DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Marvel Cinematic Universe or any of the characters contained therein.
WORD COUNT: 2258
He was tired. So tired of it all. He'd been running for so long, a part of him wanted to just lie down and never wake up.
He was tired of constantly looking over his shoulder.
He was tired of constantly waking up screaming, plagued by horrible visions of bloody deaths of people he didn't even know.
He was tired of constantly having to fight for his life every time his old handlers caught up to him.
And, most of all, he was tired of not knowing who he was, or why he kept having flashes of a life that wasn't his.
But right now, he was just tired. He'd been awake for so long, he couldn't even remember when he'd last slept.
It had started with a nightmare about a man crawling out of a wrecked car, looking up at him and calling him by that name. Barnes. The man from the river had called him that name. James Buchanan Barnes. The man from the car had known him in that past life. And he'd punched that man in the face, so hard that it had shattered his nose and sent the shards of bone tumbling into his brain.
As he hurled into the sink of his derelict apartment, he got flashes of another, younger man, grinning at him from under a raised welding mask. His facial structure was very similar to the man from the car, and he had the distinct feeling that they were, in fact, the same man. And that that man had been his friend.
He heaved some more over the sink, even if he had nothing left in his stomach to throw up.
The following night, he'd just been about to drift off to sleep when he heard the sound of someone attempting to pick the lock on his door. He'd grabbed his go-bag and made his escape via the rickety fire escape, only to have to duck in and out of alleys and crowded streets when he was spotted and pursued.
He got himself onto a last-minute bus ride out of the city, and didn't dare fall asleep for a second.
Now he was ready to fall asleep on his feet; he just needed a safe place to do so. And somehow, either HYDRA had tracked him to the motel he was checking out, or they'd just happened to be there for other reasons. Either way, they were now chasing him through more back alleys, all the way to the warehouse district of this new city.
And right into a trap.
Steve was tired.
He was tired of flying all over the world on nothing more than rumours and whispers, the ever-changing time zones wreaking havoc on his sleep cycle.
He was tired of coming back home to the pitying looks people thought he didn't notice.
Mostly, he was tired of constantly finding himself having just missed his best friend after he left. Every single lead they got either turned out to be a dead end or arrived too late for he and Sam (and sometimes Natasha) to successfully act on it.
So when their latest lead brought them to Chicago, Steve wasn't expecting this to be any different. Except, as the Quinjet neared the city limits, they picked up police radio chatter of various explosions in the warehouse district, and he knew, knew that Bucky was there.
Nat punched the throttle and send them speeding in the right direction, shouting that she was going to open the back hatch and drop them off once they found the action.
Sure enough, when Steve jumped out of the plane – Sam grabbing onto his arm and cursing because Steve had ignored the parachutes again – he was greeted with the sight of a couple dozen men in unmarked black tac gear converging on a single man taking cover behind a huge stack of crates. Steve lost visual before reaching the ground, but he was pretty sure he saw a flash of metal where the man's left hand should be. Either that was a gun, or it was Bucky's left hand. (Of course, there was an excellent chance that it was both.)
When Steve's boots hit the ground, he was already holding up his shield to deflect the bullets, because there was no way that two men jumping out of a jet flying that low was going to go unnoticed, even in the middle of that mess. He didn't hesitate to bring down the bastards attacking his best friend with brute force, smashing them in the face with his shield and his fists and boots and their own bullets, rebounding off his shield. Above his head, Natasha was firing the Quinjet's weapons, and Sam was swooping down and knocking HYDRA agents (he presumed they were HYDRA) off their feet.
Another loud explosion rocked the ground, and Steve saw one agent lower a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, clearly the culprit behind the huge stack of crates blowing up. And there were more sticking out of the back of one of their black SUVs.
Steve knew they had to take those out, next. "Widow!" he barked into his comm, "The SUV to my ten o'clock! It's full of ammo that needs to be taken out of play!"
"On it."
Nat's short response was soon followed by the Quinjet raining bullets down on the SUV, and Steve quickly dove for cover as the vehicle exploded spectacularly, sending metal shrapnel everywhere. He and Sam quickly reported that they were unscathed, but the same could not be said for the HYDRA agents. Many of them were lying dead or badly wounded on the ground.
Then he saw Bucky. He up on another stack of crates, was fighting off no less than six HYDRA agents, moving so quickly he was almost a blur, even to Steve's enhanced sight. Even as Steve watched, one agent went down to a knife embedded in his thigh, and another was violently thrown to the ground an impressive distance away.
Steve was about to run up and help him out, but then he caught something in the corner of his eye. Perched on top of a forklift, another HYDRA agent with another rocket launcher (probably removed from the SUV before Natasha blew it to hell) was taking aim. "Bucky, MOVE!"
He hurled the shield at the agent, but was too late to stop him from firing the launcher. Bucky had turned and bolted at Steve's shout, running along the length of crates, but the blast launched him off his feet, sending him tumbling through the air until he slammed into the closest warehouse, his chest hitting the sharp corner where the roof met the ceiling. Luckily, he was able to hang on instead of dropping to the ground below.
"Sam!"
"I got him!"
Sam didn't even need Steve to tell him; he was already swooping down and landing next to where Bucky was struggling to hang on. Steve was too busy fighting his way through the remaining agents to keep watching, but from the sounds of things, Sam was having a spot of difficulty with getting Bucky to accept his help. Eventually, he convinced him to take the former pararescuman's hand and allow himself to be pulled up, but there was a problem.
"Guys, he's hurt!" Sam reported, "He's having trouble breathing, and- shit, he just coughed up a little bit of blood. He's going to need med- Hey, don't look at me like that! This ain't something you can just walk off, Serum or no Serum!"
Steve used a third crate stack to launch himself up onto the roof, although his landing was much less damaging. Bucky was on his feet, clutching a wicked-looking combat knife in his left hand and pressing his right hand to his chest. The blade wasn't pointed at Sam, but that could change if Bucky thought Sam was getting to close (and judging by the fact that he hadn't taken a single step closer, Sam had noticed that, too). He was struggling to breathe, and as Steve watched, he coughed roughly, staining his lips red.
"Bucky."
Bucky flinched when he heard his name, and stared at Steve like a spooked animal about to bolt.
"Buck, do you know who I am?"
He got a jerky nod in response. "You- You're Steve. I… I read about you in a museum."
A museum. Did he visit the Smithsonian? "Do you remember who you are?"
Bucky's laboured breathing sped up. "I… I remember pieces. Small things. Did… were we on a train?"
Steve swallowed hard at the memory. "Yeah. Yeah, we were. It was the last time we saw each other, before this year."
"I fell-" Bucky coughed again, bringing up a fresh glob of blood.
"Buck, you need someone to look at that injury. I don't think you'll be able fix it on your own. You need a doctor."
Bucky raised his knife hesitantly, looking terrified at the mere mention of the word 'doctor'.
"I promise you, no one is going to hurt you where we're going. I won't let them. I swear it."
Bucky didn't look very convinced, but another cough brought him to his knees. "Ok- Okay."
Steve would probably never get used to the twenty-first century. Maybe it was just exclusive Stark technology, but he still found himself surprised at all the resources Tony could pack into a Quinjet. Somehow, he'd managed to include practically an entire infirmary in there, complete with a small X-ray machine!
As the auto-pilot brought them back to Stark Tower, Steve had to convince Bucky to peel off his jacket and then let Sam cut his ratty T-shirt off (he never took his eyes off the scissors). He nearly threw up when he saw the dark bruising on Bucky's chest. And again when he got a good look at the multiple layers of scarring on his body, especially where the metal shoulder met the flesh of his chest. Steve knew from personal experience that it took some real damage to leave a permanent scar on him; if Bucky had similar healing abilities, then he must have been hurt really badly.
Natasha manipulated the X-ray machine and took some shots of Bucky's torso. "He's got five broken ribs," she reported, "One's gone and pierced the lung. That's why he's been coughing up blood. This is going to need surgery."
Bucky paled at the mention of surgery. "N-n-no," he gasped weakly, "No doctors."
"This will kill you, Barnes," Nat said sternly, "It might take a while, but it will."
"The-they- They'll hurt me." The fear in his voice was completely genuine. Steve looked again at the arm, and wondered what other kinds of horrific things he'd experienced at the hands of HYDRA's doctors.
Bucky had already been skittish around doctors and scientists, after Steve had pulled him off Zola's operating table at Azzano. The man who'd once avidly followed all of Howard Stark's new innovations in the news had paled at the thought of entering his lab, at least until he finally stepped in and saw that it looked more like a workshop than anything else. And he'd been nervous whenever he had to go to the infirmary, always making sure he could see what the doctors were doing to him. God only knew how bad his fear had gotten since then.
"They're not going to hurt you, Buck," Steve insisted, drawing his attention back to him, "They aren't HYDRA doctors. They just want to help you, nothing more."
But his words didn't seem to be calming Bucky down. His obvious panic was clearly making breathing even more difficult for him, but he was still trying to sit up.
"You need to lie down," Nat scolded him, "You're going to make it worse!"
Bucky didn't seem to even hear her. He was in the middle of a full-blown panic attack, fighting to get up off the bench.
"Sam, we need to sedate him! Steve, hold him down!"
Steve hated to do it, but he didn't want Bucky to hurt himself. Bucky thrashed around in his grip, now screaming and sobbing, coughing up blood in between gasps. Natasha injected a syringe full of sedative into his right arm. "It's okay, Sergeant," she told him gently, "We're not going to hurt you. I know it doesn't feel like it yet, but you are safe with us." Her voice held a strange note of emotion that Steve couldn't place.
Bucky's sobs gradually slowed, even though his coughing grew worse. He didn't fall unconscious, however; Natasha hadn't given him enough to knock out a super-soldier, but it would keep him calm.
Steve practically cradled Bucky in his arms all the way back. "It's going to be okay, Buck," he told him, "Like Nat said, it may not feel that way now, but we're taking you someplace safe."
"Don't…" Bucky coughed some more, staining his lips and teeth with even more blood, "Don't want to run anymore…"
"You don't have to. I promise, no more running."
I will probably write a conclusion to this, separate from Whumptober, but I have three incomplete fics that I've put on hold for Whumptober, so those three will be taking priority. If you're interested, one is a 'Kamen Rider Drive' fic, one is for 'Legends of Tomorrow', and one is a LoT/'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' crossover.
Next chapter: "I can't walk." Expect angst.