The familiar cold of the cryo chamber whispered him to sleep while Steve watched. It had been a hard decision, but the right one. He wasn't the same Bucky he used to be, even though he was trying. There was something else there too: The Asset. Winter Soldier. An unpredictable part of himself that hurt other people. All they had to know was a series of random words and his mind was no longer his own.
He breathed the air in deep, resisted the urge to cough as his lungs froze. He didn't want to close his eyes. He could still see Steve. But as the cold overtook his body, his neural system started to shut down, and his eyes slipped closed. Who knew who he would see when he woke up. He hoped it would be Steve again. Hoped Steve would be there to remind him of who he was.
He hoped that when he woke up things would be different. This time, there was at least that.
"Barnes," barked a voice, and his body spasmed awake.
No, he thought. This isn't how it works. He knew the feeling of coming out of cryo. It sucked. It hurt to breathe, his muscles felt cramped and useless, and he usually had to be dragged out. Instinctively he felt himself gasping for air, but he didn't actually need to be gasping for air. He was cold, but none of the other symptoms of cryo were there.
"Barnes, stop fooling around," the voice said again.
He felt someone kick his leg. In the space between that kick and the voice asking with a hint of worry, "Barnes?" his Winter Soldier instincts had kicked in. He swept his legs in the direction of the voice and rolled upright so that by the time he was up and the assailant was down, he had his left hand wrapped around the guy's throat.
His brain tried to process the sudden onslaught of new information.
· The assailant was Tony Stark.
· His arm was not metal.
· He was not in a cryo chamber.
He released Stark's throat and stared at his hand. Flexed it. Then looked at Stark's still-surprised and now confused expression and his stupidly manicured facial hair and made his way to his feet, taking in his surroundings.
Some kind of refrigeration unit. Large amounts of food, like at a restaurant. Beyond the open unit's door he could see a counter crowded with boxy machines. Whirring noises and the aroma of coffee filled the air.
"Barnes, what the hell is going on," Stark complained, using one of the shelving units to help him stand. "I come in here, you're on the floor taking a nap, we got a line of customers out the door..."
Bucky looked at the red apron Stark wore over a white button-down shirt. The logo looked vaguely familiar. Starkbucks, it said. Bucky remembered something like that. But green, instead of red.
"Shouldn't that say Starbucks?" Bucky asked.
"Did you hit your head?" Stark asked. "I can't tell, under all that fucking hair of yours. Come here, let me see. God, the last thing I need is a workman's comp issue." He reached out to touch Bucky's face and Bucky jerked away.
"I'm fine," he snapped. He felt his own head. Sure enough, his fingers came across a sensitive spot and encountered a wetness there, right along his hairline.
"Nope. Nope. Not fine. Nope. You are a walking biohazard. You need to go home."
"Okay," said Bucky warily. He didn't move.
Stark sighed and stepped out of the fridge to grab some paper towels. "Here. Try not to bleed all over the floor." He looked behind where Bucky was standing and sighed. "Too late."
Stark turned and walked out; cautiously, Bucky followed him. He was still flexing his hand. His human hand. He could feel his left hand.
He wondered if he still had superstrength.
Beyond the door Bucky got a better idea of where he was: a coffee shop. It looked exactly like a Starbucks except the décor was more red and gold than green and white. He recognized a few faces behind the counter, all wearing the red aprons: the girl all in black with heavy eyeliner, that was the one called Scarlet Witch. And with her was the archer, Clint Barton. Bucky was wearing an apron too, he finally noticed.
All this was making his head hurt more than the small physical wound was. It appeared as though he worked here. He had been momentarily unconscious, not thawing out from cryo. So what exactly had happened in that time between being woken from cryo and ending up here?
T'Challa must have come through and fixed something in his brain, or else Steve never would have let them wake him. But maybe that cure wasn't working. Someone had fixed his arm, too. How, he wasn't sure. He wasn't aware of any technology that might reattach a limb that had been severed for seventy years. As he followed Stark into some kind of office, he reached under the short sleeve on his left side. Hadn't he been wearing a sleeveless shirt when he went into cryo? No scars. They must have completely regenerated his arm somehow.
And then they all came to work at a coffee shop?
"Sit," said Stark, and Bucky sat. Stark pulled out a first aid kit and rifled through it, snapped on some latex gloves, and then sat on the corner of the cluttered desk and peered at Bucky's face. "I don't think you'll need stitches."
Was this really the same guy who had tried to kill him the last time they saw each other? Steve said he had sent Tony a letter, but this 180 degree change in attitude was baffling. When Stark started dabbing alcohol on the cut with a cotton ball, Bucky demanded, "Aren't you mad?"
"What, that you somehow passed out in the freezer room? No. I'm just... you know, stressed." Stark raked a gloved hand through his hair, then pulled it away and looked at it with distaste. "If that goddamned health inspector walked in here today, hoo boy. Dad would flip."
Dad? Bucky wondered. Tony Stark wasn't the head of this Starkbucks endeavor? And... I killed Howard Stark. Didn't I?
"I mean, unless you were doing something in the freezer room you shouldn't have been." Stark looked at him sternly.
"No," he said.
"You weren't smoking weed? Snorting cocaine? Making out with Wanda?"
"What?" None of these possibilities seemed remotely possible.
"So how did you hit your head and end up on the floor?"
Bucky thought about it. "I don't remember."
"That's convenient, isn't it."
"I'm sorry," Bucky said hesitantly. "I, um, don't even remember working here."
Stark's look of disapproval became one of flat disbelief. "I doubt workman's comp covers amnesia." He carefully peeled the back off a band-aid and placed it on Bucky's forehead. "Okay. Good as new. That means you can probably finish your shift. Go wash your hands and then you can mop up the floor in the freezer."
Bucky stood up, then hesitated. "So, when my shift over?"
"Twenty minutes," Stark said. "And please, stop this amnesia thing. For the love of God. You're starting to sound like Barton."
"Okay," said Bucky. He wasn't sure why he said it, other than the fact that he was used to dealing with having huge gaps in memory and trying to fill them. I wonder if I still have my notebook somewhere, he thought as he walked into the area behind the counter. That would be really helpful about now.
"What happened?" Wanda asked, rushing by with a steaming cup of cappuccino. She had only the faintest of accents. "Phil!" She called loudly, then turned back to Bucky. "You went to get more of the caramel flavoring and then you didn't come back."
"He was probably unloading a massive number two, am I right?" Clint asked over whooshing of the espresso machine. He grinned at Bucky like he expected him to agree.
"Don't say that too loud," Wanda chastised, slapping Clint's arm. "You know his favorite person will be coming in any second now."
Favorite person? Did that mean Steve? "I fell and hit my head," Bucky said. "Where's the mop?"
"Uh, right behind you?" Clint pointed.
"Thanks." Bucky wheeled the yellow bucket and mop into the back room. There were about two drops of blood on the floor. Not exactly a huge mess that would take twenty minutes to clean up. Instead of asking, he poked around the back rooms until he found an industrial sink and dumped the mop water into it and rinsed out the yellow bucket. He had some extra time, so he dug around in the pockets of his jeans, which looked just like the jeans he'd been wearing when he was put in cryo, found a wallet.
His driver's license still said James Buchanan Barnes. The address was in Brooklyn, which was a small relief. He could probably find his way to wherever he lived. The license, however, was a motorcycle license.
Well, at least he knew how to ride a motorcycle. And there probably wouldn't be more than one motorcycle parked out front.
"Hey," Wanda hissed, peeking around the corner. Bucky snapped the wallet shut and shoved it in his pocket. "Your guy is here!"
"My guy," Bucky said.
"There's someone in front of him and Clint is stalling until you get your butt out there. Come on!"
Bucky hesitantly followed Wanda into the kitchen area. He wasn't sure what he expected to see. It had to be Steve. Had to be. But if Bucky was human now, would Steve still be that runt he had to pull out of fights? Would he be standing there in his Captain America uniform?
But there was Steve, looking much the same as he had looked the last time Bucky had seen him. Blue jacket half-zipped, khakis, checking his watch while he waited in line.
Clint glanced up and quickly finished flirting with the middle-aged woman standing at the counter. "You're up, buddy," he said, leaving Bucky to take Steve's order.
"Hi, Steve," Bucky said in a low voice, hoping Steve might hear all the questions he wanted to ask. Steve had always known him, even when he didn't know himself.
So it was a bit of a shock when Steve just looked at him blankly. "Hi," he said. After an awkward moment of silence, where Bucky wasn't sure if he should ask Steve what the hell was going on, Steve said, "Yeah, I'll have a triple venti soy no-foam latte."
Bucky just stared right back at him. What did any of those words mean? He fumbled around for a piece of paper and a pen. "Um, can you repeat that?"
Instead of responding immediately, Steve gave him a side-eyed look. "What happened to your head?"
"I fell," Bucky said, his pen poised for the triple something latte.
"Are you okay? I mean," Steve breathed out a little laugh, "you usually know my order."
"I do?" Bucky touched his head. It didn't feel like a concussion. He shouldn't have amnesia. Then again, he shouldn't be here, in a coffee shop, serving coffee. Nothing made sense. "I'm sorry, I think I might have hit my head harder than I thought."
"Do you need to go to the hospital?" Steve asked. "I could take you. My car's right out front."
Squinting, Bucky looked out the big plate glass window to the street. There was a motorcycle he assumed was his. And there was a blue Volkswagen Beetle. He remembered the Beetle. The cramped backseat. Sam.
Something didn't quite make sense.
"Why do you have a car in Brooklyn?" he asked.
Steve looked outside. Looked at the menu board above Bucky's head. Finally looked back at Bucky. "Because... we're not in Brooklyn."
Now Bucky looked out the window again. Of course the buildings didn't look familiar; nothing did, these days. It looked like a city. His license had said Brooklyn.
"Uh, heeey, buddy," said Clint, coming up beside him. "Maybe you should go home, huh? Wanda and I can make his coffee, okay?"
Bucky glared at the intrusion, though his anger was mostly due to this whole fucked up situation. "I would like to go home," he snarled. "If I knew where that was."