Disclaimer: I'm sorry, but unless the way the world works shifted about three seconds ago, I don't own either Harry Potter or the Avengers. Neither does Sophus. Anyway, I'm sure that if anyone had the power to change the world that drastically, they would use it for much different things than giving me the rights to things.
AN (Caela): So, this story is my response to the realization that I had a major plot hole in my story "On the Matter of Parentage." I fixed the plot hole, and in the process, I expanded on the background of the story.
The switching between "him" and "it" in the first section does not mean that I think of Bucky as an "it" in any way, shape, or form. I only did that to represent Bucky's fluctuating state of mind in the story.
Also, I was so happy that I finished this that I am giving it to you without being betad. Don't worry, I do plan to get Sophus to look over it, but any mistakes until then are entirely my fault. I hope this gives you some context!
Sophus has now betad this, thankfully.
The Soldier had a new mission.
Kill the owner and inhabitants of Number Twelve Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey. Make it look like anything but an assassination. No witnesses.
There was one problem, however. The accents of the people he listened to triggered a strange memory, and he got a feeling that he needed to listen to someone . . .
No. The Soldier had no memories aside from those it was allowed to keep. The Soldier was not supposed to accept any new missions before it had completed the one it was on right now.
The Soldier was walking down the street when it saw something that seemed out of place. On the front step of Number Four was a small child. He walked towards the child, feeling an inexplicable urge to go somewhere safe with the younger being.
When he picked the child up, he saw a letter with the child that he unfolded.
He didn't understand most of what the letter said, but he understood enough to know that the child was an orphan. The child also had a name - Harry James Potter.
The soldier stood up with the Harry in his arms and started to leave the neighborhood when an old man in robes that looked like they had been designed by a group of preschoolers on a sugar high appeared.
"I'm sorry, but I cannot allow you to remember this. Harry must stay with his Aunt, and muggles cannot be allowed to learn about magic."
The old man pointed a stick at him and said, "Obliviate!"
Albus Dumbledore was proficient in many types of magic. The fields which he was proficient in included Occlumency and Legilimency. It was not a very well known fact that masters of the mind arts had a very different relationship with Obliviation, but it was this which changed the course of Bucky's life.
As Albus Dumbledore ventured into the man's head, he felt something foreign in his mind. It felt like residue from mental attacks mixed with scars typically left by an inexperienced practitioner of Obliviation.
There was so much mental scarring that the man's mind would not be able to take much more without being permanently damaged. But, as Dumbledore was within the man's mind, he could feel the scars beginning to heal. The only way that he would be able to stop the man from recovering this memory was if he was able to hide the resulting scar - but he would never be able to do that with the man's mindscape as badly damaged as it was.
Dumbledore began the long and tedious process that was healing mental injuries.
Bucky Barnes was sitting in a small pub in Little Whinging. He felt more clear-headed than he had for a very long time.
He remembered everything about who he was before HYDRA. He remembered Steve and his team. He remembered Peggy Carter and just how dangerous she was.
He had a good reason to feel like he needed to pay close attention to what anybody with a British accent said. Peggy could be terrifying. And she was worse than terrifying if you got her mad.
Bucky could also remember every ounce of training, torture, and brainwashing that HYDRA put him through. He could remember every single mission he had been on and the face of every person he had killed.
He remembered killing Howard Stark.
Bucky wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do, but he knew that he needed to leave Surrey before HYDRA found him. He would put every second of his training to good use . . . And if HYDRA lost a few of their top operatives along the way, then it was too bad for them.
A few years later, Bucky was in a coffee shop in Florida when he saw footage of Captain America in New York.
He knew it was probably a hoax, that he would most likely be disappointed, but he travelled to New York anyway. If there was even the slightest chance that Steve was alive, he had to try to meet with him.
He owed it to the boy who was his best friend all those years ago.
Bucky wasn't disappointed this time. When the Chitauri attacked, he ran in the opposite direction of the crowd to where he could see his best friend fighting.
"You're alive! I thought you were dead!" He said to Steve.
Steve replied with, "I thought the same thing about you," before they had to get back to the battle.
Afterwards they exchanged stories of being frozen, of HYDRA and SHIELD before they were found by the rest of the team.
Up in the ruins of Stark Tower, Steve introduced him to Tony Stark. Bucky told him that he needed to talk to Tony alone.
In what remained of a lab, the story of Howard and Maria Stark's deaths came spilling out of him. Bucky had never told another being about any of his kills. HYDRA agents didn't count.
It was strangely therapeutic.
When Tony punched him, that was strangely therapeutic too.
Bucky returned to Steve with several new bruises and the beginnings of a good relationship with Tony. It turned out that after Tony got all of his anger out, he was surprisingly rational about who was to blame for the deaths of his parents.
Later he would confide to Bucky what he never would feel comfortable telling Steve, who had been so close to his father. He admitted that he was mourning more for the father he wished Howard had been than the father Howard was. When Howard hadn't been working on Stark Industries, he was trying to find Captain America - and where Howard went, Maria followed. He had never been close to his parents - had never really known either of them.
Bucky and Tony spent many long nights with Director Fury and Agent Coulson hacking into HYDRA files and cleaning HYDRA agents out of SHIELD.
After one of those late nights, Bucky saw Tony's wince when Steve brought up Howard's late nights in the lab. If Tony thought it was strange that Steve brought up Howard a lot less after a long conversation with Bucky, he never said a word.
Though he did seem to trust Bucky more after that conversation.
When Bucky met a young boy with black hair and green eyes, he seemed strangely familiar. At first Bucky thought that he was just being reminded of Loki, but he quickly dismissed that option. He felt too protective of the boy for that to be the truth.
Besides, if it was just that the boy resembled Loki, the name Harry Potter wouldn't sound so familiar.
Bucky didn't know much about the boy. He didn't even know why he felt the way he did about the child. But Bucky did know one thing - he was going to protect Harry to the best of his ability.