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

[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?"

[whothehellisbucky]

Hydra. The name doesn't matter and it means nothing. The tone Steve takes tells him that it should matter but Bucky can not bring himself to care. And he knows that is wrong too. It hurts Steve. Hurting Steve is equal parts triumphant and truly terrifying. The leather encased steel hand finds another slice of pizza. This one he just holds.

And holds perhaps a bit too tightly at that. He can't help himself.

"Why? Because you wanted to talk. Because you want me to remember. And I want to remember too so I can get on with it."

He thinks that once it comes back to him, he'll be free. He can leave this news position in Steve's army. He has no idea.

[starspangledspandex]

He shifts in his seat and makes himself take another bite of pizza. Just two friends out for lunch, no big deal except that's not what it is at all. There's a lot riding on this.

Steve shakes his head, "Then you don't want what's in your file. You want what I know. You were born James Buchanan Barnes in Brooklyn in 1917. We met when we were kids. You saved me from a scrap I was in."

[whothehellisbucky]

But this feels like someone else is setting benchmarks for him. Someone else is forcing him to know only what he's meant to. Nothing more. Bucky's jaw sets and for a moment, he nearly crushes the pizza so hard it liquified. Instead, grease and sauce smear his glove.

"That makes you just like them," he intones. He wants to fight. There's little Steve can do about it. "Gate keeping information."

[starspangledspandex]

"I never said I wouldn't tell you," he responds pointedly. "Most of what's in there is your missions. Who, what, where when, completion details."

He adds in disgust, dropping his pizza on his plate, "It talks about the specifics and science behind your 'training'."

Steve takes a deep breath, "I have it back at my apartment. You're welcome to go through it. I don't intend to keep things from you. That's just not who you are."

[whothehellisbucky]

"That's who I've been for most of my life," he complains. Eating is over. He's not had enough to sustain him but it's going to have to do. He's survived on less...he thinks. Hunger doesn't seem to hit him like it should so it's an educated guess at best.

He stands, expecting Steve to stand with him.

"So what is it? I go back to your apartment--" Likely still covered in blood. "Or to your new base of operation?" And like a snap, he's back in the wrong mindset again. It's not Steve's fault. His mind is aclimating.

[starspangledspandex]

He drops the pizza he's holding and stands up with Bucky, pulling out his wallet to throw cash on the table. It should cover the pizza. Someone will box up the rest of it for them.

"What do you eat on your hotdogs?" he asks the other man, eyeing him as they stand there. "What's your favorite kind of pizza? Color? Movie?"

Steve rubs a hand at his forehead, "My apartment long enough to grab the file and my bag. I've been planning on moving to base for awhile. We'll head there as soon as I have them."

[whothehellisbucky]

Silence is all that Steve get and silence will follow Steve, just like a little puppy, back to his apartment too. There are plenty of thoughts buzzing around in Bucky's head, but he's trying to eradicate them. He's trying so very hard to push them out.

Silence is serenity and when the nagging is finished, it will allow him just to move fluidly, do his task, and go back to sleep.

Sleep is the carrot, though he remembers something of a time where he'd been left awake for longer than he needed to be...

He remembers red hair.

He clamps his thoughts down as if his artery had been severed and he's trying to keep his blood from spilling down his skin.

At Steve's apartment, he takes a seat where Fury had last been. He hardly breathes.

[starspangledspandex]

He just watches him quietly for a moment more before he pushes away from the table and heads for his apartment. He hopes that he's hitting some kind of nerve here. He assumes so but it's hard to tell.

Steve climbs up to his apartment and lets them both in. He moves quickly to collect his bag and the file that Bucky had wanted. This, he suspects, is a copy of one that Natasha had kept for herself but that's fine.

He comes back out with his bag and eyes the other man sitting in the chair, "You alright?"

[whothehellisbucky]

All right? He doesn't remember the last time that he's been all right. In fact? He doesn't think he's ever been all right. Head heavy, Bucky's chin touches his chest, hair falling in front of his face in straggles from where it had been tucked behind his ear.

"I'm shuffling between being a monster and not caring that I'm a monster," he says with unleashed honesty. "I don't know what to do."

[starspangledspandex]

Steve puts his bag down and drops the file on top of it, then carefully shifts to crouch in front of the chair. He doesn't really have the answers for him.

"You're not a monster," he says finally. "They made you one. You don't have to be one now. You just have to figure out who you are again."

[whothehellisbucky]

They made you one. That still makes him a monster. Bucky looks up, his brows furrowed. "I know who you want me to be. I don't know that guy, Steve. And I don't know you either."

But he remembers couch cushion beds. He remembers a very sick woman and Steve constantly running home to her. He remembers a funeral--

There are tears in his eyes when he stands up abruptly. "Are you ready to go?"