This time I ran into Bucky late at night.

Only Bucky did not seem to know me.

I found myself in a surprise choke hold, thankfully his real arm wrapped about my throat and not the metal one, I'd been grabbed by the throat twice now with just the hand, I did not want to think about the pressure he could put against my throat with the full arm. He did the smart thing and leaned back, forcing me to arch and keeping me off balance. He locked my left arm behind my back with his, leaving me with only my right free, and had no idea if it would be enough to remove the arm from about by neck.

I knew how strong Bucky was, but lack of air was quickly darkening my sight.

I tensed, preparing to do whatever I could to break his hold, when he leaned forward to speak directly into my ear.

"Why have I been woken?"

I froze.

I tapped the arm, unable to answer without air. He eased the hold only slightly, allowing me to draw in a strangled breath. "Bucky?"

There was a breathless pause, as if the entire universe had stilled for an instant, then he echoed, "Bucky?" sounding confused.

"Who are you?" I asked, suspecting the answer that I would receive.

The hold on me eased a bit more as he processed the question and tried to come up with an answer. "I am no one," he finally answered.

The arm had gone slack and with care I stepped out of his hold and turned about to look at him. Dressed in sweats and a compression shirt, padded half gloves on his right hand he stood there, feet bare on the cold floor of the hallway. The look in his eyes oddly blank.

"No, you are James Buchanan Barnes." I watched his reaction with care and after a moment realized that he might not actually be awake.

He shook his head. "No. He is dead. Only I remain."

Okay, not good. "Who am I?"

He met my eyes, his narrowing as he tried to match my appearance to one in his jumbled memory. He shook his head. "I don't know."

So this memory must predate him being awoken and given me as his mission. Still, I couldn't just let him walk out of here while stuck as The Winter Soldier. Who the hell knew what might happen or where he might go. I had no idea which memory he had fallen into, but I doubted any of them had a happy ending for his targets or him. Just another mind wipe and sent back to cryo. Not much of a life for one of the best men I had ever known. Even my life, where'd simply slept the years away, had been better. I'd missed a lot, but had not been used against my will.

And now those memories would not leave him alone, appearing at random moments to offer distraction from the job at hand, even if just washing dishes, to now, where his sleep had been co-opted by an echo, a false image of himself, perverted and twisted into a parody of the human being that had once been James Barnes.

Not certain how to get through to Bucky I tried, "Mission report."

He opened his mouth to speak, look turning inward as he tried to find the answer in his mind. "Assassination. Mumbai. Personal and bloody, but leave no traces."

Not one a recognized, but there were plenty of those. "Who?"

"Wife of the ambassador. Made to look like the rebels had done it." He took a sudden step back, shaking his head as if to toss the memories to the four winds. "No, that one has been completed."

I nodded in agreement. "Yes, soldier. Work well done. Perhaps to is time to rest?" I suggested. A mistake, treating him like a person and not an asset, as he shot a look at me that made it clear he knew I was not one of his handlers. I should have studied that damn Red Book more just in case something like this should happen.

"Who are you?" he demanded, going into an attack posture, prepared to charge at me and disable me so that he could get away.

I couldn't let that happen.

I moved first and clocked him a good one, slamming the side of his head into the wall with enough force to put him out cold.

Standing over him, feeling like shit for having to knock him out I sighed, "I'm your friend."

. . .

He came to a few minutes later while I fireman carried back to his room, my shoulder probably digging into his diaphragm. He twitched, grunted, then tapped me on the back to get my attention.

I lowered him to the ground and stepped back, watching him with wary eyes. He set one hand against the wall as he swayed at the shift of blood flow, the other to his jaw, a bruise already there. The other under the hair on the opposite side. I suspected the latter was the one that had provided the neural recalibration from Winter Soldier back to Bucky.

"I wish there were a better way to deal with that," he grumbled, not meeting my eyes for one second.

"You remember what happened?"

He nodded. "Maybe we should start locking my door from the outside." He shifted his back against the wall then slowly slid down until sitting on the floor. Knees pulled up , elbows atop them, hands curled about the back of his head. The frustration palpable.

"Won't work if you're not in your room," I pointed out, gesturing at the clothing he wore.

"Huh," he muttered, shaking his head as if to realign the memories into their proper order. "Maybe I don't remember."

I sat down across from him, back to the wall legs stretched out, toes inches apart in the wide hallway. "How long, Buck?"

He shrugged, still not looking up at me. "Few weeks after we got here. I figured… hoped they'd go away once we settled in."

I rubbed my face in my hands. I knew something had been up given the incident with Scott, but clearly had ignored any of the other blatant signs that had been thrown my way, else Bucky had been hiding them from me, not wanting to admit his mind had cracked further since coming here. Hell, even Wanda had mentioned it and I'd just gone blithely on without a care in the world.

Idiot.

"Did anything like this happen when you were in Bucharest?"

He shook his head. "No, just jumbled past memories. The only ones in a straight line begin when you called me Bucky on that street. The mind wipe they did after didn't really do much. You were there, stuck in my head, all this information there, but… not there. Like a word on the tip of my tongue." He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. "At the time it was easier to follow the programming than try to find the truth. Wasn't till I went to the Smithsonian that I started to believe."

That must have been an odd experience for him. Tipping the reality he'd known sideways, add in the memories I had stirred by insisting he was Bucky Barnes and I could just imagine the confusion that had overtaken him. To learn everything you had known to be wrong?

I could relate, a little, after discovering SHIELD had been Hydra all along. After learning that every good thing I had done in recent years had been for nothing. We'd saved New York for nothing. Had handed over the keys to the castle with a smile and had no clue we'd let the fox right into the henhouse. Hell we'd all but laid down and slit our own throats for them.

I had people to help me pick up the pieces and try and find my way in this brave new world. I would do the same for Bucky. Just needed to get him past this little issue.

Okay, major issue.

"Is the block still working?"

He grunted. "How would I know. It's not like I can use it on myself." He tipped his head to the side, wry smile on his lips. "Not that I've ever tried, mind you. That'd be twisted if I could turn myself into the Winter Soldier with just a few words."

I snorted, but there was little amusement involved. That was kind of frightening, actually, and essentially what was already happening.

"Maybe, we should try. Just to make certain the block is still in place."

"Yeah, but not tonight, okay. I really don't feel like being knocked out cold again today."

"Well, it's early yet, I'm sure we can find another valid reason to hit you in the head." I stood and reached down to offer my hand to assist.

He stared at it for a long moment, then slapped his right into mine and I heaved him upright. "Something's broken in me, he said, voice barely loud enough for me to hear.

I didn't disagree. Something had broken in him, even before I'd found him in Bucharest, but I doubted I could do anything to fix it. "They said blocking the programming might have side effects."

"Side effects? That's what you call this? I tried to kill you tonight. What if it had been Sam? Or Wanda?" Bucky sounded horrified at the thought.

"Wanda would have beat the shit out of you."

That earned me a startled chuckle. "Okay, yeah, she probably would have. But Sam is…"

"Just Sam," I finished. "We'll warn them. Make sure they understand what's going on."

He shrugged. "It's a start," he agreed.

"But?" I prompted.

"What if this happens on a mission? What if something sets me off and you end up having to choose between me and innocents. And don't tell me you'd do the right thing and save them first. I know you would drop everything to protect me… to save me. But this… this might just prove I'm beyond help. Beyond saving."

"It only proves that screwing with the mind is bad idea. It's just gonna-"

"-take some time," he butted in, completing my sentence.

Then again, I had said it on more than one occasion since he'd woken up. "We'll call the Doc in the morn- At some point when humans are normally awake and see if he has any recommendations. Have you been doing those mental exercises he suggested?"

Bucky ducked his head. "Made the dreams too vivid."

"Maybe that was the point. You have to remember to sort the memories out." I tapped him on the forehead with a single finger. "A jumbled mess won't cut it. Not anymore."

I lifted my chin, forcing him to see the bruises on my throat, which made him wince, but not apologize for a change.

"I'll try again, but we need a backup plan."

"You mean a cell." I did not like that idea at all, but feared it may come to that. Me locking away Bucky in order to protect everyone else. Bad enough he seemed to be getting caught up in the past memories, but if he were to become completely lost in one, one where he'd been nothing but the asset… And if others with less morals were to find out they could simply manipulate him. Convince him to continue his work as the Fist of Hydra and not care that James Barnes was being lost inch by inch in his own mind.

I'd hate to think that so soon after getting him back I'd lose him to the demons in his mind. A risk all of us lived with every day, admittedly, his were just a bit more prominent than most.

"I could just turn myself in, I suppose. I'm sure the UN would love to put me on trial."

I was sure they would too, but they'd be using him as a scapegoat and I wouldn't allow it. "You would take the blame for every evil Hydra has committed in the last century?"

Bucky stood there silent and not meeting my eyes.

"If it would let me atone for any of the damage I've done, yeah, I just might." He turned away, heading away from the rooms, much to my confusion. I trailed after him, through the common room, and to the kitchen. We always seemed to end up in the kitchen when things went sideways around here. There was a dining hall attached, where the troops assigned here once ate their meals, but we generally sat around the counter, the kitchen admittedly huge, but the closeness of eating together what we were after.

Comfort food with comfortable people.

Yes, it lacked the conveniences of the Tower and the Compound, but I realized here and now that it hadn't been the tech, or the AI, or all the modern appliances, or the never having to lift a hand, but the people. The friends I had made since waking up from seventy years of sleep.

Bucky went straight for the walk in cooler while I settled on one of the stools along the counter. Well, it was what we called the counter. Once upon a time half a dozen workers had probably prepped food where we now took our meals.

He came back out with four beers and set them all on the counter before me. He opened all of them, pushed one at me and picked up another that he tipped up and drank faster than I thought possible.

"You do realize we can't get drunk, right?"

"Doesn't mean we can't try," he argued, then endeavored to drain the second bottle as quickly as the first.

I took a sip from mine, a halfway decent local brew Sam had picked up on his last run to civilization. "Then we need to find something a lot stronger."

Bucky snorted. "Could just make our own. We have plenty of room to set up a still or three."

I couldn't argue with that and could remember the stills we'd set up back in the day. Just because I couldn't get drunk didn't mean the rest of the Commandos didn't want to and they had, often. Christ, we had to have been one of the oddest group of soldiers to ever work together, but we'd fit and gotten the job done.

That's what I had been trying to duplicate here, though with not quite the success and that might be because I had become the one calling the shots. While lead in the field generally, there had still be others telling us where to go and the mission objectives. Someone else made the hard decisions that potentially got someone killed and while I had never been one to shirk responsibility, I now had it two-fold: behind the scenes and in the field.

No matter how many times I asked for opinions prior to any final decision, they all still looked to me to make it.

And suddenly I felt like a hypocrite.

Did I really want to give up our freedom to act? To give that power over to another and risk being used again?

No.

But…

But it had been easier.

That I could admit.

Following orders would always be easier, since I could pass the blame for anything that went wrong onto others.

But the only way to guarantee the orders would be the right ones would be to keep them in my hands.

But I had no way of knowing if my decisions would be the right ones until after.

And right did not equal successful as this last mission had proven.

And now Bucky, the one person I trusted most on this planet, could no longer trust his own mind, memories of horrors no one should have had to endure imposing themselves on his reality.

And here I was doubting my ability to lead them. Fearing any choice I made would be the wrong one and get one of them killed, or worse, captured. It didn't matter how times I had been right, just one wrong decision would end this grand experiment faster than one of those implosions were destroying buildings around the world.

"Buck, what do you want to do?"

He looked at me startled, lowering the third bottle from his mouth, this one half gone already. "Um, I don't know?"

"Do you want me to pull you from field duty for now?" It would be the wise move in some ways, but in others… It would mean leaving him alone and unsupervised. If he had another… incident there would be no one here to snap him out of it. Locking him in his room really not a viable option no matter how solid the doors or walls.

Even if he didn't break out it would damage his psyche even more than it already had been.

He shook his head slowly. "No, you guys need me out there, I have the most knowledge of the layout of Hydra bases, they're pretty consistent. Maybe… maybe lay off the rescues for a while."

I had to agree with that. "I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to start a major earthquake on purpose."

He snorted. "I would hope not. Seems a bit extreme to get to me." He paced around the big island, running fingers along the counter tops absently. "Focus on finding the weapons and getting them someplace secure."

I nodded in agreement. It was why we had taken that leap and left Wakanda after all. We had spent too much time sitting on their asses while whoever had those bombs kept using them. "I have some leads, thought we'd head out in a couple days."

He perked up at that. "Where?"

"Austria. Base predates the war, but there's been some chatter so I thought it might be worth checking out." There'd been a lot of chatter, actually. Bragging would be far more accurate, but I had so far been unable to track down the real persons behind the screen names.

This blank look filtered into his eyes. I knew he had no fondness for Austrian Hydra bases, liked blowing them up into little bits. Last time he spent any serious time at one he'd been tortured, worked to near death on weapons designed to kill the Allies, and then experimented on. That would leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth.

"You're sure the weapons are from there?"

I shrugged. "Won't know for certain till we check it out."

HIs eyes narrowed. "Steve, I do not need some fluff mission to see if I'll break."

I shook my head. "Real intel, I swear it. Wait till you see the crevasse we have cross via shaky rope bridge to get there."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, be that way." His head tipped to the side as he watched me. "Bring tranqs just in case. Have no clue what might trigger me."

"What? You tired of being punched in the head already?"

He rubbed his jaw. "Is that what you call a punch? Needs some work."

"Jerk," I muttered, inordinately pleased to see signs of my old friend in the man that stood before me. James Barnes still lived, but time and circumstance had changed him. Everyone changed, admittedly, but most don't end up with an assassin implanted in their brain.

"Punk," he came right back with, then rubbed the back of his head with his right hand as he cracked a serious yawn.

"Tired?" I asked.

"Unbelievably," he admitted. "Brain won't slow down though, so I punch things." He made a fist with the hand wearing the padded glove. He didn't really need them any more than I did, but it protected the bags somewhat. Maybe we should start wrapping them in kevlar, might hold up longer. I swear the biggest expense currently, besides food to feed this crew, was replacing workout equipment that we'd destroyed without meaning to.

"Well, I could hit you again. That'd get you a few minutes undisturbed," I offered, keeping my tone as serious as I could muster and resisting the need to grin like an idiot.

"You seem to have this fondness for punching me lately, give someone else a turn for a change would ya?"

He failed to look as admonishing as his tone would have suggested, so I just laughed softly. "Go to bed, Buck. Meeting at ten hundred or when everyone has gained enough consciousness to go over the mission specs."

"And what are you going to do?"

"Double check the intel and then crash for a couple of hours."

He came around the island and set a hand on my shoulder. "You can't do everything yourself, delegate. They have brains, use 'em."

He had a point. I had taken on the lion's share of work when it came to researching the Hydra bases, leaving the others, including BUcky, with very little to do. We had enough computers in various forms and the system more than versatile enough to accommodate all of us thanks to Scott.

Plus, we had all the Hydra data.

And I'd been trying to go through all of it alone.

Made sense to a point since I had to make the final decisions, but it left us with a ton of down time as I tried to plow through all the data. And now, with the new information I'd gotten access to…

I needed help.

It had taken me several days trolling message boards to figure out that "storehouse" being mentioned was most likely the Hydra base I wanted to check out next.

"I will," I decided then and there. Made a lot more sense to have each of them do research and then come to me with their choices and arguments as to why. More efficient too. And added that human element the data mining searches lacked.

Sometimes a gut feeling could be far more accurate.

Then why did I have the horrible feeling that things were about to get far worse for us.