"Impostor"

"What the hell, Phil?" Steve exclaimed, and he crouched down over Bucky. "What'd you do that for? He didn't attack you first!"

Phil cleared his throat. "That's not Sergeant Barnes, I think you'll find, Captain Rogers. Take a closer look."

"I think I know my best…" But Steve trailed off, and poked Bucky's cheek. "No, it's gotta be him. I'm sure it is."

"Checked his eyes?"

Steve pried Bucky's eyelids open. "They look exactly the same. Not even contact lenses. This is Bucky, Phil. I dunno why you thought different."

"Have you checked the arm?" Phil said, fidgeting as he tried to hide his desperation.

"Looks just like his."

"Yes, but technology can be copied. And there's plastic surgery. And… you're sure they're not contact lenses? Maybe HYDRA… or someone picked a guy off the streets with the right eyes and build, dressed him up, brainwashed him. He could be an excellent actor."

"I guess his most recent scars would tell us whether it's really him or not," Clint said, eyeing Phil suspiciously. "Let's take him to medical and checked him out there."

Phil couldn't stop shuffling in place. He knew that Bucky didn't heal as quickly as, for example, Steve, but he healed fairly rapidly nonetheless. Still, bruises like the ones Phil had left on him didn't clear up within half a day.

They rested the comatose man on a hospital bed, and began to strip him down. Phil shook his head with every inch of unblemished pale skin revealed. There were scars, placed roughly in accordance with Bucky's own reminders of old injuries, because the serum he'd received wasn't the same as his friend's. (Phil suspected he preferred it that way.) But they weren't the same lines of raised tissue he'd traced during long nights, with his fingers, his nose, his tongue…

He blushed. "Those aren't exactly the places. Close, but… but that one…" He gestured to one near Bucky's left nipple. "It's nearly half an inch off."

"Well, you're creepily over-observant," Tony remarked. Phil scowled at him.

"There are… other differences," he said. "And yes, of course I'm observant. I'm a SHIELD agent; I'm trained to notice these things and remember them."

"Uh-huh."

"What other differences?" Steve asked.

"What?"

"You said there were other differences. What are they?"

"Um…" Phil floundered for an explanation, but they all looked equally doubtful, and he knew that they'd soon suspect him of being the impostor. With a sigh, he unbuckled the belt, unzipped the pants, and drew them down. He took a peek beneath the underpants, then let the elastic snap back into place. "D-definitely not him."

In the ensuing silence, he was wondering whether it was possible to sink into the floor when someone burst into the room. It was Bucky, wearing someone else's clothes – probably whoever he knocked out on the way out of confinement – and he stared at the unconscious body on the bed.

"Christ," he said. "That's uncanny. Uh…" He gave them a small wave. "I'm me. That's… not me."

"Yeah, Phil told us," Clint said. "After knocking him out."

"Huh." Bucky grinned at Phil. "Good to know."

"We didn't know how he could possibly tell the difference when… when even I was fooled," Steve said, glancing at Phil.

Bucky crossed the room to get a closer look. "The scars aren't all in the right place."

"So we heard," Tony said.

"Oh. And…" Bucky tugged down the neck of the shirt he was wearing, even though the love bites were visible over the collar. "He left these on me last night. I'll bet he was lookin' for `em when the impostor got here, an' that's how he knew."

"Y-yes," Phil said.

"And by looking at his dick," Clint added. Bucky's eyes narrowed, and Phil hurried to explain.

"Just enough to know it… it wasn't yours," he said.

"I should hope so," Bucky mumbled.

"I'm well acquainted with—"

"I know." Bucky's grimace devolved into a sly grin. "Bein' kidnapped is a…" He looked Phil over, smile widening. "Dirty business. I need to get cleaned up. Wanna get reacquainted?"

Phil's cheeks were still burning, but he nodded his head jerkily, and followed Bucky out of medical without a backwards glance. Otherwise, he might've combusted on the spot.

This was requested by an anonymous person on the Phucky Archive:

"Pre-established relationship, where Bucky is replaced by an impostor, but Phil figures it out immediately because certain /parts/ aren't quite the same, and Phil awkwardly tries to explain to the team how he knew."

Yep. I do my best to please. :D

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