The ever-present hum of the lightbulbs kept him from sleeping.
It was the hiss of the filaments, not the cold. He could hear the glass as it vibrated minutely. It was too loud. It kept him awake. It was the lightbulbs, not the cold.
Bucky Barnes had been cold a long, long time. Cold he could handle. Cold he knew.
But these fucking lightbulbs -
---
Russian was confusing to him - it slushed and squashed itself in his mouth, making him feel more punch-drunk than he really was.
"иди трахни себя" he said. It felt like maybe he'd dribbled it more than said it. Like maybe it fell out with the blood trickling into his lap.
He didn't understand what they were saying to him. He didn't bother trying to learn. He knew all the Russian he needed to get his point across. Gabe had taught him, taught all of them, trading a flask and dirty words over a fire to pass the time.
They wanted him to move, or to fight back, or to lie down on on another fucking table.
Bucky just wanted to sleep. Somewhere warm, if he could swing it.
Not that the cold bothered him. He could handle the cold.
He couldn't handle the way the soviet soldiers always approached him from the left, the way the lights showed him his empty sleeve, they way they didn't bother to strap him down when they hurt him anymore because they could dig their fingers into the mess of throbbing scars and hold him while they laughed.
At least they were warm against him.
He focused on that and ignored absolutely everything else.
---
He dreamed of sunlight on the water by the docks, he dreamed of bony hands and serious brows over a sarcastic smile. He dreamed, and at least that meant he slept.
---
It was hard to breathe when he started trying to remember how long he had been here. How long the loud lightbulbs and cold cinderblocks and rough Russian hands had been his only company. He hadn't seen the sky in a long time, the lights were always on, he ate when someone threw food in front of him, he was sure he slept sometimes because he dreamed sometimes, but he hadn't seen the sky in a long time. He forced himself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
He looked at his left arm.
It was horrible. And it didn't tell him anything.
The scarred tissue was tender but well-healed. There was a smooth stump a few inches below his shoulder. He could feel that there was still some bone beneath the cap of skin.
But he didn't know how fast this was supposed to happen. Did it take months for an amputation to seal itself with no scabs or seeping? Weeks? How long did it take a normal person? How normal was he?
He remembered looking up through snow and mist, feeling a scream rip itself away from him as he saw Steve's face twist in shock and grief. The train had been a long, long way above the ground. Normal people didn't live through that kind of fall.
Normal people didn't live through days in the snow.
Normal people didn't live through having their arms ripped off.
Bucky didn't know normal these days. He just knew the cold.
***
The first thing that hit him was the smell.
1945 didn't smell like 2019.
He was home.
---
Time travel was a confusing mess, he'd decided.
Everyone thought he was dead and he figured that somewhere out in the ice there was a version of him pinned like a bug on a board, frozen and waiting to be thawed out. He didn't know if there were two of him here now or if the him that was here had died when he crashed or if there were a million other things that could have happened to make it so there was just one Steve Rogers in this 1945 or if there were a million other things that could have happened and a dozen of him would pop up to confuse each other and scrap it out over the years.
And he didn't particularly care.
Steve Rogers was in 1945 again and he had a secret.
Bucky Barnes was alive, and Steve was the only one who knew it.
It wasn't the kind of secret he wanted to keep.
---
Peggy had shot at him again, which he figured made sense. He'd thought that he was Loki in one version of one of the realities he'd skipped through, he could forgive Peggy for doing the prudent thing and trying to take his head off. He could forgive her anything, because she was the first one he found who believed him about Bucky.
---
The trouble was that the Soviets were supposed to be their allies and it was awful hard to put together a raiding party and go barging into bases when you were supposed to be friends with the folks in charge.
Bucky in the future had known that he'd been kept somewhere cold, that he hadn't been the Asset until later, that he'd been alone and confused for a long time before they grafted the arm.
But Bucky in the future had been tense and tired and if you tried to talk to him about details or dates or locations he shut down. And Hydra may have kept meticulous records about their Soldier but they hadn't kept the same sorts of notes on the process of unmaking their captive. Steve could close his eyes and see columns of dates and bases where the Soldier had been moved in cryo and woken for use but they'd never seen the records of where he'd been stashed when they first dragged him out of the ravine.
He'd fallen in January. Steve had crashed the Valkyrie in February. It was April and the war was rapidly barreling toward its conclusion and Steve couldn't go ripping open Allied bases in search of one thought-dead soldier.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to desert and scour Siberia single-handed until Bucky was safe.
Instead he was put in meeting after meeting, debriefing on the end of the war with all of the benefit of an eidetic memory and seventy years of foresight.
And he hated it but he did it anyway. It was more important to save the world than it was to save Bucky and that thought ate at his soul but that didn't make it less true.
And if he cornered a president in a dark hallway and hissed out a warning about bombs and civilian populations and how easy it would be to find his way into the White House should the words "Enola Gay" become a part of history, well. That was his business. Bucky would approve.
---
Steve found himself missing the future. He missed GPS, he missed computer displays. He shocked himself by missing the invasive world of cameras and computers and drones because all he wanted was to use every screen in the world to search. He felt a horrible, twisted smile pass over his face as he imagined what Tony would do if he found himself stuck in this era of thick glass and foam rubber instead of the bright world of steel and light and air where he belonged. Tony would have hated it here, but he could have helped, and it hurt Steve to think about it.
Better to think of Bucky. That was a problem he could solve.
---
"Never take institutional misogyny for granted, darling," Peggy had said as she dropped a file in front of him.
It was mid-May and Germany was a mess but everyone who mattered had surrendered and Steve was pretty sure he hadn't slept in a week and couldn't bring himself to care.
He flipped the folder open and found himself face to face with Armin Zola.
Peggy was perching herself on the desk Steve had been assigned to as he'd written up page after page of history that hadn't happened yet. He arched a brow at her.
"How did you know Zola was alive? Phillips was supposed to kill him."
"Supposed to doesn't mean much in a war, does it?" Her red mouth was curving into a wicked smile and Steve found himself matching it.
"I suppose not," he closed the folder and took in the huge "classified" stamp that covered most of its surface. "These are eyes-only for the US Government, Pegs. How'd you get your pretty little hands on 'em?"
She folded up about a mile of leg and her smile took on a harder edge. "It's amazing how many generals think every woman in the room is the office girl they've called for coffee. Beyond that don't worry your pretty little head about it." She ran a fond hand through the sweep of hair that was falling over his brow. "And don't call me Pegs."
***
He thought he might have been on fire. He thought he might have remembered a time that didn't hurt.
He didn't remember when he wasn't cold.
They'd taken the remains of his clothes at some point.
They'd started strapping him down again when they wanted him on a table. They chained his wrist to a wall when they left him alone. His arm had healed enough that it couldn't be used to control him anymore. A commander had dug his thick fingers into the flesh and Bucky had driven his teeth into the stranger's throat, growling until blood ran down his front and the butt of a rifle against his head drove him back.
So they kept him strapped down, they kept him in chains.
They filled him with needles that burned but weren't warm, scorching him inside without taking away the cold.
---
There had been one night they'd ignored the perimeter in favor of hot mouths and hot hands and desperate moans years in the making. Checking the woods didn't matter, Steve could hear a mouse a mile away if he wanted to, they'd have plenty of warning if a squad of huns came for their camp in the night. All that mattered was all the things they'd never said that were being said now by fingertips and clanking buckles and teeth sunk into soft lips.
"Stevie," he'd whispered, once, before his mouth was full of sweetness and his mind was full of light.
They'd staked out the train two days later.
He dreamed about big hands and silent woods.
He dreamed that they'd had longer.
---
He'd adjusted to the shape of Russian in his ears, gotten used to the snowy slush of consonants blurring into vowels and crafting orders and threats.
Hearing German snagged at his consciousness, rousing him from the stupor he so gladly sank into. He could make out the language but not the words as he heard footsteps in the hallway drawing nearer and nearer to his cell. He may have been dazed and damaged but he knew enough to know that if Germans and Russians were cooperating things were a lot worse for him than he'd thought and he'd already thought they were pretty bad.
But it turns out that he wasn't about to face down a German.
After all, Armin Zola was Swiss.
"Sergeant Barnes," the scientist said through the bars, "it's a pleasure to see you again."
Bucky wanted to scream, or sneer, or shout something sarcastic through the door or just start bawling but all he could do was close his eyes and burn with the cold.
***
Steve was much better a punching than he was at playing spy, but that's why he had people like Bucky and Peggy watching his back. All he wanted to do was dangle Zola off a building until he gave up the locations of Hydra bases. Peggy wouldn't let Steve indulge in his wrath, which is why the were actually where they needed to be instead of spending months breaking into abandoned sites.
He loved her. He loved her and her mind and her wicked sense of humor and that she loved him. He loved that when he'd told her about Bucky and the yawning void inside of himself when he thought of a life without Bucky she'd kissed him, grabbed his ass, and made a plan to track a little worm of a scientist into the tundra to bring Steve's lover back.
"You'll have to learn to be more continental about this sort of thing if we're going to make this work," she'd said, and Steve had blushed fuschia because in spite of the years he'd spent out of time he'd never dared to hope that Peggy would understand. But here she was with a grin on her face and a twinkle in her eye and Steve had let her kiss him stupid to distract him from his wrath and worry.
---
The base was quiet on the surface, and someplace they definitely weren't supposed to be; far north and east of where Allies had any business prodding into Russian affairs.
Peggy had done her work well, though, getting herself and the Howlies behind the border on a diplomatic trip. If they went dark for a couple of days, well, it was a big country. Trains took a long time.
Steve had memorized guard schedules and combinations and patrol routes and he was able to walk right into the central hub of the building and take an elevator a mile down with no one the wiser. They'd figured out the timing so well that he went in and went invisible. Jim and Tim flanked him, quiet at his back while the rest of the commandos covered for them on the long ride from Moscow to Vladivostok. They were supposed to be diplomatically making their way to Japan, after all.
Dum Dum fiddled with a packet on his belt as they descended. Jim checked his watch. Steve did everything in his power not to rip the floor of the elevator out and jump down the shaft himself it it would get him to Bucky faster.
***
Round lenses glared white light down at him and he tried to shout but the sound couldn't get past his throat. He felt a table beneath him and saw the big round eyes of bright lights above him and thought when he shifted he could hear needles like windchimes rattling through him.
He was cold. He was always cold and no one came when he screamed and it hurt to be so alone when all he wanted was big hands to hold him steady, keep him where he could see himself and know that he was a person instead of a sack full of needles and ice.
The round lenses and the big lights melted into each other when another sharp spike pricked into his neck. As the world blurred he heard an explosion, felt the table shake beneath him. He imagined he felt warmth against his lips before he was flooded with sweetness and the cold room around him drifted away.
---
His dream was loud with the sound of traffic and people, bright in Brooklyn and shouting with color. He was sitting at a window and sunlight fell on him and he grew like a flower, turning his face into the heat.
He dreamed he was guarded by some kind of loud, soft, shaggy mutt; dumb and drooly it wouldn't let him up, it held him down with its warmth and kept him safe as night filled his window.
---
He woke up to a lapful of blond and a mouth full of salt.
He reached out with both hands to stroke them through the mess of golden hair and stopped short when only one hand listened to what his brain wanted.
His right hand landed in the hair while he considered the stump of his left arm. After a moment he shrugged with an empty shoulder. That was less pressing than the three hundred pounds of beef puddled across his legs.
He stroked Steve's hair and he followed the touch in his sleep, preening his cheek into Bucky's open hand without opening his eyes.
Bucky frowned and stroked his thumb over the sharp cheekbone. Steve's face was still Steve's but newly lined, with longer hair and deeper shadows beneath his eyes.
From the corner of the room fabric shifted and Bucky looked up to see that he was being watched - Peggy was peering at them from the shadows.
Bucky snatched his hand back and made to shove at Steve's shoulder.
"Don't," she said, and leaned forward, letting the soft light from the windows flow over her. "Let him sleep, he's been worrying about you for a long time."
Bucky's frown intensified. In the light Peggy looked the same - young and sweet and hard as a rock - as she had the day Bucky fell. His eyes jumped between the crow's feet at the corners of Steve's eyes to her unlined face.
"How long," Bucky ground out. He couldn't remember the last time he had spoken.
"Longer for him than for you."
"I don't understand."
"I don't fully either, but you've been in Hydra's custody for nearly a year. It's November 1945. Nearly Thanksgiving, not that any of us will be celebrating this year."
"What?" His head was swimming.
"Well I'm not American and neither of you confirmed bachelors can cook. We'll have to find something else to do instead."
"What," he said, somewhat more urgently.
Peggy leaned back and crossed her legs, leaning her strong chin on a thin hand and considering the ceiling.
"He loves you."
Bucky choked.
"He loves you," she continued, "and he loves me. And I love him. And you love him."
"I don't know wha-"
"If you don't love him you have to tell me now so we can keep it from killing him," she snapped, her eyes dropping sharply back to glare at Bucky. "I don't understand what he's done in the time he was gone but I know he stayed alive because he loves you. And me."
Bucky's mouth fell open. He closed it, then it fell open again without consulting him and some words tumbled out before he could stop them.
"Of course I love him, I love him more than anything."
Peggy nodded. "Only sensible. He is wonderful, for an infuriating little shit."
Bucky snorted and then his brain caught up with his mouth. "I didn't mean - I can't - Peggy they'll crucify him if-"
She waved a hand carelessly.
"Barnes, if I cared for a single second what the world thinks I'd have never made it out of primary school. They'll never hear anything about Steve or you from me."
"But you love him."
"I do."
"And I can't have him, because you don't care but I do. So. So I. I'd like to sit with him, for a while. Let him sleep. And then I'll get out of your way." The taste of salt in his mouth increased and he felt his eyes get hot and his throat get thick. He wanted her to walk away, he wanted her to jump out a window. He wanted just a minute to pretend this wasn't goodbye.
"God save me from all you American martyrs," Peggy growled, then stalked over to stand by Bucky's head where she could scowl more directly at him and not worry about waking Steve. He thought she was going to bite his head off but she leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss between his eyebrows instead.
"Let's put this another way, Barnes," she whispered. "You love him and I love him and he loves us. And I'm good at sharing. What about you?"
His frown deepened for a second before it cleared and an incredulous smile started to spread across his face. "I can share. Shared a room with the little Punk. Shared a home. I could see clear to sharing with someone else."
"Good," she nodded, and resumed her seat while Bucky picked up his hand and petted at Steve's hair. "Now, tell me more about this wretched holiday, I hate it already."
Bucky grinned.
"That's just 'cause you've never tasted my turkey."
"Don't be crude," she said with an arch smile, and Steve slept on.
***
He never told them everything. How could he? There was too much and it was too strange, and while he did what he could to fix the world and keep it from being the frightening place he'd left behind he also did what he could to keep them in suspense. Tomorrow was a gift, he didn't want to spoil the surprise of another sunrise for them.
But he told them that he loved them every day. He held Bucky close through nightmares and flashbacks and whispered kindness and warmth to him when he shivered in the remembered cold. He gathered Peggy to himself and kept her close when she viciously uprooted the tangles of Hydra that had infiltrated her organization and threatened to strangle her work. Together they held Peggy and wept with her after she miscarried for a third time. They were supersoldiers, she was not.
They held each other and opened their hearts when she got married, they celebrated with her and danced with her and learned to share some more.
She was a mother and from a place where it had stopped hurting they were fathers and friends and lovers.
Time passed, as it had a way of doing.
The shadows slowly lifted in Steve's eyes. The future that was past snuck its way out in whispers sometimes but it didn't suffocate him.
He was home, heat and sweetness and strength like diamonds surrounding him until the end of the line.