The impact with the water. The cold water. Cold as ice, that same ice he’d been imprisoned within for so many years before they finally woke him up again. To give him a mission. Like every times before. Like the way it would always be. But that very mission had just sunk into that cold water, right under his nose. The remains of the helicarrier aboard which they were, the two of them, and the same one which was destroyed, a few seconds ago, was sinking along with his mission. Steve. How came that he could even remember his name? The man with a star on his clothes was knocked unconscious by the impact with the cold water. James could see him sinking deeper and deeper. If nothing was done, if the man was not to wake up soon, he would definitively die. Mission complete. But something was bugging the Winter Soldier. That name - that man - it was reminding him of something really important, something that was knocking at the door of his conciousness. Also, why did that man stop defending himself in the middle of their fight? What did he say again? Something like “I’m with you until the end of the line”? That didn’t even make sense and yet, there was definitively something more about it. Something that made the Winter Soldier to hesitate. And that something was... was... It was almost hurting him, but he felt that he was close to the truth. He hesitated because... because...
And then the truth.
"Because Steve."
He let go of his gun and dived. His right hand – his hand made of flesh and not metal – was trying to catch that fading silhouette. All his body was reaching for it actually. And finally he got his hand on the suit. Now, to the surface. The Winter Soldier was swimming fast and strong thanks to his upgraded body. He gasped when he busted out of the cold water, desperate for air. The shore wasn't quite far: he did not have much trouble dragging the body of Captain America to it. He made sure his face was looking towards the sky so he would not suffocate. Steve Rogers hadn't wake up yet. Sergeant Barnes looked at him. Here was his mission: he had failed it. He just saved the man he was meant to eliminate. Because? Because that man was Steve. And Steve was...
"He's my friend."
Something in his head suddenly started to ache. It was pain, insufferable pain. But it was also terror. He was afraid, deadly afraid but he didn't know what he was so afraid of. Something in his head was telling him – no, was begging him – not to try to remember because pain would come and would never stop. Memories would bring him pain. Nothing but pain. That was what the something in his head was warning him about. Do not remember. Or else pain would come and you don’t want it, do you? Because obviously James hated the pain in his head. Usually, the pain wasn't here, though. They would wake him up and give him his mission and he would do it, quickly and properly. No pain. He believed pain came when he didn't complete his mission. Or not in the right way. Pain punished him for failing his mission. And today he did fail it. The man, who was lying on the ground, he could still choke him to death. If he did that, wouldl the pain in his head go away? James gently knelt before Steve and his metal arm approached that pink, revealed neck of him. There were spots of blood here and there as far as that his suit normally blue was, near his belly, black red. James looked at them and then put his hand directly on the biggest hole in the fabric. That was where he had shoot him, earlier in their fight. The bullet should probably still be inside him, actually. It had to be said: his mission was really strong and resistant. He looked young, too. Really young. Water was dripping from everywhere over his body, specially from his hair which was so fair of colour. Like a glimpse of sun, at the top of his head. Also, the haircut looked familiar. James was confused. He didn't want to kill that man. But the pain...
Loud noises. In an instant, the Winter Soldier was back on his feet, holding tight his knife and looking all around. People were coming. One last time, James looked at his mission, he looked at Steve and then flew away.
The board read "Bucharest". Unlike Berlin, James didn’t feel like that this city had something to do with him, but it sounded as if he needed to go there anyway. And not for a “mission” but for himself. He had put on gloves and a big coat to hide his metal arm. He was wearing the clothes he just stole from the man he had knocked out in the toilets in order to steal his plane ticket. That man's backpack contained a few things amongst the tickets and the clothes like liquid money. That would be useful. With that, in the little pocket, a pencil, a soft-cover book – a novel which portrayed a British detective inspector - subway tickets already used, a phone... Into the wallet, he found, along with a credit card, a picture. It was one of a young lady, probably this man's girlfriend. James threw in the nearest bin everything that was useless to him. He hesitated during a second before throwing away that picture. That lady had the same blond hair Steve had. But she was a complete stranger to him and the man from whom he had rubbed all this stuff, well, it was safe to say they weren’t going to meet again. So, who would care? A voice in the microphone made itself heard. The passengers were invited to get aboard the plane. When he passed near the policemen, he just looked down and pulled his cap on his head more firmly. Except for that bit of a stressful moment, James quickly found himself sitting in the plane, without any trouble at all. Actually, he had been lucky that man looked like him quite enough. The plane took off and he fell asleep. The hostess had to gently pock him to wake him up when the plane entered the airport in Romania. For a second, he panicked and reached out for his knife by instinct, but then he remembered where he was.
"Are you okay, sir?" asked the concerned air hostess.
He nodded. As fast as he could, he got off the plane and then the airport. Soon, he was standing in the streets of Bucharest. The pain in his head started again. Lately, it wouldn't stop. It wasn't as the same level as it was the first time, but it was there, constantly, preventing him from focusing on anything. The pain stopped only when he slept. But when he slept he had nightmares. None he could remember of afterwards but every morning he would wake up, covered in sweat, his heart beating fast and that terrible feeling of forgetting something really important which, at the same time, would probably kill him if he ever remembered it. The pain and these nightmares now had lead him to Bucharest. The sun was going down; he found some disused building and inside it, a deserted flat. He slept there, right on the floor for there was no furniture. Not that he wasn't used to hard living conditions. Before going to sleep, however, he pulled out a notebook. It was dirty and some pages were even missing. He opened it and his mouth silently repeated the few words that were written in it.
"You are James Buchanan Barnes."
Then, out loud this time, he repeated "Bucky" and tried to adopt the same tune, the same voice than that man who looked at him and said that very same name with a face of mixed surprise and sadness. Then he repeated "Steve" and he tried to see the face of that man again. In these moments, the pain in his head would almost be unbearable because, he knew it, he was as the closest as he could be from the truth. He had already written down a few things in the notebook, he had writing "army" and "train attack" and "mountain, cold". Right now, it was only words, quick images, sensations, but he knew that, one day, he would take back his memories. All of them. So, until that day, he would keep repeating "I'm Bucky and Steve is my friend".
How do you rebuild yourself a new life? How do you build a life at all? It wasn't easy. People tended to get suspicious about him; his appearance scared them away. He could only beg for money or do the job nobody wanted to do. That was fine, thought. Bucky was patient. He found a mattress in the street and he befriended with an old lady at the market – she smiled at him every time he came to buy her a couple of oranges or others fruits such as plums. He liked plums - and he liked having something he liked, for that was a nice feeling. The fridge wouldn't work – nor the oven. But he didn't care. He would spend all his day outside, looking for something to do in exchange of a little money or food. The sight of policemen or others governmental agents always made him nervous but he was never arrested nor even questioned. His Romanian - that he had to learn from the beginning - improved within weeks and he was quite proud of that because it was the proof he could still remember things - and if he could remember how to speak Romanian, therefore he could remember his previous life (also, unlike the multiple tongues he had mastered for the simple purpose of his missions in his time under Hydra’s orders, that one had been learnt on his decision only). He had thus learnt everything he had found about that previous life. When he went home (or the poor flat he had decided to call home), while preparing whatever meal he could come up with, he would take out his notebooks and try to focus on what he had already written down, with the hope it would help his memories come back. Sometimes, it worked and he would remember the name of that girl he once invited for a dance. Sometimes, it would be one of his missions coming back to the surface. They terrified him but he had to write them down too. If he wanted to be whole again, one day, he had to write it all down, no matter how hard it made him feel about himself or how painful the simple act of writing it down was. He had to. And sometimes, it wouldn't work at all. To help him recover his memories, he started collecting newspapers and other articles about him. The first one was from the expo he saw before leaving the United States for Berlin. It was an expo about Captain America, his origins. While he was there trying to remember his friend Steve, he came across a board which theme was about himself. There was everything: his birth date, some anecdotes, the fights he had gone through and the date he went missing and presumably died; even a picture of him. He didn't recognize himself, but he took the brochure and he learnt it. Now, the brochure was with his first notebook: in a safe place. During the same period that he was searching for every bit of information the newspapers, the recent ones as well at the ones from the war itself, could hold about his past, he was also cutting out the articles that were about Steve. He put them in a different notebook and often re-read them. He loved them. Steve was is friend but he didn't have many memories about him yet. One day, he had written “skinny” about him but that didn't make sense at all for Steve was anything but skinny. Though, Bucky felt as if he was getting close to his friend, once again. Now that even Hydra had lost track of him, he wished they could meet again so he could say to him:
"I'm Bucky and I'm your friend."
And Steve would look at him and he would answer him by saying:
"Yes, you are. Do you want me to tell you our story?"
And Steve, with his hair so bright, would tell him everything he needed to know in order to be whole again and for them, to be together again. This idea became an obsession. Bucky couldn't take the risk to go back to the USA, but his friend was among the Avengers and they were travelling. He read that in the news. He just needed to figure out where would the next world threat happen so he could get there in time and be reunited with his friend. That was definitively a good plan. A great plan even for the truth was: knowing what the Avengers were after was easy for anyone and knowing were they would go next according to this information was as easy for him. Maybe Bucky hadn’t got all of his memory back yet, but tracking down someone was still among his skills. Thus, it quickly appeared to him that the Avengers - Steven amongst them - were after the remaining facilities of Hydra. He had read about S.H.I.E.L.D being compromised, its files revealed to the entire world by Black Widow; now the Avengers were finishing the job. All he had to do was to find an Hydra facility and wait there. How difficult would it be? A computer inside the neighbourhood library and an hour of time gave him all the informations he wished for. However, the Avengers were fast: by the time he would get in what he assumed would be their next target, they would have already won the fight and leave. Thus he didn’t even try that solution. Instead, he looked for the less vulnerable Hydra facility, for he believed it would be the last the Avengers would want to take down in order to make sure it would be, indeed, the last one. That well-defended base was located in a small eastern country of Europe called Sokovia. Bucky packed his toothbrush, his current notebook, a picture of Steve and left.
Sokovia was a poor country with the kind of History that didn’t quite help it to move forward. The town he came to was in no better state than the rest. As he walked down the streets, all he could see was people in rags and buildings on the verge of crashing down. He went near a church, the one which was located in the exact centre of the town. He laid down a hand on the fence preventing people from entering it and looked around. Now then, where should he start?
“I’m sorry... Have you ever heard of the Avengers?”
The man who looked at him didn’t seem afraid of his appearance but rather annoyed by the question. He didn’t answer at all. Next on, the woman just shook her head. Another man, younger than the first one, spit out to his feet. Obviously, the people here wasn’t fond of these superheroes. Bucky hadn’t anything else to do than finding a shelter until they would eventually show up. Actually, this happened faster than he thought it would. Two days after he arrived, on the morning, gun shots were heard, no far away from the city. Bucky didn’t think it twice: he grabbed his backpack, uncovered his metal arm and his head (because for once, he wanted to be recognised) and ran towards the battle. In the middle of the forest, on a white pure soil, covered with snow, with the mountains surrounding them, he finally found them. They were all here: Thor, the assassins, the Hulk, Iron Man and... Steve. He almost spotted him at first sigh. Steve was exactly as he remembered him from their previous - let’s say - meeting. He couldn’t see his hair, thought, as it was covered by his blue helmet and for that same reason, he could barely see his eyes too. Bucky hid himself behind a tree. His heart was beating faster than ever. What should he do?! There was no way he could just run to Steve and say “Hello!” Plus, he didn’t know what the others thought about him. Maybe they’ll start shooting at him? Or, worse, maybe Steve will shoot at him, believing Bucky was still a killer! No, he couldn’t let that happen!
At this moment, while the Avengers were trying to break into Baron von Strucker’s facility, Bucky realised how fool he had been to run towards Steve without an actual plan, even if he couldn’t been blame for that for he still felt confused about his life and had sometimes trouble planning things for his future. He had no other choice but to retreat. However, as he was about to leave the battlefield, he spotted a soldier, facing Captain America’s back and ready to open fire at him. No one had seen him because he was lying on the ground, pretty injured and he had just regained conciousness. Thus, very slowly, the Winter Soldier took out his gun, aimed him and shot him in the face. After that, he took on two more soldiers with his metal arm before heading back to the village. There, he came across an angry crowd. At first, he thought they were throwing tomatoes and rocks to Iron Man but it was just one of his suit. As he wished not to be involved, he quickly stepped back and went hiding in the shadow of a deserted street. Later, he watched as the Iron Legion took off and left. Bucky fell to the ground and curled up. He had missed them. Now that they were gone and Hydra too, where could he find them next? He felt sadness, but realised sadness wasn’t his dominant emotion right now. He grabbed his backpack and searched for his notebook and his pen. He started drawing. Today, he saw Steve. For a fair distance and in a middle of a fight, but he saw him. There was something... warm about that idea. He stopped and looked at the sky. It was completely blank - surely snow would start falling soon - and thus reflected a bit his own mind. But there was light beyond that blank sky, he could see it, he could feel it. And so it was also in his own mind: he didn’t care that he missed Steve and that it would take a long time before there’d be another opportunity like this one. He had seen Steve. Nothing else mattered.
Bucky looked back at his drawing. From the stained pages and a rough sketch made with a black pencil, his dearest friend was smiling at him. And Bucky felt something he didn’t know he could still feel, something, more importantly, that was definitively not pain.
It was happiness.