The Mechanic || 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘳¹

five

Bucky remembers. The Winter Soldier doesn't. You know how to see the difference. You learned the hard way. Bucky is softer. He even smiles sometimes when you talk about the man on the bridge. He likes you, in some ways at least. He's ready to talk about things.

But as soon as they see that he's Bucky again, they take him away again. And he comes back as the Winter Soldier. Cold. Emotionless. His expression is angry at the most. You're scared of him. You once tried to talk to him about the man on the bridge. He hit you with the arm you made him, hit you until the guards had to take you away from him.

Sometimes he's something in between. In those moments, he doesn't talk, doesn't respond. It's almost like he's lost in thought, but you know he can't be because your machine erased them all, over and over again.

You're still working on improving the chair. At least that's what they think. They can't see how you decrease the machine's functionality every time you kneel beside it, up to your elbows inside the machine. They can't see how Bucky's eyes are a bit clearer every time he goes back to his room, every time they turn off the machine.

But he's still the Winter Soldier. The cruel part in him is persistent, no matter how hard you work on restoring him the way he was before all of this.

By now, you're sure there's something else. It's not only your machine that keeps the Winter Soldier in Bucky's body active. Sometimes, when you want to visit him, he's not in his room. He's also not in the training room. The room with the chair is always locked and you're not able to hear what happens inside. You don't know where they bring him and what they do with him when you're not there. But every single time, when he gets brought back into his room, he's the Winter Soldier. Emotionless. Calculating. Not remembering anything. You don't even dare to breathe while being in the same room with him.

Then, always shortly after those moments, he has a mission. And you visit him again afterward. You never touch him. You wouldn't dare. But your looks are soothing and calm. It works most of the time. With you, he is mostly Bucky. He tries to be. And when you say, "Remember the man on the bridge", he looks at you with hope in his eyes. His hope is so strong even you can feel it. And you can't help but smile.

And then he's taken away again, turned back into the Winter Soldier.

But the Winter Soldier gets weaker from day to day, you can feel it in Bucky's gaze. He's not Bucky yet but that's enough. As long as he's not the Winter Soldier, you can allow yourself to feel pride. You're turning him back. Slowly but steadily. He pretends to be the Winter Soldier, in front of the Hydra agents at least. He's not good at it but they don't suspect a thing. In some ways, they're incredibly naïve.

Since the incident on the bridge, you haven't been but in cryostasis anymore. Whatever the Winter Soldier is working on getting done, it takes time. It's more than usual. And you use all the time you get to bring back Bucky. This might be the best opportunity you'll ever get. Maybe it's the only one.

Until one day, he doesn't come back anymore. You're waiting in his room, sitting on his bed. There's nothing special about his bedroom. The walls are blank and clean, his bed linen completely white. He has a chair in the corner of the room and a small table next to the bed. Nothing special. All of the rooms in this base look like this. You've got used to it.

But now, the sterile feeling of the room feels intimidating. You clutch your upper body, your nails digging into your skin. Did something go wrong on the mission? Did they catch him?

No, they didn't. They can't. Not the Winter Soldier. No one catches the Winter Soldier.

Still sitting there, you hear the guards on the other side of the door. They run around, their steps echoing in the hallway. Shouting. They're stressed.

You silently stand up and leave the room. No one even spares you a look when you walk through the hallways, searching for your mechanic lab. On your way, you hear the soldiers talk.

"He's gone," they whisper. "How is that possible?"

"He fled."

"He was under our control!"

"Not anymore..."

"We had him. How could this happen?"

That's Pierce's voice. Angry. Shouting. Goosebumps crawl across your skin and you want to hide from him, out of his sight, anywhere but here.

"He must've recognized Captain America..."

You know that name. It shakes something up inside you, something you haven't felt in years... decades. A memory. It comes suddenly over you. You see a tall man in a blue suit. He has a shield. With a star. He's smiling down at you from a poster on the road you took to go to work...

Your breath hitches in your chest, the feeling of remembering is too overwhelming. It makes your knees go weak and buckle. Before falling to the ground, you grab the wall and gasp for air, trying to settle the trembling of your body. The memory is unclear and blurry, and you can't see the man's face clearly, no matter how hard you try. There's text on the poster but you don't remember what. You're wearing a dress, but you can't remember what it looks like. Your hair was long, but you can't remember what hairstyle you were wearing. And there was a name, a name that belonged to you, only you...

Someone grabs your neck and presses your back against the wall. For a moment, you think it's the blonde man – Captain America – but then you see Pierce's face. It's red and angry.

"Did you do this?" he hisses. "Did you set him free?"

And for a moment, you think it's all over. For a moment, you think they will kill you, here and now.

But at the same moment, you feel pride.

You defeated The Winter Soldier in a way no one else could. You saved Bucky.