Looking for Bucky Barnes is impossible.

It takes five days for the futility of it all to begin setting in, an unspoken heaviness in the very marrow of Steve's bones. It takes another three days for Sam to voice, "He might not want to be found, you know." It takes two weeks for Steve to realize that his friend (or enemy, or are the lines between blurred beyond definition?) might truly be beyond his reach this time. The confession feels like a metal fist smashing into Steve's chest, breaking through his ribs to the battered heart that will never, ever stop longing for his friend.

And then Sam puts a hand on his shoulder, silent, steadying — and says, "You fought hard for him, Steve; this might be the end of the line," — and something in Steve's chest collapses like a door swinging shut, and he feels like he's screaming, but he can't make a sound over the click of the lock.

Sam drives the whole way home. Steve stares out the window, wondering if he's ever been fighting for his country, or if he was only fighting his friend. At some point, he drifts off to sleep, and his drifting mind conceives an escalator; the stairs never stop going up and away from what he once knew, but he isn't alone.

Steve wakes with a shudder, the dream gone but its imprint lingering. The sweet scent of bubblegum on a woman's breath. Sudden heat where her fingers brush his skin.

A kiss, teasing, all too quickly ending. Softer than it should be.

~x~X~x~

James Buchanan Barnes was a man of kindness. A man who saved Steve Rogers from more battles in back alleys than he could count. A man who defended Natalia Romanova through years of hellish training in espionage and assassination. He did not shy from battle; he did not shrink from a heroic death; he stood bravely amidst gunsmoke and sweat and blood, keeping vigil over his nation and his friends.

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, member of the 107th, prize of the Howling Commandos, was a soldier.

The Winter Soldier — an asset, and not a man — does not remember how to love. Kindness is an elusive phantom, an outstretched hand that he can reach for but never quite grasp. But the Soldier remembers blossoming fire, clusters of bodies in the dark, silence split by the crack of a rifle. He remembers battle; he craves it like a human would crave air. The difference is that the human craves air in order to live, but the asset craves battle because his life was stolen, and all he has left is the fleeting rush of combat, the crack of bone on bone, the smack of skin on skin.

The Soldier is programmed for obedience. Apart from a handler, he is machine without oil, a car without fuel. Useless.

If he cannot be kind, the Soldier hopes he may at least be useful.

Steve is a man (albeit a powerfully enhanced one,) not a weapon, and as such he can never understand. He would try to reprogram the Soldier, but that is not what the Soldier wants.

The Soldier wants a directive. The Soldier wants a handler, and Steve would only ever try to be his friend.

And so it eases the Soldier's troubled mind when HYDRA finds him — when they assure him that, even if Natalia should abandon him, there will always be a new mission to complete — when they promise him that the world, reeling from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s downfall, needs a soldier more than ever — when they insist that Steve will resist change (because all lesser soldiers fear change,) but with time, they can make him understand.

As they affix the restraints of a familiar chair, the Soldier turns his memories over in his head, like smooth stones in a little boy's hand. The Black Widow's kiss, such sweet poison. His handler's rough hands, quick to strike, quick to discipline. The mission (friend? captain? brother in arms?), his voice worn thin: I'm with you till the end of the line.

The Soldier bites down on his mouth guard. He knows the pain is coming, knows that it will take his little collection of human things away. He knows that he has chosen this, that this may be the last thing he ever chooses. He knows that it will make him a better soldier. He is grateful.

But when the shocks come, he still screams.

~x~X~x~

The assignment from HYDRA is simple.

The world is different now. It needs new heroes who are willing to take the world as it is, not as they'd like it to be — or else America will bend its back beneath the weight of its own arrogant folly. The weak must fall; the strong must prevail. It is the way of nature. It is the way of wisdom.

The Soldier will show them.

This crippled world needs soldiers, plural. James Buchanan Barnes is the first. His first new directive will be to recruit the second: a symbol, a fighter, a captain of ideals.

Steven Rogers.

The assignment from HYDRA is simple. So are the minds of the rogue operatives who provide it. Consequently, none of them see the woman who slips like a shadow to their meeting place, silent as a messenger of death. None of them hear her breath hitch when she hears the Soldier's assignment.

But HYDRA is not incompetent, and as she shifts her weight, struggling to slow her racing pulse, one of their agents glimpses her silhouette.

Natasha staggers back from a hail of bullets. All at once, HYDRA agents burst from their once-abandoned cabin, pistols drawn. Desperate, she sprints back into the woods. She runs and runs until her legs ache and her vision reels and distance has no meaning. She loses her pursuers in the tangle of trees.

When she is most certainly alone, Natasha closes her eyes. She kneels in the dirt; she bows her head. Trembling, she twists her fingers into a knot of prayer.

"God." Her breathing is ragged. "God, please. Please. Oh, God. God." She imagines there is blood on her praying hands. Her voice cuts off, her throat seizing up. Her shoulders shake, tremors rolling down her spine. "Oh, God... Oh, God, not Steve." She chokes. "Not Steve."

Silence. Wind through branches. Chill in the air.

Then, a stillness. A tightening, a loosening, a gathering together. A memory, more piercing than a knife.

If it was up to me to save your life, would you trust me to do it?

I would now.

Natasha opens her eyes. "Thank you," she says, even though she isn't sure if God is listening. "Thank you."

Then, rising to her feet, she runs.

~x~X~x~

A/N: My characterization of Bucky is heavily inspired by Lauralot's unparalleled fanfic, "And I Am Always With You."

And so we reach what will be the final conflict of Steve and Natasha: Bucky is required to capture Steve and bring him to HYDRA; Natasha refuses to let that happen. Please review, if you have the time — this story has lost a lot of reviewers lately, and I would love to hear what readers are thinking.

Thank you for reading.