I don't remember where I got the idea, but I thought it would be really sweet if when the people found Captain America on the plane, they discovered Bucky with him because they were hugging tightly to each other. I think it may have been from that adorable tidbit of information - "Sea otters hold hands while sleeping so they don't drift away from each other" - but I'm not positive. In any case, I had to write it, but I don't want to commit to a whole fic around it, so I'll just write a bunch of little scenes in the same universe and see where it goes.
Also, I wrote this in like two hours and was too excited to wait to post it, so it's not edited or anything, but I think it's pretty good anyway. Hope you enjoy!
...
All that Paul wanted was to go home, and take a warm bath.
Of course, this was a frequent desire with his job, one that was shared by his fellow coworkers, so he didn't share the thought. Still, the idea of a steaming bath and a large mug of hot chocolate was one that he frequently found himself reflecting on as he trudged through snow and ice.
The pay was good, he knew – that was the only reason he had taken a job such as this. Because if it was for idealism or patriotism, well…a love for America wasn't going to put food on the table and keep a roof over his head. A wild goose chase with a fat paycheck from Stark Industries did, though. With the amount of money he got every week, he wasn't going to complain about how they would never find anything – how finding Captain America in the wide expanse of the Arctic was harder than finding a specific needle in a larger pile of other needles. There was just too wide of an area to cover, and records from the forties were spotty, so no one could be a hundred percent certain where they should be looking.
They had found one aircraft though, stuck in the ice. It had been found during a snowstorm, so they couldn't tell for certain what time period the plane was made in, and it would be faster to just get inside and check for the man in stars and stripes than it would be to wait out the storm.
He and Alex were the first ones inside, and after stepping foot to the ground, he shone the light around to see where they had ended up.
"What is this?" Alex wondered, voice slightly muffled by the speaker. Paul didn't answer, stepping further inside and shining his flashlight around to get his bearings in the dark space. Up ahead, he could see a chair – it looked like a pilot's chair, except that it didn't have a spot for the copilot.
He stepped closer, slipping slightly on the ice and warning Alex with a simple "Careful," as the other man drew closer behind him.
He stepped closer to the odd chair, feeling inexplicably nervous as the distance shrank. He shone his flashlight down a bit, and caught a glint of – was that red? He couldn't tell exactly – the light down here was shit, seeing as it was just a couple of flashlights for the large space. The light from the rest of the searchers came in only slightly from the hole that had been cut into the top of the craft – not nearly enough to allow for good visualization.
He bent down, brushing the snow and ice away from where he'd seen what he thought was the spark of color, and –
Oh, god.
They'd found it. They'd found him.
Excitement growing suddenly with a rush of adrenaline, he brushed more of the ice away, just barely able to see a blond man underneath, younger than himself. Even for all of the pictures and the lessons in elementary school history, he'd never thought that Captain America would be so young.
"Alex!" He called through the speaker. "Look!"
"My god," Alex breathed, and then put a finger to the button on the outside of his helmet. "Hayes, get me a line to the Director."
"It's 3 AM, sir." Paul heard the voice over his own ear piece as well.
"I don't care what time it is," Alex said, as Paul began to brush more of the snow away. "This one's waited long enough."
And then, as more snow was brushed away, something else was revealed.
"Scratch that," Alex said after a short pause that betrayed his surprise. "These two have waited long enough."
Paul could say nothing, only staring down at the two men, barely visible through the thick ice, but who were quite apparently hugging each other. The Captain was of course instantly recognized in his uniform, but it took another moment for Paul to be able to identify the other man.
And when he did, he felt quite ashamed of himself, because who else would hold the Captain – would hold Steve Rogers – so tightly, like he would never let go, but his best friend, Sergeant James Barnes?
…
The last sound that Steve remembered was rushing water – water rushing past his ears, frigid and painful enough that all his limbs locked into place so he couldn't escape. Not that he had thought it possible – not that he had assumed from the moment he saw where the plane was headed that he or Bucky would be making it out alive.
Bucky. He had been in his arms as they clutched desperately to each other for support – for an anchor – as the plane had crashed into the ice.
"Don't you fucking dare suggest I take the one parachute here – I told you that I'm with you til the end of the line, and that's not changing, you hear me?"
"We go down, we go down together."
"Steve…I wish we had more time."
"I love you."
Those words – those last words that Bucky had said to them before they had crashed – were what churned through his mind as he woke up. He didn't hear rushing water anymore, either.
And then came the realization – he woke up.
And Bucky wasn't there.
It took an instant for him to wake up completely and sit up straight, and he had no time to marvel at this fact, because his brain was already taking in everything wrong about the situation that he was in. The clothes he had on were not his uniform, and the fabric felt completely unfamiliar. There was a baseball game playing on a radio that looked like someone had tried to make it look older – like one of those vintage things that people tried to make look like they were from the nineties but still had all the technology of the current day. And then the game – it was too old, because he remembered being there, and how could it be playing if he remembered being there?
The view outside the window looked all wrong – too stationary, almost, like it was one of the movies in the dime theaters but not quite. He recognized that it was supposed to be New York, but something was different – was off – and it was much too quiet for the city that never sleeps.
And then, the thing that caught the most of his attention – he could hear breathing.
It had been a mere second since he had opened his eyes, but still he felt ashamed that it had taken him so long to notice that someone else was in the room.
But when he turned his head in the direction the breathing came from, he realized why it was a touch too slow – the person was asleep.
And the person was Bucky.
He didn't look like there was anything wrong with him, but still Steve felt his heart jump in his throat, because why was he awake and Bucky was asleep? Where were they, because nothing was right and it looked like someone was trying to fool him into thinking that no time had passed and that was another problem – how much time had apparently passed since he'd crashed that they couldn't get their façade right for him to believe? It surely couldn't have been too long, because he and Bucky were both still alive, and it would be impossible to live longer than at most an hour in the frigid waters of the Arctic. Had they perhaps been in a coma, and that's why so much time had passed? Or was he over thinking this and hardly any time had passed at all, and the people who had them were simply half assing this fraud they were trying to pull?
But Steve pushed aside all of these thoughts and worries, not letting himself think on it, instead throwing himself out of bed and across the room to bend over Bucky on his own bed.
"Bucky," he whispered, shaking his lover's shoulder. The brunette didn't stir at all – if not for the breathing he could both see and hear, Steve might have thought him dead. He shook him again. "Bucky!"
He had an instant to recognize that someone was outside the door before the door opened and a woman came inside. He had already spun around, standing defensively in front of Bucky's bed before she had closed the door behind her. He eyed her, seeing the uniform that looked just a touch off. Her hair was down and around her shoulders, something he had never seen a nurse do before, and although he wasn't trying to look, he couldn't help but notice that her breasts were a bit too…artificial. Like her brassiere was different from what was commonly worn. It was enough to tell him that she was no nurse.
She appeared unconcerned with his defensiveness, greeting him with a smile and a, "Good morning. Or, should I say afternoon?"
Steve was in no mood to deal with any bullshitting, so he only demanded in an even voice, "Where are we?"
There was a brief flicker of hesitation, enough to tell him that what was about to come out of her mouth would be a lie.
"You're in a recovery room in New York City," she said.
He glanced at the windows, with their too still images, and at the radio, with the outdated baseball game still playing. His hand went behind him, to touch Bucky and reassure himself that the man was still there, before he demanded in a harder voice, "Where are we really?"
A flicker of uncertainty, of hesitation, before the woman said, "I'm afraid I don't understand."
Steve decided it would be pointless to break down all of the ways their captors had done the façade wrong, and instead went with the easiest explanation.
"The game," he replied, clenching his hands in fists at his sides, in preparation for a fight. "It's from May, 1941. I know, because I was there." He would never forget that game – it was when he'd realized that his feelings for Bucky were not strictly platonic or at all brotherly. It would take years before anything would come of it, after a fall from a train and a broken spine, but Steve had never forgotten that particular game as the years went on. He'd always had a good memory, but the serum had improved it even further, and he could practically recite the words that the man on the radio said before they were voiced once more.
The woman's half-hearted smile slowly disappeared, and it only confirmed what he already knew. He took a step forward, toward the woman, so that she would be away from Bucky just in case of an attack.
"Now, I'm going to ask you again," Steve said in a voice dark with promise. "Where are we?"
"Captain Rogers…" the woman tried, her voice quiet.
But he didn't want to hear it, too concerned with the possibility that Hydra was still alive and well, so he only snapped out, "Who are you?"
He heard the people outside the door a moment before they came in, and they were wearing black and carrying guns and the woman was turning to them like they were allies and Bucky was still defenseless behind him, asleep on the bed, and hell no was all he was thinking as he gauged how to take out the men who'd burst in.
As soon as they approached him, he tossed them through the wall, surprised when it splintered as easily as if it was made of cardboard. But he didn't have time to wonder at the intelligence of the people keeping him there leaving him in a place so easily escapable; he was certain that more gun-toting men would be coming, and he couldn't fight off more than perhaps eight at a time while also keeping Bucky out of the range of fire.
Before the woman could regain her bearings and call for more people, Steve turned and swept Bucky up in his arms – no way in hell would he be leaving his best friend and lover behind in likely enemy territory, and it wasn't like it was hard for him to carry the man with the serum flowing through his body.
"Captain Rogers, wait!"
He ignored the woman's cry and burst out the doors, not pausing to take in how odd the room was, how it was built with no decorations and like nothing he'd ever seen. Holding an unconscious Bucky close to his chest, he ran down the hallway and through another set of doors as the woman's voice from before sounded all around him.
"All agents, Code 13. I repeat – all agents, Code 13!"
As the agents suddenly turned to him, he had just enough time to realize that "Code 13" was clearly a warning that he'd escaped his prison before they were running after him. Protecting Bucky with his arms from getting hit, he let himself ram right into the ones in front of him who tried to stop him, knocking them right over and escaping out the first door he saw.
He ran out into a busy street, a street filled with colors and smells and sounds that were so unfamiliar his brain whirled as it tried to process the information while also trying to keep himself and Bucky safe from any and all pursuers.
After several minutes, he stopped in the middle of the road, trying to look around and gain his bearings so that he could figure out where he needed to run. It looked very much like New York, but also like nothing he'd ever seen before, and he didn't know how to compartmentalize and handle it in his mind.
Bucky stirred slightly in his arms, and Steve's gaze instantly dropped to the man, loosening his grip to see if Bucky was going to wake up as quickly as he did at the realization that he was in an unfamiliar place.
But Bucky's eyes didn't open, and after a moment he seemed to fall right back into unconsciousness again – or at least a deep sleep that he couldn't be easily shaken out of.
He could only blame his preoccupation with his best friend for why he didn't notice the man in the suit walk up to him with purpose.
"Steve," was how the man greeted him, and Steve tensed instantly in response, clutching Bucky tighter to him, protectively, only the use of his first name preventing him from running immediately.
The man looked average, unassuming, and with a gentleness that seemed at odds with the aura of government agent that seemed to seep from his very pores. Steve didn't relax exactly at the sight of him, but he wasn't running away either, cautiously willing to let the man speak.
"I thought you might respond better to your first name," the man admitted with a bashful smile. "And I have to apologize for my agents. They took matters into their own hands while I was away, it seems. They wanted to break it to you slowly."
"Break what?" Steve said aggravatedly, eyes darting around and catching sight of other 'agents' forming a perimeter around him that might have been subtle to anyone except him.
"You've been asleep, Captain," the man said, eyes alight with an awe that Steve remembered from his USO days – but usually that look was in the face of a twelve-year-old, and not a man at least approaching middle age. "You and Sergeant Barnes were in the ice for almost seventy years."
Seventy years.
He turned away from the man, still keeping a tight hold on Bucky, and looked around him, at all of the moving pictures that were so colorful all around him, and at the buildings taller than any he'd ever seen, made of sleek metal and glass. He gazed at the cars, so different from how he'd known them last, and at the clothes people wore that revealed so much more skin than he'd seen before but seemed so normal to everyone around him.
Almost seventy years. That would make it at least 2009, probably even later. I'm in the twenty-first century.
As a sickly kid in Brooklyn, he had never expected to see the sixties, let alone into the next century. As Captain America he hadn't hoped to live past the war.
But Bucky.
How was Bucky still alive as well? It was reasonable to assume that the serum had kept Steve alive, but Bucky wasn't a super-soldier.
"Steve…I wish we had more time."
The words Bucky had said to him what felt like less than an hour ago ran through his mind, and he almost laughed, because Bucky's wish had come true. Bucky's wish, echoed in Steve's heart, had come true, and now they were still alive and whole and together in the next century. It was like something out of a comic book.
"Captain Rogers," the man spoke up behind him, reminding Steve of his presence. "Are you going to be alright?"
"Yeah," Steve said, his voice echoing how lost he was in the new age he was now a part of. He looked down at Bucky's face, peaceful in sleep with a hint of his usual boyish smile at his lips. He felt some of his confidence returning to him.
"Yeah, we're going to be alright."
...
Thanks for reading!