Undercover - A Bucky Barnes x Y/n Story

Chapter 10

After I ask Steve for help, he has me sit down at the table with him.

"I'm going to start from the beginning, because there's something you need to understand. The only reason I'm telling you this is because of those letters Bucky sent me. If he didn't truly trust you, truly care for you, then he would have never mentioned you to me. I know you're special. So you have to listen very carefully" Steve explains. I nod profusely.

"Yes, yes of course. I promise you I care about him just as much, if not more. I want to help him. I can see how much pain he's in. I've seen it from the moment I met him" I tell him. Steve lets out a sigh and brings his hand up to his forehead, looking down.

"I wanted him to come back with me..." he says and looks up towards me. I can see tears starting to well up in his eyes. "He told me he wanted to stay, he wanted to try and fix himself and continue to help people"

"I don't understand. Come back with you where?" I ask, confused. Steve adjusts in the chair so he was leaning more forward onto the table.

"Bucky and I are from the past. Born towards the end of the 1910's. We were both soldiers in World War II. I was..a scrawny, pathetic excuse for a man and an experiment turned me into Captain America. Used for propaganda to get men to sign up for the war. Bucky was a good soldier, a pretty normal guy. But he had died, I thought he had died. But turns out he had been captured and brought back to life by HYDRA and they had attached this robotic arm and basically made him a mind slave to them. A weapon. I didn't find out he was still alive until around 2014 when he was set on a mission to kill me and a few others. He basically had no moral code. He was machine, no feelings, no memories. But after a tireless fight between the two of us, he regained his memory. I tried everything I could to make him see that we were friends. But I was just a mission to him. And at what seemed like my last moments, I told him, 'Im with you till the end of the line' and before I had fallen from the airship we were in, I could see it in his face. The pure shock. I knew he remembered in that moment, but I was sent flying towards the earth. But then he had saved me. Left me on the shoreline for the others to find me and once I was better, I set out to find him again," He explains to me and it feels like my brain is on fire. There was so much to take in, so much to understand, so many questions to ask.

"How were you still so young?" I ask, starting with what I think are the simple questions as I consume all this information.

"I was frozen in ice" Steve answers and then continues with his story about Bucky. "It took a while after Bucky started to gain his memories back, for him to trust himself again. He was becoming an Avenger, he was becoming a good soldier once again. Then The Decimation happened, with Thanos. And Bucky had disappeared and I'd thought for sure this time I'd lost him forever. And then when he returned with all the others, he'd become a true hero in the war against Thanos. But despite all of those things and also because of them,, he still has so many insecurities, so much emotional, mental, and physical damage to work through. His mind is not like the rest of ours. He has gone through relentless torment and pain" Steve continues, he explains more indepth and we sit there for what seems like hours. I feel completely knowledgeable about what happened to Bucky now.

"So, when everything was finally at rest. I had Bruce help me with time travel. And I went back and lived with Peggy until it was time to return. Seconds for them, a lifetime of love for me." Steve smiles remembering his time. I smile too, knowing what its like to find the one you're meant to be with.

"I asked Bucky to come with me, to come back and live where we were supposed to. But he said no, he told me he doesn't belong there anymore, they wouldn't understand what he was. And he wasn't wrong. They probably would have no clue how to deal with an arm built like that. He told me that he was going to find a way to disconnect himself. To build himself a new arm that he is in complete control of. So he went to the top agency for weaponry in the country" Steve finishes the story, gesturing in my direction.

"And somehow the mission we were sent on was connected to HYDRA. I don't understand how the Captain had no clue about this" I say out loud. Steve raises his eyebrows and shrugs.

"It seems like maybe they are not ones to trust either. How long has that Captain been in charge at your agency" Steve asks me.

"About 3 years now I believe, they came in about a year before Bucky was hired." I say, furrowing my eyebrow at how close of a coincidence that was. I look back at Steve,

"So what now, how am I supposed to help him against Hydra?" I ask him.

"That is going to have to be something you and your team figure out for yourself. I've given you all the information you need to move forward now, but unfortunately I can't help you any further." Steve explains. I nod my head, already starting to brainstorm my next plan.

"I have one more question" I say, and Steve nods as if to say continue.

"Why haven't you written Bucky back? He doesn't believe you're even there for him" I ask. Steve lets out a sigh and shifts in his chair.

"Well, to start, I don't want any mail coming from this address. Accepting the mail from him in the first place was risky if some sneaky mail carrier had decided to look inside. They do that sometimes" he tells me. "But, I also knew that this part of his journey needed to be figured out on his own. You know besides the Russians coming back for him. But the finding a new agency and a new arm and a woman" he pauses and gestures to me. My heart skips a beat, I love knowing that Bucky cares so much for me, enough to send his old friend all about me. Steve continues, "I've helped where I can. And if you succeed, which I really hope you do. Then bring him here, please. I'd like to tell him in person how proud I am of him," Steve finishes. I smile and nod, placing my hand on top of his and looking him in the eyes.

"I promise I will do everything I can." I say and gently squeeze his hand. Steve smiles and nods at me covering my band with his other one.

"I know you will"