Chapter Text
The first flashback had knocked him on his ass. It was a nightmare. No. It was worse than a nightmare because he knew in his gut that it was real. It had happened in a past life.
He saw flames. Smoke choked him. His body was wracked with pain. There was a great divide. A chasm. Staring down into it he was overwhelmed with fear. It looked like the gates of Hell.
There’s gotta be a rope around here somewhere!
Just go! Get out of here!
No not without you!
He screamed and flew up from his prone position on the floor where he’d dozed off an hour earlier. He looked around in a panic until the Winter calm settled into his bones and he shut down his emotions.
The man. It was the same man from the helicarrier. The TV report.
Steve.
He sat motionless as the nightmare of the memory came back to him in pieces. He’d been strapped to a table. People came in to cut him. Burn him. Stick him with needle after needle. The pain was unbearable. He’d scream. Rage. Repeat his name and rank until he was hoarse. Then eventually he went completely silent. He’d stare at the filthy gray ceiling willing the torture to end. It never did. Hours stretched into days. Weeks? He couldn’t remember.
Then it happened. Liberation. It came in the form of a large blond man with the kindest face and the gentlest eyes.
Bucky? Bucky!
S-Steve…
He pulled him up to his feet and held him close. They inspected each other. Something was off. Steve was Steve but… he wasn’t the same.
Then they were running. There was a fight. How could that man peel his own face off? His red face… his red skull… it couldn’t have been real. Could it?
Explosions tore the building apart. They were running again. Crossing over the gates of Hell.
Just go! Get out of here!
No! Not without you!
Flames and smoke engulfed the other man as he leapt across the chasm. When he lost sight of him he felt his heart explode. First with sorrow at the thought of him dying then with joy when he saw him reach safety.
His friend. His best friend.
Steve.
Here in the present day he stood in sentry mode for the longest time. His mind was as still as his body. The memories had stopped coming but they had not faded. He could see Steve’s face as clear as day. He could see his fear, his determination, and his strength in his various expressions. He saw something else too. Happiness. Even a hint of pride.
He let his mind unlock the memory of their fight on the helicarrier. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. I’m not going to fight you. You’re my friend…
He remembered fighting him. Shooting him. Watching him fall after he’d declared he was with him ‘til the end of the line.
He took in a sharp breath as he recalled the sight of the Potomac swallowing him down. His instinct took over and he dove in after Steve. For several moments he was terrified that he was too late and that he wouldn’t find him.
Then he caught sight of him and swam deeper and deeper until he could reach out and grab him with his metal hand. Then they were on the shore and they were both alive. Barely.
He called me Bucky, he thought. A nickname short for Buchanan. Now, here in this moment as he remembered Steve say his name his gut reaction was joy.
“My name is Bucky,” he whispered to no one. His mouth curled up into a half-smile.
------------------------------------
He couldn’t sleep after that. He packed up his things and was back on the move. He needed more information. The question remained as to where to even begin to look.
It was close to dawn. He was on the outskirts of yet another small non-descript town. For weeks he’d pass through communities like this one during the overnight hours. They were quiet. Sleepy. Easy to traverse as there were no crowds or sirens or street cameras on every corner. During the daytime he would find shelter in closed vacation homes, empty motel rooms and once even a barn up in the hay loft. He actually liked that one. It was comforting somehow to be in the presence of the beautiful horses that were housed there. Their eyes watchful but never judgmental.
Every evening as dusk fell he would be on the road again. He didn’t really have a plan. Not at first anyway. He just knew he needed to get away from the city. All the cities. The small quiet towns were a refuge in more ways than one. He instinctively knew no one would be looking for him in a community with a population of less than a thousand.
Still a town this small had its drawbacks, including limited resources. Sure for the most part they had well-stocked libraries but access to anything more than local newspapers was a challenge. He needed another way to research what happened at the Triskelion.
He thought back to the news report he’d watched the day he’d pulled Steve out of the water. The woman on the scene had mentioned something about shield files being released to the public on the internet.
Shield. Hydra. The Triskelion. Pierce. He stopped in his tracks and stared at the ground.
Alexander Pierce. What had happened to him that day? Where was he now? Bucky looked up and saw a sliver of sunlight on the horizon. He could vaguely recall it was a weekend morning but whether it was Saturday or Sunday he didn’t know for sure. All he knew was that he needed to research Pierce but where could he go? The public library was off-limits as it would be crowded on a weekend day.
He walked for a few more minutes until he reached a bus stop. He took a moment to sit and when he did he caught sight of something fluttering beneath the bench. He reached down and picked up a discarded section of the local newspaper. It was the front section. He scanned it and smiled. Yes. That’s perfect!
Less than ten minutes later he was picking the lock on the back door of the local high school. He’d already disabled the alarm system from the outside so knew no one would be alerted to his presence. He stalked the hallways until he found what he was looking for: the school library.
He sat at a terminal and booted up the system. Internet access was gained a minute later. Soon he was scrolling through several news websites and punching in “Alexander Pierce” in every Search bar he could find.
At first nothing came up but fluff pieces. Innovator, peacekeeper, Man of the Year type crap. Nothing useful. Nothing insightful. He thought back to the news report. She mentioned leaked shield files so he changed his search keywords. More fluff. He scrolled down, down, down some more. Nothing significant.
An hour had passed and he was still empty-handed. He looked up at the large bland-faced clock on the wall above the librarian’s desk and saw it was 6:35am. Sunlight streamed through the windows. His time at the school was coming to a close.
He scanned a dozen more articles before he landed on a puff piece about Captain America and the Smithsonian. Curious, he clicked on it and read through the descriptions of the current exhibits. Stunned, he read about Steve and the Howling Commandos, a team of soldiers that included James Buchanan Barnes.
It was if time had stood still. The photos of the men. One man in particular… the man wore his face.
Bucky couldn’t believe it but there he was shoulder to shoulder with Steve Rogers. Captain America.
“Steve…” he whispered. He quickly reviewed the rest of the website and was soon enthralled by his own abridged life story. Where he came from, who his family was, when he’d been drafted and how he’d been captured and later rescued from a Hydra base by a man on a mission. His best friend.
He vowed to see the Smithsonian exhibit for himself but for now he had to maintain his current course of action. He returned to his initial research and continued to review the listed articles. It was then that a name in a news report about a senate hearing caught his eye. Natasha Romanoff.
Natasha. Romanoff. He knew that name from somewhere deep in his memories. He clicked on image search and the screen was suddenly filled with photos of her. Shocked, he clicked on one in particular in which she stood shoulder to shoulder with Captain America.
Steve. She knew Steve. The accompanying article said they worked together for S.H.I.E.L.D. and that they were part of the Avengers.
Shield files. Leaked S.H.I.E.L.D. files. He typed the acronym into the search bar and dozens of news articles came up about the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
The majority of the articles focused on the origin of the organization and the headlines that were generated when the Triskelion was destroyed and the helicarriers fell. Several of them mentioned the leaked files yet none gave any indication as to where to find them online.
He continued to read and was stunned to discover there had been a secret sub-section of SHIELD called Hydra.
No, he thought, that’s not right. Hydra wasn’t part of SHIELD. Hydra were the good guys. SHIELD was the threat.
New search term: HYDRA
More articles. More pictures. He was about to click on a red logo that looked like an octopus when his eyes skipped down to a photo of a familiar face. Alexander Pierce!
He clicked on it and read the article it came from; at first he was confused. Why did the writer associate him with SHIELD? Pierce was the leader of Hydra. Hydra was a peacekeeping organization. Meant to bring order to chaos.
He continued to dig through articles and websites until he found a blog entry written by someone that claimed to know where the alleged leaked SHIELD files were being stored online on something called the Dark Web. The guy wrote that the government was trying to purge all the files from the net by using computer viruses designed to destroyed them but leave computers and servers relatively intact once the top secret files were found and removed. The blog’s profile picture was a white mask with long features and exaggerated eyebrows and facial hair.
Bucky looked up at the clock again. It was after 8am. He’d have to get out of there soon or else he risked detection. He studied the blog entry again and then jotted down a few notes for his follow up research. He cleared the cache, shut down the computer and wiped his fingerprints from all the surfaces he’d touched. He made his way back to the exit and slipped out of the building leaving none the wiser.
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It took several tries at several locations before Bucky could find a decent portal into the dark web. Once there he began the tiresome search once more. For something so sensentionalized a few short months ago these so-called “top secret” SHIELD files were a bitch to track down. His patience grew thin as he hit one wall after another as any leads to the actual files he wanted led him straight into dead ends. It was an aggravating process to uncover the information he wanted but, ultimately, uncover it he did.
He sat in stunned silence as he read. It was 4th of July weekend and he was sitting on the floor of what was supposed to be a closed university dorm room with a student’s laptop in front of him. The summer student, one Beverly Ingram as the name labeled on pretty much everything in the room save for the rolls of toilet paper neatly stacked on her desk indicated, had left her laptop presumably safely locked away in the top drawer of her desk. Bucky had dislodged the flimsy lock with one flick of his wrist.
Now he sat quietly as he scrolled through the documents that he’d been hunting for so long. Much of it did not interest him but every time he caught sight of the name Steven Grant Rogers he became engrossed. He’d broken into Beverly’s mini-fridge and was munching away on her collection of midnight snacks when he struck gold.
He'd discovered the Project Rebirth files.
He scoured the notes and studied the photos of Steve both before and after the procedure. The difference was astounding. “Steve,” he whispered, “What did they do to you?” It was not just the physical aspects that had changed but his facial expressions as well. When he was small Steve looked so determined yet when he was large he looked almost timid. Most people would expect the reverse to apply. Bucky was sure this uncertainty of Steve’s didn’t last long. Something in his memory triggered and he could hear Steve’s booming voice calling out to him, "Bucky! Grab my hand!" He shivered.
He finished with those files and moved on quickly. He clicked through a series of file names until one caught his eye. It was in Russian. His breath caught in his throat and he hesitated for a few seconds.
This is it, he thought, No going back now…
He clicked and began to read.
It didn’t take long before he started to shake. His blood pressure rose and his heartbeat accelerated to a degree that would terrify most normal people. But he wasn’t normal was he? At least not according to these reports.
The details of the procedure on his arm made him want to scream. Memories of that horrible ordeal flashed in front of him. He could hear the sound of the metal saw as it amputated his mangled flesh arm. See the faces of the men who operated on him. He could feel it as if it was happening all over again.
He threw the laptop across the room where it hit the far wall with a loud thud. He breathed heavily, his eyes dilated to the point where all that could be seen were blown pupils. He seethed with rage. Wanted to hit something. Hurt someone.
Luckily he was alone. After several long moments he was able to re-establish his equilibrium and brought his breathing back down to within normal parameters. Calm again, he got up and retrieved the laptop to examine it. It was intact. He returned to his spot on the floor and resumed his research. He closed the file he’d been reading and went in search of anything he could find on Alexander Pierce.
What he found made his own file look like a child’s board book. Alexander Pierce was not only the leader of Hydra but Hydra was not a peacekeeping organization at all. It was the opposite.
Hydra was responsible for innumerable crises, wars, arm deals, assaults, kidnappings, murders and political corruption… and that was only the tip of the iceberg.
Hydra was behind it all. His torture. The arm. The brainwashing. Seventy years of being a monster.
Bucky wanted to vomit. Instead he got himself under control with another series of deep breaths. Shaking, he forced himself to continue to read. He needed to know everything. He needed to know the truth.
He learned all about Hydra’s origin and not just the trail that led back to Red Skull during the war. It went back even further. Something about a monolith but it wasn’t clear and the file was too corrupted to offer any other details on that aspect. He moved on to other folders and learned about Hydra’s dealings with various criminal organizations and crooked governments around the world.
Every once in a while he read about himself from within different mission files: assaults and assassinations seemed to be his forte. The missions spanned decades. Too many decades for someone as young as him. He went back and reopened his “origin” file and reread the sections about cryostasis.
To the rest of the world cryo was the stuff of science fiction. Something kids would read about in dimestore paperbacks. The reality was very different. Not only did it actually exist but it had been used on him for the better part of a century.
In going over the files he was regaining access to some of the memories that had been buried within his mind by Hydra. Puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit together just yet but would in due time.
He remembered fragments of one-sided conversations he’d had with Pierce. Snippets really. You shaped the century… society is at a tipping point between order and chaos…
He made me think we were the good guys, he thought miserably. The only way Pierce could control me was to have me believe we were working toward achieving and maintaining peace for the world.
He clicked on a file that contained detailed descriptions of the brainwashing procedure that had been used on him in order to keep him under control. It even had diagrams and photos as well as his medical records and a log book.
Disgusted, Bucky swore under his breath as he looked at images of himself, clearly in agony, juxtaposed against the bored-looking visages of the scientists and Hydra officials that surrounded him.
He flexed his hands into and out of fists as he processed the information.
All I’ve ever wanted was to protect and help people. By convincing me that that was Hydra’s mission they were able to keep me in line. They knew I’d never comply otherwise.
He shut his eyes and began to hum. It was no real melody just a series of high and low pitches until he felt better.
How does it feel knowing you were pretty much just a lab rat?
Startled, his eyes flew open.
“Who said that?!” he demanded of the dark.
Silence.
His eyes narrowed to slits as he surveyed his surroundings. No. There was no one else in the room. He was alone.
So who had spoken to him?
-----------------------------------------
It had been days since he’d left Beverly’s dorm room. He’d made sure to clean up after himself and return everything to the way he’d found it to the best of his ability. He’d left a handful of bills and a note on top of her mini-fridge apologizing for raiding her snack stash. He also apologized for taking her laptop and left enough money for her to upgrade to a better model since her old one was now nestled nicely between his clothes and weapons collection inside his duffel bag.
Every day for a few hours he allowed himself to revisit the dark web and the Hydra files that were stored there. As much as it pained him to learn, or in many cases relearn, facts about his existence within Pierce’s organization it was neccesary for him if he was ever going to gain true autonomy.
Since his mind wipes often included erasing crucial mission details that he needed to process in order to pursue his recovery he needed to relive many of his darkest moments. He recalled the faces of his victims. He could hear their voices as they begged for mercy. He remembered feeling nothing as he put the muzzle of his gun against their temples and pulled the trigger.
Sometimes they never even saw him coming. His shots fired from a distance. One mission even included tampering with the brakes on a luxurious car. He followed it along a dark road and waited for it to crash before putting bullets into the skulls of the three occupants. A married couple and their chauffeur.
The husband had stared at him in the most peculiar way. The usual terror, yes, but something else as well. Bucky couldn’t put his finger on it now since, at the time of those three deaths, he could not have cared less. Once a kill was made he’d vanish, return to Hydra and be rewiped before going back into cryo.
Looking back at it now Bucky realized how out of it he’d been. The wipes, being frozen… they made him hollow. They removed his mind, his heart and his spirit and replaced it with… nothing.
No. Not nothing. A darkness.
A darkness that was now fading. He was coming back.
Bucky was coming home.
But where was home? He couldn’t go back to Steve. Not yet. He wasn't ready for that. He wasn't ready to look Steve in the eye after all he'd done.
No. He needed to keep moving. He needed to leave the States. He needed time to think and figure things out.
He planned to head north after a pit stop at the Smithsonian.