you belong with me, not swallowed in the sea

Pt 3

"How long has he been non-responsive?"

"I – I don't know…half an hour, maybe?" Steve casts a worried eye over at Bucky, who sits motionless and gone behind the eyes on the edge of the hotel bed. He's like a statue except for the breathing, and Steve doesn't know what the hell he's going to do now if Bucky keeps it up – they need to move on from here, really, back to the US where they can try to get Bucky help to undo the brainwashing, maybe. But it was hard enough getting Bucky here let alone out of the country without a passport. Steve needs to know what is happening in Bucky's head, to have some idea if this is more likely to be a natural response, or something deliberately placed in Bucky's brain by Hydra to shut him down. And he doesn't want to call Natasha because he knows she won't approve of how he's keeping Bucky – unbound and dangerous, in her opinion.

So Steve had called Banner; the only person he trusts right now who knows anything at all about medicine and biology, and all those kinds of things that Steve doesn't understand.

"It could be just the emotional trauma. He may have gone into a disassociative state, to try to protect his mind from the intense mental toll of the situation. Or possibly he's beginning to remember more, and it's causing him to be overwhelmed by the memories, and retreat from reality? Or it could be physical shock, of course. You said he's not injured?" They talk while Steve watches Bucky intently, drinking in every last battered inch of him. Bucky is alive, with Steve, and not trying to kill him – this has to be considered progress, Steve thinks, his gaze never drifting from Bucky's slumped figure.

Ten minutes on the phone with Banner, and Steve is marginally reassured, and has an immediate plan at least. Shower Bucky, treat any wounds as best Steve can, feed him, and put him to bed. It seems so simple in his head; far less so in reality. He tells Bucky what he's going to do, and asks if that's all right, but Bucky doesn't show any sign of even hearing him. When he presses his thumb to Bucky's chin to draw his lip down slightly and have a look at the sore at the corner of his mouth, Bucky opens his mouth wide. Obediently, teeth bared and eyes terrified, dragging in frantic, ragged breaths through his nose, shoulders heaving.

Steve remembers then the descriptions of the memory wipes in the dossier, and realises Bucky's opening his mouth for the rubber shock guard. That he's expecting the pain of having his brain scoured raw and blank by the machine Steve has seen pictures of. Steve jerks back from Bucky as though he's been burnt, and once Steve's touch leaves his skin, Bucky closes his mouth with a click of teeth. Steve stares at Bucky, panicking inwardly, because it suddenly seems like anything he does is potentially going to remind Bucky of something terrible that Hydra inflicted on him. He has never been so angry.

"It's – it's…" Steve searches for a way to reassure Bucky, but there isn't one. There are no words that Bucky can trust. "It's gonna be okay, pal," he says at last, voice saturated with the kind of casual fondness Bucky had spoken to Steve with, when they were younger. Bucky looks up at him, blinking owlishly, words hovering on his lips that he doesn't spill. Steve smiles at him, small and strained. "Now let's get you into the shower, huh?" Bucky shakes and hyperventilates but doesn't resist when Steve awkwardly strips him down to naked, scarred flesh. Bucky is far too thin – half-starved and filthy, and Steve thinks of Natasha's words. Bucky clearly hasn't been taking care of himself; he looks like a POW. He stands perfectly stock-still except for the trembling as Steve eyes his naked body quickly for injuries; every muscle in that thin form drawn tight, Bucky seemingly bracing himself for the pain he thinks is coming – Steve can see the expectation of it on his face.

He lets Steve lead him like a lamb, with stiff, halting steps. He walks like a weapon that's been broken, not a person at all. The bathroom door clicks shut behind them when Steve nudges it with his foot, and Bucky's eyes flutter at the sound – he jerks beneath Steve's gentle grasp on his shoulder, and his hand reaches for a weapon that isn't there. He's panicked when his hand touches only the bare skin of his hip, and his eyes turn terrified and lost on Steve, searching for answers. Steve grabs his hand, and squeezes. "It's okay. It was just the door. I just shut the door. Okay? You're safe." Bucky stares at him empty and bewildered, like a child; the fear seeping away slowly and replaced by nothing. Nothing at all. He doesn't turn violent though, which is something Steve is on full alert for, and to be honest, expects. Despite himself, Steve wonders if Bucky will be this empty, pliable automaton forever. If this is all that's left of James Buchanan Barnes.

Steve climbs fully-clothed into the shower first, and gets the water just right, while Bucky stands against the wall with hunched shoulders and watches him with a dull sort of suspicion. Steve has noticed the way he doesn't even bother to cover himself for modesty's sake, and it's not because he's comfortable around Steve like they all were in their Howling Commando days, when seeing each other in various states of nudity was pretty well unavoidable sometimes. It's because only people are modest, and Bucky obviously doesn't consider himself a person. "Come on." Steve beckons him into the shower, and Bucky stares at Steve, and then the shower, and shakes his head – a small, frightened little gesture. It takes fifteen minutes to talk Bucky into the shower, and when he finally lets Steve pull him in – holding both Bucky's wrists and tugging gently – his eyes are wide and he looks more terrified child than assassin.

Then Steve shifts them, and the spray hits Bucky's shoulders and back – it's good water pressure, and hot enough to have filled the small bathroom with billows of steam – and a shocked, blissful moan drags out of Bucky's throat. He sags forward into Steve for a second, forehead knocking against Steve's shoulder, and his breath is hard and ragged, his hands clutching at Steve's arms before he staggers upright under the water again, metal hand reaching out to one side and bracing against the shower wall. Bucky's lips part as he sucks in a long breath, and his eyes are starry-dazed. Steve hovers, worried Bucky's going to fall, or freak out, but he just shifts – muscles sliding brutally elegant beneath his scarred skin – and puts his head beneath the stream of water. It saturates his long, matted tangles of hair, plastering it flat to his skull, and draws trails through old blood and dirt on his face.

A waterfall running over Bucky's face and off his chin, droplets sparkling heavy in his eyelashes as he blinks at Steve, little sprays of water pushed out by his breath as it runs over his lips in a flood, and he says, "Steve. Steve it's so hot," in a wondering voice. "The water's hot."

"D-do you like it?" Steve asks half-strangled with a ridiculous, buoyant, choking happiness at hearing Bucky speak. It's a stupid question because he already knows the answer, but it's a safe question precisely because of that. And one corner of Bucky's mouth slips up in a funny little smile, and he nods once.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. I don't remember when… It's always so cold…" Bucky's odd smile fades, and there's something in his eyes that looks like ice and dead things. He's silent again after that, but he allows Steve to wash his hair with hotel shampoo. Steve tries not to get shampoo in Bucky's eyes but fails, and it makes him want to go find somewhere to sit down quietly and cry when Bucky doesn't even try to wipe away the bubbles that make his left eye bloodshot and red-rimmed, just stands there blinking painfully until Steve realises. It's only something little, but it's so representative of everything Hydra has taken away from Bucky that it breaks Steve, something in his chest twisting and cracking. He turns away from Bucky, eyes watering fiercely, and has to breathe a moment before he trusts himself to speak.

"You know how to use the flannel then?" Steve checks, because he'd needed to demonstrate that to Bucky, who has probably only ever been perfunctorily cleansed by hands other than his own, and that just makes the pain in Steve's chest worse. Bucky meets Steve's eyes as he rubs the bar of soap on the flannel until it soaps up, and then rubs the flannel in a firm sweep across his abdomen. Steve is guiltily glad that he feels too horrified and sickened by what has been done to Bucky to be aroused – because if not for that, he would be. And it feels like taking advantage, to look at Bucky and want him like that. Wrong. Steve staggers out of the shower then, sopping wet and wanting to come apart. "Good. You…just wash yourself. I'm going to – to get some dry clothes on, and find you something to wear too, all right?"

Bucky stares at him blankly, the cloth roaming absently over his body, and then nods once. "Don't go anywhere," Steve adds with a smile that feels like glass on his lips. He dresses fast, leaving the door to the bathroom open, and then sits down at the table at an angle where he can see Bucky's shape through the steam. He watches Bucky shift and move beneath the water through the steam – dark, wet hair, glimpses of pale, scarred flesh, and the silver glint of the arm – and wipes away his tears with the back of his hand. Bucky. Bucky – standing in his shower nearly catatonic but alive, and so far at least, not showing any desire to complete his mission and take Steve out. Steve doesn't know what to do. It feels utterly surreal.

Bucky stays in the shower until the water goes cold.

He dresses himself in the sweatpants and dark blue tee-shirt Steve gives him, running his human hand over the soft fabric curiously, movements slow but elegant and sure. The clothes hang off him – he's only four or five inches shorter than Steve, but he's skinny as heck. Bucky won't let Steve dry his hair properly, or comb the tangles out of it, and it hangs in snarls, dripping wet on his shoulders. He eats most of the over-priced food in the cheap little hotel room fridge and cupboard – snack bars and cereal mostly – taking huge bites and chewing fast, like an animal, watching Steve intently from behind his hair. When Steve suggests they try to sleep, meaning really that he wants Bucky to sleep, Bucky crouches down in a corner of the room facing the door instead of taking the bed as Steve suggests. Steve winces, but isn't surprised. This is something Bucky had done sometimes during the war – after his capture ad time with Zola, at least; Steve can't speak to how he was before.

"What're you doing, Bu– …pal?"

"I need a weapon," Bucky says barely audible and robotic, eyes on the door.

"I can't give you one. You understand that, right?"

Bucky wraps his arms around his knees, and pillows his cheek on them, looking up at Steve with sea-hazed eyes. He looks so young, and nearly sweet but for the blankness saturating him. "I won't kill you, Steve."

"It's not me I'm worried about," Steve says grimly, once he's choked down the lump of emotion in his throat.

Bucky says nothing to that, just repeats that he needs a weapon. Over and over, in a soft voice that slowly becomes more insistent and frantic. Steve gives him the tranq gun in the end, and Bucky accepts that compromise with a grudging, sullen little expression that seems human, and settles in under the blanket Steve drapes around him. He watches the door nearly unblinkingly, while Steve sits on the bed and watches him while researching the internet for information on PTSD, as has been his habit lately. As always, he finds little that he thinks he could use successfully to help Bucky; everything is so modern and confusing and Steve doesn't understand it.

Bucky finally nods off at around 3am. The tranq gun stays clutched in his metal hand and his breath comes just as silent as before, but Steve sees how his eyes slip shut and the tension melts from his body. Steve follows him into sleep – he can't stay awake for ever, and if Bucky wants to kill Steve, or leave while he sleeps, then…so be it. Steve dreams of the train and the gorge, and the way Bucky screamed as he'd fell, and wakes feeling sick to his stomach and exhausted in a way that sleep can't fix.

Bucky sleeps on like the dead, still a huddled ball in the corner with the tranquiliser gun in hand, and Steve goes shopping after half an hour of agonising over whether he can leave Bucky alone. He leaves the do not disturb sign hung on the outside of the hotel room door, and a note for Bucky pinned to the inside of the door, but he's not sure Bucky will notice the note, or be able to read it in his current state.

When he gets back after an hour with arms full of groceries, Bucky is nowhere to be seen, and Steve's stomach sinks like lead. He searches the hotel room just in case, and comes crotch-to-muzzle with a gun when he opens the wardrobe door. Bucky is curled up on the floor, wide awake and staring at Steve with huge eyes as he points the gun unwaveringly at Steve. The note is clutched slightly crumpled in his hand, and the gun is not the tranq gun Steve left him with, but one Steve had in a locked case under the bed.

"You left," Bucky says accusingly, gun shifting up to fix on Steve's chest. Steve stays very still, not wanting to startle the other man, smiling apologetically.

"I'm sorry. I left a note for you, though. I see you found it. And I brought back food." He pauses. Smiles at Bucky hopefully. "Are you hungry?"

"I'm…hungry," Bucky says as though he's trying the words out, as if it's a question and not an answer. A little crinkle draws between his brows.

"Have you ever had scrambled eggs?" Steve isn't much of a cook, but scrambled eggs is something he's always been capable of. He remembers making it for Bucky on the mornings after they'd gone out drinking and dancing – Steve going home at midnight by himself if Bucky had a girl that seemed amenable to more than just a dance, while Bucky staggered in the door with kiss-stained mouth and unbuttoned jacket nearer dawn. And Steve would make Bucky scrambled eggs the next morning, while he snored exhausted and peaceful on the couch. The memory is sharp as a photograph in Steve's mind. Bucky frowns.

"I don't remember." His eyes are feverishly bright and glassy as he stares up at Steve. "But I remember you. Your – your name, and – you were important to him. To – to me." Bucky lowers the gun and squints at Steve, face all twisting as he concentrates on whatever threads of memory trail loose and ragged in his mind. "But I can't remember why. I can't…can't…" Bucky drops his head and drags at his hair in frustration, pained growls escaping his gritted teeth. "There's – there's nothing there."

"Hey…hey now, it's all right. You don't have to remember everything all at once. 'Specially not before you've even had breakfast." Steve grins weakly and slowly crouches down in front of Bucky, his hand folding over Bucky's human one, which is dragging at his hair while he still holds the gun, safety off. It makes Steve feel very, very nervous – the breath rattles out of him and his shoulders sag in relief when he finally untangles the gun from Bucky's cold fingers without incident. "Come on. I'll make you some of those eggs."

Bucky refuses to move, fingers going back to his hair, tugging and pulling until threads snag and yank out of his scalp. It's as if Steve isn't even there any more. Grief settles over Steve cold and suffocating as Bucky huddles in on himself, muttering broken fragments and ragged pleas in half a dozen different languages, fists clutching in tangles of hair.

"Okay. Okay. You can…eat in here, I guess."

And Bucky does – devouring a bowl of scrambled eggs and eight pieces of toast, scooping up the egg with his hands even though Steve gives him a fork. Steve sits cross-legged in the doorway, talking quietly – as if to himself – about mornings like these that happened just a handful of years ago and over seven decades ago at once. Memories taken carefully out and examined in every detail – they are tarnished a little by what's gone between, but still bright and golden. Steve finds himself smiling as he talks. Bucky listens although he doesn't say a word – Steve can tell he's paying attention from the tilt to his head and the frown of concentration settled on his face. When he's finished eating, Bucky curls up into the corner of the wardrobe and wraps his arms around himself, head resting against the wall and eyes sleepy on Steve. Like a child listening to a bedtime story. So Steve keeps talking.

"…ate canned food for a week. In the end I told you to just go back to your pa's, because a help you were not." Steve smiles sadly as he remembers the last few weeks of his mother's life. Bucky had been about the only thing in Steve's life that had kept him from sinking into despair as he'd watched his ma slip away. "I appreciated the thought, though."

"…every single double date we went on, ended up with you having two girls on your arms. I don't know how you did it, Bu– sorry…" Steve says as Bucky shrinks down on himself, expression darkening and mouth opening to protest.

"Don't call me that," he snarls, wretched and dangerous, and Steve agrees amicably, apologizing again. And the stories go on, until Steve's starting to lose his voice, and his butt is going numb.

"…so drunk you couldn't find the spare key. So rather than head home and face your pa's wrath, you slept on the doormat. Do you remember? Mrs Elmsley from two doors down found you there in the morning, and thought you were a vagrant. She –"

Bucky laughs, suddenly, and his face lights up behind the tangles of hair. "She hit me with a baguette." He grins at Steve, so bright, and Steve's heart swells until it feels like its three sizes too big. "With a… буханкахлеба, старая карга." Bucky slides from English to Russian without even seeming to notice, until he sees Steve's uncomprehending face and his grin fades. "Steve." Bucky stares at him like he's seeing a ghost, his features drawn stark in horror and fear. "Steve." His voice cracks and grates, and tears well up in his eyes. "What have they done to me?"

"Hey, hey it's okay…" Steve reaches out to Bucky – too fast, too damn fast, he realises later, but he's only thinking about reassurance, about stopping the panic seething up in Bucky's eyes before it can swallow him up whole. "Bucky, it's –" His hand closes over Bucky's human wrist, and then suddenly there's a metal hand clamping cold around Steve's throat and a Bucky-shaped mass of muscle and metal slamming into Steve, knocking him flat on his back onto the floor. Bucky scrambles atop Steve with his knees bracketing Steve's hips and his weight pinning him, and strikes down hard with his human hand as his metal hand crushes around Steve's throat. Steve blocks the punch, grabbing Bucky's fist and squeezing until Bucky grunts in pain and smacks his forehead down into Steve's nose. Steve gasps at the sharp, digging hurt – only getting wisps of oxygen through the stranglehold Bucky has on him – and twists under Bucky, trying to dislodge him. Bucky's heavier than he looks though, and Steve is hindered by his hold on Bucky's hands, trying to limit their damage.

But then Steve's finally surging up and over and reversing their positions; he can barely breathe though, still, and even though he's dragging at Bucky's metal hand for all he's worth he can't get Bucky's grip off altogether. And if he can't, then Steve's neck is going to come out the loser. He's straining to speak to try to get through to Bucky and calm him down, but all he can get out past Bucky's grip on his throat are hoarse little panting sounds and frantic whoops for air. Steve realises he doesn't have much choice when his vision starts to grey out, bright spots sparking in places; he doesn't want to, but he lets go of Bucky's hand around his throat. Lets go and nearly passes out beneath the clamp of Bucky's fingers. A strangled gasp, and then Steve clocks Bucky sharply on the jaw, not holding back at all - throwing all his strength behind the blow with a silent apology.

Bucky's metal hand goes limp as his head snaps up and to the side, and his eyes glaze over; half-shut and fluttering blindly. Steve pulls Bucky's hand away from his throat and drags in a long, shuddering lungful of air. He doesn't roll off Bucky straight away, but takes Bucky's wrists in his left hand and pins them above Bucky's head instead. It won't hold Bucky for long, should he fight, but it will at least slow him down. Although it means Steve has to lean in closer to Bucky than he's entirely comfortable with. Bucky moans then, lips parting and eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks - Steve has just long enough to notice the effect Bucky has on him, even half-starved and wrecked - and then Bucky's blinking into awareness again but lying totally still, eyes wide as he looks up at Steve. He looks terrified, which is a step better than murderous but makes Steve feel sick to his stomach. He hates having Bucky look at him like this. Like Steve is going to hurt Bucky. Like Bucky wants to hurt Bucky.

"Y-you all right?" Steve rasps, and there is a long, long pause before Bucky nods once, like a marionette on strings. Steve doesn't believe him. "You're shaking." He slides off Bucky, letting go of his wrists. "It's okay, B- pal. I'm sorry – I shouldn't have grabbed at you like that. Stupid of me." Steve sits back on his heels, watching Bucky anxiously as he scrambles up into a sitting position and pulls his hands in toward his chest, staring at them with misery on his face.

"I used to protect you…" he whispers, and his eyes are bleak. Steve wants to drag Bucky into a hug and squeeze the life half out of him, and cry, and rage, because this is too painful for words and he can't do it. Instead he very slowly reaches out a hand to Bucky, palm up, as though he's trying to soothe a skittish dog. There's a lump in his throat that makes it hard to speak, as he stares at Bucky hunched there in front of him, all bewildered, crumpled guilt.

"Yeah. You protected me, and you did – did an amazing job, pal. But now you need to let me protect you. Let me help you."

"Why?"

"Because you're my best friend," Steve says, voice breaking. You're my best friend and I love you. Bucky just stares at Steve with wounded eyes, before looking down into his lap at his hands.

"How can I be your best friend?" he whispers, empty words that echo in Steve's ears. His hand whirrs as he makes a fist, and then splays metal fingers open again, watching them as they fold and unfold. "I don't even know who I am."

Bucky doesn't speak for four days. He eats, and sleeps – but thank god doesn't relieve himself – in the hotel room wardrobe. He listens to Steve but doesn't answer. He is silent and still, and Steve goes without sleep in order to watch him nearly constantly. Steve's worn to a shred and wrung out past all endurance, but he thinks of a spit-slicked muzzle jammed rough between Bucky's teeth, and forces himself to stay awake. Bucky needs him.

Thanks for reading - I hope you're enjoying it so far!

Liss xx