Bucky made his way to the lobby and took a moment to survey the tents outside. There were fewer people overall now, which told him that most of the injured had either recovered or been transported to Wakanda or facilities in New York. Reporters still lined the perimeter enforced by the Wakandans.
It had only been a few hours since everyone had woken up and eaten, but it felt so much longer. He spotted the case of Vodka and opened it, taking two bottles in each hand. He didn't much care what Steve or anyone else thought. Sam was right. He needed to stop looking to other people to tell him who he was.
The problem was, he didn't know who he was, anymore. He knew who he wanted to be, but the serum in his veins and thing inside him made him something else entirely. Just moments ago, he'd tried to kill Steve…again.
He was furious with Shuri and Steve. How could they put his memories on display like that? And Wanda—how the hell could Steve and especially his own younger self let anyone mess with his mind? The things he couldn't even bare to think about most of the time had been front and center, and the worst part was, he had no idea what else they'd seen besides that… that… woman. She had been barely older than a girl.
Had they sat there and watched her rape and torture? Or the moment when Bucky had finally put a bullet in her head?
Had they gaped like looky-loos when the Russians started getting creative with their supped up cattle prod? He swallowed, his breath catching tight in his chest. No. They hadn't. He'd have seen that in Steve's eyes…and in his own younger ones.
He knew many of them had already seen him when he was Hydra's monster, but they had never seen the making of that monster…until today. In some ways, that creation was worse than the thing itself. If he was being honest, T'Challa, Shuri, and Ayo had been right to build in safeguards. He belonged locked up. It was safer for everyone. But if he ended up spending the rest of his life in the Raft, he damned well intended to have one night of alcohol-induced numbness before he lost the privilege altogether.
He wandered around the compound a bit, looking into rooms and trying to find a spot where he could sulk as much as he wanted without interruption. He peeked through the window of one door and saw a dark gym. Using his knee and arm, he turned the knob and opened the door. His elbow found a light switch. The small space held a heavy-duty punching bag. It hung from the ceiling on thick chains, attached by what looked like a reinforced metal plate and thick ring.
It had obviously been modified to withstand the power of a super soldier. Three replacement bags were stacked against a nearby wall. He wondered how often Steve came down here to pummel out his frustrations. Bucky slipped inside and kicked the door closed behind him.
There was a small treadmill against one wall, a utility table and storage cabinet along another, and a mini fridge with a glass door that appeared to be stocked with bottled water. He set three of the vodka bottles down and quickly opened one, then wasted no time taking a long swig. It burned his tongue, cheeks, and throat all the way down. Vapors played in his mouth.
He nodded in satisfaction and sent a mental note of thanks to Tony. "FRIDAY, give me some music to match my mood." He wasn't sure how much the computer knew about his mood, but he decided now was as good a time as any to see if Stark's A.I. was as good as he'd heard.
"Of course," the accented female voice replied. "Shuffling songs."
-0- -0- -0-
Shuri lowered the device and Bucky rolled the sleeve back down over his vibranium arm.
"The geolocation feature has been disabled," Shuri told him.
Buck nodded. "Thank you." He looked at the three Wakandans. They were the only reason he was free from the code words. They'd done so much for him—offered him sanctuary, a peaceful place to recover, and of course, the new arm.
But it didn't sit well with him that they never told him the arm was removable. It wasn't a cell phone or a car. The arm was part of his body, hooked into his nervous system. He could feel it. It wasn't the same as his flesh arm, but his brain knew it was there, could feel pressure from his hand, and could control its movements as though it were a living part of him.
Having a part of his body that wasn't truly his….
"Why didn't you tell me the arm was removable or trackable?" He asked Shuri and T'Challa.
It was best just to get it out in the open and find out their reason. He was aware of the others hovering in the background. Natasha had returned a few moments before, and he could hear her chatting softly with Clint. All of them had gotten the same nightmarish stroll through his memories that he had, but what they'd seen was only a scratch on the surface of the horrors he managed to put a lid on every day. It was the nights when that lid began to slip off….
Perhaps he should have asked Shuri to stop the procedure or requested the others leave, but when it came down to it, they had risked their lives to help in in Berlin…except for Stark, and that was a whole different issue altogether. In some way, they had a right to know who they had sacrificed their lives for and decide whether he'd been worth it.
As Buck scrutinized the Wakandans, he could swear he felt Steve's eyes on the back of his head, but he kept his gaze on the three familiar faces in front of him. They had been his family for the past couple of years.
Shuri glanced at her brother. He held Buck's gaze for a few seconds before responding. "I make no excuses. When we presented you the arm, we had very little time to integrate it into your body and train you how to use it before the fight began."
Buck could almost believe that. He remembered how rushed everything had been. They'd told him the fight was coming, and the next thing he knew, they had him prepped for surgery. When he'd woken up, they ran a few hurried tests on the arm's function and made some adjustments. The arm was much more sophisticated than the ones the Russians had provided. He'd lived with a baseline pain from the other arm for decades. Shuri had resolved that, and the new arm caused him no pain. That small change alone was a refreshing one.
Then…. Well, then Steve had arrived and, shortly after that, Thanos.
However, the other version of himself was from almost a year in the future. Surely, there had been an opportunity to tell him at some point during that timeframe. "The other me didn't know. It was a surprise to him. Is there any reason you wouldn't have told me?"
Sam walked up and stopped a few feet behind Bucky. "With all due respect, that's kind of messed up. You don't give an amputee a prosthetic arm and not tell him it's removable."
Buck glanced back at the Falcon, surprised by the sudden defense…and the use of that word.
Amputee. That's what he was. When he'd first seen the stump where his arm used to be, his brain could barely process that the bloody mess of tissue belonged to him. He remembered bits of the surgery. Either they hadn't used anesthetic, or his enhanced physiology had burned through the drugs far faster than the Russian doctors realized it would.
He remembered waking up to a deep, unyielding agony that snaked into his shoulder and through his chest. He'd heard the buzz of the saw blade. He'd seen them carving into him. But even as he remembered it now, it played more like a bad dream than a memory…almost as though it had happened to someone else.
T'Challa's deep voice pulled Buck away from those grim memories.
"I cannot speak for the actions of the version of me in his Timeline," T'Challa's gaze remained firm, "but perhaps he did not return to Wakanda after the fight to resume his rehabilitation and learn more about the arm's functions. It is possible that not telling you…him…was simply an unfortunate oversight. Five years has passed, and Shuri and myself were both victims of Thanos, as were you. We all came back to another battle, and now we must deal with the difficult work of reconstructing Wakanda. It is not an excuse, but perhaps it is an explanation."
Buck could buy that explanation, but… "Why the tracker?"
"It is a feature of much of our vibranium-based technology, a safety mechanism to avoid certain things falling into the wrong hands," Shuri explained. "I did not consider how that would appear to you at the time I created the arm. I assume…I hope…that had you been able to return and complete your rehabilitation, we would have told you."
Ayo took a step toward him. "We all suffered many losses these past five years. You were not here during that time. You do not understand what it was like. You should be more grateful for what has been given to you and quibble less about what was not."
T'Challa raised a silencing hand at Ayo. "He has the right to ask such questions."
Bucky looked at Ayo's probing gaze. She had seen him through some of the darkest parts of his recovery, and she had always spoken plainly and directly. It was one of the things he appreciated about her.
But she didn't understand, and he wasn't sure anyone really could, except perhaps that girl Hydra had raped and tortured in front of him. They had shared something brutally intimate, and he didn't even know her name. Anyone who hadn't gone through something like that could never understand. He took a deep breath. After all the Wakandans had done for him, at the very least, he owed them honesty.
"I realize that without your help and generosity, I'd still be a prisoner to that programming. Anyone with the code words could have owned me. I spent the last 80 years without any control over my mind…or my body. They didn't ask my permission when they strapped me down and attached a machine to my body." He raised the vibranium arm briefly. "So long as this is part of my body, I am the only one who should get to control it. I am done having any part of me being owned by another."
Ayo's face fell, and Buck realized she finally understood. Shuri's eyes glistened with a hint of tears, but none fell. As Buck looked into T'Challa's face, he saw understanding, as well. They'd gotten the message, and he could only hope they wouldn't decide to take the arm back. But if it came down to that, he'd rather give up the arm than yield control of any part of him to another.
"Are you saying you were awake when they gave you the first arm?" Sam asked.
Buck gave the Falcon a quick nod. He wasn't sure what that look was in the other man's dark eyes, but he didn't like the way it made him feel. "For part of it. They weren't exactly gentle about it."
"Jesus," Buck heard Tony mutter.
Buck barely glanced at the man. There was another matter he needed to talk to Stark about, and right now, he couldn't think about that and have the conversation with the Wakandans.
T'Challa bowed his head slightly. "The arm is yours, completely. Should you ever need it repaired or maintained, we will be happy to provide that service, of course."
Buck took a breath. "Thank you for the gift." He raised the arm again, then turned around. The others were silent, and they all stared at him. He felt exposed under gazes. Natasha's face told him all he needed to know about what she was feeling. She understood in a deeply personal way.
When he looked back to Sam, he saw the unspoken question in those dark eyes. He'd only gotten to know the man recently, and most of that had been in battle, but he knew Steve had trusted the man with his life on more than one occasion. A moment ago, Sam had been ripping into the King of Wakanda on his behalf, but if his future self's memories were accurate, something would happen between them.
Would they become friends at some point? His counterpart had seemed committed to protecting Sam. That had to say something.
Buck avoided the gazes of the other Avengers. It was all just a little too much at the moment. The one he couldn't avoid, however, was Steve's. When he peered into those familiar blue eyes and saw what looked a lot like pity, he suddenly knew what Steve must have felt like when he was small and physically weak, picking himself up after getting punched or beaten, and staring into the faces of kinder folks who felt sorry for him.
"Buck," Steve slowly closed the distance between then, stopping about a couple of feet away, "are you okay?"
Buck shrugged, trying to appear casual. "I've been better, but I've been worse."
That was the truth, and all the answer he could give at the moment. The people in the room had learned more about him in the last hour than they had over the past two years. He hadn't been fully conscious during the first session with Shuri's scanner. He hadn't realized how interconnected his memories were. It had felt so strange to be looking into his own memories from the outside this time.
But now they knew things they about him that even he didn't want to remember. How Hydra had broken him. How it had only been because of his own weakness that Zola even got a hold of him. And how utterly powerless he'd been to stop any of them.
Then there were the things he'd done as the Winter Soldier. If one reporter out there found out he'd assassinated Kennedy, any hope he had at a life would vanish. That pardon his alternative self told him about would never happen.
He understood his counterpart's desire to leave. He felt like crawling into a hole himself, but he had one other question he needed to ask, even though he desperately didn't want to.
"Stark," he looked to Tony, whose chin jerked up, "how did you know to tell Shuri to stop?"
Something akin to panic flickered across Tony's face briefly, then he walked to the window and stared out. "Damnit. I had this conversation with the other you." Tony looked back at him. "I'm sorry. I know this'll be as hard for you to hear as it was for him, so I'll just rip the band-aid off. In the bunker, in Siberia, after you and Cap left, I had some time to do a bit of exploring. I found old footage. I saw her. I saw what they did. FRIDAY's already deleted all the copies she could find from my servers and the government's. No one else in this room has seen it. Secretary Ross viewed it, and I'm not sure who else he might have shown."
Buck suspected as much. He realized the moment the command to stop had left Tony's mouth, that Stark knew. Tony had recognized the woman immediately, which means he had to have seen the footage. Buck's legs suddenly felt weak, and he understood exactly why his counterpart had been drinking earlier. From how quickly Tony had answered the questions Buck hadn't even asked, he knew how the conversation had gone with his future self.
He could really use a stiff drink himself. He forced his legs to move and sat down on of the bar stools, his gaze focused on the floor, but his brain was elsewhere—in that room with her, helpless, just as she had been, and forced to decide between watching them torture and mutilate her until they killed her or end her misery himself with a bullet.
He hated himself for not ending her life sooner. In the end, all she did was suffer.
"Buck," Steve sat on a barstool next to him, "do you want to t—"
"No." He knew he probably should, but he couldn't. That's one thing his future twin realized.
The words from the 'death letter' came back to him, and they made more sense than he would ever admit to the man next to him. "…if I opened up and let any of the crap inside me out, I wouldn't be able to hold it together, and I'd crumble. I never risked finding out. He has to risk it if he hopes to make it through."
He'd risked it by allowing Shuri to scan his memories—granted, it had been his future self she'd scanned, but they were his memories just the same, except for the two scenes from the near future. Somehow, he felt those belonged to him just the same. They'd happened to him, just to a different version of him.
He'd allowed Shuri to cut into his memories and expose the open wounds, and instead of healing, what he'd feared was coming true. The wounds they opened just kept bleeding, and if he didn't cap it off, he'd end up a useless mess on the floor…which is probably the state his future self would be in soon, if he wasn't already.
Buck's gaze went to the time travel device and pack resting on the counter. A piece of paper jutted out from the front pocket, and he pulled it out and unfolded it. He looked up at Steve to see the other man studying the handwriting, then Buck's gaze swept over the others in the room, finally resting on Sam.
"It's a letter from you to me," Buck told Sam, then looked back down at the writing. He read the first paragraph silently and took a deep breath when he finished those first few lines. "Damn," he whispered, his mind spinning with the new information about what his future might hold.
So, Steve had left at some point….
"What does it say?" Sam asked.
Buck looked over at Steve, then replied, "It says you left."
Steve's eyes scanned a few of the words on the page, then he looked up and shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Don't you have to return the stones?" Buck asked.
The letter was starting to make sense now. He knew Steve well enough to understand just how much Peggy had meant to him. Steve, like himself, was a man out of time. Steve could go back. Bucky never could, not with his messed up head and high-tech vibranium arm.
"The machine to return the stones is almost finished," Tony announced. "FRIDAY's been working on it based on the prior specs. ETA for completion of reconstruction is three hours. Speaking of which, I have to get back and check in on that and take this little beauty down to the lab so we can figure out how to get the other you back to his timeline." Tony walked up to the counter and grabbed the transparent box, then reached into the pack and withdrew the tablet. He looked to Shuri. "You interested in helping us figure this thing out? I hear you've got a pretty solid understanding of quantum physics."
Shuri tilted her head and smiled. "I would be happy to assist."
"Great. Now, the letter…anything we need to know about?" Tony asked Buck.
Buck dropped his gaze to Sam's handwritten words and read silently. He knew Steve was reading, as well. He wasn't sure what part Steve had gotten to when the other man let out a pained breath.
Sam sighed and marched quickly up to him and held out his hand. "Let me see. I wrote it. I should get to see it."
Buck finished the last few sentences, then looked up at the Falcon. He wasn't sure it worked that way, but then again, he was reading the letter addressed to his future self. With a sigh, he handed it over.
Sam took it and scanned it. "Definitely my handwriting," he announced. Then, he began to read it silently. "Shit."
"WHAT?" Clint asked
"Come on, guys," Banner Hulk chimed in.
Sam looked up. "I don't know what the hell has happened, but we have to do something. We can't just let him go into whatever this is." Sam held up the letter.
Steve got to his feet. "It says if Bucky goes back to his Timeline, he'll probably end up being sent to the Raft."
"What?" Tony set the tablet on the counter and hurried forward, then snatched the letter from Sam's hand.
"Hey!" Sam protested.
"Don't care." Tony retorted, holding the letter in one hand and the time device in the other. "He saved my life, brought Mom, Dad, Natasha and a lot of other people back, oh, and did we forget about global warming and cleaning up the planet? Or Rhodes' good-as-new legs?" Tony looked down at the letter. "We owe him. If he won't tell us he needs our help, well, screw him. He's getting it, anyway."
Buck felt a flush of heat in his face. It was weird hearing Tony talk about any version of himself with such…affinity.
Tony finished reading the letter, then looked up. "FRIDAY, where's future Barnes right now?"
"In training room A," the disembodied female voice answered.
"How's he doing?"
"He is currently about to damage a second punching bag."
"Bring it up." Tony set the time device back on the counter next to the tablet.
The screen in the wall flared to life with the sound of hard music. They saw Bucky pelting a large punching bag. The first one rested haphazardly against a cracked wall a few feet away, and an empty bottle of vodka lay tilted on the floor.
"Pummeling a punching bag while listening to Psycho from Muse," Clint stated the obvious. "So, he's doing grreaaat."
"How the hell does he know about Muse?" Sam asked.
Buck shook his head. "This isn't really my type of music, although…" he tilted his head, listening to the lyrics, "the words are…"
Your mind is just a program
And I'm the virus
I'm changing the station
I'll improve your thresholds
I'll turn you into a super drone…
"…Frighteningly…"
And you will kill on my command
And I won't be responsible
"…On point," Buck finished, continuing to listen to the grim lyrics playing from the screen.
I'm gonna make you
I'm gonna break you
I'm gonna make you
A fucking psycho
"FRIDAY, what the hell?" Tony asked.
"Sergeant Barnes requested that I play music to match his mood."
"Jesus, FRIDAY," Tony berated. "Read the room. Are you trying to send him over the edge?"
"Shall I switch to a different song? Basket Case by Green Day, perhaps?"
"NO!" Sam and Tony yelled in unison.
Buck was trying very hard not to be offended by all of this. Just because his future self was currently having a meltdown didn't mean he would. No matter what the letter had said, he wouldn't crumble. He could keep it together. He had so far…for the most part. He absolutely would keep it together. He'd made it through the last 80 years of hell. The rest had to be a cake walk. Whatever had happened with his future self to cause the government to send him to the Raft would not happen to him.
"FRIDAY, I'm beefing up your program with a more in-depth human psychoanalytical matrix." Tony sighed. "Start with research journals from the past year on trauma-informed recovery, post traumatic stress disorder, and acute stress disorder."
"Currently in review," FRIDAY confirmed.
"And, for Gods' sake," Tony added, as the Muse song came to an end. "Play something more…soothing for him."
-0- -0- -0-
Bucky kicked the punching bag so hard as the music came to an end that the chain tore from the material and the bag went flying hard through the wall, landing on the other side in a dark storage room with a crumple of plaster, wood, and drywall.
"Well, shit." Bucky panted, then removed the piece of metal hanging from the chain that had been bonded to the bag and retrieved another bag from the pile. He hefted it up effortlessly and attached it to the hook.
He had a good buzz going after downing the bottle of Vodka. In fact, he might actually be slightly drunk, except that his coordination was still relatively decent, which meant he hadn't had anywhere near enough alcohol yet.
All he wanted was to literally drown his sorrows and remember what a hangover felt like. He hadn't had one in almost a century. He remembered they sucked, but that was okay with him. It would remind him that he was still human. Maybe.
He grabbed another bottle of Vodka and yanked off the cap, then downed a quarter of the bottle in one gulp. He recalled Tony telling him not to kill himself.
Well, super soldier, liver, let's put you to the test.
New music drifted from the speakers, and he furrowed his brow as a weird voice started singing about why there are so many songs about rainbows. "FRIDAY, what the hell is this?"
"The Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie."
He took another swig of the Vodka, noticing that it burned less now. "Why are you playing this?"
"Mr. Stark thought you would benefit from some more soothing music."
Buck took another stiff swallow and then scanned the top of the room with his eyes. "FRIDAY, where's the cam—" he spotted the silver disk on the wall with the faint green light.
Setting the bottle down on the nearby table, he began to rummage through the room. There was a large storage cabinet a few feet to the side of the door, and he opened it, looking in drawers and baskets until he found what he was looking for.
He pulled out the masking tape, eyed the empty chair near the table, grabbed it, and carried it over to the wall. His legs were starting to feel heavy and his head light. He plopped the chair beneath the camera, stood on it, and then ripped off pieces of the masking tape until the entire lens was covered.
"FRIDAY, can they still see me?"
"No," the AI answered. "You have successfully blocked their view, although they do still have audio."
"Great. Tell the curtain twitchers that I'd love some food…but don't send Steve. They can leave it outside the door. Thank you and please."
If he was going to spend the next few hours holed up getting drunk, he might as well refuel…and hydrate. He shuffled over to the small refrigerator and took out a bottle of water, downing it in one go.
-0- -0- -0-
"I'll be his Door Dasher," Clint said as he turned away from the screen.
He knew the 'don't send Steve' comment had stung Rogers. He'd seen it on the man's face. The least he could do for Steve was go check on Bucky. He knew a little something about battling demons. Even though he was desperate to go see his family, he had another name to balance in his ledger. Barnes had brought back Natasha, and he owed the man.
"Might as well take some food out of this poor refrigerator before it all goes bad."
"Great," Tony gave Barton a clap on the shoulder, "Make sure he doesn't kill his super soldier liver. I'll go see how we're doing on the platform so we can get those stones back to their right times, and then take a look at this beauty and see if she'll tell me her secrets." Tony grabbed the pack and the time travel device and headed to the door. As he passed Shuri, he glanced at her. "You coming?"
She gave a quick glance at T'Challa and then nodded. "I would love to have a look at that."
Then the two of them disappeared through the doorway.
Clint strolled up to the refrigerator. He kicked the broken pieces of the coffee table away from the appliance, then opened the battered door and peered inside. "Well, we have some fruit, string cheese, a few leftovers from this morning, and the remains of a pizza…" He grabbed the pizza box. "What the hell? Cold pizza is still good pizza, right? "Anyone want to lay claim to this?" He held up the box. No one replied. "Okay, pizza it is."
Clint made his way down to the small gym that Steve frequently used, the pizza box in one hand. With his free hand, he opened the door. He saw Bucky slouched on the floor to the right of the large hole, his back against the intact portion of the wall and a half-empty bottle of vodka in his right hand. It sounded like another Muse song was playing over the speaker, something dark about an oppressor and control.
Bucky looked up at him. "I said you can just leave it outside the door." His words had only the slightest hint of a slur to them.
Clint was impressed. The man had powered through a bottle and half of the strongest alcohol on the market in less than a couple of hours and he was still conscious and coherent…definitely drinking contest material.
"You're welcome, Mr. Sunshine," Clint retorted.
Bucky took another long drink and, when he lowered the bottle, only a third of the contents remained.
"You might want to ease up on that a bit," Clint warned.
Bucky shrugged. "Worst it can do is kill me."
Well, that was dark.
"Is that why you came here? To kill yourself?"
Bucky tilted his head back. "I came here to save Tony. I don't want to talk about it. I asked for a few hours, man." He lifted the bottle and pointed the neck toward the door.
Clint stifled a smile. Barnes was being remarkably polite for a man in his condition. If their situations were reversed, Clint probably already would've been shoving the man out the door.
"Okay, no shop talk." Clint sank to the floor next to Bucky and placed the pizza box between them as he leaned against the undamaged section of wall. He jabbed his chin toward the empty bottle. "Mind if I try some?"
Bucky leaned his head forward to look at Clint. "Not a good idea."
"Just a sip. I'm not stupid."
Bucky gave a 'whatever' tilt of his head and handed Clint the bottle.
Clint took the offering, listening to the somber music. "Well," he raised the bottle, "this band is…interesting. We know who hurt you, but who the hell hurt them?"
He saw Bucky's lips actually twitch upward at that comment. Clint felt an inward sense of satisfaction at that accomplishment and then took a quick shot of the liquor. It instantly burned, and the vapors blasted into his lungs and snaked up his sinus cavity.
He tried to keep his dignity by stifling the cough that threatened to erupt. Instead, his eyes just teared up and the cough erupted, anyway.
Bucky gave a short chuckle.
"Smooth," Clint gasped, handing the bottle back to Bucky.
Bucky drained the last of the bottle, then pushed himself off the floor and veered to the table. He grabbed the two remaining bottles and brought them back with him, then plopped unceremoniously back to his spot. His thumb popped off the cap of one of the bottles, and he immediately took another swig as the music switched to something else.
It took Clint a moment to identify the song as "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks. "I swear Tony's A.I. has a dark sense of humor."
Bucky opened the pizza box and eyed the contents briefly before removing a slice and promptly biting into it. He finished the slice quietly and washed it down with another solid dunk of vodka.
Clint swore he could already feel the effects from the one shot he'd taken. He grabbed a slice of the pepperoni pizza and munched on it, listening to Brooks over the speakers.
After a minute or two, Bucky's voice broke the silence. "Why aren't you with your family?"
That was a very good question, Clint thought. He longed to see them, and he knew he would soon. He couldn't wait to hold Laura in his arms and see Cooper, Lila, and Nathaniel, but the end of the world had come and gone, and there were still a few things to wrap up. He needed to see it through, and he sure as hell needed to make sure he balanced his ledger where Barnes was concerned.
The man just didn't get to save the world, resurrect Natasha, solve global warming, and ride off into the sunset alone.
"I've already got travel arrangements made," Clint said. "Just have a few things to square up here first."
"You lost them in the blip, I heard."
Clint nodded. "What else did you hear?"
"That you went a bit rogue for a while."
"Yeah." Clint debated risking another shot of that brutal vodka, then decided against it.
Bucky took another long drink, then set the bottle down firmly on the floor between them. "Can I ask you something about that time?" His words were getting more slurred.
Clint nodded. He had an idea where this conversation was heading.
"After you lost everything…what kept you going?"
He wished he had a solid answer. "I don't know. The truth is, there were a couple of times when I almost didn't."
"But you did."
"Yeah, but…the things I did…I think I was kind of hoping I'd eventually go up against the wrong person and they'd do it for me." He took a breath. "I'm glad I made it through, though. If I hadn't, when my family came back, they'd be mourning me. My kids would be growing up without a father."
Bucky took another slug of the vodka. "It must be nice to have all that back."
Clint felt something in his chest twist at the hopeless tone in the other man's voice. He wasn't sure whether he should ask about Bucky's family. Would talking about them help or just open up deep wounds?
Clint didn't have time to decide when Bucky spoke again. "Can I ask you something else?"
"Go for it." He was glad to keep the man talking.
"What's with the bow and arrow?"
Clint couldn't help a chuckle at that.
"Don't get me wrong, you're great with it," Bucky continued, "and the exploding arrowheads are…awesome, but it's not the most efficient weapon." He took another drink. "I mean, how many arrows can you carry at one time? And it takes two arms to use it."
"I like the stealth factor, the versatility of different arrowheads, and," Clint shrugged. "I'm most comfortable with it. Guns were never really my thing."
Bucky nodded. "Fair enough."
"You're a sniper, right? Or were?"
Bucky took another long drink and set the bottle back down before answering. "Yeah."
"You ever use a bow?"
Bucky tilted his head as if thinking. "Nooo. Guns, knives, grenades, a sword, even a spear, but I'm pretty sure never a bow and arrow."
Clint heard the man swallow hard, as if he'd just realized what he'd said, and then take another aggressive gulp of the vodka.
"You wanna try one?" Clint asked.
Bucky swiveled his head to look over at Clint and then shrugged. "Sure."
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"Grip the bow lightly, not too tight," Clint instructed. "It'll be a bit awkward for you because that's a left-handed recurve bow."
Bucky gave a nod as he eased his grip on the bow and pulled the string back with his vibranium hand. He lined up the arrowhead slightly above the empty vodka bottle perched on the piece of twisted spaceship debris jutting up from the torn ground. He realized he was a little too on the edge of drunk to be a good shot, but if he missed, there wasn't much he could accidentally hit that would harm anything. They'd selected a location away from the tents and reporters, behind a mountain of shredded ground and debris.
He released the arrow. It flew slightly askew from his mark and nicked the top of the bottle neck, sending the glass crashing into the rest of the debris.
"Pretty good, especially for a guy who just downed several bottles of seriously high-octane Vodka."
Clint placed another empty bottle on the debris, took the bow, grabbed an arrow from his back, lined it up and released it almost as one swift motion. It hit dead center and shattered the glass.
"Show off." Bucky muttered.
Clint grinned, handing the bow and an arrow to Bucky. Two more bottles of vodka were on the ground, but one was unopened and the other was half full. Clint looked around and found another random piece of shrapnel to prop up as a target.
Bucky moved 20 feet back and loaded the arrow again. As he pulled back on the string and eyed the target, he began to understand why Clint preferred the weapon. It wasn't necessarily as practical as a gun, but it provided a more intimate, full-body experience.
"So, can I ask you a question?" Clint's tone was casual.
Bucky released the arrow and watched in satisfaction as it hit the shrapnel dead center and sent it flying into the battle-worn lump of dirt behind the debris. The arrow embedded deep into the disturbed mound next to the target.
Bucky walked up to the debris and reset the target shrapnel, then retrieved the two arrowheads. He walked back and handed them and the bow to Clint. Clint put one in his pack and loaded the other one into the bow.
"Sure, you can ask." Bucky grabbed the open bottle of vodka and took another long drink, relishing the feeling of light inebriation.
"Fair enough," Clint walked back thirty feet and aimed his arrow. "What are you going to do if they find a way to send you back to your timeline?"
Bucky downed another shot of the vodka and set the bottle back on the ground. "I don't know."
Clint released the arrow, and it hit the mark dead center.
He walked over to Buck and once again and handed him the bow and another arrow. "What are you going back to?" He turned without waiting for an answer and trotted up to the debris to reset the target.
Bucky eyed the archer as he shuffled out of the line of fire. Moving another 20 feet further back, he almost tripped over the uneven ground. The vodka was definitely doing its job. He took a moment to appreciate the feeling of lightheadedness and muddy coordination. It made him feel human. Not a cyborg. Not a thing. Just human.
Bucky pondered his answer as he lined up the arrow. He knew the other man was probing, but he wasn't sure whether it was idle curiosity or….
"Why are you asking?" He lined up the arrow and released it quickly. It grazed the edge of the shrapnel, knocking it off the debris, but it almost qualified as a miss. He clenched his jaw in frustration.
"Buck found the letter Sam wrote you."
Of course. And he read it to everyone? "No one here has any grasp of privacy, do they?" He handed the bow back to Clint.
"Well, it was addressed to him."
"To me. We aren't the same person. I was him. He has never been me."
Clint gave a tilt of his head. "That makes a certain amount of weird sense. But…you're in some trouble back…home?" Clint walked 30 feet back and pulled another arrow from his pack, then loaded it in the bow. He jerked his chin toward the debris. "Right corner where the metal makes a L shape."
Bucky debated how much to reveal and thought he should probably ease up on the drink if Clint was intent on interrogating him. "It's nothing I can't handle." It was a lie, but Clint didn't know him like Steve and probably wouldn't be able to tell.
"That's not what it sounded like in the letter." Clint released the arrow, its aim true.
"I don't want to talk about it." That was the truth.
"You know there are people here who want to—and can—help you." Clint walked up to the debris, retrieved his arrows, and repositioned their make-shift target shrapnel.
"I don't deserve any help." Bucky winced inwardly at that comment. The vodka was definitely having an effect. He hadn't meant that to come out. It sounded pathetic even to his own ears, and now he'd have to explain the remark. "I did something." He held Clint's gaze as the man walked up to him and handed him the bow and an arrow. "That's on me to deal with the consequences. It's no one else's problem." He turned, pulled the bow string back, and lined up the arrow. Using the left-handed bow wasn't proving as awkward as Clint told him it might be.
"I spent time in the Raft," Clint said. "You don't belong there."
Bucky released the arrow. It missed the mark. A pressure gripped his chest. "You saw what I did in there not even three hours ago." He walked up to Clint and shoved the bow back at him.
Clint took the bow and held Bucky's stare. "It wasn't your fault."
"No. But it doesn't change that fact that I'm a danger, even without the code words."
To hell with the interrogation. Bucky grabbed the open bottle of Vodka, finished the last of the potent liquid, and threw the bottle at the shrapnel. He felt a certain sense of satisfaction as it shattered against the twisted metal and suddenly understood why Thor enjoyed breaking drinkware.
Bucky retrieved the unopen bottle and twisted the lid off, then drained half the bottle in one go. It had stopped burning his mouth and throat a while ago. He turned and sauntered back toward the Avenger's complex. He was finished playing twenty questions with Barton. His goal was to get drunk one last time in his life, and the first time in almost a century, and he hadn't yet fully completed that mission.
As far as last hurrahs were concerned, this one really sucked.
"Hey." Clint trotted after him. "You asked me some damn personal questions, and I was honest with you. Fair play."
Bucky spun to look at him. He saw the man tense, and realized that, even in the middle of this little heart-to-heart, Barton was very much aware of how easily Bucky could kill him, especially in such close quarters when the archer wouldn't have time to get off a shot. Bucky took a breath as he saw a hint of apology in the other man's eyes, then handed Clint the remainder of the bottle of vodka and resumed his unsteady march back to the building.
"Hey!" Barton shouted again, this time running past him and then spinning to face him, blocking his path.
Bucky stopped and looked at the man, waiting for him to continue. He could easily move him out of the way, but he wouldn't. He didn't do that kind of thing, anymore…when he could help it.
"A few years ago, Loki used the scepter and took over my mind. He made me do things that I would never want to do. I hurt people. I even tried to kill Natasha. Natasha." Clint's anger punctuated his voice. "The point is, I know a little something about what you must be feeling. Just a little. I haven't gone through anything close to what you have over the last 80 years. I'm pretty sure no one on this planet has."
Bucky looked away finally. It was becoming harder to breathe. The large amount of alcohol he'd downed just a few minutes ago was making his head swim. Clint's words flooded his already shaky mind, evoking unpleasant memories and faces he was trying hard to forget…at least for a little while.
"And then, after Thanos killed my family, I lost myself," Clint continued. "I did terrible things. Those things are all on me. No one else. But you can either choose to curl up and die, which I almost did, or get off your ass and make amends."
Bucky looked back at Clint and a smile touched his lips, but there was no joy in it, just sorrow. "I already tried that, man." The words came out slurred, and he realized he had finally managed to overpower his supersoldier liver. "It didn't go so well."
Just ask Leon Klein or Wilfred Nagel.
"I don't see it that way. Natasha doesn't. The Starks don't. I don't know what happened in your timeline, but you did one hell of a job in this one."
As Bucky studied Clint's serious face, he recognized the dark pain behind those probing blue eyes and realized Clint did know a little something of what it felt like to utterly and completely lose yourself. For 80 years, Bucky had been a slave to the will of others. Clint's time had been much shorter, but the violation was just as deep—he saw that much in the other man's eyes.
He also recognized the same guilt he felt. The guilt at having hurt people he cared about, and the raw agony of having done some of those things all on his own, without the mind control. He saw all of that reflected back to him, and for a moment, it was a little too much. His vision swam, and Clinton's image became blurry against the scorched landscape.
Bucky turned away—a little too suddenly—and the world tilted. He stumbled to the ground and managed to land on his butt. He bent his knees and draped his elbows over them, then cradled his head in his hands to stop the dizzying motion.
He was aware of sounds behind him—Clint lowering his pack and the bow, the soft plod of footsteps against the soil, and steady breathing as the other man lowered himself to the ground next to Bucky.
For several minutes, Clint just sat there quietly. Bucky appreciated the near silence, allowing it to drape over him like a blanket. He could hear the soft, distant sounds of voices from the tents on the other side of the complex. He could even make out the low lull of faraway voices—reporters giving their updates into cameras.
Bucky sat there, his knees keeping the rest of him propped up, and let the world spin slowly around him as the alcohol in his stomach made its way into his bloodstream. He floated with it for some time, remembering what this had felt like back when he'd been truly human. Before Hydra had turned him into a super soldier…a drone.
He folded backward against the warm, uneven ground. The sky ahead was mostly clear, the day's light beginning to fade. A few clouds drifted lazily overhead, their undersides glowing from the reflection of the evening rays.
Bucky let himself drift in the moment, content just to rest there and look up into the endless sky. He didn't know what his future held, but if he ended up spending the rest of his days in the Raft, he'd likely never be able to gaze up into an open sky again.
"What was it like?" he asked Clint.
"What was what like?"
"The Raft?"
"Oh." Clint shifted to lay down next to him. "Not great, but better than what you've had to deal with before, I'm sure. It's a clean cell. A bed. A toilet. They feed you, keep you alive. But it's endless staring at walls. Sometimes they'll bring you a book or let you listen to music."
"Sounds doable."
"Maybe for a short time. Not for decades." Clint sat up and peered down at Bucky with sharp blue eyes. "You don't have to go back."
"Yeah, I do…if it's possible." He needed to make sure Sam wasn't dealing with any fallout for helping him, and he had to face up to what he'd done. The plan had never been to have two of him in one timeline. From the little he thought he knew about time travel, in the long term, that could become…a problem.
He could cope with the Raft. He was used to that. In some ways, he could even find the idea almost comforting. Almost.
He felt himself drifting some more. Clint's face blurred. Bucky's eyelids felt heavy. "I can handle it. It's what I'm used to."
"Christ, Barnes…"
Bucky closed his eyes and let his spinning head drop him into blissful oblivion.