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4
He could beat Steve to the gym but chooses to wait instead, finding a convenient excuse to delay in his shoes, which he ties four times—even pretending to get the lace caught in the finger plates on the metal hand—before he hears Steve heading for the elevator. Bucky catches the next ride down, and walks in right as Steve is beginning to do easy stretches to get his blood flowing.
Bucky follows suit silently, noting that no one else is around.
"Where are the others?" he asks while he and Steve find protective equipment. Steve reaches for a head guard but Bucky backpedals so fast he nearly trips and Steve leaves it be. Bucky repeats his question while his mind quiets down.
"I dunno. JARVIS?"
"Agents Barton and Romanoff, in the company of Thor and Mr. Stark, have gone to aid in disaster relief in the flood zones of Louisiana. A local villain upset the water balance before being taken down."
"I could have helped," Steve says.
"Mr. Stark suggested that it would be best if you remained here, Captain Rogers."
Bucky sees Steve stiffen slightly, watches the line between his eyebrows deepen.
"Tony..." Steve then sighs but lets the matter go. "I'll talk with him later. Ready, Buck?"
Bucky adjusts the gloves on his hands, inwardly questioning the point of having one on his left. Then he figures it is more for Steve's benefit than his, and nods.
They step onto the mat and Steve leads, beginning with a few soft jabs that Bucky easily blocks and turns aside. Striking back at Steve feels wrong on a level Bucky can't articulate, so for a while he settles into the rhythm of blocking and evading. They pick up the pace, but Steve caps it right as Bucky begins to sweat. From there Bucky's muscle memory takes over and before he realizes just what he's doing, he's returning some of Steve's punches with his own. None of them are vicious; they merely test Steve's defenses, force him to move around.
They step around each other to an unheard beat and Steve starts throwing in easy kicks, so Bucky reciprocates. None of their blows break through the other person's guard, but that isn't the point. As Bucky finds the best rhythm he realizes that this is familiar, that when he looks at Steve there is a ghostly image of a younger Captain America superimposed over him that fades when Steve suddenly switches tactics.
When Steve finally calls it quits, Bucky is sweating and breathing hard. Steve is too, and the grin he directs at Bucky is shockingly bright.
"Thanks, Buck. It's just not the same on my own."
"This is where you say you're welcome," James says, his teenage features pulled into a smile of their own.
"'s not a problem," Bucky says.
James shrugs. "Close enough."
"Say, Bucky," Steve says suddenly, "would you mind watching me fight Tony's bots? I feel like I'm missing a step here and there, but I don't know for sure."
"Aw, he wants to spend more time with you."
Bucky doesn't need James to state the obvious. He nods, then pauses. "I need to get water first."
Steve blinks, and then jumps into motion, quickly striding over to the wall. "One second. I know there's a—ah, here it is." A moment later, he tosses a bottle of water Bucky's way while holding onto one of his own. Behind him, the door of the cooler built into the wall swings shut with a soft whoosh.
The training room is on a different part of the floor than the gym, and Bucky has finished half his water by the time they make it there.
"There's an observation deck," Steve explains from the floor, pointing to the small bay of windows set higher in the walls. "JARVIS usually helps out, but…"
Bucky understands when Steve shrugs. A computer can do a lot, but another person can be better. Bucky suspects that Steve is not as trusting of technology as Stark and the rest.
"He did go through a war," James points out.
"I'll watch," Bucky says.
It is only when Bucky is behind the glass, his eyes on Steve, that a sense of familiarity fills his mind. Except now the feeling is frosty, and Bucky shudders with the effort of keeping the sudden tide of memories from overwhelming him. They used to watch him like this. Observe his every move, faceless behind their two-way mirrors and masks, dispassionate while he screamed—
"Ready?" Steve calls, his voice coming through the speakers. Bucky blinks and shakes his head a little. He is not theirs anymore; he is in the tower, he is here with Steve, and he volunteered for this. This was his decision. His choice.
"Ready," Bucky replies.
"JARVIS, start my program."
"Initiating Captain Rogers training sequence level two," JARVIS says.
Five robots enter the room through lifts in the floor. They are humanoid, with energy constructs attached to their mechanical limbs. Bucky's eyes flick to the ceiling, finding the projectors. He has no doubt that the bullets and lasers the robots fire are anything more than holograms. His heart clenches anyway when Steve dives into the fray and leaves his left side open again—
"Duck, Steve, jeez," James mutters, his young features pressed up against the windows. "Turn—no, other way. Don't just—go for—on your left—"
While James keeps up the commentary, Bucky follows Steve's earlier instructions and looks for any faults, obvious or otherwise, in Steve's technique. Steve's style is much like street fighting; it is all about finishing the opponent quickly. There is little fancy flair added. All movement is purposeful.
"Of course it's like that," James mumbles. "The guy practically taught himself. Army training didn't do much for a guy like him, and then they put him on a costume tour for weeks. Any skills he's got were picked up."
Picked up and enhanced by the serum. Steve's moves, while not strictly professional, are more than enough to handle the bots even with the guns and laser swords.
"Well?" Rogers asks when he gets his breath back. He is looking up at the glass, and Bucky realizes that he expects the feedback now.
"Your left side is better," Bucky reports, "but your weight shifts too much to one side when you block on the left."
He can see Steve's lips turn down with disappointment. "Ah. Anything else?"
Bucky lists off a couple more observations, but Steve's technique is fairly sound.
"If it wasn't, he wouldn't have lasted against you on the helicarrier," James says. Bucky stiffens and whirls, but James has disappeared. A nascent headache throbs behind his right eye but he tries to ignore it.
"Would you like to try this, Buck?" Rogers asks. It's—strange. Very strange, to have Steve speaking to him like that. He sounds polite and cautious and strange.
James is not there anymore, but Bucky had been making decisions long before he became aware of the hallucination.
"Maybe later." No.
Steve just shrugs. "All right. JARVIS?"
"Beginning level three."
Bucky finds a chair and settles in to watch.
Free time is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it is something he has not had for a long time. He can spend it as he pleases, under his own discretion. On the other, it is something he has grown unaccustomed to. If he's not careful, his mind wanders.
Fortunately he has books, access to the Internet, and a never-ending stream of interesting events occurring as a result of the other occupants in the building to keep him occupied.
For instance, he can hear distant shouting from the elevator shaft as Thor chases after Barton for a reason Bucky hadn't caught. Some of the things Barton yelps put the lines in Bucky's book to shame, and he listens until the voices fade from his hearing, covered up by the general noises of the common room on Steve's floor and the building itself.
"Those guys are weird," James says. The hallucination had reappeared several hours after Steve's training session without any indication that he had been gone at all.
"So are you," Bucky replies without turning his attention from the pages. Silence descends for several minutes.
And then, every so often, JARVIS will interrupt with news updates or interesting tidbits of information, something that Bucky had asked the AI to do once he realized that it sometimes helped to draw him out of his head. But this time is different than his normal routine.
"Excuse me, Sergeant. I have a query."
Bucky exchanges a look with James, who has one eyebrow raised and subsequently shrugs.
"Yeah?"
"On several occasions my sensors have picked up your speech patterns, but at those times you are speaking to an empty room. I have no record of behavior such as this in your files. Are you addressing me during these times?"
James snorts. "Found out already?"
Bucky shifts, unsure how to defend himself to the AI. Unsure whether he should try, but something tells him that James should remain his secret. Stark undoubtedly knows everything JARVIS does, and Bucky does not want him to know about James.
He is a soldier and a spy. He can lie.
"It helps me focus," Bucky says. "My mind wanders. Speaking helps bring it back."
True. Somewhat.
"I see. Mr. Stark exhibits similar actions. I now understand that this behavior can take various shapes. My apologies for disturbing you, Sergeant."
"It's fine."
The AI really is incredible. It learns in real time. Bucky would be intimidated if—
If what? He scratches at the memory and is rewarded by a flash of HYDRA briefings, his handlers updating him on new technology so their pet monster could be as deadly as possible.
He jerks away from those memories and returns his attention to the book. If he focuses hard enough on the words, he can ignore the fact that his right hand is shaking.
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