Another intense chapter and so will the next one! I hope you enjoy! :)

Chapter Quote:
"You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."
~Loki in The Avengers

Chapter 10

Bucky

Annabeth learned fast. In just a three days, she had mastered all the basic defense maneuvers taught her. We hardly encountered any problems except for a single major one. She trusted me not to hurt her, but she didn't trust herself not to hurt me, even in the littlest way. Annabeth was genuinely afraid of hurting me, even though the damage she could do was nowhere near the caliber of what HYDRA did to me, and I used this argument in convincing her to use the defensive techniques on me. It took around four hours of convincing though. Finally, I won the debate. She did give me a few bruises, and to be honest, I was probably going to hurt a little the next few days because of it, but I didn't tell her this. She'd already been apprehensive enough about this. No need to tell her she'd actually somewhat hurt me because then she'd refuse to practice with me in that manner again, but she wouldn't learn properly if she didn't use me in that manner. However, the pain she inflicted on me was miniscule compared to what I went through with HYDRA, yet another thing I hadn't mentioned to her.

The videos I'd watched, along with giving me some more good memories about Steve and some new people –such as Peggy Carter and Howard Stark- also flooded me with bad memories. Horrific ones. Annabeth had kept from telling me about those videos for a reason, but now with the dreams I was having, I comprehended her actions even more.

The two of us had just finished sparring. Annabeth was sweating because we'd been practicing for over three hours, non-stop. I didn't even get winded. She gave me a playful shove due to her annoyance at my endurance. She announced to me she was going to go take a shower and get cleaned up before dinner. I nodded and went upstairs to sit in the living room and watch television. It was so strange that it was in color now. Everything was in color. It fascinated me completely. I mainly watched the history channel to catch up on the things I'd missed out on over the years. I'd tried watching the news but the politics had become so corrupted overall that I could barely stomach it. Most importantly though, the television became really good at keeping me awake. After the first night of non-stop nightmares of my past actions, I couldn't fall asleep. I'd gone three days now without sleep. If Annabeth noticed anything, she hadn't said a word to me about it. I was glad. I didn't want to burden her with another problem of mine. She was already handling all my others. She could take a lot, but I didn't want to overwhelm her.

Problem now was that I found myself slipping off into sleep every once in a while, just barely waking up before the dreams started. If I allowed myself to fall asleep and dream, I wouldn't be able to wake up until they were over, and god only knows how long that would take.

Today, the history channel was showing a documentary on none other than the Howling Commandos and their leader, Captain America. It felt strange, watching a documentary about myself in the 1940s, looking exactly the same then as I did now when I should've had white hair, wrinkly skin, and a cane to hit stupid people with. There were interviews with people who had known the Howling Commandos. According to one person, Dugan had a nasty habit of taking bets and losing them, no matter how many people told him not to do it; Gabriel was fluent in German and French. Dernier was a crazy man who lay down in front of a HYDRA tank so he could attach an explosive device on the bottom of it. Falsworth was a lord who wanted to fight for his country and did a damn good job of it. Morita took crap from no one. Steve was their fearless leader.

And then there was me. James Buchanan Barnes. Captured, imprisoned, and tortured by HYDRA's scientist Arnim Zola before being rescued by my best friend since childhood. I fought side by side with Captain America, going everywhere with him. I was one of two Howling Commandos to go with Steve on the train to capture Zola. Gabriel was the second. That was the mission I'd "lost" my life. In reality, I'd survived the fall. I remembered the terror as I plummeted downwards, but I didn't remember the pain of landing on the ground. I was grateful for that. It was the last time I'd seen Steve too…

I recalled the day before I shipped out with the 107th. Steve hadn't gone through the super soldier serum yet, so he was still small and sickly and scrawny, and I felt protective of him. I wondered how he'd do without me there to protect him. Of course, after I shipped out, he went through Dr. Erskine's program and became Captain America. The first time I saw him in his super soldier glory was when he rescued me. The reunion, despite the situation, had been a little comedic due to my surprise.

"Steve?" I asked, not believing my eyes.

"It's me," he said. "I thought you were dead."

I looked him over. "I thought you were smaller."

"Come on," he said, helping me up. We began our escape.

"What happened to you?" I queried.

"I joined the army."

"Did it hurt?"

"A little."

"Is it permanent?"

"So far."

At first, I'd been proud of him, and happy that he could defend himself now. But as we walked back to the American camp, two things dawned on me. First, I'd warned Steve not to do anything stupid until I got back from the war. And what did he do? He went off and did something stupid. Awesome, don't get me wrong, but stupid. How did he even know the serum was going to work? I'll tell you something: he didn't.

Second, my whole life, I'd needed to protect him from being bullied and to keep the bullies away from him, and I'd been his only friend. Now, with his size, he didn't need me to protect him. Now, he had hundreds of people who considered themselves his friends. I was now expendable to him, and it scared me that he might possibly leave me in the dust. However, it didn't take me long to figure out that I was wrong. Steve still wanted me in his life, as his best friend, which I was extremely relieved about. I hadn't wanted to lose my best friend.

After the rescue, the Howling Commandos were formed, with me as Steve's right hand man, the one who went everywhere with him. I had the honor of meeting Howard Stark during that time. I always thought he was awesome after seeing the guy at the Modern Marvels Pavilion with his floating car.

Then there was Peggy Carter. I never really talked to her much, and the one time I really had tried, she kept her eyes on Steve the entire time and I realized that I was turning into him before the serum: invisible. I was joking of course.

Sort of.

I missed back then.

Suddenly, the memory of me falling off the train came back to me. I recollected waking up from the fall in an unfamiliar laboratory, and wondering what happened to my arm because it felt… different. I lifted my arms up and stared at the alteration. My right hand remained normal, but my left… it was metal. In fact, my entire left arm was metal. The memory fast forwarded to the first time I was put in cryo. I didn't know what was happening then. I raised my hand metal hand as I stared at my reflection, but that was soon over as I was frozen until I was needed.

My brain moved forward to speeding car crashing into a bridge above a freeway. It was Howard and Maria Stark's car. I'd implanted a device on their car earlier that would make it lose control. I then got in my own vehicle with some accomplices and followed the Starks. At the right moment, I made the device work its havoc on the car. When the car crashed, I got out of my vehicle and double-checked that they were dead. It was easy enough to tell from afar that they were. I got back in my vehicle and drove off. I remembered the newspaper, the front page article saying "Howard and Maria Stark Die in Car Crash."

But the worst memory for me was me fighting Steve a few weeks ago. I remembered my metal hand gripping his throat and lifting him up. I remembered him straining to pull my hand off of him. And then, during our final battle, I shot him not once, not twice, but three times, on the helicarrier. I nearly killed him, yet I remembered the look on his face as the helicarrier we were on was slowly falling out of the sky towards the Potomac, and how he was staring at the metal beam trapping me before he jumped down and lifted it off of me. I proceeded to attack him until he finally got through to me that I knew him, that somehow, I knew this man. But before I could do anything else, the floor beneath us gave way. I grabbed onto something, preventing myself from falling but not him. I watched as Steve, beaten and bloody, fell to the river.

I shot into sitting position on the couch. I'd fallen asleep. My breathing was heavy from the nightmare. Annabeth swung the door open; she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw me.

"Bucky?" I didn't reply as the images replayed themselves over and over in my head. She walked over and sat next to me. "How long have they been going on?"

"Since I saw the videos," I admitted.

"What are they of?"

"Mainly Steve, but sometimes of Howard Stark. I dream of killing him and trying relentlessly to kill Steve." I placed my head in my hands; my fingers curled and uncurled in my hair, causing pain. The pain distracted me from the gruesome memories.

"You're not to blame for that Bucky," Annabeth said.

I looked at her. Shocked, I demanded, "How can you say that?! You, especially you, know what I've done! How am I not to blame?!"

Annabeth pulled down my hand gently and grasped it. "What HYDRA did to you was essentially turn you into their pet robot. You had no recollection of who you were. You had no sense of right and wrong. You were trained to do what you were told no matter what, or the consequences would be severe. You didn't have control of yourself. How could you have stopped yourself from carrying out those missions when you didn't even know who you were?"

"I have two conflicting realities in my head: one as me as Bucky Barnes and one as me as the Winter Soldier, and it's driving me insane, because I know Bucky, me, wouldn't have done the things the Winter Soldier did, and yet I did do them. I wanted to save my friends, not kill and hurt them."

"And you won't, not anymore. Not now that you know who you are again. You will always carry the actions of the Winter Soldier with you, but those actions do not define you, just like your metal arm does not define you. HYDRA saw you as an asset; I see you as a person. I'm not going to lie to you. You're going to probably have nightmares about things for weeks, but I also know it'll get better. Sometimes, before things get better, things get worse."

"I don't know how much worse it can get."

"Don't jinx it," she laughed. Annabeth sobered up quickly. "I've noticed the dark circles under your eyes the past couple of days, but didn't ask because I didn't think you wanted me to."

"I didn't want to burden you with more of my problems."

"Never think you're burdening me. I told you I'd help you, and that means with anything that you need help with." I nodded and let out a big sigh, allowing some of my stress to melt away. Annabeth stroked my hair, making me look up.

"You need to get some more sleep Bucky," she said. "You're exhausted."

"I don't know if I can handle the nightmares again though…"

"I'll stay next to you all night if that means you'll sleep."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. What do you say?" I couldn't say anything; she'd knocked me speechless. Instead, I hugged her, resting my forehead on her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged back. I heard her let out a small, short laugh before she said, "I'm going to take that as a yes."

Another partial fluff chapter! Review if you enjoyed :)