The Winter Soldier took a while to let himself be found. After the events surrounding Project Insight, he had to be sure that the target, Captain America, Steve, was someone he could really trust. There were so many memories, all jumbled together and none of them complete, tumbling their way through his mind. He couldn’t make sense of it all, what was real and what wasn’t. Sometimes it all felt like a dream, only he couldn’t be sure if the dream was his life before or what he was living now.
It kept getting worse, the more he remembered. There’d been a while, he couldn’t be sure of exactly when, but maybe in the 1970’s? Hydra had tested all sorts of drugs on his system. Hallucinations, psychological games, constructed realities to test his reasoning… How was he supposed to even begin to make sense of it all? He’d visited the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian to try and get a handle on at least some of who he used to be. That was where he bought his first notebook.
The exhibit had a few on display, showing doodles or notes Steve had made during the war. They were all on loan from the private Stark collection. The Winter Soldier could only vaguely remember watching Steve sit down and write in them, back when he’d been Bucky Barnes. In the gift shop, there was a ruled notebook bound in blue leather with the Avengers ‘A’ symbol embossed on the front. He bought it and took it back with him to the homeless shelter where he was spending the night, blending in among the faceless masses of those most people wanted to pretend didn’t exist.
Writing down the memories helped. It helped him piece them together and sort through the mess, put them in order and figure out what had really happened. He visited public libraries and used the internet to look up some of the events he remembered being a part of. With the info dump from Hydra, there was more information than ever. Someone was trying to scrub it clean, he could tell, but there was just too much volume.
Four months after the fall of SHIELD, Bucky stepped out of the shadows in an alleyway and into Steve’s path. He knew the guy codenamed Falcon was somewhere above them, and Black Widow, Natalia, had circled around behind. Steve’s feet were placed wide, stance non-threatening but still ready to leap into action if needed. He’d healed well from their fight, but Bucky had known he would. The serum that pumped through Steve’s veins was the real thing, not the knockoff Hydra had used to create him.
“I’m ready,” Bucky spoke gruffy, voice rough from disuse. “I wanna come home, Stevie. I don’t wanna live like this anymore.”
His best friend slammed into him with all the force of a freight train and clung like both their lives depended on it. Bucky wasn’t ashamed to admit he clung back just as hard. Natalia and Wilson had joined them, though it was clear Steve didn’t have any knowledge of their connection and the training Bucky had given Natalia all those years ago, and they’d piled into the Quinjet to head back to New York City.
Steve spent the entire flight chattering away, just like he’d done when they were kids. He told Bucky about the team and how much he’d get along with them, about all the amazing technology and how the world had changed, and, of course, he talked about Tony. Steve talked about Tony a lot. There would come a time, Bucky knew, when he’d be sure to tease Steve about that, but not now. Not yet. Bucky wasn’t there yet. He’d get there, though. He was sure of it.
Of the Avengers team, only three of them were in the tower when Steve and his group returned. Thor was apparently off world (again, Steve had pointed it with a tone of fond exasperation), but Bruce, Clint and Tony would be there to greet them. A sandy-colored, one-eyed yellow lab was there, too. It sprang up from its spot on the couch, laying across Clint’s legs, and bounded toward them. Its booming bark hurt Bucky’s enhanced hearing, but he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for the dog as it jumped on him, pawing at the front of his Henley. Steve’s hand was on the dog’s collar a moment later, hauling it off of him.
“Down, Lucky!” Steve scolded. “Sit!” The dog’s rump hit the floor, tail thumbing away and tongue lolling out of it’s mouth as it grinned at them. Steve gave Bucky an apologetic look. “Sorry about that. He’s not usually so friendly with strangers. He’s probably just excited that we’re finally back.”
Bucky stared.
“That’s…” he wrinkled his nose at the shattered memories attempting to piece themselves back together, like a puzzle that someone had taken scissors to. “That’s my dog.”
“Uh, excuse you,” the short blond-haired man spoke up as he rolled himself off the couch. He was dressed in a coffee-stained t-shirt and boxers. Bucky assumed he was Clint. “That’s my dog. I stole him from the Russian mob. That makes him mine. You can’t have him.”
Bucky frowned.
“Nec,” he called, and the dog leapt right up all over again, nearly yanking his collar out of Steve’s hand.
Bucky took the two steps forward to cross the space between them and knelt down to rub his ears.
“There was a mission in Moscow in… I don’t remember when. But the target was disposed of and the handlers ordered me to kill the dog, too. I didn’t want to. They pushed, I think? One of them pulled a gun on me, so I killed them, took the dog and ran. They sent more agents, but I killed them, too. We… we made it to New York by… by…” he growled in frustration but Nec just stuck his wet, cold nose into Bucky’s face and gave him a slobbery lick, breaking his chain of thought.
He glanced up, but it seemed everyone in the room was frozen as still as a statue, watching and letting him tell his tail. Steve didn’t even look like he was breathing. Clint had his head cocked to the side just a bit. There was a gleam of assessment in his eye that belayed his initial rumpled and lackadaisical appearance. There was intelligence there. Bucky felt like he wasn’t the only one trying to piece together a puzzle.
“By?” Clint prompted.
Bucky shrugged and moved on with his story. He was getting better and ignoring the gaps and letting them fill themselves in later. He’d find the right pieces eventually.
“Hydra caught up to me here, but not before Nec got away. They wanted to put me back on ice, but someone higher up seemed to realize the potential of having an asset that could think and make its own choices. Before that, I’d just been a gun, point and pull the trigger. That was the first time I met Alexander Pierce. He became my new handler.”
Clint’s eyebrows rose, and he let out an appreciative whistle.
“That’s horrible,” he said with feeling. “I can’t believe you named Lucky ‘dog’ in Russian. That’s… even Tony is better at naming things than that.”
Stark gave a squawk of protest, but the tension in the room was broken. Steve finally let go of Nec’s collar, smiling ruefully as the dog sprang forward once again to jump all over Bucky for cuddles. Dr. Banner just seemed to be watching the entire drama play out with mild disinterest and instead struck up a conversation with Natalia when she moved closer. Clint showed no hesitation in crossing the room to get in on the action, tackling Nec and giving him a vigorous rub down that left hair floating in the air like a storm cloud of fur.
“He really likes you,” Clint noted once they were all slumped on the ground, Nec splayed across both of their laps and panting happily.
Bucky hummed in acknowledgement. He was glad Clint had found Nec. He seemed happy and healthy among the Avengers. It was a good place for him. In an odd way, it gave Bucky just a little bit more hope that he might be happy among them, too.
“He’s a good dog.”
“A damn lucky one, too,” Clint said with a grin, clearly making some inside joke that Bucky wasn’t party to. “I hope you’re good at sharing.”
Bucky turned his head to the side and eyed Clint appraisingly. The archer seemed impulsive and abrasive, cocky and reckless. The stories Steve had told about him painted him as a loyal friend that you could trust with your life, but not your coffee cup… or apparently your cell phone. (Bucky hadn’t fully understood that story, but he had definite plans not to let Clint anywhere near any of his gear.) He was irreverent and rude and didn’t give a flying fuck about social conventions.
Bucky thought he could maybe use someone like that in his life.