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 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."

[disassembling]

The Soldier realized that the more he relaxed, the easier it was to let his guard down, which was not a state that he had been able to enter since before HYDRA had lost control of him. Since he had vanished from HYDRA, he was always on guard waiting for something to occur, planning his next action or focusing on some detail. Right now, his mind slowly blanked, and it was almost easy to let his head nestle more on Steve's shoulder and not think about anything at all but the broken but solidifying bond that was forming between them.

"Where is home?" He had no idea anymore, had no idea even what it was supposed to feel like. Maybe it was the brief comforting enclosure of his cryostasis tank, or maybe it was that little place that he found just before exhaustion took him over and forced him to sleep. "Maybe we had to be halved before being made whole," he muttered as he snuck an arm around Steve's waist and held the other man in return, keeping his metal hand tucked into his lap as if to protect it from further damage.

[worldwar]

"It's in DC, right now. That's where I live, anyway." Steve wasn't sure how literally Bucky meant his question, but he decided to answer that way anyhow. "But...it might be better to go to a safehouse for now. Natasha can help us." It gave him a little bit of satisfaction each time he said that small word, that us, that felt so meaningful; him and Bucky, the two of them together, the way it was meant to be. He wondered if Bucky didn't like it, this feeling that they were dependent on one another, now, that neither could live without the other, after he'd been controlled, made helpless and dependent on Hydra for so long. He didn't think it was that way for him, though. He nestled into Steve's arms like it was where he belonged, letting himself be held and comforted, and Steve knew he was right: this was the way they could be made whole. They might have been broken before, but they could heal one another.

Steve's knuckles brushed along the underside of his jaw; he leaned in, touched his lips gently to Bucky's again. He was so drawn to him, helpless, like a moth to flame; everything within Bucky called to him, made him long to be one with him. "I think you're right," he said in a low, rough voice.

[disassembling]

He nodded his head to acknowledge that they might be going back to DC, the place where he had broken free of HYDRA and slipped away for so long. It wasn't the idea of a safehouse that alarmed him either, but the idea that someone other than Steve was going to put them up in one. He didn't trust easily, and the only reason he was in Steve's arms was because it felt so right and it was safe in his mind, like all the jumbled pieces were, for once, aligning and falling into place. As long as Steve trusted where they were staying, he supposed that it would be acceptable for him to do the same.

"Is there... anywhere in the countryside?" He tipped his head a little with the brush of knuckles and sighed when their lips met. He sighed softly in response to it, his eyes half closing. "That's why I couldn't kill you on the helicarrier. The bond was already forming, and even though I was fighting it because it was malfunction, it still swayed some of my decisions." Suddenly pieces he had never been able to figure out fell into place. The confusion of that time gave way to a new insight and clarity. It felt... like a weight was lifting off of him.

[worldwar]

He tried to be conscious of how these decisions would weigh for Bucky, what he would need to feel safe. He had been so long without agency, without the right to choose, every decision concerning him made by someone else without thought to his desires or needs or well-being. It was horrifying to try to imagine what that must have been like, and the idea of being another sort of keeper to Bucky was viscerally sickening.

But at the same time Steve was aware that their bond gave him a right and responsibility to look after his friend. No one other than Bucky himself could know better than Steve what his needs were, when he was exhausted or in pain, when he felt afraid. There had to be trust, he thought, stroking Bucky's cheek, drawn to the sweetness of his mouth and his soft sigh, the open, generous way he responded to their intimacy. Bucky was trusting him, just as he trusted Bucky while he was in the reach of that metal arm and all the damage he knew the Winter Soldier could do. Steve wanted desperately to prove himself worthy of it. "I can get in touch with Natasha, see what she can find," he said quietly. "Unless you know a place for us, Buck. I'll go with you."

He'd hid himself for two years, after all. Wherever he'd been, whatever kinds of conditions he'd lived in, it had to have met his needs for solitude and safety.

Steve didn't like thinking about the helicarrier, but he followed Bucky's train of thought back to it, the moment that desperation and horror had given way to clarity: he was ready to die because there was no living in a world where Bucky was his enemy. "I knew it too. That was why I--I stopped fighting." How could you fight the one you were bonded to? It was like rending your own soul into pieces.

[disassembling]

Despite all that he had strove to overcome and accept about himself, it felt easy to slip slightly and have an actual conversation about mutual decisions. He hadn't had one of those in a very, very long time, probably long before he had any kind of memory. It seemed fitting that such a conversation would occur with Steve before it happened with anyone else, not that he gave HYDRA any chance for any mutual decision outside of dying and anyone else he generally avoided too much in long-winded associations. Steve was someone that he could engage and know that the decisions made were done so in such a way that he could reject them and his bond would take no particular offense to it. He trusted Steve, and Steve trusted him, which felt like a rare thing these days.

"I know of a few places, but I don't generally stay in the same place twice. That kind of association can bring about unwanted attention," he replied slowly, but there had been some very secure places out of any big cities. In fact, they had required either walking or a vehicle to reach any kind of real humanity, and they had been some of his safest places given he could hear anyone sneaking up for miles and had set up traps which might still exist. "There are a few places, but they would require you to disappear with me. That would concern those you associate with."

The helicarrier was a strange time of dislike and thankfulness. He had broken free, but he had realized some of the extent of his suffering too. It had been a painful awakening. "I couldn't, not until you fell. I had to save you."

[worldwar]

It was true what Bucky said--Steve couldn't just disappear entirely, he couldn't do that to the people who cared about him. He would have to at least be able to alert Natasha and Sam, give them some clue to his and Bucky's whereabouts if they needed to find him again. And they would have to, he thought, with the crisis that was growing around them, threatening hundreds of people who could be said to possess some kind of "power", Bucky most of all. But then, Steve could think of no better time to go into hiding. He had Bucky again; he would protect him at any cost, and had no doubt that Bucky would do the same for him. It wasn't just that his friend had been lost and in pain for so long. They were bonded, it was their responsibility to protect one another.

"If you'll trust my judgement on who to alert, I'll go anywhere with you," Steve assured him. "You can hide us better than I can." He chose his words deliberately--deferring to Bucky's choices, putting his trust in his hands. Steve was sure of him, always had been and always would be. He hadn't been a ghost for the past seventy years for nothing. The Winter Soldier's rare skills were probably just what they needed right now.

He looked at Bucky, shifting a little to lean back against the wall and center the man more in his lap, so that he could straddle Steve if they wanted to, so that they could be eye to eye, on equal ground. "You saving me was the only thing that made it possible to go on," he said quietly. "Knowing that you wanted me alive. That was enough."

[disassembling]

Unlike him who was not supposed to exist in the first place, Steve was a well-known household name and that meant that people recognized his friend far more than he would have liked. He accepted it, but he also understood the risk that it presented and the hardship of not being able to disappear completely. Someone was always on the look out for what Steve was doing with or without the Avengers. It also made his friend relatively easy to track, which was against everything that he stood for regardless of how he had given himself up. Getting lost and hiding was what he did and he was very good at it even before he had been on his own for two years.

Slowly, he nodded because Steve was going to have to tell someone. He noticed the deferral as well, watching Steve closely to make certain that doing so didn't run against what his friend wanted to do. Steve wasn't like that at all. "As long as it isn't more than three people, I can keep us under the radar for awhile," he said softly. He knew places, had built places to slip into and out of. "You don't have to tell me who you are informing either; I respect your privacy."

He curled up a bit more when Steve's shifting, somehow compressing himself down smaller by ducking his chest and tucking his legs tight against Steve's hips as he straddled the larger man's lap. "What happens now?" He didn't know how bonds of this nature worked after all outside of it kept them wanting to be close to each other.

[worldwar]

The way Bucky curled into him, making himself small and unthreatening in Steve's lap, was a little aching tug at his chest like someone pulling at a string tied around his heart. He didn't want his friend to do that--to put his head lower than Steve's, like he was one of the handlers who had probably insisted on the Winter Soldier's submission--but Steve wrapped him up unquestioningly in his arms regardless, kissing his hair and holding him close against him. What Bucky needed mattered more than what Steve felt; they had time to figure this out, time to come to being at ease with one another, to understand how to make their bond work. In this they were both completely out to sea, Steve thought ruefully, regretting that he didn't have the answers his friend sought.

"We'll work it out as we go," Steve said quietly, his voice a low rumble in the chest Bucky was curled against. He nosed at his friend's hair, rubbed his cheek at the top of his head like a cat seeking affection. "Let's start by looking after each other. Okay, Buck? If you're hungry or you're cold or you're scared--if there's something you need--tell me, please, so I can help. And I'll do the same." It was a bit of a struggle to promise that, Steve had always been so reluctant to rely on someone else, even his best friend--to lean his weight on another's shoulders. But it wasn't his pride that mattered anymore. He knew this much about bonds: Bucky couldn't be well unless Steve was, too. It was for both their sakes that he would have to ask for help when he needed it.

[disassembling]

There was something so entirely safe with Steve that he could settle in, bow his head and seem to disappear in the blond's broader shoulders and muscled arms curled around him. Always he had been on guard, but it slowly dropped with the kiss to his hair and the way that Steve accepted and drew him in so that, while not entirely comfortable, he was safe and unguarded for the first time since he could remember. Like those first few minutes out of the chair where he was soft and compliant, able to be lead like a lamb to whatever room or station was necessary. It took no more than ten minutes for the cold and deadliness to return, his guard to slip back into place. Here and now, with his bond, he was safe and unguarded though not particularly over compliant.

He nodded his head at the agreeable stipulation, and he tried to think when he had looked after anyone other than himself. It felt right that he concern himself with Steve's well-being, and the fairness was something he so rarely was engaged in. Life wasn't fair after all. His mismatched fingers slipped under Steve's grey t-shirt and settled at the small of his bond's back, holding and comforting. "You don't... like to be helped," he muttered softly, a little confused over the thought. "You like to stand on your own two feet and take hand-outs from nobody."

[worldwar]

He felt Bucky's nod where his head was tucked against his chest, felt his hands slipping under the hem of his shirt and caressing at the small of his back. Steve knew he smelled like sweat and machine oil, about the same as Bucky right now; he knew that his clothes looked worn out and so did he, because he and Sam had spent days searching for Bucky after receiving his subtle messages, but he was taking strength from their nearness now, just as Bucky seemed to be. He felt more relaxed in Steve's arms, lying gentled against him as though this was exactly where he sought to be. The touch of his hands against Steve's bare skin felt comforting, felt right.

"You're right," he admitted with a little smile Bucky couldn't see. "I guess that's always been hard for me. I didn't want to be a...a burden on you, or anyone." Back when he was smaller, Steve means, when he didn't have the strength and abilities he does now, the capability to help others, no matter how much he wanted to. "But this is different, right? You and me, we're--we're alive for each other." Those words rumble soft from his chest, deep and true. He nuzzles at Bucky's hair. "We should get out of here. I want you somewhere I can look after you."