A/N: Set immediately after the events of 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' An exhausted and confused Bucky Barnes receives help from an unexpected source. Inspired by the song by Seether. This may end up being multi chapter or not. I may just delete it in a day or two. All errors are my own and unintentional. Feedback would be appreciated. The character of Bucky Barnes and those familiar with the MCU belong to them. Alex Wells and others not, are mine.
Italicised sentences are (predominantly) memory flashes.
There's Nobody Praying For Me.
Chapter One:
I'm a whisper lost upon wind.
She shoves the door open with one shoulder, hands filled with tightly knotted but notoriously fragile garbage bags that she needs to get rid of before they split and cause their own special kind of carnage. She glances up at the inky grey sky as she emerges on to the alley, grimacing as rain splatters down on her. She wishes that it would stop raining, she hates getting wet. She hauls the garbage bags over to the nearest dumpster, puts one of them down on the ground at her feet and lifts the lid, hauling the other bag into it. The scent of rotting garbage and old beer rises up, making her reel back a little, blinking rapidly as the fetid odour rushes up to greet her like a long lost friend. As she reaches down for the second bag, she catches sight of a pair of legs sticking out of the gap between the dumpster and the one beside it. Black clad, heavy duty boots on the feet. They don't seem to be moving. She freezes for a moment, her heart beginning to thrum before she gets rid of the second bag and she carefully lowers the lid back down. She takes a slow deep breath. Please don't be a dead body, please God don't be a dead body she silently prays as she takes a couple of experimental steps to her right and she quietly gasps when she sees the man leaning against the side of the second dumpster, his eyes shut. Dark hair vivid against a ghostly pale face.
He's pale, his face somewhat bruised and grazed, soaked to the skin from the rain pouring down. She waits for her heartbeat to slow down. He doesn't move, seemingly oblivious to the atrocious weather. She watches him for a moment before she takes an experimental step towards him and as she gets closer she sees the steady rise and fall of his chest. Not dead she realises with relief. She crouches down and reaches out with one hand.
"Hey. Are you okay?"
His eyes pop open when he feels the hand touch his wrist. Panic floods through him at the brief contact.
Sanction.
Compromised
Extract.
Each thought swallow dives through his mind; fractious, scared, terrified. He feels his heart rate pick up. Not good.
Sanction. Compromised. Extract.
He pulls his arm sharply away. Winces at the pain that bursts through the limb. Looks into a pair of pure blue eyes. Quickly looks away again.
'Bucky Blue eyes. Bucky Blue eyes.'
'Shut up! Don't call me that. Don't call me that!'
Kids laughing, running away. Still chanting that hated nickname.
"Do you need help?" Blue Eyes' voice sounds kind. Concerned.
He frowns slightly. Compassion isn't something he's familiar with. He looks across into those eyes again. Becomes aware then that it's raining, that he's soaking wet. Is that from the rain?
He remembers water, grabbing his shoulder harness, hauling him out. A river.
'You know me'
'No I don't!'
"No." His voice sounds rusty, barely used. Out of practice. Blue Eyes continues to regard him and he sees the frown on her face. Realises Blue Eyes is a dame…a girl…a woman. She's crouched down in front of him and he realises then that he's on the ground, resting up against something cold and hard and he hurts. How did that happen? He doesn't remember going down. Everything hurts; his shoulder, his head, his stomach. His eyes widen very slightly as he tries to take in his surroundings. Doesn't recognise them.
Where is he?
Feels panic inside of him, swelling up, overwhelming. Yes he needs help. He does need help. He looks back at her, taking in her blonde hair and those blue eyes.
"Sure?"
No.
"Yes." Watches her slowly straighten until she's towering over him like a statue.
"Is there anyone I can call for you?" she asks instead.
'You've known me your whole life.'
He shakes his head, "No."
"Nobody?"
He shakes his head again, ignores the pain it causes. Everything hurts. He watches how she squints at him, like she doesn't quite believe him and then she looks up at the bruised sky smudged a deeper shades of storm cloud grey here and there. He hears her sigh and then she walks away, her feet crunching on the broken concrete. He sighs and leans his head against the barrier once more. He closes his eyes and again he ignores the pain.
Compromised. Need to move on. Somewhere safe. Have to hide.
Soon. Need to rest awhile first.
She's frowning as she goes back into the building. Sure they get their fair share of drunks and druggies sleeping off benders in the back alley but there's something about that guy that sticks with her. For one she's pretty sure he's neither drunk nor high. She couldn't smell any alcohol on him. Sure he'd looked more confused than anything else but not in an away-with-the-fairies kinda way. He looked…exhausted. She pauses. She's in the medium sized kitchen area at the back of the bar where she works and she ignores the staff as they mill around her, preparing snacks and small meals for the customers occupying the bar out front. The weather is keeping most of the clientele away except for a few hardy regulars. She takes a deep breath and begins to head back to the bar. He refused her offer of help. He'll move on soon enough, he's not her problem. She flinches when lightning flashes, illuminating the space around her. She looks up as a crack of thunder echoes above her, right above her, shaking the timbers of the building. She turns and looks back at the rear door.
"Damn it," she mutters and strides back the way she came.
His eyes slowly blink open when he hears a door squeak open somewhere close by followed by rapidly approaching footsteps. Before he can react, something goes over the top of him, sheltering him and he startles. He looks up and sees the underside of an umbrella covering him. He looks at the person holding it over his head.
Blue Eyes is back.
"You can't stay here," she tells him, her tone worried and he frowns.
"So I'll… move," he tells her, each word an effort. "Leave me…alone."
"If it wasn't threatening to flood out here then I would but I can't in good faith leave you alone out here, not in this weather." She stares at him, frowning. "If I'm to be honest, you don't look too good. Come with me, you can dry off. When was the last time you ate? I'll warm you some soup or something. "
Ate? He tries to remember but fails. His stomach growls, low and deep.
A while.
He doesn't answer, just looks up at her. All he can hear is the sound of the rain rattling off the top of the umbrella, hears it hiss against the crumbled concrete surrounding him.
His answer is slow, measured. Careful. "You don't know me."
"That's true, I don't but I like to think of myself as a decent enough member of the human race and I can see that you obviously need help." He hears the restraint in her voice.
She's met with silence.
"My name is Alex Wells," she quietly introduces and she pauses.
He realises that she's waiting for him to reciprocate.
'Bucky?'
'Who the hell is Bucky?'
'Your name …is James… Buchanan Barnes.'
He licks his lips, feeling the words form in his mouth.
"My name is… Bu…Bucky," he answers, his voice slow and halting.
The name sounds foreign on his tongue, like it belongs to someone else and that he's only borrowing it.
'Good morning Soldat'
Alex tilts her head to one side.
"Good to meet you Bucky. Will you please come inside?" Another flash of lightning brightens up the sky, making them both flinch followed by more thunder rumbling across the heavens. His first instinct is to refuse, to get to his feet and move on. Isn't that what she really wants him to do? It's what he has been doing since leaving the river; never staying in one place long enough, never taking the chance he could be recognised and taken away again. He doesn't want to go back there again. Are there people looking for him? Have they realised that he's survived the Heli-Carrier crash yet? A picture flickers into his mind.
'The man on the bridge. Who was he?'
A bridge. The picture comes into sharp focus for a moment. Not on a bridge now but he can see one or he can at least remember one. The man. Blond. Tall. Fighter. Strong. Soldier. The look on his face. Recognition maybe, disbelief but how? Why?
'Bucky?' Soft voice.
'Who the hell is Bucky?' His voice. Something shifts inside of his head, everything tilts on its axis for a second before rectifying.
He tries to grab tight onto these images but when he does, they're fleeting, they flicker in his mind, insubstantial, evaporating like mist and he's left with the static. It fills his head and his ears like it does now. Transitory. Ethereal. Frustrating. Empty.
It scares him.
'But I knew him.'
'Prep him.'
'But he's been out of cryo-freeze for too long.'
'Then wipe him, start over.'
Voices, different voices. So many voices bursting through the static.
Someone's screaming.
"Let me help you…" His eyes widen when he sees her approach him, lean down, wrap a hand around his upper right arm. He feels a bolt of pain shoot up from his elbow to his shoulder. He lashes out, his left hand shoving her away as he quickly pushes back, out of reach. Doesn't realise his own strength as she flies backwards, her eyes wide with shock, landing hard on her ass, the umbrella rolling away. For a moment she stays where she is, staring at him, stunned. He watches as she gets to her feet, wipes her hands over the seat of her jeans and grimaces at the dampness she finds there. She sends him a disgusted look before disappearing from sight.
Maybe she'll get the hint and leave him alone.
"I'm… sorry…didn't mean to…" His apology begins haltingly as she comes back into his line of vision, the umbrella in her hand once more.
She shakes her head as she slowly approaches him again, more cautiously this time.
"No…I'm sorry. I shouldn't have grabbed you like that…" she begins and once more she holds the umbrella over him. He just stares at her, flummoxed by her response, feeling the brick wall grind into his spine as he presses into it. Trying not to shake so hard that she'll notice.
Scared.
"Please. Will you come inside out of the rain?" she asks, her voice quiet and a little tired sounding.
He looks into her eyes again. She seems sincere even though he's just knocked her on her ass. He's cold and he's soaking wet.
He nods and watches as she takes a step away from him and as he begins to get to his feet she sees his metal left arm, the hand covered by a fingerless black leather glove. Her eyes widen marginally. He glances at it.
"I won't hurt you," he promises. He hasn't received any instructions to the contrary. No mission.
'You're my mission!'
He blinks and sways a little when he hears that voice scream inside of his head. His own voice. Who was his mission? He doesn't remember, he just knows he won't hurt the girl. She isn't his mission. He's so tired. He wants the quiet, to sleep, he wants to be warm. He wants to not hurt any more. His right arm throbs from shoulder to elbow and he still can't move it properly. He cradles it close to his body as he straightens up and she catches sight of him doing it and she frowns slightly.
"Did you hurt yourself?"
'Drop it!'
He glances down at it, remembers the pop of bone, the white hot pain that shot up into his shoulder and the numbness that followed. He nods.
"Let's get you inside, I could probably take a look at it?"
He looks at her but doesn't answer.
"I can help you, if you'll let me," she continues, still watching him.
"You a Doc?"
She slowly shrugs, looking away, her expression changing slightly, becoming a little nostalgic.
"Used to be, once upon a time," she murmurs and that's it. Then her gaze refocuses. "Will you let me help you?" she asks him again.
He's still on the wary side but he nods all the same.
"'kay," he murmurs and despite the tension, or maybe because of it, she smiles softly.