Making Up For Lost Time - [James Barnes x Male OC]

3

Steve's Point of View

I gently picked him up and laid him down on the table, Nat putting a blanket under his head as a pillow.

"What happened?" I asked, looking at Shuri and Tony.

Tony shrugged, while Shuri spoke. "I had a feeling that the missing 5 years of his memory weren't memories Hydra had erased, but were memories that James had subconsciously repressed. It seems by asking about them, the memories have pushed forward."

"So, he fainted because he was remembering?" Clint asked, and Shuri nodded.

"Yes. The memories were too much for him to handle. He will wake up when all of his memories come back."

"That's 5 years of memories." I pointed out.

"His mind is moving at warp speeds. He should wake up soon," Shuri reassured me, but I was still uncertain.

I looked at Bucky, seeing his face.

"You know, that's the calmest I've seen him." Nat said, and she was right; his face was calm. Almost happy.

"Yeah, but that just means he'll be even that much more depressed when he wakes up." Tony pointed out, glancing up from the monitors that Bucky was hooked up to.

"Sergeant Barnes is strong. He will be alright," T'challa said, entering the room. "Shuri, how much longer? The united Nations is pressing our Time Frame smaller."

Shuri moved around the monitors, checking them and typing things in. "He should be awake any minute know. Stand back, everyone; he may wake up very-"

Bucky woke up, jumping off the table and pinning me to the wall, lifting me in the air by my neck.

"WHERE IS HE!?!?" He yelled, before Tony and Clint grabbed him, pulling him off of me.

"Bucky, it's us! Calm own!" I said, coughing as I regained the ability to breathe.

He thrashed in Tony and Clint's grip, Thor helping after he got Tony off of him.

"Who is 'he', James?" Shuri asked calmly, looking at him face to face. Bucky scanned her face, calming down when he came back to reality.

"let him go, guys," I said, Thor and Clint slowly letting him go.

I sat next to him on the medical table, looking at him with concern, while he pulled his legs up to his chest and buried his face in his knees.

"Buck? We need you to tell us about the missing 5 years," I said gently, seeing the look T'challa was giving me. We were running out of time; If we don't give them a timeline, Bucky's behind bars.

"It was January of 1995. I had just finished a mission, and was headed back to my handler."

He tightened his grip on his legs, his shoulders tense. He was in pain, we all could see it.

"I had been out of Hydra's base's for a month or two, so I was able to think for myself- a little, at least. So, I thought I'd eat something before I headed back, because they didn't really feed me anything but a protein bar once or twice a week."

"I went into a coffee shop; I thought it was closed. But there was a man there. He was cleaning the place. He worked there. He gave me food and let me stay at his apartment with him."

"He didn't call the police?" I asked.

This guy he's talking about is either stupid or has no sense of self-preservation. Maybe both.

"Would you call the police when a blood covered, crazy, barely speaking man was staring dead at you? or would you just make him like you enough to not kill you?" He asked, lifting his head to look at me.

I could tell-- well, everyone could tell-- that he wasn't telling us everything; But it was good enough for the time line.

"Here you are, brother." Shuri said, handing T'challa a hologram bead containing the timeline. 

----------------------------------------------------

We were on the quinjet, headed for the Compound, when Clint couldn't contain himself. "So . . . what happened after he took you to his apartment?"

Bucky hesitated, wrapping his blanket tighter around himself. "He gave me a bath, and let me sleep on his couch."

"Was he nice to you?" I asked, and Bucky's head whipped around to face me.

"Of course he was!" he blurted out quickly. A little too quickly.

"A little defensive there, eh Buck?" Nat asked, and Bucky scowled at her for a second, before his eyes moved to the floor.

"So what? I lived with him for five years. He became my friend. What's so wrong with that?"

We all shared a look, now knowing exactly what Bucky left out of the time line.

"We can find him, if you want," Tony offered, making him look at Tony with hopeful eyes.

"Really? You'd find him?" He asked, and Tony shrugged. "Sure, but you'd have to clean my lab for the next two months."

Bucky hesitated.

Tony's lab is known to be disgusting, because Tony never cleans up after himself.

"2 weeks," Bucky bargained. 

"A month an a half."

"2 and a half weeks, final offer," Bucky said, and Tony smirked. "And who do you think is gonna help you other than me?"

"Fury, Shuri, Steve, Nat, Bruce, Clint- should I keep going?" Bucky asked, his eyes narrowing into slits.

"Fine. Deal. What's the guys name?" Tony asked, opening up a hologram tablet in front of his face.

"Stefan Jacobs. He lives in down town New York." Bucky answered, practically shaking with anticipation as Tony started doing his thing.

"Oh, I guess that's why he didn't call the police. He is the police." Tony said, showing us a picture of a man in a navy seal uniform. "He retired from the military in '95, a few months before you met him."

"Ok, but where is he?" Bucky asked, wanting to get to the point of their deal.

"Oh, right. Stefan lives . . . huh. He is currently stationed at Shield as a trainer. Says here Fury assigned Stefan himself."

"So . . . he's been able to see me this whole time?"

Uh oh.

That's not good.