When the darkness fades it's Bucky that comes out on the other side. There's only one way he can describe how he's feeling: embarrassed.
He's laying on his back in the park, Yulia is weighing his legs down and Darcy is stroking his hair. Her face is wet with tears. Sam is standing, arms folded over his chest. There's two paramedics scurrying to get him water, a blanket, and an ice pack. There's a cop talking to the kids from earlier, Bucky can't hear what he's saying to them but the kids look terrified.
"I'm sorry," Bucky says, his voice coming out hoarse.
Darcy's face screws up and she rests a hand on his cheek, "Sorry for what?"
He doesn't know how to answer. Someone lays an ice pack on his head and places a rolled blanket under his head before bringing a water bottle to his lips. He drinks gratefully.
When the paramedics have decided he can stand, they help him to his feet and set about putting away their supplies. Bucky turns to Sam and Darcy, who both look relieved now that he's upright.
Sam puts a hand on Bucky's shoulder, "You gonna be ok?"
Bucky nods, "Yeah, I think so."
"We should have Tony's doc check you out," Sam replies, "You dropped like a rock. Second time you've passed out like that, probably not a good thing. We're gonna have to get you a helmet."
Bucky can't help but chuckle at the thought, but the lightened mood is broken when Darcy pipes up, "Well, I'm going to go. Thanks for calling, Sam, I'll see you later."
Before Bucky can protest, she's gone. "You called her?"
Sam nods, "While you were out, you kept calling her name. I didn't know what else to do, so I called her after I called an ambulance."
"Thanks," Bucky says sheepishly.
"She's definitely mad at you for something," Sam retorts, "But she came when I called, and she stood by you the whole time. You wanna talk about what happened?"
"Between me and her, or the whole blacking out thing?"
Sam rolls his eyes, "Both, but start with the blacking out thing."
So Bucky tells him what he remembers, starting with the air raid siren and finishing with the all-consuming darkness that swallowed him whole. Sam fills him in on what he missed, that the air raid siren was coming from the kid's megaphone, that the warmth Bucky kept feeling was Yulia relentlessly trying to lay on top of him.
"She didn't leave your side either," Sam says, patting Yulia on the head, "Good couple of ladies you've got around you."
When Bucky doesn't say anything Sam shrugs and they walk over to the car waiting to take them back to the tower. Bucky is grateful for the silence, his head is throbbing still from whatever went down in his subconscious.
"So what do you remember?" This doctor isn't the same one Bucky saw when Steve brought him in after his first fainting spell. This is Tony's personal physician, called in as a favor from a very concerned Steve.
"I uh, I was just standing there and I heard the air raid siren going off, didn't know it was those damn kids."
The doctor nods, scribbling. Bucky glances at Steve who is perched in a chair to one side of the room, and then over at Darcy, who for the second time today got a phone call from someone worried about Bucky and urging her to stop by. He could tell she didn't want to be here, but she was too good natured to tell Steve no.
"Everything just went black like someone shut the lights off. Then, I was on a mission. Somewhere in Russia… well I wasn't on a mission, he was."
"He, The Winter Soldier?"
Bucky nods, "Only, when I was him, I was 'The Asset', they never called me by anything other than that, or my serial number."
"So was this a mission you really went on, or was it more like a bad dream?"
"It was… It was real," Bucky sighs, remembering the look on Anya's face when he'd shot her husband, point blank in the back of the head. The blood curdling screams from her daughter Taisiya who came running in moments later…
"Do you remember most of your missions from that time?"
Bucky shakes his head no, "I remember bits and pieces. More stuff has started coming back, since being in New York. Dragged out a lot of old memories. After I passed out the first time, I remembered more of what I did as The Asset, it kind of all came back in a wave. But it's all fragmented. I can see faces, remember some names, but the stories don't progress in a linear fashion."
"Hmmm, well, the PTSD I can treat. The memory loss, that's all stuff that takes time and is different for everyone. I can't say for certain you'll get everything back, I can't say you won't forget some stuff you already remembered. I just know that over time your memories should start to stabilize, and once that happens it is likely that whatever you remember will stay like that, and you probably won't have anything new come flooding back."
Bucky's stomach lurched at the phrase PTSD, but he tried not to look unsettled.
"I know, I know, no one likes that term. But believe me, it is better to face it head on. I'll set you up with some anxiety medication. We can get a referral for a therapist. Can't have you running around, dropping like a felled tree every time some idiot kids decide to disturb the peace. Might help to talk about the trauma, too."
"Ok, yeah," Bucky says, unsure, "Thanks, doc."
"You'll be ok," the doctor says, clapping him on the shoulder, "You've got a good support system, that helps immensely."
Once the doctor steps out, Bucky is left staring at Steve, who is chewing his lip the way he used to when they were kids and he was lost in thought about some world injustice. And then there's Darcy, who is looking at anything but Bucky. Her expression is vacant, she's looking at the floor, or maybe Steve's sneakers. That's why it catches Bucky off-guard when it's her that breaks the silence.
Current Threat Level: minimal