Chapter Text
In the beginning, just after Steve and his crew had taken SHIELD down and flushed out who knew how many Hydra worms, just as the Winter Soldier began to give way to the guy from Brooklyn that had been thought long gone--those days had been the worst. Running with nowhere to go, with no new missions to complete, with no Hydra to take him in and hide him away. He’d failed his last mission, failed his masters, failed to carry out a simple order, and there was no one to fault him for it. No one to carry out his punishment. No one to strap him down and carve the memories out of his mind so he wouldn’t have to carry his failures with him.
In those first days, he’d wanted to be wiped.
At least then he wouldn’t have had to deal with the conflict and the confusion and the guilt that had consumed him for days.
But while the Winter Soldier, the precious secret weapon that Hydra had kept like a family heirloom, brought out of storage for only the most special of occasions--while the Soldier had wanted to go back in to Hydra’s cold arms or just lie down and die, some being that had been hidden away in the ragged thing that was the Soldier’s soul, beneath miles and miles of suppression and torture--that thing had wanted to get as far away from Hydra as fuckin’ possible.
In those earliest days, the Soldier had warred with the being inside him that he couldn’t possibly be, couldn’t possibly have ever been. He knew there was something in him that had awoken when he saw the Captain's face. Something tired and broken and holding itself together with frayed threads that would snap, snap snap snap, if it wasn’t careful--that thing had awoken, and it was fighting for air while the Soldier dreamed of breathing his last breath.
It was that thing, that almost-dead thing, that kept the Soldier from curling metal fingers around his own neck and squeezing.
What are you? The Soldier had asked one night, curled up in a dark and abandoned building.
There had been no answer, and how could he expect one, as if the thing inside him were capable of answering. It was when he had shifted against rubble strewn floor, pale moonlight coming in through the stained window touching his sulking form, when he’d heard the faintest of whispers.
Hope.
Hope. He hadn’t known hope. He hadn’t been allowed hope. He’d known nothing outside of what Hydra told him, felt nothing that Hydra did not sanction. But it was this thing, this hope that had kept him breathing after his failed mission. He’d supposed he should be thankful.
And it was hope that picked him off the floor the next day and led him to a building that he knew held an exhibit dedicated to the Captain.
He’d grown some unruly facial hair by that time, and it had itched enough to be almost unbearable, but it helped his disguise, so he’d kept it. The Captain would not have recognized him with the beard, because hadn’t he once said he’d never grow one?
The hope had told him he had.
After he’d snuck in the exhibit--too easy, the guards are horrible, a hollering bull could have snuck in here--and after he’d seen the displays, seen the pictures, seen the videos of the Captain with his men, he’d stopped himself at a specific display that held his attention like Hydra never had.
Is this you, he had thought, staring just past the rim of his cap at the picture of the confidant man above him, Is this… Barnes. Is he you.
The thing, the hope, had flared inside him.
James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. That’s you.
That’s us.
That’s me.
That’s what the Captain had called him. Bucky. His friend?
His best friend.
He could have stayed there forever, reading the words and studying the upturned face, because it was something he could be, something he had been. It was what was inside of him.
He returned again and again, just hours before the museum was scheduled to close each day. His curiosity and the hope had been powerful enough to overpower his fear of being discovered before he was ready. The Captain hadn’t yet discovered where he was, but there was always the chance...
Late one night, after the museum had closed and the Soldier had made his careful way back to his lonely, abandoned building, he had sat against a wall so that he was facing a window. Outside, in that dark part of the city, the stars had been able to show, and the moon had been a tilted grin.
How? He had thought. He’d felt the thing that called itself hope, the thing that the Soldier thought was whatever was left of Sergeant Barnes, swell in his chest. How are you still here? How are you not dead? How did Hydra not destroy you?
There was silence for a while, and he felt--or imagined he felt--the being inside his chest slowly pulsing, almost thoughtfully.
Well, pal, came the response, so faint and yet powerful enough that it was almost dizzying. This hope, this thing that was left of Sergeant Barnes, had grown more and more talkative as the days went by, and the Soldier had welcomed the company. I think I got an idea--a theory. Sorta.
The Soldier had waited. When Barnes did not continue, he had scowled and waved an impatient hand. I will hear it.
Alright. Then sit back and listen.