CA Fic: Endors Toi
The companion piece to Out of Backwards Sidewise Towards Fromwards.
No profit is gained from this writing-only, hopefully, enjoyment.
***
He didn't dream in the ice.
But, when he was a kid, he'd often wake up unable to bring any air into his lungs, and someone was always there to help-his Mom when he was young, one of the nuns afterward in the orphanage, and then Bucky. Bucky had always been there then. Breathe, Rogers, at first and then just, Steve, Stevie, come on now. One for me, huh? Just like I do. In and out. In-and then out. That's it. That's all there is to it. Just breathe, Steve.
Later, it was wartime, and of course dreams were unpleasant. Of course he still woke up gasping, but the differences were there. The differences amounted to memories and his mind conjuring up all kinds of horror scenarios-men killed in the night as he slept soundly, the serum wearing off unexpectedly, but the worst were always Austria, Schmidt, that factory exploding around him and men trapped in cages with no way out, one strapped down to a table and Steve never accidentally stumbling upon him, never rescuing him, never reaching the one person in the entire world who was always meant to be right there-Bucky. The worst, truly, were all the ways that rash recovery attempt could have gone wrong. Steve used to wake up several times a night when the war was on, in the field or bunked up in some shaky shelter, and nine times out of ten it had been nerves, these episodes they now call flashbacks.
Then, the train on the mountain pass, and everything was about falling and failing thereafter. Over and over again, he'd stretch and almost reach him, and then the screech of the railing giving way and the white all around of the snow and cliffs and ice, the white of Bucky's eyes as he looked at Steve and just-fell away. He never screamed in the dreams, not like he had actually. Bucky simply stared, terrified, and Steve kept grasping for him until he woke up, sweating, choking on a scream, a wail.
And now, with the reports and files and electric data sheets on screens just waiting for him, with all this information at his fingertips about a man who isn't Bucky but who Bucky's somehow become-Steve dreams not of suffocating or failing or Bucky falling or even of sliding beneath the ice (which he won't give them the satisfaction of knowing he sometimes experiences again of a night, won't encourage that awful glee he's seen on agents' faces in this place when they spot him walking the halls, much less sharing something of himself, and that may make him petty and aloof, but he's tired, so tired of being a sideshow act). No, he starts dreaming at night, when faced with the myriad actions of the Winter Soldier, of pushing and holding this man under water, under ice, holding him down, holding him firmly beneath himself.
The night before the seize and rescue mission, Steve wakes up gasping, both arms outstretched towards the foot of the bed-his hands up, pushing, pushing away, pushing off. And he realizes, wheezing and breathless almost like he used to be, sobbing, crying like he had, like he hasn't, that in his dream he'd pushed Bucky away, off the train and into the frozen water far below-not the Winter Soldier but Bucky.
Bucky, Jimmy, James Buchanan Barnes, he's the Winter Soldier now, but the Soldier isn't Bucky. When Steve had looked at the few grainy photos SHIELD had of this Russian assassin, it hadn't been what was there-a machine, a robot, tool, and weapon, the barest of bare bones of a human being-but what was missing that caused something in his chest to clench tight.
He's heard of zombies, corpses doing gruesome things to living people that films and advertisements these days seem to derive some kind of sick pleasure from displaying en masse. And that's what he'd thought the first time he'd seen that blurry face. It's Buck's body walking around, committing unspeakable acts of brutality, but maybe-no, but it can't actually be Bucky doing it, not really.
Not Bucky, surely.
The Soldier's simply a pawn, an awful means to a more powerful heavy's end, but he's not inhuman, at least not all the time, not according to the scant personal accounts of him on the part of his so-called Soviet "handlers" and certainly not in Natasha's own opinion-and if anyone's assessment in this case carries significant weight, it's Black Widow's, the only one who's actually met this Soldier, knows him.
(The best, she'd said, when Steve had asked her what she could tell them of the Winter Soldier that wasn't already in the documents. Then, a moment later, it was a surprisingly quiet, He was better than the others, all of them-and always different, always-outside.
Steve, she'd said even later, stopping him as they finished the briefing and the others left the room, it may be foolish to let yourself get close, but there is something there. I've seen it.
You think Bucky's somehow-buried under all that, what, conditioning? That he's still in there somewhere?
She'd shaken her head. I don't know, but I do believe it's worth figuring out. I feel-he's worth it. Don't you? Then, pinned in place by the unequivocal challenge in her eyes, Steve had swallowed heavily as she proceeded to give voice to the one question he'd been asking himself over and over since the start of this particular strain of nightmare, How far are you prepared to go to find out what's still there?)
And perhaps there's nothing he'll be able to do, assuming they do recover the Soldier. Maybe after all these years, after the repeated destruction of his psyche, the unremitting torment and degradation, the sheer scope of the horror perpetrated upon him-maybe what remains of Bucky inside a hollowed out man at this point isn't enough to fill a thimble. Maybe his friend is all but gone, the bits left of him virtually insignificant when stacked up against the monster standing in his place. Maybe the Soldier is all there is, someone who looks like Bucky but never was him, never will be. Maybe some things are just impossible. Even now, in a world of gods, monsters, aliens, and living armor, certain facts of life remain immutable. After all, Steve can stretch out his hand every night as far as is physically possible until eternity; it doesn't mean he'll ever reach far enough; it doesn't mean there's even anything there left to reach.
***
They're afforded exactly one chance to "retrieve" the Winter Soldier and miraculously manage to pull it off almost without a hitch. (And it's "retrieve," not "take down" or "capture," solely at Steve's own blunt insistence and everyone else's patronizing indulgence. In this case, though, he can easily ignore the many instances of the others rolling their eyes and making disparaging throaty noises if it's towards him and not-their target.)
He's fast. That's the first fully formed thought Steve has, staring down from the helicopter at the figure in black running below, long hair, longer than Steve's ever seen it, streaming behind him like a flag. The terrain isn't smooth, and the sun set two and a half hours ago, and yet he's down there sprinting and leaping, what looks to be a heavy rifle casually slung back over one shoulder. Maybe, Steve realizes, that's it precisely. Maybe some things truly don't change, even and especially when all else is different.
Bucky'd lugged around that old rifle he'd picked up in Austria like it was a talisman, a good luck charm. He'd cleaned it every chance he'd had, slept with his arms around it out on mission, always leery of anyone else touching it. Steve never asked, and of course Bucky never said, but something about that gun simultaneously calmed him down and set him on edge, and the occasions he didn't have it with him-Bucky'd looked lost, looked desperate, looked like what Steve now, if only in the confines of his head, can admit was scared and what used to be shell-shocked and is now called traumatized.
Coulson's on the megaphone, his calm voice issuing orders to the ground forces and their target alike, the latter stopping only when he's fully surrounded, and even then there's a heart stopping moment when the Soldier doesn't lower his weapon but instead raises it up.
"Spare me yet another noble fool," Widow suddenly barks out over the comms, noticeably angry as she then proceeds to make her way from the co-pilot seat back towards them at the rear. "Coulson," she says, one hand thrown out resignedly as the other curls into a loop by the open side hatch of the helo to brace herself, "give over that thing! Time to talk some sense into him."
Coulson relinquishes the megaphone, and then whatever Widow snaps out in Russian seems to do the trick. Steve eventually catches sight of a smile on that face, a response shouted back in Russian almost cheerfully.
There's a brief burst of static over the comms, and then Steve hears Hawkeye say, "Widow, you sweet talker!"
And on the heels of that is Iron Man, voice as clear as though they were standing in a silent room a few inches apart instead of scattered around the area amid a sea of conflicting noise, "Okay, quick translation: you did say something about balls, right? I'm not just imagining that? Because I think I speak for the entire XY crowd when I say, 'Yikes!' and also, 'Do continue.'"
In the meantime, Steve's witnessed the Soldier surrendering his rifle and the quick swarming of SHIELD agents around him, all but obscuring him from sight.
"Land!" Widow abruptly orders the helicopter pilot, an expression very much like a smile briefly crossing her mouth. The agent steering certainly knows her stuff, as no more than ten seconds pass before those of them in the helo are down on the ground and closing the respectable distance between the support vehicles and the on-site taskforce ahead already processing the Soldier into custody.
A roar overhead is indication enough, and Steve doesn't even spare a glance for Iron Man as he flies above and past, keeping airborne as agreed-just in case.
***
He makes it through one session, and that's all he can stand. It's a ghost in there, half a man, and only brief, so, so brief glimpses of his best friend, and the experience is grating, both too much and not nearly enough. Steve doesn't look at anyone else on his way out of the building afterward, just strides down hallways and through doors in something of a daze until he's sliding into a seat on a subway car, the noise and smells familiar even as the passengers are so different.
They'd ridden trains together, walked to jobs side-by-side, fought next to each other, shared the same dormitory at the orphanage for years until they'd scrounged up enough for a place of their own. He knows, knew, had once known maybe more about Bucky than he'd really been aware of about himself, all the obnoxious and gross and the bad and petty and most of the messy, hurtful bits too. And he knows, did know, used to know every good and decent and wonderful and just about perfect thing about that guy-once, not too long ago to him and lifetimes in the past for everyone- for everyone else in the whole entire world, including the man in question.
That guy, that person being all but interrogated by Coulson and another agent in that cold, sterile room, does he still whistle in the shower? Does he take a few deep breaths when he's debating what to do, whether to go after some knuckleheads and confront 'em or move on with a lame joke about their clothes? Is he a sucker for a dog of any kind, nice to children to the point where he'll give 'em his wages because it's Christmas and their shoes are visibly falling to pieces in the snow? Do older folks make him nervous, have him patting down his hair and straightening his shirt and tie despite himself because all the times when couples would come to the orphanage looking for a kid to take home and it just took one chance, one, and any of them might hit the jackpot and wind up with a Daddy Warbucks?
Maybe Natasha's more right than she knows. Maybe there is someone still in there, hiding, trapped beneath all the steel and scars and just waiting for a chance to come up, a hand to help pull him free. . .
Or maybe not. Maybe this is simply the end of the line.
Things change, even as they stay the same. If Steve's learned anything, it's that nothing's what it seems. Nothing is ever simple or easy.
No profit is gained from this writing-only, hopefully, enjoyment.
***
He didn't dream in the ice.
But, when he was a kid, he'd often wake up unable to bring any air into his lungs, and someone was always there to help-his Mom when he was young, one of the nuns afterward in the orphanage, and then Bucky. Bucky had always been there then. Breathe, Rogers, at first and then just, Steve, Stevie, come on now. One for me, huh? Just like I do. In and out. In-and then out. That's it. That's all there is to it. Just breathe, Steve.
Later, it was wartime, and of course dreams were unpleasant. Of course he still woke up gasping, but the differences were there. The differences amounted to memories and his mind conjuring up all kinds of horror scenarios-men killed in the night as he slept soundly, the serum wearing off unexpectedly, but the worst were always Austria, Schmidt, that factory exploding around him and men trapped in cages with no way out, one strapped down to a table and Steve never accidentally stumbling upon him, never rescuing him, never reaching the one person in the entire world who was always meant to be right there-Bucky. The worst, truly, were all the ways that rash recovery attempt could have gone wrong. Steve used to wake up several times a night when the war was on, in the field or bunked up in some shaky shelter, and nine times out of ten it had been nerves, these episodes they now call flashbacks.
Then, the train on the mountain pass, and everything was about falling and failing thereafter. Over and over again, he'd stretch and almost reach him, and then the screech of the railing giving way and the white all around of the snow and cliffs and ice, the white of Bucky's eyes as he looked at Steve and just-fell away. He never screamed in the dreams, not like he had actually. Bucky simply stared, terrified, and Steve kept grasping for him until he woke up, sweating, choking on a scream, a wail.
And now, with the reports and files and electric data sheets on screens just waiting for him, with all this information at his fingertips about a man who isn't Bucky but who Bucky's somehow become-Steve dreams not of suffocating or failing or Bucky falling or even of sliding beneath the ice (which he won't give them the satisfaction of knowing he sometimes experiences again of a night, won't encourage that awful glee he's seen on agents' faces in this place when they spot him walking the halls, much less sharing something of himself, and that may make him petty and aloof, but he's tired, so tired of being a sideshow act). No, he starts dreaming at night, when faced with the myriad actions of the Winter Soldier, of pushing and holding this man under water, under ice, holding him down, holding him firmly beneath himself.
The night before the seize and rescue mission, Steve wakes up gasping, both arms outstretched towards the foot of the bed-his hands up, pushing, pushing away, pushing off. And he realizes, wheezing and breathless almost like he used to be, sobbing, crying like he had, like he hasn't, that in his dream he'd pushed Bucky away, off the train and into the frozen water far below-not the Winter Soldier but Bucky.
Bucky, Jimmy, James Buchanan Barnes, he's the Winter Soldier now, but the Soldier isn't Bucky. When Steve had looked at the few grainy photos SHIELD had of this Russian assassin, it hadn't been what was there-a machine, a robot, tool, and weapon, the barest of bare bones of a human being-but what was missing that caused something in his chest to clench tight.
He's heard of zombies, corpses doing gruesome things to living people that films and advertisements these days seem to derive some kind of sick pleasure from displaying en masse. And that's what he'd thought the first time he'd seen that blurry face. It's Buck's body walking around, committing unspeakable acts of brutality, but maybe-no, but it can't actually be Bucky doing it, not really.
Not Bucky, surely.
The Soldier's simply a pawn, an awful means to a more powerful heavy's end, but he's not inhuman, at least not all the time, not according to the scant personal accounts of him on the part of his so-called Soviet "handlers" and certainly not in Natasha's own opinion-and if anyone's assessment in this case carries significant weight, it's Black Widow's, the only one who's actually met this Soldier, knows him.
(The best, she'd said, when Steve had asked her what she could tell them of the Winter Soldier that wasn't already in the documents. Then, a moment later, it was a surprisingly quiet, He was better than the others, all of them-and always different, always-outside.
Steve, she'd said even later, stopping him as they finished the briefing and the others left the room, it may be foolish to let yourself get close, but there is something there. I've seen it.
You think Bucky's somehow-buried under all that, what, conditioning? That he's still in there somewhere?
She'd shaken her head. I don't know, but I do believe it's worth figuring out. I feel-he's worth it. Don't you? Then, pinned in place by the unequivocal challenge in her eyes, Steve had swallowed heavily as she proceeded to give voice to the one question he'd been asking himself over and over since the start of this particular strain of nightmare, How far are you prepared to go to find out what's still there?)
And perhaps there's nothing he'll be able to do, assuming they do recover the Soldier. Maybe after all these years, after the repeated destruction of his psyche, the unremitting torment and degradation, the sheer scope of the horror perpetrated upon him-maybe what remains of Bucky inside a hollowed out man at this point isn't enough to fill a thimble. Maybe his friend is all but gone, the bits left of him virtually insignificant when stacked up against the monster standing in his place. Maybe the Soldier is all there is, someone who looks like Bucky but never was him, never will be. Maybe some things are just impossible. Even now, in a world of gods, monsters, aliens, and living armor, certain facts of life remain immutable. After all, Steve can stretch out his hand every night as far as is physically possible until eternity; it doesn't mean he'll ever reach far enough; it doesn't mean there's even anything there left to reach.
***
They're afforded exactly one chance to "retrieve" the Winter Soldier and miraculously manage to pull it off almost without a hitch. (And it's "retrieve," not "take down" or "capture," solely at Steve's own blunt insistence and everyone else's patronizing indulgence. In this case, though, he can easily ignore the many instances of the others rolling their eyes and making disparaging throaty noises if it's towards him and not-their target.)
He's fast. That's the first fully formed thought Steve has, staring down from the helicopter at the figure in black running below, long hair, longer than Steve's ever seen it, streaming behind him like a flag. The terrain isn't smooth, and the sun set two and a half hours ago, and yet he's down there sprinting and leaping, what looks to be a heavy rifle casually slung back over one shoulder. Maybe, Steve realizes, that's it precisely. Maybe some things truly don't change, even and especially when all else is different.
Bucky'd lugged around that old rifle he'd picked up in Austria like it was a talisman, a good luck charm. He'd cleaned it every chance he'd had, slept with his arms around it out on mission, always leery of anyone else touching it. Steve never asked, and of course Bucky never said, but something about that gun simultaneously calmed him down and set him on edge, and the occasions he didn't have it with him-Bucky'd looked lost, looked desperate, looked like what Steve now, if only in the confines of his head, can admit was scared and what used to be shell-shocked and is now called traumatized.
Coulson's on the megaphone, his calm voice issuing orders to the ground forces and their target alike, the latter stopping only when he's fully surrounded, and even then there's a heart stopping moment when the Soldier doesn't lower his weapon but instead raises it up.
"Spare me yet another noble fool," Widow suddenly barks out over the comms, noticeably angry as she then proceeds to make her way from the co-pilot seat back towards them at the rear. "Coulson," she says, one hand thrown out resignedly as the other curls into a loop by the open side hatch of the helo to brace herself, "give over that thing! Time to talk some sense into him."
Coulson relinquishes the megaphone, and then whatever Widow snaps out in Russian seems to do the trick. Steve eventually catches sight of a smile on that face, a response shouted back in Russian almost cheerfully.
There's a brief burst of static over the comms, and then Steve hears Hawkeye say, "Widow, you sweet talker!"
And on the heels of that is Iron Man, voice as clear as though they were standing in a silent room a few inches apart instead of scattered around the area amid a sea of conflicting noise, "Okay, quick translation: you did say something about balls, right? I'm not just imagining that? Because I think I speak for the entire XY crowd when I say, 'Yikes!' and also, 'Do continue.'"
In the meantime, Steve's witnessed the Soldier surrendering his rifle and the quick swarming of SHIELD agents around him, all but obscuring him from sight.
"Land!" Widow abruptly orders the helicopter pilot, an expression very much like a smile briefly crossing her mouth. The agent steering certainly knows her stuff, as no more than ten seconds pass before those of them in the helo are down on the ground and closing the respectable distance between the support vehicles and the on-site taskforce ahead already processing the Soldier into custody.
A roar overhead is indication enough, and Steve doesn't even spare a glance for Iron Man as he flies above and past, keeping airborne as agreed-just in case.
***
He makes it through one session, and that's all he can stand. It's a ghost in there, half a man, and only brief, so, so brief glimpses of his best friend, and the experience is grating, both too much and not nearly enough. Steve doesn't look at anyone else on his way out of the building afterward, just strides down hallways and through doors in something of a daze until he's sliding into a seat on a subway car, the noise and smells familiar even as the passengers are so different.
They'd ridden trains together, walked to jobs side-by-side, fought next to each other, shared the same dormitory at the orphanage for years until they'd scrounged up enough for a place of their own. He knows, knew, had once known maybe more about Bucky than he'd really been aware of about himself, all the obnoxious and gross and the bad and petty and most of the messy, hurtful bits too. And he knows, did know, used to know every good and decent and wonderful and just about perfect thing about that guy-once, not too long ago to him and lifetimes in the past for everyone- for everyone else in the whole entire world, including the man in question.
That guy, that person being all but interrogated by Coulson and another agent in that cold, sterile room, does he still whistle in the shower? Does he take a few deep breaths when he's debating what to do, whether to go after some knuckleheads and confront 'em or move on with a lame joke about their clothes? Is he a sucker for a dog of any kind, nice to children to the point where he'll give 'em his wages because it's Christmas and their shoes are visibly falling to pieces in the snow? Do older folks make him nervous, have him patting down his hair and straightening his shirt and tie despite himself because all the times when couples would come to the orphanage looking for a kid to take home and it just took one chance, one, and any of them might hit the jackpot and wind up with a Daddy Warbucks?
Maybe Natasha's more right than she knows. Maybe there is someone still in there, hiding, trapped beneath all the steel and scars and just waiting for a chance to come up, a hand to help pull him free. . .
Or maybe not. Maybe this is simply the end of the line.
Things change, even as they stay the same. If Steve's learned anything, it's that nothing's what it seems. Nothing is ever simple or easy.