The mission had been unsuccessful. The target had escaped and the soldier knew better than to assume his handlers would be accepting of this. He sat with his skin crawling in the dark concrete room - waiting, waiting to be punished. He couldn't place the emotions he was feeling as he waited. Anxiety? Fear? Anticipation? But his thoughts were swiftly interrupted when the door was opened carefully leaving a sliver of silver light on the dark wood floor. A woman had entered the room and was rapidly approaching him. The soldier did not understand why he didn’t feel fear around her - she was a stranger after all - yet still he made no attempt to stop her or acknowledge her presence at all. She drew to a stop in front of him - gently reaching out for his hand - and again the soldier was confused when he found himself giving it to her. “James?” she whispered softly. James? The soldier stared at the woman. He had only ever been referred to as ‘asset’ or ‘soldat’. He didn’t know James. She must have seen the confusion laced onto his features because she gripped his hand tighter and sighed. “Oh James” she said softly tracing patterns into his palm. “Il get you back” she promised. “But for now I need you to remember one thing okay? They’re going to punish you, but everything is going to be okay. I'll come find you later and - and I'll bring you back James I swear” and with that the woman turned and left the room stopping only to smile painfully at him as she reached the door.
It had been so vivid - the dream - that when Bucky woke suddenly, covered in a thin sheen of sweat and tangled in his sheets, he was surprised that the woman he had seen wasn’t there with him. Surprised to find himself still inside his dingy apartment in Romania and not in a dark room in a hydra base.
Panting heavily and still reeling from the dream that had managed to disjoint his fragmented mind even further, Bucky stood up quickly and threw on some clothes so he could get some fresh air.
The midnight streets were silent and brooding as he cut through them trying to string together his thoughts. This dream had been so different to his normal dreams. Instead of being plagued with the memories of past missions - of violent and senseless murder or reeled back into that godawful chair and shocked until he couldn't breathe for screaming - Bucky had found himself in the small dark room he sat in after bad missions while he waited for the punishment from his handlers. He had found himself in the company of a woman who he knew in his heart he knew but couldn't place. His brain was swimming with questions - who was she? Why was she kind to him? How did she know him - she’d called him James? He walked for what felt like hours until his tired feet dragged him back to his apartment. When he got inside before he had even had time to take off his shoes he was reaching for the journal he used to document what he remembered of his past life and the man on the bridge. He wrote about the dream and then sketched the woman on the adjourning page. As he was about to close the book he found his hands automatically titling the drawing ‘Eve’. Eve that was her name! He didn’t know how he knew it but he was certain that was her.
Thousands of miles away a woman sat with Steve Rogers listening to him tell her all about his best friend Bucky Barnes and hiding the pain it brought to her to hear it. Thousands of miles away Evelyn Roberts waited for her James to remember her.