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Bucky sat down on the bench. He was alive. Somehow, he had been saved from hydra. And Steve had been the one to save him. It felt like a dream. Little Stevie Rogers who couldn’t keep himself out of a fight. Captain America. Holy shit.
“Hey Buck.” His head pops up at the nickname and he smiles. Steve is standing there, still wearing his uniform and covered in dirt
“have you come to get away from your adoring fans?” Steve laughs and takes a seat next to bucky. It’s weird that Steve is now bigger than him. That Bucky no longer has to look down to meet his eyes.
“I just wanted to talk to you, I kinda had a stupid idea.” Steve said. Bucky smiled.
“What kind of stupid?”
“Ok, so when you die in the army. You need to be wearing your dog tags so the army can identify your body and all that. Right?” Bucky looked at Steve with confusion.
“Yeah, that’s how it works. What are you trying to say?”
“Well I’m saying you can’t die with the wrong dog tags on, so if we switched tags then neither of us would die.” The smile on Steve's face is intoxicating and Bucky can’t help but let his face spread into a grin as well.
“That's the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard”
“If you think it’s so stupid that give me your dog tags and we’ll see.” Bucky looks at Steve. Up. He looks up at Steve. It’s not a lot, Steve is only a couple inches taller than Bucky now but it is such a garing difference and Bucky still isn’t used to it. Bucky weighs his options. Steeve is being weird and superstitions but it doesn’t really matter if the army figures out that they have swapped tags, it will only be if one of them dies. The army can’t punish you for identity theft if you're already dead. So fine, he will indulge Steve. Bucky removes the chain from around his neck and places the tags in Steve’s outstretched hand.Then Steve carefully removes the chain around his own neck and places it around Bucky’s. Before putting Bucky’s dog tags around his own neck.
“There we go” Steve says “Now we can’t become some kind of shakespearean tragedy” Bucky laughs and stands up.
“Yeah sure Stevie, now come on. Your fans are waiting.”
Steve throws his arm around Bucky and smiles as they walk back into the crowd.
As Bucky stands there with Steve’s arm around his shoulders the name on the chain around his neck does not read his own name but instead Steven G. Rogers
When Bucky falls from the train with arm outstretched his voice cracks as he screams and when he falls broken in the snow it is Steve’s dog tags that lay around his neck.
When James Barnes is found by Hydra it is Steve Rogers dog tags that are pulled from his neck. Bucky has no idea here they go, he is barely even conscious.
When the Winter Soldier is awoken his neck is bare. Steve Rogers’s dog tags are gone. Lost to time along with all the memories James has of him.
Steve Rogers sits in a crumbling London pub. He slowly nurses a glass of whiskey, wishing it had any effect. Wishing he could forget the sound of Bucky’s scream as he fell from the train. Steve’s hand went to the tags around his neck. James B. Barnes.
“What did I say Buck, You’re not allowed to die if you have the wrong dog tags” Steve whispered to himself. And as he watched Peggy walk into the bar Steve made a choice, Bucky Barnes could not be dead. It wasn’t possible. He had the wrong tags on.
So when Steve Rogers sat in the pilot seat of the Hydra plane and chose to turn it down into the ocean there was a compass with Peggy’s picture sitting on the dash and James B. Barnes around his neck.
When Captain America is pulled from the ice it is Bucky’s dog tags around his neck.
And when he stood across from his best friend for the first time in 70 years the chain around Steve’s neck read Bucky’s name.
“Bucky?” Steve said. For some people Bucky still being alive after all this time would have seemed impossible but as he looked into the face of the person Steve wished everyday he could see again he knew it was real. And maybe he knew the whole time. That Bucky was alive. He couldn’t die not with the wrong dog tags on. Steve didn’t after all.
Steve Rogers watched as Bucky turned to dust where he stood. The look of fear and confusion on his face and Steve’s name just barely escaping his lips. All Steve could think was not again. He couldn’t lose him. Not again. He just got him back. He couldn’t do it again. He could lose Bucky again just to wait with baited breath for him to return. Steve fell to his knees. He still had Bucky’s dog tags around his neck.
Steve Rogers stood on the platform and looked over the people in front of him. He was sure about what he would do next. Return the stones, and then he would find peggy. He was tired, tired of fighting and tired of losing people. The last five years had been filled with too much loss and hardship. Now Natasha was gone too and so was Tony. Steve knew it wasn’t a good choice. Probably not the right one and he knew he was going to hurt people by making it. But right now it was all he wanted to do. He wanted to make the choice to leave before anyone could leave him first. He loved them.
God, he loved Bucky so much but he loved Peggy too.
Peggy and Bucky.
His two great loves.
Steve knows what everyone will think. That he is choosing Peggy over Bucky. But that’s not what this is. He isn’t choosing Peggy. He’s choosing himself. He is choosing an easy life. He loves Bucky too much to stay. Because Steve knows that if he does stay and he loses Bucky again he won’t ever come back.
So he will leave. He will make his choice and break both their hearts. He will live a quiet life with Peggy just like it should have been if Bucky really had died when he fell from the train. If Steve had made it home. That was supposed to be the story. So Steve will set it right.
And so Steve goes back in time
But he takes Bucky’s dog tags with him
And every time he holds Peggy in his arms the silver chain around his neck with two tags hitting his chest.
James B. Barnes
His lost love. Just how the story was supposed to be.
Bucky sits on a bench in central park and lets the tears roll down his cheek. He has learned that grif isn’t linear and neither is healing.
At least that's what his therapist says.
Some days it hits him harder than others. Today is one of those days. He looks down at the dog tags in his open palm. James B. Barnes Steve had given them back to him.
“I kept them safe for you, but I thought it was time you had them back” Steve had said. The older version of him at least. Bucky kept them around his neck as a reminder. That he really was James Buchan Barnes. Not the Winter Soldier. He’s thankful to Steve for giving him that reminder. But a lot of the time he’s just angry. Angry at Hydra. Angry at the world. And Angry at Steve for leaving him. Leaving him with all his shit to deal with. Sure Bucky had Sam. At least he had Sam for a little bit. And now he has the Thunderbolts. All of whom are just as or more messed up than he is.
Steve saved the world and then just left. Left Bucky. But kept his dog tags. All those years. Bucky knew that Steve didn’t want to keep fighting. He wanted to settle down. But why couldn’t that have been here. With Bucky. Why did it have to be the 1950s and Peggy. Didn’t Steve know there were plenty of people who loved him right here. Maybe if Bucky had said more. Told Steve how much he loved him things would have been different. But that’s not how it happened and Bucky had to keep going. Had to keep fighting because he didn’t really have a choice.
Steve did.
And Steve made it.
But Bucky didn’t have one.
So he stood up from the bench and replaced the dog tags around his neck.
Steve was gone and that was just the world he would have to live in.
A world where Steve and Bucky’s great love story was just a messy tragedy.
Bucky laughed to himself.
Steve had been wrong about so many things.
That they would be together till the end of the line for one.
But the one thing he wasn’t wrong about was that they could die wearing the wrong dog tags.
Bucky had his back now so he guesses that he can die now.
That death which has been chasing him for so long might actually find him now.
He just hopes he gets his happy ending first.
As he walks away Bucky has the right name around his neck.
And in the 1950s Steve Rogers lived the life of domesticity with the same name around his.
James B. Barns
But the name Steven G. Rogers is lost to time
And that’s just how the story goes
One big tragedy.