Written for the Prompt Exchange Challenge. Prompt was: A hero is a man who is afraid to run away (wow original titling) from gammadolphin, so thanks very much!
A/N: So apparently the Captain America movies messed with their own continuity. Steve and Bucky grow up together in an orphanage in The First Avenger, and then come Winter Soldier Steve's mum dies when he's adult-ish. So for this I've merged the two together, so Steve is raised in an orphanage because his mum is too sick to work so she can't make money so Steve grows up in an orphanage and he goes and visits him mum in secret until she dies. I don't know, I blame Marvel for not being able to keep their heads on straight.
This story involves some discussion of period-typical homophobia and homophobia as it relates to Christianity, but also two canonically Christian characters (Steve and Bucky) who don't share these views. Every time I read a fic where Steve refers to Thor and Loki as 'practically gods' I cringe a little because Steve Rogers is a God-fearing Christian and thou shalt not worship false idols and I kind of wanted to address the religious thing a little because it's important to his character and almost everyone seems to skip over it. But it's only in part one if you're not interested in that stuff and want to skip over it.
one
Steve Rogers has his sixteenth birthday before he finally works up the nerve to kiss his best friend. He's not getting any bigger or stronger or healthier - hasn't since last year - but Bucky Barnes has been blessed with a whole other set of genetics. Bucky has grown up. Bucky has filled out. He's still growing, and Steve feels a weight behind his hand when Bucky lays it on his shoulder. It wasn't that long ago that Bucky made every move with force, but now he's just there in a way that's impossible to ignore and the world seems to bend around him.
Steve has always felt this way, but now everyone else is starting to notice. Girls are starting to notice, and Bucky notices them right back, waits for them to look with a cocksure grin on his face that Steve knows so well, right before they do something stupid together.
The nun's at the orphanage teach of damnation and hellfire for men who feel for other men the way Steve feels for Bucky. It's a sickness, they say, a perversion; with a cure that can only be found in repentance and the Good Book. But Steve doesn't agree. He's read his Bible, cover to cover, more times than anyone he knows his own age. He had to see for himself if the Sisters are right. Maybe in the Old Testament, perhaps, when the Lord was wrathful and rained a cleansing flood from the sky and bought 12 plagues to Egypt to clear the land for His chosen people, but these words are thousands of years old, passed down in oral traditions over generations before they were finally written down by groups of people who where, by then, only distantly related by blood to the original storytellers or to each other. Allegories, perhaps - for life, for death, for growth and rebirth and spiritual awaking and flourishing.
He looks, instead, to the tales of the Messiah and the disciples who followed him, and Steve finds nothing there that condemns the way he longs for Bucky to hold him the way he holds onto girls as he spins them around the dancefloor, to sling his arm around the back of his chair and brush the back of his fingers against his shoulder the way he does for them.
In the New Testament Steve only finds the story of a man who raised the lowly from their slums, took the hated into his confidence and healed the sick of their ailments. A man who loved mankind, and wanted them all to love each other just the same. Who promised the kingdom of Heaven to all that believe, so long as they help those less fortunate than themselves. A man who died to save the world from sin and ruin and the mistakes and betrayals of the past. Steve can't think that a man like that, whose last commandment was to love one another, could condemn him for the way he feels about Bucky. The Messiah died to cleanse sins and sickness and damnation, and Steve can't help but feel that if the Lord disapproved to the way he felt, the He would have healed him of it a long time ago.
But it takes so long for Steve to act because he's afraid Bucky doesn't feel the same way. And not just romantically. Bucky does not believe in the same way that Steve does - he doesn't kneel in Church with his hands clasped together or keep a Rosary tucked in amongst his small pile of belongings - but Steve hears him sometimes, when his fever dreams are too much for him to fight for full coherency; he hears the prayers that Bucky murmurs into his hands and pillows and overheated air, knees bent and digging into the too-hard floorboards of the orphanage, promising his soul if only Steve is okay again. Bucky hears the preaching of the nuns, he sits through Church right next to Steve, and even though he spends the sermons winking at the girls who look his way, Bucky still turns to prayer at his last, his most desperate - he believes.
Steve is afraid that Bucky will reject him. Or worse. Steve is afraid that Bucky will report him to the Sisters or try to beat it out of him himself. Bucky has never laid an unkind hand on Steve in all the years he's known him. His touch heals and comforts and lashes out only when Steve needs his help to finish a fight, but Steve has seen what is left behind in alleyways of men who are interested in other men. Mostly it's enough that Steve can help - a broken spirt, a broken bone, a broken dream - but there are times when it isn't, and Steve has 'lost' three jackets he really can't afford to lose hoping to give them some dignity in their final rest. He couldn't fight off Bucky even if he wanted to.
Or worse. Steve is afraid that Bucky will no longer want to be around him. Will no longer speak to him. Will sit on the other side of Church and leave Steve to finish fights alone and won't fall asleep at his bedside when fever takes him each winter or touch his shoulder when he has an asthma attack. Steve feels his chest constrict and his breath come in short gasps at the thought of seeing Bucky every day but not being able to call him his friend.
But there are things that Steve is more afraid of. Bucky looks at girls. Girls look at Bucky. Steve watches them looking at each other, and he knows that one day Bucky is going to meet the right girl for him and he'll marry her and they'll have children and a house and a life. And Bucky will try to help him, but no one will want Steve and Bucky will slowly be pulled into a family life where Steve can't follow him without being an intruder. Steve is afraid that he'll marry the first girl who shows even the slightest bit of interest in him, even if he doesn't love her, because he'll be so starved for affection and contact that he will take any option he has. He's afraid that he'll lose Bucky and he'll end up dooming some poor lady to a marriage where she deserves much more than she will get, all because Steve isn't sure he knows how to get by alone any more. He hasn't been alone since he glared and shouted down a boy who decided to taunt the new kid at the orphanage, and Bucky stepped up to finish the fight when it got physical.
So, Steve turns sixteen and he kisses Bucky because he's more afraid of what will happen if he doesn't act than whatever could happen to him if he does. And Bucky isn't sixteen for two months but he kisses back, wraps both his arms so tightly around Steve that he lifts him to his tiptoes and Steve has to scramble his feet a little to keep his balance. Steve has his hands up, cradling Bucky's face, and he can feel his jaw move, whispering words against his lips the same way he whispers prayers - desperate and pleading and devotional. "I can't believe you–" "I never thought–" "Please, Stevie–".
Steve starts to feel the tingling that comes before numbness starts to set in in his feet, but he ignores it, kisses Bucky again and again until he has to catch his breath.
two
It would be so much easier to stay down. Every part of him hurts. His knees hurt most, the sharp sting from when he had hit them, hard, on the concrete ground and it would be so much easier to stay down, because Steve is afraid that this is it, this is the time that he ends up a body at the end of an alleyway because he just won't give up.
But he can't, not this time, not when he only saw the ends of the girls dress slip around the building to the left 10 seconds ago. She's not far enough away, yet, and Steve shudders out of more than just revulsion at the thought of what these three men were about to do to her.
He forces himself to his feet again, the skin on his knees cracking open to expose fresh wounds over top of old ones to the harsh material of his trousers. He can't keep the grimace from his face at the motion, and one of the men grins, nudging the other two and they look away from where the girl left from and advance on him.
Steve can't just stay down.
-00000-
Steve doesn't know how long it's been when he regains consciousness, but it can't have been too long. The sun is still shining, and there's still a painful throbbing in the left side of his head where one of the men had punched him. Steve knows he has to start thinking of excuses to give his boss for the black eye he's going to have by tomorrow.
He stumbles back slowly to his apartment because although he knows that Bucky is going to be angry that Steve got into a fight without him, he would rather be back with him then sleeping his injuries off at a shelter - he knows Bucky is only angry because he's scared of what could happen to Steve, and there's no one that looks after him like Bucky; there's no place he'd rather be right now.
It's not a long walk to the apartment - he'd only gone out to get milk - and that more than anything says he wasn't unconscious for long, because he doesn't run into Bucky out looking for him. Most people would find Bucky's behaviour over-protective, possibly even controlling, but Steve knows that it's only smart. No one gets into as many fights that he can't win as Steve Rogers, no matter how many times Bucky has taught him how to make a fist, or how technically good his stance is. Technique will only get you so far when it comes down to physical blows, and Steve won't give up - he can''t give up - but he's had more black eyes than anyone he knows, been unconscious far more times than is advisable even for someone without all his health conditions. Bucky has probably seen more back alleys than even Steve, trying to find his friend who has gotten into another fight.
Bucky is waiting up for him, and that's not surprising, nor is the look he gets on his face when Steve stumbles through the doorway; angry and confused and hurt and scared, all rolled into one expression that makes Steve want to walk over to him and kiss him to make it all go away, to make Bucky smile at him. But the man who knocked him unconscious also split his lip, and Steve knows from experience that kissing isn't the best course of action right now.
Bucky wastes no time walking over to the sink and grabbing a wash cloth. He doesn't say anything but "sorry" as he goes back to Steve and presses the cloth to his lips, and Steve hisses softly at the contact. He's more used to the stinging pain than he'd like to be, but it's still always a shock, how much a small cut can hurt.
Bucky takes the cloth away and bends down to press his lips softly against Steve's. Steve allows it, because the cut already hurts anyway, and this is a much nicer pain. Bucky puts both his hands gently on Steve's hips and pulls him along until they're both sitting on one of the dining table chairs and then presses his face against Steve's neck. "At least tell me the other guy looks worse."
Steve can't keep a rueful smile off his face, and his throat is so dry he has to swallow before he speaks. "Yeah, Buck. You know me, wouldn't pick a fight I couldn't win."
Bucky makes an aborted snorting sound, but Steve can feel him smile against his collarbone, so he wraps both his arms around Bucky's waist and lets him just hold him for a while, even though he has other things he should be doing. Once, when Bucky got very drunk and Steve was more than halfway to tipsy himself, Bucky confessed that he liked to hold Steve, just so he knew that Steve was really there and was safe. Steve doesn't need protection, or a knight in shinning armor, but it's overwhelming that someone like Bucky cares about him so much, needs him so much; he can't help indulging in it every now and then.
So Steve is back in his apartment with Bucky and Bucky is smiling and that girl in the alleyway will have gotten home safely. All is right in Steve's world.
three
Dr. Erskine had explained everything in more detail than Steve had ever wanted, so as the panels of the machine settle on his bare chest, he is very aware of all the ways in which the procedure could go wrong and he could die a horrible, painful death. He knows that he can still pull out, even now, even when Howard Stark is at the console pushing buttons. Erskine had been explicit about his right to call off the experiment the second he felt uncomfortable.
Steve can't help but be afraid. He has every right to be. Steve knows enough about the way the body works from the many times he has been ill, and death by his rapidly growing muscles crushing all his internal organs simultaneously would sound excruciating enough even if he didn't. He really doesn't want to die, and it must show on his face, because Peggy smiles encouragingly at him. But there is fear in her eyes, too, and it does nothing to calm Steve down.
But he can't back out. He's not here to be Steve Rogers, he's here to offer hope. To a nation, to the soldiers on the battlefield who are dying in their hundreds with no end in sight. He's here to prove that this war can end soon, and end decisively; to give an edge to the Allies and show that Erskine's serum does work.
If he gives up now, he's afraid that he'll be letting them all down. There are men out there risking their lives every day, and Steve doesn't have the right to do any less. And there's Bucky. He's out there, fighting, and Steve is afraid that Bucky will die alone, that all these men will die alone, because he couldn't be brave enough to go through with this experiment. He's afraid that people will just keep dying, and all this fighting for freedom, it will all be pointless because what's the point in defending yourselves if you all have to die to achieve it? He won't let anyone else be killed, not if there's anything he can do to stop it. Not if he can throw himself in front of every bullet and onto every grenade and save someone's life. And this, here and now, this is what he can do.
Steve grits his teeth and stares straight ahead.
After all, this is just another way to die. No different than what everyone on the battlefield faces daily.
four
Steve could just jump out of the plane, he knows that. It's heading to its end in the ocean, whether he pilots it there or not, and Steve hasn't tested all the limits of his new body yet so he doesn't know how how long he can survive in the freezing waters, but now is as good as any time to try. He lost Bucky, it's true, and it hurts more than any physical wound the pain of it - pierces through his heart and drops like a lead weight in his stomach - but Steve still doesn't want to die.
He's afraid that he hasn't done enough to receive salvation. He's killed people, and yes he didn't want to do it and yes it was all in the name of wartime survival, but he killed them, none the less. He's coveted and taken what should have belonged to another. He's tried to do the best with his life, to defend those who can not defend themselves and to help any who ask for it, but Steve doesn't know if the good can outweigh the bad. He heard of damnation every day while growing up in the orphanage, what happens to you when you break God's convenient and he is afraid of it.
He's afraid that he could do so much more, that he could save so many more people, and that by letting himself die now, he's condemning hundreds more to do so, too. That the bullies are still out there, hurting people, and that he, Captain America, could still save them.
But he's also afraid that if he looks back now, he will question himself. And questioning leads to doubt. Doubt that he made the right decisions. Doubt that he gave the right orders. Doubt that he saved as many people or stopped as many of the bad guys as he could or that anything he's done with his life has been worth it.
And if he doubts, then it won't have been. If he doubts, then everyone's sacrifices will have been pointless. Peggy, risking the job that she fought tooth and nail to get, and deserved more than anyone else he knew. Erskine's death, Bucky's death, it will all have been for nothing. Because they trusted him. They believed in him to make the right call, the right play, and if Steve doesn't trust in himself in the same way, then that means that everything could have gone differently and that everything that everyone has lost was because he wasn't good enough. Because he doubted himself.
Steve fixes his gaze straight ahead, and angles the plane steeper towards the water. A quicker death is the one concession he will grant himself.
five
The Winter Soldier has been an assassin for both Hydra and the Soviets. The Winter Soldier has a list of intentional and direct kills longer than anyone he knows other than Natasha, and Steve is sure that the only reason that is true is because the Winter Soldier was deployed only in high-risk and high-profile assassinations. The Winter Soldier has no thoughts except those allowed to him by his handler, no past except what is explained to him by the scientists that wake him up, and no emotions except a sense of failure until his mission is completed. The Winter Soldier is a weapon, tempered and shaped by emptiness and cold, and sharpened by pain. The Winter Soldier is not Bucky Barnes.
Except for all the ways that he is Bucky. Except for the way he looks exactly like him, pale and strong and single-minded. Except for the way he had missed and shot Steve in the back, when he must have had a clear line to his head. Except for the way he had stopped and he had looked confused and terrified before Steve had fallen out of the Hellcarrier. Except for the way he had fished Steve out of the river (because who else could it have been?) and left him alive on the bank instead of finishing the mission, or letting the river finish it for him. Except for the way that he had saved Steve's life, and for a second there, there had been recognition in his eyes.
The Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes and Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier and Steve knows he has to stop the Winter Soldier by any means necessary but he can no more hurt Bucky than he could hurt himself, would allow himself to be killed in combat with the Winter Soldier than he could take out Bucky Barnes. Steve is afraid that when the time comes, he will simply lie down and let the Winter Soldier continue to run free in the world, because he won't be able to look his best friend in the face and stop him.
But if Bucky is there, underneath the brainwashing and the programming and the memory wipes, Steve is afraid of what they will find of what is left of him if Steve lets him continue to fight and kill without the orders from above to do so. He's afraid of what will become of a Bucky who has murdered innocent (and even not so innocent) people under his own power, and he's afraid of what Bucky will do to himself once he finds out.
And Steve is afraid of what the Winter Soldier will do; unteathered, answering to no one and with no one telling him what he can and can't do. The Winter Soldier, who hasn't has his own thought in 70 years, who's learned nothing a normal adult should have - no morality, no compassion - who only remembers killing and forgetting. Who knows what a man like that could do, and Steve fears for the life of anyone the Winter Soldier meets.
Steve knows he has to stop the Winter Soldier to save Bucky Barnes, and when he finally runs into him after months of searching fruitlessly with Sam, he bundles Pepper out of the door and then proceeds to collapse a café around the Winter Soldier's ears.
one
This is the second time Steve has woken up in a hospital and looked over to see Sam sitting with forced nonchalance at the bedside, but it's the first time Steve hasn't been the one in the hospital bed. Instead it's Bucky lying unconscious under crisp white sheets and Steve had been holding on tightly to his hand before he fell asleep and they're still linked loosely together now, but Sam doesn't mention it or even look away from Steve's face now he's awake so he just shuffles his seat slightly closer to the bed and tightens his grip before he addresses Sam.
"You probably think I'm an idiot for trying to save him" and Sam smiles at him, but it's not a mocking grin.
"Yeah, a little. But I'm only a professional therapist, what would I know?" Steve can't help but grin back. Sam makes him smile, and it's been a long time since he's smiled properly. He wouldn't have made it these last few months without him. There has to be something he can do to repay him. Steve reminds himself to ask Pepper what people do for favours nowadays later (do people still set their friends up on dates? Agent Hill works for Stark now, and Sam had stared at her with the widest eyes he'd seen on anyone but Bucky when she rescued them from that prison van. Pepper must be able to find her number).
Sam continues. "No, Steve, but look. I don't know what you can do for him. Just– don't expect too much. But I don't really think you're an idiot. I think you're a hero."
Steve deeply regrets the fact that the serum did not get rid of his pale skin, nor his tendency to blush, but he can't really look at Sam right now and process that, so he turns back to look at Bucky. He thinks about reaching out and brushing some of Bucky's longer hair out of his face like he would before the war and the serum and the ice but he doesn't want to wake him up before he's ready and Sam thinks he's a hero and he doesn't want to do anything to ruin that.
Sam stands up and claps him hard on the shoulder before he leaves the hospital room. Steve just holds on tight to Bucky's hand, and waits to see what the Winter Soldier left of Bucky Barnes.
A/N: So, this kind of turned into a sort of an unintentional prequel to Put Your Hand In My Hand And We'll Stand. It wasn't meant to be, but these things happen, I guess. Both work completely fine without the other, but if you liked this story, then maybe give that one a try?