THIS CHAPTER GOT AWAY FROM ME IT'S A BIT LONG MY BAD.

Also, you should go read the oneshot I posted today. It's not canon with my story, but it's amazing. My friend Ryan wrote it and I demanded he post it, but he gave me permission to post it instead. IT'S ABOUT BUCKY AND FEELS AND GO GO GO.

As always, review and let me know thoughts, concerns, questions, predictions, etc.

EDIT: Thank you to SarcasticEnigma, whom let me know I'd made an error about schizophrenia vs dissociative identity disorder. I have corrected it in this chapter for future readers.

Chapter 10

Bucky fought the men holding him down to the chair. They grunted, speaking to one another in presumably German. A third soldier was at his thrashing legs, tying them down. It was his last chance to get away. Once he was tied down, Bucky knew that was it—he was a dead man.

With his legs secured, the soldier moved to his wrists, getting one attached easily. Bucky tried to resist, to scream, to break out of the bindings, but it was no use.

"It is useless," a heavily accented voice said to him. "You are going nowhere for the moment, and no one is coming for you."

"You don't know that," he spat at the short, fat man, even though Bucky knew full well that there was no rescue coming. Not here. The risks were too high to rescue them.

"You are a stubborn one," the man grinned, brandishing a needle. "I have high hopes for you, Sergeant Barnes,"

"What the hell is that?" he demanded as the needle neared his arm.

"Just a mild anesthetic before we give you the serum," he explained as he pushed the needle into Bucky's arm.

"What are you doing?" Bucky all but shouted at him as he began to walk to the other side of the room.

"Nothing you need to worry about right now." The man turned to one of the soldiers that had helped strap him in and spoke rapidly in another language.

"What the hell is going on, you bastard," Bucky panted, still pulling at the restraints.

"I will give you two injections now, and two more later," the fat man sneered, pushing one needle into his arm, passing the second needle to an aid that did the same thing to his other arm. Immediately a burning sensation made its way up his arms and to his chest. He felt his fingers go numb and his breathing turned erratic, fear pumping adrenaline through him.

"What the hell are you doing to me?" he shouted, convulsing, trying to escape the sudden mind-numbing pain overtaking his senses. His vision was fuzzy and he could no longer see the short, fat scientist or his Nazi friends.

Bucky felt a leather strap being shoved into his mouth. "We are going to wipe your mind clean. You are going to help us bring in a new era—a better future for the world."

"No," Bucky gasped around leather as a metal contraption was placed on his head.

Shortly after a German command, Bucky felt all of the muscles in his neck, shoulders, and back spasm. The pain was unbelievable—like nothing he'd ever felt. Thoughts bounced around his head and then out of reach. He couldn't think straight.

Where was he?

He couldn't remember.

A blond haired boy shot across his vision and he struggled to remember his name.

Steve?

Yes, Steve. Bucky clung to that thought. Steve. Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers was his best friend. Him. He was Bucky Barnes.

The pain shut off instantly, but he clung to the thought. The soldiers left the room, the scientist grinning and leaving himself.

"I'll be back soon."

James. "James Buchanan Barnes," he began to chant out loud, softly. "Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. 32557." That's who he was. He was a name, and a number in the army. "James Buchanan Barnes. 32557."

Bucky wasn't sure how long he lay there, muttering to himself, unable to think of anything else. His whole body ached and he couldn't find the energy to fight the restraints anymore. No one was coming for him.

He didn't notice the gunfire in the background, but he heard the scientist return, his frantic steps echoing down the hall and in the room. He was gathering things from the counter top and shoving it all into a bag.

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes—"

"We will meet again," the man muttered, pushing another needle into his arm. "And I will be able to complete my work then. You shall be a wonderful asset."

The man took off out the door, but Bucky continued his chant. "James Buchanan Barnes. 32557."

A new set of footprints echoed down the hall. This set was heavier—a larger person. They stepped into the room, but Bucky continued his chant, his thoughts becoming no more organized than they had been.

"Bucky," someone breathed between puffs of air. "Oh, my god…" Bucky felt his ankles fall free from the restraints.

He let his head fall to the side to try and see who was there, but his vision was still fuzzy—he could make out the outline and vague shadows of a soldier. "Whossat?" he slurred.

"It's me," the person replied quietly, releasing his wrists. "It's Steve."

"Steve," he smiled recognizing the name. "Steve." Steve Rogers.

"Yeah, c'mon." Steve pulled Bucky up and let him slide off the gurney. He held Bucky upright and let him catch his breath and get a bit of his bearings. "I thought you were dead."

Bucky looked him over, wondering what exactly that short, fat man had done to him. Did he alter his memories? Was this really Steve? "I thought you were smaller," he managed.

A loud snap and machine gunfire drew Steve's attention away from Bucky.

With an uneven gasp, the Soldier's eyes flew open and he pushed against the hard surface holding him up, nearly falling to the floor when the stool he'd been sitting on tipped and fell over.

Clara's head snapped up to the sudden noise. "You alright?" He stood stone still, looking around the room. "Do you know where you are?"

"Vaguely." He forced himself to relax and kneaded his temples. "A tower. In New York City. We had pizza." His fingers slid back and touched his hair. "And a haircut."

Clara smiled and turned back to her work. "Right. We're in Stark Tower. We went out shopping, got some lunch. We came back and you fell asleep."

The soldier nodded slowly. "Nothing happened."

"Nope," Clara confirmed. "Stark and Dr. Banner came in to collect a few of his notes, but otherwise I've been sitting here going through some notes. You can go back to your room and sleep, if you want."

"I can't."

Clara stopped working at glanced up at him. "Why not? You only got about an hour and a half of sleep here. You must still be tired." He didn't respond, only righted the stool against the wall and took his seat, leaning onto an empty metal lab table with his left arm. "Did you dream just now?"

"It wasn't a dream," he muttered after a moment. "At least I don't think it was. How do I know what's a dream and what's a memory?"

"That's hard to say. There are four stages of sleep. Dreams occur in the latter stages. During these stages, the limbic system is a bit active. Psychologists believe dreams are just the brain's way of trying to make sense of this activity," Clara explained, leaning against her desk casually, pen tapping the desk absently as she looked to the ceiling in thought. "As for whether or not a dream is a memory—you'd need a second person to confirm it. Care to talk about it?"

The Winter Soldier gazed at her tiredly. "Did you ever visit the exhibit in the Smithsonian?"

"No, I've never been there personally, but I know a bit of the information that's there."

"Captain America's first mission."

Clara raised a single eyebrow and leaned into her palm. "Saving the men of the 107th. That was in your file."

"I know how Bucky survived the fall." Clara's face smoothed out at those words, but she held her tongue until he was finished explaining. "Hydra was experimenting on him. Steve interrupted the procedure. They had tried the electroshock therapy but it hadn't taken hold yet, he still remembered Steve."

"So you remember being saved by Steve during the war," Clara clarified.

"I remember being tortured during the war," he corrected a bit aggressively.

"Okay," Clara nodded. "Do you feel like you are figuring out who 'you' are?"

His eyes danced around the room suddenly, that sad look he'd taken to filling his features. "I don't know."

"The thing that worries me is how you referred to the person in that memory as 'Bucky.' I want to caution you against labeling and defining these personalities. If you give each personality in your head a name, then they are essentially different people. I know it's a defense mechanism to pretend these are separate people."

"But they are," he argued.

Clara gave him a sad smile and walked over to him. "No, they are both you. They come from here," she murmured, pointing to his chest before moving it to his temple, "and here. You're still Bucky, but the Winter Soldier is still a part of you, too. What you did—while not your fault—still happened. You have to understand that and forgive yourself." She hopped up onto the table, but kept her eyes on him. "You have to move on and find a way to atone. But, while it's common to create another persona to help you cope with what happened, it's not healthy. That's called dissociative identity disorder and that's not a good thing to let happen."

"How can I do that?" he asked her. "How do I atone for two dozen murders?"

"Live and help people," she suggested easily. "Help more people than you've hurt."

"So that the good outweighs the bad." He tilted his head down to his lap and ran his flesh hand through his hair, gently tugging on the short ends. "How can I be Bucky if I don't know who he is?"

"A person changes constantly. We evolve over time and become new people every day," she pressed. "I'm not the same Clara I was ten years ago, or even the same Clara I was last week."

He took a deep breath and stood. "I think…I was a slightly bitter person during the war."

Clara smiled and watched him walk towards the table she had been working at, but kept her seat on the table. "Yeah?"

"While I was lying there, and the scientist was talking to me, telling me what an asset I'd be, I remember thinking the army wasn't coming." He found it slightly odd and out of place to think of Bucky as himself, but he found himself trusting Clara's advice even though he'd only known her a couple of days. He was getting to trusting, he decided.

"Why don't you keep a diary or a journal?" Clara suggested, sliding off the counter. She hesitated when he looked up at her. "My—my grandmother did. I read them when she passed away. They were really interesting. She wrote in one that it helped her sort her thoughts. One particular occasion she said it helped her begin to move on."

He didn't answer her right away, instead, he looked back to her work, flipping through the pages of psychological terms and phrases he couldn't decipher. "I thought all this was in Russian."

"It was. Stark came in while I was working on the other notes and he ran them through a computer. JARVIS translated them for me. Took about an hour. I've only just started going through them."

"What do they say?" He almost didn't want to ask, and her face turned grim when he did.

"Well," she sighed, leaning past him to grab her notebook. She flipped back a few pages and took a breath. "Basically, they tried out different levels of electroshock therapy before they found one strong enough to overpower the serum they gave you."

"What does the electroshock do?" he demanded. "How did a few hundred volts of electricity erase so many of my memories?"

"Try a few thousand volts," she corrected. "And they didn't erase them—the electricity just activated a defense mechanism in your brain that repressed the memories. It's a way for the brain to cope with the trauma. They're all still there, it's just that now the brain is having trouble accessing them." She looked back down at her notes. "Once they found the right voltage for that, it was all conditioning. You've got three parts of a personality-the conscious part was more or less wiped clean, the subconscious stuff was what was still going strong—your morals. They manipulated that. The unconscious is where they repressed the memories to."

"They fed me lies?" His eyes found hers. He was angry—rightfully.

"More like twisted truths. Probably told you your missions were for the greater good."

A more recent memory bubbled to the surface of his mind.

"The man on the bridge, who was he?" he had asked.

"You met him earlier this week on another assignment." The man—Pierce, he knew now—had sat down on a stool in front of him so that they were eye level.

The Winter Soldier had glanced back at his superior. "I knew him."

"Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century. And I need you to do it one more time," Pierce explained. "Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning we're giving it a push. But you don't do your part—I can't do mine. And Hydra can't give the world the freedom it deserves."

He wanted to give the world freedom, just like he was being asked. "But I knew him." And he wanted to know why.

He blinked and looked at Clara. "They told me I was helping."

"And you probably believed it wholeheartedly. Which is why it's not your fault."

"I was brainwashed?" he demanded, flipping through the Russian papers. "Does it say who dealt with it?"

She placed a hand on top of the papers to keep him from frantically searching for names. "It's not brainwashing in the science fictional sense. There's more psychology to it. But you can call it that."

"Does it say who did this to me?" he demanded, voice low and dangerous.

Her face smoothed out again to an expressionless poker face and her head cocked slightly. "First off, you will not be speaking to me like that if you want answers from me," she told him. "I don't demand respect, but I'm here to help you." Her voice softened suddenly. "Secondly, no. There are no names in any of those papers as far as I can tell."

He looked down at her and realized how close they were. "Sorry," he muttered, pulling back away from her work.

"It's alright. I'm not under the illusions you're not moody," she chuckled, searching through her papers for a second notebook. "Women have changed since the 40s. Anyways, here." She pulled a few pages out of the notebook, and stuck a pen in the spine. "Use this as your journal for now."

He took it from her gently. "Thanks."

"Go get some sleep. It'll help with the mood swings and your memory. Sleep heals."

He silently walked to the door and heard her getting back to her work. "Thank you, Clara."

"Oh, yeah," she called to him when he reached the door. "Figure out what you want to be called. No rush, just, we need something to call you."

He didn't respond. He just left the room quickly, making his way to his room. Needing to be alone was his top priority. He hadn't meant to lose control, but he had, and his whole being was filled with regret. A feeling he hadn't experienced in a long time.

He welcomed the feeling.