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[disassembling]

It was clear that their time in any one place was limited, even after the struggle to get him free from the hydraulic machine. There was some kind of unit coming to capture him, and it was on false charges. However, it was clear that he was considered dangerous enough that questions would not be asked, his rights would not be given, and there was no way that he would be arrested. Too much anger, maybe too little professionalism, but whatever he had been set up for had been heinous enough that it had provoked a complete hunting party of SWAT that were bearing down on the warehouse.

He remained quiet and more on his own as Steve and Sam decided that they would go to some pre-planned and organized safe house in an apartment block that was currently under some kind of assessment or renovation. At this point, he was mixed on his feelings on going anywhere with Steve, aware that his very presence would increase the danger to his old friend. A part of him was still grappling with the sheer notion that after two years, they had met up again face-to-face and Steve only seemed to ache to be close to him, not hold against him what he had done on the helicarrier. Sometimes everything was so confusing.

The Soldier still went quietly, hiding his metal arm in his pockets and keeping his head down so that his hair curtained his facial features. It didn't take long, not with how easily he disappeared in and out of shadows and especially when Steve looked for him before he emerged again, their eyes meeting several times with little hopeful promises for a quiet moment.

The apartment was a single bedroom, a corner unit that was close to the emergency stairs and it was clear that Steve and Sam had been here a few hours based on the uniforms that were here. Steve's shield was as well, and he found himself looking at it, eyebrows gently bunched on his forehead before he was directed into a small clean bedroom and risked toeing off his boots and rolling up his sleeves as he reached out and ran his mismatched hands over the bed's surface.

How long had it been? He didn't tend to sleep on beds.

Now though, knowing there was a guard on duty in the form of the Falcon, he slipped onto it and pressed his back to the wall and tucked an arm under his head as a pillow, leaving the actual one for Steve. He watched the blond silently for a few moments, hardly believing that they had a spare moment or two to just watch one another. "You... were always taking stupid risks for me in the war," he said softly.

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[worldwar]

What he saw in Bucky's face concerned him: there was something about these memories that caused that flicker of disturbance in his friend's gaze, and he wondered if the subject of fighting and violence--even something as relatively harmless as a back-alley brawl--was too much for him, given what he'd done as the Winter Soldier, what he'd been made to do. If so, Steve was sorry for bringing up the subject, even if so much of his and Bucky's life had been fighting--through illness and loss and scraping together another week's rent, through the war, through meeting again seventy years later when Bucky had been sent to kill him. He couldn't imagine what part of their past wasn't defined by fighting, by a constant struggle to survive.

Well, there was a different part, there was something else they had done together that had nothing to do with combat. He was reminded again when Bucky's hands slid down his chest, as though cataloging the feeling of him against his memories of something different. Steve drew in a breath, felt his lungs and ribs swelling out under Bucky's hands. When his best friend asked him, he let himself lean forward a little bit, his hand still curved over the nape of Bucky's neck--gentle, not restraining, ready to let go at the slightest sign of resistance--so his lips brushed against Bucky's, soft and warm.

"Used to do that, too," he said quietly, barely breathing: when he was little, curled up in Bucky's arms.

[disassembling]

Life was a struggle he had come to realize, though laying here quiet and safe on this bed drew him back from the memories that sought to clog up his mind. Despite his freedom, he knew that there would come a time when he would fight and probably kill again. From past to present, it was clearly how he and Steve operated, how they had thrived in their lives when they had nothing but each other. He had little bits and pieces of memories of their struggles that had nothing to do with bloody fists. Survival, he decided. They would survive; they had spent years mastering that niche market against all odds.

His hands paused just to feel the way the skin under his grip shifted with expansion of Steve's ribs to breathe. He flexed his mismatched fingers and then dug his fingernails into the flesh between Steve's ribs and then went back to stroking them down the rest of the blond's abdomen until his hands caught and grasped Steve's waistband.

Yet, his breath caught in his throat at the brush of lips on his own, not at all bothered by the grip to his neck. His eyes widened slightly before he dipped his head so that he could press his forehead against Steve's lips. "I don't remem... no, I want to remember. Show me. Please," he requested as politely as he could manage. Even that light brush had sent a thrill through him.