He stood there, hands in his pockets, staring up the enormous black-and-white photo of James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. All around him crowds milled and jostled but he didn't pay any attention to them. They could have been ants for all he noticed; he was lost in his own world, staring up at the photo. He was wearing a lumpy green jacket he'd found in a dumpster and he'd tied his hair back and put on a navy blue baseball cap he'd stolen off a sleeping man's head from the park. His face was unshaven and he was sweaty and dirty, not having had the chance to wash himself for the past few days as he wandered through the wilds of the forest outside of D.C. He'd finally ventured back because it had been killing him inside, what the blond man on the bridge—Steve Rogers, a.k.a Captain America—had said.

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes!"

"You're my friend. I won't fight you."

"I'm with you till the end of the line."

The thought had been burning him up inside: Did he truly know this man? Was there any reality to his words? He desperately wanted to say no, wanted to return the safe mindlessness of being HYDRA's weapon…but HYDRA was gone and he couldn't go back now, physically or mentally. So he had ventured back into the city and had seen signs for a Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian and had headed there immediately after disguising himself.

And here he stood, staring at the face of a man who looked exactly like him, only cleaner, happier, and more honorable. His hands were in his pockets so no one would see his cybernetic hand and he felt hot, sweaty, and uncomfortable. Dirty. Tainted. He looked around slightly and could only see families, children, young boys and girls excitedly looking at photos of Captain America, Bucky Barnes, Agent Peggy Carter, and the rest of the Howling Commandos. These were all such innocent people…they'd never killed anyone, never hurt anyone…

He stared at the photo of Bucky Barnes, unable to comprehend what was going on. Steve Rogers had been telling the truth—here was proof of it. This was his face staring down at him. He didn't have a twin—he didn't have any family—so this could only be him. But how could this be? He couldn't remember anything about a life before HYDRA… He didn't remember Bucky Barnes. He didn't know anything about him. Bucky Barnes had lived so long ago and had died in action, according to the signs on the wall. How had Bucky Barnes gone from dying an honorable death decades ago…to becoming a mindless, emotionless assassin for an agency that lived to start—and control—chaos? How could this have possibly happened?

His name was Bucky Barnes. He swallowed and licked his dry lips, trying to get a bearing on the feeling. He had a name now. He wasn't just "the Winter Soldier" or "Soldier." He was…James Buchanan Barnes. He had a name. A history. And, apparently, a friend who was still living to this day. He studied the names and faces of the Howling Commandos, trying to make them ring a bell—but nothing came. Only a faint…flicker…no, a shadow of a flicker…of a blurred memory, something about walking through the woods with others, feeling relief… And then a dizzying image of someone with blond hair, a feeling of pride and bitterness rushing through his chest, the person smiling… Steve. Steve. His name was Steve and he knew him. Did he? Didn't he?

Friend or foe?

And then it was gone. But whatever it was, it was enough to prove to him that there was something buried in his memories. He just didn't know what to do about it now. A few days ago he hadn't even realized he was fully human. He'd never felt like one and he'd never given much thought to being one. He had moved on autopilot, never questioning, never thinking, never feeling. And now he was confused. He was angry and frightened but most of all, yes, he was confused. Confused over what all these bewildering emotions meant, confused over who he was, confused over what HYDRA had done to him, confused over what had happened to Bucky Barnes, confused over who the hell Bucky Barnes even was, confused over what Steve Rogers meant to him…

Friend or foe?

What did he do now? Where could he go now, where could he possibly run to to hide himself, to make all of this go away, to erase all of this? Or…did he want to find himself? And if so…where did he go for that? Where did he start? His mind was swimming, his head was hurting, and he felt frozen to the spot. He was unable to look away from his own picture, fixated on it. His reality had been broken, the truths of his "life" exposed as lies. Nothing had been real. It had all always been fictional and he had been a character, a pawn in a game of lies and deceit and murder.

"Wow," came a voice from right next to him, startling him. "You look just like him!"

He turned in shock—no human had ever spoken to him normally before without barking orders at him—to see a young woman with short, messy blonde hair that hung to her shoulders and peacock feather earrings. He couldn't even speak, that's how alarmed he was.

"Sorry," she said apologetically, taking a step back. "That was forward of me. But seriously, you look just like him." She gestured to the photo of Bucky Barnes, and he felt the crowd—the shouts of children—the sound of the narrator overhead—her voice—pressing in on him like he was trapped on an elevator with no room to breathe and the bodies kept piling in on every floor without letting him out. "Are you related to him?"

His throat felt glued shut and he backed away from her, slowly at first and then quickly, turning and hurrying away so he could breathe again without panicking. He didn't know how to do this. He didn't know how to be human. He didn't know how to talk to people. He was a freak, an anomaly, and he was like stumbling child that had just learned to walk. He kept feeling like his mind was tripping over random objects and he was free-falling but nothing—no safety net, no familiar HYDRA walls and cuffs and injections—were there to catch him and tell him exactly how to act, how to think, how to speak, how to be.

He stumbled down the white steps of the museum and looked around, the whole wide world spinning around him. The possibilities were endless and dizzying in their enormity. So many people around him, free to choose to their own fates and paths. So many places around the world he could escape to. So much silence he could sink into with having to answer questions and reports on a scale from zero to ten and "target acquired" and "target terminated" and "hold position" and "fire." The idea choked him inside, made him feel like he was drowning, but it also felt he was on some sort of high. The ideas that were swirling up inside him made him feel light-headed, dizzy, like he could collapse right now.

His reality had been broken, his truths exposed as lies, his nonfiction exposed as fiction. He stared at the huge blue sky and tripped over his feet as he hurried down the road, feeling terrified and lost and bewildered and stunned all at once, feeling like…perhaps, just perhaps…it was time to find some new truths. Time to write a new story. Time to create a new reality.

Friend.