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“James?”
Bucky blinks. That’s Steve’s voice. But-- that’s not what Steve calls him. Why’s Steve calling him James?
“Why’re you calling me James?” he croaks, throat sore from whatever just happened. What did happen? He’s laying on his back, aching all over, and trying to get his eyes to focus on the blurry white ceiling above him. A human blob comes into his field of vision, and his sight works itself out enough to start picking out Steve’s features, placed on that new brickhouse form they’re both getting used to. “Steve?” he asks, when Steve doesn’t seem to be answering.
“What—uh… what do you remember?” he finally gets in return.
Bucky notes Steve’s lack of using a name for him, and for some reason it bothers him more than it should. He thinks back; what was he doing last? They were headed to—no, headed back from a mission in the north of France, stopped to make camp for the night... “Dugan was just joking about making a detour to the Eiffel Tower on our way back to base.”
His vision is clear now, but he wishes it wasn’t due to how easily he can see Steve’s paling face and read the pure panic that flashes across it.
“Shit! Steve! Stevie! What’s wrong, what happened?”
He clutches at the man above him in panic, fingers tangling in the weirdly wrong, yet still patriotic uniform, but freezes when he catches sight of his hands, or… hand . His left hand. Which is metal.
“Steve?” he chokes out, panic turning to ice that cuts down his arms and back, “Steve? How much time am I missing?”
Steve closes his eyes, pain clearly written over his features. “A lot, Buck, a lot. I—” he breaks off, turning his face away and inhaling shakily.
Bucky takes the icy feeling coating his shoulders, balls it up, and shoves it down to the toes of his boots. Alright. Prioritization. He can do this. J ust wait to freak out and ask five million questions and try to solve whatever happened for when he knows it’s safe. Sergeant Barnes takes note of the uniform Steve’s wearing, his own gear—which seems alien and way more crisp and sharp and dark than anything he’d ever willingly wear—and the dust and carnage around them, “We in hostile territory?”
Captain Rogers responds, “Yes, hostiles neutralized, target acquired, all team members alive and accounted for. Only minor physical injuries reported from the others. You didn’t respond, so I returned to your last known location…” Steve breaks of, and when he continues, his voice is softer, almost a whisper in its grief, “You—you started screaming, and I ran into the room and found you seizing on the floor,” he swallows, “You went unconscious when I got close, and woke up about half a minute later.” He swept his hand out in a ‘ and here we are now’ gesture.
“Alright,” Sergeant Barnes manages, ‘cause if their positions were reversed? Yeah, he’d be all shook up too. “So, we need to leave now?”
Captain Rogers shakes his head, “We’re not in a hurry, we should sweep the room, see if we can find any clues to what caused your current condition.”
And they do, ‘cause they’re professionals, and they’re capable of getting the job done even when things go horribly, terribly wrong.
They find nothing.
---
“No, no. They’ll see through you in an instant. You hold yourself differently now.”
“I hold myself—you called me James. What am I? A whole new person?” he jokes.
Steve just looks sad. “You’ve been through a lot,” he says
You . Not we . Bucky probably doesn’t want to know, but feels like he should. “Just me?” he asks, hesitant.
Steve’s physically pained, again, “I—you fell, and I—I couldn’t reach you. I thought you were dead.” He looks at Bucky, “ I couldn’t reach you ,” he insists.
Bucky can only stare back, wide-eyed.
---
Bucky is sorely disappointed by the lack of flying cars.
The new tech; the new music and movies and books and everything is all so exciting. It’s actually Tony Stark that’s the hardest to process.
Not the man himself, but it’s the fact that yesterday Howard Stark had been just a decade older than Bucky, and yet here’s his fully grown son now, going grey at his temples.
It’s the connection to the past; the reminder of how far away he is from the world he knows that hurts the most.
---
It takes weeks, months .
But finally, they jerryrig some doodad together, and--with the click of a button--Bucky suddenly finds himself sliding out of a train.
The roar of the engines and the wheels on the tracks and the wind in his ears is so loud he almost misses the handhold on his way down. He grasps it, swinging, gasping, and he blinks rapidly, feeling disoriented at the sudden transition from the quiet, sterile lab he was just in.
“ Bucky! ”
And there he sees Steve, hanging out the train, reaching and reaching, but there’s no way he can get to Bucky without falling out the train himself, and Bucky can’t let that happen, can’t let Steve fall out too; he knows how this goes, knows what happens next, knows that Steve needs to stop New York from getting blown up, and he knows that Steve will blame himself for decades for what about to happen (— 'I couldn’t reach you’ —) but he knows there’s no way around this.
He also knows he’ll survive, mostly intact, and they’ll be reunited... eventually. He knows this is gonna hurt, for a long time.
“ Bucky! Take my hand! ”
He gives a little smile, trying to convey that things’ll work out, and lets go, letting Steve’s anguished voice follow him down.
I couldn’t reach you .