Bucky Barnes pulled his hat a little lower and cut down an alley in Belgrade. It was impossible to say how he knew or what tipped him off, but he sensed he was being followed. Maybe he'd seen something or instinct just felt the eyes on the back of his neck. Whatever it was though, it told him that someone was out there, watching him. And whoever it was, was very good. That fact alone filled him with foreboding. Steve wouldn't have been that subtle. This was Hydra training.

He just had to get to that seedy apartment he'd been renting for the past few weeks. Grab his stuff. He'd be out of Belgrade in thirty minutes. He entered by a backdoor and jogged up the steps. As soon as he entered the apartment though, he knew at once he shouldn't have come back. He should have abandoned what little he had and just run for it. He wasn't alone.

Of course, a man sitting patiently at the kitchen table, wasn't what he'd expected either. He'd expected soldiers with guns. Instead he got Clint Barton.

He recognized Barton at once, from the papers, from a fractured memory somewhere deep in his head that he couldn't quire sort out. It didn't matter. His eyes sought the backpack in the corner of the room. He shifted, ready for a fight.

Barton must have seen the shift in posture for he raised both hands. "I'm not here to hurt you. I just want to talk."

Bucky's hand went straight for the knife at his side and he threw it, Barton was out of his chair and rolling in a flash. Bucky launched himself across the room, grabbing his backpack.

"Barnes!" Barton was approaching him, hands up again, "please, listen-" Bucky kicked out, sending Barton sprawling back, he then dashed to the open window, and climbed out onto the sill, before pulling himself up to the roof.

Left alone, breath knocked out of him, Barton let out a groan.

"What's that?" asked the mildly amused voice of Brock in his earpiece.

"Fine," Clint muttered. "Plan B: we don't ask."

On the roof, Bucky ran, sprinting to the end of the roof and leaping to the neighboring one. Suddenly shots rang out, hitting the ground inches in front of him. He rolled to the side, shifting directions. He leapt across a gap onto another roof. More bullets.

As he shifted directions again, he realized he was being herded. Whoever was firing was trying to send him somewhere specific.

Which meant the only way to avoid the trap was to make for the shooter.

Ducking behind a chimney stack, he searched for the shooter's probable location. There was a building, a little higher than the others, not far.

There. That would be the right location.

He ran for it. Take out the shooter. Kill them. Leave.

It was Hydra. It had to be Hydra. He wouldn't, couldn't let them take back control. Whatever it took, he had to avoid the words.

He dashed across two roofs, and leapt to a fire escape, climbing the ladder quickly. As he reached the roof, he knew at once he'd been right. On the far side, a man stood, gun in hand. A man that his memory regularly recognized from his years in Hydra, but he had no time now to sort it out. But even as Bucky approached, the man didn't raise the weapon. Didn't fire again. Instead he tossed it aside and seemed to prepare to defend himself, raising his fists.

Something was wrong, something was off…there'd been no gun fire as he'd come towards this roof, and Hydra would surely have known to set more than one sniper to cover him…

They wanted you on this roof. This was really where they were leading you.

Inwardly, Bucky swore, the sense of a trap suddenly overwhelming.

He reached the man and lashed out, throwing a sharp, painful left hook. The man kicked, catching Bucky in the gut. Bucky in turn jabbed him in the ribs which sent his attacker precariously close to the edge of the roof.

Then suddenly there was woosh, and something hit him at an impossible speed, sending him staggering. He looked round. Feet away, a young man set a red haired girl down. There was another woosh as the man moved again, knocking Bucky back.

A third woosh, but this time he was prepared, his brain syncing the sound with an attack and he swung out, his fist colliding with someone, when suddenly, felt two hands on the back of his head, red sparks flashing before his eyes and the roof faded from his vision…

For one moment, he was floating in a void, empty darkness all around filled only with flashes of red. He couldn't feel himself, he couldn't feel anything.

And then there was…something, some force beyond him, searching looking…

Then in a blast of excruciating pain:

Longing.

He could feel the word ripping through him, out of him, pulled out by roots that were wrapped around every nerve and sinew of his body. He screamed.

The void was gone now. He was being shoved back in the chair. As the pain of the chair shot through him, he could feel the presence in his head, searching, looking…

Rusted.

The pain of the word, being torn from him, drowned out even the pain of the chair…

He was in the ice now, freezing, burning, struggling to retain his consciousness, as through the glass he saw one last brief glimpse of a bare room before he was put under for who knew how long, and the fear flashed through his brain that maybe this time was the time and they never woke him up again…

Furnace.

Agony, pain, worse than anything he had ever endured.

He was staring down at the target. The car, a mangled mess beside them, inside which was the dead body of the woman he'd just strangled. The target looked up, shock registering on his face, a name, both familiar and foreign slipping from his mouth... "Sergeant Barnes?"

And there was that presence. Poking, prodding, searching. And he knew now the pain that was about to come, so that he screamed a split second before it actually came, just as he felt the presence latch onto something in his head.

Daybreak.

His brain should be bleeding. He should be dead from this pain, he should be over, instead it felt unending, unavoidable. It was hell. It was damnation. It was eternity.

Blood was seeping from his stump. He could see his metal arm, over on the table, on the far side of the room. The scientists thought they could improve it, but why put him out for the operation? It wasn't necessary. A waste of anesthesia. He thought they enjoyed it. Yet his mind was screaming at the horror as much as at the pain.

And there was the presence again.

"No," he begged, no please, "I can't take anymore, I can't-"

"Shh. You can. It will be over soon, I promise," the presence responded. It was soft and gentle. voice An accent threaded its way around the words. "Trust me. Trust me."

Trust? A concept so far removed from his decades of pain and torture. There was no trust in Hydra. How could he trust?

"I know, I know…" The voice was so understanding, so kind…so sad.

Seventeen.

It was gone, ripped and shattered, shaking him to his core.

He was staring down the barrel of a sniper rifle. The child in his sights was no more than eight. The child was playing in a sandbox. There was something, deep and buried, that was screaming at him, but it was so distant, locked behind words and pain. Buried and forgotten. He couldn't listen to it, he could only listen to the orders…

The blood mingled with the sand, and splattered the victim's sister who'd been beside him. Screams from his nearby mother. A lesson taught by Hydra that the father would never forget.

Benign.

He was shaking, panting…

Doctor Zola standing over him. He was locked to a chair. The doctor was smiling, grinning even.

The presence poked and prodded, shifted…

Pain, pain in his arm and in his head, Zola laughing in the background, but none of the pain was as terrible as that which was about to come, for the presence had found yet again what it was seeking…

Nine.

He was in a cell, shaking, trembling from what his body had just gone through, what he knew it would continue to go through.

He was looking round, desperately, for a way, anyway, to end it, to take his own life. But they hadn't even had the decency to leave him his clothes to shove down his own throat and choke on because they knew he would take it. He'd come close once before…at least he thought he had…

He couldn't be sure anymore. He wasn't sure what was real or what was imaginary. He wasn't sure of his own name. Some days he had it and some days it slipped away, or had they been days? He had no way of knowing. Perhaps they'd been hours or perhaps they'd been months. The time, the name, it all slipped away, then back again, along with an image of a young, blonde man. What he had been called? Had he even been real? Why did he ache as the vision flitted in and out of his consciousness?

They were doing something to his head so that he couldn't be sure anymore. What were they doing? Why were they doing it? Who were they? He thought he'd known the answers to these questions once. He thought…he knew…the answers had horrified him. But he couldn't remember what the answers were. Wait…what were the questions again?

He raised his hands to bury his face in them and froze. He stared at horror at where his left arm should be. The horror only intensified by a voice in the back of his head that kept wondering: how many times before had he made the discovery that he was missing an arm? And how many times more would he forget it?

When he felt the presence in his head take hold of the next word, he almost welcomed the pain that he knew would take him away from this moment, the worst of the past…those horrifying weeks, or had it been months, when there had been just enough of himself left to know what was being pried away from him…

Homecoming.

The snow, cold, and freezing. Numbness. Pain in his left shoulder, someone coming through the snow towards him…

Steve?

But it hadn't been Steve.

And now he was being dragged away…

One.

He was hanging off the side of the train. Steve was yelling to him, coming closer…

"Grab my hand!"

Bucky was reaching out to him, when suddenly the railing shook, broke…

And just as he felt his body fall, the rush of the wind, the panic, the dread, the inevitability…

The final word shattered…

Freight Car.

But there was no pain this time.

The world went white then crystallized into Brooklyn. He was walking down the street, with Steve at his side. The two were laughing, joking about some movie they'd just stepped out of. He had both arms, both flesh and blood. His hair was cut, his face clean-shaven. The world around him was old, and right, and one he knew and understood, one that made sense, one that lacked madmen and superheroes…

Steve was grinning from ear to ear. A pretty girl, passing, glanced back to have a second look at Bucky, but Bucky didn't notice her. He was feeling on top of the world. He was feeling bright. He was feeling joy.

This was what joy felt like. He'd forgotten.

And then his memories were roaring through his head, or he was roaring through them. Not the memories of Hydra and the Winter Solider. The memories of Bucky and Brooklyn. Of his family and of Steve. His memories of the life he had had before. A life that had been too painful to dwell on before, even as his memories had slipped back through cracks in the walls that Hydra had built up.

He was reliving them, and something, that…presence…was blocking the future from his head, so that he could live them pure and gloriously. He could embrace them without pain and without dread of what the future had held for him.

And suddenly he was back on that street again. Only he was standing across the street. His left arm one of metal again. And he was watching his former self, walking with Steve.

He felt a wave of regret. The wave of the future coming crashing back down through the ages. There was the road between him and his past…but it could have been an ocean. He would never be that man again, he would never have that peace again. Or that pure, adulterated joy.

Suddenly his former self stopped, and turned…and he was looking directly at him.

Steve seemed to fade into the back, the sounds of Brooklyn with him…and now his former self was crossing the street.

Bucky took a step back, unaccountably terrified. But what was he scared of?

Yet, as the past him waited for a taxi to drive by before continuing on, he felt an urge to turn and run.

But there was a weight on his shoulder and the presence, urging him to hold, to wait, to see. Urging him to be brave.

And now the other him was standing right there, a foot away.

And that other him smiled. That cocky, confidant smile he himself had once worn, and he held out his hand.

Bucky stared down at it, and then up at the face beaming at him.

This was him. This man, who was on top of the world, who had everything to live for, and no idea of the unending nightmare that he was headed for…this was him. These memories were his. This was part of him. A part he thought was dead and gone…but it was still in here somewhere with him wasn't it? Because this was the part that had dived into the water and pulled Steve out. It was this cocky, confidant man.

And slowly, hesitantly, he took his own hand, and shook it…

Brooklyn disappeared. And he was back on the roof.

Only he knew, it wasn't really the roof. This was still inside his head. There were no sounds. No wind. It was empty save for himself and one other.

Bucky looked down. His arms were both flesh again, he was dressed in the 1930's suit he had been wearing that day in Brooklyn.

He looked up at the man before him.

The Winter Soldier. Dressed in the uniform Hydra had given him. The mask across his face. A gun in the metal arm.

This wasn't him. This was the Asset. This wasn't him! And once again Bucky wanted to run. He didn't want to look at this image. This wasn't him! He wanted to dive back into the memories of Brooklyn and Steve and burry himself there.

This wasn't him. This was a monster Hydra had created. This was something that had no part in past of Brooklyn and Steve. Or even in the War.

This wasn't him.

But then, all this was still inside his head as well, wasn't it?

The Winter Soldier wasn't moving. He wasn't coming closer. Bucky frowned and studied him. There was a strange expression in the Soldier's eyes. And then, with a start, Bucky realized the man was scared. He could see the terror in the Soldier's eyes. And he felt compassion.

For he remembered that terror.

This was him. Just as the Bucky of Brooklyn had been him. It was all him. It would always be him. Hydra had cut his identity from him, and since breaking free he'd been trying to do the same to himself, all over again.

But he couldn't cut this terrified, horrified man from himself. It was impossible. Just as Hydra had never truly, never completely, cut the Bucky of Brooklyn from the Soldier. And that was why the Soldier had pulled Steve out of the water.

The Soldier had been the one to survive all those years. The one who pulled Bucky along. And now Bucky would carry the Soldier. And together the two would make a whole.

He smiled, the confident, cocky smile, and he crossed the roof, slowly, gently, and held out a hand.

The Solider stared at it. But Bucky wasn't afraid that he wouldn't take it. He knew he would…for he knew him, for he was him…

Now the Soldier was reaching out. The two hands clasped. He could feel the presence echoing inside his head, relaxed and beaming…and then letting go. He was sorry to feel it go.

Red sparks converged around the edges of vision.

And then the world went black.