Much seemed to have been said about Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. "Inseparable" seemed to be the word that used to pop up in any given sentence regarding the two boys and remained within that common theme throughout the rest of their speech as they dragged on about their undying bond and the likes of never leaving each other's side.
Key words: used to
If someone had told Bucky that he'd end up getting over his best pal and finding a path of his own, one that didn't include the tiny blond kid he grew up with and ended up being the only reason he continued to live on throughout the strange and foreign world of the future, he'd laugh that gruff 40-year-old dad laugh Steve had teased him about on a particularly sweltering summer day in Brooklyn.
It was something he'd eventually have to force himself to do, though. Steve, as he knew, would almost always be there for him, just not in the same way as before. When his friend suited himself up in that dreadful red and white suit that somehow only he could pull off, his chest tightened knowing the choice Steve was about to make regarding his destination. He wasn't coming back, no, not immediately at least.
But he was happy for him. Truly.
Peggy Carter was about one of the greatest, most honorable women he'd honestly ever gotten the privilege of standing next to at any given point. For a time when nothing extraordinary was expected out of a woman, she went beyond what most men even dared to partake in. Her moral resemblance to Steve was uncannily similar and nothing short of perfect. They were perfect. And what's more, she looked at Steve the way Bucky looked at Steve even before he became that big, heroic, blond beefcake the country would quickly idolize in due time; like he hung all the stars in the sky. In short, Peggy deserved Steve as much as Steve deserved Peggy.
But of course, there was also that small tinge of abandonment he'd felt when watching him go.
"'Til the end of the line," he'd once said. It'd also been the words that would eventually save him from his programming as the infamous Winter Soldier. The memory replays over and over again, the reoccurring fact that, Steve, never backing down from a single fight in his life, backed down from fighting him. He should be touched, really, but he always got a sense of panic whenever he thought about it. Steve would've sacrificed his life in an instant if it meant Bucky would be free.
Steve had given him his name back.
"Your name... is James... Buchanan... Barnes."
And I would rather die than live in world where you don’t remember me might as well have been added to it. This random stranger who had been ferociously persistent in attempting to accomplish god-knows-what with him, had given him an identity, a name. A gift, something to separate him from the rest of the nameless war machines.
He didn't quite understand at first who this man was, of course. A friend, apparently. A very good friend, one that would even give up his life for him. He went under the grid for about two years trying to collect any and every source of information he could to find out about the man he was before all this, nearly every detail tracing back to the uniformed man they dubbed “Captain America”. Every detail and piece unearthed from his past had somehow managed to come back to this small blond boy. In fact, Bucky was starting to believe he didn't really have a life separated from him. He knew he had four siblings, him being the oldest, and he knew his parents were friends with the Rogers, a humble next-door family of Irish immigrants who had more in common with them than not.
Steven Grant Rogers. His name was Steven Grant Rogers. Mighty name for such a little guy, but Bucky would eventually get to understand that the grandeur of the title did him justice. Anyone could take one look at Steve and wonder to themselves how the hell the kid was still alive. Asthma, scarlet fever, chicken pox at one point, stomach flues every other week; you name it, he had it. Being in the poor financial situation that the Rogers was, there were times where they couldn’t afford the medication required to treat their sick son. Bucky's parents would offer to chip some cash in towards their medical bills for the sake of their son's life. They didn't mind, Bucky knew it, or at least that's how he remembered it.
There was one reoccurring memory, though, that Sarah Rogers personally took responsibility for sparking within Bucky.
This was, out of all his childhood memories, the one that came to him in the most vivid of colors. They were standing beside Steve's bed yet again, his face completely drained of color and his breathing shallow and hoarse. The bed sheets were littered with crumpled tissues, some of them stained with specs of red here and there. The only visible part of his friend was the blond mess of hair that poked out from the end of the comforter he was huddled under. Bucky assumed he himself had to have been around eight or nine years old at the time, Steve being seven at the very most. He didn't quite remember what virus Steve had caught this time, but he remembered it must've been pretty life threatening if Sarah Rogers was shedding a tear right in front of him.
Dealing with someone as sickly as her son for the majority of his short life, she held strong to many of the infections and illnesses that Steve had caught through the years ever since he was a few months old. She's never truly broken down, never destroyed the steadfast visage she'd put up for her own sake as well as Steve’s whenever her son fell weak and helpless beyond all compare. So, knowing this, it frightened Bucky to see the state she was in. She would whisper something to herself in a language completely foreign to Bucky's ears which he could only guess was a prayer. It was beautiful and heartbreaking, Bucky would recall. He almost felt his lips attempting to mimic those same foreign words, as if to call out to her memory.
He remembers this part to be louder than the rest. In fact, it was this reoccurring memory that had, at one point, even driven him out of his programming mid way through a mission. Wiping her tears, she leaned down to Bucky and gently pushed his hair back as a mother would do to her son, though it would typically be an idle task, one that wouldn't take much thought. Her voice brought him to the edge, to the very whims of all the memories of his early days. Through red-rimmed eyes and a sullen smile, she whispered through her thick accent, "Watch over him when I'm gone. Please. He's tied to you more than he is to his own life."
For an eight to nine year old child, those words were about the heaviest ever spoken to him at the time, though Bucky would only understand the gravity of it in his teen years. All he could do was nod his head and hope that whatever the hell Steve was going through would go away and leave him alone, so that he wouldn’t have to hear Sarah speak to him like this.
In school, he vaguely remembered the other kids avoiding the blond, calling him a walking death wish or whatever the hell kids would insult each other with. The brunet recalls yelling back, and telling them not to touch Steve, even though a part of him knew that was exactly what they were trying to avoid. He couldn't stand anyone hurting this small fragile kid in any way; verbally, physically, it all applied equally. Bucky found himself being the only one that dared to come within five feet of him. Steve would tell him that he didn't need protection, but Bucky didn't do it out of pity. Well, maybe a part of him did, but it was also because this little blond boy was his friend, his pal.
There were other parts of Steve that came back to him. Growing up being as ill as he was, it started to make him tired of the skin he grew in. He felt so damn weak, though Bucky would tell him otherwise. Almost as a way of retaliating against his size, he would purposefully throw himself into fights with guys he damn well knew he wouldn't have a chance of beating just to prove to himself that he wasn't as weak as they viewed him to be. Bucky briefly recalled dragging him back and apologizing to the guy or guys (depending on the level of stupid the blond was on on that day).
Soon, though, Steve started to fight with purpose. It didn't matter what intention a guy had in picking a fight and creating a victim of someone else, if there was a one-sided fight, you could bet Steve goddamn Rogers would be there faster than you could blink, launching all 80 pounds of asthma at them like an aggressive chihuahua. He didn't like bullies, and that remained an everlasting fact.
Steve was also one to pick up stray cats off the streets and nurse them back to health. It brought a light note to his recollection of his early memories of him. Despite his asthma, he'd put even the lives of stray animals before his own, bathing them and feeding them until they looked as domestically healthy as possible. Bucky vaguely recalls keeping a few of the cats just for the sake of letting Steve revisit them.
Unfortunately, by the time Steve was in his late teens, Sarah Rogers had lost the battle to an illness of which Bucky could not remember, though he did recall her having it worse than the doctors could treat her with. Steve had taken it pretty roughly the first few days after the funeral, refusing to come out of his apartment or talk to anyone. Bucky still climbed through his windows to cuddle next to him during his sleepless nights. He refused to leave him in that unbearable solitude.
When he did come out, it was because Bucky had barged in using the spare house key that he damn well remembered was placed discretely under the lone brick lazily placed beside the railing leading to the door frame. This part was fuzzy and completely vague, but the next thing the brunet's memory played was a quiet scene with vaguely familiar faces spread around a circular table, Steve sitting silently next to him. He had taken up the persistent hobby of drawing while holed away in his apartment, a sketchpad discreetly lodged between his crossed legs and skinny arms under the dinner table. He doesn't remember the drawing all too much, but he does remember the look on Steve's face after showing Bucky what he remembered to be an impressive display of some sort of bouquet of flowers, a man in a Sergeant’s uniform holding it to his chest.
From then on, Steve's recovery was progressive, but Bucky remembered it being because of him that the smile on Steve's features stayed vibrant and very much prevalent. His whole personality was shaped based on Steve's, something to be compatible with.
Before Bucky was drafted into the war overseas, he made sure to do as much as he could with the blond, taking him to Dodgers games, Coney Island, a few art galleries, a shit ton of technological science conventions, a practical tour of the country. The one place he had always wanted to visit, and still finds himself sometimes longing to travel, was the Grand Canyon. Its vast expanse and depth had always fascinated him beyond anything else (besides Steve's drive to beat the shit out of people twice as big as him), though he never actually had a memory of travelling there.
His memory then shot ahead to darkness, slowly clearing around the edges to reveal a face, though, it wasn't just any face. He recognized him almost immediately, like an imprint on the back of one's hand, though it took him a shocked period of dizziness to process just how big he'd gotten. What the hell happened to him? he remembers thinking, though he doesn't remember if he said it aloud as well.
The absolute change that had taken on Steve’s body was an ultimate miracle and relief on Bucky’s conscience and heart more than Steve could know. Whatever magic the doctors had performed with their fancy medicines and tools was practically a gift from above, and Bucky wasn’t religious in the least.
"I joined the army," he'd responded breathlessly, as if the answer was completely self-explanatory.
He doesn't remember why he was strapped to a table, all he knew, and majority of what mattered, was that Steve had saved him. Later on he found out about Erkinsine's super soldier serum, the one injected through Steve's veins, and how Hydra was trying to replicate its formula to create a mass army of soldiers similar to him. Poisons running rampant through his veins, he still managed to run through a few more missions alongside his best pal, though secretly watching his six every chance he got because there was no way in hell he'd let those Hydra fucks lodge a bullet through him despite Stark's innovative, supposedly indestructible shield. No matter what, Steve would always be that skinny kid that took zero judgement before cannoning himself into a fight, and you could be sure Bucky was always there to back him.
Eventually he found himself blanking even further ahead to him struggling at the edge of a cliff on a moving train, Steve's hand desperately reaching out to his own. Unfortunately, the bar Bucky was dangling on for dear life had given away under the pressure of his weight, sending him careening thousands of feet below, where he eventually blacked out. The very last thing he remembered was Steve's horrified face, screaming his name to the winds as he locked eyes with him for the last time before he was taken by Hydra.
He tries not to think about his time as the Winter Soldier, though his PTSD keeps bringing him back in a constant replay despite his efforts to forget, the one part remaining being the consant hope that Steve was alright, wherever he was, and wasn’t in a situation like Bucky’s.
Flash forward and Bucky is involved with all kinds of wars with Steve Rogers. First with the government, then with Steve's new friends. Eventually they put him under once more, though this time under far better conditions. For the first time in over 70 straight years, the people around him weren't trying to use them to their advantage, and moreover, against his will. The best part of that situation was that Steve was right beside him during the whole process. Eventually he spent his time in Wakanda where he helped with the farm and played alongside the children and animals. Every time he ran his fingers through one of the goats' thick bed of hair, there wasn't a passing moment where he wouldn't think of Steve's bandaged fingers gently brushing along the frightened and shivering hairs of yet another stray alley cat. Onward with the war with Thanos and they'd skip ahead to what was to become of Steve Rogers in prime time. At this point, Bucky would track his history with Steve more than any other memory, convinced that anything else would simply be irrelevant.
After all, Steve Rogers is the most vivid memory of his past that Bucky could ever hope to recollect, someone he doesn't think is physically possible to remove from his memory, the brainwashing failure proving just that.
"How's it feel?"
Sam breaks his fixture on the outer texture of the shield to meet Bucky's eyes. He grins and makes his way to the brunet's side. "Told Cap it didn't really belong to me." After a pause, he tilts the shield away to reveal his hand, loosely fitted under the buckles purposed for fixing an arm to the shield itself for firm grasp. "I thought he was joking, all those years back, when he told me I'd make one hell of a captain. I mean you know, not that I wouldn't be perfectly phenomenal at it. But, if I'm being completely honest, though, I thought he'd give it to you, seeing how you've got the serum, ready to make you the next Captain America, and just... being his life long buddy and all."
Bucky sighs and locks his gaze to the back of Steve's head, peacefully sitting on the bench overlooking the lake. "I have my own issues to figure out, first. You know, finding out who I am and controlling the parts of me I still haven't fully connected with yet." He found that he couldn't bring himself to look away from the blond, his best pal, the serenity and satisfaction with the universe evident in the relaxed posture of his shoulders. "And besides, you're far more acquainted and familiar with the world at the moment. I think I'm just gonna lay low for a bit." He then adds, almost saying to himself, "and maybe familiarize myself with an old memory."
He doesn't need to look back over to his friend to see the knowing look in his eyes. "Go." He says softly, a tone uncharacteristically gentle for Wilson. He takes it anyway, starting his way towards the bench seating the man he spent his entire life never knowing how much he'd truly miss and adore.
When he finally makes his way over, the aged up and comfortably composed sight of Steve Rogers evokes a warm smile across Bucky's features. Steve smiles to himself without turning to look at Bucky. "I had a second chance at saving you, Buck." This time he turns his head to meet Bucky's eyes, involuntarily glittering with nostalgia at the sound of his voice, aged but still wonderfully him. "You lived right down the hall from Peggy and me." His eyes glistened with sudden amusement. "Adopted a little girl who would always go lookin' for trouble."
Bucky couldn't help but chuckle, gesturing towards the space next to his buddy. "May I?"
"Mmm,no."
"No?" The smile on the brunet's face quirked.
"You're still young, sit on the ground."
Bucky surprised himself with the bark of laughter he let out, following orders still. "Yes, Cap."
“I’m not Cap anymore, Buck.” He smiles. “You’ll be taking the orders from Sam.”
Bucky hummed in agreement. “Yeah, but... you’ll always be my Cap, Rogers.”
He suggested playfully.
The blond’s baby blues smile with a light of their own, the edges crinkling with his quiet laugh. "Oh sit closer, Barnes, you're an entire ocean away."
"Never close enough, eh Blondie?"
"Never." Another small laugh rumbled low in his throat.
Bucky scooted himself so that his legs, folded to his chest, rested against the blond's own.
"So you never really forgot me after all those years?" Steve surprised Bucky with the sudden soft tone in his voice, one cautious and similar to Sam's, like they'd rehearsed it before speaking to him in advance.
The brunet looked back up to his friend, who met his gaze with the most gentle eyes he's ever seen on Steven Grant Rogers since the day he brought home that first stray cat from the alley. Without missing a beat, he responded in a voice meant only for Steve's ears, "How could I forget you when you're the only thing I can remember?"
Steve's brows turn up, smile gone nostalgically free from all the burden of sorrow. "I never let go of your dog tags."
At this point, Bucky could already feel the tears threatening to spill out of his eyes as his gaze fell upon the silver ball chain ladden with two, no four tags snugly fit around the blond's neck and resting atop his windbreaker, one reading Agt. Margaret P. Carter and the other, Sgt. James B. Barnes.
"We have a lot to talk about." Steve said.
A tear spills from his steel blue orbs in a lucid river across his cheek. "Yeah, Stevie, and... I'm glad we finally have the chance to."
And as James Buchanan Barnes and Steven Grant Rogers turned back out to watch the sunset rise upon a new world, one lifted and brought back from destruction and torment, they finally had the chance to let go of that final breath holding them back from the picture that was right in front of them. Steve Rogers would never abandon Bucky Barnes, not in this reality, nor in any other. And, if the hand that gently rested atop the brunet's shoulder once again to reassure the other that they were here to stay didn't say so, then they wouldn't know what the hell would.