Warning: One gdi.
For most people, a metal fist across the jaw would knock them out.
Sadly for Bucky, Steve was not most people.
Steve staggered and fell against the alley wall, but he was still standing. He lifted a hand to his bleeding lip, and when his eyes opened, they were full of blue fire.
Bucky winced.
Why did he ever pick a fight with Mr. I Can Do This All Day?
He swung his heel at Steve's head. Steve caught it and twisted. Bucky slung the other leg around and into his stomach.
Steve's back hit the wall, and he coughed and slumped.
Bucky lifted his metal hand in a claw. It was shaking. Steve blocked him from the main road, and this alley dead-ended in a dumpster.
Nowhere to run.
Nowhere to hide.
He hated how much his voice shook. "I don' wanna do this, Steve."
Steve staggered, one arm around his side, and panted, "Buck, c'mon."
"I told you not to follow me."
"You know I couldn't do that."
So he had read the note. Bucky winced. It went against every HYDRA-trained instinct in his head to push some authority into his voice. "Go back to the Tower. Go lead 'em, go be Captain America, it'll be fine—"
Steve took a step forward. "Not without you."
Bucky froze.
It echoed back to him. His own voice. He was young, and scared, and his face was slicked with sweat from the fire raging underneath and between them, but you just saved my life and yes I'm terrified of this place but you're my brother and I'll die here with you if you're not coming with me and he'd screamed it at the top of his lungs.
"NO, not without YOU!"
Steve took something out of his pocket. The note. He held it loosely, his hand limp at his side, but Bucky saw it and grimaced.
Steve was struggling to keep his face neutral, and his voice was choked. "Is it true?"
Bucky shook his head slowly and hid in his hair. "I remember it."
Steve hung his head.
"I was there." His voice shook. "I killed them, Steve."
For a while, Steve didn't say anything, and Bucky stared at nothing but blonde hair. When he lifted his head, his jaw was firm, but his eyes were sad. "So what are we gonna do?"
We.
We, he said we, goddammit.
Bucky couldn't accept it. "Let me go."
"No."
"Please..."
"I'm not leaving you."
Steve didn't move. He stood with bare feet planted on the ground, chest still heaving from how fast he'd run here, and blood on his jaw from a cut on his lip and dammit this stupid punk never gave up.
The metal hand faltered, and Bucky shivered and gripped his head.
What was wrong with him...?
He felt, more than saw, Steve close the gap between them and pull him into his chest. It was as warm as his bare feet on the pavement were cold.
Hot pressure pounded behind his eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid Steve. Didn't he know that going back to the Tower was leaping into the fire? Didn't he know where was no way to hide the truth?
He buried his face in Steve's shoulder. "You're a horrible liar, Stevie."
His voice was gentle and firm. "That's why we're not gonna lie."
"I can't tell him to his face."
"Then write the letter."
"He'll kick us out."
A sigh. "Maybe."
Bucky's fingers curled around Steve's shirt. "Your job—"
"I'll get another job. I—" Steve held Bucky tighter, as if it would force the whole world to turn over and do what he said. "I've got enough saved up, Buck, we can rent a little place, it'll be fine—"
He shivered. "They'll throw me in prison."
Steve pressed his lips to Bucky's scalp and whispered fiercely, "Then I'll bust you out and knock out every mother's son of 'em, because it wasn't you."
Bucky shook his head. The pressure behind his eyes was unbearable. "They're your friends, Steve."
Quiet assurance. "So are you."
"I'm nothin' but trouble."
"So was I."
"You never killed nobody."
"Not for lack of trying."
It wasn't funny. It really wasn't. But Bucky was so drained, so tired, so cold, that he snorted anyway, and the tears escaped.
Steve was quiet for a long while. Then his chin was against Bucky's skull, and he filled his big chest with air and sighed.
"I love you, Buck," he said, and there was nothing truer in the whole world. "I'm not lettin' you go."
Bucky gave up fighting. He set his forehead against Steve's shoulder and whispered, "I'm jus' scared, Stevie."
Steve sighed, long and heavy. "I know."
They stood there for some time, the Manhattan traffic roaring by just a few feet away, and Bucky could feel tears cooling in his stubble and his soles turning to ice on the pavement.
When Steve spoke again, he sounded like Atlas, with the whole world on his shoulders.
"Let's getcha inside, Buck. It's cold out here."
Bucky avoided Tony for the next few days. It was easy enough; Tony tended to be holed up in his lab 24/7 even on a good day. But every now and then, he'd catch Tony's expression, and it looked suspicious and confused.
But just as Steve said, he wrote the letters. Mailed them out. Most of them didn't get replies. A few got stern but polite responses saying the senders wanted nothing to do with him, and he understood.
A very small number actually got heartfelt thanks, and even tentative requests to meet up with him and talk it over. That made him nervous. He hardly knew how to talk about these things with people he knew, much less with strangers.
But one letter made him the most nervous of all.
Right around the time that the mail started arriving, Tony disappeared. Bruce hadn't heard from him. Pepper was MIA. When questioned, JARVIS just answered in base facts—"he is alive, I assure you"—or in unsettled silence.
The door to the lab was locked.