Chapter Text
The first time Bucky felt like his mind was splintering was the third day he was on the table in Azzano. Something deep in his mind came forward and whispered, "Barnes, Sergeant, 32557038'. He repeated the words, letting the pain fade to the background as much as possible, giving him respite from the pain. The other kept repeating the words, letting Bucky compose himself.
The something faded back further into his mind when Bucky realized that the Steve bending over him and breaking his restraints was real. He forgot about it as they marched back to the Allied lines, disbelief at seeing Steve healthy and strong pushing his own worries to the very back of his mind. Then they formed the Howling Commandos as a guerrilla team, working with Agent Carter, and Bucky simply forgot about Azzano as much as he could, instead focusing on keeping Steve safe, since he now had the body to match his determination to make everything in the world work the way he thought it should. Bucky found himself in despair often, since Steve had never learned subtlety and thought that an all-out frontal assault was the answer to any problem. Fortunately, the Howling Commandos undertook the task of training Steve to be an actual asset to the war effort, and Bucky found himself able to fade back into being a sergeant and sniper, and not the perpetual rescuer of Steve Rogers. Their team worked well together, and Bucky had almost completely forgotten the strange other in his mind.
Then he fell.
As Steve faded from his sight, Bucky felt that different him come forward and say, 'We have to survive this.' Then he landed, pain shooting through his entire body, and he plunged into unconsciousness. When he finally struggled up through the black, he was being dragged by the collar of his coat and the men surrounding him were speaking in a language he didn't understand. Then they pulled him over some rocks and to his horror, he saw that he no longer had an arm on his left side. The pain and shock overwhelmed him, and Bucky slid back into the darkness.
The next time he woke, the men were arguing with another group of men while one knelt next to him, checking the tourniquet on his arm. He met Bucky's eyes briefly, then looked away, and Bucky prepared himself for the worst as he felt his consciousness falling away, a mere whisper of the other coming forward before all was black again.
The worst came to pass. Bucky woke up in the hands of the Germans, specifically HYDRA, and he was not prepared for the years that followed. No one could be. They cut off the blackened end of his arm, then cut off more when the stump turned gangrenous under their torturous hands. Both times no pain medication was used. They simply strapped him down and began cutting as he screamed. That pain was better than the constant noise they barraged him with for he had no idea how long, until his mind was splintered into each breath, the saw of air in and out through his lungs. Then they threw him in a hole and covered it, leaving him in the dark until the only escape was in his own mind. There he realized that he had another presence in his mind, the other from Azzano. This other presence was much cooler and calmer than Bucky. This presence analyzed what HYDRA was doing to him, and how effective the methods were. Bucky sometimes wanted to scream at him, and did so, but soon realized that it accomplished nothing. He named the presence Tiny, hoping to reduce it by name, but that didn't work either.
Tiny was far more practical than Bucky. Bucky just wanted to go home, wanted to see Steve again, wanted to kiss his mother's cheek and wrap his sisters in his arms, and oh, god, he only had one arm and that wouldn't work...Tiny took over their mind, stopping the screaming and ranting and getting them out of the hole.
More of their arm had to be cut off, as infection had set in again. This time, however, the stump was wrapped and they were kept in a bed and given antibiotics and medical care until the stump had grown a tender new skin. A new person had come to the base where they were kept, and to both their horror, it was Zola, who promised that they would become the new fist of HYDRA.
A metal arm was grafted onto the remnants of their arm and through multiple surgeries, the bones of their shoulder, collar bone, and some of their ribs were replaced with metal to support the weight of the arm. Tiny was the one that got them through the ordeal, while Bucky reeled from the blows each change wrought on his identity. Tiny analyzed each change, cataloging how well the surgeons had done and how effective each addition to their body made the arm. They learned to work together. Bucky was ever defiant, wanting to get away from Zola and his minions, while Tiny was an observer — his main goal was to survive.
After the scars from all the surgeries had healed, a new program was started, and Bucky found himself unable to cope with all the changes happening. They were pushed, hard, into a physical training program where they would run until they couldn't, then rested and pushed to do it again. Experts were brought in to train them in many different fighting styles, and with many different weapons. Bucky was the sharpshooter and adapted to the fighting, but he still was defiant and, given his bewilderment, Tiny would often tell him what to do. More and more often, Bucky found himself relying on Tiny's instruction until the night he could no longer do it.
Thus the Winter Soldier was born. A new personality, one that took Bucky's skills and used them. Tiny renamed himself the Asset, after their new handler called them the best asset he had. So, three personalities occupying one brain. The Asset, Tiny, was the analyst, coolly calculating odds and planning multiple steps ahead. He picked up languages with ease and was able to take on the spy missions their handlers wanted them to do with calculated precision. He combined the cockiness of the pre-war Bucky Barnes and the calculations of Tiny, the deadliness of the Winter Soldier and the intense training they'd been subjected to, and turned all of those attributes into an effective spy, who could change body language right in front of a person and become all but invisible to them. This subtlety turned them into a master assassin and spy, used effectively by HYDRA to sow discord everywhere in the world.
The Winter Soldier was the brute force of their trio, forged into being through pain and deprivation and thus able to fight through pain, use any weapon, and keep going despite fatigue, injury, or changing circumstances. Bucky was the human factor, but he was also the least needed of the three, and the Winter Soldier found Bucky's squeamishness at collateral damage difficult to process. More and more often, Bucky found himself deep in his own mind, tending the small flame of memory as the other two took over their body and kept them alive.
Then came Karpov, and the method of handling the Winter Soldier changed yet again. He was at peak physical condition, able to run fifty miles in a day, sleep for an hour, and do it again. He had been trained in multiple martial arts, in ballet, and in spycraft. He was very good at what he did, but any time Bucky could get control of their mind, he would attempt to escape, despite the Asset and the Winter Soldier telling him to not do so. Bucky was determined to get back home.
Karpov changed all of that. He moved the Winter Soldier up to a Siberian base, and began to work on new procedures. Through brutal sessions, he took words that had meaning to Bucky Barnes, and stripped them of those meanings, implementing a program that forced Bucky down and brought the Winter Soldier to the forefront of their mind. Karpov also implemented cryofreeze, keeping the body at its physical preparedness, and then figuring out how to wipe his mind with high voltages of electricity. In self defence, Bucky gathered as many of his tattered memories as he could and delved deep in their shared mind. The Asset laid his own personality over Bucky's, walling Bucky in the depths. The Winter Soldier became the first layer of their mind, the one that responded to the keywords, who grabbed any memories that arose during the sequence and shoved them down, where the Asset took them and pushed them on to Bucky, who clung to them.
In this manner, Bucky Barnes found himself the deeply buried core of the Winter Soldier. All too soon, Bucky found himself unable to get through his mindmates to get control of their body. The Asset would take over when the Winter Soldier would run into circumstances he didn't understand, and the Winter Soldier would take over from the Asset once they were back in a place where his skills were needed. Their ability to switch between themselves was so smooth, their handlers had no idea they were essentially working with two different people. Bucky would simply muddle things up, and to preserve their own integrity, the Asset and the Winter Soldier rarely let Bucky surface enough to be a presence to others.
The only time after that Bucky came up was when the Asset took over when they were assassinating someone in New York City in the sixties. Their handler was an incompetent fool, and the Winter Soldier gladly broke his neck when he unknowingly released them from their orders. The Asset took over, getting them out of the safehouse and blending into the population around them. Bucky sent up memories of Brooklyn, and the Asset found the subway, getting them over the river and into Brooklyn. Bucky guided them to his and Steve's apartment building. It was still standing, a little shop on the ground floor and around back, the stairs that led to the various apartments. The wood was pulling away from the brick walls, the steps were loose, and the whole place had the dingy look of neglect. Bucky didn't care. He took their body up the stairs, climbing to the top floor. When the knob wouldn't turn, the Winter Soldier briefly took over and simply broke the door with one blow of their left arm.
Bucky froze on the threshold. Their apartment, which had been a shotgun tenement, was completely different. Instead of entering in the kitchen, where a board laid over the bathtub had been their table, then leading back to a sitting room, with the small bedroom in the back, the walls between their apartment and the one next door had been knocked out. Now they were standing in a sitting room, with the kitchen to their right. Ahead were various doors that appeared to lead toward bedrooms, with one smaller room between looking like a bathroom. They all had no idea how to handle the change and stood there, cataloguing the changes. Bucky was in control, and that was the only reason someone was able to sneak up on them and jab them in the neck with a hypodermic needle. As they dropped, they heard someone say, “Tell Karpov that his pet assassin still remembers,” before everything blacked out.
When they woke, they were strapped in the chair. Mentally they scrambled, rearranging themselves to protect Bucky and his memories. The Winter Soldier yelled as the electricity arced through their head, and Bucky sobbed in the depths of his mind as the pain raced through them. Afterwards, the Winter Soldier lay in the chair, his mind quiet, ready to do as his masters ordered.
Things would have stayed in this state if his masters had not decided to send the Winter Soldier to assassinate Nick Fury.