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]

Though Steve moves protectively in front of Bucky, Toby leans slightly to make sure he can keep eye contact with the one armed man. “What’s he supposed to do?” Tony asks, not moving any closer. He’s not in his armor and even if he was, Steve proved capable (and willing) to rip it apart.

There’s hesitation in all three of them, but Tony fills the gap after a few moments.

“He’s a fugitive. He destroyed a national airport. The people you want to spring took out Rhodey’s legs. That last one is just another reason why Rogers doesn’t get to make the decisions anymore.”

[woundedwinter]

Someone lost their legs? Horror flickers across his features before Bucky schools his expression back to something more neutral. Another person hurt because of him, but he can spiral about that later when he's alone.

"They don't deserve to be in prison because of me."

[bottledblond]

“They’re not in prison because of you,” Tony spits back, the anger unhidden from his eyes. “They’re in prison because of him.” He doesn’t point or make any other gesture but it’s obvious he’s talking about Steve. “That’s the problem when you have an obsessive, charismatic leader. You do things for him to further his goal but only get yourself in trouble. He’s free. They aren’t. Typical.”

Tony’s anger has obviously shifted since he’d woken up in Wakanda of all places. Steve bears the brunt of it, and the blond is fine with that. He even puts out a placating hand, which seems to stir Tony up even further.

“Now listen, I didn’t—“

“You did,” Tony insists. “You absolutely did. You’ve been on this single handed, destructive mission since you found out he was still alive. But they should get a second chance. Not everyone needs to go down because you duped them.”

[woundedwinter]

Obsessive. Single minded. None of this reminds Bucky of the man he and the Howling Commandos followed across Europe in their campaign to take out HYDRA bases.

"Steve." He rests a hand on his elbow, urging him to stand down. "We don't leave people behind."

Not that either of them can do much considering they're fugitives and Bucky is a very real danger with everything HYDRA put into him.

"If he's got a plan, let him handle it."

[bottledblond]

In all terrible honesty, Steve didn’t plan to do anything himself. He had no intention to mount a rescue of any variety as long as Bucky needed his attention. His friends helped him and he would help them out…. But Bucky came first.

He let his face remain impassive as Tony scowled and Bucky looked at him like he was someone unrecognizable.

That wasn’t his fault. He barely knew the man that he had been at the start of the war. Sam told him that was normal. Combat fatigue was better understood now. Men came home from war changed because how could they not?

Tony is talking again while Steve is processing and he misses most of what he says. Funny, really, because Tony is calling him out on not listening again.

“Earth to Rogers— snap out of that damned god complex of yours for one minute—“

“It’s not a god complex, Tony. I’m just trying to keep him safe. He’s the only thing I have—“

“Cut the bullshit. We were all your friends. Even if you kept us at arm’s length. You know what? The only thing I need permission for right now is to get out of Wakanda. I’ll leave you and your boyfriend to it.”

[woundedwinter]

Bucky starts when Tony calls him his boyfriend. Did he know? Steve had always been the private type in the past.

"HYDRA will find ways to stop you. You didn't root all of them out." The least he can do is use HYDRA's intel against them.

"Give me enough time to give you a list. If you're going in you should know every angle."

[bottledblond]

Steve, of course, thinks nothing of Tony throwing around words that don’t matter. The guy just does it to get a rise and it doesn’t bother Steve. He doesn’t really care for the way Bucky reacts, but there’s no helping it. He can’t just keep on defending the guy when he keeps getting called out for doing just that.

“At least take that much. I don’t want you to get hurt,” he says but Tony cuts him right off with anger and wetness in his eyes.

“Don’t you fucking dare. You cracked my god damned rib cage so don’t you fucking dare.”

Steve is taken aback by that, and holds his breath.

[woundedwinter]

"Right or wrong, everything Zemo did is still working," Bucky points out quietly. Steve's team, his friendship with Stark, both are in shambles and leaving them with a painful lack of focus.

The old echoes of Sarge as well as the discipline of the Asset surge forward. He's not here to argue or to mediate what happened between them, and he's sure as hell not going to try and apologize to Stark when his back is up.

"I can hack SHIELD's systems. It'll take a couple of hours to get you what you need." Maybe less if he had both arms, but Bucky is happier without the damn thing. "You'll go in there safer."

[bottledblond]

The genius engineer does not want to hear that the one armed mother murderer can hack anything and he says as much through gritted teeth with enough venom that Steve steps bodily in front of Bucky. He can’t possibly protect him from thrown words but he can do his best to break their eye line.

“That’s enough, Tony. That wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t—“

Stark tosses up a hand and immediately thinks better of it as he has to catch himself. Shuri’s monitor is no doubt going off now that he’s worked himself up and there will be doctors or warrior women coming to collect him.

“I don’t need your help. Not with HYDRA. Not with springing your sheep from whatever prison they threw them in. I want you both to stay away from me. From all of us. You’re not an Avenger anymore, Rogers.”

[woundedwinter]

Time for a strategic retreat. Stark was rightfully angry and there wasn't a damn thing Bucky could say in the face of it.

"C'mon Steve." They need time to withdraw, and to hope that Stark will indeed rescue the others from prison.

A prison he might well see the inside of one day. "We should go."

[bottledblond]

Steve is back to being stoic as he turns, following Bucky’s call. He doesn’t want to cause more trouble, and he certainly is willing to take a break from Tony’s truths. The blond remains tight lipped until they enter out into the palace gardens and head down a river stone lined path. The ground shifts from green to golden to green again, but Steve doesn’t shift his eyes to look at anything but the way ahead.

He hadn’t known how badly he’d hurt Tony. He didn’t know someone had been injured at the airport like that. He still can’t wrap his head around a lot of what’s happened today.

He failed. It’s a new feeling. He hates it.

“You shouldn’t have to listen to that. It’s not your fault.”

[woundedwinter]

"I still did it," he reminds him. "And I remember all of them." Every life he'd taken, every mission that left lives in ruins. They were crystal clear while parts of his own past remained hazy and still out of reach.

"He has every right to hate me for what I did." Bucky turns his gaze to the gardens, warm sunlight dancing across vibrant green. "I had no choice, but those lives ended because of me."

[bottledblond]

Steve shakes his head. “You were a passenger tied up in the backseat of a car, pal. You didn’t do it. You were just forced to be there for it.”

He runs a hand back through his hair and turns his eyes back towards where they had left Tony. “But he does hate me. And he has every right to do that because I did everything he said.”

He manipulated his friends to assist him with protecting Bucky. He put them in harm’s way. He put them into jail for following him. And he lied to Tony most of all.

“Those lives ended because of HYDRA, Buck. Please don’t blame yourself on top of everything else.”

[woundedwinter]

Steve owning his mistakes is more familiar and eases that nagging itch at the back of his mind. "You had to have had your reasons, Steve. What's important is that they get out. They don't belong in prison."

He glances back at the towers behind them.

"You think they can really undo everything HYDRA did to me?" If there's even a chance, he has to let them try.

[bottledblond]

Steve doesn’t knoweverything that happened to Bucky, but he has a good idea. Natasha and Sam have been helping him out the pieces together for years and after he recovered from being dragged out of the Potomac with a double black eye, he’d poured over the data drop from HYDRA. He’d also been instrumental in covering so much of it up too. Some of that had been sanctioned.

Some of it he’d just done with heavy fingers and a grimace on a delete button. He didn’t fully think it was all destroyed but it had gone missing, dropped into the nothingness of data over saturation. There’s already been too much to go through anyway so the Asset’s files barely caused anyone to notice their lack of existence.

“If anyone can help you, this place can,” Steve agrees, once more putting his other friends on the back burner. He can’t focus on them right now.

“We will certainly try,” T’Challa says from behind the pair. “My sister is looking for you both.”

[woundedwinter]

T'Challa moves like a warrior, quiet and light on his feet. Again Bucky is grateful that they're no longer on opposite sides. "Well if she's looking, we'd better hop to."

Maybe he's a little fond of the princess already and maybe it's the first new connection he's had with anyone in years. She might remind him of his kid sister, but this is someone who knows nothing about who he used to be.

It's kind of nice.

[bottledblond]

Despite being king, despite having a really very new found responsibility, and despite having a war criminal to deal with, T’Challa takes the time to personally handle their guests. Each of the two are dangerous. One, because there is part of him that can not be controlled, and the other because he has proven capable to do anything to protect the first.

If they are to stay, and T’Challa already is willing to offer that as an option, there will need to be rules. And in order for rules to be adhered to, he needs to get to know the men.

The story he gets coupled with the intelligence he’d gleaned and his brief time fighting them, tells him much in their walk back to Shuri. They love one another, though Bucky’s love is deeper and more passionate. Steve is obsessive and driven. And neither know how to be around one another despite not wanting to be apart.

It’s why, as they pause outside of the medical wing of the palace, two guards impassive and flanking the beautifully carved wood, T’Challa puts a hand on each of them, Bucky’s shoulder and Steve’s elbow.

“I would like you both to stay with us. We will try to help you. And the presence of your friend will help with that.” And Steve will be there to hold Bucky down if he loses it.

[woundedwinter]

The only reason Bucky isn't back in a holding cell with doctors eager to take apart his damaged psyche is because of the king. The kindness is another thing he'll need time to wrap his head around.

"Thank you."

Steve will be there to stop him if things go flaky again, there's no mistaking the implication.

"I'm sorry your family got caught up in this." God knows he'd change it if he could.

[bottledblond]

“Thank you,” T’Challa says, nodding slightly as he waits for the doors to be pulled open.

Steve has no intention of leaving Bucky. Not now. Not ever. He’s about to say as much when Tchalla’s little sister meets them right at the door. “Come with me,” she says, holding her hand out to Bucky. “And you two, off you go.”

Steve’s mouth opens and closes and his eyebrows furrow.

“One hour, Captain,” Shuri says, gently.

[woundedwinter]

"I'm not gonna run on you, pal," Bucky promises. That has to be why Steve is hesitating, right? Because he thinks he'll disappear again. "Go on. We'll be okay."

Whatever the princess has in store for him, it won't be like anything he'd endured under HYDRA control. She won't trigger his conditioning and even if it did happen, the warriors who guard her will keep everyone safe from the Winter Soldier.

"He's always been a little clingy," he offers when the doors close. "Once Rogers decides you're family, he don't ever let go."

[bottledblond]

“Is that so?” Shuri doesn’t know Steve. Wakanda is isolated, her father and his and his for generations have ensured it. She does not know the legends of Captain America the way young people her age in other countries might. She’d only just started to do some research after Stark annoyed her enough to let him go. “It seems he bas chosen only you as family. Will you sit?”

She is careful to ask permission at every step, from scans to unscrewing the shoulder cap to even asking questions so open that Bucky May evade if he’d like.

“You have been through much. It is understandable to have a guardian dedicated to your well being. Here, you will have many. My brother has extended his protection to you as well.” Her smile is kind. “So I promise to be careful with you.”