Chapter 3: Bitter End

The air was fresh and the snow was white but he could not let go of what was unseen: memory. Out on the streets of Chicago once again, the Soldier wandered alone, searching for new sights to clear his mind. Ordinary civilians paid no attention to the man in the navy baseball cap, eyes glued to the pavement.

Every now and again he would look up, but as he crossed a bridge now he was suddenly surrounded by multiple American flags. For whatever reason, they unsettled him immensely, creating a form of longing he could not place. There was so much he wanted to understand, but his mind was filled with a thick haze that pressed into the corners of a deep migraine. Giving into the numbness, the Soldier did what he did best this past month: forgetting thoughts, walking alone.

Nearing a park, the Soldier saw children playing on snow-covered rocks and adults huddling together for warmth. The Soldier's frosted breath hung out in open air in front of him. There was noise, but it was dull. There were lights, but they were haloed. There was snow, but it felt like he was walking over blank pieces of printer paper, hovering between the lines of unknown and forgotten. There once were words, but they had been erased. He wanted so badly to remember.

The Soldier watched as the people around him soundlessly enjoyed the clean air and white noise of winter. Looking behind him, the Soldier saw a young girl with curly red hair. She was making her way to her friends on the opposite end of the park, carrying a cup. She was giggling and bouncing senselessly on her way – and knocked right into the Winter Soldier.

In her recklessness, the redhead slammed right into the Soldier's left shoulder. Caught off guard, he stumbled and lost his balance, and she dropped her cup. The Soldier fell over on the soft snow, wondering, how he hadn't seen that coming. The girl apologized and jumped up, but the Soldier didn't hear her. He was cemented to the ground by the sharp electric ache under his metal shoulder. The raw pain held him on the ground; the pain made him dizzy. Through the disorientation and blinding snow, all the Soldier could see was red, splattered all over the snow next to him.

Sudden flashes of memory came to him – white snow, white pain, red blood, red ache. He was back in the recesses of the Russian land where he had first fallen. Someone had come to find him to take him away…he didn't want to go there. Shut it out. But the pain was there. And he remembered it; the moment that changed everything. He remembered falling, crashing, landing on the arm that now required no feeling. Someone dragging him. Cutting into him.

He remembered falling, sinking into the abyss of white land of nothing, then everything, everything was made of pain. The thing was, the pain never stopped. That was the moment he was taken off to Hydra, made into a weapon, the power of more than his left arm taken from him. In the blood spread across the white blanket of snow that day was left pieces of him that he wasn't sure now if he could get back.

Reality snuck back in as his eyes opened to the illusion of a shattered left arm sticking out from under his coat. Then he was back in the park, and people were flocking to him, trying to help him up, making sure he was okay. The first man to touch him was unaware that the Winter Soldier did not like to be touched – but soon found out. The man went flying across the park as the Soldier's metal arm slammed into him. The other people gasped and quickly moved back from him, yet most were still curious.

With his rage, he fended off anyone else who thought they were helping. Suddenly this place was unsafe.

One face in particular never moved from him. A curious woman began to move closer to the crown from far away. Then it seemed as if something registered on her face, and she began to move in closer.

While her mind registered resolution, his registered fear. He didn't know this woman; she seemed somehow familiar, but he didn't have time to figure out why. The Soldier quickly lifted himself up from the ground and bolted from the park. He was running, sprinting fast to get away from her sensing stare.

And she was following.

He ran fast, as fast as possible, but she was fast, too. This was not the kind of running he had done on mission: there was never a real need to run. Not for his life. But this was actual fear, he ran as if his life was shortening. Fear built up in his lungs, thickening his breath and choking him. The woman clearly knew him or wanted something from him, and he was not okay with the possibility of this being Hydra.

He stopped around a corner. Heart beating hard and adrenaline coursing fast, the Soldier peeked around the building to see if he had lost her. Negative. About five buildings down the street, she came sprinting around the corner, hair blowing madly from the speed. His breath caught in his chest and he pushed himself off the wall, running again.

Dread accompanied adrenaline as he fought the fear of what might happen if he got caught. Never again. Running, running from the woman. Running from what he once was. Running from the confrontation. He couldn't, he just couldn't. The blood in his ears then overtook the sound of his own footsteps, which ceased. The Soldier, overwhelmed by the increased activity of his mind and racing heart, fell onto the gray concrete beneath the buildings he had grown accustomed to wandering. He panted shallow breaths as his eyes faded to black, a vision of sleek black leather and fiery red hair the last thing he saw standing over him.