So, this was his past.
He was a veteran, a war veteran. A heroic one.
And look at that picture of him – him! Apple-pie-all-American-butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth-interpid-explorer. Best friend of Steve Rogers. Captain America.
Thud
It's his fist hitting Rogers' flesh. His mission.
Another thud.
A bruise is appearing beneath Rogers' right eye. Couple more and he'll be meeting unconsciousness. Possibly death, if the explosion doesn't kill him first.
His fist draws back again. Why isn't he fighting back? Why?
Bucky …
The name means something. He knows it does.
He hits Roger's face again. Another thud.
But his memory, hazy at the best of times, a blank slate at the worst, pulls up the image of a small slim figure, a cough. A word. Bucky.
Why did Rogers save him? Why did he lift the metal beam? Why didn't he leave him to die?
The answer is a simple one. Clear, like a sudden ringing note of a bell. Rogers is right.
He's his friend.
Or was. Once.
The fist stills and he hears Rogers mummer something. Words. His own. He can hear them issue from his lips, see Rogers' face again, looking up at him, feel his own hand rest on a bony shoulder.
He blinks and he's back in the Smithsonian Institution, staring at a face – his own. Reading a biography – his own.
Funny how suddenly his memory is claiming things he never knew that he had. Before he was a mere tool for the freedom of humanity. Or whatever patriotic line Pearce fed to him. Now, now he has a name.
Beyond 'Winter Soldier'. Beyond 'Assassin'.
He has a name and it's James Buchanan Barnes.
Bucky.
He doesn't quite know what to do with it.
He nearly asks that face opposite him for orders. But the niggling echoes that face brings forth don't say anything at all. They only show him memories. Bleary. Hazy. Dizzying. So many of them.
He was a soldier, an assassin. Obeying any orders given to him. Now … he doesn't know what he is.
So he stands still and reads his biography over and over again, until every word is burned into his memory.
And when it is closing time he slips away, his hands – both metal and flesh – wedged in his pockets. He nearly - nearly - wishes to return to his former handlers; to have orders that he doesn't question, instructions which he must obey. But they are gone and something in him rebels against this wish. Something in him asks (and not for the first time, he feels) "Who the hell is Bucky?" and answers it quietly, in a voice which strangely holds guilt and relief and a whole lot of confusion: "Me – he's me."
And that part keeps him going in this strange world which has tipped itself upside down and left him feeling as vulnerable as a new-born baby.
His name is Bucky, Bucky Barnes.
And he remembers.