A Clean Slate

Every morning for the last 500 days, he'd put on a long sleeved shirt, a hoodie, and then another shirt, applied make-up to the more obvious scars on his face, and went out into the world. No one'd given him a second glance, no one knew the marks of his past that his body carried.

But when he finds Steve in his apartment, Bucky suddenly feels naked, as if Steve can see every single scar on his body.

He's made his own peace with it, but he finds himself shrinking under Steve's gaze. Steve knows Bucky in ways that Bucky himself no longer does. And Steve isn't someone to settle for anything less than what is Good and Right.

Bucky knows he's not good nor right.

So he takes the coward's path: he runs.

------

Later, Bucky realizes that Steve would not have noticed. After all, most of the old scars are mere thin veins of white across his skin, barely noticeable, and easily written off as battle scars. The more peculiar ones, the fresher ones, are mostly under his innermost layer of clothes, and Steve is a gentleman who would not look uninvited.

Unfortunately, Bucky was foolish enough to invite Steve to look.

They were on the quinjet, the first quiet moment they've had together, and naturally Steve was trying to convince Bucky that nothing was his fault.

"But I still did it."

"Bucky, that wasn't you. They made you do it."

Bucky shrugged. "My body, my memories. I did it." To make his point, he pulled up his sleeve and found the small ring of teeth marks on his forearm. "I was sent to assassinate the consular general. This is from his daughter before I killed her. I killed kids, Steve. In cold blood."

"Bucky..." Bucky tried to pull back, but it was already too late. Steve grabbed his arm, and started examining his scars closely.

"This ring ..." Steve gently ran his thumb over the three-inch wide band of distorted flesh around Bucky's wrist.

Bucky sighed. "Manacles, for when I fought back, in the beginning. And for whatever fun the handlers wanted to have, more recently."

Steve nodded, silent. His hand ran up to Bucky's elbow, where there was a series of small white circles that ringed his forearm.

"Medical experiment in the '80s. Failed adamantium implantation." Bucky couldn't bear to look at Steve. Steve would have fought harder. Would not have given his body over to HYDRA.

Thus far Bucky's managed to keep his inside wrist facing away from Steve, but that's where he's going to look next.

He needed to redirect. "Want to see something funny, Steve?"

Steve's face is a careful blank as he looked up at Bucky. "Show me whatever you'd like, Buck."

Bucky pulled his damning wrist from Steve's grasp, and turned to hike up his shirt near his hip. "There was this guy who kept trying to claim me as his. Carved his initials in every damn time. In the same spot, too." Bucky kept talking as he felt Steve trace the letters there. "Can you imagine all of the effort he had to put in? Every time I come out of the ice he had to redo it. Poor guy, should have found a real hobby."

"What else did he do to you?" Steve's voice is cold and clipped. Like all the media, Steve seemed to find hints of Bucky's recreational use particularly distasteful. Redirection successful.

Bucky shrugged. "Probably the usual. They all start to blur together after a while."

"The usual?" Bucky jumps a bit at the anger in Steve's voice. A part of him remembers the ire of handlers and wants to hurry to obey Steve's unspoken demand.

Well, the best way to hide a tree *is* in the forest. "Here." Bucky quickly strips off the rest of his clothes. "The fresher ones are more recent." He even takes a spin. "It's ... you know. The usual for when you are bored and have absolute control over a guy with pretty decent healing abilities."

And even now, Zemo can turn Bucky back into that with a few words.

Bucky stands still and lets Steve look. He keeps his wrists turned inward and closes his eyes -- the coward's path once again.

Would Steve be able to decipher the plethora of words and marks carved on his butt cheeks? Would Steve recognize the baton and cigarette burns for what they are? Would Steve count all of his bullet holes and incision marks?

He tries to tell himself that it doesn't matter what Steve thinks, that it's his body, his memories.

But of course Steve's opinion mattered. It's always been the thing that mattered the most.

Bucky presses his wrist tighter against his thigh, and waits.

Bucky doesn't get the response until much later. The quinjet beeped and slid into a gentle descent before Steve had a chance to say anything, and then they were throwing on gear and weapons and preparing for battle.

Steve clearly didn't see anything that made him stop trusting Bucky to have his back as they investigated the base, then encountered Stark and Zemo. Steve even urged Bucky to take the coward's path when Stark turned on him, throwing himself at Stark to give Bucky a way out.

But Bucky's never been able to run when Steve is in danger. Not as children, not on that cursed train in the Alps, and not then, either.

Which is why they're now limping together, out of the base and into the snow.

Bucky looks down at the remnant of his left arm. "Well, that's going to leave a scar." Sparks of pain lanced up through the burnt wires and into his back and spine, but he forces his voice to come out steady. Embrace the all-too-familiar pain. "Finally, the arm gets to match the rest of the body."

He intended that to sound funny, but it must not have come out right, because Steve tightens his grip around Bucky and grits out, "Still not your fault, Buck. Just more proof of what you survived." Steve is a constant forward motion at his side, one resolute step after another. Hands and voice firm. "What they did to you, Buck, what they made you do -- you survived that. You'll survive this."

Bucky lets Steve pull him forward into the blinding whiteness. He can feel his scarred skin stretch and pull with every step as the cold invades his bones. Penetrating deep like the electricity of a wipe. Like Zemo's words. Bucky thinks back to all the ways that HYDRA took his mind and made use of his body. As a weapon. As a plaything. He thinks back to Stark's rage and hurt. *He'd* caused that. And then had the gall to keep living. To run away. Coward.

He stops walking.

"There's still blood on my hands, Steve." The scar on his arm was like a lightning rod for all the sparks of pain dancing across his torso. The words that he'd driven away on that train in Romania spilled out of him, brought back by the pain in Stark's eyes. "I survived, but they didn't. What makes my life worth more than theirs?"

Steve stops, just a few steps ahead, and turns to him, face indecipherable.

For the past two years, he'd told himself that he could just move on, do what he could with the mind and body that he'd reclaimed from HYDRA. Ten words from Zemo proved him wrong. "As long as someone has the codes, they can reactivate me. Turn my body and mind against me. I'm dangerous, Steve."

Steve heaves a sigh, and a part of Bucky was glad -- glad that Steve is standing just out of reach, glad that Steve didn't rush to reassure Bucky with some simple "it's not your fault" bullshit.

It would have been too easy to lean into Steve, to believe him. To take the coward's path.

It takes several tries, But Bucky manages to push his sleeve up his remaining arm, where the blood smears had left the white vertical line clearly etched. "I think I need to finish what I started." That same ugly laughter erupts from him, for he was a fool to believe otherwise for the past two years.

Several things happens at once, and the pain from the arm and the bloodloss from the battle makes it hard for Bucky to track the precise order. All he knows is that he is very suddenly sitting on the ground, with Steve wrapped tightly around him, one hand round Bucky wrist and his warm breath against Bucky's ear.

Steve's words are all a jumble, repeated utterances of "No, Buck. I can't lose you again. Not after all that." and "You're good, Bucky. You're so damn good and why can't you see that?" and "The things they did to you, you survived, don't give in to them, don't let them take that from you."

Bucky sighs. He was wrong to think that Steve would judge him -- Steve always had a blind spot when it came to him. Never could see the truth of things: that Bucky is neither right nor good nor brave.

But, with Steve here, Bucky finds that he has the strength to do it himself.

Bucky reaches up with his right arm and gently rubs Steve's back. After Steve's blubbering slows, he speaks calmly, because he knows Steve will protest. "I have scars around my mouth from all the times they made me wear a spider gag, and I have a dying girl's bite mark on my arm. I was their toy, their weapon, Steve, and I have words in my head that will turn me back into that." He allows himself to indulge in a hug. "I'm tired of running, Steve. Time to face the fact that I can't run from this."

Bucky can feel Steve ball up his fist against his torso. Of course Steve wants to fight this. He says as gently as he could, "Steve, you know I'm right: I'm dangerous, and there's no other way to ensure that the world is safe from me."

As if on cue, Bucky spots a shadow walking towards them. Is it Stark, back to finish things? Or is it Zemo, with his words? Bucky struggles to stand. He needs to keep Steve out of this. He needs to end it, once and for all. All he needs is a sharp stone, but Steve is still holding him and the pain and bloodloss has taken a bigger toll than he'd expected.

"Stand down, Mr. Barnes." The voice is firm, regal. A dark hand stills over Bucky's. Vibranium claws. Remembering their chilling ferocity from Budapest Bucky looks up to see a dark feline figure towering over him. The Black Panther. His father had died because Zemo wanted to find the Winter Soldier.

"T'Challa, don't you dare." Steve says, at the same time that Bucky says, "Do it, kill me."

"No, Mr. Barnes." He nods at Steve, then turns back to Bucky. "I came to find my father's murderer, but have found a warrior instead." T'Challa squats down next to Bucky. "Someone who knows when to retreat and when to take a stand." T'Challa picks up Bucky's wrist, runs a cool vibranium-clad finger along the burning hot scar. "Someone who knows the value of human life."

Bucky feels his body running hot and cold as the king of Wakanda looks him in the eye. "Come with me, Mr. Barnes. I'd like to offer you another way."

Bucky looks long and hard at T'Challa. Without his hood, the man has gentle eyes. It's not Steve's devotion and righteousness, but ... justice. And mercy. Something inside of Bucky loosens for the first time in two years as he nods. "Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Are you sure about this, Buck?" Steve is doing a poor job of hiding his anxiety as they watch the Wakanda scientists make the final preparations. The only way to get at the trigger words is to do a full reset, body and mind. Bucky eyes the Wakandan version of the Chair -- a simple band that goes around his head in the cryo pod -- and wonders if he will feel the pain when they wipe him.

No matter. It's nothing that he hasn't experienced before. Bucky reaches out and wraps his hand around Steve's wrist. "Relax, Steve. I've done this once already -- it might take a while, but my body and my mind will remember." He can't help a small smile as he looks at Steve. "I'm starting over with a clean slate, and this time, you'll be here when I get out."