#hydra programming

Before that, there was fire.

They’d gone in light—just the two of them, like the old days, slipping through the back door of a half-buried Hydra cache in the Carpathian foothills while the rest of the team handled evacuation on the village above.

“Just like Azzano,” Steve had said as they moved down the narrow concrete corridor, his shield strapped tight to his arm. “Except you’re not punching Hitler for free this time. I’m sure Stark will cut you a check.”

Bucky snorted, rifle held low and ready. “Yeah, I’ll just run that through payroll. ‘Hazard pay: emotional trauma, Nazis, and your stupid ass running toward explosions.’”

Steve flashed him a grin over his shoulder, the faint green emergency lights throwing his features into sharp planes. “You love my stupid ass.”

“Tragic, isn’t it?” Bucky muttered, because if he said yes out loud, the words might reshape the world.

Steve’s comm crackled. “Rogers, Barnes—heat signatures are clustering in the central chamber,” Natasha’s voice came through, calm as ever. “Looks like they knew we were coming. Try not to make too much of a mess.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “No promises, Romanoff.”

They hit the chamber thirty seconds later: a circular room choked with cables and old Hydra tech, a huge reactor humming in the center like a live grenade. There were more men than the heat map had suggested—half a dozen in front of them, half scrambling on catwalks above, and one at a control console whose fingers were moving way too fast.

“Cap,” Bucky said.

“I see it.” Steve surged forward, shield up, a blue-and-red blur cutting through muzzle flashes and shouting as if he’d been born to carve a path between bullets. Maybe he had.

Bucky dropped three men in as many shots, then pivoted, the metal arm a seamless counterweight that turned him into something like grace. The last soldier on the catwalk went down, but not before he tossed a small, dark cylinder through the gap in the railing.

Bucky tracked it in the air and his stomach turned to ice.

“Steve!” he shouted, already moving. “Cap, grenade—”

He didn’t make it.

Steve saw it a fraction of a second before Bucky did. His eyes went wide—and then he pivoted, faster than any human had a right to move, and leapt.

The grenade hit the metal floor near the base of the reactor. Steve was already there, shield flung down over it, body curling instinctively, a man-shaped barricade between the explosion and Bucky’s stupid, too-fragile heart.

The world went white.

Sound tore out of Bucky’s ears. For a moment, there was nothing: no up, no down, just pressure and heat and the sensation of being punched in the chest by a god.

He hit something hard. Concrete. His vision swam, a kaleidoscope of smoke and sparks and falling debris.

“—cky! Barnes, report—”

Sam’s voice rasped over the comm, half drowned in static.

Bucky coughed, chest burning, lungs trying to remember how to work. He pushed himself up, the metal arm biting into the buckling floor.

“Sam—” He wheezed. “I’m fine. Steve—”

The smoke thinned just enough for him to see.

The reactor was half-shredded, spilling wires like guts. The far wall was blackened, concrete spiderwebbed with cracks. The grenade had turned the platform into twisted metal.

And Steve was lying on his back in the middle of it, shield a few feet away, thrown from his hand.

“Steve?” Bucky’s voice cracked.

He stumbled toward him, the world tilting. His ears were filled with the whine of overworked machinery, the chirping error tones of destroyed tech, the sharp, frantic beeping of—

Of the heart monitor clipped to Steve’s suit, blinking red on the HUD in Bucky’s visor.

HR: 220 HR: 190 HR: 140 HR: 52 HR: —

The line went flat.

“Steve!” Bucky dropped hard to his knees, fingers slippery on the front of Steve’s uniform. Blood—Steve’s, he realized distantly—slicked his hand. “C’mon, punk, breathe, you with me, open your eyes—”

Steve didn’t move.

His face was turned slightly toward Bucky, lashes leaving soft shadows on his cheeks. There was ash on his jaw. A smear of soot across his mouth. He looked almost peaceful, in the way that corpses did, whole and horribly still.

The monitor in Bucky’s visor wailed, a high, continuous shriek.

“Barnes!” Sam was shouting in his ear. “What’s your status? I’m reading—Jesus, Cap’s vitals just—”

Boots pounded behind him. Medics, Bucky thought distantly. They’d send medics. They’d—

Steve’s dead.

The thought dropped into his mind like a stone into a frozen pond. The ice cracked outward in a perfect, silent spiderweb.

Somewhere beneath that ice, something woke up.

Mission parameter updated. Subject Rogers: terminated. Initiate Echo Protocol.

The world… smoothed.

Emotion drained out of his limbs like water pouring off steel. His breathing slowed. The frantic shriek of the monitor became data; nothing more.

On a far edge of consciousness, Bucky heard himself make a noise, raw and guttural.

Then that voice, the one he’d tried so hard to bury under years of hard-won therapy and Wakandan sun, spoke again—not in his own rough Brooklyn drawl, but in clipped, precise Russian.

Asset WS-1 online. Echo Protocol engaged. Objective: recover Subject Rogers and return to primary facility. Secondary objective: neutralize interference.

Hands grabbed his shoulders, trying to push him back from Steve. “Sir, we need room—”

The Asset moved before the medic finished speaking.

He snapped the man’s wrist, eased him aside, and rose with Steve’s weight in his arms as if he weighed nothing. The shield lay dented a few feet away; the Asset snagged its strap with his metal hand, sliding it onto his back in one smooth motion.

“Hey—hey, Sergeant Barnes, you can’t just—”

The second medic reached for Steve. The Asset pivoted, the rifle already up.

“Interference,” he said calmly, voice colder than the air. “Stand down.”

The medic froze, eyes wide.

“Bucky.” That was Natasha, slightly breathless, blood on her forehead, pistol aimed not at him but the floor in front of him. “You don’t want to do this. Stand down, we can—”

“Barnes is offline,” the Asset replied. He looked past her, eyes calculating exits, structural integrity, enemy positions. “You will not impede the mission.”

Natasha swore in Russian under her breath. “Sam, I need you in here. Now.”

“On my way,” came Sam’s voice.

The Asset adjusted his grip on Steve. Subject’s vitals: absent. Body cooling. No immediate threat. Mission clock ticking.

Extract. Escape. Return to base.

He turned toward the nearest intact corridor—

—and took three darts to the neck.

For a moment, nothing happened. His body absorbed tranquilizer cocktails that would have downed an elephant and kept walking, boots slicing through debris, Steve’s limp arm trailing.

Then someone behind him shouted, “Double the dose!” and a voice he couldn’t place said, “He’s in Echo; he’s not going down easy.”

The fourth dart slid in just under the edge of his metal collar.

The world shimmered.

The asset took two more steps, each harder than the last. His fingers spasmed around Steve’s suit. His knees buckled.

He hit the ground with Steve still in his arms.

The last thing he registered before the sedatives dragged him under was the faint slap of gloved hands against Steve’s chest and a medic’s voice, furious and terrified:

“C’mon, Captain, stay with me—one, two, three—charge to 300, clear—”

Then, nothing.

Steve woke up to the sound of someone crying.

It took him a second to realize it wasn’t out loud.

The beeping came first: the steady rise and fall of a heart monitor, high and impatient. Then the smell of antiseptic and plastic tubing, the drag of an oxygen cannula under his nose.

Med bay, his brain supplied, sluggish and surprised. Helicarrier? No… too quiet. Somewhere else. Back at HQ?

The crying wasn’t in the room. It was inside his own chest, raw and keening, like his body remembered something his head hadn’t caught up to yet.

He pried his eyes open.

The ceiling was plain white, a tile missing in one corner. There was a fluorescent light humming faintly overhead. To his right, an IV drip; to his left, a curtain half-drawn, shadows moving behind it.

His chest hurt.

Like he’d gone ten rounds with the Hulk and lost. Like someone had squeezed his heart in their fist.

He tried to speak.

What came out was a croak. “Buck—”

The curtain yanked back. Sam’s face appeared, dark eyes wide and hard, mouth pressed in a line that had too much relief in it to be entirely annoyed.

“Jesus,” Sam exhaled. “You really don’t know how to take a break, do you, man?”

Steve blinked. “Sam?” His tongue felt too big. “What—what happened?”

The memory came in pieces: the reactor room, the grenade, the split-second choice. Bucky’s shout. Heat. Then—nothing.

His heart clenched, panic flaring. “Bucky—”

“He’s alive,” Sam said quickly, like he’d been expecting the question. “Barnes is alive. He’s…” He hesitated.

The crying in Steve’s chest got louder.

“Sam.” Steve forced his fingers to curl on the sheet, found them wrapped in tape and bruises from IVs, maybe defib paddles. “Tell me.”

Sam’s jaw flexed. “Your heart stopped, Cap. For four minutes. You were technically dead long enough to trigger some kind of… buried program in Barnes’ head. Echo Protocol, they’re calling it.”

Steve’s blood ran cold. “Echo…?”

“‘If Steve Rogers dies, the Winter Soldier retrieves the body,’” Sam quoted, voice flat. “Hydra failsafe. Apparently they really wanted their hands on a sample of that supersoldier serum. Didn’t count on us having a full medical team on standby.”

Steve swallowed around the bile at the back of his throat. “How bad?”

Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. For the first time, Steve saw the bruises blooming under his eye, the rip in his sleeve. “Level-ten-Winter-Soldier bad. He picked you up and tried to walk out of a collapsing reactor with you like you were a duffel bag. Took enough tranqs to kill a small herd to drag him down. Medicine revived you.” He met Steve’s eyes. “Barnes didn’t come back with you.”

The crying inside Steve’s chest sharpened into a cold, hard point of fear.

“Where is he?” Steve pushed himself upright. His ribs screamed. Wires pulled at his skin. Sam made a protesting noise.

“Hey, slow your roll. You flatlined, remember? You can’t just—”

“Sam.” Steve swung his legs over the side of the bed, the room spinning for a second. He gripped the rail and rode it out. “Where. Is. He.”

Sam exhaled, giving up. “Observation room E. They’ve got him sedated, restrained, and surrounded. Whatever this Echo thing is, it locked him in full Soldier mode. They’re… they’re scared, Steve.”

“Good,” Steve said hoarsely. “They should be. He’s dangerous when he’s scared.”

“That’s not what I—” Sam broke off, shook his head. “Fury wants to talk to you first.”

“Of course he does.” Steve slid off the bed. His knees threatened to give, but the serum kicked in, shoring him up, stitching broken things back together with obscene speed. “I’m fine.”

“You are not fine.”

“I’m breathing,” Steve said. “That’s more than I was a little while ago. Let’s go.”

Sam stared at him for a beat, then huffed a humorless laugh. “You two are gonna be the death of me.”

He helped Steve into a shirt, ignoring the wince Steve couldn’t entirely bite back when the fabric dragged over his bruised chest, then out into the corridor. The HQ wing was quieter than usual. Too quiet. Agents moved in pairs, heads bent, voices low. A couple of them looked up, startled, when they saw Steve walking, like they hadn’t expected to see him again.

He must’ve looked a sight: pale, hospital band still around his wrist, hair a mess.

They reached a glass-walled conference room. Fury stood inside, hands braced on the table, Natasha leaning back in a chair with a bandage over her eyebrow. Maria Hill was there too, posture stiff. They all looked up when Steve entered.

“No rest for the resurrected,” Fury said dryly. His one good eye scanned Steve head to toe, assessing. “You stay dead in there for a full four minutes, Rogers?”

“Apparently,” Steve said. “I don’t recommend it.”

“Noted.” Fury straightened. “Sit down before you fall down.”

Steve sat, mostly because his legs were starting to tremble. Sam took the chair beside him, a solid presence at his shoulder.

“Brief me,” Steve said. “Echo Protocol.”

Hill pulled up a holographic display. The screen filled with old Hydra schematics, curling Russian letters, and a small block of English text highlighted in red.

“Recovered from a Hydra archive in Siberia years ago,” she said. “We thought it was theoretical. Some scientist’s pet project. ‘Echo Protocol: asset WS-1 to recover Subject: ROGERS, S., deceased, from field and return to primary facility for biological extraction.’ Failed attempt to hedge their bets in case you died somewhere they couldn’t scrape you off the pavement.”

“Biological extraction,” Steve repeated, stomach turning.

“Serum,” Natasha said quietly. “Blood. Bone marrow. Organ tissue. Whatever they could use.”

“You weren’t just a symbol to them,” Fury added. “You were a resource. An investment. They wanted to make sure they got their ROI if you went boom.”

Steve swallowed. “And they buried the command in Bucky.”

“In the Winter Soldier,” Fury corrected. “Specifically. Which is what we’ve got sitting in a box downstairs. The minute your vitals flatlined, some old dormant subroutine woke up and decided it was 1972 again and Hydra was still writing his orders.”

“He tried to take me,” Steve said softly.

Natasha’s mouth twisted. “Yeah. Nearly broke Doctor Harrington’s arm in three places doing it.” She glanced at him. “You know he’d do the same thing if the positions were reversed.”

“I know,” Steve said. “That’s the problem.”

Hill tapped the display. “We have him contained. But he’s not responding to any of the deprogramming triggers we’ve used before. Whatever Echo is, it’s… sticky. It overrides other conditionals. As far as the Soldier is concerned, the mission is incomplete. His entire world is now ‘get Steve Rogers’ body back to Hydra.’”

“And since Hydra’s in pieces and there is no ‘primary facility’ anymore,” Natasha added, “his brain is stuck with an impossible task.”

“Which makes him unpredictable,” Hill said. “Volatile. Dangerous.”

Steve heard what she wasn’t saying.

“And expendable,” he finished for her.

Silence.

Fury’s jaw tightened. “Barnes is one of the most dangerous assets on the planet when he’s like this,” he said. “We’ve given him room because you insisted he was worth the risk, and so far, you’ve been right. But Echo is a whole different animal. If we can’t get him out of it…” He spread his hands.

“You’re gonna put him down,” Steve said, cold.

“We’re going to keep this facility, and the people in it, safe.” Fury met his gaze steadily. “If termination is the only way to do that, then yeah. We’ll do it.”

Steve’s fingers clenched on the edge of the table.

“He didn’t choose this,” he said. “Hydra did. You know that.”

“I do,” Fury said quietly. “But the people he could kill while he’s stuck as the Soldier? They didn’t choose it either.”

Steve drew in a breath that scraped against bruised ribs. It hurt. Good. He deserved it.

“What’s my part?” he asked.

Natasha shared a look with Fury. “He asked for you.”

Steve’s heart stuttered. “Bucky did?”

“Not Bucky.” Natasha’s eyes were unreadable. “The Soldier. First thing he did when he woke up in the observation box was check your status on the monitor. When he saw you were alive, he… recalculated.” She exhaled. “Echo might’ve triggered on your death, but it updated the mission with you breathing. ‘Recover Subject: Rogers, compromised, from enemy control.’ Which, in his mind, is us.”

“Lucky us,” Sam muttered.

“He’s calmer now,” Natasha went on. “Cold. Controlled. Sitting in restraints and watching every single person who walks past his glass. We’ve tried talking to him, but he’s not interested in us. He only has one question, on repeat.” She looked at Steve. “Where is Steve Rogers.”

Steve swallowed. The crying in his chest had quieted, curling into a dense knot of something else: dread, hope, resolve.

“I’ll talk to him,” he said.

“You’ll be locked in with him,” Hill warned. “No weapons. No shield. We control the door. If he gets loose, we gas the room. If the gas doesn’t work…”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.

Steve nodded once. “Understood.”

Fury studied him for a long beat. “You flatlined, and the first thing you want to do is walk into a cage with a sleeper agent whose kill record could fill a city block.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve said.

A corner of Fury’s mouth twitched. “Same old Rogers.” He straightened. “You get one shot at this. You reach him, great. We go back to figuring out how to rip this Echo thing out of his head. You don’t…”

He didn’t finish that either.

Steve pushed himself to his feet.

“I’m not going to fail him again,” he said.

Observation Room E looked like something out of a nightmare.

From the outside, it was just a glass cube sunk into the floor of a larger chamber, separated from the main room by a narrow walkway. The glass was reinforced, the metal seams thick and unyielding. There were cameras in each corner, red lights on, little mechanical eyes unblinking.

Inside, Bucky sat on a bolted-down metal chair, hands cuffed in front of him with a restraint unit that looked like someone had sleepless nights designing it. His ankles were shackled to a ring in the floor. He wore a standard-issue black SHIELD jumpsuit, bare feet braced flat.

His posture was perfect. Too perfect. Back straight, shoulders level, chin tipped at a neutral angle. His hair—growing long again—fell around his face, but he didn’t fidget with it, didn’t push it back the way Bucky did when he was nervous.

He just sat and watched.

There were agents stationed around the outer room, weapons slung low but loaded. A tech at a console, monitoring vitals and gas triggers. Natasha leaned against a pillar, talking quietly into her comm, eyes on the glass.

When Steve stepped onto the walkway, every head in the room turned.

Bucky’s didn’t.

Not at first.

Then, as the door keypad beeped and the security lock disengaged with a heavy thunk, his head lifted. His eyes focused.

Steve had faced Hydra soldiers, aliens, gods. He’d looked into the maw of giant space whales and down the barrel of guns.

Nothing had ever made his blood run as cold as the way Bucky’s gaze slid over him now: assessing, cataloguing, devoid of anything warm.

The door hissed open.

“You’re sure about this?” Hill’s voice came over the intercom.

“No,” Steve said. “But I’m going in anyway.”

He stepped inside.

The door sealed shut behind him with finality, a heavy mechanical clunk. A faint hiss indicated the secondary locks engaging.

Steve forced himself not to flinch. He crossed the room slowly, hands where Bucky could see them.

“Hey, Buck,” he said softly.

The man in the chair looked at him.

The face was Bucky’s: sharp jaw, mouth made for cutting grins and softer things, eyes the exact blue Steve knew from a hundred memories.

But there was something wrong about the way those eyes moved. Too smooth. No flickers of confusion or emotion. Just a slow, careful sweep from Steve’s boots to his face, as if slotting him into a file.

“Subject: Rogers,” the Soldier said.

The voice was Bucky’s, too, buried under a flatness that made Steve’s stomach twist.

“Yeah,” Steve said, stopping a few feet away. “It’s me.”

The Soldier’s gaze flicked to Steve’s chest, noting the bandage under his shirt where the defib paddles had burned the skin.

“You ceased vital function in the field,” he said. “You were declared clinically dead for four minutes and twelve seconds.”

Steve huffed something that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You counted?”

The Soldier’s lips didn’t move. “I was designed to track mission parameters.”

“Is that what I am?” Steve asked. “A mission parameter?”

The Soldier stared at him. “Yes.”

The word cut sharper than Steve expected.

He took a slow breath, let it out. “Bucky—”

“Barnes is not present,” the Soldier interrupted, tone unchanged. “Barnes is a compromised persona, constructed under enemy influence for the purpose of destabilizing asset WS-1. Echo Protocol has overridden civilian programming.”

“Barnes is not—” Steve’s jaw clenched. “Bucky is not ‘constructed programming.’ He’s a person.”

The Soldier tilted his head, considering him like one might a puzzle.

“Your insistence on humanizing mission assets is a known weakness,” he observed. “Exploitable.”

Steve’s teeth ached. “Really did a number on you, didn’t they?”

The Soldier’s gaze flicked briefly to the left, where he knew a camera was, then back.

“Hydra is no longer operational,” he said. “Primary facility compromised. Mission parameters have been updated.” A faint crease appeared between his brows. “I cannot complete Echo Protocol as designed. There is no facility to return you to.”

He said return you with the same tone one might use for a package.

“So what’s the new mission?” Steve asked quietly.

The Soldier’s eyes darkened. “Remove you from hostile control.”

Steve’s heart thudded once, hard. “We’re not hostile,” he said. “We’re trying to help him. To help you.”

“You restrained this asset.” The Soldier lifted his hands a fraction. The cuffs scraped against each other. “You confined Barnes. You sedated him against his will.”

“We sedated you because you were trying to walk out of a collapsing building carrying a corpse and batting away medics like flies,” Steve snapped, then forced himself to soften it. “You almost got people killed.”

“Collateral damage,” the Soldier said. “Acceptable loss in pursuit of mission.”

Steve swallowed bile. “Not anymore.”

The Soldier’s eyes narrowed, just slightly. “You died. Echo engaged. The mission does not end until your status is secure.”

“My status is secure.” Steve spread his arms, exposing his chest. The heart monitor on the wall behind the glass showed a steady rhythm. “See? Alive. Breathing. Talking. Not a corpse.”

The Soldier’s gaze flicked to the monitor, as if cross-referencing.

“Alive,” he acknowledged. “Compromised.”

“Compromised how?”

The Soldier’s lip curled infinitesimally. “Control. Influence. Cognitive degradation. You have been… softened.”

“Softened,” Steve repeated. “You mean… having friends. People I care about. That kind of compromise?”

“It is inefficient,” the Soldier said.

“Funny,” Steve said, because if he didn’t, he might scream. “It’s kept me alive a hell of a lot longer than your efficiency has.”

The Soldier’s jaw tightened. For a heartbeat, Steve thought he saw something flicker behind his eyes—something like anger. Or fear.

“Hydra prioritized your body,” the Soldier said. “Your blood. Your bones. Echo Protocol ensures that, in the event of your termination, the investment is retrieved.” His gaze flicked over Steve’s frame, clinical. “Your continued existence as a… person is incidental.”

Steve felt sick.

“I am not an investment,” he said quietly. “I’m not a resource on a balance sheet. And neither are you.”

The Soldier gave no sign of hearing him.

“My mission is to retrieve you,” he said. “Return you to where Hydra—or its successors—can use you.” A faint glitch crept into his voice on successors, a distortion that smoothed a half-second later. “Echo cannot be canceled. Only completed. Until then, all other directives are secondary.”

Steve’s fingers twitched at his sides.

“What if I give you a new order?” he asked.

The Soldier’s mouth thinned. “You are not authorized command.”

“I was your commanding officer in the 107th,” Steve said.

“Different world,” the Soldier replied. “Different asset. Command invalid.”

“Bucky trusted me,” Steve said, voice low. “He followed me into hell more than once.”

“Barnes is not—”

“—present. Yeah, you said.” Steve took a step closer, ignoring the way the agents outside stiffened. “But he’s in there somewhere. I know he is.”

“You have no evidence.” The Soldier’s gaze tracked his movement with laser focus.

Steve’s throat tightened.

“I have a lifetime of it,” he said.

He reached out, slow and deliberate, and laid his hand on the edge of the metal table between them.

The Soldier’s eyes dropped to it. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

Outside, he could hear the faint rustle of bodies shifting, safeties clicking off.

“Steve,” Natasha’s voice came over the comm, not quite steady. “Careful.”

He ignored her.

“Bucky,” he said, and let all the stubborn, aching, stupid hope he’d been carrying for years settle into the word. “I know you can hear me.”

The Soldier’s nostrils flared. He sat perfectly still.

“Do you remember Coney Island?” Steve asked softly. “Summer of ’39. You dragged me onto that roller coaster that looked like it had last been inspected during the Roosevelt administration. I thought we were gonna die.”

The Soldier didn’t move.

“You kept your arm around me the whole time,” Steve went on. “Said it was so I didn’t fall out. But you didn’t let go until we were three blocks away and I called you on it.”

“Fabricated memory,” the Soldier said, but it came a half-second late.

Steve’s heart stuttered. “You puked cotton candy behind the hot dog stand,” he added. “I pretended not to notice so you wouldn’t be embarrassed. You said if I told anyone, you’d throw me off the ferris wheel.”

The Soldier’s fingers twitched.

Steve saw it. So did Natasha; he heard her sharp inhale over the comm.

“That’s… interesting,” Hill murmured.

“Just a muscle spasm,” the Soldier said, and there was a faint edge to his voice now. “Non-significant.”

“Sure it is.” Steve took another step forward. The table pressed against his thighs. “What about the night before you shipped out with the 107th? We split a bottle of something cheap on the fire escape, and you told me if I got myself killed trying to enlist again, you’d come back from the dead just to smack me.”

“Stop,” the Soldier said.

It was the first time his tone changed.

Steve’s breath caught.

“You said,” he continued, ignoring the warning, “you’d always be with me. ‘Till the end of the line.’ Remember?”

The Soldier flinched.

It was small, a jerk of the shoulders, the faintest widening of his eyes.

Steve pressed. “Do you remember what happened on that Hydra train? In the Alps?”

The air in the room seemed to thicken.

The Soldier’s gaze snapped to his. For the first time since Steve walked in, there was something behind those eyes that wasn’t flat calculation.

“I fell,” the Soldier said, and his voice cracked, just a hair.

Steve’s breath left him.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “You slipped. The rail gave way. I grabbed you and I couldn’t—” His throat worked. “I couldn’t pull you back up.”

The Soldier’s hands clenched, metal fingers biting into the cuffs. The restraint unit whined softly under the pressure.

“You died,” he ground out, like it was a verdict. “You were supposed to die there. That was the end of the line.”

Steve shook his head, eyes bright. “Maybe for me. But you still jumped on that train in the first place. You could’ve stayed behind, let me take the hit, but you didn’t. You followed me into hell because that’s who you are, Buck. You don’t leave people behind. Not me. Not the Commandos. No one.”

“Stop,” the Soldier snapped, harsher. “These… constructs are not relevant to mission parameters.”

“They’re you,” Steve said. “They’re your life. Before they took it from you.”

The Soldier’s head jerked, like he was trying to shake something off.

Outside, one of the agents murmured, “What the hell—” and was shushed.

“Hydra gave you commands,” Steve said, voice low, steady. “They dragged you through hell. They strapped you to a chair and rewrote you with electricity and pain and words that weren’t yours. They turned you into a weapon and told you that was all you’d ever be.”

“Correct,” the Soldier said, but the word sounded like it hurt.

“That wasn’t the first time someone tried to tell you who you were,” Steve went on. “You remember the bullies in Brooklyn? The guys in the alley? The ones who called me a ‘little freak’ and told me I’d never be anything?”

The Soldier stared at him.

“You punched them for me,” Steve said. “You got your lip split open and your knuckles bloodied, and every time I said ‘I can do this all day’ and went down anyway, you helped me back up. You didn’t let my story end in the dirt.” His throat tightened. “You don’t have to let Hydra write yours.”

The Soldier’s breath hitched.

It was tiny, barely there, but Steve heard it like a gunshot.

Vital signs spiked on the monitor. The tech at the console muttered something under his breath, fingers flying over keys.

“Heart rate increasing,” he said. “Neurological activity spiking. Whatever Rogers is doing, it’s activating a lot of cross-linked circuits.”

“Translation?” Fury asked.

“Translation,” the tech swallowed, “we’ve got a hell of a fight going on in there.”

“Good,” Steve said softly, eyes never leaving Bucky. “Fight them, Buck.”

The Soldier squeezed his eyes shut.

For a split second, Steve saw it: the trembling in his shoulders, the way his jaw worked, as if he were biting down on a scream.

Then his eyes flew open again, and they were ice.

“You died,” he said, more forcefully. “My mission activated. Echo Protocol is absolute. It does not allow for deviation. Do you understand? You are a variable. The mission is constant. If you die, I am triggered. If you are compromised, I remove you from the equation.”

Steve’s blood went cold.

“If I die,” he repeated slowly, “you go full Winter Soldier.”

“Yes,” the Soldier said. “Irrevocably.”

“Steve,” Hill snapped over the comm. “We did not know that. You need to step back and let us—”

Steve lifted his chin. “No.”

“This isn’t just about Barnes anymore,” Hill argued. “If your death is a global trigger—”

“I’m not planning on dying again,” Steve said, more sharply than he meant to. His gaze stayed locked on the man in front of him. “Buck, listen to me. Echo Protocol may feel absolute, but it’s Hydra’s code. It’s not yours.”

The Soldier’s hands shook.

“Orders are all I have,” he said, and for the first time, there was rawness in it. “Orders are structure. Without them there is… nothing.”

“That’s not true,” Steve said softly. “Without them, there’s you.”

The Soldier’s breath came faster now, the muscles in his throat working.

“Steve,” he said.

It was Bucky’s voice.

Steve’s heart stuttered.

“Yeah,” he said. His hand slid forward on the table, fingers stretching in a wordless offer. “I’m here.”

The Soldier’s gaze dropped to his hand, then jerked away like it burned.

“I cannot complete the mission if you are compromised,” he said, words stumbling. “You surrounded by enemy assets, enemy ideology. They changed you. Softened you. You were supposed to be—” He cut himself off, teeth clicking shut.

“Supposed to be what?” Steve asked gently.

“A symbol,” the Soldier ground out. “Untouchable. Unbreakable. Hydra wanted your body, not your… attachments.” The word sounded strange in his mouth. “Echo was designed to preserve the physical resource. It did not account for…” He trailed off, face twisting, as if something inside him pulled in two different directions at once.

“Didn’t account for what?” Steve pressed.

The Soldier’s eyes met his.

“Barnes,” he whispered.

Steve’s breath caught.

“There he is,” he said softly. “Hey, Buck.”

Something broke.

The Soldier—Bucky—jerked against the restraints, breath coming in ragged gasps. His metal hand strained, servos whining. Vital signs on the monitor spiked into the red.

“Sedative levels are already at maximum,” the tech said, panicked. “If we dose him more, we risk—”

“Don’t,” Steve snapped without looking away. “You put him under now, you’ll just bury him deeper.”

“Rogers,” Fury said. “We can’t let him—”

“I’ve got him,” Steve said. His chest hurt—not from the defib burns now, but from the sight of Bucky twisting in that chair like an animal caught in a trap. “Buck. Look at me.”

Bucky’s head whipped up.

For a heartbeat, for three, for a lifetime, Steve saw him.

Not the Asset. Not the Soldier. Just Bucky: eyes too wide, pupils blown, expression wild and terrified.

“Steve,” he gasped. “I—”

His face contorted. He choked on a sound that was half sob, half snarl.

“Barnes,” another voice pushed through his mouth, flat and cold. “Stand down. Echo Protocol engaged. You will obey—”

“NO!” Bucky snarled, the word ripped from his chest. “Get out—” He slammed the back of his head against the wall, once, twice, trying to shake loose the invisible hands on his mind.

Steve’s heart broke, clean and sharp.

“Buck,” he whispered. “Stop hurting yourself. Please.”

“It hurts,” Bucky panted, laughter spilling out somewhere between hysterical and despairing. “It always—hurts, Stevie, they—they’re in my head, they—”

He cut off with a strangled noise as something yanked him back. His eyes went unfocused, rolling.

The heart monitor screamed.

“Steve.” Natasha’s voice was tight. “We’re losing him.”

“No,” Steve said. “No, we’re not.”

He stepped around the table, closing the distance between them. Every instinct he had screamed at him to keep space, to respect the danger, the restraints, the guns outside.

He ignored all of them.

He knelt in front of Bucky, bringing them eye to eye.

“Bucky,” he said, soft and fierce, “I’m gonna give you an order, okay?”

Bucky’s breathing hitched. His eyes struggled to focus on Steve’s face.

“You’re not command,” the Soldier’s voice ground out, overlapping, glitching. “You have no authority—”

“I’m your commanding officer,” Steve said, steady. “Of the 107th, of the Howling Commandos, of every stupid decision we ever made together. You followed me into hell and back more than once. I’m cashing that in.”

Bucky’s lips trembled.

“You can’t,” he whispered. “Steve, I can’t, they—”

“Look at me,” Steve said.

Bucky looked.

“New mission,” Steve said. “Override Echo Protocol. Replace it. You hear me? Your mission is to stay with me.”

Bucky blinked. Tears gathered, hung in his lashes.

“What?” he breathed.

“Stay with me,” Steve repeated. “That’s it. That’s the whole job. Not Hydra. Not some facility. Not my blood or my bones.” His voice shook. “Me. Stevie from Brooklyn. The idiot who kept picking fights in alleys. The guy you dragged out of more bar brawls than you can count. The punk who jumped on a grenade and didn’t die, and then decided to jump on a few more for fun.”

Bucky’s mouth twisted.

“That was stupid,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “But you didn’t let it be the end. You ran after me. Always.” His throat closed. “I’m asking you to run after me again. To choose me. Not them. Not Echo. Me.”

Bucky’s breath hitched on a sob.

“I… I don’t know how,” he stammered. “They built this in so deep, Steve, I can’t—every time I try to move, it—” His hands tightened until the metal creaked. “If you die, I… I go back. I can’t—what if it happens when you’re not here, what if I hurt people, what if I hurt you—”

“Hey.” Steve reached up, slow and deliberate, and laid his hand over Bucky’s metal fingers.

The room outside tensed. Gun muzzles raised by a micron.

Bucky flinched, but he didn’t pull away.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” Steve said, voice gentle steel. “You’ve spent enough of your life being their weapon. You get to be something else now.”

“I don’t know how to be anything else,” Bucky whispered.

Steve’s chest ached. He leaned in, pressing his forehead against Bucky’s, the cool metal of the man's arm under his palm, the familiar smell of him—gun oil, soap, something indefinably Bucky—flooding his senses.

“Yes, you do,” he murmured. “You were more than their monster long before they ever laid a hand on you.”

Bucky shuddered.

“Remember walking me home from the movies?” Steve said softly. “Every time my mouth got me in trouble. ‘Don’t do anything stupid until I get back,’ you said.”

Bucky let out a broken laugh that dissolved into a sob. “You never listened.”

“Remember sneaking into the World’s Fair?” Steve continued. “Your hand on the small of my back so I didn’t get lost in the crowd. Buying me that crummy hot dog even though you were short on cash. You always took care of me, Buck. Long before they painted that star on your shoulder.”

Bucky shook his head, tears spilling over now.

“Remember what you said to me in that Hydra train?” Steve whispered. “When I was hanging out the door, trying to pull you up?”

Bucky’s lips moved soundlessly.

Steve closed his eyes.

“‘I’m with you till the end of the line,’” he said, and the words tasted like blood and snow and every road they’d walked since. “That wasn’t Hydra. That wasn’t Echo. That was you.”

The air in the room went still.

Bucky made a sound like something tearing.

“Steve,” he sobbed. “Steve, I—”

His body convulsed. The restraints rattled. For a terrible second, Steve felt the metal hand under his go rigid, the grip bruisingly strong, like it might crush his fingers.

Then Bucky’s flesh hand moved.

Slowly, as if dragging through concrete, it lifted. The cuff chain clinked. His fingers curled, hesitant, then grabbed the front of Steve’s shirt.

He held on like he was falling.

“End of the line,” Bucky choked. “I remember. I remember, I remember, I—”

He gasped.

The heart monitor screeched, then steadied.

On the other side of the glass, lights on the tech’s console flickered wildly, then settled into new patterns.

“Neural signatures are… holy shit,” the tech whispered. “Echo pathways are collapsing. New dominant pattern emerging. It’s—Hill, it’s him. It’s… Barnes. It’s Barnes.”

Natasha’s exhale shuddered audibly through the comm.

Steve opened his eyes.

Bucky was staring at him.

Properly staring at him. Pupils blown, cheeks wet, expression open and devastated and so, so Bucky that Steve’s heart nearly stopped again for an entirely different reason.

“Hi,” Steve whispered.

Bucky let out a laugh that was half sob. “You died,” he said hoarsely.

“Only for a little while,” Steve said. “I got better.”

“Asshole,” Bucky croaked, and then he folded forward as much as the restraints would allow, burying his face in Steve’s shoulder.

Steve wrapped his arms around him, awkward with the cuffs between them, the chair between his knees, the whole damn observation room watching. He didn’t care.

Bucky’s body shook. Silent sobs wracked him, years and years of horror and conditioning cracking under the weight of four minutes of loss and a lifetime of love.

Steve held on.

Outside, someone sniffed. Sam muttered, “Yeah, okay, I didn’t need my heart today, that’s fine,” under his breath.

After a while, Bucky’s breathing evened out, the tremors subsiding to small aftershocks.

He pulled back, just enough to look at Steve’s face.

His eyes were red-rimmed, lashes clumped together. There was a bruise on his temple, a small cut on his lower lip. Steve wanted to kiss it away, but there were too many people watching and too many cuffs between them.

Later, he promised himself. If there was a later.

“Echo?” Steve asked quietly.

Bucky’s expression flickered, fear sharpening the edges.

“I can… feel it,” he said, voice rough. “Like… like a brand. Deep down. Hydra carved it in wherever they stuck the rest of their crap.” His hand clenched in Steve’s shirt. “You flatline, I go full Winter. No off switch. No—”

Steve cupped his cheek.

“Hey,” he said. “Look at me.”

Bucky did. Immediately. Like his name was still an order he couldn’t refuse.

“You overrode it just now,” Steve said. “You chose me over it. That’s a start.”

“I don’t know if I can do it again,” Bucky whispered. “What if you’re not there next time? What if I hurt someone else before you can pull me back? What if you die and I… and there’s no one to tell me it’s okay, that I don’t have to—” His breath hitched. “I can’t do that again, Steve. I can’t be their gun again.”

“You won’t,” Steve said, with a certainty he didn’t entirely feel but needed Bucky to believe in. “We’re going to find that brand and rip it out by the roots. Shuri’s already dismantled half the shit in your head. She can take this apart too.”

“Wakanda’s a long way from here,” Bucky said. “What happens between now and then? You planning on not dying again?”

Steve managed a crooked smile. “I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.”

“Not funny,” Bucky muttered, but a faint spark of something like old irritation flashed through his eyes.

Steve’s chest loosened.

“In the meantime,” he said, “we make it harder for Echo to trigger.”

“How?” Bucky asked, desperate. “It’s tied to your heart stopping, Steve. That’s not exactly something we can—”

“Then we don’t let my heart stop,” Steve said simply.

Bucky stared at him. “That’s your plan?”

“And,” Steve added, “we don’t leave each other’s sight.”

Bucky blinked. “What?”

Steve swallowed, suddenly aware of how absurdly exposed this was going to sound with half of SHIELD listening.

He said it anyway.

“You said Echo’s main directive now is to ‘remove me from hostile control,’” he said. “Hydra defined ‘hostile’ as anyone who wasn’t them. We redefine it. New parameters. New… rules.” He squeezed Bucky’s shoulder. “If I’m with you, I’m not under hostile control. If I’m with you, the mission is already complete.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed, brain clearly running through old habit: assess, test, find the flaw.

“You’re twisting their code,” he said slowly. “Using it against itself.”

“Thought you’d appreciate the irony,” Steve said.

A tiny huff of breath escaped Bucky. “You think if I stay near you, Echo won’t… itch as much.”

“I think if you stay near me, you’ll have something to hold onto when it does,” Steve said quietly. “And I’ll be there to remind you who you are. To give you new orders when the old ones start shouting.”

Bucky’s throat worked.

“What orders?” he whispered.

Steve’s heart hammered against his ribs.

“Eat three times a day,” he said. “Sleep at least six hours a night. Tell me when your head hurts. Let people help you. Let yourself be helped.” His voice softened. “Stay alive. With me.”

Bucky’s eyes shone.

“That’s… a lot of orders, punk,” he rasped.

“I’m very demanding,” Steve said.

On the other side of the glass, Fury cleared his throat.

“I’m assuming this means Echo is… suppressed,” he said. His tone was careful: somewhere between cautious optimism and the weary realization that his life was going to be complicated forever.

The tech glanced at the monitors. “Echo-specific pathways are down to minimal background noise,” he confirmed. “Barnes’ cognitive signatures are dominant. He’s… as himself as we’ve ever seen him.”

“Lucky us,” Sam muttered. “Two stubborn idiots fully online.”

“Hey!” Steve and Bucky said in unison.

Natasha’s mouth quirked.

Hill exhaled. “All right,” she said. “We stand down termination protocols. For now.”

Steve’s shoulders loosened a fraction.

“However,” Hill continued, “until we know exactly how Echo works—and how to remove it—we have to recognize the risk. If Rogers dies—”

“I won’t,” Steve said sharply.

“—or even gets close enough to trigger the protocol again,” Hill went on, unfazed, “we may not be able to pull Barnes back a second time.”

“I know,” Steve said. “We’re going to Wakanda as soon as I’m cleared for travel.”

Fury grunted. “Already talking to them,” he said. “Shuri’s coordination team wants fresh scans. They’re very excited about the prospect of dismantling Hydra code. Their words, not mine.”

Bucky shivered under Steve’s hand.

“Good,” he said. “They can have it. Take it. Burn it.”

Steve squeezed his shoulder.

“Till then,” Fury added, “Barnes doesn’t leave your side, Rogers. You wanted to cash in that ‘he’s my responsibility’ card? Congratulations. You’re stuck with him.”

Bucky’s mouth twisted into something that was almost a smile. “He says that like it’s a punishment.”

Steve’s chest warmed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Joke’s on them.”

Hill sighed. “We’ll arrange for modified housing assignments,” she said. “Security protocols. Joint clearance.” She glanced at Bucky. “We’ll need to keep monitoring you.”

“I get it,” Bucky said quietly. “You don’t trust me.”

Natasha’s gaze softened. “We don’t trust Hydra,” she said. “There’s a difference.”

Bucky looked away.

Steve gently squeezed his chin, bringing his head back.

“Hey,” he said. “Look at me.”

Bucky did, weary and wary and wanting so badly to believe him that it made Steve’s eyes sting.

“I trust you,” Steve said simply.

Bucky’s breath hitched.

“You shouldn’t,” he whispered. “You died, Steve. I—”

“You didn’t kill me,” Steve said. “A grenade did. And frankly, I’ve had worse.”

“That… is not reassuring,” Bucky muttered, but the corners of his mouth turned up, just barely.

Steve’s heart did something ridiculous.

He leaned in and, carefully, pressed his lips to Bucky’s forehead.

Bucky froze.

Outside, someone choked on a cough. Natasha raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Fury looked like he’d aged ten years.

Steve pulled back a fraction, looking into Bucky’s eyes.

“You get four minutes without me,” he said softly, so only Bucky could hear, “and your brain decides to drag you back to the worst version of yourself just to get to my body.”

Bucky winced. “Yeah, thanks for the mental image.”

“My point,” Steve went on, “is that you clearly can’t be trusted unsupervised when I’m dead.”

A wet, incredulous little laugh escaped Bucky. “No kidding.”

“So,” Steve said, “solution’s simple. You’re not allowed to let me die. And I’m not allowed to go anywhere without you.”

A muscle jumped in Bucky’s cheek. “That a promise?”

Steve held his gaze.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s a promise.”

Bucky’s eyes closed for a second. When he opened them, something steady had settled there. Not the cold certainty of the Soldier, but a quieter, more fragile kind.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay. Then… I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”

Steve smiled, small and real.

“Good,” he said. “I was getting tired of waking up without you.”

Bucky swallowed. “Me too.”

They removed the restraints an hour later, carefully, under enough guns to start a small war.

Bucky bore it with a stiffness that looked a lot like penance. Steve stayed at his side, heart hammering every time a cuff clicked open, waiting for the telltale blankness to descend.

It didn’t.

When the last shackle fell away, Bucky rubbed his wrists, staring at the angry red grooves there.

Steve, impulsively, reached out and took his hand.

Bucky stared down at their joined fingers like it was something miraculous.

“Come on,” Steve said gently. “Let’s get out of the fishbowl.”

Bucky huffed a faint laugh. “Think they’ll actually let us?”

“We’ll see,” Steve said.

They did, eventually, though an agent shadowed them all the way back to the residential wing, and security cameras discreetly followed their every step.

Bucky endured it with a tight jaw and hunched shoulders. Steve made sure to walk close enough that their arms brushed with every step.

By the time they reached Steve’s room—now, by Fury’s decree and Bucky’s stubborn insistence, their room—Steve’s body had remembered that he’d actually, scientifically, factually died that day.

His ribs throbbed. His bones ached. His chest felt like someone had used it as a practice dummy.

He sank onto the edge of the bed with a sigh.

Bucky hovered near the door for a second, then, slowly, shut it.

The lock clicked.

“Too much?” Steve asked, nodding toward it.

Bucky shook his head. “Locks go both ways,” he said quietly. “Feels… safer.”

Steve’s throat tightened.

“Come here,” he said.

Bucky hesitated.

Then, with a small exhale, he crossed the room and sat beside Steve.

For a moment, they just… sat. Shoulders touching. Silence wrapping around them like a blanket.

Steve watched their hands on his knees—his own broad, scarred knuckles; Bucky’s calloused fingers; the brushed metal gleam catching the light.

“Do you remember it?” Bucky asked suddenly, voice low.

Steve blinked. “Remember what?”

“Being dead,” Bucky said bluntly.

Steve huffed a laugh that wasn’t funny. “Not… really,” he admitted. “I remember the explosion. The heat. And then… nothing.” He glanced at Bucky. “Why?”

Bucky’s jaw flexed.

“I remember all of it,” he said hoarsely. “Not the… you. Just… the data. Your heart rate dropping. The moment it flatlined. The way the monitor sounded. The… quiet after.”

Steve swallowed.

“It was like… a switch being thrown,” Bucky continued. “Everything before that—the panicking, shouting your name, trying to get you to breathe—that was… me. Then the flatline hit and it all just…” He snapped his fingers. “Gone. Echo flooded in. Clean and cold and… wrong. But it felt… solid. Simple.” He made a face. “And then you woke up and ruined it.”

“Sorry about that,” Steve murmured.

Bucky let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Don’t be,” he said quickly. “Please don’t ever be sorry for… that.”

Steve’s chest warmed.

“I keep thinking,” Bucky went on, staring at his hands, “if Sam hadn’t gotten those tranqs into me, I would’ve walked out of there with your body. Fought everyone. Killed whoever got in my way. Echo would’ve dragged me across the world chasing a ghost.” His shoulders hunched. “And I wouldn’t even have known it was wrong.”

“But you do,” Steve said gently. “Now, you do.”

Bucky’s throat worked. “Because you’re alive,” he said. “If you weren’t…”

Steve reached out and curled his fingers around the back of Bucky’s neck, thumb stroking the short hairs there.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly.

“You say that like you haven’t jumped out of three helicarriers and a spaceship,” Bucky muttered, but he leaned into the touch.

“Okay, fine,” Steve conceded. “I’m going wherever you go.”

Bucky’s breath shuddered.

“You promise?” he whispered.

Steve didn’t hesitate.

“I promise,” he said.

Bucky looked at him then, really looked, and Steve had the absurd thought that if his heart hadn’t already stopped once today, this would’ve done it.

“Okay,” Bucky said again, the word a fragile thing he cradled between them. “Then… I’m gonna hold you to that, Rogers.”

“You’d better,” Steve said.

They sat like that for a while, Steve’s hand warm on Bucky’s neck, Bucky’s shoulder pressed solidly against his.

Eventually, exhaustion dragged at Steve’s limbs, his head growing heavier.

“Lie down,” Bucky murmured. “You’re running on… what, adrenaline and stubbornness?”

“Mostly stubbornness,” Steve admitted.

Bucky snorted. “Shocking.”

He helped Steve ease back onto the bed, moving with a carefulness that made Steve’s throat tight. When Steve’s head hit the pillow, Bucky hovered, uncertain.

“Stay,” Steve said, because there was no way on earth he was going to sleep without Bucky within arm’s reach after the day they’d had.

Bucky’s expression flickered, relief and fear and longing warring, then settled into something like resolve.

“Yeah,” he said simply. “Okay.”

He kicked off his boots and eased onto the mattress, lying on top of the covers beside Steve. For a second, they were awkward about what to do with their limbs.

Then Bucky huffed, rolled onto his side, and slotted himself against Steve’s uninjured side, metal arm draped loosely over his stomach, flesh hand splayed on his chest, right over the steady thump of his heart.

“Monitoring vital signs,” he muttered, attempting lightness.

Steve smiled, eyes stinging.

“Doctor Barnes,” he said. “Didn’t know you’d gone into medicine.”

“Shut up,” Bucky grumbled, but his fingers pressed just a little more firmly, like he needed the confirmation.

Steve covered Bucky’s hand with his own.

His eyelids felt heavy. His body, now that it was horizontal, realized how tired it was. The steady warmth of Bucky beside him, the weight of that arm, the quiet hush of the room—it all tugged at him.

“Steve?” Bucky said softly.

“Mm?”

There was a pause.

“I love you,” Bucky blurted, the words tumbling out like they’d been dammed up for decades and finally found a crack.

Steve’s eyes flew open.

Bucky stared at him, expression somewhere between defiant and terrified, as if daring him to laugh.

His heart did a somersault. The monitor by the bed beeped a little faster.

“Was gonna wait until you weren’t half-dead to say it,” Bucky muttered. “But then you were dead and I realized that was… stupid.” His mouth twisted. “You don’t get to die without knowing that.”

Steve’s throat closed.

“Bucky,” he said, and he didn’t bother to keep the emotion out of his voice. “You… have the worst timing.”

Bucky’s face fell a little. “Yeah, well—”

“Because I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen,” Steve went on, “and it would’ve saved us both a lot of trouble if you’d said something before the whole falling off trains and being brainwashed thing.”

Bucky froze.

Then, slowly, the corners of his mouth lifted.

“Yeah?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Steve said.

Bucky swallowed. His eyes dropped to Steve’s mouth, then flicked back up.

“Can I—” he started, then seemed to remember the cannula, the bandages, the fact that Steve had technically been dead not too long ago. “I mean, is it okay if I—”

Steve reached up, curled a hand around the back of his neck, and tugged him down.

The kiss was careful and a little awkward, noses bumping, teeth clacking. Bucky tasted like hospital coffee and the sharp tang of adrenaline, like fear and relief and home.

Steve’s chest twinged, but he didn’t care.

When they pulled back, Bucky looked at him like he’d hung the stars.

“Okay,” Bucky said softly, voice hoarse. “Now you can’t die. I’ll never forgive you if you leave me with that and then… go.”

Steve laughed, the sound ragged but real.

“I’ll do my best,” he said. “Just… keep your hand there, okay?”

Bucky glanced down at where his palm rested over Steve’s heart.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re not getting rid of me, punk.”

Steve’s eyes drifted shut.

“As long as you’re here when I wake up,” he murmured, “you can stay as long as you like.”

Bucky pressed his forehead to Steve’s temple.

“I’m with you,” he whispered, the words a promise and a prayer and a curse woven into one, “till the end of the line.”

Steve’s heart beat steady and strong against his palm.

Four minutes without it had been an eternity. The rest of their lives, Bucky decided as Steve’s breathing evened out, wouldn’t be long enough.

So he lay there, wide awake in the dark, metal arm wrapped around the man he loved, fingers pressed over the proof that he was still here, still alive, still his.

And every time that heart stuttered or skipped, every time the monitor beeped a little faster, Bucky held on tighter and whispered orders to himself in the quiet of his own mind.

New mission: stay. New directive: love. New protocol: echo this, not them.

And somewhere, deep below the scars and circuitry, the old code screamed and fizzled and finally, finally began to fade.