I'm Here | ✓

42 - Boundaries

I sip nonchalantly at my coffee, watching Sam yawn and stretch and startle when he sees me standing there.

"Were you watching me sleep?" He yelps.

"No. Only for..." I glance at the clock. "Thirty-four minutes."

Sam groans and rubs his head, shoving the blankets off of him. "I should not have had that much to drink last night."

I don't bring up his hysterical state about Riley. Instead, I take a final swig of my coffee and set my mug in the sink. "You ever been to Hong Kong?" I ask, wandering towards the window. Rain pours down in sheets, forming little beads on the glass and creating massive puddles in the streets below. It's equally violent and serene, a fundamental force that fuels life and also disrupts it. Or at least that's how it seems, by the taxis taking their time navigating the slippery roads.

"Hong Kong? No."

"I was there in the '70s. It was a sniper mission. I remembered a little bit of it last night, and I finally have the opportunity to remember how beautiful it was." It was all orange neon lights and big signs shaped like fish reflecting off the puddles in the cracked roads. It was black umbrellas disguising somber faces and rows of brake lights flashing in the dark. Of course, it was different, because I was gripping an M16 5.56mm caliber automatic rifle on top of a building and looking for a man with a mustache, a trench coat and a scar on his neck, but it had an equally tranquil feel.

"Can I get a glass of water?"

I sigh, the visions of Hong Kong trickling out of my head. "Sure."

I hand one to him and he sips it carefully. "What time is it?"

"9:23. Steve left for the gym two and a half hours ago, so he shouldn't be too much longer."

At this, Sam lurches up out of the couch. "You just let him go?" He exclaims, though he sways a bit from residual dizziness and has to sit down again moments later.

I shrug, pretending not to notice. "Yeah? Why not?"

"Remember last time he left? You were ambushed! He is an international fugitive and you just let him go!"

"I've been doing that for the last 50 years and wasn't caught until you guys messed up Hydra's perfect streak. Regardless, there was a press conference at 3 A.M. this morning in London. Well, technically, it was 8 A.M. there, since they're five hours ahead and everything - "

Sam groans and gives a frustrated hand gesture. "Get on with it."

"Stark pardoned us. You shoulda seen how he was fuming on live television. For a red and gold guy that almost killed me more than once, it was a nice change of pace to see him stuffed in a suit to tell the world we're cleared."

"Property damage and everything?"

"All of it."

Sam sighs. "That's incredible."

"So, now we're in the clear." I scoff, realizing what I just said. "From the government, anyway. These agents... I don't know. It didn't seem like anything was up when I checked the map this morning."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. God, this is all so stressful. And we know Stark's gonna try to not get his feet wet in all of this, at least not from a physical standpoint. Politically, he's got a lot of pieces on the board, where you guys just have the King and Queen."

"I'd make a good Queen. Powerful, yet regal." I strike a ridiculous pose; one hand on the back of my head, another on my hip, chest puffed out. "What do ya think?" I ask, raising my eyebrows seductively.

Sam rolls face-down on the couch. "It was a metaphor."

I laugh. "And what would you be, a pawn?"

"Easily expendable and the first to crack? Hell no," he says, his voice slightly muffled. "I'm thinkin' more... a knight? Complicated moves, hard to defend against, incredibly maneuverable."

"Bold words for a man lying face down on the couch."

Sam gets back up lazily. "Shut up already. Your voice is making my head hurt."

"Fair enough." I wander over to the abandoned tablet we left lying on the counter last night. In hindsight, we probably should've kept it near us in case the apartment got broken into or something, but it's too late for that now, so I watch the little red dots flicker on the screen in their various buildings. I can't shake the images of Hong Kong. I've been all over the world and can only remember little bits and pieces, small reflections of myself, like picking up the pieces of a shattered mirror. Some frame my face beautifully; others slice open my fingertips. Whether I like it or not, eventually, I'm going to have to pick up all the pieces and carry them with me.

Will Steve like the reflection of me he sees?

"You're doubting yourself again."

Sam's voice startles me out of my thoughts. I turn to look at him, confused. "What?"

His head is cocked slightly to the side, studying me. I don't like it. He opens his mouth to speak and hesitates. "That look. You always get it when you talk about your past, or whether Steve will accept you or not."

I don't like that I'm so easy to read. "Do not."

"We've all got the same problems, man. I see the way you look at Steve. I know you guys have some long, complicated backstory that stretches back years before either of you ever got the serum, and from what I've read, I don't think it was any different then. Both of you putting your asses on the line for each other. The media tries to erase that backstory and reduce it to... how did the Smithsonian put it... "friends on both schoolyard and battlefield," but anybody who looks deeper than that can see that you two have a connection, alright?"

"It's just..." I gnaw at the corner of my lip, searching for the right words. "Steve's a public figure. Was a public figure. He was America's golden boy, fighting the wars, posing for pictures and he fell for me, the world's most wanted assassin, just a little kid who picked up hundreds of girls to convince myself I was straight as an arrow when I'm not. Wasn't. I've always seen myself as some sort of playboy, tried to deny that I was just some nelly, because I know I've never deserved Steve. I don't know. It sounds crazy." I didn't mean to admit that much to Sam, but I'm in too deep now to quit. I close my eyes and rub my temples. I thought super soldiers didn't get headaches, but here I am.

"That's not crazy. Just before we went on the mission in D.C. where we raided the Triskelion, you know what he said to me?"

I give him a watery look, feeling completely and utterly transparent.

Sam continues. "I had seen what you were capable of under Hydra before. I thought it was a suicide mission. I told Steve that you were the kind of person you stop, not the kind you save. Not my proudest moment, but I'll never forget the look he gave me. It was this sort of confidence, a little glimmer of belief that you were in there somewhere. He wasn't gonna fight you, and I knew it after that, even if it meant sacrificing our whole mission. He'd give the world for you. And after I said that, he gave me that look and he told me he didn't think he could do it. That resonated with me. He would walk through hell to find you, and then he'd stay to burn with you. He doesn't care if you're James Barnes or the Winter Soldier or something not quite in between; he will always choose you."

I think about that for a moment. It's weird that Sam's right. My name's Bucky, but I've got the memories of four people; a Bucky before the war, a Sergeant Barnes during the war, a Winter Soldier after the war, and whoever I'm trying to be now. I don't know if I'm something in the middle, something worse, or a culmination of all three, but whoever I am, Steve's still here, and he loves me, and I love him, and it all works together, in a crooked, broken, beautiful sort of way.

"Tell him how you feel, Bucky."

I give Sam a small smile.

"Maybe."