Peace.
It was something he thought he would never experience. An intangible thing that would never be his.
Even after months of therapy with Dr. Raynor, he never thought it'd be possible. It had been Sam who gave him the idea. They'd been working on the boat, and he'd said how peaceful it was to take it out on the water. He'd said he would take Bucky out once it was fixed, if he wanted. Bucky had listened as Sam reminisced about the days he spent as a boy hauling in fish and soaking in the sun, and wondered if his childhood memories were as calm and peaceful as his friend's.
Childhood memories were some of the few things that refused to come back to him, even after the mind control programming had been broken in Wakanda. He knew the facts, remembered the names, and places, and the things that seemed important on paper. But the things that were really important – his favorite flavor of pop, the way his mom had tucked him into bed, the mischief he'd probably gotten into as a boy with his siblings. All of it was gone.
Now, his lungs filled with the godly nectar of crisp, sweet air. It held just the hint of coolness, a secret promise of the coming autumn. Leaves whispered their lullaby, each gust of wind and swaying branch bringing with it a new breath of life to fill his lungs. The stillness of the air coursed through him, more refreshing and rejuvenating than anything he'd ever experienced.
This was a good idea, he thought, his eyes closing as he took in a lungful of fresh mountain air tinged with pine and wood and dirt.
Peace.
He'd thought he might have glimpsed it during his brief stay in Wakanda. Now he knew for certain that he hadn't. This was peace. This was freedom. A tranquility that he had never before experienced. The birds twittered cheerfully in their perches, the insects buzzed and chirruped and fluttered about. Even the sun was calm here, deep in the trees. Here in the forest the only job the sun had was to create life, to rejuvenate the leaves and fill the roots with its unrelenting energy.
Bucky was like one of those plants, basking in the warming rays that filtered down through the overbrush and landed on his face like a gentle caress. Soaking in the sunbeams and allowing them to recharge him like the curling, coiling vines that surrounded his secret haven tucked away in the woods.
He had been alone the majority of his too-long existence, yet this solitude brought with it a calming sense of tranquility.
He preferred to be alone. But he no longer felt the tightness of self-loathing threatening to cave in his chest. He no longer was suffocating under the unbearable weight of all his sins. This time, alone was a solace and not a punishment.
Here in the forest, he sat motionless and watched the word turn around him, sat as he closed his eyes and breathed in the taste of calm and quiet. Here in the forest, he finally, for the first time in ninety years, felt the tension drain completely from his body. He slumped easily against a tree trunk, the rough press of a rock against his butt and thighs a soothing reminder that he was still alive. He was still human. And he was still him – James Buchanan Barnes. He was Bucky.
Peace.
The stars had not been this bright since Wakanda. He lay in a meadow, shivering as the cold of the night set in yet unable to leave in search of warmth. It would be easy to make a fire, but then the dazzling brightness of the celestial landscape above would be dimmed. The glory of the cosmos would be lost. So he stayed where he was, cold but content.
You have to stop looking to other people to know who you are.
Who he was had been suppressed for so long, he had not even the slightest inclining of a clue to know where to start. The Winter Soldier was a machine more than a man. Sergeant Barnes had died in that ravine. And Bucky...Bucky was an old memory of a man who'd chosen to live out the life he shouldn't have had. And he had no idea where that left him, the miniscule man laying here now below the vastness of the universe.
I don't know who I am, he thought, and for once it didn't terrify him.
Because he saw the face of those men and women he'd saved. He remembered the words of the man holding the perimeter that night they defeated the Flag Smashers: Sergeant Barnes. His mind flashed with the faces of his victims, of their family members, of the ones who had been left behind. He remembered the tears or smiles or pained expressions they had had at each one of his painful, teary-eyed confessions.
He was all of them and none of them.
I don't know who I am, he thought again, but this time with a smile. And that's okay.
Peace.
He had finally found it.
And if he had found peace—some intangible thing that had been so impossibly out of reach for so long—than he could find himself again. He would find himself again. With a little patience, a bit of persistence, and maybe the help of a friend, he had every confidence that he would rise again, just like a phoenix from the ashes. The past was something he could never change, but he would no longer let it control his future. He was Bucky Barnes, he was the White Wolf, he was the Winter Soldier—and he was at peace.