[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."