"How did your arm get like that?"
"A hidden Nazi organization gave me it in the 1940's after I lost my real arm takin' a swan dive off a train up in some mountains..."
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In which Bucky Barnes hides from his past in Beacon Hills, getting drowned in...
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IT WAS, FOR once, warm as his boots crunched on the minuscule twigs on the forest floor. It's a sound he'd come to like, love even, on his long and insipid journey.
He was tired and, even more so, confused. His thoughts on the long walk from the hidden base in New York to California have only consisted of the flashes of (what he hopes to be) memories, him with shorter hair falling into a deep valley of white and black, the HYDRA men dragging him by his collar, a long and frightening trail of crimson chasing after his short arm.
It was strange to the soldier, the way these flashbacks sent chills and fevers down his spine when most things wouldn't even make him flinch. It was nice—a new feeling to him, fear, anxiety, the unknown. It made him feel more like an actual human, more normal—if you could ever categorize him anywhere near that. But when he felt those sickening chills down his spine as sweat trickled down his forehead after a nightmare, he found it revitalizing; he found it comforting. Those nightmares and flashbacks told him he wasn't a weapon, he wasn't some machine — he was human.
A small crack from behind him made his head whip back behind him, his eyes scanned the dark and quiet forest. Someone was there, stalking and hunting in the dark, waiting for him to make a mistake. The soldier halted in his tracks, his ears strained to hear another slip up of his perpetrator. Then; he heard it. Another snap, this time, instead if behind him, immediately to his right.
His instincts kicked in and sent his legs to push him forward, his arms pumped harshly against his sides as he dashed through the trees. He could hear his chaser behind him, its steady breathing and the pounding of its feet sending the soldier's heart into hyperdrive; the loud pounding of the footsteps seemed to kick the soldier's heart hard and fast. Soon, his lungs began to burn and his breathing became desperate and heavy as his legs weakened. His mind screamed to keep going, to outrun this thing but the soldier couldn't and his legwork became sloppy before he stumbled, and he tripped over his feet and fell into the cold dirt.
He quickly turned and faced his chaser, his brown eyes blown wide to see a large and ugly wolf, bloody and bright red eyes inches from his own as a trail of slobber dripped onto the soldier's jacket. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't even move as the thing's jowl turned upwards into an almost sickening grin, its eyes gleaming angrily as it growled, jaw moving to sniff up the soldier's leg to his stomach. The soldier felt a small tear dribble from his eye before the beast harshly and messily chomped into his side, emitting a long and pained scream from the man.
His body burned with a heat so intense, he felt as if he was still in the HYDRA base, his memories being wiped with a burning flame. He felt his mind race and heard his heartbeat pound in his ears, with a second beat echoing in the distance. He let out a choked sob as the beast released him from his jaw lock before he disappeared from the soldier's sight into the night. The soldier writhed on the forest floor, his lungs burned in agony. The pain seared through him, tears poured down his cheeks as the pain slowly cooled and he regained a semi-clear head.
