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Sometimes Bucky catches Walker out of the corner of his eye, and feels a little like the world has been pulled out from under him. It’s only when he’s silent, and when the light catches that uniform just right. It’s like some horrible facsimile, and it leaves James fucking gutted with nostalgia. Or maybe some misplaced future. In this tower, pieces of Steve seem everywhere, like shrapnel from an explosion. And sometimes Bucky can’t help but see the life Steve must have had, before he fucked it all up for Bucky’s sake. He's nowhere near deserving enough to look at the space Walker takes up in this place and think it should be him . Steve would never be in this situation.
This whole thing - this fucking predicament Valentina has got him into - leaves him itchy. He lives in the hollowed home of the man whose parents he killed, who is dead now, like so many others. That’s a real fucking hero, Bucky thinks, and tries not to think about Steve; blood stained and punching Stark’s fucking teeth in for him. For him. For what? What a fucking future Steve left him -
“There is something really like –” John sniffs in. “Like wrong with you, Bucks”
He looks over. He’s eating a packet of cheetos, and staring. Bucky leans back, shoulders set, tries not let his eye twitch at Walker’s gormless smile
“You know you glaze over, like completely?” Walker tells him. Bucky knows, because it takes a moment to re-enter his body. “Lips open, like, eyes wide. You are kind of fucking freaky”
Something rolls in his guts, he hates it. Walker watches him with a leery sort of look. Bucky is used to it. People looked at him like that a lot. Sometimes, just sometimes, he can hear voices that - regardless of the language spoken in - have that same tone of voice as John say; ‘ you can really make him do anything?’ . Whatever, it’s in the past. Distant past. Bucky is fine, shiny actually, very fucking healed.
“You don’t need to stare” Bucky smiles, tightly.
“This is -” John swirls a finger. “All getting to you, huh? You thought you made a clean break, and you’re dragged right back, Soldier”
Something settles blankly across the centre of his skull at those words. Jesus, he presses his palm to his head. He is really not made to lead, something whispers in his head, insidious. Brainwashing has some hang-ups. A lot, actually. He’s not going to start listing them off with Walker. But yeah, maybe, this is getting to him.
“I was thinking, like, who we’d be” Walker talks. “In the avengers, original, y’know?”
“You should do one of those -” Bucky scrapes a hand through his hair. “Online quizzes?”
“Oh yeah, I have. I got Stark like three times -”
“Really? That’s interesting” Bucky breathes. He wonders what Valentina would do if he snapped Walker’s neck. He points, purses his lips. “Thought that first time I saw you, actually”
“Well, y’know -” Walker makes a face. “Really?”
“Absolutely not”
There is a pause. Walker sniffs.
“I’m Steve, definitely” Walker says. Bucky shivers.
“I was in cryo” He says, forcing his tone to be light. “And the war. So actually -”
John kisses his teeth, with complete earnestness says; “You don’t have the gumption”
“None of us do” Bucky says, with far too much finality.
John looks reasonably chastised, actually. He nods, curt. Sometimes Bucky can remember, vaguely, that he used to be funny, used to be the light of the room. Now he really manages to suck the air out of them.
“Thought you were never gonna replace him, anyway? Your words not mine” He adds, too spiteful.
Walker gives him a long look. “I’m trying to have a conversation with my teammate, that’s all. Shoot me in the fucking face, jesus, Congressman. I’m just being polite”
“I don’t really think we need politeness, do we? Do we?” He loathes how fast this gets to him, how listless and painful it becomes so quickly. This is the problem, really, with trying to heal. You uncover all these little wounds you forced to scar over, until every little situation and discomfort that for any normal fucking person would just be an inconvenience feels like a open nerve. “Avengers were never polite with each other, I can tell you that. And we are not them, really, are we? Are you? All falls into your fucking lap, don’t it, Walker?”
Walker’s eyes narrow. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Means you’re a spineless little fucking rat” Bucky says, with a smile. “And scum rises. So here you are, in the fucking avengers tower”
“You’re here too, Buck” He says.
“Exactly” Bucky snarls.
-
There are nightmares, obviously, and there are flashbacks, and painful nostalgic memories of a time long gone with a man he loved so fully, and so intensely it overrode decades of electroshock and torture. But the worst thing, Bucky thinks, after years of begging for forgiveness, and making amends, and thinking ‘ what would Steve do?’ is that sometimes he misses it. That makes him feel despicable.
It was blank, and he did as he was told, and if he did as he was told it didn’t hurt. Cryo didn’t hurt, it was nothingness, the mercy of non-existence. He misses being nothing so much, he misses feeling nothing. He feels everything now, it builds continuously under his skin, until it’s burning in his veins. There is a lot he doesn’t remember, the missions are the tip of the iceberg. It’s easy to remember the face of someone you killed. It’s everything else he struggles with.
Over the years Bucky has learnt that suffering is not equal. Some suffering is righteous, and some suffering is just icky. His is the latter, there is something heroic about a fight lost, or a partner killed, or a world ending catastrophe taking a part of you. Bucky used to get on his knees for senators, and dictators, and KGB officers, and HYDRA agents the world over. Bucky once spent a night having cigars put out on his chest. Bucky had his hair pulled and his throat spat down, and he took it all without even a whisper of complaint. Actually, there were times he knew he enjoyed it, or had to enjoy it, was programmed to give big eyes and almost smiles to marks.
It fucks you up, makes wires cross in your brain. Murder is murder. He was in a war, he’s been fighting his whole life. Death is death. But there is something about being their object, and the focal point of their desire, that has burrowed deep into Bucky’s skin, and he might be free from trigger words and he might seem stable, but this thing is still inside. Dark and hungry.
He used to fill it, used to hook up with anyone. That’s the beauty of the internet maybe, search long enough you’ll find people just as fucked up as you. He’d bring them over and let them fuck his face and pull his hair and go completely blank for a few hours.
“ You know it’s really dangerous to have random dudes over” One guy had said, sheepish, in his doorway one night. There was no threat in it, really, they were all weedy little sadists. It was harmless. He liked that too.
Then he ran for office and got elected, somehow, and the idea of being caught being slapped and fucked senseless really wasn’t good optics.
He has an itch for it. He wants it again. But he thinks if their ex Captain America kills foreign nationals in cold blood, and the Winter Soldier gets off on humiliation, then Sam has a point about the whole ‘not avengers’ thing. So he tries to be the least fucked up member of their team. At least outwardly.
They think he's cool; Yelena and Bob, Alexei too. Yelena and Alexei grew up in the shadow of what the Winter Soldier was capable of. They sometimes look at him with more celebrity awe than the unsettled fear Walker and the American military complex still gives him. They don't trust him, but they like his skill set. Walker wanted him like a collector wants an old knife; decorative.
-
Valentina needs some old soviet secrets extracted from a 80 something scientist living out his final years too far north for Bucky’s liking. She likes to play these gentle little mind games, maybe because Bucky never bought her bullshit, or maybe because he actively impeached her. But he gets the sense this is some kind of punishment. Walker is raking through drawers of paperwork. The wind is blowing snow through the porch of this guys house. The door has a foot shaped hole in it. He’s old, and all his furniture is plastic wrapped, and the house smells of mothballs. The guy has his hands in the air, frail and trembling, and Alexei has a gun trained on him which feels entirely unnecessary.
“ You are him” The man says, in Russian, weak with awe. Walker turns at the noise, but doesn’t speak the language. “ You have barely aged a day”
And he stands, shakily. Bucky feels himself flinch, just a little. Alexei shouts in complaint, a meaningless noise of authority, and takes the safety off his gun.
“Woah, woah!” Walker barks, immediate, gun on him too now. “Easy, easy”
It’s a cacophony of both of their voices, barking orders. It makes Bucky’s teeth itchy. That sort of shouting always makes his body feel like it’s directed at him.
“It’s fine” James breathes, puts a hand up. “It’s fine”
“ I must have been already in my fifties, when we met” He’s just an old man, Bucky tells himself, and doesn’t stop him when he gets close, close enough he tucks a strand of hair behind James’ ear. “ Do you remember?”
“ I met a lot of people” He answers, blandly. In his fifties, so what? The 90’s, maybe? Bucky was leased out a lot, then. HYDRA made a quick buck of loaning him out. Had he first met Pierce then, too? Maybe, it’s hard to piece it all together sometimes.
Alexei is looking at him. But then, Alexei must also know the difference between reverence and fear, must know this man adores James in a way that’s proprietary. The doctor looks disappointed, but he smiles shakily. Their eyes are locked and Bucky is trying not to rack his memories for the guy's face. He’s a little too afraid of what he might find.
“ Of course” The Doctor’s hand is still on his cheek. James ignores that his breath is slightly laboured, that discomfort is spreading through his guts. His feet don’t feel like they can move. “ I had you for over a month, you were very obedient at first. HYDRA was testing the limits of your field time, how long before you needed to go back on ice, over the weeks you would get more confused, agitated but you never said no, and you never lashed out. You were wholly mine and beautiful”
This is coming back to him. Code words and electroshock only get you so far, the last as long as it takes to kill. They broke him thoroughly, straight to the marrow of his bones, till he would sit unrestrained and take a backhand from the likes of Pierce.
“ The mind can pretend, but the body doesn’t forget” It’s so painfully fucking true. The type of truth that makes his legs feel miles away from him, like he can’t take a step forward or back. Fawn-like, he’s trapped. The Doctor’s breath comes in fast. “ Oh, there is still a part of you now, that remembers I owned you -”
There is a gunshot, and blood sprays, arterial and warm across Bucky’s face. It barely makes him flinch. The Doctor crumples to the floor. Alexei is staring at him, restrained horror on his face. James just gives him a level look in return.
“What the fuck?” Walker is shouting. He’s always fucking shouting. “Jesus, Alexei - Val didn’t say to kill him”
Bucky blinks, forcefully, his gaze tipping to meet Alexei’s. He should probably say thank you. “ You didn’t have to-”
“I did” Alexei says, soft, and puts a firm and broad hand on James’ shoulder, before he begins to search a nearby cabinet, ignoring John all together.
Walker turns on him, immediate, face pulled into vicious lines. “What’s this? little secret squirrel conversations. I fucking hate that, don’t do that in front of me. I’m fucking so serious right, Barnes”
“Feeling left out?” Bucky drawls. There is a feral sort of look in Walker’s gaze, this itchy and unhinged righteousness that surfaces twitchily. It’s painfully antithetical to everything James feels right now. “You can get Duolingo -”
His back impacts the wall, John’s arm over his front. Nothing in him fights it.
“What was that? What did he tell you? Why’d you go all -” John motions across James’ face. “Blank”
“It was nothing” Alexei is saying, on Bucky’s behalf, waving a hand like it's all meaningless.
“No it was something” John snarls. “It was something. Don’t fuck me around, either of you ”
James runs his tongue over his teeth, considers telling John the truth. He has the emotional intelligence of a sixteen year old jock, but the shock might get him to back the fuck off.
“He knew me” James says, in the end.
John searches his eyes, like he could find deception there, like he’d even know what deception looks like on James.
“Asked if I remembered him”
“And then Alexei shot him in the face?” John bites his lip, his blink this slightly unhinged thing, like an electric shock across his eyelids. He’s half a second away from a goddamn nervous breakdown every 48 hours, James thinks. “Nah, don’t buy it”
“HYDRA whored me out to him” Bucky says, with little to no emotion. It has the desired effect, John’s hand drops away, a kind of muted panic coming across his face. He can see him racing to find an appropriate response. “Alexei was just defending what’s left of my honour”
Alexei is pointedly making a neat pile of necessary documents, brown folders stacked on top of one another. Bucky turns, takes three steps out the room and into the cold. He puts a hand on the skin of his collar, where it meets cold metal, and ignores the urge to scratch.
“Bucky -” Is followed behind him, every step he takes into the snow, his name is called. “Barnes, listen, jesus. Buck -”
He turns. John is there in that stupid helmet, in stars and stripes, and Bucky wants to scream.
“Don’t call me that” He says, incredulous. “I told you not to call me that”
John puts his hands up, imploring. “Pal, come on -”
“Pal?” James can only bark a laugh. “What am I to you, Walker? Your little buddy? A liability? Your new wingman? You’re majorly fucking delusional”
Walker stares at him, takes a step closer. “Buck -”
“I’m so fucking serious, cut that out” James snarls. “If that’s pity on your face, wipe it off, Walker or I’ll do it for you”
“I’m trying here” Walker says, in that tried and true all-american way. “I’m really trying, James. Y’know we are meant to be a team, meant to be like, y’know -‘The Avengers’, and to guys like us, that’s a second chance”
There is a mildly self-satisfied smile on John’s face. Oh, Walker genuinely thought that was rousing.
“Guys like us” Bucky echoes. “Guys like us. I was mindfucked for 70 years, Walker, by the goddamn Nazis. You took the serum and had an international crash out. Guys like us ? Fuck off. Your wife left you ‘cos you are an officious asshole. The shit I was made to do? Walker, you’d never have survived a second of it”
Walker’s jaw sets. His tongue pushes at the skin below his lip. His eyes go from righteous and pleading to a very dark blue.
“Yeah, you’re right, Barnes. I’m not blessed with such a pretty, fuckable face”
He breaks Walker’s nose. Alexei has to drag them apart. The jet home is silent.
-
Nursing an ice pack, but otherwise unharmed, Walker is giving him sideways glares. Bucky has a scratch on his cheek where John’s nail caught him. They’re pointedly ignoring one another. They are in a very nice suite around the 68th floor of this goddamned skyscraper. New York sings below, sirens and traffic. From this height, he should be able to see the neighbourhood he grew up in, but the skyline is so different, too many new buildings obscure the view. The lights are a diffused, warm golden, and there is unobtrusive jazz playing from some speakers. John has a whisky in his hand. Bucky has the bottle.
“Feral” John says, unprompted.
James moves his gaze, unhurriedly, towards him. “Excuse me?”
“You’re fucking feral, Solider” John snorts. “Can I call you that?”
Bucky sinks a little lower into the leather of his chair, doesn’t rise to it. No, realistically, is the answer.
“I was scared of you, for a hot second there” John says, like it’s a first. It’s not. But maybe John needs that for his ego.
“You talk a lot” Bucky smiles, more of a grimace. “You ever heard of a comfortable silence?”
“I’ve been thinking about how to tell you this” John says. “And by the way, I’ve thought before you told me about your - your -” He clears his throat, uncomfortable. “Past”
“Did you write it down? Get your notes out, if you need them” Bucky’s eyes fall shut, he puts the cold metal of his fingers to the aching headache between his eyes.
“You are an unfit leader”
James sighs.
“You are a follower, through and through. It’s in your blood. You don’t give orders, Barnes, you take them” John is enjoying this, he can tell. That’s James, alright; a follower. Took orders in the war, didn’t have much choice to do anything but follow since. He’s passive, in every way.
“I’m not the leader here. It’s a flat organisational structure. Everyone’s a leader, happy?”
“You try really fucking hard not to care, don’t you?” Walker says. “You think apathy protects you?”
“Uhm” Bucky shrugs. “It’s less embarrassing than whatever you’ve got going on, sure”
Walker wants a rise, he can tell. Which is insane, ‘cos his nose might have healed with all that serum in him, but he’s still wincing.
“I just think Steve would -”
Oh fuck this.
“Steve used to fuck me till I hardly remembered my name, Walker. Used to whisper some real filth in my ear till I felt human again. That's how he had such a tight leash on me. There’s a little tidbit for you” He raises the bottle, gives him a placid smile.
Walker seems to lose colour from everywhere but his cheeks. His mouth works around nothing, like a fish on a hook.
“They don’t put that in the Smithsonian” Bucky drawls.
“I don’t -” He pulls his chin to his neck, baffled. “What? In the 40’s?”
“Once” he tells him, earnestly. He hasn’t even told Sam this, but then, he thinks Sam guessed. “Heat of the war type thing. He had a real thing for -” A woman, Bucky thinks, and chose her in the end. He clears his throat, feels cruel all of a sudden. “You ever fuck, uhm, what was his name? Battlestar?”
Walker throws his glass at him, it smashes against his forearm, narrowly misses his face. Walker’s crowding him, a leg between his knees, and a hand around his throat, bloodlust in his eyes. He grits his teeth, a hand coming to John’s wrist.
“Careful, Bucky” He breathes hot air against his face. “Careful”
Bucky just gazes at him, pinpricks of black at the edge of his gaze. There is nothing in him that feels the need to fight. That should be alarming. Really, it’s just disappointing. John lets go, because he seems to sense Bucky is just gonna let him continue.
“Freak” He snarls.
James just gazes at him from under his lashes.
“Sit back down” He tells John, tilting his chin. John just stands, breathing laboured. “I’ll take that as a no. Does it surprise you?”
John sniffs, takes a fresh glass and walks, carefully over to Bucky, removes the bottle from his limp fingers.
“You don't surprise me,” He says.
“What was it you said?” Bucky smiles. “Captain America was like a brother to you? He was more than a brother to me” John does nothing but shrug. “Are you going to take that off, by the way?” he motions over the suit Walker is still in, tactical and blazened in red white and blue.
“You're in a weird mood” John says. “So no”
Bucky’s brows lift. “I'm past the days of going off the rails”
“Yeah well, I know danger when I see it, Barnes”
He paces like a lion, hands on his hips. Bucky just follows him with his eyes, back and forth.
There is a hum under his skin, like a pot coming to boil, simmering in his veins. He wants to rip Walker apart, he wants to get on his knees for him. It’s an awful dichotomy, made worse by the fact he wants John to make the decision for him. Like Steve would. Like every handler he ever had as the Asset.
“So you and Steve” Walker breathes in tight through his nose. “You and Sam?”
Bucky shakes his head.
“Yeah” John agrees. “He wouldn’t touch his best friend's used goods” He says it frankly, matter of factly. Bucky doesn’t have the strength, nor the self-respect to dispute it.
Sam was kind of horrified by everything he saw in Bucky, honestly. Steve knew him, Steve could project day trips to Coney island, and a past that he was yearning for, and in return Bucky could give him a nightmare-ridden and jittery approximation. It’s the closest thing to love either of them got for a while. It’s the closest Bucky will ever get.
“So you’ve not had sex since he…?” John asks. Bucky snorts, shakes his head.
“Is that a joke?”
“ No? You are so easy, Barnes. What the fuck -”
Bucky gives him an incredulous look. “Listen, Miss Americana, clutch your pearls close. I know you married your highschool sweetheart or whatever -”
“Does congress know you’re a total slut?” Walker asks in a tone that makes Bucky realise he must have been a horror show in high school. There is something else on Walker’s face now. That proprietary leer has taken on a more animated place in his eyes, like there is a world of unfolding opportunity. There is, Bucky thinks.
James stands, and Walker takes a moment to size him up. He tilts his chin, a little inciting. Bucky’s eyebrow quirks.
“Scared still?”
“Nah” John shakes his head. “You’ve not made a move of your own since the 40’s. Bet if I asked you to get on your knees you’d do it”
James gazes at him. Alright. Bet. It’s a dangerous game, he thinks, because John is as strong as Steve was, and to let him treat James the way he wants to be treated carries more threat. Bucky doesn’t care though, fuck it, he doesn’t care. He just wants something to numb the itch in the back of his skull.
“Do you want me on my knees?” He asks, levelly.
John baulks, jaw working around no words at all. He takes a stumbling step back and adjusts the belt on his hip. Bucky can see the outline of his cock, hard and heavy.
“You’re fucking crazy, Barnes” He snarls, and pushes past him, slams the door open like he’s running for his life.
Bucky comes back to himself in pieces, scattered, and realises what a horrible fucking mistake that was.
And then he grins, cheek to cheek, and let’s himself laugh at the absurdity of it all.
-
He meets Sam for a drink, as friends. It’s a nightmare. They do pleasantries, and they do catch up. Sam does a perfunctory ‘ I’m fucking furious at you’, hand on the shoulder.
Two drinks in and Sam asks; “How’s this thing with Val?”
“I’m a bad day from fucking Walker” He admits, mostly into his fist. There is silence.
Sam’s eyes close, he takes a steady breath out his nose. “Jesus”
Bucky tips his beer bottle at him. “Sorry to disappoint even further”
“What’re you playing at?” Sam asks, and there is an edge of that stern therapithising Sam has a tendency to do that Bucky doesn’t have the strength for tonight. “No, really, Buck. What the hell is this? Not just Walker - I don’t care about that - everything. From congress to the what? The Avengers? You need to -” Sam’s jaw works. “You need to think, Bucky”
Bucky gazes at him. “Can we just have beer?”
“No” Sam says. “We can’t anymore. You’ve made sure of it”
Bucky nods, focuses his gaze on nothing at all. This was a mistake, probably. He hates that it’s become one. Bucky Barnes (born March 10th 1917) had friends out the wazoo, collected them like nothing, kept them like precious gems, remembered birthdays and parents names and favourite colours. Bucky Barnes (congressman, ex-assassin, general all around fuck up) seems to not be able to hold a single friendship.
“Steve fought for the opposite of what you’ve become” Sam says, and he says with such self-loathing, like this is a place he promised himself he wouldn’t go. He lays his palms out flat, like explaining a plan. “You’re CIA special ops wearing the name of his accomplishments like a goddamn badge of honour. It’s grotesque -”
“I know -” Bucky mumbles.
“Then what are you doing?” Sam barks.
Bucky's eyes flinch closed.
“They’re -” He tries, throat closing. “I can’t just leave them, Sam. Not to her. They’re too -”
“Much like you?” Sam says, far too astute. He takes a breath in. “Okay. Alright. I’ll give you that. So, leave, and take them”
God, the thought makes his head hurt. They are settled, it would cause such an upset. They have purpose. It’s all any of them need. To be free agents again would be such a step backwards. Soon, he thinks, soon but not now.
“Playing along is the simplest course of action” The words are still second nature.
Sam’s eyes widen a little, and Bucky knows his voice must have gone too monotone, and his gaze too blank.
“Alright” Sam says, slower, more evaluating. He takes a pause, changes his angle. “Healing is not linear, Buck. We have set backs and missteps, and that’s natural but I need you to be careful about this, alright?”
“Are you telling me this as my friend or as Captain America?” Bucky asks.
“I’m telling you as a PTSD counsellor” He says, frank. Ouch. “The tougher things get the easier it’s gonna be to want that - blanket you get in the thick of it. When your adrenaline is up and your head is empty. I know it, I don’t know it like you know it, granted, but I know it. Bucky, please -”
“I get it” he says, sharp. “I get it. I - I know. I am just -” The past feels so inescapably close, right at his heels. How the fuck can he tell any of them - Walker, and Yelena, Alexei - to move on? Move on for what? There are things you lose, sometimes, that break holes in your life too big to fill. He thinks Steve might have been that for him, sometimes he thinks where Bucky stops and the Winter Soldier starts, the barrier was Steve. No, he thinks firmly, he can’t think that. Steve would never forgive himself if that were the truth. “I have it in hand, Sam”
Sam’s eyes widen, a frown that reads like disdain falling over his features. “No you don’t, Bucky. You really fucking don’t”
His mouth opens, some sharp reply on his tongue. A woman approaches, interrupts.
“Sorry - uhm - sorry” She giggles. “You’re that Avenger right? Can I have a photo? Just for my friend”
Bucky scoots his chair back, giving her room to sit by Sam. This used to happen with Steve a lot too, he’d just zone out for the interaction but the girl is still smiling at Bucky, expectantly. Maybe she wants him to take the photo.
“She means you” Sam says, teeth grit. “ Avenger”
By the time he forces a smile for her, Sam has taken his coat and left half his beer.
-
“Can I ask you a probably inappropriate question?”
Walker smiles awkwardly. He's really awkward now, since that night. It's really pathetic.
Bucky inclines his head in agreement. He's become a bit monosyllabic recently. Regression, probably, should probably see his therapist. Probably won't.
“How'd it feel?” Walker asks.
Bucky frowns. “Huh?”
“I dunno,” Walker says, defensive over nothing. “The whole thing, like all of it, how'd it feel. Like - everyone talks like he's a different dude. But you are the winter soldier right?”
Yeah. He supposes. Not to Steve. It wasn't you, you were forced, you had no choice . It was him, though. It’s inescapable. Steve made redemption this beautiful thing, a thing Bucky would strive towards only for him, so that he could touch him back and not feel like he was staining him red.
“It was 70 years, you'll have to be more specific”
“I mean like” He puffs his cheeks. “I've been in a torture cell before. Two weeks. Brutal. I was still John Walker, y’know?”
Bucky actually can't believe him. It chokes an incredulous laugh out his throat. Although, he understands the arrogance in some way. He felt it too at the beginning. It's kind of the worst thing. They'd ask him his name, back when the electroshock was just direct to his skull, two bits of cotton and a belt between his teeth. Sweat slick and shuddering he'd say “ James ” like it was this universal truth. It wasn't.
He'd think how the fuck will this work? He'd push himself through torture after torture, look at his shiny arm and think ‘if I hold out I can escape’ Then he didn't remember James, and then he didn't remember J, or A or B or C, or any component part of any word. But he remembered that he forgot; this clawing, aching panic, like nails on a chalkboard, like someone tearing wallpaper down inside his head. Then he let go of fear altogether, or they stripped him of it and rebuilt him piece by piece.
“Good for you” Bucky murmurs, appraising and sardonic. Walker’s nostrils flare. “Frying your brain only gets you so far, you kind of begin to remember bits and pieces, it's why they fried it so often” He either has to be flippant or he has to face it. One is easier than the other. “The confusion was just the groundwork, the rest was more -”
“You were well conditioned” John says, far too leery. Then clears his throat, seems to recognise his own tone. “So that - that old guy” He’s itching In his seat, moving around. James stares levelly. “Like a handler…or…”
Bucky squeezes his eyes shut. He can't do this. Can't discuss the gory details with fucking John Walker. His skin is itching, there is something cold in his veins, a second skin he has to shed. “Do you wanna fuck me, Walker?”
John's jaw snaps shut. “I don't - I don't don't want to”
“You don't don't want to? So you do?”
“No -” John waves a hand. “I - maybe - maybe like in the way you wanna fuck that messy girl in college. You don't wanna choose her, you know?”
Choose her . Bucky feels something in him shutter close. You wouldn't, in the end. You wouldn't choose James, if you had the choice.
He knows that.
Bucky stands. Instinctively John does too.
“Alright Walker” He says, takes a cold metal hand to rub over his face. He just needs to get this out his system, like sucking venom from a wound, facing your fears, like forcing a memory to the surface to let it go. Therapy shit. He was listening. “Here’s the deal; I'll get on my knees, you keep your fucking hands to yourself. I'll blow your pathetic mind, and -”
“And you get to go all blank?” John grins. “Alright, Barnes. Don't act like you're doing me a fucking solid”
“I am, though” Bucky murmurs, feels his eyelids drop a little. The distance between them shrinks. “You’ve wanted this since we met -”
“I was married when we met.” Walker snaps.
“Doesn't matter, not really,” James says. What does married mean? Every HYDRA agent that fucked his throat was married, he remembers the glint of the rings on their fingers. “You wanted me ‘cos deep down you wanna be him so badly, and Steve had me. I’m the only person that knows that you are rotten past redemption, because I know just how good Steve was”
“You keep telling yourself that” Walker tilts his head. “Truth is you poisoned him. You’re like hugging uranium. The closer he kept you, the sicker he got. You broke the avengers, buddy. You are well on track to doing it again. I don't know what happened to Steve Rogers, but I sure as hell bet he’s better away from you. Just like I was. Just like Sam is”
Fuck, Bucky thinks, and then can't really think much more. Steve would say that's not true, he’d whisper it against his temple. But Steve isn't here.
“Jesus” Walker practically whistles. He snaps his fingers in front of his face. James flinches. “You are S tier fucked my friend. But I get it, I do” and there is almost sympathy in voice. “He’d have done anything for you” and his voice is gentler now, nostalgic.“He’d have understood what I did for Lemar. Even if you chose not to. We are not so different, I think”
Fucking hell. John probably tells himself that every night, hugs his shield and pats his stupid helmet. Kisses the stars and stripes and thinks ‘Captain America would understand’.
“What do you want, Walker?”
“What do I want?” His eyes are wide with incredulity. “This is about what I want is it?”
It has to be, James thinks. It really has to be.
There is a pause between them. John is searching his eyes, his lip upturned a little, almost disdain, almost desire. Bucky just gazes at him, awaiting.
Walker breathes in through his nose, then out, puts his hands on his hips and squints like he’s looking at the sun.
“Get on your knees, Bucky” He says, tight, like he will regret it.
Bucky does, gaze still on John’s, hair caught in his lip and gaze half-lidded.It makes John’s eyes dilate. He’s hard already, Bucky can see the outline, against the jeans he’s wearing. John’s hand caresses his hair, Bucky flinches away.
“Paws off” He snaps. John practically keens.
“What’s the point if I can’t touch you?”
“You can pull” Bucky says, and grimaces at the request. John does, immediately, drags his hair head back. The pain rackets through his scalp, down his neck, delicious and awful.
“Take me out” John says, and his breath is slightly laboured. Bucky undoes his belt, takes his zipper down. John presses his face against his cock, holds him there. He hauls him back, hand fisted in his hair. Bucky should be careful, he thinks, although his thoughts are scattered and he feels blissfully removed from the present. He should be really careful here. Walker will get drunk on power, and hurt him, and then feel like shit about it afterwards. Bucky can’t be bothered to sit and pat his shoulder and say ‘ It’s okay, I’m okay, it’s all okay ’, while John promises he is a good man. He’s going to need to lie in silence after this.
“Good” He says, breathless. Bucky drops his lips open, tongue on the edge of his teeth. John’s mouth opens too, stares down at him like he’s some wonder. “Jesus fucking christ”
He slaps his cock against Bucky’s cheek in a way they only do in porn. He guesses John’s been lonely since his life imploded. It hurts in a way that makes Bucky’s eyes flutter, this heavy numb warmth across his bones. His breath goes deep and steady.
This was usually the point Steve would tilt his chin up and murmur something like ‘ Stay with me, Buck’ before he kissed him senseless. But Steve is not here. It's just John, John who pushes the head of his cock between his lips and makes a sound between a whine and a snort.
“If I could take a picture, my god” He whistles.
Bucky gives him an unimpressed glare.
“Smile” Walker says, tries to force his the side of his cheek up with his thumb. James grabs his wrist, twists it hard. Walker almost howls, but he just digs his nails into Bucky’s scalp and forces his cock deeper down his throat.
Bucky chokes instantly, fights not to force his head back. His ears are ringing, the pain is familiar, heady. The room swims a little, his vision blotchy.
“Bite me and you will fucking regret it, Barnes”
He remembers moments of sudden rebellion, his body would just reject touch, lash out and snap necks. It feels the same here, they are both breathing hard. Bucky’s eyes, dark and wild, gaze up at him. John suddenly looks like he put his cock in the mouth of a tiger.
“Play nice, Soldier” John pants, and slowly tries to pull his hand free of the grip James has on it. Bucky let's go, slow.
This is a dangerous game. Bucky doesn't quite know how far he can fall into the mire and the filth that is his conditioning. Doesn't know how fast he can pull himself out. It was different, with stupid sadists he met online, there was an obvious fantasy, it had a beginning and an end. He doesn't know where this begins and ends. John has an military edge that hits too close to home, a viciousness that Bucky is familiar with, and his clothes use the same detergent Steve’s did. It's a mindfuck.
“Suck” John says. Bucky does.
They find a rhythm, even if John’s hips keep twitching out of it. He’s breathing so hard, and Bucky can tell he won't last long. They miss align and John makes him gag in earnest, makes him flinch back, drool at his lips and cheeks flushed from lack of oxygen.
“Shit -” John chokes, wide eyed, and Bucky forgets he was married, has a kid, probably hasn't throat fucked someone like this before. “Sorry, man, sorry -”
God. Bucky can't stand it. He shakes his head, hair caught in the sticky edge of his bottom lip.
“Hit me” He demands. John baulks.
“Huh?”
James feels an itch rise in him, unbearable and inescapable. He wants to scream.
“ Hit me . Never hit someone before?” He baits.
John shifts, uncomfortable.
“Not this uhm -” he struggles. “Intimately”
James roles his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Like punch you?” He asks, awkward. His cock is still weeping though, wet at the head and twitching. So he can’t be that appalled.
“Backhand will do” Bucky murmurs.
John just stares at him.
“Jesus you are tapped in the head” He mutters.
“Like you don’t fist your cock at night wishing you could have me like this. You’ve been desperate for weeks” James snarls. He has to dig, he thinks, just a bit, find where John is still tender and press. “Don’t be dull, John. Or I might just leave too, like your wife -”
His head snaps to the side, the flat of John's hand coming so hard across his cheek it makes his vision swim, making him tip to the side. There is fury in John’s eyes, mixing with arousal to create some feral and unstoppable force. James smiles a little. John slaps him harder.
“They train you to be such an inciting little bastard?” John breathes hard and forces his cock back into Bucky’s mouth. “Or did they train it out of you? You like to bite back, does it make you feel like something other than their bitch? You come crawling back to this no matter what though, huh? Leading got you tetchy, you just need to be used. I’ll use you”
It’s viscerally violent. He’s short enough of breath that his mouth tastes like iron, he feels halfway outside his own body. He can’t think, not at all, and the room is cold against his skin like he’s back in those containment facilities, and he can almost feel the pressure of hands holding him down, and Pierce’s voice in his ear, or the initiating little click of machinery lowering over his head.
John’s fingers pull his hair, he pushes his hips forward, till Bucky’s nose is against his stomach and comes with a groan, head tilted back.
And then James is here, present, fully and the malaise of the past begins to fade like waking up from a nightmare. His heart is hammering and -
“You’re crying” John says, numbly. “Shit, you are crying -”
“It’s fine” Bucky sniffs in, sits back on his knees, and wipes his face. “I do that”
John stands, panting, before he does his trousers up with shaking hands. “Your lip is bleeding”
“Cool” He forces himself to stand, and Walker has to catch his elbow. This is the part where he usually makes his partners leave, immediately, forces them out his door and collapses in on himself like a black hole. He must look pale, and a bit too broken, because John’s eyes are full of a revulsed concern.
John’s mouth opens, then closes, uncertain. “Do you -” He wets his lip. “Like have…I mean, like, we could call Sam”
No. God no.
“Nah. It’s fine, Walker, I’ll be fine. We got our fun”
“Did I?” Walker says, and searches James’ eyes. “Did you?”
Something wells in him, something hopeless. It’s not that itchy desire for violence he needs stripped and fucked away. It’s just miserable loneliness. He remembers Steve’s words, from a lifetime ago, when he was scrawny and had so much to prove ‘ I can get by on my own’. Bucky can’t, he’s realising. He purses his lips, tilts his eyes to the ceiling.
“Do you want anything -” John’s hand touches his shoulder, the caress soft and full of intention. James flinches back from it like he’s been burnt. John’s eyes steel a little, something like disappointment flooding the blue. “Alright”
There is a pause, a long one.
“Listen” John begins. “I don’t - I am not your punching bag, alright? You don’t - I don’t want to be –”
Bucky squeezes his eyes shut. “Let’s not deep it, John”
“Right” John says, nostrils flaring. “Now you just push it all down till the next time you need this again?”
“Something like that” He murmurs. His nose hurts, the back of his throat aches. John is watching him far too closely.
“You’re a fucking mess” John mutters. “And this team is meant to be yours”
James lets his eyes close, feels exhausted. “It’s Valentina’s. We are just the suckers that fell for her trap. Sam’ll -”
“Sam?” John snorts, teeth grit. “Fine, Bucky. Just wait to rescued again”
He doesn’t have the strength to be furious at that.
“Did you think we were going to kiss and snuggle?” He asks, mildly. “You can go, if you want”
John’s jaw works, indignant, but he turns on his heel and leaves, slams the door shut behind him. He sinks onto the sofa the second he’s gone, drags his fingers into his hair and takes a heaving breath in.
He opens his phone, there are no messages. He considers, briefly, texting Sam but they don’t have much to say to each other right now. In the end he just closes his eyes.
-
It’s 1944, or maybe 2017, and the light is diffused and warm, and Steve is there.
James feels his chest crack open with relief, like there is a shell between him and his heart, a frost line that only melts around him. It's warm, when everything else is cold. Steve is promising him the world, and Bucky is just beginning to believe it might be possible to have.
When they kiss it's like coming home, and for a moment Bucky thinks it might all be okay, it might actually be okay.
And then he wakes with a start, a cold sweat all over him, in this gutted effigy of a building they are calling home. There is a presence to his right, he turns with a start.
Walker is asleep beside him, arms crossed, head tilted uncomfortably against the sofa arm. There is a blanket over Bucky. Chivalry is alive and well in midtown Manhattan.
He scrubs a hand over his face. The lights are off, and if he stares just right at Walker’s features in the dim black, they morph into a sharper jaw and softer eyes.
Bucky misses Steve more than he thought he could. He has missed Steve a lot; drafted and separated, dead and missing in action. Every reunion felt like the time . The moment it might just work out for them.
It didn't work out.
John shifts, and the light hits his face, and it's just John. No-one else.
In these moments, in these solitary moments, Bucky misses being nothing at all.