HOW DID YOU LEAVE THIS LIFE?

Steve was used to upholding core beliefs that carried him through life – Bucky Barnes being a good person sat as an undeniable truth in his mind, and it was something he was willing to defend against anyone, including the man himself. If only that torment could be as easy to wash away as dried blood and grime. Steve’s heart sank as he listened to his friend and when their eyes met, he reached up with both hands to cradle Bucky’s face, keeping him there.

“You don’t need that either, but I can make sure you aren’t going through it alone.” It wasn’t the first time he said it one way or another, and he would continue to do so for as long as necessary. “I *am* here and you’ve been doing the exact opposite of hurting me. Torturing yourself won’t make anything better and the Winter Soldier being your past doesn’t mean it has to dictate your future.”

As much as half of him didn’t believe what Steve was saying, the other half wanted to so, so desperately. Bucky forced himself to meet Steve’s eyes, the only part of his face that felt truly familiar for a second—his blond hair so dark with water, the handsome beard he’d grown making him look so much older, covering up so much of his face. But then the sight crystalized back into Steve, Steve, the only constant still in this world, and...

M’gann’s smile did not falter one iota, but the tiredness in her eyes might have grown for the merest of moments. Only the merest. There had been a part of M’gann that had also held a flame for the man standing before her. A part that had been praying things would progress now that she’d returned from her mission. A part of her that broke inside and left a hole filled with guilt that she should have been nothing but delighted for her friend. She swallowed it down. “That’s wonderful news,” she said, honestly. “You two make quite the team. Oh, goodness. Bucky Barnes are you blushing?” That brought a little, genuine laugh. “You are too cute. I’m happy for you.”

She smiled, always pleased at how much Bucky enjoyed her palm shifting. “Yes, similar. Related.” She cast the shift to miniatures of herself and Hal communing with the symbiote in its calm, fighting it off in its storm. “Most of it is headed far from Earth now. That was the mission. Convince the unconvinceable to move in a different direction without taking unnecessary action. There’s a small sample, though. In the, er, lab. It’s all gooey. I’m not sure you’d be interested.”

“Absolutely not,” Bucky muttered, indeed blushing, and totally oblivious to the effect his words had had on his friend. (After all, why would he ever have so much as entertained the thought that a pretty young girl from outer space could be interested in an old basket case like him?) 

M’gann nodded, tutting softly. “It… Well, it wouldn’t be the worst choice. I’m trying my best to convince them you’re safe and good, but the brood mother wants me to peck you.” She held her hands up. “Like a big mean bird, Mafalda.” M’gann looked sharply at the oldest of the doves and shook a finger at her. “Alas, they are creatures of habit. Umbrellas are in the mudroom. There are little ones. Just in case you ever hear ominous Flight of the Valkyries style flapping, you know.”

“Good? Good!” M’gann clapped her hands together in delight, causing some of the birds to flutter in surprise. “What is good in your life, Bucky? I could use some cheer,” she said honestly. Perhaps too honestly. M’gann wasn’t quite as herself as she had been. “I’ve technically been off mission for a week and a half, now, and…” She fumbled to find the words. “I’m exhausted, but I miss it already. I miss feeling like I’m doing something to really help people.” 

“We spent weeks out there. Beyond the planets and well into the Kuiper Belt.” M’gann pressed her hands together and opened them to reveal a three-dimensional image of space, as she had seen it. She knew he would appreciate that the image moved along as she spoke. “My purpose was to track these… creatures. Have you ever heard of a symbiote?” M’gann knew that they had made it to Earth before. She also knew about the sample they were keeping in the basement.

It wasn’t that they were keeping it a secret. It wasn’t that Bucky was embarrassed. But old habits died hard, and no matter how much more acceptable it was for two men to be together in modern times, he still felt a frisson of discomfort at the thought of people knowing. (In no small part because, honestly, Steve could do better.) But M’gann looked so hopeful, and she sounded a little tired around the eyes, despite her pretty smiles. So he swallowed down his usual secretive ways and replied, “Well, if you could use the cheer,” weighing the words on his tongue. “It’s, uh. Steve. Turns out he’s, uh. Carried a torch for me since we were kids. So. That’s swell, since.” Ah, Christ. He might’ve been turning red. Bucky cleared his throat, though he was smiling.

Steve allowed whatever time Bucky needed to gather himself to speak. It was safe to assume that all of them had seen terrible things, but Wanda had once been in Bucky’s mind at his most vulnerable, helping him out – it made Steve sick to the stomach to think that what had once healed the man also provided the necessary ammunition to bring him down. Blue eyes followed the movement of that hand, skin on skin warmth. He waited until Bucky had finished speaking to take the metal hand as well.

“You wouldn’t. As long as something of you remains, you wouldn’t,” he said softly, but with certainty. “Hydra tried before, and we didn’t let them.” Were some of those escapes sheer luck? Perhaps. But the Winter Soldier never left a job unfinished, and yet there they were. “Is that… part of the nightmares you still have?”

Always with that unshakable faith. Bucky bit his tongue to keep from protesting at Steve’s assurance, though he didn’t pull away. The water was warm, and so were Steve’s hands. So were those blue eyes staring at him, lashes clumped with water. He almost tensed when Steve asked about his nightmares, but... Honestly, he was too tired to even protest. 

…

“Yeah, I can imagine.” And RJ really could, considering how little exposure to…much of anything (or as he was coming to realize) that he’d had for the past decade. Stuff from before that was starting to come back, in small little trickles in ways that surprised him - memories, he supposed, that his conditioning had been designed to suppress but time away from his handlers and his programming seemed to be aiding with that. “The majority of my education was tailored to fit their agenda - history, but I’d imagine a very …limited view, military tactics, case files. You can imagine.” The best place to start is at the start. Surprisingly simple when stated like that, but maybe that was exactly the perspective he’d needed. “Yeah,” he began, clearing his throat a little. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.” Had to be better than the alternative, for certain. 

He could imagine. He’d lived a similar enough life for decades, hadn’t he? Depending on his handler at the time. Though—Bucky wondered if the reason that HYDRA had been so much more restrictive than even the Red Room had been because the (ex-)Soviets left him purposely unstable, because they thought it was a hoot because of who he was, or because... they just were like that. 

Not like it mattered. 

…

“I’m going to be doing a good deal of the back-end work myself, but as much as it pains me to admit it…we could probably use her reach and skillset.” Natasha knew that playing to strengths was smart and necessary, knew that Oracle was the key player when it came to the technical side of things and overseeing missions…even if Natasha may not necessarily love that fact. “I may or may not have poked the bear back in SHIELD and made a mess of any potential personal relationship outside of required job duties, so I think my asking a favor is probably going to be out of the question. Planning on flying by the seat of my pants here, and by that I mean getting by on Steve’s relationship with her and your apparent thing for redheads tied in with that old-time charm.” Natasha made a face at the comparison, nose scrunched up in distaste and paired with a sharp shake of the head. “I don’t have a giant stick up my ass, and I just might take a little offense at this particular comparison.”

“I don’t remember you being quite so tactless with your work,” Bucky observed, trying to think of a time he’d seen Natasha actively poke a bear outside a mission. He couldn’t. But then again, she’d had to be much better-behaved in the Red Room than... “But I guess that’s a good sign.” That she was comfortable and not afraid of anyone. That she had settled into herself. 

Christ. Bucky usually didn’t speak in riddles. Yasha used to, sometimes, and he could feel it creeping up on him, that other him that he’d been for—decades. He swallowed it down, rocking back on his heels with a smile. 

“Oh, you don’t believe me?” M’gann giggled, looking up and around at her birds. “You can forgive him,” she assured the birds, sending them the softest of psychic strokes. “I’ve forgiven him. You don’t have to—” She gave a stern look at Mafalda, who promptly looked away and cooed innocently. “Bucky,” M’gann said seriously, “Have you ever considered carrying an umbrella on your person?”

“Hmmm… Well, I was going to tell you,” she started, a mischievous glint in her eye, “but, now that you’ve put it out there, I think I may just make you beg for it.” M’gann smirked. “Other than the haircut, how have you been? Really. I’ll settle for a trade if it will protect your manly pride.” She put a playful emphasis on the last two words and posed as if she were a powerful general in an Old Master, one hand on her chin and the other inside her jacket, Napoleon style.

“... Well, now I am,” he replied with a scoff, shooting a very unimpressed look to what seemed to be M’gann’s favorite pigeon. Dove. Same thing. He wondered if these birds knew about pigeon stew, which was a thread he probably couldn’t deliver on considering his lack of cooking skills, M’gann’s control of the kitchen, and the fact that it could quite possibly make her cry. Damn it. “You should tell the birds I’ll be on my best behavior from now on. I don’t think I even know where we keep the umbrellas...”

“Always, for as long as you let me,” Steve replied easily, not at all ashamed of how cheesy it may have sounded. “Whenever you do let me, because you can be as stubborn as I used to be back in my sick days,” he added with a little smile, falling into the comforting silence stripped down to the outpour of the water. He almost didn’t hear Bucky’s next question, which put a frown on his face.

“A copy of her, turned into something she’s not. A darkness in her every step as she attacked me, then you. I couldn’t move, it was like there was a spell, but I don’t think that’s true, later I noticed it was only in my mind.” He curled his fingers around the nape of Bucky’s neck. “I saw her reaching towards your head, as if to mess with your memories, a twisted version of what she once did to help you. Did she do anything to you?”

A smile had flitted over Bucky’s mouth at the words, a joke at the tip of his tongue—who, me, stubborn?—but he didn’t have the energy. He just wanted to soak up the care, inching closer to Steve as the room fogged up thick with steam and their smiles faded. And at the question...

…

“I have a running list.” It was a work in progress, for certain. “Like I said, I want this to be small and controlled. If I had my way it would be a team of four, but I’m not naive enough to jump into taking down the Red Room without a parachute.” If it were up to her, it would be herself, Clint, Bucky and Cap with little to no outside involvement whatsoever…but this operation was bigger than her and her wants and comfort. She had to play this smart, safe, even if that meant expanding her occupational social circle. Even if it meant working with Oracle. “I think we can work with a lack of sanity,” Natasha said, lips curving upward into a slow-forming smile. “We’re lacking in that department anyway, and I can’t say any of the hero sort fall into the ‘sane’ category. We jump off buildings without a plan for landing.” The nickname had her eyebrows furrowing slightly, just for a brief half of a second before her expression re-adjusted to neutral. It would never not be strange, she decided; it would never not be strange to both know him in a way that felt so sure and deep and intricate and to not know him at all. “Work in progress,” Natasha admitted after a moment, raising both her eyebrows quickly as she sighed out a slow breath and leaned back against the table behind her, both hands behind her to brace themselves on the table’s surface. “Maybe you can poke your head into Oracle’s lair, see if you can call in a favor. She probably likes you a good deal more than she likes me, and you’ve always had a way with redheads.”

Bucky wouldn’t lie—he’d also be a hell of a lot more comfortable with a tiny team they trusted, people whose skills on and off the field they knew like the backs of their hands. But they both knew it wasn’t practical. 

Ugh.

But he focused in as the conversation turned, his question bred an answer that he was as uncomfortable with as Natasha was, the not knowing of it all crawl-skittering up his spine. There were plenty of active Red Room agents he’d known about just a few years ago, when he’d been with Hydra. Things in their reports that he’d noted but they hadn’t, agents he’d seen but they hadn’t been able to recognize. But his intel was outdated now. 

… “I think at this point, it’s all I know how to do.” RJ paused for a moment there, fingers lightly drumming on the cover of the book he was still holding in his lap. “Fight, I mean. It’s all I’ve ever really done.” There had been so much fighting, so much death and destruction and blood on his hands. So much blood that he was practically drowning in it, could feel it surrounding him and lapping at him like ocean waves, sinking and going under. “Running wasn’t ever really an option. If it was, I think I may have run, too. I don’t think anyone could blame you for that.” Anything was better than the experiences they shared under Hydra’s control - the programming, the brainwashing, the training, the fighting, the blood. “I think I’m trying to make up for it, too. I’m just not really sure where to start. Kind of hard to figure out, you know.” Back to the books, and RJ drummed his fingers against the cover one more time as he mulled over the question. “I liked this one,” he said, holding up the copy of the Hobbit that was sitting on his nightstand. “I’d never read anything fantastical like this, about magic and different worlds. Definitely interesting. The theme at the center of it hits close to home, too.” 

“I read that one back in the ‘30s when it came out,” Bucky replied, not sure what possessed him to share that. “Imagine how much crazier that all sounded in a world where we didn’t know about magic and whatnot. Got a copy from a sailor pal who’d smuggled it in from England...” He trailed off. Shook his head and gave RJ a smile. “It’s a good book. I’ll see what I can do—there’s a bunch of follow-ups, apparently, I haven’t gotten through them all.” 

“A shameless flatterer?” M’gann gasped theatrically and took a step back to clutch the pearls which had conveniently appeared around her neck. “Moi? Me? If I am a shameless flatterer, then you, Mr. Barnes, are a shameless withholder of compliments. Hmph.” She added. “So there. Hmph, I say.” 

She looked around at the doves. They were, indeed, still mad at him. Most of them were taking their cue from Mafalda and glaring menacingly down at Bucky, as if just waiting for their opportunity to swoop around him in defense of their flockherd. “Nah, I think they’ve forgiven you.” M’gann gave Mafalda a sharp look and the bird huffed and turned back to grooming her mate. “A change back.” She sighed. “That’s quite poetic, Bucky.”

.

He’d missed their repartee. Bucky found himself grinning wide and genuine as the little martian teased him, a laugh breaking through at her second little hmph. She was awful cute, and in a way where it wasn’t a cover-up for something else; M’gann actually was as sweet as she seemed, in a good and uncomplicated way that made Bucky think of simpler times.

…

“Yelena,” Natasha confirmed, offering a slight nod. “Clint and I brought her back. We met up in Budapest.” Something of a long story. A story that could serve to be longer, when Natasha got all of it herself. A complicated history that somehow grew to be even more convoluted, somehow. An ever-tangled web ensnaring the both of them, even after they’d escaped the Red Room’s clutches. “Oracle is on my list,” Natasha began, a little hesitantly. “She’s efficient, though I’m not entirely sure she’d approve of how I want to handle things. I’ve heard she’s something of a micromanager and our viewpoints don’t necessarily align.” Not that Natasha had ever worked with the Birds of the Prey, but she heard things. “It’s something I’ll look into. There’s no denying that she’s the best person for the support side of the job.” Natasha felt a smile grow as Bucky suggested Batman, and she shook her head once. “Competent, sure, but I think he’d be best to leave off the roster. No survivors is the goal.”

“Fine, point.” Bucky acknowledged, cracking his neck. No Batman. It made sense. “Not gonna lie, I think that a lot of the Justice League folks and mutants wouldn’t fit. They have their own ideas of morality, and those who might be alright with eliminating a threat at the source aren’t all that subtle. Or good at taking orders. Or sane.” Which might be rich, coming from him. Bucky gave the question another moment of thought, before another one twisted through him, and—

x

“Fashion, really?” He’d seen some of the clothes of the 1940s. Men wore boxy suits and suspenders, pleated pants. Scott preferred his jeans and flannel shirts over being so formal. “I know some of it’s pretty out there, but some of it’s not bad.” He swept his eyes over the other male. “You seem to have adapted to that offense well enough. As for the rest of it, I don’t believe there’s much hope for slowing the effects of capitalism. Companies get greedier and more ambitious, content to pad the pockets of their executives while their employees are starving.” Scott’s soft spot for the exploited came well before the X-Men, but his team only exacerbated that inclination.

“Would you like to change that?” The transition into asking him about leadership provided an ideal segue. “I have an initiative I’ve proposed to Diana and Steve. They’ve approved my selections. It’s a happy accident that you’re the one I stumbled on, I guess.” The Winter Soldier occupied a top spot on his list for X-Force.

.

“It wasn’t what we thought the future would look like, in my day,” Bucky replied with a shrug. “Before the war, anyway. We thought the world’d eventually manage to become some kinda utopia by the 21st century. Most folks were more hopeful than Huxley with his Brave New World,” he said, then shrugged a shoulder. “But I guess people are always just more of the same, right?” Bleak. 

…

“That’s something else that we share, then.” RJ wasn’t sure that would ever get better; he wasn’t optimistic for the state of his thoughts, wasn’t sure there was getting any better than the way he was now. There was no undoing the conditioning done by his handler and by Hydra, no undoing the years he’d spent under their thumb and fully under their control and at their mercy. There was no undoing a childhood that was more of an inferno than any description of hell he’d read over the years. His conditioning might have differed greatly from the original Winter Soldier’s, though there was no denying that the methodology had been effective. “I’m…not sure I know details like that,” RJ began, exhaling long and slow. “Never gave it much thought, y’know? I didn’t think there could ever be anything else. This is all I really know. I mean, all that I remember in any case.” All he knew about his childhood was what his handler had told him; he didn’t remember the before, and he was sure that had been intentional on the part of his handlers. “I’d like to say I’d get far away. I mean, that’s the dream, right? The escape. But I think I’d be putting more energy into tryng to stop them.”

Fair enough. Maybe it’d been a stupid question on his part. Bucky sucked on his teeth, thinking of what he’d seen in RJ’s file. What he’d seen with his own eyes, a lifetime ago—the little girls sipping at their milk, staring down screens. He wanted to ask what RJ had gotten to see, if he’d gotten a taste of anything real in-between the violent programming and the systematic brain-washing, but. He wasn’t sure what he’d hear. 

He wasn’t sure what RJ would even be able to say. Again. 

Steve felt eyes on him and was proud of himself for not fumbling with any straps or zippers under the intense focus. His gaze swept over exposed skin to account for bruises, but what could have been a charged moment turned out to represent relief. They were home, they were safe, his suit thrown away to reveal the very human flesh underneath. The hot water soothed his muscles, even as they had to maneuver themselves to fit in the cramped space.

A small smile played on his lips, hands skimming over rivulets of water on the planes of Bucky’s body. Soap lathered up efficiently with a sponge, gently scrubbing away the dirt and the tension. Steve didn’t dare speak, in case it would disrupt the trancelike peacefulness they found themselves in, tilting his head to search for Bucky’s eyes instead. Just making sure he was there, that he was alright.

It wasn’t often that Bucky was able to look at Steve without any heat—they were pretty deeply locked in some kind of honeymoon phase, he’d say—but this time was different. This time he was tired, and all he could see in his mind was—

the blast and the bloom of red and the choking rattle and

That. So.