Summary: He remembers her. And judging from the look she gives him, she remembers him too. After all the scars HYDRA had left, from the destruction of his mind to the daily guilt that threatened to consume him, there is one thing he's glad HYDRA had gave him. The chance of meeting her. Set during CA:CW.
As he, Steve and Sam were waiting in the German airport parking lot in the tightest car imaginable, Bucky's mind was far away. Just like it always was after a handler—God, he hated that word—took control over it. He felt...dazed. Violated. He wants to be himself again, he really, really does, and in the past two years since D.C., pieces of himself were starting to get put back into place. He thought that maybe everything would work out, that maybe the strings had been cut and he wasn't HYDRA's puppet anymore.
He should've known better.
When he was in Romania, Bucky wanted to wait until his memories were stronger before he went after Steve. He knows that Steve had been looking for him ever since he pulled him from the river. Even after years of his mind being tampered with, he could still read his best friend like an open book. But Bucky didn't tell him that because truth be told, he still felt guilty. Steve may have forgiven him—of course he forgave him, he's Steve—but it doesn't change the fact that he still almost killed his closest friend and brother. The blood of about two hundred, hundred people were on his hands and he knew even if he wasn't in the right mind at the time, his fingers still pulled the trigger, his hands still drove the knives through their chests, and he had still killed them. It doesn't change the fact that their dead, brainwashed or not.
Once their plan to get to Siberia was formulated, but before they "borrowed" the car, Steve had wordlessly handed Bucky a notebook. It was the notebook Steve had been looking at when he was in his apartment. It was the journal in which he was able to write down all his recovered memories, anything and everything he remembered from his past. To pass the time, he flipped open the dark brown leather cover to the first page, skimming over the first few sentences.
I never had a journal before and if I did then I don't remember. I know my mind isn't really my own right now, and I'm not too sure if it will ever be again. I forgot most of my life but I guess maybe writing down my memories will help me, and if I forget them, I can just come back here. I guess I just want to be me, but I don't really know who me is right now. Maybe with this journal, I'll find out.
Bucky smiled as he remembered the first time he put ink on this page, how his scattered and shattered mind was in pieces. The optimist inside him claimed he came a long way from then, but his smile faded as the pessimist in him said it was all for nothing. Knowing that Steve and probably Sam were no doubt watching him from the corner of their eyes, Bucky flipped the pages carefully to take his mind off the negative shift in his progress.
He tried to keep himself occupied as he kept flipping, skimming over the titles of his memories until one title eventually caught his eye along with his full attention. The page had a scarlet colored tag on it and he absentmindedly smoothed his thumb over the words that titled it.
The Girl With The Long Brown Hair.
Bucky's heart skipped a beat at this, yet he didn't know why. He knew he met tons of girls with long brown hair before he became the Winter Soldier. But maybe it was because of the words that come after that makes the small smile slowly return to his stoic face, thus slightly dropping the emotionless mask he kept on a daily basis.
There was a girl. She was HYDRA. A volunteer. But deep down I don't think she wanted to be. She didn't necessarily seem to want to stay but she knew she couldn't leave either, whether it was because she felt she had no other options to consider or she knew HYDRA would come after her, I don't know. She never said.
The head agent there, Strucker, I think his name was, wanted me to train her and all the others in hand to hand combat, and teach them how to handle a gun before giving them enhancements. He had said something about there being no room for the weak. But she was far from weak. She and her brother normally did what Strucker said, but she told me once when we first started training that she didn't trust HYDRA, that she answered only to Strucker and barely even to him. I knew this angered most of the officials and second in commands there and I'm pretty sure she knew that too but I don't think she cared much.
I remember I used to talk with her whenever we weren't training. She told me about her past, about the bomb that killed her parents and how her and her brother struggled to survive on the streets and avoid the authorities. And sometimes, when we were both shivering madly in the winter seasons, she would tell me some of her happier memories as a child. She knew I couldn't remember much of anything of my past but I don't think she knew about HYDRA trying to erase my memories. But it was weird. Whenever I was there with her, some memories that I didn't even know I had came flooding back. Sometimes the agents would drag her away for tests and other procedures I didn't really know about, but she always came back with her eyes red, her voice hoarse, and her breathing ragged. I had never seen her cry, though. Not even once. It was as if she had a vendetta against crying. I would hear her and her brother's piercing screams ripple down the hallways but she would still keep her head up high and give her all in our training.
She was strong. One of the strongest people I know. As the Winter Soldier, I wasn't necessarily supposed to feel anything, but being there was different I guess. I was able to let down my stoic mask, even if it was for a few minutes and voice my confusion and struggles to her. And she would listen. She wouldn't interrupt or hurt me like I knew my handlers would. I remember one time when I let my expressionless demeanor completely drop and I was crying though it felt like I was dying. It was one of those several days when the Winter Soldier was unstable and volatile. I remember every pair of fearful eyes as I struck any agent that came near me. But that didn't stop her. She just wrapped her arms around me and let me cry as I clung to her like there was no tomorrow. "You're a good person," she had whispered in that strange, but beautiful accent of hers. I knew she heard stories about me. The Fist of Hydra, the Ghost Story. But even after hearing them, she never looked at me as someone dangerous. She never minded the metal arm that slaughtered so many, because it was like she knew I could be something, someone more than a heartless assassin. The base still carried HYDRA's bad vibe, but it also had her presence. I guess that base being the only place I knew of that didn't have a mind wiping machine or cryo freeze also made it my safe haven of sorts, but I think the fact that she was there was the main reason.
I don't remember her name. I don't think she ever told me. She was just Asset 77 like I was just the Soldier. But we wouldn't call each other either of those names because somehow we knew they didn't belong to us. I remember that there were a lot of volunteers, probably around a hundred. Most of them avoided me, some even shook in my presence. Though my face never showed it, I guess it was uncomfortable to always be feared. When they first brought me in, all the volunteers were lined up against the wall as I walked across the room, meeting the eyes of every single one of them, all faces looking as if they were ready for execution. All except one. Whereas everyone else was practically trembling, one person was completely at ease, stoically boring her beautiful green eyes into my icy blue ones that it made me pause for a few seconds.
It was a girl with long brown hair.
On that day I thought maybe, just maybe, I could have a friend in HYDRA after all. But after a few months of being there, I thought that maybe it could be something more.
Bucky's small smile ended up turning into a full out beam as he remembered the day he met her. He knows there are plenty more writings in this exact notebook on this girl but his eyes linger on the page in front of him.
He heard Steve loudly clear his throat, and his head shot up, smile still perfectly in place.
"What'cha smiling about, Buck?" Steve asked, slight humor in his tone. Both he and Sam were looking at him, sporting small smirks. "Yeah," Sam added. "You look like Christmas came early."
Bucky handed Steve the notebook and said softly, "Read the whole thing."
As Steve put the book in between him and Sam, the blonde occasionally mouthing the words like Bucky remembered him doing when they were a lot younger, he heard Sam mutter a "holy shit" under his breath.
But before either of them could comment, Steve's phone went off. "It's Clint," he said to Sam, and Bucky had absolutely no idea who that was so maybe he would finally have a chance to get through an introduction without having to make an apology. "They're here."
Steve quickly pulled out the parking lot they were in and drove down to Level B6. The lot was generally vacant, all the areas empty except for one where a white van waited for them.
Bucky let Steve and Sam have their little reunion. He stood on the other side of the small car they came in, his demeanor changing as he was crawling back into his shell. His eyes were locked to the ground most of the time but sometimes he glanced around, only paying half attention to the conversation happening a few ways away from him.
"Thanks for having my back," he heard Steve say.
"It was time to get off my ass." That voice. Bucky's head automatically snapped towards the speaker. He swore his heart literally almost leapt out of his chest. Everything else that was being said slowly faded away from his hearing. Suddenly it didn't matter to him that he was currently being hunted down by everyone in every corner of the world.
She was here. Twenty feet away from him. As if she felt his stare, the girl who looked more like a woman now met his eyes. A nervous feeling churned in his stomach as he feared that she may not remember him as he does her. But judging from the surprise and what looked like relief written across her face, he knew she remembered him too.
A/N: As much as I like Wanda and Vision, these two are just too adorable and there's just not enough of them. I honestly cannot write a romance even if the world depended on it so this probably wasn't that great.