A/N: I am so sorry that I haven't written anything in so long! I have been so busy with school and everything that I have only been able to write on paper when no one is paying attention. I PROMISE that TSA is getting attention, but in the meantime, I finally got to type this up which has been staring at me from my desk for a few months now. I hope you all enjoy!
The past came back to him in flashes. Normally, he would feel obliged to tell the "Care takers" about such vivid, if not realistic, dreams. He had in the past, but his tune changed, if only slightly, when they mentioned possibly having to "Scrap and start fresh" once again.
At one point, he had faced the 'Clean Sweep' protocol without fear, knowing it was what was needed to get the job done. Not only had the Hydra operatives in charge of the 'Red Room' made him into a lethal weapon as he lived and breathed, but had trained him to enjoy the process, if not the kill all the more so.
Before he had evaded extraction, before he finally himself that enough was simply too much, he hadn't quite felt the dull, throbbing, ache in his left shoulder under his prosthetic arm. He hadn't realized just how exhausted he was, when training through all hours of the night was not a forced thing.
But, even so, he couldn't sleep. When he finally began to doze, he would either have a nightmare, or he would see HIM.
"Oh, look, Barnes is back." A boy who leaned just at the opening of the doorframe spewed with obvious sarcastic excitement. The boy was tall, obviously a few years older than him by the way Barnes had to look upwards to meet the lad's eyes. Scrappy black hair fell affront his eyes, slightly, hiding the forehead above almost menacingly dark brown eyes, a pale hand reaching out to wave his two buddies over.
"Just picking up a few things on mom's grocery list, Tom." He grunted, looking to the floor as to not meet the elder boy's eyes, as a 10 year old would try to avoid in situations like these.
But, the 13 year old stepped to block his path. "Buck-Tooth, I told you not to show up here on Wednesdays." Tom replied, a foxlike grin playing across his lips.
Sometimes the dreams came as, just as they should have, a flash. A taste of the life he had once before, the life he hungered for. Other times they would play as one consecutive series, a movie stopped and started until completed, only to leave him on a cliffhanger, begging for a sequel, yet fearing the results.
It was HIS fault. The blonde man who called him by that childish, old fashioned nickname. He had jarred something in his mind, a connection that wasn't completely erased by the dreadful machine they stuck his head in every few "Revivals".
But, for some reason the soldier could not find himself a way to be angry with him... whoever he was. He lay down on the ratty bed of a motel somewhere in Brooklyn and shut his eyes, longing for another taste of the sweet aphrodisiac he supposed was the past they had stolen from him. One dream had put him in Brooklyn, he had confirmed that at the Smithsonian exhibit on Captain America, so venturing there seemed to be a course of action to drag the shadows into the spotlight.
"Don't call me that." He growled, a heat in his chest that had been so foreign to him at the time, finally wrenching his icy blue gaze from the pavement and into Tom's eyes, his two buddies standing behind him to block his escape. At his back left, a green eyed blonde, slightly smaller than Tom. Behind him to the right, a blue eyed ginger, who he had a sinking feeling was the Archie guy that "Collected" nickels by the water fountain at lunch. Tom took another step forwards and fisted the lapel of the jacket he wore, the only one he owned for school.
Trying to step back resulted in his back being pressed against a tall wall of flesh and cloth. "C'mon, guys, all I need is a few necessities and I'll be out of your way."
Archie chuffed out a laugh, only to be shut up by a sharp look from Tom, forcing him to steel up.
His eyes opened back up slowly, a snarl of delayed anger playing on his lips. Violence had been such a foreign concept to him at one point, his acceptance of it now was nearly terrifying. Had he been a coward? No, he knew that he had been chosen- saved- by the Red Room because of his record as a soldier even before the advanced Hydra training he was whipped though.
Or so they told him.
Sighing, the soldier sat up, flesh hand brushing the line were flesh met steel on his chest as he worked to relieve the shoulder , laying his arm on the floor next to the mattress. Sitting up, he scrubbed his face, dreading having to move on from the place that seemed to jar so many memories, that got him in touch with the life before his cryo-sleep-cycles began.
He scanned the room, a habit that he was new glad to have, it having saved his life so many times before. He couldn't risk being dragged back to the Red Room, having it all stolen away again. Leaning against the headboard, exhausted eyes fluttered shut once again.
"Little Buck-Tooth Barnes, don't you ever listen?" Tom growled, about to hoist him up.
In the moment, there were several different emotions swimming around in the younger child's chest, driven by adrenaline, fear, anger, and the will to finally have this all end. He had clenched his fist at his side as he tried to control himself, but his fist cocked back before he could pull a conscious thought.
The two boys caught his arm, forcing both arms behind his back as he shook himself, teeth bared, screaming. "Don't call me that." As the straw that broke the camel's back.
Tom merely smiled, his buddies dragging the ten year old boy into the alley behind Woolworth's store, pressing him against the cool brick wall of the stone back. "You know what, Barnes? I'm gonna teach you a lesson today." The elder boy growled, his grin possessed and full of sadistic glee.
He was helpless in the hold the other guys had on him, Archie even cutting off the circulation in his left arm.
The first punch came as a right cross, causing his jaw to make a cracking noise, not quite breaking yet, pain shooting in white tendrils up the nerves there.
"When I tell you to do something, you do it." The word 'do' was punctuated by a shot to his gut. "When Archie asks for your lunch money, you give it to him. Charlie over here asks you for your homework, same deal." The words 'give' and 'deal' left his right eye and kidneys battered.
"Never thought that this was how I would go." He thought, in more pain than he had ever been in during his short 10 years of life. "Being held helplessly to a brick wall as the kid from down the road beats me into oblivion."
He had zoned out Tom's lecture, but a new voice rang freely in his ears. "Hey!"
The assassin woke silently, though with a start. He could feel them coming and cursed the ground on which his extractor's feet fell.
His arm was less than a hassle to replace as he shoved his shirt onto his torso once again, having never taken off his darkish jeans.
Wearing civilian clothing was a foreign concept to him now, having barely changed into anything other than a uniform for a few decades now. P.T. uniform, combat uniform, stealth uniform, even a cryo-uniform for his nights collecting freezer burn when he wasn't needed for a decade or so.
Shoving on a black hoodie and throwing the hood up after tying his long brunette hair into a low ponytail he grabbed his duffel bag and disappeared into the night, leaving a few expensive bills for the owners to find as compensation.
He had no vehicle, no way to escape the men sent to take him back to headquarters other than on foot. But, though he was mostly known as a long range sniper, his strength was hand-to-hand combat.
No, matter what happens... I can't go back. I can't forget again.
It was nearly a full two weeks before he saw something else, this time as he reentered the D.C. area, sleeping in the back of a small truck he had stolen a few days prior.
The blonde was trying to find him, aided by the winged soldier, and caught on to his trail, but he was far enough ahead to rest.
Just outside the limits of the city, parked along a path with tree cover, he was sucked back into 1928.
The word echoes thought the alley as if it had the power to freeze the world, sound waves reverberating through the space. With the power in the voice, one might think that the wielder was more than he was.
"Look, Tom, its little Runt Rogers!" Charlie called as Tom stepped aside revealing a scrawny blonde that seemed to be about 4'11" and 70 pounds when soaked.
Bucky immediately recognized "Runt Rogers" as the kid that sat in the back of his grammar and art classes. It was common knowledge that the kid wasn't very healthy, his mother worried every winter about his health and he ended up missing more than a week of class around that time.
But, Bucky had never seen the kid radiating this amount of power... courage that could get him killed.
"Pick on somebody your own size, Williams, the kid's had enough." His high pitched voice called down the empty air to the upper-classmen.
With a wide gin, Thomas Williams nodded to his co-conspirators, and Bucky fell to the floor.
His eyes flew open as he shot up, the ending of a distant roll of thunder echoing through the trees, a thickness in the air as the precursor to rain.
He climbed up to the driver's side of the truck, closing the door just as the sky opened up and rain drops clouded his windshield.
The truck jerked, almost violently, as it rolled up the rocky path to hide further in the cover of the trees, no longer visible from passersby on the highway he was off of.
This time, the dream wanted to end, pulling him to rest his head against the steering wheel before dragging him, only with a halfhearted struggle, into the past.
Rogers stood at his full height, chest puffed up and chin stuck out rebellious courage, preparing himself for the brutal battle that was sure to come.
This kid IS going to get himself killed
"Run-" Was all he was able to wheeze before Tom began to talk, Archie and Charlie slithering behind him, waiting for the signal to strike.
"Rogers, you just can't just wait your turn, can you?"
The scene was suddenly a recreation of a few moments before, the only difference being a new location. And, a new victim.
This time there was no preface or speech; Tom's fist made contact with Rogers' gut and the three older boys lost their minds. The small and fragile boy being held against the wall, struggling relentlessly, tears streaming down his face as he attempted to fight back, thin legs flailing to kick Tom away from him.
He made no noise, other than them the occasional gasp for air, or a deep grunt of pain release, but when a sickening crack rang crack rang through the tight alley way, he cried out in pain.
James Barnes decided he had had enough.
He picked himself up from the alley floor, hunching his shoulders and taking a breath before tackling Tom to the ground.
Nobody had seen it coming, Archie and Charlie staring at him in shock as the injured brunette straddled their ring-leader and threw punch after punch to his face. Tears streamed down his cheeks, now in anger, as he bellowed his message at the top of his adolescent lungs. "Leave. The damned. Kid. Alone. Tom! Can't. You see. He's. In. Pain?!" Every punctuation was marked by a punch, triggering the two remaining lads to pry the suddenly violent Barnes off the third, just enough from him to slip out from under him. The trio took off running before anything else could be done in retaliation to their move.
He wiped his eyes, then his hands on his pants, nearly forgetting his scrawny savior until the boy tried to get up, whimpering in pain. After that, he immediately threw off his, now torn, uniform jacket to place under the kid' s head, which he laid on his lap slightly awkwardly for support.
"Wow, kid, you could have gotten yourself killed." Where not the words that he had planned to open up his mouth to deliver to the kid, but nothing could be done once it was done.
"I had him on the ropes, you jerk." The blonde coughed, a bit of blood on his lips, a clear indicator of a broken rib... and yet he still managed to have a triumphant smile on his face, as if he had won the brawl hands down.
Bucky let out a chuckle and allowed a similar grin to cross his lips. "James Barnes, folks call me Bucky." he introduced, not extending a hand, but in the situation it seemed like it would be a stupid thing to do.
"Steven Rogers." The blonde countered, blue eyes tired and droopy.
"I like you, Steve. You're a punk, but I like you."
"As I said, I could have taken on six of them, jerk." He joked, coughing up a little more blood as the woman across the street ran back inside from stepping out of the house to phone an ambulance.
The rain had long since stopped when he was finally released from his cage of hidden memories, having slightly drooled on his own lap because of the less than comfortable position he was in.
He felt more rested than he probably had for a while, even though he probably had a line on his forehead from the steering wheel being embedded into his forehead.
But, he had finally remembered the blonde... or started to, anyways.
Perhaps the reason he had been the one thing to trigger his memory recollections was because they had been close? It would be a valid explanation, something buried so deep into the subconscious could only resurface, not disappear.
But, can he be trusted now?
It was over a month later that the Winter Soldier finally got his answer, but it wasn't immediate. Those who had been hunting him caught back up to him, he tread through dangerous waters by merely being out and about.
He refused to get his hair cut, not sure as how to go about doing so in the first place. It was difficult to hide the long locks of painfully straight brown hair, but tying it back into a ponytail to hide beneath a hood or tucked up underneath a ball cap seemed to suffice for the time being.
He had switched from his black sweater to a royal blue one, wearing contacts that darkened his eyes to a deep brown. His jeans were straight legged, but his captors expected a man who would do exactly has he had been trained to do to look inconspicuous in the smallest of crowds. So, he wore a bright shirt, walked with a rhythm as though the ear buds he had tucked into his ears were actually blaring something, and did exactly what no one in the Red Room expected him to do. Including acting approachable.
There was even a smile on his lips that, in the near excitement caused by having evaded forceful extraction for so long from right under them, may have been genuine, though he feverously denied the fact when he questioned himself.
He had seen a few more flashes of his past since he had discovered Rogers' relationship to his past life. And, he had learned the hard way that the Captain knew him better than he knew himself.
Literally.
He had evaded "Captain America" and the bird... "Falcon"? For almost as long as he had evaded Hydra and their associates who seemed to be joining in on the hunt.
Part of him wanted to turn around and willingly give himself to the police for custody, but it couldn't classify as anywhere near safe for either parties.
His former lover had been the only one to escape and live to tail the tale this long afterwards. But, she had used a method that had become too far for him to reach for. S.H.I.E.L.D was after him as well, though a bit busy with their stance on defending themselves from further infiltration from Hydra to spare the resources to actively send anyone his way.
Anyone except Rogers, that was.
At the time, he had shunned her as she offered him an escape from the other side of the line drawn into the sand, turning on her to show that she was now an enemy and no mercy would be shown. Now, all he could do was wish he had jumped when the gorge was possible to get across.
Natalia got across. I regret having to act as though she had been wiped away as well, the last time I saw her.
A hand grabbed his shoulder as he passed an alleyway, catching him off guard as he concentrated on his own thoughts, the man inside throwing him back into the wall, only to be flipped as he gave the Winter Soldier an unintentional.
The man beneath him, as he stood from causing the flip, was dark skinned, eyes covered in deeply tinted sunglasses, civilian lack of protective gear over the rest of his body suggested he hadn't been sent by anyone officially. Perhaps the man had chosen to go after him alone, a personal vendetta to be settled after the course of the past five months.
The second pair of hands that seized him from behind and managed to drag him further into the darkened alley suggested otherwise.
This one refused to allow him to take the upper-hand, as he was usually given the chance to take in situations such as these. It was a tell-tale marker that he had fought whomever held him from behind in the past.
The man was quick, spun him around from the right, not expecting the blow of metal delivered to him afterwards by his left. He crumbled, shooting back up within seconds and digging his shoulder into the renegade soldier's gut, backing him up to be flush against the cool brick wall.
The Winter Soldier raised his free arm to elbow the man, a blonde Caucasian, between the spine and shoulder blade, causing the man to arch his back and give a soft, all too familiar grunt.
In return, the man planted his legs and flipped him onto his shoulders, letting go so that he wouldn't completely slam himself onto the man and crush him with his weight.
The movement of freedom allowed for the brunette to pull a shoulder roll as an escape to turn and see the man's rearview. The blonde was larger than he was, with more muscles in his broad shoulders, which narrowed the selection down considerably.
He didn't want to believe that he had to face the man he was he was fighting at his point. He wasn't ready.
He tried to take the man off guard, ducking around him to aim for his more sensitive front, but the blonde was faster.
A well-thought-out-punch to the rib cage produced a sound that made both men around the Winter Solder cringe in a mix of empathy and recognition. He could have easily kept going it was less than an uncommon occurrence in his line of work, today was different.
He had no clear cut mission.
He was tired, cold and finally realizing how miserable he had been for so long.
The apologetic blue of his attacker were impossible to ignore as he allowed himself to be weak for the first time in decades. He stumbled, bearing clenched teeth as the pain traveled through his nerves endings to course through his midsection.
"Cap-" The darker skinned man began in warning, but the larger man waved him off, reaching out to the brunette soldier to assist, thick brows furrowed in worry and perhaps even fear.
He attempted to shove the man away, only allowing him to help when he fell to his knees, having tripped over a random object that was strewn across the alley floor. But, instead of being helped up, his head was cushioned on the blonde's lap.
"Sam, check his ribs. Hang in there, Buck, it'll only hurt if you move." Steve Rogers murmured to the man on his lap, too exhausted to refuse his old friend's help.
The man called Sam wearily around to the side of his body with his flash arm, keeping a careful eye it as he checked the right side first.
Steve spoke, using a softer tone with the insult as if he was expecting every little thing to have been wiped from the soldier's mind. "You jerk, you've made me chase you for almost six months. You couldn't have just made it a tiny bit easier to talk to you than to break your rib?"
Bucky winced when Sam found the wound, but a spark of recognition led to a small smile. "I thought that if I gave you a while you'd give up. I keep forgetting how much of a stubborn punk you are, Rogers."
A/N: You might have noticed that I only called him Bucky during present day happenings once? I just thought I should clarify the fact that He wasn't Bucky until he finally remembered Steve