My Name Is Bucky

двадцать семь (27)

Steve had set up a room for me. It was mostly for storage, as I hardly ever used the bed. And when I did, I was always with Steve. More often than not, I was with him in his bedroom.

Tony hadn't discovered how to stop the pain in my metal arm yet, so Steve made me put it in a sling. I normally slept on my side, which no longer worked. In fact I didn't sleep at all. Steve would wrap around me in ways I didn't know a man his size could.

When I did sleep my head was filled with horrors. Except they weren't memories. Oh no. They were worse.

"Kill him." They whispered. "Come back home. Back where you are valued."

No use in fighting them, really. I couldn't stop them. I couldn't scream. I couldn't escape.

"He's using you," they hissed. "You're not Bucky. Oh no, you're so much more. You're worth so much more. What is Bucky?"

My head pounded. Steve clung onto me tighter.

"Bucky is dead! Wake up soldat!"

I sat up, heart racing. I was sweating through my shirt. Steve didn't notice. He furrowed his brow and grabbed me tighter. He knew I was trying to go. Even in sleep he watched over me.

Steve. I stared at him, gently brushing his blonde hair out of his face. I often wondered what he dreamt of. What had he done in the past fifty or sixty years I had been gone.

My head pounded and my body cramped up.
Bridge. Mission: kill captain America and black widow. Kill Sam Wilson if he gets in the way.

No. I gasped for air and wiggled out of Steve's grasp. Natasha. She knows what I am. She can help. I tiptoed down the stairs into the common room of the compound. I glanced at the time, 7:30 am. Steve would wake up soon, probably sooner than usual because I wasn't there, and he would freak out if I was gone.

Natalia- I mean Natasha- sat at a bar by herself, eating a few strawberries. I didn't know how to approach her, but she spoke before I even had the chance to.

"Have you finally decided I'm not an enemy?" She plopped a strawberry into her red lips.

"No. You're associated with them still in my head." I sat down across from her, watching carefully.

"Well glad to know we stand on the same page. I did miss you though."

"I want to know about me." I said

"About you? Which you? The winter soldier or Bucky? I've dated the winter soldier, and I'm pretty sure Steve is about to date Bucky."

"Anything that you know." I was desperate. I went out on a limb and asked "can they control me from far away? I got words in my head. Thoughts that I never have. And they aren't memories, I know that for a fact."

She stared at me for a moment, watching me with her bright eyes and thinking. She slowly bit another strawberry. "Stark needs to find a cure for you fast."

That didn't answer my question. "Can they control you? Have they controlled you?"

"While we did train together, we were apart of different programs. I don't have a strange device in my head. I am a murderer. You are the toughest and most feared weapon known to any villain organization for the past century."

My stomach churned. Fire flashed before my eyes and screams followed by shots echoed in my ears. She knew how to get to me.

She stood up, holding her hand out. "Cmon, soldat. I need to show you something."

She lead me downstairs to a few rooms I didn't know existed. She haunted a guard or two that tried to question me and lead me into a large room with many screens and cabinets along the wall. There was a computer in the right corner that seemed connected to a projector of some sort.

"The winter soldier was the idea of a madman-" she started.

"I'm aware. I know how I started. I need the middle stuff."

Natasha nodded and started to type in the computer. Files came up, containing pictures that seemed to be taken by spies at extreme angles and distances.

"You were brainwashed and trained to obey orders and carry them out no matter what the cost. You didn't care about yourself much less civilians. You became a legend around the underground crime ring. People feared you, some tried to replicate you," she pulled up a disturbing image of a man with a crazed look in his eyes. Over his face read the word DECEASED. I could only imagine what happened to him. "The Red Room, while not HYDRA directly, was associated. You came in as an example. You took out every single one of our boys with your training. They were called the wolf spiders. That program ended and they decided boys, at least in our case, were useless. You helped train the girls after you were done with them. Sparing usually. We did play a game often that we called Hunt. Hide and seek with weapons. Sometimes we used fully loaded guns, other times we didn't. One day you shot every single black widow except for me. I happened to evade you. While it was not the outcome that was desired, it was acceptable. I got praise."

I watched as videos popped up of me, and sometimes a young Natasha, doing vigorous training exercises. I had no life in my eyes. I mean, Bucky. I'm not Bucky.

Natasha stared at me, watching as I took in the videos. "Somehow, I got to you. I unlocked. A memory or something inside the winter soldier."

I don't like this feeling
You're being paranoid. She's helping us.

Get out
Shut up

I stared at her, confused, and feeling my head pound. "I think, I remember some of it." I started to remember my training. I remembered training others like me, more winter soldiers. They were more aggressive, they were better but I was better trained.

Natasha touched my metal arm gently, making sure not to hurt it. "No matter how cold I seem I know you're not the man that carried out those murders. I'm gonna help you fix it. We're in this together."

I nodded. She didn't know what it was like to have her own identity stripped away from her time after time. I felt so close yet so far every time I had made a breakthrough.

She unexpectedly planted a kiss on my lips. I unexpectedly kissed back. She gave me a small smirk before heading upstairs. She brushed past Steve in the doorway, who stared at me with an unsaid rage and distress.

"Steve-"

"Hey Buck," he said with an unfamiliar coldness to his voice. "I came to see how you were doing. You weren't in bed."

"I couldn't sleep."

"Nightmares?" He asked. I knew he cared but in that moment all I felt radiating off of him was the same hatred and coldness I had felt from HYDRA.