"Bucky’s doing fantastic- shrinks really do good work now."
Present Day: 2023
Bucky wakes up on the floor, to a obnoxious ringing sound, and for a moment he thinks Rollins making his life miserable again, back in Hydra, playing loud nursery rhymes on his phone and placing it right beside the Asset’s ear, because he found it hilarious the way Bucky’s sensitive ears would cause him to wake, screaming.
But it’s not Rollins, it’s just his own obnoxious phone, and he picks up the call, swiping left, not even bothering to open his eyes, as he croaks; “What.”
Maybe brainwashing and “trauma’ had taken away his manners too, or maybe Bucky was just an asshole.
“James-”
Bucky stiffens, because it’s Raynor, and he sits up, and his spine goes stiff like metal. His eyes fly open, and his muscles tense, his jaw locks, a soldier at attention, the Asset facing his superiors.
Because he knows, knows, she’s not his handler, but the way she says his name, like the way Pierce would say, “Asset”, or the way Zola would say, “American scum”, makes him feel so very small, and so very numb inside.
Some part of him wonders if she knows, knows that the way she speaks, so authoritative, the way she’ll frown and hold her tiny book, so much like that little red book that contains the ability to strip away everything Bucky is, and turn him into a machine. Wonders if she knows he fights the urge to open his mouth at those gestures, at her tone, and tell her whatever she wants to know. Because some part of him is still there, still wants to please whoever it is that holds his leash, and despite everything Shuri and Wakanda have done for him-that part would never be cleansed.
Wonders if she knows, and does it anyway to get what she wants, like people have been doing, have been manipulating him for their own selfish needs, for decades.
Probably not, though.
“I'll see you in an hour. Don’t tell me you’ve been drinking again.”
The words are firm, cutting and marginally disappointed, and aren’t these shrinks supposed to be nice now? The shrink Bucky had to see after Azzano was rude and racist, and hated Bucky on principle, because he was friends with Gabe and Morita. He’d been a nutcase himself, and Bucky had threatened to sic Steve on him, if he didn’t clear him for active duty. He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t laughed himself silly afterwards, at how pale the pig-headed man had gotten at the threat.
“Then I won’t tell you.” Bucky answers, his voice hoarse and slightly dickish.
At her sigh, Bucky smiles slightly, he really did enjoy making her job more difficult.
She cuts the phone without goodbyes or well-wishes, and what’s her excuse for not having manners? Hydra didn’t mess with her head-he thinks, and yet he stays silent and stoic, as she tells him to meet him in her office promptly on time, at 3. As if Bucky had ever been late, (again a remnant of his time at Hydra, he’d always follow orders given), yet Bucky wonders if he should just stroll in late, with some 40s Buck, is old swagger and charm. Just to screw with her, just to prove he didn’t have to obey.
Another part of him feels sick at the thought, and he tells himself it’s because it’s a court order thing, and not a-Pierce will slap him, or more painful things he can’t think about because he’ll want to shoot himself in the head type- thing.
Bucky’s doing fantastic- shrinks really do good work now.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
He sits in the office, shaved and showered, long wet hair dripping a stain onto his clean red hoodie. Which he’d yanked over some ratty sweats and a new pair of shoes he’d had to buy on the way. Because who owned two pairs of shoes?! People were crazy in the future, and things were far too expensive, back then people were lucky to have a solid pair that wasn’t ruined. It made his head hurt, even though he knew inflation was a thing, and he shouldn’t get riled up over the fact that a damn chocolate bar cost close to two dollars now-or god forbid, five. That would have been a whole day’s work at the docks, back then!
Bucky stares silently at Raynor, his back tense, his eyes wary, as she holds that damn book-and its-
Karpov-Please no, please don’t make me kill again-empty eyes, ragged, agonized breaths-
Zemo-I was doing better-I was minding my own business- not again-
Over and over and over, the faces, the memories, the feelings. Hundreds of them repeat and change, because it’s all happened before, and Raynor may not be holding that damned book, but as she writes, Bucky feels as he did back then, all tense and waiting for the memory induced fog-to- become empty, and hollow and the Tin-Man walking.
“James.” Raynor snaps, and Bucky blinks, “What?” he snaps back, now present in the obnoxious office, with the rigid chair she sits on, and the too plastic couch which isn’t relaxing at all, and the painting of trees behind him, and the whir of the fan above, and god he hates this place.
“Need I remind you-” She sighs, putting the book down on her lap, and Bucky wants her to just throw the damn thing away-
“As a condition of your pardon, you have to engage in this? That therapy and working on your past, what you have done in your past, is written in law, a term you agreed to?”
It’s the way she says, “have to-” and “...What you have done..’ That makes him angry, makes his jaw clench, and a hint of decades worth of defiance, that rises in his chest, against people forcing him to do things, that makes him mad
“Aw, Jim.” Alice with her severe looking expression and no nonsense tone, would say, shaking her head and looking morose as she always does. “You haven’t done anything in your past that you weren’t forced to do.”
Bucky doesn’t know if he agrees, but he refrains from answering in his head, or god forbid, accidently shaking his head, because he doesn’t need Raynor to know he hears voices, and sees ghosts and people in his head.
“James?’ She repeats, and it’s louder now, more impertinent, and Bucky glares, “I cannot help you help yourself, if you don’t or at least won’t pretend you’re mentally here right now.”
Bucky thinks he might hate her more than he hates himself, and he glares with his ma is infamous Winifred Barnes glower, and she rolls her eyes, immune, and christ, did Hydra experiment on this woman, because how is she managing to dismiss that?!
Bucky smiles slightly, because once upon a time, he’d been a funny, swell guy, now as Dum-Dum would put it; he’s a dick.
She sighs again, and all she ever does is sigh, and he hates that, because Pierce had sighed a lot too.
“You brought this on yourself.” He’d say, almost in pity, as though he didn’t enjoy punishing the Asset, even though Bucky knows the man secretly did. They were all sick fucks in that sense.
“I went dancing.” Bucky lies, a slight smirk on his face “And I ran, I even called Sam during a nightmare.”
She stares at him for a couple minutes, because the Winter Soldier is a good liar, Bucky Barnes had been an excellent one.
“Should I add-” She sighs, again, rubbing her temples, “Compulsive liar, to your very long list of issues?”
Bucky’s feeble smile falters, and his face goes stony, she was a soldier alright, mean as any he’d known.
Christ almighty, holy uncle Sam, even Zemo had been a nicer therapist, aside from the whole using Bucky to tear apart the Avengers, and using him as a tool in his psychopathic plans of revenge. Bucky had just been trying to buy plums.
She clears her throat, “James- you’re alone. You have no family, no friends, and quite frankly, you look like shit.”
Bucky practises his old 40s grin, and tilts his chin, “Thanks Doc.” He says, and it’s said with an old Brooklyn drawl, and he hopes the way the smile strains, fake and plastic, to fight the way that grief fills in his chest at the words. Doesn’t come across as too serial killer-esque.
She makes a face, that’s somewhere between being done with his bullshit, and almost pity, “You may think I’m harsh, but it’s the truth, it’s your reality-” Her voice softens slightly, “ -and we do have the power to change our realities.”
Bucky’s surprised by the gentle words, and he shuts down, his face stoic and empty once more. What was his reality? Hell, he was a killer, a monster, and a man who deserved to actually be in Hell for the blood and lives at his hands, and he was still here. How the hell could he change any of that? Did he even want to? Did he deserve that chance, when so many people who’d died at his hands, innocent, good people would never get to have that chance?
He says nothing, and she looks like she’s ready to pull her hair out, “Tell me James. What’s bothering you that you drink yourself to death-” Bucky must make a face at her words because she continues, annoyed.
“-and don’t tell me you’re not. I’m sure you have to consume extraordinary amounts of alcohol to even feel drunk, amounts which would kill the average person.”
It’s a fact, not a question and Bucky shrugs, “There are easier ways to go.”
It’s the wrong thing to say because her eyes look assessing, “That’s something you do a lot? Think of ways to go?”
He knows she wants a reaction, and he’ll be damned if he gives her one, “No.” -Yes. He says, his voice empty, his face still blank and stony.
She-sighs.
Bucky really wants to find a way to go right now.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Back Then: 1945
Bucky’s swearing, and he’s leaning over a dead kraut, with a deadly look in his eyes, his face a haunted, engraved statue. “Looks like a Hollywood star! Our James!” His Ma’s sister, Mary, would laugh. Bucky didn’t think the bleeding out soldier, who looks even younger than him, would agree.
“Buck?” Croaks Steve, and there’s a hand on his shoulder, and Bucky-
-Turns, smiling wide, and perhaps slightly manic, “Caught him Stevie!” Bucky says, a tad bit too casual, “Fucker was in the trees.”
They were hitched out in some forest, trying to take down another Hydra base, and Bucky was-tired.
They were all tired, but he’d been avoiding sleep, had been smoking every other hour, and he’s more afraid of what’s in his head, then the men waiting in the bushes and trees? (Who climbs into a goddamn tree without a rifle, what could you do with a simple hand-gun in a tree?)
It was hilarious and Bucky grins a little, and he feels as though he’s losing his mind.
“Buck?” Steve asks, and even though he towers over Bucky now, and isn’t afraid of anything, he looks afraid now, even worried.
“Buck-was this-” Steve stumbles, because Bucky knows he wants to say “Kid”, because the soldier below him, a victim of Bucky’s brutal stabbing, hadn’t even been armed properly, he wasn’t looking for a fight, he was probably hiding from them. But Bucky had just stumbled, to take a whizz, had seen the boy scaling from the trees, had seen the simple Nazi logo on the front of his army slacks, and had-well his mind had gone empty-white.
Yet he couldn’t explain that to Steve, because Steve needed him, and he needed Steve, he didn’t want to go home to Brooklyn, to their small, homely apartment, where it wouldn’t be a home without Stevie. Where’d he’d be trapped in his mind, and worrying about what Steve was doing, did he eat? Is he breathing alright? Does he have his asthma cigs, Bucky’d worked his butt off, to buy? Except Steve didn’t need that mother-henning, not anymore, hell if anything, he was the mother-hen.
“Bucky did you eat?”
“Bucky did you sleep?”
“Bucky stop smoking so much, you’re going green.”
“Bucky-”
“Bucky-”
“Bucky-”
“Bucky!” Bucky blinks, and Steve looks like he’s about to cry, and aw pal, what has Bucky done now? His brain feels like it does when Stevie's bad-sick, and near death, and Bucky’s so terrified, he can’t breathe or even think, and he feels dizzy and weak.
Something’s wrong with him, something is really, sincerely off, and if Steve, middle name “stupid”, Rogers had noticed, he wasn’t playing his part as well as he thought he’d been.
“Bucky-I’m worried about you.”
Bucky roars with laughter, he can’t help it, didn’t he just say Stevie was a worry-wart now? Didn’t he just-
Steve’s disturbed and so upset, and Bucky’s laughter fades, his face severe, “Sorry pal, not doing so hot. Haven’t been sleeping great.” He croaks, and Steve looks so guilty, and so goddamn devastated Bucky wants to kiss him, and the thought sobers him instantly.
Jesus Christ Barnes.
He feels an icy stab in his chest, and he stares down at the boy, coolly, “Go to sleep, pal. I’ll be here when you wake up, promise I won’t kill any more Nazi monkeys.”
Bucky smiles and Steve looks helpless, he looks like he wants to argue, to fight, but even Steve Rogers gets tired, even the bloody onslaught of war and all its horrors affect him.
So he yawns and sighs, giving Bucky a look that demands that they discuss this later, and Bucky winks at him.
Steve goes red the way he does, and it’s nice that the serum hadn’t changed that, “Jerk, get some sleep.”
Bucky doesn't know what he’s doing, maybe it’s the fire in his veins, or the fact his body is stronger and that he can feel it changing.
Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, or the fact that his mind is far too alert, his eyes and his movements too sober for someone who hasn’t slept in over a week. It scares him, because he’s losing his humanity, and Steve Rogers is the closest link to that humanity he has.
Maybe that’s why he wets his dry lips, and gazes up through his lidded eyes at Steve in a way he does at Dames, maybe that's why he croaks out; “Gonna make me Cap?”
Steve goes pink, and then pale, he looks almost hungry, and his eyes flicker down to Bucky’s lips, and they don’t talk about it, have never addressed it. The tension, the static between them, the fact that if Steve Rogers walked into a room, his blue eyes, bright and filled with hope, would find Bucky’s blue–gray, eyes filled with a vulnerability shrouded in pain.
Don’t talk about lingering touches, or sharing a bed, even though Bucky could sleep on the couch, even though he tells himself it’s to keep Steve warm, that and the fact Steve would never let him sleep on the broken down, second-hand sofa with messed up springs. That’d he’d call a strike and not sleep at all, if Bucky dared to baby him, or god forbid explain to him why the constantly ill and dying man should have the warm mattress, with its scratchy cover-or at least he pretends that’s the reason.
Bucky doesn’t talk, doesn’t think, because he took the life of a boy, who’s still bleeding out only a few feet away from them. Who was perhaps more afraid than him, and had just wanted to run away from war, which Bucky gets.
That he still has bloody, wet hands, which drops the knife he’d use to slaughter the boy, and they reach out to cradle Roger's now perfect, pale skin. He grabs at the smaller-now bigger man’s chin-his jaw, in the way he normally does under the hush, and silence of their shared bed.
Bucky nearly wants to cry, at how much he corrupts the good and pure that is Steve Rogers. Because he’s getting blood on the man’s face, and he nearly tears his hands away, because christ, even without a weeks worth of bathing, and stinking like high heaven, with a Nazi boy’s blood on his cheeks, a still slightly uneven jaw the serum hadn’t fixed, held and cradled by shaking, bloody hands-Steve Rogers is beautiful. He’d always been beautiful and Bucky had always thought so, had thought about it so much, it hurts, because he’s like an angel now. All good, clean white wings, and hope and Bucky? He’s a damned cursed sinner, and he tears his hands away at last, because he would not let Rogers sin with him.
Bucky breaks his gaze away, and wipes roughly at his eyes, and he’s not expecting Steve to grab him, not expecting the now strong grasp on his wrist, because Steve, even when he was skinny, never backed down from a fight, and he hated to lose.
So he grabs Bucky’s arm, and shoves him against another tree, away from the dead boy, because even Steve Rogers respects the dead, even if it is a Nazi.
Bucky’s startled and almost afraid, because Steve grabs one of his bloody hands, and presses his lips against his bloody right palm.
Bucky snaps, and he shoves him, “Don’t you fucking dare, Steve!” he hisses, and for a moment Steve looks so afraid, because Bucky’s never been so angry, never felt such rage as he does, when Steve touches him like that, like he’s something worth anything, other than being a placeholder for sin.
He shoves Steve so hard, Steve goes stumbling backwards, though Bucky couldn’t possibly have been able to hit him that hard-unless-
He shoves those thoughts down and Steve looks wide eyed and scared, then his jaw sets, and his brow furrows.
“You’re a good man, Bucky.” He says, and it’s with the shaking, passionate voice of the kid Bucky’s known his entire life.
Steve is indigent, and he leans closer, and Bucky’s so upset and scared, and so damn tired, he lets him.
“You are a good man, and my best friend.”
Steve repeats and Buckys rubs his eyes, out of exhaustion of course and not at the tears that burn, because of the way that statement makes him feel. Like he wants to hit Steve, like he wants to tear off his skin, and show the fire running underneath, and show him all the awful thoughts in his “best friend's” head. To grab that fallen knife and hack away at his ruined flesh, to expose the beast that claws up his throat to the world, to Steve. So Steve will finally- understand. That Bucky Barnes had never been a good anything-he’d only ever pretended he had.
Yet he doesn’t know how to speak, but he’s a man of action, and he’ll try to explain however he can. So he grabs Rogers, rough and mean, because he’d never babied him, not once their entire lives, and he wasn’t going to, now.
Bucky is corrupt, and awful and mean, and a murderer, and the only way he can prove that, hell-explain that to Stevie, is by showing him. Because Bucky’s no good with words, he can charm all he wants, but when it comes time to pray, they get stuck, and strangle in his throat.
So he kisses him, and pretends it’s because he wants to show Stevie how awful he is, even though the warmth that fills him, as Stevie kisses him back, makes him feel anything but.