I'm Done Running

All characters belong to Marvel Comics

I own nothing

(Edited by LeDbrite)

Captain Steve Rogers felt like he was going nowhere. He rode his motorcycle through the main streets, the humid wind lashing over his chiseled and tense face; his stern deep cobalt eyes steady on the road, as the muted and warm orange glow of dimming streetlamps mounted on every corner shone over his leather jacket.

He spent three exhausting months searching for the ghost of his childhood friend: James Buchanan Barnes, every time he felt the sense of closure, he only discovered that he hit another dead end for his search. Remorse, guilt and fear drove him every night to look in the shadows, homeless shelters, vacant slums, and even underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. All he found were fragments of tortured memory lurking in the darkness of his mind.

Now, he was caught once again in the crossroads of doubt and dread. Weakness finally entered his resilient heart, as he drove towards his apartment building, but it wasn't home. It would never be home to him. He made a sharp turn around the corner, and guided the bike to the curb. He used his foot and pushed the kickstand out, gripping his hands tight over the gears as the engine turned off. He slid his massive, bulky frame off the saddle of the bike, and lifted his dismal gaze at the streetlight reflecting over windshields of parked cars.

Sighing out an abysmal breath of despair, he became disquieted, and pulled out the tarnished metal dog tags he kept, and prodded his fingers over the engraved name of his friend. "I'm sorry, Buck." he confessed, under his strained breath. He was ready to toss the necklace into the trashcan, and finally allow the realistic truth to sear his broken heart-Bucky Barnes was a ghost. He was never coming back.

Clenching his hand into a balling fist, Steve felt the weight of the world pressing on his broad shoulders, he began dragging his feet against the concrete, his movements were sluggish, his eyes narrowed on his track shoes. Everything hurt inside-the greasy feeling of guilt stuck over his rib cage, melting through the bones. Each breath he released became a painful reminder, that he was free to live and Bucky was a prisoner under HYDRA's morbid control. The air thickened with depression that sluiced off in intense waves. He looked broken, defeated and lost.

"Just come back to me, Buck," he whispered out a pained breath, feeling his hard stomach muscles constrict underneath his gray shirt. His back shuttered under his heavy breathing. The vague scent of rain wavered in the humid breeze as he listened to the rolls of distant thunder echo through the air masses above the restless city. He felt butchered by the endless thralls of sadness, scraped raw, his heart aching, and his mind spilling further into a delirium.

He felt lost again, like he entered 'No Mans Land without his band of Howling Commandos watching his back in the shadows. He refused to search for the glimmers of hope hidden beyond the veils of darkness, and prevented himself from fully breaking down until he became ill and condemned with the sorrow-failed conclusion of his friend's life.

Leaning against the wall, feeling the muscular planes of his back graze over the brownstone, Steve slammed his heavy-lidded blue eyes shut and waited for the rain to pour down over him. He wanted to the storm to wash away his torment.

"Is this my reward?" he growled, shaking his fist to the obscured sky. "I saved many lives, risked everything, and all I get in return is living a life alone? You took everything from me..." He stormed, feeling his knees buckle, until he doubled over, and crashed to ground. He slammed his fists, making his knuckles brush over the cement.

He allowed everything to pour out of him. "You took Bucky away from me...and allowed him to become a monster." He screamed out cries of bottled anguish, his shoulders shook as his became coated with simmering tears. "I never asked for anything...but please bring James Barnes back to me...Please."

After a few long moments of releasing his pain, Steve rose up, and staggered to the entrance doors of his apartment building. He dug in his jean pocket for his keys, but before he grasped the handle, he felt a familiar presence waft in the musty air. He keep himself alert, and drew out a deep, ragged breath, turned around, once again feeling the searing throb of doubt pierce through him. "Get a grip on yourself, Rogers." he chided, clenching his jaw, and feeling his heart drum faster in his chest.

Steve shook his head, and pulled out his keys and opened the door, but before he could-

"I'm done running."

He whipped his head around at the sound of a low, raspy voice, his eyes glinting like sapphire in the darkness, and in a silent motion he involuntarily shifted his body to the course of the voice near two parked vehicles at the curb. With a slight grunting noise of discomfort, a slender, ghostly figure straightened up, pale blues eyes glaring directly at him under strands of disheveled dark, chestnut hair tucked under a baseball cap. He wore a tattered leather jacket, frayed black jeans and combat boots. His complexion ashen and rugged features sweaty from a fever, his full lips chapped, and his movements sloppy with less calculated steps as he advanced cautiously towards the building.

Steve let out a stunned noise of disbelief, his own blue eyes widened with bewilderment. He staggered back a few steps, keeping his distance from the Russian assassin. It was really Bucky. He was still wearing pieces of his Kevlar uniform underneath his civilian garb, but the graphite mask was gone.

Bucky swallowed, feeling memories being pulled out, and replaced with jaded fragments of red. He clenched his jaw, fighting against the amplifying pain in his skull. "I'm done running. I'm done with my missions...I came here to tell you that." He avowed in a broken voice.

"Bucky..." Steve sputtered, his words almost choked him. His face became a downcast of locked sorrow. "I-I thought you were lost for good."

"Why do you call me, Bucky?" he asked, furrowing his brows with utter confusion. He bit softly on his lower lip. "It seems so familiar to hear..." His voice was a weakened undertone. He stared into the unfathomable cerulean blue eyes, watching them spark like smoldering embers of trust. "It almost sounds like it belongs to me." He stared at Steve for a long moment, and gave him nonchalant shrug that said little of everything. "It's nothing," he said.

The words pierced Steve's chest, as he felt his soul die at that point. "It's your name," He replied with a shaky voice. It was all becoming overwhelming to conceive, he forced himself to stare into, dark, unblinking, and longing eyes. "Your real name is not the Winter Soldier or the asset." Every word felt like a shard of glass scraping over his lungs, he barely felt his heart pound a soundless beat against his ribs. "You're name is James Buchanan Barnes."

Bucky lowered his eyes avoiding Steve's woeful expression. He recollected his stolen memory. "So it is true, I'm the face of the man at the exhibit? I'm Bucky Barnes?"

Steve nodded silently, "Yes," he fought against the tears pricking at his eyes. "You're Bucky Barnes." He gingerly extended out his hand, but Bucky shot him a feral glare like a vicious animal. He snarled, and wrenched an inch back. "It's okay, Buck. I'm not going to hurt you." he said in a pacifying tone, and gently placed his hand on plated metal shoulder, the mechanized plates contorted, and moved under his fingers. "I know you don't remember me...but you will. I promise you that I will save you, Bucky." He vented out his grief.

Bucky stared at him, his face emotionless and blue eyes dead. "Nobody can save me," he declared, with a menacing growl ripping in his throat. A wretched sob escaped from his scowling lips. "I'm beyond saving..."

Steve lowered his gaze, and pressed his lips into a firm line. "Why did you come here?" he asked, avoiding Bucky's darkened stare of malice. "I need to know why you came here, Buck?" he said in a firm voice.

"I don't know..." Bucky replied in a scarce whisper...his words fading from exhaustion. Steve noticed with his trained blue eyes that his despondent friend's right arm was wrapped with cloth under his jacket-the limb he dislocated during their last battle on the helicarrier. He shuffled his feet closer to the steps and stared at Steve with his absent, tired pale blue eyes, and parted his trembling lips. "It feels safe here," he explained, but he didn't want Steve to come closer. "I know-I know you." he said as he tore his eyes away.

Every jostle in his injured arm made his stomach churn, twisting and knotting. He felt horrible and frazzled, and he thought he might never be able to stare at his friend again. Wrestling with his thoughts, he tried to break free from the hold of control, but it turned into a nightmare, because his mind was slipping and he felt like thrashing, snarling and crying like a caged, wounded animal. Instead, he tucked his hands under his arms, and bared his teeth, seething fire and unleashing his pain. "I want to remember!" he brayed out a heavy, deep breathe, gritting his back teeth. Hot tears streaked over weather down features, and dripped over the crease of his arched lips. "I know you are not a threat." he hissed, trepidation pounding in his skull. "You saved me...You lifted that metal girder off my body...You could have let me die, but you didn't?" he spoke in a soft, muddled voice, and creased his brows.

"You're my friend, Bucky." Steve empathized fiercely standing pliant and vigorous underneath the glow of the lights around them. He moved closer to Bucky in tentative strides, and leveled his soulful gaze with dull eyes of his friend. "You know that you are. I know you can remember."

Bucky lowered his head with a deteriorating look. His gaze shifted everywhere but Steve's eyes. The cold fury rippling inside his veins teetered towards a feeling of being distraught. As soon as he watched Steve advance closer, Bucky felt all emotions abandoned him. All he focused on was the red dot that his subconscious created on Roger's chest. His level six target...His mission.

With reaction, and programmed instinct, Bucky removed his knife, and shot up to his feet. He lunged at Steve with a violent attack, slashing the blade in the air with efficient twists of his wrist, his teeth clenched and a growl emitted from the back of his throat. He became hostile and confused as he delivered a roundhouse kick, and rammed Steve into the wall, jostling the man's bones as his vision swam with pools of red. "I'll finish you!" Bucky snarled, his voice sounding less human, and more savage.

"Buck...Snap out of it. It's me...Steve." He rasped through bared teeth. His hands clasped over the metal wrist, pulling the blade away from his throat, fighting in off enough to draw a breath, but the raw power of the assassin threatened to slit his pulse point. "You're not going to kill me..." He breathed, looking into the molten blue coals of the Winter Soldier. "I know you won't harm me... Everything is over. You have no reason to kill me."

"Yes I do!" Bucky roared, ramming his knee forcefully into Steve's stomach, forcing him down to his knees. He towered above him, a raging killing machine with the tip of his serrated blade pointing down at Steve's head. "I came here to finish my mission!" he sounded, so incoherent with words, shifting back into his lethal nature. But Steve lifted his tear filled blue eyes, and stared up at him. Bucky staggered a step away, his pulsating vision swimming in red. He felt his jaw drop, and skin paled as he blanched, staggering another inch back. His torn soul protested against the binding urges to kill. "I-I...I don't want to hurt you." his voice cracked, in almost a strangled whimper.

His eyes blood shot and rimmed with red. He sniffled. His metal and flesh fingers clutched his fist like he was hiding a mortal wound from the damage he had caused out his untamed rage. He looked at Steve with hollow eyes, a gaze of a ghost.

Steve nodded mutely, with a magnanimous gaze, he felt his inside, shredding into tiny pieces as he peered into his friend's resentful eyes. "Bucky, it's going to be okay." he soothed with a gentle voice. He shifted closer, and took the combat knife out of Bucky's metal clutch. He tossed the weapon aside, and placed his large hand on the other man's tensed muscled shoulder. He listened to the sudden restriction erupt from the metal plates of Bucky's arm to his movement. A panicked, ragging noise popped out from Bucky's quivering lips. He gasped, as a curdled sob wound its way around him. Bucky leaned in closer and borrowed his face into Steve's chest. His throat ached. The pain failed to recede. "I'm right here for you, pal," he pledged biting back the sudden thickness in his throat. "I'm never going to leave you, Buck."

Bucky brought his head up and breathed in salt drenching over Steve's shirt. He felt his eyes tearing up, but he didn't feel sad. Angry. Frustrated. Exhausted. Indifferent. Sacred. All emotions were starting to drain out of him; he finally felt the stabbing infliction spearing his heart. He was finally feeling what humans were meant to feel, memories of his tortures, mind swiping and isolation began yanking at him. Clawing into the fabrics of his soul and the hold of his programmed mind wouldn't let him go. He felt like every part of his body was being slowly detached.

Releasing an ear shattering noise, Bucky screwed his eyes shut, pushing his violent palms into Steve's torso, and stumbling to the ground, falling back into the snowy void waiting to swallow him up into the rifts of ice… Cold. Cold. Cold. The water as he dove back into the abyss of mindless delirium. His muscles locked up. He was drowning... "Help me!" he screamed, reaching his hand out to grab something to hold. "Don't let me fall..."

The back of his skull never collided with the cement; instead he felt warmth and strength of humanity snaked over his slender frame, as he was being lifted up from the darkness. He drifted further into the strain of collected memories, and found his beckon guiding back to the light.

A young golden haired boy standing on the rusted, snow covered trucks. His body frail and almost skeletal, but his blue eyes shone with familiar warmth and peace. In his hand, billowing against the frosty wind was a metal chain necklace with a name of a fallen soldier-Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

"When will you be comin' home, jerk?" he said with tears filling up his eyes. "Come back to me...Bucky."

Grasping onto Steve's leather sleeve, Bucky flashed his eyes open, tears streaming over his temples, soaking his long strands. He choked out his breath and lifted his hand. He lightly touched Steve's chiseled face, his icy features melting as restored warmth shimmered in his azure, human eyes. "Steve?" he muddled out a low pitch as the red world exploded into sharp pieces of glass, thudding his butchered heart and reopening his soul. "You're alive..." He panted out a heavy coattail of breath, wetness streaking down the curvatures of his stunned face. He was being carried. Steve was carried him as if he was a wounded soldier on the front lines. "You're here with me...Steve..."

'Yeah," Steve replied, looking down at his friend, holding Bucky close to his heart. He felt a soft, deep smile morph over his lips. "I'm here with you, Buck."

"I knew you would find me, Steve," he said in a distant voice. His heart throbbed unevenly in his chest. "I knew you would bring me back..."

'I almost lost you, Buck." Steve said, closing his eyes as tear drops landed on Bucky's face.

"I'm sorry," Bucky said in a strained voice, placing his metal hand over Steve's heart. "I will never leave you...My brother."

"Brothers until the end of the line, Bucky Barnes?" Steve asked, carrying his leaden friend to the apartment doors.

Bucky twitched the edges of his lips into a full, real, emotion filled smile. "You bet..." His foggy blue eyes slowly closed as he drifted into the arm shields of his friend. "I'll follow you until the end..." he promised.

"So will I..." Steve whispered, lifting his teary eyes to the darkened sky, and he felt his deaden soul being lifted when he listened felt his friend's heart beat pound against his own heart as he brought the wounded soldier back home.