Bucky Barnes flinched awake. He was sitting up with a knife in his hand and eyes scanning the area in less than a second. He calmed his ragged breathing when he realized no one was there. It was dark and quiet; his eyes took a minute to adjust but he was already walking over to the kitchen table. It was about five steps from the thin mattress and ten steps from the apartment door.

It was a small table crammed under the windowsill to a window that let moonlight shine in even though newspaper covered the glass. He sat quietly on the lone chair, flipping open the notebook sitting on two more that were stacked on the table. He flipped to his last page and quickly started scribbling down the dream that woke him. It was too real. It had to be a memory.

Gunfire all around him. Could smell smoke, feel the heat of flames nearby. He was in a trench, a big man with red hair was with him. He remembered words passing through their lips but he couldn't hear them. Bucky flipped back a few pages. He scanned down some names he listed. He looked over the list again before circling Dugan.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair heavily, eyes finding a point on the wall and unfocusing as he sorted through his thoughts and memories.

It's been four months since he left Hydra. Four months since he read about himself in a museum. Four months since Captain America claimed to know him. Bucky knew that was true now. He read about it. Saw footage of them. Had a few memories of them when he was younger.

He remembers reading about the Howling Commandos but it was rare to get a memory of them. He still couldn't place names with faces but he knew he was one of them.

A loud noise caused him to flinch again. He twisted around in his seat but his eyes weren't there. He was only seeing soldiers running around him. Their shouts and gunfire echoing in his ears. It was so overwhelmingly real that Bucky reacted to the memories as if he was living them right now. Turned his head to look, jumped at sudden noises.

When the memory cleared, he scanned the notes he wrote just minutes ago. He was pretty sure it was the same night. He had a feeling this was the night his whole unit was captured. He wrote the thought down with a question mark.

Bucky wasn't sure why he wrote everything down. He couldn't be sure what was even real or not. But having these notebooks here comforted him. He could at least have a baseline to go off of if he ever did get his memory wiped again. The thought made him cringe.

The notebooks were good for quickly getting out his jagged memories and then placing them where he thought they belonged. They were helping him put things in order. Bucky was slowly putting together a choppy timeline for the past ninety years.

Unfortunately, memories that came back first and the most clear, were his days in Hydra. Almost all his missions, all the faces of people Hydra made him kill, all the abuse he suffered, came rushing in first. They were at the forefront of his mind. It was a crushing feeling of having all that flood in at once. It became easier when he started seeing good memories.

He remembers going to places like Rockaway Beach and Coney Island. Remembers going to fairs and dancing and having fun. He remembers Steve. He can remember being just a little kid and putting the couch cushions on the floor for them when Steve slept over. He remembers pulling Steve out of fights on a regular basis. He remembered leaving Steve behind and fighting in World War II.

Bucky placed his left elbow on the table, bracing his head against his palm. The cool metal felt good against his forehead. He picked up his pencil again as he tried to think about his time in the war. He could picture the faces of the other Howling Commandos.

A snowy mountain flashed over his eyes. Could see all of them standing together. A few sentences, a few names, a few details that came to him was quickly written down.

A noise next door had him freezing, his senses picking up everything he could to determine if there was a threat. He knew he should be leaving soon. He had got to Hungary only two days ago but was already antsy. He knew he needed to stop moving around so much. He barely stayed in America two weeks before going abroad and ever since then he had been in a constant state of moving from place to place. Only settling down for a night or two before ditching the city, sometimes the country.

He just wanted to stay away. Stay away from everything. He did not want to go back to Hydra. The thought alone made him angry. He knew they would look for him. He remembers the last time he got away from them. It was the first time he went rouge. Hydra couldn't find him for a long time. They gave him survival training for a reason and becoming invisible was part of it. They taught him how to hide and the first chance he got, he hid. When Hydra finally did find him…well, it wasn't a good time for Bucky. That was when they starting wiping his memory as part of his brainwashing. It made him more pliable and less likely to slip them again. From there on out it only got worse.

He wouldn't mess up this time. He couldn't. Hydra can't get him back.

He can't do it anymore. The guilt, the nightmares, the aches and pain and scars marring his body were enough. He was done.

Bucky was also running away from Steve. He knew the man was looking for him too. He knew he had help from the man with the wings. Sam? At first it was just so simple. He wasn't sure who Steve was. Didn't know what he meant to him. So he saved him. Only because he was right. Bucky had remembered something. But that was it. He left because what else would he have done?

But now? Now he wanted to stay away. He didn't want Steve to know. Didn't want him to try and claim that everything Bucky did as the Winter Soldier was not his fault. But that didn't mean Bucky still didn't do it. He still had all the blood on his hands. He wouldn't get any on Steve.

Bucky was also done with fighting. He wanted out. He didn't want to be involved in any way. Steve was Captain America. If he went to Steve, he knew the fight would never end. Captain America always had a battle to be won, always had a war to end or a world to save. Bucky didn't want that. He wanted to be left alone. Especially now. Maybe he would change his mind after he could learn to even trust his mind. Maybe once he knew everything, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from seeking out Steve, another person out of time.

But for now, this was Bucky's life. On the move, nightmare filled sleeps, late nights scribbling and constantly looking over his shoulder. But it was more freedom than he had in the last seventy years or so. And Bucky was happy with it. Soon he would be moving on again. Soon he would hopefully find a place to settle—at least for a month. He would try and build a life for himself. Hopefully find his way to Romania—a place Bucky has yet to have a bad memory from.

Bucky let out a calming breath as he quietly wrote. This was his life now. But he got it all on his own and as long as it was his, then he was happy.