The soldier wasn’t a shifter. He had never been allowed to shift, nor had he ever been able to. He’d been told he was not a man, not a shifter, and he was therefore inferior.
James Buchanan Barnes had loved shifting. Whenever he’d gotten the chance to shift, he did. It had worked to both his and Steve’s benefits during the 30s when they hadn’t been able to heat their small, drafty apartment and Steve had too been weak or sick to shift himself. Bucky had shifted and had kept them both warm during those long winters during the early years of the war.
After falling from the train, James Buchanan Barnes had ceased to exist; at least, for a good 70 years he had been seemingly dead.
Then Captain America was found, incredibly alive frozen in the arctic and HYDRA had arranged to have the Captain’s team infiltrated. Then Cap became too much of a threat so they’d brought out the Winter Soldier to terminate the Captain for good.
What they hadn’t counted on was Steve Rogers being a match for the Soldier in hand-to-hand combat; nor had they thought that the Soldier’s programming would be compromised.
The Soldier had not only been compromised, but his programming had been completely broken.
The first thing The Soldier had asked after being brought in was for the team to have the arm removed. He refused to risk having it while his brain was still healing, and he was safe enough protected by an AI in Stark’s residential area of his tower. So, The Soldier asked to have the arm removed while still under risk of being under the influence of both the Russian and German programming, as well as who knew what else.
Once the arm had been safely removed and he’d been given the go ahead by the Doctor’s, he’d tried shifting for the first time in his memory. The Soldier had never been able to shift, but Bucky Barnes had. The Soldier thought that if he could shift… maybe Steve and the museum were right, and maybe he wasn’t just a machine, a weapon to point at a target. If the Soldier could manage a shift, maybe he wasn’t the Soldier after all, and maybe he was indeed a man; maybe he was even the man who was once known as James Buchanan Barnes.
The shift was painful. The metal that remained in his spine, collarbone, and shoulder wasn’t suited to shifter physiology and so the shift from human to canine pulled the metal out of place. He’d have to remember to mention that to someone when he shifted back.
The shift hurt, of that there was no doubt, but he had in fact shifted. He could shift. HYDRA had been lying. He wasn’t just the Soldier. He wasn’t just a killing machine, a monster. He’d had a name once. He had a name now; James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky. He had a best friend. He had a history. He could shift.
He. Could. Shift.
He couldn’t help the wolfish grin that raised the jowls at his mouth. He teetered unsteadily on the first few paces to the door, learning to balance his weight on only three legs. By the time he reached the door, he’d found his balance, and easily pushed the door open from where he’d left it slightly ajar just in case.
He skipped unevenly down the hallway of his and Steve’s floor, looking for where Steve was puttering around in their common room.
He snuck up behind Steve who was staring at the bookshelf absently. Once he was a foot away from Steve, not-the-Soldier-maybe-James he gave an excited warbling woof that he remembered from a dream… or maybe from another life. Steve jumped, spinning around quickly. His face was open, showing clearly the shock that he was experiencing at hearing and seeing Bucky’s shifted figure.
Steve’s face morphed into something akin to both happiness and disbelief. “Buck-?”
Bucky allowed his tongue to loll out of his mouth in a goofy face that he hoped would be confirmation enough.
Steve collapsed onto his knees suddenly, staring intently at Bucky’s canine face like it was the first time he was seeing it. James-not-the-Soldier-Steve-called-him-Bucky supposed that it was. It had been a lifetime since this form had been seen by anyone, and they’d both become different people since then.
Steve raised his hand as if he wanted to touch maybe-he-was-Bucky-after-all. His hand was trembling. Steve looked like he was holding himself back, and Bucky-he-was-James-maybe-Bucky needed to change that, so he leaned forward, almost falling straight into Steve with the change in weight distribution. Steve caught him by the face, both hands running across his snout, under his chin, across his scarred ears, before moving back along his skull and neck, hands coming to rest at Bucky-James’ neck and shoulders. Steve leaned their heads together, and that’s when Bucky-James felt the tears leaving Steve’s face, coming to rest and dampening his fur.
Not a few moments later, Steve’s arms rested against the neck and shoulders of a very naked, but very alive James Bucky Barnes. Now Bucky’s tears flowed from his own eyes for the first time in his memory. His right arm came to wrap around Steve’s broad shoulders, holding him close.
“I did it Stevie,” Bucky said, his voice rough with emotion. “I shifted. I can shift. Steve, I can still shift.”
“You won Buck,” Steve replied almost choking on the roughness of his voice, his tears running thickly down his face. “You survived.”
“I survived,” Bucky echoed, amazed. “Christ Stevie, we survived.”