#why am i incapable of doing anything at all without herculean effort

[winteratdusk]

whumptober day 5/7

@whumptober2020

Captain America: The First Avenger 

Prompts: rescue/carrying/”i’ve got you”

Warnings: vomiting, implied past torture, mentions of past non-consensual drug use

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“Am I dead?”

Bucky’s familiar voice, rough from disuse or maybe something worse, grabbed Steve’s attention as quickly as anything could. Not like Steve didn’t have plenty else on his plate - he’d just completed his first successful military operation without the military even knowing it, rescuing nearly 400 POWs from certain death - but somehow, through it all, Bucky still took precedence.

“No, Buck,” Steve spoke past a lump in his throat. “No. You’re just fine. Or at least, you’re gonna be.”

Steve was leading the rescued men resolutely southward, out of Austria and back to the encampment in Italy where Captain America had just mysteriously cancelled a series of USO shows geared toward raising troop morale. Finally having seen combat firsthand, Steve was beginning to realize that no amount of flashy choreography or empty rhetoric could raise morale enough to make any sizable difference in the war effort. He had to hope that bringing a whole army’s worth of missing men back from the dead would suffice. Still, he was having a hard time focusing on the mission - as soon as he’d caught sight of Bucky, strapped to a table and trembling his way through his name, rank, and number even though nobody had stuck around to listen, his priorities had shifted so drastically that he was hardly able to spare a thought for the exhausted men trudging along beside them. Hardly an hour of marching with Bucky by his side, clearly hurt and shaking and looking about ready to keel over at any given moment, and Steve had entrusted command of the mission to Dernier and Falsworth, turning his own attention to making sure Bucky made it back in one piece.

“No,” Bucky was saying, shaking his head as though trying to clear it of some delusion. “‘M not. This isn’t real. You’re not real.”

Steve hardly knew what to say. Bucky’s wide eyes and jumbled syllables served as undeniable proof of his impaired lucidity, proof that whatever drugs the HYDRA doctor had cooked up were still running through his veins. Steve didn’t know how to reach him, to make him realize that, whatever else he was seeing or whatever else he’d been through, this was real, and he was safe.

“Come on, Buck,” he settled for saying. Simultaneously walking and talking seemed like a challenge for Bucky in his weakened state, and he’d stumbled to a halt on the narrow dirt path, swaying a little as he stood staring up at Steve in guarded disbelief. “We gotta keep up so we don’t get left behind. Can I… can I help you?”

Steve reached out for Bucky, who had gone deathly pale and looked about a second from passing out. Bucky pitched forward a little before righting himself, batting Steve’s outstretched hand away even as he winced at the rapid movement.

“No!” he forced out, loudly enough to startle a couple of errant birds out of the trees that grew thick and sloping over the covert path. A few of the other rescued men spared them a sideways glance, but soon enough turned their weary eyes back to the road under their feet. Steve supposed they’d all seen far worse, a realization that did little to alleviate the worry rising in his chest.

“I’m fine,” Bucky insisted. His voice was loose and watery, like the muscles in his jaw were too lax to enunciate with any degree of precision. Anyone who looked at him would know just how wrong that assertion was - he looked awful, all clammy skin and grime and bruises so bad that the sight of them pulled at Steve’s heart. Then there was the constant trembling, which Steve had initially attributed to the cold but was now beginning to believe might be coming from something else, and the lingering confusion, the lack of recognition in Bucky’s cloudy eyes. Steve wanted nothing more than to reach out to Bucky and just hold him until he was steady on his feet again, but Bucky still seemed bent on fighting him, unable to reconcile the Steve standing before him with whatever else was going through his head.

“Okay,” Steve sighed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat to resist the urge to use them to manually steady Bucky on his feet. “Okay. We’ve got to move, though. Can you do that?”

“Hm.” Bucky swallowed hard before forcing his shaking legs back into motion, his shoulders hunching as he doggedly stumbled forward. Steve hovered by his side, knowing he wasn’t welcome but still finding himself physically unable to let Bucky stray more than a few feet away from him. He’d crossed an ocean to be here, gone behind enemy lines without even a second thought, thrown everything he had away just for the off-chance that he might be able to see Bucky again. And he had, but, god, it was all so wrong, Bucky Barnes from Brooklyn beaten down and half-dead and looking at Steve like he didn’t even know him. Steve knew it was selfish, but he couldn’t get over how much that last one hurt.

Steve forced himself to stay quiet, giving Bucky space to concentrate on putting one foot in front of another. Their boots crunched against the thin layer of ice that had settled on the path overnight as they walked, the steady rhythm of Steve’s footfalls all but masking the sounds of Bucky’s stuttered steps. Their breath crystallized in the chilly morning air, rising in clouds toward the canopy of trees above them. It was cold, Steve was realizing. He hardly felt cold anymore, but it was bad enough now that even he found himself shivering a little, tugging the shoulders of his coat tight for warmth.

Bucky, on the other hand, was shaking hard. Even the jacket Steve had forced him into back at the factory didn’t seem to be helping much. The slight tremor that had been running through him when Steve first found him on that lab table had ramped up tenfold, making every jerky step look like it took an almost herculean effort.

“You okay?” Steve murmured, fully aware that Bucky wasn’t but having no idea what else to say. Bucky had always taken care of him, Steve thought bitterly. Why was he finding himself so woefully incapable of returning the favor?

Bucky didn’t respond, keeping his shoulders hunched and eyes down as he staggered along. Steve sighed, trying not to get too upset about it. He knew Bucky was in rough shape, and half out of his mind on HYDRA drugs to boot, but that didn’t make his stoic disbelief any easier to deal with.

Steve glanced away from Bucky for a moment to take stock of the other men. It looked like they were moving forward as steadily as they could be, but Steve was realizing that Bucky’s halting pace had set them falling behind with the stragglers - any slower and they stood the chance of being abandoned entirely. Steve was about to turn back to Bucky and relay this information when he heard an awful thud, the sound of a body hitting the ground. Steve whipped around to see Bucky curled up in the dirt, looking like he’d just taken a hard fall onto the icy path.

“Bucky!?” Steve was wholly unable to keep the panic from his voice as he dropped to his knees, the other men all but forgotten. His world had once again narrowed until it was just Bucky, trembling on the cold ground.

Bucky moaned, the weak, shaky sound barely audible over the sounds of the other men’s boots as they made their way past. He shoved himself up until he was braced against the hard-packed dirt on his hands and knees, still swaying even though he was barely inches from the ground. As Steve watched, Bucky squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw and swallowing hard against seemingly nothing.

“Hey,” Steve said, hardly hearing himself over the frantic pounding of his own heart. “Hey, talk to me. What’s wrong? What… what can I do?”

Bucky gulped again, pulling a deep breath in through his nose. He worked up a mouthful of spit and aimed it at the ground before struggling to wrap his mouth around a word.

“Dizzy…”

“Okay,” Steve sighed, reaching out a tentative hand to gently brush Bucky’s shoulder. At first Bucky tensed under his touch, but another round of nauseating swaying seemed to drain the fight out of him.

“Okay,” Steve repeated. “You’re okay, Buck.”

“I - I don’t…” Bucky slurred, staring wide-eyed at the ground like it might move or disappear if he so much as blinked. “I don’t… feel good.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry,” Steve whispered. “I know you’ve been through… a lot. And I promise, as soon as we make it back, this’ll all be over and you’ll be able to lie down and rest. We just have to make it a little bit further, okay?”

Bucky barely acknowledged him. He was going paler by the second under the garish bruises on his face, and Steve had the sudden and horrible thought that he might pass out right there on the cold ground.

“Come on. Let me help you,” Steve said quickly. He stood up and offered a hand down towards Bucky, who blindly raised a trembling arm to meet Steve’s.

“Yeah, okay. Good.” Steve tugged Bucky into a standing position, trying not to be too rough as he manhandled all of Bucky’s dead weight. He debated for a moment the most helpful course of action, eventually deciding to sling one of Bucky’s limp arms over his own shoulders, wrapping an arm around Bucky’s waist to support more of his weight. Upright, Bucky seemed to have a hard time finding his footing, stumbling into Steve’s chest before righting himself and pointing his feet in more or less the direction of the path.

“Good,” Steve encouraged him as he nudged them forward. “That’s good. Just a little further…”

In reality, Steve had no idea how far it was. He’d passed all of his navigation equipment along to Dernier and Falsworth when he’d relinquished command of the mission, leaving him with nothing but his vague memory of getting to the factory to help him approximate the distance back. He had a feeling that the camp might be a fair amount further away than he’d prefer to admit, but all he could do was press on, silently praying that Bucky could hold out a while longer.

Steve held Bucky close against his side as they walked, listening as his breath grew steadily shallower and his steps increasingly faltered. Steve tightened his hold on Bucky’s waist as they went, taking progressively more and more of his weight as the last of Bucky’s energy seemed to seep out of him.

“Doing great, Buck,” Steve kept murmuring, half for Bucky’s benefit and half to drown out the tiny, pained sounds that kept escaping with Bucky’s labored breaths. “Doing real good. Just hold on, okay?”

Bucky still seemed unwilling or unable to acknowledge him, looking blankly past him with a thousand-yard stare fixed somewhere in the distance - but as Steve whispered his mindless encouragements, Bucky curled the hand that was slung over Steve’s shoulders into a fist, holding tightly to a wad of Steve’s jacket. Steve’s heart swelled, and he had to believe that that tiny gesture of recognition would be enough.

For a few blissful minutes Steve allowed himself to imagine that they might really make it without incident. He supposed, considering his luck, that he probably should have known better. He and Bucky were making their way along, just managing to keep up with the tired soldiers at the back of the group, when Bucky lurched away, tearing himself from Steve’s supportive arms with surprising force. Steve’s first instinct was annoyance - Bucky had just started trusting him, and now they were back to square one? - but that annoyance quickly evaporated when Bucky just stumbled to the side of the road, leaning over and looking about ready to fall face-first into the weeds.

“Buck?” Steve asked, rushing to him. By the time he made it over Bucky was already gagging, a tiny stream of bile spraying from his nose and lips into the dead vegetation lining the path.

“Oh, god. Okay,” Steve muttered, trying to focus on Bucky and not on the mess. Bucky heaved again, bringing up scarcely anything for his efforts but ending up doubly unsteady on his feet. Steve reached forward without even thinking about it, wrapping an arm solidly around Bucky’s chest as he continued to dry heave. He was completely empty - not surprising, Steve supposed, given the state he’d found him in - but that didn't stop his body from continually trying to violently reject something that wasn’t even there.

“Just breathe. You’re okay,” Steve murmured around the thrum of panic in his chest. He hoped he was telling the truth, but in reality he wasn’t so sure.

As the retches tapered off, Steve reached up to pat Bucky gently between the shoulder blades, just wanting to offer him a little bit of comfort. Bucky very nearly whimpered in pain at the contact, and Steve quickly withdrew his hand.

“Sorry, shit,” he said frantically. “I know you’re probably hurt, I didn’t mean to -”

Steve stopped speaking as Bucky’s quivering knees finally gave out, leaving him sagging against Steve’s supporting arm with his full weight. Steve quickly steadied him, pulling him back to lean against Steve’s chest, holding him up as he got his footing back. Steve watched with bated breath as Bucky’s eyelids fluttered for a moment before finally, blessedly, opening again.

“Hey,” Steve whispered. “I’ve got you.”  

Bucky laboriously turned around, still clinging to Steve as though he was afraid he’d fall again if he let go.

“Hey,” Bucky said roughly, a tiny spark of recognition finally alighting in his eyes. “Stevie?”

Steve’s face split into a grin in spite of himself, in spite of the dire situation they were in. It had been far too long since he’d heard that nickname. “Yeah, Buck. It’s me.”

It wasn’t quite the reunion he’d been hoping for. It wasn’t the soft comfort of their apartment or the celebratory relief of the end of the war. But in that moment, the two of them clinging to each other in the cold and bleak winter light, it was enough.