(Or, Bucky is having dissociation issues post CATWS, and Sam helps him through it. plus there’s Twentyonepilots parallels yippie!! Clancy is Bucky and Sam is torchbearer. I love smashing two concepts together that don’t go!!)
Bucky sits on the floor of his makeshift hideout in Bucharest, staring down at the new hole in the floorboards. He’d punched it open only moments ago, but he’s got no memory of doing it. It’s a shame, it’s not a bad apartment. It’s not big by any means and the walls are peeling, but he’s been able to find a small foothold here.
There are plates drying on the counter above. A sliced plum sits at the table in the corner. He’s even put up a few photos on the wall. They’re all associated with things about himself, in an effort to remember more. What he remembers, he scrawls in a series of notebooks. Its not a bad apartment. And now it’s got a hole in the floor.
Having no memory of this is probably bad.
Bucky strains to remember what happened to cause him to lash out like that. He’s pretty sure there was a car accident in the street below. Metal scraped against the pavement harshly, children screamed. A terrible crashing sound. And suddenly he was in Kyoto, June 10th 1972, being pulled apart for the pleasure of wealthy onlookers.
It had been a meeting of arms dealers. They had clamped his metal arm down under the weight of a large hydraulic press. The arm is your only use, you should recognize the privilege of having it. Before, you were nothing. Now, you are a gift to mankind. Never forget your purpose. To comply. The number on the display screen climbed. The metal creaked and bent. His voice strained and cut out from the rasp of screaming. He was punished after for being too loud during the showcase. The muzzle didn’t come off for two weeks.
There was clapping after the arm finally crumpled. The gazes of the handlers around him begged him to step outta line, if only to test the new batons they got.
The soldier only lowers his head in submission.
He reaches back to graze the raised scars left by countless attempts at clawing that thing off. When he tries to breathe it comes out shaky. His knuckles bloom red where the wood cut into them.
How long has he been bleeding?
There’s a pattern emerging, a cycle. He knows it. Some disaster happens around him. He blacks out for a moment. Goes somewhere nasty in his mind. Wakes from that with something destroyed.
He can feel himself slipping again. His head tips back in exhaustion, knocking against the wall with a dull thunk. Pins and needles travel down through his fingers where they grip the floor. He’s trying so hard. Why can’t he be rewarded with a least one okay-ish day.
Words echo in his head, fuzzy and barely there. What were they again? Damn therapist, thinks he’s so cool. Bucky knows they were said the last time they found him, collapsed in a train tunnel outside Paris. He’s pretty sure.
Bucky had been walking the tracks for who knows how long. It’s rather stupid, but he hadn’t really considered the possibility of them being used. Blame it on dehydration or starvation or lack of sleep. The real reason is that he just didn’t care. He wouldn’t mind if he was killed. The world would be better for it.
Sure enough, the wood of the tracks started to rumble through his shoes. Then came the horn, and the terrible light. He accepted it. For a single second, he was ready for all this to be done. Over with.
Here’s the thing. When you try to die, your brain makes it a personal mission not to let you. Bucky threw himself down into the gravel and curled into a ball, train cars whizzing by mere inches from him.
The train passes quickly, wind ruffling his clothes. He doesn’t move from his spot on the ground. The rocks cut into his brow and shoulders but only presses into the ground harder.
Bucky lays there, listening for the slightest noise. It doesn’t take much concentration to hear it. Footfalls rustle the gravel as they approach. purposefully loud, as not to startle. He knows that gate.
Sam runs up to him, breathing heavy, having seen what just happened. He looks down at this mess of a man, falling back into Therapist Mode immediately.
“Hey, hey, Bucky. I’m here.” Sam catches his breath for a moment and the exhale ruffles Bucky’s hair for a moment. Sam crouches over him, a perfect picture of concern.
An audible grumble from Bucky.
“Sam, I really don’t need the ‘you have so much to live for, goody two shoes bullshit again.” He says it, though flashes of countless missions flash in front of his eyes.
“Find something to hold onto. Hear your surroundings. Pick a sound and let it lead you out.”
Bucky is still facing away from him, but Sam hears a shift in his breathing after he tries to calm down in that way. He focuses on the drip of water off the ceiling onto the tracks below. It's rythmic and predictable. The visions slow. There’s silence for a few minutes as Bucky collects himself.
When he speaks, it’s raw and broken.
"I know what you're gonna say. I can't go back. I'm still not safe to be around. I might never be. You know that."
Another sigh from Sam, and then he sits down beside Bucky, leaning back against the wall of the tunnel. He gets no flinch or indication that its not okay to do, so he stays there.
"What I know, is that you're a pain in the ass.“
A whimper through gritted teeth, and then Bucky is sitting up next to him. Sam expects his words to be biting, but when Bucky speaks it’s just tired.
"yeah, well, how else are you gonna get a full tour of Europe on government dime".
Sam scoffs, but there’s no bite to it.
More minutes pass in silence, until, almost inaudibly,
He’s back in the present. Out of his head. Bucky’s eyes are still closed, already overwhelmed by all the things he can hear. The horn of hundreds of cars throughout the city, the crying of children, the buzzing of wires in the walls. Instead, he takes a moment to find a sound. Just one.
He takes a deep breath and focuses on the call of a bird. It sits on the wire of a telephone line, far above him head. It’s got a song of alternating notes, ending in a whoop. Bucky takes a mental stab at guessing the name but comes up empty. Steve definitely told him all about bird calls a long time ago. He’s pretty sure.
This cycle has to stop. It has to. He can’t go on like this. He’s fucked up. He knows it. He also knows, stubborn as he may be, that he can’t do this on his own. He’s not ready to go back, not yet. But he can at least practice being a person with the help of Sam’s words. Maybe a periodic visit from him if he’s lucky.
Bucky finally opens his eyes, looking down at the hole in the floor. The jagged edges will need to be snapped off and sanded down, probably the whole board replaced. But he looks at it and sees something completely new.
His backpack would fit perfectly in there.
Hope you liked it!! I worked on it for a while, super proud of it.
