Relationship: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Other Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Nick Fury
Additional Tags and Warnings: Work In Progress, Warnings May Change, trigger warning: suicide, Trigger warning: strangulation, Trigger warning: internalized homophobia, trigger warning: homophobia, trigger warning: internalized intersexphobia, trigger warning: intersexphobia, violence, intersex!Steve, Intersex, Action & Romance, winter soldier - Freeform, post - Avengers Movie, Eastern Europe


Shoot the Winter Soldier

"Kiss me," the man demanded from Steve with only a tinge of breathlessness in his voice. The moonlight streaming in through the broken skylights of the abandoned warehouse glinted off what looked to be armor covering his left arm — his masked face remained in the shadows. He was leaning against a dusty workbench.

The nature of the request had Steve skidding to a halt several feet away from him. "What?"

Even as he asked the question he cursed for allowing himself to be caught off guard, because the man exploited the situation to pull out a revolver and aimed it squarely between Steve's eyes. Without his shield there was little he could do to defend himself. As he slowly raised his hands above his head he brushed them past his pocket and tapped a button on an electronic plastic card he kept there. His heart was thumping against his ribcage — super-serum or not a bullet to the brain would kill him. He willed himself to relax his stance. Even as his vision focused in on the barrel of the gun he tried to get a sense of his surroundings. The silence in the darkness of the old brick building was almost complete but for the sounds of their breathing. S.H.I.E.L.D. might not get to him in time.

"I believe we were lovers in a past life," the man said eventually. "My memories were taken from me and you're the only link. Something familiar may help me recover them." He lowered his arm slowly and placed the gun on the work bench with a heavy thud.

Steve lowered his arms to his side and let out the breath he'd been holding. His heart was still beating far too fast, but the tension in his stomach eased. Could he have poison on his lips? Steve briefly wondered. There was no way in hell was he going to let the guy kiss him of course, but he was curious who the masked man was — he knew that voice, he was sure. Another reason to pretend to agree with the demand was that his opponent would be a lot easier to take out if he got close to Steve. Not to mention that Steve really wanted to know what on God's Earth was going on.

When he'd returned to his Brooklyn apartment after a meeting with Tony Stark he'd found the door ajar. He'd caught a glimpse of the intruder as he'd leapt out of the bedroom window and Steve had dashed to follow him, not knowing what the thief might have taken. Hurtling through back alleys, dodging traffic, and leaping across rooftops had finally brought them to this abandoned industrial lot — the chase had also left Steve with no illusions: the guy was not a common burglar. The agility and skill he'd displayed were superior even to the kind you normally gained from special ops training and Steve had rued not having his shield on him to knock some wind out of the guy. Maybe he was ex-CIA? The gun, even placed openly out on the table as it was, made Steve wary of making any rash movements.

"You'll have to remove your mask," Steve said when the man made no move to force a kiss on him.

The man barked out a short laugh, but took off his mask and placed it on the bench alongside the gun. Steve still couldn't get a good look at his face and the man strode through the illuminated area between them too quickly — one moment his face was lit up by the moon, the next it was in the shadows again and too close for Steve to focus on. But the quick glance that Steve had gotten was enough to knock the air out of his lungs as a flash of familiarity struck him to the core. His eyes went wide and he found himself frozen on the spot. He couldn't imagine that the guy actually had a point with his talk of 'lovers in a past life', but on the other hand the man's hot breath was all around him and he was still unable to step back. Gun oil and metal polish, his nose said; a sniper, he found himself suddenly thinking. His senses had apparently decided to pass the majority of their information directly to his gut, by-passing his conscious thoughts entirely. The presence of this man was as familiar to Steve as the palm of his own hand and he hadn't a clue who he was.

Tentative fingers on Steve's cheek told him that he wasn't the only one overwhelmed by the other's proximity. When the man pressed their lips together Steve didn't resist and allowed the sniper to taste him. Tears pricked his eyes as his subconscious finally decided to share its insights with him in one name: Bucky. He barked out a strangled laugh at the cruel trick the company of a sniper — clearly not his sniper — were playing on him. Distantly he was aware of the roaring sound of a helicopter overhead as search lights lit up the interior of the building. Their breaths were still mingling in the space between them.

Footsteps. S.H.I.E.L.D. must have the building surrounded, Steve thought. The sniper took a couple of steps backwards. "Steve?" he asked, voice trembling. A flashlight illuminated his face and despite the shoulder-length hair and the kohl around his eyes it was Bucky's face, straight out of one of his nightmares where Bucky was falling down a ravine and he couldn't catch him.

There was a red laser spot on Bucky's chest and as Steve looked up he caught sight of an agent at the far end of the warehouse giving a hand sign. He launched himself at Bucky and cried out as the bullet lanced through his own chest hot and sharp instead. The last thing he felt were Bucky's strong arms around him, holding on tight.


One month previously

"Thanks for the tips, Tony," Steve said, carding a hand through his hair for the tenth time in the last five minutes.

"Yeah, well, let's just say I have some experience with the whole media circuit, so I just wanted to make sure the goons at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s P.R. department didn't screw you over somehow. But don't worry, the media love you, you're Captain America!"

"It was all a bit different back in my day. Just got used to press conferences here in the future and now they've got me doing this: sitting on a couch in front of a studio audience... Jeffrey said there might be 'private' questions." Steve grimaced, but Tony laughed.

"They're not going to accuse you have having a secret love child with the President's wife or whether you slept with Wolverine or what not!Trust me, they're going to be nice to you. Questions like that are what people like me get."

"Why would they ask you—?"

"Never mind," Tony said, "I'll explain later. You're on now though."

The interview was going well. He'd been through his lines with Jeffrey and others from the P.R. department many times and so he knew how to answer the difficult questions with regards to his role at S.H.I.E.L.D. and his part in the Avengers initiative. In a way he was glad for the time he'd spent on the show pony circuit, as it made all this easier.

"Now, onto something more personal," the interviewer said, still smiling sweetly. Steve tensed up. It would be something about Peggy. That's what Jeffrey had said.

"How are you coping with life in this century?"

He raked his fingers through his hair and closed his eyes: piles of damaged boxing sacks.

"It's taking a while to adjust, but I'll get there," he said. "Still have a lot of history to catch up on."

"Yes," the interviewer said, turning to address the studio audience, "we have to remember, he's only been here, what? Two months?"

Steve knew he should probably put on some kind of charming, faux-apologetic smile at this point, but he was finding it hard to concentrate on his surroundings. There were noises all around, but they didn't seem important. They sounded as alien as the speech of the Chitauri and at the same time as familiar as the sound of a dripping tap. He fumbled his way through the final few questions.

Tony grabbed his arm when it was all over. "You okay? You look a bit dazed."

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"You don't look it. Everyone else will be at Stark Tower tonight, ready to discuss the latest intel from S.H.I.E.L.D. early tomorrow morning. I've got plenty of spare rooms. You should stay over too."

He nodded. Anything to stop Tony talking right now.

"Okay, great!" Tony went on, "I'll have a room prepared for you! Clint mentioned something about a game of poker—"

"Sounds great. I've got a meeting with Agent Sitwell in an hour, so I really have to be off," Steve said to get away.

When he stepped through the doors of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Time Square building the first thing he did was to cancel his meeting with Sitwell.


It wasn't fair! Steve thought as he buried his fists in the crisp sheets on Tony's guest bed. People were meant to get at least a year before having to deal with such a date, but he'd only had two months. Well, around seven decades and two months. Today had been that day. The day on which he'd failed to grab hold of Bucky's hand. To everyone else, though, it had just been another ordinary date in the calendar. The evening had been ordinary, with Clint cracking jokes over cards, Bruce drinking beer, and Natasha... she'd even smiled. Only Tony had seemed subdued, which wasn't surprising. He liked to spend most of his time in the labs and so his mind hadn't been on the cards.

Steve glanced at the cushions on the bed. So often him and Bucky had laid their rolls out on hard European soil... a bed like this was a luxury he'd not even dared dream of back then. But if he'd let himself wish, this bed was just about as close to perfect as he could have imagined. He eyed it as if it might sprout fangs. He couldn't even enjoy a luxury like this anymore. Sleep wasn't the savior it should be — it was the enemy. In his nightmares Bucky sat on a gravestone, hurling insults at him. Bucky was falling: from planes, from buildings... from the train. It seemed like every time he closed his eyes the nightmares were ready, having had all day to plan their ambush carefully.

He rested his elbows on his thighs and put his head in his hands. He could do this. It was just one more night... an infinity of future nights lined up ahead of him in his mind — an endless row of dominoes made of gravestones. The black sports bag he'd taken to work that day remained untouched at the foot of his bed. He went to the bathroom, all the time avoiding looking at the bag, and washed his face with cold water. When he came back into the bedroom the black bag was still there. It won the staring contest and he took out a small paper bag from inside it. He had to know now. Either go through with it or... not, and then forever put it out of his mind.

The capsules felt light and rubbery in the palm of his hand. No one had questioned him when he'd put in the requisitioning order — no one questioned Captain America. Captain America made good choices, after all. He wasn't screwed up, he wasn't a man who lived in hell every day out of some sense of duty to the world. The pills or punching bags. He could take the gym apart again – for the rest of his life – punching bags for the rest of his life in between missions... or the pills.

"Are those cyanide pills, sir?"

Steve jumped at the sound of the invisible butler's voice. He clenched his hand around the pills to hide them, as much good as that would do now. How did he reply to Jarvis? Did he have to reply at all? He looked up at the ceiling, but Jarvis had gone quiet. Slowly he uncurled his clammy fist again, staring at the pills there. One of them would be enough to kill an ordinary human and he had three in his hand.

He got up and headed for the bathroom. It wasn't that he didn't have a place in the future; here with the Avengers he could make a difference. They'd just saved the world from an alien invasion and yet... the world had gone back to normal already — well, whatever passed for 'normal' in the future.

Steve poured himself a glass of water. He'd never been selfish. Not really.

There are men laying down their lives. I got no right to do any less than them.

Bucky had been killed. Not two days later he'd died too. They'd both laid down their lives. And then these assholes at S.H.I.E.L.D. had brought him back into this world. They should've left him in the ice. What right did they think they had to mess with God's plan?

He sat down on the bed again. The water was cold and cleansing as it soothed his tight throat. He finished it all in one go. The pills were still in his hand. And then he knew that he wasn't going to break them in his mouth. Not now, not ever. And tears slid down his cheeks as a mixture of relief and bloody minded determination spread from the pit of his stomach to the rest of his body. Life wouldn't be easy, but when had it ever been? His ma had carried on after his father had died and the other Avengers—

At that moment Clint, Tony, Natasha and Bruce crashed into his room, Tony almost tripping over himself to get to Steve. When he did he grabbed Steve's wrist and knocked the pills from his hand. Steve felt the heat rise to his face. Shit.

"Jarvis said—"

Steve cut Tony off. "He shouldn't have said a damned thing. Your building shouldn't be spying on me!"

"I've been where you are now." Bruce held his hands up in a placating gesture. "You know I have. Let us help you."

"Make sure he doesn't have any weapons on him," Clint told Tony. Before Tony could act on that Steve had leaped off the bed.

"What?! I don't need a damned weapon to kill myself, I am a weapon," he shouted and even as he did he willed himself to calm down, but the emotions were tearing through his body. He didn't deserve to have this moment invaded, didn't want to end up sectioned and in some empty cell at S.H.I.E.L.D. on suicide watch. There was no way he was going to take his own life, he'd just needed to know that for sure... he was allowed to be human, wasn't he?

"He's right, you know," Bruce said, addressing Clint as if Steve wasn't in the room. "He could break his own neck any time he wanted too."

Steve's eyes went wide and he turned to face Tony. "Well, yes, I could, but—"

He never got to finish his sentence as Bruce knocked him out cold.


Present day

Steve woke up with an intubation tube down his parched throat and another tube disappearing into his chest on the left side. The room was almost unbearably noisy and someone was telling him to breathe, which he thought was odd, since he normally didn't have to think about breathing. Once he took a few breaths the noise died down some. He slipped in and out of consciousness. When he next woke up they removed the tubes, which he decided was probably a good sign. He looked around: some sort of hospital room. Ah, yes, he'd been shot. Because... Bucky had tried to break into his flat, pulled a gun on him, and told him to kiss him.

Shit.

Of course it hadn't actually been Bucky. Bucky was dead. He sucked in a ragged breath — this was it, he'd lost his mind, hadn't he? He'd thought things had been getting better. The nightmares were still a regular occurrence, just as bad as always, but he'd been dealing better... or so he'd thought. But it had all caught up with him now, hadn't it?

An hour or so later Tony and Fury showed up at his bedside.

"Fuck, Steve, it's good to see you. We really thought we'd lost you there," Tony said, a shaky grin plastered across his face.

"Good to see you too," Steve replied hoarsely.

Fury stepped closer. "Glad you made it. I have to ask though, why did you throw yourself into the path of a bullet to protect an assassin?" There was an edge to his voice that could have cut through panzer shielding in a microsecond.

I thought it was my dead best friend, was probably not going to cut it. He suppressed a sigh. Not after last month. Actually, no explanation would cut it after that incident. He tried to swallow past the lump forming in this throat to say something, but there wasn't anything he could think to tell Fury.

"I told you he wasn't well enough to be questioned yet," Tony snapped.

Fury didn't reply to that, but he reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of dog tags — Steve's dog tags.

"You might want to think about wearing the new set we gave you. They stopped issuing these types of tags in 1941," Fury said. He placed them on Steve's stomach, turned on his heel, and exited the room with a swish of his coat.

Steve caught Tony eyeing them. "They're the ones they pulled off me after they thawed me out."

"May I?" Tony asked and Steve bit the inside of his lip, but he nodded slowly in reply. He watched Tony's eyebrows rise up his forehead as he inspected the tags.

"So on one of the dog tags we have: Rogers, Steve," Tony read out, "14047 Brooklyn Street, NY. And then on the other tag we have Barnes, James B. and below that we have your name. That second spot's for next of kin, isn't it? Same address too."

There was a long moment of silence between them until Tony cleared his throat. "You know, if the therapy sessions here at S.H.I.E.L.D. aren't helping you, I can give you the numbers of a couple of excellent therapists. There's doctor Shah, she's brilliant with... uh... what I mean is, and I have to be frank here, we can't have you running into bullets trying to get yourself killed so you can be all emo and join your best friend in death. Because you can get through this, even if it doesn't seem that way at the moment."

Steve shook his head. "I wasn't trying to get myself killed."

The conversation came to a halt as last month hung heavy in the air between both of them.

"I thought I saw him today," Steve said. "I thought the assassin was him." It wasn't a better explanation, it didn't paint his mental state in a rosier light, but it was the truth.

"Have your nightmares been getting worse again?" Tony asked.

Steve shook his head.

"Could you put 'em 'round my neck?" Steve indicated at the dog tags with a glance.

Tony helped him put them on and Steve didn't much care if the nurses took them off him again, for now the cold metal on his skin reminded him of reality.

"After he was killed they gave me a bag with his belongings," Steve said, clenching his fists at his side. He didn't normally talk to the other Avengers about Bucky, but he needed to now (again), to assure them (once more) that it was grief at his death that was tearing him apart mentally, not a lack of support from Tony or the other Avengers.

"There wasn't anything much in the bag apart from clothes and toiletries," he continued. "Found an old dog tag though. I... I didn't know he'd listed me as his next of kin. I'd put 'none' on my form. And he'd kept that first set of dog tags they'd issued him. Maybe it was because the new ones didn't mention your next of kin, maybe it was some other reason."

"He meant a lot to you, eh? You know, there's something I've been meaning to...," Tony said, trailing off when Steve clenched his jaw and angled his face away.

"What?" Tony huffed.

"Sorry, guess I'm just not used to talking about... well. What were you gonna say?"

Tony fixed his eyes on a point somewhere on the wall behind Steve. "I, well, last month got me thinking, and I was going to say something eventually, but now this? I know you're a complete prude, probably don't believe in sex before marriage, and yes, maybe you do only chase skirts. You'll probably think this is complete over-share. Maybe you'll even feel like throwing up, I can't be sure, but just in case this is something you need to hear someone say... I've had sex with men. I even dated a guy for a couple of days, which might not sound like much, but that was back in the days before Pepper when I didn't really go in for that whole commitment thing and — Steve?"

Steve had closed his eyes.

"Yeah, well." Tony said, his voice hard. "There are some things about this century you're just going to have to get used to."

Steve could hear Tony's footsteps and the sound of the door opening.

"Thank you," he breathed out. He wasn't sure it was loud enough, but it was all he could manage, his throat tight with emotion.

In an instant Tony was back at his side.

"I mean, there's a lot I don't understand," Tony said to fill the silence, realizing that Steve needed a moment to catch himself. "I don't know what you've been through and certainly when I grew up... it wasn't 'okay', but it was better than in the 30s and 40s, I'm sure."

"I know I should've trusted you all, but it's not something we could be open about, you know?"

"Yeah, you don't have to explain," Tony said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Remind me to give you Kiesler's number. Very good therapist. He's gay. You might click better with him when it comes to talking about Bucky."

"Yeah, I think I'd like that," Steve said quietly. "Thanks." And he meant it. Maybe this was something he could get through after all.


Dmitri Ulanov strode into the conference room where Fury and Natasha were already waiting for him.

"Dr. Ulanov," Fury said by way of greeting. "You said you had something to say regarding the Winter Soldier?"

"Yes," Dmitri replied. He clasped his hands behind his back and willed himself to relax — Natasha was a keen observer and although he'd fooled her many times in the past, he couldn't allow any complacency now. "The issue is that the techniques I will most likely need to use to remove the Winter Soldier's command to assassinate Captain America originated in the Red Room. The techniques could be used to program the Winter Soldier or to brainwash others. Now I know," he said holding up one of his hands in front of him, "that S.H.I.E.L.D. databases are very secure and our agents trustworthy, however, I can't in clear conscience use my skills on the Winter Soldier if there are any observers or any recordings. I am deeply ashamed of my past involvement in this project and wish that all knowledge I have on it dies with me."

"I appreciate your position, but that's against protocol. There's regular therapy of course. Or we may have to consider... 'other options'."

At that Natasha shot Fury the kind of look that made it clear she had just calculated at least a dozen different ways to end his life right there and then. Since 'other options' included a variety of methods for quietly disposing of the Winter Soldier, Dmitri was all for them, but Natasha... how far would she go to protect the Winter Soldier?

"I would not advise allowing him to wake up. No regular therapy," Dmitri urged. "The man was a highly trained assassin even before becoming the Winter Soldier. He became the Winter Soldier only after he had his memories wiped and underwent extensive brainwashing and mental programming back in the 1940s to make him unquestioningly loyal to the Soviets alone, no one else. Now there's no Soviet Union, so General Lukin had to reprogram him of course." He turned to Natasha. "The Winter Soldier wouldn't remember you. To reprogram him, Lukin will have had to wipe his memories again. And I think he must've made a mess of his mind in the process. Captain America was lucky, but we can't rely on luck."

"Doctor, let me talk to him," Natasha cut in, looking straight at Dmitri, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. This was going to be the most difficult part. Fury was also giving him a measuring look.

"Agent, the man you knew is gone." Dmitri turned to Fury. "He's currently sedated and in a high security holding cell, but I think you, more than anyone else, know what he's capable of. If we wake him now he might escape. It'll be risky even after I deprogram him, but less so. Agent Romanov, once I've deprogrammed him you can talk to him, not before."

Naked anger was visible in Natasha's eyes. She took a small step forward, but Fury spoke before she did.

"I agree, this is a unique situation. Get everything you need and start immediately. I'll have some agents move the Winter Soldier to room 553b — there's no surveillance in that room."

"Thank you, Director Fury. And Natasha, I really am sorry. I know Yasha trained you and that you were... close. I promise you I'll do my best to break General Lukin's hold over him."

As soon as Fury dismissed him he hurried out of the room and towards the closest rest room. He needed a few minutes to compose himself again after that meeting. It had gone well though, exceptionally so, and he allowed a tight smile to flash across his lips.


Dmitri screwed the needle onto the syringe and pulled a small vial out of his jacket pocket. He regarded the two items in his hand carefully. All he would need to do to end this now was inject the poison into the Winter Soldier's veins — Yasha wouldn't feel a thing. And this chemical couldn't be detected with any standard test. However, S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't any kind of place. It wouldn't be suspicious for him to inject the Winter Soldier with something, but if Yasha died, he'd have to be very clear about everything he'd done to him. Not because of Fury, Fury would be glad to see him dead, but Natasha would dig and dig. And she had allies here, such as Bruce Banner. Banner might be able to find a way to detect the poison. And then, most importantly, there was Captain America, who'd seen Yasha's face... and then thankfully been shot and was still out cold as far as he was aware.

When he'd defected to the Americans almost three decades ago he'd been upfront with S.H.I.E.L.D. about his involvement in the Winter Soldier project. When it came to the exact details of his involvement in it he'd been a little bit more liberal with the truth, though. Because there were some crimes the Americans would not forgive.

If he killed Yasha then there was no risk that Yasha would remember him and no one would find out about his past. He also risked spending the rest of his life in jail for murder, which was the exact situation he was trying to avoid. The alternative was also risky and it involved an additional death. Dmitri closed his eyes and tried to care about the life of Captain America, but eventually he slipped the vial back into his pocket and stepped up to the operating table on which the Winter Soldier was restrained.

Yasha's cries were muffled by the gag Dmitri had placed on him, but they still made him flinch. He didn't enjoy the torture he was inflicting, but it was necessary to shock the brain into a programmable state.

Dmitri loosened the gag slightly and then pressed his lips to Yasha's ears. It wasn't that he thought Fury didn't trust him in particular, but Fury didn't trust anyone. There was likely some sort of audio recording device in the room at the very least. He turned up the dial and Yasha started to thrash against his restraints and then when he started shouting Dmitri whispered the commands.
"Your target is an American man. His name is Captain Steve Rogers," he said in Russian, confident that his whispers could not be heard above the strangled screams the electroshocks were tearing from the Winter Soldier's throat. With Steve Rogers dead there'd be no one left alive who could link the Winter Solider to James B. Barnes, serial number 986354310 of 14047 Brooklyn Street, NY. He couldn't allow S.H.I.E.L.D. to have that knowledge, because if they knew that, they wouldn't simply be looking to deprogram him, no, they'd poke around in his mind until they retrieved all his memories.

It took a couple of minutes to give Yasha the entire mission brief and only after that did he turn down the dial on the electrodes.

On his laptop a lot of indicators were flashing in red. He grimaced — maybe he'd over-done it. It didn't much matter though, he told himself. If he'd stirred memories of previously wiped missions... the minute the Winter Soldier assassinated Captain America Fury would stop at nothing until the Winter Soldier was dead.