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Sunlight pierces the dark room with needle sharp fingers, driving their way into Bucky’s throbbing skull with careless abandon. His eyelids feel like grainy sand is trapped beneath them, and his tongue is dry, cottony and swollen in his mouth. Bucky makes a displeased noise deep in his throat as he throws his arm across his eyes.
Fucking DT’s.
His body aches too, the sharp memory of his full body cramps still twinging when he shifts, the sheets clammy and damp with his sweat. Bucky sits up with a groan, carding fingers through his moist hair as he squints through narrowed eyes at the room around him. There are clothes strewn all across the floor, bags of junk, takeout and trash poking out between them.
He hasn’t left the apartment in a week, and the bed in almost as many days, and when Bucky stumbles to the bathroom, the sight that greets him is less than satisfactory. His skin is sallow and pale, deep bags under his red-rimmed, glassy eyes. He’s thin, too, thinner than he remembers being, but Bucky of all people knows how easy it is to drop weight when the only thing you’re swallowing is vodka and painkillers.
His skin is still warm and dewy from the shower when he fights his way across the mess of his bedroom to check his phone on the bedside table—still no word from the label. He slams it down angrily, gritting his teeth.
“You gotta lay low,” Tony had told him, a cigar hanging from the corner of his mouth. “ Give the press some time to find something else to chase.” Bucky could still practically taste the cigar smoke. “ But after that shit you pulled in Vienna, it’ll probably take a while.”
Bucky steels himself with a grimace, and begins navigating all of the trending topics on twitter. Sure enough, right near the top of the newsfeed is a familiar video clip. He doesn’t have to play it to know what it is, he’s seen it enough times anyway. The screech and whine of metal as the front end of his car wraps itself around the lamppost, and then him staggering out of the driver’s side door, a cut above his eye and a bottle in his hand.
“Come on, you can’t fucking bench me,” Bucky had said, laughing as he’d drained the glass of whiskey Tony had set down in front of him. “You don’t even have a fucking band without me.” He remembers slamming the glass down so hard a crack wound it’s way up the side. “There’s no fucking Valkyrie’s Revenge without Bucky Barnes, without the Winter Soldier, and you know it.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not the only one sick of your shit.”
It’s past two when he stumbles out of the little studio apartment he’s renting, sunglasses low over his throbbing eyes. Bucky shoves his hands deep into his pockets as he trudges down the street, wandering aimlessly. He knows why the label wouldn’t let him stay in L.A—too much easy access. And, he supposed it didn’t help that he’d jumped ship on the last two programs.
There was little to do in Meridian that he hadn’t already done in the nineteen years he’d spent growing up here, and even less now that his license had been temporarily revoked by the state. The streets still all looked the same, easy enough to navigate even with sunspots blinking in and out of his hazy vision. It’s how he knows where he’s going before he even gets there, his feet carrying him to Juniper ’s threshold without him telling them to.
Alcohol’s always the easiest way back in. That’s what Karl, his sponsor back in L.A. would say if he saw him here. Start with one drink, and by the time you’ve caught yourself, you’re buying a script off some high-schooler. Karl’s in his fifties, with twenty years clean under his belt. Kids, a wife—and he still went to every meeting religiously, like saying the same slogans over and over made him strong.
Hell, Bucky thinks, staring in through the warped glass window at the bartender pouring drinks. Maybe it does. Maybe that’s why he hated Karl so much, why he skipped meetings and did lines right before walking in—to prove to himself that he could never be Karl; that he didn’t want to be—
Didn’t deserve to be.
The bell jingles as he opens the door. It sticks a little against the warped floor, but a firm push sets it free, and he steps inside. If little had changed in Meridian, then nothing had changed at Juniper. The ceiling was still low, the air hazy with smoke. If Robert still owned the place—and Bucky suspected he did—then he was still vehemently resisting the indoor smoking laws. The same low lights hang over the bar, and when Bucky settles himself at it, he can see the same two old pool tables over in the back corner.
Bucky hopes no one recognizes him as he flags down the bartender, his eyes still hidden behind dark shades, even inside. It’s been two weeks. That’s what Karl would say. Two good, clean weeks. That’s something to be proud of.
Bucky doesn’t feel proud, though.
He knows most of the people at the meetings he barely attended were running from something—hiding from something. Bucky isn’t like them, he isn’t hiding. No—the pills and the booze and whatever-the-fuck-else he can get his hands on to swallow or snort or smoke, they are his punishment.
Or, at least, that was what he tells himself.
“What’ll you have?”
“Scotch.” Bucky answers easily. “Ice.” Alcohol is at least better than the fucking pills. Even as he thinks it, he feels his hand clench against the bar with want. It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t know anyone in Meridian anymore—because then he might know where to score.
Can’t score if you don’t know a single, goddamned soul after setting the torch to every relationship you had, right?
The scotch bursts across his tongue, the peat stinging his nose as he swallows down a greedy sip. Fuck, he’s missed this. He swirls the liquor in his glass, already enjoying the warmth of it in his belly. Bucky imagines there is a demon living inside of him, just inside his skin, and that it, too, enjoys the fuzzy, loopy warmth of the drink. Enough to quiet its desire for something stronger—at least for now.
Another, it insists darkly as he finishes the first glass. Let’s have another.
He’s three in when the first notes of a guitar tuning up echo through the bar. Bucky chases a stray drop of scotch from his lips as he turns blearily. He hadn’t noticed someone setting up on stage, sitting quietly on an old amp-turned-stool. Your fingers playing up and down the long neck of the acoustic guitar, while you fiddle with the pegs with your other hand. Bucky doesn’t like the way his lips set into a grim line. He hasn’t touched an instrument—or even a fucking pen and paper—since Vienna.
There’s something… familiar in the way you tilt your head, in the curve of your jaw when you finally look up at your audience, made up of a small number of assorted men and women who couldn’t wait until a more socially acceptable hour to drink. The lights are low, the “stage” barely anything more than a five foot square of raised, reinforced plywood. You reach up to adjust the mic, lowering it and tapping it with a gentle finger.
Bucky doesn’t know why, but the first chord is the one that jogs his memory.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Bucky doesn’t know how to tell you it’s because the dandelions are poking up between your raucous curls, and it makes you look like some sort of fantasy princess from a movie. That you looking up at him like that is making his heart do fucking somersaults in his chest, because fuck he doesn’t know if he’s ever seen anything so pretty before.
“No reason.”
The fourth scotch burns in his throat as he swallows half of it in a single gulp, his teeth chewing a hole in his cheek. You weren’t still supposed to be here—although, Bucky supposed he had no idea where you were supposed to be, because he hasn’t spoken to you in five years. You both look completely different and the same all at once, your fingers skating down the neck of your father’s old Gibson.
“We were at the table by the window with the view.
Casting shadows, the sun was pushing through
Spoke a lot of words, I don't know if I spoke the truth—”
Your dulcet voice pours from the outdated PA system, and it wraps around him like a warm, familiar blanket. Some things never change. Bucky downs the rest of his drink—another punishment, another tally mark, another sin to atone for.
“Trouble on my left, trouble on my right.
I've been facing trouble almost all my life
My sweet love, won't you pull me through?
Everywhere I look, I catch a glimpse of you
I said it was love and I did it for life
I didn't do it for you.”
You look out over the crowd, a faint, sad smile on your features which promptly disappears when you lock eyes with him. He’s a grown man, he shouldn’t feel panic when your heavy gaze falls on him, but he does. It shoots through him like electricity, down and out through his fingertips. He’d never expected to see you again, ever. He had made his choice, chosen himself, knowing that he had sloughed you off like an ill-fitting snake skin.
Normally when you burn a bridge, you don’t ever see the other side again, let alone any of the people you left behind.
Bucky pushes his glasses back up his nose clumsily, and hurriedly turns back to the bar. You’re supposed to be hundreds of miles away being successful. Wasn’t that what you’d promised each other over half a decade ago? There’s a nervous, irritated energy building at the base of Bucky’s spine. It’s stupid to be annoyed that you’re here, that he’s thinking about you, that he’s thinking about his fucking life here like it actually belonged to him and not some stranger that used to wear his skin.
You’re not supposed to be here.
He wants to leave, but he knows it would only draw more attention, fussing with the sticky door and the frustratingly loud bell. He doesn’t need to ask if you recognize him, he can feel it in his gut. It’s the same way he knows he’s going to drink the entire glass the bartender sets down in front of him without being asked. And still, the slow strum of your guitar, the steady sound of your voice.
Got so much to lose
Got so much to prove
God, don't let me lose my mind
Bucky is filled with guilty relief when you finish, when the sound of your voice no longer fills his ears and twists his insides with things he doesn’t want to remember. There’s a shuffling sound that the mic picks up, like you’re moving around, and when he peeks over his shoulder, a man with a saxophone is setting up. You’re to the right of the stage, carefully packing your guitar into its case.
Christ it makes his chest ache to see you. Like he’s wrapped the high end prosthetic attached to his left shoulder around his own heart and squeezed as tight as he could. You stand up straight, and Bucky catches a peek of the half moon scar on your shoulder as your collar dips low. Like you know he’s looking at you, you drag your eyes up to his, staring back like you’re trying to see whether he’s really there or not.
He turns back to the bar and drains the glass dry.
“Here, Nate. This is for you.” He sees your hand on the counter as you slide a small bill across the wood. “Can I get a water?”
“Aw, shucks. You don’t have to leave nothin’.” The older man replies, and the sound of your responding laughter is both bright like birdsong in his ears, and like icy glass shards in his veins. “Y’always sing so pretty in here. S’all I ask.” He sets the bottle of water on the counter, and you take it, cranking off the cap and swallowing a mouthful.
You don’t acknowledge him at all.
Bucky doesn’t know what kind of showdown he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t being ignored. Strangely, it isn’t irritation that burns in him at this, but shame.
“Please, Nate.” You jerk your thumb towards the stage. “Alfred’s just as good, and he doesn’t ever go off key.” You finish the little water bottle, and then set it down, empty, on the counter. “Thanks again.” You turn on your heel and head for the door, tugging it open as the little bell chimes. He doesn’t know what possesses him to follow after you like a rabid dog, especially when the sight of you makes him feel like scum, but he can’t help it. He’s drawn to you like a moth to a flame—
He always was.
With liquid courage lining his gut, he pulls out his wallet and peels a bill from the stack without looking before stumbling after you. It’s colder now than it was earlier, and Bucky lifts the collar of his leather jacket to block the wind. You’re leaned against the wall outside, like you’re waiting for someone, your phone held in one hand while the other rests on the top of your guitar case.
“Hey.”
Your dark eyes settle on him with that indelible weight.
“Hey, yourself.” You shove your hands into your pockets as you wait for him to speak again. He doesn’t have words, really, but knows he should say something.
“You were good. In there.” He wants to wince at his own awkwardness. “It was good.”
“Wow. My first complement from a rockstar.” There is bitterness in your tone, and Bucky tastes it in the air between you. He wants to run, suddenly, to escape from the interaction he started, because it feels too heavy, like it’s carrying the weight of the past six years on its shoulders. “Thank you.” Your hair is shorter than the last time he saw you, and your nose sports a slim gold hoop that wasn’t there before.
You look good.
Bucky knows he doesn’t—he’s spent the last two weeks kicking, and nobody looks good after that.
“How are things?” It’s a stupid question, and it isn’t the one he wants to ask, which is how you are, even though he doesn’t have any right to ask, any right to know. But Bucky’s always been a bit selfish—maybe more so now than every. You scoff at his question, rolling your eyes at his attempt at small talk.
“Good. It’s the same old Meridian you left.” You reply shortly. His own hackles rise at your vitriol, your proverbial claws raking over old wounds that had never really closed.
“Not like you had to stay.” The words pop out of his mouth without his permission, and he regrets them almost instantly. A dry laugh rattles in your chest.
“Not all of us are as good at running away as you are.” There’s something unreadable in your eyes. “Some things can’t get left behind, superstar.” The old nickname makes his throat go tight with an emotion he can’t—won’t—name. The hurt makes him clench his fists angrily, and the acid words on his tongue burn as he looses them.
“The fuck was there to stay for?” He snaps. “This place is like poison. ”
“Then why are you back? Not enough poison for you in L.A?” Your eyes are bright with anger, and your fists are clenched like you want to punch him. You probably do. “No, not enough for Bucky Barnes— nothing’s enough for Bucky-fucking-Barnes. Nothing’s ever enough.”
Bucky is reeling from your words as though you’d slapped him. But he knows how to hurt you too. It’s the one thing he hasn’t forgotten.
“Maybe you weren’t enough.”
You flinch. “I know I wasn’t, Bucky.” Somehow that hurts him worst of all. You swing the guitar over your shoulder, and shove your phone deep into your pocket. “Welcome back, superstar,” you spit. “I wish you’d stayed the fuck in L.A.” Bucky sucks in a sharp, cold lungful of air, but you’re already walking away from him.
He doesn’t have words for the feel of his chest tightening, the sickening turn of his stomach as he heads back inside Juniper, and sits back down at the bar with far more force than necessary. He peels another bill from the stack in his wallet, and when the bartender approaches, he tells him to leave the bottle.
Not enough poison for you in L.A?
Too much? Not enough? What was the right answer? Bucky wants to rewind the clock and go back, suck those venomous words back into himself and pretend he never said them. He’s barely tasting the scotch now, swigging it straight from the bottle as he stares gloomily down at the sticky, faded tile floor.
It’s thirsty tonight, his demon.
Drink, drink, drink, he can almost hear it muttering in skull. Drink to forget. Drink to remember. Drink for it all . He does. Alcohol helps—not as good as the pills, the good ones, the blue ones he gets from that Parker kid who works for Tony—but it helps. He finally feels better as the room starts to tilt, and comfortable warmth spreads out from the liquor in his belly down all of his limbs.
No, he thinks, setting the bottle clumsily on the counter. No poison in L.A. He can barely see as he shuffles back out into the street, his trailing his hand along the wall for balance.
All the poison’s in me.
He laughs deliriously. “All of it.” The words sound slurred even in his own ears, but he doesn’t care. He huffs out a breath, and wipes the misting rain from his reddened face.
“All of it.”
Bucky stumbles drunkenly into two more bars, drinking until the warmth in his belly becomes fire in his veins. The night is a blurry jumble of alcohol soaked yelling, and the sound of sirens. He isn’t expecting to wake in a cell when he does finally peel his eyes open, the smell of disinfectant and coffee invading his nostrils. His head throbs painfully, the light needling his eyes in much the same way it had the morning prior.
He throws an arm up, attempting to block it out as he shifts on the thin mattress. Jail. He doesn’t remember much of anything after you. Bucky’s chest tightens again, and he longs once more for the sweet oblivion of the night before. A shadow falls across his face, and he squints up at the bars, his eyebrows rising before a scowl crosses his features.
“You look like shit.”
Bucky sits up with a groan, before flipping his middle finger up without looking at the man in front of him.
“Hello to you, too, Steve.”
——
Your mother’s expression is full of concern when you show up at her door, your eyes red with tears that you’d refused to cry in front of Bucky. You were still in shock that you’d even seen him—it was like seeing a ghost. Because that’s what he was, a ghost. The man you knew, the one you’d loved and thought loved you, that man was dead.
He’d just been gone, vanished like he’d died in the crash too, like there was a funeral you’d missed in the three weeks after.
“What’s wrong? You look like something’s wrong.” Her hands find her hips, and she looks at you expectantly.
“I’m fine. Where’s Iris?” You don’t want to tell her, not yet. You’re sure your mother’ll hear it through the grapevine soon enough anyway, and you’re too emotionally fraught to deliver the news. You already know what she’ll say anyway— Stay away from him. It was bad then, it’ll be bad now— as if you need the warning.
“She’s in the living room with her grandfather. You know they’re obsessed with that show he watches.”
“It’s Columbo, mom.” You say, a small wry laugh working its way our of your throat as you shake your head. “And he’s been watching it for like. Forty years.”
“I know. You’d think he’d get tired of it already.”
The rug is soft under your bare feet as you head down the hallway to the darkened living room, and sure enough, your daughter sits perched on your father’s lap, her wide eyes glued to the screen as she pays it rapt attention. Your father points up at the television.
“Now this is the part where the bad guy tries to get him, but this detective, he’s too smart for that,” He whispers conspiratorially. Iris gasps, clapping her little hands to her mouth. She turns in his lap to fix him with a concerned look, her eyebrows knitted together.
“Does he? Does he get him grandpa?”
Your father shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says mysteriously. “We’ll have to watch to find out.” Taking this as your cue, you flip on the lights, and Iris whirls around to see the cause of the disturbance.
“Mommy!”
“Guess we’ll find out another day, huh, kiddo?” He asks, and she nods as she scrambles off of his lap.
“Hey—oof! Oh, goodness. I missed you too, jellybean.” She’s almost too big to carry now, but you hoist her onto your hip anyway, kissing her forehead
“Mommy, I want to be a detective like Columbo,” she says decisively, her wide eyes set determinedly. “And catch bad guys, like grandpa.”
“Oh really?” You cock your head at her. “I thought you wanted to be a ballerina?”
“I can be both, mommy.” You can’t help but laugh at the little roll of her eyes. She screeches with wild laughter as you drop her onto the couch, before throwing yourself down next to her.
“Of course you can. You’ll be the first ever ballerina cop.” You make a gun out of your fingers, and aim it at the television, where Columbo is still busily at work entrapping the unwitting criminal on screen. “You’ll be a double threat.”
“And a veterinarian,” she reminds you of last month’s passion.
“Okay,” you concede. “A triple threat. Go grab your backpack, triple threat, we’ve got to get going. It’s a school night.” Iris scampers off of the couch to do as you’d asked, and you fix your father with a look. “And I don’t think Detective Grandpa over here went over your homework with you, did he?” Your father at least has the scruples to look sheepish.
“I don’t know half of what they’re teaching kids nowadays. Besides, Iris’ got you for that.” He grins at you, leaning forward and resting his arms on his knees. “How are things with Andy?”
You force a smile. “Good. I saw him earlier, we had lunch before I kicked off the open mic thing at Juniper.” You can’t tell your father about Bucky either. Your mother would just have quietly reminded you of your heartbreak. Your father was apt to hunt him down.
“He’s a nice boy. Good cop. I’m glad you two are getting along, I know things have been… hard for you.”
Hard? Try watching the ex-love of your life wrap his car around a telephone pole on twitter.
“Yeah, dad. Andy’s nice.” You agree. He is. A little bossy. And stubborn. But… he was sweet. And he got along decently with Iris on the few short occasions they’d actually interacted.
A good man—who you felt utterly lukewarm about.
Iris saves you from further awkward conversation when she returns with her sweater and backpack, and you help her into it, zipping up the front. “Okay, say bye to grandpa, we’ll see him in a few days. And then let’s go say bye to grandma.”
Your daughter bounces excitedly on her toes as she races to hug your father. “Can we watch more Columbo next time, grandpa? I like him. He’s smart.”
“Anything you want, kiddo. Go hug your grandma extra tight for me.” He kisses her forehead, and you watch with amusement as Iris wrinkles her nose at the feel of his whiskery cheek on her skin.
“Bye dad. See you Thursday.”
“Thursday, pumpkin.”
Your mother is already packaging up to-go containers of whatever meal she’d made for dinner, snapping the tupperware lids shut as you walk into the kitchen.
“Ah, good. Take these with you.”
The house you rent isn’t far from your parents, something you’re grateful for when your work at the community center requires you to be there when Iris isn’t at school. And as you make your way back there, Iris skipping ahead of you as she chatters about her day, you try your damndest to stay focused.
“And then what happened?”
“There was paint everywhere!” Iris exclaims, throwing her arms up to emphasize the explosion of acrylics that had happened in her art class earlier that day. Your mind wants to wander, to turn your troublesome encounter from earlier over and over in your mind like a smooth stone in your hand. It’s like a rock in your shoe, a splinter under your skin—you can’t stop coming back to it.
Can’t stop feeling your heart freeze in your chest when you remember in in the audience, looking back at you. It’s not supposed to still feel like all the air’s been punched out of you when you saw him—
It’s not still supposed to hurt .
You give up trying not to think about him as you unlock the front door and let Iris run past you into the hallway, shouting after her to take her shoes off. When you heat up the food your mother sent home with you, and let Iris watch one of her shows while she eats because you can’t carry a conversation to save your life tonight—you think of him.
You remember.
“This is my brother, James.” Rebecca jerks her thumb at the gangly boy behind her. He still has some of the awkwardness about him that most teenage boys do, a little too tall, too lanky, not used to their own skin—but he’s handsome too, and it’s obvious he’s beginning to grow out of it. He gives you a cheeky smile as he reaches for your hand.
“Bucky. Everyone calls me Bucky.”
You put Iris to bed after helping her into her pajamas, and then pour yourself a glass of wine before settling down onto the couch, and opening up your phone. It had been at the advice of one of your friends to blacklist him from all of your social media, to block his band, their tags, even the label; all during your pregnancy.
“He’s not coming back.”
And they hadn’t been wrong. Bucky hadn’t come back—he never had. He hadn’t even come back after the crash, after the funerals, after you’d stood with him and mourned the family that was going to be yours too, he had never come back to you. The bitter, angry, venomous thing wearing his face? You didn’t know that man at all.
But now…
Perhaps it was the wine settling warmly in your belly—that would certainly be the easiest thing to blame for the growing desire to see what exactly Bucky Barnes had been up to. Twitter was first—you unblocked his profile and related tags before beginning to browse them.
Your eyes widen at the first news bit.
“WINTER SOLDIER GOES ON DRUNKEN RAMPAGE THROUGH VIENNA!”
There are more.
“TWO INJURED, TOUR CANCELLED—WHAT IS GOING ON WITH VALKYRIE’S REVENGE?”
Even as you scroll, more are popping up, some even with video footage. You reluctantly press play on one of them, watching with horror as CCTV footage details an expensive looking black car slamming directly into the base of an iron lamppost. You watch people dive out of the way in slow motion as the hood bends at the impact. Bucky staggers out of the driver’s side door, his shirt open, and bottle of what you know has to be liquor before looking blearily up at the camera.
“The Valkyrie’s Revenge in hot water after drummer crashes car into lamppost twenty minutes before the signal show of the European leg of their World is Burning tour. Valkyrie’s Revenge quickly rose to stardom with the release of their eponymous title track detailing the struggles of love, grief, and vengeance three years ago, and their first tour has been highly anticipated.
Unfortunately, the band is no stranger to conflict. Lead vocalist and drummer Bucky Barnes is well known for his party-animal persona, though it appears that things may have gotten out of hand last month at the Wien Arena. Eyewitnesses say that Barnes—also known by his alias The Winter Soldier—left the arena following a confrontation with his bandmates, and proceeded to drive off. Barnes was heavily intoxicated at the time, and after the crash, authorities confiscated schedule II controlled substances.
The tour was cancelled the following morning, citing what will be Barnes’ fourth stint in a rehabilitation program in the last four years, with assurances from the label, IronMan Records , that it will be his last. Damages from Barnes’ joyride total in the $400,000 range—”
“Mommy?” You hadn’t heard Iris creep out of her bed and into the hallway, but she stood in the doorway, her stuffed rabbit clutched in her sleepy hands. “Can I sleep with you tonight?” You swallow thickly and force a smile, your mind still whirling.
“Yes, sweetheart. Of course.” You quickly tidy up, corking your wine bottle before shuffling over to the fridge to put it away. Iris climbs into your bed, wriggling underneath the covers with her rabbit as you change into a t-shirt. To her credit, she does fall asleep easily, your shirt balled up in one of her tiny fists.
Slumber doesn’t come as readily to you, though. And when it does, you dream in CCTV. You watch in grainy footage as the man you used to love drags himself from the wreckage, and look up at you.
You see it over and over until you wake up in the morning, feeling no more rested than when you laid down the night before. Iris’ knee is jammed into your back, her arm across your face, but she doesn’t stir when you crawl out from underneath her. Your phone winks at you from the bedside table, an unread message from your father flashing across the screen.
Bucky Barnes is back in Meridian.