iknewhim | Stucky 001

Stucky 001

Knowing things, the Soldier had come to realize, wasn't the same as remembering. Learning about them from the outside wasn't the same as having the sense-memory of a place or an incident or even a person.

He was slowly learning everything he could in the hopes that it would help him remember something, anything and it had, sort of. The memories that had been like minnows, scattering whenever he got too close, were now more like shards of glass, cold and sharp-edged buried in the back of his mind, where he knew they were there and that they were solid, but he couldn't pry them loose without hurting himself twice over.

Something else he knew was that while he may have been Barnes once upon a time, he certainly wasn't now, though he wasn't entirely sure of who he was instead, nor who he wanted to be.

He also knew that Rogers was looking for him. That had been one of the first things he'd realized, that almost as soon as the man had been cleared from his stay in the hospital -one that the Soldier was equally proud to have caused and appalled by causing- he'd gone looking. He'd even gotten close a couple of times and the Soldier had had to relocate, always near Rogers' apartment, always where he could keep an eye on the Captain. Not sure why he was bothering, except for the fact that Rogers was the one with the answers.

Perhaps he'd let himself get caught soon. He was doing alright for himself, he'd been getting by, finding clothes wasn't difficult, nor was making sure he ate when he needed to, but only when it was absolutely necessary, never before.

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It was taking too long. Days stretched into weeks, and while Steve often had the feeling he was getting close, none of his leads ended up panning out. Still he never gave up hope, no matter how disheartening his search got. The Winter Soldier had avoided capture for decades, and if he didn’t want to be found then he wasn’t going to be easy to track down; Steve just hoped that maybe Bucky might want to.

He had gotten through to him. Maybe it was only for a moment, and maybe it wasn’t much, but Steve knew there was something there, some sense of recognition, and something like that was hard to ignore. With nobody giving orders anymore what else did Bucky have? Steve had given him a crumb, a hint of a different life, a hint of who he really was and maybe now both of them were searching for James Buchanan Barnes.

Sitting on a bench in the park, Steve flipped through the notebook he carried dedicated solely to his search. He had told Sam to take the day off, that he only planned to go over everything again and regroup before starting the next leg of the search, and for the moment he was enjoying the solitude until he felt that strange niggling at the back of his neck, that sense that he was being watched. He raised his head to look around.

Even incognito he wasn't that hard to spot. He held himself differently than most people, poised in a way that could be called 'coiled', ready to move at a moment's notice. He was predatory in a way that most people didn't manage but instantly recognized, usually subconsciously. Other people gave him a wide berth without ever realizing why.

He didn't look threatening in a way anyone was likely to recognize, he looked like he might be homeless, but might just be some kind of hipster or college student, or both, in clothes that didn't quite fit right in a way that could have been by design with a jacket big enough that the sleeve cuffs fell well past his fingertips, but with his left hand jammed in a pocket anyway.

He was just standing there, out of the way of the jogging path and well away from the playground. There was a moment of hesitation that was almost visible before he started forward, closing the space between them and stopping when he was within speaking distance, but still out of arm's reach, "No bodyguard today." Was all he said by way of greeting.

He could feel it, a change in the air, a shift in the earth. He looked around him, trying to pinpoint exactly what was giving him that strange feeling, and for a brief instant he saw him before a group of joggers passed, blocking him from view. Getting quickly to his feet Steve kept his eyes trained on the crowd and a moment later it parted and a lone figure stepped through, approaching him slowly. The clothes and general unkempt appearance did nothing to mask who it truly was.

All this time searching and all he had had to do was sit and wait for Bucky to come to him.

Steve wanted to close the distance between them, to hug his friend and call him by name, but he knew that was the worst thing he could do. He had to be cautious, for Bucky’s sake, for his own, and for all the people around them. He had to play it cool.

“It’s his day off,” he said, his eyes locking onto Bucky’s and searching for recognition, for intent, for affection.

No affection, and recognition only by the way of knowing that Steve had been his last mission, a mission that was now, by and large, defunct.

"Shouldn't have left you alone." It wasn't a threat, just an observation, and was followed by: "You get in trouble without someone watching your six." The statement was offhanded, so matter of fact that it even caught him by surprise and his brow creased a little, easing back from the other man.

It wasn't a step away as such, just a shifting of his weight, ready to bolt again, shaking his head just once, like a horse trying to shake off a stinging fly, "I should go. Shouldn't have come here." He wasn't entirely sure why he had, either, except that he knew Steve was the one with the answers he needed, answers that he had no way of getting without talking to Steve.

The statement threw Steve just as much, but it was exactly what he needed to hear to renew his faith and determination. Bucky was still in there, somewhere, he just had to figure out how to get him out. It wouldn’t be easy, and it wouldn’t make the last seventy years go away, but he would be there to help it friend through it all. He just had to get Bucky to let him.

Before he could reply Bucky shifted, looking ready to run any second, and claimed he should leave. Steve just barely held himself back from taking a step toward him. “Wait,” he said, holding his hands up in a submissive gesture. “You found me for a reason. You want answers,” he deduced. “I can help you with that.”

Please let me help you.

Well the Captain wasn't wrong, that was what he wanted, and the confirmation that he could help was at least a step in the right direction, though he couldn't quite trust that this wasn't a trap.

He knew that SHIELD was in a shambles, but that didn't mean they wouldn't try to capture him alive anyway, Hydra wasn't exactly demolished either, someone would be looking for him sooner or later.

Still making sure he was out of arm's reach, and riding that edge of tension between readiness and actually moving, he finally asked: "You think you know me. Why?"

He could see that Bucky was still suspicious, but he wasn’t trying to walk away. So far, so good. Steve had to just keep playing it cool, had to offer what was needed, had to try to keep his own wants out of it. This was for Bucky, this was to help him, and that was what mattered right now.

“Because I do know you,” he said, a statement of fact, though it wasn’t entirely true anymore. ‘Knew’ would have been more appropriate. “From before. We’re friends.”

Best friends, he wanted to add, but refrained. Too much, too soon. Keep it short. Simple. Engage him. Get him asking questions. Get him thinking. Don’t push him. Don’t give in.

"That's what the museum said." He replied, still looking wary, but at least dialing down the readiness a little. He hadn't quite believed it in the tour, and he didn't quite believe it from Steve, but the same point from two separate sources did seem to lend credibility to the statement.

He was apparently still waiting for confirmation or further information from Steve, still studying him intently, either trying to put pieces together or waiting for a chink in Steve's facade, something that showed he wasn't who he claimed.

Steve nodded slowly. So Bucky had gone there too, had been curious enough to track down the exhibit. That was good.

“I went there too. It’s actually pretty good,” he said with a slight chuckle, but it was more pained than humorous. There was a distinct sadness in his eyes as he thought of it, of all the people he had lost, those that had aged while he was still the same. He and Bucky were still the same.

Not the same at all.

“Peggy had a lot of input into it.”

It hadn't taken much tracking down all in all, the advertisements were all over the place, and he'd figured that if he couldn't talk to Steve directly -and that was more a case of not being ready to more than not being able to- he could at least see what people had to say about him.

"She named it after you, you know. SHIELD." He'd figured that one out right away, and he wasn't entirely sure what he thought about it, it made sense, but at the same time that kind of adoration of anyone, living or dead, wasn't anything he had a frame of reference for.

He also hadn't been sure what to think of the man with his own face standing beside Steve in at least half the pictures, rarely more than arm's length away. Smiling. It was the smiling more than anything else that made him think it had to be someone else, not him.

Peggy was always a bittersweet topic. Steve still visited her, still enjoyed talking to her, but her health was failing and her memory with it. The days when he showed up and she looked at him as if it was the first time she had seen him in decades, like he hadn’t been visiting her for two years... those days were the hardest. She always cried. He hated to see her cry.

“She’s an amazing woman,” he said. Steve was happy for Peggy, happy that she’d gotten to live her life, to have a family, but there were still nights he laid awake wondering what might have been. How would things have turned out if they had gotten that dance?

“Bucky...” he started to say but caught himself. “Why don’t we sit?” He gestured to the bench he had vacated. “Or we can go somewhere else to talk.”

There was a brief hesitation, weighing his options before he said: "We can sit." His main concern with that was that it would put him well within Steve's reach.

But he knew that Steve was unlikely to take advantage of that, not where there could be collateral damage, and so sitting was a risk he was willing to take, for the time being.

Steve could see the hesitation, the inner battle. If Bucky walked away now he would be no closer to finding out who he was.

Nodding at the decision, Steve moved slowly as he walked back to the bench and reclaimed his seat at one end, wanting to give Bucky as much room as he could. “So you saw the exhibition, but I guess it didn’t really answer enough questions.” How could it? It couldn’t give the personal details, couldn’t accurately describe the person Bucky had been. Now was his chance to ask, though, and if he remembered anything about Steve he should know that the answers would be honest.

"People on the outside looking in and trying to explain never have the right answers." He was silent for a brief moment, brow creasing before he added: "Not having the right questions doesn't help, either."

And he knew for a fact that he didn't have those, though he was trying. The things that he did remember didn't fit together quite right, and he knew there were huge pieces missing, but didn't know what to ask about to be able to fill them in and secure the fragments that he did have into place.

Those words made it all fall into place, and Steve inwardly kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. How could he expect Bucky to ask what he wanted to know if he didn’t even know what to ask about? Perhaps it had just been hope, hope that his best friend was closer to the surface than he had appeared to be.

Taking a deep breath, Steve nodded slowly before he started speaking. “We grew up in Brooklyn. I was just a scrawny kid then, but I talked big, and that got me into trouble more times than I can count. And you...” he looked over at Bucky again with a fond yet pained smile. “You were my hero.”

Maybe Captain America had gotten all the fame, but Bucky had been a true hero without any enhancements.

((I'm not entirely sure about their past so correct me if I get it wrong))

He fell still, just listening, letting that explanation stir memories up. He wasn't digging for them this time, he knew that would just scatter them again like fish in a pond, but letting them surface on their own. He could remember, or thought he could remember, breaking up at least one fight to rescue a then-smaller Steve.

It had to be more than one, enough of them that he'd given up counting. He remembered that much, he'd finally stopped counting because of how often it happened.

It was once those fragmented memories had more-or-less settled into place that he realized why he always slowed when he walked past blind alleys, he was still looking for a fight to break up.

He blinked over at Steve then, brow still creased, sorting through the pieces and parts of memories he actually had, "You always said ..." He looked entirely puzzled once more, brow furrowing more deeply, shaking his head just once, "Always said you could handle yourself." Even the handful of times he'd actually come home beat half to hell, and that he definitely remembered, if only because he remembered the condition he'd left Steve in on the bank of the river.

(ooc: no worries! I'm sort of throwing things together piecemeal from what I do know)

Steve gave him time to process, to weigh the words against the images in his head and look for the truth in it all. When Bucky spoke again Steve tried not to hold his breath, tried not to hope too hard.

It was nearly impossible.

“I’ve never been good at admitting when I can’t do something,” Steve replied with a faint smile. “Or asking for help.”

When it came to Bucky he’d never had to ask, and now maybe he could return that favour.

He was thankful for the fact that Steve didn't ask anything else while he puzzled that out, knowing that an interruption would make sorting things out even more difficult, scattering the few memories that had surfaced.

It was incredibly frustrating, most of the time, remembering enough to survive and how to take care of himself but not remember much at all about who he was, and more than that who he'd been. He did remember Steve -still smaller- looking tired, sorrowful, and telling Bucky that he could get by on his own, though he couldn't place when it had been or why, and didn't know what he'd said in reply if anything.

He nodded at the statement, "I know." A huff that was caught somewhere between annoyed and amused, "I remember that much." Though he wasn't sure why that stuck when so little else did.

Steve smiled a little at the hint of amusement in Bucky’s tone. There wasn’t much in the way of emotion coming from his former best friend, so that was definitely a step in the right direction.

“Even back when the war broke out, I don’t know how many times I tried to enlist, but no matter how often they rejected me I just kept trying.” He had even tried making up different people to enlist as, going to different towns, but while he could lie about who he was and where he was from his body never lied. The medical had always caught him out.

"Lucky you never got arrested for it." He remembered that, too, that he'd been worried about Steve getting locked up, but there was still the annoyance there of not knowing why. He shook his head then, brow creasing once more, "Don't remember why that was a problem." He knew now how to look up that sort of information, the library computers and the internet had been an invaluable resource for him as of late.

He shook his head, glancing up at Steve again, "A lot of the whys are still missing. And the when is ..." He shook his head again, "Wrong." Everything seemed to have happened at some point in the recent past, even though he knew, logically and by the research he'd been able to do, that some of it had been years, even decades apart.

It was becoming clearer the more they talked, and the clearer it became the further Steve’s stomach dropped. There was a lot Bucky didn’t remember, but clearly some he did with a little prompting; the problem was that he had no feelings to go along with those memories. It was like watching a film about someone else’s life; he could recall the events but had no emotional connection to them.

That sounded worse than not remembering at all.

“The whys are always the hardest part,” Steve replied, trying not to let his hurt show. How was he supposed to do this? He could help Bucky remember things, but how could he help him remember how he felt during those moments?

He was trying to put a whole life together piecemeal from what it had once been, and that was proving problematic at best. In some cases, mostly the few things he remembered doing as the Winter Soldier, it was probably good that there was no emotional connection to it, or he would have been crushed by some of the things that he'd done.

It had already started to sneak in around the edges, the revulsion at what he'd been that he couldn't quite disconnect from who he was now. He did, however, nod at Steve's answer, because it made sense, really. Why was a complicated beast even for people who hadn't undergone frequent brainwashings.

"Everything feels like..." His brow creased, trying to figure out how to explain the jumble of time, "Like it all happened just a few days ago. All of it, even when I know it didn't."

“That’s how I felt when I woke up,” Steve said quietly. “Seventy years had passed since the war, but for me it was only yesterday.”

He knew it wasn’t the same for Bucky, but he wasn’t sure how the past seventy years had gone for him. He knew there had been hits, ghost stories about the Winter Soldier, but what about in between them? If he had been working constantly than he would have been caught earlier, would have at least been proven as more than a legend. Steve wanted to ask how much Bucky remembered but didn’t want to scare him off. Maybe something easier. “Hey, do you remember the Stark Expo we went to?”

"I remember." He replied, nodding once, "Right before I shipped out." He also remembered that he'd been the one responsible for Stark's death. It hadn't been his first mission, it hadn't even been one of the early ones, well after there started being cracks in the facade, after they started putting him on ice between missions.

His brow creased a little once more, glancing back at Steve, "Why?"

“I don’t know,” Steve admitted. He hated to let on that he was feeling just as lost in this conversation, but he didn’t know how to really keep it going. It was like trying to talk to Peggy during one of her spells, when she didn’t remember that he was alive and had been visiting her for the past two years, except with Peggy there was emotion, emotions so strong it was overwhelming. With Bucky, he was just blank, and that more than anything Steve didn’t know how to deal with. “It was the last time we really just hung out before the war.”

"And then I left you alone for five minutes and look what happened." There was almost, almost an edge of amusement there, like he knew how it was supposed to work but couldn't quite make the connection to make it work himself.

He'd also tracked Peggy down himself, though he hadn't gone to see her yet, afraid that she wouldn't recognize him, or afraid that she would but would know something was wrong, afraid that she wouldn't have any more answers for him than he already had himself.

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Stucky 001

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