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You never told them that your last dance had been with James B. Barnes.
They got it out of you within six months, though.
You had tried your hardest not to tell them anything. Bucky was capital D, dead, and you wanted to give them nothing from your life they could use against you, so you held out. Lips had been sealed tight until a cattle prod and a cocktail of drugs were applied to your weakest points.
James had written you letters when he was still alive, and you knew he might not make it home. It stung, nonetheless, when Ms. Winnifred Barnes called you after soldiers had shown up on her doorstep. You were only ever Bucky’s best gal, and you hadn’t dated more as you moved through life. Eighteen was not the age most people expect to meet their person for the rest of their life, yet you were sure. You were also sure when no one else reciprocated; you preferred your studies instead.
You went to school. That's when it happened. Men who ignored the shouts and screams, before clamping a hand over your mouth to silence you. You thought you were being clever, fighting and trying to leave as much as possible behind so that someone, anyone, wouldn’t forget you. But when you threw yourself to work and school with no time for friends, the patrons at the late-night diner you waitressed at wouldn’t come to look for you. Parents had died, and extended family had been killed or hurt in the war. So, it happened.
Pain.
After you were taken (you tried to watch the movie after everything and almost immediately turned it off), it was pain, a cold spell, confusion, and work. A never ending cycle of torment, that the KGB-coated scientists who spoke German content to watch you drool on the floor after you feel, waiting for you to stand for more.
Which you did, of course.
Later, you'd realize that the outside world had gone through a similar problem as you: drugs.
Theirs was an average amount, with the intention of hope; yours was cocktails of vials you couldn’t name, the state it put you in fractured with electrodes down your spine and covering your head. The same machinery cemented those cracks.
You ended up cleaning, after everything was said and done, for the KGB. It took you one year of unfrozen consciousness and carefully reconstructed snippets of previous missions so that you could put a name to the faction: Hydra.
Cleaning, as in fixing the loose ends, literally cleaning up the aftermath of other agents' missions, fixing the broken relationships after any investigation into an assignment, you could clean it up. A set of pearls and a friendly smile went far.
You were unsure of why the job was a one-woman show. Still, you had to neutralize an entire security unit after your superiors had sent you to the “brazil'skiy perevorot” mission. You stopped asking why your captors had needed a woman with computing knowledge for these missions after a honeypot had gone wrong, and the office had extracted you when he caught you copying data. He had not taken kindly to the data but quickly accepted the idea you were offering him. After enduring what you had felt like an average person could endure of his greedy uses, you had crushed his windpipe and had been pulled from the scene.
You also stopped asking why you, in particular, had been chosen after this incident.
How quickly you did what they said, how you jumped to attention and took their drugs. You relished being asleep, cold as it may be. You were desperate to be unconscious; to not think about the questions that kept popping up after an extended mission. At some point, you had the drill down to an art. A lab-coated man would ask you to present your arm for the IV to start the process, and it was already out and in place.
He called you a нетерпеливая сука, and you felt nothing (you were nothing); they told you not to worry, and you didn't because in 5 short minutes, you would be gone.
It was less restful this time. Warm amber tones filter into your vision, streaking through the murky waters of your unconscious. Trumpets blare, yet they sound like they're in a movie far away. You don’t go to the movies.
You used to.
You think you used to go dancing with him.
There's a pink tone filtering in from just out of sight, a dusty petal color that you remember clearly because it's the same color as the dress you wore on the night...
And at your fingertips, the scratchy wool came back.
It felt olive.
The light continues to flicker and creep in its streams, small particles hanging in your vision that reflects it, just so.
Your fingers, glued to the spot in unconsciousness, feel the soft slip of hair, moving past them as if you had been stroking someone else's temple.
Deep labored gasps pulled you out of the comforting lights and soft touches, ratcheting coughs anchored your body, and you peered out, able to comply once more.
“Du musst gehen, jemand wird dich finden. Lauf, sofort!”
So you run. It was easy enough to be on high alert all the time.
It took you three years of constant movement before you could stick to one continent.
It took one look at the American northwest to realize you could disappear there.
Being a hermit was fine.
It meant you could scream through the night as memories waltzed back into your mind. The good ones, the ones you wanted, the ones of dance halls in the 40s, and all the books you read came back as you cleared land for the orchard you were planning. The missions, the pain, those sneaky memories of missions you had thought were gone, curled inside your head at night.
Thankfully, the closest you had come to being discovered were posters detailing "local wolves" and how to avoid them.
Dates became real. You tracked time again. If you tracked time, it was easier to ensure you spread your time between towns.
You dated your memories.
One time, in the city, you had bought a notebook, some leather and gold ordeal that you decided would be a great resting place when you finished it—journaling your memories in chronological order.
The exercise controlled the outcome. You understood why you liked computers and data. Bringing the technology home was too risky, so you had to buy second-hand books in cash, like iPhones for Dummies, and too many history books to count.
You began to understand the world around you, more and more outside complete survival.
There was a newsreel on the local café you visited when you were in town. It had been a while; you had treated yourself.
Except, then, it wasn't long enough.
James was on the television. He was there, with long hair and dirt on his face. The woman presenting the program kept talking, but his blue eyes, the same ones that had looked at you that night you danced with hope, were now gazing with contained hatred and composed neutrality.
The library in town had internet access and printing, so you paid and walked out.
The sidewalk barely felt real. You gave the librarian an apologetic smile when you asked for help with the printing but watched in interest as she led you through the steps. It was going to be analyzed later, but now?
James’ face was printed before your eyes. The things you had seen before it happened. The ones that drilled into you how you needed to move on. The ones that reminded you that you couldn’t.
News released photos that you could tell were declassified from the KGB and modern photos of a man in broad daylight. The body was different. The hair was wild.
The last photo appeared as your hand flew through the pages. The librarian left after you started pacing through the stacks before you.
James B. Barnes, in a baseball cap and jacket, taken by paparazzi outside the Stark tower, was a face you knew. He was older. You were older too. The serum you got, maybe. It wasn't easy to tell.
You did the breathing exercises you included in your rituals in case the panic attacks started.
You did a deeper search on the computer this time, ending up with a stack of papers to read when you got home.
You holed up. It was hard to read.
Knowing you weren’t the only one taken from time flooded your brain with memories of all those sites you cleaned, all those bodies disposed of, done by people just like you, taken and forced into this life. Did they relish rest the same way you had? Had they tried to piece it together until they lost hope as well? Had James resisted? He had. You read about it.
That next week, you bought a second journal.
It took you half a year, but when you could, you crafted a timeline of James’s history with annotated details from your own memory and history.
You closed the book on that chapter of your life.
Three years later, you knew you were getting itchy to travel. Enterprise, Oregon, was the closest town and ended up being a convenient stop for you.
You’d been there nearly ten years now.
You wanted something. Anything, at this point. The locals had been nice enough but you were still in the woods and zero friends or acquaintances to show for your time here.
So you made plans, big plans, any plans. Probably foolhardy plans, with how ambitious the scope of your travel would seem while stagnating alone in your shed.
New York. You had always wanted to see home again but were scared. Maybe someone was looking for you still, possibly to ruin the illusion of it you had built in your head.
It couldn't be any worse than when you had lived there last. The gravesites of your parents were there, the only friends besides James and Steve were there too. You didn't need much from your trip, except to say goodbye to the place that had created you and the place that had watched you get swallowed whole to emerge a killer.
Consciously, traveling on an airplane has always made you nervous. This trip was no different. The hostess gave you a small smile and two bags of cookies when she saw you white-knuckling the armrest. You gave her a small smile back.
Maybe it had been your brain protecting you, but you had honestly forgotten about the Avengers being in New York until a larger-than-life poster of Tony Stark greeted you in the terminal.
A surprise wasn't new, those happened all the time, and this is no different, you told yourself. Just because the two people who you knew personally wouldn't get in-between your goodbyes.
Brooklyn felt the same, even if it didn't look like it. People were still the same, their spirits loud and words louder. It was easy enough to be a silent observer to it all. The one thing you forgot about was the omnipresent push of humanity, from all sides, made you want to claw at your neck, the stifling breath as you were bustled from place to place on the sidewalk.
You rushed home to the hotel after a dinner that went later than expected. There was no desire to be out after dark.
There was a crowd blocking your path back to the safety of your hotel; didn't these people realize what a roadblock they were being for literally anyone else? It seemed the craze became even more palpable when you heard a door open and warm air come spilling out from a doorway.
A bright light drew your eyesight to a large A on the side of a tall building.
You could have smacked yourself for not being more aware.
The crowd erupts, and people crush closer and closer, drawing you with them because fighting the tide would be so much more than necessary to get out of this. Just because this is different than the expected plan doesn't mean this is bad, you remind yourself,
They look glamorous. You had overheard excited twitter about a gala or party or benefit, and the situation clicks in your head.
You’re sure they deserve the party. You hadn’t much cared to get into current politics. Didn’t want to know. You were invisible, after all.
You were trying to weed your way out of the crowd when a giant hand grabbed your wrist. Your eyes find the baby blues of now Captain Steven G. Rogers. Back then, he was 90 pounds of nothing and constantly uncomfortable on the dates you two had tried to set him up on.
“I never forget a face doll,” the Captain told you, calm as could be, fingers at your wrist warning you. You felt faint, so why not act that way? Throw them off, get out and disappear.
“It’s been a long, very depressing story. I’ll tell you later if you’d believe me.”
The therapy books were working, it seemed.
He eyed you, then asked the question you hated. “Will he be there?”
“I’ll give him a chance but don't push it.” It was the only response you could muster.
The Captain moved down the line of fans. You bowed your head until he was right in front of you.
Your eyes lifted, trying to find a spark of... anything really. You'd take disgust even.
No recognition.
It was okay.
You already knew.
It was a hard life, being at the whim of someone more powerful than yourself. You imagined it must be more complex when you fought so much as he did. You had never fought, you knew what that had made you, and per guilt, the memories came back to you quickly. They came back to taunt you, to cuddle your unconsciousness into choking nightmares, and you paid your dues.
When you caught his eyes again, you spoke up.
The therapy books were working.
“Mr. Barnes, you knew my family, you had spent time with...” your voice falters, “... with my grandmother.” Suitable.
You kept going. “She thought the world of you. Wouldn't shut up about what a great guy you were.”
It was something, at least. All right. Wrong tense.
“Just wanted to let you know we were always in your corner.” The last few words tumbled out of your mouth, and while you couldn't shove them back in, you could remove yourself from the situation. So, you did.
With your parting words, you could breathe. What was breathing compared to this? This was a complete lungful; it lifted your head as you sailed through the crowd, completely unhindered.
He could figure it out if he wanted. He could know. He could not want to. It was the coward's way out, but that's what you were—leaving it up to someone else to act first.
You went home; home to the quiet, the chirps of animals in the mornings, and the smell of dew and moss when you breathed deep in spring.
He could figure it out.
Steve could help him.
They could figure it out.
Your orchard flourished. The shack you bought was small, easy to clean, and had enough room for the books you bought to learn about life now.
It had been 4 months since you had returned from New York. You had laid a simple bouquet at each of your parents' gravesites, and took a rubbing of the simple headstones you had picked a lifetime ago.
It had taken 3 months of seemingly nonstop crying at night to work out the emotion you felt bubbling inside you at the death of your connections to the past, but what other way to move forward. Hell had never been the place to stop moving forwards.
Yet James was the first thing you thought when you heard a knock at your cabin door.
There was a weapon, cleaned and ready, at the door. You weren’t stupid; the boonies of any state had some weirdos, but you hadn't had to use it, and you hoped now wasn't the first as you walked to the door to check the peephole; a blue chest?
History met you face to face, and you could feel something in your face unwind.
“You’ll have to forgive me, gentlemen; it's been a long time since I’ve had guests. Please, come in,” You stood aside to welcome them in, and here they were; divorced from all previous context you had ever known them in, Steve and James were back in your living room.
“It’s fine, ma’am; we’re just here to talk,” the Captain said with a motion to his companion.
Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, home from the war, complete with lighting that made him look younger than the time outside his tower.
He just nodded at you, deer in headlights. It might have wounded you were you not doing the same thing. You had just shook out of it earlier than him.
“Can I get you boys anything?” You asked, motioning to the table, but a quick shake of his head lets you know this is a business trip for him. Stools make their way out of a back storage area and they each take one.
They sit. You sit. It's all… calm. You had done the exercises all the books had said. You thought of your outcomes, and this was, for lack of a better term, going okay.
No one seems to want to start, so with a deep breath in, you rip the band-aid off.
“Please, ask away, about anything. It might be easier to start with small questions at first. I’ll answer as best as I can.” You tried to imbue your voice with care and respect. It makes people feel at home when you do that. You could do that.
The Captain asks first. “You've lived a long life; do you know why?”
It's a stupid question, you feel, but a valid one to determine levels of normality here.
“I’ve lived a long life because, in 1955, I was injected with a serum developed by the KGB.”
James shakes his head and mutters, “Just right out with it then, Jesus.”
You ignore him, because now you can talk. The Captain would surely understand and be more likely to put you out of your misery at the end of it all when he learned the truth.
“I was kidnapped while in college to become a computer. We were… women were computers, running the numbers into the machines at first.” You didn’t know if they knew. It made sense to tell them, and Steve nodded along, letting you say what you needed while James held his face in his hands.
You kept going.
“I got taken, and I can recount for you the physical events, but honestly, I’d rather not. I was given work. I figured out it was Hydra scientists. I imagine it's much like the serum you two have; I researched public knowledge after hearing what happened in 2011.”
You sat there, hands folded on the table, and let them digest your watered-down version of events. The weight was back in your chest. The dark pull of those old memories, the ones you glossed over, curled their tendrils around the corners of your visions.
James finally spoke, tentative. “What work did you do?”
He asked so gently, and with so much grace that he shouldn't afford you. James was looking at you like he knew how soft words hurt when confronted with memories of a life you hate yourself for.
“I cleaned up the messes. Literal messes, as well as the symbolic ones.” It was the facts. Less messy, sure, but encompassing. You watch as James crossed his arms, tight, fingers flexing as he kept himself silent.
“They gave you a serum to do that?” It was the Captain again.
“In case they needed a lethal option.” No other options than just the truth at this point.
James spoke again. He looked overwhelmed, his eyes never once dipping from your face, arms crossed so tightly over his chest that you were sure his fingers were tingling.
“What did you do about your activation keys?” James' voice was worried, and you couldn’t understand why. You shook your head as your only response, you had never remembered any wording they used, any special phrases or words they liked other than what they called you.
“You key phrase? Maybe the KGB changed it.” James ran a hand through his hair and shoved the hand back into his crossed arms.
“I just woke up, they gave me the mission, and I went. No other phrasing.” You tried to explain best you could, but he had you confused.
A metal limb gripped the table with lightning speed as James' other hand tried to stay casual, still crossed against his chest, eyes wide with a realization.
“They left her on, Steve. Holy Shit, Steve, they just activated her and left it on.”
Steve’s eyes grew wide with the same recognition.
“Activated and in the same room,” you dryly remarked.
“And now? What do you do now?” Steve again. Except his eyes had narrowed, his muscles tense, ready to react.
“I tend my orchard. I’ve been reading books,” You motion to the piles of books next to the small loveseat you called a living room. “I do therapy through books if it makes you feel better,” you offered.
“Why?” Steve again, because James was sitting there with the same wide-eyed horror when he learned you had none of his activation phrasings.
“The last time I saw one of the scientists, he woke me up and told me to go. It was my mission.” Again, you just stated the fact. “It might have worn off. The first time I had to sleep without being put under, it got me kicked out of the motel,” you almost laughed at the memory. You had been so out of it, so determined never to be caught again, that you had stayed up nearly 55 hours and had no plans of stopping.
“They kicked me out.” The memory was one of the first that stayed with you, and the following shame about even being unable to sleep like anyone else made the blood rush hot to your face with embarrassment.
James would know. Right? If anyone would know, James would. It made sense how you connected it in your head, but you had a hard time connecting your feelings to something real. A side effect of it happening, maybe.
The loud rip of wood against wood took both you and Steve by surprise, yet it was just Bucky standing up.
“I know,” he confessed. “I know who you... I know who you are; I looked into your files; I’m so sorry, Stevie,” you stopped listening as a wave of nostalgia rolled through your brain, golden light filtering at the sides of your eyesight as deja vu replayed in your head one night at the pub three weeks before he had shipped out, where Stevie was getting excited over something. James had just wanted a dance with his gal, and he was looking at you with those chocolate eyes that sparkled in the pub's lights.
He held out his hand to you. Steve was standing at his side trying to put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, just like that night, or maybe just like how you wanted to remember that night , but you took his hand even if this wasn't real because then you could re-live the best bits of it all before the good Captain did whatever righteousness he had planned.
“Steve, you need to take a walk, pal.” James' voice sounded so natural to your ears, the stress of the day pressing in as you told miles of your history to two people you had hoped were still the people you remembered; at least you hoped you remembered. Maybe this was a dream. You had dreams before.
You couldn't take your eyes off James, Bucky, whatever he was going by these days.
Bucky pulled out a phone with his free hand, tapping away at a screen that hadn’t been described in the last iPhone for Dummies book. A slam from Steve closing the door, but then music filled the air, and it felt comfortable. One of the songs was playing that night; your brain provides the information, and you know you remember.
When he’s satisfied with his choice, Sergeant James B. Barnes is standing in front of you, eyes trying to make sure the figure in front of him doesn’t disappear.
“Why didn’t you just tell me, reach out, anything?” he asked, still holding you at arm's length.
“You had been through so much, from what I read. If you don’t want to think about it again, I won't force you.” your voice sounded small even to you, but the truth was out there. You can forget me if you want , your brain supplied.
“I thought everything was gone, that I was alone,” His reply was simple, but you heard the exhale that accompanied it.
“No,” Your voice sounded so much more confident this time. “No, I’m here. I’m real.”
“Yeah… Yeah, you're here, doll,” His eyes light up before his whole face erupts in a smile. His free arm wraps behind you, pulling you closer and finally pulling you flush with his body.
“You’re right here with me.” He keeps his hand on your back while he adjusts his left to hold your hand closer to his chest. The music from his phone, the new one you don't get, transitions into the next song. Your soldier sways you in time.
You feel the wool of his jacket under your fingers. The warmth of the afternoon sun filters into the small window on the west side of your house. Tiny dust motes you missed with your last cleaning float through the space, catching the light when they travel through the sunbeams alongside the leaves’ shadows tracing intricate, winding patterns from the window to your floor.
You feel him put his cheek on your head. You feel his chest breath against yours, your forehead pressed into his neck, the sway of feet so minute it could barely be called dancing.
You feel his warm hand on your back, radiating from where your sergeant pressed next to you, thawing out the memory of your first dream. You move to feel the wool fabric, the soft skin of his neck, and finally to the stubble of his chin and the hair at his temple, all now easy to recall, so much easier than before. Your eyeline followed your hand to where your thumb stroked Bucky's temple. But his eyes were closed, and he just pressed the side of his head into your palm. Soon enough, the song changed, and his eyes met your gaze.
It felt right, natural, like coming home.
“I feel it too,” He responded, the realization you had said aloud coming too late.
Bucky continued. “You triggered a memory, that night at the tower. I didn’t remember before. Now I do. I feel it now, and now that I remember it all? I felt it then too.”
The way he said your name, with the air in his chest like he was proud to say it, a bit hushed and reverential.
“I read your file. It had everything, from the process notes to the missions.” His hand rubbed small circles on your back while you two pretended the sway was still considered slow dancing.
“If I understand what you're talking about, you didn’t have an activation phrase as part of… it ,” He chose your phrasing, but it tasted unsure in his mouth.
“I have people who can help that. If that's something you are interested in, that is, doll.” His eyes were back to searching your face, looking for a reaction.
“Is that why the Captain left?” The question tasted petty in your mouth, but it slipped out before much thought.
“Steve thought you should be offered the opportunity before meeting me.” He said it like a fact, so you chose to believe it.
“I told him to go to hell, and I needed to see you.” He said it like it was the truth, and you wanted to believe it.
“Will you let me help you, doll? Please?” His question was a concealed beg, his cheek back to the top of your head, and you listened to him breathe.
The worst they could do was something you were okay with.
The best included your Bucky in your arms here.
“Yeah. I think that's the right idea,” and as soon as you agreed, you felt his chest expand as he could finally take a deep breath.
“I forgot to say, though….” you trailed off before placing your lips gently, as softly as you knew how, on his jawline, two inches shy from his ear. You pressed them in a delicate kiss.
It felt right.
You knew it would be okay.
“Welcome home, soldier,” you got out before he caught you in a rapturous kiss.
You were both home.