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Bucky wipes his right hand against the rough denim fabric of his jeans for what feels like the tenth time that night. His left shoulder twinges with pain, and it's with a grunt that he rolls the joint until the ache subsides.
Logically, he’s aware that he’s being vigilant. No street corner goes unsurveilled, no sound unaccounted for, no person given the benefit of the doubt.
The storm brewing in his mind, however, isn’t so easily pacified.
HYDRA could be hidden around any corner, could be watching from afar, far enough for his enhanced senses to be kept unaware, could be any of the unsuspecting people walking past him on this almost deserted street in Queens.
Bucky’s pulse throbs against the temple of his forehead, a migraine growing in its wake. He huffs humorlessly. This is exactly what he needed tonight, truly.
Hiding has been getting more and more exhausting lately, draining him faster as each day goes by. He knows more than HYDRA is hunting him down at this very moment, but the thought of the rest, of him, being after him causes an entirely new form of dread to course through his limbs.
He’s not strong enough to think of how much danger he’s in every second of every day. It might end him, and with survival in the forefront of his mind, it’s something he just can’t risk ruminating on.
A sudden car honk brings him out of his thoughts, and Bucky blinks harshly at the headlights that pierce his eyes. He can’t let his guard down right now, not when he’s only two blocks away from his current shelter.
While his enhanced abilities have allowed him to remain cautious—have saved him from various encounters he needed to avoid—their downsides have perfect and downright comedic timing when it comes to highly inconveniencing him.
The throbbing of his skull intensifies with every new sound he walks by: people shouting to each other across the street, saying their goodbyes for the day, the clanging of pans from apartments with the windows cracked open, the angry honking from blocks away.
Every smell that comes with a city as crowded as New York City makes his nostrils flare, and his eyes tear up from the blinking streetlights.
He needs to get home now-
And, of course, because nothing can work out how Bucky Barnes wants and needs it to, it’s that moment, the second he’s distracted, that someone chooses to bodily shove him so hard from his right that he lands on the damp ground of an alleyway without even a hint of his superhuman endurance to show for it.
The sound of his metal arm crashing on the concrete goes unheard as the pain in his head intensifies at the sudden shift in gravity and the strength of the impact.
What is wrong with him?
Bucky doesn’t get to quell in his frustration for long, as the next thing he knows, his assailant lands a hard kick right beneath his ribs. The grunt he lets out is forced out of him.
Get up, Barnes. This isn’t the time to give in-
Right before his mind can land on the conclusion that this is HYDRA, that he’s been found, that it’s over, rough hands begin to pat up and down his pant leg in search of something. Bucky’s disoriented mind reasons that they might be looking for a wallet.
“Where is it?” The ruffian’s voice is gravelly, giving the vibe that this guy hasn’t cleared his throat in a couple of long years.
Another hard, calculated kick cuts off his distant thoughts. “Answer me, asshole!”
Bucky’s about to do that and more when a series of abrupt whooshing sounds interrupt him. His sensitive sight remains glued to the ground, but the thuds and yelps of pain give more than enough detail for Bucky to imagine what happened.
“How about you pick on someone your own size?” shouts a young voice from somewhere above him.
Or so Bucky thought he knew what happened.
The muffled adolescent voice jars him enough to finally get himself up on his forearms and actually look at the scene around him.
The guy who had been on the verge of finding the old gum wrapper, rumpled ten-dollar bill, and keys in his pockets has all his limbs pinned against the dark brick wall to his right by a whole lot of… white goo?
“Well, I guess he is your size, but way bigger, dude. You were out of your depth, but the principle still applies.” The boy, Bucky assumes, continues to rattle on, ignorant of his growing confusion.
“I think so, anyway.” His mystery savior pauses, and the tone he uses next gives the impression that he’s raising a reprimanding finger toward the wannabe mugger as he speaks. “But definitely don’t do this again.”
And it’s when the spiel is over that a lanky figure appears before Bucky, as if he confidently jumped off the three-story apartment building that’s towering over them to land gracefully on his feet.
Bucky’s gradually returning rationale is telling him that this person probably did exactly that.
“Uh-”
“Are you okay?” The boy asks him before Bucky can fully take in his ridiculous predicament.
He’s wearing what appears to be blue tights, with a matching undershirt, and a loose red hoodie over the whole ensemble. A mask hides his identity, but the goggle-looking things surrounding his eyes take Bucky’s attention away from the seriousness of his question.
Bucky shakes his head, says a mental nope to processing whatever this is, and gets to his feet.
He’s really not doing this tonight.
“I’m fine, kid.” He takes a moment to get a hold of his haywire senses and notes that the aching in his temple has gone down, albeit at the price of his bad shoulder acting up. He winces at the discovery, forgetting that someone’s watching.
“That doesn’t look fine.”
Bucky’s eyes snap open (when had he closed them?) and lock on the boy now standing only a foot away from him, hands outstretched. He doesn’t even flinch away from the proximity, his body’s inability to decipher what the kid’s intentions are frying his instincts.
Something is seriously wrong with him if the guy managed to get this close without him notic- “We should ask for an ambulance when I call the cops on him.”
“I’m fine,” he reiterates, a touch too sharp. The boy flinches, and Bucky knows, knows deep down that he’s going to regret prolonging this interaction, but the immediate guilt that fills his chest at the cowering makes him want to correct his error immediately.
He doesn’t want to be feared anymore.
“What’d you stick him with?” He asks into the awkward silence, and meets the wide eyes of the mugger when it becomes unbearable to look into the kid’s hidden gaze. It’s now that Bucky sees his mouth covered with more of that strange substance that he notices his unexplained silence.
“Web fluid!” The boy responds animatedly beneath his mask, a full one-eighty from a mere second ago. Guess Bucky hadn’t even needed to cheer him up himself. “I made it myself. It comes out from these web shooters I attach to my wrists and…”
As much as Bucky’s glad the kid’s not feeling threatened anymore, he's slowly becoming astonished by how entirely paralyzed the man is; honest to God, stuck like a fly in a web.
He has his gloved finger poised right above the fluid when the boy grabs hold of his metal arm to stop him. “No, don’t!” Bucky distantly considers how strange it is that the contact doesn’t phase him. “You’ll be stuck there with him for hours.”
He feels a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth: the ghost of a smirk. “It’s that efficient, huh?”
“Huh?” The boy slowly turns to take in Bucky’s expression, as if shocked by his barely obvious praise. “Well… yeah, I guess I did spend a lot of time perfecting it. Not that it’s perfect yet! I still need to tweak it here and there, and sometimes its elasticity doesn’t bear well in humid weather, but-”
Jesus. Has this kid ever received a compliment before?
“Kid,” Bucky cuts him off before he can go off about every detail of his bizarre invention. “You can let go of me now.”
“Oh.” The boy looks down at where both of his arms wrap around Bucky’s left one and seems to just notice what he’s doing. “I’m sorry!”
Bucky backs away when he’s freed, gives the kid a nod, and turns back to the illuminated sidewalk, leaving him to call the cops and finish his heroics for the day.
It’s not his business. It’s not, but he still can’t find it within himself to leave him just like that. Bucky turns his head, although his steps remain uninterrupted. “Thanks for the save.”
“Wait!” He hears him exclaim before footsteps try to fall in line with his long gait. Bucky humors him one last time by sparing him a glance.
“What is it?”
The boy hesitates, clearly internally at war with himself. “Can I-” He clears his throat, voice pitchy from apparent nerves. “Can I know your name?”
“Why would you wanna know that?” Bucky questions. He hadn’t been expecting that of all things.
“I just-” A gulp that would’ve been imperceptible if not for Bucky’s enhanced sight fights its way through his throat. “I’m new to the whole ‘hero’ thing, and you’re one of the first people I’ve saved, so I want to be able to remember this.”
Remember you, goes unsaid, but its implication is dangerous.
Bucky won’t drag anyone else into his fucked up life. Not if he can help it.
“I don’t think you want to remember me, kid.” He finds himself wanting to pat the boy’s head comfortingly when it lowers in disappointment. And wow, when was the last time he felt anything other than the urge to hurt?
That wasn’t you, a voice whispers in the back of his mind. It wasn’t- “Trust me.”
“But-”
“Be careful out there, alright?”
The kid nods sadly at his clear dismissal, the fabric of his hoodie rustling over his hair. Bucky doesn’t know how, but he can easily imagine a convincing set of pleading eyes beneath those stupid-looking goggles.
Buckys sighs, resignation coating the sound. It’s a lost battle, and he knew it from the beginning, somehow. What else could this hyperactive, pyjama-wearing kid drag out of him with enough time?
“The name's Bucky.”
The boy brightens, head perking up immediately, reminiscent of how he had a few minutes ago. “Nice to meet you, Bucky!” He lifts his fingers to his lips in a mock lock and key gesture. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Bucky, despite not being able to in years, feels a small smile fight its way onto his face. “Go back to your crime scene.”
It’s a few minutes later, when Bucky’s almost to his front door, having left to the sight of blue and red rushing back into the alley, that he realizes he never asked the kid for his name.
Oh well.
It’s not like he’ll see him again, right?