|| A - T H O U S A N D - Y E A R S || A BUCKY BARNES FANFIC

NOT THE ONLY WINTER SOLDIER

"Steve, I'm sure I have him. I just... I don't know if you're gonna like it..." Sam says, his arms crossed while he leads Steve and Mackenzie through the doors behind him and show them Bucky.

"Which Bucky am I talkin to?" Steve asks, his eyes hard as he keeps his arm up in front of Mackenzie to try to keep her from stepping closer.

"Your... Heh, your mom's name was Sarah... You used to wear..." Bucky chuckles a little and looks up at Steve, his gaze not flickering to Mackenzie for longer than a second before he continues, "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."

Steve looks at Sam, "You can't read that in the museum."

"Just like that? We're supposed to be cool?!" Sam asks, his hands going up in the air just as he and Steve hear Mackenzie's shuffling feet and turn just to see her latched onto Bucky.

"James!" She breathes into his shoulder, she knows his arm is locked down and she holds him tighter around the neck, "Does this hurt?" She reaches out to his metal arm, not realizing that it's metal.

"Don't." He whispers, not looking her in the eye and grabbing her wrist with his free hand. "Just don't."

"Don't what? James, I haven't seen you in years! You're ALIVE, you're back! What happened? How? You DIED James!" She's shouting through her tears as she tries to wipe them away and hide them behind a small and forced but happy smile.

"Who-" Bucky shakes his head as if to clear his it, though he knows the answer to the question already even as he asks. "Who are you?"

"Buck..." Steve warns.

"What, Stevie? What did I do?" Bucky looks up at Steve, trying to look past Mackenzie. Without luck.

"You did enough." Steve tells him, his arms crossed, looking down at the floor. Bucky nods, his lips pursed and swallows hard, still trying to avoid making the contact with Mackenzie though her gaze is deep and worried.

"I knew this would happen. Everything that Hydra put inside me is still there..." He takes a deep breath, moving back a little away from Mackenzie as far as the vise on his arm will allow him to go. "All they had to do was say the God damned words."

Mackenzie pulls back away from him as well and closes her eyes not wanting to see that he's moving away from her. "Buck, who was he?" She asks. She knew what Steve was going to ask next, they all wanted to know anyways.

"I don't know." He looks into her hazel eyes and sees the blue standing out in them. He doesn't believe that she's still alive, he had known she had gotten the serum like Steve but he thought that she'd died, since he hadn't seen her before now.

"People are dead, Buck, the bombing, the set up, the doctor did all that just to get ten minutes with you." Steve responds before Mackenzie can try to argue with Bucky. She looks behind her at her big brother and he waves her over, a swift shake of her brown hair tells him otherwise.

She hasn't seen Bucky in years and Steve thinks that he's going to keep her away from him. "I'm not moving, Steven." She turns back to Bucky, "You can't tell me that you don't remember anything, or me specifically. Why do you remember my BROTHER and not me? Remember that promise you made to me the night before you two snuck off without telling me? No? Because I sure as Hell do!"

Bucky looks up to her, his eyes searching hers and trying to keep himself from showing any sign of remembering her or any promise that he made. If Steve found out about that promise he'd tell him he's stupid.

He remembers her, every single detail about her. The way her hair would glint a shade of red in the sun, the way her eyes would shine whenever he was around. The way that her smile was always brightest when she was talking about something she loved to someone she cared about, when she talked about her big brother to anyone- she'd always smile- but she had a special smile saved for him, just Bucky, that not even Steve could coax out of her.

Mackenzie got shy when she wasn't with Steve and she was with Bucky. There was no denying it. He loved her. He loved her so damn much it hurt him. She was the only thing that kept him sane whenever they brainwashed him. They had left that memory but rid him of Steve's, not because they wanted him to remember either but because they weren't able to because they didn't know that he was in love with someone.

But she didn't know. Her brother knew, he still knows, and he sees that he remembers.

"Mack, back off him. He doesn't remember. I'm sure if you give him time he'll-"

"No!" Mackenzie cuts him off, "I'm not backing off him. He needs to remember. He needs to remember me. I loved him. I still do. I never forgot you!" She turned to face him in her short lived rant and wrapped her arms around his neck again. "I loved you. I... I missed you. I thought you died and I went crazy because of it. And now you don't remember me? How can you forget?"

"I... I'm sorry... What's your... Name?" He asks, only breaking her heart more than necessary.

"Mackenzie, back. Off." Steve says, his tone warning as she continues to cling to Bucky, her hand on his chest to push herself off him. She narrows her eyes and makes her way back to stand by Sam. "Fine." She deadpans and crosses her arms and leans against the wall behind her.

"Bucky, you gotta do better than I don't know." Steve grills him again, his tone stern as he questions him.

Mackenzie sees the hesitation written across Bucky's face, "James. Tell us what he wanted from you." She doesn't look him in the eye when his move to search hers.

"He... He wanted to know about... Siberia. Where I was kept..." Realization comes to his face, "Why I was there."

"Why would he need to know that?" Steve asks, glancing over to Sam and Mackenzie, concern washing over his usually strong features. She looks up to Bucky when she hears the seriousness in his next sentence.

"Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier."