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The man frees him from the metal beam and he doesn’t understand why.
“You know me,” the man says.
“No I don’t,” he yells, punching the man. His head is pounding and he can’t stand it.
“Bucky, you’ve known me your whole life.”
The name knocks something loose in his mind and the pounding builds. He yells wordlessly, backhanding the man with his metal hand.
“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”
“Shut up,” he yells, punching the man. His head is pounding and he can’t stand it.
“I’m not gonna fight you,” the man says, dropping his shield. “You’re my friend.”
His mind should be clear and focused like a gun, but instead it’s a whirling mess of thoughts and feelings that he doesn’t even understand. It’s all because of this man and he can’t stand it. He yells, tackling the man to the floor.
“You’re my mission,” he snarls. Maybe if he finishes the mission they’ll wipe him and he won’t have to feel this anymore. So he punches the man. One, two, three, four, five, six times, each more vicious than the last. But then something stops him. He doesn’t understand why, but he can’t bring himself to kill this man.
“Then finish it,” the man says, his voice weak, “’cause I’m with you to the end of the line.”
The words trigger something, and he hears them echo in his head, but in a different voice, and he sees the man looking up at him. Except his face is different, younger maybe, or smaller. He comes back to the present, heaving for air like a man drowning. I know him, he thinks, eyes widening, but before he can say anything, there’s a crash and the man is falling.
Steve is falling.
The name leaps unbidden into his mind, and he’s paralyzed for a moment by this newfound knowledge as he watches the man falling.
Steve is falling.
Without thinking, he jumps, diving into the water, grabbing a strap on the shoulder of that star-spangled suit with his metal arm, and dragging the man to shore. He looks down at the bruised and bloody face for a moment, thinking, I know him. But as soon as the man breathes again, he turns to leave because he doesn’t understand what’s happening. He limps down the shore, holding his non-metal arm close to his body, awkwardly. His shoulder is dislocated, he thinks with detachment, but he can’t feel the pain past the pounding in his head.
He doesn’t understand what’s happening to him, so he disappears.