Chapter Text
The ship had been flown here by automation, so no one came to greet them. The Soldier helped Steve up into the ship and Sam pulled himself after them. The Soldier provided assistance to him, but only once Steve had made it clear they would not be leaving without Sam. The Soldier did not see why Sam Wilson was necessary to bring along. He wasn't going to argue with Steve about it though.
The Soldier did not trust the ship to be clear of bugs, so he did not say anything that could be overheard. He sat next to Steve, on guard in case of any attack. There were none on the short journey it took to get them to their final destination.
Stark Tower, in the middle of New York. The Soldier was not a fan. Its location meant no part of the building could truly be secured, and the Soldier did not know enough about Stark's loyalties to trust in the mechanisms that had to be powering his building.
The Soldier slid a gun out from his leg pocket and held it ready as the bay doors lowered.
"You don't need to do that. I trust these people." Steve put a hand on the Soldier's gun arm. The Soldier glared at him. Steve didn't let go.
"Look, you can keep the gun, just don't point it at them right away?" Steve tried. "If they see it, they might shoot back."
The logic was valid. The Soldier stowed the gun back in his holster, but kept his hand on the barrel. Steve saw this, and sighed. The Soldier did not care. SHIELD had been infiltrated by HYDRA to the extent you could not easily separate one from the other. Any place that was familiar to SHIELD was familiar to HYDRA, and Stark was definitely one of those places.
The doors opened, revealing Natasha Romanoff standing before them. They had landed on the roof, and the wind whipped her hair in a red mess around her. Her gaze was unnervingly piercing, and the Soldier could count ten places where weapons could be concealed. There were very likely more.
At the very least, Romanoff has worked with Steve during Insight's activation. The Soldier had been ordered to kill her. It was very unlikely that she was HYDRA and would not hurt Steve.
"Picked up a stray on the way home, I see," Romanoff said. Her hand was resting on her hip, faux casual. It didn't trick the Soldier.
"I told you not to fight," Steve said. He sounded tired. The Soldier moved over to him to offer support. He didn't miss Romanoff's slight flinch at his sudden motion. Steve accepted his arm, and they made their way down the walkway. The wind was intense up here, and the Soldier did not want to risk dropping Steve. He curled his fingers tightly in Steve's jumper.
"Have you made him promise that?" Romanoff asked. She moved in front of them, blocking the way to the entrance.
Steve glanced at the Soldier over his shoulder.
"I won't hurt you unless you give me a reason to," the Soldier said.
"Comforting," Romanoff said drily.
"He's Bucky. He's not going to hurt anyone. He doesn't work for HYDRA anymore."
"Never again," the Soldier added. He let the fact that Steve was still calling him Bucky aside.
Romanoff begrudgingly moved aside. The Soldier didn't trust in her newfound compliance. She was a Widow. Anything she did could be a mask.
Steve's injuries were more important. The Soldier carried Steve into the tower, where a hovering gurney met him. Steve pushed himself into it, holding his leg out gingerly. Another gurney sped past him. Presumably, that one was for Sam.
The gurney moved towards the elevator, and the Soldier went after it.
"He's going to medical," Romanoff said. "You're coming with me."
The Soldier shot her a dark look. "I am not leaving him."
"Your presence won't help him. He needs a doctor's attention, not yours."
"I rescued him from his captors. What exactly did you do?"
Romanoff's expression tightened, and the Soldier knew he had hit his mark.
"I'm going with Steve," the Soldier declared. He flexed his metal arm, and Romanoff’s eyes flicked to it, the subtle reminder of his strength. He followed behind the hovering gurney into the elevator. The doors closed, leaving Romanoff behind.
Steve was letting out small, tight breaths. Something was hurting him. The Soldier was unsure what to do. A memory reached him. Steve, but smaller, reaching for air that would not come. Asthma, his mind supplied.
But Steve did not have asthma now, and even in the memory, there had not been much Bucky had been able to do that had helped him.
The Soldier now figured that Steve was not the one who had implanted these memories. He clearly was affected by what this was too. The Soldier had an idea of what had happened forming in his head. The smart thing to do would be to cut and run. But to leave Steve here, injured and alone, surrounded by people who could hurt him… the idea was anathema. He could not let Steve be hurt.
The doors opened and the gurney moved out to the medbay. The Soldier watched over as they worked. They must have been warned about his presence, for they did not force him out, only watched him warily as the Soldier stood guard in the corner. The Soldier was beginning to grow tired, the day long and exhausting, but he did not let his eyes slip away from what they were doing to Steve for a second. If they did anything untoward, the Soldier would notice.
The medical treatment ended with nothing that the Soldier could determine as out of the ordinary for the injuries Steve had received. They gave him painkillers of a dose that matched the Soldier's own metabolism. The Soldier's own preference would not have been to take them, as not to risk losing his lucidity, but he could not deny soothing Steve's pain. He did not stop Steve from taking them. The Soldier would still be here to guard him.
They moved him into a bed, propped him up.
The Soldier moved to stand in the corner. There was a chair next to Steve's bed, but the Soldier ignored it.
"Are you going to stay there the whole time?" Steve asked.
"It is necessary," the Soldier said.
Steve let out a weary huff, but he was smiling. "Alright. You can guard me sitting down too, you know."
"More risk of being taken unaware," the Soldier said.
Steve craned his neck to look at the Soldier. The Soldier moved to the other corner so he would not have to. This left the door right to his side, which was unideal.
"No one's going to try and hurt me here," Steve said.
The Soldier did not reply straight away. He scouted the corners of the room for bugs. He could not see any obvious ones. This whole building was Stark's. He would not need to place a visible bug for him to overhear them.
It would be bad form to talk with Steve now, but he had so many questions still. The Soldier wrestled with his indecision, before he decided they likely would know a lot more if the Soldier did not adequetely convey his wariness to Steve.
The Soldier walked over to Steve and sat on the chair. He leaned close to Steve, close enough that anyone walking past the room would not be able to hear their conversation. There was little he could do about any bugs, but that was a sacrifice he had decided to make.
"You think I am James Buchanan Barnes," the Soldier said.
"I know you are," Steve replied firmly.
"You are wrong," the Soldier said. "I believe you have been compromised mentally. I have also been compromised. You have been led to believe I am your friend from the 40s, but that is impossible."
Steve's expression turned downcast.
"Why is that so impossible?" he challenged.
"Any memories I have are not mine," the Soldier tried to explain. "Any memories I have are for the purpose of a mission, to ensure mission success. I believed it was your doing, to try and mislead me. As you also believe these false memories, that is not the case."
Steve stared at him. "Bucky, your memories are yours. You're remembering them because their yours,"
"HYDRA procedure was to wipe me before and after missions. After the wipe, they would implant what knowledge I did need for the mission. That is how I began. Now I am out of HYDRA, I have my time for my own. Do you understand? There is no before. I did not exist before HYDRA. I was not your friend," the Soldier told Steve.
Steve blinked rapidly. His hand twitched towards the Soldier, but it did not go any further than the edge of his bed.
"I don't believe that," Steve said. His voice had gone hoarse. "If you believe that, why are you here?"
"You have also been compromised," the Soldier said. "You require a guard."
"That's…" Steve's voice petered off. The pupils in his eyes were dilating, likely a side effect of the pain killers.
"Why would they give you his memories? If your mission was to kill me, why give you those memories?" Steve finally got out.
The Soldier tilted his head, considering. It was true it was not congruent with the mission he had received.
A theory began to form. If Steve too had his mind adjusted…
"You worked for SHIELD. It would not be difficult to use you for HYDRA's purposes. They likely thought they could use you in co-operation with me, but in order for that to happen, we had to be made compatible with each other."
"Compatible?" Steve asked, voice flat.
"My face and memories adjusted," the Soldier said calmly. It was good to have a reason for all of this that made sense. It was logical, something he understood. "Giving you mental suggestions to make you trust me."
"And that's what you believe happened?"
The Soldier stared at Steve, hard. "It is not possible for me to be your friend. He died in 1944."
Steve's expression faltered and he turned his head away. The Soldier did not like that he was making Steve so unhappy, but it was better to be correct than to be comforting.
Whatever HYDRA had planned, they had not gone through with it. Steve must have started disrupting their plans before they could fully enact them. Mission: kill Captain America had overridden whatever plans they had before. It must have only been a few sessions ago that they had given him the memories of Barnes, which is why they were coming back first. Yes, the Soldier thought. Putting it all like that, it made sense.
The Soldier was nothing like Barnes. For Steve to wait for Barnes to ever emerge in him… he would be waiting a long time. It was better he knew the truth.
At some point, Steve Rogers fell asleep. The Soldier stood back in the corner of the room and kept guard.
There was a sharp knock on the door. The Soldier knew exactly who. The list of people who were brave enough to visit but still respectful enough to think to knock was only one name long. Romanoff. He went out of the room to not disturb Steve's sleep.
Romanoff stood in the corridor, arms loose and easy at her sides. If she was trying to make herself look peaceful by not openly holding a weapon, it was a waste of time. The Soldier could still see the dozens of potential holding places to keep a weapon.
"Steve trusts you because of what Barnes means to him," Romanoff said, and the Soldier realised that she had in fact heard what they'd been talking about.
"He trusts too easily," the Soldier replied. "I am not leaving him."
Romanoff looked at him, and the Soldier wanted to reach for his own gun at the piercing look in her eyes.
"You've been off the grid since Insight."
"I won't ever work for HYDRA again," the Soldier said.
"Who sent you after Cerberus?"
Cerberus. That was the name of the group that had taken Steve.
"They tried to hire me. They had taken Steve, so I killed them."
Romanoff nodded. She too, understood the logic in that.
"Can't say I blame you for that," she said. "So that's it? Your only motive for anything is Steve?"
The Soldier glowered at her. "I would not tell you even if it was."
"No, you wouldn't, would you?" Romanoff smirked at him. He didn't like that knowing look, as if she had him completely understood. It rankled at him.
She turned around and walked away. Without this ending in a fight, the Soldier felt oddly adrift.
"So now you're leaving?" he called out.
Romanoff stopped and turned around at the end of the corridor.
"We both know you're not going to hurt Steve. I could try and force you into a cell, but we know how that's going to work out." She rolled her shoulder and smiled at him. It was a sharp, cold smile.
The Soldier raised his chin higher. He could count twenty civilians — medical staff — just on this floor alone. They both knew it wasn't themselves at risk if a fight broke out.
This was a language the Soldier understood.
"Good night," Romanoff called, and left.
The Soldier returned back to his post, standing guard over Steve. He watched him breathe, lungs filling so easily now. He wondered about the alternative, if HYDRA's plan had worked. Perhaps they would have been happy, working together.
But with HYDRA, that was a long shot in the dark.
Steve woke up, eyes flickering open. The Soldier couldn’t help but stare at him. More memories were shifting within him, upturned by the reality before him. Barnes had seen Steve wake up like this so many times, burdened by injuries. At least this time Steve could heal faster.
Steve’s eyes locked on him and he let out a soft breath. His hand stretched over the covers, reaching. The Soldier felt himself pulled towards Steve like a meteor orbiting a black hole. He could not ignore it. He went where Steve wanted him.
Flesh touched his own, skin touching skin. Steve’s touch was so light it was almost not there at all. As he grew more awake, his grip tightened down, as if he were afraid the Soldier would run away.
“Bucky, are you real?” Steve rasped.
“Not Bucky,” the Soldier said quietly.
Steve looked down at where his hand was grasping onto the Soldier’s flesh wrist.
“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, “You’re still here.”
The Soldier did not have a response for that.
It took a while before Steve found himself fully aware. He had to let go of the Soldier’s wrist to reach for his water, and the Soldier found himself missing the touch. No one had touched him so lightly. He could remember — but no. Those memories were Barnes’, implanted in him. Not his own.
The Soldier retreated to his space against the wall. He liked feeling the wall firm against his back, reassurance that no one could sneak up behind him.
Steve watched him move away, hands still cupped around his water. He used two hands, like he was afraid he was going to drop it.
“Does it hurt still?”
The Soldier stiffened. An automatic reaction he could not help, could not understand. “Does what hurt?”
“Your memories,” Steve said. His fingers were scrunching tight around the little plastic cup. It was bending inwards, sure to break if he didn’t let go. There was already water beading down from a crack, splashing onto the pale hospital blanket.
The Soldier took the cup from him. Steve looked down, surprised to see the water droplets on his lap.
“It doesn’t hurt now I understand what they are,” the Soldier said.
“You’re talking about… why they gave them to you.” Steve’s expression grew tight.
“Yes,” the Soldier, “The mission objective.”
Steve jerked his head in a trace of a nod. “Your mission to — to protect me. Right?”
“Yes,” the Soldier said, satisfied. “I do not work for HYDRA. I will not take their missions anymore, but this mission is satisfactory.”
“That’s… good.” Steve gave him a wan smile. The Soldier did not like this expression. Steve’s smiles should not leave him so cold inside. The ones in his memories were so much better, so much brighter.
If they stayed here, it would be unlikely the Soldier would get to see any more of those true smiles. Steve was still in service to SHIELD, whatever remained of it within these tower walls. Now that they had the Soldier under their grasp, they would very soon realise the benefit of having both assets right here. The memories were doing their purpose and the Soldier did not want to remove them, but he understood that now they acted as a liability. He would stay behind and defend Steve. It would be easy to use Steve as leverage if they needed the Soldier to work for them.
The Soldier reached for Steve’s leg and checked the break. It was healing quickly, better than it would have if the Soldier had not pushed the bones back into place. Soon enough, Steve would be fit to fight.
That was good. They might need to.
Steve ate some food that was delivered to him by medics. The Soldier moved to the side of the room when they came in, aware of their shaking hands. They were afraid of him. The fear was normal, expected, but this was exactly why they could not stay. Fear would provoke them to use their leverage.
Steve slept some more, and the Soldier counted down the hours, growing ever more tense. He extrapolated from his own experiences exactly how long it should take for Steve’s leg to mend. His serum was stronger, so it should be faster than the Soldier’s own, but not by much.
As soon as the minute hand in the Soldier’s mind ticked away, he shook Steve awake. He jostled to awareness, eyes wide. A soldier’s awakening, ready for anything.
“We are not safe here. We need to leave,” the Soldier said.
Steve was already moving. He changed out of the hospital garb, put on the sweats they had left out for him.
“What’s happening?” Steve asked while he shoved his feet into his sneakers.
“Danger,” the Soldier said curtly. “No time, we need to leave now.”
“What about Natasha and Tony?”
“They’re out already.” A small lie, but Steve was too loyal not to go back for them otherwise.
Steve nodded. He held a great amount of trust in the Soldier, and the thought of that faithful compliance sank heavy in the Soldier’s chest. This was what HYDRA had wanted for them, that was why they had implanted these memories within them.
The Soldier was using this against them. Their weapon, their compliance, all of it — to escape their grasp.
They left the building, sneaking out through the fire exit. The Soldier deactivated the cameras where he could, sending the signal to loop. He’d been good at this before and he was good at this now, in this house of technology. His arm had a great many implements that made this work easier, and he made use of them.
The Soldier did not allow them to stop moving until they had found themselves far away from the tower and its associated technologies, hidden away in an old factory too badly damaged to be of use, ready to be condemned.
“Can HYDRA find us here?” Steve scanned the environment. It wasn’t pretty, dark, dim, and full of dust, but it would do.
“HYDRA hasn’t been able to track me for months,” the Soldier said, “SHIELD won’t be able to either.”
Steve looked at him, curious. “There is no SHIELD anymore.”
The Soldier scoffed. “So they want you to believe. You can’t trust anything they tell you in that tower.
Steve’s expression jumped, just for a second, before he composed himself. It was not a surprise HYDRA had sent the Soldier after him. Steve was a terrible liar.
“The people in the tower are my friends,” Steve said, voice as firm as solid rock. “I trust them.”
“You shouldn’t,” the Soldier hissed. He tapped at his head. “They messed with your mind. Made you trust me.”
“They haven’t done anything to me!”
“How would you know that?”
“Because I know they wouldn’t - “ Steve stopped speaking, mouth snapping shut. His breathing had grown tight, and for an instant a memory of Barnes’ came to mind of another time, a worse time, when Steve’s breathing had gone tight like that. It was not the same. Steve was strong this time, and the Soldier would make sure he stayed that way.
“They are not HYDRA,” Steve continued, “I trust you because you are —“
“I’m not your friend,” the Soldier snapped.
“Because you helped me,” Steve amended. “Is that not good enough? You rescued me.”
“Easy enough to stage a rescue to ensure false trust,” the Soldier said.
“But that’s not what happened.” Steve raised his hands, imploring. “You know why you helped me, and it wasn’t to manipulate me.”
“No, it wasn’t,” the Soldier acknowledged, “That doesn’t change anything. You’re not going back there. With the two of us together, they’ll need something to control us.”
“They’re not going to do anything, I promise you that. I asked Natasha not to do anything even though her first response was to put you in a cell, and she didn’t. Because we’re a team and we listen to each other, not go behind each other’s backs and — and brainwash them.”
Romanoff? Romanoff was his best evidence for trust?
“Never trust a Widow on what she allows you to see," the Soldier said. He could feel himself slowly growing exasperated that Steve just didn’t get it.
“C’mon, this is just insane. Have you even slept at all? The whole time you were in my room, guarding me, did you actually sleep?”
The Soldier’s expression tightened. He did not like having his skills questioned. “I know how to operate efficiently under harsh conditions.”
Steve huffed out a weary breath. He too, was growing tired of this conversation.
The Soldier was not planning to be the one to budge first.
Steve turned, paced towards a grimy window. Turned back, looked at the Soldier, then leaned against a metal balustrade. He was twitchy, and to watch him the Soldier felt his own stillness in even greater contrast. He wanted to go over, put a hand on Steve’s shoulder, and force him to stop moving. That however would hardly be appropriate. It was an action motivated by Barnes’ memories, and the Soldier could not keep giving Steve reason to see his friend in him. Not at this moment, not when his argument rested on it.
“What you think they did to me… HYDRA would have files on it, right? If I were intended to work with you?” There was a look in Steve’s eyes that set the Soldier on edge, as if ready for the rug to be pulled out from under him.
“Yes,” the Soldier said begrudgingly.
“So if we find those files, we can see what exactly they did and who authorised it. And that file… it would be kept near yours, wouldn’t it?” Steve’s eyes were concerningly hopeful given the topic he was mentioning.
“That would be correct.”
“So where would they keep those?”
The Soldier ran through any base where they would be most likely to keep those files. If the files were on him, they would have been stored in a base large enough to have contained him. Like most bureaucracies, HYDRA worked on efficiencies. Although, in the wake of the leak, files would be moved to secure locations that hadn’t been mentioned publically.
There was one base that the Soldier could think of that would be of best use for this purpose. Small enough not to have been leaked, but close enough to central terminals of travel that could link a larger base up to it.
“I know somewhere,” the Soldier said. “We’ll need a car.”
“That’s no issue.” Steve smiled at him, a familiar gesture that rang sharp against the memories implanted in the Soldier’s head. “I can hotwire one.”
The base was small, and it was no effort at all to break in. They had to work quickly, taking HYDRA soldiers down before they could get to the files. Part of their protocol was to never risk information leaking into the wrong hands.
A fire had been started in an old furnace used for disposal of biological material, and boxes of documents had been dragged over. All paper, all untouched by the SHIELD leak. There could be copies, but these might be the only ones left. They couldn’t allow HYDRA to burn them. The Soldier felt no guilt in killing the men before him. He recognised their faces from his memories.
A headshot straight through the man trying to crawl over to the fire, desperately trying to destroy the files even at the cost of his own life, and it was over. The base was silent. Everyone was dead, or had run.
Steve strode over and pulled the papers from his rapidly stiffening grip. He leafed through them, past the modern papers and all the way to an aged manila file. He tilted the file to show the Soldier.
Russian Text. The Winter Soldier.
His file. This was what they’d been looking for.
“Are you ready for this?” Steve asked, voice low. The Soldier glared at him. This file would contain procedure notes, procedures he’d lived through, survived. Steve was the one who needed to be ready to understand what process he’d been so near to.
The Soldier took the file from him. He had to see what was inside first, before Steve could see it and get distressed. With a swift flick to the cover of the file, the Soldier turned the page.
For a moment, he did not understand what he was seeing. It was like that dissonance that had ached him for so long before he had understood its true purpose. Images that should not pair, smashed together until he could not extract the originals.
There was a photo of the Soldier in the cryochamber. Clipped to the bottom, in black and white, was Barnes’ face in black and white.
They must have noticed the resemblance. That was what this was.
But then the Soldier’s eyes drew to the first few lines. This first page was a summary, a recollection of information about HYDRA’s newest asset.
It started with a name.
James Buchanan Barnes.
The Soldier’s hands started to shake.
“Bucky?” a voice came from very far away. The voice sounded trustworthy, but that name — the Soldier couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t bear to.
He found himself on the floor. He was gripping the folder tightly, bending the paper in half. He couldn’t make himself let go. Couldn’t make himself drop the folder.
The black and white photo of James Barnes kept staring at him.
James Barnes. The person who this file said had been him. The Soldier. Before everything. In the blank space of memory where there should not have been a before, this file imposed a name.
“Bucky, can you hear me?” the voice called again. The Soldier refocused. He was being so lax. If this were a battlefield, he would be dead.
Steve. He had come here with Steve. The Soldier couldn’t stop the twitch that moved down his spine. Steve Rogers, James Barnes best friend. Steve’s memories hadn’t been affected. He hadn’t been made to trust the Soldier through irrationally imposed psychology.
He’d trusted him because he’d seen what this body had used to be.
“I don’t understand,” the Soldier rasped. He raised his head from the file. He didn’t want to look away, but it was not going to attack him. The final bullet the file had ready had already been aimed, shot.
Steve sat before him, crouching on his knees. His hand hovered over the Soldier’s leg like he wanted to touch. The space between their skin was suddenly unbearable, but the Soldier wanted to vomit at the thought of Steve touching him. This body had been his friend’s.
“I think you do,” Steve said. “I think they made you believe you couldn’t have memories so you wouldn’t ask questions. So you wouldn’t question why they needed the wipes. The memories are yours. You’re Bucky. You always have been.”
“No,” the Soldier whispered. “No, no no no no.”
His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. Barnes’ chest. Whose was it? Was his body his own? Was it all Barnes’? Barnes' limbs and eyes, Barnes' fingers and toes. He had Barnes' memories, but he could see he was not that man. Could not be that man. That was a real human and the Soldier was just —
Was just —
“The procedure is a success,” the Doctor said. Round beady eyes stared at him behind a shield of glass. “It disappoints me that you cannot recognise what a feat this.”
“You’re a monster,” ??? rasped. The metal arm attached to him — part of him — twitched, plates humming with energy. “I’ll kill you. I promise you that. I’ll kill you.”
The Doctor smiled. “How will you do that, when you forget to hate me?”
That set ??? off. He raged against the restraints pinning him down, clawed at the metal table under him. It did not matter, for the metal spikes went into his head again, and the electricity turned on, and —
The Soldier jolted. Another memory, so overwhelming it became reality. In that memory, he had been… not Barnes. Not the Soldier. He had been what was in between. What Barnes had been becoming. What had birthed the Soldier. Connecting tissue. Two people, strung together. It had never been two people.
It had always just been him.
The Soldier turned and retched onto the floor. He had barely eaten. Only pure bile dripped onto the floor. His flesh hand groped wildly into the air. It dug hard into something warm and gripped tightly. Steve, the Soldier remembered. Steve.
He dug his fingers in tighter.
“I’m sorry, I should have figured this wouldn’t be a good idea but I couldn’t figure out how else to convince you — what else even would — “
“No,” the Soldier rasped. He raised his head. He wanted to wipe his mouth, but that would require either letting go of the folder or letting go of Steve and both options were impossible. “I needed to see this.”
Steve sat before him, so real, so alive. The Soldier could remember now. He’d hoped that Steve would come for him. Come for that in-between being, the one that was neither Barnes nor the Soldier. He’d wanted to be saved, even though it was too late for Barnes.
It had taken a very long time, but the Soldier had seen Steve again.
Barnes had forgotten Steve.
The Soldier began to shake again. Everything that man had been was gone. The Soldier had lost it. The Soldier was machine parts running on a human heart, and that could not be undone. Steve wanted his friend, but the Soldier was the zombified corpse of him.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” Steve asked. His free hand reached for the Soldier’s shoulder, steadying, comforting. He knew now that it was his memories that danced at the touch, that sang in comfort. This body, remembering.
“I lost Barnes. He’s gone. He was in me, and he’s gone,” the Soldier replied. He couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering. He felt a deep cold inside, a cold that reached down deeper than cryofreeze could touch. Barnes had been a real person, a person with friends and family. He had the memories of them, the memories of that love.
The Soldier had forgotten all of that. What he’d done for HYDRA… those were not actions a person with a family took. A person with people to love.
“No,” Steve said firmly. The hand the Soldier was still gripping twisted around to grip back. He could feel his heartbeat, flesh against flesh. “You didn’t lose him. They erased your memories, but they couldn’t dig out everything. You came to find me, do you remember? You came to find me, and got me out. Was that HYDRA, or was that you?”
The Soldier couldn’t hold back the twitches running through his body. He’d been running on impulse, extremely irrational impulse. It hadn’t even been a thought. It had just been right. It hadn’t been a mission. It had been a need. Get Steve out.
HYDRA had ordered the Soldier to kill him. With each fading day out of their grasp, their orders had dissipated off him like mist.
He had wanted to save Steve. Held up against the memories of Barnes that were his it felt very much like a Barnes thing to do.
His heartbeat rang in his ears. His mortal heart, the same heart that had pumped blood through Barnes’ body, that had kept them alive.
It was easier, thinking he was nothing and no one. Harder now to acknowledge exactly what had been lost. That the Soldier was not building himself up from nothing, but was regaining what had been taken from him. Taken from him by force and bloody violence and the shades of pain in memories the Soldier did not want to acknowledge.
“Steve,” the Soldier said, “I got you out.”
“You did. And you tried to save me again, even when you didn’t need to. Does this help prove that the people in that tower weren’t doing anything to me? This was always just HYDRA’s work.”
The Soldier unpeeled his hand from the file. It fell to the floor, pages fluttering open onto a random page. HYDRA’s notes. Electrical stimulation. Chemically induced reactions. All those procedures, aimed at wiping him clean. The person that the Soldier had been before.
They hadn’t implanted memories. They’d been forcing them down. The Soldier’s face hadn’t been a weapon. It was just his face. Just who he was. Who they’d taken.
The Soldier could acknowledge when he was wrong.
“I remember him. Being Bucky. But Steve, I’ve done so many things, I — I’m not your friend anymore.”
“I don’t care,” Steve said fiercely. “I don’t care what they made you do. It doesn’t matter if you’re not the same man I knew in the war. I want to help you.”
Steve’s voice, so stubborn, so earnest, a mirror reflection to the voice the Soldier heard over the years. He never could let something go when he truly believed in it, optimistically naive.
The Soldier wanted to believe in that naivety. With Steve, there was always a chance that it wasn’t just naivety. A man doomed to die young, becoming the leading icon of the War. Steve had always been impossible, and if he wanted to drag the Soldier through those impossibilities… well, the Soldier had a lifetime of memories to know there was no point in trying to stop him.
“Okay, Steve,” the Soldier said.
“Will you come back to the Tower with me?” Steve’s expression was open and wanting. The Soldier did not want to deny him, but he could not help the fear.
“I don’t trust them.” There were more people in that building than the Soldier could keep track of at once, too many ways to find himself trapped and cornered.
“I know,” Steve said, “But do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.” The Soldier’s voice came out snappish. He hadn’t meant it to. He couldn’t stop it from happening, from the past leaking out of him.
Steve smiled. “Then trust me when I say we’ll be safe going back. Safer than here, anyway. Unless you want to stay next to the dead body?”
The Soldier looked at the body, rapidly stiffening. It was starting to smell.
“Alright, let’s get out of here,” the Soldier said, “And if you’re wrong about them, that’s your own damn fault, punk.”
Steve laughed. It was an odd laugh. Most people didn’t look like they were going to cry when they laughed. Steve was still smiling, so the Soldier took it as something that was unique to Steve.
“Okay, okay.” Steve stood up, pulling the Soldier with him. He was not injured, so he did not need to keep holding onto him for strength, but the Soldier did not make any move to push him off. He had been Barnes. This was something they did, something they had done. The Soldier had not had many wants so far, but Steve touching him was going up to the top of the list.
“If anything happens — which it won’t — then feel free to blame me.” Steve smiled, and then, almost hesitantly added, “jerk.”
The Soldier did not remember the significance of the words, but he could feel them slotting into place. A memory. His memory.
Because of all of this was his to keep, and the Soldier was not going to let anyone take this away from him again.