The Pieces Don't Fit Anymore
Chapter One
There was something in his head – a voice. It had taken him a while before he'd realized it was his own.
He'd never heard himself in his thoughts before. The voices in his head were always from them. The men in the white coats with the nervous clicking pens and their darting eyes that never met his. Talked about him like he wasn't in the room even though he was their sole purpose for being there. They told him what to think, filled his mind with data and facts and missions as they wiped away feelings and fear and … him. As they wiped him away and left behind the weapon.
This new voice in his head was questioning things – trying to sort out what was happening. But he didn't have answers anymore than he knew what his next move should be. There never was a before. There never was a later. There was always just now. The moment. His mission. His orders.
He was programmed to go back – back to the HYDRA lab hidden in the vault, back to a safe house in Pennsylvania, back to any number of locations scattered across the globe where they would take him in. He needed to give his mission report. Take his punishment. Put the bit back in his mouth before the pain flooded his mind as he was erased. That was what he was supposed to do – what he was programmed to do.
He'd gone to the lab first. Part of him was disappointed to find it abandoned - the soldiers and scientists who'd stood by and watched him scream in agony had run. He wanted to make them know what it felt like to scream in agony, but instead he destroyed and shattered what he could, until his chest heaved and his damaged, fucked-up arm ached and his fingers bled.
There were tapes. Stacks of them and along with boxes of files, yellowed with time and covered in dust. He watched one of the tapes – seeing himself as they saw him. A trapped animal, helpless and weak. His metal fist clenched as the him on the screen arched his back and cried out.
He wanted to tear the tapes apart, make the images burn, but he didn't. The files he paged through had pictures – old pictures. The man was in them. The captain, the words on the page said. Steve Rogers. The name made his breath hitch as he scanned the file. He remembered but then he didn't. A flash, gone in an instant.
He took some of the files but left the tapes for him. For the man. For the captain. His gut told him he'd find the vault, find the place where he'd screamed as his mind went blank. He didn't know how he knew, just that he did.
There was another name in the files.
James Buchanan Barnes.
On the helicarrier, the man had said that was his name. But that didn't make any sense. He didn't have a name.
Whoever James Buchanan Barnes was, he was a stranger to him.
He should have left then and there – put Washington, D.C. as far behind him as he could. He started to formulate a plan that would take him deep into the wilderness, away from soldiers and scientists and pain and emptiness, but the voice kept getting in the way. Questions he didn't know he was capable of asking needed answers and he knew the only person who could give them to him was the man he'd left bleeding on the banks of the Potomac.
Several days after the vault, he found himself standing in a museum filled with the history he'd lived through in fits and starts, staring at the picture before him – at the man he supposedly was. The picture matched the one in the files, and the one screaming in the videos, and the one he saw in the broken mirror in the abandoned building he was hiding in. He'd memorized the recording playing over some hidden speakers – talking about James Buchanan Barnes. The soldier. The hero. The friend.
Another life. Another time.
"Not me. Not me. Not me." The litany kept repeating in his head.
He squeezed his metal fist, creaking in the leather glove he wore to hide it. He could hear the mechanics shift, the plates moving slightly to perform the simplest of gestures. To his ears, they sounded as loud as a gunshot. He glanced at the people around him – tourists, families, dressed nice, smiling, laughing – did they hear it too? Did they know who he was? What he had done? That death was standing among them?
He looked down at his clothes. Noticing for the first time that he looked like a vagrant. He was a vagrant – squatting in an abandoned building, sleeping on a battered mattress on the floor with the rats, rooting through the trash for food.
He looked back at the picture. "Not me," he said aloud without meaning to. He closed his eyes, willing control to come back. "Not me," he whispered again, but his brain wouldn't shut off. "Maybe you. Maybe you. It's you. You're him. It's you. You're him."
The urge to put his fist through James Buchanan Barnes's face was overwhelming. Instead, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the exhibit, turning his back on a past that was lost to him and a future he could never have, even if he wanted it.
A woman was standing behind him and he almost collided with her in his haste to leave. On instinct, he reached out and grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. He told himself it was to keep from causing a scene, to keep from drawing attention to himself, but it felt more like an instinct the ghost in the pictures would have had than the weapon with a blank mind and cold heart.
She gasped softly and he realized his mistake. He'd used his left hand, the metal one. And he was hurting her. "Sorry," he muttered but didn't let go.
"It's okay," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "Quite the grip you've got there."
He didn't answer her. He should let go. He had to let go. Her eyes got wide. Nervous. She should be. She was small. Shorter than him, her head barely reaching his shoulders. He could break her arm with barely a twitch of his metal fingers if he wanted to.
"Um," she said, swallowing heavily. "You can let go. Not gonna trip. Crisis averted." She tugged slightly on her arm and smiled, though he could tell the smile was forced. Fake. A lie.
His grip loosened and she backed away from him. She hesitated and he ducked his head, hiding his eyes behind the brim of his cap. He didn't like the way she was looking at him.
She pulled something from her pocket as she turned to leave, probably a phone. He'd learned quickly that everyone carried one with them. He could hear the faint beeps as she typed something on it. It only took him two strides to catch back up with her.
Reaching over her shoulder from behind, he snatched the phone from her hand. The number 911 was on the screen. She hadn't pressed send yet.
He grabbed her arm again and pushed her into the empty screening room located a few feet away, not even giving her a chance to react or call out for help. According to the sign outside the door, a Captain America documentary would be showing again in a half an hour. The lights were down and they were alone.
"Who were you calling?" he demanded, backing her into a corner. The walls were lined with heavy navy blue curtains, dampening the sounds outside the room.
"No … no one," she stammered.
"Don't lie." He looked at the phone again. "911 is the police, correct?" He didn't know why he knew that – just that he did. There were lots of things like that – facts, words, objects, functions – that the men in the white coats must have uploaded to his brain like it was a computer.
He could tell she was trying to figure out how to answer. A lie would be pointless. She squared her shoulders and looked him right in the eye. "Yes, I was calling the police," she said. He detected the signs of stress, but she was doing well in hiding them.
"Why? I let you go."
"The news," she explained. "I recognized you, from the news. They said you're … you're dangerous, that you hurt a lot of people."
He closed his eyes, breathing deep. The images of destruction flashing in his mind. He could still smell the smoke on his skin even though he'd tried to scrub it off days ago.
"Are you Bucky Barnes?" she whispered, like it took a great effort for her to get the question out.
That name. Hearing it from someone other than the captain and other than his traitorous thoughts caused anger and another feeling that he couldn't name to grip his chest. He made a fist, fighting the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. "Why do you think I'm Barnes?" He held his breath as he waited for her answer.
"Well, if Captain America came back, why couldn't he?" He shook his head but she laughed, a soft, strangled sound that bordered on a sob. "Look, I know it sounds crazy," she continued, "but this world stopped making sense once aliens attacked us two years ago."
"I'm not him," he said, his voice steady, as though convincing this stranger was the most important thing in his life right now. His new mission. "I can never be him. They made me." They made me broken, he thought.
"Who?" She took a step toward him, making it easier for him to reach out and grab her throat. Twist and snap and kill. Stupid girl. Stupid, trusting girl.
His voice was hoarse when he spoke. "The men. The white coats. The lab. The coffin made of ice." His mind was unraveling as he slid down the wall, his head in his hands. "I'm not him. I can't be him."
XxXxXxXxXx
The vault wasn't locked. That was the first clue that something wasn't quite right. Steve doubted HYDRA would leave the door open, roll out the welcome mat and say, "Here you go, all our nasty little secrets. Turn off the lights when you're done."
The door being unlocked should have prepared Steve for the sight that greeted him when it swung open, but it didn't. Trashed was putting it kindly.
"Someone wasn't happy," Sam said behind him.
"To say the least," Steve agreed as he took a gingerly step into the vault. His eyes scanned the room. Whoever did the trashing could still be inside – though he had a feeling they were long gone. The whole mess had a feeling of being settled, like a building after a bomb had gone off and the destruction finally stopped and all you were left with was the aftermath to sift through.
"You think he did this?" Sam asked as he went to one corner and started picking through the mess. Steve didn't answer; his attention was riveted to the chair in the center of the room. It didn't take much imagination to picture Bucky, strapped down and helpless as he was tortured and brainwashed. There were shards of monitors and equipment littering the floor around the chair – high tech shrapnel, years of HYDRA work reduced to bits of plastic, metal and wires.
"Yo, Cap, back here," Sam called from another room.
"Videos. Lots of videos. And files. Whoever went kamikaze on the place left all this stuff untouched."
"He wanted me to see it. And then destroy it."
"What makes you so sure?"
Steve moved the edge of a torn map taped to the wall, revealing a crudely written message underneath. "BURN IT ALL"
"Is that blood?"
"I hope not," Steve said grimly.
"Keep looking around. I'll sift through these and let you know if I find anything." Steve nodded, knowing that Sam was trying to shield him from the worst of it. It was tough, knowing even a fraction of what Bucky went through for the past seventy years. He had to know the rest, though – he owed him that much.
A tall metal box in the back corner caught his eye and he left Sam to the video player. He recognized it from the file Natasha had given him. The cryochamber. The door to it was open, hanging off its hinges. The thick glass window was cracked and Steve could imagine Bucky trying to put his metal fist through it.
Taking a deep breath, Steve stepped inside. A wave of claustrophobia, unlike anything he'd ever felt before, washed over him. He turned slowly, barely able to move in the confined space. Cold clung to the metal walls and he imagined Bucky trapped inside as they slowly froze him, placing him in stasis until they needed him again. Did he know? Would he know what was happening? Freezing to death over and over again. Dying countless times.
Steve knew what it was like – the cold seeping into your bones, taking hold and not letting go. The pain as blood crystallized and no more breath could be forced through frozen lungs. The peace of finally letting go and falling asleep. At least when Steve woke up, he was warm and he was safe. What Bucky woke to was a living nightmare.
"I'm so sorry, Bucky," he whispered, leaning his head back against the cold metal and closing his eyes. "I'm so sorry."
"Found something," Sam announced.
"What is it?" Steve asked as he pushed himself out of the chamber, still shaken but determined to see this to the end.
"Looks like this isn't the first time they lost control of Barnes," Sam explained, taking a step back from the monitor so Steve could get a clearer look at the video.
"The asset was sent to New York with a mission," a doctor explained in heavily accented English. "He completed it, but then vanished for two weeks. We lost all contact. Eventually, his programming brought him back to us, but we cannot risk losing him again. Measures will be taken to insure this does not happen a second time."
"New York?" Steve muttered as he rewound the footage, going back to the placard that announced the date it was being filmed. The date was 1991 and for some reason that caused something to flutter in the back of his brain. That year meant something.
"You okay, man? You just turned a weird shade of green."
"I think this just got a whole lot worse. Do you have your phone on you?"
"Of course. You got yours, too, you know," Sam pointed out but Steve shook his head, a flash of a grin breaking through the worry on his face.
"We'll be here all day if I try to type on that thing right now. Look up Howard Stark. I need to know the date he died."
Steve was right, Sam was far faster on the phone than he would have been. Thirty seconds later and Sam had what Steve asked for. "Howard Stark was killed in a car accident in December 1991…." Sam's voice trailed off as he looked up at the freeze framed image on the monitor. "Shit," Sam said.
"They had Bucky kill one of the best men I've ever known," Steve said quietly, more to himself than to Sam.
"And Iron Man's dad. He's gonna be pissed."
"You can say that again."
"Sounds like killing Stark messed with their programming."
"He knew Howard. Not well, but they'd met a few times. Maybe that broke through the brainwashing, screwed something up." Steve picked up the file Sam had on the table – also dated 1991. It outlined the new "treatments" they were testing on Bucky to make sure they didn't lose him again – pictures, data, statistics. Systematic, clinical torture. Steve felt sick to his stomach.
Sam was reading over his shoulder. "Guess they thought they'd figured it out, how to keep him on the leash."
"Only it didn't work this time. He remembered me."
"And their plans for world domination are at the bottom of the Potomac and their assassin is off the reservation."
"They knew our connection. It's here in their files." Steve said as he tried to place the pieces together. "They knew who Bucky was."
"It's their fault they sent him after you. You triggered a reaction."
"Maybe that's what they wanted." Steve got up and walked back to the cryochamber. "Chaos. The final act in their play. They didn't need him anymore and they were ready to make themselves known. Bucky was a means to an end."
"Keep you occupied as they wiped out millions of people? Talk about some fucked up plans." Sam laughed, but there was no humor behind it. "I still don't know how they though they could win."
"Arrogance. How could they fail?"
XxXxXxXxXx
He was about to step through the theater's exit, leaving the woman behind, when a uniformed police officer walked by. Followed by another and then another. He stepped back into the dark room. They didn't have much time before the police discovered them - he needed a plan to escape and he needed it fast.
He pushed the woman up against the wall, bracing her across her throat with the back of his arm, the pain in his shoulder flaring and pulsing, but he ignored it. With his metal hand, he pulled out his gun, holding it loosely at his side, the threat implied.
"You called them," he hissed in her face. "You said you didn't."
"I didn't call them." She swallowed, her eyes on the gun. "You know I didn't. Someone else recognized you. Like I said you've been all over …"
"The news," he finished for her and stepped back, letting his arm drop. "On the television."
She nodded slowly, her hand going to her throat, her fingers trembling. "I can't be the only one who put two and two together."
He grabbed her arm again. "I need you to come with me."
"No. You don't." She tugged and his grip tightened. "Please don't."
"A hostage." The word came out before he could stop himself.
"That will just draw more attention to you." She was strong, but he could tell he was quickly pushing her toward a breaking point.
"Not if you don't make a scene. Just walk out with me. No sudden moves."
"They'll know."
"The man they're looking for does not know anyone else. Would not have someone with him." And no one on the face of the earth, except for maybe the man he was supposed to kill, would offer him help.
"I can't."
He pressed his hand to his eyes, trying to press down the thoughts and the rising panic. He couldn't lose control. If he lost control, they'd have him. He'd be captured or killed. Desperate, he said something he didn't realize he had the power to say. "Please."
"I -" she started to object.
"Please," he repeated and he had a flash, a flash of a man in a suit backhanding him for his weakness. He felt weak now and confused. He'd been out of cryo too long and the parts that kept being wiped away were starting to creep back.
Defeated, the woman sagged against the wall. She would help him, whether she wanted to or not.
He motioned for her to stay where she was as he edged toward the doorway, looking out into the exhibit - people were being ushered out by the police, but there were others there as well. Not cops. They held themselves differently and were dressed as civilians, but he knew. They were the soldiers. Maybe not the same ones who stood and watched as he screamed and screamed, but they might as well be.
"How many?" the woman asked.
He should lie to keep her calm. "Too many," he said instead.
There was a service hallway back near some restrooms just outside the exhibit, behind the escalator – it led to an exit tucked down the side of the building and he'd used it to sneak in, to avoid the metal detectors. If he managed to keep from being identified, then he could easily escape the way he'd come in.
He checked his gun, releasing the safety before placing it within easy reach in his jacket pocket.
"You can't hurt them. They're just doing their jobs," the woman said, some of her resolve returning.
"It's not just the police out there," he said.
"What?"
"HYDRA. They found me."
XxXxXxXxXx
Sam was taping up the last box of stuff they were going to take with them from the vault when Steve's phone rang.
"They found him." The voice on the other end didn't even wait for a hello. "The Smithsonian. Air and Space Museum. You can probably guess which exhibit."
"Natasha …"
"Steve," she interrupted, "if I have a program set up scanning the police band, then so does HYDRA. There's not much time. I'm too far out. Are you and Sam …"
"We're in D.C. - we're close."
"Be careful." The line disconnected.
Sam looked up at him and sighed when he saw the look on his friend's face. "I'm ready when you are."