Just a Kid from Brooklyn

"Sever the bond." Happiness was not something that Bucky remembered but he was slowly becoming uncomfortably equated with misery. Having his Sentinel actively line for another was tearing him open and Bucky wanted it to stop.

Not even the gunshot wound hurt as much as this truly did.

"If you don't want me, you don't have to have me, Captain."

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"It's not that easy," Steve muttered, his blue eyes sharp on Bucky. It was what he wanted but he couldn't kill the man. Even the Captain wasn't that cruel and he was becoming Steve Rogers more and more the longer they were away from Hydra. "It could kill you. According to them, it probably will. They don't know for sure but the chance you survive is low. I... I can't do that."

Was suffering the better option? Torturing the man with his constant pining? He didn't know. He didn't think there was a right answer.

He sighed heavily, "They aren't even sure I would survive."

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Putting a hand to the covered wound on his leg, Bucky sat up slowly and watched the Captain with such strange heartbreak in his eyes. It mirrored Tony's now, strangely enough.

"Do it and send me back to HYDRA. I was something-- I use to be something before you." That was true, if cruel. Bucky didn't remember his life before the Captain. He just knew that everything hurt now.

He wanted to forget again and live as just the Soldier.

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"I won't," he refused, shaking his head, because he didn't exactly know SHIELD but he knew Hydra was worse. He remembered the pain of the wipes. He knew what they made the two of them do over course of six months. "I can't. I don't... I don't remember a lot, but we were friends, before. I cared about you. I still do. I won't send you back to them."

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"I think you should get out." This wasn't entirely Bucky. It wasn't the soldier either. The simple truth was that there wasn't any truth left. He'd been a Sentinel at birth. Steve had been a Guide, though his scent had been so minuscule that it was any wonder Bucky had ever noticed it.

But it had started back in that alley. It had been more than friendship for Bucky but he wasn't stupid enough to make it otherwise.

He had little flashes of that. Of laying on the floor and laughing-- he wanted to smash it.

"Whenever you say that you feel-- You're killing me already, in thought if not deed. So just get out."

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The words, while reasonable and not unexpected, cut into him like a knife. He might not want it but instinct told him this was still his Guide. He was hurting them both this way. Steve deserved it; Bucky didn't. The Sentinel could scream and cry, all at the same time.

"I'm sorry," he said instead and he was, even if the inflection wasn't quite there yet. He stood and moved for the door, dejected and defeated. He wanted his life back. The happy one that Tony kept showing him. He didn't want this miserable excuse for existence.

He knocked on the door because he wouldn't stay if the Guide didn't want him here, "Take me back to my box."

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Tony didn't come by. Tony wasn't waiting. No one visited the Captain at all, though parts of the bond between himself and Bucky tugged from time to time as the Soldier went through rehabilitation, physically and mentally.

Natasha was with him almost exclusively, speaking in Russian to calm him and in English again to bring him back to the present.

He was the one that brought up the chemical bond dissolver a few days later and she was the one to come to Steve.

"He wants to separate," she told her captain and her friend. "It's all he talks about."

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He asked and waited, there was nothing else he could do. They played anything he asked for on the screen and slowly he recalled things but with no one here to really point him in the right direction, he wasn't improving as quickly as he could be.

Of course, part of the time he spent just staring at the wall so that wasn't helping either. Why wouldn't Tony visit him? Helping him? He didn't understand.

Steve was quiet as Natasha offered him Bucky's request and he said, "So long as he doesn't go back to them, I'll do it."

He might have been the one to bring it up but he wasn't doing it if it led the man back to Hydra.

"Where's Tony?" he asked again. Surely she would have an answer?

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Natasha didn't look uncomfortable. Her face never seemed to change. "He went home after you beat the door down." There was no reason at all to lie. Not to the Captain. "You can't really blame him there can you?"

How many times did Tony have to hurt? He'd spent so long searching for Steve... Too long. And now this was all that was left.

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No, he couldn't blame him for wanting to escape from a Sentinel that was nearly berserking to get to a Guide that wasn't him. However, soon that wasn't going to be true.

"It won't happen once the bond is dissolved," Steve said, eyes on her. He couldn't read her. He wasn't sure he wanted to. "He'll want to know when it's done."

Right? He was doing it for him. He wanted Tony. It was the entire problem. "I want to talk to him."

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"I'll call him." Natasha was about to leave when she paused and the pulled a phone from her incredibly tight jeans and typed in Stark's number before she handed it over to Steve. "You talk."

Tony hadn't been planning on answering but when JARVIS told him that Romanoff was ringing him. That could mean a problem and Tony couldn't risk it.

So he answered. "Yeah?"

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He stared at the phone for a moment before raising it to his ear. Steve didn't expect that to happen immediately but he realized he might not get another chance. SHIELD was pretty strict with what they would let him do. He didn't even consider that Tony might not want to speak to him.

"Tony?" he asked, wetting his lips and shifting his gaze from Romanoff. "When are you coming back?"

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"I wasn't--" Steve. Steve had called him. Or was this SHIELD being an asshole because Tony had pulled out too quick? "You don't need me hanging around and getting in the way, Captain." He wasn't even sure how to address the man that use to love him now. "You have your Guide. You should stay with him and help each other."

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"He wants to dissolve the bond," Steve said, because he didn't know what else to say. He agreed with it and Tony knew he already felt that way so he didn't see why this was an issue. His mind abruptly caught up with everything the man was telling him.

He actually managed to sound hurt but was it really any wonder? Tony was the only one that treated him like a person. He cared about him. "You... weren't going to come back?"

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Tony paced before he sat on the edge of the center console and tried his very best to keep from saying anything regretful. "I wasn't..." There was no reason to lie there. "I.. There wasn't anything to return to," he told Steve as gently as possible.

He didn't like to be hurt. He couldn't watch Steve constantly run to the Soldier--

"Why does he want to dissolve the bond..?"

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Steve didn't understand. He was working on it! Tony couldn't expect his brain to fix itself so easily. He didn't know how much the man was struggling with everything.

His forehead creased, "Because I told him I wanted you and he can feel it."

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Tony's breath cane out in a audible sigh. "I wasn't trying to make anyone miserable," he said and then shrugged, not caring that Steve couldn't see it. "But I've been miserable since this happened, since you bonded to him and you left me. I know how he feels."

And Tony would have wanted to dissolve the bond too.

"I'll come back. Wait for me."

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He wished he could be sorry but he wasn't sure he could say it and mean it right now. He just didn't remember enough about what happened. The version of their bonding that Hydra let them keep was apparently skewed somehow and he wasn't sure what to make of it. It didn't matter though, did it? It was ending soon.

"Okay, I will," he said, somewhat relieved. He would just have to try harder to be the Steve that Tony remembered.

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Tony did take his time. It had little to do with not wanting to get back to Steve and more to do with being afraid of what he'd find. He didn't want to discover that they had changed their minds. Or that Steve was going through with it. Either choice could end them.

Tony arrived in his armor and left it in the garage as he walked the halls. Anyone that came to speak with him, he ignored. Once he was with Steve, though, hd seemed to have lost his forward momentum.

"Hey...."

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It felt like a long time between handing the phone back to Natasha and when Tony showed up. Unfortunately, he didn't have anything to do besides sit around and think. He tried to make sense of what he could and put it all in order. There were still pieces misses but it helped to watch the videos of himself. Read the articles.

He straightened when the door opened and his eyes lit up. There wasn't a smile, not yet, but he was still happy to see Tony or what passed for it right now.

"Hey," he echoed.

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Tony closed the door behind him and waited for the click before he crossed the short distance between where Steve stood and where he had been moments before to come close enough to feel his breath on his cheek.

"How did I survive so long without you?" It was more romantic than he tended to be, but Steve didn't know that and he didn't need to know that either.

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No, he didn't know that but that was alright. It was a good thing for Steve to hear anyway after the mess he made with his Guide. His eyes followed Tony as he came over and they were enamored, curious, just as drawn to the man as ever. All he could was shrug helplessly. Was he supposed to have an answer to that?

"I think he wants it done as soon as possible."

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And still so cold. Tony didn't expect him to be anything else...and yet? Yes, he did. He wanted this to be Steve-- But it was still the Captain. "I need to start the gene therapies...in case you have to bond again right away."

Not ideal, not the way he wanted it, but they didn't have that luxury now to want the romance. "I'll be back in a few hours...and then we'll get started." The injections would be painful but necessary. If Steve started to fail with the dissolved bond, Tony would be there to take over.

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It would take time for him to be Steve again. The best thing Tony could do was continue to support him and show him their life before this. He would come back. It was just a slow process. He should know that from all the time Steve spent helping Bucky. His life was kind of rough right now.

"Alright," he said with a nod. He didn't know what all the gene therapy entailed but it sounded like it would work quickly. "I'll let them know."

He hesitated and added, "Thank you, Tony. I know... I know I'm not same. I'm trying."

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