Long Way Home
Chapter One
"From one ghost to another, you look like shit, Barnes."
Bucky looked up at the man he'd murdered a month ago. His fingers itched to reach for one of the guns under his jacket or the knives tucked into the pockets of his cargo pants, but he kept his hands flat on his thighs. He was on a park bench, kids playing in the distance. The Winter Soldier wouldn't have cared – collateral damage was an acceptable risk – but Bucky Barnes was trying to be a person now.
"Are you here to kill me?" His voice was rough, unused, tired.
"No, I'm here to help you." Nick Fury sat down on the bench next to him. "My guess is you aren't ready to join the world just yet, but you're also at a loss without a mission to complete. Call it two birds, one stone."
"You need a weapon and I need a purpose?"
"Funny how these things work out."
"I don't …" he faltered. "I don't want to be that anymore."
Fury tilted his head to the side and Bucky could feel the man studying him behind his dark glasses. "Revenge can be a great motivator."
Bucky closed his eyes, the sun making the darkness red. A child was laughing, playing on the swings, but all Bucky could hear was screaming. Blood everywhere. His hands soaked in it.
Fury's steady voice cut through the memories. "Barnes, I'm not asking you to be a mindless assassin again. To bring down HYDRA, we need intel. We need to be one step ahead of them. I have a hunch you know key places to start."
He opened his eyes and squinted into the sunlight. "I have no idea what I know."
"I think you know more than you realize."
"Well, I've managed to remember my name these past couple of weeks and that I like my coffee black, so I guess that's a start."
Fury gave him a ghost of a smile and Bucky felt the tension in his shoulders easing. The other man leaned in closer, his voice low. "We do this smart and we neutralize the right people, we can stop them before they set their next plan in motion. Washington was a start but I'm under no illusions that we even made a dent in their infrastructure."
"Cut off one head, two more will take its place." Bucky's voice was flat as another voice echoed the saying in his head.
"That's their arrogance talking and that's a weakness," Fury said. "I can't do this on my own and right now, I don't have a whole hell of a lot of people I trust to help me with this."
Bucky's scrunched his forehead up in confusion. "But you trust me?"
"I trust the brave man who fought alongside his captain during some of the toughest missions in a terrible war. That man deserves a second chance, don't you think?"
Bucky let the words wash over him. He felt the same confusion he felt staring at his memorial at the museum. Familiar. Foreign. Terrifying. Safe. Dangerous. All at once. It was like jumping from a plane without a parachute. He was that man, he knew that now, but knowing didn't make it any more real.
He leaned forward, his eyes on the kids who were now playing tag – one hiding behind the bushes, her giggling a dead giveaway. He didn't look at Fury when he spoke. "What's in it for you?"
"Let's call it paying off a debt I owe."
Bucky turned toward him, a shot of anger slicing through the haze he'd been living with since pulling his mission out of the water. "I shot you. I killed you. You don't owe me anything."
"One of the only men I looked up to and trusted without hesitation had you locked up and tortured two miles from my office and I never suspected it. Listen, kid, it's not often I feel remorse or guilt, so I suggest you shut up and take it while you can."
"Yes, sir."
"And don't call me 'sir' in public. We're undercover."
Bucky found himself grinning. "Yes, sir."
"Soldiers," Fury muttered under his breath as he stood up.
Bucky didn't move, his hands clenching into fists as he felt his chest tighten with panic. "One thing," he said, his voice unsteady.
Fury stood silently, waiting.
Bucky took a deep breath. "Rogers can't know."
"Look, Barnes …" Fury started, but he stopped and he sighed. Bucky had a feeling Fury didn't sigh very often. "Fine. He won't know. He'll be pissed as hell when he finds out, but I won't tell him."
Bucky stood up, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his worn jacket, trying to keep his features blank, confident. "When do we start?"
XxXxXxXxXx
Five months later and Bucky found himself on top of a crumbling pile of ruins, Steve in the sights of his rifle. Well, Steve and a few dozen robots that swarmed and scurried in a show of persistence that would make any New York City cockroach envious.
He tilted the barrel a millimeter to the left, adjusting his aim, his finger on the trigger.
"Goddamn it, kid, we discussed this. You aren't supposed to go near the Avengers regardless of the shit that's going down. Need I remind you, those were your rules, not mine? He could hear Fury chewing him out in his head – the guy wasn't going to let him live this down when he caught wind of it, but he also couldn't let Steve face those things alone.
"Fucking robots," Bucky ground out as he took his first shot.
XxXxXxXxXx
"Thought you didn't want Rogers to know," Fury said seconds after he'd let himself into the safe house that was tucked away in a small town not far from the scene of the battle that dragged on and on. Bucky had never seen anything like it and that included Nazis with glowing blue ray guns.
"I don't. That hasn't changed," Bucky said, shifting on the couch, holding a bloody rag to his side as pain flared at the slightest movement.
"You took a big risk today. He's not a stupid man. Sniper takes out a dozen robots about to take him down? What conclusions would you jump to?"
"Steve …" Bucky started, closing his eyes and sucking in a breath before correcting himself, "Rogers never watches his back."
Fury shook his head as he took a seat in the chair across from the couch. "He has the Avengers for that."
Bucky raised his head and looked the man squarely in the eye. "No offense, sir, but they weren't doing a very good job of it."
"They were a little busy."
"Then I guess it was a good thing I was there."
Their conversation was cut short by a light knock at the door. Two short bursts, a pause, and then two more. As secret knocks went, Bucky thought it was pretty weak.
Fury got up and answered, Doctor Fine waiting on the other side. Bucky had met the man a couple of times – requiring medical attention after a couple of raids on HYDRA bases went south. The guy was quiet, which was good. And Fury trusted him, which he was supposed was good. But then again, Fury also trusted him, and Swiss cheese memory or not, that still seemed like a crapshoot with the worst sort of odds to Bucky.
The doctor took a quick sweep of the room, nodded at Fury and then hurried over to sit on the couch next to Bucky. He sat his kit on the coffee table and opened it, pulling out supplies as he glanced back and forth between the items and his patient.
"What's up, doc?" Bucky said.
"Nice to see you have a sense of humor in there, James," Fine said as he reached out and slowly peeled the towel away from the wound.
"I said something funny?" Bucky hissed in pain.
"'What's up doc' …" the doctor started to explain. "It's from a cartoon. Bugs Bunny. I just thought maybe …"
"Doctor," Fury interrupted, clearly impatient. "What are we looking at here?"
Fine leaned closer, probing the injury with his gloved fingers. "Burns. Deep, but it looks like some healing has started to happened. It's going to be a while though."
"Two weeks," Bucky said, remembering a man with a clipboard and a pen, taking notes. Always taking notes. "They tested it."
"They … tested it?" Fine looked up at Fury who was slowly shaking his head, probably thinking Bucky didn't notice, but he did. "Don't ask the crazy brainwashed assassin any questions that could potentially freak him out" was probably step one in The Care and Feeding of Your Crazy Brainwashed Assassin.
Fine let it drop and went back to work, pulling some ointments and tweezers and, crap, a scalpel out of the bag. Burns meant debridement and a whole lot of pain. Bucky really hated robots. "Looks like it was caused by …" Fine muttered as he sprayed something on the wound that numbed it.
"Lasers," Bucky interrupted, "Fucking robots had fucking lasers."
"Naturally." Fury added with a sigh.
XxXxXxXxXx
The doctor left and Bucky and Fury sat in silence. Bucky was stretched out on the couch, right arm flung over his eyes to block out the yellowed light coming from the old fixture in the ceiling, his brain sluggish from the pain killers the doctor had pumped him full of.
The clapboard walls, peeling paint and rickety furniture of the house reminded him of the flashes he sometimes had of his past. Smells, rough wood under his hands, a chair that rocked on unsteady legs. A woman at an old stovetop – his mother, he figured – stirring something while a young girl – his sister, probably Rebecca since she was the second oldest according to the history books he'd read – tugged at her apron. He liked those memories, the worn edges around them, like a photograph in an album. The museum had had cases and cases of photographs, interspersed with trinkets and doodads that supposedly mapped out a life or two as you wandered by them. He'd fought the urge to smash the glass and take the mementos that proved James Buchanan Barnes had existed in this world, had mattered enough to have a fucking museum put his goddamn baby shoes on display.
Steve – Rogers, he corrected himself - was there sometimes when his brain unlocked a piece of the puzzle. Smaller. Sicker. Stubborn as hell. Rogers wove in with his flashes of his family like he was always there, a part of his life. Friend. Brother. He'd mattered to him. Those memories felt warm and safe, but they weren't all like that. The fact that unearthing those memories also meant bringing forward the cold and the fear and the pain and the … he screwed his eyes shut and shuddered.
If Fury noticed his distress, he didn't give a shit. "So Sergeant, contact would be a logical step now."
Bucky groaned and ran his hand through his shaggy hair. "I … I can't. I'm not ready. And don't call me Sergeant."
"I think you're more Sergeant Barnes than you realize."
"Well, I don't feel like him."
"Are you expecting some sort of epiphany, everything just sliding back into place? Life doesn't work that way, regardless of the shit you've been through."
Bucky opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, unsure of how to answer him. Luckily, Swiss cheese brains meant he could get away with staring at nothing and not answering.
Fury pushed himself up out of the chair and went to the tiny kitchen. It wasn't long before the smell of chicken soup filled the safe house –not surprising since there were enough cans of the stuff to feed an army for a month.
Bucky sat up slowly, bracing his metal hand against the cushion, as Fury approached with a bowl and a bottle of water. The wound in his side pulled tight over his ribs and it took several deep breaths before his stomach settled enough to even think about eating anything.
He took a spoonful of soup and blew on it before tasting it. Salty and bland. Nothing like the flavors his mother could coax out a couple of ingredients. How he could miss something he barely even remembered was beyond him, he thought as he continued eating. "I've been thinking," he said between bites, "I need to stop for a while."
Fury said nothing at first. There was a clock somewhere in the house because Bucky could hear it ticking in the silence.
"You want me to contact Rogers," Bucky explained. "I can't do that now, but I don't think I can infiltrate another HYDRA base, either." He hated how weak that made him sound, but he still had a hard time explaining things in more than just the bare bones facts. Fact was, talking to Steve Rogers scared the hell out of him and beyond that, he was exhausted. It was an exhaustion deep in his bones that was gnawing away at him and he was afraid that if he didn't stop, just kept trudging forward at Fury's command, he was going to undo whatever progress he'd made.
"We can help you," Fury said steadily and Bucky found himself wondering just who he meant by "we". Fury was the only one he'd had contact with, the only one he'd been working with.
Bucky shook his head. "I need to do this on my own." He pushed the noodles around in the broth as he forced out the words. "The memories are … the memories are easier to … easier to process alone."
"Kid, you're not going to get better if you hide yourself away like an injured animal."
"That's not what I meant." It was exactly what he meant, but he wasn't about to admit it.
"We've got time. You need to rest and I need to think." He leaned back in his chair, steepling fingers under his chin. Bucky could feel the intensity of his one-eyed gaze but he shook it off, finishing his soup before lying back down and falling asleep.
XxXxXxXxXx
Bucky woke to the smell of coffee percolating and pancakes and sausage cooking. That was new. As far as he knew, the place was only stocked with canned goods and water and a bottle of whiskey Fury said some guy named Barton had left behind. Even he knew pancakes and sausage didn't come out of a can.
Gingerly, he sat up. The burn down his side shouting from the rooftops that the painkillers had worn off. He grabbed the prescription bottle the good doctor had left for him and pulled himself to his feet. Holding his side, he shuffled into the kitchen.
It was empty. The sausages were in a pan, set on low. Pancakes on a platter, stacked high. There were three plates and three mugs set out on the counter and it took his sluggish brain a moment to register why that was off.
The bathroom door open and closed so gently that Bucky was on alert before he even realized he'd heard something. Grabbing a butter knife from the counter, he spun around, silently cursing at the shards of pain slicing down his ribs.
"Sorry to wake you," the person who was definitely not Fury said.
Holding the knife in front of him, he squinted at the woman standing in the bathroom doorway.
Red hair. Smirk. Dangerous. Codename: Black Widow. Natasha Romanov. But that wasn't quite right. A whisper of another name skirted around the edges of his memory but he pushed it aside. It didn't matter, not now. Maybe after some coffee.
She held her hands out in a show of surrender but he didn't lower the knife. He knew she had weapons on her. Just because he couldn't see them didn't mean they weren't there. He could feel the phantom pull of a wire across his throat and he swallowed, not taking his eyes off her.
"Fine," she said, glancing at the knife with a shrug. She turned her back to him and went to the chair and the bag he hadn't noticed. He was getting sloppy and it was starting to piss him off.
"Nick asked me to help," she said.
"You?"
She glanced over her shoulder at him and raised an eyebrow. "Me." She turned around fully, a file in her hands. "You can probably guess what my first answer was."
"No."
"Score one for the soldier. But then he told me what you did for Steve."
His grip on the knife tightened and his chest grew tight. She took a step toward him. It wouldn't be hard to reach her. Even with a butter knife, he could have her jugular open within a heartbeat.
She hesitated and tilted her head at him. He noticed the bruising around her brow that she'd tried to cover with makeup and he realized she was holding herself strangely, tightly, not with the usual fluid grace he vaguely remembered.
"You're hurt," he blurted out without meaning to.
She shrugged again. "So are you."
He lowered the knife and ran his free hand through his hair with a sigh. "Robots."
"I hate robots," she muttered as she brushed past him and reached for the food. "Pancakes are getting cold and I need coffee. You can stand there and brood or you can eat. It's up to you."
XxXxXxXxXx
Sitting cross-legged on the floor at the coffee table, Bucky was on his third serving of pancakes when he finally opened the file. Documents. ID card. Credit cards. The works.
"You put this together?" he asked Natasha and she nodded. She was in the armchair, her legs tucked up under her as she read a beat-up paperback. She was trying to project calm and ease, but she'd read the same page four times in the last fifteen minutes. He set her on edge and he couldn't blame her. He set himself plenty on edge as it was.
She reached across the coffee table and snagged a sausage off his plate. "Nick said you needed a new name. Luckily I have some experience in setting up new identities."
"I'll bet." He pulled out the sheet of facts – the dossier on his new identity. His eyes narrowed as he noticed the name. "Wait a sec … James … Rogers?"
She shrugged as she took a bite. "Couldn't resist."
"Grew up in Brooklyn. Served two tours in Afghanistan. Injured by a roadside bomb. Honorably discharged. Test subject for Stark Industries in their new prosthetics division," he recited.
Natasha interrupted. "Hanging out in a cabin in the woods to regroup and find yourself. It's best to keep some truth mixed in there."
"The woods?"
"Fury will fill you in. It's a place he has set up. Completely off the books – a failsafe if things ever go bad. No one at SHIELD knew about it and you two will be the only ones who know the location."
"What about you?"
She smirked. "I have no idea where he's sending you. Could be Timbuktu for all I know."
"Do you think it's far?"
"How far from where? From Steve in case you need to go rescue him?"
"That's not what I …" he started, a bit of Brooklyn seeping into his accent. "Look, at some point, he's gonna need help. When we were growing up, he got into scrapes. Literally all the time."
"And you were always there to bail him out." It wasn't a question.
"Usually. I think? I don't know." Bucky rubbed the back of his neck with his metal hand, frustrated. "I can't be sure, but I think I punched a lot of guys in Brooklyn in the face seventy some odd years ago."
"I'm sure Steve appreciated it," Natasha said with a small laugh.
He put the folder down. "Is Rogers okay? After the battle?"
"He's fine. Confused about the mysterious sniper who saved his ass, or at least pretending to be confused because he knows the shit Wilson will give him for his blind faith in you."
"Wilson? The guy with the wings?"
"The one you threw off a helicarrier? Yes, that's Sam."
He blanched. "I'm sorry … I didn't … Fuck," he said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "I'm a mess."
"Relax. Sam is fine. And Stark made him new wings. All is right with the world."
He made a sound, the closet thing to a laugh he'd managed in years. "That's debatable." He pushed the file away and leaned back against the sofa, his mind a jumble of images and thoughts and feelings and God knows what.
"Thank you," Natasha said quietly. "For saving him… for saving Steve. He's a friend and I don't have many of those."
"Got more than me," he said dryly.
"It doesn't have to be that way."
"Let me guess, you think I should talk to Rogers?"
"I think you should do whatever is best for you. I know all about hiding out in a cabin in the woods – for me it was a bungalow on the beach, but I understand. Steve'll wait. He's not going anywhere."
"I need to find me first," he said quietly.
Natasha put her book down and leaned forward, her expression different. Warmer. Softer. "James -" she started but then the door opened and Fury walked in, carrying bags of supplies.
Fury surveyed the room. "Didn't kill each other, I see."
Natasha leaned back and crossed her arms, her lips twisting into a wry grin. "Not yet."
"Give it time," Bucky said, the corners of his mouth curling into something vaguely resembling a smile.
"You missed breakfast, by the way," Natasha added as she got up and headed into the kitchen with her plate and Bucky's.
"Plus side, there's still soup, sir," Bucky said.
"I think I liked you better when you had no sense of humor, Barnes," Fury said as he dropped the bags on the table.
XxXxXxXxXx
Bucky pulled on the dark grey jacket Fury had called a barn jacket. The sleeves were roomy enough to conceal his arm and coupled with a pair of leather gloves, the arm was basically invisible. The jacket was layered over a white tee and flannel shirt and the jeans were Levis, already broken in. He'd won the argument over wearing his boots. Fury said he'd blend in and Bucky thought of it as a new uniform, to go along with his new mission.
Natasha tilted her head at him when he'd emerged from the bathroom after changing. "Not bad," she said, looking him up and down. "Not bad at all. Well, except for …" She took a step toward him and he flinched. "Relax. I don't bite."
"Much," he said under his breath and she hesitated for a second, startled.
"You learn quickly, Barnes." She took something from her pocket as she circled behind him. "Crouch a bit," she instructed and he did. Pulling his hair from back his face, untangling it with her fingers as she gathered it into a quick ponytail.
He reached behind his head and felt the elastic holding his hair. "Really?"
"Less hobo, more …" she waved her hand.
"More can we get the fuck on with this?" Fury interrupted, a pair of keys dangling from his fingers. They were for the beat-up Ford pickup truck parked outside. "Address is programmed into the GPS and the phone in your bag," Fury explained. "Truck is stocked with clothes and food. There are camping supplies in the truck bed if you need them.
Natasha handed him the file. "Don't forget your new identity, Rogers."
"Rogers?" Fury asked.
"James Rogers. Romanoff thinks she's being funny."
Natasha looked at Fury. "Figured it was best to go with something he would remember."
"Don't be cute, Natasha," Fury warned. "This could all blow up in our faces if we don't take it seriously."
"I'm taking it seriously," she muttered.
Fury gaze snapped to Bucky. "I take everything seriously, sir," he said, squaring his shoulders.
"You sure about this, Barnes?"
"Yes, sir. My gut is telling me this is something I need to do." He picked up the duffle bag from the couch, stuffed with supplies and guns and knives. He twisted the handle in his hands. "You didn't have to do any of this. Thank you. I'm not sure how far I would have made it without your help."
"You don't need to thank me – like I said, this was a debt I owed. But do me a favor, kid?"
"If I can, sir."
"Don't hide yourself away. Go into town. It's the middle of nowhere but there's a bar. Shoot the shit with the guys there. Go to the diner. Have some pie. Flirt with the waitress. You want to be a person, Barnes? This is your first step."
"I'll do my best." He shouldered the bag and headed for the door.
Natasha cut him off before he could leave. "James, if you need anything, anything at all, my number and Steve's number are programmed on that phone."
He opened his mouth to say something, but he was at a loss. Five months ago, he'd tried to kill both of these people and now they were helping him get back his life.
"You don't have to say anything," she said. "Just know you're not alone." She tilted her head and the corners of her eyes tightened. "You know, I thought I was doing this for Rogers. But, I'm not so sure."
"Déjà vu?"
"You too?" She raised her eyebrows.
"Once this gets all sorted out," he tapped the side of his head, "I think we're due for a long talk over a couple of drinks."
She smiled. "Vodka."
"Of course." He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "Thank you, немного паук."
XxXxXxXxXx
The safe house faded in the distance and Bucky's hands loosened on the steering wheel with each passing mile. Eventually, he turned on the radio. It was an old one – even he knew that – having to turn the dial to find some music. He found a jazz station. Familiar. He liked it.
He leaned back further in the seat, the empty road stretching out in front of him as the withered cornstalks and farmland rushed past. He had a long way to go, but he didn't care. For the first time since Steve Rogers had given him back his name, Bucky Barnes felt like there was hope for him yet.
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Notes - According to google translate, немного паук means "Little Spider" in Russian. In the comics, Bucky secretly worked for Fury after he got his memories back and Fury called him "kid" all the time. The Civil War comics that show Bucky's story during that timeline show their partnership.