Daybreak
The Winter Soldier stalked through the alleyway his target had foolishly ducked into, thinking he could escape. The tall, dirty buildings on either side cast deep shadows, so dark even his enhanced eyes strained to see. The rough tread of his boots absorbed the noise of his steps as he finally reached his quarry. The man stood ready to fight, his face cast in shadow but his fists were raised. Up close, he was much smaller than he’d been on the street.
Another opponent appeared from the gloom. He threw a punch, catching the other man in the jaw. He caught himself on the wall and weakly resumed his fighting stance. His target was clearly going to lose. For some reason, The Soldier didn’t like that.
“I can do this all day,”
No, this wasn’t right.
The Winter Soldier raced across the rooftop, fleeing the scene. He had lost this target in the street but had managed to find him in the apartment. The other man was chasing him, and he knew he was getting closer. Somehow this man was able to keep up with him. That was unusual. He lept from the rooftop, letting his momentum carry him down to the other. But he never hit the other roof.
He kept falling. The frigid air was clawing at him as he fell. High above he could see something metallic passing by. A figure clung to it. He was still falling. Faster and faster but he never seemed to hit the bottom. He knew that he was going to die and was vaguely aware that he was screaming.
Something gripped him by the shoulder and shook him. He was ripped from his dream by the figure next to him. His body went into fight or flight. He grabbed the woman and flipped her onto the bed, putting himself on top of her. She looked frightened, but not as much as they usually were.
“Bucky?” She tried slowly.
He loosened his grip but kept his hand on her neck. He could feel his breath sawing in and out of his chest. His heartbeat still hadn’t calmed down from the dream.
“Are you… you again?”
He looked down at her. His memory felt a little fuzzy, the past few weeks were a complete blur, but she was familiar. She’d had the book. She’d given him orders and he’d obeyed. But she had also been kind, given him fresh clothes, tried to give him choices, and insisted he take the bed.
She was his handler. But she didn’t act like one.
He released her and stepped off the bed, walking back into the wall with his hands over his face. He could hear her sit up but not say anything. Was she Hydra? She really didn’t seem like Hydra.
“Barnes,” She tried again, no one from Hydra ever used that name, “Are you good?”
No . That name didn’t feel right. It didn’t fit, like it was just a little too tight. He knew it, of course he knew it, and some other, distant part of him was screaming that it was right. God his head felt like it was spinning. Like it was simultaneously too full and hollowed out. He felt like he was going to be sick. He walked into the bathroom and caught himself on the countertop.
The face in the mirror wasn’t his. It belonged to Hydra. They had marked him with that silver arm, the mechanical hand that was gripping the linoleum. There was a small scar gracing his left cheekbone. He could recall his mask digging in, drawing blood, leaving that mark.
He wasn’t Hydra’s attack dog. The thoughts and feelings that were usually a distant impulse were front and center. But the other, the one who went by that name, he wasn’t there. It was just him, the soldier, yet he was still in control. It felt strange.
The soldier tried to reach for those other memories, the older ones. But they slipped from his grasp. So he turned back to the recent ones. His training, his missions, Hydra. Those were still there. Yesterday was still there. He had tried to kill the woman before she had said the words. She’d used him. Then she’d taken him here and cleaned him up. She’d given him a name - Ren. Her name was Ren.
All of the questions she’d asked pointed toward her not being Hydra. It even seemed like… she wanted to help him. That seemed unlikely. Ren still sat on the bed, watching him. That old, buried bit of him wanted to trust him. But the soldier wasn’t too sure. He started small, “I’m not Barnes,”
Her eyebrows raised and she looked confused. He tried to explain again, “He… I think he’s in here too, but… It’s just me right now,”
“Me being… The Winter Soldier?” Ren asked him, she seemed hesitant.
“No. Well, kind of… I think,”
She nodded and let out a breath. Her eyes were on the floor, “Could be a good thing. Or I really fucked up those trigger words,”
That drew a small chuckle from him. More of an exhale than anything, “Your Russian needs work,”
She smiled in surprise, guess he didn’t make many jokes as The Winter Soldier. He was pretty sure he wasn’t The Winter Soldier right now, but he knew he wasn’t Barnes either. He remembered something from the day before, “New York, you said we’re going there, right?”
“Yeah, once we find Sam and Steve,”
A memory tickled the edge of his consciousness, “Have I… met them, before?”
Her gaze turned appraising, “I knew that you’ve met Steve, you used to know him, and I’m pretty sure you and Sam met. You guys kinda fought on the street and at the triskelion,”
That’s right, those two and… Red hair. She had looked like Natalia, fought like her too. But she was dead.
He had known Steve. He couldn’t remember how, but he knew Steve. That felt right. Steve had tried to talk to him. Maybe they wanted to help him. Maybe they wanted to use him too. But he wanted to trust Ren and if she wanted to find them, perhaps he should help her.
…
After being caught up on Sam and Steve’s situation, he and Ren spent the next few hours trying to figure out where they could be. From what she was able to gather there were rumors of Captain America in the southern region of Czechia, but no one had seen him for a few days. That only appeared to worry her more.
“Hydra has a base near there,” He offered, “In Sokovia,”
“Sokovia? Why would they want a base there? It’s not exactly an important place,”
He shrugged, “I think that was kind of the point,”
She stopped her pacing and braced her hands on the table to look into his eyes, “Do you think they have them, brought them there?”
He considered it, “It sounds like they were pretty sure Hydra was aware of them, and if they were planning on bringing me to the base here, it would be smart to hold them elsewhere,”
“Then we go to Sokovia,”
So they packed up their meager belongings and got dressed. It felt strange to wear ordinary clothes. They were thin and had no advantage in a fight. But they were comfortable. He chose the black shirt, uncomfortable in the brighter colors. The leather jacket made him feel more protected… and he liked how he looked in it. Ren was dressed similarly. Dark jeans, a grey top, and a black leather jacket. She was looking at a box and had a look of contemplation. Eventually, she pulled out a small handgun and tucked it into the waistband of her jeans.
“You’re shooting could use a little work,” He commented.
“Oh yeah?” She challenged, “I think I did pretty good for someone without any training,”
“It almost flew out of your hands when you pulled the trigger,”
“You try shooting a gun for the first time, it isn’t easy,”
“That’s why practice,” He told her, “I didn’t become a sniper overnight,”
He froze. There was a memory there, nestled in the trees watching… someone’s back. Damn, it was already gone. She was watching him again. Hydra certainly would’ve given an agent like her firearm training. They probably wouldn’t have tried to kill her either. If they were going to be working together, he at least wanted her to know how to hold a gun.
He walked back towards her, “Here, let me show you,”
Ren pulled the gun out and held it out to him. Instead of taking it, he repositioned her right hand. He placed the back of the handle in the crook between her thumb and forefinger, making sure to keep her index finger off the trigger for now. He reached around to grab her left hand. Standing like this he realized how much smaller she was than him. With her height and confidence, she made herself seem bigger. But he easily eclipsed her, his hands reached past her own and he could see over her head. He ducked down a little to speak in her ear. Wrapping her left hand just below the right,
“You want to keep the top hand here,” He positioned his hand over hers, “So that the slide doesn’t catch it,” He raised his other hand too, “Left hand like this to keep the gun steady,”
Suddenly he stood in a different room, his arms were around a different girl. Instead of a gun, she held a wooden rod - Pool Cue - that buried part of his mind supplied. They were laughing and there was music. He felt… happy.
A sharp blink brought him back to the present and the stark contrast of the moment hit him. His left arm bothered him the most. The cold metal on her warm hands, it shouldn't have been like that. He let go of her quickly and stepped back. She turned around, looking concerned.
“Are you ok?”
He must have looked as startled as he felt. “Yeah… yeah. I just, I think I remembered something,”
“What was it?”
“Nothing important,” He assured her, “It was, it might’ve been… a date. I was showing her how to play pool,”
Ren grinned, “You know, I heard you were a bit of a playboy back in the day,”
He felt stricken, a playboy? That couldn’t be true. Oh no, did she think, “I swear I wasn’t trying to-”
She only laughed and lightly whacked him on the shoulder, “I know you’re not flirting with me Barnes, and you were right, my gunmanship needs a lot of work. But maybe we should save the rest of the lesson for later.
…
If it were possible to miss anything about Hydra, he missed their resources. The pair pushed their way through the crowded marketplace. Although he had tried to convince her to go around, Ren had insisted on going straight through. There was a car rental agency presumably on the other side of this mess. It would’ve been easier for him to steal a car, but she had been against it. Didn't want to ‘leave some random person without their car when they could just rent one’.
The worst part wasn’t all the people crowding them, it was the lingering urge to protect her. He knew it was just a remnant of the winter soldier programming, but every time someone jostled Ren a little too hard he had to fight the impulse to grab them.
He lost sight of her for a second when she ducked over to one of the stalls. “Why are we stopping?” He asked after catching up to her.
“Because it looks suspicious if we don’t,” She insisted primly.
He suspected it had more to do with the jewelry on display. Instead of arguing he crossed his arms and leaned against the edge of the stall.
“Aren’t these cute?” She asked.
In her hands were two bracelets. They were made of simple wooden beads and held together by a black cord. Not as flashy as some of the other options, but he couldn’t see the point.
“They’re impractical,” He informed her, “They could snag or get in the way. If it fell off it would leave too much evidence,”
“Yeah just what I was thinking,” She turned to the woman in the stall, “I’ll take both, please,”
He surveyed the street while the exchange was completed. It was a waste of both money and time, but she seemed excited by it. When he turned back she was holding one of the bracelets in his direction. He stared at it. She smiled, “It’s for you. You don’t have to wear it or anything but, it’s yours,”
She seemed a little hesitant, was she regretting offering it to him? Or was it some kind of test to see what he would do?
He chose to accept the bracelet but put it into his pocket. While she brightened at him taking it her smile dimmed a little when he didn’t put it on. But there was no negative reaction, so he must’ve made the right choice. Or he was overthinking it.
They were nearly out of the market when she stopped again, this time at a fruit stand. At least this choice was reasonable. She grabbed a few apples and was examining some cherries when another fruit caught his attention. Plums. He liked plums. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but it felt like a fact. Eyeing the fruit he contemplated asking her to get some. He wasn’t sure how she would react to that. She would probably just buy them, but he couldn’t get himself to form the words.
He felt something being pressed into his hand. He looked down to discover a few crumbled bills that Ren had handed him. She gave the plums a pointed look, “Gotta eat,”