Chapter Text
For a minute you actually think you’re being rescued.
He’s not in uniform, but he’s not dressed like the Hydra guards either. He knows your name. He rips the restraints off the table, shifting to move by your head.
“Bucky,” he says, and he sounds like he’s trying not to cry. You can’t make out his face too well, because it’s dark and something funny is going on with your head, but you’re pretty sure you don’t know him. “I thought you were dead,” he whispers.
“Who,” you rasp. “Who the hell are you.”
“Steve,” the strange man says. “I – Buck, it’s Steve.”
You have, after all, been raving. They speak English. It’s only natural that they would have assumed. They don’t know it started out as a joke about skinned knees and split lips. How could they? All they know is the name you call when it hurts too much.
“Nice try, you Nazi piece of shit.” You’re reeling but you shove him away as hard as you can. “Steve’s my wife.”
“I know, Buck. There was an experiment. It’s a long story, I can tell you later but first, we need to go. Now.”
“I’m not buying it, fucker. Get your hands off me.”
“Bucky, listen, please.” You try to focus on him, but you can’t get yours eyes to work right. He looks desperate from what you can make out. “That’s gunfire, do you hear? I gotta get you outta here, lemme help you.”
“I’ll take my chances, thanks. Fuck off.” But as you move to slide off the table, your legs go out and you land hard on one knee. Pain shoots through your kneecap, up your leg and all the way to behind your eyeball. He rushes over and tries to help, but you fight him off. Weakly, so weak.
“Cut it out. I’m not going nowhere with you.”
He sighs, and looks at you mournfully. Then raising the thing he’s got on his arm (is that a shield?!) he starts to arch it down towards you. You try to throw a hand up to protect yourself, but your body just won’t listen, and the last thing you see before he brings it down onto your head is a pair of very familiar blue eyes.
Then you drift, and all you know is darkness.
______________________________________________________________
Maybe you should back up a bit.
The first time you see her she’s getting her ass handed to her by a couple of the neighborhood bullies, on her side in a puddle, curled around something you can’t make out. They’re putting their boots to her, and you don’t know if she even is a she, but what you do know is that she’s skin and bones and the breaths she’s taking, the broken struggle for air, do not sound good. She won’t survive if you just walk away and let this carry on.
You charge in, fists flying. You catch the biggest one with an uppercut to the jaw and he drops like a sack of potatoes.
The second one you kick in the stomach, hard, let him have a taste of his own medicine, and the third takes off running. You help the runt on the ground to her feet.
“Thanks,” she wheezes, holding the thing that you can now see is a wailing, squirming kitten, to her flat bony chest.
“That yours?” You nod to it, and she shakes her head.
“Just some kitten. These clods here were tryna kill it. Couldn’t let that happen.” And yep, that voice definitely belongs to a girl, but none you ever seen before. Her hair is short and she’s wearing trousers. And suspenders. Good Lord. You shake your head.
“C’mon, my place ain’t far. We need to get those ribs looked at.”
“Ma’s a nurse,” she says, and okay, but is she even gonna make it back to her place in this shape?
“Lemme walk ya.” She looks at you real suspicious, but you figure she must see something she likes because after a moment her expression clears, and she nods. She makes her way down the alley, glancing back at the boys on the ground. They won’t be going nowhere for a while.
She crosses the street, limping, shrugs off the arm you offer, because you may be poor but your mother raised you right and taught you how to treat a dame. Girl. Whatever. Either way the girl doesn’t go for it. Once she makes it over to the other side, she half kneels, half crumples to the curb, and you rush over, but she’s just letting the kitten down to dash to the stoop of the nearest brownstone where its anxious momma cat is pacing. Swell.
“Good deed done. Now lets get you patched up. Your breathing’s all off.”
“Asthma. Stella.” She holds out a hand, but you shake it, rather than kiss it. She seems to like that.
“James. Call me Bucky. You don’t look like no Stella.”
“Oh yeah?” She’s wearing a small smile. You grin back.
“Yeah. Knobby knees. No curves. Split lip. You look like a boy. You look like a Steve.”
She smirks. “Yeah. Well. I’ll grow curves. You’ll be stuck looking like a punk though, wager.”
Oh yeah, you think. I’m keeping this one.