Bucky awoke with a panicked gasp. His nightmares were few and far between nowadays and he couldn't remember having one tonight. He wasn't drowning in sweat or angrily tearing his blankets like he usually did when one came on. So what had woken him up so dramatically? No sooner had he had the questioning thought and sat up in bed, Steve was rushing into his room and flipping on the light while wearing a concerned look.

"Bucky, did you not here me yelling? Come on, get up. Fury called, we've got a mission."

Before his best friend could finish speaking, Bucky was already jumping out of his bed and pulling on his uniform. This was his life now, two years after Steve had found him wandering hopelessly around the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian. That time in his life had been excruciatingly hard. His memories had been coming back in painful flashes and he wasn't sure which side was good and which was bad anymore. The nightmares at that time had made him afraid of falling asleep which resulted in delirium and the worst headaches he could remember having. He had seen an advertisement for the new exhibit on a poster and had snuck past security in order to get in. He had a feeling learning about Captain America, his last mission, would shed some light on who he really was. How right he had been.

Steve had shown up at the Smithsonian about an hour after Bucky had. It had been enough time for Bucky to make sense of some of the snippets of visions he had been getting for the past few weeks. Dog tags. Short hair. Dates with pretty dames. Germany. A sick little blonde boy who had always felt more like a brother. And then falling. He was remembering James Barnes' life. His life before Hydra had intervened and ruined it. He was on the verge of having an anger-fueled break down when he had felt a hand on his shoulder. And just like he had done for Steve when they were young, Steve helped him out of the corner his mind had backed him up into and gave him a shoulder to lean on.

The healing process hadn't been pretty or fast. It had taken Bucky a good month to even come out of the room Steve had graciously given him in his D.C. apartment. It took another month to agree to see a psychologist and it wasn't until he had been living a 'normal' life for almost a year that the nightmares stopped coming every single night. Bucky had punched, strangled, and fought his best friend whilst in the throes of those hellish dreams more times than he would like to admit. Even after all that, though, Steve still stood by him and aided him in his recovery. He always reminded Bucky that he was "with him till the end of the line."

Bucky quickly pulled on his boots and headed out of his room to grab the weapons he would be needing. He and Steve both kept multiple guns, knives, grenades, and the shield in a room that Tony Stark had turned into a weapons vault for them. Steve, already suited up as the Captain, was running around shoving last minute items into his go bag. They never knew how long these missions would last or when they would get back. Sometimes it was only a night they were gone. One time, however, they had been in Bulgaria for a full month following up on leads concerning the remnants of Hydra. Bucky never had to worry about packing last minute items, though. His go bag was always ready. Three changes of clothes, underwear, shampoo, and his toothbrush and toothpaste. That was all he ever needed. It was a hell of a lot more than he ever had when he was on missions as The Winter Soldiers, that was for sure.

"You almost ready, Buck?" Steve was now standing by the door holding both of their bags and looking expectantly at him.

Bucky finished strapping the last knife on his uniform and nodded. "Yeah, let's go," came his gruff reply. He was still attempting to fight off the grogginess that came with being woken up at three in the morning. He picked up a hair tie off of their counter as they walked out and pulled his shoulder-length hair up and out of his face.

A black SUV was pulling up to the curb as soon as the super soldiers exited their apartment building. Not wanting to call any attention to themselves, they quietly made there way over and hopped into the back seats. Natasha, in the driver's seat, quickly looked back to make sure they were both in before pulling back into the road and heading in the direction of their meeting location.

"Morning, boys," she said with a sly grin. "It's been a nice break but it feels good to be back, huh?" Bucky realized then that it had been a good while since their last mission. Almost three weeks. He wasn't about to complain, though. After everything he had been through, he thoroughly enjoyed his precious down time.

"Good morning, Natasha," replied Steve, never to be one who missed the chance to be polite. "Any chance you know what this is about?"

"Nope. All I was told was to pick you two and Sam up and report with you all at the airport. Fury didn't seem to be in the best of moods though so I'm assuming it's not going to be an overnight fix."

Steve just gave a low "hmmm" and continued looking at their surroundings as they neared Sam's apartment. Bucky, however, couldn't care less about looking at anything besides the backs of his eyelids. He had stayed up late watching television and was now exhausted. With any luck, their flight would be long enough to get a few hours of sleep after their briefing.

After a few miles, Bucky felt the vehicle come to a stop and heard the passenger door open and close a few seconds later indicating Sam's arrival.

"Man, just once I wish we could have a mission at two in the afternoon. Just once," came Sam's sleepy voice. He followed his statement with a loud yawn and Steve and Natasha both laughed.

"I don't really think we signed up for normal nine to five jobs, Sam," said Steve. Bucky quietly snorted in laughter. Wasn't that the truth.

"Yeah, yeah. Just wake me when we get to the airport." With that he slumped against the window and was out. It didn't take Bucky long to drift off, as well, lulled to sleep by the sound of the engine and the quiet voices of Captain America and Black Widow making small talk.

He regained consciousness when Natasha parked the car in front of a small airport just outside of the city. It was supposed to be abandoned, but what remained of SHIELD used it for discreetly transporting agents to and from new missions. The small private jet sat about twenty feet away running and waiting for them. All four of them exited the SUV, bags in hand, and climbed the stairs to the aircraft.

Sitting in a chair, whiskey in front of him, was Fury. He had on his ever-present eyepatch along with regular street clothes. Whatever this mission was seemed to have taken him by surprise, too. Bucky didn't think he had ever seen the former SHIELD Director in jeans before tonight. It was strange, to say the least.

"Have a seat, everyone, this is going to be a long night," he said.

Bucky resisted the urge to groan. He was just so damn tired. Looking to his right, he could see that Sam was having similar thoughts.

Once the plane was at cruising altitude and all five people had received their briefing folders, Fury began.

"It's not good. We got some intel last week that there was a possible HYDRA base hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. We sent a team in to scout but only two made it back. They were new recruits, not equipped for a mission of that caliber. However, they did manage to take out about a third of the HYDRA agents there. While they were searching the compound, they found something. Apparently before Pierce died, he gave the orders for the kidnappings of a few civilians. We don't know why. Maybe to use as leverage, maybe to use for experimentation, we just don't know. What we do know is that, as of yesterday, three of the captives were still alive. Two men and a young woman. We don't know their names or who they are but-"

"It doesn't matter that we don't know any of that," interrupted Steve, "we have to get them out."

Bucky's mind had been elsewhere ever since Fury had suggested "experimentation." He shivered involuntarily as he thought about his time with HYDRA that he could actually remember. He had been one of their guinea pigs. Thinking of other people that could potentially be in the same position made him nauseous. Had they turned them into weapons as well? Had their memories been wiped as his had? They had to rescue those people.

"Exactly," said Fury. "The base is in the middle of the mountain ranges in Colorado. We'll land about two miles to the south and it will be up to the four of you to make it the rest of the way, take out any enemy agents, and get those innocent people out. Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir," they all replied at once. Their wasn't a single face in the group that wasn't grim. Fury was right, this wasn't good.

Bucky estimated that they had about an hour left of flight time left but he suddenly wasn't in the mood to sleep anymore. He reached out his metal arm to pick up the bottle of whiskey that sat in the middle of the table and poured himself a glass. Like Steve, alcohol couldn't do much for Bucky anymore. He ignored that fact, though, and drank the amber liquid in one gulp. He didn't know what to expect from this mission.