2

At six in the morning he woke up. He changed the dressings on the bullet wounds, wincing when dried blood stuck to the gauze. The process took about seven minutes, inefficient by normal standards, but he was working with subpar supplies. By six thirty he was out and roaming the streets, hands in pockets and baseball cap hiding his face from cameras.

The fresh air and human noise served to further wake him and to stimulate the parts of his brain that always seemed to drift away if he was alone for too long. With more funds procured from loose pockets, Bucky stepped into a small store to get new clothes. He only had space for two new outfits in his duffel, which worked fine since Bucky just had to replace the one that had gotten bloody and the other one that was looking rather threadbare at this point.

Nearly everything in the store was priced approximately 350 percent higher than it needed to be, but the cashier would probably remember someone grumbling darkly at every single price tag, so Bucky let it go. He settled on two unreasonably priced pairs of jeans, three pairs of reasonably priced socks, and two shirts that could have gone either way. Bucky put the clothes on the counter by the cashier, paid the unnecessarily large bill, and then left, the plastic bag gripped loosely in his left hand. He paid a brief visit to his base to drop off the purchases—and to change into the pants that didn't have a bloodstain on the both the left pocket and the left knee—and then he went out again. Restlessness had kept him moving the past few days; it was always like that for the first couple of weeks after a move. He had to map out the area, see it with his own eyes so he'd know routes and shortcuts in an emergency.

He'd already explored the general neighborhood, but for the moment he wasn't feeling the need to go farther than that—especially since those routes ran much higher risks of running into Steve.

In the year since Insight, he'd moved around a lot, only coming back to New York City when he was sure that it was the best option—and that Steve had stopped looking for him within the city limits. That had been…six, seven months ago now? It wasn't as if he didn't want to see Steve, though. He just wasn't ready yet. There were all kinds of things about that meeting that could go wrong, and Bucky had to plan and get ready for them before he felt comfortable enough to engage.

What did you even say to a guy you've tried to kill almost as often as save?

Nothing. At least for now.

Fortunately, there were a lot of places nearby he could go that would satisfy his need to be outdoors.

He settled on a small park near his place in Hell's Kitchen. A few kids were playing in the small playground, their caretakers chatting amicably on a bench nearby that was mounted on springs. Bucky got a hotdog from a vendor on the corner and settled on another bench under the shade of a maple tree. There wasn't enough ketchup or mustard on the hotdog, but it was still tasty. Certainly better than the canned stuff he had back at base.

"Someone catch it!"

Glancing to his left, Bucky saw a young man running after a dog, the leash trailing behind the small animal. Bucky put the last bit of hot dog into his mouth and swallowed. The dog was heading towards him; it would be more noticeable to do nothing than to help.

He was really starting to hate small, furry creatures.

The dog was small and fast but not very smart. Bucky let it run by and then scooped up the leash, giving a little when the dog pulled it so that the dumb thing wouldn't choke itself. Of course, idiot that he was, he'd used his right hand to grab the leash, and his wound gave a painful twinge. The young man caught up a moment later, but those couple of seconds gave Bucky enough time to suppress his reaction. The man had to bend over for several seconds, breathing hard, before he could straighten up and accept the leash.

"Thank you," he said. "I don't know what I would have done."

Bucky just nodded. He could see the other people looking out of the corner of his eye—even the kids—and so he knew he was going to have to cut this park visit short.

"You're welcome," Bucky said when it became clear that the man wanted more than just stony silence. "If you'll excuse me."

"Oh, right. Thanks again."

With the park a non-option, Bucky stuck to the streets and small plazas dotting the area. For lunch he ate at a sunny café. He picked up a newspaper afterwards and settled down on a bench to read—or pretend to. People-watching proved to be the more entertaining activity, and so Bucky passed the time observing the crowds flowing by. He was careful, though. After twenty minutes he moved several blocks, and then again, each time keeping his face hidden from any security cameras. He read the same article about some sports coach getting fired twenty-three times in three hours.

When the sun began to set, Bucky debated whether to eat out or back at the base. He had already eaten at restaurants twice today, and his muscles were getting twitchy with the constant exposure to too many stimuli. He would undoubtedly get a headache if he continued, and that would only be the beginning. Besides, he needed to check the conditions of his wounds.

Decision made, Bucky folded up the newspaper, stuck it in the nearest trashcan, and went on his way. He didn't have much to think about while he walked; his mind seemed content to focus on nothing, and Bucky wasn't inclined to force the issue. So he mused about the position of the moon in the sky and let his feet set the path.

He stopped outside of a comic book store. Something about the displays in the front pulled at him: action figures of the Avengers were stuck in strange poses in front of their respective comics. Bucky's gaze skipped over the non-Steve figures until he found the Captain America comics. He'd read a couple of them in the past few months. He wasn't sure why; the colorful images, implausible fight sequences, and cheesy one-liners didn't tell him anything about the real Steve. But he read them anyway, finding amusement in the ridiculous stories.

They had him in tights in a few of them. Like the suit Steve had worn when doing his tour as a dancing military mascot, when he was the perfect poster boy.

Bucky's right eye pulsed. Was that a memory from Before or After?

Either way, it was a memory. Steve in an obnoxiously colored thing that barely counted as a uniform, posing proudly in a photo, patriotically-clad dancers lined up behind him.

Thinking about it brought a strange mix of feelings: amusement, resentment, dread. They were too vague to associate with any ideas in particular, but Bucky was sure that this wasn't the first time a memory had felt like that.

Another piece of the puzzle that was his life, then.

He went into the comic store just to kill time and satisfy the pull in his gut. The woman behind the counter barely registered his entry and only offered a bored, "Hello, welcome, feel free to buy stuff," as a greeting. Not that Bucky was complaining. He skipped past the glossy displays in the front, heading for the back shelves. He didn't want the new issues that covered the Avengers and SHIELD and Insight (though members of the last category was rare thanks to lacking information). He wanted the old stories, the ones that were equal parts heartwarming, dumb, and thought provoking.

He found a few in the very back and, since the cashier was clearly disinterested in the idea of customer service, Bucky settled in for a nice hour of reading. Sitting was a little awkward—at anything but a very specific angle, the wound in his stomach burned, and he had to hold the comics weirdly so he wouldn't pull on the hole in his shoulder—but he found a spot that worked and stayed there.

As he'd expected (and wanted), the comics had very little of substance. These weren't the famous runs; they were old, sure, but not old enough to be valuable. In a couple, the characterization was so bad that Bucky had to set them down before his reaction manifested as something the cashier could hear. In others, especially one that had the Howling Commandos, Bucky put them back for an entirely different reason.

Then he picked them up again. And, when he finally got up to leave, he took them to the register and bought them.

"Have a nice day," the young woman said.

"You too," Bucky replied, matching her bored tone exactly. It was unnecessary but satisfying.

He took the comics out again once he made it back to the base, setting up much as he had the previous night after he changed his bandages. His knee was mostly healed now, but the other two wounds needed more time before he could take out the stitches.

While he read, Bucky compared some of the events that seemed real with the memories floating around his brain. The majority of the things described in the comics—daring raids, incredible battles fought on improbable battlefields—didn't appear to have actually happened. But some things struck a familiar cord: a relief mission to a besieged battalion, a scouting mission in the mountains gone awry, a long trek through snowy, freezing terrain.

"I'm freezin' my fuckin' toes off."

"Well, Dugan, unless you want me to hug your feet all the way to camp I suggest you shut your trap. We're all fucking freezing."

"Ouch, Sarge."

Of course, the corresponding scene in the comics didn't include the swearing. Bucky paged through the rest, watching Steve make improbable shield throws across entire pages and generally just defy the laws of physics while the Howlies laid down an excess of covering fire.

All in all, a pleasant way to finish his day. He put the comics he hadn't read by the books he had yet to read, while the rest went to the bottom of the duffel bag alongside his changes of clothes.

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