So yeah sorry for the lack of updates. Been a very hectic few weeks. I was in artist alley at Animazement, then I quit my job (which I'm still dealing with the fallout) and I go to a year-round college so I've got 3 weeks left of classes and I'm working on exams now and a whole bunch of drama with these eighteen year olds that I am too old for…

REAVIEW WITH COMMENTS QUESTIONS CONCERNS OR IF YOU JUST WANNA TALK because I love all my readers.

Chapter 15

The two sat quietly in the room, no sounds but gentle breathing and the soft ticking of the clock on the wall. He had told Steve practically everything he remembered—Connie, them—but he left out the few sporadic fragments of memories—visions of snow and cold, of blood and pain.

"Why did you want to see me?" Steve asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"A friend is someone you have a mutual bond with," he said. "I'd like to think we've bonded a bit."

"What?" Steve looked up from his lap towards the man on the floor.

"That's what I said to you the first time we met. I pulled those thugs off you." He hesitated, jaw working to voice his next thoughts. "I trusted you. Then, as a six year old, and even in the war, I trusted you. And something in me wants to trust you now."

"Buck—"

"I want to know if all of these memories are mine—not Hydra's—not stories. That they're real and they are mine." His set a determined, hard gaze on the man who called himself his friend.

"Bucky," Steve breathed. "Everything you've told me—all of the stuff I was there for, I remember that."

He blinked and looked away, nodding slowly. "Thanks, Steve."

"I wish I had saved you on that train."

"Then I would be dead right now. You wish I was dead?"

"No. I wish you had gotten to live the rest of your life."

"I've killed people."

"So have I," Steve snapped right back. "Neither of us are saints, Buck. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. You were just fighting for a cause you never would have believed in on your own."

"From what I remember…" he started, but shook his head and slumped back into the wall.

"What?" Steve prodded, knowing he shouldn't push, but curiosity getting the best of him.

"From the things I remember…It was like—I was always protecting you, you know? And then suddenly…suddenly you didn't need me anymore. You came in and single-handedly saved us all. You didn't need me to save you anymore." Steve opened his mouth to continue, but the soldier hopped to his feet and began to pace in front of him. "My memories as the Winter Soldier—as Hydra's assassin—there's a lot of them that I remember. I started remembering those before I even left Hydra.

"Every time I went to pull the trigger, to finish the job, I would hear a voice in my head telling me no. I always ignored it. Then one day—I heard that same voice yelling to me from across a bridge. It called me Bucky." He stopped pacing and looked up at Steve. "Hydra could shock my memories into repression as much as they wanted, but some things were just too stubborn to stay down."

Steve grinned. "That's me. That little guy from Brooklyn that was too stupid not to run away from a fight." His smile faltered when his friend didn't react to his own words, reminding him that, as Bucky-like as this man was right now, he was not yet Bucky.

"Captain Rogers, Mr. Stark would like to inform you that everything is prepped and waiting for you and Sergeant Barnes on basement level five." The AI's voice echoed in the small bland room and Steve stood.

"Thanks, JARVIS."

"Do you ever get used to that?" he muttered to Steve as they left the room.

Steve laughed. "Takes a while, but almost."

XXX

The doctor Tony found was a tall, older man with thick black and gray peppered hair. He was wearing a designer suit and if Clara didn't know any better, she would have thought he was a CEO from another company coming to talk to Tony.

But the white gloves on his hands were a tiny tip off.

"So, Stark admits he found you through the SHIELD files that were leaked online," Clara began conversationally as the doctor removed his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair.

"You're British. Not Ms. Potts, then?" he asked quietly.

"No, Pepper apparently has the day off."

"Anyways—I've known for some time now that SHIELD has been watching me. They're not always as slick as they like to think they are."

Clara smirked at that. "I'd say they're beginning to realize that."

He threw a small smile in her direction as he rolled up his sleeves. "But since I wasn't doing anything wrong or illegal, I figured there was no reason they'd come after me, so I let them go on with their games."

"Well that's good," she said. "Because thanks to them we were able to find you."

"Yes. Tony sent me some of the scans Dr. Banner took. Should be easy to remove the tech without having to intrude too much." He pulled a few tools out of his bag and piled them on a metal table Tony had wheeled in. "Should be a no brainer."

"Cute," Clara rolled her eyes.

"Found them in the elevator," a voice announced. Tony led the two super soldiers into the small, concrete room. Clara watched the solder's metal fingers twitch, his eyes darting around the room. She could sense the copious amounts of unease rolling off him. Though, he was calm, and she smiled inside at that. Their talk must have gone better.

"Steve Rogers." He held out his hand to shake the doctor's.

"Dr. Stephen Strange."

"Dr. Strange is one of the best neurosurgeons out there," Tony praised.

Dr. Strange smiled at his patient, who was silently studying him and the room, and held out his right hand. Clara bit her lip and watched the internal struggle play out on his face before he lifted his own right hand up. Without missing a beat, the doctor switched hands. "Tony has told me all about what's going on and I should have this little problem fixed in no time. We are going to need to sedate you, though—Dr. Maitland told me about the last time—"

"It's fine," he interjected. "Not sure how much you'll need, though—whatever Hydra did to me, my body burns through it."

"It was in your file—the amount they used to sedate you on bad days," Clara murmured to him. "I just wanted to ask you about it because—"

"It's fine," he repeated.

Tony clapped his hands together and grinned. "Alright. Let's get this show on the road. It's date night and I can't skip again. I'm gonna go find Banner. Prep away. Let JARVIS know if you need anything."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark," Dr. Strange muttered, continuing to prepare his station. He turned to his patient and motioned towards the gurney off to their left. "If you could remove your shirt and hop up, we'll get an IV ready."

Clara followed him to the gurney and took his shirt from him when he offered it to her. Wordlessly she folded it and put it on the counter along the wall. He was scanning the room again. One door, no windows, and only the necessities in the room. His eyes finally landed on Steve, who was standing a few paces away, arms crossed over his chest.

"A little backwards, isn't it?" he commented as he hopped up onto the gurney and lay down. "I was always the one watching you in the hospitals."

Steve chuckled. "Yeah, well, you can't always be the support. I'm gonna go help Dr. Strange get everything he needs." He patted his friends arm before leaving, but his place was quickly replaced by Dr. Banner, wheeling a machine over to him.

"Ready?" He waited for a nod before he held up a needle and some medical tape. "This is the IV." With gentle fingers, he flipped over the flesh arm and swabbed the back of his hand before slipping the needle in like a pro.

Clara's fingers ghosted over his metal ones when he let out a small breath as the needle went in. Just because he had taken so much damage over the years didn't mean he'd become immune to pain, she reminded herself.

"We're trying to do this as quickly as we can without jeopardizing your safety since this kind of procedure is kind of illegal." He messed with the IV stand, pressing a few buttons and adjusting the hanging bag. A new needle appeared in his hand and he pushed it into the IV line. "This is the sedative. You'll feel sleepy, but it won't knock you out entirely. I'll give that a few minutes and then give you the final dose." Banner pulled an oxygen mask over his face before checking the IV one last time, then joining Dr. Strange on the other side of the room.

Clara stepped closer to his bed, fingers still brushing over his metal ones. "Feeling it yet?"

"A little…" he breathed.

"It'll be over before you know it. Then you won't have to worry about Hydra."

"I'll still worry about them…"

"Yeah," she relented. "But not as much. And Steve will always help you out."

"You're going back to DC." His face had begun to soften, the worry lines on his forehead smoothing out, eyebrows no longer constantly furrowed.

She pursed her lips. "You'll be fine without me. I'll talk to Steve and see if we can't find you someone better suited for you. Steve's apparently got a friend named Sam that runs a center for war vets."

He let out a small, unfocused laugh. "The bird-man? I clipped his wings."

Clara smiled. "Yeah, just make sure to apologize for that."

"He was shooting at me."

"Well, apologize for breaking his toy and I'm sure he'll apologize, too."

"I'll try it—because you told me to," he breathed. "I trust you."

Clara blinked at his admission, but his eyes had closed. She knew he wasn't asleep, though, and he definitely wasn't in his right mind. "I know," she sighed. "And I promise I'll still be here when you wake up."

"Tape something to the ceiling to remind me I'm not at Hydra when I wake up," he requested, pointing vaguely to the ceiling with the hand he was still clutching her fingers with.

Clara laughed but nodded. "Sure. I'll think of something."

"Alright, this dose is gonna knock you out completely," Banner muttered when he returned with another syringe.

"Dr. Banner and I will be here the whole time and Dr. Strange seems like he knows what he's doing," Clara murmured. "You…..you'll be fine." His eyes closed once the medication was in and Banner was walking away again.

"Clara." He reached up with his flesh hand to pull the mask away from his face, but she caught his hand and pulled it away. "No. Clara."

"What? Leave that there." She swatted his hand away once more.

"My name," he whispered airily.

"Yeah?" His grip of her hand tightened a little, not enough to hurt her, but it was firm.

"Call me….Bucky…" he managed before he was completely gone.

Clara smiled and looked up at Dr. Strange, who was adjusting a medical mask over his face.

"He out?" Tony asked and she nodded. "Well, let's get this party started then."

"I don't see how this is a party," Clara sighed, wheeling the gurney towards them with Banner's help.

"He's not gonna attack us in his sleep, is he?" Tony asked as they all gathered around.

"He's not a rabid animal—he's a trained weapon. He doesn't attack for the hell of it—it's planned and precise," Clara explained, a little bit peeved at the idea that he was that uncontrollable. "My belief is that Hydra did something to limit the effects of PTSD. There are a few instances in his file towards the beginning of his treatment where he attacked fellow Hydra members, but there was just a foot note claiming it had been handled."

"But as he regains parts of his memory, there's nothing stopping the PTSD symptoms from…happening," Steve argued.

"In any case, any objections to me disabling his arm during the procedure?" Tony muttered, pulling a small screwdriver from his pocket. When there were no objections, he got to work.