A/N: Hi! So, Whumpoctober called for me too this year. I can't promise I'll post once a day, but I will try.
So, I saw a post on instragram where a girl noticed The Winter Soldier had been active for 50 years, but that Bucky had been captured 70 years before, that meant he actually fought mind control for 20 years before they eventually broke him. Thanks to Sebastian, we know the backpack Bucky had in Civil War contained journals he wrote as memories came back.
So.
Sam finds the diaries.
He and Bucky read them together.
Day by day.
Enjoy the ride.
CHAPTER ONE: FALLING.
2014.
Why do I keep dreaming about that guy?
He was my mission.
I had to kill me.
And why just him?
Why not the woman?
Why not the black flying guy?
Why just him?
Captain America.
No.
Steve.
I used to call him Steve.
Did he use to call me Bucky? Just like he did on the helicarrier?
Had a dream last night.
Or was it a memory?
I don't know.
It's so hard to think.
Not used to it.
Found out it's easier if I write.
Keep my head straight.
Gotta start writing.
1943. I think. I don't know for sure.
I'm falling.
Captain America, no, Steve, calls out for me.
Tries to reach my hand.
He misses me.
I'm falling.
I'm dying.
For sure this time.
Why this time? Have I risked death before?
it's cold. It's so damn cold.
Everything is white.
Why is it so white?
A prison?
No.
It's snowing.
Right.
I look up.
The train has gone.
Steve has gone.
I should be dead.
Why am I not dead?
They are dragging me.
Red on the snow. Why red? Right, my blood.
Red. Then black.
I can't move.
That's my first thought. I can't move. Again. Why do I feel it's not the first time?
German accent.
"Welcome back, Sergeant Barnes. We will start back from where we stopped."
Stopped?
Right.
The time Steve saved me.
Did he?
Why?
My dreams are confused too.
"You'll be the new hand of Hydra."
No.
No.
I can't let that happen. I can't say why, but my hand finds his strength, and I just attack.
I try to strangle the doctor.
I remember.
He injected something in me.
Before Steve saved me.
It burned.
It burned as hell.
I prayed for death.
But it didn't come.
Black again.
"Time to wake up, Soldier."
Next time I wake up, I can't free myself. I'm stuck on a sort of table in a lab, metal cuffs keep me down by my hand, ankles, chest and neck.
I can barely see my hand if I try to raise my head.
Wait.
Hand?
I look left. Nothing.
i scream.
I wake up again in pain.
Someone is working on my left shoulder.
Pain in unbearable.
i go back to black.
2014
My head is killing me.
My arm is killing me.
I went to the Smithsonian today, visited Captain America's memorial area.
That guy, James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes looks, looked, a lot like me.
They wrote he died.
Falling down a cliff on a mission on a train.
Just like my dream.
Despite the fact that I wore a baseball cap, a kid looked at me. Then at Barnes' picture. Then back at me. His eyes went wide, but not in fear.
I know fear.
It's how people look when they see me and understand they are going to die, and just hope I'll make it quick.
Why do I want to throw up?
The kid didn't run, didn't yell, didn't cry in fear.
He just stared at me.
Rogers woke up.
Why did I go to the hospital in the first place?
The black guy, they call him Sam, is always with him.
Why do I feel kind of relieved?
Doctor said Steve'll be out of hospital in a few days.
I'm glad.
Why?
Present day. Avengers' compound.
Sam rarely visited the compound. Sure, he was an Avenger, but since Steve's death he had found it difficult to visit it.
He had many memories of the place, most of them of good training time, others not that good.
Pepper called him a few days ago.
She had tried to call Bucky, but he didn't answer.
Sam couldn 't blame him that much. Tony died before they could clear waters and Sam knew the man couldn't find a closure, not even after Pepper forgave him.
Sam knew Howard's death would never have a real closure. Howard had not just been a mission. Before that, he and Bucky had been friends, had worked together.
He had flown the plane that took Steve where he was kept, allowing him to save him.
She was clearing Tony's compound room, and she had found a backpack with Bucky's name on it.
She remembered he had told her he had retrieved it after the Avengers broke out of prison, and that he had wanted to give it to Steve, so that he could give it to Barnes, or keep him for himself, but the occasion never came, between Steve being on the run and Tony's rage.
Pepper asked him to give it to James.
Sam wasn't a snoop, but as he understood the backpack was full of books, he just couldn't stop his curiosity.
And now he had to force himself to stop reading.
He had never even imagined Bucky could be a journal person, lei alone the Soldier, but as he read the first pages, he knew and understood the reasons behind it.
Sam was reading the journal of a confused man, with fragmented memories. but also a confused personality.
He wrote with short sentences, not always clear.
Sam recognized Bucky's way of processing things in it. When things were just too much, he used to try and make simpler tasks or facts of the whole thing, ans processed it one by one.
This was his primordial stadium.
Sam realized he was crying only when a tear dropped on the cover of the journal he had in his hands.
He took a deep breath and called Bucky.
"Need to see you, Buck."
I hope you liked! Drop me a review and just let me know!