Shade
The cold had never been his friend before the serum. It had always managed to crawl into his body and settle somewhere deep inside, uninvited and unwanted. The cold hadn’t been his friend then, and it seemed it wasn’t his friend now.
He hadn’t actually felt the chill during the whole of the time he had spent in Italy, even though he was sure he could almost see it trying to wind its tendrils around him. It threaded through his hair, tugged at his hands and feet, but it hadn’t had the same penetrative power that it used to. Even when he crossed the border into Austria, where the hills were draped with more snow than he could remember ever seeing in New York in the winter, he was too warm with the fevered energy of the serum and the chase and Bucky, almost to Bucky that it may as well have been summer. Once he got to Kreischberg, though, that changed.
The disjointed but intense focus that Steve had felt as he drove the jeep away from the camp had settled with the sun, and by the time night truly fell he was shocked to find he only had one concern: When he got to Kreischberg, how would he know where to look?
He shouldn’t have worried, and he almost chuckled as he recalled pulling onto the dirt road marked as the route to Kreischberg and driving for all of five minutes only to see an enormous factory complex straight ahead with nowhere else to turn. His amusement was quelled by a sudden shiver, and as he shifted in his vantage point atop one of the outer walls of the complex he was reminded of his predicament. Getting into the complex had proved surprisingly easy, but staring down at the multitude of buildings in varying shapes and sizes, Steve found himself frozen in place, almost literally. The second he had seen the place, looming so large in the distance that its shadow greyed even the snow that surrounded it, it was as if his skin, which had been bolstered by the novelty of his new size and health, had suddenly become paper thin. He gripped Bucky’s jacket tighter to him, wishing fervently that he could slip it on one more time but altogether unwilling to try.
Good to know that some things could never really change. The blinding arc of a flashlight landing off to his left startled him out of his silent panic, and decided for him which direction to go. Right it was. Steve sped off in the opposite direction as quickly and quietly as he could, suddenly painfully aware of the fact that he was essentially clad in a skin-tight jumpsuit and carrying a wooden shield barely as wide as his shoulders.
Getting down from the outer wall was too easy, with not a single guard in sight as Steve crept down the first set of stairs he could find, and that put him on edge more than anything. If there was a single thing he had learned from years of back alley fights and full on bar brawls, it was that the second things got easy it just meant they were about to get harder. Usually that only meant he was going home punch drunk with a new and interesting twist to the storyline of his nose, but today he had no way of knowing what it might mean. So he went silently, and inwardly he thanked God that the inside of the complex seemed to be cleared of snow so that he wasn’t leaving a line of footprints all the way to...wherever he was currently headed.
The first stretch was the worst, crossing the seemingly endless and empty distance between the outer wall and the first set of buildings. His Ma had always said he was lucky, but he never believed her until he was finally sagging up against the shadowed wall of a frigid metal building. The double cover of darkness and shadow was another blessing, he realized, when he rounded the corner of the first building and almost walked into the path of two armed and uniformed men. After shrinking quickly back into the cover of the building, he attempted to make out the oddly-shaped red patches they wore on their arms. Swastikas, he assumed. But no—there were too many branches, all stemming from one large bulb. They had rounded the building before Steve could figure it out, but it left the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that something was off.
He didn’t have time to unpack that worry, as it suddenly seemed like the strangely attired soldiers were around every corner. For every one that Steve passed, another two appeared, waiting for him to slip up and step just into their line of sight. The low grade panic that had set in back on the outer wall began ramping up as Steve began to worry that even the fog from his heavy breathing would in a minute be enough to betray him. The tightness in his chest and the incessantly screaming warning bells in his head prompted him towards a building that looked low and wide, and away from which a group of ten soldiers were walking. Steve crouched around the corner from the door and strained to listen to the fading conversation.
“Think we’d better wait for the Alpha shift to come in?”
“Nah, you know them—always late, always drunk, always spoiling for a fight. Better we’re gone, and it isn’t like any of those Americans had enough brains before we got to them to realize we’re not right there.”
“Yeah, good thing about working them to the bone, beside getting to watch the little ones crack.”
The rough peals of laughter that followed made Steve’s stomach curl, and he forced himself to get a handle on his anger before he let his body respond automatically to the derogatory mention of “the little ones” and the insinuation that there were Americans in there, which meant Bucky. The laughter continued to fade, and Steve chanced a glance around the corner—he could still see the crude group, but they seemed to be heading intently for the large concrete structure in the middle of the complex. Steve swung himself around the building and sped towards the double doors, wrenching one open just enough to slip inside and push it closed, breathing a sigh of relief when he heard the soft clink of the door slipping back into place.
Silence pervaded the space, and darkness too, and it was only then that Steve realized that his eyes had slipped closed in anticipation of feeling some angered pounding from the other side of the door. But the door stayed shut, and there was the sound of a few soft exhales and a smattering of barely huffed laughter, and Steve opened his eyes to the sight of what looked like hundreds of faces peeking out from behind columns and rickety bedposts to stare just at him. A few of the men—definitely Americans, judging by the cut of their ragged uniforms—stood and took a few steps forward.
Steve flipped Buck’s jacket over his shoulder from where it sat clenched in his fist and maneuvered his shield in front of him to better put the red, white, and blue on display. “Don’t everyone jump up at once. I’m looking for the rest of the 107th—am I in the right place?”
“You’re Captain America.” The first soldier to speak was tall, gaunt, like the rest of them, with a bit of an accent that Steve couldn’t place, but he seemed to hold himself a little taller than most of the others. At least, the ones Steve could see.
“Steven Rogers, at your service.” Steve almost lifted his left arm in a salute, but the weight of Bucky’s jacket stalled his movement. “I’m gonna get you guys outta here, but you gotta keep it down for that to work. I’m gonna need just a couple people—anyone in charge around here?”
The man who spoke held up a hand against the murmurs that were breaking out among the rest of the men, and another man stepped up beside him and turned back towards the barracks. “Keep it down. If this is our chance we’re taking it. Dernier, let’s talk to him.”
The two men walked up to Steve, who noticed that while the other soldiers’ eyes were still locked onto Steve, the room was entirely silent. Both soldiers stopped in front of Steve, and despite his height advantage, he felt the need to stand up straighter in the face of their dual stares.
The one who had spoken first was again the first to break the silence. “I’m Dernier,” he jerked his head to the soldier at his side, “and this is Falsworth. And you’re Captain America.”
Steve nodded, and made every effort to look as calm and collected as these soldiers seemed. Falsworth spoke next. “So is this some kind of rescue?”
Steve nodded again, noting with relief the spark of hope that lit in both men’s eyes. “Thank God,” Falsworth sighed. His accent Steve could place—British, through and through. “I admit, I didn’t have much hope when you walked in here. Didn’t know they let you into the field at all. How many men are here?”
There it was. Steve couldn’t stop the wide, Captain-trust-me-America smile from spreading across his face while he replied, “It’s just me.”
He didn’t blame the men who had been listening to the whole exchange for groaning. To be waiting for an army and get a glorified toy soldier—that had to hurt. But standing in this room full of men run ragged, Steve knew that he had to meter his one-man march to Buck Barnes. He wasn’t much, but he was all these soldiers would get, and Phillips had only confirmed that. “Look, I’ve got a plan.” The least damning of his recent lies, if he were trying to rank them. “I just need you guys to tell me one thing first.”
Dernier glanced at Falsworth, who shrugged and nodded at Steve to go ahead. “Might as well. If you’re the only one here then I’m guessing this is our best chance.”
Steve took a deep breath, telling himself that it was a question that needed to be asked no matter how much he was afraid of the answer. “What do you know about Bucky Barnes?”
The sideways look that the two shared made Steve feel sick.
“He got sent to the infirmary .” The word carried a weight that Steve associated with terminal hospital visits and white lilies, with draft cards and empty beds.
Steve pressed on regardless. “Infirmary—so he’s here? Just, sick?”
Dernier pursed his lips and shook his head slowly. “Look, he was very sick. And when they take someone to the infirmary...well. We don’t know what they do down there, just that no one has ever come back.”
Steve’s gaze landed somewhere between his own boots and a fly crawling slowly across the stone floor, Dernier’s words ringing through his head.
“Captain,” Falsworth’s voice snapped him back, and he jerked his eyes up to meet his. “You know Barnes?”
“Since we were kids.”
“I’m sorry. He was a good guy—strong. Kept going for days before he finally couldn’t keep it up anymore.” To his credit, Falsworth seemed genuinely saddened, but in the way all soldiers Steve had met did: tucked somewhere behind their eyes, there but not at the expense of moving forward every day.
Of course, Bucky fought. He never did like a fight, but he was good at them—and that’s when Steve decided. “How do I get to the infirmary from here.”
Dernier huffed a laugh and shared another glance with his buddy. “I’m sorry, but—”
“You said no one has ever come back before, soldier. I’m telling you that if anybody could, it’s James Buchanan Barnes.” Steve continued on despite the blank stares he was receiving from both Falsworth and Dernier. “So just tell me how to get to the infirmary, and then I’ll get all of you out of here.”
Dernier huffed an incredulous laugh, “How?”
Steve just flashed a smile in his direction. “I told you, I’ve got a plan. But you gotta tell me where the infirmary is before I can get it rolling.”
Falsworth sighed and rubbed a hand over his face before his eyes began boring into Steve’s with an intensity usually reserved for admirals and the hardened little nuns back in Brooklyn. “If we tell you where to go, you can get us out of here? Even if something happens to you while you’re off looking for a dead man?”
“That’s kinda the plan. Who’s gonna notice a couple of soldiers turning loose when there’s a life-size American flag running around throwing punches.”
Steve hoped the relief didn’t show in his eyes when Falsworth finally cracked a smile. “I can see why Barnes likes you. The infirmary is on the other end of the compound, past the factory in the middle. Little white building, feels like hell just staring at the doors.” Steve nodded in thanks and let Falsworth continue, his body suddenly too tense with anticipation to allow him another moment of playing his part as Captain America. “So it sounds like you plan on distracting most everyone on your little trip across the compound. Mind telling us what we’re supposed to be doing?”
“Just wait for my distraction to kick in, then get everyone out. You can use the front doors, just be careful. If any guards stay they’ll be drunk as sin and shouldn’t give you too much trouble. Go around the back, avoid the factory, there’s a side exit not too far from here.”
“You expect four hundred guys to just...walk out of here?” Dernier was, understandably, confused, but Steve pressed on.
“I swear,” he hoped, “it’ll be the easiest thing you ever did. Just wait for the distraction.” Steve had already turned away and was moving back towards the door, realizing that he didn’t want to be caught leaving once the Alpha shift finally got around to doing their job.
“Wait, what distraction are we waiting for?”
“Trust me, you’ll know.” Steve glanced over his shoulder and mouthed ‘boom’ before reaching for the door.
It seemed to take no time at all to slip out of the barracks and make his way unseen to the factory, at which point he paused and vaguely remembered promising a distraction. He knew if he were to just round the corner of the factory, he would see the white walls of the infirmary that Falsworth described. He also knew that as much as he would set the whole wide world to burn for just a chance that he could see Buck again, he couldn’t leave the four hundred men he had seen and spoken to to rot. With a silent prayer that wherever Buck was ( if , whispered some traitorous little voice in the back of his head, i f he was), he could hold on for another half hour.
Getting into the factory was as easy as getting to it had been. Steve was beginning to think this was too easy, that there was some other divine shoe waiting to drop down and knock him clean out, but he reasoned that meant he just had to move that much quicker. The place was deserted at night, that much was clear. Whoever was running it must be pretty sure of their security to leave what looked like a pretty complex spread of machines out in the open. The thought of a single, unarmed man in a red, white, and blue jumpsuit running around some strange Nazi war camp in the dead of night would’ve made him laugh if only he weren’t that idiot in a jumpsuit. High security indeed—it took him ten whole minutes rifling through the string of offices at the front of the factory to find a set of matches and fifteen more to find a pack of cigarettes. Staring out at the poorly lit working floor, with grime and what he hoped were scraps of cloth and paper littering the floor, Steve hoped that these guys were too rough-and-tough to have any kind of fire safety installed.
He started at the front of the factory and walked as straight down the middle as he could, swiping a match until it caught and tossing it into one of the walls. Every couple of matches, he would light a cigarette first and send the two flying in opposite directions. By the time he got down to the end of the machines, he looked back and saw small lines of flickering flames running along the factory floor, crawling up the blessed wooden posts along the walls, licking at the roof. He only spared a few more minutes to make sure it grew, just enough that he was certain it wasn’t going out any time soon. The distant shouts of “Fire!” as he slipped out the back end of the factory were all it took to bring a smile to his face.
That is, until he finally caught sight of what he instinctively knew to be the infirmary. Falsworth was right. Just looking at it felt like hell, but he couldn’t stand here staring long. When he reached out and pushed open the doors, the first thing he noticed was the long expanse of hallway, and the way his world narrowed down to the door all the way at the end. Somehow he just knew, call it the Holy Spirit, but he just knew Bucky would be behind that door or nowhere. The next thing he noticed were the guards.
Nine pairs of eyes locked onto Steve all at once, and the long and ill-lit hallway fell so silent that you could hear the other shoe hitting the floor.
“This is...not optimal.” Steve shifted his shield onto his left arm, blocking the place where Buck’s jacket was slung over his shoulder, and flashed what could have been either a winning smile or a grotesque baring of teeth before continuing, “I don’t suppose any of you might be having a profound change of heart here?”
The nine heavily set and, more alarmingly, heavily armed guards started to inch their way towards him. “How the hell did you get in here?”
Steve shrugged. “Smarts, determination, dumb luck. Take your pick.”
The man closest to Steve grinned. “Dumb, but definitely not lucky, Captain. ”
Inwardly Steve had to sigh—of course they knew about him here, too. “The luck was for you guys, because you’re gonna need it.”
There were a few snickers that echoed outrageously in the tunneled space, and the same soldier stepped within arm’s reach with a call of, “What are you going to do, make us buy war bonds?”
Eight matching grins fell just a touch as Steve suddenly reached out and swung, his fist connecting soundly with the first soldier’s jaw and sending him flying. “Huh,” Steve examined his fist as if confused by its actions. “Gotta say, that’s much more satisfying than throwing ninety pounds into a drunken punch in some back alley. Now, anyone wanna tell me what’s behind that door?”
The men raised their weapons in almost perfect unison, confident that a few seconds were all it would take to get this annoyance out of the way. In any other situation it might have been enough, but as it was Steve couldn’t stop until he reached the door. The force that seemed to be calling out to him, telling him that Buck was being held somewhere behind that door , had only grown, and was still growing, to the point that Steve belatedly realized he was once again caught up in Bucky’s orbit.
It had been forever since he had last heard from Bucky, longer since he had been able to feel this pull. The relief at the way the next two soldiers fell from the wide swing of his shield couldn’t compare to the relief of taking two more strides towards the door, feeling a rush of satisfaction at the small release of the tension that had been building since the day Buck got drafted. Steve had been so angry that day, and every day after it, and he thought he had just been raging at the unfairness of it all. And he was, of course he was, and even months of going home to an empty apartment where there should have been more couldn’t have convinced him that he was upset for any other reason.
Five tours in five cities were all it had taken to become aware of what it was, Steve realized. He hadn’t put a name to it—couldn’t have if he wanted to, at that point. He just didn’t have the words, but he knew, as sure as he knew that next time he needed a gun if he was going to have to resort to throwing a man into two others like a grotesque game of bowling. He knew he had gotten closer to Buck than he was comfortable thinking about, but that he couldn’t begin to think of going without it.
In four different letters he had hinted at it, hoping that maybe Buck would be the one to put the pieces together and could just come out and tell him that he felt it too, or at the very least, tell him it was okay. He still wasn’t sure whether or not Bucky had picked up on what he was saying, but he still couldn’t help but feel like he had seen the echoes of his own realizations in Buck’s letters, like ripples in a pond. He swore to God as he brought his shield down over another soldier’s head that if Bucky was behind that door, he would tell him everything. No more Steve Rogers, artist for Captain America, no more Steve Rogers, ascetic little punk. All the lies would stop, had to stop, because Steve had already taken too long to realize something.
Three somethings, actually. First, Bucky alive and hating his guts was better than Bucky dead. Second, even if he hated Steve’s guts, Bucky wouldn’t do anything to put Steve in danger. And third, Steve didn’t want to be anywhere other than here, caught in Bucky’s orbit. He would gladly spend the rest of his life there, if only God would let him, because he loved Bucky Barnes. Not as a friend, not even as a brother. Hell, here he was kneeing a man where the sun don’t shine and slamming the butt of his own rifle into his head and the head of the final soldier standing just to get to that damn door. He’d like to say he would’ve done the same for anybody, but he didn’t know. No, he loved Bucky in a different way, he’d come to terms with that. Weeks of worrying his mother’s rosary beads and imagining the hellfire in Buck’s eyes when he inevitably found out had done nothing to quell the slew of realizations Steve had been having.
Two men living together at their age—hell, it had been enough to ruin better men in the past. How they got this lucky, he didn’t care to know. He still remembered going to the MET for the first time on his seventeenth birthday, how Bucky had worked his hands to the bone for weeks and come home late and driven Steve crazy mad, only to come home one morning with the tickets in hand and a firm command to put on your jacket, punk, and come on. He hadn’t ever seen so many pictures in one place, but all day he kept dragging Bucky back to the same one: Achilles and the Shade of Patroclus . It had been little more than a sketch, simple graphite lines barely stroking the page, and Bucky hadn’t seemed to understand what about it had Steve so awed. To be honest, neither did Steve. He hadn’t heard the names beyond the barest mentions, and it was no amazing work of art. There was just something so pained in the man’s face, so much longing in his outstretched arms, and the other looked so sorry that he couldn’t reach down to grasp and be grasped in kind. He even remembered the inscription: He said, and with his longing arms essay'd/ In vain to grasp visionary shade. After they had finally left the museum that day, they had been cornered in an alley by two grown men who laughed and called them fairies. That was the first time Steve remembered Buck taking any pleasure in throwing a punch.
One more enemy between Steve and his goal, but mastering this one wasn’t as easy as throwing a punch. Steve stood staring at that door like it was going to disappear, or maybe like he was going to open it and be met with nothing more than a brick wall on the other end. Despite the feeling his body was getting pulled closer to the door with every moment of hesitation, Steve suddenly had half a mind to turn and run tail back to where the other men were certainly escaping by now, or to sit here and stand with his hand outreached for the handle of the door (and when had that happened?) for forever. And one day, he’d have been standing there so long that he’d turned to stone, and people would come to see the place where Captain America was forever reaching for something he couldn’t have, and when they walked through the doors, they would either see Bucky Barnes there reaching back or they wouldn’t.
It was a tempting thought, but Bucky was no shade. Not yet. Steve still had the chance to reach out and grasp his arm, to touch his face, and he couldn’t let that slip through his fingers.
The moment when the door creaked open was the longest of his life, and the only sound he could hear was the pounding of his heart from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. Until suddenly, he heard something else. The rattling breathing was shocking in that those sounds usually came from Steve, but today they were coming from the dark shape laid out on the table in the middle of the room. Steve took a tentative step closer. “Bucky? Buck, is that you? Are you...are you alright?”
“...Steve?”
If Steve’s world had slowed down, the sound of that voice—rough from disuse but still so sweet to Steve—had just snapped it into acceleration. The horrific array of tubes, machines, and tools blurred as Steve was propelled to the long table in the middle of the room where his heart was laid out, battered and bruised and alive goddammit, so quickly and inexorably that he knew that every aimless second of the last year had been pulling him along to this single moment. It was ineffable, the moment he leaned over the table and laid his hand on the too-sharp cheekbone that was warm and just a little rough with stubble, the moment when he stroked his thumb along the line of the jaw and was sure the hazy relief in those eyes was mirrored in his own. He let out a breath that felt years overdue and smiled.
“Bucky.”