“Mission report.”
Time didn’t work like it used to anymore.
There were long stretches where time moved normal and Bucky knew he was in new New York- a place packed with people on cell phones with flashing lights and electric advertisements around every corner. There were smoky bars with cheap whisky and TV’s playing sporting events.
Bucky liked sitting in those bars, having a drink and a smoke made him feel normal, not so out of time and place.
Other times, Bucky would be standing on the sidewalk and all it took was one person brushing their arm against his and he would be off—
Running.
Hiding.
Plotting.
What was the mission status?
Mission…
Mission…
Stark Tower.
Stark.
“You will retrieve the plans for the new super serum, understood?”
“Understood.”
“If he doesn’t have it- kill him. If he does, bring it back and kill him. No witnesses.”
“Understood.”
Bucky would find himself outside the tower with Stark’s name up top- no memory of how he got there and no idea of what he was doing until the kid appeared.
The kid looked like the Stark that Bucky killed, the one whose photos were in the museum with Steve’s pictures.
It was that Stark’s grandson, Bucky knew that. The son of the man that Bucky made an orphan.
“Mate, I told you you can’t come so close,” the kid would hiss. He didn’t grab Bucky, but he stepped right up to him without a trace of fear on his face. “C’mon, before someone sees you.”
So many kids died - kids always died in war, they were weak and vulnerable and always alone - but Bucky couldn’t let Stark die again.
If this Stark died then HYDRA won and Bucky would never be more than a machine built for murder again.
“Bucky, have you ate today?”
Bucky blinked and he was inside a dusty store that smelled like mold and stale bread. There was the kid that had to live, Harry Stark, in front of him with big green eyes and a nearly full grown German Shepherd at his side.
“What are we doing here?” Bucky asked. “We have to go.”
HYDRA would send people, dangerous people, and they wouldn’t care to kill this kid. They would enjoy it, they’d torture him for information before they sent the Winter Soldier to take the final shot.
It didn’t matter if he was a kid, not even old enough to join a war, they would kill him.
“Please, please, I have a son.”
Bucky took Tony Stark’s parents, he wouldn’t let HYDRA take his kid.
“We can’t leave,” Harry said patiently. “Here, eat.”
Bucky looked down and there was a brown bag in Harry’s hands filled with something that smelled greasy and warm.
“Sit, eat,” Harry said firmly. Bucky did it because he didn’t know when he ate last and he was hungry.
“What day is it?” Bucky asked Harry while he slowly ate the salty fries from the bag. That was how it worked sometimes, everything was foggy and then it was clear.
It felt like Bucky wandered through a field of mist and then stepped in a hole, falling through the world, and landing in a crystal clear place that apparently came with fries and a burger.
“It’s Thursday, Bucky, the 25th,” Harry said. “I- we just talked yesterday, do you remember?”
No, he didn’t.
“Has HYDRA infiltrated yet?” Bucky asked warily. Were they hiding yet? If not, why? Nobody could kill the kid if Bucky were watching his back, they couldn’t.
Harry sighed and sat down at the other chair at the table that Bucky was eating at. “HYDRA isn’t infiltrating, Bucky. You’re just all mixed up in the head. You want me to talk or you?”
That felt like a familiar question.
“You,” Bucky said. He grabbed the burger Harry got him and his skin settled down while he listened to Harry fill him in on his day.
“Peter went from ignoring me to trying to get me to talk to him, I told you that, remember?” Harry said.
Bucky tried to sift through his memory that was filled with holes and blank spaces and then found a memory of being in that same place before, listening to Harry talk about his friend.
“Peter’s the one in the spider costume that hates me, right?” Bucky checked.
“Right,” Harry nodded. “I might block his number, I dunno. Today in gym he offered to be partners and I said no and then I had to be partners with Brittany and…”
Bucky liked listening to Harry talk, it was like he was sixteen again and huddled up with Steve, listening to him talk. Harry wasn’t like Steve at all really though, Harry was more like Bucky with his harsh words and sad eyes.
“What did you do? Before?” Harry asked after he finished talking about that little asshole with the costume and the webs.
“Before what?” Bucky asked.
Time was normal then. Bucky suspected time always worked normally when he was hidden in an old bakery with nothing but the Stark he could save for company.
“Before you were a brainwashed assassin?” Harry grinned.
Ah.
“I was a soldier,” Bucky said with pride. “I was eighteen when I enlisted. I got assigned to the 107th Infantry, men in boots on the ground,” he explained. “I was a good soldier, a good leader. I made officer and led my men in battle until we were captured in ‘43.”
“What happened?” Harry asked, eyes wide as if he were listening to some thrilling tale instead of Bucky’s worst defeats.
“HYDRA,” Bucky snarled. He crushed the paper wrapper from the food Harry brought him when he thought of it—
His men in cages.
HYDRA using them like test rats.
“Some of them died, all of them would have eventually if it hadn’t been for Steve,” Bucky said flatly. He struggled to recall what happened next- he’d been infused with the serum, but he had no dramatic changes like Steve did, only a disconnect from his memories.
“We became the Howling Commandos,” Bucky said slowly, his face screwed up as he tried to remember. “We had a single mission, eradicate HYDRA at all their bases.”
“Bucky, on your left!”
“Dugan! DUGAN!”
When Bucky shook his head, clearing the fog and the gun powder away, Harry was sitting there with a patient expression.
“I’m guessing it didn’t go so well?” Harry quipped.
Bucky shivered and shook his head. “I fell, in the Alps. I remember… I remember Steve reaching for me and I went to grab his hand and… and I just fell. I lost an arm and was found by HYDRA. My team thought I was dead.”
And Bucky Barnes did die; the Winter Soldier killed him.
“The silver one’s better anyway,” Harry said. “Might be worth the madness to have a super strong arm.”
“God, you are such a smartass,” Bucky laughed. “I bet Steve hates you.”
“He gave me boxing lessons once,” Harry said, scrunching his nose up. “It didn’t go so great.”
“You don’t look like much of a fighter,” Bucky pointed out wryly. The kid was scrawny, not as bad as Steve used to be, but still skinny. He had some fire in his eyes, but he’d need a damn lot of training to be a soldier.
“Yeah?” Harry’s eyes got some of that fire in them then. “I’d like to see you face off against Voldemort and live.”
“I’ll get right on that,” Bucky said seriously, “just as soon as you explain what the fuck a Voldemort is.”
“It’s not like you’ll remember in five minutes anyway,” Harry smirked.
Smartass.
Bucky became all business though once the kid started talking about magic and wizards- killers and kids being hunted.
It didn’t surprise him that Harry had powers—
Howard had been a genius.
Howard’s son was a genius with a super powered metal suit.
Why wouldn’t Howard’s grandson be a super powered wizard?
“HOWARD! HOWARD!”
Harry talked about wizards and Voldemort - the magical version of Johann Schmidt, Red Skull.
“What the fuck kind of name is Voldemort?” Bucky asked when Harry was done and his eyes looked like he was drifting away back to a graveyard where he’d been tortured.
“It’s stupid, look…” Harry got his phone out and pulled up a blank screen. He typed in the words ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’ and began deleted the letters one by one as he added in ‘I am Lord Voldemort’.
Fascists always thought they were so original with their names, but Voldemort was just another Red Skull, another Hitler.
“Where’s he located?” Bucky asked Harry.
“Why? You wanna test you and your metal arm and mad thoughts against Voldemort?” Harry snorted. “Nice try, mate.”
Harry might not think much of Bucky’s chances, but Harry didn’t know that the Winter Soldier was always lurking in the back of his mind, ready to take over at any time.
Bucky sat in a bar by himself, his cap pulled low, sipping on a scotch.
It was loud in there, a lot of young guys celebrating one of their friends joining the military—
They wouldn’t celebrate if they knew he’d never come back, not really.
—but it wasn’t so loud that Bucky didn’t clock the woman who sat on his right while a man sat on his left.
“Hey, handsome.” The woman had red hair that matched her lipstick, skintight black clothes, and a sultry voice that Bucky knew was familiar.
Bucky kept his eyes on his glass, mentally calculating his best escape route with minimum casualties.
They weren’t taking him alive.
Bucky had a mission.
He could not fail.
“What’s a soldier like you doing in a place like this?” the woman asked.
“Let’s not do this,” Bucky said quietly. He liked that bar, the bartender gave him free smokes sometimes.
“No can do,” the man said. He had short dark hair and a thick stature of someone trained. “Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?”
Had Bucky ever done anything the easy way?
Bucky moved a fraction of a second before the guy did. He jumped backward off his stool and grabbed it, swinging it around and breaking it on the man. The woman kicked out at him and he leaned back, barely avoiding her black boots.
Someone screamed when Bucky jumped backward and grabbed a pool stick to swing at the woman advancing on him, but they weren’t taking him in.
“Come on, don’t you want to see your friend?” The woman got a kick in, square to Bucky’s chest, knocking him backward on the pool table, but Bucky grabbed the eight ball and threw it at the man before he could grab him.
“Tell your friend I’m not interested,” Bucky sneered. He jumped forward and grabbed the woman’s shoulders before raising his knee to her stomach and pushing her away roughly.
“It’s your—”
“Bucky.”
Bucky spared a look through the crowd of people fleeing the bar to see familiar blue eyes looking at him.
“Steve…?”
Bucky didn’t get a chance to dig and discover if he was seeing things or not before something heavy struck him in the back of the head and everything went black.
“Mission report,” Howard Stark said curtly. He stood before Bucky with green eyes and black hair. He was younger than he had been last time Bucky saw him, but familiar.
“Decimate HYDRA leader, alias Voldemort,” Bucky reported.
“Mission status?”
“Failed.”
A bullet tore through Howard’s chest- red blood stained the blue sweater he wore -and Bucky watched as he fell.
Bucky failed.
Bucky failed.
“I failed… mission failed…”
“Does he dream in assassin?”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t.”
“Guys, cool it. Both of you go outside, this is going to be easier if it’s just me here.”
The third voice was familiar and made Bucky want to open his eyes.
When he did, he must have been twenty again because Steve was in front of him.
“Steve?” Bucky croaked. He went to stand, but his hands were cuffed with metal to the chair he was in. “What the hell?”
“I wasn’t sure who would be waking up, Bucky or the soldier,” Steve said calmly. He sat down across from Bucky and Bucky took a quick chance to assess his surroundings.
“You took me hostage in a hotel?” Bucky asked, looking around and recognizing the bland decorations and nondescript duvet on a bed.
“We’re a little light on housing at the moment,” Steve chuckled. Steve looked good, healthy, and he wore a casual jacket and a pair of jeans. His eyes though, man Bucky could always read his eyes.
“What’s happening?” Bucky asked, seeing the fear in Steve’s eyes. “Why are we here?”
And who was coming?
“We need to talk, Bucky,” Steve said calmly. “Why are you in New York?”
Why was Bucky in New York?
“I have… a mission,” Bucky said slowly. He couldn’t see through the smoke, but the mission was there. “From… Stark.”
“Tony Stark?” Steve asked quickly, leaning forward while Bucky pulled on his restraints. “Is that who gave you a mission?”
No, not the orphaned Stark.
“The kid,” Bucky said, more confident then.
Fuck, if Bucky was in chains then the kid was vulnerable.
“Steve, you have to let me go,” Bucky said frantically, pulling hard on the chains. “The kid, they can’t take him. You know they will. They will. They’ll kill him.”
“Harry gave you a mission?” Steve asked, his eyes thoughtful. “What is it?”
“LET ME GO,” Bucky screamed. He pulled hard and felt the chain cut in his wrist, the wrist that could feel anything, not the cold lump of metal that used to be human. “The kid, Steve! The kid! I’ve got to save him.”
And he could.
He could.
Bucky could save him.
“Barnes, clear the field!”
“It’s…” Bucky held his weapon, staring at a group of kids with dirty skin and hungry eyes. They were huddled together and the oldest had long black hair and she whispered prayers in a language Bucky couldn’t understand.
“It’s kids, Sergeant,” Bucky reported through the communicator. “It’s just kids.”
“Our orders are clear, Private. Clear the field.”
“I’m sorry,” Bucky whispered to the kids. He closed his eyes and followed orders.
“I won’t clear the field,” Bucky told Steve firmly. “I have my orders, Captain. Eradicate HYDRA, protect the kid.”
“Bucky, there’s no mission,” Steve said lowly. “You have to stay away from the kid, he’s going to get hurt. You don’t want that, do you?”
He was going to get hurt, kids always did in war.
“I’ve got to save him,” Bucky said, a whine slipping through his teeth when he strained against the chains again. The kid could be dead, held hostage, being tortured.
“Bucky, you need to leave,” Steve told him. “You can’t stay here. Stark doesn’t want you near the kid, you can’t keep following him. Harry’s a good kid, he’s got enough to deal with. Okay? What happened to Montana? I thought you were staying there?”
Montana?
Bucky shook his head and relaxed his muscles in the chair, trying to think. He could see mountains, a cabin. It had been warm and Bucky liked the smell of the forest. And…
“Stark had a son,” Bucky said, remembering what drove him back to New York. “It’s Howard’s grandson, Steve. We have to save him.”
“YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE PUTTING HARRY IN DANGER!” Steve snapped. “YOU CANT KEEP FOLLOWING HIM AROUND, BUCK. TONY IS GOING TO HAVE YOU LOCKED AWAY TO KEEP THAT KID SAFE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
Bucky understood perfectly.
‘Keep that kid safe’.
“I understand,” Bucky said. He raised a brow and looked down at the metal that had to be more than just standard metal. “You mind?”
Steve stood up and pulled a key from his pocket. He held it out, just out of reach, and stared hard in Bucky’s calm eyes.
“Are you going back to Montana?” Steve asked him.
“Yes,” Bucky said. “The woods were nice, you know? It’s different than the city, quieter.”
“Yeah,” Steve smiled softly and undid the lock holding the chains in place. “You need some money, Buck? I can give you a ride out there.”
“No, I’ve got a ride,” Bucky said evasively. He grinned crookedly and rubbed his wrist. “We didn’t grow up in Brooklyn for me to not know how to get a ride.”
Steve chuckled and held his hands up placatingly, backing away so Bucky could stand.
“Alright, Buck,” he said. “I’ll come see you soon, okay? Can you get ahold of me when you get there?”
“Sure,” Bucky said. He took a step back when Steve lifted his arms. “I’ll see you around, Stevie.”
“Bye, Buck.”
Bucky heard the disappointment in Steve’s voice, he always could, but he had a mission to get back to.
Bucky had a pack of cigarettes he bought with money he didn’t remember getting. He leaned against the lamp post in the dead of night and watched the tower. He didn’t smoke much, but he did then.
The burn in his chest kept his mind clear and focused on the mission.
There was a party happening up on one of the higher floors; Bucky had seen people arriving and caterers bringing food and booze. It was prime time for someone to make a move on the kid.
Bucky had burnt through four cigarettes before he saw his target; Harry came flying out of the front doors and Bucky was on alert immediately.
When Harry started jogging down the sidewalk, Bucky followed.
If someone was after the kid, they’d have to rip through him to get them.
“Quit following me!” Harry yelled. Bucky looked around, searching for his attacker, but saw nobody.
Harry spun around and Bucky jerked to a stop while they stared at each other under the light of a lamppost.
“You, Bucky,” Harry snapped. “Don’t follow me tonight. I- I need space.”
“It’s not safe,” Bucky told him. He’d seen the spider guy earlier, leaping across buildings. He could attack, Harry hated him.
Harry stalked up to Bucky and Bucky saw that his eyes were as easy to read as Steve’s were. Harry was upset about something.
“Mate, I like you, really, but I will hurt you if you follow me,” Harry said with a glare. “It’s a bad day, alright?”
“Why?” Bucky asked him. He looked around quickly and didn’t sense anyone closing in on them. “We’re exposed here. Your friend could show up any minute.”
Or Bucky’s friend- the one who wanted him to disappear.
It would be easier for Steve if Bucky Barnes stayed dead.
It would have been easier for Bucky too.
Harry sighed and looked suddenly defeated. “Have you ate today?”
“Have you?” Bucky countered with quickly.
Harry grinned then, a tired and joyless grin. “No. Come on, put this on and we’ll go buy food.”
Bucky accepted the purple sheet Harry gave him and held it up in confusion.
“Don’t break my bloody arm,” Harry warned Bucky when he grabbed the sheet. “It’s magic, okay?”
Bucky held his breath and stood frozen while Harry took the sheet and wrapped it around him. When Harry reached up to pull a hood over Bucky’s head, Bucky had to lock his muscles to keep from reacting.
“There,” Harry said with a smug look. “You’re invisible, so just shut the fuck up and we’ll go get food and find somewhere to talk, okay?”
As Bucky was told to ‘shut the fuck up’, he didn’t reply. He did follow Harry down the sidewalk though and paused when they passed a dark store front and he had no reflection.
Magic.
“Christ on a cross,” Bucky whispered. The sheet made him invisible.
“Brilliant, right?” Harry drawled quietly from in front of him. “It’s called an Invisibility Cloak, it’s from my dad.”
“Tony?” Bucky whispered.
“James,” Harry said lightly, an undercurrent of something in his voice. “James and Lily Potter, those were my parents.”
Bucky didn’t understand, Harry was clearly Tony’s son.
“You look like Howard,” Bucky told him.
Harry looked over his shoulder with a puzzled expression. “Tony’s dad?”
Bucky clamped his mouth shut, uneasy with the reply he had. Instead, he continued to silently follow Harry while the kid went to the bodega on the corner and bought bags of chips, bottles of coke, and two loaded hot dogs from the cooker on the counter.
The cashier was a younger woman, one who had on cat ears and whiskers drawn on her cheeks.
“Have a hot date?” she asked Harry with a wide smile.
“Yeah, with the flames of hell,” Harry said flatly.
The woman giggled, she couldn’t have been over eighteen. “You’re funny,” she said. Bucky saw Harry actually cringe when she fluttered her lashes at him. “You know, I get off at eleven and my friend’s having a party.”
“Cool,” Harry said carelessly. He handed over a twenty and waited for her to give him his change. “Have fun.”
Bucky snickered when they are outside and Harry led him toward what had probably been a flower garden before the season changed.
“I think she wanted you to go with her, dumbass,” Bucky said after they sat together on a bench and he removed the invisibility cloak.
“I know people think I’m a fucking idiot, but I’m really not,” Harry said with a roll of his eyes. He gave Bucky half of all the food he bought and then stared down at his lap instead of actually eating.
“I don’t actually like Halloween,” Harry said. “My parents were killed on Halloween, you know?”
Bucky tried to piece his own night together with the knowledge of the date. “Your dad threw a party to celebrate a holiday that your other parents were killed on? That’s sick,” he said genuinely. “What the hell is wrong with him?”
Harry looked up and smiled faintly. “He didn’t throw a party, Sirius sort of did.”
Bucky’s brain instantly supplied him with a memory of Sirius- dark hair, grey eyes, hot as hell.
“Did he not know your parents died?” Bucky asked. Sirius was fun, wild, forward, but he didn’t seem cruel.
“Oh, Sirius was best mates with James, my dad,” Harry told him. He took a swig of his coke and Bucky took a bite of the hot dog he had. “Sirius said they’d want us to celebrate. I think he just didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
Bucky could understand not wanting to be left alone. “Would they want you to celebrate?” he asked Harry curiously.
“Dunno. They were killed when I was one.” Harry sighed heavily and Bucky felt bad for him. “Sirius pushes everything away and tries to ‘live in the present’. It makes him happy, I dunno. I just… I wish I could be more like him.”
“Drinking in bars and sleeping with anyone who offers?” Bucky snorted . “I think there’s better ways to cope.”
Harry turned then and looked in Bucky’s eyes in a way that made Bucky feel like he was staring straight to his soul.
“How do you cope?” Harry asked. “When everything is too much, when you feel like you’re being haunted or hunted by yourself, what do you do?”
Bucky laughed, laughed hard. Bucky laughed until he had tears in his eyes and Harry was staring at him warily.
“What do I do?” Bucky repeated once he felt grounded. “I let it all catch me. I can outrun a lot of shit, but not myself.”
The Winter Soldier was as fast as Bucky was, faster even. And all those people the Winter Soldier killed? They hated Bucky just as much as they did the Winter Solider.
“I do too,” Harry sighed. Bucky felt him relax beside him which helped Bucky to relax.
“You know who Sirius invited?” Harry asked after Bucky finished his food and Harry ate half of his. Bucky shook his head, he didn’t know any of Sirius’ friends.
“Peter,” Harry scoffed. “He didn’t come, but he text me about it, asking if I wanted him there.”
“And you told him no?”
Harry laughed shortly. “I told him he could only if he wore his spider-bloke suit and brought a date.”
“Damn.” Bucky whistled. “You’re cold.”
Harry looked over and smirked, shrugging his shoulders as well. “He’s being a prat. Or- I am, I don’t know really, I just know everything’s a mess.”
Bucky leaned his plastic bottle of coke over to tap it against Harry’s.
“That’s life, kid.”
“Yeah,” Harry sighed. “Life sucks.”
Bucky sat out at that garden with Harry until Harry began shivering and he decided to head home. And even after walking Harry back, making sure he wasn’t attacked, Bucky was still thinking it over.
Life did suck.