Bucky Barnes was utterly alone in the world.
He had no purpose. No reason for being.
And yet he carried on like the mindless soldier he had been trained to be for so long.
He wished he could have died when he fell off that train.
It would've been so easy and it would've been for his country. He could've died for his country.
Instead, every step he took felt like it was stolen from one of the many people he killed.
Those people. Those innocent, brave, intelligent people could have continued to walk the earth and contribute so much then he ever had.
But no.
He had to kill them. To rob the world the world of their brilliance.
Bucky took a shaky breath and glanced up at the unfamiliar streets that lied before him.
He watched the people of Brooklyn numbly.
This city was his home but it had changed so much since he was last there.
Hydra had robbed him of everything; his family, his friends, his innocence.
They had even managed to take away the familiarity of a place he had once called home.
He clutched his head, groaning roughly as the tainted memories swam across his poisonous mind.
"Soldier" the thick Russian accent chuckled. "We have your next mission."
He screamed at the man and the children playing in the streets backed away in terror. Their mothers clung to them just a bit tighter as the strange man with the metal arm hollered in dozens of languages, each impossible to make out through the gargled screams.
Natasha Romanov stared in awe at the black and white screen. She was surrounded by various computers and monitors in the room, each serving on purpose: hunting for James Buchanan Barnes.
Tony had implemented a communications room in the Avengers headquarters to hunt for the missing soldier the day after Sam Wilson showed up and complained for three hours about maxing out his credit card flying across the globe for Sergeant Barnes.
When Steve tried to go out and spend months hunting for him on his own, Tony offered an alternative solution.
He built the communications room and linked all the computers to police reports and newscastings searching for keywords that pertained to Bucky Barnes.
That had a couple false cases, resulting in some very awkward meetings on the streets of Beijing and Manchester, but as Natasha read the report on her screen, she genuinely believed they had found the missing soldier.
"Steve!" Nat bellowed. The Captain bolted through the hallways, carelessly running into a few disgruntled agents before he arrived in the communications room, wide- eyed and slightly out of breath. Natasha barely looked up at his arrival. "We got a call into the police. A woman said some homeless guy in her neighborhood with a metal arm was screaming in foreign languages. Scaring all the kids to death."
"It's him," Steve breathed. "We have to go after him."
Tony Stark sighed as he walked into the room, shaking his head slightly as his desperate friend. He had spotted the super soldier darting through the hallways and easily guessed what he was so excited about. Those days, the Cap didn't get worked up over much except finding Bucky. He followed Steve down into the communications room and smirked arrogantly when Nat confirmed what he had already known.
"Now, hold on there big guy. We can't just storm in there and grab your buddy off the street without any questions being asked," Tony reminded him. "Remember Beijing?"
Steve just shot him a firm glare, Tony could tell his mind was already made up and he rolled his eyes. "We have to get him, Tony."
"I know but we have to be smart about this. Send someone in who the general public wouldn't recognize in a split second and then have a forty five minute long news story about for the next two months."
"Not just one man though?" Natasha clarified. "You do remember that he nearly killed Steve and I in D.C right?"
"How could I forget? You two wouldn't stop gloating about the whole thing for the next six months," Tony moaned.
"You gloated?" Steve muttered, turning to frown at the Russian spy.
Natasha shrugged with a small smile. "I had to." After all they had taken down Hydra from within Shield after Tony failed to find anything about it in his scan of Shield's files.
"We can send a small team of agents in for the extraction. You know the ones who didn't turn Hydra at the drop of a hat," Tony offered.
"No, wait," Steve thought. "We can send Sam in and have Maria and Sharon drive him back. Sam has been looking for Bucky for months, and Maria and Sharon can handle him if things do go wrong. At least they can until backup arrives."
Tony nodded. "Well, are you gonna call bird-man or should I? Not like the tin man is gonna stay in the same place just waiting for someone to save him."
"I'll call Sam," Steve nodded and Tony left.
"What are we just leaving me out of this?!" Natasha exclaimed. "I am the one who found him," she reminded Steve.
"I know but he knows you. He'll remember you from D.C. I'm sorry, Nat, it's too risky."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and leaving him with bird boy isn't?" She muttered bitterly.
Steve sighed and picked up his phone to call Sam.
Sam's phone rang with a ringtone that cried out, "shots, shots, shots," and Kat choked on her drink when she heard it.
"Charming," she laughed.
"Oh, shut up," he rolled his eyes. "Hi, Steve."
Her jaw dropped. "Why, Mr. Sam Wilson you are something else!" She exclaimed. She got up and went to get a snack from Sam's kitchen while he continued to talk to Steve.
"What, you found him? You've gotta be kidding me, I spent months looking for this guy and he's here? Yeah, I'll help but- wait can I bring a friend of mine?"
"Ex!" Kat called.
"An ex-girlfriend of mine," Sam amended. "Yes, I know that sounds weird but she's a doctor. I mean her dad was in the army for a few years. Cool, thanks."
Kat sniffed some food in a container and dumped it in the trash. "You really need to clean out your fridge more," she mumbled before looking up at him. "What's going on?"
Sam tried to figure out a way to word what he planned to show her, but eventually gave up with a sigh and grabbed his coat. "Easier to show you."
"Okay..," she hesitated. "Is it gonna be something really weird that's going to make me ultimately regret leaving my bedroom this morning?"
He chuckled. "No," he thought for a moment. "Well, maybe. You always were a history fanatic though so probably not."
"We were both history fanatics, buddy. Remember your creepy obsession with Captain America?"
"Oh, so we're bringing that up twice in one day? Fantastic," Sam rolled his eyes. Sometimes he questioned why he remained friends with her.
Sam drove Kat to the location Steve said and sure enough, there was already a van there with a blonde and brunette woman, talking to the police about not arresting the strange homeless man with the metal arm.
Bucky sat in the alleyway, oblivious to the woman trying to protect him merely trying to focus on one thing because at the moment he was everywhere and nowhere at once.
Kat gasped and fell back a few steps when she saw him. Her whole world slowly shifting on its axis. "Is that-?"
Sam grabbed her arms and pulled her back a few steps. "Yes, it's Bucky Barnes, yes he's still alive, and yes I had to keep this information from you," Sam said, already knowing every question his best friend was going to toss his way. "I'm gonna need you to not go crazy fangirl Katty on me."
"But- But he died. He fell off the train. The only Howling Commando to give his life in the line of duty," she repeated from the museum she had been to dozens of times growing up. Her vision never left Bucky as Sam tried to snap her back to reality.
"Hey, hey, I kept my cool meeting Cap you gotta keep your cool with this."
She almost laughed at the thought. "You stopped obsessing over Cap in middle school. I loved his story throughout med school."
"And that is why I'm going to need you to put that in a box filed 'freak out about later'. Remember how your dad was after the war? That's how he is now. So keep your cool and be that incredible doctor who finished high school and med school before everyone her age could even figure out what they wanted to do with their lives."
She nodded numbly and took a deep breath. "What happened to his arm?"
Sam managed to get Bucky in the van with minimal struggle and only two knockout drugs that he had to force inject him with, and the women, who Kat eventually learned were called Sharon Carter and Maria Hill, were currently driving them back to Headquarters.
Kat could not stop staring at the unconscious soldier. She felt like she was on cloud nine sitting in the same vehicle as him, but something kept nagging at her.
In the corner of her mind she felt a small voice screaming that something happened to the honorable soldier she had adored.
She scooted over towards Bucky despite Sam's protests and looked him over.
"Katty-!" Sam called.
She held up a finger and examined the place where his skin stopped and the metal began. She had seen prosthetics before, but nothing quite as intricate as this. It seemed the arm was shaped to his muscles specifically.
Kat had seen more than her fair share of wartime photos of James Buchanan Barnes. This guy was her first childhood crush. She had admired his bravery throughout her life and even considered joining the army because of him.
She had spent so much time in the museum that one of the security guard's knew her by name.
In med school, she slowly started to drift away from her love for the soldier admiring doctors instead as she progressed in the medical field. She occasional thought of the man she had loved longest and even turned a bit pink in the cheeks thinking of it then.
Some people admired celebrities or political activists or religious figures, she had admired a supposedly dead war hero.
"Kathy, dear, are you planning to go back home to your mom and dad anytime soon?"
The old security guard asked and the fifteen-year-old girl simply shook her head.
"Mom and dad aren't home again. Back at work."
The old man sighed and walked over to her. "We have to close up soon."
"You can leave me the keys again. It's not like I'm going to steal anything. Well, not again."
"That's not what I'm worried about."
The girl looked up at the old man sheepishly. "I wish I could meet him. Hearing his story helps a lot, sir. It helps me think there are good people out there. Good people who care about others."
The old man sighed and sat down beside the girl. "You know, I think he would have loved you."
"Who hurt him?" She whispered. Her voice was barely audible but it soon as she spoke.
"I think you should back away-" Sam tried to pull her away from Bucky but she just fought against him.
"Someone hurt him, Sam! He has scars up and down his back. This arm was put on with no intention of being nice, and he has wounds across his abdomen that mirror mine after Robert. Now, who hurt him?"
"I believe that question can be answered by someone who knows a lot more than we do," Maria informed her as she opened the double doors. "But right now, we need your help getting Bucky to his room."
She glared at Sam, but nodded and started to help Bucky out of his restraints.
