Chapter Text
Bucky didn't have a plan. While leaving the Tower he'd started scraping one together, maybe getting twelve percent of the way done, but it changed almost instantly. Maybe being on the run without a plan wouldn't matter this time. Usually, proceeding without a plan was punishable. Natalia had told him that he was operating independent of HYDRA now, under a new set of rules, without any in control over him. His new mission parameters allowed him to proceed without a plan.
That night he ended up in a HYDRA safehouse hidden under an old barn that had been marked as condemned. Since it was half an hour's drive from the city, it took Bucky all day to walk there. It was perfectly structurally sound but it was best to keep people out of it as much as possible. Those who came around were killed if they managed to find the way into the safehouse. Once Bucky got there he kicked aside the moldy hay scattered across the floor of one of the stalls and fitted his metal fingers into a knothole in one of the boards.
The house alarm went off as soon as Bucky stepped across the threshold into the bunker. He shut it down with the proper code words, relieved that the safehouse hadn't been compromised. If SHIELD had been here they wouldn't have been able to reset it with the same code word – the memory chip with the password in it burned out as soon as the alarm was tripped. Even without the alarm, Bucky could tell from the dust that the safehouse hadn't been entered in months.
Once the harsh blare of the alarm had faded into a faintly ringing silence, Bucky let out a shaky breath and continued inside. He'd always hated that sound. Usually it meant the mission had gone wrong and they were dragging a bleeding body and a host of weapons from the car in an effort to get to a defendable position before someone caught up with them. Someone screamed in his ear, high and panicked like a wounded child, as gunfire pinged against the safehouse bunker doors. Bucky shook himself out of it and moved down the rest of the short flight of stairs. Inside everything was laid out as if on a grid, orderly and well-stocked.
Bucky poked around, knowing from experience the general way things would be set up. At the far end of the safehouse would be the kitchen area, with a stove, microwave, refrigerator, and pantry. The entry area had a radio and television, chairs and a table, and a cabinet against one wall holding basic supplies. In between the two were the barracks, five square rooms not much larger than the bed and dresser they contained. The middle square on the left-hand side was a bathroom rather than a sixth bedroom, sparsely equipped with a toilet, sink, and shower.
Bucky checked each of the rooms before convincing himself the area was clear. Each of the beds were made and each of the dressers held three changes of clothes in several sides. The chairs and table were all plastic and of generic make. Inside the cabinet in the front room he found first aid kits, spare weapons parts and cleaning kits, extra blankets, flashlights, and similar paraphernalia that might be needed by agents on the run. While the refrigerator was empty, the pantry was stocked with a variety of MREs and canned foods, and there were almost two hundred gallons of water stacked along the far wall. The walls themselves, like the floor and ceiling, were unpainted concrete occasionally marred by bullet holes.
Bucky took a backpack from a row of hooks in the corner of the front room and carried it into the bedroom between the bathroom and the kitchen. He dumped it out onto the bed, examining what was inside with a critical eye. It was evidently a premade package, containing a first-aid kit, blanket, half a dozen MREs, three bottles of water, a knife, a flashlight, a hand-sized multipurpose tool, a burner phone, five hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills, a radio, a box of matches, and a rain poncho. Somehow he managed to pack it all back inside, and he set the pack on top of the dresser. From there he'd be able to grab it as he got out of bed, in case he needed to leave at a moment's notice. After pulling the plastic off the bed and depositing it in the huge fifty-gallon garbage can situated in the front room, he turned his attention to the prospect of dinner.
He didn't have much in the way of choices, so he went with the first MRE packet he pulled off the shelf. The print on the bag said meatloaf but since he didn't remember what that was supposed to taste like, he didn't care. As he poked at the slightly dubious-looking meal with a plastic fork, he couldn't help remembering the meal Natalia had made for him, Steve, and Clint a couple nights ago. While he remembered the meal well enough, he couldn't remember if he'd thanked her. The Asset had never thanked anyone for anything. He wasn't sure he remembered how to do it. Once he'd eaten, he dumped the MRE package into the trash can and went into the front room to check the television for news. Nothing regarding SHIELD, HYDRA, or the Avengers showed up, so he turned it back off and went straight to the barracks.
He woke up screaming in just under two hours. As images from his nightmares crowded into his brain, faceless voices shrieking into his ears, he pushed his back against the wall and hugged his arms tightly across his chest. The one thing he hadn't yet found in the safehouse was a weapon, and now he bitterly regretted not having a gun or knife in his hands. While they were useless against the phantom-like world that tortured him at night, they would have been better than nothing.
“You are never defenseless, Asset,” a German-accented voice barked at him. “Do you think we made that arm out of titanium alloys so you could cry into it at night? It's a weapon. Use it like one!”
Bucky shifted his left arm out in front of him, bending at at the elbow and resting it across his knees. He didn't remember the name or face of the man yelling at him from the past, but he guessed it was one of his many handlers or trainers. Some of them he'd ended up killing, and he'd wounded a dozen more. Few people had wanted the job of dealing with him on a daily basis. Rumlow had been the only exception that Bucky knew of, but that didn't mean much to him. If he hadn't known his own name, he wasn't likely to remember much about HYDRA's staffing.
He did, however, remember enough about them to track them down. That would be his new mission. Bucky sat awake in the darkness, slowly putting together the pieces of a plan. Each one was methodical and leading to the greater purpose. While the Avengers and the government had failed, up until this point, to finish rounding up HYDRA stragglers – they couldn't even find all of their own operatives after the helicarrier crash – Bucky had an advantage. Any of the remaining HYDRA bases or officers would sacrifice anything to be the ones to bring the Winter Soldier back into HYDRA's armory. If he could find them he would be invited inside with open arms. Bucky clenched his metal fingers tightly, listening to the gears whir faintly. He would wipe them out.
Bucky didn't get back to sleep that night. Instead he showered, dressed, and checked the safehouse for weapons. He found two knives and a pistol with an extra clip; he put a knife in each of his boots and slipped the pistol into his jeans, against the small of his back. By sunrise he'd eaten another MRE, wiped down the counters with a towel, and had made the bed, smoothing the plastic down over it. At first glance, apart from the dust being disturbed it would look like nobody had ever been there. Since he'd put all his garbage in a bag, it was more than simple to take it to the empty metal drum he'd noticed outside the barn, strike a match, and leave it to burn out.
Buckling the pack across his waist, Bucky started walking down the road. It took him about three hours to reach the actual city of New York, rather than the suburbs. His hair was barely long enough to pull back and he'd let his scruff grow out into a short beard, so he didn't look much like the Winter Soldier that people would have seen on the news. Even if someone thought they did recognize him, they wouldn't be looking for the world's most feared assassin in a Wal-Mart. At the first store he found, he walked inside and took a look at the electronics section. While he didn't know much about technology, all he needed was whatever had the lowest price tag. He added a box of Pop-Tarts to his purchase, used the self-checkout, and got out of the store unchallenged.
He stopped in the nearest alley and used one of his knives to get the laptop out of its packaging. The warranty and owner's manual he tossed with the box, and slid the device into his pack. He also took the Pop-Tarts out of the box and stacked the foil-wrapped items on the top of the rest of his belongings. Although he'd thought it strange that there had been half a dozen boxes in Steve's pantry at the Tower, he guessed that there must be some value to them. Bucky tossed the empty wrappings from the laptop and food into the nearest trash can and started back toward the safehouse. A truck and trailer passed him and he hopped onto the back of the latter, crouching down and using his metal arm to hold on so that the driver wouldn't notice.
Once he got back to the safehouse, he kicked the door closed behind him and cased all the rooms before returning to the front room. He set the laptop down on the table and turned it on, waiting for it to get into a working state so he could start his research. It wasn't hard to find a starting point, since it had been impossible for all of SHIELD's files to be pulled from the internet. He downloaded the ones that had information he needed – names, dates, locations, pictures. Although it wasn't much to work off of, since locations had been abandoned and names changed, it was better than nothing. While he wanted to focus on American bases for the moment, he would undoubtedly be going overseas sooner or later if he could manage it. Such trips generally needed passports, which would be slightly difficult for him to come by. For now, he simply needed to find a place to start looking. When he found something... then he'd be able to actually do something.