Ascertainment || Bucky Barnes (2)

24 - Epilogue

The Soldier, Bucky? Bucky Barnes. The name felt like a badly fitting suit. Was it his name? He didn't know but the noice in his head called him that. The man, the weapon, the forgotten soldier, walked through the crowds of the Smithsonian. It was busy with families and children. He brushed through them easily. Eyes drifting across the writing on the walls. The writing made his head hurt. Stories given scenes in his mind as he read them out. "Steve. Is it me or did you grow bigger?"

He made it through the journey from a small sick man to the first super soldier. The manakins dressed in uniforms. One had a deep blue jacket that he liked. He could remember the itchiness of the wool. A compliment that the blue brought out his eyes. He made it passed the  motorbike and the stories of the Howling commandos. Men with stories that only he seemed to know. Mind aching as scenes around fires and laughter crossed his minds eye. When he got to the glass walls where his own younger face stared back at him, he took a moment. He read over the story there like it had happened to somebody else. It felt like that. Like it was some half forgotten dream life. His chest hurt at the mention of younger sisters. Rebecca and the twins. Long dead. Their children had their own children now.

He walked on, through the story of Steve's childhood. His romance with Peggy. His black and white interviews and the recordings of Howard Stark and Peggy after the plane crash. All of it seemed to float over and settle on him like snow. It was only when he got towards the end of the exhibit that he felt himself pause. The love story of Basil and Bucky, was proclaimed in the walls. Bucky paused, blinking in surprise when tears welled in his eyes. Why was he crying? He wiped them away and stepped closer to the wall to start at the beginning.

He read his way through second hand accounts. Examined the images projected on the walls. Himself smiling with his arm round Basil's shoulder. The man's curly hair dark as he beamed back. Another photo of Basil practically hanging off his arm, younger him watching with a fond look. A small video clip of Basil laughing, leaning on Bucky's side as he giggled. A familiar laugh that made the soldier, Bucky, smile reflexively. A video of Basil throwing knives, pinning Bucky to a tree, face furrowed in concentration. All of it took in colour in his mind. How the sun had dance across golden skin. Green eyes crinkled with smiles and the sound of a voice, teasing and flirtatious.

Then he found the letters. Dear Phillip. And the story he had found so far, of him and Steve in the war, turned. Basil's story started and began to spin in front of his eyes. Falling in love with a man during their time in prisoner together. Stories shared in dark cells. Voices singing, echoing off stone. Bucky read them all, not moving as the crowds around him began to thin as the day drew on. Dear Phillip, I did it! I kissed blue eyes. Words written with such excitement. Then the words lost their life. Bucky, (the soldier?) felt his chest clench as he reached the last few letters. The life dying in the written words. The belief of lost love and then weight of grief hanging on them. Then the letters stopped and he was left blinking at the end of the wall.

This man, Basil Parrish hadn't been lying. He had loved him once. The man called Bucky had been loved so strongly that the Soldier could feel it. He stumbled on with slow dazed steps. The exhibit drawing to a close. His mind was churning so much with these new memories and emotions that he almost walked passed the small movie theatre. It was a small dark door set in a bend in the corridor. The voices from inside made him pause. He stepped inside, drawn to a familiar laugh.

The inside was dark, with a bench in the middle of the floor lit by the light of the floor to ceiling screen. Bucky walked in and found himself sitting down. He pulled his hat off, hair spilling out over his shoulders as he took in the scene. The image must have been on loop as the screen blacked out for a few seconds before lighting up again. Basil Parrish was stood against the letter wall. The exhibit empty around him save for a keyboard and a guitar. He smiled at the camera, golden skin flush and curls cut short. "Hi. My name is Jahi Basilton Parrish, but everybody calls me Basil", he smiled on screen. White teeth and pink lips. It was an interview, Bucky realised as the video moved on. An interview about him.

"How would I describe my relationship with Sargent James Buchanan Barnes?" Basil repeated, voice echoing from the speakers. "Simple. He was my lover and I was his. We didn't have words on it back then. It was war. We didn't need to describe our relationship. All I knew was that I loved him and he loved me. It was enough". He shrugged slightly with a smaller smile, a private one of loving nostalgia. Bucky caught the look with fondness, memories of that same private smile flicking across his mind like a a book unfolding.

"How did I fall in love with him? Wow. Well it was slow, then all at once. The first time I respected him was when he found me kissing another man behind a tent. He didn't give us up, or reprimand us. Just told us to be careful. That was the first time I think I began to like him. Then we were thrown in the same cell and he looked after me. He never gave in or grew angry at his teasing. He would just smile and tease me back. He was a easy man to like. I fell in love with him when he began to take his own comfort in my words. Then, when we left England". Basil's lips quirked. "I loved that he didn't let me get my own way. That he could match me word for word. That he was an excellent shot, and that he cared for his men. He was a bit of a mum friend, you know? He didn't Baby me but yet he still treated me gently when I needed it. I had fallen for him months before I had realised it and when I did, it was like my feelings caught me all at once".

He gave a little laugh and Bucky watched as his face faltered. Even through a screen, grief was clear on his face. "I wasn't there when he died. I couldn't go. Needed to stay behind with the medical supplies just in case. Steve was the one who told me. Even then I couldn't break down until I was alone. I had wanted to bring him home, you know". Bucky did know. He had read the letters. The statement made his chest feel tight with unknown emotion. "Yet when I actually arrived home, I had to pretend that what we had wasn't what it was. That we were friends, nothing more. I couldn't grieve properly for him". Basil gave a sniff and wiped his eyes. "I carry him with me now. I look at something and think, 'ah Sarge. What would you do'. The answer would probably either fit with mine or be the total opposite". He chuckled damply and Bucky laughed with him. "He was always scolding Steve  and I for being too reckless".

"That's because you were", the reply was muttered under his breath. On the screen the video kept playing.

"Did we have a song? We did. We did have a song, or at lest I thought it was our song. I sung it to him during captivity. It's We'll meet again by Vera Lynn".

"Sung it to me? More like screamed it as they dragged you away to get tortured", Bucky snorted. He found himself smiling.

On screen the scene had changed. Basil was standing with a microphone now. Two people holding the instruments behind him. He waited as the slow music started up and Bucky's breath paused in his throat. Eyes watching green as Basil began to sing. "We'll meet again. Don't know where, don't know when. But I know we'll meet again some sunny day". The song blended with a memory in his mind. Cold metal table under him. Basil's pale face lit by moonlight. The man smiling at him. The words spilling weakly from his lips. Tent canvas above them. Basil in his arms, voice sleepy.

"Just keep smiling through, just like you aways do. Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away".

Bucky sat there, watching the interview on loop until the exhibit closed. When he left the museum, he walked through the darkening streets and remembered.

Unedited