Chapter 1
"Hey, sleepy head, wake up."
The bed underneath him feels strange. He clasps his left hand, and it's only then that he opens his eyes, slow and still dazed. He raises both hands to find them both flesh. No metal, no scars, just his own hands, as they were in 1945.
"Finally. Jesus, thought you'd be sleeping forever." Dum-Dum Dugan is on his left, with Gabe, Falsworth and Dernier with him.
The air smells like New York circa 1940. The scent of possibilities, kisses in the dark and the still wobbling legs of cars, with fumes to match them as bicycle spokes spur in the distance.
He isn't stupid. The last thing he remembers is feeling as if something inside him was being sucked away, as his body began to cru-
"I'm dead." He says quietly, adding it up.
"Are you okay?" Gabe says.
"....How the hell did I get here?"
"The hospital?" Falsworth said incredulously.
He looks at his hands again, feeling water speck his eyes; opening and closing it. "....No way can you guys be in Hell."
"Hell?" Falsworth replies. "You should fetch the Doctor, Dugan. I think this one's hit his head a bit too hard."
"Lemme-oh Steve, can you please tell this idiot we're not in Davy Jones locker, bud?"
Steve? He turns his head to see him in his reserve uniform, brown and freshly pressed. "....Not you too. Jesus."
"What're you talking about? Whoa, easy." Steve says, as Bucky tries to get out of bed before Steve pushes him back down.
"Steve....Thanos. ...Did...did we lose?" He asks, scared. Afraid that he and so many damn others are gone, for the first time, they've failed.
"Who's Thanos?"
He falls back on his now upright pillows slowly, and tries to understand what's happening. Actually finds himself attempting to recall all the bible studies he would happily nap on occasionally, trying to remember exactly what was said would happen when you died. The circumstances of Heaven and Hell, and if the people you would see were figments of your life, or actuality. He swears it's the latter but it's impossible. None of it is.
"I...think we need to give Sarge a breather." Dugan claps Bucky on his left shoulder and it's still the oddest sensation, being able to feel it. He looks and also notices his hair is gone. He takes his newly recovered left hand and brushes it through his hair, finding it the way it was 70 something years ago; regulation cut.
Steve looks on at him worriedly, hearing the muffled byes of his troops as they leave and he gets lost in his thoughts again.
The room is empty besides the two of them, and it's then he hears Steve again. "Bucky, are you okay? If you need the Doctor-"
"What happened?" He asks, his gaze somewhere else. "How did I get here?"
"....You're serious, aren't you?"
"I am."
Steve looks at him concerned, wondering if he should before sighing, hands clasped and begins to say the thing Bucky had already guessed. "You nearly fell out of Zola's train. I was able to grab you, and you passed out."
"So we got him."
"Yeah."
"....I've been out for a week."
"...Yeah."
He lets out a sigh, heavy and knowing the next reply will be the same as the others. "We won."
"We did." Steve says, with that small, proud smile of his.
He should be happy, a part of him is. But the rest of him is wondering where the hell he is. And how did he get here.