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2025
“It’s too early for this shit,” Bucky complains, squinting in the morning sunlight at the seemingly abandoned farmhouse across the field. “I should still be in bed.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Sorry the aliens didn’t give us enough advance notice for you to get all the beauty sleep you need.” He hands Bucky an earpiece as Torres catches up to them.
“Aliens,” Bucky mutters. Really, he’s not sure how aliens fall under their jurisdiction at all. Sure, the location wasn’t that far from where Sam and Bucky live, and he and Sam had helped fight Thanos, but the three of them are just guys. Sam and Torres have wings and Bucky’s unnaturally strong, but the sort of cosmic energy signature they’re responding to really should be handled by people with more appropriate alien-fighting powers. He doesn’t have a good feeling about this.
Torres interrupts his thoughts. “You’re still not awake, huh? How many coffees would it take for you to feel something? What if you had caffeine injected, like… directly into your veins? Would that do anything?”
Bucky meets his eyes for a second before turning his gaze back to Sam. They’ve gotten good at nonverbal communication, so Bucky hopes that his “Torres should not have been invited on this mission,” message is being transmitted loud and clear.
“He doesn’t need caffeine, he’s not tired,” says Sam. “Just looooves to complain.”
“I’m a super soldier, Sam. I get super tired.”
“All bullshit, all the time, is what you are,” Sam replies, but his smile is warm. He’s right, as usual. Bucky isn’t particularly tired, but he is upset they’re out here on a mission so soon after Sam’s shoulder got injured during a confrontation with AIM a few weeks ago. Sam hasn’t been complaining, but Bucky could tell by the grimace on his face when he reached for a glass last night that it’s still bothering him.
Sam tosses an earpiece to Torres. “Just tune him out when he complains, Joaquín.”
Torres smirks and gives Sam a lazy salute. “Yes, sir.” Sam smiles back at him, and Bucky can’t help but frown. “I’m heading to the other side?”
“Yeah, I’ll let you know what Redwing sees and we’ll figure it out from there.” Torres jogs off toward the farmhouse and Sam deploys Redwing as he and Bucky keep walking.
“We should’ve gotten Sharon for this instead,” Bucky says as soon as Torres is out of earshot. “This kid is too green.”
“You’re acting like a baby. A one-hundred-and-eight-year-old baby. You know that, right?”
Bucky pouts, realizing slightly too late that he is proving Sam’s point. “He’s annoying.”
“So are you,” Sam tells him cheerfully. “And so is Sharon, according to you. What’s the difference? You don’t like anyone.”
Bucky can think of at least seven people he likes off the top of his head, but he doesn’t argue. “Sharon and I have an understanding now. She leaves me alone.”
“Sharon and Joaquín have completely different skill sets and you know it. Stop trying to give me a headache.”
The banter is affectionate, as always. Torres isn’t actually a bad addition to the team, but Bucky hates being alone on the ground with Torres in the air as Sam’s support. He feels helpless, sometimes, and a little jealous. However, cute, young flying boys with giant crushes on Sam Wilson aside, Bucky’s life is actually going really well. It’s almost difficult to accept how well. Things have changed remarkably since his sad, lonely months in Brooklyn after his pardon. He’s settled into a life where he gets to be a genuine superhero, helping to save people and the world. Sam’s family isn’t his, but it feels that way now that he’s moved to Louisiana and he and Sam are roommates in a rented house close to Sarah and the kids.
“I’m more worried about your shoulder than your head, actually,” Bucky tells Sam.
“My shoulder is fine,” Sam says, annoyed.
Torres’s voice sounds in their ears. “I’m in position, Cap. Got anything from Redwing yet?”
“The basement is clear, he’s going up,” Sam replies. “The early reports were that it’s coming from the third floor, so that’s probably accurate.”
With every step closer to the farmhouse that Bucky takes, the sense of unease he’s had about this mission since their approach began has been intensifying. It hits him, suddenly, that the feeling isn’t just uncomfortable — it’s familiar.
Bucky stops in his tracks. “Have we been here before?” he asks Sam. “I feel like we’ve been here before.”
Sam huffs out a laugh. “Oh, here we go again. Bucky Barnes, the clairvoyant.”
The teasing is fair — this isn’t the first time Bucky has been overtaken by a sense of déja vu. “Have we met?” he’d asked Sam in Germany as they were crammed into that tiny getaway car Steve had stolen. “Haven’t we been here before?” he’d asked when he and Sam first took a tour of the house they’d ended up renting. Bucky hasn’t been able to work out a theory on why this happens to him. Most of his memories are clear, for better or worse.The only exception is a bit of time after his recapture in the 40s. Hydra had kept him locked in a cell underground — terrified, alone, and missing an arm. He remembers most of his time there well, but there’s a period he cannot quite access, a time his mind had gone hazy with the constant torture and failed science experiments. It’s just a brief period in the 40s lost to being Hydra’s guinea pig before they figured out how best to use him — it’s not a big loss, to have forgotten some of it.
Bucky has been unable to find anything in the Hydra files he has access to that could adequately explain these strange feelings he gets now. He had briefly considered the possibility of implanted memories, which led him down a spiral of panicking over being a possible sleeper agent with even more triggers he didn’t know about. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but he couldn’t come up with anything else. Shuri, a bit offended at the implication that she had missed some Hydra programming in his brain, had assured him this wasn’t the case. After a while, he had managed to stop worrying about it so much. The feelings were strange, but they were good feelings. Mostly, they involved Sam. He hadn’t known why, or where they came from, but there had been a comfort and certainty they provided.
The feeling in this field, though, is different. Bucky can’t place the exact feeling this place gives him. Not doom, necessarily, but a deep uneasiness. He doesn’t want to be here.
“It just feels weird,” Bucky says helplessly. “I don’t like it.”
“Maybe you feel this alien stuff more than we do,” Torres suggests. “You know, supersoldier, super… alien frequency sensitivity. Or maybe—”
“It’s coming from the attic,” Sam interrupts. He meets Bucky’s eyes. “You good? I was gonna go in from the top, Torres can be back-up, but if you and your weird feeling don’t want to be left alone going in the front door…”
“Oh, shut up,” Bucky snaps. “It’s fine.”
“I can take you up with me,” Sam offers, his brown eyes glittering with amusement. He’s teasing, but the truth is that Sam would do it in a second if Bucky asked him to. Fly him up, stay here with him, anything.
“Not on that shoulder, you can’t,” replies Bucky dryly. “Go on, it’s fine. I’ll stop the aliens from running out the front door when you startle them.”
“Do you think there are really aliens up there?” Torres asks, a little trepidatious.
God, I hope not, Bucky thinks. He realizes he’s clenching his jaw, grinding his teeth together, and tries to relax.
“We’ll see,” Sam says brightly. “Up we go, Falcon,”
“Sam, wait.” Bucky reaches for Sam’s arm before he can engage his wings, wrapping his hand around Sam’s wrist in a loose hold. It’s not enough to keep Sam in place, but Sam stays anyway, giving Bucky an expectant look. “Don’t show off too much.”
“I never show off!”
Bucky raises an eyebrow, making Sam laugh.
“Okay, well, you like it when I show off,” he amends, shifting his eyes away from Bucky’s.
“I do,” Bucky says. It’s honest enough for him to feel a little embarrassed. He searches out Sam’s gaze again, ensuring they’re making eye contact before he continues. “I do like it, but be careful, okay? I’ve got a bad feeling.” He gives Sam’s wrist a gentle squeeze. Lately, it feels like they’ve been moving toward something different — flirting, almost. Bucky hasn’t been sure how to proceed, exactly how forward to be, which has mostly resulted in him doing hardly anything at all. They’ve gotten so comfortable in their routines that it’s difficult to stray from them. It feels bold, touching Sam like this. It feels intimate, and the thrill of Sam’s response — not a rebuke, but a small smile and a quick reassurance that he will be careful — is almost enough to make Bucky forget about the bad feeling altogether.
1945
The second Bucky fell from the train, he knew he was dead.
People don’t survive falls like that, not even fortunate people like him who have already escaped death a few times. Except Bucky did survive this fall, somehow. Once he hit the ground, he was momentarily convinced that he was dead, but it didn’t take long to realize that dead people probably weren’t in this much pain. Every inch of him hurt. He had thought nothing could ever hurt as badly as what Zola did to him. He was wrong.
Dead people also probably didn’t have to feel the shock of noticing that their left arm had been torn off, leaving a gaping wound that was gushing rivers of blood into the surrounding snow. Bucky had passed out at that point, or maybe gone into shock, he wasn’t sure. The fall didn’t kill him, somehow, but he was sure he would die of his wounds down there before anyone found him.
Except Bucky didn’t die.
He didn’t know how much time had passed before he was found. Voices surrounded him as he awoke, being dragged through the snow. They weren’t being gentle with him, but he recognized the language — Russian. They were allies. It didn’t make sense that he hadn’t bled out yet and was even starting to feel some of his wounds healing, but maybe, against all odds, he would eventually get to go home.
It didn’t take long for that unexpected glimmer of hope to evaporate. He hadn’t realized at first that the soldiers were Hydra — they didn’t seem like the people he had encountered after getting captured at Azzano. They seemed just as shocked as Bucky that he’d survived his fall, which Bucky hoped meant Zola had been captured during his last mission before he could share his research. Bucky gave away more information than he should have in the beginning, when he thought the soldiers were there to help. From the impossibility of surviving the fall, the speed with which he was healing with very little medical intervention, and his history with Captain America, they knew they were dealing with something unnatural.
Bucky knew, too. He had known for months, though he didn’t truly accept it until he was here in the reinforced cell they relegated him to once he had recovered enough to start trying to escape. Once, despite having only one arm and no weapons, he took down seven soldiers before anyone could stop him. It took four bullets in Bucky’s legs to finally bring him down, and even after that they’d had to shoot him with multiple tranquilizer darts to be able to move him. They weren’t shooting to kill. Zola had done something to his body, something that made him hard to kill, but that wasn’t their goal, anyway. Bucky could tell. These soldiers wanted him alive.
At some point, Bucky lost track of how long he’d been held here. Early on, it had seemed worth the effort to try and count the days. I’ve been held captive longer than this before, he would remind himself daily until it stopped being true. It hadn’t been easy to keep track — he’s being held underground, mostly isolated from anyone else at the base. Meals are sporadic, and the poking and prodding from people in lab coats has no discernible schedule. They have to tranquilize him first and then move quickly into the cell if they want to touch him, because even with multiple darts, the effects on him are fleeting. The drugs don’t last, but that amount of sedative isn’t helping his concept of time. Some days, he sees five different scientists, sometimes just one scientist surrounded by a group of guards. Sometimes, it feels like a full week passes with nothing but a few random food drops. Everyone speaks Russian, so he doesn’t understand them. He’s been picking up some words, but it’s not the ideal learning environment. He only hears English when they want to taunt him.
The last time, it was to tell him that Steve Rogers is dead.
One of the guards had held up a newspaper to his cell so he could see the front page news. Bucky couldn’t read the words, but he understood the headline before the guard said, heavily accented, “Your Captain America is dead. You belong to us.”
Bucky had never told anyone there that he thought Steve might come for him, but he supposed it had been a fear they had. Steve would’ve liked to know they were scared of him, Bucky thinks. Would’ve liked to know that they didn’t consider Bucky truly theirs until Steve was dead and buried. It had always been a long shot, though. Bucky was certain he was deep underground, and surely, Steve thought he was dead. They might have searched for his body, but not forever. Hell, maybe they had found his arm and that was all they needed to see.
Bucky mourned Steve before mourning himself. He didn’t have a lot of information to go on — Steve died a hero after taking out Schmidt, but he had no way of getting further details on the status of the Howling Commandos or the rest of the division. He didn’t want to ask, for a number of reasons. He didn’t want to give any of the Hydra agents the satisfaction of any curiosity, any implication that they held something else over him, any hint that they could cause him an emotional reaction. Anything anyone from Hydra said to him couldn’t really be trusted, anyway. Even if what they told him was the truth, Bucky wasn’t sure he would actually want to know it.
He knows he’s going to die here, one way or another. No one’s coming for him, escape is impossible, and if they start experimenting on him the way Zola did, he won’t last very long.
These days, he passes the long hours by thinking about the people he loves. It’s too much to dwell long on anyone who’s dead, so Bucky thinks about his sister — the bright, crooked grin that meant she was making fun of him and feeling quite proud of herself for it. He thinks of Ruthie Andrews, a girl he’d gone with for a while years ago. He hadn’t realized until it was over how much he’d cared about her, how different their relationship had been than all of his others. They’re all nice memories, tinged with sadness now, but what isn’t? Sometimes, they’re not just thoughts, but full hallucinations. They talk to him. Bucky doesn’t talk back, so he knows he hasn’t completely lost his mind yet. He hasn’t said anything but his name, rank, and serial number out loud since he realized his saviors were actually his captors, and he generally doesn’t speak at all.
One day, a scientist Bucky isn’t very familiar with approaches his cell, holding a strange machine that looks a bit like a vacuum cleaner. His dark hair is long and unkempt, his face mostly hidden in the shadows — there’s never much light here. The man is speaking to Bucky in irritated Russian, nothing he can understand.
“Они не понимают, что вы бесполезны.” He waves the hose of the machine in Bucky’s general direction, before stopping to point it directly at his left shoulder. “Нам не нужен сильный мужчина с одной рукой. Они хотят, чтобы дать вам протез! Я хочу дать вам будущее. И вы не сплетничать, не так ли? Вы ни с кем не разговариваете.”
Bucky wonders if this guy realizes he can’t understand anything he’s saying. Nobody else is around that the scientist could be talking to, but no one here ever says this much to Bucky, let alone asks him questions. Most of them don’t get this close to the bars of his cell, either — they’re cowards, taunting him from a distance to be sure he can’t get even one finger on them through the narrow spaces in between the bars, always shooting him with enough tranquilizer darts to take down an elephant before they dare open the door.
It happens quickly, while he’s distracted by the strangeness of this interaction. The man puts down his machine and reaches under his lab coat to produce the familiar tranquilizer gun. Bucky barely has time to panic about what new secret horror he’s about to be subjected to before the darts start hitting him. The wooziness comes on quickly and the scientist opens the cell door. Bucky has estimated, based on past experiences, that the drugs slow him down for about a minute. His mind gets fuzzy and he becomes clumsy enough that he’s unable to attempt much of a physical attack. The scientist clearly knows he has a very limited window, even though Bucky isn’t very familiar with him. The man quickly attaches four strange looking electrodes to his head, deftly avoiding Bucky’s ineffectual, uncoordinated arm swats, and then he’s out of the cell, plugging the electrodes’ wires into his strange vacuum cleaner, before Bucky starts to feel the effects of the drugs fading.
Bucky’s reaching for the electrode placed on his forehead when the scientist hits a switch on his machine and it comes alive with a loud whirring noise. Immediately, Bucky feels a sharp pain, like each of the electrodes are jamming a knife into his brain. He screams, cursing involuntarily. The last thing he feels before everything goes dark is disappointment at himself for letting this asshole hear him scream.
2025
“Hey, are you okay?” Bucky hears an unfamiliar voice ask. It doesn’t sound like the scientist at all. Everything’s dark, he can’t see, and he startles violently when he feels a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, sorry!” the voice says. “What happened?”
It takes a second for Bucky to realize that everything is dark because his eyes are closed. When he forces them open, he has to close them again immediately because it’s incredibly bright. This isn’t his cell, he realizes once he can open his eyes again and take in more of his surroundings. He’s kneeling outdoors, in a field, and the pain in his head is completely gone. When he turns his head to see who’s talking to him, it’s definitely not the Russian scientist. The man with him is younger, smaller, and his dark hair is much shorter. Instead of a lab coat, he’s wearing a strange costume that’s red, black, and grey, with goggles over his eyes. Bucky has never seen him before in his life.
“Torres, what’s going on?” a different voice asks in Bucky’s ear, startling him again. He reaches up and yanks out the earpiece he hadn’t realized he had in.
“I don’t really know,” Torres replies to the voice that had apparently been talking to them both. “No, he doesn’t look hurt. You heard him, he just started screaming about his head. Maybe he had an aneurysm or something?”
“I didn’t,” Bucky insists before he’s able to stop himself. He shouldn’t talk to this guy, shouldn’t give him any information at all, but even in his shock and confusion, it’s incredibly comforting to hear someone with an American accent. Is it possible he’s been rescued? Why doesn’t his head hurt anymore? Maybe whatever had happened had knocked him out, but then the facility had been raided by American forces? This kid was in some sort of strange getup that reminded him of Steve’s. Was he enhanced, too? “He did something to me. He had electrodes and this machine…”
The kid looks around the field, empty except for a farmhouse close by, then back at Bucky. “Who did?”
“Hydra scientist. Where am I? Are you American?” Torres narrows his eyes as Bucky continues. “You’re not Russian, right?”
“Not Russian, no,” Torres says slowly, looking baffled. “Hey Cap, I think we might need to call medical… he can’t hear you, he took out his earpiece. Very dramatically.”
“Cap?” Bucky asks, finally getting to his feet. There are a lot of captains, sure, but is it possible Steve was on that line, too? Who else would have found him? “Captain America?”
“Uh… yep, the one and only,” Torres replies.
Bucky’s heart starts racing in his chest. “He’s not dead,” he murmurs to himself. “Holy shit.” Steve isn’t dead, he’s rescued Bucky again, and he’s around here somewhere. Bucky doesn’t know how he got here, but his nightmare might finally be over.
His thoughts are interrupted when he notices a guy exit the house via the third floor window. The man is flying. He has mechanical wings and a costume, red, white and blue, a star centered on his chest with what look like wings coming out of each side of it. He approaches them quickly, touching down nearby. It’s not Steve — it’s a Black man that Bucky has never met, but he’s holding Steve’s shield, or at least something that looks exactly like it. Bucky’s hopes of Steve being alive are quickly extinguished, but he tries to ignore the sharp pain this causes and keep his wits about him in this very strange situation. Once the flying man has landed, he lifts the shield over his shoulder and it snaps into place on his back as his large wings retract. His deep brown eyes look warm but concerned — Bucky doesn’t know this man holding the shield, but he feels certain that this man knows him, even before he speaks.
“Buck? Talk to me, what happened?”
Bucky meets his eyes, not even shocked by the nickname. “You know me.”
The man frowns. “Yeah, man. Do you know where you are?”
“He said he didn’t,” Torres supplies.
“I don’t,” confirms Bucky. It’s probably not smart, but he trusts this man completely. “I don’t know how I got here. Did Steve tell you about me before he…” Bucky trails off, unwilling to say it out loud. “What did that guy do to me? Do you know?”
The man looks over at Torres, who puts up his hands. “He doesn’t mean me, Sam,” he says. “I don’t know who he’s talking about. There’s no one here. Unless...” Torres bites his lip. “I know you said there’s no aliens here, but maybe that has something to do with that signal in the attic?”
Aliens? He’s experienced some pretty weird things in the last few years, but aliens? He tries to put it out of his mind — he’s pretty sure no aliens were involved in this. “I was captured,” he tells Sam, watching the man’s frown deepen. “It’s been… months? Years? No, I don’t think it’s been years... I don’t know what they did to me. I don’t know how I got here. Were you looking for me?”
Sam puts his arm on Bucky’s left shoulder and squeezes, an attempt at comfort. “We were looking for you,” he says after a moment. Bucky knows something is really wrong. “We found you a while ago, though.”
“Oh,” Bucky says with a heavy exhale. It’s not the worst news, but this is all a lot to take in. “Um… how long ago?”
“Well… I think that depends on when you think it is,” Torres says.
“I don’t really know… is it April? May?”
“It is April, actually!” Torres says. “But…”
“But it’s not 1945,” Bucky murmurs, finally understanding. He breaks eye contact with Sam, letting his gaze drift down to Sam’s hand on his left shoulder. That’s when Bucky notices it for the first time — he has an arm again.
“We’re gonna get you checked out, man,” Sam says as Bucky stares down at the unfamiliar metal arm. It’s a beautiful prosthetic — shiny, black with gold accents. He tests it out, clenching his fist, watching his fingers curl into his hand. It’s unlike any prosthetic he’s ever seen, and he can actually use it like his real arm. “It doesn’t seem like anything we can really help with is going on here, it’s a portal or something. They’re sending another team out ASAP and Torres is gonna stay until they get here.”
“What is this made of?” Bucky asks him, still marveling at the arm. Sam moves his hand off of his shoulder so Bucky can move the arm around more, bend it at the elbow. “This is really something.” The aforementioned aliens pop back into his mind — maybe they made this. Or could it have been Stark? He’s always trying to invent stuff that seems impossible.
Torres clears his throat. “Uh, I’m gonna get back up there and keep an eye on that weird blue portal emitting cosmic energy. Good luck with all of that,” he says to Sam before turning to Bucky. “Hope you feel better, man.”
Before Bucky can say thanks, a large pair of wings shoot out from the kid’s back and he shoots off into the sky.
“Your arm… it’s vibranium, same as the shield,” says Sam, like that was a completely normal occurrence. Since Sam has wings, too, it probably is.
When Bucky says, “Wow,” it’s about the vibranium, but also the wings, and also this entire bizarre situation.
“Are you good? Does anything hurt? We’re a few miles out from our ride home, normally we’d just fly over to it, but…”
“I’m fine,” Bucky replies, not even considering the answer until he’s already spoken. It seems true enough, though — he’s not in pain, he’s moving fine. He notices for the first time that his body seems different than it had back when he was in his cell. He hadn’t lost all of his muscle mass, probably due to whatever Zola had done to him, but with minimal food and no exercise, he had started to lose weight. His flesh arm, covered by a navy blue leather jacket, looks bigger. Overall, he looks sturdier, more healthy. He doesn’t know where or even when he is, but surely he’ll be able to… “Wait, did you say fly? I can fly, too?” He turns his head, trying to see if he has something on his back that could hold retractable wings as well. He doesn’t see anything, and Sam is laughing.
“Nah man, definitely not. Not your thing, but I can fly you around when we need to. I’ll be holding you, and you’re kind of buckled in, but that’s more of a failsafe, and if you can’t hold on if necessary, then—”
“I can hold on,” Bucky says irritably, annoyed at the implication. Sam laughs again.
“Alright, alright, you barely know your own name but forgive me for thinking you might be feeling a little weaker than usual.” His tone is light, teasing, and Bucky can feel a smile starting to form on his own lips. He’s known this guy for five minutes and he already likes him.
“I really do feel fine,” Bucky insists, though he’s not actually sure how he feels about Sam dragging him up into the air on those wings. “Uh… brain aside, I guess.”
Sam snorts. “So, the usual for you then. Alright, let’s get you out of here so we can find out what’s wrong with that brain of yours. Grab your earpiece first.”
Sam snaps something onto a strap on Bucky’s jacket and then wraps his arms around his middle. It’s a little more intimate than Bucky was expecting, and the surprise of it keeps him distracted as they lift off, making a smooth ascent into the sky. As they get higher, Bucky starts to tense up, reaching his arms up to hold onto Sam’s.
“Not a long flight,” Sam tells him, keeping his voice light. He waits a beat before continuing. “I just want you to know that if you’re messing with me about this memory shit, you are not picking the Saturday movie for six months.”
It’s difficult to wrap his mind around the concept of some sort of standing Saturday movie date with this man he didn’t know existed. They’re friends, apparently, close friends. They go on missions together, he’s Captain America but not Steve, they are literally flying right now, and Bucky has a vibranium arm. He’s had a weird few years, but the last 20 minutes really have taken it to a new level of insanity. It doesn’t feel like a dream, but part of him thinks it must be. A dream, or that Hydra scientist implanting weird things about Captain America into his brain to finally convince him to start talking.
Still, he can’t help but wonder how many days there are until Saturday. For months, he hasn’t even known when Saturday was.
“Well, that sounds fair,” he tells Sam, trying to keep his voice even. He feels Sam tighten his hold around his chest.
1945
Bucky recognizes the cell immediately.
There are a lot of memories from this time period that are confusing, unclear, or completely missing, but he remembers this cell. It was the first place he’d ever been held after his fall, before they’d given him an arm. Before they started with the attempts at brainwashing and trigger words. The walls and bars are reinforced — he remembers many hours of trying to get out of here, despite not having much of a plan behind that. There’s nothing in here besides a barely functioning toilet. They hadn’t even put any sort of bed in the cell for him. He’d slept slumped against the wall, when he was able to sleep at all. Bucky glances to the corner where he’d slept, looking for the small shooting star he remembers that was carved into the cement wall. It’s not there, which fills him with inexplicable dread. He remembers that star so vividly, remembers hours spent staring at it and hoping for a brighter future even during the most distressing days here. He’s not sure how it got there or why it was so comforting — probably because he was slowly losing his mind and it was the only thing to focus on in this dreary place. The time that he clearly remembers spending in this cell certainly wasn’t the worst of his captivity. It was the worst part of his life up until that point, but at least he was still aware of who he was. This place doesn’t ever feature in his nightmares — those are all about the atrocities he committed as the Winter Soldier.
Which is why it makes no sense that he’s here in a nightmare now, but Bucky can’t come up with any other explanation. He’s here in this cell, weak and underfed, missing his arm and wearing rags. They had been on a mission and suddenly Bucky had felt a searing pain in his head. Had he passed out? Had the strange alien energy they were supposed to be looking into done something to him? Bucky greatly prefers dealing with more earthly threats. He knew his bad feeling had meant something.
It takes Bucky a moment to realize he’s on his knees, tangled in wires. They’re attached to electrodes, which look like they’ve been removed from his body. He looks outside of the cell bars and sees a man with dark, shaggy hair in a lab coat holding what looks like an old vacuum, staring at Bucky intently. Bucky remembers him — remembers that he killed him, actually, but he doesn’t remember the circumstances, just remembers staring into the man’s blank, dead eyes. Bucky can’t place this moment that he’s reliving. He remembers the machine, remembers shattering it against his cell wall, but he can’t remember what it did, beyond giving him a horrible headache. This guy was a scientist he barely ever saw and he’s sure his death was warranted, so why would he show up in a nightmare?
Bucky glances back over to the corner, one last check for the star. Still not there. He swallows heavily.
“What did you see?” the scientist asks in heavily accented English. “What color was my shirt where you were?”
Bucky doesn’t answer. He doesn’t really understand the question — the man has a white shirt on now, but that’s probably not the right answer. Plus, he had never talked to anyone here after he realized he was a prisoner. He’s not going to change it up, even in his dreams.
The man grunts in anger and kicks one of the cell bars like a kid who hasn’t gotten his way.
“Это не работает!”
It didn’t work? Bucky thinks, confused. What didn’t work? What had this guy tried to do to him?
It’s strange to be here and understand what’s being said to him. He’d started to pick up some Russian eventually, but most of his languages had been picked up after the brainwashing started. Bucky had spent a good portion of his time here not having any idea what people were saying to him or to each other. Hydra had used it to their advantage, keeping him as confused as possible even before they started messing with his brain.
“Что-нибудь случилось?” the man asks after a moment and a visible effort to calm himself. He’s trying to look Bucky in the eye. “You move a week? Two? My shirt would change. Did it change?”
It’s hard for the scientist to fake the politeness for long — he gets irritated again when Bucky doesn’t respond. If this is a nightmare, it’s the strangest one Bucky has ever had. He’s never had any control over the situation in his nightmares — he just has to watch in horror, unable to control himself. Right now, he’s actively making the choice to stay silent. Why doesn’t he remember what sort of experiment this guy tried to do on him? Had it messed with his memories? Maybe this is the reason some of his only missing memories are from this place.
Or maybe he’s just finally started having more normal dreams that aren’t just flashbacks of his past, like a movie playing in his mind while he sleeps. He wonders if Dr. Raynor would have considered this an improvement. Probably not, since this might not be a nightmare at all. He wasn’t even asleep, he was on a mission with Sam. It was daytime. Has he been killed? If this is the afterlife, Bucky really would have preferred to live forever.
The scientist is still staring at him, awaiting a response. Wanting him to go away, Bucky starts speaking without even thinking “Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 3-2-5-5-7–“
“Бесполезный!” the man interrupts angrily. His face is red, like a child throwing a tantrum. He yanks the wires with the electrodes back out of the cell and collects them. “Я починю это. Вы будете путешественником во время или вы умрете пытаетесь.”
He storms off as Bucky hoped he would, leaving Bucky alone in the cell to contemplate what he’s just heard — The scientist said Bucky was going to time travel or die trying.
2025
The two days after Bucky arrives in 2025 are incredibly overwhelming. He eventually accepts that he’s out of captivity and safe. It could be a long, weird dream that doesn’t feel like a dream at all, or this could be some sort of brainwashing done by his captors, but Bucky can’t figure out what the purpose of convincing him that he is 80 years in the future would be. This being his new reality seems like the most realistic option.
Sam had immediately taken him to New York after they left the mission, to a facility where doctors who specialize in enhanced people and superheroes ran some tests and did scans of his brain. It was scary and reminded him too much of what Zola and then the Russians had done to him. He hated having to remove his arm and the dog tags, which he could not believe he still had, for the scans, but the doctors were kind and explained every step to him as they performed it. Sam trusted them, and seemed troubled by Bucky’s initial reluctance to let anyone else touch him, so he relented quickly. In the end, the experts agreed — nothing was physically wrong with him, they couldn’t find any weird alien stuff infecting his brain from the portal they had found, and he was himself and not some impostor, per the DNA test. The consensus was amnesia, though they’re not sure what caused it. Sam and his partner hadn’t seen anything happen to Bucky’s head and he has no physical injury there, so it’s possible that it’s a mental health issue related to his PTSD. It might go away on its own in a few days, but Bucky should see his therapist in Louisiana for further guidance. Bucky had nodded politely, pretending to know what that meant, and bothered Sam for all the answers later as they were on the way back to the airport. PTSD is another way of saying shell shock, and yes, he does have it, and yes he does live in Louisiana but no, he does not have a therapist anymore even though Sam had strongly recommended getting a new one after he moved there from New York last year.
It’s all just a lot to take in.
Bucky likes Sam a lot, though. He had almost immediately, but Bucky is more impressed by Sam with every passing hour. He’s kind, gentle and concerned without treating Bucky like a child, and even in his overwhelmed state, Bucky can appreciate the care it takes. It’s clear that Sam is stressed out by the situation, too. He hides it well enough, keeping things light and cracking jokes, but Bucky sees the tension in his jaw and the worry in his eyes. It makes him want to make this whole weird painful process of trying to remember who he is go as smoothly as possible so he can end Sam’s suffering.
It’s no surprise to Bucky that Steve had chosen Sam to carry on the mantle. The details Bucky has are sparse — he has a million more questions but doesn’t want to treat Sam like an encyclopedia — but he knows that Steve is gone but not dead, knows he didn’t die on that plane, that he lived after that, too. Bucky will probably never see him again, but he already assumed he wouldn’t anyway, and Steve got to live his life. That makes Bucky happy. At least he had seen Steve again, even though he does not currently remember it. The news about Steve comforts him in the wake of the decidedly less pleasant news that Hydra held Bucky prisoner for 70 years, brainwashed him, continuously wiped his memories, and turned him into a supersoldier assassin for their cause. His sister died before he was freed, and he never got to see her again, though it seems like she lived a good life. The year is now 2025, which makes him feel like a character in a science fiction novel. The world is clearly so different, it’s obvious in everything from the bizarre phone in his pocket to the two men he saw holding hands at a coffee shop they stopped at which served no fewer than 50 different varieties of coffee. But none of that is as disorienting as looking at himself in the mirror. He looks older than the last time he saw himself, for sure — but 108 years old? He’s trying not to dwell on the insanity of it too much.
“But I look 30,” he’d said in shock when he found out.
“Well, they kept you frozen a lot,” Sam replied. “You weren’t actually aging much for the 70 years they had you.”
“Right. Frozen. That makes this much more normal.”
Sam had given his arm a comforting squeeze then, before joking, “Who told you that you look 30, though? Let’s be real, man. You look 40 at least.”
Bucky’s not entirely sure what a 108-year-old amnesiac assassin has done to deserve a friend like Sam in the future, but he vowed right then to do his best not to screw it up.
***
When Sam says he’s taking Bucky home, he’s not very specific about what that entails. Bucky knows that he lives in Louisiana, which is a little surprising — he always assumed he’d end up in New York. He limits his questions as they travel there. Sam could and would answer anything he asks, Bucky’s sure, but he thinks Sam might find it a little painful that Bucky doesn’t remember simple facts about himself, or about Sam and their relationship. The grimaces are almost imperceptible, but Bucky sees them. Questions about the state of the world in the year 2025 or new technology don’t seem to bother him, so Bucky allows himself to ask a lot of questions in that vein on their flight down to Louisiana. Bucky can’t believe all the things the strange looking phone in his own pocket can do.
When they land in New Orleans, a friend of Sam’s is waiting for them in a car in the pick-up area.
“You know him, too,” Sam tells him as they exit the airport. “His name is Mike. I told him you aren’t feeling well so you can just say hi and then zone out.”
“I can handle that.” Bucky’s grateful for the information and for the excuse — he’s spent enough time over the past few days trying to talk to people who think they know him. “They don’t provide fancy transportation for Captain America, huh? Aren’t you famous?”
Sam snorts. “Famous, infamous, whatever. You’re welcome, by the way, for me arranging all the transportation to get your confused ass home. Sarah’s doing something with the kids and we can’t give some random Uber driver the address of the house. You’re lucky people like me.”
Bucky glances down at Sam’s left hand quickly at the mention of a woman and children, relieved to find no ring. Do people even wear wedding rings anymore? He hadn’t really paid attention to see if anyone else had them on. Surely Bucky would have known by now if Sam was married with children. He’s been avoiding asking too many personal questions but surely it would have come up? Pretty much everything has been focused on Bucky missing 80 years of memories, though, so it’s possible.
“I don’t know what an Uber is,” he says, instead of asking about Sarah.
“Like a cab. That’s him.” Sam points to a black pickup truck, and after exchanging some brief pleasantries with a man Bucky is only pretending to know, he climbs into the back seat. Sam gets into the front and asks Bucky if he wants him to move his seat up so he can have more leg room, but Bucky declines, angling his body toward the window to make up for the tight fit instead.
The drive is a little over an hour. Sam and Mike chat amiably up front, but Bucky mostly ignores them, passing the time staring out the window as the city gives way to marshes and bayous. There’s a heaviness forming in his chest as they get closer to the home he’s never been to. It’s been an intense few days — he’s been confused, overstimulated, and downright terrified at points, and basically everyone he knows is dead, but overall, it hasn’t been bad. He’s handling it. He went from being Hydra’s lab rat in a lonely, cramped cell, convinced of his imminent death, to a life that seems settled and content, even if he doesn’t remember any of it. It’s all weird and difficult to believe, but it’s an indisputable improvement from his prior conditions. He’s worried, though, as things start to settle down. Once Sam introduces Bucky to his new life, to his house and his belongings and his other friends, what happens next? He knows Sam won’t just drop him off and leave him to fend for himself — Sam lives in the area as well and they’re friends, that’s clear — but Bucky can’t fathom living alone right now. He’s barely gotten used to his phone, and who knows what other weird electronic devices he’ll find in his house? The last couple of nights, he and Sam shared a hotel room. Bucky’s not sure what it will be like trying to fall asleep in this strange new world without the one person he knows and trusts under the same roof. Maybe he could convince Sam to stay with him. Bucky thinks he would, if asked, but maybe it’s not fair to ask. Especially if Bucky’s wrong and Sam is married and has a family waiting to see him.
It’s starting to get dark when Mike pulls into a long driveway, driving past a large house to a smaller one-story house toward the edge of the property. There’s a pickup truck and a motorcycle parked next to it.
“The house is a rental,” Sam tells him after Mike has dropped them off. He points to the larger house. “The landlady lives there. You like her, she’s almost as old as you.”
Bucky knows Sam is joking, but it’s a nice thought — having someone to talk to who was at least alive when Bucky was captured.
“Your keys are in your bag somewhere, probably,” says Sam as he pulls out a set of his own. “House key,” he says, holding up one of the keys on the ring to show Bucky what it looks like before putting it into the lock. It improves his mood a bit more, knowing that Sam keeps a key to his house on his key ring.
They walk inside after Sam unlocks the door, and Sam drops his bag on the floor after flipping a light switch, illuminating a cozy looking living room. The hardwood floor is partially covered with a large area rug, and in addition to a sofa, a loveseat, and a bookcase, there’s a flat screen television mounted to the wall that’s even larger than the ones Bucky had seen in the hotel room.
“Jeez, that television is huge,” he marvels. “It must feel like you’re watching something in a theater. How big is this?”
Sam laughs. “I don’t know, man, you bought it. I can’t believe you’re more excited about big TVs than anything else. You had TVs back then. We have the Internet now and you’re losing it over a big TV.”
“I like movies,” he says with a shrug, a little embarrassed to explain that he still doesn’t really understand what the Internet is, so it’s hard to be too excited. He’s sure he will be eventually. Bucky’s no stranger to new, strange science after seeing Hydra’s weapons and the supersoldier serum in action, but taking in 80 years of developments all at once is difficult.
From the living room, Bucky can see a kitchen and a hallway. Sam sees him looking around and asks, “Look familiar at all?”
“Why would it?” Bucky asks testily. He knows he’s being overly sensitive, but it feels like an accusation. “I’m not lying, I really don’t remember anything.”
Sam doesn’t seem offended. “Oh, trust me, I know you’re not lying. You could not pull off a prank this long. I was asking because when we first looked at this place, we walked in and you immediately started talking about how you felt like you’d been here before. Pretty sure that’s why we ended up renting this place.”
“We rented it?” Bucky asks, unable to hide his enthusiasm. “You live here, too?”
“I didn’t mention that?” Sam asks, his lips curling downward. “Sorry, thought I had. I had an apartment in DC but was spending most of my time here at my sister’s place, so when you decided to move down, it just made sense to get a place together.”
“Is Sarah your sister?”
“Yeah,” replies Sam. “Sorry, I keep forgetting that you don’t remember. I know it but… you still seem like you, mostly. It’s easy to forget you don’t know anything about what I’m talking about.”
“No, no, it’s fine, it’s… great, you’re great,” Bucky says, sounding awkward in his rush to put an end to the unnecessary apology and Sam’s growing frown. “I’m really glad you live here. I’m afraid without you I’d burn down the house trying to get this giant television turned on.”
That makes Sam grin again. “I would be very impressed if you managed to set the house on fire just by turning on the TV. You just have to press a button. I know you’re from the dark ages, but I’m sure you can handle it.”
Bucky wants to keep up the banter, but he’s distracted by Sam’s smile. It’s become Bucky’s favorite part of the future — even the huge television can’t compare. Bucky smiles back at him, filled with affection and the pure relief of knowing that he won’t be left alone here tonight without Sam. A fleeting image enters his mind, unbidden, of a bedroom at the end of the hallway that they share. Bucky’s learned enough in his brief overview of the future these past few days to know it’s not an impossibility, and his heart starts beating a little faster at the thought.
The silence stretches on a bit too long, finally broken when Bucky feels something rub against his ankle and startles, looking down.
“We have a cat?” he asks. The furry white creature meets his gaze, clearly waiting for a return greeting. Bucky bends down to pet her and she rubs her face against his hand, purring loudly.
“You have a cat,” Sam corrects him. “I wasn’t really consulted on the matter. Look at how obsessed she is with you. We didn’t even have to have that DNA test done, I would’ve known it was really you the second that cat ran up to you.”
“Was that really a concern? Who else would I be?”
Sam shrugs. “Can’t be too careful. Lots of strange shit has happened, you’d be surprised.”
An image of Schmidt peeling off his human face to reveal the red horror underneath enters Bucky’s brain. He imagines he probably wouldn’t be that surprised, actually. He changes the subject.
“I don’t even really like cats,” he says, though he continues to pet her. She looks pleased and flops over onto her side to give him more access. He definitely loves her already.
Sam snorts. “Bullshit. You said that when you brought her home, too. I don’t really like cats, Sam, but we can’t take her to the shelter! We have a connection, I knew I was going to find her in that box, I think I met her in a past life.”
“Stop pretending you hate our cat,” Bucky tells him.
“Your cat.” But Sam is already crouching down to greet her, too, and she gets up to walk over to him and rub against his outstretched hand. “Oh hi, sweetie,” he coos.
Bucky smiles at the softness in Sam’s voice. “What’s her name?”
“Alpine. You named her. She sleeps with you, by the way. Keep your bedroom door open a little or she’ll freak out.”
“Alpine,” Bucky murmurs. She moves away from Sam a bit, dropping herself in between the two of them to receive affection from them both at the same time. “You missed us, huh?” He turns to Sam. “She wasn’t just here alone the whole time we were gone, right? Someone was taking care of her?”
“AJ and Cass take their cat-sitting job very seriously. They spend tons of time here when we’re away. Sarah’s kids,” he clarifies when Bucky gives him a questioning look. “My nephews.”
Sam’s phone sounds one of its alerts and he pulls it from his pocket as he stands up again, leaving Bucky and Alpine behind.
“Shuri just got back to me,” says Sam after a moment. “She’s the one who… worked on your brain.”
Bucky tries to remember the earlier conversation they’d had when Sam had sent Bucky’s new scans to her. He knows he’s only got an incredibly brief history of his life since 1945, but even so, it’s a lot to keep straight. “In Wakanda, right? And she made the arm.”
“Yeah. She said she doesn’t see anything alarming, either. The trigger word associations still don’t exist. So that’s… good.” He looks disappointed, though. Bucky understands — at least if they could identify the problem, they could work on fixing it. Sam has been with him almost every minute since this started, and now that Bucky knows they live together in addition to being coworkers and friends, he’s starting to understand why Sam is so personally affected. They share almost every part of their lives together, but suddenly Bucky is treating him like a stranger. Bucky lost time and memories, but Sam’s lost something, too.
“Good not to be brainwashed,” Bucky agrees after a moment. He doesn’t know all the details of how the trigger words worked, but it’s hard to imagine how a bunch of random words could turn him into an emotionless remote-controlled assassin.
“Guess we’re down to that therapist recommendation, then.”
Bucky frowns. “I thought you said I didn’t have one.” He gets up from his crouch, and Alpine looks betrayed.
“You don’t. We can look for a new one one here or just call your old therapist in New York, she knows your history, so—”
“But I don’t know her,” Bucky interrupts. “They’d both feel the same to me.”
Sam sighs “And let me guess, you’re not interested in either option.”
“Well… they also said my memories will probably come back soon, so I don’t know why I can’t just wait a little while.” Bucky looks down, embarrassed. He hates to disappoint Sam, but he can’t bear the thought of seeing a shrink right now. He feels crazy enough to think he might actually need one, and he’s not interested in having someone confirm that for him.
“Look, I’m not gonna force you,” Sam says. “But I think we should keep it on the table as an option. People don’t just suddenly forget most of their life, Buck. Something happened to you. Ignoring it might make it worse.”
“I’m not ignoring it, Sam. How can I ignore that I don’t know anything about my life?” Bucky sighs, then meets Sam’s eyes again with a pleading look. “We can keep it on the table, but I just think we should give it some time.”
The look serves its purpose, ending the therapist talk. They eat dinner and sit on the couch watching a baseball game, because it’s something Bucky understands, though he hasn’t heard of one of the teams. Alpine spends most of the game perched atop the loveseat, keeping a watchful eye on them, but she comes over to sit on Bucky’s lap during the seventh inning, falling asleep after a few minutes of Bucky and Sam petting her. It’s a good night, and he feels comfortable even with all the strangeness of the last few days. He could get used to this life, he’s sure.
Sam goes to bed around midnight, so Bucky reluctantly heads to his own bedroom, leaving the door open for the cat as Sam had instructed. She does join him eventually, hopping up onto the bed and settling on his chest after he’s been staring at the ceiling for almost an hour, kept awake by the same fear that’s hindered his sleep for the past few nights — that this is a dream or some other sort of illusion, and he’ll wake up back in his cell. Tonight, even more than the other nights, Bucky desperately hopes that won’t happen.
1945
He thinks about time travel a lot.
Bucky has been stuck in this cell, stuck in 1945, for days. He’s long past thinking this is a nightmare — being intimately acquainted with both nightmares and being held captive, he can tell the difference. This is the latter, and he doesn’t have anything else to do but ponder the last thing the scientist with the dark hair had said to him. Time travel? Is that even possible?
He knows it is, of course — he saw it happen right in front of his eyes when Steve left with the infinity stones, and he’s been told the story of how the Avengers brought back half of the world by traveling back in time before that. This seems entirely different, though. Bucky had never learned much about the mechanics of the whole situation. Frankly, he just hadn’t been very interested. The job was already done, and he’d had no intention of ever traveling back in time himself. Bucky knew only the most basic facts about how the remaining Avengers had used the quantum realm to execute a time heist, and little more about Steve’s own journey. There was a special suit, though, and a big machine controlled by Bruce to send him back in time. Bucky hadn’t had anything like that. The guy here was waving what looked like a vacuum cleaner around. How could that possibly have snatched him out of the future? Sam and Joaquín had been checking out some sort of cosmic portal, but Bucky hadn’t even been near it, so that doesn’t make sense either. Also, if this time travel was anything like what he’d learned about, there should be another version of himself here. Bucky was in this cell in 1945, he remembers it. So where is that Bucky right now?
It can’t be that sort of time travel, because he knows he hasn’t been physically sent here — his body isn’t the same as the one he left behind in 2025. His vibranium arm is gone, he’s skinnier, and he’s got a beard because they hadn’t brainwashed him enough yet to trust him around razors. This is what he looked like in 1945, not what he looked like when they left for the mission a few days ago. It’s almost like his old brain somehow got swapped out for his new one. The idea that there is another version of him — not here like with the quantum realm time travel, but in 2025, looking like him but with the brain of the Bucky who was in this cell in 1945, just waiting to die — takes hold in his mind. He can’t shake it.
Maybe this is what a psychotic break feels like. On instinct, he turns to the wall of the cell with the carving of the star that always brought him comfort. He’s disappointed when he remembers that it’s not there, and must have been carved later.
The idea of some accidental brain swap time travel is at least slightly preferable to the other possibility — that Bucky’s brain has finally had enough and decided to trap him inside some traumatic delusion, instead of just letting him continue to lead the shockingly pleasant life that he has built against all odds.
Mostly, he just wants to get back to his life, but it’s been long enough that he’s starting to think it might not be a possibility. He thinks about escaping — it was a thought that had consumed him for the first few months he spent here back in 1945, and he’d even made a few attempts that failed. Now, though, there’s a chance it’s possible. Bucky’s in the same slightly weakened body, missing an arm, but he has more skills now. He’s not as mentally compromised as he was the first time he was here, and knowing what he knows now, he thinks he might be able to take his time and formulate a plan that would actually work. Even the fact that Bucky can understand his captors now is a huge advantage over the first time he was here. He could appreciate the irony in only being able to escape Hydra torture and captivity because one of their own scientists brought a future version of him back here, with the skills he’d eventually learned from them.
Bucky tries to imagine it — making a plan, a dramatic escape, making sure to leave no one alive to pursue him once he gets out of this underground dungeon. It will take him a while to find allies, but that’s okay. He has the survival skills to make it, now. He can see the Howlies again, toast to Steve, maybe go and try to find that damn plane himself. He knew the basic area Steve had eventually been found. He can help speed up the process, find Howard Stark and give him a little guidance. Maybe Steve and Peggy can have their happy ending a little earlier.
He’ll make it back to America eventually, hug his sister long enough that she gets embarrassed and pushes him away. He’s memorized the info he found about what happened to her after he’d been captured, so he knows her kids haven’t been born yet. He’ll get to meet them in a few years. It’s a tantalizing thought, but he rejects it almost immediately.
Bucky doesn’t belong here — he can feel it in his soul. He wants to go home. He wants to hug Sam and pet his cat, make dinner with Sarah and take the boys miniature golfing. He wants to let Dorothy, his 85-year-old landlord, make him tea so they can sit down and reminisce about the past. He’d even miss Joaquín and Sharon and some of the Avengers, he thinks. Would he still live 80 more years in this version of the timeline? Would he ever meet Sam if Steve gets found earlier?
The fantasy gets tweaked. He’ll see the Howlies again, he’ll see his sister, hug her one last time, and then he’ll find Howard Stark. Not to try and help find Steve, but to see if Howard can help Bucky get back to where he belongs. He was smart, he was an inventor, who else would Bucky ask? Bucky knows that Tony had been the one to eventually figure out how the Avengers could travel through time, so his father seems like a good bet.
The thought actually makes Bucky laugh, and the sound echoes throughout his cell and the empty corridor outside of it. “Hi, Howard, lovely to see you again,” he imagines himself saying. “Any way you could find out how to get me back to the year 2025? I murdered you in that timeline, sorry about that. It wasn’t technically my fault but I feel pretty bad about it. Oh, your son dies there, too. Pretty young, fighting aliens. It’s my preferred timeline, though. Love to get back there, please help.”
He wonders, then, if this is his chance to undo all the hurt he’s caused. If he can escape now and live a normal life instead of trying to get everything back to how it happened, the Winter Soldier would never exist. Bucky will miss out on the life he has now, but it’s better for everyone else. Maybe it’s what he’s supposed to do.
Somehow, he spends hours grappling with that upsetting realization before remembering a key aspect of the time travel the Avengers had used — the branches. They weren’t supposed to change anything major. It could be catastrophic, causing a new branch of time and… making the universe unstable? Bucky couldn’t really remember the specifics other than the fact that it could potentially cause a lot of problems and it wouldn’t undo anything that had already been done, anyway, since it had already happened. He thinks of Steve, telling Bucky his plan the night before he traveled back to return the stones. He mentioned that he’d found a loophole and he wasn’t gonna destroy anything when he changed his history, so Bucky didn’t need to worry about it. Bucky had been so preoccupied with trying to process Steve’s impending departure that he had simply accepted this answer. He didn’t really understand the time travel stuff enough to ask for more details on Steve’s plan to break the rules and get away with it. It might have helped him here, though.
Does this mean he has to stay here, then? Stay in this cell even though he might now have the ability to escape? Live through this hell for the second time, allow them to brainwash him, weld a metal arm onto him, turn him into an assassin, wipe his memories over and over until his brain is so damaged that he needs the smartest person in the world to even attempt to fix it? He knows that they’re getting close to it now, the time where they start messing with his head and he loses himself for 70 years. The thought makes Bucky shiver. He wonders if he can do it again. It was painful and terrifying, a near constant cycle of remembering the tiniest pieces of his old life and forgetting them all over again when he got wiped, until Hydra got so frustrated with him that they just kept him frozen unless they were actively using him, never again giving him the chance to remember anything at all.
Honestly, Bucky’s not even sure if the branch rules apply here in his strange brain swap time travel situation the same as they did to the Avengers. He thinks again of the potential of the Bucky who is meant to be in this cell, living instead in the future with Sam. It sounds crazy, but the thought makes him smile. He hopes it’s true. The version of himself who was here in 1945 definitely could have used a break.
2025
Sam’s reluctance to give Bucky a detailed description of the years he spent under Hydra’s control is enough to keep Bucky from asking as many questions as he wants to, but eventually his curiosity gets the better of him. One of the more familiar objects in his wallet of future oddities is a library card, so he walks to the library a few days after they’ve arrived back in Delacroix when Sam is busy on a call. He finds what he’s looking for — multiple books about his life, all that have come out in the past decade. He settles on one that was written in 2017, with an uncharitable blurb on the back describing a book about a World War II hero who was corrupted by Hydra, and another book published just last year. The newer one includes his entire “miraculous journey through hell from his time as Captain America’s sidekick in World War II, through his 70 years of torture under Hydra’s control, and back to the new Captain America’s side after The Blip, a hero once again.”
The librarian smiles and greets him by name when he approaches the desk, and if she notices that he’s taking out books with his own face on the cover, she’s kind enough not to mention it.
He starts reading the older book as soon as he gets home, thinking that it might be more accurate with the worst parts of what he did during the Hydra years since the author seems to hate him. It’s difficult to read even the introduction. There are some inaccuracies in the brief mentions of his early life, which makes him doubt how accurate the information he’s actually looking for will be. Also, the guy’s writing style is incredibly annoying.
“Why are you reading that crap?” Sam asks when he emerges from his bedroom after some sort of video call with government officials.
Bucky puts the book down, not bothering to mark his spot. “I figure I should know this stuff, right? It’s my life.”
“Nah, not in those books. Not really. They take the info they actually have and then do a whole lot of twisting and projecting.” Sam sighs. “I’ve read through most of the files Hydra kept about your time there. I figured why go into all that mess now if you’re going to remember it soon anyway, but… what do you want to know?”
This is what Bucky had been trying to avoid. “Only where I can find the files,” he says after a moment. “Are they available somewhere?”
“Actually, yeah,” replies Sam. He takes his laptop off the coffee table and turns it on. “Natasha… um, she was a friend of ours, she dumped all the Hydra files online like 10 years ago. People have had a lot of time to go through it, so there’s a database now. It’s a lot better organized than it used to be. I can just pull up your name and it’ll show everything.”
He clicks around, types a few things, and then hands the computer to Bucky. “This is the main source for all these books, anyway, but without their own twists to make a book marketable. It has the Hydra slant because it’s their info, but generally it’s more clinical. I think you’d prefer this.”
“I think I would, too,” Bucky agrees gratefully. “Thanks.”
“It’s still some really rough shit,” Sam warns him. “I think trying to get through those books would drive you nuts, though.”
“I barely made it through the introduction of that one,” admits Bucky, indicating the book he’d put down.
“Aw, see, you should’ve tried this one first,” Sam says, picking up the more recent book. “I’m in this one, and every nice thing she says about me is 100% true.”
Bucky grins. “Yeah, I bet.”
Sam gives him a brief tutorial on how to use the database, and shows him how to find the translated versions because he can’t read the Russian. He’d like to stay with Sam, but he knows this will probably take a while and he doesn’t want Sam to have to sit there with him while he reads all these upsetting files. Bucky takes the laptop into his bedroom, leaving the door open a crack in case Alpine wants to join him. Sam was right — the files are not an easy read, but it’s a better way to get the information. They documented experiments, brainwashing, memory wipes, efforts to replicate the serum, and using him to train other supersoldiers. There are also detailed reports of every mission they sent him on.
The early files are the hardest, filled with notes from Zola and then his Russian captors trying to decide what to do with him. It’s all fresh pain, still, though the reports claim it all happened 80 years ago. Bucky looks carefully for any mention of the scientist with his strange vacuum-like machine and the electrodes, but nothing during that time period fits the description. It goes from days he remembers vividly to a time he can’t really remember at all. Past mid-1945, most of it’s meaningless to him. It’s distressing information, every bit of it, but Bucky feels very detached from it. Even the report of his assassination of Howard Stark and the incomplete report of his final Winter Soldier mission to take down Steve in 2014 don’t have much of an effect on him. It feels like he’s reading about someone else.
The strangest part about learning this information is the fact that everyone else he knows already knows it. They know all of these horrible things he did, but they allow him into their lives anyway. Sam sleeps on the other side of the hallway behind an unlocked door. Sarah lets him see her kids. Dorothy waves brightly from her porch every morning, the librarian knows him by name, and the US government gave him a pardon. It’s hard to fathom.
Once he’s finished reading through the files, he sits with the information. Alpine eventually does join him on the bed and she’s good company, settling against his knee as he stares at the ceiling trying to gather his thoughts. He knows he didn’t experience most of the things he read about in those files. It’s just not possible. They would leave a mark, even if he didn’t remember them in vivid detail, or any detail at all. This isn’t just about amnesia, not when there’s no mention of the scientist who attached a machine to him seconds before all this started. He’s sure of it.
Bucky emerges from his bedroom a few hours later to return Sam’s laptop, and Sam squeezes his arm when he passes. They don’t talk about it until they’ve sat down at the kitchen table to eat the pizza Sam ordered for dinner.
“Are you okay?” Sam asks when they’re settled. “Do you have any questions about anything?”
Bucky thinks about it, shakes his head. “Nah. It was pretty straightforward.” He takes a bite of his pizza before continuing. “Apparently I killed Howard Stark.”
“Mmhmm, caused a lot of drama with that one.”
Sam’s flippant tone startles a laugh out of Bucky, and Sam's lip curls up at the sound, pleased to have made him laugh. It’s been an uncomfortable day, but the sight makes Bucky feel warm and comfortable. Sam always knows what he needs. Sam knows him. Bucky wishes he could return the favor.
“It seems like you’re handling this well,” Sam says after a minute. “Not just the files but… all of this.” He waves a hand around. “You’re almost… cheerful.”
Bucky shrugs. “Well, this is a slight improvement over my last residence.”
“Good to know I am one step above literal torture,” Sam replies, eyes glittering with amusement.
“Many, many steps,” Bucky amends. He’s unable to keep up the banter at the moment, at the risk that it might be the slightest bit unclear to Sam how appreciative he is.
Sam looks down, a little bashful. “I’ll take it.”
“Is he not cheerful?” When Sam tilts his head in confusion, Bucky clarifies. “Your version of me. He’s not happy?”
Sam rolls his eyes. “He is you. And… you are happy, I think. Cheerful… now, that’s a stretch. You have your moments.”
“He’s happy,” decides Bucky. How could he not be, living this life?
“You’re happy,” Sam corrects him again.
“Also true.”
Sam doesn’t press the issue, and for a little while, they eat in companionable silence. Bucky thinks about Sam’s insistence on not differentiating him from the Bucky who used to live here. After finishing a slice of pizza, he clears his throat, ready to tell Sam what’s been on his mind for days and now feels confirmed — he does not have amnesia. Something else is going on.
“I think, uh… I think the reason that the stuff in those files didn’t get to me as much as it should have is because I know that it wasn’t me.”
Sam meets his eye as he finishes chewing and swallows. “That could be a healthy way to look at it,” he says. “You weren’t in control, so…”
“No, I mean it more literally,” Bucky clarifies. “I didn’t do it. I’d remember something. I’d read those files and I’d know it was me. I know I would. The guy with the machine who was doing some experiment on me, he’s not in there anywhere. It’s gotta be related,” Bucky says earnestly, trying to keep eye contact with Sam, moving his head to follow even as Sam starts to look away.
“Buck…”
“I didn’t lose 80 years of memories,” he insists. “It wouldn’t feel like this. One second I was in 1945 and the next I was here. It just… wouldn’t feel like that.”
Sam frowns. “How would you even know what that sort of memory loss feels like?”
Bucky raises an eyebrow. He’d just read about how he spent 70 years without any of his memories. “How would I know what memory loss feels like?”
“But that’s exactly it,” Sam says, triumphant. “If you’re not you, then you wouldn’t know. It didn’t happen to you.”
It’s a good point and Bucky can’t argue. “I just… I know that I didn’t lose 80 years. It wouldn’t feel like that. Not years.”
Sam huffs out a laugh. “I guess we haven’t really talked much about The Blip yet, huh?”
Bucky shakes his head slowly. He’s heard a little about the five year period where half of the world was missing, but he hasn’t sought out details. It’s just one of a million huge catastrophes he missed.
“We just turned to dust. Me, you, half the whole damn world. We came back immediately, but it was five years. Five years gone, and it felt like a second. I know that’s not exactly the same, but…we’ve lost years before, for sure.”
There had been a movie playing in the hotel on Bucky’s first night here that he’d briefly stopped on while flipping through television channels, marveling over the remote, the size of the screen, the number of channels. It showed people disintegrating in front of horrified friends and relatives at a party. Bucky had assumed it was some sort of horror movie, not a film based on something real. Something that happened to him and Sam. Bucky looks down at his body, tries to picture it turning to dust and blowing away in the wind.
“God, I should be dead,” he says, shaking his head. “I almost died in that labor camp, and then Zola with that serum, and that fall from the train, and Hydra, and… and turning into dust for five years. 108 years old… I’m supposed to be dead.”
“Dead?” Sam asks, his voice soft. Bucky feels Sam squeeze his knee gently under the table. “Nah, you lived through all that shit, sounds like you’re supposed to be alive to me.”
Bucky smiles, touched by the sentiment, but he feels like crying, too. He hasn’t been swayed — he still thinks he’s a visitor here, not an amnesiac — but God, does he want to stay.
They switch to lighter topics after that, but Bucky hugs Sam before going to his bedroom. His mind is still on their earlier conversation, Sam’s level-headed gentleness, and his reassuring touch. Bucky’s not sure if this is something they normally do, but he doesn’t care that much. If his time here is limited, he’s not going to waste it not hugging Sam when he feels the urge. Sam does seem a little surprised, but he returns the hug.
“Do we normally do that?” Bucky asks.
“Sometimes,” says Sam. “He’s a hugger, too.”
“A hugger,” Bucky repeats, testing the word out before he realizes exactly what Sam just said. “Wait, did you say he? He’s a hugger? Who is he, Samuel? Didn’t you say there was only me?”
Sam laughs. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you are a hugger,” he says, poking Bucky in the chest to emphasize the you.
“That’s not what you said, though,” Bucky replies, singsong.
“You’re impossible,” Sam says, putting his arms on Bucky’s shoulders and turning him around to face the hallway. He gives him a playful shove. “Go to bed already.”
Bucky turns around as he walks down the hall toward his room, shoots Sam a salute that has him rolling his eyes again, but Bucky can tell he’s enjoying this, too. When he gets to his bedroom, his grin is so big his cheeks are starting to hurt, and his face is flush with heat. Jesus Christ, this man makes him feel a giddiness he hasn’t felt in years.
He lies awake in bed that night like a lovesick kid with a crush, replaying moments he and Sam have shared. The intimate flying trip right after Bucky had gotten here, with Sam holding him close. The countless reassuring touches. The hug earlier that evening. He thinks about the night before when they went to Sarah’s house for dinner and so Bucky could meet the family again. He had already been filled with affection for Sam, but watching him around the people he loved the most, teasing his sister and playing with his nephews, had caused that affection to overflow. It hasn’t subsided since. He’s not sure it ever will.
It’s thrilling to let himself indulge in thoughts that aren’t filled with doom and gloom or murderous escape plans. Eventually, though, the acute giddiness fades, his heart rate slows, and he goes back to thinking about the inevitable — he doesn’t belong here. He’s been trying not to think about it, but he unintentionally put some pieces together while he was daydreaming about Sam. Sam had said that when he and his Bucky saw this house for the first time, Bucky said he’d been there before. Bucky had said he knew his cat in a previous life. Is it possible that the Bucky that Sam knew had been here before? Because he’s from the past, and he’s here now?
Trying to sort it out gives him a headache. It seems like time travel, sort of. Like he’s stealing the life of a different person, who maybe also was him at one point. His stomach drops as he imagines the guy who’s supposed to be here, living this great life after overcoming so much bullshit, trapped in that dreary Hydra cell. Living through some of the worst parts of his life again.
He’s not sure if it makes sense to feel guilty about taking something that belongs to himself, but that doesn’t help him sleep.
***
Sam is usually out running when Bucky wakes up, but the next morning, Bucky wakes to noise from Sam’s bedroom. When he gets up and peeks in through the open door, he sees Sam shoving some clothes in a bag.
“You’re going somewhere?” Bucky asks, frowning.
“Yeah, I was just about to wake you up and tell you,” replies Sam. “I gotta head to Houston, apparently some enhanced people are causing some trouble.”
“Enhanced? Like me?”
“Dunno, didn’t get a lot of detail. I don’t think they know yet.” He zips up his bag and hoists it onto his shoulder. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Hopefully it’s a quick one. I’ll text you when I can.”
Bucky’s eyes widen. “What? No, I’m coming with you.”
“Nah,” Sam says, shaking his head. “Not this time.”
“If you’re going to fight enhanced people, why wouldn’t I go and help?” When Bucky first learned that Sam had taken on the mantle, he assumed that he had some form of supersoldier serum as well. He’d learned pretty quickly that it wasn’t true. Mostly, that felt like great news. Bucky knows that the serum is what’s kept him alive, but he doesn’t have much nice to say about it otherwise, especially after learning that some version of himself utilized the strength from that serum to become an assassin for Hydra. Without any sort of enhancement, though, Sam is at a disadvantage in a fight with super powered people. He’s incredibly strong and skilled, but he should have backup from someone who can take a lot of punches for him.
“I’ll have help, it’s fine.” Sam tells him. “Joaquín’ll be there, Rhodey… maybe Scott and Hope, too.”
Bucky doesn’t know any of the names besides Joaquín’s. “Why wouldn’t I go? That’s my job, right? I work with you?”
Sam sighs. “You’re on vacation, how about that?”
“Okay. How about I take my vacation in Houston?”
“I knew you were gonna be dramatic about this.” Sam walks toward his bedroom door and Bucky steps aside to let him out, but follows close behind as he walks into the living room.
“There’s no reason for me to just sit here when you’re on a mission. I can help!”
“You don’t remember how to help right now. It’s not a big deal, man. We have it under control. Go see Sarah and the kids today, and I’ll hopefully be back tomorrow.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Bucky snaps. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, but I also know that you don’t like being left alone and you’re gonna want to go do something. This is not as big of a deal as you’re making it.”
Sam is heading toward the front door now and Bucky is starting to panic. He can tell he’s losing this argument and it makes him feel desperate.
“Sam, I can—”
“You can’t,” he says simply. “Buck, your memory of the last 80 years is gone. Like, really gone. You had to ask me to show you where to find translations of Russian yesterday.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Bucky’s nearly shouting. “Will I be speaking a lot of Russian in Texas?”
“That’s not the point, and you know it. I don’t know what you know. I don’t know what your capabilities are. Stuff that you knew last week is just gone. I can’t run a mission when I don’t know what you can do.”
“Well, I know you prefer the other Bucky, but l—”
Sam throws his head back and groans. “Oh God, not this again.”
“You don’t trust me!”
“You’ve got it!” Sam says sarcastically. “I don’t trust you, that’s why I’m sending you over to my sister’s to hang out with her and her small children.”
“You don’t trust me to do my job!”
“Well, according to you, it’s not even your job, right? It belongs to a guy who looks just like you, but you’re not him!”
Bucky scowls. “I can do this. I don’t need Hydra assassin skills to work with the good guys.” He stomps over to the door, giving Sam an expectant look. “Come on, let’s go.”
“You really ain’t getting this, huh? You’re not coming.”
“How are you gonna stop me? I’ll follow you.”
“God, you’re a child. I can have all your clearances revoked in 30 seconds. You’re not getting anywhere near this.”
Sam truly sounds angry now, and Bucky attempts to speak a little more calmly to defuse the situation.
“I don’t need to know everything. I know that it’s basically impossible to hurt me. I fell from that train and I was completely fine, and that’s all I need to know.”
Sam lets out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You came out of that fall with one less arm than you went into it with, so I’m gonna have to disagree with your assessment here.”
“Sam, I’ll be fine!”
“It’s not just about you!” yells Sam. “Man, both versions of you are selfish and dense as hell, that’s for sure. I don’t know how to make it clearer for you. It’s not safe! For you, for me, for Torres or Rhodey. I know you’ve had a rough week, but I’m gonna need you to back down here. This is not personal. I don’t know what you can do. You don’t know what you can do. If someone dies because of that, that’s on me. Do you get that?”
The idea of Sam going off, even with a highly trained team, where Bucky can’t look after him is deeply upsetting. The implications of Sam’s explanations about Bucky being an unsafe bet hurt, even though they aren’t without merit. Embarrassingly, he feels like he might cry. Keeping his voice cold and emotionless takes a lot of effort.
“Yep, I’m a liability. Might kill someone. Got it loud and clear, Cap.”
Sam sighs in frustration, sensing the finality in Bucky’s tone and knowing it’s pointless to continue. He exits, shutting the door with a bit more force than necessary, leaving Bucky alone.
***
Bucky’s anger carries him for about an hour before it dissipates, just leaving the hurt behind. He’s known the man less than a week but is fully prepared to die for whatever mission Sam deems important — and Sam said no. Bucky’s not safe. Someone might die. It feels like a rejection of more than just his offer of help.
Logically, Bucky knows that Sam is right. He barely knows who he is and no one has been able to figure out why. He might be dangerous. Sam is a good man and he’s looking out for the people he cares about and trying to get the mission completed as safely and efficiently as possible. That doesn’t include bringing along a former Hydra assassin who spent most of his life brainwashed, got his memories back and his brain fixed, and then forgot any of it ever happened just 10 years later.
Or a time traveler from the 1940s who has switched places with a future version of himself. Whatever he is. Sam made the right choice, no matter how much Bucky hates it.
By noon, he’s drafting a variety of elaborate apologies in his head, but it’s hard to keep focus. His brain keeps reminding him that Sam is out there doing something dangerous, and even when he gives up on planning the apology for now, his nervous energy keeps him pacing the living room. Alpine sits on the arm of the couch, watches him with wide eyes, like she’d rather he stop the constant movement. When Bucky sits down on the couch, trying to appease her and hoping she might come sit with him, his bouncing leg keeps her watching suspiciously from a distance. He’s really not winning anyone over today.
There’s no way to distract himself — he can’t focus enough to read or spend more time on the Internet researching any topic that comes to his mind. The giant television remains incredibly impressive, but it won’t be any fun to watch something without Sam close by, making commentary.
Bucky texts Sarah early in the afternoon asking if he can come by later, simultaneously annoyed that Sam was right and Bucky was wrong, and comforted by the fact that Sam really does seem to know him. Texting is a very new phenomenon to him, and the only person he’s even tested it out with is Sam, from within the same house. Sarah is listed as one of his most recent contacts, though, and it’s easier to write out a message than try and call someone who mostly still feels like a stranger. He takes his time crafting the message, deleting and rewriting it a few times, alternately marveling and cursing at the autocorrect feature that keeps messing up his words. His goal is not to sound quite as desperate for company as he feels, but he’s not sure he really pulls it off in the end. The message he sends feels a little too formal. It’s a huge paragraph, taking up most of the screen once it’s sent. Bucky frowns. Based on the other recent messages sent from this phone, most with very few words, this isn’t normal for him.
She gets back to him quickly, letting him know it’s fine and she’ll be home with the kids around 4. His success makes him consider texting Sam, too — maybe he can kill the hours before heading over to Sarah’s by writing an elaborate text apology. Bucky abandons the idea quickly, not wanting Sam to possibly be distracted at all during a dangerous mission. Texts aren’t for that sort of thing anyway, he decides, even if it would be easier.
Slightly after 4, he walks over to Sarah’s house, proud for at least managing to wait until a few minutes after she got home. The kids are in the yard, clearly expecting him, and the enthusiasm they greet him with makes him smile for the first time that day. They had been subdued at first when he was here the other day, having been warned that he had lost his memory. That had faded quickly, though, and they had both seemed to enjoy the task of telling him important facts about his relationship with them. The veracity of the information was questionable, but Bucky appreciated it all the same.
“You should play Minecraft with me,” AJ says as he leads Bucky into the house through the front door. “You probably don’t remember it, but you love playing it!”
Sarah’s laughter sounds from the kitchen, and Bucky looks over, giving her a wave. She grins at him, then turns to her son.
“Now, AJ, don’t lie to the poor man. It’s not nice to lie to someone with amnesia.”
“I’m not lying!”
“He is,” says Cass. “You’re nice about it, but I’m pretty sure you hate playing it.”
“I don’t even remember what it is,” Bucky tells them. “I might like it.”
AJ grins. “You totally will! It’s awesome.” He bolts into the living room and Cass follows, leaving Bucky and Sarah behind.
“I just realized I’m out of a few things I need for dinner,” Sarah says. “I just need to run out, are you okay with the boys for half an hour or so?”
“Yeah, of course,” Bucky says, a little surprised by the request and the trust it implies, but not concerned. It’s easy to feel comfortable here, even after so little time. Everyone he’s encountered in Delacroix has been very friendly, but with Sarah and her kids, he feels like family almost as much as he does with Sam.
“I’ll rescue you from Minecraft when I get back,” Sarah promises, giving his arm a squeeze as she walks by to grab her keys. “You can help me make dinner.”
When she gets back and eventually sends the kids off to do their homework, Bucky is thankful for the rescue. AJ and Cass are great kids, but he couldn’t help but feel like his lacking video game skills were a disappointment to them. Sarah sets him up chopping some vegetables and then pulls out some spices and a large pot.
“Nah, that’s too big,” she says, pointing the spoon she just pulled out of the drawer at the tomato pieces on his cutting board. “Cut them a little smaller.”
Bucky cuts a much smaller piece from one of his large tomato chunks, which makes Sarah sigh and walk over to stand beside him. He hands her the knife when she holds out an expectant hand.
“Between this and the Minecraft, I’m feeling pretty inadequate today,” he says wryly. In truth, what’s really made him feel inadequate today is how badly he screwed up with Sam.
“Don’t feel bad about the Minecraft,” she says, chopping a couple tomato pieces. “They didn’t have that in your time. The vegetable chopping, though… that’s a little embarrassing.”
Bucky laughs and Sarah grins at him as she hands back the knife. Her smile reminds him of Sam’s, big, bright, and playful, with a hint of intimacy that makes him feel like the only person in the world when it’s directed at him.
“Like that,” she says, indicating the tomato pieces she chopped herself.
“Yes, ma’am.”
A strange look crosses her face and he wonders if he’s said something offensive, but she just cocks her head to the size and asks, “You used Sam’s soap?”
It doesn’t sound like an accusation, but he feels a little defensive nonetheless. “It was in the shower,” Bucky says with a shrug. “I didn’t know I had my own.” This is not strictly true — it had been true at first, when he’d just used whatever bottle was closest, but after a few showers he’d noticed that there were two different kinds of soap. He’d just kept using the one he’d started with because he liked the smell better. He didn’t know for sure that it was Sam’s.
“Mmhmm,” Sarah replies. “I can only tell because your current soap has an extremely strong lemon smell. It makes you smell like dish soap. The absence is notable.”
If she can tell that he’s not using his own soap just by standing next to him, Sam has probably noticed as well. The thought makes him blush.
“My current soap?”
“I think your goal is to try them all,” Sarah says.
Bucky frowns. “Maybe my goal should be to stop smelling like lemon dish soap,” he says, which makes Sarah laugh.
He had found himself overwhelmed by the sheer number of varieties of everything at the grocery store when he went with Sam a few days ago. So many things here are different from anything he’s experienced before. Wanting to try every soap is understandable, he thinks. Weird, but understandable.
They work in silence for a few minutes, Bucky chopping the tomatoes into more appropriately sized pieces while Sarah prepares the meat. It’s pleasant here and he’s glad he came, but he can’t stop thinking about Sam — how he’s doing, if the mission is going well, if it’s even really started yet or if they’re still planning, when he’ll be back, if things will be different between them after the fight. An idea comes to him as he moves from the tomatoes to the onions.
“Hey, Sam likes this, right?” Bucky asks, gesturing at the whole counter with the large knife he’s holding. “This meal?”
“Jambalaya? Who doesn’t?”
Bucky shrugs. He almost tells her he’s never had it before, but he suspects she’d disagree. “Would you say it’s one of his favorite meals?”
Sarah narrows her eyes. “Yeah, I guess. Why?”
“I was thinking maybe he would want it when he gets back, like a ‘welcome home’ meal. If you have a recipe you could give me, then—”
Sarah interrupts him with a sharp bark of laughter. “Man, you lost all your memories but didn’t change one bit, huh?” He’s helplessly confused and it must show on his face, because she immediately continues. “Sorry, you can’t make this,” she says. “You’ve tried this before. Went real bad. You can’t season for shit. Did you guys fight or something?”
He gapes. “How…?”
She smirks. “Like I said, you’ve tried this before.”
“I was an asshole,” Bucky admits. He starts chopping the onions again, embarrassed to look her in the eye while he talks about this. “About him not letting me go with him today.”
Sarah hums, but doesn’t ask any further questions about their argument. “Well, you can’t cook. Why do you think I’m only letting you chop vegetables?”
He lifts up his vibranium arm and wiggles the metal fingers. “Because I’m less likely to chop off a finger than you are?”
That makes her laugh and shake her head. “No, it’s because you’re terrible at cooking. But I guess the finger thing is true, too.”
He loves the feeling of making someone laugh on purpose, but it feels strange to joke about his arm. Bucky alternates between barely remembering he has it because it feels so natural, to thinking about it constantly, a little afraid when he thinks of the advanced technology and how it communicates with his body. It was a gift, Sam had told him. He’d had arms from Hydra before, but this one was a gift from friends. Nothing to be scared of.
Sarah puts her own knife down, picks up her phone from the counter, and a moment later Bucky’s text alert sounds from his pocket. When he checks, it’s a text from Sarah, an image of a cake labeled a ‘crunch cake recipe.’
“It’s a link,” she explains when he looks up at her. “If you press it, it’ll open the recipe. You actually can make this. You’re surprisingly good at it. Sam loves it.”
Bucky’s eyes start to well up with tears, overwhelmed at the kindness of the gesture. He doesn’t think Sarah would be rude about it, but he tries to blink them back anyway, embarrassed that something so simple could have such an effect on him. Months of cruelty have made a mess of him, and all the goodness he’s experienced in the last week feels like more than he’d ever experienced in his whole life to that point. It’s difficult to process.
God, he’s embarrassing. Maybe he could blame the onions. He should have just stayed home if he was going to cry all night. It would be far less embarrassing to cry in front of Alpine than it would be to cry in front of people.
“Thank you,” he says after waiting to make sure his voice wouldn’t break.
Sarah has gone back to work, politely ignoring his fairly obvious emotional dysfunction. “Save me a piece, that’s the price.”’
“You got it,” he promises her.
Once Bucky finishes chopping the vegetables, his job is done. After Sarah’s claims about his cooking skills, he doubts he’ll get another assignment, but he leans against the counter, watching Sarah brown the sausage, just in case.
“I’m not gonna get involved in your argument,” she says after a minute, keeping her eyes on the stove. “But if it makes you feel better, he can’t be that mad at you. He texted me right after you did, saying I should invite you over if you hadn’t invited yourself yet.”
Bucky’s cheeks heat up and he lowers his gaze, smiling at the floor even as tears start to prick his eyes once again. It’s a relief to hear this, though it’s not a huge surprise. Sam is an amazing person — his goodness is palpable. It radiates from him, enveloping himself and anyone fortunate enough to be close to him. Bucky hopes he’ll be back soon, safe and sound, ready to receive and hopefully accept a sincere apology complete with a crunch cake.
“Do you get worried?” he asks Sarah. “When he’s out on missions, and there aren’t a lot of updates?”
“Always,” she replies. “I’m used to it, but it’s not easy.”
Bucky sighs. “I wish I was there. I know why I shouldn’t be, but I hate not being there.”
“Everyone needs a break sometimes,” she says simply. “It would do Sam some good to learn that, too.”
The jambalaya is delicious, and the boys chatter excitedly through the meal, mostly about a movie coming out soon and AJ’s upcoming birthday. Bucky helps clean up, and they watch a television show in the living room that he has trouble following. It’s nice, anyway, to be surrounded by people who care about him even when Sam is away. He leaves a bit before the kids’ bedtime, promising to see them soon and giving Sarah a hug and a sincere thank you. She had given him a quick lesson earlier in the evening on how to use social media apps to search names and locations, explaining that it’s how she could keep up with what was happening on their missions when official updates were hard to come by. “People see stuff, they talk about it, they post videos,” she’d told him. It was a lot of information to digest, but he had paid rapt attention. There hadn’t been much a few hours ago, just some people mentioning they had seen some Avengers around and a few blurry pictures, but Bucky searches again on his walk home, refreshing the apps on his phone constantly, barely putting it down to feed the cat and get ready for bed.
Instead of going to his bedroom, he sits on the couch, turns on one of the 24 hour news stations he can’t believe exists, and plugs in his phone to charge while he keeps checking for updates from the public. He learns about the beginning of the skirmish with a blurry video of Sam and Joaquín in the air. The news station cuts to coverage soon, and while it’s not as thorough as he’d prefer since there is not a camera focused on Sam at all times, it’s enough to get the feel of what’s going on. There are other people with Sam — a man the newscasters call Colonel Rhodes, who flies with a metal suit that appears to be powered with thrusters instead of wings, and a man and a woman called Ant-Man and the Wasp, who the newscasters claim shrink down to the size of insects. The camera never catches them that small, so he can’t tell for sure.
It’s not a long fight, but it’s stressful watching it play out and not being able to help. There are only two people fighting the Avengers, but they have bodies that glow bright orange and seem immune to pain. Cameras aren’t close enough to pick up anyone’s voices so it’s hard to know what’s going on. Sam executes some truly impressive flying maneuvers, at one point managing to pluck a freefalling Joaquín, who’d just taken a hit to his wing from a glowing orange projectile, safely out of the sky and drop him gently on a roof. Sam is incredibly graceful in the air, making flying while tossing the shield around look effortless. Bucky feels proud to know him.
In the end, one of them is taken down by the Wasp, which Bucky will just have to take the newscaster’s word about because he can’t see her, and the other one is trapped by Sam, both in nets that glow green and must have some sort of neutralizing power. Everyone is alive and safe, and live coverage cuts soon after when they can’t seem to get an interview with any of the heroes. The newscasters continue to speculate about what the glowing orange people were fighting for, but Bucky doesn’t really care that much. Sam’s okay, that was all that matters.
Knowing the mission is over and Sam is safe, Bucky takes out his phone. He’s sure Sam will be busy for a while. It’s 2am, so he won’t be home tonight, but he wants to send Sam a message for him to see when he has a free moment. He agonizes over the content for far too long, thinking of what to say as he turns off the television, spends a few minutes giving Alpine some of the attention he’s been denying her today, and heads to bed.
In the end, he sends a simple Nice job, Cap and spends some time figuring out how to set an early alarm for the morning before putting his phone on the nightstand. They’ll talk when Sam gets home.
Bucky wakes up to a couple of messages from Sam that came hours earlier, a thank you and letting him know that he would be home late in the afternoon. It’s good news, because Bucky has some work to do. He heads off to the grocery store Sam had brought him to earlier in the week, opting to walk instead of taking his bike. The weather is nice and it’s a pleasant walk into town to pick up the ingredients he couldn’t find in the kitchen. It’s his first time paying for anything himself since he got here, and he’s a little embarrassed at how pleased he is when he’s able to tap the credit card in his wallet correctly on the first try in the self-checkout lane. It’s a necessary boost to his confidence after spending so long wandering around the gigantic store to find the items he needs. Even with his struggles, the possibility of getting things done himself without talking to any store employees is one of the most appealing things about living in the future. Bucky likes to talk, he likes people… or he used to, anyway, but he’s not in the mood now and quite grateful to avoid faking a smile.
The cake is a little more complex than Bucky had assumed based on Sarah’s assurances that he was good at making it, and it’s a stressful couple of hours. Bucky has fond memories of baking with his mother and sister when he was young but he hasn’t done it much as an adult. By the time he pours the batter into the pan to put it in the oven, it looks enough like cake batter that he’s feeling pretty successful.
“We’ve got this under control,” he tells Alpine, who has declined to join him in the kitchen but is watching him from the living room, providing moral support. “I just have to make sure I don’t burn it. And make the glaze right. And get it out of the pan without destroying it.” He frowns. “It’s gonna be great. Sam will love it.”
Bucky knows the cake isn’t as important as he’s making it seem. The quality of this cake won’t have any bearing on earning Sam’s forgiveness — hopefully Bucky’s earnest apology will do that — but he wants it to be perfect nonetheless. Sam deserves something perfect.
The cake does look good when it’s done, and he has to fight the urge to try a piece as he admires it on the counter. He wants to check that it tastes as good as it smells, for Sam but also because he hasn’t really eaten anything today while focusing on the cake. He forces himself to make a sandwich instead, then kills the rest of the afternoon cleaning the house. The whole day makes him feel like a housewife, which he thinks he really wouldn’t mind if circumstances were a little different and Sam had left on good terms. When Bucky is done cleaning, he takes a shower, using Sam’s soap again despite knowing for sure now that it isn’t his own. It’s a favor to Sam, really, to avoid the dish soap smell.
It’s a luxury to bathe regularly after months of living under incredibly unhygienic conditions with Hydra, and years before that of being at war. It’s even more of a luxury to have a variety of clean clothes at his disposal. In his cell, his clothes were basically down to rags, and being able to pick out the pair of jeans he’s determined are his favorite feels like a precious gift. His wardrobe is a little strange, but he’s starting to get used to it. He’s used to baggier clothes, but Bucky actually likes how tight all of his jeans are. There’s not a lot of color to choose from, but he likes the simple shirts and jackets he has hanging in the closet. He likes dressing with a purpose, even if the purpose is just to feel good about himself when Sam gets home. Bucky even likes looking at himself in the mirror in this body that is familiar but still a little strange.
A little after 4:30, Bucky hears Sam’s truck pull into the long driveway and his heart starts racing. He stops himself from going to greet him at the door and instead sits down on the loveseat that faces the doorway. Bucky doubts that Sam will be fooled by his attempts at acting like he hasn’t been pacing around, desperately impatient for Sam’s arrival, but at least Sam deserves to have a little space when he first comes through the door. Unfortunately, Bucky’s plan goes out the window immediately when Sam walks inside. The right side of his face is puffy and bruised, and there’s a cut from right below his eye that stretches halfway down his cheek. Bucky’s up from the loveseat immediately, heading closer to him.
“It looks worse than it is,” Sam says.
“I hope so,” Bucky replies, so quiet it’s almost a whisper. He’s close enough to touch now, and his vibranium fingers are reaching for Sam before he even realizes what he’s doing. Sam doesn’t seem concerned as Bucky’s fingers gently touch his face, just to the right of the wound. “No stitches?”
“Like I said, not as bad as it looks.” Sam’s voice is quieter, too, and a moment passes where neither of them move.
“I’m glad everything went well,” Bucky says, finally removing his hand from the warmth of Sam’s cheek and taking a step back. “You guys looked good out there.”
“It’s a good group,” agrees Sam. His voice is neutral, but Bucky can tell he’s thinking of their argument and Bucky’s belligerent attempts to get himself included.
“Yeah, I um… I’m sorry about yesterday. You were right, it wouldn’t be safe for anyone. I was being selfish.”
Sam’s quiet for a moment. “You know, I like it better when you’re there, too. But right now it’s too much of a risk.”
“I know,” Bucky assures him. “That it’s a risk, I mean. I didn’t know the other part.” He smiles a little, trying to make it a joke, but he’s touched.
“Yeah, yeah, don’t let it go to your head,” says Sam, smacking his arm lightly before his face gets serious again “We’re good, but listen… when I said you don’t know what you’re capable of, I don’t think you got what I was saying. I meant that you have to hold yourself back significantly when you fight people. You do it now, easy, but you said you had to work at it when you first got out. It didn’t come naturally to you. But you’re not a killer. You’d hate yourself if you became one accidentally because of this. I know everything’s crazy right now, but you went off half-cocked with no context, refusing to listen… I’m on your side.”
Bucky swallows thickly. Sam sounds hurt, not angry, and Bucky feels even guiltier now. “I know that you are,” he tells Sam. There are tears forming in his eyes, but Bucky ignores them. He has a feeling Sam is quite used to seeing his embarrassing emotional displays. “I do know that, I can tell, you’ve been so amazing. I just hated that you were going off to a fight and I couldn’t help. I’m sorry.” Bucky wipes at a tear. “I’m really happy that you’re back.”
“You and I both,” Sam says. He’s staring intently at Bucky. It feels like he’s searching for something in his face, but Bucky isn’t sure what. It makes him a little nervous, worried he won’t be able to give Sam what he’s looking for, so he lowers his eyes.
“I probably would have killed whoever hit you like that,” he tells Sam. It’s an attempt at a joke, but he can tell he misses the mark, sounding quite serious. He tries adjusting his tone. “So, uh… thank you for not giving me the opportunity.”
Sam laughs. “Well, it was the side of a building, so I would’ve liked to see that.”
They part for a few minutes, Sam going to use the bathroom and put away his things while Bucky heads into the kitchen to get a glass of water from the tap. He leans against the counter as he drinks, trying to steady his breathing. He hears Sam down the hall, greeting Alpine in the gentle tone he uses with her. It makes him smile. It’s such a relief to have Sam safe at home, to have their argument behind them. The misery of the last two days had mostly forced the thoughts about his strange time travel situation from his mind, but they rush back to him now, reminding him that he might be living someone else’s life. That it might end at any time.
Bucky is pulled from his thoughts when Sam enters the kitchen and stops in his tracks when he notices the cake sitting on the counter. He turns to Bucky.
“You remembered that?” He sounds hopeful.
“Um, no,” replies Bucky, grimacing. He hates to disappoint Sam, whose face falls a bit at the admission. “I wanted to cook for you but Sarah said I shouldn’t, but she said I could try this.”
“Phew,” Sam exclaims, putting his hand to his chest in exaggerated relief. “She’s a lifesaver.”
Bucky rolls his eyes. “I can’t be that bad at it… she said I don’t know how to season. I could get better.”
“You would think, huh? Apparently, that is not the case. You have many skills, Buck. Cooking is not one of them.”
“Well, I used my credit card to buy groceries today, so that’s a skill I have now. I thought I’d use it again to order us some dinner so you won’t be tortured by my attempts at cooking. Whatever you want.”
Sam grins. “I won’t turn that down. You know you will eventually have to pay for everything you put on a credit card, right? I know they didn’t have them back in your day.”
“Ha, ha. I understand the concept, thank you.” Bucky thinks for a moment before continuing. “You may have to show me how to pay the bill, at some point.”
“Okay, Mr. Credit Card Expert.” Sam comes over to get a closer look at the cake and Bucky feels a little nervous under the scrutiny of his work.
“I don’t know if this is any good, either. I didn’t really know what I was doing.”
Sam shrugs. “Looks good to me.” He turns to face Bucky again, giving his arm a squeeze. “Thank you.”
Bucky wants to hug him and starts to reach out, overwhelmed by the grace and generosity Sam continues to extend to him. He’s overwhelmed by some other things too — Sam’s warm brown eyes, his cheekbones, his gap-toothed smile, his biceps and thigh muscles, all natural, not from any serum. It’s enough to hold Bucky back, make him drop his arms, not get too physical in this particular moment when he’s feeling so vulnerable. There’s another version of him, whether due to memory loss or time travel or magic, a version of himself who has known Sam for years, who lives and works with him, who is part of his family, yet there is no evidence that that Bucky has anything more than a totally platonic relationship with Sam. Surely, if there was any possibility, it would have happened by now. It almost feels like a betrayal of both Sam and his version of Bucky to even think about it.
“Um, you’re welcome,” he says after his awkwardly aborted hug attempt, ignoring the strange look Sam is giving him. “It’s been a while since you iced your face, I’m guessing? You should probably do it again, let me get you some.”
***
Bucky wakes up in the middle of the night to a loud thud, like someone’s dropped something. A quick glance at his watch tells him it’s a little after 3am, but Bucky can see some light shining in through his open door. He feels a little guilty as he gently pushes Alpine away from his shoulder so he can get up. She hadn’t been woken by whatever woke Bucky, but getting moved does it, and he whispers an apology to her adorable grumpy face before slipping out of bed and walking down into the hallway.
It’s Sam’s bedroom light that’s on. His door is open, so Bucky peeks inside, curious. Sam had gone to bed hours ago, but he’s up now, standing amongst piles of clothing that are on the floor and covering his bed. Every drawer in his bureau is open and empty. He looks vaguely panicked. Bucky isn’t sure what to make of this.
“Sam?” He keeps his voice quiet, but Sam still startles at the sudden noise. “Sorry. Um… everything okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Just felt like organizing my clothes... these drawers were a mess. I was trying not to wake you, sorry.”
Bucky isn’t sure that’s true — Sam knows he has good hearing and still opened his door when he usually has it closed — but he doesn’t mention it. “At 3am?”
Sam shrugs. He hasn’t looked Bucky in the eye yet. “Couldn’t sleep.”
That, Bucky can relate to. “Do you want help? Or some company?”
“You’ll be here all night,” Sam says, shaking his head. “I don’t know why I pulled all this out. Didn’t think this through at all.”
Bucky’s never seen Sam like this before. It pains him more than seeing the wound on Sam’s face, knowing that he’s struggling mentally as well. “You could just shove all the stuff off the bed for now so you can go to sleep,” he suggests.
Sam looks around, frowning. He seems stressed out by the condition of the room, and Bucky doubts he’ll sleep at all if he stays here.
“Actually, no,” Bucky says before Sam can reply. “Just leave it, you can sleep in my room. We’ll take care of this tomorrow.”
Sam doesn’t agree to it, but he doesn’t say no, either, so Bucky approaches him and tugs gently at his wrist.
“All right, yeah,” Sam says, allowing Bucky to lead him out of the room. He hits the light switch on their way out and they walk across the hall in the darkness.
“Alpine, make room, we have a guest,” Bucky says as he enters his bedroom. Sam lets out a quiet laugh. It’s a relief to hear it. Alpine does not do as he asked, so Bucky picks her up from the bed, cradling her to his chest with one arm and gesturing at the bed with the other. “Whatever side you want is fine, I don’t—” he cuts himself off. His sleep-addled brain had made the offer with the assumption they would share the bed, but he suddenly remembers his reluctance to even hug Sam last night with how he’s been feeling. Bucky hadn’t meant anything funny by the offer. He’s used to sleeping close to people after years in the army, and he doesn’t want to leave Sam alone when he’s like this, but it might not be a good idea. “Or I could go sleep on the couch, if…”
“You always sleep on the right,” Sam tells him, pointing. He walks around the end of the bed to climb onto the left side. Bucky is relieved, and a little curious. Have they done this before? Is this normal for them, or does Sam just know where he sleeps from sharing hotel rooms with him?
“I like to be close to the door,” says Bucky as he joins Sam on the bed, depositing Alpine between them.
“I know.”
A few minutes pass where they don’t say anything. They’re close, but not touching, both lying on their backs staring at the ceiling. The only movement is from Alpine, moving around to try and find the optimal sleeping spot in this new configuration. Bucky can tell Sam is still awake after a few minutes. He’s not sure Sam will answer, but he tries anyway.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks. “Is it about the mission?”
Sam sighs. “Joaquín almost got shot out of the sky.”
“I saw,” Bucky says when Sam doesn’t continue. “You got there so fast. It was really impressive.”
“He would’ve been fine. He was just about to pull the chute when I got him, it would’ve slowed him down enough.”
“Still scary, though,” Bucky says, though he honestly hadn’t been particularly scared when he saw it happen. Sam had taken care of it immediately like it was no problem.
Sam takes a moment to reply. “You don’t know about Riley. Sometimes, you’re so…” he trails off, takes a second. “Sometimes, I forget that you don’t know this stuff anymore.”
“Sorry,” Bucky says, truly feeling guilty. “Who’s Riley? If you don’t mind talking about it.”
“He was my partner.”
“At work?”
“At… everything,” Sam says, sighing. “He was in the EXO-7 Falcon program with me. In the Air Force, before I met Steve and got involved in all this Avengers stuff. We were on a rescue mission and an RPG took him out. There was nothing I could do.” Bucky reaches out for Sam, his vibranium fingers encircling Sam’s wrist. “And then Rhodey… he had a fall, too, didn’t die, but it was bad, and I was up there, too. Couldn’t stop it. I have the worst nightmares when I think about this stuff. Makes it impossible to sleep. I think it’s worse today than it usually is. Everything is so bizarre right now with you not being there, and you not knowing…”
Bucky rolls onto his side toward Sam. It’s dark, but he has good eyesight and can make out his features quite clearly. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I hate that I can’t be there.”
Sam turns to face him, too. “Nah, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not your fault. Sorry, I’m—”
“Hey, no, you’re right. I’m sorry that you’re alone ‘til I figure this out.” His voice breaks. “I’m sorry that you know me so well but I don’t know you at all.”
Sam’s quiet for a moment before responding. “You do know me, though. You say you don’t, but you can tell… what I need.”
Bucky blushes, glad that Sam can’t see it in the dark. “You’re easy to read.”
“I’m not,” Sam insists. “Not to everyone.”
Bucky thinks again about how this amnesia situation is painful for Sam, too. Maybe even more than it is for himself. The doctors and scientists had no idea what happened, and the only recommendation they had was to see a therapist, which Bucky had refused. It’s the only recommendation anyone could think of that might fix this, might give Sam his friend back, and Bucky is spending his time trying to understand how he could possibly be a time traveler. He still doesn’t think it will help — he’s convinced that he has taken someone else’s place here and a visit to a therapist will do nothing to change that — but it must hurt Sam to know that Bucky has not made the effort. It’s worth the attempt, just for that.
“I don’t know facts about your life, though,” Bucky says. “I want to know them. I’m learning who you are but not what you’ve done, where you’ve been. You shouldn’t have to tell me about people you know, or things that happened to you. I was thinking… maybe I’ll call my old therapist like you suggested? I don’t know if it will help. I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t think it’s a memory thing, but it’s been a week, and…”
“We can reach out to her tomorrow,” says Sam. “I don’t think it can hurt.”
Bucky’s not so sure of that, but Sam sounds happy that he brought it up, which is enough.
“I don’t want to constantly be asking you basic facts about your life, but if you ever want to give me your life story… I know there are some books about you I can read, but, um, I know how you feel about those kinds of books.”
Sam smiles. “There’s one called The Unauthorized Biography of the NEW Captain America and they put this family tree in there that’s totally wrong. They looked up a different Sam Wilson, I’m pretty sure. It’s impressive how little of the book is true.”
“Yeah, I want the real story.”
“It began on a dark and stormy night in 1978,” Sam starts, an impression of a dramatic television announcer that makes Bucky laugh.
“God, 1978… I’m so old.”
“Incredibly old,” Sam agrees, before continuing. He drops the jokes after a few minutes, telling a more straightforward story, letting his voice drop to a murmur. Bucky’s got an arm pressed against Sam’s, their faces are close together, and Alpine is down between their legs, radiating warmth. Sam starts to trail off soon, falling asleep before he even gets to his high school years. Bucky doesn’t mind. He’s so comfortable like this, listening to Sam’s soothing voice, that he’s been having difficulty keeping his eyes open anyway. He’s glad to see Sam getting some rest.
He knows he’ll get the rest of Sam’s story eventually.
1945
Bucky’s lost track of how long he’s been here. Less than a week, he thinks, but it’s hard to track. The rogue time travel scientist hasn’t been back, so he hasn’t been able to gather any more information about his predicament.
He can’t stop thinking about the branch problem.
If the same time travel rules the Avengers followed apply here, he can’t change anything. If they don’t… Bucky doesn’t know. The idea of living through all of the worst parts of his life again is awful, but if it will keep the world stable… if it will, eventually, get him back to his life, maybe it’s not so bad. Part of him almost hopes that he’s not allowed to change things. Any change he makes could lead to consequences, not just for him, but for everyone. It’s daunting. He’s done enough damage in his life already, he’d rather not add accidentally destroying the fabric of space and time to the list. God, why hadn’t he asked Steve about his loophole? Did it even exist? Is it all lies? Does preserving the timeline even really matter?
He’s been forming half-hearted escape plans, but he takes a break from worrying about destroying the world. It’s an option, he thinks, if he ever manages to convince himself that creating a branch is unimportant. The chances of him successfully making it out are decent but not 100%, but if he can get someone’s gun before they take him down, before they get him back here and start the brainwashing and memory wiping, he can take himself out of the equation. He’s hard to kill, sure, but a well-aimed shot to the head will do it. Bucky can’t commit atrocities as the Winter Soldier if he’s not alive.
It’s a terrible plan. He hates it. But he has to, if that’s the only way to undo the things he’s done. If he could save someone like Yori’s son, who has not even been born yet but who will eventually die by Bucky’s hand, he has to. If he stays here, he’s going to do all of this stuff again. He thinks of everything he’s lived through in the past 80 years. Even after the escape from Hydra, he had spent so much time hiding. Hiding from Steve in Romania, hiding from most of the world’s governments in Wakanda, hiding from everyone in the whole world in New York after The Blip. Only in the past year and a half has he really started to come out into the light. He was lucky to feel so settled, so good, after everything that happened. To reach a level of happiness he never thought possible and he probably doesn’t deserve. To have Sam and Sarah and the boys and Alpine at home, to be able to work with Sam and the Avengers and feel like he can do some good in the world. Bucky likes his life. He wants to get back to it, even if he has to wait 80 years to do it. He really, really doesn’t want to die, but he fixates on the idea for a long time, anyway. Maybe he got sent back here because he was meant to die here 80 years ago and something went wrong. Maybe the universe is righting itself. He’s thought about it before — how little sense it makes that he’s alive. He should have died over and over, in the first labor camp, after falling from that train, here in this prison, in Siberia with Tony Stark, in Wakanda when half the world turned to dust. He should be dead.
Sam’s voice plays in his head, then. “Nah, you lived through all that shit, sounds like you’re supposed to be alive to me.”
It makes Bucky smile to hear it, to have this comfort from his brain even while he ponders the worst case scenario. Being in this cell again is terrible for a lot of reasons, but one of the worst is how far away he is from Sam, how much he misses him. There’s no one in the world like Sam Wilson, and Bucky is lucky enough to be a part of his life, lucky enough to love him and be loved in return, even if it’s not the type of love he’s been wanting from Sam, lately. There had been moments, though, and Bucky had been thinking about doing something. He had, and maybe he would have eventually, but things were so good. It was a risk to challenge it, to ask for more. He was just taking his time to work up to it, and now he may never get the chance. If he ever gets back there, he will kiss Sam like he’s been wanting to. He should’ve done it already. The Bucky who went into this cell in 1945, he would have kissed Sam by now for sure.
Thoughts of Sam are a pleasant distraction for a few minutes, and he tries to remember when Sam said this to him. His memory is good now that he’s been out of Hydra’s clutches for over a decade and had all their garbage removed from his brain. For better or worse, he remembers everything except some of the time he lost in this cell. Moments with Sam are precious to him — he has them catalogued in his brain for easy access when he needs them. It’s why he wasn’t surprised to have one delivered to him right then as he hurtled toward despair. But he can’t remember the conversation. He can’t remember Sam ever saying this to him. It’s something Sam would say, but he didn’t. Bucky would remember the details, the context. He doesn’t forget things like this.
Unless…
He looks around the cell, this nightmare of a place, his heart rate speeding up. Is it because he’s here that he can’t remember? Is it something about this fucking cell that’s doing this to him again? Is it possible he’s going to lose his memories here? He hadn’t lost all of them last time, but anything is possible if Hydra has built a memory-sucking cell. Has Bucky ever actually left this cell at all? Maybe he didn’t lose time here 80 years ago — maybe he never left, and his whole life after this was a hallucination. Maybe Hydra was implanting stuff in his brain. God, he hopes Sam isn’t a hallucination.
Bucky has worked himself up into a full panic, which he recognizes. He looks to the corner of his cell, searching for probably the 50th time in the last week for the rough carving of the shooting star that he had always looked to for comfort the first time he was imprisoned here. Not there, of course. He keeps forgetting. The reminder of its absence makes him feel even worse, and he knows he has to get himself under control. He exhales shakily, tries to conjure another, far less pleasant, voice in his head.
“You’re spiraling, James,” he hears Dr. Raynor say blandly. “Why don’t we take a step back and try to look at this more logically?”
Okay, maybe assuming the last 80 years of his life have been a hallucination just because he can’t place a memory of one conversation with Sam is a little far-fetched. The cell itself sucking out all his memories is perhaps a bit far-fetched as well. The notion that this all involves time travel isn’t terribly logical, either, but at least he knows that time travel is possible, and there’s the added evidence of the scientist telling him it’s what the machine is for. Time travel until proven otherwise, then, that’s what he’s working with. His plan to die to change the course of history is probably also a bit melodramatic, especially since one of the only things he does know about time travel is that you can’t make any major changes. Major changes will cause a branch, and Bruce had told him that this would apply to this sort of mental time travel, too.
Wait, when he had talked to Bruce about this? Bucky had only met Bruce very briefly. He had been the one to send Steve back with the stones, but Bucky hadn’t said much of anything to him beyond their introduction. They had never discussed time travel, not even Steve’s. What does ‘mental time travel’ even mean? Whose memories are these?
It feels like the start of another spiral, so Bucky stops, concentrating on his breathing for a few minutes before trying to concentrate again on yet another vague memory that he can’t place. This one is even more troubling than the memory of Sam — he’s had a lot of conversations with Sam. It’s possible he may not be able to recall all the details of one, even if he finds it very suspicious. Bruce, though… he hasn’t forgotten any conversations with Bruce, because he hasn’t had any. He tries to focus on this one, to bring Bruce’s voice back to him so he can get some context. They were at a restaurant, he thinks. They were outside. It was a nice day. It was just them, only two chairs at the table. They were talking about time travel, because…
Because Bucky had asked him.
He thinks again of his bizarre idea that he had swapped places with another Bucky, one who had been in this cell until he replaced him. It’s crazy, but if that’s what’s happening… that Bucky might have asked if any sort of mental time travel existed, and what the rules are. He’d be thinking of the same possibilities that Bucky is here — they share a brain, after all, and maybe that means they share thoughts? Maybe, even if the other Bucky is 80 years in the future right now, they have a mental connection? Personally, he thinks he would have sought out the help of Shuri, who is the smartest person he knows, or Doctor Strange, a sorcerer who spent a lot of time with something called a time stone and maybe had a bit more expertise on time travel. Maybe he can send Past Bucky Living in the Future that message and get things sorted a little quicker.
He sits with this idea for a long time, trying to work it out. It sounds ridiculous, but he’s drawn to this idea, that they’ve swapped places and have some sort of connection. That they’re both trying to figure this out. Bucky tries to find any other unfamiliar memories hiding out in his brain that may belong to his other self, but he seems unable to access them at will. It’s like he needs to be thinking about something specific, or be reminded of it.
He’s been sitting slumped against the wall, resting after hours of pacing around the small cell, but this thought makes him sit up straight. He remembers all the times he’s felt like he knew things he wasn’t supposed to know. Nothing concrete, just feelings, usually involving Sam. Sam always joked about it, calling him clairvoyant. When Bucky had first met Sam, first met him for real, the familiarity was intense. Bucky couldn’t shake it, had even asked Sam if they knew each other in the past. When he’d found Alpine, he knew before he even approached the abandoned box on the side of the road that there would be a small white kitten inside, clinging to life. He had recognized the house he lives in the very first time he stepped into it. And just last week on his last mission, in that field as they approached the farmhouse, Bucky had known that something bad was going to happen there. He’s suddenly certain he remembers these things because they happened to him. In 1945, this ridiculous vacuum cleaner time machine sent him to the future, swapped him out with his older self, and gave him a glimpse of his life. And it must have gotten corrected, somehow, and then that Bucky was sent back with those memories, and 80 years later, he has vague, confused feelings about the time he once spent in the future instead of complete memories.
Could that be it? He thinks about the half-remembered conversation with Bruce at the restaurant. Had he really asked about time travel? How much information had Bruce had? If Bucky is right, then this will get fixed. It got fixed in the past, and not fixing it would create a branch, which they can’t do without messing up the universe. Bucky breathes a sigh of relief. It’s comforting to have even the most vague reassurance that this might work out okay and he can go home. It has happened, so it can happen again.
He frowns, thinking of the other Bucky, catapulted into the future where his life is immeasurably better. What motivation would he have to come back to this nightmare? How had he ever done this? Bucky feels guilty, almost, for wanting to get out of here so badly. He hopes Past Bucky is having a nice vacation in the future, at least, before he gets sent back here.
He looks again to the corner of his cell, to the blank space on the cement wall where he keeps expecting the ugly little star he remembers to appear and give him some comfort like it used to. It’s still not there, but as he pictures it, something occurs to him. It was a rough carving, not a lot of detail, just a star with two lines coming out of each side. He had always thought of it as a shooting star, the closest thing he could compare it to, but it’s not that at all. A carving of a shooting star would probably only have lines on one side. This is no shooting star — this is the star on the center of Sam’s Captain America suit that Bucky had commissioned from Wakanda. Bucky wouldn’t have known this in the 40s, he wouldn’t recognize that star. He hadn’t met Sam. The carving isn’t there now because it hasn’t been made yet. Bucky must do it when he gets back from his trip to 2025, in a desperate attempt to make sure he remembers his future.
The thought makes him ache.
2025
On the first Saturday that they’ve been home since Bucky got here, Sam tells him it’s movie night. Bucky doesn’t tell him, but he’s been thinking about this since Sam mentioned it back at the farmhouse, wondering if it would actually happen. Sam tells him to pick a movie and Bucky’s excited to do it, but he spends an hour scrolling through movies, using the instructions to create an intimidating watch list that would likely take him a year to get through. It’s more stressful than he thought, and in the end, he defers to Sam, who picks a movie he says Bucky really likes.
He does enjoy it, though he thinks he’s probably missing out on some of the humor since he has not experienced anything that’s happened in the world in the last 80 years. He suspects that Sam picked this film because he was hoping it would be familiar to him, maybe give his memory a jolt. It doesn’t, but Bucky never expected it to. If his memory can’t be stimulated by Sam, there’s no way scenes from a movie would do it. He remains convinced his memory is not the problem at all.
It’s one of his favorite nights since he’s been here. The television is so big that when they turn out the lights and make popcorn, it really does feel like they’re at the cinema. There’s plenty of space, multiple pieces of furniture available, but Sam and Bucky sit on the couch together, both in the center. They’re close enough that their thighs touch whenever one of them shifts positions. It makes him think of Irene Clement, the craziest girl he ever went out with, undoing his trousers in the back of a theater once at a Saturday matinee. The memory makes him blush and he’s thankful it’s dark enough that Sam won’t notice if he looks over. Bucky gets up then, walks to the kitchen to get another beer with the plan to sit back down a little further away without being obvious about it. The plan falls through, though, and despite his best intentions he ends up a little closer when he sits back down. It’s fine. He’s not being inappropriate, and if Sam wanted to move, he would. Bucky’s as sure of that as he is that he isn’t going to be here forever, and he should enjoy the time he has to fullest.
It’s a good night, and it feels like a reward for making it through an uncomfortable therapy appointment through a video call yesterday. Bucky didn’t know Dr. Raynor, but she knew him very well. At least, she had a lot of information about him. He had been legally obligated to see her as a condition of his pardon, apparently. She was serious, she sighed a lot, and she called him James. It made him nervous. Bucky was polite to her but not overly friendly, and even though he stretched the truth a bit to make his situation sound less dire than it is, she thinks the amnesia thing is a very big problem and wants to start seeing him regularly again.
“Maybe,” he’d told her. “They’re pretty sure it’s a weird energy thing… you know, Avengers stuff. I was on a mission. Aliens, you know how it is. They’re looking into it, but I should know something soon.” He doesn’t tell her that “they” is just him, spending every minute Sam’s not around researching time travel, desperately trying to figure out why he’s been sent here.
She frowned. “I thought you said you were already checked for—”
“Lots of stuff to check for,” he said with a shrug, but he’d accepted an appointment for next Friday anyway.
Bucky feels guilty about the deception, because he’s doing this for Sam, and he should be trying a little harder to see if it helps. It’s just too difficult to really commit when he knows this will be useless. He’s not trying to hide anything from Sam, but Sam doesn’t believe him, so Bucky needs to find some proof. The goal is the same — figure out what is going on and fix it. Bucky will get his memories back or go back where he belongs or whatever needs to be done, and then Sam will feel better.
Bucky would greatly prefer a solution that doesn’t involve him leaving Sam or going back to the Hydra cell he came from, but he’s not terribly optimistic. He’s felt the clock running down on his time here since soon after he arrived.
On Sunday, Sam gets called in for another mission. It’s supposed to be more of the diplomatic variety, but Bucky still isn’t invited. It bothers him less this time, knowing there likely won’t be a fight, so Bucky doesn’t complain. It’s still unpleasant to watch Sam leave, though, not knowing exactly when he’ll return or if Bucky will even be here when he gets back. This Bucky, anyway. The goodbye hug he gives Sam is shameless, a tight and lingering embrace that Sam doesn’t resist or even comment on.
Without anything to distract him, Bucky gets back to his research. Through a combination of articles, documentaries, and conversations with Sam, he’s learned that The Blip was undone by time travel involving the quantum realm. It doesn’t seem anything like what’s happened to Bucky, but he figures they all must have worked on it for a long time first, tried other things, or at least researched other things. He thinks the person involved that he’d most like to talk to about time travel is Howard’s son, but he’s dead and even if he wasn’t, Bucky doubts they had any sort of relationship since he killed the guy’s parents. Scott Lang and Bruce Banner are both contacts in his phone, and of the two, Bucky decides to reach out to Banner first. Sam has told him that Bruce was there with the three of them when Steve went back in time. He also has multiple doctorates, so he seems like a good bet for a conversation. Lang, the guy who was on television the other night shrinking down so he can ride ants, will be a backup.
Bucky’s pretty proud of himself for being able to compose an e-mail on his phone after seeing Sam do it a few times. He leaves the details sparse, just says he has some questions about something Banner has studied and wants to know if they can talk. He gets a quick reply with a warm greeting and an offer to call, but he also mentions that he’s in Atlanta if Bucky would rather meet in person. It seems silly to accept that offer — it’s a seven hour drive, and it’s not strictly necessary to meet face-to-face — but Bucky gets attached to the idea nonetheless. Sam is gone for at least a few days, and he would feel too awkward to spend every day at Sarah’s just because he’s bored and lonely. He has plans to see them Tuesday evening, but Monday is wide open, and the prospect of getting to take his bike out on a long ride and see some of the sights is appealing. He and Bruce arrange to meet around 2pm at a restaurant in Atlanta and Bucky heads to bed early so he can get some rest and leave before sunrise.
The ride is a bit long, but Bucky enjoys feeling the cool morning air and is glad he made the choice. He adds his motorcycle and the GPS on his phone to the list that he’s been compiling in his head of the things he will miss from the future.
Bucky makes good time and arrives a little early, spending some time in the shops around Bruce’s suggested restaurant. When 2:00 strikes, he approaches the restaurant and surveys the tables on the patio. Bruce is hard to miss, very large and very green, in a grey cardigan and glasses, sitting in a chair that is larger than all of the others but still struggles to contain him. He’s flipping through a menu, but he looks up and notices Bucky, then waves him over.
“I hope you don’t mind being outside,” Bruce says when Bucky joins him at the table. “We can move. I just thought since it was such a nice day…”
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Bucky replies, pulling out his chair so he can take a seat. “Hi, sorry, I know we’ve met but I don’t really remember anything.”
Bruce winces in sympathy. “I heard.”
“Yeah so, uh… nice to meet you, again.”
“Likewise,” Bruce says, smiling. It’s a strange expression on his big green face that looks meant for anger. “If it makes you feel better, we’ve never talked much, anyway. You’re not missing out on much there.”
Bucky frowns. He feels a little silly that he’s asked someone who barely knows him to come talk to him. Maybe Lang would’ve been the better bet, after all.
“So how’s Sam?” Bruce asks after a moment. “It’s a little weird seeing you guys apart.”
It makes Bucky smile a little, to hear that someone thinks of him and Sam as a unit. He thinks about his answer, thinks about Sam being unable to sleep after the last mission, but he’s not sure how close Sam and Bruce are or how much Sam would want him to say about that. “He’s okay. Sick of dealing with me not knowing who he is, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, that’s rough. How about you? Other than the amnesia, did you have other injuries?”
“No, no. I’m okay. It’s not… I didn’t really get injured,” explains Bucky. “This is kind of what I wanted to ask you about, actually. I don’t think this is amnesia, I think something happened that’s more like time travel. And I know you were part of retrieving the stones, and sending Steve back…”
“You think you traveled in time?” Bruce asks, furrowing his brow. Bucky knows it’s not polite to stare, but Bruce is hard to look away from. He’s forgotten all of the more detailed information about the Hulk and how he came to be, but Bucky is pretty sure he’s had something similar to a supersoldier serum, too, and then gamma radiation made it go wild. Between this giant green guy and Schmidt’s hideous red skull, it’s clear these serums can do ugly things. Bucky and Steve have been pretty fortunate in this way, at least.
“It doesn’t feel like memory loss at all. It was just… one minute I’m in a Hydra cell in 1945 with a crazy scientist and electrodes on my head, the next I’m on a mission with Sam 80 years later. The guy had this machine, he turned it on, it was incredibly painful… and then I was here. In a different body. Well, it’s my body, but… different. Older. And, uh… with an arm.”
“You went to the compound, right? Had scans and tests?”
“Yes,” Bucky says. “They told me to see a shrink.”
“Well, that’s not bad advice, really.”
“I did it the other day. Still nothing. Look, I know it sounds a little crazy, but sometimes, you just know, right? I read through the Hydra files about me and I just know I didn’t do those things. Not… not yet, anyway,” he says, cringing. He knows how it sounds. When Bruce doesn’t say anything, Bucky continues. “I don’t need you to believe me, really, I just wanted to ask some questions about what you know.”
“Hey, I didn’t say I don’t believe you,” Bruce says, lifting a large, placatory hand. “I’ve just never heard you talk this much, I’m a little surprised.”
Bucky narrows his eyes. “Yeah, apparently I’ve become a bit less outgoing after 70 years spent as a brainwashed assassin.”
“Makes sense,” Bruce replies with a nod, unfazed by Bucky’s sarcasm. “Unfortunately, I’m not sure how much I can help. We were using the quantum realm to move around time, this doesn’t sound like that at all.”
“It doesn’t, I know. But—”
They’re interrupted then by a waiter, asking for their drink order. He tries to hide it, but he clearly recognizes Bruce and is a little starstruck.
“You never get to be anonymous at all, huh?” Bucky asks once the waiter is out of earshot.
“Hard to hide this,” agrees Bruce, gesturing at his body. “I don’t mind it, though. I spent so long hating this part of me, and now that I don’t have to… it hasn’t gotten old yet.”
Bucky hums in response, not really knowing what to say. He wonders if the Bucky that Bruce has met could relate to this. They’ve both used their enhancements to do harm that was mostly out of their control, and they’ve both been able to turn things around and start using their powers for good.
“Anyway, you were saying…?” Bruce prompts after a moment.
“Right, sorry. I don’t think this is like what you guys did to get the stones, but I was wondering if maybe you had looked into any other time travel methods before figuring that out? With seven PhDs, you must be really good at research.”
Bruce huffs out a laugh. “Actually, yeah, you’re right, I had looked into it. Of course, there weren’t any actual methods of time travel to look into, since nothing had worked yet. I was hoping to find something we could build off of, but I didn’t get anywhere.”
“But it was being studied, right? Scientists were trying things?”
“Definitely.”
Bucky smiles, relieved that his assumption was correct. “Okay, great. Did you come across anything that was a sort of… mental time travel? Like your body stays, but…” he trails off, realizing that this sounds even more ridiculous when spoken out loud. He had explained part of this to Sam, but not all of it. “It feels like my brain got sent from 1945 to here, and maybe this Bucky’s brain switched places with it? I feel like I stole someone’s life. I know it sounds crazy. I still think something happened, though.”
“Honestly, nothing sounds too crazy for me these days,” Bruce says with a shrug. “Let me think…”
The waiter returns with their drinks and takes their order. The menu is very long and Bucky hasn’t even opened it, so he takes a quick glance at a page in the middle and picks the first thing he sees that sounds appetizing. Bruce goes quiet again after ordering, tapping his finger on his chin as he thinks. Bucky finds himself staring at Bruce’s glasses. He wonders if they’re specially made. Why does he even need them? Did his serum not help his eyesight? Are they just a fashion accessory?
“There is something,” Bruce finally says. “It was a huge failure, never went anywhere, but the premise sounds like what you’re suggesting — a sort of mental time travel, to let someone go forward in time to their own body somewhere in the future. I don’t think there was any record of it being worked on by Hydra in the 40s, though.”
“There wouldn’t be,” Bucky tells him. “The guy was doing it in secret… no one else was around. There was no record of this in my Hydra files either.”
“Hmm. Interesting. It was being worked on by Soviet scientists in the 20s, but all indications were that they gave up entirely. I don’t remember all the details, it was a dead end for our purposes with the stones… I do remember the people they tried it on kept dying. They tried to send people forward a week or so and it never worked, just left people dead.”
“God, I really am supposed to be dead,” Bucky mutters.
“Well… you would be a good candidate for a trial, I guess,” Bruce says. “Much harder to kill. And I think everyone they tried was a prisoner — they needed someone they would also have there at whatever future point they tried to send them to. I don’t know, though… like I said, they really never got anywhere. I think it was that they needed some sort of power source at the destination and couldn’t find anything that worked without killing the subject? I’ll have to dig up the information. I think the name of it translates to Pilgrimage Project.”
Bucky frowns. “Isn’t a pilgrimage a religious thing?”
“Yeah, I don’t think this was based on anything religious, though. Scientists can be very dramatic.”
“And pilgrimages are a choice.”
“Generally,” Bruce agrees sympathetically. “I can look up what I have when I get home later and e-mail it to you, if you’d like?”
“Yes, please,” Bucky says. This sounds promising, and he’s eager for as many details as he can get. “I have e-mail.”
Bruce smiles. “Yeah, you sent me one yesterday.”
“Right,” Bucky says, his cheeks reddening. “Sorry, there’s a lot of stuff that’s new.”
“I get it,” Bruce assures him. “Can you open attachments? Sam can help you if not.”
“I can open attachments,” Bucky insists, even though he isn’t actually sure this is true. It sounds like something simple, though, and his enthusiasm for remembering what the word e-mail means is enough embarrassment for today.
“Great. I’ll send you whatever I can dig up.”
“Thank you,” Bucky says sincerely. “Really, I appreciate it.”
“You’re very welcome. I’m not sure if it will help you, but I hope it’s what you’re looking for.”
“Thanks.” Bucky’s quiet for a moment before he thinks of another question he had after learning about the time travel used to get the infinity stones. “Do you know if this sort of time travel could create branches, too? Sam said that you guys had to make sure you didn’t change anything too much or it could cause problems, and I’m curious… if this is happening to me…”
“Same rules should apply, yes. It’s about keeping the timeline intact, so any sort of time travel, even mental time travel, would have to keep to that.”
“Unless Steve is the one doing it,” Bucky says. “Sam told me Steve had found a loophole or something… he didn’t know what it was. Do you?”
Bucky isn’t sure if it’s relevant, but if his suspicion that the Bucky of the future is currently trapped in 1945 is correct, keeping the timeline intact probably requires the two of them to be switched back. The Bucky of 1945 has to live through the next 80 years for the Bucky of 2025 to ever exist. If there’s a way to alter things so maybe they both get to live here, or at least neither of them are in a Hydra cell, but the world doesn’t get destroyed by them messing with time…
“I don’t know what it was,” Bruce tells him. “I thought he was coming right back. You were the only one who knew that he wasn’t. I’m not sure if he even told you the specifics, though.”
“I think if he did, I would’ve told Sam by now.” It’s strange, talking about Steve, imagining him in the future. He had been such a big part of Bucky’s life before he was captured, but he’d accepted him as dead, and in this future, Steve’s gone. But he was here, and he’s the reason Bucky gets to be here, too, living this happy life with Sam. It would be nice to see Steve again. He misses him. At least if he has to go back to 1945 to maintain the timeline, he’ll eventually get back to a time where he sees Steve.
“Yeah, probably,” Bruce agrees.
They don’t talk much about time travel after that. Bucky tries to make more normal conversation despite being slightly distracted by the new information. Bruce is friendly and talkative, and overall, it’s a pleasant meal. Bucky offers to pay at the end but Bruce waves him off.
“You drove all the way here, it’s on me,” he says. “Speaking of which, I know it’s a long drive back. If you’d like to stay over, I have space.”
Bucky had considered getting a hotel room, asking Sarah to have the kids take care of Alpine, and making the drive back tomorrow, but he wants to sleep in his own bed tonight. It’s only 3:00, and if he leaves soon, he won’t be back too late.
“Thanks, I have to get home, though. Gotta feed the cat, Sam’s away.”
“Aw, you have a cat?” Bruce asks, and that’s enough interest for Bucky to take out his phone.
“Her name’s Alpine. Do you want to see a picture of her?” He doesn’t brag about how he figured out how to use the camera on his phone, even though he wants to. He’s spent days taking pictures of the cat, who seems to enjoy being the subject of the attention, and some of Sam, too, who seems to enjoy it a little less.
The cat pictures delay them another ten minutes, but Bruce pays the bill eventually. When they get up to leave, Bucky notices a message the waiter had scrawled on the receipt. Thanks for all you do, Dr. Banner & Sgt Barnes! Have a nice day!
***
Bruce sends Bucky the files almost immediately, but he doesn’t get around to looking into them until Wednesday morning. He had slept late on Tuesday before spending the evening at Sarah’s. Sam has been in regular contact, and he expects to be home tonight, so Bucky dedicates his morning to reading through all of the information Bruce has sent him, and leaving time to make Sam’s cake before he gets home. It made him happy last time, and even though they haven’t fought, Sam deserves to be happy always.
It doesn’t take long for Bucky to be convinced that whatever happened to him is related to Project Pilgrimage. He’s shocked to see a diagram of the machine that looks like a vacuum cleaner almost immediately while he scrolls through pages, and goes back to the beginning to read every word. It’s difficult to read at times because the translation is a little rough, but it’s clear enough for Bucky to get the basics. Bruce had it right, mostly — the intention was a sort of mental time travel to send someone into their own future. Bucky doesn’t understand much of the technical writing about how they thought they could make it work, but the experiments from the 20s all involved prisoners. The attempt was initiated with the machine, and then, anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks later, the subject would be exposed to some sort of energy source to receive it, and that would be where the person was supposed to be sent. The goal was to swap the past and present versions. Swapping them back would be done the same way, the machine in the past and the energy source to power it properly in the future. It never worked — almost every subject died immediately after the machine was used on them. The one subject who didn’t die showed no evidence that any time travel had occurred, only brain damage. He had no memory of anything that had happened once he was hooked up to the machine. When they tried it on him a second time, he died, too.
It’s clearly the information the rogue Hydra scientist was working from to do this experiment on him. Somehow, it had actually worked. Bucky was enhanced, of course. That explained why he wasn’t dead. But how had he been sent 80 years into the future? Surely, the scientist had been aiming to just send him into the near future to test it? He must be dead now, he’d never even know if Bucky made it to 2025. It must have been a mistake.
While Bucky appreciates the confirmation that something has happened to him and he hasn’t just suddenly lost 80 years of his memory that he and others once fought hard to get back, it’s tough to swallow, too. He’s right — he’s not supposed to be here, and he probably won’t be here forever. Sam has told him about the things his Bucky remembered. The house, the cat. It seems certain now that these things were familiar to him because he had seen them before. For that Bucky, this trip to 2025 is part of his past, and his future self will have vague memories of it. The notes mentioned that the lone surviving subject hadn’t remembered anything that happened, so maybe that’s why they’re Bucky’s only confusing, distorted memories.
Bucky distracts himself by working on Sam’s cake. It looks even better than last time, and he can’t help but feel proud. His 2025 self must be an expert after all his practice. He hopes it tastes even better than last time, too.
He doesn’t drop the information on Sam as soon as he gets home. They have dinner first, eat some of the cake while Sam tells Bucky how the last couple of days went. He’s in a good mood, much better than last time he returned from a mission. Bucky’s glad about that, even though he had not exactly hated how it led to sharing his bed with Sam. Ideally, that would be an option without some sort of traumatic event preceding it, but for now, Sam’s bright smile is enough.
They’re sitting on the couch later, watching a game, when Bucky finally brings up his visit to Bruce.
Sam turns to him, looking confused. “You went all the way to Atlanta alone?”
“I thought he might have some insight on what happened to me.”
“I would’ve gone with you,” Sam says softly. He looks hurt.
“I know you would have,” Bucky assures him. “I know, but he was available Monday and I really wanted to take the bike somewhere, honestly.”
“Good ride?”
“Yeah, it was.”
“So what did Bruce say?” asks Sam.
“Well… first he said that we’re not really friends and I’ve never actually talked to him before, which was kind of embarrassing, since I thought we were.”
Sam laughs, shaking his head. “See, if you had asked me, I could’ve helped you avoid that embarrassment.”
“100% my fault,” Bucky agrees with a grin. “I, um… I asked him about time travel.” It occurs to him that despite voicing some of his concerns to Sam, he has not used this term to describe them yet. “Because I’m missing so many memories, and the last thing I remember is a scientist messing with my head, and you said that before, I talked about knowing the house, and the cat…” Bucky realizes he’s rambling and trails off.
Sam takes the opening. “You think it’s time travel?”
“I know it is, now,” Bucky tells him. “I asked him if he came across anything back when they were trying to figure out how to get the stones, and he sent me some stuff… it’s what this guy did to me, I know it. There’s even a diagram of the machine he used. It’s a mental thing, they try to switch you with a future version of yourself? I don’t really get it, but something must’ve went wrong for me to end up so far in the future. Mostly it got tested with really short time spans, just them trying all kinds of different energy sources. Basically everyone died, and—” Bucky notices that Sam’s eyes have grown impossibly wide. “You should read what he sent me, I don’t think I’m explaining it well. We can finish watching this first, if you want…”
“Uh, no thanks, I’d like to read the time travel stuff,” Sam says. He shows Bucky how to forward the emails to him and sits there on the couch reading everything. Bucky is a little nervous, like maybe, somehow, Sam won’t believe this, like maybe it actually is crazier than it seems and Bucky is losing his mind. The minutes stretch on painfully, and Bucky tries to watch the game, muted now on the television, but it’s too difficult.
Eventually, Sam looks up. “This says the project was abandoned in 1928?”
“Yeah. The scientist who hooked me up to the thing wasn’t authorized, I don’t think. I hadn’t seen him much before and he showed up alone. I think he was trying to stay off their radar.”
“And maybe he wanted to try it on you since he knew you had the serum…” Sam murmurs.
“Yeah, it seems like maybe it worked better than they thought, but they just couldn’t keep anyone alive long enough to figure that out.”
“Jesus,” Sam mutters. “The energy source they need at the destination… you think maybe it came from that portal in the farmhouse? Just… a total coincidence that 80 years in the future, you were near something that happened to work, so that’s where you got sent?”
Bucky hadn’t managed to put those pieces together yet, despite using the alien excuse as a way to dismiss Dr. Raynor, but it makes sense. “I bet that’s it. He was trying to do it with some other energy to power it, or maybe a bunch, on different dates, and it just didn’t work.” He sighs. “I’ve been worried I didn’t actually belong here… I was kind of hoping I was wrong, though.”
Sam narrows his eyes. “You are wrong. What do you mean, don’t belong here?”
“Sam, come on,” Bucky says, annoyed. “You read it. The guy that belongs here is probably trapped in a Hydra cell in 1945.”
“That’s you,” Sam insists. “Buck, whether it’s time travel or memory loss… it’s you. You belong here. But...” he trails off, lets out a heavy sigh. “Maybe you just don’t belong here quite yet. I think you’re probably right about the time travel.”
Bucky gives him a sad smile, and they sit together quietly for a moment. Bucky knows they’ll have to figure out what they can do about getting him back to 1945 and keeping their timeline intact, but it’s too much to think about tonight. He doesn’t want to leave Sam, doesn’t want to wait 80 years to be back here.
“I know you don’t remember when we met,” Sam says after a few minutes. He’s looking down, not meeting Bucky’s eyes. “Really met, talked for the first time. We were in this tiny car, a Volkswagen Beetle, on the run in Germany, on our way to the airport where everything went to hell. Steve was talking to Sharon, getting our gear back, and you were in the backseat, and out of nowhere, you asked me if we’d met before. And I couldn’t believe it, thought you were messing with me. I said, “yeah, we’ve met before, you tried to kill me.” Which had happened multiple times at that point. Just for the record. And you said that wasn’t what you meant. You said, “no, I know you.” And you were just… so sure.” He shakes his head. He sounds a little lost. “We live weird lives, huh?”
Bucky shifts closer to Sam on the couch so their thighs are pressed against each other. This is love, Bucky knows. None of this makes a lot of sense, but he knows that much. He loves Sam now and he is absolutely sure that the version of him trapped in 1945 loves him, too.
“Very weird,” Bucky replies. He searches Sam’s face, waits until he catches his eye. “I’m not surprised that I remembered you, though.”
1945
In his cell, Bucky spends every waking hour concentrating on any memory of his that’s vague and unclear, any strange thought or feeling he’s been unable to explain, that he’s had since escaping Hydra. He gathers them, picks them apart, shuts his eyes and focuses on them, trying to clarify them, make them fit into a narrative that will help him figure out exactly what he needs to do to get out of here and back to his life. He’s spent a decade trying to dismiss these feelings as aberrations, false memories from Hydra, obscured and reformed into something new by all the damage they had done to his brain. They had persisted even after Shuri had worked to remove the trigger words, though his memory in general had been much improved after that.
All the concentrated effort helps, but not as much as he’d like. It’s still mostly bits and pieces of foggy memories that just don’t fit anywhere else in his life, but it’s a little easier to interpret them within the framework of the suspicions he has about the time travel. Bucky has these memories because he spent an undetermined amount of time living in the future while trapped in this cell. He’s not sure why they’re so hard to access — he has perfectly clear memories of his life before coming here, so it’s not just that these things happened a long time ago. He thinks he researched this, talked about it with Bruce and Sam. There was information about prior trials, something about the effect on memory. Maybe the effect is that the time period during the switch is almost wiped from the subject’s memory. Maybe when Bucky gets home, he won’t remember any of what happened here, either.
He has clear memories of what he thinks is the aftermath of the switch back. The scientist’s wide, dead eyes. His neck had been snapped. Bucky had removed the electrodes from his own head and destroyed the machine. These memories never troubled him much — Hydra had messed with his brain a lot, and though whatever this machine did to him was painful, it had just been a blip on his torture radar. Bucky had always assumed that he encountered this man only once, on the day he came in, attached the electrodes, and set his brain on fire. Bucky killed him while still in so much pain he couldn’t remember doing it. But if he’s piecing together these half-remembered conversations with Bruce and Sam correctly, it means that these were probably two entirely separate encounters. The machine would have to be used twice, once to send him away and once to bring him back, with the machine at the origin point and the energy source at the destination. So the scientist used the machine, which replaced Bucky with his future self for some amount of time, and he can’t remember anything that happened in this cell during that time because it has not happened to him yet. Bucky is living that time right now. He hasn’t killed the scientist yet, but he knows he will, because he remembers the consequences of it, after he got back.
If all of this is true, it’s him who has to figure out how to get out of here, with just his faulty memory to help him and no control over whatever his past self is doing in the future. Bucky hasn’t seen the scientist since he got here, but he needs him, and that machine, to come back to his cell. The Bucky in the future, who doesn’t have any information, not even these garbled memories to work from, will have to figure out how to provide the energy source to make the switch work.
Suddenly, he remembers that Sam figured this out. It was the energy from that portal they’d found in the farmhouse — that’s why he’d been switched right then. He breathes a sigh of relief, thankful for Sam’s presence, helping him even in a distant future. Sam helped him, Bruce helped him, and they must have figured it all out and made it work, because it did work — it already happened. Bucky lives in a future where this has all occurred already, so it is possible to do. As long as they all don’t screw it up this time and accidentally create a branch off of the timeline, he’ll get back there again. And also possibly prevent the world from collapsing in on itself due to weird time stuff, but if he’s being honest, that’s kind of a secondary concern at the moment. Bucky wants to get back to his life, back to Sam. In one of the memories Bucky’s having trouble fully elucidating, he and Sam are in an intimate embrace, kissing. It’s not the first time he’s recalled this, but he had been quick to suppress this particular vague and confusing memory. The feeling that he had loved Sam before he even met him persisted, though, even after he had dismissed this memory as a strange and inappropriate fantasy. He can’t believe that it was real, something that actually happened, and not a product of his imagination. Bucky’s mentioned a lot of his strange feelings and memories to Sam, but never this one. Not in any detail.
It seems cruel that with all the horrible memories Bucky has full recollection of, that something as beautiful as this kiss should be so unclear. If it really is his past, though, it can be his future as well. It will be his future, as long as he can get out of here like he’s supposed to.
Bucky wants to formulate a plan and get going, already, but it’s difficult with so many unknowns. He hasn’t seen the scientist at all since he got here. Bucky could try to escape his cell and hunt down the scientist, find the machine… but no, it ends in this cell. He remembers that it ends right here in this cell. For now, all he can do is wait.
2025
Instead of driving to Atlanta again, Sam and Bucky get on a video call with Bruce the next morning to talk to him more about the experiments. Bruce is not an expert on this, by any means, but he’s the only one they know who has any background on this strange old Hydra time travel project, so he’s the closest thing they’ve got. Bruce seems energized by the knowledge that Bucky recognizes the diagram of the machine used in this project and Sam has a theory about the energy source, and intrigued when he hears about the future version of Bucky possibly having some memories of this visit here. Bruce is extremely enthusiastic at the prospect that some sort of time travel has actually occurred, and he wants to go to New York to take a look at the energy samples they had gotten from the portal. He calls Sam back around 10pm, asking if he can come by their house in the morning to talk about what he found. Once Sam agrees and hangs up, he looks down at the couch he and Bucky are sharing.
“Do you think he’ll fit on the pullout if he wants to stay over?”
Bucky frowns, pushing down on the cushion experimentally. “He’d fit, but would it support his weight? I think they had some sort of special chair for him at the restaurant.”
When Bruce arrives in the morning, he seems frazzled. He doesn’t bother with greetings when Bucky opens the door for him, just squeezes through the door and rushes past him.
“Hey, Bruce,” Sam says, coming in from the kitchen. How was the trip?”
“Fine, fine,” Bruce says, preoccupied. He’s digging for something on his chest underneath his shirt. Sam and Bucky exchange a confused look.
“Do you want something to drink?” Sam offers.
Bruce doesn’t answer, as he’s finally found what he’s looking for. He pulls a necklace with a large, glowing blue pendant over his neck and tosses it at Bucky without warning. Bucky catches it, but almost drops it from sheer surprise at the toss and how heavy the necklace is.
“Phew,” Bruce says. “I feel much better now that you have that. Keep it with you all the time.”
Bucky frowns, examining the strange necklace. “Um…”
“Is that from the portal?” Sam asks. “It looks just like it.”
“Bingo!” exclaims Bruce. “I’m pretty sure you were right, this was what did it. I think they got much closer to the right energy source back in the 20s than they thought. The analysis of the energy from the portal showed a lot of similar components to the energy source they used on the one guy who didn’t die immediately… if he had lived, they might have eventually learned that it did work, at least a little. Either way, it worked on you in 1945 for sure. This energy is what enabled that wretched old time machine to send you here, which means this will be what enables it to send you back, if Bucky’s past self gets experimented on again.”
“Actually, that’s my future self,” Bucky corrects him, still gazing critically at the necklace Bruce has given him. The glowing blue reminds him of the terrifying Hydra weapons he first saw at Azzano.
“Sure, whatever,” Bruce says. “If you keep this with you, you’ll be ready at any time. I wanted to get it to you as quickly as possible since we don’t know when this is going to happen.”
“Or if it’s going to happen,” adds Sam.
“I’m optimistic,” Bruce says. “You said the Bucky you know has some memories that suggest he may have actually lived some of this future in his past, right?”
“That’s a very confusing way of putting it, but… yes?”
“So he probably did, and the switch back was completed safely. So it can be done. We just have to get it right. That’s hopeful!” Bruce turns to Bucky, frowning. “Maybe not to you, since you’re going back to a cell and then will be living out some pretty bad years. But for the universe as a whole… very hopeful!”
The sense of impending doom hasn’t left Bucky in a while, but it does feel a little worse to have someone else articulating it so clearly. Everyone’s quiet for a moment, before Sam has another question.
“Bucky wasn’t even very close to the portal on the mission… how close does he have to be to this to make sure it will work?”
“It’s hard to say for sure since this is a much smaller amount, but that’s why I made it wearable,” Bruce says, gesturing at the necklace in Bucky’s hand. “I noticed you were wearing dog tags, figured you wouldn’t mind another chain for a little while.”
This necklace has clearly been crafted with someone of Bruce’s stature in mind. Bucky imagines if he actually put it around his neck, he would develop a hunchback pretty quickly, supersoldier or not. “That’s thoughtful,” he tells Bruce. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Oh, one more thing — you’re not supposed to have this, so don’t tell anyone.”
Sam furrows his brow. “What do you mean, not supposed to have it?”
“No one knows I took some of the samples taken from the portal,” Bruce explains. “They may have said it was fine, but why ask and take the risk?”
“So this is stolen property from the lab?” Sam asks.
“Well, you’re the one who found it to begin with, Cap,” Bruce says, grinning. “And it’s cosmic energy, it’s not really anyone’s property.”
“Could it be dangerous to anyone else?” asks Bucky.
“Joaquín and I were way closer to it than you were, and nothing happened to us,” Sam replies. “But if this killed a bunch of people they tested it on, is it even safe for Bucky?
“That was the machine that did that, not the energy. It doesn’t seem harmful, you’ll probably be safe,” Bruce agrees. “It’s hard to say with any certainty. But I think you need to have it here, just in case. If nothing happens after a while, we might need to consider other options to try and facilitate the switch… but I don’t have any ideas on how yet. I’m hoping it won’t come to that, anyway. I want to consult some people I trust, pick Shuri’s brain a little bit, just in case.” Bruce sighs, then glances over at the couch. “Do you mind if I sit? It’s been a long couple of days.”
“Of course not,” Sam says. “Make yourself at home.” He and Bucky exchange a nervous look behind Bruce’s back as he lowers himself onto the couch. It doesn’t collapse under him, but it makes an ominous creaking noise, and Bucky almost laughs out loud at Sam’s exaggerated wince. Since Bruce is taking up a good amount of space on the couch, Sam and Bucky head over to sit together on the loveseat.
“So here’s the thing,” Bruce continues once they’re all seated. “I’m sure I could have taken this with permission if I explained everything. But I’m not sure if letting everyone know that the energy from this cosmic portal we just found can make an outdated, brutal science experiment work is the best idea. Someone else may figure out this use for it eventually but I don’t see the need to rush it. A lot of people have died for this already.”
“That makes sense,” Bucky agrees. No one else should have to go through this. He does have another concern, though. “If this works, though, can we at least tell all those doctors that looked at me that there was some magic cause and my brain just didn’t give up on me and lose 80 years of memories? If they think something is wrong with me, they may not let me keep going on missions.” It’s not fair to the Bucky who will be coming back here to not let him go out and help Sam anymore for something that wasn’t his fault, and the scientists and doctors he’d seen in New York had seemed quite prepared to believe that his mind had been bound to break down eventually. He wants them to know that they’re wrong.
Sam squeezes his knee, and Bruce nods. “I think we can figure something out that doesn’t involve bringing up all the specific details. I don’t want to say I don’t trust these people, but scientists sometimes get a little lost in the possibilities and don’t think as much about potential consequences as they should.”
Bucky’s read a little bit about Ultron, so he thinks he understands where Bruce is coming from here. “If this works, and I get back there… I may be able to destroy the machine.”
“That might be what happened,” Bruce says. “Like I said, officially there is no mention of this since 1928, even though it happened to you later than that, so it’s hard to say. But I would say that destroying it certainly can’t hurt.”
“The other guy lost his memory… will I even remember to do that?” Bucky’s asking about the machine, but it’s a bigger question. “It seems like I kept some vague memories, but…”
“I think it’s likely you won’t remember this at all when you get back to 1945,” Bruce tells him. “My best guess — and it’s just a guess, since all the subjects besides you are dead — is that you probably did forget. Will forget. It’s a brain injury, that machine is awful. But you’re a special case, you’ve had some form of a supersoldier serum and you’ve lived 80 years beyond that. So you heal quicker and you’ve had an unnatural amount of time to do it. It makes sense that eventually, you’d start to get some of those memories you lost during this time back. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you started remembering things a little better after the work Shuri did on your brain.”
Bucky thinks about it. “Maybe. I guess you’d have to ask the other me that question. I remembered I knew Sam before I even went to Wakanda, though. He told me.” Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Sam smile.
“When Bucky gets back here, from 1945,” starts Sam, “Will he have any memory of being back there again?”
“I think so,” Bruce says. “The injury happens at the source… or that was how it was intended to work, anyway. This body,” he motions at Bucky, “didn’t get the jolt here. He got it in 1945, and it’s been 80 years. And it’s that body that will get it again, when the switch happens. It’s unfortunate, I know,” he adds sympathetically. “You’d probably rather remember this and forget that.”
“No,” Bucky and Sam say at the same time. Bucky glances over at Sam, smiling a little.
“He doesn’t like losing time,” Sam says when Bucky doesn’t continue. “He’d rather remember what he can.”
Bruce doesn’t stay very long, leaving them with the comically large glowing necklace and instructions to let him know as soon as anything happens. Alpine, who had bolted under Bucky’s bed as soon as she caught a glimpse of Bruce, cautiously steps out of the bedroom a few minutes after he leaves. She’s very intrigued by the necklace that’s hanging from Bucky’s hand, and she spends a few minutes sniffing at the pendant and rubbing her face against it.
“I don’t think you get to come with me, sorry,” Bucky murmurs, scratching her head. He feels Sam squeeze his knee again.
They don’t talk about it for a while. Bucky places the necklace in one of his large jacket pockets when they head out that afternoon to watch Cass’s soccer game. It’s not enough to fully distract him. He has felt like he was running out of time for a while, but now with the pendant like a ticking time bomb in his pocket, he’s weighed down by the knowledge, both physically and mentally. This could all be over at any moment. There’s no reason to bring it up to Sarah or the boys, so they don’t, but Bucky hugs everyone before they head home because it might be the last time he sees any of them for a long, long time.
After dinner, Alpine is napping, luxuriously spread across most of the couch. Bucky leaves her alone and sits on the loveseat instead, because there is not enough room for Sam to sit next to him if he takes the couch, and Bucky at least wants to leave the option open. He’s pleased when Sam joins him instead of Alpine a few minutes later, but it must not show through the melancholy on his face.
“You okay?” Sam asks, nudging Bucky’s leg with his own. “You’ve been pretty quiet.”
Bucky sighs. “Yeah, I’m alright. Glad to have a plan, hope it works, just… not looking forward to losing all this.”
“It’s pretty awful,” agrees Sam, shaking his head. “You’re handling it better than I would, I think.”
“I doubt that, but I hope we never find out.”
“Agreed.”
“I don’t want to forget all of this, you know?” Bucky asks after a minute. “Maybe it’s better that I do, at least at first, but I wish I didn’t have to. I’m glad I didn’t ever truly forget, though.” He reaches over and takes Sam’s hand, feeling the warmth of it even through the vibranium. It makes him nervous, but Bucky is feeling emotional enough to be bold. “I’m glad I didn’t lose you completely. And… I guess one day, this is going to feel like a really great surprise again.”
Sam squeezes his hand, like it’s normal for them to do this. It feels natural. Bucky doesn’t want to do anything stupid that could jeopardize whatever relationship he has with Sam in the future just because he is running out of time, but the feeling of impending doom makes him reckless.
“I guess that’s a good way to look at it,” Sam says. “Positive spin.”
“Yep. That’s me, always looking on the bright side,” Bucky jokes. “It would be worse if I had to miss you, though. There’s a lot to miss, here… Alpine, Sarah, Cass, AJ…” He knows that there are other people in his life here, but he’s mostly been avoiding everyone so the memory issues don’t need to be explained. “Bruce, I guess? Joaquín seems nice…”
That makes Sam laugh, and Bucky gives him a questioning look. “I’m gonna have to tell Joaquín you said that,” Sam says. “He won’t believe it.”
“He’s not nice?”
“Oh, he is. This is probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said about him, though.”
Bucky frowns. “I don’t like him? Why?”
Sam’s quiet for a moment, like he’s carefully considering his answer. “I get the idea that it’s because you’re a little jealous of him,” he says eventually. He looks a little nervous when he meets Bucky’s eyes.
“Jealous?” Bucky thinks about how much time the kid spends with Sam, always on missions even when Bucky isn’t around. When Bucky is around, Joaquín and Sam are in the air together, without him. It’s a part of Sam’s life that Bucky will never truly have full access to. “Yeah, that is probably true.”
Sam lets out a breath. Maybe he had expected Bucky to deny it, but it’s hard, with Sam’s hand warm in his. Bucky wants to ask — has he really never kissed Sam before? It seems impossible to believe when they’re sitting so close, hands clasped, looking into each other’s eyes. Bucky’s eyes dart down to Sam’s lips, unbidden, and it takes him a little too long to drag them away, back up to his deep brown eyes. Sam’s expression has changed. The hint of nervousness is gone, replaced by a mischievous glint in his eye, and they’re sitting so close that their lips are pressing together before Bucky really has the time to process what’s happening.
It’s soft at first, and they’re dealing with a slightly awkward angle until Bucky turns his body and gently tugs Sam’s hand, which he’s still holding, to bring him closer. It makes Sam laugh against his lips, and Bucky cherishes that muffled noise, the feel of Sam’s breath. They’re touching all over, holding hands with Bucky practically in Sam’s lap as they kiss, but Bucky wants more contact. He moves his right hand to Sam’s face, cupping his cheek, and when they stop after a moment to take a breath, Bucky presses his forehead against Sam’s, lifting their joined hands so he can have both of his hands on Sam’s face. Sam places his hand on the back of Bucky’s neck, and Bucky can’t help but give him another quick kiss. They’re both breathing heavy so he keeps it short, but when he tries to back up an inch or two, Sam chases his lips. It’s an amazing feeling. It’s been a long time since Bucky has kissed anyone, and even longer since he has kissed anyone he truly cares about. He’s gone his whole life without ever kissing someone he loves quite as much as Sam. Bucky never wants to stop.
It’s a few minutes before they manage to put a small amount of space between them, still on top of each other but no longer attached at the lips. Bucky’s quiet for a moment, just looking at Sam’s beautiful, tranquil face, but he can’t keep his question inside forever.
“We really never did that before? I’ve never kissed you?”
Sam breathes out a laugh, shakes his head. “Nah, that was the first time.”
“God, what is wrong with me?”
“Wow… where do I start?”
Bucky makes a face at him. “Really, though… I wanted to. I know it.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “We… I don’t know. It felt like maybe, someday, but… we’re comfortable, you know? I didn’t want to push it, I’m guessing you didn’t either. You’ve been through a lot.”
“You’ve been through a lot, too,” insists Bucky. “Wait, is that just a nice way of saying I’m really grumpy and unpleasant in the future?” He’s only half joking. He’s had some hints that he might not be the easiest to deal with. “I don’t like Joaquín, I never talked to Bruce before…”
“You’re selective,” Sam says diplomatically.
Bucky appreciates the defense. “You really do like me,” he says. “I can’t imagine why, but—”
Sam cuts him off. “Quit fishing for compliments,” he says, giving Bucky a playful smack on the arm. “You know I like you.”
Bucky looks down, grinning. “Wasn’t fishing.”
“You were,” Sam insists. “You forget, I know you.”
Bucky has a lot he wants to express — gratitude, love, undying devotion — but he’s not sure how well he will be able to articulate it. He kisses Sam again instead, hoping his meaning shines through.
It’s a good night. They take a break from making out on the loveseat like teenagers to finish eating the cake Bucky had made a few days before, then spend a few hours cuddled on the couch watching TV. It feels natural, having Sam burrow into his side and rest his head on his shoulder. The necklace is in the pocket of the sweatpants he’s changed into, always a weight. Bucky hates that this has to end.
After, Sam leads him by the wrist to his bedroom and they collapse onto Sam’s bed, kissing languidly at first. It doesn’t take long for things to heat up. Bucky’s on top of Sam, hands on his waist and a leg pressed between Sam’s thighs, fingers playing with the elastic on Sam’s sweats, when Sam reaches out, squeezes his wrist gently. Bucky stops kissing him, pulls back a bit to look into his eyes.
“You okay?” he asks Sam.
“Excellent,” Sam assures him. He runs his hands up and down Bucky’s sides, making him shiver.
“But..?” prompts Bucky. He knows something is bothering Sam.
Sam sighs. “But… I think you’ll be upset if you don’t remember this very clearly.”
Bucky has been trying to keep his head in the present as much as possible, and he groans at the reminder that there are other things to consider. “Ugh, I hate you,” he says, rolling off of Sam but keeping close, pressed against his side.
“Mmmhmm,” Sam says, clearly unconvinced. “I’m already going to be putting up with you complaining about how you missed the kissing. I’d never hear the end of this.”
“You don’t think you’ll be memorable enough, huh?” Bucky says, burying his nose in the crook of Sam’s elbow.
“Maybe I’m worried I’ll be so memorable that we destroy the fabric of space and time, or whatever happens when we create a branch, because you’re gonna remember something you’re not supposed to and then everything will fall apart.”
Bucky grins. “I like that idea, honestly.”
“Yeah, I bet you do,” Sam says, poking his side. “Ready to destroy the universe because you’re horny. Where you gonna put that awful necklace if you take those pants off, huh? Around your neck? You’re gonna knock me out with that thing swinging back and forth.” They’re both laughing at the ridiculous image by the time Sam finishes his sentence.
“Okay, okay, you have many good points,” Bucky admits. The first one is all that really matters to him, though. Sam is concerned about Bucky in ways that Bucky doesn’t even know how to be concerned about himself, and Sam is right — Bucky doesn’t want to forget any more of his firsts with Sam than he has to. “Can I stay here, though?”
Sam wraps his arm around him, squeezing tight. “I insist.”
“Thank you,” Bucky says, settling into the embrace. He’s sure that Sam knows he isn’t just talking about letting him stay in his room.
Sam falls asleep first, and Bucky is tired, too, comfortable enough to sleep, but he tries to stay awake as long as possible. He wants to soak in every minute of this. Eventually, he feels the mattress dip slightly as Alpine joins them.
“You found me,” Bucky whispers to her, petting her head a bit before she walks away to settle down by their legs. Even with the knowledge that this is going to end soon, even with the uncertainty about when, exactly, Bucky is the most relaxed he’s been in years, being lulled to sleep by Sam’s even breathing and Alpine’s quiet purrs.
1945
When the scientist finally returns to his cell, Bucky almost doesn’t believe his eyes. He’s been trying to mentally prepare himself for this moment, but it’s still a shock to see him again after so many days. Bucky’s mind isn’t playing tricks on him, though — the man is here, right outside the bars of his cell, without his ridiculous vacuum cleaner time machine. Time for Bucky to put his imprecise plan into action.
He needs to get the scientist in here with his machine, without allowing himself to get shot with a bunch of tranquilizer darts. It’s how these cowards deal with him, and while they’re never able to fully knock him out, it will make the rest of the plan quite difficult to execute. Bucky decides his best bet is to try and talk his way out of it. The scientist had seemed disappointed about the results of the initial part of the experiment, but Bucky had also been determined to show him nothing. Once he knows for sure that his machine worked, Bucky thinks he might be able to manipulate him a little.
“Где машина времени?” Bucky asks, voice rough with disuse from the time he’s been here.
The scientist’s eyes widen in shock at hearing him speak Russian and ask after the time machine. Bucky tries not to smile.
“Да, эта машина работала,” he continues, before switching back to English. It’s strange to be talking to anyone here at all, but he especially hates doing it in Russian. “Get the machine. I’m ready to go back.”
The other man schools his face into an expression more like his normal evil scientist glare. “You do not control the experiment,” he tells Bucky in accented English. “It is not time for that yet. It is time for—”
“The energy source, right?” Bucky asks. “You’re gonna try one right now? I bet you have a bunch to test out whenever you get a chance to sneak down here, right? This is where you meant to send me last time? It didn’t work, man, sorry to tell you. Whatever you’re about to try, it’s not it.”
“I don’t have anything to try now… you gave me nothing last time. I must know if you have even been sent anywhere at all before I can introduce energy sources,” the scientist says. “You know about this experiment. I have talked to you in the future about it?”
“Нет. Not you.” The scientist looks surprised again so Bucky keeps pushing, desperate for this to work. “Как вы думаете, почему я сейчас говорю по-русски? I went way beyond your reach, nothing you tried worked. Go get your machine and bring it back here and I’ll tell you what does work. All you have to do is send me back to where I belong.”
The scientist narrows his eyes, unconvinced. “And where do you think you belong?”
“1949,” Bucky replies without hesitation. “I’m an assassin. They gave me a metal arm. Big red star on the side.” He can tell by the man’s reaction that he was correct — the arm was already being planned. “It’s much preferable to being here in this cell. I want to go back. Go get your machine.” He hates the lie, hates implying that any part of his time as an assassin is a place he wants to get back to, but he doesn’t want to give away anything real. He just needs this guy to get his machine, come into this cell without sedating him, and hit whatever button he needs to hit. “And no tranquilizers. I can’t talk to you if you use those on me.” The man is quiet for a moment, considering, and Bucky gets impatient. “You should hurry,” he says. “You’re not authorized to do this, right? You might be running out of time before someone catches you.”
Finally, that seems to be enough, and the scientist heads back down the hall. It’s a few minutes before he returns, and Bucky spends the time worrying about the fate of his makeshift plan. He’s not used to working alone anymore. If he was able to communicate with Sam, surely they could have come up with something better together. Bucky has to hope the scientist thinks he’s very stupid and not just a liar, because a smart person would know that if he actually gave the scientist the name of the energy source that works, he could then use it to send Bucky other places. Bucky would have no guarantee he would be safe from being brought back again. He just has to hope the promise of the missing information is tantalizing enough to make the man forget logic for a bit. Luckily, Bucky doesn’t actually have an answer to give him besides “some alien portal we found in a farmhouse in the year 2025,” so even if this doesn’t go to plan, the scientist won’t have the information he wants so badly.
When the scientist returns with the machine, Bucky can tell he didn’t follow the other instructions. He can see the outline of the tranq gun under his lab coat, along with another gun and a knife. This man is clearly not a soldier or fighter of any kind, but Bucky would have preferred to handle this without worrying about any errant bullets.
“I have it, tell me what worked,” he says to Bucky, still outside of the cell.
“Come in here first, get it set up. I don’t trust you.” The cell isn’t kept locked with keys — it’s some sort of some rudimentary biometric scan to get in and out, and Bucky knows he has no way to get him in here if the man doesn’t open the cell door first. Bucky takes a step back, raising his arm. “I’m not coming after you. I just want to get out of here.”
Everything happens very quickly after that. The scientist opens the door, pushes the machine inside, and steps in after it, but he’s reaching for his pocket before the cell door is even closed. Bucky had expected something like this, so he attacks quickly, rushing forward and knocking the tranq gun from the scientist’s hand. In the scuffle, he’s able to kick it out of the cell under the bars. The man grabs for his gun next, screaming even before Bucky breaks his hand, making the gun fall to the ground. Bucky kicks that out, too, and the knife clatters to the ground next to them as they struggle. The scientist is weak and untrained, able to do little more than scratch at Bucky’s arm as he gets him in a headlock and wrestles him to the ground. Bucky is weaker than he’s used to being, underfed, lacking in exercise, and missing an arm. The advantage is still his, but it’s not easy.
“If you send me back, I won’t kill you,” Bucky grits out. It’s a lie, he knows. This man is going to die by his hand, probably very soon. He knows it happens. He remembers the body. Bucky’s not interested in killing him, really. It’s strange to even be thinking about it, now that he spends so much time putting all of his effort into nonlethal superhero business. The man is making choking noises now, like he can’t breathe, so Bucky loosens his grip on his neck slightly so he can speak if he’s trying to. The scientist takes the opportunity to move a bit, and he’s able to reach down and grab his knife from the floor. He’s surprisingly fast — Bucky barely has time to curse his own stupid mistake before the man is trying to drive the knife into his side. Bucky doesn’t think about it after that. He tightens his arm on the scientist’s neck and twists, wincing at the terrible sound his neck makes when it snaps. Bucky drops the man’s body and grabs the knife quickly, before checking to make sure he’s actually dead.
“Shit,” he mutters, dropping the knife back to the floor. He knew this would happen, but he had been hoping to at least get the guy to hook up the electrodes or monologue about how the machine worked so he would have some guidance on how to use it correctly. It looks like a vacuum cleaner, so he’ll just have to hope it’s as easy to use as one.
Bucky doesn’t know how much time he has before someone else shows up, so he doesn’t wait long before he’s examining the machine, trying to find out where to attach the electrodes. It all looks simple enough, and the on and off switches are labeled clearly in Russian, without any other specifications available. He attaches the electrodes, trying to remember exactly where they were placed the last time, ensures they are plugged into the machine, and takes a look around, wondering if he’s forgotten anything. He brings the memory of his return here to the front of his mind, focusing intently on what he saw. Dead scientist, knife on the floor, vacuum cleaner time machine in front of him, a group of angry Hydra guards rushing down the hall to his cell as he takes the machine and destroys it. He can’t hear the people approaching yet, which gives him pause. It seems like he hit the switch at the last possible second, but why?
His eyes dart around the cell, looking again for anything he may have missed, and it hits him — he must have tried to leave a message for himself somewhere, a reminder to destroy the machine. If he has no memories, he may not know that he has to do that to prevent someone from accidentally sending him back again. The knife is really his only option, so he grabs it and heads to the wall of his cell, trying to think of what to write, when he realizes that he had never written a message at all. He’d remember the message if it was here. What had been carved into the wall was the star, the one from Sam’s suit. Bucky had convinced himself that he had carved it when he got back, as a way to hold onto his memories, but that can’t be true. He wouldn’t have had time, the guards were coming. They had sedated him immediately, and when he woke up, the knife was gone, along with all the broken pieces of the time machine. Bucky has to carve this star right now, and hope that’s enough.
It’s a rush job, and difficult. Bucky knows how it turns out before he’s finished — he spent a long time staring at it, after all — but it’s still frustrating that he’s unable to do an appropriate rendering of Sam’s symbol. It would have been easier with his vibranium arm, for sure, but he does what he can until he hears shouts and footsteps approaching. Bucky flips the switch on the machine as quickly as he can, and it makes a loud whirring noise as it comes to life. The etching of Sam’s star is the last thing he sees as the intense pain sets in.
2025
Suddenly, Bucky is in his own bathroom, brushing his teeth.
He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and drops his toothbrush in shock at the reflection. He is his current self again, clean, with shorter hair, his arm, and the loose blue t-shirt he wears to bed if he’s sharing a room with someone. “It worked,” he says, letting toothpaste dribble out of his mouth and onto his chin. He spits, rinses his toothbrush, and wipes his face quickly before hurrying out of the bathroom and into the hallway. “Sam?” he calls, heading toward the living room. “I’m back!”
Sam is not in the living room, but he joins him almost immediately from his bedroom, also in his pajamas, looking barely awake. It’s the most beautiful sight Bucky has ever seen in his life. “You’re back?” Sam asks. “As in…”
Bucky rushes over to him immediately, unable to stop himself from wrapping Sam in a tight hug. “I did it, I made the stupid machine work,” he says, burying his face into Sam’s neck. The joy and relief are overwhelming enough that he fears he may start to cry. When he feels Sam squeeze him back, the tears start to fall.
“Thank God,” Sam murmurs. “I can’t believe it worked.”
Bucky pulls back a little bit, unwilling to let go, but wanting to look at Sam’s face. “I had… some energy thing, right? From the portal we found, that made it work? Where is it?”
“It’s the giant, hideous necklace in your pocket,” Sam tells him, and Bucky immediately pulls the necklace out of his pants. He barely spares a glance at the glowing blue pendant as he marches over to the front door, opens it, and throws the necklace as far as he can, before shutting the door and walking back over to Sam, who looks alarmed. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Can’t have it near me,” Bucky explains, pulling Sam into another hug. He can tell he’s being weird — crying, talking too fast, and being a little clingy — but he doesn’t care. It’s only Sam, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, and Bucky is going to hold onto Sam as much as he’s allowed. “If that button gets pressed again, I’ll end up back there. He’s supposed to destroy the machine, but… just in case.” The memory of kissing Sam comes back to him, then, and he gasps. “He kissed you, didn’t he?”
“You kissed me, yes,” Sam says.
“Oh, I knew it, what an asshole,” Bucky replies, but he’s smiling. “Swooped right in here and stole my moment.”
Sam laughs, pressing his forehead to Bucky’s. “You know… I was told that you were very charming back in the day, but I gotta say you were really not as smooth as I was led to believe.”
“And you let me kiss you anyway?”
“I’ve got questionable taste, what can I say?”
Bucky leans in to kiss him, and it’s better than the hazy memories ever allowed him to dream. They’re lost in each other for a few minutes until Bucky sees something white moving toward the kitchen out of the corner of his eye. He pulls away from Sam. “Alpine!” he exclaims, rushing toward her. “I missed you, girl!”
“Oh, that’s how it is, huh?” asks Sam, amused. “Left for a cat.”
“Did you miss me, too?” he asks Alpine as he scratches her head. The sound of her purring has him on the verge of tears again.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything, but I’m pretty sure she couldn’t tell the difference,” Sam tells him. “Slept with you every night like always.”
“Aww, good,” Bucky says. “That’s how I knew you, Alpine, I met you, and then went back in time for 80 years, lived through all of those years, and then found you, and I kept you because I remembered you. Isn’t that crazy?” Alpine just walks away, like the story isn’t very interesting to her. “It is crazy,” he repeats, looking back at Sam. “This whole thing is nuts. This is why I remembered you, and the apartment, and the farmhouse!”
Sam leads him over to the couch after that, and they talk for a long time, sharing their experiences from the last two weeks while pressed close together. It’s hard to know for sure, but since everything is calm and quiet, Bucky assumes they have completed the switch the way that they were supposed to. There’s no sign that they have destroyed the universe or caused any other changes in their lives from the time travel.
“We should call Bruce,” Sam says after a while. “He’ll want to know it worked.”
“And he can get rid of that necklace,” adds Bucky. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask. Why Bruce? This is weird time shit, why didn’t you call Doctor Strange or something? Or Shuri! She can figure out anything.”
“Um, you called Bruce,” Sam says, poking him in the arm.
“Well, I didn’t know anyone! You could’ve guided me to a better decision.”
“Hey, you made this decision on your own,” replies Sam, shrugging. “I took you to the compound and you saw all kinds of fancy superhero doctors and scientists. They didn’t know anything. Shuri saw your scans, too! Bruce just happened to have the random knowledge that helped.”
“That’s true,” Bucky says. “But Doctor Strange just seems like a good bet, right? He had a time stone, he does magic, he’s a wi— um, a sorcerer...”
“A wizard!” exclaims Sam, delighted . “Just say it, man, he’s a wizard.”
“A sorcerer,” Bucky repeats, enunciating each syllable carefully.
Sam shakes his head. “You’re incredibly critical, you know. Everything worked out fine and you’re mad I didn’t call Doctor Strange. Do you even know what Doctor Strange does?”
Bucky thinks for a moment. “All I’ve got is magic,” he admits, grinning. “But it just sounds like that could’ve helped.”
“I don’t really know what he does either,” Sam says. “That’s why I didn’t call him!”
“You did amazing,” Bucky tells Sam, suddenly serious. This is how they talk to each other, they banter, and it’s fun, but right now, he wants to make sure to express his gratitude directly. “Thank you for dealing with a version of me you didn’t know and helping me get back here. And for… being someone I wanted to come back to so badly.” Bucky swallows heavily and Sam reaches over to take his hand. “I mean, I remembered you. It’s nuts, but… all of this that’s happening now… happened because I already met you 80 years ago and never completely forgot? And maybe if that never happened, I wouldn’t be here. In my cell, there was this, uh, terrible carving of a star on the wall. I thought it was a shooting star. It had these lines coming out of the sides. I used to just stare at it. I didn’t know what it was, really, or where it came from, but it was the only thing in that cell that I…” he trails off, shaking his head. “I would stare at it all the time, and think “maybe things get better, maybe I get out of here,” even though there was no reason to think that, at all. But it just… gave me hope, somehow.” He meets Sam’s eyes and places his other hand gently on Sam’s chest, where the star would be if he were wearing his uniform. “It was your star, with the wings, and I carved it, just before I left today. So all those years… it’s like I knew you, without knowing you. I’m here because of you, Sam.”
There are tears glinting in the corners of Sam’s eyes, as he slowly shakes his head. “You did that, though, you carved it…”
“Because of you,” Bucky repeats, squeezing his hand. “And if we didn’t fix this, if I couldn’t come back, I would’ve waited those 70 years ‘til I met you again, and it still would’ve been worth it. I thought about trying to escape or die or anything to stop the Winter Soldier from existing, but I was really happy to remember that I wasn’t supposed to mess with time and create branches. Because it meant I had to come back here, even if it took a really long time. I love our life. I love you.”
Sam leans in to give him a kiss. “I love you, too.” He pauses. “Sorry, I don’t mean to ruin the romance… because that was very romantic,” he starts, making Bucky smile, “But I gotta ask. If you had lived through it all again… once we got to that mission with the portal, wouldn’t you have just gone back to 1945 and had to live it all again?”
The smile drops off of Bucky’s face as he ponders the question. “I guess,” he says eventually. “But maybe the second time around we would’ve figured it out? You’re right, this does ruin the romance,” he jokes, giving Sam a playful shove. “We fixed it, it’s fine. We don’t have to worry about this because I killed the scientist and broke the machine.”
“You think you broke the machine,” Sam corrects him.
“I know I did, I remember it,” insists Bucky. “We’d know by now if I broke the universe by screwing that up. Stop asking weird time questions, I never want to think about time travel again.”
“You and I both,” Sam replies. He leans back against the couch, arms around Bucky so he pulls him down, too. They’re quiet for a few minutes, enjoying the closeness. It’s still morning, but Bucky feels like he could fall asleep right here, against Sam’s chest.
1945
The pain in Bucky’s head is incredible.
He’s screaming, still, unable to quiet himself, and when he’s finally able to force his eyes open, the scene has changed. The scientist had been outside of his cell before, but he’s inside now, dead at Bucky’s feet. There’s a knife next to him. The machine Bucky is hooked up to is in his cell now, too. Bucky closes his eyes again, shakes his head to try and clear things up. How did this happen? Had the pain been so bad Bucky can’t remember dragging this man in here and killing him? Hadn’t his blue shirt been white, just a minute ago? How long has this been going on?
There are Hydra guards approaching. They’ll shoot him, he knows, either with tranquilizer darts or actual bullets. I’m running out of time, he thinks frantically, but he doesn’t even know what he’s running out of time to do. He yanks the electrodes from his head, hoping to at least make it more difficult for them to use this machine on him again. God, his head hurts. Bucky can’t even imagine what sort of damage this guy had been trying to do to him. Once he’s detached himself from the machine, he kicks it violently and enjoys a brief moment of satisfaction as it smashes against the cell wall and pieces break off. Suddenly, it doesn’t feel like enough. The guards are closing in on him, but he uses his last moment to grab the machine with his arm and hurl it across the cell to hit the other wall with all of his strength. It practically explodes upon impact, some pieces flying back so far they hit Bucky, leaving cuts, and maybe bruises, too, if the injuries last long enough on this strange, enhanced body he’s still getting used to. It’s worth it.
Bucky looks outside of the cell. There’s a group of five Hydra guards, stopped dead in their tracks, staring at him as he stands there, bleeding above the corpse of their colleague. They look scared. Bucky hasn’t been happy about anything in a long time, but he’s happy about the fear he sees in their eyes. His eyes fall to the knife on the floor, and he’s reaching for it before he has time to come up with any sort of plan. He wants to be holding it, though, if they open that door and come in here. Maybe, with a combination of this adrenaline and the super strength, he could get through these five guys. Stranger things have happened in his life, for sure. His mind plays out an impossible scenario in just a few seconds. He kills them, escapes this prison, finds his way back to… well, not Steve, not anymore, but any allies, any Americans, anyone who’s not Hydra… he could go home, see his sister, maybe get married someday.
Hydra agents are cowards, though, always have been, and they’re shooting tranquilizers at him from outside the bars of the cell. It takes five darts before he’s not able to grip the knife anymore and it clatters to the ground. Bucky’s not far behind — he stumbles a bit, tries to keep his balance but hits the wall and slides down to the floor, unable to stay upright. The agents know they don’t have much time, and he watches one of them open the door to the cell. They all rush in, one grabbing the knife and the rest quickly sweeping the pieces of the broken machine out. Bucky tries to get up but he can’t manage anything but swiping ineffectually at them. They leave the scientist for last, shooting Bucky with two more darts for good measure before dragging the man’s limp body out of the cell by his arms. They’re talking to each other in panicked Russian the entire time, nothing Bucky can understand. He has no idea what’s happened here, why the scientist came alone, what he did to Bucky, how Bucky managed to kill him without remembering it even happened. He’s had a lot of bad days since he was brought here, but this one might be the new low. Even through the haze of the sedatives, his head hurts. When he lets his aching head slump onto his shoulder, he catches a glimpse of a carving on the cement wall of the cell. It’s unfamiliar to him — he’s sure it wasn’t here before. It’s a star, with lines jutting out of each side. A shooting star, maybe. Had Bucky done this? How had he forgotten this, too?
The agents slam the door of the cell, tearing Bucky’s attention away from the star. They retreat down the hall, leaving him alone again to wonder when they will finally decide that despite his super strength, he is not worth all the trouble he causes. Maybe it will be soon. Maybe they need permission from the higher ups first and they went to ask if they can please, finally, put a bullet in his head today. Whether it’s today, tomorrow, next year, whether he’s killed in his sleep or tortured to death or taken down trying to escape… Bucky knows it’s inevitable. He’s going to die here. He should probably be dead already.
His eyes are drawn to the strange new carving of the shooting star again. It’s comforting to him, even though its mysterious origins should probably scare him. “Nah, you lived through all that shit, sounds like you’re supposed to be alive to me,” he hears a warm voice in his head say as he runs his fingers over the carving. The voice is comforting, too. Though it sounds familiar, Bucky can’t quite place it. It feels like a memory that’s just out of reach.
I’m supposed to be alive, Bucky thinks, echoing the voice. Yeah. Okay.
EPILOGUE
“You should stay home,” Bucky says, slotting a thigh between Sam’s legs like a physical barrier to keep him down on the bed. He’s only been back for a few days — indisputably some of the best days of his life —and the thought of Sam leaving so soon is almost unbearable.
“You can stay,” replies Sam. He groans a little when Bucky shifts. “You should have some time before you go back out again.”
Bucky leans down to kiss him, long and slow. “I am gonna stay,” he assures Sam when he pulls away. “But this was hard on you, too. Take a break with me. You deserve it.”
“I’m fine,” Sam says. His fingers are running up and down Bucky’s sides.
“You never take a break. Rhodey said this was not a huge crisis… they have plenty of people to fight these idiots who haven’t just had an incredibly stressful two weeks. Sit this one out for once. We can watch it on TV.”
Sam laughs. “You don’t want to go, but you want to watch it on TV?”
“Nope, not if you’re not there, but I know you’ll want to,” Bucky says, all wide-eyed sincerity. “I only care about you.”
Sam sighs dramatically, but Bucky can tell that he’s touched. “You’re a terrible influence on me.”
Bucky grins widely, knowing he’s won. It took a nightmarish two weeks to finally convince Sam to relax a little, but he’ll take it. “I love you,” he says, leaning down to kiss Sam again.
“I love you, too,” Sam says, a little breathless, one they’ve parted. He reaches for his phone to respond to Rhodey’s message. “You’re playing dirty, though.”
“Only way I know how to play, you know that,” replies Bucky. “Hey, tell him we’re on our honeymoon. It kind of feels like that.”
“Nuh uh, not wasting that excuse. We’re gonna need it one day for real.”
The words give Bucky goosebumps. It’s a future he hasn’t glimpsed yet, but he knows for sure that Sam is right.