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[sizeofyourbaggage]

CHARACTERS: Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson
WHERE: Subspace
WHEN: Day :011
SUMMARY: tracking down two not quite friends who may or may not want anything to do with him
WARNINGS: will update as needed!


It’s not that Sam’s been avoiding Steve or Barnes, not really. It’s just that neither of them have really been around the Bearings much, and Sam hasn’t gone looking for them when he didn’t run into them.

If it was just that Steve didn’t remember him or was from a time before ever meeting him or whatever it was, or just that being in the same brood as Barnes meant they were connected in a way that Sam should have found ironic, given how long he spent looking for the guy - well, if it was just one of those, Sam might have ignored it and kept right on going like he had before he got here.

But with the double whammy, he kind of figured maybe all of them needed at least a few days to adjust. Before he started shoving himself into a place where he might not be welcome, but he sure as hell knew he wasn’t going to be able to stay away from. He figured they were together, and at least they could keep an eye on each other.

Of course, that was before he heard about the crimes being pinged by their IDs, and before the bomb went off and things started escalating. He doesn’t really have anything sorted out yet, but he doesn’t think twice before tracking them down. He’s been through too much with Steve to know how not to try to be his friend, and he’s done too much to try to keep Barnes safe to give up now.

He raps on the door when he gets there, doing his best to keep a handle on his emotions but leave himself open enough that they can pick up that it’s him.

“Barnes, Rogers, you in there?”

Comments

[decommission]

The bombing seems to have everyone on edge. Steve's been racking his brain all morning for a way to convince his friend that it's finally time for them to head back to the Bearings. Bad enough that their IDs are flagged, their cover stories aren't going to hold up so well if they get caught squatting here, something that might mean trouble for everyone else in the Nest.

After that first night he doesn't want to risk seeing what happens when Bucky's cornered.

It's not the voice he recognizes from behind the door at first - the faint pull of another Host does that for him. Steve's closer, quick to move the chair out from under the doorknob and open it all the way, scanning Sam briefly before stepping aside.

"Hey." There's nothing awkward about the way Steve greets him, rather, there's something just beneath the surface of his thoughts, bordering on that same wariness he first greeted Sam with - closer to uncertainty, mixed with general concern that Sam's on their doorstep because something else has gone wrong - and maybe the smallest amount of relief. He's had a few days to let certain information settle. Whatever they all are to each other now, Sam's someone Bucky knows and, hopefully, trusts.

Steve wouldn't mind having someone on his side right about now.

[bracchium]

It’s happening again has been repeating in his head since the bombing. He’s already got a crime pinged to his ID that he doesn’t remember doing, a fight he can’t place in his memory, and a big empty spot where he suspects it belongs. His head is positively buzzing with a flickering beat of fear, drawing ever stronger the longer he goes without sleep. It’s been almost 48 hours now, wide-eyed and on edge but so exhausted, so tired, so done with being a weapon and nothing else. So tired of Steve regarding him with a misplaced concern, so tired of not knowing if today he’s going to turn into the Winter Soldier.

Bucky already feels cornered and has mostly been shifting between sketching, staring at the metal arm sitting on the table, and thinking in silence. No amount of any of the three, though, bring enough calm to allow him to even consider leaving their foxhole for the Bearings. He’s filthy, he stinks, and he’s exhausted, but none of those move him from the tiny room.

It doesn’t help that he hasn’t seen beyond these four walls since the bombing and instead only augments the sensation of being cornered. He feels like he’s sitting in that chair with no choice but to open his mouth and take the rubber. What little control he has is exhibited in this foxhole, in these four walls away from eyes and cameras and blame for something he didn’t do.

He can sense a mind growing closer, something friendly and gentle and so strange in the context of his current state.

Sam, he realizes a heartbeat before Steve pulls back the chair. Not the worst face to see, considering, but Bucky did try to kill him a couple times.

Bucky looks up from where he’s sitting beside the table, beside piles of sketches weighed down by steel braided into a form resembling a human arm. He doesn’t acknowledge Sam’s presence with anything verbal, but his mind automatically reaches out through the brood bond like a man drowning in a storm.

He’s terrified. He’s a nuclear bomb waiting to go off.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

"Hey man," Sam greets, shooting Steve a small smile. There's a brief flash of something almost like deja vu, only from the other side - he remembers pulling the door open to find Steve standing on his door step, feeling something very similar to the uncertainty that Steve's got now. But he dismisses that quickly, because now's definitely not the time for shit like that.

Sam ducks into the room, gearing up to explain what he's doing here, but then he feels Barnes reaching out to him, and that pulls away all of his focus. He's got no idea if Barnes is doing it intentionally or if it's just a reaction to the bond when he's in distress, like the way they'd almost synced up back on the station or Clint's mind grasping for his after that anxiety flare. And just like then, there's nothing that Sam can do but respond.

He automatically shifts out of the doorway as best he can, so he's not blocking any exits. Barnes' emotions are strong enough that it's hard not feeling them like they're his own, especially given his own recent experience with feeling trapped, but this time he'd at least more or less been prepared for it. He doesn't try to cut himself off or shut Barnes out, just does his best to avoid getting caught up in the terror that Barnes is projecting at him. Keeps himself grounded in what's going on physically instead of what's going on in his head, and tries not to let that bleed too much on Barnes. He doesn't want to shove calm on him without his permission like he'd accidentally done on the station.

"Yeah. I already know you tend to dramatics, man." There's no hostility in his tone, though, and while it is almost gentle, it's definitely not careful. Sam can already tell that Barnes feels something like a trapped animal, and Sam's not looking to make that worse by tiptoeing around him like he's waiting for something to set him off. "I'm not gonna force anything on you that you don't want, all right? You wanna be a stubborn jackass and keep trying to go this alone, fine. But I want to help, the least you could let me do is try."

[decommission]

It's a smile he'd normally return out of politeness under any other circumstances. The awkward nature of their first meeting aside, he can tell Sam's not a bad guy (a friend he might like to gain and a respect he'd like to earn on his own, one day). But that faint thread of relief in him is tangled up in the tension suffocating this small, dingy space. He's been in and out since the night they got caught up brawling, making no attempt to hover except in the fact that he keeps returning every night, without fail, to bunk on the cot or the mat on the floor.

He had no understanding of how long this could continue. Still doesn't.

Sam, on the other hand, seems familiar.

He steps out of the way, back pressed against a wall to make more room - ready to step outside if needed.

[bracchium]

As Sam steps into the room, the sense of closeness increases, like they’re standing flush against each other rather than ten feet apart. At this distance, he expects a feedback loop like back at the station, feeding into each other until there’s a sudden loss of self among the sea of otherness. But it doesn’t happen. Instead his fear seems to be absorbed and taken in, Sam acting as a sponge without leaking it back into the bond. He looks up at Sam in a candid sense of marvel, reveling in the apparent flexibility of his fellow broodmate’s head. The calm sitting on the other side isn’t smothering him either, not like someone pushing a pillow over his face to keep him from screaming.

The tide has come in and Sam’s still standing, offering a willing hand despite everything.

Bucky owes him more than that, owes Steve more than that, and he can’t hide forever. Bucharest taught him that much; he can’t run forever, he will be found. There is no going alone, not anymore. He doesn’t get to make a choice, no matter what Sam says. This is an instance of accepting the lesser of two ugly ends.

His gaze flicks to the open door, the pile of sketches and the metal arm on the table, then Steve. Don’t make me do this, he wants to say, wants to beg if it means he can stay free. He can still run, he reminds himself. They won’t force him. This isn’t Siberia, this isn’t DC, but he still feels like he’s back in that chair under the bank with a dozen guns pointed at him.

With a heavy and dramatic sigh, Bucky nods.

“What’s the plan.” He replies, because if he’s going anywhere, he wants to know where, when, and how.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

If someone had told him a few years ago that everything he was learning trying to cope with his own issues and helping other vets work through theirs would end up being used to keep himself from drowning in the waves of fear and guilt and panic being broadcasted at him via an alien mental bond to a brainwashed super soldier - yeah, no way in hell he would have bought it. Just goes to show what his life is now, that it seems pretty par for the course to him.

But it’s working, and he’d be relieved if he wasn’t so busy focusing on regulating his own emotions as well as Barnes’. He’s standing strong now, yeah, but honestly he’s got no idea how steady the ground is under him. For all he knows, he could be making his stand on sand, one wrong move away from slipping out from under him.

Of course now he's got Barnes looking at him in a way Sam's never seen before, like he’s doing something wonderful, and damn Sam doesn’t know what to do with that. He’s not sure how his relationship with Barnes could get any more complicated, but apparently their broodbond is bound and determined to make it happen. He doesn’t owe Barnes a thing, that’s still true, but that hasn’t ever stopped him from being willing to help, and now it’s only worse. Now it’s personal, and he doesn’t know if that’s coming from the fact that it seems like he’s finally been able to do something to help or from the deep sense of connection with a broodmate.

He guesses it doesn’t matter, not with Barnes agreeing that what they’re doing ain’t exactly working. He kind of figures that Steve was already there, and Barnes was the one that needed convincing.

Sam leans one shoulder against the wall, quirking a tiny, wry smile. "My last great plan ended up with me sitting on my ass in an underwater prison, so. I guess I can't hassle you guys too much for getting your IDs pinged for some crimes."

He glances over at Steve, almost automatically. Steve might not done any of the things that lead to him being the best friend that Sam’s got yet, but as far as Sam can tell he’s still Steve. Even if Sam’s already working to accept that realistically he doesn’t know Steve right now much more than Steve knows him, he’d like to. And Sam still trusts him.

“What’s been keeping you guys from the Bearings?”

[decommission]

Something passes between Bucky and Sam. He can't sense it fully, the movement is less tangible than a shadow flickering at the edge of his vision.

On some level he's come to understand that the lack of a brood link between himself and Bucky is ultimately a good thing. That deeper level of connection is difficult enough to manage between strangers. With Bucky he holds almost two decades of memories, a one-sided account of their history. You can't know everything about your best friend, and he knows even less now. The link between broodmates is invasive, good intentions without restraint could turn manipulative - especially when that person you're connected to seems to be missing so much of themselves -

He's trying not to let himself admit how much he's starting to miss his friend. He doesn't need Bucky to know that.

Steve meets Bucky's gaze, then Sam's. His mouth twists downward at one side when Sam mentions their new criminal records, even if it's partly in jest. The trouble with looking at Sam is trying not to see the person that Sam is looking for - taller, stronger, a squared jaw, the future that would've come with him. It's funny, in a way, because Steve never used to be someone who thought about his own future. One day, when there's more distance between him and that other guy he'll have to ask Sam about how he ended up in an underwater prison.

"Buck's got some concerns." And it'd be better if he voiced them, not Steve. The sole reason Steve's down here is because Bucky's been refusing to come out of this hole.

[bracchium]

The issue of their new criminal records comes up early and Bucky swallows, looking away from Sam after a long moment.

“I don’t remember it,” he provides easily enough, biting his lip.

The fight, he means, but can’t say it out loud. Instead, he lets his head hang as he digs through the memories he does have. Leaving the foxhole is first, but then a big white space devours everything from there until he and Steve are sitting back in the foxhole, concern heavy in Steve’s tone. It’s too much like Bucharest and Berlin to shake.

Another wave of fear pulses from him before he realizes it, but he extends a tentative trust to Sam’s skills, to keep it from reflecting back on him. He shouldn’t be so careless, he should be better at this, but he never really had to regulate his emotions as the Winter Soldier. Weapons didn’t have feelings. Weapons weren’t allowed to want things like freedom or a hot meal or his own goddamn memories.

“But I did it,” he continues, more to give himself a respite from the buzzing in his head.

Even if he didn’t trust Concordia’s surveillance, Steve explained the incident to him and Bucky did trust Steve’s word.

With a shake of his head, Bucky focuses on pushing through the terror bubbling up his throat once more, “It’s happening again.”

[sizeofyourbaggage]

It's not hard looking at Steve and seeing that he's a hell of a lot smaller than Sam's used to, not really. It'd been a surprise, yeah, but Sam could adjust. The hard part is the look in Steve's eyes - or more accurately, what's not in Steve's eyes. It's hard as hell meeting his best friend's gaze and knowing that Sam is barely more than a stranger to him.

But now's not the time to go anywhere near that. This isn't about him, and when Steve says that Buck's got concerns, Sam looks back over at Barnes.

Great, of course it's happening again. The last times it had happened around Sam, he'd ended up with a wrecked car, a destroyed set of wings, and getting thrown across the room by his damn face. But if Sam wasn't willing to let that go - more or less - he wouldn't have done everything he already had to keep Barnes safe.

And he sure as hell isn't going to try to hold onto it now, not when he can feel that tentative trust blooming there. If Barnes is willing to try to trust him to help, then there's no way that Sam can let him down.

"It happens," he agrees, wading through the terror and doing his best not to let it drag him down. "Lot of vets lose pieces of time, sometimes it comes with flashbacks, sometimes it's like you blink and you feel like nothing's happened but everything has. And that's before everything else you got going on in there."

He pulls in a breath, rolls his shoulders back and lets it out, nice and slow. "Those couple a years we spent looking for you, it happen a lot then? Or is it just ramping up after shit hit the fan?"

[bracchium]

Bucky mimicks Sam's deep breath without meaning to, the brood link thrumming with a patient calm that's slowly diluting the panic. Talking with this Sam feels easier than with the other Sam, more comfortable, prior history aside. In fact, it's more restoring than any discussion he's had with Steve in the days since the latter found him in the foxhole.

The response comes as effortlessly as if talking about the weather.

"No, Berlin was the first," he replies, a silent since HYDRA tacked on the end.

He sighs before continuing; he and Steve had this talk with the other Sam already, ending in conclusions Bucky couldn't believe or trust.

"In Berlin, that guy said the words." The trigger words, the ten words that make him a weapon. "No one said anything here."

Not that he can recall, anyways.

[decommission]

Steve waits - this is already more conversation than Bucky was willing to exchange with Sam Anders. This history they've got, it counts for something at least.

"We were wondering if it had to do with the symbiote," he supplies after a moment, brow furrowing as he looks at Sam.

The problem with any of these answers is obvious: to find out what's really going on, someone's likely going to need to get into Bucky's head - and that's not happening any time soon.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

That's something, at least. It would have been just their luck if they came all the way out to space and they still had to worry about someone hijacking Barnes into a killing machine and pointing him at whatever they wanted. Though he guesses Barnes is pretty much worried about that all of the time, and Sam can't say he blames him for wanting to hide out here.

He's got no idea what it's like to hold that kind of fear - beyond what he's doing his best to hold for Barnes right now - but he does know something about coming back messed up and wanting to hide.

Sam runs a hand over his jaw, considering that. "Yeah, maybe. Maybe something got kicked loose back in Berlin, maybe it was all that shit in Siberia, maybe it's all this shit here. Hell, maybe it's all of it put together. I don't know, man, this is a little beyond my expertise. I always got help with the why."

If this was back home, back when Sam was still working at the VA, that's what he'd do here: suggest seeing a therapist, maybe even make a recommendation. But he doesn't even know if there's any therapists here, let alone ones that could be trusted. He guesses the closest thing to an expert in the symbiote is the older Hosts, but Sam isn't sure how much he trusts them himself.

"But I do know that running and avoiding never works. I got some tricks I can share: stuff like what I'm doing now, things to help figure out what's gonna set you off and how to keep it from controlling you, how to snap yourself back. It's not a guarantee, but-" He looks over at Steve, then back at Barnes. "I can do the best I've got."

[bracchium]

Bucky watches Steve for a moment before he turns back to Sam. We makes it sound like there's not a gulf of time separating them, like they're just reckless kids on the block, not a killing machine and a guy seventy years in thr past. It should 't make him nervous, that we, but it does. Steve's chained himself to a nuke and already given up so much for him, cloistered himself with a killer for no reason other than a distant echo of a friendship Bucky doesn't remember.

Running and hiding sounds damn good right about now, despite Sam's words and despite Bucharest. Cooping up in the foxhole hasn't helped the buzzing in his head or the sense of inevitable dread hanging over him, but at least he isn't surrounded by innocent bystanders.

He sucks in a breath, the link between him and Sam humming gently with the burgeoning trust.

"And if it doesn't work?" He poses the question to the group, despite looking only at Sam.

If I become the Soldier again? If I become a monster? They need a contingency plan, a Dead Hand to assure his destruction if he becomes a risk.

[decommission]

I can do the best I've got. He meets Sam's gaze when it briefly finds him, conflicted at the notion of this shared burden all of a sudden. If there were any other options -

"We'll find something that works."

That's all there is to it. He doesn't follow the implication in Bucky's words, wouldn't want to. No matter how much has changed this is still his friend, not a bad-tempered animal that might need putting down.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

It's a little bit scary, that fragile trust that Sam can feel stretched between him and Barnes. Honestly, it's scarier than holding Barnes's gaze as he talks about becoming a killer again - but then, Sam's never really been afraid of Barnes, not really. He's had what he thinks is a very healthy level of wariness and caution, yeah, but if he'd been afraid of him Sam'd never have let him sit at his back in the ridiculous car, wouldn't have sassed the hell out of him.

And he doesn't want to do anything to potentially disrupt that trust, because shit if after everything Barnes has been though he's willing to even entertain the notion of trusting Sam, then Sam sure as hell isn't going to take that for granted. But it's that healthy level of caution that has him thinking ’We’ve taken you out more than once before, we can do it again if it comes down to it.’

He doesn’t say it, especially not after Steve’s response, but Sam refuses to feel guilty for it. He’ll do damn near anything to try to prevent it from happening, to protect Barnes, but he's still gonna be practical about it.

"There's always something that works."

It’s genuine, at least, and the fact that Sam honestly believes that bleeds through pretty damn heavy. If there's one thing he learned on his own journey and trying to help others through theirs, it's that there's always hope. He can feel Steve's conflicted feelings, though, and he fixes both of them with a steady gaze.

"I signed on for this, you know." He makes a little face at himself. "All right, no, I guess neither of you really know that, but I did. And if you don't want me around, that's one thing, but I'm not going anywhere just because things got complicated. It ain't in me to give up when shit gets rough.”