The man turns to you and his mask has fallen off. Your brain names him Bucky and something tugs, something breaks.
"Who the hell is Bucky?" the man asks.
You have no idea; all you know is that he feels like home.
-
You have been walking for as long as you can remember.
That is a lie.
You have been walking for as long as you care to remember.
There was a time, before the Wastes and Tundras and long, winding roads, when your hair wasn't full of ash and the colours you wear had meaning. They're faded now, worn and bullet-torn and you've patched them up more times than you can count because you can't bring yourself to give them up.
You had a name once, you had a rank.
You gave people hope.
Now you just walk.
You walk and you walk and you walk.
Once upon a time you were just trying to get home, you made it some time ago only you found out there wasn't much left of it. Just deserts and snow and scorched trees, bricks and roving gangs.
You triple your kill rate in the first week.
It stops being so much of a problem after that.
-
They snatch you up somewhere in the canyon. The canyon meant something to you once, you keep finding yourself there.
You don't even have a chance, their engines are too fast and your bike broke down eight states and countless years back. They shave off most of your hair and beard and for a second you're worried they want you for something indecent but then they truss you up like a pig to bleed and you're watching your blood - your life - drain away into the arm of some scrawny, silver haired kid.
There is a man inside your head, a man with kind eyes and a kinder heart and you trust him with your life. Steven, he's saying. Steven.
What is about to happen to you will make you very valuable to others. Your blood may be more valuable than gold one day if we have no more successes.
You're hanging by your ankles watching this blood, this gold, slip away into the kid's veins and you're trying to remember who that man was, why your blood is special.
-
Once there was a man called Stark. You thought he was your friend.
Once there was a man called Stark. He built weapons for a living.
Flew you across enemies lines to rescue your best friend, bought you drinks, smirked at you, patted you on the arm like you were old buddies, old pals.
(You'll forget all of this, remember it in bits and pieces later, in dreams and echoes and sand murmurs and then you'll remember it all and you won't be better off for it.)
Stark built a bomb, a bomb to end the war.
Trouble was, the war kept coming.
-
(You're a weapon, that's all you ever was. You're a weapon not a man.)
-
Widow looks at you like you're a flighty stray, desperate and hungry and liable to tear off the hand of the first person who touches you. She's watching you carefully, sadly, interestedly and she is not afraid of you in the least.
You're not sure how you feel about that.
You've just been driven through the Wastes, chained to the front of that damned kid's car (you're still connected, dragging him like dead weight while the girl you've got pressed against your chest struggles.) You're tired and you're sore and you're thirsty and fuck you just wanna be done with this.
"Water," you bark. "Water."
The girl with house glances at Widow who inclines head but the girl with the hose has hard blue eyes and quick fingers that speak measures about what she's capable of so you shake your head, "Not you. Her."
She hands it over, no questions asked.
The soft girl with long dark hair and big dark eyes approaches, hands you the hose and you drink for what seems like hours.
"Your eyes are old," she says quietly. "Older than all of us."
"Witch," says the girl with red hair. "Hush."
Witch looks back at the others, shrugs a shoulder and says, "He's my brother. The boy you're dragging. Twins. Ultron couldn't believe it. Snatched us up quick as anything."
You look down at the boy, silver hair blowing in the breeze. You can't conceive of twins, of family (but there are whispers in the back of your mind of blue eyed boys and brown eyed girls and - and - )
"Called him special because of his hair, silver like Ultron. Thought he was perfect until those little lumps grew on his neck. Little lumps that suck his strength and make him scream."
You've heard enough.
"Quiet."
You cut yourself free, leave the kid where he falls, clamber into the War Rig's front seat and Widow's watching like she already knows you're gonna turn back.
(Of course you turn back.)
-
"What's your name?" Widow asks, again and again and again.
-
Here is everything you learn about Widow and the wives:
1) Widow is a better shot than you. She is a better driver than you. She is a better person than you. She has no qualms about killing, even though the wives wish she did. (There is something about her that reminds you of a girl you used to know.)
She is the kind of person you could see yourself following to the end of the line and back but she keeps looking to you for advice.
2) The redhead's name is Pepper. She is curt and honest and to the point. She was Ultron's favourite.
3) The one with the hard blue eyes is Hill. She has an itchy trigger finger that you don't ever want to be on the wrong side of.
4) The quiet ones are Foster and Cho. Foster can read stories and directions in the stars, Cho has gentle hands and bandages.
5) Widow is saving them from Ultron, you don't care why or where they're going. Figure if it was important she'd have told you by now.
6) Witch can read minds. Or maybe she can just read you.
You were a soldier, she whispers to you, one day into this mad chase you've gotten yourself into. You helped people, you saved people.
(You still wear your dog tags, wind them through your fingers when you're too lost in your own head. The sides are sharp now, nick your fingers.)
You couldn't save the world though. You won't save us.
You want to shot her but you don't.
He's going to send in the soldier.
Hush, Witch.
-
The soldier Ultron sends is a myth.
You have heard his name from the mouths of dying men, seen his work in swathes of blood and bones and wrecked engines strewn about the road. The Wasteland Soldier, been around almost as long as you.
(And god, you've been around so long, you should be dead. Must be dead.
You're not dead, Witch tells you, just old. So old. Impossibly old.)
He comes as a pole-cat, swinging onto your Rig and lying in wait.
He waits until you think you're safe until he pounces, nearly tears out Widow's throat and you're going to kill him. You are going to tear him limb from fucking limb like the feral animal you fucking are but then his mask falls off with a clatter and you're gone.
You're gone.
You're gone. You're gone. You're gone.
"Bucky?"
-
Even after, after your mind is mostly yours again and Widow and the Wives are safe in the Citadel, with water and green and Ultron is dead, dead, so very dead, even after all that you're not sure whether the forgetting started before the world ended or after.
You remember (you think) the war ending. You remember the bombs.
You remember the way the world stood still, held its breath.
You remember the retaliation.
You remember the fires. The black rain that welded clothes to skin and poisoned people from the inside out, you remember the blood and the screaming and the bright lights and the fact that it never stopped.
Never stopped.
("It's okay," someone says. "Steve, it's okay."
But it's fucking not because the world went to hell and you were Captain Fucking America, you were supposed to save it.)
-
"Witch says you were a soldier," Widow says when they make it out of the bog, out of the mud and grime and toxic water. "She says you lived in the world Before."
You look over at her, say nothing. Your silence probably says more than any words you could string together could.
"You must be old then," she continues. "She says you're old."
"Do I look old?" you grumble.
She smiles. Her silence says more than her words ever could.
"You know, where I grew up, the green place, some of the Many Mothers lived Before. One of them used to tell me stories about a man dressed in red, white and blue."
-
You do the only thing you can think of.
You tackle him, press him into the sand and ignore the deep gouges his blade of an arm makes in your flesh. He's strong but you're stronger and you hold him until he goes still (feel the thrum thrum thrum of his pulse under your hand.)
You sling him over your shoulder and walk back to the Rig.
"He's coming with us," you say.
Widow shrugs, "Just keep him on a leash."
(Cho tuts and bandages up your wounds.)
-
At the place of Many Mothers, Widow's home there is sand, sand and more sand.
And there is a woman with brown eyes and a face too old to be her that has no words for you. Her eyes fill with tears and she cups your face and you have so much you want to say but you don't know how anymore.
(You won't until this is all over and you pull a pike out of her chest as she gasps and splutters up red and god, oh god, Peggy - and maybe that's the moment you wake up properly, the moment it all comes back to you.
And she smiles and strokes your cheek and says, Steve - Steve - )
Widow's plan is insane, you know it's insane. There's nothing beyond the salt. There can't be. Not anymore.
But you don't tell them that. You get your stuff together, haul Bucky out of the back (you've got him on a leash like Widow asked, he's quiet today.) The woman with brown eyes watches and the tears in her eyes make you want to break something.
She crosses to Bucky but she doesn't stroke his cheek.
She presses something into your palm, "You left this behind." She kisses your cheek, "I'm sorry," she whispers. "We killed the world, Steve. We thought we were saving it."
(You remember angry words, all those people, Peggy, all those people. You remember he defending Stark, it was a tragedy, Steve, but it was necessary. You remember knowing she didn't believe those words.)
-
Here is what you remember about Bucky:
You remember the way his lips felt, the way he always smelt vaguely off the sea, even when you were in the middle of a wintery Belgian forest as far from the docks as you could be. You remember the way he fit perfectly against you, before and after you changed. You remember the soft noises he made, the way he smiled at you slow and easy. You remember being scared, so scared, that someone would find out.
You remember him falling.
You remember him screaming.
Here is what you know now about Bucky:
His lips are dry and chapped and he smells like blood and sand and oil. He fights you at every turn, tries his best to snap your bones and bite at you. He hisses and spits and snarls and you find it very hard to believe that you ever thought of him as soft and warm. He looks at you like you're the worst torture the world could dream up and you want to die.
There are deep sores on his neck and wrists and ankles where he's been chained up. There is a tan on his face that says his muzzle has been kept on for far too long. His fingers are all crooked from where they have been broken and not allowed to heal properly. His bladed arm is fused to the skin.
You and Cho clean him best you can.
Witch talks to him at night when she thinks no one can hear.
He gets loose during the final fight and you don't expect to see him again.
-
The locket Peggy presses into your hands is familiar. The dog tags take you a while to place.
(Don't even have his tags, Peg, you say, you're not drunk but you wish you were.
You find them on your bunk the next day, look up at her eyes full of hope and grief and god knows what else and she shakes her head, speaks too quickly, They're not - I had them made. I thought -
She feels so guilty about giving you false hope.)
You sigh and yank on Bucky's chain, "Come on, Buck. We're turning around."
-
"Steve, she's dying."
You look up, Peggy coughs one last time.
Buck's standing over you, eyes wide like a lost kid, covered in blood and guts and oh, Buck, you want to say, what did you do? But then he's speaking again, "Steve," he pleads.
He's not talking about Peg, you realise.
He's not done a runner, you realise.
He's also right, Widow is dying. Coughing and shaking and pale, so pale. The Wives are crying, Cho is trying desperate to do something.
(Save them, Steve, Peggy had said. Don't let them die out here on the road.)
"She's dying," Witch says, eyes wide.
"No," you decide. "No."
She can't die now. Not now.
You hook her up, give her your blood. Hill drives and Bucky sits so close to you he's practically in your lap.
"Steve," you tell her gently. "My name is Steve."
Widow laughs weakly, "I know, I know."
You frown at her and she flails a hand until it touches the dog tags around your neck.
-
"You're not going to stay," Witch says as the Citadel comes into view.
You look at her.
"You think you don't belong there, here. With us," She inclines her head. "You don't. Not yet anyway."
She reaches out to you gently strokes your hand once and then draws back.
"You'll come back though."
-
You lie in the sand, looking up at the stars.
Bucky is curled against you.
The Citadel is behind you, the Wastes in front.
Once upon a time you were a hero. Once upon a time you were a weapon.
You're not sure you know the difference anymore.