If you don't like it, I'd love to know why. This is my first fanfic and any constructive criticism would be very much appreciated. You don't even have to be nice about it, be as brutal as you want/need.
Chapter 1
The trees and underbrush got thicker the farther I went. The path had ended a while ago, but there was still enough space to walk so I kept going. Thorns grabbed at my Nike sweatpants and I ran into a few spider webs which made me scream and swat frantically at my face and shoulders every single time.
Although it wasn't the most pleasant walk I had ever had, I was feeling pleased with myself for finding such wild woods. Almost everything in D.C. was flawlessly manicured—even their 'forests'. Most of the time, I walk through the memorials and stuff like that, but today I simply strolled through the trees while thinking about the meaning of life and how the rain had made my hair frizzy yesterday.
I get a bit oblivious when I'm thinking, but something odd caught my eye. A glimpse of black peeked through the trees, and I decided to go check it out. I put my arm in front of my face to keep spider webs and branches away and picked up the pace, half jogging toward whatever it was that I saw. Weaving through the trees, I got more glimpses of black and silver, but since I didn't have my glasses, it was still very hard to make out what it was. One more step, and a particularly large tree was out of the way and I had a clear view of the object which turned out to be a man. I stopped and stumbled back a few steps. Running into a tramp while alone in the middle of the woods did not sound very appealing. I hesitated and stared at the figure haphazardly propped up against a tree with his knees bent close to his chest and his head drooping forward. He seemed to be sleeping. A few steps closer, and I could see scrapes and bruises partially hidden by long stringy brown hair.
His left arm seemed to be covered in a metal sleeve of some kind with a red star painted near the shoulder. I was captivated by the strange man and inched my way forward to get an even better look. A twig snapped under my foot. His head snapped up and he looked straight at me, his eyes narrowed. He pushed himself to his feet but immediately started swaying and his back slammed into the tree behind him as he grabbed his side. I had stepped back quickly when he moved but naturally jumped towards him with a sudden intake of breath when he fell. He slid down the tree, his face contorted in pain but his eyes glaring warningly at me. His movement left a patch of ground bare that I hadn't been able to see before, and I saw drops of blood glistening on the leaves.
"Are you okay?" were the first words out of my mouth, and I took another step towards him. Before I had time to react, the black muzzle of a pistol pointed straight at me. His pain was intentionally hidden beneath a dark and threatening glare directed at me. He motioned with the gun for me to put my hands up, his other arm seemed to be hanging limply at his side. I slowly raised my hands, my brain working furiously on the problem of getting out of this situation. A loud crack and rustling sounded from somewhere behind the man and his head and shoulders jerked around to see what it was. Instantly, his face contorted in pain and he let out a moan as the hand with the gun grabbed his side, inadvertently flinging the gun away in the process. Now that he was unarmed, I ran forward to help him. My knees hit the ground by his side and one hand went out to touch his shoulder while the other moved to try to find out what was wrong with his side. Something grasped my right wrist which had tried to help with his wound. I quickly discovered that his arm was actually made of metal and it felt solid, too. A strange whirring noise was broken by my cry of pain as his hand tightened. I think I heard the bone crunching.
"Please," my voice was abnormally high as a result of the pain, "I can help you. I can get you whatever you need, medical help and food and clothes and, and anything else." His hand loosened and slipped down my wrist at the word 'food.' I gently pulled my arm away from him and he didn't make a move to get it back.
I sat back on my heels a few feet away for safety and gazed at his face, my mouth drooping open. He was looking down at his side although I could tell he was still watching me. Something just looked incredibly familiar about him, and the thought hit me that I had seen this man before. I mentally scanned through the small list of people I know, and the much larger list of people I stalk online, and only two results came up. The scraggly hair suggested a similarity to the guy I had followed on Twitter who was friends with a fan of an author whose work I followed. I shook my head at the thought but hesitated to even consider the other option. But all the same, those eyes. The jaw line. The even tanned skin tone.
Bucky Barnes.
The words got stuck in my brain and one-half split off screaming at me that I was insane, but the other half was still looking at the face before me. Every second he looked more familiar. The identifiable physical attributes all fell into place except for one. Bucky Barnes was in his nineties and dead. This guy was in his thirties and very much alive. But in pain. The thought brought me back into action, and I stood up. Whoever he was, he was hurting and needed help. As I stepped towards him, the phone in my pocket buzzed. Temporarily ignoring it, I stepped towards him softly telling him what I was going to do. Despite my efforts to speak to him normally, the soothing tone I used in my fear of upsetting him probably took on quite a condescending note. He didn't seem to get offended and must have decided that he could trust me, or that at the very least, I was his only option at the moment because he cooperated.
On further inspection, the blood was from a cut on his side that had already closed. The main source of pain seemed to be broken ribs and his right arm which seemed to be dislocated. Even the ribs seemed to be partially healed because he could move slowly without much pain. Incredibly, twelve minutes later, we were walking side by side into town.
We couldn't take the main road into town with him looking like a war-torn soldier and me looking like jungle girl with leaves and spider webs in my hair. Fortunately, I'm very familiar with the back streets and alleys of that part of D.C., but even in the alleys, we turned a few heads. Attracting attention is a logical outcome when you're walking next to a six-foot tall hot mess in a black uniform and a metal arm, but it still was uncomfortable in the extreme and my head stayed down the entire walk. As important as medical attention and food seemed to be, getting the man clothing was the first thing on the agenda. He looked way too conspicuous with a freaking metal arm swinging all over the place.
I got him inside with only six people that I counted staring at us, which I would call an impressively small number. We were in a clothes store that I had been in a few times. I'd never bought anything here, I just occasionally came back because of the really cute cashier who I enjoyed staring at from a distance. I didn't even know if they had a men's section, but I wasn't about to go back outside, so I walked through the store, determined to find something less strange for Bucky to wear.
I surprised myself by thinking of him as Bucky. My senses refused to listen to my brain, which was questioning why I even thought that this tramp being Bucky Barnes was a possibility. But I think my hours spent staring at and obsessing over every available picture and video clip of James Barnes was adding to my mental delusion.
To my relief, there was a men's section in the back left corner of the store, complete with dressing room and all. Bucky stood awkwardly as I pulled a few pairs of jeans off of a shelf and flipped them unfolded. I held one pair out by the waistband and briefly compared sizes between the pants in my hand and the pants he was wearing. Shrugging, I pushed the other pairs back and then turned to the rack of clearance items. I found a jacket that wasn't too thick but would still cover his arm and picked a plain t-shirt. "Can you stay here for a second?" I asked Bucky and didn't really wait for an answer as I rushed up to the register to buy the clothes. Thankfully, the cashier was a middle-aged lady instead of the boy that worked most days. I really didn't need that kind of distraction right now. The store was relatively empty, and there was only one woman in line at the register. My relief changed to irritation as she fumbled around with coupons and invalidated credit cards. Trying to channel my impatience to usefulness, I scanned the area around me and noticed a display of hats. They were mostly baseball caps which I despise, but I saw one particularly nice one and added it to my stack. The woman finally left, and I dropped my pile of clothes on the counter. The cashier gave a poor attempt at a cheerful "How are you?" as she started ringing up my clothes. I, in turn, gave a weak response to her attempt at pleasantries and then, unsure about the store policy, asked, "Um, my friend is in the back and he needs to get changed before we go out to eat. Is it okay if he just goes ahead and changes in the dressing room?" She looked slightly suspicious, but her eyes flickered to her screen and then she nodded.
"Sure, that's fine," she said. I wondered what had made up her mind until I saw the total price of my purchases. Two hundred thirty-two dollars? You'd better let us use the dressing room if I'm paying you that much. I sighed slightly at the amount, feeling like a miserly old man, and then reached into my pocket and pulled out my debit card. I rushed the clothes back to where I'd left Bucky and noticed that he had moved so his back was up against the wall, and he looked rather defensive. The corners of my mouth naturally came up as I tried to make myself look friendly and calming. I started pulling the clothes out of the bag and held them out to him.
"I need you to go in there and put these on. Is that okay?" For a second, I thought he wasn't going to do it, but then he walked straight up, grabbed the clothes and disappeared into the dressing room.
It took longer than I expected, and I found myself pacing in the doorway of the dressing room, hitting the hat that I had forgotten to give him against my thigh. Finally, I stopped pacing and slouched against the doorframe, my fingers still twiddling the hat. I sighed impatiently and glanced around and jumped back when he was right behind me. I think the clothes fit okay, but I'm not sure because it was hard to look anywhere other than his intense eyes. It took me a minute, but I finally got my brain back and remembered that food is the next thing on the list. Unfortunately, his face was still dirty, and he had scrapes and bruises everywhere. It didn't look like he was going to pass for an everyday citizen.
Shrugging, I cleared my throat, "We can go eat now if that's okay with you."
He didn't say anything, but he seemed to watch me more closely when I said 'eat', so I took that as a yes. I knew exactly the place to go. In ten minutes flat, we were sitting down at a booth with red cushions and a once white table. The quiet, going out of business diner was the perfect place. I finally relaxed, nobody here asked questions or shot curious glances. The middle-aged, balding waiter was laid back and took things slow. Of course, he didn't have anywhere to rush off to; we were the only people there.
"So, what do you want?" I asked Bucky.
He looked at me for a second, but then glanced away without saying anything. Sighing, I asked the waiter for a roast beef sandwich, fries, and some coffee. He wrote the order down, though it should have been easy enough to remember it, and lumbered to the back. Bucky didn't seem to have a desire to converse. His eyes moved quickly but purposefully around the room, taking in every detail. Not wanting to carry on a one-sided conversation, I kept my mouth shut and pulled out my phone. Three unread messages were waiting patiently for my immediate attention.
The first message had come almost forty minutes ago:What is happening? A few minutes later: I cannot recommend this course of action. Followed by: You should know that you're putting yourself into a large amount of danger. The last message had come in only a minute ago, I'm notifying Paul. Those three words jolted fear into my soul and I hastily typed out, No! I'm fine. As soon as I sent that message, I typed Override code: right direction and sent that as well. I leaned my head against the back of the bench and breathed a prayer that Paul had no idea where I was or what I was doing. The food came before any response on my phone did, so I slid the phone back into my pocket and pushed the food towards Bucky. My phone buzzed and I looked down to see the new message. Alert canceled. Paul is back on standby.
My relief was obvious as I messaged back and then looked up at Bucky again. His slow eating belied how hungry he had looked earlier, but I appreciated that he wasn't just tearing into everything which reinstated my thought that he wasn't just a normal tramp. It took a bit longer to finish the food, but he hadn't touched the coffee. Shrugging, I picked the cup up and downed half of it in one sip. Now that we were out of the public eye, and I had fed him, the time seemed right to answer a few questions and a few insane theories.
Unsure exactly how to start, my first question was just a gentle probe, "So, what's your name?"
His gaze went far past me, and one word escaped from his lips, "Bucky." He looked away, and when he looked back, his face had hardened again, "Or the Asset."
I was shocked by the confirmation of my wildest hopes, but the second thing he said shocked me even more. Needing to disprove my new suspicion but very afraid that it would instead be proven, I slid my phone out and under the table typed a new message. Why was this dangerous? As a second thought, I typed out Other than hanging out with a middle-aged male tramp. I glanced up and Bucky wasn't paying much attention to me. The phone buzzed and a new message popped up, Database suggests many similarities to the Winter Soldier. My mind exploded at this evidence that my suspicious was correct. But he can't be the Winter Soldier. If he's the Winter Soldier, why am I not dead? But he's not, he's Bucky. Wait, Bucky is the Winter Soldier? That makes so much sense. But… that's crazy. My hand involuntarily rubbed my wrist where the bruise from Bucky's hand throbbed forcefully. I finally decided to ignore every single negative thought that was swarming in my brain and focus on the positive, if Bucky Barnes had something to do with Hydra, then that would give logical explanations for how he could still be alive.
He was glaring at me thoughtfully and then said something slightly unexpected, "I don't know you."
"Uh, no, we've never met before," I stuttered. I paused and then added, "I'm, uh, Cassie."
"How do you know me?"
"Well I wasn't sure it was you at first, it was kind of just an insane feeling. Like, 'that's Bucky Barnes' kind of thing. But apparently it was pretty accurate, right?"
"No," he shook his head slightly, never breaking eye contact, "how do you know who Bucky is?"
"Well, just about everybody knows about James Buchanan Barnes, World War II hero. You literally have a giant monument in the Smithsonian." I realized he must not have seen it, and an idea hit me. I slid out of the booth and stood up. "You want to go see it? It's pretty cool." He didn't seem to acknowledge my words, but he did stand up across from me. I pulled a twenty out of my wallet and dropped it on the table. "Keep the change," I yelled to the man who I assumed was somewhere in the back. Then I walked confidently out the door, waiting for him to follow. I knew it would be less attention drawing if we were walking together, so I stuck as close to his side as I could while still showing him where to go, and striving to not touch him.
Outside the museum, I decided that it would be better if I didn't go with him, so I gave him brief instructions for how to find the display that I had visited many times by myself.
He started walking up the stairs, and as a very last thought, I ran up behind him and whispered, "You might need to find a way around the metal detectors at the door."
I watched as he walked straight into the front door, not looking back. Someone bumped into me and I almost fell down the stairs. They didn't apologize so I didn't really feel like I needed too. I did, however, get off the stairs and found a bench where I could watch the doors and wait for him to come out.
