A picture is worth a thousand words.
Bucky stares at the carved wooden plate at the tiny store, hand chiseled and painted a happy yellow color. Little sailboats and suns were painted along the rim and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
It stays with him, the image of a small carved wooden piece. He thinks of the tiny suns and sailboats, so much simpler to understand than round shields painted with white stars and black mouthpieces and electrical wires. Easier than blue eyes staring in recognition (The Asset wasn’t supposed to be a person) and red stars and burning cars.
Bucky’s first picture is of the sky.
Huddled in the bathtub, back pressed against the chill ceramic with a handcuff locked around the tap. Cyro and restraint, the two things that stop him when his grey haze comes back in bursts and spurts and he tries to reporting back to the nearest HYDRA base.
It’s hard to break decades of orders.
But that day, watching the sun rise through the grimy window of the bathroom, he carefully unhooks the strap, rises and takes a picture of the sunrise, purples and blues and light pinks and orange.
He can’t stop looking at it the entire day, and when he can’t keep the phone, ingrained habits too insistent, he finds a computer in a library and prints out the picture. It’s not as radiant as the actual sunset but-
So he tucks it carefully between the pages of his journal, among half scrawled thoughts and memories, a beautiful thing among pages of blood and death. And every time the grey haze descends and he’s lost ready to comply he holds the fading picture and thinks of a rainbow of colors.
His next picture is when he’s at a park and a dog bounds up to him, tail wagging excitedly. It’s a puppy, curious about a lace from his boot, tugging at it with needle-sharp teeth. He looks around but there’s no one near him and there’s a leash dragging behind the puppy so he picks it up, setting it in his lap and unwrapping the leash from its hind leg. The puppy licks his hand and barks happily and Bucky looks around again before taking a picture of the puppy trying to balance on his legs and sniffing at his metal arm with its tail wagging furiously.
After that, he keeps doing it. Picture upon picture of things he likes. It’s frivolous and wasteful and the pictures are heavy in his backpack but they are memories and he doesn’t want to let them go. Doesn’t want to forget the sunrise that seemed to warm him for the first time ever when he realized he was free, the apologetic girl thanking him for keeping her puppy safe, the ivy climbing up his fire escape or the first cup of hot chocolate he made. Doesn’t want to forget the ice cream he bought because he wanted to or the bird that flew down and pecked at his metal limb out of curiosity.
He doesn’t want to forget these things, and he writes names and dates between the pages of his journal next to memories of people who died early and descendants long dead because he’s a walking record of those who disappeared and they don’t deserve to be forgotten either.
Bucky doesn’t take pictures when they find him sitting on a back road staring at the ghost of a memory of a crashing car and bring him to the Tower.
He doesn’t take pictures when he sits through the fragmented parts of his memory brought to life and listens to screams and pleads over and over. He takes the first picture of himself locked in the bathroom after he’s declared free from triggers and then destroys the phone.
He doesn’t take pictures of the sunrise off the roof or the pigeon that always comes to beg for bagel crumbs on the balcony.
If he doesn’t remember this, he doesn’t want to ache for something that proves not to be permanent.
His first picture is of DUM-E.
Seven months of drifting through a home he has no night to be in.
Anthony “call me Tony” Edward Stark is the son of two people he murdered but his fingers are always gentle as they open up the arm and fix the bolts and soothe the irritation. Voice blank but eyes soft when he presses numbing cream for his shoulder into his hand, other hand absentmindedly tapping on the trapped star in his chest.
DUM-E brought him a bright yellow colored ball on his second day down and nudges him with a high pitched beep.
“He wants you to throw it.” Tony says when Bucky looks at him in confusion. He stares uncertainly at DUM-E who beeps again and trundles closer and Bucky. Bucky tosses the ball across the floor and multiple high beeps sound as the other two metal bots race across the floor to chase the ball. There was a soft chuckle beside him and he looks to see Sta-Tony’s soft smile as he stares after his bots, small crinkles beside his eyes.
Bucky nearly has his phone out of his pocket before he stops himself. He just has to remember this without the photo, the calm and gentle look Tony gives to his children.
He takes even more pictures to the point the others don’t react. Peter clinging to the ceiling with Tony glaring up at him, James “call me Rhodey, everyone does after Tony.” and Tony arguing over burnt muffins, Harley and Tony bent over a potato gun (they’re on mark 5 now, Bucky put all the glass in closed cabinets), Tony playing with the bots…
He’s the world greatest assassin apparently, but he’s not subtle.
Steve reminds him gleefully about that as much as he can.
He doesn’t do anything about it.
He has a lot of pictures of Tony.
Tony, he thinks, knows, but doesn’t dare to hope that he’s right.
Tony gets him a specialized phone for pictures and Bucky chases him around to get a photo of that smile.
Even when he’s safe, when he doesn’t check the closet anymore but checks the windows because some things….some things are as deeply ingrained into him just as much as the name of Bucky Barnes is...
He keeps taking pictures.
Of sunrises and sunsets and people smiling and laughing because he’s alive and so are they and no one can stop him.
But there are also days where it’s bad and he can’t speak and he presses himself to the bathtub wall because the cold reminds him of cyro except he can breathe and he clutches a faded picture of a sunrise and reminds himself that he is free. They come no matter how much of himself he’s glued back together but that’s okay because Steve will sit outside the tub, facing the door in silence and Tony will bring hot chocolate and have blankets ready when he comes out.
He doesn’t know the day he’ll die, or if he’ll die last, but he’ll keep making memories and keep taking pictures even when he knows he’ll remember.
“I went on a walk.” Tony says, presenting him with a wrapped package. He’s nervous, tapping his fingers on his reactor and watching Bucky’s hands.
Bucky unwraps a small carved wooden plate with painted suns and sailboats.
“I figured you could maybe hang it up on your wall?” Tony babbles, waving his hands. “And you could maybe pin up some of your other pictures? I mean, you don’t have to but you’re safe here so you don’t need to keep it in your journals and-“
“Thank you Tony.” Bucky says quietly, and Tony goes willingly into the hug.
They stand there for a while, just breathing.
When Bucky hesitantly kisses the side of Tony’s head, he can feel the smile against his shoulder and Bucky thinks about putting the photo of a sunrise up first.
(Bucky gets JARVIS to take pictures at their wedding.)
@the-flightoficarus is my co-writer :) If you have any questions or want to hear more, hit either of us up!
