December // A Winter Soldier Story

14

ｄｅｃｅｍｂｅｒ ２３ｒｄ， ２０１３

３３°

ℬ𝓊𝒸𝓀𝓎

He can't remember the last time the ground was free of snow. He wishes the cold substance would stop falling from the sky each and every night. It just makes the world colder, walking harder, and his path easier to trace.

It has been two days since he left her, two days since he last pressed his lips to her skin and relished in it's life and warmth. It's been too long. He misses her already.

But he has to keep moving. He can't go back to his abusers (even though it was probably better for the world that they continue killing him, he just couldn't) because the idea made his lungs constrict and his head pound and old wounds start to hurt again. There is too much pain there, too much horror. He can't bring himself to go back, and he would like to say that's all because he can't handle the thought of killing anyone else (which is true), but the primary reason he is running is because just imagining going through all of their torturing again makes him want to vomit with fear. He is absolutely mortified of returning. This is a natural human instinct -- to fear pain and anguish -- but he feels guilty for thinking of himself before others. He also knows this makes him weak, to follow his heart rather than his head, but sometimes you just can't be logical when you're scared.

He thinks maybe he can atone for these unfortunate human instincts of his by running from his abusers, where along the way he can be free of his torture and save people by avoiding the Winter inside of him all at once. That'll allow him to follow both his heart and head. Or at least that's what he tells himself.

Maybe he can find Steve, the man who's name has been bouncing around inside of his skull for what seems like forever now, and he can help Bucky figure out how to protect others as well as himself.

That is where he is currently headed. To Steve. He must stay away from Lea, but he needs someone who can aid him in sorting through his fractured mind. He hopes Steve is this person.

He does not know where Steve is, exactly, but he knows where he last left him, and he knows that Steve is probably out looking for him anyway. He knows this because of the last thing Steve told him before they were separated -- I'm with you until the end of the line.

That phrase was burning in the back of Bucky's mind. It brought certain memories screaming back. All of them were vague pieces of things he used to know: a red dress, military uniforms, weaving through a playground behind a kid with blonde hair. These fragments set fire to the inside of his skull, bringing headaches so intense that each one feels as though it may end in death. Each wave threatens to split him in two, and he cannot control when they come -- he can only sit and scream, let hot tears roll down his cheeks as he struggles to cope with the pain while simultaneously attempting to process and understand his new found memories.

This is the price of remembering. This is the pain he must endure just to remember shards of his former self, to reclaim tiny bits of a life he used to know.

But he cannot afford to have an episode now, not when he must keep his eyes peeled for Steve, so he swallows his thoughts and focuses on his surroundings.

He is traveling south. He is unsure of the exact name of the areas he has been wandering through, but he knows based on the amount of snow on the ground and the temperature of the air that he is headed away from the frigid north and towards the slightly more mild area of Washington, D.C. That is where he last saw Steve. It's the only location he can remember by name anymore.

He walks alongside a thick highway crowded with cars. He knows based on the amount of traffic that he must be approaching some kind of city, and he hopes it might be D.C. Once he gets closer, he'll brave it, and leave the safety of the trees to find a road sign, which might tell him whether he's on the right track still. He's been walking for so long and taken so few breaks that he's a little disoriented and extremely tired. He knows he needs to check to make sure he didn't accidentally make a shift in the wrong direction on the way here.

In the last two days he's only stopped twice for a brief rest before continuing on. His last break was about ten hours ago, and he doesn't plan on stopping any time soon. He's been mostly walking but he's also taken a few buses, having found just enough money around to pay for a couple, and has even managed to sneak onto a few city trains, just to get through the cities quicker than he would have otherwise.

Bucky isn't sure exactly where Lea's house had been, or where he'd been based for so many years, but based on the weather and the distance he's travelled so far, he'd guess that she lived somewhere in New York, maybe even further north than that. He walks much quicker than a normal person -- even running for some of the trek, just so he can put as much distance between him and Lea as possible -- and his brief bouts with public transportation have certainly sped up the trip, so he's pleased with his progress so far. He's moving much faster than he should be.

Hopefully, this means Lea will be far from any kind of danger. He doesn't care much about what happens to him from this moment on so long as she is alright.

After several more moments, he decides to finally check a road sign to see how close he is to D.C. He very carefully crouches down just behind the first line of trees before the road, and peeks through the tall grass down the highway. He sees several signs, and most of them don't mean much to him: but the last one on the right points to an approaching exit for Baltimore.

He's been there before. He can't quite remember why, but he's sure he has. He also knows that since he's near Baltimore, it will be at least another half a day before he reaches D.C., so long as he doesn't take a break. Without fully understanding why he knows the distance between the two cities, he decides not to argue and to just trust his gut.

Sighing with fatigue, he rises, and starts trudging through the half-melted snow again, with nothing but Steve, a few painful memories, and Lea's long blonde hair on his mind.