{ 2. Clean Slate }
xXxXxXx
"I've got a bad disease,
But from my brain is where I bleed,
Insanity it seems,
Has got me by my soul to squeeze,
Where I go,
I just don't know,
I got to got to got to take it slow,
When I find my peace of mind,
I'm gonna give you some of my good time"
-Soul to Squeeze, Red Hot Chili Peppers
xXxXxXx
The motel room was hardly big enough for two people, much less four. Two queen beds occupied all but a sliver of floor space with a closet of a bathroom near the back. It would have to do, because it was the only place Tony could find that had fake security cameras, it was 2 in the morning, and they were all running on empty.
Tony stepped into the room first. He planted his hands on his hips and turned all around. "Is this where poor people spend their vacations? My closet's bigger than this! Why don't I just rent out my closet?"
"Poor people don't take vacations," Sam told him, lugging Steve's bag onto the bed. "This is where junkies stay to binge. By the way," he stooped and tugged the sheets away from the mattress, "check for bedbugs."
Tony's jaw fell slack and he drew his hands to his chest. He turned to Steve, lumbering passed with Bucky on his back.
"Cap," he said, "I changed my mind. This sucks. You're on your own."
Steve cracked a little smile and replied, "Too late. You're a delinquent now, Stark, just like the rest of us."
Tony let out a long groan and scrubbed at his eyes. "Pepper, honey," he sing-songed, "please work your magic so I can come home…To my nice robots and my nice closet…"
The bathroom had no room for a tub, only a standing shower. Bucky was in no condition to stand, so he sat on the floor of it as Steve helped him out of his pants and let the water cascade from above. Blood and dirt sloughed from him and swirled down the drain. There was a plastic cup sitting near the sink. Steve swiped it and let it fill. Then he tipped Bucky's head back with one hand and poured the water over his head with the other.
Bucky's eyes were bloodshot and weary. Steve hadn't seen him look this bad since the war. This wasn't the first time he scrubbed gore from a near-catatonic Bucky Barnes, only this time the war wasn't so black-and-white. The enemies and allies were all jumbled together and everything was so unclear, so grey and murky. Back then, their apartment had been a scummier place than this room. What Steve wouldn't give to go back to that shit-hole.
Steve talked to Bucky softly, casually, like he didn't care if he got a response or not. He told him more of the same. He told him that he'd be okay, that they'd get through this and everything would be better someday.
He'd been saying that for over seventy years. Bucky dropped his forehead against his knees. Dark locks fell over his legs, spine arched and twitching as Steve carefully peeled the old tape and gauze away. Everything had mostly scabbed over in red, hideous protrusions. His body was like Steve's—it healed quickly, but he was not invulnerable. He still hurt. He still scarred.
"…Miss Potts will take care of everything. She's a sharp woman, you'd like her," Steve told him, gently dabbing a cloth near his swollen wound. "She'll make them see. They'll see you're not a damn weapon. I'm sorry, Buck," he apologized for the hundredth time, "they just…They don't understand. They don't know you like I do. If they did," he reached up to turn off the water, then draped a towel over Bucky's shoulders, "they wouldn't have treated you this way. It's going to get better. It really will."
Steve dried the wound as gingerly as possible, though the towel didn't escape some bloodstains. He silently apologized to room service and began dressing the wound with fresh gauze. They stopped at a pharmacy and picked up some supplies, but trips like that had to be far and few between.
People didn't often recognize them outside of their gear, though it wasn't the general public they were concerned about. S.H.I.E.L.D had agents planted all over the place and they were probably tapping into every security camera in the state.
Tony used his laptop in tandem with some other future-gadgets Steve wasn't familiar with to scramble Bucky's tracking chip before they left the gas station. "I made it look like we're two hundred miles south of here, and the signal will just keep rerouting." Tony told him. "Should throw them off for a few days."
A few days. Maybe that was all they needed. Steve dreaded the thought of S.H.I.E.L.D dragging this case out for months or even years on end. He dreaded it because he knew he was stubborn enough to play their stupid game as long as it took—until he and Bucky were old and gray with a foot in the grave. He'd die a criminal. He'd do it for Bucky. To the end of the line.
xXxXxXx
"I better not find crumbs in our bed, Samuel Wilson," Tony warned. Sam sat cross-legged on one of the beds—the one nearest to the door—and popped another Funyun in his mouth.
"Gotta feed those bugs," Sam grinned. Tony leaned against the wall across the room, fiddling with his burner phone. He mock-laughed and glanced towards the other bed, where Bucky was curled up in a new pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt with "America: Love it or Leave it" printed across the front.
"I bet you guys think you're hilarious," Steve said when Sam and Tony came out of the pharmacy with that shirt, snickering like a couple of kids. They got it for Steve but he refused to wear it, so it was passed on to Bucky who didn't seem to care one way or the other. He still hadn't said a word, hadn't resisted or tried to run away.
Steve was pissed. He wished Bucky would show a little initiative, a little autonomy, something to show that he was still human. Well, of course. Of course he was human, but he wasn't Bucky. Whatever Hydra had been doing to his mind, S.H.I.E.L.D cranked it to 11. Hydra made him feel nothing. S.H.I.E.L.D made him into nothing. Wiped him clean, a blank slate to impress upon, though they never got the chance.
So it was up to Steve to mold him, build him up and shape him back into the person he used to be. And that's why Steve was shut away in the tiny motel bathroom, arms quaking against the counter as tears dropped into the sink. The shower was running even though he'd dried and dressed ten minutes ago. It was loud. It masked his sniveling—and how dare he! How dare he feel sorry for himself, he thought, when his best friend was the one suffering such catastrophic injustice.
"Pull it together, Rogers," he mouthed through clenched teeth, drying his tears on the ball of his fist. Sniffling back the snot, splashing cold water on his pink face. He combed his fingers through his hair. Presentable, convincing. Totally wasn't crying, just wet from the shower.
Steve left the bathroom convinced that the others would be staring at him and asking questions, but in reality no one even paid him a glance. Bucky was asleep, Tony playing with his phone, and Sam fixated on some public access channel. Steve looked down at Bucky, lying atop the covers.
"Bucky," Steve whispered, giving his metal shoulder a nudge. The brunet snapped awake, eyes darting around the room before settling vacuously on Steve. "Are you cold?"
The stare became slightly more focused, like Bucky had heard Steve and acknowledged that he was indeed a thing that existed, but he still didn't respond. Not a word, not even a nod or a shake of the head.
"You, uh…Want a blanket?"
No response.
Steve, being Steve, always knew best. So he made the decision for Bucky and pulled the blankets out from under him, then draped them over his body. Tony glanced up from his phone, Sam watching from the corner of his eye.
"There." The blond man forced a little grin. "That's better, isn't it?"
Bucky lied there in silent acceptance for about ten seconds. His brow was furrowed slightly as if contemplating the situation.
Then he decided this was bullshit and kicked the blanket to the floor. He made a decision. He practiced autonomy. He rolled over and closed his eyes again.
Steve's brows nearly rocketed off his face. His eyes flashed over to Sam, then Tony, confirming that they all witnessed the same thing. He couldn't fight the smile pulling at his lips when he said, "I guess he didn't want it."
xXxXxXx
Sleeping here was rough. Tony finished off his flask and was snoring within the hour, Sam lying beside him with a pillow hugged over his head. Steve settled next to Bucky, eyes wide open and flinching at every sound he heard. Voices from the adjacent room, engines starting, shifts in the old building.
S.H.I.E.L.D agents could crash in any second and Bucky was in no condition to defend himself. Not that Captain America, Iron Man, and Falcon wouldn't put up a fight, but they were missing most of their gear. Even Tony was selective about the electronics he carried. Everything had a damn tracking chip these days; if not from S.H.I.E.L.D or Hydra, then the government or a mega-corporation.
Steve slept fitfully, plagued by nightmares and waking every hour to darkness and Tony's snoring. Each time, he checked Bucky only to find him still in a deep sleep with his arms hugged to his chest like a corpse in rigor mortis, hair hanging over his face. It drove Steve crazy, he hated that mop. At some point, he groggily, absently, brushed Bucky's hair back before he fell asleep. Bucky didn't wake.
xXxXxXx