Chapter Text
Much like the American hero whose exhibit he was currently immersed in at the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Museum, James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes had himself recently awoken from a dark, cold slumber.
Where Captain America had been frozen in the Arctic ice for the last 70 years, Bucky had been trapped in his own mind while he’d been warped, manipulated, and his body used as a weapon to carry out the bidding of shadowy agents.
It had only been a week since Bucky’s "awakening;" when he’d been tasked with dispatching the director of the international espionage and law enforcement organization SHIELD. His target had proved a more difficult kill than most but he was eventually successful in the completion of his mission.
But then…
Bucky shook his head, the noise of his own mind so loud it was a wonder the tourists, students and other museum goers didn’t hear it as he stared at the man who’d been his undoing — or perhaps his savior.
The larger-than-life poster of Captain America smiled down at Bucky, the expression a bit shy but genuine as though he was uncomfortable with all of the attention, even as a two-dimensional image. It was Captain America who’d jolted Bucky’s mind awake, a mind that had been trapped in and out of a dark fog for decades.
He adjusted the bill of the ball cap he wore, drawing it low over his eyes even as the swing of his unkempt hair obscured the rest of his features. After he killed the SHIELD director, he encountered Captain America, who became his next target.
During his second encounter, the Captain had recognized Bucky — and that was when everything changed. Suddenly, there was a light in the fog and Bucky struggled to see it, to follow it out of the hell he’d been trapped in for 70 years.
His handlers tried to take away the light. To plunge him back into the darkness. But his final confrontation with Captain America changed everything. Bucky’s mission was to kill him but the man in red, white and blue refused to fight. Battered, bloody and desperate, Captain America had tried to save the trapped Bucky but Bucky used that weakness to complete his mission. Or nearly. As he’d watched his target fall, he knew that he could not let the man who claimed to be his friend die.
Friend. Bucky wasn’t even sure he knew what that word meant as he regarded the display about Captain America and the only Howling Commando lost during the World War II. A man called Bucky.
It was a pale echo of a memory but, seeing the video footage of Captain America and his best friend, Bucky nearly remembered those smiling faces and easy camaraderie. As he did, a new word surfaced in his scarred mind.
Brother.
As the crowd thinned with the pending close of the museum, Bucky scanned the rest of the displays, hoping to find something else familiar; hoping for another guiding light in the fog. He nearly gave up when he heard a woman’s voice behind him, speaking from an abandoned monitor. He watched the video play out, and then again in its entirety.
He read the placard below the monitor, processing information and filing it away.
Agent Peggy Carter, co-founder of SHIELD. Retired and living in Arlington.
Bucky scaled the garden walls that surrounded the Arlington estate and easily avoided the motion sensors that served as the only security he saw. He wondered how the founder of the world’s largest spy organization didn’t have more concern for her own personal safety but he dismissed the thought as he quickly reached his goal and entered the main house.
He moved quietly down the halls, assessing the sleeping occupants as he searched for the woman in the video. Not finding her on the main floor, he made his way up to the second floor and found her asleep in the first room he checked.
She was old. He didn’t know what he’d expected but she certainly bared little resemblance to the woman in the video. One of her wrinkled hands was fisted on the blanket over her chest while another was at her side, an IV inserted into her frail arm and a monitor attached to her finger.
As he watched her sleep, he felt an unfamiliar weight in his chest, a long-forgotten emotion. It may have been pity for the woman or sadness for himself but he doubted she would be able to provide the information he needed.
He turned to go, making no more noise than he had since setting foot on the estate.
"I know you’re there," a voice whispered behind him and he spun back to see the woman staring at him. "If you’re going to go through all of the trouble to break into my home, you may as well do whatever you've come to do."
Bucky looked at her again and saw that the hand that had been resting on her chest now held a small pistol and was steadily aiming it at his head.
"But whatever you’ve come for," she said, her voice stronger than it had been a moment before. "I won’t make it easy for you."
Though she didn’t recognize the shadowy intruder in her bedroom, Peggy Carter had not been surprised by his appearance.
You didn’t found an international spy agency and go unnoticed in its fall. She assumed it was only a matter of time before a suit showed up at her front door or someone else snuck in the back.
She considered herself prepared in either contingency.
Peggy had watched her unexpected visitor as he’d skulked about the estate, likely feeling confident that he’d escape detection. Too bad for him he’d only managed to avoid the sensors and cameras her local home security company had installed. She’d been alerted as soon as he’d touched the stone wall at the edge of the grounds thanks to the Stark security system Howard’s own son had installed.
Her hand steady on the gun she held, Peggy used the remote at her side to turn the lights on and get a look at her uninvited guest.
The man flinched when the room burst with light, squeezing his eyes shut before he fixed them on her again.
His hair was stringy and evidently hadn't been washed in some time, his beard was patchy with several days’ growth and his clothes were ill-fitting but Peggy couldn’t help her intake of breath at her first good look at the man standing at the foot of her bed.
She knew it couldn’t be who she thought; her mind must be playing tricks on her. The man before her had been dead for seventy years.
But, then again, so had Steve.
"Bucky?" she asked, the gun lowering a fraction.
He took his opportunity, rushing the bed and pulling the pistol from her grip. She leaned away, prepared to grab another weapon or activate the panic button near her bed but he simply emptied the pistol, the bullets falling harmless to the floor.
She studied him, still not sure if she could trust her own memory. "Bucky?" she asked again. "Is it really you?"
His mouth quivered as he, too, studied her.
"I don’t know."