Hi, everyone! Time for Chapter Five! Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. There is a scene from the first Captain America film parodied to be from Bucky's perspective, and I claim no ownership to it. No copyright infringement intended.

Chapter Five

I wander around the city block as morning traffic commences. The longer I walk, the worse the pain in my stomach grows. I need to eat, but I can't remember having ever even anything. I don't know which food to eat or even what anything tastes like. I don't know where to get food besides a store, and none are open because of how early it is.

The longer I walk, the shorter the buildings become, and the more space there is between them. After a while, the sun officially rises, the traffic picks up, and people spill out onto the streets. Few cars pull into a gas station I come across, and there is a small store behind it. A large truck pulls up next to the store, and a man appears behind it. He opens up the back of the truck and starts to unload boxes, placing them on a trolley. The boxes were labeled with images and words like "Lays" and "Chex Mix". I don't know what those are, but it might be food.

I slink behind the building and cling to the shadows as another man comes out and takes more boxes out of the truck. He places them on the ground and turns back for more as the first man comes back out with the trolley again. I sneak closer to them and scan the boxes. There was one filled with small plastic-wrapped packages labeled "granola bars" that looked like it would last me for a while if I rationed it right.

When they both had their backs turned to me, I rushed over to the truck and stayed hidden in the shadows next to it, pressing myself against the side of the truck. The first man comes back out and loads up the trolley again with a yawn before turning back around and heading back into the store. I take quiet steps closer to the pile of boxes as another box of granola bars drops in front of me. I instantly snatch it up and back away. I wait for a few seconds, but the man in the truck continued to drop boxes onto the ground.

I let out a silent breath I didn't realize I was holding and continue to move closer to the front of the truck so I wouldn't be seen.

The box I snagged is large, so I don't think I can store all of it, and something is nagging at me that makes me feel bad about taking it. I need it more than these more than those workers do, but it's also their job to not let things go missing. Who knows what their bosses will do to them for failing in their mission.

I rip the box open and empty out half of the granola bars inside. That gave me about thirty, so if I ate three a day, I'd only have enough for ten days, but it would have to do until I could find more. Their bosses might still consider the thirty missing bars as a failure, but at least their punishment might be lighter.

I take the backpack off, stuff the plastic-wrapped bars inside and zip it back up. I shoulder the pack again and stand up, taking the box with me. I sneak back towards the workers and slide the box back where I found it.

I walk off and continue down the street, the sun rising behind me more and more. It's probably a good idea for me to leave this city. That Captain-what was his name again? Steve?-Steve might be looking for me, and it's a bad idea for us to interact. Two entirely conflicting emotions battle inside of me whenever I think of him. Before, I could only register a hard focus that blocked out everything else. He was my mission, so I only felt that I had to kill him. Now, I feel worried for him. Worried for his health, his safety. But at the same time I still feel that he should die. The order that Pierce gave me still rattles around inside me, and the more I think about it, the stronger it becomes.

I shake my head and force the order down. I might not know how, but Steve is my friend. I can't kill him, but I'm still drawn back to the river where I left him. It's best for him if I leave the city.

My stomach growls again, sending another dull wave of pain through my torso. I take one arm out of the pack I'm wearing and swing it in front of me as I walk. I open it and take one of the granola bars out before closing it again and slipping my metal arm back through the strap. I tear the plastic wrapping around it and find granola, nuts and chocolate chips being held together by sticky caramel. I take the smallest of bites to test it and find it to be simultaneously sweet and salty. I also discover that I like chocolate chips. The entire bar disappears after a second. It's not much of a first meal, but it tasted so good that I have to force myself not to reach back into the pack for another.

The longer I walk, the more my mind drifts. I repeatedly analyze my dream from last night. There was so much pain and blood, and it was all mine. The man that stood over me and told me that Steve was dead. I know that I know that man's name. It starts with a Z, but that's all I can remember. If that dream was a memory at all. I hope it isn't. I would hate to learn that my entire life was created by pain.

"HYDRA doesn't take prisoners. There is only order, and order only comes through pain. The faint, remembered voice sounds like the man in my dream, but I can't be sure.

What exactly did HYDRA erase? Everything? My name, my friends, even my birthday. I know nothing about myself. Whatever happened must have taken a long time, so it would take an even longer time to remember, but I'm prepared for however long it will take. I will remember. And when the time comes, when whatever HYDRA did to me disappears, I will find Steve again and apologize for everything. I don't know if I've tried to kill him in the past, but it didn't matter. Once was enough. No one should kill anyone, let alone their friend.

I glance down an alleyway as I pass it, but when I get only a few feet from it, something stops me. I stand there for a minute, trying to figure out what had me frozen. Eventually, I turn around and glance down the alley. I check every part of it, but find nothing. What am I looking for?

I walk until noon, and without water, the dryness of my throat makes me realize that I can't carry on until I get some. I'm on the edge of the city now, and a large park extends in front of me. There are children and parents and pet dogs playing with each other in the grass and on the metal and plastic playset. A woman takes a sip of water from a hard, black bottle before putting it back down by the rest of her things and running back off to join her young daughter.

As the pair ran off, I took small, quick steps towards her bottle. I don't want to steal from them, but I need water desperately, and I don't have any money to buy it. I take another granola bar out of the pack and drop it on top of the woman's things in exchange for the bottle.

I lose myself in the crowds of people in the park as I take a drink from the bottle. The water was warm, but still soothed my scratchy throat. I finish the already half-drunk bottle quickly and scan the park for a place to refill it. I spot a green water fountain through the crowds of people and wander over to it. I fill the bottle with the slightly colder water and move on from the park.

The best thing for both me and Steve would be to leave the country entirely. He will definitely be looking for me, but he can't find me. I might kill him if he does. I can't remember if I've ever been outside of the country, but I'm going to be soon. I can stow away on a ship or something.

My stomach growls again, but I can't eat another granola bar. I just gave one to that woman in exchange for her bottle of water. I have to ration, and something tells me that I've gone with less food than this.

The sun is almost gone when I finally reached the middle of nowhere. As I walked, I came across the occasional gas station, but it's only highways and trees now.

I back into the treeline and finally sit down on the dirt ground. I'm rationing the water, so I had only drank half of the water bottle, but I take a drink now, and it instantly dispels the scratchiness in my throat. I eat another of the granola bars and take out the spiral notebook with the children's drawings.

I thumb through the simplistic and colorful sketches, and the corners of my mouth twitch upwards as I do. I briefly wondered if the children who drew in this notebook had metal arms, too, or if I'm the only one in the world.

I take off my left glove and inspect the gleaming silver of my hand. Why is my arm metal? It's fused into my skin at the shoulder, and I can feel the metal extending further under my skin and deeper into my body. Its weight makes what was left of my shoulder hurt terribly. I don't think that people are born with metal arms, but for some reason, I have one. Why?

As the last rays of sunlight disappear, I put my glove back on and lay on the ground, resting my head on the pack.

I know very little about myself, but I recite what I do know out loud so that I can hear it. "My name is Bucky. Steve Rogers is my friend. HYDRA erased me."

I sigh when it's finished. I wish I knew more, but I don't. Whenever I look back, there's just blackness and pain. But I know there's more. There has to be.

"Yeah, and I threw up?" Steve confirmed as I glanced up to the top of the unstable zipline we were about to ride down.

"This isn't payback, is it?" I wondered, getting Steve to laugh lightly.

All too soon, we were sliding down the line, speeding towards the moving cargo train. We dropped down on top of it, and I followed Steve down into it. I held my rifle steady as we moved slowly through the freight car. It was filled with weapons of all sorts. Weapons that I was forced to make that were powered by the Tesseract. If they made it to their destination along with Zola, the War would be lost.

As Steve crossed through a door, it slid shut behind him. I froze before I ran into the door as something banged behind me. I jumped and turned to find an armored man firing bullet after bullet at me.

I ducked behind a crate and fired off as many shots as I could, but I couldn't get a good enough angle on him. He was too obscured by the rest of the shelves and crates. By the time my rifle ran dry, and I had only managed to wound him. I had a pistol left. After that, he was going to kill me. I leaned around the crate and fire off shots as I moved to better cover. I only had so many bullets. He's going to kill me.

I fire off the remaining shots in the pistol, but those bullets were just as useless as the ones before it.

The door near me slides open, and my heart jumps, thinking it's another soldier, but Steve leans through it instead. He holds up another pistol, and I nod. Steve tossed me the gun and I caught it bringing it up towards the soldier again. Steve suddenly burst through the door and rammed his shield into one of the crates of weapons. The crate impacted the soldier and threw them off balance, and I fired the new gun, shooting him in the chest.

"I had him on the ropes," I voiced, dispelling my shaken nerves with the comment.

"I know," he sighs.

A blue shot comes from behind us, and we both lean to the side. It misses us by inches and blasts through the side of the freight car. Another soldier was marching up to us as wind and snow billow through the train car. I dropped my gun with the surprise shot, but I quickly picked it up again along with Steve's shield. I fire off shots towards the soldier and put the shield in front of me as I advanced towards Steve. He was more exposed than I was.

A Tesseract-powered shot hit me with so much force that it threw me backwards, and the shield slipped from my grasp. I scramble to grasp the hand rail clinging to the torn side of the freight car before I could fall. I cling to it with all my might, but it was freezing outside, and the metal was colder. It sliced through my skin, making it three times harder to hang on than the speed of the train was already making it.

"Bucky!" I look up to find Steve clinging to the side of the freight car with his hand outstretched. "Grab my hand!"

I tentatively let go of the shaking bar and reach for him. He was so close. Just a centimeter more.

The train car shuddered, and the trembling bar snapped off of the metal. My fingertips grazed Steve's glove, but I didn't grab hold. I'd take him down with me if I did.

I fell down, down, down, and the train disappeared so quickly. The fall was so fast that I almost didn't register that it happened. I hit trees and rocks, and my left arm hurt so badly.

I landed in the snow and rested there for a moment. The last car of the train disappeared around a bend, and all I could think was that I was glad it was me who fell instead of Steve. People needed him more than me.

My vision spun, and my arm hurt. I tried to lift my head to assess my injuries, but I couldn't. I was too tired. I let my eyes close, drifting in the darkness.

Glad to see you all again, and I hope you'll come back for Chapter Six!