The Path to the Tower

10.4: The Broken Assassin

Bucky made his way through the streets of Bucharest. He had been venturing out more and more lately. He felt invisible here. Just another face in the street. People minded their own business. He still didn't go far though. He tried not to keep the same patterns. It was easy to find people when they kept routines. So he didn't. He never left the apartment at the same time. He never walked the same path in any sort of regular pattern. Even taking into account that he was being precautious and not straying far, he had started to feel comfortable.

Being on the run had been tough. He was used to staying invisible. It had been drilled into him along with how to murder someone with his bare hands. He could cross borders, avoid law enforcement, steal if need be. What they never taught him to do was take care of himself. It became a journey of remembering himself. He forced himself to remember the lives he took as the soldier. As hard as it was, and as heavy as that burden was, he owed those people to carry it with him.

Remembering what they did to him and what they made him do was easier than remembering who he used to be. As he moved from eating cold food out of cans just to feed his body to taking the time to find fresh produce that tasted good raw, to relearning how to cook, he began unlocking memories. Cooking became a kind of therapy. It reminded him of growing up and helping his mom. Of making a soup out of the few things they could afford when Steve was sick. Of how much he liked science. It was also nice to use these hands that were stained in the blood of others to create, for a change.

As memories began to unlock he remembered Steve more and more. He began collecting things he found about him. The pamphlet from the museum exhibition, newspaper clippings, articles from magazines. He would go to visit libraries and paw through books or use their computers to trawl through the internet.

To begin with, the memories were almost academic. It was like he was remembering things he'd read in a book once. He knew there was affection involved but the same kind of affection you might have for a book you remembered liking as a kid but couldn't quite remember what happened in it.

Bucharest was where things began to return properly. He woke up from a dream, not unusually in of itself. Nightmares plagued him so much he was glad to have two hours of uninterrupted sleep. This dream was not that. He was having sex with a skinny blond man. It was someone he loved deeply and in the dream, Bucky lay on his back as the man penetrated him and looked down at him with bright blue eyes smiling even though his breathing was labored.

He woke to the realization that he'd been dreaming of Steve and that it wasn't a dream it was a memory. He was also rock hard and for the first time in over seventy years, Bucky Barnes masturbated. He thought of Steve both as the skinny sick guy he had been in love with back then and the large guy who he had fought on the bridge. He imagined what it would be like to have Steve inside him. To have his hand wrapped around his cock. The way his lips would feel caressing his and kissing their way down his body.

So even as Bucky began to build a life here in Bucharest, remembering the language as it had been drilled into him as the soldier. Learning new recipes. Finding work that paid in cash under the table. Helping his elderly neighbors with odd jobs and getting paid in home-cooked meals. He began to miss Steve and wonder if he found him again would there be any chance of resuming their life together.

As much as he wanted it, and dreamed about it, he could not imagine the Steve Rogers he knew wanting anything to do with the thing they'd turned him into. So instead he opted to stay hidden.

He made his way across the street to the market stalls. He never bought much. He felt like as soon as he relaxed enough to buy a full week's worth of groceries they'd catch him. Besides he liked food to be fresh. After seventy years trapped in a nightmare, biting into fresh fruit made him feel alive. Police sirens sounded and he flinched, expecting this to be the moment, but as the cars flew past he relaxed again.

He selected some plums that looked fresh picked that day along with some vegetables for making ratatouille for dinner that night. He made his way back to the block of apartments he'd made his home in. They were large and white and made no pretext of being anything but slums. He made his way up the stairs. There was an elevator and while both it and the stairs smelled like piss, being locked in a piss smelling box was infinitely worse than being in a piss soaked open space.

He fumbled with his keys a little as he unlocked the door, but it swung open far too easily. He stepped into the room going through the process of what he needed to do to grab his bag and get out depending on how many people were there. He stopped dead when Steve looked up at him from one of his notebooks.

"Do you know me?" Steve asked.

Of course, Bucky knew him. It was his Steve. He wanted to run into his arms to hold him. To be held by him. To have his little Stevie to look after him the way he used to take care of Steve. He wasn't sure what he wanted though. He couldn't be locked up again and the urge to just fight his way past him felt overwhelming. He stood frozen and decided to lie. If he could seem helpless maybe Steve would see, he hadn't hurt anyone. He could just be left alone. "You're Steve. I read about you in a museum." Bucky answered.

"I know you're nervous. And you have plenty of reason to be. But you're lying." Steve said.

"You're gonna take me in? I didn't do anything. I don't do that anymore." Bucky said, pulling off his glove.

"This doesn't have end in a fight, Buck," Steve said.

Bucky shook his head, he didn't want this. He never wanted this. He could still remember how it felt trying to break free of the soldier as he fought his best friend. His lover. The man he had wanted to have a family with. He just wanted peace and Steve wasn't here for that. He was here to lock him up. "It always ends in a fight."

"You pulled me from the river. Why?" Steve asked.

"I don't know." Bucky lied.

"Yes, you do." Steve pushed.

Bucky looked around. Steve was in his uniform. It was different from the one he knew but similar. He was ready for a fight but there was more. A memory hit him. Sitting in the bar and telling Steve he should keep it. He shook his head. "I can't be locked up again. Can't you just leave me be?" He said, his voice cracking in desperation.

"I need you to talk to me, Bucky. I need to know it's you." Steve implored.

Bucky looked around wildly, the urge to run was still there but it was being drowned out by the urge to rush into his arms and kiss him. He was scared. Scared he'd lost that part of himself. Not just that Steve wouldn't want him anymore after they'd made him a monster, but that he couldn't ever feel that kind of touch and have it associated with anything positive. They used him in so many ways. He wasn't sure he could have anyone touch him again without recoiling it from. "Your mom's name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."

Steve seemed to visibly relax. "Bucky, if you can come quietly, you can come with me. We know it wasn't you..."

"I still did it." Bucky scowled.

"We can get you help. You can live with me." Steve continued.

The memory of their home together, the shitty little one-room apartment in Brooklyn flashed through his mind. How they squeezed together in one bed. There was no way they could do that now. Just the thought of anything even remotely similar to that life made a small glimmer of hope open up inside him. He let his hands drop by his sides and nodded his head.

"Alright, Buck. Let's grab the things you want to keep. We'll take you home." Steve said.