Chapter 1
A week after he saved the man in the river and walked past his check-in point, the Soldier woke up in his temporary safe house with two new possessions.
One was a memory, from before his most recent wipe: the Secretary, slapping him across the face, angry.
The other was more puzzling: a small set of scars, on his right flank, just above his hip. He took a photo of it with his stolen phone. The series of slashes seemed to spell out the letters B and R.
The Soldier chose to ignore the latter, and felt a small sense of satisfaction with the former: his mind hadn't always been a blank slate. There is something beyond the white fog, after all.
He packed up his bags and kept moving, reassured that, as long as he stayed away from the Chair and the Ice, his memories will be able to find him.
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It took another week before the returning memory matched the returning mark on his body.
He was in the Andes by then, using HYDRA funds to pay for a single room and blending in with the other tourists in the hostel.
The memory was this: A man, hovering over him, hesitant, a knife in his hand. The man turns to Commander Rumlow, who stands further back. "Are you sure this is okay?" The Commander sighs. "How many times do I have to explain this, Westfahl? We'll wipe it in a few hours anyway, and the ice resets it. It'll come out fresh and clean as a blank slate. Go on, mark it up."
The scar was this: a crude W across his chest, joining the other slashes and marks that had previously made no sense.
After several moments, James Buchanan Barnes identified the rumble in his chest to be a form of laughter, and the fluid on his cheeks to be tears.
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It was another two weeks, in Johannesburg, before he remembered enough of himself to really be able to laugh at the irony of it all -- that, as his memories returned, so did his scars. That the ice did to his body what the chair did to his mind.
His memories came back somewhat slipshod -- a moment from 70 years ago might be followed by a moment from two months ago, but his scars returned in a reliable order of reverse chronology.
The majority of his scars had blended into a pale white web, all along his body. Manacle scars, whip marks, bullet wounds. The newer scars tended to gather around his lower torso -- they haven't had to punish him for many years, so they were mostly scars from recreational use.
He knew from his consumption of media that recreational use was something that others frowned upon, but he didn't mind. The scars were a reminder that he was not simply a machine to be reset, but a body that remembered. And the body now belonged to him alone.
He decided to take his body northward, toward memories of the Alps.
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Bucky watches his reflection in the window as the train chugs along in the European night. He's made himself look normal, but he knows what's underneath the light layer of make-up on his face and the layers of clothing. It's a far cry from Steve's beautiful, blemish-free torso.
Well, 1300 days of torture and rape on a knock-off serum would do that to a guy.
No, he's not being fair to HYDRA. Bucky gently rubs along his arm, where the new scar had appeared today. It was faint, due to its age, but the jagged line starting at the wrist and making its way halfway up is unmistakable for what it is.
The only execution he failed to carry out.
Pity, it would have saved so many others from dying.
The thought stabs through him, and Bucky takes a deep breath. Tries to shake off the spiraling thoughts that have gnawed at him since his first remembered mission. Tries to reason with himself. He doesn't know if his death would have prevented the others -- after all, HYDRA had many other tricks up its sleeve. Unlike the scars on his body, there's no way of knowing for certain.
A town passes by outside the train window, and Bucky marvels at the blinking lights. Seven billion people on this earth. Nearly triple what it was from 1940. Sure, there's about 180 who aren't alive now because of him, but there's still seven billion who are alive and living their lives.
Bucky runs his left hand along the scar again, the metal cool and firm against his skin.
He'd tried. He failed, but he tried. Surely that's worth something, isn't it? The memory isn't back yet, but Bucky doesn't need the memory to know that he'd done what he could, given the circumstances. And isn't that all anyone could ask for?
He pushes aside the thought of Steve and what he would think. Steve isn't here right now, and he doesn't intend to seek him out. Not yet. He's not like Steve, who doesn't bend, who can always do the thing that is Right. But his body isn't like Steve's either -- it remembers all the times that he's bent, submitted to HYDRA's will.
And the one time that he didn't.
If he could decide to die back then, then he can decide to live right now. Like every other person in this world of seven billion, he can live, one day after the next.
The train pulls in to a large station, and he gets off on a whim. Signs on the platform indicate that it's Bucharest. Well, it's as good a place as any to make a life. Make good use of the body and the mind that he's reclaimed from the chair and the ice.