Running To You

10. There's Always A Girl

Day 5. It's cold, and it's dark. I don't really mind that. I see things more clearly, in the dark. I'm physically alone, but never without company. I hear things sometimes, too. Whispers, echoing around the hull. I know I'm crazy, because hearing things that aren't there is a sign of being crazy, but it's a good kind of crazy, I think. Like I'm not imagining things anymore, I'm remembering them.

I've been trying hard to remember my past, but it isn't easy. I don't think this is something that can be forced. The memories come on their own, sometimes triggered by external stimuli, sometimes revealing themselves as dreams. I guess, in some ways, that's a good thing. It's not just my own past that's hidden from me, it's many things I did as the Winter Soldier, too, though those memories aren't quite as far away, not buried quite as deep. Maybe everything's fragmented because my mind knows it can't handle one big info-dump. That so many memories would overload me and send me right back to square one.

Bucky stopped writing as the flashlight beside him began to flicker and fade. He closed the notebook balanced atop his knees and groped inside his bag for new batteries, holding his pen between his lips so that he wouldn't lose it, as he'd lost the last one. Like memories, they were hard to keep hold of.

Before leaving New York, he'd gone on a minor crime spree. Nothing violent or dangerous, just a little petty theft. Victim-less, really, and his need was pretty great. He could make up for it, later. He'd hit a couple of ATMs and taken all the cash they held. After that he'd targeted a convenience store, helping himself to as much food and drink as he could conceivably carry. Finally, he'd found a stationery shop and pilfered half a dozen notebooks and a handful of biros. His mind was patchy, unreliable. It might not hold all of his returning memories, but paper would.

Home was a shipping container in the belly of a huge transport liner en route to Calais. Sneaking aboard in New York had been pretty easy. America was the Land of Opportunity; nobody really considered that anybody would take the opportunity to be smuggled out of it, rather than into it. What little security had existed at the dock had been easily bypassed by the world's most deadly nonagenarian. The first day and night had been spent in total darkness, until curiosity drove him to one of the upper levels, where he'd found a storage cupboard and raided it of a flashlight, batteries and a faded blue woollen blanket.

Avoiding the crew had been relatively easy so far. This was not a luxury ocean liner, it was a cargo vessel manned by less than sixty men who had no reason to come this far down into the hold. To kill time when he wasn't listening to noises of memories or making a few notes, he explored the hold. Some of the containers, like the one he'd chosen to nest in, were empty of items, but most were filled with various non-perishable exported goods protected by polystyrene chips; nothing that was of any interest to him.

More interesting was the first memory that being in the vessel brought back. The memory of being on a different ship crossing the Atlantic, of being surrounded by men who, like him, wore uniforms and carried their lives for the next three years in a duffel bag, who bunked below the deck and tried to keep out of the way of the sailors. The memory wasn't complete, but there was enough of it to get a feel for how things had been back then: tense, nerve-wracking, exciting. They didn't just see it as war, but as adventure, as a chance to make a difference, overthrow evil and avenge the victims of Pearl Harbor. Squeezed into hammocks likes sardines crammed in a tin, they'd coped with the tedium of the Atlantic crossing by playing cards and telling stories of family and sweethearts left behind.

The flashlight flickered again, and Bucky stuck his arm further into the bag, the fingers of his right hand searching blindly for the batteries. He found one and pulled it out, but too late; the beam of light died and darkness enveloped him.

"Damn!" he swore, which caused the biro to fall from his lips. It hit the container floor then rolled before he could pin it down.

He growled under his breath. "Черт!"

At last he found a second battery and replaced the worn ones in the flashlight. The beam of light returned, a cold white light that momentarily blinded him and brought with it the echo of a memory; a tomb-like lid lifting, light spilling in, and a coldness so deep in his bones that he couldn't even shiver. Pain. Biting, aching, stabbing pain that devoured him from inside his own head.

He blinked to recover his vision and his stomach wrenched uncomfortably, a feeling of fear and unease winding through his guts like a serpent hunting for food. This wasn't the first time he'd felt it, but he'd only recently come to associate the feeling with sudden light. Daytime was fine, because it was everywhere. Nighttime was comforting, the darkness an old friend. But sudden light, harsh light, which didn't chase away the shadows but instead caused them… it made the Soldier fidget uncomfortably within him. Nothing good came from the light.

Leaning back, he pulled the itchy woollen blanket up around his shoulders, welcoming the meagre warmth it afforded him. At least his situation wasn't all bad. He was out of the U.S., moving away from the prying eyes of the government and Hydra and the man whose face came more often to Bucky's mind than any other. And his temporary home had its benefits. It was larger than the motel closet, but not so large that he felt lost in it. A nice size, really. Tall enough to stand in, long enough to lie in… there were worse places to live.

He reached out for his notepad, to continue his introspection, but when his fingers brushed against the paper, he left the shipping container and found himself in another place, another time.

Flash.

"Whadd'ya think?" Bucky whispered, his fingers brushing against the paper as he turned his easel slightly. The rest of the class ignored the sound; their minds were entirely absorbed within their own work.

Steve peered at it, his blue eyes taking in every single pencil stroke. With a nod and a smile, he whispered, "It's good."

"Let's see yours."

"Oh, it's not finished yet," Steve objected feebly.

"And neither's mine. But that's not the point. C'mon, we both know it's going to be a thousand times better than my chicken-scratching."

"You shouldn't put yourself down, Buck." Steve gestured at the drawing. "It's really good."

"I'm not putting myself down, I'm being honest. I mean look, the apple on the left is kinda wonky. Now stop changing the subject and let's see it. I'm gonna see it eventually, so why not now?"

"Well, alright." Bucky's best friend relented and angled his own easel so Bucky could see it. The fruit bowl pictured in Steve's drawing looked nothing like the fruit bowl on the table in the centre of the classroom. Somehow, Steve had made a picture of fruit look more delicious than the real thing. The two apples, two oranges and three pears in the bowl paled in comparison to Steve's cornucopia. "I embellished, a little."

"A little? You embellished an entire grocery store."

"I guess I got carried away."

Bucky looked back to his own sketch. Technically, it was pretty accurate… but it was nowhere near as beautiful or creative as Steve's. "I'm just awful at this. S'not my fault though, I was a late starter at finger-painting. Didn't even try it 'til I was six. I reckon it stunted my artistic growth."

Steve chuckled quietly, before his eyes turned more serious. Steve's eyes were often more serious than they ought to have been for his sixteen years.

"Look, Buck, you really don't have to take this class just to keep me company."

"I'm not," Bucky scoffed, trying—and failing—to suppress a grin. "I heard everyone who passes this class is eligible to do life drawing in the final year."

"You know that's just a myth, right?"

"Hey pal, this is my bubble, I'd appreciate it if you didn't burst it right away."

Steve held up his hands in self defence. "Alright, alright. It's life drawing galore. But being serious for a moment… take a look outside, Buck. Sun's shining, air's as clear as it's ever gonna get, it's a great day for track practice."

"Track practice?" he scoffed. "Don't need it. Drawing practice, on the other hand… Besides, I'm hoping a little of your artistic talent might rub off on me."

A mischievous smile pulled one corner of Steve's mouth up as he glanced again at Bucky's rendering of a fruit bowl. "You're gonna need more than a little of my artistic talent."

"Hey!" Bucky aimed a faux-glare at his friend and gave him a not-so gentle punch on the arm. The students working on either side of the pair gave them frosty, disparaging glances. Bucky swung his easel back around and pretended to be engrossed in making his apple look a little less wonky.

"So," Steve whispered, a few minutes later, "what's her name?"

"Whose name?"

"The girl you're trying to impress with your newfound art skills."

"Why's there gotta be a girl?"

A knowing look stole into Steve's eyes. "There's always a girl."

"Steve, I'm hurt. Can't a guy spend his Thursday afternoons trying to leech off his best friend's artistic talent without having some sort of ulterior motive?" Her name was Beatrice, but Steve didn't need to know that.

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it again when the teacher added her own frosty glare to that of the other students.

Flash.

The transitions from memory to reality were growing less jarring, but Bucky still found himself momentarily disoriented as he tried to adjust to being inside a small, dark, cold shipping container instead of a bright, airy classroom. When the feeling of being in two places at once subsided, he grabbed his bag again and pulled out the notebooks he'd stolen. Words had been written across the top of each book, and Bucky put aside Family, Friends, War, The Dead and Hydra, finally settling on Steve.

Though his memories were still woefully lacking in detail, there were times when he felt Steve belonged in both the Family and Friends books, and couldn't really settle on which was best. In the end, Bucky had decided to dedicate a whole book to the man behind Captain America, since memories of him came most often. It seemed fitting.

Inside the book, he scribbled some rough notes, the first things which came to mind.

Had a memory today about an art class back in high-school. Steve was really good at drawing. I joked about being jealous of his talent, but I didn't get any jealous feelings whilst having the memory. More like… I dunno, maybe it was a conversation we'd had before. Like it was just easy banter and friendly teasing. Learnt something about old-me today. I didn't feel like I had to be the best at everything. I didn't have to put a friend down to raise myself up.

Also, I can't draw apples.

He paused with the tip of his pen poised against his bottom lip. Certain common themes were starting to emerge from his memories. Steve was one of them, but not the only one. He was starting to feel like he should have stolen an extra notebook. Like he should have labelled it 'Girls.'

One thing that I pulled from this memory, Bucky continued, was how Steve didn't want me to miss out on stuff because of him. He thought I was taking the art class to keep him company. I guess in a way, I was. But it felt like… more than that? Less than that? Hard to explain. I suppose the only way I can think of it, is that I just wanted to do something with my best friend.

He closed the book and put it aside, hitching up the blanket again. For the most part, his memories were very straight-forward, even when they were convoluted and chronologically out of sync. Almost all of his memories, even most of his Hydra ones, were about the past, the people in them long dead. Steve-related memories were more complicated, because Steve was still alive. It wasn't a simple case of just remembering Steve and then missing him, mourning him, like he did his family. The world still had Bucky Barnes in it, and it had Steve Rogers in it, and one day there would be some sort of confrontation, maybe even a reconciliation.

Before that could happen, Bucky needed to know as much as possible. He needed to know everything there was to know about the best friend he'd tried to kill.

o - o - o - o - o

Day 20. There was an accident. Yesterday afternoon. Klaus is gone. We still don't really know what happened, and I think some of the team are still in shock. I can only think it was the rain. Four solid days of rain, and the grapes couldn't be left unpicked any longer. Klaus was close to the tractor… I guess the tractor was too heavy for the waterlogged ground. There must have been some sort of slip, down the hill. What else could make a tractor fall over like that? And his scream… I still hear it. We all do.

I saw his leg, when Stefan and Nicki pulled him out… or what was left of it. And the blood. So much of it. Tom keeps washing his hands, even though they're not red anymore. Nicki and Caroline are thinking of leaving, going home. I can't blame them. If I had a home to go to, I'd be there right now. I hope Klaus makes it home. I hope the doctors here can save his life, even if they can't save his leg.

"Hey, Sergei." Pierre's head popped around the door of the men's bunk room. Bucky closed his notepad and looked up. The Frenchman's face was tired, his eyes haunted. Since yesterday, it was an expression the entire team had shared. "Dinner is ready," said Pierre in his native language.

"I'll be right there," Bucky replied in the same.

When Pierre withdrew from the room, Bucky pulled his bag from beneath his bunk and stashed away his notepad. There were some things which couldn't go into Family or Friends. Some things which were more than War and Hydra. Things which had nothing to do with The Dead or Steve. Everyday thoughts, events which happened on his travels, musings and observations which might touch on several subjects but could not be easily pigeon-holed. What he had was a diary, though he didn't write Diary on the front because that sounded a little too much like a teenage-girl thing to do. He'd considered Journal and Random Thoughts, but at last settled for the smallest word he could find to define the sum of his thoughts and feelings. On the front of the diary, he'd written the word, Me.

He trudged down the creaky stairs into the communal dining room. Everybody else—save for their absent German friend—was present physically, even if their minds were elsewhere. At one end of the table, Nicki and Caroline, the two women from Coventry, were talking quietly about whether to go home to England now or stay until the end of the picking season. Canadians Stefan and Tom listened to their talk, their usual exuberance muted by the events of the past twenty-four hours. Tom kept rubbing his fingers as if trying to rid them of some stain, but by the unfocused look in his eyes, Bucky suspected the man didn't even realise what he was doing.

The three Frenchmen, David, Pierre and Jabir, sat playing a game of cards, and they were joined by Reuben, the only Dutch man on the team. Bucky took a seat in the middle of the bench at the table, and the seat opposite him remained empty. That had been Klaus' seat.

"What you think, Sergei?" Caroline asked, her French not quite as fluent as others in the group. "You stay here, or you go home now?"

"I'll stay, for now," he replied.

"You not worried about other accident? Maybe is too dangerous to stay."

"What happened to Klaus was terrible, but it was a fluke, and I came here to work." Besides, he had nowhere else to go.

"We are staying, too," Jabir spoke up. "I've been grape-picking every summer since I was fifteen, and I have never heard of something like this happening before. It was a freak accident. Sometimes, these things just happen."

Caroline nodded glumly. When the vineyard manager's wife appeared with a large pot of French onion soup and a tray of freshly baked baguettes, the cards were put away and conversation fell silent.

Grape-picking in the south of France had never been something Bucky considered he'd end up doing, but it was a good way to earn a little money whilst travelling, and most farmers provided food and accommodation for their workers for as long as the vines needed harvesting. For now, that was all he needed.

"So, Sergei," said David, "where will you go after this?"

Bucky shrugged and feigned interest in his soup. Sergei, like Alex Smith, was a cover. After arriving in Calais, he'd been pleased to discover that he could read, write and speak French almost as fluently as English. Hydra had probably done that; the Zola in his memory had said that they would fill his head with knowledge, after all.

Speaking French had been fine until he'd arrived at the vineyard, where he was forced to make a decision. He was clearly not a native Francophone. Anybody listening to him speak English would know within seconds that he was actually American, and the last thing Bucky wanted was the rest of the team prying into his real background. So, he came up with Sergei, a Russian who could speak French but not English, because although Bucky could speak both Russian and English, he didn't think he could convincingly pull off a fake Russian-speaking-English accent without sounding like a dumb American trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

The rest of the team accepted his story without question, and all Bucky had to do was make sure he didn't react to anything the English women and the Canadians said to each other, and be careful that none of the group who shared the men's half of the attic got a look at his notebooks, since that would certainly make for some very uncomfortable questions.

It was all very convoluted, and it made him long for the day when he wouldn't have to pretend to be someone else. When he could be himself—whoever that self really was—and have people be okay with that.

"I haven't thought that far ahead," he admitted. "I guess I'll travel a bit more before heading back to Russia." When he'd left America, it hadn't been with a solid plan in mind. He just wanted to get moving, to see new things and hopefully jog new memories. To maybe find a place where he could comfortably disappear and spend time figuring out who he wanted to be.

"Well, if you want something different, one of my uncles owns a dairy farm outside Bordeaux. He's always on the lookout for extra hands."

Against his own will, Bucky smiled. How very ironic that his last cover had been as a farm-boy from Iowa, and now he was slipping into that role in France.

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

The group fell into silence as they ate, but it wasn't a companionable silence. It was a sad silence, like the muted hush of a funereal wake, each person lost in their own thoughts and memories, reliving or trying to forget the event which had brought them to this deep hush.

"I wonder how Klaus is," Nicki said at last.

Nobody responded. What could they say? Klaus had been an upbeat bear of a man, a couple of inches taller than Bucky, and even broader across the shoulders. He always had a smile on his face and a laugh in his eyes, and over the past few days he'd had the team in tears several times with his impressions of well-known celebrities.

His cheerful personality had made his agonised scream as the tractor fell on him and trapped his leg all the more terrifying. Bucky had been working closest to him, and was first to reach him. There, ankle-deep in mud, clothes already soaked all the way through with pouring rain, he had been forced to realise his own limitations. Strong as Hydra had made him, he hadn't been able to lift the tractor, not even with his cybernetic arm, not even calling upon the Soldier for a little raw aggression. It wasn't until the others had got there, and they'd worked together to tilt the tractor, that they'd been able to drag the man unconscious from beneath the heavy machine.

A human body could only lose so much blood before shutting down, and the tractor had crushed the veins and arteries in Klaus' leg, tearing them like damp tissue paper. Tom and Bucky had done their best to put pressure on the places blood gushed from, but by the time the air ambulance arrived, the ground had been swimming with red.

"Excuse me." Tom pushed himself up and made a swift exit. Everybody watched him go, but nobody went after him. Bucky knew that no words would make the young Canadian man feel any better. Feeling somebody's life bleed out beneath your fingers, being unable to do anything to stop it… it brought a feeling of weakness, of helplessness, that everybody in the group now shared.

Flash.

A spray of bullets tore through the trees. Reflexes, made sharper through nervous tension, kicked in immediately, and Bucky dropped to the ground, lowering his profile as German machine guns screamed death wails into the air.

Shit.

The thought ricocheted around his head as the earth in front of him was torn and shredded by the metal spray. All around he heard the other men in the small company from the 107th drop and return fire. Bucky lifted his own weapon and fired at at spot he thought he saw gunfire flash from, but the summer foliage was so dense, the air so choked with dust and dry soil, that he couldn't tell whether he was actually hitting anything.

Intel had really dropped the ball. This was supposed to be a covert op, a surgical strike, shoot-and-smash of a Nazi communications bunker. It wasn't supposed to be this fortified.

He emptied his clip and kept his head down while he reloaded. On the verge of opening fire again, he stopped, listening to something on the edge of his hearing. It sounded like a moan. Like somebody in pain. Carefully, he lifted his head and scanned the ground.

There was a body, not far to Bucky's right, lying supine, and the groan came again, more quietly this time.

Shit.

He crawled towards the sound of pain, dragging himself with his elbows, pushing forward with his knees. As he reached the body, he saw a bright shock of auburn hair beneath a helmet that had fallen askew. A lightning bolt of fear tore through him from head to toe.

"Carrot!" he hissed, reaching out and shaking the man's shoulder.

A pair light of blue eyes opened, full of pain and fear. "Barnes?" His name came out in a quiet, pained gasp that made Bucky's stomach turn. When Corporal Kenny "Carrot-top" Robbins coughed up a spray of foamy blood, it turned again.

"Yeah, it's me."

"I been hit, Sarge."

Bucky didn't need telling. A crimson patch had blossomed on Carrot's stomach, and it was spreading across his uniform. With a trembling hand, Bucky reached out and tried to put pressure on the wound, but it was like trying to stem the flow of a dam with a wine cork. The only way he could generate enough pressure would be to press from above, with his weight behind him. If he did that, he'd make himself a magnet for the bullets still flying.

"How bad is it?" asked Carrot.

"A flesh wound. You'll walk it off." The lie fell easily from his lips. There was too much blood. And worse, Carrot was coughing it up. Bucky was no medic, but he knew that could only mean one thing. Something was wrong, inside. Something no amount of pressure could fix.

Carrot coughed again, struggling for words. "You… you're so full of shit, Barnes."

"Don't talk. Save your strength."

The corporal ignored him. "Shoulda been… faster."

"You will be. Next time. Now shut up and save your strength like I said. That's an order, Corporal."

A bubble of laugher escaped Carrot's lips. "You're pulling rank, Sarge?"

"That's right. An' I'm gonna bust you back to Private when we get back to camp if you don't start following orders."

"Sorry, Sarge. Don't think…" he coughed mid-sentence, bringing up more blood, "…you'll get chance to carry on your power trip. Will you… will you do something for me?"

Bucky felt his chest tighten, like someone had just come along with a vice and they were squeezing, and squeezing, and any minute something was gonna give.

He wanted to say 'no.' He wanted to say 'do it yourself.' Those were the proper things to say. The tough, soldier things to say. If he refused, Carrot would have no choice but to hang in there and see to his own final requests when he recovered. Years from now, after they'd kicked the Nazis blubbing all the way back to Berlin, he and Carrot would meet up in some bar to reminisce about the time Carrot got hit and asked Bucky to do something for him, and how Bucky saved his life by not giving his friend permission to die. And Carrot would thank him for not giving in, for giving him a reason to cling on to the dim spark of life, and he'd show him pictures of his first kid, which would undoubtedly be named after Bucky.

"Anything," he replied.

"There's… a letter to Samantha, in my footlocker… back at base camp." Carrot coughed again, and it was the only sound Bucky heard. The sound of gunfire, of men shouting, of orders yelled above the hubbub, fell away. The forest fell away. The entire world fell away. "Make sure she gets it?"

"I'll post it myself as soon as I get back. I promise she'll get it."

Carrot nodded, his eyes roving the treetops as if searching for something. "Gettin' kinda dark out here."

It was a beautiful summer day. "Sun's going down," Bucky lied again.

"Barnes?"

"Yeah?"

Carrot took a deep breath, or tried to. It ended in another coughing fit. When Carrot's eyes found Bucky's face, he tried to make it neutral, to wipe away whatever feelings it was betraying.

"Don't want… your ugly mug… to be the last thing I see. Want… to see Samantha again. She's… she's in my breast pocket. Closest… I could get… to my heart."

Bucky reached for the man's pocket. Carrot had been there, on the ship which had brought them over from New York. He'd had the hammock three down from Bucky's. Every night he brought out the picture and just looked at it, as if afraid he might forget what she look like if he went a day without seeing her.

Samantha was a beautiful girl, her blonde hair styled into loose curls, her eyes sparkling with so much life that it seemed to flow out from the photograph. The other men had joked that she must be blind, to be engaged to Carrot, but he took the teasing in good stride, knowing what everyone who'd ever been in love knew; that he was the luckiest man in the world.

Carrot didn't have the strength to lift an arm and hold the picture, so Bucky held it for him. He did his best to hold it still, to make his hand stop shaking, to keep the picture high enough for Carrot to see, high enough to keep it away from the blood.

A smile appeared on Carrot's face, the pain disappearing from his eyes as they fell on the girl he'd made a promise to marry. For the first time since arriving at the front, Bucky was glad that he hadn't found the one yet, that none of the girls he'd danced with and kissed had ever had that special something which made him want to stop chasing, that when the other guys in the company talked about their loves waiting back home, he could only listen with a little envy. At least if he didn't make it back home, he wouldn't be breaking a heart.

"My angel," Carrot whispered. "Tell her…"

The words died with him. The person he had been faded away, leaving behind an empty shell.

Flash.

"I think I'm going to turn in." Bucky stood and pushed his bowl back from the edge of the table. A couple of the team wished him goodnight, but there was little feeling behind the sentiments.

Alone again in the attic shared by the men, Bucky kicked off his boots and lay back on his bed, using his right arm as a pillow. The onion soup sat uneasily in his stomach as his body relived the sensation of being torn. Of not wanting the horror of staying and watching a man—a friend—die, but not wanting to leave Carrot to die alone. That was one of the unspoken rules of war that nobody ever mentioned but everybody agreed upon. You didn't leave a man to die alone.

Poor Carrot. Twenty-one, his whole life ahead of him, a beautiful girl waiting for him to get home and marry her… the war had stolen his life, just as it had stolen the lives of millions of other soldiers. Just like it had stolen Bucky's. Hydra might have wiped his mind, but it was war that had sent him there. He'd signed up. Could still remember the pride he felt at doing his bit. He'd been so naïve. The war had needed to be fought, but the glossy posters and the infomercials had glamourised it. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Made it into an action movie. Hadn't warned of the true hell waiting on the front lines.

He pulled the War notebook out of his bag and wrote down everything he remembered about Carrot. A pang of regret jabbed painfully into his stomach; he never found out if Samantha got her letter. He'd sent it as promised, and then been captured by Hydra for the first time only a couple of months later. After that, he'd had no thoughts about letters.

At the end of the chapter, he made a note to himself. To, one day, when he was fixed and whole, find Samantha and discover what had become of her. It was the least he could do, for the memory of his comrade in arms.

o - o - o - o - o

Day 39. The city is beautiful. Too beautiful. I don't belong here. I feel like people look at me and can see past my clothes and see beneath my skin, right down inside me to the terrible things I've done. And I walk amongst them, the beautiful people and the perfect people… all I see is how small I really am. How far I have yet to go before I deserve to be in a place like this. I'm not allowed to have nice things, or beautiful things. That is what the dead tell me. Until I remember them all, until I know them all, until I've found a way to make amends for every spot of blood on my hands… until that time, places like this are too good for me. I have to earn the right to be here. Tomorrow, I'll move on. I'll never find any peace here and was stupid to even think that I might.

It was late September, and the weather still pleasantly warm. The café's outdoor pavilion was crammed full as the city's inhabitants took advantage of the fine warm spell. Bucky sat alone at a small table, pen poised above his notepad as he tried to decide whether there was anything else he needed to put down. In the streets, the rest of Geneva went about its daily business, ignoring him completely.

The decision to come to Switzerland had been practically been made for him. From France, the only other options were Spain, which he deemed too touristy, Italy, where he already knew he didn't speak the language, Belgium, which sounded boring, or Germany, which, following the memory of the death of Carrot at the hands of German machine guns, did not appeal. His only other alternative had been to hop across the channel to England. He considered it briefly, but then decided it would be too difficult to escape from a small island if his identity was made. Besides, he figured it would be a good idea to try and move away from the overpopulated nucleus of western Europe. Less people meant fewer prying eyes and, more importantly, less CCTV.

To kill time until he could return to the hostel where he'd chosen to lodge, he ordered another coffee and reviewed some of the previous entries from his notebook, refreshing his memory of the events he'd recorded. If he refreshed his memories often enough, it would ensure they stayed permanent. Eventually, they would become so much a part of him that nobody, not even Hydra, would be able to take them away from him.

War was by far the darkest of the books; darker, in some ways, than Hydra. What Hydra had done to him was personally horrific, certainly, but War pipped it by virtue of the fact that it had happened to everyone. Not just soldiers, but civilians, too.

"...the day we lost the poker championship to the Screaming Eagles, we got news from Sicily. The Seventh Army, under Patton, took Palermo two days ago. Phillips said this was it, the start of our real campaign. "Real" campaign? What did he think we'd been doing there for the past two months? What did he think Carrot had died for? Wells said Phillips was just eager for new orders. Didn't know what those orders would be, but Wells thought there was only one order that could come, now that Sicily was ours: march into Italy. Take it by force. Can't say I was sad to see the back of France."

"...the worst thing was the suspense, each time a plane flew overhead. Was it one of theirs? One of ours? I still got the urge to duck and run for the trees every time I heard one. Like trees were going to stop bombs…"

"...We walked for sixteen hours straight. Just after dawn, Wells grinned and said, 'We just crossed over the border. We're in Italy now, boys!' I asked him how he knew. He said, 'I got a hankerin' for some pasta.' It was the first time the 107th had laughed since we lost Franklin and Davies."

"...Tipper went out on a recon with Gusty and Biggs. Tripped a mine. Glad I wasn't there to see it. Gusty brought his tags back, all twisted and charred. I remember hoping that when it was my time to go, I just got shot. At least there'd be something to bring back and bury."

"...I remember feeling numb, and that scared me more than anything. Hearing names, gettin' the latest casualty lists… and being so desensitised to the loss that I couldn't even feel sad. Like I was losing a little bit of what made me human every time a new list was posted."

Even here, in the middle of sunny, pleasant Geneva, the thoughts haunted him. He could recall them now with such perfect clarity that he kinda wished he couldn't, wished they were still hazy, still just a foggy blur.

Perhaps it had been a coping mechanism. Was there only such much sadness and loss and death a human mind could experience before breaking down? Was that why he had become numb to it all? Had the other men in his company felt the same? They had never talked about it, not that he could yet remember, anyway. Talk about family, talk about friends, about the girl back home or the ones you regretted letting slip away, talk about how the guy three tents down would trade a pair of new socks for a pack of smokes, the meals your mom used to make, your favourite baseball team or that boxing match you'll never see the likes of again. But talk about the loss? Talk about how heavy that sat on you? No. Never. Don't open the floodgate because then it'll never stop.

The Hydra book of memories was the same, yet different. Only now, looking back and really reading what he had written, did he understand why. War was in the past. Hydra was still present. He hadn't even realised he'd lapsed into a different tense.

"...they come again, carrying small sticks of pain. Five of them, this time, and they don't hold back. The first two are dealt with easily. I throw the third into the fourth and take the weapon of the fifth, use it against him. They lay on the ground, groaning, trying to push themselves up to their feet. I look up at the man watching from outside, look to see if there are new orders. There are none. The man seems pleased. And I feel… nothing."

"...worst of all is the chair. Each time I see it I hear something scream inside me. Something that shouts 'no, no, no!' over and over and over again. But there are fingers inside my head, voices instructing me, and I can't disobey. I can't even object. I don't know why the silent voice screams. I just know that the cold, metal chair… it means pain. Pain, and more."

"...one time, I object to the chair. How many times have I been forced into it? I don't remember. But I don't understand why they make me sit there. I carry out my mission. The mission is successful. I can't remember my past missions, but I know they have been successful, too. And yet there is always the chair. Why? It feels like punishment. What have I done wrong? Why does success equal pain? If I was to fail a mission, would the chair not come? But no… the thought of failure, that hurts too. How can I be less than what I am? In the end, it doesn't matter. Even when I object, it doesn't matter. I fight back, and they hurt me until I can't even lift my head. Then they pick me up and put me in the chair anyway. Easier not to fight it. Just get it over with. Let it take me."

"...they take my arm off my body. An 'upgrade', they call it. I look down and don't recognise myself. The me that I am has two arms, but now I only have one. It doesn't last very long. They bring my arm back with some improvements, put it back on. Then I'm me again."

"...sometimes I see things. Faces. Buildings. Colours. Sometimes there are voices, too. I try to ignore them. If the guards see me look at the faces, respond to the voices, they call the doctors, and they take a look at me and put me back in the chair. The best thing is to ignore the faces and voices flashing through my head. It's not easy. I have to look. I have to listen. When I wake up, I forget them."

Despite the differing content, the two notebooks shared one common theme. In Hydra, his memories told of a man—if he could even be called that—alone, one Soldier amongst a contingency of guards and doctors and handlers who either feared him or disdained him. There had been not a shred of humanity anywhere to be found in that place. Not in the guards, not the doctors, and certainly not what had been done to him.

And in War? A man alone, one soldier amongst comrades, united by the horrors of the gruelling campaign, isolated by the need to remain strong. There was humanity there, in the actions of men who braved their own lives in the name of freedom, who risked themselves to save their brothers-in-arms… and yet in some ways, he had been almost as emotionally shut-down as when they'd wiped his mind and called forth the Soldier.

Bucky couldn't decide which was worse; knowing that he'd done it to himself, to try to protect himself from the horrors of war, or knowing that it had been done to him, so that he could become an unquestioning weapon.

Never again, he promised himself over a cup of cappuccino and a crispy biscotti cookie. I spent the war trying to be strong, stopped myself tryin' to feel too much in case it broke me. Then I spent seventy years barely feeling a damn thing. Well, that's over now. Like the killing. Now, I'm free to do whatever I want. I can feel stuff, and it doesn't matter if it breaks me, because I'm already broken. Maybe now I'm broken, I'm actually strong enough to handle all that stuff I couldn't think about before. I can't be afraid of feelin' things. I took it for granted first time around, and they took that from me.

His silent promise made him feel… more like a person. After Washington, going from Nothing Hurt to Everything Hurt had nearly torn him apart, but he'd got through that and now he would get through this. It was okay to hurt. Nobody had ever told him that. In the twenties, the thirties, the forties, men had been men and women had been women. Buck up. Be strong. Don't show fear. Real men don't cry.

There were exceptions. Great pain, death of a loved one… possibly your home team losing the World Series. But those situations were few and far between. The rest of the time, a man was expected to be stoic. Now, Bucky gave himself permission to be hurt, and sad, and all those other things that had been denied to him by Hydra. If that made him look weak, or less than a real man, he didn't care. Only somebody who had been robbed of the opportunity to feel anything at all, could possibly understand how good it felt to feel anything, even overwhelming sadness.

He put the two notebooks back in his bag and let his eyes settle on Family. It was the book with the least information in it, because memories of them were brief and sporadic. He'd started a small family tree in the front—more like a family bonsai, until he could fill it out more—and had managed to add a few names of his siblings' children, as recalled from his previous Google searches. In there was the memory of Christmas eve, along with the loss of Bingo.

Steve had more entries, but only the first five or six pages had been filled, and Bucky knew there was more, much more, yet to come. Like Family, recollections of Steve came intermittently, his mind preferring to torture him with memories of dark times, letting the light filter through occasionally as a way of teasing him into getting his hopes up. But he could live with that, because sooner or later he would run out of dark things to remember. Eventually he would find all of the people he had killed, and he would remember their names. When all of that was done, when his memories of seeing death, and dealing it, were well and truly over, there would be only Family and Steve left, and he kinda thought those things were worth waiting for. Save the best 'til last, right?

He put away both books, and with them went Friends and The Dead. Those, he worked on when he was able. Sometimes the memories came prompted by events which ended up in War or Hydra. Sometimes he learnt more from a day spent in front of a computer in whatever internet café he happened to come across. If those books were not yet as full as War and Hydra, at least they were not quite as empty as Family and Steve.

At four o'clock he left the café and decided on one last look around Geneva before heading back to the hostel, which he currently shared with a group of Australian backpackers. They were a decent enough group, if a little fond of drinking into the early hours, but they did have one thing going in their favour; they didn't care about anything happening in America. To them he was Alex Smith from Iowa, and after he'd told them how boring Iowa was, they didn't ask any further questions. It probably helped that he'd sneakily distracted them with a pack of beers he'd picked up from the supermarket during his first night in the hostel. They'd toasted his health and accepted everything he said at face value, after that.

The hostel was in Paquis, near the banks of the Rhône, and for a while Bucky contented himself with wandering and window shopping of the actual window variety. He'd come to Switzerland expecting to practice his German, and only discovered after arriving in Geneva that he'd landed himself in the French-speaking half of the country. It wasn't a problem, but in some ways it felt like an extension of France, only a little cleaner in most places. Paquis itself was one of the less reputable neighbourhoods, but even the seediest area of Geneva paled in comparison to the most dilapidated neighbourhoods in New York.

At the corner of Rue de Levant and Rue de Zurich, he stopped dead as a splash of red caught his eye. A sleek car was parked in a private bay a little further down the road, and the sight of it brought a smile to Bucky's lips. Grant would be swimming in a puddle of his own drool right now if he could see the Ferrari outclassing everything else on the street. Bucky walked up to the car and then walked around it, taking a good look from all angles, being careful not to look at it in the wrong way, since under all that shiny red exterior and black leather interior, it was still Italian engineering, and who knew what would set its alarm off?

He clocked a woman stepping out of a nearby hotel and a man walking towards her with his hands in his pockets, but he paid them only enough attention to be sure neither was the owner of the car. He wasn't doing anything wrong, there was no harm in looking, and a guy who owned a car like this clearly wanted it to be looked at. Otherwise he would have bought a Volvo. Shame I don't have a phone, or a camera, or any contact details for Grant. He woulda got a kick out of this.

A scream pierced the air, and a voice called out in French. "Help! Somebody help!"

Bucky's head was up even before he'd heard the words. The woman from the hotel was wrestling for her bag with the man who had tried to grab it from her. As Bucky watched, the man made one final attempt, spinning and knocking the woman to the floor as he literally pulled it from her grasp. The thief obviously hadn't spotted Bucky admiring the Ferrari; he turned and ran back down the street as soon as the handbag was his.

The Winter Soldier began analysing the risk vs reward outcomes of interfering. Bucky was running even before the Soldier had finished calculating the odds of becoming entangled in a police investigation. A small surge of adrenaline gave him the burst of speed required to intercept the thief, and he collided with the man near the hotel corner, body-slamming him into the wall. The Soldier advised him to use overwhelming force, to ensure one hit was all it took for his target to go down and stay down. Bucky restrained himself, putting a leash on Hydra's long years of forced training. This wasn't an assassination, it was an intervention, and the words 'non-lethal' and 'gentle' were not in the Soldier's vocabulary. Bucky had to be the conscience for both of them, and it was a conscience that didn't need more blood on it.

The thief recovered and took a swipe at Bucky, the panic in his brown eyes betraying the fact that he hadn't expected this outcome; he'd picked a target he thought was weak, not anticipating a fight. Bucky easily dodged the swipe and dealt him a relatively light right-cross that knocked him dazed to the ground. The handbag dropped from his grip, and Bucky stooped down to retrieve it. Further up the street, the woman was picking herself up from the floor, aided by two hotel staff who'd heard her scream. Her pale face was terrified as she looked at the dazed thief.

"Here," Bucky said, holding the bag out to her. "I think this is yours."

"Oh! Merci, monsieur!" she said. She clutched it to her chest as if cradling her firstborn child. "How can I thank you?"

"You just did," he assured her. Seeing the gratitude in her eyes as the colour returned to her cheeks was enough. And it felt good, to do something right after so many long years of doing everything wrong.

"But… you must at least let me give you something, or buy you dinner, or—"

"Really, it's not necessary. I just did what anyone would have done."

"Not everyone, I think." She reached for his hand and held it in both of hers. "You, monsieur, are a hero today."

Flash.

BANG BANG BANG.

"Barnes!"

Bucky opened one eye, squinted at the daylight pouring in through the open curtains, closed his eye and rolled over in bed.

"Barnes, you lazy son of a bitch!" a cheery voice called through the door. The banging repeated, each BANG making Bucky twitch where he lay as it pounded inside his skull. "Don't make me break down this door and drag your ass out of bed, boy. I'm not your mom and this isn't your palace back home."

With a groan, Bucky pushed off the eiderdown quilt and slid out of bed, his feet landing with a heavy thud on the wooden floor. Some people just didn't know the meaning of R&R. When he opened the door, he found himself looking into Dugan's grinning face. The man was a maniac. An actual maniac. He was one of the few people Bucky had met who hadn't had his soul dragged backwards through hell by the action on the front lines. Genuinely, a maniac.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Bucky groaned at him.

"Do you?" Dum Dum countered. "Damn near three o'clock, Barnes. Cap's meeting us at the Whip & Fiddle in two hours. We figured you might need that time to do your hair and get your makeup on."

"Three o'clock?" A quick glance at the clock on the wall told him Dugan was telling the truth. An even quicker glance in the mirror showed him the image of a man who looked like he'd just gone ten rounds in a ring. "Why didn't you wake me sooner?"

Dum Dum snorted, the air rushing through his generous moustache. "We figured you had a girl up here." He stuck his head into the room and glanced around it. "You have her hidden under the bed, right?"

"You're an ass. Gimme ten, and I'll meet you down in the lobby."

"Take twenty," Dugan grinned. "Wouldn't want you to rush your lipstick."

Bucky closed the door on the strongman and took a deep, steadying breath. Dugan told a good tale, but Bucky knew the truth. They let him sleep all day because Austria had hit him hard… harder than any of the others. Walking back to the Allied camp after being rescued by Steve had taken every ounce of strength he could call upon, and had damn near killed him. Dum Dum, Gabe and the others… they'd recovered quickly. By the time they got to London, they were almost back to full health, the horrors of the Hydra workhouse put firmly behind them.

But not Bucky. He woke up at nights with the shakes. Sometimes felt his pulse race, like he'd been running a marathon even when he was sat down doing nothing but talking shit with the guys. War hit some soldiers harder than others, but this felt like more than that. First night in London, he'd tried to bury the memories of what he'd experienced alone on the table in a flood of beer. Hadn't worked. Switched to scotch, the finest single malt he could order. Five or six glasses later, and he'd found himself a pleasant haze to swim in. But that had been nearly two weeks ago. Now, five or six glasses was a warm-up. Now, it took the bottle to reach the haze. And Dugan and the others, they'd seen that, too.

He made his way to the washstand and splashed cold water onto his face, letting it shock his mind fully awake. He threw on the first shirt he came across, and pulled his dusty jacket over it. When he met his reflection in the mirror, it looked no better than when he'd first woken. His face had tinge to it that he could only describe as 'ashen'. There was a tiredness in his eyes that wouldn't leave no matter how much he slept, and a tightness around them thanks to a perpetual, dull headache that had nothing to do with last night's bottle of Islay.

"You," he told his reflection, holding up an admonishing finger which was echoed back to him,"need to pull yourself together. You're not on that table anymore. You're not back on the front. What, you think you're the only soldier to get a little shell-shock? To have nightmares? At least you weren't in one of those Jap POW camps. Get it together. Your friend needs you, and you're not done yet."

He gave his hair a quick comb, then left the hotel room and made his way down into the lobby. Not all of the men rescued from the Hydra base were here; most had been sent home, to recuperate. Phillips had wanted to send Bucky home, too, but Bucky had adamantly refused to be sent back, and Steve had finally intervened on his best friend's behalf. A personal request from Captain America seemed to carry more weight than Bucky's feeble protests that he wasn't too injured or shocked to keep fighting with the rest of the capable hands recovered from Austria. Phillips was an ass, too.

Only Dugan was present in the hotel lobby. "Sent the others on ahead to get in a first round," the big man explained. "Don't worry, we'll catch 'em up. Just promise me one thing."

"What's that?"

"You'll follow each scotch with a chaser."

"Fine, whatever," he sighed. Dugan held the lobby door open for him like he was a dame or something, but Bucky was too tired to object.

The people of London walked around like chunks of their city hadn't been recently Blitzed into little pieces. They casually ignored the rubble of bombed homes not yet rebuilt, seemed not to see the crews of men working to repair the few tube stations that had been hit. They just went about their business like it was perfectly natural to have a row of buildings reduced to rubble, a glaring gap in the skyline, whilst the buildings around remained undamaged. He'd even heard a couple of people say that they missed the nightly air raids, the chance to get down into the tunnels and catch up with friends whilst the Luftwaffe tried to actually hit something worth a damn. But that was the English for you; they were as crazy as Dum Dum.

"Got any idea what the Captain wants to talk to us about?" Dugan asked, as the Whip & Fiddle appeared at the end of the street.

Bucky shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine." He already knew what it was about. Brass were finally starting to take Steve seriously. The men he'd rescued, the equipment and intel he'd brought back… suddenly, the star-spangled man wasn't just a guy in tights good for selling bonds and starring in propaganda movies; he was a credible threat to the Nazis.

Steve had come to him the night before, dragging him out of the Fiddle, forcing him to abandon the last glass of Islay, ostensibly under the guise of helping his completely wasted best buddy get back to the hotel… but Bucky could walk a straight line despite his best attempts to reach the bottom of the bottle, and Steve's thoughts had been elsewhere.

'Phillips finally wants to put me to use,' Steve had said.

'Bout damn time,' Bucky told his friend.

'For the first time in this war, we can get the jump on Hydra.'

'By 'we' you do of course mean Allied Bomber Command, right? You know how those fly-boys are just itching to hit something worthwhile.' A group of RAF pilots had stopped by the Fiddle a couple of nights ago, complaining about how boring it was up there, how the Luftwaffe were barely giving them a challenge. They'd also made some rather disparaging comments about the quality of the Fiddle's most recent clientele… so Dum Dum had punched one of them, starting an impromptu bar brawl which had ended in a stalemate when the red-headed barmaid who was sweet on Dugan stepped in and threatened to ban them all for life.

'This is what I'm here for, Buck.' Steve's eyes still had that wispy quality about them. He was still looking to fight the good fight. He hadn't been on the front long enough to know there was no good fight… only fight. He hadn't been there, at Azzano. Hadn't lived through the facility in Austria. 'This is what I was made to do. But I can't do it alone.'

'Twenty bucks says you could,' he quipped to his friend.

'Maybe,' Steve had grinned, momentarily looking like his old, self-conscious self. 'But even if I could do it by myself, I don't want to. Phillips wants to give me a real command, and I think I've got the right guys in mind for my team, but I wanted to get your feel for what they might say. You've known them longer than I have.'

'Who'd you have in mind?'

'Dugan, Falsworth, Morita, Dernier and Jones. They came outta Austria the best off, and I can see them working together as a team. What do you think? Would they wanna follow me, maybe take the chance to strike back at Hydra?'

Bucky had scoffed. 'Probably. But I should warn you… I think they might be crazy. There's one way to tell for sure.'

'And what's that?'

'Ask 'em to join your team. Anybody who says yes is a bonafide madman. Think you could cope with that, leading a team of crazy soldiers?'

'I think you've had too much scotch. But there's one other guy I want on my team, and that's you.'

'Me?' Bucky snorted. 'I'm definitely crazy. You don't want me on your team.'

'Will you at least think about it?'

'Of course. Gimme a day or so to get my head around the idea, alright?'

He'd told Steve that he'd think about it, but what was there to think about? Steve'd had a taste of war; now he was about to get a full meal of it. All the Carrots and the Davies' and the Franklins and the Tippers and the Wells'… Steve hadn't had them yet, but if he went to war against Hydra, he'd get them. There was no way in hell Bucky could let his friend go through all that alone, even if it meant throwing himself into the breach once more.

"Here we are," said Dugan, pulling Bucky out of his night-before reverie. He stopped outside the front door and used his fingertips to smooth the ends of his moustache. "How'd I look?"

"Like a large, hairy, ginger slug attacked your face and still hasn't figured out how to let go."

"A sight better than you, then," Dum Dum grinned, giving his bowler hat a jaunty tilt. "Lovely Lizzie likes a man who cleans up well. Most girls do, Barnes. Keep that in mind for tomorrow night, and remember; chasers after each scotch."

"Yes mom."

Dugan pushed the door open, and Bucky followed him inside. The Fiddle was always crowded. The British government had wisely decided not to ration beer along with everything else, and even the Germans hadn't been heinous enough to target Scotland's distilleries. London might be hungry, tired and in pieces, but at least they still had plenty to drink.

"Well, if it isn't London's favourite pair of trigger-happy Yanks," said the barmaid, when she spotted the duo arrive. "If you boys are as thirsty as your friends over there, I can see I'll have a busy night ahead of me."

"We only drink so much to keep you in a job and make you smile, Lizzie," Dugan grinned, making a beeline for the bar.

"Scotch," Bucky said, to the barman. When he noticed Dum Dum twirl one end of his moustache around his finger, he added, "Make that a double."

Was there anything available to drink that was stronger than scotch?

"And he'll have a ginger beer, for his second drink," Dugan instructed. Bucky rolled his eyes.

"Aww, let him have his scotch," Lizzie laughed, coming to his aid. "From what I hear, you all deserve to drink as much as you like. You're all heroes."

Flash.

Bucky looked down, into the eyes of the woman and blinked several times. He pulled his hand from hers and stepped back, trying to remember what had just happened and where he was. Geneva. Yes, this was Geneva, not London. He wasn't recovering from his time at a Hydra base, he was trying to get back his memories of his life. He was travelling Europe, and had just stopped a crime.

"I agree," one of the hotel staff said. "We are lucky you were here; we would never have caught up to him in time. We have already called the police, and they will be here to pick him up very shortly." Bucky followed the man's eyes, to where the thief lay dazed on the ground, watched over by a hotel doorman. "Please, for saving the personal belongings of one of our guests, allow us to treat you to dinner in our restaurant."

Police? Dinner? No. Too risky. Too much. He'd just wanted to do the right thing. He didn't need reward; it was atonement he sought.

"Thanks, but I have to get to the train station… I was actually on my way to the airport," he lied. "My flight's in a couple of hours."

"Ah, a shame! If you leave us your details, for the next time you are in Gen—"

"I won't be coming back," he interrupted quickly. This was taking too long. His ears had already picked up a police siren approaching. It was time to go. "Sorry, can't stay, I don't wanna miss my flight," he said, and trotted away from the scene.

"Thank you again, monsieur!" the woman called after him.

Several streets away, he found himself alone and finally relaxed. Part of him expected to look around and see the Fiddle, see rubble strewn around compliments of the Blitz. Part of him expected to hear the sound of police officers chasing him down for a statement. He took several deep breaths and leant back against the wall, trying to clear his mind.

Glad as he was that his memories were coming back in such vivid detail, the ramifications were also a little worrying. What if they came back whilst he was doing something dangerous, or which required concentration? What if a memory came back so rich in detail that he couldn't adapt quickly enough to reality? Was this the first time he'd had a memory in the middle of a conversation like that? He closed his eyes and tried to think back. How long had his memory taken? Had he gone blank for just a few seconds, or for minutes? His memory of London felt like it had taken half an hour, but surely he couldn't have been 'gone' from reality for that long… could he?

Uncertain and concerned, he set off back towards the hostel. The memories, at least for now, were out of his control. All he could do was try to adapt as quickly as possible to their recollection. But on the bright side, at least he had something new to add to Friends before leaving Geneva behind.

Author's Note: Flashback within a flashback… that's like, sixteen flashbacks!