{ 12. I Used to Be }

Sam yawned as he rolled over in the bed, reaching for his phone in the side table. The green light was blinking. He had a text from Steve, dated about an hour ago. The screen burned his eyes in the darkness as he read,

"went for a jog on south trail, back in 1 hour."

A jog? Sam questioned if that was necessary. Then he figured if they were at risk of being jumped by agents at any time, they should probably stay in shape through this whole endeavor. He wondered if he should throw on his shorts and head out too. Just as he set the phone down, he heard a door burst open in the other room, slamming against the door stopper.

Thump, thump, thump. Three strides later and Steve was at his doorway, sweaty and harried. "We have to go," he panted. Sam quickly sat up and furrowed his brow.

"What? Why?"

"I blew it."

"What do you mean you 'blew it'?"

I mean Bucky blew it, Steve considered, but didn't say because that wasn't fair. He realized Bucky was only trying to help and pointing fingers wouldn't solve anything.

Instead, Steve explained, "We got recognized by civilians, kind of. They think we're…Uh, costume people. We've pulled too much attention, we just need to go." His voice woke Tony, who sat up and turned to him with hair sticking every which way and a displeased look on his face.

"Are you fucking serious, Rogers?" he groaned. Steve sighed,

"I'm sorry. It just is what it is at this point. Come on, start packing." With that, he pushed away from the doorframe and moved into the living room. Tony and Sam slid out of bed and followed him.

"It's not like I dropped five hundred bucks on this room or anything, and we don't even get twenty-four hours in it…" muttered Tony. He picked up the champagne bottle and stuffed it in his bag.

Steve began packing his toiletries and called back from the bathroom, "No one forced you to spend that kind of money, Stark!"

"No one forced me to risk my ass for your buddy, either!" Tony called back. Steve felt a rush of heat to his face and he looked out to the sitting room. Tony was looking back at him. Sam observed their silent stare-down and decided he wasn't going to let it escalate.

"This is a real bad time to tear eachother apart," Sam told them cautiously. "Let it go, Guys. Breathe it out, walk it off. We gotta pack." They knew he was right. But that didn't quell Tony's hangover or Steve's anger. A harsh breath gusted through Steve's nostrils. He rolled his shoulders to loosen up as he disappeared back into the bathroom. It was all he could do. If he opened his mouth, he knew only regret would come out.

Tony grumbled some curses under his breath and packed his belongings away with more force than necessary. "I'm exhausted," he said to no one in particular. Being in the same room, Sam and Bucky became his audience. "I'm dehydrated. I'm hungover. I'm homesick…" he continued, shaking his head, "I miss my fucking girlfriend. I miss fucking my girlfriend. And I'm tired of getting fucked by S.H.I.E.L.D! This is bullshit! Should've just stayed home."

"You're doing a noble thing, Tony," Sam calmly assured him. He tipped his head toward the bathroom. "He appreciates it more than he lets on. We'll talk about it when we get some food in us. Get our attitudes straightened out first."

Tony muttered more vitriol under his breath, ranting it out to himself in the meantime.

xXxXxX

The crew was miles down the road by noon. Sam was at the wheel once more, mistrusting the others to hold their tempers and not drive them off the side of the mountain. An oppressive silence loomed over them since they left the lodge, the tension like a guitar string ready to snap. No one was ready to talk, so they stuffed their mouths with more food instead.

Bucky prepared his own nutrient-sludge in the back of the van, smashing up bananas with a plastic spoon in a paper bowl. He uncapped a water bottle with his teeth, spilling a little as the van hit a pot-hole. He splashed some into the bowl, added protein powder, and stirred it all together.

Tony watched him silently, leaning against the opposite wall. Bucky tried not to look back at him. He could feel the scowl on Tony's face, felt his anger and loathing towards him. Bucky wasn't totally sure why Tony was angry with him. He had ideas, but nothing concrete.

Bucky had committed so many infractions since his rescue, his previous handlers would have strung him upside-down and whipped him to ribbons by now. Tony was angry, but he wasn't punishing him. Not yet. Steve was mad at Tony for being mad at Bucky. Bucky hoped Steve would protect him when that punishment came. But if he didn't, he would understand because he'd been a real shit and he deserved it.

Nothing in Bucky's world made sense anymore. Everything used to be so simple, back when the rules were black and white and pain was order and order was pain. Back when he had only one handler at a time. They were cruel to him, but the rules were always clear. Bucky couldn't remember their names. He remembered their faces, he thought, and when they flashed in his mind he felt cold and numb.

Steve was sitting in the passenger seat, arms crossed tightly over his chest as he stared out the windshield. Bucky wished he was back here with him instead of Tony. Every time he dared to glance up, he saw Tony glaring back at him and he quickly turned back to his food.

He heard Tony take a deep breath, mouth hanging open as if he were going to speak. Bucky was shocked when he opted not to, closing his mouth for once and shaking his head a little as he turned to frown at the window. Wasn't worth it. A minute passed. Bucky absently fingered the laces on his shoe, eyes fixated on the floor. His voice was small and quiet when he muttered, "Sorry."

Tony nearly gave himself whiplash when he faced the brunet again, eyebrows sitting high on his forehead. Sam adjusted the rear-view mirror and Steve around twisted in his seat. All eyes on Bucky once more. His gaze stayed on his lap, sullen face peeking through a window of dark hair. Tony wasn't saying anything back, so he continued, "Sorry."

Wait. No. He already said that—that wasn't what he meant to say. Bucky felt his throat tighten. There were all these words in his head and that's where they remained. Stuck, because his body and mind were betraying him and he swore he wasn't always like this.

"I used to be warm like Sam and a wise guy like you," Bucky didn't say.

"I used to be a good person like Steve. I don't know what's wrong with me and I don't want to be like this," Bucky didn't say.

"I didn't used to be like this. I don't know why I'm like this. I'm not trying to be like this," Bucky didn't say. Instead, he simply muttered a third choked and tearful, "Sorry!" Because it was all his traitorous tongue would allow.

Some weapon he was. Bucky buried his head between his knees and his body rattled as he fought the tears. This didn't used to be so hard, back when he didn't feel. He didn't used to cry—crying was human. Emotions were bullshit.

Tony watched him weep for a moment, sharing flabbergasted glances with Sam's mirror and Steve. His expression begged for help, some kind of solution, but they had none. With a theatric sigh, Tony turned back to Bucky and mumbled, "Alright. What are you snottin' about now, Barnes?"

Bucky couldn't answer. Tony gave an order, demanded an answer and he needed to follow orders but his brain, his body, his tongue just wouldn't—

"Fuck!" Bucky exclaimed through the wetness in his throat. It was a croak, a growl, barely a word. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" The curses were forced through gnashed teeth and he pounded his fist against his skull with each one, until Steve was climbing between the front seats into the back to stop him.

Steve caught his friend's wrist in his iron grip, pulled it down to his side. "Bucky, don't!" He scolded, and Bucky only sobbed in response. Tears dropped onto the rug, mucus oozing from his nostrils. There was so much he wanted to say, so many violent and terrible things inside him that he just couldn't express because—fuck him, that's why.

These things were rotting away, bloating his corpse. Bucky felt like he was going to explode.

And so, he did. A feral screech erupted from his throat as he launched himself backwards, throwing his shoulder into the side window. The glass divided into thousands of tiny facets but did not break, not until he drew his fist back and sent it through in one solid punch. Shards and blood glittered against Bucky's knuckles.

Steve threw himself in front of Tony, shielding him from the stray glass. "Steve, get him—!" Sam barked, but the brunet's screaming and sobbing drowned him out almost completely. The right window was gone and cold Colorado air was blowing in. Bucky grasped the window's edge and pulled himself through, watching the asphalt zip by at 60 miles per hour.

He had an imagination now. He could imagine jumping out, face-planting on the road and it would scrape off his inhuman face, crush his skull and smear his damaged, defective brain down the highway where it couldn't trouble him or anyone else anymore. He didn't get that far though—barely got his hips out the window before Steve grabbed him by his coat and yanked him back in the van.

Bucky fell against Steve and in an instant, found himself trapped between two huge arms. The brunet wailed, wriggled, kicked everything around him with all his might. His foot left a dent in the side of the interior, cracking the plastic. He felt the van swerve and slow to a stop on the shoulder, heard traffic whizzing by on the left.

"Hey, hey! Stop!" Steve's voice boomed over his noise, so loud and commanding that it shook Bucky back to the present. Bucky's sobs quieted to shuddering, ragged breaths and all but his heaving chest stilled. Hair was stuck to his damp face, wide eyes staring through the locks like a caged animal.

He saw a flash of red and looked down, saw the nails on his trembling hand digging deep into Steve's arm. Blood from his knuckles smearing on Steve's skin. The blond man's heart was thundering against his back. "W-what the hell do you think you're doing…?" Steve asked. The question was quiet and breathless.

Bucky didn't have time to even think about answering before the door in front of him slid open and there was Sam, standing there with fear and anger and disbelief all over his face.

Bucky's blood ran cold. His face flushed paper-white. Here it comes—that punishment for all the infractions he'd racked up. The look on Sam's face was a punishment on its own. Hopefully they'd just kill him quickly and end his suffering, not like his last handlers who only threatened to kill him and never followed through.

"What the fuck is his problem?!" Tony growled from outside Bucky's vision. He was still trapped in Steve's arms, his embrace as oppressive as it was oddly comforting. Bucky wasn't struggling anymore. He decided that if they were going to kill him, there was no better place to die.

Tony continued sharply, "If he's going to act like a maniac, then we can't keep going like this! He's going to kill someone!"

"No, he won't. He won't," Steve forced an even tone through grit teeth, stroking Bucky's hair like a house pet. Bucky closed his eyes and waited for the impact of the whip, the club, the taser, whatever their weapon of choice.

"Do we need to put a straight-jacket on him?" Tony pressed, gesturing towards Sam. "Look what he did to my fucking door!"

"Tony!" Steve's volume was getting higher. The tone was a warning. Tony couldn't stop the spewing stream of vitriol regardless.

"What if he does that to one of us? Freaks out and punches our heads off our damn shoulders?"

"Tony, shut up!" Steve shouted back.

Tony shouted louder, "You can't keep ignoring this, Rogers! He's getting worse! If he doesn't get us caught, then he's going to get us killed—and it's the same outcome as far as I'm concerned!" Steve pressed his nose and mouth against the top of Bucky's head, inhaling and exhaling sharply. His arms were trembling with fury, still locked around his friend.

Sam slid into the vehicle and kneeled by Bucky's legs. "Wilson," began Tony. "You're the loony-expert here. What's your threat level on Barnes?"

Because I'm starting to think Natasha was right, he wanted to say, and miraculously held his tongue because he knew Steve could throw a punch even more devastating than Bucky's.

Drumming his fingertips on his thighs, Sam chewed his lip in thought. After a moment, he reached over and unzipped his duffel bag. The others watched in silent tension as he dug through, pulling out a spiral-bound notebook and a pen. Then he offered them to Bucky and said quietly, "Let him go, Steve."

Steve looked reluctant and he hesitated, but slowly his muscles relaxed and he pulled his arms away. Bucky still didn't move, lying back against his chest and regarding Sam with an exhausted look. He reached out and took the items being offered to him, setting them in his lap.

"Can you show me what's going on with you, Bucky? What's got you so upset right now?" queried Sam. Behind Steve, Tony slumped against the wall and dragged a hand over his face. Bucky took in a deep breath and flipped to a random page in the notebook. He tapped the pen against the paper in thought. Blood smeared on the page.

The thing making him upset wasn't quite tangible. It wasn't operations or electroshocks or anything he could depict in a literal sense. To explain this, Bucky had to use his imagination; that new and terrifying thing that almost killed him just now when he imagined what a relief death would be.

Suicide hadn't been an option in the past—it was arrogant for an asset to think it had any control over its life. Whether it lived or died, that was dictated by its handler.

The pen scratched against the page, making slightly squiggled lines as Bucky's hand quivered. He drew an oval—a face, with two dots for eyes and a triangle-nose. Lines extended down from its scalp, long strands of hair. Rather than a mouth, he made furious scribbles like a vortex, escaping the confines of the oval.

There was still space left on the page, so beside the face Bucky drew a boxy shape with wheels. Inside the box were three smiling figures. Outside the box was another figure, one-armed and lying sideways, but in place of its head were more scribbles, dark and violent, spreading from the figure's shoulders to the box.

In the last third of the page, Bucky drew the one-armed figure again, this time with all of its limbs detached from its torso. The long-haired, decapitated head was smiling.

He placed the pen on top of the notebook and handed it all back to Sam. Sam sat down with his legs crossed, resting his elbow on his knee as he examined the drawings. His face went through a roulette of subtle expressions. Finally, he lowered the notebook and looked at Bucky.

"You're frustrated because you're having trouble communicating?" he asked, though it sounded less like a question and more like a statement. Bucky nodded, rapid and urgent. Sam glanced back down at the page, then continued, "Do you feel like you'd rather be dead than alive?"

Bucky nodded again and hummed. Tapping his finger on the second drawing, Sam's expression was grave as he asked, "Do you really think we'd be smiling like this if you were dead?"

No hesitation from Bucky as he nodded a third time. He suddenly felt Steve swallow hard against his back, chest sinking and rising. A little smile spread across Sam's lips, forced and plastic with sad eyes above. "Well, we wouldn't be. Not at all," he said. "Why do you think we're cramped together in this van, eating bad food, breaking the law, and sleeping in nasty motels? We're doing this for you, Bucky, because we care about you."

Bucky felt his lungs go still. His eyes darted around at the floor, trying to make sense of all this. They were on the run from hostiles. He didn't know exactly why and it wasn't his place as an asset to know things like why. But Steve, Sam, and Tony had rescued him—stole him—from his last handlers and perhaps those handlers were trying to steal him back.

That was his why. So all this trouble, all this extra maintenance and relocating—it was on behalf of their asset, to keep him out of the enemy's hands. Bucky felt like the worst piece of shit in the world. He'd been making this so difficult for them. It used to be easy to behave, but now he was crying and laughing and thinking and feeling and all that shit was just getting in the way.

He must be malfunctioning. Bucky wished they'd scrap him already, but if what Sam said was true, then he was still valuable enough to protect. They wanted him to be a person and he must have been doing a good job at that. Maybe that's why they hadn't punished him. Maybe all these outbursts and disgusting feelings made him more of a person.

"I swear to God, Barnes," said Tony, "if you off yourself after we went through all this bullshit trying to keep you alive, I'm going to lose it. You won't be around to see it, but I will lose it."

Steve sighed. That was the most heartfelt statement they were going to get from Mr. Stark.

Steve grabbed Bucky's flesh shoulder and gave it a little shake as he said, "I need you to stay with us. I swear, it won't always be this hard. We're not the only ones on your side. Tony's girlfriend and all her lawyers, his friend Rhodes, our friend Natasha, they have your back too. A lot of people are fighting for your freedom because they believe you're worth it. When the fight is over, you'll never be treated like a prisoner again."

After a pause, he added, "Don't take my best friend from me, Buck."

xXxXxXx

Tony had duct-tape in his luggage, which he claimed could fix anything. It didn't exactly fix the broken window, but it did hold the plastic bag in place tightly enough to keep the rain out. The sky was pouring buckets now as they crossed the border into Utah. "I thought this van couldn't look any sketchier," Sam stated from the passenger seat. "I was so wrong…"

"Couldn't just open the door, huh, Barnes? Had to be all dramatic about it and smash my nice window, didn't ya?" said Tony. He was at the wheel now, glancing at Bucky and Steve through the rear-view mirror. The incident was miles behind them now and the tension eased once they got some food and coffee in them.

Steve still wasn't convinced they were in the clear. Not with Bucky or with anything else. That familiar feeling of dread was back and he felt the hairs on neck stand on end, how his shoulders bunched up and just wouldn't settle. He sat beside Bucky, looming over him as the brunet lay against his bag with the shield inside.

His eyes weren't quite closed, but Bucky didn't look asleep either. His stare was as exhausted and vacuous as the day of his rescue, aimed toward the ceiling of the van. Tony's teasing didn't get a reaction. Steve was pretty sure Bucky hadn't heard him at all.

Sam suggested that driving around at night in a beat-up clunker wasn't the best idea, especially in this small town with nosy old people about. Just before sundown, they found a suitable motel and opted for a single room for security. If Bucky was this unstable, Steve figured it was best to have more eyes on him (and hands, if it came to that).

The room was standard, a clone of all the other cheap places they had stayed. The only difference was two complimentary mints on the pillows of each bed. Tony cried "Saw 'em first!" as he snatched them both. Sam rolled his eyes, dropping the last of their bags on the floor as Steve brought the crate of bananas inside. With the window busted out, they didn't chance anything.

Tony popped the mints into his mouth and dropped the shiny green foils on the bed, sitting on the mattress with his laptop. Sam settled in beside him and picked up the foil wrappers. Bucky had been silent and sullen since he made an attempt on his life, which was to be expected. Now the brunet was standing with his forehead pressed against the wall as if he'd fallen asleep there.

Sam knew he had to keep him engaged. Keep him from regressing into the mindset he used to cope with S.H.I.E.L.D's abuse, keep him from becoming a machine. So he straightened the foil between his fingers and said, "Hey, Bucky. You wanna do some arts and crafts with me?"

Bucky didn't react. Off in his own world, Sam figured, so he let out a sharp whistle and called louder, "Barnes!" The brunet's shoulders jolted and he raised his head, turning to face the other man. He looked confused, slightly panicked. Sam offered a smile and told him, "C'mere for a sec. I'll show you how to make a crane."

Looking a bit disoriented, Bucky obeyed and sat on the bed next to Sam. Steve watched from the other bed, just out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to play with his phone. Folding and twisting the foil, Sam narrated his process as he manipulated it into the shape of a bird. Bucky watched closely. His brow was furrowed in concentration but his eyes seemed lost, blinking a little too frequently. Trying desperately to stay in the present, to push the garbled noise of his troubles away.

Once finished, Sam offered the second foil to Bucky and asked him to repeat what he'd just done. Tony glanced away from his laptop and spoke over the mints, "Gonna be a bitch with one hand. That's not even fair."

"He can do it," Sam assured him. That was the point, to keep him focused and tear his mind away from his pain. "We keep underestimating him and he keeps surprising us, doesn't he?"

"For better or worse," muttered Tony.

Bucky looked down at the foil wrapper—the mission—and carefully began to fold it. His fingers were clumsy in ways he thought they didn't used to be and he eventually slipped off his shoe and sock, using his toes to hold sections of the foil. He remembered the steps, up until the point when the crane wasn't looking right and he realized he'd made a mistake.

Bucky unfolded, refolded. Still wrong. He felt his heart begin to hammer in his chest and dared to glance up at Sam with round, fearful eyes. Sam just smiled as he said, "Almost got it. Just fold this piece here…" and demonstrated the next step. Bucky didn't know what the purpose of this training was.

An elegant ballroom flashed in his mind. Just bits and pieces—the smell of perfume, the red velvet curtains, the ivory piano keys under his gloved fingertips. Bucky recalled another lesson from the past that he didn't see the significance of at the time. Someone taught him to play the piano. They too wanted him to disguise himself as a person, at least until he slipped the poison into the wine.

Or maybe that was just his imagination. It was getting hard to tell. His mind was full of unnecessary garbage-thoughts now that he had things like desires. They only caused him conflict, to contradict himself and make a mess of things. Like wanting to protect Steve, yet also wanting to die. What kind of bullshit was that?

Bucky folded each edge of the foil, using the combined efforts of his hand and feet and accepting nothing less than perfection. It was slow, tedious work, but he was good at that kind of thing. He was patient. Unlike Steve, who he knew was watching him even though Steve was pretending not to. That's why he had to be especially precise.

Steve couldn't shake that primal, oppressive feeling of dread that had overcome him hours ago. After a while, he got up and inspected the room for bugs—the electronic kind—under the guise of cleaning so Sam wouldn't bark at him for "tweeking". Tony already scanned the room with his gadget and though it didn't detect anything, Steve just wasn't convinced.

A half-hour passed before Bucky was satisfied with his crane. Sam's looked crooked and sloppy by comparison. "Don't you get a wish or something if you make a thousand of those things?" queried Tony.

Sam chuckled, "At his rate, we'll be wishing for our youth back." Then he turned to Bucky and said, "But you still did it against the odds and that's damn impressive. I think you should get a wish anyway. What do you want, Bucky?"

Tony blurted, "I wish Sam would get me another one of those iced coffees."

"Yeah, too bad it ain't your wish," Sam replied flatly. Wishes, wants, desires—those things only got Bucky in trouble. But he knew exactly what he wanted the moment he was asked. He set the crane aside and pointed to Steve, who was standing by the window and pretending not to peer through the little gap in the blinds.

Steve's eyes flashed towards him and his blond eyebrows shot up. "Me? You want me?" he stammered a little, wearing a smile like a mask.

I wish you could understand.

Bucky inhaled, trembling a little when he forced the word out: "S-stay. Stay with me." The frustration was creeping back in. Why was it so fucking hard to express these things? Steve straightened his back a little and his expression straightened too.

He said, "I'm not going anywhere. We're gonna see this whole thing through together." His throat bobbed slightly. Bucky had more to say but the words felt like a mouthful of water sloshing on his tongue.

"I hurt," he managed, gesturing to his chest and then his head.

Steve crossed the room and sandwiched Bucky between Sam and himself. The mattress sunk under his weight and pulled Bucky towards him. The brunet didn't resist, leaning his head against his friend's shoulder. Steve sucked in a deep breath, let it out slow.

"I know you do," he said solemnly. "I'm really sorry." Bucky felt a heavy arm rest on his back. If it weren't for Steve, Tony and Sam wouldn't have put up with his shit for this long. Tony would have left him on the side of the road days ago or surrendered him to the hostiles, he was positive. If Steve left him, he would have no one.

Bucky didn't feel worthy.

xXxXxXx