[for Various]

[onlyapassenger]

It comes back in flashes, fragments. Colors run together behind closed eyes. Reds and blues and grays. The racing pulse of a heart turns into the burst of sniper fire. Bodies, bodies, so many bodies, bleeding and mangled and dead. Heads facing the wrong direction. Bullet holes between their brows. Machinery and white coats, murmured Russian and the soft hands of a lover. A glimpse of red hair and the heavy perfume of scented oil. Cold. Alone. Death, then life, then death again. Never my own, not since the first time.

Not since the first time.

There will be others.

It's dark when he awakes, tangled in his sheets. The moonlight filtering in through the slatted windows paints his room in the same shades of his memories, muted blues and grays, shadows twisting his modest furniture into carnival versions of reality. He forces air down his lungs in gulps, his face wet from tears he shed in sleep. He presses his hands to his cheeks, fingers framing his bones until he manages some measure of calm. He's lived through this experience before, he knows -- and there's a strange feeling, knowing after weeks of not -- but it's different this time. There's no Cosmic Cube and no purpose behind it, not the loss of his memories or regaining them.

He wants to sob. He wants to scream. He wants to rip this island to pieces until he finds some fucking answers, but he settles for destroying his room instead, senselessly tearing through his bedding until he's on his feet and there's a chair in his hands. The wood makes a satisfying crack as it snaps against the sturdier dresser, clothes spilling out onto the ground as one of the drawers gives, fabric and bamboo splinters pooling around his feet.

He doesn't know how long he stands there, wooden shards poised to inflict more damage on an enemy that isn't -- and may never be -- there, but his breaths have leveled by the time he moves again, numb from remembering. He keeps one in hand as a makeshift weapon as he exits his room, tucking it under one arm as he pulls open the pantry door to fetch one of the bottles of Chechnya Vodka freed from Rapture he keeps hidden behind a loose panel at the back. He doesn't bother with a glass, padding his way outside to the porch and lowering himself onto one of the steps.

Dimly aware that Jason's not home and that Virginia is asleep in her stall, he unstops the bottle and takes the first of what's sure to be many pulls, his eyes peeled on the pinkening horizon.

Comments

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason's awake before the first crack sounds across the grass, eyes open and mind ill at ease for no reason at all, except perhaps his unique talent for being there for all the worst moments of Bucky's life. At the sounds of a crash, he's out of bed and at the window, but he doesn't go any further until the noise has shifted to the sloshing of a bottle.

He should get Steve. He would, but the last time Jason took off running, he'd almost gotten Steve shot, and that still feels worse than the new scar running the length of Jason's head. He pads out barefoot and with no gauntlets. If Bucky's not himself again, it won't matter what Jason arms himself with anyway.

The grass is sparse but wet with the dawn, and Jason curls his toes in it when he comes to a stop in front of Bucky's porch, watching with wary eyes as he takes another pull.

[onlyapassenger]

He's off his game, not noticing Jason's approach until, suddenly, he's there. For a moment Bucky wonders if he's not just hallucinating, a physical manifestation of his guilt. God knows he hasn't done right by Jason lately -- if ever, supplies a voice in the back of his mind -- caught up in his own loss, his own problems, his own frustrations, pulling in on himself until the Island stepped in and made him forget who he was all over again.

He lowers the bottle, pulling a face as he downs his latest swallow. It'd go down better with ice, but he's not in any position to be picky. He levels Jason with a stare, still not entirely certain he's even there.

"...kid?"

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason twitches for the single word that escapes his friend, and even now, he's not sure which one this is. It's not the carefree Bucky he'd challenged to a race through the forest, and if Jason had to guess, he'd guess it's the Bucky he knows, though that could be the hope talking. There's no guns or shields or knives in view, and Jason comes a little closer.

"Jason," he says.

[onlyapassenger]

Real, then. None of his other memories talked back.

Setting the bottle down on the step beside him, Bucky folds his hands together and curls in over himself to press his forehead against them.

"I remember." His name and what Bucky did to him both, and though he doesn't specify, his meaning rings through clear.

[prodigaljaybird]

Fuck. It's the best that Jason could have hoped for, and still it's not a relief. Not after Bucky's had his head fucked with so many times before, not when, in many ways, this time has proved the worst of all, no art or goal in the causing of it beyond the island's cruelty.

Jason comes closer still, hands lifted and empty of anything that could help. "Are you okay? I mean - does it hurt? Do you want me to get Steve?"

[onlyapassenger]

Bucky's gaze snaps up, startlingly clear.

"No."

It's a catch-all. No, he's not okay. No, it doesn't hurt. No, don't go get Steve. For all that Bucky knows that Steve would want to be there, he doesn't think he could bear to see him like this, halfway to drunk and his mind still mending. Having Jason around is painful enough, and why the kid doesn't run now confuses him as much as the mess of sights and sounds running through his head.

Almost not realizing he's speaking out loud, he murmurs, "God, I keep hurting you."

[prodigaljaybird]

It's spoken so quietly that Jason almost doesn't catch it for the wind, but it's enough to keep him moving until he's sinking onto the porch by Bucky. "It's not you. It's this place." He touches his head as if to prove it's long since healed, admitting something that can only be said now that it's over.

"I wasn't sure you were coming back this time."

[onlyapassenger]

"Still my hands," Bucky murmurs, only half listening. It's always his hands, even when he's only a passenger in his own body. He's not much one for apologies, but Jason damn well deserves one, and the Island itself isn't likely to sprout a mouth anytime soon. The burden falls on him to shoulder, the responsibility of this mess entirely his own for lack of anyone else to blame. The Island doesn't count.

"I'm sorry."

[prodigaljaybird]

"Bucky." Jason sighs, setting his back to the porch supports. He's tired, more than any boy his age should be. He bounces back, and back, and sometimes it's youth, and sometimes it's the fire in his belly that never truly leaves him, but these days that fire is harder to feel.

"I already forgave you. I really thought..." Jason looks down at his hands. "I thought you were going to die, that somebody would have to - stop you."

[onlyapassenger]

They should've. They friggin' should've. There was no guarantee their little science experiment would work. Even with Stark in that room, they couldn't have known... I'm not suicidal, but I was a liability... A real threat... Swear to God, if I'd been in their shoes...

"Steve never would have let them," he says instead, voice laden with a different conviction than his thoughts, if no less certain. It's the loudest he's been so far, pushing through the chaos of his mind to focus on the present instead of the not-so-distant past. But he knows -- knows that he could've held a gun to the head of every man, woman, and child on this Island, and Steve still would have thought he could be saved.

Bucky sighs, suddenly, frustrated. "I just, I don't-- This was supposed to be gone. The triggers, all of it-- They took 'em out of me... I was promised."

[onlyforthedream]

It's not just habit to go see Bucky, it's routine. Having him be... the way he's been, lately, has been bitter sweet. Not that there isn't something nice in seeing him at ease, more or less, but I know it won't last. As nice as it's been having him back to his old self, that's not the man he's grown into, the one I know. Not anymore. And I miss that person.

I've been heading over earlier and earlier, because I can tell by the bags under his eyes and the way his smiles come slower that the nightmares are getting worse. When I spot him today, my stomach drops.

"...Buck," I say quietly as I approach, not bothering to keep the concern from my voice.

[onlyapassenger]

Bucky blinks, once, gaze bleary as he looks up at a man he's not sure is real or memory. Given the mess rolling around in his head right now, he can't trust his senses, dulled from alcohol and an aching head, but given the absence of flag or shield, he wants to think he's looking at the real deal.

He almost wishes he weren't.

Swallowing, he sets the bottle down on the porch beside him, his hand deceptively steady.

"Steve."

[onlyforthedream]

I walk across what constitutes the yard, up the wooden stairs, and sit next to him, resting my elbows on my knees. I have a reputation for knowing what to say. I understand where it comes from, but rallying speeches are one thing. The quiet things, the deeply personal stuff, that's harder.

I want to tell him it's good to have him back, but it would be incredibly selfish of me.

So for the time being, I don't say anything.

[onlyapassenger]

He's walking okay. He should be. I watched him recover in a matter of days, even if I had no idea who he even was for half of them... I hate that I keep putting him through this. I hate this shadow hanging over us... He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve any of it... Sometimes I have to wonder if he wouldn't've been better off if he'd never known I was still alive... If that would've spared him anything at all.

The silence is oppressive, as uncomfortable as any words they could hope to exchange. Though Bucky stares ahead, he's acutely aware of Steve at his side, his profile dark in the corner of his eye. His fingers itch to pick up the bottle again, but he keeps his hands where Steve can see them. After everything they've done to him -- punched, stabbed, strangled -- Bucky figures he owes him that courtesy.

[onlyforthedream]

It's as difficult as the fighting, this part. More so. We can't keep dancing around this- something happens and I feel in my gut that I've failed him again, and he blames himself. Nothing changes. I don't know how to make it different this time around. There are no platitudes, here, there's no soothing it over, at least not that I can see. I will never blame him for what they did to him, what they made him into, what they took away. Never. But he won't accept that. So what good does my refusal do?

I keep my eyes on my hands or on the trees across the clearing, listening to the nearby sound of the brook and shifting rustle of the canopy, and it stays that way when, eventually, I find my voice.

"In my darkest moments, over the years," I say slowly, unable to plan the words before I say them, having no choice but to let them fall steadily out of me or dam them up entirely, "I would blame you. I would get so mad at you. For jumping when I told you not to."

If we weren't sitting side by side, I doubt he'd be able to hear me.

"And everything that happened with the Winter Soldier- everything that's happened... I blamed myself. Entirely, but... What good is it?" I run my hand briefly over the lower half of my face before dropping it and looking over at him. Allotting blame isn't enough. It never is. I think if I had stayed back home, or... woken up there again, maybe I would have learned the same lesson with Tony. Maybe not. I may be completely off base, but I should have learned by now. Answering the question of blame never actually fixes anything.

"I forgive you, Bucky," I tell him quietly, because for the first time it's occurring to me that he might not know.

"For all of it."

[onlyapassenger]

'I would blame you.' It's a struggle to keep listening after that, turning deaf from vindication, but Steve's always had a talent for capturing the attention of even the most stubborn of audiences... So I keep my ears open for the rest, my mind coming to an abrupt halt with the last of his words.

He forgives me.

He... forgives me. After everything I've done, all the lives I've taken, all the suffering I caused, to him and those around him, and still he has it in him to wipe it all away.

The question is if I can let him... Because I sure as hell can't forgive myself.

The silence returns once Steve's finishes, Bucky unable to find the words to respond. His throat seems to grow thick, the simple task of breathing a challenge in the face of such an undeserved kindness... And yet he doesn't dare look Steve's way for fear of it being rescinded. So for the moment he doesn't say another word, vision starting to blur from tears he won't let fall.

[onlyforthedream]

Wordlessly, I reach over and clasp my hand to the back of his neck. It has to sit for a minute, I get that. He has to wrestle with it- God knows I have- and talking more won't help. There's nothing to elaborate on. I just stay close, keeping the eye contact. I'm not leaving, even if he won't, or can't, ask me to stay.

The universe has been hell bent and making sure our friendship isn't easy. I have the scars still to prove it. At the end of it all, though, it sits heavier with Bucky than anyone else. He's the one who carries it, and I'll be damned if I'm the one that lets it bury him.

[onlyapassenger]

The weight of Steve's hand comes as a surprise, but Bucky makes no attempt to move. Since Natasha disappeared back into the world, he can't think of the last time anyone's touched him in any capacity outside of a handshake. It's jarring, now, for its familiarity, something Steve's done countless of times before during the War, his memories of those experiences fresher than they have been in years.

He scrubs his face with the back of his flesh and blood hand when he realizes his cheeks are wet, sniffing once to reign back in the worst of the emotion. Crying about it's a waste of time, and while his body might demand for the release, he doesn't want to give in, doesn't want another loss of control, however minor in comparison.

"I'm sorry," he says eventually, because he has to say it. Steve has to know. "For... everything."

[onlyforthedream]

"I know you are," I tell him, which is true. Even if it weren't written into every line of his face, after everything we've gone through and watching him deal with it blow by blow, I would know. I wish it wasn't. I wish he could see just how much none of this is his fault, but that's the gift of perspective, and it's almost impossible to have it when you're stuck in the middle of something, or crushed under its weight. I keep my hand over his neck, let the weight of my arm rest against his shoulder.

"I know. I forgive you." It can't hurt to say it again.

[onlyapassenger]

Again the silence stretches on. There are so many things he could think to say to that, but Bucky's tired and confused and raw, and putting his thoughts into order is beyond him at the moment. After another long moment, however, his tongue stumbles over a few words, voice quiet.

"I remember everything... And I still don't have the first idea how we got to this point."