James can't really remember being Bucky, no matter how hard he tries. It isn't that he doesn't want to, not really, but the memories just slip away from him. Yasha is much closer to the surface and, though it's still difficult, he starts to remember a lot more. He finds where Natalia lives and makes himself at home in her apartment. When she gets back from her mission she doesn't say anything about his surprise visit, just raises an eyebrow.
"Vodka's under the sink."
He asks her not to tell Steve. He’s not sure why it’s so important, but it is. He doesn’t want to see Captain America. Not yet. Not when he still doesn't know who Steve might be facing. She doesn't seem pleased about it, but agrees. She goes on another mission less than three days later and he's alone.
He starts to remember a lot more, triggered by the smallest things: a child crying outside, the curtains billowing in Natalia's bay window. He finds ways to make himself busy. He learns to cook by watching food channels and changes the sheets on all the beds (Five exit points: three large windows, fire escape...). He even starts to carve little wooden animals with Natalia's vegetable knife (She gives him a look and pointedly takes it off him. Wherever she keeps it after that, he can't find it again. Not for lack of trying).
Bucky's there, now, in the back of his mind, sitting in his consciousness like a stone, but he still can't quite pick it up. If anything, it annoys him even more than before.
The nightmares get worse. As Yasha slips through more and more (Natalia was always fond of ballet shoes. He bought some for her once. For a mission, he thinks, but...), so does the Winter Soldier. He wakes screaming, thrashing and fighting his way out of the electric chair, the cryo chamber. Out of the snow.
Natalia is always there (Natasha now. Natasha, Natasha, Nat...), strangely soothing for a spy. She treats him like a child, stroking his hair and never shouting. She tells him about the missions they went on together until his breathing is back under control and then slips away into the night - "Goodnight, James. Sleep well." If she's being sarcastic, he can't tell. She's not even angry when he breaks her guest bed with his mad flailing, simply holds her own bedroom door open and says,
"At least we've done this before."
He doesn't sleep that night, unsure whether he want to curl away from her or towards her in the ridiculously soft bed.
Eventually, the day comes when Nick Fury needs him for a mission.
"It's not just Fury", Natasha says with a smile he can never quite understand. "We could all use a bit of help."
All. That means him, too, and James feels suddenly, startlingly angry. She shouldn't force him into this, he's not ready, he's not ready, he's not-
"James? You'll need one of these."
He hasn't picked up his gun in the two months he'd been with Natasha.
Somehow, he thought it might feel awkward now, might no longer fit. It slips easily into his hand, a little smaller than his ideal rifle but that was long gone now. The gun she gives him will shoot almost as well at distance, is a little heavier, perhaps, but he finds it strangely familiar, nonetheless. His fingers close around the handle and the Winter Soldier and Black Widow walk out together.
They walk into chaos.
Robots, aliens, a secret army - he doesn't really care what they are. He has a mission again.
Over their comm links, someone is relaying information across the field. [Iron Man is keeping the big one distracted across Central Park. Copy.] The Winter Soldier swings himself up onto the fire escape of the nearby building and starts shooting. Whatever they are, bullets work just fine.
He loses track of Natasha after a while [Need some help with that party of yours, Stark?] [Does this look like a party to you? Does it look like I'm having fu- Yes, Yes, can you just-!] and focuses instead on his kill-count. It's actually easy, routine. His brain switches off and lets his body do what it wants. Duck, swipe, leap back, hit...
[I- I could use a bit of help here, guys!]
And he stops.
From deep in the back of his mind, Bucky surges forwards and the Winter Soldier takes a deep breath. Steve, Bucky's voice whispers. That's his name, the man on the bridge. The man in blue.
He knew it, before. He’d gone to the Smithsonian ten or eleven times before moving in with Natasha. James has an idea, vaguely, of who Steven Grant Rogers is, what he was, perhaps. But Bucky knows Steve better than he knows himself. He knows all of Rogers’ tells, his ticks, that he always sleeps with one hand curled around the pillow. He knows how to move around Steve on the battlefield, moving with him in perfect unison, responding to unreadable cues.
He knows how Steve sounds when he’s losing.
James turns and runs.
Steve, battling valiantly, has been cornered in one of the subway stations. Franklyn Avenue. James launches himself into the fight, bringing out his knife and slicing through the army's ranks to get to him. Steve.
His mind whispers it constantly now, a hum of approval, of desperation, that he hadn’t felt for years.
Steve’s bloodied and dusty but still standing, nothing broken. He sees James coming towards him and his eyes widen in shock but he pushes the moment aside and starts to work towards him, towards the stairs. They meet in the middle.
"Thanks. I..."
He looks lost and it's wrong. He looks like a child for a moment, so James says the first thing that comes to mind.
"I know. You had 'em on the ropes."
He isn't sure who's more surprised.
Steve beams at him but says nothing. He's grateful for that.
The tide has turned when they emerge back into sunlight. Tony Stark is yelling something over the comm link and Natasha's ally - Barton, she said - is yelling back. It doesn't sound particularly serious. He doesn't listen.
Steve looks around as though noticing their surroundings for the first time and groans, then starts to laugh. It’s a terrible, coughing sound, blood still in his lungs from a particularly hard jab from one of the creatures, but he’s healing already.
James doesn't get the joke. Hysteria, maybe? No visible head wound – In the back of his mind, Bucky starts laughing. Apparently, he gets the joke. James squashes the urge to laugh along, staring around at unfamiliar buildings missing walls and windows. He pushes Bucky back into his little box and scowls for good measure.
Natasha finds them shortly after, looking exhilarated. There's blood matted in her hair and on her knuckles, but she doesn't look too much worse for wear so he pushes the worry aside.
Steve looks between them, reads an exchange in their glances. He looks suddenly uncomfortable.
"I need to find Stark," he says. He leaves.
"What happened back there?" Natasha asks, but it isn't really a question he can answer. He knows what she means, remembers the feel of his voice, suddenly so alien, when he had spoken to Steve. Just your natural Brooklyn charm a memory says with Steve's voice. He frowns again. The image he gets looks... wrong. Steve didn't look like that. He was bigger, taller. Wasn't he? Or... was this the different version?
"James?"
She promised him, in the early days, that if he ever lost control again - really lost control – she would put him down. He thinks she’ll keep her promise, if it's ever necessary. He hopes she will.
He shakes his head.
"I need to talk to St- Captain America. I need to talk to him."
She nods. Pauses. She chances a smile.
"I'll check in with Fury, let him know the situation is back under our control."
"Right."
She’ll probably grill him later, when he gets back to her apartment, in that uniquely silent way of hers. He doesn’t know what he’ll tell her. The truth, perhaps; she has her own ways of getting information. Asking is a courteousy. But first he needs to know what that truth is.
He turns and walks away, after Steve’s retreating back.