The first thing he does after the transition, after the hospital and the terror, and the agony of narcotic withdrawal and the agony of comprehension, of all that was done to him and all that he did, the first thing he does is ask, “Am I free?”
“Yeah, Buck,” Steve says in that slightly rough voice, the voice he used to get after a bout of pneumonia had him coughing and in bed and menthol smeared on his chest for a week or more. It used to be weird, hearing such a low voice coming from such a little body. Now the voice fits, and it’s the body that’s wrong. “Yeah, you’re free.”
Steve’s no liar. His habit of unrestrained honesty landed him with a busted nose more than once in the past, and from what he’s seen of Steve, the Steve that Bucky hangs on to when the world lurches under his feet, when he’s sickened by himself, when he screams, well, time hasn’t even scratched a nail on much less eroded that part of him.
Love this Bucky voice in this, but the secret star of this fic is Sam, who gets dragged along what’s supposed to be a quick revenge mission.