I think I’m a Clone Now

[bottledblond]

Post

Steve Rogers doesn’t talk about the gaps. It’s natural to have them, all of the medical research that’s been spouted at him by experts have driven the point home. The mind is a strange thing after all. It retains personally important information, disregards it out of pocket, holds onto the strangest things, and lets the past fade into fog.

It’s normal not to remember your mother’s face when you haven’t looked at it in years as long as you know her name and birthday. It’s fine having your childhood blur into bullet points because while they might have been formative years, you were always so sick during them so it’s not like they had anything worthwhile for the brain to cling to. The war had been horrifying, too much for any person to want to remember with any real clarity, so it’s been boiled down to bullet points on a timeline graph.

And all of that is before the sixty some years of being frozen. Advanced healing can’t fix everything, right?

All of that had been fine because no one who knew Steve before he put the plane down into the ocean had survived him with their own minds intact. There had been no one to point out his idiosyncrasies. No one to look at him funny when he ‘misremembered’ important things in his life that hadn’t made into the history books or the archived letters from those stationed with him or the propaganda films taken to show the folks back home about how Captain America was helping to protect their freedoms.

There hadn’t been until Bucky Barnes somehow broke out of HYDRA’s control, that is.

And perhaps that’s why Steve fought so hard to save him. The gaps in his memory have been caverns. The doctors said that the mind would heal and may fill in details for him as he connected new experiences to old ones, but that hadn’t happened. Not in any of the long years he’d been awake in this modern world.

He had needed Bucky as much as Bucky needed him. Two half minds might help to cobble together a whole after all.

Base reasoning aside, Steve feels nothing but numb when he picks himself up from the ground, standing over Tony Stark with his crushed in chest plate and broken reactor. He has no ide where that anger had come from. No idea why he had gone to such terrible lengths to stop his friend.

He drops the shield before Tony even tells him to, fingers slipping from the leather handle, before he shuffles back to where he had left Bucky.

Cold. Numb. Still frozen. The perfect soldier.

Comments

[bottledblond]

Had Bucky told Steve that he used to love fresh fruit, especially Jersey blueberries, he would have looked at his friend like he’d gone mad. Steve hasn’t been able to find a taste for anything sweet at all and he doesn’t remember ever enjoying sugar. He takes his coffee black and reaches for bagels over danishes.

At least they’re talking about something else, even if it makes Steve’s stomach tighten.

“The guy was basically born to privilege. He thinks he’s always right and that he’s better than everyone else. I don’t— I don’t think we were friends.” There. He said it. “Spending time with the team was always just that. Team building. I was never close with him but I guess he thought otherwise.”

Steve frowns all the harder, eyes fixed on his shoes.

“I didn’t tell him because it didn’t occur to me to tell him. Because you mattered more. Still do. But I was wrong. He had a right to know. Maybe I should have worked at being friends with him more. He’s just nothing like the guys we grew up with.”

He supposes. He can’t see anyone else’s face but Bucky’s.

[woundedwinter]

None of what Steve says feels right, another dissonant echo that Bucky can't resolve. He isn't sure if the problem is his fragmented memory or something else.

But Steve had always given people the benefit of the doubt, it never mattered how much money they did or didn't have. Character mattered. But maybe Tony was as abrasive as Howard and without him or Peggy to run interference things went wrong for them?

"Then I guess we're both gonna have to suck it up and apologize to the guy." Bucky is pretty sure he'll have the harder apology to offer, one that Tony has no reason to accept.

"And if he wants to haul off and knock me one, you're gonna let him."

[bottledblond]

Steve snorts and then leans in to grin against the side of Bucky’s head, just over his ear. “He’s punched me before. You’ll be fine,” he says. “As long as that armor of his isn’t working.”

He loosens his arm up around Bucky’s shoulders and tries to relax. He’s pretty sure Stark will be out for most of the flight and seeing as how no one knows exactly where Wakanda is, that could be awhile.

His face and his ribs itch where his accelerated healing is happening, and he closes his eyes as it works. His sleep is strange as always, flashes of fog and snippets of people standing around him filling the time before T’Challa rouses them with two words:

“We’re here.”

[woundedwinter]

The itch and burn of healing doesn't keep him awake as much as his worry does. Sleep, even when it was allowed, never brought peace. So Bucky stays awake and watches over Steve as he dreams. His eyes drift over to Tony, knowing full well that there's nothing he can do to make things right between them.

Wakanda is breathtaking. He manages a soft sound of wonder as they slip behind invisible walls into a city he never could have imagined.

A nudge to Steve as they land. "Wake up man. We're here." And whatever that might bring.

He has to force himself to utter stillness when the King's guards, impressive warrior women, circle him. The Asset can find a way out, but he refuses to act.

It's T'Challa's little sister, a fierce and amazing woman in her own right starts teasing her brother about bringing her a broken white boy to fix. The way they talk calls up old, fond feelings and he has to blink back tears.

He had a sister.
He had a baby sister who used to be full of sass and fire like the princess and Bucky can't breathe through the tightness in his chest.

[bottledblond]

It’s overwhelming for Steve too, though nothing of this place or its people invoke a sense of who he had been. He can feel Bucky ramrod straight beside him and he can smell the salt forming on his eyelids. He knows what that means and he rests a hand reassuringly on the back of his elbow for just a moment.

He’s surprised when they aren’t separated, nor thrown into a jail cell. The three of them are, under guard, taken into what smells like a more comforting sort of hospital room than Steve has ever experienced. It’s high tech but not so clinical.

He doesn’t bother to keep track of who is scanning him, though he does note that Bucky is encouraged to sit down or lay back if he’d like and Tony is slipped into something he doesn’t quite understand. It looks a bit like the device that they used to patch up the less durable of their group…only quieter. Steve appreciates the lack of whirring and beeping on his already over saturated senses.

He isn’t the focus of anyone’s attention once they check him over, so he stands to get close again to Bucky while the girl that made him tear up hums softly at the ruined shoulder on his left side.

[woundedwinter]

Her name is Shuri and Bucky can't tear his eyes away, seeing echoes of a young woman with braids who had once been his whole world. Becca? Had that been her name? He'll ask Steve later.

No one forces him into a chair. Exams are gentle and careful, the princess explaining everything as she works. It's everything that HYDRA had never been which helps Bucky to relax.

Loose wires are capped and the shoulder sealed over with a metal cap that's feather light. Shuri fusses over the shoulder and spinal strain from the old arm and Bucky lets her. It feels familiar. It feels wonderful.

"She reminds me of my sister," he says quietly as Steve moves close again.

[bottledblond]

“Rebecca,” Steve confirms. He sees her name but not her face. He knows she was younger than Bucky but it had never much mattered how young. He doesn’t have any other memory of her, which is obvious or he would have never used her full name.

She had only been Rebecca when she was in trouble. Or Becky if Steve had been teasing her for teasing him. Steve doesn’t realize his error and is already moving on.

“She’s going to fix you up. You look better already,” he promises, even if that’s a bit of a lie. “Now we just have to get your hair to step out with some scissors.”

[woundedwinter]

The name is met with a vague frown. It's correct, but it feels wrong. Off somehow. But then Steve is moving on and like always, he moves to keep up. Shuri is working at a table that looks more like magic than science, already confident that she can help him.

Bucky shakes his head. The idea of anything sharp close to his head is a bad idea so he swiftly changes the subject. "We both look like hell. What we need is a long shower and about ten hours of sleep."

[bottledblond]

Grinning, Steve gestures towards himself. “I’m actually pretty sure this is what sends all the girls wild these days,” he says under his breath, as self depreciating as ever. That much certainly hasn’t changed.

He looks around for a doctor, hoping to at least get the green light to go somewhere else while they wait on Tony to recover. It’s hard to look at the other man. He had been too hard on him, been too violent in his attempt to make him stop. Had it been necessary? Probably not.

He’ll deal with the guilt later when he talks to the other man.

A woman who had been assisting Shuri with a bald head and an impressive looking breastplate guides the pair from one room into another, dimmer, more comfortable looking one. Steve suspects that while they aren’t prisoners, they’re also not meant to just wander around.

“Oh hey. There’s a bathroom. You go ahead. They said your shoulder should be all right now that it’s capped.”

[woundedwinter]

Bucky rolls his eyes and follows the guard into a set of rooms that are a lot more comfortable than what he's had. Instinct can't be ignored and he paces through every room, checking every exit point and the reinforced windows.

"You go ahead." He waves vaguely at what's left of his shoulder. "My balance is gonna be a little off for a few minutes. Last thing anyone needs is me breaking my damn neck in the shower."

The memory comes quick, a bathtub barely big enough for two, hot water and searing kisses, searching hands and Bucky can feel how real it had been. They kept it secret, but they had loved one another.

"Unless.. you wanna join me?"

[bottledblond]

“I absolutely can if you need me to,” Steve responds kindly, having just ducked his head into the bathroom to decide if he would need to ask for a manual on how to work the thing like he did at Stark Tower.

Thankfully everything is as it should be with knobs and no touch screens. He’s relieved.

“I wouldn’t want you to crack your head open.”

[woundedwinter]

"I'll be fine." Bucky shakes off the vague feeling of disappointment and starts stripping down. He needs a few minutes by himself to gather his thoughts.

The water is hot and he can't suppress a groan of pleasure at the wash of it across his skin. He hasn't felt this warm in longer than he can remember.

Memory. His is still so fragmented, he shouldn't be doubting Steve. Steve, who hadn't been put through what he had endured. Steve doesn't doubt his memories or what had been true in their past.

Mission parameters. He can focus on that instead and let the doubt fall away. Keeping people safe from the Asset, making sure Stark is okay. Protect instead of injure. He can do that.

By the time he's out of the shower he's more centered. "Sorry. It's been a long time since I had a hot scrub down like that."

[bottledblond]

Bucky has been his reason for living. There had been many, many touch and go points before he found out that HYDRA had transformed his friend into their Winter Soldier. He’d gotten by, sure, on missions and frequent visits from Natasha to keep him from spiraling, but it had been too much a lot of the time. When he wasn’t busy, he would just sit in his little DC apartment, or his Brooklyn apartment before that, and stare at the sepia walls.

SHIELDs had learned a lot about how to keep their Super Soldiers in line from the infiltration HYDRA had done. They knew how to keep their assets in line.

And that is likely why they were scrambling now. Bucky was Steve’s rabbit at the greyhound race. He’d never been meant to catch him.

As Bucky showers, Steve had taken to staring at the walls again, only this time it was not in confused despair. He’s smiling when the other man reappears, hair wet.

“You don’t have to apologize to me, pal. You deserve it.”

[woundedwinter]

That smile is familiar enough to reassure Bucky and ease any lingering doubts. He jerks his head towards the bathroom. "Your turn now pal."

Thankfully there are fresh clothes and Bucky slips into them while Steve cleans up.

The results of his initial medical scans are available on one of the wall consoles, but he ignores it. He knows what the lingering damage is, he can feel it in the itch and pull in his back and shoulder now that the arm is gone.

So he explores the room again, before settling down to wait and see what else Wakanda has in store for them while Stark recovers.

[bottledblond]

Steve is quick. Military showers are about hitting targeted areas and he’s been doing the same simple clean since he’d gotten out of the ice. He never varies top to bottom approach and as expected, he’s finished in under the two minute mark. He has to admit that he’s surprised to find clothing waiting, but perhaps Wakanda is just more thoughtful a country than America. It’s a sad thought. One he keeps to himself.

“I think we should probably find T’Challa,” Steve says as he pulls on soft pants and then hangs up the towel that had rested around his shoulders. “Both to thank him and to find out what he’ll need us to do.” Steve is pretty sure that Bucky will be able to find a place here. He needs the kind touch and the patience that Steve knows isn’t possible back in America. “And maybe stay out of mischief?”

He smiles as he says that, face momentarily disappearing as he pulls on a shirt. He knows he and Bucky used to really get into it as kids.

He can’t think of anything specifically but he knows it must have been pretty fun.

[woundedwinter]

He huffs out a laugh, glad that there are still glimpses of the Steve he remembers. "Pretty sure those spears aren't for show. We get into anything we might get skewered."

Which.. isn't fun.

Setting things right with the king feels good, like he's finally taking steps down the right path. A path he's chosen for himself this time. It will bother him the rest of his days that so many people were killed simply to draw him out, even if he was only indirectly responsible for their deaths.

He'll have sanctuary in Wakanda, time to heal and according to Shuri, the possibility of undoing all of that terrible programming in his head.

"It feels like a dream," he confesses.

[bottledblond]

“To be honest with you, even since I came to a few years ago, everything has felt like a dream to me too.” He holds the door for Bucky, staying visible and his left side. It has to be pretty frightening to be missing a limb and Steve wants to protect him. “This whole time is so unreal.”

Or maybe he himself is. Steve feels it so innately. He’s not right. He doesn’t belong. He just does his best not to let that slip out.

Natasha isn’t here to help him screw his head back on and Bucky needs stability.

Not a friend who doesn’t remember so many things about him. Bucky is his touchstone but he doesn’t even know what that means.

[woundedwinter]

"My handlers, they were watching the news when you were fighting the aliens." A slow smile, "I think that was the start of me remembering who I was when I saw some punk jumping into a fight like he could take on the whole damn world."

The flash of his uniform. The shield. That was what finally cracked his conditioning.

Bucky lingers at a window, taking in the sparkling water, soaring ships and the bright buildings. "It's like those old dime books I'd read to you when you were sick, remember? Fantastic cities of the future?"

[bottledblond]

If there had been a better way to make Steve’s face soften, you’d be hard pressed to find it. The blond stops mid stride and turns, fingertips lightly brushing the small of Bucky’s back. He’d rather focus on the heart ache then on the fact that he truly does not remember Bucky reading to him, much less the contents of the books.

“I left you,” Steve says because it is one of the clearest memories he has. He knows Bucky fell from the train. He knows he did not hold onto him. The circumstances are murky but that much Steve knows to be true.

The hallways are bright and airy, the woods warm and rich around them. But it feels claustrophobic.

[woundedwinter]

"No. No you didn't." Bucky stops and turns, pushing Steve against the wall. He's always been prone to blame himself, which means he needs him to pay attention this time.

"I fell off a train, Steve." And even talking about it makes his throat tighten up in panic. "If those HYDRA assholes hadn't shot me up with that serum I'd have been a dead man."

Never mind that he'd kept his worries from the team, shaking off a bullet to the hip here, a broken bone there.

His hands slides up to squeeze the back of his neck. "You didn't know, pal. Hell, I didn't know either."

[bottledblond]

The slight thud on his back is still enough to rattle crossed spears used in decoration in the walls. On either side of him, cut outs in the hallway stream in the softest, most perfectly golden light but Steve can’t help but feel like a failure.

He doesn’t know how to wrap his head around it. He saved Bucky, but at great cost and like a bull in a China shop. He had pitted his friends and his colleagues against each other. At every turn, he caused destruction. All for Bucky.

And he’d do it again. Bucky is the single most important reason for doing anything. The understanding of that is so ingrained that he doesn’t even realize it’s a directive at all.

Or that it’s occurring from outside of his own memories.

Steve’s eyebrows furrow as Bucky holds him just before he bows his head and settles his forehead against the other man. He places a hand on his hip, gentle, just in case there are hidden wounds. “Not sure I forgive myself, knowing or not.”

[woundedwinter]

With a soft huff, he wraps his arm around Steve's waist and tugs him close. Bucky presses a kiss to his temple. "HYDRA did this to us. It wasn't your fault."

"You didn't know what they did to me in Azzano. None of us did." He inhales the clean scent of his shampoo and closes his eyes against the memories. "But we're here now. It's okay."

[bottledblond]

Steve doesn’t have any frame of reference for holding Bucky (or anyone actually) but he can not help but rest his chin on the top of his head and be his counter balance. He doesn’t mind the weight of the other man snuggled against him. He feels calmer this way, like he hadn’t just sacrificed everything to be where he is now. It doesn’t register.

“Kinda crazy when you think about it,” he murmurs, almost settling in. He’ll hold Bucky for as long as he’s allowed. It just feels that good. “Both of us here— I hate how you got here, but I’m glad you’re with me.”

Nevermind Sam sitting in a cell. Bucky has his entire attention.

[woundedwinter]

"End of the line, right?" Bucky remains quiet and content in the warmth of Steve's arms. His memories are still fractured but this feels familiar and safe.

"What about the others? You gotta.. Steve they can't stay in custody because of me." The archer, the Sokovian and her powers, Bucky knows he won't be able to sleep at night knowing his freedom comes at the expense of others.

They have to be set free. They didn't do anything wrong.

[bottledblond]

Steve had asked them to break the law. They’d done so easily, because he asked, and for no other reason. The blond’s eyebrows furrow as he pulls Bucky away from him slightly so that they can look one another in the eye. “I’m going to make it right,” he says.

“No you won’t,” another responds, and Steve turns to see Tony at the far end of the hall, framed in light from the gardens outside. His arm is wrapped around his waist protectively. “But I will.”