods south, “where the tank was before it started moving; he’s sticking close to the trucks and the ground to reload. He and that other Private are covering each other and taking out the runners.”

Steve blanches a little, “Taking out the runners?”

Dugan laughs again, “Who do you thinks been picking two off with one bullet at a time down there?”

“That’s Bucky?!”

“What? You didn’t know he was a sniper?”

Steve half-laughs in bewilderment. “No. No, I didn’t.”

“Crack shot he is.” Dugan says like he’s talking about the weather. The man turns to start firing again, then he starts yelling at the rest of the men to watch out for their own in the trees - and that he’ll box anyone who he catches shooting at theirs. Steve takes that as his queue to leave.

He runs and ducks between each bit of cover he sees, ordering the men the same as Dugan, and looks actively for Morita behind the tank. He spots him, and further down sees a blonde headed solider firing around the deflated wheel of a truck with someone’s legs sticking out from under the truck behind him. Three more men go down in the forest, all the men now actively falling back. Steve shakes his head in bewilderment again.

He opens his mouth to yell, about to jump between cover again - he’s almost at the tank. He jolts back from a spray of hot bullets. The men nearest to him see it and start firing furiously in his defence. Steve’s still a little astounded by that attitude.

“Morita!” He yells from his position instead. The man snaps to attention. “We have several squads in the trees - tell them to watch their fire!” The last part he yells harshly as the tank fires from it’s regular machine gun with no restraint - wasting ammunition and making one of Steve’s squads drop to the floor ducking four-hundred feet away. “Watch their fire!”

“Yes Captain!” Morita yells back, understanding immediately even if he can’t see what Steve’s just seen. Both he and Dernier start banging on the tank and Morita screams at those inside through the small holes. There’s some kind of argument - a racial slur that bristles Steve as much as it does Morita and the man screams back at them even worse. “Captain’s orders!” He shouts at last - and that seems to do the trick somehow.

There’s suddenly a furious burst of machine gunfire - not from their side - the blond solider jerks back yelping and ducking with hot slices on his palm and cheek. He yanks on the man’s - Bucky’s - legs from his other side - forcibly pulling him out from under the truck as the bombardment of bullets continues in a wave from left to right. They’ve worked out where the shots are coming from.

“Hey!” Steve yells angrily and starts forward - not caring about loosing his cover. As he does the blonde haired man pulls the other solider out and rolls backwards just as the truck’s engine fuel catches fire.

Dernier shouts, “Sacre bleur!” The Frenchman starts shooting at the area it’s coming from while banging on the tank to get it to alter it’s priority. 

Steve missed a dig-out. How did he miss a dig-out? He had them all, he was so sure he had them all. His head switches back to the two men still rolling backwards - fiery sparks spitting at them - before they slow to a stop. He can see - it’s definitely his friend - he’s grunting again.

“Is he hit?!” He yells at the solider.

“Are either of you hit?!” Morita yells straight after. 

The man clumsily searches his friend, fingers bloody, as Bucky turns on his back before turning to Morita and shaking his head. Steve forces his eyes away and squints at the treeline as he dodges, still running - trying to draw their fire away from the other men and what’s left of their supplies. 

“Captain, what are you doing?!” 

Steve squints at the treeline again until he see’s the hidden muzzle flashing, he ducks behind the tank as the bullets follow him. 

“Give it to me!” Steve snaps once he’s next to familiar men and Dernier hands over the Hydra powered shotgun he took from the Hydra base. “How do you--?”

Dernier flicks several things on it on and off, motions him to lever it against his shoulder when he fires and points to what must be the trigger on the contraption. “Pull.” He says in accented English.

Steve levers it against his shoulder, and crouches just over the lowest point of the tank. He searches, then fires at the target only he can perfectly locate. He pulls the trigger and blue light bursts out of it - half the size of the main barrel of a tank - hits the dig-out squarely in a way Steve’s proud of himself for.

There’s some sort of explosive in that dig-out with them - Steve can hear it in the minuscule of a second as the energy sets them off. They ignite with a blue-orange blast. The stuttering gunfire cuts off in all directions for a moment. The tank then continues on, more wary now at least. Steve lets himself breath deeply for the first time in twenty minutes - though it feels like an hour - letting his body slowly lower it’s defences. He lowers the gun, passes it to Dernier - glances at the men around him and then turns in the direction of his friend. 

Bucky’s sat up, thank god, if hunched over, holding his sleeve up against the line scored across the Private’s cheek while the other circles around his stomach. He’s turned in Steve’s direction and the look on his face is half-disbelieving and half furious. He probably saw you deliberately use yourself as a moving target. There’s a Thompson he’s deliberately left within reach, and a abandoned rifle still lying under the burning truck.

He suddenly remembers the sixth and seventh men armed with knives. Bucky nods back to him, grimacing and turns back to plugging the blood on the soldiers face. He hears Bucky telling the man that it’ll probably scar - but not to worry - some girls like scars.

“Some girls?” The guy murmurs back, “What about nice girls?”

He knows Bucky’s scrunching up his face even if he can’t physically see it past the other soldier’s head. “Nice girls aren’t as fun.” He says instead, and the man tries to laugh through the pain.

“Your stomach okay?” The man asks him, “I saw you before, when you---”

“Captain!”

Steve snaps into focus as the men start crowding round, coming out from behind trucks and trees from the other side - and he loses the rest of Bucky’s response. 

Steve heaves in a breath - puts his Captain America face back on.

. . .

Falsworth and the three other squads return, missing one member they left with but are otherwise unscathed. He wishes he could say the same about the rest of the men, who have replaced nearly all of the already wounded men they lost when the medic truck took a grenade to the side.

Falsworth comes to a halt in front of him and some of the other men briefly salute him before going off to find familiar faces in the survivors. The soldiers from the Northern position and those from the South are all conveying at the centre, still on guard at the base of the main assault - it’s getting crowded and the most diligent men have already started to collect dog-tags.

There’s no gunfire.

“They retreated back over two miles - there was cargo trucks camouflaged there and took off to the hills. We didn’t see any higher officers - just main infantry.”

The Italian Resistance member, Mario, says “If we are where I think we are we’re at least two to three hours by truck from the main supply line - and the nearest checkpoint.”

“So if we move quickly we might actually have a chance of loosing them-”

“But they know our path now. Surely they’ll be surveying the area now they know we’re here - and weaker than we were before . We’ve lost half our trucks --”

They men start to argue amongst themselves, some looking to Steve - and he - he doesn’t know what to do. His adrenaline is still pumping with dull thuds at the back of his skull and he doesn’t know what to do.

“I know another route.”

The nearest men fall silent around him at Mario’s quiet comment, who turns to look nervously at Steve. “It’s further out, in a wider arch but it’s more covered. I didn’t suggest it before because it’s longer and a tougher terrain which would have slowed us down with the wounded---”

“Not many of the wounded still left.” Steve hears someone mutter at the back.

Mario continues, having not heard them, “-And I thought this route would be safe this far out. But…” The man swallows, “but obviously my information wasn’t up to date.”

He stares at Steve as he finishes, as the others are, like he’s expecting Steve to berate him or ask questions he can’t for the life of him think of right now. Steve stares back dumbly for a second.

“Would the Krauts--The Germans,” Bucky corrects, appearing at his side, “be able to track us through the other route if we turned onto it from here?”

Mario shakes his head, “No, its away of the main track, mostly wild and completely under cover, winding further up the main valley - if we turned onto it now we’d have to travel uphill for a time but once we’re past the ruined cottages we’d disappear completely until twenty miles over the border - and then it’ll only be another…10 miles until your Amer-i-can base - I know where it is.”

“There’s no way they’d know about it like they did with this one?”

Mario shakes his head vehemently. “No,” he says again, “only my sister and the old women know this route, and we only know it because we grew up on these lands at our grandfather’s mountain farm. They won’t know, we’ll disappear from sight by land and air if we take it.”

The men begin murmuring around them. Bucky sidles closer to him and says quietly, “We should take it.” Because of course he knows Steve’s at a loss for what to do. He knows his face too well not to. “We can’t afford another firefight.”

Steve looks around the convening men, the burnt out soil of the area from his taller viewpoint and silently, but subtly slides his arm around Bucky’s back and takes some of his weight. After tensing once, looking at the others, Bucky allows it - leaning into him. The blonde solider is still with him on his other side - holding a ripped shirt to his cheek with his already wrapped up hand.

“It’d be tough terrain, up a mountain; with the tank and the wounded--”

“They’ll have to deal with it and if - if we have to loose the tank then we have to loose it. We can’t afford another fire fight, Steve.” He repeats again firmly through the side of his mouth - hugging his Thompson close to him - fingers tight.

Steve grimaces, “I know, I just really don’t want to have the fight about leaving the tank.”

“We don’t know that we will.”

“Lets hope not, but you’re right, its the safest option we have. The German’s will be back.”

Bucky shuffles his feet - Steve stubbornly but firmly take more of his weight as he stands taller and calls out orders that every man is to follow Mario’s direction. That the trip will be longer, more strenuous, but safer. He tells them just as he told them miles back; that he’s getting them back to Allied safety and that hasn’t changed, they’d get there - so long as they kept pushing through the way he knew they could.

What follows after the immediate agreement and stubborn army pride is an uncomfortable time of counting their losses; food, weapons and people. There are sixty dead in total, twice as many wounded; they have the tank, about a third of their trucks and transport left and barely any ammunition or food. It’s a devastating state of affairs. There’s an awful argument about the bodies - Mario insists they need to move now if they want to reach the cottages before winter sundown, which means there’s no time to bury their dead. Steve refuses point blank at first - they were giving their men a burial because these were sixty-four men in Steve’s charge and he failed them. The least he can do is give them the respect and dignity they deserve and not leave them to rot. He’ll dig every single one of their graves himself if he has to.

There’s not enough time and they all hate it, everyone keeps telling him - there’s not enough time - they need to leave now - they don’t have the stamina - you can’t do it all on your own Cap - there’s not enough time. These men have had to leave their fallen comrades before, and its certainly not something they relish, but its been done and Steve doesn’t have that experience. He quietly buried and prayed for any bodies he did find that weren't completely obliterated by blue energy at the factory, which wasn’t many. He’d even prayed for himself and the other men who have killed that day - for God to not judge them all so harshly.

He carries on, and they keep telling him over and over again - there’s no time, and he bites out that they already could have buried maybe three or four of them in the time they’ve been arguing.

Bucky says, “Steve.”

He stops.

Bucky says, “There’s not enough time - we need to leave now. I know you hate it - but we can’t bury them.

Steve scrunches his face, “What if we take them with us--”

That idea starts a whole other commotion.

“We could load them on the trucks--” Steve continues, ignoring the disagreement around him.

“What trucks?” Bucky asks quietly again from Steve’s side, to him and not the other men. He pinches Steve’s arm to get his attention and repeats his question until Steve sees the logic in it. “There’s barely any trucks left - and those that are will be stocked to the brim by the next minute.”

“We’re already having to leave ammo’ behind,” Falsworth reminds him respectfully.

Steve fights the urge to squeeze his eyes shut in frustration and guilt in front of the soldiers. “Load up and lets get moving - the food and the wounded are the priority.”

After several minutes when the men surrounding them have dispersed and Steve’s looking at the stagnant blood sinking into the dirt, Bucky leans into him further. He says, “I’m sorry Steve.”

“Yeah Buck, me too.” Steve replies, still watching the devastation as the men begin loading and lining up. Mario’s upfront. He should probably go help - no probably about it he absolutely should but he can’t seem to move to make the effort. He twists slightly to look down at his best friend’s head. Bucky’s not looking at him anymore, but the blonde solider with the bleeding cheek is, still hanging close to Bucky.

Steve smiles at him, forced but grateful. “Thank you.”

The man blinks bewilderingly at him; he looks young. “What?” He sprouts uncertainly, wincing.

“I saw you pull him,” here he cants his head down in Bucky’s direction, “back before the bullets and the blast caught at the end. You probably, no did, save his idiot life.” Bucky nudges him sharply in the ribs at that and Steve winces a little. “So thank you.”

“Oh.” The younger, smaller man says uncertainly, “I didn’t know you two were…”

“He’s my best friend.” Steve supplies, “since we were kids.”

The man seems strangely mollified at that for some reason and Steve forces back a frown of confusion at it. 

“Right, well I owed him.” He looks at Bucky who seems comfortable staying out of the conversation, and continues. “He pulled me out from under---helped me when the truck flipped.” Bucky glances up sharply at the correction and the man meets his eyes head on. Steve definitely frowns this time.

“From the medic truck?” He asks, eyes flicking behind him to the totalled smouldering truck. Someone’s broken legs are sticking out from under the metal in a puddle of congealing blood.  “Were you wounded too?”

The man shakes his head, eyes still on Bucky. “No, I was trying to pull the others from it when the Germans hit it.“ He sticks out his hand and says with finality, “Private Thomas Avery.”

Bucky shifts his weight to free his hand between them and Steve watches his face for any flicker of pain  as he shakes the Private’s hand. “Sergeant James Barnes.”

The man snorts, “I figured you were a Sergeant from how you were ordering me around.”

Steve knows Bucky’s face as well as Bucky knows his and can see the man is holding back from saying something that is probably snide and unhelpful. Instead he answers, “You welcome,” with just enough of a twinge that Steve can hear the petulance in it.

“In that case,” the man continues, eyes still on Bucky, “I’ll see you around Sergeant, thanks for the bandage. Captain.” He nods at Steve last and wanders off finally, though not without looking back over his shoulder. 

There’s definitely something fishy going on.

Steve turns himself and Bucky so that they’re actually facing each other; unfortunately meaning Bucky as to take his own weight back.

“Are you okay?” Bucky shoots out before he can open his mouth and shoves his hand under Steve’s armpit, then lifts his arm up and away from his side. Steve can’t remember the last time either of them have respected each other’s personal space, if they ever have.

“I’m fine.” Steve answers, and moves to put his arm back down.

“I’m fine.” Bucky mocks in an unfavourable imitation of Steve’s voice and swats at him disagreeably. “Looks like blood to me.”

“Only a little, I’m fine, honestly--”

“Humour me.”

“When have you ever humoured me?” Steve shoots back.

“Were not talking about me - Christ you have to make everything an argument, don’t you?”

Steve scoffs loudly at the irony then yelps as Bucky pinches him hard on the skin of his armpit in way he knows from ten years of boyhood wrestling will make Steve jolt his arm up. Inadvertently he does, serum or no serum and Bucky takes full advantage. Catching Steve’s elbow and pushing it back and away with one hand he starts prodding at the cut on his side in a familiar manner.

“That was a dirty trick, what are you, eleven?”

“Go cry to a teacher then.” Bucky shoots back, “This from a bullet?”

He pokes at the edges around the cut again. As the adrenaline fades away Steve’s pain levels have been steadily growing. 

“Would you stop?” He half snaps.

“Answer the question then.”

“Yes it was from a bullet. It just skimmed me.”

“I figured as much,” Bucky grumbles quietly, and reaches down to the side seam on his shirt. “They skim you anywhere else?”

Steve stops him from ripping his shirt up as a bandage and catches his hands. “Buck. I’m fine. It’ll heal up completely in a couple of hours.”

Bucky makes a face Steve can’t fully decipher. “That’s crazy.”

Is it? Your feet healed, and despite how your acting I know you know it too.

“Remember my arm in the base?” Steve says instead.

“No…what about your arm?”

Remembering how high as a kite Bucky had been, Steve lets the laspe in memory go, figuring he’ll give that one to him. He pulls the ripped sleeve away from his forearm to show Bucky the unblemished skin. “Shrapnel from the explosion caught me here after we jumped. Look at it now, not even a scar really. It scabbed over after an hour and was gone by nightfall. It’ll be the same with that one. Cease your worrying, alright?”

Bucky stares at his arm and numbly thumbs at it. “What about infection?”

Steve nudges him, “That’s not something I have to worry about anymore, the serum saw to that too.”

“How do you know? How do you know for sure?”

There’s no way for Steve to answer that question in a way that will mollify Bucky, though he knows in himself that he’s right; infection is a non-issue now.

“I just do, Buck. The serum fixed everything.”

Just like that, Bucky’s glaring at him hotly. “There was nothin’ that needed to be fixed, Steve.”

Steve stares just as forcefully back, “Yes there was and you know it.” Bucky opens him mouth to retaliate but Steve doesn’t let him get a word in: “Asthma, arrhythmia, scoliosis, heart trouble, ‘nervous trouble’. The Winter colds and the Autumn colds and the summer colds. Those things can’t kill me ever again Bucky, that’s the point!”

“No. Now the war is gonna’ kill you instead--”

“I thought you were happy for me?”

“I am happy for you!”

“Yeah, it sure sounds like it--”

“They nearly shot you half a hundred times Steve - two guys had knives inches away from your throat - I saw them - and you don’t care! You ran out there without thinking - like you always do. All the goddamn time. This isn’t a back alley anymore! You could have died!”

“Now you know how I felt before and when I found you on that table!”

“I didn’t choose to be put on that table! You did!”

There’s a long beat of silence.

Then Bucky says, more calmly, “How is dying out here any better than dying at home?”

“Here I can make a difference, and besides, I ain’t dead and you ain’t either.” 

Bucky opens his mouth to retaliate then closes it again, looking away; resigned. “We should get going.” He says then, fidgeting as he turns away. Steve thinks that might be the first time Bucky’s ever given up on an argument before.

“Yeah, your probably right.” He says, and finally manages grasp the effort needed to join Mario at the head of the march.

. . .

14th November, 1944. U.S Paularo Army Unit Base, Italy.  4.46pm

“Do we have any visual?” Peggy Carter asks those who have just returned on a fly-over. She prays to god they do.

“No ma’m.”

She sighs, impatient. “Nothing? At all? That factory fire was large enough to be seen from a town two miles away from what’s been reported; there must be path or some kind of sign of a direction afterwards.”

“No ma’m. We saw nothing of the sort, no survivors. It looked like there was some left over smoke in a clearing in the trees fifteen miles or so from the line but from the uniforms we glimpsed they were a German battalion. No sign of escapees or….Captain America.” The last word is said half dubiously and half mocking.

Peggy walks away, unhappy and annoyed - and worried. Philips is not going to be happy; maybe she would be better off tricking Howard to go up again for surveillance if she can push him so far. She does not want to go for more fondue, but she’s also not ready to give up on Steve Rodgers just yet either. 

There’s got to be something. Where is he?

.

Chapter Text

There's two classical music tracks mentioned in this chapter, The Girl with the Flaxen Hair and Clair De Lune by Claude Debussy. I've attached links here and at the bottom notes if you would like to listen to them during or after the chapter. They are also my two favourite ones of Debussy :)

Girl with the Flaxen Hair: MUSIC LINK
Clair De Lune: MUSIC LINK

STEVE

They’ve been walking a while, having started the uphill trek about an hour ago. Steve has once again appeared at his side, seemingly content to delegate the lead position now that they’ve reached the main overgrown path of their new route. They’ve been walking in a comfortable silence for most of it, having cooled off from the argument earlier; or at least Bucky’s too tired to stay angry. A couple of Privates occasionally chat to Steve about Washington, and how the city is now all the men have shipped out from it. Apparently nowhere near as different as most of the other cities, considering there’s still a good number of men still over there running the country and all. Washington is always a place Steve’s wanted to go, political nut that he is, and apparently is now a place he has been to several times during the USO tour; which Bucky is both glad - in that he didn’t have to listen to Steve’s liberal ranting - and jealous that he missed it. They’d had a deal, a childish blood-pact made from smeared nosebleeds when they were thirteen to go to Washington - Steve’s choice - and the Grand Canyon - Bucky’s choice - together before they died. Somehow, despite how childish it is, he can’t help but feel churlish and sore that Steve’s done half of their pact already.

“Bucky?”

He glances at Steve, forgetting again that his eyeline is now above him. “Yeah?” He answers, clearing his throat.

“What’s a…bal….a bal-e-vas?”

Bucky blinks at him, surprised, as he stumbles over the word. “Where the hell did you hear that from?”

“What does it mean? It’s obviously not English, or Latin.”

Bucky frowns at him, fingers tapping an incessant beat against the barrel of his Thompson. “It’s Romani.”

From Steve’s expression Bucky thinks his friend already knew that. He asks again, “What does it mean?”

“Bakalo or balavas?” Steve nods at the second. “Urgh, it’s like a good luck charm, in some dialects. That coin ma always wears around her neck - that’s a kind of balavas.”

Steve’s eyes seem to soften at the explanation. “And bakalo is what, good luck?”

Bucky shrugs, “Pretty much, I think?  How did---”

“You said something the other day and I wasn’t sure what--”

“Wait, I said something?”

Steve hums, “That’s where I heard it from. You were outta your head at the time to be honest, but you’ve never really talked about your ma’s traditions before, so, well, I was just curious. I don’t know much about that side…”

“Neither do I, honestly.” Bucky replies, looking away to focus on heaving his body over a bank of uphill dirt. Steve supports his back and elbow from behind silently. “Just what she’s talked to me about, and she hasn’t done that in years. It um, it doesn’t really leave the family.”

“Oh right, sorry, if it’s private I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t be stupid, it’s you. I don’t care.”

“Would your ma care?”

“Probably? Who knows? She’s not here though, and like I said, it’s you.”

Steve half-smiles at him, then catches him as he trips over a tree root.

“I’m starting to think you’ve grown an extra foot,” he quips at him once Bucky’s straightened back up and holding his Thompson securely again. They continue.

Bucky asks, unable to hold it back any longer; dreading the answer. “What did I say?”

“It wasn’t that you said anything much,” Steve seems to wave off, but then grins sickeningly sweet. “But that’s what you called me.”

“What?” Bucky blinks at him, dumbfounded. “I called you….”

“Yup,” Steve summarizes, looking much too pleased with himself. “You walked straight - or not so straight - up to me and called me your balavas.”

“Oh Jesus,” Bucky mumbles, already knowing where this is going. “That doesn’t mean--”

“Nope. You said it, by the grace of God and in front of witnesses at that. I’m your good luck charm.” Steve grins at him, shit-eating and teasing. “That’s so sweet Buck, who knew I meant so much to you, pal.”

“Shut up,” Bucky bites back, numbly, heat creeping up the back of his neck and across his cheeks. He tries to shove Steve, feeling almost sick with embarrassment. Steve dodges him easily, still grinning. Bucky see’s it dim slightly from the corner of his eye when he realises Bucky won’t look at him from the shame.

Bucky opens his mouth to - what? Apologize?

Steve clears his throat, and changes the subject deftly. “Sure was some shooting out there though, pal.”

Bucky’s hasn’t felt so grateful since Subject #64 offered him the cot for the first time. He just grunts in reply, his cheeks still flushed. His stomach is pulsing in time with his steps, and the ants crawling up and down his skin are back.

“Why did you never tell me you could shoot like that? And don’t tell me you never had the chance, not with all those letters you were writing from Wisconsin, or when you came back home before you shipped out. You had plenty of opportunity.”

Bucky half shrugs in reply. “Didn’t seem important.”

The thing was though, it was important. To his Drill Sergeant, who whistled high and long when Bucky made a bullseye shot at twenty-five meters the second time he’d ever held a real rifle before. It was important to the AIT First Officer in Wisconsin too, when they transferred him for additional training instead of shipping him out immediately with the rest of his unit in Basic. When they told him not everyone got pulled out for tactical training so fresh from civilian life, and to make full use of it and be grateful for the opportunity. And Bucky had been grateful for a while; for the chance to stay on American soil for just a little bit longer if not for the opportunity granted to him. Turns out, he was a damn good shot and a damn good solider.

Steve scoffs, seeing through him as usual. “Oh, come on.”

Bucky glances at him again, and half-admits-half-lies, “I wasn’t really supposed to tell anyone the details.”

He supposed he and Steve were a matched set in that - when it came to keeping secrets from each other with paper and pen. He’d never told him about Basic, Project Rebirth or the USO tour after all. They were top notch bullshitters, the both of them.

“What? That you were a good shot - or that they were training you up as a sniper? Seriously? With how much you like to brag I’d of thought you’d be all over that.”

“It was more than just that kinda’ training; other stuff too.” Bucky continues to admit, “But I never finished. They needed more G.I’s to ship out for the invasion of Sicily, that’s why I got promoted to Sergeant so quickly before seeing action.”

Steve frowns at him, “I thought the extra training was for leadership and command in the ranks. Was that a lie?”

“Yes and no.” Bucky grimaces, scratching at the back of his neck and sucking his stomach in. The sharp twinge of the staples shifting in his flesh distracts from the unavoidable itching of his skin. “That’s what I thought and what they told me before I got to Wisconsin, then they told me differently. I guess I figured there was no point in changing what I’d already told you. And I…”

“And you what?” Steve prompts a moment after he’s trailed off.

And I didn’t want to talk about that and all the questions it would bring up. I wanted to talk about home. I wanted to hear the gossip Mr Reagan told you while you were shining his shoes, and how you were trying to save up to buy the twins a birthday gift from the both of us; and what did I think they’d like? I wanted to be able to read the letters in my bunk after training, aching and sore, and imagine myself back there too - going to classes and hauling crates part-time at the docks again.

I didn’t want to waste valuable paper talking - and lying - about the interrogation tactics they were trying to teach me, or how I now knew how to disarm men twice my size and handle a knife in my left as well as my right. I didn’t want to talk about the war I was going into in a few short months time or how lonely and homesick it turned out I was.

Bucky shakes his head, huffing, and pushes the thought away. “Nothin’”

Steve unsubtly bats his hand away from where he’s started furiously scratching at his neck after a silent pause. Now that he’s started he can’t seem to stop. He vaguely remembers watching Andrew draw blood once from how much he was scratching in the dim moonlight when Bucky was too tired to stop him. It because a compulsion for the both of them in the end, he thinks, whether they were itchy or not. He tries to pointlessly disguise it by swatting a fly buzzing by his left ear without even thinking. That seems to make Steve frown more and gives off a strange sense of deja vou. Will the deja vou ever stop, or will he trapped in it forever?

Steve whistles softly to keep the conversation going. “Still. Some shooting though.”

“You said that already.”

“Still true.”

“Shut up Rodgers,” Bucky replies, a pleased heat crawling up his neck this time.

“Take the compliment, Barnes.”

Bucky fails at biting back a smile. “Sure was some everything back there yourself.” He parrots back at him, “Looked like you didn’t even need a gun after all.”

“I still took one.”

“Good.”

“I do occasionally listen to you, you know.” Steve retorts, before letting them lapse into comfortable silence again. 

He slows a step behind Bucky to help him and another man up over a rock in their path. Bucky half misses a step once he’s over it and straightening up - too busy scratching and trying to keep hold of his gun to watch his feet. He doesn’t need to see Steve’s face to know the unimpressed frown is back. The red patch on his neck burns something fierce when he forces his nails away from it and back against the barrel of the Thompson. His hands are almost shaking from the compulsion to scratch, and he taps out an erratic rhythm with his fingers again to try to distract from it. Without clear notes or a melody to focus on it’s not working, so he forces himself to think about his ma’s handwritten sheet music meticulously copied from a library book and stained with coffee rings; handwriting blocky and newly-learnt. The first to come to his head is Debussy’s Girl With the Flaxen Hair; the second the famous Clair de Lune but he’s inexplicably ashamed to his bones that while he remembers the names - the actual notes and chorus are shrouded somewhere he can’t recall. As he’s trying and failing to remember; the erratic taps against his Thompson speed up until he’s almost scratching at it instead. 

He wipes at his eyes quickly and tries to clear the lump in his throat as Steve makes a remark to a solider on his right. He can’t remember.

“Do you know how The Girl with the Flaxen Hair starts?” He asks before he can stop himself.

Steve turns to raise his eyebrows, and answers almost immediately. “By…Debussy?” While Steve can draw something special he can’t hold a tune to save his life, but he knows his classical and his jazz music. “Well yeah, with how many times I heard you playing it through the walls or next to my head I should think so. Why?

Bucky opens his mouth, then loses his nerve again. “No reason.”

Steve stares at him for a long moment and quickly steadies him when he misses another tree root. This hill is killing him, how long have they been half-climbing by now? The tank and remaining trucks are a slow rumble behind him - scraping against the tree bark as the tank narrowly fits through the widest gaps in the forest. Bucky’s not looking forward to when they’re going to have to abandon it because if the hill gets any steeper or the trees any denser there’s no arguing around it. He goes to swat at the stubborn fly by his ear again.

Steve starts humming inexpertly next to him - quiet but clear. Bucky jerks to look at him but he’s looking forwards, one hand still hovering at Bucky’s back. The hums go higher and lower in pitch, slow and almost soothing. Bucky opens his mouth to ask what it is before he realizes himself. It’s The Girl with the Flaxen Hair. He sucks in a slow calming breath and looks forward himself - feels the bones of his fingers begin tapping out the first adult verse he ever learnt all the way through. He can feel himself able to focus with the melody suddenly over the ants crawling under his skin. He bites his tongue to keep from smiling as Steve butchers the chorus next to him and climbs effortlessly over a fallen tree. He offers Bucky a hand over, still humming.

. . .

Steve calls a halt as the tank stubbornly forces itself over the verge of the last hill, where a crumbling stone wall lines the perimeter of several old cottages. Bucky counts four from where he’s standing, missing sections of roofs or sometimes an entire back wall. One or two still have the glass panes intact in the window frames, wherein one he can see a dusty stove covered in dead leaves and animal excrement. There’s stubborn overgrown ivy covering an entire corner of the closest cottage; encroaching and entwined between the beams and the cracks in the stonework. There’s old wooden and metal fences taking up different area’s of the ‘gardens’ where Bucky presumes chickens must have been kept once, along with a trampled-on vegetable patch. The fitter men have already bee-lined there and are trying to pull out any carrots or cabbage left over.

Steve shakes two canteens to measure how much water is left in each and passes Bucky the fullest. He drinks greedily around his panting, his legs wobbly from the effort of the climb. 

“I’m going to go talk to Mario for a moment, will you be okay on your own?” His friend asks. 

Bucky nods as he swallows, water dribbling off his chin while he continues trying to catch his breath. “Yeah.” He breathes, “I just need a minute.”

Steve looks at him worriedly, the way he used to look at Steve when his asthma was acting up, but his friend can’t really say anything considering the majority of the men are panting and heaving with him; leaning against trees or sitting on crumbling walls.

If he sits he doesn’t think he’ll get back up - so he’ll keep on going, he supposes.

“You mind doing me a favour when you can?” Steve asks.

Bucky swallows another gulp of water and wipes his mouth, nodding. “Uh huh? What do you need?”

This, at least, is a familiar question and familiar territory. 

Steve hands him the other canteen, “Fill that and the other up for me - there should be a well. Mario says it hasn’t been filled or has dried out. Check that it’s safe to drink first though.” 

Bucky makes a face at the last warning, “I’m not an idiot. And I know what you’re doing.”

“Oh?”

“You’re just trying to make me feel useful.”

Steve shrugs at him, walking backwards, “I never said that.”

“Don’t mean it’s not true.”

“That waters not going to fill itself!” Steve calls over his shoulder as he spins away.

Bucky coughs into his hand and calls back, “Oh, you trust me to get your water now do you? Nice change of pace there.”

“Don’t be an ass!” Steve yells back, unconcerned, over his shoulder right as Bucky flips him off - knowing it’s coming. 

He mutters “Punk” to himself and goes to do as he’s told.

He wanders for a while around the little copse of cottages, realising it’s bigger than he first thought. There’s another couple of houses and a small barn beyond some small grazing fields. They must have kept a few sheep or goats here too, Bucky muses, maybe even a work-horse. Lily used to chase the milk cart down two blocks when she was little, at least three times a week, so she could pat the chestnut pulling it. The milkman eventually succumbed to her charms and after four months of the debacle it was having to chase after her every morning, he allowed Bucky to lift her high up and onto the horse’s back once. He remembers her smile, gap-toothed and blinding during soggy weather. Christ he missed the girls, when had he written them last?

There’s a line at the well; men carrying small canteens and larger containers alike, hovering haphazardly around the same area on all sides. Bucky can’t tell where the queue begins or ends, so carries on walking a while until it’s shorter. His little village adventure ends at another larger house with two floors on the boundary edge, along with what must have been the old road up to this small civilization. The path has since been overtaken by sharp brambles and nettles, with poisonous red berries and juicy blackberries alike.

He makes a point of picking the largest and shiniest of the blackberries he can reach, collecting a stack of them in his palm, the canteens tucked securely under his armpit. His stomach rumbles.  He crushes one in his fingers first, just because he can, until it spurts open and stains his fingers purple. He pops another two in his mouth until they burst sweet and sour on his tongue. He has hazy memories of collecting berries in a cloth bag with much smaller hands and running back to his grandparents' house to show his nana his spoils. He remembers her always bopping him on the nose before going back to rolling out pastry, and the way her smile used to wobble with her false teeth. 

She’d always then spoon out slices of pie twice his and Becca’s size to scoff down until they felt sick, and lecture their pa on how they needed to cut it out with the city life nonsense and move back to Indiana where they belonged. She’d say it every visit and with every fruit pie, and his grandfather would grunt at them from his position at the head of the table. Pa always used to politely wave her off, he remembers, until his nana would get upset and they’d start fighting over the evening sherry. Bucky himself had never felt like he belonged in Indiana, maybe not even New York now, but the blackberries still taste the same.

He picks another couple before continuing to wander along the edge, half patrolling the area. He seems to be one of the first on this side at least; listening out if not actively looking for enemies; palm stacked with berries held out in front of him; Thompson hanging limply by it’s strap against his thigh. There’s an old orchard up ahead behind the taller house. He tosses back the whole handful of berries in one go and lets them explode against his tongue and the back of his teeth before gently pushing the creaking door open. He swallows, and with his purple stained hand untucks the knife he pulled from a Nazi’s waistband from his narrow hipbone. He’s had it there for hours, unable to stuff it anywhere else before someone saw. 

Vaguely, he realizes if they’ve let him keep the gun they’ll let him keep a knife too, but somehow, he feels like the possession needs to stay a secret. There’s a swastika carved into the handle, painted red. He closes his hand around it in a defensive position and peeks around each of the three rooms downstairs. He’s alone.

He dumps the canteens on a chipped bedside table and gives up; lowering his wobbling legs and aching body onto the springy mattress in the main bedroom. Dust spores sparse the air when he lands, visible in the beams of sunlight coming through the open shutter. Twisting the hold on the knife in one hand he pulls the strap of his Thompson off his shoulder and raises his shirt to look at his stomach.

How many staples has he already taken out? How many does he have left to go? His flesh has started to swallow two more, as well as the first he can feel burrowed deep near his ribcage, but the flesh has also split around the sixth and the seventh near his belly button. Probably from the blast. There’s dried blood caked around the metal, and small cuts and dirt along his right side.

He breathes, and scratches his arm once, twice, three times. Time to get to work.

. . .

They walk maybe fifteen more miles through the forest, the hungriest men chewing on the orchard apples, camping down again in a dense valley for the night and up again at dawn. Bucky’s pretty sure none of the men, all four-hundred of those left sleep much if at all; too tense and paranoid about another attack. Steve certainly doesn’t seem to sleep after he finally lays down late in the night - tossing and turning on the other side of the foxhole.

He watches Steve silently for nearly an hour, closing his eyes whenever his friend turns over to glance at him. At some point during his pretending he must drift off, because everything goes and stays dark until he opens his eyes again to see Steve’s cold patch of ground empty and daylight peeking through the thick trees. He rolls onto his back but keeps one hand over his stomach from where he’s been cradling it all night, and absentmindedly scratches at his arm. The phantom ants under his skin finally began to taper off during the night, but his forearm and neck still feel raw from the scratching.

The men laying beside him in close quarters, either still asleep or pretending to be, are bundled up as much as they can be but are still shivering. Bucky can hear their teeth chattering like they’re gnashing right next to his ears, as if the heightened volume is deliberately designed to get on his nerves. Belatedly he realizes his breaths are coming out in white puffs of frost air, he’s not shivering, and he has Steve’s jacket half-draped over his shoulders again. He sits up slowly, ribs aching worse now the bruises have had time to settle in, and blearily rubs at his eyes to see nearly everyone, bar Steve in his red-and-blue feeling the uncomfortable effects of winter. 

He’s almost not surprised that he isn’t feeling it to the same effect. The cold’s like the sight of blood, he decides; if you have enough exposure to it eventually it doesn’t bother you so much anymore. Like the Syphilis and the Scarlet Fever he beat without even knowing he was infected, maybe he’s had so much exposure to fever chills and the phantom cold in his bones he’s immune to the real thing as well now. This jacket would probably be more use to someone else.

He wants to stay in this dirty little dig out and burrow forever deeper - he’s so tired. He gets up anyway, grunting and cringing at the pain in his back. As he levers himself up with one hand he subtly slides his other under the grimy shirt to check the slice down his middle. No blood, which is great, just a crusty scab starting to form - the first staple is still under his skin. There was no way to cut it out without bleeding too much, so he'll have to wait for later when he can change his shirt. On the other hand, he’s finally come back to true awareness now that he can quite literally smell himself. The crusty stiff fabric of his pants and trousers chafe something awful from where he must have pissed himself god knows when, the feeling only now registering fully.

He’d say this was a low-point - but he knows he’s been lower. Lower even than entrusting his sanity to cats with bird’s beaks and pigeons with scales. Lower than standing in a room full of bodies and begging for death. Here and now, there’s so much farther he can, and has, to fall.

He taps Steve on the shoulder, who jerks from where he’s repacking a truck. He twists quickly; Bucky backs up a step, hands up. “Your jacket.” He says.

Steve’s shoulders immediately drop at the sight of him.

“Bit jumpy, aren’t we?” He adds afterwards, forcing the jacket into Steve’s empty hands. “Jesus, cover up would you? That star on your back is practically invitin’ someone to shoot you.”

Steve pulls half a face at him at the last comment, shrugging it on. He replies to the first, “Scared me a little there is all, I didn’t hear you come up, which is new. Since when did you learn to be quiet? Can normally hear you coming a mile off.” He adds after, elbowing Bucky. “Sorry. Just a little on edge is all.”

“Yeah, you and everyone else here.”

He and Steve lean back against the frame of the truck together, watching the men shifting tensely on the ground. “How long have you been up?”

“Not too long. Didn’t sleep much.” Steve admits. Bucky hums in reply. “You managed to get some shut-eye at the end. At least a couple of hours.” Bucky glances at him evasively. “Oh come on Buck, you used to spend half your evenings in Ma’s apartment when we were kids, and then basically shared a single room together for three years. I know when you’re trying to fake it, you know?”

Bucky can allow that, true as it is. “I guess I must have gone at some point, yeah. Feel more tired now if anything else though.”

Steve grimaces in sympathy, “When was the last time you had a full nights sleep?”

He shrugs back, “The last time I realized it was night? How should I know?”

There’s a long pause of silence; someone a ways off starts coughing into his elbow.

“You just need a full night, or maybe two, of proper honest shut-eye and you’ll feel miles better. As right as rain in no time, I’m sure.”

It’s a nice idea in theory, and Steve seems, and sounds like he’s desperately hoping it’ll be true. “If you say so, pal.”

“It’s the magic cure, don’t forget?” He continues, “An hour of sleep is a treat, but--”

“--A full night is a gift from God, who sheds your sins and sickness alike.’ I remember.”

Steve grins at him, disbelieving. “I didn’t know you remembered all of it.”

He scoffs, “How could I not? Your ma only had to repeat it three times a day whenever you were coughing your lungs up and still wouldn’t stay in bed. Had to wrestle you to keep you down at one point, I’m sure.”

“You did not.”

“Okay, maybe I didn’t.” He admits, “But you’re still an annoying little berk when you’re sick. Anytime I wasn’t terrified to death for you I wanted to wallop you over the head. But smacking the sick silly to shut them up and keep them down isn’t exactly approved of for us Church going folk.”

Steve barks out a laugh, “You’re probably right there.”

“Though maybe if I’d walloped you with a bible that mighta’ canceled that out; and then we really would of seen if you’d shut your trap and stayed in bed.” 

Steve’s laughter quietens to chuckles as a man curses them out for waking him, leaning back further into the truck to observe the camp.

“How far now?” Bucky asks as soon as the shuffling stops; to keep the quiet from taking.

Steve knows what he means, “Not far. Another days walk, maybe another night bedding down. It’s a lot easier terrain from here apparently, mostly downhill. We haven’t managed to get any of the radios working but Mario reckons we’re a mile off Italian soil, which is something, huh?”

Italian soil is still the front, Bucky thinks, wishing he could share in Steve’s optimism. His friend nods to himself, and continues to speak. 

“Depends on how fast the men are moving, and a lot of them are starting to flag. Empty bellies will do that I suppose.” As if on cue, Steve’s stomach rumbles so loudly it almost seems like it must have hurt. 

A thought occurs. “When was the last time you ate?”

Steve waves him off, “Oh, don’t worry about me Bucky--”

“No seriously.” Bucky bites back, old instinct rearing it’s head. “When did you last eat? You didn’t last night.” He realizes, “Christ, how did I not realize you didn’t eat last night?”

“Buck. Bucky!” His friend calls, grabbing him by the elbow to cajole him into calmness. He abruptly and sharply lets go when Bucky winces at the sting. “I’m fine. Honest.” He repeats, “One missed meal’s not gonna’ do me in.”

Bucky frowns at him, searching for his second string argument. He finds it, “Didn’t you say that the serum, with you bulking up and all, made your appetite get bigger? That you needed to eat more than the rest of us to function now.”

“Well…yeah.” Steve admits, knowing Bucky has him there, because he did say that. “But like I said, one meal isn’t gonna’ make---what are you doing?” He cuts himself off in bewilderment when Bucky starts searching his pockets. “No Buck, seriously--” He tries to start again when Bucky pulls the lemoned candies from his pocket.

“--Take some.” He says without preamble.

“Buck--”

“Take some.”

Steve rolls his eyes at him, but obliges. “You’re such a mother-hen. Two for two.” He adds until Bucky knocks his own sweet against Steve’s in a camadrie cheers like they’re clanking together hooch in a dive bar. Bucky rolls his eyes, and cracks the sweet between his teeth. It’s not as good as the blackberries - he should have saved Steve some, or made sure he got an apple yesterday before they ran out if he was gonna' secretly skip the evening ration. After a pause of crunching candy he asks:

“What happens when we get back?”

“We get you and all the other men fed and seen to for starters-”

“No. To you. Your agent helped but it wasn’t exactly a sanctioned mission. You didn’t have orders.”

Steve sighs, cold air puffing out from his mouth and nose. “Put myself forward for a court martial I suppose.”

“Sounds like a swell idea.”

Steve clearly hears the sarcasm, and challenges: “Well what else am I supposed to do?”

“Not hang yourself out to dry without a fight? That’s one idea. I don’t want you getting locked up Steve.”

“That’s not something any of us can control. That’s up to Colonel Philips or whoever else is in command there now, you know that--”

“I’m not letting them lock you up-” he repeats, adamant, before Steve cuts him off.

“And I’m not letting you do something stupid yourself after all of this. Besides it might not happen - I hope it won’t but - like I said, it’s not up to me. I did break orders, even if I’m not technically one of the troops, so I gotta’ face the consequences for that. I don’t regret it for a second though.”

“You might…”

“I won’t.”

 He sounds so sure, Bucky can’t help but think and sighs out in defeat, muttering to himself. “You and your goddamn principles.”

 Why can’t you just run Steve; just run far far away from this war, from this hell pit of mud and blood? 

For once, can you just not stand your ground? 

Steve laughs quietly into the morning, seemingly oblivious. “Yeah, I know, it’s a real hardship for you. Maybe you should find a new friend.”

The familiar rapport is like a smack to the face, but easy enough to fall back into; like riding a bike. He replies without a beat, flatly mocking. “Probably easier to deal with than you.”

“Probably.” Steve agrees, lips quirking, having steered the conversation away from dangerous territory; perhaps not as oblivious as Bucky first thought. The pleading words disappear from his lips and sink back down his throat in a dry swallow as Steve leans into his shoulder carelessly. “I don’t think you will though.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“You had that chance a hundred times over when we were kids with Richard Callohan and Johnny Shelby and all the baseball team. You got principles too pal, and apparently sticking by me is one of them. You’re all talk, Buck.”

With that statement out there in the dawning air, Steve sounds strangely touched; like he’d been when they were thirteen and Bucky waved off the Little League team so he could go play conkers inside with ‘runty Rodgers’. They never really seriously asked him again after that and Bucky doesn’t think Steve’s really understood those choices made a decade ago.

 Thing was, they weren’t as good as you, Bucky thinks but doesn’t say, and I always would have chosen the conkers. He hums, “I suppose you might be right.”

“Gotta’ happen some time.” Steve quips, “Come on, lets start getting them up, I wanna see if we can make it all the way today.”

Bucky breathes deeply, eyes shut for a moment, then heaves his weight away from the truck. “Let’s get going then,” he agrees again. Steve stops him, hand on his shoulder.

“Are you sure your feeling alright?”

Bucky shrugs, “I will be, eventually.” He prays, as impossible as it seems, and focuses on the simple things and not the live landmine that is his brain, waiting for one wrong step. “It’d be a lot quicker as soon as I can get my hands on a bar of soap.”

Steve nods, and squeezes his shoulder in support. “I think we’ll both be glad of that pal, you need three.”

“Thanks for that, does miles for my confidence.”

“We all have to draw the line somewhere, and your stink is one of them. The longer we stay up and vertical, the sooner we can get you your shower. Come on.” Steve says at last, jostling him playfully. 

. . .

The thing is, Steve’s all talk too, and they both know it. 

. . .

And in thirty more miles, after one more tense sleep than they’d like; four hundred men stumble and march, proud and determined into an American camp at exactly 9:26 in the morning. Bucky’s at the front, side by side with Steve as always. The scouts see them a mile off, and are so stunned to see American uniforms and the dancing monkey of the USO tour marching ahead of a tank they don’t raise the alarm properly until they’re just about to cross the boundary.

Thirty more miles, after one more tense sleep than they’d like; a crowd of cheering G.I’s form around them and Steve submits himself for a court martial. 

After thirty more miles, at 9:34 in the morning, Steve Rodgers stops being Steve Rodgers and instead becomes Captain America, the star-spangled man with the plan to win the war.

Maybe, Bucky thinks, the rest of the world will finally start seeing you for you. All it took was dangerous human experimentation, one hundred and eighty more pounds of muscle and an inconceivable rescue attempt the brass would never consider worth it.

It shouldn’t have ever taken that for them to see you Steve, but what am I meant to do now that they have?

.

Chapter Text

STEVE

Things suddenly start moving very quickly. There’s barked orders, engines starting up and telegrams firing out at inconceivable speeds. It’s an confusing change of pace from the slow tense march of the last few days. 

Just as quick as the crowd formed they disperse, war nurses shoving their way forwards with army doctors, and quickly and efficiently start herding the wounded and limping men into overcrowded tents. The rest are handed off to food tents or other outlying areas while camp quartermasters rush round trying to accommodate four hundred more men than they were expecting.

Peggy hovers close by among the men slapping each others backs, long enough to raise an eyebrow and jerk her head at Bucky. Steve manages to nod and smile at her; yes, this was his friend before Philips’ bark of “Carter!” comes from somewhere unseen.

“I’ll be back”, she says, then tells him to get something to eat.

Bucky’s shifting from foot to foot behind him, but successfully managing to avoid any nurses’ searching hands. Steve says, “It’s taken three days longer than I wanted it to, but we’re getting you checked out. No arguments - come on.” With that he grabs Bucky by the shoulder and physically steers him towards one of the medic tents.

To say it’s hectic is an understatement - the place looks as though it was full before their march arrived - now it’s pandemonium. It’s rather awful, in all honesty.

“Join the line.” A gruff looking doctor without a white coat, but with sleeves stained with blood up to the elbows, says to them - “If your walking you’ll have to wait.”

There’s nothing to do but follow his orders this time, and following orders instead of giving them is a relief in itself. Bucky spends the entire time grumbling and arguing with him until another harried looking doctor - grey-haired and bearded - waves them over and hurriedly checks Bucky over in a dim-lit corner of the tent still standing. The man tries to morbidly joke about the five-star accommodation; “No beds let alone cubicles for you boys, only seems fair considering your not paying the fees. Only giving your lives for the country instead.” He scoffs derisively at the end.

“Haven’t ever had a hospital to compare it to doc, so don’t sweat it.” Bucky replies, grunting when the man runs his hands down the sides of his ribs. 

Steve explains about the truck and the explosions in the firefight. Bucky’s back is as tense as he’s ever seen it the entire time. The man diagnoses Bucky with bruises and possibly a fractured rib all without taking his shirt off, and is about to send him on his way to Steve’s dismay when he spots his elbows.

The doctor, while gruff in words is gentle-handed. Bucky still jerks his arms back like he’s been scalded when the man goes to touch them. “Have you seen a doctor already, Sergeant?” The man looks half suspicious and half annoyed that they may have wasted his time. Steve answers the negative when it seems Bucky doesn’t plan to. The doctor harrumphs, frowning, and Bucky kicks Steve behind his back when he opens his mouth to explain the marks. He remembers Bucky’s scabby feet layered in dried blood and clicks his teeth together without fully understanding why he is. The man asks for Bucky’s name to check off his list and lets them leave with little to no fanfare - already onto the next patient.

It’s all a little anti-climatic than what Steve was expecting, and he’s a little lost when he walks back out into the sunlight. Before he has a chance to turn back round Peggy appears from nowhere, “Have you eaten?”

“Um,” Steve splutters inexpertly. “Not - Not yet.”

“I told you to eat.”

“I was -” he motions behind him to the tent when he catches sight of the sun, and realizes and hour or so must have passed in the time they were waiting to be seen.

“Ah.” Peggy replies, understanding. “I suppose that explains it, I can’t imagine it’s roses and daises in there.” Without preamble she leans past him to look at Bucky, whose no doubt judging every poorly conceived word out of his mouth - speaking to his friend for the first time. “Have you at least been seen, Sergeant?”

“All clear, ma’m.” He answers, putting on a brave and an as always effective smile when Steve glances back at him.

“Good. Well get something to eat quickly. We fly out in just under an hour.”

“Fly out? Where?”

“London. Your report will need to be heard by more than just us here - you’ve caused quite a stir.”

For a good few moments Steve can’t think of anything else to say other than; “That was quick.” Bucky subtly pokes him in the back in a way that his disappointment is evident.

“Intelligence of this extravagance normally is.” Peggy answers without a beat. “I’ll see you at the gate in twenty minutes, I can’t push it any longer if we want to make it to the airfield in time.”

“Right okay, yes I can---No wait---” He quickly backtracks, hand going automatically to where his friend is stood. He can’t just leave. Not when---

“Several hundred of the POWs are getting flown out as well for debrief.” Peggy interrupts, her eyes kind but words professional. “I’ll ensure Sgt. Barnes is on the first plane with you.”

Steve sighs out, hoping his sincerity is evident. “Thank you, Agent Carter.”

She nods at him, already turning. “Twenty minutes, Captain. I expect you not to be late this time.”

. . .

An hour later Steve’s boarding a small plane, hastily eaten bread and stew sitting heavy in his stomach, with several officers, Peggy and about twenty of the prisoners he freed. 

Apparently there’s two much larger planes flying in at unspecified times tomorrow and the day after for the rest of them once the remaining officers have determined whose accounts hold the most relevance to the Allied brass in London. That Bucky’s on the plane with him now, to anyone who isn’t them or Peggy is quite simply pure dumb luck; and Steve has to consider again how many pockets she has a hold on and how she got to where she is. He’s more impressed with every moment that passes. When she straps herself and an army pack in diagonal to the them, Bucky grunts and mutters, “Agent, huh?” under his breath. He promptly passes out next to Steve ten minutes into the flight, having been fighting sleep since getting in the truck on the way to the airfield. After a while Steve decides to try and join him, but finds once again he can’t; too riled up for what might be coming in London. 

Now he’s not going to the city to preach and dance for the woman, but no children, with the USO tour he has no idea what to expect. He sighs out harshly, staring at the ceiling of the cargo plan and listening to the engine rumbling behind his skull.

“He looks comfy.”

His head switches to the side quickly, barely concealing his slight jump at Peggy’s voice. Everyone else around them, bar Philips and the pilots who are muttering to themselves at the front, seem to be sleeping; but Peggy’s watching him with an eyebrow raised.

Clearing his throat he glances to the side to see Bucky has slumped further down in his seat, head leaning against the strap of his seat-belt and half into Steve. His mouth’s hanging open, and for the first time since Krausberg, he’s not twitching in his sleep. He huffs out a laugh, half grinning at Peggy.

“Figures it would be on the loudest plane journey that he finally lets himself go.” He answers.

Peggy sets aside a file filled with random words and symbols - and the code she seems to be deconstructing vertically down the side of it - closing it tightly before Steve can read it upside down. “I for one would say our plane journey was far louder.”

Steve has to give her that. “True. This is definitely an improvement from flying through German-held airspace.”

Peggy’s eyes flash with a smile before she glances at Bucky when he half shivers in his seat. “Does he normally look so terrible?”

Steve glances at Bucky sadly, “Not normally no.”

“What did the camp doctor say?” Peggy asks, kind but shrewd. So subtly that Steve almost misses it, her eyes flick down to Bucky’s now covered elbows and bruised neck, and a older circular burn on his collarbone Steve knows comes from a cigarette.

She, like Steve, knows better than to believe his “all clear, ma’m.” The difference is while Steve’s knowledge comes from fourteen years of friendship, hers comes from trained awareness. Close to a hundred thoughts fly through his head in the seconds before he answers, half the truth and half lies. She, in many ways is far more trustworthy than the camp doctor, and she’s more knowledgeable when it comes to Hydra and the serum. She was the one who orchestrated Erskine's escape from Hydra and refugee in the US after all. She knows more about the situation than anyone which could be both a good thing and a bad thing - because she would know what it means if Hydra did perfect their version of the serum.

Steve can only hope that all of the Hydra doctor’s research, whoever he is, was destroyed in the explosion with the rest of the factory. He hopes to god Bucky may be his only conceivable advance in it, if that is even what he is, whether his friend does realize it or not. But what will it mean if he is? 

“Badly bruised and malnourished, but mostly just exhausted. “ He answers instead, like he did with the doctor, but admits, “he wasn’t in a good state when I found him.”

She nods, “With any luck he’ll be recovered soon. I’m glad you found him alive Steve - though you certainly kept us waiting.”

“It’s a long story, but I suppose I’ll have to save it for the debrief?”

She nods again.

He can’t help but ask. “I didn’t get you in too much trouble, did I?”

She smirks at him, a subtle quirk of her lips, “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

She raises an eyebrow at him, “Well now, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

“It might have---yes. It definitely was.” He can feel himself flushing a little, but she’s definitely smiling now, of that he’s sure. 

She reopens her file and rests it on a crossed leg at an angle to hide the page from him. “You’ve improved, you know, the fourth time round.”

“I’m sorry?”

“At speaking to women. You’re much better at speaking to them than you were in that taxi. If nothing else Senator Brandt’s tour has improved your confidence.”

Steve blushes again, and tries to paste the charming grin he watched Bucky perfect in the mirror when they were seventeen on his face. “After you’ve spent hours in the dressing rooms of twenty women complaining about holes in their pantyhose and how to find that perfect shade of red you tend to realize they’re not as scary as you thought they were.”

Peggy chuckles, and marks something off on her paper. “I’ve heard that and much worse in my childhood; men will probably never grasp the conversations that go on in an all-girls school.”

“Dirtier jokes?”

“Oh definitely. Much more than you will have heard in you Catholic School.”

“I can imagine,” he can’t help but add, “from some of the stuff I heard when they forgot I was in the room.”

Peggy smiles and hums, looking down at her paper still. “I’ll bet.” She adds quietly, focused, then huffs in disbelief, scribbling on the page. “It’s like their not even trying.” She mutters under her breath.

She continues scribbling, pen on paper, pleased but almost annoyed that she’s broken whatever code is on the page so easily. She likes challenges, Peggy Carter does; he can tell. She’s not one to take the easy route out. He waits until she seems to be finished.

“Peg--Agent Carter?”

She glances up, “Yes Steve?”

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but, what exactly should I expect in London?” 

She lowers her pen back down to give him her full attention again. “From the Generals and the Officers - probably somewhat like your expecting - harsh questions with clear answers; ones that will undoubtedly grate at you. You mustn’t let them get at you. Answer honestly, most importantly. These men have done this a hundred times before and the debrief will last hours - and there will probably be more than one. If you lie, they will find out. Not that I expect you will,” She faces him again.

“I won’t soften it for you Steve, it’ll be exhausting; they will question every decision and choice you made and make you feel as though you made the wrong one. Remain firm, but respectful in your conviction -don’t doubt yourself, and with any luck you’ll be out in time before last call.”

Steve huffs, pleased and grateful for her honesty. “I think a bed is more of a priority than a whisky at the end of the night Agent Carter.”

Mildly, she adds, “As for the politicians; just imagine Senator Brandt on steroids and a room of them at that. I’m sure you’ll get the picture.”

He grimaces, “I have to expect more of that too?”

She gives him a look. “You rescued four hundred men, Steve; walked sixty miles with them back to safety and returned with what will be invaluable technology and intel on the Nazi’s Scientific Division. You’re a hero. I’d damn well say you should get used to it.”

“I didn’t bring down that entire factory on my own--”

“--That’s not what I heard---”

“--I didn’t. And I didn’t win those firefights in my own either, it was a team effort. And there were casualties.”

“There are always casualties.”

Steve’s head snaps back up at her words, and seeing it, she seems to soften her tone. “It’s harsh but true. We’re at war. I am sorry you lost those men though, I’m sure you did everything you could.”

“What if it wasn’t enough?”

“I thought I already told you to keep your conviction. Don’t doubt yourself, if you do you’ll never be able to sleep. You did everything you could, Steve.”

“You haven’t heard my report yet,” he argues, almost feebly. How many men has he killed in the last week? One, ten, twenty - more?

“I don’t need to.” Peggy replies without a beat, and unclips herself from her seat to head towards Philips with her broken code. “I have faith, and I’m rarely wrong.”

. . .

“Are we there yet?”

“Nearly.”

They touch down at exactly noon, and are immediately hurried off board, and then taken by bus across the city. Bucky numbly follows him from the plane to the bus, still half asleep. He comes to more when he spies Big Ben and lines of lines of barrage balloons in the sky through the window, and asks about the girls. For a hot, inexplicable second, Steve goes blank on who the girls are, then almost smacks himself. He tells Bucky about Becca’s secret fella’ she was keeping quiet, which at first he thinks is a bold faced lie. 

“What’s his name?”

“So you can go warn him off?”

“No-Yes.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “I’d like to see you try and give him the shovel talk all the way over the Pacific, pal.”

He relays Lily’s request, again, to send any European bird feathers he finds over for her collection and finds out Buck never got her letter or Steve’s last two.

“Last one I got from you was written in August and I couldn’t read half of that ‘cause the ink had run.” Bucky’s voice, while now clear and awake, is dead to the ears. He only truly comes back to himself when Steve mentions the condolence letter sent out, at which point he jerks out his seat.

“I know. I know.” Steve quickly jumps in, “But it was probably only just sent out, we’ll send our own as soon as we can, it won’t be long. I know.” He keeps repeating it, because he does know; he remembers what it was like to get George Barnes letter of death, sealed and stamped. He remembers Winfred Barnes knocking on their door at one in the afternoon, tear tracks on her cheeks and the twins hugged tight to her.

Bucky ends his spiral rather quickly considering, sagging back into his seat. “I forgot about the letters, how could I forget about the letters?” He seems quietly distraught about it in a way Steve hasn’t seen before - and bus ride finishes in a silence that isn’t quite comfortable anymore.

Peggy taps him on the shoulder as he goes to stand with the others and motions for him to stay seated. “We have another stop yet. You’ll be brought back here when we’re done.”

Bucky won’t quite look him in the eye as he shuffles past Steve’s knees to leave the bus, and with Peggy standing at his shoulder - he’s not quite sure what to say as his friend walks away and is handed a winter coat. The armed guard returns to his position at the head of the bus; Peggy takes a new seat behind him, and the engine rumbles into movement. Steve slides into Bucky’s previous spot and watches London’s landmarks flitting into vision between the white washed buildings of Wimbledon. Now that he’s looking properly, he realizes this is not as picturesque as the quiet American cities he’s been to. London is bustling with people still, but every third building or so there is a pile of rubble or empty space. There are women and older men sweeping bricks, dust and broken glass off the main streets, and a milkman finishing his rounds, climbing over a pile of rubble under a crumbling archway. There’s stacks and stacks of sandbags atop one other everywhere, and armed soldiers standing at attention. There’s posters dotted on the buildings and bus stops, ’KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON’ blazoned across the front of them.

A lone paper boy has made himself taller by four feet, stood on the base of a statue missing it’s head and chest, yelling about Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the Tehran conference, paper in hand. Everyone, quite literally it seems, is stubbornly carrying on in the devastation.

“It’s not quite like New York is it?” Peggy comments from behind him.

He huffs out a breath. He knew, but clearly he didn’t know. “New York isn’t getting bombed every night... But everyone seems to be--”

“Carrying on as normal? Stubborn British pride, not much else to it.” Peggy explains, “It is different though, than how it used to be. The first bomb was dropped three years ago, and before you knew it they were everywhere, indiscriminate. We’re still recovering from the worst of Blitz now, years later, and every-time there’s progress they drop another hundred or so.” Peggy sighs, “I worry sometimes, that we’ll get so accustomed to bunkers and blackouts that eventually we forget what we used to be.”

Steve looks back at her, and from her face can see she’s just admitted to a worry she’d normally keep private. He feels like he needs to honour the trust she’s just unwittingly counted him in. He replies, soft but sincere. “If all the British are as stubborn and strong as you, then I have faith they won’t.”

He seems to have said something of the right thing as Peggy looks at him out of the corner of her eye, then she smiles. “Well that was a sly one.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Agent.”

“Captain.”

Before he can say anything else the bus lurches to a stop in gridlocked traffic, and Peggy and Philips stand. 

“We might as well get off here, we’re not far.” Philips says briskly then strides off the bus, pack in hand. Steve jumps to his feet quickly to catch up and match their pace. They turn a corner quickly and purposefully onto a wider street, under a hanging Union Jack and cross the road so their march is lined by a long classical building. Steve’s costume gains several looks, even under the jacket.

 Right as they begin to descend several stairs, Steve asks from behind, “We’re not far from where exactly?”

“Churchill’s War Rooms, Rodgers. Do keep up.” Philips informs him brusquely, and Steve falters a step in shock as the Colonel immediately turns at the base of the stairs and knocks, rapid fire, on an unassuming door in the brickwork. 

He blinks, dumbfounded, as it opens outward to reveal an British MP. Now that he looks, there’s armed guards across and down the street, at attention but clearly aimed towards the now open passage. Philips flashes him his credentials immediately. “They’re expecting us. They’re with me; both of them. Agent Margaret Carter and….Captain Steven Rodgers, SSR.” He turns back to Steve as he waves Carter in first, and almost seems to grin. “Be mighty glad the Bulldog is busy in Tehran, Rodgers, he’s a tough man to please. Even for the man of the hour. Get in.”

. . .

“Anything else you wish to add to your account, Rodgers?”

“No sir. I believe I’ve answered everything as accurately as I can. The bases I saw on the map - I don’t know if you need me to…”

“We have the general locations, we’ll have you lay them on a map in due course. And all the equipment you recovered has been handed over?” The British official asks him from the end of the table.

“Yes Sir.”

“Everything Captain Rodgers had on his person was handed over to Allied SSR personnel at 11:05 hours, I have the paperwork to verify that here.” Peggy pipes up, and slides documentation across the table. “All other recovered items from the mission---”

(That’s what they’re classing it as, to the press and otherwise. Officially the rescue of Krausberg was approved and sanctioned by Allied collaboration and not a half-baked adventure by his truly.)

“---not able to be securely transported was seized at the Paularo unit base. We’re still waiting for a final breakdown to be telegrammed over but we have it under authority that an enhanced tank, grenades and several altered firearms have been recovered.”

The third man from the right, whose directly under Churchill apparently, harrumphs. “Good. In that case I can confirm the interview of Captain Steven Grant Rodgers on the matter of Operation Shield is concluded. The time is 23:16 on the sixteenth of November 1943.” The man stands and sharply straightens his paperwork with a tap tap; everyone follows suit to stand. “Very good men. Rodgers; we’ll be in touch.” He strides out, then turns at the door. “And Rodgers?” 

“Yes sir?”

“Good work, son.”

He leaves out another exit than he arrived at, out onto a new street he doesn’t recognize from the journey here. Peggy Carter leads him out the maze of underground corridors once he’s been searched on exit as he had on entry.

They’re awfully close to being in complete darkness, the entire city in blackout. As he blinks and his eyes adjust he can just about see the faint moonlight reflecting off the windows onto the cobbled pavement and can spy the sides of barrage balloons hidden in the clouds. Around the corner of two streets a black car pulls up with it’s lights dimmed, and Peggy bids him goodbye and goodnight. 

“You’re not--”

“Not yet. I have a few things to--well, you understand.”

He nods, “Of course.”

“You’ve been lodged into a small hotel for the night until other accommodation can be found. The driver will take you there directly. Another car will be sent tomorrow, likely in the morning. Get some sleep, Steve.”

“I will, ma’m.”

When he arrives at the small hotel, family owned, he’s lead down a narrow corridor and up two flights of stairs by candle light. He’s exhausted and desperately needs a wash. Stripping out of his jacket and costume, he wipes the dirt off his face and hands, and finally is able to relieve himself following the ten and a half hour underground interview. A pair of slacks and several shirts have been left folded on a chair for him and he’s infinitely relieved to escape from his sweaty USO costume tomorrow. The room’s slightly musty, and someone’s opened the window a crack to air it out behind the closed curtains. He slides it fully shut out of habit to avoid catching a chill; looking out onto the back and side of the building. There’s candle light still on in the window across from him, and Bucky’s sat on the sill with a glass of water; watching him.

Steve catches his eyes and mouths, “go to bed.”

Bucky nods across the space and disappears. The light of the candle blows out.

. . .

In the morning before he leaves he knocks on the room he thinks is Bucky’s. Listening with his ear to the door, there’s silence on the other end. Eventually he hears shifting as Bucky must turn over in bed, but nothing further. He leaves Bucky to sleep and is returned to the War Rooms for another day of invasive interviews and rigorous reports. The best part of his day is when they settle him in front of a typewriter for several hours before he finishes, so he has some semblance of quiet.

He glimpses Philips briefly throughout the day but he doesn’t see Peggy at all. At the end of the underground day under sun lamps he isn’t returned to the hotel; instead he’s taken far from the city to a base somewhere in Surrey. Immediately he recognizes several of the men that were on the first plane with he and Bucky, and several who weren’t. They all must have been flown out of Italy, he thinks, almost certain when he spies a bowler hat in the distance. He’s given private officers quarters, and there’s a full dress uniform with a Captain’s rank already pinned to the lapel in his size.

No more pretending; he’s a real solider now. 

. . . 

DATE RECIEVED:  21ST NOVEMBER 1943

WAR & NAVY DEPARTMENT

V--MAIL SERVICE

  (PRINT THE COMPLETE ADDRESS IN PLAIN LETTERS IN THE PANEL BELOW, AND YOUR RETURN ADDRESS IN THE SPACE PROVIDED ON THE RIGHT. USE TYPEWRITER, DARK INK, OR DARK PENCIL. PAINT OR SMALL WRITING IS NOT SUITABLE FOR PHOTOGRAPHING.)

[CENSOR STAMP - REDACTED]      

TO: REBECCA BARNES                                                                                                                FROM: CPT. STEVEN RODGERS
3421 45 HILLREST ST. NEW JERSEY                                                                                                       SENDERS ADDRESS:
                                                                                                                                                                       [REDACTED]
                                                                                                                                                DATE: 16TH NOVEMBER 1943

Becca,

There’s a lot to explain, and a lot I haven’t told you when we’ve been writing. But it’s important. If it hasn’t already reached you or them then I need you to You need to go to your ma’s house and don’t start with me here about it. Go to your ma’s. There’s a telegraph going to come saying Buck’s missing or killed in action. Calm down, it’s wrong. 

I have him. He’s with me. He’s--he’s not okay but he’s in one piece. He’s going to write you too-- but-- the letter was already sent out. You need to tell them that it’s wrong.

I’ll send you another letter in the Postal not the V - I’ll try to explain as much as I can. I don’t know how much will go through censorship or--I’ll get someone to come by if it doesn’t work.

If you need to write back send it to me at Tweedsmuir Camp, Surrey, Great Britain.

Talk soon.

Go to your ma’s Becca, I mean it.

Steve

. . .

 
In the evenings he speaks to Bucky and the other men who have arrived from Italy for a duty break; his friend quiet and dishevelled while the others are boisterous, but he seems to be more himself the more days that pass. In the daytimes, he speaks to more officers, more politicians, and Howard Stark (who’s also appeared with a plane full of Hydra equipment) - the Captain’s rank weighting heavy on his shoulders. He’s told he’s been nominated for a medal of valour, and while he’s proud, it’s another stage ceremony he could do without.

Peggy’s gone for a week and a half with no word before she reappears with tired eyes, bruises on her arms and more intel. By the end of that first week, he starts hearing rumours he’s going to be given a team - Hydra their target.

. . .

Peggy comes to him one evening, slipping in to take a seat across from him in the mess. Steve’s spooning beans and potatoes into his mouth with one hand and looking over personnel files with the other.

“I see you’ve heard a rumour.” She says as greeting.

He glances at her with a smile. “A convenient copy of a correspondence between Philips and General Mackenzie found it’s way under my pillow.”

She hums, feigning innocence, humming as she sips her water. 

You’d be surprised how much power you can have if you make the right request, she’d said the last time they’d seen each other.

“What do you mean?” He’d asked.

“Play the political game,” She'd answered, “I’m sure you already know how with Senator Brandt. Subtlety is key.” She’d then said, disappearing behind a filing cabinet.

Peggy begins tearing apart a bread roll with her fingers, scattering crumbs all over the table before beginning to chew; uncommon for her usually so controlled nature. “Ask about Dernier first - he’s foreign but both our countries are very fond of their Resistance fighters. Stress the explosive expertise. Corporal Morita, you know, was already part of a special covert audio deception unit. Did you---know, I mean?”

Steve nods.

“Good. And of course I’d imagine you’ll ask for Jones. I’ve rarely seen someone so gifted with languages and ciphers and I should know, I studied them in Bletchley before Enigma was developed. Approach his suggest carefully though, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you why.”

Steve frowns, unhappy about it, but has to agree. He has a feeling that’s where the most resistance will come in. “I understand. And Falsworth, I want him too.” He adds, who’s a thinker, albeit one whose prone to peppering his everyday speech with abstruse quotations - a flotsam of his university years. And that’s not forgetting his extensive airborne experience.  “I have a soft spots for Brits, I guess.” He then dares to say, and smiles quickly at the warm, pleased look she gives him back.

“His university’s patronage is considered rather liberal, actually, if your interested.”

“Yeah.” Steve says to her mused comment, glad his attempt at flirting was taken well. “We talked about socialism a little.” Peggy knows he’s a liberal from the fight he got staff duty for in Basic when Hodge made a very poorly timed comment regarding civil rights.

“Hm.” Peggy considers, concealing a smile and probably remembering the long agonizing night he had to spend following Lt. Fisher around. “Who else?”

“Well, Bucky of course, and Dugan. He saw a lot in Africa, knows a thing or two, and he’s been serving for years before.”

Peggy stands, her bread roll finished. “It seems like you don’t need my help after all, Captain. Enjoy your meal.”

. . .

“And I want the unit to be, well, you,” Steve says, “and Dugan, Gabe, Morita, Falsworth and Dernier. Us seven. And Peggy and Howard would be involved, but it’d be us on the ground.”

Bucky, slumped against the back wall of a booth in a shady pub a mile from the base in Surrey with a double whisky in his hands, raises an eyebrow.

Continuing straight on, almost defensively Steve adds. “I’m not doing it if I can’t pick my team.”

“They won’t say yes. Not all of them at least and not Philips. Dugan and Jones maybe. Okay, Dugan probably, he can’t help himself at the best of times but…”

“I’ve been talking to them--”

“They might not all say yes. They don’t want to go back. ” Bucky argues again, even knowing as he does that they’ll probably all be sent back anyway.

“That’s okay.” Steve replies mildly. “But I think they might. They’re a good group of guys. Besides they might be more persuadable with a couple of pints down them. And leave Philips to me.”

. . .

“What about you?” Steve asks after a while, chewing the side of his cheek straight afterwards. “And I understand if you don’t want to come. I do…You can say no. But, what are you thinking?”

Bucky doesn’t answer him, and Steve backtracks.

“You don’t have to decide right now.” He adds quickly.

“Maybe.” Bucky says after pausing long enough to make Steve sweat, and leaves to relieve himself round back.

. . .

“This one was here in Poland. Near the Baltic…and the sixth one was….about…” he leans forward with his pencil closer to the map, “here. Thirty or forty miles west of the Marginal Line. I just got a quick look.” He adds as the aide takes the map away.

Peggy, who’s leaning against the table quips, “Well nobody’s perfect.”

As they turn together Howard appears from behind them under an arch. “Hey, hang on. Aren’t you supposed to be picking up a medal right now?”

“I’ve decided,”  He replies, looking at Peggy who sends him a small amused smile. “I’m officially off the press circuit.”

“Rodgers.” Philips now calls, joining the group. “You just embarrassed a United States Senator in front of a room full of reporters and ten members of Parliament.”

Shame, Steve thinks unrepentantly.

Then Philips laughs, “You deserve a medal just for that.” He says, then hands him a notebook. Steve smiles back, finally feeling like he’s getting somewhere with the man. The Colonel turns to Stark whose turning a rectangular device glowing with blue light in his fingers. It’s not one of his inventions. “You figure out what that is yet?”

“Well if you believe Rodgers it’s the most powerful explosive known to man.”

It is.

“If?” Steve shoots back almost sharply at the supposed sarcasm.

Howard looks a little startled that he’s been called on it, but looks at him seriously. 

“Well either you’re wrong, or Schmidt’s rewritten the laws of Physics.”

. . .

DATE RECIEVED: 25TH NOVEMBER 1943

WAR & NAVY DEPARTMENT
V--MAIL SERVICE

 (PRINT THE COMPLETE ADDRESS IN PLAIN LETTERS IN THE PANEL BELOW, AND YOUR RETURN ADDRESS IN THE SPACE PROVIDED ON THE RIGHT. USE TYPEWRITER, DARK INK, OR DARK PENCIL. PAINT OR SMALL WRITING IS NOT SUITABLE FOR PHOTOGRAPHING.)

[CENSOR STAMP - CLEARED]  

 TO: CPT. STEVEN RODGERS                                                                                             FROM: JOSAPHINE RICHARDS
TWEEDSMUIR MILITARY                                                                                                           SENDERS ADDRESS:
CAMP, SURREY                                                                                    85 HALLIWELL ST. SAN FRANSICO 
                                                                                  DATE: 19TH NOVEMBER 1944

Steve Rodgers,

You complete and utter turd! Do you have any idea how worried the girls and I have been? We thought you were dead!

But apparently not - you’re alive and a great big hero. Brandt says you’re not coming back and the tours cancelled. We’ve already left Europe and are on our way back in the States, we were gone from camp one day after you took off into the wind. On another show now. The usual propaganda dances.

Heard you were London. Have you got your wish? Are you part of the war now? It was so fucking stupid Steve! Urgh! I am so angry at you.

You better write me back you reckless shithead or I’ll come back over there and thwack you into next week. I hate you so much for scaring me.

Josie Richards

. . .

The markings on his map have been added to the one in the centre of the bunker in wooden factory sculptures and flags. The expectation is clear. Steve begins.

. . .

“These are the weapons factories we know about. Sergeant Barnes said that Hydra shipped all the parts to another facility that isn’t on this map.”

“Agent Carter, coordinate with MI5. I want every Allied eyeball looking for that main Hydra base.”

“What about us?”

“We are going to set a fire under Johann Schmidt’s ass. What do you say Rodgers, you drew a map, do you think you can wipe Hydra off it?”

“Yes sir.” Steve replies immediately. “I’ll need a team.”

“We’re already putting together the best men.”

“With all due respect sir, so am I.”

. . .

“Half of these men aren’t in the US Army, Rodgers.”

“Last time I checked the SSR was an Allied organization, not an American one.” Steve rebuffs automatically.

“One of them’s Black.”

“Yes sir.”

“You are aware there are segregation laws in effect?”

“I am sir, but with all due respect---”

“---Why do I feel like I’m going to be hearing that every day for the foreseeable future?” Philips mutters.

“---we’re fighting against an enemy using technology that is quite literally out of this world. And Hitler on another front, in charge of a government who’s committing war crimes against the Jewish race. In all honesty, with what it takes to win this fight it shouldn’t matter what colour skin I have fighting beside me. Gabe Jones is skilled, speaks three languages fluently and was one of the few who stood out. I trust him. I don’t want anyone else.”

There’s a silence, then Peggy says.

“A black man standing side by side with Captain America,” she muses, “That might rub our German friends up the wrong way, don’t you think?” Philips turns to stare at her, as she casually comments. “Just an observation.”

“I’ll push it through, god help me.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I better not get demoted for this, Rodgers.”

“You won’t regret it.”

. . . 

Bucky’s eyes slowly begin to loose the bruised look of sleep deprivation, though they stay shadowed under the floppy fringe of hair that still makes Steve blink twice to see - so used to Bucky with Brylcream; Bucky with a satin sheen to him and Bucky with a sharp collar and polished shoes. He’s not used to Bucky with scruff and eyes that still seem sunk too deep, cheekbones that stand out, and a quietness that is untoward for him. It makes him want to throw Bucky into bed until he sleeps, or hug him until he calls Steve a ‘big soggy lump’ and starts making fun of him again. There’s been happy and sweet moments, but there’s also been moments when Bucky hasn’t laughed at inside jokes that would have had him on the floor before.

. . .

DATE RECIEVED: 29TH NOVEMBER 1943

WAR & NAVY DEPARTMENT
V--MAIL SERVICE
(PRINT THE COMPLETE ADDRESS IN PLAIN LETTERS IN THE PANEL BELOW, AND YOUR RETURN ADDRESS IN THE SPACE PROVIDED ON THE RIGHT. USE TYPEWRITER, DARK INK, OR DARK PENCIL. PAINT OR SMALL WRITING IS NOT SUITABLE FOR PHOTOGRAPHING.)

[CENSOR STAMP - [CLEARED]    

TO: CPT. STEVEN RODGERS                                                FROM: REBECCA BARNES
TWEEDSMUIR MILITARY                                                        SENDERS ADDRESS:
CAMP, SURREY                                                                 3421 45 HILLREST ST.
NEW JERSEY
DATE: 
21TH NOVEMBER 1943

Rodgers,

Everything was blacked out in the post, what the fuck is going on?

 It didn’t explain a shittin’ thing. I talked to them. I got there a hour after the messenger boy came with the telegram. The neighbours were round. The girls are calm now, but quiet.

What the fuck is going on?

Becca

. . .

“What about you, you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?”

“Hell, no. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight, I’m following him.”

 
. . .

DATE RECIEVED: 8TH OF DECEMBER 1943

WAR & NAVY DEPARTMENT
V--MAIL SERVICE
(PRINT THE COMPLETE ADDRESS IN PLAIN LETTERS IN THE PANEL BELOW, AND YOUR RETURN ADDRESS IN THE SPACE PROVIDED ON THE RIGHT. USE TYPEWRITER, DARK INK, OR DARK PENCIL. PAINT OR SMALL WRITING IS NOT SUITABLE FOR PHOTOGRAPHING.)

[CENSOR STAMP - [REDACTED]    

TO: REBECCA BARNES                                                                                               FROM: CPT. STEVEN RODGERS
3421 45 HILLREST ST.                                                                                                         SENDERS ADDRESS:
NEW JERSEY                                                                                                             189TH COM-NDO. F.A.B.N
P,O 459. LONDON
DATE: 
29TH NOVEMBER 1943

Becca,

Okay, I’ll try and send someone from the [BLACK BLACK] to come talk to you. I’m working on getting it cleared, might be able to pull in a favour.

We’re in London, we’re building a team. I can’t tell you for what, it’s complicated.

If you want to write send it to this P.O box in London. It’ll go into a locker for us to pick up whenever we touch down in London, or will be forwarded to us. Buck’s is the same. We’re going to [BLACK BLACK BLACK] for training.

Steve

. . .

…Lorraine kisses him between the shelves, Peggy fires three bullets at him. He gets a new shield.

. . .

The day before they leave for Achnacarry for short, but intense commando training, he’s pulled away from putting the satisfying final touches to his last report.

Steve follows the aide across the camp and deep into the office bunkers. He’s led to a familiar room, and the aide waves him in and closes the door firmly behind him. Peggy and Colonel Philips are the only ones in the room, which is a change; the Colonel looking perpetually grim-faced. Peggy’s stood to the side, face studiously blank.

“Colonel. Agent Carter.” Steve greets politely, saluting. He wonders what this is about. Philips’ eyes twitch, but otherwise stay almost stone-like as he lets the moment stretch too long and Peggy glances at him before telling Steve to sit in the lone chair facing the Colonel.

Philips still says nothing, just stares at him in a way that reminds him uncomfortably of Camp Leigh. Steve tries not to shift, “Am I here to give another report, sir?”

Peggy is the one who replies, and even she seems grimmer than usual. Philips remains ever still, right eye twitching. She starts, “Of a type. Captain Rodger---”

Philips cuts her off as though he can’t contain himself any longer. “When, if ever, did you plan to mention that Sergeant Barnes came from Hydra’s Isolation Lab!? Or were you planning on keeping that particular information to yourself forever?”

Oh.

With a start, any words Steve had ready are silenced.

How does he even answer that?

I was going to tell you, even though he’s not entirely sure he would have.

I didn’t think it was important, even though he absolutely knows it is.

I was worried you wouldn’t clear him for the commandos, and I need him with me and in my sight if I’m going to do this. I can’t have him back on the front line alone.

I was trying to protect him.

Instead, what comes out is: “H..How?”

Philips harrumphs, angrily and bitterly. “So it is true then.”

Steve blinks again, a dumbfounded look on his face as he realizes he’s just confirmed what was only a suspicion. Philips is furious. Peggy, the more he looks at her, is somewhere in-between that and disappointment.

“A camp doctor on duty the morning you returned to camp reported he examined Sergeant Barnes and noticed puncture marks, the level of which he’s only seen in severe opium addicts, and several signs of collapsed veins. And while none of the men you recovered could have been considered sanitary, the doctor makes a point of expressing Barnes’ standard. Something which didn’t escape my notice as well.” Peggy explains flatly, “That report was followed by a Private reporting to his surviving Sergeant that another Sergeant on the march back helped lift part of a turned-over truck off him during a firefight. When questioned further, he identified Sergeant Barnes.”

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Peggy looks down at the notes in her hands. “Major Falsworth, your new Tactical Airborne Expert, when questioned this morning admitted to me, likely without realizing the significance, that you deliberately headed to the Isolation ward in the factory, and when you returned you had Barnes with you. Confrontation with the Red Skull not withstanding.”

Fuck.

“How long was he in that isolation lab?” She demands as Steve tries to heave in a calming breath.

“I don’t know exactly.”

Philips snaps, “Don’t lie to us, boy.”

“I’m not.” Steve says, even though he is. “I’m not sure how long….he wasn’t with the others in the cages when I released them, and when they mentioned there was an Isolation Ward I….I went out on a limb. I didn’t think I would find him at all at that point, but--”

“But you did.” Peggy says.

Steve nods, closing his eyes for a moment. He can’t keep lying, not when they’ve thoroughly caught him out. “He was strapped to a table - that’s why the doctor got away - I heard Bucky mumbling his name and serial number - so I went that way instead.”

“Tortured?”

“Yes….I think so, sir.”

“Drugged?”

Steve frowns, then has to admit. “That too. I don’t know with what exactly, but it took him a few moments to recognize me. He was in and out of it for the first day or two of the march back.”

“You should have reported it. In your very first interview.” Peggy bites out, “Did you really think we wouldn’t find out?”

“No. I just…I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry.” He apologizes, looking them both in the eye.

Peggy looks back down at the reports, head shaking. “Unfortunately the camp doctor didn’t do a thorough or even close to a full examination - that will need to be corrected. Blood taken too.”

“Agent Carter--” Steve tries to protest.

She slams a picture down on the table instead of letting him speak. It’s a surveillance photograph dated late 1941. “This the doctor you saw with Schmidt?”

Steve’s eyes catch on the pictures. The face, the glasses, the receding hairline.

“That’s him.”

“Armin Zola.” Peggy informs him, looking at him dead on now. The disgust must have bled through the shock in his voice. “He has PHDs in Engineering and Bio-chemistry. He became Schimitt’s go to scientist in technology and bio-enhancement after Erkstine’s removal.”

“I’m sure your smart enough to know what that means, Rodgers. If you think Johann-goddamn-Schmitt will have stopped his crusade to create another Nazi-super-mutant you’ve got another thing coming.” Philips snaps. “If he experimented on Barnes--”

“I understand sir. I do.” Steve tries to stop the spiral before it starts. “And as I said, I’m sorry.”

“Apologies don’t do jack in war. You know what does? Protocol. Information. Honesty.” Philips lists, “That’s the last time you ever lie to this administration, do you understand me?!”

“Yes sir.” He replies again, conceding and contrite. “I’ll go get--”

“Barnes is already on route, we don’t ass about here. I want blood and a full physical done in an hour.” Philips orders sharply, standing. “Then get him into interrogation. We need to know what he told them.”

Steve bristles at that almost immediately, “He didn’t tell him anything!”

“Thought you didn’t know anything?” Philips retorts without a beat.

“I know he didn’t talk. He wouldn’t have.”

“Every man breaks eventually Rodgers. Every man. Best you learn that quickly.” Philips pushes himself into Steve’s space. “You are goddamn lucky you’re untouchable right now Captain, anyone else and I would have buried them so deep in military prison they’d be lucky to ever be heard of again, without a second thought. You best remember that.”

Without another word he storks off, slamming the door behind him. Peggy follows his cue.

“Peg--Agent Cart--”

“Don’t Steve. You were in the wrong, and you full well know it.”

The door clicks firmly behind her, and he stares at the corner of the oak table, pushing the breath out of his lungs slowly to calm himself. She’s left the photograph on the table, purposely he knows, and he picks it up and tucks it into a pocket; the name forever etched in his head. Bucky didn’t know, or wouldn’t tell him the man’s name.

He heaves another breath and leaves to try and intercept his friend.

Just as things were starting to look up.

.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

“I don’t know.”

“No. I don’t remember.”

“They spoke German the entire time, so I don’t know.”

“No.”

“I never heard the name Erkstine until Steve told me.”

“I remember needles, but not what was in them.”

“I don’t know how long I was there for.”

“Yes sometimes.”

“They asked about formations….once, maybe twice. Most of the time they didn’t speak to me. Just each other.”

“I--I told them about a formation in Prevalle but that was weeks old by the time I was captured. But they didn’t know that.”

“No sir. Nothing else.”

“No. No. I don’t know.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I don’t know.” Bucky repeats for the hundredth time. “Like I said, they spoke in German the whole time.”

“Really? No English? Not even once?”

Bucky barely restraints a sign of anxious frustration. He’s sweating, and his hands are trembling under the table. He doesn’t dare lift them to take a drink from the glass of water in front of him out of fear of Philips or Carter seeing; no matter how parched he is.

“No. Not that I---”

“---Can remember? Right.” Philips cuts him off to comment. “You don’t seem to remember an awful lot Sergeant.”

“We can dose you up with four different chemicals and throw some morphine on top and see how much you remember, Colonel, if that’ll give you a little perspective!” Bucky finally snaps back, eyes flashing; not even caring at how much trouble it will get him in. A brief, striking thought hits him - if he gets himself dishonorably discharged he can go home and escape this hell hole, but then that would leave Steve alone with the whole Axis army out gunning for him. Not an option.

Philips merely raises an eyebrow at him. His training officer in Wisconsin would have been screaming and spitting in his face in under a second if it had been him. His interest is clearly piqued though -  that comment having more life in it than any of the flat dead-toned answers he’s given so far.

He wants to leave, desperately.

He wants to go back to packing his bag of new kit for Achnacarry, desperately, and to have not been marched away with nary a word as to why. Agent Carter had been waiting for him outside alone, perhaps as an attempt to put him at ease. Any state of ease he has left in him at this point immediately dropped out with the rest of his stomach in the sparse thirty seconds Steve had to warn him.

He wasn’t frog-marched by MP’s into the new medical ward, but at the sight of it and a doctor with a stethoscope around his neck he might as well have been. Breath hisses in through his nose before he can stop. His steps falter and start to back up, stumbling.

There’s a nurse on the other side of the room. She has a needle and a syringe in her hands. Peggy Carter steps in front of him before he can get two steps into his immediate retreat. 

“We need to take some blood---”

“No.”

She blinks, but otherwise doesn’t change her demeanor. “Sergeant---”

“No.” He snaps out vehemently, backs up further and swings out an arm towards the approaching nurse and needle. “Don’t you dare come near me with that! Miss.” His last minute remembrance of his manners doesn’t stop the nurse from jerking back at his arm and tone. Peggy Carter’s countenance doesn’t flicker, even if he is almost looming over her. He’s more panicked than angry, but in many ways that can be more dangerous when it comes violence. She’s not intimidated, but she does soften.

“We know you were in the lab in Krausberg." She says, attempting to be reassuring. "We know you were drugged. We need to know with what. You’re an intelligent officer Sergeant, with a glowing report, I know you understand the protocol. Especially in this scenario if Captain Rodgers has told you everything I believe he has. We need three, maybe four vials of blood, and a full examination as you’ve yet to have one. That’s it.”

Bucky laughs disbelievingly, still shaking his head. “That’s it?”

He doesn’t care if he’s an intelligent officer with a glowing report, he doesn't care if he understands the why, because he does - he’s not becoming a lab rat ever ever again. 

Carter nods, “And a second interview and debrief.”

“Interrogation, you mean?”

Carter doesn’t really deny that when she says, “We tend not to interrogate our own men.”

“Come on old sport.” The doctor says from behind Carter. “You’ve been fired at by a hundred rounds a minute no doubt, one little jab isn’t the end of the world.”

It is for him. They don’t understand.

“No.”

“Now solider---”

“I said no!”

In the end, he knows he doesn’t have a choice. It’s not something that’s changed since he escaped Austria - it probably won’t ever change. He doesn’t have a choice in this, he doesn’t have a choice about leaving this war and going home - not while Steve’s here, he doesn’t have any real choices left. None that matter. He’ll always be trapped, even if he doesn't know what he wants - here or home, home or here.

His conviction sticks on one account - he refuses to lie or sit on the bed utterly and completely, so they take blood and examine him standing in the middle of the room while he watches the exit. They take two vials, but struggle to find a viable vein for the rest. He has to strip to his skivvies so they can examine him fully, and they don’t find much of consequence. It’s been nearly two weeks since the march. The gutting slice down his middle that was half way to healing when Steve broke him out has since he dug the staples out - and the scabby pinkish scar is obscured by new dark body hair and the fact his ribs are just visible and his stomach is still sunken in a little. It looks several months old, which is acceptable for the amount of time he was in Zola’s possession if it occurred at the beginning of his tenure there. He gets away with it. The burns have taken a little longer to heal, small as they are, and are harder to hide while bare from hair; as are his elbows and inner thighs which are still dark and rather sore; even more so now.

He has proper bruises to distract them too, bruises he frantically gave himself with his own fists and the corner of the metal sink in the adjoining bathroom in the fifteen minutes they gave him to strip and prepare himself. They were uncommonly generous in that, and he has a feeling that's entirely down to Agent Carter, who he heard tell the doctor to give him another minute through the door. He surprises himself with his own strength, and with how quickly he's able to injure himself without hesitating.

He’s never been hit or thrown from a truck before, but he supposes a man would still be bruised; and so suddenly he is again when he leaves the bathroom, two weeks later. The bruises had already started to set in when he looked at himself one last time in the mirror. They’d taken photographs to document his body too, at every angle and at every distance. Strangely, he’d felt more vulnerable then than when they slid the needles into him.

It had been uncommonly chilly in the ward, as it always is, and is worse in this basement building even though he’s now clothed. But he’d started sweating the very moment he’d seen the doctor and hasn’t stopped since; any shivers running through his body aren’t from the cold. With every question Zola’s contagion zones on the heels of his feet, his elbows, his arms, his neck, his forehead, his soft squishy inner organs, his outer thighs and his inner thighs all tingle with unwelcome feeling. With every breath of silence he swallows vomit back down his throat.

“Fair point.” Phillips finally harrumphs. “When he wasn’t dosing you with four different chemicals and morphine on top, what did he do? Where were you?”

“In a cell.” Bucky bites out. “Anytime I wasn’t on the table I was in a cell. I don’t know what he did.”

Carter asks, “Were you alone?”

“In the cell?” He clarifies, swallowing. She nods. “No. Not at the start anyway.”

Philips goes down another avenue before Agent Carter can finish that one. “Did you see any machines; technology that wasn’t missile or weapons based? Probably seemed like to be ‘new-aged’. I’m talking space, science-fiction vibes.”

“Everything of Hydra’s technology has ‘new-aged space vibes’." He counters unhelpfully.

Philips looks at Carter and nods, so she slides a photograph of a free-standing metal cylinder with a small square window on the front of it in front of him. 

“Anything like this?”

It’s the machine they put Steve in, the Vita Chamber he thinks his friend called it. He knows it it, somehow, deep in his bones. It looks like it encloses completely around the person, head to toe, like a claustrophobia heated coffin. It looks infinitely worse than the ‘iron lung’. He feels sick for Steve as well as himself now.

“No. I never saw anything like that.” He lies.

. . .

He vomits spectacularly by the dumpsters behind the canteen when he finally leaves, speed-walking past Steve’s blind-spot where he’s sat on a crate by the door, obviously waiting for him. He starts sprinting the second he’s out of eye-shot, dodging people and corners until he can crouch, head between his knees, and empty his stomach in privacy. There’s a rat by his foot and several more scratching from inside the dumpster at his back, so he’s not completely alone, but he finds he doesn’t mind them.

Just people. People who can ask questions and walk towards him armed with needles and cameras to photograph his shame.

He heaves in the sharp panicked breaths he’s been holding back since the bathroom and feels the tears even if they don’t fall. He’s almost silent as he lets himself come apart, staring at the rat sniffing the sludge by his shoe.

The right pocket of his jacket is heavier than usual, as is his right.

He crouches there for thirty minutes; long enough for the cooks to put a Shepherds pie in the oven and for him to hear them yell about taking it out later through the half-open back door. He barely stops himself from sinking onto his backside or knees, and it’s only the thought of the dumpster sludge on his new uniform and the fact he’ll be on transport to Achnacarry in under an hour that stops him.

The plan and coming Hydra crusade is still on his future slate for the moment, and they’ll revisit the issue when his results have come in and been reviewed. He’s still Steve’s glorified sidekick, for now anyway. He lets it all out through the trembles in his hands instead of screaming out like he wants to. He backs further into the wall when someone passes by, then stands and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand a few minutes later.

When he walks back past the building he practically ran from Steve is gone from the crate, but Bucky can almost imagine the imprint he’s left behind. Wherever he goes Steve leaves a part of himself behind for someone to find. It used to be nosebleeds, cinema stubs from his pockets, his patience, his fury, a shoe, pride after returning a girl’s stolen lunch money or an old lady’s missing cat. His dignity, once or twice. Normally, he used to always leave Bucky one of his smiles.

The only physical imprint that he was sat on the crate waiting for Bucky to return like a loved one returning on a steaming train platform is a shallow footprint from where his boots sat in the frozen mud. His half packed kit bag is gone from his cot when he returns, as are the rest of his things. There’s a note sat on the neatly-made bed in Steve’s handwriting.

It says:

Peggy told me you finished and are still coming with us to Achnacarry. Thank god. I was waiting for you outside, but you must not have seen me, and I couldn’t find you after. The transport leaves from the gate at 16:00.

I have your stuff.

Let me know your okay, Buck.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay again, Bucky thinks as he folds the note up. He checks his second-hand watch and steals three mints from where he knows one of his week’s roommates keeps his tin. He thoroughly washes out his mouth, and looks at his grey-washed face and dishevelled uniform. He jogs to the gate to catch their transport out of Surrey.

Steve’s checking his watch worriedly by the bonnet of the bus. 

“About bloody time!” Dugan yells from inside when he spots him. “Thought you were never going to turn up!”

“Say, I wanna’ know your secret though, Barnes, to get the Captain to do your grunt work.” Morita also calls from out the window, “I could do with having my kit carried around for me too!”

Steve watches his arrival with sharp eyes, but turns slightly to call back. “Call it fourteen years of friendship and the knowledge that he’s always late and leave it at that. You’ve got a lot to work up to!”

“Hey! I can be late!” Morita counters to Jones’ laughter. 

Steve, fingers just short of touching him, asks, “Are you okay?”

Bucky tries to smile at him. “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”

. . .

In his first debrief, before they knew about Zola and the lab and the experiments, they asked about the weaponry they were building in Krausberg, and what he knew about that; they same as they did to every other solider who escaped from there. Because that’s what he was, just one of the nearly four-hundred men in a German work camp saved by Captain America. 

Occasionally during the debrief Bucky himself was called upon and in every case his mouth felt dry and his chest stuttered so early on, so much so than once somebody else had to swoop in to answer while Bucky sat there with his mouth hanging open like an idiot. He never answered “what time of night would they send you back to the cages?” or “what was the terrain like?” and most definitely didn’t answer “who seemed to be in charge?” The others answered a Colonel Kruger, and Bucky didn’t correct them, just sat there in silence, Zola’s name not even close to forming on his tongue.

In his second, and what he thought final debrief, he told them about the tentacled insignia, and the missiles and that the parts were shipped out to another facility that wasn’t on the map Steve saw, and nothing else. They thanked him for his bravery and he left.

They didn’t thank him this time.

. . .

Sixteen something hours in a truck later, with grateful stop off in Middlesborough on the way, he and the other ‘commandos’, as that’s what they’re now being hastily trained as, are being screamed at by a fellow called Lieutenant Jackson in the dark outside an old castle, lit by floodlights by the door. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Vaughan is stood five feet behind him in front of their line, observing them all. They were dropped off not at the castle, but at Spean Bridge railway station eight miles away and were told to march with all their equipment the rest of the way. Training and assessment started immediately on arrival apparently, even if they technically hadn’t arrived at Achnacarry yet. Once reaching the estate; with the sun down and tripping over their feet they were immediately hustled onto the grassy terrain out front where Lieutenant Colonel Vaughan was stood waiting, and weren’t allowed to unpack and get settled first. Both these men are British forces, highly trained.

Now this; this is something Bucky is used to having spent eight months of his life in army training already. It’s almost comforting. There’s ever so slightly less screaming in Steve’s direction, but in no way shape or form does Jackson hold back on account of his rank either. Considering these men have to shove twenty-one weeks of commando training into the span of three or four weeks, he highly doubts their going to pull any punches. So much for a duty break.

Jones, Steve, Falsworth (or ‘Monty’ as he’s been told to call him) are all stood strictly at attention, as are the others, though the aggravation is slightly more visible on the latter faces. He doesn’t want to know what he looks like considering he felt carsick for the last hour and a half of their journey and got light-headed on the fourth mile of their eight mile warm up. He still comes a close third, even if he was hunched over by the end, eyes squeezed closed. Dernier came last, very thin himself, while Dugan came to try pat him on the back and check on him after; made sure he stayed standing.

“Looking a little green there, Jimmy.” Was all he managed to say before Jackson started yelling again, Steve fell back into line and Bucky shot up straight into rest.

Comfort zone as it is, all Bucky wants to do is find a room with big windows, a lot of light, and a thick blanket he can curl himself up in as tight as he can. He doesn’t want to be doing this after the worst conversation of his life, whilst he’s paranoid about his still full pockets. He thought he’d have time.

"Physical fitness is a prerequisite." Lieutenant Jackson orders, looking side-long at those of them who are clearly still a little run down and unfit. "And so, any man who fails to live up to the requirements will be returned to their previous unit. It's the same for any recruit who comes here, and it's the same for you lot. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir!" They chorus.

"This training is not one you hold back on; to simulate real life scenarios exercises will be conducted using live ammunition and explosives. We'll conduct cross country runs and boxing matches to improve fitness; speed and endurance marches over the mountain ranges - zip lines, abseiling, climbing, garrotting  - all while carrying arms and full equipment. You will be given these and uniforms for all weather conditions. Training night and day, even more so for you lot. Airborne training is also extensive. Correct military protocols are enforced, officers will be saluted, uniforms will be clean; brasses and boots shining on parade. Is that also clear?"

"Yes sir!"

Jackson strides back to the middle of their formation, wrapping things up, finally. 

“Your things are in the entry room inside. This is the only time you’ll have rooms indoors and pre-cooked food, tomorrow you’ll be moved to the tents or huts. Go unpack, food at 20:00. Breakfast starts at 05:30, training at 07:00. Be glad for the late morning start, it’s the only one you’re likely to get. Now! Go!” Jackson yells and the men disperse - holding back any grumbles until their out of earshot.

“Sergeant Barnes.” Lieutenant Colonel Vaughan comments coolly as he goes to follow, summoning him to his side. He’s the first one of them he’s spoken to directly apart from Steve. Steve carries on walking, but ever so slightly slows, canting his head to listen.

“Yes sir?” Bucky answers with well-trained respect, falling into rest with his hands behind his back. 

“Tomorrow - your uniform will be buttoned and spotless. We’re training you to operate behind enemy lines in all conditions but don’t think for a second respect for he uniform or correct military protocol is of any less import. I want to be able to see myself in your boots and buttons, and no creases by the morning parade. This is the only chance to correct it I’m going to give you. Are we clear?”

“Understood sir. No creases.” Bucky replies, eyes ahead and letting himself breathe in relief. He can deal with a uniform infraction. A minute later, the Lieutenant Colonel's eyes on both their backs, Steve tries to sling Bucky’s pack over his shoulder too. Bucky shoves him off immediately but as subtly as he can, hissing out a sharp, “Stop!”

Steve, for his credit, covers it nicely. Also probably aware of the gaze, he must have belatedly realized Bucky mustn’t let himself be seen as weak in front of these men. The others are somewhere ahead, he can hear them if not see them in the fancy manor building. With dark wood covering the stone walls and slightly faded wallpaper, this is the swankiest training base he’s ever seen. It looks like it has big windows. He’s going to find the biggest.

“I heard they equipped it specially.” Steve comments at his side. “They gave us all private rooms for tonight - if you want to--”

“No.” Bucky can’t remember how many times he’s said that very same word over the last twenty four hours. Maybe for one, Steve will listen where the other’s wouldn’t now they’re away from prying eyes and tight quarters on a moving truck.

“Buck--”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Steve.” He replies, tone flat. “Thank you for trying to warn me, and not mentioning it before. That probably got you in trouble--”

“--Only a little.”

 That meant ‘a lot’ in Steve terms.

“--But it’s done. They took blood, and asked hours and hours of questions. I answered. I’ve done enough talking - I just--I---can you---”

“--Can I leave you alone?” Steve butts in, strangely not looking hurt, but almost as if he was growing used to Bucky pushing him away. He shoves the thought far off - needing a few hours to himself isn’t selfishly pushing Steve away, he decides, determinedly not thinking about how many hours he’s taken to himself lately.

A member of the estate staff directs them to the rooms serving as the commandos for the night. He has his own room, third door on the right in the fourth corridor on the second floor. Steve has the fifth on the left. Bucky closes the door firmly behind him, and stays with his back to it as he takes the room and the windows in. It’s over-facing the side of the estate, overlooking a zip-line and fields and fields of Scottish countryside. He follows the lines of interconnecting hedges until he comes to the line of forest in the distance, and the Scottish Highlands even further. 

He’s looked at a line of trees before, wishing and dreaming.

It’s 19:35 in the evening, in late November - or is it early December now?   Dugan and Jones are talking over and to one another through their open doors as they unpack about a game of cards later. Steve says he’s in. Morita and Dernier too. Falsworth or Monty, makes a sound of affirmation.

“Good team bonding,” Dugan says, “Nothing like seeing how well someone cheats to get the lay of a fella’.”

Steve cheats something fierce - so they’ll get on.

Bucky doesn’t unpack. He leaves the safety of the barred door and the light on, opens the window to let the frosty air in, and makes sure the curtains are open as wide as possible for the sunrise. He pulls the pillows and the top blanket from the bed and tosses them in a pile on the floor. After taking his shoes off, he curls up on his side on top of them. The beds too soft anyway, nowadays he always feels like he’ll fall straight through.

. . .

In the morning he wolfs down two bowls of porridge, starving after he missed the evening meal the night before. He’s the first to breakfast, though he passed Falsworth in the corridor when he left his room - probably to go shower and wash.

Bucky did it before dawn so he could watch the sun break past the line of the forest through his window from his pile of blankets. He’s spick and span, as promised, no creases in sight. He looks like a mirror of his past self while he feels like a shadow; but he’s always been good at putting in a show. You don’t knock out your opponent during the first round, you dodge and feign and give the crowd exactly what they want - and earn yourself and pa a few dollars on the side for the trouble.

Speak of devil, Falsworth drops down across from him, porridge doused with rationed honey, taking full advantage of the catering.

“You missed a good game last night.”

Bucky glances up, “Did I?” He feigns, just as he’s practiced. “I was so pooped I was out like a light the moment I got in.” He quirks a smile from the corner of his mouth. “Not used to eleven hour drives or running laps anymore, I guess. Who won?”

Falsworth laughs, sharp and sweet like his tooth. “Which game? We played Rummie and Queenie and Poker, two or three games at a time sometimes. Every time Dugan went to shuffle I thought for sure we’d never finish.”

“Yeah, he does that.” Bucky replies, grunting, remembering the pack missing three of the hearts Dugan kept in his mud splattered pocket. “He’ll go all night if he has the chance. Any of them?” He clarifies after.

“Capta--Rodgers did.” Falsworth corrects himself. “Rummie three times and Poker twice.”

Bucky snorts, “Of course he did, the fuckin’ cheat.”

Falsworth coughs around a gulp of coffee. He asks in bewilderment. “Why do -- you think he cheated?” 

Falsworth only knows Steve as the big hero who can lift twenty men without pulling a muscle; why would ‘Captain America’ need to cheat? 

He doesn’t know Steve as the skinny sonvubitch who’ll roll on his best friend in a club poker game just to get a win, just to prove the point that he could, even if it would get them kicked out and beaten up afterwards. He’s done it so often growing up the boy either can’t help it, or doesn’t even realize he’s doing it half the time since first getting away with it at fifteen. Even now Bucky can’t show his face in Joe Swash’s backroom Tuesday games on account of his association with the ‘crockiest, most cheating little shit he’s ever seen on the South side.’ It’s a miracle Steve hasn’t gotten himself shot with all the mobsters he’s cheated out of their coin over the years. The guy’s so ruthless it’s lucky he’s smart.

Bucky just raises an eyebrow. “He always cheats. Watch his left hand--” Bucky spills, not even caring he’s giving away one of Steve’s treasured tells. “--When he goes to scratch his leg. Or behind his ear.”

Falsworth’s watching him with wide eyes. He gulps down some more coffee and eventually says. “Well I’ll be dammed.”

Bucky raises his spoon at him in commiseration. “I’m guessing you were only playing for cigarettes and baseball cards, so no harm no foul. How’d you think he used to make his half of the rent when he spent most of the month too sick to work?”

Falsworth starts laughing. “Dugan’s going to flip.”

“Don’t tell him," Bucky replies, "it’s more fun that way. Plus, if you tell him he might realize how many times I’ve scammed a bottle of hooch off him with the same move.” Falsworth laughs harder, so Bucky continues. “I swear, if he hadn’t started getting too cocky with it, forget about the tail end of the Crash, we would have been rolling in it. Right up until the smart ass went up against the other biggest cheat in Brooklyn and got himself so worked up he started playing so dirty you’d spot it from the moon.” Bucky huffs, rolling his eyes before scraping his bowl clean, “Then he only went and got himself a reputation.”

Falsworth finishes, chuckling. “Maybe it was best for the rest of our rations that you did miss it then. Did you get your nine hours at least?”

Bucky shrugs, “More or less.”

Despite his bright-eyed and bushy-tailed appearance, Falsworth must not have - being up so late and up so early.

“Your bed’s too soft, huh?”

Bucky’s spoon hand stops scrapping the ceramic as he glances up sharply. Falsworth raises an eyebrow. “I saw the pillows on the floor when I passed you earlier, before the door closed.” He admits, obviously keen-eyed. “It’s the same for me too.”

“Oh yeah?”

Falsworth hums, “Even before the work camp you’re sleeping on the ground or in the ground in the trenches. You sleep anywhere; and by the time you actually get to sleep somewhere you’re supposed to - it’s so soft it’s like you’ll sink right through. Like you’re--”

“--Lying on a cloud.” Bucky finishes, softening a little to the man whose so far been nothing but professional. He recognizes the name from the very first conversation he had with a friend-not-friend, a story of how his friend-not-friend was imprisoned.

Falsworth raises his spoon in commiseration this time. “Try putting a couple of blankets under you and build it up - makes it easier to work up to. And believe it or not, once you get past the cloud - it does wonders for your back.”

“You do realize we’re going back out to lying on frozen mud and dirt in three weeks time, right? And huts or tents tonight?”

“Got to take it while you can get it - and that’s my back talking, not my head.”

Bucky nods, considering. He reaches for his big glass of water. “I’ll try that… Thanks.”

(The next night, while on the floor of his Nissen hut, Bucky hears Falsworth shouting and mumbling in his sleep about dead men under his command, and realizes that maybe it’s not just too soft beds that they share.)

“Morning boys!” Dugan rouses from the doorway, Dernier and Steve at his back, chatting to one another in terrible French from Steve’s part. Dugan claps him on the back too hard, as he always does, on his way round the table. Bucky winces slightly but allows it. “What are we talking about this fine morning then?”

“You’re in a good mood,” Bucky comments unhelpfully, “for loosing everything you’ve gained in the last two weeks in one night.”

“Barnes was just dishing out advice so I don’t loose my fancy cigarettes on the next game of Rummie,” Falsworth adds.

Dugan snorts, rolling his eyes. He ignores Bucky and replies to Falsworth. “Please. Don’t listen to a thing out of his mouth, Monty. Such a sore loser---” The man adds, which Bucky argues is absolutely not true - Steve raises his eyebrows at his obvious expression - because it might be a little true. “I’m glad he wasn’t playing anyway.”

“Gee, thanks.” Bucky calls back as Dugan wanders into the kitchen to talk to the staff. “Way to make a guy feel welcome.”

Dugan returns a full minute after Steve and Dernier, disrupting the easy peace and quiet he and Falsworth are sharing. He slides a bowl of fruit under Bucky’s nose.

“I’ve already had - two - breakfasts.” He admits and waves off.

“Have a third. Get some meat back onto those bones. We’re running another six miles today and then some, don’t want your frail body giving up on us.”

“I’m not--”

“--He’s not frail!” He and Steve almost snap back hotly in unison - a trigger for both of them. 

Dugan sits back in his seat, turning his head right to left to look at them both. “Are you stubborn and stupid instead? Eat the fruit. Get your greens.”

“Technically, they’re red and orange---”

“Shut up, Monty.”

Steve seems to simmer down, and steals a slice or two of extra apple from him. Bucky rolls his eyes, insides still squirming and god, frail, is he frail now?  He steals Steve’s coffee, munches on his own apple obediently.

. . .

Turns out after Project Rebirth and the German doctor getting shot to death a total of one minute and twenty seconds later - no one bothered to test Steve’s capabilities. 

Oh, they took blood - lots of blood, enough blood that Steve got mighty dizzy for a while, and then took some more - and a very extensive medical exam - far far more extensive than Bucky's that’s for sure, as Steve tells him in embarrassment one night - but they never explicitly tested how far Steve’s magic-a-million abilities can stretch to. And Steve; facing a lifetime of sitting in a lab and running laps for doctors and technicians he didn’t know; took the first ticket out as a propaganda celebrity after a firm rejection from Army Command. Guaranteed when he began he thought it was going to be more than it was, even if he’s famous now, and far more useful - but a part of Bucky is overwhelming grateful to realize that while he initially signed up for the greater good  - he didn’t want to remain a lab rat like Bucky either.

The Allies and the SSR decide to kill two birds with one stone - train them up and get the data they missed out on, and they start pushing Steve to his limits and tracking the progress. For the first week they tell him not to hold back on account of Bucky and the others like he did on their arrival march;  and quite frankly; to just fucking go for it.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Bucky mutters, noting the time and marking it down as Steve flashes past him on another lap, tucked in arms helping his already stellar momentum even further. 

To keep up the appearance of their friendship and hide his shock he tells Steve he was slower than when he half-ran home to make curfew with three bruised ribs from the Callahan brothers. “You should be disappointed in yourself.” He says as he writes down a incredibly small number for the ten mile run Steve's just completed.

“You should shut your mouth.” Steve retaliates as Jackson calls him to attention. He doesn’t mean it, as what he wants is actually the opposite.

They learn a lot.

Steve can run a mile in two minutes flat, probably under. He can jump a seven foot fence with one leap. He learns to ski to an Olympic level with one lesson, and picks up the names of new equipment and information with incredible ease. Steve's always been super smart no matter what the teachers said, but now his mind moves like a zig zag connecting things that no one would realize are connected until Steve points it out, and then they all go oh. Oh shit, yeah. Concepts, once he has the context come naturally to him. They find out he's practically memorized the Army manual and five war strategy books, and can see things at twice the distance the rest of them can. He can hear even further. He picks up new hand-to-hand combat tricks like he's been doing it his whole life. He flies through the assault course. He can lift, to date, a motorbike and eight USO girls, probably with one hand if he puts some more effort in. He's a real killer-diller now.

The scientist/technician (Bucky’s not entirely sure what he is as he generally keeps a rather large distance) the SSR sent up with them says, “skin density is through the roof. It takes a lot of force to break the skin, even more for the muscle to make an impact.”

“How do they know that?” Bucky whispers suspiciously because Steve was missing last night. The guy continues to report his findings to them and some of the Achnacarry senior officers. “Did they try and cut you to test it?”

Steve tells him to shush, and then to shut up, he’s listening.

“Did they?” He presses, and Steve elbows him to stop. Dugan glances over at him as he hisses. “The fuck, Steve, why would you let them do that? For their own documentation? It’s your body - you already know.”

Steve glances at him quickly, a flash of vulnerability in his eyes. “I don’t actually.”

Bucky blinks at him, confused. What? How could you not know your own body?

Bucky knows his own body, even when he didn’t have ownership of it. He knows every scar it carries, and the ones it doesn’t. He knows every spot of hair he’s ever had yanked out of his scalp in a fight, every occasional freckle. He knows his one crooked tooth at the back of his mouth; how fast he can go at a punching bag and how long he can jump rope for before he has to stop. He knows how to orchestrate a saucy wink and plaster that charming smile he became known for on his face even if he doesn’t bother to use it anymore.

Steve’s always known his own body too. He knew how far he could run before his asthma flared up, how much his shoulder blades used to stick out, how many freckles he used to have peppering his lower back. He knew where and what his limits were so he could always, without hesitation, push them until he nearly permanently crippled himself out of stubbornness. That was the old Steve, he realizes, this is a new Steve. That Steve-of-now doesn’t know his own body is fairly, or very, disconcerting. Now that Bucky thinks about it - when he looked at Steve's bare back in the shower block the other day the freckles on his back weren’t there anymore. Are all his old scars gone too? Now he wants to check every old mole and freckle on Steve’s body to know what else he’s lost.

“We still haven’t hit the upper limits of what he can do.” The scientist or technician or whoever the hell he is says, “I think he could withstand a bullet within reason.”

“We’re not testing that!” Bucky bursts out loudly before he can stop himself. Steve smacks him in the side behind Dugan as every head turns to look at him, but Steve also looks vaguely glad someone called it so he didn’t have too.

 Bucky forces himself not to budge on the issue, not to blush at the attention, and the other SSR officer nods and marks it down, motioning to the main results guy. “Yes, best not to test that one, Waters.”

. . .

“How many--” Dernier asks suddenly, faltering as they march their way up a mountain. Dernier’s been lagging behind from the middle point of the march as the most underweight of all of them - he tires easier - so Bucky’s hanging back out of solidarity. Jackson keeps screaming at them to keep up but Bucky, after eight months under training officers has developed a sure-fire method of ignoring them while not looking like he’s ignoring them. “How long have you know each other? Captain Rodgers and you?” He asks in slow, but superb English. He’s been learning like they have - but already had the basics down.

Bucky blinks in surprise at the question, but the answer is easier. “Oh. All my life pretty much, give or take a few years of walkin’ and talkin’.”

“You can tell.” Dernier says.

Can you?  Bucky thinks, who knew it was true before - Steve’s ma told them they were spending to much time together, aged twelve, when they started finishing each others sentences. Now the two of them seem further away than ever with the rush of training and command and Agent Carter. He feels like he hasn’t talked to Steve in an age, and yes, that is his fault; even if it is normally. If he even is the same person - because Bucky doesn’t feel like Bucky is half the time. He wonders if Steve even still likes him anymore with all these new people suddenly in his life.

“Small things,” Dernier clarifies, “but you can tell. Definitely. Even if you are not talking much.” That part is said with a very knowing gaze.

“I feel like you’re trying to allude to something here, Jacques.”

“He looks at you a lot. The Captain.” Dernier says, using both hands to support the climb over a particularly steep verge. “He e’s worried.”

“His natural temperament.” Bucky excuses, “you’ll see - he worries about everything - even things that aren’t his business.”

“Like what happened to you?”

Bucky’s fingers stiffen, and the air in his nose and lungs gets colder, and too tight. What had happened? What Had Happened to Bucky involved his jaw and fingers being broken, and his belly being cut open, his skin turning to fire then freezing over. What Happened was Bucky began carrying a locust plague inside his lungs, and a substance in his blood that's also at war. And the thing was this: Bucky’s jaw was as it always was, and his teeth were all in place. The needle marks on his neck have gone, and it’s smooth from shaving and is unblemished. What happened to Bucky while he was away was terrible, awful and disgusting; and it'll always likely be with him; just as Subject #64's memory is and always will be. He misses the feel of a hand in his when he sleeps in his dark hut at night.

“Not something I wanna talk about - to you or him, or anyone.” Bucky says right off.

“I see.” Dernier says, “I am just saying - you are still very close. But it seems different for you with him - did that make sense?”

“It did, sorta’. I’m dealing with it.” He says as a dismissal, at least feeling a bit more secure in his thoughts about Steve if not about himself. “Watch your step.”

“Barnes! Frenchman!” Jackson shouts, “get a move on!”

“Yes sir!” Bucky yells back and picks up the pace. He slows as soon as Jackson’s red hair is facing them again. Steve catches his eye high in the distance, on the top of the cliff well beyond the others - clicking off his stopwatch. They’re making him time himself now since the rest of them can’t keep any sort of time with him themselves. He’s at a great distance, and while Steve can probably see him with his enhanced twenty-twenty vision, he’s still a dark figure in front of a grey sky for Bucky. He doesn’t need to see Steve’s face to know he’s rolling his eyes. Maybe they do still know each other after all. Bucky should probably try harder for him.

Dernier coughs into his elbow as Bucky toes a loose rock just above the man. It wobbles - so he bounces on it to check the stability in a not very safe way. Something cracks beneath it. It jerks so Bucky hops off. “Don’t stand on that.”

“Are you going to test every rock for me?” Dernier asks, but he doesn’t sound sore about it like some people would. Namely Steve; before. He never liked when Bucky tried to do things for him. “When you fall I’m not going to catch you.”

“If  I fall I don’t expect you to, no point loosing all the ground you gained for little old me.” He bounces on another wobbly one, and shakes another with his hand, then clambers up using them both. “These are good.” He says, ignoring Steve’s thrown up arms above him as he sees Bucky doing the reckless bouncing again. 

“Merci.” ("Thank you") The man says from behind him.

“For what?” Bucky asks, swearing at Steve with a finger behind Jackson’s still climbing back. Steve does it right back. 

Gabe turns to see what Steve’s gesturing at, snorts, and then Bucky has to duck the arm back down as Jackson spins mid-shout of “What the hell are you laughing at - get your ass moving, Private! This isn’t a joke!”

“Staying back with me. I know it is deliberate - you could be well up there if you’s were trying' like you're supposed to.”

“I’m skinny too.” He argues.

“Qui, you are - but you are still not trying.”

“They cut more slack if there’s two skinny fella’s behind.” Bucky tells him, “then they can’t blame it on our lack of perseverance.”

“Speak for yourself, mon ami. I have grit.” He teases, then adds more gratefully, “though I suppose you have it in a different way.” Bucky shrugs good-natured. “Who joined the Army first?” Dernier then asks, his accent curling round every word he says; Army becoming arm-hee. Bucky has always been pretty good at telling what people are saying with accents - but figures it’s not fair to make Jacques do all the work in their motley bilingual crew.

“Tu parles beaucoup, Jacques, tu le savais?”  (“You talk a lot, Jacques, did you know that?”)

“So did you, before.” Jacques replies in English. “Stay in one language, I am practicing today.” He fires right back. He has a point, seeing as yeah, when they met Bucky was darker than he was when he left Steve; but was still a motherfucking chatterbox.

He shrugs at him as an answer. “I’m talkin’ to you now, ain’t I? And Steve.” He says because it’s technically true - who was waiting at the draft office doors a day, and then again in two weeks, and then another week after that following Pearl Harbour? Steve, that’s who. “But I’ve been in it longer - five months before--you know where, overseas. Eight months of training before. Waste of time really, since they just shipped me out like whatever 'cause they needed the numbers.”

“Might not be a waste now--” Dernier comments, “you already know some-- a lot of this--”

“I know how to shoot, D. Not much else.” Bucky waves off, “but Steve first, technically.”

Dernier chuckles once, like this confirmed what he already believed. “He seems like the type, a man of action. But he is still learning, yes?”

Bucky glances up at the figure on the cliff, now joined by two others; one stood, one resting on a rock. He doesn’t want Dernier or any one of the others to doubt Steve. “He’ll pick it up.” He defends, “he’s quick in his head as well as the rest of him. Always has been.”

To his relief Dernier doesn’t argue. He seems to have already moved onto a different thread. “I did not intend to join any army but I was - as you Americans say ‘drafted’ -” he very carefully doesn’t say ‘like you’, which would be a sort-of-correct guess, but it’s there. He sighs, “my country did not act quick enough - thought too much of their border defenses, and then it was too late. So I took up fighting another way.” He continues, “I was already into my fire-tricks - knew my gunpower as a Démolition man.” He scratches his chin as Bucky gives him a hand up. “You know the national anthem of France? Maybe you do not. It’s called La Marseilles. You know what it tells about? Where it comes from?”

“Can’t say I do.” Bucky replies, who’d grown up around immigrants but none of them, to his knowledge, properly French aside from Colette - and they normally had much more bodily things on their minds. He can hum it a bit, but only because people tended to hum it at the Allies a lot in Italy.

“It talks - it is about freedom.” Dernier says, “from tyrants, any kind, but also from foreign invaders. It is called La Marseillaise because when the revolution was having - was happening - people from my city sang it so much.” He draws his canteen out and a small bag of nuts from his pack. After taking a gulp, passes it to Bucky with the last handful of nuts. Bucky takes them both gratefully; he’s so fucking hungry. “And so, “Dernier says when he returns the canteen, “when the le boshe - we call them that since the first war - marched into Paris I said to my wife: I know what I must do. Not again.”

Bucky listens carefully, knowing this is going somewhere but also infinitely interested too. He can’t imagine to know what he would do or how he feel if the bosche marched their way into Times Square or Central Park or even if they landed on the Manhattan shoreline. He lets the nuts sink to his stomach, imagining they're heated chestnuts at Christmas, which is soon. Dernier sounds like Steve; patriotic and determined and so assured in what’s right and wrong - Bucky used to be like that too. What Steve would have done if the Germans or the Japs had marched into Washington or home doesn’t bear even thinking about; so again, maybe they aren’t so different after all. Some things stick.

“I remember when the first war ends. Ended. I was seven years old. Almost eight. We had parties for days and days. I remember the cakes but I remember our flag flying most of all. It’s over, everyone says, it’s over. But I didn’t believe it - and then my father came home and I did.”

My pop didn’t come home from this war. I thought I wouldn’t either - he’d thought he’d leave his ma and sisters and Steve trapped in the uncertainty of his life-death - flesh turned to ash in an crematorium thousands and thousands of miles away.

“I am saying this because you were not born before the first war ended - you grew up free - until now. I understand what it feels like not to let the freedom settle even when you have it…”

“I said I don’t want to--”

Dernier holds up a hand as they crest the final verge - he can hear the boys catching their breath and Steve finishing dictating his times and descriptions. “I am just saying, mon ami, not making you talk; that my country may not be free yet, and we are not free of the war either - but we, ourselves, are freer than we were.”

He pats Bucky on the shoulder, “It is something to remember.”

. . .

They decide to test Steve's brain next.

It's something about altered brain chemistry or structure or something-something-something, Bucky discovers. He's not entirely sure - outside of making sure Steve didn't suffocate from lack of asthma powder or sweat his way to death from a fever the medical stuff has never been his thing. He knows how to check for a concussion, because that's one of the first things they learnt in Boxing, (and street fighting. So if that's what you two hooligans are going to keep getting up to, Sarah once said, then sit down and learn some more.) He knows how to treat bullet wounds now too; which essentially equates to throw sulphate powder on it and bandage it the hell up; and if you can, stitch it - but concussion wise that's all he knows about the head. Apparently the chemical make-up of the brain is thought to be nearly identical to the makeup of the peripheral nervous system - and seeing how all of Steve’s body chemistry has changed it’s not that much of a stretch that the stuff in his noggin’ has also changed.

“How the hell are they gonna test that?” Dugan asks in general one evening. Why the hell are you even letting them test you, Bucky thinks scornfully.

X-rays won’t work because it’s all soft tissue, and so that’s how he learns about this neurosurgery they do to get an image of the blood vessel structures, injecting filtered blasts of air into the brain with trephine holes drilled into the skull under local anaesthesia.

“It’s not usually a painful procedure.” The idiot taking the notes says when Bucky marches in and throws the proposed paperwork the man submitted at him in a fit. It’s the only time he approaches the guy. “He’d be back at base in a day from the hospital.”

“You know what that says there;” Bucky spits at him, jabbing a finger into the descriptions of the proposal - “risks. Haemorrhage, which I asked about - is bleeding inside his head, infection, dangerous changes in intercranial pressure. Drilling into his head. He’s not doing that.”

“You’re not doing it.” He says directly to Steve too.

“I know I’m not. I said no.” Steve says right off.

“You did?”

“Hell yes.” Steve says, glancing, green-tinged, at the crinkled paperwork Bucky has now thrown at his feet too. The boys who are around glance awkwardly between them. “Despite what you might think I do have limits, I have a line. I’m not letting them touch my head like that. Too much like…” He trails off. Bucky knows he’s thinking about lobotomies.

“Will they listen to you?” Bucky asks outright, ready to run with him and damn the consequences if he needs to.

Steve blinks at him, mind boggled. “What--yes Bucky, of course. They don’t do shit like that against your will. It was a stupid suggestion from lower in the ranks. Philips had already canned the whole idea outright when it was suggested - the second it was. I didn’t even need to say no. They’re not Hydra Bucky.”

He swallows, forcing himself to relax. “I know that.”

“Do you?” Steve asks, because he’s not doing a great job of convincing anybody yet.

. . .

For all that Steve is the owner of a medal of honour, Lieutenant Colonel Vaughan doesn’t restrain from pointing out Steve’s inexperience. In privacy of course, four days in. There’s several conversations about it in the days that follow, and he just happens to be in the right area to eavesdrop on this one.

Bucky‘s having some downtime to himself while the others are off boxing or smoking. He's in what he thinks is the old reception room of the estate, remolded in the Victorian style, which has the largest windows he’s found in the place so far. The training is brutal, inexplicably so, and they’re expected to practice or develop their fitness even when they’re not training; but Bucky’s not feeling it today. They’re all struggling, one way or another. He hears the two officers as they wander past his window in a stroll around the property.

“No offense meant, Captain, but while you’re in charge of this squad, you’re also the biggest liability. Morita’s got communications training - Falsworth’s a Major and already Airborne Trained, with command instruction under his belt - Dugan has seven years service - and Barnes already has a fair chunk of our curriculum in him from the training he never finished in the States. You, you have Basic.”

Steve sighs out in response, “That’s absolutely accurate, sir.”

Vaughan hums. He, at least, seems to approve of Steve’s honesty.

“We need to ensure you’re not one by the end of this. I won’t be responsible for your squad failing on it’s first mission because of your men slacking in training--”

“They won’t, and are not sir--”

“Or a bad call on your part in the field.”

“That’s…that’s fair.” This, Steve will allow.

“You’ll need, what I can’t call anything else other than a ‘crash course’. One on one.”

“That’d be….That’d be great, sir. I’m here for any advice you can give me - I’m here to listen and learn.”

“Good.” Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan replies promptly. “First bit if advice - pick a second. Someone to help you make calls if you struggle to find the right one. There’s only so much we can teach you here - and most of it’s practical. You’re a new unit, but it’s best if it’s someone you can trust.”

“I trust all of them.” Steve vehemently insists.

Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan seems less impressed by that.

“Any one more than the others?”

Steve only pauses for a moment, like he’s considering. “Sergeant Barnes.”

Through the corner of the curtain, Bucky see’s Vaughan nod contemplatively. “You’ve known each other since you were children, I understand?”

“Yes, sir. He’s never led me wrong.”

Bucky can’t help but close his eyes at that simple but assured statement, biting his lip until it twinges with pain.

“That kind of history can be a good quality in a squad’s second, but it also cannot be. One faulty suggestion that you follow, simply because it came from your friend, could be all it takes.”

“I wouldn’t just follow anything blindly, sir. I’d consider all the options available and judge appropriately.” Steve rebuts.

“Perhaps.” Vaughan says. “Do you trust Sergeant Barnes judgement at this current state in time?” 

They’ve walked past his vision, but Bucky hears them stop and Steve bristle up. He waits silently, for the answer.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Steve replies, respectful but hard. “I don’t understand what you’re suggesting.”

“You’re a smart man, Captain Rodgers. You might not have the experience, but you’ve got a good head on your shoulders - you know exactly what I’m suggesting. I’m high enough in Allied clearance to have yours and all your men’s files, even the French Resistance Fighter. The updated ones in fact, as of yesterday. I’ve read them. And right now, I can’t tell if Sergeant Barnes even recognizes the very same act he’s playing out for all of us here. Any state of ‘fatigue’ or shell--”

“He’s not fatigued. Or shell shocked.”

Bucky breathes in slowly. You tell them, Steve. I’m fine. I’m fine. To everyone else I’m fine. I can handle it. I can cope. I’m not going to fall apart on you, I promise.

“You might not believe so, or you might not want to admit it to yourself - Let me finish!” Vaughan instructs sharply, sounding as if he's put up a hand to stop Steve's interuption. “I’ll ask again. Do you trust his judgement one-hundred percent? Because I don’t. And only half of that is because of what I read.” 

“Sir--” Steve finally interrupts.

Vaughan interrupts him right back. “You asked me to be frank, Rodgers, and I am being.”

Bucky can physically imagine Steve calming himself down from the between-the-teeth sigh he hears through the open window. Though even to authority it seems Steve’s not all that great at hiding his contempt. Probably why he almost got arrested that one time.

“Then what do you suggest, sir?”

“Well, first. You’re choice for a second shouldn’t be personal, in my opinion, it’s best to keep these things professional. Now Barnes’ history on paper would be one of the best options, but, there are others.”

“Major Falsworth, you mean?” Steve goes to clarify. It makes sense, more than him certainly. Falsworth has the training, completed at that, and is of a higher rank than Steve already, if they’re being technical about it.

“That’s one option, he has the training.” Vaughan allows - ditto - “but unfortunately has proven otherwise on the field.”

“I’ve heard and seen the report he gave following the rescue.” Steve says, “I know his account of it and others who were there. I don’t judge or infer negatively for that--”

“You should. It was a tough situation, with a bad outcome, but he is accountable. So do consider it Captain, as I’ve told you to do with Sergeant Barnes. Another option again is Sergeant Dugan. Personality aside--” Bucky can’t help but almost snort at that, which would give himself away most likely. ”-- he shows promise. And he has the most experience out of anyone on your squad - double than most considering he served before the Americans joined the party on this front.”

“So Dugan is your suggestion.”

“Dugan is a suggestion. As is Falsworth. As is Barnes. None are the perfect choice and I can’t make that decision for you, only advise you----”

Bucky gets up, he doesn’t need to hear the rest of this conversation. He takes on last look at his big window, and goes to see if the cooks will give him something on the side he doesn’t have to cook over a fire himself between meals. He doubts it, but has to try.

Steve always seems to get double or triple the usual portion to account for his metabolism when they cook, and every day Bucky finds himself staring longingly at the plate.

He’s hungry all of the time now.

. . .

“So what else you got?” Gabe asks curiously. “Apart from the insane speed and strength?”

They’ve just come off watching Steve lift three four metre tree trunks in a row, when it took four of them to lift one easily, followed by clambering up and down the rope like a monkey on the assault course. Then he’d moved onto five tree trunks balanced atop one another, and then a motorbike, and then how many of the semi-commandos he could lift in one go. It turns out all of them; with ease, before he unceremoniously drops them all in a pile as penance for betting he couldn't. They bet him he can't climb the monkey rope with four of them on his back - which if it wasn't getting dark he would probably readily accept. They’ve been making bets and pot-shots on where his cut off point is going to be whilst marking down their own informal results that Command probably shouldn’t see. 'How many commandos can Captain America lift up to the third floor window of a brothel', is not one they’d probably approve of.

“Howard Stark might.” Steve had commented casually when Falsworth brought up that exact fact; and Bucky had sprayed his water down his front. He keeps forgetting that Steve’s in with the greatest inventor and engineer in their lifetime. Steve likes to laugh at his celebrity crush every time it’s brought up, but if you ask him its a perfectly acceptable celebrity crush.

In all honesty the latest competition went on a lot longer than they thought it would.

“Um, healing.” Steve says, sat stretched out and swallowing water from his canteen. Before this the SSR men were very carefully and very safely (apparently, not that Bucky believes it) testing how long he could go without water until the numbers of their results log started decreasing - so he’s catching up now on all the canteens he and the boys kept trying to throw him to get him to drink outside of eye-shot. He kept refusing, as he wanted the results to be accurate if they were going to do it, and he was fine; so therefore he just had to put up with constantly having to catch the canteens each man kept tossing to him.  “It’s not just the muscles and blood affected by the serum. That’s why they wanted to check the brain chemistry. One of the factors Erksine chose me…”

He clears his throat awkwardly, humble until the very end. Good becomes great, he’d said to Bucky, but Steve has always been great. He kinda wishes Erksine hadn’t seen it too sometimes; before; when it was just a Sarah Rodgers and Bucky Barnes secret were the good times. For him anyway, though he wonders more now if they were at all for Steve, and how oblivious he must have been to realize Steve would go this far to change things. Steve continues, “is cause he believed it would amplify personality traits too. So he wanted to make sure he had the right recipient. It's why he didn’t want to give it willy-nilly to any guy in the army. We don’t want another Red Skull, trust me.”

“And has it?”

"Has it what?"

"Amplified your personality traits."

Steve shrugs and says, “I’m not sure” at the same time Bucky says “yes.”

He’s polishing his shoes to get Vaughan of his back, so he only belatedly realizes Steve’s glanced over at him in surprise.

“Do you think so?” He asks, interested. “Peggy thought so a little, but she only knew me for a month and a half before.”

“You’re more annoying now, does that count?”

“Oh shove off,” Steve says, throwing his sweaty over-shirt at him. Bucky would ask if he was cold but it seems Steve’s never cold now, he’s always warm when Bucky brushes up against him. “I’m serious. Am I? Like; more than I was?”

“Sarge?” Morita prompts as he stops polishing to find the words to describe it.

He looks at Steve, “If I say to you: There’s a car coming, the driver’s drunk. It’s his fault. He got into the car off his face - doesn’t care what happens - and he’s going to crash. He’s not a solider, not in war; this is just normal life. He’s going to kill ten people when he does, but if you shoot him at the top of the road he’ll die and the car will stop before it hits the people at the bottom of the road. You’ll save ten people if you kill him. Gut feeling. Would you do it?”

“Absolutely not. Murder in that way is still murder.”

“Wouldn’t budge?”

“No.” Steve says, looking suspicious and wary, “not a chance.”

“See, before you’d still say no - you wouldn’t kill him, but you would shoot him somewhere non-lethal to distract him and find a way to change the course of the car. Or you'd throw yourself in front of him halfway down the hill and sacrifice yourself to slow it down. You’d figure a way out of the dilemma in a flash so you didn’t have to abide by it, even by gut feeling. There's always normally a but. You’re that stubborn that you won’t even follow pretend fictional rules let alone real ones.” 

Steve jerks back, frowning as he thinks about it. The moment of illumination is obvious as he realizes Bucky is right and that it's true - he wouldn't obey the rules. He wouldn't admit he's breaking them, but he wouldn't strictly follow them either.  He seems uncomfortably surprised he’s only just realized that none of those thoughts went through his head. 

“It’s like your morality code can’t see in shades of grey no more’. Just right and wrong - you’ve always been that way - it’s just a bit more obvious now, I guess. Don’t know how else to explain it.” Bucky says, then has to say, “stop with that face, will you? It’s only a little; you’re still you. It’s not a big deal.”

"Right okay," Steve says eventually, and turns to Gabe. "Guess that's a yes then."

. . .

Afterwards, with hindsight,  Bucky recognizes it probably is a really big deal to Steve to realize his entire method of thinking and ethics has changed without him being aware of it. Bucky’s so fucking stupid not to have discerned it before. It’s not a big deal? You stupid stupid imbecile. You utter fucking mook, what is wrong with you? He knows what it feels like to feel like you’ve lost yourself without even realizing you were loosing yourself; and Steve’s face after he pointed out the changes said it all. He was frowning, and chewing on the inside of his cheek; gone from “I’m not sure” to “I’m even more different than I first thought.”

Steve’s never wanted to stand out and be different, but he always has been - he’s only ever really wanted, or he did before, to fit in.

When is Bucky going to learn to shut his stupid mouth? Steve is going to fit in and be happy if it’s the last thing Bucky does goddammit.

. . .

“I think I may have screwed up.” He says to Steve at breakfast, dragging him over the side to repack their bags. Steve had said, ‘mine’s already packed’ so Bucky had turned it upside down so everything fell out. Steve hadn’t even had to energy to be angry at him, gave out more of a resigned, ‘really, you're such a fucking asshole.’

‘Is this a move to talk to me?’ He said after, beginning to repack it.

‘Yes,' Bucky had said, ignoring the fact that really he didn’t need to orchestrate 'a move' to talk to his best friend. ‘I think I may have screwed up.’

“When?” Steve says, “I don't see how. At training the other day, maybe, you were a little--”

“--No not about that, I don’t care about that--”

“--You should, you’re not even trying--”

“---I meant with us. With you.”

Steve shakes his head, bewildered. “What?” He breathes quietly, “what are you--”

“Yesterday. With the stupid - what I said. The personality thing.”

“You didn’t---you didn’t say anything wrong, Buck, just the thing you noticed--”

“No, I did, because it made you feel like shit. I didn’t mean it like - fuck I don’t know, but you weren’t supposed to take it like that. But I get why you are. It is a big deal - I’m sorry.”

“And what way have I taken it?” Steve says a little defensively, and then rolls his eyes at himself under his eyelids before Bucky even has to call him on it.

“What I should have said,” Bucky stresses, already kicking himself for not thinking this through before he started the goddamn conversation. “--was that yeah; you’re sticking to the rules more instead of going explicitly against them - but you’re still--you’re still you.”

“Just different. Different enough that you noticed so easily--”

“No that’s not--- Jesus, why is that words come so easily when I accidentally say something shitty to you, but when I’m trying to make you feel better all I can come up with is ‘you’re still you’. What kind of fucking line is that, Jesus Barnes.” He spits at himself, annoyed. “Why are you even friends with me?”

Steve’s chuckling into himself, trying not to laugh. There's a fondness in his eyes Bucky has only every really seen directed at him or his mother. “What kinda line is that?” He repeats, “The kinda line I’m used to from you, you emotional mook.” Steve says, nudging him playfully. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for…I’m, I’m glad you said it actually. Made me realize that…”

“That what?”

“It’s hard to explain -" Steve says, and to be fair to him, unlike Bucky; he opens his mouth and actually tries to explain what's happening to him. "Obviously I knew the serum had changed me, but...it’s like its a living thing inside my body and I thought that - you know, we were one in the same, working together to do stuff. And yeah, I admit, it freaked me out yesterday when you said what you said because you were so right - the second I started thinking about it I found like three ways of solving that dilemma so it wasn’t a dilemma. It freaked me out because for months I’ve been letting my gut feelings rule me, like I always have. To realize that the serum itself had overtaken my judgement without me even noticing is crazy because - it means all those decisions weren't actually me making them.”

“Well, sure they were. You can't disregard every choice you made 'cause of that. They still will have been your decisions, Steve.”

“Not really.” Steve disagrees. “The serums not working with me if it’s overtaking the way I think - it’s like a separate being.”

“Or not a--a being? It’s not a living thing Steve.” Bucky reassures, because god, that’s a scary thought.

“I told you it’s hard to explain.” He commiserates, smiling. “I know now so I can just--make sure that I don’t let it overtake me - once I’ve got that figured out I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Bucky says doubtfully, “but for the record - you’re still you.” He quotes his shitty line to make Steve smile again. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, and Bucky is glad to see it works. “And I’m still sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, pal.” He says nudging him again, “come on, you stop feeling sorry yourself and I will too, how about that?”

. . .

That night in the evening Bucky decides to join them in cards. A few of the other training recruits and Staff Sergeants join in, so it’s a good gang of them. So much so they need several packs of cards, which makes it both harder and easier. Steve’s flicking through his cards - seems to make a decision then pauses, and Bucky can see him making sure it’s him and not the serum dictating his hand.

Steve scratches at his leg with his left hand. Oh, Bucky thinks in amusement, so we’re making the executive moral decision to cheat are we?

Monty pauses ever so slightly, eyes catching it, and puts down a safe five instead of the three like Steve probably wants. Bucky raises an eyebrow at his friend from across the table, and Steve half smirks at him. Dugan swears downheartedly when Steve puts down his second string hand, coming out on top even when thwarted. Dugan folds. Morita and another Staff Sergeant too, getting ready to hand over their wares again. 

Bucky lays down his own hand, eyes never leaving Steve’s face. Steve’s smirk drops.

“You cheated.” He instantly accuses.

Bucky leans back in his chair. “Did I?” He asks nonchalantly, folding a card back up his sleeve. “Prove it.”

“I didn’t see anything untoward.” Falsworth immediately backs him up - to Bucky’s immense amusement. “But,” Falsworth adds, “I think you dropped something Captain.”

Steve turns automatically to make sure he hasn’t dropped a card.

Seeing nothing like him, Bucky says, “You must be seeing something, Monty, just like Steve is trying to pretend he has.” He pulls his winnings towards him. “It’s not nice to be a sore loser, Steve.”

If Steve were still skinny, he would have hit him by now.

He smacks him over the head on the way to bed instead.

“Jerk.”

“Get some better tells, asshole.”

.

Chapter Text

WARNING: There are mentions of period insults and slurs in this chapter. In no way do I condone any of them.

STEVE

When Steve put together his team in Surrey there was one thing he was worried about: Dugan and Morita. 

It’s the only reservation he has regarding the team - followed sort of by that all of them are going to need to become at the very least semi-fluent as quickly as possible in French to get by. Dugan, when he listens to the nightly radio reports, mentions the war in the Pacific often enough. He’s lived through Africa and Europe - but his pilot brother lived and died on Luzon, in the Philippines, killed when the Japanese annihilated nearly the entirety of US Air-Force there at the tail end of ‘41; one day after Pearl Harbour. He doesn’t bother wasting time lamenting his own treatment by Hydra but he does for his dead for near-two years brother. He talks about the Japs a lot. In the two weeks in England before they catch the bus Steve hears the terms Nip, Butterhead, Jank, Niponese and Cracker Jap. In no way are all of them said by him, but they have been said in conversations involving him.

Later he found out Bucky apparently had sparked himself out of the quiet rut he’d fallen into with a sharp shove and snapped word, intercepting and aborting an attempt of ‘Cheese Nip’ from someone else.

It’s a similar contempt people had for the Irish on Vinegar Hill at home. Steve remembers thinking of the way it could almost sometimes seem friendly in the markets - ‘the stupid mick there, he’s got the best fish in town!’ - though maybe everything just sounds shorter and sharper these days with the raised stakes. The fact that Bucky broke out of his self-imposed silence says a lot though. Like a lot of things - Steve knows that kind of attitude to people is not always one able to be won against, though god did he try at home, but now he can do other things - he thinks he can throw his two cents in at this too.
 
In Surrey he'd decided he was going to batter this issue out before they finished training, or better yet, before they started. He’d tried to talk to them separately, and to others. It was only semi-successful and Morita had told him to leave it. "Don't bother Cap," he'd said resignedly, but there was a spark of anger in his eyes. "Can't be helped - what goes around comes around though. Thanks for trying, all the same." 

“I’m not done trying.” He’d rebutted quite frankly. “It’s not gonna stand. Not in my unit, not anywhere.”

Bucky had snorted, sat as close to the heater in the Surrey barracks as he was able. He’d said, “and there you go. He’s not done trying. Sit back, put your feet up, Jim, and watch the master of reformist arguments work.”

He’d tried several approaches over four or five days - in the end it ends like this: two days into Scotland in the middle of a training exercise. 

“Squash this or I won’t take either of you out in the field.” He'd said.

His second and third grilling had worked; late at night when Dugan was several drinks in the night before they shipped out - and they’d settled it with Dugan cocking his fists like a prize fighter, the circus showman that he was as a teenager, with a: “Great. Put ‘em up, Jimbo.” And Morita had clocked him with a good one right as Steve said, “Not that way.”

“Great job Steve!” Bucky had yelled over the wind with a sarcastic thumbs up nearer the front as Steve broke up the fight. He has them broken up and a story ready when the Lieutenants fall back to see what's taking them so long; after already being delayed by Bucky and Jones who it seems has also been unwittingly roped into his pursuit to harmonize their team.

“You’ve got a hell of a backhand.” Dugan says casually that evening, in the here and now whilst in the shower block.

Steve listens outside on a stool sketching for once, one ear on the voices and sprinkling water in case he needs to step in. Bucky sits beside him, taking up the small table by taking apart the training rifle he’d been given, oiling it piece by piece before slotting it back together. It’s a Lee Enfield, Steve has learnt, but Bucky’s asked for a Springfield over a Johnson from the Army when they ship out; and has specially asked for a German scope. Apparently they are miles better than the "shit the US Army gives you, not even x2 magnification." Apparently he came across a German sniper once and liberated the scope off his rifle, a Zeiss scope, and it ‘changed the game’ the first time he adjusted it. Dugan had rolled his eyes when he heard it, obviously having heard that particular rant before. 

“I don’t have to like them to admit they manufacture better.” Bucky had said, and waved Steve off when he asked if he wanted a German or other-made rifle as well; a Mauser or Mosin Nagant for example. Bucky said no, because while they are good the Mosin Nagants can be a bit fiddly apparently, particular to the person and not to be shared within the unit in an emergency, and his training officer always used to say Springfields are better for longer range.

 His eyes are downcast, focused, as he murmurs faintly to himself. It sounds like he’s counting numbers first, then Steve realizes Bucky’s counting the beats of a song he recognizes vaguely but can’t name. He shades in the shadow the rifle makes against the table. Listening to the rest of what Jim and Dum Dum are saying he realizes how much keener his hearing has gotten; normally lost in the cacophony of audience cheers or the beat of ‘Star Spangled Man’ from behind him. He realizes he can overhear more than people would believe - which will come in handy in the field.

“You got your fair amount of hits in too.” Morita replies.

Dum Dum grunts, “Still, you’ve got some speed in you.”

“Fairs fair. I had a lot to hit you over.”

Steve firms his feet on the ground ready to stand. Dugan laughs then says suddenly, groaning as the hot water cascades down his bruised side. “We good?”

“Yeah three-pint Charlie Chaplin, we can be. You?”

There’s a wet slap as Dugan must pat his shoulder, “You’re alright with me. Sorry man, for the shit.”

Steve blinks, is that it? His next plan involved a copious amount of two player poker, or locking them in a room together, the smaller the better. Morita heads out the bathroom block, spying them. “Were you waiting out here like a mama bear, Captain?” He asks with a little amusement.

“Convenient place to draw.” He excuses mildly.

“Yeah, sure.”

“That sounded amicable…” he dares to comment.

Jim hums, “we’ll see if there’s another comment but it seems so. Thanks Cap,” he says seriously, “means a lot that you made a point to---you know. And Screw you Barnes.” He adds with mock affect.

“I expect my shoes shined and my extra pair of socks by evening meal Jim. Don’t make bets with the master.”

“Yeah yeah, you’ll have them, you jerk.” Morita fires out, rolling his eyes; then walks off with his towel over one shoulder.

Steve gives Bucky a dull look, “You seriously bet on if they would kiss and make-up?”

“Technically they were never made up to begin with,” Bucky comments lightly, “and if it makes you feel any better my bet was based on your success.”

“My success on what?”

“Your quest as the master of liberal caroling. Congratulations. You won.”

Steve smiles, smug and victorious. “I did, didn’t I?”

“I’d say don’t let it go to your head but your head’s too big enough already to squeeze it in.”

“Least I’ve got a brain to begin with - shame you're fighting with a skull as empty as a gamblers wallet.”

Bucky huffs with laughter, and starts murmuring a beat again. Steve goes back to his drawing, ignoring Dugan’s “goddam lurkers” as he passes them.

“Steve.” Bucky says.

“Yeah?”

“Stop drawing me.”

“Good luck getting that to happen.” Steve answers as a no, tilting his head as he shades over dirty knuckles to get the right level of oil shine on skin and metal. “What, you only like me drawing you draped on a podium like a dramatic courtesan now?”

“It’d be more interesting than that.”

“I’ll judge that for myself seeing as it’s my sketchbook. Not every drawing of you can involve your nipples and copious amounts of cloth.”

“In my defence the drapery was Bertie’s idea.”

“The Renaissance pose was yours I recall.”

“I was giving you a muse for a drawing of great majesty. To make you famous. Me cleaning a gun is hardly at the same standard as that piece of genius.”

“Didn’t you hear? I’m already famous.”

“Oh god forbid, I forgot.”

“Do you want my autograph?”

“Will you sign my ass?”

“Not right now I won’t.”

“Then no.”

. . .

Dugan doesn’t make any more comments, not even close - it’s like a whole new book is turned instead of a single page, and suddenly the two of them are getting on like a house on fire.

On Sunday morning, the only late morning start they have before hand-to-hand combat Bucky wakes up to Steve’s signature scrawled on his forehead in ink.

“You motherfucker.” He curses, running to the bathroom block with a bar of soap.

. . .

A full week in, there’s less card games and more early nights. The closest they get to comfortable sleep is on the ground in a tent or hut, often times rotating round to share with each person, and exercises are conducted using live ammunition and explosives to make training as realistic as possible; with cross country runs and boxing matches to improve fitness nearly every morning. Training, rain or shine; continued by day and dark night with river crossings, mountain climbing, weapons training, unarmed combat, map reading and small boat operations often with little warning. They cooked and semi-hunted their own food some days to ensure they could survive without ration-packs, no matter how exhausted they are after the days work, and often times have to spend an hour before lights out cleaning all the mud off their uniforms everyday to be ready for a sparkling salute at parade in the morning.

Compared to Basic and the physical condition he was in then compared to his peak now, this training is miles easier, even with the alternative conditions they put to his own training - it’s a piece of cake - but it’s wearing the others down heartily. None of them were at their peak condition when they started, most of them underweight - Dernier and Bucky almost alarmingly so, but they’re stubbornly holding out to their credit. They’re putting weight on now, and gaining muscle back - but they’re exhausted for it. Both of their cheeks are fuller than they were last week to Steve’s immense relief, and he’s only caught Bucky throwing up once - but his friend looks less well rested by the day - no matter how early he turns in before the rest of them.

There’s more than exhaustion to Bucky’s early nights and lingering groves of silence though; a kind of paranoia he hasn’t seen from him before exists now. He’s seen him upset and panicked in the past; when Steve’s been so sick it looked like it was time to call the priest, or that time when he accidentally left the front door open and two year old Jenna took herself off to explore the neighbourhood - but it’s not the same. There’s a different kind of look in his eyes, bright and distrusting, and he stays at the back when the SSR men give their reports. He’s likes his things in their place, and keeps his pack close - whether it’s nerves they’ll take it off him or the idea they’d root through his stuff Steve doesn’t know - but he’s noticed enough to know not to touch.

He doesn’t think the SSR data records on his serum have helped, only made it worse in fact. He’s paranoid for Steve now instead of himself no matter how many times Steve tells him he gave consent, or that what they’re recording will do no real damage - or any damage to him at all. It’s not anything like, or even close to what he suspects happened to Bucky, but that doesn’t seem to matter to his friend. 

Steve heard him mumbling and calling out in his sleep the other night through the canvas, and last night too. Shouts of “stop”, “please”, “hot hot it’s hot,” and the worse one he’s heard so far is the aborted shout of “papa!” right before the shadow of Bucky through the canvas shot upright into wakefulness. 

“Buck…?” Steve had called, who himself was still up reading by firelight; and already having been on his way to wake him. He’d pulled open the canvas flap lightly, so not to wake Gabe sleeping beside him as Bucky caught his breath. “You okay?”

Bucky had jolted, surprised; then nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. Go back to sleep.” He’d said quickly, and turned back on his side before Steve could say another word. Head-wise, he seemed to be doing better at the other camp. Since the debrief, he’s worse again.

He’s not sure how to bring it up, if he should at all. Bucky has made it mighty clear from the first night here - and even before then that he didn’t want to discuss what had happened. And Steve has tried to respect that but he can also recognize that his friend is steadily pulling away from him and pushing Dugan and Falsworth in his place.

There’s been several suggestions of, “Falsworth would be a good shout for that. He’d have some good advice for you in that situation.”

And, “You know, Dugan once had to take over command of a secondary squad after their NCO was killed, and orchestrated a sliding assault down a sand dune, and in the same breath recovered three of theirs and took two prisoners. You should ask him about it, it was a thing of beauty apparently. He’s great when it comes to something like that with his experience. You know he was in Tunisia before Italy?”

And while Bucky talks and interacts with him like they’re back home most days, he doesn’t touch him with the easy familiarity he used to either. 

(Some days he doesn’t do either, just forces himself through freezing cold water with a look on his face like he can’t even feel the chill, and pulls the other men out of the river bed in silence.)

Bucky’s always been rather tactile, swinging him in under his shoulder as they walked, teasing punches, dumping his feet in Steve’s face when he was bored and wanted his attention; and he’s not anymore. He’s compressed and controlled, and tightly held together. Logically, he knows it’s probably his friend trying to deal with whatever horrific experience he went through, but also, it could be him. He’s so different now, in body and thoughts. So much so that Bucky picked up on it like he had X-Ray vision; and while Steve is glad he’s no longer living in obliviousness to the chemical take-over of his personality - it’s still a very perturbing feeling. 

. . .

“Hey Cap?” Dugan queries in the shower block under the sound of pattering water and the slap of soap on skin. He makes his way from one shower station to the one next to Steve over the slippery tile.

“Yeah?” He asks, glancing at the naked man beside him as he quickly and efficiently scrubs the three day mud from his hair. Dugan’s washing his body off, and his hair and neck are still caked in the sludgy mud they’re all still wearing; but his moustache itself is surprisingly clean. He’s stood awkwardly, right leg stretched out away from the water, thigh wrapped in plastic to keep the bullet graze from getting wet. His leg is the first casualty of their live ammunition drills; and Steve had heard the sluice and splat as it tore though the skin when it happened next to him. Steve should have moved faster. The man takes a break from the scrubbing of his underarms to look at Steve - unselfconscious of his body. Dugan’s been in the Army seven years; and likely hasn’t showered alone for that same amount of time either.

“Gotta’ ask something man, it’s been bothering me since last week. I overheard you and your resident mother hen behind me on Friday.” He says, “Did you seriously let them test what would cut you and what wouldn’t?”

Steve stares at him for a moment. Eventually he replies, “Why are you asking me that? Did Bucky put you up to it?”

“Bucky,” Dugan says with emphasis, “is barely speaking to me right now, so no. I’m asking for me cause I want to know the truth. You never actually answered.”

Steve sighs, looking away and scrubbing at a particular spot on his forearm.

“Geez, Rodgers.” Dugan murmurs before he can actually say anything. “Really? How many--”

“It was one night. For one hour. And it was nothing, as I’ve told him - like Waters said most of them didn’t break the skin unless real force was used. Even then, they weren’t deep. No scars.”

“That’s not the point man.”

“It needed to be tested,” Steve defends, “Waters asked and I agreed. No one did anything wrong. I said yes.”

“I think that’s where the problem lies - or where Barnes’ - and mine, does. How many times are you gonna’ keep saying yes?”

“It was one session.”

“Yeah, now. But if they ask again you’ve already done it once - so that’s that… and it doesn’t matter if you heal, man. I know you said no to that other thing before finding out Philips had canned the whole thing already, and you said you had a line the other day - but, if you ask my opinion, you might want to move the line.”

Steve can feel the defensiveness rising, but really, he hadn’t answered the question properly then or after because though he did say yes - there was something inherently uncomfortable standing there while someone tried to cut lines down his arm. They gave him anaesthesia, a large enough dose to work to numb the whole area so it didn’t hurt, not even a bit - but the action of it didn’t settle as easy as volunteering for Erksine’s trial did. It was different, this was more clinical- but it needed to be tested if they were ever going to work out how to replicate the serum again.

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Alright,” he allows, “if you say so - I’m not gonna doubt it. I’m just saying; and you can ignore me if you want; I won’t take offence but - they might have got you this body Cap, but they didn’t get you over here in the here and now. You did that. You did it by being a swell guy and coming for all of us. You don’t owe them shit.”

“I owe them a little.” Steve says. He reminds himself that yes, it was him who made the decision to come for the prisoners; not the serum. He always tries to remember to check himself now. He’s getting better. “But I hear you. I told them it was a one off and I meant it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Serious - straight up.”

“Good man.” Dugan says, nodding in relief, “it might be good to say no in public though.” He adds after, thinking face on. “So everyone knows they’re abiding by it like they’re supposed to.”

“Why would I need to do that -” Steve says, eyebrow raised, “for your own peace of mind?”

“Not just mine - more; it might keep Barnes from being any more paranoid than he already is, is what I mean.”

“You think he’s paranoid?” Steve asks, feeling an uncomfortable twinge at the direction this has taken - but noting that he’s not the only one who’s noticed.

“He trusts us.” Dugan says, “but he doesn’t trust them - the administration at least. We don’t want him cracking--”

There’s a vague thud as someone drops a bar of soap - and when they turn Falsworth’s in the doorway with a deer in headlights look on his face. Somebody else disappears back through the doorway before the pair of them can get a glimpse.

Dugan winces, “Don’t tell me that was--”

“’Fraid so, mate.” Falsworth grimaces, leaning down to pick up the soap by his foot.

“Do you--”

“Think he heard you calling him paranoid behind his back? I’m gonna go with, yeah. Good luck getting back in his good books now, man.”

“Ah fuck,” Dugan curses, “and today was a good day and all.”

. . .

“What you heard earlier - Dugan didn’t mean--”

“Oh, you talk for Dugan now, do you?” Bucky bites back when Steve finds him first, after warning Dugan to give him space. It takes a total of one minute and one second from seeing him for Steve to break his own advice.

“No, of course not.” Steve says, as Bucky, still covered in a fair bit of mud ties his larger pack back up; but slings a smaller one with his rations over his shoulder. Steve frowns as he see’s it - he’s not - he’s not leaving is he? “We weren’t even talking about you for most of--”

“Until you were.”

“For one second - it was an off-hand comment and not meant in that way. He was more telling me off for all the tests that have been going on - I thought you’d support that with how you’ve been.”

“How I’ve been?” Bucky asks, insulted and incredulous.

“No wait,” Steve winces, “that’s not what I meant, that came out wrong.”

“I know what you meant.” Bucky replies, standing from where he’s crouched, “and I know what he meant. I’m not gonna’ insult myself or you by pretending otherwise. And maybe I would support that if he wasn’t talking about me cracking up behind my back.”

“He didn’t mean it badly--”

“Right.” Bucky says, “same way he didn’t mean--” He bites his lip, shaking his head to wave off what was just about to come from them. Didn’t mean what? Steve is about to ask, wondering if this is where the weird tension between the two has come from - something that happened before this? He hasn’t been imagining that either. “How about we call you paranoid” he snaps instead, “and see how you take it?”

“Okay fair - I deserved that one.” He says, because that’s what Bucky wants to hear, and he did a little. They really didn’t mean it the way Bucky’s taking it though, they’re just worried, the both of them - and it was a really really bad choice of words. “Do you wanna just sit down and - where are you going?”

“For a walk. Alone.”

“Bucky, hang on!” He calls, twisting a hand in the strap of the bag. Without a sound Bucky drops it of his shoulder, twists and shoves one hand on Steve’s solar plexus. It’s not hard, but it’s enough to get Steve to loosen and drop the grip. 

“Don’t touch my stuff!” He snaps, “I’m going for a walk - I’ll shower later before Jackson comes to wake us up a three am to climb something. See you later.”

“Can we just talk about this? Or the stupid tests and data or - or anything you want to talk about.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m mad at you right now.” He turns to say, “and I want some space.”

“You always do this!” Steve suddenly exclaims. “You can’t just run away when things get hard.”

Bucky laughs. “Watch me.” Then he says, “Call me whatever you want, if that’s what you’re gonna do now, I can’t stop you - just like I can’t stop you from being an absolute airhead letting them do shit to you.”

“I’m not being an airhead,” Steve argues, “I’m just trying to do what’s right, and if letting them test what they want to test; under my consent and as long as I’m willing, is right - then that’s what I’m gonna do. And I’m not gonna apologize for that.”

“That doesn’t surprise me!” Bucky turns to shout, still walking across the field away from the huts with Steve following him. “You never apologize for anything. You know what you also used to never to do?” He challenges, “Talk about me behind my back.”

Steve falters to a halt. While Bucky’s face is clear and his tone is even, the hurt is obvious in the words chosen. 

“And as for letting them test what they want to test,” Bucky raises one hand up and lowers it, like he’s going to point or shake it at Steve for emphasis, then changes his mind. “Who are you and what have you done with the guy who used tell people to go suck it when then told him what to do, huh? Guess things change.”

“Yeah…” He says, when Bucky’s walked off and out of hearing distance. “I guess they do.”

. . .

He’s got the rest of his life to ask himself that question. Who is he without the serum? Who is he with it now?

. . .

What else is even more perturbing than the serum hijackings is the unidentifiable - but not good - looks Bucky graces him with when he thinks he’s not looking to go along with the lack of familiar touching. He keeps making his brain push the logical facts: he’s dealing with a lot, back off, this isn’t about you - but the looks are to him and him alone. After a while it can’t help but feel a little personal and it’s hurtful, even if Bucky doesn’t mean it.

This started after they saw each other, after the serum, when their relationship quite literally flipped itself on it’s head. You’re still you, Bucky has said more than once, but Steve’s not entirely sure if he believes his own words. Bucky has only ever known him as the friend unable to match the same limits as him, and now Steve can easily surpass him. Maybe that was the whole reason Bucky latched onto him for so long without realizing it; to make himself feel like a good person; helping the poor sick Irish kid who’d die young; the dark part of his mind thinks, and now that Bucky doesn’t need to offer his assistance anymore he’s done with him. It’s a thought he’s had before when he was young and insecure, and one he hasn’t let himself think about for a long time, and it’s not fair to Bucky who has stuck by him for so long…but it comes unbidden. Maybe he’s all mixed up with the mental stress he’s operating under; while trying to make sure the SSR doesn’t take advantage of Steve that it’s coming out all convoluted, and really he’s trying to let Steve down gently?

. . .

They’re going up in and out of a plane soon, which Steve has done once in a moment of desperate daring and the others have never done bar Monty - who finds it almost second-nature.

Morita is shitting it. Monty, the resident paratrooper, is gloating. This is not something that surprises Steve. The others are excited or nervous or resigned or simply too tired for it. Bucky seems a combination of the last two. Energies, attitudes and moods are high otherwise.

He didn’t leave, he didn’t abandon Steve and the boys; he just took a walk for an evening to cool off. No one had minded, and he was back before; as he rightly predicted; Jackson woke them up at three am with a surprise roll-call. He’d returned after dinner, when it was dull and dark; and Steve had spied him coming with his pack over one shoulder before disappearing into the shower block to finally wash the mud off him. There was slightly more mud caked on his trousers than before - operating on a perch in his future role as a sniper for a chunk of the last days-long exercise - he’d been the cleanest of all of them. He’d been gone for a while, so he’d likely, at some point, sat down somewhere to think.

Dugan went to rise after five minutes, but Gabe put a hand on his leg and murmured to him to leave it.

“You weren’t there, man.” Dugan said then.

“I wasn’t.” He agreed, “but I heard the argument after.” He'd glanced at Steve, then away again when he realized Steve had noticed. ”Leave it - you know how he is, he just needs to cool off.”

“He hasn’t been cooled off with me for weeks.” 

“I know. But just leave it. Now’s not the time - especially not cornering him in the shower. Just think man.”

Dugan sighed unhappily, and scooted closer to Jones. “I need to start thinking before I speak, that’s what I need to do.” If Steve’s hearing wasn’t as good as it was he’d have missed it when when the man said next, “I don’t like him being pissed at me.”  I know the feeling, Steve remembers thinking. “I don’t like anyone being pissed at me. I liked it better when we were the three amigos.”

I liked it better when we were the two amigos. What happened to us?

“We’re the seven amigos now.” Jones had replied, patting his leg; and simply said louder, “You eaten?” when a shadow fell over Steve’s back. Steve had restrained a jerk of surprise, having not heard him approach - when did Bucky learn to move so quietly? - before turning to glance at him as he dropped to the ground in clean clothes, clean shaven and with his teeth brushed.

“Yeah,” Bucky’d said, “ate while I walked.”

“Nice man, less cooking for Dernier then.”

“Why do you think I ate?” Bucky had quipped easily, shoulders slack and easy like nothing had happened; then easily dodged Dernier’s swat. His bag had been between his legs, but his grasp on it was less protective than usual.

“We good?” Steve had asked hopefully.

Bucky glanced at him, “Give me your chocolate bar tomorrow and we’ll see.” He’d said, which was a tentative yes.

It’s been a few days, and Bucky has cooled off and is acting as normal as he does now; mood like swings and roundabouts. He’s good with Steve, maybe even more than good; there’s certainly been a change, though he’s still quiet and detached from Dugan. Even so, it’s as though the misunderstanding and argument has unveiled conclusions for the both of them.

. . .

There’s no denying that Bucky latched onto Steve when they met, for whatever unknown reasoning the ten year old had, and there’s no denying that Steve latched on right back; his first and only friend for a long time. Bucky was the first child his age to ever be interested in him; yes him, not some bizarre curiosity of the kid always made to stay out of schoolyard games. There’s no denying Steve tried to push Bucky away after his ma died, and predicting it, Bucky had said “no way, no how, pal. I’m with you ‘till the end of the line” and had forced himself further into Steve’s life in a way Steve hadn’t realized he’d needed. Then Steve had latched onto him, the only thing he had left without his mother, and that had been the way ever since - Bucky only allowing Steve to wallow in his grief long enough to be healthy, and then chasing him about before he overdid himself too much; always better liked and an easier fit with the rest of the world.

He’s not anymore, but Steve apparently is. There’s not much to latch them together anymore, so maybe Steve needs to create something to keep them together.

. . .

Peggy inexplicably appears at breakfast the next morning among the huts carrying dry toast and a cup of tea in a metal tin. Steve almost guffaws and chokes on his bitter coffee - Morita snorts next to him.

“Subtle, Cap.”

“Good morning.” Peggy greets.

The chorus of ma’ms all round the circle are almost in-sync, but tired. They’re only a little more comfortable around her now. Bucky catches her eye out of respect, then turns his face back down to his bowl. His stomach growls as he finishes his thick stogy oatmeal. Morita and Dernier had looked positively sick at the sight of it and stuck to a small breakfast of dried fruit bars and biscuits, and saved the rest of their ration for later. 

“Don’t know what I’m going to be able to keep down 1300 ft in the air.” Morita admits.

“It’s not that bad.” Falsworth tries to reassure.

“You would say that.”

“It’s really not.” Steve adds on.

Peggy jumps in, “Try to make yourself laugh before you jump. It helps if you’re nervous." She then quotes, "‘Laughing in the face of fear will make fear run away in embarrassment.’”

Dugan chokes on a sausage. “You’ve been up before?”

She glances at Steve, “I’ve been out too, in German and Soviet airspace. Today’s jump will be almost relaxing considering.” Steve smiles into his spoon as Morita starts up again.

“I know you all think your helping, but you’re really not--”

“Like I said, try laughing. It’s only two miles up in the sky, and your only falling 5,000 feet every forty seconds; so get in the game, Corporal.” Peggy comments again, sitting back in her seat and sipping her tea innocently. “All you’ve got to do is pull a cord.”

“---And land within half a mile’s range.” Falsworth adds unhelpfully.

“---And not flatten yourself as a pancake by pulling too late.”

“---And look positively suave as you do it.” Bucky adds on.

Morita barks out an undignified laugh, “I’ve got to jump first.”

“We could always push you.”

“You. You are not coming anywhere near me Dum Dum Dugan!”

“Guess you’ll have to keep both eyes open then.”

“I swear to god--”

It goes back and forth for a while. Those two, since their rocky start, are now one of the closest pairs, bickering and chewing each other out like they’ve known each other since birth. It’s quite entertaining now the double-act has been declared. A young private in the staff walks into their area with a familiar canvas bag and everyone quietens because he’s the one who brings the mail.

Dugan, Jones, Bucky and Peggy (inexplicably, considering she must have only just turned up last night) receive them. She tucks hers away privately while Jones and Dugan rip theirs apart at the table. Jones has been getting letters from a sweetheart back home, whose letters have all been diverted to here and picked up significantly since his long silence while in Austria. Good for him, Steve thinks, while Dugan reads out extracts of his elderly mother cursing him silly for worrying her. Again.

Bucky makes himself scarce with his two letters, disappearing through the door and up the stairs of the bathroom block.

“He does know we go up in the air in twenty minutes, right?” Falsworth counters at his back.

“He’ll be there.” Steve replies quietly, and pats Dernier on the back in sympathy at the continued lack of letters from his wife; trapped in their own country somewhere.

He says in French, that Steve’s been picking up steadily now since the first night. “She’s safe. I’d know it in my bones if she wasn’t. My little flower too.”

“Tu as une fille?” (“You have a daughter?”) Peggy asks.

“Oui. Amélie. Elle aura deux ans en février.” (“Yes. Amélie. She will be two years in February.”) Dernier replies proudly and pulls a simple drawing he slaved over from memory of a chubby cheeked baby girl from the pocket over his heart. It’s only in pencil, and the shadings only half there - but the man had done his best, and Dugan has admitted he can see Dernier’s eyes in the girls face. He’d lost the photograph his wife sent him when he was captured seven months ago, which had already been nearly a year old by then. He’s never met his daughter, but told Steve he almost felt the very moment she was born miles and miles away, and has loved her from the moment of his wife’s first morning sickness.

“She sounds amazing.” Steve had replied.

“Elle l’est.” (“She is.”)

Steve had wondered sometimes in the days following if his ma had loved his sickly self as much as Dernier loves the daughter he’s never set eyes on, and feels awfully stupid, because of course she did.

He smiles at Peggy, confidence in speaking to her growing familiar. “How are you?”

. . . 

Peggy goes up in the plane with them, dressed in loose trousers and a responsible jacket - her hair tied back. Bucky arrives on time before Lieutenant Jackson, as Steve said he would. After receiving their parachutes and told to hustle on the plane, Morita cursing and shaking, Bucky taps him on the shoulder between Jackson’s instructions.

“Your love-bird sent you a letter in mine. I put it under your bed roll.”

“My--what?” Steve splutters, as Peggy subtly tries not to look like she’s listening.

“The future Mrs Becca Rodgers.”

“Oh my god,” Steve rolls his eyes, not needing to make himself cover Bucky’s insinuations with this particular subject of conversation. “Shut up. Just because your sister likes me more than you doesn’t mean I’m going to marry her.”

“Tell that to the three pages she wrote you to my two. Gods knows how she fit it in the envelope.”

“She has a fella’.” Steve reminds him.

“Says you.”

“Says her too, undoubtedly in her letter. What is she writing me three pages for?”

Bucky shrugs, buckling in. “How should I know, it’s your letter.”

“You mean you didn’t read it?”

“It’s illegal to read other people’s mail, Steve.” Bucky replies lightly.

“That’s never stopped you before.”

“Maybe I was too scared at what I’d find if I did. I don’t need to know your dirty secrets.”

Steve rolls his eyes again, “You’re a dramatic baby, you know that?”

“I’m not the one shacking up with a little girl.”

“She’s twenty. And I’m not shacking up with your sister. You know it and I know it, so knock it off.” Bucky cants his shoulders, giving up the game finally. “I’ll read it when I get back. Who was your other letter from?” He asks quietly, glancing at Lieutenant Jackson. He’s still sorting out his own seatbelt.

“What?”

“You’re other letter. You got two.”

“Oh. From ma.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “You’re writing your ma, now?” He blurts out before he can stop himself. “Since when?”

“Since I wanted to.” His friend rebuts snappily, giving him a withering look. “She’s my ma. Why wouldn’t I write her?”

Good point, Steve thinks, for anyone who isn’t aware of the mess that is the older Barnes family. Bucky, Becca and his mother haven’t seen eye to eye for years. It’s been like that for so long it’s a little disconcerting for that to have suddenly changed….except that Bucky almost died. Is it so strange for him to miss his ma like Steve misses his own?

“No. Right.” He answers, stumbling over his words as the plane starts down the runway. He carries on quickly before the noise gets too loud. “It’s just--”

“Some arguments just aren’t worth the effort anymore.” Bucky finishes, and Steve feels more than see’s that there’s more to the statement than that.

 He looks away and nods. He ventures, “How is she?”

“Okay. Worried.” Bucky answers after a while, once his ears have popped. “She misses me, and Becca. Pop’ too.”

Steve inwardly winces, imagining how that last note would have struck, but from Bucky’s face seems to have hit nowhere near as harshly as it once would have. Maybe forgiveness really is in the cards…there was a time (with Bucky and Becca) where he thought that was never going to happen. Bucky glances at him out of the corner of his eye, probably anticipating the reaction to the reaction.

“And how did that feel?” He can’t help but ask.

“Weird…but--nice, I guess. I mean, they were married for twenty-seven years so…”

She also spent the last ten years of that marriage committing adultery in front of you, and then made you keep her secrets. He thinks about Dernier’s love for his daughter, and then about the way Buck’s ma spent hours teaching him and all her children piano from before they could first read. He remembers the way she almost swung for Mrs O’Reilly after the woman made a comment about the length of Becca’s dress in the butchers shop. Despite her digressions and sometimes (definite) bad choices; that woman has always loved her children; brightly and fiercely - the way she does everything.

“...I’ve thought about her a lot, since I shipped out.” Bucky admits, “Like most guys do I imagine. And Becca’s never gonna’ get over herself and travel the ten miles to go see her, so one of us has to be the bigger person.”

Maybe this is the moment to….?

“She didn’t apologize this time though, that was different. She always normally tries to apologize or something every time I see her - I was kinda’ glad, honestly. We have other things to talk abou--”

“Right boys!” Jackson yells from the front.

Dammit, Steve thinks.

“Out your seats, off your arses and in the sky. Get moving!”

. . .

Morita jumps, as do the rest of them - or more like - looses his footing and falls out the gap when Dugan moves closer too fast for his liking. They all pass the first jump and land within half-a-mile radius - even Morita, who scraps in seven meters away from the boundary. Monty only looks a little smug at landing on the first ring of the target they were supposed to be aiming for. Steve hits the fourth ring, after ever so slightly misjudging the maths in terms of his body weight vs. Travel speed, and opened his parachute a little early. Peggy hits the third, utterly comfortable; Bucky the fourth too on the other side. He’s scored on the sixth however (still admirable on his first try) after the wind catches his chute and he looses his footing, skidding in the dirt and cursing.

After all reconvening and being told, what, where and how they all went ever so slightly wrong, they pack away their chutes the way they were taught. They’re told the next time they’ll be timed, then given three folded maps, split into teams and told to find they’re way back to the estate in under four hours.

The maps are identical, except each one has a different starting mark in relation to the landing field, a two mile marked path to separate them, and reconvening mark in the middle of the forest at the intersecting over-flooded river.

Each team is to act as a solo unit; the others the enemy - up until the river, at which point; ‘if’ they arrive within the same breadth they’re to join up - undoubtedly right on time for some sort of ambush. If one team arrives long before the others, it’s their choice whether to wait and risk missing the time-stamp or to continue on as a smaller, more vulnerable (but also more covert) unit without them. If they happen to encounter each other on their free-for-all march before the river - then it’s like their live-drills; so act accordingly.

Steve doesn’t particularly like the idea of shooting at his own men; but understands the teaching, of that and moving unseen. If they are seen and tagged, then they’re out.

He ends up on one of the teams of two, with Jones; while Dugan has Falsworth; and Morita has Bucky and Dernier. There’s several interesting choices in the chosen teams, and who’s assigned overall command of each. It’s obviously one of Vaughan’s designs, pitting them against each other; joining up two of Steve’s choices for seconds’ and flipping the traditional command structure round. He wonders what Vaughan’s looking for.

Dugan starts grinning gleefully and mockingly in Steve’s direction when Jones is assigned to him, because apparently, while the man can speak multiple languages, he can’t read a map to save his life. Dugan meanwhile has been hunting practically his whole life, Dernier has successfully maneuvered through enemy territory under cover countless times with ‘no maps’ when he was with the Resistance - while Steve, Bucky and Morita (before he was trained as a Ranger), before this war had rarely left the city.

They won’t be alone either - they’re following other teams of recruits on the same assignment an hour earlier, while the third batch of recruits will be loading up on the plane probably right at this very moment. It’ll be interesting; that’s for sure - even if it is, but also isn’t, a competition.

As soon as they hit the starting mark Jones immediately hands over the map to Steve, who takes it, but makes a point of trying to get Jones to at least try and suggest their first path, and tries to explain where he’s gotten mixed up when he looses his place. They’re supposed to be learning after-all.

Four miles in, when they’ve left the designated path and started working their way in, Steve stops Jones with a hand to the chest. They back up against a tree - as Steve and now Jones hear the winter leaves cracking beneath someone’s boots just ahead of them. It’s not any of their commandos, but a group of four recruits from the first plane - moving quietly, but not completely silently. Two of them have their heads together looking at their map and accompanying compass - obviously having gotten turned around somewhere.

Steve ducks down, motions for Jones to go round and slides his new shield from his back. They have guns loaded with non-lethal rounds (for once), but the point is stealth. Besides, he’s been practicing - and this shield of unfamiliar metal has wicked balance and wicked bounce.

He twists round the tree and flings it at them. It strikes the tree above their heads on the curved edge and rebounds onto the next, clanging and vibrating down in their direction. They duck, suitably startled and suitably distracted, raise their guns; but Jones comes from nowhere and catches them from behind. Steve gets them from the side.

After they’re unarmed, and one knocked out, Jones and he tag them with red paint - and move on, choosing not to take them prisoner.

They encounter another group, tag them too, after which they slow and take a break. The last hour and a half they’ve been moving at Steve’s unrelenting pace - and he remembers once again that not everyone travels at his speed, and unless he wants to loose Jones he needs to cool off. 

It’s still strange, to be so easily ahead of someone when he used to struggle behind them.

There’s three planes worth of recruits on the ground now; the other units larger than theirs too, when  they spot the third group from the third plane - five men who must be moving stubbornly fast considering, but not quietly. They’re jogging, and making incredible time but one of the metal clips from their parachutes is hanging out of one of the men’s kit - and it’s clanging against the zip with every bounce.

Steve raises an eyebrow at Jones, cants his head and starts to un-sling his shield again. He’s actually kind of enjoying this assignment, hadn’t even needed Jones on the second group. 

Forgetting for a moment that Jones is there, and maybe a little over confident, he gets ready to take this running group single-handed too. It’s not like it’d be hard.

Jones grabs his arm at the last moment and drags him down to a crouch sharply. Steve doesn’t loose his footing but a twig snaps beneath his boot, and the two of them hide behind a mount of dirt. The clanging stops for a moment as the group turn in their direction, looking. Steve twists to look at Jones in almost angry disbelief.

Jones shakes his head, finger on his lips and points just behind Steve’s back between a fallen log and another mound of overturned dirt.

Steve tenses, eyes widening. The jogging men are already a target - there’s a fourth group which Steve didn’t see.

They’re crawling along the ground unseen on their elbows, lining up their shots and position. Okay, so now they either have two targets - or they can turn off this path and let them deal with each other.

He and Jones are the smallest group, and so technically the most convert. The best decision would be to move forward without risking themselves while the fourth are distracted - but they also have Steve.

It’s not much of an issue to take them both, even though they don’t need to.

Steve’s tempted anyway. Jones can tell he is.

“We should move on Cap, keep going to the river.”

 Steve pulls a face.

“We don’t need to take out every unit in the forest. The goal is to make the time-stamp, and get past the river - over the bridge or under it. The mission is to make the time-stamp,” Jones repeats, whispering, the metal hook clangs again as the man twists. The fourth team are closer. “There was no mention that we needed to engage.”

We could though. He could.

And these men are going to be tagged anyway with how much noise they were making, and the other team; well they were there, and Steve was here. 

It wouldn’t even be hard, his head whispers again.

“You go East and around, see if there’s a free path down to this stream. If I’m right; it’ll take us to the connection of the main river, right by the bridge.” He whispers back to Jones, wiping away dry twigs next to him so Jones can move without making a sound.

“What about you?”

Steve looks at the fourth group on their elbows, and listens with his left, formally bad ear, as the third group’s commander notions for them to continue.

“Cap--” Jones starts to warn.

“Go around.” He whispers again, not a suggestion this time - and does his thing.

He doesn’t use the shield as a distraction. Instead he uses it to slice right through a branch above the fourth group as he runs for the third.

Jones swears behind him. The men on their elbows also do, and one gun discharges when a man sharply pulls back as the branch falls right in front of him. He catches the shield as it rebounds, leaping, and shoves against the recruits from the third group. He watches his strength and dials down his hits, but apart from the accidental discharge, he works in near silence.

He turns to the fourth group who have just recovered.

A almost quiet crack echoes across the forest.

A bullet spears against his shield; and pings off sharply. He doesn't feel the impact through the metal but knows what just - shit shit shit - what?

Crack. He twists sharply and the second shot misses, ducks to try to get cover - there isn't any - where the hell is that coming from, where's the muzzle flash? The fourth group is up. He dodges a third - crack - he's out in open space - free pickings. One thought goes through his head: run. For the first time in his life: he does. He takes off in the direction he sent Jones, following the faint sound of running water. He hears a very faint splash as Jones verges the small river bed and then he's with him again; ducked down and invisible. He holds up a hand but the man is already silent; and they stay stationary for a moment; listening to cracks of gunfire and the fighting. Several there have just been tagged, that he knows for sure. He nearly was - shit, he's not the one who's supposed to get tagged - he's supposed to be better--

"We need to move on." He says to Jones, "get out of the area before more are drawn in - get to the bridge." They stay silent and solitary for the next hour; and Steve - he knows he screwed up - he knows. When they reach the precarious rope bridge from below it where they followed the connecting river; it's suspiciously quiet - but Steve knows there's a trap waiting somewhere. The ground and river bank is too turned up otherwise and in the shallower gentler areas of water there's bullet shells mixed in with the river stones.

"Should we carry on?" Jones requests.

"No - lets," he checks his watch, chest still feeling hollow, "lets wait ten minutes, just in case."

They wait ten minutes - and at nine Morita's group appears; so they call it and join up just with them - and hightail it across the river under Steve's orders; dodging, manoeuvring and fighting as the Achnberry home troops fire at them; and shells explode ; sending up sprays and sprays of water to blind them. Dernier is knocked off the bridge; and Steve tries to catch him, but before he can the guy's swinging off the bottom like a monkey and ends up under better cover than the rest of them. When they finish they're the third group - group one is from the very first plane, group two is Dugan and Falsworth; the former grinning at them in success. All the main training officers are there, including Vaughan, including Peggy - along with over a dozen tagged men - clothes smeared in red paint. They move out onto the next exercise. There's no red paint on Steve - but there should be.

. . .

Today was the first training exercise since the serum he’s inadvertently failed; he knows it, Jones knows it and probably Vaughan knows it; he seems to know everything in this estate. He made the time-stamp, made the right choice in waiting for half his team, and made it over the rushing river while live ammunition flew over his head but he still failed.

In Basic, he started and for the most part finished on his own. Any man that wasn’t put off by his size or prejudgement Steve put off himself with his narrow-eyed focus on his strategy books, evening recovery, and pure stubbornness. Through every simulation, every exercise he climbed and ran and very narrowly accomplished he did on his own back because if he was going to struggle he would struggle on his own. He’d do it alone so no one could claim credit for the accomplishment but him.

He’s not struggling anymore, but obviously, some part of him is still going it alone.

Just because he can - doesn’t mean he should, and he doesn't know where today that he lost that. Or maybe he does - high off adrenaline and arrogance that comes with changes to all of him.

Dugan and Falsworth facilitated each others advantages and made great time, while Bucky’s team worked and kept themselves together the entire way; and were commended for what Jackson and the other Lieutenants witnessed - which is more than he can say for himself. He botched it, plain and simple.

He supposes at least it happened here, and not on the front lines. It doesn’t make him feel that much better, but it’s something. He’s obviously not as ready as he thought he was. He apologizes to Jones for his recklessness - and promises he sees where the fault was (and is) and that it won’t happen again. He’s not exactly sure how the man takes it considering as far as he and the rest of them are concerned they passed, so he supposes it doesn’t matter but…

Even after, the upset must still be on his face when he excuses himself from dinner. Bucky follows him into his hut, plopping down.

“Okay, spill.”

Steve returns the letter Bucky stashed under his bedroll back to it’s place. “It’s nothing.” He waves off.

“Oh yeah? That mug on you is saying otherwise.” Steve looks at him flatly. Bucky continues, “The last time I saw that look on your face was the second time you came home with a 4F after lyin’ on your forms and tried to stay quiet about it. The time before was when you almost got yourself arrested at one of those wacko protests you used to go to--”

“They’re not--wacko protests--” Steve argues immediately. “You should know that too, considering you’re one of the working class, you mook.”

“Okay fine. Whatever.” Bucky holds his hands up. He’s been in a particularly talkative mood compared to this morning when Peggy first showed up. He thinks it might be to do with his ma’s letter. “My point is, you only have this,” he waves at Steve’s entire face, “on when you’ve done something you shouldn’t and know it or are mighty disappointed in yourself. So spill.”

“You haven’t spilled.” He grumbles peevishly under his breath, quiet enough that Bucky can’t hear him. His friend clears his throat at the non-committal reply.

“It’s nothing.” Steve repeats, “just a bad day, I guess.”

Bucky leans back on his hands - he hasn’t bothered to take his wool cap off after finishing, so it’s half ridden over his mussed hair. His friend seems to decide to wait him out. Steve doesn’t particularly feel like budging right now - but at the same time could appreciate some advice, maybe, but that would mean admitting to his absolute lunacy today which is never something he likes to do.

“This isn’t about the bullets pinging off your shield in the woods today is it?”

Steve’s head snaps up. Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“How do you---” Steve cuts himself off, realization dawning. “It was you. Wasn’t it?”

Then indignation burns.

“You shot me?!”

“I shot at your bulletproof shield, technically.”

Steve blusters, “No technically about it-- you shot at me!”

“You were being dumb and you exposed yourself for no reason, and were going to get properly tagged by another group if someone didn’t curb your stupidity before you got too ahead of yourself. Besides, they were dummy rounds - even if I had hit you, which I didn’t, you would have been fine.”

They stare at each other for a long time. Steve’s the first to look away.

“It really was stupid, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Bucky agrees. “Mostly it was unnecessary. You were the smaller unit, you were actually on your feet and weren’t making an absolute racket like that other group. You could have easily snuck around them and continued with them none-the-wiser. Made better time too.”

“I know.” Steve admits. “I knew then. That’s exactly what I sent Jones to do.”

“I know.” Bucky repeats his words, “I saw that too.”

“But I didn’t. I split us up so I could take out both teams on my own because I could. I just, for a moment, it didn’t matter whether I should only that I could. And then my pal who I didn’t see at all shot clean at me. If that had been real, and it hadn’t been you, I’d be dead.”

“You dodged the second and the third.” Bucky makes note of. “You’re fast. Really fast.”

Steve shakes his head, huffing. “That doesn’t make me feel any better Buck.”

He starts picking at the edges of his sleeves the same way he used to in school when he was called on and didn’t know the answer because he’d been off sick when everyone else learnt it. He always used to feel so dumb then too, because everyone would know the stupid, easy answer but him. Bucky, from his desk, used to turn around and try and mouth the answers at him; but he was only ever as good at lip-reading as his hearing was to begin with.

“I was up on that hill for three or four minutes before you under cover,” Bucky says, “that team on their hands and knees had been following us for two miles before we managed to loose them. So we made a fake track while we went round the side and changed route. They were already on my radar and then so were those clanking blusterers. I saw them and heard the others well before they got close - you know who I didn’t see or hear?”

Steve looks up at him.

“You. I had no idea you were there until I caught the corner of the shield round the side of a tree - only because the sun happened to catch it and only because you were a moment away from throwing it.

I had no clue you were anywhere in that area, and we’d switched and circled all over there by then. Not until the branch snapped when Jones pulled you down. And even then, if I hadn’t seen the shield a millisecond before I wouldn’t have known then either. The two other groups didn’t clock you, did they? I moved round in the end to get a glimpse of you to be sure…”

“No.” Steve mumbles, but it’s a stubbornly insecure no he hates himself a little for.

“You’re good, Steve.” Bucky says. “You were really good.”

“Until I broke cover.”

“Until you broke cover.” Bucky concedes, “It happened once, and it lasted a total of forty-five seconds, and from the face you’ve had on you ever since I’d say you’ve learnt your lesson, wouldn’t you?”

Steve sighs, “It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not.” Steve snaps. “I knew the best choice was not to engage - Gabe was telling me exactly that too. I knew it, Buck, but I didn’t listen. It wasn’t even like it was a gut feeling, it was just…I don’t even know what happened." He rubs a hand against his head, shaking it and looking down. "What if…what if something like that happens again?”

“What? You not listening to your head? That’s hardly new.”

Steve glares at him; this is not the time for jokes.

“Sorry.” Bucky repents immediately. “Okay...so you had a little trouble with impulse control today, whether it was the serum or not it doesn’t matter, and I’m guessing here; that you were feeling a little invincible after all the stunts you’ve been pulling for the last month.”

“Yeah.” Steve allows. “Maybe…”

“That means yes.” His friend counters instantly. “The thing is you know that now, so you can regulate it.”

“What if I can’t? What if I’m not--I’m not ready to lead this unit?”

“You are.”

“But how do you know that?” Steve stresses.

“Because you knew what the right call was already, you said it yourself. You’ve just got to learn to listen to yourself and not those big burly muscles…Steve.” Bucky calls, stilling his hands on his sleeves when Steve won’t look at him. “You’re ready. Trust me, I should know. You’ve been bossing me around for close to fifteen years.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but there’s little effort in it. “I have not.”

Bucky grins at him until he gives him a small smile back. Bucky’s smile dims and he licks his lips. “You’re ready Steve,” he repeats, “but…don’t take this the wrong way, but you need to start trusting the guys. You’re not on your own anymore.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? Really?” Bucky counters right back, “Because this isn’t a new thing. You’ve always fought like you’re a one-man-army Steve, even when you’ve been getting punched in the face while I’ve been right next to you. You’re---you’re probably only just noticing now people have stopped hitting you back. You fight like…”

Bucky trails off, either unable to find the words or not wanting to voice them out of fear of Steve’s reaction.

“Like what?” Steve prompts gently. “Like what, Buck? What were you gonna’ say?”

Bucky sighs through his nose. “You fight like no one’s going to be there to have your back, and when they are, you’re pissed at them for tryin' to help. Like they’re deliberately only doing it to make you feel like you can’t, or to get something from you in return later. You’d rather not give them the option at all, so you isolate yourself or send them off so you can do it alone.”

Steve takes that in. That’s exactly what he did to Gabe today, and when he thinks about it, has done to Bucky too - countless times.

“And you could and would do it before, no one’s saying that you couldn’t (maybe not you, Steve thinks), but now you…now you’re like this and more confident; you know you don’t need them - and maybe you don’t anymore…” Bucky trails off, looking away. Steve frowns at that. His friend continues, “But that doesn’t mean they’re--we’re not there. We’ve got your back Steve, but we also have to feel like you’ve got ours when it comes down to it. You’ve got to start working as a team. We’re a commando unit, not ‘Steve Rodgers and those other guys’. You can’t isolate yourself from that too.”

Steve nods, “We’re a team. Not a one-man army.” He repeats Bucky this time.

His friend clicks at him, grinning again.

“Exactly. See? Now will you cheer up?” He says, and promptly punches Steve in the arm. “Your girl is here - you think she wants to see you looking like a depressed horse. You gotta’ be careful, she might think it’s her.”

Steve laughs quietly, “I hardly think she car--”

“She cares.” Bucky interrupts. “If you can’t see that then maybe Erksine’s serum didn’t fix your eyes like you all thought it did. Go.”

Steve rolls his eyes and stands to go. “Don’t read my mail.” He can’t help but admonish as he tucks the corner of Becca’s letter all the way under his pillow. He adds, “And Buck?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” He says, really meaning it. “Even if you sometimes think you can’t find the words, you still always know what to say.”

Bucky smiles at him and shrugs, like the philosophy comes as naturally as breathing. 

(As Steve leaves the tent, suitably shaken out of his mood, he doesn’t see Bucky’s smile drop, or realize how long he stays sat in Steve’s tent alone.)

. . .

It broke the law; but the rescue of the war prisoners from Krausberg was the ‘right’ thing to do - so he did it.

There wasn’t a shade of grey in at decision, but Steve made it; not the serum. He knows that because while it was a gut decision - it was definitely him - and how does he know that? Because he didn’t do it for the greater good. He wasn’t going to leave those men there but the gut decision to go wasn’t for those men. It was for Bucky. It was selfish and self-centred and insane but most of all that decision was unequivocally his.

It’s not a decision he has to doubt, and even if it was the serum responsible - he wouldn’t care.

Who is he without the serum? The more appropriate question: who is he without his best friend? He doesn’t know, but he does know he’s a better man with him that without him and it’s an insult to the both of them to think otherwise.

Who is he without the serum, he asks himself again. He’s the guy who stormed a base alone just to bring his best friend home. That’s who.

. . .

He squints through the scope at the target, frowning, finger cramped, on his second hour of shooting in their recreational time. 

“Pulling the trigger,” he says, “is almost like a prayer sometimes. Feels like that.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, “Of course it is to you. It’s not supposed to be a prayer - it’s supposed to be certainty your going to hit your target.”

Steve gasps, mock offended. “Are you saying I’m not good?” Because he’s alright, and knows he’s alright - and he’s been getting better since Bucky walked past his spot when they were shooting from their feet a few days ago, kicked his feet wider; and jabbed a hand into his back to correct his posture whilst on his way to his own spot. Jackson was right by afterwards and corrected the rest of his hold on the actual rifle so he’d have a more steady shot - and there was a lot less corrections and advice than there would have been. He hadn’t even realized he’d been stood wrong. He found it strange for a second, when without hesitation Jackson began physically manoeuvring his elbow and body. The training Sergeants in Basic had never really bothered, focusing on the more bodily abled soldiers, with not much belief in him outside of screaming “Rodgers!” every time he was left behind. 

Peggy herself was the only one who actually made a point of teaching him something and it’s through her that he learned how to properly do a sit up and how to reload a sidearm after he’d been skipped over on the instruction. Her hand had corrected the level of his shoulders too - pressing into the muscles until they were even on both sides when they were rifle-shooting over sand bags and said: “Exhale when you pull the trigger. The more tense you are the more likely the shot will go wide.”

“No.” Bucky says in return, “I’m just saying, unlike the rest of you the serum ain’t got you shootin’ any straighter. That’s just on you.”

Steve scrunches his face, not sure what to make of that comment - should he be offended? He’s not everything the serum made him - he’s not only capable because of it, he thinks, stomach clenching in hurt.

“That’s not what I meant.” Bucky says airily with exasperation.

“What?”

“You know what.” Bucky replies, both eyebrows raised like he can see right through him. “Go again.”

His friend steps back as Steve resettles against the cheek guard, Bucky covering his ears sans ear muffs, having come across Steve on his way back from the shower block. His hairs still damp, stuck floppy to his forehead. It’ll dry fluffy, Steve knows. He takes another shot - it’s better again this time.

Bucky nods, considering, looking at the long range target and then the shorter range sheets in a pile perched on a hay pile next to him. The holes are a closer collection around the bullseye. He comments, not unkindly. “Better. But you may be one of those that has to rely on luck with the longer shots.”

“Good thing I’m lucky then.” Steve calls, firing out another. He’s always relied on luck - and in terms of injuries fighting-wise it hasn’t turned on him yet. Sickness wise not so much - but he can’t get sick anymore so he’s got a Hail Mary there now. He suddenly decides for some reason…”And I don’t have to rely on luck - I’ll rely on you.”

“Ha ha.” Bucky says modestly, “that’s real nice of you to say - that doesn’t mean you can stop practising though. Go again.”

. . .

The next morning after an evening of talking to Peggy Steve’s watching the tail end of a boxing match between Jones and Morita following their unarmed combat instruction in the rain. They’re indoors now at least, and this is supposedly an hour of recreational time, but the commandos are still being observed by Jackson and Vaughan this time. This morning, for the first real time Steve thinks, Vaughan is eyeing Bucky with approval as he expertly but obliviously unwraps his knuckles. His friend has just come off six wins in a row in the ring, the last with a knockout punch thirty seconds in, and he outshone everyone in this morning’s instruction.

According to his file from Wisconsin, which Steve has now read, he excelled in close quarters combat and long range weaponry then too. He still has dark circles under his eyes, but over the last week has perked up a little in attitude and competency in training. The officers have noticed, to Steve’s immense pride, and are finally taking him seriously. After their talk, Steve doesn’t think there should even be another option for a second. Who better to back him up than the guy who apparently knows him better than himself?

Peggy appears from behind him, and asks to speak to him privately.

“What’s going on?” He asks, once she has closed the door of the office they’ve given her to work in.

She tells him to sit, and goes round her desk. After unlocking the drawer and pulling out a manila file stamped as a copy, she perches on the front of the desk and hands it to him.

“This is confidential, and isn’t to leave this room…but I thought you’d like to know.” 

What is this, he’s about to ask, as aside from the stamp the folder is blank on the front. 

Before he can she informs: “His blood work. It came back inconclusive.”

Steve’s hand tenses over the file, looks up then down before he opens it. There’s photos of a shirtless Bucky in nothing but his briefs staring at him, dated seventeen days ago. His body’s bruised and thin, stomach still a little sunken, collarbone evident, with a thick scar marred down his stomach. There’s spots here and there that look like healing burns, worse than the cigarette ones he already knew about that Bucky insisted he'd treat himself after Steve arrived with a bottle of iodine the day after they landed in Surrey.

“Inconclusive?” He echoes, flicking through them. There’s only one photo where Bucky’s looking at the camera, in all the others he’s looking away or to the side; and to Steve looking overwhelmingly upset.

He turns them picture-down on the desk, having seen enough of the lingering brown and blue bruises on his bare thighs, elbows and side. He doesn’t need to look any closer so instead focuses on the paperwork and tables of results. He’s seen a similar layout from his own blood work.

“He’s AB positive, and iron deficient, but otherwise is perfectly ordinary.” Peggy says, then points at a number halfway down the table. “There was a small flare up here, but not a large enough one to merit hospitalization.”

“That’s the venereal disease section.”

“Yes, Steve. But can be treated with a Prophytatic Pocket.”

Steve blinks, a little embarrassed for Bucky, but mostly…inwardly confused.

“That’s it though? Nothi--”

“We ran every test - and compared them to yours and Erksine’s notes. None of the numbers are close. Like I said--”

“Perfectly ordinary.” Steve interrupts, repeating her words, feeling something unravel in his chest. Because here’s the evidence - he was wrong. Despite ‘Zola’s’ (he thinks of the name in disgust) best efforts, he hasn’t replicated the serum. It would have shown up in the blood.

Steve hasn’t felt relief like this since Bucky first recognized him.

.

Chapter Text

WARNING: There is mention of one period-typical homophobic slur in this chapter. In no way do I condone language such as this. 

. . .

BUCKY

He finds he likes reading his ma’s letter.

Over and over again he reads it, normally in the very early mornings when the sun lights up the canvas of his hut and the others are sleeping, or have already been roused, and it brings him a level of peace he wouldn’t have found otherwise.

It’s not like she says anything particularly profound in her letter to resonate with him so but he’s read it so often now he can recite every word by heart. He doesn’t need to read it to hear her words, but he also likes looking at the swirl of her cursive.

It’s rough and ready - like her, having only really learnt to write in her twenties when he did - and her G’s always look like J’s and B’s and P’s for someone who hasn’t spent his entire life distinguishing them on sheet music when he used to play off letters instead of notes. And when he couldn’t; he used to play the notes in sequence after one another to figure it out. Her Treble Clefs always used to look like dollar signs too, and when he asked her why she used to blag and say she drew them like that because all music revolves around the Treble Clef the same way the world does around money. His ma has always been one for metaphorical double meanings and the very thought of it is enough to send a wave of something through him.

He decides in his next letter he's going to find some way to trick her into drawing a Clef for him. He’ll figure it out when he figures out the words he wants to write back - which he still hasn’t got a complete grasp on now.

There’s a lot.

“Buck? You awake?”

He lifts his head up, and tucks the letter back safe.

“Yeah. I’m up. Be there in a minute.” He calls through the closed flap and at the hovering shadow. Steve’s been giving him strange looks for the last few days - not particularly bad looks - but - strange. He thought at first it was from him perking up properly - finally, the rest are probably thinking - since last week when he finally managed to ditch the paranoid weight hovering over him. Or after their talk, like maybe he’s finally realized Bucky’s not as oblivious to his old ‘skinny’ feelings as he once thought - but he doesn’t think it’s that either.

The guys are shooting the shit as per usual, and Morita’s trying to convince Dugan to give him a back rub to loosen the aching knots in his shoulders. It’s not going well.

“Oh come on. It’s not hurting yeh’, no one’s gonna’ say anything. It’s a back rub, not a fag’s rub.” Morita says, trying to look convincing.

Bucky’s hand tightens exponentially on the spoon as he dollops porridge in his bowl. Steve’s trying not to pull a face - he likes that word even less than the word fairy - having been called both over the years.

“Out of the two of us I’m the one who needs it the most.” Dugan says, then sees him emerge. “Jimmy-boy!---”

“It’s Bucky.” He argues to pointless avail. At least he’s not calling him James.

“--Now you’re up, how would you like to--”

“No.”

“Well, why not?”

“Because you have knots onto knots on-top of knots, I’d never finish if I started. Plus, I’d rather not get any closer to the source of the smell I’m already getting a whiff of over here. And because, generally, no.”

“Les noeuds construisent le caractère” Dernier adds on and those that can fully understand - Steve, Jones and Bucky - chuckle.

“---What did he just---”

“Knots build character.” Jones translates for those that are a little slower in learning the language of their companion.

“Oh fuck off, Frenchie. Would you want to--”

“Non. Not e’ chance.”

Steve finishes scraping off the last of his oatmeal and subtly motions to a tin can of extra powered milk he’s commandeered and is hiding behind his foot for Bucky from the rest of them; knowing he can’t take his coffee bitter and dark. Bucky grins at him and quickly dumps the extra share in his steaming cup until it turns a lighter, and more satisfyingly milky shade before the others notice.

 “No sugar m’ afraid.” Steve says out of the side of his mouth, “That’s as close to sweet as I can get for your sweet-tooth, Sweet Stuff.”

Bucky snorts quietly at the teasing. It’s been a running joke for four years, and a favourite of Steve’s after he heard his old gal’ Dot call him it, foxy and saucy-like, as she slyly poured a fourth sugar in his diner coffee. After they’d called it quits, and their double-diner-dates turned into platonic Steve-and-Bucky diner-dates, Steve would greet him at the table with a handful of sugar packets straight to the face and a “Mornin’ Sweet Stuff.” He found it so funny he started doing it at home too when they’d moved in together, and once arrived back with the groceries while Bucky was stretched out on the couch after work, asked “Good day, Sweet Stuff?” and threw a full 5lb bag of sugar at his head. Bucky was ready the next time, and ducked. Three days later, as payback for foiling a perfectly good throw, Steve poured half a bag over him when he was asleep in bed in an ridiculous - but funny - waste of perfectly good sugar, and couldn’t even get his snappy one-liner out because he was laughing so much. 

His father had sighed with a combination of absolute resignation and frustrated disappointment when he’d shown up to Sunday service, cheek blue, eye swollen, eyebrow bruised, and gone: “I thought we were giving the fighting a rest outside the ring, you little hooligan? Who the hell have you hit now?”

“No one.” He’d grumbled moodily, arms crossed while Steve practically shook beside him.

“I notice you’re not black and blue for once, Steve. Normally you’re at least slightly involved.” His father had added suspiciously, noticing the laughter.

Steve had schooled his face as best he could. “Oh I wasn’t involved in this one.” He said to Bucky’s sarcastic scoff. “It was wasn’t a long fight, sir. The opponent was a little on the sugary sweet side, and Buck gave in pretty quickly. It was almost tooth-rotting.”

Bucky had shoved Steve into a pew, which hadn’t gotten him a nice look from the priest or anyone else who took the church service seriously.

“Good. Might save me a black eye and itchy underpants then.” He throws out.

Steve laughs, grinning back at him. 

Bucky claps to their entire commando unit, “So, what’s the plan for today?”

. . .

They’re rock climbing - or more like cliff scaling - so heaving themselves up a ninety degree rockface again today. They’ve got all the fancy mountaineering footwork down, and the stamina - so now just have to improve their speed. No one’s come close to Steve’s pace yet; who clambers over things at the same speed he used to loose his temper - so lightening quick. If this were the Olympics and not war he’s be drowning in gold - no silver or bronze in sight. They only have about four days left in their training, and then some kind of final test - some kind of practice beach landing. They’ll be live ammunition there too, of course.

Steve hangs back, and then hangs him back whilst the rest of the men walk up the hill past the faux trenches dug into the ground to fall in at the front of the castle.

“What?” He asks.

Steve glances at the others stomping ahead of them until he judges they’re far enough.

“This is for you.” He answers, and hands Bucky a brown packet with black words printed on the front. It’s a little crinkled at the corners, just bigger than his hand and twice as deep. It has a list of the contents on the front and is labeled from the U.S Pat Office. It’s item number 9118000 and was printed in Chicago.

Bucky takes it in his hand, utterly confused.

“Okay….this is a prophylactic packet. Why are you giving me a prophylactic packet?”

“Um.” Steve mutters, “well…”

“Well what?”

Steve looks at the men halfway up the hill again, then at Bucky’s forehead instead of his eyes awkwardly. “We got your blood work back from - well, you know.”

Steve avoids saying ‘physical’ or ‘interview’ or ‘debrief’. Probably for his sake when he abruptly looks away at the thought, heart suddenly pounding. ‘Physical’, ‘interview’, ‘debrief’ - Bucky would more call it ‘interrogation or ‘the time the Allies betrayed him with a camera, two vials but five needles.’

He feels like all of his joints have had concrete poured over them and have been locked into place - ramrod straight, and he wipes his suddenly sweaty hands on his cargo pants. Here it is. Here it is - he’s not going to let them take---

“It was clear.”

Bucky’s eyes jerk up with his neck, and something twinges where the muscle meets the vein running up the side of it.

Steve’s still looking awkward, but there’s also happy relief in his eyes if not in his embarrassed body. “All clear,” he repeats, “of everything in terms of chemicals and serum anyway.”

Bucky nods, letting out a quiet calming breath. “Right…yeah. Good. That’s good. Really good, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, no it’s great - it means we were worried for nothing - Hydra hasn’t created or adapted their own working serum. That would have been--”

“Bad. Really bad.” Bucky finishes dumbly for him, face straight.

Steve huffs his agreement at the simple, childish, but ultimately correct assessment with much more silent insight than Bucky, who compared to Steve is still rather ignorant on the whole matter. “But like I said, your blood was clear - no markers like the ones that turn up in my blood - or other suggested ones in Doctor Erksine’s old notes--”

“So we’re good. It’s over.” Bucky cuts him off, starting up the hill so they aren’t late; but also to finish the conversation quickly. And we never have to talk about this again.

“Urgh yeah - wait, Buck--”

Six steps in he remembers the packet he still has in his hand. He stops again right before Steve catches his shoulder to stop him.

“Wait…that doesn’t explain why you’ve given me--”

“Your blood was clear of any kind of serum markers and that, but um--” Steve looks very awkward again, “well - it did show - that - well - it showed that -- you have gonnarhea.”

Steve fires the words out so fast Bucky has to blink a couple of times to make sure he’s heard him right.

“I have gonnarhea.” He repeats, almost flatly.

“Um yes. But with medical developments and that--”

“I have gonnarhea.” He says again.

Steve huffs and glances at the men up the hill; there’s not a chance any of them can hear a whisper of their words from here. He very much looks like he wants to finish this conversation like Bucky did earlier. He probably shouldn’t have started it then. “Yes…You probably caught it--no never mind, I don’t want to know where you might have caught it, that’s your business, but with medical developments this year you don’t need to be hospitalized or quarantined or anything. Just--follow the instructions on the packet and you know--it’ll get rid--you’ll be in the all clear completely.”

Bucky blinks again at the jumble of words with a thought that any other time he’d probably be laughing at Steve’s obvious embarrassment - and it’s not even him who has it. You’d need to have sex to have it for one - so Steve’s the one who’s all clear on that front - or, he thinks, be directly injected with it by a neurotic psychopathic doctor deep in Nazi territory. Though that's not what this is. He looks down at the packet and turns it over in his hands. He hasn’t done anything of the sort since he came back from Austria, or even really since he shipped out, except….

“You can keep it in your kit, it’s pretty small so shouldn’t be a problem.” Steve continues, “and you don’t have to worry about your record or file or anything official. It hasn’t been reported to the brass or in any official consenus, the only people who know are Agent Carter, me, you and the higher ups in the SSR. And they don’t - or won’t care about that - just about the missing blood markers. The packet is just between us.”

“Right.” Bucky replies, frowning as he reads the small print on the back. Right. This kind of thing could get a solider struck off, dishonorably discharged or penalized at the very least - it had only been on all the military posters and entrance packs since he first joined up. He remembers the ‘CAREFUL, YOU DON’T KNOW WHO HAS IT’, ‘HE PICKED UP MORE THAN JUST A GIRL’ and ‘JUST ANOTHER CLAPTRAP’ posters plastered on the inside of their barracks in Basic, and in the leaflets advising them to stay away from “easy women”.

His training officer once said that the second biggest enemy to the American, or any, army after the Germans was syphilis; which took 18,000 servicemen a day off the fighting fronts in the First Great War. Any men in hospital that weren’t suffering from gunshot wounds or missing appendages probably had something venereal - and that was something that would forever be marked on your record. Bucky’s face does go a little pink.

“Thanks. I guess…I’ll…follow the instructions.”

Steve nods sharply with a just as sharp a smile and starts up the hillside. “Good. Great. Come on, we’ve got climbing to do.”

Bucky stares at his quickly retreating back for a moment, almost amused, as his friend practically runs from the conversation they just finished. He looks at the packet again and tucks it subtly in an inner pocket of his kit bag, then slings the bag back on his shoulders and follows the others.

No markers. No chemicals. No serum that sticks; not in the blood they tested anyway.

. . .

Bad crowds growing up came in both boys and girls and when Becca was thirteen, while Bucky was studiously out at all hours with Steve avoiding home until his pa would drag him back by his ear, she was learning how to pick pocket from Madeleine Crosby. Bucky had seen her steal a wallet, four cigarette packets, a hair brush and powder, two dresses and a pair of shoes before he decided to put a stop to it.

He vaguely remembers snapping at her that if she was going to steal she could have at least stolen something they could actually ‘eat’ so ma or pa didn’t have to skip supper to ensure they all got a good share, instead of some silk dress she’d never be able to wear. Or booze, so they could drink it together in commisery when the twins were asleep and ma wasn’t alone.

Now he realizes both arguments probably hadn’t helped matters.

After a lot of shouting, a shared crime in helping her hide all of her stolen goods; including ma’s coin purse, and a promise not to tell pa or anyone else (he’d already told Steve); Bucky had made her teach him.

Then, after she’d fallen for the trick, had smacked her over the head hard enough to make her cry and hit him back and told her she wouldn’t ever dare do it again or he absolutely would tell pa. That threat alone seemed to do the trick, as he hasn’t seen her do it since - in front of him anyway. He’d also threatened Madeleine Crosby to leave Becca alone for good measure; and she was caught greedily nabbing some fancy-pansy jewellery a year later, got in a world of trouble, and was sent off to an Aunt somewhere in wholesome Texas. Becca had never been caught as far as he knows; if she had anyone within fifteen blocks would have gone to his pa before they went to the police and then there definitely would have been some walloping he wouldn’t have forgotten.

After taking blood and photographs Peggy Carter had left to prepare the debrief and the doctor and nurse kindly turned away to let him dress again. They hadn’t been SSR, just the doctors Philips and Cater had been able to wrangle at very short notice to examine him properly. They probably had no idea what it was really for, or about, let alone been fully briefed on Project Rebirth. They’d taken his blood out of the two syringes they’d managed to get and put them into vials but hadn’t labelled them yet. There was vials of other men’s blood from earlier in the day waiting to get sent out (probably for venereal disease tests, he realizes now) in wooden holders by the window.

Considering the doctor and nurse weren’t SSR cleared, Peggy Carter probably shouldn’t have left the room. But then again, Peggy Carter doesn’t know what an absolute conniving little street thief his little sister is, or how good of a teacher it turns out, so he can’t really blame her. It wasn't much of anything to tear the labels off and switch them round; loading his right pocket up with his own.

He’s a solider, he reminds himself, he’s not a lab rat and he won’t be one ever ever ever again.

. . .

Where Steve was overly cocky before, now he seems to be characteristically unsure - not only in judgement calls and orders but also in his own movements.

The first cliff they climb he hangs back with the men instead of swinging off rocks like a spider monkey as usual, obviously with a mind to keeping the men close and working as a team. Lieutenant Jackson at the top tells him, “No. For fucks sake.

“If you can move and clear the top as easily as I’ve seen you do - you go up and clear the way of any enemies or scout ahead above. Otherwise they can lean over and shoot the rest of them off the mountainside, and where was the one who can scale twenty feet in five seconds? Thirty meters below where he should be.”

Steve holds in any backchat to that. Sarah would probably be proud of him for finally learning to shut his trap when baited - or not baited for that matter, considering it didn’t seem to make much of a difference when they were sixteen. On the second cliff; the more precarious one in that they have to climb without proper ropes, Steve half follows his advice but he’s still stiff where usually he would be fluid. Bucky can see he’s double guessing every move he’s going to make. Bucky slings himself off the rock-face and onto another free-standing rounded rock lightly; despite Jackson loading his kit with two more weights to challenge him, apparently. When Jackson’s not looking he kicks Steve’s foot when his friend is secure in his position. 

“Loosen up. You’re still moving like Ronnie Calbert is waiting round the corner to jump you.”

“I’m trying.” Steve hisses back at him.

“Try harder.”

Steve practically glares at him for that - like he did when Bucky told him the exact same thing when he was moaning about failing his math test twelve years ago.

Bucky’s embarrassment at the prophylactic packet has at some point turned to frustration without him realizing, and each time Steve second-guesses himself when Bucky knows he can do it, it gets worse. Except he’s getting frustrated at Steve instead of for him. Maybe he should have only shot at the shield twice - or once - instead of three times - but dammit he was trying to prove a point. Now he thinks maybe he’s proved it too well.

Four minutes later, when Bucky has rejoined the rest on the main rock-face and Jones replaces him on the rounded rock below - Steve’s swung himself on the more difficult part of the mountain so the rest of them have room on the track with more handhold opportunities.

Bucky’s not worried, because it shouldn’t be a problem, but Steve’s still hesitating a little even if he isn’t moving like a rusty tin-man anymore. They’re two-hundred and something meters off the ground. Six of them are attached to one another by two ropes, but otherwise are climbing free-hand. His ma would be having an absolute heart attack if she could see him now - he’s not putting this in the letter - that or the supposed gonorrhea. Steve does a little sideways jump, like he’s playing hopscotch to reach another handhold. He looks down mid-jump - Bucky can see the thoughts flash through the furrowed brow and underside of his chin - panicking if his little jump will jolt the loose rope attached to Dugan too much. It won’t. And Steve knew that before he jumped, it’s not even close to taut; he’s keeping perfect pace to the task - but he’s second guessing.

The new foothold he’s chosen breaks off before he can get a handhold.

He starts falling. 

Bucky’s voice cracks around a shout for him and he almost lets go as well - right arm swinging out to catch him five meters too far away. He falls past Bucky’s position.

Dugan’s arm goes out below him too.

There’s a clang and a crack and then Steve’s hanging by the strap and edge of his shield where he’s slammed it into the rock-face.

His foot is hanging an inch above Dugan’s outstretched hand. The shield’s sticking out from the cliff above them like a glorified umbrella. Bucky has no idea how Steve managed to get it off his back.

“Jesus-fucking-Christ.” He hisses, squeezing his eyes closed and pressing his face against the mossy stone. He feels frozen and stone-like - so close to the rock he might as well be part of it. Last month two commando recruits fell off this very same cliff. One died; the other mangled his legs so badly he’ll never walk again. Both those commando recruits survived two years of war, but didn’t survive this training unscathed. He looks down again as Steve swings himself round the side of the out-sticking shield and gets a handhold on the rock. He climbs like a monkey again until he’s half kneeling on-top of the shield. Falsworth’s shaking the last of the rubble from his hair below Dugan.

“Cap?” Dugan calls, “You good?”

“Yea- Yeah. All good… Sorry boys, I’ll watch my steps more.” Steve’s hiding it well under what looks to be embarrassment, but Bucky can tell - he’s still shaken by the sudden fall.

“Don’t worry about that - as long as your alright, Cap.”

“Yeah.” Steve repeats, then leans over the side of the shield. “Watch your eyes.” He calls, and Dugan does before he yanks out the shield one-handed.

Jackson calls to check on them from above. “Rodgers?”

Steve confirms again he’s fine, and Dugan cheers them all up as he thanks Steve for giving him a mighty fine looking handhold for one of his next moves in the crack jutting out where the shield had been. Bucky’s heaving in quiet but deep breaths in an effort to calm down, whole body stuck to the cliff like glue. Steve looks up and catches his eye, and nods firmly at him with wide eyes, startled but reassuring.

He’s alright.

He’s alright.

There’s two small cuts on his face where some sharp rock must have clipped him, but they’ll be gone in an hour, and he used to come out with worse every time he emerged from some alley somewhere.

He’s alright.

“Carry on Barnes!” Jackson yells from above, red hair and pale face peaking out over the edge of the cliff above. 

He takes one more breath, and carries on, now at the front of their line. He finishes first, crawling along the grass on his belly and flopping onto his back to pretend to catch his breath. His chest feels hollow and empty. Morita comes behind him on the same rope, and he helps him up, then Steve when he emerges on the other, even though he doesn’t need it.

He clasps Bucky’s arm firmly and the touch of the fingers still calloused from drawing and stretching canvases every week grounds him back where he needs to be.

He’s alright.

. . .

It’s not like Andrew. He’s alright.

. . .

He doesn’t know what to do.

He doesn’t know why this hasn’t occurred to him before, can’t possibly understand how self obsessed; how incredibly undeniably stupid he’s been not to realize. He’s in training and Steve has already almost died. They’ve been using live ammunition but this isn’t the same; this is training, not war. And Steve almost---

He can’t. No, he can’t.

He can’t lose anyone else, and certainly not Steve. He can’t, he just--he just can’t. He refuses to watch someone else he loves die in front of him, even more so than he refuses to let someone strap him down flat again.

But he can’t leave. Not now, not anymore.

He doesn’t know what to do. 

What can he do?

He holds it together throughout the rest of the mountaineering expedition he’s proud to say, and anytime he might move too stiffly or anytime tremors take his hands he can blame it on the winter winds this high up. Any studied silence can be blamed on his stubbornness to complete the task at hand, and inwardly he stares at the back of Steve’s head to calm his stuttering heartbeat when it starts going too fast. He abseils so quick back down the other-side of the mountain he gives Steve a run for his money; so fast even its as though he’s falling himself. He moves at the speed of his pounding heartbeat while his breath remains steady and his skin remains cold and cool.

He pictures Steve’s rope snapping, and he falls and falls and he falls. 

The warmth of his best friend’s blood splatters against his face, just like Andrew, and its the only heat he can feel in the cold weather. He see’s Steve on the ground far far below him, a halo of blood pooled around his head like the sun did back in Austria; a dead archangel instead of a shinning one.

He squeezes his eyes shut to rid himself of the picture and his foot slips on a downward bounce. He catches his knee and skins it on the rock under his cargo pants - but its the rope burn on his hands he feels. He doesn’t let go or loosen after he catches himself, just lets the sting of it linger; lets the rope take more skin off his fingers and palms. The heat of it replaces the warm splatters on his face and they tingle and then disappear.

He’s unclipped himself and is halfway through packing his rope away when the others and Jackson touch down on lower ground. Steve frowns at his hands and tries to catch one to look when he notices. Bucky shrugs with a quirk of his lips and shakes his hands out with a little jolt and jump. The pain grounds him the way Steve’s calloused hand did, which is good, because he can’t rely on Steve’s touch all day everyday. The longer he allows himself to take advantage of that the harder it will be to give up.

“Did you slip?”

“A little. It’s fine.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Just stings. It’s fine.”

He shakes them out again; Steve raises his eyebrows, glances at Bucky’s scuffed knee - but seems to let it go.

He flexes his fingers and squeezes his nails into the red muscle and flaked skin for the rest of the day, in and out, in and out. The warm splatters on his face don’t return, nor does the deathly vision.

The truck rocks and shakes on the way back and the others hold on tight to the bench and the straps from the ceiling. Bucky lets himself bounce and thud back and forth in the corner and picks at the cuticles of the middle finger on his left hand. The nail’s half grown back from where Zola pulled it out, but it’s still shorter than the others. The cracks in his other nails are gone, but he’s bitten them raw also, so he can’t chew them any shorter.

Jones nudges him in the side with an elbow. Bucky shrugs at him like he did Steve, and doesn’t go any further. But then, when they get back to their tents just before sunset, Jones takes his dinner shift so he doesn’t have to cook.

“Thanks.” Bucky says to him gratefully, voice quiet. He feels even more so when Jones hands him a jerky ration to eat cold so he doesn’t have to worry or go completely hungry if he misses dinner. He’ll have to pay him back in kind tomorrow. He wanders off towards the other end of the zip line as Morita and Dernier head towards the main castle and Steve up the bathroom block to relieve himself. The others will also probably shower at some point; at this time anyone whose not on shift tends to do their own thing. He won’t be sorely missed if he disappears for a while, not until it gets dark anyway.

(He overheard Jackson and a Staff Sergeant this morning saying they were going to be doing shooting drills in the dark tonight. Even if Bucky wanted to sleep they're not given much of a chance to.)

By the time he reaches the little river stretching across the fields of the highlands the sky is orange and pink as the sun sparkles off the snow lining the dips in the land; and the wooden bridge is a dark silhouette in the sinking sun. These are his two new favourite colours since Austria, ever since he spent two hours staring at those exact same shades with Italian mountains in the distance instead of Scottish. The only thing that’s different, or could make it better, is Steve appearing at the center of it, backlit like a Michlaelanglo painting.

It’s incredibly quiet here, which is why Bucky likes it. The river’s frozen over so the gentle rush of water is dulled under the ice, and the birds are silent. The wind whistles around him, blowing his hair into his eyes and across his forehead, but he escapes the worst of it as he slides down the bank closer to the water. He stomps on the ice to break it with his thick boot - sinks until he’s sitting halfway down the riverbank and can pull his boots and socks off. 

Massaging the blisters from his feet, digging his skinned thumbs into the arches; he traces a few of the thin raised scars he can feel, and then lowers them into the jagged hole in the ice. His breath leaves him in a rush as the frozen water rushes past his heels, over his scars and between his toes. He thuds back into the riverbank, breath finally matching his thudding heart. What does he do?

What does he do?

A full body shiver takes over before he can stop it, the water burning with cold the same way the yellow serums used to; taking his toes, then his ankles and legs, then right the way up his spine to the base of his skull. The iciness surges and flashes out with feelings and visions.

He sees Steve and his halo of blood.

He see’s Steve with bullet holes in his throat and chest.

He sees Steve, eyes glassy and staring, with half his face and uniform burned off him, the wreckage of a blown grenade surrounding him.

He sees the smaller Steve he’s always known locked up in his own iron lung and screaming until he looses his voice and his life.

He sees Steve laid out on his back in their church near the alter, in an open coffin, still in his uniform but with the shield that didn’t protect him laid on his chest.

He sees Andrew surging forward from his own perspective, see’s his skull explode out - red warmth on his face and a red mist in his eye.

He chokes out a sob, shoves his feet deeper and curls around on his side. He can’t he can’t he can’t. He can’t loose Steve the way he lost Andrew, he can’t loose Steve at all.

He shouldn’t be here.

If he’s not here; if he’s not on this squad then he won’t have to watch Steve die, and he won’t get him killed the same way he got Andrew killed. He won’t have to risk loosing himself and killing someone else’s child all over again either.

But they’ll send him out anyway - with Steve or without him. He’ll go back to the front, not home, and then all there will be to do is run into a hail of bullets and hope he doesn’t survive this time. Let's not forget either: Steve could die anyway - but Bucky won’t have to watch it happen. Then they could be reunited in the afterlife, if there even is such a thing - if they even went to the same place - when Bucky knows deep down; they won’t.

He can barely live in his life without Andrew and his pa, he most definitely can’t do it without Steve. Not even his ma, or a thousand letters from her can make that even close to being okay.

Curling up even tighter onto his side he digs his fingers into the dirt until the soil is deep under his nails (the same way Andy’s bloo--) and he scrunches in and out, in and out; again and again and again. The soil filters though his fingers like the grass did way back when he still had a heart, but there’s no rain in his hair this time. He never wants to feel Steve’s blood on his skin, he’s too scared it’ll sink into his flesh and stain it red and brown forever. A rash or a birthmark - except they raise up from deep within him whenever he causes the death of his favourite people in the world. He’s amazed the others can’t see, and don’t judge the ones he wears and feels all the time from Andrew - they lie on his face, obvious and scarlet, layering his face in blood freckles.

Achnacarry is a hundred and ten miles from Paisely, straight down.

He knows this because he checked on their second day here. While everyone else was listening, learning and notating maps under expert tutelage of landmarks, potential weaknesses and proposed approaches Bucky was searching fruitlessly across the Scottish territories until he found the tiny dot and typed name of the small town. Here in Scotland is the closest to home he’s felt in a long time, even if it’s not his home he’s close to.

Andrew once told him he looked like his little brother; the same eyes and the same chin; the way Andrew wanted him to look when he was older. The nearest railway station is eight miles away; and Bucky has thought so many times of leaving in the night, catching a train to Paisely and going to see if it’s true. He’s also thought about apologizing to Andrew’s ma again and again, the same way his own ma used to do, and giving the woman the red circle and green octagon in his pocket. Then he thinks for more than a second about actually handing them over and no. No, he can’t. He can’t do that either, just like he can’t watch Steve kill himself in this war from his own self-righteousness.

He pulls Andrew’s tags from his pocket, holds them close and sniffs them. They don’t smell like his friend-not-friend, all he can smell is the damp dirt, mildew and the animal urine in the snow; so instead he picks at the flaking skin of his palm inbetween the tags and the chain holding them together. 

Then he traces the R - Richard, Robert, Ronald, Raymond, Rodger, Russel, Robin, Ross, Romeo, Rodney, Randall, Rubin, Rowan - and opens his eyes.
 
A bearded man is stood halfway between him and the silhouette of the bridge, and the setting sun is lighting him from behind. It’s like a Michelangelo painting, but he’s brown-haired not blonde, and it’s one of the artist’s more graphic and less polished paintings - but no less beautiful.

For a moment, a long heavy, frozen moment -  all Bucky wants to scream is where were you?

I called and I searched for you after when I was alone and where were you?

Where. Were. You?

Instead he sobs out, “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry Andy. I’m so sorry.”

I’m so sorry I’m here and you’re not, only a mere hundred miles from your home. I wanted you to be able to go home. It should have been you. It should have been you.

“I’m so sorry.”

The figure in this painting, the shade of his friend-more-than-friend doesn’t answer but he sinks onto his haunches and squats so he’s level with Bucky.

The shade’s elbows and neck are bruised and blue and there’s awful raw scratches on his forearms from his compulsions - but no blood. The shades damaged and broken - like him - scruffy; but clean. Bucky can’t smell Andrew on the tags but he can smell the carbolic soap they washed each other with the night before - a memory in a memory. He can still feel Andrew’s lips on his and feel Andrew’s pulse point thumping steady and soothing. He remembers catching his breath under his chin next to Andy’s throat and kissing him there too. Remembers how his friend-more-than-friend used to run his hands through Bucky’s hair and scalp and how it tickled but also sent him into a soft sleep night after night. He remembers how it felt when they used to slot together like a jigsaw, and how hard Andy used to clutch his hand - as if terrified that he’s be separated from Bucky for the final time every morning.

(And they were.)

He remembers their promise to each other, of ‘lets live for tonight’, and how it felt to have Andy inside him, warm and complete. Oh god - he wants it back so much. Oh, god.

He’d do anything for the shade to come closer; for it’s fingers to comb his hair back from his forehead and send him to the peaceful dark.

(He’s tried to do it himself in his tent, deep in his sleeping bag, but his fingers aren’t the same. They don’t have the magic touch; just the cursed one. He feels like maybe he did curse someone way back when, only made a mistake somewhere long the way and cursed himself instead of Hydra.)

“What can I do to make it right?” He asks the shade, and again when it doesn’t answer. “What can I do?"

It watches him sadly, and rests it's hands against over it's bent knees. It's missing the hole in it's skull, and it has all it's limbs; arms, legs, fingers and toes. Bucky never saw what happened to the body after. He doesn't remember. The shade still doesn't answer, does it still have a tongue; or did Zola mutilate that in death like he did to the rest of their souls while they were living?

“I could - I could take these back to your ma; to your brother.” He tries, lying the tags out flat on his palm; his insides warring fiercely with his words. “Give them to your family - they should have them, it’s where they belo-”

His words stop as the shade shakes it’s head - then points at the tags and then at Bucky.

“But your family shoul-”

He points at Bucky again.

Keep them, the shade says without opening it’s mouth; just stares at him with Andy’s eyes.

“Are you sure?” Bucky asks softly, but so very very gratefully.

Keep them. They’re yours.

“Okay.” He replies, voice thick, then closes his hand back around them and tucks them close, protective against his chest; right next to his heart. “But what else can I….I need to…I need to do something about this, about you and Steve but I---I need…” He trails off.

What dae yer need? It asks. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut, pushing his head into the dirt of the riverbank, spreads his toes so the freezing water hits them in a different way. The shades voice, when it speaks, sounds closer. Tell me what yer need.

Bucky swallows painfully as he re-opens them once more. “I need you to tell me what to do. What do I do?”

The shade’s eyes scrunch up in the corners - it is closer - and it shakes it’s head.

“No please. I need you to tell me what to do. You always used to tell me what to do.”

That’s a bold faced lie, it says. Ye were the bossy one.

“I need you to.” Bucky repeats, “any choice I make is the wrong one, and I, I need to not make it. I-”

Need me tae tell you what tae do, it finishes, then points to itself. Say my name.

“Andrew McNair--Andrew R,” he stresses, correcting himself. The middle name is so important, he never forgets the middle name; has made a guessing game up for it to remind himself always. “McNair. Andy.” He finishes with the nickname. It points to the tags enclosed in his raw fist. “Corporal, her Majesty’s 78th Division.” Bucky says, already knowing, understanding even with the veil between them. ”Serial number: 1440638. You’re a Baptist.”

What happened tae me?

“I got you killed.”

The shade slaps it’s hand hard on the frozen ice, but it leaves no handprint or shadow. It’s face looks angry. What happened tae me?

Bucky breathes for moment; “You died in service to your country.”

It nods.

Three tears run down his face. “You were so brave.” Bucky can’t help but add.  “I think I loved you. Somehow, somewhere.”

The eyes soften on it’s face.

“I think I loved you.” He repeats again because he’s never let himself really think it let alone say it before. “What do you need me to do?”
 
My name, my death. It says, then points to the distance he came from. Tell them. Dinnae’ hide me anymore. Tell them my name.

“Let your family grieve.” Bucky finishes. “Okay. Yes. Yes Andy. I can do that. I’m sorry I haven’t-”

It shakes it’s head to stop him, hands up and out, so he does. Even without speaking this shade talks as much as it’s living soul used to. It’s okay. I understand, it adds, and even though it can’t, just like none of his new and old friends can’t, Bucky feels like it can.

“There must be something else.”

Nothing else. Not’ for me.

“But for Steve?” Bucky asks, “What can I do for Steve?”

Ye already know, it replies. Ye couldn’t save me but ye could save him.

“I can’t watch him die. I don’t think I can even watch him bleed anymore - not like I used to. I can’t just stand around out there and wait for him to die in front of me.”

Ye won’t, the shade argues, And yer dinnae know that he will--

“--Don’t be stupid. Of course he will - everyone does. Everyone dies. And I’m telling you - I can’t take it.”

There’s nothin’ tae say he will--

“--Only a war--”

--Shut up! There’s nae predetermined list of life o’ death, and I’ dinnae think for a second ye’d just be there ‘waitin’ for him tae die.’ It keeps going, confident and assuring where Bucky feels like he can never be again. Ye wouldn’t wait, ye’d fight.

He can't say anything to that for a good while. The shade flares with the sun as it reflects off the ice. Eventually, slowly; quietly Bucky asks: “What if I don’t have it in me to fight?”

It's said with the same vulnerability that Steve asked him, ‘what if I’m not ready?’

Ye’d never forgive yerself if ye just left without th’ chance - if he died and ye weren’t with him.

“I wouldn’t forgive myself if I was there.” 

But it would be worse. This way ye’d actually have a chance to protect ‘im.

He can’t help it - adding sarcastically: “Like I protected you?” 

The shade snaps at him again. It’s all true, honest to a fault; Bucky knows it as well as the shade does. He leans his head against the bank and stares at the shade as the sun disappears beyond the bridge. He can’t feel his feet in the water. He has a new mission, he supposes. His old missions used to be to survive, then to escape, then to die, then to make it back to Allied command. He’s done three out of four, succeeded in his missions more than Andrew who scored one out of four. 

He supposes he has to carry missions for the the both of them now.

“I’m so tired, Andy.” He unveils, like he’s telling one of the many secrets they told each other in the dark with their hands clasped together.

I know, it replies.

“I wish you hadn’t gone - but…I’m glad you didn’t have to go back again. It got so much worse without you.”

I wish you didn’t either, Bucky thinks it says, but he’s not sure. The shade is fading with the setting sun. The last of the light is hiding behind the dark bridge but there’s still a little light shining on the ice beneath the arch.

Bucky doesn’t want to take his eyes away, doesn’t dare blink; just allows his body to remain slumped in the dirt with his freezing feet submerged for a few moments longer. The shade stands; it’s upper body fading like a flare as it’s obscured by more darkness. It walks towards Bucky who feels like crying and sobbing all over again, but feels so gutted and empty he has no more energy for it. It stops right in front of him, it’s upper body almost all gone; it’s face invisible. It lifts a transparent hand towards him and says...

It’s time tae get up James.

Shaking, Bucky takes the hand. In a flash something goes through him - he feels like he’s here and far away all at the same time; balanced between now and wherever the shades call home, stood on the thin invisible line fragmenting life and death.

“Will you stay with me?” Bucky begs.

The ghost hand in his squeezes - tight enough to hurt - as though it’s terrified it’ll be separated from Bucky for the final time. He remembers.

Did you love me too, do you think? Bucky thinks; wants to ask, but doesn’t. Yet while he’s here and in the faraway place, on that balancing beam like a circus acrobat, he feels like the shade hears him. He feels like the shade answers.

Yes

. . .

(If he was a shell before, he’ll be shattered into dust if Steve leaves him too; so he’ll have to make sure he doesn’t. Simple as. And if it comes down to it, as awful as it sounds, he’ll have to leave Steve before Steve can leave him.)

. . .

That night when it’s dark and they’re on their feet or on their bellies armed and shooting at targets; Bucky closes his eyes when he pulls the trigger.

Jackson challenged him today. He’s challenging himself tonight. He has a mission, and he’s going to get four out of five now if it kills him; at which point then that means five out of five. Either is good, one of them is great.

No one can see him shooting blind with his eyes closed, unlike himself who can see the edges of each target in the moonlight, so no one says a thing as he just listens to the wind and does the math.

Every bullet but two hit the bullseye. 

He can do better.

. . .

He’s up before the rest, and has an extra share of bacon and awful bitter coffee ready for Jones when he wakes; just the way he likes it.

Bucky has inherited his ma’s sweet tooth so he prefers his with about four more sugars and a lot of proper stirred creamer. He’s only had a real coffee as such a few times in his life - but he knows it’s better than the sludge Jones downs like he’s chugging beer. Gabe moans around his tin can and thanks god for sending such an angel as Bucky to him this early in the morning. Bucky tells him to shut it and "don't thank God - thank me." Then he throws half a sausage at his head. They might as well take advantage of the food here, like Monty said, which while rationed is still probably more than they’ll get when they go back overseas.

“Well you seem ever so slightly less grumpy than last night.” Gabe comments, teasing. “Not to say you’re not insufferably grumpy right now, but it’s an improvement.”

Bucky barely restrains from glaring at the guy through his eyelashes.

“I am not, and was not grumpy.”

Gabe laughs, “Yeah okay. Sure you weren’t, big guy.” He rolls his eyes conspiratorial at Morita, who for the moment part ignores him and stumbles haphazardly to the bathroom block.  “Maybe not grumpy, but you were down, that’s for sure. You okay now? Hows your hands?”

What is it with everyone asking if he’s okay lately? Is it that obvious? He thought he was doing better.

He shakes one hand out while he stirs the beans with the other. “Yup.” He simply summarizes.

The truth is his hands finally started aching and burning in an unwelcome way last night during the shooting drill, and made it uncomfortable to hold the barrel and pull the trigger. It was even worse when he carried on aggravating them by deciding to strip and clean all his new rifle parts afterwards, much to Dugan’s chagrin in the next sleeping bag over. He knows he’s going to have to bandage or cover them with gloves so no one notices if the burns are suddenly gone one morning. Steve was suspicious during the march back, he absolutely knows he was, but now he’s suitably and quite happily living in denial since 'Bucky's' blood work came back. It reminds him of his pa pretending he’s forgotten or hasn’t seen the surviving evidence of a tryst - or illegal experimentation apparently.

Bucky’s under no impression to remind him of it - but Dugan’s one to watch too - who doesn’t know about the bloodwork but does know about his apparently cut up feet, and knows about Project Rebirth like the the rest of the squad do. It’s not that the rest of them aren’t smart but Dugan does have an almost unsettling affinity of putting two and two together. He wants to trust the guy (his friend) like he used to, but can’t quite bring himself to let it settle. Though they’ve been toeing and joking around it, Bucky’s not forgotten Dugan’s unwelcome words in the shower block nor, especially, on the march back; and the absolute fit they'd sent him down. Dugan’s a good actor, but he doesn’t think the guy’s forgotten either. Or has not felt the underlying tension that comes through whenever he tries to force something on Bucky; normally more food.

Gabe raises his eyebrows.

“I’m fine…I just….needed to figure some things out.”

“Did you? Figure them out?”

Bucky nods, and says quietly. “I will have soon…Drink your terrible sludge and eat your burnt sausage.” He then orders.

Jones takes a bite and hides a small grimace, “Burnt is right, you are a terrible cook. You literally burn everything.”

“I like it crispy.”

“There’s crispy, and then there’s black, Sarge.”

“Better than he can do.” Bucky says, nodding at Steve as he also emerges. Steve knows full well he can’t argue with him on that one.

“I can cook one thing.” His friend reveals, “cabbage stew-”

“-and it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever tasted-”

“-don’t be an ass-”

“-and I had to eat it every Tuesday for three years. It’s never gotten better.”

Steve laughs; he commiserates. “If anything it’s gotten worse.”

“The real reason he’s promoted to Captain to lead this unit ain’t cause of his fancy muscles and fancy footwork; it’s because if he’s in charge it means he doesn’t have to cook. Saves everyone from never-ending food poisoning that way.” Bucky grumbles.

Gave laughs at them. “So that’s why you always take the spoon and pans off him whenever he tries to volunteer.”

“To be fair, he is actually saving you there.” Steve once again admits. “But I’m more than happy to-”

“Think I’ll stick to Sarge’s burnt sausage, thanks Cap.”

Steve holds up his hands, “Each to his own.”

Jones finishes his coffee with a thick gulp at the end, making Bucky grimace as he starts plating out the food. Dugan plops down and sits on his kit with a grunt. 

“Anyone know what were doing today?” Jones asks as he refills his cup.

Dugan replies, messing with the hairs in his moustache. “Shooting. Climbing. Scavenging. Jumping. Same stuff we do everyday I’d imagine.” 

Steve clears his throat. “Actually no. I spoke to Vaughan yesterday. Final assessments are starting today with hand to hand combat - then shooting and running the course again.”

“Today?”

“They’ve already been assessing us on the mountaineering and combat maneuvers over the last few days.”

“Oh great.” Morita grumbles, returning, probably remembering his third and fifth parachute landing attempts. “And you didn’t think to mention that earlier, Cap?” 

Personally Bucky doesn't think it matters if they knew they were being assessed or not - they’ve had eyes on them at nearly all times anyway.

“They only clued me in last night - technically they’re assessing me as well as you.” Steve defends with bags under his eyes. He’s probably spent the night reading new strategy and command books he’s taken from the library again. It wouldn’t be the first or even the fifth time.

“Maybe if you actually slept you wouldn’t fumble and almost kill yourself on a cliff.” Bucky mumbles grumpily under his breath to himself. He winces straight after as Steve’s head snaps in his direction; he keeps forgetting Steve doesn’t have a bad ear anymore. He receives a look that makes him want to duck his head down and apologize - but also, he’s a stubborn prick and he apologized enough yesterday.

“Well, that’s what he told me.” Steve continues, still slightly glaring at Bucky from the corner of his eye. “And then we’re finishing with the 34th to 36th  recruit groups with the trial beach landing.”

The 34th, 35th and 36th recruits have thirteen more weeks of training on them, but who’s counting; they’ve got Captain America. And he has Bucky in his shadow and at his back; determined to die for him or with him. Some of the guys cheer at the thought that the rough pace of training and screaming Lieutenants are coming to an end, while some are apathetic, considering the next step after the fake beach landing is probably a real one.

Bucky says, “Let me guess, live ammunition?” 

“As always.” Steve quips.

(Later he admits to Bucky he’s a little worried. Their live ammunition drills so far have ended in numerous bullet grazes, twisted joints and bruises for all of them, but the beach landing seems as though it might be another playing field entirely. It’s normal procedure for commando training, but as an officer Steve also knows that the Allies are planning a landing at Normandy and did a trial run just last week for it with live ammunition. Eight hundred men died - all of it friendly fire and all of it on English soil. 

What a waste, is Bucky’s first thought, instead of what a shame for those men’s families.)

Fucking fantastic, is what Bucky thinks in the here and now - and presses into his scabby hands with blunted nails again. Dernier clears away as Bucky cooked their barbecue breakfast, so he crawls back into his tent to grab his towel. He washes the sweat and grime of himself in the cold shower - as always barely feeling the chill in comparison to the river; which his body reacts to even if his awareness doesn’t. He’s back in his pants, boots and undershirt sat on the sink trying to tie a bandage around his palm with his teeth when Dugan strolls in.

He immediately rolls his eyes.

“Oi.” He calls, and snatches the tail end from Bucky’s teeth, “give it here would yer.” It’s not a question and answer - more like an order. He’s still not entirely sure who’s higher up now - him or Dugan. Or Falsworth for that matter, but for once dutifully allows it without complaint.

Dugan glances up at him slightly at the give, moustache quirking up with his brows at the lack of argument for the sake of it. He twists the bandage slightly and then ties it so the knot is on the outside of Bucky's hand so it won’t get in the way of his shooting today. Dugan has his own bandage on under his trousers on his calf - a bullet graze from one of their early drills. He grabs Bucky’s other wrist to see the other one. Bucky’s feels the fingers lock around the joint, and doesn't feel anything else. He jerks it away on reflex. 

Dugan lets go sharply, and Bucky pushes out a breath within himself.

He shakes off the flinch with the same hand, and lays it palm up for Dugan to access. The older man waits for a moment. We good? He seems to say.

Bucky doesn’t answer, just looks at him and the door impatiently, other hand already holding his over-shirt. Dugan lets out something between a scoff or a grunt in acknowledgement and then wraps the hand more securely than Bucky would have bothered with - but then he was more concerned with covering them up that wrapping them to stay clean. He unwraps Bucky’s hand almost as soon as he finishes and pulls it back under the running tap. 

“You’ve still got dirt on here and under your nails.” He admonishes.

“So do you most of the time.”

“I don’t have ripped up hands though, do I?” Dugan argues right back, tough love as always. He rubs his thumb into one of the worst scores to dig the dirt out and Bucky pretends to hiss like it hurts more than it does. His pain tolerance has spiked to an incredible degree now that he’s finally come off all the drugs.

He notices Dugan getting a good look at the hand.

“Are you done?” He asks impatiently, almost rudely.

Dugan gives him a look that he thinks is supposed to be cold but doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Give me a minute, would ya?”

He wraps Bucky’s hand securely again and says, “Bucky listen. I’ve been wanting to-”

“Thanks.” Bucky cuts him off, pretending not to have heard. “I’ll see you up there.”

. . .

“Lieutenant-Colonel. May I speak to you for a moment?” He requests at the end of their shooting assessment when Steve follows Vaughan’s request to follow him to his office. Steve’s aim has improved tremulously since Bucky corrected his posture last week, he’s proud to say. His friend was still shooting hunched and incorrectly spaced; as though he was still five foot four instead of over six foot; but even then that would have still been incorrect. Clearly until this commando training no one had really bothered to correct his beginner stance.

Vaughan looks at him squarely for a moment, grim-faced as always. He must see it’s important. “Follow us inside then, Barnes.” He does, entering the corridor leading to it just after Steve. “Well, what is it you wish to say?” He asks after they’ve entered the office and as he’s sitting down at his desk.

He glances at Steve in the office corner, whose meeting has been pushed back on account of Bucky’s request. He looks at him questioningly. Bucky takes a breath, and a bruised brown-haired shade in the sunlight appears at the corner of the window. “Lieutenant-Colonel, I would like to report a death - I don’t believe it’s on record.”

Vaughan raises an eyebrow, surprised. 

“I understand it’s not proper protocol but I - it occurred to me that it was never reported when we returned from Krausberg.” Vaughan’s read his file. He knows all about Krausberg - but he doesn’t know about Andrew. No one knows about Andrew except him, Zola and the shade at the window. “And-”

“Very well.” Vaughan interrupts, “What regiment?”

He can feel Steve’s frown on the back of his neck.

“Her Majesty’s Army 78th Division - or it might have been 68th…” He’s forgets for a moment. “No, my apologies, it’s the 78th, I know his serial number if that helps.”

“Not American.” Vaughan comments.

“No sir.”

“As a training facility it’s not really our jurisdiction, but what is these days. Go on.”

“Andrew R McNair. 1440638. He’s-he was Baptist sir - I don’t know what that would but for burial but-”

“And his body?”

Bucky pauses, trying to stop himself from rambling. “No body, sir. Not anymore.”

The man nods, solemn. “Very well. I’ll report it to the right people. Anything else?”

Bucky hesitates for a moment, about to say no, because he’s done it. He’s done what he came to do.

“He was brave,” He blurts out, “right until the end. You should say that too.”

Vaughan raises another eyebrow, then cants his head at the door in dismissal. “You’re dismissed, Barnes.”

Bucky breathes - he’s kept his promise . Andrew’s family can properly grieve now, and so he leaves the room. 

“Right, Captain Rodgers-” he hears right before the door shuts.

. . .

Steve’s worried for nothing. They all survive the beach landing and pass their assessments; some with flying colours. They officially graduate as commandos and are sent by bus back down south an hour later. On the bus, or more like right before it, Steve says.

“Andrew McNair, huh?” He asks like he’s been holding it in for a while; at least a couple of days.

“Yeah.” Bucky comments, non-committal.

“That was nice - what you said at the end.” He says after floundering for a second. “But you must know that-”

“Vaughan won’t report that part. I know. Against protocol.”

“If you know that then why did you say it? You’re the most straightforward, realistic person I know Buck” - I’m really not - “so why-”

“Because someone ought to know how brave he was ‘cept me. He deserves that.”

“Who was he?”

Bucky pauses, about to answer for a second. He and Andrew told each other a lot of secrets, but he and Steve keep a lot of secrets from each other instead. What’s one more? “Mind your own goddamn business, Steve.”

.

Chapter Text

STEVE

Strasbourg, Occupied France. Behind German Line   I    48.58506° N, 7.73642° E

“Lets go small with the first one,” Philips had said in London before they got on the plane, “test the waters.”

It’s a small base but in dangerous territory; Stasbourg, France; ridiculously close to the German border. The base they’re hitting may be small but, boy, do they go big.

They hit the it on Christmas Eve.

There’s so many orange flames and so much of Dugan’s huge booming laughter afterward by the end it’s almost festive. They kick the doors inwards and open fire in a very dramatic way - Steve leads with his shield, the commandos following him in a fan - letting loose all the aggression they gained from two months of capture. They catch the place by complete surprise - men going down before they can even pull out their weapons, and they capture it in under half an hour.

Steve’s ready this time when they take prisoners - and knocks those left over out - and then pries the cyanide capsules from their teeth. One cracks and fizzes by accident but the rest are successfully removed - with good reason too - upon waking five out of six chomp down and grind their jaws. Nothing comes, and with a flash they start fighting again - not to get away but to get their hands on a weapon - whether it’s to hurt the commandos or themselves Steve doesn’t know - but he also doesn’t give them a chance to try.

They search the now captured factory and take intel where they can though there's not much - just old telegrams and equipment. They take them anyway - and Falsworth scores a point for finding early, but annotated blueprints for some sort of flame thrower - but the flame is some kind of innately generated plasma. There’s a note that says ‘blauer Strahl am Ausgang’ which means ‘blue beam on exit’, so Steve can only presume the ‘generated plasma’ is the same kind of unknown energy source Howard is still frowning over.

They take that, the telegrams, the equipment they see and don’t already have and some that they do - and the prisoners and load them chained up in a cargo truck. Dernier and Bucky set charges on all the structural beams, and Steve, Dugan and Gabe move everything left outside to the inside so that they go up too when Dernier triggers the detonation. They drive thirty something meters away, wire trailing out of the back of the truck, until Dernier calls a halt - and with a click the smaller barn factory goes up in a wash of orange and sparking clouds. The blue equipment they had no room for ignites in a shock-wave, and the air rushes past Steve’s face with an electric buzz. The trees around them sway with it. Dernier cuts the line, done, and they drive in almost darkness to Corbigny where they have a plane and pilot hiding at a disused airfield waiting for them.

Steve finishes the four hour drive, pulling off the road before the boundary fence of the airfield as Dugan sits beside him and comments on his clumsy gear-stick work.

“I didn’t learn how to drive until three weeks ago Dugan, cut me some slack.” Steve rolls his eyes, but is smiling a little, still hyped from their assault.

Dugan’s been driving Jeeps for years, so’s Morita and so’s Monty - Gabe’s given it a go a few times too, mostly because his own pop used to be a driver - whereas Steve (and Bucky’s) experience before Scotland mostly consisted of hitching rides in the backs of freezer trucks when they ran out of money to get home.

Bucky’s had one driving lesson in his life before training, at Fort Hamilton; his father’s base, and he and his pop had both returned in foul moods. The next time Steve had seen him was the next morning when he walked out of his bedroom to find Bucky already sat on the counter lamenting at Steve’s mother, enlightened overnight with a philosophical conclusion.

“I’ve decided I don’t need to learn how to drive, we live in New York.  I can get the subway everywhere.”

“Oh my god.” Steve had groaned, having already been privy to the incensed ranting about gear sticks, reversing and mirrors that Bucky had already thrown at him yesterday. He drops and drapes himself over the couch dramatically, chest heavy after an asthma attack the night before. Sarah slides his pack of asthma cigarettes to Bucky who tosses them at Steve wordlessly.

“Language Steve, stop blaspheming.”

“Sorry ma,” he apologizes, catching the packet and turning to Bucky. “It can’t have been that bad.”

“He yelled at me, Steve. Pa never  yells at me, not even that time we snuck out for Ronnie Johnson’s back roof party.”

“Bucky!” Steve hisses, glancing side long at his mother.

“I yelled at you for that one, Steve, you’re fine.” Sarah comments coolly from where she's frying bacon.

“Oh okay.”

She hums, “In all fairness I yelled at the both of you enough that George probably didn’t think he needed to.” She considers before going back to the original conversation. “Some people aren’t the best teachers when it comes to these things.”

“Mr Barnes is normally a good teacher.” Steve disagrees, “he teaches better than that jerk over there does on a good day if we’re stuck on something.”

“Oh, you wish, Steve. That’s the last time I’m helping you catch up then.”

“When did you even get here? It’s seven in the morning  Go home jerkface.”

“Driving is different.” His ma interrupts, voice raised only enough to be heard over them. “Does your ma know how to drive James?”

“Urgh,” Bucky ponders, his thinking face on. He starts swinging his legs so they bat against the cupboard doors. Sarah whacks him subtly with a spoon so he stops. He begins to drum his fingers on the counter instead. “I think so. Yeah, I think she used to drive a Stephens Moline - I think her father brought one to tow the trailer when a bunch of the horses died. Apparently. A bit weird if you ask me though, cause why would you pic--”

“James.” Sarah cuts in calmly, hand up until he stops, “Ask your mother to teach you instead - she might be a cooler head for those types of lessons.”

“A cooler head - ma?  We are talking about the same woman, right?”

“Yes James,” Sarah sighs, “Just ask her, I’m sure your uncle would let the two of you borrow his car for a few afternoons - he’s in town isn’t he? It’ll probably be easier than driving a Jeep.”

Steve had watched Bucky think about it for half a second, but then stubbornness persisted. “Nah. I’ll take the subway.”

Steve groans again. His ma says: “Then take the subway out of my apartment and stop avoiding your own.”

“Urgh, fine." Bucky laments, sounding over dramatically put-upon. He steals a rasher of bacon from the pan as he goes, grease all over his fingers. “But it’s bath day. I hope you understand the battlefield you’re sending me into here.”

“I’ll pray for your survival.” Steve offers, hand over his head. “Now, get out. ”

When they get out of the truck they conceal it under twigs, herd the prisoners out, and make them carry the crated equipment for them to the open door of the plane waiting in the hanger. There’s a pilot, two soldiers, and Howard Stark waiting for them.

“Whoa, what are you doing here?”

“Fancied a ride, pal.” Howard fires back, grinning. “There’s nothing like flying through German airspace to get your blood pumping.”

“Sometimes I think you have a death-wish.”

“Bit harsh.” Howard disagrees, pulling a face.

“How about reckless attitude then?”

“I’ll take it, but two for two, pal. I didn’t kiss another woman in front of Carter.”

“Hold on, he did what?”

“Shut up, Bucky.” Steve says quickly.

“No I will not shut up what--” His voice cuts off as Gabe slaps a hand over his mouth to stop him talking. What follows is the sound of several scuffles.

Steve grins at Howard, but also at the show of support for him and against his best friend. “What are you really here for?”

Howard practically saunters over. He motions behind him so the soldiers start leading the prisoners onto the aircraft. “Wanted to see what presents you brought me back first things first, and - we have a change of plan - for you. Not for me, I’m going back to my lab.”

“Urgh yuck!” He hears from behind him, “did you just lick me? You fucking asshole Barnes, wh--”

Howard continues, “I take it your first mission was a success?”

“A roaring success, mate.” Monty says to the side of him, leaning on a ladder, smirking, and looking appropriately (but also far too) smug.

“That’s what we love to hear - which is exactly why you’re carrying on, not heading back with me - when in Rome and all that.”

“When in Rome what?” Dugan asks, “Last I checked we were in France.”

“And you’ll stay in France,” Howard explains, “for a few weeks at least - Peggy’s getting more intel on the base in Belgium - she’ll be in touch, but until then Philips wants you here on the ground in Northern France.”

“In Occupied France, you mean.” Dugan corrects him.

“Exactly - disrupting phone and supply lines in the meantime.” He hands Steve a map and a manila folder wrapped in a protective seal. He folds the map open on the wing of the plane.

“Is there any more equipment?” One of the soldiers asks the group as Steve begins to observe it.

“Morita, can you show them to the truck.” Steve orders over his shoulder, and waves Bucky whose recovered from his licking revenge closer. He’d thought about it again with a push from Vaughan but stuck to his guns, and Buck’s still his go-to-guy no question. He shoves Jones off and glances almost shyly at Howard as he stands next to him; Steve swallows back a smirk and tells himself to focus, and ignore any celebrity starstruckness Bucky is exhibiting. He hasn’t really been around Howard like Steve has yet, and Bucky's always had a ‘thing’ about science and slotting things together - machinery or buildings.

The map is of France as promised, with several markers on - in stars, squares, circles and triangles, followed by a key on the side explaining; supply lines (H next to those for Hydra), stocked Allied safe-houses, other bases and places of interest. There’s further hand-drawn lines that look like lightening bolts in twos moving up and down the country that signify the escape lines the French Resistance use and a vague route Philips would like them to make their way to on the Franco-Belgium borer. There’s red dots marked down on particular places Philips wants them to hit - a bridge, a communications tower and several weapons and food supply lines. “Of course, you have leeway to hit anymore that you may so wish to on route, if you’re feeling an extra party.” Howard adds.

“How long do we have until he needs us at the border?”

“Depends what Carter can get - but two to three weeks - tops?” He says, “she’s generally very on top of things. Just a warning - they’ll probably keep you on the ground after Belgium too - that’s that’s the going rumour I’ve heard from the officers anyway - for lack of ferrying you lot back and forth.”

“So we’ll need to resupply at some point just in case.” Bucky says.

“I’d imagine so,” Howard shrugs, “you’re the soldiers, I just build the weapons.”

“You do a little more than that Howard.” Steve laughs.

“Peggy keeps telling me I need more humility in my life, so I try.” He quips, “It’s not really agreeing with me though, so I might as well sack it.”

After that they leave with a slap on the back for Howard; they're long gone and on the road again by the time the plane sets off, loud and spluttering. Within an hour the area is crawling with patrols all speeding towards the airfield on the chase for where a unidentifiable plane appeared from - so they abandon the roads and hit the trees and fields. They drive the truck into a ditch - toss branches over it and siphon out any left over gas from the engine. They trek the rest of the way - North-West towards the first mark on their map.

Even at past midnight, when they’re still moving in the dark, Steve is still giddy with success.

. . .

The first is a communication tower.

Dugan snorts and Falsworth lights up a cigarette behind a rock.  “We’ll leave this one to you, shall we Captain? I know you like your watchtowers.”

“Remind me why I brought you again?”

“For the fucking great company.” Dugan ruffs out.

He turns to find Bucky in the group of thoroughly unhelpful soldiers. “Will you cover me while--”

Bucky’s already thirty yards away and halfway up a tree with his Springfield rifle.

“I’ll take that as a yes. At least one of you is worth the shoes you walk on.” He jokes, and Dernier hands him several charges and explains how to use them but steps back, and when Steve raises an eyebrow at him too, he argues in French that he missed the inhumanly act with the last watchtower; so he’s getting his dues in now. Jones, the only one bar Bucky worth the lot pitches in; and follows at his back; on the ground while Steve heads up. Jones, Steve thinks, what a great guy. The pinnacle of a true friend. What would I do without him?

A solider goes down in front of him with a crack of glass behind him; the bullet spiking the air to his right side. He flinches back minutely; thinking, I had him Buck, bloody hell.

But you’re okay too, also the pinnacle of a top-notch friend. The best, the greatest, if slightly too overprotective. Bucky Barnes, what a great guy.

. . .

The boys are off their asses and pitching in the next day, hallelujah, and Bucky whacks him on the hip as if to remind him he has a gun there and to remember how to use it.

“I know.” Steve retorts stubbornly to the unsaid accusation.

. . .

In the nights pitched in the cold tents in the cold Scottish mountains during the training, and now, in muddy France, they all huddle together for heat. Steve doesn’t need the body heat but is happy to share. It’s not a position he’s been in before, with people needing him and him not needing them. Oh, he needs them all right for the war to do their jobs - however he doesn’t need them physically for his own sake. He’s had this body for nearly half-a-year, and yet he still feels like he’s discovering new things about it everyday. In the US on the tour - outside of sneaking off to boxing gyms to exercise - he felt too mixed up to notice and experiment outside of the first few weeks of his new state in life. He enjoys it for the most part - individual and independent as he’s never been before.

. . .

Within a week and a half of leaving Scotland the commandos have come up with an entirely new rendition of ‘Star Spangled Man with a Plan’, more aptly named ‘Star Spangled man with a Load on’. They’re conducting a new song entirely of their own making which currently has no rhythm or pace - as none of them bar Bucky have a musical bone in their bodies - but has wickedly dirty lyrics that Steve still blushes over a little when he hears a verse. They make sure he’s not left out, but if Colonel Philips asks they have no evidence whatsoever to prove that the lyrics of -

 ‘When Captain America throws his mighty shield, there’s a joy

inside that his eyes can’t quite conceal!

Every time he heads, with a force so brute,

He’s in ecstasy and must change his suit!

- comes from his truly. If it comes down to it Falsworth’s the unlucky sod to be thrown under the bus, as Steve takes great delight in telling him.

. . .

Steve still feels like he was making it all up as he goes along some days, without any cue cards to help him stumble through the tongue twister of ‘a bullet in your best guy’s gun’ but those days are becoming less and less. He learns to think first of what the men need and last of himself. He learns to delegate, to keep track of the rota of who takes which watch. To tell by observation how much more the men have left in them.

Where Bucky talks less, Steve talks more.

Bucky always volunteers for extra - more watches at night, more scouting missions and so forth - than his share. He pushes to take point at the front more often than not when they marched. Steve fights back on that, hating that he has too, but is neutral as he says, “No Sergeant, Falsworth takes point today.” or “No Sergeant, I’ve got it today.”

“You don’t shoot the first guy, you shoot the second. So it’s your risk.” Bucky retorts back like that’s a real argument.

“No. Falsworth has it today.”

“Come on, mate.” Falsworth says, slapping him on the shoulder, “share the load.”

Bucky agrees, but to Falsworth and not Steve. The rest of the time he allows Bucky to take them, to keep him occupied and out of his head, but only so much. He doesn’t try to hide that he’s doing it, because lying has never worked before with Bucky when they are actually face to face. Thousands of miles away and with paper and pen are different. Every time Steve pushes him back on an offer to scout, or hunt, or take point he gets a weird distant look in his eyes like maybe he understands the situation. Steve thinks at first, is he taking on so much to prove himself? Especially now Steve has made it plain as anything that “Sergeant Barnes is my second. Monty and Dum Dum, you’re my thirds. Joint.”

Is he trying to prove he’s worth the faith Steve’s put in him? Is that where the problem with Dugan has come from, a sudden territorial thing?

He shakes the thought off; Bucky’s not an animal, pissing around to mark his territory with Steve, though sometimes it does feel that way a little, Steve has to admit to himself. Not forgetting that the issue with Dugan has been going on for longer, and he doesn’t hold Falsworth to the same standard.

Or is it just so simple as a determination to distract himself?

. . .

Leisure time is already hard to come by, and so on the nights when they deem it safe enough for a camp fire they crowd round and trivial things become the go to.

When the topic turns to romance Steve generally tries to tune the conversation out - as he has nothing to say and too much to think about with the next raid coming - so he gets out his maps while the boys wax wise. Bucky often drops down next to him, crossing his legs under him and running over the plans with him until there’s nothing left to talk about and Steve’s feeling sure and confident. Bucky’s a great bridge most of the time too; which is what Sergeants are supposed to be - but Steve’s the most grateful for the quiet moments he takes with Steve; checking in; even if Bucky uses it sometimes as an excuse to escape from the group conversation also.

“Do I want to know what they’re talking about now?” Steve asks quietly as Bucky sits down on the East side of the map.

“Something about a dame, chocolate, an’ strawberries and cream. Monty’s story.”

Steve huffs a patch of laughter out, “Why am I not surprised Monty’s story involves strawberries and cream.”

“Boarding school education for posh twots, what can you do? You’re not that far away, what, you not listening? I know you can hear them.”

“Tuned them out a while ago.”

Bucky hums, motions to the map and asks: “What are you stressing about now then? Don’t tell me your moxie is failing you.”

Steve laughs, “No, not at all. It’s nothing - we’ve been over everything." He assures, then admits: "I kinda’ got it out just to look like I’m doing something.”

“Oh. Avoiding the boys, are? Or avoiding having to talk about Carter with them?” Bucky carrels, calling him on his shit immediately. Steve glances at him. “Yeah that’s it, for sure.” Bucky adds the second he gets a look at Steve’s face, “You’re so obvious pal, it almost hurts.”

Steve can hardly argue it when it’s true. “Yeah okay, fine. It’s my thing to tell - not that there is anything yet.”

“Uh-huh, sure, big guy.”

“There isn’t.” Steve stresses, lying just a little. “It’s ongoing but - I don’t feel right talking about her like that - it’s a matter of--”

“--Respect.” Bucky finishes, leaning back on his hands. “I know. Good for you. I’d expect nothing less.” He rolls his eyes as Steve gives him a look. “Steve, it’s you. You’ve never been one to brag about your exploits.”

“Except the part where you’d need exploits to begin with.” He throws out quietly.

“Yeah true,” Bucky says, “maybe not the womanly kind - but again, it’s you. On the rare times that you actually won a fight you didn’t go blabbing about it either - it’s not that different.”

Steve shrugs, accepting it. He nudges Bucky with his foot. “What about you, not feeling up to it either?”

Bucky shrugs back, mirroring him with a small smile. “Figured I’d join you in your wallowing instead.”

Steve gives him a flat look; throws his own words back at him. “Uh huh, sure, big guy.”

Bucky ignores him, “We still heading along the orange line?” He asks pointedly, gesturing at the map to the colour coded pencil lines, drawn over the top of the map to signify their new and old routes.

“Yep, same as yesterday; towards Saint-Dié, cross the Rue Marie bridge, blow it - then onto the other supply lines while we’re in the area; steal a truck - keep moving and head up to the border. Plan hasn’t changed. I’ve got a mind to…I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

“Sweet.” Bucky says, “I’m looking forward to hot-wiring something new.”

Steve rolls his eyes, “Of course you are. See if I was a worse man I’d brag about how much better at it I am than you, but like you said, I am a better man than most.”

Bucky snorts, “You wish.”

“I don’t need to wish. I am better than you.”

“I’ll gain on you then, until we switch.”

“It’s nice to have dreams Buck, but it’s better to have dreams you actually have a chance of accomplishing.”

His friend laughs quietly, looking closer at the markings on the map. “You’re such an asshole.”

“You want to talk about anything?” Steve asks after a second, observing him carefully. His under eyes are dark, almost shadowed again, and he’s holding his body almost deathly still in his position; whereas fourteen years next to him nearly every day have told Steve that’s not his normal. Bucky constantly fidgets, shifts or loosens his muscles out, or he used to, even when he was languid and sleepy on the couch after a long day of dock work. He used to sit still, mostly, in class but that wouldn’t stop him drumming his fingers on the table while he thought. The times he used to be still like this were during times of immense focus - when learning something new he hadn’t quite worked out yet, watching a boxing match, or when he was behind his rifle before Steve arrived overseas.

It’s not an uncommon sight now, the stillness, but Steve can’t help but feel discomforted by it when it sticks out like a sore thumb to him. The other don’t notice really, but they haven’t known his friend as long or as deeply as he does.

The only time Bucky seems to move any less than carefully controlled now is in sleep; where he twitches wildly; but Steve doesn’t like that either as it’s involuntary and looks almost painful sometimes.

“Like what?” Bucky asks back, deflecting. “The way you hit that---”

“Not about that.” Steve interrupts, “and you know it. You know what I’m asking.”

Bucky sighs tiredly, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

Hardly. “Isn’t there?”

“Nope.” He says, lips popping on the p.

Steve sighs this time, and just says the truth he’s been wanting to for weeks now. “You’ve been quiet for a while now. You know me so well but I know you too Buck, I know when something’s up. Are you okay?”

Bucky throws his arms up, about to shrug, but seems to forget his weights resting on them and overbalances; dropping backwards for a second. He rights his body and rolls his eyes at himself. “I’m fine.” He says, “What’s there to talk about?”

Steve holds his tongue for a moment, then doesn’t. “How about what happened in the base, we haven’t talked about that yet.”

Bucky’s hands tighten in the dirt, clenching into the fallen leaves. Steve’s eyes flick briefly down to them. He makes them return to Bucky’s face, looking him in the eye. Something bright and taunt has entered them to the point it looks like they belong to another person entirely.

“We haven’t talked about it because there’s nothing to talk about.” He says, voice force-ably flat. There’s a faint twinge in there, that Steve hears, where he hasn’t quiet managed it. His face on the other hand is carefully schooled. It changes slightly as he adds, almost an afterthought. “And how could we talk about something I don’t remember?”

You don’t remember anything? Not a single thing? Steve is about to say. How about the doctor’s name he doesn’t know that Steve knows, but that Steve’s sure he does know but told Steve he didn’t. How about where this dead British solider came from in Scotland when you blindsided Vaughan with it? How about all the things you twitch and dream about sometimes?

“Hey lovebirds!” Gabe calls to them, laughing and comfortable. “You wanna’ cut your little date short and come and join us over here?”

“Some of us are trying to entertain,” Falsworth adds, “and you two spilling your deepest darkest secrets in private over there is bringing down my audience numbers.”

More like keeping all the deepest darkest  secrets in.

Bucky stands, “Only cause you asked so nicely Jones. And jealousy doth not become you, Major Ritzy.”

“Oh please, you love it.” Dugan says, patting the space next to him. “Half of all the stories we got from you were of skinny Rodgers, you barely talked about anyone anyone else. Even when he got a letter from a gal called Clara.” He laughs; the second half to the boys, and Bucky’s face sours, which is a change as normally the jokes don’t bother him.

“He was around for most my stories, so yeah, he’s in them. It’s a little hard to cut him out.” Bucky replies and sits in a spot furthest away from Dugan. The man notices it; yeah oh yeah he notices it, and Steve winces and makes a point of sitting in the still empty spot as something hard comes over Dugan’s face.

“You got a letter from Clara?” Steve asks, forcing himself into the here and now. “Wasn’t that the girl you had the date with the night before you shipped out?”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, “You mean the double date you bailed on me for to lie - what, the sixth time? - on your forms.”

“Fifth.” Steve corrects, “And it was a fair. I was trying my luck; which I would not have got with the other half of that double date. You got two for one, so be grateful. You went dancing, right?” Bucky nods, and Steve adds, “Bet you’re glad I bailed on you now though, since thanks you to I met Erksine.”

“How thanks to me?”

“Yeah, how thanks to him?” Gabe adds.

“Collect rubble in my little red wagon? There’s so many important jobs? Any of that ring a bell?”

“The red wagon comment was yours.”

“It was. Said Sarcastically. You agreed very unsarcastically.” Steve fires back, lip quirked, and explains to all the boys. “He heard us arguing in the lobby about it, my asshole stubbornness about shipping out too must have rubbed off and made an impression. Flagged my four other attempts like that," He clicks. "I thought for sure I was done for when the MP came in.” He laughs, “So thanks, pal. Captain America is at least a little bit down to you.”

“Great. I’m thrilled.” Bucky motions sarcastically, but Steve can see he’s joking, shaken off from their previous conversation. Now, surrounded by the boys and the fire, is not the time to bring it up again.

“To be fair he did tell us about that French girl.” Gabe throws out.

“Français fille?” Jacques asks, interested, whose picked up on understanding English quicker than the rest of them have picked on French so far. “Qui est cette charmante Français fille?” (French girl? Who’s this lovely French girl?)

“Il n’a pas dit qu’elle était adorable, Dernière.” (He hasn’t said she’s lovely yet, Dernier.)

“Elle est Français, donc bien sûr qu’elle est adorable. Le plus beau - nous sommes appelés la langue de l’amour pour une raison, vous twot.”  (She's French, so of course she's lovely. The loveliest - we are called the language of love for a reason, you twot.)

Bucky laughs, “Her name was Colette. Et elle était adorable, oui, Jacques (Her name was Colette. And she was lovely Jacques, yes.) The loveliest, in a lot of ways.”

“They never stopped eating each others faces, so it wasn’t so lovely for me.” Steve throws in.

“And that, gentleman, is jealousy in it’s rawest form.”

“Oh shut up. You were far to pleased with yourself the entire summer you were together. If I heard one more comment about what she taught you to do with your mouth and what she did with her mouth I was ready to take our train money and leave you stranded and penniless at Coney Island.”

“Which was why I trapped you on the Cyclone.”

“Yeah, and that ended well for both of us, didn’t it?” Considering Steve remembers throwing up in a trashcan while Bucky laughed at him, yes, but also throwing up on the stuffed monkey Bucky had won to take home to Colette that same day.

“Still scored that night though, didn’t I?”

“You scored nearly every night if memory serves. In his own words,” Steve says to the rest of them, and then again in French for Jacques after “’she’s ensuring my education is complete, you’ve got to admire her commitment to her craft.’ He was sixteen - she was nineteen and I still don’t know how he pulled it off.”

“Natural charm.”

“Natural teenage hormones more like.” Dugan jokes, and Gabe laughs and continues relaying to Dernier.

“They left in the middle of a movie once to get popcorn, and when I came to look for them twenty minutes later they were rutting with her skirt up behind the building against a wall. They were ridiculous for months.”

Bucky scoffs loudly. “Don’t lie, you little shit. You didn’t come looking for us. You started a fight in toilets and decided to take it out the side door so you wouldn’t get kicked out.”

Morita snorts, “That true, Cap?”

“Yeah okay, that might be a little true.” He admits.

Bucky throws out. “I still don’t know how the Bride of Frankenstein ends.”

“Neither do I.” Steve laughs, “I was too busy trying to bring the swelling down on my eye before my ma could see to go back in. He, had no sympathy whatsoever.”

“You interrupted a perfectly romantic moment, so no, you didn’t deserve my sympathy.”

“Unlike you Colette did help me ice my eye to be fair to her.”

“And I’ve never heard you quieter." Bucky remarks. "You didn’t say a single word, unless you count going tomato red as statement in itself, which it sort of was. She asked me after if ‘red face’ was another one of your ailments it was such a solid declaration of your embarrassment.”

Steve laughs and defends, “I was sixteen and had never said more than two words to a girl before then; and her skirt was still ridden up; tending to me. Also, you were leaking through your pants. It was burnt into my brain for months. You practically jumped her again the second I was home and out of eyeshot, and nearly fell down the stairs.”

“Thought you were out of eyeshot?”

“I wasn’t out of earshot. And McMullen’s mother saw you, gave my ma, and then me, a right talking to like we were responsible for your teenage horniness.”

“We were warmed up. Weren’t gonna’ waste it, were we?” Bucky defends.

“Jesus Christ guys,” Gabe laughs, “where were you two whenever I came for a visit in New York?”

“Probably getting beaten up in an alley.” Steve admits freely, and Bucky points, agreeing with him. “Or a park. Or the toilets. Or anywhere really.”

“Ha!” Dugan laughs next to him, slapping his leg. He lights up a cigarette, and elbows him. “What about you Cap? You’ve heard about our dames, wives and sweethearts; you got yourself one?”

“No. Not yet.”

Dugan grins at him, winking. “Exactly. Not yet, Cap.”

. . .

Dernier quickly and efficiently hot-wires a supply truck the next day, and Bucky isn’t the only one who complains that he went too fast to follow - and tell Steve they’re going to steal another just for the sake of an actual lesson this time.

Steve rolls his eyes, “We’re not stealing another one just for the sake of your criminal education.”

“Why not? They’re German trucks, not civilians, we don’t care.”

“Exactly. They’re German. The Army might notice if two go missing, and knowing you lot you’ll see a tank or armed one and take your chances on that just for the hell of it.”

They would, and their only argument for not feeling guilty about it is that they haven’t had a chance to commit it yet.

“Big stakes: big wins.” Dugan says at the same time as Morita says:

“Can’t blame us for having dreams, Cap.”

“Just get in the truck.” He says dully.

“Sir yes sir Captain Fun.” They retort sarcastically but do as they’re told, concealing themselves behind the canvas.

“I think they forget sometimes that we’re at war.”

“Bright side:” Jones says, about to climb in too. “At least in the front you can ignore them for an hour or two.”

“Downside,” Bucky fires back, “we can’t.”

They drive on, Falsworth at the steering wheel; Steve in the passenger seat. He dumps a German hat and helmet on Falsworth’s and his own head as they close up on the small checkpoint; elbows the back rack to silence those hidden behind the crates. He sits on his helmet and Monty’s red beret.

They slow, Monty yells “Lebensmittellieferung” at them in perfect gravelly German, followed by the password from the set Peggy sent them spanning sixty miles of the base. They wave them through the checkpoint. They approach the bridge and Steve shrugs the shoulders of the jacket off his uniform, picks up the charges by his feet; checks the side mirror.

“Now Cap.” Falsworth motions, and he bangs on the back rack too. Steve flings himself from the moving truck, running right as Gabe goes left from the back. He jumps the wall, sticks a charge to the stone of the first bridge leg with the sticky squishy explosive Howard himself invented, triggers it and runs back, jumping into the still open passenger seat silently. He checks the mirrors and Gabe’s leg also disappears back under the cargo flap as he returns; the guards at the checkpoint still with their backs to them. He glimpses the faint line of a wire appearing back on the river bank below them from the water when he looks over the wall. They’re waved from the checkpoint on the other side. They keep driving at pace.

Eighty eight - eighty nine - ninety - bingo.

The bridge explodes with a loud boom and splash. Rubble rains down into the water - and a second and third blast echo out and up as Steve and Gabe’s charges ignite on the first leg of the bridge. He looks back and the centre and the first half of the bridge are gone, the leftover German’s are shouting, and Dernier runs out of the trees onto the road - Bucky’s arm swings out the flap to pull him into the back.

“Whoo!” He hears Dugan cheer, and Monty hits the gas, speeding down the road. They’re out of range by the time the German soldiers on the second side have the chance to fire at them.

“Nicely done Jacques!” He calls into the back, “Tu as bien nagé?” (Did you have a nice swim?)

Jacques laughs in the back, “I went fishing mon ami, as you all took your sweet time!” He calls back and Morita swears as he must shake his hair out, flinging river water onto him.

With one quick diversion off their original path they’ve taken out a weapon supply line and a German phone line that ran along the bridge then back underground in one go. Steve grins, feeling accomplished.

. . .

The boys start calling Steve ‘Captain Nag’ and call Bucky ‘Trouble and Strife’, occasionally throwing out ‘the old married couple down the lane’. Monty becomes ‘posh twot’, Jim becomes ‘hoochman’, Dernier ‘boomtastic’ and Dugan becomes ‘moustachary’ which he complains about endlessly due to the lack of originality.

. . .

09TH JANURARY 1944 - ADMIRMAL RADIO (CBS) - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

World news today, brought to you by the Admiral Corporation; makers of Admiral Radio; America’s smart set. By shortwave broadcast direct from important overseas stations as well as leading news centres of our own country. CBS correspondents  are waiting to give you a complete report all things political and battlefront. But first, here’s Doug Edwards:

DOUG: The Allied 5 ^th  Army in Italy has thrown back the German counterattacks and has cut deeper into the army defence lines around Casino, the strategic town guarding the Ron-de-Rown. In Russia, the Soviet Army have smashed within striking distance of three German escape railroads, and the fall of Solany and all of Poland seems imminent in the next few months.

British mosquito  bombers were over German targets again last night. And in the far Pacific marine jungle fighters on New-Briton island have made new gains in the face of strong Jap opposition. Now for our first news direct overseas - Admiral Radio takes you to CBS Algeria; Winston Debeck reporting. [CONNECTION FIRED]

0:56 - 1:06

[STATIC]

DOUG: We regret that we are not able to make contact with Columbia’s correspondent in North Africa. However for home-front news Admiral radio takes you now to Washington. Don Pryor reporting:

DON: Congress goes back to work tomorrow after the holiday….

. . .

They’re in the middle of nowhere, walking among a copse of trees lining boxes and boxes of fields and farms. There’s brown splatters of dirt and craters where shells must have been dropped; and a large skid mark on the side of a hill. There’s a blackened husk of an plane laying at it’s end hidden among long overgrown grass; it looks several years old, but obviously no one’s touched or tended to the area since. It’s a smart move, who knows what could have been dropped when it went down, but has yet to be set off. There’s a few sheep he can see in the far distance, grazing, and the figure of a plumpish woman sweeping the deck of a farm house.

The rattle of a train speeds past on the other side of the sparse woods, and Steve listens out to work out what direction it’s going in. He checks his watch, writes down South and 15:23 in each column he has in his notebook. He returns it back to his pocket; and checks the position of the sun. It’s a particularly cold week, the chill beginning to catch even him. The cover of the trees haven’t helped much; as where they can escape the whistling wind within them, they can’t escape the temperature rising from the hardened ground. It rained yesterday for several hours, and their boots and socks are still damp; while their back’s are wet with clammy sweat. Their truck ran out of petrol two days ago while they were busy criss-crossing over the country.

“God, I could use a good shower.” Dugan groans, “who would have thought I’d miss that piss cold shower block in Achaherry.”

“Would you rather be hosed down like in the factory?” Gabe says, “we could recreate that for you if you like.”

“Yeah, lets not.” Bucky says from behind him. “You stink, I stink, we all stink. Get over it.”

“Alright Mr Sensitive, only trying to lighten the mood here.” Dugan defends a little more sharply than he normally would. He’s been getting more prickly too, with every dig Bucky makes. Steve, like the rain, is getting a little sick of it.

There’s something akin to a sob. He holds out a hand, and they stop behind him; trusting his ears more than their own. He ducks down onto his haunches and they follow until they're sure what it is.

“It’s probably an animal, Cap.” Morita tries to reassure after a moment when Steve tries to listen out further. It’s not the first time an animal has spooked them, but they can never be too careful this far behind enemy lines. He hears it again, and a rumble he didn’t pick up before; but realizes has been there for a while.

Steve knows what an animal sounds like, and that; that sounds like stuttering gasps that don’t come from something on four legs. There’s a engine running.

“Tu es jolie, n’est-ce pas ?” (You’re a pretty one, aren’t you?)

“Tha - Je dois y aller. Je t’ai dit que j’avais la corvée.” Comes a French female voice, nervous, and sounding rather young. (Tha - I must go. I told you I have chores--)

“Jolie voix aussi, ne pensez-vous pas Frances?” (Pretty voice too, don’t you think, Frances?) The man cuts her off again, and another one hums in agreement. A branch snaps, the girls voice sounds more to the right, towards the fields again, as though she’s backing off.

“Ma mère m’attend à revenir - s’il vous plaît je dois y aller.” (My mother is waiting for me - please, I must go.)

“Pourquoi ne pas venir avec nous, chéri.” The harder voice says, “Allez, monte dans le camion.” (Why don’t you come with us, darling.” The harder voice says, “Come on, get in the truck.”)

“Rodgers what is it? What can you hear?” Falsworth asks, and they’re looking at him in confusion, frowning. Bucky’s frowning, but not at him, head cocked, like he’s trying to listen to what Steve is.

“Non I--” The voice is more panicked, something is dragged across the ground. “Arrêter!” (Stop!)

Steve takes off at a sharp run; the girl starts shouting; and the commandos already trying to keep up to Steve by running at full pelt, hear it too.  

“Nous sommes Resistance, nous sommes votre peuple. (We’re Resistance, we’re your people.) The same voice says, followed by grunting and yells.

“Maman!” The girl screams, Steve breaches the treeline, and two men; with a running dirty pickup truck, are in front of him. They have the girl on the ground as she struggles, tearing at her clothes. She can’t be more than sixteen, they’re in their forties. He tackles one clean off her, slamming him into the ground. He shoves the other off with one hand halfway into the tackle and the man smacks with thwack against the truck, groaning. He stands, pulls his gun out; and is surrounded by the commandos. Falsworth has shoved himself between them and the girl on the ground, who is scrambling backwards to the treeline; obviously terrified.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Falsworth growls at them, and Steve stands, towering over the man on the ground to step towards the man hunched over but still standing. He can feel himself shaking with anger. The man swings his sidearm at all of them.

“Qui sont, Anglais, non- Américains?” (Who are - English, no -American’s?) The man bites out, recognizing the accent most of the commandos are yelling at him with. “Que fait American ici?” (What are American doing here?)

Dernier starts snapping at him in rapid fire French, so the other's silence themselves and the man barks back, looking back at his unmoving companion Steve has knocked out with one hit. It goes back and forth, the man swings the side arm at Dernier, and they all cock their weapons in warning, and the man drops it.

“They--are Resistance.” Dernier translates.

“I heard.” Steve growls out in French, and the man’s head snaps to him, then shrinks at his size. “Just because they’re Resistance doesn’t make it okay to attack a young girl. Where were you going to take her?”

“Just with us.”

“With you where?” Steve takes a step towards him, he suddenly swings out a knife. Steve knocks it away with ease, slamming him against the side of the pick-up. The man hangs from his collar, feet of the ground. “You will not ever touch her, or any other girl without her constant ever again. Do you understand me?”

There’s not a lot he can do, aside from killing these men, and, as awful as they are - he can’t do that. He’s not going to allow himself to get drunk on power like they just did. He drops the man back to his feet, hits him twice. He tugs him back to his feet and growls out, “Take your friend, and get the fuck away from here. Now.”

He scarpers, grabbing his friend and dragging him into the car. He runs back to grab his gun and Bucky levels his at his head, he backs off without it, gets in the car and goes. Steve’s turns back to the girl, and crouches to join Falsworth closer to her height on the ground. She’s shaking something fierce still, but staring at him in wonder, and seems to realize they’re not going to hurt her when she accepts Falsworth’s jacket over her shoulders.

“Helene!” A rather portly woman comes running up, gasping, with a young boy who outpaces her. He’s short and gangly, and he tries to shove Steve and Falsworth away from what must be his sister. The mother, the figure Steve saw sweeping he realizes, grabs the girl and drags her away from them.

“Non, no, maman.” The girl calls, and the woman sweeps her hands over her cheeks and covers up her ripped skirt. Steve and Falsworth back up, hands up, to make it clear they mean no harm.

“Put your gun down for fucks sake.” He hears behind him, and several clicks echo around him as his men put their safeties back on. Dernier crouches down to the same level, and he takes over when the girl looses her place and starts crying. The woman continues to look very suspicious, but the girl must get something out to reassure her. She points to Steve and Falsworth, with a shaking hand, mumbling into her mother’s bosom.

The mother clings to her daughter, but reaches one hand out to take Steve’s, and squeezes sharply to say thank you. Steve thanks God for his ears, for his whole body for being able to stop that. It’s not the first time he’s gotten involved in something like that, but it’s the first time he’s been able to stop something so suddenly in it’s tracks.

“Je vous remercie.” The mother murmurs to Steve, and then to all of them. “Je vous remercie” (Thank you. Thank you.)

“I am Elodie, please, please come back to my farm.” She says after a while, as her daughter finally starts to relax. She sends her younger son away, and he goes sprinting back to the farm to put the kettle on.  “You saved my daughter. Let me repay you.”

They refuse at first, as they should keep going, but the woman insists - and so they relent.

. . .

When they’d left London there had been Christmas decorations up - homemade small garlands hanging in the archways of the underground bunker. He’d completely forgotten what month it was, really, until he saw them.

Churchill’s orders apparently; to keep some semblance of morale high for the eighteen hour days people spent underground. Why the aides, guards, politicians, officers and secretaries would have higher morale with a twig of mistletoe hanging in the storeroom didn’t make much sense when they couldn’t spend it with their families, but Steve supposes it’s the thought that counts.

Since the base and the ensuing celebration, and with the orders to stay on the ground Steve, though he’s been tallying the days, it seems has lost track of them in relation to the actual calendar. They’ve barely stopped moving, hitting as many targets as they can until now. It turns out it’s a been eight days and nine nights since Christmas Day when Elodie brings them back to her farm, and secretes them away for a well-deserved dinner as payment for saving her daughter; grateful and appreciative. It’s January, a new year.

“I’ve grown used to the Boche soldiers marching through, but not American and my own people,” she'd kissed Jacques on each cheek, and continued speaking on quick French. “It is important that you come in.”

“That is alright my good lady,” Dernier replies in matching rapid, but soft, French, as Gabe translates quietly to them. “You should be careful, we are behind the line, if they catch you helping us the--”

“Oh bosh on that!” Elodie says, cutting him off, and spits in disgust on the ground. “You saved my eldest girls virtue, you are coming in and you are eating. Come quickly if it concerns you so, but you’re coming in!”

There’s still a few green dried garlands up, and the woman’s nephew secretly breeds rabbits for extra meat under chicken hutch and under the farmhouse foundations; which Elodie is mixing into a stew. It smells amazing as she whips it up; and she refuses them trying to help with the ingredients from their rations. She’ll have nothing of the sort; and assures them they have enough food, being so far out their crops and animals are not bothered often, and so if needed they can always butcher one of their birds. They’re one of the luckier families.

“It is hard work,” she tells them through Gabe and Jacques, “to handle the farm without my husband and father - he has been sent to the factories as he’s too old to serve, and I’ve lost several dozen of our sheep, but we cope. The young’un’s help but I’ve let them off for a few days longer than I should. That’s why they’re still up,” she adds, motioning to the grass and paper garlands over the fireplace and the Christmas oranges on the table. “I’ve been out; no time to take them down.”

Hélène seems, of course, almost infatuated with Steve now despite him being nearly a decade older; sticking close, asking him questions and thanking him profusely over and over again. She spends the entire time close to a very deep pink going on scarlet as she does, and Steve spends half the evening politely and kindly making conversation and corralling her hands away.

“This is a good thing,” Clément, the thirteen year old brother says, “It’s shut her up about Théo since he had to run off. She wouldn’t stop. All it was was Théo this, Théo that. I nearly squirted her with Bessy’s milk when I was milking her last week - she’s impossible.”

“Théo?” Falsworth asks in amusement.

“Neighbour boy.” The grandmother answers from a chair in broken English, knitting, and then has the gall to roll her eyes.

“Nana!” Hélène shouts, shocked at the betrayal.

The older woman scrunches up her nose. “You can do better.” She utters honestly, then mutters “mais pas si bon que” (“but not that good”) under her breath afterwards in relation to Steve. He and Gabe are the only ones to hear - him with his good ears, and Gabe as he’s just below the lady at her feet; helping her untangle her wool. He snorts very unsubtly. Hélène looks over at them suspiciously, but then returns her undivided attention to Steve, and then Falsworth when she realizes she’s getting nowhere.

The six year old Marguerite, curly hair tied up in a ribbon in the meantime has latched onto Bucky as if she could sense deep inside herself that he knew how to plait hair. The eleven year old has been assigned to chop vegetables. Dugan’s been loaded with the the babies, one of which is having a great time playing with his moustache and laughing hysterically as the man blows raspberries on the boy’s belly. He’s holding down the three year old with a foot as Morita tickles her incessantly. It -- it feels very special, even if it’s not Christmas anymore and they’re not really part of this family - they’ve been welcomed as if they are.

Louis, Elodie’s barely sixteen year old nephew returns from working the land and stops short in the door at the sight of the entire lower floor of the farmhouse full of soldiers and wriggling children. He freezes for a moment, hears Jacques’ language and their American accents, realizes they’re not German; shrugs and walks inside to steal a slice of bread as if this is an entirely normal day. Elodie slaps a towel against his hand and he rolls his eyes, splashes water onto his face to wash off the dirt.

“Hands too you hooligan.” Elodie adds, “then bread. Un (One).”

“Tu ne vas pas demander, mon garçon?” (“You’re not going to ask, boy?”) The grandmother queries as he does so.

“Aunt Elodie has lots of friends, maman always says.” He replies, in French back. ”She likes strays. It does not surprise me to see she has adopted seven stray soldiers now.”

“Oof.” Elodie huffs, and whacks him again, but with amusement this time. “He thinks he is a comedian, this one does.” She tells the group and they laugh, “How were the fields?”

“Frozen.”

“The sheep?”

“Woolly.”

“The cow?”

“Milky.” He retorts, chomping on some bread as if this is a daily tradition. “Maman says to stop stealing her butter by the way.”

“Tell your maman to stop stealing my flour then. And we’ll see.”

“You could both stop stealing off each other, you foolish girl.” The grandmother says, “bonne douleur.” (“Good Grief.”)

“We wouldn’t be sisters is we didn’t steal from each other.” Elodie waves off and Bucky snorts and Steve grins, because boy does that sound familiar. Sisters are the same it seems on both sides of the pond.

The eleven year old suddenly decides to solidify that assessment as she starts complaining why she has to chop vegetables when the older Hélène doesn’t.

“Because she’s had a nasty shock today, Brigitte, good god.”

“Yeah, she looks it.” Brigitte mutters venomously as Hélène continues to smile dreamily at Steve and Falsworth.

“And so this is what Clément made me from stuff he found, look, it’s a toy seed drill so I can work the land with mama.” Marguerite tells Bucky very importantly, giving him a tour of what she got in her Christmas stocking. She’s already gone through two tiny cards, a knitted hat, a wood spinner top she’s sharing with Clément and a doll her mother made her from straw and a left over kitchen cloth.

“Oh wow,” Bucky replies in French, sounding effectively amazed to Marguerite’s immense approval, “can you show me how to use it? I’m from the city so I don’t know these important things you do.”

“Of course!” Maugueritte half shouts, and gets right down to it, taking Bucky’s hand and demonstrating it on the rug. She then makes him do it; then tells him no, he’s doing it “all wrong. It’s like this! Look!”

She’d started off speaking in forcefully slow French at first after being told by Jacques that they’re all terrible; but Bucky is better than most at this particular language and she’d quickly forgotten when he made a point of replying in well-pronounced French. He seems to be keeping up; and looks incredibly natural surrounded by dolls and sticky hands, but of course; he would. Steve would too to be fair, having babysat the twins with Bucky more than a hundred times over, certainly more natural than being ogled by a very pretty, but very young fifteen year old girl. He’s a little jealous honestly.

“Did you know,” Bucky says, “until I came over here I’d never seen a cow before.”

It’s a lie, sort of, because the first time he’d seen a cow was on the train en-route to winter training in Wisconsin in the October of 1942 - Steve knows because Bucky wrote him vigorously about them; not knowing they were ‘that big.’ It makes a clear point though, as Marguerite gasps as though someone’s just told her that St Nick, the Santa Claus isn’t real; it’s distinctively so shocking.

“Maman, never take me to the city.” She calls, very seriously. “I want to stay with Bessy the cow.”

“Of course dear, whatever you say.” Elodie calls carelessly back behind her.

It’s quite amusing to realize half the boys aren’t keeping up with the quick family back-and-forth aside from he, Gabe, Bucky and of course Jacques, whose deep in conversation with Elodie - but that was why they’d been given the babies. It’s also a shame really, because they are really missing out on something special.

“And I also got these.” Marguerite continues, once she’s recovered from the shock. She’s pulling out three coloured animals that look as though their images cut out of a book, mounted on card, and then attached to wooden bases. They consist of the animal itself and half and inch or so of grass or rock below them which has also been cut out; they stand up straight so Marguerite can bounce them across the floor in make-believe games. They’re quite beautiful really. Marguerite bounces them across the floor and lines them up so Bucky can see - and explains, “This is a lion. This is a…um…”

“A Tiger, Ritti.” Hélène reminds her, and turns back to Steve to tell him: “She likes animals, so we thought we’d teach her some new ones.”

“A tiger.” Marguerite continues, “and this is a bear.”

“That’s a lovely idea, Hélène. They’re great - did you make them?” She nods, blushing. “Really imaginative, I wish I could have thought of something like that when I was younger at home.”

“Where is home, Capitaine?”

“It’s Steve, Hélène. You can call me Steve. And New York.”

“New York?! What’s that like?” Because she’s obviously interested Steve tells her about Times Square, the milk bars, Broadway and the Bridges instead of the overcrowding, the crime and the sometimes less than stellar streets. He’s in the middle of it when he hears Bucky’s voice again.

“A bear. So that’s what a bear looks like.” He says, quieter, in English, and it’s a weird sentence but he’s also said it in a weird way with a weird look on his face. Marguerite luckily doesn’t seem to notice.

“Lets play! They can have a fight, they can battle to save Margot!” The little girl replies, bouncing excitedly on her knees from Bucky’s lap, and hangs her doll Margot headfirst off the table in a precarious trap. “She’s stuck in a tree, I have to help her!”

Bucky blinks, and is back. ”Not if I save her first!”

“We’ll see about that!” She fires back just as quick. Steve gets a sudden flash of Jenna at the same age, sat on Bucky’s lap right before the twins started a horseback war, sitting and slinging themselves off both his and Bucky’s backs. He keeps talking to Hélène, but keeps one eye on the game as the baby howls again with another raspberry. “I want the lion. Who do you want? The bear?”

Bucky blanches a little again, “How about the tiger? If that’s okay?”

“Uh-huh.” Marguerite answers, handing him the tiger and lining up Bucky’s hands with it. “But my lion is going to win.” With no warning she launches into battle, and attacks Bucky’s hand and tiger with a roar.

They all have to break - from battles, raspberries, tickling, untangling and shutting down blushing teenagers - for dinner, which as Steve thought, is glorious. They sit at an actual wooden dining table with real if mismatched cutlery. Elodie serves them tea or coffee afterwards at her instance, and Jim throws in half a bottle of whisky he’s sequestered from god knows where - adding shots to the coffees to make them Irish. With that volunteering he becomes the new favourite of the grandmother and Gabe is kicked to the curb. It’s a nice ‘Christmas’, even if they’re at war.

Elodie saves Steve with a roll of her eyes at her daughter and decides Hélène has recovered enough from her nasty shock to clear up and wash the dishes. Clément is sent out for more firewood and Brigitte grins successfully at her win; leaning back against her grandmother’s chair and whistling mockingly at her older sister. Marguerite refuses to speak to anyone but Bucky and their second battle to save the damsel doll ends with her lion attacking Bucky’s face instead of his tiger.

“Marguerite!” Elodie snaps when she see’s Bucky land on his back in shock but Steve waves her off, laughing.

“He has three sisters. This is nothing, he’s used to getting attacked with twice the force. Think of a dozen shaken sodas, with the volume of three banshees wrapped in the bodies of two twins girls and you’ve got a fairly good picture.” Elodie laughs and lets it go when she hears Bucky laughing himself and tells his friend not to go easy on the little brat. After all is said and done Steve decides, and calls: “Hey Marguerite.”

With the French picked up quickly, the little girl spins between Bucky’s outstretched legs. “Did you know he knows how to braid princess hair? He’s amazing at it.”

Bucky glares at him with utter betrayal, and it’s only Marguerite astonished cheer that saves him from calling Steve an asshole.

. . .

Elodie insists they sleep over too, and when they all refuse, absolutely not taking the families’ beds, she insists they sleep in the warm dry stable instead. They accept, and they help Louis lay new straw down in the clean stalls for them to sleep in before he goes home to his own mother whose been out on house calls until now. Steve asks him about the railway lines that run several fields down from Elodie’s farm. He gets the answer he’s hoping for.

. . .

10TH JANURARY 1944 - ADMIRMAL RADIO (CBS) - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Stay tuned for the news. [STATIC]

World news today, brought to you by the Admiral Corporation; makers of Admiral Radio; America’s smart set. By shortwave broadcast direct from important overseas stations as well as leading news centres of our own country. CBS correspondents  are waiting to give you a complete report all things political and battlefront. But first, here’s Doug Edwards:

DOUG: Leading the news today is the announcement that General Eisenhower has arrived in Britain to take over command of all forces for the invasion. And in French Morocco, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, completely recovered from his illness, has conferred with French General De’Guilde. On the war-front  American troops in Italy have captured Mon-Serento, the main barrier blocking their way to the fortress of Casino. The Germans report a break in their lines by the new Russian offensive in the Monen-Groude area. And in the Pacific the Allied ground troops push against the Japs on New-Briton and New Guinea and continue  at a slow pace. Now for the news of the fighting in Italy, Admiral Radio takes you overseas to Algeries. Winston Berdet reporting.

WINSTON: The Americans and Allies have captured the last hill barrier between them and the Rapido river….[STATIC]…fifteen hundred feet high, two miles this side of Casino, fell to our troops at nightfall yesterday after a rough twelve hour fight….[STATIC]….

. . .

“How’s the hay treating you Cap?” Morita asks dully to his side, as Steve shuffles again on the bed of hay and straw. A horse snorts in another stable a few doors away, and when Steve looks over Morita’s sat in the main walkway with an eyebrow raised. “Doesn’t look like it’s agreeing with you. You planning on getting any sleep anytime soon?”

He snorts, then sighs again, then gets up with a huff to join him on watch. “Can’t settle it seems.”

“How's that; we might be surrounded by manure but Christ, we’re not sleeping on rocks for once.”

It’s a fair point; they’ve gone sans tents tonight and half the boys have practically buried themselves in piles of straw. They’re stomachs are full and heavy with rabbit broth, chicken pieces, bread and several smatterings of greens thanks to the incredible generosity of Elodie. They’re protected by walls and a roof from the weather and surrounded by the warm body heat of the surrounding animals. For all intents and purposes Steve should be revelling in the warmth and catching his eight hours. “Maybe it’s the irony of it, now that we finally have it.” He says, folding open his map and compass again to track their progression across the country.

“Don’t tell me you can’t work out where we’re going?” He jokes.

“Hilarious Jim.” Steve intones, “I’m just thinking about the best route in and out.”

“In and out?”

“Of the city.”

“Not around?”

Steve shakes his head. In particular he’s looking at the railway lines etched in blue and red, and how many cargo trains he’s heard go past in the valley further below. He’s thinking of his options and has been writing down the times so he knows the schedule and directions. He’d like to stop in Nancy, or Nanzig as the Germans have dubbed it after taking it, briefly as the SSR have a safe-house they can report in further and resupply at; and there’s more information that moves among city folk than there is with farmland folk. He just has a feeling he could find something of interest there - an instinct - and the safe-house would provide more of a secure line than their carry-on radio for further intel. The railway just below them runs to a drop off station in Laneuveville-devant before carrying on or diverting away from Nancy. They could hitch a ride and stow away, jump off at the cargo drop-off and trek the rest of the way in and do the same back out. Or they could steal another car or find more petrol for the truck they already have and make their way in that way; and put up with the checkpoint. Nancy apparently so far has hardly been touched, but it’s still very much occupied. The trains though…it would be the quickest way, and being this close to a potential safe-house is extremely convenient while they’re here for a stock up. It’s not essential before they move on but--

“Cap.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re thinking too much again.”

Steve huffs, running a hand over his prickly jaw with a laugh; being able to, and having the opportunity to grow stubble now is a strange thing. “Right. That obvious is it?”

Morita shrugs, puffing on a cigarette; looking out the stable doorway onto the French farmland. “You have a look about you.” He explains, “You get a frown and you’re eyes start darting; like you’re minds going a mile a minute. Hey! Shoo!” He suddenly calls, waving off a chicken that’s trying to cluck it’s way over Steve’s map. “Whatever you’re thinking just stop, man. Go with your gut - it’s normally right. Would you shove off, you stupid bird.”

Steve laughs quietly and helps him chase it off, catching it so it doesn’t squawk and peck at him, and popping it into an empty stall when it won’t stop. Morita’s laughing at him by the end; especially the way he waddled with his arms held out straight in front of him, dodging flapping wings and shushing the thing frantically.  “I think that proves I’ve never been a farm hand a day in my life.” He jokes as he sits back down; accepts a couple of drags off the cigarette Jim offers to him to finish.

He puffs it experimentally, slowly, inhaling and breathing out; waiting for his lungs to catch. It never comes, just like it never came in Scotland where he dared to have his first ever real cigarette. His experience with asthma cigarettes are the only reason he didn’t embarrass himself on the first and second drags - already knowing how to inhale. Throughout the months that he was on tour he hadn’t touched a stick, rolled or straight, even though he could; not wanting to smoke it alone out of fear maybe? Just inhaling second-hand smoke used to set him off sometimes; and so Bucky had never taken to it out of solidarity; but Steve had learnt in the first year of their friendship not to go out in the Barnes’ small garden in the evening if Bucky’s father was back from base; and his friend Bertie from his life drawing classes always made a point of going outside. The times where Bertie did want company more whilst he smoked, usually a drink or two in or when he was riled up and ranting about something he’d seen in the paper - he used to shoo Steve back at least three feet and yell his sentences at him over the space.

Steve with his bad ear spent half that time repeating “What?” at him anyway; so it’s both an amusing and annoying memory. He smiles when he thinks of it; and how when he’d given up and just come closer so they could actually have a conversation; Bertie would shout “Ah ah!” at him and bounce back as many steps as Steve had taken forward. He swore off all their smoking sessions together completely after Steve had his first proper attack in front of him and the gang at an afternoon party; which was one of his worst to date; and one that had left him on a nebulizer for several days, and in the hospital for a week.  Nothing in particular had set him off then, as far as he remembers - which is not much, but Bertie drilled down on the seriousness of his health almost as much as Bucky did after that.

He wonders where his friend is now; on the coast of Italy or England or France - maybe they’re both here in a miraculous coincidence; him on-shore and Bertie a hundred feet below water off-shore. Or the Pacific, Bertie could also be in the Pacific with the majority of the submarines; he's not sure - they’ve been out of touch for a while now - and Steve can’t blame Bertie for that. That one's on him and his own stupid stubborn jealousy when Bertie got a 1-A and Steve got himself a 4-F after trying to enlist together.

“This is so weird.” He can’t help commenting quietly.

“What?” Morita asks, “the cig? Not up to your usual fancy fags?”

Steve laughs at the very thought of fancy cigarettes, “God no." He explains. "I used to have asthma.” Jim’s eyes widen as he understands. All the commandos have been briefed on Project Rebirth and the serum of course; have seen his original enlistment photo after they requested to; have heard Bucky’s tales of his ninety-five pounds soaking wet asshole exploits, but haven’t heard the full explanation of his previous ailments. “Just someone smoking around me could set it off sometimes, and asthma cigarettes aren’t the same; taste, texture; everything. And now - nothing. It’s just weird. Guess I haven’t completely learnt about my new body as much as I thought.”

“The fact that you call it a ‘new body’ is a little weird.” Morita comments, and Steve’s neck heats up in embarrassment. When he glances at Morita, almost shyly, about to pull on his sleeves he realizes the man doesn’t mean it in a bad way. Jim’s looking out into the countryside again, staying alert, so he hasn’t noticed the flash of upset that came across Steve’s face. “It’s just crazy is all,” he continues, “that that’s a thing that happened in our time - it’s insane when looking at your old photos with how much you’ve changed.”

“Yeah.” Steve comments, not really knowing how to continue, because while his body feels and moves wildly different; in himself he feels the same if…maybe he feels things a little more than he used to. Like Bucky said with his almost binary moral compass; the right and the wrong - his scope of feeling is just extra too. The serum amplifies everything, Erksine had said. He’s not entirely sure if that’s real or in his head; psychosomatic, like several doctors told his ma he was about his asthma at first, but it's something he's more aware of. That was how he got labelled with nervous trouble on his medical records.  His ma used to march out and roll her eyes when any doc’ even got close to mentioning that, because “that boy, with the amount of trouble he gets in, is the least ‘nervous’ child I have ever met in my life. He’s not making this up.”

There’s a faint rumble, and he stands quickly, climbing up onto a barrel and then the edge of a pen door to make himself taller. He does it quietly so he doesn’t wake Dernier and Falsworth sleeping in that stable pen. He spies the brief flash in the trees, tracking the direction of the train, and returns to his map and compass. He routes in the back pocket of his suit, pulling out his tiny black flip-book - opening it up to the page with a list of times and directions. He tracks the direction on the map; back down from Nancy to Besançon at 01:04 hours.

Morita watches him note it down, and plucks the cigarette from Steve’s mouth as it smoulders down to the very end in his preoccupation. “Watch your lips Cap, geez. Just cause you can’t burn your lungs now doesn’t mean you have to go out of your way to burn everything else.” 

“Ha. Thanks.” Steve mutters, grinning, as Morita makes sure it’s out completely and safely in the dirt. He dumps it in a tin after to make sure it’s away from the hay.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Morita ventures, “the doctor who…” he waves at Steve, “did this, his formula, what was he like? Being German and all.”

Steve raises an eyebrow, “Like a lot of other men.” He says, “just because he was German doesn’t mean he was a certain way. He was a genius, funny too and a good man. A very good man, if desperate to be successful in his work - in his own very particular way.” With distance, Steve can very much see that now. “It was the only thing he had left in the end.”

“What do you mean?”

“He told me once that what a lot of people tend to forget is that the first country the Nazi’s invaded was their own. He was a refugee, and he was Jewish. He and his family were caught trying to cross the border to Belgium when they started segregating the Jews, and were split up. His wife and son taken away, while he was forced to continue his work for Hydra. They told him that if he didn’t they’d kill his family but…they’d already died in a ghetto camp a year before he got away. Hydra were just using the love he had for them. He didn’t know until Agent Carter told him when she rescued him - she was the one who convinced him to get his revenge by switching sides instead of throwing his life away that night in vengeance. I read his file, after.” Steve sighs, “He was a great man, and I’ll always be grateful to him for what he’s done for me. He didn’t deserve what happened to him, but at least he’s with them now.”

Morita hums, and seems to veer himself up for something. Steve watches him carefully, feeling like something’s coming. “It’s awful.” He says, “what they’re doing to the Jews in the ghettos and the work camps. But they’re not the only country doing shit like that.” He utters and Steve thinks at first, Romania and other Axis countries, but then freezes; feeling like this is something else. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out before Morita continues. “First country they invaded was their own, huh? Sounds awful familiar to what happened to the neighbourhood I grew up in right after I shipped back out.”

Steve’s very quiet for a long moment as that revelation hits, at what Morita’s just insinuated and invested in him. He asks, a little hollowly. “Do you mean the U.S?”

Morita stares out at the sky, “My mother was four when she arrived in the States with her family. My father’s father arrived when he was nineteen from Japan; my father was born there so was I and my brothers - and my sister. We’re American citizens - second and third generation. It didn’t stop the government from rounding them up in camps too, six months after Pearl Harbour. We thought our family would be safe; but we were wrong.”

“Jim I’ve--they’re just evacuations,” Steve starts warily, “I’ve never heard anything--”

“About military camps?” Morita says quietly, “You wouldn’t. Barely anyone would. They’re not reporting it; so no one knows about it - the company line is evacuations for the safety of America - so lets face it; with the shit going on right now; who cares enough to fight about it? Two thirds of the country probably agree with it. My parents are in a camp called Mazanar, my little brother’s been split up in another camp - I don’t know where - with my aunt. The only reason I know that it even happened is cause my sister got out and hid before they could grab her. She sent me a letter in a letter, hidden in a wrapper of a chocolate bar last year. She’s in Mexico, hiding. Her best friend’s parents hid her and then helped smuggle her over the border to make sure she got out safe. I’d never liked her friend up until then; now that girl’s my favourite person in the world. My sister wanted to go back for Mom and Dad, or Howie, my little brother, but she was too scared. She’s fourteen Cap, younger than Hélène today. Fourteen. My eldest brother serving back in Italy almost deserted when he found out he was so angry.”

Steve can’t believe what he’s hearing, it’s surely so impossibly impossible - they’re at war but the U.S are supposed to be -- their own country, the country of immigrants, couldn’t be doing that, could they? They’re supposed to be better.

“You’re se--” he cuts himself off, “Jim, I’m so sorry. That’s not right.”

“Yeah, well, I guess me and your doctor have some things in common after-all - and it’s not the genius part.”

Steve swallows, head still spinning. “I wouldn’t go that far - I’d say your pretty close to genius with a radio.” He tries to console.

Jim gives him a stiff, flat look. ”Was that your attempt at making me feel better?”

“I know. I’m terrible at it. I’m so sorry Jim.”

“You are a bit, yeah. But thanks for trying, Cap. And for listening to my shit.”

“It’s not shit, Jim. It’s your family for Christ sake and nothing justifies - I don’t even know what to say - if it’s true and they’re backhandedly trying to cover it up as something else- which they must be cause I had no idea.” He hisses out a “Jesus,” unable to believe how so solely invested in the war and his own position on the tour he was to miss this happening on the same soil he was walking on. Christ, with the rallies he used to go to he should have known about this. It’s hardly the first time rich powerful men have lied to disguise bigotry. “For the record, it’s disgusting. And I’ll always listen. Can you write your parents?”

“Tried. Didn’t get anything back. Albert and Johnny didn’t get anything either when they did the same. Al’ got a response from my aunt whose looking after my littlest brother - but their camp is a little more lenient than most apparently. God knows anything else. You and the boys ‘cept Gabe are lucky you’re white, that’s all I’ll say.”

The horse whinnies again, and the wayward chicken clucks in it’s Steve-assigned prison.

“Sorry.” Morita utters after a while. “I kinda brought the mood down, huh?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Don’t lie Cap, you’re terrible at it when you don’t have cards in your hands.” He says. “It’s only,  my face kinda’ caught flack in my last unit - way more this time round after the Harbour - so I didn’t really think anyone would listen. Figured you might be a safe one to air it out too.”

Steve nods, feeling rather honoured at that. “I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to.”

They make comfortable conversation for another hour; Steve notes down another train speeding across the country, and offers to take Gabe’s watch when Morita finishes his in an hour and a half.

“You sure about that?”

“Why not? I feel like I’m not going to settle and I don’t need as much sleep as the rest of you. Another perk to the serum.”

“Ooh lucky you,” Morita mocks, “no need to rub it in.”

“There’s no fun in it otherwise.”

Morita snorts. “You want another cigarette?”

Steve hesitates and Morita adds, “to share if you like. I can never finish a full one - my dad would be ashamed of me if he could see me now.”

“Yeah alright. Might as well let myself feel like the rebellious teenager I never was.”

“Ha!” Morita laughs quietly, mood cheering, as he lights the smoke. “I don’t believe that for a second from what I’ve heard you got up to. Barnes said your record was fighting three people in one week alone.”

Steve takes a drag. “Four actually. And that’s four fights…with multiple people.” He admits, not ashamed whatsoever. “I didn’t tell Buck about the last one.”

“Exactly my point, Cap.” Morita points, “exactly my point. Responsible teenager my ass.”

“Hey, I never hung round the bike racks to smoke. Or drink. Much.” He keeps admitting, “And I was only involved in a riot at a rally once.”

“You know you’re not really helping yourself here, right?”

“To be fair that one wasn’t my fault.”

“That one?” Morita blurts incredulously.

“The other one doesn’t count in this - I wasn’t a teenager.”

“Fuck my life.” Morita hisses, laughing. “How are you even in one piece?”

“I like to think by Gods’s pity,” he laughs, “seeing as he slugged me with bad lungs, heart, back and everything else - it’s only fair he threw me the occasional bone.”

“From the state of you now I’d say he threw you ten.”

Steve huffs, “Yeah. I’ve been thinking the same thing; I should do my Thanks be to God's really; make sure He knows I’m grateful. Howard would argue that it’s all just science but--I don’t think he’s ever put too much stock in it so…and anyway, it’s not his body.”

“That bother you? That he’s not a believer and you are?”

“God No.” Steve breathes, finding it funny. “I grew up with Bucky whose never given the Almighty one ounce of slack no matter how much the nuns tried to shove it down his throat everyday; or how much Father Matthews used to lecture at him about it. He used to get; ‘has all the words but none of the follow-through’ and I used to get; ‘has the spirit and soul of thy Lord but the mouth of an annoying knat.”

Morita laughs, “An annoying knat?”

“I asked a lot of questions,” Steve explains with a reminiscing smile, “As in a lot. Buck made it worse - ‘cause they stopped putting up with his crap when we were thirteen knowing it wouldn’t be something they’d like. Used to come at him ready with a ruler before he even opened his mouth. I had the decency to at least raise my hand, and tailor the questions so that they were actually ‘questions’ and not unhelpful comments. Used to spout off his nonsense for him sometimes to keep him shut up so he wouldn’t get whacked.”

He can’t help but shake his head at the memory of ‘not sure I’m about this sacrifice m’larcky’,  ‘I wouldn’t want Abraham as a parent if he tried to kill me for bragging rights on obedience, and ‘god forbid Samson cut his hair - what a twit - send him straight to the flames’ followed by the usual ‘James Barnes I will not tell you again!’

He particularly remembers the ‘You said that last time and you haven’t hit me yet so I think I’ll keep going.’ Steve hadn’t known whether to be horrified or to start crying with laughter at his daring, and had no sympathy whatsoever for what followed.

Bucky was unpopular with the nuns, but loved by the majority of the teachers; all the academic ones anyway - normally the top of all his classes. Steve shrugs, smiling softly at the memory.

“Everyone believes what they believe, who am I to tell the that they’re wrong. I could be wrong. Faith is faith at heart, and everyone has their own relationship with it. Don’t get me wrong I follow the Testaments, but the Bible does have it’s flaws. It’s not supposed to be taken literally - I don’t think anyway, I mean, otherwise me eating shrimp for the first time on tour would have been a sin. Bucky always likes to say that the Bibles brutal and harsh, but it’s also filled with love for the world. That’s the part I care about,” he says, then admits, “I tend to ignore the other parts.”

“Ah.” Morita comments, nodding. “God on your terms instead of you on his.”

“Something like that, yeah.” Steve shrugs, “I repent when I need to, or when I feel like I should, even if there’s not a Confession box or priest close. Faith’s faith.” He repeats, taking back the cigarette to breathe in the tobacco again. “People judged me my whole life, so what right do I have to judge them - believe what you believe; Catholic, Protestant, Hebrew, the earth and sky, science, booze, money - whatever. Everyone has an opinion.”

“And you and Barnes are Catholic, right? Irish Catholic?” Steve hums. “I thought so,” Morita says, “there’s a lot of Irish in New York, right? That and Italians.”

“There’s a lot of everything in New York.” Steve laughs, passing it back. “My ma was Irish, my pa too I think, but most of Buck’s recent family is from Indiana. Got a bunch of extended relatives out there still. What’s Fresno like? You know, before.” He cuts in awkwardly, “One of the USO dancers was from California - said she’d never seen snow before she got to on the road.”

“Well yeah. It’s California, Cap.” Jim answers, smirking. “It doesn’t snow in California.”

Steve shrugs, “Hey don’t look at me, the furthest I got growing up was Jersey.” He reconsiders, “No, I take it back, the Hampton’s once.”

“Sunny, a lot of hotels, lots electric streetcars - especially downtown where I lived. It's close to Yosemite Park too; so we went out there a lot."

"Nice," Steve says.

"Yeah. But going back for a moment - ooh.” Morita then mocks, “the Hamptons, look at you posh boy.”

Steve laughs again, “No just - no, I’m part of the cockroach building generation. Bertie, a friend of mine had a lot of family money. He took us out there for my birthday once. Fourth of July.”

“How do you even meet someone with ‘family money?”

“Art class.”

“Art class? So that’s what your always doing in that book - drawing--no hold up, wait, go back again.” Morita suddenly says, hands up as if to stop him from talking even though he’s silent as a fox. He asks, flatly, disbelievingly. “You’re birthday’s on the Fourth of July?”

Steve groans, “Yeah, I know. Okay, I know.”

“Wow, Captain America. It really must have been fate. Your birthday’s the Fourth of July, absolutely unbelievable.” He scoffs.

“It’s just a coincidence.”

“As if,” Morita scoffs again, counting on his fingers, “Godly, patriotic, wears the American flag on his back, notorious fighter for the downtrodden and downhearted--”

“--Urgh Jim stop--"

“--the underdog, born on the Fourth of fucking July --sounds like destiny to me.”

“Yeah okay,” Steve relents, rolling his eyes. “If you say so.”

“I do. And a good man of course, we can’t forget that.”

Steve huffs, but feels a pit of warmth heat up in his stomach when he looks back at Jim, and squints his eyes teasingly suspicious. “You’re being far too nice - what do you want?”

“That obvious is it?” Morita asks, winking.

“You have a look about you.” Steve throws right back.

The work horse whines loudly behind them, Topper, Steve thinks he’s called. He kicks the stable door with distress. Steve turns to look to see him shifting back and forth on big hooves, huffing clouds of cold air out of his nostrils. He whines again, knocking his hindquarters against the empty tray of hay.

Steve stands and goes to soothe the creature before he wakes one of the boys. “Hey hey, sshh boy. It’s okay.”

“It’s probably just a bird or something. There’s one nesting in the eves above him.” Morita calls quietly.

“Ssshh sshh.” Steve repeats, stroking a hand down his muzzle and along the side of his neck. He still finds it so neat to be near such a powerful creature. He’d of course seen the milk horses, and the riding horses every which way in Texas and Oklahoma, but he’s never really been physically around animals that aren’t stray cats, rats and pigeons. And Topper is even larger than the milk horses, taller than him, a purebred shire horse; black and white with a think mound of hair cascading down his neck, over his behind and over his hooves. He’s amazing to look at, even more so to touch. He whines again. “Hey.” Steve calls - he kicks the stall another time.

Abruptly Steve realizes he’s not the only one whining, and the horse whinnies again, lashing his huge head to the left, knocking against the wooden bars separating the pens as if he’s trying to tell Steve something. He hushes the horse again with one hand and peers through the bars and corner of the next stall alone. Dugan is snoring quietly in the corner of a new bed of straw under a blanket, turned away, and it disguises it at first but then he hears an upset “no please.”

There’s a sharp whine, not from Topper and Steve hears it now coming from deep in Bucky’s throat. The straw rustles and there's a thud on the wall between the pens - not from Topper either - Bucky’s almost thrashing, fighting against his bedroll tangled round his legs and one arm.

“No, stop, please. Bear bear bear - it’s a bear. I’m trying please. No no nonono no, not again.”

Oh Christ, Steve thinks, and leaves the horse and crosses straight to the next pen and through the open area. Bucky's backed himself up against the wall so he didn’t see him at first, but he sees him now.

“I’ll be good I’ll be good - I’m try - BarnesSergeant3245---” And that’s it right there.

“Buck hey, you’re safe. You’re--”

Before Steve even goes to touch him his mind whispers mistake but his gut and heart has the power here. His hand closes on Bucky’s flailing forearm - his eyes fly open - and Steve’s on his ass on the floor. Bucky has his Colt M1911A1 levelled at Steve’s head, gun cocked and safety off. His finger’s a breadth away from the trigger. He’s looking at Steve but he’s not looking at Steve. Topper neighs and kicks at the stall - Bucky swings the gun at the horse.

“Whoa whoa!” Steve calls, trying to be calm, hands up - and the guns back on him. Bucky’s eyes are glassy, and god he’s absolutely shaking. His finger twitches, Steve freezes solid in his bones, heart beating a mile a minute. “You’re fine, hey your--”

“Cap--”

“Stay over there Jim.” Steve orders sharply at the man whose stood up in confusion in the doorway. He must catch sight of Bucky’s head and the straw sticking up from his bedhead hair through the pen bars.

“Yo Barnsey.” He calls, “ You’re awake too huh--whoa Cap--hey--”

“Jim, stay over there.” Steve orders again, quiet but firm at the heart of his panic and Topper’s huffing, hands still up.

“Cap,” Jim says warily, but good on him, calmly. ”He’s got a gun on you.”

“I know.” Steve replies, “but we’re good. Aren’t we, Buck? We’re fine.” He pushes, and shoo’s a lone hand in Jim’s direction, “go back on watch. I’ve got it. It’s my bad, I startled him, that’s all.”

He’s done more than just startle him for sure, and Jim knows it too considering Bucky’s still pointing the gun at him, and doesn’t look like he’s close to putting it down. He hears a faint clatter as Jim lays his Thompson back onto the ground, but Steve only has eyes for Bucky. His hand shakes; finger twitches.

“Bucky.” He says very lowly. ”It’s me. You’re in France. You’re with us, the commandos; me. You were just dreaming. You’re safe.”

He makes a very slow movement, crawling up onto one knee, and then onto his feet. Bucky’s hand jerks, but he doesn’t follow the movement; the gun now pointed at his stomach instead of his throat. His eyes are now darting between the space on either side of Steve’s head, and his panting breaths are slowly growing calmer. “You wanna’ point that gun away from me, pal? I’d appreciate it.”

Bucky’s hand shakes, and he brings his other hand up to cradle the barrel sharply to steady it - eyes flicking from Steve’s ear to chin to Topper - muzzle shoved round the corner bar. He freezes on the nostrils blowing clouds of warm steam. “Bear-bear-bear” Steve realizes he’s whispering under his breath for some reason, “not dog not cat, has to be a bear. Bear, a bear--”

“Bucky.” Steve says again, firmly, and Bucky’s eyes flick back to him. He blinks, and his eyes clear.

He drops the gun sharply with one hand and swings it down into the straw, falling back on his haunches - flicks the safety back on. “Shit shit shit,” he hisses, turning off sharply from the…woodland animal he was mumbling about - what? “Oh god, Steve. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, shit--”

“You were just dreaming.” Steve says quietly, coming closer. “It’s okay. That was my fault.” - even though it wasn’t really, but he knows Bucky’s going to start a cycle of self recrimination otherwise - “I startled you when I tried to wake you. You were--you were having a nightmare.” Topper whinnies next to him again.

“Oh.” Bucky mumbles, body starting to calm with his breaths. “I’m sorry, I didn’t - I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.” Steve reassures gently, “I was already up. You didn’t wake anyone, ‘cept maybe this big guy here.” He motions a thumb at the horse to the left.

Bucky nods, “Okay. Okay, good.”

No, not good Bucky, Steve thinks, it’s not good that your only concern is if you woke someone with what looked like a horrifically deranged nightmare. You just pointed a gun at me, and almost fired - more than once. That’s not okay…how many nightmares is this now? The first that Steve’s had - and yes, he had to - wake him from so far, but that’s only because normally by the time Steve realizes Bucky’s having one his friend’s already woken himself up with an aborted shout or gasp. Otherwise he’s quiet, silent almost as he dreams; twitching and flinching in his sleep.

“Do you know where we are?” Steve asks, just for something to say. “We’re in France.” He answers his own question when Bucky falters, then nods after Steve’s said it.

“France.” He mutters, untangling his blanket from his legs, not looking at Steve. He scratches his arm straight after and Steve clasps his wrist to stop him; or tries to - Bucky jerks backwards at the touch.

“Sorry.” He mutters again, and forces himself to stop scratching with an almost constipated frown. Steve purses his lips, thinking as he always does whenever something like this happened - to the room he found Bucky in; the ‘medical' ward.

“What the hell did they do to you, Buck?”

Bucky sticks the tip of his tongue out to lick the blood away from where he’s bitten his lip like it’s nothing. He looks at Steve, “I don’t…I don’t remember.” He answers with the faintest of shrugs, and tucks the gun he almost shot Steve with right back to where it was. He curls up again, hand still on the barrel.

. . .

Steve lets the boys know the new plan to head into the city. According to Steve’s schedule there’s a train running into Nancy at 10:23, which slows in the valley as the track changes course.

He, Bucky, Dernier and Dugan climb up the side of the train at a sprint, and hop a ride to the city. The other boys keep watch at the farm, and help Elodie out where they can before they come back - raking the cold frozen land with the younger boys and fetching the chicken’s eggs as the Brigitte milks the cow.

An hour before they leave Bucky is side tracked by Margueritte running up to him with a handful of wildflowers that he then dutifully braids into her hair in a crown. He does the same for Brigitte when he catches her smiling shyly at him, but in a more elaborate braid he’s seen his ma do for Becca’s hair on her first school dance. He tells her this one is very grown up, and weaves wildflowers into the strands so they stand out purple and pink against her blonde hair.

 Steve changes his clothes to civilian ones, as does Dugan; though they stay armed. Luckily, as they don’t exactly have a uniform the majority of them can pass without getting changed. They’re in and out of the almost untouched city; walking among French civilians and German Guards, and hit the safe-house for supplies as Dernier heads to a stall to buy a newspaper and listen for anything they can find. The city itself has never been bombed, and is practically untouched in terms of damage; the only sign it’s occupied at all is the occasional guard and the Nazi propaganda posters.

The Resistance and SOE spy ‘White mouse’ has been there recently, on her way to Marseilles as part of the Pat O’Leary Escape Line - with seven downed British pilots is the talk they hear. She’s flown right through to the next and remained as elusive as ever, much to Nazi consternation. They grab intel, and radio in their coded position - thirty minutes later, as they’re going through available false identity papers hidden under the floorboards - the cat meows and the fax starts spewing the coordinates of the new target. They correlate with the map; and it’s in Belgium; which is what they’ve been waiting for; the next Hydra base - this time one of the large factories on Steve’s remembered map. The preferred approach is faxed to in a combination of numbers; which Steve will crack when they get back.

There’s whispers in the town market that there’s been a leak - a Resistance member captured outside Versailles, but it’s something that happens far too often. Bucky is satisfied he gets his chance to practice hot-wiring another car, a Chevrolet, and they drive back with their goods and supplies; looking over the French newspaper in the back.

They wish Elodie and her children good fortune with kisses on each cheek and drive through the night, as Steve sits in the back with a torch cracking the coded fax with the list of keys phrases until he finds the correct one. Gabe switches him out at 02:00, and tonight with the jolting of the vehicle he manages to sleep.

He doesn’t remember how or when he went, but knows he was on his side, and he was watching his friend.

Bucky’s back to the silent twitching, and Steve doesn’t know if he should wake him anymore.

Chapter Text

BUCKY

January is a muddy blur of grey landscapes, walking, radioing back to London, Gabe translating and Steve mapping, French partisans answering their questions and smoking their cigarettes.

The days blur together, buoyed only by the cheerful attitudes of Gabe, Dernier, Dum Dum and Morita - who do their best to keep spirits high and get to know everyone even better; in the trudging of his wet boots.

. . .

30 ^TH JANURARY 1944 - ADMIRMAL RADIO (CBS) - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA                         

World news today, brought to you by the Admiral Corporation; makers of Admiral Radio; America’s smart set. By shortwave broadcast direct from important overseas stations as well as leading news centres of our own country; CBS correspondents  are waiting to give you a complete report all things political and battlefront. But first, here’s Doug Edwards:

DOUG: The Allies have extended their bridgehead south of Rome today but the Germans are putting up a stiff fight to hold their lines along the main 5 ^TH  Army Front. A powerful fleet of American bombs have battered the German aircraft manufacturing  city of Brunswick, and the Red Army continues with their airborne attacks in the East. Adolf Hitler has urged his Germans to bare up under the strain and he warned them that the defeat would bring Bolshevik to Europe.

The Russians continue their pressure in the Leingard region and in the Pacific war zone; American carrier based planes have made the heaviest of attacks so far on the Martial Islands….

. . .

Back over on the Continent, things were not the way they’d been in London and Scotland. Scotland was damp and tiring and strictly ordered; while London was damp, cold, hungry and blown mostly apart - but busy and welcoming.

It isn’t like that over the Channel - on the continent the people are still skinny, but the lights don’t glow yellow and warm. Every light over here is grey or blue; the mud is thick and black, and constant. Elodie and Marguerite were a little yellow light in the grey, but they move on quickly, flickering in and out of their lives. By the next year, Marguerite will have forgotten her American playmate. It doesn’t stop being cold after Christmas, it stays chilly and frozen and frosty, and more often than not; rainy. There’s been no snow this New Year yet though it seems; an unpredictable bonus. The commandos shiver at night in their bedrolls; and they moan when they wake as their stiff muscles ache, but they put on brave faces, layers packed on thick with their new uniforms.

Gabe tells him, conspiring, that he’s tempted “to return to the railway tracks we blew up”  because “the fire was still burning. I could use a bit of heat in my bones, Sarge, or at least in my hands before they go black.” Bucky can see the temptation as the mud crawls up his legs, the wind chips at his lips; his socks squelchy and wet.

Bucky is cold too, but in a very different way he thinks. The same way he was in Scotland - but now with the others' moaning it seems more obvious when he and Steve do not voice it in the physical. He cheers with each little detour they do, enjoying the little guerrilla strikes; loving the pattern of blowing the shit out of something and running for the hills to avoid the aftermath; it gets his blood up, gets his heart going. When they walk, between running out of gas and stealing another vehicle, he finds that most of the time his legs move without cooperation or intervention of his brain. He’d be worried normally, that he was slipping into a ‘fade’ as he’s dubbed them; fading away from the world, but he can still feel himself moving and still feel some of his semi-thoughts. It’s more like the world’s a little misty; a little wispy, as he wanders the foreign soil floating above himself.

His pace leaves his mind free to wander aimlessly and endlessly over the landscape; the impossibly small and distant houses with their far off glint of windows, like eyes watching them slink past in the woods. He imagines who lives there, where their loyalties lie and the stories they pass down from grandmother to grandchildren and so forth.

It’s something to explore and admire. He’s always wanted to travel; though didn’t think he’d be at war when he did it. It's something. He wishes it were summer again.

. . .

He counts fifty-nine. He has been in this factory for fifty nine days and in this lab for fifty-one days. He will be here for longer. He will be here forever, he never left.

“Describe the sensation precisely.”  The sensation of you stabbing a needle in me. The sensation of it threading through muscle, sluicing through, the sensation of a flood as it's expelled. It mixes with something else - it hurts! Hot cold, hot cold. What's going on? Is that precise enough for you, you fucker. Am I alone? Is someone else here?

Zola's wearing a red tie with diamond symbols on it. Bucky prefers the grey diamond one; the colour doesn't hurt his eyes so much. It's too red - red like the mist in his eye. Is he alone? Andrew are you here? Andrew? What was that giant story again, the one where they walk across the sea for something, I want to recycle it, can you tell me? Andy?

A ndrew's dead, right; yeah. Oh yeah.

Sarah,  what about Sarah, is she still here? I want the puppies, will you come back?

Bucky prefers the stripy ties, the diagonal browny-cream ones, they're not as bright - but detailed enough to distract from the white coat. I feel fuzzy - did I go to sleep? Yes and no. They put something in my water, I could see the bubbles; so I didn't drink it. They held me down and made me drink it. Then I slept. Oh yes. What are they doing to my stomach? There's probably something wrong with you if I can feel your sweat through your gloves, Dr Weasel.

"What kind of animal is it?" What is the picture - a beaver, a bear, a cat, a elephant. He hasn’t seen most of those in real life, only in drawings; how does he know? He doesn't understand. Moby-dick - is it Moby dick, no, he's a whale isn't he...a whale in a book. Does he know what a whale looks like? Huckleberry Finn, Clair De Lune, treble clefs, mama, Mrs Coulter's peach pie. Treasure Island, 'm sorry - what? No, please don't.

" What kind of animal was it?"

Beaver beaver no bear, he means bear, it’s a bear please please it’s bear.

Don’t please, please, I’m trying. I promise I’m trying. It’s a bear. Bear bear bear - don’t shoot Steve!

. . .

The coordinates when they spit out from the fax read : 50°6'37.51"N, 4°57'19.94"E SAFE + 50°7'42.56"N, 5°20'33.86"E ENEMY

When the code’s broken part of it says: HOUSE ON HILL, BLUE DOOR. COME AS GERMANS.

. . .

“Okay,” Jones says as he looks up, cranking the radio antenna in by hand crank. “Seems like they’ve got a scouting patrol out at 1430 hours from what I can make out. We can pick them off then.”

. . .

On the 2nd of February they cross the border at Hargnies to Willerzie, officially in Belgium now, on foot, and criss-cross their way north to the town of Beauraing, stopping off briefly at the side of the road in a foxhole. The third town, and the destination of the Comet Line safe-house rings a bell somehow, but he’s not sure how.

Gabe stares at his watch, and Steve cocks his head as he always does when he hears a truck coming. It’s 1436. Gabe says: “Incoming.” 

The truck rumbles into view, and they all throw the road trap spikes under the wheels from each side. The tyres burst and it lurches to a stop. There’s more annoyed grumbling than there is shouting, and three soldiers dismount and get out. They swear when they see the spikes embedded all in the tyres and start cursing out about the Dutch Resistance, thinking it’s just a sabotage-and-flee trick. Bucky comes up behind one, pushes the barrel of his gun into the back his neck. The man freezes, one jerks to a turn - but Falsworth’s right behind him with own gun on the other two. Gabe and Dernier are on the soldiers in the backseat.

“Hi.” Bucky says, “We’re gonna need those rags of yours. Please and thank you.” He adds, then pistol whips the man so he drops to the ground. They make the other’s strip, then tie them up and leave them tangled up in each other in the foxhole. They only have to shoot two of the seven, when they fool-heartedly fight, and only one is likely to die from it.

They carry onwards on foot, back towards the safe-house, now readily supplied to pass as German soldiers. It might be a bit of a squeeze for Steve’s shoulders and sleeves, but needs must. He can always just stay hidden - and they’ll probably want him in uniform for the actual assault.

They pass by the hand-made shrine of Our Lady of Beauraing, the Virgin Heart of Gold, that’s it he remembers now, skirting around the edges of the buildings at night. Bucky stares at it and how the gold heart has been carved out of the statues chest, surrounded by a circle of flowers those who believe are stubbornly keeping alive. 

“Steve.” Bucky whispers, as they wait for a civilian to disappear from the window above them and turn off the light. “Is this the place where there were those apparitions? Father Matthews used to go on about it all the time. They sent a Cardinal, didn’t they?”

“Yeah.” He whispers back, “In the thirties, a bunch of kids saw them. I think there was like thirty one or something. It was a sighted miracle in our time, how could you forget?”

“Thought it sounded familiar.” Bucky shrugs, “It was bugging me.”

“What the hell you two going on about?”

“Catholic miracles.” Bucky whispers back, “or not. Depending on how gullible you are.”

“Oh bloody hell, never mind.”

“Don’t start.” Steve whispers back, and explains when Monty looks interested, “apparitions of a glowing woman with a gold heart, said she was a virgin Saint - a decade ago. The Church are still investigating. People believe it, come for cures. That must be where she told them where to build the chapel.” He says, eyes wide, as he notices the scratched up shrine.

“There’s a cult and everything apparently.” Bucky says, “Which makes it ten times more interesting. Steve, she’s gone.” He notes right as the light turns out above them across the street, so they carry on, keeping to the shadows. “You sure you didn’t ask for the safe house to be here so you could come see it?”

“I didn’t know there was a safe-house here until we got the coordinates, so no, Bucky, seriously.”

“I’m just saying, you might as well make the most of it while we’re here. See if you can get a cure for that enormous nose.”

“I hate you so much.”

“Hate you too, pal.”

“I hate you both.” Dugan says, “now will you get a move on.”

Steve shoves an arm over his chest and pulls him and Dernier, whose just behind him, round a corner. The other’s scatter into the darkness and behind a bunch of bins. A light Paner tank rumbles down the road on patrol followed by a small truck, several German-Belgium soldiers perched on the back. The notice board of the village hall is covered in WALLONIE: Viens a Nous! Posters encouraging French-speaking Belgium men to join the German infantry. Steve, Bucky and Dernier pitch themselves low to the ground until the patrol passes, then push themselves to their feet again as the area falls back into shadow. Falsworth crawls his way out of a bush.

“Hey.” Bucky whispers as they move on and he gets a better look at the noticeboard - there’s other propaganda posters - but not Nazi ones. “Check it out.”

There’s two posters, one with a solider in all black holding a flag. There’s the tentacled logo on the flag in red and on the red armband in black, and again, faded in the red-sepia background. It says, ‘HELP BUILD THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, HYDRA, JOIN THE NEW WORLD ORDER TODAY.’ Then another, once again in red and black, with simple sufficient; ‘HAIL HYDRA!’ scrawled over the top, and below it - the Red Skull, fisted arms raised behind him, three aside, like a fan or a throne.

“Bloody hell, Rodgers, is that what he actually looks like?” Monty asks, and Steve mutters a perturbed:

“Yep, that’s him.”

Bucky helps him tear them down, and then the pamphlet also strung up with it. “Guess you’re not the only face of propaganda Steve-o.”

“Yeah yeah,” Steve says, scrunching and folding it up. “Lets go. And if you see anymore - anywhere - tear them down.”

They follow along the road and out of the main village, following the lane going upwards until a series of larger houses appear from the trees. The fourth one along has a blue door, and is three floored if plain on the front with an overgrown path and a boarded up window. The front door is locked, but the side door is blown open off it’s hinges, so they slip inside; and the stars glint at them from above through a hole in the roof and a fallen back wall. The garden the house opens up to on the back is less of a garden and more of a explosion of turned up dirt and cobbles. A bomb’s hit here before, and a shutter slams somewhere else as the wind smacks against it. This room has been abandoned to the elements; moss has begun to crawl over the carpet and up the walls, and the house seems to groan from the wind in the eaves. There’s double doors with heavy chains leading to the rest of the house, but the padlock is open, so Dugan slips the chains off the handles and they slip inside to a still empty room, but one that at least has four walls. There’s white fabric thrown over several pieces of furniture. It’s very cold and creepy; the heavy damp air and the wind make it seem very chilling.

The one table that is uncovered is a side one, and it has an unplugged lamp and two newspapers dating back several days laid atop it; a collaborationist Le Soir newspaper and an underground La Libre Belgique newspaper. Someone’s been here recently, even if the house echoes as if empty. Bucky fingers the cold damp paper, reading a few lines of the the La Libre paper, which sports wildly different information to the headline of the collaborationist one.

“Move silently,” Steve orders, “We should search the property. Houses like this are often requisitioned by the Army.”

They nod and move on to other rooms, pulling out their smaller side arms, some rooms equally covered in white fabric and empty, others less so. They come across what must be the main room or parlour with a fireplace; it's unlit - doesn’t look like it has been for a while -  but there’s a mug and a still slightly smoking wooden pipe laying in an ashtray by a speculator curved armchair. Dugan motions to it before Bucky can.

“Good evening gentlemen.”

Falsworth jumps about a foot in the air.

“Good goddamn Carter.” Dugan snaps, hand on his chest. Bucky and Steve lower their guns sharply as they recognize her. “A bit of warning would be nice. You came out of nowhere.”

“Actually I came from upstairs.”

“How did you even find--”

“I sent you the coordinates, Dugan.” She says flatly.

He disguises his embarrassment with a laugh, “Oh, yeah, right.”

She’s dressed in brown cargo pants and light boots, a long sleeved black shirt and brown jacket. Her hair’s pulled back and swirled into a bun - her fringe come loose to cover her forehead. Several strands tumble out down past her chin and down her neck to curl at her collar from the now almost-daily rain. Her lips are a little chapped and her nose a little red from the cold. Steve’s looking at her in undisguised wonder next to him. Jesus Christ, Bucky thinks in amusement. He kicks Steve in the back of the shin so he schools his face before the woman turns her gaze to him.

He rallies admiringly. “Glad too see you made it, Agent.”

“As am I. I was starting to get worried about you.”

“Small hold up on route. We couldn’t arrive without our new uniforms.”

“Glad to hear it.” Carter replies, and glances awkwardly at the others when Steve keeps looking at her. God, this forced professionalism is not good, Bucky thinks, in the way that it's almost painful.

Carter clears her throat. “No need to search the rest of the building, we’ve already taken care of that. Gentlemen, meet Antonio.”

“Alright?”---”How’s it?”---”Mate.” They all wave or grunt in acknowledgement as a tall tanned man appears from behind Peggy in the doorway, and Steve steps forward to shake the man’s hand.

“Nice to meet you.” Steve greets. “I’m Captain Steve Rodgers, this is Sergeant Barnes,” he says as Bucky follows him in shaking his hand. The man has a good strong handshake. “Major Falsworth, Sergeant Dugan, Corporal Morita, Private Gabe Jones and Jacques Dernier.” He introduces as Falsworth, who has the best manners out of all of them, follows Bucky quickly in clasping the man’s hand too.

“Ola, hello.” Antonio returns, “it’s good to put faces to the names.” He eyes each of them in turn as if committing them to memory with shrewd eyes.

“Don’t tell me you’re here to join this motley crew?” Dugan says with a grin.

“He is today,” Carter says. “joining up with us to hit the base. From Madrid. Spanish Special Operations.”

“I thought Spain were neutral.”

“That’s the company line.” Antonio says, “but every last one of us; not so much.”

“He’s been working with us since 41’ but has been operating on the Western Line since 36’. He’s been operating solely on Hydra cases as of last year, so you’ll probably see a lot of him and me from now on.” Peggy says, “and this is Madame Lameire, she is our host this evening.” Peggy adds on as an tall, very thin older woman in her sixty comes into the room, and goes directly to the arm chair. She’s carrying a heated hot water bottle and wrapped up tightly in a night gown - but looks rather run down.

“Hello hello, yes, get them upstairs will you? I don’t like to see the faces of those who come here, it is safer that way.”

“Of course Madame.” Antonio replies, and he and Peggy wave them back out into the main hallway, leaving the woman to smoke in the damp dark. “Come with us - we’ve got an room on the second floor - good sight lines down the road. Watch your step there - the wood’s started to rot.” There’s water drip dripping into a metal bucket as they crest the top of the stairs. “There’s soldiers stationed in the houses either side of us - but the hedges are high so we should be fine - just watch your angles in the windows. The condition is better upstairs, Madame has left heated bottles for us.” Antonio notes, knowledgeable and professional. He looks to be in his thirties or forties if Bucky could guess, with dark hair curling at his nape - he has freckles on one side of his forehead.

“But not in this house?” Steve asks, because he was right about solider stationing. The British requisitioned country houses for the Army, and so do the Germans; even if this isn’t quite the level of this particular house. In France all the small hotels and boutiques, and larger estates all served as accommodation for the occupying forces.

“No.” Carter answers, guiding them through the door of their assigned room. “Madame Lameire found if she let the house dilapidate the Germans would stop stationing here after the shell came down. So now she allows the Resistance to use it; right in the centre of the occupation force it’s an invisible eye.” Steve seems to hear some kind of scuffling in another room, not from a rat if Bucky’s eyes can serve a guess. The others don’t seem to hear it either. Carter notices Steve’s gaze. “Don’t go in the other room - they have small children - they won’t understand and you’ll scare them.”

“Jewish?” Steve asks quietly, and Peggy nods a yes. When they get inside she says: “Well gentlemen, it has been a while since we saw you all - shall we sit? It seems like we have a lot to go over.”

Antonio chuckles, “From what I’ve been hearing you lot have been having great fun raking havoc over the French countryside.”

“Oh yeah?” Dugan asks, “what’ve you been hearing?”

“This and that.” Antonio says vaguely, “I have a lot of ears on the ground. One of mine spotted you just outside of Nancy. You weren’t the only stowaways on that train.” He laughs.

“No kidding.” Steve murmurs, as he knew there was a family hidden in the crates of the next carriage along - he told Bucky he heard a baby suckling - maybe it was one of them - or someone else. Now that he thinks back he remembers glimpsing a woman in a blue hat sliding a envelope in the bag of the mailman when he wasn’t looking. He wonders if that was Antonio’s spy, or just a woman using underhanded methods to get her letter where it needed to go without proper checks.

The room they have for the night is loaded with long sofas and armchairs, blankets, and heated hot water bottles for all of them; along with a heated antique coal bed pan at the centre on a table, surrounded by lit lanterns. The orange glows casts a strange light on the patterned wallpaper and empty fireplace. There’s a map spread out on the table, and several surveillance photographs, so they perch around it to pass around the heated hot water bottles. Bucky impolitely grabs his and shoves it down his jacket to hug against his stomach. Most of the boys and Steve follow the trend.

“I take it we’re hitting the base tomorrow?” Steve says as that seems the obvious choice, looking over the photographs. If Peggy and Antonio have already done the recon then they’ll already have a plan structured, it won’t be Steve-o’s plan from the get-go.

“Yes, it’s thirty six minutes from here - heavy Hydra presence in the area. I’d be surprised if you haven’t seen any on your way in.”

“Well, we found these.” Steve says, and plops the pamphlet and crinkled posters on the floor within the light of the lanterns. “I take it this isn’t the first time you’ve seen these?” He adds as he glimpses Antonio’s face who shrugs a yes. “But other than that - not that we’ve noticed, but we’ve only come across one patrol.”

“Oh, they’re about I promise you.”

“Same goon uniform as in Krausberg?” Dugan asks, “all black; masks?”

“Stupid goggles.” Bucky throws in.

“The internal guard yes,” Antonio answers, “the foot troops come in black, blue or brown - with the emblem and normally with half masks over their jaws. They have the same suits, but different technology every time I see them.”

“If there’s so many of them I take it storm the base in one giant hit is out.” Falsworth says.

“Yes.” Carter says, “we have a hundred and fifty Free Belgium forces dropping down from London at 0443 to assist us, we have it planned down to the last movement. The Airforce is going to barrage the area south of here to distract them from the incoming troop plane. They’ll land and move out here - cause an attack to draw out the bulk of the HYDRA guard. While they attack there--” she points to the map, “ --we come in here via zip line - enter undercover. The plan is a staggered attack; distract, decoy; retrieval of assets and intel.”

“So we’re not blowing this one up?”

“Oh, no, feel free.” Carter waves off, which makes Dugan and Dernier grin, “- after we’ve made off with the intel. This base is a records and weapons development facility - it’s crawling with stuff we need. We need to recover as much as we can - it’s intel like this that leads to codes and other bases coming to light.”

“Then you can blow it to the sky, and then the rest of the way to heaven too.” Antonio adds to Dernier’s delighted laugh.

“Welcome to the team then.” Steve says with a grin; clearing seeing a fellow conspirator in the making, glancing between him and Carter; whom he lingers on for longer.

“So this is how the base is laid out.” Carter explains in depth. “Five blocks of main buildings, the centre courtyard and outbuildings - we’ll grapple in here. It’s not a work camp. There’s no evidence of prisoners - so it’ll just be us coming out once we’re in. We’ve re-conned the outside and partly the inside for four days - there’s a prison block - but it’s empty.” Carter keeps going as Antonio points it out the building block on the outskirts of the compound behind the electric fence. “Aside from two men - both of whom are Hydra - punishment for not following orders.”

She runs through the plan in great depth, and he concedes to her as quite honestly she’s done all the work here. Eventually he asks, “What about Reinforcement?”

“They won’t get them through the area phones lines.” Antonio says, “Carter and I cut all but one, the nearest to base, this afternoon. The last one is ours tomorrow. At exactly 07:59 an SOE agent and Belgium Libre Resistance are blowing the railways lines between Rochefort, St Hubert and Champlon. Reinforcements, if they have them, will have to come by foot or road - and by the time they get there we should have already taken it. This isn’t along the Fronts - there’s no fighting in Belgium at all - outside of Hydra the German’s don’t have the infrastructure in the area - it’s focused on the coasts and Brussels.”

“That’s great. We should set road traps too,” Steve says, “on all the roads our men aren’t using.”

“Perfect.” Carter says at the end, cracking open her dinner. “We can lay them before we start the climb to the cliff. Eat up and get some sleep gentlemen. Tomorrows going to be great fun.”

“Can’t wait,” Steve grins before offering up the comfiest sofa. She declines, probably merely out of the idea that Steve offered it to her, but she does it with a small smile at him. Bucky watches the two of them for a while, talking over a meat loaf and wonders when they suddenly got so much closer. They seem to both have shaken off that awful professionalism from the beginning of the night.

He picks the chaise lounge to camp out on, simply for the fancy name so he can rub it in his ma’s face for sleeping on something so swanky. He can’t see exactly what colour it is in the dim room with the orange lanterns - especially as the sofas are collected in a corner away from the coal bed pan and window - but he thinks it’s a deep red, with a flower pattern embroidered deep within it. Above him lays a darker patch of wallpaper to the rest where an old framed painting must have hung. He wonders what it was; if it was contempory, or Renaissance, or Dutch or Baroque - Madame Lameire seems like the type to collect art. She probably has it hidden away somewhere safe, like the rest of her valuables; she may even have her husband hidden away somewhere from the wartime career she’s made from hiding people. He likes making up stories for the people he meets; who they are, why they're there and what they’re going to do. He and Steve used to sit in the park sometimes when it was too hot up in their apartment, stretched out on the grass and do it - making up wildly inaccurate childish home-lives for the people they saw. It’s a childish game they seemingly never grew out of.

Jim plans to bed down below him on the floor, having lost his round of rock, paper, scissors and has gone to rinse his mouth out after brushing his teeth last. Carter ends up on the sofa across from him. “I forgot to say.” She says, “it’s good to see you, Sergeant.”

He hasn’t seen her since halfway through Scotland, so it’s a very strange comment. He’s not sure whether to be suspicious; he probably should be; he is.

“You too I guess.” He says, seeing as he’s not sure what else he should say. Her expression falters just a little as he pulls the blanket over his bedroll.

. . .

It’s not as if he’s never seen Steve go gaga over a beautiful dame before - spin the bottle at Christmas is still one of his funniest memories - of Steve embarrassed, very red and very very hard - it’s a whole other matter seeing the interest returned though. That hasn’t ever happened before he doesn’t think- apart from when Bucky saw something that wasn’t there with Katerina when he was trying to find someone for Steve. Part of him is pleased, proud and excited - and it’s a big big part of him too; Bucky’s not that kind of asshole. He’s not.

She’d told them after that the rendezvous is an airfield - which was going to drop them in Czechoslovakia for their next two bases per an enveloped letter from Philips, handed exclusively to Steve - but that wasn’t the important part - the important part was the look on Steve’s face when she told them she was also exclusively in Europe for the foreseeable future. She would be either pre-emptying them, joining up with them or own her own assignments. We’ll be seeing a lot more of each other, she’d said; looking at Steve. Steve had positively lit up in the dark creepy room.

It makes him feel good to see Steve looking happy and hopeful for once in his life...but Steve had gone to Carter around the map to go over the plan, right at the last minute as a disguise to talk - and that’s what he does with Bucky normally.

And It wasn’t as if Bucky had ever expected----never mind.

. . .

There’s hands on his face keeping his jaw locked and wide open. Something sickly sour rushes over his burning tongue and down his throat; he tries to cough and spit it back up. The invisible  hands move and seal his mouth and nostrils shut until he swallows and they laugh, heavy and mocking, when he throws up blood after.

Then there’s the smell of burning and a counting back in German, and someone’s making soft-hurt little sounds but the machine  is on and everything is fuzzy and going flash flash flash - he can’t see! Where is he?!

He wakes with a cut off gasp, holding back a choke as he slaps his hand over his mouth. There’s an animal rustling in the bushes or the tree on the other side of the outside wall - or the Jewish family across the corridor are making more noise - he’s doesn’t know, the blood is rushing too loud in his ears - his heart pumping so fast he can’t focus--- He heaves in a giant breath through his fingers and lets it out, chest heaving. The patterned wallpaper is dark, and he sinks slowly all the rest of the way back down on the chaise lounge. His back touches the fabric and he twists sharply onto his side so he’s not stuck staring at the ceiling all over again, and kicks off his bedroll and blanket so he’s not constrained. When he takes his hand away from his mouth it’s shaking, so he shoves it into his arm pit, curls up tight and doesn’t breathe as Morita turns over in his sleep below him. The man mumbles something intelligible and shuffles a little, but doesn’t wake.

He holds his breath until his eyes start going blurry, then blinks and breathes in and out before the tears start. He shifts the other arm out from under him until he’s clasping the handle of his combat knife he keeps by his head now. The gun is too much of a risk after the other day, but the knife is still essential. Dugan thinks it’s an overreaction and a paranoid habit, but Dugan can go shove it like he does everything else.

The man is currently sat by the open window on watch, chaining smoking cigarettes like a chimney. The smell permeates the air and Bucky can just about glimpse his head over the top of Carter’s sofa, and Falsworth’s and Steve’s further along. Bucky’s never liked the taste but he likes the smell. His pop used to smoke cheap cigars in their old garden when he was young, and used to get fancy Marlborough ladies smokes for his ma on occasion. Bucky used to sit at his feet learning his sums with chalk on a piece of slate while he sat back smoking - then the man would hum when Bucky got something right or pretend to cough when he got something wrong. Then he’d stub his cigarette out in the astray on the sill, lean forward to rest his elbows on his knees and talk his lad, Jamie (when they were still trying out nicknames) and then his lad Bucky through it until he could do them in his sleep. Numbers are a man’s best friend he used to say, they’ll always be useful.

Bucky used to reply, I thought a dog was a man’s best friend. Oh, can we get--

We’re not getting a dog. His father would interrupt.

Bucky would say; But Aunt Louise and the cousins have one.

Your Aunt Louise lives on a farm, you live in the city. There's a difference, a big one. His pa would reply and then say, Don’t ask your mother.

Only because she’ll say yes to me. He used to retort back as his father ruffled his hair and gave him another problem to solve.

When they moved he and ma used to go out on their balcony and smoke together, chatting or drinking quietly while they watched the sun set over Red Hook. Bucky remembers watching their backs and the trails of smoke drifting away as he sat at the table and did his homework alone. Numbers were his friend, and he didn’t need his father’s help anymore.

Now he can smell what must be Dugan’s fourth cigarette and the tobacco scent makes him wrinkle his nose and makes his stomach curdle. He can’t remember whatever he just dreamt about - knows it’s not real despite his body trying to tell him it is, but can imagine the gist.

Instead of homework and balconies he thinks burning, fire and of the circular marks on his arms and hips still. Some things heal over completely, some things don’t. Some leaves scars; like cigar burns and brands and hot things, but luckily most of the scars Bucky bears can’t be seen by the naked eye.

(The unpredictably is something he’s grown used to.)

He tightens his hand over the handle of the blade again, and forces his breathing to calm so as to wait out the night. He knows he won’t sleep again; not until his next attempt tomorrow, and it’s not fair to Morita or the others to sit up and start cleaning his guns on this nice chaise lounge. For one there’s no space to do it, and just because Bucky can’t sleep doesn’t mean Jim shouldn’t be able to either. He could leave the vicinity of sleeping corner to clean his guns, and calm his nerves, but that would mean putting up with Dugan’s small talk; which he can already tell will move into another territory if he sits there too long.

There’s a small spider crawling along the wall; it gives him something to focus on, so he follows it spinning it’s web under a unlit wall lamp until the shadows grows lighter with sunlight and dawn. He crawls off the chaise, stepping over and around sleeping bodies and furniture like it’s hopscotch. He stretches, pretending to pop his back until it cracks, as though he’s just woken. Steve’s already up, having taken third watch last night despite also taking it the night before. He’s not sure if he’s trying to prove a point that he can do it if Bucky is doing it too, or if he really just doesn’t need the sleep anymore.

“Morning.”

“Morning. You’re up early.”

Bucky shrugs, “It’s the army, everyone needs to be up early.”

Steve concedes, then suggests. “True, might as well let the rest of them sleep while we get breakfast on though.”

Bucky nods and starts pulling out the ration tins from everyone's packs, and Steve gets a start on the coffee; the only thing he’s allowed to touch by entire commando consensus.

“I’m not that bad.” Steve adds, as if he can sense Bucky’s thoughts.

“Sure you’re not.” He agrees balefully, and Steve scrunches his nose up, knowing Bucky doesn’t mean it. “Morita should be up soon anyway,” Bucky says, “he was awake, if dozing when I left. And he never dozes long.”

A vaguely loud snore echoes from the right, followed by Monty’s more subdued snore from the nearest sofa. “Don’t think Dugan’s dozing.” Steve grins.

Bucky hums, if a little dismissive.

“You sleep okay?”

“Uh-huh.” He answers, seeing if he can heat up the ration breakfasts over the still-hot coal bed-pan like Steve is with the coffee. He looks up after a moment of silence. Steve’s observing him steadily. Fuck, did he hear him last night with those eagle ears? “Why?”

“Just --- you look a bit tired. That’s all.”

“Oh.” Bucky rubs his face, as if to wipe sleep out of his eyes. “No, well I did.” He allows, seeing as he can hardly hide his dark eyes with powder like Agent Carter does. “As much as you can out here. I swear the grounds harder than in Scotland, even though we were on couches last night.”

“I’d say softer.”

“It’s cause you’re just getting used to it now.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“There’s only so much ‘comfortable’ sleep you can get out here,” Bucky keeps defending after a moment, feeling like he needs to, “and we’re still fresh; technically. By the time we’re two bases in no doubt I’ll be so exhausted I’ll be falling asleep in my dinner.”

Steve huffs in amusement, “Yeah probably.” He agrees, and cants his head to the back of the couch where Dugan’s resting. Another snore echoes out. “Some people find it easier than others anyway.”

“Clearly.” Bucky mutters, only a little jealous.

“You know Falsworth finds it easier to sleep on the ground like this than he does to sleep in a bed, says it’s like---”

“--Sleeping on a cloud.” Bucky guesses, “he said the same to me.” Steve nods and Bucky observes him this time. “Did you sleep okay, before your watch?”

Steve shrugs, smiling at him sardonically. He’s always been a classic insomniac, always feeling like there’s something he could and should be doing instead of sleeping away his life, seeing as he did enough of that when he was ill. It used to drive Bucky up the wall, who used to love his sleep, way back when. It’s why Steve always offers to take third watch, seeing as he’s always been a early riser anyway. He’s also a late nighter; so there's no winning; which suits his Captaincy as he’s normally always the last one to bed, sat by the fire and going over their plan for the thousandth time.

Bucky had to drag him by his lapel to bed last night to get him away from Carter, who herself was looking a little dead-eyed.

“Normal for me.” He throws out, “couldn’t settle for a while, but that’s nothing new. Was it the same for you? Or nightmares?”

Bucky ever so quickly searches his face and body for any knowledge, or hint that he’s trying to catch Bucky out in a lie, but he just seems as though he’s fishing; just to see. Bucky shrugs in response, neither confirming or denying.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks after, taking the shrug as what is it.

Bucky scoffs, “Of course I’m fine. You want a double ration, today? Seeing as we’re sacking a castle like a group of medieval knights?” Steve’s normal ration is already bigger than a regular man’s as he needs to eat twice as much as them, but today’s a special day so he gets a double-double ration. The lucky sod.

“It’s a factory, not a castle,” Steve contradicts, rolling his eyes in amusement, “but sure, that’d be great. Get my energy going. Put a little extra in for everyone.” He adds later, “We’ve got enough, I’d rather everyone has the extra today.”

It’s a nice, very generous thought to all the guys, but Steve says it while looking at Bucky’s collarbone, so he knows where the thought comes from. Bucky adds a few bits into the collective food pile as per his orders, and almost burns himself as he tries to relight the bedpan to get enough heat to good the food as well as the coffee. Steve helps.

“You and Carter seem to be getting on well." He notes after a little while. "Should I be worried?”

Should he be? Steve’s cheeks are very pink today in the cold morning light, and his eyes are very blue. Bucky still forgets how tall he is now sometimes, and how broader - he goes to jostle him or swing an arm round him during his joyous moments in the middle or after the action sometimes, but never can quite get his arm to fit round as it used to. The way his face fills out now when before it sagged off his narrow cheekbones is still new too. He’s very striking now - no wonder Carter likes him. Handsome, strong, dazzling, alluring - those aren’t words you use for boys, Bucky. He feels like he doesn’t know this Steve. It’s a same-but-different Steve to the one at home, the same way he’s a not-so-same-but-very-different Bucky to what he used to be. He thinks he misses the old one even though they’re the same but not - he doesn’t know. Things are so hard now.

Steve scoffs this time, “worried about what?”

He covers, “Walking in on some nefarious scene involving your cock--”

“Bucky!” He hisses, glancing at the couch where Carter’s still sleeping. His voice isn’t charming or amused now - he sounds annoyed.

“Right. Sorry.” Bucky says as he realises his words, “Really. Sorry Steve, I didn’t think.” He means it, to him and Carter - it’s kinda really not okay to talk about it while she’s right there. And he can still want them together even if he doesn’t much like her himself - he doesn’t need to know her. Steve nods, but the mood has soured a little. He's fucked it already hasn't he, nothing he does is right anymore. “Are we okay?” He asks afterwards.

Steve looks up at him, “Aside from that poorly made comment, yeah,” he says, frowning, “of course we are.”

Bucky nods, pursing his lips. “I just thought…”

“Thought what?”

“The other night -when I--with the gun. I’m really fucking sorry Steve, I don’t know if I said that.”

“You did.” Steve tells him softly, “and it’s okay. It was just a accident. Is there anything else that made you think we weren’t okay?” He asks after a moment.

Yes. No. I don’t know. He finds himself glancing at the back of the sofa Carter is sleeping on again. Was she trying to be nice last night? Or was she trying to get something out of him, you can’t ever tell with that kind of person. She knows about the supposed gonorrhoea doesn’t she, the thought suddenly strikes, god that’s embarrassing.

“Bucky.” Steve prompts again.

“What?” He blanches.

“Is there anything else apart from the other night that made you think we weren’t okay?” He repeats, then adds on after “Or anything you want to talk--”

“No no, sorry, pal. No, I just - I dunno, got a weird feeling. That was all.” He decides to be semi-truthful, because he does have a weird feeling. “The coffee's burning.” He notes.

“Oh shit.” Steve swears, which about sums up the standard of that conversation.

STEVE

Nassogne, Walloon Region, Occupied Belgium. Behind German Line  I   50°7'42.56"N, 5°20'33.86"   E

“So...Antonio,” Steve asks Peggy as they walk, “how did you two meet?”

“Why? Do you think we’re fonduing?”

Steve can feel himself flushing red, oh Christ, but Peggy’s grinning at him with amusement out of the corner of her eye.

“I only meant,” Steve says, clearing his voice and trying to hide his embarrassment. He doesn’t think he’s done very well. “--that-that you obviously trust him.”

“We’ve known each other for a while. He’s one of the agents who took me under his wing my first year on the field, when my superior realized there was two operations running at the same time and joined us up. Two years ago he came across a Hydra bombardment and old base; and in turn leaked it to me, as I’d come across suggestions of it in broken codes. It’s…it’s how I found Erksine.” Peggy explains quietly, then says “don’t spread that. I only told you as I know Erksine already got drunk and spilled more than he should have.” She adds, realizing she may have said too much. Steve quirks a lip at her, as no, he can’t deny that he did know a lot. Dr Erksine was a very chatty drunk. Peggy clears her throat, back on the topic of Antonio. “He stayed on the case after and has been helping us route them out, outside his country's obligations. He’s a good one to have on hand for these kind of larger retrieval operations.”

“Plus I was the closest.” Antonio shrugs, sliding up past them along the path, poking Peggy in the arm. “She is far too complimentary.”

“And you are far too humble.”

“Like someone else you know as you told me.” He says, and has the gall, from Peggy’s expression it seems, to glance at Steve and wink at her. He laughs, says, “You should boost his ego too with a beso.” (“kiss”)

“Ignore him Captain, he likes to tease.” She says defiantly, walking ahead, and now she’s the one blushing.

“What’s a beso?” He whispers to Gabe when he gets the chance.

“Is that--what, Spanish? I don’t know, do I? Spanish isn’t one my fortes.” He whispers back in Steve’s ear as they walk, then grins, “shall I find you a dictionary?”

“…Yes. Find me one.”

Gabe laughs, and Bucky glances over, questioning. Steve waggles his eyebrows at him, so Bucky gives him an amused frown back. He glances at Gabe quizzical, and Steve realizes the man’s mouthing ‘what does beso mean?’

‘What?’ Bucky mouths back. Steve glances quickly at Peggy’s back in front of them as they hike.

‘A beso.’ Gabe mouths ago.

Bucky shrugs, the universal face for ‘I don’t know.’

“Alrighty lads, and lady of course,” Falsworth says, on map and compass duty. “This is where we split for the moment. Let’s treat these roads to a bit of sabotage.”

They split into pairs and trios; on road duty, phone line duty and early layout look-out duty. He and Peggy pair up to take the road to the south-east, and skid down half-a hill in the trees.

“I um, I saw you talking to Buck last night.” Steve muses innocently, laying the spikes on the ground, “or trying to at least.”

Peggy hums, “It wasn’t much of a conversation. If one sentence even counts as so.”

Steve has to wince, heart sinking where before it was rising. “Oh, right.” He sighs, watching her spread her own spikes on the other side of the road further up than his. The more laid out they are the less likely the enemy will spot them. “Listen, I know the two of you didn’t start off on the right foot at the bar that night - or - well - after.”

“I noticed -” Peggy adds, “Things have been particular tense since the end of Surrey.” She muses, then defends. “I was only doing my job.”

“I know you were.” Steve assures softly.

From her defensiveness, for a moment Steve feels like the conversation may be over - but then she continues, finishing up. “And I know exactly what that was that night in the bar. I don’t hold that part against him. Jealousy can do strange things to a person.”

Steve blinks in bewilderment, jumping down into the verged drop from the road. She follows. “Jealous?” He asks in surprise - what, that’s surely insane-- ”Of who, me?”

Peggy raises an eyebrow. “You know Captain, for one of the best strategists we have in this fight, you can be terribly dense.”

“What?”

She bites back a laugh. “Nothing.” She says, patting him on the arm.

“I only - I like you.” He blurts, forcing out the honesty; fed up with dancing around the subject with word-play. He’s always been one for the narrow and straight-forward approach.  “I think that’s fairly obvious now - and he’s my best pal. And even if he wasn’t, and we weren’t -- I’d like you two to get on anyway if we’re going to be working together so much.”

“I’d say that’s fair enough.” She replies after a moment. “And for the record,” Peggy says, giving him a moment. “The feeling is very much mutual.”

“Yeah?” Steve just has to confirm for himself. “Okay. Okay, good.” He adds, not bothering to conceal his smile. “I was really hoping I wasn’t reading into it too much.”

“You’re weren’t.” She says, amused. “I just - I have to be careful. Unfortunately women are not afforded the same concessions as men, especially in this environment. I hope you understand--”

She silences herself. Her hand swings out to back Steve against a tree at the same time Steve’s arm catches her; both trying to pull each other in opposite directions. He’s stronger, so he has the momentum. She stumbles a little as he swings them into cover. They duck down; three patrol men walk five meters off the road and fifteen from them. They’re in beige green helmets, and thick coats with arm patches on the right arms; red skulls on black.

“Hydra.” Steve whispers, identifying them as separate from the usual occupying force.

“Should we--”

“No.” Steve says, “We don’t want to clue them into us in the area this close to the assault if their patrol doesn’t return. The troops have dropped by now - the assault’s an hour away. They’re not a convoy - they won’t see the spikes unless they’re looking for them.”

Peggy’s hand lays itself on his shoulder, pushing him lower and close to her; out of sight. Steve stifles his breath, and if anyone asks it’s to keep quiet to avoid detection; not for any other reason -not at all. Peggy’s similarly silent, though she’s suppressing a smirk which unveils to Steve he’s not quite fooling her. They wait for them to pass - voices growing louder and closer before moving further away - before setting off again. They walk a few paces in silence as he checks his compass to ensure they’re still going in the correct direction. Peggy glances over at his open compass to check herself before it clicks it closed. When she speaks her voice is quiet and low for their surroundings.

She starts the conversation again. “I take it you’re asking me to try harder with him--”

“No not--” Steve interjects, realizing she has the wrong idea. “--not harder at all. I know you’re already putting the feelers out there just - give him a bit more time?” He suggests. “He’s not like that at all, normally, you know? In the pub or after, he’s just going through some stuff.”

She nods, considering. “We can hardly blame him for that.” She concludes, soft and understanding. “You’re worried.” She notes after, looking at him sideways.

He shrugs as the answer is pretty evident. “It’s not something I’m used to - with how easy he’s always taken things in his stride. It’s usually the other way round but --” He sighs, trying to explain. “It’s like sometimes he’s the same old Bucky; cracking jokes and making me laugh, or driving me round the bend with his antics, and other times…”

“Not.” Peggy finishes for him.

“He’s trying.” Steve says, because good god Bucky is trying for the most part - on most things. He feels a little bad that he has to ask her to keep putting up with Bucky’s attitude, but, this is important to him. He believes that’s a normal feeling - everyone wants their friends to like the girl of their dreams. “Just give him some more time if you can - I’d - I’d like for you to be friends, or at the very least get on.” He repeats his earlier sentence rather lamely.

“I’m not entirely good at making friends.” Peggy says, but she nods a yes that she will continue to try. “I have to admit, I tend to rub people up the wrong way sometimes.”

“That’s fine.” Steve laughs, “he’s great normally. Now...you just have to catch him on a good day.”

“Do they come often? The good days?”

“Here and there.” Steve says, and raises a hand in greeting as Antonio, Dugan and Morita appear from the trees back from their road sabotage grouping. “You’ll know when.”

“Very well.”

He pauses and stops her too for a second. “Do you really think he’s jealous of me?” Peggy laughs and pats him consolingly on the shoulder again as an answer - already speaking to Antonio.

. . .

The attack when it begins starts with the Free Belgium 7th infantry in a full frontal assault. The Hydra sentries spot them coming from over a mile away, which is what they are expecting. Their troops move swiftly out to engage the attack while they’re still making their way towards the compound, leaving behind a skeleton crew to guard the facility.

Steve and his team watch the proceedings from a high wooded ridge overlooking the other side of the compound. The explosions sound, and then the gunfire grows heavier and more erratic - Hydra send out their second wave - confident and cocky enough not to even attempt to radio for any reinforcement.

 Gabe’s tuned radio, listening to reports and order formations cuts off in static. He gives them a thumbs up - the last and only remaining local radio line goes dark - Bucky and Dernier’s timed work.

Nice one boys, Steve thinks with glee - energy already rising. He pushes the adrenaline building up behind his eye-sockets down, holding it ready and waiting until the assault to unleash it all.

Antonio, eyes on his watch, ticks his fingers off. “07:59.” He says, “railways are blown too.”

“Hérés à la révolution.” Gabe notes in reference to the Belgium Libre. (“Here comes the revolution.”)

They settle in several feet apart, binoculars out and watching as the HYDRA troops go, more and more and more. It’s going all exactly as planned, until HYRDRA releases their mounted infantry from the outlying garages.

“Energy tanks,” Steve says in alarm as they appear out from the doors of the engine garage. “Like in Krausberg. A lot of them - did we know there was that many?”

“Yes.” Antonio answers.

“Not our problem right now, Cap.” Dugan notes.

He knows that but, “the other troops.” A lot of the Free Belgium troops are going to die - too many. These tanks, all eight of them, are going to eat through those men - a big sacrifice for some intel. He doesn’t like the feeling of sending men to their deaths, he’d much rather do it and take the risk himself himself. “They can’t contend with that.”

“Wait for it.” Peggy says from his left.

“Wait for what?”

“A surprise.”

“Carter?” Dugan asks with a grin. “What did you do?”

“We may have gotten inside one of the outer garages for an hour.” Antonio says, casually, “we also might have jammed the treads of some.”

“You didn’t.” Dugan’s grin grows with Jones’. “You bloody maniacs.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment, just so you know.”

“You’re meant to.”

“Good.” Peggy replies. “They’ll move out, but every tread turn does more damage. The treads should snap about - a quarter mile from the assault wasn’t it Toni?”

He hums an affirmation. “We figured that would give them just enough cock-sure confidence before we hit them where it hurts. Knock them’ back a peg or two. By the time they realize it was sabotage it’ll be too late.”

“Oh look,” Peggy notes, right on time, “it looks like their having technical problems.”

Steve follows the direction of her binoculars and takes a look for himself; then grins. “Well, would you look at that, it seems so.”

One of the tanks splutters to a stop, and the metal of the tread sheers a metal segment off - jamming the whole mechanism. The tank is stuck stationary half a mile from the base. Steve is rather enjoying the looks on their operators faces as they emerge and start shouting.

Leaves rustle behind them, they spin, and Dernier and Bucky appear.

“Pose-les, imbéciles.” Dernier says lightly. “Il n’y a que nous.” (“Put them down you fools,” Dernier says lightly, “it’s just us.”)

They dump their heavy packs in the foxhole they’ve dug and replace them with empty packs to ram full of intel. They all have the same to take in and take out with them.  Bucky crawls his way onto his front next to Steve and whispers, “Don’t tell me you’ve come back with a hard on?”

He scrunches his hand into the soil at the tease. Luckily Peggy is further enough away and focused enough not to hear. “I already told you. Stop.”

Bucky grunts.

“You know for the fact that you’ve got a problem with her - you’re very pushy towards the two of us.”

“I have my reasons.” He says, “for both. How are we doing?” He adds, motioning forward before Steve can fire off at him again; admitting outright the attitude is deliberate.

He hands Bucky the binoculars to look through for himself. “Nearly there.” He answers, “just waiting for them to move fully out - two minutes and then we move.”

“Sounds good.”

Two minutes later Jones holds him from behind as he fires out a zipline at the nearest corner of one of the main buildings; stood taller than the rest of the factory and identified as the most credible wing for intel. As soon as it lands and is weighted down from the other side, Steve tugs on it to ensure it’s secure, then hooks a pair of handles over the line and off he goes. He zooms along over the trees, curling his legs up to clear the top of the electric fence that surrounds the compound before slamming into the concrete wall of the building. Swallowing down a pained groan, he dismounts onto a window ledge and smashes the glass as quietly as he can, then slips through an empty office. He locks the door, then returns to the window and signals to the others. One by one they all come sailing down the zip line for Steve to catch them by the legs and hand them down through the open window.

Antonio is last, touching down after Peggy, and under their direction; the boys start moving down the corridors. They systematically secure each room, and comb them for potentially useful files and other information; and if they seem particularly viable; tag the doorways so the two operatives know. With the bulk of HYDRA’s soldiers out defending the base against the Infantry the only personnel they encounter are scientists and engineers, men untrained in combat - most of whom are easily apprehended before they can alert anyone to the silent infiltration of the building.

“Not a sound!” Steve whispers, grabbing a technician round the chest and over the mouth. The man bites him, and then struggles with a muffled yell. Apparently not. Steve knocks his head against the wall so he’s unconscious, throws him over a shoulder and carries him down the corridor. He unlatches a knife from his belt and throws it one handed. The target cuts of mid-yell as it strikes deep into his spine - running for a doorway - the blades sluices through flesh - Steve hears it scrape and cut through a knob of the man’s spine. This is the part he doesn’t like his hearing for - God. Two seconds later the man is dead when Steve reaches him, and he quickly drags him and the man on his shoulder into a cupboard before the blood leaks on the floor. The blade grinds against the bone it broke when he pulls it out, wiping it down quickly on the man’s uniform - his eyes are staring out, glassy, at a unmemorable spot on the wall. He leaves the dead and alive men where they are - this mission there’s no time to remove the cyanide pills - with any luck he’ll be unconscious for a good few hours.

He slips down the rest of the corridor and slips into another workroom - it’s plain walled but rather busy with material and builds - weapons it seems; some kind of suit - there's metal and plastic casings laid on the tables ready to attach to prototypes. Steve quickly moves to the desk, grabbing files and blueprints and leaving the rest - all of it too large to carry out with him. He’s cleared most of that room out so doesn’t tag it, but tags the next one - what looks like the adjoining office and records room. He grabs and knocks out too more technicians, and then a third and forth - and three guards. He seizes the third by the uniform, blocking his swinging gun; bashing it out of his hands before he can fire. It clatters to the ground, louder than he’d like as twists the man over the shoulder; softens his blow to the ground to keep the volume down. He punches him in the face after. The guard’s out instantly, so he drags and locks several in another cleared room - four out the seven are dead. The sixth’s he doesn’t entirely know what happened - his blood was so high and without thinking he moved - a gut feeling, a gut force - the serum - and then man was dead. His ribcage is bent unevenly from where Steve hit him, you can see the difference through the fabric of his shirt. Steve Steve Steve, dammit, watch yourself, he criticises. Stay in control.

When he emerges Steve spots Bucky with his knife at one of their throats, hand on their mouth, herding them into one of the main rooms they’ve secured for prisoners on this floor. He can’t see anyone else, but he can hear them ever so silently moving throughout the compound, and hear the flash flash of Antonio’s camera in another tagged room as he documents everything they can’t take with them.

He finds Peggy in one of the side rooms, blue prints rolled and spilling out of a holder, and files shoved in her backpack. There’s two other half filled packs beside her that she’d shoved inside her empty one before they arrived. She’s halfway through cracking the safe hiding behind a painting. Gabe’s across the room helping her spritz their way through viable documents.

“What are we looking for?” Steve asks, running quickly to help them - the boys have secured this entire wing it seems - and like Peggy said, this is the first agenda.

“Communications, Hydra personnel files, blueprints.”

“Got it.” Steve says, and starts shoving paperwork after a quick scan into his bag too - there’s records on records here. “You want me to try bash that door in, Agent?” He asks briefly as he listens to her turning the dial and listening with a stethoscope for the clicks.

“No. It’s alarmed. You smash it - you set it off.”

“How can you tell?”

“The walls not concrete - it’s hollow - there’s wires running along to the side of the safe. Have to do this the old fashioned way.” She says.

…. Someone suddenly manages to set off an alarm, and then its all sirens and flashing lights as the facility goes into lockdown.

“Well, great,” Peggy groans, “that’s done it.” She grabs an entire drawer of files and starts dumping all of them into her bag; slinging it over her shoulder, then switches back to the safe; which clicks open as Steve takes over the rest of the room. He doesn't see what she removes from it. 

“You got what you need?” Steve asks as he moves back with her into the first office; sprinting down the corridor. Antonio is already halfway out the window.

“I hope so - try not to get into too much trouble, I’ll see you at the rendezvous.”

“I’ll be there.” Steve promises as she jumps off the sill and rappels down the side of the building. They’re Team A, the boys and he are Team B - Team A is the first exit out as a precaution so the SSR can ensure at least some intel gets out in the worst case scenario.

Team B is to ensure there is no worse case scenario; and to finish the job - so he goes to do just that.

He takes out another eight or night men, and keeps going - one man runs for him and Jones trips him from a doorway; just behind Steve's path. They  carry on - then decide to split apart. 

Steve’s end of the building is blocked at one end by a pair of steel doors that slammed shut the moment the alarms activated. A quick examination of the control panel beside the door indicates that it can be unlocked with a special key and correct pass code. Or, alternatively, a heavy blow with a chunk of viburnum. Steve breaks through the door with a smash, shield raised, and charges straight into the group of Hydra guards who have gathered on the other side.

He goes through them easily, like a knife through warm butter; he doesn't stop until they're all down and then continues on, skidding to the entrance of one of two glass walkways connecting the main building to the outlying blocks; he lays down his own explosives stored in the front pockets of his pack. Dernier’s in the other one; he can see him through the glass. Steve waves an arm down to signal. Then he runs, and Dernier detonates them both right as the next round of Hydra men run and try and retake it - it leaves only one connecting walkway to this building now.

The sound of the blast combined with the ensuing yells, gunfire and partial collapse of that section quickly attracts all the remaining HYDRA soldiers who are still in the base. There are two few of them to pose much of a threat though, and they barely slow the boys down. Now with their cover blown Dugan seems under no reservations to stay quiet, firing at a run and skirting corners with a yelling howl. More troublesome are the scientists; the ones who try to fight are easily taken care of, but others try to flee with samples or research documents - and those even more loyal begin burning them. Steve knocks, takes down or kills those that do - but then he has to go about putting out the fires before they envelop the rest of the workrooms and save what he can for the pack on his back. The rest have to be chased down, and a few of them even break down in cries and pleas for mercy.

One shows his true colours the second Steve gets close - but his guard isn’t down.

“You expect a battle to be fair,” Bucky had said during one of their hand-to hand sparring sessions, after the only match he’d managed to beat Steve in. Steve had blocked one arm on a swing and Bucky used the other to punch him in the testicles, then tripped him for good measure. “You know this from street fights you doofus. Never let your guard down.”

When the man swings out with a scalpel - aiming for the femoral artery on Steve’s thigh he’s ready, and quickly darts back and kicks his boot into the side of the man’s head. Another later on turns and tries flings a liquid at his face; Falsworth shoots him as the acid splatters either side of his curved shield. Another does the same to Dugan, or tries to when he enters the work room - but catches him on the hip instead of the face luckily when he jumps back and fires. The shotgun shell explodes through the scientists neck, and Dugan howls out in agony as the acid burns through his clothes in spots. Dernier comes speeding in from a HYDRA kitchen and throws milk on him; which helps burns more than water does - and he seems to recover. Steve learns new things everyday. Dernier takes over from Steve covering him as he gets back to his feet.

“You good?” Steve yells already across the hallway - kicking another into the shelves of a now broken glass cabinet. The worker slides to the floor, back bloody.

Dugan grunts, limping a little. “Ye-yeah, I’m good. Gas is one thing, but acid - these guys are sick.”

The speed their way out of one building into the centre of the base - and in the distance heavy shells being fired from HYDRA and at HYDRA by the Belgian forces are distinct. They’ll get to them soon. The boys split and run in trios to the third and fourth building blocks - where the base opens up into an almost courtyard. Guards start firing out from one window and a walkway, so they back themselves to cover behind a wall. More stomp onto the walkway bridge connecting the buildings together and the gunfire picks up more - and right before Dernier pulls a clip of a grenade to give Steve to throw at them - he shoves the man forward away from the wall. He grabs Dugan by the elbow and yanks the both of them together into a pile of sandbags. Glass shatters where their heads just were and the contents start sizzling as they hit the dirt.

From the third floor a technician heaves his arms back to throw another beaker of acid. Steve’s shield cracks him in the chest, a lucky shot at this angle, and the beaker smashes on the man’s head as he hits the ground, there’s a lot of yelling, but under it, Steve can hear the sizzle of skin as it burns through the muscles of the man’s face. Bullets split the sandbags to the left, and Steve shoves the boys but they’re already moving trying to get cover. Another beaker of acid smashes behind Steve, but when he throws his shield this time it cracks against the window frame and not the person behind it. He tries his gun, but none of them can get the angle - the beakers keep raining down in a shower of glass and burning bubbles from several floors now. Steve moves the others forward, trying to take the brunt, his shield held above him like an umbrella. The bullets from the walkway on their left keep getting closer as they’re out of cover from the wall - and more join in from a walkways on the right. The acid rain keeps coming - and gunfire is echoing everywhere; cornering them in. Four shots go of, a crack crack crack -- crack - and it’s the sound Steve has tuned his ears to recognize as Bucky’s rifle. The acid rain of foaming beakers stops above them, and there’s spitting cries as the skin of any still alive inside begins to burn off and blister when they drop. Steve looks over his shoulder, and Bucky’s moving up towards them; barrel against his shoulder. A fifth shot goes off and all sound stops on the third floor workroom above him. Morita’s covering him at at run, and where Dugan has been limping; his jacket is scorched away at the shoulder. He's moving stiffer but luckily it looks as though that acid didn't erode all the way through.

“They toss that shit at you too, huh Cap?”

“Seems so.” Steve grins at his friend, the takes two grenades from Dugan, one from his own belt and throws them at a run both sides. They land on the centre of the bridge walkway - the right side explodes before Steve’s does, a casualty of Dernier’s suicide run underneath the legs of the structure. It takes out a good chunk of the leftover guards excited at the prospect of trapping them between them.

“Whoohoo!” Dugan howls out.

. . .

When it’s all said and done and they’re rounding up the prisoners they took from the first building - the ones they knocked out or those who didn’t try to trick them - most have bit down on the cyanide pills in their teeth or stabbed themselves in the neck with a pen if they didn’t have them. A few others have managed to break the locks and escape.

“What’s the bloody point?” Falsworth says as he looks at the foaming mouths and bloodstains mixed with black ink.

“There is no point.” Bucky says, from somewhere to Steve’s right as Morita wrestles with a half-awake man, trying to pull out a cyanide capsule from a tooth before he fully wakes up. Falsworth goes to assist. “If they wanna’ off themselves let them.”

“American scum!” A female technician spits at him, only one of four still standing.

“Nice to meet you too, ma’m.” Steve replies faux-brightly back.

Gabe speaks up, calling around the small crowd of them. “Cap, this one says he wants to surrender.” He uses his gun to prod a paunchy, middle-aged man towards Steve, keeping his distance in case the man tries to turn on them like their colleagues did. “What do you wanna do with him?”

This is their first willing surrender.

“Shoot him.” Bucky suggests immediately before going back to making pot-shots at lab equipment with an energy gun he picked up from a dead guard. “Shoot all of them.”

“No! Don’t shoot him!” Steve orders sharply. The man is clearly terrified, with both hands raised, babbling in a combination of German, Polish and broken English. “We don’t shoot prisoners. We’re not going to hurt you if you cooperate.”

Steve refuses to kill unless he has no other choice; he has decided from the beginning to give the Nazis a chance to surrender honourably, the way all of them should.

“Like hell.” Bucky interjects, dropping the energy gun and scowling at Steve. “He’s Hydra, just shoot the bastard with the rest and move on.”

“Bucky he’s an unarmed civilian--”

“Bullshit he is---”

“---and he’s giving himself up.”

“He works for Hydra.” Bucky hisses at him in fury, eyes sparking as if that should settle it.

“It’s unlawful to shoot prisoners. It a war crime.”

“Hardly seems fair that the guys committing the war-crimes get a free pass, Cap.” Morita mutters.

“We are not committing war-crimes. We don’t shoot prisoners. And work for Hydra - so did Erksine once, unwillingly. Soldiers aren’t the only ones Hydra hurts Bucky.”