Blood pounding in my eardrums like a battle cry.

[couldntreach]

Who: Bucky + ?
When: Days 138
Where: The Halls outside his assigned room and onward
What: Phones are for patsies.
Warning: Violence, language, fighting

The message on the phone went, for the most part, ignored. There were bigger concerns for Bucky to deal with than a stranger on the radio comms and one of those was finding where Steve and the other Commandos have vanished to. They had been preparing for the mission to intercept the train. It was a dangerous mission, but then, so were all of their missions, and the boys were crazy enough to keep on going.

But this mission was important, and more than that, they had a deadline. That was what kept him pushing on, even after waking up in a room with too much steel. Far too sterile. He had jolted awake in a panic, with wild eyes on his surroundings. For a few heart-stopping moments, the soldier had been certain he was back at the Hydra base. Fighting guards trying to strap him back down to a table.

It was enough to get his adrenaline racing and his nerves on high-alert.

Which meant that the highly-trained and dangerous soldier was walking the halls like enemy territory. A dangerous battleground. Armed only with a broken piece of chair frame and the race of his pulse, he searched for a way out, keeping radio silence to avoid getting detected sooner.

Whoever grabbed him, had to have been after all of them. Which meant Steve and the other men had to be here somewhere. They had to be.

Comments

[couldntreach]

Something in Bucky's chest sinks with that expression. Cold. Harsh. The look Steve got when facing down a bully or their enemies in the war. It was the look that meant Steve meant business and wasn't fooling around. He stopped in his tracks, lowering the broken metal in his hands. Letting it slip loose before dropping it to lean it against the wall. Not quite to the floor. If something is up he might need it, and unarmed in a Hydra base, Steve or no Steve, is an uncomfortable feeling.

"To get out of here. Steve, what the hell. What's going on."

Don't look at him like that. Steve. Don't. Bucky's forehead furrows, eyebrows knit as he steps to the side, away from the weapon. Fingers twitching uncomfortably.

He's exposed here, raw and unsteady. The rising pulse, the twisting knots in his gut. In his head he can hear his own screams on repeat, feel the hard metal on his back. The coursing pain. The madness of isolation. All of it gets shoved down where it won't make him an easy target. Shoved away until he can deal with it a long time and way from now and here.

Hatred. That's the look. The look Steve has never once in his life directed at Bucky. They had fought plenty. All friends did. Especially two as concerned for each other as they were. But it was never hate. That anger had never been pointed at him.

He can't reconcile this. It's a nightmare. It's something from the hell of his mind. Projecting from his paranoia that Steve wouldn't want or need him around now that he could fight all his own battles.

"Where are the others? We've got a train to catch."

[oldfashionedhero]

If Steve was in his right mind, he might have asked himself what a ghost needed with a weapon, but the only thing on his mind is how the person who made this thing up somehow managed to capture his voice.

It's perfect. It's the one that he's heard screaming in every dream since the fall. It's the one that used to joke with him. Used to yell at him. Used to get him through the tough times. This can't be real.

Steve isn't even listening to what he's saying. Not really. It doesn't matter, in the long run. Whatever they want from him they're not going to get. One principle alone, not to mention that they've stooped to this to get it. And if their only aim is psychological torture, he refuses to play along.

At least until he says that last sentence. Steve's eyes snap up and meets that of the ghost head on. He can feel the blood pounding in his ears, all the pain and anger and sorrow building up and coming to a head inside of him.

Who the hell did these people think they were?

And then the dam is broken and he's moving forward suddenly with a yell, reaching out to push through this thing. This thing that wasn't even there. He wanted to rip it to shreds. He wanted to reach in and rip out it's heart. He'd had enough of this.

He was not expecting his shoulder to connect with something solid, the momentum sending both of them crashing to the floor. Or to feel, a living, breathing thing underneath him as he scrambled to get away from it, his eyes widening in shock.

[couldntreach]

Shock was what hit Bucky, too. Shock and a battering ram of a human that was his best friend. The force of the blow knocked the air from his lungs and cracked his back against the ground. That was going to be hell, later. Bucky was so confused, caught off guard, that he hadn't even tried to dodge. He had not expected this, couldn't have, But when Steve scrambles back, so does Bucky, making a grab for his weapon.

What did Hydra do to Steve. What had they given him to make him react this way?

Gripping tight to his makeshift weapon, Bucky shakes his head to one side. This isn't good. He needs a way through to Steve. He'll fight him if he has to, but he can't do any serious damage. Assuming he even got that chance.

Well. Maybe he could, but he wouldn't.

Jesus, that had hit hard in more ways than one.

"Stand down. I don't want to have to hand your ass to you again, pal, but I will if it comes down to it."

If Steve comes at him again, he'll be getting defensive swings from the metal and a whole lot of attempts at gaining distance between them, without ever turning his back.

[oldfashionedhero]

Solid. It's solid and real and talking to him and Steve can barely believe his eyes. The shock quickly fades into a confusion and then a kind of horror as he watches his best friend pick up the weapon and brace himself for a hit.

"What are you?" Steve asks as she scrambles to his feet, using the opposite wall for support.

It's not bad enough that there's something that looks like Bucky, there's something wearing his face. Using his voice. Walking around in the world and pretending to be him.

Steve is breathing heavily, unable to catch his breath. It's almost like when he was younger, but it's not an asthma attack. It's pure rage at the thing in front of him. At the joke someone's trying to pull on him.

He moves forward quickly, knocking the bar to the side with as much force as he can muster before reaching out and grabbing that jacket, staring into those eyes.

"You picked the wrong face to steal, pal."

The punch that follows packs more satisfaction than Steve's felt in a very, very long time.

[couldntreach]

Okay, so this is quickly going all the wrong ways. For a split second, Bucky drops his guard for his confusion, and it's a moment too long. What are you? The hell does he mean by that?

But Bucky doesn't get the chance to ask because the next few seconds are a blur. Steve comes at him, all fury and rage like Bucky has never seen before, and even raising the bar up to prepare to fight back, regardless of his misgivings, does him little good.

It's knocked away so hard he thinks he heard something in his hand crack, and the bar goes skidding away, not that he intended to really use it on Steve. The next thing that happens leaves white spots in his visions, the punch a harder hit than any he has taken before and if Steve wasn't holding his jacket, would have knocked him back on his ass again.

As it is, it has him gasping for air to breath and struggling to twist out of his jacket and away from his friend.

He chokes on his words, violently pulling out of the jacket, sprinting back to grab the bar with the hand that isn't ringing numb, and Steve's hit had bent it. Reminding him of that punch Schmidt left in Steve's shield.

"Steve, stop. Jesus, you're not thinking straight."

He coughed up another lung of air, moving back as he spoke.

"They did something to you. Got in your head. It's me. Drop the fists before you hurt yourself."

Because even as things were getting more and more serious, Bucky clung to what made him, him. Because maybe eventually he'd find the right thing to say to snap Steve out of this.

[oldfashionedhero]

It moves fast, slipping out of the jacket and dodging Steve's grasp. It goes straight for it's bent bar and holds it up as if it is going to be any protection whatsoever from Steve's fists.

The sound of panic in Bucky's voice sends chills down Steve's spine. How? How did they get everything so right? It brings back so many memories. All of the times they fought side by side.

Bucky's not supposed to be on the receiving end of Steve's blows. He's not supposed to be standing here at all, he's gone. Steve watched him fall. His scream reverberating inside his head and his nightmares.

"It's not you," Steve says, the mask of hate breaking for a split second to show a still very raw pain. It may have been seventy years since Bucky's death, but for Steve it's only been months, weeks, days. The future has been a distraction, a band aid, but what he hasn't gotten is time to deal with the loss of the only person who stood by him when he wasn't Captain America.

"You're not him," he says, this time gaining conviction as he drops the jacket and moves forward. "You're a poor excuse. A trick. You have no right."

[couldntreach]

If Bucky had actual context for that pain he might have been able to talk Steve down faster. Might have known the right things to say, or do, to calm him down. But he was flying blind here, and grasping for what little reason he could find. He didn't have much to go on beyond his assumptions that Hydra had them and was playing some sick game.

The voice and tones aren't the only thing that rings true of Bucky. After all, it IS him. His moves are the same. His defensive reactions so similar to ones Steve would have witnessed time and again. And he is moving. Trying to keep one step away from Steve. One step ahead of the game.

He's not armed, and even if he was, what would he do against Steve? No. Words have to be his go to, and while he could be the charmer, they didn't exactly talk things out. They understood each other and they talked around things, not through them.

"No right to what? Be me? Steve, you can see me with your own eyes, or did all that serum go to your head and blind you? I'm supposed to be the one taking the stupid with me. Don't take it all back at once, pal."

Come on, Steve. Don't do this. He practically pleads his words, though all the pleading is in his eyes, not his voice, whic remains steady and light the whole way through, if a bit hoarse from the bruising to his lungs from that last punch. Is that two cracked ribs? No more spinach for Steve after this. Ever again.

[oldfashionedhero]

The anger snaps back like a rubber band moving him forward and tensing him for another hit. The voice, the tone, the moves all of them are things that could've been pieced together from footage. But it's only a copy. Only an illusion.

Until Bucky says something that this Bucky couldn't have known about. Steve's step falters and he stills, staring at him. "What did you just say?"

He needs to hear it again. That thing that Steve had told him on Bucky's last night in New York. The anger is edged out by confusion and nostalgia. Words that no one but Steve could know.

[couldntreach]

Unless everything was in Steve's head. It wasn't, but that was a possible explanation. Still, whatever he had said seemed to be getting through to Steve, and Bucky stopped his retreat, not breaking eye contact with his best friend. He shook his head slowly and forced a small, crooked smile through everything else..

"I said you can't take the stupid back all at once. Doesn't work that way."

Come on, Steve. Snap out of it.

[oldfashionedhero]

The color drained from Steve's face as he stared back at the figure of his lost best friend. It was impossible for him to actually be standing here and yet, here he was. "It can't..." Steve started, but stopped himself, his brow furrowing in confusion.

"Bucky Barnes is dead," Steve said, his mouth suddenly bone dry. It was the first time he'd actually said it out loud and he felt like he'd just lost some kind of battle within himself by doing so.

Steve took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clenching his hands at his sides. "He's gone."

Steve looked away, unwilling to share his grief with... whatever this was. He cleared his throat, his voice dangerously low.

"How did you know to say that? Who are you?"