Chapter 1
11 03 AM 12-19-44 WASHINGTON DC
MS REBECCA BARNES
82 114th ST BROOKLYN NY
THE SECRETARY OF WAR REGRETS TO INFORM YOU THAT SGT JAMES B BARNES OF THE 107TH HAS BEEN REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION SINCE 16 DECEMBER NEAR ARDENNES FRANCE IF FURTHER DETAILS BECOME AVAILABLE YOU WILL BE PROMPTLY NOTIFIED
Steve stumbled across the telegram on his way in the door from work. He was dead tired, his muscles aching from the long hours spent stocking shelves at the grocer’s, his breath coming short in the way that meant an impending cold. Still, the sight of the bland military insignia on the front of the letter immediately reinvigorated him with a sense of anticipation that quickly turned to dread as he scanned the short, impersonal note.
He supposed he should feel lucky that he at least knew what had happened, that whatever paperwork Bucky had on file with the military still had his family listed as living here and not at the Indiana farmhouse they’d moved out to a few years prior. But with Bucky gone, missing in action half a world away, luck seemed the furthest thing from the equation.
He stood frozen in the doorway as he read over the note once, twice, three times. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for exactly, but the crisp typewriter print revealed nothing more to him now than it had the first time. The words had just stolen the floor from underneath his feet but expected him to keep on living like he was still on solid ground.
Steve jammed the telegram in his pocket, turned on his heel, and marched back out into the cold December evening.
19 Dec 1944, 18:37 hours
Steven G. Rogers
27 Jackson Ave., Queens, NY
4F: found not acceptable for induction into active military service
THE NEW YORK TIMES
December 24, 1944
COLD WEATHER, LOW RATIONS MEAN HARD WINTER FOR TROOPS NEAR ARDENNES
24 Dec 1944, 09:17 hours
Steven G. Rogers
13 155th St., Harlem, NY
4F: found not acceptable for induction into active military service
THE NEW YORK TIMES
January 1, 1945
U.S. SENDS IN REINFORCEMENTS AS NUMBERS OF CASUALTIES, MISSING CLIMB
3 Jan 1945, 17:22 hours
Steven G. Rogers
121 Canal St., Manhattan, NY
4F: found not acceptable for induction into active military service
THE NEW YORK TIMES
January 18, 1945
ALLIES PREVAIL AGAINST GERMAN CAMPAIGN! PUSH BACK IN COUNTEROFFENSIVE
09 24 AM 01-25-45 WASHINGTON DC
MS REBECCA BARNES
82 114th ST BROOKLYN NY
THE SECRETARY OF WAR WISHES TO INFORM YOU THAT SGT JAMES B BARNES OF THE 107TH HAS BEEN LOCATED WOUNDED NEAR STUTTGART GERMANY YOU WILL BE ADVISED AS REPORTS OF CONDITION ARE RECEIVED
15 33 PM 01-27-45 WASHINGTON DC
MS REBECCA BARNES
82 114th ST BROOKLYN NY
THE SECRETARY OF WAR WISHES TO INFORM YOU THAT SGT JAMES B BARNES OF THE 107TH IS IN STABLE CONDITION EXPECTED TO SHIP TO NEW YORK HARBOR 01 FEBRUARY
The last two telegrams came in what felt like quick succession, so fast that it seemed Steve hardly had time to breathe between receiving the two pieces of news. After more than a month of stasis - of desperately trying to do something, anything at all, but continually being met with closed doors - time seemed to simultaneously speed up and slow impossibly down with an end finally in sight.
And sure, Bucky was hurt, with only the vague mention of “stable condition” to give Steve any idea how bad, and it was cold and money was tight and everything had just felt wrong ever since Bucky had walked out the door three years prior - but the news had Steve feeling nothing short of elation. Bucky was alive , and he was coming home, and Steve hadn’t realized just how empty things had been without him until these telegrams had propelled him back into Steve’s life.
Steve stocked the kitchen with as much food as he could afford. He laid out fresh pillows on Bucky’s bed, opened his bedroom window so the room could fill with fresh air. All the motion and light suddenly flooding the normally dark and quiet apartment just served to remind him how hard the past couple of years had been. How alone he’d been.
But that didn’t matter anymore. In just a few days’ time, he’d have his best friend back, and surely that meant that everything that had been so terribly wrong would suddenly feel okay again.
The first of February dawned deceptively sunny, with a wintry chill still hanging in the air that felt at odds with the bright and cloudless sky. Steve set out for the docks in the early afternoon and soon found himself shivering despite the sunlight. As he got closer to the harbor, he tucked his hands into the arms of his threadbare coat, trying to stave off the chill that, no matter how mild, never failed to turn his fingers blue.
He could practically hear Bucky’s voice in his mind, admonishing him to put some gloves on, punk, you’ll freeze out there. Steve bit back a smile just thinking about it - about how close he was to hearing that long-suffering teasing again, to seeing that soft look underneath letting him know that Bucky wasn’t upset with him, not really. Looking out at the sparkling water had Steve’s heart soaring, practically giddy with the knowledge that any one of the ships steaming in could be the one that finally brought Bucky home.
He made his way down to the port where ships ferrying men to and from Europe tended to dock. Just a few months earlier it would have been bustling with men in crisp new uniforms excited to go off and serve their country, proud families lining the pier and waving goodbye until the ship was long gone from the harbor, and maybe even for a little while afterwards, just to prolong those last few moments before they had to acknowledge that their boys were really gone. Departures were always an event, but the scene before Steve now was showing him that arrivals were anything but.
In the shade of the bright red cross painted on the hull of the sole ship waiting to disembark, only a couple of families stood huddled. Where sendoffs were marked by blustering cheer and smiles wide to the point of breaking, this crowd gathered now was full of downcast eyes and nervous muttering.
“Didn’t say how bad he was hurt…”
“With things in Europe as rough as they are, it’s hard to tell…”
Steve wandered closer to the crowd, trying to pick out snippets of the muted conversations. As he approached the group, comprised mostly of mothers with worry etched into their faces and girlfriends nervously biting their lips, he felt a few curious pairs of eyes flicking over towards him before quickly glancing away. Steve tensed his jaw, trying to ignore the looks. It wasn’t hard to comprehend what they meant - with every able-bodied man gone, off serving his country, Steve’s very presence here spoke to his own weakness, the weakness every doctor seemed to see in him when they rejected his enlistment forms and told him it was “for his own good.” On the receiving end of all these biting looks, Steve bitterly doubted that assessment about “his own good” more than ever.
He was at least saved from having to endure the shame for long. Above them, a gangplank had started descending from the ship. The eyes that had been scrutinizing Steve were suddenly all glued to the ship’s deck, where a few shadowy figures were lining up, presumably to disembark. Steve shoved down his frustration, and frenzied anticipation hurried to take its place. His heart was hammering, bursting with the knowledge that any of those shadows could be Bucky.
A whistle sounded, signalling the all-clear. There was a flurry of movement on the ship, and finally, finally a line started heading down the gangplank, slow and single-file. Steve’s nervous excitement kept building and building, all the way until those shadowy figures actually started to look like men. Once the light finally hit them, Steve’s anticipation quickly curled up and died.
The men filing off this boat were nothing like the men Steve had looked at with so much envy as they proudly shipped off to war. They were nothing like the troops in the newsreels that Steve watched every chance he got, tall and strong and smiling for the cameras. Rather, they looked more like the men those newsreels taught them to disdain - the captured enemies, marching with their heads downturned behind the purportedly strong American soldiers. All those newsreels had led Steve to believe that the Allies were winning, but the men in front of him now looked wholly and completely defeated.
They were staggering by with bloodied bandages around their heads, around their ribs, around the stumps of limbs no longer there. Between their uncomfortable thinness and the hunch of their shoulders, they all looked small, somehow, and insubstantial, like Steve was watching a procession of ghosts instead of men.
And none of them looked at all like Bucky. At this point, Steve didn’t know whether to be disappointed or thankful.
Steve was craning his neck to peer past the people standing in front of him, wondering if maybe he’d got it wrong and Bucky wasn’t on this ship - wasn’t as bad off as all these haunted men in front of him - when one of the men in question raised his hanging head to reveal an achingly familiar face. Steve promptly forgot how to breathe.
He’d barely recognized him at first. The man was walking slowly, unbalanced and stumbling a little under the weight of a heavy pack slung over his right shoulder. As he stepped off the gangplank and onto solid ground, he turned towards Steve, and the first thing Steve noticed about him was the void of empty space where his left arm ought to have been. He’d foregone wearing his uniform jacket, leaving him in just a thin cotton undershirt that put the bulky bandage around what was left of his shoulder on full display. The limb ended in those few inches of gauze, which looked old and worn but was thankfully devoid of blood. Steve's eyes had been stuck on that bandage, hardly able to look away - and then the man had looked up, and he was pale and haggard, and there were circles under his eyes so dark they looked like bruises, but Steve knew without a doubt that it was him. He’d know that face anywhere.
“Bucky.”
Steve was at his side in an instant, uncaring as he elbowed his way through the tiny crowd that had gathered to watch the men disembark. The moment felt years overdue, like it was all Steve’s life had been building up to since that night at the Stark expo with Bucky all outfitted in his smart dress uniform, flashing smiles at everyone who looked his way like he thought all that confidence might hide the fear hovering just beneath the surface.
(Maybe Steve had been the only one who’d felt it, but he’d known that fear was there, if only from how tightly Bucky had clung to him when Steve had hugged him goodbye. In the end, Steve had been the one to pull away. He hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.)
Steve had told himself that when Bucky came back ( if he came back, a traitorous voice in his head always whispered) the first thing he’d do would be to finish that hug, to hold Bucky tight the way he should have the first time and never let him go again. But now, even surrounded by other soldiers embracing their loved ones, and with Bucky finally standing right in front of him, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
The Bucky standing in front of him now was hardly a shadow of the one he’d said goodbye to three years prior. Steve took in the flushed cheeks stretched over too-sharp cheekbones, the glassy sheen on his tired grey eyes, the way his now-mismatched shoulders sagged with absolute, bone-deep exhaustion, or maybe some other, invisible weight that Steve couldn’t name. Even the way he was looking at Steve was different; in his normally bright and expressive eyes, all Steve could see was a flat emptiness, a void where life should have been.
He seemed small, and fragile, and broken, and Steve was afraid to put his arms around him lest he somehow broke apart or started to crumble to dust in his hands. Only when Bucky took a tentative step forward, not quite meeting Steve’s eyes but half-lifting an arm in his direction, did Steve find the strength to close the gap between them.
“God, you jerk, I missed you,” Steve said thickly, winding his arms around Bucky’s back and burying his face against his good shoulder. He smelled strange, like sweat and salt and rust, but he was warm and he was breathing, and it was everything Steve could have possibly hoped for. He wrapped his arms tighter around Bucky, who sagged limply against him, not quite returning the embrace but still leaning into Steve with everything he had. Steve vowed that this time, no matter what, he wouldn’t pull away.
With his arms around him, Steve could feel just how thin Bucky was, his spine a well-defined ridge in his back and his ribs jutting sharply through his skin. The warmth coming off of him that had first been so comforting was maybe verging on too warm, even though there was also a shivering tremor running through him that left Steve cursing the frosty breeze coming in from the open water. Steve was near to breaking his silent promise and pulling away - just to ask Bucky if there was anything he could do for him, anything at all - but then Bucky’s remaining hand was pressing into Steve’s back, and his nose was buried in Steve’s hair, and Steve was resolved to just stand still and hold him, however long it took.
As they hugged, the tremor running through Bucky’s body continued to ramp up. Steve rubbed his hands up and down Bucky’s bony spine, hoping the gesture might generate some warmth, but the shaking just seemed to be getting worse. Only when Steve started to feel something warm and wet dripping into his hair did he start to put the pieces together.
“Oh, hey. Hey.” Steve’s hands were instantly at Bucky’s cheeks, tilting his face up so he could see the tear tracks glistening there. He moved his thumbs to gently wipe them away. “Buck, it’s okay.”
Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, ducking his head so that Steve’s hands fell away from his face. He sniffled a little, then quickly removed his hand from Steve’s back to cover his mouth and nose, like he was ashamed he’d let the sound slip out. Without Steve’s steady balance, he swayed a little, and Steve hurriedly reached out to take him by the elbow.
“You’re okay,” Steve murmured, feeling his heart splinter into pieces as he watched Bucky try to swallow his tears. “You’re safe now, alright? That’s all that matters. It’s gonna be okay.”
Bucky tensed his jaw with a sense of grim determination that seemed at odds with his slumped, defeated posture. He swiped shakily at his cheeks, wiping away most of his tears as well as a layer of clammy sweat that had gathered on his overwarm skin. Slowly, definitively, he nodded.
“Yeah,” Steve said, trying to swallow a lump in his own throat. “You’re alright. Let’s… let’s get you home. Okay?”
Bucky nodded once more, though it looked like it took an effort. His face was growing ever paler under the uncomfortable flush of his cheeks, and his eyes seemed cloudier than Steve remembered them.
Steve had thought that just having Bucky back within arm’s reach, right where he had been for Steve’s entire life, would be enough to set every wrong thing right again - but the longer he stood looking into Bucky’s blank eyes, the more unsettled he felt. For as long as he could remember, Bucky had been the one constant around which his entire world revolved, always rock-solid, always sure of himself. Now here he was, torn apart and slumped in defeat, looking at Steve like he was the strong one.
But Steve didn’t feel strong, not really. Looking at Bucky’s grey and shadowed face, all he registered was the all-too-familiar feeling of powerlessness.
In the end, all he could do was lay a hand on Bucky’s back and guide him away from the unloading ship, away from the bustle of the crowd and the cold bite of the wind. He continually reminded himself that, no matter how hurt or haunted or just plain sick Bucky seemed, he was home . They could deal with the rest in time. For now, they were together, and surely that was all they could possibly need.