I'ʟʟ ʙᴇ ʀɪɢʜᴛ ʙᴇsɪᴅᴇ ʏᴏᴜ.

[uptomeasure]

The cube should never have gotten away from the Avenger in the first place, but unforseen circumstances had led to a number of disasters both within and outside of the team. Now they were dealing with an adversary that posed a very real and dangerous threat to their own lives as well as the rest of the world, and worse no one knew what had happened to the cube itself. With too much on their plate to go on a worldwide search, seeking out the cube had become a task for the remaining fragments of SHIELD rather than the Avengers. They couldn't afford the extra distraction.

How it wound up in the possession of the former Winter Soldier was anyone's guess, but he had done a better job at finding the alien technology than the best and brightest SHIELD had left to offer. It was just unfortunate that no one had known what exactly the cube was capable of. The 'technology' had a sentience of its own, and a penchant for granting the desires of the people who connected with it through physical touch.

It had given a different gift to everyone who had done as much, and often they were not the things which would have been asked for by the people it had granted those wishes to. It was just a cube. It was impossible to say whether the accidents and misfortunes that came as a result of its gifts were intentional or accidents of a barrier of understanding.

Whatever the case, the cube had granted Bucky Barnes a gift that had potentially disastrous consequences for everyone involved. The Avengers lost Captain America. No one knew where the soldier had vanished to, only that he could not be found after disappearing in the midst of battle. An incident so uncharacteristic of the super soldier that his team was only able to assume terrible possibilities.

Captain America, as the world knew him, was gone. But far from the chaos and noise of the new war between the Avengers and their adversaries, Steve Rogers was alive and as well as his old body had ever allowed him to be. The cube had kidnapped Captain America away from the battle and his new life to bring him back to the person who had needed him most. In that moment, the Steve Rogers of the 21st century had been erased and replaced with the version of him the cube deemed most important to who Bucky Barnes was.

The Winter Soldier needed his second chance at being the man he had been once before, and his best bet was not the soldier the world needed but a scrawny kid from Brooklyn who had always believed in him and been such a vital piece of his life. Who could better help the Winter Soldier to remember who he once was than the man who had grown up with him, believing in him, fighting beside him and truly knowing him better than anyone else could. The distractions of Captain America's life were a thing of the past, now, as his own past was pulled forward and dropped at Bucky's feet like an unwrapped gift.

For Steve it was as disorienting a change as it was unexpected. One minute he had been sitting in a recruitment office waiting for potential jail time as a result of his latest falsified attempt at joining the army. He had just been starting to feel the slightest touch of panic as he stared at the reminder on the wall and waited for his fate alone on a hard bed in a chilly, uncomfortable room. The next he found himself in an unfamiliar and strangely decorated hotel room, sick to his stomach, dizzy, confused, and very uncertain as to what had just happened. It was like something out of an H.G.Wells novel, and he had no idea what to think.

He leaned on the nearest surface, a wall in the doorway, while he waited for the dizzy spell to pass. Maybe he had blacked out in the office, but he had no memory of that or waking up after it.

Comments

[cryogenics]

Even if this version of Steve was more familiar to him, it was strange looking down at him. He frowned, pushed his hair back from his face, and waited patiently for Steve to say something. Bucky wasn't in a rush; he had plenty of time and nowhere to be.

Girls? What girls? He wasn't even sure if he knew how to dance. It wasn't exactly a required assassin skill. The fist of Hydra didn't socialize. "I joined the army." Those words felt familiar, but he didn't think he'd been the one saying them before. He'd died, was what really happened, to the rest of the world, at least. He'd become a ghost.

[uptomeasure]

"Yeah, I know, 107th. But I thought you didn't ship out until morning." In the logical side of his brain Steve knew that had to have already happened. Bucky looked like he had seen and been through Hell, and Steve hadn't been there to go through it with him. He should have been. Maybe it was a dream brought on by frustration and guilt at being unable to get over there and do what every other man in their country was doing.

"You look terrible." He paired the comment with a grim smile. At least his terrible sense of humor was still in tact, and he figured if this was real it was the sort of thing Bucky would want and expect from him. Guilt aside, Bucky really did look awful and Steve didn't know what to do with that. How could he help?

What are you doing back.

He didn't voice his question but put a hand on his friend's shoulder, having to reach up at an almost painful angle to do so. He had never seen Bucky look like that, even in the worst of their days together.

"I think right now I would have a better chance at the dames than you." Which was saying something when Steve was certain no lady had ever taken even a little interest in him, especially not when they could have Bucky, instead.

"Did they send you home already?"

[cryogenics]

"I know." He needed a shave-a hair cut?-a decent meal, and at least a week's worth of good nights of sleep. Not to mention to have a lack of stress and guilt in his life. Those last few things probably wouldn't happen any time soon.

He almost flinched away when Steve touched him, but he held still, tensed for just a second instead. It wasn't like someone Steve's size would be able to hurt him, but it was instinct. Only very few people had ever reached out to him with kind intentions.

Dames. Home. "I don't-I don't know where home is," he admitted softly. "I don't think I have one."

[uptomeasure]

"Now you're just talking crazy." Steve gave Bucky's shoulder a light squeeze before rubbing his friend's back. He didn't know what had happened to him to make himself lose so much time in memories, but Bucky was a changed man beside him, and not in a positive way. It was as if someone had broken him and put the pieces back together all wrong.

Steve glanced around the hotel room before catching sight of the glasses on the dresser and got the other man a glass of ice water, offering it to him while standing in front of him. At least like this he always felt his height difference less. Bucky sitting in front of him seemed somehow smaller than he remembered. He was missing that self-assured, cocky attitude he put on when he walked around.

"Home is right here in Brooklyn. You and me, remember. Wherever we end up, that's where home is." He remembered when Bucky gave him that speech, not long after they had moved in together. It had been a dumb bunch of words and they both knew it, but somehow it had still made Steve feel better.

Bucky reminded him more of an abused stray dog than the man he knew at the moment, but that was all the more reason to stay right by him and make sure he came out of whatever this was. He wasn't ever leaving Bucky's side, not like this. They were together til the end of the line. That was a promise they were both a part of.

"You always have a home. No matter what happens." He didn't have his razor or a pair of clippers with him or he would have done Bucky's hair himself, just like he had in the past when they were younger. Like his mother had for him when he was a boy.

The surety with which Steve managed the words that were coming from him now did not reflect his uncertainty of how they had gotten to the hotel or how much time had gone that he didn't remember. Those were things that could be addressed when his friend was less broken.

"We're in this together, until the end of the line, remember? Well the line hasn't ended yet, and I'm not going anywhere. So drink up."

Steve had about three dollars to his name and while that was a lot more than he usually had, it wasn't enough to do all the things that needed doing, and little did he know just how little an amount that was now. But he had to do something.

"When did you get back?"

[cryogenics]

"Am I?" He didn't have a place where he felt safe anymore. Everywhere he went, the ghosts of his past were creeping up on him. If it wasn't nightmares about Hydra hunting him down, it was the people he'd killed, all of the faces blurring together, dying over and over, or blaming him. Sometimes he wasn't sure when he was awake and when he wasn't, sometimes they seemed so real when he opened his eyes. He'd spent so many nights sleeping on the floor in the corner, so at least the shades could only come at him from the front. Even now, sometimes he started in the bed (it was too soft, too comfortable, like a cloud that was just going to give way, a cloud not meant for a weapon) and ended up on the floor by morning.

He didn't have a home. Hydra had taken that from him. There wasn't a place where he belonged, people he fit in with. He was alone. It was hard to make friends when he felt like everyone who looked at him would be able to see how broken and dirty he was, drowning in red.

"I don't remember," he whispered, taking the glass nonetheless and cupped it in both hands, like he was afraid of dropping it. He didn't remember any of that, just that one bit, a snippet floating in time and space. Until the end of the line. Maybe this had been a really bad idea. What good could this bring? He'd probably hurt this Steve, too.

"Depends." He took a sip of water. "On how you define 'back'."

[uptomeasure]

"You joined the army, you're back from the war, now." Maybe he was shell shocked? Whatever was wrong with Bucky, Steve couldn't admit to his own troubles now. Bucky didn't need those on his plate as well. Steve could deal with his memory loss when he was done making sure Bucky wasn't going to bolt out the door. He looked like he might want to now.

They were just going to have to start a bit slower. He was obviously overwhelming Bucky. He sat back down next to him and watched him, nothing but concern and confusion in his eyes.

"What do you remember?"

[cryogenics]

He remembered the war, a little. It was more a vague memory of terror and fighting and death than anything concrete that could help him. He hesitated for a minute, frowning down at his glass of ice water like he wished he could climb inside and freeze again and not have to worry about anything anymore. The ice, at least, was familiar.

"I remember you. Until the end of the line." Steve was important, in ways that Bucky had read about but not quite remembered or figured out on his own, yet. "Hydra got me. They made me their weapon." And he'd done terrible things, including trying to kill Steve. But how could he say that to Steve's face, if this one didn't remember any of that? Steve would hate him for it.

[uptomeasure]

So it was something with his memories. Bucky was having a hard time remembering his life before and during the war? Steve had no idea who Hydra were or what they had done to his friend, but neither could be good. Being a soldier was not the same as being a weapon, whatever anyone might have said. Someone had forced Bucky into something other than who he was, and it had broken him.

Steve did not need to be a doctor to know that Bucky was not alright. He knew the other man better than anyone else, and that made him the most qualified person to see that something was very wrong. Whatever it was, he was not leaving Bucky to get through it on his own.

"That's a start. Whatever they did to you, we will straighten it out. You don't need to do it alone." Bucky never would have left him to deal with something like this on his own, and Steve was not about to either.

"You are James Buchanan Barnes, and no one is going to take that away from you as long as I'm around." Brave words from the little guy, but Steve believed it. He might not have ever been physically strong, but he would never give up on Bucky, no matter what had happened or what the war had done to him before spitting him back out.

[cryogenics]

Straighten it out? He didn't know if that was even possible. "I'm not sure we can..." He was used to doing things alone, without anybody to help him. If he failed, there was no one to pull him out, and dying would have been kinder than going back to Hydra after that. Help was a completely foreign idea to him, but he wasn't going to stop Steve from trying. Probably.

Maybe some things really did never change. Steve seemed just as stubborn and fearless as ever, despite being so much smaller and weaker now. Maybe this was one of the things the man he'd used to be had found endearing, why a single memory had stopped him from killing Steve.