Save Me || Bucky Barnes

54

"She's dangerous."

"She is not, Sam. That was the Winter Soldier back there. That was not my Charlotte."

"I don't think there's a difference, Barnes."

"Both of you, stop arguing. She's waking up."

Steve's comment quickly earned the attention of the other two men. They joined Steve in the other room of the warehouse they had found across town. Bucky felt yet another twinge of guilt pass through him as he glanced at the two pieces of heavy metal that pinched Charlotte's left arm between them.

"Which Charlotte are we talking to?" Steve asked gently. He was fully on Bucky's side, believing that Charlotte was not the same as the Winter Soldier, but he was still cautious of the blonde. He didn't know if the impact of her head hitting the window, as Bucky told him, was enough to break her trance.

"Mom's name is Sarah. My favorite part of Christmas was stringing popcorn." 

The soldier still looked a little confused. Her eyes squinted in the darker lighting of the room as she took in the three men in front of her. She recognized her brother, Steve, and the brunette, James. But she had no idea who the man standing between them was.

"Can't read that in a museum." her brother smiled hopefully.

"Oh, so just like that, we're suppose to be cool? I'm not buying it." the strange man objected haughtily. He crossed his arms over his chest as a look of irritation crossed his face.

"C'mon, Sam. You've been to the exhibit before. You know that's something she could have only remembered by herself." James snapped quietly at the other man, who she now knew was named Sam. Sam simply rolled his eyes before her brother interjected.

"I don't think she remembers what happened, so both of you need to shut the hell up." her older brother whispered sternly. Although he was trying to keep her from hearing, he must not have known that she had been trained and forced to listen intently to her enemies' conversations. She knew they weren't the enemy, but old habits die hard.

"What did I do?" she asked then, interrupting what Sam was about to say. All three of their heads twisted towards her.

"Enough." Sam snapped. From the way he addressed her and talked about her, she guessed that he wasn't a big fan of hers. But, if she was being honest with herself, she wasn't a big fan of herself either.

"Oh God, I knew this would happen. Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddamn words." she groaned, exasperated. She had tried so hard to get those damn words out of her head, but now she realized that it wasn't that simple. 

Those words had been hardwired, basically programmed, into her brain. Now, she knew that she would never be able to get them out. She would always be capable of reverting back to the Winter Soldier as soon as anyone so much as muttered those words.

"Who was he?" James asked gently. Bucky could see the torment plain as day on her face. His heart ached. The girl he loved, still loves, was in pain. She was confused and scared and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help her.

"I don't know." she whimpered. 

"People are dead. The bombing, the setup. The doctor did all that just to get 10 minutes with you. We need you to do better than 'I don't know'." Sam snapped bitterly. His tone of voice earned a rough shove from James and a rigid look from her brother.

"He wanted to know about Siberia, where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where." she spoke quietly. She wanted to forget about Siberia, to never have to say the word or speak of the place ever again. But if that's where the man was headed, they would need to know why.