Steve puts the quinjet down on an empty stretch of tundra in the middle of god knows where. This far south, the snow has melted away; tall sheets of wiry grass ripple away from their landing site to the distant horizon. Somewhere behind them, the JCTC will be setting up a perimeter at the Siberian base. They’ll be gathering evidence, interviewing Tony and T’Challa, combing through the old files archived there. It won’t be long now before they start their pursuit.
A fine mist of exhaustion has descended over Steve’s eyes. It doesn’t matter if the JCTC are right on his tail, breathing down his neck; he needs to rest.
In the back of the quinjet, Bucky sits slumped in a shadowy corner on the narrow storage shelf where Steve left him. He’s asleep, or maybe unconscious. A thin string of bloody spittle hangs from his lower lip, dripping red down the front of his jacket. The stump of his left arm is a mess of torn wires and jagged plating. He needs first aid, but Steve has no idea where to start.
“Buck,” he says softly.
Bucky opens his eyes and blinks at Steve, sluggish and disoriented. His pupils are dilated – concussion, maybe. God knows he was hit hard enough. “Where are we?”
“Russian Steppe, I think,” says Steve. He can’t remember the last time he lost track of his coordinates like this. He’s been flying on autopilot, navigating on nothing but his own blind urge to get as far off the grid as possible. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” says Bucky. What a stupid question – of course Bucky’s not okay. He’s drooling blood, his fucking arm’s gone. “We’re stopped.”
Steve’s eyes feel scratchy when he blinks, dried out by too many days on next to no sleep. Every minute they spend grounded is a minute the government could use to catch them up, but he’s so tired that he’s run out of anxiety to spare for the thought. He needs to sleep – but first he needs to look after Bucky. “Hold your head still. I’m going to check your pupil response.”
Bucky’s eyes drift closed again. “Think I’ll just sleep this one off.”
“You could be concussed.”
“And what are you gonna do about it if I am? Stay out of my face, Steve.”
“Not until I’m satisfied you won’t fall into a coma while I’m asleep. God, I don’t know why you’re always like this.”
Bucky cracks an eye, just barely. “Always?”
“Since we were kids,” says Steve. Getting annoyed won’t do him any good. “One time we were playing ball with the neighbour’s kids, and one of the older ones knocked you down. You brushed it off and stayed out playing for hours. When you finally went home, your mom had to cut your pants off you because it turned out you’d bloodied your knees so bad that the fabric got all stuck in the wounds.”
Reminiscing about the past has always been a surefire way to get Bucky’s attention. But the magic doesn’t work this time, and Steve’s concerns about the concussion are deepening. A few silent moments pass, and it becomes clear that Bucky isn’t going to say anything. “Okay, fine. Tell me what year it is.”
Bucky’s mouth flattens to a thin, irritated line. “Two thousand and fuck off.”
“Why are you being like this?”
Bucky opens his eyes again, but he doesn’t look at Steve. His gaze is downcast; his throat bobs. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “It’s 2016, Matthew Ellis is is the president, the Sokovian Accords are signed and sealed and the whole world wants us locked up or dead. I’m banged up, but I’m not brain damaged and I don’t feel concussed. My memory’s no worse than usual. Can I go back to sleep now?”
The dim light and dark bruises make Bucky look gaunt and vulnerable. If Steve feels tired, Bucky must be worse. He’s been fighting for his life since Romania. Steve makes one more valiant effort to remember that.
“Come sit in the passenger seat, at least,” he says. “You’ll be a lot more comfortable.”
“I’m fine here.”
He could just admit that he’s in too much pain to move. Part of Steve wants to cry with frustration. “It’s only a few steps,” he says, as gently as he can manage. “It’ll be worth it. I’ll help you.”
“You’ve done enough.”
“Bucky,” says Steve through gritted teeth.
At long last, Bucky looks up and meets Steve’s gaze. There’s blood caked in his eyebrows and dirt and grime smeared all over his skin and forget tired, his eyes look dead – dark and bleak and drained of all life. “You’ve done enough,” he repeats without inflection.
If only he could think straight, Steve would know what to say in response. He’d see the guilt behind Bucky’s prickly bravado, the hopelessness, the self-loathing. He’d sit down on the bench beside him and wrap an arm carefully around his shoulders and tell him he doesn’t regret a single decision he made if it meant getting Bucky out alive.
Later, when he watches the glass frost over on Bucky’s cryo tank, he’ll blame himself for not speaking when he had the chance.
But right now, with the prospect of sleep dangling inches in front of him and Bucky’s sullenness the final obstacle, Steve doesn’t have the patience or the strength to see it through. “Fine,” he says. There’s a first aid kit in the overhead locker; Steve tosses it down on the bench in easy reach of Bucky’s remaining arm. “I’ll be up front if you need anything.”
The pilot’s chair, thank god, reclines almost horizontal. Steve falls asleep the moment his head hits the backrest.
Tag: sad
“That line was an interesting moment. At the time, the choice I was making is that [Bucky] had realized there was no way he was getting out of there, and someone was gonna die, whether it was gonna be him, Steve or Tony. When he says that line, to me, it was a turning point
—
he was, like, ‘Okay, I know what you want me to say, and I’m just gonna say it.’ When someone comes at you over and over again, and they can’t hear you, they can’t see you’re pleading with them, you’re trying to figure out how to get through to them and they just won’t accept it, at some point you just give in, and you go, ‘that’s right, that’s what you want.’ Of course [Bucky] didn’t remember them all.”
—
Sebastian Stan
Wow. I had
honestly taken this statement at face value but if this is true then Bucky
lying about the extent of what he remembers isn’t an isolated incident, it becomes
a pattern, a strategy: Bucky intentionally
and deliberately using his memories, the only thing he truly owns at this
point, as a bargaining chip throughout the entire course of the movie to steer the
events if not in his favor, then at the very least toward what he considers an acceptable
outcome, namely sparing everyone else, and especially Steve, the pain of having
to deal with his shit. We talk a lot about Bucky’s lack of agency, but this right
here? This is him seizing and wielding the only tool at his disposal to exert
some influence on the narrative, despite having been left with almost no options.In
Bucharest, he lies to make Steve go away. He wants Steve to distrust him, to
give up on him, and the only way he can see of accomplishing that is to pretend
that there’s not a “Bucky” anymore. He tries to shut Steve out completely, tries
to not even look (and fails, but he’s only human) as Steve is escorted away from
the glass cage. When he’s alone with the alleged psychologist though, he has no
reason to think Steve’s listening and no reason to lie, so he tells the truth,
a truth that is very important to him, especially in the face of being once
again trapped and examined by people who look at him and see only a weapon: “my
name is Bucky”.Later, as
he wakes up with his arm trapped in the vice, he is hurt and disoriented and so
relieved when he sees Steve, that he can’t hide it. But it doesn’t matter,
because he quickly realizes that there’s no point in pretending anymore: Steve has
just done exactly what Bucky feared from the start: compromised himself for
Bucky in a way that he can’t take back. And Sam too. They made their choice, stupidly,
impossibly: they’re here for him. They need Bucky’s honesty now, or it will be
all for nothing. So Bucky gives it to them. He finally tells Steve that he
knows him, that he remembers him (the fact that it makes him so desperately
happy to be able to recite every trivial little detail, every hard won scrap of
memory that is a testament to how much Steve means to him, is made all the more
heartbreaking by the fact that he only does it because it’s become necessary). He
tells Steve and Sam about his encounter with Zemo, about the Siberian facility,
about the making and training of the other Winter Soldiers. The three of them
have a common objective now, a mission, and Bucky needs them, wants them, to
trust him.It’s clear that
Bucky put a lot of effort into stitching together all the bits and pieces of
memory he could dredge up. And he did a good job of it. Does he already
know that there are still things he’s missing? Or does he realize that only when he sees the
beginning of that video? Given how committed he is to record and preserve in
writing whatever comes back to him, does that realization make him feel like he’s
failed all over again those people he couldn’t even remember killing?Whatever the
answer, if we believe Sebastian’s words, in that moment up there Bucky is choosing
to lie again. Telling Tony what Tony wants to hear. Giving Tony the excuse Tony
clearly is looking for to just go ahead and murder him. He has reached the
conclusion that someone is going to die in that place, and he says what he
hopes will ensure that that someone will be him.
phantom limb (n.)
a sensation experienced by someone who has had a limb amputated that the limb is still there.
He
itches. Under his skin, he feels strange–not in the constant, aching way that
indicates that everything is functioning normally—so strange, as if his
colorless skin has turned thick and brittle; as if with every labored movement
he makes, it grows closer to splitting down his spine like a seam and spilling
out the restless growth that he feels crawling out of his bones, coiling in his
muscle and scratching raw at the parts of his interior that are neither flesh
nor bone.
“I know you” vs. “I know about you” ; one can only speculate about how many times the Soldier had remembered Steve and been punished as a result (x)
#bucky was too afraid to remember Steve. #he had remembered Steve so many times before and been punished because of it #this time he really wanted to be honest #really wanted to remember #ask all the questions that have been burning in the back of his mind for years #and for a moment he had confidence # “you’re Steve…..” #then gets scared #remembered all the pain he’s been though because of that name #his eyes move to the floor and he tells him he doesn’t remember #like a good asset #like a good boy. #i read about you in a museum
vvinterdumpling.home.blog 