Who the Hell is Bucky?

[starkingenuity]

"So you cut your hair, destroyed SHIELD, get Fury killed and now you want to team up again?"  Tony turned in his swivel chair three quarters to the left and two to the right like some evil super villain while Bruce Banner rolled his eyes behind him.  Wisely, he stayed quiet.  Being Tony's 'other half' and his 'soul mate' and worse, his therapist, was enough to give him a good enough idea of what staying quiet tended to do for him.

Chiefly?  He didn't get pulled into these sorts of conversations.

"And did you like grow another three inches around your biceps?  It's people like you that make it harder for ordinary guys to get dates on Friday night."

Comments

[starspangledspandex]

He mentions the pizza place because he knows it's not crowded and it's a place that's still around from their childhood. If Bucky notices, fine. If not, it doesn't matter. Steve isn't going to throw the fact that he can't remember in his face if he can help it.

Steve doesn't talk either because Bucky doesn't but he keeps his pace with him. He pulls the door open when they get there and glances at Bucky to go in first. "After you."

[whothehellisbucky]

There are mirrors on the backwall, giving him a view of the blond. There's no way that Steve can get a jump on him--

No. Steve isn't the mission any more. There's no need to treat him like one. Bucky bristles at himself, his mind at war with itself. Everything aches as he sits, back to the corner, eyes constantly darting around the room as if he's nervous.

The truth is, he's never operated outside of a set of parameters before. It's leaving him restless. He turns to Steve, momentarily seeking guidance from him.

He doesn't recognize the pizza shop. That is likely for the best. "Talk."

[starspangledspandex]

He is still poised and ready if Bucky makes some kind of move. Steve doesn't think that he will. If he's followed him this far, there's no reason for him to suddenly change his mind. He hopes.

Steve pauses only long enough to put in an order for water and two pizzas--one pepperoni, one supreme--then joins Bucky in the corner booth. He blinks at the abruptness and honestly, he's not sure what to say.

He starts with a rehash of what he had told him before, when the world was exploding around them, "You're James Buchanan Barnes. We grew up together in Brooklyn. I'd know your face anywhere. I thought you died; I was shocked to see you again."

[whothehellisbucky]

The name's familiar. He'd seen it carved into the display, he'd seen it written on a screen of old footage where he and Steve were going over strategy. Presumed missing, the file on him said.

Presumed missing for decades. How could that have been possible? The cryostatis was not something they filled him in on between wipes, after all.

He was absolutely need-to-know only.

"Why aren't you dead..?"

[starspangledspandex]

Questions are good as near as Steve can figure. He knows they aren't going to be fun questions but that's alright. He'll answer anything the man wants to know. It's the least he can do after leaving him in the cold to be found by Hydra.

"I went after Hydra's leader, the Red Skull," Steve explains. "And ended up crashing his ship into the arctic ocean. I was frozen. SHIELD..." Can he call it SHIELD now? "Found me and thawed me out."

[whothehellisbucky]

Very, very little of what is coming out of Steve's mouth makes sense and so Bucky says nothing in return. He stares out through the window for awhile. Nothing seems familiar, but nothing seems out of place either. He's not programmed to question.

Just to do.

And without that, he can't figure out what it is he's suppose to do. Opening his mouth a moment later, he watches a waitress slide over to them with tall plastic cups and sets them down with a smile. "Pies will be out in about ten minutes, boys," she promises and leaves again. Bucky watches her go.

"Do you have a mission for me?" His wires keep getting crossed. It's something Bruce Banner would be able to explain better. And it will sort itself out...for better or worse.

[starspangledspandex]

He doesn't say anything for awhile either. He just watches Bucky across from him. He knows this is a lot of information to process. Steve doesn't know what to do. He just hadn't been able to abandon Bucky to the streets somewhere.

"Thank you, Ma'am," Steve responds politely to the waitress as he slides their drinks more in front of them.

Steve shifts uncomfortably in his seat and takes a deep breath. There's a lot of answers he could give but he sticks with honesty. "...no, there aren't any more. I took out most of the men that did this to you."

[whothehellisbucky]

To him. For him. His heart is in his throat when he looks at Steve. Blue eyes that are a cloudy shade of familiarity and he wants to reach across to take ahold of his ears and smash his face in.

That's not a good way to carry further with this conversation.

"What do you expect me to do then?" No more missions, no more wipes, no more orders. A good weapon gone useless will rust.

[starspangledspandex]

He frowns slightly as he looks at the other man. Steve feels uncomfortable telling him what to do. He can't give him orders. He can provide him options though and hope that will be enough.

"Figure out who you are," he says finally. "I'll help you. Once you do, you can help us take down what's left of Hydra."

[whothehellisbucky]

"It doesn't matter who I am!" Indoor voices, Bucky. The man had hellfire in his eyes and he eased back with a tactful disregard and looked about ready to spit bullets. "If you have a target for me, fine." That he can deal with. Steve might as well work within his old friend's comfort zone while he can.

He wants there to be more words to fill the space ten minutes affords them. He wants to eat and then he wants to leave--

But to where? Another night in a park?

[starspangledspandex]

People cast glances their direction and okay, maybe one or two them might be his backup but he has no intention to use them. It had been Fury's insistence. They hadn't known how stable the other man might be.

"It matters," Steve replies quietly. "It matters because if you don't know, you're just a weapon. If you don't know, you can't decide for yourself if the person wielding you is who you want to listen to."

He swallows, "And it matters to me. Hydra took so much from you. I can't make the rest of it disappear but I can help give back what you lost."

Steve rubs a hand across his forehead and decides to play a little dirty. He'll have to move into the Tower properly for awhile but that's alright. "If you work with us, you stay with us. You're free to come and go, but you bunk with us. We'll have a new target soon."

[whothehellisbucky]

"I'll work with you." It was just easier to find someone new to tell him what to do for now. Steve didn't feel safe or even quite right but it was better than being left alone.

He'd never actually been alone that he could recall. And recalling tended to fry his brain to nothing so he didn't want to think about it. Silence fell on them again but the pizzas were out a moment later and without waiting to be told he could have anything, not caring about the molten cheese capable of being stuck to the roof of his mouth, Bucky grabbed a slice and just shoved it in.

He had been so hungry. He'd forgotten what that felt like...to care about being hungry.

[starspangledspandex]

"Good, I'm glad to hear it," he tells the other man. It's not the step he'd wanted but it's a good one regardless. This at least puts him close enough to Bucky to try to jar his memory and it lets him know the man's location. His main concern had been that Hydra might get to him again.

Steve isn't going to let that happen.

He watches Bucky stuff food in his mouth and realizes that Hydra had either been underfeeding him on purpose or on accident. He's guessing it had been on purpose to keep him under control. Steve is glad that Pierce is dead; he's not sure he'd still be alive otherwise.

"Easy," he says, and he takes a single slice for himself. "You can take your time."

[whothehellisbucky]

If looks could kill--

Well. Bucky would have made a much better assassin. And he was already the best in the world, most likely. Better even than Natasha Romanoff.

Scowling at Steve, and with an attitude that might remind him of childhood when Bucky use to bet that he could shove a whole slice in his mouth, the man with the scraggly, long hair and dark rimmed eyes does just that. He barely even chews before he swallows.

Go ahead, Steve. Say something.

When he's just stared at, Bucky takes another slice. He's slower this time. There's something nostalgic about it. The taste. The restaurant. He's so very pleased for a moment and then the smirk drops completely.

[starspangledspandex]

It's a good thing that Steve is not easily rattled. That look would certainly do it otherwise. He just doesn't want Bucky to feel like it's going to be taken away from him. He watches as he shoves the whole slice in his mouth and seventy years ago, he might have laughed in exasperation.

Now, he waits for the other man to start on another piece before he says carefully, "So what's that I owe you, tickets to the game?"

Bucky is hard to read now and he suspects it's because there's not a lot there to read.

[whothehellisbucky]

He has no idea what the hell Steve is talking about, though the way he pauses, mid-bite, crust hanging on his lips, is comical. He swallows at least before he talks. "Tickets...?"

More familiarity. More confusion. His mind is pinpricked with memories but not solutions and none of them make sense. There are too many jolts in between. Like lightening bursts, they punctuate his consciousness.

They act like bookmarks. Place holders.

He presses a hand against his forehead. His jaw clenches. "Shut up."

[starspangledspandex]

He takes a bite of his pizza while he watches Bucky and he doesn't think about how comical he might look. He's already thinking about what he can leave laying around that might trigger things on accident. The confused look lends to his confidence that his memories are in there. They just need to be drawn out.

"We used to go to baseball games together. Brooklyn Dodgers." Steve stops talking and swallows, "I wish I could say sorry but then I wouldn't be telling the truth." He wants those memories to surface.

[whothehellisbucky]

Baseball. Bucky wasn't sure that he knew what it was. Bats. Running. He tried to shake his head to clear it, like water clogging his ears. Nothing budged.

Though he could eat far more than he had, he threw down the remains of the slice he had been eating and scanned immediately for the door. His jaw remains clenched until he can catch his breath again.

"Why are you so fucking pushy?"

[starspangledspandex]

He hadn't meant to push enough that Bucky stopped eating. It's obvious that he needs it and that had been a miscalculation on Steve's part. He's never done this before. He's never been in this situation.

"Because it's my fault," he replies, dropping his shoulders and looking weary. "This would never have happened to you if I had gone back. If I had looked for you. If I had been more alert."

[whothehellisbucky]

"I fell from a goddamned train, where did you--" Bucky cut himself off. Memories made him feel dizzy, but the memory of falling in the cold against a flash of blue was something even Hydra had been unable to get out of him. Bucky couldn't imprint away from that. The sensation was too real.

He'd not slept since the last time he'd been wiped and though he could eat the whole of the pizza, this was draining whatever remained of his batteries.

Holding up a hand, covered in black leather, Bucky let his shoulders slump.

"I fell. And then you fell. I saved you." So there.

[starspangledspandex]

"I was there," he replies quietly. "We were on a mission together and I could have saved you. If I had only gone back to look, both of our lives might have been different."

The pizza they can take home. He's not worried about the pizza anymore. At least Bucky had eaten a few pieces. Now Steve is just watching his friend and it's clear he remembers falling. It's both a terrible thing and a good thing. It's a starting point for everything else. It's just a bad memory for them both.

"That doesn't make up for seventy years of torture," he responds, nearly a whisper. "If I had saved you, you wouldn't have been there on the carrier as my enemy. I wouldn't have fallen."

So many things can be wound up in what-ifs and could have beens.

[whothehellisbucky]

Although it probably isn't the right attitude for someone willing to fill in as his handler until someone else can pull him back into what he knows, seeing his former target unhappy does give Bucky a thrill...and then hurts him so deeply. It's easier to fight and when he could get away with punching Steve in the face, he'd been better able to pay attention to his own emotions and his actions.

The metal behind the glove creates a heavy sounding thump on the table as he drums his fingers.

"Seventy years... It doesn't feel that long." And yet, it feels like forever. Bucky has been awake just a few years all together. Training aside, he's mostly slept. Slept. Waited. It doesn't feel like torture either. "I was cared for."

He's a kicked dog.

He doesn't know what caring is like.

[starspangledspandex]

Steve glances at the fingers but ignores the drumming. He'll forgive Bucky his habits. He doesn't blame him in the slightest. He listens as the man talks and it makes him sick to hear those words out of his friend's mouth.

"I've seen your file," he responds, face twisted in concern. "What they did is torture. That's not caring about you. That's using you."

[whothehellisbucky]

"Sometime training can feel like torture," he says, almost flippantly. He'd said as much to Steve one night after he and the Comandos celebrated a victory. The words sounded familiar to him, sounded full in his mouth. His eyes lowered after that, a poor attempt to collect himself. "Everyone gets used. That's how the world works. You too."

It's not that Bucky is trying to be snide, nor is he trying to make a point. But Torture is a hard word to reconcile.

"What else is in my file?"

[starspangledspandex]

"That was not training," Steve responds sharply because it's one thing to run five miles in the mud in the middle of a thunderstorm and another to be electrocuted until you forget everything about yourself. He dragged his hand through his hair.

"I chose who I work for," he told him. "When I found out it was Hydra, I was furious. I did everything I could to take them down."

He frowns at the question. There's a lot in there. None of it good. "Why? What do you want to know?"