Posted because someone texted me at an ungodly hour and forced me to. Enjoy! :)
Bucky almost seems back to normal by that evening. He's making jokes, poking fun at Steve, no doubt plotting mischief with Clint and Natasha. Tony isn't at the table, though Pepper is, and Steve knows why. Bucky can guess that the conversation earlier definitely didn't go well and Tony either is smart enough to stay away for a bit, or he doesn't want to have to look Steve or Bucky in the eye. He guesses it's a mixture of both. He doesn't really care either way – Tony is the only one here he doesn't trust, so good riddance.
Unfortunately after dinner, reality starts to set in. Bucky starts to realize what it really means to have lost seventy years of life. One war ended and another few started and ended. Everyone he knows is dead, besides Steve and Peggy. Technology has advanced beyond his wildest dreams, although Howard Stark evidently never did get to finish his flying car.
That's your fault, remember?
Bucky shakes his head. Not my fault. HYDRA's fault. That's what Steve says, and I know it's true. It wasn't…me.
Ahh, but you remember it in vivid detail, don't you, Bucky? The angry little voice inside him, the Winter Soldier, is still there, no longer dominant, but still lurking just beneath the surface, just waiting for Bucky to make a mistake. And he hates it.
Get out of my head he growls, I didn't kill him, HYDRA did. I liked Howard Stark.
Liked him enough to cut his brake lines the voice laughs. Did you watch, Bucky? You did. You watched from a rooftop as the Starks' car slammed into a truck. They died instantly and you reported back, happy as can be, practically skipping, because you managed to kill a founder of SHIELD. You didn't like him. You destroyed him. Bucky feels nauseous all of a sudden and stands up quickly, interrupting the conversation abruptly.
"Feel sick…be right back," he mumbles before making a beeline to the bathroom. Everyone steals quick glances at Steve, who's watching Bucky like a hawk as he stumbles away. Steve looks back down at the hot cocoa Pepper had given everyone after dinner as a treat and takes a deep breath and pretends that maybe…just maybe he believes that Bucky is just feeling a little sick and it's not at all related to the bigger issue. Bucky can take care of himself…he's back, he knows which way is up. He doesn't need you to point him in the right direction anymore, Steve. The day that Steve really believes that he and Bucky don't need each other is the day Steve believes the world is in a better place than it was in 1944.
Nevertheless, he tries to let Bucky sort out his own issues and continues his conversation with Jane about her hunch on time travel. It distracts him, at least, and he doesn't believe it can be done anyway, so he entertains the conversation. That would be perfect, wouldn't it? Travelling back to the forties, not letting Bucky fall from that train or, if he still falls, looking for him afterwards and saving him. Growing old together, just Steve and Bucky against the rest of the world, the way they always thought it would turn out. They'd probably live to where they are now, except physically seventy years older and laying in adjoining rest home beds, still teasing each other about girls and the like. But what about the others? What about Natasha and Clint and Bruce and Thor and…Tony? They're your friends, too. Steve sighs in the middle of Jane's sentence by accident and she freezes, looking slightly embarrassed.
"I'm sorry, Steve, if you didn't want to hear about it you just had to say something…"
"No, no, sorry, I'm just...We old people get tired. Sorry. It's really fascinating, the work that you're doing." Steve inwardly sighs at the fact that he's just made a senior joke. It's beneath him, but at this point, he doesn't care. It doesn't matter. He is old, and more tired than he'd like to admit at the moment. But he has a feeling he won't sleep well for a while.
Bucky locks the door behind him, leaning heavily on the sink. He can taste the threat of a returning dinner and he really, really doesn't want to get sick. Not right now. Not here. He is doing so much better. Today's already been rough enough, why make it worse?
Worse for whom? Yourself or Steve? You don't deserve to have a peaceful day ever again. Not after what you did.
Please shut up. I'm concentrating.
You liked it, Bucky. All of it. The thrill of hitting a target, the wind rushing through your hair on a chase, the majestic explosions that ended careers and lives. You shaped the century, you idiot. Try harder to pretend you're not proud of that.
I'm not proud of it! I had no choice. I didn't want this…any of this…
Warm blood soaking your hands on your first mission, the one you nearly botched, the one you had to get too close and you ripped his throat out. And then you liked it.
Bucky remembers that mission all too well. He'd missed his shot and the man started running, so he had to go after him. His handlers had tested him by giving him only one bullet, to see how he would react if he missed. He cornered the man in an alleyway, blocking the only exit. He remembers the pleading, the crying, the sniveling, the begging for mercy, the 'please I have a wife and children' appeal (which was true), etc. etc. And all he'd felt, all he remembers feeling, is satisfaction. He'd won. And then the man had pulled a knife on him unexpectedly, stabbed Bucky in the gut, at which point Bucky became enraged and tore his throat out with his metal arm. And instead of just satisfaction, he felt some sort of fascination at the adrenaline rush and feeling the evidence of death in the palms of his hands. He remembers liking it and that by itself is enough to make him sick.
He finally makes himself look up at the mirror, at himself. Something he's easily avoided since he showed up on Steve's doorstep almost a year ago. Covered it with a towel, didn't look, didn't make it part of his routine. Why would he? He wouldn't recognize himself. And he's right – now gazing into his own blue eyes, he sees a broken, defeated man with mangy long hair, dark circles around his eyes, and starting to grow a little more stubble than he's comfortable with.
Sickening, isn't it? the Winter Soldier hisses.
Shut up. He hears a quiet rat-tat-tat on the bathroom door and Pepper's voice asks,
"Bucky? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he says heavily, using a good amount of restraint not to scream or throw up when he opens his mouth.
"O-okay, just let me know if you need anything. I'm here for you." She sounds so kind. Like a mother. Like his mother. Or maybe more like Steve's mother – practically adoptive and as fiercely protective to him as to any of her other children. Pepper seems to have decided (in Bucky's opinion, and he's not wrong) that he is something of a mission for her. Someone to take under her wing, to treat kindly and hope that in return she can coax the kindness out of him, out of the dark recesses of his person where HYDRA stuffed them a long time ago.
"Thanks," Bucky says quickly. He looks away from the mirror and finds himself drawn back to it.
Who can love that broken face? Steve? Natasha? You're beyond saving, Bucky. You're beyond redemption and everyone knows it but no one wants to be the one to say it.
I said shut up. I'm not asking anyone to stay.
They stay out of pity, you idiot. Pity for a man lost seventy years ago when he died falling off a train in the Alps. Now the voice seems to be coming from Bucky's reflection. His reflection's mouth is moving, but his isn't.
"Stop that," he says quietly to the mirror, "Stop that right now. You can't do that." Mirror Bucky's lips twist into a cruel smile.
"I control you," it says, "You're weak. That's why I'll always win – because you can never keep me out. Not for you, not for Steve, not for anyone."
"You don't control me," Bucky snarls, "I control me."
"But I am you," it replies simply, "Don't you see? You can never escape the inevitable truth that you can't run from yourself. You were never that good at it. You always gave into your darker impulses, Bucky, even as a child. Why do you think you became what you did when they gave you the serum?"
Bucky frowns, his mouth slightly ajar in surprise. "I didn't…I didn't get the serum. Only Steve got the serum."
"Don't be stupid," it laughs, "They gave you the serum when they captured the 107th. That's how you survived the fall. That's how you became the Winter Soldier. They only had to wipe your mind and you became a ruthless killing machine. Fighting it now is only making it harder for yourself. Give in, Bucky. You will always lose."
"No, I won't," Bucky says, his voice wobbling, "I can't. No. I can't do that…if nothing else, I can't do that to Steve."
"Steve Rogers is looking for excuses to dump your sorry ass out on the street," it hisses furiously, "He'll never love you! He loves the man he lost in the Alps and he knows he'll never get him back." Bucky hears knocking on the door again.
"Just a minute, Pepper!" he shouts. He glares at the mirror and it shifts to show him an image of where he was a year ago, the black muzzle covering his nose and mouth, throwing a shield back at Steve.
You're a monster, Bucky Barnes. And you will always be a monster. You can't fight your true nature, and this is your true nature.