Work Text:
Here is what he remembers:
He remembers destruction, chaos, carnage, and the man who was his mission.
He remembers fighting with the man, his mission, a whirlwind of violence that somehow devolves to the level of schoolyard rough-housing, one arm twisted up behind him while the other flails ineffectively at the bully there (he does not remember the schoolyard, the bully, the fight or its reasons, just knows in his gut that such a thing had happened once, maybe even to him).
He remembers the name that the man, his mission, had said aloud, James Buchanan Barnes, a string of syllables that itch under his skin, a string of syllables that ought to mean a person.
He remembers jumping, falling; the wind in his ears and a perfunctory, déjà vu terror in his throat; the breath burning in his lungs as he submerges; the water that the man, his mission, breathes out; the crunch of his footsteps on shore.
He remembers this moment and the one before it and the one before, stretching back but not nearly far enough.
He remembers the white-haired man in charge, the man he trusted--trusts--trusted.
He remembers the man, his mission, who looked at him like a man whose heart had broken.
He remembers remembering something, something painful, something important, although he cannot remember what it was.
Here is what he's forgotten: everything else.
*
He turns the syllables over in his mouth, James Buchanan Barnes, attempting to pull some meaning from them. He learns the other syllables, Steven Grant Rogers, commits them to memory, the name and the face and the man, his mission. He finds both names on display in a museum, stands in the exhibit and stares at a face like his own and the face of the man, his mission, Steve Rogers, who smiles at it.
He thinks: I know him.
He remembers now remembering before, and how that was taken from him.
He remembers the man he had trusted, and does not trust him anymore.
He stops in the museum gift shop and picks up a small notebook. It has a logo on the front, a white star on a blue background, nested in concentric red and white circles.
The clerk, a nice young woman with dark hair, smiles at his purchase and says knowingly, "Ah, you're a fan of Captain America?"
He looks up from under his ball cap, just enough to make sure she's talking to him, and mutters something non-committal. He hands her wadded bills pulled from his pocket; he'd lifted a wallet from a tourist on the Mall, taken what cash it had contained, and left anything traceable in the museum restroom. She takes the money from his gloved hands and wishes him a good day.
He sits on a bench outside the museum and writes the things he remembers in careful script inside the notebook. He will not forget again.
*
He doesn't remember anything, until he does. More often than not, it comes in flashes: the smell of coffee, light filtering through the leaves mid-afternoon, a smile in a crowd--images without context. Sometimes there are moments: waves of heat off a fire, a warm body shifting against his own, a head wavering in the scope of a gun.
He writes it down, all of it, even the small things, even the unpleasant things, even the things he doesn't understand. He does not stop moving, because he knows that everyone who's ever known him is looking for him--his handlers, the ones whose leader he killed, Steve Rogers--but he spends much of the time he has in transit thumbing through the notebook, committing his memories to memory, trying to aggregate the bits and pieces into something that's shaped like a person, James Buchanan Barnes.
He careens between burnt safe houses, acquiring and using new passports and new identities, keeping his head down and his eyes open and remembering: a redhead outside Odessa; two matching headstones in a cemetery, both with the name Rogers on them; the schoolyard, the bullies, and the scrawny kid he'd pulled them off of; a forbidden sketchbook, filled with page after page of drawings of the same face; a woman in a red dress and something in his gut that seethed like jealousy; lying in wait, a rifle in hand, the tell-tale ache in his shoulder not yet there.
He does not realize he spends an entire night screaming in what used to be a safe house in Donetsk until the next morning when he emerges from the memory, his throat raw, even less of the safe house left around him than when he'd arrived. He'd wanted to remember, in the abstract, but now that he has remembered--the fall, the pain, the new arm, the training, the cold--he wishes he hadn't. Still, he writes it down, pours the memories out into the notebook. He dog-ears the page and does not open to it again. He runs his thumb over the logo on the cover as he catches the train out of town--he won't let them take this from him again, won't let them make him forget what they did.
He remembers the way Steve Rogers had looked at him, and he tries to forget.
*
He grows tired of running, weary in his bones in a way no sleep seems to fix. He weighs his options, but most of them seem to be standoffs and none of them seem to be pleasant. He wonders idly what his handlers' plan for him had been when he'd reached the end of his usefulness to them, if they'd have left him frozen, wiped him and turned him loose, or simply put a bullet in his brain.
He does not get to choose his ending, though. He lands at an airport in one of the flyover states on the last of his passports, intending to catch a bus to Brooklyn, unsure of what he'll do when he gets there; he is surrounded when he steps off the plane by men in dark windbreakers that say STARK on the back. He does not resist, and drifts in and out of consciousness as they travel to their unknown destination.
He awakens in a room that is not, at first glance, a cell. He is not cuffed or restrained in any way, although the room is spartan, containing one cot, two metal chairs, and one table with a change of clothes and a toothbrush on it. On second glance, though, it's obvious that the room has been reinforced in strategic, keep-you-from-escaping ways. He spots three surveillance cameras immediately. One of the room's two doors opens into a small bathroom--the other would open out into a hallway full of guards--and a thick window lets in light and gives a good view of the surrounding skyscrapers.
His pockets are empty, and for the first time, he regrets writing everything down. He should have kept it in his head. What would it have mattered if they had wiped him again? All it is now is a weakness.
He remembers the notebook, the worn pages he knows better now than his own face.
He stands and begins to search for an exit.
Something crackles, and the room is suddenly filled with the sound of people talking. A woman's voice can be heard, midway through a sentence, as though somebody had leaned on an intercom switch by accident: "--still not comfortable with this," she says. "SHIELD has facilities that would be more than adequate to hold him. And why do you even have cells?"
"Okay," a man's voice replies, "A couple of things. One, it's always useful to have somewhere handy for short-term storage of super villains. Two, I don't know if you remember, but SHIELD imploded and you work for me now--"
"I definitely do not work for you," the woman snaps back. "I work for Stark Industries and Ms. Potts."
"It's basically the same thing, Hill. I can show you an org chart." the man says dismissively before continuing, unfazed, "And either way, it means that the Winter Cyborg in there stays right where he is. Captain's orders."
"And where's he on the org chart?" the woman says darkly, just loudly enough to be audible.
"Yeah," the man says, sounding a little embarrassed, "Don't tell him I said that."
The woman sighs, like she knows the man is right but doesn't want to admit it. "Fine. We owe him that much. You can keep him here until Rogers and Wilson get back. After that we'll see."
The intercom clicks off; he'd obviously heard all he was meant to hear. He sits back down on the cot from which he'd risen and closes his eyes.
His memories of Steve are...jumbled, maybe even more than anything else he remembers. There seems to be enough of Steve Rogers in his head to assemble the man two or three times over. Steve Rogers was obviously important to him--the boy he'd protected, the man he'd cared for, the hero he'd fought beside, the one who was willing to follow him around the world even after he'd tried to kill him. He worries that some of the memories are too good to be true. He worries that some of them aren't.
He's spent a lot of time and effort avoiding Steve Rogers over these last few months. He remembers the way Steve Rogers had looked at him, and he does not think he can bear it.
*
He showers, while a man with a gun stands outside the restroom door.
He shaves, staring intently at his chin, never meeting his own eyes in the mirror.
He doesn't cause any problems. He waits.
*
He awakens when the door to his room slides open. He has slept fitfully for what feels like several days. He's had nightmares, but no one had come when he screamed.
Four people enter: a man with a goatee, a woman with dark hair, the man he remembers from the fight on the helicarrier, and Steve Rogers. He keeps his breathing steady and his eyes almost completely closed, does not give any indication that he is aware of them, waits to see if they intend to wake him.
"Where'd you find him?" the man from the helicarrier asks.
"We caught him as he landed in Nowheresville, Iowa," the man with the goatee says.
"Des Moines," the woman corrects.
"That's what I said, right? Right. Anyway, he didn't have a whole lot with him," the man with the goatee continues, "Just a forged passport, two shockingly large knives--well done, airport security--and this."
Steve Rogers draws in a sharp breath through his teeth. He does not have to look to know that the man with the goatee is holding up his notebook.
"What is it?" Steve asks.
"Ramblings, poetry, garbage--take your pick."
"We think he's regaining his memory," the woman corrects, the glare obvious in her voice. "It looks like as he remembers things, he writes them down."
"So they can't be taken from him again," Steve says quietly.
He opens an eye and watches as Steve takes the notebook from the man with the goatee and flips through its pages gently. He hadn't intended for anyone else to read it, let alone for Steve to--
The man with the goatee notices him now. "Hey, buddy, you're awake!" he says cheerfully. "How'd you sleep?"
He counts the surveillance cameras again--one, two, three. The man with the goatee knows how he'd slept.
"I'm Tony Stark," the man with the goatee continues, "This is Maria Hill, she works for me--"
Maria Hill sighs heavily.
"--I believe already you've met Sam Wilson--"
Sam Wilson glowers at him, which is probably fair.
"--and of course, you know Captain Rogers."
"Tony," Steve says with a pained expression.
"Well, we're hoping you know Captain Rogers."
There is a loaded pause, one which he refuses to be pressured into breaking.
"Would you mind giving me some time with him?" Steve says to the others. It isn't really a question.
He sees the look Tony and Maria exchange and the way Sam touches Steve's shoulder in concern. Steve just sets his jaw and takes a seat at the table.
He remembers that stubborn jaw, remembers having to save it from all sorts of trouble when they were kids, remembers following it into battle, remembers remembers remembers--
"We'll be right outside if you need us," Sam says to Steve.
"I'm watching you," Tony says, making a V-shape with his fingers and moving the points of it from his own eyes, to Steve, to him, and back again. Steve makes a sarcastic face.
When they are alone, Steve doesn't say anything to him, just continues flipping through the notebook. When he looks at Steve, he sees something like hope or excitement coiled just beneath his skin and sorrow in his posture. He wonders if Steve is as weary of his running as he is.
"I know you," he admits, when the silence becomes too much. His voice is small and unsure.
Steve barely moves, just straightens his shoulders, raises his eyes, and smiles...but that grin, he remembers that grin. He loves that grin, remembers-- "That's good," Steve says, and returns to the notebook.
"Steve," he says, and whatever was coiled under Steve's skin unwinds at the name, which in turn makes the words catch in his throat. "Steve, I... I did some bad stuff. I hurt some people--I think maybe a lot of people."
When he looks up, Steve's smile is melancholy. "I know, Buck," Steve says. "It's okay."
He swallows hard, his eyes looking somewhere past the far wall. He remembers the man he slaughtered in front of his important wife, the shot that sent a bus full of people off a slippery road, the cries of a child trapped in a burning building while he did nothing. "No," he says, "It's really not." It's all in the notebook; Steve has to know--
Steve hasn't taken his eyes off him, and his gaze is thoughtful. "They thaw you out, make you a weapon, a symbol, tell you who the bad guys are. If they lie to you, that's not your fault. What matters is that you walked away." Steve sighs. "I can't very well condemn you when I'm not entirely sure I haven't done anything bad myself."
He closes his eyes and tries to remember one truly bad thing that Steve Rogers has ever done; he cannot come up with any.
His eyes fly open as the cot shifts with the weight of someone sitting down beside him. Steve is there, his hands up, saying quietly, "Whoa, hey, it's okay." Steve speaks as though he's soothing a trapped, hurt, wild creature, which doesn't feel that far off. Carefully, carefully, Steve puts an arm around him, both men relaxing into the embrace, their heads leaning against each other. "Bucky," Steve says, whispering the name into his hair like a promise.
Yeah, Bucky thinks, that's me.
Bucky tilts his head up, catching Steve seemingly by surprise, pressing their lips together. He's not sure if Steve has kissed anybody since 1945, but he certainly hasn't and it shows. The kiss is abysmal, all nerves and teeth and awkwardness, and Steve follows his retreating face for another and another.
Tony's voice comes over the room's intercom. "You guys know that we can see you, right?"
Steve doesn't stop kissing Bucky, just raises a free hand to the room and flips the surveillance cameras the bird, his lips smiling against Bucky's own.
Bucky begins to laugh, and it's a sound he hasn't heard in a long, long time.
Steve pulls away, says to the surveillance cameras, "Tony, do I still have a room here? Or did you tear it down for another R&D lab?"
"It's right where you left it," Tony's voice replies, "But I'm not sure that's a good idea, Cap--"
Steve does not seem to be listening, just grabs Bucky by the wrist and pulls him over to the door. "Come on," he says with a mischievous grin. He bangs on the door and it opens out into the hallway, where they are both greeted by more men in STARK windbreakers. "He's with me," Steve tells them as if that makes it okay, guiding Bucky through the gauntlet, still grinning, still holding onto Bucky.
When they get to Steve's room, Steve pushes him down on the bed and sinks to his knees. Bucky gasps, his good hand tangled in Steve's hair, the metal one clenching at the sheets. He remembers this now too.
*
Bucky wakes up curled up in bed with Steve the next morning--for the first time he can remember, he had slept peacefully through the night. Steve stirs at his movement, looks over at him, smiles at him like Bucky had seen him do in the film at the museum so long ago.
"Good morning," Steve murmurs, pressing a kiss to his temple.
"You looked for me," Bucky says. The why and the weight of it haven't fully hit him until now.
"You looked for you too," Steve says. He reaches over onto the nightstand and picks up Bucky's notebook, which he must have tucked into his pocket during their cunning escape from lockup yesterday. "This is yours. You should keep it, not Hill or Stark."
Bucky smiles and says, "I'm not sure I need it anymore."
*
Here is what he remembers:
He remembers being found, and the man who made it his mission to find him.
He remembers his own name, James Buchanan Barnes, and how it holds him together at the core when Steve Rogers says it aloud, Bucky.
He remembers the way Steve Rogers looks at him, like a man who's finally seen the sun again.
He remembers this moment and the one before it and the one before, stretching back just far enough.