Hurts to Remember, Hurts More to Forget
Steve was pacing. He did that a lot recently. If he really stopped to think about it he hadn’t been truly calm since seeing Bucky again on that street. It’s like an itch in his soul that he needs to walk off or scratch raw, that nagging feeling that he should have trusted his gut back then and looked for Bucky, looked harder and so long until he found him again. Of course there are all those rational explanations. There was no way anyone could have survived such a fall (except Bucky did). There was a war on, and HYDRA didn’t let anyone take breaks, ally or foe. The fact that the Commandos did go back and scoured the entire gorge, finding nothing but a piece of cloth (that should have told him; that should have made it so abundantly clear that Bucky was still out there, somewhere) – he had felt it, known it in his gut, in his heart, in his very bones that Bucky was still, against all odds and reason, alive.
“You’re gonna wear a hole in the floor and drop right down to the basement.” Sam informs him evenly, too tired to feign lightness of heart. They’d had a falling out with Hill about the lead that brought them to New York, didn’t even stay long enough to pry into Stark Industries personnel files, but luckily Sharon called. Her agent friends from SHIELD (Steve is still less than pleased about that but he can’t exactly go and confront Fury about it, not having a clue where the man is) had apparently dug up some intel of their own, concerning the Winter Soldier project, and the two of them are set to meet an agent this evening in an old diner in Queens.
The diner is less than crowded, and has an odd, oblong shape to one side that allows for Steve’s restless pacing between their booth and the restrooms. The walls are plastered with posters, photographs and newspaper clipping of varying degrees of yellowing. Rita Hayworth smiles down at them from above their booth; next to her is an article about a masked vigilante who seems to have a predilection for swinging across streets and directly above is – aptly enough – an old movie poster that promises to deliver the story of none else than Captain America and his Howling Commandos. Sam said it was from the 60s. None of the names or faces on the poster seem terribly familiar to Steve, but Sam assures him that Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier and George Takei are each iconic in their own way. Steve scoffs at the poster and wonders what his friends who got to live through the war and after it had to say about that particular flick, though he has some idea.
The man who approaches them wears an easy smile and impressive sideburns. He introduces himself as Agent Triplett after checking surreptitiously that there are no prying ears nearby.
“I gotta say, it’s quite something to finally meet you face to face, Captain Rogers.” Agent Triplett says genuinely, “If grandpa was still around he’d have been there as soon as they thawed you out, but it was not to be.”
Steve nods politely, then stops and takes the time to actually look at the younger man.
“Oh goodness, you must be Gabe’s grandson then!” he exclaims, for a moment feeling almost happy, weightless. Triplett smiles again; this time it’s almost shy. He slides a thick manila folder across the table, explaining that a fellow agent came across an irregularity in some documents concerning another case, started digging and found what constitutes probably the entire mission log of the Winter Soldier since the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
“Where they kept him, how they moved him, who was in charge – it’s all in there. She dug through terabytes of data to compile this. In that regard the file leak was a gift.” Steve nods absently while rifling through the papers, names and places jumping out at him occasionally.
“What exactly are we supposed to do with this though?” Sam asks, taking a sip of his coffee.
“We have cause to believe that at least some of the bases listed here are still active. It stands to reason that the Winter Soldier is being kept at one of these locations.”
“If they have him, which we doubt.” Steve says, clapping the folder shut.
“Our own search suggests he’s still in the DC area.” Sam supplies, reaching for the folder.
“I see. And how strong is that lead?”
“Strong.” Steve decrees, somewhat obstinately.
“About equal to this.” Sam acquiesces, tapping the papers in front of him. Steve shoots him a glare.
“And is that going anywhere anytime soon?” Triplett pries further. Steve stays silent, the corners of his mouth drawn down in an unwilling scowl.
“Not really.” Sam admits, subtly kicking Steve under the table.
“Okay, my proposal is that we check out these-“ at that Agent Triplett points to two locations on the paper, “At best, we find him there, at worst we can take out some HYDRA agents. It won’t take more than a week. After that you can still go back to your lead.”
Steve’s glare has become downright murderous at this point, causing Sam to elbow the Captain sharply in the ribs.
“Steve,” he says with all the patience of a saint, “This is as good a chance to find him as the DC lead. Even if it doesn’t play out, by the time we get back maybe both you and Hill will have calmed down enough that we can find out about the other thing. Let’s just go and take a look at it.”
Steve forces himself to take a deep breath while the two other men look at him expectantly. The notion of working with SHIELD again doesn’t sit all that well with him, but if there’s a chance of finding Bucky he knows he’ll take it no matter what. Besides, it might do him a whole lot of good to kick around some HYDRA goons.
“Fine.” He grumbles.
---
He was eighteen years old and knocking on a beige front door with flaking paint. His breathing was heavy, he'd run all the way here, and even though it was only two blocks away he was out of breath. His lungs were burning and his head was spinning and his hand trembled as he raised it to knock again, only to have the rickety wood disappear from under his knuckles and be replaced with Sarah Rogers' worried face.
"James?" she asked, bewildered. "Steve's not here; I sent him on an errand."
"I think I broke something, Mrs Rogers." he said, heavy-tongued. His mouth felt so dry, like it was filled with sawdust. Sarah Rogers, being an experienced nurse as well as a mother, immediately recognized that something was very wrong with him. She reached up to grasp his shaking shoulders and didn't let him stray from her gaze.
"Tell me what happened, James."
He drew a deep, shuddering breath, suddenly acutely aware of the pricking at the corners of his eyes and the searing, stabbing pain in his...
"I dropped the tool box on my foot, ma'am." he ground out, shifting his weight so less of it rested on his throbbing left leg. He'd run all the way here and now he gripped the door frame tightly enough to splinter it to keep from crying out. His father's tool box was an ungainly wooden thing, some 30 by 12 inches and weighed more than 14 pounds altogether. He had slammed it straight on his foot, he had almost felt the tiny bones in his toes shatter on impact, and then he had turned on his heel and come straight here.
As he babbled on about this, Sarah maneuvered him inside cautiously and sat him down on the worn out couch. He hissed when she carefully pulled off his shoe to inspect the damage. He couldn't look, but the pain in his limb distracted him from the other thing at least. Really, he shouldn't even have been meddling with the tool box, he was just going to quickly fix the shelf in Jules' and Rosie's room before they got into trouble for breaking it. They were only eight and eleven years old, respectively. He wasn't... They didn't... They needed to be protected, didn't they? It was no big deal, really. Just a couple of screws coming loose, it wasn't even their fault. The damned old thing would have bailed soon anyway; that shelf had been with the family longer than he had, having been a wedding gift from some second cousin back in Indiana. They were just children. He was their older brother; it was his job to protect them. He will recall, very clearly, from that day on the music spilling from the record player at the time: Brahms, A German Requiem, Death where is thy sting? Death, where is thy victory? Apt. His mother had loved the piece to bits before; after she broke the vinyl disc to bits over her knee. The children would flinch whenever they heard the verse. He would even - James that is, who was then still Bucky mostly and to most - come back to it as he himself lay, presumably dying, in a cold ravine somewhere in the Italian Alps. The words that had always seemed defiant to him then taking on a pleading note, one of utter supplication. But all this is just anachronistic digression from a boy in shock, the event in question only the starting point to a portion of trauma and idiosyncrasies.
He had this tendency to not be able to shut his mouth when he was upset. Sarah saw through it immediately.
"James," she said softly, after doing what she could there in the way of first aid, "James, tell me what happened. Normally your mom has you setting the dinner table at this hour. What's wrong?"
He was eighteen when he woke up that morning, but now he is four years old again and chokes back a heavy sob, and then another, until he can't do it anymore. Usually George Barnes would come home at 6.30 pm, an hour earlier if it was a Friday. But on this Friday there had been a knock on the door just a few minutes shy of half past four, on the other side of it had been two uniformed men who seemed vaguely familiar, with grave faces and kneading their hats in their hands. And they had said that they were so very sorry, that there had been an accident at the base, an explosion of stored ammunitions and... He can't bring himself to say it. The words simply won't leave his mouth. Had he hoped to find Steve here? He isn't even sure. Maybe he came for Sarah's motherly comfort, seeing as his own mother is currently too preoccupied to give it. Maybe he escaped because he didn't want his younger siblings to see him break down; he needed to be strong for them, didn't he? He can't repeat the words those officers said to them, but Sarah guessed what they were aptly enough, and now he's curled up on the Rogers' old couch and sobbing into her shoulder and everything hurts so much because his father is dead.
James starts awake so violently that Becky slides down from where she curled up on his stomach, meowing accusingly and hacking her claws into the blanket to stop her descent. It doesn’t help much, seeing as the blanket then slips downward with her, so she takes a small leap, claws scraping fruitlessly along the metal of his arm that is still warmer than usual from where she was draped over it. Still breathing heavily, James scoops the cat up and gathers her back in his lap.
His head doesn’t hurt quite as much anymore as it used to, and whatever poisons HYDRA used to keep him compliant have seemingly finally been drained out of his system, and with your wholesome cooking he’s quickly gaining back the weight he lost before. It’s probably mainly due to the serum but he’s healing, physically at least. His mind is still in large parts disarrayed, but his brain is mending, and that means memories are coming back to him more easily and completely than they used to.
He supposes he only remembered that afternoon, mere weeks before his high school graduation, because he’d been thinking about Sarah Rogers the other day, when you cut his hair. It doesn’t make the pain any less searing.
Thoughts of Sarah Rogers naturally lead to her son. He made her a promise. It was her dying wish that he look out for Steve. Even if he failed already it doesn’t release him from that obligation, he thinks. Dying wishes are sacred after all. If he’d been afforded one it would have been to see his friends safely through the war. Not that he needed an outside influence to want to look out for Steve, but it strengthened his conviction. With a sigh, James thinks back on what you said. He wants to believe that Steve really is out there looking for him, that he still cares about the friend he lost, then found only to lose again. Then again it only drives the guilt so much deeper, to imagine Steve zooming around the country, scrabbling for traces while he is here, warm and safe and cared for, with a roof over his head and a new friend.
Groaning, he sinks back down. The apprehension makes his heart pound uneasily. He feels, deep down, that it is only a matter of time until he sees Steve again one way or another. Just not maybe quite yet.