Steve entered the apartment quietly, the stench of stale cigarette smoke and bourbon assaulting his senses. His eyes darted around the single room, taking note of the empty glass bottles stashed away in the corner beside the window, and the fire escape that lay just beyond. Atop the fridge was an A5 leather bound notebook which he picked up carefully, flicking through the first few pages.
A photo was pasted onto the inside cover, a photograph of three men: himself, James Barnes, and (Y/N) (L/N). Their names were scribbled messily above their heads. Steve recognised the handwriting, it was Bucky's – a messy, capitalised scrawl. The following page had two names written on it, spaced out from each other above the top line with a few words written beneath them.
STEVE ROGERS:
- CAPTAIN AMERICA
- BROOKLYN
- BRAVE
- ALIVE.
(Y/N) (L/N)
- SPECIAL
- KIND
- BEACH
- ENGLAND
- PROBABLY DEAD.
The almost silent sound of somebody breathing behind him interrupted his reading. He closed the book, placed it back on the top of the fridge, and turned around. James Barnes stood there, an empty look in his eyes, the shadow from his baseball cap cast over the top half of his face. A certain warmth had returned to his visage since the last time he'd seen him; there was no anger there anymore, only confusion. 'Do you remember me?' he asked.
'You're Steve,' Bucky stated, his head nodding slightly, 'I read about you in a museum.'
'And (Y/N)?'
'I try not to remember him too often,' he replied, 'but I do, I remember all of him.'
There was a sense of uneasiness to James Barnes that he had never seen before. Sergeant Barnes had always been confident and brave, being so softly spoken did not suit him. 'I know you're nervous, and you have plenty of reason to be,' Steve said.
'I know why you're here, but I wasn't in Vienna,' replied Bucky, shuffling back slightly, 'I don't do that anymore.'
'Well, the people who think you did are coming here now. And they're not planning on taking you alive,' Steve explained hastily, taking a step towards his friend. He believed him. There was no trace of the man he had fought two years ago in the Bucky Barnes who stood before him now.
'That's smart – good strategy.'
'This doesn't have to end in a fight Buck,' he assured him, 'there's somewhere safe, where I don't think you'll come into any harm.'
Bucky Barnes let out a half-hearted chuckle, removing the leather glove from his left hand, flexing his metal fingers. 'It always ends in a fight,' he sighed.
'Not if you come with me now. Not this time.'
'Where too?'
'Scotland.'
YOU ARE READING
The Red Soldier: Rise of the Red Soldier
Fanfiction(Y/N) (L/N) had finally found peace, away from the horrors civilisation held. He'd found a solace when surrounded by his own grief, but a jet plane parked outside his front door changed all of that seventy years after the death of his two friends.
