Something hit him hard, right in the middle of his chest sucking the wind out of him. Rage swelled up inside him now. Any pretense of self-control left him, leaving him unable to restrain the urge to hit, to hurt. What should he call this… person? The other Steve? That guy? He threw a clay piece of crockery against the wall. It gave him savage satisfaction as it broke into small sharp pieces. The other guy came and laid a hand on his arm, which he shook off.
"I'm sorry. We never meant to deceive you… we…," the fake Steve started.
"But you did. You did deceive us. What you're saying is Steve, my Steve is gone for good. I thought we'd worked things out, that I got him back, and now you're telling me he's not coming back. You stood there… and lied. Pretended to…." Bucky wasn't one to cry, not even during the worst of the Consortium's torture, but now he felt it coming on. The small hut became too closed in, causing him to break out into a hot sweat. Back outside in the night, he let his conflicting emotions to do their worst. He wanted to shout him down and would have if he weren't afraid of alarming the other villagers. Fighting instincts kicked in, but he fought against it. His would-be opponent's strength levels were unknown.
The cool air helped calm him down and the sounds of the coming night echoed across the lake had an effect. Somewhere out there a night bird called and a few minutes later another answered, the second cry fainter and further away. He didn't want to admit it, but there was a believable bizarre kind of logic to this story. Thanos wanted to take out half the life in the universe and he had, but somehow in that instant, they had replaced their counterparts.
"Thanos won? He won where you came from?" He asked. The idea of another world where life was much the same as here was an old idea from stories but he hardly expected to face the idea in real life.
"He won there," Steve said. " At the battle, we fought there. Because we all made mistakes. We weren't a team anymore...we tried. Damn it, we all tried...we beat him eventually, after learning to work together and with a lot of outside help but you...all of you...stayed gone. We wanted you back."
"Why weren't you a team? I mean, if you were us…"
"I don't want to talk about it…" Steve said, firmly. His jaws were set tight. "Maybe I will, someday but not now, but we didn't become a real team until after you all were...gone."
Not talking. Something Bucky could understand. It had taken a long time before he could say anything about what had been done to him and the things they'd forced him to do. "Do you… want something from us?" Bucky asked. He stayed on his guard, aware of his escape routes."
"I told you, we lost you and we… wanted you back. That's all. Nothing else." He emphasized the words with such force making Bucky turn to face him and cursed the how much he looked like Steve. Steve. " We missed you, it hurt like hell, and when we found we had a chance to get you back and save you, and everyone else here from a lot of misery. We took it. If we were wrong, I'm sorry, but what's done is done. When I lost you…"
Bucky paced. Down to the lake and back and back to his hut again. Torches and fires sprung up in the village as the night deepened around them. It had happened to all of them, loved ones replaced with strangers. A star popped up in the sky. The intruder stood still, not hindering him as his conflicted thoughts battled each other. He threw rocks into the lake, then tore apart a living branch from a nearby tree but stopped himself when he realized that no matter how hard he tried, he wouldn't wear himself out. The other guy stood still, doing nothing, saying nothing.
"Am I that much like him?" He didn't understand why out of everything he could have asked, this question popped up. "Was it worth it, you going through all this, to get to me?"
"When I saw you again, you and Sam, everybody we lost. It was amazing to see you again… yes, it's been worth it," the true sincerity in his voice rang true. Bucky didn't want to think about the guy suffering, grieving like he was now.
"I suppose, if all that had happened to us, we'd do the same thing because we are you…" His pulse slowed down. All of his sense stayed on high alert, making him wary of everything. Sympathy was building up inside him for this other Steve and he didn't want to face it. The idea of losing Steve, having him taken away so suddenly, yes he would do anything to bring him back. These past few months without him had been hard but now to have him gone completely... He sat down, staring at the circle where he had built a fire just a few hours earlier. "If this is true, it's weird." He said at last. "But if you wanted to take us out, you've had lots of opportunities, you could have murdered us in our sleep."
Steve sat down beside him. "That's just it. We don't want to. I'm not the same guy, but if you get down to the core of who I am, I'm Steve Rogers. I'll do or say anything to convince you but… I came here because I'm… looking for home, and that's with you."
Of all the things he could have said. Something deep down, a base instinct he didn't even know he possessed convinced him this was true.
"He said those words when he first found me again. I asked him why he was making me remember and he told me… he wanted to bring me home. Home. It was like he was here." The memory burned strong in Bucky's mind and it helped him decide. If this guy could accept him, even though he wasn't 'his' Bucky, he would take any version of Steve back, even this, strange new guy.
"I've done weird shit in my life, sometimes I had no choice, sometimes I did, but this is the biggest risk I will ever take. I'm going to trust you, believe you're telling the truth," he said. This Steve touched something familiar inside him.
"Are you sure? I know this is a lot to take in," he said."And I don't blame you for getting mad. I admit, it was an arrogant move on our part, but we thought since it was our fault things got so messed up, it was up to us to fix it as best we could."
"You remind me, of him. The way he used to be, the way he was supposed to be. Steve was kind of pushy, could be a real jerk at times, and it wasn't really his fault, the serum they gave him made him unstable. Stark did his best with him….you hold back more. You...a nicer guy, like the guy I remembered from way back when we were kids, the guy I still knew was still in there...I think that's why I believe you…" Bucky said. It was the truth.
"That's the way I see you. You're the Bucky I remember, from Brooklyn, before the war. My Bucky, was so haunted by his past, was never really the same as he was. That didn't stop me from wanting him back." " he said.
A long moment passed between them, broken by the sound of another night bird.
"Who else is like you?" Bucky asked.
"Tony, Natasha, Bruce, Rhodey, a guy in New York named Wong… and Thor, and his friend Rocket," Steve replied.
"You call each other by your first names. Here it's all Mr. this and Agent that… Rhodey?"
Steve laughed. "Back in my world Bucky and Sam couldn't stand each other. Constant bickering. You and Sam, friends, one of the best things about being here."
"Why didn't they get along?" Bucky asked. He and Sam clicked as soon as they met. It could have been their military background, maybe it was their common friendship with Steve, whatever it was, it worked.
"I never understood that myself. Look, I'll tell you everything you want to know. Everything."
Bucky thought long and hard before asking the next question. "What do you want from me?"
"From you? Your friendship," Steve said.
"Is that all?" Bucky didn't know if he should feel disappointed, but if that's all his Bucky was to him, it made sense, yet at the same time this guy never made any effort to push him away, when he could have.
"Were you and your Steve...just friends?"
Bucky suddenly felt uncomfortable. "Steve and I...understood each other." He looked away, not willing to face him.
"Whatever you had, I'm sure it was nothing to be ashamed of."
"We weren't ashamed of it," Bucky said. "It was just…nothing we could explain. We never needed to talk about it.….we just had an understanding." He couldn't put it into words and didn't want to talk about it anymore.
"Maybe, it's not that different from what my Bucky and I had, an understanding," he said.
"Do you think we should tell Sam? He knows something's off…" Bucky asked, wanting to change the subject. Talking about personal things made him nervous.
"We will, when the time is right, when you've gotten used to me," he said. 'I want you to help me break the news…"
The stars were out in force. The noise and sound of crackling wood drifted over from the village as the people got ready for the night. Somewhere a child laughed. Bucky had no words for what he was feeling. It was rare to go through all the stages of grief and life-changing surprises within the space of an hour.
" I need you to tell me something. I admit this is a weird question to start with, and I'll explain, but did Steve tell you what happened in Paris?" he asked. The question caused a disconnect within Bucky's head. It was so out of the blue compared to what had just happened.
"Paris. Terrorists had bombed it, twice, and they took them out. I'm sure it's in Stark's computer's somewhere. It's not a secret," Bucky replied. The other Steve sat back. The last pale light of the night shone off his hair causing a halo effect. "Why ask about that…?"
"Why did he ask to meet you there…?" Steve asked. Was this constant shifting in conversation a way of keeping him off guard. "Did he talk about the mission?"
"That's kind of personal, and that something I don't want to talk about." The memory was clear, of Steve slamming him against the wall, thinking this was what he wanted and giving him no resistance. How it ended. The memory was painful.
"Ok, we won't," Steve said. Relief flooded through him. No need to bring that up again. "Did he talk about the mission?" he persisted.
Bucky reached back in his memory. So much happened that night but as he considered the question, a realization took hold. "No. Normally, he does. He goes through what happened when I'm not with him, tells me everything, and gives me a private debriefing, but this time, nothing. He really wasn't acting himself. He was more...angry than usual. Why is this so important?"
"We might need to… set something right. Trust me, we're committed to taking down the Consortiums. We've reason to suspect the other team might have messed something up, and it's up to us to fix it. We've no choice."
"Suspect? Who… how?"
"Something Clint told Natasha. Something the team needs to come clean about, and it happened in Paris. It's important that I find out. We might as well start with a clean slate."
"That sounds like... my Steve," Bucky said. Now he was almost completely convinced. He allowed his mind to go back. Repressing memories wasn't natural, but he kept that night buried deep. "We can't get drunk. I think that night was meant to kind of a distraction from whatever happened, it wasn't like him at all, I don't know, we never talked about it again. But that's all I know, I swear."
"I believe you," Steve said, his voice guarded. They remained silent for some time as the night deepened around them. More voices joined in the night chorus.
"And I'm sorry about… earlier. It was a test. My Steve would have reacted differently, he was a bit more... dominant, if you know what I mean...and if it's a problem now, you don't have to stay," Bucky said.
"That's ok, don't worry about it. I'd run tests of my own if it were me. To be honest, it's a relief, you knowing. It was hard, constantly having to be on my guard around but that's over. Why don't we… call it a night? Things make more sense in the daylight. I'm glad you calmed down. For a few minutes, you reminded me of the Winter Soldier."
"Who?" Bucky asked. The name sounded poetic.
"The deadly brainwashed assassin I mentioned. Stalked the world for fifty years. My best friend. I lost him in WWII but I found him again, years later. He didn't recognize me at first… but… It's a fascinating story, although not all that pretty. I'll tell you more about him…. Come on," He stood up and Bucky joined him. He put his arm around his shoulder as they went back inside. Bucky did not resist. "We were on a mission during WWII to capture a Hydra scientist…. Hydra was a cult…"