Emergence

Part 2

The view of a calm and serene snowfall through the quiet night was a comfort to Steve as he moved silently through a winding path, across the threshold of the Green-Wood cemetery. His measure of calm wavered in place of sorrow with each step he now took. If he hadn't come here only a few weeks after first waking up in this new era, his last paid visit to this place would have been decades—a life time ago. It was a long period of absence that carved a fissure of guilt inside of him. 'Mom…dad, I'm sorry I don't come to visit often, I haven't been the son…nor friend I should be.' The remorse, if anything, was salt rubbed into an old wound whenever he thought of this place.

Over the last few months since he and Sam had discovered leads that put them onto a fresh trail, Steve had been concerned that he might be lead astray; that Bucky would always be too far from his reach. When he realized the mementos left behind were indicators of a meeting place Bucky wanted to lead him to, Steve became both puzzled and hopeful. Sam was quick to understand that the rest of this search he would have to conduct on his own if Bucky truly wanted to meet with him.

A crushing weight Steve had felt since discovering his friend was the infamous Winter Soldier, had been lifted the more he began to believe that his friend—the good man he knew—still existed somewhere inside the confused and tormented assassin. When he first realized where the last clue Bucky had left behind for him would indicate their meeting place, Steve, for the first time since beginning this search for the ghost of his best friend, became timid and hesitant.

Green-Wood cemetery was a spot where both his and Bucky's lives had been changed forever when they laid their parents into the ground. Joseph Rogers had passed on first; leaving Steve without a father in his life and his mother with the burden of full responsibility in a country recovering from its economic decline. Winifred Barnes soon followed, leaving Bucky without the gentle comfort a mother could provide. It wasn't long before both Sarah Rogers and George Barnes followed—leaving their children behind to fend for themselves; but not alone—never, for their bonds of friendship could only endure and they had transcended into something greater than friends—they became brothers; family.

Steve paused for a moment as he stood still beneath the shadow of a withered tree, and took a moment to survey his surroundings. The sheets of snow glistened and glowed brilliantly beneath the haloed moonlight; its essence pure and untouched unlike the trail of footfalls he'd left from behind. No other visible footprints could be seen; his initial assessment was that he was the only one here. Despite evidence of the fact, he wouldn't relax his guard as he decided to proceed further; his footsteps unconsciously taking him deeper across a field of trees and misshapen gravestones towards a familiar spot.

Despite being light on his feet, the deafening silence was disturbed by the soft crunching of snow beneath his boots and the whistle of wind brushing through the air. Steve kept his guard up, knowing that his meeting could very well turn out to be the opposite of what he had hoped for. Bucky's present state of mind was like a raging storm that could shift and lash in any given direction. Steve didn't come armed, or even dressed in his uniform despite Sam and Natasha's insistence. He'd instead come in plain jeans, boots and a coat with a Dodgers cap over his head. It was Steve Rogers that came to this meeting, Steve Rogers that had been called here; not Captain America.

After minutes of wandering, Steve paused as he took in the snow covered grove in front of him where a set of boot prints—not his own—were visible in the distributed snow.

"Bucky?" He called out tentatively, his tone measured with caution but without hostility. He began following the trail, his heartbeat increasing in its tempo with each step taken forward. The foot prints in the snow became heavier as they lead up a slope. "Bucky?" He called once more, his enhanced hearing causing his ears to perk once he caught the noise of what he deduced as soft sniffling and coughing—or was it sobs?

He moved further, his fierce azure eyes catching the large dark shape hunched over a familiar gravestone that he had paid respects to not too long ago. The figure seated on his knees in front of the stone had his hands—one gloved and the other metallic—tracing the engraved letters off of the stone with reverence and sorrow.

Steve swallowed softly, his heart now hammering loudly in his ears as he licked his lips and called out softly to darkness—his voice wavering in solace.. "Bucky…I'm here."

The urgent voice seemed absent, untraceable for a moment of relapse configuration. He didn't respond at first, the beckoning of that name was distant to his turbulent mind; everything had fallen into disarray, and the only accessible sentiment he allowed himself to cling to was the ambiance of shadow that devoured the crescents of light reflecting in his steely blue eyes. He wanted to remain unseen-omitted- from the impelling echoes that were lulling him to search in the predictable direction. Nothing seemed certain to grasp in those harrowing traces of vulnerability.

Feeling the raging torrents of heated blood pulse in his veins, Bucky's raw knuckles grew frigid and his muscles seized as he automatically reached for his tactical boot. The chrome alloy fingers bent and curled against a combat knife. He refused to become disarmed.

"Go away," he tried to resist the urge to seethe, but the feral timbre of his voice dipped into a harsh, graveled warning, his tiring eyes burned with fervent malice. He didn't trust his murderous intent, he spent days avoiding the possible reunion with the blond haired soldier dressed in vibrant, patriotic colors and amiable, brotherly azure eyes—the carbon visage of the virtuous and unyielding man who had reached out to take his hand as the demolished structures of S.H.I.E.L.D and HYDRA crumpled beneath them.

Steve...

With a savage effort to engage a lethal assault, Bucky had braced himself; gripping the knife, as the jagged edged blade quickly caught faint glints of the ominous moonlight shimmering over the mounds of undisturbed snow. Gritting his teeth, Bucky heaved out with enraged caution. "It's dangerous to be close to me..."

Steve kept a tentative yet non-invasive posture despite Bucky's hostility. His gaze moved fleetingly across the knife clutched in Bucky's gloved hand; the polished steel outshined by the alloy of his cybernetic fingers.

Despite the clear threat posed against him, Steve schooled his chiseled features however a tremor of unease moved through him as he noticed the familiar and daunting absence in Bucky's pale blue eyes.

The last time he had been on the receiving end of that empty stare, Bucky had nearly killed him on the helicarrier. It had taken weeks for Steve to fully recover from the concussion, the broken bones, the lacerations, and multiple gunshot and stab wounds.

The physical toll was manageable, but the emotional toll wasn't. Even now, Steve couldn't help the pang of sadness inside of him; the burden of guilt still as strong as the day he watched his best friend fall into the nothingness where his body was never found.

Steve believed in second chances, and he felt more than ready to embrace his the day he found out his friend was still alive, but just as before—he still needed saving. His determination revived, Steve took slow unwavering steps in Bucky's direction.

"I'm not afraid," Steve continued forward, cautiously, "and you don't have to be either." He assured, the broken pitch in his voice conveying the struggle within him. He ignored his timid nerves as he watched Bucky take a step backward in response, still holding his knife ready as if it were a life-line. Steve kept his distance as if he were dealing with a trapped wolf, knowing that a single wrong move would cause Bucky to lash out or flee.

Steve wanted neither; he couldn't afford to lose him to the wind again. He watched as Bucky's once wary and confused features morphed into a familiar angry scowl at his persistence. It was enough to give Steve pause in his steps, but he stood close to Bucky to meet him face-to-face. "You lead me here," Steve reminded him with gentle intent, "you wouldn't have done that unless you remembered who I am and why this place is important to the both of us."

Emboldened with relentless hostility, Bucky glared up at him with hollowed, soulless blue eyes; his breath was laced with exhaustion and his whiskered jaw throbbed into a tense clench. It was hard to process stray emotions, to accept familiar, automatic impulses to stand and embrace the blond haired soldier controlled his stiffen body as he tried to unravel memories. His brow furrowed into deep lines of anguish, and his right hand began quivering as he moved his fingers discreetly closer to Steve's boots. "I...I know you," he finally whispered in a dormant stammer, his voice strained and cracking. "You were little before and you needed me..."

Steve carefully nodded, daring to hope that his friend wasn't beyond his reach; that he hadn't spent the last year searching for him in vain while ignoring Natasha's warnings to stay away. The depths of his azure blue orbs glistened with unshed emotion. He did his utmost to maintain his composure, the lines on his brow raised in a beseeching manner.

"I needed a lot of things, back when I was just a lonely kid in Brooklyn," he began, swallowing back the heaviness in his throat, "but you gave me exactly what I needed when I had nothing else: friendship…family...courage."

His brow lifted while his mind became distant—swimming back to that fateful night at a back alley in Hell's Kitchen, decades ago, where a skinny blonde eleven-year old kid faced down a pack of bullies. It was a fight Steve had no intention of running from…and also no chance of winning. That was until a 12 year old kid with dark brown locks and bright blue eyes intervened and helped even the odds, saving him in more ways than one.

"You were there for me, Bucky, when I thought had nothing left," Steve confessed softly, his composure cracking under the maelstrom of decades of restrained emotion that had gone unloaded since the day Sarah Rogers had been laid to rest in this very place. "It's time I return the favor." Steve braved another step forward, tentatively reaching out and placing his steady hand on Bucky's shoulder.

"Don't touch me..." Bucky issued out a deformed gnarl, with a venomous bite evident in his laboured voice. Reacting to the compression of heat radiating from Steve's gloved finger tips, his tensed shoulder automatically jerked in the wake of familiar contact. At first, he couldn't bring his intent, murderous focus to stare up at Steve's angular, chiseled face. It was not ingrained in his programming to respond to aspects of human emotion. He had no ability to control the ravaging impulses of termination, not without a seductive to numb him before engaging a restless, brutal attack.

'Remember your training. No mercy. Kill the target and walk away.'

Darkness gripped him, clawing into the marrow of his hollowed bones as Bucky dismissed Steve's benevolent empathy, his throbbing head declined, kinked tresses of matted brown hair enswatched over his bedraggled features. His glacial eyes gained a violent glint when he aimed his deaden, absent stare back at the combat blade. Chrome knuckles clenched a warning as his bionic hand fastened into a balled fist.

The ruthlessness of HYDRA's necrotic ice phantom was becoming unleashed. He regarded Steve with a menacing glower, and once again ghosted out a feral warning for the unyielding Avenger to remove his imposing presence, before things got violent between them. He emitted out a vicious cluster of words. "You should've left me alone..."

Steve winced at Bucky's words; his own words failed him as he felt his throat close on him. His hands clenched into tight fists channeling his quiet discontent. He knew this wouldn't be easy. Over the decades, HYDRA didn't just take Bucky's name and his memories from him, they took away his ability to trust and feel compassion for others—they took away everything that made him Bucky…almost everything.

"I couldn't do that, Bucky," Steve exhaled, his façade of composure finally showing its cracks as a single tear betrayed him and spilled down the edge of his chiseled cheek. He smiled sadly, although it felt more like a grimace. "…I did that once before, and believe me; I wish that I hadn't…" The vast pit of guilt and sorrow inside of him burrowed ever deeper into his soul at the mere thought of the consequences of his ignorance that resulted in his best friend suffering for decades inside the grip of HYDRA. Despite his efforts to keep his emotions in check, Steve couldn't help them as they tumbled past his lips; words that he had wanted—needed to say—for so long."…I-If I had known that you were s-still alive…" he trembled, his hand digging into his pocket for something…

Feeling threatened under Steve's intense stare, Bucky collected his knife from the ground and aimed the blade directly at Steve, his feverish eyes became fixed on the vulnerable point of entry, locking onto the area that secured the Captain's heart.

Listening to the percussion of his erratic pulse, he panted, each hitched breath held an aching pitch of discomfort. He couldn't muster enough words to prevent the foreseen battle from happening. His gut tightened, and his heart wrenched as he felt utterly sick, almost ready to heave out the bile irking in his knotted stomach; pain from his disused limbs kept him restrained.

Still, the possessive impulse to kill seared through his bones, corrosive and torrid. He searched for a tranquil resolve, intently focusing on the distant glare of lamp posts surrounding the cemetery reflected in Steve's placid cerulean eyes as the blond haired soldier's calm demeanor bled away into a fractured, distraught grimace.

"Please go," Bucky choked out, but the strength in his voice was decamped. He scraped his raw knuckles against the ice encased grass, seething through gritted teeth as his lengthy mane sheathed over his slacken brow. His chest burned and froze with a solid swell of agony. "I don't want to hurt you."

The knife twisted against the contortion of his gloved fingers, and rush of adrenaline became the fuel to engage his reluctant attack. When Steve cautiously backed away a few steps, the Winter Soldier emerged from the icy depths of his demented instincts and he violently flung the knife into Steve's right calf, watching his tall opponent crash to his grounded level.

"I'm not here to fight you," Steve grunted, his blood racing with the familiar surge of adrenaline in the face of the certain yet also unpredictable danger in front of him. An unrelenting storm blazed between matching blue orbs as a brief tug-of-war ensued; their outer struggle reflected from the one within. Steve did his utmost to keep the lethal weapon at bay while at the same time keeping a non-retaliatory defense.

The determination in Bucky's eyes gave no indication that his words had been heard. Despite his own enhanced physical strength, Steve felt his weight sliding back along the snow; his rooted posture threatened by Bucky's unnatural might augmented by his cybernetic arm.

Snow continued its calm descent upon the two colossal forces as they struggled, all while the knife hung overhead between them. "We've fought together side-by-side for years. Stand down, Bucky!" Steve grunted with a stern voice, his patience wearing thin as frustration and indignation took over once he realized where their probable third round was taking place, "Snap out of it, soldier!" Steve gritted his teeth, his hands shook as he restrained himself from taking an offensive edge that would lead to nowhere. "Bucky…please…" Steve whispered imploringly, his eyes boring earnestly into the dilated abyss reflecting back at him.

"HYDRA has lied to you. Remember…you're not a weapon, you're free; free to choose to be who you really are. You're James Buchanan Barnes." Steve watched as the abyss shimmered with a familiar light. "Your parents were George and Winifred. You were THEIR little soldier…" Steve cried.

Bucky could barely register the urgent words. Blood pulsed in his ears, blocking out sound as he recalled his tactics of brutal training, levels of the beta serum elevated in his veins; but his maniacal instincts controlled his fused limbs as his alloy hand forced the knife to eclipse a daunting shadow over the jagged edge of Steve's clenched jaw. He seethed low and abrasive, his luminous eyes held murderous, and brutal intent when he tried to penetrate the jugular vein of his willful opponent.

When Steve caught the Russian accent laced in Bucky's detached, aphotic voice, his heart clenched and ripped open, the phantasmal gaze of HYDRA's subservient weapon bore into his skull, cutting through layers of unsettled guilt. "You speak of lies...Человек со щитом...Моя семья HYDRA."

Steve stared at him, his confidence unshaken by the biting words meant to assuage The Winter Soldier's certainty. "Если бы это было правдой ... зачем ты пришел сюда?" Steve spoke, surprising if not disquieting the former Hydra assassin as their grip remained locked over the blade held between them. "Why lead me here?" He pressed, unwaveringly. "It's because you deep down, you know this place is familiar…just like that gravestone next to you."

Bucky resisted the urge to snarl as his livid eyes went blazed with untamed rage; fighting to reclaim degenerative memories against the consuming static filtering in his addled brain. After emitting out a vicious pitch of breath, his gloved hand automatically shot upwards to ram into Steve's jaw bone. His wolfish, disheveled tresses obstructed his sharp vision, and his knuckles only grazed the blond's chilled flesh.

"The grave means nothing to me..." He fumed in a crazed jerk, gritting his teeth. His pupils enlarged and devoured leaving only small crescents of blue against flecks of moonlight. He stared darkly at Steve, no empathy was present in his deprived, paled stare. "You mean nothing to me..."

Steve blinked back the frown that threatened to cross his features; despite the fact Bucky was not himself in this moment, the sting of his words wasn't any less hurtful. His passive-aggressive approach did not waver despite The Winter Soldier's attempts to force him into another hostile encounter. It wasn't an option for Steve here and now, no matter how much Bucky thought he wanted to hurt him—or needed to. Raising his chin, Steve thickly swallowed back the ball of turmoil as his eyes stared forlornly into Bucky's before he gently reminded "If that's true…then why did you pull me from the lake? Why did you save my life that day?"

A flash of vivid and unraveling memory caused Bucky's self destructing heart to jolt. Hearing the measure of Steve's placating, intolerable, cacophonous words rattle in his brain. He swallowed down a clot of saliva; he cast a feverish glance at the knife held rigidly in the grip of his chrome digits. After a moment of relenting against uncertainty, he lowered the blade to his side, and receded back with a staggered footing of omission.

Lowering his head, Bucky distinctly remembered the trail of spilled, enhanced blood in his footprints on soggy earth; and the numbing pain of dislocated bones of his right arm and the vibrant colors of the American flag–his homeland. He stared at his metal hand, long and hard, fighting to reclaim the utmost of truth pulsing in his chilled veins. He saved Steve. It was his hand that pulled the blond soldier out of the watery fathoms and dragged him onto the edge of shore. Something controlled him in that defining moment. It wasn't a familiar reaction, but valid and parallel to his reservations of strength. The real Bucky Barnes had emerged from the icy depths of the Winter Soldier in those dire seconds of choice.

"No…" He gasped with a breathless seethe; dropping the knife at his boots, and paled at the moment of realization when he dared to look into Steve's piercing, and sincere blue eyes. His face fell into a disarray of uncontrolled emotions. He reached out a shaky hand, trying to extend it to the collar of Steve's leather jacket. He was using the super soldier as an anchor, holding onto apparitions of abated memories and crushing reproach of retained humanity.

Still, he resolved to keep his distance. The curved edges of his lips twitched into a disgruntled, abashed sulk. "I didn't mean to fall…To let go…" He conceived more recollections of the stolen past. "I didn't mean to hurt you…"

Steve smiled sadly yet at the same time was filled with mild relief, "It's not your fault, Bucky," a single tear brimmed in his eye, its seeped through the crack in his defenses and spilled down his cheek where it left a cold trail against the snowy wind. "…It's mine," he admitted staidly; invalid betrayal darkened across his face, and his eyelids closed, shutting away the blue depths of his guilt but leaving two streams of tears in his wake.

He slowly dipped his head, "I thought you had died…If I had known you survived the fall…" he exhaled dismally, his breath like fog in the wind as he let his words trail off. He knew this shouldn't be about him, but the words spilling from his mouth were like a cascading waterfall that couldn't be stopped—he needed Bucky to know how much it devastated him to know he had lost him—had failed him.

"I'm sorry, Bucky…I really am." Digging deep into his pockets, Steve felt the cool touch of metal against his fingertips. He opened his eyes, and stared at the only thing in the world he had left to remember his best friend by during those quiet nights where his guilt and loneliness prevailed over him. "I don't know how much you remember…or if you even want to. But what I do know is that this world doesn't need me half-as much I need you…"

Wiping his eyes, Steve braved a step forward as he watched Bucky fall to his knees in front of the gravestone where his pale blue eyes were once again examining the carved name upon the slab: "George Barnes; loving husband and father."

Crouching low, Steve sets the dog tags on the snow in front of Bucky, "You're more than my friend, Buck. You're my family. That will never change," he sniffed.

The sheen of the dog tags reflected in the fathoms of icy steel, vacant and feral, constant arises of torture. Acceptance of his state of health was another warranted punishment to endure; but his disconnected, insurmountable memories were launching full assault.

Biting down harshly at his lip; Bucky affixed a fervid glare onto the familiar chained necklace clutched in Steve's gloved hand.

Fragments of the past begun to register, bleeding into his skull. He gripped onto the barest thread of humanity. Fire speared in his chest, veins tightened into knots and heartbeat grew into frantic paces; as he searched for the leaden truth. Staring at the name engraved on the silver plates, Bucky wanted to unleash his agony; to finally break loose from the detriment ties and grasp onto humanity again.

Inhaling the frigid air that felt barbs against his lungs, Bucky cautiously made an effort; immediately reaching for the dangling chain. He unfastened his alloy fist and just grazed one of the plates with slide of his chrome finger. "James Buchanan Barnes..." he choked out, graveled and monotone, peering at the tarnished name. "These belonged to me..." His slacken brow creased under the untamed tresses of frayed hair. "I wore them under my uniform, didn't I?" he asked, distant and unsure if the solid evidence of his life was enough to retain the ice demon scraping underneath.

Steve's lips stretched into a modest smile; the bitter memories of loss were washed away by an accumulation of heroic and joyous recollections from a distant but not forgotten past. They were the ones he remembered with fondness as he had watched James Buchanan Barnes fight bravely and selfishly for his country, his allies and for the innocents who were suffering through the fog of war. "You wore them with pride…and with honor." Many didn't realize it then, but as the weight of so many lives depended on Captain America during the war, as they looked to him for hope and leadership… Steve had looked to Bucky for strength and for guidance. Bucky was Steve's own Captain America. "We fought side by side together for years… Do you remember?"

Bucky sunk his teeth hard into the plump flesh of his lip, receding memories flashed in the depth of his steely eyes. "I dunno," he raged, harshly, shaking his head against the rabid charge of cognitive dissonance. Mussed, drenched tresses veiled his distant gaze; darkening the clear azure with obstruction of riddled anguish.

His nerve endings surged and pierced his fervid veins, his broad jaw clenched into a hollowed constriction that Steve resolved the indention of the bone pushing against the bristled skin. The dense sculpt of his muscles jerked under the layers of his bedraggled clothing and a pace of tears retained in his eyes.

Feeling Steve's dismal blue eyes cast over him with burdens of hardened sorrow, Bucky slowly parted his coarse lips; drawing up a low, abrasive breath, that almost seemed to ghost out a remorseful conviction. "It doesn't feel like those tags belong to me..."

He traced his irate stare onto the familiar grave; the offset storm inside him had increased with intensively. Holding back the reserves of his bone-grinding contempt, Bucky tasted the slow trek of blood down his sore throat. His swollen lip pulsed and stung. "I have no honor to bury under a name."

As he listened to Bucky's rueful words, Steve's once smooth and placid brow furrowed into hard lines of discontent. 'How much of him did they wash away?' he wondered remorsefully. His fists clenched tightly at his sides; the adrenaline that swam in his veins burned from within as his mounting anger brimmed to a tipping point. A vexing exhale fell past his parted lips forming a brush of cool air against the wind. "That's not true, Bucky," the conviction in his firm tone never felt as potent as it did now. Despite the gravity of the resentment that he held for Hydra and the horrors they subjected Bucky to, he relaxed his posture and allowed his emotions to ebb into a stoic bubble.

"The world remembers James Buchanan Barnes' as the heroic kid from Brooklyn who fought for life, liberty and peace during one of its darkest points in history," Steve swallowed softly, "his courage and ultimate sacrifice helped to save the lives of millions." Steve smiled weakly, recalling the Wall of Valor he glimpsed inside the Triskellion and the collective new S.H.I.E.L.D agents that gathered in front of it, studying each name closely with respect and something else akin to reverence. "His memory inspired new generations of heroes in the decades to come…"

Emboldened, Steve gently lowered his hand and rested his palm across Bucky's coiled shoulder. "That's who you are, Bucky. That's what makes you honorable… Not the identity HYDRA forced on you."

"I'm not him," Bucky lashed in a low snarl, recoiling away from the captain's reverent touch. He glared dangerously at Steve; raw and tainted damage evident in his sallow blue eyes; coils of breath tightened in his chest. Finding himself enraged and addled, he tensely clenched his metal hand; every nerve frayed as blood rushed in his veins. A shock wave of pain jolted through his bones, he lurched with an automatic reflex whipping his elbow into Steve's knee as the blond faltered back. "You're lyin'." he chanted in a rabid pants of breath; fighting demoniac surge of baneful instincts.

He couldn't remember the contents of memory; lapses of degraded thoughts made his skull pound while his mind was being plagued with spiraling visages of blackness and macabre of bloody smears glistening on hollow ice. He felt the control of Zola gripping into his subconscious; anchoring him back into Antarctic submission.

'Forget about old friends... You walk in darkness...You have no one to pull you out.'

Remnants of distorted faces and nameless ghosts were slipping away, and he couldn't hold onto anamnesis-the embers of harbored defiance were dying. Images of his D.I.A certificate presented on the exhibit resurfaced in his mind. "James Barnes is dead..." he spoke in an wavering volume in cold lunacy. Blood pulsed violently in his veins, and he couldn't grapple the sentiment boring into him. "There's only the Winter Soldier left to finish the mission —THE MISSION!"

Steve clenched his jaw tightly as bridled anger pulsed inside of him. His inclination to respond just as heatedly tugged away at him in a desperate attempt to convince the confused, denying man in front of him that he wasn't this assassin Hydra forced him to be—not when he now had a choice. His patience strong as steel, however, he allowed his fist to uncurl and his posture relaxed against the surge of hostility standing against him. He remained firm however, as he actively shifted forward, his determined stare meeting the glacial pools glaring back at him.

"I don't believe that, and deep down I don't think you want to believe it either," Steve affirmed, "Hydra may have taken away your memories, but they didn't take away the things you fought for, the ones who care about you!" His voice shook, the maelstrom of emotion he kept at bay threatened to overtake him in this precarious moment. His head drooped and a shaky sigh escaped him; the moonlight caressed his pale complexion in the darkness blanketed by snow.

A fleeting moment passed before he raised his chin and met Bucky's timid stare now angled away from his.

Steve took in his disheveled appearance; growing stubble coated his strong jaw-line, the baseball cap covering his mane of wolfish dark locks that hung in front of his face, creating haunting shadows near his pale blue eyes. The button-flannel beneath a black leather jacket, and a pair of faded jeans. The visage of a wayward soul seeking answers that he could very well come to despise and grieve.

Steve felt his heart swell in realization. Before now, he had only considered the possibility of Bucky not remembering himself because he truly couldn't… But perhaps he was truly afraid to remember? If he did…how would he react, how would he live with the burden of so many dark and horrifying moments lingering from The Winter Soldier's murderous conquests? He couldn't let him feel that way, Bucky had to know that he wasn't alone in this.

"Look at me, Buck and say that you don't remember my face," Steve entreated, "It's me...Stevie Rogers, the kid who was always too stupid to run from a fight. I know you remember me, just like I know there is still good in you!"

"SHUT UP!" Bucky viciously unleashed a snarling pitch; bared his teeth into taut clench. He drove his metal fist into the frozen ground; feeling helpless and disturbed, he heaved out a straggled pant, trying to fight against red blotches hazed over his dampened eyes.

He was reaching a self-destructive state; degeneration of his subconscious reeled him back into the asylums of his torturous nightmares. Coldness aimlessly slithered down his numbing bones, and his tongue became tainted with metallic tang of warm blood.

Seething, Bucky tilted his head downward, straggly tresses raveled over his feverish and hollowed cheekbones, veiling over his menacing azure irises and concussions of pain knotted in his chest. He couldn't lift up his arm, somehow it seemed like his willpower was resisting the cybernetic weapon melded to his flesh; holding the alloy limb down with all reserves of bisected strength.

With all the effort he could manage, his weight lurched to the left, and then he took a hushed moment to retrace his severed memories. Bucky creased his clammy brow—the curved edges of his lips twitched as raptorial urges seized control the recesses of his deleterious thoughts; to bathe into the blood of his marked target-the Freedom Fighter- to relish dominance over a power struggle obtaining his core.

Alexander Pierce ingrained hatred into him, torturing him to believe that Captain Rogers was an obstructive force against the succession of HYDRA's new era. He displayed no hints of empathy to the exhibited anguish that morphed into a dark cast over Steve's disgruntled chiseled face, he noticed briefly.

"I don't care who you are," he finally dismissed with a sharp dissonant growl, heated malice glowed in his depthless blue eyes. "Maybe I was friend to you in another life time," he continued. There was hint of wistful despair ghosting in his tensed-languished voice. As his breath morphed into grated sobs; Bucky felt coils of harrowing rage that rented inside him.

Jutting out his chin, Bucky bit out his spite."Now, I don't even know if I am alive...If this is just the afterlife. All these damned memories feel stolen and I know they're not mine to keep." He paused lifting his hand up before ramming it against the gravestone, cracking the marble that held the engraving of his father's name. He surrendered to gravity, pressed his grimacing lips into his scraped knee. "It feels like they belong to another dead soldier. That isn't me." He trailed off coldly.

"It's always been you, Buck," Steve interjected in the midst of the falling snow. His voice leveled, and his stare unmoving with hardness evident in his blue eyes. He cast a dismal gaze at the broken and deranged visage of his best friend. Changing his life was a risk he was willing to take to ensure that Bucky would reclaim his honor both as soldier and a great man. Blood would not be spent on disturbed mounds of snow. Although it seemed currently availing, he had to breathe through the programming and win Bucky's trust.

As Steve mustered enough measures of moral strength, he pressed his chapped lips into a taunt line, feeling the lancing pain splint through his chest. For a lapsing moment of stillness, he was recalled back into the void of his past; feeling the world collapsing into thickened ice and perpetual seemed unimaginable, but going deeper beyond the pain and torment was the only way to the cut off tentacles of HYDRA snaking around his friend.

"Listen to me, soldier, Zola played with your mind and did things that were unforgivable." Breath seized in his lungs, failing to empty. He was paralyzed, momentarily, guilt plunged deep into his gut, swirling as bile rose up his perched throat. "I should've been there to stop him, if I had just taken' another glance at his notes...then maybe I could've given you a fighting chance to beat his programming."

He wiped the tears off his cheek, gently, adjoining his promising lit eyes with the distressed glower of the brutalized assassin. He couldn't fathom the amount of pain Bucky endured...He had to stop using the emotional reserves Captain America, and fully strip the mantle of the unbeatable and fierce soldier that emerged out the green painted metal egg capsule; he had to become Steven Rogers, no vestiges of hellbent defiance, but the caring sentiment that remained leaden under the patriotic colored uniform.

Tentatively, Steve dragged his gloved finger into the snow, creating a dividing line. He lifted his head valiantly, finding solace in the passing veils of winter; looking into the feverish haze that obstructed the clearest shades of blue churned in Bucky's glacial eyes—a vivid apparition of unfulfilled reckoning. He felt the depth of his guilt becoming laden in his heart, as he searched for a second chance to redeem his mistakes.

"Now, I'm giving you a choice, Buck, you can take a stand with me against HYDRA, or surrender to the pain? Whatever you side you choose, I'll never stop fighting for you," he avowed.

Those profound words grew effective on him, Bucky attempted to fight against the unwarranted impulse to retreat back into the darkness, he automatically blanched in a lurching movement of uncontrolled distress. His exhausted body trembled as the impending recurrence of pain stabbed at his muscles. Steve had definitely reached him. Staring at the dog tags glinted in the snow, he regarded another glace at the chained necklace coldly, a vague sensation of agony wormed absently within him.

"You gotta fight for me," he managed to declare with a guttural, dissuading undertone; sentiment was gripping the dull ache in his bones when he attempted to prevent a sour trek of blood from solidifying in the breeze of chilled air. Accepting his condemned defeat seemed inevitable, despite the pain Bucky had someone vaguely familiar to his ravaged psyche that could lead him out of the hellish fray: he had Steve Rogers.

"You-you need to leave me." The grating words that emitted from his scratchy throat revealed unstable anguish and distant regret. He swallowed the last dregs of blood that his damaged body offered as waves of fevered heat blotched his heavy-lidded eyes. "I'm-I'm feelin' sick." he murmured his voice fading into a wheeze." I've gotta to go."

''Not gonna happen, Buck," Steve protested, a firm edge ghosted from his stiffened lips, unshed tears gathered in his determined eyes. "You took care of me even when I had nothin' to give." His throat locked up, and rasps of breath froze momentarily in his lungs. The unshakable faith he carried outweighed variants of his constricted doubts penetrating deeper. "I'm gonna to do the same for you...We'll put this on the ropes together."

Bucky gazed at him wearily; aggression and unease began to abate in his veins. He nodded without answering for a moment, lifting up his hand for Steve to willingly take. He held back the sting of tears. "Together," he droned in a strangled rasp, sounding almost free to express what bled through the ice of his heart. Steve didn't move, his body was situated in the moment of amending stigmas of his past, but he knew words couldn't numb the pain, even though he felt the torn wounds of his recovered heart slowly closing with each renewed memory.

Steve pulled out piece of tissue from his jacket's pocket, and carefully dabbed at the line of scarlet dripping over the cleft of Bucky's bristled chin. It was presage of resolute acceptance; nothing was lost, and the hope of restoring his friend never abandoned him. Regardless, of the dull senses and tender muscles, Steve found the means of peace within himself, and squeezed Bucky's shoulder with steadiness evident in his regarded crystalline eyes and deeply whispered in the wake of his transition. "Don't worry Buck, I'll get you fixed up in no time," he avowed, firmly shifting a assured glance at the grave. "I promise."

In a flash of a justified moment, Bucky felt his lips seizing into a genuine smile. "Stevie," he slurred, catching his breath. His searing gelid blue eyes stared up at the super-soldier with teary and restored clarity in his gaze."You're my brother too."

Feeling the listless ache dissolve in his heart, Steve smiled faintly, listening the echoes of the voice he never thought was possible to hear returning. He sniffled, and permitted his stowed emotions to release the final wash of tears. "Let's go home, Buck, you need to get out of the cold."

The End.

{Russian translations}

You speak of lies...Человек со щитом...Моя семья HYDRA. (The man with the shield ... My is family HYDRA)

Если бы это было правдой ... зачем ты пришел сюда? (If that were true…why did you come here?")