Chapter Text
These places always smell like sweat and blood, and all he can hear through the rumbling noise of the crowd is the slap of skin on skin and the grunt of men pounding on each other.
It's not like working on a porn set, but sometimes it sounds the same.
Bucky keeps his head down on the bench off to the side of the ring, concentrating on wrapping his hands. He wraps the left one twice, because he's been having trouble with his weak wrist in the cold weather they've had recently. His elbow is supported by the wrap-tape the physiotherapist had recommended back in Chicago, and the blue tape stretches the old, thin scars on his forearm almost white. They're almost invisible if you don't know they're there.
There hasn't been a new one made by his own hand in almost six months. Bucky feels like that's an achievement.
His fucked-up arm isn't quite as fucked-up as it used to be, these days. A bigger chunk of his physical problems were psychological than he'd thought, and his arm got a lot better after he got off the heavy medication he'd been taking and actually started to get his head together. Added onto that the physiotherapy he forced himself to get through and the daily training he does on top of it, and his arm isn't half as bad now.
Sure, there are days he still wakes up and can't feel a damn thing, drops his coffee cup and doesn't have the dexterity to pick up a pencil, when he still has to wear his brace and grit his teeth through phantom pains of old injuries, but they're less frequent now. He handles them better, because he doesn't immediately feel like the world is ending when he has one bad day. He'd never say he has full function in his arm, but it's a damn sight better than it was a year ago.
He only has to drop a couple of fights a month because of his arm and that's good enough for him. For now.
"This kid's fast, you think you can keep up?"
Dum Dum is a great trainer, but sometimes a horrible person to have ringside.
"Who is it, Maximoff?" Bucky finally looks up and cranes over Dugan's shoulder to get a look at the kid with the weirdly-dyed hair. "Didn't I already knock his ass out in Jersey?"
"Yeah. And then gave him half your fuckin' prize money for his bus home." Dum Dum rolls his eyes and taps Bucky on the cheek to make him focus. "Do yourself a favour, stop feeling sorry for the fuckin' strays who shouldn't be in the ring in the first place."
"Do yourself a favour and stop touching my fuckin' face." Bucky snipes back, narrowing his eyes until Dum Dum relents and pulls his hand away from his cheek. It still makes him feel safe to know that he's threatening, even in little situations like this.
That's why he'd started training in the first place, because he was sick of feeling small and scared in his own skin. After going to the mixed martial-arts class Clint had recommended, Bucky had sought out something similar when he first left New York. He'd been hesitant at first, afraid to do anything that might start up the fire of rage inside him that he kept so well hidden most of the time. After being kicked out of the class designed for people dealing with PTSD and anger issues, he wondered how the hell he'd cope with a class for regular people.
Then Bucky had actually forced himself to go to a kickboxing class, after he'd been sitting in his motel room for three days and scared to go out in case he wanted to use, and he'd taken to it like a fish to water. He felt focused when he was fighting, powerful and calm in a way nothing else allowed him to feel. It reminded him of Clint showing him how to sweep his house for electronic bugs, slipping through the darkness behind his friend and feeling like he was actually doing something to protect himself.
The fights came later, after he'd come back from travelling to Russia for what turned out to be an extremely tense family visit. He'd run out of money in Boston, and there was no way he was going to call on his friends for help after he'd made it so far on his own. He'd seen the flyer looking for fighters on the side of a phone booth, and in a moment of madness he'd thrown caution to the wind and signed up. It was either that or fuck someone for money, and he promised himself that he'd never do that again.
He wasn't going to ask anyone for help this time, not even Steve.
That was six months ago, and since then Bucky's managed to scrape out a living by fighting for prize money. He's not the greatest in the world, his arm holds him back more than anything else, but he's good at taking a punch without being fazed, hard to knock down, and lethal when he gets an opening. He gets into a calm place in his head when he fights, everything slows down and he might as well be moving twice as fast as anyone else for all the decisions he can make at speed.
Bucky feels like a weapon when he fights. It feels good.
"Rogers, Maximoff, you're up next."
The promoter calls out to Bucky and the skinny kid on the opposite bench, and they both make a gesture of acknowledgement to show him they've heard. Dum Dum helps Bucky tape up the last part of his wrist and watches him curiously as he stands up.
"You ever gonna explain to me why you don't fight under your own name? There something sinister about Barnes that I'm missing?"
"Nope." Bucky's already jogging towards the ring so Dugan can't see the slight flush to his cheeks.
There are some things he can't even explain to himself, let alone anyone else. Once the fight starts, he doesn't have to think about it anymore.
To Bucky's surprise, the Maximoff kid makes it to three rounds. Mostly by being fast enough to get the hell out of Bucky's way when he goes on the offensive, but he's not about to judge tactics. Still, Bucky takes the fight and the winnings, slipping the kid a grin and a little drinking money despite the ferocity of Dugan's eye roll.
Dum Dum gives him a ride back to his apartment through the rain, since he's wiped out from the fight, and Bucky watches the neon lights pass and thinks about how he really hasn't missed the New York weather. He's only been back in the city a week, but his tiny place is already unpacked and looks like he's been there for months. It's not like he has a lot of stuff, he's been living pretty nomadically and besides, he was trained out of thinking he deserved to keep things a long time ago.
So he doesn't keep much, just his gear and some mementos, and of course…
"Koshka?" He calls when he gets through the door, shaking the rain off his short hair and tossing his keys onto the hall table. "C'mon dumbass, if you wanna get fed you'd better be here in one minute."
About fifty-eight seconds later, the little dark-grey cat slinks into the kitchen like she has all the time in the world. Bucky rolls his eyes and scratches behind her ears before he shoves her food bowl at her with his foot. The protein shake he's mixed up for himself is pretty gross, but he doesn't want the unnecessary crap that would make it taste better in his body, not when he feels cleansed after fighting. The cat looks at him incredulously, because yes it's cheap food and she'll just have to deal with that (he explains with more cursing), and eventually settles down to eat.
This describes their relationship perfectly.
"M'going to bed, asshole." Bucky pets her one more time, a tired smile coming over his face when the cat flicks her tail at him dismissively and doesn't even turn around.
He'd always thought he was a dog person, but sometimes life gets in the way of what you think is going to happen.
Bucky flops onto his mattress with a sigh, aching tired deep down to his bones. He hasn't got a bed yet, just the single mattress the apartment came with because the last tenant left it behind. He'll have to get some furniture soon, he supposes, if he's going to stay here for any length of time. He guesses it all depends.
He hasn't found furniture or even been properly grocery shopping yet because he's not sure he's going to stay. When he first got back to New York, Bucky wasn't sure he'd be able to even if he wanted it. Just the smell of the city sparked off a dozen memories the moment he hit the street, and while some of them were good, a lot really weren't. He thinks it'll all depend on how his friends react to him being back, when he finally gets in touch with them. If they don't want him, he'll just disappear back into the ether again like the ghost he is. He's been putting off getting in touch because he's scared they might have moved on without him.
But he has to admit that it's strange to be back in Brooklyn without Steve. Maybe he should change that.
With a yawn, Bucky figures he should check his messages before he passes out. The tablet computer is a nightmare to use when his arm is playing up, but it's small enough to fit in his rucksack and cheap enough to replace if he falls asleep in the bus station and his shit gets stolen again. He only has a couple of emails: there's a fight in Harlem next week that he's invited to enter, Clint is ranting about some dancer from the bar trying to seduce Phil, and Natasha has sent him a link to Russian cat memes again.
He's not sure what makes him check the news, probably just a refusal to give in and close his eyes when there's still traces of adrenaline prickling through his veins. Bucky flips through pages about taxes and congress and celebrity gossip, and then a headline makes him stop dead. All the blood drains from his face at the same moment that tiredness flees from his veins, and his hands start shaking.
His hands haven't shaken for months.
Porn Mogul Alexander Pierce Found Dead In New York Apartment.