Title: Dead Memories
Author: scyllaya

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Comics, The Avengers
Rating: NC-17 for entire work
Pairing(s): James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Warning(s): graphic violence, mentions of physical and emotional torture, gore and blood, PTSD, brainwashing
Spoiler(s): Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Word Count: WIP
Summary: Battling destructive forces with The Avengers forced Steve to stop his search for Bucky for much longer than he would have liked. Despite all odds they find him again, but in unexpected company and very different state of mind he was the last time Steve came face-to-face with him. Soon there's a lot more at stake than his long lost friend, but Steve simply cannot give up on him, not even when everything but his heart is telling him to let go.

Title song is 'Dead Memories' by Slipknot.

x-x-x

Chapter One

He spent a year searching for him. A literal year, not an exaggeration. It was not a constant search, being on the road and hunting down leads, of course not, but it was enough time spent to count as a full-time job. Which was why Steve did not expect Sam to dedicate his every waking hour to the cause. Now Steve though... he had time, plenty, he had all the time in the world. And he's been told – repeatedly – by trustworthy sources, that there's never been a more stubborn punk on the face of this Earth than him. A year went by with nothing but glimpses, trails gone cold, and dead Hydra agents, but Steve was nowhere near ready to give up. He wanted to keep going. He was disheartened on some days, desperate on others, sometimes numb, sometimes close to rage, but he was not about to stop. He... couldn't just stop.

The world didn't feel like letting him keep going though.

Not Hydra, not what was left of SHIELD, not the Avengers and the damn Maximoffs... not Ultron.

So here he was. Staring out of the window of his newest characterless apartment, back in DC, again. Months later than he planned to be. Months after any lead would be worth a damn. The faint trail completely gone.

It was a numb day. The sort where he didn't feel like pretending to be anything or anyone. He was just a guy, standing quietly in his mostly empty apartment, being angry at the world and not having the energy to do anything about it. DC was grey outside, the air crisp and the sky cloudy. Perfect weather for his mood. A text from Sam was still waiting to be answered, but Steve knew that he had a few hours before his friend would have enough and just come over.

Steve appreciated his concern even when it frustrated him, especially then. He knew that Sam and DC were kind of a package deal, he could've avoided this, if he wanted to. But it was much better than staying in New York, where he would catch himself staring at the Tower from a distance, where Tony locked himself away like some self-exiled prince from a fairy tale. Not that Steve blamed him... well, no, Steve did blame him for a few things, but there was no point hauling more guilt on his shoulders. He was punishing himself enough. Nobody on this world blamed Tony more than he blamed himself. It was one of the things that made Steve remember that despite everything, he was a good man. Only a good man would do this to themselves.

Natasha gave him a call regularly, updating him about everything in New York. Not just about Tony, but everyone else. Steve always wanted to know how Clint and Bruce were doing, but he was not always interested in what Wanda and Pietro got up to. He was... not really warmed up to them, but he knew Clint and Natasha felt different. And Vision just plain unnerved him in some moments, he couldn't help it, he was working on it.

His phone chirped again, another text, probably from Sam. He sighed and turned away from the window to take a look at it. It was not nice of him, ignoring Sam like this. When he looked down at the screen there was an unknown number there, not just the text from Sam. He opened that first. It contained another unknown number and a short message: "Call back ASAP. N"

Steve dialled and waited.

'Natasha?' he asked immediately. 'What's going on?'

'Not even a "hello"?' Natasha asked in return on the other end of the line.

'Why the secrecy?' Steve asked. 'And hello.'

Natasha did not laugh, but Steve could hear it in her voice that she was smiling.

'Well, I stumbled upon a little something you might be very interested in.'

'You mean...'

Bucky. It had to be Bucky. Natasha knew that he has not given up. What else...

'Yes.'

Steve's heart started pounding in his chest, his whole body preparing to launch into action.

'Where are you?'

'Delaware.'

'I thought you were in New York.'

'Yes, but one of Clint's contacts found something that stank like Hydra, so here I am.'

'Give me the exact location I can be there in a few hours.'

'No, stay put,' Natasha said firmly. 'Nothing to do here any more. I'll bring the intel to you.'

'Then why did you call?'

There was a short pause and Steve knew right away that something big happened, or something very bad.

'Are you okay? Are you injured?' he asked, shifting gears, he felt his brows furrowing with worry.

'I'm fine, but Steve... this is not just some vague lead, a report from an unreliable source... I need you to be very sure about still wanting to do this. Before I show up.'

That was... strange. She knew very well how serious Steve was about finding Bucky, how very much be did not want to give up.

'I am sure,' Steve said with absolute conviction. 'What did you find?'

'More corpses than I care to count,' she said then and Steve felt himself go very very still. 'Hydra... from the way I see it.'

Bucky did leave some bodies behind since he dropped of the grid. Hydra agents in safe houses and hastily emptied SHIELD bases, but it was never more than one or two. Quick kills too, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. This... this was something different.

'And?'

'And I'm trying to recover enough security footage for us to get some idea about what happened here... and what they took.'

'They?' Steve asked in surprise.

'I don't know who else was here, but he wasn't alone. It's impossible, even for someone with his skills.'

Steve took a moment to digest that. All this time, he was always alone. Drifting from one place to another, running, hiding, never staying in one place for long. Steve didn't know what this meant, that he was working with someone now.

'There's also a vault here,' Natasha continued. 'Recently emptied... whatever was inside is gone. Hydra guarded it well.'

'Are you sure it's him?' Steve asked.

Natasha was silent for a moment and Steve could picture her clearly. Standing in full gear in a destroyed room littered with bodies, nimble fingers swiftly moving over a keyboard, trying to recover as much data as possible, her eyes intent on the screens, taking in all information presented to her.

'I'm sure,' she said then. That was good enough for Steve.

'Bring all you can find, I'll call Sam.'

'Steve...' She started again, but he interrupted.

'Don't ask me again whether I'm sure, you know I am.'

'I know you are, but something changed, be ready for that.'

'Yeah, you got it,' Steve said, his voice just a bit quieter.

'I'll be there as soon as I can,' Natasha said and then she cut the line. Steve lowered his phone and tried to just breathe for a moment. He counted to five for every inhale and exhale, just like back when he had asthma. He had to make sure his heartbeat was steady. He allowed himself one moment of silent worry and uncertainty, then he squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and dialled Sam.

x-x-x

Somehow Sam managed to keep him from vibrating out of his skin. He hated waiting around and he's never been known for patience. Right now his head was hyper-focused and all over the place at the same time. He kept running the few scraps of information Natasha has given him over and over in his mind. Bucky was simply gone for so long now, for him to show up like this again, leaving a pile of corpses behind, working with someone (more than one?), taking something from Hydra. Something changed all right.

'You're making me dizzy,' Sam interrupted his thoughts again. Steve was pacing. It was that or staring out of the window, which kind of always worried Sam, so Steve refrained.

'It's just-'

'I know! Cap, I know, trust me. But you gotta get your head in the game without falling apart at the seams.'

'I just thought it would happen differently. Some rumour from Eastern Europe, a strange intel from Argentina. Not a raided Hydra base in Delaware with an empty vault and a pile of bodies.'

'Yeah, some comeback, huh?' Sam folded his hands together and looked at Steve for a moment. 'Any idea what it could mean? Kicking the Hydra killings up a big notch like this?'

'Maybe he remembers more... from what they did to him. That... maybe that would explain it.'

Steve didn't want to think of Bucky as someone so brutally vengeful, but he remembered his own oath, after Bucky fell from the train. How hunting down Hydra and Shmidt became the one clear goal in his mind, how he's sworn to kill or capture them all. The anger and pain he felt back then was nothing compared to what Bucky was put through.

'I don't know whether that makes this easier or harder,' Sam wondered.

'I have absolutely no idea,' Steve admitted.

Sam let him pace some more, without kicking up much of a fuss about it.

Natasha knocked on his front door exactly two hours after her phone call. Steve opened the door so quickly he could've sworn he heard the hinges protest with unpleasant metallic squeaks. She looked okay, uninjured, hair still short barely under her ear, most of her Black Widow gear hidden beneath a long black coat.

'Get your computer,' she said, walking inside Steve's apartment swiftly. Steve went to do that while Sam and Natasha greeted each other.

Natasha sat down on the couch next to Sam, but Steve couldn't imagine being able to sit still even for a second, so he just stood next to them while his computer powered up and Natasha inserted the flash drive.

'Something damaged most of the cameras in the facility,' Natasha said as her fingers moved on the keyboard. 'So I don't actually have that much footage, but it's worth looking at it.'

It took only a few short moments for her to start playing the video. Steve stared at the screen, almost holding his breath.

The camera did not record in very good quality and something obviously damaged or disturbed the recording, because it occasionally jumped, shook, and sizzled. They all saw enough though.

A gate of sorts was wide open, white smoke swirling in from the outside. A completely nondescript strike team was lining up, preparing for a fight, but for defence, not offence. Then in walked the Winter Soldier. Steve's breath really did catch in his throat and he had to swallow. The members of the strike team were falling to the ground, dropping like flies even before he was fully in the room. His clothes were only slightly different than what he wore the last time Steve saw him in DC. His metal arm was still uncovered, his vest was definitely kevlar and he wore googles. No mask though. Steve felt ridiculously glad about that for a second. Somehow in Steve's mind that mask, hiding his face and silencing his words, was like a symbol of the weapon Hydra turned him into.

He moved incredibly quickly, dodging Hydra agents left and right, taking cover in the right moments and exploiting every mistake and every second of hesitation from the strike team. Some members of the Hydra team fell even without Bucky shooting them and it took a moment for Steve to catch the metallic blurs. Knives or bolts, definitely some sort of a projectile weapon.

Bucky, because no matter how much he looked like Hydra's most fearsome weapon in the footage he had to call him Bucky, made short work of the strike team and marched forward with confidence, deeper into the facility. Quick, efficient, deadly.

'Now who the hell is that?' asked Sam as a second dark figure walked in after Bucky. Steve guessed male from the width of their shoulders, their height, and gait. His clothes were less military, more... Steve had no idea how to categorize it. His overcoat was long, almost down to his ankle and his face was hidden by a hood. Steve couldn't even catch a glimpse of his skin colour, he wore gloves as well. He carried no visible weapons, but was no less confident than Bucky as he walked inside.

'Can we take a closer look at him?' he asked.

'Wait,' Natasha said.

Soon the video switched to a different camera view, but some time must've passed, because Bucky was already stepping over fallen Hydra operatives, his unknown accomplice just a few steps behind him.

'Not exactly standard military gear,' Steve offered, staring at the stranger on the screen.

'Neither is your suit,' Sam added. He had a point there, Steve shouldn't be surprised. The stranger wore some mask or had something wrapped around his head under the hood, because all Steve caught was a thin line where his eyes were. He still couldn't be sure about the skin colour, it was light though, not dark.

'And definitely keen on hiding his identity,' Natasha said, with a touch of annoyance in her voice. She had no idea who it was then, Steve concluded. An unknown party always made her a little cross.

The screen switched again, this time the camera was behind some sort of a glass panel in a wall. Probably hidden camera. One Hydra operative was looking into it, then spun around as the door was kicked open. A second later there were two bloody holes in the glass, obscuring the view a little, and the man fell to the ground.

Bucky walked up to the glass and Steve couldn't take his eyes off of him, especially when he removed his googles. His hair was still long, maybe even slightly longer than before, but he wasn't pale, wasn't skinny, he even looked clean shaven. His eyes were firmly down on the switchboard before him, not looking up at the camera, so Steve couldn't really take a good look at his eyes. That would have told him a lot. How empty they were, what emotions were hiding in them. He almost spoke out loud, willing him to lift his head a little. It didn't happen.

The hooded figure walked up to him, talking to him maybe, but there was no audio feed. Bucky just nodded his head to the left, saying something in return, then lifted his metal arm to gesture at something. The other man nodded and walked away, straight to the huge metal door that must've been the vault Natasha mentioned. Bucky put down one of his gun, holstered the other one, and started typing on whatever was in front of him, not paying attention to the other.

The hooded man stopped before the vault door, raised his arms, gripped it on either side, then to Steve's shock, he simply ripped it out of the wall.

'Holy shit,' Sam breathed out. 'That's not normal.'

'Definitely not,' Steve agreed as he watched the man drop the thick vault door to the floor. He was tall, but more lean than bulky, it made the whole thing all the more surreal.

'Super-human, non-human, centipede soldier,' Natasha shrugged, looking at the screen intently. 'Definitely something.'

'I'm not sure I could've ripped that door out,' Steve added.

Bucky was still typing when the man came back out of the vault, carrying a heavy looking storage crate. The sort Steve saw SHIELD use as well.

The hooded man calmly walked up to Bucky, the crate in one hand, like it weighted nothing. He must've said something, because Bucky stepped back from the panel and said something in return.

'"You better be right",' Natasha said.

'What?' Steve frowned.

'I read his lips,' she explained.

The hooded figure must've answered in return, but they could not see his mouth, then Bucky rolled his...

'Did he just roll his eyes?' Steve asked, shocked, incredulous, maybe, probably. He did roll his eyes, Steve caught it.

Sam and Natasha said nothing. Steve tried to focus on the screen again and watched as Bucky stood, waiting for something. The hooded man stepped closer to the panel and touched something on it. Then he reached up to the glass that hid the camera and drew a curved line with his bloody gloved fingers right under the two bullet holes in the glass, creating a bizarre, utterly disturbing smiling face.

'They knew about the camera,' Steve said, watching them walk away, leaving the room. This time the hooded man walked out first and Bucky covered his back, following him.

Natasha nodded. 'They wanted to be seen, they left this footage to be found.'

'For whom?' Sam asked. 'You? Us? SHIELD?'

'Your guess is as good as mine,' Natasha said.

'No, I'm sure yours better,' Sam countered.

'But where did they go?' Steve asked, still staring at the screen even though the video went dark already. 'Where do we search for him?'

Natasha turned a little to look up at him and after a moment Steve looked back at her.

'If they wanted to be seen, they won't be hiding. We'll find them.'

'Well... I'm all for it,' Sam said. 'But that guy... I don't feel good about that guy.'

Steve knew what he meant, and not just because of the display of strength. His whole presence put him on edge. Steve's brain was bending over backwards trying to figure out what Bucky was doing with someone like that. He had so many questions. He wanted to know what was happening inside Bucky's head. He did not look empty, or confused, but Steve couldn't see much else either. He had to know, but again it seemed like that he would have to find him for that first. He would have to look him in the eye, take in his face, then he would know more.

And whatever was in that vault, whatever they took, it also probably meant bad news.

'We're gonna need backup,' he decided.

Natasha smiled. 'Way ahead of you.'

x-x-x

To be continued...

Author's Notes: Hello and welcome to my first Bucky/Steve fic. I do not know yet how regularly I will update, but those of you who followed BatW might know that you won't have to wait long for a new chapter.

Hope you will enjoy the story. Thank you for reading.