Title: all we have to lay on the line

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Adrienne Rich

Warnings: suicidal ideation; mentions of death/violence/torture/brainwashing; codependence; grief

Pairings: Steve/Bucky

Rating: PG13

Wordcount: 2440

Point of view: third

Prompt: During Steve's search for the Winter Soldier, everyone is constantly cautioning him not to get his hopes up, to remember that he's not really Bucky, that he's an assassin, that he's the enemy (never mind the 70 years of torture and brainwashing, not like that had anything to do with it, not like he should be considered Hydra's oldest and longest lasting victim or anything).

I just need someone, maybe one of the remaining SHIELD agents, maybe the new director, Phil or someone else, maybe Tony or Natasha or Clint or Sam, someone to say to Steve, "We need you to be aware that, if it comes to a point where a choice has to be made, we have to be prepared to do what's necessary."

And I need Steve to look them in the eye and say, "If it comes to the point where that choice needs to be made, you should be aware that I'm prepared to stop you."

They forget, sometimes, just how good his hearing is. He can't always hear Natasha's side of the conversation, but he hears Sam, more than once, and he knows they're discussing containment procedures, de-programming options, and – if it comes down to it – elimination protocols.

He knows that Sam wants to help him save Bucky, but he also knows that Sam is prepared for the hard choice, the choice that Steve will never make.

.

There are two people left alive who knew Bucky Barnes, and only one of them remembers. His sisters all had full lives; Olivia, the youngest, died about six months before Steve thawed. Becca and Livy both had kids, though Julia didn't, and their kids had kids, and Steve thought, sometimes, about tracking them all down. But he hadn't had the courage, and then there were aliens, and then there were missions for SHIELD, and then –

And then he fought the Winter Soldier. He fought the Winter Soldier and found out that Hydra didn't die with Schmidt, and Bucky was alive.

Bucky was alive. Is alive.

Even when he had nothing, he had Bucky. Throughout his mother's illness, throughout his own never-ending illnesses, while hunting Hydra through occupied Europe, putting a plane in the ice… he thought he would die and he was happy because it meant he could catch up to Bucky and whatever trouble they'd find in Heaven, together again. But there was no Heaven.

He thought he'd die and he was fine with it because Bucky already had.

But Bucky wasn't dead. And Steve woke up on a river bank feeling physically the worst he had since the serum, and he knew that Bucky had saved his life again.

.

Sam doesn't want to hurt Bucky; Steve knows that. Natasha doesn't want to, either, but she will. And while Fury thinks Bucky will be a useful asset, he'll also put him down if 'rehabilitating' him will take too much time and too many of their current too-few resources.

Natasha's trying to track down Barton, and Fury's giving Hydra hell, and Coulson's busy rebuilding SHIELD with the few agents they know for sure are trustworthy (Steve doesn't have the time or energy devoted to wondering if he ever actually died at all), and Stark's helping with the DC clean-up and analyzing all the leaked data, and Thor and Dr. Banner are god-knows-where – and Steve is trying to find Bucky before Hydra does, and even before the new sanitized version of SHIELD does.

He'd stayed at SHIELD for Peggy. For the memory of his team, all long dead. To give him something useful to do in the world. Maybe even to help repay the debt he owed for SHIELD finding and thawing him, for helping him readjust.

(He sometimes wished they'd left him there, in the ice. Let him sleep. But now…)

There is no reason to stay with whatever SHIELD will become. SHIELD was sheltering Hydra, and Hydra had Bucky, and there are many many things he can forgive (though he will never ever forget), but hurting Bucky… he once swore that he wasn't stopping until all of Hydra was dead or captured. But this time…

There's nowhere to put any prisoners that he trusts. And very few people will be high enough in the organization to have the intel he needs to help Bucky. And they're Hydra.

There is no capturing, this time.

.

His first memory is his mother singing. His father was already gone, but his bedtime stories were of the bravery of a man he never knew. He'd been a child when he met James Buchanan Barnes, and he barely remembers what life he had before that bright afternoon.

Bucky was so bright. Blinding, sometimes. Steve still doesn't know why Bucky stuck around when they were boys, but he protected Steve and joked with him, made up adventures, helped him save for various art supplies, was respectful to Ma. Bucky's parents liked Steve, and Ma liked Bucky, and Bucky was everything.

They grew up poor, the pair of them, and it was hard. Damned hard. Steve has no idea how he managed to grow up at all, he was so sick, sometimes.

But Bucky and Ma were there, until Ma wasn't, and then Bucky's father died on the job, and he began splitting whatever wages he managed between his tiny apartment with Steve and his mother, because Becca, Julia, and Livy were still just kids.

Bucky was always there, with a joke and a laugh, with money when Steve thought it was all gone, with a pretty dame and her friend for Steve.

And then there was a war.

.

Sam talks with Steve about the Bucky he remembers. He cautions that the Bucky he knew might be gone for good. What's left of him might not be savable. For his own good, and the world's, he might have to be stopped, by whatever means necessary.

It hurts Sam to say it, Steve can tell. But Sam's a good man at heart. Erskine might have chosen him, had he been there, 70 years ago. Sam's a good man and he'll put the welfare of others above himself. He was a para-rescue in a warzone, flying on his own wings, and he's helping veterans come to terms what what's left when they're out of the war.

Steve will never be out of the war. As long as Bucky is in danger, he will walk alone into enemy territory and tear their strongholds down with his own hands.

It doesn't matter, he realizes, listening to Sam take Fury's orders and rephrase them into kinder words, who the enemy becomes.

"I understand, Sam," he finally says, but his response hasn't changed. "I don't think I can."

He knows he won't.

.

Natasha called him a ghost. Steve has no idea how long it took Hydra to make him that way, but he's repaying the debt with blood and fire, and he isn't merciful. Sam talks with him about that, too, cautioning him that it's a slippery slope, letting justice become vengeance.

Steve doesn't ask what Sam would do, if it were Riley. He knows the answer because Sam is right there with him.

.

He hasn't laid eyes on Bucky since the hellicarrier, but he's seen signs of Bucky's handiwork everywhere. Any base he hasn't hit, Bucky has, and Hydra's running scared from the first supersoldier straight into the arms of the weapon they created and lost. He can't take any pleasure in the thought, though.

Zola had done something to Bucky before Steve ever got there to rescue him, and whatever it was, it let Bucky survive falling. And it's Steve's fault he fell. He wasn't strong enough, wasn't fast enough, and Bucky fell.

There is a difference between justice and vengeance, and Steve's not digging any graves. He's a soldier, this is war, and he's leaving scorched earth behind him.

(He slept for 70 years while Bucky suffered, and he has no idea if Bucky even knows that's what it was. They're goddamned lucky that it's only scorched earth he's dealing.)

.

Steve started fights and Bucky finished them. That's the way it was for a quarter of a century. That's the way it was for most of Steve's life. He tried to do the right thing, no matter who got in his way. And Bucky, smiling with a dangerous glint in his eye, followed.

That's the way it's always been.

.

Steve, at heart, is very selfish. He knows that. Stopping Project Insight was his last selfless act. He spent his whole life fighting to prove he was capable, prove he could handle things, and then he spent a little over a year making himself the greatest threat to Hydra and Schmidt's madness.

Schmidt's gone, but Hydra's still around. For all the bases he and Bucky take out –

He's not dismantling Hydra because it's the right thing to do, not this time. This time, it's the most personal fight he's ever fought, and he's not putting the world ahead of Bucky, not again.

Let the world save itself next time.

.

He and Sam talk about Dum Dum and Jim, about Monty and Gabe, about Dernier's penchant for explosions. They talk about Peggy and Howard, about Colonel Phillips, about the girls from the USO tour. They talk about Erskine and how much his faith meant to Steve at a time when he really could have lost himself. They talk about Ma's hands and Bucky's folks, about Becca's laugh and Julia's sass and Livy's smarts.

And they talk about Bucky, of course. They talk about the day Bucky stepped in to end a fight that Steve doesn't even remember the cause of, and the way Bucky just dragged Steve and Ma into his family. They talk about Bucky teaching Steve to throw a punch, to dodge, and helped him get back up a hundred thousand times before anyone outside of either of their families ever noticed he could be somebody.

They talk about that last night in New York, and the reunion behind enemy lines, about Bucky having the chance to save himself and refusing to.

And Sam says, more than once, "I know you love him, but that man might be gone. Are you prepared for that?"

And Steve says, "I know that." He does know that. But it doesn't fucking matter.

Bucky Barnes might be gone, but what's left of him dragged Steve out of the river, and even before that, Bucky was a sniper. So is the Winter Soldier.

Steve never asks anybody else if they noticed that the Winter Soldier had can't-miss shots at him and never shot him in the head.

.

Fury calls them in for a war council and they all come: Natasha, Barton, Coulson, Stark, Hill, Banner, and even Thor, both grimmer and lighter than the last time Steve saw him. Sam sits beside Steve and they all listen as Fury sets out the details.

Three hours of intel and arguing boils down to this: they have one chance at 'rehabilitating' Bucky. One chance. And if it fails, then, well, they have elimination protocols for that. While Sam and Steve chased ghosts and burned bases, Fury dug up all the dirt he could on Project Rebirth's evil little brother, Project Winter Soldier. He won't try to recreate it, but it's showed just how dangerous Barnes really is, he tells them.

And then, "I am sorry, Cap," Fury says as Banner controls his breathing, as Sam and Stark both look away, as Coulson and Hill maintain emotionless expressions, as Barton looks at his hands and Natasha stills, as Thor frowns. "But if it comes down to it…" He spreads his hands like he's helpless.

The Winter Soldier very nearly killed him and Steve understands that. He just doesn't give a shit.

"If it comes down to it," he says quietly, eyes going from Fury to the rest of them, "then you should know where I'll be standing." He rises to his feet and grabs his shield.

"Steve!" Sam says at the same time Fury barks out, "Captain!"

He stops in the doorway and looks back. "Thank you for all your help, Director," he says. "But I don't trust you anywhere near Bucky, and I'm not letting you get close." He pauses and then nods firmly. "Sam, thank you so much, but I need to do this on my own." He gives them his USO smile and gently closes the door behind him.

.

Hydra's running scared.

Steve goes to Austria, to where the first Hydra base he ever destroyed used to be. He was so young, then, and so scared. It was barely four years ago, for him. Four years ago and the first time he ever thought Bucky was dead.

He hears footsteps behind him, barely there, and keeps his hands in plain sight. "I know you," he hears, and he blinks back tears.

"Yeah," he says, "and I know you. I've known you my whole life." He turns slowly, hesitantly, and Bucky is there, looking at him, head tilted inquisitively.

"You've been targeting Hydra," Bucky says. His hands are empty, his stance loose. He's wearing combat boots, jeans, and a dark sweatshirt. Steve doesn't see any weapons, but he knows Bucky's got to have some.

"I have," he agrees. "So've you."

Bucky just stares at him. Steve waits. Finally, Bucky says, "I'm not… not him." He shakes his head sharply, looking at the ground. "I'm not."

Steve nods, trying to think of something to say. "That's fine. I'm not who I was, either, back then. Too much…" He shrugs. "But I would like to know who you are, now, if you don't mind."

Bucky – not Bucky – Steve's friend (please still be Steve's friend) lifts his head, meets Steve's gaze. "James," he says. "At the museum – and you said my, his name was James Buchanan Barnes." He licks his lips, bites the bottom one, and steps forward before stopping. "Your friend."

Steve nods frantically, barely keeping himself from going to him. "Yes, B—James, yes, you're my friend. You're my best friend, my first friend, you're everything."

James stands there staring at him, worrying at his bottom lip again.

A lifetime ago, Bucky did that when he was trying to think of something to say. Usually when he was in serious trouble, with his sisters, his mother, or Steve.

"I know of a well-hidden base," he says. "They kept me there. I don't know how long ago."

Steve smiles. "I would love to destroy that base with you."

.

He's not Bucky Barnes anymore. And Steve's not the Steve he was a lifetime ago, when Bucky left New York. Steve knows Fury will never trust him, that they'll test him and lock him away and watch his every single move, and then complain that he's not getting better.

No. Fuck that. Nobody's ever getting their hands on James Barnes ever again.

"Wanna do the honors?" James asks, gesturing to the sniveling scientist who once strapped the asset into a chair and stole part of his mind.

Steve stares down at the scientist. "Is this what you were so afraid of?" he says, crouching beside him. "All of you? Scared that your weapon would turn on you, hunt you all down?" He smiles.

The scientist pisses himself.

.

"Where are the flying cars?" James asks as they settle in for the night.

Steve laughs, shaking his head. "I don't know," he says. "Guess we'll have to last a little longer to see 'em."

James gives him a small grin, so bright – blinding. He murmurs, "Guess so."