A/N

Yaaayyy Bucky boy! Please remember to follow/favourite/review to show support if you enjoy!

Warning: possible triggers for death? idk don't think so but just in case for the beginning part of the chapter. Please skip to the second line to pass the possible trigger-y part.

3: HIDE

"Where am I?"

Emi's sanity was spreading thin. What was going on?

"Did I hurt you?"

Cold air escaped her lips. "You're the Winter Soldier."

"James," he said. "James Buchanan Barnes."

Oyamaa, she had been swearing to the heavens all day. She clutched at the headache in her forehead, lifted her head to the orange-tinted sky and laughed. It was a sound void of emotion. "What the fuck is this?"

"Or just Bucky..." the Winter Soldier mumbled.

Her eyes snapped to the man and her next words were venomous. "Aren't you going to kill me, like you did my uncle and his friends?"

He flinched. "I'm sorry."

"There's no Captain America around, go ahead."

"I'm sorry, I don't remember... I don't know what I did."

"You don't know what you..." She collapsed onto her knees, barely noticing she was drenching herself in the mud and decay of the dead. Emi wanted so badly to leave this place, but to leave this place would be for the soldier to roam free without a watchful eye. Julie probably screeched "Bloody murder!" the moment she returned to town, and they would assume Emi was dead.

If she showed up in town alive, they would think she had been possessed and chase her away or worse, burn her.

Most of the townsfolk were afraid to venture out of their homes this late in the day. They would come tomorrow to find the bodies.

Obaa-chan would call her mother in that time and break the bad news. Emi would never be able to see her grandmother, her mum, her friends planning to meet her in Tokyo tomorrow, her dog, her birds, her plants on the windowsill back in the shared apartment in Chicago...

She struggled to blink the tears away, but she could taste their saltiness anyway. What was she supposed to do?

"Kaa-san..." she cried. "I'm sorry for leaving you the way tou-chan did... Please forgive me, mum."

"I'm sorry," the soldier just said.

"Don't."

"I'm sorry."

"Please, don't," she begged. "Just kill me. You have a time limit, Captain America is probably looking for you now."

His eyes glazed over. "Steve..."

"Just finish the job."

He shook his head. "I've hurt too many people. Please let me help you."

Emi lunged at him and shook him by the shoulders, one shoulder icy steel, the other warm skin under fabric. He barely moved. "Just finish me off, that's how you can help, please! There's no life for me anymore, don't you understand?"

The soldier remained still.

She shoved him back in disgust and turned her back on him. "What an eventful life I've had. Father killed by a ghoul, moved to another continent for another chance for a shitty life and when I finally have my life together you..."

Emi seethed. "You come here and take away more of my family and now my cousins will have to grow up without a dad, and my grandma's children have all died before her and the town will be riddled with more ghosts and fear. Great, great!"

"Let me help," the soldier urged. "Let me give you a new life."

Emi looked back at him and scoffed. "Seriously?"

"Not me, but... Steve..."

"Steve?"

He nodded. "Captain America."

"Oh yeah, right." Because I'm totally on first name basis with Captain America. "Can he really do anything though? He's a wanted man now, no offence."

He ignored that last remark. "We should leave this place."

Emi sighed, slightly recovered from her panic. Only light eats darkness. She had to be logical now. They were standing among the corpses of dead people. Their sprits were likely to be lingering. "Alright, lead the way, soldier."

It was strange, the sensation that came to her in that moment, that made her think something in the man shattered at the word "soldier". He was a criminal and uncle-murderer, she shouldn't have cared for his feelings. Yet there was a mournful song she could hear humming from his soul and she couldn't ignore it.

"Just call me Bucky, please."

She rubbed at her eyes. May the heavens look over her. "Okay, Bucky."

The smell of bacon, people about and sunshine filtering through the glass walls should have put him in a happy mood. It was small freedoms like this that made Steve Rogers feel a little better sometimes. Not today, though.

"They say he was last spotted in Osaka, Japan."

"Japan?" Sam exclaimed. "Ice guy was frozen in Africa just yesterday!"

Steve sighed, wishing Sam would keep his voice down in this small diner.

"That's why we need to find him."

Sam ran a hand over his hair. "Man, we're going to have a hard time if Stark and Ross are already on this."

"Don't worry about them, worry about Bucky." Steve smiled at the waitress who had just set their breakfast on the table before turning back to his friend. "Here's the plan."

"Not this again," Tony Stark groaned as he dropped into his office chair.

It was all over television. Good ol' Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, alive and well, terrorising civilian streets and now targeting Japan.

He had blocked all incoming calls to his office today. He wasn't sure who Bucky Barnes was (okay, he did know but not explicitly well aside from some key events in history that had unknowingly altered his life forever) but wherever Bucky was, Steve the saviour was.

Mr. Secretary could suck it. There was no way Tony was getting involved in this again.

On the road away from her hometown, Emi and the sold- Bucky - walked.

They had walked a few miles, she was sure, until her legs gave way and her empty tummy (that by the way, had been waiting for the feast of a dinner obaa-chan whipped up hours earlier) ripped at her insides.

She had to keep going.

Emi was not going to leave the soldier - no, Bucky - alone. He would surely wander off and do other disastrous things, though his conflicted mind seemed relatively stable at the moment. The next time they stumbled upon somebody and he had the will to hurt, she could at least sacrifice herself to give others the time to flee.

Bucky bent down to her level. "Do you want me to carry you?"

She looked at his offering arms. Arms of a murderer, hands of a murderer, she chanted repeatedly in her brain.

"No."

She pushed herself up. Took three steps, then stumbled again. Exhaustion was blanketing her eyes, shutting her off although her mind was wide awake.

The shocking emotions tumbling from the man's soul was riveting and overpowering and it kept her up. His mind was a tumbled mess of things, scattering here and there, a pattern she had never seen in a person before.

What am I talking about? she thought to herself. Pfft, pretending I can feel people's souls.

She felt his arms tuck themselves under her torso and her knees, lifting her up. He held her away from his body, as if knowing completely well her desire to distance herself from him.

"Just sleep."

The plain sheet of night sky over their heads was the perfect cover for them. He followed the raised dirt road along its sunken sides, hoping to avoid the moonlight that would cast onto his metal arm and act as a beacon for attention. If there was anyone else in sight, that is.

The girl in Bucky's arms was asleep now, humming a little in her sleep.

He sighed.

It seemed that whenever something happened, he would have to rely on Steve for help. Who knew that after the war, he would never taste the freedom he fought for?

He walked onwards, until the blackness above traded itself in for the soft blue hues and the dirt road turned into concrete. They had reached a city. Where, he did not know, but it meant there would be food and shelter and places to hide.

Bucky ducked into an alleyway and set the blue-haired girl down.

"Hey," he whispered. No response.

He scanned their surroundings: piles of crates, metal ladders leading up to apartments, newspaper scraps flittering around and caught in corners, several dumpsters pushed up against brick walls.

Perhaps he could leave the girl here. Find some food for them, grab her a jacket too. But what if she woke up?

Bucky could already envision flashing dark eyes glaring into his soul. The anger looked out of place on her face - more painful than hateful, as though the muscles in her face refused to frown. No matter how much he deserved it, he couldn't bring himself to look at the pain he had caused.

He dropped down across from her, the bricks digging into his back.

Sooner or later, the girl's eyes gently flickered open and her chapped lips opened. "You."

Guess he didn't really deserve a "good morning".

She sat up, examined where she was quickly. "We're in a city. Great. What do we do now?"

"Find food? Find you warmer clothes?"

Her bare legs were crusted with dried mud and blood, and the sleeves of her jacket were torn. She sighed. "I don't have money with me."

He rolled his eyes. "I was thinking of just taking..."

She shook her head. "No, that's wrong."

"I've done worse," he grumbled.

"Fine," she huffed, the word coming out in a cold puff. "You can do it, but I can't watch you steal. Please get us a map while you're at it, and maybe a long sleeve shirt to cover your..."

She gestured wildly at his robotic left arm.

"What are you going to do, cover your eyes while I steal things for you?"

"Yes," she retorted and crossed her arms. "If I watch you steal, I'll get upset."

Huh. Not only did he kill the farmers, he was also corrupting an innocent. He was a sinner through and through.

And to think Steve Rogers, America's golden boy, had sacrificed a peaceful life for one of a runway's, and fought his friends to protect a terrorist like him.

I'll find my way back to Wakanda, he swore as he helped the girl up. She shoved him off. And I'll never burden you or this world again, Steve.

A/N

Are any of these guys out of character? Please let me know!

I'm normally a DC chick and barely read up on Marvel people, so would like the correction of experts :P

Please note that next update will be in one or two weeks because of personal reasons. Thanks for reading this far!

xx roaary