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6

At first he doesn't dream. He is trapped in his own mind, unable to even perceive the outside world except through sound. He would panic if his heart could pound, if his throat could constrict. But he can't.

Then something shifts. The woman—Natasha, Agent Romanoff, you know her—is running through lists of words and some of them hurt but one slides into place like a key in a lock and when it turns Bucky falls from purgatory into sleep.

The nightmares do not follow any kind of order and some of them might be memories but they are all twisted and broken things, dragging themselves across his mind like nails on a chalkboard and he can't turn away—

He wakes when the robots cut his throat. His skin is slick with sweat, the sheets tangled around his arms and legs. The room is dark but light seeps in from around the curtains.

A nightmare. There are no robots in his room. They were simply his imagination.

One breath. Two.

There are no robots.

Once Bucky knows he is not about to panic, he looks around again and spots Steve.

Steve is asleep in the desk chair, head tilted back at an awkward angle and legs splayed out. He looks moments away from falling.

Seeing him so calm lets Bucky (he's Bucky now, he has to be) breathe easier, and he does one more check of the room in case he missed anything. But it's still his room, with no changes except a new grate by the vent. Bucky can't be sure, but it appears sturdier than the one that the robots had broken.

(There are no robots. There are no more robots.)

James is leaning against the wall by the door, his arms crossed and his eyes closed. Bucky can't tell whether he is asleep or simply resting.

For a second, another image superimposes itself over James, and Bucky catches a glimpse of long hair, a mask—

Bucky shifts and James's head shoots up. No mask, just grit and tired eyes. "Good, you're awake."

Bucky doesn't want to risk waking Steve yet. He uses sign language to ask what happened. James grins, but the expression droops at the corners.

"You know, I can practically read your mind. Sign language isn't necessary."

Bucky frowns.

"Right, sorry." He takes a deep breath. "HYDRA robots. Recorded messages with sleeper codes. We didn't break the programming, just…resisted it, for a while. Agent Romanoff apparently found the counter codes while we were semiconscious."

Resisted? Bucky doesn't want to go back to what happened but he does, gingerly poking around.

Something in the back of his mind stirs, turning over and flipping Bucky's insides. He pulls back and grits his teeth against the sudden nausea rolling through him.

James looks as uncomfortable as Bucky feels. "We got a little desperate. And we—we couldn't hold it back anymore."

It.

"The Soldier," James says. He pauses, grasping for the right words. "It's—he's—not really? A separate personality. We're a prism with many sides, and he's just another face. A dangerous face. The HYDRA robots, the sleeper codes—they drew him out, overwhelming us."

"Us?" Bucky signs. "Then who are we?"

James shrugs. "James Buchanan Barnes. What's left of him, anyway."

"And the Soldier?"

"I don't even know. It's more complicated than I can explain. But you can feel him, right? I think—I think it'll get better for us, over time. The Soldier'll always be there, but he…he won't be HYDRA's. And maybe he'll lose shape and form, and we can be whole again."

Whole. Not fractured into Bucky and James and the Soldier.

Sure.

Bucky lies back down. His body is heavy, and his mind is tired. Steve is still sleeping, and Bucky does not want to wake him. He hasn't missed the dark circles under Steve's eyes, the signs of his worry bleeding through the super soldier serum.

You can't fool me, pal.

When he wakes up the second time, Steve is still asleep. But he has changed position, and his soft snores bounce around the room. The curtains are slightly parted, and evening light spills through the gap. Bucky can see a sketchbook haphazardly placed on Steve's lap, the pencil already on the floor.

Bucky feels the need to grab the pencil and put it on the desk.

A memory—

"Jeez, Stevie, if you keep losin' these pencils you're never gonna finish your drawings."

"Oh shut up. I don't lose 'em that much."

Biting words, but the memory is soft. Bucky holds it until it fades, but he knows he will be able to recall it if necessary. Something about the words is off; Steve, losing pencils? Maybe now, but then…Then was the Depression, and the Soldier had been briefed on that and Bucky had lived it, and sure it was nothing but impressions and pieces but there was no way Steve would really lose anything like a pencil.

"He usually had at least one pencil and small notebook on him at all times," James offered. "Even when he got into a fight. They, uh. Didn't last long."

Bucky can see the result of that as picture-flashes of a tiny Steve flutter through his mind's eye. But why would Steve fight?

"Why do you think? Some punk'd be causin' trouble, and Steve could never let it slide."

"I had him on the ropes."

"Sure you did, pal. Let's get you patched up."

Bucky silently slides out of bed, his bare feet resting on the soft carpet floor. Steve hasn't stirred, and Bucky wonders just how tired he really is.

The pencil is returned to its rightful place on the desk, and, when the sketchbook inevitably begins to slide off Steve's legs, Bucky catches it too.

He can't help looking at what is drawn on the page.

The half-finished drawing in pencil is and isn't of Bucky; he is in the picture, turned away from Steve but with most of his form hidden by sheets and hair. But the focus is on the room around Bucky, with the most attention devoted to the bedside table and the precarious stack of books atop it.

Some of those he hasn't read yet. Bucky makes a mental note to do that, and then wonders whether it would be ethical to page through Steve's drawings.

"Go for it."

Bucky suspects James is a bad influence.

He goes for it.

Most of the drawings are landscapes or cartoons. There is Wilson, flying among what appear to be seagulls, looking oddly pleased. The two agents are sketched as well, poised to fight indistinct foes. Even Banner and Stark are drawn seated across from each other at a small table, discussing something with avid interest while their drinks are left neglected.

When Bucky gets to the end, he looks up.

Steve is awake and staring. Bucky immediately freezes, guilt crashing through him even though Steve doesn't look mad.

"Sorry—" Bucky starts.

"No, it's fine," Steve says. "I don't mind you paging through them. You used to do that, sometimes."

Even though Steve is relaxed and his voice gentle, Bucky hands the notebook back.

"What happened?" Bucky asks.

Steve takes his time flipping the sketchbook closed. Bucky knows he's delaying but doesn't want to push the issue. He doesn't fidget or twitch; his body knows how to be still even when his mind won't stop moving.

Eventually, Steve sighs. "HYDRA bots broke in, tracking you through a tracer in your arm. One released a localized EMP burst that knocked out most of the tower's systems. A second burst took out the power and defenses."

"The robots should've been fried too," Bucky says, recalling how the metal arm had regained functionality very quickly. Steve shrugs.

"Tony was saying something about quick restarts. Most of it went over my head. But they were designed to be hit by an EMP and recover quickly. When they reached you—I'm guessing, by the way, we don't know exactly what happened—they must have hit you with prerecorded sleeper codes."

"Prerecorded?" Bucky echoes. Steve nods.

"No one was controlling those robots, Buck. HYDRA doesn't know you're here. Those bots were old, at least a year. They ran on sensors. Tony traced the signal to a HYDRA base we hit months ago—it was as empty as the day we left it. The guys originally monitoring those robots weren't around to see them find you."

The news should be comforting. It isn't. Bucky's skin still crawls at the memory of those things advancing on him, their sick metal legs extending like claws.

He shakes his head a little and tries to focus.

"If they were tracking me, then how—"

He can't finish the question. If that, then how had—how would they find him? If no one was controlling the robots, how would HYDRA know when the bots actually ran into Bucky?

"You had a syringe," Steve said, his voice dropping with anger. "With you, I mean. When we found you. It belonged to HYDRA and contained nanites. Designed to act as millions of tiny trackers. Almost impossible to remove. Suspended in a heavy sedative solution."

Bucky shudders, drawing away from Steve even though he's the warmest thing in the room. He goes to his bed with its familiar sheets and mattress still warm from his body heat.

He would never have been able to get away. There would have been no escape, no place to hide, no identity to assume. It would have been over.

He shudders again and then rallies. That hadn't happened. He was still free. Safe. As safe as he could be.

Only when he nods does Steve continue.

"Tony's secured that syringe. HYDRA won't be getting it back. The robots have been melted down." Steve pauses, his discomfort clear. Bucky narrows his eyes. Steve isn't saying something.

"Steve."

Bucky remembers most of what happened, but there are fuzzy spots.

"Steve, did I hurt anyone."

"What? No, no. No, you didn't. Just the robots."

Bucky can remember voices talking over him when he was semiconscious. "Stark wanted to lock me up."

"He was worried," Steve says.

"About me hurting him. Hurting the people he cares about."

Steve's lips thin. "Buck. It wasn't you."

"That's why he was worried."

Steve can't hold eye contact and he casts his gaze to the ceiling. But something else is bothering him other than Bucky's head problems.

"Steve."

"Yeah?"

"What aren't you telling me?"

Is that—guilt? Bucky knows something is wrong and while he trusts Steve he knows Steve can't be everywhere and maybe someone else—

"Bucky! It's okay. I'm right here."

He's shaking. Bucky feels pressure on his chest but as Steve hovers it gradually dissipates until Bucky can breathe again. He grits his teeth and glares at Steve.

"What. Happened?"

For a second Steve just stares, and for that second Bucky thinks he isn't going to say at all, that he's going to be like them and say it isn't important, that what happens to his body when he's unconscious isn't his problem. The metal arm is shifting, the plates adjusting with dangerous clicks—

"Tony removed the trackers in your arm when you were unconscious," Steve says. "I was there the whole time. He didn't do anything except remove the trackers, and he put the arm back together exactly as it was. He never even touched the rest of you, I swear."

Bucky blinks. That's it? He looks down at the Arm. It appears normal. He flexes it; it functions normally. There is no sign of tampering. The internals are wired to his nervous system; if there was something wrong, he would know.

"Can't have a weapon that doesn't recognize damage."

"I'm sorry, Buck," Steve is saying. "I know we should've asked, but Tony said it was better to do it as soon as possible in case there were more bots."

Bucky returns his gaze to Steve, who is looking at him so earnestly it hurts.

But.

"That's not all of it."

Steve's shoulders tense. Not enough for regular eyes to notice, but Bucky frowns.

"Tony had to do some scans," Steve says. "Of your arm. To find the trackers."

Bucky expects that. Better than the scientist poking around in there. The gears in the metal arm whir and Bucky nods for Steve to continue. But Steve is no longer just uncomfortable; something else weighs on his shoulders. Anger?

Had Bucky done something?

"Steve said you didn't hurt anyone," James says, but even he sounds unsure.

Maybe Bucky had destroyed something. Steve had not said anything about hurting anything. Just anyone.

The need to know has his heart pounding. Is Steve mad? Disappointed?

Steve sighs and when his eyes meet Bucky's they are a mix of anger and frustration, but none of it is directed at Bucky.

"Buck, those scans—what they picked up—how the hell are you still standing?"

He's sitting, but the tension drains from Bucky so quickly it leaves him giddy. The sound that busts from him isn't quite a laugh and Steve's expression switches to startled.

The metal arm arm. Steve is worried about the goddamn metal arm. Bucky didn't hurt anyone. Steve is just—

He's just—

It's a metal fucking arm, Rogers.

Bucky didn't hurt anyone. He feels lightheaded and he knows there is something wrong with that feeling, that he shouldn't be this relieved that Steve isn't mad at him, but right now he doesn't care.

"Luck," Bucky manages, and his lips have twisted into something that definitely isn't a smile. He sees Steve wince and guilt overtakes the groundless mirth, leaving Bucky quiet. He focuses on his breathing for a minute until his heart is no longer racing and his thoughts aren't running rampant.

Even James is staring. Steve looks conflicted. Bucky can't meet his eyes.

"Sorry," Bucky says.

"It was my fault. A dumb question." Steve takes a deep breath. "I just—does it hurt? Your body?"

Pain levels? Bucky does a quick check. Nothing unusual.

"No," he says.

Steve looks like he doesn't believe Bucky, but Bucky knows that there is nothing he can say that will truly convince him.

After a moment that stretches on too long, Steve gets to his feet.

"Is there anything you need, Buck?"

Bucky licks his lips. "Water? Please," he adds quickly.

"Be back in a minute."

It's a drawn-out bad moment, getting dressed, getting into the elevator, making his way to the common room, and opening himself to the scrutiny of the others.

The others he hadn't even recognized as the Soldier.

But as Bucky finds his spot on the couch and opens his book, no one says a word. Even with Stark and Banner in the room, no chatter fills the air. The silence makes Bucky's skin itch.

Then Banner mentions something about magnetic field potential to Stark, and their low voices soon fill the vacant spaces in the room.

Bucky looks at the words on the page and doesn't read any of them.

But he comes back down the next day, and he manages a few pages. A few more after that.

He never stays when the two agents come in. As he gets in the elevator, James confronts him.

"C'mon, pal, you can do better."

Bucky's mind is twisting in on itself and he can only shake his head.

"I know the Soldier is still there. But if you don't get used to it you're never gonna do it."

Bucky shakes his head again. He knows—knows to the pit of his stomach—that pushing things will not help. Not yet, maybe not ever. And he looks at James and shakes his head, and it's final. He will do this his way: slowly.

When he tries to sleep he hears metal in the vents, but when he looks, there is nothing there.

There is nothing there.

Steve has to go on missions, of course. Bucky watches him wind himself up into a frenzy for over a week after the attack until Steve can't even sit down. Stark is no help; once he fixes the problems in the Tower he sets to exacting revenge on HYDRA for presuming to think that the Tower was a viable target, and he enlists Steve's help to track down HYDRA because Steve knows their patterns. But Stark avoids talking to Bucky.

Which is understandable.

So Steve paces and Bucky gets a headache watching him. When Steve hears that Stark has passed him up for another mission (the target of which Steve helped to locate) his patience snaps. Bucky is there when it happens; they are in the shooting range, competing to see who can hit the most bull's-eyes. So far, Bucky is winning.

It's calming, somehow. To fire a gun and watch the bullet hit its target—reassuring. He can do this. He can defend himself. He will not be made a victim again. He will not allow himself to be made a victim again.

When he hits the mark with the last bullet in his magazine, Bucky sets down the gun and glances at Steve. The competition has pushed the restless light in Steve's eyes aside but Bucky knows it will be back in minutes.

"You're incredible, Buck," Steve says, setting his own weapon down. Bucky hit the mark every time. Steve was wide fewer than six times.

Bucky nods, though his muscles crawl. Of course he's incredible. He was made to be incredible. Molded.

Steve stretches, his gaze wandering around the range. "I think I'm gonna go talk to Tony."

Curiosity—still new to Bucky, still strange in how he doesn't have to ignore it anymore or risk punishment—unfurls in Bucky's head. "About what?"

"Uh…" Steve looks conflicted for a moment, and then he meets Bucky's gaze. "HYDRA activity around the city. Tony's been going after them more since the…robot attack. He's a little stung."

Stung.

"Do you—y'know, wanna come with?"

Come with. As in, assume a more active role against HYDRA.

"Your current existence is an act against HYDRA," James points out. "Why not spit in their eye a little more? Especially after that goddamn robot attack. You can prove that you aren't helpless. So why not?"

Because part of Bucky's mind has gone to static because the Soldier resists the idea because Bucky might have to leave the tower because he can't handle that yet.

James sighs. "I know pushing it with the whole interaction thing was too much. But here—please, just try. You can always leave if it's too much."

By now Steve is visibly fidgeting. Bucky would be too, if stillness was not fused to his bones. He wonders if his anger at HYDRA—if the blind rage he knows is there—will surface. It hasn't yet, maybe because Bucky hasn't thought about it or because there hasn't been an opportunity. But his mind is piecing itself together still, and anger will always tear apart instead of heal.

Unless HYDRA taught him that. Unless that was a way for them to control him—

"Yeah, I'll go," Bucky says before his thoughts can drag him away.

"Excuse me, Captain Rogers." The voice of JARVIS fills the room. "But Mr. Stark is currently away."

"Away?" Steve repeats, his eyes fixing on a random point on the wall. Bucky watches Steve for lack of a better place to focus his eyes. "Where?"

"Mr. Stark, Agents Romanoff and Barton, Mr. Wilson, and Thor are currently away on a mission in the Alps. They are expected back here in eleven hours and forty-two minutes."

Bucky sees Steve go rigid and stays silent as the anger bleeds into his shoulders. He remembers Steve talking about going on a mission mere days ago. Remembers his pacing, his mounting frustration at nothing.

"How long ago did they leave?" Steve asks, his words clipped and angry. "And why didn't they tell me?"

"They left this morning, at 4:45. Mr. Stark ordered me not to inform you of the mission until after it took place during the planning stages."

Bucky watches Steve cycle through several stages of emotion until he finally reaches up with both hands and scrubs his hair. "God, Tony. Why are you doing this?"

Steve continues to vent for three minutes until he realizes that Bucky is still there.

He tries at a smile and doesn't quite make it. "Guess we'll have to postpone the meeting, Buck."

Bucky isn't as disappointed as Steve is. "Yeah."

"Eloquent as always," James says.

Bucky isn't around when Steve confronts Tony. He supposes that's fair; this is between Steve and Tony. But he knows that part of this is also about him. Steve has been spending all of his time with Bucky. Bucky hasn't missed the concerned glances from the other Avengers. He knows that if he confronts Steve, Steve won't understand. He'll think Bucky is trying to push him away because he doesn't want Steve to be so close. The jerk never thinks of himself.

Bucky is around when Steve comes back. Steve's steps are heavy on the floor and when he walks in the tension his shoulders carry fills the room and Bucky sets down his book to free up his hand because—

"Do you want anything?" Steve asks after working his jaw. "I'm going to the store."

Bucky can see the unspoken invitation. Come with me. And then he can guess what Stark had said to Steve; the genius had called Steve out on his…what, obsession? Dependence? Something with Bucky. And he had done it in a way that set off every defense mechanism Steve had.

"Should we go with him?" James asks. His young face is pulled into a puzzled expression. "I mean, he looks…mad."

Bucky can't figure out all the emotions simmering beneath the surface of Steve's skin and that makes static in his head. He meets Steve's eyes anyway.

"I don't want anything."

Something in Steve's eyes flickers, and he deflates a little. But he doesn't appear sad or disappointed, just tired. And angry.

"I'll—see you in a bit."

He leaves. Bucky's eyes skate over to the counter in their kitchen, where he can see Steve's wallet. He glances at James, who shrugs, and then gets up. In a few seconds he has the wallet in his hands. There is a picture inside—a snapshot of a young man facing the camera, the photo in black and white. A grin on the man's dusty face and the butt of a gun just barely visible in the lower corner. His eyes are impossibly bright.

Bucky's world inverts and he falls.

It's dark and muggy and Bucky can hear Dugan's snoring from two tents away. He rolls over and closes his eyes, wondering how he can hear the consistent ngh-snght sound over the thunder of far-off artillery.

He does try to sleep. Rolling over and over, adjusting his position and even turning completely around. Nothing helps. Every time he starts to drift off, phantom pains rip through his body and he can feel his skin burning away, hear his screams rending the air. He has to rub his wrists to make sure that there are no straps holding them down, has to look around to make sure there are no men with cold eyes and colder hands nearby.

"Shit," Bucky mutters, and sits up. He can't take this. Tomorrow they march again for another mission and Steve's gonna throw himself in the way of too many fucking bullets and Bucky's gonna be way too fucking far away to do anything if some fucking HYDRA goon slips past Steve's guard because yeah he's good but Bucky knows Steve and a sniper can't do anything after the fact and he can't fucking help anyone at all if he's fucking tired from not fucking sleeping.

Bucky gets up, the one-man tent forcing him into an awkward crouch as he grabs his pack.

For a long, long time he crouches there, pack in one hand but his eyes on the entrance. He could go, right now. Head over to Steve's tent. Wake the big lug up. Watch the sleep drain from his eyes and tell him—

Tell him that he isn't okay, that his bones are shattered and don't fit right under his skin, that his lungs are too big and his head too small for his brain. That the world isn't the same as it was before Azzano, that Bucky is fucking scared of what they've done to him, that it's eating him up inside and nothing helps, not the card games nor the shared meals nor the miles and miles of travel because the world is coming through with shades of gray that weren't there before.

But he doesn't. He just shuffles through the pack, pulls out a worn notebook and pencil he'd lifted from the command tent however many weeks ago. Flips to the newest page, writes I can't and stops, because there's so much that could come after that and he just crosses it out and writes I'm scared instead because that is easier.

He's scared, there are people dying in the distance, and Dugan is still fucking snoring.

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