It's Never Gonna Be Easy
All characters belong to Marvel Comics and Studios
It became an indecisive choice for him to reach for the armed stock of automatic rifles. In the covering of shadow, he was distraught against the manifesting horrors that his recovered memories conceived. Nothing was clear to fathom. He could pull the trigger on anyone; reveal the extent of his brutality; at this defining moment his presence infinitely stood pliant in the grayness of light slanting over the metal panels of the Quinjet. Cold rushes of blood shot through his veins, the rawness of guilt scraped over his heart as he awaited for new orders to execute.
Whether he chose to accept it, Bucky was a condemned man—a conditioned and enhanced killer—who unwillingly fell into servitude for the heads of HYDRA. There was no common ground to be rectified with Tony Stark; he was beyond calibration in sense of unbidden empathy. He followed orders as his life-line and succeeded by translating himself into becoming the necessary of evil. He never once took a moment to blink at the flames destruction he caused, the countless lives he ruined because he was entangled in wires, tortured until numbness claimed his body. Now, he was at the other end of the gun, a targeted deviant exposed to the light.
Wearing discarded Kevlar pieces of his vested combat uniform didn't give him a sense of redemption; the lingering stench of ash and blood had become a potent mantle to don in the clear view of the cruel and unrelenting world around him. Steve had avowed that he would be restored, but that was a false illusion of hope. The real James "Bucky" Barnes, the protective brother of the little guy, a Brooklyn boy of valor and hell bent defiance was swallowed up into the ice—that man could no longer prevail in that existence.
Maybe he could become someone else—a different man in the uniform. someone better than what he was made to believe when he stared back into his reflection. He had to make a dominant choice to regain that blaze of fighting spirit, not the code of an assassin, but a true promise that could redefine the mistakes of his torturous past.
Shifting his weight in a defensive stance of unease, muscles flexed under his jacket, his dismal gaze narrowed at his metallic hand: a reminder that he would never be free. As the cold approach of his murderous impulse craved for release, he involuntarily turned away from the armory, heaving out breaths and trying to maintain focus. His glacial blue eyes trained on the pale light of the morning; but the ambiance of dread was loitering. Dark edges of memory obscured his mind, storms of torment seized his soul as he fought against the dominating and merciless presence of the Winter Soldier, clenching his bionic hand into a rigid fist.
"I don't deserve it," he seethed in low pitch, conviction evident in his strained baritone. He was becoming unhinged. Red flares surged in his vision and senses welcomed the potent stench of blood -the hollow dampness of the cryo-pod. He gritted his teeth, sealing his eyes away from the slants of light, and absently reached for something to hold onto that served as his anchor.
Violent bombardments of disjointed memories begun to reconstruct, as deviants—faces of people— tangled into the mechanical cortex of new correction. A driving force of unstoppable and reattached emotions punctured through his speeding heart as the influence of HYDRA that harbored his will for seventy years faded.
"I've got a good friend..." He remembered that sure glimpse of hope. The vivid and patriotic colors of America conquered through the flashes of his addled mind. "Steven Grant Rogers... Little Stevie... My brother." He opened his teary blue eyes and searched for him. One step and he felt unbalanced, detached from the isolated asylum of his defiant spirit. He had to find a reason to fight again: he did.
Near the cockpit of the quinjet, Steve stood in plaintive silence, masked by the stalwart expression he expertly wore like the uniform on his back. The tight and secure fabric of his Captain America uniform provided him with a measure of self-assurance, but not half as much as the company he traveled with. Clint Barton piloted the quinjet with his hawkish eyes, Wanda, Sam and Lang sat in companionable silence in the cargo hold...and Bucky stood in a meditative posture across from stood few but strong against the allies they once fought beside, friends they once confided with. To say this situation was less than ideal would be a massive understatement, but desperate times called for unthinkable measures.
Steve never once considered himself a rebel in his life, even if half the world now thought of him as such in this moment. He was a man who believed in standing up for the common good, fighting against injustice and defending the freedom of every man and woman.
But the world wasn't black and white, especially in this day and age where the lines had been blurred and he'd been compelled to stand up for not just the civil liberties of his fellow teammates, but for the fate of his life-long friend who had committed terrible atrocities under the control of the real enemy. Steve would be remiss to believe that the world...that Tony...didn't have good reason to want Bucky pay for the Winter Soldier's crimes, but none of them would care to see the true reason behind his actions. Bucky would never have been given the chance at a fair trial or stand a chance at redemption—and Steve would never have allowed that to happen to him. He felt hopeful that Bucky could regain some semblance of the good man he once was, and it was enough for Steve to stand ready and determined to defend him against those hunting him.
Natasha would tell him that he'd been compromised—allowing emotion to control his judgment... She was only partially correct. Emotion drove him to defend Bucky, while logic and principal compelled him to stand up against the accords and the former allies that now sought to rein him and his team into the control of a system compromised from within. A weight of dread hung over him at the mere thought of what was sure to become a small war between a divided unit that once protected this world and its people. How did it come to this? Closing his eyes, Steve steeled himself as his weight rested against the back of the co-pilot chair, the comfortable leather against his back easing his tension only somewhat. He needed to appear strong and decisive for those following his charge; his trained azure orbs took in the close profile of each of his team members. They all looked determined and ready for the fight ahead of them. Steve couldn't have felt more humble and glad to have them with him in this time.
He couldn't have felt more complete to have Bucky at his side again.
As Steve took a moment to study his old friend's appearance, he knew the years had changed him even if his appearance really hadn't. The decades spent coming in and out of the cryo-freeze had drastically slowed Bucky's aging down that he looked like a youthful man in his thirties, the same as Steve, instead of the ninety-plus year old man he actually was. The serum in his veins no doubt also contributed to that factor. But there was still a haunted weariness in his eyes that was unmistakable and familiar. He recalled their earlier years, even during the War, Bucky's deep blue eyes were always full of life and wit; now they were stoic and reserved—the gaze of a hardened soldier preparing for the coming battle. They may not have been the eyes of the Bucky Steve once knew, but they were preferable to the cold emptiness he saw in the eyes of the Winter Soldier only a couple of years ago. His hair hadn't changed since their last encounter in this era; Bucky wore his thick, long, dark brown tresses down to his neck—a far cry from the clean cut and proper young man Steve grew up with. He'd be the first to admit it made Bucky appear more...feral if not intimidating, along with the thickening scruff along his jaw.
His shape had changed as well; his body mass was thicker if not bulkier, the result of decades worth of training and proper regiment. Hydra had kept their asset in prime condition and despite being free of their control, Bucky kept himself in good form for a soldier. The prosthetic cybernetic arm was still a strange sight, but Steve was slowly coming to accept it as both a limb and a weapon on Bucky's augmented body; one powerful enough to threaten even Stark.
In a cautious attempt to shift his weight, Bucky felt his bristled jaw tightening into a discontent clench, and his pale azure eyes remained impassive—deaden and fathomless as black ice. Aggression fueled in his pulsing blood. He bit down on his lower lip, scraping the plump flesh as labored pants emitted from his strained throat. His eyes glared with a glacial dismissal towards the familiar sense of brotherly acceptance—family.
"I just…" His throat closed up, it was a struggle to muster up non-effective words. He was trained to display no emotion, and detachments of humanity. He walked in the shadows, damaged and relentless for attack, Having the security of a friend meant compromise—resistance to his cognitive programming. Whether he could admit it, Bucky had lost purpose within himself; he was a solider to the core, nothing else defined his existence. Being a dead HYDRA operative, and walking through the afterlife—a place where rogue spies and assassins loomed, it was all that the world could grant him.
The Winter Soldier never wanted to be welcomed, to feel belonged. He refused to deserve the security of Steve's friendship, kept his distance with tasks of gathering pieces of his stolen life. Staring at the chiseled visage of a man whom he was ordered to eliminate, drove a spear through his chest. He couldn't find a reason to take a step closer.
His fierce blue eyes hauntingly possessed a distant glint as he tried to recover preserved memories of his old existence with desperation pulsing in his raw veins. Everything was irrelevant. He had accepted that he was a ghost in a machine, but he wanted to restore that brotherly trust again. To end the incarnation of the Winter Soldier; reclaim his humanity that still left strokes over his vacant heart. Unbidden he glowered at the rifle gripped in the coil of his metallic digits, Bucky swallowed disarmingly and composed himself, but he was faltering into a malaise.
"Do you trust me enough to watch your back, Steve?" he asked in graveled undertone, holding that inevitable and encompassing question; feeling soured by his remorse, a riptide of emotions became an cacophony as he tried to silence the demons threatening to breach the surface. He was eager to change, to surrender by justifying his actions, but what was left to justify?
Lowering his head to gravity, Bucky fused his eyelids, summoning the illusion of calmness as he awaited for Steve's unguarded response. It seemed too agonizing to expect.
Suspended tension greeted him, but tolerated every second of it, before saddling the super-soldier with disturbed pain that bled with his unfocused eyes as he finally grasped onto that unbreakable connection.
"I don't expect you to remain at my side. We both know that I'm a target for crossfire." Clips of breath drained out of his lungs in a forceful heave. The impulse to run couldn't be abated. Sentiment was rigging inside him. He pulled his taunt lips into a weak smirk. A glimpse of his old self emerged from the impassive depths of the Winter Soldier, his hand instinctively moved to reach Steve's shoulder, but he froze in that moment, shadow darkened over slate blue. He wasn't sure if Steve would accept his trust. "This is your chance to takes them down, once and for all, don't submit because of saving me, punk."
Steve met Bucky's stare unflinchingly, sensing the turmoil and diffidence no doubt running through him in this long period of inaction before they found themselves back in the fire. The quiet drawl of his old friend had been surprising to him at first; Bucky was not much of a talker as he used to be. Hydra had taken away much of what made James Barnes who he was, but they never took away his spirit that kept him alive for decades. So long as he had that, Steve had faith his friend could do anything—even find his way out of the shadows he once moved through. "I wouldn't be doing this, Bucky, if I didn't believe it was the right thing to do," Steve replied astutely, a small smile gracing his lips. "And as far as submitting goes, you know I never backed down from an impossible fight."
Bucky stared back at him with unwavering stillness in that insufferable moment of his recognition. "I'll fight till the end with you..." Those heavy words seemed too natural to roll off his tongue. Did he mean that? Cold resistance was still present as he felt the gun weighting in his taut clutch. Despite the evidence of his malaise, it was prestige to believe that he could be trusted. In hesitance, he stepped an inch closer to Steve's proximity, still maintaining distance...All he knew was that Steve gave him a second chance to be a friend again.
"Yeah…" Steve began with a wavering tone, his resolve waning like a dimming candle. His searing blue eyes became lidded as he shakily took a few steps in Bucky's direction until he was standing just beside him, leaning against the wall of the hold. "You sure you're not having second thoughts…" He asked, with a deep timbre in his tone. "Given the way our last mission together ended up?" He instinctively swallowed a lump of unease in his throat. Though it was unintentional, Bucky's words of loyalty strung up a buried yet festering emotion deep within him that he tried to mask each time he thought of their last mission. That emotion was guilt. It was hallow and damaging, but in some ways it was incentive in the years since he had failed to catch Bucky's hand before the snowy abyss claimed him. It had been decades since he suffered perhaps the most scarring loss in his lifetime, and he could still hear Bucky's terrified screams as he fell beyond his reach…and he could do nothing but shed tears of remorse.
Discarding that unease he felt breach over his heart, Bucky pursed his lips into a timid frown, looking abashed by that hitch of sentiment he found in Steve's words. It felt like standard trust between them; Steve was his new handler—commander, no matter how utterly inadequate it seemed. He couldn't allow a myriad of disarmed emotions to resolve the agony to distract him.
The sense of bonding was convenient to silence his phantoms of guilt for this mission; but he didn't want it to become permanent. Even though it was a great honor to feel like a recalled soldier of valor again, instead of an icy layered assassin who had been conditioned and dehumanized to execute orders. A dire approach of realization struck Bucky's marred soul with lash, he wanted to end this chapter of his enslaved life, and he was prepared to make the sacrifice for Steve and his team of heroes: he wanted to die to save a life.
Given that choice of repentance instead of devolving back into a murderous drone; Bucky felt real enough to finally respond with a measure of unobstructed ease in his graveled monotone. It was genuine and reactionary. "I got no second thoughts about the mission." He nodded mutely, and then cast a sincere glance back at Steve. His grayish blue eyes grew still and penetrative under unkempt dark tresses. He felt the hollowness of a grimace form at his pouty lips. He needed to become focus and intent again, to resurrect a piece of the Winter Soldier's brutality and harness it with his own control. "What are your orders, Cap?" he asked shakily.
A faint smile whisked across Steve's lips at that. Though it was naïve to believe that Bucky had been returned to him as the exact person he once knew him as, there were still familiar traces of that kid from Brooklyn and the brave soldier Captain America once fought beside. But there was more that remained beneath that look of passive-determination. Steve knew the toxic instinct of an experienced killer lurked inside of Bucky—molded from decades as the merciless Winter Soldier. It was an instinct that could not easily be kicked, and while Steve himself had taken his share of lives during the War, it was never without remorse and always with necessity. The Winter Soldier would perhaps always be a part of Bucky—but maybe with a guiding and friendly hand, Bucky wouldn't be ruled by him.
Releasing a soft exhale through his nostrils, Steve looked at Bucky with entreating eyes, filled with hope. "I want you fight like you believe there can be a tomorrow for James Barnes. I need you to believe there's a place in this world for you." Perhaps he was being too optimistic, but maybe with his help, James Barnes and the Winter Soldier could exist as one being. "And that I, and all these people here with us…" Steve gestured to the rest of their team, sitting in silence, "are all on the same side with you."
Bucky always felt that his life was dangling on a frayed thread; nothing had seemed reverent enough to believe in palatable hope. How could he seize the courage to grasp onto humanity again? All the pain and torment gripped his mind, infectious to the core; and yet he felt aware that Steve would remain at his side through it all. The process of healing was already beginning its first stage.
Pulling his lips into a faltering smirk, Bucky emptied out an undamaged memory, with a faint pitch of despondence. He shifted a wary glance, parallel to the intensity burning in Steve's clement azure eyes; so much came alive inside of him, and he felt strong enough to admit the presence of his grief.
"You know that it's always been you pulling me out. Through all the pain this old body took, I never lost you when they strapped me down...I always remembered seeing you as that brave little guy, picking you up when you fell, and this time I'm the stupid one that fell and never got back up."
"That's not entirely true, Bucky…" Steve steeled himself, sparing a fleeting glance at his team members who didn't appear to be paying close attention to their conversation. As team leader, Steve knew there was a time and a place for playing the "blame game" as people called it, and it wasn't here and now aboard the quinjet. But Bucky was just now beginning to open up his hardened shell to him and Steve would be callous to dismiss what needed to be said. His full lips formed into a tight line, his chiseled cheek bones rippled beneath his smooth flesh as he internally warred with the past-time regrets he had avoided until now.
"You've always had my back…" he released shakily, "Even when you didn't remember me, you still…you still took a dive to save me." Steve recalled the last time Bucky saved his life—only a couple of years ago after their fight aboard a destructing Tri-carrier; he had fallen into the abyss, wounded, sinking and unconscious in the stilling darkness. He would have drowned in murky waters if Bucky hadn't dived in and pulled him to the shore. Despite the fact they had fought to near death only moments before that point, Bucky had still risen above his Hydra programming and saved his life—again, just as he always did. And Steve…Steve didn't even try to find Bucky's body himself after he had fallen from Zola's train so long ago..."You never got back up, Buck, because I wasn't there for you when I should have been…" The bitter truth dispelled from his mouth, it tasted like ash and watered his eyes; only his fierce constitution prevented him from spilling emotion from his glistening blue orbs.
Try as he would, he couldn't stop until he finally said the three words he'd been wanting to say to his life-long friend since they reunited. Meeting Bucky's deep and hardened stare behind tasseled stands of messy hair; Steve gazed at him with utter conviction. "I'm sorry, Bucky."
The weight of Steve's unfeigned confession hit the assassin deep. Phantoms of agony riddled in his veins, and he stared levelly at the super-solider. His dismal pale-ice blue eyes mirrored with much depth and unspoken regret. He felt that recurring pulse of brotherly strength exceeding through him.
"Don't put the blame on yourself," he whispered distantly, narrowing a glance back at his chrome hand. "You couldn't save me from falling..." He clasped his hand into a fist, and breathed out heavily before exchanging another sincere and watery look with his old friend.
There had been so times he wanted to return back to Brooklyn, find Steve again...He deserved no solace or forgiveness—he was resurrected as a untamed monster who had done terrible crimes under the influence of HYDRA. That would always be his cursive mantle to carry. Maybe he could mend the wounds that were open between them.
"I know that you're saving me now." He murmured weakly, trying to reach for Steve's hand. "And I'm willing to give it my all to you, because your my friend..."He gritted with harsh seethes dousing a voiceless sigh; unshed tears steeped in his eyes as he gave Steve a raw proclamation, that seemed meaningful and true. He felt his voice returning."My best friend."
It felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted from Steve's shoulders, one that once felt immoveable and crushing; a weight he had carried for so long, it was almost as if it were a part of him. The memory of his past failure to save Bucky would never be forgotten, but perhaps now he would no longer be haunted by it. Perhaps now, he and Bucky could find a way forward together. Steve's lips pulled into a smile, gratitude and resurgence moved through him, and it took immense effort for him to maintain a disciplined posture in the wake of their upcoming mission. But as he witnessed the level of earnestness and devotion in his friend's gaze, he allowed himself to place his hand on Bucky's shoulder and grip it with profound warmth and acceptance.
"The times may have changed, Bucky, but that never will. You're my friend. We're in this together…" he assured, and he knew in this moment that he had undeniably made the right decision. No matter how far Bucky fell, he would do his utmost to lift him back up. Bucky would always be his best friend—his brother. And while the times had changed, and they had changed with it, they would still always find their ways back to each other's side, and take on the coming storm. "…till the end of the line."
Bucky found promise in those words of burden. He didn't recoil away as the aggressive pulse of resistance charged through him. The weight of Steve's hand gave him glimpse of returning memories underneath the dark shadowed torment of HYDRA. With each seize of warmth, the carbon layers of his locked down soul dissolved apart as recovered purity shone through the dwarfing fragments. He could only swallow back tears, as his lips moved against the silence as he inadvertently constructed a reason to echo back a vow that his scarred heart recited through lapses of time. He reached within and summoned what had existed of his true self beyond the icy walls of the Winter Soldier. "...This is our fight," he proclaimed with a measure of certainty unfaltering in his raspy voice. "Together we'll put these jerks on the ropes..."
Assured that they were good for the most part, Steve gently released his clasped hand off Bucky's metal shoulder, and then followed up with a friendly pat on his back "Keep up that line of thought, maybe after we'll have a few drinks at Freddie's tavern—like us, it's still standing and running." He couldn't help but add levity to a hopeful moment for them both. Bucky merely shrugged in consideration. Sure they likely couldn't get drunk anymore, but it didn't mean they didn't get to try. In the end, they all could use a break from the uniform.
It felt like a continuous replay of actions, Bucky reeled back in the moment he felt the firm weight of Steve's hand leave his shoulder; everything seemed unreachable again as his eyes traced glints of light reflecting over his weapon. The calmness didn't last long. Retribution claimed his soul with a single breach. The Winter Soldier was being called out for another charge of death, at ground level the enemy lines were assembling, heroes that chose to deliver uncompromising tolerance over freedom.
Mounting up his reserves of unbridled strength—defiance, Bucky slid the trigger back as the gun revealed a full stock of ammunition in a click, and he took a deep breath. "This isn't gonna be an easy fight," he smirked unintentionally at the thought, and evened his gaze back as the formidable and timeless warrior sized up next to him. The stance that Steve carried was elegant and commanding against the shadows. Youth carved into his angular face, sunlight reflected in his bright azure eyes, almost shimmering as crystal. A cast of thinned light revealed flecks of blond awash in his shortened hair, and the fullness of his lips set into a firm line. He was ready for battle, holding onto good faith and preparing to take the charge with his team.
"Let's give em' what we've got, Cap," The Brooklyn drawl emerged from his depths and lowered into a confident whisper as he slung the rifle over his shoulder. He embraced the feeling of being on Steve's left side again, like he had always had been in the alleyways and the front lines. He took the opportunity to view his friend, not with the calculating possession of the assassin, but as the benevolent and protective big brother—Bucky Barnes—the one who would race into the jaws of death with him.
In a slow attempt with controlled effort, Bucky lifted his half-gloved hand leveling it up to Steve's shoulder and finally placed his cupped palm over that broad shape of muscle, holding a firm squeeze of brotherly strength. "No matter how bad it gets out there...I've got your back—"
"Hate to interrupt the bromance, guys, but we're 2 minutes out," the sarcastic jibe of Clint Barton came from the pilot's chair. "Better get strapped and ready, we're likely to have company waiting." He added with a serious tone.
The atmosphere in the quinjet immediately changed, as did the relaxed postures of every member situated in the hold upon hearing their pilot's words of warning. Steve expertly allowed his casual demeanor to fall away, and just as quickly a commanding and determined exterior came in its place. "Find us a remote locale to land, keeping our activity minimal," Steve addressed in an authoritative tone, lifting his shield and sliding his arms through the straps to wear it across his back.
"Aye aye, old man," Barton replied, steering the quinjet towards the quietest area of their destination. In the hold, Captain America finishes strapping on his helmet and stood tall and ready as the members of his team rose from their seats and begun gathering themselves together.
"I know for many of you this is a fight you didn't want to have to be a part of… Neither did I," he spoke remorsefully, but the strength and conviction hadn't wavered in his tone. "We won't just be engaging hostiles; we'll be facing those we once fought beside—friends… Soldiers who are fighting for what they believe is right…Just like we are." Steve never once doubted Stark's intentions, despite them now being driven by personal retribution. This fight wasn't just about ideals, it was about fighting for those they cared about who had been caught in the crossfire. "They want to bring us in—decide for us when a life is worth saving. I know where I stand." Steve spoke resolutely, his gaze earnest as he looked from Wanda, to Scott beside her, to Sam and finally, to Bucky. "If any of you want out, it's not too late to turn back," Steve offered.
Sam was the first to speak up. "I don't need a super-hero badge. I'm with you, Cap." He added with a firm nod. Steve returned it in kind.
"Ditto over here," Clint monotoned from the pilot's chair.
"I have never believed in following orders before, but you are the most honorable man I know, Steve. I will follow you," Wanda added her support with a small smile to mirror' Steve's.
Though he already knew the answer, Steve couldn't help but smirk as he watched Bucky cock his weapon. "Let's show them how we dealt with bullies back in our day."
"Go Team Cap!" Scott beamed enthusiastically, with a fist shooting high, only to be met with silence, "…that's what we're calling ourselves, right?" He asked, unsure.
Several merely shrugged while Sam shook his head with an amused smirk. "Stick with me, rookie."
"We're touching down," Clint informed, inputting the coordinates and setting the auto-pilot to handle the rest of the landing. He then grabbed his bow and quiver and soon enough, the entire team gathered themselves near the loading ramp of the hold. They stood tall and prepared as they waited for their team leader to take point.
Steve made his way to the front, easing his breath as he waited passively, feeling that familiar sense of anticipation and readiness that came each time he would walk into battle—when he lead the charge. He didn't know how the battle ahead would end for them, there were always unforeseen risks just as there was the chance of losing a team member, but he believed that a small unified force still stood a better chance than a larger one divided among itself. His team wasn't the most powerful, but their spirit was unshakeable; each of them knew what they were fighting for and why they would stand their ground today: for honor, justice, family, friendship…and redemption.
The ramp to the hold began to open as the quinjet made its descent. Daylight greeted them, and instantly, the team felt a thunderous wind rush past them but they stood still and unfettered, prepared to take on the coming challenge. Steve felt a hand on the back of his shoulder, firm and encouraging, he immediately knew its bearer. Turning his head, he gave Bucky a nod—their message communicating silently by their mere exchange. "To the end of the line…"
Feeling a surge of strength move through him, Steve turned back to the opened entrance, and nods with purpose. "Move out!" A chorus of sounds followed in harmony, from the unsheathing of a bow and shield, to the activation of a helmet and mechanical wings, to the cock of an assault rifle and the hum of kinetic energy. As one, the team of heroes leap from the ramp in unison, prepared to stand their ground and fight against the coming storm.