For worldwar

[disassembling]

Who: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers
When: Ant-Man Teaser Ending (1.5 years post TWS?)
What: Steve and Sam find the Winter Soldier practising bondage poorly. No, I mean... the Winter Soldier lets himself be found.
Warnings: Emotional Train-wreck


Tick-tock. Four-hundred and ninety-two days post assignment desertion. It was approximately oh-ten-hundred, though after being stuck as he was for the last four days, it was difficult to tell the time of day as anything passed when it was light and when it was dark. He had purposefully not brought any supplies with him save a bit of water but even then, he had nursed it only enough to not cause damage to himself internally.

His metal fingers flexed, the servos sliding perfectly despite being trapped as they were, protected by the metal plates that were not so easily damaged by old machinery. He shifted his weight on his feet, unable to sit down, unwilling to stand up, which left him in a permanent crouch to sitting quietly on a metal box that had no doubt at one time housed tools. Now it allowed him momentary rest, but the discomfort of his position made it difficult to actually sleep longer than a few minutes.

That was the way he had planned the entire mission. After four-hundred and ninety-two days, he only had a plea for help available. The pressure was too much, building more and more in his head, crowding out the need to survive with the need to take orders, to return to what he knew, to let the programming slowly click into place. He was tired of fighting it; there was less fight in him now, more readiness to just sag in the restraint and let his body fade down to something reasonable, manageable, less a threat. He intended it this way, starving, dehydrated, a lack of sleep, his confused assortment of emotions brimming near the surface.

They had come just as intended. He shifted, peering through his bangs at the pair who he knew had been haunting after him for the entire time he had been avoiding it. He hadn't been ready. Now he was perhaps more ready but still very much a danger to them both, something that he now could consciously avoid by restraining himself. He had purposefully damaged the machine after all, forced its weight on his arm with no easy hand-holds to remove it. He was stuck so there was no going back.

His lips parted, breathing in air that way and then he settled as still as his cramped body would allow him. They would get help, he knew. It was that or remove the arm. He doubted the latter option was one that either of them intended to use. He waited, watching silently, drinking in the sight of them both but particularly Steve. The man looked shut down, like the weight of the world had finally bent those shoulders.

Finally. They were both ready. Both contained and shut down for their own protection. It was time.

Comments

[worldwar]

He stared at that machine, a relic that could have come straight out of the war, could have been used to mold propeller blades or the casings of tank artillery; Steve might have found himself in a factory leveraging its impossible weight over and over again in service of his country, if he hadn't been given the serum. Sometimes he wishes he hadn't. Sometimes he wishes the serum had never been invented, that it had only ever existed a dream in the back of Erskine's mind: look at the uses it had been put to over the annals of history.

His gaze shifted from the gleaming arm clamped under the vice, up the bicep and shoulder concealed beneath a ragged shirt sleeve to the hollow eyes that stared back at him from beneath dark strands of hair. He saw Bucky's lips move, though whether he was mouthing words or only taking in air, Steve wasn't sure. Sam was talking and Steve heard every word, answered him as competently as a veteran soldier, as a commander used to dealing with a crisis, but he felt as though it was all very far away, like words came and went as distorted and disconnected as though they were passing through water. Sam was going to get help. He knew someone who could do something for Bucky, who could fix at least one part of the damage that had been done to him, and Steve nodded assent, aware this meant Sam would have to leave them alone. He would stay, of course. He would stay beside Bucky no matter what. He looked at his best friend, weakened and wasted, slumped exhausted next to that machine as though he'd been trapped in it for days, and he knew that Bucky had put himself here deliberately, offered himself like this. It was a surrender.

Then Sam was gone, and Steve came closer, feeling as though the weight of that machine was sitting on his back, crushing down his lungs. He hadn't felt like this since he was small. This inability to breathe.

There was some water in a plastic bottle at Bucky's feet, almost empty; somehow Steve doubted it had been very full in the first place. He reached for it, cataloguing every motion, keeping his eyes on Bucky's face. Opened the cap and brought it to his friend's lips, brushing his jaw with careful fingertips. "Come on," Steve told him, tipping it gradually so that the water slid towards his mouth.

[disassembling]

The wingman left, no more prepared to find whatever it was that the pair had agreed on than Steve was in staying with him. He had no supplies and from what he had seen, neither did the blond who elected to stay. He wasn't at all surprised that it was Steve to stay and the wingman to go; they had not been this close to one another since the helicarrier over the Potomac. A good soldier was one who lived on instinct and knew when to take an opportunity, exactly what this was.

It was strange that he had spent almost the last four-hundred and whatever days exclusively alone, and now that he wasn't it didn't seem unbearable. Perhaps because instead of being chased down, he had chosen to surrender personally. He had chosen and that was the most important aspect of anything that he did. The ability to choose, the need for freedom even when he was potentially giving it right back up.

His eyes focused on Steve, but aside from flexing and curling his metal fingers, he made no motion to strike out with his right hand. He was aware of the motions with the bottle, and he willingly tipped his head back slightly to receive it against his lips, swallowing down what little was left of it.

He sighed heavily as if under a great weight himself once it was done, turning his head to wipe his mouth on his shoulder. "I'm tired," he whispered hoarsely. "I'm tired of killing and being hunted. I want go home, but... there is no where to go back to that would be anywhere like it."

[worldwar]

"Easy," Steve murmured, seeing the flex of those gleaming metal fingers out of the corner of his eye; but it didn't seem to be panic or the beginning of an attempt to break free. Bucky was still, almost painfully unmoving, except for his head tilting back a little for the water. He wondered if the massive weight on that metal arm hurt him. If he could feel it crushing down, a pressure that would have pulverized flesh and bone, but had chosen to trap himself under it anyway. He wondered just how long he had been here beneath it, waiting for Steve and Sam to come. Two years, Steve thought, drinking in the sight of him as he lowered the bottle back to the floor. Two years.

Steve didn't trust himself to answer yet. He looked at Bucky, touched his shoulder briefly, his cheek; then he pulled away and turned his face before Bucky could see his mouth pull tight and his eyes get brighter--there was a burning in them, and a block in his throat that he swallowed down. He couldn't. He just couldn't fall to pieces in front of him, or let it show that this was devastating--his friend, his best friend since childhood, closer to him than a brother, a man he'd loved and missed for decades, whose ghost trail he had been chasing for two years. He was here, Steve told himself, controlling his expression, his body language. Not well, but here.

He cast around for something to sit on so he wasn't looming over him, and found another of the metal crates, dragging it over with harsh scrape against the floor. Steve sat down, meeting Bucky's gaze. "I'll help you. You know that, don't you?" That had to be why Bucky had called him here. There had to be at least a part of him that knew that. Steve swallowed, putting his hand over Bucky's right hand.

[disassembling]

The Soldier had spent his days of freedom studying human behaviour as well as hiding. There were a lot of expressions that people displayed to each other and many more that they tried to hide. He had forced himself to learn expression from expression to play out parts of the memories that he had. In fact, it had started when he had seen his smiling laughing face at the Smithsonian and realized that there was a man in those images that was nothing like who and what he was. In fact, Steve was almost the same, the humour and carefree freedom gone, old images for some children and adults to ogle like it was more than a memory.

It was clear to him that Steve was clinging to control and no doubt internally losing. That was perhaps why he had chosen this venue as their meeting. It was full of lost broken relics, like them. Dusty, old, forgotten but still usable if the opportunity arose. He watched Steve with tired eyes, didn't move from the small touches that he knew were for Steve to be assured of his presence, the reality that he presented. He was here. It wasn't an illusion after so long.

"You don't have to be strong for me," he said lowly, his eyes drinking in Steve's apparently forever young face. "You don't even have to pretend to be strong for yourself right now. Neither of us are going anywhere." He had made certain he couldn't go, and it was painfully clear that Steve would not leave him either, would settle and wait out days with him if necessary. "You're as lost as I am found," he pointed out, and his fingers twitched in Steve's hand, not rejecting but clearly not used to being touched.

[worldwar]

It hadn't been lost on Steve either what kind of place this was, a sanctuary for damaged, forgotten things. The windows were blackened by dust and grime that must have had decades to settle. He knew that it was still daylight out, but you wouldn't know it in a place like this, and it was painful to think of Bucky waiting in here through the ugly passing of days, starving himself of food and light and other, more profound things. He'd been a ghost for so long, and he was nearly a shadow now, faded away not only from the Bucky he had known all those decades ago but from the Winter Soldier, too, that he had met on the bridge two years ago, all brutal power and terrifying relentlessness.

Steve didn't know what there was left of him, either, after two years of chasing and watching everything he'd known and believed in crumble down around him. He tried his best to keep it all inside, wishing for the dark and the decay around them to make him a shadow, too. But Bucky looked at him out of his deep-set eyes and his tired face and seemed to know everything about him. He drew his hand away after a moment, feeling Bucky's fingers twitch under its weight, and scrubbed the heel of it across his eyes before he linked his fingers between his knees, leaning forward braced on his elbows.

"Have to be," he said, and his own voice, too, sounded so tired in his ears. "Strong, I mean." Steve looked up, meeting Bucky's eyes again. He searched them desperately, without knowing what he was looking for. "I don't know what else to be. What should I do? What can I do for you, Buck?"

[disassembling]

He tilted his head slightly, letting his hair slide over the lower half of his face, even if his eyes remained fixed on Steve, once again studying the other man's expression. "Why do you have to be strong here? You didn't have to be when you were small." He had read a book, lurking in the shadows of aisles in libraries to have time alone but at the same time, able to observe and slip around people. "You had to be fierce and honourable."

Slowly, he raised his right hand to reached out for the first time under his own initiative, the tips of his fingers straining to brush against the edge of Steve's chin. His fingers separated and walked along the right side of the other man's jaw and then drew them back in a long curious stroke. Touching others was not something that he did without violence.

"Help me," he murmured softly. "It's too much, the pressure in my head... I'm dangerous. Not just to me but to everyone I come in contact with."

[worldwar]

Steve tried for a smile, not sure he had much success. "Isn't that the same thing?" Being fierce and honorable. Finding courage when you were afraid. Being for another person even when you had nothing. His mother had taught him that, and so had Bucky: they were the two best examples Steve could think of for how to be strong. He was capable of enduring a great deal of pain, but there was something about seeing Bucky so ruined that was worse than nearly anything else. The things that had been done to him defied imagination. Steve didn't know where his own strength lay in the face of it, what power he had to help his friend.

But then Bucky reached for him and brushed his cheek with his fingers, and Steve caught his hand as it began to draw back and held it at his jaw, looking at him. He might well be dangerous; Steve didn't care. Bucky could reach into his chest and pull his heart out if he wanted to. He was welcome to it.

"I'll take you home," he told him quietly. "I swear to you. I'll keep you safe." He meant it in every sense. Steve didn't know what strength he had for this, how to shoulder Bucky's pain, but he knew that the choice was already made; that as long as they both lived, Bucky was his to care for. He nodded towards the machine. "Let me get you out of this."

[disassembling]

"No," he replied tiredly. There were things that he had heard that Steve had fought for that had required more ferocity than courage, a dumb luck and tenacity to stand up no matter how many times the man was beaten down. Those were books, no doubt exaggerated and overlaying a truth with a blanket of syrup to make everything sound better than it was. He found that media did that a lot too.

He almost jerked his hand from Steve's grip, but there was a desperation in them both that softened him just a bit. He bowed his head, his fingers flexing against the blond's cheek, a new tired caress as if to say 'it is okay' and 'I am here'. The reality might be a bit different, but they were here in this old shop together for as long a it took for the wingman to return.

"There is no place like that for me," he replied, a bit cold. "That place was seventy-four years ago. I...went to Brooklyn once. It..." he trailed off, not certain what to say about the place. He had no memory in particular of living there, though he had been drawn to a certain area. Nothing drew him to stay long. "You shouldn't. I could hurt you."

[worldwar]

He tried to take heart from the fact that Bucky let his hand be held, even stroked his cheek a little with his fingertips, even if Steve had felt that aborted flinch. He almost let go, but telling himself he ought to give Bucky space was easier than actually doing it. Steve wanted so badly to be near him, to touch him at every moment and be certain that he was really there. He looked so insubstantial, wasted away to nearly nothing; it was as though he could slip away at any moment and there was only Steve to hold him here.

"I don't live in Brooklyn now," Steve told him as steadily as he could manage. That cold, distant voice hurt, but he could understand the sentiment--there were some places that were too haunted, filled with ghosts and nothing else. There was no going back. "I had to get a new place in DC, but--I think you'd like it. It's secure. Sam and I stay where we can when we're on the road." He didn't mention the Avengers Tower. Tony couldn't help them, not now. "My point is, there's a home for you if you want it. I don't care where we live. Any place that feels safe."

He let Bucky's hand lower, still gripping it in his; Steve's gaze moved over the machine clamped down on Bucky's arm, and then went back to his eyes. "You can't hurt me, Buck," he said softly. "Let me help you."

[disassembling]

He shivered across his shoulders at the mention of DC, and his bowed his head. There were a lot of confusing flashes from that place, the city where he had partially awakened and realized some of the details of his life or rather his enslavement. He had not returned to DC after he had set out from it, and a cynical part of him couldn't believe that any place there was secure. He was too tired to really fight the idea, drawn too thin and frayed at the edges after so long hiding from so many details.

"I don't stay in any place more than forty-eight hours," he confided softly, shifting and wincing as the metal fused into his flesh twisted. He had to shift his weight in his crouch to compensate, drawing his hand away from Steve's face to brace on the side of the machine. "I need... help," he added, his eyebrows drawing together and his expression turning momentarily bleak. "I can't run anymore; it's too much. I need... you to help me sort out these jumbled details."

He said nothing but nodded slowly. It wasn't about arguing over details; it was finally attempting to trust someone who had not lied to him.

[worldwar]

He let Bucky's hand go, turning paler at the pain in his friend's face; now he understood something about the echoes he sometimes felt of pain and despair and physical exhaustion. Steve watched him brace himself against the machine, feeling helpless, and then moved a little closer and put a hand between Bucky's shoulder blades as he crouched over, sliding it up to grip the nape of his neck, gently. "I know." How terrifying it must have been to at last give up running, give up living as a ghost with what safety that provided, having no identity, no way to be found. What strength it must have taken to surrender. "I'll help you. We can figure all the details out together. I'm gonna keep you safe."

That was a promise. Steve knew what he was taking on, how Bucky would be hunted, how he would need to be protected from the world and from himself. But Steve would do it, he would protect him any way he had to, even if it meant giving up his entire life to take him somewhere far away enough and secure enough to be called safe; aside from Sam and Natasha and their covert work to bring down every Hydra cell they could find, there was nothing in the world that mattered much more than Bucky.

"Hold on," Steve murmured to him, and he let go and got to his feet, looking over the machine for a moment before he took hold of the weight of the clamp and strained to lift it: it didn't budge. There had to be some kind of lever or release; he spent a few moments hunting for it, then put his back into it, the muscles in his shoulders and arms straining as he finally lifted the clamp an inch or two with a groan of metal, letting it go once Bucky's wrist slid free. No ordinary human could possibly have done it. Bucky would have made sure that it could hold a supersoldier, or at least one weakened and starved.

[disassembling]

The Soldier nodded his head, aware that Steve's word held a lot of weight to it. Maybe that was the reason he had put himself into this situation because finally the details would be worked out, the need to simply disappear would may be over, and he could just exist for a little while to pick up the pieces that he had no idea that he was actually looking for. There was something stressed but relieved about being near Steve, like some part of him that had been longing and missing had come back to slot into place for the first time. It confused him, but at this point, he was tired enough that he simply accepted it.

He watched the blond move around the machine, making no efforts to give instructions on how to free him. His fingers simply flexed as he watched and nodded his head as Steve found the lever and began the arduous task of forcing its weight after he had broken the mechanism that made that sort of motion easy. It came slow but still came, and he shifted his metal arm back when the pressure released, slumping back to sit on the floor and hanging his head and shoulders as all the tired cramps just seized up his muscles for a few seconds. Two of the plates of on his wrist were dented downwards but didn't interfere with the arm's actions.

He was free and he was dangerous again. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his right hand and then looked over at Steve. He drew a deep breath in, held it and then released it with a long sigh. "Come here," he ordered softly. "Close where I can look at you."

[worldwar]

Steve watched Bucky slump to the floor, the pain and exhaustion taking an obvious toll on his body; his hands flexed with the instinct to go to his friend, to help him, lift him up. It was his place to do that now, he thought. In giving himself up Bucky had accepted it as much as Steve had. They were for one another, pain and strength to be shared, and so Steve went to him, crouching down to the floor beside him, and reached out to gather him into his arms. He expected him to be heavy, with the weight of that metal arm and his body too weakened to help, but instead it was all too easy to lift him: Bucky felt hollow in his arms, like a bird freed from its cage. Gentle, but implacable, Steve gathered him close, cradled him as he stood and put his back to that machine and took Bucky away from it. There wasn't far to go; he went to a corner of the shop where a shaft of dusty light fell from the grimy windows, where he might at least get a better look at his friend, and Steve settled down to the floor with his back to the wall and Bucky in his arms, cradled against his body.

In the light, Bucky's face looked even more starkly pale and wasted, his cheeks hollow and the shadows under his eyes dark and smudged. He cupped a hand to his friend's cheek, brushing the arch of the bone softly with his thumb. "Off your feed, huh," Steve murmured, echoing the same gently teasing thing Bucky used to say to him when he was sick and had lost his appetite. He settled Bucky against him, guided him to rest his head on his shoulder, and for a moment felt such perfect happiness at being permitted to hold him that his heart thumped painfully in his chest.

[disassembling]

His eyes drank in the way that Steve moved, how that grey shirt was looking dirty and well-used when his friend was normally so impeccable outside of combat. The wear on the blond was obvious this close, and for his part, he didn't resist the strong arms that curled around him and lifted him like he weighed very little. He knew for a fact that, while he had lost weight, he was not a light man to carry anywhere, yet Steve did so like it was an honour and a duty to do so.

Despite all the training that he had pulling at him, he relaxed into Steve's arms, flexing his shoulders to remove of the stiffness that had built up over the last few days. He decided that it would be almost easy to close his eyes and fall asleep, aware that Steve would guard over him, but those words had his eyebrows pinching together as if trying to place the scenario in which it had come. "You'll find a way to fix me up," he replied slowly as he nestled his head down against Steve's strong warm shoulder and half-closed his eyes. Nothing had felt right before this. "Where will we go? Back to DC?"

[worldwar]

Steve cradled his friend closer as he felt Bucky relax against him, settling into his arms. It was a privilege to hold him, to be capable of cradling him the way Bucky might have done with him when he was younger and much, much smaller. There were only a few times that had happened, back then: when Steve was sick or drunk enough to need to be carried, when winter took a turn so cold that frost spread inside the windowpanes in their tenement in Brooklyn. He hadn't known then what it would be like to bind yourself to another, couldn't have imagined how it would feel, even with his best friend. This went beyond friendship. It was like taking back a missing piece of himself, holding the other half of his soul close to his heart. Steve closed his eyes and bent his head towards Bucky, letting his lips nuzzle his brow.

"We'll start there," he agreed. "First priority is taking care of you." Shelter, food, rest, that was what Bucky needed. And company. He would need Steve near him, he would need touch, skin to skin contact, all the things Steve recognized as essential to his own survival, impossible to live without. "We'll figure the rest out as we go along."

He opened his eyes to look at Bucky again, touching his face with gentle fingers, tracing his features: his brow, his temple and the corner of his eye, his cheek. He brushed some dark strands of hair back, tucking them behind his ear. There was a tender, unconscious pride in Steve's gaze, in his hand trailing down Bucky's throat to his shoulder where he gave him a firm squeeze.

[disassembling]

He had kept to himself for the last two years, not coming in unnecessary contact with other people and striving for the sort of independence that had allowed him to survive. He knew very well how to feed, clothe and groom himself, but a lot of the social intricacies had been wiped away. He was used to commanding and blending in, not having a relatively normal conversation with another human being. This was as close to one as he had had in that time, with someone that he knew who could possibly talk to him about more than the weather and what day of the week it was.

Yet, this contact was such a comfort that he wondered why he had resisted for so long. He sank a little more into Steve's grip on him, his fingers slowly creeping over to curl around the other man's dirty shirt. "I can take care of myself," he growled, aware that Steve didn't mean it as if he required maintenance or coddling. He had spent seventy years being 'taken care of' with the Red Room and HYDRA, and he was not looking to lose anything close to his guarded independence. He had given himself up after all; he hadn't be taken prisoner or convinced to stand down. That he had done himself. "I can't... go back to being helpless, being just a machine. I have to... have control of my life."

But he had to have this contact he realized too as his right hand slipped a little up the edge of Steve's shirt to touch skin because he wanted to. He leaned into the fingers exploring him in return, drinking in the pleasant hum of his flesh in response to it. He experimented leaning in to lip at Steve's jaw, tipping his head to bump with the tip of his nose and exhale a warm breath. "Why do I want this simple contact like this?"

[worldwar]

"I'm sorry," Steve said huskily, realizing that Bucky must be afraid of losing the freedom he'd taken so painfully for himself. Of course he would be. He'd spent seventy years being shown over and over again how helpless he was, being broken down, humiliated, controlled, and finally brainwashed into being more machine than man. Steve had read every file that he and Sam had found in burned-out Hydra facilities, anything that was left of the records of what had been done to his best friend, as though it was his duty to be witness. They'd left him with nightmares, left him sick with helpless terror and rage; he could only imagine what such memories did to a man who'd lived through them, even one as strong as Bucky. And now that he was bonded to Steve, there would always be a part of him that must depend on him for survival.

"I don't want you as a machine. I don't--Bucky, I can't live without you. I need you, too." He felt himself shiver when Bucky's fingers brushed over his bare stomach, felt an aching need to hold him closer, bury himself against him. In spite of the words Bucky was exploring him, nuzzling closer to him, and Steve would let him have anything, any part of him that he wanted to claim for his own. He nosed back, cupping Bucky's cheek again and brushing his thumb at the corner of a mouth he wanted badly to kiss. "I guess...because we belong together. We belong to each other."

[disassembling]

When was the last time that someone apologized to him? Honestly apologized, not one of those absent ones that occurred in the streets when one accidentally bumped into another. No one apologized to him, and it wasn't as if he put himself in situations where one would come up to begin with, but the response from Steve warmed him. For some reason, it vindicated his harsh, jaded feelings to guard his freedom while at the same time lifted him up like they were equals. Give and take. Action and consequence. Steve didn't and wouldn't ever see him as anything other than an equal, right? "Thank you..." he said awkwardly because that too was so rarely said to him or from him. It was an acknowledgement that he understood the apology and accepted it.

"H-how has this happened? We've apparently known each other for years and there was no record of us being this... bound," he said, unable to think of a different word for the state in which he felt like he currently existed with Steve. It worsened as his fingers caressed over Steve's skin, rising and falling over muscles and leaning into the palm against his cheek as his eyes closed with a huge sigh. His fingers crept higher and higher up Steve's shirt until he could circle and caress the other man's nipples. "I've... never belonged anywhere before that I remember."

[worldwar]

He held Bucky closer, knees bent so that he could cradle him, and Steve wanted to lift him up against him and bury his face in Bucky's shoulder and rock him slowly like a child who'd woken out of a nightmare, only Steve felt as though the nightmare was his and it was clinging to him still with all the horror of what had been done to his best friend. His soulmate now, in a way that went beyond love songs and words that could only touch the edge of expressing such a bond. He didn't know any words for it himself, though Bucky was looking to him to explain it. It made him sorry, made him feel as though he was failing him, though Bucky's fingers stroking the bare skin under his shirt kept distracting him, sweet, soft caresses that went higher and higher; Steve shivered when his touch brushed over his nipples. It was intimate, and it felt as though Bucky was trying to learn every inch of him, map his body like a terrain that was his to make his home in.

Steve licked his lips as he searched for an answer. "We weren't before," he acknowledged, his voice still husky and low. "I don't know why it happened now, Buck, I--when I saw you that first time, when I unmasked you, after I thought you were dead all those years--" He couldn't speak. There was a burning in his eyes and a tightness in his throat; he was remembering and flinching from the memory of the enormous, rending pain he had felt at that moment, like something inside of him was tearing in two. He remembered falling to his knees with rifles aimed at his skull and barely knowing it, numbness taking over. If he'd been shot in the head right then he was sure his dying thought would have been gratitude for the release.

[disassembling]

It seemed completely unreasonable that the likes of him would bond in a time like this when he was used up and broken. He had read a few books just to introduce himself back into the realities of the world in which he was trying to integrate and soul bonding was such a celebrated moment, deeper and more personal than marriage. Not all soul bonds were lovers either; he had heard that they were deep friends who managed separate lives and came together frequently with their other half. He couldn't imagine being just friends anymore with Steve, not after he had given himself up as he had. Of course, why would Steve want him after all he had been through? The blond had been through so much already and now piled on top was him with a broken soul and everything else.

He looked up at Steve, leaning in so he could study the other man's expression as his fingers slid to the sides of Steve's body and explored their way over thick muscle and ribs. There was pain inside of him, he realized, but it wasn't his pain. It was illusionary pain that was clearly coming from Steve, and that was interesting to consider. "So we had to break in order to be compatible?" Whatever set up such designations had a very sick sense of humour.

[worldwar]

When he'd been younger, smaller, Steve had never expected to bond anyone; certainly not any of the girls he'd gone on dates with, usually dragged along with Bucky and whatever pretty dame he had on his arm. He hadn't quite expected to live long enough to find one. Back then, it was always supposed to be the girl you ended up married to, and if it wasn't, you at least kept up the polite fiction. Maybe things would've been different if he and Peggy had more years together. He'd started to wonder after he met her.

He could hardly imagine a polite marriage, a conventional bonding. The thought seemed to bear no relation to the hurt and rage, the overwhelming joy and relief that came with holding Bucky in his arms. It was like nothing he'd ever felt before, like more pain than he knew what to do with. Bucky was looking at him closely, searching him as though he could look inside of him, see him stripped and unguarded, and Steve looked helplessly back, aware that he could no more have torn himself away than torn off a limb.

"I guess that's one way it could happen." He scrubbed a hand briefly over his eyes, then redoubled his grip on Bucky, bringing him a little closer. "I've never--I don't know much about it either, Buck. I haven't been bonded before."

[disassembling]

Without meaning to or perhaps because it was necessary, they were sharing the deep-seeded pain that had become their live with each other. What they had suffered through was horrible and crippling, yet both of them had survived it and thrived as best as they could under its weight, and it didn't seem any lighter now that both sides of it was spread across them both. It was the same amount of pain, yet it was also different between the pair of them, and he recognized that his suffering was no less than Steve's. That was interesting to consider as he settled into the other man's arms more.

The pain was no less, but the idea that someone understood the scope of his agony and how it affected him took an edge off of him that he hadn't known existed. There was safety and a level of trust in knowing that someone else was weighted with the same kind of pain. The idea that their bond was built both on that and their resilience not to be crushed by their agony was a bitter one.

He skirted his hands around the side of Steve's back and then up so that he could gently grip the blond's shoulders and lean his head in to rest it under Steve's chin. "We... understand what it is to be alone," he said softly. "And what it's like to lose Bucky Barnes. He's... never coming back, Steve. Not the man from the train. You have to... tolerate whatever it left of him for now. I think... I'm sorry that you bonded to what's left of him."

[worldwar]

One of Steve's arms was around Bucky's shoulders, following the curve they made as Bucky leaned the top half of his body into him and tucked his head under Steve's chin. He could feel every point of contact between them, the way Bucky's hands gripped him, secure but gentle. It felt as though he was discovering the right way for a pair of bonded to touch, to feel safe and loved, contained within themselves; and at the same time it seemed like something he had always known, as though this ability to curl himself around Bucky was written into him. It was true what Bucky said: Steve Rogers was well-acquainted with what it meant to be alone, and to lose everything that was more important to him than his own life. What that had left him with, for a long time, was the feeling of simply existing, carrying on the steps of a routine simply because there was nothing else to do.

It was different now. Now it was as if he could feel his soul awakening after a long and dreamless sleep, and he wanted to make Bucky understand that, understand how much he meant to Steve, whatever there was of him that had come back.

He took a deep breath as if to say it--and then, instead, Steve slid his hand into Bucky's hair, cupped the nape of his neck to tip back his head, and kissed him with raw, desperate longing, wrapping him up so tightly in his arms as to creak bones. "I know," he said huskily when the kiss ended, the taste of Bucky lingering on his tongue, "I know exactly what I have, you don't need to tell me. I'm so happy you're with me."

[disassembling]

This was the first time since he had taken himself away from HYDRA that he had felt safe, and he had long ago forgotten what it was like to love. He knew how to survive, but what he had right now was so different from that, like he could finally rest for awhile and not have to concern himself about suffering from attack. There was a strength and security in the weight of Steve's arms around him that his shoulders bled off some of the tension in them. Was this what it was like to no longer be running?

Some force was stirring inside of him. A part of him didn't like it because of how different it felt, how it infiltrated every fiber of his being little-by-little. It was warm though, as warm as Steve's strong arms around him.

He blinked when he was suddenly kissed, gaping in surprise at the gesture and at first failing to respond. He managed to get his lips into motion at the tail end of the simple gesture, but it felt so wrong to experience such affection. What had he done to deserve it? He found himself licking his lips as if to recapture that moment for himself again. "How... can I cause you any amount of happiness?"

[worldwar]

Steve pressed his lips to Bucky's forehead and held him cradled and silent for a while, secured against him, the sense of safety passing from Bucky to him and back again, enveloping them both; he could feel it in the way the tension drained out of Bucky's shoulders and his body leaned more heavily into Steve's. And he could sense, too, Bucky's uncertainty, the way he met that feeling of safety, the connection between them warily, as though it was something he wasn't sure he could believe in or would deserve even if he did. Steve didn't know how much Bucky could feel from him, but he tried to just...project warmth and security and love, to pass these things to him in his embrace and his lips brushing his forehead and the steady beat of his heart.

"I don't know, Buck. Does it really matter?" Steve could have tried to describe to him what it felt like to watch him fall from the train, what it felt like to wake up in the twenty-first century with the knowledge that everyone he loved was gone or moved on without him. He had loved Bucky even if he hadn't been bonded to him. Maybe having back what was left of him should have been another wound, but it wasn't. "You're here, and that's enough. I'm going to take you home, and if I can, I'll try to make you happy, too." His fingers brushed tenderly at a strand of hair that was falling over Bucky's eyes, tucked it back behind his ear. "I feel like we could be. We could be more than just a couple of broken men."