Thanks to everyone who's been following along! And especially to those of you who've been commenting. :) This chapter marks the beginning of my side-stepping of Captain America: Civil War. This is something that I've been planning since pretty much the beginning and, as you'll see, there's just no way to make it comply with the movie. I can work around some things, but this one's just not gonna work.
Two Lost Souls
The more he walked through the city, the more he felt he could almost touch its familiarity. And yet too much of it felt alien.
One day, weeks ago, he'd woken up with a start, suddenly remembering a day spent at a museum in Washington with absolute clarity. Remembered looking at a large blown-up photo of a man. Sergeant Bucky Barnes: the name echoed in his head and felt somehow right, known. So he'd found a neighbourhood at the outskirts of town – not poor but not so rich that they would have security systems – and broke into one of the houses. He'd showered and shaved and then stole some clothes before finally looking into a plain, full-length mirror hanging in the hallway. His reflection had looked worn, tired and like a less glossy version of Sergeant Bucky Barnes.
There had been no moment of recognition. No sudden remembrance.
He'd cleaned after himself, took some food, and left.
Then he wandered the city again, only now people noticed him. Women, especially. At first he would smile at them, the motion coming naturally, and they would smile back. There should've been words next, he knew and felt how they should've come just as naturally as the smile, smooth with confidence. But they didn't and the moment passed. Both he and the women moved on. Eventually, he stopped smiling at them.
Several men had tried to rob him one night at gunpoint, foolishly thinking he had something to steal. He'd stared at them silently for a very long time, until the one in charge became angry and struck out. It was how he'd acquired his first weapon.
The days blurred together. The sun rose and then it set. He slept whenever he finally felt too tired to go on. Occasionally, he caught a date on a newspaper or the time on a clock through a shop window or a passerby's cellphone display. He knew it had been well after midnight when he'd finally crossed the bridge to Brooklyn. It might've been on a Tuesday.
Brooklyn. The name sounded familiar. The place wasn't.
Except for those moments when it was. When he would round a corner and see a building so familiar something ached inside him. But then he would look beside it and the men's clothing store he'd expected to see was a deli. The signs in the shop windows were different, the logos, the clothes were wrong. Everything was too colourful, too bright, too loud.
He recognized the things he saw. Cars, cellphones, digital displays, computers. He knew what they did, knew how to use them. But he couldn't understand why they were present. They didn't belong here. This was Brooklyn, a name that felt familiar. Felt like it should've been home.
But this place, this wasn't his home.
Maybe he was the one who didn't belong.
Sometimes, he would walk past a strange-looking sight and automatically turn to his right, to comment on it, knowing it would make his companion laugh. There was never anyone beside him. He would stop and wonder why he'd expected there to be anyone walking beside him. He couldn't remember anyone who would speak to him or laugh with him as a companion... as a friend. There was a hollow space inside him and it felt like a lead weight inside his chest.
Sometimes he would even remember the name of the one he expected to be walking beside him. He would see an image of a short, skinny blond man with kind blue eyes. The hollow space would burn with pain.
'Till the end of the line.
One day, when the breeze was still cold but the snow had slowly begun to melt, he'd walked by a cafe. The smell of coffee and sweet pastries was heavenly, but it was a discarded newspaper that caught his attention. "Captain America and the Avengers Fight Robots on Lexington!" the front page headline screamed. And the picture was in colour, a profile of a man holding a round shield and looking fiercely ahead, muscles tensed as he prepared to leap into action.
He took the newspaper and then found an empty alley with a rusty fire escape. He read the article four times. Then he sat on the fire escape and stared at the front page picture. This man had been his mark. He remembered the briefing, the cold, cruel eyes of his masters.
They weren't his masters anymore.
He ran the fingers of his flesh hand over the picture of the man. Captain America. Cap. No, Steve.
In his mind, he saw determined blue eyes boring into his own.
'Till the end of the line.
Captain America. The Avengers. He wanted to remember those names, to remember how they fit together. He tore off the front page and folded it up carefully. Then he took out the bundle of carefully folded papers from the inside pocket of his coat and gently untied the shoelace that held them together – it already had one knot in it, where he hadn't been gentle enough and snapped it apart instead. He added the folded front page to the small bundle and retied the shoelace. Then he slipped it back into his inside coat pocket and left.
He started noticing newspaper headlines after that.
Sometimes, there was nothing. Once the headline mentioned a Stark Tower being attacked. The name Stark sounded familiar and he could almost see a grinning face and dark amused eyes. But he couldn't remember how the two fit together, so he left the newspaper as it was.
Then there was another headline and a large green beast called the Hulk fighting Iron Man. The Avengers again. Several days and nights passed: he didn't count how many. And then the front page headlines began to mention a place, Sokovia.
His mind conjured up an image of a great stone fortress on a hill, surrounded by forest. He remembered damp, cold hallways. And then his memory abandoned him once more. Dry, chapped lips moved, his voice cracked and raspy when he spoke and he knew the words were being formed with the Sokovian dialect. He didn't know how he knew that, or how he'd learned the dialect. But he accepted it as truth, as he'd accepted many other things.
One night he broke into a library and borrowed a computer. He researched Sokovia. He found a lot of information, but none of it helped.
He circled Brooklyn and then one night the salty smell of the sea lured him to the dockyards. Like so many things, they felt both familiar and alien. He easily scaled a stack of shipping containers and lay down to stare up at the stars. At some point he fell asleep, waking only when the sun was beginning to rise and the dockyards were stirring with the first sounds of engines and the clanking of machinery.
He spent the rest of the day observing, careful to stay out of sight of both people and security cameras alike.
And he tried to remember, but all he caught were fleeting sensations, half-dissovled images. He remembered the smell of smoke, sweat and exhaustion. Remembered shouts and laughs. He didn't remember the machines, not so many, not here.
The sun, as always, eventually set again and the dockyard went quiet. He flitted through the night like a ghost until he heard voices, low and menacing, just at the edge of the yard. Silently, he went to see who it was. Not a single one of them heard him. They didn't notice him until he was beside them, looking over their shoulders at the impressive array of weapons inside the trunk of a large grey car. He'd seen better, of course, but this would do, he decided.
The unknown men attacked him, tried to kill him. They didn't succeed. He walked away with a second handgun that felt comfortable and familiar in his grip, and an elegant Barrett M99 sniper's rifle. One of his attackers had a sturdy, well-ballanced combat knife. He took that as well. The edge of the yard was silent again when he left.
Another day passed. He was vaguely aware of the commotion at the edge of the yard, the police cars and crowds of people, but none of them passed by his current hideaway, so he didn't concern himself with them. Instead, he took apart his new acquisitions and meticulously inspected each piece. Then he found a blanket and carefully wrapped the rifle into its folds.
By nightfall he was feeling restless again.
He gathered up his meager belongings and leaped down from his daytime hiding spot. He took in one, last breath of salty sea air. Then he turned around and began to make his way through the rows of containers, keeping out of view of the security cameras.
That was when he heard the scream.
At first he simply paused in his step. There came another scream, following by yelling. The voice was female, panicked, terrified. Something inside of him felt the need to run to her rescue. He heard the malicious laughter of several men and decided to listen to it.
There were three of them and they smelled of sweat, smoke and cheap alcohol. The woman between them was struggling, but despite their movements – made sloppier than usual from drink – the men were overwhelming her.
He overwhelmed them easily. When the third one slid down the wall of the alley they'd cornered her into, his skull cracked and bleeding profusely against the brick wall, he finally turned to the woman. She was soaking wet and pale, with long wavy dark hair that cascaded down her slim shoulders.
She was also very naked.
She stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. The wind blew against her flesh and she shivered with the cold, but seemed otherwise unconcerned with her own nakedness. He stared at her, transfixed by all the pale skin that seemed to glow from within the darkness. She shivered again and he finally looked away, searching the area for her clothes. He didn't see any.
Mechanically, he found himself undoing his own coat and then handed it to her, waiting patiently until she reached out uncertainly to take it. She put it on and smiled at him gratefully.
It warmed something inside of him. He wasn't sure why.
"T-thank you," she finally whispered.
He grunted in acknowledgment. They stood there, staring at each other across the alley.
"Please, may I know the name of my rescuer?" she asked, this time her voice louder, more sure.
He blinked at her. It had been a long time since anyone had asked him his name. No, there had been an old man, who hadn't been an old man. Or, he had at first and then he wasn't anymore. He had asked his name.
"Bucky," he finally answered her, his voice raspy from disuse. And then, because somewhere deep in his mind a voice chided him about manners: "Who are you?"
The woman blinked at him. Then she frowned. "I... I don't know," she replied softly. There was no fear in her voice, merely confusion. She was silent for a long moment. "I think... I think I'm looking for someone."
He nodded. He was also looking for someone. Although, he had a feeling that someone was himself.
She took a step towards him, imploring him with her eyes. "Will you help me?"
Bucky looked down at the woman. She was small and innocent and the city was dangerous. So was he. But he would not hurt her. She wasn't his mark.
He nodded, looking at her. She would need her own coat. And shoes.
"Come with me," he said. She followed him.