out of the woods.

“I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again… I’ll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment."

   - Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass.

Six months ago, he was beating Steve to death in a crumbling helicarrier. Drugged to the gills, consumed by orders he had no choice but to comply with. Six months ago, Steve Rogers was his mission. He could not eat or sleep or do any of the things required for basic human function until Steve Rogers was dead. Confirmed. Agent Romanoff and Sam Wilson too. He was single-minded, driven; he was the Winter Soldier. 

Now he's just Barnes, sitting in the back of a quinjet while Romanova provides them with a level landing. 

It’s his first mission after D.C. 

His: Bucky, The Asset, Barnes. His first mission with the Avengers. He’s not the Winter Soldier and he’s not Sarge. He’s a man with a Sig Sauer and a metal arm that renders his attempt at anonymity redundant. There is that veil of Stark’s that makes his tin can of an arm look like the real deal, but damn, it itches, and he can’t beat Barton’s shot count when he’s too busy scratching his fake limb. The bastard will gloat for weeks; he can’t have that. 

Steve is actually the only one who calls him Bucky. Romanova blatantly refuses, and the others typically resort to plain, old Barnes, like he’s back in the army all over again. Sergeant Barnes, the AI JARVIS says at every address; if only his creator was so formal – Stark seems hellbent on never calling him the same name twice, not that Barnes (Bucky, Soldat, Asset, Jimmy) is complaining – it keeps things interesting, that’s for sure. 

"Hey, Robocop,” Stark says through the comms. The constant chatter he keeps up would be distracting if not for the fact that he’s grown used to it from living with the man. Background noise can often be helpful on missions like these. “Have you got my six?"

"Sure," Barnes says mildly, taking aim through his scope. He’s got to make this look good, but not so good that they’re a fighter short. Barnes would feel guilty about it but, well, Starks can be very annoying.

"Ow." A bullet plinks against the red and gold of the Iron Man suit. Bucky reloads. "Rude!"

"Oops."

Stark is still airborne, flying in one crooked loop before he’s back to his usual self: complaining. “Now, why would you do that? I gave you my Netflix login.”

Barnes mumbles, “Have to look like I’m on side for a shot or two, in case they recognise me, yeah? Hail Hydra, yadda yadda.” 

In his ear, Barton can be heard snickering. Steve would laugh too, he knows, only he’s Captain America right now, and Cap likes to take these things quite seriously. Barnes isn’t all that worried about disappointing him – he knows from stories told late at night in the tower that the Howling Commandos were given that title for a reason, that there was nothing quiet or subtle about how they carried on. Barnes was part of that, yes, though he doesn’t much remember it. He hopes that the delicate rapport he’s built with this new team has grown to be something like what he’s lost to the holes in his mind. Things are looking up. 

“Good work, Sergeant,” Hill says from the comms room; just to piss Stark off, no doubt. 

And it is good work, because his focus on Iron Man draws HYDRA’s fire elsewhere: to the lightning rod that is Thor – a god, Barnes must remind himself, not just the guy who keeps putting the milk carton back in the refrigerator when it’s empty.

The big guns were not pulled out for this mission – Banner is still in the quinjet, debated not even coming – but Thor claimed to be in need of a vacation, and for some reason razing HYDRA bases on earth with his Avenging companions was what he saw fit for that. Barnes doesn’t pretend to understand the guy, but he appreciates the assist.

Because it had been awkward back at the tower, when Hill announced this mission. Steve had wanted Barnes to stay put, laze around and maybe have lunch with Ms. Potts. But something rang familiar about this particular base, alarm bells going off in the part of his brain that the Winter Soldier occupies. 

Barnes had insisted, clipped and forceful, vehemently that this be a mission he was permitted to go on. Fit to go toe-to-toe with the team’s doubts, with Hill and her ultimate decision, but she had only shrugged and said:

“Keep your shit together and we won’t have a problem.”

Yes, ma’am.

Steve had been a worry wart over it, fretting and making sure that Barnes knew he could back out at any point, or wait on the jet with Banner; that he never actually had to join the team on missions in order to earn his keep at the tower. Steve’s still at it, nagging like he’s prone to, hogging the comms now that he’s still and has no HYDRA agents to concuss with his shield. 

“You good, Buck?” Embarrassing. He could at least switch to a private channel. 

“Confirm, Cap,” he responds, because he’s a damn professional. “Hostiles eliminated. Extraction required for any– ” He looks to the scorched ground surrounding Thor. The God of Thunder is giving Barton a high-five– “ –survivors.”

“Confirm, Sarge,” Hill says. “ETA is twenty minutes.”

“Barnes.” Romanova, with a calmness that rivals Steve’s urgency. She has infiltrated the base’s front in no time at all, Steve clearly making up for his inability to be subtle with some quick arcs of his shield. “We could really use that left hand of yours.”

Barnes smirks, though none can see him. “Thought you’d never ask.”

A drop from his perch and a quick dash across the weed-ridden blacktop, Barnes passes Thor and his nine fallen attackers and leaves him and Barton to tie up any loose ends with the remaining HYDRA agents until cleanup arrives. The grounds are empty, and still it feels like there are threats from every angle. Barnes can’t relax, he can never relax, but at least he can do something.

Stark’s next to the panel at the large, reinforced front door, tapping away at a device he’s stuck to its side. “C’mon, J. This should be child’s play. Cap’s play, even.”

“Apologies, Sir,” JARVIS says, as present on the comms as Hill is. “It appears to have a DNA encryption that I cannot mimic.”

Steve frowns, pouty in a way that used to have his mother heartbroken. "I can just use the shield."

Jesus. Barnes shoves past the small collective. "Move," he says, repeating it when they don't listen. "Move."

He stands by the lock and uses the retinal scanner as if he's done so a million times. It's possible. There are things he can't remember; gaps in his memory, moments that overlap, fake ones too. His palm, then – the right one – flat to the screen, a perfect fit. 

After a moment, the light flashes green and there's a clicking sound. It registers like an echo from a far off room in his brain, like a door that shuts in the deepest parts of a house, a wardrobe inside a closet, behind a locked door. He knows this sound; he may even know this place. He may have once haunted it. 

“Split up,” Steve says, leading the charge as if his shield can cover them all. “Tony, Nat – take the east wing, bag what’s relevant, destroy everything else. Buck and me’ll cover the rest.”

There are little ways that Steve tries to protect him, when Bucky knows that it used to be the other way around. The east wing is medical, they all know this — Hill told them about it in the briefing; Banner had reiterated it on the quinjet when discussing the possibility that HYDRA could have blood samples; that while the surge of radiation he’d detected on his scanners a day prior was likely due to this elusive sceptre, Agent Romanova’s data dump had signalled this place as a medical research facility, first and foremost. But Barnes won’t argue if it makes Steve feel better about having him here. 

They comb through each floor, though there aren’t many; it’s easy with Steve, like his body recalls this from missions with the S.S.R., even if his mind doesn’t. The vast majority are offices, loaded with filing cabinets and smashed up, archaic computers. They take the stairs to the sub-levels, which seem to outnumber the amount above ground and it is there that Barnes feels the singing of remembrance, a prickle at the nape of his neck, like his name is being called but he can’t quite hear it.

“Alright, Buck?” Steve whispers into the dark. Flashlights are only a hindrance when the serum provides decent night vision. 

“Affirmative.”

“Buck, please…” 

“Weird that they barricaded the place,” he says in lieu of humouring Steve. “Attacked us from the outside. Must be hiding something pretty big, huh?”

Steve sighs, whipping around another corner with his shield for cover. “That, or they’ve already escaped with the sceptre.”

“Then why bother? Gotta be protecting something.” 

They are protecting something, he knows this innately. He just can’t recall what. When he tries to – and he does, because he keeps pushing himself when the others tell him not to – Barnes falters, a misstep that has him bumping into the wall, gun rattling, breaths stuttering. 

The world is white noise until there are hands on his face. The Sold– Barnes, Barnes, Barnes flinches, head knocking against the wall. 

“ –it’s me. Buck, it’s me.”

Buck. That’s him. He’s Bucky and that’s Steve and Steve saved him. He lives with Steve now, in the Avengers’ Tower. With Stark and Banner and Romanova and sometimes Barton, Thor, Sam. The tower has Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan and the lady who keeps the reception desk at night and never says anything about his wandering. The tower is where they are going after this, and when they get there JARVIS will say Welcome home, Sergeant Barnes, and his and Steve’s floor will be warm. It will be safe. It takes longer than he’ll ever admit to convince his mind of this. 

“Okay,” he heaves against Steve’s shoulder. They’ve let their guard down; Barnes is embarrassed. Steve’s gentle hands and patient gaze do nothing to assuage his guilt. “‘M sorry,” he mumbles into the dark.

“There’s nothing to be sorry f– ” 

But he’s spared from Steve’s platitudes by a crackle in the comms. A string of expletives from Stark, even a grunt of pain from Romanova. Barton must have followed them, because he’s huffing too, accompanied by some pretty terrible feedback that means something, or someone, has messed with his hearing aids. 

“Friends,” Thor booms over the crackle. “Do you require an assist?”

Steve taps a finger to his ear, posture wound and ready to pounce. “Hold your position, Thor. Wait for extraction – if we need an assist, we’ll tell you. Nat, I need a sit-rep.”

Her lack of a response is pretty telling, as are the cut-off choking sounds filling the comms.

“JARVIS, they need a location,” Hill barks, and Steve is already moving.

“Sub-level four, east wing, Captain.”

“Got it,” says Steve, and Barnes falls back into place, covering their flank.

Stark’s still got the use of his vocal chords, it seems. "Captain Conscientious, you've kissed a few babies in your day, right?"

Barnes uses his metal arm to pry open the elevator. Steve jumps right down, voice echoing up the shaft. "Come again, Stark?" Barnes follows, landing with a squat and using his hand to shred the next set of doors like two sheets of paper.

"Infants," Stark says, the communication spotty and fizzling, despite the fact that they’re getting closer. He sounds a little breathless too. At least he has the suit to protect him; unlike Romanova and Barton, with all their squishy parts. "You have encountered them, si?”

“What does that have to do with– ” The gears are turning in Steve’s head, and it clearly hits him as they take a sharp corner. “Are there prisoners?”

But Stark doesn’t need to explain, because Barnes is faster than Steve and has taken the distance between them and the east wing in half the time. It wasn’t a conscious choice, nor an action that he can recall doing, but he flings the doors open and gets an eyeful regardless, Steve picking up speed behind him. 

It’s a medical wing, alright. Though that may be stretching the definition, as it’s a lot closer to the kind of thing Barnes grew accustomed to seeing during his time as the Soldier: metal tables sent askew, twitching medics soaked in scarlet and sprawled across the floor, a tank in the corner, perched like an upright coffin. He knows what this is. He knows. It overwhelms, threatens to bowl him over and drown him in any new sense of self he may have managed to achieve, but this is important. He can do this. His… His team is in danger. They need help.

Because they are, each of them, pinned to a different wall by some invisible force; and at the centre of it all, small and barely visible, is… it’s a child. 

Their clothes – a hospital gown – are dripping wet. Water runs from their eyelashes, nose, the shells of their ears. Arms extended straight, quivering at bony elbows, there is no doubt that they are the source of this attack, and yet, they look fit to collapse any second. There’s no correct way to approach this, not anymore. Before, the Soldier might have done something to remedy this – used a gun or a knife or his own hands to complete the mission – but this is just a little kid. The person he is now – that person being Barnes – can’t hurt a kid. 

Steve edges his way around Barnes, calm and collected and the picture of control, despite the fact that not a single one of them knows what they’re dealing with here. On the floor, one of the medics pushes himself up on his palms and makes a grab for the child; Barnes puts a bullet through his left eye before Steve can even lift his shield, and the child doesn’t even blink.

Instead, they take one look at Steve and fling their arms out, sending him flying back into the wall with a resounding thud. He’s held in place there, like all the other Avengers. That assist from Thor would work a real treat, except there’s a part of Barnes that knows, without reason, it wouldn’t. 

“Is this a Code Green, guys? You’re freaking me out, here.” 

No, Barnes wants to say, but the word won’t come out. Similarly, Thor is repeating his prior question and still, the remaining Avengers are being pinned to the wall by a shivering infant. 

So, Barnes does the only thing that occurs to him:

“Put them down. Now.” he says, because he’s not going to hurt a child. Soaking wet and frozen, trapped in a lab, in fucking cryo, by the looks of it. Because it’s his automatic response, a default setting leftover from his previous self, maybe. Steve said he had sisters – three of them. 

By some miracle, it works. Each Avenger is dropped to the ground, with huffs and grunts and cries of pain. 

“We’re good, Brucie,” Stark finally says, free once more to speak. He pulls Barton up off the floor and pretends to dust him off. Steve cautiously makes a beeline for Romanova, but she’s fine. They’re all fine. 

Except for the child, who gapes at Barnes, eyes wide and unbelieving. There is something about them that he can't reconcile; like a surprise when you aren’t expecting it; or a punch to the throat. 

The child takes off towards him at a sprint, across broken glass and fallen scientists. He can sense how the others steady their stances, preparing for impact, but he is the only one who feels it:

Thin arms wrap around his thighs, bare feet find their perch on top of his thick, leather boots. Chin tucked to his hip and eyes wide, they smile. She smiles, Barnes knows, with teeth, bright and beaming and hopeful.

“Papa!” 

Papa. Of all the names he has been given, that’s the last he expected.