ninception | (no subject)

He's not sure what possessed him to do it. The man insists that they're friends, but the Soldier only remembers fighting him. There's a lot missing, he knows, but how can he trust the intel of a man who's clearly his enemy? Of course they would try to manipulate him. It's much smarter than fighting him if it can be done, but he's not going to fall for it.

Except.

Except the face of Steve Rogers feels familiar down to his bones and watching him fall into the water had stirred something desperate and primal in the Soldier. He'd had to save him, because something is there and if this man dies, so do the Soldier's answers.

By the time Steve's looking around, the Soldier has settled a good ten feet away in the sand. He's seated, but he's not relaxed and he's got a knife in his hand and several other weapons are still strapped to him, albeit waterlogged.

He's silent. Staring almost unblinking at his new mission.

Steve still can't move, stares around for a long while before he finally spots Bucky. It's taken him too long, and he knows Nat would have some strong words for him, but she's not around. It's just him and Bucky, and even if he's just as horribly blank-faced as he had been on the bridge, Bucky's here.

Steve hacks a painful cough, making another attempt to sit up, but all he really ends up doing is propping himself up on his elbow awkwardly. "Buck," he coughs, spotting the knife. A part of him wishes he felt more on edge than he does, but he can't do much about that right now. "You... you pulled me from the water," he feels lost, and probably sounds mystified.

"I would've drowned if it weren't for you."

There's a quick nod. He knows that Steve would have drowned if he hadn't acted and he needs answers. At least, that's what he tells himself, but the truth of the matter is that he'd thought to save the man before he'd had time to rationalize why. It had been an instinct, the way some dogs will save swimmers who aren't drowning because they've been bred to their very souls to save a drowning person.

He should leave. What's left of the feds will find them soon and the Soldier will be taken in. He's not sure exactly what that will entail, but he'd always been lead to believe that capture would be worse than death. It's no matter, because he could probably fight them off and escape, anyway. He knows exactly how skilled he is.

The variable in all of this is Steve Rogers, who's too injured to walk and too important to leave behind. He has all the answers that the Soldier needs. If the wrong people get their hands on him, maybe he'll forget the way the Soldier has or maybe they'll lock him somewhere the Soldier can't get to.

After a moment of internal debate, he decides that Rogers is in no condition to fight him, so he puts the knife away in a smooth, fluid motion and pushes himself up to move closer.

"We're going." Those are the only words he speaks because he reaches to loop an arm under Steve's shoulders so that he can pull the man to his feet and take most of his weight. He uses his right arm, careful to keep the left free in case they find themselves in a firefight.

Steve makes another pained move, clearly trying to sit up despite the pain. He grits his teeth, hissing through his clenched jaws and wishing the damn serum would hurry up and do its job. He knows he's in no condition to walk, but that doesn't stop him from straining until it's more than clear he's not going to be going anywhere. Not now, probably not for several days.

Whatever is going to happen, he's not sure how he'll handle it. He doesn't want to believe Bucky could really harm him, had seen the man hesitate several times before in the midst of a fight, but now, with Steve so weak... well. He tenses despite himself, because he still knows how to defend himself, knows this could end very, very poorly.

"Where are we going?" Steve asks, aware as soon as the question leaves his lips that it's a stupid one. He winces at himself. "The Avengers will probably come lookin' for me before too long," he says, feeling both exhausted and incredibly alert.

Edited 2018-06-13 07:32 (UTC)

When it's clear that Rogers can't stand, even with his help, he has to make a decision. If he carries Rogers, he won't have his hand free for a fight, but if they stay here, they will be taken in. People will keep coming for them. He can't be captured and he can't leave the other man.

Breathing out heavily through his nostrils, the Soldier moves to carry him, hooking his arms under Steve's shoulders and knees. He's not a particularly gentle person, but he does understand that he needs to minimize further damage to the man's body and he takes care to carry him in a way that will do that, even if his movements and manners are cold and clinical.

"A safe house." Hopefully one that hasn't been compromised. "Do you have any trackers on you?"

It's a strange question, because he shouldn't trust the answer, but there's a part of him that says Rogers won't lie to him now. He's not fighting. He hasn't been fighting for a while. Maybe he's a trap, but the Soldier thinks that Steve Rogers does believe what he's saying. Why else would he lie back and take that beating? A long play like that is unnecessary. There's no tactical gain.

Steve lets him, trusting Bucky. Maybe he shouldn't trust him, maybe it's a bad idea, but even with the movements being clinical, almost robotic, compared to the Bucky Steve knows, he thinks it's fine. They'll work on it, he's sure he can get more of Bucky out, even if it takes time. "No, I don't have any trackers on me. I kind of stole this uniform from the Smithsonian," he smiles, even if it's a little forced.

It's also a completely honest answer, because Steve can't lie to save his life, and he's exhausted to boot. "A safe house sounds good," Steve agrees, babbling now. "Do you remember saving my ass in that back alley? It was right before you deployed, I told a guy off for being disrespectful before a movie, and he didn't like that one bit. He'd beat the hell outta me, but then you came along and chased him off. How do you do that? You've always been too good at hiding what's on your mind."

He's not expecting a response, not really. It's just easier to be the one talking, because he's sure Bucky won't say much at all if he has a choice.

The soldier remembers nothing of Steve Rogers before the man became his mission. There's a feeling crawling under his skin that he's missing something, but that's all it is, like a hole in his mind where something should go.

He remembers nothing, so he says nothing and lets an uncomfortable silence stretch between them as he trudges away from the city, away from civilization and what's left of SHIELD and HYDRA. It's through the woods that he walks now, avoiding even remote roads as he trudges along. He takes in everything Rogers says, carefully cataloging it all, but he has little to add as he remembers nothing but what HYDRA has given him.

The safe house he knows here is long-forgotten and abandoned. It won't be well-stocked, but it also is unlikely to have any HYDRA agents sniffing around it when there are several better-stocked and more updated safe houses in the area. He's not sure why he remembers it, but he thinks it must have been used on a mission decades ago. It won't be a good permanent base, but they can rest there while he assesses the damage they've both sustained. Likely, few living HYDRA agents even remember it at all.

The silence lingers, and Steve wonders if he's made mistakes. He's fought aliens, has a coworker who is a literal god of thunder, whose brother had tried to rule the world only two years ago. He wants to believe so badly that this is Bucky, and not some sort of trick. That he hasn't said much at all is at least a point in favor him not trying to be deceitful. Not that Steve is sure he could tell.

Steve looks around carefully, memorizing the surroundings. He's not sure how much good it'll do him, because he's badly injured, and won't exactly be going anywhere anywhere fast. He doesn't know what else to say, trying to find something, anything that might jog his memories. He has to be in there somewhere.

"D'you remember our first apartment? It just had the one bedroom, and didn't exactly have space for a second bed in it. I wasn't having any of it, told you I'd be better off in my own space. You got pretty angry, said, 'Get your head outta your ass, Steven Rogers.'" He laughs tiredly, feeling exhausted. "I think that's the only time I've ever heard you use my full name."

"I don't remember it." His voice is cold, but it's not the angry, desperate voice from earlier. He remembers nothing of that apartment, if it existed at all. There's no contextual memories to determine if it could be true or not. Rogers believes it, though. That he's increasingly sure of.

The safehouse he's taking them to isn't very different, though. It's a one room cottage with no public roads in or out. Ideally, it should have some canned food and a cache of weapons, but even if it doesn't, he can improvise.

The way Rogers seems to know everything and he knows nothing makes him feel an uncomfortable twist in his chest, like he's the one who can't walk between them and Rogers is carrying him to an unknown location. He's not sure if it would put them on more even footing if he tries to lie about remembering things, but he gets the distinct impression that lying would make it harder to get answers, so instead he decides to simply not give more information than he has to.

"You didn't know I was with HYDRA." It's not a question, but he thinks it's clear that he wants Rogers to explain how he lost track of Bucky to that extent.

The response is like a dagger in his heart, and Steve can't stop himself from letting out a choked sob, trying and failing to regain control. He feels like he's the 90-pound asthmatic again, someone likely to die before he saw his thirtieth birthday the way his health failed with every winter. He feels like a failure, and it's not made any better by the next thing Bucky says.

"No," Steve says mournfully, hoping he isn't crying, but too out of it to be sure he isn't. "When you fell from the train, I thought you were dead. It would've killed anyone else, but HYDRA must have done something to you at Azzano. Buck, if I'd had any idea you were still alive..." He swallows. "...woulda staged a one-man rescue again. Half the reason I crashed the plane was because I thought you were dead."

There's no way he's not crying, fuck. If Bucky was acting like himself, the teasing would never stop. "When I saw you on the bridge, when I realized what they must have done to you..."

Seventy years of unending torture. He can't even begin to imagine what must have happened to Bucky to turn him into the person he is now.

If he wasn't already convinced that Rogers believed all of this, he would be now. The man is a mess and not just from his injuries. The Soldier fights the strange urge he feels to make it stop. He doesn't like seeing Rogers upset like this, but he can't for the life of him figure out why it would matter.

He's missing details that give some of the story context. Falling from a train, Azzano, Rogers crashing a plane. They're all clearly stories in their own right that he lacks any context for any one of them.

It's a calculated risk. If he admits how little he knows, Rogers can manipulate him more easily, but he doesn't think Rogers would do that on purpose. Either way, the Soldier will approach anything he says with skepticism. If he says nothing, he'll never get any answers.

"I don't remember what they did to me, either." Not much of it, anyway. He's got so much training, but he remembers learning almost none of it. This is the first time he can remember questioning that, but he realizes that that doesn't mean it's the first time he's questioned it and that frightens him.

He doesn't trust HYDRA anymore than he trusts the other agencies or the government now. He doesn't trust anyone, but Steve Rogers has his attention.

"I don't know what that means," Steve admits. He doesn't want to think about what it could possibly mean. "Once... once we get to the safe house, we can talk about it," he says carefully.

Bucky is probably in worse shape than him. Steve isn't a complete idiot, knows he needs to take this slowly, think carefully. Too much, and he'll end up just as bad as HYDRA, and that's not something he needs. "If you remember something," he says carefully, looking up at Bucky. "That doesn't mean you have to tell me, okay, Buck? It's your choice. I want it to be your choice."

He doesn't even know how to begin triggering memories-- good memories. Steve has too many nightmares as it is, enough he's certain he's not going to be resting easily anytime soon. It seems like a minefield, and not one he's intent of crossing anytime soon. "Okay? Is that okay?"

He's not sure what to say to any of that. He remembers nothing and he knows it's going to be disappointing to hear, but right now his focus is on getting them to safety so they can both recover. His own body is bruised and sore to a pretty extreme degree, but it's nothing he can't work through. He's fine until his muscles fail and he's not quite there yet.

"Okay." Though if he remembers something, he thinks he should share it. Maybe he can get some context that way.

The path he follows through the woods isn't a trail, but he manages to find his footing between trees and around the local shrubbery and after a while, they come up on the little one room cottage. The whole thing is dirty from disuse and there are signs of wear and tear, but it looks like the structure is still sound. Getting the door open with Steve in his arms is a challenge, but he manages it and he pushes the door open with his foot.

Inside, there's a dusty cot in the corner and a modest kitchenette. He lowers Rogers onto the cot and goes to the one door that leads into the bathroom to make sure there's nothing hiding in there, though the more logical part of his brain says that a raccoon is more likely than an assailant.

Steve lets Bucky lay him on the cot. It's dusty, and a part of him leftover from being small and sick wants to protest about the state of the bed, but he isn't sure Bucky will hear it right now. He does try to dust the bed off as best as he can even so, without making a lot of noise. He's still incredibly painful; the movement is stiff, and he can't help the pained noises coming from him, even as he tries to suppress them.

He stops eventually, looking up to watch Bucky enter the bathroom. It suddenly occurs to him that he's lost his shield, and he doesn't know where it could be. It's probably still at the bottom of the Potomac. They should both have weapons on them, even if it's highly unlikely someone would be waiting for them here.

Steve would say something, but... well. He's not stupid. He keeps quiet, incredibly tense, wanting to tell Bucky he needs to rest, too. He can do that once they're aware the place is safe.

Satisfied that the bathroom is clear, the Soldier comes back out and goes right for the floorboard that he knows is loose without looking at Steve. Kicking it up with his foot, it reveals a small but well-stocked arsenal of weapons. There are a few handguns, a precision rifle and knives along with ammo for everything. Methodically, he lifts it all out of the hole in the floor and piles it next to him neatly. No one will miss it and he aims to take it all when they go.

Finally, he replaces the board and frowns up at Steve. "You need sleep."

Food, too, he reminds himself. They both need to eat.

He loads one of the handguns with a fresh cartridge and tucks it into his pants before moving to the canned food to see what they have to pick from. Nutrition is important for healing, even with his metabolism and he's not sure how durable Rogers is, though his handlers had lead him to believe they were on a similar level in that regard.

As soon as it's obvious the bathroom is clear, Steve settles into the bed as much as he can. He probably won't sleep much at all, but at the very least he relaxes a little, breathing stuttered from the pain. "I know," he says quietly. He'd tell Bucky to rest too, but he knows there's no chance that's going to happen with Steve in such rough shape.

He's not sure how long it'll take for him to heal, because he hasn't had injuries this bad in a long time. But he relaxes as much as he can, watching Bucky. "I'll take second shift, so you can get some sleep too," Steve says carefully. "We're not going to doing much for either of us if we're both exhausted," he says carefully. "You find anything edible?"

Not that he's sure it's a good idea to waste all of the supplies they might be able to find, but he can't help it. Tony's the one who teases him for being selfless to a fault.

"It should all be fine." Past date, but sealed. No signs of dents in the cans he can see, but he'll check each one before he opens them. He's confident that most of them are perfectly safe to eat, though.

He takes a few cans of beans and eyes the hot plate. The taste doesn't matter to him, but his handlers have always liked things like this warm. He can heat them for Rogers.

When he eyes Rogers again, the extent of the man's injuries hits him and he thinks back to the medical supplies he'd spotted in the bathroom. He can't remember an injury he couldn't ignore, but he'd seen others take something for their pain.

"Do you need pills?"

Steve watches Bucky carefully. He'll have to insist that the man eats, because whatever HYDRA put him through means he's probably not putting his own well-being into consideration. They can work on it later, when Steve has a fuller grasp on what their situation is going to be.

"Yeah," he says at the question. "Pills would be good." They won't do anything, not with his metabolism, but if Bucky doesn't remember that, he doesn't need to know right now. If it'll help him settle even a little bit, it's worth it. Steve knows he can't lie to save his life, but he thinks he's injured enough it at least sounds a little more convincing then usual.

"Pretty sure you need some, too," he offers after a moment. Even if Steve is the one who's more injured of the two, he knows Bucky must be in a lot of pain he's not letting on about. They might heal fast, but it's still not instant.

"I don't." He's visibly banged up, even if he'd been carrying the other man, but it's all pain he can ignore. He's had worse.

He sets out opening several cans of beans and emptying them into a pan on the hot plate. Between the two of them, they'll probably eat a lot. Once he's sure they're warming, he goes back to the bathroom to find the pills.

When he comes back, it's with a bottle and a glass of water, which he holds out to Rogers. The man is going to need rest while the Soldier decides if he trusts him enough to keep a second watch. He does need sleep eventually, but he can stay up a lot longer if he has to. He's trained for it.

Steve doesn't argue, not right now. It can wait until he's able to push it a little more.

The smell of food cooking on the hot plate is a lot like heaven right now, and even with the situation looking as good as it's going to get, he's still tempted to fight through the pain and sit up again. Bucky would probably get annoyed with him, so he refrains. He takes the bottle, the water, and twists the bottle open, careful not to break the plastic in his hands. There's enough in there for both of them, and he carefully and deliberately plates a double dose in Bucky's hands before the man can walk off back to the kitchen.

"There," he says, quickly downing his own pills. He offers the rest of the water to Bucky, offering a gentle look. "At least one of us could walk away from there. I don't want to think about what would have happened to you otherwise. I couldn't forgive myself if SHIELD got their hands on you." Not when SHIELD had been the same exact thing as HYDRA all along.

The pills will do very little for him, but the look on Rogers' face does something to him. It makes him feel like he should take them anyway, so he pops them back and swallows them dry without argument. Something about this feels familiar, like he's taken care of Rogers before, but he can't remember ever taking care of anyone. This is the opposite of what he normally does.

He's not sure what they would have done, either, but he can't trust any of them. Not HYDRA or what's left of SHIELD or any government. This is a situation he has to navigate on his own.

"They won't." It's a promise of sorts and the feelings suddenly swelling in his chest are foreign and confusing, so he steps away to stir the food and break eye contact.

Steve offers an encouraging smile. Good, that's good. It's a sign of trust, or at the very least of wanting to reciprocate something, even if Bucky isn't entirely aware of what it means. He stays in the bed, watching as Bucky turns away. He doesn't believe they'll be found, not with SHIELD in disarray. They both slipped under the radar, and even if a part of him feels bad for leaving his friends in a lurch, and a new friend likely a little devastated, it's for the best.

"I believe you," Steve says, because he does.

He's silent for a while, before it becomes too uncomfortable for him. The Bucky he remembers would never have let silence linger for so long. "You know, I almost miss how we'd get creative, having to scrape money together for rations. It wasn't easy, but you used to make everything taste amazing anyway."

He doesn't remember anyone ever not believing him, but for some reason this seems significant. It's like a weight off his shoulders to feel that sense of faith and he's torn between knowing his own high competence and wondering what he's done to earn it in Rogers' eyes.

It's the next statement that really throws him, though. He keeps stirring the beans, but his face is almost pained, then guilty when he finally looks over again.

"I don't remember that." His brow furrows. It's time to take a leap of faith. He doesn't like it, but he trusts this man at least a little more than he can trust anyone else right now, maybe even his own mind. "I don't remember anything."

He looks away again to wipe out two old dishes and distribute the beans between them.

Bucky's guilty look does thing to him, he's not sure how to handle it. In the past, if anyone was giving a pained look the other was rushing to soothe, it was Bucky doing the smoothing things over. Usually by teasing Steve to lighten the mood. Steve doesn't think he could do anything like that if his life depended on it right now, but he can offer what he hopes is going to end up being a way to get Bucky to trust him.

Because whatever HYDRA did to him, there was never trust involved.

"That's okay, pal," he says easily. "We can work on that. One step at a time, right?"

His stomach chooses now to give a big rumble of approval at the smell of real food at last. It has been a while since he last ate.

The Soldier just looks back at Steve for a moment, unsure of what to make of him. There's so much he's unsure of here. How can Rogers care so much about him when he's just plainly told him he remembers nothing. He's not the man Rogers wants him to be, but he's not sure exactly who he is, either. He knows he's been with HYDRA a long time, but even that is fuzzy. He's sure he's been with them much longer than he can remember, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that before that he really was the person Rogers believes he is, but he can't be that person if he can't remember any of it.

He gathers his thoughts and brings both dishes, now complete with forks, to the cot. They both get placed on the floor so that he can lean over Rogers and slip his arm under his shoulders to help him sit up so he can eat. The touch isn't quite gentle, but he's not rough, either. He's already seen that Rogers can't sit up on his own and he doesn't want to do any more damage to him.

"The first step is getting you food and rest." There's no apparent humor on his face, but he gets the distinct impression that there should be, like he'd smile if he remembered how.