Pt 6

Bucky stirs at Steve's light step into the room, but doesn't take fright, just uncurls from his ball under the blankets and blinks owlishly at Steve. His hair is flattened on one side, and sticking up at the back, and his beard has grown long enough to make him look like a stranger. There is fear all over Bucky's face, his every feature is drenched in it – cold and helpless and so devastating that it hurts to look at him. Steve smiles at him as he sets the phone down and finds the handcuffs out of automatic habit; they're tucked away in the top drawer of his bedside table and he fishes them out without having to look.

"How much did you hear?" Steve asks Bucky casually, because he is getting to know this strange amalgamation between Bucky and the cold shell that Zola tried to make him into. He knows now that Bucky was awake and listening beneath the soft comfort of the blankets, lines of muscle held painfully tense and eyes wide and frightened, waiting for Steve's betrayal. "It's okay. You can tell me. I wasn't trying to…hide the conversation from you."

Bucky shrugs as if it doesn't matter, but his fingers pick nervously at the blanket and his fragile tone belies the shrug. "You really won't make me go back?"

"Not if you don't want to, James." The name feels strange on Steve's tongue still, but okay. He can try to live with it, if it's what Bucky prefers, if it stops that horrible flinching recoil every time he has slipped up and begun saying Bucky instead. But he can't seem to stop himself from thinking of the other man as Bucky. "Like I said to Sam, you've had enough choices taken away from you. I'm here to help give them back, not take more away." Bucky's eyes fall pointedly on the handcuffs that Steve has snapped around his own wrist, and is about to slide over Bucky's metal one. Steve bites his lip, and keys in the code on the tiny glowing display he brings up with a press of his thumb – the handcuffs are Tony's tech – and the cuff springs free from his wrist. "I've been doing that to protect you, James. Not to imprison you…" Steve licks his lips nervously, struggling to find a way to explain it that doesn't sound like he was doing exactly that. "Not. I. Well. I just didn't want to lose you again, after I'd only just…found you. And at first there were civilians around, and you weren't stable…and I was worried you might, well, hurt yourself. But we don't have to anymore, if you don't want to."

Bucky smiles faintly, bitter-edged and tired, and the shadows under his eyes make him look ashen and hollow. "It's fine, Steve. I –" He pauses, uncertain for a second, frowning as his eyes flick between the handcuffs and Steve's face, avoiding Steve's eyes. His human hand darts out then, snatching up the handcuffs, fingers flexing as he snaps the cuff shut around his metal wrist. "I like it." It's a soft admission that Steve barely hears, Bucky's eyes turned down to the bed and his voice little more than a mumble. An ache begins in Steve's chest as he wonders why Bucky would like it. Security? Because it's what he's used to? Because he wants to feel safe and close to Steve, or because he's accustomed to being treated like a prisoner? Steve doesn't suppose it matters.

"Okay," he says quiet and neutral after a beat passes, and holds out his left wrist – better to have his off-hand restrained, even if he is very nearly ambidextrous – and Bucky carefully closes the cuff around it with a hissing click. The chain between the two cuffs is about half a foot long; enough that they can sleep without having to be bunched uncomfortably together. They do it anyway though – Bucky twisting toward Steve and making it so his human hand touches Steve's in some way, so that their knees or hips or shoulders bump and press together, so that their breath touches hot on the other's skin. And sometimes Steve still strokes his fingers over Bucky's face and through his hair – cautious, feather-light touches that make Bucky hum contentedly to himself, a low rumble in his chest like a cat's purr. Steve doesn't do it often though; it sparks off quicksilver heat that pools in Steve's abdomen and makes his dick twitch with the arousal, and it feels very wrong to use Bucky's simple pleasure to provoke that sensation in himself.

And everyone says he's perfect Captain America, who can do no wrong. Who always makes the ethical choices. Steve knows better than that. If he was so perfect he wouldn't wake in the night with his breath tight and his dick rigid, dreams of Bucky naked, heavy-lidded and flushed hot beneath Steve as he slides home into Bucky, again and again. So damned good, Steve pants in his dreams, his fingers clenching with near-bruising force into Bucky's hip, holding him steady as he drives into him. That long dark hair sweat-damp and tangled, the metal hand clutching into the pillow as Bucky's hips arch up, face-to-face because Steve wants to watch as Bucky cums – his human hand wrapped around his own dick, jerking himself unsteady and desperate as Steve rocks into him. Moans wavering from Bucky's dropped-open mouth, his eyes on Steve's and glazed with pleasure not confusion, pupils blown and sweat-damp chest heaving as he gasps for breath.

Christ. Steve grits his teeth and flicks off the bedside lamp, plunging them into a darkness that is eased only by the weak light seeping in beneath the door from the lounge. He settles his head to the pillow, the two of them moving awkwardly together until he is positioned on his back, Bucky curled on his side facing Steve, his arm draped over Steve's waist thanks to the limits of the handcuffs. It's physically close but Steve tries to keep a little distance between them, emotionally if nothing else. Otherwise he's afraid of what he might be tempted to do. It would be so easy to just roll over and kiss Bucky, and Bucky...well, whether he once felt about Steve that way or not is irrelevant. He certainly isn't capable of consenting now, not with his mind pulled apart to pieces, and half of those pieces still missing. So Steve clamps down on his urges and lies there stiff, trying to think of anything but the way Bucky's arm loops warm and possessive over him like a torment.

"Steve?"

"Yeah…James?"

"If – if you need to go back…" Bucky's voice is tight and frightened, and Steve wishes he could make out Bucky's expression in the dark, but all he can see is the shadowy shape of nose and chin, and a fall of hair. "Then…then I – I…" He stumbles and his voice scrapes, low and rusty and run through with a kind of resigned fear and hopelessness. "You can leave me here. I – I won't hurt any civilians. I swear."

"What about the girl?" Steve asks gently, thinking of the child in Moscow, wanting to know what Bucky will say to that even though he's not entertaining the thought of going anywhere without Bucky. Steve feels guilt sharp in his belly as Bucky shifts uncomfortably in the dark, his arm stiffening over Steve's waist.

"That was. Before." Steve can hear the weight in Bucky's halting voice and in the way Bucky's arm tightens around him. "Before you found me. You – you are helping me, Steve. I think, anyway. I – I remember more, now. I remember…"

"Too much," Steve offers grimly, because that's the truth, and Bucky nods – just visible in the near-dark, his voice equally flat and dull.

"…Yeah. Sometimes."

Steve places his hand over Bucky's, where it drapes over his abdomen, fingers shaping to the curve of his side, and the back of Bucky's hand is warm and smooth beneath Steve's palm. "I'm not going anywhere without you, B– James. I'm with you 'til the end of the line. Do – do you remember that?"

Bucky's voice is nothing more than a whisper as he presses infinitesimally closer to Steve, and his fingers curl and shift to trap Steve's between them, locking them together.

"Yeah. I remember that, Stevie."

One afternoon, Bucky comes to Steve, rubbing at his beard with a frown of displeasure. "It itches," he says. "And it doesn't look right in the mirror."

"You don't look much like you," Steve agrees absently, without thinking, and then bites his tongue. Because Bucky isn't who he was, and he will never be that person again. And that's all right, Steve's getting used to that idea, but it's also raw and hard and a difficult topic to approach without Bucky feeling hurt and rejected, as if Steve loves him any less because he's not the Bucky he knew. Which isn't goddamned true in the slightest. But instead of lashing out, Bucky just shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels, eying Steve neutrally.

"I don't know…how," he says at last, scratching at his bristly jaw. "Will – will you help?"

"Yeah," Steve breathes without hesitation, his chest as tight as if he has asthma again at the easy trust in Bucky's question, and hurries to unlock the shaving kit. He shaves the beard from Bucky's face in the small white bathroom, and it feels like each scrape of the razor reveals another strip of the best friend that Steve used to know. It's just an illusion, Steve knows, but it's comforting all the same to look at Bucky and see him and not a bearded stranger. The strong jaw and cleft chin that are as familiar to Steve as his own, and the full lips that tend towards pouty, sulky shapes, and in it all the brightness of his eyes, a pale blue beneath the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom. Bucky is beautiful and familiar, despite the horribly dark shadows under his eyes, and the new lines of pain and exhaustion and nightmare memories carved into his face.

"You look good," Steve tells Bucky, and represses other, less honourable thoughts that come to mind as Bucky's mouth curves into a tentative grin, and he pushes a hand through his hair, preening a little as he stares at himself in the mirror.

Steve keeps catching himself staring at Bucky over the course of the next few days as clean-shaven turns to stubble, before Bucky asks him to help him shave again. This time Bucky does it while Steve hovers nervously beside him, uneasy about letting Bucky have a blade so near his own throat. There is not a single nick though; Bucky's hands sniper-steady, and his drags of the razor careful and calculated.

Steve helps smooth the aftershave over Bucky's cheeks afterwards, and Bucky's skin is smooth and warm, his bones sharp beneath. And Bucky's eyes linger on Steve's face, drifting over him almost clinically, and yet there's a frisson between them that seems anything but clinical. As if all the air has been sucked out of the room. And they are standing so close – so damn close, and Bucky is right there with that curious tilt to his head, and that calm interest in his eyes, and Steve has to bite down his tongue hard to stifle the need to press his mouth greedy-soft to Bucky's. He hurries guilty out of the bathroom as soon as he's packed up the shaving kit, berating himself for having such inappropriate thoughts, telling himself firmly that it hadn't been interest in Bucky's pale eyes. He is seeing things that aren't there.

Three days later, Bucky remembers killing an entire family in '82 – husband, wife, two children, and a dog – and burning the house down with their bodies inside. He spends four days in the bathroom, huddled in the shower stall in a near catatonic state, and it seems like any progress they've made in getting Bucky back since coming to the cabin is stolen away by the Winter Soldier's memories. The meagre progress of weeks of patience and perseverance on both their parts is ripped away, and Bucky is reduced to an unstable, shaking mess who Steve can't trust alone. Who won't talk to Steve but only mumbles half-nonsense to himself. Who won't bathe or eat, and who barely drinks enough to avoid dehydration. Steve spends the entire time on suicide watch, only daring to sleep a little less than twelve hours in total, in snatches of a couple of hours here and there, and only after sedating Bucky.

On the fourth day, Bucky stares up at Steve with red-rimmed, swollen eyes, and rubs his hand over his prickly jaw. There is sanity in his eyes again, fragile and raw. "I suppose you'd better shave me," he says, holding up his hands palm down in the air to show how they tremble like an old man's. He grins lopsided. "I don't think I'm up to the job."

Steve lets out a gusty, wobbling sigh and slides weakly down to sit on the shower stall floor beside Bucky. He leans his head onto Bucky's shoulder, thoughtless of his fragile state, and grabs Bucky's metal hand in his own. Bucky just sighs too and rests his head against the top of Steve's, his fingers wrapping tight around the other man's; cool metal that slowly begins to lose its chill under Steve's touch. Bucky smells like old sweat, and his breathing comes unsteady and hitching, and he radiates a bone-deep cold that sucks the warmth out of Steve, but Steve thinks that this feels like bliss anyway. After days of fear and strain, there is finally a reprieve. They sit together for a long time; until their breathing settles into a steady sync, and Bucky's metal hand is warmed, and Steve feels a little less like he wants to break down into quiet weeping.

When he gets up eventually, Steve finds that his hands are too shaky too. It isn't until the next day that he carefully scrapes away the beard from Bucky's face again. Once he has done so, Bucky stands there staring at Steve with placid eyes, familiar and beautiful and lost, and Steve clamps down on a sobbing breath and presses their foreheads together for five beats of his heart, eyes shut and hand cradling the back of Bucky's neck. Bucky allows it without protest, but his arms remain slack at his sides. He is like a life-sized doll, and the thought sends the creeps shivering down Steve's spine. He hates it when Bucky is pliable and empty like this, hates it more than he hates the anguish and the violence that come surging out of Bucky at times.

"Love you pal," Steve says rough and low, trying to make a small, affectionate smirk hover at his lips as he straightens. He doesn't want to muddle in any confusing, inappropriate feelings – Steve loves Bucky as his best friend, as the kid he grew up with, and the man he fought beside, and he always will. Anything else is not Bucky's problem. It's not and Steve will not put that on him, but he still loves him in other ways - far more important ways. Bucky blinks, and bites his lip.

"I don't – I don't know…I do know – he loved you too, Steve," he says at last very quietly, staring down at his hands – silver and flesh twisting together nervously, and it's like a knife between Steve's ribs, even though he knows – should know that Bucky can't say anything like that. Not when he doesn't even know who he is properly; how can he know how he feels about Steve when he doesn't remember even a quarter of the memories that they'd made together, in Brooklyn and in Europe. Can't remember the experiences that seeded that love, and made it grow into something that bound them together inextricably. But still, hearing Bucky speak like that - in the past tense, in the third person – it hurts.

"James…don't. Just. It's fine. I don't expect…"

"I trust you," Bucky says softly, eyes flicking up to Steve's as if to check if it's okay for him to admit that. He smiles small and cautious, a fragile bloom of hope writ on his haggard face, and Steve's heart wrenches hard.

"That's…that's great, James," he says in a choked tone and means it with all of him, all spilling over with earnestness and a bittersweet kind of happiness. Steve grins then, unsteadily, reaching out and squeezing Bucky's shoulder affectionately. "That's really, really great." Bucky looks down at the floor between them, shrugging a shoulder with a painful sort of diffidence.

"I remember...enough to trust. But even if I didn't remember, I'd...I'd probably still trust you, Steve. You're..." Bucky draws in a sharp breath and cuts himself off, biting his lip as he flicks nervous eyes over Steve, an accidental rakish kind of charm to him as he shoves his hair back off his face with his right hand. "...Good," he finishes, eyes bright and lips damp and flushed from the pink tongue he sweeps over them, and they are standing so close that if Steve just. swayed. forward. his mouth would press against Bucky's. Steve thinks he knows how it would feel. Like life; all heat and pain and desperate insistence, and the pleasure of seizing and giving and helpless surrender. Steve swallows around the lump in his throat, blood thrumming. He sways back, steps back, looks away from the man who wears his best friend's face, who is draped in tatters of memory, whose reddened mouth is a damned beacon.

"So are you, James," Steve tells this echo who stands before him - fever-blue eyes and newly smooth cheeks, a little smear of shaving cream just beneath the hinge of his jaw. Steve reaches out and thumbs it away before he can stop himself, and Bucky's pulse thuds hard against the callused pad of Steve's thumb before he pulls back, absently showing the smudge of cream in explanation. Bucky stares not at the shaving cream but wide-eyed at Steve's face, motionless and yet quivering with tension. "You're good too," he tells Bucky, and the ghost/echo/friend flattens his lips and looks away. His eyes go dull and his jaw is set, and Steve curses his stupid mouth, blurting out reminders of things best left unsaid. "None of it was your fault. None of it. Ever," Steve says urgently, needing the other man to believe him, but even as he says the words he knows they will mean nothing to Bucky, and his heart slowly sinks. Weariness swamps him again, making his shoulders slump and his limbs feel heavy and numbed.

Steve cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel; it dies with the light in Bucky's eyes, and the darkness is bleak and large. For a moment he knows he can't go on. But then.

"Come on," he says, forcing the words out with a thick tongue, forcing a smile to his lips. "You must be hungry."

They eat canned spaghetti on toast in silence. Bucky's hair hangs around his face in lank straggles, but his cheeks and jaw are smooth like they used to be, and Steve can't stop staring, and wishing. Wishing that they were somewhere else, in another time, back when they both knew who they were. Steve forks down mouthfuls of spaghetti without tasting it; shoulders hunched and eyes fixed on the man opposite, feeling Bucky slip further and further away from him.