Archive of Our Own

They take Steve. And then someone sends the Bird.

Bucky doesn't know who the Bird is but knows who took Steve. It's the same people who took him too long ago.

Steve is hurt, but they manage to keep him alive, if only so they can keep hurting him. In his pain, he doesn't recognize Bucky, and that's probably for the best because Bucky only knows him distantly. Decides he doesn't want his face to give him hope, so he stays in the shadows. He wishes he felt more when Steve mumbles his name as they slice into him, but it's like watching a replay of something he can't remember. Maybe if he could, he'd do more to help him.

But, ultimately, keeping him alive is the best he can do.

"Kill the bird, and maybe we won't have you kill him," the HYDRA man says, his face smug and twisted like he has something on Bucky. Bucky imagines planting a knife in his chest or putting a bullet through his eye. A worthy cause. An acceptable slip back into his old ways.

He does neither but files the man's face away for a rainy day.

As for the Bird and Captain America, though? At this point, Bucky doesn't care about either of them; he is just tired of killing. So if someone can be saved?

Well.

The Winter Soldier has a lot to atone for.

&

HYDRA is in its death throes, burned to the ground in DC, yet still trying to claw its way back to greatness elsewhere. The problem is that there is no greatness left. Anyone who was able to turn did, and anyone left?

That's what Bucky is for.

There is a list, of course. Some low-level operatives that turned, mixed with mostly higher-level cowards, are still trying to be relevant. Bucky cares about the HYDRA scum less than he cares about the Bird and Steve, only because Steve and the Bird seem good. Pure. Trying to do what's best. In the end, though, Bucky will scorch the entire earth to get free.

No matter who or what is in the way.

Even Steve.

Even the Bird.

&

The Bird finds him in Moscow. It's a place the Bird doesn't know but a place Bucky should be able to melt into like a ghost. The Bird only finds him because it is an accident - one right turn for the Bird, one wrong turn for Bucky.

Bucky glimpses a memory, which nearly brings him to his knees. A migraine curls up through his skull, and he staggers, shoulder crashing against the slimy moss coating the tiled wall. There's a knife in the Bird's hand, sharp and gleaming black, and Bucky sways away just in time for it to strike his cheek instead of his jugular.

Pain burns through his skin and it sharpens his focus, drags him back from the edge. The Bird has a look of triumph on his face, so the hit to his jaw is a complete surprise, and he goes down into the filth of the alley, drops hard like a stone onto his ass.

Bucky follows him to the ground, sits on his outstretched legs, and presses his hands against the man's shoulders to pin him back against the brick. The knife is somewhere, but he can't see it, and maybe that means the Bird can't either.

"Who are you?" Bucky growls. The hot blood on his cheek makes him feel a little woozy.  Bucky doesn't think the Soldier was often injured, so the sensation is strange but not wholly unwanted. It somehow makes him feel alive, connected to his body. To the world.

The Bird makes him feel alive, too, in a perfectly explainable, unexplainable way. He is skilled, albeit a little sloppy, but it's been so long since he met someone with even the slightest measure of skill. A welcome challenge.

Or it would be if he wasn't so damn tired of all of this.

"Get off of me," the Bird hisses, bucks his legs, and looks around in the mossy cobbles for the knife. Bucky grabs his wrists and pins them down against his waist to stop his searching. Another flash of memory, and Bucky suddenly remembers, turning blue eyes to stare into the Bird's dark ones.

"You were there with Steve. The Helicarrier," Bucky says, and the headache comes back with a jolt. He releases the Bird's arms only to press a hand to his aching forehead. There's a moment where he thinks he will pass out and he knows that will be certain death for him. The only thing that might save him is he is likely the only one who knows where Steve is. And the Bird looks desperate, feels desperate.

"That's right, asshole. You ripped my wings off. But I'm not that easy to kill. Even for you," the Bird snaps, shoving his hands against Bucky's chest. Bucky wants to laugh at the man's indignant tone, embarrassed maybe by his current predicament.

Bucky tips his head curiously and reaches out to touch one of the muscular biceps bulging from under the snug T-shirt. The arm flinches away, and that's expected, but what isn't is the way the Bird stops striking him, the way he seems to settle back, only his eyes flashing hard and dark.

An invitation to continue, perhaps?

Bucky moves his fingers to one of the straps snug over the Bird's shoulders, then the one at his chest, his waist. The pack they are attached to is pushed hard against the wall, like the rest of him. Bucky remembers these from the Helicarrier, too, from the fight on the highway. Silver and gray, like no other bird he has ever seen.  He wonders why the Bird doesn't engage them - the wings.  It would be so easy to escape if he did. So easy to yank Bucky into the air and drop him from a height even a super soldier couldn't survive.

Instead, the Bird does nothing; he just sinks back against the pack, against the wall, his arms dangling loosely by his sides. Bucky lowers his eyes to the Bird's lips, which part slightly under the gaze as if the extra space is needed to suck air into his stuttering chest. Bucky hasn't wanted to kiss someone in decades. He barely knew if he had ever kissed someone in the past, before the Soldier became nothing more than an intelligent weapon, not allowed such luxuries. But the urge coils up in his chest as he stares into the Bird's beautiful face, his lips full and open for him.

In the end, Bucky doesn't kiss him, but instead, runs a dirty thumb over his bottom lip and feels the warm flick of a tongue over his skin before it darts away. It heats something up in Bucky's gut, and his head swims against the feeling. Not another migraine, something different. Something untamed. The Bird turns wide, wet eyes up to him, and Bucky hopes they meet again. Although he's pretty sure after he knocks him out, the last thing the Bird will want to do is kiss him.

Maybe, though, Bucky won't be asking next time.

&

The Bird nearly kills him in Seoul. A sniper shot through the window of the HYDRA operative's 11th floor apartment. The Bird is good, but not good enough, or at least, Bucky's reflexes are a little better. He rolls to the floor, smears the dead man's blood all over his jeans, the cold sticky fluid soaking through the fabric. That pisses Bucky off more than the attempt on his life, mainly because he still doesn't have many clothes. Doesn't really remember how to shop, and doesn't want to chance it. Not with people looking for him.

He knows that if they have sent the Bird, they have probably also sent someone else. A backup in case the Bird dies. Bucky hasn't seen anyone else, but it makes sense. Steve is important, it seems. To the government, at least.

To Bucky? He still can't decide.

Bucky is out on the balcony before the second shot comes, jumping towards the edge of the roof above him and vaulting up. From there, it's an easy jump to the roof that the Bird is on. He's lining up another shot when Bucky kicks him in the chest, knocking the sniper rifle over the side. The Bird is prepared this time, activates his wings, and shoots into the sky.

The Bird has two submachine guns, Steyr SPPs, and Bucky remembers these now, too. Remembers them from the Helicarrier, like the man himself, remembers snatching away his ability to fly. But here, there is no such ability. The Bird is too high, and Bucky is unarmed, except for the bloody knife still in his pocket. He dives and rolls behind a vent, crawling towards the sparkling top of an elevator shaft. The Bird pauses to reload, and Bucky stands up and shoves a boot through the glass, looking over his shoulder at the man above him.

Their eyes lock for a long moment, and Bucky smiles. The scowl he receives in return thrills him.

He's gone a second later, long before the Bird can fire again.

&

In Okinawa, Bucky kills three mid-level HYDRA scientists. They are holed up together in a small apartment overlooking a jagged slice of beach that had seen more bloodshed than Bucky ever had. Even in the war. Even as the Winter Soldier.

They had begged for mercy, of course, and Bucky watched them, wondering how people who had perpetrated so much evil thought they deserved anything but painful death.

Which, in the end, is what Bucky gives them.

He finds the Bird on the beach, his toes in the sand, and his sunglasses perched on his pretty nose. He doesn't seem to react to Bucky as he approaches, but the gun that appears in his hand is not a surprise.

The fact that he fires it is.

The bullet skims Bucky's ribs through his leather jacket, and pain swells in his head, dropping him to his hands and knees. He touches his side with metal fingers and they come back to him red. Not good, but likely not fatal.

After all, the Soldier knows a bit about what makes something fatal.

The Bird is on his feet above him, the muzzle of the gun smoking and pointed down towards where his flesh hand lay splayed against the beach. Bucky realizes too late that the Bird has no intention of killing him. At least, not until he has Steve.

The second bullet sinks into the meat of his hand, and Bucky's body collapses under him as his hand gives way, blood pooling red into the sand.

The pain is fierce and buzzes through him like an insect. But, the Winter Soldier is used to pain. This Bucky knows. The experiments. The endless cycle of agony of being frozen and thawed, taken out of storage each time they needed him. Electric shocks to the brain, to his ribs, between his legs, against his balls until he lost control of his bladder. Or worse. The last time he was shot was during the fight with Captain America when Bucky thought the Bird was dead and that the world would finally collapse so that he could be free.

But still, now, he has a master to serve.

The Bird looks triumphant, and maybe he deserves to. Bucky rolls onto his back, breathing hard, wondering what the Bird would do to him if he could. Torture him, maybe? Peel off pieces until he tells him where Steve is. He has to know that Bucky would never crack, though. He's been trained too well, even now that his brain has been allowed to begin to reset without the Chair, even when it feels like he is slogging through memories as sticky as quicksand, each one more painful than the previous one.

It's a good thing, then, that the Bird is cocky. He steps too close. Relaxes a fraction too much. Assumes that the same things that would incapacitate him, incapacitate the Soldier.

But the Bird is just a man, despite his wings.

As quick as a cobra, Bucky grips the Bird's booted ankle, yanking it back towards him before he can even realize what is happening. The Bird tumbles onto his back and cracks his head against the hard slab of sand beneath him. Bucky sees his eyes unfocus, and that feeling of want rises up in his chest again, replacing the pain throbbing through his body.

Bucky rolls over again, crawls up the Bird until he can push his legs apart with his knees, and settles between them. The Bird is barely conscious and isn't resisting, which is disappointing. Bucky likes the fire that burns as indignation on the man's face, the fight that is so unlike anyone he has ever encountered. People always show their belly so quickly for the Soldier, begging and pleading for their lives, their family's lives, more time, more time, more time. But the Bird doesn't ask for any of those things. He fights to live, fights for more time, and would fight to the death if given the opportunity. And he would lose, of course, but Bucky knows it would not be easy, not like those HYDRA pieces of shit with manicured fingernails and soft hands.

Bucky slaps the Bird's face, brings him back to the present, and works the sunglasses off his face with a bloodied hand. The Bird looks confused, unsure how he got on the ground. He blinks rapidly, pulling himself back to the living. He seems angry, and Bucky smiles. He grabs the Bird's chin so that he can look at him a little longer before he can turn away. The Bird spits in his face, and the warm spittle rolls down his cheek and drips onto his collar.

There he is. The fighter. Bucky grins as he feels his cock crowd the zipper of his pants. He wants to let it out, wants to jerk himself off and dirty up the beautiful face glaring at him. It's an urge that bubbles up from nowhere, but who is he to argue? There is very little that Bucky wants from his old life except for this. The feeling of flesh against flesh. The delicate body of the Bird held in the palm of his hand.

But he's bleeding, and there's more work to be done. Work that involves Bucky being elsewhere, mostly southwest of here. And he's tired of chasing the Bird. Tired of the Bird chasing him. He wants to enjoy himself and learn what makes the man tick.

Bucky rummages in a pouch on his hip and pulls out an unlabeled autoinjector. The Bird eyes it suspiciously, which is the correct response, especially when Bucky presses it against his shoulder, activates it, and watches as the Bird slips away with hardly a sound.

&

Sam. His name is Sam. Bucky finds this out as he searches the Bird's phone while he is unconscious. He learns everything he can about him. Air Force. Pararescue. Tough. He works with Steve but doesn't work directly with Tony Stark.

The name Stark tickles something in his mind, somewhere far and distant, somewhere where Steve lingers, but also somewhere where violence rests, curls around his fingers like a fist around a throat.

Bucky doesn't chase the memory. He's learned that sometimes that's the best thing to do.

Sam is still out when Bucky has to leave. He's chartered a plane—well, his employers have—but the pilot seems neither knowledgeable nor loyal to them. Bucky expects a mention of the Bird at his next briefing, but thankfully, there is none. Just coordinates and another name he doesn't really care about.

It's a messy death for the woman. He had wanted to make it clean and tried to get her to give up the Winter Soldier's notebooks without getting creative, but she didn't know when to stop lying. And Bucky hated liars. Maybe more than HYDRA. Maybe more than the people that had yanked him from death and shoved him into perdition.

So, in the end, there is very little resembling the woman that can be salvaged, and Bucky wishes he felt revulsion or guilt, but instead, the satisfaction of a job well done stews in his chest.

He isn't sure if the Soldier or himself feels that way. Maybe both. Maybe neither.

The Bird, Sam, is none too pleased when Bucky arrives back at the small airport. Bucky had restrained him to one of the large workspace tables with heavy metal cuffs made for the Winter Soldier. He is glaring at Bucky when he walks in, the rag in his mouth stopping a slew of things it's probably better Bucky can't hear.

Bucky grabs a bottle of water from the table and unscrews it, bending down to look into the Bird's eyes. There doesn't seem to be any trace of the drug left, just anger - a simmering fire that makes Bucky's dick hard. He grins and yanks the rag from the Bird's mouth, intending to give him the water.

Instead, Sam spits in his face again. It's hot and foul-smelling against his skin, but like before, Bucky doesn't flinch. Instead, he grabs the hinge of the Bird's jaw and squeezes it until it falls open. Bucky returns the favor and spits into Sam's mouth before shoving it down into his throat with his tongue.

Sam surprisingly doesn't push Bucky away; instead, he bites down on the intrusion in his mouth, moans as blood pools between them, and fills their mouths with the sickening taste of copper. That's when Sam begins to struggle, but the metal hand holds him fast, continuing to bear down until he stills.

Bucky kisses Sam until he can no longer breathe and has to pull away to gasp air into his lungs. The Bird's teeth are red, and lines of bloody drool run from the corners of his mouth. His lips are swollen, his eyes half-lidded. He looks sweet and docile like this, but Bucky knows he is neither.

"You should drink," Bucky says, sitting back on his heels and holding out the water bottle. His hand has released Sam's jaw but lingers at his throat, lightly tracing over the line of muscle along the side of his neck. Sam's pulse jumps beneath the sensors of the fingers, and Bucky smiles.

He can't explain why he is drawn to the Bird, the way they are oil and water but also inexplicably similar. Bucky remembers Sam in a way he doesn't remember Steve, and he feels a pull towards the Bird that both infuriates and excites him.

Bucky likes affecting the Bird, imagining holding him down and taking him apart until there is nothing left of the fight in his eyes, only to fuck it back into him until he is reassembled into a new shape. His Bird. His Sam.

"Then fucking uncuff me," Sam growls, throwing himself forward until his shackled wrists snap him back against the table. Bucky eyes him carefully. He fights hard, but he is no match for the Soldier. Not really. It has mainly been luck so far that he has gotten the jump on Bucky.

Bucky shrugs and unfastens one of the cuffs, leaving the other to weigh heavily on Sam's other wrist. There flashes a look in Sam's eyes, and Bucky is sure he will try to run, so he braces himself for it. In the end, though, Sam simply snatches the bottle and guzzles it down.

"Where is Steve?" the Bird finally asks as he leans back against the table, staring at the cuff around his wrist like he is cataloging it. He's probably never seen such a thing, or maybe he has; HYDRA had tried to execute him once - him, Steve, and the Widow.  The memory of the fight on the bridge, seeing Steve for the first time, his name sputtered from unbelieving lips. It was the first time Bucky remembered being something other than the Soldier, the Asset. It was the first time Bucky had realized everything was a lie.

So for that, he is thankful for Steve, thankful enough that he doesn't want him to die. Not at their hands anyway. He deserves that much, at least.

"I don't know," and it's not a lie. Bucky knows HYDRA constantly moves him around to keep the Avengers off his trail. It is satisfying to those in charge to watch Stark or the Widow open up empty rooms and find only dried blood and spare parts left behind.

Sam looks at him skeptically, but Bucky can't blame him. There's no reason for them to trust each other. But if Bucky was to trust anyone, it would be the Bird. He's the only person he can remember that has been real.

"I should have killed you," Sam scowls, pouting his beautiful, full lips that are still stained with blood. Bucky stares at them and shrugs, finally flicking his eyes back to meet the Bird's.

"Probably, but then you would never find Steve."

They stare at each other, a stalemate, the tension thick and heavy swirling around the plane. In the end, though, Sam moves first, crawling onto Bucky's thighs to press their lips together. It's soft at first but quickly turns violent, a reflection of them both. Neither of them is wholly clean or wholly dirty—they are products of their environments, walking that fine line of moral ambiguity.

Sam slides his hands under Bucky's jacket, the leather straps pressing against his chest as he pants into his mouth. There's still dried blood along the side where Sam shot him, his own mixed with the unclean splatters of his recent mark.

Bucky pushes Sam's hands away, pulls off the coat, and tosses it aside. The metal cuff is solid and unmoving under Bucky's metal hand, and he fastens it around Sam's free wrist, locking his arms behind his back again. Bucky doesn't want to be touched or sully whatever good remains in the Bird. The Soldier. HYDRA. They are diseases that will ruin Sam and grind him into dust beneath their boots. Bucky once thought he was free of them, but his body holds onto their influence like a cancer, powerless to stop as it chews down into his body. He can't let it infect Sam, and maybe not Steve, either. But for now, Steve doesn't matter. There's only Sam.

Sam growls, but he dives against Bucky again, kisses him hotly, and lets his teeth scrape over stubbled flesh. Bucky is dizzy from the pleasure curling like a fist into his gut, can't stop his own hands, and wishes for a moment that he was the one restrained so that he could only feel with his mouth or his cock as it strains against his pants and thrusts up against the Bird's own.

Bucky drags down his pants and tugs himself free from the tight fabric of his briefs. Never comfortable, but less so now, with his cock heavy and trapped within. HYDRA had never cared about his comfort, but this was one thing they had never considered. The Soldier didn't get hard, especially on a mission, especially when there was still so much work.

Bucky pushes Sam onto his back on the floor. The plane catches on a bump of turbulence and nearly slides both of them across the aisle. Bucky digs the toes of his boots into the carpeted floor, using his teeth to sink into the Bird's shoulder to hold him steady.

The Bird's pants rip open easily, his boxers already wet, the moan that Bucky draws from Sam's lips as he pulls out his dick like a shock stick to Bucky's spine. He nearly comes then, untouched, his head pounding with a migraine that steals his breath away.

But Bucky will not stop, not now with the Bird opening his legs beneath him. Twitching up his hips so that Bucky can get both of their cocks in a metal hand. He jerks them both off without any memory of how to do it, but they both are already so close, so pliable, that it takes no time. The headache fades away, and the world goes with it.

Later, Bucky wipes their spunk on Sam's t-shirt, and the Bird looks disgusted, but then he falls back with a broken sigh, his lips parted and wet. Bucky wipes sweat from his forehead and stares in awe at Sam's face like there is nothing in the world but them, but him. He looks so fragile, like if Bucky would touch him, he'd skitter away, lost forever to the wind.

Eventually,  Bucky uncuffs Sam and drags him to his feet, pushing him into the leather seat. Bucky nuzzles against his throat and bites down until he can feel the beat of his fluttering heart between his teeth. Sam moans and grips the arms of the chair, trying to tamp down the urge to grind his crotch against Bucky's thigh, now wedged between his legs. Bucky reaches down and presses the heel of his palm against the already half-hard edge of Sam's cock. Sam whimpers and grabs Bucky's hand; the freshly mined desperation on his face is charming. The Bird licks his lips and Bucky wants to kiss him again. Instead, Sam stutters a question in a shaky voice, almost as if he is just then realizing they are flying. The destination is known only to the pilot, but the true destination is only known to Bucky.

"Where are we going?"

Bucky drops his gaze to Sam's dark eyes, and smiles sweetly.

"Malaysia. Got something I want you to try."

&

They sit in plastic lawn chairs in front of a small round table. There's a box of disposable gloves and napkins stacked on the edge. Sam sits down and stares across at Bucky, who speaks perfectly passable (ok, better than passable) Malay and gestures to a precariously stacked pile of spiky fruit along the edge of the sidewalk. The man nods, and Bucky digs money out of his pants pocket and pays him while Sam watches him disappear behind the display.

Bucky studies Sam as he begins to scan the area. The lights above them are shaped like durians but are bright green. Bucky didn't know that Sam had wanted to ask what type they were but realized, thankfully, at the last moment, they were fakes. When Sam's eyes finally return to meet Bucky's, Bucky's mind has drifted.

"There was one HYDRA operative, Petrov…"

His face twists under the harsh artificial glow of the stringed lights above them, and Sam can't tell if it's because the memory of the name is painful or because it is too distant, too far away to fully grasp onto. Sam opens his mouth to speak, but by then, Bucky is continuing.

"Dimitri. A real piece of shit, as you can imagine. He had soft hands that smelled like mint and whisky. It was really the last thing I remember smelling. The wipes. The cryofreeze. Your body can't keep going through that without something happening, you know? If I hadn't been so good at my job, I'm sure they would have ended me. Not being able to smell was a flaw. I couldn't recognize certain threats or use certain weapons."

Sam watches Bucky as he slips a thin plastic glove over his right hand, leaving his left uncovered. Bucky seems unfocused. Distracted. Sam reaches out to touch his shoulder, but Bucky flinches away.

"You malfunctioning?" Sam keeps his voice even as he watches him. Over the past few days, he's become good at this -  diffusing Bucky's behavior, tamping it down from a wildfire to glowing coals. Even then, Bucky glows hot, and Sam has no recourse except to contain the curl of fear that rumbles in his gut.

This is dangerous. And it isn't helping Steve. Nothing they have been doing is helping Steve. For all Sam knows, he's already dead, and Bucky doesn't offer anything resembling confirmation or denial.

Bucky seems to blink out of his daze, and he nods to Sam, motioning for him to put on gloves as well. Sam does as he's instructed, his eyes never leaving Bucky's face. Bucky squirms under the look, shaking his head and lowering his gaze to the ground.

"He took me here, well, not here, exactly. Malaysia. We had been in Madripoor, and he had won a lot of money in some craps game or something. He was being hunted by some criminal family or another. They didn't like HYDRA there and probably still don't. All of the crime in Madripoor is familial, tight-knit. HYDRA coming in with their paramilitary style, and loose government connections, made them completely untrustworthy. On an island of criminals, the last thing you want is to be the one no one trusts."

Bucky lays out a few napkins and watches as the man returns with the durian. He has a long, curved blade in his hand, and he says something to Bucky, who only nods. Sam watches and flinches as the knife comes down once, twice, and a third time before splitting the rind open.

The smell is awful all at once—rotten garbage, sewage. Truth be told, Sam has found week-old corpses that smelled better than the bright yellow fruit peeking out from the remaining spiked shell.

Bucky, though, is unbothered. He digs his fingers deep into the rind and pulls the thick custard from one of the gaps. Sam grimaces, and accepts the offering that smells only mildly better now that it has been aired into the humid air.

"There's a seed, so be careful," Bucky mutters, handing it to Sam and watching with quiet anticipation. He sucks the clump of fruit from his gloves and Sam feels his pants tighten a fraction.

Sam holds his breath and swallows down a measure of the fruit, the hard, quarter-sized pod in the center dragging over his tongue. The consistency is unpleasant initially, and the taste is almost as bad as the smell. Sam winces but swallows it down, working the seed out between his teeth and plopping it onto one of the napkins. His stomach churns a little, but now that the initial taste and smell have receded a bit, Sam relaxes back in the chair, hands in loose fists on top of the table. Bucky watches and shrugs, but there's a gleam in his big blue eyes, eyes that Sam both hates and thinks already he might not be able to live without.

"It's alright. It's an acquired taste. We will try again," Bucky says as he scoops out another measure and slurps it into his mouth. Sam moves stiffly, and Bucky tilts his head. He thinks he might have broken the Bird's ribs when he took him from Japan and dragged him to Southeast Asia. He'll just have to be careful with him tonight, that's all.

Bucky toes Sam's leg under the table, and frowns when the limb slides away. He wants to grab the Bird and shove him on the table, fuck him while he makes him choke on the durian. The thought makes his dick jump, and he grabs at Sam's wrist and pulls it across the tablecloth, smearing Sam's bare arm in the yellow mess.

"Hey, stop," Sam growls, but his words have no heat. Bucky sees those first shadows of arousal in the Bird's big eyes, the barely shrouded need that oozes from his pores like the beaded sweat on his skin. They've been in Malaysia for four days, and every night Sam has allowed Bucky to drop down to his knees between his legs, swallow his cock into his mouth until Sam no longer worries about Steve or the Avengers, or even HYDRA. It's never great, but it's passable, distracting enough that Sam only cares about dragging his fingers through Bucky's dark hair, pulling him close, or pushing him away when he's too overstimulated, and Bucky is too drunk on the taste of Sam to let him pop free from his mouth.

Sam lets Bucky do anything to him, returns the favors in fits and starts when Bucky isn't pushing on bruises from when things become too rough, when Sam begs Bucky to tear him apart, open him, and study him like a corpse on the slab. Bucky obliges every time, but he knows sometimes it isn't him, that sometimes the Soldier comes out, presses blades to Sam's flesh, sucks away the blood, and pushes it back into his body. Sometimes, it's the Soldier that wraps metal around the soft line of Sam's neck, pressing down like it is just a prayer that keeps him from crushing the Bird's windpipe.

That fear is everything to both of them. Sam never comes harder, and Bucky never feels freer.

By the time they get to the apartment Bucky has rented, an 11th-floor elevator building with a small balcony overlooking the Johor Strait. The moon is high in a sky that is dark and pregnant with rain clouds. The humidity rolls across their bodies as Bucky presses Sam against the sliding glass door leading to the sparsely furnished living room.

"Your breath smells like shit," Sam mutters against Bucky's shoulder as he tugs off his shirt and tosses it on the ground. The air hardly cools his skin, sweat bubbling up along their chests where they press together. Bucky grins, plunges his tongue into the Bird's mouth, and lazily fucks it until he feels Sam sink against him, pliable under Bucky's hands.

He strips Sam down to his boxers, cups his cock with his metal hand, walking him back towards the railing of the balcony. Sam moans into Bucky's mouth and whimpers when Bucky bites down on his lower lip until blood blossoms between them. Sam dazedly looks into Bucky's eyes and doesn't realize that Bucky has pushed his torso over the edge until it's already happening.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Sam says, and Bucky senses the barely veiled terror in his voice. He's panicking, but Bucky holds Sam's throat loosely with one hand; the other he places on his chest to feel the stuttering of his heart. It pounds against his fingers, races like a freight train. The feeling makes Bucky harder than he can ever remember being, and he wants to be on top of Sam, inside of him, fuck him until they both tumble to the pavement below.

Sam struggles, and Bucky shushes him, squeezing around his neck until he can feel the breath caught underneath, held back by a dam of titanium that no one but Bucky himself can release. Bucky can feel the Soldier simmering below the surface of his skin, and he wants to both push him away and draw him out, but he can do neither. All Bucky can do is hold on as he feels like someone else is controlling him.

It's an unwelcome feeling, this.

Sam's head drops back, and he can breathe again for a moment until the hand closes another fraction. He struggles, but then Bucky is jerking him off, slow, too slow. His blue eyes are unfocused, and he is not quite looking at Sam, but he is not quite looking away, either. Sam opens his mouth, gathers a single gulp of air and mutters the only thing he can think of.

"Солдат!"

It's only a miracle that Bucky doesn't drop him off the ledge.

&

"I don't want to go hiking," Sam says, and Bucky shrugs, grabs his wrist, and drags him onto the sloping gravel trail. Sam doesn't bother protesting; he just trudges along, smiling at the few hikers heading in the opposite direction.

The smell of the ocean is strong, and the sound of the waves is more of a crash than a gentle lap. Driftwood twists up from the sand, tangling with brush cascading down the sandy hillside. Bucky leads him down a treacherous cliff to the ribbon of beach below.

They are three days into Bucky's New Zealand killing tour, and he is in a sour mood. He's been suffering with more headaches, spending more time hovering between rage and delirium. Still, Sam doesn't try to escape, doesn't try to kill him when he's lost in nightmares, sweating into scratchy hotel sheets. Sam stays despite looking like he went ten rounds with the latest heavyweight champion of the world. There is most definitely a broken rib this time.

There's no one by the shore, the burning oranges and pinks of the sunset burning along the horizon. There are multicolored birds on the beach that draw Sam's attention away from the tug on his arm. They are beautiful, and when they disappear into the sky, Sam feels the itching in his back, which he always does when he wants to fly.

"I need to be gone for a few days. There are a few more people I need to visit," Bucky mutters. Sam immediately bristles and tries to wrench his arm away to take a few steps back. Bucky holds tight though, and Sam huffs in frustration.

"Where do you go?" Sam asks, and Bucky shakes his head.

"You don't want to know. Better if you don't," Bucky says as he holds Sam's wrist and slides a finger along the meat of the palm. There are calluses there, which is not surprising. Sam isn't someone who stands by the sidelines; he is someone who dives headfirst into danger. Without a helmet. Stupid. Foolish. It's hot, but the man has no sense of self-preservation or fear of the threat he precariously balances on every mission. Every moment with Steve Rogers. Moreso, every moment with James "Bucky" Barnes.

"Do you see Steve?" Sam asks expectantly as he drops heavily into the sand. He stretches his legs so they almost touch the waves, which draw closer and closer with each pass.

"No," Bucky says simply, sitting beside Sam and removing their boots. Sam watches idly but neither helps nor stops him. The Bird is a mystery, a riddle Bucky wants to keep trying to decode. "Why don't you run when you have the chance?"

Sam shifts, groans, and straddles Bucky so that he can grind down against his lap instead of answering the question. Neither of them is hard yet, but it doesn't take long for Bucky to respond under Sam's rolling hips.

They both know the answer though. At first, it was because of Steve, but now? Well.

"Stop," Bucky says sharply, sharper than he wants to, but it does the trick, and Sam stops moving. Pouts like a child in response.

"Because I made a promise."

"To who?" Bucky grips the back of Sam's neck but makes no effort to direct him anywhere. He just wants to hold him for a minute, needs to feel something real.

"First to Steve that I would find you, and then to Stark that I would find Steve."

The name Stark thunders through Bucky's brain, and this time, there are flashes of memory. A car accident. A man saying Sargent Barnes. A woman weeping and injured, her life fluttering away without any fight beneath his curled fingers. These are people he knew. Not corrupt politicians. Not faceless victims. Not deserters of the cause. The memory hurts and clutches at his chest until he can no longer breathe.

Bucky's mind whites out for a long time, just static. He wakes up to Sam kissing him, hand on his cock, expertly stroking him back to the living. Sam is hard on his thigh, heavy and wet. The sensation is too much and Bucky moans, but it doesn't sound like him. It sounds like someone else. Someone pathetic and needy. Someone dying, maybe. Tears burn behind his eyes, and he wants to tell Sam to stop, but it feels so good, and very little feels good these days.

Except for him.

His Bird. His Sam.

Afterward, Bucky rolls Sam onto his back and bites through healing wounds and bruises until his mouth, and Sam's skin are smeared with blood. The feralness of this, of them walks up Bucky's spine, digs fingers deep into his fractured mind to try and yank out the Soldier barely hidden beneath. Bucky stops him this time, though, puts his mouth on Sam's cock, and gets lost in the smell and the taste of him. There's nothing else when they are like this, just him and Sam, and need. Desire. Violence.

When Sam comes, Bucky swallows it down like a dying man, sucks and sucks every last bit of Sam's spunk down his throat until there is nothing but Sam's hands beating on his head, in his hair, yanking him back when the feeling gets to be too much.

It's dark then, the sky full of more stars than either of them has seen. There's not much beach left, and their clothes are damp from the tide. Bucky's head throbs, and he reaches out to touch a bruise on Sam's hip.

Sam says nothing but doesn't pull away, and that could be something.

No, maybe that's everything.

&

Sam first smoked cigarettes in high school, when teens hopped up on hormones they couldn't control, used to hide behind the bleachers or the gym, sharing one crumpled pack of stale off-brand cigarettes. Coughing into each other's mouths like it was the hottest thing two people could do. The military both made that habit (the smoking, not the coughing) worse until Sam met Riley, and the nature of their missions required complete secrecy that an errant cigarette could jeopardize.

Sam had tried chewing tobacco, but the taste was awful, and it didn't relax him the same way smoking did. So, eventually, he gave up on the whole habit. Cold turkey, never looked back.

That was until Steve sent him away to look for Bucky.

The stress of going from dirty motel to dirty motel, always one step behind the ex-Winter Soldier, Steve saying it was "fine" that Sam hadn't found him yet, was all too much, and Sam heard the disappointment in Steve's voice every time. Then, the habit came back with a vengeance. Sam thought it was like finding an old friend again, a comfort he hadn't known for years.

But then came Bucky, and cigarettes seemed far too dull, too safe. It was all very amusing, really.

He's smoking when Bucky comes up behind him, wrapping one hand around the railing of the ferry and the other a loose fist against Sam's hip.

"Cook Strait is one of the most dangerous waterways in the world. You might want to sit down."

"My parents own a fishing boat; I spent my whole life on the water," Sam grumbles, looking offended enough that he needs to keep his head away from Bucky. Bucky wants to say he knows because he knows everything there is to know about Sam, even the things his Bird wanted to keep wrapped up in a deep, dark place that only a knife could reach.

The irony, of course, is that Sam might know more about Bucky than he even knows himself. Especially after Malaysia, especially now.

"It wasn't an insult, you know," Bucky finally responds, but he's irritated now. The Bird is as maddening as he is beautiful. Sam twists his gaze back to Bucky and he looks murderous.

"Oh, so now you're my protector? Let me remind you that you dangled me off of a balcony, then fucked me in a puddle of my own blood. Fuck you and your protection. What about Steve? He's supposedly your best friend and here you are, not finding him."

"How did you know he…the Soldier…was there?" They hadn't talked about what happened, had both pushed it away into some part of themselves where secrets died. Truthfully, Bucky barely remembered that night in Malaysia at all, when he woke up thrusting into Sam's ass, blood pooling between them from wounds he couldn't even see. Sam was hardly conscious, the white tile floor slick under Bucky's knees. It took him a long time to realize what was happening, and even then, he hadn't stopped. Not until he was finished, not until Sam had finished too.

There was no tub in the apartment, so he had propped Sam up against the wall and cleaned him off carefully with expensive lavender soap, the steam and the scent pulling him back to himself. There was something horrifying about the damage on Sam's body, but something so intensely intimate, that he found himself pushing Sam against the wall and kissing him.

"Your eyes. They change. I will never forget the Soldier's look, and…yours is different. Not as intense, maybe. Maybe more intense, I dunno. I did what I had to do. If I had known his activation words, I would have used those too," Sam says, and there's an edge to his voice that Bucky knows now. He thinks about Sam being his handler, using him in the ways that HYDRA did. A weapon, nothing more. Shoving him in the Chair. Putting him on ice. His face always the last thing he saw before being dragged down into forgetfulness, into Hell. Bucky wonders if Sam would hurt him given a chance, like all of them did when they let the power of owning the Winter Soldier go to their head.

Sam is close to him now, and Bucky blinks. Time has stretched on, and they are entirely in the strait now - Wellington Harbor behind them. There are dolphins in the water, and Bucky tries to remember if he's ever seen dolphins before. But the memory, like all the good ones, is lost somewhere he can't see. Only death and destruction rattles around in what's left of his brain.

Or at least that's how it used to be. But now there is Sam. And maybe that's better than any memory of dolphins.

Bucky plucks the cigarette from Sam's fingers, already burnt down nearly to the filter, and takes a deep drag. He shifts Sam's face towards his, fingers pressed to his jaw so it falls open, waiting. Bucky exhales softly into Sam's open mouth, the flared opening of his nostrils, and watches as the Bird disappears behind the cloud of smoke.

When it clears, Sam's eyes are closed, and his breath stutters, and Bucky knows that there will never be a memory as good as this. As beautiful as the face before him.

It's too bad, then, that all good things must have an ending.

&

Bluff is the end of the world. The literal end, by the looks of it. The dark, cold ocean fanning out before them like impending doom.

They stand beneath a post with yellow signs jutting off in odd directions towards cities of the world. New York, Bucky's real home, is 15008 km away. The equator, close to where they ate and fucked and dug deep into the darkness of each other's souls, was 5133.

Sam thinks for a moment that Bucky will push him into the sea, watching as the current takes him towards Antarctica (which is only 4800 km according to the sign…a short swim). Sam accepts he wouldn't fight it, that maybe that final release would be his penance for not saving Steve. He wonders when his mission went from saving Steve to fucking Bucky, but perhaps that part was always inevitable. Ever since the Soldier tore the wheel from his car and kicked him toward certain death from the sky. Inexplicably bonded together. Sickness and health. Till death do them part.

Bullshit or the only truth. Depends on the day.

Instead, Bucky moves closer to Sam and puts titanium on his hip. It's surprisingly gentle, and Sam shivers under the touch. He will blame his reaction on the cold if Bucky asks. He doesn't, which is a small favor.

"I know where Steve is. You can go get him. They won't expect you," Bucky says as the wind whips his hair over his shoulders and into his face. The autumn sun casts a soft glow over Bucky's stubbled cheekbones and Sam thinks there might be nothing as beautiful.

"Why won't they expect me? It was my whole reason for going after you," Sam finally says, swallowing and leaning into Bucky's hand. He wants the grip to be painful, but Bucky keeps it soft instead. Sam wants to scream, wants to claw off his skin under the metal fingers.

"I told them you were dead. There's a ticket in your bag. I sent the coordinates to your phone."

Sam wants to ask how Bucky got his phone number, how he got to the bag Sam always keeps locked, but there's no reason to question. Bucky was the Winter Soldier, and sometimes still is, which is answer enough.

"I…," Sam stutters out a response, but Bucky finally clamps down on Sam's hipbone, and the pain saps his protest away.

Sam doesn't want to leave. Instead, he thinks that the thought of being away from Bucky is worse than his gentleness and the uncertainty of whether he will ever see him again. Saving Steve is honorable, sure. He will be a hero. But at what cost.

Bucky tugs Sam closer, kisses him until there's blood, then kisses the blood back into their mouths. It's a taste Sam won't forget, and when Bucky pulls back, there's a hollow look in his eyes.

"You better go."

"Yeah."

"Don't tell him it was me."

&

Bucky doesn't watch the news. Doesn't listen to the radio. There are reports, of course, of both Sam and Steve surviving the attempts on their life.

Attempts by the Winter Soldier.

Bucky dips back into the shadows and covers his tracks. Sam can't find him and eventually stops looking. Steve doesn't ask, and Sam prefers it that way.

It takes months before Sam is hunkered down in some shit hole of a hotel, a poor excuse of an air conditioner rattling away on the wall. It's pumping out hot air, or at least air that isn't cold, and Sam is bleeding from a wound across his ribs that he can't stop. It's halfway closed with sloppy stitches and he thinks he might survive if he can get a few more in.

He passes out before that happens.

When he wakes up, he's sweating, but he's not feverish; it's just the fucking air conditioner still not doing its job. He feels a tightness around his midsection and looks down in the dim light to see his ribs bandaged, the fabric white and not stained with blood.

It doesn't make sense, but he sits up anyway and sees he's alone in the room. There is an awful smell that stirs up memories of plastic chairs and humidity worse than this.

The durian lays open on the side table by his head, yellow and ripe, the fruit thick in the rind. There's a scrawled note beside it, stabbed into the flimsy wood with Sam's own knife.

There's a ticket in your bag. I sent the coordinates to your phone.

Sam eats the durian. It's better this time. Sweet, a little bitter. Maybe Bucky was right about it being an acquired taste. Maybe like the man himself.

Sam looks at his phone and smiles as he tentatively takes another bite of the fruit.

He doesn't use the ticket, though.

Not yet, but soon.

After all, maybe they have all the time in the world.