Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

John exits the locker room using the side door and pauses to watch a yellow leaf flutter off an oak by the football field. More than a year now. His thumb absently rubs over a worn Captain America shield keychain fixed to his backpack as he stares.

Lemar slaps his back. "Come on man, Momma's making chili."

"Uh," John's gaze doesn't hold on his friend. "I'll be a little late. I have to check in with my folks."

"Okay." Lemar knows better than to argue the benefits of 'check-ins.' "Just don't let them keep you too long."

"I know. I'll see you in a half-hour."

"Yeah."

They part ways. John heads towards his side of town where the homes don't touch sidewalks. They're stretched thin in the trees, porches are guarded by mean dogs tied up under their stairs, and the old freight train growls through the woods behind the properties.

His limbs swing sorely today from practice; Coach put pressure on him to perform, already touting what will surely be the third championship win in a row for the Custer's Grove Bears. John sighs and digs his palm into his eyes. He's too young for life to be this exhausting. And, on top of the sport, he's been holding his breath waiting for West Point's acceptance letter to come in the mail. This will all be worth it if he can secure that for his future.

Don't make it harder for us, John. His folks' words are permanent in his skull like iron stakes. He won't let Senior Year be what Junior Year turned into. But what are you supposed to do when you find out your older brother, your hero, idol, your north star, is just gone? Not plummet. He tells himself. Not lash out or skip class. Football was the only thing John could remotely focus on and even then, he was placed on probation because of his poor grades. His future circled the drain, and he would've fallen down where it was too dark to get out if not for Lemar, Olivia, and the Hoskins.

The train rumbles in the darkening woods.

John needs West Point to work. He needs to prove to all these people he's worth propping up. He doesn't have money, but he can make it up to them with sacrifice. With service. John begins to feel a second wind when a powerful screech and crash shake the ground.

Instinct, and an unfortunate propensity for thoughtless bravery, has John sprinting into the tree line towards the tracks. He smells the acrid stench and smoke before he sees the derailment. Pushing through a wall of browning thicket and hearty kudzu, John sees two train cars dented into deep grooves dug into the earth from their velocity when they flipped. The rest of the train squeals to a halt farther down the route.

John's eyes dart around in search of injured operators when he hears scuffing coming from the wreckage. Then a single gunshot rolls out like local thunder. He flinches.

Now's the time to run, isn't it? He shouldn't be walking closer over mud and gravel, because that sound still echoes in his ears: a warning he refuses to heed. Some man clad in dirty grays bursts out from around a tankard and spots John.

A breath of time freezes before this man lunges for him. John tries to scramble away, he slips free from his backpack, but strong hands dig into his arms and grapple him into a human-shield. His shoulder twists until the joint is hot. This man's fingers smell like sweat and iron as they squeeze his jaw and hold his head back, pressing him into his chest.

John's dragged away from the derailment, but he never stops squirming. He gets an opening and scrapes his heel down the man's shin. The man curses in some foreign language. John shoves off him only to receive a right hook across his cheek that spins him into the ground.

Pain fires across his face. His sweatshirt dirties in the mud and oil. Then a second gunshot bangs. Sideways, John watches the man fall before he can get into the trees. John's body listens to adrenaline and tries to pick itself up when the silhouette of a broad-shouldered man rises from the shadow of the tankard cast over him.

Heartbeat drumming blood into his ears, John checks over his shoulder and sees the threatening outline of the man. Perfectly still. Metal arm gleaming in the setting sun. Dark hair cascading around a black mask. Rays glint off the pistol in his hand.

John flinches and dives towards the tankard just as this assassin fires into the dirt where he once stood. But he might as well be a trapped rabbit because this armored man jumps down, and now he's stuck. John swings a sloppy punch that gets deflected. Then another. He's slammed into the dirt and squashed there by a heavy boot moments before the gun aims between his eyes.

Worthlessly, his arms come up to protect himself as rambling words and begging spill out. The assassin is not fazed. Then the light shifts, bounces off metal debris as leaves bend in the wind, until a shaft cuts across this man's face. John feels like the name is stolen from his lungs.

"Bucky Barnes?"

The only sign of recognition John gets is that he's still not dead.

"R-Right? Bucky Barnes. You should be dead…but Steve survived and…" Rambling is an unfortunate nervous tic of his. "You fought the Nazis with Steve Rogers, Cap—" John grunts when the boot pushes off of him. He slides an inch away, cold mud stinging the cuts in his palms. "I'm not wrong, am I?"

The gun drops slowly, and John prays he's seeing turmoil in those steely blue eyes. Hesitation.

Sirens chirp from the nearest road as authorities come for the derailment. John catches the faint flicker of their lights through the woods and, when he looks back, Bucky Barnes is gone.

John glances around before running.

His family home is never something that could draw him in with the promise of warmth, but it's the closest set of walls and a roof he knows on this side of town, so he doesn't stop sprinting until he's stumbling through the side door and down into the basement bathroom. Here the light above the sink likes to blink twice before staying on obnoxiously bright. The sink is less reliable.

John shakes and holds his hands under the mineral-caked faucet until icy water spits out. Dirt and blood splash in the basin. He pumps the empty soap dispenser for barely a few bubbles before rubbing his throbbing palms together under the water. They don't feel under control. Sloppy. All of it sloppy and numb and yet still sore.

Catching himself on the sink, he pants ragged and looks at himself in the mirror: blond bangs askew, dirt and oil on his face, a swollen purple bruise growing in his cheek, a bleeding cut at his temple. He swallows.

Upstairs his parents' footsteps wander around. John glances up then back to himself and tries to fix his hair with shaking hands; he drags his fingers through like a brush, making the blond bloody and wet.

No. The thought of going up there to talk to them, to hear nothing but criticism, it makes him nauseous. John surprises himself by sniffling. He's crying. Great. The more he hates it the more he cries. Sink still gushing water down the drain, John covers his face from the mirror and tries to get himself under control. His shoulders hitch. His lungs burn for more air.

Stop. Don't make it worse. He hears Mikey's voice, who sounds strangely like his dad these days. John sucks in a deep breath and holds it while he scratches his sleeves over his eyes to dry them, only then does he exhale. He turns off the sink and listens: sounds like his parents and sister are cleaning up after dinner. There's no going upstairs; he's not that brave. So John sneaks out the side again and takes off into the woods towards the Hoskins'.

It's a route he can run in his sleep and blindfolded. Every tree root and sticker bush he avoids. Over boulders and under the massive trunk that fell in the summer of 1999. He can now jump the small gully, which shaves off four minutes. And when he reaches the other half of Custer's Grove he can feel it in the air. The warm porch lights and laughter break into the woods like fireflies. Here the properties have clean fences and gardens. Dogs who bark to play instead of out of fear or hunger. And when John stumbles into the backyard that has that old tire swing, and the junk filled detached-garage, and Leena Hoskins' famous tomato plants, John always breathes easier.

They haven't locked their back door in eight years; the screen door is latched, but they leave the main door behind it unlocked so John is always welcome regardless of the hour. The kitchen is empty now, but the lights are on, and the spicy smell of chili is still fresh.

Like a dog who didn't listen when called, John slinks into the house with his head low, shoes dirty, driven by a need for warmth and hunger. The screen door squeaks like it always does, though it usually doesn't seem this loud. John hopes everyone here randomly chose to go to bed early, but seconds later Lemar's footsteps rush down the stairs.

"Jesus, John." Lemar freezes coming around the corner. And, yeah, John must look horrible under these lights.

He winces. "Hey, sorry I'm late." Fuck. His voice sounds horrible too.

"What the hell happened?"

Leena shuffles out from her bedroom muttering under her breath about her son's language when she sees John for herself. "Oh, baby…" Her body loosens, face filling with empathetic pain as she walks towards John with her hands out. Bert is next, but he lingers at the threshold looking stern.

"He do this?" Bert's voice is low.

"Dad," Lemar tries to keep things calm.

John opens his mouth to say something, he doesn't know what, but then Leena has her warm hands cupping his jaws and the world goes fuzzy.

Leena speaks softly. "Baby, what happened?"

John doesn't even try to talk anymore because he knows it'll lead to him crying. So he just looks away.

Leena's thumb tenderly brushes over the bruise. Somehow her touch doesn't hurt. The floral lotion on her hands and the soft skin is nothing but soothing. "I don't know how anyone could put their hands on their child like this."

It feels like he's not in the room anymore.

Bert grumbles under his breath and pivots towards the door until Lemar grabs his arm and steers him towards a medkit kept under the sink in the bathroom, something to give the older man's hands to focus on. And from there John lets himself go, lets himself be guided down into a chair, given a bowl of re-heated chili, turns his palms up so they can be cleaned, tilts his head so it can be taped.

Lemar doesn't get in the way of his parents' fussing; he sits next to John and just puts pressure against John's leg with his own knee under the table. It helps more than he can know.

When he's done eating, Leena takes the bowl before he can wash it himself, kisses his forehead, and holds his jaw to force him to look into her eyes so he can see her sincerity. "You did nothing to deserve this, baby. We love you so much, and I am so happy you always find your way back to us."

John's voice is barely a whisper, one he hopes doesn't betray how he can't believe her words as much as she does. "I know."

She sighs and kisses his forehead again, then fixes his hair before leaving him be. Lemar takes over and brings John upstairs. The fold-up mattress and frame usually in the corner is already setup. They both sit on their respective beds.

"What really happened to you?"

John looks up wide-eyed.

"Unless your old man changed tactics, I don't think I've ever seen marks on your knuckles before." Lemar doesn't let up the pressure from his gaze. "You actually fight back for once?"

"You're not going to believe me."

"Try me, man."

John swallows and takes a shaky breath. For the first time since, Bucky's face rematerializes in his mind. "Train cars derailed around Smokey Hollow. I went to check and this guy jumped me…but then someone shot him and-" He squeezes the cuts on his palms until they sting. "I saw him."

"The shooter?"

"He…" John feels a weight blocking his throat. It's insane isn't it? "I saw Bucky Barnes." He looks up, and at least Lemar isn't laughing yet.

"What?"

"Lemar, I swear to God, I saw Bucky Barnes. The Bucky Barnes, at that wreckage, with a gun! He shot the man who jumped me and would've shot me too if I weren't such a nerd who could recognize him from nothing."

"He's dead, John."

On his feet now, "No, he's not!"

"The man would be close to a hundred."

"Doesn't look it."

"Then it wasn't him."

"And he had a metal arm."

"John, listen to yourself!" Lemar grabs him. "Sit down and take a breath."

He does.

Lemar continues, "you should go to the police."

"What?" His brain can't fathom trying to turn Howling Commando hero James Buchanan Barnes into the police.

"You said you saw someone shoot someone else!"

From below, Bert shouts: "BOYS!"

"Sorry, Dad." Lemar hollers. They must only hear the volume. Lemar rubs his face. "John, just…you need some sleep. And I really think you should go to the police tomorrow. You witnessed a murder."

"I…"

"Sleep." Lemar deflates. "Let me know if you need anything, man."

John sighs and falls back onto the familiar lumps in the mattress and, despite the adrenaline buzzing under his skin, the sense of being in this house puts him to sleep in minutes.

"BOYS!"

John and Lemar grumble and roll over.

Leena Hoskins stomps up the stairs. She pounds on the door. "Boys, you two better be up and ready for school unless you want to be scrapping my gutters clean." She pounds again for good measure before leaving and muttering about how her daughter Glory would never be caught being so lazy.

"Dammit…John…we're going to be late." Lemar yawns.

John rolls over onto his sore face and blindly feels for his backpack. "Shit!" He jolts up so quick he's left dizzy.

"If Momma hears you say that she's going to smack your other cheek."

"Lemar, I left my backpack at the derailment."

"You mean the crime scene."

"Yes!"

"BOYS! Why do I not see you down here?"

Lemar starts ripping open his dresser, throwing clothes back to John. "We'll get it later, you'll live."

"It's got all my stuff, Lemar!"

"And I'd rather you get through a day of school without your homework than make both of us late… We'll go get it during lunch."

John huffs and tugs on the clean clothes. "Fine." They rush downstairs, steal toast and jam from a fresh plate, and go running the mile to school, slipping inside just before the late bell rings.

John feels off all day. He doesn't have any of his work or books. People keep nagging him to explain his injuries. And the derailment happens to be the talk of the town because nothing happens in Custer's Grove, so this must be the end of the world. All day he hears people muttering theories about toxic chemicals or terrorists, and it only sends him back where he feels another man's hands on him, and then he's staring down the barrel of a gun.

Olivia finds them during lunch, and they're dragging her out as they explain.

"You were there, John?"

"How do you think he got the shiner?" Lemar leads.

Olivia says with a bluntness born from the injustice, "I thought his dad did it."

"No." John mutters. "Some guy at the site did it."

Lemar adds, and he doesn't mean for it to be as mocking as it feels to John "and then Bucky Barnes saved him by also trying to kill him."

Olivia knows the name only because of these two. "Like the dead hero, Bucky Barnes?"

"He's not dead." John clings to that fact. To the striking blue of the man's eyes. "I saw him. I said his name, and he reacted."

"Ignoring the obvious holes in this story, why would Bucky Barnes try to kill you?"

"I don't know… He, maybe he didn't know what was going on."

"He said so?"

"No but…his movements were so precise, really unnatural, maybe it wasn't him entirely." John speaks to his shoes.

Olivia hums and decides not to press the issue, especially when Lemar sends her a worried look over his shoulder.

They eventually arrive through the woods to the site where they find the area sectioned off with loose police tape; the untested Custer's Grove lawmen on their own lunch break likely overwhelmed by such an event.

"Yeah, that's a derailment alright." Liv walks around the edge of the tape. "…I don't see any chalk marks."

"What?" Lemar and John join her.

"You know, the marks they put around dead bodies."

"But…" John blinks. "He died right over there!" He points to a patch of grass and gravel that's completely clean. "And I don't see my bag anywhere."

"Both might be down at the police station." Lemar suggests.

John runs around the perimeter to get closer to where that man fell. "Right there. I swear to you guys!" But his friends look at him worryingly, then exchange a look themselves.

"John," Olivia starts softly. "You've been really stressed waiting to hear from West Point, and I'm sure between football and class-"

"You-" He flinches. He knows this tone. He knows why they sound like this.

Lemar steps closer. "John, it's okay."

"You guys don't believe me." His palms sting as he clenches his fists at his side. "You think I'm going crazy again!"

"No, but-"

"This isn't like last year! And my dad didn't do this to me!"

Lemar and Liv look heartbroken.

"I swear! Bucky Barnes was here!" Fuck. He's going to cry again. John sucks in a breath and holds it. He squeezes his eyes shut and counts to ten, and when he opens them his friends look no more convinced. John bites his lip and turns back to the spot on the ground where he thought he saw what he saw. "Let's just go back." He mumbles.

"John," Lemar hears the defeat in his voice.

"No. You guys are right. I, I probably just hit my head and saw something that wasn't there."

Liv walks up and gently takes his arm. He doesn't say anything else the whole trek back, and John proceeds to spend the next three periods scratching his thumbnail back and forth over his finger to remind himself of what's real. It works okay, but he still ditches school before the last period; he just has to get out before everything loud in his head becomes too much—just like Junior Year all over again.

As he shuffles through the second biggest street in town, the locals eye him warily, still not trusting him to keep his temper under control. He walks with his fists in his pockets and his head down. Winning them another championship trophy last year did nothing to help John get back into their good graces.

Hands hook his arm and drag him into an alley.

"You were at the derailment, tell us where the flash drive is?" A sour breath touches his neck as he's shoved into the brick wall.

"What the hell are you talking about?" John thrashes.

The men shove him. The bruise on his cheek blossoms in hot pain, but, before he can scream, something sharp and hot stabs into his neck.

The world tilts sideways.

A shadow of a man appears behind his attackers.

John falls, but he never hits the ground.

His eyes blink open to dust motes in sharp rays of sunset. The world and his stomach sway in opposite directions. John groans. He rubs at his eyes and registers that he's sitting on the hard ground, back against a hard wall. Broken rafters and beams stretch above him—this is the old canning factory on the edge of town.

A man steps out from the shadows.

John jumps and uses his heels to push himself further into the wall. "You! I, what did you do to me?"

"Nothing." The man steps closer into a beam of light so John can see him: tactical boots, too many knives holstered around his legs, a handgun in a thigh holster and another in a side holster hanging from a vest. John's eyes go next to the silver metal and red star on his left arm, then travel up to his face without the mask, the eyes.

"You're Bucky Barnes."

"How do you know me?" He would seem more menacing if he didn't also look impossibly confused.

John swallows. "I…I just do. You're in my history book." And in my comic books and on the poster I made.

"What?" Bucky blinks.

"You, you're supposed to be dead."

"I'm not."

"I can see that." John's hands tremble as he uses the wall to pick himself up. "Obviously, you're standing right here, in front of me… You're Bucky Barnes!"

"Stop doing that."

"Sorry! It's hard not to."

"How do you know Steve?"

"Everyone knows Captain America. And you served with him. You guys were in the Howling Commandos together! But then you fell from the train, and you were never seen again, but you didn't die because you're right here."

Bucky scowls and stands perfectly still as John drunkenly paces around.

"And, and you were going to kill me!"

"I didn't mean to."

"What does that mean?"

"I had orders to eliminate any witnesses. You were a witness."

John gasps, "And you decided to let me go because I knew your name?"

"I…wasn't exactly myself." His mouth presses into a line. "It's complicated."

"You know you look great, by the way, for your age." John cringes immediately and hopes to hide the blush in his cheeks by stepping into the shadow.

"What year is it?"

"2002."

Bucky turns away, unreadable. Then he pauses, tilting his head towards the wall.

John spots his backpack on the ground and picks it up. His fingers touch where the Captain America keychain should be, it must've fallen off; he tries not to think about how Mikey fell off too. "Look," John says quietly. "About what happened at the tracks, that guy you—"

"Get down!" Bucky dives towards John and pins him to the floor with his metal arm as bullets shatter old glass above them. "They're here."

"Who?" All John can do is hold onto to the cold limb as he's manhandled into cover.

Bucky never answers him. He moves precisely around the discarded machinery inside, firing through the smallest windows and tightest angles as enemies close in from the outside.

"Run." He shoves John towards a back door. The other side of the factory is breached by something like a SWAT team clad in gray. Bucky lays down cover fire before following.

John has no choice but to obey. Adrenaline fills his limbs as he sprints only to slam into a firmly shut door at the end of the corridor. Bullets pepper around him, and he covers his head uselessly.

"Buc-" he turns to see Bucky charging. John hops to the side when Bucky lowers his metal shoulder and barrels through it like a linebacker, dragging John out with him by the back of his shirt. John finds his feet and stumbles towards the motorcycle Bucky swings onto.

"Get on." Bucky starts the engine.

"Where?"

"Hurry!"

John climbs onto the back just as Bucky peels out of the overgrown lot. He scrambles to get his arms around the man's torso before he flies off the back. They accelerate away from the factory so fast John squeezes his eyes shut and buries his face into the back of Bucky's tactical vest. His ears ring from the close-quarters gunshots and now the growling of the engine beneath him.

He doesn't know how long they're riding for before he cracks an eye open and sees Southern twilight settling. The cold wind has numbed his arms and face beyond feeling. Instinct has him twisting to check behind them when something in his side pinches sharp. Fingertips touch warm wetness and come away red.

"Bucky?"

The man somehow hears him over the wind and glances down, then glances down again before braking and fishtailing dramatically.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Bucky grumbles.

"I, I didn't know. How did I not know?"

Bucky yanks him off the bike and holds him still without any of the care someone usually reserves for the injured. He inspects John's side with tough fingers before deciding it's a graze that doesn't want to stop bleeding. Without asking, he takes out a knife and starts to cut the bottom of John's shirt.

John doesn't react beyond blinking and flinching, even when Bucky presses the strips into the wound. Blue eyes stare at John's pale face.

"You're going into shock."

"What?"

"Here." He takes John's hands and manually presses them into his side. "Now sit."

"I-"

"Sit."

He does, slowly, not sure where his body is.

"Bullet grazed you."

"Why are you cutting my shirt?"

"You're bleeding."

"Oh. Why?"

"Eyes open." Bucky kneels. "We can't stay here."

"I…I know where we can go."

They roll the bike off the road into the woods, and John leads them the next couple hundred feet until they're staring at Bert's garage where John's seen old doomsday kits hidden among the junk. His right arm itches from all the dried blood that's caked where his elbow is keeping the shirt-gauze pressed. He goes to use both arms to try to shimmy open the back door to the garage and realizes the strips of his shirt now stick to his side on their own—pleasant. He grumbles and kicks the door. Nothing. So he leans all his weight into it.

Bucky reaches over and nudges it open with a single push, making John stumble inside into a bucket. A muffled yelp of pain slips out at the sudden motion. Recovering slowly, John slips through decades worth of collected belongings while Bucky follows too close for comfort. The larger man struggles in the space. He's lighter on his feet than he looks, but it's difficult to anticipate where a stake of old tools might be precariously placed, hidden under tarps and yellowed newspapers, and Bucky knocks over several.

"Maybe you should wait outside." John hisses under his breath.

Bucky doesn't answer, just stares at the blood.

"Here," Finding the old tackle box, John lifts it onto a workbench and unclips the front.

"You're bleeding again."

"I'm fine," John says through some of the worst pain in his life.

Liv shouts from outside. "Lemar, seriously!"

"I heard something, Liv." Lemar replies. "It sounded too big to be an animal."

"Dammit." John grips the edge of the workbench as his head swims. "Look, Bucky-"

Lemar bursts through the other door with a bat raised high, Liv behind his shoulder with a flashlight, then John sees Bucky's gun trained eye-level, so he throws himself in front of them.

"Wait! They're my friends!"

"John!" Lemar doesn't register the gun and pushes through the junk into the garage. "Where the hell have you been?"

"You're bleeding!" After turning on the lights, Liv follows in the trail Lemar carved.

Bucky cocks his head at the other teens and lowers his weapon.

"Guys, listen," John breathes heavy.

But then Lemar looks to his left. "Holy shit. You're Bucky Barnes."

"What?" Olivia gasps.

Bucky looks on blankly before busying himself with the outdated medkit. "Sit." He tells John.

"That's Bucky Barnes." Lemar repeats as his brain reboots.

"It can't be." Liv remains the last voice of reason. "Jonathan Fitzgerald Walker, you have a million things you need to explain right now."

"Sit." Bucky ignores the teens and pushes down on John's shoulder, not that he puts up much of a fight. Bucky lifts up the bottom of the shirt and gives it to John to hold. Lemar and Liv both freeze at the sight of all the dried blood.

"Why are you in Dad's garage and not a hospital?" Lemar shouts.

"Stop, your parents going to hear you." John says, exhausted, his head hanging. Bucky prods the wound and starts to peel off the strips of shirt fused to skin.

"No, they're not. They went to your parents house because you went missing from school, and you skipped practice, and-" Lemar stops himself. "And you were off today. They thought your folks had something to do with it…"

John's blue eyes glance up then back down. He's too tired to stop himself from hissing as Bucky rips off another makeshift bandage. The man growls something John is choosing to interpret as an apology.

"John," Olivia is clenching her fists without answers.

Bucky looks around the garage, spots the mini fridge, and pulls out what he was hoping would be there. "Here," he hands over a bottle of amber-colored alcohol.

"You can't drink that." Liv gasps.

"I—I don't drink." John weakly pushes it away. "I'm underaged." His voice is small from the embarrassment he doesn't know why he's feeling.

Bucky pushes it back. "Drink." He starts to work on the wound just enough to demonstrate the pain to come, pausing to let John grimace and swig a mouthful. John gags on the burn before taking another. And then the sting from the iodine hits and he takes a third.

"Dude." Lemar rips it from him.

Liv elbows her way closer. "Why is he bleeding?"

Bucky doesn't answer her; he only works.

"So," Lemar breathes out. "You weren't lying, about any of it."

Olivia storms out. "I'm going to call the cops."

Bucky scowls, watching her leave.

"Stop her," John begs with bags under his eyes. Lemar puts down the bottle and trips out after their friend. John's whole side feels like numb fire—however that's possible. He eyes the bottle and reaches for it again. Maybe after drinking enough this whole day can end and turn into a harmless dream.

A metal hand steals the bottle before it slips from his fingers. Then these intense blue eyes become the only thing in the room not spinning. He doesn't know how long he's staring.

"Don't puke."

"Why?"

"Because you're about to pass out."

Bucky catches him and swings him over his shoulder in a smooth motion. He focuses on things that are tangible: the dust, smell of oil, the cable that tried to trip him—the heavy breathing of the kid whose name he just officially learned is Jonathan Fitzgerald Walker. He did go through the kid's backpack and found the initials J. F. W. on everything, but part of him wondered if maybe they shared the name James, that would've been weird.

Outside, the property is dark except for the small bubbles of soft light coming from the home and the neighborhood. Bucky doesn't think about what the normal lives are like for those inside the houses, he just carries this person inside after his 'friends.' He ducks into a kitchen.

The girl turns to him in shock. The guy follows her gaze as he holds a phone out of reach from her hands.

"He's asleep." Bucky deadpans.

"You sure?" Lemar frowns.

"Yes."

"Uh, follow me." The guy leads him into the house but constantly glances back over his shoulder while the girl fearlessly follows on his heels. They bring him to a modest bedroom, and he's directed to lay John down onto the fold-out bed.

Lemar touches John's shoulder with a fondness that makes Bucky nostalgic. Lemar then says softly, "I…should call my parents and tell them to come home."

Now it's just Olivia and Bucky.

"Did you do this?" She asks, arms crossed.

"No." Bucky side-eyes her in the dark.

"He said you tried to kill him."

"A misunderstanding."

She glares.

"You're protective." He says, uncomfortable right now; his body itches. It's been too long since since he's been stuck in a room with a normal person he's not been ordered to kill. "You his boyfriend?"

"No." She says too quickly. "…he has a lot to figure out."

Bucky loses interest and moves towards the window.

"Where do you think you're going?"

He lifts it and climbs out without another word. Dropping to the dewy grass, Bucky goes into the woods to find a good vantage point to watch the house. Something tells him his targets aren't going to give up, and if they're smart enough to recognize and follow J. F. W. into town they may also know his home address, or friend's address; Bucky hasn't figured out the situationship here yet.

After checking on the motorcycle he stole yesterday, he finds a sturdy tree that gives a clear view of the street and the house. There he sits and holds in his hand that small Captain American shield keychain. Bucky tries to remember everything he can, at least until the memories become jagged, bloody amalgamations.

John wakes slowly, head throbbing, stomach uneasy, side stiff with pain. He knows he's home at the Hoskins's from the creak of the springs and the smell of lavender in the sheets. He rolls over and decides he hates life right now.

Downstairs is the muffled bubbling of arguments on the first floor, not that he can tell what it's about, he just hears Lemar and Lemar's parents, Liv even. John groans. A shadow stretches over him that breaks the soft moonlight. His body flinches, primed by the disasters of the day. A few seconds later his dull head recognizes Bucky.

"Those men are closing in," Bucky says. "They know your name and must have tracked this address."

"I don't have what they want.

"Doesn't matter. If you stay, they're going to hurt those people downstairs."

John lifts himself onto shaky elbows. "That can't happen… Maybe, maybe I can draw them away."

"You sure? It's not going to be easy."

"I'm sure." John feels a cold sweat covering his skin. "No one down there deserves to get hurt because of me."

Bucky gets a glint in his eyes but otherwise remains stoic. He lifts John's backpack. "I had a feeling you'd say that."

John takes his bag and throws it onto his back, but not before emptying it of his school supplies, stuffing in an extra pair of clothes, and writing Lemar a letter. It's not a good one, how do you fit a lifetime of debt, devotion, and friendship into a hastily scrawled page?

Bucky leaps out of the second-floor window and stands looking up as John sits on the sill, stomach rolling. He covers his mouth and waits for the chill to settle.

Bucky cocks his head.

"It's not the height." John swallows. "The rum…and my side…" He doesn't want to keep this soldier waiting so he starts to climb down as best he can before pain flares in his side, and he slips. Bucky catches him, not that either acknowledges the act.

They go into the woods and walk the motorcycle out. Bucky climbs on and revs it to life, but John lingers and stares back at the Hoskins's home where he sees Momma through the kitchen window looking upset and arguing with Lemar and Bert, probably about him. She does so much for John, too much, and she deserves to give that care to her real children and not some stray.

"Get on."

John takes a deep breath and holds it, then gets behind Bucky Barnes as they ride off, loud enough to draw any hostiles after them, just two figures in the Georgian night.

Chapter Text

John never fully sleeps, doesn't even know how one would sleep riding on the back of a motorcycle, so he watches the familiar roads and businesses pass by in a blur in the night, and then hours go by, and they become unfamiliar roads and businesses, and John's chest aches for the Hoskins's home.

They slow down as dawn blinks awake, purple and soft in the sky—is it still the Georgia sky? The change in pace nudges John from his stupor. He pulls away from Bucky as the man rolls up under the glow of an outdated gas station. John's hopes that this is a dream melt away as Buck flicks the kickstand out and climbs off, turning back to him.

"Go get gas."

"What?" John blinks slowly.

Bucky motions to himself: the knives and guns.

"Right." John glances inside the station at the rows of salty, fatty snacks. His stomach aches. "You're going to get the cops called on you looking like that."

Bucky growls before stealing John's backpack off his shoulders to stow his weapons inside.

"Hey-" John reaches.

Bucky also steals John's wallet, then walks into the gas station himself. John doesn't see the point in following, so he plops down onto the curb and holds his head over his knees. Across the street, a diner sign's neon beacon flickers on. He stares and whines thinking about warm pancakes and maybe even coffee.

The bell rings over his shoulder as Bucky comes back out, throws the wallet into his lap, then pumps the gas. John pouts. He looks down at the dangerous new items in his backpack.

"Come on." Bucky finishes.

"Can we eat?"

"Why?"

John's jaw hangs. "Because I'm hungry." And he's tired and stiff and sore, and the thought of getting back onto the bike for hours more, of getting whipping by wind, and spattered with bugs, isn't appealing right now. It's dreadful. "The diner's right there." He points. "Just something small."

"Fine." Bucky says quick enough that John thinks maybe this man might be capable of hunger too. "Get on."

He does with a small spring in his step. They drive across the street and park, walking in as the restaurant's first customers of the day. Bucky sits with his back to a corner in a booth with clear lines of sight while John collapses beside him, as much as his throbbing side will allow. They order coffee, eggs, sausage, and John gets a small side of french toast.

Bucky grumbles into his black, bitter drink, "You don't have a lot of money. Don't spend it on useless things."

His brow furls with the sudden thought. "Uh, how long do you think it's going to have to last?"

Bucky stares.

"I…" John assumed they'd go somewhere and lose the trail of their pursuers, circle back to Custer's Grove eventually, but maybe that's foolish. "Who are these people?"

"Just targets I've been told to kill. The derailment wasn't part of the plan."

"So why don't you just...you know..."

Bucky scowls. "I'm working on it."

"They," He chews. "Asked me about this flash drive they wanted."

"I already destroyed it."

John looks at the older man's polished metal arm. "Those people are bad guys, right? You're an assassin for the military, some secret black ops unit."

Bucky drinks his coffee and keeps his eyes on egresses.

John bites his lip. "You're a good guy." Bucky doesn't disagree, but he also doesn't agree. "So just call your commanding officer and get this fixed."

"Keep your voice down."

"Bucky—"

"I am not calling anyone." Bucky snaps, fury flashes, contained in his eyes.

John somehow doesn't flinch. "Okay."

Their food comes on hot, greasy plates.

"I wasn't—" Bucky starts but shuts himself up just as quickly. "Eat your food."

John accepts the quiet and devours what's in front of him, dipping toast into egg yolk and syrup. He pays no attention to how little Bucky's eating until he hears the soldier mutter under his breath.

"We need to move."

"Wait, I didn't pay!"

Bucky's metal arm grabs his shirt and yanks him to his feet, rushing him out the back door meant for staff.

"Stay here." He presses John into the stained wall and leaves him by the dumpster with the puddles and mounds of cigarette butts.

The motorcycle engine roars awake. John peers around the side and sees Bucky accelerating towards him with two black vans peeling out from the gas station.

"Shit!" John climbs on in the seconds-long window Bucky gives him before they're driving off, ignoring the roads in favor of driveways and deer trails.

John clings. He tucks his head into the dirty tactical vest and refuses to open his eyes for fear of losing one to a tree branch. He feels the bike's springs bouncing under their weight as they move over rocks and roots. Then they're airborne a moment before landing on hard road, only then does he lift his face off Bucky's back.

"We can't keep running, Bucky!"

"I know." He doesn't take them far, pulling off at an abandoned lot and old brick building that still has all four walls. "Get off."

John does, his legs jelly.

Bucky kills the engine then hides the bike just poorly enough to be visible from the road to those who are looking.

"We're going to ambush them." John realizes.

Bucky glances at him, then holds his hand out, fingers beckoning for the bag. John swings off the backpack and hands it over. Bucky recovers his knives and one gun, passing the other and the bag back to John.

"You know how to use this?"

"…I used to shoot a rifle with my brother."

"Same concept. Aim. Point. Shoot. Safety there."

"Okay." John feels its weight. He turns to take in the building behind him somehow holding on long past its time. A car whizzes by on the road. "So, what, we're going to wait inside and snipe them from a distance, right? You held some of the best records until the Gulf War. So we're not going to jump out from the shadows and-"

"Stop." Bucky stalks the perimeter, and John follows on his heels, at least holding the gun properly pointed down. He says "You talk too much."

"I do that when I'm nervous."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you nervous?" Bucky inspects a corrugated sheet of metal.

John scoffs. "Are you serious right now?"

Bucky stands to his full height over John and scowls to demonstrate just how serious.

John doesn't shrink. "I've only ever been in fist fights before." He thinks he sees the corner of the man's mouth curl, but Bucky turns away too quickly.

"You've fought people?" Bucky asks.

"Stupid school fights, yeah. Punching my way through problems became…a little bit of a crutch…" He's not proud of it mainly because it's a habit he hasn't shook.

"Could've fooled me."

John puffs out his chest, but Bucky's looking at the cracked windows on the second floor, so John stomps around to try and get into his line-of-sight. "Sorry I'm not as deadly as a highly-trained assassin. I could at least kick your ass in football."

The man glances at him then lets out a small breath—maybe his version of a laugh—before forcing his way inside the building.

"You know, you're not what I expected." John doesn't miss how Bucky's shoulders go tight from behind. Heat builds up in John's chest, that familiar temper. "All of the stories said you were this charming, good-natured guy."

"You're thinking of Steve."

"No." He snaps. "You were the one saving him in Brooklyn. Everyone you fought with said you were loyal and honorable-"

"Not my fault if your stupid history books got it wrong." Another flash of real emotion, and it's anger; both of them let their own burn off like steam. "Now get in here and help me set traps. These guys are relentless, but they're not smart."

"News flash, I don't know how to set traps! I know Calculus and how to lead a wide receiver!"

Bucky snarls and snatches the front of his shirt and jerks him inside. "Fine. Be bait for all I care."

"No!" John squirms indignantly like a child.

"Then shut up." Bucky releases him.

"No—teach me!"

"Either I show you or I actually get it done in time."

"I'm a fast learner."

He scowls, but John doesn't back down. "We'll see."

Bucky shows him how to make a spring-loaded nail gun and hide trip-wire. John notes how most of Bucky's traps are less spy-magic and more simple physics. He also learns that a lot of setting an ambush is finding a good vantage point and waiting, rather Bucky finds a good spot on a chuck of second-floor intact while John is forced into a corner behind him, stuck playing with the fraying ends of his mutilated tee-shirt.

John wipes sweat off his forehead. The pistol lays next to him, and his backpack sits in his lap; he rubs his fingers over the broken keychain connection at the zipper. Bucky, meanwhile, hasn't said a word since they set their last 'trap.' Hasn't moved either. Leaving John to consider the only possible conclusion: the man's brains have to be as robotic as his arm. It's the only answer to explain how a hero like him is such an asshole—the government kept him on ice and took out all of the good stuff and put in nothing but a cranky, albeit badass assassin in their place.

"They're coming."

John perks up. Then remembers what's about to happen and feels sick.

"Stay behind me."

His mouth goes dry. "Yes Sir."

Bucky glances back at the title but recovers, and again goes silent. John listens to the vans quietly pulling in: the tires crunching gravel, engines turning off. He gets to his knees, backpack on, gun in his hand, safety engaged. When he sees Bucky thumb his safety off, John does the same and keeps the weapon pointed away.

The door on the floor below them creaks open.

John's chest constricts. He wipes more sweat out out of his eyes. Fixing his gaze on Bucky's back. The man is so still John forgets he's breathing, but his composure is the only thing giving John hope he's going to survive five more minutes in this world.

Men creep into the space below. They check around shadows and behind forgotten furniture. Bucky slowly stands as their pursuers approach the first trap. He aims, waits, and bang! The taught wire below snaps and peppers four men with rusted nails and metal shrapnel. Bucky shoots the two unaffected while the four stumble back. Another shot between the eyes. One chucks a small grenade upstairs. Bucky grabs John and leaps for the broken stairs, turning midair to land on his back, John protected against his chest, but John can't help yelping in fear and then pain as a knife hilt digs into his side.

Bucky shoves John down and stands to find the remaining enemies. A bullet strays and deflects, sparks spray Bucky's shoulder. He ducks and shoots out someone's kneecap. Meanwhile, John sees his gun on the ground in reach. All he can do is crawl towards it. The floor above them explodes. John turns like a turtle when dust and debris collapse. Luckily, his hand was already around the pistol or else it would've been lost under the mound. He pushes free of the rubble.

Gunshots ring out.

Another man screams and gets buried under a stack of sharp rebar.

Then John hears something new: Bucky grunts when a blade slices the outside of his thigh. John stumbles and sees Bucky holding back a hostile and rifle while man comes at him with a large knife meant to sink it into Bucky's back, but John sets his stance, aims, and shoots.

The sound echoes in his chest. Before he can fear if he just killed a man, he blinks and realizes he only hit the enemy's hand, mangled it. John stares at the bleeding mess, and Bucky finishes him off with a brutally efficient neck snap and a knife of his own. Something in John tells him to put the safety back on. He swallows. Hopes he's not shaking too noticeably.

Bucky eyes him from the side. "…stay here." He walks out of John's view, which is painfully narrowed on the dead men bleeding out and twitching on the ground. His gun lowers. Then he turns and vomits. Bracing himself on the wall, he vomits again, coughs, wiping his mouth before stepping back. Breathing quickly now, John covers the smell with the crook of his arm and stumbles towards an open door and the bright outside.

Bucky re-appears. "That was all of them."

John, still covering his nose and mouth, whines and pushes through the assassin for fresh air. He coughs and gags, falling onto his knees in the grass. He's disgusting. Blood on his side. Dirt, dust, and maybe asbestos coat his skin and hair like chalk.

"You hurt?" Bucky kneels and peeks at the bullet graze from yesterday.

John swats at him and glares—he doesn't know why. Bucky didn't force him in into this. Bucky's been the one saving him over and over and over. His glare degrades into a pathetic stare, a begging for something he doesn't know Bucky is capable of giving.

The man stands and wordlessly slides the backpack off John's shoulder to put his weapons back out of sight, taking the gun from John's limp fingers while he hyperventilates.

"We should find somewhere to clean up and-"

"Where the hell are we?" John shouts. He balls grass up between his fingers.

"Alabama."

John nods as if he should've expected that answer.

"Take a minute. I'm going to loot them and the vans." He hands the bag back and leaves John to his sweaty panic. Next thing he knows, Bucky's there on his motorcycle, engine grumbling low, waiting. John pushes himself up without a fight and gets on. He wraps his arms around Bucky and leans into him. Dirty. Aching. And done.

He mumbles into the man's back. "Where are we going?"

"Back to Georgia."

John holds on tighter.

Thunder drums overhead. The sky's been gray for the past hour. Bucky idles at a red light in yet another skeleton of a town. Some people cast him and the kid a sour look, but a quick scowl sends them on their way; they're locals, he can't blame them, there isn't much else for them to look at.

Still red. His grip on the handlebars flex with impatience. No one else is at this four way intersection, he could go, but they already stand out enough, it would be stupid of him to draw any attention that could warrant law enforcement involvement.

The kid's grip around his stomach slips.

"Hold on." He grumbles. His fingertips feel heat in John's arms. Bucky finds a too-quick heart rate skittering in his writ. "John?"

John makes a small sound and nothing else.

Bucky's heart skips once before he locks down his emotions under decades of cold practice and procedure. He pins John's arms to his stomach with one hand and quickly turns around to back-track to the motel they passed three minutes before, pulling up in front of a room.

"John," he climbs off and holds the kid's shoulder to keep him upright. He smells it on him then, the beginning of infection. No need to lift the shirt, Bucky can feel the heat coming from the bullet graze, can see the way the faintest touch makes John twitch with pain.

"M'just tired." John's head rolls forward.

Bucky picks him up off the bike and sits him on the curb. He puts the backpack in his fingers to give him something to focus on, noting how they go for the broken keychain burning a hole in Bucky's own pocket. "Wait here." He orders as if the kid can do anything else.

Using money he picked off their now deceased pursuers, he buys them a room for two days, stops at a vending machine for water, then fast walks back to John. He carries him into the room to make the process quicker, laying him down on one of the beds. John sinks into the blankets, head already soaking the pillow with sweat.

Bucky finally lifts up his shredded shirt and peels back the old bandage, already falling off, to find an angry-red wound oozing pink: blood and pus. He frowns then shakes John's shoulder until those blue eyes open. "Drink this." He uncaps it and shoves the drink into his hands. "I'll be right back."

Not staying to see if John understands his order, he storms to the front desk to get any medical supplies the manager's willing to part with. The older man passes over the whole kit under Bucky's trained leer.

Back in the room, John's sprawled, the drink on the nightstand, his breathing too quick and too shallow. Bucky drags a chair up to the bedside. A lot of words sit on his tongue: you're not going to like this, you should've said something, sorry—but he says nothing, just gets to work.

Bucky shoves a towel under his side above the covers then starts to clean the wound. Dirt streaks away across his abdomen as Bucky washes then flushes the gash. John's body winces. Bucky leans in and finds a piece of debris lodged. Without delicate tweezers to use, he cleans his metal fingers. The slightest touch sends John yelping and pushing away. Bucky clenches his jaw and pins John down across his chest so his thrashing doesn't cause more damage.

He slips his fingers between the separated skin, and John screams. Bucky immediately takes his leg and uses it to restrain the kid while his hand clamps down over John's mouth. Hot tears roll down his cheeks into Bucky's fingers.

"I know." He breathes, slowly lifting out the debris. "I know."

John tries to push Bucky off him, but he has no chance. Bucky only eases back when John tires himself out and goes quiet, chest stuttering while his eyes slip shut. Bucky doesn't lag. He flushes the wound with soapy water then dabs it dry, repeating until the kid has no more energy to whine and goes fully unconscious.

A disinfecting ointment and new bandage go on efficiently. He pulls off the dirty, ruined shirt and tosses it into the trash before gently lifting John and shifting him under the covers. From there, Bucky's night becomes a vigil.

He sits on the other bed and stares. The curtains are drawn closed. Any lock engaged. It gives Bucky the clarity to think or rather think selectively. His mind remains a violent hive if he goes down the wrong path. The Winter Soldier lurks in cells darker than he's comfortable confronting.

That Captain American shield returns to his palm. The whole thing is a wonder, and he's not sure what originally freed him. Was it hearing his own name? Steve's? Maybe it was all three coming from this blond kid with the same fire in his blue eyes as Steve himself. All he can tell is the mental wall blocking out the Soldier feels marginally sturdier when John is near. It's probably just Bucky having something to focus on. It's probably why he's sitting here unblinking, counting breaths and twitches like lifelines. Bucky sighs. It's survival, that's all.

John's mouth is tacky, throat dry. He stares up at a water stain that looks like a dog's head. His body feels impossibly far away even as he lifts one hand in front of his eyes.

Bucky, because saying something like a normal person would be too much, simply emerges from the shadows with his arms crossed. John's arm flops back to the mattress.

"What happened?" He asks, voice cracking.

Bucky nudges towards the half-finished drink on the nightstand. John reaches for the water and drinks some, the stark mineral taste familiar. When he shifts up against the headboard and feels that sharp stitch in his side the hours rush back: heat, pain, a stiff arm holding him up, a gruff voice speaking low and telling him to drink, then sleep.

"Am I going to make it, doc?"

Bucky crosses his arms and sits in a nearby chair.

"Seriously, thanks though."

"You should've said something." Is Bucky pouting?

"I don't remember ignoring it…it just happened. Next time I'll let you know when my butt gets sore on the bike." He rakes back his hair. Clumps of dirt and sweat come off on his fingers. He flicks them to the floor. "How lo-"

"Almost thirty-six hours."

"Oh." He sinks into the pillow and really maps the tension in Bucky's stance. "That's kind of long." How long has it been since he left Custer's Grove? Two days, three? He should know. John looks back to the brown and moldy dog head on the ceiling. Did the Hoskins call the police? They probably tried to despite his letter. Police get called for runaways. Well, maybe not for him.

A bag of pretzels hits his chest.

"Huh. Thanks."

Bucky growls.

"Um," John thinks the man looks run-down. Showered but exhausted and stiff. "I'll say something next time, promise."

"There won't be a next time."

John flinches.

"You're getting on a bus home."

"I am?"

"Yes. My targets are eliminated. They can't come after you or your family anymore."

"That's…good." He frowns down at the pretzels, wondering what this weight in his chest is all of sudden. "What, what are you going to do?"

"None of your business."

"Right." The salt dries his mouth out more. "…you should reach out to Steve." He locks eyes with Bucky who's somehow looks more tense, like he might rupture a blood vessel. "How are you alive, by the way?"

"None of your business." Bucky stands. "Eat. Shower but don't get that wet." He points to his bandaged side, and it finally registers for John that's he not wearing his shirt; his hand comes up to cover half his face as blush spreads. Bucky at least walks away. "We have to leave the room in an hour."

"Okay." John says, voice too high. "Will do."

The shower never gets hot enough to build steam, and keeping the bandages dry leads to nothing but awkward and uncomfortable poses that almost had him falling and cracking his head open. Bucky may have actually killed him if that happened; he can't imagine the work it takes cleaning up a body, but he does imagine Bucky knows how.

John puts on the only other clean clothes he has. They're ones he kept at the Hoskins, so he smells nothing but the lavender detergent as he pulls it over his head. He stands there in a sudden wave of sadness, imagining how scared Mrs. Hoskins must be. How angry Bert is but in the way where he's frustrated because he can't help. How betrayed Lemar and Olivia feel. Sniffling through a hitched breath, John wipes at his eyes and reminds himself this is over, and he's going home, and the pain in his side dulls.

When he leaves the bathroom with his backpack, Bucky's on the bed holstering guns and knives. John watches. Tells himself that one of his heroes is standing here, that he came back even if another hero didn't. He bites his lip and refuses to cry again.

"Do you have a handler you're going back to?"

Bucky's head lifts, but then he goes back to his gear.

John doesn't know why he would go rogue from the US military, and he doesn't know why Bucky Barnes would be working for anyone else, but it's clear he can't ask. "Be careful going out with those in the open… I know it's the South, but cops will stop you."

"Noted."

"…you can come back to Custer's Grove, if you want."

"I'm going to keep moving."

"Right." He sits in a chair to tie his shoes as slowly as possible. Why does this feel like a crossroads? Rolling his fingers around the lace, he thinks about the other half of Custer's Grove. The one by the tracks. His parents. Sister. The mailbox waiting for him to decide his future. John stands. "I-"

Bucky's facing him. "Bus comes in ten minutes. Picks you up a block over." He hands over a ticket, turns, and leaves the door open behind him.

John runs to the doorway and feels like he's begging, grasping for anything to keep this from slipping away. "Thanks—for not killing me."

Bucky stares ahead for a long moment. "You helped me more than you'll know, John." He revs the engine then drives off without looking back.

John watches until he's out of sight.

Stepping out and closing the door behind him, he takes the rest of the pretzel bag out of his pocket and snacks on his way to the bus stop and tries not to dwell on the ringing in his ears. It's starting to feel like a dream. Something hazy burning into smoke at the edges; the only proof he has is the pain in his side. The streets around him smell, still slick from heavy rain that pooled trash in the gutters. John stands at the bus stop despite the empty bench just in case someone comes along who might need it. The streets are empty.

When he finishes, he stuffs the plastic into his pocket in time to catch the reflection of two men in a puddle. From behind, they snatch his arms from both sides. Every muscle in his body flexes. John gasps when a small knife presses into his jaw enough to draw a stream of red. It keeps him from turning his head to look at their faces. They speak formally, one with an accent.

"You're the kid our lost asset's been dragging around with him. Tell us, where'd he go?"

He refuses to speak and yanks pathetically against them.

This man doesn't mind dragging the blade down his jaw bone closer to his throat.

John hisses.

"You've got a pretty face, would be a shame to ruin it any more."

Through the fear, John's budding temper keeps him warm. "Get off me!"

Around the corner a motorcycle engine roars closer. John tries to elbow his way free. One man twists his wrist while the other holds the blade between his eyes.

"You know, you look a lot like him, beautiful blond hair and blue ey—" The man tumbles down the street as a motorcycle drives by, and a metal arm clips him across the skull. Bucky slides, pivots the bike one-hundred-eighty degrees. John frees himself from the other man and runs; Bucky drives; the two meet. Bucky swings him onto the back of his bike, and they speed through every red light out of town.

John presses in to the back of that dirty tac-vest. Bucky didn't leave him. Not really. His fingers curl into fabric. Through the wind on the country road, and the sting in his jaw when he moves it, John yells. "I thought you said we got all your targets?"

"I did."

"Then-"

"They worked for my old handler."

"The US-"

"…Hydra."

"What?" John throws himself off the bike. Bucky catches him and nearly loses control before skidding off the road into gravel. John shakes himself loose and backs away. "HYDRA?"

"Listen," Bucky takes a deep breath and clenches his teeth. "Yeah, alright, I worked for Hydra but-"

"Are you insane?" John pulls his hair and paces.

"John-"

"Hydra's the bad guys!"

"I know."

"Bucky, you worked for bad guys!"

For the first time since meeting him, Bucky truly raises his voice. "You think I don't know that!" He breathes. "I didn't have a choice. Not really, I think… It's complicated, alright." He gestures in defeat. "Yes. I did bad things, but they did something to me. And, and I haven't been myself until you."

"That's why," John says carefully. "You were acting weird at the tracks. Did they, were you mind controlled?"

"I'm not-" Bucky growls and rubs at his face. "I don't want to talk about it. But those guys, they were Hydra, and they're in a whole other league than the guys who were following us before. You're not safe on your own, and you're certainly not safe at home."

"Were you ever going to tell me you worked for Hydra?" John shouts.

"I wasn't going to see you again."

John flinches. Somehow the finality never reached him before. He shifts his weight around to keep his temper from boiling and watches curiously as Bucky pulls something out of his pocket and holds it in his palm. Whatever it is calms the man.

"Wait, where did you get that?" His stomach climbs up into his throat.

Bucky looks up with a rare glimpse of softness, then shame.

John stalks closer. "Where. Did. You. Get. That." He lets that anger flow, welcomes it.

"I…" Bucky holds his hand around it then offers it back.

John snatches it, crying "You took this from me! It was mine!" He tries to shove the super soldier and pushes himself back.

Bucky stares wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the outburst.

"He gave this to me—and you said you never wanted to see me again so you were just ready to take him from me forever!"

"John-"

"You can't-" John sobs. He's blinded by tears and covers his eyes with his arm before stumbling to his knees. Pain pulses in his side, in his skull. His other hand squeezes the stupid keychain until the worn down edges leave their mark in his palm. Heaving for air, the world breaks away and leaves him all alone. He's always left alone.

A firm hand grabs the back of his neck and light returns. The sounds of the road. The smell of gasoline. The look in those blue eyes. John can't look away or risk falling back into that loud void.

"I'm sorry."

John begs for air. "What?"

Bucky keeps his hand on the back of his neck. "I said I'm sorry. For taking that. I didn't think it meant that much to you. It reminded me of Steve and I…I needed that."

John's hand relaxes around the small shield.

"I won't take it again. But we need to get back onto the road… Do you trust me?" And as Bucky starts to let go John has no choice but to follow him onto the bike, wrapping his arms around the other's torso. The shield doesn't leave his grasp. Eyes closed, he listens to Bucky's heart, and he doesn't know where they're going just that he can't go back.

Chapter Text

Bucky pulls off the road before the dark skies open up with rain. He steers the bike down a grassy knoll and behind thicket to the rusty outline of an old sedan.

"Why are we stopping?" John’s voice drags with exhaustion and resignation.

"Because." Bucky kills the engine. "It's about to rain. And you were sick a couple hours ago."

"I'm fine."

"Don't try to be a hero. We get sloppy, we make mistakes, we give Hydra the upper hand." Searching the abandoned car, he’s pleased the inside is clean of animal nests and feces. Using his metal arm, the door yanks open. "We can rest here."

John doesn't argue. He climbs in and tosses the backpack onto the floor. Bucky gets into the driver’s seat. A minute later rain starts tinks against the car roof.

"See?" Bucky almost grins into the rearview mirror, but John ignores him as he fights to get comfortable in the backseat around his injured side. Bucky doesn't push, and John falls asleep so quickly it validates Bucky’s decision to pull over.

The rain is a metronome in this pitch-black. Bucky cycles in and out of controlled sleep, two hour intervals. It works, he’s tired, but it works, and the serum fills in the cracks like hot glue. Sighing, he closes his eyes for another short stint.

A scratch outside jolts him awake. In the tight space he still manages to draw his weapon in a single breath. He catches the faint reflection off a raccoon's eyes as it forages. Relaxing, he notes the rain has let up and some moonlight now mists through the scattering clouds. Bucky grunts to the critter before returning his weapon to its holster.

He shifts and clocks a fresh ache where his metal arm grafts to the shoulder, and the awkward seating doesn’t help. Ripping the stupid steering wheel off might offer a few extra inches but a soft ruffle from the backseat interrupts him. Through the mirror, he sees John curled and shivering.

Cold occupies too much of his memory that if he allows it to bother him he might cease to function. Bucky frowns and hates himself.

He squeezes into the backseat then nudges John over. The kid whines but makes room for this new heat source even in sleep. Bucky cringes as John crawls into his side. The contact lights up memories of handlers and restrains, but this kid needs it. So, antithesis to survival, he ignores the alarms prickling across his body, and decides not move. When John stops shivering and finally settles, Bucky shifts all interest and thought on the moon.

Bucky blinks awake from a deep and quiet sleep, wondering how he let himself slip. He checks on the warm weight against him where John’s face has disappeared into his side. Dawn light streams into the car through the brush. Not wanting to think about this moment any longer, Buck tells himself they should already be on the road.

"John?"

Steady, warm breaths.

Bucky groans and clears his throat. "John."

Finally the kid shifts and rolls onto his back. He moans and wipes at his eyes. "What? What's going on?"

"Come on. Time to go." Bucky kicks open the door to escape. The sound doesn't mask John's growling stomach; Bucky braces himself for complaints, however, when the kid doesn't comment or ask for food, Bucky can't help but feel respect. John's tough. Bucky says "the quicker you get moving the quicker you get to eat."

"Fine." John crawls out with his backpack.

"Hold up." Bucky nudges him against the side of the car so he can check the bandage for any reoccurring infection. John yawns and lets it happen, falling asleep despite Bucky peeling back the gauze from tender skin. "Looks okay for now, but we're going to keep checking it."

"Mmhmm." John shuffles behind him through the wet grass as he uncovers the bike. The two peel out, spitting mud behind them as they swing onto the road heading northwest.

It's near seven in the morning as they pull into a lot beside a deli.

"Bucky, wait." John scrambles for his backpack, positioning himself between Bucky and the street.

Bucky hums and proceeds to disarm himself of his weapons, dropping them into the kid's school bag. "Good call." He mutters, almost seeing a twinkle in John’s eyes from the compliment, and he rolls his eyes when John tries to hide it.

John says, "We should really get some new clothes. That arm of yours isn't exactly subtle."

Bucky looks down at himself and then at an older gentleman walking to work across the street; the man's suit and overcoat remind Bucky of a life he simply cannot fit into anymore. Hazy memories of Brooklyn, of fathers and husbands commuting for the sake of their families—

"Just wait here." John pats his chest. "I'll bring food out, and we can find a thrift store when one opens."

"Fine." Bucky lets the thoughts vanish like they always do without his undivided attention.

John smiles and disappears around the corner. Bucky catches himself when he instinctively follows, forcing himself to stand against the deli’s brick siding and wait, but he doesn’t force himself to look happy about it.

Eventually, John returns with a black coffee for Bucky and breakfast sandwiches in a brown bag

"I asked the guy in there," he says while sitting on a parking bumper and chewing. "There's a store two blocks down that will be open soon."

Bucky nods. He looks at the broken keychain connection on the backpack.

"I put it away." John says solemnly. "If it broke once it'll break again."

He asks carefully, "Where'd you get it?"

"My brother." John says, and Bucky can hear the end of the conversation.

So, they slip into silence and eat before driving to the Good Fellows Thrift Store where a bell signals their arrival to no one behind the counter, and the air assaults them with the smell of potpourri. John splits off, and Bucky tracks blond hair through the disorganized aisles, only allowing his focus to wander when he finds a rack of sunglasses. It would be nice to not be blinded while driving. He turns a couple aviators over in his hands when John re-appears with a wide grin.

"I think I found your look."

"What?" Bucky braces himself.

John triumphantly holds up a vintage leather jacket. "Right?"

Bucky takes it into his hands to feel the thickness. It's heavy in a good way. Used just enough to be broken in without falling apart. And it's black.

"Try it on."

He does, tempering expectations since most things don't fit him, too broad, metal arm too unyielding, but it slides on. He seeks out a full-body mirror. It fits. It's snug but offers a full range of motion.

"Now the shades." John stands next to him.

Bucky puts them on and brushes back his bangs. They work, and they feel…right. He huffs a tiny smile. Beside him, John stares; Bucky sees this through the mirror, including the little blush on the kid's neck.

"Good find." He takes both off.

"Yeah, I know." John turns away. "You still need something that isn't that smelly vest."

"It doesn't smell." Bucky squares off against him.

John chuckles. "They probably trained you to repress your sense of smell."

"I actually have a very good sense of smell." Bucky crosses his arms and frowns. "Comes with the serum."

John meets his attitude. "Well, you stink, Bucky. I could just find you an air freshener for the bike if you'd prefer."

Bucky pushes him aside to find a shirt and pants, leaving John to snicker by the mirror. They don't spend long in the store, buying their items then asking to change in the back. John has an extra pair of jeans now, extra pair of socks, a tee shirt, and a hoodie from some local high school football team called the Royal Gators he wears out of the store. Bucky is content with a black tee, the jacket, and dark jeans. He keeps his boots but rolls his tactical gear into a cheap duffel bag he buys.

John watches him tie the duffel to the back of the bike with a concerned tilt to his head. "Maybe we should think about getting something with a real trunk."

"No." Bucky says. "I like the bike." He wears his new sunglasses.

"Easy for you to say. You get to drive it."

Bucky senses where this is going.

"Maybe you could te--"

"No."

"Why not?" He whines.

"Because I said so. Now get on." Bucky drops onto the seat and starts the engine in one smooth motion. John grumbles the whole time but climbs behind him. Bucky checks around for signs of a tail before driving them out of town.

The next few days are driving under overcast-gray, between gas stations and diners and roadside food stalls. They eat off of paper plates at a picnic bench or use the bike as a table with Bucky promising to make John wash the whole thing if he gets a speck of barbecue sauce on the seat. Seeking out bridges or dry ground for rest when the weathers allows, they try to save their money for motels to get out of the rain.

Today, John eyes a pool hall on the corner while Bucky uses some of their last cash from the plundering post-ambush to fill the tank.

"Want a drink?" John asks, hardly looking away from rusty neon sign eloquently saying 'POOL & CHICKEN.'

"I can't get drunk."

"That's the only reason people drink?" John grins.

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Thought you were under-aged."

"I could get a soda. Come on." He starts walking with a little skip in his step. Bucky grumbles and follows, pushing the bike along.

Inside is smoky and dimly lit where the locals huddle around their usual bar stools or tables, offering Bucky and John a wary glance as they enter. Immediately, Bucky hates this place. Corners are dark and the floor is crowded with patrons and chair legs and pool cues poking into his path. He somehow manages to find a stool at the bar where he can press his back into the wall.

Only because it's not a horrible idea, he orders a beer and a coke for John, but when he turns back he finds John has already paid for a pool game and is chalking the cue. John's not far, so Bucky convinces himself he doesn't have to drag John back just yet. He watches as the kid awkwardly sets up a game for himself.

Bucky maybe played pool once in his long life, but he thinks John's movements look practiced except for the occasional mistake. He can't help but smirk and shake his head, accepting his beer from the bartender, when John loudly reprimands himself for a missed easy shot.

That's what draws them in.

Bucky frowns around the lip of the glass bottle as four men saunter over to John's table to start talking to him. He's half out of his chair before he reads John’s subtle hand-motion down by his waist: he wants Bucky to stay back. Bucky does but settles on the edge of the stool.

He focuses his hearing through the bar’s dull chatter. John mentions he's skipping school, because who learns anything in class anyway. The men ask for a wager. John explains he only has enough for this game, leading the men to cordially offer some of their own money for a friendly game. John acts surprised but happily willing.

Bucky settles back into the wall, hiding his smirk in the shadows. The kid's going to try and hustle these guys. He sips more of his beer. Maybe J. F. W. isn't as much a clone of Steve Rodgers as he thought.

John plays it well. The men never get suspicious of his small victories and are eager to play again as the 'double or nothing' pot grows. After winning the last two games, John keeps their spirits up by offering a portion of his winnings to buy the others a round of beers.

When John comes to the bar to collect the drinks, Bucky notices a euphoric high coming off him. John slides Bucky a ten-dollar bill and says lunch is on him before carrying the bottles back to the table for another game.

Bucky shakes his head, not wanting to hide his amusement. A few times the men playing get frustrated and loud, especially as the beers stack up, but John remains unnervingly calm in the face of a pissed-off older man. He always manages to calm them down before Bucky appears and breaks their arm in a metal vice.

John ends the last game on a high note to secure the pot, and buys the men a final round before going to the safety of Bucky’s side. Bucky slides half of lunch to the kid knowing he’s starving but too damn excited to notice. John keeps talking about the games as if Bucky wasn't watching them all.

"Eat." Bucky nags.

John takes a bite but doesn't stop talking, and Bucky can't bring himself to shut John up and risk ending this joy.

"So," Bucky only interrupts so John can take a breath and a bite. "Are you actually a secret delinquent or something?"

"Huh?" John looks over beaming, wiping his mouth.

“I thought you were this high school ‘good-boy.’”

"Oh, uh…depends who you ask. Mrs. Hoskins swears I don’t have a bad bone in my body, but if you asked the folk who hang around Custer's Grove pool-hall, they'd probably have something to say."

Bucky doesn't let up his stare, needing more.

"I," some of John's energy dissipates into discomfort. "Junior year was really tough for me. I skipped a lot of classes, got into a lot of fights in and out of school, played a lot of pool when I should've been in English." He cringes. "If it wasn't for Lemar and Liv, the Hoskins, I might not have made it through the year without being expelled."

Bucky's certain school culture has shifted since his time, and while he doesn't get the impression John's a bookworm, he's surprised to hear the kid struggled. "Where were your parents in all this?" He holds his breath when he realizes a second too late John's not mentioned any parents beyond Mr. and Mrs. Hoskins, and worries he's treading into the wrong territory.

John rolls his lip with his teeth, staring down at the coke can in his hand. "My parents were…concerned. The summer before Junior Year was when we heard about my brother, so making them deal with all of my issues on top of that wasn't really fair. I just made things harder for them."

So they exist at least. Bucky watches John's thumb chase condensation around the coke glass. He arches a brow. "Am I going to have to worry about you pickpocketing or something?"

And thankfully John smiles, a little bashfully. "No, I'm not—there's no like itch to break rules, I just like pool, physics, and we need the money."

"You liked hustling." Bucky smirks around the lip of his beer bottle.

"If people don't want to be hustled they should do better to remember their geometry, and not underestimate me so much."

"Yeah, you're going to be a problem."

They use some of the two hundred dollars John won to sleep in actual beds that night. Bucky doesn't have a preference for mattresses, he gets two hours of sleep regardless. He glances at John in the other bed who's completely passed out and savoring the ability to stretch out in all directions, one arm hanging off the bed entirely.

John's good. Doesn't complain. Carries his own weight.

Bucky turns to the ceiling. He hates that he's dragged John into this life. If that derailment didn't happen maybe John wouldn't be here, but then Bucky would still be with Hydra… He should hate it. But there's this part of him that doesn't regret it. The part of him that holds onto his freedom so tightly it thinks this might be okay.

They're on the road. The sun is out for the first time in three days. It's warm. Leaves are changing color, and they're not alone.

John hears: "We got company." And twists around to see a black van accelerating towards them.

"Shit!"

"Get a gun out.” Bucky orders calmly. “You're going to wait until they're closer."

"Wait, what?" He barely manages to get the weapon out without losing his whole backpack to the asphalt rushing below.

"Aim for the windshield. You'll never hit the tires.”

“What about the engine?” John shouts over the winds.

“What?”

“Don’t they blow up!”

John can hear Bucky rolling his eyes.

“Shoot. The. Windshield.”

John tenses and turns halfway before his balance falters. "I can't do that, I'll fall!"

"You won't. Hold on with one hand, shoot with the other."

"Don't say it like that!"

"Like what?"

"Casually!" John returns his bag to his back and carefully flips the safety. The van fires at them with a high-powered rifle, but Bucky swerves, and John scrambles to hold on.

"Anytime now." Bucky says.

John clenches his jaw. His left arm stays wrapped and clawing at Bucky's chest while he twists and tries to aim one-handed with his right. The wind batters the gun side-to-side, but at least no one else is on this lonely stretch of country road. He sees a Hydra agent lean out with a rifle, so John fires first. The kickback bites into his wrist, but he fires again and again. Between his aim, and Bucky's evasive driving, only one shot pings off van, chipping through one of the side mirrors.

John stresses. "Uh, Bucky, I don't think this is going to work."

Bucky reaches around with his metal arm, hooks John's shoulder, and swings him up front. Chest-to-chest, John gets dropped onto Bucky's lap in a blink.

"What the hell!" The innate fear of hitting pavement while going eighty miles an hour has him clinging to Bucky's torso.

"How about you actually hit your target now?"

John growls at the blush and heat crawling up his neck, ignores the fireworks across his body, and grips the pistol with two hands meeting behind Buck's head, using the man's shoulder as a stabilizer. He squints. Aims— "Rifle!"

Bucky swerves.

John recovers. He feels Bucky's steady heart beat against his chest and lets it anchor him. He shoots once—the windshield cracks into a spiderweb—again—pings off the roof. "Shit."

"Breathe, John. Focus."

John centers himself, flexes his core for balance. Bucky’s stubble scratches his cheek as he rest more on the man’s shoulder. He fires and hits through the center bullseye of the crack in the windshield. The van loses controls and flips off the road.

"Hell yeah!" John beams as the smoking wreckage minimizes in the distance.

Bucky allows himself a proud smile, which John misses in his celebration. They drive for another minute before the bike slows to the side of the road so John can climb off Buck's lap. John's breathless, the gun stuck in his hand.

"Did you see that?" He gasps.

"No, actually, because I was driving."

"I got Hydra! Wait, did I kill them?" John holds his head in this adrenaline-fueled frenzy.

Bucky quickly takes the gun out of his hand and flicks on the safety. "Our luck's not that good." He motions towards the bike. "Come on killer, back on the road."

John gets on, arms shaking, and holds on tight. He can’t keep himself from glancing behind to the empty road at their heels, and the far away pillar of smoke.

They enter a modestly sized town in the evening. John doesn't even realize until he sees the signs and marketing on businesses that they've just crossed over into Louisiana. He can't look away from the loud graffiti: "Laissez les bon temps rouler." Let the good times roll. Mrs. Hoskins hates that saying, says for her those good times always rolled away, at least until she met Bert and moved to Georgia.

Maybe they are. Maybe John and Bucky are stuck chasing after good times, outrunning the bad, and stuck in this in between. John tries to figure out if the ground here actually is different or just feels it. If the air smell smells different so far from home. His eyes dart around in search of anything familiar even though he should know better at this point.

Mrs. Hoskins once made him promise he'd bring her along if he ever visited Louisiana, and she promised she'd show him the best restaurants; the ones behind the bright lights that served bigger plates stained red from seasoning and flavor.

His breath catches. Bucky's tending to the bike and doesn't see the question on John’s face: how can he not know how long it’s been since he’s seen them?

"I need to make a call." John mutters, dragging himself into a grimy phone booth. Every coin inserted. Every clunk. Every sticky button dialed means he can't turn back. John holds the headset with two hands while it rings. No exam. No fight. No game. Nothing has ever felt more like standing on a precipice and feeling the dark gravity inhaling from below.

Leena Hoskins' voice sounds hollow. "Yes?"

John can't breathe. He can cry. "Hi Momma."

A glass breaks back in Georgia. "Peaches, baby?"

"Yeah Momma."

"Oh my God." Leena cries.

John curls up into the side of the phone booth. "I'm sorry Momma, I—"

"Where are you?"

"I—"

"Are you safe?"

His eyes find Bucky. "Yeah."

"Baby," she sobs, trying to collect herself. "John, come home. We need you to come home."

His chest splits, and one foot hangs over the void. "I can't."

"You can. We're not angry. We miss you, and we love you, and we need you here."

"I can't." He wipes at his eyes with his arms.

"Yes you can. Peaches, tell me where you are, and I will come get you."

John doesn't want to be crying. He holds his breath and presses into the glass, begging the universe to stop him from hurting this woman.

"I don't care if I have to fly around the world. John, please—"

"I'm sorry."

"I don't need you to be sorry, baby, I need you here where you belong!"

John's chest is on fire. He gasps for air but continues to cry. "I love you, Momma."

He covers his mouth.

John's never said that to her; he never wanted to tie her down like that because she would in an instant, despite all the love she's given him, give him so much more.

She's saying his name, begging, but all he can do is hang up and stumble out of the phone booth. He falls to his heels and covers his ears and head with his arms. John hiccups and holds his breath. Stop crying. He sucks in air. Didn't work. Again. Stop making it worse.

"John," Bucky's voice is soft. His hand on John's back is softer. "Breathe."

John shakes his head.

"You're going to pass out."

"Good." Fingers dig into his scalp. "I'm a coward."

Bucky's hand slides off his back as he sighs. "You're not a coward John."

"I am."

"I'm the coward."

John peeks at him, tears still streaming down his face.

Bucky's face softens. "My best friend is alive. Somehow we've both made it through time, and I'm too much of a coward to go talk him."

"Steve?"

"No, the other hundred-year-old super soldier."

John swallows a painful pit and blinks. "…why?"

"I don't want him to be disappointed in me for Hydra…" Buck shakes his head and huffs. "You hardly know me, and you were disappointed."

Almost petulant, "I know you."

"That's not—“

"Your birthday's March 10, 1917. Born in Brooklyn, you have four siblings. You served in the 107th Infantry. And one summer you worked at a hot dog stand at Coney Island."

"Okay." Bucky nudges him. "You know me, in a weird way." He shifts. "See, you're a stalker not a coward. Happy?"

A laugh slips out of John.

Bucky smiles. They watch cars pass for a minute. John sighs, shaking. He joins him sitting on the curb and collapses against Bucky's arm. Bucky opens his mouth to speak.

"Please don't say we have to leave." John mutters. "Can we just stay, in one spot, for more than five minutes?"

Bucky frowns. "Yeah. Sure." He looks across the town's empty street to the barren Walmart parking lot where schools of plastic bags roll like urban tumbleweeds. "We can just...enjoy the view."

Bucky insists on a motel that night despite the clear weather. They open the door and John straightens up like he's been struck by lightning.

"There's a kitchen!"

"Really?" Buck claims his bed.

"There's a hotplate, that counts in motel terms." John starts opening all of the cabinets and mumbling under his breath. "And at least one pan not burnt to a crisp."

Bucky cringes at the noise. "What are you doing? It's almost nine."

"I'm making us dinner."

"We ate."

"We split half of a meal five hours ago." John eyes him. "I know you're hungry, you just think you're tough for pretending you're not."

"More like I've spent more years hungry than full. I'm used to it." He watches John dig out his wallet.

"Where are you going?"

"Grocery store." The kid's vibrating.

"I think you should sit and breathe for a minute."

"Did that." He scribbles a list for himself using a notepad in the room.

"John,"

John looks up, eyes unwavering. "I'm cooking, Bucky. What are you going to do, tie me down?" It's a threat or at least a bet he doesn't think Bucky is willing to take.

Bucky stands up and snatches the list. "I'll do it."

John stares long enough to realize this isn't a joke, and that's when he laughs.

Bucky crumples the paper in his fist. "I'm not looking to save you from Hydra tonight."

"And you're subtle?"

"I know how to cover my tracks. I'll get the stupid stuff you need, and you wait here and calm down."

"Calm down?" He scoffs while his fingers tap in and out of a fist.

Bucky steals John's wallet too.

John snaps. "When's the last time you've gone shopping?"

"I've gotten groceries before."

"How many decades ago?"

Bucky's back tenses with a need to argue, but it's not pushed by fear. Teasing? It's familiar but so far away it slips through his fingers before he can name it.

"Well?" John's equally tense.

"Stay." Bucky puts his foot down then leaves. As he steps into the night, part of him wants to barricade the door behind him. He flattens out the list, stuffs John's wallet into his pocket, and stomps off to the Walmart. He doesn't drive the motorcycle as if using anything but his own two feet will somehow diminish his victory.

John has everything set up. The manager offered some more kitchen utensils after seeing how responsible John looked when he smiles like a normal young man, nothing like the motel's usual guests. So the ‘kitchen’ waits, and John sits on the floor with his back against one of the beds. Occasionally a car honks outside or their motel neighbors shout obscenities, but otherwise John is stuck in silence, a crashing, loud silence.

Early memories of the Hoskins bleed in: John arriving on their back porch in the rain, Lemar and his sister Glory were out with Bert, John was maybe ten, and Leena lets him in even though he'd only known them for a month or two, she dries him off, and makes him join her in cooking dinner.

He hears her voice as she speaks to him beside the stove. It's okay baby. Watch that in the skillet for me now, don't go letting your mind wander, it burns faster than you'd think. Next time I'm going to leave that back screen door unlocked for you so you don't have to be standing there cold until I see you. It's going to be open whenever you need it. Even if the rest of us don't happen to be here, you can always come home when you need it…

John can't get these memories to shut up.

And then the motel door clicks open. He scrambles to his feet before he can think. Bucky enters with two plastic bags and the faraway look of someone who's just seen battle.

John can't help but smirk. "Told you."

"What did I just see?"

"You go to Walmart?"

The older man nods, wandering in and dropping the bags on the table. "Why does anyone need that much stuff?"

John shrugs and dives into the groceries; the chicken peach-bourbon glaze and collard greens are waiting. "I warned you."

Bucky sits slowly. “I saw sandals painted with flames and across the aisle were crates of cheese-flavored soup.”

John glances at him and sees real tension furrowing his brow. "Thanks for getting this stuff. Sorry you had to come face-to-face with modern day capitalism." Bucky doesn't respond; he's too busy staring at the floor in still silence, so John busies himself cooking.

He checks over his shoulder periodically to find Bucky staring at him but also through him. It doesn't make John nervous, surprisingly. This is the first time he's made Leena's recipe by himself, and it will be the last—a goodbye, he tells himself—and not having Bucky critique or comment let's him focus. Don't let your mind wander baby. Don't let that void in.

The plates come together almost on their own. The food smells wrong in this motel room. He drops the plate in front of Bucky more harshly than he intends to and sits at the little table and starts eating. From the corner of his eye, he sees Bucky slowly take a bite, then another and another.

Bucky's voice is low and soft. "This is good, John."

John bites his tongue by accident and doesn't look up, but he hums in response. The compliment sits warm in his chest. But, as the meal goes on in silence, Bucky grows angrier. Visibly. He’s tense, breathing slow and methodical like he's holding back. John pretends he doesn’t notice. When that fails he pretends it doesn’t bother him.

Bucky finishes and pushes to his feet. He throws John's wallet onto the table and storms out, slamming the door behind him. John stares at the door for a minute. He never flinched

He should’ve seen this coming. He’s not that good of a cook; the chicken is a little burnt and the greens salty. John bites his lip and presses his palms into his eyes. It’s better this way, better blaming himself, at least then he can convince himself he has agency in his own life. Once he's settled into the fault, he starts washing dishes.

The sink water never heats up, so he scrubs and scrubs. The bitter taste of char sits on his tongue until it makes him sick. “Fuck!” John punches the side of the basin. Stop, breathe. You already ruined her memory, don’t make it worse. You already made her cry— John refuses to keep thinking. He cleans the dishes. The sink. Himself. Then goes to bed.

If he allows the panic, the thought that maybe Bucky isn’t coming back, to fester, John might break. So he lies there in the dark and faces the wall, the smell of cleaner effectively covering any memory of Georgia. He doesn’t move even when Bucky returns.

Bucky says nothing, maybe assuming John’s asleep. John listens to him climb into the other bed, and then keeps listening as if something might change. It does an hour later.

John finally turns over when he hears ruffling sheets and muffled groans. He sits up in the dark to watch Bucky in the fit of a nightmare.

"Bucky?" He silently slides off the mattress. The older man jerks under the blanket. "Hey, Bucky—" He touches his shoulder.

Bucky twists. A metal hand wraps around John's throat, stifling any sound before it can escape. John's hands helplessly try to pry the grip away. Bucky doesn't blink. No emotion passes over his face as he steps out of bed to his full height over John. Servos clink and whine as the hand tightens. The arm shifts, threatening to lift John off his feet into the air where his own weight could slowly kill him.

A sliver of car light sweeps through the room, washes over John’s face as he gasps for air. The Soldier in front of John flinches, almost as imperceptible as the day atthat derailment where John said the name Bucky Barnes. The metal hand loosens but remains cupped around his throat.

John sucks in air. His body shakes but doesn’t dare move. Cold fingers brush over skin that's sure to bruise with a gentleness that shouldn't be possible with steel. The contact draws goosebumps across John's neck and shoulders.

Just croaks. "I'm okay…" Air burns his throat. "...you're okay too."

The Soldier's hand grabs his chin, turns it to see the scar from John's first encounter with Hydra. A metal thumb brushes over the small mark. John's breath catches.

John's eyes wander over the man in front of him and note the tension, coiled to react to danger at a moment's notice, shoulders drawn back, posture upright; the silhouette of a perfect soldier haloed in this dark room.

Speaking hurts. "Do you want to sit?" Once the metal arm retreats, he warily moves to the floor to sit with his legs pulled to his chest. The Soldier follows his movements precisely. John's eyes finally adjust to the darkness. The weary exhaustion on Bucky's face becomes evident. It's not just the sleepless nights; Bucky promises his serum allows him less sleep, no, here, this close and the Soldier this still, John sees the cracks in someone trying to push too much down. It must be a quiet pressure, John thinks, because Bucky never complains or lets this weight slow him down. Bucky doesn't talk about Hydra, but whatever they did to him to get this must've been destructive.

"Are you okay?" John asks.

And he can't tell which one responds, but both seem scared. "It's loud."

The metal arm flinches towards John but holds back until John offers his own hand. Those cold fingers wrap around his wrist and press into his pulse. The grip tightens and tugs, so John follows and shifts around to sit beside Bucky against his bed. Bucky stares down and tilts his head while counting that rhythm, which John hopes the other man doesn't notice it quickening.

John can't say when it happens, but Bucky's head ends up against his shoulder. His hand never leaves John's wrist. And John doesn't try to slip free, because Bucky Barnes has fallen asleep.

It's a long night once he decides to stay awake. John wants to protect, to give Bucky some show of kindness through the small sacrifice of a few hours of rest. It won't kill him. John’s thumb brushes circles into Bucky’s arm. He can do this much. Without it, what does he have?

Chapter Text

They don't talk about that night. About dinner or storming out or nightmares. John's neck bruised in purple points; they're not subtle, and Bucky glances at them constantly, unable to hide the disgust and fear in his eyes. But they don't talk about that night.

In a gravel lot, while waiting for a small bowl of seafood boil from a roadside stand, John paces around Bucky, who sits on the motorcycle and sips a coke. Bucky's shades reflect John in the bright sun.

"Why are you pacing?"

"I'm just thinking," John starts with such a manufactured tone Bucky braces himself. "That it makes sense for both of us to be able to get us out of a situation."

"Is the alternative I do all the work?"

John perks. "And we don't want that, you don't want that. I should be independent, able to pull my own weight just in case you're indisposed somehow."

"Sound." Bucky withholds emotions.

"So I should learn to drive—"

"No."

He whines, "Bucky!"

"You're not learning to drive my bike."

"Your bike?"

Bucky stares, then pushes his shades up into his hair. "My bike."

"But what if I need to drive it."

"Then that means I'm already dead and there's no hope for you." He spots their food placed on the counter window and goes to retrieve it. John is quiet as he returns to the nearby picnic table with the steaming meal, giving Bucky false hope that this discussion is over, but before he can even bite into his corn on the cob John speaks.

"Wouldn't you want me to live in this scenario?"

Bucky drops his head with a groan.

"I'm serious!" John almost flings his crawfish.

Deadpan, "No. I want you to die if I die."

"If I know how to safely drive the bike then I can get away, in this unlikely scenario where you're already dead, which is so hard to believe Bucky, because you are just so cool and badass."

Bucky glares. "Why aren't you avenging me?"

"Huh?"

"I'm dead, probably from protecting your sorry ass, and you don't fight to avenge me?" He clicks his tongue and shakes his head in mock disappointment. "I'm hurt, John."

"I thought you'd want me to go and live my life."

Bucky leans in on his elbows. "And what would you do with this life?"

John opens his mouth to respond when he pauses to think and remember his parents' mailbox. He remembers school work, football practice, championship promises—West Point—and his chest constricts.

Bucky knows the kid well enough to see this turmoil and moves on without missing a beat or showing any unwanted empathy. "After you eat we can try."

John's eyes light up.

"But," he stresses with a crab claw. "There is no scenario where you drive and I sit on the back, understand?"

"At least not conscious." He counters.

"If I'm dead, you have permission to drag me behind. If I'm unconscious flip a coin." He can't help smiling with how John celebrates. "Eat, first."

"Fine. Fine." He settles back on the bench and shovels food with his hands and the plastic fork. His hair has grown longer, and blond bangs almost reach his brow as he leans forward over the bowl. Bucky chuckles through his nose, wondering what the pair of them must look like to outsiders; he brushes back his own long hair with one hand.

When they're done, Bucky makes John wash his greasy hands using a water bottle and wad of napkins before he's allowed to touch the handlebars. Now, he finally sits and readies himself while Bucky stands with his arms crossed, explaining everything with sternly.

"I've seen you do this a hundred times." John waves off his instructions. They're off to the side of the lot, but the owner of the roadside stand watches by shamelessly sticking his head out the window.

"Then start it."

John turns the ignition, squeezes the clutch, and engages the engine until it turns over and rumbles alive. His smile is ear-to-ear while Bucky clenches his jaw.

"First gear, then go slow…”

John nods and goes into first. Slowly releasing the clutch he starts to throttle, but he can hear the engine close to stalling so he overthrottles and the bike kicks forward. The front wheel rises up. John loses control. Bucky steps in and grabs the bike with his left hand and wraps his right hand around John's waist and pulls him back safely. The motorcycle carves a rut into the gravel and stalls but, thanks to Bucky's grip, doesn't drive itself away.

The air settles. John hangs from Bucky's side like a parcel until he's returned to the ground. He blushes and apologizes to the food stand's owner.

"Is the bike okay?" He asks Bucky sheepishly.

"It's fine." Bucky says sternly. "What happened?"

“Sorry, I can try again."

Bucky doesn't say anything; he silently resets the bike and leaves John to try to interpret his stoic body language.

John climbs on hesitantly this time. He feels obligated to say something in the silence. "I think I was too focused on not stalling I overdid the throttle."

"Here, put your hand around the handle but don't actually hold on." Bucky steps behind him to place his hand over John's and gently shows him what the appropriate throttle for first gear feels like. "See, just enough."

"Yeah." John's voice cracks. He clears his throat and shifts out of Bucky's hands. "Let me try again."

Bucky steps back and crosses his arms. The engine starts again. He watches, fingers digging into his arms, hating himself for how he wishes for failure. This time John eases into first gear but doesn't apply enough throttle and stalls. His shoulders go up to his ears. Bucky should be reassuring, but he's stuck thinking about John driving away. On the third attempt, John finds middle ground but doesn't push it to get to second gear before slowing to a stop.

A heavy silence sits as neither speak.

Until John says without looking back, "Can we get back on the road?"

Bucky chastises himself for being so harsh. "We can try again later. You did good."

"Yeah. We can try later." John kicks the stand out and leaves the bike to collect his backpack from the table. His gaze is downcast, all of the original excitement drained away, and Bucky decides he can't stand it.

"John," he grabs his arm before he can get onto the bike. "I'm serious. You did good, and the bike's fine."

"It's not that." He snaps but collects himself before his temper can ignite. "This just reminded me of something…"

Bucky watches John bury whatever it is he's feeling before covering it with a forced smile. Buck says "I couldn't properly fire a rifle in training." He gets John's attention. "For two weeks. The instructors were close to giving up and writing me off as a truck driver, but one day I was granted time to go out to practice by myself, still took me a while, but the silence forced me to figure out what worked in my own way."

"I," John looks in his eyes. "I can't do that, I…I need someone there with me, someone at my back…"

"That's okay too."

John breathes faster, eyes misting.

Bucky puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Steve once said—" The air knocks out of him as John rushes in for a tight hug. Bucky blinks, frozen.

"My brother Mikey taught me how to ride a bike." John mumbles into Buck's shoulder. "He stayed with me for hours, came away more scraped up than I did, but he didn't want to go inside until I could do it."

"John," Bucky sighs and pats his back. He shouldn't have come off so reluctant to teach.

But John pushes himself away and wipes his eyes. "No. Sorry, I wasn't saying that because," He tries to return eye contact. "It just hit me, something he said."

Bucky stays quiet, ready to hear but not wanting to pressure.

John takes a breath and continues. "Mikey always pushed so hard, always said he wasn't going to be here forever to watch out for me." He smiles crooked and without joy. "I thought that's just because he was older, he'd be out of the house before me, but maybe he always knew." John's hand shakes. He balls it around the front of his shirt. "Maybe he always knew…"

He's dead. Bucky knows that much from how John talks about his brother, but there's still this heaviness surrounding his name, like it still carries this presence. "What happened to your brother?"

John flinches. The tears come back. "He shot himself in his bunk in Afghanistan. During his second deployment. Mikey wrote two letters. One to my parents and sister, but they never let me see it. The second one he wrote to me." John breathes harder. "It just said that he was sorry, and that he wanted me to be good, to be better than him." He sobs, and this time Bucky pulls him into a strong hug.

"It's okay." He presses the back of the kid's head into his shoulder, hopes his hold begs him to let it out, promises to keep him through it.

John cries and clings to Bucky. "I miss him, Bucky."

"Yeah." Bucky doesn't let go. He lays his cheek on top of John's head. "I know."

"I don't, I don't know how to do this if he couldn't."

Bucky struggles for words; they don't come easy to him like they did before the war, before Hydra, like holding a tool he can't remember how to use. But he understands John's fear. God does he understand. "You'll do it one day at a time, just like me." After another minute John's muscles relax in Bucky's arms. He sighs and starts the slow process of peeling apart but makes sure to keep his hands on John's shoulders before letting go. "You hear me?"

John nods.

"Good… I'm sorry about your brother."

"Yeah. Me too." John sucks a shuddering breath between his teeth and finally backs away. Bucky frowns and gets onto the bike. He spots the cook in the stand pretending not to eavesdrop. The man does eventually make eye contact to give a sympathetic nod.

Bucky doesn't rush John, and he drives slow as they return to asphalt. The Louisiana air around them grows salty, the marshes infinite on either side, and both dread the silence that driving surrounds them with—it's too loud.

Bucky notices the soft lights as they pass near the edge of town; they remind him of Coney Island, so he detours to the rows and rows of cars in a field. John doesn't stir until they're parked. Maybe he’d dozed off.

"A carnival?" John asks, his voice dry.

"Come on. It'll be fun, and if it's not at least the food smells cheap and crappy."

The corner of John's mouth twitches. He follows Bucky. They join a small stream of locals who are walking into the pop-up fairgrounds, and soon they're surrounded by lights and colors, food smells and puke smells, children blowing cheap horns and crying for prizes. They simply take in the atmosphere for a few minutes, meandering side-by-side, somehow relaxed in the chaos, which might have something to do with their shoulders brushing every minute.

Bucky nudges him then breaks off towards a stand. John steps out of the traffic flow to wait. He cocks his head when Bucky comes back with two plastic cups of beer.

John exhales and chuckles, "What are you doing?"

Bucky plays dumb by looking down at himself. "What, what am I doing?"

"I can't drink and you can't get drunk." John grins.

He shrugs and hands one over. "You're close enough, right? You could use one. And I still like the taste." He drinks first. "If you don't want it…"

"No. I want it." John sips then cringes.

"Congrats. Your first crappy beer."

John frowns. "Wonderful."

They walk and drink.

John points out a hot dog cart and asks Bucky if his Coney Island uniform was nicer or uglier than this fellow's; Bucky says uglier, but that he still got tips. And John laughs, which surprises Bucky, pleasantly surprises him. He has trouble looking away now that the kid's smiling. Thanks to his unashamed staring, he notices John checking out a certain baseball cap hanging up as a prize in a shooting gallery.

Bucky grins. Easy. He finishes his beer and steps over to the booth. John keeps walking and talking without noticing. Bucky hands over five dollars and gets the cheap rifle in return. The operator eyes the chrome hand peeking out of Bucky’s leather jacket sleeve.

"Work injury." Bucky says.

"Woah, Bucky," John jogs over after nearly turning the corner alone. "Say something next time."

Bucky aims.

"These things are hard." John crosses his arms off to the side.

Bucky can only roll his eyes then fires all five shots in impressively quick succession but all veer left of the target. He blinks in disbelief, lowering the rifle.

The operator scoffs. "Maybe focus on accuracy over speed next time."

John says under his breath "these things are always rigged, don't worry about it."

"No." Bucky slaps down another five dollars.

The man shrugs and takes the money, then offers another dish of five more BB-like rounds. Bucky loads the stupid toy, manifesting all the precise movements earned from his decades of experience. This time when he aims he observes the screwed sights and compensates. Sacrificing zero speed, he obliterates the little red star hanging on the back paper with five rapid trigger pulls. He slams the rifle down, scowls at the operator, and silently points to the baseball cap. Bucky hooks the cap onto John's head before he's forced to stare at the blond's dumbfounded gape for too long.

"Seriously?" John gasps, fixing his hair under the hat.

"Don't make it weird."

"Thanks, Bucky! You know, I loved the Braves as a kid, always wanted to play baseball."

"Thought you played football?"

"Yeah, Mikey and my dad pushed me to football. I probably could've done both, but equipment can get expensive." John can't stop smiling. "Maybe I won't get as sun burned on the bike now."

"If that flies off your head I'm not pulling over to get it."

John mock salutes him. "Heard." Now John's head is on a swivel. "Have you ever been to a carnival before?"

"None out in the country like this."

"Okay. Okay…" His eyes sweep the cheap prizes. "So, what do you want?"

"Huh?" When he glances John is beaming at him. He shakes his head. "I don't want anything John, the hat was not transactional."

But John's not listening.

"Oh, perfect." John scurries off to a more elaborate game on the edge: four large tires hang from a rope in front of a tall net where players are meant to throw footballs through as many as possible to get different tiers of prizes. Bucky comes up behind John while he stretches his right arm, waiting for the current contestant to fail miserably.

John grins over his shoulder. "You're about to witness a two time state championship player, don't get too overwhelmed."

Bucky actually snorts and steps back, nodding to the game, asking to be wowed. From there the game doesn't look difficult, but, as he watches the other man's last attempt, Bucky sees how the tires are smaller and angled deceptively, and the footballs look large and unwieldy.

John picks something up off the ground before stepping up to hand over the cash. He takes a moment to feel the weight of the ball and how it fits in his hand, then he gets into his stance and throws a perfect spiral through the first. Again, he waits at the second to observe the tire before throwing to the second. His form is smooth, born from the kind of consistent practice that breeds muscle memory. The third slips through but dings the inside of the tire and almost bounces out. On the fourth, John spins the football in his palm before focusing; he makes the hardest tire look the easiest.

It all looked effortless. He picks up his new hat to run fingers back through his longer hair before returning the cap and talking to the game runner. Bucky can't help but be proud. John's clearly athletic with a dedicated work ethic, those two things almost always synergize, and he has the height albeit some still leaner muscle than others his age who might bulk.

"That's all it took to win two championships?" Bucky jokes as John walks over.

"Ha. Ha. Look," He shows off a smaller, white wolf stuffed animal. "I explained our car situation and asked for a lower tier prize since we can't exactly fit a giant pink gorilla on the bike."

Bucky takes the little white wolf and inspects it with more intent than it likely deserves.

"It reminded me of you. Frowning. White hair—cause you're old."

Bucky can't possibly do anything to harm the wolf, so he tucks it under his arm and scowls at the kid.

"Also," John whips out a quarter, a Louisiana state quarter. "You told me I got to flip a coin to see if I could drag you behind the bike or throw you on the back, and I don't always keep coins on me."

"You're too eager for that to happen."

“Well, I found this. So it’s a lucky quarter.”

Bucky stops listening to head back towards the food and beer stands, John practically jumping on his heels, and the wolf never leaves his arms.

"You can't dangle an opportunity like that in front of me and not expect me to get excited." John tries to defend himself.

Bucky rolls his eyes. "You did good, though. Looks like you know what you're doing."

"Thanks. Mikey was never quarter back when he played, but he thought I'd have the build for the position after a growth spurt so he made sure I knew how to throw."

"He must've been proud then when he saw you play."

"Uh," John messes with the brim of his hat. "No, actually the season never aligned with when he was home, but we'd play catch in the backyard so he at least knew I could do it."

"He'd be proud." Bucky says.

The hat hides most of John’s blush. Anything visible he would blame on the alcohol.

While in line for more food and beer, John notices Bucky’s eyes glued to cheap kids’ prizes of the Avengers: Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Hulk—Captain America. John leans in and says “he’s been out of the ice for a few years now.”

Bucky doesn’t look away from Steve’s little plushie. “And how long did it take him to land on his feet?”

“Not long…” John doesn’t take his eyes off Bucky. “Do you miss him?” He cringes and scratches at the back of his neck. “Sorry, that’s a stupid question.”

Bucky frowns. “It sounds like he’s still the same Steve I knew…saving the world even though his whole life got ripped up.” Steve wouldn’t recognize him.

And John looks between Bucky and Cap’s shield. “Maybe I could get you one of the comics they made of the Avengers so you can catch up.” John chuckles. Nothing. He tries nudging Bucky. “Wow, look, deep-fried ice cream, bet they didn’t have anything like that in your time.” But Bucky doesn’t react. John’s desperation turns pathetic. “You seem like a chocolate guy to me. I like strawberry, but I’m never above mixing.”

“Sir?” The concessions stand employee saves John from further embarrassment.

At least Bucky’s snapped out of his trance by the time their food arrives. They carry everything over to bleachers on the far end of a baseball field at the edge of the fairgrounds. It's darker here, but soft because of the nearby lights from the stands and spinning rides. They eat quicker than their manners would prefer, scarfing down the food like they tend to do whenever they get a hold of it, and then focus on their beers.

"Can we talk about something?" John says from the lower bleacher, reclined as if they're lined with cushions.

"Uh, sure."

"Anything." John stares off wistfully at the carnival and people. "I just want to talk."

"Okay."

He rolls his head back to look up at Bucky. "What was it like back then, like growing up through the Great Depression and stuff?"

"Its name is pretty descriptive already."

"And the war?"

"I'd rather not talk about that stuff, John."

"Alright."

Bucky asks, "You were a senior in school, right?"

"Yeah." John says carefully.

"Were you going to work after or are you a college boy?"

"Mikey enlisted right away. I promised him I'd try to get into West Point though."

Bucky whistles. "Okay, try hard." But John's shoulders stiffen. "I can see it for you, you're tough enough for it, smart enough too."

"I don't like thinking about West Point." John picks at the rim of his plastic cup. “Whenever someone asks if I was excited about the prospect I’d joke and say I’d miss Georgia, but I think I just don’t want the future to happen…I don’t know if that makes sense. Teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Hoskins, they always say I’ll do well, that I’m just that type of person, but I have this feeling that things aren’t going to turn out right, that I’m going to mess up somehow. It’s not that I don’t want to serve my country, I do, but if Mikey couldn’t…I don’t know if I’m strong enough to keep my head right.”

“John, look at me, do you know who you remind me of?”

John doesn’t know what to do with the absolute attention from those blue eyes, so he looks away. “Someone who can’t hold their beer?”

“Steve.”

“Bucky—“

“I’m serious. You both don’t know what you’re doing half the time and yet you’re recklessly brave. Strong. Kind. Do you think many people would look at me like anything other than…” His eyes drift to the bruises on John’s throat.

"Hey, don't worry about it." John says.

"No, John,"

"Don't worry about it."

"I owe you an explanation, a better one than I've been giving you." The air feels like it darkens. People scream in joy on the rides. "Things still aren't perfect, in my head. Hydra, they did something to my memories—erased them or shoved them somewhere so far out of reach I couldn't get to them—all I knew were orders and killing, and when they didn't need me they'd put me back under." Bucky ignores the strain in his voice. "The Winter Soldier, what they called me, I don't know how much of me is him and how much of him is me, but what happened to you is not acceptable."

"Buck," The nickname sounds so easy. "It's okay, I'm not afraid of you."

"You should be."

And John smiles and shrugs. "I'm not. Because the second you saw me, you guys stopped. You guys were just scared, that's why you reacted like that."

"I could have killed you, John. So please, next time don't get close to me."

"But—"

"Please. John," Bucky breathes hard. "I need to keep living too, and if I hurt you…"

John reads every inch of him. "Okay."

"Promise me."

"I promise, Bucky. I'm sorry, by the way."

"It's not your fault."

"Not about that just about what they did to you. I'm sorry."

"Me too."

John frowns then sighs and turns back around to the fair. Soft, golden light frames his face. "So, are we camping tonight or getting a motel." He looks up at the stars. "Not bad weather."

"No, it's not." Bucky looks at John. He thinks about how their camping nights usually end up: the two of them closer for warmth and protection. Part of him wants that weight against him right now, to feel proof he's here, breathing, sound enough to be trusted to be close, but the other part of him sees those bruises and yells that he hasn't earned that, that he'll never earn it.

"Let's stay outside tonight." John says over his shoulder. "We'll find somewhere hopefully above sea level."

"Yeah." Bucky can't say no. "Okay."

Under a small bridge and laid out on a thin tarp, the two of them settle. John falls into a deep sleep knowing Bucky is beside him and ready to wake at the smallest sense of danger. And Bucky lies on his side, in that half-conscious state he's come to know, one arm stretched over John's torso, rising and falling with his steady breathing.

The next morning, they eat outside a local coffee shop away from any other patrons they could upset with their current hygiene.

Bucky savors his black coffee and somehow doesn't choke when John says, out of nowhere, "Maybe I could find a way for you to talk to Steve."

Bucky’s silent stare is enough of a question for John to continue.

John shrugs. "What you said last night got me thinking. At the derailment, maybe you broke out of Hydra’s control when I said Steve's name."

Bucky thinks, Don't sell yourself short.

"And, I don't know, I doubt his cell phone number is online, but the Avengers are…well they're the Avengers. Maybe this town has a library."

"You think his number is in an encyclopedia?" Bucky wants the whole idea to be a joke, so he laughs.

"No, but they have the Internet." John says deadpan.

"Right." Bucky clears his throat.

There's serious concern in John's expression that Bucky doesn't care for. "You do know what that is, right?"

"Yes, John. I know...enough." Bucky downs the rest of his coffee just so he has an excuse to leave to throw it out. And, while the thought of talking to Steve makes his ears ring, he gestures petulantly for John to lead the way. But Bucky doesn’t settle as they walk, the thought of seeing Steve triggers his fight or flight in ways that make him ashamed.

John remains quiet as well, regretting his offer with each step.

At the library, they go to the computers. Bucky sits across from John and wanders his eyes around the building while John types on the keyboard; he thinks he really loved reading but can’t stomach the idea of picking up a book and feeling nothing, of seeing Steve and not feeling at peace. If Hydra took that from him too…

Meanwhile, John’s searches have him scrolling through images of Captain America. Of interviews where Steve Rogers talks about Bucky Barnes like he’s talking about his other half. Pictures of Steve and Bucky from the war, arms over the other’s shoulder, smiles effortless. His swallows and glances up.

A few more minutes pass. "Sorry," John mumbles. "Short of going to New York, it doesn't seem like there's an easy way to contact them." John frowns.

"It's okay." Bucky breathes easier. What would he even say to Steve after all this time and violence? "You tried. It was a good idea… Maybe New York can make it onto our itinerary eventually."

"Yeah." John chuckles awkwardly.

Bucky stands. John rushes to close out the webpage detailing all of the readily available Avengers contact information courtesy of Stark Industries. His stomach goes sour. Bucky was wrong—he’s not brave. He can’t risk losing Bucky just yet, he can’t risk being sent back to Georgia where his life will restart, and he’ll have to face everyone and everything he left behind. This is easier.

He follows Bucky outside into the cooler air. The motorcycle is parked nearby, the duffel crumpled small and tied to the back, the wheels caked in mud flecks, a streak of chipped paint from an evasive maneuver. All of their efforts and survival rest with that bike, and neither of them can imagine their days without it or without the other by their side.

“Ready?” Bucky asks with an eager grin, sunglasses on.

Any guilt vanishes, and John loses the air from his lungs looking at him. “Yeah, ready.”

Chapter Text

Bucky can't reach John.

The rain hisses around them, silver needles in the spotlight from the laundromat. It drowns the brutal fighting, the snapped bones and gargling as Bucky drives his blade between two ribs. But another Hydra agent takes this body's place and steps between him and John. Bucky back-fists this man with his metal arm, snapping his lower jaw ninety degrees.

An overgrown Hydra goon pins John down into the wet asphalt.

"JOHN!" He charges. Someone leaps onto Bucky's back and snakes half a restraint onto his human wrist. He goes down, scraps his cheek on the ground but rolls and seizes this attacker's throat, snapping his neck before he can blink.

The restrain crumbles in his metal hand. Bucky runs, stutters, looks down at this Hydra agent unmoving and draped over John. He rolls him off. Underneath lays John drenched in wet red. Bucky's hands work quickly patting down in search of injuries to explain all the blood while John remains prone and heaving for air, shivering. Buck glances over his shoulder, then glances again when he sees a knife stuck in the agent's heart all the way to the hilt.

While Bucky breathes relief, John whimpers.

"You're okay." Bucky says softly, lifting him off the ground. "John, you hear me? I'm right here, you're okay."

John's pupils are blown wide, eating up the usual blue; his eyes try to find the man he killed, but Bucky keeps his head forward. He threads his fingers into wet, blond hair.

"Look at me."

John does. But he also sways, eyes flutter, breathing too shallow. Bucky picks him up into his arms and runs. He needs out of this rain. He needs warmth, security, before this shock worsens.

It's cumbersome driving the motorcycle through the storm with John unresponsive in his lap and against his chest. The motel vacancy glows orange in the night. He buys a room, stumbles inside and throws on the lights, carrying John all the way to an outdated bathroom.

John curls away from the fluorescent light. Bucky gasps, finally seeing all the red in his hair, masking the side of his face and neck, soaked into his shirt; it's thin from the rain and running off his body down the side of the porcelain tub until pooling in the grout on the floor.

"Shit." Bucky exhales, heart pounding against his chest. "You're okay." He keeps muttering. Bucky wets a small towel in the sink to begin cleaning John's face. "John, just keep looking at me, keep breathing."

John's hand reaches and shakes over the blood that's stuck to Bucky.

"I'm okay." Bucky promises. "Not mine." He proves it by wiping the stuff off his neck—the towel's soiled by now. He tries to ring it out in the sink enough to use it again. When he turns back, John is staring into his palm. "Hey," Bucky covers his hand. "You did what you had to do. Understand?" His tone may be harsh, but it breaks through the ringing haze enough for John to nod once, maybe just a twitch of his head, but he does return to staring at Bucky.

The soiled shirt lifts over John's head. Bucky finds small cuts and bruises littering his torso, but nothing concerning enough to need stitches or wrappings. He goes through two towels to clean off all the blood; they now leak in a pile in the corner out of sight. Then he's giving John water to drink and digging out John's hoodie for him to wear before he carries him to the bed. Bucky lays John down so he feels the wall against his back. The moment he pulls away John clings to his shirt.

"Hold on." Bucky gently peels his fingers off to step away. John curls up and tries to disappear into the mattress and pillow while Bucky changes into his only other pair of dry, clean clothes. "Come here." He returns with a blanket stolen from the other bed. John wordlessly shifts into his chest. Bucky drapes the cover and then wraps his arms around him. "John," Bucky speaks softly into John's wet hair. "It wasn't your choice. He took it from you. You were protecting yourself, okay? I know you. It's okay." He hugs tightly. “We're okay."

That night Bucky doesn't move. When John stirs under the weight of nightmares and sharp guilt, he holds him tighter, talks softly, sometimes blunt, about where they are, what happened, that they're okay, other times he rambles about a particular memory he's recently dusted and cordoned off from the other cracks.

He talks about this stray cat who lived in an alley by his childhood home in Brooklyn. She was all white, blue eyes, beautiful and clean despite surviving the streets for years. Bucky talks about a deal he made with his mother that he could own the cat if he ever managed to catch it and bring it inside. Looking back, he can tell his mother knew her son would never manage that, but it kept young Bucky busy and mostly out of trouble. Bucky obviously never caught the cat, but the feeding schedule he built up during his attempts forged a bond between him and her.

Bucky likes to think of her. He likes to picture something remaining beautiful despite not having a traditional home, beautiful despite fighting to survive. Talking out loud about the cat leaves him warm in his chest. His hand absently runs up and down John's back through the blanket as he falls asleep against him.

When the memory passes on, Bucky smiles and drops his head closer to John's. Fighting, even brutality, doesn't have to tarnish anything, he decides. It in fact is what they need to preserve what they want. Accepting that breaks up a weight he doesn't realize has been stuck on his shoulders. He'll do anything to keep this. And he'll teach John to do the same.

The lot behind the motel is criss-crossed with strips of grass growing through the sun-dried concrete. Broken bottles litter like colorful gems. And Bucky stands over John who'd rather be anywhere else but here.

Bucky says, "The better you are at fighting, the more control you have to handle a threat however you want."

"You're the best there is." John talks to the ground. "Hydra still controlled you."

Bucky exhales through his nose and grabs the young man's shoulder. "I’m not the best. Also, that's different, John. I'm talking about what happened the other night."

John clenches his jaw, still refusing to make eye contact, stubborn from the moment Bucky dragged him out here to train, something frankly overdo.

"John," Bucky pinches his nose. Rationally he understands how killing someone face-to-face is different than shooting their car off the road and driving on. But the time in his life when killing has this impact is so distant it's theoretical; Bucky struggles to empathize with this resistance when the alternative is John losing his life. "I'm not going to tell you how to deal with people who try to hurt you." He crosses his arms. "I hope you always look out for yourself, but if you want to avoid what happened next time you need to actually be able to execute other options."

"I'm not against learning." John snaps, finally looking at him.

"Then what is it?"

"I-" He growls when the words don't come to him. The kid's a ball of tension and taut shoulders.

Bucky gently pushes him. "Fine. We don't have to talk." He drops into a stance just as John charges and wildly swings; Bucky effortlessly grabs and twists his arm behind his back. John thrashes despite the pain in his joints. "We don't have to talk, but you do have to stay focused." Bucky shoves him away. "And listen when I tell you how to do things."

John breathes hard through the temper that flushes his cheeks.

Bucky doesn't correct it right away because it looks better than the husk he's been these last thirty-six hours. So he keeps fanning it, just enough that John has the spirit to continue through their lesson. He shows John grabs but more importantly how to spot them and counter or disengage. He corrects John's stance and form, how best to funnel his bouts of aggression into power. He does all this perfectly calm himself. When they break for lunch, Bucky shoves a water bottle into his hands and tells him to sit, count to ten, then again, until he his heart rate drops, only then can he eat.

John doesn't argue. But it does take him five minutes.

This continues into the evening, the next day, the one after that. Never liking the pins and needles that grow from staying in one place for too long, Bucky and John move on to the next town or roadside motel. They find another forest or empty lot to train.

John's nightmares don't stop. They just get quieter. Bucky doesn't spend another night beside him like he did before, but he's there when John wakes up with a soundless gasp or twitch. Sometimes he'll talk. Most of the time he simply sits with him, just as John does for him.

Soon their training becomes anticipated routine. John begins to enjoy the exercise and instruction and, as he improves, he savors every proud smile and compliment and chance to surprise Bucky. He knows the other man holds back against him, rarely using the metal arm no matter how much John tries to bait it.

When they upgrade to knife practice, Bucky becomes too serious and stifles the fun with constant worrying and overbearing rules. John tries to practice his dexterity by flipping and spinning one of Bucky's knives in his hands during down time. At least he does this until he inevitably nicks himself, which leads to Bucky catching his injured hand, stealing back his weapon, and bandaging the cut all under a stern scowl. John rolls his eyes but never pulls away.

As the nightmares linger, they morph. John’s original fear turns into anger as he fights this Hydra agent again and again and again in the rain. He hates the idea of someone he's never met deciding his future with a second of time and a piece of steel. In the motel, he looks across the soft darkness to Bucky's eyes. That hatred becomes stronger when he thinks of something happening to Bucky, and all of this training solidifies into clarity once John realizes that, while he’s furious when he dies in these dreams, he becomes something else when it’s Bucky who suffers because of him.

Hydra arrives in numbers.

Bucky slips the bike between two trucks then hard turns into an alleyway. Clips a dumpster. John hisses when the edge cuts through his leg, but he doesn't let his aim behind them falter. An SUV cuts off their escape through the alley. Bucky brakes hard. He grabs John, leaves the bike, and shoulders through a door into a condemned apartment building.

But Hydra is prepared for them.

Agents box them in. John and Bucky drop four of them and run down a connecting hall. Dogs bark above them. Squatters slam doors closed as the violence moves through the first floor.

A metal arm deflects a bullet away from John's torso while Bucky's eyes frantically search for an escape. But they're cornered. So the Soldier takes control.

John doesn't notice the handgun switch from right to left hand just that Bucky's movements become more efficient. Aim snapping to Hydra agents before John can clock them. Bucky perfectly places himself between all hostiles and John, moving the younger man around and behind cover without warning.

They shoot their way to the looted lobby of this building when something audible clicks. The Soldier shoves John away as hot thunder erupts from an explosive trap. John flies backwards into the connecting hall and cracks drywall then crumbles to the dirty floor.

His ears ring and eyes water from the smoke. John picks himself up against his body's wishes, stumbling back towards the flickering embers in the lobby. Bucky lays on the floor, unmoving. John twitches, a second away from sprinting forward, when two remaining Hydra agents carefully approach Bucky's body with their rifles aimed at the soldier. John ducks behind the corner, recovers his pistol, and squeezes it until his palms register its weight.

A centering breathe. It's not fear of pulling the trigger. Just fear if he fails. John leans out and shoots twice without blinking. Two bodies drop. He forces himself to listen for more hostiles, but the building settles around them, and, the moment his brain convinces itself he’s alone, he throws himself to his knees beside Bucky's body.

"Bucky?" He rolls the man onto his back. Bucky's side and chest are burned through his shirt, skin glistening with bloody flesh. Fresh blood congeals under his dark hair against his temple. John clenches his jaw against the screaming panic. He finds a pulse and shutters in nauseous relief. "Fuck. Bucky, come on, wake up!" He crawls closer to shake his shoulders. "Buck?"

Nothing but the flick of a pulse in Bucky’s throat and silent, soft breaths.

John's brain doesn't stop firing. He needs to tend to the wounds. But shouldn't he secure the perimeter? If he leaves Bucky will be defenseless. John puts the safety on his gun and holsters it into the waistband of his jeans before getting behind Bucky's shoulders and hooking his arms underneath.

His own aches flare under Bucky's weight. The man's left side is significantly heavier. It's not a smooth process by any definition: John's movements stutter, his shoes lose their grip on the grime and blood across the old floor, and every sharp adjustment is met with a pained groan from Bucky—at least it's continual proof he's alive.

"I got you, Buck, just—" John grunts. Sweat beads in his hair as he makes his way towards an abandoned apartment near the lobby. "Just keep being dead weight..and breathing." He finally drags him inside. A shaking hand finds a pulse again.

Light filters through dust from a thin window. John yanks the curtains mostly closed. He brushes Bucky's dirty hair out of his face, hand lingering. "I, I gotta get the kit from the bike." He tells himself.

Bucky should be safe here for a moment, but what if Hydra isn't gone? If John gets taken then Bucky lays here with open wounds and— John's on his feet and moving before his mind can root him to the floor with fear.

His sidearm hangs in his grip, safety off, the first thing to poke around corners as he tactically makes his way out of the building into the alley. Passing the bodies. He crouches and peers outside where the two Hydra vehicles sit on either end, the motorcycle on its side in the middle. John rushes out and takes the duffel before darting back inside like a rat.

Some illegal tenet spots him and stares as he returns to Bucky. John stares back, gun heavy, but they both go their own ways. He barricades the door with a chair and drops to knees beside Bucky. Still a pulse, still weak. John bites the inside of his mouth. He knows Buck has the serum, knows it's capable of advanced healing, but looking at him now, how his torso and side are scorched, flesh shiny and red and charcoaled black, he’s skeptical.

John cuts the tee away and slides the leather jacket off, bunching it up into another pillow. Then he roots through the duffel for their meager first aid kid, pushing aside the white wolf and strictly ignoring the Louisiana quarter—there's no world where he flips it. John has little idea what he's doing, so he starts by pouring peroxide over the wound. It fizzes from hip up to left shoulder. Bucky groans in pain. John guiltily hopes the discomfort is enough to wake him. What he wouldn't give for Bucky to open his eyes and tell him what to do. But, as the peroxide settles, so does Bucky into harsh breaths.

Next, John dabs the wound dry, rubs antiseptic ointment as gently as possible before wrapping the burn with all of the gauze they own, spooling it around Bucky's whole torso until he's majority mummified. There isn't much more he can do for the already clotted gash on his scalp.

John sits back on his heels and can't help but laugh seeing Bucky in so much white. The laughter degrades into manufactured deep breathing as he shoves his face into his hands and sits nearby, back pressed hard into the wall.

Hours must pass. Voices of wandering addicts and yelling make up the block as night falls over the derelict neighborhood. John keeps his gun within reach, already pointed towards the door as if the seconds lost aiming could be make a difference between life and death.

He has no other plan. Bucky hasn't stirred beyond the occasional grunt and twitch of his hand. The thin layer of bandages will need to be changed soon; they've already turned color where bodily ooze soaked in. John needs to leave. His foot taps faster than his heartbeat. Fingers lodged in his hair as he counts Bucky's breaths.

Bucky keeps them on the road for a reason. They can't stay in one place. Hydra will come back, they always do. He needs to take whatever money they have left and get supplies, and figure out a way out of here. He moves over Bucky and gently touches his chest.

"Buck? Wake up, please." Nudging him does nothing. John doesn't want to pull away, the body-heat under his fingertips calms him, promises him he's not been left behind.

Bucky saved his life. It's all Bucky does.

John steels himself and swings on his backpack but not before taking out the key-chain and pressing it into Bucky's palm. "I'll be back, I promise."

Baseball cap brim low. Hood on. Wallet light. John scans the dark streets as he crosses towards the glow of a pharmacy with his hands in his hoodie pocket. He looks away from the cameras as he enters and quickly fills arms with medical supplies and cheap cans of food and snacks, including soup, something for Bucky to eat in case his state doesn't improve.

The cashier is surprised he's trying to pay for the items. John keeps eye contact to a minimum, slides over all of their cash but three dollars, and mutters 'thank you' as he leaves.

Coming out of the store, a pack of men whistle to him. He doesn't look but can hear their footsteps follow as he leaves the light surrounding the pharmacy for the darkness of these forsaken suburban streets.

John runs. Their gentle threats and laughter recede into the night. Adrenaline smooths over his injuries and elongates his stride until he's a block away from the abandoned apartment or he thinks he is. Panting on a street corner copper-lit only by old lamps, he turns and tries to reclaim any bearings. Somewhere a dog barks. A car backfires. And then John sees the reflection of a taillight sticking out of an alley, one of Hydra's.

He squeezes into the alley around the SUV, pausing to look at the pickup truck blocking the other side. John investigates: it has an extended cab, new interior, but no keys. Biting his lip, he rushes back into the building's darkness. He covers his nose as the stench of death mingled with mold permeates the air. Keys. He needs keys, but Bucky comes first. He stumbles over the two bodies in lobby. Somewhere above him footsteps wander in a slow stupor. The door into their cramped one-room one-bath apartment barricades behind him.

The interior is only distantly lit by a nearby orange street lamp. The air is stagnant, thick with dust, and John can't decide if the darkness makes Buck look better or worse. At least he finds that pulse.

"Okay, Buck," John breathes, stuffing the plastic bags of supplies into his backpack. "If this is a bad idea then that's your cue to wake up…" He feels stupid for actually being disheartened that Bucky doesn't move. "Otherwise I'm stealing that truck out there, loading up the bike, and…hopefully I find a key." He rakes his hair out of his eyes then holds Bucky's hand and squeezes around the shield inside. "Keep that safe for me." Before he can pull himself away he's compelled to touch Bucky's cheek, feel the scratch of stubble. If he doesn't start moving soon his body is going to give up. John leans down and softly kisses Bucky’s forehead. He tastes sweat, blood, and dirt. Fingers brush back dark hair. Linger.

John knows he has to leave.

In the darkness of the lobby, he can make out the shadowed shapes of the bodies left where they fell. He has to search them. They're stiff, and groping for keys his fingers accidentally push into bullet holes that squelch with sludge he can't see only feel and smell. John shivers. No keys. He searches for others in the building strewn through the halls on this first floor, finally finding a set of truck keys on a dead man in a service tunnel.

While searching, he mentally catalogs the weapons cache these agents have among them. A sickening number of guns and knives and ammo meant to what, kill them? Detain them? John hates these people he's never met, and he hates that they make him hate them.

John runs outside to the truck and climbs in, turning the ignition. The engine agrees and rumbles on. He flicks the lights and floods the alley. A stray cat darts away.

To conserve gas, he turns the vehicle off and exits, standing in front of Bucky's motorcycle. The air around him chills with the night. His skin bitten by it but burning under the surface from the exertion. He flexes his fingers then starts pushing the bike upright. John stares at the height of the truck bed. He's no super soldier; he can't lift this. But he can't leave it here. Bucky loves it too much. And John loves—

Desperation leads him down this effort that rationally he should abandon: lifting the bike incrementally, finding junk to slide underneath to rest it on for a second of recovery, repeating until cold sweat covers the back of his neck. Half of the motorcycle leans hooked on the tailgate. John bends forward on his knees, heaving. Bucky's counting on him. He wipes his forehead and gets under the back of the bike, squatting and lifting it with his shoulder. He grinds his teeth and pushes until the moment before his muscles tear. The bike drops heavy into the back, but he doesn't consider it done until he can slam the tailgate back up.

His arms and legs tremble—back tightens with a knot on one side—pulse throbs in his finger tips. John's exhausted. Sweat fuses clothes to his body. And he can't remember the last time he's blinked.

He tries one more time to wake Bucky who doesn't make a sound, but whose head rolls towards John's voice. John pushes his palm against Bucky's neck to savor the heartbeat before he stands and gets his arms under his shoulders. Dragging him back to the alley is worse than before. John’s body refuses the weight and takes it out on him in deep pains swollen from fatigue and fear that's scrapped his nerves raw.

He moves a couple feet at a time until his thighs and back scream. Then stops to breathe before going again. Past the Hydra bodies, John's brain can't stop imaging them gasping to life, clawing at him, at Bucky. In the alley, John opens the back door to the truck. The interior light blinks on.

"Okay," John kneels. "Last haul. Sorry." In as a smooth a motion as possible, he takes Bucky's arm and yanks him up and rolls him onto his shoulders in a sloppy fireman's carry. Bucky groans as John's shoulder digs into his wounded abdomen. "Sorry, Buck, almost there." His legs shake, but he somehow manages to lift the larger man off the ground with a grunt.

"Whatcha got there?" A silhouette man asks from one mouth of the alley.

John's gun answers first. One trembling arm demanding perfect aim. "Stay back!"

"Hey, look, do you got any money?"

Maybe this man doesn't see the gun. Maybe he doesn't care. He stumbles closer.

John winces under the weight, shifts his knees to bare it because he doesn't know if he can get Bucky back up if he falls. "I said stay back!"

"Just asking, maybe you got food in your truck." His voice is so normal.

"I have a gun." John steps towards the open door without taking his eyes off this man wandering closer. "I'll shoot!" He will. He knows he will, that's why he's begging this man to stay away.

The silhouette's hands go up, and he stops moving closer.

John's chest heaves for air. Sweat rolls down his neck. He glances back and forth between the waiting back seat and the stranger. With a small grunt, he steps forward and lugs Bucky across the back row. Bucky collapses across it with throaty groan.

"Hey," hot, foul air breathes against John’s ear. This man's hands, bony, wet, grab at his arms; the full weight of his body presses John into the side of the truck. "Just need some help. I'll even help you first." Something touches his skin above his hip; sliding around the front, fingers slip into the band of his jeans.

John screams and throws his elbow back, cracking it into the other's nose. He kicks him away, recovers his pistol, and aims it between this husk of a man's eyes. "I said stay the fuck back." His whole body rattles from everything wrong with the day.

"Hey man," the stranger squirms, nose busted and painting his lips black-red. "Don't shoot, okay?" He sounds like a man who knows he should be concerned but can't summon an ounce of self-preservation through whatever drug warms his veins. "I'm just here." He mumbles over and over.

John smells him from there. He can't coax his heartbeat to slow as he blindly closes the truck door then steps around to the driver's side, never removing his or his gun's sights on this man until he's inside, locking the doors, and turning on the vehicle. Glancing over his shoulder at Buck, John mutters a small prayer and puts the truck into reverse.

His body itches. John fumbles and wipes tears out of his eyes then stuffs his shift into jeans as if that could deter anything or anyone. As he swings out of the alley, the motorcycle shifts in the truck bed. He speeds out of town with nothing but high-beams splitting the ocean of black before him. John drives until he can't see buildings or other light. Until he feels completely and utterly alone. Only then does he pull over and turn off the vehicle. His hands have to be peeled off the steering wheel, knuckles sore.

John climbs into the back and digs out the fresh medical supplies he bought at the pharmacy. In the cramped space, he proceeds to replace Bucky's bandages after cleaning and apply burn ointment. He does his best to wash the dried blood off the gash near Buck's hair line and clean it with some peroxide. His hands move so slow in his exhaustion. He brushes his fingers back through the long, dark hair and focuses on the texture, on the gentle body heat that reassures Bucky's belief super soldiers can't get infections, at least not easily.

He remembers to flick off the car-light to save their battery before he settles on the floor. Back against the door, leaning into Bucky's shoulder, John sways, knows he's a moment away from falling sleep. One flexes around the pistol to assure himself it's there while the other hover’s near Bucky’s wrist. Finally, eyes close. Forehead against firm muscle and warmth from Bucky's shoulder, John breathes in, then out. Then sleeps.

Bucky first feels something locked in his fist. His fingers cemented around something small, something metal. In dawn-light, in a space he doesn't recognize by scent or shape, he lifts his arm in front of his blurry vision and finds the Captain America shield indented into the skin. With sluggish coordination, he maneuvers it to his fingers and let's the sunrise sparkle on the remaining few untarnished flecks of metal across the little disk. It's warm from being in his grasp for what must be a long while.

A razor heat wakes up along his chest and core. Through a deep, twisting headache, Bucky lifts his head and tucks in his chin enough to look down at a landscape of bandages across his torso. Then his head falls back onto a cushion with a discontent groan.

Memories from hours ago, yesterday maybe, trickle back. Hydra. The gunfight. The trap. His heart naturally quickens, body tuned to stir even from the possibility of danger. Bucky nearly picks himself up through the pain when he notices pressure to his right. He looks and finds a head of blond hair curled against the seat near his shoulder.

John's breathing evenly, so small curled up in this tight space. Bucky's heels press against the door on the other side of this new vehicle as he stretches. With his metal hand, he cradles John's head and shifts out from underneath. He swallows a pained grimace and resettles.

"John?" Bucky’s voice is gravel. His hand lifts back filthy blond bangs. The kid is wrung out, bags under his eyes, a bruise growing on his cheek, dirt smeared and caked. Bucky gives himself another minute and decides to sit upright. One arm holds his side while the other grabs onto a ceiling handle, lifting himself. His side feels so tight it might split open. Dizzy, he winces but takes in their surroundings with his trained eye.

They're roadside along a green plot of farmland with no buildings in sight. They're in a truck that smells like chemicals and gunpowder but lacks any personal artifacts in the interior. The truck bed holds his motorcycle. John's backpack is here, and his duffel sits on the floor in the back with him, his white wolf safely poking out from inside.

"Huh." Bucky blinks. A lot happened that he either doesn't remember, likely sharing cause with whatever's inflaming his headache. "John?" He's gentle, noticing more dirt, ash, and streaks of blood on John than before. "John." Bucky brushes along his cheek until those blue eyes flicker open.

"…Buck?"

"Yeah. John, what the hell happened?" Before he can realize it John is throwing his arms around him in a graceless hug. Bucky falls back into the door and can't help the pained grunt that's knocked out of him.

"Sorry!" John jumps away onto the other side of the seat. "Shit—are you okay?"

"I will be," Bucky grimaces. "I think. Damn."

John melts and rubs both palms over his face. "Shit."

Bucky eyes him warily, the tremor in his muscles, and the hollow look still under his eyes. "Seems we've acquired some new wheels?"

John stares for a moment with his mouth open as if he's still trying to decide if he's dreaming before he responds. "You sure you're okay?"

"No. But I’m awake, and the serum’s working.”

"Jesus, Buck." John shifts fully onto the seat, turned completely towards Bucky. "You can't do that! You threw me out of the way and took the full blast."

Bucky furls his brow. He doesn't not remember that, but it's through a window; he suspects he wasn't in full control of himself. He's felt the Winter Soldier's presence sometimes so close it's like he's pressing against Bucky's back, trying to find the cracks to slip into and pilot. If that did happen it means more about his own sanity than Bucky has the energy to process right now—at least he can't argue with the Soldier's decision to protect John.

"Are you going to say anything!" John's exhaustion burns into manic panic.

Bucky remains calm out of necessity. "I don't know what to say,"

"Seriously you—"

"Because there's no scenario where I don't protect you, John, that's just not happening."

For a moment John is stunned by what's less a confession and more a verbal promise of what's always been there, but then he shifts. "What? And I'm just expected to pick up the pieces!" He yells, "I can't carry you, Buck! I, fuck, I wish I could, but I can't! I could barely get you into the fucking truck! Hydra wasn't even taken care of—I didn't know if you were dying or going to pop up in a minute, healed by your stupid serum…" He rubs at his eyes.

Bucky opens his hand around the shield.

"I—" John swallows. "I didn't want you to think I wasn't coming back, if you did wake up."

Bucky holds it tight and sighs. He hears John's weariness, he just doesn't have an answer, because the alternative is he doesn't protect the kid with his life and that's just…

He asks, "where'd you get the truck?"

"It was Hydra's."

"How'd you get the bike back there?"

"Slowly."

"You said there were still agents around after the blast."

"They weren't a problem." John’s hands grip the backrest of the seats. "But we only have three bucks to our name. I have some food. Not much medical supplies left. We have half a tank of gas."

"Hey," Buck grabs his wrist. "We're alive, John, focus on that for a second." His fingers curl around to the kid's pulse and press into the dizzy pace. Watching these thoughts devour John from the inside, he wants nothing more than to take this stress and throw it out the window. The most he thinks he's allowed to do is not let go of John's wrist, to gently massage his thumb into the back of his hand. "When'd you last eat something?"

John doesn't blink. "When did you last eat something."

"I've been asleep." He cocks his head with a smile.

"You've been trying to put yourself back together." John speaks with a reverence suggesting there's nothing more important. "I'm fine." He mouth twitches; it knows it's supposed to smile here to make it convincing, but it doesn't quite make it happen.

John slips away to dig into his backpack, dropping snacks and three cans of food between them. "Here. Whatever you want." He exits the truck. Closes the door. Walks around to get behind the wheel and starts the engine.

Bucky watches it all with a sniper's perception. "Do you even have a license?"

"Mr. Hoskins taught me."

"Not an answer."

"I can drive, Bucky." John snaps without taking his eyes off the wheel. "I've already driven." He shifts out of park. "And you're in no state to drive."

Bucky rolls his eyes and gets out of the truck with a stiff grunt, holding his injuries as he stumbles onto the side of the road. The fresh, humid air sticks to him; he pretends to be enjoying it, and the morning sun, until John turns off the truck and gets out, slamming the door behind him.

"What is your problem?" John shouts and scares a flock of white birds out of the field.

Bucky holds his bandaged chest. "Other than this?"

"Are you pissed cause I'm driving and you're not?"

"No,"

"Because you said you want me to be independent."

"I want you to take care of yourself." Bucky says sternly. "Which you're not doing right now."

"I haven't had time because I've been trying to take care of you!"

"I know, but now you need to turn it off."

"You never turn off!"

"This isn't about me."

"It is! I've been trying to keep you safe because I'm not here without you. Seriously, what am I supposed to do without you?"

Bucky lets those words echo. Then he steps forward and, when John doesn’t flinch, he reaches out and holds John's face between his hands.

He says, "I hate to break it to you, but if you want me safe then that means keeping yourself safe first. Always."

John's breath shutters. He holds onto Bucky’s wrists and replies, “I can’t watch you go down again. I didn’t know what to do, and I can’t—please don’t leave me.”

Bucky doesn’t smile, but he brushes a tear with his thumb. "I’ll just get tougher so I never have to."

John steps into a hard hug.

Bucky groans. The kid offers a muffled apology but doesn't let go.

Chapter Text

Bucky drives the truck, not because John gave up the wheel but because John mumbled needing a five-minute nap and is still asleep in the backseat hours later. His eyes check on him through the rearview mirror while streaks of yellow lights from the oncoming cars pass over John from his blond head to his tucked-in feet.

He wonders how this is his life when mere weeks ago his mind and body belonged to villains, and now it's here, with him, free from jobs and handlers, the only violence in service of preserving what's theirs. In these quiet hours before a new day, Bucky wonders what Steve would think of him. His conscience primes him by convincingly saying in Steve's voice: I'm disappointed in you Buck, he's just a kid, you took him from his home, you're taking his future. But Hydra's not going to give up, not now that John's so bound to their favorite asset. And he's seen John smile, really laugh. So… what's so wrong with that? He yells at Steve. Sure, the kid's been injured and terrified and given a gun—am I selfish? My freedom for his?

Parked off the road, he has these mental arguments and busies his fingers with some thin wire he bought for a dollar at a mom-and-pop hardware store. Bucky tries to convince himself the world isn't black and white, that this isn't good or evil, selfish or sacrificing. It can't be, because he doesn't feel that inside of him no matter how much he wishes to. He's not just the Winter Soldier or Bucky Barnes. He's something gray, something in between.

The shield keychain now hangs from the rear-view mirror safe and secure.

Bucky exits the truck quietly and walks into the small local garage to begin his shift. He promised the owner a day's work of heavy lifting in two hours; the older gentleman remains skeptical as he enters the shop but offers a small nod for luck. His injuries have healed well enough thanks to the serum and, while there will be discomfort after and probably nagging from John, if it earns them two hundred bucks then he can't complain.

Muffled conversations and the buzz of power tools wake John in the backseat. His body pushes itself upright before his mind is ready, leaving him dizzy but still searching for danger, for Bucky. But then his eyes spot the keychain hanging, and calm washes over. He doesn't know why they're parked in someone's yard or where Bucky is, but he'll be back.

Doesn't mean he's going to sit here confused.

Stepping out is like invading someone else's dream; the normal domesticity of this house and street put him on edge, the people who so clearly belong here watch him warily as he steps out onto their lawn and observes their house like it's hiding hostiles. The machinery he heard before clearly comes from the large attached garage with sign that says "Jay's Garage" on top.

The woman, who had been speaking to another man until John emerged, turns to John. "He's in the back."

"Huh?" John flinches as if he'd been invisible until now.

"He said he had someone sleeping in the truck." She nudges towards the garage before going back to her conversation.

John walks carefully, muscles stiff and hand hovering near a non-existent sidearm. Kids scream in play nearby, and John jumps. Despite the sun, the weather, the four toddlers chasing each other into view, he can't tell himself to calm down.

"John?" Bucky's voice is a balm.

He whips around and sees Bucky carrying a car engine over his shoulder. Honestly stunned by the man's effortless stance despite the weight, he forgets himself.

"You okay?" Buck places it on the ground before walking up to him, arms out.

"Yeah." John blinks and nods. He runs a hand through his hair, glancing back over his shoulder. "Where the hell are we?"

"Just picking up some work for money before we head on." Bucky touches John’s shoulder and narrows his eyes as John continues to anxiously take in their surroundings. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." John locks in on him. "Why are you doing this?"

"I just said—"

"You're going to tear something."

"I'm a little sore," he shrugs. "But I won't hurt anything."

John reaches for his chest on instinct. "You sure?"

"I'm sure," Bucky smiles.

He pulls back. "I saw the keychain."

"You okay with it?"

John nods. "It helped when I woke up. Knew you'd be back."

Bucky sighs into a concerned frown. "Come here." He leads John through the garage to the back of the house and shop, then urges him to sit in the shade on a low rock-wall before kneeling in front of him. "You slept awhile."

"I was supposed to be driving." John chastises himself.

"You don't have a serum that lets you operate on three hours of sleep." He fixes blond hair. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." John grumbles, trying not to lean into the touch. "I just…don't want to be here, with these people."

"They're okay." Bucky bends down to get into his downcast line of sight. "…John, you can't push humanity away. That doesn't help."

"You speaking from experience?" He leers.

"Wasn't my choice when Hydra did it."

John doesn't back down. He hears the whistles from those men as he walks out of the pharmacy. He smells the breath and feels the hands of the man in the alley. "What has anyone done for us lately?"

"Listen—"

"What's going on here?" The mechanic Jay himself steps around the house.

Bucky doesn't take his hands off John immediately, but he slowly stands when this older gentleman holds his sharp stare. "I'll get back to work, sorry," Buck says.

Jay leaves them, muttering under his breath.

"I won't be much longer." Buck says between them. "I promised this guy I'd move all of his junk out of the yard into a dumpster."

John doesn't know if he's still tired or just pouting, but he doesn't respond to Bucky and scowls into the grass. He waits until Bucky returns to working before he lets himself look. From the shade of the house, he stares at the few beads of sweat around Buck's hairline, the way his core flexes under his shirt when he lifts above his head. Bucky leaves John his leather jacket in passing, offering a smirk to go with it. John rekindles his scowl, but holds the jacket tight in his lap.

Some of the children spot Bucky's arm and sneak around to try and get close; Bucky's a good sport about it, even lets the bravest of the kids touch the metal. John's so focused on Bucky's gentle kindness surrounding this prosthetic that's so fundamental to a horrible past that he misses the mechanic coming up beside him.

Jay has no issue looming. "You two homosexuals?"

"What?" John's mouth goes dry.

"Don’t lie to me. I know guilty when I see them."

John gets to his feet, feels his face burning, and holds the jacket against his chest. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"If your parents had a lick of care they would've knocked some sense into you before you—"

John pivots and rushes away. Ringing drowns his ears until he's slamming the door to the truck. He stares at the shield hanging from the rear-view. Tears pinprick his eyes.

He wipes his eyes. Doesn't know why his chest hurts so much. Olivia's voice returns. John, you know how I feel about you, but you have a lot to figure out… John tried, short of pleading with her to reconsider. I want to be serious with anyone I'm with, and I don't want to feel like I'm taking a choice away from you. I'm not saying never, but you need to know what you want.

John stares at his red-rimmed eyes in the mirror. At the shield What would Mikey think of him?

The driver-side door opens. Bucky's there. He climbs in without looking away, eyes wide with worry. "What did he say to you?"

"Nothing."

"You sure?" Bucky grumbles, not meaning to direct his frustrations toward him. "Because I just had to threaten him to get anything for the work I did." Bucky breathes hard, then reaches out to him in the silence, but John flinches under his hand. John's eyes dart out the window to check if someone's watching. Bucky works his jaw and starts the truck. The mechanic steps out to watch them go, and Bucky holds his glare in the mirror as they turn onto the road.

Minutes pass in fragile silence.

John braces, preparing himself to form the words ‘I’m bisexual.’

“Hey, John,” Bucky glances. “It’s okay. I get it.”

His throat goes dry. “But,”

“I understand, I do. You don’t have to say anything out loud if you don’t want to. Doesn’t make it any more or less true.”

"Buck…"

"And we're not completely broke now.” Bucky smiles for both of them. “I think we've earned a motel stay for a night." He watches as John holds his leather jacket like a lifeline and stares out the window. "Hey, do you remember that dinner you made back when we first got into Louisiana?"

"Yeah?" John eyes him.

"Want to do that again tonight?"

John thinks for a long minute. "I wasn't planning on making that again."

"Something else then?"

John's fingers work around the leather jacket in his lap. "Yeah, okay."

"Great."

Bucky sets John loose in the grocery store claiming he can shop faster on his own without Bucky dragging him down. He learned his lesson after the Walmart. So, Bucky slips away to the bathroom and, once the door closes, deflates against the wall, holding his burning side.

Hissing through the motion, he carefully lifts his shirt in front of the mirror. Patches of healed skin have torn open and shine with fluid pink blood. His shirt is black already and masks the oozing, but the injuries need to be rebandaged to keep the fabric from catching on the hardened and scabbed edges. He sighs and leans against the sink, letting the shirt fall. John's never going to let him live this down if the pain shows. Bucky breathes through the discomfort, through a sharp pinch that elicits a grunt.

But the man in the mirror wants to scream.

He bleeds against restraints on a stainless steel table. Beneath lights more comforting than the doctors. Side opened up, an unintended consequence of a callous mission. Fluids pump into his arms through IVs, but there's nothing to dull the pain. There never is.

Bucky buckles over the sink on his knees until the chilled sweat evaporates. His head buzzes from his shallow breathing, but splashing his face with water shocks his system into loose rhythm.

"Dammit." Get it together. Ghosts begin to flicker at the edges of the room. Threatening to come closer when someone pounds on the door.

Bucky yanks it open and comes face-to-face with some irritated father who's so in need of the space he's immune to an assassin's glare. The man shoulders inside, leaving Bucky to hold his chest and step out. He buries the discomfort beneath stiffly precise movements and goes towards checkout to search for John, who’s already done shopping and waiting with two plastic bags by the exit.

John’s eyes dart back and forth between average folk entering the store and those who wander too close. He shifts his weight between his feet, never letting someone behind him. Bucky shakes his head. What is he going to do with him? He can't on good conscience let the blond become a paranoid, antisocial runaway—that's supposed to be Bucky's job.

"John," Bucky wave once and can't help the smallest smile seeing how John instantly relaxes.

"You were gone a while."

"You were just quick. I had to use the bathroom."

John nods, already moving on to another conversation in his head. Bucky decides to gently lead him out using a hand on his back.

John asks, "You know, I thought you didn't like my cooking last time. I'm kind of surprised you want something."

"What? I told you I liked it."

"Okay," John shrugs. "But you also got really pissed and stormed out without a word for at least an hour. Then the stuff with," he motions to his neck, "Happened, so we didn't really talk about it."

Bucky holds those words as he gets behind the wheel. "Sorry," he says. "I didn't realize you'd think that."

"What am I supposed to think when you do that?"

He drives them towards one of the nicer motels they've passed that's likely to have a hotplate or kitchenette. "I," Bucky hesitates. "I really did like the food."

John rolls his eyes. "You've said that so much I'm starting to think you're lying."

Bucky stops at a red light and, with nothing left to distract himself, says, "it reminded me of home." His voice can't hold steady. "And I couldn't figure out how long it had been since I felt that, since I ate a meal someone made for me, and I got pissed at all the people who broke my life, who kept me from these things." He takes a shaky breath and drives when the light turns green. Now he can't bring himself to look at John, but John's looking at him. "It had nothing to do with you, and I'm sorry it seemed like that."

"Thanks for telling me."

Bucky clears his throat, sniffles once, then tries to fall back into his usual, cool indifference.

John asks, "What was your favorite meal?"

"Um, my mom made latkes on the weekends."

"Never had them." John replies casually, but he writes in his notebook in a way that says this new word has been elevated to the utmost importance. "Did she do anything special?"

"Uh, I don't know. I was usually running around the streets with Steve whenever she cooked… kitchen was so small I'd get in her way."

"Aw, but that's the fun part." John smiles. Then he shrugs. "Okay."

Bucky keeps glancing back at him, frown increasing as his concern grows, but John doesn't comment any further. He puts the notebook back into his bag and grins, immune to Bucky's scowl.

When they get into the motel room, Bucky heads straight to the bathroom, claiming he wants to shower from the morning labor, despite the work hardly breaking a sweat. He runs the water, pulls off his shirt, and sets up what remains of their medical supplies on the limited sink surface. The mirror in this motel warps and peels at the edges, making his serum's progress in healing look disfiguring. Most of the skin has regrown, though it's tight and torn from the work he performed this morning. Those areas he cleans first. It's going to be difficult to bandage such a wide surface area with the meager supplies they have left. Bucky should've made up an excuse to get more at the store.

He works meticulously despite the near impossibility of infection because of the serum. It must seem like a miracle to most: heightened strength, endurance, reflexes, immune system, but no one thinks of the extra damage better healing allows or the brutal fact that the serum's metabolism burns through any painkillers, rendering them ineffective. And Bucky doesn't care how tough someone looks, you can only get so used to pain.

Breathing through the worst, he dabs with the antiseptic gauze until the heat goes numb. Burns are not something he's dealt with before. Bullets. Broken bones. Blades—

The old general gets lucky and sinks a steak knife through a slit in his tactical vest. The Winter Soldier doesn't gasp. He inhales and breaks the man's wrist beneath his metal vise. Then takes the knife and uses it to slit his target's throat. While the old man gargles over his dinner, the Soldier presses a palm into his side to gauge the depth of pain, and therefore the damage. The silver hand comes back red but not enough for immediate evacuation. He still has the general's wife to find.

Bucky heaves into the sink. Gasping. The woman's face retreats to those far corners, but he remembers how she screamed. And he can't stop remembering. Sweat beats up over his back. It won't stop, because he killed her. Bucky's right hand shakes. The left indifferent.

John tells him he's not afraid of Bucky. But Bucky's afraid of himself.

He rakes his hand back through his long hair and tries to settle his breathing. Like he did back in the grocery store restroom, he splashes his face with cold water until the shock levels him out. Burying fear feels like drowning himself, but he's good at it.

Bucky gets into the shower for all of two minutes before stepping out, bandaging himself methodically and leaving. All the while ignoring the man in the mirror.

The space passes for a kitchenette out of John's sheer willpower. Potatoes and cabbage and onions cook and steam in a skillet over the hot plate. John sit on the end of one of the beds and is flicking through channels on the old TV by the time Bucky steps out of the shower, clean and changed.

"How much longer?" He asks. "I'm starving."

John stops on an action movie. "It'll be done when it's done."

"Do you have a timer on?"

"It's cooking. You don't need a timer. I'll know."

Bucky sits on the same bed at the headboard, stretching his legs out. "Didn't know cooking was so magical."

John just hums and watches the movie.

Bucky frowns; he stifles an urge to nudge him with his foot. At the corner of his vision, old ghosts shiver silently."What are we watching?"

"Die Hard." John whips around when he remembers. "Oh yeah, you've never seen movies before."

"Hey, I've seen the Wizard of Oz."

"Well, this is a little bit more than the Wizard of Oz. It's called Die Hard, and Lemar and I secretly watched this every year around Christmas."

Bucky tilts his head towards the screen where some man in a white tank top crawls through an unrealistic air duct with a small sidearm. "Seems jolly."

"It's a Christmas movie!" He gasps. "Mr. and Mrs. Hoskins never liked us watching it, so we'd put it on whenever they left to do holiday shopping. Glory, uh, Lemar's older sister, she caught us once, made us pay her twenty bucks to not tell his parents." John laughs. "We were ten, so she basically put us in debt and charged us interest."

Bucky decides he'll have no idea what's going on in the movie even as John painfully explains every detail, but he also decides he doesn't care; John's laughing and talking about all of the different years watching this film, how they would hide it inside the house in between the seasons, how they had to explain the VHS away when Mrs. Hoskins found it while cleaning.

He keeps babbling while checking on dinner and plating it. Bucky never interrupts. Not even when John carries portions back to the bed to eat and watch at the same time—an unfathomable modern habit Bucky cannot comprehend—but he says nothing. John sits closer to the headboard for back support, squishing between the wall and Bucky without comment.

"Is it good?" John asks after minutes of chewing and gun fights.

"Oh, yeah. Actually reminds me of something from my time."

"You mean when you ate sawdust and cardboard?"

Bucky scoffs. "You're right. I am saying this tastes just like sawdust and cardboard."

"I knew it." John mutters through a smirk.

They finish their plates. Get seconds. Bucky comments blatantly incorrect observations about the movie that upset John every time. When it's done, Bucky stretches, springing up to keep John from washing the dishes.

John lets Bucky clean up without a fight and climbs back onto the bed with one of the plastic grocery bags. "Yes! I was hoping they'd do a marathon."

"A what?"

"Die Hard 2 is next."

"Really?" Bucky groans dramatically. "Can't we watch something I'll actually understand?"

"You mean something black and white and boring?" He turns the volume up.

When Bucky finishes up, he sees John snacking on candy. A chocolate bar sits unopened next to him.

"What's this?" Buck frowns at it as if the candy is taking his seat without his permission.

"Yours."

"No, it's not."

John rolls his eyes and moves the chocolate bar. Bucky sits. John then goes so far as to open it and hand it to him. "You always stare at the little mint chocolates from the diners. You think I don't see, but I do."

Bucky growls in his throat, looking down at the candy in his hands.

John McClain returns to the screen.

"What?" John nudges him. He pops a peanut m&m into his mouth.

"I feel like I'm not supposed to like chocolate."

"What are you talking about?"

"Sweets are just… I don't know. No nutritional value."

"And that makes them bad?"

"It makes them complicated."

John plops back to watch the movie. "Well, I believe in you Buck."
Bucky stares at the snack for longer than he'd like to admit before he finally bites off a modest piece. It's not an instant rush of nostalgia like he feared. The taste is sweeter than chocolate from his childhood, but it's not bad, just an adjustment for his taste buds. By the time he's eaten half, and rolled the rest back into it's crinkly packaging, John is asleep against his shoulder.

The kid rolls into Buck's injury. He bites down on a groan then gently shifts John up. John is a ragdoll against him, completely compliant, however he's moved. Bucky does his best to position them for minimal back pain, but maybe that's just a concern for someone of his age.

"Jesus, you're really out of it, huh?"

John's answer is his head rolling into Bucky's collarbone.

Bucky smiles and changes the channel to the first black and white thing he sees where just two characters talk with heightened dialects in a boring room. Perfect. He settles. When he closes his eyes, memories try to reform like static brightening; the lingering smells of food and the actors' voices drift away, but it's John's weight against him that keeps Bucky here. He holds on until Hydra crawls back in the bloody corners of his mind, leaving nothing but warmth and rest.

If only it could last.

The Winter Soldier claws inside his skull. Screams silently. Holds his throat under threat of death trying to take over. Bucky jolts awake, gasping. The static in his head from the Soldier's howls fades into the steady rain pelting outside, and the soft muttering of the TV still on. As his body returns to him, so does the realization that the other side of the bed is empty beside.

His heart thunders. The Soldier doesn't settle. Where is he? Something's happened. Get. Up.

Bucky can't think.

The door opens to their room. Bucky's gaze whips over to where John pushes the door closed with his foot. He's yawning, arms full of snacks from a vending machine including multiple instances of chocolate; one granola bar is already eaten, wrapper floating to the ground.

John deposits his plunder onto the foot of the bed before wordlessly crawling back up to the warmth and collapsing into the pillow, muttering, "had to use the bathroom. Then got hungry." He slips back under the covers and back to sleep.

But Bucky is stuck trying to reconcile with the irrefutable sensation of the world having dropped away. Right here and now he doesn't care about the Winter Soldier, Hydra, the red on his ledger. He settles back onto the mattress slowly. Hesitant. Scared.

It's too easy, he warns himself as he melts into the shared warmth. His arm lies over John's shoulder, the kid's back to him; he can’t bring himself to pull John close, but he can shift closer. John makes it too easy to forget, to not care. He's weak. But he doesn't care. Even the Winter Soldier settles with him. John is here, and the world becomes solid.

"You okay?" John asks half-asleep.

Bucky grunts and settles his cheek against John's crown. "Don't leave again."

John yawns. His words drift off. "…okay... Bucky?"

"Hmm?" The blond’s hair smells like dinner.

Eyes closed, “Why are we watching boring stuff?"

Bucky huffs a smile. "You calling me boring? Cause I'm easily older than whatever this movie is." He shouldn't be smiling. He shouldn't feel warm. Safe. And yet he does, it's so simple. And Bucky likes simple.

They end up half-asleep against the headboard, John mostly against Bucky's chest, although moved to the other side to avoid the burns. Candy litters their laps half-eaten. They watch a black and white movie about jurors trying to decide on the murder conviction of a young boy 'from the slums' who allegedly killed his father.

John mumbles, "There's no way the old man got there in fifteen seconds."

Bucky hums. "Probably not."

"He's lying." They watch Juror #8 recreate the walk the old man took to get from his bedroom to the front door: 41 seconds. "See. Told you."

"I'm surprised you're engaging with something so boring. They've done nothing but talk, and here you are hardly blinking." Bucky sinks under the kid's weight against him.

John grumbles something inaudible, giving up on a retort to instead watch the scene unfold. He feels Bucky's chest rattle from a short laugh and tries not to let it consume him.

It's not like he's going to risk his position and draw attention to this. Part of him isn't allowing himself to think about the warmth from two bodies, how they haven't let go of some form of physical contact since he crawled back into bed, how easily the world outside of this motel room disappears: Hydra, Custer's Grove, West Point. He doesn't even know what day it is.

Bucky's hand moves up and down the side of John's arm. There's no way for John to know, as he focuses all his willpower on 12 Angry Men, that Bucky is staving off ghosts along the walls. Bucky's skull throbs with deep pain. His eyes draw towards the afterimage silhouettes of victims and handlers. Past the edge of the bed, the air is static, sharp. Through the dialog of the jurors, Bucky hears the cold Russian. Longing. Rusted. Seventeen—

"Can I finish this?" John asks holding up a Snickers.

The pressure in Bucky's ears pops, and he hopes his racing heart can't be felt through his chest. "No." He steals the candy back. "It's mine."

"You're not good at sharing."

Bucky doesn't respond. He can't speak through the pain expanding behind his eyes. The candy bar is left on the mattress so his hand can return to hooking into the loose sleeve of John's hoodie. Like a shield, the contact makes the ghosts go quiet. The headache recedes. The words a distant threat. And there's no room for him to realize the kind of quiet hope he gives John with moments like this.

"I kind of miss the bike." John says wistfully.

Bucky stares down at the blond head against his chest. "You love the truck. You sometimes get to drive it."

"Yeah."

"We'd have to leave it behind to ride the bike."

John hums. "Maybe we could use the bike to just get around town sometimes."

"Fine, but next time you swallow a bug remember this was your idea."

John stays quiet. He plays with a wrapper absently between his fingers and watches the movie. Bucky's eyes drift between him and what's along the walls. Whatever this is for either of them, they're not going to risk it by trying to define what already feels too fragile to acknowledge.

Chapter Text

On the border between Louisiana and Alabama, they stop at a sprawling, monthly pop-up flea market. Once they park and join the crowds, John's eyes find something curious on every table.

Bucky decides he wants to buy a leash to keep the kid in reach. The people here have no understanding of personal boundaries as bubbles form around stalls, and John wanders through them to pick up something odd. He asks the owner what it is and usually starts a conversation before Bucky has to pull him away from it because they're not buying an antique sundial.

Instincts prickle in that unreliable way when things simply feel off. Pedestrians look at him from the edge of his vision until he turns. Groups linger too long. Some beside vehicles that have no place in this crowd. But Bucky dismisses them as ghosts, and chooses to focus on John rather than lingering memories.

John has been shivering from contact all morning. When Bucky's hand brushes his forearm or steers him with a gentle grip around his wrist, his brain goes blank as a defense mechanism, refusing to look Bucky in the eyes for fear of staring. He doesn't even care about anything in this flea market; he just needed space outside of the confines of the truck.

Ever since they spent that day lounging in bed, the air's been tense, holding its breath, and John doesn't know how much longer he can go existing with his questions building and building. The metal hand between his shoulders directs him away from a seller who's leaning in a little too closely, and John’s whole body locks up.

He tries to peel away by slipping between a couple who reform behind him. Bracing himself for the metal touch to drag him back, John's eyes catch on an old Polaroid on the table with a box of viable film. It takes less than a minute before he gives in to a desire he didn't know he had; he buys the camera and pivots to snap a picture of Bucky.

The flash blinks. Bucky jumps. And the photo rolls out with a soft buzz.

"What the hell, John!"

It takes a lot to catch the assassin off-guard; usually John has to do it by being in danger, but with this he at least gets a worthy souvenir. John grins and takes the photo and shields it from the light like Lemar's sister Glory once showed him how to do.

Looking through the lens just now gave some distance between himself and the world. Something to focus on that isn't simply Bucky but rather the light and shapes and shadows that make him. After it develops, John shows him the photo where he's frozen mid-scowl and mid-shock, hair sweeping across his face.

He gasps. "That's a camera?"

"Obviously." John takes another point-blank.

"Stop." Bucky tries to grab it, but John easily pivots and curls around the device to keep it in his grasp.

"When's the last time you had your picture taken?" John says to the camera, pulling the next photo out of the dispenser. Another perfectly candid, unflattering picture develops, and Bucky grumbles at it over John’s shoulder.

After, Bucky takes a few wary steps back, and now John has his distance. He may use it to pester Bucky, but having the attention reversed like this allows his chest to relax and breathe.

Once they're back in the truck, John has seven photos spread out on the seat; he carefully fits them within pages in his notebook to keep them flat. Bucky picks one up. It's of him trying to ignore John by crossing his arms and staring up at something in the sky, shades catching the light just right. It's strange. He's seen his picture before, but nothing so easily colorized and accessible, so solidly here in his fingers. It makes him feel alive seeing himself through John's eyes.

"I know a long time has passed, but technology's kind of amazing." He mutters.

John breaks down in laughter.

"What?" Bucky watches the kid double over. "Look, I know I'm not a poet but…"

He gestures with the Polaroid. "These things are like forty years old, Buck. Hardly technology anymore."

"It is to me, okay?" He slams the photo back down and steals the camera to inspect the source of his embarrassment more closely. John wipes at his eyes while Bucky tries taking a photo of him. Mirroring John from earlier, he shields the photo from light against his chest, scowling at the kid the whole time who’s unbothered having his picture taken.

Bucky mumbles under his breath and peeks at the photo. John's laughter dies off. He goes still waiting for any reaction to cross the older man's face, but Bucky only stares before storing it in a jacket pocket. John tries to find his smile through his frown.

"How'd it come out?"

"I guess I'm not really a photographer." Bucky starts the truck engine. And that tense air returns. John bites the inside of his mouth and sighs. Words sit in his throat, swell there, until the question is too painful to get out. What are we, Bucky?

They head into Alabama. John falls asleep against the window after they eat their fast food dinner in the truck, and Bucky proceeds to drive into the night, his serum allowing him to continue without much exhaustion. There's always this sense of urgency to keep on the move but without ever having a destination in mind, the road becomes this ocean they're just drifting through.

Bucky finally parks outside of a nature preserve in northern Alabama, and stretches outside the truck in the late autumn sun. John still doesn't wake; he's too skilled at sleeping wherever he can as long as he feels safe. In the meantime, Bucky carries the motorcycle out of the truck bed and takes some careful time to clean it and gas it.

The park opens soon.

He throws some of their dried good food into John's backpack, along with the camera, and water bottles. Bucky feels the stiff fold of the photograph in his pocket. He checks on it. It's not completely in focus because John's mid-laugh, face brighter than the sun coming through the windshield. Blue eyes vivid and full of joy.

He doesn't know how much time passes looking at it before John stirs, and he stuffs it away.

"Enough sleeping in." Bucky raps the window with his fist. "Come on."

John stumbles out yawning. "Where the hell are we?"

"Little River Canyon." He throws the kid's worn-down backpack into his chest. John catches it with a small 'oof.' Then, Bucky starts the motorcycle with a resounding rev of the engine as the machine comes awake after days of disuse.

John's face lights up. He's already swinging his bag on and climbing on the back of the bike, no other questions needed. Arms wrap around his waist. Bucky grins, sets his sunglasses on his nose, and drives off to the park entrance.

The air is cool and dry, refreshing. Autumn paints the park beautifully as Bucky drives his motorcycle along lone roads, through bare trees and swarms of orange leaves on asphalt. His shades reflect the blue sky, mouth stern in a line, but freedom and happiness dancing in his chest as John holds on and presses his cheek into Bucky’s back. It’s all perfect, peaceful, and, at this early hour, just theirs.

Bucky thinks he’ll remember this forever.

They stop along a small patch near the riverside and sit at the picnic tables to snack. They talk easily about nothing important, but that’s why it makes Bucky feel light. Not because it’s unimportant, but because he can hear John’s voice rambling about uninteresting old comic books and football games and be happy simply because John is happy. John is off on some tangent and doesn’t notice Bucky’s smile, how fond it is that the man’s eyes go soft at the edges, how decades of tension leaves his shoulders.

The photo Bucky took may not be of this moment, but it captures everything about this happiness all the same.

After eating, they’re back on the road, deeper into the park. The truck may be wonderful, offering protection and space, but the way John’s arms wrap about Bucky’s torso, how his fingers find ribs and muscle underneath the shirt, connects them as if they could never be torn apart. And the motorcycle’s engine may be loud, but it puts them into this bubble where John can listen to Bucky’s steady heartbeat.

When they make it to the iconic waterfall of the park, they park at the base and go off the path and stare at to the top to the smooth cliff above.

The waters below have shallow shelves of stone beneath the surface that make it perfect for visitors to swim and cool down under the falls in the hotter months.

John dips his hand in and recoils. “Nope.”

“What’s wrong, can’t handle the cold?” Bucky is already removing layers.

“I’m from Georgia.”

“Really?” Bucky scoffs. “Well, in Brooklyn we learn to handle the cold.”

John winces as Bucky wades into the water with nothing but his boxer briefs. He presses his cold hand against the back of his neck hoping to cool down the blush he feels spreading. “I think your body’s just broken.” 

“That too, probably.” Bucky dives forward into a breast stroke then rolls to float on his back, grinning. “Come on, John, don’t be scared.” Water ripples away from his toned stomach.

“I’m not scared! But I do feel temperature like a normal person.” And yet he’s getting undressed, leaving his boots behind in the grass. He takes one step into the frigid river. “Shit—Bucky!”

Bucky gently swims closer.

John shivers. “I hate you.”

“I didn’t do anything.” He pouts.

“This is insane.” John pivots back towards the river bank. He thinks he sees something moving in the trees when Bucky lunges from the water and snatches him around his waist. Bucky dives backwards, submerging both under the light rapids, then stands, still holding onto John as the blond clings like a dunked cat.

“BUCKY!”

Bucky laughs, “Thought I should give you a real reason to hate me.”

John growls and dunks Bucky’s head underwater, and Bucky plays along and lets himself be manhandled for once. He also uses it as an opportunity to scoop John up and lift him over his shoulders when he reemerges from the river.

“Don’t!” John gasps.

“Don’t what? You’re already wet.”

“I’m also freezing.” John continues to cling as if it could save him.

Unfortunate for John, Bucky is having too much fun. He tosses him into a deeper pool, laughing as the kid flails and goes under.

John lets himself float in that biting cold void for a moment of peace before surfacing. He glares and flips back his hair.

Bucky is still laughing. “I’m realizing I should’ve made sure you could swim.”

“Yeah.” John huffs, treading water. “I could’ve drowned.”

“I would’ve saved you.” Bucky waves the concern away.

John swallows and tries not to stare at the water cutting away from Bucky’s broad shoulders as the man swims closer. He feels small seeing Bucky like this: muscled, scared, stubble dark and perfectly framing his jaw.

Bucky thinks John’s distracted by the meeting of metal and flesh around his left shoulder. Pausing to find his footing and stand, Bucky shows John the ugly wound. “Hydra put me back together after I fell from the train.”

John hadn’t been focused on the melding; it doesn’t bother him, but he does focus on Bucky’s earnestness. “You remember?”

“Enough.”

John swims closer and gently touches the seam, running his shivering fingers over the scars, never hesitating or pulling away in discomfort or disgust. “Does it hurt?”

“Sometimes.” Bucky’s voice is quiet. His eyes watch John’s hands move. “Especially when the robot arm and my human torso disagree on what’s too much force.”

“Do you…” John shouldn’t. “Do you ever wish you didn’t get it?”

“If I’d rather have died?”

“No! Just…”

“I don’t know. It’s done a lot of bad or it’s enabled me to do a lot of bad.” He gently touches John’s arm with his metal fingers. “But I seem to be able to do some good with it too.” He cocks his head and smiles. “At least when my head is screwed on straight.”

John can’t look him in the eyes anymore. He presses his blue lips together and turns towards a leaf swirling in an eddy.

“Jesus, you’re really cold, aren’t you,” Bucky pulls John against his chest.

John gasps, but then Bucky’s arms settle around him, and he melts into Bucky’s heat. Bare chest against bare chest, John swears his pounding heart is going to give away his panic. But Bucky doesn’t say anything as he holds John while floating and walking gently through the water.

John nestles against his neck. His lips have never been closer to the older man, but they don’t touch. He breathes hard against the tough skin, begging Bucky, hoping to stir something in him so he won’t have to be the brave one. But Bucky carefully brings them to shore, his hands sturdy around John’s body. John feels his chance slipping away every second he doesn’t act; when he’s lowered onto the grassy bank, he realizes with a cold pit that he’s a coward.

John stumbles back into his clothes and flexes his hands to return warmth to his fingers. Bucky changes with his back to the blond, practically putting the muscles rippling from hips to shoulders on display. John clenches his jaw and ensures he’s looking anywhere else by the time the older man turns around.

“Interested in the cliffs?” Bucky follows his gaze.

“Yeah.” John lies, “I did, uh, a lot of climbing as a kid. With Lemar.”

Bucky rotates the cold out of his metal shoulder. “I’ll race you.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, even give you a head start so it’s fair.”

John latches onto the competition to give his mind a break. “Just because you’re a super soldier with a metal arm, you think you can automatically beat me?”

“I’d still beat you without either of those things.” He grins.

“No head start.” John double-knots his laces.

“You sure?”

John’s heart races, but he manages a quick grin. “Don’t patronize me, Barnes.”

“I’ll do as I please, Walker.”

John blames the fresh blush creeping up his neck on adrenaline. Both of them line up facing the small cliff face and, with no countdown, they run towards it in perfect sync. John finds cracks and digs his fingers in, pushing up with his legs. For a brief moment victory feels possible before Bucky scales past like—like a super soldier, what did he expect? John makes the mistake of looking up and becomes pitifully distracted by the man’s ass; he almost slips when his grip goes weak.

Bucky disappears over the edge but peers down at John with a wide smile, hair coiled and wet, and the sun haloing his body.

“Need a hand?”

John climbs another ledge. “I don’t need one.” He swallows.

“Fair but want one?” He reaches down.

John slowly reaches up. His fingers brush along Bucky’s rough palm before wrapping around his wrist. He’s lifted like it’s nothing.

Kneeling, Bucky grins as he pulls John up to the final ledge, making sure to write ‘I told you so’ as much as possible all over his face. He helps the blond settle on his knees in front of him before shrugging and saying, “Honorable you wanted a fair fight, but hopefully you learned your—“ He feels a hand grip his collar first. A tug. Then the kiss.

Tension, so deep in his bones he didn’t know it was there, leaves his body and warmth fills its place. He parts his lips to drink in this quiet peace. They both breathe then kiss again. John’s hand comes into his hair, luring a deep rumble from Bucky’s throat, something close to a growl, to want. It wakes him.

Bucky blinks. His metal hand seizes the front of John’s shirt and pushes him away, locked at arm’s length. John stares, blushing, horror stretching around his eyes. Bucky swallows. He still tastes John. Wants to—

John pries himself free. His eyes desperately search Bucky for anything he can latch onto that isn't rejection.

Bucky frowns and licks his lips. He reaches out for John who only steps away. No, wait. It's not that he doesn't—God. Bucky pushes himself to his feet, legs weak in ways shameful for a super soldier. John is everything he wants, needs, doesn't deserve.

"John, wait—"

"No." John snaps. "I, I didn't mean to do that."

"No, I shouldn’t have."

"I," John glances over his shoulders at the trees. "I need a minute."

And Bucky's body coils at the thought of him disappearing. "John."

"Just a minute. Please." John's hands pull at his hair.

Bucky doesn't look away even when he goes out of sight; he waits for the dead trees and thicket to return his life to him. Eventually he growls and paces on the cliff side. Is he angry? Bucky can't tell through the panic that this safety they've built is threatened. His fingers touch his lips and that panic fades away, that warmth returns, calming him like a drug.

Until a branch snaps.

The sound comes from the other side of the wilderness.

Bucky draws his weapon, shoulders locking up when Hydra agents emerges. For the first time in their travels, Bucky identities one of the men among them; his clean outfit and stone-cut face is familiar in the way recalling a bad dream is blurry but unsettling. Anson is the whisper of a name that surrounds him in Bucky's fractured memories.

Bucky ignores the guns trained on him by the grunts and keeps his focus on the clear leader. "Take another step and I shoot."

"Do that and we shoot your pet."

His finger twitches on the trigger. "He doesn't know anything. Let him go and I'll—"

John screams his name from the woods.

Bucky flinches and holds the weapon and his hands up in submission. "He poses no threat to you."

"I disagree." Anson, safe between his guards, pulls out a small book. "Longing."

Bucky's body shivers, and the gun clatters on the rocks.

"That kid took our favorite dog from us. Rusted. Seventeen. And we're the dog catchers—furnace." 

Eyes wide. No. No-no-no-no.

"Daybreak. Seventeen. Benign."

Bucky charges him.

A high-powered tazer flicks into his side and drops him with blinding electricity; he can't even register the pain until the current stops and leaves his muscles burning stiff.

"Nine. Homecoming." The man steps forward. Polished shoe-tips pause at Bucky's nose.

Bucky feels his mind narrowing into a pinprick of light.

Anson smirks. "One."

It won't work. Bucky prays. Glaring up with every ounce of freewill in him.

It. Won't. Work.

"Remember this moment as the last of Bucky Barnes." He spits the name. "Freight car."

Two large Hydra brutes carry John through the trees as he fights to break free. Bucky rises from his knees and turns to watch this.

"Get the fuck off me!" John thrashes.

Anson signals for him to be let free. The brutes drop John who rushes towards Bucky and eyes the frigid water below the cliff. They could jump; a broken leg is better than being Hydra captives.

John grabs Bucky’s sleeve with the intention of pulling him into the escape, but Bucky stays locked in place, an immovable object that yanks John back and nearly off his feet.

Anson orders, "Don't let him leave."

Bucky pivots. The metal arm seizes John's throat and lifts him off the ground. John gasps. Instincts have him clawing at the steel grip.

"Buc—" The hand tightens until it denies air.

This isn't him. John's mind screams. It can't be.

"Don't kill him." Anson and the others laugh. "Unless he's been a pain this whole time, then by all means rough him up a little."

The Winter Soldier throws John. He skids and rolls across the boulder towards the other agents.

John’s throat swells as he gulps down air, picking himself up while Hydra circles. Tears blink into his eyes. Laughter in his ears. His gaze travels up from the Winter Soldier's boots, Bucky's boots, up past Bucky's jacket to Bucky's face, but the Winter Soldier's eyes. Only these are emptier. Deadlier. The same ones that once targeted him at the derailment in Custer's Grove.

John tries to stand to meet this gaze, but his body decides to tremble.

Anson walks up to Bucky and touches the back of his neck. "Alright now, you can play with him later. Take him to go."

John wants nothing more than to kill this man after snapping each finger one-by-one. "Bucky, you don't have to listen to him."

"He likes it this way." Anson cocks his head.

The Winter Soldier's metal knuckles tighten into a fist. He steps closer. John looks up and watches Bucky’s body, honed for perfect violence, rear back. Still feeling his lips tingle from his most courageous, stupid moment, he refuses to flinch as Bucky knocks him unconscious with a single, brutal strike—John can’t decide which pain is worse.

Chapter Text

Secure target. Carry. Follow. Sit. Don't move. Don't react.

Life is simple for the Winter Soldier when he is obedient.

Transportation poses no issues or threats. The target appears to be unenhanced, weak, and remains unconscious. The other Hydra agents mock the blond as he lies on the floor of the van. The Soldier’s handler Anson insists they don't bind him; the Soldier doesn't understand taking that risk, but his opinion is not asked, so he doesn't speak up.

The Winter Soldier watches the others dig through a backpack that belongs to the target. Better to not have possessions. He’s validated watching how they take what's inside the bag for themselves to consume or break for fun.

Anson doesn’t remove his gaze from the Winter Soldier during travel. They're not in the tactical van for long before the back doors open to the brutal and cold concrete of a deep bunker. The Soldier exits and waits. He watches the target stir as the others drag him out; the young man kicks and curses despite the many hands pinning him down.

Anson marvels at this rebellion from their captive.

The blond makes eye contact with the Winter Soldier and pleads, pathetically, "Buc—"

Anson backhands him. "Say that name again, and you’ll regret it."

The Winter Soldier doesn't understand the danger a name could pose.

The target is yanked to his feet, arms bent behind his back. He glares at Anson through the tears welling in his eyes. “I’m going to kill you for what you did to him.”

Anson steps in close to whisper, “I think you mean for what I’m going to do to you.”

The Soldier remains in place while they drag the thrashing kid away, watching and failing to understand why he cannot breathe.

After they leave, and the entrance hall to the underground Hydra bunker returns to a quiet echo, the Soldier is sent into a cell of his own where he will wait for orders but more importantly punishment.

Days mean nothing. Hours are counted by how long he’s forced to stand, to not blink, how many different agents enter to beat him. Handler Anson has not returned yet, that’s how the Soldier knows this will be a long correction period; there’s no point in the handler appearing until the Soldier is thoroughly worn down. At least they let him keep his clothes.

The Winter Soldier does not remember what he did to deserve this. Hydra makes comments about his roaming, about a ‘stint away;’ some mention a stray he was with.

Will retaliation for memories that aren’t his do anything? Is there a lesson for him to learn when he was not the one disobeying? With no one to ask, he rolls these questions in his mind as a baton cracks into his shoulder.

He does decide, eventually, to hate whoever made those choices for him.

There’s a new metric to measure time. After seven sessions of physical punishment broken up by solitary standing, kneeling, or hanging, Hydra decides to employ psychological torture. A broken scream fills the compound; it rattles through the heavy bulkhead to his cell. And, whenever someone new enters and the door opens, the volume of it seizes the Winter Soldier’s muscles.

He is not muzzled. So he must catch himself from making prohibited sounds or expressions, but the visceral reaction to the wail sickens him to his core. Most of the time, the door closes, and it returns to its barely bearable, muffled echo, and the Soldiers finds himself wanting his own punishment to drown it out.

There’s a tremor in his body. From hunger, exhausted healing, and no sleep. But also from that sound. The Soldier knows time has passed in this cell because the scream has gone hoarse, interspersed with sobs and broken words. A plea to a name stretched so thin in the long tunnels of the compound that it becomes just another sound.

Hydra agents now familiar to the Soldier enter the cell.

“Don’t worry, your handler will be freed up soon to come see you, but in the meantime...” He holds up a short whip.

The Soldier shows them his back.

“Take off that lovely jacket of yours, wouldn’t want to shred it,” the other says. So the Soldier takes the jacket off and holds it out.

A memory, one that should be his by how it’s framed, blurs into the front of his mind and leaves him confused.

The target triumphantly holds up a vintage leather jacket. "Right?"

The Winter Soldier takes it into his hands to feel the thickness. It's heavy in a good way. Used just enough to be broken in without falling apart. And it's black.

"Try it on."

The Winter Soldier blinks the spots of those foreign memories out of his eyes.

“Hand it over.” The Hydra guard orders.

The Soldier lets the jacket slip from his fingertips. The cold of the cell finds his bare arms to bite at, but he doesn’t let himself shiver. He turns again to brace his palms on the wall as the two joke, one trying the jacket on.

They leave the cell door open, however. The Winter Soldier clenches more from the screams scraping his brain than the anticipation of the first whip, so much so he dares to speak, “Can you close the door?”

But those two are laughing. “What is that?” It’s not a question for him.

The Winter Soldier sneaks a glance over his shoulder to see them looking at a small photo pulled from the jacket pocket.

“Worst porn I’ve ever seen.”

The Soldier turns fully. He steps towards them and looks at the same photo—looks at what must be the happiest person he has ever seen. Someone smiling, laughing while seated in the passenger seat of a pickup. The target, he realizes.

He’s overwhelmed by a need to know what made him smile like that so he can make it happen again. The Soldier walks closer until he’s brushing against one of Hydra’s shoulders.

“Hey, step back!” this man snaps, swallowing his fear from seeing the Winter Soldier so close and out of line. But the Soldier doesn’t care right now. He’s realizing something else. As discomfort cracks open in his chest. The one in this photo is…the one screaming.

"I said step back," the Hydra guard shoves him. Or he tries to.

The Soldier grabs the photo and stares at the messy laugh. His grip bends it, and his eyes soften.

"Shit." One of the Hydra agents pivots for the door when the Soldier’s metal arm grabs the back of his neck and throws him across the room. The other reaches for his weapon, but his hand is broken over the gun's barrel and he’s knocked unconscious by a sharp left-hook.

The Soldier stands there in his cell heaving for air, trying to bring himself back under control. He shouldn’t have done that. Maybe they’re not dead? The photo is still in his hand, and the target is still happy in this little piece of time.

The cold along his arms finally makes him shiver, so he takes his jacket back. Maybe he can wait here and show regret. He puts a hand on the cell door to close it with himself inside when he realizes the scream has gone silent. His metal fingers dig into the bulkhead. Eyes go to the the creased photo again. It’s precious to him. It’s his, isn’t it? The Winter Soldier has never had something that was his before. But he knows he wants it back.

The Soldier wouldn’t say he’s feared punishment before; his survival simply depends on avoiding it.

He can say he’s never wanted before.

Having never owned anything, he could never lose anything, only his own life, and his own life was so full of pain, cold, cruelty, it was never anything he valued. Survival kept him obeying because that was simplest, but now he’s confused.

Because now there’s something in this world he thinks might be his. He can’t remember, but he almost hopes that it is true. That this absence he feels is because something should be there but is missing. It’s a hopeful, tingling warmth. And also sickening.

He thinks this might be fear he’s feeling since that scream went silent. The Winter Soldier acknowledges the heavy beating of his heart as he moves through the compound with a rifle taken from one of the guards he knocked out in the cell; he doesn’t know if he has the autonomy to use this weapon on anyone should they see him.

The target is dead, most likely. That voice of survival tells him. Leave before your handler finds you and sees what you’ve done. But that would mean leaving behind something he wants.

The Soldier clenches the rifle. His body pressed back against the wall. He wants to find that one from the photo. And he wants him to be alive. Because the true source of his fear comes from the thought of never seeing that smile again…the fear that the photo is all he has left of whatever it is he has lost.

The Winter Soldier steps into a circular room and discovers he’s on a balcony overlooking a pit. It’s an observational ring.

Down below the target is unconscious on a cold surgical table. Shirt off. Probes attached to his skin. Wrists and ankles raw from restraints. Two scientists stand beside him with tablets and monitors.

So, these are the people who made his precious thing scream. The Soldier gives in to the hot rage in his blood. Masked by shadows, he aims at the first scientist when another memory returns.

Easy. He thinks. He finishes his beer and steps over to a carnival game stand. The target keeps on walking and talking without him but eventually notices. The Winter Soldier hands over five dollars to the game operator and gets a cheap rifle in return. The operator eyes his chrome hand peeking out of the Soldier’s leather jacket sleeve.

"Work injury." The Winter Soldier says in a voice that is his but also isn’t.

"Woah," The target jogs over when he realizes the Winter Soldier wandered off. "Say something next time."

The Winter Soldier aims.

The first scientist is hit in the chest and tumbles over a tray of implements. Dead. The second scientist jumps, syringe in hand. The Winter Soldier aims again, but a moment before the trigger is pulled he freezes.

“Soldat.” Handler Anson steps out from the darkness on the other side this room, on the same observation level as the Soldier. The Winter Soldier doesn’t lower his weapon, but his eyes lock on the other man. Those survival instincts panic beneath his skin and become dangerous. Obey.

Anson says, “What a mess you’ve made.”

The Soldier always has to push through discomfort before speaking. “What are you doing to him?”

“We saw how attached you were, so we thought we’d give him to you as a gift.”

The Winter Soldier doesn’t know what this means. His mouth feels dry.

When the scientist below moves again towards the target, the Soldier doesn’t hesitate; he shoots off the man’s hand into a red mess on the floor. The syringe shatters. The scientist screams and falls to his knees and tries to staunch the bleeding with his armpit.

“Soldat,” Anson wants to seem calm. “Enough. The young man down there is in the middle of receiving the serum.”

“Serum?” The Winter Soldier asks.

“Yes. He tested well.”

“…like me?”

“Yes.” Anson thinks he sees a foothold. “Just like you.”

The Winter Soldier tries to process the information. His finger twitches over the trigger. “He was screaming.”

“An unfortunate side effect. I’m sure you’ve long forgotten your own experience by now.” Anson’s voice echoes from across the room. It settles the Soldier’s body more than his own thoughts right now.

“…I want to check on him.”

The scientist whines from below. “Sir?”

Anson quiets him with a simple gesture. “Of course.” The light from below reflects off of Anson’s teeth as he smiles.

The Soldier waits a second in case his handler changes his mind then vaults over the railing and lands in the medical pit below. The scientist cowers under him. The Soldier’s left hand reaches out and brushes back bangs of blond hair coated in sweat. The Winter Soldier furrows his brow and drags the back of his hand down the side of the target’s face, flinching when the blond’s head leans into the contact.

“He needs,” the scientist swallows nauseating pain. “More treatment.”

The Soldier speaks without thinking. “Don’t touch him.”

“But,” the scientist glances up at his boss. Anson overestimates his control of the Soldier and nods to the scientist to continue.

The scientist whimpers as he picks himself up. A new needle moves towards the blond’s bruised skin.

The Winter Soldier snatches a scalpel off a nearby tray and slashes open the doctor’s throat, shoving him away so the young man on the table isn’t sprayed.

From above, Anson white-knuckles the balcony railing but keeps his voice even. “Soldat, why did you do that?”

The Winter Soldier hears himself say in his mind, "I hate to break it to you, but if you want me safe then that means keeping yourself safe first. Always."

He tells his handler, “I don’t want you hurting him again.”

“And that’s your decision to make? You know the pain is only ever earned... Speaking of earned, what am I supposed to do with you now that you continue to disobey?”

Those survival instincts go quiet; they’re replaced with wind and the rumble of a motorcycle engine.

The Soldier’s shades reflect the blue sky, mouth stern in a line, but freedom and happiness dancing in his chest as the target holds on and presses his cheek into the Solder’s back. It’s all perfect, peaceful, and, at this early hour, just theirs.

He thinks he’ll remember this forever.

The Winter Soldier’s eyes burn. He almost didn’t remember this. Emotions burn at his composure, and pressure builds inside his body.

Anson orders, “Put the weapon down, and step away from Walker before you—“

“Walker, that’s his name?” The Soldier looks up with something close to wonder.

Anson tenses. “Yes.”

The Soldier looks back down at Walker. He tentatively brushes the young man’s arm where the skin feels frozen then boiling as the incomplete serum runs in his bloodstream. The Soldier traces a vein all the way into the young man’s palm where he almost threads their fingers together. He turns his own palm up and stares down into the silver metal.

The Winter Soldier looms over Walker, who’s prone on his back in grass and gravel. He smells wreckage and oil and smoke in the air. His pistol is aimed perfectly between Walker’s eyes and he knows he’s ready to pull the trigger when Walker looks up at him and asks breathlessly, "Buc—"

The Winter Soldier jumps and sucks in a harsh breath.

Anson backs away from the railing. He reaches for an alarm on the wall when the Winter Soldier looks up then shoots him in the back. As the body tumbles backwards over the railing, the Winter Soldier is left to wonder what he is without a handler. But then Anson hits the floor, and the Soldier breathes out—seems he’s still here with or without one.

He shoulders the gun and begins to undo the restraints on Walker’s wrists and ankles. Walker whimpers.

The Winter Soldier pauses; he doesn’t know what to do. He should probably say something, but speaking is uncomfortable. And it’s unlikely Walker can hear him. And yet, “You’re okay,” he says, voice neutral. He drags him off the table into his arms. “It’s over.”

Walker’s eyes flicker open for a moment. The Soldier tenses, expecting fear from the blond, but Walker simply relaxes in his hold and falls back unconscious.

The storm in his chest turns painful as he carefully stalks out of the bunker. Hydra agents certainly heard the gunshots and will be coming to investigate.

Memories flash in his mind. Of a pickup, of motels, dinners, candy wrappers. He doesn’t necessarily want to see them; they seem unnecessary, and their edges are sharp and painful to recall, but they’re there without his consent.

All he needs is to know Walker is his.

But why did he let this happen if the person in his arms is so precious? Is he really so broken he obeyed a handler at Walker’s expense? Maybe he can blame it on the same person who ran away from Hydra in the first place… Maybe he doesn’t deserve Walker…

But he doesn’t want to give him up. This other version of him must’ve given Walker up. The version of him from these memories that so easily gave in to a handler. Jealously ignites in his chest. It clouds logic until there’s nothing but possession left over. The Soldier has never had anything before, and now that he does he won’t let go.

Footsteps ahead.

His survival instincts curse him for drifting as he ducks back around a corner. He listens, stretching his hearing away from Walker’s thin breathing and flickering heartbeat to the boots moving into the bunker. Not Hydra’s usual marching style. Then who?

They’re slowing down as the white beams of flashlights pass over the concrete floors.

“We know you’re here.” A voice says, calm but bureaucratic. “We’re not with Hydra, and we’re not here to hurt you. We just want to talk.”

The Winter Soldier wields his weapon in one hand and counts the seconds between the advancing footsteps. His throat tightens around words. Stay back. Leave. It shouldn’t be this hard. There’s no muzzle. He has a voice, but—someone steps too close. Muscles trigger. The Soldier drops John and leans around the corner and fires.

Bullets bounce off a round shield that comes up inhumanely fast.

“Bucky!” Someone shouts.

His eyes dart to Walker instinctively, but he’s still unconscious and slumped on his side.

These people don’t retreat. So he doesn’t stop shooting. Simple.

A gas canister arches and pings at his feet. He reaches out, crushes it until it’s spewing thick gas. Before he can throw it back, a sharp ring pierces his ears and seizes his body. He can’t move, can’t release the canister. He can only fall to his knees and let the heavy chemicals fill his lungs and blur his vision.

His muscles scream. Warnings fire off into a void. He falls to his stomach. Through the cloud, a shape approaches. The Soldier’s fingers twitch as if they have a trigger to pull.

He doesn’t know his own name, but he sees this face, and a fog lifts. “Steve?” The name slurs out of his lips on its own. Hearing it, feeling it resonate in his chest, relaxes him until he accepts this last moment of consciousness in peace.

Too bright. He jolts upright on the springy cot. Immediate pain splits his skull. He curls forward and presses his palms into his temple until the heat subsides enough for him to open his eyes.

He breathes. Sees he’s wearing gray sweatpants. A white T-shirt. No shoes. The cot beneath him is fine, standard. The room he’s in is one step away from padded with nothing he could easily use as a weapon, though they didn’t take his left arm, so they’re either dumb or overly trusting.

Who is they?

He remembers a face. Blue eyes. Blond hair. Was he carrying them?

He jumps to his feet. The cold rushes up his heels from the pristine floor. Where is he?

Voices talk outside. Then the door begins to unlock, and he hears the heavy technology keeping it firmly in place. Maybe these people aren’t naive but simply prepared. Is he outmatched?

He tenses and backs towards a wall to protect himself—but then Steve Rogers enters, and what can he do but freeze. Steve cuts through the fog and doubt. Solid. Honest. Looking at him like he’s finally found something.

“Buck,” he breathes out.

Right. That’s his name. Bucky Barnes. His head throbs, but it’s manageable.

Bucky swallows. “I’m not imagining this, am I?” It’s not really a joke, but he pretends it’s one to not seem so insane; he chuckles and smirks as if charm still comes naturally.

“No. I’m here.” Steve takes a gentle step forward, testing the space. However, the second Bucky drops his guard a fraction, Steve traps him into a deep hug. Bucky tenses at first before giving in. His mind doesn’t quiet with a million memories from contradicting lives.

Eventually Steve pulls back just enough to look him in the eyes. “How, Buck?”

God, he looks perfect. Carved with purpose if Bucky didn’t know any better.

“What happened to you?” Steve asks.

“It’s a long story.” Bucky hopes to drop the subject for the rest of time and preserve what little respect he still has from his friend.

Steve frowns. “Some of the people might here will need a little more than that, but… God, I can’t believe this.” He smiles and finally gives his friend more space.

Bucky doesn’t fully relax. He can’t stop himself from going back to checking the door, the corners—the small camera blinking at him. He flinches. Something’s missing. He knows it is, but he can tell he’s stuck in this in between. It happened like this after the train derailed on his last mission. Why did it happen? And why does it feel like there should be something in his arms?

“Where am I?” Bucky asks.

Steve sits down on the cot, and Bucky can’t help but see the act as an attempt to deescalate, and it makes him hesitant to follow. Steve looks at him and says, “This facility belongs to SHIELD. They’re—“

“I know SHIELD.” Bucky frowns.

Steve doesn’t sound surprised. “How?”

Because we’re enemies… Were enemies. It forces him to wonder how much SHIELD knows. How much Steve knows. And yet Bucky doubts he would be allowed here, that Steve would be talking to him, if they knew everything.

“Buck, I know you said it was a long story, but I think you should start.”

Bucky’s left hand slowly clenches. He stares at the camera for a moment. Memories of diners and motels and motorcycles—something golden is with him, should be with him. “Was there someone with me? I feel like I was with someone…”

Steve hesitates. He glances at the door and someone else’s voice comes over an intercom:

“We can show him. If it helps.”

Standing, Steve motions for Bucky to follow. A new agent greets them when the door opens. This man is shorter but calm in a way that suggests he could give more answers than one could think of questions.

“This is Agent Phil Coulson.” Steve says. “He’s one of the good ones.”

“Sergeant James Barnes, it’s an honor to meet you.” Coulson shakes his hand. “I’m sorry the circumstances are what they are.”

Bucky lets this happen.

“Please follow me. And I apologize for any wandering eyes, you’ve been somewhat of a myth these last few weeks.”

Bucky and Steve fall into step behind him. Bucky feels the cleanliness of the floor through his bare feet. The halls are windowless like Hydra’s bunkers, but it’s brighter. They pass some glass-walled conference rooms where agents work and huddle around screens. Some spot him and stare, others make the walls opaque to hide their work, their suspicious glares being the last thing he sees.

“What did you mean when you said a myth?” Bucky asks. He feels needles across his back as they go deeper into this place, but Steve remains beside him and is the only reason he doesn’t acting out.

The three enter an elevator.

Coulson says, “Our analysts were alerted by the derailment in Georgia by tracking some groups of concern on US soil. From there, they found your face moving through the South. It caused some internal debates whether you were you or a look-alike. Take a guess where Steve fell.”

So they at least know more than they’re letting on. Bucky glances at Steve and finds the blond smiling. “You really never doubted it?” he asks quietly.

“I know you, Buck.”

Do you? Bucky has to look away, as if Steve might see all of his sins through his eyes.

The elevator lets them out into a parking garage structure.

“I can find you some shoes if—“ Coulson begins.

“I’m fine.” Bucky snaps without meaning, tired of being led around. Stressed with all this guessing. “What are we doing down here?” He doesn’t miss the quiet look Coulson sends Steve before leading them some aisles inside.

Coulson leads and gestures to a pickup truck with a tarp draped over something large in the back. “We tracked your vehicles to an impound lot in Alabama.”

Bucky approaches it slowly. He remembers it. Long hours on the road. Meals had inside. There should be a wrapper—he opens the passenger door and sees the wad of paper and plastic on the floor. And that’s his bike in the bed. So why doesn’t this feel right?

He can feel Steve and Coulson’s eyes on his back.

“Bucky,” Steve starts carefully. “Maybe we can talk about what happened?”

Bucky ignores him. His brow furrows as he reaches for something that had fallen on the floor in the back; fingers curl around the soft fuzz of a small wolf stuffed animal.

He squeezes the animal in his hand and nearly cries—how could he forget him? How dare he forget him. Shame fills Bucky as John’s face crystallizes. Pain bleeds through the memories as they return, as if they never left.

“Where is he?” he asks, voice low.

“Do you remember now?” Coulson asks.

“Enough with the mind games! Where is he?”

“Who is he to you, Buck?” Steve asks.

Bucky looks between them. “Where’s Walker?” No, that’s not right. “Where the hell is John!” Neither answer fast enough. Bucky throws the wolf back into the truck, slams the door, then storms around to the driver’s side to look for the keys.

“Bucky, wait.” Steve follows.

Bucky tears apart the front seat looking for them. “I trust you, Steve. I don’t trust them. I need to see John.”

“They wanted to see how much you would remember on your own.” Steve explains.

Bucky spins around. “So you know everything!”

“No.” Steve’s shoulders drop. “I know what they’ve told me, but I want you to tell me the truth.”

Bucky shakes his head and moves to climb inside the truck when Steve slams the door closed. Bucky pivots back to him and can’t stop the sudden thought: I can beat him. He flinches at himself. “Steve, what do you want me to tell you? We haven’t seen each other in decades, and right now I have someone who needs me.”

Coulson interjects calmly, “John Walker is across the compound receiving medical attention and much needed observation.”

Bucky stares.

“We need to see how effective Hydra’s Winter Soldier program is.” Coulson adds.

Bucky almost laughs. “The Winter Soldier program?” He looks between them and finds Steve turned away with his hands on his hips—seems this conversation isn’t going how he wanted either.

“We know.” Coulson says. “And I hope you take note of how much trust we’re putting in you right now.”

“Coulson,” Steve frowns.

“You were a true hero. And we believe Hydra controlled you, but, until we understand the mechanisms of that control, your contact with the outside world will be limited.”

Bucky shifts. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying John Walker is a minor reported missing from Georgia who was just recovered from a Hydra facility, not to mention he has an undeniable degree of super soldier serum in his veins. We can’t let you see him regardless of how much time you’ve spent together.”

Bucky’s mouth dries. “I need to know he’s okay.” He looks to Steve, practically pleading. “You don’t have the right to—“

Coulson says, “It’s our duty to notify his parents. You are neither a family member nor a guardian.”

Not a guardian? Bucky would have Coulson thrown against the wall if not for Steve stepping in his way.

“Buck, please, just talk to us.”

“I’m sorry if this feels harsh.” Coulson says with some sincere empathy. “But we have to do what is best. If you cooperate, maybe we can work something out for you to see him.”

Bucky’s head is a storm he can’t begin to quiet. “I’m not a danger to him! They were going to kill him, that’s why we left Georgia!” To Steve, “You think I kidnapped him?”

“No, Buck, but—“

Coulson interjects, “But how did he end up at the Hydra compound?”

“We…” Bucky can’t breathe. “We’d been running from Hydra…”

“We know.” Coulson doesn’t blink. It may even pain him to say these things, but that doesn’t stop him. “We also know John was with a known Hydra associate. Who may or may not have gone rogue. Either way, his life is forever changed because of you, and we need to understand that so we can protect him and protect people from.”

Bucky is shaking. He remembers everything. Remembers the kiss. Remembers John looking up at him, crying, trying to be brave, while Bucky—the Soldier—knocks him unconscious and drags him away.

Bucky falls backwards into the side of truck and slides to the ground. His arms come up around his head, knees to his chest. What is he to do if he can’t protect John? He couldn’t from Hydra. From SHIELD. Himself.

The Winter Soldier hates him for letting this happen. And he hates himself, but can he claim anything different from Coulson’s story? Would lying do any service to John or just to himself?

“We’ll give you a moment.” Coulson says to Steve as he turns to leave; five hidden agents with guns do the same, abandoning their covert posts to give them privacy.

Steve joins him on the ground. “This isn’t how I wanted it to go.”

Bucky tries to take a steadying breath. “No. I can’t imagine it is.”

“Buck, I need you to know I’m not here as SHIELD. I’m here as your friend.”

“How long have you know about me?” He stares straight ahead, Hydra’s chrome arm in his peripheral.

“Almost three weeks. Coulson didn’t want to bring me in until he was more certain it was you. They think maybe the serum helped your aging but—“

He looks at Steve. “Hydra would put me under. Freeze me when I wasn’t needed…”

“What did you do for them?”

Bucky scoffs at the pitiful naivety. “You know.”

“They made you do those things. It wasn’t your choice.”

Bucky sighs, that’s not a road he wants to go down, so he deflects. “I know you had your own ice problems.”

Steve smiles. “When did you hear that?”

“John told me about you, the Avengers. He’ll probably freak out when he meets you.” Thinking about the lazy days where John would ramble about superheros, about the comics his older brother Mike would buy him, the memories makes Bucky feel sick now. He’s not one of them, is he? Not a hero, certainly not to John. “Just tell me he’s okay, Steve.” Bucky’s voice breaks.

“I went to see him. He hadn’t woken up yet, but his vitals were leveling out. The rest of it really went over my head… They were trying to get a handle on what Hydra gave him.”

“…like me?” Bucky remembers saying as the Soldier in the bunker.

“Yes.” Anson had said. “Just like you.”

Bucky nods along to Steve and tries not to cry. He tries to not let this fear take root that he’ll never see John again. “Steve, I—“

“I don’t care about any of this, about Hydra or what they made you do. You’re still the same to me.”

Bucky laughs and wipes at his eyes, not because he agrees, but because he’s not surprised by Steve’s nobility. In fact, he’s a little disappointed in it. He doesn’t want to receive grace or forgiveness right now. Bucky says, “John snapped me out of their control. He recognized me somehow right before I almost killed him.” The bluntness helps. It hurts, so it helps. “He got wrapped up in the mission, and I took him out of town so his family didn’t get hurt. Hydra came after us soon after so we just kept running… He’s a good kid, Steve. You have to tell SHIELD that. He wouldn’t hurt someone.”

“I trust you, Buck. And it sounds like John trusted you too.”

Bucky shakes his head; Steve needs to save them all time and give up on him already. “I’ve done enough shit I’m lucky guys like you two will even look at me.”

“…I saw pictures he took of you. You seemed happy. Different, sort of, but happy.”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s voice goes thin. “I shouldn’t have been, but I liked what we had.”

“What was it?”

“Huh?”

“Between you guys.” Steve doesn’t blink. “What is he to you, Buck?”

Bucky stares at his friend and doubts he can find the words. The ghost of a kiss on his lips, “John—“

Alarms flash in the garage. Bucky scrambles to his feet with Steve as Coulson returns with his other agents, no effort put into subtly.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks.

Coulson looks at him then lands his gaze on Bucky. “John woke up. He broke two doctor’s arms and another is unconscious and possibly critical.”

Bucky snaps, “I told you I need to see him!”

“We’re working on getting him—“

Bucky doesn’t hear the rest, he’s turning back to the truck, to his bike.

“Sergeant Barnes,” Coulson raises his voice. His agents aim their guns.

Steve steps between his friend and the raised weapons. “Stand down!”

Coulson gestures for the other agents to relax but not back down. “We can’t let the Winter Soldier walk out of here.”

“Phil.” Steve warns.

Coulson doesn’t recoil. “Like I said, we need cooperation from you if we’re going to work together.”

“John didn’t mean to hurt those people.” Bucky leers. “He was probably scared and confused.”

“And I want to believe that, but we both know the control Hydra is capable of.”

Steve speaks up, “How about we focus on finding John?”

“We are.” Coulson gestures to Bucky. “I’m here to make sure he doesn’t do anything to jeopardize his case for amnesty.”

Bucky squares off against him, but Steve remains in between.

“Bucky,” Steve puts a palm against Bucky’s chest. “Calm down. SHIELD isn’t Hydra.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Yours, Buck, but I need you level headed.”

Coulson puts his finger to an ear-piece and steps away, but distance does nothing to keep the truth from two super soldiers—John escaped the SHIELD compound, and they’ve lost him.

Chapter Text

The lights blind when he wakes. All he sees are the silhouettes of people leaning over him.

Here smells different. Cleaner. Warmer.

All he feels are restraints.

Someone says his name, but Hydra said his name too; he screamed at them, and they didn't care.

His heart races. A machine nearby wails with it.

John starts crying and thrashing. People put gloved hands on his shoulders to keep him still.

They're not listening to him! Why are they doing this?

The cuff on his right wrist gives. John rips his hand free and grabs one of the gloves on him. He rolls and twists, doesn't stop when he hears the sharp snap of bone. Adrenaline surges. He frees his other hand, then breaks the restraints off his ankles.

There are more people around him. Now ones with blunt weapons. Some with syringes. John kicks one into a wall and falls off the table. He scrambles on the floor. Someone in heavy gear pins him face down while a needle stabs his neck and flushes ice into his veins.

"Stay down." The man orders.

John will not. He feels the effects of the sedative for a moment before his body simply refuses, burning hotter to burn it off. Smashing his elbow back into this man's skull, he crawls free, immediately pushes himself up, and runs. Most of the people in this room smartly dive out of the way as he shoulders through the door.

His bare feet slap the floor as he stumbles to a stop. The hall goes to either side. Not concrete but not a hospital. Where is he? Where should he go?

Where's Bucky?

John wants to lie on the ground. Everything hurts. Everything's loud inside and out. He almost curls forward, hands over his ears, when a security guard comes around the corner. Taser drawn and aimed.

Instincts and reflexes act before thought. He grabs this man's wrist, surprising him with the strength and force with which John yanks him forward. Like Bucky taught him, John uses his shoulder as a fulcrum and snaps the elbow before flipping the guard onto the ground.

Sirens scream all around him. He runs.

This isn't Hydra. Or maybe Hydra moved him. Or maybe Hydra ruined his mind, and he can't trust anything he's seeing—they managed to control Bucky, what if this is what they want?

If Bucky were here, he’d say to keep running.

John breaks into the outdoors. Alarms fill the air. Vehicle engines rumble out of sight around the compound like a waiting army.

John sprints for the trees. A black SUV pulls into his path, but John doesn't falter. He leaps onto the hood, then the roof, and then uses it to clear the electrified fence. Rolling on the other side, he stumbles once then finds his gait before disappearing into the woods.

The alarms and voices fade, but he doesn't stop. Bare feet push off of tree roots and dead pine needles. Branches scratch into his arms and chest, nothing that won't heal in a day. But what about Bucky?

Run. The only thing his mind can give.

How long has he been running? All he knows is his legs should hurt by now but don't. His heart hammers steadily in his chest as he leans against a large tree at the edge of the woods. John tries to process. But he can’t think through the wailing sounds of birds and wind and distant car horns honking. He can’t think through the heavy smell of loamy earth and a dead animal. Closing his eyes only makes this onslaught on his senses worse.

What the fuck did they do to me!

Tape from a sensor sticks to his side. He rips it away like it burned him.

His body feels…off. His ankles springy and back strong. Muscles light yet reactive. As John looks down the hill from the trees to the speck of a building, his focus is instant: counting people, doors and windows around the single gas station along the highway. He can almost hear the conversation of the employee smoking and chatting on his cell, and something else in his bloodstream tells him he could sprint and take that man down in mere seconds.

John swallows through the blinding adrenaline and forces himself to stop and think. When the employee goes inside, he quietly hurries down the hill.

He sits against the dumpster in the back of the station and curls up into it as if it could be his shield for a moment. John stares at his inner arms where fractured memories tell of needles stabbing his skin. Of injections and blood draws until his whole arms went numb. But now those wounds are healing, and soon the only proof of Hydra will be inside of him.

He doesn't remember everything. Before Hydra it's clear. Too clear. The waterfall. Swimming. The kiss—Bucky turning on him.

No. That wasn't his choice. There's truly nothing in the world that could convince John that Bucky acted willingly, but still the image of him standing over John and mercilessly striking him unconscious stirs up fear, and then guilt for ever being afraid.

Memories from within the Hydra base are far away. Only impressions remain. John's throat still hurts from screaming. His limbs are sore from the restraints. This new pressure exists in him that he can't place and can't control. All of it worsened by Bucky's absence.

Maybe he can retrace his steps to that compound to look for him. Maybe he can… Judging from the equipment and personnel, he’ll just be captured again or worse.
God, he needs to stop thinking about Bucky. Because when he thinks about him he starts to wonder where he is, why he left him—no, Bucky wouldn't leave him—so maybe he's still under Hydra's control—but John swears Bucky saved him and held him in his arms—maybe he's dead?

"Dammit!" John punches the dumpster; knuckles indent deeply into the metal. The pain is brief and hot before the serum within him starts to repair bruised bone.

He feels the unbearable urge to cry welling up when the employee comes outside to investigate the noise. John scurries out of sight and uses this moment to slip inside the store and steal a zip-up hoodie and tee, a pack of trail mix, and the tip jar full of coins and some singles before running out the front, head down against the security cameras.

John moves as fast as he can along the highway while eating and keeping aware of his surroundings, leaving no room for stray thoughts of anything or anyone.

John is hungry. He's tired. And he slips onto the bus before the man in the station wises up about his missing ticket. Pulling his dirty hood tighter against any stares from the other passengers, he finds a lonely seat in the very back. His bare feet ache, cut open and healed and cut open again. Hunger twists his stomach, and he wishes he managed to swipe something else to eat. The serum burns through every calorie, only to demand more.

He leans into the window and presses his sweaty forehead into the cold glass. A shiver goes down his spine. John huddles and holds himself, controls his breathing. He wishes his temperature would settle, this hot and cold fluctuation is miserable. Clenching his jaw to keep from chattering, he waits until he's certain no one is sitting nearby before he allows himself to close his eyes. Just for a minute…

In his dreams, someone runs their fingers through his hair, and his head rests in their lap.

When he wakes up against the hard edge of the bus seat, he warily runs his fingers through his hair and feels the thick dirt and grime stuck in it; a phantom remains. John finds a bathroom at the next rest stop and stares at himself in the mirror for five minutes. His bangs and hair are long, near his eyes and ears. He tries to wash it in the sink using the lousy, water-thin soap from the dispenser. He scratches and twists his head under the faucet. Then runs back to his bus without time to grab paper towels.

Bucky’s swimming in the creek. Hair dark beautifully frames his face. He must know what he’s doing when he stands and runs his fingers back through it; John’s not exactly subtle as he watches water droplets run down around his nipples. And yet John remains seated on the grassy bank.

“Scared?” Bucky grins.

“Not of swimming,” John says, squeezing his fingers and emotions into the soft dirt.

“You’re telling me John Walker is scared of something else.” He teases, walking forward, strong thighs pushing through the water.

“Not what I said.”

“Then come in here and prove it.”

John’s forehead rests against the bus window. His eyes follow rain drops streaking across the glass. If you were here, maybe I would.

Despite his mental well-being screaming for a break, John thinks of Bucky enough that he becomes numb to the baseless guilt and self-hatred that once surrounded these thoughts of other men. He doesn’t care anymore. What more could anyone do to him that would be worse? And he can’t survive the darkest thought that Bucky is dead because of him anyway, so he chooses to keep Bucky alive in these daydreams.

He tells himself they’re harmless.

Bucky won’t stop holding him close. Brushing his hair with his metal fingers like a comb. He won’t stop promising everything will be okay.

The next time John’s in a bathroom, he has old scissors in his hand. His hair feels too heavy. Staring at its length, he can almost trick himself into seeing Bucky staring back, and he can’t breathe right. He’d never been allowed to keep his hair long before; his father saw to that. It only makes sense he gives up and goes back to how it should be.

It’s rough. The dull scissors crunch more than they shear, but John fills the sink with dirty blond hair. None of it looks good. He looks more ragged and unhinged than he did before, but, in a way, that feels more truthful.

He steals shoes. Beaks open the coin collector in an old phone booth with his bare hands. He washes up in moldy bathrooms and only eats what could be found on the shelves in gas stations. Maybe six days have passed like this. If that’s true, then it’s the seventh day he stops and doesn’t board the next bus.

He walks. Through the night and the following day because, even when he’s tired, he keeps going. He doesn’t know how much of it is numbness or serum or both. The soles of the shoes he stole don’t hold up well. He’s tired but isn’t. Hungry but able to push through.

The time of fast food and diners, late night meals in a truck while arguing over what counts as ‘good music’ is gone. John still thinks of Bucky. That never changes. But, now that John is back in familiar land, he can’t help but file that time away as nothing more than a break from his real life.

A break that broke him, sure. But what can he do? He ran away. From home. From Bucky. He couldn’t backtrack to that compound if he tried.

It doesn’t matter if Bucky is alive or dead, free or controlled, John’s not seeing him again, is he? He abandoned him. 

And now John pays the price, because there's nothing like learning how much a single person fills the world until they're gone and all you're left with is an echo.

His breath fogs in the cold, night air. Shivering in the November rain, John stares at the glow of the Hoskins' home from the woods of their backyard. He sniffles and wipes his eyes pointlessly. If only he could breathe, then maybe he could talk some sense into himself and turn around, go anywhere but here. Haven't you hurt them enough already?

He can see Lemar and Glory arguing in the kitchen. Momma shoos them out. Bert is probably in the attic looking for Christmas lights even though they still have to get through Thanksgiving.

John takes a step and has to stop himself. His breath catches on a sob. Fingers run up into the mess of short hair. What else does he have? Guilt nearly splits his chest in two. He smells dinner and the promise of dessert. Hears their voices—they sound fine, happy—right?

He shouldn't be walking across the muddy yard. Climbing the stairs and avoiding the one that creaks. John's shoulders heave desperately. His head is closer to the top beam of the doorway than usual; the serum, or has it just been this long since he's been home?

Momma walks into the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she shouts, "Glory, you may be away from school, but you are not on vacation in my home." She mutters, "I swear—" The dish in her hand shatters on the linoleum. She falls into the fridge clutching her chest when she sees him.

John stands there soaked through. Dirty. Tired. Crying. "I'm sorry, Momma." He says quietly, scared to take up too much space, "I didn't know where else to go."
Momma wails and runs forward, clawing him down into a hug, one John collapses into, sobbing into her shoulder. She rocks him back and forth, crying herself.
The others run into the kitchen having heard Momma scream.

"Oh shit." Glory blinks.

Lemar loses all the air in his lungs. "John?" He rushes forward and practically yanks him out of his mother's arm to hug his best friend; Momma doesn't fully let go, still petting and kissing John's head. Lemar digs his fingers into John's back. "Jesus man, you can't…" Now he's crying. Lemar wants to punch him, would punch him if it didn't mean letting him go. "I hate you so much," Lemar says through hitched breaths.

"I'm sorry." John shakes.

Momma finally gets him back and holds his face between her warm hands like she's done so many times before. Her thumb brushes tears and dirt off his cheek. The strain in her neck says John has gotten taller, but all her eyes see are faint silver scars on his skin, and the same beautiful blue eyes of the second son she never thought she needed until God sent him to her back porch.

She and Lemar guide John into a chair. Momma shouts for Glory to get a towel, but her daughter is already putting one of their best into John's lap.

Then Glory runs her styled nails through John's ragged hair cut. "What the hell, John?"

"Are you injured?" Bert's voice breaks through.

John stares at the man standing at the threshold. He tries not to think too much about the question. "No, sir."

Lemar sits beside him, knees touching under the table. A million questions on his tongue, but he knows better, so he simply reaches out and puts a firm hand on John's arm. John looks at him as if he's a ghost, or worse, something that might hurt him.

After the towel has sat in John's lap too long, Momma huffs and steals it to begin drying him off herself.

"I'm fine, Momma." John mumbles.

"Shut it." She snaps. Her voice wavers. "Any son that leaves me for eight weeks is not fine." She is not gentle. "How dare you call me and apologize…" She presses her face into the towel to staunch her tears. Glory helps hold her steady. "We looked for you."

"Momma,"

"Where were you!" She yells at the top of her lungs. Everyone flinches. "You think one of my babies leaves me and I'm okay?"

John's hands tremble in his lap. All he can do is look at the floor and listen to this pain. He was right, he shouldn't have come here. But then Lemar squeezes his arm and pulls his attention.

"Hey," he says softly. "You came back."

"Yeah." John swallows. Did he come back? Or did he just have nowhere to go?

Momma makes him a plate of food, but the others don't eat yet despite the time. They'd rather watch to make sure this isn't some dream. John tries not to be ravenous. More importantly, he tries not to cry. But the food is warm and lovely; it reminds him of every good thing from his life he left behind. It hurts.

Bucky would love this. The fork falls from his hand into the plate. "Sorry." John's eyes dart. He notices Lemar's gaze trying to interrogate the scars on his wrists from the restraints, the deepest wounds sticking around. John tugs his sleeves higher. When he's done, Momma tries to get him seconds but somehow he convinces her not to even though he could eat three more helpings.

She explains they never touched his bed upstairs, and soon he's following Lemar up the stairs to shower and sleep. The water coming out of the shower head is perfectly lukewarm and mediocre pressure—maybe that's why he was never bothered by the motels.

A week of bus travel and highway walks swirl into the drain. He steps out smelling like lavender and feels lighter, but then he sees himself in the mirror, counts the old scars and the new ones. He runs his fingers around his wrists and remembers the pressure of the straps, the steel table underneath him.

John takes a long breath in to push out those memories. He continues to ignore the new definition in his muscles as he changes. He's still thin. Not like Bucky… John's throat burns with the threat of tears. Fuck. He starts shaking at the door.

"John?" Lemar knocks.

John yanks the door open.

Lemar jumps. "Shit—you good? You were taking a while."

"Yeah." John wants to push through him to the bedroom, but he's honestly afraid to touch Lemar right now; the itching adrenaline from the serum acts up and burns under his skin—he can't trust himself.

Lemar eventually steps back, and the two walk to their room in silence. It's only when the door closes that Lemar speaks again. "My parents are going to be up all night, just so you know."

John doesn't want to hear that.

"Just in case you decide to sneak out again." Lemar finishes with zero humor.
John looks up.

"What?" Lemar huffs, sitting across from him. "You're the one who left. I get to make at least one joke a day."

"Yeah." John stares at the floor. He squeezes his knee to keep it from bouncing.

The subsequent silence is suffocating.

"Look, Lemar—"

"We're not doing this now." He rubs his face, nearly laughing. Eyes rimmed red. "I don't hear from you for two months… I love you man, but I can't do this right now." Lemar stares at John who can't find the courage to speak. "There's a lot I want to say to you, but I'm tired, and you look like you haven't slept in days."

"No. Yeah. I get it." John closes his eyes.

“Just look me in the eyes and tell me I’m not going to wake up to another bullshit note.”

“You’re not.”

“Good.” Lemar shuts off the lights and climbs under his sheets.

John turns to face the wall. Sore exhaustion sinks him into the mattress, and yet he can't sleep. In the quiet, his hearing amplifies until he can pick up on Leena and Bert's whispers on the first floor; they're talking about the police, about their duty to notify John's parents, about school and therapy. John tries to cover his ears with the pillow.

He curls up and breathes perfectly even breaths. Why can't I sleep? He's eaten. Clean. Safe. What's wrong with him?

John walks down a gravel road until he sees Bucky on his motorcycle. Bucky is relaxed and looking forward, taking in the sight of a lonely beach. John's heart flutters as he gets closer, doesn’t matter how many times he sees him like this.

"Hey, there you are." Bucky looks back with the best smile.

Bucky opens his arms slightly, and John seems to know what he wants; he gently climbs into his lap until he's facing him and straddling Bucky's waist. Bucky's hands slowly rub up his back, melting away John's worry and pain.

John sighs and buries his face into Buck's shoulder, takes in his warmth and scent.

"Where have you been?" Bucky hums.

John whines, "Why'd you leave me?"

Bucky's fingers play with the blond hair on John's neck. "You think I left?"

"No…but…" John pulls back to look into his eyes. "…did I leave you behind?" He panics. "If they had you, and I—"

Bucky kisses him quiet. John feels metal fingers along his scalp while a firm hand presses him closer into Bucky's broad chest. He tries to breathe, but Bucky doesn't let him.

Just when John thinks he might suffocate, Bucky whispers against his lips "Either you left me or I didn't care enough to follow." The metal hand cradles his jaw and strokes his cheek.

"Bucky, I couldn't stop running."

The metal hand moves to his throat. "Ran all the way to Georgia," it squeezes.

And John jolts awake to soft daylight coming through the curtains. He smells pancakes cooking. When he rolls over, he sees Lemar's bed empty and well-made.

Something heavy sits on his chest and stirs in his boxers. He palms his erection before stopping himself. John groans then curses himself and sits up in spite of the discomfort.

That's right. He's home. And has no idea what happened to Bucky. It's enough to make him cry. Instead he changes into clothes from his section of the dresser which Lemar seems to have left untouched.

He doesn’t want to upset Momma by being late, so he pushes himself to head downstairs—even though each step feels like he’s cementing himself into a lie. I’m okay. I can do this. I can be normal.

He enters the kitchen in sweats and a loose tee. It all feels too clean and too wrong.

“Morning, John.” Glory says from the table with coffee.

John glances and sees it’s near 9 AM. Glory’s been at college. He hasn’t seen her in months. Bert’s stress-working on the old car by the sound of his air compressor filling in the detached garage. Lemar is bringing the garbage cans back from the street—John tries not to gag from the overwhelming mess of sensory hitting him. He looks at Momma at the stove and simply focuses on that, on feeling safe. Loved.

“Morning.” He clears his throat and finds himself a seat.

Glory stares at him in her usual omnipotent way. He averts his gaze from her.

She says, “Are you going to talk about it?”

“Glory,” Momma warns while flipping a flapjack.

“What?” She shakes her head. “Sometimes direct is better.” She turns back to John and asks, “was it because of your dad?”

“No.” John answers too quickly. “He didn’t do anything.”

“Did you leave the state?”

“Glory Rose.” Momma glares at her.

Glory raises her hands in a ceasefire. She leaves the room, but John knows she isn’t one to ever fully surrender. Once she hid Lemar’s favorite baseball card for seven months because he refused to admit he stole a piece of her birthday cake, which he did when he was eleven; John was there on look-out.

Momma gives John fresh iced tea while the pancakes cook. She kisses his forehead and asks, “Are you hurt, Peaches?”

“No, Momma.” He’s not about to explain how his body knits itself together. Really makes him wonder what’s the point of feeling the pain if it’s going to vanish in a day?

She sits across from him. The kitchen isn’t big. And the table is a round thing pressed against the wall, so it only serves three seats comfortably. The Hoskins are a four person household. And then there’s John complicating what’s already complicated. He hates feeling like he’s taken the seat of someone more deserving.

“I’m not sorry I left.” He says bluntly, unable to look her in the eyes.

“Whatever happened, whatever you think you did…” Her hand holds his on the table.

John flinches and tries to keep in tears.

Momma says, “John, I love you. And that’s the simplest thing in the whole world.”

“Momma, don’t—“

“That means I’m here for you. That I’ll help you. Support you. Forgive you.”

“But it’s not simple.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” She smiles.

John squeezes her hand and hopes he’s not hurting her; he can’t tell anymore. “What if I don’t want to tell you?”

“Then I’ll still love you.”

“Why?”

At that, Momma holds his face in her hands. He still tries to look away when she speaks. “Johnathon Fitzgerald Walker, you are a courageous and honest boy. I don’t care what this rotten town or what your brain says.”

John wants to hug her. “I think I hurt people.” He hears the bones breaking of those people surrounding him when he woke up—and the more he remembers the more he tells himself they weren’t Hydra. “And there’s someone… I don’t know if he’s okay, but…” If he says anymore he might throw up.

“We spoke with the police last night. They’re going to want to speak with you.”

John takes a shaky breath. Odds are any cop in town is willing to dismiss this as just another breakdown over Mikey.

The room is suddenly too small. “I’m going to step outside.”

“I’ll have breakfast for you soon.” She says quickly, as if the promise can keep him here with her forever.

“I’m not going anywhere,” John adds when he sees the fear in her eyes. “I just…need some fresh air.”

Momma nods and reluctantly lets him go.

Outside, John goes to sit on a bench swing under a tree. He stares at the old tree house Lemar and he haven’t climbed inside since they were thirteen. A second weight joins him on the bench.

“You went with Bucky Barnes, right?”

“Yeah.” John doesn’t look at Lemar. “Those people were following us. Would’ve hurt you guys.”

“So you hurt us instead.” He side-eyes John.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Not leave me alone. Not call our mother with some cryptic goodbye like…” Lemar shakes his head. “It’s been hell here, John.”

“Not exactly fun for me either.” John huffs.

They swing in silence for a minute.

“So…” Lemar tries to ignore his mother watching them subtly through the kitchen window.

“Hydra chased us. Nonstop. But we got pretty good at running.” John explains.

“Hydra.” Lemar stares, waiting for a punchline. When none comes he softens his voice. “Why’d you stop?”

“What?”

“Why’d you come back?”

John furrows his brow. He holds the faint scarring on his wrist. No one followed him. He thought no one followed him. What if they can track him?

“John,” Lemar looks scared. “Relax, man.”

John realizes he’s holding his breath. “They…”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” John swallows. “Nothing. Just, Bucky and I got split up. I don’t know what happened to him.”

“…did you at least miss us?”

“Jesus, Lemar.” John snaps. Eyes wet. “Of course.”

“Sorry.” Silence again. Lemar tries to smile and nudges him. “Don’t think this is it. I deserve a better explanation eventually. Momma does too.”

“I, I can’t tell her all that.”

“I know. But she needs something.” Lemar adds, “I also need to tell Olivia today. I didn’t text her yet cause I knew she’d come over the second I did. I wanted to make sure you were ready for that.”

John hums and rocks with the swing. He used to think he’d spend his life with Olivia. High school sweetheart. John would enlist, and they’d be so in love long distance meant nothing. He’d surprise her by coming home early and propose. That plan faltered the first time he tried to ask her out and she asked if he even found her attractive or just liked the idea of that life. Something simple. She clocked John long before his brain caught up.

He still loves her. Of course he does, just like he loves Lemar. But he can’t ever be with her. He used to think he could wait her out long enough to convince her he truly had no interest or desire to be with a man. Frankly, now, he doesn’t want to be with anyone. But if Bucky were here...

“Boys,” Momma calls back like she did when they were kids. “Come eat.”

Lemar walks at John’s pace, and latches the kitchen door behind them.

The cops come. Tell John he shouldn’t have done what he did because he scared his folks, and yet those folks aren’t here despite the Hoskins calling them out of obligation. John sits on the back porch and stares at his shoes as the officers take notes for two minutes before leaving and telling him to behave better.

Lemar held Olivia back from basically attacking them. John tried to explain more to the two of them after, but a few sentences in he realizes he just doesn’t care.

Thanksgiving with the Hoskins is fine. The food is good. The family is there, and everyone either feels whole now that John is back or they’re fantastic actors. He spends most of the time eating and trying not to think about someone.

The morning before he’s expected back at school, John goes to the cemetery around dawn. He sits in front of Mikey’s grave and talks for a hour, telling him everything. Every vile feeling. Every regret and hateful thought. Every detail of Bucky he's committed to memory. He tries to ask Mikey how he knew he wanted to kill himself.

School is… Lemar and Olivia act like body guards. Most of the students at least seem to have the manners to not ask John what happened, maybe they can see it in the subtle scars and the new build of his body that something happened, enough of something that they wouldn’t get an answer anyway.

For a moment in gym class, John thinks he can breathe. They’re playing basketball, and the muscle memory lets him slip back in time. The boys around him seem to as well, focusing on the game, loosening up around John when they see he can still sink make layups.

But then John is under the basket. His heart pounds in perfect rhythm like a strong hammer on an anvil. He leaps for a rebound and collides with another kid in the air. Normally they’d both bounce off one another and be done with it, but John’s force slams the junior back; the guy hits the ground and slides a few feet across the waxed floor. John lands with the ball and stares. The game pauses, people help him up. No one thinks much of it other than bad luck. But now John can’t stop thinking about it.

Like a self-fulling prophecy, the more he tries to be aware of his newfound strength, the more it slips out. Checking someone sends them to the ground. Rough housing for the ball leaves bruises on the other players. He accidentally scores a basket from half-court with ease. John hears the others grumbling to one another during a water break. He knows they’re looking at him.

So he slips out into the locker room to change and leave. Only, Lemar notices. Of course he does. In the room, Lemar grabs John’s arm. John flinches and spins, slamming Lemar back into the lockers.

“Shit!” John releases him immediately. “Lemar, I’m sorry!”

“Jesus, man.” Lemar rolls his shoulder. “What the hell is going on with you?”

“Nothing I—this is just stupid.” He motions through the wall to the court.

“You love basketball.”

“Yeah well, when people try to kill you for two months it kind of loses its point!” He shouts.

Lemar stares. “Hey…maybe you should talk to someone.”

John huffs and turns away.

“You know I’m here for you, but I can tell you’re not telling me everything, and that’s fine, but—“

“But what? I need to go crying to someone about my shitty life?”

“But you should’ve talked to someone after Mikey.” Lemar says sternly. “So yes, after all this, I think you need to do whatever helps, even if it’s crying to someone about your shitty life.”

John laughs uneasily.

“I’m not saying it’s simple or easy, but I know you John.”

John falls back against a locker and slides to the floor to hold his hand in his hands.

“I know you can put in the work.” Lemar waits. “Can I give you a hug?”

“No.” John shakes his head quickly. “Don’t.”

“Okay, but I’m going to sit here. Nothing you can do about that.”

While waiting for Lemar after school, John goes onto the computers in the library and tries to search for any sign of Bucky. Any headlines that could be caused by Hydra or a mysterious and dangerous man in the central US. He knows the compound was in Tennessee or just on the border, so he starts there in this search.

But nothing comes up. So he clears the search history and closes his browser and stares at his unfamiliar reflection in the dull glass of the monitor.

Walking home with Lemar, John hears the grumbling engine of a motorcycle tearing through town. He can’t stop his heart from fluttering. But then three more join in and remind him of reality.

When they get home, Bert is waiting on the front porch. He looks at John and says, “Your parents called. They want to see you tonight.”

John doesn’t respond.

But Lemar snaps, “They didn’t do anything to look for him! They can’t just summon him back like—“

Bert stops his son. “That’s why I’m letting John decide.” He turns back to John. “I’ll even come with you if you like.”

It's about time; he's avoided it long enough. “No. It’s okay.” It’s always better when it’s just him, and he usually knows how to not make things worse. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turns to walk away.

“John,” Lemar goes to grab him again but thinks better of it.

John sees the flicker of hesitation and doesn’t let it show how much it stings. “Really, I’ll be okay. Thanks for telling me, Mr. Hoskins.” He can hear Lemar continuing to argue as he walks down the street. Then it’s quiet.

Taking the long way, he reaches his front door when it’s dark. The early December air is harsh. Dogs bark from the neighbors’ homes. He doesn’t know what to expect when he goes inside, and yet his body prepares—it remembers.

John opens the door. It’s darker in the entrance, lights turned off so the crappy TV screen is easier to see. No one is immediately visible. Through the pit in his throat, John closes the door and says softly, more to the walls than anyone eager to hear, “I’m home.”

Chapter Text

John doesn’t take off his shoes. Not in this house.

His father goes in and out frequently enough for yard work that he constantly tracks in mud, so his mother simply cleans the floors daily; she cleans a lot of things daily to cope. As a child, John used to put his shoes by the door because he knew it made his mother happy, but since he was thirteen he realized it’s more important he can leave at a moment's notice.

He hears his father in the back shed and his mother in the basement pantry. Somehow he doesn’t hear his little sister and flinches when he turns the corner and sees her bright blue eyes staring at him.

John flicks on a light.

Grace doesn’t flinch. She’s fifteen. Quiet, precise, she understands that she is largely protected from their father because of John; his mistakes, in their father’s eyes, overshadow anything she could possibly do.

“Where’ve you been?” Her voice is quiet but never weak.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Dad isn’t happy.”

“What else is new, Grace.”

She doesn’t move as he steps around her, but her eyes track him. “Just say you’re sorry. He’ll let it go tonight. He’s tired anyway.”

“Fine.”

“You look different.”

John turns back to her. “I’m sorry I left.”

“I said to apologize to him.”

“Yeah, but it’s not him I care about.”

Grace pauses hearing the words out loud. “I’m fine.”

John can hear their father trudging to the house from the back yard, so he takes a steadying breath.

Grace finally moves by shifting her weight. Her eyes dart to the back door as she gambles making noise when he’s so close. “Why did you leave?”

“It wasn’t safe in Custard Grove.” John watches her brain work. His sister isn’t stupid, but she never did get the grades John or Mikey achieved. Well, not even Mikey achieved John’s grades when he actually focused in school. But Grace has always been the best at surviving in this household. She once told John he should stop trying so hard, that consistent mediocrity could never be disappointing—maybe John’s the dumb one, because he could never wrap his head around that.

The back door opens. It’s not the soft sound of the Hoskin’s screen door squeaking; this one sticks and has to be shoved. Thomas Walker shoulders his way inside. He cleans his feet on the carpet of the den before noticing John.

“Well,” he huffs. “Think you can just come home whenever you please?”

“Mr. Hoskin said you wanted me here.” John keeps his breathing even and his back close to the wall.

Thomas sheds his winter coat. “I saw you this morning at the cemetery.”

“You saw me, after I’ve been gone for weeks, and you don’t say anything?” John retorts without thinking. It’s a miracle Thomas doesn’t snap.

“I was going to clean Mikey’s grave and saw you there.” He lumbers into the kitchen. A tall man, an athlete in his youth, he’s now wider around the stomach and waist, and his joints hurt and things taste bad from years of smoking, but there’s still that strength in his back, always has been. He gets himself a beer from the fridge and pops the cap off using a worn-down magnet.

“You still go there?” John asks. He can’t help but follow him into the kitchen.

“Someone has to.”

“I—“ John’s throat goes dry. He clenches his fist and takes a breath. “I’m sorry. For leaving.”

Thomas has his back to John. He chuckles. “Not going to apologize for returning?”

“You’re the one who wanted me here.” He raises his voice.

“The whole town forgot about you.” Thomas turns and sweeps his bottle across the room. “We all moved on with our lives. Everyone but them. We were fine. Until you show up alive and suddenly I start looking like the asshole because I didn’t chase you across the goddamn country.”

“I’ve apologized.”

“Good for you, apologizing for one thing in your life.” He crosses his arms and leans back against the counter. “By the way, while you were off doing god knows what, a letter came from West Point.”

“What did it say?” John inhales.

Thomas laughs at his son’s eagerness. “Think you’ll feel like a man if I say you got in?”

“Dad, I—“

“You always have to show him up. Always have to be better than him!” He suddenly shouts. “Mikey was the best thing that came from me, and you think you’re better?”

John freezes. Heat spreads across his chest.

“If you’re ever lucky enough to put your dick into that Olivia girl, you better pray you don’t get a son that comes out like you.”

John disappears up the stairs, passing Grace who listens from her safe distance. He goes into his room at the top of the stairs and closes the door, and his hand leaves the handle at an angle after anger warped the wood in contact. He takes a careful step back.

The house is quiet. Well, in a way. He can hear where is father is if he focuses, and the man is still in the kitchen, so John allows himself to believe this room is safe. He releases a big breath of air and palms at his eyes.

Bucky Barnes stares back at him.

John licks his lips and shivers, tears wetting his eyes. No one touched his room. Why would they? Maybe a cop or two came by to see if he left any clues to his whereabouts, but clearly no one looked that hard.

John stares back at the poster he made himself of a poorly enlarged, black and white textbook photo of James Buchanan Barnes and the Howling Commandos. Bucky looks so different in the photo, so happy. John tries to remember one of the photos he took of Bucky with the Polaroid, but the memory clouds, and he convinces himself any happiness he must’ve thought was there is nothing compared to this Bucky next to Steve Rogers.

He collapses onto his bed. Staring at the ceiling, his hand slides under his pillow where his fingers brush the worn edges of one of Mikey’s suicide notes. This is the one he sent to John; the other one his family never showed him. He doesn't grabs it. No point.

I’M SORRY JOHN. BE BETTER THAN ME. LOVE MIKEY

He’ll never know what his brother was thinking, what he saw or did that drove him to take his life, or if Mikey always felt this way and all it took was one more crack. John winces picturing it. They were told the details that Mikey was in his bunk and used his sidearm. That he was alone and pulled the trigger while everyone else was either in the showers or in the mess hall. Sometimes John pictures himself walking in and finding his brother—sometimes he gets there in time but most of the time… Most of the time he’s stuck trying to figure out how to tell Mikey he was loved. As if that could fix anything. As if John could ever fix anything.

John wipes his eyes and sits up. Everywhere he looks, he sees Bucky, literally. This stupid room and shrine to his heroes now feels like a trial. He sits there in the middle of all the bought or gifted Captain America memorabilia, all the handmade Barnes mementos, and hears their laughing. This life he thought he could have only to end up right back here. This connection with Bucky as if he isn’t anything more than what he is and always has been—a kid running uphill and begging not to fall down again.

He looks at his palms, then the restraint scars. Seems they were brutal enough and pre-serum enough that they’re not going anywhere. His fingers feel the bumps in the raised skin.

“Sorry, Bucky,” he mumbles, not sure which of the hundred things he’s apologizing for, but it feels appropriate while surrounded by Buck’s face. “If you’re not dead, I hope you’re safe, but if you are…” He closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath. “At least you’re somewhere no one can hurt you again.” John sniffles before composing himself. “Tell Mikey I’m sorry I couldn’t do it.” He stands and looks into the smile of a photo from Bucky pre-war with pre-serum Steve Rogers. Bucky’s so proud of Steve, his arm around the scrawny kid.

There are two who are worthy of the serum. In John, it just feels vile.

His father slams something in the kitchen. Heavy footsteps moving towards the stairs.

I can take him now. John thinks for a moment, feeling that strength in his muscles and bones. There’s nothing worse he could do to me. He opens the door only to freeze when his father is standing right there.

John knew he was there and yet he still—it’s like his body remembers more than his brain and has taken over and decided to go still. The serum burns under his skin in rebellion against this inaction.

Clenching a fist by his side, John says “Don’t worry, I’m leaving.”

Thomas Walker crowds the door frame. “I didn’t say you could go.”

“You don’t want me here,” John stresses.

The second beer has soaked into Thomas’ breath, not that two beers could begin to dent the tolerance he built over the years. He holds out an acceptance letter from West Point. “Mikey deserved this honor.”

The time when the mere thought of that piece of paper controlled his life is so long ago it feels silly. John ignores it and says firmly, “Mikey never tried.”

“You don’t think it’s weird they accepted a loser like you when you almost flunked out last year? Mikey had friends who got you this. They pitied you—“

John punches him across the jaw. His father stumbles backwards into the hallway, touching his busted lip. John breathes hard and savors the cut on his knuckle from his old man’s teeth.

“Shut up.” John grindes his jaw.

“Just like the Hoskins pity you.” Thomas shakes his head. “Poor John. Mikey thought you were so special and look what you do with your life. He gave you everything he had until there was nothing left!”

John swings again but his father grabs his arm and shoulder; his fingers are still cold from being outside.

“Come on, Johnny, all those school fights and this is the best you can do?” He goes to wrench John’s arm behind his back when John shoves him into the wall and breaks free. Thomas scrambles to grab again when John blocks his arm, knees him in the crotch, then bares his forearm against the man’s throat until he wheezes.

End it. John presses harder until a flicker of fear flashes in his father’s eyes. He pushes off the man and lets him cough and spit. John’s whole body shakes.

Thomas never lets himself slide fully to the floor. He picks himself up using the wall and, maybe for the first time since John’s been back home, he sees some of the changes in his son. Thomas goes back to his full height, still catching his breath.

John leers at him and makes a new fist at his side, stares at the side of his father’s temple like a target, and stands there in the tension that tears his insides apart.

But nothing happens between them.

Then John relaxes a finger. Then another. And his body realizes it’s too tired to be held together by anger and fear.

He turns and walks away. Happy he has his shoes on.

Thomas flares and again goes to grab.

John stumbles and rips free from his hold. He pushes the older man away whose foot catches on the top step. Thomas keeps goes backwards, stumbling, flailing for the railing, falling faster and faster. Half way down he tumbles over himself and collides with the wall at the bottom.

Frozen at the top of the stairs, John’s eyes go wide. That wasn’t me. I didn't mean to—he doesn’t breathe until his father moves again, picking himself up with a dizzy groan.

He did that. I just wanted to get away. I need to get away. John’s brain chants as he rushes down the stairs for the front door and the cold outside.

Thomas yanks John’s ankle out from under him. John lands hard on his chest. Before he can recover, Thomas kneels on his back. Hands grab him, lift his head and slam his face back into the floor.

“Ten seconds of bravery doesn’t cut it.” His father growls, bearing his full weight on John’s head into the tile.

John squirms underneath him.

“You afraid of me?” Thomas smiles, some of his teeth red. “You should be. I don’t pity you… Always needing help. Always taking from anyone who’ll give you attention. Mikey worried about you so much, couldn’t stop thinking about your future. He told me so in his letter.” He grinds his teeth together and presses harder. “His last words to me, his own father, were to look after you because he couldn’t do it anymore. So apologize for that. For taking my son from me.”

John cries, “I’m sorry.” Tears run free. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…” His chest spasms for air. “I loved Mikey.”

His father’s anger holds through his own tears. “We all did, but we got stuck with you.”

Probably drawn in by the noise of Thomas falling down the stairs, John’s mother emerges from the basement. She takes one look at the fight and wails, covering her mouth and face as if blocking it out makes it not true.

“Mom!” John reaches out for her, pleading.

His father takes a heavy boot and squahses his hand.

John hisses and manages a sharp glare at his father.

“Let me teach you how to fight. For Mikey.” He finally gets off.

Air rushes back into John’s lungs. But Thomas grips John’s hair and starts to lift him.

John cries out and barely gets his feet under him. He pulls at his dad’s wrist to stop his hair from being ripped from his scalp.

“Tom!” She cries as he half drags, half walks their son into the kitchen.

“Stay out of this, Delora.” He bellows.

The second John finds balance, he stands and tackles his father into the counter. The man cracks a rib on the edge.

Thomas turns just in time for John to punch him across his face once. Twice.

Thomas kicks out John’s knee then slams him into the cabinets. He tries again to control John by the hair, but John bites into his palm. Thomas screams and punches him with a left hook.

John hits the floor. Bloody saliva splatters on the linoleum. He looks up to block just in time as his father punches him again. Thomas stomps him in the ribs.

John coughs and crawls away, but his father drags him back.

Fight! Adrenaline screams. Fight back!

He rolls and kicks his father away before using the cabinets to climb to his feet.

There are no more words between them. Tunnel vision drives John forward. He growls and becomes relentless.

Every hit backed by another year of fear. Every drop of blood another hateful word. Every crack of bone another betrayal of fatherhood.

Only Lemar’s voice outside stops him.

John has his father’s shirt in one hand, a blood-caked fist raised high. His shoulders heave.

“John!” Lemar bangs on the locked front door, out of breath.

John blinks and stares towards the door.

“Open up!” Lemar begs anyone who can hear him.

Thomas strikes, cracking his skull into John’s nose.

“John!” Lemar hears the fighting and starts to kick at the door.

Both Walkers masked by blood, John wipes his eyes clear and catches his father’s next punch then redirects him and throws him to the ground.

Adrenaline puppets his arm and tell him to grab the closest weapon he can—a cast iron skillet raises above his head in both hands.

The front door breaks open.

Thomas feebly holds up his arm to shield himself.

John hesitates.

Then he winds up again—the man cowers.

Another second of hesitation and the tension breaks away.

John sucks in a shuddering breath. It would be easy. He’s bleeding, but he’s not tired. Hurting, but not done. And the world would be better off without him…

He lets his arms go lax. The skillet swings by his hip then clatters to the floor; it rings inside his hollow chest. His arms shake from the weight he released while some part of him screams, some part of him just as terrified as the old man on the floor at his feet.

“John.” Lemar’s voice cuts through.

John looks wide-eyed at his friend—what was he just about to do?

“Forget about him.” Lemar doesn’t bother looking at Thomas Walker. All he sees is his brother hurt, and he knows he should’ve never let John come back to this place, not alone. “Let’s go home.” 

John turns back to his father and somehow feels more powerful after dropping the weapon, more secure. He takes his time and shows the man his back so he can wash his face in the sink. The water runs clear at first. Every touch hurts as he pats himself dry, ruining the towel.

Sirens echo down the street.

Lemar steps close, but still John moves at his own pace. He stares out the dirty kitchen window as three cop cars break in the front yard, tires digging into dirt.

“John.” Lemar touches his shoulder. A patch without blood.

John follows. Though it’s more like he’s led.

Passing the den, he notices the house phone’s spiral cord stretched around the media cabinet to where Grace tucked herself into the safe corner. They lock eyes.

She silently apologizes, yet there’s no guilt there.

John understands; he really does. Never the target of their father’s words or anger, she’s been just as trapped here as John ever was. She needs Thomas to survive. She needs him more than she needs John. So he understands… Maybe he should’ve done more for her. Maybe he should’ve asked if she wanted to come with him to dinner somewhere better…

Lemar stands outside trying to talk to the police; his voice is loud but steady, gesturing to the house. When did he leave?

John slowly follows.

The cold feels good on his body. Head ringing, it doesn’t help that the cops shout from behind their doors. Lemar guides John down the steps, shouting right back that they are complying.

Thomas limps out looking horrible. He leans against the door frame as his son walks away. He’s too broken for action, but he’s never without anger.

“Where do you think you’re going,” he asks through a clenched jaw.

Lemar glares over his shoulder. “Stay away.”

Cops tell him to go inside: Tom, we’ll talk. Stay back.

But Thomas isn’t done. He shouts at John. “Look what you’re doing to this family again.”

John’s too tired to care. He just wants to leave.

Cops deescalate with yelling and more weapons.

Thomas doesn’t stop until he says something vile.

John turns, remakes his fist, strides back up the stairs, and is ready to break that man’s jaw so he can never say that about Momma again—

The rookie cop, who never should’ve left his desk, see danger and fires his gun.

The shot is loud in the cold air.

John smells the acrid stench first. Then registers the sound moving through his body. Tense, he only snaps back to himself when someone falls behind him.

He turns.

Lemar is on the ground.

John stares wide-eyed at the blood on Lemar’s back. That gaze travels up to the police across the yard. He moves again.

Lemar had been moving towards John. Stopping John from doing something stupid. And now he’s—

“…John…” Lemar weakly clutches John’s ankle, holding John from going any farther. “Stop.” His breath hitches sharply.

“Put your hands up!” The cops’ voices shatter the dangerous quiet in John’s head.

John feels Lemar’s desperate grip tighten. He blinks and finally registers six guns trained on him. They don’t stop yelling: Hands up! On your knees! Get on the ground! Hands behind your head!

Lemar’s jaw is tight with pain. His body locked and shivering. “Jesus John, d-do what they say.”

John can’t tell up from down, but he steps slowly. Arms raise slowly without taking his eyes off Lemar. He opens his mouth to begin asking someone to help his friend when two cops tackle him to the hard dirt. He can’t catch himself when they yank his hands back mid-fall. His cheek smacks the ground; white spots flash into his eyes. He cannot bring himself to care. The cops cuff him, metal biting into skin. And still John doesn’t care.

Lemar tries to move and winces, cursing under his breath. His lips are gray and breathing thin.

“Someone help him.” John mutters to the earth. “Please…” Why does not listen? “Help him!”

Two cops try to keep John’s father calm on the porch. A third cop joins in to keep John on the ground while he thrashes and screams. Another cop enters the Walker house to find Grace inside, still on the phone with dispatch—Delora already trying to clean in the kitchen.

Only one officer kneels beside Lemar and puts a hand on his shoulder like some polite consolation.

Lemar coughs and can’t catch his breath. But he sees John fighting to get to him and manages to say, “I’m okay…promise.”

John knocks his head into the ground. “Help him!” His strength draws in a fourth cop. “Lemar?”

“I’m okay man. Don’t…” He swallows. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

John’s heart races. “Get off me!”

Lemar’s breathing skips and slows.

He’d be in reach if John had control of his arms—he tries to get control of his arms—

Lemar’s eyes close.

“Wait,” he whispers. Frozen.

Finally still, the cops yank him up to his knees, then to his feet. John would fall over without them. All adrenaline gone. All fight evaporated.

“Wait—wait!” He cries out when they start to move him away towards the squad car.

Paramedics crowd and block Lemar from view.

“Lemar!” John is bent and pushed into the back. “Is he breathing? Lemar!”

They slam the door closed.

John’s panicked breaths fog the glass. He doesn’t blink. He throws himself into the door, collapsing against it as they drive away. The smell of blood and dirt, the gunshot—John stops. And realizes. Painfully. Just how badly he broke everything. And he’d cry if he had anything left in him.

Chapter Text

Bucky doesn’t cooperate with SHIELD: he stays brutally silent during questioning, is dangerously obstructive with their doctors, and lets Phil Coulson know he thinks he’s a dictator every chance he gets. 

Most of the compound is off-limits to him. Not that he minds. Despite what everyone here seems to think, he has no interest in toppling SHIELD from the inside. What he wants is for them to do their fucking jobs and find John.

When he’s not stewing in the truck, he spends his time loitering, avoiding Phil Coulson’s water cooler interrogations, and listening to Steve tell him about his new life. Bucky doesn’t offer much of his own, and Steve doesn’t push. While Bucky is sincerely interested and pleased to hear how his friend has adjusted out of time, much of it a distraction from John.

Steve always says. “Sounds like he has a good head on his shoulders.”

“He shouldn’t be alone.”

“They’ll find him.”

“He doesn’t need another disillusioned organization finding him.”

“What does he need then?”

Bucky puts his head into his hands. “…I don’t know what he needs. But I need him.” 

Five days since John fled the SHIELD compound, and Bucky is coming undone. He sleeps in the back of their truck, a fight Phil gave up after Bucky told him he’d only be leaving if someone dragged him out.

The scuffed Captain America shield keychain doesn’t leave his palm while the Polaroid of John faces Bucky, tucked into the window to stand upright until the time it returns to Bucky’s pocket.

He doesn’t have an appetite but manages something small to appease Steve, whose own worry starts to bleed through his calm demeanor. He’s been trying to ask Bucky about his time in Hydra, casually, and Bucky can’t tell if it’s coming from him or is a directive from Coulson—he wouldn’t answer either way.

Day eight, Phil walks into the parking garage to say: “If you have as much free will as you say you do, then who am I to stop you from refusing to cooperate, but you do need to stop running from you past at some point, and, when you do, we’ll be here.”

Bucky doesn’t respond and continues to glare the wall as if Phil isn’t there.

Phil expects as much. “Steve has a lot of faith in you, try not to squander it…” He turns to leave. “Oh, by the way, John is back home in Georgia. We have eyes on him.”

Bucky turns.

Coulson knew that’d get his attention. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to abduct him.”

Bucky honestly can’t tell with him if that’s meant to be a slight or just how Phil talks.

“But we plan on observing him and will be looking for a moment where we can try for a more relaxed meeting.”

“You don’t need to treat him like he’s me.”

“I know he hurt those people because he was scared, but that doesn’t change what he’s capable of, and now I have civilians to worry about.”

“John doesn’t hurt people.” Bucky argues.

“If he’s good then there’s hope for you, is that it? Is that where all this loyalty comes from?”

Bucky flinches. Then he hops out of the truck to stand over Phil, who’s unfazed. Could be his own bravery or the five armed agents at the perimeters.

Bucky leers. “Maybe you forgot I was taking care of him before any new serum got involved.”

“Was it you or the other guy?”

“Me. I even tried to send him home because I know a life on the run isn’t ideal or safe, but Hydra nearly took him at the bus stop. He’d be gone if I didn’t come back. After that, I became what was safe.”

“He trusted you.”

“We trusted each other.”

Phil nods. “Thanks for the talk. Maybe we can have some more.” He smiles and walks off, leaving Bucky’s brain to catch up. He can hear Phil tell some assistant as he leaves: “Make a note, if we want Sergeant Barnes to talk, just mention John.”

Bucky glares before climbing back into the truck and slamming the door. He lies down and forces himself to be still, because, if he becomes the monster SHIELD thinks he is, he’ll never see John again.

The idea starts quietly.  Smells of metal and fumes from the parking garage are steeped into his clothes. Bucky stares at the photo and digs his fingers into the fake fur of the white wolf plushie when something inside him says: you did this to John. You ruined his life.

You derailed that train. You got him shot at, run out of town. Hydra wanted him because of you. SHIELD took him because of you. The serum’s in him so Hydra could make another you. And you think you deserve to see him again?

Day twelve.

Bucky doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Luckily, he’s alone for now. Steve can’t be with him forever, but he’s stated multiple times he’s not going back to the Avengers until things are sorted, doesn’t mean he’s freed from the occasional call or debrief.

Bucky’s current SHIELD guide got bored of him brooding, so he went to get a meal when Bucky promised he wouldn’t go anywhere, which lasted thirty seconds. There isn’t any punishment they could enact that would be worse than this emptiness in his gut, and memories of John aren’t cutting it anymore. Bucky feels like he’s choking, unable to shake the heavy dread that something’s happened to John, and he’ll never know. And maybe he shouldn’t…

He can’t stop wanting, but what right does he have to John’s life?

The SHIELD halls aren’t empty or quiet, but to Bucky they might as well be. He knows he should go and wait for his daily handler, or for Steve, but he’s beginning to doubt what’s at the end of all this?

Around a corner, he sees Coulson for a second before the agent urgently darts into a room. Curious, Bucky approaches silently and overhears three people trying to explain a situation to Phil. Then he hears John’s name.

Bucky doesn’t care about clearances; he rushes inside. “What happened?”

The agents in there almost speak before looking to Coulson for permission.

Phil says slowly, “John was arrested thirty minutes ago.”

“What?” Bucky gasps.

“His sister called 911 when John and his father started a physical altercation. She told police John was trying to kill him.”

“I need to see him!” Bucky says, all doubt or hesitation evaporated.

“We’re already trying to get in touch with local law enforcement.” Phil tries to calm him down.

One of the agents in the room receives new information on their tablet and shows it to Phil, who reads it out loud somberly.

“A shot was fired at the scene. Bystander Lemar Hoskins was hit once in the back…” He puts the tablet down with a weary sigh. “It’s unclear at the moment why.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s been rushed into surgery.”

Bucky doesn’t make it optional. “I need to see John.” He knows what Lemar means to him, knows he shouldn’t be alone to deal with this. 

“You have been nothing but difficult since you’ve been here,” Coulson says strictly. “Besides, there’s nothing for you to do—“

“John needs me.”

“What John needs is a good lawyer. He’s considered an adult in the state of Georgia.”

Bucky recoils.

“SHIELD has resources, so help him!”

“And we’re working on it.” Coulson stresses. “But like I said, there’s nothing for you to do here.”

Bucky’s handler never finds him in the commotion. He sneaks off to the small hangar on base. He puts his metal hand on the locked door while the world narrows around him. The alarm will sound, SHIELD will find him, but maybe he can get a weapon and steal something fast enough to get away from the compound. He takes a breath, ready to break it open, to get to John and tell him it’ll be alright if only for a moment before SHIELD puts real handcuffs on him. He’s about to break in when Steve grabs his shoulder. Bucky jumps.

“What the hell, Steve?”

“Buck, what do you think you’re doing?”

“John is—“

“I heard.”

“Then you know I have to do this. I don’t care if it makes me an enemy of SHIELD.”

“You’re not the enemy, never have been,” Steve says, loosening something in Buck’s chest. “And I’m coming with you.”

“You don’t have to.” Bucky wishes Steve would ease up with this blind faith in him.

“I failed you once, don’t plan on doing it again.” Steve turns towards an intercom near the door.

Bucky watches, stunned that his friend could ever think he’s failed. Bucky made his decision on that train, and he’d make it again over and over. He watches Steve talk to the site manager inside. The door opens, and they’re led to one of the new Quinjet models.

The operator looks between the two of them, lingering on Bucky, but Steve’s presence seems to be a balm for these agents. He sits and buckles in, staring at Steve who talks to the pilot before joining Bucky.

“You’re crazy,” Bucky says.

“I told him the Avengers needed me.”

“You’re saying Steve Rogers lied?”

Steve is proud of himself. “He doesn’t have to know.”

“…thank you.”

“He’ll be okay, Bucky.”

Bucky almost cries. Not knowing he needed to hear that until now. He told John once if Bucky’s to be okay, then John has to be okay first, and Bucky realizes just how much he’d been breaking not knowing.

Steve doesn’t make him feel embarrassed. He simply nods. “Promise.”

Custer’s Grove local police station is from an older decade. Bucky and Steve enter in their civilian clothes and are met with suspicious looks from the officers inside. It takes all of ten seconds as Steve crosses to the front desk before the man behind recognizes him.

“Wait. Are you—“

“Hi.” Steve smiles artificially.

Bucky glares from just behind his shoulder.

Steve adds while the desk officer is still stunned, “We’re here to see John Walker.”

The man furrows his brow. “Uh, what?” Then he seems to hear his own disrespect. “Captain, I mean, why would you need to do that?”

Bucky steps forward and snaps, “Because—“

Steve gently steps in front of him. He says in a normal voice, “Because we need to talk to him, to make sure he’s okay and hear his side of the story.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can only let his lawyer back there.”

“And I’m not that. I get it. I won’t be long, but it’s important I check on him.”

The officer looks at him. How can he say no to Steve Rogers? “I can give you five minutes.” He then stops Bucky at the gate. “I don’t know you, but I can’t let you back there,” he bravely says despite Bucky’s glare.

Steve looks Bucky in the eyes. “I got this. I’ll make sure he’s okay.”

Bucky growls.

“One thing at a time,” Steve says softly.

Bucky unclenches his fists at his side and steps back.

Steve nods then goes to follow the officer into the back.

John leans against the cell wall. It’s cold, and his body is boiling. Sweat trickles red from blood. He hasn’t been visited by anyone with medical training, but that’s fine; he prefers the pain. It’s everywhere.

He blinks slowly.

The police still have his hands cuffed. They’re attached to a chain around his waist and ankles, something they clearly found necessary after experiencing John’s strength at the crime scene. Maybe he could break them now, but what would that do for him? It doesn’t save Lemar.

First Bucky. Now Lemar.

He closes his eyes and presses his forehead harder into the brick. This was how Mikey felt, wasn’t it? The world so heavy you can’t move or breathe. Heavier than any walls or chains could ever be. With no way out.

He could pray for Lemar. He could beg someone to let him live. John would give himself up for the slimmest chance of sparing the Hoskins.

I should never have come home.

The door to the cell room opens. An officer steps out of the way, says ‘five minutes,’ then closes the door after Captain America steps inside.

John’s eyes widen, but he otherwise doesn’t shift.

“Hi, John,” Steve says easily. “I’m Steve Rogers.”

John looks him up and down to try and find what trick this is. He wants to say duh, of course you are, I’ve stared at your face since I was three. But nothing comes out.

“Are you okay?” Steve doesn’t move any closer to the bars.

“I’m fine.” John says, voice dry and broken.

Steve nods, unconvinced. “I came here as soon as I heard.”

“…Why?”

“Someone had to keep Bucky out of trouble.” He smiles.

John flinches. He grips the front of his dirty shirt as if he could squeeze the feeling out of his own heart. “What?”

Steve doesn’t understand what he said wrong.

“Bucky’s alive?” John croaks.

He blinks, then frowns; he understands that feeling. “Yeah, he’s alive. He’s okay.”

John processes. No emotion passes over his face other than mild shock. His fingers rub the fabric of his shirt. Bucky’s alive. He’s alive and he’s okay. God, he didn’t realize how sick the thought was making him until just now that it’s been lifted.

But… Then why was John alone?

That warm relief twists into something sharp in his chest. Was Bucky looking for him? Did Bucky know and not find him? Did he realize things were better with John gone?

…Is he happier with Steve?

“John.” Steve finally moves closer. “Take a deep breath. How about you tell me what happened.”

John obeys, but he can’t focus. “Is Bucky here?”

“He’s just outside.”

John stares as if he can see through the wall.

“Hey,” Steve pulls back his attention. “They’re not going to give me a lot of time in here. Has a doctor or nurse come in to check on you?”

John shakes his head. “I said I’m fine.”

“Look, I know what Hydra did to you,” he says gently. “I know you have some amount of the serum, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be hurt.”

John digs a nail into his own palm. It’s funny for someone to care about him when he’s not the one that got shot.

He asks, “Have you heard anything about Lemar Hoskins? All they said was they took him to the hospital.”

“I don’t know anything else. I’m sorry.”

John nods and presses on that cut in his palm until it re-opens and blood bubbles up. With nothing else to deflect with, he starts, “My father wanted me home so I went. We fought. Sister called the police. And they tried to shoot me and hit my best friend.” He avoids looking at Steve.

“I want to help, if you’ll let me.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you have to be scared. And I think you’re doing the best you can do.”

And your best still gets Lemar killed.

Steve asks, “Why did you and your dad fight?”

“You heard I tried to kill him,” John says bluntly. That’s what all the cops were saying when they processed him, and they said to John like they could get him to believe it too.

“Did you?”

John finally looks up at this pinnacle of good and yet feels nothing but the dirt and blood in his hair, the burn in his muscles, and the split skin over his knuckles. Dirty. Broken. Wronged. Beaten. And yet he's the one in chains.

“At first I kept trying to leave. He’d knock me down. Grab me.” His head throbs with the fractured memory of hitting the floor. “I fought back until Lemar showed up.”

John gazes down. Remembering how Thomas looked cowering on the floor.

“What happened after?” Steve asks.

“I don’t know… The cops came. We were outside.” John’s head hurts. “My dad followed, and I think I was about to hit him again when someone shot him. Lemar. They were trying to shoot me, but he was in the way, trying to stop me from making things worse.” John pitches forward.

He might throw up. “Fuck.” He shudders and sniffles into his hands. The chains are too loud. His nails drag into his hair. “Lemar was supposed to be back home. I don’t know why he came.”

Steve knows. “Because he wanted to have your back. He’s your friend.”

John looks up.

Steve glances at the wall behind him where Bucky sits on the other side. “More than a friend.”

Bucky sits with his elbows heavy on his knees in the front lobby. It’s small and dingy. And the conversations he overhears from the officers give him the creeps. Whenever they mention John’s name, it takes all his strength not to stand up and put their heads through the wall.

He kneads his metal hand and presses his heels into the floor. Don’t do it. Don’t get this close to John only to mess it up now. Only, every footstep and noise from outside has him wondering when SHIELD is going to catch up and drag him away.

The front door opens. He looks up. An older woman steps inside with a cop that was having a smoke break follows her inside.

“Lena,” the cop groans. “For the hundredth time, you’re not seeing him. Go to the hospital to be with your son.”

She snaps. “You do not tell me how to be a mother, Peter. Lemar is in good hands with those doctors, but I can’t say the same for my other son you have in chains like he’s some monster.”

“He tried to kill Thomas. Grace saw it, Delora too.”

“That woman lives with her eyes closed. John has put up with his father his whole life, and let me tell you what he’s done when things got bad—he came to me. He cried and cooked with me and slept next to Lemar like there was a storm outside ready to tear down the walls. But he never once showed an ounce of hatred towards that horrible man.”

“Then explain to me why Tom looks like he lost a fight with truck.”

“Because John has just as much of a right to defend himself as you or me.” She looks like she’s being held together by prayer alone. Her voice goes low and sharp. “And you better stop talking to me about how things look when I know Lemar did nothing to threaten those cops. He knows better. And still you all shot him—“ Lena finally breaks down and cries into a handkerchief.

The officer reaches a hand out, which she smacks off her shoulder.

Lena sits a few chairs away from Bucky; he feels bad staring, but he can’t look away. So this is Momma. The woman who showed John what it meant to feel loved and safe.

When she calms herself down, Bucky says softly, “You’re Lena Hoskins.”

“Yes.” She wipes at her eyes.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your son.”

She looks at him and probably thinks he’s a delinquent with his leather jacket, waiting in the lobby of a police station alone.

“Thank you.” She decides she doesn’t care.

Bucky looks down. Should he tell her who he is? Maybe he can at least express his support for John? His nerves itch under his skin. Fight or flight doesn’t help here; he can talk to Steve, to John, but communicating with the rest of society still feels like some other language he can’t remember.

Lena thankfully speaks before he has to fumble through something. She mutters under her breath, pulling at loose threads in her handkerchief. “My daughter is out there trying to find a lawyer who’ll help us. Anyone the state provides is already going to look at John the wrong way.”

Bucky keeps the rage in his chest mellow. “Why?”

“The world gave him a bad hand. And everyone likes to judge him for it. Makes them feel better about themselves.” She looks at Bucky with intense anger mirroring his own. “His brother, Mikey, was a saint around here, still troubled in his own ways, but everyone loved him. What happened to him hurt the whole town… but it broke John the hardest. We did our best to help, Lord knows no one else wanted to get over their own grief to realize this boy just lost his idol.” She sniffles, then steels herself again. “People chose to focus on John’s struggles and forgot how hard he tries. And John took every bad look they gave him to heart until he started to believe it himself.”

Bucky looks at the wall dividing him and John. He’d give anything to go in there and make John understand that he is loved.

Lena sniffles and tries to sound more put together; her face pulls into a painful smile that doesn’t reach the eyes. “Gosh, how long have you been waiting here? It’s not like these men are busy actually keeping anyone safe.” She almost seems like she’s about to go find someone to reprimand on his behalf.

“How are you sitting here like this?” Please tell me how you’re not tearing this place down before I do it for both of us.

 “It ain’t easy. Growing up in Louisiana, I used to think the good times were always rolling away just out of reach, and I’m the dumb girl stuck chasing after them.” She actually smiles now despite the tears. “I’m no good to my boys if I’m also in jail." She looks at Bucky. “You have to make your own happiness. And no matter how much the world tries to rip it away from you, you can’t let go.” Lena almost reaches out to him. “I’m sorry, I’m blabbering and I don’t even know your name.”

Bucky looks down then reaches into his pocket to simply hand over that Polaroid picture of John mid-laugh.

Lena hesitates, looking between it and Bucky. 

Once she takes it, Bucky says, “I was with him all this time… and I never meant to take him away, but I was just trying to keep him safe.”

Lena cries again looking at her boy so happy.

Bucky exhales shakily. “I see John like you do.”

She covers her mouth in relief. Then she gently touches the photo. “Look at how long his hair is.” Her eyes go to Bucky and note his own hair. “He’s impressionable with those he looks up to.”

“Yeah.” Bucky smiles. “Once he cooked something of yours. We were in Louisiana, actually.“

Lena gasps, “That boy went there without me.” She can’t stop smiling at the picture. “He should’ve known better.”

“We didn’t really plan…” Bucky says.

She holds the photo to her chest and takes a deep breath. “You have no idea what it’s like not knowing if someone you love is okay.”

“I actually think I have some idea.”

“It’s so painful. Your mind tells you terrible things, but knowing he had someone who could make him smile like this…”

Bucky shifts in his chair when the front door opens again. And Phil Coulson walks in looking like someone made him run a marathon.

He immediately locks eyes with Bucky and says, “I’ll talk to you later.”

He strides towards the desk and starts hitting the bell.

Lena looks between them in confusion.

The second Coulson sees an officer in sight of the lobby, he demands, “Take me to see John Walker.”

That gets Lena out of her chair. “What’s going on here?”

“You the lawyer?” the officer asks through bored weary.

“I’m with the federal government.” Phil shows his badge and gives it a moment to sink in.

Lena looks to Bucky. “Who is this?”

Phil looks back over his shoulder as he’s being led away, and he finally realizes who this is. He pauses to talk to her. “Mrs. Hoskins, I can’t imagine how you must be feeling, but please understand I want to be on John’s side.”

“So be on my son’s side!” She shouts.

Phil frowns. He looks at her, at Bucky. “I’m sorry to hear about your son Lemar.” And he leaves to follow the officer.  

“Who are you?” She turns to Bucky. “And you better give me a truthful answer.”

He tenses. “I…” His real name doesn’t feel like his anymore. Neither does Winter Soldier’s. “I’m Bucky. That was Phil Coulson. He’s the head of SHIELD.”

Hearing a government organization doesn’t bring her any comfort. She sounds like she’s being forced to fight a mountain; her voice breaks. “And what does SHIELD want with my son?”

Bucky’s throat goes dry. What does he say? “Steve Rogers is back there.”

Lena furrows her brow. “Captain America?” She looks back down the hall where the men went. “What is happening here?”

Bucky wishes he could say anything to help her, but he doesn’t want to lie, and right now he doesn’t believe any promise made that things will be okay. Things won’t be okay until he’s with John again; he imagines she feels the same way, so he joins Lena in staring down the hallway at happiness just out of reach.

John is tired. The pain has become distracting enough he wants to sleep in it, but Steve Rogers hasn't left. And then someone new enters the room. Another man, this one in a suit.

The officer leers at John, blaming the special treatment on him, when all John wants is to be left alone. The door closes.

Steve puts his hands on his hips and actually looks remorseful.

“Captain,” the new man stares while Steve glances at the ceiling. “We’ll talk later, you and Barnes.” He changes his focus to John and sounds wrung out. “Hi, I’m Phil Coulson, I work for SHIELD.”

John blinks but doesn’t respond.

“I led the group that raided the Hydra compound where you and Barnes were kept. And I was there at the SHIELD site the day you woke up.”

John doesn’t have the energy to deal with the emotions that reemerge thinking of that blinding bright surgical room; it leaves him sick. “I, I didn’t know. I—”

“It’s okay.” Phil puts a hand up. “I understand. I think a lot of things could’ve been handled better.”

The resigned calm John had felt while alone in his cell is now boiled away. He hates how his hands fist around the chains. He hates the chains. And he hates that he hates them because maybe he should be locked up.

“Why are you here?” John asks tensely.

Steve says this while looking at Phil, “We’re here to help, because you don’t deserve to be in here. Right?”

Phil steps forward. “John, I know all of this is unfair, but now that you have the serum your life is changed. You can’t play by the same rules as before… I think we all wish we could be Steve Rogers, but few of us are.”

John looks down and squeezes the chains harder. He shuts his eyes. He doesn’t want to break in front of this man, in front of Steve, but blood pounds in his ears.

“Phil,” Steve says quietly.

And Phil sees, but he presses. “I think we're all tired of trying to beat around the bush. And I need to know who people are to do my job... John Walker, was there any part of you that wanted your father dead?”

John chokes. “Yes.”

“And you know you have the strength now to do it without trying.”

“Yes.”

“Phil, let him breathe.”

“John, were you about to kill you father?”

John can’t get air. He nods. “Yes.”

Phil steps closer. “Then why didn’t you?”

“…What?”

“You finally have the power over your abuser, you’re in the middle of a fight for your life by the looks of it, I want to what made you stop?”

Why did he? Did he feel bad for him? Does he still love him enough deep down? He knows he killed Hydra agents that were after him, that threatened Bucky. The thought alone doesn’t terrify him, and yet… “I just wanted to leave,” he says. “I never wanted to be in that house…” The weight of the cast iron is in his hands. “But he couldn’t hurt me anymore.” John thinks of his father pressing his head into the hard floor while John apologized—but for what? “And he already did everything he could to me.”

Phil listens.

But John also remembers the cold winter air. They’re outside. His father is behind him and saying those things about the Hoskins, about Momma. John adds, because he knows why Phil wants the brutal truth: “I turned back when he threatened the Hoskins.”

Steve and Phil glance at one another.

Phil asks, “You turned back to do what?”

John stares at their shoes and shrugs. He doesn’t remember, just that he was done’ thinking. Maybe he saw red. He doesn’t care. “I think I might’ve done it…” he finally looks up at Phil; he wants Phil to know this, wants Phil to know the truth about him.

“For them,” Phil responds like it’s easy. “You’d have done it for them.”

John slowly nods.

Steve relaxes seeing this look on Phil’s face. It's a harsh reality of their lives dealing with death and more honestly murder, it's a weight few can actually bear, but perhaps there's something to bearing it for the sake of others over yourself.

Phil stares a moment longer. “Captain, can you go find an officer to uncuff John?”

“Pulling the government card?” Steve smiles.

“It’s a fun one." Phil is relieved. "Come on John, let’s get you to the hospital.”

“Is Lemar okay?” John gasps, hardly processing.

“I don’t have any news, I’m sorry. But, you do realize I want you to go to the hospital, because you’re hurt.”

John isn’t gripping the chains, but they’re still warm in his hands. “I’m fine.” He doesn’t believe it himself.

Phil actually looks on softly. “Then it’ll be a quick visit. But let's go anyway, I'm kind of a thorough guy.” He steps aside when Steve returns with a cop, who doesn’t look happy but otherwise isn’t about to say no to Captain America and a confident government suit with a badge he can’t decode. First the cell bars are opened, then the officer undoes the cuffs. He mutters to John about not deserving this treatment; John almost internalizes that when Momma shoulders her way into the room.

By the time the chains hit the floor, she has him in her arms.

And John smells lavender and melts.

“Oh, Peaches,”

“I’m sorry, Momma. I didn’t mean to—”

“Jonathan Fitzgerald Walker, stop talking.” She puts her hand on the back of his head to hold him tight yet somehow gentle with every wound inside and out. “Nothing about this is your fault.”

John listens to Momma.

And then he opens his eyes. He should see Steve Rogers there. Should see Phil Coulson and the cop. But all he sees is Bucky Barnes in the doorway.

Momma must feel something shift, because she gives him space, reluctantly, but it’s like he’s on a string; he runs from her and crashes into Bucky’s arms.

Bucky hugs him like he fits into a puzzle, practically spins.

“Bucky.” John cries. He knew he was alive, that he was here. Steve said so. But this. Seeing him.

“I know.” Bucky breathes into his neck. “I know.”

God, the world could stop spinning now, and they’d both be okay.

Bucky pushes him back to look at his face; John hates the distance and grabs at his shirt while Bucky holds his jaw gently. Bruises, Cuts. Dried blood. Bucky’s eyes are glossy with unshed tears.

John bites his lip. He holds Bucky’s wrists and nearly says ‘he’s fine,’ but stops himself, and simply brushes his thumb over the other’s warm skin.

“I’ll be okay,” John says instead.

“Why don’t I believe you?” Bucky cracks a smile.

It feels like nothing could break them apart. Until laughs echo all the way from the lobby.

“Jesus Tom, you do look like shit.”

“I should pay for each stitch with his college fund?”

“He doesn’t have one.”

Thomas laughs again.

“Wait here a minute, Bill’s gonna take your statement.”

John goes pale. “Bucky.”

But he’s already moving.

And John chases him.

They all do.

Chapter Text

Bucky isn’t himself or maybe he’s too much himself. No panic. No noise. Perfect quiet. Perfect focus.

Down the hall, right to get into the lobby, six paces—there’s Thomas Walker, looking beaten, and yet he’s laughing.

People are telling Bucky to stop, but he’s done listening to others.

Thomas turns, sees him, and his smirk falls off his face when a metal hand seizes the front of his shirt; it must be the cold look in Bucky’s eyes or the bulk of his muscles when his right fist pulls back to strike. The cop moves in slow motion.

But Steve comes in like a wave; he shoves Thomas away and uses all his strength to walk Bucky back, managing only three steps.

“Don’t.” Steve breathes hard. “Don’t ruin everything you’ve gotten back.”

“Get out of my way,” Bucky growls.

Thomas shouts, “What the hell is going on here?” He sees John. “Why isn’t he in jail.”—then, as if remembering just now—“He tried to kill me!”

Other officers circle with their hands hovering over their weapons.

“Everyone calm down,” Phil says to the room, eyes darting between the super soldiers and the father.

“I’ll calm down when he’s back behind bars.” Thomas points at his son who has no energy to return the man’s anger; Lena, beside John, has enough for both of them.

Thomas mutters, “Bitch.”

Bucky lunges. Steve yanks him back.

Cops start making demands.

“You're willing to punch me over him?” Thomas turns his attention to Bucky.

Lena yells. Cops shout. Phil’s training keeps him calm.

And Thomas savors the anger he gets from Bucky. “Take him, he’ll be your biggest disappointment.”

“You put your hands on him.” Bucky glares.

“As is my right.”

Bucky throws Steve aside.

Thomas grins. He’s ready. He doesn’t know who this man is that’s about to kill him, but he’s ready. Only, John moves between them. And Bucky’s body revolts, locks up—even this side of him could never raise a hand against John.

“Don’t,” John says.

Still, Bucky can’t stand seeing John so close to Thomas; he tenses again.

“Bucky.” His voice cracks. “Don’t do it. Please.”

Thomas reaches out. Cops pull him back. John keeps Bucky at bay; he doesn’t have Steve’s strength, doesn’t need it.

“Don’t tell me he’s not worth it.” Bucky clenches his jaw.

“It’s not—”

“John.”

“Trust me.”

“You think I’ll hate myself after? Trust me, I’ll feel much better.” Bucky glares at Thomas over John’s shoulder. He then notices something unsettling in John’s eyes, something he can’t read immediately, and fearful spite takes over. “You’ll hate me, is that it?”

“No, Buck,” John gasps.

Bucky tries to listen through hard breathing and instincts clawing at his bones.

John says, “I couldn’t hate you, but… we don’t have to be like this, right?”

John looks scared. 

But, not of you.

Of us.

“I know you could do it. I know you’ve done worse. I know he deserves it…”

Bucky relaxes a fraction, losing himself to John’s eyes.

“Can’t we just leave? Together.” His voice wavers.

Bucky says, “I can’t forgive him.”

“I can’t either. So let’s just forget. Please.”

With Bucky’s metal hand still clenched at his side, he finally blinks and sees his surroundings, not just his target. He sees the cops with hands near their belts. Steve ready to tackle him. Phil holding his breath.

Bucky exhales; his chest hurts. Everything… He turns away and pushes his hands into his hair.

The tension in the air doesn’t dissipate, but it diffuses enough that the rest can breathe, especially when Bucky shoulders through the front door to the cold air. There, on the concrete, he hates himself.

For attacking. For wanting to kill him. For not killing him.

John follows him outside. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there, looking sideways at Bucky until the silence becomes too much.

“I’m sorry.”

Bucky laughs; it’s stitched with disbelief, frustration, exhaustion. “Why the hell are you sorry?”

“I don’t want to control you. Or guilt you… I just want to be with you.” John fights not to cry. “I can’t lose someone again.”

Bucky blinks in confusion. “John.”

Cops. SHIELD. Hydra. Toal control will never be theirs; it’s a joke to think so, no matter where they run. There’s only one thing they can control.

Bucky throws himself around John. “I’m never leaving you. I’m sorry I almost threw that away. I…”

John hugs him back, fingers digging into the familiar leather jacket. “I know.” And John does know, he felt it when he tried to attack Thomas because he threatened the Hoskins; it lit something in him, and he didn’t care if he burned with it. But Lemar loved him enough to stop him. And John loves Bucky to do the same.

There’s commotion inside the station. But one-by-one they’re joined outside. Steve checks on Bucky. Lena checks on John. Last is Phil, who stuffs away his badge and isn’t above begging to leave this place.

They wordlessly know and agree the hospital is next.

Lena looks down the street at the bus stop when Phil hails a large black SUV. She hesitates on the curb, but, when Captain America holds the door open for you, you can’t refuse.

It’s a quiet ride filled with unasked questions.

But Coulson must read their minds, because, all he says when they arrive at the hospital is: “Don’t worry about anything. Just focus on Lemar.”

Inside, Lena knows where to go. John is on her heels, until she all but drags him to the ER herself. Of course Bucky goes with him like a second shadow.

The hospital is small. They sit in the waiting room with a farmer who got careless about chainsaw-kickback and flu-ridden kids and their parents.

People know they shouldn’t stare, but it’s John Walker, so most don’t care enough to pretend they’re minding their own business. Bucky glares at whoever he can until the intake nurse finally decides John’s injuries are higher priority and takes them back to a row of cots and curtains.

John sits on the edge of the stiff bed while staff come in and out of his screened-off space, collecting and growing the swath of tools and antiseptics and bandages to be used. He hates it.

“Hey.” Bucky nudges him.

“Feels unnecessary.”

“Because of the serum?”

John shrugs.

Bucky steps into his line of sight. “Helping you is not unnecessary. You’re not invincible now. You just have a better excuse to be reckless.”

“Learned from the best.” John tries to joke.

Bucky frowns. He reaches up and gently brushes his fingertips back through the shorter blond hair, careful of snagging on blood-caked knots. His eyes move over John’s face: those blue eyes, the strong jaw, the split in his lips. Then a memory blooms into a soft smile—he can’t believe he got to be kissed at the top of a waterfall. It’s a shame the moment was tainted by everything after.

“John,” Bucky’s voice is low. “Can I kiss you again?”

John flinches, and blush finds a way to redden through the bruises.

“Please.”

“Buck, I…” John’s eyes dart up and down. But he stills.

He leans in. Gently. Bucky expected he’d have to stave off some urge to devour, to hold back from hurting him. But they kiss. It’s bad, lips chapped, nerves making them stiff, and yet Bucky’s chest fills from this alone. The connection. The feeling of John’s hand on his shirt, feeling John want this, want him, is all it takes to make his brain go blank.

And then Bucky gets to open his eyes and see someone so beautiful. The same eyes he looked into at the derailment, the ones that made him hesitate.

Their breathing quickens in rhythm. Bucky tilts his head and leans in again when the curtain pulls back, and Steve jumps.

“Oh—sorry! Uh.”

Bucky doesn’t move away, meaning John can freely hide his face in Bucky’s shoulder.

“You okay?” Bucky mumbles to him.

“No.”

“Sorry.” Steve says again, blushing, mind clearing trying to process. He and Bucky look at each other over John’s shoulder. Slow realization settles for Steve, and then for Bucky.

Steve expects Bucky to joke or say something charming and, when he doesn’t, it hurts, because Steve is thinking of a different Bucky from long ago; this one just stares back with intensity that’s both gentle yet guarded.

Steve gives something up in that moment, not realizing until just now that he’d been silently holding onto it for days.

He clears his throat. “Sorry. Again. But Lemar is waking up. He’ll be okay.”

John exhales shakily against Bucky. He pushes himself off to look at Steve, who tries to make his expression neutral.

“He’s okay?” John asks.

“After bed rest and rehab, yeah. His family is up there in his room.”

John nods slowly.

“They want you to join them when you’re done,” he adds.

John stares at Steve a second longer looking for anger or judgment.

Steve only nods and leaves.

Bucky follows and grabs his arm before he can get around the hallway corner.

Steve yanks free. “You don’t need to explain yourself.”

Bucky freezes.

“Really.” Steve exhales, but tension remains in his shoulders. “I should’ve… knocked… or assumed…”

“Steve.”

“No, it’s okay, Bucky. Promise.”

Bucky frowns. “If you want to talk…”

“Nothing to talk about.” Steve forces a smile. “Go. It’s okay. I’ll be upstairs with Coulson.”

Bucky watches him go, but he doesn’t follow. He returns to John and sits with him while doctors and nurses clean and stitch his wounds. Never leaving his side, he’s quiet, distracted, but manages to give John the smallest smile whenever he glances at Bucky for support.

When John’s hands are bandaged and cared for, Bucky holds them and rubs his thumb over the scars on his wrists from Hydra’s restraints. They don’t say anything to each other; they don’t have to. Bucky leans his head against John’s and keeps him close until the nurses are done cleaning up around them.

“Ready to go upstairs?” he asks softly.

John says into his chest, “Just another minute.” 

Phil holds his hands around a paper cup of coffee and sits in a plastic chair away from it all. Steve finds him eventually, joining with a deep sigh.

“Go ahead.” Phil drinks. “Say I told you so. I know you and Barnes have your opinions.”

“I don’t have your job, Phil. I don’t want it either. I did think I’d have to fight harder to convince you about John.”

Coulson says, “I didn’t want to antagonize him. I don’t enjoy pushing people, but I needed to know who he was, what he looks like under pressure.”

“Bucky has been trying to tell you for days who John is.”

“He’d do anything for him, that’s obvious enough.”

Steve tenses.

“It’s also why I couldn’t trust his judgement,” Phil adds.

“You didn’t seem to trust my judgment either.”

“Same issue, Captain. When it comes to Barnes, you’re about as biased as anyone can get.” Phil smiles.

Steve is uncharacteristically blank.

“Not saying it’s wrong, but if something happens because we assumed he’s just a kid, then that’s on me.”

“I get it, but you can push people to become the thing you fear… That comment you had in the room, about most people not being me, that’s the kind of thing that can do it.”

“I know you’re uncomfortable being put on a pedestal, Steve, but there’s a reason you were chosen. And it’s a comparison John is going to receive whether he wants it or not, so he needs to become comfortable hearing it.”

Steve sighs. It’s an argument that could take them in circles. But for him, Bucky has always been proof discrediting Phil’s claim; Bucky’s been proof of a lot of things for him.

Phil finishes the coffee. “I can be equally as worried for John as I am for those around him, speaking of which, where’s Barnes?”

“Where do you think?” 

Phil raises a brow. “Are you okay with that?”

Steve stares at the opposite wall, trying to process, but, eventually, the answer comes easily. “I just want him to be happy,” he says. “There’s a part of me that wants him to be the same Bucky I knew back then, but I’m not the same man. Seems unfair to hold him to that standard when he’s been through so much more…” Steve looks at Phil with some sadness. “John understands this Bucky better than I do.” He sighs and forces himself to move on. “So, what are you going to do?”

Phil thinks it’s all quite unfair. Everything about this strange situation. He says, “I wanted them to trust me because of SHIELD, but how am I any better than Hydra if I punish them for something they didn’t choose?”

“I hate to tell you Phil, but Bucky isn’t going to trust you for another decade.”

“I figured.” He chuckles. “Good thing you super soldiers age well. At least that mentality will keep them safe.” He stands and stretches. “Come on, Captain.”

It’s time he had another talk with John Walker.

Phil gently approaches the Hoskins’ room in the ICU, grateful the door is already ajar. He takes in the scene of the family around Lemar who’s smiling despite being teased by his older sister. Then there’s John, just slightly out of reach, but there all the same, sitting and staring at Lemar as if he’s still trying to process and believe he’s alright. Bucky is right beside John with a hand on his back.

Phil gently knocks. “Sorry to interrupt, but I was hoping to talk to John about some things before I leave.”

Bucky angles himself between them.

“Alright.” John stands.

Lena rubs his arm. “Don’t go far.”

“I won’t,” he says.

Bucky stands as well.

Phil says, “I was looking to talk to him alone.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m just getting coffee wherever you’re talking with him.” Bucky leers.

John can’t help rolling his eyes.

Steve pokes his head into the room, and Lemar’s eyes light up.

“Holy shit.” He breathes out.

Bert Hoskins nearly pinches him. “You do not cuss in front of that man.”

“It’s okay.” Steve chuckles. “I’m sure I’ve heard worse.” He doesn’t approach until it’s clear he’s welcome.

John watches as Steve introduces himself to Lemar, and it’s like all pain evaporates; Lemar’s smile goes ear to ear when he shakes his hand, and Steve talks to him like it’s the most natural thing in the world for him to be here with this random, bed-ridden teen. John glances at Lemar’s face one last time and realizes he doesn’t have that wonder anymore.

Seeing Steve walk into his jail cell earlier felt like a burden, a bad mirror.

John is relieved seeing Lemar happy, but he quietly mourns his own childhood in the time it takes for him to walk out the door. Then there’s Bucky, leaning into his side without question, and John smiles again.

“I was thinking some fresh air might be good.” Coulson says at the stairwell.

“I don’t think we’re allowed on the roof,” John replies.

Coulson shrugs. “I’m sure they won’t mind. A friend of mine is donating a large sum to improve the pediatrics ward and fund debt relief for patients in need. He says it’s for the optics, but really it’s because he’s secretly a nice guy.”

“There’s no way you have friends.” Bucky crosses his arms.

“Funny, he’d say the same thing. Come on.” He gestures. John and Bucky follow him upstairs. It’s a fight to get Bucky to agree to wait inside.

“I’m fine,” John says under Bucky’s protective shade.

“Doesn’t change anything,” Bucky says, crowding John’s space before finally letting him leave. The heavy door closes between them.

John sits against an HVAC vent.

Phil looks out at the soft Georgia landscape in that quiet moment before dawn. “I know this is going to seem like prying but try to understand it’s my job.” He pauses to give John a chance to brace himself. “I have something attached to your file you might want to see.” He pulls out his phone.

“I have a file?” John can’t help but grin a little, though muted by the bruises and exhaustion.

“Don’t read too much into it,” he deadpans. “Before we could have an actual face-to-face discussion, I needed to figure out who John Walker was, what made him tick. So I got a hold of information about your brother. I’m sorry by the way—I can’t imagine.”

John furrows his brow.

Coulson says, “I have Mike’s psych evals a month before he killed himself. He—“

John stops him. “I don’t want to know. I don’t need them.”

“Are you sure? The Army didn’t give your family much.”

“Mikey deserves privacy,” John says. “…Besides, he already told me everything he needed to in his letter.”  Told me he’s sorry. He wanted me to be good… And he loved me. John shrugs, sadly, eyes going to the faraway sunrise. “He already gave me so much, I don’t need anything more from him.”

Phil smiles with sympathy. “You know, I’m a skeptical person by nature, but I trust my own eyes.” He goes to sit near John. “You’ve been through a lot, and most people would come out changed for the worse.”

John shifts, uncomfortable. “I don’t think I’d be here without Bucky or the Hoskins.”

“I can tell. You know that’s not a weakness, right?”

John nods.

“I wanted to offer you an opportunity, John, but also a choice. You can certainly stay here in Custer’s Grove with your family. SHIELD would keep an eye on you from a distance to make sure you and them are safe, and you’re free to try and live your life as best you can. Or, you can finish your schooling at SHIELD. We have a little more experience dealing with unusual but exceptional people. We’re not conscripting you, but if you feel a calling, we could always use good people to join the cause.”

“I always thought I’d got to West Point and then join the army like Mikey.”

“A noble goal.”

John fidgets. “Where’s Bucky in all this?”

Coulson expected as much. “We’re going to continue to ask for his support to learn about the Winter Soldier program, but I think I’m overdue acknowledging his own right to freedom… What I’m trying to say is, Bucky can do whatever he likes—within the law, of course.”

John smiles down at his hands. “I’d want to talk to him.”

Phil chuckles, “I’ll bet you twenty bucks I know what his answer will be.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do. He’s going to go wherever you are.”

Like it’s so simple. And John would want that. He doesn’t know if he’d be happy without it, but doesn’t mean he’s going to go guilt tripping Bucky into hanging around when the man’s finally free.

Bucky speaks loudly through the heavy rooftop door, “John, you owe him twenty bucks.”

John stares at the door and starts to laugh; Bucky rushes out not wanting to miss the sight.

John rolls his eyes. “I don’t actually have twenty dollars.”

Coulson stands. “It’s okay. I don’t charge interest, just means we’ll have to talk again. Take some time to think it over.” He glances between the two. “We’ll be in touch.”

John waits for the door to close behind him before looking back up at Bucky who’s shielding him from the light winter breeze. Not that either of them are cold. He scoffs, “Really?”

“What?”

John shakes his head and chuckles. “Nothing.”

“No, what?”

“You were listening in?”

“Can’t help it.” Bucky leans into his shoulder. “Super soldier hearing.”

John looks down.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just… He said it was a choice, but I don’t know how to tell the Hoskins I’m leaving again.”

Bucky flinches. “So… you’re taking his offer?”

“Well, I don’t know,” John groans. “I feel like I can’t stay here, but how can I leave Lemar?” He jumps to his feet to pace. “How do I force you to live at SHIELD if I want to go there? What, are you going to sleep in the basement of the Hoskins’ house if I stay?”

“Hey.” Bucky gently hooks his wrist and pulls him in, careful of injuries. “There’s no pressure. No one’s forcing anything.”

John sighs and melts against him.

Bucky adds, “Believe me when I say I don’t care where I end up, as long as you’re there.”

“I don’t want the Hoskins to think I’m ungrateful. Or Lemar to think I’m abandoning him... But I can’t stay here. I can’t go back to that school… Can’t be in the same town as my dad... But my sister’s here, and leaving her in that house—”

Bucky grabs John’s face and pulls him down into a deep kiss. John’s mind fuzzes out until there’s just this. He breathes against Bucky’s lips and kisses him again until Bucky holds his face to stare.

“Stop trying to guess what everyone else wants from you. What do you want?” 

“…I don’t want to be a high school drop out.”

“Okay, so you—”

“I also want to do something… useful.”

“Then we—”

“But I’ll be happy just as long as you’re there.”

Bucky sighs. “You didn’t really tell me anything.”

“Sorry.”

He frowns. “No one’s rushing us.”

“Well, I can’t be a forty year old senior in high school.”

“Yes you can. I’m almost one-hundred.”

“No, you’re not.” John gasps, content to be wrapped in Bucky’s arms. He starts doing mental math. “Holy shit,” he laughs. “Wow, you’re so old.”

“Yeah,” Bucky grins. “Means you have to be nice to me.”

“Mmm.” John pretends to leer. He gently slides his fingers through Bucky’s hair and exhales. “Seeing you like this still breaks my brain a little.”

“Good thing you’re smart.” He pulls him down again for another kiss, pressing fingers into the nape of his neck.

Sunrise breaks against his hair and halos him.

Bucky brushes his thumb over a bruise on John’s jaw, tilting his head.

“I’m okay.” John guides his hand away.

“Can you stop saying that?”

“Bad habit.”

“I know. Stop.”

“But I am okay. Right now.” He presses his forehead against Bucky’s and smiles. 

“Oh, hey…” Bucky pulls something out of his pocket. “I remember you once got very upset at me for taking this.” He hands back Mikey’s old keychain.

John squeezes it and all but collapses against Bucky in complete relief and affection.

John isn’t comfortable asking the Hoskins to step outside, so he waits until they go to grab food. Glory remains behind to keep Lemar company, but the moment John pokes his head in she rolls her eyes and steps out, ruffling John’s hair on the way.

“Love you, Peaches,” she says.

John groans at his sister before going to sit with his brother.

“You know,” Lemar’s voice is rough from all the sleep. “You still look as shitty as I feel.”

“Thanks, that really makes me feel better.” John frowns.

Lemar chuckles before wincing. “I noticed you haven’t groveled yet.”

“What?”

“You know, apologizing, blaming yourself.”

“Trust me. I was… but I know why you did it.” He shrugs. “Thanks, Lemar. I wouldn’t be here without you.”

“Yeah,” Lemar is pleased with himself. “Someone has to keep you from running head first into trouble.”

John licks his lips. “About that…” He looks down at the shield keychain fidgeting in his fingers.

Lemar sees and furrows his brow.

“I… can’t stay in Custer’s Grove.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I need to leave, Lemar.”

“No. You don’t.”

“Lemar—”

“John, I was shot… I, I need you, man. I can’t…” Pain keeps Lemar from getting too worked up, doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel those emotions twisting in his chest. “Is it your dad?”

“Sort of,” John cannot look him in the eye.

“What do you mean sort of? If you’re going to leave me again, you better have a good fucking reason!”

John exhales and looks up. “I’m different now.”

“Great, put it on your college essay, don’t use it as bullshit to tell me...” Lemar’s been with John since they were kids; he can read him like he’s reading weather from the clouds, knows what’s fear or anger, when recklessness is inevitable. Right now, Lemar just sees that on-brand Walker determination, which means there’s no changing his mind. “You’re serious.”

John nods.

Lemar sinks back into the pillow. “And you’re not going to tell me the whole truth this time?”

John works his jaw. “I…” He glances at the doorway. “I have the serum.” His knee starts to bounce. “Sort of like the one Bucky has, but it’s not really perfect—that doesn’t matter.” John shakes his head, bending forward. “But I’m not normal now, I can’t just go back to school and pretend.”

Lemar is silent for a while, and John is too afraid to look at him. Lemar eventually asks, “What, you a superhero now?”

“No.”

“Not yet, you mean.”

“Dude, don’t—”

“I know you, John.” He smiles when John finally raises his head. “You were going to be throwing yourself in front of danger for other people anyway, you’ll be good.”

“I’m not really a calm person.” He squeezes the Captain America shield.

“Just be yourself, I already like that guy.”

John huffs a reluctant smile.

Lemar adds, “You know this means you’re leaving me alone with Liv to help me through rehab.”

John wipes at his eyes and chuckles. “Sorry. She’s going to be a drill sergeant.”

“And yet you’re still leaving me.” Lemar says, somewhat jokingly, but then the shield keychain gets pressed into his palm. From one brother to the next.

“I’m never leaving you, Lemar,” John says. “…I just need to figure some stuff out.”

Lemar wraps his fingers around the gift with all the strength he has, and says “Just don’t take too long or I’ll be coming after you.”

John looks down in relief.

Bucky appears quietly in the doorway. “I’ll keep an eye on him in the meantime.”

“Sounds like you’re just as bad,” Lemar shakes his head. “But you better keep him safe.”

Bucky nods and looks at John fondly. “Promise.”

EPILOGUE

The air is winter chilled. Steve and Bucky stand outside and stare at a pink sunrise.

Steve jokes, “You know they have commercial air travel now, Buck. Driving everywhere is kind of old school.”

“What can I say,” he grins and puts on his shades. “I am old school.”

They walk down the road from the SHIELD campus.

“He’s doing the right thing.” Steve says after a minute. “SHIELD’s not perfect, but it needs good people willing to put in the work.” He glances and smiles. “You and John are good people.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I’ve decided being good is overrated.”

Steve chuckles. “Well, it’s certainly more complicated these days.”

Around the corner, they hear a motorcycle engine turn on.

“How long are you two going be gone?” Steve asks.

“His winter break is about two weeks. Then SHIELD classes start.”

“Where will you go in the meantime?”

Bucky shrugs. “Wherever we want.”

Steve’s shoulders relax. “So, two weeks and then we start unknotting all that Hydra stuff in your head, right?”

“Damn. I was hoping you’d forget.”

Steve elbows him.

Buck rubs that arm. “Ow, just not looking forward to parts of it.”

“It’ll be worth it, and I’ll be there every step of the way.”

“Yeah, I know… Hey, can we talk more when I get back?”

Steve smiles and sighs. “Yeah, course Buck.” 

Bucky pats his shoulder.

Steve offers Bucky, and then John on the bike, a small salute; John returns it with two fingers before going back to fiddling with a strap.

Bucky watches him go a long moment before joining John.

Bag fixed onto the side of the bike, Bucky swings his leg over their duffel and sits down behind, firmly wrapping himself around John, and burying his face into his neck.

“Morning.” John reaches up and fixes Bucky’s hair.

Bucky holds on tighter.

John asks, “So, where do you want to go?”

“Don’t care,” he mumbles into John’s shoulder. “Wherever you are.”

“I’ll believe you one day.” He revs the throttle. “Last chance, you sure you’re okay with me driving?”

Bucky breathes John in then sighs deeply. “I’ll get over it.”

“Promise I won’t get us killed.” He knocks up the kickstand.

“Kiss for good luck?”

John freezes; he’ll never stop getting butterflies hearing that.

“Hey, I’m getting bored over here,” Bucky grumbles. “Maybe I should drive.”

“No.” John huffs. “I can do it.”

“Yeah?” Bucky grins.

John sees his own nerves reflected back in the shades; he closes his eyes and leans in. Bucky meets him. The kiss is slow and warm. Bucky’s hand comes up to hold John’s jaw and brush a thumb over his cheek that makes John shiver. When John ends it, Bucky kisses him again.

John pulls back and clears his throat, facing forward and trying to ignore the blush spread across his face and neck. “Good. Nice.”

“Mm.” Bucky hums and rests his chin on John’s shoulder.

John’s eyes glance. “Maybe I should have the shades too?”

“Don’t push it.”

John chuckles. “Right.”

He drives out of the compound and back onto a long road going nowhere and everywhere, just the two of them. That’s all they need.

THE END