Salvation
“I thought you were dead.” The moment the words left his mouth, Steve realized just how true they were.
All of the varied and horrifying situations he had expected when he opened that door melted blessedly away when Bucky tilted his head into Steve’s hand just a fraction. Bound and bruised was the least he had been worried about—and at least one of those he could fix. Steve watched a smile pull at one corner of Buck’s mouth as he was released from his bonds, before his brow fell into a furrowed confusion. “...I thought you were smaller?”
The laugh that bubbled up in Steve’s throat and poured out of his mouth felt warm and heady, more intoxicating than the first sip of champagne. It had the same effect too, and Steve couldn’t keep his one hand from sliding up and through Bucky’s hair—greasy, but soft , he’d have to remember how soft it was—nor his other from gripping his very solid and very much there shoulder. “I think I win here. Dead is worse, Buck. I was so worried.”
The furrow in Bucky’s brow hadn’t smoothed, but Steve couldn’t bring himself to get all ruffled at the interrogation and lecturing that look was bound to bring. “Well,” Bucky’s eyes slipped away, and they seemed to dart around the room too quickly to really be taking anything in. “I’m here, ain’t I?”
Bucky’s eyes had locked solidly back onto Steve, who quickly stripped his face of any concern that had been spurred by the genuine question in Buck’s tone. Instead, he looked at those brown eyes until he smiled again. “Barely, but you are. Thank God for that.”
He started to tug at Bucky’s shoulder in an effort to get him sitting up, which wasn’t too difficult seeing how as soon as Steve took his hand away from Buck’s head he had two hands almost desperately clasping at his own arms. He still hadn’t released Buck’s gaze, which had grown more wild with what Steve could only assume was the ridiculous fear that he was going to disappear if he let go. “What happened to you, Steve?”
Now that was more like the Bucky that Steve expected. “Not sure you’d believe me if I told you.” He reached out and tugged on Buck’s legs until he got him to swing them off the side of the table, keeping a hand behind his back to steady him through the movement. “And besides, we gotta get you off of this table.”
“This...what?” Bucky glanced down at where his legs dangled from the metal slab and his eyes widened in surprise. “Okay...I don’t…”
“Easy Buck,” Steve threaded an arm under one of Bucky’s shoulders and started to tug him onto his feet. “Just, up...yeah.” The amount that Bucky’s legs wobbled was alarming, and Steve was certain if he hadn’t been pulling all his weight onto himself that Bucky would have fallen flat. This was going to be more difficult than he thought. “There you go. Come on, we don’t have a lot of time.”
“...’kay.”
If anyone ever asked, if they ended up making it out for anyone to ask, Steve would swear up and down that James Buchanan Barnes walked out of that infirmary on his own two feet, smirking and giving Steve hell for taking so long. As it was, the only two feet on the ground may as well have been Steve’s, because every jerky movement of Bucky’s legs—despite taking a seemingly huge amount of concentration—yielded nothing more than a violent buckling of his knees. Steve let him struggle for all of five painfully long paces before he let his hand slip down around Buck’s waist to give him better leverage so he could lift the man half off the ground as they walked. If it hadn’t been clear before, it was clear now that Bucky was in no state to be making a secret getaway from the middle of a Nazi prison camp, but there wasn’t anything to be done but get him out as quickly as possible. He couldn’t even take the time to relish the press of Bucky’s (shockingly cold—had he always run that cold?) side into his own, a sensation he had unfortunately failed to give much thought to even in the throes of his recent self-realizations. There would be time for all that later. There would have to be.
With Steve practically carrying him out the door and through the long hallway that led into the infirmary, Bucky apparently had enough energy free to examine their surroundings, namely the nine soldiers slumped across their path in varying degrees of disarray. “What happened here?”
The edge of accusation in his tone was familiar, at least. Steve could deal with that. “Oh, well.” He lifted Bucky bodily over two soldiers piled in a heap. “I may’ve gotten in a fight.” The sight of the bloody gash on one soldier’s head, no doubt a result of an unfortunate meeting with the edge of Steve’s shield, made him flinch. “No one’s real hurt though, I think.” He hoped. If he was going to meet his maker a lying sinner already, he didn’t want murder on his plate, too.
“God, you’re such a punk.” The well-rehearsed declaration seemed to give Buck the energy to begin putting weight on his own feet, though his relationship with gravity still felt tenuous from Steve’s position at his side. “Just like always.”
“Yeah, like always.” Steve pulled them both to a stop in front of the doors at the end of the hallway and pulled the brown jacket from where it was slung over his shoulder, the chill of Bucky’s form having reminded him too closely of intangible shades and reaching arms. “Listen, I want you to put this on, okay?” When Bucky sat looking blankly between the jacket and Steve’s face, he continued. “You just, you need...something.” Something—why couldn’t he have picked up some of that self-assured mothering of Bucky’s he had always griped about?
“Is this…” Bucky ran a shaking hand along the sleeve of the jacket and looked back up at Steve, eyes shuttered and distrusting in a way that very honestly wrenched Steve’s heart. “This isn’t real. Is it?”
Steve resisted the urge to press his hand to Bucky’s cheek again, and just did his best to fix his Captain America, trust-me-I’m-an-American smile on his face. “It’s real Buck, I swear.” He took Bucky’s intense focus on the place where his smile was splitting his face as a chance to start stuffing his left arm through a sleeve. “You just told me to take care of it, and here it is, good as new, and me too. Give me your other arm, okay?” It was like dressing a babe—not that Steve had any expertise in the area, but the complete lack of cooperation on Bucky’s part made a three-second endeavor the most frustrating minute of his life.
He was glad for the effort, though, when he opened the doors to the infirmary and a blast of cold air sent Buck into immediate shivers. As much as he hated it, if this was what Buck had gone through every time he had begged Steve to just wear a damn jacket, every time he had given up telling and just manhandled Steve into it, then Steve might have to start wearing jackets even though he didn’t need them much anymore. Just to give Bucky some peace of mind.
The first step out of the infirmary seemed to lift whatever fog had claimed Bucky, if only a fraction, because the next look he gave Steve was full of something that at least approximated real recognition. “You really came looking for me.”
Steve was intent on pulling them quickly away from the infirmary, but the note of disbelief in that statement couldn’t be allowed to stand unchallenged. “‘Course I did. You think I was lying when I said I’d come over here and drag you back home?” Steve couldn’t let out all the words he wanted to, especially not while Bucky was so compromised, but he didn’t stop himself from pouring all that sincerity into his voice. “And after all this time. Thought you knew me better, jerk.”
His effort at sincerity didn’t land quite like he wanted it too, because Bucky wouldn’t stop glancing up at his face with an expression that said he expected him to disappear any second. “Just...never thought I’d see you again.”
Steve could almost feel his heart drop down into his feet before bouncing back and rattling around in his chest cavity. He suddenly wished that Buck were all there, if only so he could shake his shoulders and ask him if he knew what he meant when he said ‘til the end of the line, because Steve was damn sure it didn’t mean giving up. But they were still here, creeping away from the infirmary, Steve completely wired and hellbent on getting Bucky out and Buck just kind of hanging off his shoulder and sloughing along without seeming to be aware he was doing it. Steve felt a quick pang of guilt for the irritation that ran through his mind at Bucky’s lack of awareness of what a horrible thought he’d just voiced—nevermind that he had certainly been in dire straits before Steve showed up, just how dire did it have to be for him to have completely given up on everything, and Steve with it?
He pulled Bucky in a little tighter, not that he was in any position to notice the change. For months Steve had been trying to come to terms with all of the changes to his person and his life, and his efforts had culminated in the attempt to essentially stitch together something new and shiny out of all the older parts of himself, to try and fill out the suit and the mask and the Captain America title. He had quickly realized that the parts of himself he was willing to salvage for this new venture weren’t quite enough to build Captain America, that it would take more than righteous anger and determination and homegrown American stubbornness. He had needed charm, and a softer kind of warmth than he had ever possessed.
He had needed Bucky. Even when he was on another continent, Steve had been unable to escape the fact that Buck rounded him out in ways that he had never even realized, and that he had been doing it since the day they met. With Buck gone, he had to try rounding that out himself. It still never felt quite perfect, but the big grins and warm handshakes and smooth conversation were almost a second skin now, the increasing popularity of the tour could attest to that. If it weren’t ridiculous, he’d say it felt almost like having a part of Bucky with him on that stage.
Now, trying to tug Buck forward from where he had suddenly stopped and was staring into the distance, Steve fervently wished he had tried to pick up more important things than charming folks from Bucky. All those years Buck had spent getting Steve out of trouble, finishing his fights and dealing with all the aftermath, whether it was bruised ribs or raw feelings, and he had never seemed half as panicked or close to being sick as Steve felt right now. He suddenly found himself asking how he did it, why he did it, knowing that he was just going to get up the next day and find another pile of shit for him to shovel—
“I know that man.” Bucky was staring at the same spot in the distance with an intensity that seemed incongruous with his current state.
Steve, jarred from his train of thought, followed Bucky’s gaze to a darkened set of stairs. A darkened set of very empty stairs. “...What man, Buck?”
“The…” Buck ripped himself away from Steve’s side with startling rapidity and took a single faltering step toward the stairwell. “He was just there—”
“Okay.” Steve scanned their surroundings quickly, before tracking his eyes slowly over what was visible of the stairs one more time. “That’s alright, Buck. He ain’t there anymore. Let’s just get you outta here, okay? If we head over this way, we oughta hit one of the gates soon.” Steve turned and made to continue on in the direction they had been walking, but Bucky stood stock-still, eyes never leaving the stairs for a moment. “Come on, what’re you waiting for?”
“Coulda sworn…” Bucky finally ripped his eyes away from the stairs and stared directly at Steve. “He’s the one that did it.”
Steve’s body turned of its own accord, reaching out to Bucky at the vague mention of what he had gone through. “Did what, Buck? What the hell happened here?”
Bucky reached out in turn and grasped Steve’s arms, face briefly hidden by the downward tilt of his head and the shaggy locks falling to hide whatever emotion was flashing under the surface. When he finally lifted his head, it was to fix Steve with a look so desperate that he already knew he wouldn’t allow himself to brush this off as a fever-induced vision. “He made me...said he was gonna make me a soldier. That’s why he did it.”
“What? What did he do to you?” Bucky proffered no response, but his eyes kept pleading with Steve to do something. “Does he know you, Buck?” Steve tried to make his voice gentler, to keep the growing dread from bleeding in. “Does he know who you are?”
Buck started shaking his head from side to side. “Bad. It was real bad.” When he froze, his hands tensed around Steve’s arms to a degree that was almost painful. “I told him...I didn’t give him anything, Steve, I swear, but I gave him my name, my rank, number...he knows my name…” By that point there was an edge of panic coloring Bucky’s words, a slight but constant shudder running through his arms. “He knows my name.”
“Okay.” Shit. “Okay. That’s alright.” Or it would be, if Steve could just find the man that had seen Sergeant Barnes of the 107th regiment being specially rescued by Captain Fucking America . “You did good, Buck. Just what you were supposed to do. We just gotta go…” See if this was a figment of your very impaired imagination? Get rid of the guy for good so he can’t get to you again? “...we gotta go pay him a little visit, okay? Real quick. Won’t take long at all. That sound okay?”
“I—yeah. I think.” He tilted his head and Steve could see himself reflected in his eyes, blessedly devoid of that previous panic. “You’re coming with?”
“Course, buddy.” Steve smiled and began slowly extracting his arms from Bucky’s bruising grip. “Not leaving you alone anytime soon. Where’d you say you saw him?”
“He was—” if they got out of here in one piece, Steve was going to have to sketch the confusion currently rippling over Bucky’s features. “He was here, and then he was, by that door, I think? By the...stairs?”
“That’s good, that’s real good.” He threaded his arm under one of Bucky’s shoulders again. “Let’s go over this way—” Buck suddenly tried to pull them both in the opposite direction, and Steve used the least amount of force he could to correct their course and bring them both closer to the stairwell. “Over, over here. Good. Come on, looks like stairs. You up for stairs?”
The way Buck tripped over one of his own feet the second Steve released him and ended up whiteknuckling the railing answered his question before the words even left Bucky’s mouth. “Dunno if I can make it, Steve...you gotta—”
“I can help,” He moved back to his previous position, supporting Buck with one arm wrapped around his waist, and moved them in front of the first step. “Here, I’ll help you. It’s just left, right—careful—there you go. Left, right, just like when you taught me to waltz.” Steve kept their pace slow, and didn’t bother trying to stem his rambling, just sent up a silent prayer that he was coming off as ‘comforting’ rather than ‘about to hyperventilate worse than he did last winter.’ “You remember when you taught me that Buck? Left, right, left, right…”
“Ha.” Steve felt the short exhale of breath almost against his neck. “Think you needed my help more than I need yours.”
The accusation brought a genuine smile to Steve’s face. “My dancing was that bad, huh?”
“Think you spent more time on your ass than you did on your feet.” The point lost some of its weight when Bucky’s foot caught on the lip of the next step, and Steve had to pause to steady him before pulling them forward even more quickly than before.
“Yeah, well, we’re gonna try not to let you end up that way. You gotta show me you can do it though, left, right, just like that day, huh? What was it we were listening to, anyway?”
“I don’t...god, the floor keeps moving,” Bucky groaned, “I can’t, Steve—!”
“No, you can—come on!” He was almost carrying him bridal style now, but was painfully aware of how much that limited his ability to defend against a potential attack. “We just gotta talk to this guy, and then I swear to God I’ll carry you the rest of the way back to camp if I have to. You just gotta make it up and I’ll get you down, okay?”
“Ugh.” Bucky got his own legs back under himself and Steve breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Was I ever this pushy with you?”
“All the time,” Steve laughed, “Kicked my ass every other day, you jerk. Needed it though, just like now. You just need a little help, that’s all. But we’ve got this, we’re good.” Steve wondered if the serum had also enhanced his ability to lie to himself.
“Is that…” Bucky once again stopped dead in his tracks on the landing of the stairs, “It’s him. I know it. It’s gotta be.”
Steve was about to be cross with the Erskine’s memory, frustrated at the thought that this was the second time Bucky, half-dead and definitely currently out of his head, was seeing something that Steve with all his serum-finished senses couldn’t seem to hone in on.
“Captain America,” The booming voice, altogether too cheerful for Steve’s tastes, echoed from the parallel landing on the other side of the space, connected to their place on the stairs by a narrow metal walkway. “I’m such a fan of your films.” The smile on the face emerging from the shadows by the elevator sent a shiver down Steve’s spine; the edges were pulled too taut, and the whole expression looked as if it had been cut and pasted onto a face-like canvas.
Steve chose to ignore what he was sure was a jibe in favor of leaning into Bucky’s space to whisper, “This your guy?”
“No. He was small. Said he was...a doctor?” Buck swayed as he spoke, and Steve forced him to lean heavily on the single railing instead of letting him take his chances with the drop into the chasm around the stairs.
“Where’s the doctor?” Steve took a step onto the connecting walkway, straightening his back as much as he could. “I’m guessing he’s the one in charge, if you’ve got nothing more important to do than watch my films all day.”
When the man finally deigned to step out of the shadows and stalk forward on the narrow walkway, Steve only had eyes for him. He wasn’t the doctor, wasn’t the one who had done...whatever he did to Bucky, but he looked spitting mad and Steve was sure if he landed his fist just right he could break his nose in one hit and that was enough for him at the moment.
“It would seem Dr. Erskine’s procedure enhanced your sense of self-importance in addition to your physical form.” Then again, why only go for the nose? A moving target was always harder to hit, but if this guy was so insistent on bringing his jaw within Steve’s reach, well. Steve would hate to look a gift horse in the mouth. “You would do well to watch your mouth, Captain.”
With the sneered title, the man had finally crossed into what Steve considered fair territory. The only satisfaction greater than the sickening crunch of his knuckles slamming into the man’s jaw was the shocked look that followed. “And you would do well to watch yours, sir.”
Some of the satisfaction inevitably dissipated when Steve heard Bucky draw in a brief but pained gasp behind him, somehow audible even over the sounds of sirens from some distant part of the complex. Steve spared a thought for Dernier and Falsworth, but his attention was quickly redirected to an incongruously soft voice coming not from the man in front of him on the walkway, but from the shadowed corner of landing by the elevator.
“Ah, Sergeant Barnes. This is a surprise, to say the least.”
The vague interest lacing the smaller man’s statement seemed to cast a chill over the room, and Steve belatedly realized that the metallic clang he registered was actually Bucky, who had stumbled backwards and was teetering dangerously close to the single unhelpful railing on the back end of the landing.
“You.” Steve took a step forward, certain that whatever sway this little man held would be enough to keep the larger one well on his end of the walkway. “You’re the doctor.” When the man’s beady eyes locked onto his, Steve didn’t know whether to be grateful his attention was no longer lingering on Buck or fearful of what depths he was now staring into. He chose to be grateful. “What did you do? I swear to God I’ll, I’ll—”
“No need for threats, Captain.” Two hands were held palms up in what Steve supposed should have been a placating gesture. “I spent some quality time—ah, working with Sergeant Barnes. He has proven to be a very interesting companion.”
“Don’t give me that shit, doctor . He’s no companion of yours.” Steve had reached the middle of the walkway, but his next step forward was matched the larger man who, Steve noted, didn’t seem to be bleeding or even bruising. He forced himself to widen his stance and level his most unimpressed gaze at the doctor. “Now if you tell your guy to back off then I might not rip you apart, but I gotta tell you doc, I’m a little at the end of my rope here and something’s gotta give.”
A sprig of triumph rose in Steve when he saw the flicker of hesitation in the doctor’s eyes, but once again his own attention was captured by a breathy and panicked sound from the landing behind him. “...Steve? I’m gonna-”
The distress in that voice was all it took to send Steve spinning around, and the sight of Bucky barely hanging to the sparse railing sent him rushing back without a thought for the two bastards who merely shared a look and started making their way to the elevator in his distraction.
“Shit, shit, you can’t!” Steve grabbed Bucky’s arm and yanked him away from the edge. “Dammit Bucky, you just gotta, come on!”
The best Steve could do was lower Buck to the ground in the middle of the platform, where the worst he could do was try to roll his way to the edge. The image brought to mind the earlier comparison to dressing a baby, and Steve was suddenly seized by the inappropriate desire to start giggling. A booming laugh did begin to echo around the chamber, but it wasn’t Steve’s.
He whipped his head around and was met with the sight of the two men standing, matching expressions of pleasure, in the elevator on the other side of the landing. “I believe,” the doctor began in his deceptively gentle voice, “I’ll be seeing you, Sergeant Barnes. We have some...unfinished business to attend to.”
He wouldn’t ever be able to tell you how, but Steve found himself staring blankly at a large dent in the silver elevator doors right where he could have sworn the doctor’s head was. He vaguely took in the burn in his right arm and the fact that he couldn’t seem to place his shield. He was unaware how long he had been standing there like that, but apparently it had been enough time for Buck to drag himself shakily onto his feet and fist his fingers in Steve’s sleeve. “...Stevie?”
The moniker pricked uncomfortably behind his eyes, but was enough of an incentive for Steve to jolt into motion, clapping Bucky lightly on the shoulder and pulling him back towards the stairs. “Okay, time to go. Now.”
Bucky struggled against Steve’s hold, trying to twist his head back in the direction of the elevator. “He’s...he's gone. I’m not gonna...he’s gone?”
“He can’t get to you Buck, I promise. Ain’t nothin bad gonna happen to you while I’m here. You believe me, don’t you?” The words were accompanied by a gentle squeeze where Steve was still gripping Bucky’s upper arm.
“Let’s go.” Bucky avoided meeting Steve’s eyes as he took it upon himself to start stumbling down the stairs, but Steve decided to revisit it later, when Buck could be proud of the fact that he was finally learning to pick his battles.
“Good, good. We got up, now we’re getting down. That should be the easy part, yeah? Let’s see if we can’t take it a little quicker—you think you can handle a little quickstep Buck? Always been one of your favorites.”
“Can handle it better’n you, at least.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Maybe I just need to find me a better teacher.”
“Better partner, more like.”
Steve glanced sideways at Bucky, who was now tripping down the stairs with a level of control that was impossible right when he had slid off that table. Whatever they had him on, it was wearing off some, though he wasn’t lucid by any means. “Nah, I don’t think there’s a better partner out there. Not for me, at least.” He tugged Bucky along, relieved when he saw another narrow walkway leading to what he hopefully remembered correctly as being the ground floor door.
All his genuine cheer at Buck’s minor improvements shattered, along with seemingly half the supports in their immediate vicinity, as the building shook with a resounding bang. “That’s...that’s bad, right?” Buck asked from where he and Steve were half-crouched on the landing.
Steve glanced out at the walkway, which had been reduced to a straining narrow beam, and then glanced to the stairs, where the routes to other floors were now either blocked or near decimated. “Yes—” He glanced at Bucky’s face, which was carefully blank, and his eyes, which betrayed his panic. “No—just give, gimme a minute. I’ve got a plan.”
Looking out at that rickety beam, looking like it’d snap in half if he just tapped it with his foot, Steve knew there were only a few ways this could go. They could go over together—or at least, they could step onto it together and end up falling together, too. No two ways about that, it wasn’t going to hold them both. If Steve was being honest with himself, it probably wasn’t even going to hold him. And if he went down and took the damn thing with him, where would Bucky be then? Alone and waiting for something, the nature of which Steve didn’t even want to consider. And if he sent Bucky over first, maybe he fell. He wasn’t in a good way, so it was a real chance. Maybe he fell. Maybe the beam broke. Okay, so Steve would fall, too. But maybe he made it, and then if Steve could only convince him to get out, he could be alright. Bucky could get out, maybe Dernier and Falsworth would find him or maybe he’d make it on his own, but he could get back to the camp and go back to New York and the apartment and he could have a life. Bucky could get out, and Steve would be here, but he could live with that—it wouldn’t be a hard road, or a long one judging by the way the staircase had started swaying noticeably side to side.
“Okay, look.” Steve turned to Buck and smiled, wishing he could take a minute to sketch his eyes, the curve of his cheek, the twist of his lips, but knowing it would be useless, anyways. “I need you to walk over, one little step at a time, okay? You do that for me Bucky?”
“What? You’re kidding. I can’t—what about you?”
“I ain’t kidding. I told you, I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll be right behind you, I swear.”
The lie dripped from his mouth like honey and vinegar, and the sweet taste of Bucky maybe, potentially, alive and well meant Steve couldn’t even be bothered by the vinegar. It was the easiest tale he had told all year, and when Buck reached for Steve’s hand—not his arm, but his honest-to-God hand—the lies just kept coming, sin or not.
“Promise, Steve. Promise you’re coming after me.”
Steve squeezed his hand gently, wanting to take his time but knowing he needed to hurry if he wanted that last bittersweet drop before he went to his maker. “Promise. Now get up—there you go. Real slow, real careful, remember.”
While Bucky was slipping and stumbling over the beam, Steve was bargaining with what few chips he had left, every step a prayer. Buck wobbled a little, he’s already walked through the valley of the shadow of death ten times over. His left foot slipped, he doesn’t need more pain, doesn’t deserve it. Another explosion sounded from somewhere deep below, deliver him, don’t let him be taken away to death. The shaking increased and Buck stumbled a few steps forward, God, take whatever you want, just not him. You can’t. Buck slipped and caught himself on his hands and knees. “I’m not gonna make it.”
You can’t. “Yes, you are. You’ve gotta—who the hell am I supposed to dance with if you don’t, huh? I’ve gotta take you to the Grand Canyon, too. Just get up, goddammit Buck, get up!”
He crawled forward a few more feet, but the shaking was increasing. Steve swore he could almost see the beam buckling in slow motion. “I’m sorry Steve, I—”
Don’t take him, staggering his way to slaughter—be merciful. Steve forced himself to watch as the beam began to bend from the middle, Bucky scrambling to his feet, his mind nothing more than an anguished stream of be merciful, be merciful, if not to me then to him—if not to him then to me —and then Bucly jumped. It was less of a jump and more of a final desperate lunge, but either way, Bucky pushed himself off of the now falling beam with a strength that Steve was damn certain he didn’t actually possess at that moment. His hands curled around the railing of the other landing, and the same strength that seemed to have lifted him from the beam now propelled him over the railing. The second Bucky’s feet touched the platform it was like the strings had been cut, and Steve watched him slump to his knees and run a hand over his face in distress. The sigh that left Steve’s mouth was laced with a sense of peace, and he had been certain that this meant Bucky’s life was saved.
Until Buck had regained enough sense to look across the now gaping, empty chasm in between his platform and the one where Steve still stood, a world behind him. The betrayal that carved into Bucky’s features as he pulled himself up to lean heavily against the railing unsettled Steve, reminding him too much of the look that must have graced his own face the day Buck had been drafted.
The day Steve had worn that face was the first day he had gone straight to the Army Recruiter’s office. When they rejected him, he had started a fight in the alley behind their apartment building that had left him with a bruised rib and black eye, and it all started with him wearing that look. Now that look was on Bucky’s face, and Steve didn’t want to know what he was going to do.
“Just, go! Get out of here!”
“No!” Bucky’s voice ripped through Steve, leaving him breathless in an instant. “Not without you!”
Steve had always thought that his eventual deliverance would involve a bunch of ethereal white lights, enveloping him and warming him through and through in a way that was impossible to imagine just a short year ago. It turned out to involve a pair of weary and wild eyes, closer in color to a steaming cup of coffee than heavenly lights, and the anguished twist in a pair of bright and bruised lips—stained scarlet, Steve thought, as if laid over with a rough and bloodied cloth. The tortured curve of that mouth spoke to Steve, told him that his job wasn’t finished yet and he had been a punk to think otherwise. The urgency in those eyes compelled him to continue, called out to him that with Bucky he would once again find what he needed. Steve knew what he was being offered, in a word.
Salvation.
Bucky had trusted in Steve, and made it through. Now it was Steve’s turn for a leap of faith. He refused to think as he backed up as far as he could on the landing and instead chose to focus on those eyes, looking at him like the moon would never again be hung up at night without Steve around. He barely felt the tensing of his muscles as he pressed his weight down into the edge of the platform, nor the immense release of energy as he pushed himself away and the air whipping through his hair as he flew. What he did feel was the way his hands scrambled for purchase when he slammed against the opposite landing, and two warm hands twisting into his uniform to frantically help pull him up onto steadier ground.
He waited until he had been tugged to standing and could once again claim Bucky’s gaze before he broke out into a weary smile. “See? I told you I’d be right behind you.”
Bucky, hands still wound tightly into Steve’s uniform, gave him as intimidating a shake as he was capable of. “God, you’re such a punk.”
“I know.” Steve reached out and clasped Bucky’s upper arms in kind. He maintained that furious gaze for a moment, before he had to slip his arms further and draw Bucky’s shaky form into his chest. When Buck finally released his grip in favor of circling his own arms around Steve’s back, Steve allowed himself to drop his head into Buck’s neck, where he imagined he could feel the beat of Bucky’s heart radiating outwards to his own. “You jerk.”