Chasing Ghosts Part I
Present Day
Two Months After the Fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.
When Sam Wilson had volunteered to help Steve find his friend Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. the Winter Soldier, a.k.a. the man who'd torn the wings right off his back, a.k.a. the man who'd nearly murdered all of them...well, he'd just wanted to help. He wanted to help Steve, and not just because he was his newest friend. From his work at the VA, Sam knew the kind of trauma soldiers brought home with them, and he quickly saw a similar kind of damage in Steve's eyes inside of his first two encounters with the super-soldier.
Not that it wasn't hidden well.
In person, Steve's eyes showed things that even the most accurate depictions of him in the Smithsonian missed. Steve was a patriot, a great military leader, a fantastic tactician, and an all-around great guy. Being called his friend was an honor, and Sam was honored. But, the man carried around a lot of guilt, too. He'd seen the horrors of war up close, and war had clearly left its claws in him.
With Steve's sudden reappearance and the media's obsession after the Chitauri invasion, it was easy to forget that, for him, the Second World War and all its calamitous events weren't the history of seven decades ago: they were two years ago. For all intents and purposes, it might as well have been 1947 from Steve's perspective. The fact that he was functioning at all-let alone saving the world from aliens and taking down evil organizations bent on subjugating the planet-was nothing short of amazing.
But Sam really wasn't surprised when the darkness in his new friend's eyes started to grow after his encounters with Barnes. HYDRA? Alien invaders? That was business as usual for someone like Cap. His best friend, whom he thought long dead, showing up as a brainwashed killing machine? His best friend spending half a century being tortured and programmed by the enemy?
Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.
Sam couldn't imagine what thoughts must have been running through Steve's head, but he could see the damage it was doing plain on his face.
He had trouble not imagining the same thing happening to Riley. The only real comfort was that he had seen his wingman blown out of the sky, had witnessed Riley's lifeless body afterward. Never in his lifetime would Sam have thought he'd be describing that as a blessing.
They'd been searching for Barnes for five weeks, within days of Steve leaving the hospital. Every viable location in D.C. canvassed, even the morgues. But, like Natasha had said, Barnes was a ghost.
Tony Stark-another person Sam never in his life thought he'd get to meet-had been funneling information to them, lists of possible sightings, known underworld safe houses, unusual police reports, John Does, even a few HYDRA rat holes.
Cap swept through those with brutal efficiency. The FBI had a few dozen new prisoners to question-or would whenever they were released from the hospital. Sam had never seen anything like it. Cap embodied the phrase "one man army." Seeing him wage his own private war on HYDRA? Sam almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
After each, Steve was on his phone, reporting in to...someone. Sam didn't know the details, but he knew a White House number when he saw one. He'd even overheard the President's name dropped once. He had no idea what Steve was doing reporting to Ellis, but he had suspicions. If anyone had the balls to go straight to the top of the food chain in this search for his friend, it was Steve.
Not that Steve read him into any of that. The man certainly played his cards close to the proverbial vest. All he'd admitted to was that Sam wouldn't need to worry about his job at the VA, and that he'd made a deal that would help them find Bucky. When the first direct deposit paycheck had appeared in Sam's bank account from the DoD, and a letter about his Air National Guard status containing the words "returned to Active Duty" and "Detached Service" arrived via courier, well...Sam decided to trust his new friend Steve when Steve asked him to.
Steve had, after all, received a letter from the Army Department from the same courier.
CAP WS CAP WS CAP WS
Whatever success they might have rooting out the enemy, so far, Sam knew Barnes was the only thing on Cap's mind. HYDRA was an obstacle. One from which Steve was extracting no small measure of revenge, but merely an obstacle, nonetheless.
They'd been switching off driving. Sam could usually talk enough for both of them, but he couldn't help but notice that Steve was talking less and less as their quest dragged on with no sign of Bucky.
They were halfway to Cleveland and another lead. The last two days, Steve had alternated between feverishly translating the Soviet files Natasha had given him, and staring sightlessly out the window. Sam noticed that he'd been stuck on one page for a long while.
"You expecting to find some hidden message in there?"
"Won't know unless I find one," Steve muttered, not looking up from the page he was studying.
Steve would talk about their search. He'd talk about new information from Stark, or the occasional call from Natasha...he wouldn't talk about Bucky unless it was regarding finding him, fixing him, and making him better. In that order. Steve refused to entertain any notion that Barnes was beyond help. In fact, Steve flatly rejected any negative opinion on the matter: Sam's, Nat's, Stark's, anyone's.
After twelve hours of seeing nothing but the side of Steve's head, though, Sam started to feel that he should be addressing the elephant in the car.
"You know, you need to pace yourself, man," Sam began gently, leaning on the casualness of their newfound friendship. "This 'mission' of ours might take time, and you're going to burn yourself out."
Steve still didn't look up. "It's already taking time, and I have a little more energy to spend than most people, if you haven't noticed."
His tone of voice was oddly flat. Disinterested. It screamed I don't want to talk about it.
Sam knew a lot about Steve, not just from first hand experience or jumping into battle with him, but from reading about him growing up. Not all the historical accounts were as romanticized and propagandized as the wartime films or the Smithsonian exhibit. There'd been more than one honest account written over the years. Even those didn't quite synch up with the man sharing the car with Sam, but they were a good account of the facts.
Sam told Steve as much.
"From all that, you know what leapt off the page at me?" He asked, watching Steve out of the corner of his eye.
"Do tell." Steve replied, his voice shifting from disinterest to the subtle impatience it fell into around ignorant reporters and the amateur history buffs he often encountered.
Sam took a deep breath and plunged right into it. "The time frame between Bucky's death on that train, and you diving Schmidt's plane into the ice. Barely a month."
That got Steve's attention. He looked up, eyeing Sam, then the road, then Sam again. Steve scoffed. "You think I wanted to kill myself?"
"I think survivor's guilt can make people do a lot of things they wouldn't ordinarily consider doing. Try to atone for things that aren't their fault."
Steve watched him for a moment, then chuckled. It was an ugly sound. "That's not what happened."
Sam arched an eyebrow, gaze firmly on the road ahead of them, but shrugged. "If you say so."
An uncomfortable silence fell over the car. Three miles ticked by on the odometer before either of them uttered another sound.
"Okay. Let's assume for a moment that you're right. Let's assume on some level I was trying to make up for letting Bucky die..." Steve began, voice flinty. Sam practically felt the temperature in the car falling, and for an absurd moment, let himself imagine that maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't completely thaw Steve out when they found him. "What would you say?"
Sam took a few breaths, keeping his voice calm. He tried to settle into the same demeanor he had during his group therapy sessions. It was a little harder to maintain when the person he was addressing was a friend.
"First, you didn't let Bucky die. Let's get that out there right now. Second," Sam tried to smile and lighten the mood a little. "I'd say thank God you're tougher to kill than you look."
Steve didn't respond. His eyes dropped back to a photo paper-clipped to a document about midway through the file folder. Sam had seen it before. It was the Winter Soldier, sometime in the 1970s, in the cryo tank HYDRA kept him in between missions. Even to Sam's eyes, it didn't look-that time, at least-like Bucky had gone in willingly. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the backstory on that one. No, I am sure.
When Steve didn't say anything else, Sam turned the question around on him. "What would you say?"
Steve flipped the folder closed and stared out the window. "I'd say God has a sick sense of humor."
They didn't speak again until it was time to stop for the night.
CAP WS CAP WS CAP WS
Sam woke up to a soft tapping noise. He'd slept all through the night-a first, he thought, since coming back from Afghanistan. It had probably been all the driving the day before, which was always exhausting to him. He preferred flying.
Turning his head, he registered that it was just after 6:00 AM, and Steve was already showered and dressed, reclining on his bed, fidgeting with his Starkphone.
They usually went running together in the mornings, but it looked like Steve was either skipping, or had already gone on his own. A sign of the distance that had suddenly grown between them the previous afternoon.
"Thought I'd let you sleep in, you looked tired," Steve said softly. His voice and expression were carefully neutral, but at least they weren't as chilly as yesterday.
Sam grunted in reply. He usually wasn't sociable until he'd at least had a cup of coffee. In a fluid motion, he rolled off the bed and grabbed some clothes, heading for the shower.
When he came out, Steve hadn't moved. Sam eyed him in the mirror while he shaved, not realizing until then just how alone Rogers looked, even around other people. It made Sam feel bad-a little-about their conversation in the car. The therapist in him said it was necessary, but the friend said it was a shitty thing to ambush the guy that way.
"You feel like getting breakfast?" Sam asked carefully, zipping up his shaving kit.
"Sure."
"How 'bout that pancake place we passed on the corner?"
"Sounds good."
There were a few moments of silence while Sam finished up in front of the mirror. Then he heard Steve sit up on the bed. "Sam...I'm sorry. 'Bout taking your head off in the car, yesterday."
Sam suppressed a frown, since Steve hadn't actually taken his head off...and that scared him, truth be told. He'd rather Steve have an outburst. Release at least some of the pressure that Sam could see building up behind that stoic expression.
"It's just," Steve gestured at the file on the nightstand helplessly. "I'm reading about everything that they did to him and it's...it's making my blood boil."
Sam sighed and leaned against the sink. "I know, Steve."
Steve held up his phone. "Tony texted me. Said that HYDRA hole in Cleveland is the real deal, and it's a big one. I called Rhodey, he's going to meet us there tonight with some of the local FBI."
Sam's brow furrowed, but he nodded. Always another mission. At least he'd get to meet the Iron Patriot in person.
"It's my day to drive," Steve said as he stood. They had been taking turns driving in a two-day cycle, an arbitrary arrangement Steve had suggested.
Sam knew how to extend an olive branch, too. "No, I'll take another day. I want you to do something for me, instead."
Steve tilted his head in curiosity.
"I want you to tell me some stories about Bucky," Sam finished. When Steve opened his mouth, he continued by pointing at the folder. "Not that. Not who he is now. I want to hear stuff from the old days. I want you to give me a reason to keep going."
He was smiling at that last part, and was pleased when Steve returned it. "I...know a few good stories."
Sam grinned. "Start with those. Then, move on to the bad ones."
TBC