Written in 2014 after I saw Captain America: Winter Soldier. There may be some technical or spelling errors, I pulled it from my old blog directly.

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"For me, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, or for flowers or beast or bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly and perfectly alive."

-Al Purdy

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The Line Continues

Bucky Barnes

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Hydra does not have the luxury of mirrors. Maybe the mask wasn't to keep others from recognizing me as much as it was to keep me from recognizing myself.

I hadn't seen my own face before. At least, not that I could remember.

At first, I only used the name, and an encyclopedia. I hadn't used computers, really, anything complicated was done for me and I was handed the intel in order to do the killing part. I was given names, places, times, and a fully loaded gun, like handing a starving dog tiny pieces of meat through bars until it's a monster.

When it came to tracking the museum down, I wasn't sure when to start. I wasn't sure how many times they had erased my mind, only I remembered the waking up from it, and could guess that it was a regularly scheduled thing. Muscle memory made me dread it, even if they assured me it was the first time they erased anything.

It wiped away memories, and people, and stripped away forms of conscience and any morality that could have been instilled in me when I was a kid. I'm assuming I was probably a kid once. Maybe with friends. Maybe even friends with the clean cut, annoyingly hard-to-kill Steve Rogers. I think I might have known him once.

I was functioning on minimal operation, and the only thing I had was a name: Bucky Barnes. A name that he called me but I did not recognize. Without my handlers to tell me when, where, aim, fire, the only thing I could comprehend was… an encyclopedia.

I stole a jacket to cover the arm. I ripped a hat right off someone else's head and put it on my own. Their protests died on their lips when they looked at me. I am so used to being feared that it made no difference to me.

I went to a library. I asked where the encyclopedias were. The librarian gave me a look of such confusion that I almost pitied her.

"No one really uses encyclopedias anymore, they just use google," she said.

I didn't know what that meant. I said nothing.

"You from around here?" she asked.

"No," I answered statically. There was no way of telling if I looked homeless enough to be suspicious or if the winter soldier had become most wanted yet.

"Okay…" she said awkwardly, pointing me in the direction of the books. She left fairly quickly without offering any more assistance, which was preferable. I opened book B and flipped to the index. This felt strange. Maybe I had read a lot of books before. Whenever I seemed to wake up out of some sort of procedure, I had lost all memory of interaction and past but not knowledge. I still knew the capital of Germany or how to read. But this felt familiar. Maybe I once went to school.

Barnes, James Buchanan.

That was it. That was the name. He had called me "Bucky", though, and that didn't make any sense. I flipped to the corresponding page, and my eyes sort of glossed over the lack of information.

"Barnes, James Buchanan, known as "Bucky", born 1925, was a private in the US army during WWII and known for his association with Captain America, the first Avenger, who fought against Hydra terrorist leader, Red Skull. See also: Captain America". I glanced at the date. This encyclopedia was made in 1986. According to the newspaper stand I passed, it was 2014.

I scanned the beginning and the end of the article, not willing to stay in one place for so long in order to read the whole thing. Hydra might think that I perished in the freight, but there is no telling if they'll search for me when they haven't found a body. I need to keep moving.

The article about Captain America was less informative than the first. It merely described us as "best friends" and that I was killed in action.

"Fun fact" read a small box in the corner, next to a picture of Steve Rogers, "You can see authentic Captain America uniforms and memorabilia at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C."

So, I went to the museum. I asked a few people where to find, with a grimace, the "Captain America Display" and several people confusedly pointed the way. The Smithsonian, as it turns out, is extremely large, and full of people looking at you twice.

The museum designed a walk-through exhibit. There was a history of Steve Rogers where kids could measure their height. That seemed familiar. There was a raised platform with a bunch of dirty war costumes on dummies. There was some sort of projector showing old war films against the wall.

None of it was striking in any way. Dead end.

All I had was a name, and someplace to look, and now I felt lost. I had been a slave for long enough that I was beginning to feel hungry and tired but wouldn't give any indication or look for something to eat.

I suddenly got it into my head that I wanted water. I was a runaway, after all. River water doesn't really satisfy, and I didn't really drink any, anyway. I was too busy trying to drag the Captain's ass back on shore. He's heavier than he looks. I only rescued him because he rescued me. I owed him. Just once. The thought did occur to me that he knew who I was and how to make it all come back, and that leaving him alive would be the smartest tactical choice. So I did.

I had to pretend that he, refusing to fight me and calling me his friend, had nothing to do with wanting him alive at all.

I found a bathroom. I walked in and uncomfortably waited till it was unoccupied. Then I bent over the sink and splashed water in my face, and then drank from the fountain at the far end. Then, I looked into the mirror.

A face stared back. It was dirty and hollow looking. I tried to push my long hair farther under the hat, but there was no improving… except for the fact that I knew what I looked like now. That could only be a good thing.

Stepping back out into the museum was like coming out of a memory-wipe. Now that I knew what my face looked like, I saw it EVERYWHERE. I was on posters. In the black and white, static footage of WWII. I was pictured beyond life-size next to Captain America.

There was a whole walk-through board based on me and me alone. I went to one of the displays, and stared up at a younger version of myself, looking heroically off into the distance. I was wearing an army uniform, and it said I was a great soldier. No surprise there.

Though, it did not refer to me as an associate of Captain America. It referred to me as his best friend. It described Steve as being devastated when I died. My death, it seemed, came from falling from a great height and perishing on the mountain below.

In the photographs, I still had both arms.

I looked down at my metal arm, bewildered. So I hadn't died from the fall, but I lost an arm. One more puzzle piece sliding into place.

"I thought you might be here," said a voice.

I flinched and turned my head instinctively, moving as robotically as my arm. At this point I didn't know if I wanted to run away from Hydra or if I hoped it was Hydra. You know what they say about dogs going back to their masters.

It was Steve.

"So you didn't drown," I answered in a monotone.

"I didn't. Thanks to you."

I ignored that. It might hurt patriot boy to know that it was a tactical move.

"That's you," Steve pointed up at the board.

I said nothing. I may not have been wearing one, but I was still used to the mask. Or the muzzle.

"Let's get some food," Steve said.

"…What?" I asked.

"Food… for eating. Come on." Steve motioned me towards a small crowd of people waiting by a counter at the far end of the building, where colorful advertisements had pictures of sandwiches and milkshakes, supposedly in the 1940s style. It looked sort of familiar. The tiny court was specifically designed to accompany the display.

I was trained to ignore hunger. And all signs of friendliness.

Steve noticed my hesitation. "No one is going to drag you back to Hydra. The government isn't dragging us to jail, either." He tapped a small badge pinned to his lapel. It was labeled STARK INDUSTRIES. "We're not on the run any more."

"Maybe you're not," I corrected. "I'm certain most of SHIELD still wants to put a bullet through my head."

Steve shrugged, and kept walking. I paused. I didn't have any sort of clarifying future before me, only a glossed-over history on a billboard and a muddy past that didn't feel like my own. There was no way of knowing what to do. When they erased my memories, they erased my conscience. Morals are not retained by being taught, but molded by the experience of having them. That is why it was so easy to know that killing was wrong, but killing anyway, by the hundreds and thousands, simply because I was told to do it.

I had never been given a choice between right and wrong before. But, at this point, it felt wrong to go back to being a ghost. Maybe it was because I had done it before, but it felt right to follow him.

Steve maneuvered around the crowd towards the mock diner. "There's the end of the line," he said off handedly, not meaning anything by it, but it made something like a cold wind rush through me.

He stood in line and the family in front of him slowly turned and looked at him. The children started to jump up and down, put he put a finger to his lips, and they quieted down. The parents apologetically asked him if he would sign their Washington D.C. guide maps. The kids were ecstatic, and Steve shook their hands, then the hands of their parents. Their faces glowed, and tried not to alert the people around them that Captain America himself was getting food like an ordinary human being.

It was… heartwarming.

"The end of the line" sounded like something I had heard before.

Something important, and if I didn't go through with what I debated, I'd regret it. There was no better option, this was the right one.

I followed him.

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