Chapter 8
Steve couldn’t stop thinking about what Bucky said.
Love can make people do some pretty crazy shit.
Your Bucky Barnes was in love with you.
You and me pal, we’ve loved each other for a long fucking time now.
Could it be true? Could Steve had loved… been in love with Bucky Barnes this whole time, and not even known?
He thought about what he had told Sam in that hotel room, after Sam talked about Riley. He said he figured he would know, if he were queer. Is it possible that wasn’t true? How could someone be queer and not even know?
But he couldn’t deny the truth of what Bucky said. He did disobey orders and fly across enemy lines to save Bucky. Freeing the rest of the 107th was an unintentional bonus. He did drop his shield on the helicarrier. Knowing that Bucky was alive had changed everything for him, and he would always be ready to die if the alternative was hurting Bucky. And he did lose control at that Hydra agent in Scotland because of what he said about Bucky. On top of that, he killed the Hydra agent in occupied France when he thought Bucky was dead.
He told Sam that Bucky was a part of him. I didn’t really know who I was without him.
Well. Maybe that was love. Maybe Steve had been thinking of it all wrong.
“Bucky,” Steve said, sitting up and looking at him.
“Yeah?”
“I’m trying to—to figure all this out. If, if it’s true that I loved you, I mean back then…” He didn’t really know how to say what he wanted to say. “I mean, I loved Peggy. Did that mean—was I—”
“Steve,” Bucky said softly, and nudged him gently in the ribs. “There is no rule saying a person can only love one other person in their life.”
“Oh,” Steve said. “Ok.” He nodded, feeling a little more settled. “What does this mean, for us I mean? Do you want—I mean, you said—” Steve cut himself off, his face growing red again.
“Personally, I’m not sure a love like ours can be labeled,” Bucky said, very matter-of-factly. “It’s spanned two centuries, and for me, two different consciousnesses. But I guess the future has all sorts of fancy labels, so if you want to pick one, go right ahead.”
“How do you know all this?” Steve asked.
“The internet, Steven,” Bucky said. “You should really check it out sometime.”
“Right, the internet. So helpful.” But what Bucky said was still eating at him. “You said, um, that the old you, that he wanted to, um—”
“Fuck you?” Bucky guessed, and laughed a little at Steve’s reaction. “Yeah, I did say that.”
“And, um, do you still want…”
“Pal, I’ve got trauma thirty-six ways to Sunday. The first time someone touched me—I mean, this version of me—I had a flash back and two panic attacks. I learned my own mother’s name from a museum plaque. I don’t know what I want. Up until recently, I didn’t know that I had the ability to want anything at all.”
“Oh. Right.”
There was silence in the vault again.
“Why, do you want to?” Bucky asked.
“What? Um, no. I mean, I don’t know?” Steve cringed at how stupid he sounded. He stared down at his knees. “I’ve never…”
“Steve,” Bucky whispered. His metal arm guided Steve’s chin up gently until Steve was looking Bucky in the eyes. “It’s ok. You don’t have to know. Whatever we want, whatever form this thing takes, we’ll figure it out together, ok?”
Steve nodded. He sank, boneless, into Bucky’s side, and Bucky wrapped an arm around him again.
“If what you say is true, you’re not allowed to cook, though,” Bucky said.
Steve laughed. “Unfortunately, it is true.”
“Was he—was I any good in the kitchen?”
“Better than me,” Steve said. “When the Depression hit there just wasn’t much to work with, but my ma taught you a couple’a recipes and you caught on pretty quick.”
“Ok. I’ll learn to cook,” Bucky declared.
There was quiet in the vault again, but this time it was comfortable. Steve felt at ease, in a way he couldn’t remember feeling recently.
“So how did you find me?” Steve asked, finally breaking the silence.
“I started tracking you after your run-in with the Hydra agent. You weren’t hard to find, and once I found you, I was able to follow you. You guys weren’t being too subtle.”
“No, I guess not,” Steve said. “We were more concerned with speed than subtlety.”
Time passed slowly in the vault. Steve and Bucky were sitting next to each other, Steve’s left arm and leg and pressed up against Bucky’s right arm and leg. The metal floor and walls were cold and Steve appreciated Bucky’s body heat to his left. He hoped it didn't remind Bucky of the cryo chamber.
When they got stiff, they took another lap around the small space. Steve’s ankle could bear some of his weight now, although Bucky still called him an idiot when he tried to walk on it. They also did an inventory of their gear. It wasn’t much, but they had the shield and Bucky still had a gun with several bullets. And lots of knives.
To fill the time, Steve told Bucky about Sam—how they’d met, and why they had connected so quickly. Then he told Bucky about the other Avengers; Bucky was particularly interested in hearing about Thor. The fact of Thor’s existence was still so bizarre to Steve, and he felt he had taken Bucky’s place and was telling fantastical made-up stories about the future. Except he didn’t have this good of an imagination.
“Hey, Natasha found something in the first base we hit,” he said, remembering the intel suddenly. “Do you know the name Strucker?”
A shiver went through Bucky’s body, which Steve wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t been sitting as they were. Steve regretted bringing it up.
“Baron Strucker,” Bucky said. All the inflection in his voice had disappeared. “He liked… experimentation.”
Steve’s stomach dropped.
“We’ll find him, Buck. When we get out of here, my team will find him and take him apart. He’ll never touch you again.”
“Be careful,” Bucky said. His metal arm did that rippling thing again. “He didn’t spend much time on me. He had bigger goals, and other test subjects.”
Steve swallowed. “Ok. We’ll be careful. We’ll get the others out of there, too.”
“This team,” Bucky said. “Do you trust them?”
Steve glanced to his left, surprised. “Yeah. Yeah, I trust ‘em.”
Bucky scoffed.
“I do! No really, Buck. They’re all good at what they do, and I know they have my back.”
“Ok, so they’re good fighters,” Bucky said. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Well,” Steve began. “They just, they don’t really know me.”
Bucky hummed.
“I mean Sam does, and Natasha do, now. But the rest of them…”
“They only see Captain America?” Bucky guessed.
Steve nodded. “Yeah.”
Bucky was quiet for another minute, and then he said, “You know, you can change that if you want to.”
“What do you mean?” Steve asked.
“Well, anyone who spends more than 10 minutes with you—I mean with you being yourself, not you with the stick up your ass as Captain America—”
Steve laughed.
“Anyone who spends more than 10 minutes with the real you learns pretty fast that you’re a little shit who doesn’t listen to authority.”
“You’re saying I should stop being Captain America around them?”
“Yeah.”
Steve thought about it. That was more or less what he’d told Sam, what felt like a million years ago, after their steak dinner. He wanted to be Steve Rogers again, not just Captain America.
In the field, he had to be Captain America. The team relied on him to call the shots, there was no way around that, and there was always going to be more missions. But maybe he could be more relaxed in the times between missions and during the social events. Tony sometimes—
Oh god.
Tony. He had to tell Tony about Howard, now that he knew for sure.
But he couldn’t, not if it meant jeopardizing Bucky's safety. And it wasn’t Bucky’s fault, so—
“What? I can hear you thinking from out here. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“Ha ha,” Steve said.
“What is it?”
“I just—Tony deserves to know that Hydra killed his parents.”
To Steve’s surprise, Bucky was totally relaxed. “Yes, he does.”
“I don’t know how to tell him,” Steve whispered miserably. “He won’t take it well.”
“Well I wouldn’t expect him to,” Bucky said, sounding reasonable. “But you don’t have to tell him. I will.”
“What? No, Buck, I’ll do it. What if he lashes out? He could hurt you, or—”
“I’m pretty hard to take down these days,” Bucky said. “But yeah, he could hurt me. And I’d probably deserve it.”
“Bucky!”
“Listen, Steve. No, actually shut up and listen to me for a second,” he said, when Steve opened his mouth to argue. “I’m done, with this life. I’m done fighting, I’m done taking orders. I don’t trust myself to know right from wrong, so I have to be done with all that. But I can’t turn away from what I did. It doesn’t matter that someone else was choosing the targets. It was my hands that dealt the final blow. The least I can do—the literal fucking least, Steve—is come clean and apologize.”
“Ok,” Steve said. “Ok, Buck.”
“But seriously, would you lighten up a little around them? I’d hate to meet them and have them think I’m best friends with a goody-two-shoes who has a hard-on for America.”
“Bucky!” Steve said, laughing. “Jesus. Yeah, fine, I promise.”
“Good. You know, one of the first things I—" He cut off suddenly, his whole body going tense.
“Buck?”
“Shh,” Bucky hissed. “Listen.”
This time Steve heard it too. A grinding sound, like metal on metal, somewhere above them.
“That’s gotta be the rescue team,” Steve said. He wasn’t sure who else it could be and he didn’t want to consider the alternative.
Bucky was already on his feet and gathering the guns and knives they had inventoried earlier. Steve pushed himself up using the wall to his back, and gingerly tried putting weight on his ankle. It wouldn’t hold him for long.
This had better be the rescue team.
Bucky handed Steve his shield and glanced worryingly at his wrapped ankle.
“Get behind me,” Steve said, limping forward to put himself and the shield between Bucky and where the noise was coming from.
“Are you crazy?” Bucky hissed, and pushed him back against the wall. “You get behind me.”
Steve saw that Bucky was not going to budge and he couldn’t exactly force Bucky behind him in the condition he was in, so he slung the shield off of his arm and handed it to Bucky. “At least take this. Please.”
“You know I have a metal arm, right?” Bucky hissed, but took the shield anyway.
The grinding sound continued for several minutes, and as it grew louder, the entire vault started to shake. Adrenaline flooded Steve’s body, allowing him to forget the pain in his ankle. Bucky stood like a wall, his body and the shield positioned between where the noise was coming and Steve, and Steve crouched behind him, ready to pounce on a second’s notice.
The shaking grew so much that even Bucky threw out an arm to stabilize himself, and then dirt started falling from the opposite corner of the vault, and finally a beam of sunlight shone through.
The shaking stopped. “Cap! Cap, can you hear me?” It was Tony’s voice.
Steve locked eyes with Bucky and nodded. Bucky relaxed, but only slightly.
“Yeah, we’re in here!” he yelled up.
“Oh good, we have confirmation of life. Wilson, he’s fine!”
Iron Man, Steve mouthed at Bucky.
“Cap, we could do this the old-fashioned way, but no one likes manual labor and frankly the image of digging up a grave doesn’t strike us as too much fun either. It’d be a lot easier if you could give us the dimensions of this metal box you’ve been calling home and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“What’s he gonna do?” Bucky whispered.
“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Steve said. “But it’ll be fine. He knows what he’s doing.” Steve yelled up the dimensions to Tony.
Tony told them to go crouch in the opposite corner and cover their eyes. Bucky pushed Steve into the corner of the vault and crouched in front of him. He had the shield on his flesh arm covering most of their bodies, and his metal arm protecting his left flank.
“Alright gents, stay seated and keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times during the ride! 3, 2…”
They shut their eyes tight and didn’t hear the 1. Instead, there was a flash of light that they could see from behind their eyelids and then a giant bang that echoed in their ears.
When the noise subsided, Steve opened his eyes to see that half the vault ceiling was now on the floor. The edges were burned and smoking slightly. He looked up and saw Iron Man hovering in the hole, the metal suit blocking the sun.
Bucky was still positioned between Steve and Iron Man, the shield held up in protection. His face was a mask, like he was the Winter Soldier all over again.
“Easy there, Terminator,” Tony said, dropping in elevation until he was inside the vault with them. “I’m the cavalry.”
Steve started to walk forward to put his body between Tony and Bucky, completely forgetting about his still-healing ankle. He would have fallen if Bucky hadn’t stabilized him.
“What’s wrong with you?” Tony asked.
“Broken ankle,” Steve said, dismissively. “It’s fine.”
“Yeah, sure looks fine,” Tony said. “Is that why tall, dark, and stabby is holding the symbol of American purity?”
Steve saw Bucky’s flesh hand tighten on the straps of the shield.
“His name is James Barnes,” Steve said. “He’s one of us.”
“By ‘us’ do you mean freezer pop nonagenarians? Or maybe assassins with questionable character?”
“Just get us out of here,” Steve said.
“As you wish, princess,” Tony said. “Come here, let’s reenact prom pics.”
“Bucky first,” Steve said.
“Steve—” Bucky hissed, his mouth barely opening.
“I’ll be right behind you, Buck,” Steve muttered. “Just go.”
Reluctantly, Bucky walked towards Tony. Steve saw the plates on his arm ripple again.
When Bucky was a foot away from Tony, he stopped. They stood, staring at each other: Tony’s metal mask and Bucky’s blank face. Then Bucky held out his metal arm.
“This’ll work best if you turn around,” Tony said. “I’ll pick you up and you’ll be on solid ground again in thirty seconds.”
“You can grab my arm,” Bucky said, his voice a low growl.
“Ok, I know you’re, like, Mr. Masculinity or whatever with your pain tolerance, but if I grab your arm I’ll rip your shoulder out of your socket.”
“This arm can’t be ripped out of the socket,” Bucky said, still holding out his arm.
Steve limped forward and put a hand on Bucky’s metal shoulder. “Tony,” he said, stiffly. “I trust you with my life. Can I trust you with his?”
“Jesus, Rogers. I’m not going to hurt the grouchy hundred-year-old half-robot assassin, I’m just trying to get him out of this hole.”
Steve nodded and turned to Bucky. “You can trust him, Buck. Ok? Please, just let him get you out of here safely.”
Bucky was stiff as a board, but he jerked his head in what Steve generously considered a nod. Steve squeezed his shoulder, although he didn’t know if Bucky could feel it.
Slowly, Bucky turned around so he was facing Steve, his back to Tony. Tony wrapped his arms around Bucky and they flew off into the air.
Only seconds later, Tony was back. “Something is wrong,” Tony said.
Steve’s breath caught in his chest. “Take me up.”
Tony grabbed Steve around the waist and flew him out of the vault, just like he’d done for Bucky. Tony set Steve down on the dirt, on the outskirts of the destruction from the base, only a foot away from Bucky.
Steve knew what Tony was referring to immediately. Bucky was standing, but it looked like a strong breeze could push him over. He was pale as a sheet and his breathing was coming in harsh gasps.
“Bucky!” Steve reached out and touched Bucky’s arm, and Bucky reflexively swung, wild and uncoordinated. Steve just barely ducked under the punch and took a few steps back.
“Steve, don’t try to touch him,” Sam said, running up next to him.
“What’s going on?” Steve asked desperately.
“It looks like he’s having a panic attack,” Sam said. “Sometimes the only thing you can do is wait it out.”
“This is my fault, I shouldn’t’ve convinced him to—”
“Steve, this is a thing that happens. It’s a response to trauma, and it’s no one’s fault. Blaming yourself is not productive here.”
“What can I do?”
“Try talking to him,” Sam suggested. “Remind him where he is.”
Steve nodded. “Ok.” He approached Bucky again. He was still wheezing and it sounded painful. He needed to get in more air, or he could pass out.
“Bucky,” Steve said, “it’s Steve. I’m here. You’re in the middle of the forest in Eastern Europe, we were just extracted from the metal vault where we were trapped for a bit.”
This was clearly not helping. Steve decided to try something else.
“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” he said, leaning in close to Bucky without touching him. “You are free from Hydra. You are your own person, with the ability to make your own choices. You chose to find me. You saved me, just like you did hundreds of times when we were young.”
Bucky’s breathing eased slightly. “Steve,” he murmured.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Steve said. “I’m right here, I’m not leaving you. And you promised not to leave me either. It’s you and me, Buck. It will always be you and me.”
Bucky grabbed Steve’s arm like a lifeline. “I’m with you…”
“Til the end of the line,” Steve finished. “Yeah.”
Bucky closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, and then let it out slowly. He did that twice more, not letting go of Steve’s arm, and then opened his eyes again.
“This is not the first impression I wanted to make,” he said shakily, glancing at Sam.
“Better or worse than being associated with a goody-two-shoes who has a hard-on for America?” Steve asked.
Bucky laughed, and Steve relaxed.
Sam walked up to them. “Bucky, this is Sam,” Steve said. “Sam, Bucky.”
“Nice to meet you, Barnes,” Sam said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Then you probably know more about me than I do,” Bucky said. “Good to meet you too.”
“As for you,” Sam said, turning to Steve. “You fucking idiot, I told you not to do that again!” He punched Steve in the arm, hard.
“Hey!”
“In what world does ‘I won’t go down with the ship’ mean ‘blow up the base while I’m still inside?’”
“I’m sorry, Sam, but these were extraordinary circumstan—Ow!” Sam punched him again.
Bucky smiled, wide and genuine. “I like him,” he said to Steve.
“Yeah, I’m sure you two will get along great,” Steve said, groaning. “How’s Nat?” he asked Sam.
“She’s fine,” Sam said. “Healing. Mad at you, too.”
“Of course,” Steve said.
Steve brought Bucky to meet Thor and Stark, who were standing a respectable distance away. Bucky noticed Steve limping and wrapped an arm around his waist to support him, like it was the simplest thing ever.
“Buck, this is Thor, and you’ve met Tony already. Guys, this is James Barnes.”
“It is an honor to be introduced to the Captain’s brother in arms!” Thor said.
“Uh, thanks,” Bucky said, a little slack jawed as he looked up at Thor. “It’s great to meet’ya too.”
“Sorry for the whole—you know,” Tony said, waving his hands around. His helmet had retracted back into his suit so they could see his face.
“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky said. “I got a thing about touching, apparently.”
“Apparently,” Tony repeated, and Steve saw he was staring at where Bucky’s arm was wrapped around Steve’s waist.
“I say we get the hell out of here,” Sam said, breaking the tension.
“Great idea,” said Tony. “I know a little spot in Italy, they have great gelato. We can stop on the way.”
“Barnes, I hope we can do battle together one day in the future,” Thor said. “For now, I must attend to my own planet to continue the search for remnants of my brother’s mischief. I’m gratified to see you are both safe.” He nodded at Steve. “Stark, if you find new information, you know how to call me.” He walked a couple feet away from him and held his hammer to the sky. There was a rush of rainbow light and then he was gone, with only an intricate pattern burned into the ground as evidence he had been there at all.
“Whoa,” Bucky said. “Weird guy.”
Sam laughed. “Come on, quinjet’s that way.”
Steve, Bucky, Sam, and Tony made their way onto the jet. Tony’s planes mostly flew themselves, but he went up to sit in the cockpit anyway.
Once they took off, Sam offered them all the provisions he could find in the plane and Steve and Bucky ate through them all—the way the serum worked, they could last a while without food if necessary but they needed twice as much after the adrenaline wore off. Temporarily satisfied with the calories, they napped in shifts. It was only Sam and Tony there, but old habits die hard, and both felt like they had to stay awake while the other was sleeping.
By the time Sam offered to check on Steve’s ankle, they were halfway across the Atlantic. “So, what are you going to do now?” Sam asked.
Steve gave him an honest smile. “I don’t know. I thought maybe Bucky and I could get a place together, maybe move back to Brooklyn.”
He glanced at Bucky sitting next to him, who smiled back and nudged him gently with his shoulder. “I promised to learn to cook,” Bucky said.
Steve laughed. “Yes, you did.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “So, what, two supersoldiers find each other after seventy years and just go off to live some domestic bliss-type shit?”
“Don’t be jealous, Wilson,” Bucky teased, and the sound filled Steve like a beautiful song. “We’ll invite you over for nice bean stew sometime.”
“Oh god, you know we have better food now, right? Hell, you probably don’t know—Barnes, I will introduce you to a proper mac n cheese, just you wait. It’ll change your life.”
Steve smiled at the two bickering back and forth. For the first time in his life, he could feel a future for himself, and it was full. Sure, they had their issues, and with their track record, they were certain to face more trouble. But at that moment, as Steve slung an arm around Bucky’s shoulders and pulled him in until their heads bumped against each other, he was home.