Note: Hi, guys. So I actually have no idea what this is, if it's going to be a story or just a one-shot or a ficlet… I just wanted to write about this topic, so let's see how far I go with it. I guess it's almost like a character study? But yeah. I honestly have no idea what this is so far.

The Winter Soldier was lost.

Not only was he emotionally and mentally lost, but he was also physically lost. After he had left that man—the one they called "Captain America", the one who was named Steve, the one who claimed to know him—laying on the bank of the Potomac River, he had wandered away into the woods and he had kept wandering aimlessly. He didn't need to eat or sleep as much as normal humans did and in his stupor, he had wandered farther than he thought he would and he had ended up trekking through the woods and then through some mountains and then down some highways (passing unbeknownst in the woods near the highways, of course) and then he had ended up in some small town. By this time, he truly was hungry and tired and feeling ill, but he still had no idea what to do. He had no money, no one to contact, no place to go. HYDRA had never put him in a situation like this…but he was no longer a part of HYDRA.

At least he didn't think he was. He was extremely confused and he didn't know what to do.

What he really wanted was some peace and quiet—a place to stay and sleep and think. Ponder. But first he needed to change his clothes. He hadn't been aware of it at first (since HYDRA had never let him wander aimlessly in public) but his all-black tough-looking outfit and cybernetic arm attracted a lot of attention…the wrong sort of attention. The one time he'd wandered out onto a smaller road winding through the mountains and had passed a young girl, probably in her early twenties, jogging by, she'd looked at him and immediately had crossed the street, speeding up considerably. He could sense her unease, could see her fight-or-flight response kicking in right away. He figured it was probably his outfit and arm that had scared her—though it may have also been the fact that he was a man who was considerably larger than her and had disheveled hair and a grime-covered face. He'd never been a model for cleanliness and clothing, but even he could realize that he looked like a rat that had crawled out of a gutter.

So he went dumpster diving. A part of him realized how humiliated he should have felt about this—from going to one of the most feared and legendary assassins on the planet to a confused wandered who had to stoop through going through trash for clothing—but he was too confused and lost to care much. He'd found a small wooden house in the woods and he'd rifled through their garbage bags and he managed to find a pair of paint-stained workman light-wash jeans that was honestly too large on him and a flannel shirt that smelled faintly of urine, though he tried not to question it any further. He kept his own boots, however; they were highly competent. He even managed to find a pair of workman's gloves in a tool shed in the back and he stole them, pulling them on over his hands. Now his cybernetic arm was completely covered. He'd been loath to throw his own clothes away, however; they were highly useful in combat, and combat was all he knew. So he found a cloth sack that looked like it was stained with blood (probably deer blood) in the tool shed, stuffed his own clothes into it, and carried the bag on his back. Now he looked like a dirty, disheveled trucker, which wasn't much better than looking like a dirty, disheveled assassin—at least for the female population around—but there wasn't much he could do about that. He stayed away from homes and villages anyway.

When he got hungry, he found ways to steal food from dumpsters behind small-town diners. He slept in the woods. Nothing bothered him; his hyperaware senses would have woken him if a large animal were prowling around. He didn't know where he was going but he knew he didn't want to stop walking. He wondered if he'd aimlessly wander the planet forever. He wasn't going back to HYDRA, that much was for sure. After what had happened in D.C., HYDRA had suffered major setbacks anyway. He had the feeling they were still out there—but they were weaker than they were before. They probably assumed him dead; this was good. He didn't want to be searched for.

And then there was the matter of the man…Steve. The one who kept insisted he knew him, his name was Bucky, that they were friends. The Winter Soldier had never had any "friends." He'd never been allowed any friends; he was a killing machine, nothing more. Woken up from the ice when there was a job, put in the chair after (where something torturously painful was done to him, though what exactly it was, he couldn't say), and then back into the ice. He'd been out around enough times over the last few decades to gather a decent understanding of the world—but then again, every time he came out, the world was different. He vaguely, blurrily, remember a time when the women on the streets only seemed to wear dresses. Now they dressed like men.

And the memories came with pain. Not just the vague, blurry images of the world around him—the true memories, the ones that were sharper and brighter but also disappeared more quickly, flickering into his mind and then out of it right away. Memories of his past…his true past, of the person he'd once been. Someone named James Buchanan Barnes. That was the name that Steve man had used. Nickname "Bucky." Something about "end of the line, buddy." That line stuck out to him. It had frozen his muscles during his last fight with Steve, had grabbed a hold of him. And then Steve had fallen out of the helicarrier and he had watched in horror and confusion and rage as Captain America disappeared under the waters.

Throbbing pain. The kind that made him want to curl up and whimper and cut open his own head and rip out his brain, blood and brain matter leaking between his flesh and silver fingers alike. The memories brought a flood of nausea and one time, between the pain and the nausea, the world had spun so horribly and painfully that he had simply keeled over.

It was from this fainting spell that he woke to someone hesitantly prodding him with something. "Hey—hey, uh…are you okay? Yo—" They prodded him a little more forcefully. "Are you, like, dead? Can you hear me?"

The Winter Soldier's eyes sprang open and he moved as if on autopilot. A few weeks of confusion couldn't cancel out decades of instinct. He leaped to his feet in a single move, ignoring the ache in his whole body, grabbed the person by the throat and slammed them against the tree so hard they let out a low groan of pain. Blinking the hair out of his eyes, the Winter Soldier looked at who was struggling in his grasp—a young man, probably around sixteen-year-old.

"Dude—sorry!" the fellow was gasping, his face turning an unnatural shade as he fought for breath, kicking his legs futilely in the air. He was a tall boy, and looked reasonably well-built for his age, but he was no match for the Winter Soldier. "I was—checking to see if you were okay—you are—please let me—go!"

The Winter Soldier stared at the boy, not knowing what to do, his fingers squeezing a little tighter—the boy began to turn a bit purple in the face—and then suddenly he let him go and took a step back. The boy dropped to the ground and immediately began gasping for breath and massaging his neck. He watched as the boy looked up at him, eyes watering and wide with alarm, coughing, and staggered to his feet, clearly terrified. He took off running without a backwards glance. The Winter Soldier realized it might be time to disappear in a different direction; should the boy tell anyone about him, he might have HYDRA descending upon him any minute. HYDRA had warned him about the Internet these days. "Don't ever get caught on film," he'd been told, "and stay out of the public view. People can—and will—put anything online these days and once its online, it can go viral in a matter of seconds." He didn't really understand what that meant exactly but he got the gist of it.

He began to walk in a different direction. This time he got deeper into the woods and he began to question if he was heading towards civilization or away from it, when he chanced upon a lone highway cutting through. He stopped at the edge and pondered, in that dull, heavy sort of way he had. It was a very glazed way of thinking, one that didn't care one or the other what happened because he was so lost. He knew what hitchhiking was…did he dare do it now? His cybernetic arm wasn't visible. No one would have reason to film him or talk about him on the Internet. He decided to give it a chance. He didn't have a car of his own and walking was getting tiring. His headaches and nausea were also making life increasingly difficult. He'd vomited the other day and now he smelled even worse.

He waited over an hour and then he saw a lone car driving around the bend. Twilight had fallen. He stepped forward and put one gloved thumb up. The car slowed when it got near him and the passenger side window rolled down. A young woman—early twenties?—leaned over to look at him. She had dark brunette hair in a high ponytail, an elfin, pixie-ish sort of face, and astonishingly blue eyes that looked just like Steve's eyes.

"I'm with you till the end of the line, buddy."

Shuddering away the memory that twinged at his mind, he stepped forward, unsure of what to say. Was there a dialogue for this moment? He ended up staring at the woman, nothing come to mind. To his credit, she was plenty silent as well. She stared at him and a part of him was a bit startled that she didn't seem frightened of him that way other women would have been. She merely looked contemplative. Finally, she spoke: "Well?" she said. "Are you going to tell me where you're going?"

He tried to think of an answer but nothing came to mind. He didn't even know where he was. He didn't know what he wanted to do. "I don't know," he said. His voice was low and raspy from disuse and he internally cringed at how dangerous he sounded. Whatever type of man he had been before, he was a through-and-through killing machine right now. Did it fit? Did it work with who he was? He didn't know.

"Okay," said the young woman. "Any idea of…what you'd like to do? Are you going to visit someone? Need to get away from the police?" she joked. Her smile slid off her face when she saw that he wasn't laughing. At all.

"I need to…" He cleared his throat. "Get away. A place to stay."

"Okay…?" she said, obviously confused. "Do you have money?"

"No," he said.

"Do you have a cell phone?" she asked.

"No," he said.

"Do you have a name?" she asked.

"No…" he said slowly. "Your name is James Buchanan Barnes!" "No name."

She looked at him and she looked a bit worried now—but for him, instead of herself. She bit her lip and a part of him could tell she was internally wrestling with some idea, but he wasn't sure what it was. He was just about to say, "Never mind," and walk away from the car—clearly this had been an awful idea—when she suddenly said, "Get in."

He was surprised—why was she letting a strange, dirty man who didn't know where he wanted to go into her car? Did women these days have no self-preservation?—but he didn't argue. She unlocked the door and he got in silently, shutting the door. He waited for her to move the car but she didn't. He looked over at her and she raised an eyebrow. "Seatbelt," she said. "Or I'm not moving the car."

He had no way of telling her that a seatbelt was a laughable concept for him. He would survive any car accident relatively unscathed. But he couldn't tell her that without revealing who he was (and who was that, really?), so he put on the seatbelt. Then she began to drive. They sat in silence, him staring out the window at the dark blurred forest whizzing past them. He was aware that he smelled very unpleasant and was dirty, as well, but the woman didn't say a word about it. Perhaps she was scared? He chanced her a tiny glance. She was staring out the windshield. Her posture was relaxed but a worried expression furrowed her brow and she was tapping her steering wheel a little too quickly. Anxiety. He looked back out the window, wondering where they were going. Wondering whether it mattered.

What he needed was files. This he had deduced during his weeks of walking. Files on him, the Winter Soldier. But he had no idea on how to get them. HYDRA moved headquarters frequently and would surely have gone into hiding after this latest debacle. He needed to find someone who could help him files. He was advanced in ways that other people weren't—he could fight, he could track down a target, he was an arms expert—but he wasn't sure how to track down the organization which had held him for so long.

The drive was silent and lasted two hours and the woman didn't attempt to say anything to him, for which he was somewhat grateful. He didn't want to answer any questions. If she got too nosy, he might have to hurt her to shut her up and he didn't want to leave a trail of bodies after him. That would get him tracked down faster than ever. Because there surely were people tracking him down, though whether it would be HYDRA or that Captain America guy, he had no idea.

He was laying on something hard. Something cold. Hard, rough, scratchy things—straps?—held him down and chafed at his arms and legs. The light above him was blurry and he felt a bit dazed and dreamy. He knew something was wrong…he wasn't supposed to be here. This wasn't right. He was…James… His eyes closed and he mumbled something, not sure what it was. His own voice sounded a bit hollow to his own ears. And then someone was shaking him lightly, hissing his name, cutting the straps that held him down. He opened his eyes and saw a red, blue, and white shield hanging near his face. The American flag painted onto it. He looked up and saw a familiar face.

"AAAAGH!" He threw his body weight against the door, slamming the door open and leaping out, rolling to absorb the impact (it was instinct at this point). He heard the car screech, the woman scream, and then suddenly everything was silent. He didn't notice; he was too busy bending over the side of the road, retching at the blinding pain that was suddenly stabbing him in the head. The memory had been more clear than any before and white-hot pain blinded him behind his eyes to the point where he couldn't stop himself from gagging and retching, trying his hardest not to pass out. But his stomach was mostly empty, so he was basically retching up spit and this made the nausea even worse. He was only vaguely aware of the lady bending near him, putting a hand on his back, but he slammed his metal hand out wildly and he heard her groan as she landed backwards on her butt with a thud.

Once the retching had subsided, he sat back on his haunches, blinking away the blurriness from his eyes. Tears? No. Sweat, he decided. The Winter Soldier didn't cry. It was so human. What would he even cry about? His whole face was covered with a sheen of sweat and he felt uncomfortably warm in his clothes, even these regular workman clothes. He looked over at the woman, who had gotten to her feet by now. She didn't look any worse for the wear, considering he'd punched her with his metal arm. He must not have put much force in it because if he had punched her at his full force, he would have punched a hole clear through her. He was suddenly glad he hadn't done that.

He sat there, breathing heavily. The woman gave him space, moving her car to the side of the road and leaning against it, arms crossed, patient. He couldn't help but wonder if she had a life. Not that he was one to talk, but didn't regular humans have better things to do than pick up strangers from the road and watch them get sick?

Finally, she spoke. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," he said hoarsely, standing up. "I'm going to get going."

"Oh no, you're not," she said. "I knew you had—" She stopped and took a deep breath. "But now that I know you're physically sick…I'm not going to leave you alone."

He didn't know how to tell her that he wasn't sick. It was the memories, doing their work. And besides, even if he was "sick", he'd heal quickly. Another perk of being a superhuman. He didn't have to worry about human illnesses. But to his immense alarm, she walked up to him and firmly said, "You're going to come with me, okay?" She didn't touch him, for which he was eternally grateful. If she had, he might just have blasted her into the next galaxy.

Surprising himself, he got back into the car. He didn't know why. He didn't seem to know why he did anything these days. But a part of him was partly glad that she had been firm with him. She had given him an almost-order. He was good with orders. He was built for orders. They gave him a sense of security. Follow the orders, do your job, and nothing went wrong. Nothing went right, either—he was never rewarded for his jobs—but it was better than being terminated like the…other ones. The ones who went rogue, who started killing random people, or who ran away.

Like he was doing now. He was a rogue. HYDRA would get him for this. For a moment, something like fear went down his spine as he remembered sitting in the chair and the torturous pain…whatever they did to him…

The drive for the next hour was silent as well. He was expecting her to take him to a hospital and he was planning on running the second she got there—he didn't need doctors looking at him like a dissection and then alerting the authorities—but to his surprise, they pulled up to a small split-level house in a quiet, tiny town near the mountains. He spoke for the first time in ages, clearly his throat, and asked, "Where are we?"

"North Carolina," she said.

He had walked as far as North Carolina without realizing it. Interesting.

"What are we doing here?" he asked.

"This is my house," she said. "Get out. Come inside—but quietly. The neighbors are nosy. If they see you, they'll spread it."

"Spread what?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "I live alone. I'm bringing a guy inside my house."

He had no idea what she meant, to be honest. His head was pounding and he felt dizzy again and it hurt to think about anything. But he still asked, "Why did you bring me here?"

"You're obviously ill," she said, "and you're obviously hiding from someone. I can help you."

He should have gotten out of the car and walked away. He should have gotten out of the car, killed her—god knows he had killed enough people by now, what did one more matter?—and left. He should have disappeared. He was good at that. Instead, he stepped out of the car, swayed for a moment, and then the ground was swirling up to meet his face and everything went black.