Notes:
TW: Blood, injuries, PTSD, fighting.
Bucky watched the jeep pull into the parking lot. Mud splattered the sides raised body and the tires where thick and deeply treaded. A vehicle like that, had it been clean and chrome spit-shined would have conveyed pretention and a desire to appear tough. Knowing Stone, this was a practical choice, useful, pragmatic. She wasn't posturing. Bucky wondered where the mud came from.
Stone looked up at the complex and he flinched back, despite knowing that the mirrored window wouldn't reveal him to her. Sam walked out to greet her and they disappeared from view.
Bucky couldn't help but watch through the window, leaving only to use the bathroom and grab a snack before settling back on the window ledge with a book. More than four hours later, Stone exited, waved Sam away and hopped up into the jeep. She spent a minute looking down at her phone and Bucky wondered why until the phone in his pocket chimed.
unknown number: Good climb, thanks. SM
"Busy day?" Sam asked Bucky over dinner.
"No."
"Should have stopped by the gym instead of sulking in your room. Especially if you're trying to convince Stone that you're not actually a vampire."
Bucky continued to chew mechanically, ignoring Sam's teasing grin and Steve's newly piqued interest.
"Stone?" Steve asked.
"Bucky's gym-buddy."
"Gym buddy?" Steve asked with rising curiosity.
Bucky glared at Sam.
"Oh, was she a secret?" Sam winced apologetically, unable to hide his smile. "Oops."
Steve looked from Sam to Bucky, and raised one of his perfectly patient eyebrows.
Bucky sighed. Steve wasn't going to let it go, even if it took him days to wear through Bucky's defenses, and for once, Bucky didn't feel like fighting to the last inch. "Stone owns the gym I go to at night." The blond eyebrow hiked a fraction higher. "I… I picked the lock, she pulled a gun on me, figured out who I was and then gave me the keycode for the back door."
"She's former pararescue," Sam added victoriously. "So, I invited her over to belay for me on the climbing wall today, give me a few pointers."
"Another troubled vet to pull under your wing Sam?" Steve asked, eyes glittering with amusement.
"She'd be in good company." Sam answered and then taking another bite, he redirected the conversation to a training simulation Steve had been working on. "Stark worked up a new VR scenario for you, I thought maybe we could take a swing at it together in the morning?"
"0-800, I'll be there." Steve answered almost mechanically and the conversation faded as Sam and Bucky traded worried looks.
Stone wasn't the only one who had Bucky concerned. He and Steve had histories, too much history for any single individual to properly comprehend. Bucky's mind had been stretched to breaking point and been broken, and stretched again to remember. He had been forced to face every waking nightmare and the reality of the time he'd lived even before the war, Steve hadn't.
Bucky's mind was a battle ground, trenches, machine guns and landmines had destroyed the surface of a once fertile field, full of promise and potential. But every bomb had been set off, every ounce of destruction had been wrung from the artillery, and now he was slowly, painstakingly filling in the holes, leveling pits, with Dr. Kilne's help he was uncovering the bodies, and giving them the respectful burials they deserved. It was still a bleak landscape, but there was evidence of new growth at the base of the blasted oak trees.
Steve on the other hand, his battlefield had lain untouched for decades, the blast craters became watering holes, the trenches half filled with washed out soil. He compartmentalized everything he experienced, refused to talk about it when the event was ended. Everywhere he stepped a trench might collapse the ground beneath his feet, and live ordnance and landmines lay in wait under the overgrown grass. Steve was more present than Bucky ever felt, and Bucky had originally resented it, but he could see now, his best friend was stuck in the present moment and couldn't take a single step either forward or back.
Military order tethered Steve and he clung to it.
07:00, stretches. 07:30, breakfast. 08:00, training. 11:30, shower. 12:00, lunch. After lunch Steve scheduled various tasks, discussing strategy and tech with Stark, meetings, public services, preparation and planning for natural disaster recovery simulations and so on until supper, at which point he mandated rest for himself, reading, listening to music or sketching.
Every day that he was in the compound. Sleep, rinse and repeat. Aside from appointments with Dr. Kilne, Bucky did the same for the better part of a week following Stone's visit, shadowing his captain and watching for the strain Steve tried so hard to hide.
Until the thin strand of order keeping Steve tethered to reality snapped all at once.
08:34,
"Steve. Steve! It's not real, its not- Steve!" Bucky shouted, trying to get his attention. But a choked sob escaped the helmet that fed Steve a fully realized simulation, and he turned towards a figure no one but he could see, swinging madly, losing control and growling like a wild animal. Not meeting the obstacle he'd expected, Steve advanced and Bucky stepped between him and the massive beam in the center of the training arena. "Steve, its just a sim, it's not real, you've got to stop!" Steve wasn't listening so Bucky spoke at the ceiling instead. "Friday, get Stark down here."
"Mr. Stark is in-"
"I don't care, just get him here, now!" Bucky shouted trying to restrain Steve and struggling as fist after fist landed. Steve was in a rage now, literally blind, but still falling back on the lethal instinct honed over the last century. He was aiming for organs and when he was blocked, Steve slammed his fist into Bucky's neck hard enough to bring tears to Bucky's eyes. Still, he resisted, not willing to let Steve injure himself trying to bring down the roof on his own head.
Tony's voice preceded the man through the arena's entrance, "what is so darned important that I had to-"
Words failed him as he registered the scene before him in its entirety. Steve, pummeling Bucky to the floor, landing blow after blow with guttural screams of rage as the huge screen on the far wall projected the image of what Steve had seen in the headset. Tony Stark saw a representation of himself just on the edge of Steve's peripheral, a pool of blood under him, a spear of alien metal impaling his sparking suit.
"Friday, cut the helmet feed."
"I've already done that Mr. Stark; Captain Rogers appears to be receiving visuals from an unknown source."
Tony raised a wrist and used it to send a small pulsar to Steve's curved back, stepping back as the man turned on him. "Steve, its me."
What might have happened if Bucky hadn't managed to get to his feet and pull the headset off in time, no one could have said with any certainty. Even with the visual impediment removed it took another tiny repulsar blast to his gut to knock some clarity into the clouded blue eyes.
"Tony?" Steve breathed, gasped and collapsed to his knees. "Is this real? Are you-"
Tony stepped forward quickly, smacking Steve across the side of his face. "Real and in the flesh, are you back with us?"
"I, yeah, I… I don't…" Steve stuttered, shaking his head and catching sight of Bucky who stood to his left, leaning heavily against the pillar, spitting blood on the floor and gasping for air as more blood trickled from his nose. His flesh hand cradled his chest. "Did I- Buck."
"I'm fine." Bucky said stonily.
"You look like you were run over by a herd of mastodons." Tony said with his trademark smirk. It didn't reach his worried eyes. "You know, nature's take on tanks, long tusks, extinct?"
Steve shook off the attempt at levity and curled in on himself, burying his face in his arms.
"Hey, Steve, I'm Okay, you're okay, Bucky's-"
"I'm good. Really." Bucky cut in.
"Bucky's a bit delusional, but he'll be fine." Tony added with a forced chuckle, pressing his palm to the super soldiers heaving shoulder to anchor him.
"I, I messed up Tony." Steve said with a shudder.
"Not your fault Cap-" Tony started to say but was cut off.
"Siberia." Steve said, looking up at the screen where Tony's bloody body lay to where Bucky stood, dripping. "I couldn't let you kill him, but I… It shouldn't have happened like that. I-"
"No Steve. We messed up. You, and I… did things we shouldn't have done, let other people get in our heads. You were right, about some things, and I was right about everything." Tony trailed off as Steve slumped under his hand. Shaking his head he continued, "I was so afraid of what was coming, so afraid of what it might cost… the vision Wanda put in my head, I saw you dead Steve, just like that." He pointed at the screen. "With your last breath you asked me why I didn't do more to stop it. And… like every other arrogant SOB I turned it into a prophecy."
"You never said anything," Steve said softly, "I didn't know."
"Because I didn't want you to." Tony answered. "I didn't want anyone to know, nightmares, panic attacks, for years after New York… I thought I was the only one. I didn't want you to think I was cracking."
Steve finally turned to look back at him. "How'd you make them stop?"
"I, I uh, didn't." Tony looked momentarily embarrassed but stood his ground. "Hey, Bucky?"
"Yeah?" Bucky responded, surprised to be included at this stage of the conversation.
"How're the nightmares?"
Bucky had to spit out a mouthful of blood before he could answer. "Terrible."
Steve looked from one to the other with slow blinking eyes, as though seeing them with new eyes as Stark nodded in understanding and Bucky dipped his head in answer.
"And the flashbacks? You get them?"
"All the time." Bucky said.
"What about therapy? You said it was helping?" Steve asked, looking as though he'd been kicked.
"It is. It… It's a long process." Bucky said, grimacing as he took a few steps toward them. "Rob says it takes a lot longer to heal a broken bone than the time it took to break it. And we broke a lot more than bones."
"Rob?"
"Dr. Kilne."
Tony offered Steve a hand up. "What'dya say you and I go talk to the Doc?" Steve shrugged noncommittally but accepted Tony's hand and rose to his feet. "But we got to get you cleaned up first. Bucky, you need help getting to medical?"
"I don't need-"
"Shut up Buck," Tony interrupted him, "Steve and I go to the brain doctor, you go to medical and let them help you, it's only fair."
"Fine."
Bucky grunted, flinching slightly as Tony stepped in under his left arm and gestured for him to lean as much as he needed to while still bracing his ribs with his free arm.
"Excellent! Friday, can you contact…"
The discomfort of such close contact with Tony was overshadowed by Bucky's awareness of Steve walking close behind them. Steve needed to see this. Steve needed to know they were- all three of them -still just men. That it was okay to let people help. And in service to Steve, Bucky could swallow his pride. And if the pair of former enemies found some shared understanding in doing so, well, they weren't going to overthink a good thing.
For Steve.
Braced and bandaged, with super soldier strength pain meds to take away the sting and a series of taped gashes that would ordinarily be stitched up, Bucky was sitting on the edge of the med bed waiting for the head nurse to discharge him when a pair of footsteps heralded the arrival of visitors.
"He's just in there. I'll leave you to it."
"Thanks Sam," a woman said. One set of footsteps faded away and then she came around the corner, saw Bucky and stood still in the doorway. "Hi."
Notes:
A little deeper look into Steve and Bucky's different experiences and ways of trying to cope with the past.
I would love to hear *all* the feedback on this one, it was exciting to write and hopefully exciting to read as well!