Chapter Text
Bucky. That was what the man had called The Soldier. James Buchanan Barnes. The Soldier didn’t know what to do.
The man lay on the bank, and the Soldier was the one who had put him there, and It didn’t know what to do. So It walked. It turned, and It left and It walked and then It was running and then It was driving and then It was too far to turn back. But It knew that the moment It leapt after the man there was no turning back.
I pulled him from the water.
I don’t know why.
It’s been two weeks. I think I’ve done this before. I think this is the longest I’ve been able to stay away.
When they catch me again, they’ll burn this. Maybe they’ll read it first.
If you are reading this, fuck you.
I’ve been remembering. What exactly? I’m not sure. It comes in bits and pieces, constantly feeling as though everything is familiar and completely foreign at once. There are some things that I’m sure are familiar— most memories of the Soldier, places we’ve been, people we’ve seen.
But the first thing I truly remembered from before was his eyes.
I don’t know how I didn’t see it before, but when he was bruised and bleeding beneath me, I felt as though I was supposed to be the one ripping an attacker off and protecting a sickly little boy rather than be the attacker.
But he wasn’t a sickly little boy. He was massive in fact. It made no sense. None at all. And yet I knew I could not fight him. He was my mission. I was sent to kill him. I’ve done it a million times. I’ve followed orders I’ve completed missions. Why not him?????
Til the end of the line. I still don’t know why he said it. I don’t know why it pulled me out. I don’t know what it means.
I pulled him out of the water. I pulled him out of the water and then I stayed to make sure he was breathing and then I wanted to stay til he woke up. And I don’t know why.
I DONT KNOW WHY
The Soldier sat back, glancing around Its’ small, dark hideout, rubbing it's face. It had picked up the journal from a stand in the market, determined to write down every single thing It knew. It had to remember. It had wound up somewhere in Bucharest. There was a safe house there, an abandoned warehouse beside It had been hiding in for weeks. It had remembered it from a mission.
They would expect It to grab the stash of cash and civilian clothes and necessities and flee. It stayed. They’d be searching for their Soldier. It had sent them in the wrong direction, leaving a piece of a map behind at the safe house with dots over it. They wouldn’t expect It to stay. Or maybe they did and It was doing exactly what they expected It to.
But The Soldier— Bucky, he reminded himself— Bucky stayed. And this time, he was not going without a fight. Bucky Barnes had to remember.
He started at the Museum.