Author's Note: This story references The Next Stage. And as usual, I don't have a way to write in Cyrillic, so I'll use italics to denote when Russian is spoken. Those italics will be within quotes, while direct thoughts will be in italics but not inside quotes. Emphasized words are also italicized without quotes even if they are within dialogue.

Audio copy: You can listen to this story on my podcast: There Are Three of Me. It is read in Ep64 S4E11. You can find There Are Three of Me on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and .

Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Assett
By Gabrielle Lawson

Light penetrated Sam's closed eyelids and pulled him from sleep. He turned over to sit up, and his body ached in enough places to remind him of his age. He was too old for floor sleeping, especially on a hardwood floor.

He wasn't expecting to find Bucky sitting up, leaning against the wall, covered in sweat and staring through the brick wall on the other side of the room.

"You get any sleep?" Sam asked him.

Bucky didn't answer. Or even blink. Sam noticed the notebook was sitting out, there on the floor next to Bucky's hip. A pen lay not far away. He'd remembered something else.

Sam stretched out a leg and toe-tapped Bucky's ankle. That was enough. He blinked and pulled his vision back into the room.

Sam tried again. "Wanna talk about it?"

Bucky ducked his head and rubbed his neck with his hands. Sam was about to give up by the time Bucky spoke. "First time."

"First time for what?" In a different context, his first connotation would have had something to do with a woman. That notebook, however, gave him the right context.

"First time in the ice box." He sighed. "First time in the machine."

Sam knew the basics of Bucky's time as the Winter Soldier. His appearance as a young man was clue enough he'd been frozen, like Steve. But not continuously like Steve. They'd let him out for missions then put him back in. And while Sam didn't think it would be a fun experience, at least Bucky would have been unconscious when he was frozen. That left the unspecified machine. "What was the machine?"

Bucky's answer was quiet. "Took my memories away."

That could certainly speed up one's brainwashing. Turn the subject into an amnesiac and then fill his head with lies. "Was it painful?"

Bucky closed his eyes and pulled his eyebrows down. Did Hydra do anything that wasn't painful? Hadn't Rumlow told Sam that obedience comes through pain? And the fact that Bucky said this was the first time meant that even after they had him brainwashed and programmed, they still caused him pain. Rumlow had also told Cap that they had 'scrambled' Bucky's brain after he'd said he knew Steve.

Bucky turned his head so he was facing the morning light. "If I'd just died in that fall, none of it would have happened. None of this stuff and none of the killings."

"But then I wouldn't have gotten to meet you. You wouldn't have the opportunity to not flirt with my sister or live in Wakanda. It's terrible what they did to you, what they made you do, but now you have a chance for a better life."

He sighed deeply. "Then why can't I just be happy?" His breath shook and he kept his face turned away.

"You can," Sam told him. "You were, down at the cookout. You'll have good days and hard days. Outside that freezer you had one hell of a string of hard days. That takes a while to heal. No one expects you to just be all sunshine and rainbows."

Bucky turned back with an expression full of skepticism.

Sam amended his statement. "No one should expect you to be sunshine and rainbows. I don't." He winced as his body reminded him he was still on the floor. "I gotta get up off this floor, man."

Bucky stood and offered him a hand. "Bathroom's yours. I'm gonna need another shower."

Sam hurried though taking care of his needs. He hoped Bucky made a decision today. And Sarah had texted him asking for an update.

Bucky went in as he went out. Sam found the blankets all folded and Sam's 'pillow' placed on the seat of the armchair. The notebook was still out but the pen was nowhere to be seen.

Sam lifted the book, put his clothes on the arm of the chair, and sat down. This one was shorter, one unbroken memory. Between the freezer—where Bucky had hoped to die—and the machine was just recognizing—and hating—Zola and a weak attempt at resistance. The machine had felt like 'a thousand bursts of lightning exploding' in his head. And when it was finally over, he couldn't recognize the sadistic Nazi Hydra scientist who had tortured him anymore, or even understand that his throat was sore from screaming for who knows how long.

No wonder he'd been staring like that. Sam was almost looking forward to reading the part where he was successfully programmed and mission ready. Because then the constant torture and pain would be over. But if Bucky had to relive all of it to heal, then Sam would read all of it. He carefully placed the notebook back on the floor.

He took out his phone and dialed his sister's contact.

"Hey, Sam," she said. "How is he?"

"It's rough," he told her. He'd already told her the gist of Bucky's history, without the gory details. "He's remembering new and very unpleasant things. He broke his phone."

"He shouldn't be up there all alone, Sam," she insisted. "He needs people."

Sam smiled. "I invited him back down. He's thinking about it."

"I get New York is where his old life was. But he can't be happy up there, seeing how everything's changed and left him behind. We can make room for him, double the boys up or clean out Dad's old office. I saw an old record player at the thrift store and we can probably find some old records there, too. Just until he can get himself a place down here. Sam, help him think."

Sam shook his head, still smiling. He was going to ask her if they could make room for Bucky. "I'm workin' on it."

Considering all the leftovers, Sam decided on cold pizza for breakfast. Wasn't great but college kids had survived on it for decades. There was still root beer, too, though he would have preferred coffee.

Bucky emerged from the bathroom. His hair was wet but he was dressed. He joined Sam in the kitchenette.

"I don't see you having a job to get to," Sam said, making small talk. "How'd you afford this place?"

"Government gives me a stipend," Bucky replied, grabbing a slice of ham and pineapple. "Meant to keep me out of trouble, out of everyone's focus." He shrugged. "Don't exactly have a resume, anyway."

Sam could see that. Solid work history though, fifty years in the same position. "They don't give you enough for furniture?"

"Gave me enough to fly down to Louisiana," Bucky reminded him. "Didn't buy what I didn't need. Waste of money."

Sam chuckled. "I forgot you lived through the Great Depression. Bet that was hard on your folks."

"Was," Bucky admitted, reaching for another piece. "'Til they died. Then it was hard on me. Steve tried to work but he was so sick most of the time."

"He was livin' with you?"

"His dad died in the Great War. After his mom died in '36, he thought to make it on his own." He opened his bottle of root beer. "But he was so sick, he couldn't make enough to keep the rent going. His asthma meant he couldn't do anything too physical. Most of the jobs available then were physical. So it was pretty much on me. 'Til I got drafted in '43."

Sam had seen pictures of tiny Steve in the museum but it just didn't mesh with the Steve he knew. "Still hard for me to picture Steve Rogers as a tiny, little man, getting sick all the time."

"I knew him longer like that," Bucky confided. "Always taken' on bullies, leaving me to rescue him. It was a shock the day he rescued me."

"I bet." Sam took his second piece, pepperoni this time. "You got any idea what Zola actually did to you then?"

Bucky sighed. "Medics couldn't find anything. But looking back, I guess it ramped up my healing, made me more—" He paused, looking for the right word. "—durable."

Made sense enough. End result of his second captivity was clear enough: the full super-soldier package. And a lot of baggage on top of it. "You aren't thinking you were too weak coming out of the freezer?"

Bucky braced both his arms on the counter. "I was weak, physically, and not all there mentally either. But no, what they did was their fault. They made me weak."

Sam nodded. That was an improvement from the night before. "I've been thinking about your puzzle analogy," Sam told him. "If I had a puzzle with no pictures, I'd put the border pieces together first. They're the easiest. So you remember the easier memories first, like when you and Steve were kids. And the most recent memories, which were the Soldier. But once that border is done, you gotta work on the complicated pieces in the middle.

"I think those memories are going to keep coming. Do you really want to be here dealing with them alone? You keep leaving that notebook out for me to read. Why?"

There was a basic wooden chair in the corner by the counter. Bucky dropped into it. "I'm not sure. I keep hearing Walker say, 'This is all really easy for you, isn't it? All that serum runnin' through your veins.' Like I chose it."

Sam come around to his side of the counter. "I get it. It's like you need someone to know what it was like."

"Not Walker."

"No, not Walker," Sam agreed. He leaned his elbow on the counter.

Bucky was looking down at the floor. "He called me an 'asset.' In the station."

Sam remembered. He shook his head. "He had no idea."

"Neither did I. I knew I was 'Soldat.' I didn't remember being 'Asset.'"

Sam felt the conversation needed some lightening up. "Didn't make him any less an asshole for it."

Bucky looked up, a slight smile on his face. "Little less an asshole after helping us that night here."

That had surprised Sam after the beating he and Bucky had given Walker. Still, it kind of played into his instability for the quick shift. "Come on, let's finish breakfast. We need to get you a new phone. Still got your SIM?"

Bucky joined him at the counter and grabbed another piece of pepperoni. "SIM?"

"Tiny little card that connects you to the phone network."

Bucky pulled his wallet from his jacket and took from it what looked like a little envelope made from a folded piece of notebook paper. "Kept the important looking bits." He poured the contents out onto the counter.

Sam sifted through the debris and found it. "Put this back in that little pocket. We're going to need it."

Bucky sighed. "I guess with Steve, he knew me. He had some of the same memories. Kind of knew what happened because of the first time."

Sam guessed where this was going. Because he knew Steve. "But he didn't want to talk about the hard stuff."

Bucky shook his head. "He'd just remind me that it wasn't my fault. But that didn't stop it feeling like my fault."

Sam put a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "I can handle the hard stuff. But I'll still remind you it wasn't your fault, 'cause it wasn't."

Bucky nodded. "Brooklyn's kind of like being back there. There's people all around but—"

"But you went through it alone," Sam finished for him.

"You sure Sarah and the boys won't mind?"

"Mind? I think Sarah's enjoying the flirting you are not supposed to be doing, and those boys think you're the greatest thing since the PS5."

"What's a PS5?"

"So old!" Sam laughed. "So terribly, terribly old."

The End
©2021 Gabrielle Lawson