Journey to the Past
Friday rolled around with expectable routine. Since there was, thankfully, not much to do that required your immediate attention, you didn’t even have to make up some flimsy excuse for leaving early. You picked up some lunch on the way home, just something simple and sating, and went to change from your stiff office wear into something more casual as soon as you were done eating. You and your roommate were ready to head out and discover the mystery of Captain America before long.
You had noticed how he tended to hide behind his long hair, especially when outside. At home he would often use one of the hair ties you’d given him to keep it out of his face, but outside he used it almost like a shield. And today, with you two going out well into the public, where there would be masses of people around, you could almost feel the apprehension roll off of him in waves. But he’d wanted this, and he was going to push himself beyond his fear, which you found very brave.
“Here, take this.” You said, placing an old, plain baseball hat on his head. You had briefly contemplated wearing one as well, but then again you didn’t want to look too suspicious, or worse, like a pair of tourists. Also you were having an exceptionally good hair day. Those should never be wasted, ever. After checking that your purse contained everything you might need, you left for the museum.
He realized his mistake too late, only when he recognized the structure you were headed towards to be a train station. On the short walk there he’d been too caught up in his feelings of trepidation, peppered with a lingering suspense at what he might find out at the museum. His thoughts strayed to the man in the tri-color suit, Captain America, only to come to a stuttering halt when the train station came into view. It was his fault, too. In all the things he’d shared with you, this hadn’t been something he could bring himself to mention yet.
“What’s the matter?” you asked gently, noticing his shallowing breath and rigid posture. “Is everything alright?”
“I… the last time I was on a train didn’t end …very well.” He answered vaguely, inwardly trying to fight down his rising anxiety.
“Oh…” you said, immediately sifting through your memory to determine whether you should have known that. “We can take a cab. Would that be better? Parking’s a nightmare downtown, so I’d rather not take the car…”
“How long?” he ground out between clenched teeth, a sort of determination not be defeated by something as mundane as public transport coursing through him. Besides, cab drivers could be used to identify them, identify him – a bit of digging could lead a persevering pursuer right to your doorstep – not something he was willing to risk. He could do it, he needed to go and see for himself whether what the man had told him on the falling Helicarrier had any truth to it.
“How long would the train ride be?” you asked. He nodded stiffly. “Oh, let’s see… a good quarter of an hour on the Red, then we change to either of the connecting lines for another five or so minute ride, or take the bus from there. I think that’s the 74, but I’d have to look it up.”
He made the calculations in his head, willfully splitting the numbers to be as undaunting as possible. A little more than a quarter of an hour plus five minutes or slightly less. A total of about twenty minutes, in any case less than half an hour. The two of you had been standing in this spot for at least five minutes while he fought to get a grip on himself again. That hadn’t really been that long. Only four times as long as you two had stood there, and you would be with him the whole way. He could do this, he had to. He couldn’t let HYDRA win, not with metro train lines in various colors.
“Let’s go. I’ll manage, it’s fine. Let’s go.” He urged, with forced deliberation, before lacing his fingers with yours for support.
“Only if you’re really sure.” You replied, your tone leaving no room for argument. He took a deep breath and held your gaze for a moment before answering.
“I am. Let’s go.”
After that, the ride was surprisingly uneventful and the museum somewhat less than what could count as crowded. Still you somehow managed to lose him within minutes of getting there and locating the Howling Commandos exhibit. You’d only turned for a second, trying to get your bearings in order to discern where best to start. When you turned back around, the spot beside you was empty and you only just saw a flash of long brown hair under a nondescript baseball hat moving purposefully towards an engraved glass wall. Hot in pursuit, and with some grumbly admonitions on your lips, you wove through the throngs of people who had the infuriating talent to block the way just so that it took you some minutes to catch up with him. You were just about to chew him out a bit for wandering off when your eyes fell on the glass wall, which was engraved with some text and a larger-than-life portrait photo. Your eyes widened as they took in the features of a solemn-looking young man.
“What the actual hell?” you whispered, head snapping back and forth between the display and the man staring at it so intensely you wouldn’t have been surprised had he started burning holes into the thing. It was like a surreal live version of one of those ‘spot the difference’ riddles, one monochrome, one living breathing life flesh and blood, hair long here, short there, a generous dusting of scruff here, clean-shaven there, a notable difference in the eyes, though the expression retained enough familiarity. There was no difference in him now that could not be accounted for by the passing of time. The narrator’s voice drifted overhead. ‘Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country.’ Now this you had not expected.
So far he had not responded to you in any way beyond giving you an unreadable look. You kept your voice low so as not to draw attention from any of the other visitors. You couldn’t begin to think what would happen if a roomful of museum goers suddenly found a supposedly fallen WW2 hero in their midst.
“I’m not going crazy right?” you muttered thickly, “That’s you isn’t it?”
“Occam’s Razor would suggest…” he began mechanically, voice faltering for a moment, but he caught himself before you could interrupt. “The simplest possible explanation is the one most likely to be correct, so… yes, I think that is me. It must be.”
“Holy shit!” you replied, your head reeling as you struggled to process this new development. James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes. You dimly recalled a few lessons on Captain America and his Howling Commandos from your Middle School days. You had been in hospital when your teacher organized his routine ‘Howling Commandos Project Week’ but hadn’t Skye done some sort of presentation? Normally you would have helped her but your acute appendicitis prevented you. Other than that the photos in your textbooks had been very grainy. Besides, it’s not like you’d expect someone who’s supposed to have died some 70 years ago to come tumbling in through your window.
James (Bucky? What were you even supposed to call him now?) had gone white and tense, massaging his no doubt aching temples.
“Let’s step outside a moment. You look like you could need a breather.” You suggested and went to gently guide him back to the corridor outside the exhibit. He followed you almost automatically until you passed by a screen-covered wall showing the transformation the super soldier Serum had wrought upon Steve Rogers. There he stopped dead in his tracks, eyes glued to the image of the wiry youth Steve Rogers had been before becoming Captain America. He’d told you of one recurring memory he’d had so far, that of a skinny little runt of a boy with blond hair, blue eyes and too much fire in his belly. He’d said the boy was important, that he was quite certain they grew up together, that he might have been a friend. You put the pieces together the same moment the words ‘That’s the boy from my memories’ left his mouth. In the light of the previous revelation, of course, this made sense. Still, it was a lot to take in the space of a few minutes.
And then the image changed to tall, fit, picture-perfect Steve Rogers staring stoically into the middle distance. You heard the breath catch in James’ (Bucky’s?) throat and felt him seize up beside you, his grip on your hand turning just tight enough to be slightly painful.
“No!” he breathed, voice thick with agitation. Of course! The Winter Soldier had fought Captain America aboard those Helicarriers, and once in the streets just the day before. HYDRA must have messed with his head big time for him not to recognize the other man then. But now, here, he realized that the man he had been ordered to kill and almost succeeded in doing so, and the boy he had grown up with were one and the same.
He didn’t offer any resistance when you led him outside and found a spot at the far end of the corridor where you would be reasonably undisturbed. A few people shot you worried glances, but you waved them off, positioning yourself so that no one would be able to see his face.
He had sunken down on a bench, face buried in his hands and trembling. You allowed him and yourself a moment before attempting to speak again.
“I don’t suppose it makes much sense to ask whether you’re okay.” Honestly, you were reeling a bit yourself. It was a lot to take in.
He gave a choked sound, not unlike the one all those weeks ago in the hospital when he’d first woken up again.
“We could go back home,” you suggested timidly, gently rubbing his shoulder in soothing circles, “That’s a lot to process. We can come back another time.”
“It’s a permanent exhibit.” You added uselessly after a long pause.
His head was bursting. It hadn’t been this bad since the incident that had you both end up on the roof, only this time the swirl of flashes of images, sounds, emotions, smells even was more vivid than any he’d experienced. It was almost as if the discovery here at the museum had unlocked something in his mind. He felt like he’d been trying to reach a box high on a shelf fruitlessly and now that it had finally tipped over the contents were threatening to bury him underneath their weight. It was painful, both mentally and physically. It was overwhelming; unorganized scraps of memories shooting through his brain – he needed to make sense of it all or it would drive him insane. The man whose name he still didn’t know – this explained why he couldn’t kill him, why he had needed to drag him to the shore as if the fate of the world itself depended on it. The man whose name was Steve (and didn’t that sound just so familiar? That name, always at the tip of his tongue like a word you know that you know but are just unable to grasp and vocalize) – he’d almost killed him. He was his friend. He hadn’t wanted to fight, that he remembered clearly because it mystified him to no end. Each move had been reluctant, aiming to inflict as little damage as possible. On the Helicarrier, the man (Steve, he repeated to himself like a mantra, he was never allowed to forget that name again) had aimed with each move to knock him out, not to take him out. And oh, he hadn’t realized then, the Winter Soldier had been unable to compute his target’s strange behavior, but he did now, at long, long last. That was the most painful part. He had hurt and almost killed Steve while Steve had done everything in his power not to harm him more than absolutely necessary.
He needed, more than anything, to go back inside the carefully arranged rooms of the exhibit and face it. He’d won against the goddamn train already, surely he could pull himself together enough for this. Through sheer force of will, he evened out his breathing and stood, looking down at your worried, surprised face as if nothing was wrong.
“I’m fine. Let’s go back inside.” You searched his eyes for a moment, the nodded mutely.
The two of you returned and slowly walked through the exhibit from the beginning, taking your time with every display case, every text, each and every screen.
In one of the media show rooms, where old interviews were playing on a loop, you paused, taking seats in the back. The footage showed a very beautiful brunette woman who spoke with an English accent. He stirred in his seat next to you, leaning forward and furrowing his brows as he studied the woman on the screen intently.
“You know her?” you asked. His frown deepened. “Her hair was longer.” He said in lieu of a more direct answer. He glanced at the subtitle box, silently mouthing the information in contained: ‘Peggy Carter, 1953’.
“53.” He repeated, louder this time yet still barely audible, “That’s almost ten years difference, yet she looks just the same – except for the hair. Her hair was longer when I knew her.”
He let out a small noise of frustration as his eyes darted between the wall with the names of all the Howling Commandos and the large mural showing their faces and uniforms. You were glad the crowds had thinned out by now; the two of you were almost alone in that part of the exhibit, save for an elderly security guard who stood at the opposite side of the room and appeared to be napping or at least dozing.
You gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, dimly aware that neither of you had let go since you’d found him by his exhibit wall. He gave you a sidelong glance before glaring back up at the walls.
“I know these men, I know that I know them, yet I can’t even place their names. These,” he jabbed a gloved finger up at the wall with the names, “mean nothing to me.” He let out that small frustrated noise again, gently pulling you along as he stepped over to the wall with the mural and the uniforms. The thing wasn’t even that he didn’t know them. When he read those names and saw those faces they definitely weren’t new to him, but there was that hollow feeling again. Like he ought to know what those names and faces meant, how they figured into his story, but his brain just couldn’t make the necessary connections.
He frowned up at the serious faces above, up alongside there with his own, rubbing his free hand over his temples and forehead as if to drag out the memories forcibly. He mouthed the names while his eyes darted back and forth, unable to connect them correctly. You could feel his growing agitation and suddenly you knew with the clarity of a crisp spring morning that he would snap or have another episode right there in the middle of the museum if you didn’t do something.
“Don’t worry about the names, tell me what you do know.” You said, bringing him back onto a single, manageable track. He stilled, starting to turn around to you but not completing the motion. You squeezed his hand again, your thumb rubbing small comforting circles over his knuckles, though he probably couldn’t even feel that through the metal. “I can tell you remember things. Focus on that for now. Tell me those – no filter, just say what comes to your mind. The rest will come in time.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again and fixing them once more on the display.
“He was from Oxford, and he had an older sister who would send him fruit whenever she could. That didn’t happen often, but he would share everything with us, always.” He gestured up at the picture of the young man with the red beret and the thin mustache.
“He was the only one of us who was married; his wife fought in the Résistance.” His face was scrunched up in concentration, but his voice was calm and sure as he pointed at the dark-haired man on the far left.
“He was the only one of us with a college degree, from Howard University. He spoke at least three languages; I always thought he was probably the smartest among us.” He said, looking up at the portrait of the handsome young black man who you knew to be Gabe Jones. “Then again he voluntarily stayed with this band of loons, so maybe not.”
“He always wore this hat because it was the only thing he had left of his father. He said it was his lucky charm.” Your eyes followed his to regard the man with the bowler hat and the bushy blond mustache, listening intently. He took a stride to the side, tugging you along, purposely ignoring Captain America (still suit-less) and himself in the display, before coming to stand just in front of the image of the Asian man on the left side of the display.
“His parents owned a candy store in Fresno before the war. Jim and I were the only ones who could appreciate a good strong cup of coffee, none of that sugar and cream nonsense.” He turned to you slightly, a small smile tugging at his lips; he looked almost relaxed then. “He’d have been a big fan of your coffee, too.”
You grinned in response, before a small thought registered in your brain, causing you to knit your brows together in thought. “Jim?” you questioned.
“Huh?”
“You just called him Jim. ‘Jim and I were the only ones’ and so on.”
“I did?” he must not have noticed, engrossed as he had been in recounting seemingly random details just a moment earlier.
“Yeah.”
“…Oh.”
“Told ya!”
The sky was already darkening when you finally left the museum building, spending some time going through the other exhibits to try and seem more inconspicuous. You had spent the whole day there, and by now you could feel the exhaustion throughout your body, from your aching feet to through your tense back and neck muscles and up to your drooping eyes. The two of you left just before a security guard could approach you to politely usher you out. Once back out in the open, you both felt the hollowness in your stomachs, and made a small detour on the way to the train station to pick up some burgers and fries. You walked in silence, though a comfortable one, as you processed the events of the day, all its revelations and surprises. You boarded the train, which was thankfully rather empty and found a compartment near the end of the carriage, where you flopped down tiredly, stretching out your legs.
“So, what do I call you, now that you have a name again? James?” you inquired, taking a bite of your burger. It was a lovely, timeless name, though you found it a bit formal.
“If you want…” he was pensive, but not tense. It was a lot to compute, but he was handling it extremely well, you thought.
“Jamie?” No reply but the characteristic dubious look of mild disapproval, though you fancied it was becoming softer, somewhat more indulgent.
“Maybe later.” You mumbled to yourself, taking a sip of your milkshake and popping some fries in your mouth immediately after.
“James?” you addressed him some time later, after you had sat some time in silence on the train that was taking you back home. You gave his hand a gentle squeeze in case he didn’t react to the name alone. He looked startled for a second, still growing used to having his name back, like it took him a moment to work out that he was meant.
“Tell me honestly: are you okay?”
“Surprisingly yes. It was… it was good to have that,” he grappled for the right word, “Confirmation, I guess. Now I know he wasn’t lying.” Unlike HYDRA, you supposed.
“Captain Amer- Captain Rogers.” you sought to clarify. Just for the record.
“Steve.” He corrected decidedly, though the gravity of today’s discoveries did nothing to prevent him from attacking his own fries and milkshake with fervor.
You both fell silent after that, looking out the windows at the passing landscape of the city. You were processing the revelations this day has brought. Even if you weren’t actually as stunned as you probably should be, it’s still a lot to take in. You wondered how he – James, you reminded yourself – could seem so calm. You wouldn’t be, you supposed, after finding out that the evil organization who had manipulated and exploited you had also taken away the person you were, carving your personality right out of you and setting you on your best friend. You shuddered, trying to imagine what it might have been like, pictured yourself being sent after Skye – you couldn’t. The notion alone made you sick and you covertly shoved the rest of your fries over to James, your appetite gone.
“Can I ask you something?” you piped up, playing with the zipper of your jacket absently.
“Sure.” He mouthed between finishing his first and starting his second burger, for all intents and purposes disturbingly unfazed (ironic how the tables can turn). You inhaled and exhaled deeply before locking your eyes with his.
“Aren’t you angry?”
He raised an eyebrow, chewing on thoughtfully. You drew your knees up and rested your chin on them, your gaze never leaving him. “I mean with Hydra. If someone, anyone really, pulled half the shit they’ve done to you on me I’d be fucking furious. I’d want to kill them, and make them suffer. I’d want to burn them off the face of the earth.”
He grinned while stuffing his face with the rest of your fries. “Wow, you’re actually slightly terrifying. Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
You pursed your lips and shot him a little glare, regretting for a moment that you had given your fries away and thus were left with nothing to throw at him now.
“I’m just worried about your mental state, dipshit.” You grumbled recalcitrantly. He muttered something under his breath that was inaudible where you sat on the opposite bench and his grin faltered. You immediately resented yourself for pushing; it’s not like open displays of mirth came to him naturally. The fact that the viewing of several of your favorite comedies had elicited not so much as a smirk here and a suppressed snort there bore testament to that. You sighed and buried your face in your hands, rubbing your tired eyes harder than is probably advisable.
“I know, believe me, rationally I know I should be livid. It just… it feels so odd, like all that,” he motioned vaguely in the direction you had come from, towards the museum building, “like all that doesn’t even belong to me. I don’t remember most of it; just enough to know it’s real. The rest is foggy. It’s like the link is missing, like I can’t really connect. It feels like that was someone else’s life. How can I mourn the loss of something I don’t remember having?” He stared down at the wrapping paper and few remaining fries in his lap morosely. That kinda made sense, you supposed, and you untucked yourself and squeezed into the space between him and the window, drawing his head down to rest on your shoulder. He stiffened for a moment before relaxing against you, nuzzling into the crook of your neck with a soft sigh.
“Do you think I’ll ever get that back?” he asked you, his voice low and small. “Any of it? Or is it lost forever?” You wrapped your arm tighter around his broad shoulders, hugging him to you reassuringly.
“I don’t know.” You admitted solemnly. “Maybe it just needs time. I don’t know.”
It's a while after you've gone to bed and although he is exhausted his mind is too overstimulated yet to sleep. He makes a mental inventory of what he's learned about his past, himself, writes it down in his notepad and tries out the once familiar names. It's strange having a name of his own again after so long, and it doesn't taste quite right yet, like eating a familiar meal except that someone's tinkered with the recipe somehow. 'Bucky' especially doesn't feel right at all, and just thinking it sends a sharp jab of pain through his skull with such surety that he begins to theorize that HYDRA might have somehow found a way to attach a trigger to make him forget and keep him from remembering. They were able to make him forget who he was, so he doesn’t put it past them. Besides, he isn't that person anymore. James is good enough for now; Jamie seems too affectionate yet to belong to him, though his stomach jolted a little at how the name rolled from your tongue. He pushes that aside to deal with later. Any other manner of nickname or shortening doesn't ring true, when he thinks 'Jim' the image is that of the spunky Asian man that had been their medic, and 'Jimmy' rings no bells at all. Barnes is too impersonal. It reminds him of the army and the last thing he wants to be right now is a soldier. So James is good enough for the time being.
James Barnes, Sergeant, 32557038, Howling Commando, War Hero, Captain America's wingman and best friend. It feels like an old pair of shoes he has outworn, but of course it all makes sense now, why it had to be him. (Apart from the fact that for some reason he reacted well enough to Zola's serum, well enough meaning mostly not dying.) He understands now, that Bucky Barnes was a symbol perhaps more than he was a person, turning that symbol against itself in a perverted show of force was just so essentially HYDRA, and this is why it had to be him. There is a certain pettiness to ideologies, he reflects while dozing off to sleep at long last, a spiteful tendency towards one-upping their contrary to the point where the opposing side doesn't even have to be aware of it. He grits his teeth, briefly, before relaxing into exhausted slumber. When it comes to spite, he and HYDRA might well be evenly matched. Their first mistake was teaching him to kill so well. Such hubris must be appropriately repaid in time; this is a narrative imperative.