(It was his fault.) Till the day he dies, he’ll blame this one on him. It’s not another mission, it’s not another job. No, this was them aganist everything aganist what had created the tangled web that they wove around one another. And his hands are freezing, aching and covered in blood. He needs to stop touching the wound. (You’ve seen people dead before) you know he’s been been dead. you know that there was nothing left to save. was there anything even left in that man to begin with? it’s a whispered echo in the back of his mind, and he presses his fingers against the cold blood. there’s no point in even trying to salvage the body, he knows this. god he knows death like the back of his hands. he knows how it feels to fall into the clutches of death see that white void and think you’re gone. but death had been kind on him and pulled him back. only because something believed he was a good man— and he lingers here. voice caught in his lungs. and the cold is harsh across his skin, leaving prickles reminding him of cyro. reminding him of everything that unmade him— and it burns beneath the skin, white and hot and he bites the underside of his lip. feels the way that blood pools from where he’s bitten it hard in his mouth. he’s trembling, vaguly he can feel himself shaking. he;’s no medic but he knows. he knows– (you gotta let him go. let him go. he’s your past) his fingers press into the blood again. and god. god he’s shaking, and he’s so cold. less than thirty six hours ago they had been fucking, they had fought and then fucked, and he’s still got the bruises on his skin. still has the love ( dare he call em that) across his skin and littered in other more personal places. less than two days ago he had been laughing and joking around with him and breathing a life that he had found with the other. russia was never going to let you escape. some part of him kicks himself for not being able to save this one. but they were damned from the get go. they weren’t meant for the world- or at least the way Niko ran. And he bites his tongue again sharply, fingers pulling away from the wound, his eyes staring at the blood. it hurts so much more knowing that you loved someone and they never breathed the words back. but he knows, he knows that Niko had died saving his skin, taking a hit that had been meant for him. He doesn’t really make a sound. his humanity is there yes, it’s raw and real yes, but the cold, the bone chilling cold does enough to his mind. Does enough, numbs him enough. Reminds him that he was once a soldier that was not human. that he was a ghost, and ghosts are just ghosts. he closes his eyes for a moment, trying to compose himself. you got attached. you’re an idiot. the russians had shown him once that love wasn’t made for people. it was a weapon, it was a tool and sitting here now by his corpse. it makes his heart twist knowing, knowing that he could have stopped this, that he could have done something but he didn’t. he had to stand and watch him die, he had to see the weight of the world remove the man that saw the monster for more than a monster. that had accepted those darker parts of him. His fingers, bloody move to close the eyelids. He says nothing. But he’s shaking as he rises, trembling. They had talked about this, he had told Bucky just to leave the body where it was, to leave him. To just let it go, and here he stands. And his fingers pull at the dogtags from his neck, his actual tags not his fathers. And he pulls the tags from his neck, and drops them to the other’s neck, to the corpses neck. He’s letting go of what once remained. the evidence of who james buchanan barnes was, died with this soldier, this man, even with how complicated they were, it died with this man, and he lets his tags stay there, takes Niko’s as a weighted reminder. And turns from the body, and ignores the wet press of tears. when he returns to Romania, out of russia with blood stained fingers, his identification reads DMITRI KONSTANTIN. He never talks about Russia again, and when he hits his bed, he weeps, weeps out anything that remains of James Buchahan Barnes.
tangentwithtanner
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