A/N This is my first story for this universe so I apologise if characterisation is off. I hope you enjoy regardless and any feedback is appreciated :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing, much as I'd like to
James woke to the phantom chill of ice seeping into his bones.
His sleep at least had been mercifully devoid of the dreams of blood and death rattles that left him waking wearier than he'd been before rest, but it was hard to be grateful for that as he lay stock-still, frozen and staring at the ceiling.
The heating's off, he reminded himself as he tried to even out his breathing. It broke down two days ago. Martha hasn't been able to fix it yet.
The reminder helped a little. Forcefully, he lifted himself into a seated position and took in the small hotel room that had been his home for the last five days. He was safe here, he knew. James had swept the room for any signs of bugs and cameras on his first day but the place was so sparsely decorated with its bed, desk and cramped en-suite that the search had only taken him ten minutes and had been fruitless besides. Still, it had been so long since danger hadn't haunted his every step that safety still felt alien to him.
Pushing away all thoughts of ice, he threw on the dark t-shirt and jeans he'd stolen from a run-down laundrette and washed his face as best he could with cold water before heading down to the dining area where Martha would be preparing breakfast.
Calling her place a hotel may have been pushing it. The establishment consisted of four lightly furnished, yet comfortable, rooms and a dining area and was run exclusively by the old woman and her daughter when she had the time. According to Martha though, it was her pride and joy; a distraction to keep her occupied after her husband had died, and was discreet besides with its location in a small side-street. It had suited James well enough in his short stay.
The woman herself was waiting when he arrived and she smiled at him as she looked up from her magazine. "The usual, is it?" At his answering nod she wandered off to the kitchen, leaning on any appliance she could reach to help her.
Martha was twenty years younger than he was, although you wouldn't think it to look at her. With her heavily lined face, shock of white hair and slightly curved back it was easy to believe her when she joked that her best days had been and gone. And yet, with the laughter lines around her mouth and the unfailing kindness in her eyes, James imagined that those days had served her a lot better than they had him.
In her eyes he wasn't James but Jamie; a Scottish man who'd grown up on an isolated farm in the Outer Hebrides and had barely left the island until his mother died. He spoke Gaelic far more comfortably than English and was shy besides, which suited them both. It gave him an excuse to be quiet while Martha got to natter away to her heart's content about her long, if modest, life without fear of interruption.
Martha emerged from the kitchen with his coffee and a cooked breakfast of bacon, sausages and fried eggs while muttering fondly about young men and their appetites, before setting the food down at his usual table. James wondered what she'd think if she knew his increased appetite had come from finally tasting real food after being mostly drip-fed for seventy years, but that was not something she needed to be burdened with. Instead he simply smiled in thanks (as that's what Jamie would do) and tucked in while Martha chatted away – this time about 'that old hag' Linda who lived next door with her wild temper and even wilder cat.
James had grown surprisingly fond of Martha and her tales of her ordinary life. At first it had been almost startling. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had tried to engage him in a conversation that didn't involve targets or a mission, but her daily rambles had become something of a comfort. Martha's life was something complete; a sequence of events she could remember and take pride in, a stark contrast to his patchwork existence. His own memories were so vague and filled with gaps that he knew he could never give Martha similar stories of his own (Jamie's contrived backstory barely counted) but it was good to know that she'd emerged from her long life unbroken and happy, and that such a thing was even possible.
She'd also had the good grace to brush off his arm with an "amazing what technology can do these days" before saying no more about it, which was as good a reaction as he was ever likely to get.
The old woman finished her tale about the evil cat who'd dared wander into her garden with a defeated sigh before leaving James in peace to serve her only other guest. James took that as his cue – he would have to leave this place sooner rather than later or risk endangering Martha – and wolfed down the last of his bacon before making his way upstairs. He had a bag already prepared and had learned to never fully unpack when he stayed somewhere new, so leaving was a matter of gathering what few belongings he had and pulling on a dark hoodie to conceal his arm. He stopped for a moment at the reception desk on his way out to leave Martha twice what she was owed before stepping out into the cold street and shedding Jamie's skin.
This would be James' last day in Washington D.C. if all went as smoothly as he hoped. It had been quiet enough up until now; Hydra and what remained of his handlers were still in too much disarray to care about their missing pet and 'the man on the bridge' (Steve, a voice in his head supplied but he ignored it) was still recovering last he'd heard. However, he knew his moment of peace could not last and even a wounded Hydra still had remnants remaining at every turn. It would suit him well to be half a world away on the morrow, but first he had a mission to complete.
A mission that had started with those fateful words from the Captain's mouth (Your name is James Buchanan Barnes) and that momentary lapse in motive from 'destroy' to 'protect' that had prevented him from letting the man drown. In it's confusion the Asset had simply left him behind; it knew a hundred ways to break a man but very little about putting him back together again.
The Asset had died that day as he'd stumbled across a wounded Hydra agent, one it barely knew, whose body was riddled with shrapnel and blackened burns. The man would not live, but alone his death would be slow if his pitiful utterances of 'kill me' had been any indication. James imagined the Asset would have obliged in the man's wishes if he hadn't been foolish enough to try to be bold and turn it into an order. Instead he'd been left screaming in the dirt while the Asset walked brokenly away, its mind in more pieces than the agent's body.
He'd taken on the mantle of James then, but only ever in his head. To others he'd been Andrew, Jon, Matt, Jamie... Men who'd existed only to hotel receptionists and coffee-shop servers and had died as quickly as they'd been invented. Perhaps one day he'd be comfortable enough to truly become James, if only for the broken Captain's sake, but for now the name suited him about as comfortably as an ill-fitting glove.
The Smithsonian hadn't helped him in that. Seeing his face on that of a dead man's had added some validity to the Captain's claims but the display had taught him little that he hadn't already gathered from half-remembered dreams. He'd had a childhood, he'd gone to war and he'd died and that was about the extent of the importance that James Buchanan Barnes had brought to the world. Nevermind the blood he'd spilled, the men he'd had to kill to save his friends, the dirty work he'd taken on to spare others from doing the same. Deep down, James knew that Bucky's hands had to have been bloodied long before he fell to his death, otherwise he'd never have been an effective Asset. And yet, such unpleasantries were ignored by museums it would seem.
Perhaps that should have been a comfort when what James could remember was soiled enough by pain and death, but he couldn't fill in the gaps of his existence with simple niceties. If he were to be as lazy as that then he may as well drop this identity altogether and let the real Bucky rest in peace. He could adopt a new identity and move to Russia or Germany, or even make that farm in Scotland a reality and live out his days as quiet Jamie.
But that would never be enough for him, he knew. Hydra would not pay if that were the case and he doubted whoever he became would escape the dreams of ice and faceless men attaching a killing machine where his arm should have been.
To truly become James though (not Bucky, not yet), he would need to speak to someone who had known the man himself. Not the Captain, not after the mess he'd been left in after the events on the helicarrier. That meeting would inevitably come but it could wait for now. Besides, the Smithsonian had offered up another candidate.
James stopped on the way to his destination to buy flowers with money stolen from the wallets of Hydra's men, and blocked out the early morning buzz of the city streets by deciding who he should be next. He decided on Daniel, a young vet from Boston who'd had the opportunity to hear Margaret Carter give a speech at a wartime memorial service a few years ago and wanted to give his thanks on behalf of a fallen friend. He would let a little of his prosthetic show for pity should he need it, but with luck Daniel need only exist for five minutes.
The nurse at the reception desk was a tiny thing with wide brown eyes and olive skin. She softened at the sight of the flowers and what James hoped was a bashful expression, and agreed to take him to Peggy's room after hearing his story.
"She loves visitors," the woman he learned was called Cat (or perhaps Kat) explained as she led him through pale cream corridors littered with photos of nurses with their patients, looking happy in spite of everything. James nearly froze as he remembered that most of the people in need of their care were younger than he was. "She doesn't get them as often as we'd like though. Lot of family still in England and you know how that is..."
They stopped outside a door with Peggy's name printed on a chart and Cat placed a gentle hand on his shoulder that just two weeks ago he may have taken as threatening. Instead he simply met her sympathetic gaze as she explained, "Her memory's not so great so she likely won't remember ever meeting you. And she can repeat herself sometimes but you just go with it to avoid confusing her. But she's lovely really, she'll love the flowers."
James studied her for a moment. "You seem to care about her a lot," he said in Daniel's Boston accent.
Cat simply shrugged. "That's my job. And she's an interesting woman. A hero, most would say." And with that she opened the door and allowed him in before quietly slipping away like her namesake, presumably to other patients.
Peggy was asleep, or dozing, it was hard to tell. James slipped past her to sit on the lone chair and laid down the flowers on her bedside table, casting a quick glance at the photos she kept by her side. He saw a wedding, laughing children, the years catching up to her slowly but surely, but in each one she seemed happy. He was glad of that at least, even if all he remembered of her was a red dress and a power in her gaze. The modest room she existed in now seemed unbecoming of the woman from his fleeting memories.
It was only ten minutes before she woke, glancing sleepily around the room with chocolate-brown eyes that had remained the same even as the years lined her face. When her gaze landed on him she froze and her eyes widened in recognition before she gave a soft, broken laugh. "I must stop waking up to ghosts."
James had to smile at that. A ghost – that was fitting given the fear he'd instilled in dangerous men over the years. And yet... no, that had been the Asset, not him, and the Asset was dead.
"I was told, you know," Peggy went on, uncaring about James's silence. "The nice man who visits me. He told me you'd survived but I never thought... it's been so long."
Her face twisted at that, in pain or confusion or both, and James instinctively took her hand in his own (the one that remained flesh – the other's purpose was never designed for comfort). "The Captain told you." Of course he had. Peggy must have been the man's only remaining friend from the good old days. The older woman's face softened in recognition at the title. "The time's treated you well at least."
Peggy laughed at that and her soft hand tightened around his own. "You don't get to say that looking like you do, young man. I'm not too sure about the long hair though."
James simply shrugged. Appearance hadn't ranked highly on his list of priorities, but he knew Peggy must be right. He couldn't physically look older than thirty-five. His attention wandered over to the photographs again, trying to find what the woman before him must have looked like at that age. The closest he came was an old black-and-white image where she was laughing with her arms around a man he thought he vaguely knew. He noticed the soft grip on his hand grow firmer.
"Oh James," her voice was choked and he turned to find her staring at him with tears forming in those young eyes. He wondered what she saw on his face, how much of his experiences were hidden behind dull eyes and a frown. "What happened to you?"
I died. I was reborn in ice with a metal arm burned into my flesh. I had my mind wiped and rewritten more times than I could count. I followed the orders of faceless men and killed when they told me to.
"I fell," was all he said.
Her gaze softened and one stray tear slipped down her cheek but neither of them paid it any mind. "We should have looked for you."
"You wouldn't have found me." That, at least, he knew to be true. The Russians who'd found him had been planted like seeds in those mountains and they knew winter better than the Howling Commandos ever could. If they had not been the ones to find him bleeding in the snow then he'd still be buried there to this day.
"Perhaps not. But if there was a chance you were still..." she tailed off and seemed to lose focus for a moment that made James fear he'd lost her. But she simply shook her head and spoke softly, as if to herself. "Steve would have gone if he knew."
That may have been true, but James had precious little memory of the man who'd supposedly loved him like a brother. He couldn't say himself what Steve would or wouldn't have done.
"I can't..." The words stuck in his throat and for a moment he considered this all to have been a mistake. His mind was too fragile to test it again so soon, his memory broken shards that would likely never return to something whole. And yet he'd come here for a reason and he refused to leave this mission incomplete. "I can't remember who I was back then. Who Bucky was."
Peggy nodded in understanding, and if his words hit too close to home for her she didn't say. "Well you were a bloody flirt for one thing!" That actually drew a laugh from him, and it'd been so long that the sound seemed broken and alien. He remembered Cat, the pretty nurse with the big brown eyes, and wondered how Bucky would have felt about her. "Let's see... you were brave. Most men in your position had to be but even so, you went back to war without complaint because you knew it was the right thing to do. You did what needed to be done even if you didn't like it. You looked out for Steve, even when some would argue he no longer needed it. And you were someone Steve would fight to the ends of the earth for." She met his gaze properly then, the dream-like expression she'd had while sorting through memories gone. "You're a good man, James. That's all that matters."
James wondered how much she knew of the years he'd been gone, how much the Captain had told her and how much of that conversation she'd retained. He wondered if she'd still have chosen the title of 'good man' if she truly knew how drenched in blood his hands were.
They shared a silence for a while, interrupted only by Cat checking in to make sure they were both okay before leaving them in peace once more. As the sunlight went from white to orange streams through the window he noticed that Peggy had dozed off and wondered if he should leave her be. Chances were she wouldn't even remember he'd been here, and if she did he would simply be another half-remembered ghost from her past come to pay her a visit. He probably shouldn't have bothered to visit at all, and yet his time here had provided some comfort, a lightness in his chest if only for a short while. That on its own was more than he could have asked for.
James let his hand slip out of Peggy's grip as gently as he could manage, but she still woke up suddenly and only calmed when she saw him again. "Oh James, you startled me." She laughed and shook her head before glancing around the room in confusion. James hoped that she simply didn't remember falling asleep; that the woman who spoke now had the same mindset as the woman who'd spoken to him earlier. That hope shattered, however, when he noted the far-away expression in her eyes.
"You know James, it's funny. For a moment I could have sworn that we were old."
He left her in Cat's care with her flowers arranged in a vase.
The streets were somehow louder at the darkening evening hour than they'd been in the rush of morning but James ignored the passers-by as they did him. He had a bus to catch he supposed, or a train. Anything that would take him far away from here, where his handlers or the Captain could find him at any moment (which of those would be worse, he couldn't say).
A part of him yearned to go back to Martha's and listen patiently to her stories, or to visit Peggy again in the morning and learn more about the man he had once been. However he'd lingered in this city long enough and his purpose for doing so had been fulfilled. He had a new mission now.
A good man, Peggy had called him.
James would have to remember that as he watched Hydra burn.