He lifts his head and looks up to the sky. The cold air sucked in his lungs is prickling, comes out in little white clouds. It snows. It must be cold, but he is used to the cold, knows much worse. He is the asset, he does not bother registering these things. His handlers take care of him. But Hydra is weak now, almost destroyed and on the ground. He doesn't worry. He isn't supposed to worry. If you cut of one head, two more shall take its place. Things exactly as they were. He has been prepared for such events.
Go into hiding. Wait for instructions. Wait for a new mission.
So that is what he does, even though things have changed since then. Since he saw the man on the bridge. Since he's speared his life and he himself had saved him in turn. He cannot say what had changed exactly, cannot pinpoint the cause of the discomfort irradiating from the pit of his stomach. He just knows that he will not return to Hydra.
After the crash he goes looking for a safe house. He knows he should not take the closest one because his last mission, his failed mission, the Captain will come looking for him. He knows he will. And he cannot risk running into the Hydra agents that seethe through the streets of New York. He chooses the one in New Jersey. Something inside him twitches uncomfortably, but he ignores it.
He is the asset, he follows instructions, he is the asset, he follows orders. He will follow his own this time, he will carry through.
He is the asset, pain follows in his wake. When he has to kill a man on the street, because he is a witness, he does so without hesitation. Things exactly as they were.
He spends three weeks in the save house cellar without interruption. The house is old and in ruins, mold growing in its internal scaffolding, making it weak and creaking. Adolescents have come and sprayed graffiti on the walls. The anarchy sign decorates the chipping paint, or slogans like "Homelessness is not a crime!". One catches his eye and he cannot tell why. It is just as sloppy and hastily written down as all the others, the fear of getting caught whilst doing something forbidden apparent in the blurry letters. But he stands in front of it for a while, searching his mind for a connection, comes up empty. He lies down in front of the wall, repeating the words over and over in his head until they don't make sense anymore and then until they do again. "Afraid of defiling the love which fills my soul". He waits and waits and waits for an epiphany, for the why but it does not come to him. And with every passing hour he feels an increasing itch under his skin. He does not know what to do now. He doesn't have orders, he needs orders. He takes care of his body, his wounds. The majority heals by itself very fast, but he will be left with scars. His handlers don't care for him to wear scars. Didn't. He is the shiny tin soldier that can wipe out an army in a few hours, the world's most dangerous assassin. The soldier is a valuable asset. He is not allowed to wear scars. These, he will wear like a badge.
He stays in the basement. Things exactly as they were.
On the second day, things change tough. Again. Images twitch before his eyes, flicker away like little flames going out. So much information crowds his brain, suddenly and he doesn't know what to do with all of it. He remembers blood and death and cruelty. Men crying, women begging, children dead. He misses the chair and the cold sometimes, always. The dark nothingness that, he understands now, protected him. He is just short of going back to his handlers and beg for forgiveness, beg them to take it all away again when he remembers his mother. When he remembers the smell of perfume and red, silky hair. And when he remembers the Captain. He remembers Steve.
Those memories don't make it better, on the contrary. They make it much worse. Things he does not understand take a hold of him, make him sick. The little food he does eat he throws up again.
He was a person once, he realizes, one that has been loved and mourned after it was gone. He knows he isn't that person anymore, he knows that his family would not recognize him now, knows they could not forgive him.
And just like they did, does he mourn the person he was at one point in time, mourns the loss and if he was capable of crying, he would. But he is not, he is the asset, the soldier and he will never be a whole person again. But he will bear the pain. That he can do.
He wants to forget, to run away, of course he does, but he knows he can't go back to Hydra. He owes it to the people he killed and to his mother and Steve to stop. He broke once already, if he can help himself, he will not break again.
He lies on the ground for the fourth week now, only getting up so often to take care of his bodies needs. He is still aimlessly thinking, looking at the wall with the words when he hears footsteps. As he makes his way to the stairs, he hears a woman's soft voice. He can recognise his handlers anytime, this is not one of them. But he does know her. Slowly he inches closer on the stone staircase, hiding in the shadows. Now he can hear a man's voice and he knows him too. "-not the time."
It's his failed mission. It's the Captain. He has found him. Something in the back of his mind flutters, something important, but it disappears again quickly. The woman is the black widow. He can see her shadow inching closer. What is he supposed to do? He is the asset. He has a mission, he follows orders. His last mission failed. He could still kill the Captain. The parameters simply have changed. But he can't do it with the widow here. She is Red Room trained as he is, she is strong and fast. He doesn't want to anyway. He does not know what to do. He needs orders. He could follow them when they are gone. To do what? Or he can go with them and avoid the risk of getting noticed by the black widow. He could let them catch him, let them think they've defeated him. To do what? He could run. Yes. He will, he is the asset. He has missions, he takes orders.
Silently, like a deadly animal, he makes his way back down to the basement, that has served him as a cave until now.
He grabs the few things he can take with him, the weapons and his back pack that he took from the witness he'd killed.
He braces himself. Both of them, the Widow and the Captain are capable of fighting and fast.
He himself is weakened and his arm is heavier than ever, tearing at the joint of his shoulder.
The only thing he has going for him is the element of surprise. He has to move now, quick.
With all the strength he has left in his muscles he sprints, up the stairs to the first floor.
He catches a quick glance of Steve, then bolts out of the already shattered window, shards tearing through his uniform.
And he runs.
He is the asset. He has a mission, he follows orders. Pain follows in his wake.
When he travels to another save house and jumps on trains passing by, steals cars and goes south, there are witnesses. So many witnesses and every time he crosses one and another one and another, another, another, he twitches.
He is like one of the four knights of the apocalypse, a reaper, an omen of death. He brings destruction upon everyone he crosses paths with. But this time he cannot kill them.
The order: no casualties. keep a low profile stands hard like a wall against the order: kill. no witnesses.
Every time he moves to stab someone, to slit someone's throat, erase every memory that exists of him from the face of the earth, he holds himself back.
He cannot allow himself to leave a trail. Steve will try to follow him. He can't find him. So he simply pulls the hood of his raincoat he stole deeper into his face and hopes that in combination with the long hair and beard it will disguise him sufficiently. He should steal glasses too, just to be sure.
He is being paranoid, he knows.
He can make himself invisible in the streets without any concealment at all, but he feels anxious which sets him off even more because he doesn't feel. He just doesn't.
He is the asset. He has a mission, he follows orders. He does not feel.
He is the asset, pain follows in his wake.
And yet, he doesn't hurt anyone. Even when he lives in the save house in Louisiana for a few days, he doesn't kill the woman that lives down the street. He knows she's seen him on the road up the hill. She had waved at him. He should have killed her, he should have.
It is not only an order, it is common sense. And yet he doesn't.
Because of the Captain. Because of Steve.
It makes him angry and amplifies the need to lash out even more, because he, Steve, is in his head and influences him. Makes him do things he normally wouldn't. He can't get rid of the aggression without the risk of getting noticed. It's a devils circle and he tumbled right into it with no way to get out. This must be the reason he became so stupid, so careless. The reason why just one week after he arrived at the save house, Steve and the widow find him.
It hasn't been a good day.
It hasn't been a bad day.
Since he came here the slow trickle of memories in his head intensified. It's not like the flicker of a candle anymore. It's like a roaring inferno, taking a hold of his body, rendering him useless. Like visions they come bearing down on him. Sometimes they are pleasant. Usually they are not. They are gruesome, cruel and often he is the one inflicting pain. Just as often he is the one being hurt. On the days bad memories haunt him he lies on the floor or hangs over the sink throwing up.
Few days good memories come. They still hurt and they make him ache for his family, for candy apples from Cony Island and Steve, but they are better.
This day is one of those days. He can feel the pressure of a nearing memory in his head and he prepares himself for the inevitable crash after. He fills a glass of water and puts it down next to him on the ground to ease the headache that will linger. A little black note book that he stole from a book store a few towns further with a pen, he puts down too. He's learned that it helps to write down the memories he regained. It helps organize them and the more the book fills the more it eases his mind. Partly because he doesn't want to lose the images of Brooklyn and the big cyclone and Steve, partly because he is afraid to lose the faces of the people he's killed. They deserve to be remembered, and even when he can't do anything to absolve himself anymore, that he can do. By now there are only five clear pages left.
He can feel the memory coming closer and closer, reaching with its claws. He feels dizzy and his aching knees give out under him. He lays on the rough concrete, the flesh arms pressed into his stomach in an unnatural angel. He turns himself onto his back and takes deep breaths to calm himself down.
Was this what Steve had felt like every time an asthma attack pressed his tiny lungs even further together?
His vision is getting blurry and finally blackness washes over him. Like a big wave it crashes over his head and pulls him down. Down, down into the poisonous ocean of his mind.
It felt exactly like the big wave crashing over him back when he visited his grandma and almost drowned swimming in the ocean, choking on salty water. She'd lived at the coast because the salty air was supposed to help with her rheumatism. He'd been really sad when she had to move to the other side of the country at first, but in the manner of a little boy, he'd forgotten about that fairly quickly as soon as he'd seen the big white house at the beach. His grandma was in the big white kitchen, backing apple pie, his favourite, and he decided that he was old enough to go swimming on his own now. Only he was four years old at the time and couldn't swim yet. Everything had been fine, until all of a sudden a huge wave had taken him by surprise, pulled him off his feet, pushed him underwater and whirled him around. He'd been in shock, couldn't breathe, couldn't think, was totally lost. He'd struggled, tried to push himself on the surface and inhale desperately needed air. He'd thought his life was over.
Of course it wasn't, but that's how he felt again when he realized it for the first time. That he was in love with his best friend. He couldn't say for the life of him how it had happened. Or when for that matter. Maybe it had always been there. Maybe he'd been doomed from the very beginning, the first time he'd laid eyes on him.
Which was on his first day of elementary school at the age of six. Bucky was very excited. He felt so grown up now and he already knew some of the kids. One of them was called Jimmy.
Jimmy was a very big, chubby boy, he could be mean and had a very bad temper, but Bucky knew better than to make him angry and they always had fun together. Of course they planned on sitting next to each other. So they entered the classroom and looked for free tables. The only problem was that there were only two seats available anymore. One in the back and one in the very first row. Jimmy made his way to the table in the corner at the end of the room and asked the scrawny, little boy sitting there to move. Not in a nice way, using twice as many swear words as any boy at that age should know. But the little kid refused to take a different seat. As Jimmy grew angrier by the second, Bucky was impressed. Every other more or less intelligent kid his size would have budged, but not this one. He simply stuck out his chin defiantly and replied: "No."
When Jimmy struck out to punch him in the little, pale face, Bucky couldn't help himself. He pushed Jimmy over, which surprised himself probably more than anyone else and before he knew it, he was in a fist fight with his best friend over some random boy. Only for about five seconds though, because the teacher came in and sent them both to the headmaster.
But it had been worth it, because since that day Bucky and the blond, stubborn kid called Steve had been inseparable. Where one was, was the other, there was no story about Bucky if it wasn't about Steve and no one ever ran into Steve without meeting Bucky too.
That's just how it was. Always had been. Always would have been, if he hadn't gone and ruined it. If Bucky hadn't been stupid enough to fall in love with his best friend.
He realizes that now, looking at Steve scratching tiny doodles in his math book, when they actually were supposed to study. Steves hair looks so soft, he's pushing it out of his eyes and his lips…
He gasps, eyes wide open and still unseeing, breathing erratic. Someone is touching his shoulder, someone is here. He has to go, he has to run they have found him. He will disappear, he will-
"Bucky."
The man looks down on him and at first, he doesn't even recognize him. But he almost breathes the name out, looks at him with wide eyes. Blue as cornflowers his mind provides. He has never seen cornflowers. He doesn't think.
It's Steve. Steve who he had been in love with apparently.
"Bucky?" Steve says again, this time like a question. He is supposed to answer.
"No."
"Misha." A voice behind him says.
He gets up abruptly and almost bumps heads with Captain America. Quickly he turns to look at the widow. Natalia. She is watching him with wide eyes, registering every movement, every little give-away, every micro expression. She is a good reader of people, excellent, but he is better. And he is even better at making himself appear as a blank page, unreadable for everybody, even for her.
"No one has called me that in a long time."
"Well it has been some time, though I wouldn't say long. I'm not that old." She answers, voice smooth and smiling, but she is smiling like the Mona Lisa, a blank page. Impossible to tell what she is thinking.
He has stolen the picture, he thinks, the Mona Lisa. He remembers the picture, the smile, an excited voice telling him about it. But that doesn't fit. He goes on missions alone, doesn't work with anyone else, ever. It's Steve's voice, he thinks. Steve is crowding his head.
"Not as old as Steve anyway."
Her gaze slips over to Steve and his eyes follow. Steve is still kneeling on the dusty grey floor starring at him through glassy eyes. He looks back at her.
"Or you." She adds.
"How long has it been? 10 years? 15?"
"13 years and two months."
"Ah, a lucky number. Figures I'd meet you now again."
"You remember?"
"Not much. I remember the mission. I remember you leaving."
"I couldn't take you with me."
"I wouldn't have wanted you to."
Steve shifts to stand up and he looks back at him again. He still wears the same expression on his face, one he thinks he's seen before. Like a kicked puppy.
For some reason it awakens a vicious monster in his stomach and makes him want to lash out, to hurt. Steve is so carelessly, clearly obvious about his feelings, written all over him in capital letters, almost forcing them on him.
"I don't remember you." He says and sees Steve flinch lightly at his harsh tone.
He wishes he didn't. It would be easier. Steve is a reminder of the past, the person he once was. Steve is a weakness.
Steve's stance changes now, broad shoulders drawn back, and chin held up high. Fight in his eyes, fierce.
"I know that's not true."
He says nothing. Just stares him down and hopes he will convince him.
"Misha?" Natalia says again.
"Don't call me that either. I am none of it. I am the asset. I follow orders. Things exactly as they were."
"They aren't and you know they aren't Bucky. You didn't hurt me, you saved me, you- "Steve says and takes a step forward, but he interrupts him. Gets some distance between them again.
"Didn't hurt you? Are you serious? I shot you, I beat you! And you let me! I could have killed you then and I will now if you stay. Go, both of you."
"Please, Bucky let me come with you - "
"Leave."
"No."
He feels trapped. He has no other choice. Slowly he lets his hand glide down to the holster with the gun hidden in his stealth uniform. He has to distract him.
"Don't take this choice from me Steve, not like they did. Please. Steve, let me go, I can't…I…"
Steve lets out a little sound like he just physically punched him and takes a step back. His eyes, so so blue, look at him, at Bucky, and his heart clenches uncomfortably.
"I'm so sorry..." he whispers, voice rough. "Yes, I'll leave. I'm sorry."
He, the Winter Soldier, Bucky is confused. On the one hand he knows it's Steve. Steve who he'd been in love with, Steve his best friend, Steve the unbelievably stubborn little punk, that doesn't give up. Steve who has followed him for weeks and come all across the country to see him. On the other hand, he knows that this is Steve, Steve who he had been in love with, Steve his best friend, Steve who would not want to hurt him.
And so he just stands there, feels like he's frozen once again and unable to move as Steve walks away, head hanging down and steps heavy on the stairs.
Natalia graces him with one last look, then follows Steve.
He is alone in the basement again. His head is pounding so he gulps down the glass of water and finds himself wishing it were whiskey. Then he stands there in the stuffy basement, dumbfounded.
He doesn't know what he is supposed to do now, what just happened. He stands on the same spot for a little while, not knowing what to do.
Steve just left. Steve just left? It does make sense in a kind of vague way in his head. He knows Steve, remembers some of him, the boy with the soft hair and the even softer smile. He knows he was his Bucky. But he was the Winter Soldier for much longer and the Winter Soldier doesn't trust anyone. The Winter Soldier is violent and cruel. He has to leave. They might say that they will leave him alone, but they still know where he is and he can't take his chances, there is too much at stake. He packs up his few belongings again. He knows he owns too many things by now. It's impractical, stupidly sentimental and it makes him feel human. He can't get rid of them.
Slowly he slides up the winding stairs, almost completely silent. He can't be sure that they left.
And just when he thinks it's save, thinks they are gone and is about to enter the kitchen, he hears murmured voices. Pressed against the wall, he inches closer and strains his hearing.
"- over. You can't keep going like this anymore, Steve." The widow says.
"I don't know what you mean." He has to strain his ears to hear him and scoots closer.
"Don't play stupid, it doesn't suit you."
"Many people would disagree, you know."
"I do. But I trust my judgement more than theirs, I'm a good judge of character. I know you are not stupid and not as innocent as the public makes you out to be. You know exactly what you're doing and what kind of risk you're taking. You simply don't care. You're not stupid, you are reckless. Which brings us back to the topic."
Silence.
"I take it back. You are stupid if you thought that could distract me. I'm a spy remember? I'm a professional in evasion. And you are the worst liar I have ever encountered."
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to promise me to stop trying to get yourself killed! I have spent the last year working with you, I know how reckless you are. You have always been suicidal, but now you have reached new levels. And I get it, you want him back, but this has to end."
"Nat…" Steve sighs. He sounds tired. "I just don't… I don't know what to do. I have never had to live without him, I never could. I need him back." A few beats neither of them says anything then-
"Last time" Natalia says tentatively, "you died a few days after he did." It's a question even though it sounds like a statement.
"Yes."
They stay silent for a while and the air seems to get heavy around Bucky. It suddenly gets really hard to suck oxygen into his lungs and he feels like a fish on land. Left high and dry. After a few minutes Steve starts talking again. "I don't know if we could have stopped the Valkyrie crashing. Probably. Howard could have figures something out. But… I didn't want him to. I knew I was doing the right thing by taking down Hydra and I knew… I knew I would see him again. It seemed like a win-win situation to me. I loved Peggy, of course I did, I couldn't have not fallen in love with her but…"
"But even when you had nothing, you had Bucky." Natalia whispers.
"It's not like he knew. He wasn't like that. But he was my hero from the first day that we met, and he was the best friend anyone could ask for. He loved to read and he loved to dance and laugh and sing. He was a grinning, innocent boy when I fell in love with him. He changed during the war, he got rough and tired and he didn't smile all that much anymore. But I fell in love with him, again, the first time I saw him again. He was always there for me, Nat, always, and I let him down. They wanted to send him home after Azzano, but I asked him to stay, because I wanted him with me. He was on that train because of me, he fell because of me. "
There is another pause and Bucky knows, that he should really be going. He has to leave, while they are distracted. But his body doesn't obey his orders and he can't move. He can hardly breathe.
"It wasn't your fault. If what you say is true, then it was his choice. He decided to stay with you, don't take that from him."
He can hear Steve chuckle and even though he knows it's not possible, he thinks he can feel it rumbling in his rib cage. "That's what Peggy said too."
"You should listen to us."
"It's not that simple."
"It can be."
"No, it cannot! It's not only my fault that he died. It's my fault that he has been tortured for the last seventy years! My fault that he had to go through all of that, my fault that he had to forget himself and kill so many people."
"It is no one's fault but Hydras Steve. And we'll go after Hydra. We'll avenge him."
"Yes. Yes, you're right I just… I thought he was dead and now he's back, but I still miss him so much."
"I know, Steve. But right now you can't do anything about it, as much as you hate it. Give him time."
"Okay. Okay, yes. Let's go get our stuff."