Note: Hi, guys. So I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm heading into my last few weeks of school and the exams, papers, and projects are all piling up! I'll try to update as frequently as I can but if my updates are a little slow to come, please bear with me! I promise as soon as school is over, I'll be updating frequently like I normally do. And thanks again for reading!
As soon as the Winter Soldier entered the hotel room, he hit the bed and fell asleep. He didn't know if it was waking up so early in the morning or if it was meeting Steve Rogers, but he was extremely exhausted and he knocked out right away. The last thing he remembered seeing through his blurry side-view gaze was seeing Ari also drop onto her bed. Then his eyes drifted shut and he slept.
When he woke up, the sky outside had darkened a bit. They'd come home early in the morning, around nine or ten, but now it seemed like it was late afternoon. He slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes and stared at the sky. It was turning a deeper blue, a beautiful blue. He slid off his bed, his throat feeling scratchy and eyes feeling a bit sandy, and stretched, looking at Ari. She'd collapsed on top of her bed, not even bothering to get under the blankets, and was still knocked out, one hand dangling over the edge of the bed. He turned away and decided to get washed up, taking a shower and changing into black track pants and a black pullover sweatshirt. All black it was again. Oh well—he looked "badass", right?
When he got out, Ari was still asleep, so he decided to leave for a little while. He opened her bag sitting on the table, completely unaware of the fact that it was rude to go through a woman's purse, and stuffed fifty bucks from her wallet and the keycard for the room into his pocket. He wasn't stealing—he'd pay her back for all of this when this was all over, he reasoned with himself in his mind. He wasn't exactly sure how, since it's not like he could get a regular day job, but he'd find a way to pay his debt to Ari.
He shut the door quietly and left, after pulling on the baseball hat that Ari had bought him. He passed a few family-type of people in the hallways, wearing tacky t-shirts and white sneakers and fanny-packs around their waists, arguing with each other over where to go for the day, and ducked his head down as he passed them. It was as if the moment moved in slow motion—he moved past them like a shadow, hands in his pockets, eyes on the ground. The people would never remember him, and even if they did, they'd never know that one of the most dangerous men on Earth had just walked past them like it was nothing.
I could kill all these people, he thought to himself as he stepped outside and observed random people getting in and out of cars in the parking lot. He flexed his cybernetic hand inside the pouch pocket on the front of his sweatshirt and then shook his head and kept walking. He could—but he wouldn't. He wouldn't do that anymore, not unless he had to.
He actually had no idea where he was going, but he needed to stretch his legs a bit so he kept walking down the street. He passed across the street from the McDonald's that Ari was constantly bringing food from but he didn't go inside. He'd never been a fan of burgers, even back in the olden days.
Wait. He stopped in his tracks, shocked. Where had that thought come from? He'd just remembered a food preference of Bucky Barnes'—and he'd thought about it in a fluid, singular sense, as if he remembered being Bucky Barnes who didn't really like burgers. What did this mean? Were his memories returning properly? Was he regaining Bucky?
Someone bumped into him roughly and snapped, "Keep moving, asshole!" He looked up slowly, eyes narrowed, to see a portly man in a black business suit stomping down the street. The urge to grab the man by the back of his neck and slam him into the ground until he crushed his spine overwhelmed the Winter Soldier for a moment—but then the man was gone and so was the urge.
Control. He would have to control this. He couldn't afford to lose it, not now that he was so close to getting all the answers he needed.
He kept walking and ended up going around the block, looking mostly at the ground but peering up every now and then and carefully observing the world around him. He'd never much paid attention to culture every time he was taken out of cryo, but even he could vaguely remember the differences in the world every time he was taken out. Women wore pants a lot more now and they wore less clothing. Men didn't dress as well. The world was faster, noisier, and people were glued to their cell phones. He saw some groups of teenagers huddled on the steps of brownstones, laughing and talking and staring at girls who walked past, and it made him have a sudden flashback of youths from his own days, dressed in tweed coats, hair slicked back, watching girls pass by on the street. People hadn't really changed that much. It was only that these kids now all had a cell phone in their hands.
He stopped at a crosswalk and stood there, looking both ways, wondering which way to go. He zoned out for a bit, staring absentmindedly at the space in between both roads and a voice next to him said, "Are you lost?"
He looked over to see a teenage girl staring at him. She wasn't giggling like the ones from the hotel. She wore paint-splattered skinny jeans, a black t-shirt that said SWS on it, and had blonde hair that was streaked with bright blue. She looked like some sort of brightly colored character from a comic book and he could only stare for a moment before mumbling, "No."
"Are you sure?" she asked, looking concerned. "You've been standing here for ten minutes, staring into space. If you need me to call someone for you—" She reached out a hand to touch him and he jumped back as if he'd been burned. "I said no!" The words burst from his mouth, more harshly than he intended, and he immediately wished he could take them back—but the damage was done. An angry look had flashed across the girl's eyes and she said, "Okay, sorry for trying to help," and then she turned and walked down the street.
The Winter Soldier closed his eyes. Dealing with people after so long was so hard. Why was dealing with Ari so easy? Or was it just that Ari only pretended to be nice to him and put on a good show? Perhaps she was exasperated with him too. Perhaps she was faking being nice to him, for some reason. It was unnatural, wasn't it, how kind she always was?
For some reason, the thought made him angry and he turned around and hurried back to the hotel, his strides getting faster and angrier with every step. He didn't know what he was so angry about but he could feel the anger bubbling up inside of him like water boiling over on the stove. He hurried into the hotel and almost raced to their hotel room, stabbing the keycard into the slot and stomping in, slamming the door shut. Ari was folding some clothes on the bed—she'd changed into new clothes—and she looked up when she came in and frowned in slight disapproval and said, "I wish you'd asked before you took my keycard and money. I would have said yes to letting you take them, you know. You don't have to sneak things."
He waited for her to scold him further but she didn't. He scowled and then said, "What? That's it?"
She looked up from the shirt she was folding. "What's it?"
"That's all you're going to say?" he demanded. "Just 'I wish you'd asked'? I stole your money. I went through your bag. I left the room."
Ari raised an eyebrow and gave him a strange look, as if she wasn't sure what he was trying to get at. "I don't think what you did warrants me being so angry—"
"You're an idiot," he snapped, the words coming out of nowhere. "You should be yelling at me. Why aren't you yelling at me?"
Her expression changed to one of slight sympathy and she moved towards him, gently saying, "Soldier, I don't—" but he reached out and shoved her, so hard that she staggered back and fell onto her bed, and yelled, "DON'T COME NEAR ME!" Her face was pale when she looked at him in shock and he backed away, breathing heavily, feeling dizzy with anger and horror. "You make me sick," he said, almost babbling in his rush to get the words out. "You make me sick. Always being so nice to me, never yelling at me—what's wrong with you? I'm not the one who has problems, you have problems. Stay away from me." And then he turned and left, wrenching the door open and rushing down the hall, feeling almost blind.
What have I done?
He hurried down the stairs and burst through the door of the side entrance to the parking lot, looking around wildly for where he could escape to. There was a small little park behind the hotel, with some paths that led into the trees, so he took off in that direction, walking fast at first and then jogging and then breaking into a full-on sprint. The park was small, just a tiny little leisure park with a green common, a small duck pond, and a small thicket of trees, so he didn't get to go far. He was so blind with his rage that he punched a small tree, putting his entire weight behind it, and kept punching until the tiny tree cracked and splintered in half. Backing away, breathing heavily, he ended up lowering himself onto the bench in front of the pond and covered his face with his hands. He was still furious but he was also confused. Why had he done that? And genuinely, what was wrong with Ari? Why was she so kind?
He sat there for a few minutes and then he felt someone silently approach and sit down next to him, on the far end of the bench. He didn't uncover his face or look at them. They sat there in silence for a long time. The minutes ticked by and ten minutes turned into fifteen and then fifteen turned into twenty and then twenty turned into thirty. And then, very quietly, he said, "Why are you so nice to me? What gain is there for you?"
"There's no gain," she said simply.
"Then why?" he demanded, taking a deep breath. "I don't—I'm not—"
"Soldier, you lashed out at me," said Ari. "But this isn't a movie. This isn't a movie where you yell at me and I lash out and say 'Fine, then we'll never see each other again!' and we storm away and spend a few miserable days apart and then meet up again to apologize. The world doesn't work that way. You can't push me away like that. I won't be so easily pushed away." She laughed to herself. "Who do you think I am?"
"I don't—I don't deserve—" His words were a whisper.
"You do," said Ari quietly. "You had your moment of anger. You don't understand why I'm being so kind to you. You don't think you deserve my kindness. You think you deserve my hate, for the things you've done. So you lashed out, hoping to make me hate you. You wanted to force me to hate you, so you could finally feel good about feeling miserable about yourself. But I'm not that weak. I'm actually insulted that you think I'd be such a drama queen that I'd hate you just because you were hurt and got angry."
He lowered his hands and looked at her, unable to speak. She looked at him and her expression was very serious. "I let you have your moment of self-pity. God knows you deserve it. You were made to do horrible things and you feel lost. But I won't let you think you deserve to be hated. I won't let you think you can make me hate you. Nobody can make me do anything, not even you, Soldier. You may be a hundred times stronger than me, but you can't force me to hate you or to stop helping you."
The Winter Soldier didn't know what to say. His throat felt blocked up. She wasn't faking it. She truly cared, for some demented reason. And he couldn't push her away. It would have been so easy for her to let him push her away, to let him walk away, and then he'd be at peace with hating himself forever. But that was the easy way out, wasn't it? That was the coward's route. She was forcing himself to admit that she truly cared and that he deserved it. He still didn't think he deserved her attention like this, but a part of him—a part that he'd never show to anyone, a part that felt like a small child—was so selfishly happy that she wasn't giving up on him because of his actions that he almost felt like he might cry. (Almost, but not quite. The Winter Soldier never cried.)
"I'm sorry for pushing you," was all he could say.
"You're damn right you are," said Ari, smiling. He stared at her, incredulous that she was being nice even over this—he'd pushed her very hard—and she sighed and said, "Soldier, this isn't me being a weakling. This is just my personality. I forgive and forget. I move on. That's just who I am. Except with Alex, of course," she added with a snort. She stood up and crossed her arms. "Are you going to punish me for being who I am? I can handle who you are. Can you say the same for me?"
Her expression was challenging. He ran his real hand through his hair, feeling thoroughly mixed up, but he stood up anyway and said, "I can handle it."
"Good," said Ari. "Then let's consider this a growing exercise for you. I suppose you had to let out anger eventually, god knows you must have enough of it. Here's an idea. Next time you feel this angry, try to take a few deep breaths. Count to ten. Write about it. I know the idea seems stupid, but journaling actually does help. You can rip up the papers after if you want. Or if that's not your cup of tea, go punch a pillow or something."
"I…already did," he said, gesturing to the broken tree a few feet away. "Sort of." He self-consciously rubbed his hand against his face, hand scratching the stubble on his face.
Ari's mouth fell open and she stared at the tree. "That poor tree!" she said. "What did it ever do to you? And it had so much to live for!"
"Shut up," he mumbled, now feeling thoroughly embarrassed.
"I'm kidding, Soldier," she said. She looked at the time on her phone and then said, "Let's go. It's almost six p.m. We have to go meet Steve again." She gently nudged him. "He's going to show you your old photos. You ready for that?"
No. The word wouldn't leave his mouth—it was like his jaws had been glued shut with peanut butter.
"I mean, I sort of remember seeing how you looked," said Ari almost to herself, "from the Smithsonian—"
"You saw that?" he interrupted.
"Yeah, I visited last summer," she said. "I admit, I didn't pay much attention to the Bucky Barnes section…no offense but I was more fascinated with Captain America. But you looked like a good guy, too. You and Steve were best friends."
"I'm with you till the end of the line!"
There was a strange faraway look on Ari's face that the Winter Soldier couldn't place and he slowly asked, "Do you have a best friend?" It had just occurred to him that he hadn't seen or heard Ari mention any friends at all. It had taken him this long to realize this—since he wasn't in the habit of taking notice of peoples' personal lives—but didn't normal humans have some type of friends? Hell, even he, an age-old mind-wiped assassin, had managed to find a friend or two from somewhere.
"I did," said Ari briskly. "They're gone now." The Winter Soldier could tell by her tone that something had happened to her best friend, but he wasn't sure he wanted to get into that. Ari was looking at him with something like hope in her eyes but when he awkwardly said, "Well, let's go back," without asking her about her best friend, disappointment flashed in her eyes for just a second and she turned away, saying, "Yeah. We need to eat."
They stopped at a Chipotle down the street this time ("I can't handle any more McDonald's," announced Ari. "It's driving me insane.") and the Winter Soldier picked at his burrito, wondering what the actual hell he was eating—it tasted good but it was so odd—and then Ari's phone suddenly starting ringing non-stop. She swallowed her last bite hastily and answered the phone. "Hello? Oh, Steve—yeah, we're—oh…oh, okay… Yeah, I get it. Um, is it going to be dangerous? Because I don't think… Right. Okay. You're sure, though, right? …Okay. Got it. Sorry. Yeah, no, I mean… Okay. We're coming."
She hung up and said, "Let's get rolling, Soldier."
"What did Steve say?" he asked.
"To get over to his place ASAP," she said. "He wants you to be there before—well, he's invited a friend over later tonight. And he wants you to be there before they get there, so he has a chance to explain to them who you are without any issues."
The Winter Soldier had a feeling he knew who this "friend" was. He slowly ran his hand alongside the barrel of the gun that hung from his belt loop on his left side. He might actually need it, if this "friend" launched straight into attack and Steve couldn't stop them. He didn't want to hurt Ari or Steve, but this person…well, if he had to hurt them, he definitely would.
They pulled up at Steve's house and the garage was open, waiting for them. The Winter Soldier shut the garage on their way in. They encountered a huge mess when they walked in. The kitchen table was absolutely covered with photos and random papers and objects. Steve was bent over them, straightening things into stacks. He looked up when they came in and his expression lit up when the Winter Soldier walked in. "You're back!"
The Winter Soldier wasn't used to being greeted with happiness, wasn't used to people missing him (generally, people tended to try and run away when he showed up anywhere…not that they were successful). "Uh, yeah," he said, raising an arm and waving slightly. "Hi."
"What's all this?" Ari asked, bending over the table as well. "Oh! Old photos?"
"Yeah," said Steve, standing back and looking at it all. "I've spent the whole day trying to organize them. I actually never realized how much Peggy had saved…"
"You didn't look at any of these in the past three years?" asked Ari.
"Not really," said Steve. "What was the point dwelling in the past? Everyone I knew was dead or had forgotten me…" His voice trailed off and he looked at the Winter Soldier and smiled slightly. "Except you're back now." He gestured to the table. "Go ahead and take a look. I've tried to organize things by year. The oldest stuff is back here—some of it isn't even connected to you, but I don't know, I thought maybe seeing some stuff from the 40's would jog your memory. Like this bunny I won at a carnival when we were five. Remember that? Eh, probably not…" Steve continued to slowly point out things and mention little stories about them while the Winter Soldier watched and listened. Ari had taken a seat at the end of the table and she was paying close attention too.
"Is any of this working?" asked Steve, looking at the Winter Soldier. "Do you remember anything?"
"Considering I feel like vomiting all over your floor, yes, it's working," the Winter Soldier said dryly. His stomach felt nauseous and his head was spinning a little but that was because he was getting flashes and flickers of memories. Steve's words were different than just looking up pictures of the 1940's online. Steve's words painted pictures, memories, in his head that seemed real. He remembered sitting in school and throwing a pencil at a girl's head. He remembered being at some carnival, though he was older than five. He remembered holding some girl's sweaty hand at a school dance. He remembered laying bed and looking at the drawings of pirates and sailors he'd drawn on his roof as a child and talking with Steve, who was laying on a makeshift bed of blankets on the ground next to his bed. Steve slept over often and they usually spent the whole night talking.
"I remember," he said hollowly. "I remember…a lot. But not enough."
"Still!" said Steve encouragingly. "That's good progress! Take a look at this one, Bucky." He thrust a photo into the Winter Soldier's hand. It was him—except he was younger, much younger, about sixteen, and he was standing with Steve and there was also a woman smiling in the photo and they were standing in front of a birthday cake.
"Your birthday," said Steve. "Sorry, I forgot which one."
"Count the candles," said Ari.
"Oh," said Steve, looking surprised. "Oh yeah."
The Winter Soldier counted the candles. "My fifteenth birthday," he said in a strange voice, looking at the photo. He was gangly then, hadn't grown into his body or face, but he showed the signs of being very handsome. The woman in the photo resembled him. His stomach dipped a little. My mother. He only had vague memories of her…she had dark hair and smiled a lot. She had a lovely smile, people used to…
"Tell me I had her smile," he murmured to himself, tapping the photo, lost in his own world. Steve and Ari exchanged furtive glances and both of them backed away slightly, walking to the kitchen to give the Winter Soldier a moment of privacy. He didn't even notice them leave, he was too busy lost in his own world, remembering little parts of his past. His head was aching fit to burst but he didn't even care right now; the pain felt good. Let the tape that was smothering his memories be ripped away. Let his mind bleed. He wanted to bleed. He wanted to feel, to remember.
"What do you think?" Steve asked Ari in a low voice in the kitchen.
She hopped up onto the counter and perched there, swinging her legs. "Seems like he's making good progress…" she said slowly. "But I don't want to overload him, you know? His mind is fragile."
"He'll be fine," said Steve dismissively and Ari looked at him doubtfully. It was clear that Steve was so eager to get his friend back that he wasn't aware of the mental damage he could do to him if he pushed him so hard.
"Steve," called the Winter Soldier from behind them. "Who's this?" He pointed to a woman in a photo. She was small, rather skinny, and had blonde hair and a tired but kindly smile. She'd appeared a lot in earlier photos but had vanished eventually.
Steve came over and looked at it and his smile pinched a little. "That was my mother," he explained. "She…died of TB early on. I mean, when we were like teenagers. Close to the war."
The Winter Soldier didn't know what to say. He never knew how to comfort people. "I…uh…" he started.
"Wait, wait," interrupted Ari. "I know what he's going to say. That sucks." She laughed and the Winter Soldier couldn't help but smile a very tiny bit.
"What, is that like an inside joke or something?" asked Steve. When no one responded, he said, "Never mind… Yeah, Mom died. It was…it was rough, but I got through it. You got me through it. You refused to let me live alone after that. You dragged me to your house to stay the night and for most meals."
The Winter Soldier couldn't reconcile this Bucky Barnes—who basically seemed like a great guy—with the person he'd been for the past few decades. How had HYDRA managed to so effectively erase Bucky to the point where even now, after being away from HYDRA's influence, Bucky felt like a ghost to him? He could slightly feel him but he was still so out of his reach.
"That was nice of me," he said uncertainly.
"Yeah, it was," said Steve, fondly staring at the photo of his mother.
They spent the next two hours looking at more photos. Ari spent more time gasping and gaping over 1940's culture—"Look at their clothes!" she kept saying. "I can't believe you guys used to live back then! You drove those small, rounded cars!"—and the Winter Soldier spent more time trying to remember faces and names. Some of them came back to him, some of them didn't. He spent a long time looking at the photos of the Howling Commandoes. Yes, he remembered these men. This memory was stronger and it was coming back to him. These had been his men. Brave men.
Steve looked up at him and interrupted his reverie by asking, "Bucky…do you remember how you…died?"
The Winter Soldier stiffened. It was like someone had poured a bucket of ice water onto him—everything in him froze. He could swear he almost heard the echo of a scream but he wasn't sure. His heart picked up speed.
"No," he said tightly.
"Steve," said Ari. "Maybe it's not—"
"Are you sure?" insisted Steve. "Try to remember. We were on a train. You were…you were hanging from the train, we were over a bridge…"
Cold. He felt cold. It was spreading in him and he shivered. His stomach clenched and his head gave a sharp spike of pain. The memory was blank but it was slowly clawing at the edges of his mind. Why did he suddenly feel so feverish?
Ari saw his face and urgently said, "STEVE—"
"And then you fell—" continued Steve, his voice and face very urgent.
And then the Winter Soldier was falling. He was falling in real life, his vision going black—icy-cold wind ripping at his face, hearing a scream echo, feeling the endless feel of a free-fall—and then he smashed into the ground, his chair knocking over, and curled up, groaning, tears of pain stinging his eyes as his head pounded like someone was hitting it with a white-hot hammer.
"I told you not to push him!" Ari was shouting, though she sounded as if she were underwater, and then gentle yet firm small hands were half-lifting, half-dragging him somewhere… Larger hands joined in and then he was being lifted, lifted up, up onto a metal gurney? No, onto something soft…
The Winter Soldier woke up to see four blue eyes staring at him. For a moment, he thought he was still hallucinating because people had two eyes, not four eyes, so he blinked, trying to make the extra set of eyes go away—but they didn't. And then the faces attached to them came into focus and he realized Steve and Ari were kneeling over him, both of them looking extremely concerned.
"How long was I out?" he asked hoarsely, sitting up and wincing. The pain in his head had receded to a dull throb and he didn't feel too horrible.
"Only like an hour," said Ari anxiously. "I need to check you, okay? Sit still."
He sat still patiently while she palpated his face, his head, inspected his eyes, asked him some questions, checked for soreness, strabismus, any changes in mental status… Finally she leaned back and announced uncertainly, "You seem alright…but it's clear that what Steve said had an effect on you." She glared at him and it was somewhat amusing to see this petite girl glare at Captain America and have Captain America actually looked somewhat afraid. Ari's glare had that effect on people, this much the Winter Soldier had figured out. He was glad she'd never turned that glare on him. He was her patient still, so she wouldn't do that.
"I said I'm sorry, for the hundredth time," he said, looking at the Winter Soldier in remorse. "I just really wanted you to remember. Ari warned me not to push you, but I did. I'm sorry."
"It's fine," said the Winter Soldier awkwardly. It wasn't really fine…he was humiliated and upset at fainting like such a weakling in front of both of them and he was angry that this one memory would be locked up so tightly that this was the effect it had on him…but what could he do? Yell at Steve? The man was muscular and well-built but right now he looked sort of like a wounded animal and snapping at him would have made the Winter Soldier feel even worse. So he let it go.
Suddenly they heard the sound of the front door opening and footsteps stepping inside. "Got your call," came a female voice, slightly raspy and a bit lower than Ari's higher-pitched voice. "What's the matt—" The woman stepped in view of the family room and froze. For a moment she stared at Steve and Ari crouching near the sofa where the Winter Soldier sat and then she pulled out a gun as quick as a whip and pointed it at the Winter Soldier, clicking off the safety. A look of cold indifference had covered her face and she tightly said, "Steve. Explain. NOW."
"Whoa, Natasha, slow down." Steve leaped to his feet and moved towards her. She whipped out another gun and pointed it at him with her other hand, taking a step back. Suspicion filled her face and the Winter Soldier couldn't quite blame her. He'd tried to kill her twice now.
"Why is he here?" she demanded. "Where did he come from? Are you out of your mind, Steve? Does Fury know about this?"
The Winter Soldier blinked. Fury? Nick Fury, the man he had killed? He was alive? Did anyone stay dead these days? He slowly got to his feet and Black Widow took another step back, hostility and suspicion radiating off her in palpable waves. The Winter Soldier knew he could take her if he wanted to—she was an expert at fighting but he had his cybernetic arm and super strength and speed—but he hung back, letting Steve do the explaining.
"Natasha," Steve said, his voice ringing throughout the room. "Put the guns down. Now. I can explain all of this." The Winter Soldier could see where the man in front of him changed from Steve Rogers—a friendly guy with a smile that wasn't quite as open as it could have been—to Captain America, a leader with a commanding voice that said He Meant Business. He softened his voice a little and said, "He's not with HYDRA anymore. He's been lost and sick and he wants to regain his memories." When Natasha still didn't lower her weapons, Steve added, "You of all people should know what's it like to come back from something like this. To be given a second chance. And you of all people should also know what brainwashing can do to someone. I assume you haven't held it against Barton, what Loki did to him?"
Natasha took a deep breath, her eyes still narrowed and wary, darting from the Winter Soldier to Steve and then back again, but she slowly lowered her guns all the same, clicking the safeties back on and slowly putting them back into her belt loops. She folded her arms and said, "Alright. Explain."
"Whoa," said Ari, unable to look away from her. "I can't believe I'm meeting the Black Widow."
Natasha looked at Ari as if noticing her for the first time. "And who's the chick?" she asked. "Did you finally ask someone out, Steve? What happened to the nurse next door?"
Steve let out a slight chuckle and said, "Ari is a nurse too, coincidentally…but I didn't ask her out. She's Bucky's nurse. She helped nurse him back to health."
Natasha raised an eyebrow. "What, is this like some sort of romance novel? Nurse finds destitute wandering soldier and nurses him back to health and then they fall in love?"
"Uh, no," said Ari. "This is absolutely not like that. I found him, I realized he was sick and wouldn't go to a hospital, so I took him home and tried to help him. Along the way, I figured out who he was and figured I'd try to help him regain his memories. So we came to find Steve. After hacking into HYDRA' s files and printing out all the files on Soldier."
"You hacked into HYDRA?" Natasha demanded. "Even I— Who did it? You?"
"My brother did it," said Ari.
So much for trying to protect her, the Winter Soldier thought vaguely to himself. The secret was out now. Oh well, if anything it would put Alex in danger, and the Winter Soldier was all for putting Alex Madden in danger.
"Your brother, huh," said Natasha, biting her lip and staring at her absentmindedly. She was a tall and slender-yet-curvy woman and had shoulder length auburn hair that waved slightly. Very pretty. "And you managed to get all his files?"
"Yeah, they got more than what we have," said Steve. "The only problem is…they're in code. And only people at HYDRA can crack the code. Which is why I called you."
"You need my help breaking into HYDRA," finished Natasha, suddenly understanding what was going on. She ran a manicured hand through her hair and sighed. "I don't know, Steve. HYDRA's gone deep underground. If we can even find them—"
"We found coordinates," piped up Ari. "So we know where at least one location is."
Natasha looked at Ari, taking her in, and frowned. "How old are you? You look like you're eighteen."
"I'm twenty-three," said Ari, sounding a bit offended.
"So still a child," said Natasha.
"Yeah, because you're so old," scoffed Ari. "These two"—she gestured to Steve and the Winter Solder—"are ancient. You and me? Not so much."
"Alright," said Natasha mildly. "Point taken." She looked at the Winter Soldier and he looked back at her, feeling partly uncomfortable and partly ready to knock her out if need be. "You," she said, her tone still laced with distrust. "Make any moves against us and I'll snap your neck faster than you can say 'HYDRA'. Understand?"
It took everything in the Winter Soldier's willpower to not attack her. He wouldn't tolerate being spoken to this way. It rankled at every nerve of his and he wanted to teach her a lesson, show that he wouldn't be talked to like this. But he had to admit that she had the right to speak this way—after all, he had been the "bad guy" for so long—and he didn't want to cause any fights, not when they were so close to helping him, so he ground his teeth and grudgingly said, "Yes." Even though he knew deep down that she would never be able to physically best him in a fight. But he said yes anyway.
"Then let's plan," said Natasha. "But first, don't you think you're forgetting something, Rogers?"
"What?" asked Steve, looking confused.
"Sam," she said. "He'll kill you if you leave him out of this."
Steve paused. "Right… Right, I should go call Sam. Wait for me. And don't tell Fury," he added suddenly, giving Natasha a hard look.
She held up her hands and innocently said, "I wasn't going to," but Steve gave her a hard stare for one more moment and then left, vanishing up the stairs. She chuckled once and said, "Sometimes I still don't think he trusts me."
"Who's Sam?" asked Ari.
"The Falcon," said Natasha. "Not that that name means anything to you… But he's a friend. He can help."
The Falcon. The Winter Soldier audibly groaned. Here was another person he'd tried to kill, another person he'd have to face. How many times would he have to go through this? Both Natasha and Ari gave him a curious look and he looked away from them. He felt Natasha's gaze boring a hole through him for a few minutes until he couldn't take it anymore. He turned back to her and stiffly said, "I'm sorry."
"For?" she drawled. She knew exactly what he meant, she was trying to make this painful for him. Natasha was a different type of woman than Ari was. They were both extremely tough but Natasha was a different breed of tough. Where Ari treated him kindly, he sensed Natasha would have no problem ripping a bandage off any wound he had with no regard for his pain.
"For trying to kill you," he said, adding, "Twice."
"Do you want to see the scar you gave me?" Natasha asked suddenly. She lifted up her shirt suddenly to expose her left hip and the Winter Soldier stared with a mix of fascination and horror at the large scar that marred her left hip. He remembered; he'd shot through her. She lowered her shirt, her expression closed off, and then she said, "But it's fine. I've moved on. So should you."
"That's it?" he asked.
She shrugged. "I don't know if you know this about me, but I…was once like you. I worked for the wrong team, I spilled a lot of blood, except I made my own decisions and you were brainwashed. So I'm even worse than you. And if I managed to turn my life around and try to atone, then you can do the same. Plus, I've had a friend who was brainwashed before and so I know…what it's like when people aren't themselves."
"Is this Hawkeye?" asked Ari. "Who was brainwashed?"
"Yeah," said Natasha.
"By Loki?" asked Ari.
"How do you know all this?" asked Natasha. "Most of this isn't common information."
Ari blushed slightly. "I kind…I don't know. I think the Avengers are cool. I did a little bit of research."
Natasha rolled her eyes. "The Avengers. I hate that name. It makes us sound like superheroes. Ridiculous."
"You are superheroes," argued Ari. "The way you saved New York—that was incredible."
Natasha didn't respond, merely cocked her head and looked at Ari quizzically.
The Winter Solder didn't know what any of these names meant. Hawkeye? Loki? The Avengers? Ari had mentioned the Avengers before but she hadn't really explained. He waited for someone to explain but when no one spoke, he cleared his throat and asked, "The Avengers?"
"Not a big deal," started Natasha but Ari cut her off.
"Totally a big deal," she disagreed. "It's a team. Of superheroes," she added, darting a glance at Natasha. "Comprised of Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain America, Hawkeye, and her—Black Widow. About two years ago, Thor's crazy brother, Loki—they're both Norse gods, by the way, from a different world—tried to take over New York with an alien army. The Avengers helped stop him."
"You make us sound a lot cooler than we are," said Natasha.
"You don't realize how cool you guys are, then," said Ari, smiling. "You saved possibly the whole world. Who knows what Loki would have done to us?"
Natasha shook her head, possibly at Ari's slight fangirling over the Avengers, but she was smiling slightly too. Steve came bounding down the steps, snapping a cell phone shut. "Okay, Sam's in, and he's way too excited," he said.
"He's Sam, what did you expect?" asked Natasha.
"What did you tell him about me?" asked the Winter Soldier apprehensively.
"Just that you were alive, free of HYDRA, and needed our help," said Steve. "He said yes right away. Sam's a good man."
It seemed like the Winter Soldier was surrounded by good men. Good women. Good people. Steve was the epitome of goodness. This Sam character was a good man. Natasha had turned her life around and was a good woman now, a superhero apparently. Ari was a good human. Everyone was good, good, good, good…except for the Winter Soldier, who still felt poisoned and dark on the inside. He was trying so hard to be good but the urge to kill someone still overtook him. He still remembered the people he had killed. He had ended lives, destroyed families, started revolutions, started genocides… His actions had been the sparks that had lit flames that had devoured thousands of lives. He wasn't good and he didn't think he ever would be, no matter how he tried. No matter how much blood Natasha had on her hands, it could never be as much blood as he did. No matter how brainwashed this Hawkeye had been, it could never be as mindless as the Winter Soldier had been.
They sat there in slight silence, talking every now and then, waiting for Sam to show up. The Winter Soldier stayed mostly silent and he kept his gaze locked on Steve. He couldn't help but feel a strange rush of fondness—an unnatural feeling—when he looked at the man. He remembered their friendship. Not all of it, but a lot of it. And he wasn't in the habit of being friends with anyone but it seemed so easy with Steve. His smile was so friendly, his demeanor so open. He accepted the Winter Soldier and he called him "Bucky", which was starting to seem more and more okay, and the Winter Soldier could feel the roots of friendship creeping back up through his body and tethering themselves to Steve. Even after all this time, he could see how easy it would be to be close to Steve again. The man was an honorable, open book, and he was loyal to a fault. He made the Winter Soldier feel like he had a chance.
Ari, for that matter, kept a close eye on the Winter Soldier, checking to make sure he was okay. He was aware of this and he couldn't help but feel a sudden, random rush of fondness for her as well. Here was someone who cared about him, who gave without receiving. He barely gave her anything and yet here she was, helping him, checking on his safety—the way a mother would. Where Steve made him feel comfortable, Ari made him feel safe. Which was odd, because physically, she was the last person on Earth who could have kept him safe. But physical safety wasn't all there was in the world and his mind and spirit felt more broken than his body.
Natasha kept a close eye on him too and her gaze was more wary, more suspicious, but he also detected a hint of sympathy on it. She was willing to give him a chance too, because of her own dark past. He marveled at the fact that a few weeks ago, he'd been trying his best to kill two of the people in this room—and now they were both putting their lives on the line to help save him. HYDRA had been wrong. All those scientists who had emotionlessly told him that the world was rotten, the world was bad, the world needed HYDRA's help to be destroyed to the ground and then rebuilt…they'd all been wrong.
The world was good. The world had good in it. There were people worth saving. The Winter Soldier shuddered to think of how many more good people would have died if he'd remained HYDRA's puppet and had kept starting wars and uprisings and kept destroying the public peace.
There was a sudden loud banging at the door that made all of them jump in alarm and then Ari laughed at how startled they all looked. Steve got up to open the door and in strode a tall, well-built black man, looking hyped up and grinning. "Hey, man!" he said, hugging Steve and clapping him on the back. He walked into the kitchen and said, "Hey, girl, how've you been?" to Natasha, smiling, before noticing the Winter Soldier staring at him, and stopped in his tracks. He let out a low whistle and said, "So it really is true. You're back. And you're not dressed like a warrior ninja this time."
"You were dressed like a warrior ninja?" whispered Ari. "I thought you looked like a trucker."
"I changed clothes," muttered the Winter Soldier, remembering suddenly that he'd stuffed his back of gear under his bed at Ari's house and left it there.
Sam smiled somewhat hesitantly but it was a cheerful smile. "You nearly killed me, dude, but you know what? It's all cool. You were brainwashed, so I guess I can't really blame you."
"Uh, thanks," said the Winter Soldier cautiously, somewhat alarmed at how easily Sam was taking this. He didn't look like he was fazed at all and the Winter Soldier wondered if encountering brainwashed murderous decades-old assassins was something the man did everyday.
Sam turned to Ari and then raised an eyebrow, smiling. "Oh? And who's this lovely lady?"
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Give it a rest, Sam."
"What? Jealous, Natasha? Don't worry, ladies, there's enough of the Falcon for everyone," joked Sam and Natasha snorted.
Ari grinned and said, "I'm Ari, Soldier's nurse," and she went through the same quick explanation she'd given both Steve and Natasha.
"His nurse! Alright, that's cool," said Sam, clapping his hands together and rubbing them, nodding. "I hope I'm lucky enough to find a cute nurse if I ever get my memory wiped and end up wandering around the country."
The Winter Soldier rubbed his temples, not sure if he was embarrassed for Sam or embarrassed for himself, and Sam laughed. "Relax, man, I'm just playing. Just trying to lighten the mood, you know, since you sort of tried kicking all of our asses a few weeks ago. Didn't succeed, though, no one gets the drop over the Falcon," he added proudly. The Winter Soldier distinctly remembered ripping one of Sam's wings off and sending him hurtling to Earth—thereby getting the "drop" on him—but he decided now would not be the best time to point this out.
"Right, why don't you take a seat, Mr. Falcon, and help us plan this thing," said Natasha, gesturing to a chair.
Steve began to quickly sweep all the old photos and memorabilia back into his box. When he was done, Ari pulled the thick files she'd binder-clipped together from her bag on the counter and slammed them down on the table. "This is what we have," she said. "They're in code."
Steve opened a drawer and pulled out a small file folder with the letters 'TWSP' stamped on the front, setting it down on the table. "This is what I have."
"And these," said Ari, setting down a sheet, "are the coordinates that my brother found for us."
Steve opened a drawer and pulled out a laptop which looked largely unused and handed it to Natasha, who flipped it open, powered it up, and then cracked her knuckles. "Alright," she murmured, logging into the computer. "Let's do this."
The Winter Soldier looked at the papers on the table and then the people crowded all around the table. There were five of them now; they were a true team, all working to help him. He sat up straight and pulled Steve's file folder over to himself, taking a deep breath and looking down at the cover which held some of the secrets that he so dearly wanted to know. Time to find HYDRA. Cut off one head…and up sprouted two more. Well, it was time to find one of the heads of this beast—and then destroy the whole monster for good. He was going to take down HYDRA even if he died trying. This time, the choice would be his. To live or to die. Who to kill. What moves to make next.
"You ready?" asked Natasha, looking him directly in the eye.
He steeled his courage and said, "Yes," staring directly back into her eyes without wavering.