His mate whirls around, knocks the man down and lands securely, one foot on the ground and the other on the target's throat. An older man, who poses no threat to them at all, is weak and can only choke and cry and die under his mate's weight. He doesn't feel anything, just focusses on his mate's blonde hair, his bright eyes.
One of their handlers had told them they were like day and night before, and he hadn't understood, but when they walked inside of this building, so close that their fingertips touched with every step, he had caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a window. And they are, he's dark and his mate is sunlight.
They are dark and they are sunlight.
He cuts the words into his mate's arm, the target's corpse still next to them and doesn't say a word; the other knows already, holds out his arm before he can even unsheathe his knife. They can feel each other, are one soul in two bodies, and he feels the slide of the knife, the slight burn on his own arm as he carves letter after letter.
"What do they mean?", the other asks, because words are superfluous but still feel good sometimes.
"It's who we are", he answers, and presses his lips to the cuts, licks away the blood and feels the copper tingling on his tongue.
Their handlers collect them only a few blocks away, push them into the back of the car, which is dark and dirty, but they don't care, because for the first time in what feels like forever, they are alone. His hands find his mate's easily, pull him close and closer, until their bodies are pressed together, every inch of them touching.
It's the closest to peace he can remember (and later wonders why it is one of the few memories they leave them, along with the chairs, with the feeling of being forced apart), just being curled around his day, his night, until it feels like their bodies are one, just like their minds.
The cryo-chambers are another thing they let them keep, or maybe they have just spent too much time in them for even the chairs to undo those memories. By now, just looking at the chairs, just looking at the door of the room they are in makes him, makes them shiver; his mate reaches out and intertwines their fingers.
It's an unpermitted touch, but it feels good nonetheless
They're on the roof of a skyscraper and his other is aiming a gun, calculating wind and how the bullet will fly, when he remembers something. It's not much, just a word, but feels impossibly important, more important than anything; it's a name, and within a second, he has his knife out and is cutting away at the black leather wrapped around his limbs.
They'll call it an accident later, but now he has to reach skin, the one on the inside of his arm, where no one ever checks, because limbs can be replaced. He carves it into his flesh, the name, so he won't be able to forget, letter by letter, all five of them red against pale skin.
His other is watching when he looks up again, blue eyes curious and dull. "What did you get?", his other asks, his day, and he answers, "Your name."
And shows the cuts to let his mate read, Steve, in bloody letters.
His day nods, Steve nods, and he raises the knife, offers it to him; if either of them should wear those scars, it's the other. Who cuts open his own clothes, near his crotch, where no one but him ever looks, and slices important letters into his flesh.
"Your name", he repeats, because it's still so important, saying it feels important too. They had names, still have them, and that is worth everything.
His day looks up, his mate, Steve, and says, "Your name, too. We're the same."
And he's right, Steve thinks. Steve is right.
He knows that something is wrong the second their handlers look at them, they know, because his day next to him reaches out to touch, tension threaded through his limbs. Fight or flight, that's what his own body tells him, but he wills his instincts down, forces himself to forget about them because they can't act on them.
They have talked about it before, about killing their way out of their cells, keeping each other safe, but it's too dangerous; they could die. Or even worse, only one of them could .
So he just stays still, lets them push them into a car he has never seen before, which is dirty and dark and maybe a little bit familiar, and clings to his mate as tightly as he can. Mutters the other's name into his soft, light hair. Their name.
They know. That's what they tell him, not them, because they forced his day to wait outside; they know about the carved words, the flashes of memories, just never bothered to do anything about it. Not until now, because one of them saw the name written red on his pale skin, and days and nights and the Fourth of July and the fact that one of them liked the taste of cotton candy doesn't matter, but a name does. A name is almost, a little of an identity, and that is unacceptable.
One of them, with a voice which is almost gentle, hair shining like copper in the fluorescent light, tells him that he understands that they want to know, but they can't. They work together so much better like this, when they're just one.
Another one laughs and pushes the gentle one away. Says that they need to punish him for this, says that they thought about just burning the letters out of his flesh, but decided against it.
Says that they'll take his arm instead.
There are no anaesthetics, because he's not worth them, so he feels every bite of the saw's teeth, hears his flesh tear and his bones splinter. Three times, he passes out, but they just stop and wake him again, make sure he won't miss a second.
It's punishment after all, they say, as they tear through the last sinews, the last bits of skin still connecting him to his arm, as they raise his severed limb for him to see.
No worries, you'll get a new one, the gentle one says, and he can't even find the strength to want to kill him; every bit of attention is concentrated on how much it hurts.
He does get a new arm, made out of metal parts and wire and screws. They have to slice half his chest apart for them to fit; he passes out the moment he feels one of them bending his ribs back to get to his chest cavity, but this time, they don't wake him up again.
His mate looks shaken and pale when they push him back into their cell, still in so much pain he can hardly walk, but the other still has both his legs, and that is all that matters. He falls down into his day's waiting arms, which are strong and warm and comforting, wrap themselves around his form within a few seconds.
Fingers in his hair, pushing it back, hands sliding up over a cold, unfamiliar, heavy metal arm, a choked sob coming from his mate's chest, that's all he can feel, hear, before he passes out again. That and his day's, Steve's, voice in his ear.
"We'll get out of here."
It's only the next day that he realises that his mate is still wearing their name.
He expects their handlers to put them on the chair the next day, but they don't. Don't do more than bringing them food twice, some water and leaving them in each other's arms, both in pain, but the closeness taking some of it away.
For what might be the first time since they were captured, they sleep together; it's only when his day is inside him that he realises how much he craved it. It's not battle, but still they move together as one, and for the matter of a moment, he forgets about the pain, because everything which isn't them has molten away and vanished.
And yet, there are tears in his eyes, running down his cheeks and wetting his mate's shoulder when he buries his face against it; he can't remember the last time he cried, but then again, he doesn't remember a lot, just a name and the name of a taste and that a certain date holds some significance. That Brooklyn is the place they lived in and that they bonded sometime in winter when they were both so cold they thought they'd freeze.
That they loved each other from the start and fell together.
The next day, they still don't come for them, neither the one afterwards. It's strange, makes him anxious until his day says that maybe they cannot freeze him when his shoulder is still aching so much he screams at night.
His mate doesn't have to wake him, although it's dark and dirty and no one called. But there is a certain breathless excitement coming through his bond, a determination he has never felt before, and within a second he is sitting upright, wide eyed.
"I remembered your name", his mate says, even if he wouldn't have to. "I remembered your name, Bucky."
There is no plan, but there doesn't have to be.
The one who interrupted the gentle, copper-haired handler opens the door to their cell, wearing the worst kind of smirk, and he, Bucky, knows that they're going to kill him before he is even on his feet.
They have no weapons, but they don't need them, his metal hand is just as good when he squeezes the man's throat until he can feel bones cracking and skin breaking, blood colouring the metal red.
His day crushes various internal organs with a few well-placed punches; he wants to maybe just tear out the man's tongue, feel his eyeballs pop under his thumbs, but doesn't give in to the temptation.
There is no time.
Instead, they take the man's keys once he is dead, his weapons, and leave. There are countless ways to go, and neither of them can remember any of them; they all look the same.
Steve turns right, so he does too, follows his day like he always did, always will.
He cannot count the men and women they have killed once they see sunlight again, but their blood is slick between their fingers, smeared on their skin and making their lips taste like copper. But it doesn't matter, oh God, it doesn't, because they are outside and free and together; both of them are wounded but the pain is easy to ignore.
Because there is sunlight, which for once isn't tainted by a mission, because there is wind on their skin, and because he has a name, and his mate has one too.
Bucky, he repeats to himself for what feels like the hundredth time, although there are no chairs to take the memory away anymore (at least not for now, they haven't killed all of them, and they will search for them, for their best weapon, but he won't let this sunlight be dimmed down by such a thought), then whispers Steve to himself when he looks over to his alpha.
There is a vicious cut on one of his cheeks, a bullet has grazed his side and he knows that even now, bruises are blossoming on the other's skin; his blonde hair is matted with blood and brain matter and small, almost invisible splinters of bones, but the sunlight makes his eyes look as blue as the sky itself. He's never looked more beautiful.
As if he had felt the gaze, his mate, alpha, day, Steve, turns around and looks back at him, reaches out to intertwine their fingers.
A part inside of Bucky fears the punishment which could follow a forbidden touch like that, before he remembers that there I no one to forbid touches anymore; he grips Steve's fingers tighter and thinks he faintly remembers something similar, the feeling of frail, talented fingers in his.
"We're not the same anymore", he says softly, when the sun has vanished and risen again two times since they left handlers, scientists, soldiers behind. They are inside a small apartment which doesn't belong to them, their new, too soft clothes strewn across the floor; a second in which their skin doesn't touch seems too long.
They are moving together slowly, because passion only lasts for a couple of hours, Steve is inside of him, hot and perfect, making the edges of thoughts blur together, his arms are around Bucky to keep him from falling apart.
Steve looks surprised, a smile (which looks so new, so sweet on his lips; Bucky doesn't know how he went without seeing it every day until now) curling his lips upwards as he thrusts into Bucky again, deep and slow.
"But of course we are", he answers and runs his hand down over Bucky's chest , feeling the beat of his heart. Sends a wave of love through their bond, which makes him shiver and gasp, clings to Steve and wraps his legs around his mate tighter.
And understands.
Because they have names now, and maybe will one day carry a whole person behind them, but it doesn't matter, because in his chest, right next to him, he can feel Steve, just as intensely as himself. And they are still the same.