[Bucky Barnes; R] Uncivil War: Chapter 4 Character/Series: Bucky Barnes; Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: R Notes: This... did not quite go the way I intended. There was another scene I meant to get in here, but I guess not. Title: Uncivil War- Chapter 4: We Could Fall Apart Author:yuuo Word Count: 4907 Summary:"So they're ghosts?"
this may never start tearing out my heart and i'd be your memory lost your sense of fear feelings disappeared can i be your memory -Sugar Cult
"So they're ghosts?" Sharon didn't sound skeptical, she sounded unable to process what Bucky said after what she'd just seen.
"I thought ghosts were completely immaterial," Bruce said. "Of course, there's little evidence that they even exist."
Bucky pointed at Cali, who was sitting on the table happily, licking her chops from the ham she managed to steal from Bucky's hand, stilled by shock. "Explain her going through a closed door."
"But we've been interacting with them as if they were physical, too," Bruce said. "I didn't realize ghosts could go back and forth."
Bucky shrugged and sat back down, staring at Cali like she might turn into a human flesh eating monster cat. "I've encountered a ghost before. At least I'm pretty sure I did. The people who knew him said he was. And his hand clinked against mine, I got the feedback from my arm when it happened."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bruce raise an eyebrow. "His hand 'clinked' against yours?"
"His right arm was made of metal," Bucky said. "Weirdest shit I've ever seen. But I heard the metal hitting metal. But the librarians were certain he was dead. He would've been way over a hundred if he wasn't. He'd been eighteen during the Munich Putsch, he said."
"When was this?"
Bucky nodded in Steve's direction. "That time he took me to the public library and I was looking for chemistry books more recent than what I had access to online. Ran into the ghost looking at the same book."
Steve sat back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling, brows furrowed in concentration. "I don't really remember this, but I remember cats having to do with it for some reason."
"You were reading a series of mysteries called the 'Cat Who' books," Bucky said. "I remember you complained that the cats were more spoiled than the furry Junior is."
There was still that frown. "Maybe that was it. I don't really remember this. But I'll take your word for it."
That was going to get frustrating. Bucky put it aside. Right now, they had a ghost problem on their hands that required some measure of focus. He'd sit down with Steve that night and go over what he could remember that might be important or might knock loose something else.
"Is there any chance that the presence of at least twenty ghost animals has something to do with the odd lighting scare?" Maria asked. "It seems unlikely, but the only ghosts I grew up knowing about are the campfire variety. These seem fairly benign."
Bucky reached out and touched Cali between the eyes with care. She lifted her head up against this hand, forcing a full head pet. His hand didn't once go through her. "Well, if you listen to pseudoscientific ghost hunter programs, electromagnetic spikes are associated to ghosts. That might screw with electronics at a high enough pulse, but nothing I've seen would explain melting paint off an old burn mark from a fire."
"Unless all these cats got caught in that fire down there," Sharon said. "Maybe they were hiding from bad weather without anyone knowing and when the place went up, they went with it. If the fire started at that spot, that might explain a bit. They could be telling us what happened to them."
"That hadn't occurred to me," Bucky admitted. "I think I want to go with that explanation, even if the idea of innocent animals getting caught in a building fire makes my stomach sick. At least the place is nice again for them. I'll tell Tony that twenty cats say thank you for fixing up the place."
Maria smiled, trying to hide it behind her unfinished glass of orange juice. "That'll confuse him."
"He deserves it," Bucky said.
"Not right now he doesn't," Steve said. "He's cleaning up the mess we made in Palestine."
Bruce came to Bucky's rescue, because Bucky was about to break something in anger. Steve's tone, whether he realized it or not, sounded like he was laying blame somewhere, and Bucky had been seen as that mission's leader and therefore it was Bucky's fault that things went south for them.
"More like Hydra made that mess," Bruce pointed out. "I don't know how much you remember leading up to when they sedated you, but they were trying to replicate the Winter Soldier Project on innocent people. Hydra made that mess and Israel's government helped them. All we did was give Tony the cleaning supplies and then got kicked out when we offered to help." A frown crossed his face. "Come to think of it, JARVIS said that copy of the project files that got to Israel came from an American government computer."
"Which means there's probably someone in the American government in on it," Bucky said, sitting up.
"Another Hydra agent, perhaps?" Maria asked, setting down her glass. The cats were momentarily forgotten.
"I hate to be the party pooper," Sharon said, "but this really isn't something that's our problem anymore. If Tony hasn't already figured that out, one of the others has and pointed it out to him. We have a new mission, and right now, that mission is learning how to live with ghost cats." She paused. "And dyeing my damn hair before it turns grey on its own."
"Hint taken," Bucky said. "Steve, the scissors. I'll take care of the dishes." He stood and started gathering up empty plates.
"I can do that," Maria said, getting up. "You can sit out here and see what you'll be working with when it comes time for the dye."
"You made the meal," Bucky pointed out, not liking the idea of her doing all the work.
She raised an eyebrow, picking up Bruce's plate. "And the cook cleans the kitchen."
Bruce cut in. "How about I do it? Let me feel like I do something around here besides put bandaids on skinned knees?"
Bucky and Maria looked at each other for a long few seconds before Bucky shrugged. "If he wants to," he said.
Maria handed her plate and Bruce's back to him. "I think you underestimate your worth here, but if it would make you feel better, here. I can come show you where things are kept."
Bruce took the plates and started taking the others from Bucky. "I can look around and find things," he said, then headed to the kitchen with the dishes and Steve's open bag of chips.
"I should probably wash my hands before doing this," Steve told Sharon. "Scoot out your chair, tell me what you want."
Sharon moved her chair away from the table and grabbed a folded piece of paper out from under the dye box. "Go clean your fingers. I don't want Dorito cheese in my hair."
"You're sure? Might look good with that dye," Steve said, and Bucky snorted. That sounded like their old banter. And Steve's wit that got reserved for people he loved.
Sharon bent her head back to glare at him. "Go wash your hands."
While Steve did that, Bucky pulled his chair out to sit in front of Sharon. "What's on the paper?"
Sharon handed it over. "An example of what I want. It's not complicated, really, most of it's in styling, and that's my job. I just can't see the back of my head to cut back there."
Bucky took the picture and studied it. It was a brunette woman with an old-fashioned bob, modernized by tendrils hanging off her front left side that were curled up into ringlets, the front 'bangs' swept aside into the curls. "I haven't see anything resembling the bob since I was a kid," he said. He looked at her with a critical eye. "Wouldn't look bad on you."
She smiled. "I'll take the word of the former womanizer."
Bucky frowned. "I was not a womanizer. That implies I was using them for my own entertainment."
Maria's deadpan kicked in. "He's very good at entertaining his partner."
Sharon looked at her. "I'm sure that's also something I don't want to know about." She looked towards the kitchen just as Steve came back out. "Your brother thinks the cut I picked will look good on me."
"Then it probably will," Steve said, walking up behind her. "He's a good judge of a lady's looks." He grabbed the scissors. "Now what am I doing?"
Bucky held the paper out to him. "It's a bob. Remember them from when we were kids? Aunt Betty had one."
Steve didn't look up from studying the picture. "Yeah, but she was a flapper at a speak easy and went to jail for it."
"Just because she engaged in illegal activities does not lessen how good the bob style looked on her."
Steve didn't reply, but leaned down around Sharon's shoulder. "You're sure about this? This is a lot of hair to get rid of."
"I'm sure," she said. "I checked, that's in style right now for upper class people and soccer moms trying to be upper class. One of the richer counties in New York, I need something that's going to blend in."
"All right," Steve said, setting the picture down where he could see it easily. "I guess we do this."
Knowing that Steve had a bit of a nerve problem when doing something new, Bucky decided to help him by taking the attention off of him and Sharon by starting a completely unrelated conversation with Maria. When Bruce returned, Bucky pulled him in with them.
Who got outside maintenance duties? We can rotate shifts. You and Steve get first round. Why thank you for volunteering us. We will both get you back later. Do I get a say in this? Shut up and work, Steve, unless you want your girlfriend to have a sloppy haircut. I'm trying my best, just leave me out of this conversation. You spoke up, just remember that.
That was met with a grumpy silence.
"So what do we do about the ghost cats?" Bruce asked. "I suppose it's nice they don't seem to leave presents in corners or shed fur and dander, but we're officially living in a haunted house. I can't be the only one who gets the willies from that."
"You're not," Bucky said. "But what're we gonna do? Call in an old priest and a young priest to banish a bunch of cats? They're not harmful, they're sanitary if they're not shedding, so they're not likely to ruin your office by mucking it up."
"And they seem to like us," Maria added. "And Cali seems exceptionally fond of Bucky."
Bucky peered under the table where Cali was still licking her chops from the bit more of ham she managed to worm out of Bucky's sandwich before his brain stopped going "she's a ghost" and went to "she's eating my lunch" and pulled his food out of her reach. "She certainly likes my food," he grumped in her direction.
She gave him a slow blink, generally considered a sign of affection in cats. "Yeah, kiss up, little girl. See where it gets you."
"With you? Everywhere," Steve said, a bit distracted. "Sharon, shouldn't I have wet your hair down first?"
Sharon was careful not to move. "You could've but we would've had to wait for it to dry for Bucky, since dye has to go on dry hair."
"Oh that's gonna be fun," Bucky said. He grabbed the dye box. "Mind if I dig into this?"
"Go ahead," she said. "I'd rather you know what you're doing ahead of time."
Bucky pulled out the thousand and a half pieces in the dye kit: two tubes of some sort of cream, a bottle half full of some other sort of cream, a pair of protective gloves, and the instructions. The instructions made it sound simple enough; one of those bottles of cream wasn't even anything he had to mess with, it was a regular conditioner for Sharon. "Hey, this says to do an allergy test before dyeing."
"I'm not allergic," Sharon said. "I've used that brand before, long time ago."
Bucky shrugged. "Up to you. It's your scalp."
It took Steve some more time to finish, and Maria and Bruce had gone silent, watching over their drinks while Bucky memorized the instructions on the dye.
"Bucky? What do you think?" Steve sounded nervous. Considering he was cutting his girlfriend's hair when the most he'd ever done was trim Bucky's hair when it got too long, Bucky didn't blame him.
Bucky leaned forward and examined Sharon's now very short hair and that was weird. The longer tendrils to one side of her face looked a little awkward, but that could be covered in styling. He got up, shooing Steve out of the way to give Sharon a look over. "It looks fine to me. Maria, what do you think?"
Maria got up and took her own turn around Sharon, who- Bucky imagined -was probably starting to feel a little nervous getting circled like carrion. "I don't see anything terribly amiss. It's not a professional job, but it looks workable."
Steve let out a huge sigh. "Good. I didn't want to be the one to mess this up."
Sharon tilted her head back to look at him again with a smile that glowed. "I knew I could trust you to do it."
Steve stepped over to look down at her so she wasn't trying to tilt her head back to an unnatural angle. He grinned and tapped her nose with the non-pointy end of the scissors. "You're lucky I lived up to that."
For a second, Bucky genuinely thought they'd get treated to a public display of affection, but then Steve frowned, sighed, set the scissors down, and walked out of the room. Sharon's smile quickly turned to a look of dismay, turning in her seat to watch him go. Bucky's hand on her shoulder seemed the only thing that stopped her from saying anything.
"Let it go," he said quietly, crouching down in front of her.
She turned back around, eyes sparkling with tears. "I hate this. We spent so long building this up and it's like it's all gone and I don't know what I did wrong."
Bucky reached up and pulled her into a hug, petting her now short hair. "It's okay," he said. She trembled in his grip, sobs pulled in and subdued. He had a feeling she'd rather cry much harder than that. "Go ahead and cry," he told her. "It's nothing you did wrong. We'll get his memories back and it'll be okay again."
Maria crouched by her side, a hand on her shoulder as she started crying harder. "It's okay, Sharon. It really will be."
They let Sharon cry for a minute before Bruce spoke up. "Bucky, is there any medicine you can think of that might counter this damage?"
Bucky looked over at him, rubbing Sharon's back. "Nothing I know of. If you and I were still at the Tower, we might be able to come up with something, but we don't have the tools here."
"Mm." Bruce took a sip of his coffee. "I'll get ahold of JARVIS, tell Tony that we need some stuff to work with for getting Steve's memories back. Getting them back is part of why we're here, he shouldn't say no."
"I'm not sure why he sent us here in the first place," Maria said. "He listed some legitimate concerns, but he had to know that treating Steve's memory loss as a medical problem would require medical attention that we simply can't give with only the four of us and no resources."
Bucky sat back a bit, lifting the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe tears away from Sharon's eyes. "I know why," he said quietly. "Steve would still be Steve even without his memories. This awkward situation might've still happened, but it's not the memories, it's Hydra."
Sharon sniffed hard a couple times, prompting Maria to go to the kitchen and return quickly with a paper towel. Sharon mumbled a thank you and blew her nose. "I thought that drug was out of his system."
"It is," Bucky said. "But Hydra always leaves a mark behind. We're trying to turn it into a scar instead of a fresh wound that just stopped bleeding. It's how they work."
Sharon's face was a mess of red eyes and white salt streaks down a flushed face, but her eyes turned cold. "How hard would it be to convince Tony to take us back so we can take them down?"
Oh Sharon. Don't go there. Don't go into that darkness. Bucky understood, wanted to find every single Hydra agent and give them a painful and torturous death for the way they were affecting his family, for what they did to Steve, for what he was seeing in Sharon's eyes. He brushed aside her bangs. "That's not our job right now," he said quietly. "Our job is to help Steve."
"And you," Maria said. When Bucky looked at her, there was a firmness on her face that he knew meant she wasn't taking no for an answer to her statement. "Don't deny it. You said neither of you could be trusted. Tony wouldn't send us all out here if you didn't need us too."
Bucky took in a deep breath, then shook his head and looked back up at Sharon. "That's something we can worry about later. You still up for this dyeing thing? We can put it off, if you want some time."
"No, that's okay," Sharon said, sitting up. She blew her nose one more time and wiped her face with her hands. "Let's get it done."
The dye job didn't take long, and Bucky was right, it wasn't any harder than washing his sister's hair when she was young. Easier, in fact, since Sharon didn't flop around like a dying fish. Once the dye was massaged into her scalp, it was a twenty minute wait before she had to go shampoo it out, and she chose to spend that twenty minutes on her own in her room.
"Gonna let you two sit in awkward silence for awhile," Bucky said once the trash from dyeing Sharon's hair was thrown out. "I'm gonna go find Steve."
"We'll be fine," Maria said. "Go on. Bruce and I can amuse ourselves."
Bruce raised his mug. "I'll get more coffee and start making some notes, get working on a medicine for Steve. We might be able to do something from here yet."
"Have fun with that," Bucky said. "I'll help later."
He didn't wait for another dismissal, simply headed out the door, looking for Steve. He wasn't in their room, but when he stepped back out into the hall, he paused, hearing Sharon crying in her room. He wanted to go try to ease her tears, but he knew she needed to cry, and she needed her alone time, and right now, his job was Steve. If Sharon wanted someone up there, Maria would be a better choice.
Bucky finally located Steve in the lounge, staring out the window to the grounds below. "Hey."
Steve didn't turn to look at him. "I keep wanting to tell her I love her," he said. "But then I remember that I don't even know her anymore. I can't remember her, I can't remember any of the conversations she said we had online before she showed up as Natasha's contact. I don't even remember when that happened."
Bucky knew the invitation was there, even if it wasn't issued, so he took it and shut the door behind him before walking over to stand on Steve's right side to listen quietly while Steve kept talking.
"I don't know what it's like to kiss her and I want to, I know I should, but I can't remember. I can't kiss a girl I don't remember anything about." He looked at Bucky. "Relationship differences aside, is this how it was for you?"
Bucky stared out the window, brows furrowed just faintly. "Yeah. I knew you. When I saw you upset and you never let me see you upset but I knew you were, I wanted to hug you and make the hurt go away. But I barely knew you. And I was scared of you. Scared you'd see Hydra and push me away. Realize there wasn't anything left worth salvaging."
Steve didn't answer, went back to looking out the window. "Hydra's good at that, aren't they?"
Bucky silently wrapped his arm around Steve's shoulders, resting his chin on Steve's shoulder. "They are. And we'll beat 'em."
Steve looked away from Bucky, reaching up and slowly picking the metal hand off his shoulder. "I don't want Hydra's side."
Bucky lifted his head, dropping his metal arm. "Is that going to come between us? That project? Because this arm is mine, Steve. I can't get rid of it. It's not Hydra's and you're the one that lectured me about that."
The deep breath Steve took in and let out in a huff of air after a count to ten was a release of anger he was trying to keep tightly controlled. Bucky knew that sound, knew the expression that came with it. "Sorry," he said, almost through clenched teeth. "I'm still getting used to it. I know I was before, but it's not something I remember."
That was a weak excuse, but Bucky accepted it anyway. "It's fine," he lied, waving it off. "Bruce is going to send out a message to Tony, ask for some stuff for us to work with, try to find something that help you get your memories back faster so you're not just running on gut feelings anymore."
Steve switched his gaze to his feet. "Thank you."
Bucky patted his arm a couple times before dropping his hand. "I'll let you brood for awhile. Tonight we can work on going through some old sketchbooks, work on helping you remember."
"We did that. It didn't work."
"That was before the drug was out of your system," Bucky pointed out. "We'll try again. Stories helped knock some of my memories loose, I don't see why it won't help you."
There was another one of those explosive breaths. "It's just an exercise in memorizing things," he said. "Knowing something isn't the same as knowing."
"I know," Bucky said, a bit peevish at Steve's tone. "And it helped me, we'll see if it'll help you. What else am I supposed to do, Steve?"
Another breath. "Nothing," he said. "You're right, we'll try it. I just wish things had gone differently."
Bucky frowned. "We all do." Then he spat out something petty; he was already tired of that angry huffing, as if Bucky was at fault for his memory being swiss cheese. "Just remember that I tried to convince you to go for another plan than selling you to them without any weapons."
Steve snapped his head around to give Bucky a dirty look. "So now it's my fault?"
Bucky didn't care about the growl in his voice. "It's Hydra's fault," he said. "But if you're gonna bitch about it, yes, I tried to convince you to go another way. I knew we shouldn't've done it as soon as we realized Hydra already knew we'd sold you. You didn't fucking listen."
"And now that Hydra's gotten to you and neither of us can be trusted, you should just keep on leading us around here?" Steve retorted sharply. "I'm not the only one that Hydra worked on."
"But I'm the only one who knows you and them well enough to help you!" Bucky snarled. "So don't give me that shit. It doesn't fucking matter whose mission it is or isn't right now, what matters is that you're my goddamn best friend and I'm the only one who can help you. So you can put up with it or deal with Hydra owning your head."
For a split second, Bucky almost thought Steve was going to strike him and he braced himself for it, ready to grab his wrist before he could make contact. It was such a ridiculous thought, but the look on Steve's face was one Bucky had only seen when Steve was really about to hit someone, usually a Hydra agent, by the anger in his eyes. Instead, Steve turned and left the room.
Bucky was tempted to grab something to throw at the closing door, but nothing grabbed his attention fast enough so he spun away from the door, smacking his fist soundly against the glass of the window. It left a tiny dent, like a rock hitting a windshield. Tony must've had the glass replaced with something stronger than regular glass. For a building meant to be as secure as the Tower, it wasn't surprising.
He found a chair to sit in and lowered himself down, resting his elbows on his knees and sliding his fingers up to hold his hair back from his face as he stared at the ground.
This was going to kill him. He was certain he'd go crazy before Steve's memories came back. And the worst part was, he knew that having the memories would only help so much. As long as that lab was still in there, Hydra had a grip on Steve's mind. That fear, and the fear of the Soldier, no matter how many times Bucky tried to tell him that Steve was the only person that could trust the Soldier, it wasn't going to go away easily.
Seeing those files hadn't helped anything. It'd connected the killer in the lab with Bucky directly, and now Bucky was on the receiving end of Steve's fear and anger. And Bucky's own impatience had snapped out something stupid and caused this particular fight.
This was going to be a long goddamn process. A mission going far longer than any Bucky had been on before, to protect Steve and get him out of that lab. With the others to protect.
If he thought for half a second that the Soldier might have better luck, he'd use him in this, but with the Soldier already being a point of contention with those files, he was going to be useless unless there was a physical threat.
The thought of the files made him stand and head for his room. Nobody crossed his path; he hoped Maria and Bruce hadn't heard the argument, but if they did, they'd stayed hidden from both Steve and Bucky's path out of the lounge.
Maybe there was something in those files that would help him figure out a way to help Steve. Something, anything, a throw away observation.
So he headed for his bedroom, his footsteps heavy on the stairs as he went up with a sort of weariness. He was already tired of all of this. He wanted to go home. Trying to do this in an unfamiliar place without his normal arrangements and their normal escapes on the occasion that they started sitting on each other's nerves was going to be a nightmare.
He opened the door to his room to see Steve already there, lounged on the bed and staring at a page in a sketchbook. Bucky wasn't sure which one. Steve didn't say anything, but the anger looked like it'd eased, so Bucky walked in and shut the door behind him.
"Tell me honest," he said, and Steve sat up, setting aside the sketchbook. "Is it going to cause more fights if we're forced this close together all the time?"
Steve looked down at the sketchbook. "Having the same room helped you," he said, then picked up the sketchbook and held up the picture he was looking at. It was the bedroom in DC. "I remember this."
One corner of Bucky's lips tugged upwards slightly, for a moment, then dropped back down. "Yeah, it did. But I'm not in as bad shape as you are right now. So tell me honest, would it help you to have your own space? I can ask Maria if I can stay with her for awhile or I can take one of the smaller rooms on the second flo-"
"Don't go."
Bucky stopped speaking, looked at the lost look in Steve's eyes. He looked like the little guy from Brooklyn that he remembered from so many years ago. He was a strong guy, stubborn, prideful, but when he was around Bucky, he let himself be vulnerable when he needed to.
"It's worse at night." Steve's voice was smaller than what fit his post-serum body, belonged to the stubborn kid who didn't cry at skinned knees and black eyes, but cried when he had to rehome his pet dog because he couldn't afford to take care of him. 'Can I stay with you tonight?' he'd asked and Bucky had taken him in without a thought.
Bucky saw that little guy and without that same thought, he walked over to the bed, took the sketchbook from Steve's hand and set it aside, pulled his little brother into a hug. Like that might somehow change things, might be enough to make all the nightmares they were going to have go away.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said quietly, resting his head on top of Steve's.