Marvel Avengers Fan Fiction ❯ A Captain America Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Steve Rogers Avengers Fan Fic - The Constant ❯ Chapter 76 - The Winter Soldier Meets Bucky Barnes ( Chapter 76 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Chapter Seventy-Six: The Winter Soldier Meets Bucky Barnes

My Dearest James,

This is so difficult to write because I don't know what to tell you: what is important, what isn't. When you are reading this I don't know how much you will remember of your past life or of your current one.

Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. Your friends and family call you Bucky.

How do I know this? Any of this? Because you told me.

When we realised what Hydra was going to do to you, you shared some of your memories with me so that one day I could recite them back to you. Something tells me that I won't be able to keep that promise in person and so instead I have written what you told me in the notebook that is with this letter.

You were an American P.O.W. and Zola experimented on you trying to find the secret of creating a “Super Soldier”. You were rescued by your friends, but then a year later you fell into Hydra's grip again. This time they made sure you could not be rescued.  You and I met when you were brought injured into the field hospital where I was working. A few days later, you were taken by Russian Intelligence and that is where Hydra heard about you. I did not see you again for several years.  I thought you were either dead or repatriated. I had no idea that you were a prisoner, or that you were going through such awful experimentation. They needed an English-speaking nurse and heard about me and I was brought in to translate, and so we met again. That was 70 years ago. I have covered a little part of this in the notebook you will find in the backpack. On each page of the book is a memory you entrusted to me. They took them away from you. They took so very much away from you.

The most important thing for you to know is that Steve Rogers, your friend and lover, is still alive. You believed him to be dead and he believed you were too. Please believe me when I say if he had known you had survived the fall he would have moved heaven and earth to rescue you, to have you back with him. He loves you and has never gotten over losing you. Hydra told us he had died. That wasn't true. Enclosed you will find a leaflet for a museum called The Smithsonian. Please try and go there, it will tell you a lot of what you need to know. Then afterwards, find Steve. He will help you. He still loves you so very much. Don't be alone when you don't have to be.

In the backpack should be things you need. I tried to put myself in your position and I hope I haven't failed. You are free, and you must not let Hydra take you again. You have two tracking devices that they can use to find you. One is in your left arm, about half way down. If you open the arm you will find it buried under the circuitry and you can remove it without it causing any harm to your arm. Look for something emitting a low red light. However, the second tracking device is more of a problem. It was placed within your hip bone and I do not know if it can be removed without surgery.

During your time with Hydra you were given two different lots of serum. The first one was faulty and that is why your body is scarred in places: that serum could not repair all of the damage done. The new serum was corrected – repairs all new scars but leaves the old ones. The tracking device was put in before you were given that serum. If you look on the left hand side of your hip you will see a small X like white scar. X marks the spot.

When you begin to remember, you must then fight to remember - your mind is programmed to produce debilitating migraines if you learn too much about yourself. I hope that one day you will be free of these, but now you know they are why when you try to think of your previous life you are crippled with pain.

Oh, James, sitting here now I look back at our time together. I should have helped you more. I should have tried to get you out of there and away from them. I should have done something. You once even asked me to kill you and I couldn't even do that simple thing. I failed you. I can only ask your forgiveness that I was too weak to do either.

Please do remember James, you could not escape them by yourself. It was an impossibility. Each time before they put you to sleep they wiped your mind, they took everything away from you, programmed you to do what they wanted. You could not fight them, they took you apart and no one could put you back together in the small amount of time they gave you. Do not ever think you could have got away, or fought them, you could not, they and their machines were too powerful.

And finally, James, please know that I loved you with all of my heart and soul. I also knew that you could not love me back because you belong to Steve. I have always known and understood that. I was just happy to be with you. Don't let Hydra take any more of your life away from you.

Find Steve. Reclaim your life with him. I love you and always will.

All my love,

Freya

The Winter Soldier sits with the letter in his hand and for a moment he is so very far away. A noise from outside brings him back, a car door slamming and a girl giggling. He looks at the letter, folds it and puts it back in the envelope and picks up the leaflet.

He looks at it, all of it, at the photographs, at the words. He now knows that he has somewhere he needs to go for answers but first he must sleep, it has been a long day and he needs to try and be at his best when he visits The Smithsonian tomorrow. He is concerned about the tracking device. He knows that Rollins has already dealt with the one in his arm, telling him he thought there was a second but that he believed he had destroyed the tracking box itself but the Winter Soldier cannot be too careful.

However when he lies down, he cannot sleep. His mind churns. His nerves feel as if they are frayed, ready to send electrical shots into his body. All he can do is hear every sound, jump at everything convinced they have found him.

In the end he goes through to the bathroom, knife in hand. He undresses and then stands in front of the mirror over the sink. He looks for the scar, the one she mentioned, and he finds it. He runs his finger over it, then, keeping his metal finger in place, he takes his knife with his right hand and digs the point in where the scar is. He ignores the pain as the blade goes in: he knows he has experienced worse in his time. He pushes the tip in as far as it will go before it hits bone and then he angles it and drags it down about four-to-five centimetres. Blood wells up, and as the blade travels it collects more until it is dribbling down his body to his thigh and down his leg. It is beginning to be painful enough now to make him grit his teeth. He watches what he is doing in the mirror.

He takes the blade out then turns it and creates another cut so that he has created a cross. He has to take a deep breath, he puts the knife in the sink and grabs a towel, he hadn't thought this through properly. Still, he cannot stop now.

Taking up the blade again, he goes to use it to angle the cut into flaps of skin so he can see in but there is so much blood the knife has become slippery and in a fit of anger he throws the knife back in the sink and uses his fingers to pull the skin back. He wets part of the towel. He takes a deep breath, keeps dabbing at the wound with the darkening towel, and then moves as close as he can get to the mirror. He is trying to catch sight of the bone and he does: the white of it red with blood and pieces of flesh but then he sees something that shouldn't be there. A small glimpse of metal.

The Soldier is sweating heavily now and feels shaky; such a small wound shouldn't affect him in this way but he doesn't realise just how sick he is. He wipes his brow on the back of his arm and picks up the knife. He then reaches for another towel which he uses to bite down on hard. He begins to try and cut the metal out.

It doesn't work. The blade has trouble staying in place because of the blood and in the end he has to stop. He rests both hands on the sink and takes deep breaths. His hip throbs and he can feel the air making the cuts sting. He looks back at himself in the mirror. He is a mess: needs a shave, his hair is lank, greasy, damp with sweat. He has blood smeared over his forehead and dirt on his cheek.

“For chrissake,” he growls. He feels so angry. He cannot do such a simple thing.

He stands up straight, washes the knife and dries it, cleans the wound, and tries again. This time he cuts away one of the patches of skin so he can get to the bone easier.

“Come on, come on for fucks' sake...” But still nothing. The tip of the knife cannot make contact, he should be able to just lever the metal out. He has to stop again, he is beginning to feel faint and the last thing he needs to do is black out.

He puts the knife down, moves so he can try and see inside the flesh better and that is when he realises why he cannot reach the metal. The transmitter is bigger than he thought and the serum has encouraged the bone to grow over it, which means it is firmly embedded. He would need to do something far more than just pick at it with a knife.

“Shit, shit, shit!” He closes his eyes. Did he really think getting away from Hydra would be that easy?

He holds the towel to the wound but it will not stop bleeding. He looks in the bathroom cabinet but it is empty. Then he remembers, the backpack. He is sure one of the things that fell out looked like a small med kit. It is the type of thing she would include.

He walks back to the main room, having to hold on to the door frame for a moment to stop the world from spinning. When it has slowed, he makes his way forward and with bloody hands picks through the things until he sees what he is looking for. He grabs it and then heads back into the bathroom. He's grateful that the carpet has such a busy, colourful patterning: it hides the blood dripping from him.

He puts the seat down on the toilet and sits on it but realises he needs to have clean hands, and so putting the kit on the toilet seat he staggers back to the sink and cleans his hands as best he can. Then he gets the kit and opens it, momentarily surprised to find it is far more than a typical first aid kit. She knew what she was doing. One of the things in there is a suture pack and needle. He is beginning to feel the heat coming from his body not just from his exertions but from the serum. It takes him far longer than it should to thread the needle as his right hand is shaking. He can hear her in his mind: “Swab!” and he takes one of the packets, tears it open with his teeth and swabs the wound. All it seems to really do is move the blood around as there is so much of it.

It takes him an hour to stitch himself and his sewing abilities wouldn't win him any awards. At the end of the ordeal he is exhausted, on his last legs. He stumbles through to the bedroom falls into bed and is asleep within minutes.

When he awakes in the morning he feels like someone has put him through a meat grinder. His hip throbs and for a minute he cannot understand where all the blood comes from. Then he remembers.

He looks at the clock and it is later than he thinks, almost midday. Shit.

*

The first thing The Winter Soldier does is shower and take painkillers. He makes up a crude covering with bandages from the kit and plasters. It isn't brilliant but it will have to do, he should hopefully heal quickly. He doesn't want to wait another day before he goes to The Smithsonian, he hasn't the time. He has to hope that with Hydra in such a disorganised state they haven't got around to trying to track him down yet. He hangs a note on his motel door, telling the cleaning lady not to clean today and praying she will take heed. He will deal with the mess he has left behind when he gets back.

Before he sets out, the Soldier eats and drinks. Just a small amount; he doesn't realise it but he has lost over fourteen pounds in weight and he looks as if he has been seriously ill – he looks as if he still is seriously ill. And in so many ways he is. He hides his hair under his baseball hat. He can't bring himself to shave; his hand is just not steady enough, his arm aches where the bone is not mending properly and his metal hand seems uncoordinated. He cannot trust himself with a blade that close to his face. But the shower has washed away most of the blood and dirt and he does not smell as bad as he once did. He puts on the last set of clean clothes he has.

The day when he steps out is cool with a breeze he is grateful for. He knows the way and walking there he tries to keep observant but he finds he keeps zoning out, memories and thoughts chasing around in his mind. The letter. He doesn't want to think about that, doesn't want to think about...the woman who wrote it at all. He can't because if he does he will go insane.

Finally the Winter Soldier reaches his destination and looks towards the building. He feels sick. His heart has started to thud. He almost changes his mind, but he knows he cannot. If he does he will never return, he will never know. The Soldier climbs the steps, takes a deep breath, and enters. It is a week day and the place is fairly quiet, most of the visitors have already gone through and are now in the Gift Shop or restaurant. He buys a ticket and then heads to the exhibition he has come to see.

As he passes under the sign Welcome Back Cap!, the Winter Soldier shivers as if someone has just walked over his grave.

The exhibit begins with an introduction to Steve Rogers, and when he sees the first photographs of Pre-Serum Steve it is like a punch in the stomach. He stares at the photographs, an announcer's voice giving Steve's story in the background. The Soldier feels he knows this boy so well, knows everything about him; the information is there in his mind and so are pictures of memories. The images he has in his mind still have no context but it does give him a sense of coming home that makes him feel like he has fallen through Alice's Looking Glass. He feels that he could reach out and touch Steve and Steve would reach out and touch him back. He has a vague sense of dancing with him, holding the young man and listening to the music. For a moment he closes his eyes but then a group of tourists come in, busy, loud and the sense of memory is shattered. He moves on.

Next the Winter Soldier learns about Project Rebirth, and parts of it seem so familiar but he can see that the project Steve went through was successful whereas the one Zola was trying to catch up on wasn't. The Winter Soldier begins to realise the enormity of what has been done to him. He is getting hot now, the serum is still working on the wound and for a minute he needs to sit down on one of the seats. As he sits there the thoughts going through his mind are jumbled and he tries to sort them out. Tries to come to terms with the way it is making him feel emotionally.

He realises he is wasting time when he sees the tourist group have moved on and he gets up and walks through to the next room which shows the various Captain America costumes and his first shield. Everything seems so familiar to him yet he doesn't always know why; some memories are still not accessible and his head has started to pulse.

He enters a larger room with a set of mannequins dressed in army uniforms. Captain America is at the head of them and to the right is a huge mural showing him leading his men – his Howling Commandos. And it is another punch to his stomach when he sees that name. He stares up at the mannequins and then his attention moves to the one left of Steve. The blue grey jacket, the brown pants, the gun strap and then finally the artist's impression behind. It's him. He swallows. The sound in the room warbles and his ears begin to hum. Suddenly he can feel hands pulling at his clothes, he can feel the blue jacket being stripped from his body, his clothes being taken and his naked injured body being pressed up against a tree, someone is tying rope around him, it is so cold - and he needs to sit down again, needs to breathe, needs to dispel the memories. An older woman stops and asks him if he is all right. He looks up at her and his mind is telling him to pull himself together. He cannot afford to make a scene, cannot afford for people to take notice of him.

(Authors note: For image see http://i.imgur.com/4fujmkl.png )

“Yes. Thank you,” his voice is quiet. He coughs and then speaks louder: “Just getting over the flu.” He doesn't know where the words are coming from but he remembers how Steve would catch cold and then it would go to his chest.

“Oh, you poor thing.” The woman smiles at him and asks if she can get him anything and he shakes his head. A new life, ma'am? runs through his mind. “I'll just sit here for a few minutes,” he tries to reassure her. She nods and carries on with her visit leaving him blessedly alone for a few minutes.

The Winter Soldier has to organise his thoughts, he has to somehow take control of his mind otherwise he will be lost.

He takes a deep breath and gets up. Finishes in that room, reading everything he can, but then he isn't expecting the next part of the exhibition.

The one that nearly kills him.

As he walks through the entrance he can see up ahead a huge monolith of some type, almost like a giant grave marker. There are a few people stood in front of it and as they move away he walks up to it and any thought he had of controlling his reactions are forgotten. The board is massive. There is a photograph on the right hand side, the head and shoulders of a young man.

It is him. It is James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes. His name stretches across the top of it and a commentator's voice is saying he is the only Howling Commando to lose his life.

 It gives a date of birth and a date of death. The day he was lost to Hydra.

The punch it has given him is the worst of them. He was Bucky Barnes, but now he is the Winter Soldier. All the years they took from him, all the lies they told him. How? How did he believe them? How did he ever agree to join them? He must have at some time been able to leave and he chose to stay?

How?

How?  That word goes around and around threatening to unhinge him.

He steps in closer to look into the eyes of the man in the photograph, to look into his own eyes, and as he does a series of photographs start up in a smaller box beside the board. Again a commentator talks about the friendship between the two men and his eyes are drawn to Steve and finally something in him snaps. Finally he feels for Steve, he begins to understand exactly what Steve was to him. What it was Hydra took away from him. Without knowing he makes a keening sound, bites down hard and the pain in his temple throbs. But then, first and foremost he still has his senses as the Winter Soldier and right now the hairs on the back of his neck are tingling.

Someone is watching him.

He turns slowly, as if looking around to see the rest of the exhibit, and spies an old security guard. The man is looking at him but it is the look on his face that makes the Winter Soldier pause. Instead of what he expects – suspicion, distrust - the man is actually looking at him in query and then as if he has invited him over he comes to stand with Bucky. Bucky looks back at the picture whilst his mind feverishly thinks: is the man a danger? Why else would he come over?

“That memorial sure affects people,” the old man says, also looking at the young face portrayed. Bucky risks a look at the man's face but there is no hostility there. “I'll tell you a secret,” the guard continues, and steps slightly closer. He looks back at the board. “I have seen two people here just recently who cried when they saw it. A young woman and a man. Can you guess who the man was?” and Bucky is drawn in on the conversation even though he doesn't want to be, he wants to be alone.

“Steve Rogers!” the guard says, somehow making a whisper loud, and Bucky frowns. The guard mistakes it for disbelief.

“No really, I even talked to him. He signed his name for me. I'll tell you something else, it isn't the first time he's been here, no siree, comes here every so often, sits over there and looks kinda sad. Remembering, I guess.” He shuffles a bit closer, leans in and Bucky can see the man isn't a gossip, just one of life's people who care. “They say they were more than partners, know what I mean? So sad to lose your loved one so young and in such an awful way. Although if you listen to the news and what that lady...Black Widow...released on the interweb, he didn't die...he was taken by those people, you know the ones. Those Hydra people.” His voice is full of quiet disgust.

Bucky clears his throat as his cheeks flush. “What does the news say?” his voice is shaky and he coughs again to try and clear it. The guard has his full attention now.

The guard looks at him, studies the face in front of him, looks into Bucky's eyes.

“Different things. One side says he was a Russian sleeper soldier trained by Hydra to become a deadly assassin called the Winter Soldier,” and with this, he shivers then continues: “...the other side says he was a POW. Tortured, brainwashed, never had a chance of ever getting away from them, doesn't even know now who he truly is.”

And Bucky cannot help but ask: “And you? What do you think, mister...?”

The guard smiles at him. “Oh call me Stan, everyone does. Tell me...you think someone like Captain Rogers would love someone who was capable of murdering innocents? I think the poor son of a bitch is a victim of Hydra just as much as the people he was sent to kill.”

“And the woman?” Bucky asks.

Stan frowns.

“You mentioned a woman who visited.”

The guard shrugs. “Don't know who she was but I'll tell you something...she had the longest hair I have ever seen. And the saddest eyes. If I didn't know better I would say she loved him too.”

He nods to Bucky and touches the cap of his guards hat and then walks away but just before he leaves the room he turns back to Bucky. “And I think the son of a bitch should put his trust in Captain Rogers, if of course he's still out there somewhere and not dead in a lonely grave or worse.”

And then he turns and walks away.

Bucky feels as though he has been held under a spell and actually feels he has to shake himself. All the time the guard was with him they were alone but now the noise comes back into the room and people start to walk through.

As he leaves the exhibit he looks for the guard, wanting to ask him if he knows any more, but he cannot see him anywhere. He goes to the front desk and asks the lady behind it but she frowns.

“I don't think we have a guard answering that description, but I'm new here. I haven't been here more than a few days,” she says. As she says it an older man in his fifties comes up next to her and before Bucky can stop her she asks the other person.

“Paul? Can you help this gentleman?”

He listens to the question and then smiles mechanically at Bucky. “None of our guards are a day over twenty. I swear they get younger every year,” and although Bucky nods he feels the need to clarify things.

“Are you sure? He was an old man, seemed very old, moustache, I think he said his name was Stan?” And the man frowns.

“You must be mistaken. It sounds like you're talking about Stan...Lee, I think his name was. He was a guard here. Lovely man, worked here I think since leaving the army. Loved it, we couldn't ever get him to go home! He was a widower and he liked people, liked to be around them, always helping them out. Funny thing, he would tell people how he was in the 107th and was one of the soldiers rescued by Captain Rogers so when the exhibit came here he was in seventh heaven. Poor man died not so long ago, heart attack but they say when they found him he was smiling – that was Stan!”

He turns to speak to the woman about the day's tickets and Bucky thanks them and leaves.

So much runs through the Soldier's brain. Some questions answered but so many more now. A deep seated anger is beginning to boil in him. He has been used, violated, made to do things that no sane man should have ever done but he still blames himself and always will.

Why didn't he fight them? Why did he let them do to him what they did?

He doesn't realise it yet - it was the Winter Soldier who walked into The Smithsonian, but it is Bucky Barnes who is walking out.

He doesn't realise it but he is beginning to come home.