DISCLAIMER: I don't own Marvel or any of its characters.
It's cold.
The sun is out, but the wind is blowing steadily, the kind of wind that can chill you to the bone in an instant. People rush by, scarves wrapped over their faces, hands tucked into their pockets, hurrying from one destination to another to get out of the cold.
The little white kitten, shuddering uncontrollably, closes its dry eyes and lays its head down on the pavement, giving itself up for good.
A man scoops it up and tucks it into his jacket.
This man, if you were to see him, is so inconsequential that he would almost made your eyes slide off of him. His clothes are dark and unremarkable, his hair and beard shadow most of his face; like everyone else, he is bundled up so well you could hardly distinguish the outlines of his figure. A bag dangles from one hand, swaddled in a thick glove.
He hurries along like everyone else, as if he can't stand being out in the cold.
A siren sounds. The man's pause is barely visible, but it's there; his eyes scan the crowd, the street; he walks at the same pace, but his body is tense for running.
The ambulance zooms past and the man's shoulders slump the slightest bit in relief.
They've reached an apartment building, a tall grey building that stretches for a half block. The man lets himself in and mounts a staircase, still walking quickly, even though he's out of the cold now. Many, many flights up, he reaches a door that he unlocks and lets himself into.
The apartment is only one room, excepting the little bathroom off on the side. Kitchen, living room, bedroom, all of them are combined in one.
The man sinks into a chair, letting his bag drop on the floor. He pulls the kitten out of his jacket and tucks it into his sweater, closer to his body heat, and lays his right hand over top of it. He leans his head back against the chair, drawing in a deep breath, and runs his free hand through his long hair; his eyes close, as if he's exhausted.
Half an hour later, the kitten is purring softly and moving around inside the man's sweater; but the man himself still hasn't moved an inch. His hand still cradles the kitten, but he's perfectly still, staring at the stained ceiling above him.
"I'm not free," he mutters to himself.
There's no response; the room is completely silent, save the kitten's purring.
The man's eyes close.
"Free from captivity, yes," he says. "But running, running, always running. This isn't being free. I will never truly be free of them."
The kitten, tired of its resting place, tries to crawl out of his shirt. He looks down at it as if he wasn't even aware of its presence.
"We won't survive long," he tells it.
It stares at him.
Restlessly the man gets to his feet, pulling off his coat and his right glove. The kitten's head peers out from his shirt, surveying the new view of the room it's getting. The man pulls the milk out of the bag he carried and puts it in his fridge.
"I need food," he tells the kitten. "Actual food. But I'm not going back out there right now."
The kitten meows loudly, and he pulls her out of his sweater and sets her on the ground.
"He's looking for me," the man says, watching her explore the floor of his apartment. "I can't let him find me. He doesn't understand HYDRA. As soon as we were together, they'd know.
"But do you know, sometimes I'm still stupid enough that I want to let him find me, just to end all this?"
The kitten meows at him. It's hungry, but he doesn't understand that.
"I can't do it," he mutters. "I can't let him find me. This is my life now - always alone, always running."
He glances around the room. No matter where he is, he knows exactly how long it would take him to reach any single one of his hidden weapons and end it all - the loneliness, the guilt, the fear, the screaming he hears when he closes his eyes - at any point.
But something has always stopped him. The soft voice of his mother the last time he spoke to her (still only a few months-old memory for him), the relentlessness with which Steve is searching for him, now the presence of the kitten (maybe that's the real reason why he took it in).
But there is something else that stops him.
Bucky Barnes has learned to hesitate before he pulls a trigger, because the Soldier never did.
1 Day Later
The room is completely still.
The kitten pokes its head out from inside the cabinet. Sunlight is streaming in through the shattered windows; glass and other debris litter the floor. Around the room, some men in black uniforms lie still while others stir feebly.
It's the aftermath of something terrible.
The kitten doesn't understand it all; doesn't understand the mental agony endured in this very room by the man who lived in it, his equal parts longing and dread for it all to be over, his guilt and his grief and his anger and his pain.
All it knows is that it is hungry, and that no matter how loudly it purrs, the men in black ignore it.