A/N - Despite having had the urge to write for ages, it's been a while since I've actually had the opportunity, so I apologise if this feels like someone who's wildly out of practice. I hope you enjoy and any feedback is appreciated as always :)

Disclaimer - I still don't own Marvel

Sleep is not something that the Winter Soldier can remember coming easily to him. What little he remembers is marred by vague memories of ice snaking into his bones and pulling him into an endless void, only to emerge often years later; nauseated and shivering and surrounded by faces he does not know. He supposes he must have been forced to sleep normally on longer missions, where giving into exhaustion provided a tactical advantage, but he cannot remember those instances and thus the act remains something that he would rather avoid.

This becomes difficult in the days following his defection and Hydra's fall from the sky. He copes well enough to steal money for food and clothes, and gathers timetables for buses with the intention of travelling as far away as he can. However, he can't ignore the burning pain in his eyes on the fourth day, or the heaviness of his limbs and the way his thoughts seem more sluggish than usual.

Instinctively he knows what his body is demanding of him and, though he's loathe to admit it, it terrifies him. He envisions himself waking in another place all over again, with people he doesn't know giving him orders and expecting compliance, and it's enough to make him stubbornly last two more days before he collapses in an alleyway, defeated.

The void comes for him again, only this time he can identify faded colours and sounds and the lingering cold he has come to expect is absent. When he wakes, the usual feeling of dizziness and nausea is still there and his back aches from leaning awkwardly against a wall, but he is alone and unharmed and that at least brings some relief. He also has a name lingering in his mind – the clear memory of the words 'James Buchanan Barnes' being spoken by a man he thinks he knows – and he rises to his feet with a purpose he hasn't had since he'd been ordered to kill the Captain.

Nobody pays much attention to him as he wanders through the Smithsonian, besides some cautious sideways glances, and he's grateful as he finds himself staring into the eyes of a man who shares his face. The words accompanying the image don't tell him as much as he'd like, and yet they also seem to tell him everything he needs to know; that his past is interlinked with that of the man from the helicarrier, whose own face follows him wherever he turns. That he even had a past, beyond waking in countless labs and being handed a gun, is enough to make his head spin and he spends the next few days seeking out as much information on Bucky Barnes as he can before he's forced to forget.

Gathering useful data is difficult. In most history books he's little more than a footnote; his existence narrowed down to being Captain America's childhood friend and the only Howling Commando to die in battle. Some older articles he finds in libraries provide photographs or documents from Bucky's time in the army, and he stashes them in his backpack while nobody is looking out of hope that the words will one day mean something to him. Anything else of importance he simply jots down in a cheap notebook.

It occurs to him that this is a fruitless quest and that even if he had had a life once, there's little hope he can ever return to it. Some days he even entertains the possibility that this is all an elaborate test set by Hydra, and that the longer he lasts without returning to them, the more likely he is to fail and be punished.

He finds that he doesn't have the energy to care. Besides, this new-found life of his may not be much, but it is a life and he wants to keep it.

Ten days after the remains of Hydra's helicarriers fall into the Potomac, he finds himself on a bus headed to a town he's never heard of, and he finally allows himself to revel in the fact that he's free.

The next time he's able to get some actual sleep, on a bed that's too soft in a grubby motel halfway across the country, he finds himself in a corridor.

It's an instant improvement over the void, if only because he feels solid here and finds that he can reach out and touch his surroundings. Relief that he will not be lost in his own mind quickly turns to confusion, as he carefully walks along the seemingly endless grey corridor and passes doors which range from warm, faded oak to imposing cold steel. There's a familiarity that comes with each door he passes – a feeling that if he concentrates hard enough he will be able to tell what lies beyond without having to see it – but the uncertainty of what awaits him stops him from giving into curiosity and stepping inside. When no end seems to present itself, he simply ignores the faint whispers attempting to draw him in and sits against the wall, facing a rusted iron door which looks unlikely to budge even if he wanted to peer inside.

Any intentions of patiently waiting it out until his body forces him to wake seem more and more unlikely as minutes stretch into hours, and half-familiar whispers slowly increase in volume until he has to cover his ears to block out the screams. When he does wake he finds that he's covered in a cold sweat and his ears are ringing, and breathing does not come as easily as it should.

He briefly considers the possibility that this may be another of Hydra's tricks, or a remnant of their programming lingering in his brain, but he ignores it. The notion of his old handlers still being able to haunt him is one he does not want to comprehend, not yet. Instead he drags himself out of bed and wakes himself up with a scalding hot shower, before gathering what little he owns in his backpack and leaving the room as empty as he'd found it.

The brightly lit corridor he emerges onto makes ice prickle uncomfortably at the back of his neck and he finds himself almost missing the void.

The corridor awaits him again soon enough, and this time he gives up any form of caution and slowly pushes open an oak door to his right. The air that hits him before he steps inside is pleasantly warm, and he only hesitates for a moment before stepping inside and being washed with bright light and the faint echo of a child's laugh.

The room he finds himself in is cramped but homely, with a large window pushed open to let in the afternoon sun, and a threadbare couch sits against the wall with its cushions lying carelessly on the floor. A child's drawings are littered all over the walls and he barely has time to wander over and take them in before two small bodies burst into the room from outside, laughing breathlessly and playfully shoving each other until they collapse on the discarded cushions in a heap.

He guesses that they're anywhere from six to ten years old – it would be easier to tell if the smaller blonde boy wasn't so frail – and he freezes when he recognises the other boy's messy brown hair and grey eyes. A sudden ache makes itself at home in his chest and he's grateful that it appears he cannot be seen, for he imagines he must make a pitiful sight. Instead, the scene before him continues unaffected by his presence; the boys squabbling about something which seems laughably unimportant compared with what he knows they'll eventually face.

"If your shoes actually fit, you wouldn' be fallin' all over the place."

"They will fit," the smaller boy insists for what must be the fourth time, while he scrambles to tighten laces already at their breaking point. At a glance, the leather shoes in question are noticeably worn but well-made; no doubt his mother saved for months in order to afford them, even second-hand. "I jus' have to break em in, Mama says so."

There's a stubborn insistence there that makes the Soldier want to laugh, although he can't really think why, and the resigned expression on his younger self's face brings a familiarity he hasn't felt in years. He watches the boy scan the room before pulling a newspaper down from the dinner table and scrunching up one of the pages in his fist, ignoring his friend's confused protests.

"Here," he says, handing the ruined paper over to Steve before starting to scrunch up more. "Use these to fill in the gaps. Then they'll fit."

"I don't need em," Steve mutters half-heartedly, but he gets to work anyway. There's a few quiet moments as Steve stuffs his shoes and tries them on before reluctantly accepting more paper, until he's walking around the room without his feet falling out of his shoes every other step. The grin he wears makes the longing ache in the Soldier's chest feel heavier, and he wonders how many small moments like these he'll find if his mind will let him. He's temped to leave, unsure of how this dream is supposed to work, but before he can he hears the soft tones of Sarah Rogers, finally returning from work and seeming unsurprised to find the older boy in her home as well (when the Soldier wakes he will wonder as to how easily her name came to him, but for now her sudden presence feels strangely natural).

When he turns to look at her, he finds that he cannot make out her face. Every time he tries to focus, Sarah's features become more and more faded as if looking at her through shattered glass. He wonders if this should frighten him, but her voice is so clear and kind that he chooses to ignore it. He imagines there will be stranger things lurking in his memories than this.

He makes to leave, the chatter behind him having turned to discussions over whether Bucky will stay for dinner, and though he suspects he shouldn't, he lets himself have a quick look back.

He finds the child named Bucky looking directly at him, seemingly oblivious to Sarah and Steve's conversation carrying on as normal, and a sudden heaviness settles in the Soldier's chest. He watches as wide, naïve eyes take in his own tired face before lingering on his metal arm, taking in everything from its brutal strength to the ugly scars which showcase how he came to acquire it.

When he can't take the fear in the child's expression anymore, he turns away and lets the dream slip away from him. He wakes feeling almost as exhausted as he was when he collapsed on the bed, and the sunbeams streaming through the windows tell him that he's wasted a fair portion of the day.

Part of him wants to discard what he saw and forget; the part which still suspects that his investigations into who he was before he died and woke up in a lab will get him nowhere. The part which wins out reaches for his backpack and pulls out his tattered notebook, taking hurried notes before the dream can melt away from him.

The memories seem to come more easily after that; or, at the very least, his trepidation about them starts to fade. Opening more doors takes him to noisy playgrounds and scorching Brooklyn streets, or to crowded dance-halls and backstreet alleys. The pattern of the young Bucky Barnes pulling Steve Rogers away from a fight emerges before long, as constant in their late teens as it was when they were scrappy children, and the familiarity of it all starts to hurt. Sometimes, when he's awake, he'll go back to the notes and articles he took back in Washington DC and compare to make sure he's remembering events correctly, and it's a relief to find that he is more often than not. He starts to find that small memories will come back to him even in the waking hours; he'll pass a group of children fighting in the street and be brought back to a school playground, or he'll see a young woman with dark hair and a pretty round face and remember the many times spent annoying his younger sister.

He writes everything down. As the months pass, it becomes less and less likely that he'll forget but he takes the precaution regardless. He still wakes some days forgetting who and where he is, and he is not naïve enough to believe that there aren't people searching for him. If he's ever placed back in that chair and the memories burned out of his head, he needs some way of knowing he can get them back, and so he dutifully fills pages and pages worth of notebooks until carrying them everywhere starts to become troublesome.

He still doubts he will ever truly become the man whose memories lie in his head again. The ache of familiarity is one thing, but he also knows that most of Bucky Barnes's family is dead (and he cannot bring himself to find Captain America just yet) and the Brooklyn he had wanted to return to when the war was over no longer exists. He adopts the name James, because it quickly becomes apparent that people expect him to have one, but he can't escape the uneasy sensation that he is taking advantage of another man's life. Not when he knows there is an entire chunk of his history that he's trying to ignore (although he expects the nightmares will find him eventually) but which has had as big a role in shaping him as the childhood memories he indulges in.

It becomes even more difficult to ignore on the rare occasions where an ex-Hydra member hunts him down and tries his luck, and James is left washing blood from his hands and face until the skin is red raw and the metal scraped.

On those occasions he even hates the man whose body he inhabits, because he had actually deserved those good memories and friendships and love shared from school-yard to torn battlefields, whereas James can't escape the knowledge that he is a monster taking comfort in the experiences of a man who likely no longer exists.

He puts off exploring what lies beyond the steel doors for as long as his mind will let him. The corridor grows colder with each subsequent visit, and though he sometimes wastes time revisiting moments he's already seen, it never quite feels the same. The colours become muted, the feelings he experiences dulled, and he eventually stops reusing doors in order to avoid soiling the memories which lie beyond them.

When he can bring himself to touch the doors he knows belong to the Asset, the steel is freezing cold to the touch and the implicit promise of pain makes him jerk back and lose any courage he may have had. The memories will find him eventually, he knows, regardless of whether he actively seeks them out or not. If he does not relive them here then he may be subjected to a violent flashback out in the streets, or worse, revert to what he once was in a place where no-one can stop him. The likelihood that people will get hurt if he resists is enough to make him swallow his fear and approach cold steel, but he wishes his heart would quieten as he does so.

When the door slides open this time he's faced with blackness which swallows him whole. He doesn't have the time to be startled before he comes to on a table with straps holding him down, although he imagines he could break them if he wanted. He hears a pained groan which seems to be coming from himself, and his head pounds against the bright lights shining down on him. He seems to be seeing this memory through the Asset's eyes, and the longing to return to his role as an unnoticed bystander is made stronger by the dryness in his mouth and the nausea rising in his gut.

He turns his head as much as he is able, and feels his breathing pick up at the sight of the shining metal taking the place of his left arm. Distantly, James imagines he should be panicking more, but the thought is accompanied by images of scientists working on a bloodied stump and the metal gripping tightly around a man's throat and he realises that this is not the first time he has woken up here. The sight of the arm is still an unnerving one, however; a reminder of where he is and the fact that nobody is coming back for him.

He isn't given much time to dwell on it, as a door opens somewhere to his right and he identifies the footsteps of a single man. The fact that he isn't surrounded is surprising as well, but he supposes the restraints and whatever they've done to him to make his limbs feel so heavy has rendered him defenceless. Before long, the face of a smug bespectacled man looms overhead and though James knows he's seen him before, his mind refuses to give him a name.

"Morning Sergeant!" the man says in a thick accent, as though he were talking to an old friend. "You've been asleep for a long time. Eight years in fact."

The man keeps talking nonsense as he checks vital signs and takes blood samples, but all James can focus on is the fact that he's been dead for eight years. A small voice in his head is panicking, adamant that it is still 1945 and that he fell from the mountains mere days ago, but he shuts it out because he knows better now. His wounds were healed, his knock-off serum re-administered, and when he fought back he was simply left to waste away in the ice. There will be additional details, he knows, but he doubts he wants to remember them.

As the minutes drag on, he chooses to remain silent while his handler works around him, fearing reprisals even now. He finds himself focussed on a damp spot on the ceiling, concealing his fear behind even breaths, and he doesn't realise that he's being spoken to again until a sharp slap across the face slams him out of his reverie.

"We'll have to teach you to listen, it seems," the man says, keeping his voice calm but unable to hide the sharp annoyance in his gaze. "No matter. I only need you to do one thing for now, then you can rest."

The promise of rest sounds lovely, and it's enough to make him listen for once.

"Tell me your name."

The order is a strange one, and one he knows should be easy, but when he opens his mouth to speak no words come forth. He has a name, he knows that much; is aware of a life beyond these walls, however faintly, but even when he tries to focus, his mind offers no suggestions. He can feel his body starting to panic instinctively, feels the breaths get trapped in his throat and his heart race and his head pound with greater intensity, but he finds himself unable to focus on any of that. All he has is an emptiness in his head where he knows a life should be.

The man above him seems to be enjoying this display, his smug smile growing into a shark-like grin before he leans down to take some notes. "Six wipes is all it takes, apparently." The words vaguely make sense to James, but he finds himself being so detached from what's happening around him that he cannot react. Instead he's left with the panic he'd experienced sixty years before, and when he feels his body strain against the restraints, he almost hopes that he'll be sedated again just to make everything end.

The man (Zola? He isn't sure) doesn't react however, likely having come to expect his resistance by now. Instead he simply walks away after leaving him with what sounds like a warning; "Rest, sergeant. We'll move to the next stage tomorrow."

James doesn't get out of bed for two days after finally waking in the present. He knows he should, knows he's covered in sweat and that he needs a shower and food and to go as far away as he can, but he can't quite gather the motivation to move. The faint echoes of ice and pain still linger in his body and despite the warm sunlight pouring through the hotel windows, he finds himself shivering and numb. Sleep isn't an option, and while he starts to doze at one point, it is barely minutes before he wakes again with a jolt.

He finally feels able to get up when the lingering effects of his dream start to fade, and he can prioritise the need for a hot shower and food over the childish wish to hide away from the world. The water is scalding as it pours down on him, but it is so unlike the ice that he doesn't mind its burn, and later he is able to find food and water at the bottom of his backpack and give into the hunger he's been ignoring for days.

The notebooks catch his eye, and though he'd give anything not to revisit the lab again, he jots down quick notes anyway. Those experiences are still a part of him, whether he likes it or not, and ignoring them is a not an option he can take if he truly wants to heal.

It should probably unnerve him how quickly he becomes used to waking up after seeing people die at his hands, but then, there's only so many times he can watch himself pull a trigger before it becomes commonplace. Most targets are men he doesn't know or remember; powerful men in suits who are alive one minute and no longer Hydra's problem the next, and though he could probably use the details he remembers to look them up, he doubts he is that much of a masochist. Not yet anyway.

Sometimes he still wakes feeling like the monster he'd been turned into. When he is unable to stop his past self from pulling the trigger on a young child who'd seen too much, or when he watches a car flip on its side after shooting the tyres and vaguely recognises the driver before he finishes him off (or the driver recognises him, he can't remember which); then he'll wake in a cold sweat and feel loathing claw at his chest. More often than not, however, he'll wake with a calm acceptance and make another quick note as the Winter Soldier's kills rise to several dozen.

It isn't like waking from childhood memories, where he was overcome by echoes of a happy life that still felt alien to him. The Winter Soldier wasn't allowed to feel, was a weapon to be used rather than a person, and he finds that most of his memories associated with that time are suitably clinical as a result.

Once, his mind takes him back to sometime in the 1980s, and he finds himself looking down on the Asset bleeding out in the snow. It's an image which strikes him as familiar, but the appearance of the metal arm at his side and a handler screaming at him to stay awake reminds him that he is not in the Alps. Instead he notes the blood pouring from a bullet wound in the Soldier's neck with detached curiosity, and wonders how many times he's come close to death without being allowed to give into it. The handler at his side is a man he does not remember; a young man, judging by his blind panic, and one who seems deathly afraid of losing Hydra's most valuable weapon. James blocks out his frantic requests for medical aid just as easily as the Soldier does, and instead becomes fixated on his own, younger face, looking out at the snow and simply waiting for the pain to stop and the freedom of death.

He won't get it. At the back of his mind, James can remember regaining consciousness on an operating table while scientists work to stop the bleeding and fix any damage caused by the bullet, and he'll be forced into the ice before he's even truly healed. When he wakes, the scientists who await him will be an entirely new group of people and the only indicator of his brush with mortality will be a fading pink line on his neck which he'll catch on his reflection before his mind is wiped.

He'll never see the young handler again. Not many people will.

James lets himself wonder if he should feel something for the pitiful creature he used to be; this man who longs for nothing but a vague sense of freedom, despite still having thirty years of hell stretched out before him.

For his own sake, he chooses to feel nothing and instead wakes up grateful that he is no longer at the mercy of others.

And though a phantom pain in his neck haunts him as surely as any ghost ever has over the next few days, even that eventually fades to nothing more than a distant memory.

The last time he sees the corridor, he is not there by choice. Though he can't remember how, past experience is enough to inform him that he's been sedated; thoughts do not come as easily as he'd like and any awareness of his outside surroundings fails to present itself. Instead he's left in the grey corridor with countless doors he's already opened, and walking onwards causes his vision to swirl in a manner which forces him to stop every few steps to catch his breath. Telling himself that this place isn't real does not help; with the doors open, the faint inviting whispers feel as loud as shouts and the pain in his head threatens to overwhelm everything else.

He should probably be concerned, given that his sedation means that he will likely wake in enemy hands. His lack of memories leading up to his capture is also disconcerting, and he doubts he will find them even here, but everything feels detached in this place to such an extent that he finds it hard to care. When he comes to, he will deal with whatever faces him. Until then, he is stuck in the place that has offered him as many nightmares as it has fond memories.

Walking becomes easier after what may be minutes or hours, and his vision becomes steady as he wanders past steel doors which empty out onto black nothingness. He has subjected himself to the torments lying within already, and thus no obligation to pick a door ever presents itself, so instead he keeps going with no end in sight although he knows there must be one. His life has been a long one, but he is not immortal and his experiences are more limited that one would think. There will be an end somewhere, and then he might be able to start putting together the fractured pieces of Bucky Barnes' and the Asset's lives.

It feels like days have passed by the time he reaches the final door – a single pane of glass being held in place by a metal frame – and he's surprised to feel little trepidation upon reaching out to touch it. Beyond the glass there is nothing to see, but it's not the dense blackness he's grown used to; instead he can almost make out faded colours which have come together in a dark mess. He pushes the door open carefully and takes a step, and the muted colours wash over him like fire.

When the scene before him starts to form a coherent whole, he finds himself surrounded by his fair share of actual fire. From where he sits he can see the battered remains of the helicarriers still firing at each other, and the deep rumbles as missiles hit close by seem to cause his bones to shudder. There's barely time to take in the furore around him before a sharp gasp draws his gaze downward, and as he looks at the broken face of Steve Rogers he finally realises that his metal arm is pulled back, ready for the fatal hit. His heart seems to halt and the knowledge that he is the one to have caused the man's wounds gnaws away at him, but the arm remains poised and the calm acceptance in his old friend's expression speaks of a man prepared for everything to end.

"Then finish it," Steve manages to utter, and it's a wonder Bucky even hears him in this mess but the words echo in his mind anyway. "Cause I'm with you to the end of the line."

Bucky knows this is the moment where he stopped before, and that those words had awakened a familiarity that he hadn't understood, but had been real enough to change his mind. Now, however, he can actually see himself saying those words all those years ago; can see himself unbroken and kind, comforting a friend in pain and giving him a promise he hadn't realised would be almost impossible to keep. He can feel tears prick at his eyes, wants to take Steve far away and ensure him that, somewhere, his friend still exists, but the ground falls away from under him before he can say anything and takes Steve with it.

After that, everything continues as it had before. He hesitates for a split second before jumping into the water himself; he finds the Captain's unconscious body below the surface and pulls him to shore, ensuring that the man still breathes before leaving him behind.

Only this time, when he decides to save the man's life rather than end it, he finally understands why.

A slow, rhythmic beeping is what draws him back to consciousness in the end, and he groans without meaning to at the sudden brightness of the room he finds himself in. He's groggy from whatever drug they injected him with, and the tight restraints around his arms tell him everything he needs to know, but he refuses to panic.

Instead he takes in his surroundings; the hospital equipment and the various monitors he's linked to, and his jacket and backpack discarded on a nearby table. He can hear activity from beyond the door, but otherwise he seems to be alone, and he sits up as much as the restraints will let him. The sudden activity makes his head spin but he gathers himself quickly and tests the resistance of the restraints.

They're weaker than his captors likely intended. If necessity demands it, breaking free shouldn't be too difficult.

The door opens eventually to reveal a middle-aged man wearing a white lab-coat who starts at the sight of his subject awake, but recovers quickly. Beyond the door, Bucky can hear the buzz of other voices, but the door closes before he can make anything out and he's left alone with a stranger.

Something about the man's expressionless face and small grey eyes brings him back to a lab in 1953, and he is forced to ignore the chill that runs down his spine in favour of staring the man down with as cold an expression as he can muster. His visitor seems unmoved, wandering over to the equipment and reading off vital signs which Bucky only half-understands, before turning to face him with a slight smirk.

"You know, it took a while, but your friend eventually bought that we were performing a psych eval," he says in a tone that's too smug for Bucky's liking. The fact that most men in coats he encounters happen to be monsters should no longer surprise him, but he hasn't been this helpless for two years now and he can't help but feel that this is a situation which belongs in nightmares and not one he should ever be subjected to again.

He barely catches the mention of a 'friend' at first, but when he does it's enough to provide some comfort. If Steve knows he's here then he has someone to run to if he escapes, although considering that the last time he saw the man he'd put several bullets in him, perhaps help won't be offered.

Steve is a better man than Bucky ever was though. Regardless of whether or not he deserves it, he imagines the man will stay by his side if he asks.

His visitor continues working as if Bucky isn't there, sometimes muttering under his breath but otherwise quiet. Tearing himself free from his restraints becomes more tempting with each passing moment, and he almost brings himself to do so before the man straightens and finally looks him in the eye with an expression that may be fear. There's a moment of hesitation in which neither of them move, both waiting for the other to do something, and the notion of 'fuck it' crosses Bucky's mind as he makes to pull himself free. His muscles have barely contracted in preparation before the man speaks up, however.

"Sputnik."

A moment later, Bucky is gone.

Coming to is a strange mixture of feeling like he's emerging from the deepest sleep of his life while the full force of his body's aches indicate that his unconsciousness was anything but peaceful. He starts to doubt if he was even asleep; his legs are cramped as if he's run a marathon and he can feel blood trickling from a cut on his forehead. Every part of his body hurts when he tries to move it, and his prosthetic is confined by a cool metal contraption at his side, locking him in place and leaving him in a heap on a dusty floor. As preposterous as it seems, he almost misses the hospital bed.

He can hear male voices not far from where he sits but he can't make out any words, and an absent weight at his back informs him that he doesn't have his backpack on him. It is this that ends up panicking him more; the idea of his memories being lost to him all over again makes his blood freeze in his veins. It's bad enough that the last few days seem to be absent in his mind, and that for the last few hours his body does not seem to have been his own. He's not sure he can tolerate his entire past being taken from him as well.

One of the men takes a step forward and only then does Bucky let himself look up, feeling a jolt of familiarity as he takes in Steve's face after all this time. The man looks rather worse for wear himself – his face and t-shirt are grubby as if he's been dragged through the dirt – but he's far more alive than he was on that shore two years ago. The word "Buck" rings out around the room like yet another ghost from his past, and it still feels strange to have someone other than himself use that nickname in reference to him.

"Do you remember me?"

More than you know, Bucky thinks, and he tries to ignore the hopeful lilt in Steve's voice when he asks. He knows that simply saying 'yes' won't be enough, but his answer comes to him more easily than he expects.

"Your mom's name was Sarah." The reminder of her brings forth the image of a woman with long blonde hair and kind blue eyes, and the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. "You used to put newspapers in your shoes."

The thought of them as children makes his heart ache with longing once more, and the small smile that Steve doesn't bother to hide hurts even more. Too much time has passed since those carefree days, and yet the memories now feel so fresh he can almost believe it was yesterday.

Steve seems satisfied enough by the answer, taking a step forward that no longer seems cautious, and it isn't long before he's crouched in front of Bucky, meeting him head-on. His expression is kind underneath the bruises and dirt, and Bucky can almost believe he is safe.

He knows that isn't the case. He can remember the Sputnik code being uttered, knows what is supposed to happen when it is activated, and the ache in his bones indicates that the monster within him had control of his body barely hours ago. He doesn't know how many people he's hurt, and the knowledge that people want him dead (or worse, controlled) is something he'll have to deal with in the imminent future.

It's hard to care here though, when the world is reduced to just himself and Steve. The man's presence makes a lifetime of keeping each other safe, pulling the other away from a fight, and huddling together for warmth on freezing European nights finally feel tangible, and he no longer feels like a thief for owning the memories of a man from the past.

Steve carefully raises a hand to his shoulder, and the touch is strangely comforting after decades of physical contact translating to pain. Bucky lets his tired eyes finally meet Steve's and tries to smile, and it must be enough because Steve's smile follows soon after.

"I really missed you, Buck."

The words are a mere whisper but they don't need to be anything else. Bucky lets the responsibility of everything he will have to face once he leaves this room slip away, and takes a deep breath which seems to carry the weight of his soul with it.

Finally, after endless searching, he's found home.