Pt 7

"You used to draw - sketch n' paint 'n things," Bucky says, voice rusty from disuse. He's been quieter than usual the past five days, and Steve's attempts to draw him out have been unsuccessful. This is the first time Bucky's spoken today, and according to the StarkTab Steve holds, it's just gone 11:47am. They've sat in silence in the small cabin's main room all morning; Steve on his StarkTab and Bucky staring blankly at a paperback book. He's been turning pages now and then, but Steve is pretty sure he's not reading. The sound of Bucky's voice sends a whiplash of faint, warm relief sinking through Steve, dispelling more tension than he'd realised he felt.

"I did." Steve shifts on the couch to face Bucky, setting his back against the armrest and folding one leg up under him on the couch. The StarkTab slides forgotten to his lap as he fixes his attention on Bucky, whose eyes haven't lifted from his book. "Sketches mostly - ma could never afford paints, and then later on, neither could I. But I always had a pencil and a sketchbook to scribble in. I'd draw anything that struck me as...worth preserving."

He grins lopsided as a vivid memory snares him; a hot July afternoon when Bucky'd stripped off his shirt on the shaded fire escape and sprawled on the metal grating in just his suspenders and pants, one leg bent and an arm flopped over his eyes. He'd told Steve to do the same to cool off, but Steve was scrawny and pasty then, not lean and olive-skinned like Bucky, and he'd shaken his head 'no' self-consciously. Steve had settled on the windowsill instead, with his back to the frame and sketchbook on his lap. Bucky had looked so vital, well-formed and bursting with life even lolling lazy in the shade, and without even thinking about it, Steve had started to sketch out the shape of him.

"What ya scribblin', Stevie?" Bucky mumbles in the melting, easy silence between them. Steve tenses, feeling suddenly a bit awkward about the scene taking shape on the paper

"...just, um, drawin' you actually. I - I need to practice drawing people. Proportions an' such," Steve hurries to justify, staring at what he has on paper so far with quiet pleasure - he can see Bucky in it already, in the shade and light and lines. Bucky, brought to life caught in the paper.

"Well, I guess I make for a damn fine model, good-lookin' fella like me," Bucky says, grinning wide and rolling his head to look at Steve, eyes sparkling with that self-confidence that somehow never tips over to arrogance - always tempered by the sense that he's poking fun at himself, just a little. It's that quality, Steve thinks, that makes Buck so magnetic to everyone. To Steve.

Aloud he says, "Hey! Hold still ya mook, you're ruining it. This is why I never bother drawin' ya. You can't keep still even when you're tryin'."

"You draw me all the time, Steve."

"But they never get finished properly, because ya always move before I'm finished," Steve shoots back, grinning. "Jerk."

"Punk," Bucky responds automatically, lazy lopsided smile, as he lies there sprawled out in the July summer, so real and shiningly vivid that he seems brighter than the scorching sun they have taken shelter from.

Silence stretches out, filling the room uncomfortably. Steve guesses Bucky's about used up his words for the day and lifts the tablet again with weary resignation - but blue eyes rise uncertainly to Steve's face, waiting for more. A sense of warmth sparks in Steve's chest at the sight of the open curiosity in Bucky's face.

"I used to draw you all the time," Steve says quietly, lost in memories. "You could never keep still unless you were asleep."

"You drew me when I was asleep." It's said like a statement but Steve knows Bucky means it to be a question. Bucky's curious gaze is unblinking on Steve; wide and childlike, and he looks very young. Steve flushes hot, the other man's words feeling like an accusation, an exposure.

"Sometimes, yeah. During the war," Steve admits, other memories swirling up to the surface, of small tents and sleeping cramped together for warmth and comfort, just like they had back home, and Bucky's face, relaxed and young in sleep. Long eyelashes casting spidery shadows on Bucky's skin by the moonlight, a smudge of dirt at his temple looking like a bruise, drooling onto the rolled up jacket his face is smushed into for a pillow. "The Smithsonian actually has one of my sketchbooks on display. They offered - reluctantly - to return it to my possession when I woke up, but...I didn't need it in order to remember, and I - I just wanted to forget."

"Peggy," Bucky says, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, hair falling around his face like curtains. Steve understands, nodding.

"That's right. They keep it open to a sketch of Peggy. You saw it, huh?"

"Yeah."

"There's one of you on the next page." Just rough, dark lines carved into the paper blurred here and there by damp splotches, grief and anger evident in every slash. It is the last picture in the book, the last time that Steve put pencil to paper before he went into the ice. And he hasn't drawn anything since, he realizes absently. It hasn't been a deliberate decision; he just...hasn't. Steve hasn't wanted to draw what he has lost, what is past - since he awoke he had wanted to deny, forget, repress. Afraid, perhaps, that if he started drawing all the old places and faces, he would never be able to stop. And there had been nothing in the present that had moved him to draw, nothing worth preserving.

Until now.

Until Bucky, sitting there at the end of the couch and holding out a pencil and a notebook he'd procured from god only knew where, a shy smile playing at his lips. Bucky thrusts the notebook and pencil toward Steve insistently, but there's uncertainty and fear caught in his eyes as he speaks. "Draw me? I - I swear I'll be still. Please?" Bucky's voice is small and halting, as though speaking is alien and painful. Steve's chest ratchets tight and a lump lodges in his throat, tears burning behind his eyes. He reaches out and takes the notebook and pencil, fingers brushing against Bucky's.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll draw ya, Bu- James." He catches himself just as Bucky flinches at the expectation of the name, and silence soaks heavy into the air for a moment. Steve clears his throat and brings the notebook into his lap, flipping the book open and smoothing the paper flat with the side of his hand. "Of course I'll draw you. Just...sit there. Relax. Just relax. Okay?" He smiles at Bucky tentative and trying to be reassuring, and some of the terrible stiffness goes out of Bucky's posture.

Bucky sinks back down, slouching into the couch and ducking his head. His legs drawn up, knees bent and his hands tucked together in his lap, hair falling forward to half hide his face. He looks like a lost little boy, his eyes fixed on Steve, filled with something that Steve can't capture, at first. Fear, love, self-loathing, and confusion, all tangled together in a mess that makes Steve's heart hurt, and he commits it to the lined paper in faint, reluctant strokes. He gets lost in the drawing. Wanting to get it perfect but hating the expression on Bucky's face, the hunched withdrawal in his posture, flinching away from putting it to paper. He tears out the first three attempts, crumpling the sheets and tossing them to the floor.

When he looks up from sketching out the lines of Bucky's side on the fourth attempt, he sees with a soft smile that he'll have to start again. Nostalgia rises sharp in him, echoes of the past, memories overwhelming as he looks at Bucky; fast asleep, slumped sideways against the couch back, legs still drawn up a little but no longer defensive and tense, features slack and peaceful in sleep. Drooling a little. Hands drawn up, twined together and tucked under Bucky's chin. Steve smiles and smiles and ignores the pain in his chest and the burgeoning tears and draws Bucky in swift, careful strokes, and for a while everything falls away and it's just them.

It's a balm to Steve's soul, that quiet afternoon with Bucky sleeping heavy on the couch, and it sustains him for a while through the days that come after. The hard, bad days, filled with despair and hopelessness. And then there are good days too, mixed in there. Days when Bucky smiles, or remembers something good, or expresses the desire to do something positive - like the time they try to bake a cake, and it comes out burnt at the edges and delicious, and they eat it together in one sitting, Bucky exuding something that for a brief time feels like contentment. But mostly, there are bad days, and worse days, and days where Steve calls Sam and has to choke back his tears, and Sam tells him to come back, and Steve has to say no, even though he wishes so damn badly he could.

He feels so tired. Like he is only a shadow of himself. He is thinner from lack of self-care, too busy looking after Bucky, and he's grown a short, scruffy beard because shaving is the last thing he has the energy for. His clothes are all marked by old blood stains from…incidents, and half of them are torn in places from their explorations through the surrounding forest. He is worn away to nearly nothing, with bags under his eyes and nightmares in his sleep, and always, always, walking on eggshells around Bucky. But he can't set down his burden, he can't take a break, he can't go back to the Tower, because Bucky needs him, and Bucky doesn't want to go back.

And all that sustains Steve are those small moments, strewn sparing through a sea of awfulness. Bucky sleeping peacefully. His fingers curling around Steve's at night. The wild, carefree expression on Bucky's face as he stands on the edge of the sheer cliff he's just scaled. The shy smile he gives Steve when Steve makes him a stack of pancakes drowning with maple syrup for dinner once. The little sounds of laughter that fizz out of him when they watch funny YouTube videos together on the good nights. Waking up in the night after a nightmare about the train and Bucky falling, and lying there listening to Bucky breathing. Alive.

So he forces himself to go on, because he promised: 'til the end of the line.

It all shatters with a quiet finality one cloudy afternoon, while Steve is frying up some hamburger patties for lunch. Bucky is slouched on a stool at the breakfast bar, elbows on the countertop and hands idly fiddling with a ballpoint pen, watching Steve with bloodshot, tear-swollen eyes. It was a bad night - a really bad night - but so far the morning has been better, and Steve has some hope that today could be one of the good ones. Steve glances over at Bucky with a cautious smile as he slices tomatoes with quick, sure movements, half an eye on the sizzling patties. "Do you want bacon on yours, Buck?"

Tension clogs the room immediately, and the silence is oppressive. Steve curses silently. It's been days and days since he's slipped up last, he was doing so well, and now he's slipped he may as well forget his hope that today would be a good one. Bucky still reacts…badly, to being referred to like that.

"I'm not him," Bucky grinds out through bared teeth. "I'm not him, and I never fucking will be him again, so why can't you stop calling me that? I'm not him! I'm not him he's dead I'm not him!" He drops the pen on the counter with a clatter and pushes to his feet, panting and furious, chest and shoulders heaving with his frantic gasps for breath, human hand shoving through his hair in short, panicky motions. "I don't know you, I don't even know myself - I don't know anything except that I'm broken and that I'm not your fucking Bucky Barnes."

Steve breaks, then. There are no excuses, and no explanations, he thinks later. He just…breaks.

"Why can't you be?" he asks suddenly, bitterly, driving the point of the knife deep into the chopping board with a sharp, angry motion and rounding on Bucky - James - the stranger he loves - with tears pricking in his eyes. "Why can't you just fucking be him? I try and I try and I try and - I - nothing changes." The tears start falling; rolling down his cheeks unheeded, as he stares feverish and pleading at the man across the counter. "I don't expect you to get perfectly well, I don't expect you to - to ever be exactly who you were, but please I need to know I'm helping," he begs Bucky, who stares at him white-faced and frozen, eyes wide and lips trembling, terrified, but Steve doesn't notice through his own desperation. "I need to know I'm doing the right things. That - that you're getting better. Even just a little. Because I can't do this forever. We can't stay here forever. I can't-"

There's a choked sob. Steve stops and stares at Bucky and really sees him. There's another raw, ragged sob, as Bucky stares at Steve with tears streaking down his own cheeks, breath hitching as another sob shakes him, and then he's crying in great gasps, sinking gracelessly to the floor as though his legs have given out. Steve is stricken. What has he done? Bucky covers his face with his hands and curls into himself, shoulders shaking as he sobs, wretched and lost. "Oh god." Steve rounds the counter at a stumbling run, feeling numbed and stupid and wracked with guilt atop his bone-deep weariness. "Oh Jesus Christ, James, James. I shouldn't have said that." He drops to his knees beside the broken wreck of a man that he is responsible for hurting, and he feels like the worst kind of monster.

"I didn't mean it." Steve gulps, praying that he hasn't destroyed things with those awful, wounding words. One damn moment of weakness and he may have set back the tiny amount of progress he's made and more. "I didn't mean it, James."

"You did. I fuckin' well know that you did, Stevie," Bucky gets out, clutching at his own hair with rough hands, curled in on himself and blocking Steve out. Ironically, Bucky sounds more like himself than he has in a while – that Brooklyn accent strong, and the way he called Steve Stevie, with a catch of emotion in his voice, broke Steve's heart. "You did, and I can't fuckin' blame you either."

"No. No." Steve is desperate to right the damage he's done, sickened and cold to the bone with horror. He gently places his hands over Bucky's, curling his fingers over top of the other man's, trying to coax him to let go of his hair. "No, I didn't mean it, J-James. I was just…tired. Tired and scared, and worried that I'm doing the wrong thing staying out here without therapists and whatever the hell else people keep saying you need, and worried about you because you are everything, James, and I need to know that you're going to get better. I don't care who you are or what you remember, I just want you to be…better. Happier. Adjusting." Steve manages to draw Bucky's hands down from his hair, tangling his fingers in the other man's as he kneels before him, silently begging Bucky to believe him. He should have listened to Sam.

Bucky looks up at him, blue eyes rimmed with red and sunk in shadows; exhausted and hopeless, full of defeat. "You need to take me back, Steve. You – you need to take me in." Steve stares at him helplessly, shaking his head no, even though he knows perfectly well that Bucky is right, just as Sam was right. He can't keep doing this on his own. He's not alone, and he needs to stop acting like it. He has friends. People he can trust.

"But you don't want to."

"No. I don't. I don't…trust. I don't…" Bucky is clearly anxious just thinking of the possibility of going back home, to the country he was born in, the place he only remembers in bits and pieces like glimpses in a shattered mirror. He swallows hard, dark hair falling forward around his face, lips pressing together and fingers tightening brutally on Steve's, the metal hand grinding the bones in Steve's hand. His cheeks are ashen, and his nostrils flare as he drags in short, panicky breaths. "I don't trust -" Steve shuffles closer, hushing Bucky, tugging his hands free and cautiously wrapping his arms around the other man's shoulders, his cheek resting against the top of Bucky's head.

"We don't have to," he tells Bucky, and Bucky presses in closer to Steve, breathing slow and deep, clearly trying to calm himself, a technique Steve had read about on the internet, which was supposed to help cope with anxiety attacks. He had found some resources that were useful, and Sam had sent him links to more websites that had helped Steve cope, and in turn try to help Bucky. He wishes they had helped more than they had. "We can just stay here. We don't have to go."

"Really?" Bucky asks after a long pause filled with his breathing, and his tone is more disbelieving than panicky. It's the tone of voice that says Steve is talking shit, and Bucky knows it. Steve sighs, and rephrases as he rubs Bucky's back soothing and firm.

"We don't have to, but maybe – maybe it might be best. Maybe it might help you, James." Bucky is silent, and Steve goes on. He thinks he's trying to convince both of them that going is a good idea – he's not any happier about it than Bucky is. Steve sure as hell doesn't want Bucky to be within reach of the US government, or in the same country as Hydra, and the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. He doesn't care that Stark tower is probably as safe as anywhere in the world could be; it doesn't make the idea feel any more okay. But it's clear now that he can't go on like this. Even he has his limits. Bucky is quiet in Steve's arms as he continues, and he can feel the other man's tension slowly ebbing out of his muscles. "We won't go through any official channels – to hell with that. We'd go on a private jet to Tony's building – Tony's a friend of mine, an Avenger. Iron Man." Steve doesn't bring up the fact that Tony is really Anthony Stark, because he doesn't want to trigger Bucky if he can avoid it.

"I know," Bucky whispers, extricating himself from Steve, and sitting back against the base of the breakfast bar, knees drawing up to his chest and arms wrapping loosely around them. He looks small and uncertain, but ready to listen.

"He's a friend. He's safe. He would never hurt either of us. He's even brought in some medical equipment that prob'ly cost the earth, which might help in figuring out what's going on with you. Nothing that you have to use," he hastens to add as Bucky stiffens and stares at him with betrayal blooming in his eyes. "I will never force you to do anything you don't want to. Unless it's to stop you from hurting yourself or someone else, okay?" Bucky looks uncertain about that, but he nods slowly, and Steve goes on, telling Bucky all about the Avengers. Like a children's fairy tale - the motley group of so-called heroes, who are all ready and willing to welcome Bucky into their odd little family, of sorts. Who will give him shelter and protect him from the outside, and see that he gets the help he needs. And Bucky listens as though it's a fairy tale – unbelievable and magical, and out of his reach. Just a fantasy.

"But you don't have to, James," Steve finishes at last, with a reassuring smile, shifting position so that he sprawls along the floor in front of Bucky's feet, resting on one elbow. Bucky eyes him uncertainly, hugging his legs tighter and resting his chin on one knee.

"Maybe I want to," he mumbles from behind a straggling veil of hair. Bucky's scared, Steve knows that, but the other man also knows he shouldn't be, and wants to do what he thinks is the right thing. It makes Steve's chest ache. Even now, Bucky is trying to look out for Steve. But maybe it will help Bucky even more than it helps take some of the weight and the worry off Steve, for them to go stay at the tower – to have all those resources, and all that specialised support available.

"Do you?"

Bucky shrugs, hunching in on himself. "I don't know." He sits back and picks at a loose thread on his pants knee with his metal fingers, mouth set in a half-pout and eyes shadowed. He's silence for a long time before he speaks again – searching for words, Steve thinks. "I trust you Stevie. But I don't trust them. But…but I want to – to sort my fucking' head out. To be able to think again. To remember. To…" Steve silences him with a gentle hand on Bucky's.

"I tell you what, pal," Steve says, as the idea coalesces in his mind. "Tomorrow we'll video call them, and you can say hi to whoever's home, and check the place out. If you feel all right about it, we could start talking about going. And if you don't want to go, we'll…well, we'll stay here and see if you can video conference or whatever they call it with a therapist, instead." It feels right as he suggests it, and when Bucky flashes a tentative, lopsided smile and nods, it feels as though a crushing weight has been lifted off Steve's chest. "Good. That's good, James." A beat, then: "…Can you smell that?"

"The meat's burning," Bucky says helpfully, and Steve swears and leaps up while Bucky grins, pressing a hand over his mouth to stifle his rusty laughter.

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