"I looked at him like a stranger, someone I'd never seen before, and
he looked at me like I'd been lost to him for a thousand years and finally found."
― Emme Rollins, Dear Rockstar
Several weeks had past since Hydra fell and The Winter Soldier vanished. Every law enforcement agency from the FBI to the CIA to the MPD were looking for him. They were looking for him, but no-one saw him; just like no-one saw any of the people who slept on Washington's streets.
The Winter Soldier kept his head low as a trio of police car blazed a trail through the traffic, lights flashing and sirens wailing, as they made their way to their destination. The baseball cap he'd taken from the body of a floater in the shallows of the Potomac helped hide his face.
He'd seen himself on the TVs in the electronics store window, and in the pages of the newspapers that littered the Metro entrance at the end of the day. He was careful never to let his behaviour attract attention, because the best way to be unmemorable was to be boring. He never initiated conversations - speaking only when spoken to and keeping his replies short and undetailed - except to mumble his thanks at the soup station along with every other person in the line.
"I'm with you 'til the end of the line."
He couldn't get Rogers' words out of his head. He knew him.
He lifted a hand to adjust the cap on his head. He'd had to get new clothes in order to fit in - though 'new' wasn't entirely accurate. Along with the hat he'd rescued an old pair of jeans from a dumpster, taken a t-shirt and plaid shirt from two separate washing lines, and stolen a jacket from a sale rack. His left hand had been the hardest thing to disguise, and it didn't help that the damage it had sustained in his battle with Rogers aboard the helicarrier had damaged the circuits and was causing it to behave erratically at odd intervals. He'd had to remember to keep it shoved in his pocket until he'd lifted twenty bucks from an old woman at a bus stop and used it to buy gloves from an old drunk, who had probably spent it on another bottle of whiskey before he'd gotten two blocks away.
He could hear an unusual doink doink doink from up ahead that set off alarm bells in his mind; senses on alert and urging him to be careful. As he turned the corner he registered movement out of the corner of his eye; children were playing ball in the parking lot across the street. The vinyl ball they were using hit off the tarmac with a doink, putting his senses at ease. The children posed no threat, but he couldn't tear his gaze away. He stopped and watched them, seeing not the children in front of him but a younger version of Rogers chasing a red ball along the street. He drew his foot back to kick it but the ball had already rolled on so he landed on his skinny ass. The other children laughed, and an unfamiliar anger bubbled under his skin.
"Hey, Mister!"
He refocused on the present just in time to register the ball flying across the road towards him, and his metal arm swung up almost of it's own accord to stop the ball at arm's length, catching it as easily as he'd caught Rogers' shield the night Nick Fury had died.
The boy who had shouted had chased the ball across the road and was holding his hands out for the ball.
He dropped it, letting it fall to the ground.
The boy lunged for it as it bounced, catching it and running back to his mates.
The whole encounter was over in a matter of seconds, but felt longer. He swallowed, casting a glance around but no-one seemed to have noticed his unusual reaction. Everyone appeared too caught up in their own personal lives, attached to mobile phones and music players or generally not paying attention to anything that wasn't two feet in front of them. Nevertheless he pulled his jacket collar up and continued on his way, eager to move on. He couldn't afford to let memories of a past thought to be long-erased distract him from the here and now. His current objective was to survive. Distraction provided ample opportunities to fail.
. * * * .
He never slept in the same place twice, and that night he slept in an old factory, boarded up and left to rot. The boards covering the third floor window, accessible via a rusty fire escape no longer maintained, had been worked loose, allowing a number of squatters to take up residence in the empty offices. It was a small community of strangers, each with their own stories to tell, but he didn't want to hear them nor share his own. He took an empty office on the fourth floor and lay down on the mouldy couch to get some much-needed rest.
He was awoken by a quiet knock on the office door, which opened before he could tell whoever it was to go away. An old woman came in. She said nothing - simply placed a bowl of warm beans and a chunk of dry bread on the table with a small smile and closed the door again behind her when she left.
He didn't know who she was, or how she'd known he was there, and all his training told him not to eat food given to him by strangers. But none of his training had prepared him for his current state of existence, and he was hungry with no knowledge of where his next mean would come from, so he tucked in heartily.
The simple meal was the first he'd had in three days, and it was delicious.
He wiped the bread around the bowl, making sure to get every last drop of sauce. He coughed as a crumb shot down the wrong way, wishing that the woman had brought a glass of water for him as well. He placed the empty bowl back on the table and settled down to sleep again.
In the morning he took the bowl downstairs, nodding his thanks to the old woman when she came to take it from him. He left before anyone else could see him.
. * * * .
He didn't know where he was going until he found himself outside the Smithsonian. Once inside, he found his way to the Captain America exhibit.
Where he saw his own face staring back at him. It looked almost younger than him, less tired looking and with shorter hair, but it was still him.
Bucky Barnes. 1917-1944.
He hadn't wanted to believe it was true. He didn't want the fragments of memories circling in his head. He wanted to forget. He wanted to feel peaceful and pure again - to have a purpose.
Someone, somewhere, was going to pay.
. * * * .
Finding Steve Rogers wasn't as simple as looking up a telephone directory. He was an agent of SHIELD - or rather a former agent of SHIELD, given the fact SHIELD no longer existed - and as such kept his contact details private. However, for a Hydra assassin with many skills it didn't take long for him to remotely hack into a SHIELD computer and access the data, before removing any trace of his presence in the system.
Surprisingly for a modern hero Rogers' apartment was in a regular apartment block with basic intercom access. A single plant pot sat on the top step, containing a simple shrub bedded in stones. An image flashed through his mind - barely a memory - of a dirty, run down apartment. He remembered being there many times, but didn't remember having seen it. Without knowing what he was looking for he picked up the stones, examining one that felt lighter than the others. The hollowed compartment revealed a spare key. He tossed it into the air and caught it, contemplating his next move.
He scouted out the building, memorising all possible exits, before he let himself in in the middle of the night. A cursory look round Rogers' apartment revealed that he had done little to personalise the simple decor. Perhaps Roger's modest accommodation wasn't so surprising - after all, he did come from simpler times.
He crept along the hall. The first door he tried was the bathroom. The second was the bedroom and what he was looking for - for Rogers was asleep in bed.
He pulled the gun out from under his jacket, where it was tucked into the waistband of his jeans, and flicked the safety off. Keeping the sight trained on Rogers' sleeping form, he took five steps into the room.
The floorboards creaked underfoot.
Immediately Rogers was awake and staring at him as if he was dreaming. "Bucky?"
"Don't call me that."
"Okay," Rogers said carefully, a flicker of sadness crossing his face. "So what do I call you?"
He said nothing. He'd been living like a shadow these past few weeks, never being seen. He didn't know what to call himself except The Winter Soldier. It's the only name he'd ever known.
Except it wasn't.
Over seventy years ago he'd been called James. He wasn't sure if he remembered that, or if the museum had told him so.
"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes," Rogers had told him on the helicarrier.
"James," he stated.
Rogers nodded at the familiarity. "Alright. James. Are you going to shoot me?"
"Do I need to?"
"No."
He looked from Rogers to the gun he was still aiming at Rogers' heart, before slowly lowering his arm and flicking the safety on.
"Why are you here, James?"
For the first time since he'd set foot in Rogers' apartment he doubted his decision to go there. Captain America was known for his honesty and loyalty, but he was also known for his sense of justice - Bucky Barnes may have been Rogers' friend but The Winter Soldier was his enemy.
"I know you."
"Yes, you do."
"I don't... I can't remember," James said, racking his brain to remember who he was.
"It doesn't matter," Rogers said, padding barefoot across the carpet towards him.
Reactions drilled into him through years of routine kicked into action. He pushed Rogers away with his real arm, his metal hand closing around his throat and slamming him against the wall. "It matters to me!" he snarled.
Rogers' hands fisted at his sides as he swallowed the instinct to fight back, trying to stay calm despite being unable to breathe.
He was shaking with the force of the anger coursing through him. The Winter Soldier felt no emotion - he either succeeded or failed in his mission; it was a statement of fact. He felt no joy or disappointment. There was no room for emotion, because emotion clouded judgement. He had to force himself to relax his grip and let Rogers go.
He'd been so calm for years; tightly controlled by Hydra. Now he was losing control.
"Buck— James?" Rogers asked, massaging his throat with one hand. "You pulled me out of the river, didn't you?"
He felt like an empty glass left under a running tap; empty for so long yet now being filled with everything he'd been forced to forget until it overflowed and he lashed out.
He turned to leave. Coming here had been a mistake.
"Barnes!" Rogers' tone was sharp; commanding.
He turned back, and Rogers' hand was a warm weight on his real shoulder.
"Stay," he pleaded.
"I don't know you."
"Yes, you do. You can remember."
"What if I don't want to?" he asked, stepping into Rogers' space and clenching his vest in his fists.
Rogers looked heartbroken.
"I don't... I don't think I want to remember the things I've done. I remember... pieces. It's not good."
"That wasn't you," Rogers told him adamantly. "That was what they made you. The real you - that's still in there somewhere." He tapped a finger against the side of his head for emphasis. "Stay, and you can take the other bedroom. Or we can put the couch cushions on the floor like when we were kids," he said lightly.
He stared at Rogers, having no recollection of their childhood sleepovers. "I'm damaged goods, Rogers."
Rogers flinched at the use of his surname. "You're my friend."
. * * * .
He stayed, albeit reluctantly. He had nowhere else to go, and at least with Rogers around he had someone to ask about memories that resurfaced. Unfortunately Bucky's memories weren't the only memories that were scratching their way to the surface.
During the day he forced The Winter Soldier's memories down and refused to give them a voice; however they haunted him as he slept and his mental defences were down. He often woke up to Rogers shaking him and shouting his name. Some nights he woke himself with his screaming. On those nights he would pace the apartment to stop himself from falling asleep again, but as time passed and he grew to feel safe there he would take his pillows through to Rogers' room and sleep on the floor.
As they grew more comfortable sharing their space with each other, Rogers would even slip into bed with him on the nights he shook him awake and stay with him until he fell asleep again; though some nights Rogers would fall asleep again long before he did. The first morning they woke up, limbs tangled together, neither said anything. As the weeks passed and the nightmares didn't fade, the distance between them in bed closed until it became normal to wake up wrapped in each other.
. * * * .
Three months after he moved in and Rogers got fed up of him accidentally breaking things when his arm short-circuited, he suggested getting a friend to drop by to repair it. At first he'd refused, but Rogers had promised him that his friend could be trusted. Now he was sitting in his bedroom, listening to them talking in the living room.
"Can you keep a secret?"
"Of course I can keep a secret. The question is, why are you asking me to?"
"Because I need you."
"Intriguing... This would have anything to do with your Russian spy friend, would it?"
"He's American!" Rogers snapped.
"If you say so."
"If you're not going to help just go."
"Woah, back up Cap - who said I wasn't going to help?"
Footsteps approached and he sat up straight as the door swung open and Rogers led the stranger into the room.
"James, this is Tony Stark."
Stark. He knew that name. But from where?
Stark let out a low whistle at the sight of his arm. "Wow. Alright, boys, the doctor is in."
He turned to Rogers. "Are you sure you can trust him?"
"If you'd asked me that two years ago I'd have said no - but that was before New York."
"What happened in New York?" he asked.
"Big black hole in the sky, space aliens..." Stark told him, digging out his tools and poking at his arm. "Not ringing any bells?"
He shook his head. His memory was still patchy. He wondered sometimes just how much would come back to him. A spark of electricity coursed through the cybernetics into his body and he cursed. "Do you even know what you're doing?"
Stark held his hands up in apology. "Sorry. My bad."
"This was a bad idea."
"You won't be saying that when it works again," Rogers chided him.
"It works now."
"Oh, yeah? So you meant to crush the TV remote?"
He glared at him.
"Can you leave the lover's quarrel until I've gone, please?" Stark interrupted. "I don't want to have to duck for cover when you start throwing your shield around."
He couldn't explain why his cheeks got a little warmer.
. * * * .
That night he woke himself up with a scream and the feeling of electricity shooting through his brain. Rubbing his real hand across his face, he was surprised to find his cheeks were wet. He lay there, listening for Steve, but the apartment was silent.
He couldn't face sleep again. He didn't want to watch himself kill that little girl again. He'd been following orders he hadn't known how to disobey: "No witnesses."
He pulled the covers back too roughly and they flew across the room. He looked at his metal hand. Stark had done a good job on it, there was no denying it. And no-one had broken down their door to take him into custody. He wanted a glass of water, but instead found himself going into Rogers' room, and sliding into bed beside him.
Rogers shifted closer to him. "Another nightmare?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay."
Rogers never argued with him; never shouted at him; never told him what to do. He made suggestions occasionally but other than that he let him find his own way, and for that he was grateful.
"Who am I?" he asked, as he often did when his memories became too conflicted.
"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, and you are my friend."
"James," he repeated softly. "James."
"Mhmm."
James was a soldier's name, and he'd been a soldier for too long. "No," he said. "My name is Bucky."
A warm arm draped over him. "Welcome back, Buck."