Recognition

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I own nothing

{Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.}

Bucky awoke with a severe headache, pulsing against his skull. It was a hangover mixed with emotional lapses banging into his temples. He felt the coldness; it was noneffective against his skin. He had been immune to the unrelenting ice which encased his bones each time he was locked into the chamber and forced to sleep while ice froze his heart, and numbed his brain. He never used to care about the pain.

However, he soon became a captive to the spasms in his heart when he stared down at the battered and bloodied face of a man he avowed to protect with his own life.

After that battle on the hellicarrier, he felt the guilt seeping in his blood; disjointed memories configured back into firm pieces of good things, not death and red hazed nightmares of his missions. Now, he was becoming disarmed-weakened by thoughts without the harboring control.

He was condemned no to care, to look back or to grieve for the lives he took away. His time had been stolen from him. There was no reason to carry on without his finger latched against a trigger. He never had warring thoughts consuming his mind, emotions raging in his veins. James Buchanan Barnes, the real man behind the semblance of the ruthless and uncompromising Winter Soldier was lost, pieces of his life were slowly returning, but the good, defiant Brooklyn kid was a fading flicker in his darkened soul. He was created to have no voice and no past. He was a hollow weapon, molded into the icy flames of HYDRA; a killing machine. Not a man; not a friend.

His eyes fluttered open, lashes parted to reveal glazed ice blue embers settled beneath, shimmering out of the seams of dark hair. He groaned up his throat, knocking the debris of the clanging noise of dented cola cans hit the floor. His slender and muscled body wrapped in dark green sheets that smelt of ash, blood and sweat.

His disheveled, matted shoulder-length hair fell laden over his prickly stubble. His smooth, chiseled lines held remnants of feverish warmth.

Wincing from lingering spurs of pain; Bucky gripped his metal hand over the cover, and then straightened his joints to an upward position, abdomen crunched and pectorals squeezed into a firm mass of muscle as he sat on the edge. He had become aware of the bright somber light illuminating through the dark guest bedroom. His new home that he altered into his own personal, messy isolation chamber. Heaps of clothes piles on the floor, posters of the Howling Commandos framed with signatures of his friends. Empty plastic coffee cups scattered around the dressers and holes in the plaster with notes written in pencil telling Steve that he was sorry for the damage. He still couldn't function normally; his violent impulses to kill surged in his veins. He kept a combat knife under his pillow, and a pistol wedged between the mattress and box spring. He was always prepared to kill any intruder who dared to threaten his best friend.

His blue eyes trained on the tiny dark shadow poised on the window, it was a stray black and gray kitten he rescued in a subway tunnel. She was rendered to be dead, she ribs were broken in three different claws, her fur skinned from wire fences, and tail had been chopped off. He kept her safe, and nursed her back to health. It was slow process, six weeks it took him to gain her trust, but after she became his little shadow trailing him through the apartment. He named her Nikita.

"Good morning, Niki," Bucky said hoarsely, rising from the bed and moving tentatively across the room, extending out his metal hand to the kitten as he crouched to his knees, feeling the bruising coloring his sculpted thighs burn as his other hand scooped her up and cradled her against his bare chest. She batted his dog tags with her white mitten paw. "Hey, careful. Those are as old as I am," he blissfully smirked, only to have his senses lulled with a familiar smell of that hit his nose.

"Hello, Buck," Steve's intruding, yet soft voice echoed in his head. Reacting, Bucky whipped his head around, and stared intently at his best friend leaning against the door frame. Everything looked normal about him-massive muscles, golden hair and bright crystal blue eyes. He wasn't dressed in his uniform, but a winter coat and jeans.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Bucky pointed at Steve. "You're not at the billionaire tin can's tower today, Steve?" he asked, his voice ragged and thick.

Steve shrugged, "Nope." he answered, simply. "I kind of wanted to spend the day with my best friend."

"Why would you want to spend time with a guy like me?" Bucky inquired as he somewhat slurred, his throat suddenly became laced with bitterness. It was still unnatural to live without orders and allow machines to erase his guilt. He lowered his eyes down to the floor, and clenched his jaw. He was ashamed of his past horrors. He didn't deserve Steve's friendship. He didn't deserve a chance to restore a life.

"Bucky," Steve said quietly, moving closer to his displaced, timid friend. His eyes bright, and filled with hope. "You're my friend. There is no one else I want to spend Thanksgiving than you, James Barnes."

"Thanksgiving?" Bucky repeated, mashing his teeth into his lip. He caught another whiff of the enriching aroma blanketing throughout the apartment. He stammered, a little and placed Nikita on the piles of blankets. He eased back up, and leveled his confused glare at Steve. "I remember something..."

"Well, it's a special day. You mostly missed it because of your sleeping habits.." Bucky raised his eyebrows, and pulled open the drapes. Every peaked roof was covered with heavy and untouched blankets of flawless snow, and the sky was darkened as tiny golden lights wrapped around trees glowed comforting warmth. The air was filled with anew snowflakes, and crisp temperatures. Buildings were obscured shapes, and Christmas decorations were placed in front of balconies.

Steve inched closer, and placed his large hand on the metal plated shoulder. He sensed his friend's distress, and watched tears streak down his masculine cheeks. "Everything is fine, Buck.. You can still have the leftovers with me. Besides it's not about the food...It's about being thankful for the people you have in your life."

Bucky lifted his head, disquiet and his icy eyes wet with building tears; and his breath was broken against his lips. "I know...You want your real friend back, Steve...I can't reverse myself back to the James Barnes. That part of me is gone and it's never coming back." He became distant, and sidestepped away from Steve. "I am not a good man, and I don't deserve to have you as my friend."

"That's not true," Steve said, firmly.

"Yes it is. It is true."

"No it's not." Steve replied, his voice stern and unyielding, sure. How could he be sure that something utterly unfair could be pieced back to together with hope? That is demeaned him so much, to stare at the ghost of his best friend trapped underneath the fierce exterior of a mind altered assassin. For seventy years his soul grieved under the ice, he wanted to find Bucky, but Phillips denied his rescue mission and he abandoned his friend-his own family and gave him to HYDRA's butchers.

"How do you know that, Steve?" Bucky barked at him. "I killed a lot of people. I should have killed you, but I didn't because I knew you and how could destroy the one good thing that made him feel human again? You should have left me to die in the streets. It was a fate I deserved." He halted in his words, panting and crying, as if he forgotten how to speak. His youthful face was drenched, the amber glow of street lights reflected in his darkened gaze as he staggered closer to the window, averting himself from Steve's understanding blue eyes. "I want to have freedom this, Steve. I don't want to feel dead anymore."

He turned his head, glancing over his shoulder, "You are the good thing that I have left to fight for...Nothing else matters in this life, but you, Steve Rogers" he choked out, tasting the salt of his tears drip over the edges of his full and quivering lips. "I made a promise to her mother that I will always protect you...I failed...I failed big time because of this..." He lifted his metal arm, cringing at the hissing metallic noise of the plates shifting. "I spent years living beyond the grave...Undead and alone."

Steve bowed his head, "You're not alone, Bucky." he whispered, but his voice cut away through the silence. He was fighting his own pain. He inclined his head back up until he was eye leveled with Bucky, and they both fell apart.

Bucky sniffled, and dropped to his knees, and wrapped his arms around Steve's legs. "I'm sorry." he wept, soaking the denim, as he unleashed his sorrow. "I'm so sorry I did those things...I want to fight, but they never gave me the chance..."

"It's okay, Buck," Steve lowered himself down, gently, and placed his hand firmly on his friend's shoulder. His crystal azure eyes welled with moisture. He held the other man close to his chest, securing his arms around the trembling shoulders. "I can't tell that everything is going to be fine...I wish I could, but whatever matters between us you will always be my brother. I thank God for you, James Barnes."

Bucky lifted his head his head, snuffling, as he looked deeply into Steve's gleaming eyes, and he tried to speak, but he couldn't stop crying. "Steve..."

"I know, Buck," Steve said, brushing the straggly hair out of Bucky's pale blue eyes. "I don't need words to know that you're to say."

"You're a punk." Bucky managed to smile, and buried his face into Steve's shoulder, while his bionic arm enclosed over his back. "..But you're mine, Stevie." he growled, but then it turned into a deep roar. "You're my friend."

Steve smiled, and closed his eyes, shielding Bucky with his warmth. "Always," he whispered, strength was returning in his voice.

Hearing those words touch his marred heart, Bucky clamped his eyes shut, and embraced the greatest, and unbreakable gift he could ever receive.

Friendship.