Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am associated with, Marvel.
Authors Note: This has been laying around since like last year and it was just now that I got around to writing the rest of it :)
There once was a man named Bucky Barnes.
Thousands of men give their lives in the name of freedom every year, and James Buchanan Barnes- Bucky for short- is among them. But very few, if any besides himself, have fallen off of a train and given up their lives to live another. Very few have tasted the sweet freedom of escaping HYDRA only to be dragged back down for another round.
Lucky him. Lucky winner.
When Steve stands at the memorial, he can close his eyes and picture in the greatest detail everything about this man; from the sound of his laugh to his greatest fears. Steve knows this man inside and out. Or he did, because the man that is occupying Bucky's body is not Bucky himself. He's an impostor, playing a game that's going to end even if it means the end of Steve.
Because Bucky wouldn't like not being in control.
Steve remembers the times Bucky would get drunk and throw himself around like a too-tall rag doll. There was one particular day in which Bucky drowned his sorrows in vodka and whiskey and picked a fight with a man twice his size.
Bucky had always been used to winning. He didn't win this one.
The next day Steve sits besides Bucky's bed and listens to Bucky groan about the light, and how thirsty he is, and how he wishes Steve would get the damn painkillers already so his headache could go away.
Steve tells him to shut up and go to sleep or face the consequences of his actions.
That's when Bucky goes quiet, and says in a strained voice- from the pain- that he hates not being in control of himself.
Steve can picture him saying that now. Except his voice wouldn't be strained from pain, but from years of being an emotionless tool.
Hydra's cruel, but taking someone's humanity is the worst they could ever do.
Bucky has always fought for the right side, has always been the hero type. He's tall and handsome and the right mix of gentleman and bad-boy.
Steve and his too big mouth would always get him in trouble. He would be backed up until he ran out of room, yet he would keep the words coming, fighting his way with weak punches and soft words.
Bucky would always come save him. He'd punch the bully in the face
The roles are reversed now: Steve is the hero and Bucky is the one with his back to the wall.
This time it's up to Steve to fight off the bully. This time he has to save Bucky. Because no one else will and because Steve loves Bucky with all his heart and more.
Steve thinks that Bucky would be terrified of himself.
Bucky has always been the kind of person to fear the unknown. The kind of person to stare in the mirror at one AM and wonder where his life's going and if he'll get married and if he'll make something of himself.
Bucky has always feared that one day he won't know the person he's become, because they've all seen the people who waste their lives at bars and drown their emotions in manufactured happiness. Bucky has always had big dreams, and he always feared not being able to accomplish them.
He fears the unknown, and there is nothing more unknown than waking up with a metal arm and instructions to kill and cryofreeze.
And Steve fears the unknown too, now, because he doesn't know if Bucky will ever come back. If Bucky can ever come back.
There are says when Steve can't sleep, and at one AM he'll blame himself for what happened. If they had never jumped on that train, if he had been a little faster. He could've saved Bucky.
Hydra took Bucky because he was Steve's, is Steve's, best friend. They couldn't find a gun big enough, or a soldier deadly enough to fight their super soldier enemy. So they created one.
They didn't realize, didn't care, about the man they destroyed in the process.
There once was a man named Bucky Barnes.
And the Winter Soldier only knows that because he's heard it. The man on the bridge, he spoke of this Bucky in a way that seems so familiar yet so distant. There's a part of him that's frustrated, because he knows so many things- fighting and war and strategies- that he should know Bucky too.
Of the things he does remember, he knows the Pierce and the freezing the best. He knows the voice of Pierce, which he can only compare to the voice of God.
The voice that is always in his mind.
But then, somewhere, he knows the voice of the man on the bridge too. And that frustrates him to no end.
He let's Pierce cryofreeze him one more time. He doesn't like it, because it leaves him feeling empty, but it's easier than knowing he can't remember his own past.
He let's Pierce cryofreeze him because he doesn't have a choice. He likes to pretend to, likes to think, on the days when his mind isn't completely in Pierce's control, that he could wrap that metal hand around Pierce' throat and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until there's no one left to control him but himself.
When the Winter Soldier doesn't know better, he likes to think he's in control.
Right now, he wants to find the man on the bridge.
He finds him again, when Pierce is dead and memories trickle back into his mind through cracks in the frozen metal. He finds the man on the bridge, finds him and knows him and knows Bucky, when it's too late.
There once was a man called Bucky, and Steve has never wanted to fight this man. They're friends; they're with each other "'til the end of the line" and the end of that line hasn't come yet.
Bucky knows him, the Winter Soldier knows him. He has to, because no one looks at someone they're about to kill that way. Right?
There once was a man named Bucky Barnes.
But now there is only the Winter Soldier.