Let me count the ways, 32, Steve and Bucky, Winter Soldier Steve please.
Let Me Count the Ways ask game
“Whoever he used to be...and the guy he is now...I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop.”
Sam's words echoed in Bucky's head as he faced the Winter Soldier at the other end of the catwalk. The tall, blond man stood resolute, his face stony. Emotionless. Resolute. The proverbial immovable object meeting his unstoppable force.
If Bucky was unstoppable.
“No,” he'd said to Sam. “No way. He's...my best friend. He's still in there somewhere. I know he is.”
Easy enough to say, running that moment over and over in his mind when Steve's steely gaze clouded over with confusion, as he mumbled, “Who...Who are you?”
Harder to believe, now that he faced the man who had once been his brother, yet now stared blankly ahead as though they had never met.
The catwalk shuddered under their feet as Sam zipped past outside, drawing the attention of the jets towards the other helicarrier. The seconds slipped through his fingers, and Bucky knew he couldn't just stand here wishing things could be different.
What would Steve do? he asked himself. The real Steve.
Taking a deep breath, Bucky straightened, hefting the shield he'd first picked up from the floor of a train in the Alps a lifetime ago. “I don't want to do this, Steve,” he said, “but people will die if I don't. And I could never face you again if I let that happen.”
Steve said nothing, just raised his knife.
They both charged forward.
It was like when he'd tried to teach Steve to throw a punch, back when they were growing up. Except that now they were evenly matched.
It was like when they used to spar in between missions in the war, all of the Howling Commandos taking their turn against Steve to keep them all limber. Except that Steve wasn't pulling his punches anymore.
It was like that fight earlier, the one that had started on the bridge and then moved to the streets, where they matched blow for blow, strength for strength. Except that now there was no flicker of humanity in those cold blue eyes.
Slowly, painfully, clawing for every step, Bucky fought his way back towards the console where he needed to put the targeting chip in. He wanted to stop, to reason with Steve, to remind him who he was...but there was no time.
He knocked the knife out of Steve's hand. It was all wrong.
He bashed his shield—Steve's shield—into his face. It was all wrong.
He threw his shoulder against Steve and hurled him over the railing to fall far below. It was all wrong!
As quickly as he could, he grabbed the targeting chip in the console and pulled it out, reaching for the pouch on his belt.
Somehow, Steve was already there behind him, stabbing at him with a huge knife. Bucky knocked it away, but the blade glanced off the back of his hand, and he dropped the targeting chip. It clattered down onto the huge glass dome below them.
Ducking under Steve's next attack, Bucky dropped down from the catwalk, scurrying after their one hope of saving millions of lives. Steve leapt over the side, racing him for the chip.
Ever since the serum, Steve had always been just a little bit faster. He threw himself into a skid—the very same move Bucky had taught him decades ago, playing baseball at recess—and snatched the targeting chip with his free hand.
Bucky threw the shield even as he barreled forwards. Steve tried to block it with the hand holding the knife, succeeding only in both their weapons falling to the floor.
Coming in low, Bucky threw Steve to the floor with all his might. They rolled over and over on the floor, grappling for the targeting chip. They had never fought like this. Not with this kind of desperation.
Finally, Bucky managed to get on top of Steve, twisting one arm around behind his back while Steve clutched the targeting chip close with his other hand. Bucky put his hand in just the right place and pulled until he felt the arm pop out of its socket.
The scream of agony ripped through Bucky like he'd just dislocated his own shoulder. But there was no time to think about that. Before Steve could wriggle free, Bucky wrapped his legs around Steve to pin him down, locking both arms tightly around Steve's neck.
Steve struggled feebly, trying to hit Bucky with the fist clenched around the targeting chip, but his blows were weak. He kicked fruitlessly, his face growing redder and redder as Bucky's grip blocked off the blood flow.
As Steve's movements grew weaker and weaker, as he slowly lost consciousness, Bucky found himself thinking back to all the times he'd watched Steve drop off to sleep. Sometimes he would struggle to breathe just as he did now. Never before had Bucky been the reason he couldn't breathe.
He blinked away the tears he couldn't afford to shed. Not now.
As soon as Steve's grip on the targeting chip slackened, Bucky loosened his grip. “Forgive me,” he whispered, before grabbing the targeting chip and struggling out from under Steve's heavy weight.
Bucky hastened back up to the console. He wasn't sure how much time had passed. Time seemed to have no meaning when they were locked in combat, but he knew time was running out for Hydra's victims. He just hoped it wasn't too late.
As he struggled to pull himself over the edge of the catwalk, a sudden blazing pain in his leg alerted him to Steve's presence. He hauled himself up onto the catwalk before daring a glance over his shoulder.
Steve stood tall, bedraggled and bloody though he might be, holding his left arm carefully by his side. But he pointed a pistol directly at Bucky with a look of hatred he'd never seen in those eyes before.
Moving as quickly as he could, Bucky turned towards the console and inserted the targeting chip at last. He raised his wrist to speak into the mic. “Charlie lo—“
Fire ripped through his left arm. Letting out a cry of pain, Bucky fell to the floor, peering through the metal grating at Steve carefully aiming at him.
Bucky's arm ached, but his heart ached even worse.
Raising his arm again was sheer agony, but he did it as he desperately crawled away around the console, out of Steve's sight. “Do it!” he snapped, not sure if his comms were even working anymore, what with all that blood dripping down his arm. “Fire now!”
“But...Bucky....” Maria Hill's voice trembled slightly.
And in moments, the helicarrier burst into flames. With all three targeting chips in place, the helicarriers emptied their entire payload onto each other rather than the millions of innocent victims they otherwise would have killed.
Bucky wearily leaned back against the console, listening to the sounds of groaning metal and shattering glass all around him. They'd won. He'd succeeded. He was going to die, but at least he hadn't failed.
Then a scream met his ears. A scream of pain he knew all too well.
A voice in the back of his head told him it was no use. He might as well just sit back and let the inevitable happen. They were both going to die, so he might as well accept it. Steve would die, never knowing that was his name, never knowing who he was either.
Gritting his teeth, Bucky grabbed the railing with his good hand and hauled himself to his feet. He staggered around the side of the console, looking down at the wreckage of what used to be a glittering glass dome.
A huge metal beam had fallen down, pinning Steve into place. He struggled, heaving at it with his one good arm, but it was too heavy even for him.
Going to Steve's aid was like second nature. It was as natural as breathing. As unconscious as a heartbeat.
Though every movement sent pain shooting all through his body, Bucky dropped down from the catwalk, staggering as yet another explosion rocked the helicarrier. Miraculously, the shield lay unharmed on an intact pane of glass, so Bucky grabbed it on his way. He stumbled over to Steve, who glared up at him with more fear than anger this time.
He thinks I'm going to kill him. That hurt more than everything else combined.
Bucky only had one arm to lift the metal beam, but together with Steve, they managed to lever it up just far enough for Steve to slip out from underneath it. Slowly, gasping for breath, Bucky straightened and looked Steve in the eye. There was only one task left for him.
Captain America's last mission was Steve Rogers.
“My name is Bucky,” he said. “You're Steve. You are Steven Grant Rogers. Your mom's name was Sarah.”
Steve flinched, swiping at the air as if to brush something away. Maybe the shred of a memory.
“You used to put newspapers in your shoes,” Bucky continued, saying anything that came to mind. “You're scared of spiders. You're right-handed, but you spread butter on your bread with your left hand. You're really bad at spitting. You can whistle like a songbird. You had a crush on Lana Chase for four years, and you cried when she went out with Gene Forster.”
With each sentence, he took one small step forward. Steve stood, seemingly transfixed, eyes darting from side to side at this onslaught of facts about himself. Soon, they were an arm's length apart from each other. He could see the darker blue rims around the edges of Steve's irises.
“I know you, Steve. And I think you know me.”
Steve's teeth clenched, his eyes growing wild as if the very suggestion was more threatening than anything Bucky had done yet. “No, I don't!” He swiped with his good arm at Bucky, forcing him back a pace.
The sight of Steve's anguish, the way his brows pinched together with such confusion, such pain.... “I'm not going to fight you anymore, pal.” Bucky dropped the shield through a hole in the glass, letting it tumble to the water far, far below. “You're my friend.”
“No!” With a roar, Steve charged towards him, landing a punch on Bucky's jaw that sent him sprawling to the floor.
Bucky didn't fight back. He didn't resist or even try to protect himself when Steve loomed over him, raining punch after punch down onto his face, screaming over and over again, “No, no, no, no!”
Bucky let him, because he deserved this. He was the reason Steve had ended up in Hydra's clutches. If he hadn't dodged out of the way...if he had been the one to fall from the train....
He didn't know what unimaginable tortures Steve had endured to end up like this. The man with a golden heart, such compassion for those in pain, such a strong sense of justice...twisted like this into a mockery of the man Bucky had always looked up to, even when he was five-foot-four in his stocking feet.
So Bucky didn't mind if he died. Except....
Steve hesitated, his bloody fist poised to strike again. Bucky looked up at him with just one eye, the other one already swelling closed. He felt the sting of salt as a tear trailed down his cheek, trickling over a handful of open cuts.
“'Sokay, Steve,” he mumbled through broken lips. “Even if you kill me...I'll still be with you...to the end of the line.”
The world shattered into a thousand pieces around him, and he was falling, falling, falling, but he didn't even notice.
Because the last thing he saw was the look of horror that crossed Steve's face as he looked into Bucky's eyes...and remembered.
