Steven Rogers
“Sam, Sam, I’m not going crazy, I swear, it was him, he was just standing there in the street and he ran, fuck -” Steve cuts off with a hysterical gasp, clutching the phone in his hand tight.
There’s silence from the other line for a moment. “Steve, man...I know you haven’t been sleeping well, but this - this is serious. It can’t have been him. Steve, he’s dead.”
Steve sniffles, wiping a wet eye. “He looked right at me like he didn’t even know me,” he chokes out. “But it was him. I’d know him anywhere.”
And he had. Bucky had just been - been walking down the fucking street like he’d never left. Steve had thought he was hallucinating, at first, but then Bucky had paused and turned around, taking in every inch of his surroundings and then - and then he’d seen Steve. There had been no flicker of recognition, no emotional reaction that would signal that Bucky knew him. He’d looked right at him. He’d seen him. He’d looked him up and down, looked him right in the eye, and he’d run.
Steve could barely remember running after him, all he knew was that he’d seen Bucky pulling himself up onto a fire escape - one arm, he only had one arm - and disappearing. Steve had yelled after him - “Bucky, Bucky wait! Bucky, please!” - but it hadn’t done a thing.
“They never found his body,” he breathes into the phone.
Sam huffs out a sigh. “Steve, don’t do this to yourself. It can’t have been him. They found his arm -”
“He only had one arm,” Steve cuts in.
“What?”
“When I saw him today - he only had one arm.”
Sam pauses longer this time. “Steve. Please listen to me - don’t you think there would have been something to alert you that he was alive before now? How is this any different from the last time you thought you saw him?”
“Because he - he looked right at me. He saw me, Sam, he looked me right in the eye. He just didn’t recognise me, which - I get it, I’ve changed a lot, but -”
“Steve, please don’t do this to yourself,” Sam interrupts. Steve goes quiet, looks down at his feet and just stares blankly. “It’s been ten years, Steve. You need to - you need to get over him. He’s gone, Steve.” Sam’s voice has gone soft, like he’s holding back the sadness - the pity.
Steve squeezes his eyes shut, swallowing down the agony in his chest. “Alright. Okay. I’m sorry Sam, I just -”
“It’s okay, man. Just get some sleep, okay? Look, I’ll come over tomorrow morning, we’ll go out for breakfast,” Sam offers.
Steve grits his teeth against the sobs that want to break out. “Yeah, yeah. Sounds good, Sam.”
“Take care of yourself, Steve,” Sam murmurs before hanging up.
Steve throws the phone onto his bed and opens his eyes, staring blankly ahead of him. It had been Bucky, he knows it. This was different from all the other times - before, when he’d thought he’d seen Bucky, the guy had just kept going and if Steve had engaged him it never turned out to be him. This time, Bucky had sensed his gaze, turned and looked at him, seen him, and ran like he had something to run from.
Steve curls in on himself, closing his eyes. God, the last time he’d truly seen Bucky was when Steve had broken his heart on the sidewalk in the snow twelve years ago. Bucky had applied for the army - something he’d wanted for years. They’d both applied, both wanted to go together - both their fathers had been in the army.
Bucky had gotten in. Steve hadn’t. Steve still hated himself for the way he’d reacted - bitter with jealousy, when Bucky had told him he was shipping out for basic the next day, Steve had told him they should probably split. Neither of them has any illusions as to what war was actually like, but they’d thought they’d be able to face it together.
Steve had gone to fix things the next day, but Bucky had already packed up. That was the last he saw of him. The last he heard of him, until two years later. Steve’d gotten a letter in the mail, stamped with an official army signa. He’d opened it and fallen to his knees, cracking them on the pavement.
He hadn’t been contacted by Bucky in two years, but he’d still had him as his next of kin. The letter was telling him that Bucky had been killed in action. An IED. There was no body to ship back, either.
Steve hadn’t gotten out of bed for days, wracked with numb horror and grief.
He still has days like that, sometimes, but they were less frequent. He’d gotten on with his life. He’d moved on, mostly. Today had brought everything back like it had happened yesterday. He remembered the funeral, could still taste the bitterness of his tears in the back of his throat. And Bucky hadn’t even recognised him. That’s probably what hurt the most - Steve had spent the past twelve years mourning his best friend, his best guy - his first love - and Bucky didn’t even remember him.
And yet. Steve knew he was going to seek Bucky out again, keep his eyes open and see if Bucky would just. Talk to him.
Yeah. That’s what he would do. At the very least, Steve just wanted the confirmation that he wasn’t going insane.
<>
James was probably going insane. He can’t sleep. He can’t blink his eyes without seeing that damn shade of blue. He’s practically dragging himself to work, ignoring everything and everyone around him. Tony’s not there when he gets there, but James is an hour early so he figures Tony’s finally gone home to wherever he lives.
James picks the lock easily enough, disabling the alarm with the code Tony had given him. He drowns himself in his work, twitchy and on edge. Tony comes in sometime later with dark under eyes and sluggish movements. He doesn’t talk much and James is grateful. They work is almost silence, sharing a few words like ‘want some more coffee’ and ‘fuck yes’.
Sometime around one in the afternoon, Tony gives a heavy sigh and announces he’s going home. He throws the keys at James and says he can go home whenever, too. James finishes up on the transmission he’s dealing with before locking up shop and heading to the grocery store to buy ingredients for stroganoff.
He takes a shortcut through an alleyway he didn’t even know existed, trying not to feel unnerved. The grocery store is right up ahead and he goes straight in, pinpointing what he needs and heading for it. He’s looking for the right pasta when the base of his spine goes cold and he straightens up. Somehow, he knows exactly who he’s going to turn around and see.
He spins around, eyes already narrowed, and Rumlow’s standing right there, a sneer on his face. “Got a job for you, Winter,” he says.
James glares. “You’re too late, Winter’s dead and buried. I’m out of that business as of four days ago,” he hisses, voice low.
Rumlow snorts. “You still owe Pierce, you know. He wants one more job done.”
James just looks at him, blood burning. “You want to be my last job, Brock? Watch your fuckin’ tone. I owe Pierce nothing,” he spits.
Rumlow goes to say something else, an ugly look twisting on his face, but James just knocks past him, forgetting about dinner. He knows Rumlow will follow, but they’re better off doing this outside than around cameras. James leads the thug back to the alleyway, shoulders squared. As soon as they’re out of the public eye, he spins around and looks Rumlow right in the eye.
“Hear me out, Winter,” Rumlow speaks first. “Pierce wants one guy taken out, no messiness, full price. That’s it. Then we’ll leave you alone,” he says.
James wants to hit him. He wants to put a bullet through Rumlow’s fuckin’ face. Instead, he just scowls. “Who is it?”
“Guy named Nick Fury,” Rumlow replies, a delighted look on his face.
James feels his heart thud in surprise. “That is something I can’t do. The guy is too far in the public eye,” he says. “That’s my final word.”
“And if we double the price?” Rumlow offers.
James narrows his eyes. “I’m not in need of money. Find someone else to do your dirty work.” He goes to walk away, but Rumlow grabs his upper arm. James tenses up immediately, incredibly aware of the knife in his boot.
“What if we can give you something else?” Rumlow murmurs, face far too close.
James rips his arm away, lip curling. “Stay the fuck away from me, Rumlow, or I’ll be sending you back to Pierce in a box.” This time, when he turns away, Rumlow doesn’t grab him. He’s just about out of the alley when Rumlow speaks again.
“I wouldn’t be so hasty to turn Pierce down, zimniy soldat.”
James freezes, but only for a moment. The buzzing comes back and it feels like his head is in a vise but he keeps walking and he doesn’t dare look back at Rumlow. Rumlow doesn’t follow him, either. All James can hear right now, beyond the buzzing, is soldat ringing in his ears, bashing around in his skull.
He needs to get out of here. This was a horrible idea. This place has too many echoes. He needs to disappear. He needs to - he needs to -
He thinks he stumbles, but he’s not sure. He’s spinning, breathing to hard. Suddenly, there’s hands on him, someone speaking to him, but he can’t make out the words. It sounds like they’re speaking through a plaster wall. He tries to bat them away, skin crawling at the feel of their touch. He can’t see and it’s making him panic even more.
A single word crashes through the haze, like the ocean on a breakwater. “Bucky?”
“Who th’hell is Bucky,” he slurs, then curls in on himself, trying to think past all the noise in his head.
The hands are gone now, but there’s still someone there, someone still speaking. He tries to listen, tries to pull himself up from underwater, but he can’t. He can barely think. He squeezes his eyes shut and sinks, blocking everything out. He thinks he hears sirens, but that’s before everything goes dark.
*
“He’s malfunctioning again, sir.”
“Then fix him.”
“He’s been wiped too many times, if we do it again -”
“Just do it.”
He’s in the Chair again, cold and still. There are people moving around him but he pays them no attention. In his mind, he’s going over all he knows. He’s been here nearly three years, now. He doesn’t know who he is, what he was or what he is, but he knows he wasn’t always the Winter Soldier. He wasn’t always here. He wasn’t always a killer. He wasn’t always a puppet, a plaything, a machine.
He thinks he was human, once.
The metal clasps around his head anyway. These people don’t care that he used to be human. They probably made him like this - it makes the most sense. The electricity doesn’t come on straight away. There seems to be some sort of debate going on. He sits and waits. This will most likely be a full wipe - his outburst sure as hell warrants one.
He’s still trying to remember his name - is he even has one - when the electricity hums on. It sears through his brain and he screams. It feels like a single moment and an eternity all at once, and then the metal comes away from his head. He’s still jolting through the aftershocks when someone takes the restraints off and hauls him to his feet.
He opens his eyes, looking around himself. Something isn’t right. What had he been trying to remember? Nothing. He’s a machine - why would he be thinking of a past that didn’t exist? He lets himself be walked to his cell and thrown in. He sits against the back wall and stares straight ahead, muscles still twitching.
There are harsh fluorescent lights flickering above him. His eyes are still closed, but he can hear them and see them behind his eyelids. He’s lying down, and his surroundings smell - hospital. He remembers - what? Passing out? There had been someone there with him. There’s - there’s someone here now, on the left side of his bed.
His skin crawls with sudden panic, but he forces himself to calm down. Panicking never helps. Instead, he keeps his breathing even and focuses on working out his surroundings without opening his eyes. The person with him in the room is awake, their breathing too fast to be sleeping. There’s no one else here, but there’s the steady beating of a heart monitor. Which. Fucking great, now he has to regulate his heartbeats, too.
And, well, he can’t be bothered with that. If he’s going to get out of here, he’s going to have to get up at some point. Just as he’s about to open his eyes, the person next to him sighs and gets up from their seat.
“I’ll be back, Bucky,” he says.
Because it is a he. James knows that voice, but. He doesn’t. How could he? And that name. He still doesn’t know who Bucky is, or who this guy thinks James is. As soon as the person leaves the room, James is sitting up and taking in the room. It’s a standard emergency room, easy to get out of here. All he needs to do is get the heart monitors off and he’s on the home run.
He takes a second to be grateful that they saw no need to put a damn IV in him. He flings the hospital sheet off of him and and stands up. He’s still fully clothed - shoes and everything - but his jacket is draped across the back of a seat. He pulls it on and pats it down, checking that his wallet and keys are still in there. Once he finds that they are, he looks over the heart monitor and presses a few buttons till it powers down.
He unclips the monitor lines from his chest and abdomen and peeks out of the room. He checks both ways before pulling his hood up and stepping out into the hallway. His eyes take in every detail and sign - he figures out the way out quickly and walks that way. No one stops him - why would he be leaving unless he’d been checked out?
He gets out of the building without a hassle, smiling at the nurse at the front desk before risking starting to run. He takes a look at the name of the place - Maimonides Medical Center - and his brain tells him where to go from there. He doesn’t take the time to question how he knows where he’s going, just runs.
He runs past the Green-Wood, takes the back roads through Gowanus and finds himself back in Red Hook. When he gets there he lets himself slow to a walk again. His chest is heaving but he doesn’t stop and rest. He sticks to the back roads still, aware of every person and movement. He checks over each person’s face and keeps his hood up and his shoulders hunched. No one looks at him twice.
He makes it back to his apartment, letting himself in and going straight for the couch. He’s shaking, he realises. Unsteady. He needs to get out of Brooklyn. But, first, sleep. He wonders if he has to give Tony a two-week notice. Probably. He grits his teeth and digs the heel of his hand into his forehead.
He reaches for his phone, scrolls through his contacts till he finds Clint. Dials. The phone keeps ringing till the voicemail sounds, and he nearly throws the phone across the room at the sudden frustration. He groans, anger coiling in his gut like a trapped serpent. “Fuck!” It just comes out, pent-up anger boiling over.
He stands, chest heaving. He needs - he needs to do something. He needs to be active, he needs to push himself. He needs to hurt - he needs to get his hands dirty. He scrapes his hand down his face and grits his teeth, reaching for his phone again. This time, the person picks up on the second ring. Their voice is smug as they greet him. James nearly doesn’t have the patience to continue the call and as it is he spits out his demand.
“Tell him to transfer the money within an hour. If it’s not there by the deadline, the only one I’m killing will be you.”
Rumlow’s silent for a moment before huffing. “Fine. You better do a good job, soldier.”
James hangs up and goes to change. By the time he’s done and he’s ready to go, he checks his balance and he’s definitely been paid. Double, like Rumlow said. James pulls his glove on and slings the rifle over his shoulder, strapping it to him so it’ll stay put. He grabs his face mask and goggles from the coffee table and leaves the phone on his table.
He exits via the window.