Bucky starts to talk about his past
Sam was wrong about this: Bucky slalomed back into himself, once his bloodstream wasn't swimming in Hydra drugs, and like Steve, his body worked fast. Bucky tore the door off its hinges at the hotel near Rockford. It hadn't been two weeks since the Triskelion fell. Sam was ready to tackle him, but Bucky went straight for Steve, his face a bombed-out building, and gripped his jacket in both fists as he clung to him.
"Yo, they're going to notice that," Sam tried to say, in the stunned quiet that none of them could shake.
"We should go." Steve put his hands on Bucky's shoulders, on both of them. "Buck, you ready? C'mon, let's get out of here."
"Where're we going?" He looked from Steve to Sam, eyes bigger than they had any right to be. "I'll go anywhere but back. Where're we going?"
Nobody knew. They'd planned on this taking a lot longer. But Bucky didn't need deprogramming, he just needed. They didn't plan over the next few weeks, just took themselves out of the world for a little while. Sam didn't relax much; he kept an eye on Bucky, who was mostly interested in Steve. They never let him drive, and he only rode shotgun with Steve, but he was an odd companion, to say the least. He could go days without talking, then suddenly he'd wake up all smiles, eager to spend a couple hours at some greasy spoon in some nowhere town, just chatting. That Bucky, Sam could see how you'd like him. Too bad he'd seen the Winter Soldier in action too, and there was just no forgetting him, not once, not ever.
Steve was asleep in the front one night, Sam driving through some interminable stretch of Kansas. It always seemed to be Kansas that did this, the year-round equivalent of watching snow in your headlights. Bucky had been quiet, staring out the window whenever Sam checked his rearview.
"I don't know what year it was," he began, and Sam went stiff.
"What was that?"
"I said I don't have a feel for what year it was." Bucky caught his eye in the mirror. "It wasn't in this country. East of the Curtain, but nowhere I'd ever been before." He looked back out the window. "I had a mission in a forest. Real big trees. Just me, no strike team. Seventeen hours before I got my shot. Even on a mission, you notice things that are extra. That happens to you, right?"
"Afghanistan was beautiful," Sam said at last.
Bucky nodded. "I'd never seen so many stars before. I still don't know much about 'em."
Sam's eyebrows went up. "You're telling me you were off-point long enough for a good look at the night sky?" He had to be bullshitting. Sam had a hard time, from what he'd seen and heard, believing there was a single nice or unnecessary moment in Winter Soldier's career.
Bucky went quiet again, dropped his eyes. In the passenger seat, Steve stirred, then squinted at Sam. "You guys yammering?"
"Just telling him about Chajoux," said Bucky, his voice careful and neutral again.
"Oh my god." Steve grinned and turned toward Sam. "We found this hilltop one night on a campaign. Really peaceful. We just sat there staring for a while. You've never seen so many stars."
"You got a good feeling from it," said Bucky.
"Yeah," said Sam, frowning into the rearview. "I get that."