Winter of the White Wolf
Chapter 3 - Frayed Edges
The uncomfortable silence that followed was one where Bucky knew that, strictly speaking, he was meant to continue talking. He was supposed to elaborate on what he'd said, but putting that out there in the open wasn't exactly something he'd planned on telling, well, anyone really. Logically, the statement, true as it was, didn't make a drop of sense.
The best way he'd found to compartmentalize things in his head was to separate himself, James "Bucky" Barnes, from the mess of atrocities Hydra'd programmed into him during his time as the Winter Soldier. The problem was that deep down, the distinctions weren't always quite so clear-cut, and it was those grey areas that continued to bother him. He'd hoped if he simply ignored them and put more distance between himself and that life, that they would fade in time, but here he was.
To Sam's credit, he kept a steady counselor's expression that didn't hold a flicker of teasing or even that damned expression Doctor Raynor used to have that told him he was some sort of broken thing that needed fixed. She'd only seen a fraction of the person in front of her, as much as he was willing to show her, anyway. While he couldn't fault her for it, by contrast, Sam had met the Winter Soldier first.
Bucky felt his lip twitch at the memory.
In the aftermath of that particular mess, Bucky'd never know what conversations the Sam and Steve had privately shared on the topic, but even when Steve had managed to pull him out of hiding some two years later, there was Zemo and his bullshit trigger words. And after that? Well, it wasn't surprising that Sam was only mildly tolerant of him out of respect for Steve. Then, just as quickly, Bucky'd been shipped off to Wakanda and Steve went on the run with Sam until, well, Thanos. If the mad titan hadn't gone after those stones, just how long would they have been dealing with that particular fallout? All because Steve believed Bucky was worth saving.
He'd never brought it up, and neither had Sam. It just was.
They'd moved past it, and Bucky remained appreciative for everything Sam'd done on his behalf, but they also just… didn't talk about this stuff. Sam was good for a quick check-in or a offhanded cyborg joke, but he if he was curious: he didn't pry. To be honest: Bucky was fine with that arrangement most of the time, but sometimes he found himself wondering what the subtle differences might be between what Steve told Sam, what Sam believed for himself, and the strange life Bucky'd experienced firsthand.
Without saying a word, Sam got up, refilled their glasses with fresh lemonade and sat back down. For a moment, Bucky'd even forgotten what he'd last said, and Sam must have picked up on the fact his mind was wandering, "You were sayin' about the list."
"Ah, yeah," Bucky recovered, "I'm not sure I even know where to start with that." He ran a vibranium fingertip around the rim of the glass, watching the condensation shift to the metal as he did. "I'm not even trying to be intentionally obtuse here. I literally don't even know where to start."
"Have you talked with anyone about it?"
He poured the question over in his mind, "Ayo? Kinda? A bit here and there with Shuri, but she was always so intense. I mean, brilliant-intense. I'm not complaining, but talking with her had a way of making me feel absolutely ancient, no matter the topic."
"Wait, wasn't that—" Sam began.
"Yeah, Ayo was with the Dora Milaje that tracked down Zemo while we were in Latvia."
"So you two have history?"
He wasn't sure what combination of emotions rolled over his face at the question, but his hand reflexively went to his left arm, remembering in vivid clarity the moment she'd so cleanly disabled it from him. Part of him was still betrayed that someone he had been through so much with had thought it necessary to put a failsafe in there, but that was something to ruminate over another time. "Yeah. You could say that." He paused, debating if he wanted to say the next part out loud, it felt important for Sam to understand she wasn't just another face from Wakanda, he breathed out the words before he could reconsider, "She was the Winter Soldier's last handler, if you want to get technical about it."
That statement was clearly not something Sam had seen coming. He regarded Bucky, as if trying to look for cracks or see if he'd been joking, but when Bucky said nothing, Sam took a deep breath followed by a quick sip of the lemonade in front of him.
"Won't find that in a museum," Bucky added with a shrug, trying to inject humor anywhere into the conversation where he could.
"I'd honestly never thought about it," Sam admitted. "I mean, after Siberia, when Steve said he'd dropped you off I guess I just assumed they just…" he made a gesture with one hand, miming a wand and magic trick.
"Yeah. It was, well, it was a process," Bucky admitted, "There were all sorts of trigger words and fail safes they had to dig out of there. The Winter Soldier wasn't one to go down without a fight, and Hydra just loves their contingencies." He raised his glass in a mock-salute and took another sip of his drink, "Here's to bruises and wild times."
"That sounds awful, man." Sam shook his head, letting out a breath he must have been holding. "And as I said before: We don't have to talk about this if you don't want to."
Bucky shrugged, gesturing to his shoulder, "I mean, I got a fancy parting gift and new nickname as part of the all-inclusive vacation package. And the Wakandans did a nice job with your new get-up, so I'd say all-in-all we're on pretty good terms, considering."
"So you went straight from that into…?"
Into the fights to stop Thanos. Bucky silently concluded, "Yeah, pretty much."
Bucky had expected more pity in Sam's expression, but instead his friend's face showed only profound sympathy, "I had no idea. I remember feeling, well, a little not myself that it sounded like you were getting some resort–style package in Wakanda while Steve and I were on the run dealing with the fallout of the Sokovia Accords. I didn't really know you then, but none of that was on you. If I ever came across that way, I'm sorry."
Bucky regarded the acknowledgement with a purse of his lips and little nod of his head, "I wasn't exactly myself, either." It was more than that, though. Part of him back then had been jealous that Sam got to spend time around Steve letting that friendship flourish while he was stuck in Wakanda with strangers from what felt like a science fiction novel who swore their only noble goal was to deprogram him.
He'd hated feeling so helpless. So ungrounded. But knowing Sam as he did now, he was glad that he and Steve had been there to watch each other's backs. Sam was a good man. Annoying as all hell sometimes, but a good man.
"I suppose I always expected that once things got cleared up, that things could be like old times. Like before the War old times. But I've just had to accept that hey? That's just now how any of this stuff works. If you'd told me some of this stuff before I was enlisted, I'm not sure what I would have believed least: Hydra, aliens, wizards, talking raccoons, time travel, or the snap? The whole lot of it is just something else."
Sam shifted his weight and Bucky caught it, "Okay, what's that look about?"
His friend made a face, visibly debating if he wanted to respond with an honest reply or deflect. Sam spit it out, "The time travel bit. I guess I always wondered if you knew the plan, and if you did, why you didn't go back too?"
Bucky took a sip of the lemonade as he bought himself time to formulate a reply, "Yeah. We'd discussed it," he admitted, the words slow in coming. "If I'm being honest, it was tempting too. But at the end of the day, it felt like doing that would have been going backward. I didn't have the same unfinished business Steve did, and…" He tapped his vibranium fingers on the table lightly for emphasis, "the Winter Soldier would have still been there." He clicked his tongue, "If time travel worked more like some of the books I read, where you could go back and change things and have the effects all roll forward, I probably would have gone, honestly. It would have been worth it just to stop him. Whatever it took."
He avoided Sam's eyes a moment as he shrugged, shaking his head at the bizarreness of it all, "That aside, I don't know how any of the rest of it would have played out, but it just didn't feel like the right call. I would have just been setting myself up for some really weird stuff that's way beyond my understanding." He looked back up at Sam, "I may not be a man of the times, but I really am trying to move forward."
"I think a lot of people would agree that you're starting to fit in pretty well in Delacroix," Sam pointedly observed.
Bucky raised an eyebrow, "Is this about the couch now?"
Sam offered him a small smile, "Nah. We can table that one for later. If you think I'm going to be responsible for picking out a couch that somehow coordinates with that room, Sarah has another thing coming."
Bucky snorted, but he knew what Sam was doing: he was trying to get back to the topic at-hand. He took a deep breath while he ran his hand through his short-cropped hair, remembering, "I'm not sure about you, but when I enlisted originally, it was all about the War. All about doing the right thing and defending our way of life. Going overseas, kicking Nazi asses, the whole deal. The pamphlet made it sound a lot more compelling."
"Don't they always," Sam agreed.
Bucky nodded, "Well I had an eye for ballistics from early on, and I remember my commanding officer telling me in no minced words that I was soft when I'd take my shots because I was more comfortable shooting to wound rather than to kill."
The man across the table from him silently nodded, no doubt pulling from his own life experiences.
"He told me if I kept taking those shots, it just meant the Nazis would be back another day to take down our own guys. And what do you know: some did. After that, I started aiming for kill shots. Got really good at it too. To the point where I could think of those people on the other side as targets rather than people."
"War's definitely messy like that," Sam agreed in a way that made Bucky certain he'd been there in his own way.
"Yeah. And I'm not saying I would have done anything differently knowing what I know now. I still feel like we were on the right side of history. But here's the thing that I'm still struggling with: I think the Winter Soldier felt like he was too."
Sam cocked his head at that, "Wait, feel? I thought it was more, I dunno, more" he made a robotic motion with one hands, "…programmed in a literal sense?"
Bucky shifted uncomfortably, "It's hard to explain, but it wasn't that clean-cut."
"Have you thought about talking to Banner about any of this?" Sam offered, not a drop of teasing in his tone.
The seeming randomness of the inquiry got the smallest smile out of Bucky, "Nah. I read up on his condition, but it's not like that for me. There's not another consciousness lying in wait under the surface like that." He tilted his head, "At least since the Wakandans did their thing. Now what's left are more like echoes. Shadows where he used to be. Dreams and what-not. And with all respect to Bruce: I think I'd prefer going back into cryo over meeting the Winter Soldier halfway and calling it a day."
"So which list did you consider adding him to?"
Bucky had to give Sam credit for picking up on the vernacular, and not referring to the Winter Soldier and him as the same person. It was easier to talk about this way, "Both, I suppose?" He shook his head and spread his arms wide as he leaned back in his chair for emphasis, "See? Utterly. Ridiculous."
"Both," Sam repeated, testing the word in his mouth as if he was trying to understand it. "I get wanting to avenge what he did. But you're telling me that some part of you wishes you could give the guy closure? That guy. The specific guy that tore my steering wheel straight outta of my car and led me to one of the most awkward insurance calls of my life?"
Bucky titled his head, appreciating the interjection of humor to diffuse the seriousness of the moment, "among other things," he acquiesced, "I didn't say it made sense, I just said I considered it."
The man across from him puckered his lips and breathed out, "Well, you're right: that is solidly some next-level stuff," Sam admitted, "but I'll try to see if I can think of anything that might help."
"You're serious," Bucky stated plainly with more than a little surprise.
"Of course I'm serious, Buck," Sam retorted, feigning insult before a small smile formed at one side of his mouth. Without a moment's pause, he added, "Would Captain America lie to you?"
"Smartass." Bucky felt a smile come over his face and he got to his feet. He picked up the empty glass in one hand and used his other hand to gently rap Sam on the shoulder in a show of friendship and solidarity, "C'mon, Cap. The day's still young, and I'm certain I heard some trees outside talking smack about your aim."
Sam barked out a laugh, "I'll grab the wings and meet you outside."
Author's Remarks:
I know a lot of us have our own respective head-canons for events, but I felt it was important to have these two to address a bit about the past in order to move forward with the story I have planned. :)