Set after Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Second in a series of stories dealing with Cap's search for Bucky and their eventual reunion. While this can be read as a standalone, it is best read with its companion story "Visiting Hours."
Thanks to geminigrl11. Marvel owns all, I'm just playing with it.
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Breaking the Leash
The mission lay still on the riverbank. Breath shallow, face pale except for the cuts and bruises, blood trickling from his nose and mouth, but alive.
The Soldier stood above him.
Alive. His mission was laying before him, helpless, defeated, but alive. All it would take was one quick motion with his metal hand. Rogers' neck could be snapped easily.
No. The Soldier wouldn't do that. Couldn't, somehow. He'd failed his mission. Had he ever failed one before?
It didn't matter. He turned and walked away from the mission. The man who'd inexplicably saved his life on the carrier, and who claimed to be his friend. A lie. It must be. He had no friends. He had nothing outside his training and his mission.
I failed my mission...
He had no connections outside his handlers, and Pierce—who was probably dead, judging by the massive pile of rubble across the water that was the remains of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. He didn't even have a name.
Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. I'm your friend.
He registered no small amount of pain from his broken arm and dislocated right shoulder. The man claiming to be his friend had pulled it out of its socket in an attempt to incapacitate him on the Helicarrier. There was little he could do about the arm, yet, but he paused to slam his shoulder against a thick tree trunk, forcing it back into place. The pain spiked, but it helped. Pain helped him focus, cleared his mind. Sometimes, it was the only memory he had.
The icy wind battered him as he hung from the remains of the train car. A man wrapped in red, white and blue was straining to reach him.
"Bucky!"
The gloved hand was close. So close. The metal gave way, and he was falling. He heard the scream echoing on the canyon walls. His?
A wall of white snow raced up to meet him. He plowed into it, forward momentum carrying his body along the river until he ricocheted off a rock outcropping. The angle was too slight, and he was moving too fast, for it to do serious damage, but the metal bar from the train he was clasping snagged among the stones. His arm wrapped around it and shattered like glass. The pain blotted out most of the rest of his journey, but there was water, and ice, and cold. So much cold.
The Soldier clasped his head, the memory so strong his knees buckled. He slid down the tree where he'd reset his arm. The man—Captain Rogers, his target—had been on that train. Had they been fighting each other then? No. That...didn't feel right. Something was missing. The Soldier knew the man, somehow, and not as an enemy.
He glanced behind, through the trees. He was too far from the river to see Rogers anymore, but he frowned. Something was missing.
I know him.
Standing, the Soldier pulled the GPS receiver from his belt. The casing of the receiver was shattered, so he tossed it aside. It wasn't a problem: he'd memorized the location of the bank, he would just need to find a major road to get his bearings.
The mission was over. Failed, but over regardless. He needed to return to the bank and his handlers. Those were his standing orders when the mission was over. Back to the chair. And the cold.
He's been out of cryo too long.
Then wipe him. Start over.
I'm your friend.
You're my mission!
I'm with you 'til the end of the line.
He didn't want to go back. He didn't want to—
Want?
No one had asked him what he wanted. Had anyone ever asked? An asset, a weapon, didn't want anything. Had he ever wanted anything?
He realized he was walking down a street, but he hadn't registered the moment he crossed from the woods to civilization. The street was familiar, though. The bank—the chair, the pain—was twenty blocks down the street he was traversing. His body was bringing him back to base of its own accord. Strange, confusing thoughts whirled around his brain like a blizzard, but his body was obedient. The soldier was going back to base.
He didn't want to go back.
The man on the bridge...I knew him.
You encountered him on another assignment, earlier this week.
But...I knew him....
Wipe him.
The machine buzzed to life, electrodes moved into place around his head and he started to panic. The technicians pressed controls, and the pain began. The man on the bridge was blasted away as the current ripped through his brain.
No! Not again. He knew the man. He was so close to figuring it out.
He wasn't going to go back. The Soldier had a new mission.
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First Objective: Replenish supplies and neutralize remaining threats.
The Soldier entered the bank silently, as he always did. All of Rumlow's men had been called in to Triskelion to protect the launch of the Helicarriers. Most had died in the resulting shootouts when Rogers rallied the loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to his cause. Some would be going underground by now, the soldier realized, to secret HYDRA camps scattered across the continent, but his base in the abandoned bank was not considered a safehouse.
Because of him, he knew.
The lack of guards, therefore, was not a surprise.
He moved silently down the stairwell toward the basement vault. No guards there, either. Good.
Inside, four men wearing nearly identical clothing—white shirts, black slacks, small bowties, no weapons, his brain cataloged automatically—were standing. The closest was the most familiar. The Soldier knew little about him, except that he'd come to Washington with him from Russia, and sometimes when he spoke, he could make the soldier do things, or stand and do nothing. He'd seen him speaking quietly with Pierce, and had overheard words like "programming," "trigger word," and "control." That handler's words had power over the soldier.
He could not be allowed to speak.
The remaining three had separate duties. One operated the machine. The second examined the soldier medically. The third maintained his robotic arm.
He stepped inside and stood at attention, as he was expected to do. His appearance, though, apparently surprised the technicians. When the "control" handler turned and saw the soldier standing so close, he flinched and stepped back.
"Oh...we thought you were dead! They said you went down with the carriers."
The Soldier's robotic arm shot out, faster than any of the technicians could react, and took the handler with the trigger words by the throat, closing off his air passages. There would be no secret commands spoken today.
The other techs reacted in fear, two backing away, the third—medical—reaching for the rubber mouth guard on a table. Another trigger, he remembered suddenly. When that was raised, the Soldier would obediently open his mouth and sit back...
He drew one of his handguns and shot the medical technician in the back of his head.
Two more bullets dropped the other techs. Then, the Soldier turned to the trigger man, and noted that he was turning a deep shade of purple. Something flared in the Soldier's chest...a feeling he didn't recognize. It wasn't fear, or pain...it was...pleasant, somehow.
He snapped the man's neck and let the body fall to the floor.
There were supplies and equipment stored around the vault. After pausing to wrap his injured arm in a splint, the Soldier collected new weapons and ammunition, another GPS receiver, and as many field rations as he could find and stuffed them into an empty duffel bag. His new mission might take time, and he would not be returning to this base.
Or any other.
When he'd packed the duffel with as much as it would carry, the Soldier took a moment to survey the room. Four targets eliminated. Supplies collected and stored. Weapons replenished. He had satisfied all his mission parameters so far. First objective complete.
The pleasant feeling in his chest flared again.
As he stepped toward the vault door, his eyes swept over the chair, and the equipment flanking it. The sudden surge of anger that swept over him made his steps falter. The chair. The pain...
I knew him...
Wipe him. Start over.
No! I knew him! IknewhimIknewhimIknewhim...
His shout of rage surprised him as he stomped over to the chair, and slammed his metal fist into the computer table, smashing the monitors. A sharp kick dislodged the chair from its support stand. It fell to the floor with a clatter.
The machine's processing unit was below the table. He demolished its casing with a single blow, and reached into the blinking innards. His metal fingers wrapped around a rectangular object. He yanked it out amid a rain of sparks and held it up to examine it.
Hard drive. The Soldier knew—somehow—what the small device did, how it stored data. There was a flash in his mind, he saw his hand holding a similar, yet larger, bulkier device. Had he been sent to retrieve computer equipment before? He didn't know. He dropped the drive into his duffel—it might hold useful data—and walked out of the vault.
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Second objective: evade capture.
The battle over Triskelion had turned the District of Columbia into a war zone. Police were out on the streets in large numbers. Military units were pouring in from surrounding bases, securing the city and safeguarding the national leadership. The revelation that HYDRA had been growing inside S.H.I.E.L.D. for decades had sent shockwaves through the American government.
With the chaos caused by that, it was dangerous for the Soldier to be seen on the streets, but relatively easy for him to slip in and out of non-secure areas, so long as he moved at night and stayed hidden during daylight hours as much as possible. He performed this task with ease—almost instinctually—which made him think it was part of his training. There must have been many missions where stealth and evasion were necessary.
The uppermost floor of the old office building was completely abandoned. No one maintained the premises. The windows on the lower floors were boarded up, the entrances bricked over. Only a rusty fire escape allowed access to the higher floors. It was a very good hiding place. The Soldier could come and go at will. Could evade enemies or attack them easily.
Surprise was often a key to the success of a mission. His attack on the unprepared airmen at Triskelion surely qualified. That had been an easy victory.
Something twinged in the Soldier's head at the thought, though. There was a cold pit in his stomach...he hated cold. He preferred the heat of combat. The sights and sounds of the battle on the airfield replayed in his mind again. Those men had died quickly and efficiently...why was he fixated on the memory?
I killed them.
He'd been ordered to prevent any interference with the launch of the carriers, up to and including any action by Captain America. Steve Rogers.
Don't make me do this.
A lot of people are going to die...I can't let that happen...
His thoughts circled around to the airmen. I killed them all.
Pierce's voice echoed in his mind. The launch is critically important. No one can interfere. If they try, you are to terminate them, with extreme prejudice. If Captain America appears, you are to terminate him, without hesitation. That is your mission. Do you understand?
He'd followed his orders...until he couldn't anymore. He couldn't kill Captain America. He'd tried. He'd tried so hard to obey. Obedience was one of his primary—
He hadn't obeyed. He'd tried. The image of Captain Rogers beneath him on the carrier, bruised, bloody, floated to the surface of his memory.
You're my mission!
Then finish it...
"No!"
The sound of his own voice surprised him. Glancing around the dark, empty office with blurred vision, he saw that he'd put his metal fist through the drywall. He swiped at his eyes with his flesh hand, frowning when it came away wet and shaking. He sat back against the dusty wall and closed his eyes, insides twisting at even the thought that he'd almost succeeded in killing Rogers. The ache was like nothing he'd felt before.
"I didn't kill him," The soldier whispered, to no one in particular. "I didn't. I didn't..."
He settled into the corner once more, some part of him waiting for the cold and the darkness, the hiss of an airtight chamber sealing him inside. Another part of him was disappointed when it never came.
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Third objective: investigate. Evaluate Captain Rogers' claims. Avoid contact.
The Soldier focused on this objective. His new mission was complex, and would likely take time. He had to concentrate on each step of the process if he was to be successful. He wanted to be successful. His handlers would be happy when he—
He blinked. That wasn't right. He had no handlers, anymore. This was a new mission, with new parameters. Who had given him this mission? Pierce was gone. His handlers were eliminated...
The Soldier frowned when he realized that he had developed the mission for himself. Had he ever done that before? He must have, at some point. How else would he know how?
It wasn't important. The Soldier shrugged off the confusing thoughts and looked through the scope of his rifle once more. The safety was activated. His objective didn't require the weapon, he simply needed the magnification offered by his scope.
The scope was detachable, of course, but...somehow the weight of the rifle in his hands was comforting. He didn't understand that feeling, nor why it should matter. But, it did.
He could see Captain Rogers through the hospital window. He was asleep, or unconscious, more likely. The physicians had set up multiple IVs and drugs were constantly being pumped into his bloodstream. Sedatives, perhaps, or painkillers. The soldier assumed the latter, since the Captain didn't appear to be a prisoner—the armed guards by the door were clearly protecting him, not restraining him.
The mission briefing on Captain America had noted that he was an enhanced soldier—like me—and if his physiology was indeed similar then it would take many times the dosage required for a normal person to keep him under for any length of time. That no doubt explained the steady stream of hospital personnel entering the room to check on the drips.
There was a near constant stream of other visitors to Rogers' room during the daytime hours, as well. The Soldier recognized the dark-skinned man from the carrier battle—it seemed he had survived the fall after losing his mechanical wings. The redhead...seemed familiar. Romanoff, Natasha. He'd memorized her file, just as he had Rogers' but...there was something else. He couldn't place the feeling, but something about her kept his attention.
The tall, imposing blond man had only visited twice, but was certainly a credible threat, even without the large, heavy weapon he was clearly concealing in his backpack. The Soldier noted the danger and decided to avoid direct contact.
The older man with the goatee and the expensive clothing was less threatening, but the briefing packet the soldier had studied prior to the Helicarrier launch had included him and indicated that he had access to advanced, heavily-armed combat armor. Caution was necessary.
The rest of the visitors ranged from military to civilian, possible threats to non-threats. The Soldier noted each of them but kept his attention on Rogers. The man's injuries seemed to be healing, some more slowly than others, but healing nonetheless. The knowledge soothed some of the ache in the soldier's chest that had been building over the past few days.
He needed to know why.
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Avoid contact. Avoid contact. I should avoid contact!
The Soldier mentally chastised himself for his excessive risk-taking, even as he moved silently down the hospital corridor. The military police presence had been slowly reduced in the past few days, but there were still two guards on Rogers' room. They'd be easy enough to slip past, but the dark-skinned man and Romanoff were still trading shifts on their own private guard duty inside the room.
There were weaknesses in every security system, however. The MPs were complacent, being surrounded by their trusted comrades, and weren't paying as close attention as they should be to casual passersby.
Rogers' comrades were forced to leave the room for long periods whenever the nurses made their rounds, since they were staying past official visiting hours.
It was not a problem therefore, for the Soldier to wait until Romanoff was forced to leave during the night to make his move. He slipped unnoticed into a vacant room further down the hall, forced open the window, scaled the narrow ledge along the outside of the building, and dropped silently into Rogers' room.
The Captain was unconscious. It was the reason the Soldier had decided to violate his own mission parameters and get closer. With his advanced healing, Rogers should be getting close to being discharged, but instead he seemed more pained and less lucid than usual, even when seen from a distance. It stirred something in the soldier, a renewed ache deep inside that wasn't at all welcome. Despite the risks, he needed to assess the situation for himself.
Knowing that the guards tended to shift further away from the room during the nights, the Soldier moved over and carefully shut the door so that he wouldn't be noticed. The nurse wouldn't arrive for another seven minutes, and Romanoff would stay clear for at least another fourteen.
He turned when Rogers moaned softly. The injured man's eyes blinked open blearily, but even from the shadows, the Soldier could tell that Rogers was heavily drugged. He probably wasn't fully conscious.
The Soldier moved silently toward the bed, stopping within arm's reach. For a moment, in his mind's eye, he saw a much frailer boy in the bed, shivering, suffering from a raging fever...
The image came and went so quickly he felt dizzy. His eyes fell back to Rogers, who was trying vainly to sit up, sensing another presence in the room despite the narcotics. The 220-pound super-soldier melted again into that 95-pound, sickly boy. The Soldier gently wrapped his metal hand around Rogers' left, and pressed his flesh hand against Rogers' broad chest, pushing him back down onto the bed. The Soldier wasn't sure what compelled him to speak. "Relax..."
"Natasha?" Mom?
The Soldier blinked. "No." It's Bucky.
Rogers grew more confused. Something inside the Soldier, something that had been knotting tighter and tighter all evening, eased. Without fully understanding why, he reached up and carefully brushed the hair away from Rogers' forehead. He whispered quietly. "Sleep." Go back to sleep, buddy...
He kept moving his hand until Roger's eyes drifted shut. Once they were closed, he reached down and gently probed the Captain's abdomen, where he knew he'd shot him on the carrier. The external wound was gone, but obviously tender judging by the faint groan the motion elicited. Definitely healing.
Satisfied that the injuries were indeed getting better, the Soldier eyed the various machines and pharmaceutical bags surrounding the bed. The main drip was new...probably the reason Rogers was incoherent. The doctors seemed to have finally found a powerful enough sedative to overcome the super-soldier's metabolism for long periods.
Hushed voices beyond the closed door signaled the arrival of the nurses. The Soldier melted back into the shadows and exited through the window, at least partially satisfied with Rogers' improved condition. He lingered on the ledge long enough to hear the nurses discussing Rogers' condition. They sounded hopeful about his prognosis.
Good.
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Fourth objective: Continue surveillance. Record target's movements, establish new base of operations...possibly make contact.
Captain Rogers was discharged from the hospital almost a full week after the Helicarrier battle. The dark skinned man—Sam Wilson, the Soldier now knew, after searching his home two nights previous—escorted him back to his wrecked apartment to gather his belongings.
The Soldier shadowed them at a discreet distance, observing and cataloguing. Rogers was obstinate, often refusing Wilson's good-natured attempts to help both with traveling and packing his bags. That felt...familiar.
Rogers also seemed to retain many military habits, such as the way he packed his clothing, the prioritization and order in which certain items were stowed, even the way he straightened the bed sheets, crisp and ready for inspection. The Soldier could appreciate Rogers' routines.
He followed them as far as Wilson's home, where they both men turned in after a series of phone conversations. Without more advanced equipment, the Soldier couldn't hear what was being said, but he suspected they were in communication with Romanoff, who he'd seen testifying on television before a government committee.
When they had settled and the lights were turned off, the Soldier headed back toward his current hideout, an empty duplex one block over. His stomach rumbled, and during the walk back he reluctantly took several bites of the dry and rather tasteless protein bar he'd brought. The rations were running dangerously low, and his robust appetite wasn't helping. He required a great deal of energy to keep going—another thing he had in common with Rogers, he'd noted—and that had rapidly diminished the meager stockpile of rations he'd acquired at the vault. Going back wasn't an option. HYDRA agents might have returned in the days since he'd neutralized his handlers.
Murdered.
The Soldier pushed the thought aside. They were the enemy. They would have stopped him from pursuing his new mission. Their deaths had been necessary. As for the surge of...was that satisfaction? Well, that was something he would have to examine further. Later. At the moment, the more pressing need was to find new food reserves.
Among the supplies he'd taken from the vault was a small amount of American money. The Soldier wasn't sure how much food he could purchase with it, but there were stores nearby. Perhaps he could gather enough to keep going. He detoured across several backyards and emerged on a street about two blocks from his hideout...and face to face with Captain America.
The Soldier froze, before raking his eyes up and down. The Plexiglas enclosure around a bus stop was emblazoned with an enormous painting of Steve Rogers in his Captain America garb. He frowned. He knew Rogers was well-known, but...he spotted a small, colorful pamphlet in a plastic holder and opened it. It described a huge exhibit on display at the Smithsonian Museum. Learn About An American Icon!
He flipped through the pamphlet as he proceeded into one of the small stores and collected food and water. The information was useful but sparse, mostly short blurbs encouraging visitors to explore the different sections of the exhibit and the times for various documentary film showings. The Soldier noted the hours of operation and the free admission—which was fortunate, given his shortage of currency. He decided to forgo direct surveillance of Rogers and Wilson the next day and investigate the Smithsonian.
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The Captain America exhibit hall was dark, save for the bright wall to wall illustrations and video educational panels, but the Soldier still kept his cap pulled low over his face. Few noticed his presence, moving from display to display, but it was best to stay unnoticed, since blurry images of him in battle were still being shown on the nightly newscasts.
Much of the first section of the exhibit contained information he already knew from the Soldier's mission briefings. Captain America's identity, the history of his missions, presentations about his physical abilities.
The panels about Rogers' transformation caught his attention, however. There were detailed descriptions provided—heavily redacted by the military, the Soldier was certain—as well as an animated, life-sized image showing Rogers' change from the 95-pound weakling he was before the experiment to the super-soldier after. The description outlining the changes was interesting, but it was the image that transfixed the Soldier and forced him to suck in a breath. He knew the man. He remembered that small, too-often sick, boy. He could see Rogers clearly in his mind, as though it were yesterday.
Shaking himself out of his reverie, the Soldier moved on before any passersby noticed his reactions. The next section was dedicated to the USO and Rogers' months of service as a stage performer. Irrelevant, really, but for some reason he couldn't identify, the Soldier found himself smirking.
The section following was about Rogers' journey to Europe, and his first mission as Captain America—rescuing 400 troops from a HYDRA labor camp in Northern Italy. The Soldier stopped at a large photo enlargement of Rogers' standing with a group of men. Given their ragged clothing and exhausted appearances, it seemed apparent that these were some of the men he'd rescued and led back to Allied lines. One of them caught his eye. Torn, ill-fitting sweater—obviously borrowed—skin pale and dirty, hair unkempt, eyes sunken from lack of sleep and nourishment...
But it was him.
Impossible.
The Soldier stepped closer to the huge photograph, tracing the lines of the man's face with his eyes, his right hand dragging along his own cheek at the same time.
Bucky!
Steve...?
I thought you were dead.
Go! Get out of here!
No, not without you!
Let's hear it for Captain America!
The Soldier clutched his temple as the sights and voices swirled in his brain, chased by an intense spike of pain.
"You okay, Mister?"
The Soldier looked down at the voice, finding a young blond boy watching him, clutching a plastic cup with Rogers' face plastered on it and a red, white, and blue straw. He displayed none of the fear the Soldier was used to seeing from strangers' faces.
"I'm fine." He replied, then staggered away, moving on to the Howling Commandos and their exploits in the European Theater.
I told you, they're all idiots!
The pain in his head flared, but the Soldier forced himself to continue down the line of displays. He'd had to endure pain to complete missions before, this was no different.
The same face was present there, oversized and everywhere. Cleaner, healthier, hair slicked back in a style of the time, clad in a blue jacket with U.S. Army sergeant's stripes and clutching a sniper rifle. Wherever Captain America was, that man was right by his shoulder. His face.
You ready to follow 'Captain America' into the jaws of Death?
Hell no! That kid from Brooklyn who was too stupid to run away from a fight? I'm following him.
The Soldier stared at the memorial to the Commandos for a long while, standing back so the crowd wouldn't touch him. Most of the names meant nothing to him. The faces seemed to...but he couldn't place them. He let his eyes drift over the massive paintings, soaking in the details. His gaze caught on a standalone panel, off to the left. His face was on it, in black and white, alone. He stepped over to it silently.
To the right of his image, there were paragraphs of information about James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, childhood friend of Steve Rogers, sergeant in the U.S. Army. A recorded voice relayed a condensed version of the biography from an overhead speaker.
"Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes...inseparable on the playground and the battlefield..."
Below the text on the glass panel, there was white lettering.
Bucky Barnes
1917-1944
Bucky Barnes was dead. He fell from a train in Austria.
Bucky...you've known me your whole life.
I'm not going to fight you...you're my friend.
He was falling. Wind. Pain. Blood. Troops speaking Russian, German, and accented English. A pudgy, balding man with round glasses and a smug smile. "Sergeant Barnes..." Two hands, one flesh, one metal. The metal hand strangled a man in a white coat before the others could react.
Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.
You're my friend.
You're my mission!
Your work has been a gift to mankind.
He's been out of cryo too long.
I knew him...I knew him...
Wipe him. Start over.
You've known me your whole life.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to silence the voices in his mind. He grasped the sides of his head and staggered away. The hallways toward the back of the exhibit were dark, deserted. He slumped against a wall but kept moving, his metal shoulder sliding easily along the black, sound-absorbing fabric covering. There was a door marked "Maintenance" almost at the end of the corridor, far from the exhibit and the crowds. It was locked, but he effortlessly ripped the door handle off.
He shouldered the door open and stepped through. There was no one inside, just shelves and cleaning chemicals. He slammed the door and sank against it, his body weight holding it shut. The voices swirled around his mind. Sights, sounds, sensations. Snow, trees, concrete floors, a bone saw sinking inch by agonizing inch into his left arm. Trading blows with Rogers on the carrier.
Bucky Barnes, 1917-1944.
I knew him.
You're my friend.
You're name is James Buchanan Barnes...
He sank to the floor, flesh hand pressing into his forehead, metal arm wrapped around his chest.
Bucky screamed.
END