Chapter 10
;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;
Somehow, they made it out, carrying or dragging Morita and Bucky as they fled. At the mouth of the ravine, Dernier set off the charges he'd positioned earlier, blowing up key portions of the hidden enemy base and the surrounding ravine, tumbling tons of stone and dirt to cover their trail. It wasn't impassable, but it would be difficult for pursuers to catch up anytime soon.
Now all that was left was to hike to the truck and get out of the area as fast as possible.
"You're bleeding. In several places, actually."
Steve readjusted Bucky's limp body where it hung over his shoulders and looked down at his wife. Her face was creased with worry even as she kept pace with him, taking three steps to his two.
"I'm okay," he answered.
Physically, it was more or less true. Sure, he'd been grazed by gunfire in several places, and one leg of his pants was soaked with blood from the bullet lodged into the top of his hipbone—and that would really need to be dug out at some point before he healed over it—but he'd had worse. Instead, he shoved the pain far back in his mind and buried it with his concern for his friends. Morita was bleeding heavily and seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness, while Bucky hung like a dead thing.
Peggy eyed him, but didn't press the point. Instead she merely nodded and reached to touch his arm briefly. Oh, how he loved her.
"We'll talk tonight," she promised, and then fell silent.
;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;
They didn't make it back to the trucks that night. The enemy base had taken more time than they'd hoped, and since they were carrying two members of the party they were slowed down even further.
Instead, they set up camp in a secure location at the foot of an overhanging cliff. There was little chance of pursuit—the sabotage job they had pulled on the enemy vehicles would forestall that—but nobody wanted to take any chances, so they ate beans and hash cold from cans without lighting a fire to heat them.
Morita was conscious, though fevered. Steve hoped the bullet hadn't punctured anything too vital, but the smaller man had lost a lot of blood and was in severe pain. They cleaned the wound as well as they could, and Dum Dum sacrificed his own alcohol to sterilize the needle and thread that Falsworth used to sew him closed.
Bucky still hadn't shown a single sign of regaining consciousness, so Peggy took the opportunity to clean the burns on his scalp and face, left there by the torturous equipment they'd released him from. The burns were deep and vicious. At some point the voltage had been turned too high and electricity had arced through his body, leaving burns along the seam of his metal arm, the backs of his upper thighs, and the soles of his feet where the electricity had grounded.
"I don't know what kind of internal damage he has from these," Peggy cautioned, spreading a medicated ointment on their friend's scalp before reaching for a bandage.
Steve only nodded. His hip throbbed where Peggy had dug the bullet out earlier, and his face felt tight with rage. Hot anger seethed just below the surface at the monsters who had hurt his friend so badly. As gently as he knew how, he cleaned and bandaged the burns on his friend's legs, tugging up the now filthy lab coat for better access. In a way he was relieved Bucky wasn't conscious for this. His friend would never have lived down the indignity.
Though he might have enjoyed having his head in a pretty girl's lap.
The thought made something inside him twist painfully, and his vision blurred. That Bucky—the Bucky he'd known as a boy—had been gone for so long. Even later, after Shuri had mended his mind, the devil-may-care young man had never quite returned.
Hydra had so, so much to answer for.
Peggy's hand brushed his cheek, and he turned his face blindly into her palm, seeking comfort. Her thumb swept along the ridge of his eyebrow, then retreated. "One moment—let me wipe the cream off my hands."
A moment later, she was back, drawing his head down to her shoulder, running her fingers through his hair. Steve caught his breath and leaned into her, drawing on her strength.
"I love you," he whispered simply into her collar, once he felt he had a grip on himself again.
Peggy pulled away slowly. She was putting on a brave face, but he could see how stricken she was by the atrocities committed against their friend.
"His head is done," she said, back to the task at hand. "And I've done what I could for the burns around the prosthesis, though I think we should have a doctor take a look at it when we're back in the States. Should we dress him, do you think?"
Steve hesitated, then shook his head and went back to tying the last bandage around his friend's foot. The poor fellow looked like a mummy. He tugged the hem of the lab coat back down and began to pull his own blanket out of his pack to spread over his friend.
"Let's let him rest," he suggested. "Let the burns have time to start healing. We can find him clothes in the morning."
He sat watch that night. Peggy argued, but Steve argued back just as stubbornly. If Bucky awoke violently during the night, he was likely the only one who could deal with him without major damage.
;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;
Bucky woke the next morning without fanfare. Steve simply noticed his friend's eyes were open, and moved to kneel beside him.
"Want some breakfast, Buck?"
Bucky's eyes tracked up to find his face. A beat—and then both eyebrows drew together. He studied Steve's face for a very long moment.
"S-Steve?"
The word was slow, almost clumsy, with a note of something like questioning doubt in it. Steve nodded, his heart turning over in his chest with hope and pain.
"Yeah, Buck—it's me. We've come to take you home. You're safe."
Bucky stared at him an instant longer, and then closed his eyes tightly, face crumpling into a mass of puckered lines. His lips moved, soundlessly shaping the word "home" as though tasting it. For an instant, Steve thought his best friend might start crying. He felt like weeping himself.
"Home, buddy," he repeated, and put a steadying hand on his brother's shoulder, smiling mistily. "We're here to take you home."
;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;
Bucky's burns appeared to be responding very well to the medicated ointment, probably due to the version of the serum that coursed through his veins. When presented with the clothing Steve had packed for him, he had shown no hesitation in dressing himself. He wouldn't accept the food Falsworth tried to hand him, but when Steve took the plate and then offered it again, Bucky took it without argument.
The way he ate broke Steve's heart all over again. Bucky stuffed the food into his mouth rapidly, shoulders hunched as though he expected someone to take it from him at any moment. He swallowed almost without chewing, eating so fast that he choked and then vomited it up again. With shaking fingers he tried to scoop up the mess from the dirty ground, attempting to shovel it back into his mouth.
"Hey," Steve said gently, catching his friend's hand to stop him, trying to keep his utter horror over Bucky's maltreatment from showing in his face. "Slow down, Buck—it ain't a race. You don't have to eat that. We've got plenty."
He redirected Bucky's attention to the plate, and Falsworth discreetly scraped dirt and leaves to cover the mess on the ground.
Nobody was sure how much he remembered. His eyes lingered on each person on the team, but he never spoke or called anybody else by name other than Steve. When Steve offered him food, he ate. When the team marched, he fell into step along with them, seeming not to notice the burns that covered his body.
He rarely used the metal arm. Sometimes Steve caught him looking down at it with a detached expression, fingering the metal bars and plates with his good hand.
They took frequent rests. Ironically enough, between Bucky and Morita, Morita was the one they were more immediately concerned about. The man was game about it, but he was still in a great deal of pain, and his persistent fever pointed to an infection. He couldn't walk fast enough or far enough to keep up, so the others took turns carrying him.
In a rare move, Steve opted not to take point, falling back near the middle of their group to walk beside Bucky. He kept an eagle eye on his friend—the need for speed was important, but so too was his friend's well-being.
Somewhere around noon, Bucky began to tremble. At first it was slight enough that Steve almost missed it, but it rapidly became a full-scale shake so violent his teeth began to chatter.
"Hey Buck, you okay?"
Steve kept his voice calm, but at the sound Bucky's head whipped around, eyes wide as though he'd been shot—and then without an ounce of warning, he disappeared into the trees.
He only had a few seconds head start, but that was enough. Steve plunged after him, trying to keep the madly fleeing figure in sight without crowding Bucky or making his fear worse. He wasn't terribly successful—Bucky was fueled with sheer desperation, flickering in and out among the trees, incautiously hurtling across ground so rough that even Steve had to slow minutely, for fear of missing a step and crashing headlong down some gully.
And then—nothing but silence.
Steve froze, straining every sense, trying to hear his fleeing friend—but there was nothing. Panic welled up, churning in his gut, rising in his throat.
No. No.
After all this time he had lost his friend again.
Then a hand slapped roughly over Steve's mouth, an arm snaked around his chest, and before Steve could catch himself, he was being hauled backward into a thorn bush. But after the first startled jolt, he went passive and let himself be manhandled.
Because he recognized the hands that had seized him. And he knew, however instinctively, that this wasn't an attack.
Once inside the thorn bush, Bucky let him go, though he still kept a hand over Steve's mouth. Turning ever so slightly, Steve could see his best friend's face, streaked with blood and grime, pale in the dim light that filtered through the leaves. Bucky was still trembling, eyes wild, but he wasn't focused on Steve. His eyes were trained on the forest beyond their bush.
He'd been right. Bucky hadn't attacked Steve. He was trying to protect him from whatever demons pursued him in his own mind.
But just in case, Steve listened too, with every ounce of the enhanced hearing he had been gifted. Beyond the hammering of his own heart and Bucky's, he could even catch the distant voices of the Commandos—but nobody else.
They weren't being followed.
It took nearly an hour to talk Bucky out of his panic attack. In all that time, the sergeant never said a word. He did, however, throw up everything he had eaten and then some, trembling in the sickening aftermath of the adrenaline and fear.
It was almost dusk by the time they rejoined the Commandos. The team had reached the trucks long before, and had been waiting anxiously for their captain and sergeant. A cheer, subdued but no less fervent, went up as the two missing men finally emerged from the tree line.
"How's Morita?" Steve asked, stooping to kiss his wife.
The worry in her eyes stopped him cold.
Morita wasn't well. Even after they had reached the truck and he'd been able to lie in the back, his condition wasn't improving.
Guilt ate Steve alive—he never should have brought a married man on this trip. What would he say to Michiko? Sorry I got your husband shot on a secret trip to Russia…
"We need to get him medical help," Dugan said quietly, nodding toward the truck. Steve looked over the tailgate and grimaced. Morita's hair clung damply to his forehead, his face flushed with fever and drawn with pain. Gabe was helping him get some dinner down, but it was clear their friend needed more help than they could give him.
Peggy went back to the map she'd been frowning at before her husband and the prodigal had returned.
"Can we get across the border here?" she inquired suddenly, pointing. "I have some old contacts from early on in the war. They might still be there."
Steve looked where she was pointing, and then at Dugan, who nodded. "We have enough fuel. Better to drive through the night, I think."
"Right. Do as Peggy says."
The decision made, Steve crossed their tiny camp to sit next to Bucky, who had found a seat on a fallen tree. The man didn't react to his presence. Steve noticed his friend's fingers fidgeting with the metal arm again, touching it lightly. Bucky's eyes were fixed on some invisible object in the middle distance, and his forehead was corrugated.
"How you doin', Buck?"
Bucky's head moved a fraction of an inch at the sound of his name, but he didn't otherwise react. Apparently he'd finally accepted food from one of the others—his discarded plate lay beside his foot.
The whole situation was killing Steve. He'd had his reasons for coming back to this time, instead of trying to get to Bucky earlier—mainly because this was the earliest point he could pinpoint his friend's location with complete accuracy—but now he was faced with the question of how much of his friend was left to be rescued. He had some possibilities that he preferred to act on later, once they weren't surrounded by the others, but until then he'd just have to wait.
Peggy joined him, her hand gentle on his shoulder before she sat at his side with her own plate of dinner. "Good evening, gentlemen," she greeted them both. Leaning forward, she addressed Bucky directly. "It's very good to have you with us, Sergeant Barnes. Or perhaps I should call you something else, since the war's over."
She continued with light, meaningless conversation as she ate, and Steve felt acutely grateful for the wonderful woman who was his wife. Bucky didn't respond, but after a few minutes he turned his head to look at her, eyebrows drawing down again in concentration.
"You remember Agent Carter, Buck?" Steve said. "She's my wife now. We got married a few weeks ago."
The rest of Bucky's face didn't move, but after a beat his eyebrows flew higher than Steve had ever seen them go. He looked hard at Steve, searchingly, and then over to Peggy. His mouth worked wordlessly, as though he were searching for words that couldn't quite come out.
And Steve found himself smiling in response. Somewhere, behind all the torture and brokenness, Bucky Barnes was still in there.
;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;
Dinner over, the men loaded up for the long drive through the night. Half of them bedded down in the back of the truck, while the rest crammed into the cab. They would switch off throughout the drive.
Steve stayed with Bucky in the back. His friend obediently lay down when the rest did, and when Steve put a blanket over him, he fingered the edge of it absently. Based on the conditions the captain had found him in, he was pretty sure this was the most luxurious sleeping quarters his friend had had in quite a long time.
On the other side of the truck bed, Morita moaned between gritted teeth. Gabe was in the cab of the truck with Dugan and Peggy, and Falsworth and Dernier appeared to be already asleep, so Steve crawled over and felt for his forehead. As expected, it was burning.
"Want some water?" he asked, reaching for the canteen, but Jim shook his head wearily.
"Cap," he breathed, and then stopped to lick his lips. "If—if things don't go well…"
Steve cut him off. "You're gonna be fine," he said, a note of steel in his voice. He'd lost too many friends lately to lose another one. "You'll be fine. I promised myself I'd get you back to your wife and son, and I'm not about to go back on my word."
Morita shook his head, smiling faintly. "I know it," he agreed. "But just in case—look after 'em, won't you?"
"I will," Steve promised. "And so will you. You got a family to get back to, so just keep them in your mind."
The sick man nodded feebly. Steve helped him drink a little, and then folded up his own coat to use as a pillow for his friend. He stayed until Morita's eyes dropped closed, before scooting himself back to a more comfortable position against the side of the truck.
He wouldn't sleep tonight. It seemed fitting that he should watch over his friends for as long as he could.
;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;
Hey, hey! So I know it's been a minute, and I just wanted to thank you all for sticking around. Also, my birthday's coming up, so I figured you could all use a chapter as a little merry un-birthday gift from me to you!
Also fun (?) fact: some of Bucky's behavior in this chapter is based on a starving but desperately polite stray cat that has adopted me. But his reaction to Steve's announcement of marriage is pulled straight from my grandma when she had dementia in 2016 and I told her who was running for US president. :D
Oh, and just as a heads-up—pretty soon you're going to see me post some things in a few different fandoms. Fear not, I shall not give up my Marvel stories, but I've been writing these others for a really long time and would kind of like to let them see the light of day. So if you only follow me because I write Steve/Peggy, and you see something else, don't desert me! I still have so much Marvel content on its way to you. :)
Guest reviews:
Guest: You mentioned 40's Steve vs. Endgame Steve, and honestly I had a hard time with the fight between the Steves in Endgame for this reason. 2012 Steve was fresh from the 40's. Endgame Steve had more than a decade of new martial arts training under his belt. It shouldn't have been as close as it was (in my humble opinion). But I'm so glad you enjoyed the chapter! Thank you for your review.
DBZFAN45: A pleasure as always—I'm so glad you enjoyed. Thank you for the holiday wishes, and I hope you have a wonderful year!
my-secret-garden: Awww, thanks! And yes, I couldn't leave Natasha out. Her death hit Steve so hard—he'll be recovering from it for a long time, I think. Thanks for reading!
recondite17: Thank you so much for your kind review! You have messaging disabled, so I figured I'd thank you here. So glad you're enjoying thus far!
