AN: I'm going to hell for writing this. I can't seem to write anything that isn't angsty, sad and depressing lately, which probably says more about my state of mind than anything else. But, ladies and gents, I hope that this hurts you in all the best ways.
The Weight of a Splintered Instant
There used to be a real swingin' joint on the corner of Adams and 189th, but now it's nothing but a burnt out husk of a memory. Maybe that's why he liked the place so much now when before he couldn't stand it for more than a night.
He was just like that building.
-RP: Splintered-
"Come on now, Stevie, dance with the lady! Show're a good time!" His left arm was around a beautiful brunette, fingers tracing her shoulder absentmindedly. Steve was a few paces in front of him, little and awkward but trying not to show that he was sweating through his old man's suit coat that was about twice as big as it had to be.
"I don't think your friend wants to dance, James." The blonde that he'd picked out for Steve was pouting up at him, her painted red lower lip quivering as she batted her dark eyelashes. Dames had a way of doing that, looking up at him through thick eyelashes and just making him forget what he was there for.
The brass band struck up another song, this one a fast paced jive that even made him want to dance.
"You know, Buck, I think I'm going to get some fresh air, I'll be back in a little bit," Steve said, giving him a look that he knew meant the other man would disappear into the dark Brooklyn night and not return.
"Stevie!" he yelled after the man. That scrawny little back was all he was met with. Steve didn't even bother to turn around.
"You'll dance with both of us, won't you James?" The brunette was asking him something, and as Steve disappeared out the door, James smiled down at the pair of them, one tugging on his left arm and the other pulling at the lapel over his heart.
-RP: Splintered-
The place had gone from a dance house to a little Italian place to a laundromat and back to a swanky little dive bar all in the seventy years since he'd been there. One of the patrons hadn't put out their cigarette all the way, and it had caught one of the lacquered wooden tables on fire.
The rest of the place had gone up in smoke faster than the old sawmill out on the old Barnes family farm. Grandpa Barnes had tried to put that fire out all night, but come morning, it was nothing more than charred wood and ash.
He often thought about that charred wood. On the outside, it looked destroyed, but if you picked away at the cinders, some of the pieces were untouched at their center. He wished he was like that. He wasn't a burned out dive bar though, he was the rusted out, charred black frier that sat in the back. Burned metal.
-RP: Splintered-
"God as my witness, Izzy, if your ass isn't in that bunker yet, I'm going to put a hole in it." It was an old argument. Izzy liked to lag behind, liked to be the last man standing in front of the foxhole as the enemy tried to rain hell down on their heads. He liked the thill of it, the dance with death.
It wasn't so much a dance as it was a trap though.
James always took the shot. Always. Some Nazi, goose-stepping, son-of-a-bitch would come at him, gun in hand, and James would take the shot. Sometimes, they even took an extra step or two before they realized they'd died.
Izzy would turn to where Bucky'd been hunkered down and give a two-fingered salute. Today was no exception.
Bucky'd been looking down the site of his rifle for the better part of an hour, just waiting. He did a lot of just waiting, sitting still and rusting, getting stiff and sore until the Commandos needed him.
Izzy stood in front of one of the tunnels the allies had dug to shield them from gunfire. He'd lost his natural mind as three men came through smoke and the eeriness of early morning sunlight.
Three shots fired in quick succession, and the third had only started to look for the sniper before the bullet ripped through his chest. James relaxed for a second, watching as Izzy Cohen gave his odd little salute and disappeared.
"One of these day, Izzy..." He never finished those threats. Instead, he looked down at the end of his sniper rifle, studying the darkened gun metal. He'd taken far too many shots with the old thing. The end was starting to discolor, and it wouldn't be long before the barrel couldn't withstand the force of a shot.
The blackened metal was weak, worn too thin and was in need of replacing. He wasn't really a nostalgic man, but replacing a weapon was always a sentimental thing. Afterall, that piece of charred metal had kept them all alive. Of course, if he didn't see it gotten rid of, it would mean the death of someone he cared about someday.
-RP: Splintered-
There were a lot of things in the burned out building that were like Bucky Barnes, now that he could remember who Bucky Barnes was to begin with. It had taken a while, longer than it should have, and James wasn't proud of the number of times he'd been reading about himself only to have the memory in those stories hit him like the freight train he fell from.
Hell, he was kind of like that train.
-RP: Splintered-
It was an old steamer, ran off of what amounted to hot air, and that was not lost on Bucky as he fell. Most of Bucky's life he'd spouted the stuff, was only fitting that he'd die from something so similar. Course, he'd spent most of his life watching Steve Rogers, watching his back, having his back watched.
They were unstoppable, just like that train. Steve always knew when Bucky was pushed back against the ropes, and he'd always—no matter how big or how small he'd been—been able to watch his six. So maybe Bucky didn't mind it so much, dangling from a creaking handrail that had been blown out of the inside of the train, knowing he was going to die.
Steve had always had his back. He'd made him a promise. He intended to keep it.
Steve was down; the shield had been right there. Bucky had grabbed it, used it like he had so many times in the past, and then...well, then he'd been hanging over nothing with Steve too far away.
That train was Bucky's whole life and it should have been his death.
A rickety old thing that was hurtling along a path that was laid out before it by someone else, that was tired and getting a little older than it'd been at the start but not willing to stop because it wasn't the end of the line, not yet.
Except, for Bucky Barnes, it was. Bucky didn't come back from that.
-RP: Splintered-
He'd done a lot between that train and the little burned out bar. Except he wasn't Bucky Barnes, was he? He was the Winter Soldier. He was the Asset. Occasionally, he had a name because the mission required it, but usually, he was nameless, the shadow of a man.
The shadow of something strong, made a ghost and a demon and pulled apart at such an intrinsic level that Bucky Barnes was never coming back. Even as he sat in the bar, staring down at his metal hand and remembering nearly everything, he knew.
He was nothing like that man. He might put on his skin and use his voice and live his memories, but he wasn't James Barnes. For a little while he liked to think he was because he was able to sleep for a little while, a few days. A few weeks. A couple months.
Then he'd snapped.
James Barnes had disappeared in the flicker of anger, and he was the Winter Soldier as he tore his way through a HYDRA base. It had lasted all of an hour, and yet, as he came back to himself, he knew.
He wasn't Bucky Barnes. Bucky was strong. Bucky could follow Captain America and Steve Rogers and know they were two different people. Bucky knew that what Steve Rogers needed was often the exact opposite of what Captain America needed. Bucky was strong enough to make sure he had both.
-RP: Splintered-
They'd been living out of each other's pockets for the better part of two months, just sitting around and waiting for new orders. Bucky'd been watching Steve for those two months. He knew that while Steve Rogers needed the break, Captain America was seething.
"Hey, punk." It had become their greeting over the years, and while Bucky easily called Steve punk, he never started a conversation with Captain America with similar informality.
"Buck." Steve wasn't paying attention though, not really, because Steve Rogers had licked his wounds and calmed his mind and recharged his seemingly endless batteries. He had little more to attend to as himself, and with his mind free to focus on other things, it had.
The map stretched out in front of him, the supposed location of three enemy bases etched in red ink. Bucky'd seen that map time and time again, knew where they'd march next, as soon as they got the all clear to move out.
He fingered the battered envelope in his jacket pocket. It had been passed on by a messenger nearly a month prior, and yet in his tattered jacket pocket it had stayed because Steve hadn't been ready. Bucky hadn't either, and if he were honest, he still wasn't. None of them were.
"You look like you're itchin' to get a move on."
"We can't sit here forever. There are people out there suffering because we're sitting on our hands."
"Captain." He wasn't talking to Steve anymore, not as he reached into his pocket and pulled out that envelope. "Just came in. They're letting the dogs off the chain."
Relief flooded that face, and just like that, Bucky had given Steve as much time as he needed and the Captain something to focus on afterward.
-RP: Splintered-
As Bucky Barnes, he'd always preferred guns to knives, and yet, as the Winter Soldier, they'd taught him that any weapon was his preferred weapon, make use of what he had. Now, he could barely look at a blade.
The last time he'd slipped into the skin of the Asset, he'd severed a server's hand from her wrist with a butter knife. It had only been the space between two heartbeats that he wasn't himself, and yet...
It had been more than enough time to ruin the life closest to him.
It was only a matter of time before the life he ruined meant more to him than just another faceless victim of the Soldier, until that life was so much more important than a forty something waitress at a Denny's.
That was another thing. Bucky Barnes would have never considered the life of someone more or less important than the life of someone else, except for maybe Steve's life. The scrawny kid from Brooklyn had always been more important than other people, more important than even himself, and that was saying something.
Bucky had loved himself, loved living, and yet where Steve was concerned, Bucky always placed second, even in his own mind.
-RP: Splintered-
"You always do this." Steve was sulking, as Steve commonly did after a battle that had gone sideways. He'd done it when they were still both young and innocent and the most dirty thing they did was brawling in alley ways. He was even more likely to do it now that there were bullets and trip wire.
"You'da done the same thing, punk." Bucky always reminded him. Always. Even as the medic was probing a hole in his shoulder made by a neat through and through, he would remind him.
"Except I have a super serum in my veins, Buck. And a shield that can stop a bullet. You have your god damn jacket—"
"Your Ma would wash your mouth out with lye, Steven Grant Rogers." Steve had a tendency to take the Lord's name when Bucky was hurt. Once, when he'd seen Bucky go down and not get back up, the sniper had heard him renouncing God and both of their mothers until he was able to reach Bucky, who'd been more pinned down by gunfire than by any injury.
"I was right there, Buck. Right there. You just had to stand still, and you'd be fine right now." He couldn't argue. It was true. The shot had been meant for Captain America, and while logically Sergeant Barnes knew that Captain America could take a bullet and get back up, Bucky couldn't let Steve take one, not if he could help it.
"You whine more than a dame." James was good at playing off the little things like wounds that hadn't been meant for him. He was shite at playing off the reasoning behind them, so he distracted and bluffed.
"You do have all the experience with dames, oh, except lately. I though it was me that brunette was staring at last we were in—." Steve never failed to rise to the occasion.
-RP: Splintered-
Steve was close. Bucky always knew where he was, like an itch at the back of his mind. The man had been ghosting him ever since he'd brought the Helicarrier down that day, ever since the Asset had been unable to let that damningly familiar man drown in the Hudson.
Bullets had been exchanged at first, words later, and yet Steve had yet to find Bucky when he was in his right mind, when he was in his old mind. He would today. The itch at the back of his mind was too strong for it to be otherwise.
He was ready. Bucky Barnes was ready. The Asset was cold and dormant at the back of his mind, at least for the moment, and James wasn't willing to let Steve get close enough to bring it to life. Steve always seemed to bring out the worst in his lingering programming. Maybe it wasn't Steve though; maybe it was Captain America. He'd never much liked the idea of Project Rebirth except for the fact that it made life for Steve easier.
The sound of glass shards beneath an army boot told Bucky that the man had come through the front door instead of the side.
"Buck?" The Asset never responded to the name, never really did much but attack after it was addressed.
"Yeah." He could hear the steady exhale that meant he'd surprised Steve. Glancing up at the man, he realized that he had surprised him. And it was Steve. The uniform was missing today, and oddly enough, Bucky was glad for that.
He stared back down at his hands, folded up and resting against his knees. The metal one was empty, clutching nothing but air. It was safer that way. That metal hand could make anything a weapon to be turned against the world.
He brought his flesh hand up toward his shoulder.
"Bucky?" Steve called, questioning. Bucky knew what he was questioning. The weight of it wasn't lost on him, nor was the cool press of it against his palm and his temple. The cool weight of a decision already made. "We can talk about this, Buck. Just put the—"
"I made you a promise a long time ago." Bucky wouldn't have normally cut Steve off. In the past, he'd have let the other man talk him down from whatever ledge he found himself perched upon. It was more important now that Bucky remain firm. "I'm not going to be able to keep that promise."
"Course you are. Of course you are, Bucky." The words were strained, harsh and anxious, as if he was struggling with his throat.
"No." Bucky realized that his own tongue was treasonous as he spoke, tripping over the word. "Not this time, Stevie."
"You remember me, Buck?" Steve wasn't asking, not really, not with the way he was looking at him.
"Of course I do."
"Then we don't have to do this. We can just walk out of here, and no one has to know who you were or what they made you."
"I know." God, did he know. HYDRA knew. SHIELD knew. He was pretty sure every government with an intelligence agency in the world knew. A forty something waitress in Queens knew. So did her three children and her husband. He just had to make sure Steve never knew, not the way they did.
Steve must have taken his words the wrong way because he was relaxing, smiling softly at him and taking steps forward over shattered glass from the windows. The windows of a burnt out dive bar. A burnt out dive bar that used to be a dance hall.
A dance hall where he once watched Steve walk away from him. Steve had been uncomfortable back then, but he never fled things that caused him discomfort. He always left because he thought it was best for Bucky. Steve was a self-sacrificing jack-ass that way, but Bucky loved him for it never-the-less. It would be different this time though. He would be the one walking away.
"I know who I am right now, punk," he said, a smile on his lips. It was unfamiliar to smile, and the muscles in his cheeks felt wrong holding the position. "Most of the time I know who I am now, but sometimes...sometimes I don't, Steve. Sometimes is too often."
He could see the dawning in Steve's eyes, could see the man tensing. He saw the first steps being planned out in the man's head.
"This's gotta be the end of the line, Steve. It's gotta be."
He met Steve's eyes, saw the pain and anguish there, saw the world of possibilities that could happen if he just put the gun down.
-RP: Splintered-
"Hey, Buck, I want to introduce you to Darcy Lewis. She's a new PA Stark hired, but I think you'll like her." Darcy Lewis was dark and quick witted and not afraid of the Winter Soldier's shadow still lingering in his eyes.
-RP: Splintered-
"Get over here. You've been out of bed far too long." Falling in love with Steve Rogers was something that was far too easy to do now that it wasn't taboo. Falling into bed with him was even easier.
-RP: Splintered-
"Come on, Bucky, you'll do just fine." Steve straightened his tie as Bucky read over his vow's again. He'd never been nervous before, but no one scared the hell out of him like Natasha did.
-RP: Splintered-
"Bucky, Bucky, please." His metal arm tightened down, pressing too hard for air to slip through vocal cords. The life slowly faded from the bright blue eyes that stared up at him, expectant and clear, unafraid even as everything was taken away. "Buck, it's Steve." The last words to struggle past blue-tinged lips made no difference.
-RP: Splintered-
There were limitless possibilities in those blue eyes, and yet, even just one where he was the death of the man in front of him was too heavy a thing to carry. Bucky Barnes was strong. He put his best friend first. He was the type of guy to lay down on a wire if it meant Steve could climb over him.
Steve must have saw the decision in his eyes because in an instant he was running forward, sending the broken glass beneath his feet flying. It wouldn't matter though.
"Bucky!"
"The end of the line, Steve."
He heard the gunshot for only a splintered instant.