Author's Note: Marvel owns what it owns, and I own what I own, let's keep it that way shall we? Don't Sue me!

TW: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, Depression, Disordered Eating, Loss, Self-Harm-Implied/Referenced, Suicide-Implied/Referenced, Character Death-Implied/Referenced


Chapter One: Bad Beginnings

They were on his scent. Hydra. They wanted him back. They wanted their weapon back, their Winter Soldier. He sucked in the cool air, glancing around him, eyes scanning the tree line for movement. I have to keep moving, I have to stay off the grid. They're waiting for me to show up in one of the cities. They're waiting for me to make a mistake.

He traipsed along the roadside, his legs ached, head throbbed, and his whole body covered in goosebumps, even as sweat dripped from his brow. He had to pause as the ground in front of him, warped and spun. He knelt down, squeezing his eyes shut, he pulled his right glove off and dug his hand into the soft earth and tried to regulate his breathing. Assess damage. Evaluate options. His heart pounded his ears, nearly obscuring the sounds around him. He'd headed north, he'd headed away from densely populated areas. Now he was in the middle of New York nowhere, and the sounds of the forest crept in around him.

The sun was getting ready to set, and he could already feel the evening mists setting in. He grit his teeth as another wave of pain accompanied by nausea washed over him. Find cover, repair damage, resupply, regroup, keep moving. That's what his training dictated he needed to do. That's what would keep him alive right now. He rose shakily to his feet, blinking the spots from his vision. The sun was going down fast. Turning away from the road, he surveyed the horizon. An abandoned barn peaked out over the tree line, about two miles from the road. It would provide cover and a place to evaluate his physical condition. His head continued to spin, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He could hear them, their voices, their screams. He could see their faces. His breath caught in his chest, making him wheeze.

Opening his eyes, he took one final look around before he turned to the brush and trees, and started walking. Ignoring the sheering pain shooting from his shoulders arm and into his back, he trudged through the woods. The sun sunk below the horizon, and the dark and damp settled in, seeping through his light jacket and into his bones. The mist rolled in, clinging to his hair and skin. Soon the mist turned to rain as his breath condensed in the air in front of him. He blinked heavily to keep his vision from blurring. Bucky? That voice hit him so hard, he stopped and looked around. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. He heard it again. That face, his face swam in front of his eyes. "You're not here." He said out loud, willing the voice away, ignoring how his own voice shook. It wasn't the worst thing he could be hearing, he knew that. But he couldn't afford to lose his grip on reality, not right now, not when he was exposed and at the mercy of both Hydra and the elements.

He sucked in the damp air, coughing as it stung his lungs. His foot caught on a root, and he fell to the ground. Clawing at the damp, peaty earth, thick with decaying leaves, and mud, he staggered to his feet, every movement a labor. He continued through the woods, breathing heavy, head pounding, eyes blurring in and out of focus. Coming to a white fence, he clambered over it and went to the barn. Glancing around, his gaze momentarily paused on the old decaying farmhouse before he slipped inside. He stopped. There were horses in the barn. It wasn't abandoned. Pain shot from his left shoulder, through his body, and into his spine. The whole barn spun, and he had to lean against the wall to keep from toppling over. Just a few hours of sleep, and he'd be out of here before the owner showed up. He staggered through the barn, the horses eyeing him nervously. Coming to an empty stall at the far end, he collapsed on the straw-covered floor, the barn ceiling spinning in an out of focus. He could hear them, he could hear of all them. The screaming and pleading of the soldier's victims and the sound of gunfire mixed with the memory of his own screams and the buzz and snap of electrodes. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears streaming down his face, his breathing ragged. Make it stop, please make it stop. He bit down on a wad of his jacket, trying to smother the urge to scream, fighting his body and the pain, waiting for the release the darkness would bring.

The darkness took him, but then all too soon, the world came swimming back into focus, and he jerked awake.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." A woman's voice proclaimed cheerfully, punctuating the silence before the barn doors slid open with a loud bang.

His eyes snapped open, temporarily blinded by the bright florescent lights overhead, he blinked, struggling to his feet. His whole body was tense as he looked for an escape route, heart pounding, eyes searching frantically for a way out that wouldn't involve him killing this person. The sound of boots on hardwood floors paused outside the stall, "Hello?" The unidentified woman called. His right hand went to the knife in his pocket, to find it wasn't there. Instead, both hands were clenched. "Hello?" She called again, there were a few hesitant steps. Run. Run, you idiot. He would've screamed. Run while you can still get away. She came into view outside the open stall door, her eyes scanning him only momentarily before she took a big step back and away. "Whoa. Hi there big guy, I'm not here to hurt you." She said, raising her hands up in front of her, surveying him with dark eyes.

What surprised him was that it wasn't fear that immediately crossed her expression, but concern. "Who are you?" He demanded, voice low and hoarse from disuse. He scanned her, evaluating for possible threats. She was: short, muscular, rigid posture with a calculating expression. Possible Soldier. He decided. However, perhaps most importantly, she appeared to be unarmed. Threat level: moderate to minimal; ally: unknown; final evaluation: not a target, take no further action. His training told him, his head pounded.

"I have to ask for your safety and mine are you armed or currently on drugs of any kind?" The woman asked carefully.

Like it would matter? You don't know who you're dealing with, woman. However, she wasn't scared, she was asking a matter of factly, taking stock of him and his threat level the same way he had done with her. "No." He shook his head before a sheering pain nearly sent him to his knees. Barely stifling a scream, he staggered forward, catching himself on the side of the stall before he could tumble all the way to the floor. He blinked, as the barn floor twisted and warped.

The woman took a halting step toward him but stopped at the sound of gravel crunching under tires outside. He looked up at the woman, gauging her response. She glanced between the door and him. "Stay here," She said in gently but firm voice before walking from the barn. "Suzanne!" The woman greeted the driver in a cheerful chirp.

"Ramirez!" Suzanne replied before the rest of their conversation was obscured by distance.

There was another stab of pain, and he collapsed in the hay. He lay there a moment breathing ragged, chest heaving, eyes clenched shut as he waited for the pain to pass. He curled up, a small as possible, and gripped his skull with his right hand covering most of his face and head with his hand and arm. The left hand and arm lay limp. He tried to focus, tried to focus on anything that might take his mind off the pain. He focused on the voices outside the barn. The two women were talking, about a horse Suzanne had rescued, and that the woman, whom Suzanne had called Ramirez, was apparently rehabilitating. Their tone was relaxed. Had the woman alerted Suzanne to his presence? It didn't appear so. At the moment, they didn't pose a threat to turned to his surroundings trying to evaluate where he was and what he could do if he needed to make a quick exit. Location: Barn; Occupants:9 Horses; Exits: Two doors and two loft windows, one door was shut possibly locked, the other led to the pasture outside. Location: defensible; personnel: civilians. No immediate threat. Stand down.

He focused then on his breathing. The pain wasn't flaring anymore and had receded momentarily to a more manageable level. His head was still spinning, but he didn't feel like he was going to vomit. However, there was a persistent and nagging itching sensation at the seam between the metal plate and his skin. He wanted to scratch, he wanted to scratch and scratch until the thing was out. His brain was telling him to run. They're going to find me, they always find me. I have to keep moving, I have to go further north. I can't let them get me again, I can't let them make me kill people anymore. I can't let them make me forget. He'd managed to shake his tail after he'd made it into New York City, but who knew how far behind him they were. In New York City there had been too many people, it was too crowded, too noisy. Too much static when his mind was already fuzzy. He couldn't risk accidentally hurting someone, or at the rate, he was going, risk becoming incapacitated in the street for a stranger to find. No, so instead, you stumble into a stranger's barn and pass out there. There was no helping that now. His location was secure for the moment, and the woman, Ramirez, hadn't seemed in a hurry to let anyone know that he was there. Is she Hydra? The thought persisted. If she was, she certainly didn't fit the model of Aryan perfection that they usually employed. She looked like a Latino type, maybe Mexican or Mexican-American. He couldn't be entirely sure, but she wasn't white.

The truck drove away, and he started to sit up, his muscles screaming, his head throbbing with every movement, so he collapsed back into the straw. He squeezed his eyes shut and trained his ears, listening for footsteps. She was calling the cops, there was no other explanation. He tried to sit up. I have to keep moving, I can't stay here. His stomach rolled, how long had it been since he'd eaten? A day? Maybe two? It didn't matter. Whatever he ate, he'd just throw it back up again. He managed a sitting position, his head screaming, pain shooting up his neck and shoulders, and into his spine. He was struggling into a standing position when he heard the footsteps again. The footfalls faltered a moment, and the woman appeared at the stall door.

"Hey." She began slowly. "I've brought you some water. When was the last time you had something to eat?"

He kept his eyes directed on the barn floor, trying to will it to stop spinning. "I don't know." He muttered, shaking his head slightly. The words came out at no more than a rasp.

The woman, Ramirez, nodded, "I know I already asked you this, but are you sure you're not on anything?"

He squeezed his eyes shut, doing his best to think through the ringing in his ears and the pounding in his head. Hydra had pumped him full of stuff, he just didn't know what, and he wasn't in any position to speculate at the moment. "I...I don't...know," He managed.

"Okay." The woman answered. "I'm going to grab some broth for you. Try and drink some water if you can." She said, slowly entered the stall and set the water bottle down only a few feet from him.. "I wouldn't try moving too much." She cautiously backed from the stall.

He watched her disappear from his line of sight and then listened as her footfalls faded from earshot. He glanced down at the bottle of water she'd placed beside him. It was plastic, disposable, with the original seal intact. He staggered the few steps toward it and sunk down on his knees beside the water bottle. He grabbed it and inspected it carefully before opening the bottle and raising it to his chapped lips.

His mouth and throat were dry even as his stomach rolled, making the back of his throat string. He took a few small sips, just barely wetting the inside of his mouth. He paused as the lukewarm fluid settled in his stomach before he took a few more sips, expending nearly every ounce of self-control not to chug the water down. He knew what would happen if he did.

The longer you stay here, the closer Hydra gets to your location. His whole body throbbed. He could barely stand, never mind continue his trajectory northward in his present condition. He took another few sips of water, trying to ignore how his hand was shaking. He couldn't move very fast or very far, he'd have to shelter in place. He paused at the sound of approaching footsteps. The woman would complicate things, but at the moment, what choice did he have?

"Hey." She announced her presence, and he looked up at her. She was holding a green metal thermos. "It's the broth from green chili stew, it's really hot at the moment, I would give it some time to cool down." She set the thermos down at the stall doorway. "I'm going to be in and out of the barn today, but it's only me, so no one will bother you in here." She explained.

He nodded but said nothing. The woman nodded in reply, again giving him a once over, her expression gave nothing away. "Stall door open or closed?" She asked.

"Open."

"Sounds good." She nodded again. "Let me know if and or when you want some more broth or when your stomach can handle solids."

She walked away without waiting for a response and turned on the radio. Music in Spanish seeped from the speakers not quite loud enough to drown out her footsteps or voice but enough to fill the otherwise silence of the barn. He crawled forward, peering out into the aisle found the woman leading the horses outside two by two. Grabbing the thermos, he returned to the back corner where the water and his backpack was located. She walked in and out a few times before she started cleaning the stalls. He watched the doorway, propped up in the furthest corner, sipping water and listening to the gurgle of his stomach. Could he trust her? Well. He didn't exactly have a choice at the moment now, did he? He couldn't help but wonder about her motivations and reasoning behind this apparent altruism. 'It's only me,' She'd said, or had she meant just me? He didn't know.

He unscrewed the lid of the thermos and sniffed it cautiously before taking a small sip, a complicated array of flavors assaulted his tastebuds, it was more than just the water, stock, and salt he'd expected. Green Chili Stew is what the woman had said. He took another sip, not surprised this time by the array of flavors he focused on what his body was doing. He was still nauseous, and everything was still spinning, but his stomach wasn't constricting or twisting, or any of the other telltale signs that he was going to throw up. He took another drink of water and then another sip of broth gauging how his stomach was handling the intake of fluid. He finished the water and broth at about the same time. While his stomach was rolling, he didn't feel like he was going to throw it up. Instead, much to his surprise, he didn't feel hungry, he felt full for probably the first time in a long time. He shuffled over to the stall door and placed both the water bottle and thermos just outside the door, before crawling back to his corner. Back to the wall, he settled down in the straw facing the doorway. He blinked as his eyelids grew heavy, his whole body on high alert even as he fought against the oncoming sleep. He had to remain vigilant even in his sleep. He also didn't know what sleep would bring. Nightmares and horrors, voices, and visions of the atrocities he'd taken part in and been victim to.

Was all of this just another one of Hydra's tricks? Would he wake up back inside one of their compounds strapped to a chair? Was all of this just in his head? No, everything hurt too much, even for Hydra. If they were implanting something in his brain to pacify him, they were doing a piss poor job.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, clinging to the sounds of the barn and the gentle hum of the music playing in the background. He moved only a few times to retrieve water and broth the woman had supplied before crawling back to his spot. Time passed. It must have he just wasn't entirely sure how much. He could identify the woman's footsteps coming and out of the barn. Other voices were far off in the distance, and he couldn't quite make them out, though they never approached the barn. The woman's voice cut in and out of the general static. Laughing or chatting loudly, nothing urgent, just idle chatter mostly. He eventually found himself lying on his back, staring up at the barn ceiling. It wasn't spinning quite so much, and the pounding in his skull had eased.

Every muscle in his body still ached, but not as bad as before, though he knew if he moved too much too suddenly, the left shoulder would flare up again. He pulled off his right glove with his teeth and brought his right hand to his shoulder. He could feel the seam of metal and flesh and feel the grinding of metal on metal from the arm in his spine. He squeezed his eyes shut, he could hear them screaming again, all of them at once. He took several deep breaths trying to stymie the pounding behind his eyes.

His eyes shot open at the sound of crunching gravel coming up the drive near the barn. "Hey, Jack." The woman's voice rang out at the truck door opened and then slammed shut. Her voice was audibly tense.

He frowned, pushing himself up into a sitting position, training his ears on the conversation just outside.

"Mrs. Underdalh." A man's voice answered.

"You know I never took my husband's name Roberts, do you have my month's supply of hay?" The woman replied flatly.

"Calm down there, Ramirez," Roberts laughed. "I got your hay."

Something about that man's voice put him on edge. It obviously put the woman on edge too. He slowly pulled himself into a standing position, listening to the muffled exchanges and shifting noises. Then their voices shifted back out to where the man had gotten out of his vehicle, and he could actually make out what was being said.

"You know I would take this place off your hands. You don't need all this responsibility and worry little lady, especially when you're still so young." The man she'd identified as Roberts commented the condescension thick in his tone.

He limped from the stall. His right hand grabbing the stalls to steady himself.

"I've told you before, Roberts. I'm not selling." So this was a conversation they'd had before. No wonder the woman, Ramirez, was irritated.

"You would if you knew what's good for you." Again the condescension was thick in Robert's voice.

"I don't have time to talk about my business, you know the way out." He heard her boots crunch in the gravel as she turned on her heels, but she was stopped.

"I don't give a shit what you have the time for." Roberts snarled.

"Let go of me, Jack." It wasn't fear in her voice, it was fury.

He moved faster, his feet driven by an unknown force, even as he internally screamed. Keep a low profile, don't draw any attention to yourself.

"Or what?"

"Or I'll break your fucking hand before I break your face." The woman practically growled.

"Oh, you think you're funny," He spat, "Fucking wetback I'll—" The man identified as Jack Roberts stopped when he saw him step into the barn doorway.

"Is there a problem here?" It was the only thing he could think of to say, his voice low and gruff from disuse. He surveyed the scene in front of him. The man Ramirez had called Jack Roberts had a hold of her arm, his knuckles white from how tight he was gripping her elbow. He was a short, stout white man in his fifties, wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. He was, however, unarmed. Threat level: minimal. He decided, even if the man was an asshole.

Roberts, doing an evaluation of his own, immediately released the woman's arm as a wave of fear passed over his expression. "No. No problem." He backed away, not brave enough to turn his back on him, Roberts all but ran to his truck. Both he and Ramirez watched as Roberts clambered inside, fumbled with the keys, and turned over the engine before he hauled ass down the gravel road.

They watched Jack Roberts disappear down the drive before the woman turned to him, facing him squarely. Her chest heaved, her hands slowly releasing from fists as she surveyed him with her dark eyes. Was she trying to decide if he was a threat? Had she recognized him? Whatever her evaluation, she reached her conclusion, she nodded only once before walking around the side of the barn and out if his line of sight.

He turned, cringing as he did, the pain making dark spots dance before his eyes. He walked, practically staggering back to the stall, closed the door, and collapsed in the straw. Curling up in the furthest back corner, facing the door, he listened, wondering if she was going to come back. From the sound of music playing in the distance, he figured not.

The stall door blurred in and out of focus, as he struggled to keep his vision from spinning. He squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling a shaky breath. He shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have intervened. It wasn't any of my business. He reasoned to himself. It had also compromised his location and possibly alerted Hydra to where he was hiding out. It wasn't safe. I should keep moving. It was one thing to have the woman know he was here. She was harmless and completely alone, he'd have at least a day's head start if he needed to- NO! He stopped himself from even thinking it. No. Absolutely not. I won't. Not a civilian.

He shivered, chills raising goosebumps on his sweat beaded skin. He fought to think through the shooting pain at his temples. Why stop Roberts? Why interfere? He wouldn't have actually hurt her, would he? He didn't know. What he did know was that his actions had defied Hydra programming, self-preservation, and logic. This wasn't about logic, though, there was something entirely irrational about the whole situation. He could see the look of anger in her eyes, her jaw set in determination, prepared to take whatever was headed her way. The expression was familiar, and he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd seen that expression somewhere before.

Steven Rogers. He couldn't help but think of the blonde man from the hellicarrier standing resolutely before him, unarmed, and unwilling to defend himself. Even still, that wasn't the same expression that had been on the woman's face. No. That was an expression Bucky Barnes had seen a thousand times over on the face of his 95-pound asthmatic friend, Steve. On the Hellicarrier, Steve Rogers had called him Bucky, James Buchanan Barnes. God, how he wanted it to be true. He wanted it to be true with every fiber of his being, wanted to have a name, an identity, a past beyond the torture and pain and violence of the last seventy years.

The memories of the blood and the pain and the torture and the mutilation and the murder told a different story. It said, 'No. You are not worthy of him. You not even worthy of being human. End it all. End it all now, and you'll spare the world and spare Him so much pain.' He wanted to hold on to the hope that maybe he was Bucky Barnes, that maybe he was worthy of the human race. Was that why he'd intervened? He knew on an intellectual level; it was the right thing to do. He knew right and wrong, but the will and ability to act upon it was another thing. Just because it was the right thing to do hadn't made him act upon it. There were a thousand reasons not to. Maybe he'd done it for her, although he had no idea why he'd do something so stupid.

Another chill ran up his spine and made his whole body shake. The question would have to wait for another day. He couldn't parse through it right now. Right now, he needed to focus on regaining his strength and shaking whatever the hell it was Hydra had pumped into him.


A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Comments are always welcome!