A/N: So, this is AU. Like, really hella AU. A few things real quick.
So, I'm not sure if I got all of Steve's health maladies down accurately. There's going to be an explanation later in the story about them, so if they do seem off, I have a reason for that.
Also, the layout of each chapter is basically Bucky's POV, then Steve's POV of the same events, with a lil bit at the end tying them together. Sometimes Steve's POV will be first, etc., it'll all be obvious. And since I'm diving into their thoughts a lot for this, even though it's the same events, things are going to be shown in different lights, so I think it won't be repetitive. It was fun to write, so I hope it'll be fun to read.
That's all I think I need to say right now, so, yeah. Hope you enjoy.
Truth be told, Bucky Barnes died long ago.
Maybe when he became a sniper, there was a bit of James still left in him. Perhaps there was a trace of him left in his soul, something that allowed him to still smile that cocky grin despite the back of a sniper rifle digging into his shoulder.
But it's been years since then. Three, to be exact.
Three years, a birth and a death.
James Buchanan Barnes died, and the Winter Solider was born in his wake.
A bit more darker, a bit more jagged, a bit more soulless. Having over a hundred confirmed kills and being one of the most in-demand assassins does that to one, despite the fact that he's not quite an assassin anymore.
He drops down on the fire escape on his toes, managing to be completely silent on the rusting, rattling metal. The loud wind whipping around the tall brick building does help with the noise.
The lock to the window is a little old and a little sticky, it takes him a few more moments to pick than usual, but he gets it undone. He always does.
Window open, slip inside, thick leather boots coming to fall gently onto worn wooden floorboards.
The Winter Soldier gets his bearings, finds himself in a hall.
Check the missions status, find the sketchbook, then eliminate the target if needed.
Easy as one, two, three.
One.
The layout of the apartment is the same as the layout as most cheap apartments, and he finds the sole bedroom with ease. The door is shut, and locked, but that's taken care of in a few flicks of a lock pick, one soft twisting of a doorknob.
He opens the door a minuscule crack, and glances inside.
There's a machine whirring in the corner, looking gray and vaguely medical, and not at all threatening, so he doesn't pay it any mind.
Small and nonthreatening, there's a small lump in the bed, residing underneath no less than six blankets. Perfectly still, and he can see a glimpse of a pale, slender hand, resting next to a head of pale, thin, blond hair.
He's asleep.
Two.
He gently closes the door, turns to go back down the hall. The hall leads to him a small kitchen slash living room combo. Blankets are scattered everywhere, empty mugs of tea grace every flat surface, and there's a desk that's almost completely covered in pencils and markers and papers.
Underneath a few sheets, a thin piece of a cardboard cover is sticking out. He crosses the room easily, sifts through the papers, and in less than a few seconds, the sketchbook is in his hands.
Considering how smoothly the mission went, there's no need to eliminate the target.
Until:
Three.
He turns around, and standing there is him.
He's even shorter than he expected, he'd be surprised if the man was tall enough to reach his shoulders. He's sickly pale, that's visible even in the sparse light that the moonlight floating through the curtains provides, and bruises lace his wrists, arms, face. His chest rises and falls with a hitch, and an audible wheeze to match.
The Winter Soldier is fairly certain he could snap him with one hand.
Perhaps even the non-metal one.
His hands are fists, and there's a scowl on his face. He speaks first, in between raspy breaths.
"What the hell are you doing in my apartment?"
And, for a moment, the Winder Soldier is too caught up in those piercing blue eyes to remember.
If he were James, Bucky, the man he used to be, those were the kind of eyes that would make him stop in the middle of the street to offer up some cheesy pick up line. The kind of bruises he'd want to trace with his fingers, press soft kisses to in the middle of the night. Shoulders so slender that would fit perfectly tucked under his arm, thin fingers that would fit perfect in between his own.
But he isn't Bucky.
Hasn't been for a long time.
So he narrows his eyes, subconsciously makes himself bigger. Shoulder's rising, chest inflating, chin tilting up. He can be intimidating when he wants, and he wanted, most of the time.
Despite this, the target, the mission, he stood his ground. Even more surprisingly, he stepped a step closer, lifting up a bony finger to aim it at the terrifying assassin that he appeared to not be terrified of.
"I'm going to ask you one more time, what the hell are you doing here?" he demands, in a voice too deep. It seems out of place in his willowy frame.
The Winter Soldier doesn't care about his missions. Even back when he was Bucky, he tried not to give a shit.
But, for some godforsaken reason, he raises up the sketchbook, a silent answer.
The man frowns, eyes darting from the assassin to the sketchbook and back again.
The Winter Soldier isn't sure what he expects. Questioning, maybe. Wonder. Begging. Something along those lines.
That isn't what happens.
"Oh," the man says. "That."
He smiles, a tired, joyless smile.
"Take it."
And then, he turns, and walks away.
He walks away.
And the Winter Soldier isn't quite sure how to react to that, because people are usually too locked up in fear in his presence to walk away, and if they do make any move to go, it's to run. And usually, there's a bullet in between their eyes before they can even take a step.
But this man who looks like a strong breeze can carry him away, with bones like toothpicks and skin like glass, he walks away.
"Shut the window when you leave," he says, over his shoulder, "Can't afford to catch pneumonia again."
The man doesn't look back at him, he just goes down the hall, enters his bedroom. A heartbeat later there's the sound of the door clicking shut, the lock being turned.
The Winter Soldier still stands there by the desk, because this man just walked away.
And, more surprisingly, he let him.
Perhaps even more surprisingly, as he walks down the hall, he passes up the bedroom completely. The idea of busting the door, firing a gun, cleaning up blood does cross his mind, but he doesn't
He isn't quite sure why.
When the Winter Soldier leaves the tiny Brooklyn apartment, he makes sure to close the curtains of the window behind him. He shuts the window tight, replaces the lock, and climbs down the fire escape.
Once he's lowered into the alley beside the building, and he comes close enough to a streetlight to see, he glances down at the sketchbook.
He flips open the cover.
In plain, tiny handwriting, on the top left corner of the inner cover, is a name.
Steven G. Rogers
The Winter Soldier glances up from the sketchbook, to the window he just exited, and maybe if he squints there's the faint outline of someone there. It's gone a second later, and maybe it was just a trick of the light.
Either way, he snaps the book shut.
The Winter Soldier disappears into the shadows, as he always does.
It's a windy night and Steve Rogers can't sleep, because Steve Rogers can never sleep on windy, rainy nights.
There was maybe a time, back when he was a kid, when the sound of rain would lull him to sleep, when the billowing wind through trees was as comforting as a blanket.
Sometime before 'bad weather' became synonymous with 'hospital bills'.
On cold, windy days like these, he locks all the doors and windows of his apartment, wraps himself in blankets like barricades. He drinks tea that's probably too hot and too sweet, and he goes to bed early.
And he lays in the darkness, listening to the wind, wishing that for once the calamity of anxiety in his mind would s t o p.
But it doesn't.
The oxygen concentrator in the corner is humming softly, a vague distraction.
The sheets of his bed are itchy and rough, and he's mentally going over how much he'd have to save up to get new ones, when he hears a soft click.
Steve stills, holds his breath, stops that when he can't breathe at all.
He listens.
There's someone at his window – no, there's someone inside.
Steve freezes again, anxiety beginning to tug at his chest. His thoughts flit to the pocket knife hidden in the top drawer of his dresser, and he wonders if he'll be fast enough to go grab it, when he hears someone messing with the lock on his door.
Steve shuts his eyes and tries to make his breathing light, tries to fake the ease that comes with being asleep, for most people. The problem is, sleep never came with ease for him, sleep always was something rough and undesirable, and so his face isn't quite as calm as most people have it when they sleep.
Perhaps his face is a bit too scrunched up, and his breathing is a bit too heavy, and his hands are shaking in a way that they wouldn't if he was actually asleep.
But whomever is at the door merely looks in for a moment before leaving, apparently satisfied.
Steve works two jobs and sells art commissions on the side.
He's lives in a shitty one bedroom apartment, and has to go to the hospital so often that the doctors there know him by name and the nurses don't even have to ask what's wrong anymore.
Point is, he's broke.
And he'll be damned before he lets someone steal any of his few belongings.
Steve gets out of bed as silently as he can, tossing off his mountain of blankets (ignoring the sudden chill down his spine, goosebumps on his arms, and really, the air is too damn cold in here). He grabs the pocket knife from his dresser and places it in the pocket of his pajama pants, deciding to use it as a last resort only.
His knuckles are red and cut up already, and most of his skin is black and blue, so what's one more fist fight?
His door always squeaks a little when you open it fast, so he makes sure to open it slow, it's not as if he could push the heavy wooden door fast anyway.
Moving down the hall is easy enough, Steve's been living in the apartment for long enough to know which floorboards squeak and creak, and which don't.
He reaches the edge of the hall in enough time to see a tall figure rooting through the contents on his desk.
Steve frowns, because besides his art supplies and a few projects in process, there isn't anything worth stealing on the desk.
But still, he clenches his hands into fists, and is about to say something when the man turns around.
And he isn't quite what Steve expected.
Because, of course, the last thing he expected was some guy with a mask and scraggly hair, make-up smudged around his eyes like a goddamn raccoon, and dressed in a leather outfit to top it all off.
His arm is metal, it shines in the sparse light, and although Steve should be terrified, is terrified, he doesn't show it.
"What the hell are you doing in my apartment?" he demands.
A moment afterwards, he sees the pistol at his hip. And the other pistol, on his other hip. And the knife strapped to his thigh. And the fact that this guy is built like a tank. And then there's the fucking metal arm.
The thing that people don't get about anxiety is that it isn't always anxiety.
Steve isn't the type to chew his nails and tug at his hair.
He's trembling hands and sweaty palms.
But the thing is, Steve is a fighter, too. Most of his life he's been put down (emotionally, physically, take your pick), and although his anxiety is very prominent, he's pretty damn tired of being shoved around, by anxiety, people, or other.
Steve isn't the type to let it lock him up.
He's the type to shove it back down his throat, fight it, and then collapse and burn.
So that's what he does.
He grips his hands into tighter fists, hopes his shaking comes off as rage. He adds a harsh glare to further his point.
The man doesn't do anything, he's simply staring at Steve with eyes that look partially dead.
So Steve takes a step closer, and raises a finger to point at him.
"I'm going to ask you one more time, what the hell are you doing here?"
He allows himself a moment of smug pride when he realizes his voice didn't waver one bit.
After a few more moments of their stare down, the man with the mask lifts up the sketchbook in his hands, a silent explanation. Steve didn't see him holding it before, and he glances at the book before looking back at the man.
That goddamn sketchbook.
"Oh," he says, "That."
That sketchbook was always more trouble than it was worth.
That entire situation was more trouble than it was worth, in the end.
That chapter of Steve's life is closed, over and done with, and honestly, he doesn't even know why he still has that damn thing.
He smiles. Tired and joyless.
Because that's how he feels.
After that was over, that was how he was left.
Tired and joyless.
His smile reflects that.
"Take it."
And then Steve turns, goes back down the hall.
"Shut the window when you leave," he says, over his shoulder, "Can't afford to catch pneumonia again."
He walks into his bedroom, shut and locks the door behind him.
Steve is well aware that with the strength that man must be packing, he could bust down the door and have him murdered in seconds. In fact, it seems pretty damn probable.
Steve stands in front of the door, because he wants to look his death head on.
Breathing's a little bit harder, anxiety's a bit heavier, his hands are shaking faster.
There's footsteps, coming down the hall, right in front of his door.
There's a pause.
And then the footsteps continue.
More sounds at the window (was that the curtains sliding shut?), before it's slammed down, there's a fumbling that could maybe be the lock being replaced.
And then there's nothing.
Steve waits a moment before hesitantly stepping out of his room, and going down to the window at the end of the hall. He brushes the curtains aside, just enough so he can look down into the alley outside his window.
Steve can see him better outside, under the light of a dim streetlight. His hair is brown, blocking his face since his head is tilted down, and his arms even more vibrant outside.
He has the sketchbook open, scanning the first page.
A moment later, he glances upwards, to the window. His eyes widen quizzically, as if he could actually see past the curtains, see Steve.
Steve's breath catches in his throat. He steps backwards, and continues to do so until he's positive he's out of sight.
He turns on his heels, rushes back to his bedroom as fast as his legs can carry him, and slams the door shut in his wake. He makes sure to lock it, and only then does he let the anxiety get to him.
Steve backs up, back pressing into the door, and he slides down into a sitting position.
Powering through the anxiety always makes it worse later.
And, oh god, he can't breathe.
While the Fallen Captain sits on his bedroom floor and struggles to exist, the Winter Soldier marches down the alley, down the street.
He can't stop thinking of him, and vice versa.
And neither of them like it.
Because as long as he thinks of him, the more ways he could have died float into his mind, the longer this panic attack is going to be.
And he doesn't allow himself to think of his missions, and if he keeps on thinking of the stick thin man in the apartment he might allow himself to think of other things, more human things, and there is no way that the Winter Soldier is going to defrost again. The only other option is going back and finishing the mission like he should have, but he doesn't let himself think of that either.
Despite their reservations, the two think of each other for the rest of the night.
Not all of it is a panic attack.
Not all of it is murderous.
Both ways, not all of it is bad.