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We Walk on Water (Don't Let Go)

Chapter 6

When he entered the lounge, Bucky saw Tony slumped over on the table, one hand still around a heavy cut glass about a quarter of the way full of liquor. It looked like the man was asleep, but the sound of footsteps made the engineer look up, though his gaze was not as focused as it might have been.

"Oh, hey, it's Tall Dark and Psycho."

"Don't call me that anymore." Bucky told him.

Tony squinted at him. "Hot damn, you do talk." Then he looked at his liquor glass. "That or I've been drinking too much."

"I can talk." The assassin informed him sourly.

"Well you should do it more." Tony said bluntly as he refilled his glass from the bottle of amber liquid. "Especially to Steve, and preferably before you finish giving him a breakdown." He took a long drink of the liquid.

Bucky looked confused, and asked. "What do you mean?"

But Tony had changed the subject. "There's an old story from the Civil War about how General Jackson got his nickname. They said he stood in a firefight like a stone wall. Stonewall sounds like a good nickname for you." And pleased with his decision, he took another sip of liquor.

"Stark, what are you talking about when you mean I'm giving Steve a breakdown?" Bucky demanded.

"A whole sentence. I'm impressed. I'm impressed because you don't talk much to anyone, ever, and least of all to the man who needs to hear from you the most." Tony said. "Steve's worried about you, and he's trying to guess his way to the right thing to do to help you. But you don't give him many clues. Would it kill you to just talk to the guy?"

Bucky looked away. "I don't want to remember what he wants me to remember. It hurts. And he wants to talk about it."

"Now we're getting somewhere." Tony said, nearly sloshing the liquor out of his glass as he gestured at the other man. But Bucky didn't hear him.

"I dream of falling. A lot."

Tony swore, and reached for one of the three remaining glasses in the center of the table. "You too? Sit down. Misery loves company." He poured a generous amount of liquor into the glass and slid it across the table as Bucky sat down across from him. "I hope you're not cheerful when you're drunk. If you get cheerful you have to leave. I mean, assuming you can get drunk, since Capsicle can't."

Bucky tucked that little tidbit of information away as Tony went on. "Tell me about your dream."

"Why?"

"Comparison. Tell yours first, and then I'll tell mine."

"There's nothing to tell, because I don't remember it. I remember falling, and pain, and I know my arm is gone, and all there is left is the cold." Bucky admitted, then he took a sip of his drink. It filled him with a strange warmth that brought back faint echoes of memory, of himself and the other men – the Howling Commandos – toasting a job well done.

Tony swore again. "I am not drunk enough to have this conversation." He downed the liquor left in his glass and refilled it. "Steve tell you about the battle of New York?"

"A little."

"I took a nuke through a wormhole. A nuclear weapon, that is. You might have missed out on weapons like that while HYDRA had you in their storage freezer."

Bucky glared at him, and Tony ignored it and went on.

"When it hit the ship, it took out all the aliens, but my suit wasn't designed for deep space, so after that I fell back through the wormhole. I was fine, Bruce caught before I hit the ground."

What if someone had caught me? Bucky wondered as images came back, unbidden, of Steve desperately reaching for him.

"But in my dreams, sometimes no one catches me. Or I take the missile through, and fall, and as I fall I see it explode, and nothing happens. The alien ship doesn't even have a scratch on it. And I keep falling and I watch everyone else get defeated. And I can't help them." Tony took a gulp of his liquor. "I'm getting better. I mean, the dreams aren't so bad anymore, and Pepper talks through the worst of them. It's still hard sometimes, though." For a moment, they sat in silence, and drank, then Tony spoke again.

"Did you know my father?"

"Probably. But I don't remember him. I know he designed some stuff for Steve, including the shield."

Tony snorted as Bucky shoved his empty glass across the table. "Even I knew that." He refilled the glass and sent it back. "I thought it was worth a try, anyway."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry." Bucky added.

"Me too. You know, Dad was always out looking for Steve, all the time. Now I wonder if that's cause Dad wanted him back because he knew he needed help to fight HYDRA."

"What happened to Steve?"

"Didn't he tell you?" Tony asked. Bucky shook his head. Tony took another sip of his drink. "Got turned into a Capsicle. Downed a plane and got himself trapped in an iceberg for seventy years until an arctic expedition stumbled across him. You two are kind of alike that way, except HYDRA built you a freezer and Steve got flash-frozen."

"Would you stop talking about it like that?" Bucky demanded. "It wasn't very enjoyable."

"Don't feel bad, I do it to everyone." Tony retorted.

"I will shoot you." Bucky threatened. "I told you I still dream about being frozen, so I'm going ask you nicely to stop."

"PTSD?" Tony asked, setting his glass back down to refill it again.

"I think that's what it's called."

"Now that almost makes me feel bad."

"Why?" Bucky asked, acerbic. "I didn't know that you were capable of that type of emotion." His slid his empty glass back across, and Tony refilled it for him again.

"Uh, because I had an anxiety disorder. Still do actually, but like I said, it's getting better."

"Do you… go to therapy for it?"

"Nope." Tony replied. "This is my therapy." He sloshed the remaining liquid in the bottle around. "And I talk to Pepper about things. Especially when I can't sleep. So…yeah. Sorry about that freezer joke."

"I'll live." Bucky said grudgingly. Tony didn't notice.

"You go to therapy?"

"Yes."

"Hmm. Guess that puts you ahead of me, anyway."

For a few more minutes, they drank in silence, Tony refilling his glass two more times while Bucky nursed his third, and then the assassin spoke again. "Does Steve…does he have PTSD too?"

"Not that I've ever heard of. He might, but if he does he doesn't have it very badly." Tony told him.

"You're insane." Bucky said suddenly.

Tony nodded sagely, though a little longer than he should have. "People have told me this before."

"You let me come here and stay on nothing more than what Steve tells you. I don't know who I am. What if he's wrong? What are you going to do then?"

"Okay, self-doubt is never a good thing. First. Second, I trust Steve and he says he's known you forever. If Steve says you are James Barnes, then you are James Barnes. Next, I went by SHIELD and Coulson was still gushing about meeting you. Coulson is not wrong about these things either. He probably stares at Capsicle's – er, Steve's picture every day. He probably stares at pictures of the rest of you Commandos once a month. If Phil Coulson says you're James Barnes, then that is who you are. Also, I'm not worried about stopping you if you go crazy or something. I'm Iron Man. So stop worrying."

"Are there any other Commandos left?"

Tony dropped the empty liquor bottle down to the floor where it landed with a thud. "FRIDAY, look into that will you?"

"I have obtained records of a James Morita and Gabriel Jones, both of whom currently reside near San Jose, California." FRIDAY reported.

"Anyone else?" Tony asked as he opened a new bottle of alcohol and refilled his glass.

"Corporal Timothy Dugan is recently deceased. The remaining members sans Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes have been dead for several years now." FRIDAY replied.

"Maybe you'll have to ask those two if they recognize you." Tony said, as he took another sip of his next glass of liquor.

"Maybe I will." Then the conversation lapsed again as Bucky finished his drink and Tony finished his.

"You staying a superhero with us?" Tony asked finally.

"I guess."

Tony sipped his drink. "What are you thinking about calling yourself?"

"I don't know."

"You could keep 'Winter Soldier,' you know. It sounds appropriately superhero-ish."

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "Am I supposed to take advice from someone who calls himself 'Iron Man'?"

"Admit it, it works. Besides, I didn't name me, the media gave me that moniker."

The conversation stilted and lapsed again.

And Bucky spoke again. "By the way, when I first come here, you were supposed to do something about this star for me." He said, nodding at the star on his left shoulder.

Tony, who had begun to slump in his chair again, sat up. "That's right! Come to the workshop with me! I know just what to do."

An hour later, Bucky left Tony puttering around the lab and went back down to his room, where he changed and crawled into bed.

"FRIDAY?" He asked. He had never bothered to look around for, since no one else did. She was a computer that ran the house somehow, though now he was starting to wonder where exactly she was, and how she managed to speak to them. "Will you wake me up at 6?"

"Of course, Sergeant Barnes."

"Thank you." Then he drifted off to sleep.

The late afternoon sun was shining brightly through the trees. The Howling Commandos were waiting to ambush a HYDRA convoy that was expected that evening, but for the moment, they were waiting.

Dernier was napping, dozing like a cat in the sun. Steve had gone off to do another reconnaissance of the area though Bucky had done that once and taken Steve with him the second time he did it. Falsworth and Dugan were a few feet away, quietly discussing something in low tones to keep from being overheard. Morita was off further in the bushes, and his muttered grumbling could be heard as he fiddled with the radio, trying to find clearer reception.

Bucky was cleaning his rifle, and Jones was reading a letter he'd received just before the Commandos had left the SSR base. "More good news from the German front?" Bucky asked.

Jones shook his head. "Well, Kinch says they sabotaged another German plot to win the war."

Bucky snorted. "I'm glad the Germans are creative enough to try and win on all fronts."

"Wherever they get an opportunity, they take it." Jones agreed.

"Same could be said for your friends." Bucky noted as he began to re-assemble the rifle, his deft fingers working automatically on the weapon.

"I only know Kinchloe. I don't know any of the other fellows he's working with out of Stalag 13." Jones said as he folded the letter up and tucked it away. "It amazes they do so much while still in prison."

Bucky nodded.

"Have you told the captain what happened yet?" Jones asked.

The other man looked confused. "What do you mean, what happened?"

"You'd no sooner recovered from whatever illness you caught in that HYDRA cage than that nut Zola dragged you off to the isolation room, and you're the only one who's ever come back from there. What was Zola doing to you?" Jones asked.

"Torture. Needles. The usual things." Bucky shrugged. "What does it matter? I'm fine."

"I think you should tell the Captain, anyway." Jones persisted.

"He's got other things to worry about." Bucky replied. "I'm fine."

Jones looked like he wanted to say more, but at that moment, Steve came back. "All clear. The only place of concern is that crevice a mile down from us. We'll have trouble if a HYDRA agent sets up in there."

"I could have told you that." Bucky said. "In fact, I think I did."

Steve grinned, and slung a hand over the other man's shoulder. "Well then let's find a way to correct for that."

Jones watched the two men walk off, and decided the matter wasn't worth pursuing.

[A/N:] TV Tropes refers to Tony as having PTSD. I'm not sure that's what he has, I mean it's not unbelievable after the nuke-through-wormhole incident, but PTSD isn't mentioned that I can recall in Iron Man 3. In the movie, though, Tony admits to Harley that he has an anxiety disorder, which is kinda vague but that's what I've gone with for this story. I definitely think Bucky can't have anything less than PTSD after everything he's been through at HYDRA's hands.

The "Kinch" that Jones references in the flashback is Sergeant Kinchloe from the TV show Hogan's Heroes, which is set during WWII. I think it's possible that these two could have met at some point before Jones was captured by HYDRA and Kinchloe was "captured" by the Nazis. I don't have a particular reason for using this show other than that I don't mind watching it and I like to toss in references to other media in my stories.

And I think that's about it for my notes. Please review and let me know what you thought of this chapter.