The Shield Bearer (E, Canon divergence, Howlies era) with art by @beardoesdoodles.
Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
Chapter 1:
The helmet bounced as it hit the rocky ground, shattering the fragile shale and sending shards in every direction. Gabe caught it on the way back up and the rest of the Howlies scattered. Grumbles of protests rumbled throughout the team but nobody said a word, not even Dum Dum. They all knew when to keep their mouths shut. Especially when it was Bucky's turn to lose his cool.
"If I have to chase down this goddamn shield one more time –!"
He slammed the vibranium disc into the ground where it parted the rock beneath it and stayed there, listing slightly to one side.
For lack of anything else to take his anger out on, he kicked at the dirt. It fanned out over the fire. The flames collapsed for a few beats, then, as the wind whistled through the gorge, reignited. It was like the searing burn in Bucky's gut, ever constant and resilient.
He began to pace while the others regrouped around the fire. "Not only do I have to cover his ass, I've got to clean up after him, too!"
Bucky dropped his gun on the ground, ignoring the vocal cringe from Denier, and picked up the coffee pot from the fire. He poured into an awaiting cup and took a mouthful.
Ugh. It was awful.
Jim scowled at him as he bent to spit it on the ground, and Bucky thought better of it. The guys were exhausted, having not slept in three days. It wasn't Jim's fault the whole thing had gone tits up, nor Monty's or Gabe's or Dum Dum's. It was his responsibility, because he'd taken it alone. And boy, was he regretting that decision.
He swallowed the horrible stuff and set his pack on the ground. The others had already set up camp in the gorge. The mountains rose up on either side, and only the brush offered any kind of cover. If HYDRA were to locate them, they'd all be sitting ducks.
"He back yet?" Bucky huffed as he sat next to Gabe. The man had rolled over a few of the larger rocks. Uncomfortable as hell, Bucky reminded himself to appreciate it. Jones wasn't even supposed to be over there.Â
"No sign of him," Dum Dum confirmed. "He went after those two that got away."
Bucky closed his eyes and quietly fumed. "Of course he did."
The others looked ready to peel off again if Bucky got violent. He decided they'd had enough for the day.
"More rations for the rest of us then." Bucky unzipped his pack and grabbed a kit, then handed it to Gabe without taking any for himself.
Morita stared at him with those alert eyes. Nothing got past him. Nothing.
"You not eating, Sarge?"
"Nah. My stomach's tryna break free from my intestines." He rubbed his belly for good measure. "Would be a waste cos' it'll all come right back up again."
It was a lie; he was starving. But so was everyone else. They were supposed to pick up more rations in the city before they were unceremoniously ambushed by nazis. They had to have been waiting for them.
Monty loosened the red scarf around his neck and wiped the grime from his forehead, then set about rolling cigarettes. Dum Dum and Denier helped Morita portion out what little they had, and Bucky stared off into space.Â
Gabe stoked the fire with a long branch he'd broken off a nearby bush. It kept catching fire, and Jones kept putting it out in the dirt. Bucky thought about how it was a perfect metaphor for their plight. Everywhere they stamped out Hydra, more and more cropped up. It was exhausting.
He poured some more of the terrible brown liquid and forced it down. If he filled his belly with it, maybe he wouldn't feel so empty inside. Their mission had been a failure; besides not successfully procuring more supplies, they'd stirred a hornet's nest and a few of its inhabitants had gotten away.
They'd retreated to the mountains with the enemy hot on their tails. The mountainside was bare and treacherous, rocks sliding dangerously beneath their feet. At one point, they took such heavy fire they had to hole up under an outcropping of rock. They were already low on ammo, and they'd been ordered to save it. After all, they had other means of protection.
Only that particular protection detail didn't clean up his toys when he was done with them.
They ate in torrential silence.Â
Afterward, Bucky listened as Dernier did an ammo count, and Jim took a written inventory. It was stupid, really. They knew they were in trouble. But the mind did strange things when under duress, and sticking to a routine always worked for them.
Why had they named Bucky second in command anyway? Just because his dad was a cop and he knew a bit about guns? Or maybe they'd heard about his sparring record? That was probably it. Someone opened their big mouth and –
"Sarge."
They should have given it to Monty. He was a major, after all, and just because he was a Brit didn't mean he couldn't –
"Sarge!"
Bucky was shaken out of his own head by Dum Dum. "It's your turn for night watch."
Because, of course it was.
The guy's mustache twitched. "You sure you're up for it? You're lookin' kinda pale."
"I'm fine!" Bucky shouted, a bit on the intense side. He'd have to work on toning that down. "Go get some shut-eye."
And then, to the rest of them. "All of yeh. Get outta here!"
They didn't wait around for him to change his mind. Each man unrolled a well-used bedroll into the dirt near the fire and turned away from him. It seemed nobody wanted to make eye contact.
Nobody except for Gabe. "You want me to take this shift?" he asked, and Bucky felt the boot of guilt in his gut. All the shit that man had been through and he still had room for a heart.Â
"Nah." Bucky took the stick Jones had been using to stir out the rest of the embers. "I got it."
It made sense for Bucky to take the night watch. His hearing was better than the rest of them. He could tell an animal step from a human, a rolling rock from a tumbling grenade. His reflexes were faster and his stamina greater. And, for now, he had a little extra armor.
Bucky waited until everyone was still before snuffing out the fire with the rest of the coffee. It gave off a hissing kind of putridity that made him instantly regret it. But the rest said nothing, and the sky was already growing dark, and Bucky had a night full of thinking to do.
He rescued his rifle from the dust and propped it against his pack, then wrestled with the shield to free it from the ground. He fetched his bedroll and folded it against the pack, then sat and tried to imagine his stomach was angry because he was overly full.
Bucky pulled the shield into his lap like the world's most uncomfortable blanket and lifted his eyes to the summit. He scanned the treeless ridge on both sides, positioning himself so he could see out of the corner of his eyes if needed. Then he focused on the red glow rising in the west.
He'd never been to Greece. Hadn't even seen pictures of it. The whole thing was tragically surreal; he'd never have even left Brooklyn if it hadn't been for –
Well. He was in Greece now, not far from the coast. Even as high as they were in the mountains, he could smell the salty air. It was much different than the Atlantic back home.
Home. Wasn't that a strange concept? There was a time when he'd considered it a place. Four walls and a roof and a key to a door. Skyscrapers and cars and throngs of people. As it turned out, it wasn't the things that made it home. It was the people. The people he'd left behind, yes, but also the people he'd met over here.
Jim and Gabe. Monty. Dernier. Hell, even Dum Dum.
And that led him to their missing team member.
Oh, Bucky could throttle him. What was he thinking, leaving their little pack like that? And without a proper weapon to protect himself? For all Bucky knew, he'd been captured again, and there wouldn't be another chance to beat the snot out of him for being so stubborn and impulsive.Â
He fumed for so long his jaw began to ache and his hands cramped from clenching them so hard.
Anger eventually evolved into worry. The sunset was long since gone, and there hadn't been a moon for the past two nights. Greece may have fought off the Italians at one point, but they were close to making alliances. And the little band of nazis they'd encountered sure sounded German to him.
Bucky knocked the toe of his boot against a rock and thought about the expanding hole in his sock. Eventually, his skin would chafe and bleed, then ooze in the most painful of ways. But he'd recover, just like he'd done before. The wounds would heal themselves. And if he didn't say anything about it, nobody would know how wrong it was.
But he couldn't think about that. He'd spiral into madness, and men were counting on him.
And so, he hummed. To himself, of course. He hummed to melodies only he could hear, harmonized with orchestras inside his head. All the songs he'd loved, some that he hated even. Just to be able to forget.
But the tune always returned in the end. Turned bittersweet, thick with longing and want for something he couldn't have. A face swam before him, familiar but — different. And then another with red, red lips would cut in and take it from him.
"Fuck."
Bucky wiped a filthy hand over his face and shivered. The cold always affected him more intensely than anything else. Goosebumps rose in waves over his skin, muscles clenched, tendons gone tight over aching bones. It wasn't the temperature that triggered this reaction. It was the memory of a metal gurney, glinting steel instruments. A wickedly pleasant voice.
Bucky slid his palm over the ever-sharp edge of the shield. Without gloves, it could slice him open if he wasn't careful. Heaven knew how many fascists it had maimed and dismembered. He'd lost count.
He hated it, this perfect weapon. Hated what it did, what it stood for. Hated taking lives at all, even if they were demonically evil. It wasn't in his nature to kill anyone.
But.
The war was bigger than just him and his pacifist nature. This was the destruction of his people simply because of who they were. Elderly, ill, children; the fascist machine of death didn't care. The only goal in sight was world domination.
Most of all, though, quite selfishly, he hated how it had turned his best friend into a killer.
Bucky sighed and tucked the shield higher under his chin and tipped his head back to look at the stars. The constellations were different in this sky. Which was good, really. Counting and making his own connection between the brightest objects would keep him occupied as he waited out the rest of the night.
The waiting went on throughout the morning and into the afternoon. The guys played cards and rolled more cigarettes. Bucky tried to sleep, he honestly did. But a pair of blue eyes wouldn't let him.
As the second evening in the gorge began to fall, Dum Dum approached him with that stubborn sternness. "Sarge, we gotta do something. Ain't getting nowhere just sitting here."
Bucky knew it. But he couldn't admit to it.
"One more night," he said. And that was that.
Bucky took to his bedroll like everyone else and turned his back to the snuffed-out fire. A sliver of moon had appeared over the crest of the hill. He watched as it glided over the part of the sky he could see. And when it disappeared behind the mountain and well into the night, he began to dive back into his mind.
Luckily, Gabe's night watch ended early. Bucky heard the slide of the shield as it rolled out of his hands. Heard the soft thud as it fell to the ground. Felt the vibration of its alien metal on his exposed skin. Remembered those blue eyes looking over it at him.
Bucky pushed up from the ground and relieved Gabe of his post. He took the shield into one hand and rolled Jones over onto his bedroll with the other. The man grunted softly but didn't wake.
Something glinted from the ground where Gabe had sat. Something small and rectangular, its monochrome tones clear as day to Bucky's keen eyesight. He recognized it as a photograph, the face smiling out one that was all too familiar.Â
Bucky snorted softly as he lifted it. It appeared more than one person was enamored with Agent Carter. He tipped the photo into the upturned helmet and felt a sudden connection with Gabe that cut deep; he, too, wanted something he couldn't have.Â
Bucky couldn't sit and wait any longer. He took up his weapon with the shield and set off through the gorge and away from camp. There was something he wanted to say to someone.
When he was far enough out of earshot, and yet close enough to fulfill his guard duty, Bucky dropped both shield and gun and got it off his chest.
"I hate you, you sonofabitch!"
The hiss of his heated whisper echoed between the slopes on either side like one snake attacking another. His chest heaved and a sting of tears welled in his eyes. And he was glad there was no one about to see him fall apart.
He didn't know how long he stood there until he heard it. Until the hair at the back of his neck prickled in warning. He only knew the infuriating relief he felt as he counted the milliseconds between footsteps.
He would follow those footsteps anywhere.
As the footfalls neared and came to a halt, Bucky turned away from the sound and waited for the inevitable.
"Buck?"
Something in his heart clenched tight as he imagined those eyes staring down (down!) at him.
"You came back." It sounded accusatory, which was exactly how Bucky meant it.
"Yeah." A step closer, the heavy breathing more audible. "I uh – I left something behind."
Bucky couldn't stand it; his heart was near exploding. He spun on the spot and shoved the hated shield into that well-muscled and perfectly healthy chest.
"I'm not your slave," Bucky growled around the lump in his throat. He tried very hard not to look upon those broad shoulders. The way he was loaded down with a pack three times normal size. How that smart mouth opened and closed. Opened and closed. Opened.
"Never said you were."
There was an unexpected bite at the end of it. Bucky bristled.
"We were gonna leave in the morning whether you came back or not."
"As you should have."
And dammit. Why was he always so sanctimonious about it?
"The guys had a bet going on how far we'd get before you caught up."
"Oh, really?" The rumbling, deep voice wasn't supposed to be comforting him, of all people.
Bucky thought how stupid they must look. Standing in the middle of a war and not saying anything.
"I put money on you getting captured."
The man holding the shield stiffened. The weight he carried shifted. "C'mon Buck."
A hand reached for his forearm, but Bucky wasn't having it. He turned away and started walking back toward camp. There were a few tense moments where he wasn't followed.
And then — "I brought food."
Bucky recognized the tone. It was something he'd heard many times in the past after they'd had a fight. The new arrival was trying to make up, uncomfortable with the awkwardness of being absolutely fucking wrong.
"Great," Bucky said, continuing forward. "Guys are starving."
He thought he heard muttering over the sound of that shield being hefted over a massive forearm. But eventually, they were both walking back into camp. Bucky on soft, careful feet, and his companion like a bull in a china shop.
It was telling to their exhaustion that nobody else woke as the man set about unpacking. Bucky didn't help. He went back to his bed on the ground and pretended his heart wasn't thundering away in his chest. Nobody tried to talk to him. Nobody poked at the thoughts and fears and things he wanted badly to say but couldn't. Nobody even noticed he was there.
He was surprised to be woken from sleep by the overpowering smell of cooking meat.
"Morning sunshine," that familiar voice said. Bucky sat quickly, surveying the scene before him with mixed feelings.
Several tins steamed from the coals in the fire, sending mouth-watering aromas into the air. Around him, his pack of scoundrels was stirring. Wiping sleep-slow eyes. Blinking away the fog of a sudden awakening. Shouting with recognition as their vision cleared and they laid eyes on the newcomer.
"Cap!"
"Hey, he's back!"
"Look what the cat dragged in!"
"So you didn't abandon us for greener pastures!"
Bucky felt that one especially. It was made even more difficult by the soul-destroying gaze from impossible blue eyes across the fire.
"Nah. Couldn't do that to you."
The chatter around the fire was jubilant. Full of actual sustenance, eager to hear and share the stories of how they were separated, the guys grilled Rogers on each and every detail.
Apparently, the great Captain America had single-handedly caught up with and 'taken care of' the two scouts who had been tasked with trailing them. Then he'd met a group of locals who had banded together to make things difficult for the Italians. This resistance group was combating the theft of food destined for the smaller communities to prevent it from being sold on the black market. And, of course, Captain Rogers couldn't resist helping the little guys.
They packed up after breakfast. Cap had secured three tents, brand new by the smell of them, a week's worth of rations for all of them, and a stack of secondhand books.
"What? You reading now, Cap?" Dum Dum teased. Rogers smirked in his all-American way.
"It's the latest fad. You should try it!"
His optimism gave Bucky a headache.Â
Bucky tagged along at the back as they hiked down the mountainside. Captain Rogers had a destination in mind, and the group followed him without question. There were rights to wrong, after all. Evil to defeat. Liberty to defend. Who would say no to that?
They moved slowly, covering dusty, dry ground as they descended. Bucky kept to himself. He didn't want his foul mood to affect the rest. Something was wrong with him that couldn't be cured by a rousing noble quest.
Around the bend of another mountain, Bucky caught sight of the sea. It was aquamarine and clear and too good to be true. He fought back the hope in the back of his throat.
They set up camp just before the sun sunk below the horizon. The tents went up quickly and the rations disappeared the same. And when Bucky could no longer hold his tongue, he disappeared from the group.
And, naturally, Rogers followed. It wasn't but five minutes after he'd shucked out of his boots, hung up his holey socks, and laid his head on the ground that he entered the tent.
Bucky closed his eyes. He knew they couldn't go on avoiding it.Â
"I know you're mad at me, Barnes."
So it was to be Barnes, then. Bucky took a deep breath and sat up to face his roommate. "I'm not mad. I'm furious."
Rogers crouched in the entrance, allowing the flap to fall against his back before he entered fully.
He didn't speak, so Bucky continued. "These guys? They'll do anything you say. But they aren't superheroes. They can't shake off a bullet wound to the shoulder. Trek a hundred miles without food and water. Then get up and do it every day for a week."
Rogers remained silent. His wide knees poked out from thick thighs as he crouched, one hand on the ground between them.
"They're bound to break at some point. They need to rest."
His companion took a deep breath. "And what about you?"
Bucky sighed in exasperation. "Doesn't matter, does it? You don't listen to anything I say anyway!"
Rogers began to argue, but Bucky cut him off.
"No! You don't get to talk! You were safe in Brooklyn! There wasn't any danger of them sending you over here! Then you went and signed up for some fool's science experiment! And I will never, ever, be able to make it up to your Ma'!"
Bucky flopped on the ground and rolled away. It didn't matter anymore anyway. He'd failed at the thing he'd promised Sarah Rogers before she passed. But, dammit, he was going to die trying to make amends.
The tent was quiet for a long, long time. So long that, if Bucky didn't know better, he'd have thought the man had left. But there was the telltale clumsy shuffle as Rogers joined him on his own bedroll not two feet away.
Time passed slowly, excruciatingly so. Bucky's palms began to sweat and so did his bare feet. His heart continued to pound unhelpfully, and his mouth had gone desert-dry. He wasn't prepared to hear the heavy, steady inhale and exhale of a man asleep.
Bucky turned his head, and sure enough, Rogers had assumed his usual arms and legs spread eagle pose. Always a bed hog, he was even more so in this strange new body. And there was still that little click in the back of his throat as he breathed.
That familiar protectiveness was back, full force. Even though it was completely unwarranted. Bucky turned onto his back and listened out of habit. Just like he used to. Making sure his friend was still breathing.
Something closed around Bucky's throat, and something else made him roll toward that which vexed him so. A third something broke down the wall he'd built to protect himself, shattering the rage he'd been harboring since he returned.
Bucky found a warm palm, large enough to fit his whole cheek into. He nuzzled into it, resting the weary weight of his face inside, and breathed easy for the first time in days.
"Steve."
