Chapter 3: Body and Soul
Bucky met Peter at the corner. The boy had his nose in his phone and looked up at the sound of Bucky's footsteps.
"Okay, kid, is that it?" Bucky pointed across the street to the elegant set of stairs leading up to an impressive door.
"Yep."
Bucky started walking, and Peter fell into step alongside him.
"So, how do you think we should start the conversation?" Peter asked. "Should I just, like, introduce myself, reveal I'm—" he pretended to shoot a web "and uh, tell him about the spell? Or, since he'll recognize you but not me, maybe you should lead? What do you think?"
Bucky sighed. The kid talked fast, as if he spewed words out the moment they came to his brain. "Let me take the lead."
He tried to sound confident, but he had no idea how to start such a bizarre conversation…and he didn't know Strange well enough to even guess how he'd react.
"Okay." Peter nodded eagerly. "Good idea."
Bucky knocked on the door. He waited a few seconds, then tried the handle. The door swung open.
"Hello?" he inquired, but no one answered.
He walked into an impressive entryway with a massive staircase. Peter followed, closing the door behind him. Bucky stood with his hands in his pockets, his ears picking up the light sound of footsteps from above.
A moment later, Wong appeared at the top of the staircase. "Hello, Sergeant, who's the kid?"
Bucky spared Peter a sympathetic glance. "This is Peter Parker. Is Dr. Strange here?"
The man in question appeared, hurrying down the stairs in an irritated manner. "Whatever it is, I don't have time now, Sergeant Barnes."
"Make time. It's important." Bucky eyed the man. "World-changing important."
Steve stopped directly in front of him, surprise flickering in his eyes. "World changing again?"
Bucky glanced at Wong, not sure how much to reveal to the other sorcerer, then returned his gaze to Strange. "Is there somewhere private we can talk?"
Wong shook his head and sighed. "Every time I turn around, some end-of-the-world shit is happening. I'm gonna get a coffee." Then he swirled his hand and stepped through a portal into what looked like a European, cobblestone alley.
"Must be really good coffee," Bucky muttered as the portal closed.
"What's this about?" Dr. Strange asked him, glancing at Peter. "And who's the boy?"
"This is Peter Parker," Bucky repeated. "Does he look familiar?"
"No." Strange started walking.
Bucky and Peter followed him into a large room. The sorcerer plopped himself into a chair behind a desk and Peter sank into the chair facing Strange. Bucky stood, surveying the room's impressive artifacts and books.
Turning his attention back to the sorcerer, Bucky jabbed an elbow in Peter's direction. "You do know this kid. He helped us save the Universe from Thanos, but you cast a spell to make the world forget him."
"No, I didn't."
Bucky almost laughed at the irony of that denial.
"You did, Dr. Strange," Peter interjected, "but it's okay. I mean, I told you to. It was the only way to seal the rifts between all the universes."
"Kid's telling the truth." Bucky tilted his head toward Peter. "He's Spiderman, by the way. Keep it between us."
Dr. Strange leaned back skeptically in his chair. "I cast a spell to make the world forget?"
Peter nodded. "Yeah, the world found out I was Spiderman, and because of that, my friends didn't get into MIT and Happy was in trouble, even Aunt May got arrested," he cleared his throat quickly, dropping his eyes to the floor. "I asked you to make the world forget I was Spiderman. You agreed, and then…when you were casting the spell, I distracted you, some people from other dimensions came through." Peter shook his head quickly. "It's a really long story, but basically everyone who knew Peter Parker as Spiderman from other universes started coming into this universe, and they weren't all friendly, though I did get to meet two other Spidermen. We needed to send everyone back, but there was a fight. You made a box to contain the spell thingie, and then it got blown up, and well… the rifts started to open, everyone was coming through, and the only way to stop it from happening was to make everyone forget me…not Spiderman, but me, Peter Parker. Even you. The spell worked on you, too. You've used it before to make Wong forget about the Full Moon Party."
Strange raised an eyebrow, and his gaze darted back and forth between them. After a moment, he shrugged. "Okay, so?"
Bucky strode forward casually, stopping in front of the desk. "So, you ruined the kids' life. He's got no legal identity, and everyone he ever knew forgot him."
Strange peered up at him. "You know who he is."
"Yeah, seems like I'm the only one."
Strange shook his head. "Not possible."
"It happened, therefore it's possible," Bucky shrugged.
"Were you part of the whole thing?" Strange asked.
"Nope, just ran into the kid in the grocery store earlier today."
"Odd coincidence." Strange pressed his lips together. "Whether I believe you or not isn't relevant. Even if what you say is true, I wouldn't be able to reverse the spell without risking cosmic catastrophe."
"It's true." Bucky looked at Peter. "Time for some show-and-tell."
"Oh, right!" Peter leapt from the chair, shot a web from his wristband, and hung from the ceiling. "Also, I know you have a dungeon, and there are weird things like creepy dolls that turn their heads to follow you, and chambers you can use to imprison people, and a refrigerator with some very weird stuff. Also, this place was filled with snow."
Steve leaned forward, intrigued. "You're Spiderman?"
"Yep." Peter dropped from the ceiling.
"I don't remember Spiderman helping us fight Thanos."
"My head wasn't covered, so you forgot."
Strange nodded. "Okay. Since we all saw you as Peter Parker, we all forgot you were there, except for Sergeant Barnes, for some mysterious reason." Strange studied Bucky intensely. "Maybe…"
The scrutiny made the hair on Bucky's arm stand up. "What?"
"Well, you have had your memories erased several times, right?"
"Yes."
"Memory spells are tricky things. They involve the manipulation of energy to identify and remove specific memories, leaving everything else untouched. It's possible when the energy touched your mind, it misinterpreted the lingering imprint of your prior memory wipes."
The thought of creepy magical energy touching his mind made the base of his skull tingle. "Are you saying it thought my Peter memories were erased, so it moved on?"
"The other possibility is your brain has developed a resistance to having its memories wiped. The average mind, on the other hand, is quite susceptible."
Dr. Strange had an air of arrogance about him in the way he so casually spoke about tampering with the minds of billions of people.
Bucky's cheeks flushed hot, and he clenched his right hand into a fist. "What gives you the right to erase anyone's memory?"
"Well, from what you two tell me, it was the only way to save the world."
"No." Bucky leaned forward on the desk. "When you tried the first time, it was to make the world forget that Peter was Spiderman, but you don't have the right to mess with people's brains and steal their memories."
Bucky understood people like Strange—who justified violating other people to serve a "greater good." He'd had his fill of them.
"Oh, uh, wow, um…" Peter's shaky voice pulled Bucky's attention. The kid was staring wide-eyed at him. "I didn't think about it that way when I asked him if he could make it so the world didn't know I was Spiderman. I just wanted to help my friends. I didn't think about…well…whether we had the right to do that."
Yeah, well, you're a teenager, Bucky thought, and you wanted help your friends.
Strange was the one responsible for casting the spell. "You abused your power," Bucky continued, looking back at the sorcerer. "You didn't have the right to manipulate minds."
Dr. Strange stood, his cape flowing around him despite the lack of a breeze. His face flashed with anger, but as he met Bucky's gaze, his eyes softened. "I understand why you feel that way, but I'm sure I wouldn't have cast such a spell without good reason."
"You were trying to help me, because I asked you to," Peter said.
"Would you be able to restore the memories of a few people without risking multi-versal mayhem?" Bucky asked.
Dr. Strange shook his head. "Not without some risk."
"Don't." Peter slouched into the chair. "It was really bad last time. It's not worth risking that."
"What about at least restoring his legal identity?" Bucky continued. "Apparently you wiped out that, too."
"Of course." Strange gave Peter an apologetic look. "If there were photos and videos around of you, it would create inconsistencies. If your friends or family had photos of you in their phones, for example, they'd realize something was afoot. Unfortunately, any tinkering with a spell of that magnitude could create cracks in the barriers between universes."
"So, there's nothing you can do?" Bucky asked.
Strange looked insulted as he crossed his arms. "Oh, there are several things I can do, but your parameters were without risk of mayhem."
The sorcerer's apathy was infuriating. Bucky took a step toward the man. "You—"
Strange's arm whipped out, and the room spun away from Bucky. He found himself looking at the back of his body, with the sorcerer in front of him, hand extended. Bucky felt strange—weightless in a way he couldn't imagine—as if the burdens of the last century vanished, and he was free, made whole and new again. He looked down. His left arm was transparent, but it was his arm, not a piece of metal and sensors, but a representation of what he once had, when he was all human.
Peter shot to his feet. "Oh, hey, did you do the thing to him where you separated him from his body? No, no, no. I mean, it's really cool, but please put him back, Doctor Strange. He wasn't going to try to hurt you." Peter looked around. "Mr. Barn—err—Bucky, I can't see you, but if you're floating around in the room, it's okay. You're not dead. Dr. Strange just separated your soul from your body. He did it to me, too. You can float back if you try to swim through the air."
A warmth filled Bucky, and he was floating. Something beckoned him, a light in the darkness, a comforting familiarity that tickled his consciousness.
"When did I do this to you? Hey, Barnes, what are you doing?" Strange's voice filtered to him as if from a distance. "This shouldn't be happening."
"What's happening?" A younger voice, alarmed.
"I'm not sure. Sergeant Barnes, come on…come back here."
"Doctor Strange, what's going on? Don't hurt him."
"I'm not hurting him. I'm trying to get him back."
Something gave way, like a chord being cut, and he was freer than he'd ever felt in his life.
"Oh, God, is he dead?"
"He's not dead…yet."
"He looks dead."
"He's not dead, now let me focus."
No. He had to find it…he needed to find it. It was a song, a smell, a touch. It was home. He knew it as well as he knew the crevices of his fragmented soul. It called to him. It needed him, too.
"Come….HERE!"
Bucky slammed into the cage of flesh and vibranium. The song of warmth and home died, leaving him with an empty, gaping wound in his soul. Heart pounding, ears ringing, chest heaving—the encumbrance of bone, muscle, and tendons was like an assault. He felt heavy with the weight of every one of his one-hundred-and-six years.
No. A sense of profound loss stole his breath and blurred his vision. He was on the floor, looking up into Dr. Strange's concerned face.
A finger hovered above him.
"Follow my finger with your eyes," Dr. Strange ordered, studying him with clinical concern. "Repeat these words in the same order: Finger, Penny, Blanket, Lemon, Insect."
Bucky blinked at the man. "What?"
"It's a cognitive test. Just repeat the words."
He wasn't sure why a test was needed, but he rattled them off as he sat up.
Dr. Strange nodded in satisfaction. "How do you feel? Any headache? Nausea?"
"A little woozie." And disoriented. He'd felt something…He wasn't sure what, but he knew it was where he wanted to be. "What happened?" He blinked again at Dr. Strange. "What did you do to me?"
"I separated you from your body. It's a simple thing, very minimal risk in the presence of a skilled sorcerer, but…I'm not sure what happened." Dr. Strange stood. "The soul always stays close to the body in such cases. Yours did not."
Bucky let the words wash over him as his brain dissected them, processing their meaning. "What the hell?" He pushed to his feet, swaying as the room tilted. "You separated my soul from my body?"
"Hey, hey, guys, come on." Peter was there instantly, his impossibly strong grip on Bucky's vibranium arm. "You don't look so good, Mist…uh, Bucky. This is my fault. I know you're trying to help. But we tried. Let's just go."
Bucky studied Peter's face. The kid's brow was furrowed, his eyes worried, almost panicked. Even Dr. Strange seemed shaken.
Whatever weird shit had just happened to him (He had a soul? Did that mean there was a God, and if so, where the hell had he been the past 70 years?), he figured it best to leave before the situated escalated. If Strange was a dead end, then so be it. Peter would unfortunately have to live with the consequences of the spell. The only thing Bucky could do was keep an eye on the kid and be there if he needed a helping hand.
"Fine." Bucky headed toward the door. He never made it.
-0- -0- -0-
Peter caught Bucky as he crumpled, easing him down effortlessly onto the cold floor.
Oh, God, this isn't happening. Is he dead? The only person in the world who remembers me…maybe that's why this is happening? Because of me?
I've killed Captain America's best friend. Bucky remembered me, and his brain shouldn't have, and it's all because of that stupid spell that I should never have let happen.
Peter placed his fingers alongside Bucky's neck, felt a strong pulse, and breathed a sigh of relief. Dr. Strange knelt alongside them.
"What's wrong with him? Is this because of the memory wipe spell or having his soul separated or both?"
Strange shook his head, and the doubt on his sorcerer's face worried Peter.
"Give me some room." The doctor leaned over Bucky, and Peter shifted away as Dr. Strange checked Bucky's vitals and performed a clinical assessment that reminded Peter that Dr. Strange had actually been a medical doctor.
After Strange completed the exam, he raised his palms three inches above Bucky's head and slowly moved them along Bucky's body.
"What are you doing? Are you scanning him with magic?" Peter asked, leaning forward. "Like a magical MRI?"
Strange shot him an incredulous look and, remembering how things went the last time he'd distracted the sorcerer, Peter shut up.
"Hmmm." Doctor Strange's brow furrowed as he lowered his hands.
"What is it? Is he gonna be okay?"
The sorcerer eyed Peter, then extended his left arm. "I'm sure he will be." Despite the words, there was a note of uncertainty in his voice. "I've got a room we can put him in."
Red energy snaked from Dr. Strange's palm, and Bucky's limp body floated upward.
-0- -0- -0-
Caged. Trapped. Imprisoned.
A room. Concrete walls. A thick metal door. He flung himself against it. Again and Again. He punched. Kicked. The floor vibrated with his assault. A siren blared from speakers. A Russian voice commanded him to stand down.
The next time he hit the door, the jolt twisted every nerve in his body.
Time ceased to be a thing with meaning. His existed in the flashes between life and death, ice and air.
He was in a chair, his arms restrained. A halo of metal machinery whirred into place around his skull. It sizzled to life, then everything inside him screamed.
He had a mission. Names. Howard and Maria Stark. A car. A dark road. Five bags of serum. Sanction and extract.
His body moved with deliberate precision. Unhurried. Confident. The part of him that still existed was trapped, like a spectator under water watching a dream above the surface.
He watched as his fist bashed Howard Stark's skull into his brain.
"Howard." He heard her. She was next.
He watched his feet carry him slowly around the car, his arm slip through the open passenger door, and his hand squeeze Maria Stark's neck until the life drained from her.
Trapped. Caged. A prisoner of his own brain, his own flesh.
His fingers clutched a cold metal railing. Icy wind whipped his face. The metal creaked, gave way. He was falling. The world was cold and white. Steve's face was bright and clear for a moment, then it veered away from him, growing smaller and smaller.
Bucky stretched his arm out, desperate, but Steve was gone, and then there was a bright burst of pain.
There was darkness, then cold. Bursts of light and sound. Blessed numbness. Ice and snow.
Steve knew ice, knew cold and alone. Steve was lost.
Steve.
A dark room. The familiar face was above him, helmet on his unusually large head, blue eyes crinkled with the pain of what they saw.
It was a blur, until he found himself clinging to a rail above fire. Steve was on the other side of an impossible gap.
Steve.
He had to reach him. Save him. There had to be a way. Steve needed him.
"Just go! Get out of here."
"No! Not without you!"
Not without you, buddy.
-0- -0- -0-
"What did you do to him?" Wong asked.
Peter kept his eyes on the one-hundred-and-six-year-old guy lying almost lifeless on top of the covers on a twin bed that was barely long enough to fit him.
He heard Doctor Strange sigh. "I didn't do anything to him other than what I just told you. I don't know why this happened. His soul is tormented, but that in and of itself wouldn't be enough to cause this. Something else is exerting an influence."
Something else? Peter didn't like the sound of that. "Are you saying…there's a disturbance in The Force?"
Doctor Strange looked perturbed. "How old are you?"
"Almost eighteen."
Strange sighed. "Almost, huh?"
"Look, can you just tell me why he's not waking up?"
"I don't know," Strange admitted.
"If he dies, you're gonna be the one to tell Sam Wilson," Wong said.
"Die?" Peter straightened.
"He's not going to die," Dr. Strange said forcefully.
"I just stepped out for coffee," Wong lamented, shaking his head. "I should've gotten it to go."
"He's not going to die!" Strange began pacing the room.
Peter rubbed a hand over his face. How had pizza turned into another life-and-death situation? He was cursed, and everyone around him paid the price. "We have to—"
Bucky groaned, his brow furrowing.
Peter leaned over him. "Mister..Sergeant…Bucky? Can you hear me?"
Bucky jolted off the bed, hitting the floor hard, a gurgle of a scream erupting from his throat. He thrashed, fighting unseen assailants, but Peter easily dodged the blows and kicks.
"What's happening?" Peter asked, sparing a glance at the sorcerers.
Doctor Strange gazed impassively at him. "Nightmare, I'm guessing."
Limbs twisted over themselves and unintelligible words that sounded vaguely Russian croaked from Bucky's lips as he curled into a corner. He went still for a moment, until his lips began moving again.
"Steve… "
The word was soft but clear, then, "No…Not without you!"
Bucky's eyes sprang open, and he looked around with wild eyes.
"Hey, hey!" Peter crouched three feet in front of him, remembering the man's preference for personal space. "Bucky. You're okay."
The blue eyes looking back at Peter were confused, disoriented. "Steve. Where's Steve?"
"Steve's not here. I think he's gone. You're here with me. I'm Peter Parker. Not sure if you remember that." He pointed to the sorcerers standing on the other side of the bed. "That's Doctor Strange and, uh, Sorcerer Supreme Wong."
Bucky's gaze was distant. "I need to go…home."
"Home?" Peter could help with that if he knew where Bucky lived. Maybe the former Winter Soldier had a license with his address. "Sure, I can help you get home."
Bucky tilted his head. "Peter?"
"Yeah." Peter smiled, relieved to see the disorientation fading from the other man's face. "Do you know where you are now?"
Bucky gave a shaky nod and scrubbed his fingers through his short hair. "What happened?"
"Doctor Strange separated your soul from your body, and something happened. You passed out. Then you had a bad dream…I'm guessing it was about Steve?"
Bucky's eyes turned glassy again as he stared at a point just beyond Peter's head. "Steve?"
As Bucky pushed to his feet, Peter gave the man space but remained ready to catch him should he take another dive.
"How are you feeling?" Dr. Strange asked.
"Weird." Bucky's brow furrowed, and he walked toward the door.
"Hey, where are you going?" Peter followed, glancing at Strange and Wong.
Bucky pushed through the front door and out into the twilight of the evening.
Peter wasn't sure what to do. Bucky didn't seem like himself—not that Peter really knew what the former brainwashed assassin was like most of the time. Hovering in the doorway, Peter glanced back at the two sorcerers.
"What should I do?"
Strange cocked his head. "Follow him, keep an eye on him, bring him here if he takes a turn for the worse."
"That's all? What if he doesn't want to come back?"
Strange raised his eyebrows. "If you are who you say you are, I'm sure you can handle him. However, if you don't think you can, bring him to the basement and we can…"
"No, that's okay." Imprisoning Bucky in one of those weird mystical chambers wasn't exactly how Peter wanted to repay the guy for his generosity.
He turned back to see Bucky about to walk directly in front of a cab.
"Oh, no…"
He didn't have time for much other than a quick glance, a fling of web that connected with Bucky's shirt, and a yank backward. He hoped no one saw that. The nearest pedestrian was a block away, and the cab driver was already swerving by the time Bucky's back hit the pavement, his head smacking against the concrete.
Peter winced at the sound. "Sorry! Sorry!"
Please don't have a concussion. He figured super soldier skulls were hardier than the average human head. As Peter hurried forward, Bucky was already getting to his feet and rubbing the back of his head. He resumed his trek across the street.
"Bucky, come on, man, are you listening to me?" Peter grabbed Bucky's arm and rushed them both to the other side of the street.
Bucky gave no resistance. He glanced at Peter briefly, then turned and headed east.
"Do you hear me?" Peter asked.
"I hear you," Bucky replied flatly.
Good, good, that's something. Peter breathed a relieved sigh. "Where are you going?"
Bucky's gaze was distant, his voice hushed. "Home."
"Okay, but that's all the way in Brooklyn, right? That'll take, like, two hours on foot."
Bucky continued walking, as if in a daze, while Peter followed and intervened as necessary to keep the man from getting flattened by a bus or walking into a coned-off construction pit.
Peter gave up asking Bucky questions. He kept getting the same answers. Bucky needed to go home. They walked the city streets for hours, sometimes retracing their steps before veering off in another direction.
The only thing Peter was sure about after three hours of wandering is they were no closer to Brooklyn.
It was eleven p.m. when Peter was just about to grab Bucky and head back to Dr. Strange when he heard a woman scream and a man shout. Oh, crap! Bucky titled his head at the sound and stopped in the middle of the street. Come on, dude. Peter couldn't be in two places at once, so he suited up, shot a web, and swung Bucky to the sidewalk closer to the disturbance, leaving him behind as he continued on toward the woman in distress.
The screams stopped just as he arrived, dropping into a dark alley with five men and a woman. Two guys lay unconscious, one clutched protectively at the woman, and two were fighting. A large man with a dark baseball cap and a beard slammed a smaller man against the wall.
"Please, just let me go!" the smaller man pleaded.
"Hey, big guy, he said the magic word…please." Peter shot a web at the large assailant, yanking him backward toward a dumpster, then webbed his hand to the metal container.
"Wait!" the woman shouted.
The assailant twisted, grabbing an empty beer bottle from the ground next to the dumpster and smashed it, using the glass to slice through the webbing faster than Peter would've thought possible.
The smaller man ran past them, and Peter webbed him up, too, not sure who was who or what was going on. He didn't have time to think much more about it when the bearded guy jumped on top of the dumpster and leapt an impressive twenty feet to the rooftop.
"Are you okay?" Peter asked the woman.
"She nodded."
He pointed to the man holding her. "Is he with you?"
"Yeah, yeah, he's my boyfriend. That guy was helping us." She flung a hand toward the roof.
Her boyfriend's wide eyes stared upward. "How did he do that?"
"I don't know." Peter intended to find out.
He leapt after the guy. He landed on the roof and started running when he heard footsteps behind him.
He risked a glance and saw Bucky keeping pace. The bearded guy had to be moving at 50 miles per hour, at least. Whoever he was, he had special abilities.
Peter flung his wrist out and aimed at the mystery man when his tingly sense kicked in. He spun just as the super soldier crashed into him.
"Bucky!" Peter let out a surprised yell as they rolled, nearly toppling off the rooftop when Peter flung a web to stop his momentum, his free hand wrapped around Bucky's vibranium arm to keep the other man from going over the edge.
The bearded man was two rooftops away when he paused and turned toward them. As Peter scrambled to his feet, he debated using that hesitation and continuing the pursuit, but he still had Bucky to deal with.
At the moment, keeping Bucky safe was the priority.
Bucky shot to his feet, and Peter crouched, ready to react. "What was that about?"
The bearded man dropped off the edge of the roof. Whoever the man was, Peter figured he'd pop up again sooner or later. People with enhanced abilities tended to get noticed. He just hoped the mystery man didn't end up hurting someone…vigilantes, if that's what the guy was, often ended up using excessive force. Sometimes innocent people got hurt.
Bucky blinked, then scrubbed a hand through his hair. "I don't know. I didn't want you to hurt him."
"I wasn't going to hurt him. I just wanted to know who he was."
Bucky shook his head. "I'm sorry. Are you okay, kid?"
"Yeah, yeah," Peter waved off his concern. "You didn't hurt me, just surprised me. Why would you think I'd hurt him? Is this because of Berlin? I said I was sorry. I know things got a little rough. To be fair, you threw the billboard at me first, and just for the record, I didn't mean for you and Sam to fall over the railing, and yeah, I know Sam could've gotten seriously injured, and I-"
"No…" Bucky turned, gazing after the vanished mystery man. "I don't know why I did that."
Peter believed Bucky. The bewildered look on the other man's face seemed genuine. It had been a long day, and whatever Dr. Strange had done to Bucky, the effects were lingering. He hoped the man snapped out of his semi-daze soon because babysitting a guy old enough to be his great grandfather was not how he envisioned spending the next few days…or weeks.
God, what if Bucky's condition was permanent? He might have to call Sam Wilson, but Sam wouldn't remember him. He knew Spiderman, though. Peter would have to spill the beans, and since he was pretty sure Sam hated his guts, especially since his last memory of Spiderman was Berlin, Peter figured that conversation would go poorly.
But if Sam knew Bucky needed help, he'd help. The important thing now was getting Bucky whatever help he needed.
"We should go back to see Dr. Strange. Whatever's going on with you, it's, uh, kind of freaking me out."
A shadow of fear crossed Bucky's face. "You and me both." He took a shaky breath. "Okay, let's go back to Dr. Strange. I'm not fully in control of myself, and…" He swallowed hard… "I don't want to hurt anybody."
"Hey, you didn't hurt me back there. I don't think you're dangerous to anyone, just…well…you keep saying that you want to go home, but you just keep wandering the city not heading toward Brooklyn. Do you know why?"
Bucky shook his head anxiously.
"I never should have dragged you into this."
"You didn't drag me into anything." Bucky replied, but his tone was distant, and he kept glancing in the direction of the rooftop where they'd last seen the mystery man.
"We're about half an hour away from Strange's place on foot, unless…"
"No."
Peter smiled. Bucky wasn't completely out of it.
"Okay, then, we can walk or call a Lyft."
Bucky walked to the edge of the roof and jumped off the three-story building.
Peter sighed. "Walking it is."
When he landed, Bucky was already in motion, heading away from Strange's place.
Not again.
"Come on, man." Peter trotted up to Bucky. "Wrong direction. Doctor Strange is—"
Bucky held up a silencing hand.
Okay, now what? Peter looked around. He saw a couple of teenagers two blocks away, the woman and her boyfriend coming out of the alley behind, and a few cars on the street. His tingly sense wasn't doing anything, so he was pretty sure they weren't in danger.
Twenty seconds later, Bucky shook his head. "Not sure."
"Come on, Bucky, please. Maybe Wong and Strange have figured out what's going on by now. It's this way."