Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It has been one year since Steve was pulled out of the Potomac by Bucky. One year of learning everything he could, of gathering intel and scoping out bases and writing a list of names. A year of reading and rereading, and angrily shredding to pieces the files that are burned onto his eyelids — forcing himself to absorb what Hydra did to his Bucky.

his fault, all his fault.

It had been a year of him chasing a ghost. Chasing the man he loved — loves — and writing names in red. The rage he felt was a constant bubble under his skin. It’s been there all his life, now it’s growing something fierce. It’s hungry and waiting and making a home inside of his body.

Natasha helped him find out everything — every single thing they did to him and every single mission they sent him on and most importantly, every single person who knew about the Winter Soldier project.

This list was his resignation letter. This was what would end the world’s perfect image of him, of Captain America. This was his swan song, knew there’d be no coming back from this, knew he didn’t care. This was what would set him free, set them both free.

He’s followed his ghost, Sam in tow, through cities of burnt secret bases, of bodies with pristine holes placed between their eyes. He thinks it’s far too kind for them. But this is Bucky’s choice, Bucky’s war — so he shall soak it all up gleefully. All of the smell of gasoline and blood and revenge, it’s seeping into his skin, his bones, and he fucking loves it.

Sam is getting worried, he could tell. No one in the future — the present — knew him as this, this wretched thing. This being who would raise hell for the man he loved, for the people he loved, and wouldn’t care what was left in his wake. This hurricane wrapped up in a 90 pound asthmatic wrapped up in a government experiment. This world knew Captain America. They had this country’s bullshit watered down version of him being taught to them in history books and documentaries that got almost every single thing about him wrong. It’s fine, it was probably better that way. Let the kid’s think he was good, let them wear his colors and dream of being heroes. That’s important.

But he’s not him. He’s not Captain America. Especially not now. He is Steve Rogers. The man who has always, and will always, belong to James Barnes. He is fire and flying fists and picking fights to feel something. He’s always been out for blood, ever since he was small and struggling to breathe — he’d search for it everywhere. Fight the injustices, fight himself, fight the world — just because he wanted to, just to prove that he could.

He is Steve Rogers and he didn’t save James Barnes from falling off a train a lifetime ago and now he needs to rip the world apart again because it’s done Bucky harm. And it will rue the day it put its claws into the man he loves, so help him.

It’s been a year and there is a shadow following them to their safe house, so he tells Sam to go on ahead. And he knows that Sam doesn’t trust him right now, knows his worried glances backward are filled with things he doesn’t care to address right now, can’t.

Sam says, “Don’t be stupid, Rogers. I mean it,” and Steve knows he does. But he can’t help it. It’s funny, Bucky had given him the same warning before, decades ago. The thought makes him smile. Which probably makes him look more insane, if the grimace on Sam’s face is anything to go by.

He rolls his eyes. “You’re not back in 30, I’m comin’ after you, got it?”

Steve nods. “‘Course, Sam. Thanks.”

He is, is the thing. He’s so fucking grateful for Sam. He didn’t need to do this. Didn’t need to follow Steve around the world on a ghost hunt. But he did. He did and he did and he did. Again and again, he chose to help Steve. He’d be a fool to mess up that trust, this friendship they’ve built on heavy shoulders and memories of war.

He lingers for a few minutes, listening, waiting. He can feel the change in the air, knows that he’s not going crazy, knows he’s not alone. So he risks it.

“Please, Buck.”

He whispers, and let’s his desperation fill the air around them.

He’s in an alleyway in Romania and he is finally home.

“Steve.”

It feels like breathing, like coming up for air after almost drowning. It feels like a punch to the stomach. It feels like the world is trying to collapse beneath his feet. And yet. And yet.

It feels like life itself.

A hand reaches out towards his shoulder to stop him from turning around.

“Just…stay.”

He starts nodding before he even realizes it. He’d do anything Bucky asked of him. Would fall to the knees at his feet, would jump off the tallest tower. Would absolutely burn for him.

“Okay.”

He hears the sigh of relief from his heart behind him and wants to inject the sound into his veins. Wants to consume it. Doesn’t even care if Bucky can’t let him face him, just adores that he’s here.

The hand is still on his shoulder and he is desperate under its gentle weight. The hand that has both punched him in the face and caressed him softly. The hand that has held the gun that shot the bullet that pierced his stomach and the hand that has worked him open a lifetime ago, leaving him breathless — breathless just like now.

The hand is still there and it’s attached to Bucky, and Steve kind of wants to cry. He’s shaking all over. He feels like he’s going to collapse. The anger that has been clawing at his skin is retreating back into his very core, leaving the warmth of his love’s touch in its wake.

And, he’s crying. Well.

The hand squeezes his shoulder, the thumb attached to that wonderful hand rubs a small circle on his shoulder blade, and it feels like heaven.

Oh, his knees might actually give out.

He’s vibrating all over, desperate to make sure he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t want to scare his ghost away. The ghost that’s touching him. The ghost that’s breathing behind him. His ghost, his Bucky.

“Hi, sweetheart,” his Bucky says and he goes down.

Knees hitting the pavement, he sinks below the man who rules his heart. He’s crying and he thinks he might be laughing.

“Hi, darling,” Steve whispers back, has to. Has to say the sweet name he hasn’t said out loud since 1945. Has to let Bucky know that he’ll always be his, that they’ll always be each other’s.

His eyes are closed from the weight of it all, having fluttered shut at the impact. But he hears it. He hears the careful, delicate steps taken to walk towards the front of him. He doesn’t dare open his eyes. Doesn’t want to scare his love away.

“You can look,” Bucky whispers and the permission feels like a dream.

So, of course, he opens his eyes.

He’s on his knees before the only person who truly knows him. He’s on his knees before the only being he’s ever truly worshipped, above all else. He’s on his knees before the man he loves more than anything in all of this world.

He looks up.

The world breaks open, then. If he thought his voice was heaven, this — this is paradise. Gazing upon the man he’s loved for a century, upon the person whose very existence poses a threat to the universe for daring to harm it.

The breath he’s barely been holding is punched out of him and he knows he’s crying, he can’t care. Because he’s really here, Bucky’s here.

That hand reaches for him, cupping his cheek like it’s never taken a life, and Steve relishes in the fact that it has, and that he gets graced once more with its presence.

“You’re going to burn it all down, aren’t you?” Bucky asks him, knowing him better than anyone else.

“Yes,” he replies, simple and true.

Bucky smiles. It’s more like a grimace, it’s shaky and small, years of hiding it will do that — but Steve thinks it’s just as beautiful as it was the last time he saw it on a snowy mountainside.

“Do you want to do it alone?” He asks, because he knows him. Oh, he still knows him. Steve smiles viciously at the thought that Hydra could never burn him out of his love. Not really, not fully.

“Not this time. If you wanted to end it together,” Steve says back, meaning it.

He’s always shouldered this anger, letting it rule his every movement, taking on the world alone through rage and the desire to see it collapse under his fists. He’d let it out, whether in the streets of Brooklyn or on the battlefields of war, and Bucky would always be there to help piece his broken parts back together when that rage had faded again.

But this? This is Bucky’s war, more than it is his. He will kill every single person for daring to lay a harmful hand on the man above him. He will take that list that’s etched itself into his mind and cross it all off. For Bucky. Always for Bucky. But they took all of his choices away, and Steve would rather die than do that to him. So they will burn this world together or, if Bucky asked, they will leave it all behind.

That smile is back on his love’s face and he’s hit with the urge to draw for the first time in years. Wants to put his pencil to paper and draw that smile a thousand times, filling the world with it, desperate to show it off, screaming, “Look what you couldn’t take away from us, you fuckers.”

His love above him takes a deep breath and he wants to live in those lungs. He wants to consume the words that leave his favorite lips.

“I’ll join you.”

And that — oh, that is better than anything he’s ever heard. They will burn it to the ground and they will make a world anew with the ashes. They will carve their names into the wreckage, they will leave nothing and no one behind.

It’s only fair, you know. Equal treatment and all that. The Captain America way, really.

Steve smiles again, knows it probably looks all fucked up and wrong on his face. It’s all teeth and brimming urges to rip the throats out of anyone who stands in his way. But Bucky understands, he knows he does, because he smiles back.

“Let’s burn it all, sweetheart.”

Chapter Text

It all feels unreal, if he’s being honest. He’s a fugitive in the country that he was born in, the place that molded him and bent him to their will, and he’s walking besides the man he did it for. The man who he knows better than himself. The man who, he knows now after this year of finding out anything he could, is certainly most wanted all over the world. Not that he minds, would never mind. And he knows he’d stop anyone, no matter who they are or what position of power they held, before he let them dare to take Bucky away again.

Perhaps that’s not healthy. Perhaps the anger he feels, the thirst for blood he’s yet to quench, the painful possession of this man, isn’t healthy. But they don’t know him, this imagined jury, certainly not enough to pass their judgment upon his desires. They never saw him have to fight for everything he ever had. They never saw him when he was small and wild and desperate to prove himself. But this man besides him? The only person that matters in the whole world? He saw him. He always saw him. And he loved him anyways.

It’s dark and the sky is filled with stars and the moon is almost full, and Steve can’t look away from Bucky. He needs…Oh, he needs so much, too much. He has to…

“Buck, wait.”

He stops immediately, and he turns to look at Steve, and the words in his head melt away. How is he meant to destroy an evil organization when he can’t even think straight?

“Just. I just.”

He tries, but it’s all getting jumbled and he wants to pause time, and he wants to take Bucky and run, and he wants to cry again.

And yet, Bucky just smiles at him, and pulls him into the next alleyway.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he says. Comforting Steve like it’s 1934 and he has the flu. Like there are no lifetimes between them and no horrors filling in their broken spaces.

They’re facing each other in the dark streets of Bucharest and Steve just needs to touch him. He needs to know he’s not dreaming. Every single day of the last year he’s pictured standing in front of Bucky again — what it would be like, how it would feel. And here it is — and it feels otherworldly, like he’s floating above himself, watching all of his wildest fantasies come true. Because he’s here, Bucky’s here.

“You can,” Bucky says, reading his mind like he always used to. He takes a step closer towards Steve and he feels like he can’t breathe. “You can.”

The second act of glorious permission sends his mind into gear, and he reaches out to touch. His hands are shaking as they lightly grab hold of his arms, one flesh, one metal, and he’s crying again. He’s real, oh he’s real. He runs his hands upwards, giddy with it now, until he’s cupping Bucky’s face softly, because he truly is the most precious thing in the world.

“You’re here,” he breathes out, smile wide and face tear stained, and he couldn’t give less of shit about anything other than the man beneath his fingertips right now.

“I’m here,” he says, and then reaches out to mirror Steve’s motions, hands gently cradling his face. “You’re here.”

They stay like that for a moment, neither of them daring to break the ethereal spell placed over them. They’re just smiling and touching and taking it all in. It’s real, they’re real. Bucky remembers him and called him sweetheart and touched him gently. What a wondrous thing.

Unfortunately, Steve just remembered Sam’s warning, and he breathes out, regretting breaking the spell already.

“Sam. The guy with the wings. He’s here. And he’s definitely gonna come looking for me if I don’t get back soon. I’ve been, well, I’ve been a little on edge lately. He’ll probably think I’m on a murderous rampage if I don’t get back in the next 5 minutes,” Steve says, rambling like he’s 16 and realizing he’s in love with his best friend again.

Bucky smiles, perhaps thinking the same thing as him. Perhaps he looks at Steve and sees someone 8 inches shorter and blushing mad when he fumbles over his words. Perhaps he doesn’t remember much about that at all. Steve used to think that would break his heart, but now? Touching him like this? He knows they’ll know each other even without the memories or details, their souls will always remember.

“I’d say he knows you well, that Sam. Not quite yet though, soon,” Bucky says with a smirk. and god, he’s here. He’s right here, and he’s beautiful and brilliant and talking about murder, and Steve feels like he’s dreaming.

“Definitely soon. Are you…do you have a place to stay or are you coming with me? I’ll leave with you right now. I’ll just tell him I’m going. If you wanted to go somewhere,” Steve rambles again. He’d go anywhere with Bucky if only he’d ask, he wishes he’d ask. Run away together like fantasy book children starting an adventure, but instead they’re two broken, ancient beings ready to fight another war. And it’s enough, oh it’s enough.

Bucky smiles at him again, it’s all wonky and fond. It’s a marvel. “I’ve been…It’s been a lot. Becoming a person again. And it’s still…it’s a lot of work. But no part of my scrambled brain is going to let me be apart from you again now that I’ve touched you.”

And oh, there it comes again, the delightful waterworks. He’s spilling out over his edges, everything he’s been bottling up for years, overflowing at the sight of this man before him, greedily taking in every beautiful word he says.

“Then stay. Because I think I’ll die if I have to watch you walk away again,” he says before his mouth can catch up with his brain. That was probably too much. He’s just so fucking terrified. Bucky was a ghost and yet he’s solid under his fingers, but how easily can a ghost disappear? How quickly can it fade away?

Bucky’s thumb rubs under Steve’s eye, and it flutters shut on instinct. Goosebumps are covering his arms and he’s never felt so fragile. Not even when the wind and rain and cold tried to kill him every year. Not even on the frontlines or standing in front of his city being destroyed by aliens. This, right here, is turning him to glass.

“I wouldn’t let you die. You must know that,” Bucky says, like it’s as casual as saying hello. “I’d kill whoever dared to try, Steve, even me.”

And that, well, he has to laugh. And laugh. Oh god, he missed him. “I wouldn’t let you. Never you, Buck. It’d be a dream to die by your hands.”

He really didn’t mean to say that, but it’s true, isn’t it? He went onto that helicarrier and faced the man he loves more than breathing and happily would’ve died under his knife, by his gun, from his hands. Happily, thankfully.

He just shakes his head, smiling. Somehow, Steve thinks they’re both the same kind of monster now. “I won’t leave. You’re stuck with me now.”

He says it casually, like he’s making a joke, like he’s back in their little Brooklyn Heights apartment trying to make Steve laugh on cold winter days. But Steve can hear the uncertainty tucked underneath it.

“Good,” he says with a smile, making the slow movements of Bucky’s thumbs falter for a moment. He needs him to know how much he wants this, needs this. “Never stuck, Buck. You know that. No matter what’s happened. I’ve been following you around like we were kids again, and I’ll continue to until the world burns around us.”

Bucky looks at him, almost shy, almost scared. “You know everything then, yes?”

He knows what he’s asking and he wishes he could burn every piece of information and description of torture from his brain, but he can’t. “Yes.”

“And still,” Bucky starts, apprehensive.

“And still. Always.”

He gets it, the reason for the hidden terror in Bucky’s eyes. But he doesn’t care, never has. He’s read every single file. He knows every single life that Bucky has taken, every single name, and it should terrify him, but it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t. He’d happily hold Bucky’s hands if they were still covered in blood. They’ll take the red sewn throughout their lives and paint it over all of the people who dared to separate them, who forced those beautiful hands to do the things they did.

Bucky nods, and Steve thinks that’s enough. He’ll have a lifetime to press his lips to those palms, to feel the metal against his tongue and the heat of the fingertips he knows better than his own. He’ll have a lifetime to prove to Bucky that their darkness matches each other’s, that there are countless people responsible for those deaths and how none of them are him. He’ll do whatever it takes.

Steve breathes, and he looks up to the sky. He stares at the moon and the stars that surround her, and thanks them for bearing witness to this. He hopes they’ll never forget the moment that Steve Rogers and James Barnes held each other in the dark again after far too much time.

Somehow, and Steve is truly amazed by this, it goes far better than he expected with Sam. He honestly thinks that Sam is relieved — like he’d rather be in the same room as the most infamous assassin in the world than let Steve suffer any longer. It’s actually very sweet.

Steve is endlessly grateful for him.

Bucky doesn’t say much, seems to have used up most of his words for the day, but that’s okay. He looks tired, so tired, yet Steve thinks he’s never looked more beautiful.

“So what’s the plan now, huh? Back to New York? Go on a world tour? Sightsee? Go fight some aliens?” Sam says, laughing like he’s not uncomfortable, and making any tension in the room bleed right out.

Bucky looks to Steve, one eyebrow raised. And that’s like a gut punch, bringing him back to dance halls in the 30s, Bucky swinging around a girl who was fawning over him, while he never even once looked at her the moment he spotted Steve off to the side — eyes glued, eyebrows raised, teasing. Oh, it’s too much.

He smiles, smirking and trying not to blush, because really, plotting the murder of 200 or so evil nazi fuckers is probably not the best time to be thinking about the love of your life and his ability to make you melt with a single expression.

Sam just looks at him, unimpressed and exasperated already.

“I’m tearing — we’re tearing it all down, Sam. You know that. I’m ending it. Every single name on that list. I have to,” Steve says, breathy and desperate. Hoping he gets it, hoping Bucky does.

He looks at Bucky and Bucky looks at him, nodding slightly. The relief is everything. He nods back, forever thankful for their ability to understand each other still with no words, despite it all.

“I know, Steve. I’m right there with you,” Sam says, sure as anything and standing tall. Oh, he admires him tremendously.

“This won’t be good guy stuff, Sam. You might not like what you see, might not like what you see of me,” Steve replied, standing just as tall. He already knows that the revenge he wants, the bloodshed he’s craving, the destruction he will wrought, will not be the work of a good guy. It will not be kind or merciful. It will not be justice served by Captain America, but instead by Steve Rogers, a man scorned and angry and devoted.

For he is dark and twisted now. He’ll burn his lover’s torturers and all of their benefactors to the ground, send them to the hell they forced upon the only true light in this world.

He wants to end them all.

Sam just scoffs at him. “I’m already on the run from our government for helping your crazy ass anyways. I can handle killing some nazi scum, Rogers, don’t you worry.”

Steve nods, because damn, what else is he meant to do. He turns to Bucky, silently asking. He’ll walk away from Sam right now if Bucky wants him to.

“Up to you, Steve. I plan to make this quick and dirty,” Bucky says, voice flat and strong.

Sam looks at him. “Like you’ve been doing. Nice work, by the way.”

Bucky nods, shrugs all casual. “It needed to be done.”

Steve looks to him then. Of course it needed to be done, but he has a feeling there’s a reason more than revenge that Bucky has been destroying Hydra. There’s a fierceness there, the same intensity he saw during the war, this clear vision of determination. It makes Steve feel warm all over, feel far too many things he can’t wait to address.

“If you wanna join, Sam, the more the merrier. Just know you might not like me after it’s done,” Steve says, more like warns really. He needs Sam to know.

There’s a difference between Sam and Natasha — his friends of now. Natasha has seen darkness, more than most. She has brought it and has been witness to it, has caused it and become victim to it. Sam has seen the darkness of war, but there’s something more clear cut about it, despite it all being fucked up in reality. They still fought the wars of leaders who lead their people to slaughter, but none of them are Hydra, or by extension, the Red Room.

And Steve — Steve has plans to match that darkness head on. He wants to become the monster that’s been growing since he was a kid being told his life was worthless. And he plans to do it blissfully, soaking it all up. Reveling in the spilt blood and screams.

“I like you plenty, Steve, and I’ve known your plan from the beginning,” Sam says, nods, putting an end to the discussion. “Now, do we call Natasha and make this a party? Because I have a feeling she has plenty of things she’d like to take out on some nazi’s faces.”

That makes him laugh. Oh my god. God fucking bless Sam Wilson. Steve’s bent over, hands on his knees, absolutely breathless. Because here he is — it’s the future, and he’s standing in a house in the middle of Romania, with someone he’d now call his best friend, and the man he’s been in love with since he was a teenager. What a sight to see.

“The Widow, right?” Bucky says, that picture worthy smile on his face, looking down at the mess that is Steve Rogers. He looks at him like they’re still kids in Brooklyn, like they’re still 18 and learning how to get off quick and quiet in Steve’s bedroom, like they’re two people far too young to be on a battlefield. He looks at him like he always has — full of so much love that Steve is full of it, never wants to be anything less than full. He’s ached for that look since the moment he woke up from ice and realized he didn’t die in 1945. He can’t help but shake his head because Bucky is here and he still looks at him like he’s in love and they’re together.

He remembers then, far too in his own head for someone meant to be focused and mission ready, that Bucky asked a question. “Yeah, that’s her. You fought her on the bridge with me, but according to the files..”

He cuts himself off, but Bucky just smiles at him. “I know. It’s okay. I kind of remember her, remember all the girls. Back in the 90s, right?”

Steve nods, wind knocked out of him. He never expected to find Bucky and have him remember anything, let alone this. He’s heartbroken yet so selfishly thankful, so hopeful.

“She’s awesome, man,” Sam says, pulling Steve from his spiraling thoughts per usual.

He smiles at him. “You’re still not her type pal, I’m sorry.”

Sam just laughs, all bright and bold. “Yeah, yeah. I know. She’s still awesome.”

“You got me there,” Steve responds, because of course. Sam’s correct. Nat is unmatched. She’s absolutely incredible. And if Bucky doesn’t mind, and if she wanted to fight alongside them, then they’d be lucky to have her. He doesn’t have to worry about her seeing a monster when she looks at him afterwards, because she already knows it — sees it in him just as she sees it in herself.

“She’ll want to come. I think the Red Room is still operational,” Bucky says, and that — that takes the oxygen out of the room.

Both Steve and Sam’s head swing towards Bucky, staring wide eyed. “Really?”

He nods, apprehensive, seeking out Steve’s eyes like it brings him comfort. It makes Steve’s heart melt, he feels it weaving itself back together at the beauty of it all. “Yes. I trained more girls just a few years ago. They’re definitely still operational in Russia.”

Well, fuck.

“Okay, so we end them both.”

And that’s that.

It happens fast after that. Sam goes to bed, claiming he’ll need his beauty sleep for the upcoming chaos they’ll be unleashing on the world. He doesn’t leave without sending a pointed look towards Steve, making it known that he wants him to be smart, to be safe, to not trust so easy. And Steve gets it, he really does, but Sam will never know Bucky the way he does, and that’s okay. He accepts the apprehension for what it is — care, and nods back to his friend. And then they’re alone and Steve’s ready to make a phone call.

He looks towards Bucky, his shining light, and still can’t believe he’s real. He needs to reach out and touch again, needs to be certain. And Bucky can read him like an open book apparently, and steps towards him, hand reaching out, fingers wrapping around Steve’s wrist. His eyes close and he breathes — in, out, in out. All of his senses tuned in to the very spot where their skin meets. He’s drunk on it.

“I need it too, don’t worry. Telling what’s real and what’s not…it’s hard for me. So it’s okay,” Bucky says and breaks him open, carving him out and finding the center of him. He knows him, oh, he’s always known him. And he needs it just the same.

“Tell me what you need, let me give it to you. Let me give anything to you, darling,” Steve says, eyes holding Bucky’s soft gaze. “Anything.”

Bucky smiles, thumb pressing into Steve’s pulse point like he’s making sure he’s really there under his fingertips. “Just you, sweetheart.”

Steve risks it, has to. He can barely hold himself up anymore from the weight of it all, he just wants to collapse into the man before him. He leans in slowly, giving Bucky the time to pull away, and when he doesn’t, he presses his forehead to Bucky’s.

They’re standing in the middle of the living room in an old safe house of Natasha’s in the capitol of a country Steve’s never been to until today, and he’s home. They breathe each other in like they’re all they need to survive, eyes closed and air warm between them.

They stay like that for minutes, hours, lifetimes, before Bucky is whispering. “Call her. Let’s end this, Steve. Do what we both need to do to feel better, and then leave it all behind.”

His breath hitches. Bucky just gets it. He knows what he needs to hear, knows exactly what his heart desires, understands every wishful thought of his. He smiles, wide and bright and sunny, absolutely amazed with the man before him.

“How are you real?” He whispers before he can stop himself.

Bucky just shakes his head, pressing his temple harder into Steve’s. “I’ve been wondering the same about you, sweetheart, since the dawn of time.”

Steve feels it all click in place, and he knows this is the beginning of the end of this part of their story. He knows that they’ll close this chapter, knows they’ll burn every single page that came before it, and create their story anew.

So he pulls his phone out, head still pressed to Bucky’s, and calls the only other person besides the two people in this house that he cares about.

“Rogers,” she says, the teasing in her voice reminding him of all the good he’s found in the future.

“I found him.”

She pauses, humming. “And everything’s okay?”

He smiles, can’t help it. “Of course. Everything’s perfect, Tash. But that’s not the reason I called.”

“Something more exciting than that?” She asks, and he can hear her curiosity despite her poker face.

“Yes. I have information. This line is fully secure, right?”

Bucky smiles, almost fond, and he can hear Natasha’s eye roll all the way from here. “Yes, old man.”

He laughs, and Bucky shakes his head with a smile, and he kind of wants to cry again, because everything just feels so light and lovely. “The Red Room is still active.”

The line goes quiet. He knows she’s still there. He barely knows what this will mean to her, won’t find out for awhile that she has a sister, won’t find out everything she endured at their hands until they’re burning it to the ground, but it’s all there — heavy within the sound of silence.

“Russia?” She asks, voice desperately trying not to shake.

Steve looks into Bucky’s eyes, nodding.

“Да. Я был там несколько лет назад,” Bucky speaks in perfect Russian, sending a shiver down Steve’s spine, and he knows his cheeks must be fucking glowing.

Okay, so, that’s a thing.

‘Later,’ he thinks to himself, smirking.

“Привет, Саша,” she says, and Steve can hear the smile in her voice. He knows that she knew Bucky when she was little, knows that the girls apparently looked up to him, gravitated towards him. She always said that she could feel the kindness behind the mask he was forced to wear.

Bucky’s breath hitches, and he freezes for a moment. Steve has yet to see it, has yet to learn what it means when Bucky’s eyes gloss over the way they are now, but he can imagine that there are memories of decades past flashing behind his eyes. He wants to protect him from them all, he wants to crack him open and watch them besides him, hold him through it. He wants so much.

“You’re okay,” Steve whispers. “You’re here.”

He hopes it’s enough, knows what it’s like to feel out of place and time. He watches rapt as Bucky comes back to the present, feels the tight grip on his wrist loosen and relax.

“Hello, Natashenka,” Bucky whispers back, small smile on his face, probably thinking of the kids who brought unknown joy and light to the darkness of his past.

Steve smiles at Natasha’s breath hitching just the same. “Want to join us?” He asks, offering and almost hoping. He’s ready, he’s so fucking ready. He wants to destroy any remnants of the names on the list in his head, he wants to end every single person who had a hand in hurting the people he loves.

“Yes. Let’s do this.”

And so they do.

Chapter Text

BREAKING NEWS: MORE BODIES FOUND, CONNECTIONS TO HYDRA ORGANIZATION ASSUMED.

BREAKING NEWS: CAPTAIN AMERICA SPOTTED IN MOSCOW.

BREAKING NEWS: FIVE ALARM FIRE IN DOWNTOWN LA, 15 PRESUMED DEAD.

BREAKING NEWS: MASSIVE HELICARRIER CRASH, UNDERGROUND TRAFFICKING RING DETAILS LEAKED. CLICK FOR MORE!

BREAKING NEWS: MYSTERY AVENGERS PLANE SPOTTED IN SIBERIA. ARE OUR LOST HEROES THE CULPRITS OF THE LATEST STRING OF MURDERS?

BREAKING NEWS: MORE MURDERS IN CONNECTION TO HYDRA, ASSUMED TO BE THE WORK OF ROGUE AVENGERS.

“Where to next, Cap?” Sam asks him, his head haloed by the shadow of flames.

Steve pauses, rolling his head around his shoulders, then looking down to his hands. He smiles at the blood beneath his fingernails. It’s all vile and grotesque, and yet the grin on his face is wild and blissfully macabre.

More names have been crossed off. It’s the only thing besides Bucky next to him that keeps him moving forward.

They’ve been running around the world for months now, on this revenge mission, and it has been everything Steve imagined it would be. They started off exactly where he wanted — going for any of Bucky’s old handlers that were still alive.

He didn’t let Sam come in for that first one, knew it would show the very worst of himself. Knew it wouldn’t be quick and easy, because that sorry excuse for a man did not deserve it. Nat and Sam kept watch while Bucky and him broke into Karpov’s house. Just the sight of his old asset made the man quiver with fear — an ex military general stumbling over his words and bumping into furniture to look for a weapon. It was funny, really.

Before the man could spew off any code words that he knew about, Steve walked right up to him, grabbed him by the throat, and threw him through the glass coffee table in front of them. After that, it was a deliciously bloody mess.

It lasted probably longer than he should’ve let it, granted them being on the run from, well, everyone. And that would only get worse once the bodies started to pile up. But he didn’t care, couldn’t. He carved and carved into the man before him, it was absolutely desperate, all for the man besides him. Bucky stood watch, already having told Steve that he just wanted to deliver the final blow, but that Steve could have all the fun he needed to.

That was a beautiful gift, truly.

That’s been something Steve knew deep in his heart would happen, but still, it’s been taking his breath away ever since. Bucky just understood. He didn’t quiver in fear, he didn’t look at him with any less love than he did at 17 or at 100. He still smiled at him all wonky and gorgeous, and handed knives to Steve from all of his hiding places.

They were a vicious match made in forced Hell, and it was heaven.

They had just finished with a Hydra safe house in California that was newer, so Bucky hadn’t known about it during his revenge tour of sorts, but Steve had the list. He had all the intel that was at the hands of Natasha — so, well, he had everything.

It’s crazy to think how many people he’s killed in the last few months. Some days he thinks it feels like the war — like he’s back in 40s Europe, and he’s dirty and wondering why he’s not freezing. But most days? Most days he thinks he’s in some fucked up fantasy. He wouldn’t say that out loud to anyone but Bucky, which of course he’s whispered to him throughout their quiet moments, but it’s true nonetheless. He knows he has this warped tunnel vision, needs to cross every single name off this list, until he can breathe right again. Bucky is thankful, funny enough.

He understood Steve’s motive, of course he did, because Bucky’s were the same, in a way. They would always, always, do the worst things for each other. It’ll always be for each other. And Bucky is thankful that Steve wanted to do this, because he too can’t breathe until it’s all done. Until the threat of code words and cold tables and frozen chambers and the machine that takes is gone from this world. Until no single member of Hydra exists to pose a threat to himself or to Steve. It’s all they both want, it’s all they both need.

It helps that it’s not just their mission, makes Steve feel far less worse about involving other people. Sam joined on his own, said he wouldn’t leave Steve alone, told him he joined him on this mission from the start and that was that. But Natasha? She has her own mission that they finally were able to complete. They got to watch the modern version of the wicked home she was created in fall from the sky, the man who created her, falling with it. They got to watch as it burned up in front of them, as Natasha wiped the blood from her face with a gorgeously vicious grin. It was over.

They found her sister, and dozens of other girls. They saved them. She killed the man who ran it all and set her sister free, set herself free. And now her sister, Yelena, who was a fucking trip, by the way, was on a mission of her own to continue the work they started there that day. And just like that, Natasha could breathe again.

It’s helped him realize this fucked up fantasy, this bloody breath of fresh air, has been more than worth it, and was never just his. It’s been everything for so many people.

“Just three more places. They’re big ones. Government,” Steve replies as they walk away from their latest crime scene.

Natasha smiles all sharp teeth and just as wild. “Oooh. Which ones? Been too long since I’ve gone after government officials.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “It’s definitely barely been 2 years.”

And Natasha, breaking every stigma the world may have of her, pouts. Fucking pouts. What a menace. “Exactly. Far too long, Samuel.”

And Sam just laughs, and Bucky is smiling, and that’s all Steve can ask the universe for anyways.

“Russian or American, sweetheart?” Bucky asks quietly, walking alongside him like he has since the dawn of time. Hell or high water, they will always choose to walk alongside one another.

“Both.”

Because that’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? The two supposedly opposing governments, using the same human-made-weapon to do their dirty work for decades. Back and forth, during the war where they were fighting against each other, and outside of it — fighting against anyone they deemed a threat. Steve thinks it’s hilarious, how he was ever put in a place to represent the country that he now only feels contempt for. Because yeah, sure, he started out as a young kid with a dead dad and the burning desire to prove himself, but he got to peak behind the curtain that many people would pay for the opportunity to do so. And what he saw was awful.

He was made into a puppet for them, and his lover was turned into a weapon for them, and so they will storm the world screaming, “No more.”

“Makes sense. Money?”

He nods, and Bucky just knows. He’s read over the list that Steve wrote out for him, giving any details he could remember about any of the names written in red that he may have come across. Steve’s jaw hurt that day from how hard he was biting down, only gaining reprieve from Bucky noticing and massaging it away.

So yeah, he knows. The last people are the benefactors. They’re the ones who may not have been involved physically, but they made it all happen. The people within the ruling governments of the world who put money into the pockets of Nazis, who moved Bucky around like a chess piece. They were going to be the hardest, and they would be the end.

He’s quite excited actually.

“Easy. Sasha and I could do this in our sleep, couldn’t we, Barnes?” Natasha says, joking and brightening the mood per usual.

Bucky just looks at her, half fond, half exasperated. “Yes.”

He’s still not much of a talker, still in his head a lot, but Steve doesn’t mind. He loves him now, just as he did then. They’ve both become something foreign, something molded by the hands of time and evil men. He loves Bucky in the moments when he’s rolling his eyes at something Sam says, in the moments that he looks at Natasha and sees an 8 year old girl he was forced to turn into a murderer, in the moments when he wakes up shaking from a nightmare about horrors Steve has only read about. He loves him with every single breath, with every single beat of his heart.

He knows, unequivocally, that he will love this man through death itself, already has. He will love him until the sun scorches the earth, until they both eventually grow old many lifetimes from now. Until their home is in the dirt, he will love him. And somehow, by some beautiful miracle, by the grace of Gods or devils, or the universe herself he thinks, Bucky loves him back.

“That’s the spirit,” Steve jokes and the four of them laugh, and off they go.

It’s funny, in the end, how easy missions can be when you’re with people who have been trained to be perfect. They start in America, in New York specifically, and then DC. These people already knew they were coming, knew what the list of the dead all had in common, knew they wouldn’t be spared. But that didn’t help them against the ease of the Black Widow, against the strength of a soldier who fights for friends, against the most infamous assassin in the world, and against Steve Rogers — man scorned and burned, and doing it all for love.

It was never not going to be easy for them. They were always going to succeed. Because sometimes, when the right events fall into place, when the right people are hurt in all the wrong ways, the universe decides to be kind and give them the gift of torturous revenge. Quite generous, isn’t it?

They’re in a fancy loft in the country’s capitol, and there’s a man on the floor with a bullet hole between his eyes, and his blood is covering Steve’s hands, and really, he thinks it’s only fair.

“Let’s burn it,” he says, absolutely wild, and sometimes he realizes how fucked up he is. But then Bucky will look at him with the same fire in his eyes that Steve chooses to set alight to the men who paid for his suffering, and oh, it is worth it.

Bucky just hums, looking at him with that one fucking eyebrow raised. He knows his thought process, why he burns some of the places, and leaves the others. But that’s certainly not where his mind is now. Steve thinks Bucky likes seeing him covered in the blood of people who hurt him just as much as Steve likes being covered in it.

Steve thinks, no, Steve knows, that they are going to fuck like desperate men the moment this is all over.

They haven’t so much as kissed yet. Steve would never again if Bucky didn’t want to. Steve would chop his hands off sooner than he would touch Bucky if he didn’t want to be touched. But that’s not the case. Bucky told him as much. Whispered to him in the back of the Stark-borrowed quinjet they’ve been using to fly invisibly over the skies of the world. He promised him that he remembers, that he knows what they were, what they are, to each other. He whispered to him that he needed this to end first, needed to live in a world without that threat, before he can let himself collapse into the arms of the man he calls “sweetheart” every single day.

Steve would still wait a lifetime if needed, if wanted. But, judging by the look on Bucky’s face, he doesn’t think he’ll have to. He knows why too, can read Bucky like an open book. It’s not just what he’s doing, he knows it’s how he’s doing it. Knows Bucky smirks at him from behind their victims when he puts on that mock Captain tone, when he circles their enemies like a shark hungry for blood, when he puts a boot to the chests of men who dared to touch his lover when he could not. When he says just as much to them — looking them in the eye and staking his claim on the man they thought they owned, harshly spitting how he had him first.

Sue him for playing it up when he gets to witness a reaction like that. He never said he was a good man.

Sam throws his hands up. “Another fire, Steve? Really? I’ll never get this smell out of my hair.”

Natasha is cleaning blood from under her nails with a dagger, completely unbothered, and he truly just adores her; knows that she’ll have brought kerosene because she understands.

Because this man owned all of these possessions, paid for with the blood money made by the government that kills and tortures and starts wars and hurt the man he loves. So, yes, it’s burning. Of course it’s burning.

And so it does.

They leave another building in ashes in their wake, and wipe their hands clean of every name crossed off the list from the Western Hemisphere, and make their way to Russia.

The country where Bucky was made anew, where Natasha was created. The country where Bucky spent most of his life kept in locked rooms and cryo chambers. The country where they made little girls kill each other. The country where this will all end. Almost 200 names, almost 200 lives, all come down to this. A secret government building where the richest of the rich meet and keep their files about the things they’ve done. The hardest place to find, but not for Natasha, not for the man who has stepped foot in here before, being shown off like a prized possession.

This is where it all ends. This was always where it was going to end. With Bucky walking into this building, pushing open doors like he owned the place, with Steve right next to him, and Nat and Sam behind them. The four of them, a team, led by the man that this all was started for.

The guards were taken down jokingly easy. It was quick and impersonal — guns in each of their hands, making headshots like the professionals they were.

It was a scurry after that. The men were terrified. Spewing off curses and frantic calls for help in Russian, stumbling all over themselves, while Bucky and Nat just spoke calmly and downright scarily right back at them. Sam and Steve gathered the men into one room, searching the place to make sure no stragglers were lost, thanking Natasha that she knew when they were all meeting to discuss what was happening.

Once the men were forced to their knees before Bucky, with Steve, Nat, and Sam all keeping them there with guns pressing against their temples, this is where the final blow would happen.

“Где файлы?” Bucky says stoically, scarily calm with eyes darkened, looking over the faces of every single person before him.

They sputter over their words, clearly terrified if they give up the files, but even more terrified of the guns aimed on them.

“I’ll ask again. Где файлы?” Bucky says again, this time with his favorite knife in hand, flipping it between his fingers. That seems to do the trick. Because if there’s one thing that every person on this list has had in common — they are terrified of the Winter Soldier.

Three of the men just point to a room behind them, locked with scanners and a thumbprint activation.

Bucky looks to Steve and nods, so Steve listens, of course he does. He presses his gun harder into the man’s head and tells him to get up. He forces him to unlock the door, and they go inside to make sure they’re not lying. Inside are computers and file cabinets and hard drives, and at the back, there’s a huge vault.

“Открой это,” Steve says in shaky Russian, thankful for the serum for giving him the ability to learn languages quickly, and thankful for the two Russian spies he has by his side nonstop.

So the man opens it, because Steve can be terrifying when he wants to be, and inside is so much cash that Steve’s Great Depression heart almost gives out, but he doesn’t show it. He just smiles and leads the man back out, nodding to Bucky.

Oh, he knows the perfect poetic justice for this.

After that, Bucky doesn’t feel the need to drag it out. They’re so close to the end that Steve can taste it. So he absolutely relishes in the 6 gun shots, each one fired from Bucky’s gun. One by one, they paint the people standing behind them, and it feels like breathing. One by one, they fall to the ground, perfect holes between their eyes, all put there by the man whose life they toyed with.

There’s a beat of silence after the last one falls, after the sounds of the gunshot fade from their eardrums, and then Steve is laughing. Oh, he is laughing and laughing and can’t seem to stop. Sam joins him, of course he does. And Natasha is smiling and making her way over to the previously locked room, hard drive in hand, where the final step of their mission will take place. And Bucky is just staring down at the blood on the floor.

And that, well, that makes Steve stop laughing.

“You okay, darling? It’s over,” Steve whispers when he’s in front of Bucky, blocking his view of the bodies below him.

Bucky nods, almost frantic, and then just collapses into Steve. His arms shoot out to catch the man he loves, and grabs hold of his waist, and holds him up. He helps Bucky let it all go, whispering love and kindness into his ears, telling him he’s got him. He holds him all the way until Natasha comes back out and says she’s done it.

Bucky squeezes Steve tight, all the tension in his body disappearing at once.

“It’s done, sweetheart. It’s over,” he whispers, and looks up at Steve, whose breath gets taken away.

Before him, the man he loves is in his arms and is looking into his eyes, and all he sees is brightness. He never wants to look away, but decides that it’s worth it when Bucky half jumps forward all forcefully, squeezing the arms around his neck tightly, and kisses Steve like it’s the only thing he needs.

Yeah, that’s definitely worth closing his eyes for.

What a fucking dream it is. This kiss was a lifetime in the making. The last one being the night before that final mission on a mountainside, and this one being on their final mission together in the future. This is it. They’re done. Nothing else matters now. The list is crossed off — every single name covered in red, and Natasha just dumped every single file they’ve collected over the last year and 8 months onto the internet, and they are free. Everyone will know what Hydra did — what the governments of the world have done, and why they did all of the horrible things that they’ve done.

And after this moment, (because you’ll have to kill him before getting him to move away from the lips he’s been dreaming about everyday since 1945) they’ll go into that vault and steal all of this money and use it for good. Use it to donate anonymously to places that Nazis would absolutely fucking hate their money going towards. Use it to make sure Sam and his family are safe. Use it for Yelena and Natasha to continue helping the rest of the Widows around the world. Use it for him and Bucky to start a life of peace, as far away from the life Hydra wanted for Bucky as possible.

But now? Right now he gets to enjoy this.

Because Steve Rogers and James Barnes are kissing in a secret house in Russia, with the bodies of their final victims at their feet, and all is right with the world.

And now it’s time for them to be free at last.

And so they are.

Chapter Text

Two years later

“Stevie, sweetheart, you’re going to give me a fucking heart attack every time you do that. You need to stop.”

Steve just rolls his eyes, all fond. “You’d think after everything we’ve done and witnessed together that you’d realize I won’t die if I fall off a ladder, Buck.”

“That doesn’t mean you should hang off it like a fucking kid at a playground, Rogers,” Bucky says, then mumbles under his breath about Steve’s death wish. Which causes Steve to laugh. Because, well, he’s probably not wrong.

But he’s better now, so much better.

It’s been two years since they finished the last mission they ever worked on. Two years since Steve was no longer called Captain America, never could be again. Two years since they spilled decades worth of secrets, once again, onto the internet for all the world to see. Two years since they left the world covered in blood and ashes, and never looked back.

It hadn’t be easy, not even a little. Apart from the fact that they were originally wanted in the United States for everything that happened with SHIELD, now that they went on a murderous rampage, it wasn’t exactly easy. But being who they were, they were lucky. They had friends in high places, the highest really, in the form of the leader of Wakanda, in the richest man in the world, and in several government officials who were fucking terrified at what was leaked for everyone to see.

So, well, they got off easy. Certainly too easy for everything they did, but who are they to question it? After running around, after finding refuge in Wakanda for awhile and recovering — there was an off the books discussion with them and their allies, and the people looking to put them behind bars or worse. They would never let that happen. And well, as the world knows by now, Steve Rogers gets what he wants when it comes to the people he loves.

He stepped down from mantle of Captain America. He was always going to, knew that list was his resignation letter, knew he never wanted to be what they made him to begin with. So he gladly gave it up. And Sam? Well Sam was always the best of them. And his identity was practically a secret to the world, so Steve gladly handed the shield over to him. There was no one better for the job, and Sam still wanted to do good. And so he was. An official avenger, working alongside all of the people Steve can call friends in his life, saving the world.

Meanwhile, Natasha has been all over the place. She gave up a lot when she released those initial SHIELD files, the world knew her ledger. But that didn’t stop her. She’s doing what she’s always done, saving people and killing the bad ones and never taking an ounce of credit for it. Last he heard, her and Yelena were finishing up wiping any remaining bit of Dreykov and the Red Room off the map. They offered to help, it was only fair, but she told them, in her Natasha way, to “Fuck off and go relax.”

So that leaves them. Steve and Bucky. Finally able to exist together, without the looming threat of Hydra, (mostly) without the threat of world governments banging down their door. They’re here, together in a future neither of them could have ever dreamed they’d get to be a part of, and it’s everything.

They bought a cute little house in the middle of nowhere Montana with the money they stole from the Russian officials. A quaint cabin on a lake with trees surrounding it in every direction, and with a mountain so gorgeous as the sight they get to wake up to everyday.

And currently, they’re painting the shutters on the second story windows and Bucky is going to have a fucking fit if Steve doesn’t stop messing around on the ladder.

Steve finds him absolutely adorable.

To think they get to have this? To joke around with each other in their own house, in a future that doesn’t care that they’re two men together, in a place so surrounded by nature that one could only dream of its beauty.

“I enjoy seeing you act like a mother hen, Barnes,” Steve quips back, rolling his eyes all fondly and smiling so big. It’s a common occurrence now, this smile. As it has been for the last, well, almost 3 years now. Since Bucky found him on the streets of Bucharest, he’s been smiling.

Smiling through sweat and blood and gunfire, through running for their lives and fighting for their freedom. And now, through the mundane joy of their everyday lives. Painting shutters, making breakfast with ingredients they grew in their yard, jokingly arguing over what record to put on, and maybe less jokingly arguing about what paint colors to use in the house. It’s all a fucking dream.

After everything they’ve been through, there’s always going to be riptides and harsh currents in the calm of their seas. There will always be ups and downs, so they figure them out together.

They play this game of “real or not real” with each other, reassuring themselves of moments when they want to make sure it isn’t a dream. Bucky will ask him about moments from when they were kids.

“Did we sneak out and go get drunk on my Pa’s stolen brandy down over on Sands?”

“Did you wear a dress and lipstick one time? And your Ma caught you and just laughed and went to cooking dinner?”

“Did we try to fuck in a bath one time and end up almost flooding our apartment?”

And Steve will always answer. “Yes, yes, yes.” He will always be there to tell Bucky that those precious memories were real, or reassure him when sometimes his brain mixes things up. He’ll be there when Bucky asks something that he’s only seen on paper, in files he’s tried to erase from his mind, only to remember that if Bucky has to live with it, so shall he. Just as Bucky will be there when Steve needs to be touching any part of him to make sure he’s not a dream. When Steve needs Bucky to tell him that he’s real over and over again, pressing kisses to his hands, his face, his fingers.

Bucky will open him up slowly, in their room or on the couch in front of their fireplace, and whisper promises and reassurance into his mouth, breathing in every moan and sob and gasp he pulls from the very depths of Steve. Just as Steve will drop to his knees before Bucky, telling him to take anything and everything that he wants, that he deserves, and by now, Bucky does. Oh, he does. He’ll take and take and give and give until they’re both panting and shaking with it.

Deliciously often they’ll end up a pile of limbs in bed, desperately ripping at clothes and grasping whatever skin they can feel. It’ll be messy and frantic and full of aching missed lifetimes. They’ll kiss too hard, and fuck too hard, and often cry afterwards because holy shit, they’re actually here. Those times end with cuddling, trying to become one being, laying on top of each other, legs intertwined and pressing love into each other’s mouths.

It’s not perfect — there are still nightmares. There are still times when all Steve can think of is how angry he’s been, how volatile and violent, and how that rage left a hole the size of the man besides him in its wake. He’ll have nightmares of him taking the plane down, of Bucky falling from the train — with him often waking up crying, “All I had to do was hold you,” into Bucky’s neck.

There are far more times where Bucky will wake up screaming. Although, that in itself is progress. Hydra forced him to feel no pain, to suffer quietly, with no reaction. But he’s learned since then that it’s okay to feel things, that it makes him human. So his screaming may break Steve’s heart, but it means he’s healing, and that’s all that matters in the end. Bucky will wake up screaming, or he’ll wake up looming over Steve with a knife pressed to his neck, not knowing where he is.

Those are tougher days, but they work through it together, just like all things.

There are days where Bucky can’t talk, can’t do anything other than stare at his hands like he’s still seeing them covered in the blood of every person they made him kill. On those days, Steve will make sure he ends them by pressing a kiss to both of his palms, to every single finger, to kissing up his entire left arm — feeling the metal under his lips and whispering praise to Bucky that he knows he hears even if all he does is silently cry.

But right now, in this very moment, Bucky is pretending that Steve will die if he falls 20 feet from a ladder as if he hasn’t jumped out of planes and off of buildings, and Steve is laughing at his mothering, and their painting the shutters on the house that they own a dark blue color, and all is right with the world.

It’s enough. Having each other, walking side by side through life just like they have since the 1920s. It will always be enough.