I Don't own Marvel or Disney/ABC. Wish I did, but I don't! I do own copies of the movies and all current seasons save for season five (Waiting to split the cost with my sister and fellow fan/long-suffering sounding board. Seriously, her and a good friend of mine we will call Trinity are absolutely marvelous souls to listen to me rant and talk out my mad ideas for three or four hours straight. It has been timed, trust me. It is thanks to these two if this story turns out any good so give them props in your reviews! If you like it and the idea. If not...keep your flames on me. I actually need the suntan not them. Writers are practically Word Vampires (Wompires? Sounds Star Wars) so we don't get much sun.) OKay rant/kudos/legal dues over and done with, enjoy!
The boys grow together from scrappy boys to scrawny pre-teens to skinny Steve and trim Bucky, inseparable from the other, with quickly gaining reputations of their own. Steve Rogers, scrawny-punk-who-keeps-getting-back-up-with-pride-bigger-than-himself and Bucky Barnes, won't-pick-the-fights-but-he-sure-will-end-them. That is the reputation the idiots in Brooklyn have given the boys. Bucky and Steve have much different reputations for each other. Steve is "Punk" and "Trouble-maker" while Bucky is "Mama Bear" and "Jerk". Reputations are funny affairs. Based on the knowledge available to those who give them, a person's reputation can be spot on to the character and nature of said person or wildly off-mark.
In future time, the friendship of Steven Rogers and Bucky Barnes would gain a reputation of being forged in steel. Never was one parted far from the other and heaven help the villains that tried. They were fighters together, survivors apart. The world would see Captain America as the calm level-headed man with a plan while his SIC Sergeant Barnes is the epitome of passionate life and goofball antics; reality is that Steve Rogers is fire and passion and an inferno of roiling emotion while Bucky Barnes is ice and razor wit and a blizzard of protective instincts. Only what is expected is searched for and the close-minded only find what they expect. History is written by the victors and no one wants to hear the tales of the Captain's and the Sergeant's battles with each other, often over Bucky reprimanding Steve for rushing head first into a no-win battle again -YOU ARE NOT INDESTRUCTABLE, STEVE! QUIT ACTING LIKE YOU ARE! - though the Commandos pass on those looked over tales for the humor they provide. Larger than life Captain America cowering behind his fancy shield while his slightly shorter best friend reams him a new one with Bucky's favored sniper rifle at the ready in wildly gesticulating hands. After hard missions, The Howling Commandos could always rely on their Captain and SIC to lighten the mood. This duo's friendship, however legendary, was also never without its own pitfalls.
Steve never shares with the Commandos just how far he knows Bucky will go –has gone - to keep Steve safe. It's a terrifying memory.
Terrifying in its truth.
Terrifying in that it is Bucky.
What Steve is privileged –and he uses that word in the loosest definition in this case – to witness is a side of his best friend that Mrs. Barnes never knew of, that the US Army barely saw the outer edges of, that the fellow prisoners of Azzano caught glimpses directed at HYDRA's guards, and that Steve wishes he. Was. Still. IGNORANT. Ignorance is truly bliss. It will be over seventy years later before Steve dwells on this particular characteristic of Bucky and a few years after that in change before the reason behind this part of Bucky can be explained.
The Howling Commandos never know about Bucky's childhood bad days, though they witness a fair few during their time together as a team during the war. When the memories of Azzano and the prison camp become too much, Bucky could be found curled against Steve's side wherever the Commandos have been deployed, stifling sobs into the too broad shoulder and listening to Steve hum Amazing Grace. The old hymn was Bucky's favorite and one of the few things that could calm him quicker than a mere cuddle against someone Bucky deemed safe. Eventually as time passed and the team grew closer, their SIC would come to the other Commandos for comfort often enough that they all knew Bucky's song by heart. Dernier even learned it in French so he could sing Bucky to sleep in accented tenor. The Commandos never teased Bucky or Steve, never questioned where the young men's friendship really lay because as time marched on, the other Commandos took comfort in the odd routine. Their Captain and SIC had their backs always and there was no one else the Commandos wanted to lead them into battle.
Contrary-wise, the Avengers learn of Bucky's bad days and worse days through Steve. They question after Steve is released from the hospital because Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are best friends so why is Bucky trying to kill Steve, how is Bucky even still alive? Steve doesn't know much beyond HYDRA is in SHEILD and what he can imagine has been done to Bucky. So instead he shares about the Bucky before and what he sees in this Bucky after.
Before: Bucky hated anything constricting around his neck. Ties were tolerable to an extent, but never scarves. Mrs. Barnes worried constantly during the freezing Brooklyn winters when Bucky would run around without a scarf to keep the chill from his skin. The blood-curdling panic attack the first winter Jimmy lived as a Barnes when Mrs. Barnes tried to put a woolen scarf around his neck dissuaded any future attempts.
Before: Bucky was a magician with anything fabric. Steve often watched Bucky make, hem, or patch clothes for a little extra cash or favors down the road. The Barnes and Rogers families may not have had much, but Bucky made sure they never lacked when it came to clothes.
Before: Bucky was a suave talker; more than once he had been able to talk the prices down to pennies when money was tight and they needed medicine or food.
Before: Bucky was a master marksman. Able to make impossible shots for normal men and knives were practically an extension of his body. Only after the Fall would Steve learn that Bucky's skills frightened his teachers to a certain degree; it was too natural to not be something he already practiced with on a semi-daily basis. Steve kept quiet about the dark knowledge he held in regards to his best friend's preternatural ability in finding the kill points on a target with anything sharp enough to conceivably use as a weapon. Somethings were better left unknown in the black of night.
Before: Bucky may have hated the war and having to kill, but he was observant to a paranoid degree. Steve was the artist of the two but Bucky noticed details in people and the surroundings that Steve often overlooked.
Before: Bucky couldn't stand silence outside the zone he created when providing sniper cover for the Commandos. The constant humming Bucky did under his breath became almost a better warning system than Steve's own super-hearing. If Bucky fell silent and the Commandos weren't a) in the middle of a battle or b) camped for the night, then he had picked up something everyone else had missed.
Before: Bucky wouldn't hesitate to kill to protect his family.
After: The Winter Soldier was a master assassin. Powerful physically, flawless skill and form. Knives were an extension of his arm. A master marksman.
After: The Winter Soldier wore a uniform that appeared molded to his body. His neck was covered; his mouth muzzled; eyes hidden behind tinted goggles. He was not free.
After: The Winter Soldier did not speak. Not until Steve called for Bucky, until the Soldier was frantic with confusion and anxiety and pain.
After: The Winter Soldier is silence incarnate. He doesn't speak unless needed. He makes no sound aside from the usual sounds of battle.
After: The Winter Soldier would kill for the completion of his mission. Steve is alive because the Bucky in the Soldier did not kill family.
Steve sees Bucky in the way the Soldier moves, how he handles the knife and rifle are as known to Steve as Steve's own shield. The Soldier is not Bucky but Bucky lives inside the Soldier. Therefore HYDRA will perish at Steve's hands; a promise written in blood and carried on a turbulent storm raging in summer blue eyes. A promise re-made by the Captain and the Avengers silently agree that they will be right at his side as the back-up he will require.