Disclaimer: I own nothing except the OC's.

A/N: I've been working on this for a few weeks now and I'm excited to share it! I know the whole Smithsonian employee thing isn't new, but there's a good reason for it. I'm hoping to take it to a much different level, exploring the history side of things more. It will make more sense as the story progresses. A huge thanks goes out to my beta readers. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Chapter One

It was past dusk when he stopped casing the building and headed for one of the rear entrances. Drenched in purple and indigo light, he used the shadows to his advantage. Listening. Waiting. Keeping his steps light and cautious. The act of concealing himself and not drawing attention was like a reflex.

A week ago, his body was faster, more agile. He had begun to notice the difference. It was a source of frustration to discover that he wasn't familiar with being in use this long, yet he could not summon the will to shut himself off. He dragged himself forward, aware of the dull ache in his arm from the shoulder he desperately repaired without much forethought. Sharp, white-hot pain rippled through his torso just beneath his ribs with every step and he could feel fresh blood seeping through his clothes. He wasn't sure if he would make it to the doorway but survival was everything—every mission depends upon it—so he pressed on without the notion of allowing his body to fail him.

He had never felt so human. The concept was foreign. He was never granted permission to linger on it before it was ripped from him.

It had been an endless two weeks. At least, he estimated it had been that long, maybe longer, though he hadn't kept a vigilant count. The clothes he stole out of a donation bin days ago were ill-fitting on his broad frame, though the oversized hooded sweatshirt did its job of hiding everything that would give him away. He had a baseball cap, too, and managed to scrounge up a glove that kept his left hand from piquing interest.

Exhaustion made his limbs sluggish, his mind enveloped in fog. Natural sleep wasn't something he was trained for, but he had a vague recollection of the sensation. Every time he had drifted off, he felt himself falling, lashing out, trapped in lightning fast glimpses of memories he couldn't distinguish from one another. Upon waking, he felt more fatigued and paranoid than the idea of sleep was worth. Shutting himself off was an impossibility.

There was a constant nagging thought at the back of his mind to run—far away, far enough that no one would be able to find him again—but something else had kept him here. If he knew what was good for him, he would've left D.C. days ago. He hadn't. The last fourteen—he couldn't be sure, but it seemed longer—days had left his mind in complete disarray and he couldn't sort through it—wouldn't sort through it. The internal voice inside his head had merged into two, or perhaps one was pretending to be the other, taunting him—pulling him backward, back to where it was safe, where they would gladly take him to do what he was made for. He wasn't sure of his purpose now. Everything he thought was so simple, black and white, disintegrated along with the helicarrier over the Potomac.

The clear voice inside still went by Soldier. The other name—the one his Mission called him by—skirted around the edges of his memory, always a fragment he could not grasp onto from the depths of wherever he was put. If he was there at all. There are days where he wasn't, days where he was.

His Mission's name was Steve Rogers—Captain America. That name had been running a marathon around his thoughts and he knew—he knew he recognized it, somewhere in another place and time that he couldn't reach.

He was afraid to reach it, and Soldier wouldn't let him.

Steve Rogers' face stared at him from the piece of crinkled glossy paper that was clutched in his fist. It had landed at his feet in some dirty alleyway, and he had been using it as his guide. It wasn't the first time he had been to the museum, seen Rogers and a man that bore resemblance to him only in physical appearance. James Buchanan Barnes. He had hurried out of the museum last time, gripped by panic, aggravated by the swarms of people. He hadn't been there long enough to let the information sink in. Or perhaps he didn't want it to, not yet. Nevertheless, it had been tormenting him for days.

Rogers. The man he pulled from the river. The man who stared right into his face and called him—

Bucky? He had been cycling through that name, too, and it sounded like a ghost of someone—another life.

You're my friend. Soldier didn't have friends, he had superiors, people who gave him Orders and Missions and—the blood on his hands and a hollow feeling and the cold…

Rogers was still his Mission. And while a tiny portion of his mind begged: kill, another part screamed back at him in a broken voice he wasn't sure belonged to him: know, find, rebuild.

He was good at following Orders. It was one of the things he had been programmed for. So he had made this new Mission. He was nothing without a Mission. Useless. And while Soldier's hand pleaded for the weight of a gun, that nagging voice, the one trying to steer him right and wrench himself from the depths, said otherwise.

The side of the building was cool and solid against his right shoulder and he leaned into it more than he wanted to, letting it anchor him. He was a few feet from the door he had been surveying for the better part of the evening. His vision—normally perfect, like his hearing, like everything else that made him the Asset—had begun to blur. It collected a haze around the edges, and his head was swimming with more than his disconnected, racing thoughts.

Blood loss, his inner voice scolded him though he wasn't sure who he was talking to.

A slight mishap during a scuffle with a pair of rogue HYDRA agents had him at a current disadvantage.

Sweat beaded down his temples, soaked his hair underneath the hood of his sweatshirt. Breathing was painful and every movement took effort that he shouldn't have had trouble exerting. Stop, he screamed, off. ShutupshutoffshutOFF. NOW.

It was a strange thing that he was begging for the ice—for the long stretches of nothingness where pain and thought and emotion and humanity could not enter. Just ice and dreamless, unnatural sleep. He wanted it to take the agony away. The voice that whispered gently in his ear, the voice he swore was the one trapped, shoved the temptation away.

He was falling. Not like in his dreams where the jolt awakened him, but his knees had buckled under his weight. He slid down the wall on his shoulder, groaning, until he slumped against the side of the building. His breathing sounded loud in the empty space and unnerved him. The semidarkness of the approaching night made the bloodstain spreading on his sweatshirt darker, heavier. He wouldn't make it, not if he wasn't fixed. The idea seemed the oddest of all things that had crossed his mind since he ran—how can a weapon be killed?

Asset's survival is imperative. We are dependent upon it. You are a gift to mankind.

He knew that voice didn't belong to him.

Weapons weren't killed. Soldier was a Weapon. Soldier's survival is imper—

The glass door opened with a creak that startled him, and he recoiled, trying to push himself as close to the wall as he could. The movement strained the wound beneath his clothes and he cried out even though he didn't mean to.

A young woman stood near the door, both drawn to and alarmed by the noise that he foolishly let escape. He stole an assessing glance of the woman from under his hood and the visor of his baseball cap and noticed a set of keys in one of her hands. She maneuvered them so that the keys peeked out from in between her fingers, and he watched her tense up.

He knew the look of fear. He had it memorized by now.

His presence caught her off guard, but she kept her keys in her fist for precisely this reason. It wasn't the first time she had exited this part of the building this late. She had been chatting up the security guards, and honestly being here at night after hours was one of her favorite parts of the job. It also wasn't the first time she had encountered a stranger lurking; in a city like D.C., homelessness was an issue, but she was always more concerned about being attacked or robbed.

She was unsure of what circle this man fell in. His posture, she decided, was defensive, and he seemed just as surprised as she was. Though, things considered, she probably had more of a right to be frightened. She slipped her keys between her fingers and rested her other hand on the cell phone in the pocket of her blazer. Chilly late September wind rustled her hair, which hung in gentle waves down her back.

The man before her was drawn in shadow, a ragged hooded sweatshirt obscuring his frame. She couldn't tell whether or not he was staring at her, but somehow she felt his gaze beneath his baseball cap. The darkness hid everything except the sculpted edges of his face; she could just detect his jawline and cheekbones and stray wisps of long hair but nothing else.

The next moment, she was trying to determine how fast she might be able to run from here to her car in the lot. Her fingers curled around her cell phone and she wondered a lot of things. Homeless? Thief? …Worse?

Following the good Captain's robbery of his own uniform—which he graciously returned to the collection as soon as possible, with endless apologies, according to the stories around her workplace—she figured others might try to target the exhibit. The items contained within were priceless and would garner a lot of interest if someone managed to get their hands on them. She felt a new rush of anger well up and stepped back as he got to his feet. One of his hands braced against the building and she watched his guarded movement, wary.

"One more step and I'll call the police," she warned.

"No."

He shifted his stance, his other hand pressed near his abdomen, but she took another backward.

Her hand shook around the solid metal and glass of her phone. "No? I don't think you're in any position to tell me that. What are you doing here? It's after hours, and if you're—"

It was then that she saw his fingertips, the material of his sweatshirt—they were slick and dark. A few droplets pooled at his feet and if she really looked for it, she could see that it was deep scarlet.

Her eyes widened. She hated that his face wasn't visible to her. "You're hurt."

Her eyebrows pulled together, and this time she removed her phone from her pocket. She had the impression that he was bleeding more heavily than she could even detect. For a moment, a question stalled on the tip of her tongue. She didn't want to know what happened to him.

"I-I'll call an ambulance," she declared. "Maybe you should—"

"No," he repeated. "No police. Nothing."

She heard the pain in his voice, drifting through the empty air sounding hoarse.

"Look, I'm no expert, but if you don't get yourself to a hospital, you're not going to be standing for much longer."

He moved before she could see him. One minute, her thumb was poised above the screen to unlock it, and the next the phone was wrenched from her grip into his. She leveled a narrow-eyed glare in his direction, stumbling back from his sudden and unexpected lunge. The phone lit up in his palm, the one he took away from the building, and for a second or two he swayed on his feet.

"Wait! Please—don't do what I think you're going to do." She couldn't get the tremor out of her words. "If you don't want me to call, fine. I won't. Just please don't break my phone."

In the dim parking lot overhead light, she caught his eyes. They softened from their hardened stare. She flinched when he held the phone out to her and quickly stuffed it away. His insistence on avoiding law enforcement didn't put her at ease.

"I won't hurt you," he said, as if this fixed everything. As if she'd believe him. "But this will work out better for the both of us if you leave."

He took a step forward into the odd slant of yellow light and something like familiarity prickled along the back of her mind. She studied him in a stupid and desperate attempt to connect the dots. His frame—stocky, tall—and his stance rang a bell. His head bowed against the pain and more of his hair escaped and fell to surround his face under the sweatshirt hood. Her stomach lurched once she finally put it together: she was sure that he was the same guy in grainy newspaper photographs and filtered Instagram photos and shaky phone videos that had been dominating every media space in the past week. The guy everyone was looking for.

She hadn't been as absorbed in it as her roommate, Mia, who had been following his trail on social media and running through conspiracy theories. She, meanwhile, had picked up on information via news headlines. Right now, she scolded herself for not sifting through the SHIELD documents sooner. The Winter Soldier. The Asset. Assassin. Considered to be armed and extremely dangerous.

That was all it took for her to run to her car without another word, the edges of her keys digging into her palm so hard she wondered if they would leave bruises. Her heart hammered in her chest, blood pounding through her ears as she jumped into the driver's seat and locked the door. She was almost sure he would come flying at her car any moment now, metal fist crashing through her windows and bullets tearing through everything else.

The parking lot was eerily quiet.

She started up the engine.

He was lying against the building when her car zoomed past him, probably leaving haphazard tread marks. She hated that she felt terrible for driving off, for the sympathy that had suddenly worked its way into her mind.

Her car sidled into evening traffic, her face aglow with red brake lights. She despised this even more, being stuck in the lines of other vehicles and her own second guessing. She couldn't stop picturing him back there, his blood spilling across the concrete while he forced out shallow breaths. Her thoughts fought a civil war between he's a highly trained assassin who cares if he dies and you know this will haunt your subconscious if you don't help him.

"He could rip my throat out in two seconds if he wanted," she said to herself.

But he didn't. What kind of cold-blooded killer lets someone go?

The steering wheel was cool against her forehead. "This is not a good train of thought."

I won't hurt you. That promise—thin, but it sounded so broken, so human. It was easy to dehumanize someone who was only their crimes and nothing more. To see a monster and not a man. And the look in his eyes…

"No." She sat back up and gripped the steering wheel instead.

Her phone sat in the center console and she glanced at it with consideration. She debated between her options and knew she was obligated to call. Then, a new ultimatum presented itself: Go back. If he's not there, call. If he is…

Hospital. They'll take care of him. That's it.

It was her father's side of the gene pool calling the shots now, she was sure of it. That was the explanation she gave herself as she turned around at the next side street and headed back toward the museum.

"Damn it."

His dark outline was visible against the building in the same spot. He lifted his head at the noise of her car halting next to him, but he didn't move. She sighed and rolled down the passenger window, hating herself the entire time.

If she got killed, she thought, it was her own idiotic fault.

"Get in." Her voice was a low, harsh whisper.

He wasn't moving, but for some reason she knew he was staring at her. She shivered at the idea.

"Get in or bleed to death, I don't care," she ordered. "I'll call the cops if you don't move."

He grunted, which was something, and picked himself off the ground. He doubled over when he reached the door handle, and he climbed into the passenger seat with a stifled noise of discomfort. She wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all—the fact that he looked comical trying to fit into her tiny Buick and that she was in possession of a national—international?—assassin.

"You shouldn't have done that," he said once the car took off.

"I know." She didn't look at him. "Just so we're clear, if you try anything close to a hostile advance between here and the hospital, I will call the police. No matter how many times you say no."

He looked at her, or rather, turned his head in her direction, though he was pressed up against the door as far as he could manage. She wondered how difficult it would be to shove him out the door if he tried to kill her. It was distressing that she couldn't read his face.

"Hospital? You can't take me there."

"Yes, I can, and I'm going to." Her hands were trembling again. She hoped he couldn't see it. But she supposed he was trained to pick up on such things.

"Please." That's a word she hadn't expected to hear from him. Not in that tone. "I can't go back. I don't want to go back. You can't take me there."

"Why?"

He let out a long-suffering sigh. "I told you I won't hurt you."

"How can I trust you?"

She heard his confidence waver. It didn't seem right. The concept didn't fit him.

"I…I don't know."

"Exactly."

"But I need you to try."

Right. She could use this to her advantage. Gain his trust and then call the proper authorities once he had medical attention. Problem solved. If he didn't kill her first.

"That's asking a lot." He didn't reply, so she continued, "My roommate, she's a nurse practitioner. She's on shift right now…I'm not sure when she'll be home, but she's the only person who might be able to help."

His forehead settled against the window. "Fine."

The traffic was slow through the city, as it always was, and for the first ten minutes she attempted not to let it set her on edge. She tried to find his face in the lights they passed under, but he kept himself away from her and tossed glances over his shoulder every two minutes. He checked the side mirror, the back windows. His paranoia became contagious, and she found herself growing cautious at every red light, hoping no one would peer too long into her passenger side. The shadows seemed to protect him.

She felt like she had a target on her. She envisioned a legion of police cars and SWAT raining down upon them and helicopters swooping in with their searchlights across the roof above. Goosebumps rose on her skin when she imagined red dots searching them for a clear shot.

Once the traffic became less congested, she felt safer to say, "My name's Lily, if you wanted to know." But she wasn't sure if telling him her name was the wisest choice. She didn't know his.

And he didn't give it.

Five minutes ticked by before Lily realized he had passed out against the window. He had ceased his constant mirror and window checks, and she had assumed the lack of aggressive response from other cars—aside from the occasional horn or rude gesture—and law enforcement presence had relieved the tension. At the next red light, Lily reached over to tap his shoulder, tentatively. She withdrew her fingers, afraid he would break them or possibly snap her wrist. Lily's breath hitched, her fingertips connecting with something other than flesh and bone and muscle. She took a few breaths to compose herself, but she couldn't stop picturing solid metal beneath the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

It both comforted and unnerved her that he hadn't responded to her touch. His even and steady breathing was her only clue that he was still alive. The smell of iron, however, was strong in her nose, and it worried her. If it was worse than she thought, if he didn't get help in time, how would she be able to explain away a dead assassin in her car? Lily was fairly certain you couldn't just explain those things without landing in a prison cell. She had no interest in being arrested and ruining the family name for becoming an accomplice.

Emotional manipulation is probably part of his skill set. Can't take anything he says at face value.

Screw it.

Lily made a hard turn at the next street, causing her myriad of books and poster tubes in the backseat to go sliding and crashing onto the floor. She cringed at the onslaught, daring a glance at the passenger seat. He was still out. Protected by the poor lighting, Lily could barely make out the stray strands of dark hair that had escaped his hood. She caught a trace of a beard along his jawline, but nothing more. The way he had slumped against the corner of the seat and the window was almost excruciating to witness. The position couldn't have been doing any favors to the wound on his torso.

Several streets later, Lily balanced her phone on the dashboard and called her roommate, Mia, on speaker. Her shift had started a couple hours ago, so the voicemail clicking on wasn't unexpected. Lily just hoped Mia would get the message in time.

"Hey, it's me," Lily said, her tone harried, "I know how horrible this is going to sound, but I can't explain much over the phone. I'll be at the hospital in five minutes and I have…someone here who needs stitching up. It's…pretty bad, just so you're prepared. We'll need to get in through the back, keep it quiet. Might cause a huge scene. Special circumstances, okay? I need your help."

Her tires squealed as she came to a stop in the back lot of the hospital, pulling forward into a parking space. She chose to sandwich her Buick in between a minivan and a rust bucket of an SUV, assuming the vehicles wouldn't bring much attention. Mia would probably be expecting them at the doors, but Lily didn't want to risk it. Her phone buzzed, alerting her to an incoming text message. Mia.

Rear entrance. Where are you?

Quickly, Lily texted, Parking lot. Hurry.

Grabbing her bag from between the seats, Lily shut off the car and tossed her keys in. She rounded the back end and moved over to the passenger side, her heels making a steady rhythm against the pavement. Opening the door was a challenge with half his weight against it, and Lily struggled for a moment to keep him from falling. He had collapsed in such a way that the seat and the doorframe prevented his escape. It looked terribly uncomfortable, but Lily was grateful for the reprieve.

His forehead against pressed the frame inside the door, and Lily found herself suddenly curious. He had been so adamant about hiding from her. She supposed it was for the best, but his image was plastered across every available news station and nearly all corners of the internet. Every single photo Lily had caught of him had been grainy, filtered, or too far away and out of focus. Most could only capture his retreating form, a silhouette of dark clothing and shining metal. Nearly everyone who'd taken photos and videos did not venture to get too close.

Lily couldn't blame them. Being this close made her apprehensive. But she'd always had a streak of inquisitiveness, which normally proved to be a good thing when it came to archival work.

In this case, it was probably stupid.

She needed an additional few moments to summon the courage to even touch him again. Her hand hovered over his hood, and she recoiled, expecting him to lash out. She watched his chest rise and fall for a minute. Counted. Inhaled, then exhaled. She tugged the hood away from the cap it was hiding, and gently took that off, too. Lily retreated when he stirred the slightest bit, but held her breath again while sweeping strands of dark brown hair out of his face.

Her eyes widened.

The face she uncovered was one that she had seen a hundred times over, one that greeted her every day at work. It was a face that old stories and history had always told her to trust.

Lily knew him.