Sciamachy (n): an act or instance of fighting a shadow or imaginary enemy
You're holding a man's head between your palms, and some part of you whispers that this is wrongwrongwrong. The man gasps weakly. You look to your right for guidance.
Steve, all frail bones and big eyes, smiles up at you reassuringly. "It's okay, Buck. You're shaping the century, you know. Sometimes you gotta make sacrifices."
You nod in understanding and snap the man's neck.
Steve smiles at you adoringly, and you grin back, blood that is yours shining through your teeth and blood that isn't yours dripping from your hands.
Steve is good. He is the moral compass you didn't realize you needed until you tried to go without it.
You would follow Steve anywhere. You would do anything he told you to. It helps that he's so good, but you know you'd do it anyway.
If Steve tells you to do something, kill someone, you know it's right.
You pull the trigger and Steve grins at you proudly.
"You're gonna do great things, Bucky. You're gonna change the world."
The name sounds strange, like something you think you should remember, but Steve is smiling at you from across the pile of cooling corpses, and you don't want to focus on anything that isn't him.
If Steve's ever not there, you don't remember long enough to figure it out.
It's better that way.
"Just like old times, right, Soldier?" Steve asks as you race through the trees, deftly avoiding the bullets whizzing past. Steve, broad muscles and snarky grin, keeps up with you easily.
You're not sure what he's talking about, but you nod. Of course he's right. He's always right. You toss a grenade over your shoulder and can't help but join in when Steve laughs giddily.
"Hail Hydra," he says, blue eyes sparkling under blonde hair.
"Hail Hydra," you parrot.
He smiles and your heart hums.
"Well done, Soldier. You're changing the world, just wait and see," he whispers softly, intimately into your ear.
You watch the smoldering wreckage of the car crash and wish you knew how to smile, because the ghost of his voice across your skin makes you want to.
He is small again. You don't understand how you know that there's another way he could be, but you do and he's not. You could break his thin wrists with a twitch of your fingers. You could crush his ribs with one kick.
But the thought makes you recoil in disgust, even as you shoot the target—seven years old, female, black hair and green eyes—cleanly above the ear without so much as a twinge of remorse.
Why would you feel remorse? He told you to, he told you it was right. And he's always right. You would follow him to the ends of the earth.
You could snap him in half without breaking a sweat, but one glance from him has you completely under his control.
Why wouldn't you be?
"Do you know who I am, Soldier?" he asks you. You're sitting in a strange chair and people are milling about. Your head hurts. Do you know who he is?
Important. Good. Mine. "No." He smiles.
"Do you know who you are?"
Yours. "No." The smile widens.
He watches you from a corner as you dig the tip of the knife further into the man's side. You have been on this mission for a week, and with every day, the sense of wrongwrongwrong returns to you.
Returns? Can it return if you don't know if you've felt it before?
He understands, though, because he always understands.
"Sacrifices, Soldier," he says in a voice you don't know how to identify as gentle. "Doing the right thing doesn't always feel like the right thing."
You dig the knife in deeper. The man screams in pain but doesn't answer your questions.
"You're doing the right thing," he assures you. "Your work is a gift."
It's two days later that the man finally answers your questions, but doesn't live to see a third day.
"You are a perfect weapon. This is what you were made to do."
You were made to follow him.
The target looks like him.
That should be important. You're not sure why.
"Concentrate, Soldier," he growls at you. He's angry. He's never been angry at you before.
"Bucky?" the target asks.
Do you know who you are?
"Who the hell is Bucky?"
He smiles. The target's face falls.
"The man on the bridge." You shouldn't ask. You shouldn't question. "Who was he?"
The answer is wrong. You don't know why. But it is.
He glares at you. "Do you want him instead of me?" You frown at him. "He's trying to take me from you."
That doesn't sound right.
"I knew him."
Do you know who I am?
"No, you don't," he snaps. It hurts worse than the slap.
They look the same, but they don't sound the same. You know, instinctually, that the target sounds right. That his voice is just a garbled, half-remembered parody of the target's voice.
"You know me."
Do you know who I am?
"No, I don't!"
"Bucky, you've known me your whole life," the target insists.
"He's lying," he tells you. "Your whole life, you've been this. Just this. With only me with you."
You lash out. You're not sure which one you're trying to hit.
"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes."
Do you know who you are?
"Eliminate the target, Soldier!"
"Shut up!" Your head hurts. You want it to end.
"I'm not gonna fight you. You're my friend." The target surrenders. Stupid, a part of you chastises. Wrongwrongwrong a part of you whispers.
"Finish the mission," he commands, looking at the target distastefully.
You lunge. The target is not him. He has been with you. He is good. He is always right.
"You're my mission." He smiles. You live for his smiles. But staring at the target's face, feeling the target's blood trickle down your hand, for the first time the smile feels hollow.
"Finish it," he whispers in your ear.
"Then finish it," the target echoes.
Your head hurts. You lift your fist.
"'Cause I'm with you 'til the end of the line."
You freeze. The words echo hollowly around your head, in a different voice, a different time.
Steve.
The target is Steve. He is not Steve.
The floor cracks. Falls away. The target falls with it. Steve falls.
He smiles at you again. "Good work, Soldier."
He is good. He is always right.
Wrongwrongwrong. For the first time, his smile doesn't quell the feeling.
"No," you growl.
Steve is good. Steve is always right. You would follow Steve to the ends of the earth.
He is not Steve.
You let go. You fall after Steve.
You don't look back.