Disclaimer: As expected, I do not own these characters.
This is a mix of movie- and comic-verse (but mostly movie-verse), so try not to be to confused.
Colonel Phillips is expected to pick one man from 50 or so Army recruits who will be put into a special training program to take on unique missions. So his men go through a seven day extensive test disguised as training to root out the most likely candidate. Colonel Phillips likes the looks of a few men, all strong broad shoulder types. He will pick a small handful of his favorites and pass them along to General John Rickshaw. The General has the final say and doesn't even have to pick from the Colonel's favorites if he thinks of someone else.
The seven days are up and Colonel Phillips passes the General a small stack of five names.
"I see you have a type, Colonel," the General notes as he flips through Phillips' candidates.
"I've seen combat before. It's won by the strongest, not the weakest," the Colonel replies confidently. "That Dugan fellow, he's a little slow, but he's the biggest and strongest of the bunch. I'd recommend him first."
"I'm sorry to hear that." The General places the papers on the desk in front of himself and reaches into a draw to pull out a sheet of his own. "It appears that we disagree."
The Colonel looks at the name, and the picture, and shakes his head. "I really don't think that man's up for the job. He may not be the weakest but he's not the strongest of the men here."
"Wars, as I've seen them, aren't won by the strongest men," the General says smoothly. "They're won by the men who use the fewest bullets."
The first language they teach him is German.
Let it be known that James Buchanan Barnes hates the German language.
"Der, das, die," he quietly repeats over and over as he runs laps with the other. "Der Mann, das Buch, die Frau."
He is expected to become fluent (or nearly) in German in three to four months. At the same time as his extra language exercises, he is expected to continue his training with the other recruits and add three hours of shooting practice. He ends up doing twice as much work as the others, yet he only gets half the sleep.
His German teacher is a muscular German woman Thekla Maud, or Frau Maud. She's unreasonably strict and has unrealistically high goals for what he needs to memorize. But he was handpicked from fifty or so recruits for this training and he needs to impress her and the higher-ups, so he can't fail.
If he finds it hard to concentrate-which he does often-he thinks about Steve and what he would think. Steve would be proud that Bucky's been chosen for such important work and he'd want Bucky to work his hardest to get the job done. When he thinks about giving up, he just thinks about Steve and the extra effort no longer seems so hard.
After only three months, he passes Frau Maud's German fluency test and impresses even her. She actually complimented him on his accent. Frau Maud's German-and his now-is a vague Berlin dialect, but she teaches him the basic nuances of the Saxon and Bavarian dialects. She even forces him to learn the difference between Austrian German and Standard German.
He thinks he's done. He knows enough German to be a spy. He's their best sharp shooter and he's passed the other basic training. By now, the other's in the unit are heading for their first break. He can't wait to see Steve. He knows his extra training will have to remain a secret, but he wants to see his best friend and make sure he's staying out of trouble.
Disappointed doesn't begin to describe how he feels when they tell him they have an assignment. Because they're not related, he doesn't list Steve as a dependent. The only family he has listed is his sister who is at boarding school. To his superiors, that means he has no one to go home to. He gets a chance to write Steve apologizing, but nothing more.
He was sure that German was the only language he needed for his special training. Then he was introduced to the importance of French in Europe.
Let it be known that the only language he hates more that German, is French.
He is introduced to Cyrille Lefebvre before he's finished with German. Madam Lefebvre is much more patient with him than Frau Maud is, but she is relentless with pronunciation. The grammar is easier than German, but his pronunciation is terrible and his writing is worse. He got used to writing the sounds he heard from German, but French has a lot of silent letters-usually at the end of a word. Eventually, he memorizes every French word and it's spelling together.
For the first week or so, he's running laps muttering French words and their spellings alone. He conjugates verbs is all tenses as he shoots at targets by himself. He translates French to English to German and back to French as lies in his cot in an empty room. He has to rewrite his letters to Steve after accidentally writing in French and then again when he writes in German.
French takes an extra three weeks to master and he has to retake his fluency test four times before it's perfect-unlike in German where he aced it on his second try.
His second leave is a whole three days shorter than everyone else's. And he's given homework.
Let it be known that Russian is James Buchanan Barnes' least favorite language in the world.
In 1942, when Bucky had volunteered for the US Army, the Soviet Union was an ally of the US, so Bucky's not sure why he has to learn Russian. His superiors looks at him skeptically when he voices this as he doesn't want to waste time learning a language he may not need. They tell him he's learning Russian for the same reasons he's still learning French. He accepts this and begins another set of intense language studies.
Three things make Russian unbearable to learn. One: Russian uses an entirely new alphabet he has to master. For him, it takes over a week to memorize the sounds that go with the strange letters. Two: Unlike with German and French, he is not given the luxury of time learning the language. It's been nearly five months since his training started and he has to be shipped out in two more. Three: Russian is a stupid language. Only one week after grammatical gender and noun cases and conjugations, Bucky wants to bash his head against a hard surface.
Despite Colonel Phillips' initial protests, Bucky gets a full week off. His head is swimming in Russian letters as his train pulls up to its stop. All thoughts of Russian, German, or French flee his mind when he sees Steve standing at the platform looking for him.
He knows Steve still wants to enlist. Even though he doesn't think Steve should, he tells Steve that everything is great and that he can't wait to meet up with him in Europe. He tells Steve about the training he does with other recruits and doesn't mention his language classes or the extra shooting practices he has that leave him too tired to walk. He doesn't mention passing out from exhaustion on a number of occasions nor does he mention how he was mocked and bullied when that happened.
Steve looks up at him with excitement and pride. It's exactly what Bucky needs to encourage him to work harder. He skips out at night under the pretense of meeting a date. He really heads out to Russian neighborhoods and just talks to people. He picks up a number of slang terms and, more importantly, his pronunciation gets better. By the end of his leave, the Russians at Brighton Beach are convinced that he's Russian like them.
He spends his last night on leave with Steve on a double date. He can tell that Steve's trying his best not to look miserable, but it's really the only way they can hang out without people asking questions-and people have asked questions before (nothing Bucky's fists couldn't answer).
He thinks that Steve suspects something off about him, especially after he found Bucky's Russian-English dictionary, but he kept quiet.
He aces his Russian fluency test on his first try. Colonel Phillips and the other Generals in charge congratulate him on his hard work. They're very impressed with his work, and he swells with pride. He graduates with the rest and receives the rank of Sergeant. It's the highest rank among the group and they all give him the stink-eye. He can't blame them because as far as they know he's just the guy who collapsed of exhaustion several times. Bucky manages to ignore their stares and whispers.
Like always, Steve is waiting for him. They only shake hands before heading home. Only in the privacy of their home can Bucky wrap Steve in his arms. He tries real hard to hide it, but Bucky feels Steve crying. It may be the beginning of the war for the US, but it's been going on for a while and Steve knows that not everyone makes it home.
"I should be going over there with you," he says choking back on a sob. Bucky just pats his back and tells him that he will one day, even though he knows that's a lie.
"It's going to be okay. I'll keep sending money back to you. You just be careful. Find yourself a nice gal and settle down."
"I don't-" Steve stops in mid-sentence. He can't really say I don't want a nice girl, I want you. It's too close to how he really feels and he still wants Bucky to come back to him if he comes back at all.
"Allon-Come on," Bucky strokes his hair and desperately looks for a lighter topic. "Я зна-I know a couple of girls who'd really like to see that Stark Expo thing. I'm sure they'll just love you."
Steve gives him that cute pout that melts Bucky's heart and they go to bed together planning their next double date.
The 107th is filled with men-dirty, smelly men.
Let it be known that, aside from Steve Rogers, Bucky hates all men.
He sits in the mud with other men who still don't trust him from training. His only comfort is his M1 Garand-named Becca, after his sister. Bucky's been happy to have someone on his side who doesn't throw mud at him because of his unexpected rise in rank. Between missions with his unit, he sneaks deeper undercover searching for anything that can help.
He sleeps less than his fellow soldiers and still gets bullied by the others who think he's getting special treatment.
"They just need someone to hate when there ain't any Nazis to shoot," another soldier, Dugan, says patting Bucky on the back nearly knocking him over in the process.
James thinks about Steve more and more. It's the only thing keeping him from losing it overseas. He feels at peace when he thinks of Steve, safe at home, hopefully staying out of trouble. Bucky thinks that most of the bullies Steve's encountered decided to enlist, so they won't be in Brooklyn picking on him.
It is James Barnes who hears about the weapons factory in Azzano. All that French and German he learned and he understands nothing of the Italian spoken in the nearby villages he visits. Only by coincidence does he over hear two Germans in an armored vehicle picking up food. It's the first he's ever heard of Hydra, and he knows it won't be the last. From what he gathers, Hydra is a division of the Nazis that specializes in making weapons.
They are also sending in troops to scope out the nearby areas. Apparently their factory runs on prison labor and they've been exhausting too many of their prisoners. They're looking for more, and if they find the 107th, they won't hesitate to capture them.
The 107th's mission is simple: go in and shut down the factory before a scout troop is sent. Captain Grant Pearson is put in charge of just under two hundred men to infiltrate a weapons factory they know nothing about. Colonel Phillips says they've done this a thousand times. Nothing will go wrong.
Everything goes wrong.
Let it be known that James Barnes hates authority more than anything.
Sergeant Barnes is the only one who knows anything about the factory they're infiltrating, yet he's not allowed to say anything to his commanding officer. Bucky has heard about the weird magic of the weapons supposedly being manufactured there, but Captain Pearson laughs him off.
"There's no such thing as magic," he laughs.
"I know that," Bucky grits out. "But there have been rumors that whatever they're making over there ain't like the other weapons we're used to fighting."
"And where have you heard these rumors? You've been at the camp for the last three weeks. Of course the others are going to start sharing stories of magic. You can't believe everything you hear in a tent, Sergeant."
At least the Captain brushes him off because he sounds crazy and not because he's jealous of his rank.
Three main things go wrong.
One: There were too many men. They get noticed very quickly. It's a big factory, so it was natural to want to send in a large group. But authority was given to a very small group, so they became in charge of large subgroups that weren't able to communicate amongst each other easily.
Two: Captain Pearson gets killed early on in the raid. No one else was given authority to take over the mission after him. Four other captains were assigned at his level, but only he was given the details of the raid, so no one knows what they're supposed to do once they've made it past the gates.
Three: They are very obviously out gunned. It is a weapons factory after all. The Hydra men have an unlimited supply of weapons and ammunition while the 107th soon find themselves taking the ammunition off of their fallen comrades.
The soldiers who escaped were part of the last wave to infiltrate. They only managed to get away because the Hydra soldiers were busy carting off their new prisoners.
"This is such shit," Bucky groans in a cell. His feet ache and he's surrounded by people he's never seen before. He distantly hears French being spoken and English with a distinct British accent. They're not the first to try to infiltrate this place and they won't be the last.
He keeps his sanity the same way he always does: thinking about Steve. Between fantasies of Steve behaving himself alone in Brooklyn, he eavesdrops on conversations of the guards. They stop by talking to themselves about how boring their job is and how they expecting something different when signing up for Hydra. One bemoans the lie that they were supposed to get some sort of dental care. He's pretty sure that guy's name was Robert.
It's not long before a man dressed in full Nazi attire-with some modifications, Bucky notes-comes down to visit his prisoners. A small man, resembling a mole, follows him closely. They talk to each other in German as they carefully eye each prisoner.
The taller man-Herr Schmidt-is looking for a test subject. His mole-like assistant is just agreeing with whatever he says. They stop in front of one of the cages and Schmidt smiles.
"I've never tested one of those before," he says in German probably referring to the Japanese man. "That would make for an interesting variable, wouldn't it, Doktor?"
"Yes, sir." The small mole-like man signals to a guard to come over. The guard hands Schmidt the keys and Bucky stands up.
"Hey!" he shouts in not sure how to follow up. "If you're looking for a test subject, I'm right here!"
"Hmm," Schmidt turns to him with interest. The other prisoners look at him confused. "Standing up for an animal?"
Schmidt's English on only lightly accented-he's educated, Bucky guesses. Schmidt looks at him with cold, dead eyes expecting Bucky to back down, but he doesn't.
Steve wouldn't.
The other prisoners look away. Bucky can tell that Dugan and Jones are the only ones still looking at him, but he ignores that. He just wants Schmidt's eyes on him.
"I'm Sergeant James Barnes and if you're looking for a test subject, you're going to have to deal with me."
Memories are such odd things, aren't they?
Let it be known that James Buchanan Barnes is not particularly bright.
Bucky doesn't regret what he said. He doesn't regret it as Schmidt hauls his exhausted body up a stupid number of stairs. He doesn't regret it when the mole-man-Doctor Zola-pumps his body full of some gross looking blue stuff. He doesn't regret it even as the doctor hooks electrodes up to him and allows an increasing amount of electricity through his body.
If Bucky was a smarter man, he'd still be in a cell; not safe, but not being tortured either.
Steve really was the brains for the both of them.
He manages to make it through the torture and experiments without passing out by thinking of Steve. Memories become confusing, however, as he lies there strapped to the table. He can't tell which memories are real and which ones are imagined.
Did he tell Steve he loved him before he left?
Bucky Barnes was always meant for the army. Like Steve, his father had been in the army, but he hadn't died in the Great War like Steve's. His father's eventual death left him an orphan. He grew up on a military base, but he was close enough to Brooklyn to visit the city often. That's where he met Steve Rogers.
Bucky will take any excuse to get into a fight. Even after his father's death and the promise that he'd behave himself, Bucky fought constantly. Saving Steve had just been a coincidence. Bucky didn't care about bullies or what was right or wrong. Steve did and he was getting the shit kicked out of him by four older men. Bucky hadn't even seen him there when he passed the four men. Lanky, teenaged Bucky shouldn't have been able to stand up to four fully grown men, but he did.
"I had them on the ropes," he hears a small voice say. It comes from a very small person. So small a person, Bucky spends a good ten minutes just laughing at the guy.
"Sure you did," he says sarcastically. "Sure you did."
"You shouldn't butt into other people's business." The kid puts up an angry face, and Bucky tries to stop laughing. It takes a while but he manages.
"Believe it or not kid, I didn't even know you were there."
"I'm not a kid. I'm sixteen."
"Bullshit. There's no way you're almost four years older than me."
The kid keeps glaring at him, but eventually starts laughing.
"You really didn't see me? On the floor getting beaten up?"
"Nope."
"Aren't you going to ask why they were beating me up?"
"Why would I?"
"That's usually the first thing everyone else asks."
"Well, I'm not everyone else."
The kid-he's still a kid in Bucky's eyes-dusts off his pants and hold out a bony hand. "Steve Rogers."
"James Buchanan Barnes. You can call me Bucky."
The announcement that Captain America was coming didn't arrive until after their mission started. None of the prisoners had ever heard of Captain America before Steve Rogers snuck into the Hydra facility with nothing but tights and a shield prop.
Between Bucky's extra missions and getting captured, he hadn't had a lot of time to read any of his mail. So he hadn't noticed when Steve dropped off the map. He didn't know about the performances to sell bonds nor about the serum. Though Steve did try to write to him about it-albeit censored.
Steve as the tall, strong man he was meant to be seemed like a hallucination at the time. Throughout the entire escape, Bucky remained convinced that he was dreaming, even as he balanced along a beam over an exploding factory. It wasn't until after he had collapsed from exhaustion and woke up hours later cradled in the arms of Captain America did he realize that he was not dreaming.
Steve Rogers had had quite a growth spurt while he was gone.
Bucky Barnes hates his job.
Let it be known that when you get picked for special training by the US Army, not even being held prisoner will get you out of your special duties.
Colonel Phillips had protested almost as much as Bucky would have, had he been conscious enough to have known what Generals Rickshaw and Earl Spitz were saying.
In their defense, he was trained for the job.
"Don't let Captain America find out what you're doing," Colonel Phillips spat at the Generals. "That man there is his best friend. Captain America will not let you take him if he finds out."
Supposedly, Bucky is in medical. Having undergone whatever strange torture or experiments Zola came up with, it's a reasonable excuse for his absence. It even explains why no one's allowed to see him. So Steve Rogers waits outside the medical tent with Dugan and Jones. They tell him stories of Bucky-leaving out how he was bullied-and he tells them what he's allowed to about the Super Soldier Serum.
Bucky groans in back of a jet headed for Munich. He's supposed to take a two day train from Munich into Berlin as a German and kill a Nazi communications officer. He's expected to be gone for five days, a week at the most. He'll meet up with a spy who will get him from Berlin to London.
He's dressed in a low ranking Nazi uniform and he's never felt more disgusted. He hides his disgust by flirting with sweet, pretty German women. He speaks with an educated German that they find sophisticated and he finds one who takes him to lunch. His tiny hint of Bavarian impresses her enough and she takes him back to her apartment.
It's the only relief he's had in days.
Fraulein Schuttmann smiles sweetly at him when he waits at the Berlin library. He's speaking with a Berlin accent and easily convinces the fraulein, a born and bred Berliner, that he was raised here. He talks about Berlin streets that have been bombed and Berlin schools that have disappeared. She keeps smiling even when she says she hasn't seen Herr Friedrich this morning.
He curses, apologizes and explains that he has something to give Herr Friedrich, but he's not sure where he's supposed to find him. She smiles at him sympathetically and agrees that he keeps a strange schedule.
He leaves the library and wonders where he'll go next. He immediately goes into the capitol with no thoughts to his own safety. All he thinks is that the sooner he finishes this, the sooner he can get back to Steve. He sees a sign to Friedrich's office and smiles.
"Did you hear about Schmidt?" He hears two German dressed in high ranking uniforms.
"He's betraying Hitler and his country," the other replies. "What a lunatic."
"Apparently something went wrong in Azzano a couple of days ago. Hitler's furious. It's not a problem if Schmidt's a lunatic as long as he doesn't get in the way of the Reich."
"If he really plans to attack Berlin, Hitler's going to have to dispose of him."
"Don't you think that's what he's already doing. Breger's already been sent to deal with him."
"Breger? Klaus Breger? Is he even part of the Party?"
"Not really, but he's not exactly against it either. He was one of those fighters in Lithuanian. He fought along side our German allies against the Russians."
"Good to know that he's still a German at heart. Are the rumors about him true?"
"I don't know. Hey!" the German ranking officers calls out. Bucky immediately stands to attention-just the way the Germans do. "What are you doing here?"
"Sorry, sir," Bucky replies in formal, Berlin-accented German. "I was picking something up for Herr Friedrich."
"Name?"
"Unterfeldwebel Hans Achterberg. Um, I'm very sorry for intruding, but did I hear you talking about Herr Schmidt?"
"Yes, that nut-job's lost one of his 'special' weapons factories in Azzano."
"Isn't he in charge of Hydra?"
The man scoffs. "Hitler himself put Schmidt in charge of Hydra. Then he went and stole it."
"Stole it?"
"He broke Hydra off of the Nazi Party and created his own army. He plans to attack Berlin and rule the world. What a fucking idiot, right?"
"Yes, sir. Well, I better go collect Herr Friedrich's things."
He gives the proper goodbye and flees.
He later completes the mission he was given and shoots Herr Friedrich.
Technically, he shouldn't have to do this. Sure he's trained for the job, but the US already has a plethora of others who are also trained and didn't just come from a Hydra prison. Bucky suspects that he was sent in to test that what ever Hydra had done to him, it wasn't going to hinder his work.
Well, it didn't and it won't, so he hopes they're happy.
The SSR has successfully worn him out just by asking questions.
Let it be known that Sergeant Barnes still does not remember what happened in the Hydra facility. (He does.)
While Bucky was in Berlin, Steve Rogers busied himself by meeting the other former-prisoners and putting together a list of people he wants on his team. Between that and worrying about Bucky, he's been pretty busy. It's not until they get to London when he starts asking people on his list to join him. They all say yes. He sees Bucky at the bar for the first time since the left the prison four days ago. He resists the urge to hold him tight and to ask questions. Knowing Bucky, he'll probably hit him if he asks "Are you okay?" Steve Rogers has a million and one questions for Bucky. Not all of them are about the prison, but most are.
Instead, he asks if Bucky will join the fight against Hydra. He's more than delighted when Bucky says that he's following Steve and not Captain America.
All Bucky thinks, is that Steve must really like Agent Carter if she distracts him enough to not notice how bad Bucky's suddenly become at flirting. German girls from Munich were falling for his signature one-liners. And that was right after torture, a thirty mile walk, and a two hour jet ride. He hasn't lost his game. Agent Carter and Steve are just too far gone for each other to notice what bad shape Bucky's in.
It makes him a little jealous, but he knows that Steve deserves to be happy. Agent Carter seems like a good woman, and it's good for him if Steve isn't constantly worrying. When he tells Steve what a nice dame Agent Carter is, Steve chuckles.
"She was nice to me before the serum," he says leaning against the bar. "First time a gal's done that."
"Smart, too. She's perfect for you."
"Bucky," Steve's momentary lightheartedness from before is gone. "What happened?"
"Told the docs the same thing I'm telling you now: I don't remember."
"Why were you in medical for so long? I know you were in bad shape, but you had made it the entire walk."
"You know me, I held it all in and just collapsed. I was out cold for days. Doctors didn't want anyone pressuring me to wake up earlier than I wanted to, I guess." He's reciting the lines the Generals gave him for when he returned. It's a lame excuse, but believable. "Just ask anyone, I do have a tendency to collapse from exhaustion."
"Morita says you understand German. When did that happen?"
"I don't know German. Come on, you know I'm terrible with languages."
"He said you understood what Schmidt and Zola were saying to each other."
"Jones's the one who knows German, not me. Morita must be confused."
"Bucky, you know you can trust me, right? You can tell me anything."
"I know, buddy. I know." He downs a glass of whiskey and sighs and the warmer feeling in his throat. "I need to go. I have to write to Becca. I haven't done that yet. She's probably crying herself silly with worry."
Paper apparently only exists in SSR headquarters. And it's still hard to find among all the other junk.
Let it be known that Bucky absolutely hates Howard Stark.
"What the hell are you doing here?" a voice calls from behind him and Bucky swears he jumped ten feet into the air.
"Whoa, what the fuck! Don't sneak up on a guy like that."
Howard watches from the doorway as Bucky searches for blank paper.
"You don't have to watch me, I'm just looking for some paper to write my sister. She needs to know that I'm still okay."
"Are you still okay?"
"As I've told the doctors: I'm fine. Just needed some rest."
"I heard you were in Berlin."
Bucky spun around. "Where'd you hear that from?"
"Please, Sergeant. I'm the US's top weapons manufacturer. There are no such things as military secrets to me. I'm just wondering why Captain Rogers doesn't know about your little adventure."
"Who else knows about this? Does Agent Carter?"
"No, I can't say that she does. Just Colonel Phillips, the two Generals who left yesterday, and moi. That's right, you speak French now don't you?"
"What do you want, Stark?"
"I'm offended that you think I'd want anything from you."
"Then why bother bringing this up?"
"Just wanted to know why Captain America doesn't know his best buddy was in Berlin literally only hours after getting out of a Hydra prison."
"He doesn't need to know. And neither do you. Why the hell do you know about that?"
"I was just as worried and everyone else when you went into that medical tent and didn't come out. As I have more authority than most people, I ignored the rules and entered the tent. You weren't there and I started asking questions. I didn't tell Rogers, I promise. The Generals would have me hanged if I had."
"And that's the same reason why I haven't told Steve. This is my job."
"Keeping secrets from your friend?"
"Going to Berlin."
They glare at each other for a while and the air tenses considerably.
"You should be nice to me, Sergeant. I'm designing your friend's armor for the next fight."
"How can I be 'nice' if I don't even know what you want from me?"
"I just want to know that you'll be able to keep Steve safe. We've bonded quite a bit while you were being…you know…tortured."
"I've been keeping Steve safe a lot longer than you have."
"Then you should know that it's hard work. It would be a harder job to do if you were always out on other missions. What if they send you out to Africa? Asia? How are you going to protect Steve if you're too busy running errands for the Army?"
"I'll make it work!" Bucky snapped. "If you're so goddamn important and think I need to be hovering around Steve all the fucking time, then tell those Generals not to send me on the those missions. Until then, I'll do my job, like you should do yours.
"I found some paper," Bucky grumbled snatching a pile of unused paper from a pile and shoving past Howard.
"I heard you were arguing with Howard," Steve called entering the room. It was only the two of them, yet it seemed too crowded for Bucky. He didn't even both panicking about whether Steve knew about Berlin.
"Fuck," he flopped back on his bunk. "I swear gossip travels faster here than it did in our shitty apartment."
"No one knows what you were talking about. I was hoping you'd tell me."
"Just talking shit. You know, guy stuff."
"Bucky."
"Seriously. He was just bugging me for more answers about the Hydra prison. He just couldn't accept that I didn't know anything."
The 'special' missions don't stop, but he still manages to make it on every Hydra raid. He's goes from Krakow to Paris to shoot more Nazi officers and still manages to shoot Hydra soldiers in Greece. He learns to sleep on the plane rides and figures out how to keep his vision steady when he's tired and seeing double through his scope. Howard keeps giving him a hard look, but nothing stops the extra work.
Shit goes downhill when he is spotted in Brno after shooting a very high ranking Nazi. Oberführer Armin Breuer was born and raised in Saxony. He has also been highly trained in military strategy. To the Germans, Oberführer Breuer is the way the Nazis will win Eastern Europe. From his station in Brno, Oberführer Breuer is commanding four squads stationed as far as Lithuania and the Ukraine. It's the Oberführer who utilizes the oppressed people of these nations against the Soviets.
Bucky sits at top of a building in Brno. Armed with his rifle Becca, he takes aim and shoots.
As usual, his aim is true and Oberführer Breuer slumps forward in his seat. Two officers who Bucky could not see from his angle rush to him immediately. Quickly identifying their commanding officer as dead, they look straight at Bucky's direction. They shout orders and scramble around the room.
The thing Bucky learns about 1942 Brno is that the entire city is under occupation by the Germans. This is a fact that he overlooked due to his ease of fitting in. The building is surrounded by the time he reaches the ground floor.
The headquarters of the Gestapo is centered in Brno, a fact that Bucky was not told before arriving there.
Let it be known that James Barnes is very good at getting caught.
Interrogation at the hands of Nazi's is no better, nor worse, than at the hands of Hydra. All of his identifying information was confiscated by the US Generals. As Captain America's sidekick, he could not be found assassinating Nazis. It's a condition the Generals given him if he wants to work with Steve. This means that if he dies on a mission that's not with the Howling Commandos, he will die anonymously. He didn't even think about it when he agreed. Now he is, but he still doesn't regret it.
The Generals did not give him instructions on what to do if he got caught. He can't just repeat his name, rank, and serial number, so he babbles in German and French. He hides his English so they don't identify him as American. In French he talks about his favorite food-some French dish he overheard Dernier talking about-and in German he talks about cars he's seen in Berlin.
Knowing they won't get anything out of him, the Germans chuck him into their makeshift prison.
"Where'd ya come from?" a thick Texan accent whispers in his ear jerking him awake.
"Huh?" He asks, still groggy from interrogation.
"Where'd ya come from?" the accent repeats.
"Illinois," Bucky answers. It's not a complete lie as he was born there, but he's not allowed to let anyone know who he is.
"I'm from Dallas. I'm Sergeant Austin Meyer, US Army. It's nice to meet you."
"Private Steve Buchanan." He shouldn't feel bad that he's using Steve's name, right? "US Army."
In the dim light, Bucky can see that Sergeant Meyer is a few years younger than him with a shaggy mop of light brown hair covering a dirty face. His eyes seem to glow in the faint light and it almost looks like one eye is dark brown while the other is pale green, but Bucky's sure he's hallucinating.
"This used to be a university dormitory," Austin says. "One of them Czechs told me. He said he had gone to school here."
Bucky nods and looks around. The people look tired and hopeless and they seldom speak. It's worse here than it was at Azzano.
"Most people in this wing are American or British POWs." Austin continues quietly. Bucky lets the sound of the Texan's voice drown out the pain in his entire body. "Some of the folks are Czechs who were just living in the city. The Gestapo fellers come in and drag a handful in here."
"How long have you been here?"
"This is my third week. I think. Time moves differently down here, 'specially if you get pulled out at night."
"Pulled out?"
"Uh huh, it's some sort of surprise interrogation. Sometimes them Germans will snatch you up when you're sleeping and drag you down to the cellars. It gets pretty nasty."
"You ever been 'pulled out'?"
"Yup, a couple of times. I speak better German than most of the folks 'round here, so they come to me often. I don't say nutin' a course, but they still ask."
"You speak German?"
"My dad's German, born in Switzerland. I understand mostly Standard German, but I can only speak Swiss."
A guard comes by and tells them to shut up. Then he drags Austin by the ear downstairs.
It takes six days from Bucky to come up with an escape plan. He doesn't tell anyone, not even Austin-he doesn't know whom he can trust yet. Six days he spends watching the guards' schedule and listening to people being dragged away, some never come back.
Austin keeps good company. He's friendly and manages to be cheerful even in this horrible place. They share stories from home-Bucky's are mostly made up or rewritten versions of true stories. Austin was born in Switzerland and raised there as Henrik Meyer. His family moved to the states when he was a teenager and he changed his name. They were very poor and, during the beginning of the war, they were hated by their Texan community because Austin's father's German accent never went away like Austin's did. His father died before the US entered the war and he enlisted as soon as he turned eighteen-which was just over a year ago. His German skills made him an asset in the European theater and he was sent to France. His troop slipped into German held territory and made it all the way to Poland before being caught.
The night of Bucky's escape plan, he is dragged to the cellar. It's good because it lets Bucky scope the dormitory, but the torture that follows is unpleasant. After whatever Zola did to him, Bucky was sure that he'd never feel pain like that again. Unfortunately he was wrong.
He gets back thinking that maybe he should put off his escape another night, but Steve drifts back into his head and he remembers that he really needs to get back.
The last time Austin was taken, Bucky slipped some fabric from his jacket into the lock. The door opens easily, but it squeaks at a guard runs over. Bucky knocks him out quickly and quietly, just like how he was trained. He grabs the keys from the guard, just like he imagined Steve had done, and wakes Austin up.
"Let's go."
Bucky is not a Super Soldier, so he succumbs to his exhaustion in the form of mistakes. Of the thousands of prisoners, he only has time for the people of his floor. Of those two hundred or so people, ten are shot before they reach the stairs, fifteen die going down the seven flights of stairs, and twenty die scrambling out of the building. They do not have the luxury of swiping magic guns from the prison guards and remain unarmed. Twenty men die outside the prison.
Bucky hears a familiar scream. He turns and finds Austin on the ground bleeding from a wound to the back of his knee.
"Fuck," Austin curses gripping his wound. "Fuck, get out of here!"
He swats at Bucky who has run back to help him.
"Not without you."
"Listen you dumbfuck, I don't know who you really are, but I know that someone's waiting for you. Or you're waiting for someone. I'm not sure, but I know you've got somewhere else to be."
"I'm not leaving you."
"I'm telling you that you have to. Someone's counting on you to return. I can tell that much."
Bucky doesn't know what to say, so he just reaches to help Austin up, but he is swatted at again.
"Get the fuck out of here."
Bucky relaxes his grip. The Germans are approaching fast.
"Sergeant James Barnes."
"Who's that?"
"I'm Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes and I'm with the 107th. I'm from Brooklyn, New York. My friends call me Bucky."
"Well, it's nice to meet you, Sergeant."
"Call me Bucky."
They shake hands. In the dull moon light, Bucky can confirm that Austin does, in fact, have one brown eye and one green. With tears threatening to fall, Bucky turns away. He closes his eyes as he ducks into an alleyway and pretends he doesn't hear the gunshot that ended Sergeant Austin Meyer's life.
The Generals are furious with him and the Colonel is worried that Bucky's cover is blown. Captain Rogers had spent the last couple of days panicking, unable to think.
Bucky holds his tongue when the Generals yell at him, and he remains quiet for the Colonel's lecture about what would happen if Captain Rogers found out. He's lucked out that he managed to get back when he did, because a train with Zola is about to be intercepted. Colonel Phillips says that they had no luck trying to convince Steve to go on the mission without Bucky. Steve had fought the decision.
"I hope you're ready for this," the Colonel says. "You've been very busy and haven't had much rest."
"I know, sir."
"Some of your injuries seem severe. Under normal circumstances you would not be allowed on this mission, but to maintain your cover amongst the Howling Commandos, you have to go."
"Yes, sir."
"You'll have to come up with your own excuse for this one."
"Of course, sir."
"If this happens again. I will remove you from Rogers' team. Do you understand?"
"I understand, sir."
"Good. You're dismissed."
Bucky avoids Steve as much as he can when he returns, but, when determined, Steve can do anything. It's not new.
Steve jerks Bucky awake from a coma-like sleep when he bursts through the tent flaps.
"Where the hell have you been?"
"I went to take a piss and I got lost."
"Liar."
Bucky's mouth clamps shut. He sits on his cot and just thinks about how close he was to death. Not all of the people dragged to the cellar made it back. He thinks of Austin and how young he was to die in such a horrible place. He opens his mouth, not to spout excuses, but to tell Steve the one thing he's always wanted to.
I love you.
He may not get another chance.
"Becca got sick." He lies instead. "She got pneumonia and I flew back to see her. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you worrying about her. That's my job. She's the only family I got, so Colonel Philips okayed it."
"Okay," Steve's face falls as if it should've been obvious to him what Bucky was going through. It should worry Bucky more that he's getting so good at lying to Steve when he had been so bad at it before. It's taking advantage of Steve's trust in him. "Is she all right now?"
"Yeah. Good as new. Now, we have a train to catch."
As Bucky falls, he thinks of Steve.
Let it be known that James Buchanan Barnes has only one regret.
Vasily Karpov knows that he is lucky when his team finds a young man at the bottom of a Swiss ravine. They aren't supposed to be there anymore than this young soldier is, so they take him back. Vasily Karpov does not know who James Buchanan Barnes is. He does not know that in his train lies the body of Captain America's best friend.
This is what he does know: The man is highly trained. When he awakens in a Soviet lab 350 kilometers east of the Ural Mountains, he fights. He manages to fight of most of Karpov's guards. Eventually their numbers overwhelm him.
Karpov also knows that, for some unknown reason, this man speaks fluent Russian, with a strange mix of accents (if Karpov had ever been to America, he'd associate it with the Russian spoken by the people of Brighton Beach, New York).
The most important thing that Vasily Karpov knows is that this man has absolutely no idea who he is. He speaks English, French, German, and Russian fluently. At first, since his accents are so perfect, it's impossible to identify his nationality. They find he talks in English the most-his accent is American, so they identify him as such. For the first couple of years, they refer to him as "The American".
It is January 1946 when the Winter Soldier is created almost immediately after engineers and scientists start talking about how, as a blank slate, "The American" can be turned into a weapon.
Training is easy for the Winter Soldier; he fights as though he's been fighting his whole life.
Let it be known that the Winter Soldier has never flinched when killing someone.
His first mission is so simple, he knows it's a test. The Red Room is not new to the Soviet Union, but the Winter Soldier project is like nothing the Russians have ever done before. The knowledge that he was American in his previous life appears to be an issue. It's an issue the Winter Soldier wishes to put to rest.
Michael Norbert is a sixty-three year old man known for assisting defectors from the Soviet Union. The Russians are not a fan of his. He is waiting in London for his wife and daughter to arrive. The fact that the Winter Soldier's first target is American is not a coincidence. The Winter Soldier knows that this more than just a test if his abilities; the Red Room's testing his loyalties. They may say that he's American, but he doesn't remember being anything but Russian. He has no loyalties to anyone but the Red Room.
It's not usual protocol, but the Red Room has people watching his every move for this first mission. They suspect that he may hesitate to shoot Norbert. Though he was likely a soldier in his past life, they have seen soldiers who hesitate to kill other soldiers in the midst of war. They know that killing a civilian is very different than killing another soldier. The Red Room needs to know that the Winter Soldier can kill on command.
He can. With one bullet he proves his loyalties and his ability to follow orders.
The missions become more frequent very quickly. Defectors, ambassadors, journalists, no one is safe from the barrels of the Winter Soldier's rifle.
Mikhail Levin was picked up hanging around the Kremlin. His real name is Brian Kurt and he works for the US government. It is 1954 and he is the third US spy caught by the Red Room.
Kurt is taller and older than the Winter Soldier. He's a veteran from the war and has been in the Soviet Union for five years. He was deployed after news had spread that the Soviet Union had successfully tested a nuclear bomb. In the Soviet Union, Kurt had worked at a kiosk selling vodka to drunks. Some of the Winter Soldier's 'children' had bought vodka from him between missions.
When the Winter Soldier had first seen Brian Kurt, he had been a tall, muscular blond man. His Russian was slurred as if he was a drunk. Now, in a Red Room interrogation room, he looks small and shrunken. His cheeks are hollow and his eyes are lifeless.
When the Winter Soldier enters the room, alone, Kurt sits up straighter.
"Where are you from?" the Winter Soldier asks in English. For all that he is scary, he has a tendency to play the 'good cop'.
"Я не говору по-английский."
"I know you're American. I just asked where you are from."
"Fuck you."
"I've never been there. Which state is 'Fuck-you' in?"
"I'm not answering your goddamn questions."
The Winter Soldier takes no joy in torturing people. He does it because he is told to, but he does not like it. Nor does he like how familiar it is to hear the screams of his victim. He doesn't like how he can see flashes of familiar wounds made by the same techniques he uses. He doesn't like torture because it's familiar.
Natasha is not the first. She's just the most frequent.
Let it be known that brainwashing does not prevent the Winter Soldier from getting laid.
The first is Tatyana Ordzhonikidzevshaya. She's the lead engineer for his bionic arm. He thinks she's the most brilliant woman in the world. She thinks he's the sweet assassin she's ever met (which is actually saying a lot as she's met dozens of killers before).
The Winter Soldier is supposed to be a professional, so he's not supposed to be having sex with the woman who invented his arm. But the Red Room officials are willing to look away on the matter as long as he conducts himself professionally on missions, which he does. He's still a man, they think.
Tatyana, like someone from his memories, has blond hair, isn't particularly attractive, and refuses to take 'no' for an answer. The government of the Soviet Union may encourage women to take on jobs, but that doesn't mean the men of the Soviet Union want women taking their jobs. Tatyana doesn't give two shits about what the men of the anywhere think. She works twice as hard to just to the same place as any man. The Red Room is known for its powerful women, but they're mostly used as spies. Tatyana is the exception.
Her stubbornness to give up to the more powerful men is what attracts the Winter Soldier to her. He likes the kind of familiarity she provides for him, even if he doesn't know where it comes from.
She doesn't even mind when she stops being the only one he sleeps with. Almost as soon as he starts training Natasha, they also start fucking. Soon his other disciples: Arkady, Dmitri, and Leonid find themselves in the Winter Soldier's bed.
Blond hair and blue eyes are the Winter Soldier's favorites. When his marks have blond hair and blue eyes, he doesn't kill them right away. He follows them for days, longer than he needs to. He watches them closely before dispatching them, then he finds that he can't look at their bodies when they're dead.
In the end, it's mismatched eyes that bring the memories back for the Winter Soldier. Quinn Schreiber works for the BBC. He was doing a story on the home conditions in Eastern Europe. It's 1958 and Schreiber sneaks into East Berlin. There is no wall preventing him from doing so. Though, as East Berlin is a part of a new country, it should not have been easy for him to sneak across. He also has one brown eye and one green eye.
Schreiber is in his car driving home with his passport in hand when his car is unexpectedly stopped. The Winter Soldier hears gunshots and screams and an American voice-Southern, not the same accent as his own-when he looks at Quinn Schreiber. He stares at the man for a long time while the noises in the back of his head fade. When they do, he pulls a Tokarev from his jacket and fires twice into the man's head.
His return to the Red Room is filled with memories from a war he's only read about. He sees faces he can't name and one that never goes away.
Turns out, the Winter Soldier has always liked blonds with blue eyes.
When the memories start to come back, no one is invited to the Winter Soldier's bed. It's not immediately obvious that his memories are coming in, but after his disappearance in New York (and confirmation that he's American), the Winter Soldier starts closing the doors to his bedmates.
Tatyana notices first, but she doesn't say anything, so Natasha ends up with the credit for noticing that the Winter Soldier was getting his memories back. She instantly regrets saying anything.
The Winter Soldier is not like Natasha, nor is he like Yelena, Leonid, Arkady, Dmitri, nor even Aleksandr. The Winter Soldier had a life before the Red Room, a happy life-or so they assume. There is more to him than just what he is now. So they put him under. They only awaken him if they need him.
The Winter Soldier has no memories, but he does know that if he had them, he wouldn't want them.
Let it be known that the Winter Soldier has only one regret.
Steve doesn't really want to know what had happened, but he has to ask.
"I found out why you were really gone for those eight days before the train…thing."
"I think this is the first time you've talked about the train," Bucky replies looking up from a book-it's Harry Potter and he's still on the first one.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You didn't have clearance."
"I was Captain America."
"Aside from Stark Sr., the only one who knew about the Nazi shooting was Colonel Phillips. General Rickshaw was in charge of everything, Phillips just made sure I didn't go blabbing."
"Howard knew? Why didn't he tell me?"
"Cause the Generals' would've strung him up by the balls. My work was top secret."
"If you were doing that, why'd you agree to be in the Howling Commandos?"
"I couldn't say 'no' to you."
"So you just worked two jobs?"
"It's what I was trained for."
"What happened? Most information about your 'other' job is still classified or had been burned after the war."
"Do you really want to know?"
"I know all about what the Red Room made you do. I can handle knowing what the US Army made you do."
"I was in Brno."
"Shooting Nazis?"
"Shooting a Nazi."
"And that took eight days?"
"I got caught."
"What?!"
"I was in a prison for six days."
"Again? Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"No one knew. The Generals probably thought I was dead and I'd left my dog tags back at camp. As far as anyone knew, I was still there."
"How'd you get out?"
"Six days of watching guards. The prison was a former university dormitory, so it wasn't heavily fortified."
"And you went on a mission with us the next day? Bucky, you should've stayed back. We had more than enough people to have gone it without you."
"No one was supposed to know about the extra work. If I took a random leave, it would've looked suspicious."
"Bucky…" Steve doesn't say what he's thinking, but it's written on his face.
"Had I not gone, I would've died some other time during the war, or at least before you were unfrozen-not that I would've let you freeze yourself to begin with-so isn't this a good thing?"
"Bucky, there's nothing good about what you had to go through."
Bucky sighs. He really does believe that their being together makes everything worth it, but Steve's not ready to believe that.
"Men can get married now," Bucky blurts out in a desperate attempt to change the subject. "Stark told me all about it. He figured between the whole growing up in the 30s and living with the Russians, that fact would appall me."
"Is this your way of proposing to me? 'Cause I'm pretty sure you have date first."
"Is this your way of asking me on a date? 'Cause I was just sharing an interesting fact."
They've gotten stuck in another awkward silence. Bucky desperately needs to change the subject again. He finds a topic, but before he has a chance to say anything, Steve says, "Would you be interested in a date? With me?"
"Let it be known that Steve Rogers is a braver man than I'll ever be."
"What?"
"Internal monologue. I'd love to go on a date with you."