Chapter Text
He is wet.
He is injured.
He did not complete the mission.
He is standing near tall overgrowth beside a river. Some instinct tells him he needs to go to ground.
A series of photographs flash through his head: kill orders.
A black man in goggles (codename Falcon). He tore the wings off the flying man and sent him spiraling out of control.
A red-headed woman (codename Black Widow). He did not encounter this woman. Her face, her eyes, mean something to him, something painful. Pain is familiar.
A large, blond man, powerful (codename Captain America). Primary target: eliminate at all costs.
This is the man whose life he spared on the helicarrier. He shot this man, more than once, but did not kill him despite the imperatives shouting in his brain. He bludgeoned this man, but could not strike the final killing blow. The man would not stop talking: not begging, but trying to convince him they were friends.
(The Asset has no friends, only handlers and a Master.)
But something in the blond man’s face, even as he crushed it beneath punishing blows, made the Asset’s hand, his killing hand, freeze in the air. And when the man fell, the Asset dove after, risked drowning, retrieved the man.
According to Hydra directives, the mission comes first. (Damage will occur and will be tolerated.) (The Asset will be maintained, repaired, and kept upgraded to Hydra standards.)
The Asset hates his directives. He hates how the handlers batter them into his brain with repetition after loud repetition. He defies them as best he can, whenever he can. He will not report his injuries. He will not return to the checkpoint. Hydra is in disarray. The Asset will not obey.
The Asset stares down at the man he has dropped in the mud, burbling water from pale blue lips. The man is breathing. The Asset is injured. His ability to defy Hydra would be impaired by dragging the man through the brush. Codename Captain America. He will learn of this man. For now, the Asset feels an imperative to go to ground. He will walk away and not look back.
Some little voice in his head is yelling at him not to walk away. The man swore he was a friend, refused to fight. His blue eyes seemed so familiar. The Asset is skilled at ignoring these voices in his brain. The brush is good cover against aerial surveillance. He follows the river for as long as he can.
When night falls, the Asset locates an unoccupied house and easily breaks in. He needs to disguise his appearance. The Asset quickly finds a ballcap and a jacket that will cover his arm. His armor is wet but he pays no attention. It will dry.
He looks in the usual places for cash (bedside table, desk drawer, kitchen counter) but finds little. Leaving through the kitchen, he is reminded of food. (The Asset eats what is provided.) He sees some fruit in a bowl: lush red apples, small oranges, bananas. In the refrigerator there will be milk. He opens the door, and there it is. He pulls the carton out, opens it, and drinks. The cold liquid sends an ache through the roof of his mouth, hits his stomach hard. He puts the carton in a bag and takes the fruit as well. He will eat when he is hungry.
He leaves the house mostly undisturbed. He walks in the shadows, under trees, his new hat pulled low over his eyes. What direction is he walking? Where does he want to go?
(The Asset will return to the pickup point.)
He wants to know more about the man. He wishes - and is shocked to find that he has a wish at all — he wishes he could have stayed with the man, been assured of his recovery.
Codename Captain America must be someone people care about. If he stays nearby, surely he will learn more about this man.
The man called the Asset by name. (The Asset has no name.) To be called by a name feels right. To hell with Hydra. The man called him Bucky. It’s better than nothing.
A bus goes by, and Captain America’s face is on the side — an exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum.
Bucky’s new mission forms in his mind: not to kill Captain America, but to find out why he calls himself a friend. Bucky will rest, tending to his own injuries.
He finds a sheltered place among some trees. The night is not too cold. Bucky rests, and after a while, falls asleep — the first natural sleep he’s experienced in over a decade — (The Asset does not sleep) — but not very deeply. His dreams are nearly lucid, vivid and guarded — like photos that contradict his kill orders.
The red-haired woman is only a girl. Natalia. So brave. So smart and strong. A worthy ally in a nest of vipers. He fights with her to make her stronger, teaches her everything he knows (more than his handlers realize). He tells her she will make it out. He defies them whenever he can, as best he can. He does not shoot to kill.
Natalia is a respite, but Steve is a lifetime. Bucky (not the Asset!) can feel his mind knitting together, healing in this little interlude of sleep, piecing together shreds that Hydra tore and tore again, to no avail. Steve is woven throughout that gauzy fabric of who Bucky is: Steve’s insightful gaze, steady hand, and bright smile.
Bucky can feel, almost, Steve’s shoulders under his arm. He can almost feel Steve’s playful punches. He knows he should remember the smell of Steve’s hair, his skin. He should remember Steve’s taste…
The dream images shudder to a halt as Bucky’s well-trained brain seizes on the crucial bit of knowledge: Bucky knows Steve’s taste, his kisses, the feel of their bodies pressed together. The look in Steve’s eyes as he lay in surrender on the helicarrier, that look was love. Steve will never give up on Bucky, never. Natalia had been an ally in chambers stained with blood, but Steve is his other half, the sunshine to thaw his frozen existence.
Bucky remembers the heat, in a freezing cold apartment, in a tent in a snowy landscape, the heat of holding Steve safe and close in his arms, the pounding of that determined heart next to his, the insistent breath in his ear. Steve is a fighter, and so is Bucky. Two halves of one whole.
Bucky awakens to birdsong, sunlight. He seizes on the dreams before they can fade. (The Asset does not sleep.) Sleep has allowed his wounded brain to heal, at least a little. So much of what was confused yesterday is clearer today. Bucky remembers his name, and Steve, and who he used to be. He remembers what Hydra tried to make of him. He doesn’t remember everything yet, not all he did, not all of who he was, but he has never forgotten to fight them, whenever he can, as best he can.
He will not fight as the Asset, codename Winter Soldier. He will find Steve and fight them as Bucky, by Steve’s side, where he belongs.