Archive of Our Own

The target knew his name.

His mind was wrapped in darkness, but he could not remember the light. His heart was broken with grief, but he could not remember what he had lost. And so the only thing he felt and saw was anger. And the anger consumed him. It coursed through his veins and gave him purpose. He clung to his rage, for it was all he had.

There were very few he hated, but those who earned his hate would not have a chance to regret what they had done to him. He did not hate his targets or those unfortunate enough to find themselves caught between him and his targets. He felt nothing toward them. No, those he hated were those who washed his memories away.

They did it often—so often, in fact, that their technology wasn't as effective as it had been in the beginning. He could remember some things. He knew they wiped his brain periodically and that he wasn't supposed to be aware of this fact. Whether it was his body or his brain remembering though, he was not certain. Whenever he heard the order to start "with a clean slate", he automatically settled back in their chair and allowed himself to be contained there. The thought that they would kill him if he did not cooperate did not cross his mind, for he had nothing to lose if they killed him and nothing to gain if they did not. He simply did as he was told.

He had remembered for years now that he had possessed a name once, but try as he would, he could not see that name in his head. All he had were the names given to him by myths and legends. This angered him more than most things. He was capable of defeating anyone, no matter how he was armed or how many stood with him. He could take life without a thought. He had never showed mercy, and he had never failed, but he could not remember his name .

This target had spoken that one word that had evaded him so long. And somewhere deep inside him, he had felt something other than rage and hatred. He had felt the smallest sliver of hope. He had resolved that he would not forget that name, no matter how many times they took his memories. And so he settled in their chair, blocked out the pain, and held on to his name.

I knew him.

His first thought when he awoke alarmed him. He knew no one except his handlers. He didn't even know those who accompanied him on missions. The one name he remembered was that of the only man he took orders from: Pierce.

No. Now he remembered two names. Bucky.

The Winter Soldier glanced at those around him. The first ring of people near him had their weapons trained on him, their fingers resting just above their triggers. This did not bother him except that one of them was a novice and held his finger a bit too close to the trigger. The next ring was composed of those monitoring his response to the memory wipe. The third were people outside the cell watching him. Always watching.

The first ring was of no matter, and the second and third rings normally did not matter either, but this time.. This time the Soldier concentrated on presenting the face he assumed he always did when they woke him. He let confidence and deadness and anger take over his features. He was an assassin, and his training, which always remained no matter how many times they erased his memories, told him that an assassin was calm and deadly.

But I knew him.

The Soldier felt an emotion skitter through him that he did not like. Confusion was not something any assassin felt at any time. The moment confusion took hold of someone like the Soldier, he became vulnerable, exposed, and weak. He pushed the confusion away as they released his restraints and tried to hide his disgust as Pierce approached him.

Of all the men in the cell, the Soldier hated Pierce most. He did not know why he hated him—he could only say what he hated about him. He hated the confidence Pierce exuded when ordering him to make a kill. He hated the way Pierce's wrinkles pulled at his eyes and mouth as he spoke. He hated the fact that Pierce could strike him if he so chose, and that he was supposed to do nothing about it.

She played with a button on her lab coat while she watched. Normally, she was not a nervous woman, but Alexander Pierce's presence in the cell put her on edge. She wondered if she was the only person who could see the contempt in the Winter Soldier's eyes whenever Pierce strutted into the room. Everyone put their faith into the memory implantation and cryogenic stasis to a fault, but she questioned if their effectiveness was as complete as they had first thought. She had been on the Soldier's team for almost five years, and he was changing when he was supposed to stay the same.

She had taken her concerns directly to Alexander several months ago, but he had dismissed her without looking at the notes she had painstakingly taken since she was hired. Since then she had studied the Soldier even more closely. There had been something in his eyes when they last woke him that frightened her. He had glanced at her, and she had seen knowledge written across his resolute face that should not have been there.

When Alexander strolled in, the Soldier's heart rate rose for a moment. She looked from the monitor to the Soldier, and the levels on the screen returned to normal. She bit her lip and wished for the first time that she had not been assigned to this particular cell with this particular assassin. He was the best. She had heard all the stories and rumors, and she was one of few who could say they were true. The Winter Soldier could calm the beat of his heart and mask any emotions he had learned over the decades. He could take the pain—she would call it torture—they put him through with more courage than she had imagined possible. He was never gone from his cell long because his missions never took long. He simply went out, killed his target, and returned. For him, it was easy.

But his eyes were burning as he listened to Alexander lay out his orders for the next mission. Although his metal arm did not move, his right hand quivered as if he was holding something back. She knew his agitation was not based on the fact that for the first time, he had failed a mission. He should not remember what Alexander had done to him for returning without having made the kill.

He wants to kill Alexander , she thought. Of course he wants to kill him. Who wouldn't? She almost wished he would. She did not want to be trapped in this cell with all these mercenaries any more than the Soldier did. As Alexander named the target, she sighed. She should warn him. He probably wouldn't listen, but she should at least try. Alexander was aware, of course, of the danger of being in the same room as the Winter Soldier, but he had paid no heed to her warnings the first time. She doubted Alexander realized that he was the reason the Soldier's heart rate had spiked and that the eagerness to kill that the Soldier displayed was not connected to the death of his target. At least, not the target Alexander had in mind...

He'll tell you that you know him.

That one sentence flew through the Soldier's mind repeatedly as he waited for his mission. It was absurd that Pierce had warned him not to believe his target—no one outside HYDRA knew him. No one. The rest of the world wasn't even sure he was real. Knowing implied familiarity or some sort of affinity. The Soldier was certain no one viewed him with a kind or sympathetic thought.

He'll tell you that you know him.

He suddenly realized that he was scraping his metal fingers against the arm of his chair. He cringed inwardly at the noise and stopped, then leaned forward and traced the deep grooves he had apparently carved into the armrest over the years. He settled back, closed his eyes, and shoved Hope back into the darkness of his heart. No one cared about him, and he did not care.

She stepped forward as the Winter Soldier was released from his bonds. It was her duty to free his right arm, the one made of flesh. She had never touched him before, but this time, she leaned over his shoulder, felt his hair against her cheek, and brushed the skin of his wrist as she unlocked the shackle. As she pulled back, she whispered in his ear, "You do know him."

She straightened and glanced around to make sure no one had seen or heard. Everyone was busy with much more important things, and she smiled. The Winter Soldier stood and was immediately locked into body armor that rendered him almost invincible. She watched him, and he behaved as he always did, his movements a combination of strength and grace, saying nothing and looking at no one. As he was led out of the cell, he tilted his head, and his eyes rested on her for a moment. All she saw there was sadness.

"People are gonna die, Buck. I can't let that happen."

Captain Rogers was not one to hesitate, but as he stared at the Winter Soldier, another piece of his heart shattered. As if his inability to rescue Bucky Barnes the first time hadn't been enough. As if losing anything he had with Peggy Carter and every single one of his friends and his very generation hadn't taken a toll on him. Seventy years had changed the world entirely. Some would say that Steve hadn't been changed a bit by the decades he had missed, but Steve wondered. In the old days, he would have never told a lie, but what he was up against now forced him to keep the truth to himself. That hardly mattered now though. Natasha was right. The world had been painted gray while he slept frozen beneath the ice.

Steve did not want to fail Bucky again. The assassin before him was a shell of the friend he had known—a fierce, merciless shell. There was no recognition in Bucky's eyes. Steve cursed HYDRA in his head. What had they done to Bucky to make him this way? What had he suffered? While Steve had been safely asleep for seventy years, Bucky had been awakened over and over again, trained and used to do the blood work no one else wanted to do. Bucky's history had been written in red.

"Please don't make me do this," Steve tried again, but Bucky merely lowered his head with determination.

Steve rushed the Winter Soldier and fought his friend, his brother a second time. Bucky attacked savagely and quickly, almost as if his strategy wasn't clear in his mind. As if his emotions were getting in the way. Steve evaded Bucky's knife and realized that if Bucky's emotions really were surfacing, then maybe he could still be reached.

The noise was roaring in the Winter Soldier's ears, drowning his pain and feeding his rage. He was lost. He didn't know who he was. He knew he was being manipulated. He didn't want to have his memory wiped again. It hurt indescribably in the deepest part of his being. He didn't want to kill any more. He didn't know how many he had killed over the years, but he would give anything to wash the blood off his hands. He hated HYDRA and he hated Pierce and he hated himself, but he did not hate this man, his mission and his target. Apparently this target had completed his own mission by replacing the Helicarrier's controller chip and no longer cared about himself because he had come back for the Soldier . The man in blue could have escaped and left him pinned under that beam, but he didn't. He had managed to lift it high enough that the Soldier had squirmed out.

Now the Soldier attempted to gather his wits and his strength, but his target spoke. "You know me," he said, his voice tired and sad and barely audible over the explosions.

I know him.

He'll tell you that you know him. You don't know him, Soldier. You don't know anyone—how could he possibly know you?

But I know him.

No one knows the Winter Soldier. He's a ghost. He doesn't exist.

I do exist!

Wipe him.

"No, I don't !" the Soldier screamed. He was weak, but he threw a punch into the man's face with his metal arm.

They were both gasping for air. The Helicarrier was slowly breaking apart, and the fires within its holds jealously consumed the oxygen. The man started to get up, and he spoke again. "Bucky... You've known me your whole life."

The Soldier growled and struck him again. He couldn't know him. He told himself he didn't want to know him.

"Your name... is James Buchanan Barnes."

Conviction. The man spoke with such conviction. There were no lies in his eyes. James Buchanan Barnes. He gritted his teeth and realized that though the name filled him with the hope he craved, his mind and body were too weak to hold to the truth. His rage doubled. " Shut up !" he begged as he lashed out with his left arm again.

The man stumbled to his feet once more and tore away his mask. "I'm not gonna fight you," he said. He threw down his shield. "You're my friend."

Doubt filled the Soldier's heart. No one had ever called him friend. Except... there had been someone once that had been like a brother to him. The Soldier stumbled and tried to recall who that person had been, but he could not remember . Anything good he had once been or done had been taken from him long ago. Then he realized that he was no longer angry. He was wretched and without hope. He had nothing and was worth nothing, but if he made this kill, maybe Pierce would keep the handlers from wiping his memory this time.

With his goal clear before him, the Winter Soldier tackled his target and hissed, "You're my mission." Then he began beating the man in blue, willing him to fight back, wishing he had left him under that beam to die, crying inside for all he had lost. Just as he raised his metal arm to finish the man off, the target opened his mouth. He didn't ask for mercy. He didn't offer money in exchange for his life as so many had before.

"Then finish it," he said hoarsely. "'Cause I'm with you to the end of the line."

He still couldn't quite remember, but he knew he had memories with this man. The words the target had spoken before the explosion sounded familiar. They had triggered something, and the Soldier found that he could recall three facts from his life before HYDRA—the man he was pulling to the riverbank was named Steve. They had fought a war together once. And just as Steve had fallen from the Helicarrier, the Soldier or Bucky or James or whatever his name was had fallen once too, a lifetime ago.

The Soldier glared down at Steve, saw that he was breathing, and debated whether or not he really wanted to save him. All he had to do was let go of him, and the river would pull Steve back into its embrace and quietly send him on into the next world. The Soldier would have completed his mission and could go on... Go on what? Living?! He scowled. He had not been living for years. He had nothing to lose but the Hell HYDRA had created for him.

As the Soldier dragged Steve ashore, he realized that he had not been as fortunate as Steve had been when he fell. He shoved the half drowned man to the ground and looked at him for a moment. While Steve had been recovered by someone who must have once been his friend, the Soldier had been collected by those with selfish intent. Steve would go on with his life. The Soldier's had been deconstructed and then put back together the exact way HYDRA had wanted. And now what did he have left but pieces? He bent, made sure Steve's pulse was strong, and walked away. If they really had been friends, at least one of them could go on. The world could be saved by a man named Captain America, but there was no one who could save the Winter Soldier.

She scrambled along the banks of the Potomac, searching madly. The group she was with searched as well, though they looked for someone else. She had attached herself to them anticipating that if they found Captain Rogers, she would find the Winter Soldier, and she had to get to him before anyone else did. Two bodies had been spotted falling from the Helicarrier, and Nick Fury had immediately sent out a crew to recover Rogers, dead or alive.

She ran ahead and dodged huge chunks of debris from the destruction of the Helicarriers. She despaired ever finding both Rogers and the Winter Soldier alive. Chances were good that the two had killed each other or gone down with the ship as they fought.

It wasn't long before Rogers was found, badly beaten and unconscious. She took one look at him and knew that the Soldier had spared him. If he had wanted Rogers dead, he would be. As a gurney was being brought down the embankment to the shore, she silently slipped further down the river.

By this time it was growing dark. Flames rose from various pieces of wreckage, both floating on the river and smashed into the earth. Some of the pieces were enormous, jagged things, and the orange glow from the fires cast an eerie glow on the riverbank. She pulled out a small flashlight and continued forward.

She knew there would be no sneaking up on him and that she was risking her life in order to save his, but she was certain that he had grown weary of his assignments. She had grown weary of them too. Not only was she guilty of helping contain him, but she had also enabled him dozens of times to do as HYDRA wished by making sure his body was healthy and his mind was clean.

For an hour she walked along the Potomac, breathing heavily under the weight of the pack on her back, and following what she hoped were signs of the Soldier. Indeed, a foot print in the mud seemed to match the boots he wore. He had become sloppy, she noticed. After any other of his missions, she doubted she would have been able to track him, but he had left a steady trail of bent grass and broken cattails.

"Matthews."

She heard her name but had no time to react before she was jerked back against the man she hunted. His arm crushed into her neck. She could feel the objects in her pack pressing against her spine. "You know my name?" she managed to ask, frantically trying to loosen his grip.

"I've been trained for years to pay attention to detail. Did you think your memory swipes would break me of that habit?" His voice was gravelly and cold, and he pulled his arm tighter.

Matthews was beginning to feel lightheaded. She closed her eyes to concentrate on breathing. "Mr. Barnes," she whispered. "Please let me go. I came to-" His grip tightened again, but he was shaking. "Tracking... device..." she choked out, clutching at his metal arm.

The Soldier instantly released her, and while Matthews fell to the ground, he simply sat down as if he was very tired. Matthews gasped for air, pushing herself to her hands and knees. She sat up and turned to look at the Soldier, wondering where her flashlight had gone. She could make out his silhouette, and his metal arm shining dully in the starlight. He had always exuded pride and confidence, but not now. He sat on the bank, his arms resting on his knees, his head lowered. His spirit was broken.

Unsure of what to do, Matthews scooted a little closer to him and sat there too. Finally, she said, "There's a tracking device planted in the arm HYDRA gave you."

The Soldier didn't move and didn't say anything.

"If you want to disappear," she offered gently, "I can help you remove it."

The Soldier lifted his metal arm and turned it, clenching and unclenching his fist. It was his greatest weapon which, of course, is why HYDRA had built the tracking device into it. Only a few knew of its existence and even fewer knew how to remove it. The possibility that anyone would want to set the Winter Soldier free of his handlers had not been considered. Though it was dark, she sensed he was looking at her and could not help the shivers that ran up her back.

"I should kill you," he muttered at last.

"There's a lot of people you should kill... and many more that you shouldn't... Mr. Barnes."

Matthews heard the hydraulics in the metal arm reacting to the Soldier's impulse to strike her as his shoulder flinched, but he contained his wrath, leaped to his feet. and spat out, " Don't call me that! "

The instinct to cower before this warrior was strong, but Matthews rose as well. She had spent eight weeks in training when she was hired before HYDRA let her anywhere near the Winter Soldier's quarters. The first lesson she had been taught was about fear. Do not let the Soldier see your fear. The second was that you never ever gave him a reason to be irritated. In fact, if one of the assassin's handlers was ever witnessed demonstrating fear or agitating him (beyond, of course, the routine annoyances of mind wiping), he or she was immediately and permanently removed from the Soldier's team. So Matthews waited until she had replaced the fear in her heart with calm. "Let me help you," she said.

The shadow that was the Winter Soldier trembled, and he took a step back. "Get away from me," he whispered. "I have known only killing. I failed my mission and my desire to kill is strong."

Matthews withdrew several more feet but did not leave. Instead, she spotted her flashlight's beam in the reeds and retrieved it. She pulled off her pack and used the torch to sort through what she had gathered. "Brought you these. A jacket and a hat. Unless you want me to cut your hair. I could do that—I brought scissors." Then she pulled out a small tool kit, laid everything on a towel on the ground, and sighed. "I thought at first about detaching that whole HYDRA arm for you, but that would cause excruciating pain and probably permanent nerve damage. God knows..." She glanced sheepishly in the direction of the Soldier. "I've caused you enough pain already. Plus, running around with one arm would really draw HYDRA's attention where you don't want it. You wouldn't be very effective at defending yourself against anyone who comes after you. Oh, and..." She reached into her pack and produced a large bottle. "Water." She held it out to the Soldier, but he made no move. She tossed it toward him and was a little surprised when he picked it up, opened it, and took a drink.

"Yeah," she said, to know one in particular, "people forget you're real and that you need to eat and drink too. Sorry I didn't have any food to bring. Want me to take a look at that arm?"

Slowly, the Soldier crossed the distance between them and knelt before her. She knelt as well, as she was taught— unless he is restrained or you are one of his armed guards, always put yourself on the same level as the Soldier. Do not elevate yourself in his presence. Matthews remembered all the times Pierce had defied the rules, and she wondered if his death would be the first personal mission of the Soldier. She took up her torch, sorted through her tools, then directed the light at his shoulder, just above the red star. He wordlessly reached for the flashlight and held it in place while she worked.

Matthews operated for at least half an hour in complete silence. She had to remove several metal plates to get access to the area she needed, exposing the genius workings of the metal arm. As she sorted through various wires and structural components and located the tracking device, she pondered what she was doing.

Aurora Matthews, a thirty-one year-old woman with a doctorate from Yale was kneeling beside the Winter Soldier alone and in the dark. While she had been studying life and healing, he had experienced only death and isolation. He had learned his art long before she had been born, and HYDRA had pounded his training into him over and over until not one bit of it was erased when they toyed with his brain and his memories. He had every reason to kill her once she had removed the tracking device, for every time he was put into cryogenic stasis, every time he was awakened, every time his memory was wiped, she was one of the people he saw. Matthews cringed while she worked and glanced up at the Soldier. The dim glow from the flashlight that caught his face made his features appear much softer than she was used to seeing. His jaw was bruised, and there was a wicked looking cut on his forehead, but there was nothing she could do about that. He held impossibly still while she worked, and even the arm that held the torch did not shake though he had been holding it up for quite some time. She looked back down as she used tweezers to ease the device out of the arm. She lifted it to the light between them, and for several seconds, they both stared at it. There was no emotion evident on the Soldier's face, but his green eyes seemed to spark with something, though she could not quite tell what. It almost looked like triumph, but Matthews guessed it was probably just spite.

"Now you're free," she murmured and offered him the chip.

Annoyance flickered across the Soldier's face, but he took the chip with his metal fingers and crushed it. "I will never be free," he said quietly. Then he took up his position holding the flashlight, and Matthews started replacing the first of the metal plates.

"Why?" the Soldier asked suddenly.

"Because I need redemption, and you need redemption."

"There are other ways to seek redemption than by making yourself a fugitive from HYDRA."

"I'm done with HYDRA."

"They'll search for you."

"I'd rather have HYDRA searching for me than be searching for someone for HYDRA."

The conversation ended as abruptly as it had begun. As Matthews screwed the last plate into the puzzle that was the Soldier's arm, she raised her eyes and saw that the assassin was gazing at her. She lowered her tools and waited, praying that he would find mercy somewhere in the heart HYDRA had stained black. He slowly stood and then stretched his metal hand out toward her.

All was confusion and pain and despair. His hate would have increased tenfold, but he reasoned that what Steve has said on the Helicarrier had to be true. And if he had been friends with someone as courageous and sacrificial as Steve, then he must have been honorable in his life before HYDRA. As far as the Soldier knew, honorable men did not feed off of Hate. No, their goodness and their valiant actions came from somewhere else, but he did not know where. So he tried to ignore the darkness, tried to escape his one desire.

HYDRA's headquarters would be easy for him to infiltrate. He could massacre dozens of people before he was contained. Two thoughts stayed his hand. Chances were that once he was caught, he would not be killed. HYDRA would simply do as they had always done. They would start with a clean slate and send him out on missions again. The second thought was that, though he was well aware that he had murdered many times, he could not remember who he had killed or how. He could imagine all sorts of ways he had done his job, but the memory wipes had cleansed his brain of specific memories. If he devastated HYDRA headquarters, and they did not kill him, they had the option of not putting him on more missions. They could let him rot away in his cell with his memories, his only memories—that of a one-sided battle with an old friend, a naive doctor who wanted to help, and HYDRA flowing with blood.

Those were not the only memories the Soldier wanted. He realized that he did not want to waste the gift Matthews had given him. And he did not want any more blood on his hands, whether it was the blood of HYDRA or not.

The Soldier wished the jacket Matthews had brought had had a liner in it. He was cold, but then, being cold was almost comforting. Or it had been. Coldness was one of those things that had never left him during his time with HYDRA. He had been cold since he had fallen off the train in the mountains. He had been sure he was going to die in the snow and ice. It would have been better for a lot of people if he had. The experiments that had been done on him had cooled his veins and filled his heart with frost. He had been preserved in ice. He had lived in a chair made of steel. He slipped the fingers of his right hand under the sleeve of the jacket and felt the metal of the arm. It was cold as well, of course. Winter had killed the friend Steve had known and then given birth to the Soldier. He was Winter's son.

Anna was getting a little bored. They had been in this place for what seemed like all day. There was so much to look at that it was overwhelming. Well, it hadn't been at first, but now that it was dinnertime and her tummy was growling, Anna thought the Spirit of St. Louis might take off from where it was suspended from the ceiling or that the Apollo 11 command module thingy might decide to pop back into space, and then they'd have to dig themselves out of what was left of the building before they could find something to eat. When Tommy requested that they stop at the Captain America exhibit, Anna almost complained, but her dad seemed so excited that she decided she wanted to see it too. Besides, all the kids at school loved Cap and she wanted to see why. Once they were inside the exhibit, though, Anna got bored all over again. The mannequins looked cool in their costumes, but there was too much writing, and she wasn't that good with the big words yet.

"You hungry, honey?" Anna's mom asked her.

"Yeah, and tired. But I was wondering... what's this Captain America guy got to do with space?" she asked.

Her mom smiled. "You know what? I have no clue. But your dad and Tommy love him. It won't take long to go through this, and then we can eat. I'm hungry too."

Anna sighed and glanced around looking for her brother, but she recognized one of her favorite words on a display and headed over to it. Another guy was standing in front of the display.

"Bucky Barnes," Anna said.

"What?" said the man.

"That guy is Bucky Barnes," she repeated, pointing at the photo. "I don't know much about him, but I like his name. I have a stuffed deer at home that I call Bucky."

The man said nothing, and Anna turned her attention from the display to him. He was wearing a jacket and had both hands stuck in the pockets like he was cold or something. He had on a baseball cap, and his hair was long and sort of raggedy looking, but he seemed nice. She thought his eyes looked sad. She touched his arm and motioned at Bucky Barnes.

"You know that guy?" she asked.

He did not stop looking at the photo. "He's been dead a long time, kid. I don't know him."

"Well, I guess it's okay to be sad about him, mister. He was a good guy."

His sad eyes gazed down at her. "How do you know that?"

Anna laughed. "He's in the Captain America exhibit! Everyone knows Captain America's a good guy! So if he hung out with Captain America, he must have been one of the good guys too!"

The man didn't respond, but he lowered his head while she watched him. She realized that she had seen him somewhere before and scratched her head, trying to remember. That was when her dad came up behind her. "You found Bucky, Anna!" he exclaimed, catching her up in his arms. "He was always my favorite."

"Why, Daddy?"

"Without Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers would have been nothing. Every guy needs a best friend, someone to go to war with, and that's what Bucky was for Cap." Anna's dad put her down again, and she stood between him and the man with the sad eyes.

"See?" Anna said to the man. "Told you he was a good guy." She peered up into his face, squinting and wondering why museums were always so dark. "Hey," she said. "You kinda look like him. Actually, you look a lot like him, doesn't he, Daddy!" She grabbed for her dad's hand, but he was trying to get Tommy on the correct side of the cord protecting the mannequins.

"Are you him?" she asked the man.

His lips moved, but no sound came out at first. Then he whispered, "I wish I could be."

"Anna, we gotta go!" called her mom.

"Goodbye, mister!" Anna said, but there was no one there.

Bucky Barnes cried. He could not remember if he had ever cried before. An assassin would never show such weakness, so, defying the assassin, he wept. He wanted to be Bucky Barnes again with every fragment of his heart.

His knelt before the little reflecting pool that was part of the World War II Memorial. The gold stars blurred in his eyes, and he subconsciously read the inscription: Here we mark the price of freedom. Bucky was certain that many men from the greatest generation had wept here before these stars, but none of them had been in their youth, as his body was. He too had scars—just as many as any of the old soldiers. Bucky reached toward the stars, each one representing one hundred American deaths in World War II, and wished that he could have been numbered among them.

The tears washed away bits of hate, bitterness, and rage, but Bucky wasn't sure he would be able to completely weed them out of his soul even if he lived another ninety years. He wept for James Buchanan Barnes and his parents and the Howling Commandos. He wept as he recalled the rough way he had pulled Steve from the Potomac and abandoned him there on the shore. He wept for those he had killed for HYDRA and wished he could dig his heart out of his chest and chisel away at the ice that encased it.

"These are the cries of someone who was there."

Bucky straightened to find an old man in a wheelchair beside him. It was long past dusk, and he had not expected anyone to be there. The cap the man wore said he had belonged to the crew of the USS Maryland, and Bucky realized that he could remember seeing the name of that ship in headlines about the attack on Pearl Harbor. A brief glimpse told Bucky that the man had favored his right foot for many years, indicating that he had lost his left in the war, although the prosthetic leg would camouflage this fact to any casual observer. Bucky supposed that here was a man who had seen just as much death as he had, if not more. The man pondered Bucky's tired face for a moment before turning his attention to the Freedom Wall. His eyes glistened. "You're a little young to have been there, son," he said. "But if Steve Rogers is still around and looking as dapper as I did in '41, I don't see why there couldn't be two of you." He reached out a feeble hand and rested it on Bucky's arm. "Your tears don't lie. I know those tears. I have cried them many times."

Bucky was bewildered and exhausted, but the old man's words comforted him. He took the man's hand in his and bowed over it until his forehead pressed against his wrinkled fingers. He said nothing and neither did the faded sailor—they just cried together for all they had seen, done, and lost.

Matthews had been looking over her shoulder for almost four months, constantly wondering if a sleeper agent was following her and whether or not she would live to see the next day. Finding out Alexander Pierce was dead did little to squelch her concerns. The day everything had fallen apart for both SHIELD and HYDRA had been simply that. Falling apart. What falls apart can be put back together, and that is what ate away at Aurora Matthews. HYDRA was disorganized, not disbanded. She was sure there were people within its ranks that would not forgive the woman who had helped the Winter Soldier go rogue. Sometimes she chided herself for remaining in D.C., but HYDRA had crept all over the globe, so, she figured, why did it matter what city she died in? They would find her eventually.

She had taken a job at the Walter Reed Medical Center. Her work there was a healing balm after what she had done for HYDRA. She had been recruited by HYDRA against her wishes. They had watched her advance through her studies at Yale and had pounced on her before she had even graduated, threatening her with death if she did not acquiesce. She knew now that it had been silly to do what they demanded. If she had disappeared before stepping through the doors at Headquarters, they would have let her go. She was nothing but lost potential. But now she knew too many secrets about HYDRA's favorite assassin. She was worth everything, or, she supposed she was, but after weeks and weeks of being afraid of walking down the street, she was letting her guard down, and she didn't care. She could not continue to live in fear.

Being at Walter Reed was a bit ironic since SHIELD often sent Captain Rogers to visit with the service-members. Matthews admired the way he treated the patients as the heroes. They were heroes, of course, but they didn't think so. They had merely done their duty. They had that notion in common with Rogers—he shied away from the limelight as much as possible. Matthews hadn't noticed at first, but she found herself pondering joining SHIELD more often than she would like. It wasn't possible—not after her involvement with HYDRA and the Winter Soldier. SHIELD would probably consider her a spy.

Another surprisingly recurring thought was about the Winter Soldier. She kept trying to think of him as Bucky Barnes, but the name didn't match with the man she had worked on. Matthews hoped he had remembered what he needed to. She didn't worry about his safety or health. Unlike her, he could completely vanish from anyone's radar and was strong enough to survive anything HYDRA could conjure up.

One night, after a particularly long and grueling shift at Walter Reed, Matthews boarded the red line Metro. She sank into a seat on the last car and closed her eyes. She was half asleep at the next stop and did not see the lone man step onto her car, nor did she observe the three others who joined him at the next station.

"Let's have a bit of fun with the doctor before we off her," snickered a low voice, and it was this sentence that cut through the fog in Matthews' mind and stirred her from her drowsiness instantly. Her brain rushed with options; she had no doubt that these four men, the only people on the car, had been sent to kill her.

They had been part of the Winter Soldier's guard detail, and Matthews remembered three of their names. They were greedy, nondescript mercenaries who were only part of HYDRA so that they could kill. Two of them were Russian: Yury and Alexei, and the other one with the deep voice was called Fox. The fourth Matthews did not recognize. She didn't waste energy wondering why it had taken so long for them to track her down or why they had sent four when one probably could have done the trick. Her old coworkers closed in, and she realized that her brain had calculated her options and had found them all wanting. There was nothing she could do but hope they would reach the next station before she was dead.

"Got a little thing for assassins, baby?" the unknown man said jeeringly. " I'm an assassin! Why don't you help me escape the clutches of HYDRA?"

"Please!" Matthews muttered, rolling her eyes. She resisted the urge to assure the man that he did not fit HYDRA's definition of an assassin, knowing she would pay for it. Her eye roll cost her enough. The HYDRA agent grabbed her hair and pulled back, exposing her neck to a dull looking blade that Fox brandished.

The car screeched and lurched, throwing all five of them to the floor. The knife flew out of Fox's hand. Matthews scrambled for it, but Alexei immediately hoisted her to her feet by a fistful of her coat and hair. As she gained her footing, she noticed that the car was slowing down. Her heart surged with hope anew, and she looked up thinking they had reached a station. The car had detached itself from the rest of the train and was losing speed quickly. Fox swore.

"You mean... you didn't do that?" Matthews asked, confused. The agents didn't answer but it was clear by their dumb expressions that they'd had nothing to do with it. Exhaustion and despair gripped Matthews again. There was no escaping HYDRA now.

"Check it," Fox ordered. The self-proclaimed "assassin" sneered but obeyed and headed toward the front of the car.

Matthews was now being held at gunpoint, and Yury, in a thick Russian accent, demanded, "Where is the Winter Soldier?"

"Heck if I know!" she snapped. "Isn't that something HYDRA so happily trained him to do? Disappear at will?"

The choice words Fox began spewing at her were interrupted by a horrific ripping sound and a scream. The door at the front of the car was gone. It had not been opened; it had been torn from its hinges, and Matthews heard it crash into the rails. The car jerked to a stop. There was no sign of the wanna-be assassin. In his place stood the Winter Soldier. He did not hesitate but strode toward the agents and Matthews, his determined gait mirroring the confidence he had always displayed as he left Headquarters on his way to a mission. His tactical gear had been repaired. Any injuries he had sustained on the Helicarrier had long since healed. He was heavily armed, and as he approached, the agents unhanded Matthews and straightened, almost as if they were standing at attention.

Naturally , Matthews thought, they had the same training I did. They know they don't stand a chance against this guy if they try anything. But then she feared that their submission might be because the Soldier was in league with them. If he had been caught, then she could be his mission. When he drew his sidearm and aimed it at Fox, she flinched. From what she had been told of the Soldier, he should have fired at the agent already if he meant to kill him. No shot came. The two other agents stood between the Soldier and Matthews, and he shoved Yury with such ferocity that he smashed through the car window and into the night. Alexei and Fox stepped out of the way.

"I'm glad to see your arm is in good working order," Matthews said, not sure if she was about to die or be rescued.

The Soldier remained silent and turned his gun upon the other agents. Matthews saw a flash of metal, felt his hand hit her neck, and everything went black.

Steve Rogers stood in the shower, basking in the warmth of the water. Sometimes he wished he could stay in the shower for hours, but far be it from him to waste so much water when others in the world were dying for a sip. It had been a long day at the Triskelion. With Nick Fury trying to locate the remaining HYDRA cells, SHIELD was left in the hands of a Senate sub-committee who made it difficult for Steve and Natasha to accomplish anything. Steve was stuck in the middle, trying to keep Natasha cool and collected while they both attempted to reason with the committee. Natasha's version of reasoning wasn't the kind that would get them any points with the already skeptical government.

Steve was rinsing off when he thought he heard the doorbell. Only a few seconds later, he was sure he heard it again. He stopped the water and hurriedly dried off just as someone began banging on his door. He was wrapping his towel around his waist when he heard a giant crash. More irritated than alarmed, Steve walked into his living room and confirmed his suspicions. His front door had been forced open. He peered into his dark living room and made out the form of a man laying a woman's body on his sofa.

"I was coming!" Steve offered, making no effort to hide the annoyance in his voice. The SHIELD agents were getting too bold. "Was there something wrong with a phone call?"

"Yeah," answered the man, "I didn't have your number." He turned, his face exposed by the hall light, and Steve took a step back.

"Bucky..." he said.

Bucky offered nothing in response which saddened Steve. Bucky had been the talkative one back in the day, but he still didn't look like Bucky. He had remained as HYDRA had formed him. Bucky appeared exactly as he had that day on the Helicarrier. The only difference was his eyes. They weren't dead as they had been during their battle; there was light in them, but it was a mournful, somber light.

"Is she alive?" Steve motioned at the woman.

Bucky indicated she was with the slightest of nods.

"Then I'll be right back." Steve went to his room and put on a T-shirt and sweatpants, his mind reeling. After Nick Fury had left, Steve had planned to find Bucky, but SHIELD had badly needed representation by people other than the committee, by people who cared about what became of the organization. He certainly hadn't expected Bucky to come to him, armed and dangerous, and carrying an unknown woman.

Steve sat on the edge of his bed and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He saw the same face he had seen back in 1941, a face he prayed represented freedom, courage, and goodness. But what did freedom and courage and goodness mean in the new millennium? What did these words mean to the man in his living room who had once been his best friend? Steve wasn't sure he wanted to find out. Nothing indicated that Bucky was not set to kill him except that he'd used the front door and he hadn't attempted anything yet. What is truth? Steve asked himself the age old question, and steeled himself for his conversation with Bucky.

Bucky stood exactly where Steve had left him, directly in front of the sofa as if he was guarding the woman he had placed there.

"Who is she?"

"Doctor Aurora Matthews," Bucky answered quickly. There was an awkward silence until he offered more. "She betrayed HYDRA by digging their tracking device out of my arm."

"If she's a friend, why is she unconscious?"

For the first time, a smile turned up a corner of Bucky's mouth. He glanced at Matthews and then back at Steve. "I got her here a lot faster than I would have if she'd been awake," he smirked.

Steve couldn't help but chuckle. Knocking someone out to rescue them was exactly the sort of thing Bucky would have done when they had worked together with the Howling Commandos. He relaxed a little. He almost offered a seat to Bucky but realized he wouldn't take it, and Steve still didn't trust him enough to let him have the upper hand physically. It was as if Bucky sensed the conflict within him and could tell Steve wanted everything to be normal again. He cautiously reached for his two pistols, unloaded them, and offered them to Steve. Then he pulled two semi-automatic rifles from his back and the ammo from his belt and handed them over as well.

"I won't need these for a while..." Bucky said. He surveyed the layout of the apartment with an expert eye, and licked his lips. Steve bet he felt naked without all his weapons. He was surprised when his friend spoke again. "You got a change of clothes I could borrow?"

Steve led Bucky to his bedroom, found him another Tshirt and sweatpants, and left him to change. He double checked that Bucky's guns were unloaded and the safeties were on before depositing them and the ammunition in the hall closet.

"Captain Rogers?" came a weak voice from the sofa.

Steve helped Matthews sit up and smiled at her. "Yeah. Bucky told me who you were, although I believe I've seen you before."

Matthews yawned and stretched, squinting her eyes against the light. "Walter Reed. On your patient visits."

"That's right. Well, Dr. Matthews, is there anything I can get you? Some water?"

"My friends call me Rory."

"And mine call me Steve."

When Bucky reappeared in the living room, Steve smiled. "All you need is a haircut, and you'll-" He cut himself off, embarrassed at where his thoughts automatically led him.

Bucky frowned. "It'll take more than a haircut to make me Bucky Barnes again." He spoke without emotion just as anyone would about someone he did not know or care about.

Uncomfortable silence fell across the room. Steve and Bucky wouldn't sit down, and Matthews couldn't get up. Disappointment flooded Steve's mind. "What are you two doing here anyway?" he asked sharply.

Bucky glared at him like he should know, but, seeing as Steve wasn't privy to the reason for their presence, Matthews spoke up. "I believe the correct term is 'sanctuary'."

"What?" Steve flopped into an armchair and closed his eyes. He hadn't prepared himself mentally for this confrontation or whatever it was. He wanted to go to bed and sleep for a very long time. He wasn't cut out for politics and saying what people wanted to hear instead of what they needed to hear. Having to step into a mediator role made him miss Nick Fury more than ever. "You're on the run from HYDRA, I hope. Either that or you're here to kill me."

"The doctor needs protection," Bucky said, a hint of anger in his voice. "Where else could I have taken her?"

"And you?" Steve leaned forward in his chair, and stared at Bucky. "What do you need?"

Bucky's eyebrows lowered and his fists clenched. Matthews struggled to her feet, whispered something to him, and then turned to Steve. "Can I talk to you... alone?" she asked. Steve couldn't believe it, but she seemed angry too. He hesitated and looked at Bucky, who sat down on the sofa, refusing to make eye contact with him.

Steve led Matthews into his bedroom and was surprised by the amount of energy she suddenly displayed.

"How idiotic can you be?" she hissed, jabbing her finger into his chest. "That man has belonged to HYDRA for eighty years , and you're going to hold a grudge against him? You don't belittle him, you just... you don't do that! Do you have a death wish, Captain Rogers? Because if you continue acting as you have thus far, the Winter Soldier will kill you before Bucky even has a chance to exist again! For Pete's sake!"

Steve admired Matthews. Very few people would talk to him so bluntly. He also resented her, however, because apparently she was much better acquainted with Bucky than he was. "And what makes you such an expert on Bucky?" he almost shouted.

Matthews put her finger to her lips and widened her eyes in warning. "Keep your voice down! I've been on the Winter Soldier's team for five years, Captain. There are rules that must be obeyed in relation to that man in your living room, and you are breaking every one."

Steve considered what she had said a moment, but he was overcome by conflicting emotions. This doctor who was trembling with anger before him at his treatment of Bucky had been one of his handlers. Surely Steve deserved to be indignant with someone who had maintained HYDRA's secret weapon. On the other hand, she had risked everything to do something that hadn't even occurred to Steve. She had released Bucky from HYDRA's grasp. Steve wasn't sure he would have had the courage to do it had he been in her situation. Approaching a wounded and confused killer after a failed assassination attempt had to be one of the most dangerous things a person, a female no less, could do.

"Then teach me," Steve said quietly, putting his hands on the doctor's shoulders both to show that he had calmed and to help her do the same. "I don't want to push him away."

Bucky thought of nothing. He had to cope. He had to survive. He could not think now. Thinking would either send him into some sort of relapse where he would kill Steve Rogers with his bare arms or he would collapse into a miserable, sobbing fool. Neither of these options was what he wanted. He didn't know what he wanted except to be left alone.

He's so naive to think he can just pick up with me where we left off... Bucky shook his head as if to clear his brain and concentrated on nothing again.

"And what makes you such an expert on Bucky?"

Bucky closed his eyes and drowned out the voices coming from the bedroom. No one is an expert on Bucky. No one is an expert on the Winter Soldier. Who am I? Who am I? When Bucky opened his eyes, he found his metal fist lodged in Steve's coffee table. He had such violent tendencies and sometimes he wasn't even aware when they were there or how he reacted to them. He used his other hand to jerk the left one out of the coffee table and brushed splinters off the metal workings of his arm.

Matthews was giving Steve How to Behave in the Presence of the Winter Soldier 101. Their voices were lowered but that made little difference. Bucky could hear every word. He stood up, kicked Steve's front door back into place, and shut himself outside. Not that he could really go anywhere with the HYDRA arm exposed for all to see. At least he couldn't hear Steve and Matthews anymore. He slid to the floor and leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed. He knew he would look serene to anyone who saw him, but his mind was anything but serene.

Was this what it was like to be mortal? Bucky gave up on holding his thoughts at bay, and they screamed through his head. There was no more cryogenic stasis to calm him and give him rest. No more purpose. No sleeping through years while the population of earth kept living and fighting and surviving and dying. Being put to sleep had essentially been like pressing a pause button on his life. There would be no more pausing. The clock was ticking, and he would finish his time on Earth at a normal pace, like everyone else. Like Aurora Matthews. Like Steve.

I was the fist of HYDRA. Now I am no one.

Confusion and disillusionment surged through Bucky's body, and he gazed at the ceiling wishing he could claw at the walls and walk to Mongolia. Or maybe Brazil. It didn't matter. He just wanted to get away and to clear his head. If he went on a long walk, at least he would have a purpose. Sitting outside Steve Roger's door waiting for a conversation about him to end was not at all the way he liked to pass time. Bucky rolled his eyes, wondering how he had liked to pass the time pre-WWII. The Winter Soldier had never had leisure time. He had never had time for anything but training and killing.

The urge to step back into the apartment, shed Steve's ridiculous clothes, put his tactical gear back on, and collect his weapons was unbearably strong. The assassin HYDRA had created was the only identity Bucky knew. Oh, sure, he knew what James Buchanan Barnes had accomplished with Steve and the Howling Commandos. He had fleeting memories of growing up in Brooklyn and goofing off with the small blond kid that was now Captain America, but it was all head knowledge. His heart could not remember or accept who he had been so long ago.

The thrill of rescuing Matthews from the HYDRA agents had almost sent Bucky right back to headquarters to ask for another assignment. If he had allowed himself the pleasure of killing any of his four previous handlers, he may well have forgotten Bucky Barnes completely. Whatever moral compass Bucky had adhered to in the good old days had held him back from putting bullets in any heads. He was sure three of the agents were just fine. The one he'd thrown out of the train car may have suffered a few broken bones, but Bucky didn't care. The adrenaline had refreshed him. This awful waiting was squeezing him. He didn't even know what he was waiting for. Matthews was safe. He could just leave now. Go on that walk. Disappear. But then Steve's door opened.

Matthews once again found herself sitting next to the Winter Soldier. This time he was Bucky. Or he was supposed to be. She hesitated as she quickly weighed her options and then scooted close enough to him that the skin of her arm brushed the metal of his. He did not move. He stared vacantly across the hall, his eyes focusing on nothing, his hair hanging into his face, his silence what she hoped was a plea for someone to care.

How could I ever prove to him that I care? Matthews wondered. She knew so little of the man he had been or what he needed or wanted. She was certain, though, that he would more willingly listen to her than he would to Steve currently. The fact that he had gone to great length to bring her to safety surely meant something.

"Thank you," she said at last.

Bucky stirred and his blue eyes landed on her face. He looked tired, so tired, and very uncomfortable in the clothes Steve had loaned him. "You're welcome," he said.

"I didn't think I would ever see you again..." Yeah, that'd go over well. Stupid line out of some stupid movie. What do I say? What can I say? To Matthews' surprise, Bucky's voice interrupted her thoughts.

"What's Steve doing?"

"He's calling Agent Romanoff to see what SHIELD can do for... for me." Matthews cringed inwardly, aware that Bucky would have caught her slip-up. Indeed, he raised an eyebrow.

"For you only?" he asked sardonically.

"Well... for us. I'd love to work with SHIELD, and Rogers was hoping to talk you into joining their ranks too. He says we'd be a lot safer with SHIELD than on our own."

Something like a growl rumbled in Bucky's throat. Before she knew it, Matthews had reached out and placed her hand on his knee. He was on his feet immediately, and fire was in his eyes. He shoved back through the door, stormed to where Steve stood, grabbed the cell phone from his hand, and flung it through the window.

" I didn't escape one organization to get caught in another! " Bucky roared at Steve. He then rounded on Matthews and glared at her. "And you ... You think I can forgive years of torture and pain at your hands because of the one hour you actually helped me?! Are you both out of your minds?" Bucky shoved Matthews into Steve. "I didn't come here to ask for protection for me . Who on Earth could manage that? The doctor needs protecting."

Bucky strode with his old purpose to the hall closet and nearly tricked Matthews into thinking he was calm. He pulled all his weapons out of the closet and disappeared into Steve's bedroom. Three minutes later he emerged looking exactly as he had when he had first crashed into the apartment, like a HYDRA agent, like an assassin. He said nothing and did not acknowledge the presence of either of the only people he could consider his friends. He walked out into the night and did not look back.

"That could have gone better," said Steve with a frown.

"I'll take the blame for that one," said Matthews sadly. "Even the best training can't prevent everything."

Steve tried not to let his mind wander to what life would have been like if it hadn't been interrupted by his decades of ice hibernation, but he couldn't help it tonight. If he had somehow survived the Antarctica plane crash minus the sleeping for seventy years, he wouldn't be living in the twenty-first century. If he rewound a little more and had managed to dispose of Red Skull before he took off in his plane... he could have gone on that date with Peg, could have seen the destruction of the Nazis, could have had some semblance of a happy life, and he would have grieved the loss of Bucky every day. There would have been no way for him to know that Bucky Barnes had been found alive after his fall off the train or what HYDRA had done to him.

Steve liked things simple. He couldn't help it. That's the way his generation had thought, especially as the world had careened toward the outbreak of another war that would claim the lives of millions. Find the bad guys. Kill the bad guys. Live your life.

The run around the portion of the Mall fronting the Lincoln Memorial was getting old, so Steve started jogging toward the Washington Monument. He didn't normally run at midnight, but physical exertion seemed to help him think, and he didn't want any company. He didn't notice when it started raining.

Bucky Barnes was still alive, and Steve could not sort his feelings out about that fact. He should be glad. He was glad if he stopped his train of thought there, but in the months he had had to reflect on things, he had started blaming himself. If he hadn't chosen Bucky to accompany him on that stupid mission in the Alps, Bucky would have been rewarded with a date, and witnessing V-day, and maybe even a satisfactory life. Bucky would have stayed Bucky. Whether Steve had lived or died or slept for the greater part of a century, his friend would have survived the war with his memories intact, his conscious clear, and his heart full of life and hope. If stopping Red Skull hadn't been such a priority, maybe Steve would have had the time to try to recover Bucky's body from the Alps and would have discovered what had really happened to him.

You could have saved him!

But Steve had saved the world instead.

Steve rounded the far end of the Mall and started racing back toward the World War II Memorial, allowing his mind to imagine what his negligence had done for Bucky.

For year after year, Bucky had waited and hoped that Steve would come for him. At least, he had waited until HYDRA had erased Steve from his memory. Bucky had had no way of knowing that Steve wouldn't come looking for him.

Bucky would've looked for you if you had fallen. Bucky would have never given HYDRA the opportunity to make you into an assassin.

His face. Try as he did, Steve could not forget the look on Bucky's face after Steve had said the one thing he thought might bring back some memories. I'm with you to the end of the line. Steve grimaced, leaned down, and grabbed some gravel as he ran. He flung the stones as hard as he could into the reflecting pool, but he could still see the hurt, betrayal, and pain on Bucky's face. Steve had never seen desperation so clearly written upon a countenance and had never thought he would witness it etched into a face he knew.

You left him there to a fate worse than a thousand deaths. You abandoned him. You were the only one who could save him, and you did nothing.

And then, out of nowhere, Bucky had reappeared tonight. Steve swore and pushed himself harder. He should have embraced him and welcomed him. He should have talked to him as he would have before either of them had become super soldiers. Steve was convinced that if he hadn't thought so hard about what he was saying, he and Bucky would be sitting in his living room now crying and laughing together. Steve could have asked for forgiveness. Bucky surely would have offered it. But then Steve remembered that face again, set like stone, lost and hopeless. Bucky could not simply revert to the way things had been. He had been destroyed and recreated. Bucky hadn't come to Steve to offer forgiveness or to ask for it. He had come because Steve's was the one safe place he could think of to take the HYDRA operative he felt responsible for.

It was early morning, long before the sun would rise. The rain fell steadily, making it hard to see further than a dozen yards or so, but it did not take long for her trained eye to pick out his dark form. He was curled up next to one of the hundreds of thousands of plain white tombstones. To anyone else, he would be invisible. To her, he was obvious. He was defeated, helpless, and vulnerable. He clearly didn't care what happened to him because if anyone from the 3rd US Infantry Regiment spotted him, he would be dead before he could offer any explanation for the numerous weapons he carried. She would have at least made an effort to hide the guns if she was going to come here, but she knew that his mind was clouded and his body exhausted. She had been warned about his emotional state, but having witnessed him herself, she realized she would not need her handgun when she confronted him and slipped it back into her coat.

As she approached him, she read the inscription on the gravestone he was next to.

Montgomery Falsworth

1st LT

US Army

WWII

May 13 1920

October 21 2005

Purple Heart

Of course. A Howling Commando. She knelt next to the Soldier and brushed his hair away from his face. "Hey," she said. The man she had spent some time training under and who had tried to kill her the last time they met, did not stir. The rain dripped off his hair and across the stubble on his jaw. His eyebrows were not furrowed as they had been every time she had seen him in the past. They were relaxed, and this concerned her. She felt for his pulse, and pulled his head into her lap, scanning their surroundings and calculating that they still had an hour before the sun would expose them. She bent her head over his and smoothed his hair back into place. "Hey," she said again. "James, you need to wake up now."

His eyes flew open, and she felt his body struggle to move, but he was too weak.

"How long have you been out here?" she asked casually. "You hoping the rain would drown you?"

James relaxed, closed his eyes, and murmured, "Natasha."

"Yeah, that's me. Have to admit, I never thought I'd be tracking you down. Or that you'd remember me."

"Did... did Steve send you?"

Natasha laughed dryly. "No. I was talking with him when you sent the phone through the window, and I figured you might need someone who knows a bit of what you've been through."

"How'd you find me?"

"It's not hard to find someone who clearly threw all their training out the window with the phone."

A smile flickered across James' face, and he reached up and drew his fingers gently across Natasha's lips. Natasha had not been expecting that. To her surprise, her heart beat a little faster, but she could not bring herself to ask what he remembered of their past. She eased her hand into his and held it. They did not move for several minutes. In the distance, Natasha could make out the hoarse voice of a staff sergeant overseeing the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Envisioning the M-14's that were not so far away, she helped James sit up. "I think it's time we got out of here," she said, once again scanning their perimeter.

It had been years since Bucky had slept in a real bed or woken up in one of his own accord, naturally and quietly. The room was dark and peaceful. The curtains were drawn against the sun but Bucky could tell from the hue of the light seeping in that it was late afternoon. He reclosed his eyes and intentionally relaxed his muscles. He was so used to being in danger and being alert, that it took all his effort to calm his body. No one knew where he was except Natasha. After his supposed kidnapping of Aurora Matthews, HYDRA would assume he had gone mad and would eventually get himself killed. At least, Bucky had hoped the results of yesterday's action would be in his favor and that HYDRA would give up on trying to find him. Even if they continued their hunt, who would think to look for him in such an insignificant town?

Natasha had driven Bucky to a town called Purcellville, about an hour out of DC. In that entire hour, though, neither assassin had had anything to say to the other. Bucky's mind had been foggy. He had been physically and emotionally drained from trying to keep himself out of HYDRA's grasp for the past four months, not to mention avoiding the public eye. He did not even think of asking Natasha where she was taking him. The confrontation with Steve had unnerved and broken him, for if Steve couldn't even help him, who could? Natasha could have easily been sent to kill him, but Bucky was too tired to not trust her. He had to trust someone, so he trusted her.

Their destination had been one of SHIELD's safe houses. It was an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town. It was probably older than Bucky was, but it had been lovingly restored and updated. Natasha had showed him around and explained that, since no one knew she had brought him here, he would be unprotected.

"I think you can handle any threat that may come up," she had said blithely. She handed him some cash, a cell phone, and a backpack full of clothes, and pulled him onto the porch.

"Listen, I can't really stay because Steve needs me back at the Triskelion. If I'm late, they'll all start asking questions, and I don't want them to know where you are for now. You need rest, not interrogating. If you need anything, call me. I put my number in your phone. I'll be back tomorrow." Natasha had started down the steps toward her car, but something had stopped her, and she ended up directly in front of Bucky.

"Strictly business," she'd said.

"What?"

"I figure you could use some help remembering what it feels like to be human." Natasha had softly kissed his lips, smiled a moment, and then she had left.

Bucky wished he could remember his past relationship with the Black Widow, but he was trying too hard to do so. It seemed that if he was caught off guard by something or someone, it was possible to trigger a memory. His heart would remember even if his mind couldn't. But if he attempted to jog his own memory, it only ended in frustration. Natasha's unexpected presence at Arlington had filled him with a very unusual emotion: one of comfort, and her name had instantly popped into his head. He had known her immediately, but now only darkness greeted his brain as he tried to pull up more memories involving Natasha. He swore and swung his legs out of the bed.

The mirror next to the chest of drawers exposed a man he did not like. Though he still wore his tactical gear, he was beginning to look like a drifter—tired, lost, and pointless. All dressed up and nowhere to go. His stubble had nearly become a beard. Though he had slept well, it was not enough to make up for a lifetime of nightmares and sleepless nights, and his eyes betrayed his fatigue. The jaw that had once been set with determination was now lax. Relaxed? No, just lax, just as he himself was derelict and indifferent.

Bucky felt anger flaring up inside of him, but he thrust it back into his soul, and stepped into the shower.

Natasha had not felt such nervousness in years. She pulled into the driveway of the safe house and was certain that James would be gone. It had seemed a good idea at the time to allow him some solitude, to prove to him that someone trusted him. It had been a gamble to leave him unattended, but what better way was there to validate his capability of thinking for himself and that there was still some of James Buchanan Barnes left inside of him? Steve's approach had obviously driven his old friend to desperation.

As Natasha entered the farmhouse, she did not bother looking in any first story rooms. Instead, she headed directly to the basement and was relieved to find James exactly where any man from SHIELD would have happily stationed themselves for hours: the range.

The indoor range was the reason Natasha had chosen this particular safe house. A decade ago, SHIELD had modified the entire basement into a three lane, 25 yard shooting range, though why anyone would build such a thing within a safe house was beyond her. James was inspecting his last target, where almost every shot had landed dead center. Just three holes were less than a centimeter outside the bull's eye.

"You're not losing your precision, are you, James?" Natasha asked as she looked over his shoulder at the shredded targets.

"Sure," he responded. "If you think that's bad for shooting left-handed."

"That metal arm doesn't give you an unfair advantage?"

James headed down the lane with two fresh targets. "It gives me an advantage in lots of areas, but shooting isn't one of them."

Natasha nodded though James couldn't see, and watched him situate the targets. He looked much better than he had the day before. Rested. Relaxed. More conversational too. He had shaved and changed into the clothes she had brought for him—a PT shirt, cammie trousers, and combat boots. James returned, handed her one of his pistols, and reloaded his.

"Hair's a little long for a Marine," Natasha teased as she eyed her target.

James fired off eight rounds using his right hand and hit the mark every time. "Never was a Marine," he said with a shadow of a smile. "Desert cammies don't change the man underneath. I was in the Army."

"Once a soldier, always a soldier." Natasha took her turn filling the bull's eye with lead.

The two shot together for quite some time. Natasha had hoped that James would find the range therapeutic. They rarely said anything, but she could tell that he was content. She knew that, had she been in his position, the best thing anyone could have done for her would be to let her get out her pent-up anger and frustration with a pistol in her hand.

The darkness receded a little. He was not without friends. At least one person on the face of the Earth did not think he was a monster.

A monster.

But he was a monster. And while he could not remember the sins of the woman next to him, the word that had been stained into their souls was written in red: Assassin. The two of them shared a bond that, thank God, most people never would. They had both killed, and they both harbored rage in their hearts. Their eyes remained dry, but everything within them was crying out for relief from their guilt.

How he wanted to be normal!

How could he ever fool himself— or anyone —into believing he, the Winter Soldier, could wash the blood from his hands and live? How he wanted to live!

Steve didn't know. Steve couldn't know—how could he? He had tried, tried so hard to understand. But the man that Bucky was could not be explained or figured out within one night. He was not neat or tidy, not simply black or white, the way Steve liked things.

How did he know what Steve liked? Bucky shrugged as he cleaned his pistol. There was no answer for that question. He just knew.

Steve saw what was good and what was bad. Bucky was not good, so where did that leave him? He supposed he would like to renew his friendship with Captain America, but... but he had tried to kill him, had viciously attacked him, rendering Bucky unworthy of friendship or forgiveness.

Aurora Matthews, for all her goodness and all the wickedness she had been thrust into, didn't deserve to be the go-between for an assassin and a hero. Though she had studied Bucky for five years, her knowledge of him was little compared to the first-hand experience Natasha possessed of... death.

Natasha.

He lifted his gaze from his task and stared at Natasha. She worked diligently to clean the pistol she had used. Everything about her demanded his attention. Her past, her voice, her trust, her lips. She caught him staring and smiled slyly but said nothing and returned to her cleaning.

Her silence was heavenly. Talking did nothing to calm Bucky's nerves and habit, as Steve and Matthews had made so painfully clear. What could be better than an afternoon with plenty of shooting, minimal talking, and a beautiful woman? Bucky almost laughed at his thought. It was a Bucky Barnes thought, although back in the day he wouldn't have minded talking so much. The realization that HYDRA had not completely crushed his old personality out of him cheered him. Perhaps he could be found, after all.

But he was still a monster.

"It's me. It's Steve."

"Steve?"

"Come on."

"Steve."

"I thought you were dead."

"I thought you were smaller."

Steve woke up soaked in sweat and disoriented. For a moment he thought he was in one of HYDRA's bunkers rescuing Bucky from being experimented on. He flailed around trying to find Bucky, discovered a pillow instead, angrily launched it against the wall, and sank face-down onto his bed. He roared his frustrations into the mattress before calming and checking the time. 0510. Steve reached for his phone, shut off the alarm set for 0515, flopped onto his back, and stared into the darkness.

Steve had been a wreck since Bucky had burst into his living room three nights before. Everyone had noticed though very few were privy to the reason why. Only Steve, Natasha, Aurora, and Sam were aware of the fact that Bucky Barnes had not only survived HYDRA, but had somehow escaped its clutches. They had all agreed that it would be safer to not reveal him to SHIELD until he was more stable.

Steve had been little help during the meetings at the Triskelion. He had been in the middle of a committee presentation the day before when he'd suddenly blanked on what it was he and Natasha had wanted to get the board members to agree to. He had looked at his notes for a full minute to no avail before Natasha had taken over, somehow gaining unanimous consent to offer sanctuary and employment to Aurora Matthews, all without mentioning Bucky.

"It was foolish to think you could make it through ten minutes talking about fresh wounds and still keep James safe," Natasha had stated when Steve had apologized later. He couldn't figure out if her words had been laced with sympathy or scorn.

"Shucks," Steve muttered and forced himself out of bed.

He supposed he should be glad that Natasha had deemed him trustworthy enough to tell him which safe house contained Bucky, but he resented her for asking him to stay away from his friend. He resented a lot of people these days it seemed—which only made him resent himself. He hated to think it, but the business of saving the world had been so much easier when Bucky had been buried back in the forties.

Not that he wished Bucky wasn't alive.

But was Bucky Barnes really still alive within the being that resembled him?

Steve met up with Sam, and they started off on their morning run. Steve made an effort to keep to Sam's pace without knowing why. For these two, a normal morning found them warming up and cooling off together. Steve routinely left Sam in the dust for the actual run.

Sam ran quietly for a few miles, but then he asked, "Don't you have some anger to burn off? Why are you holding yourself back?"

Silence.

"Come on, Cap. Something must be really wrong for you to not give a run your all."

More silence.

"If you want to talk about it, you'd better start now. I'll be too winded to offer you my brilliant advice if you wait much longer."

Steve hesitated, but Sam was right. The whole reason he wasn't running at Cap Speed was because he needed to talk, but he couldn't think of a word to say. Beside him, Sam sighed. "You're not the first person who has believed someone is dead, moved on, and been blindsided when they're not. It happens to the best of us, man. And not being overjoyed by the revelation doesn't make you one of the bad guys. It just means you have to go back, unravel the feelings you had locked away, and start your friendship again. And don't be surprised if the friendship you develop with Bucky now looks nothing like the one you had back in the good ol' days."

"He's different, Sam."

"Of course he is! But what's not different is that he needs you. If you don't help him, who will? Cast out one demon and seven more will take its place. Don't give those demons room, man. If you manage to lose him again, he will be gone forever. The first time you lost him, it wasn't your fault, but the second time will be all on you. You have to claim him for the bit of good that's left in him before all that evil overcomes him."

Making use of the farmhouse's porch swing calmed Bucky. He didn't know if it was the repetitive motion, the serene view, or creaking of the swing, but he could empty his mind of practically everything as long as he sat there. It was his fourth evening in Purcellville, and he had kept himself as busy as possible at the range and working out. He would allow no thought of the future. He both struggled and welcomed thoughts of his past, tormented by his more recent history and surprised when he regained a memory from his youth. The swing provided much needed mental and physical rest.

It was dusk when Steve walked up to the porch. Bucky clearly recalled seeing him saunter toward him many years before, only he had been smaller. Much smaller. He resisted the urge to smirk at the memory of a time he had towered over his friend.

His friend. The friend that could not handle the truth that Bucky lacked just about everything that had made him Bucky. Steve's reaction to his visit had sent him over the edge, into deep despair that would have ended in a one-sided shoot-out at Arlington. He would have been killed.

"You're kind of missing the point of a double date."

Steve paused tentatively at the bottom step. Bucky did not stop swinging. They remained silent. The crickets continued their song, and a night bird called out.

"Are we even now?" Bucky asked, still refusing to look at Steve.

"Even?"

"You left me for dead, or so I'm told. I tried to kill you twice though I can only remember once. Four nights ago I would have died if it hadn't been for Natasha. Two for two."

"Your memory must be foggy. I never tried to kill you. I made you a god. You were just-"

Before the sentence was finished, Bucky had his hand around Zola's throat and a knife hovering over his chest.

"Ah," Zola murmured, "your memory is improving. Very good. Please let me go. I have come to discuss business with you."

The German accent grated on Bucky's ears in the same manner Alexander Pierce's voice had. He blinked, and, almost not of his own volition, he released Zola and took a step back.

Zola turned, brushing off his lapel and straightening his hat. He smiled, and Bucky looked away. That smile was not forgotten. Now that he had seen it again, it crashed around in his thoughts, and he took another staggering step away from the man that had erased his mind. Fire burst through his brain, clawing to release the monster.

"As I was saying," said Zola, "I made you a god. You are eternal. You are indomitable. You are supreme. You were just a weak human, and I took you and made you the fist of HYDRA."

Bucky's usually intentionally even breathing was coming in short gasps. His mind reeled with memories. Zola's face hovering over him on the operating table. Zola pushing his glasses up his nose. Zola's voice droning on and on about HYDRA. Zola reacting with unreasonable calm every time he made an attempt to fight or escape.

"You see, you have everything to lose if you go with them. You are the Winter Soldier. You belong with me."

"I saw Steve," Bucky gasped. "He was here, and then he was gone, and you—Where is Steve?"

Zola frowned and peered up at Bucky's face, as if analyzing him. "Perhaps... Ah, human frailty. You are already succumbing to it. Your mind has been too active. Cryogenic stasis would be beneficial."

Bucky burned with hate as he never had before, yet he resisted the Winter Soldier's instincts.

"You want to kill me? Yes, it would be good for you to kill again."

With a cry of rage, Bucky smashed Zola's nose with the metal fist the man had invented. Zola fell backward as blood flowed everywhere. The sight of blood awakened Bucky's senses, and he surrendered to his old instincts even as he fought them. He grabbed Zola by the neck and lifted him till his shoes dangled a foot from the ground.

Zola, with blood all over his face and his hands over his nose, started laughing. It was an awful, gurgling sound since blood was flowing into his mouth. "Go on, kill me!" he urged. He coughed and strained against the metal fingers wrapped around his throat. "Cut off one head and two more shall take it's place."

Bucky threw Zola toward the porch, and he crashed into the swing. Bucky pursued without hesitation, drawing his pistol. He shoved what was left of the swing out of the way with his foot and then kicked Zola's crumpled form over, fully expecting him to be dead.

He was not dead, and it was not Zola.

It was a sickly looking man with long dark hair. He was wrapped in gold and green robes and leather and held a scepter in his hand. He laughed freely and wiped blood away from his unbroken nose. He rose from the porch, straightening his clothing, and he eyed Bucky with a glint of cold malice in his eyes. "That was amusing; shall we do it again?" His voice was light and regal, arrogant and prideful.

Bucky did not lower his gun but pressed it into the man's forehead, aching to pull the trigger. "Who are you?" he demanded, his confusion growing in equal portions to his fury.

"Surely you've heard of me," the man said, deliberately drawing up to his full height. He tapped the gun with his scepter, and it fell unbidden from Bucky's grip. "I am Loki, Prince of Asgard. You will kneel to me."

"I have knelt to Evil too many times, and I will not do it again," Bucky replied, not budging a muscle. He eyed Loki's scepter. "Not as long as you do not use whatever magic you possess to force me."

Loki laughed again and brushed past Bucky "Where would be the fun in that, Soldier?" Then he rounded on Bucky and hissed, "Everyone knows that gods want humans to do their bidding of their own free will."

"I doubt that applies to you."

"Why?"

"Those who crave power do not care how they get it."

Loki leaned toward Bucky and peered into his face in the waning light. "You would know, wouldn't you, man out of Time?" he said quietly. Then louder, as if he had said the words before, "You are correct, of course. Only a god of love gives anyone a choice. And I am not he. Nor do you have any love left in you. That is why you belong to me."

Bucky's fingers curled into fists, but he was certain that his strength could do nothing against this man who called himself a god. " I belong to no one ," he growled.

"You will kneel eventually when you realize I can give you all you want. Why..." Loki smiled gently. "I can give you your memories back. At least the ones you want. You are drowning in blood. I can save you."

Bucky could no longer hear the birds or the crickets. All was quiet. Loki's offer echoed in his heart. He was tempted, so tempted. If he could just get back the first eighteen years of his life and forget the rest. He could be clean and guiltless and free. He could live a normal life. He could remember the people who had mattered to him. But then... what if trading the bad memories for the good resulted in trading good visions for bad? His perfect life would be tainted by the shadows of things he was responsible for but could not remember clearly. He would remain a haunted man. There was no magic that could change his past. He forced himself to unclench his fingers and slowed down his heart rate. "And what do you get in return?"

Loki's eyebrows raised in feigned surprise. "Get? Why, there is nothing that I need, Soldier!"

"Then why are you bothering with me?"

"Well, no one else wants you," Loki said and stifled a yawn.

"That's not true."

"No?" Loki waved his scepter across the yard and driveway. "Then where are they? Where are your friends ? Oh, that's right. You don't have any. You don't deserve any."

All the anger, the rage, and the confusion Bucky had been trying so hard to overcome exploded inside of him. The Darkness descended upon his mind, and his heart turned to stone. Vengeance wrapped icy fingers around his conscious, and he felt nothing but hate. He hated this stranger for thinking that he knew him, and he hated that he was right. The only friends he had were the demons that spoke to him now. It did not matter that he could not beat a foe as powerful as Loki. Death would be a relief to Bucky. He flung himself at his target, and his instincts took over his actions. He did not hear Loki's taunts. He did not feel his blows. He knew that he was losing and that he would be dead soon.

Dead.

No more thinking. No more hating. No more forgetting or remembering. No more pain. Just darkness.

Darkness.

He heard his name being called from somewhere. And he knew it was his name. Bucky.

The voice was earnest and kind. It was a voice that was too often laced with worry. Of course. The weight of the world pressed in on Steve all the time.

Steve.

He opened his mouth but couldn't think of what to say. He didn't know why he knew the voice or the name or why he was comforted by both. He tried to open his eyes, but it was too bright. Someone gripped his right arm as if they were drowning.

"Buck. You're safe now. You're safe." The voice choked on the last word.

The storm inside Steve was almost too much to bear. One side of him demanded that he remain stalwart, told him he was not to blame. The other was riddled by guilt and regret. He clung to Bucky's arm, head bowed, eyes closed. Bucky had suffered much at the hands of Loki, physically and emotionally. Loki nearly had killed Bucky at the safe house in Purcellville. Steve had happened upon the scene just as Bucky had lost consciousness. Thinking the Winter Soldier beyond repair, Loki had merely laughed at Steve's promise to avenge his friend with the help of Thor. He had promptly disappeared while Steve had rushed to Bucky.

His body would heal, but everyone was concerned about the state of his mind. For that reason, against Steve's wishes, Bucky's arms and legs had been restrained with steel bands. He would be confined to the hospital bed in one of SHIELD's labs until he was deemed safe.

Bucky would never be safe. Steve wasn't safe. Steve wondered if there was such a thing as a safe human.

Bucky stirred and managed to open his eyes then. They were strikingly clear, and Steve gaped for a moment at how much he resembled the old Bucky. The cloud of hate had dissipated, allowing the blue of Bucky's irises to shine as they had in the old days. Bucky's lip turned up in the cocky way it had back when he had managed to talk himself into a uniform while Steve remained stuck in civilian attire.

"You look terrible," Bucky whispered.

"So do you."

A shadow of a smile hovered over Bucky's face. Steve's consternation intensified. Bucky had suffered more than Steve could imagine possible, and yet, here was a glimpse of the man he had been, the friend that he had grown up with. The Bucky Barnes that wasn't afraid to tell Steve how it was. Steve let go of Bucky's wrist long enough to rake his fingers through his hair and then placed his hand over Bucky's.

"I'm sorry, Buck. I'm sorry I didn't search for you. I thought you were dead. I didn't know." Steve made no effort to hide the tears that rolled down his cheeks as he stared into the distance. "What they did to you was... all my fault..."

Bucky did not answer. Instead, he looked down at the bonds that held him and then at Steve with a question in his eyes, his demeanor markedly changed, his gaze cold and distant.

"You know what... you're right. The heck with it." Steve hesitated no longer. He grabbed his shield from beside the bed and smashed it against the locks on the restraints. They fell open. Steve stared at Bucky a moment, hoping his show of trust would break down some of the walls between them. Bucky stared right back, absentmindedly soothing the chafed flesh of his wrist with the cool metal fingers of the opposite hand. He said nothing.

"You're free to go, if that's what you want," Steve offered quietly.

Still Bucky remained silent, though his relentless gaze never left Steve's countenance. Bucky's face was a mask of control and calm, one that not even Steve could see through.

"Buck... " Steve's voice cracked. Defeat crushed him. There was nothing else he could do for Bucky. He was doing more harm than good. Perhaps the pain medication had messed with his head and produced the phantom of the old Bucky. Bucky remembered nothing of Steve and never would. Steve sighed and turned to go. "Goodbye, Buck."

"Wait."

Hope swelled in Steve's heart, and he glanced back at Bucky.

Bucky was leaning on one elbow, examining Steve's face as if for the first time. "Aren't you the little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight?"

Thank God! Steve lowered his head, smiling and unable to control his tears. He returned to Bucky's side. "Yeah, Buck. That's me."

Bucky nodded, squeezed Steve's hand, and closed his eyes. "I'm following him," he murmured and fell asleep.

The moment Steve turned to leave was the moment I remembered. I remembered the flash of his eyes when I teased him about his size. The indignation evident in the set of his shoulders as he pulled himself to his full height, as if that made him any taller. The determination that practically took over to prove that he was worth more than he looked.

Now I must prove my own worth.

It's as if my mind is a radio, filled with the white noise of a channel that never comes in clearly. My memories come to me as often as the patches of broadcast that make it through the fog. They are brief and faded, but they are there, always increasing in number.

The memories both hurt and heal. Along with the memories of my childhood come the memories of my more recent past. If I did not have those memories of my mother and father, there would be nothing to combat the horror of what I have done. If Steve no longer existed, neither would I. He stands with me in this battle against the demons of HYDRA and against the darker side of me. He will not let me fall again.

The war inside of me is far from over. The way is treacherous and pitted. But I am not alone anymore.

He will not let me fall.

THE END