It's kind of a sign of the fucked-up'd-ness of the situation that Steve starts getting worried when Bucky isn't killing people.

Okay, okay, that's not quite fair, Sam can sort of see where he's coming from. They're chasing a ghost by following the massive trail of dead bodies he's leaving behind – they're all Hydra who escaped the immediate collapse of SHIELD – bodies that he hasn't even tried to hide. Bodies of paper-pushing desk agents (who knowingly worked for a neo-Nazi organization hellbent on murdering a million people, so Sam has no sympathy for them) with a single clean shot through the head in their homes, higher-ups in ransacked safehouses turned into brutal interrogation rooms –

Then after about a month and a half, the bodies stop turning up. Steve's sure as hell that Bucky wouldn't willingly quit, which means something must have happened to him. Sam doubts it, Sam doubts anyone could stop the Winter Soldier, but what else explains the fact that they're finding Hydra's people alive?

They can't even find the ghost, so how do they find if the ghost's been killed? Sam keeps them pushing after Hydra, on the path that Bucky projected for them, because the organization still needs to go down and if something did happen to Bucky, Hydra would be behind it and the operatives they bring in could know about it.

Except they don't find out anything about the Winter Soldier, past or present, from anyone they bring in and as it hits a full month of no dead bodies Sam can see Steve starting to fray around the edges.

"He's the deadliest assassin in history and you're worrying about him like a dad who lost his kid in the mall," Sam says one day, when they're on a train to New York after receiving a text from Natasha – well, it's from an unknown number, but that tends to mean Natasha, especially given the inappropriate emoticon usage that was the sentence "secret hydra outpost taken down yesterday :)". That tidbit of information came accompanied by an address, somewhere in Brooklyn, which when they looked it up was some 5 miles from where Steve lived once upon a time. They'd made it to the other side of the country by that point and they've been awake and travelling for a day already now. They're somewhere in Iowa right now, maybe.

"Even he can't take on Hydra on his own," Steve says.

"And we…?"

"Can, yes, because there's two of us and that's a number that is that much bigger than one," Steve says dryly.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Sure, man."

They both grin at each other weakly for a few seconds before Steve sighs and glances back out the window. "I don't know what he might do to other people. Or himself. There could be anything going on in his head."

"Everyone he's killed so far has been Hydra," Sam offers, but he really can't say anything else to the rest of it because hell, he's not a psychologist, he's just a guy that does the best he can to help people that he knows what they've been through. Brainwashed and frozen and defrosted supersoldiers are beyond his range of expertise. "Least he seems to not kill innocents."

Steve makes a noncommittal noise and glances out the window again. "I hate trains," he says, and Sam really doesn't know what to say to that either, until Steve looks at him and cracks a grin. "Got some problems with walk-in freezers, too."

Okay. Okay, he's joking. Sort of. It's a joke that could very well be doubling as a coping mechanism. The first half is definitely something serious said jokingly. "Where's there a freezer for you to have a problem with?"

"Oh, SHIELD headquarters had a few. Natasha made sure to point that out. Y'know she bought a bunch of Captain America action figures and froze them all and left the ice block in my apartment?"

"See, your first problem is giving her a key."

"I didn't."

The more Sam learns about Natasha, the more confusing she becomes. He can't decide if the action figures prank is cruel or hilarious. He nonetheless wants to fill Steve's freezer with them. He needs to bring them back around to the more important matters at hand. "You think this address is where she is?" he asks.

Steve shrugs. "Figured she'd go farther than New York to figure herself out."

"The Hydra base might've been her doing," Sam suggests. He's been searching news sites for more information on that story, but nothing has come out as to who was behind it. It's someone who knows how to cover their tracks, that's all he knows.

"Wouldn't surprise me," Steve agrees. "Although she probably would have added more smiley faces if it was her."

When they finally end up in Brooklyn, they don't stop to sleep and go to scope out the address in their undercover gear, which is just baseball caps and sunglasses – they're soldiers, not spies. And the building looks like a regular apartment building, with regular people of all ages and sizes, looking like they're most likely not Hydra and probably most likely not some spy allies of Natasha, either.

But really, Sam is willing to expect anything at this point, which is why he takes issue with Steve's idea of just going in and knocking on the specified apartment's door.

"We're going to get shot," he says, and Steve shrugs.

"I have the shield, we both have guns – we're fine."

"Is this how you fought the war, too?" Sam demands, when they're in the building on the stairs going up to the second floor, when it's far too late for protests but here he is protesting anyways because something the history books never said was that Captain America is a fucking idiot.

"Yes, yes it was," Steve replies, and it's again one of those times when Sam doesn't know if he's joking or not.

And so they knock on the door of apartment H, Steve with his shield half up, Sam with his gun barely concealed, expecting the worst.

So naturally when the door opens it's the last thing Sam expects – an ordinary looking man, weaponless, in plainclothes. Steve blinks a few times and then says, "Hawkeye."

"Cap," the man replies, and Sam blinks. This is another one of the Avengers, the famed sharpshooter Hawkeye, living in a hole in the wall building in Brooklyn. "You are not who I was expecting to see."

"Who were you expecting?" Steve asks warily.

"Pizza delivery guy," Hawkeye says, opening the door wider and waving them in. "It's past time for him to be showing up."

Steve holds up his hand and doesn't move. "Why did Natasha give us your address?"

"Because she wanted you to come here," Hawkeye answers, in the kind of blithe sarcastic way that Steve does when he doesn't actually want to answer the question. He looks past them and then grabs them both by the arm and pulls them into the apartment. Sam looks back to see that a delivery boy has appeared behind them, staring wide eyed between Steve and the shield, and Hawkeye. He's holding two boxes.

Hawkeye pulls a wad of cash from his jeans pocket and hands a few crumpled bills to the delivery boy without looking them over. "Keep the change," he says, waving him off after taking the pizzas. Steve's face twitches, just slightly, and Sam knows that no matter how well he's adjusting to the modern day, his Depression-era sensibilities are still tingling madly over the flagrant throwing around of money.

Hawkeye catches the look and shrugs. "It's Hydra's money," he explains and well, that answers one question and brings up a whole host of new ones. Hawkeye deposits the pizza boxes in Steve's arms, turns to Sam, and extends a hand. "Clint Barton. Hawkeye."

Sam shakes his hand. "Sam Wilson."

"Don't have a funny hero name yet?" Clint asks. "You've been palling around with Captain America for a few months now. It's about time you get something."

"Clint," Steve says tiredly, prodding him in the arm with the corner of the pizza boxes. "Why does Natasha want us –" He stops and glances down, because suddenly there's a one-eyed brown floppy-eared mutt of a dog bouncing around at his feet, and an exasperated yell from the next room, the kind of yell that people do when they were just petting a dog that suddenly decided its wants to be pet by someone else.

"Natasha wants you to join the Hydra-fighting pizza party bachelor pad," Clint says, taking the boxes back from Steve, and Steve just sighs and glares and casts a glance around and then he freezes with a strangled kind of sound. Sam goes for his gun again, following Steve's gaze to see the Winter Soldier standing in the other doorway, in sweatpants and bare feet, with messy hair and a tank top that reveals a mess of scars and twisted flesh on his chest where the metal arm attaches.

"You were going to mention this to us at some point, right?" Sam asks, because Steve simultaneously looks like he wants to say something about the story but also looks completely unable to.

"How would I?" Clint asks. "Not like I can just look up Captain America's number, I don't even know who the hell you are, SHIELD's gone, Fury's dead and I actually did tell the person that has a new burn phone every week, so that shows what the situation's like."

"Actually, about Fury…" Steve says weakly.

"Faked it?" Clint asks. Sam nods. "Good." And he mutters something that sounds like, "thanks for telling me, Nat." Then he adds, louder, in a casual way completely unbefitting the shock that Sam and Steve just had, "Y'know, I don't think two pizzas is enough for two supersoldiers and two normal people."

Bucky takes one of the boxes from Clint and after staring in an eerie unblinking way at Sam and Steve for half a minute, returns to the other room. The dog follows him. "I don't think you're taking this situation seriously, Clint," Steve says, and Sam is inclined to agree with him, because he can't imagine that pizza party bachelor pad is really the correct way to refer to living with the Winter Soldier.

"What, that I don't fully understand the complexities of trying to turn the world's deadliest living weapon back into a person again?" Clint asks, giving Steve A Look. "Okay, yeah, you're right, I don't."

Sam can feel a headache coming on.

"But like hell if you know what you're doing any more than me," he continues. "All you've figured out is that he's your Bucky and you need to save him from big bad Hydra like that isn't the plot of some dozen Captain America comic books that I read as a kid."

"Do you know anything about what's happened to him?" Steve hisses, and any other time Sam can see him picking up the comic book jab and running with it, but not when it comes to Bucky. When it comes to Bucky, Steve is always in serious mode.

"Nat dropped by and filled me in," Clint answers. "About what was in that file. You find out any more?"

Steve looks taken aback, and Sam figures that Clint isn't usually this amenable, usually would be fighting back when told he doesn't know anything instead of calmly asserting what he does know.

"No," Steve says finally, and he sighs, shoulders slumping.

"It's all buried real deep," Sam adds. "Over half of the Hydra operatives we've taken in didn't have a clue what we were asking them about, and the ones that did knew less than we do."

"He's a ghost," Clint says, "and he's living on my goddamn couch." He cracks a weary grin. "And we shouldn't be talking about him while he's around, I'll bet you that's how his handlers treated him. C'mon." He turns and heads through the doorway. "We'll eat in the living room, don't have enough kitchen chairs."

Bachelor pad indeed.

The living room houses a large screen TV and an old, slightly-deflated couch with a coffee table in front of it. Bucky sits on the arm of the couch, feet on the cushions, while the dog noses the closed pizza box on the table. As they watch, Bucky offers his slice to the dog, and after it snaps off a bite, Bucky lifts it back up and takes another bite.

Steve winces. Sam wonders whether that was a behavior Bucky's imitating from Clint or whether he just genuinely does not see why some people might have a problem with that.

"So Nat tell you how we took out that Hydra building a couple days ago?" Clint says, maybe a little loudly, to get Bucky's attention, and sure enough he looks up – though not at Clint but at Steve, fixing him with the unblinking stare again.

"That was just the two of you?" Sam asks.

"Yep." Clint, still holding the pizza box, vaults over the couch and lands next to Bucky's feet before grabbing a slice from the other box. Steve takes the floor and waves Sam into the space next to Clint. "Gutted the place, threw all their intel up on the internet…"

"We killed thirty-seven people."

Sam jumps at the sound of Bucky's voice, a dead monotone that conveys nothing about what he thinks of this statement – although the fact that he says it at all shows that he doesn't have a grasp about what is appropriate dinner conversation, or what is appropriate to say at all. (Not that. Never appropriate.)

"Most of them were trying to kill us," Bucky continues, emotionlessly. "I think I've seen a few of them before. I tried questioning one but he had a cyanide pill." There, there Sam hears the monotone dip into what sounds like disappointment.

Steve's eyes are fixed on the slice of pizza in his hand, which he no longer looks able to eat.

"The problem is that most of what's left now are cells," Clint explains. "Pierce probably had a finger on all of them, but they don't communicate with each other, so we can't get intel in one that helps find another."

"The other ones I destroyed weren't like that," Bucky says. "They were too easy to find." He takes another slice and then looks at Sam. "You followed me."

Steve looks up and Sam defers to him. "Yeah, we did," he says.

"Why?" Bucky takes a bite of his pizza but his eyes never leave Steve. It's starting to get really really creepy.

"We wanted to find you so that we could help you," Steve says, in tiny and defeated voice. Sam's heart is hurting for him.

"Help me kill Hydra?" Bucky asks. He just finished chewing another bite and now he's staring down at his pizza like he's never really seen it before. He peels a mushroom off and offers it to the dog. "I don't like those," he says as he removes the rest of them. Then he takes a bite, chews, makes a face, and passes the entire slice to the dog. "I can still taste it," he announces.

"Well, put that on the list." Clint lifts up the box that was already on the table and fishes out a piece of paper and a pen which he hands to Bucky.

"List?" Sam asks.

"Yeah. Keeping track of what would and wouldn't go on the ultimate pizza."

Or, a really damn good way for Bucky to figure out what he likes and doesn't like without it feeling forced, although Sam really hopes they just haven't been eating different types of pizza for every meal for – for how long has Bucky even been here?

"To… just… help you," Steve says, and Sam remembers that Bucky had asked him a question before he was sidetracked by mushrooms. "Hydra messed with your head."

"I know. That's why I want to kill them."

"And they've done terrible things to everyone and want to do even more terrible things," Clint adds, and it seems like stating the obvious except Sam thinks that maybe Bucky maybe needs a subtle reminder that this is more than a revenge quest.

"And I want to help you get that fixed," Steve continues.

"So I can remember you?"

"And a lot more than that."

Sam feels like he's intruding on A Moment, but Bucky doesn't let it last and he's already moved on to the next question. "Why did you stop following me?"

"You weren't leaving us any more burnt out Hydra bases," Sam replies when he sees that Steve's still a little bit frozen. "S'only way we knew where you were. We kept going west, why'd you turn around?"

"I found information pointing to a larger amount of Hydra operatives clustered right here," Bucky answers. "The chances were higher that one of them would know something about me."

"And you took all that intel for yourself and didn't even leave a note for us," Sam says. Clint chuckles and Bucky just stares. Blank, uncomprehending. "I'm joking." Does he even know what a joke is?

"But we could have helped you if you let us," Steve says quietly. "You don't have to take the world on alone, Buck."

Bucky blinks and Sam thinks he sees something dawning in his expression. His mouth moves but Sam can't make out words. "What?" Steve asks, and Bucky looks down at his metal fingers, almost shy.

"'Till the end of the line," he says softly.

"Yeah," Steve says. "Yeah."

This is definitely A Moment that he and Clint are outsiders in. Bucky, however, still doesn't realize that he and Steve are having A Moment and he bluntly continues the conversation. "And then the Widow sent you after me again."

"She didn't tell us you were here," Sam says. "She gave us the address and didn't say what it was. We had no idea what we were going after." Bucky nods. Sam would pay good money to get a glimpse of what's going on inside his head. Is he mad they're here or no? "How long you been here, anyways?"

"Since Monday. Four days," Bucky responds. "He" – meaning Clint – "was also scouting Hydra. We pooled our information and then attacked."

"It was love at first sight," Clint drawls. Steve sighs. Bucky just kind of stares at Clint. "And then once we finished that I've been showing off the greatest advancements of the 21st century."

"Delivery pizza and Netflix," Bucky recites. "And Wikipedia."

Sam massages out the ever-increasing headache. "So you… you went and killed a bunch of Hydra and then had a movie marathon-pizza party until we showed up."

"That is exactly what we've done," Clint says and he laughs. "You can join in and stick around, live here until we figure out what's next."

Sam looks at Steve, because Steve might need space to come to terms with this, Steve might need room to step away from what Bucky's become, Steve –

Steve says, "Sure, thanks."

Why did Sam expect anything else? Steve's a martyr for Bucky, Steve's self-sacrificing and an idiot.

"Great," Clint says, his previous cheer faded a bit and it looks like he's starting to register what he volunteered for. "Any movie preferences, now?" he asks, and then he looks straight at Bucky and says, "Don't say Wizard of Oz, nothing we've already seen twice."

"Snow White," Bucky says, and everyone is staring at him now. "We haven't watched it twice," he grumps in response to Clint's ever-deepening frown.

He's like a child. A child with a kill count a mile long.

"You had to pick something I have to get up to get," Clint grumbles, but he still stands up and goes to the corner, where a small bookshelf is stacked with DVDs.

Bucky slides down to actually sit on the couch and moves over to Clint's seat. Then he considers Sam on his left and the empty space now on his right and moves over, to the seat next to the arm of the couch. He catches Steve's eyes and points to Clint's spot. Steve raises an eyebrow and glances over at Clint. Bucky's dead eyes light up for a moment and his mouth for a split second forms something that might be the tiniest hint of a smile.

"I gotta ask why you own Disney movies," Sam calls across the room, while Steve and Bucky just stare at each other like they're communicating telepathically or something.

"They're Nat's," Clint says. "But she doesn't really live anywhere, so I keep them all and she'll come over for movie night." He turns around and comes back over and stops at the side of the couch, seeing Steve now settled into his place on the couch. "Really, Cap? Did Bucky encourage you? He's always taking my spot."

"What, you didn't realize he's a jerk?" Steve asks, grinning, and he glances at Bucky. The grin fades when Bucky doesn't say anything, like there's some cue he missed, some in-joke Steve hoped he'd remember.

"You're all jerks," Clint says. "All of you!"

"I didn't even do anything!" Sam protests.

"Jerks!"

"Why Snow White?" Steve asks, and Sam hears that he's fighting to keep his voice level. It takes him everything to not spill it all out, every little part of his and Bucky's shared lives, but that's only going to confuse and aggravate the Winter Soldier more, and Sam's heart hurts for Steve, trying to fit himself into this new Bucky's life, trying to talk to him like he's just anyone, just someone else.

"I think…" Bucky's eyebrows furrow in concentration. "I think… I think I saw it before." He glances at Steve, helplessly. "Did I?"

Steve nods. "We saw it in theaters three times when it came out."

"Why?"

"Because I was an artist," Steve says, "before the war, and I wanted to work on things like this."

Bucky nods, just once. "What did I do?" he asks.

Steve smiles sadly. "You worked whatever jobs you could find, for as many hours as you could – you took care of me."

Bucky frowns and stares at Steve – stares more intently at Steve, because he was already staring at Steve. (He doesn't seem to know how to blink.) "Why would you need taking care of?"

"I used to be small," Steve says. "I was small and skinny and sick and you looked after me."

Bucky frowns. "Why aren't you now?"

"I volunteered to test a supersoldier serum," Steve answers. "I wanted to fight and there was no other way I could. And it worked."

Sam is really impressed by how intense Bucky's frown has managed to get. He looks – wait, shit – he looks ready to murder. "What – what all did they do to you?" he asks, grabbing Steve's wrist, twisting so that he's using his right hand and not the metal one, eyes searching his face in a panic. "Did they wipe you – no you wouldn't know – what did they make you do – what did they do to you?"

His whole body is tense and coiled, ready to spring, and his hand is shaking around Steve's wrist, terrified. Weapons aren't terrified. People are.

"It's okay, Buck," Steve says, reaching over with his other hand and placing it on Bucky's. "They didn't do anything to me. I volunteered and they treated me like a person. I had my own unit, I chose my own missions, I wasn't – it wasn't like what happened to you, Buck."

Some of the tension leaves Bucky but he doesn't let go of Steve. "Are you trying to help me now because I once took care of you?"

"You're my friend, Bucky," Steve replies. "I'd help you no matter what."

"Are we?" Bucky asks. "Friends? I tried to kill you."

"That wasn't you." Clint and Sam had both stayed out of the conversation when it turned to Steve and Bucky's old life, but now Clint interrupted before Steve could even start to compose an answer. "That was Hydra, acting through you. It wasn't you, you – you saved him. That was you. The rest was Hydra. You aren't to blame for their actions."

But Bucky's only looking at Steve.

"Yeah," Steve says. "Listen to Clint on this one. It was all Hydra. It's not your fault."

Bucky doesn't say anything but relaxes a little. He still doesn't let go of Steve.

Ironically, they're at the part of the movie where the huntsman, ordered to bring Snow White's heart to the Queen, refuses to kill her.

Sam passes out before the movie ends because fuck it, he and Steve have been on the road for over a day without sleeping and he's not superhuman and somehow the fact that the Winter Soldier, the man who tore him out of the sky and took his wings away is one person away on the couch doesn't keep him awake and alert and suspicious. Steve can do that. Clint can do that.

But Clint passes out on the floor next to the dog and after him Steve drops into slumber because of course he – maybe just unconsciously – trusts Bucky and that leaves no one awake to realize that this is kind of not really a good idea at all –

– except the Winter Soldier himself. He is incredibly aware of the fact that he is dangerous and there is no one awake and armed to stop him if something happens. Steve is asleep against his shoulder, using the metal arm that has killed – killed many, he doesn't know how many, the hawk stopped him from looking up the number and he hasn't tried again – as a pillow and the Winter Soldier is afraid.

If he stops concentrate the Hydra programming humming in the back of his mind is going to take over and he can feel the twitch in his hands telling him your mission is to kill Steve Rogers and the target is right here and stupidly let his guard down. His fingers are twitching and he clenches his fists tight, flesh and metal, trying not to move the metal arm too much because it might wake Steve (the target) (Steve).

You are the asset. Your mission is to kill Steve Rogers.

You are the asset. Your mission is to kill Steve Rogers.

The chant doesn't stop, doesn't let up, pounding unrelenting through his skull.

"You took care of me."

The Winter Soldier thinks about that, focuses on what Steve (the target) told him his programming was, long ago. Take care of him, he orders himself, looking down at Steve.

Hydra's orders scream against him. You are the asset. That is the target. Your mission is to

take care of him. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You've known him your whole life. You took care of him. Your mission is to protect him. Your name is

the Winter Soldier the asset your mission

protect Steve Rogers you've known him your whole life. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. Your mission is to protect Steve Rogers and he's mouthing the words now to remind himself, make it more real, giving himself the orders because there is no one here who would be willing to do so. They can't know that Hydra's missions still rattle around in his skull, if they find out how close the Winter Soldier is to killing them all they won't want to help, they won't, they'll hand him over to someone else and lock him up and throw him on ice and wipe him because the Winter Soldier is dangerous he is the asset and his mission is to kill and kill and kill.

The weight shifts off of his metal shoulder and Steve looks at him and the Winter Soldier stops whispering his orders on another repetition of your name is James Buchanan Barnes. Steve has lines on his skin from it being pressed against the gaps in the metal and he's rubbing at his face and still looking at the Winter Soldier. "Did I wake you?" he asks because he doesn't know how loud he whispered his own orders, sometimes, rarely, what's in his head spills out, you're my mission, who the hell is Bucky.

"No," Steve says. "I didn't mean to fall asleep anyway."

The Winter Soldier relaxes, just a little, because good Steve knows he's dangerous, Steve is going to keep an eye on him, if he tries to kill Steve he can fight back. "Were you saying something?" Steve asks.

Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You know him, you've known him your whole life. He is Steve Rogers, your mission is to protect him.

"No," says Bucky, and he slumps down on the couch a little and tries to sleep.