Chapter 9: Heroes and Machines
A/N: This story hasn't been updated in a coon's age. My writing style has changed so much, and so have I, since I wrote this the first time. I was reluctant to update for that reason.
~After a labor of 7 hours, the device within Bucky's body was carved from flesh and blood. The extraction was bloody beyond human description. John was shaking when he was done, feeling that he in some way had tortured the Sergeant in reverse just by doing him this healing service. Yet Bucky smiled at him like a child does their doting father when it was at last over.
It was decided after the trauma that Bucky had endured not to try to go after Sherlock's tracking device tonight. Instead, John treated his friend for possible infection. Then, Steve bugged the tracking device with one Fury had passed along to him. One that could let Fury's command base GPS track the Hydra trackers and give them a head's up if they were in immediate danger.
John had done what he could, but once Bucky was laid open there was no moving him that night. To escape the sweep of Hydra, the four-strong band hid themselves against the inside roof of the incinerator, high above the flame shooters.
Bucky was tortured that night. The ghost of the poison that had been plucked from his body was too much for him. They laid him by himself, to give him room. He groaned and cried out several times in his sleep. Each time Steve flinched, head bumping against the hollow bones of the incinerator. The junkyard sang with the soft song of a dying man.
Sherlock, at last, could take no more.
"Hey now, mate. Here's a thought." Sherlock pulled the belt from what was left of his clothes. He braided the belt into a thin gag. Then, he slipped it between Bucky's teeth. Bucky bit down and screamed in horror at the muzzle. His hands shot up to Sherlock's wrists. Sherlock eased him into his lap.
"I know what it is like...To be muzzled. To be lashed to the horror of a raging mind." Sherlock wrestled with the super-soldier. Steve sat up, instantly protective. He meant to go to Buck himself, but it occurred to him that he was actually more acquainted with Sherlock now. It had been 70 years since they'd been in close proximity. Their friendship needed a warm up before they could resume the brotherly closeness they'd had once.
Steve felt his heart in his throat. Until he saw Sherlock's slender fingers trace Bucky's wild black hair. Somehow, with their dark hair, pale skin and bright blue eyes they each could pass for brothers. Dying brothers. The last burning branch of a family tree decimated by the unholy ravage that is war.
John held his breath, watching the two as the light of the constant trash fire compassed them in dark halos. Here they were, more kin now than strangers, armed against the dark only by their teeth which were barred against the same ever-present pain.
"Whatever you're seeing, Sergeant,...The Hell for war heroes...It must be worse than they put such conditions on a man. An innocent man. Heroes don't exist. Or if they did, neither you nor I would be counted among them." Sherlock runs his hands through Bucky's sweaty hair again and lets his shoulders thump against the iron wall of the machine they sit in. John bristled as he listened.
"That's the problem, isn't it? By rights, neither you nor I should even be on these front lines. We are not heroes, Sergeant Barnes. We are men. In some ways, we are more machine even. Machines left to the open air to rust and fall away…"As Sherlock spoke. Bucky chewed through the belt. His mouth filled with blood and he spat it out again. His hands shot up, pitiful to the air. Sherlock took two shaking hands in his trembling hands. Bucky looked up even as he clung to Sherlock for dear life. He saw Steve, kneeling worriedly in front of him now. Through bloody lips he smiled, flashing bloody teeth. A wolf he was. A wolf come upon a fresh heart. His own heart, rediscovered, nourishing his spirit before he died.
"Except when they dust us off...Use us for something. Something worth saving…"Bucky's eyes never left Steve's face. Steve smiled, unable to talk.
"Can't...stay here, Sherlock. They...They're gonna kill us. We deserve for them to kill us. No count in Hell or high water for the things we've done." Bucky let the blood drip down his throat. Sherlock sighed, eyes lifting like smoke to search John's tense face.
"I agree...We should deliver ourselves up to them. Pay the full sum penance of blood for blood. Yet who will save these two? This was no place for heroes, Sergeant. Yet here they are. Different and better and worthy. And to keep that light from dying, they will need machines…"Sherlock let Bucky cling to his hands until they heard the bones pop a bit. Bucky gnashed his teeth.
"We need a plan. Or we're history. The kind the books don't write home about." Bucky smiled at Steve. Steve looked at John.
"If we're getting out, we're getting out together. Don't you two keep making plans without us." Steve shook his head. Bucky smiled.
"Is he even real?" Bucky leaned up to look at Sherlock. Sherlock who sighed. He was trying to ignore the numbness in his hands from Bucky's grip.
"As far as I observe they both are. But then, I'm not entirely certain they aren't a figment of frequent dehydration…"Sherlock looked starward. Bucky thrashed then.
"We've got to have a plan. That backward bug thing's not gonna keep them at bay forever…"Bucky swallowed, seethed. Sherlock touched the tracker pinned to the tracker in his chest.
"No...No it isn't."Sherlock smiled apologetically at the others. John felt himself growing increasingly more livid.
"Don't look at us like that, damn it! We're not leaving you." John tried to stay calm. Sherlock nodded.
"God, I hate whoever sent you this way!" Sherlock rolled his eyes. Bucky groaned like murder. Sherlock let him pull up on his hands and roll, coughing blood and bile against the iron walls of their hiding place. They rattled and echoed and then a sizzling sound came up as the waste was caught in the blaze beneath them.
"Maybe we need the idealistic mindset of heroes and the math of machines to get this done. Come on, you're supposed to be a super brain." Steve smiled at Sherlock. Sherlock's eyes went wide.
"Sergeant, how familiar are you with the Road to Enlightenment?" Sherlock looked down at Bucky's whose eyes went wide.
"Hey! You are a genius. Right, because a hero would be willing to get closer to danger to get farther away from hurt, right? That's a god awful place, Sherlock. Kid, you're an ace for sure!" Bucky coughed again, smiling smugly at Steve's worried look.
"Sorry, Road to Enlightenment? Sounds like a bloody nightclub!" John tilted his head. Sherlock smiled and chuckled darkly.
"Ah, John. Always the questioning one. I really have missed the way you snark in the face of death. Which is who you'll meet if we take the path I've suggested. Death who has five brothers. All of whom make a home on the road to the Sorcerer's door." Sherlock nodded, leaning against the wall smiling at his own cleverness. John watched his strange smile. That it was something he had elicited made him have hope that the distance between them could be filled before long.