1945 - Location Unknown

Bucky's mind is soup by the time they unstrap his listless body and drag him away from the chair again. He can't stand up anymore, so they simply drop him on his bunk, lock the door, and walk away. He lays there a long time, trying to find something, anything to cling to and steady himself.
His name is… ...is…..
He doesn't know.

All he can remember is blue eyes and blonde hair, and the idea that he has to protect someone at all costs. Like a bubble through thick muck, a name slowly surfaces.
"...Steve." he murmurs through dry, cracked lips.

In bits and drips, the rest follows. He gets his name back. He remembers where he is, and he thinks he can remember why. Not much more than that.

At some point, he falls into a restless sleep. The man in the labcoat is back when he wakes up.

"Christ… don't you… don't you people ever knock?" Bucky manages, wearily levering himself up to sit. His head is still spinning, but he knows that he hates this guy, and that's enough to go on for now.

"Oh, but you looked so comfortable." The smile seems sharp edged and vicious, though he couldn't say why. "I didn't want to disturb you."

"Like hell." Bucky snorts, feeling a little more comfortable with this. Sassing assholes is an ingrained habit. Familiar all the way down to his bones. He's on steadier ground with this. "You live to fuck with me."

"Don't flatter yourself, Sergeant." -and, oh...right… Sergeant. He is a sergeant, isn't he? He'd forgotten that detail, but it comes slowly back through the fog now that he thinks harder about it. "I simply enjoy our little chats. Don't you?"

"Go to hell."

"Ah, but then how would I be able to bring you this little taste of home?" Another newspaper drops with a rustle of pages, into Barnes' lap. "One must keep up on current events."

This time it's the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. This time there are details. Bucky's heart sinks with every line he reads.

Local Son, Steve Rogers (Captain America) Lost Overseas. Nation Mourns.

Captain Rogers, a Brooklyn, NY native, was killed in action this past week, while serving his country. A memorial service will be held on Sunday, December 14th, 5:30 pm, at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church. Mourners are asked to allow family and friends to take their places before finding a seat.

The article goes on with details and a biography of Steve's life. Bucky ticks off everything he can remember for certain. Only child, check. Both parents dead, check. They got his birthday right….

Apparently Steve hijacked an enemy plane in the middle of a huge raid, something named the Valkyrie (Red Skull sure liked to be dramatic), and crashed it someplace in the arctic so it wouldn't make land with a crazy payload of bombs. ...He went down with the ship. Bucky swallows hard.
…That sure sounds like the kind of stupid shit Steve would do.

Bucky's hand shakes when he gets to the part he's really been dreading. The proof.
The paper talked to his ma. It looks genuine. There's no way they could get this kind of information to fake it. There's even a picture of her and Cathy, holding one of those stupid Bucky-Bear toys from the comic-books.

Mrs. Barnes graciously invited us into her home to talk about both the late Captain Rogers, and her son James Barnes, who was killed in action only a few weeks prior while serving with the Captain.

"The boys were inseparable from the time they were just little scamps," she tells us, taking a small framed photograph from her china cabinet and passing it around. Two small boys, one gap-toothed and tall, with a mop of dark curls, the other smaller and fair, stand on Coney Island beach with arms linked, grinning for the camera. "You almost never saw one of them without the other. Steven all but lived at our house half the time, and my Bucky - that was James' nickname, you see- my Bucky lived at the Rogers' house the other half."

Did you have any idea then, we ask her, what would become of these young men?

"Oh no, certainly not." Mrs. Barnes says, hands folded in her lap. "I was always afraid Steven would pass young like his parents did, but I thought surely it'd be pneumonia or scarlet fever that did it. He was a sweet, earnest little thing, but he courted trouble all the time, and he was always catching something awful. There was a priest at the Roger's place every winter, at least once. I don't know how many times that poor boy got the last rites, but he always pulled through somehow. I could hardly believe it when they told me that big fella with the shield was little Steve. He always did have big ideas..."

"My Bucky, though…" And she pauses here, eyes filling with tears, "I always thought he'd come back to us. I thought I'd cry at his wedding, not his funeral."
A young girl of 4 suddenly comes to her mother from the next room and climbs into her lap. Catherine Barnes is introduced. "Bucky was so important to all of us." Mrs. Barnes continues with visible effort, holding her daughter and stroking her hair. The little girl doesn't appear to understand that her brother is not coming home, only that her mother is upset. She offers up the teddy-bear in her arms, which turns out to be fashioned after Bucky Barnes' Howling Commando's uniform.
"You have to understand," Mrs. Barnes tells us, accepting the bear with a sad smile, "My James was a caretaker. He looked after everyone. When his father passed, James had to take on three jobs, but he never complained. He was my angel."
Little Catherine decides to add her input as well. "My brother is the best brother in the world." she says matter-of-factly. "I sent him a dolly, but he didn't say if he likes it yet. Mama said he would, though."

Do you miss your brother? we ask her. Catherine looks scandalized.
"I miss both of my brothers." she says, tucking her face shyly into her mother's dress. "Mama says Bucky is with Steve, but she won't say where."

The article goes on, but Bucky can't read anymore. His whole body is shaking and his fingers are threatening to stab through the page, he's gripping it so tight.

"I can see you have much to think about." the man across from him says lightly, standing up and collecting his little stool. "I'll leave you to it."

Bucky barely hears the door locking or the goose-step of the guards marching to the end of the hallway, where they will remain for the next several days. He's left alone in the half-light without so much as a sound to distract him.

Unbidden, a sharp ugly sob rips out of his chest and the page smashes between clenching fingers.

He failed out there. Steve is dead.