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Right Beside You
Summary: Steve said he would be there to the end of the line, and he always kept his word. Even when that meant picking up the pieces of his best friend and putting them back together.
Rating: T as a precaution
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Disclaimer: So I finally know who that guy with the robot wings at the end of Age of Ultron was. It helps to watch the movies in order.
Note: As alluded to in my disclaimer, I saw Age of Ultron before I saw Winter Soldier, and somehow for this story I managed to connect the two movies in my mind. If you have not seen Age of Ultron, there will be spoilers. There will also be spoilers for those of you who are not familiar with Agents of Shield.
When you're lonely and you are confused, I'll be right beside you…
- Building 429, "Right Beside You"
Steve was almost asleep when he heard the screaming. He was awake instantly, out of his bedroom and bolted down the hall so fast he missed the door and crashed into door of the closet at the end of the hall, ripping it off its hinges and crushing it into the shelves behind. He didn't notice, shoving himself free and hastening through the door of the other bedroom.
The screams had stopped; other occupant of the apartment was struggling in his sleep, lost in a dream, and Steve wasted no time pouncing on him and trying to wake him. "Bucky, wake up! It's just a dream! Wake up!"
Bucky did not wake up. Still lost in his dream, he started fighting against Steve, catching the super soldier on the jaw. Steve tried to grab his friend's arms. "Wake up, Bucky. It's just a dream. It's just a dream."
Steve came to a dead stop a moment later as Bucky lashed out with his robotic arm and caught the superhero by the throat.
The reaction seemed to trigger something and Bucky's eyes snapped open. He slowly released his grip on Steve's throat. He looked away.
"It's okay." Steve told him. "It was just a dream."
It might not have actually been okay. But Steve didn't know, and he wasn't going to assume that.
Bucky had shown up one day, three weeks after Steve had gotten back from stopping Ultron.
It hadn't been a fun three weeks. Working with Natasha to shape a new team of Avengers, trying to clean up the damage that Ultron had caused, and trying to find his best friend from his past had left Steve running a little ragged, and Sam's determination that the trail that they had picked on Bucky after his visit to the Smithsonian had gone cold, hadn't helped.
The next morning, when Steve got back from his morning jog, he walked into his apartment to find Bucky standing in the middle of the front room.
"I'm glad you're back." Steve said without blinking or batting an eye as he walked past the other man and into the kitchen. Sam's recommendation had been to keep things very calm and low key if Bucky did turn back up, and Steve was going to try it. He pulled open the door to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of flavored water. "I was getting a little worried." He came back into the other room and offered one of the waters to Bucky, who looked at it for a long moment, then accepted it.
"If you're looking for somewhere to stay," Steve continued after he'd downed about half of his own water. "I've got an extra room."
Bucky said nothing.
But he didn't leave, either.
It wasn't every day that you got the play therapist to a guy who tried to kill you.
Then again, it wasn't every day that you uncovered a vast conspiracy in a secret government agency and helped Captain America save the world before getting a chance to become an Avenger.
Sam Wilson just tried to take everything in stride these days. He still worked part time at the VA clinic in between training with the other New Avengers, and if there was ever a veteran who needed help, Sam couldn't think of a better one that James Buchanan Barnes.
"Steve tells me you had another nightmare last night." Sam began, setting clasped hands on the desk in front of him. "Talking about the things we fear, the things that we flashback to, can help." He'd said this before, once a day, twice a week, since Bucky had turned back up.
Bucky sat on the other side of the desk, still as a statue. He didn't say anything. Sam wasn't surprised.
He leaned back in his chair and decided to try a different tactic. "Steve said you watched the first three episodes of Star Trek last night with him. What did you think?"
There was silence in the office for a long time. Sam had stopped trying to get Bucky to talk a long time ago, stopped explaining that he wasn't going to be punished for talking, and started learning how to wait. Some men took longer than others. Sam had known that long before he met Captain America and got caught up in this whirlwind.
"Humanity… is obsessed with space." Bucky said, finally.
Sam did not grin, though he wanted too. They were only half an hour in and Bucky had said more words then he usually said in a whole session.
"Well, we've had some good reasons for that. Did Steve tell you about the moon landing?"
Bucky snorted. "I knew about that years ago."
Eleven words. A new record. Sam decided to press his luck and keep going. "Did he tell you about the Chitauri invasion?"
"Yes."
After that, Bucky didn't say another work for the remaining twenty-five minutes of their session.
Sam didn't take it personally.
All things considered, it had been pretty good session.
"Why?"
"Why, what?" Steve asked, looking up from the onion he was mincing and giving Bucky a confused look. His tablet was on the counter in front of him, and a recipe from the Food Network was pulled up on it. He had bookmarked it the other day and decided that at some point he was going to try it for dinner. Sam had complained that he was abusing the bookmarking feature on his tablet, but Steve didn't care.
"Why did you let me stay?" Bucky asked.
"Because we're friends." 'Remember' tended to be a trigger word for Bucky, so Steve didn't use it as he went back to mincing the onion. "I'm with you to the end of the line."
"Thanks, Tony. I appreciate this."
"Hey don't mention it. I am a genius in robotics after all, and FRIDAY and Vision were able to sift through some of that data that got destroyed in New Jersey and give me a place to start." Tony said he led Steve and Bucky into his workshop. Bucky's robotic arm was in need of maintenance, and Steve had finally given up and called Tony, who had jumped at the opportunity
"I can pay you back for the flight." Steve offered.
Tony waved the words away. "Billionaire, Steve, billionaire. I was going to pack up the whole workshop and bring it down and make you carry it into the apartment because I wanted to see if you would really act as my bagboy or not, but then I realized it would be easier to send you two plane tickets then to pack this place up, and then I realized that I don't buy plane tickets, I own my own private jet. Wait here, I left some of my tools in the other room."
Tony departed, leaving silence behind. After a brief moment, Steve spoke. "Tony's one of the best engineers I've ever met, and he is a genius when it comes to robotics. If anyone can repair your arm, it's going to be him."
"Hah! That's what I want!" Tony reentered the room and managed to point at Steve while holding two toolboxes. "A recommendation from Captain America. Write down what you just said, sign it, and we'll call the rest of this job even!"
"I think you're doing pretty well without a recommendation from me, Tony." Steve replied.
"True but I want it anyways."
Steve gave a long-suffering sigh, a reached for a pad and pen lying nearby on the worktable.
"JARVIS, pull…" Tony began, then stopped.
Steve stopped writing, and though Bucky didn't seem to have move, his gaze shifted ever so slightly to look at the other man, since the sudden change of the mod of the room was impossible to miss.
"That's hard to get used to." Tony sighed, then shook himself. "FRIDAY, show me what we've got."
"Yes sir," FRIDAY replied, and the schematics for Bucky's arm popped up on the screen.
Tony nodded. "Have a seat," He said, waving Bucky towards a chair near the workbench. "Do you want to watch something while I work? Or listen to something? My media library is huge and there's no reason you should just sit and stare at the wall."
There was pause that made Steve worry there would be no answer, then Bucky said, "Star Trek."
Tony considered it. "Where do you want to start?"
Bucky looked at Steve, who caught on almost immediately. "We left off at episode seven, of Season one."
He expected Tony to make a smart remark, but all the man said was, "Did you get that?"
And FRIDAY responded, "Yes, Sir." All the schematics moved to another screen, and they watched as a video playlist rolled up and stopped. "I have queued the season to begin playing at episode at seven and begin playing until someone requests to stop, or until season two is reached."
"Alright, let's begin." Tony said, pulling up his own chair next to Bucky and reaching for a tool. As William Shatner began to narrate the opening of the show, Tony paused, looking at Bucky's robotic arm. "So, do you want me to do anything about that red star tattoo you've got there?"
Bucky glared at him for a long moment, then looked at Steve, then back at Tony.
Tony nodded. "I like that idea. I'll look into it, Maybe get to it today if there's time."
Feeling as though he had missed something, Steve looked at them and asked, "Get to what?"
"Never mind." Tony said, pointing a tool at him. "Get back to writing. I want that recommendation."
Steve sighed and reached for the pen again.
~xXx~
They wound up staying the night in the Tower, as it was raining and their flight had to be delayed.
"That's the beautiful thing about owning the plane." Tony had said when he heard. "You can leave as soon as you want after the rain clears. Or you can stay as long as you want. I've definitely got the room. We're ordering out for dinner tonight. It's on me. So what do you two want?"
Bucky had wandered off after the meal, exploring the Tower. No one else was there, though Tony had made reference to a woman named Pepper who was visiting another city on company business. His walk eventually wound him back to the lounge where Tony and Steve were, and he stopped out of sight, where he could see and hear but not be seen.
Theoretically.
Because with Steve, it was also possible that he had been heard.
"Two hundred recipes! How could you bookmark two hundred recipes!?"
"I wanted to save them for later."
"But two hundred!" Tony raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. "Why didn't you just get an account with the website and save the recipes that way?"
Steve's blank look answered the question. Tony sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
"Sam said I needed a new hobby." Steve offered.
"So you took up cooking. That's no excuse." Tony said, taking the tablet from the super soldier. "I'm making an account for you right now, so FRIDAY can go in and convert your two hundred bookmarks to an account. What's your email?"
"I don't have one."
At Tony's look of exasperation, Steve got annoyed. "SHEILD is gone, and the email account I ever had was through them. I know what email is, Tony."
"Have you ever heard of Gmail?"
Steve just gave him a blank look.
"Never mind." Tony said. "I'm getting you a Gmail, too. FRIDAY, when you get on the tablet, make sure you convert all the Food Network bookmarks from the tablet to favorites on the site account. And find a nice little how-to about Gmail and put that on the tablet so Steve can read it. Got that?"
"Yes sir." FRIDAY replied. "Will there be anything else?"
"Not yet, but I'll let you know if I think of anything." Tony promised, typing away at the screen in front of him.
"Very good sir." FRIDAY replied, then went silent.
"So have you talked to the Vision yet?" Tony asked. "Cause unless you figure out where Stephen Strange went, the Vision is probably your best bet for sorting out Tall Dark and Psycho."
"No. I want to wait until he's ready. And don't call him that. He's my friend."
Tony didn't look up from whet he was doing. "It's not an insult. I like Tall Dark and Psycho. I liked Big Mean and Green, too." He paused. "I hope he's okay, wherever he went."
Both of them paused for a moment, wondering where Banner was and if he was alright. Then Steve spoke. "I've got to stop losing people."
"You and me both." Tony replied. Then he turned his attention back to the tablet.
"Any luck finding him?"
"No. But if he's gone back to India or some distant province of China there's not much I'll be able to do to find him." Tony set the tablet on a table. "Alright FRIDAY. It's all yours." He looked at Steve. "Your new email is 'captainrogers1941' at Gmail-dot-com. Your new password for it and your account on the Food Network is '1-r-s-t avenger."
"Did you really have to set it up like that?" Steve asked, exasperated.
"I didn't see any good reason not to. Oh, and I gave you the same username for your Stark Enterprises email too, because I can." Tony said, getting to his feet and heading for the door. "Anyway, whenever you, or him, or both of you, are ready, Vision already said he'd happy to help."
"Not until Bucky is ready, Tony. And I mean it." Steve said turning to pick up his tablet. As he turned, he paused, and listened intently.
There had been another noise, nearly too brief and too soft to hear. "Bucky?"
A moment passed and there was no answer, no other sound in the room.
"FRIDAY, are you finished?"
"Yes, Captain Rogers. I believe you will find your new account to be very helpful in the future."
"Alright. Thanks." Steve picked up the tablet, and turned and headed out the door after Tony.
Two days after he and Steve arrived back in DC from their visit, Bucky met Hawkeye for the first time.
Steve had left that morning to go for his job, and Bucky knew they were going to VA clinic later. He was personally still deciding whether he wanted to have those sessions or not.
But when the knock came on the door, he was reading a history book.
The knock came again, and he looked at the door. After a moment the knob rattled and the door opened. "Steve, I thought Natasha told you about locking the damn door. At least make HYDRA work to get in." Clint muttered as he entered. He paused just inside the door way, then closed it behind him. "I didn't know Steve had a roommate." He said, turning towards Bucky.
There was nothing in Clint's posture that suggested an imminent attack, or even that the other man was thinking about attacking, though there was a quiver of arrows carefully concealed under the jacket the other man was wearing, and it was more noticeable by the man's careful posture. There was one man Steve had talked to him about who fought with a bow and arrows. Bucky stayed where he was, the book still in his hands. "He does now."
Clint gave him an appraising glance. "So is Steve here?"
"He went out."
The archer nodded. "Okay." He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a flash drive. "Will you give this to him when he gets back? Just tell him Clint came by and dropped it off."
Bucky held out a hand, and Clint passed off the drive. "Thanks. See you around." He said, then turned and headed back out the door.
~xXx~
When Steve got back from his jog, he found Bucky still sitting on the couch, reading the history book. The supersoldier walked into the kitchen, and pulled a bottle of flavored water from the fridge, and then noticed the flash drive lying on the counter.
"What is this?" He asked as he picked it up.
"Clint came by and dropped it off." Bucky responded.
"I was wondering when he would be here." Was all Steve said.
Bucky did not respond, instead turning another page in the book and continuing with his reading.
~xXx~
"Why did you give the flash drive with the information we have about the Winter Soldier to the Winter Soldier?" Natasha asked, somewhat incredulously.
"Because he was there, and would give it to Steve for me." Clint replied, unconcernedly.
Though Ultron had been defeated, there was still work to be done, and Phil Coulson now lead by proxy a group of former SHIELD agents who were making it their mission to track down and remove any remaining HYDRA threats.
The base they worked out of was an old one; the very first one SHIELD had ever had, back when they had just formed as an agency, but it was working for them and they weren't going to move. From the outside, it looked like just another warehouse in the vicinity of Arlington, Virginia.
When he had heard about the new mission, Steve had made a request to Natasha: find out as much as she could, from any HYDRA agent with information, about what had been done to Bucky to turn him into the Winter Soldier. Though she had mixed feelings about the request, Steve was her friend so Natasha had agreed. Clint, when he had been filled in on the details, had been more than willing to help.
"I'm just a little concerned about a somewhat unhinged assassin having that much information on himself." Natasha continued.
"It'll be okay." Clint said, finishing the report he was working on and submitting it. "I have a little bit of experience in the 'helping unhinged assassins' field, so trust me on this."
"If you say so." Natasha said, and they grinned at each other in the comfortable camaraderie of people who know each other's secrets and trust each other with their lives. Then they each turned back to their computer terminal and got back to work researching their next target.
"I dreamed last night." Bucky said.
It was the day after Clint had come by. Steve had not yet looked at the drive. He told himself it was because neither he nor Bucky were ready to know what was on there, but he was also wondering if the truth wasn't a little closer to the fact that he was afraid to know.
Steve was in the kitchen, staring at his tablet, trying to figure out what Dulce de leche was and if it would taste good on waffles when Bucky spoke. He paused and thought back to the night before. There had been no screaming, so that was tentatively a good sign. But Bucky never talked about what he dreamed, and rarely talked at all, so he wasn't sure where the conversation was going to go."
"There was a camp. A HYDRA camp. It was getting raided. By…us…I think."
Steve suddenly went very still.
Bucky went on. "I…there was a flag, with the HYDRA head, pinned to the outside of the building…it wasn't on the flagpole."
The camp hidden in the woods in France. Steve realized suddenly. It had been crude, and hastily constructed, with the flag pinned to the outside wall of the building because there was no flagpole.
"We went in… you, and me, and… and …the others…the ones I saw in the museum. We went in and freed everyone in that camp." Bucky finished, and looked at Steve, who managed to nod.
"Yeah, we did." Steve swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "You were the one who found where the man in charge of the camp was hiding, and we used the information we got form him to take down two more camps."
Bucky nodded, and looked back at the table. Steve suddenly realized he'd been holding his breath, and exhaled.
It wasn't what he'd expected, but it was a start.
"We…did that a lot?" Bucky asked.
"Yeah. We did." Steve replied, finally settling on the recipe he wanted and fervently wishing Sam was there to help him navigate the conversation. Because he wanted Bucky to keep talking, but he was just as sure there was a right and wrong way to go about that.
"And … we did it…together."
"Yeah," Steve repeated, and fought back the urge to chuckle nervously. "We did a lot of rescuing people from HYDRA." And maybe that's why I'm afraid I can't rescue you this time, because you were always with me for the rescue before, and I don't know what to do now that you're the one who needs rescuing.
"To…the end of the line."
"Yes." Steve said a third time, and smiled. It was a start.
And sometimes, a start was all you needed.
"I'm with you to the end of the line."
[A/N:] Holey moley, people. The other day I was watching a movie - and not this movie, either - when I started pondering a character who was asleep, or almost asleep, and was woken up by screaming. Being a writer, I asked the next questions: Who is screaming, and why? The answer was, Bucky Barnes is screaming, because he is reliving what he went through to become the Winter Soldier, and Steve is the one who woke up, because for some reason he is now taking care of Bucky.
That was three days ago, because I had to work, eat, and sleep in the meantime besides writing. Tonight I present you with the finished work. I'm rather pleased with how this story turned out. I like how the flow went, though I didn't get to explore all the things I wanted with Tony. I wanted him to find out that HYDRA was responsible for killing his parents, and that Obidiah Stane was a member of HYDRA, per the fan theories, but I couldn't find a good way to fit a scene like that in the story. I did put the scene with Hawkeye in because I didn't feel it disrupted the flow of the fic. I actually think Clint really would be capable of working with Bucky because he seems like the kind of guy who would know how to diffuse any sort of issues that may arise from having a deadly team member whose mind is somewhat broken, and I'd like to write a story involving them, but I'm not making any promises.
I don't own the line from the Building 429 song, but I thought the song kind of fit the theme of the story. I also don't own the Food Network, but they were the first ones to pop into my head while I was writing. Nor do I own Gmail or any other names you recognize.
And with that, thanks for reading, and please review. Feedback is always appreciated.