Summary:

Bucky Barnes has never felt the pull of a soulmate—not when Becca found hers, not when Steve’s was born while he was in the ice, and not during the decades he spent as the Winter Soldier. He’s (supposedly) made his peace with it.
Sam Wilson lost his soulmate Riley in combat, and despite having the potential for more than one soulmate, he’s never been interested in opening his heart to another.

When Shuri makes a startling discovery while Bucky recovers in Wakanda, it opens the door to a connection Bucky never thought he’d have, even has the mad titan attempts to take it away.

Notes:

I swear I had an outline for this fic but then I actually sat down to write it and the outline went out the window. I’m so sorry to all involved. This fic was written as part of the SamBucky Reverse Bang, and was inspired by some amazing art by Redflower42 (embedded in the story below). My undying devotion and gratitude goes to tinysugacube, who is not only a dear friend but an absolute powerhouse of a beta and I could never have finished this on time or had it come out this well without her grammatical prowess—and I would not dare to post without Marvin’s official seal of approval.

why’d you wanna save my soul? (it’s way too late for that, but you could wake my heart)

Prologue — are you gonna love me when the shine has worn off (when i’m old and i’m tired, and I’m grey?)

“You don’t feel it? At all?”

“You know I don’t, Becca. That’s not gonna change just because you keep asking.” Bucky scowled at his twin.

“I just want it for you, is all.” She looked down, twisting the hem of her skirt anxiously in her hands. “It doesn’t seem fair, having a soulmate when my own twin doesn’t.”

“You know it don’t work like that. No one knows why we have soulmates, so it’s not like they know why I don’t got one. Besides, I’ve got you, and I’ve got Stevie. What’d I need a soulmate for, anyway?”

“If you say so,” Becca sighed.

“Why are you really worried?” He nudged her shoulder. “It’s been ages since we talked about this. What’s actually on your mind?”

“Other than the fact that you’re going off to war and I might never see you again?”

“You know I’ve gotta go. Gotta do what’s right for the country, to keep you all safe.”

“Who’s going to keep you safe?” Becca asked in frustration. “How will I know you’re okay?”

“I might not be.” Bucky ran his fingers through his hair. “I won’t pretend that it’s easy or that I’m not scared. I’d be dumb not to be, and I won’t lie to you.” He reached for her hand and twined their fingers together. “But you know I’ll write, and I’ll do everything I can to come home.”

—

The house was silent when Bucky let himself inside. Considering it was the middle of the night, that was not at all unusual. Despite the darkness, he could make out that there were pictures all over the walls, shelves covered with books and knicknacks. Some things he recognized from a shared, half-remembered childhood—some he had never seen before yet were well loved. A full lifetime’s worth of possessions. A lifetime he had missed out on. He sat down on the couch and felt the weight of the years on him, the lost time.

He was not sure how long he had been sitting there when the light flicked on. Part of him wanted to jump up, draw his weapon, but he was frozen by the piercing gaze that met his. Her face was older, but he could tell that the lines upon it were mostly ones of laughter. She looked young for her age and healthy. She could have easily passed for late sixties if he did not already know her birthday—the same as his.

Chapter 1 — will you remember when my river’s run dry (and your patience is starting to wane?)

Sam knew, deep in his bones, that he would never get over losing his soulmate. Losing one’s soulmate was not exactly something that anyone ‘got over’ of course—that kind of raw, deep loss was inescapable. He knew Riley was not his only soulmate: The string that had bonded the two of them may have been severed, but he could feel in his bones that there was another one out there. But he did not want anyone else. He only wanted the love he had lost—that had been taken from him. 

Still, he knew that Riley would be furious if he gave up on life entirely, and so he took things one day at a time. Once he was feeling more stable in his grief, he decided to pay it forward: working for the VA, helping others through their own losses and their own acclimations to society. He also made sure to take all the vacation time he had and spend it with his family. He ran every day, finding comfort in the almost meditative experience. He had tried standard meditation; it had never worked for him. But running, losing himself in the physical exertion of it, helped him turn off his brain as he focused only on the pounding of his feet on the ground.

“On your left!”

Well, it usually helped. Being looped a dozen times over by a supersoldier had cut into what was typically a peaceful morning run. Still, he made a new friend that day and was dragged into a new and exciting life that he never could have dreamed for himself. Even if that life came with some drawbacks.

“Isn’t Stark, like, a supergenius? With his tech all over the planet? This—tracking someone down—feels like something we could use his help on,” Sam said to Steve for what seemed like the umpteenth time as they sat together in the Avengers Compound’s kitchen.

“Tony said he doesn’t want to be directly involved in Avengers business. He’s done with it.” Steve took another bite out of his breakfast, avoiding Sam’s gaze. 

“He also is continuing to supply us with a number of resources. Resources that we could be using if you just asked.” Sam felt suspicion brewing in his gut as he stabbed another pancake with his fork. 

“Sam has a point,” Natasha said, taking another sip of her coffee.

“Nat, you know why we can’t,” Steve sighed.

“Okay, what is it?” Sam set his cutlery down and glared across the table. “What are you not telling me?”

“It’s  irrelevant, not important,” Steve replied before taking a long drink from his coffee.

“It certainly seems relevant if it’s what is keeping you from working with someone who has an immense ability to help us with this process.” Sam threw his hands up in the air. “You’re keeping secrets—and if this team breaks apart because of them, that’ll be on you.”

“See, this is what I’ve been saying!” Natasha rubbed her forehead. “I know Stark. He’s not going to be happy about this; he’s never going to be happy about it. And if he finds out from someone other than us, it will be a disaster.”

“Whoa, okay, so there really is some big secret?” Sam asked incredulously. “I’m here because I want the world to be a better place—I don’t know if I want to be a part of some grand conspiracy.”

“The Winter Soldier killed the Starks,” Natasha informed him flatly. “And I’m telling Tony. Today. Or tomorrow, actually. As soon as we get back from the mission. You can join me or not.” With that, she took a long swig to finish her coffee before putting the mug on the dishwasher with perhaps more force than necessary.

“Natasha, wait!” Steve called, chasing after her and abandoning his breakfast in the process.

“Well, shit.” Sam stared off into the middle distance as thoughts swirled through his head. Just what had he gotten himself into?

—

Sam didn’t know how things had gone so wrong. The op had been running so smoothly, and now blood was on their hands. Sure, it had been Rumlow’s bomb, but there had to have been things they could have done better. But now everything was in chaos and had spiralled out of control. In a matter of days, he had gone from being an Avenger to sitting in a jail cell, one place he had sworn he would never let himself go.

Should he have signed the Accords? Surely a bit of accountability couldn’t be so bad. But he also knew that forcing people to register, be put on a list because of a core part of their identity had historically never gone well. Was there truly no middle ground?

He looked up from his pacing and out the glass walls of his cell to see… Steve. In full gear and with a determined, slightly smug look on his face.

Oh, hell. What had they really gotten themselves into now?

Chapter 2 — i don’t know what we’re looking for (if we’ll ever find it)

Bucky liked Wakanda. He liked that it made him truly feel like himself again—or rather, finally let him feel like he had regained a self. He lived a humble life in a small hut with some goats. When the fight came, he had been barely aware of it. Part of him felt terrible that he had not done more to help; but by the time he had known that anything was wrong, it was all over.

He still didn’t know what he was looking for in life or if he would ever find it. He had supposedly lived a hundred years, but had he ever truly lived them? Part of him wondered if that was why he never had a soulmate. Was he always destined for this path? To lose his soul to Hydra, to be turned into a weapon? He did not truly deserve this simple life, this respite from taking accountability for his actions.

Steve was the closest thing he had to a soulmate, and he knew the other man had felt the same; but his best friend had also confessed to him that, upon waking up from the ice, a connection was there that he had never felt before. At some point while he had been in the ice, Steve’s soulmate had been born. They were out there. And Bucky… he still felt nothing. 

Or rather, to the extent that he had a connection, it felt… severed. He had confided this to Ayo, who in his time here had become a good friend and who in turn had convinced him to share this information with Shuri. 

“The science of soulmates is not fully understood,” she explained as she organized some of her holographic screens. The future was already a whole different world than the one he had grown up in, but he had learned in his time here that Wakanda was on a whole other level. “But we know a bit more now than we did in the ‘40s. Even more so here than in other parts of the world.” She turned to look at him thoughtfully, swiping away the data she had pulled up on the screen and instead picking up a device that she proceeded to scan him with even as she continued speaking. 

“The red strings of fate that tie us to our soulmates exist on a plane that cannot be perceived or tracked using any of our traditional senses of vision, hearing, sound. Touch, yes, to a certain extent. We feel it in our souls when they have touched one another. That link…” She paused before grabbing his hand and bringing him over to another one of her larger scanners. “Inside, please.”

“What sort of test are you running now?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “I thought you’d run them all on me.”

“Not this one. It’s a bit more… experimental. Nothing dangerous!” she assured him. “But the soul… that’s something we have some experience with in Wakanda. I’ve developed a machine that—while it cannot lead you to your soulmate—can detect how you are connected. And I have a theory I’d like to test.”

“A theory?” Bucky was slightly dubious, but Shuri had never steered him wrong before.

“Yes, a theory. Now hold still.”

Despite his reservations, Bucky did as she had requested, standing to attention while the machine scanned over him.

“Aha! Thought so.” Going by her tone, Shuri sounded incredibly pleased with herself, though she immediately frowned again as something else must have occurred to her. “But how to fix it?”

“Fix what? And how much longer do I have to stand here?” 

“Oh, you can come out of there now. But I’ll need to do some more specialized scans later.”

“Scans for what? What have you discovered?” Bucky couldn’t help but feel increasing discomfort. After so much time as an experiment, a weapon, he didn’t particularly like getting poked and prodded without knowing what exactly was going on.

“It’s your string of fate. You’re right, it was severed.”

“So my soulmate is dead?” Bucky’s heart was heavy. Who had they been? And what had caused their life to be so fleeting as to be born after Hydra had captured him and dead before he found freedom.

“Not necessarily. Our strings connect our souls, but they do so through the body. It’s true that the death of a soulmate can feel like a severance, but tell me, where does that feeling live in your body?”

Bucky slowed down his racing thoughts for a moment, closing his eyes and doing the deep breathing and grounding meditations that Ayo had taught him, letting himself feel his body and truly live in it.

“My shoulder,” he admitted, his voice perhaps more bitter than he would have liked. “Much of my pain lives there.” He opened his eyes. “But you know that already.”

Her expression was smug again, and he felt his annoyance grow, though he did his best to push the feeling away and focus on his gratitude for all Shuri had done for him. Still, some of it must have shown on his face as her expression grew more sheepish. “Sorry, I’m just excited. I realized we’ve had cases like yours before.”

“I highly doubt that,” Bucky replied with raised eyebrows. “And if that is the case, I’m surprised it happened here.”

“No, no. I don’t mean the mind control. There you are relatively unique, which I think we can agree is a good thing. But your severed strings. They are still there, just shorter.”

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning that your string was contained in your left arm. Probably looped through one of your fingers. The energy—it’s coiled in your shoulder. I’ve seen it before in people who have lost the limbs that contain their strings. The connection becomes so short it feels severed. But we’ve got advanced technology these days. It’s possible we can reattach it and re-create the link.”

“I don’t know about that,” Bucky said hesitantly. “Even if I have a soulmate, who would ever want me? That’s a burden that I wouldn’t want to put on anyone. It’s selfish.”

Shuri gave him a disappointed glare. “Not letting your soulmate make that choice themselves, that is selfish. Consider that they might need you just as much as you need them.” She poked him in the chest. Bucky felt his face heat up as he was scolded by someone less than a fifth of his age, precisely because he knew he deserved it.

“Fine,” he sighed. “How do we do this?” 

“I need to do some research.” Shuri pursed her lips. “We need to pull out the string somehow. The easiest way—though it’s not exactly easy, but still easier than the others—is to fit you with a new prosthetic arm that can unwind and reconnect the string. Once it’s reconnected, you won’t need the arm full-time, though the connection will be stronger while you wear it.”

“I… I’ll have to think about it.”

“You think, I design. Go back to your goats; it’s been a long day.”

Bucky was thoughtful as he made his way back to the small hut he had been calling home. He was torn on the idea of a new arm. Having two hands again would undoubtedly be useful. But the idea of finally, after a hundred, tumultuous, brutal years, meeting and getting to know his soulmate felt… undeserved. And he still remained unsure about whether or not he would want to burden a potential soulmate with the weight of those years, even if he himself only remembered fragments.

Still, he could not hide from the world forever, and Shuri was right that it was selfish to not give his soulmate their own choice in the matter. Besides, just because whoever this mystery person was had him for a soulmate didn’t mean that they would ever need to have anything to do with him. They could even be like Tony Stark, who had two soulmates and loved both of them.

Tony Stark, who Bucky had hurt in more ways than one—who had, according to T’Challa, been advocating for him with the governments of the world, paving the way for his freedom, claiming Bucky had been a prisoner of war with no choice in his actions. It was a freedom Bucky did not think he deserved, but if he had a soulmate… whoever they were, he doubted they would deserve to have a roommate who was spending the rest of his life in prison, and that’s only if he escaped the death penalty given the depth of his crimes.

The universe, it seemed, could not help but want to screw him over again, however: because the same day that Shuri finished the arm, the day he could finally begin the process of connecting with his soulmate, was the day aliens came to Wakanda. 

Chapter 3 — i see you winding through my life (why’d you wanna save my soul?)

“It’s good to see you again, Buck.” Steve pulled him into a hug, and Bucky let himself fall into it. Steve wasn’t his soulmate, but Bucky loved him all the same.

“Wish it wasn’t like this,” Bucky grumbled as he pulled away.

“Still, there’s no one else I would rather have by my side. ‘Til the end of the line, right?” Steve clapped him on the shoulder.

“Of course,” Bucky agreed. “You like the new arm?” he asked, flexing the vibranium slightly.

“It’s fantastic,” Steve grinned.

“Agreed,” came a voice from behind Steve, and Bucky realized that he was being rude by not addressing the other people who had come with his friend. “I confess: As a scientist, I’m very curious about vibranium’s capacity.” The man offered his hand, which Bucky shook easily. “Bruce Banner—I don’t think we’ve met. I’ve been in space the past few years.”

“Bucky Barnes. I’d ask you more about space, but considering the impending alien invasion…” Bucky shook his head. “The world gets crazier and crazier every day.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” said the man next to Bruce. Bucky turned to face him and felt caught in the other man’s eyes, which were a warm brown that felt utterly unique. His mouth was suddenly dry, even as he offered his hand. “Sam Wilson,” the man greeted. “We’ve met, but that wasn’t under particularly good circumstances, either.”

They pulled apart but in a way that lingered, and Bucky found that he did not quite want to let go. He hadn’t had an opportunity to appreciate before, in the heat of battle and with the tension of being on the run, just how beautiful Sam Wilson was. Sam seemed just as fascinated as him, and the tension—which felt weirdly good in this instance—was broken only as the call to arms was sounded. The aliens were nearly there, and they needed to be ready.

Still, something in Bucky wanted to reach out again.

—

Sam didn’t know what had come over him. Despite the fact that they were preparing for the fight of their lives—a fight for the world—something about seeing Bucky Barnes again had radically shifted something inside him. The man looked good, more like the photos from the ‘40s, more like someone truly living rather than someone perpetually haunted and angry. He was undoubtedly still haunted—and who could possibly not be angry at their world being invaded—but there was a vivacity that had been absent before, and his gaze felt almost hypnotic. It stirred feelings in Sam that he hadn’t properly felt since the day Riley died. 

But still, there was a battle to come, and he couldn’t waste time thirsting after a former brainwashed assassin and centenarian while they had aliens on their doorstep.

Perhaps, if the situation had been different, he would have realized what was happening sooner; but as it stood, it didn’t click that he had finally met another soulmate until they clasped hands mid-battle, Bucky reaching out to help Sam up from the ground just before Sam turned to dust.

Bucky stumbled back in agonized grief as he watched his soulmate collapse to dust just as they touched properly for the first time. Never having had a proper connection to his string before, he had not realized the feeling growing in him until he had touched Sam’s hand with his own vibranium one in the moment before the other man had disintegrated into dust. The way his recently recovered string was abruptly cut was the rawest pain he had ever felt, and he stumbled to the ground in shock, barely recognizing how many other people had also crumbled to dust. He fell to his knees, reaching for the dust that had been his soulmate—the soulmate he had finally found again—before a rush of anger hit him. How dare Thanos; how dare he?

Suddenly Bucky felt nothing but rage, and he stood up abruptly and looked wildly around the battlefield. He ran towards what seemed to be the biggest commotion to see what had happened. And there was Thanos: his arm under the gauntlet twisted and damaged, a large cut across his chest and his head a few feet away. Thor was standing over him, looking lost.

“What happened?” Bucky asked furiously.

“He said I should go for the head,” Thor said, sounding as lost as he looked. “But it was only after the Snap had already happened.”

Glancing around, Bucky realized just how many other piles of death surrounded them. How many of those piles had been enemies? How many had been friends? “What happened to his hand?” Bucky asked, looking at the charred veins that radiated out from the gauntleted hand.

“He… using all the stones took a lot out of him. All that power contained in one snap. It’s what gave me the edge to cut him down. But I was too late.”

“How did he even… Wanda destroyed Vision, didn’t she?”

“The time stone. Thanos could rewind whatever he wanted.” Thor’s voice, usually filled with vigor, was hollow.

“No. This can’t be it. We can’t just… give up,” Bucky insisted. “Not when I only just—no.” Without fully understanding what he was doing, Bucky strode the rest of the way to Thanos’ body, pulling the gauntlet off of the blackened hand and slipping it onto his own vibranium one.

“Wait, what are you—”

“Bucky!” Steve called out, running up from behind them. “What are you doing?”

Steve was alive. Good. Though hopefully soon everyone else would be too. And Bucky Snapped.

Epilogue — will you remember when the fires have burned out (and the eyes are all looking away?)

“Only you.” Becca shook her head. “That’s a new arm, I take it?”

“Yep.” Bucky nodded. “Vibranium can take a lot, but all six Infinity Stones was a bit too much for it.”

“So you just snapped your fingers and brought everyone back?”

“It was more complicated than that.” Bucky sighed, leaning back against the couch. “I turned back time, just a bit. So that no one was ever dusted except Thanos and his army. For everyone else, it never happened. From their perspective, one minute we were getting ready to fight, the next the army had disappeared and Thanos never came, and I was wearing a mangled, empty gauntlet on a rapidly disintegrating arm.”

“Empty gauntlet?” Becca leaned forward in fascination.

“Yep. That was the final part of my snap. The stones, scattered across the universe, where no one could ever find them.”

“And your soulmate? When do I get to meet him?” Becca asked. “You finally have one—don’t hide him from me.”

“Why do you think I’m here?” Bucky asked with a raised eyebrow. “I was going to be all mysterious and leave this for you—but you caught me, just like you always have.” He handed her the envelope. It was on thick, high quality cardstock, the kind of thing he would never spend his own money on but that Tony Stark insisted on using when organizing an event. Her eyes widened as she read the contents.

“Well,” she sniffed, putting the card back in the envelope. “At least you know better than to get married without inviting me.” 

Notes:

Some fun facts that didn’t make it into the fic: Steve’s soulmate is Darcy, and Tony’s soulmates are Rhodey & Pepper. Clint and Natasha are platonic soulmates.