The Fallen

Finding her had actually been easier than they thought. When they stopped looking in paper files and started examining videos, they had found her. Based on a sketch of her from Bucky’s memory done by Steve, they had used facial recognition on security camera videos.

She had been right there the whole time, roaming the streets of Prague. After that finding her faked record hadn’t been hard.

“Nadiya Kijek.” Tony says spinning around on his chair. “That’s her name.” He pauses for a second, “What are the chances that this is a totally normal person that you’re about to ambush?”

Steve glances at Bucky, whose eyes haven’t moved away from the screen. A screen shot from security footage in Prague showed her leaving a department store with a friend. Her face is clear and open, not someone who’s hiding from anyone, worried where their face might show up or who might be watching. “I don’t know.”

Tony stares at him, “I mean-,” he spins to look at the picture again. “She doesn’t exactly look like a tortured, ex-Hydra, Winter Soldier whisperer does she?”

“Why would she?” Bucky asks quietly, stepping closer to the screen. “They made her forget. And her name isn’t Nadiya Kijek.” This last part seems to insight some deep fury within him.

“I thought you said her curse was to remember?” Tony asks exasperatedly.

Bucky glares at him, “Before.”

“Right, of course. Before.” Tony says with a roll of his eyes.

“Alright,” Steve reprimands, stepping between the two of them before it can escalate. Silence settles over the group, Natasha having never even opened her mouth in the first place. But he has to admit, the chances aren’t good. “Buck? Are you sure?”

He nods, eyes light with hope and dark with determination. “It’s her.”

“Okay, let’s say this is her." Tony starts. "Obviously she’s forgotten whatever they did to her or she’d be trying to hide. That means they probably implanted false memories and I can’t imagine they’re good ones of the iceman, if there are any at all of him.”

Something like a growl leaves Bucky. “She’ll know me.”

Tony rolls his eyes again, Natasha looks doubtful, and Steve can only support his friend. When they find her he doesn’t know what they’ll do. They don’t have much of a plan but one thing is for sure: they’re headed to Prague.

And soon.

~

“Target sighted.”

Bucky glares into the newspaper in his hands, angry that Steve had called her a target through the comms.

Wanda and Natasha are a few tables down from him at the small café, drinking cappuccinos and pretending to whisper together. He can’t see Steve but he must be around because Bucky sees her too. She and the friend from the department store video walk up to the café counter in the cool morning sunshine. By afternoon it would be cloudy once more, the city darkening with moodiness every so often.

Bucky’s mood is dark as he watches her smile tightly at the man behind the counter, the jostle of tourists cutting off his view of her every so often. With the friend present everything changed. He hates the girl fiercely suddenly.

“Calm down. We can’t do anything anyways, Barnes.” Natasha’s voice filters over the comms. “Not yet.”

“She needs to know the truth, Natasha,” he mutters under his breath. He’s not worried about protocol. He isn’t worried about waiting for a signal.

The friend suddenly breaks away from her, taking her to-go coffee and waving a small goodbye as 'Nadiya' gets a table to herself. Bucky stands.

“Buck, no-,” he rips the device out of his ear and makes a beeline to her. She’s alone, she’s his, he can convince her. Convince her of what, he’s not sure.  

Once at her table he sits down across from her and waits for her to glance up. When she does she smiles for half a second at the stranger at her table, before she recognizes him and snaps her mouth shut.

She opens her mouth, horror on her face. “Don’t scream, please,” Bucky pleads. “Please listen to me. Please let me explain.”

For a moment she just stares at him, pure fear radiating from her, terror written over her face. And then she darts, and she’s fucking fast. She shoves the table hard, hitting him in the gut and is gone in a second. And the Winter Soldier is actually in pain, breathless.

But she runs into Steve but she makes it past him with quick jabs and a hard shove to the shoulder. She’s strong and fast and nothing in his memory had indicated that she was. Bucky runs after her but she’s soon surrounded, Sam drifting down from a roof, Natasha and Wanda circling closer, as Steve catches his breath and meets them.

The capture isn’t a part of the plan, but neither is the fighting. Neither is her strength, her willingness to get away.

It’s over almost as soon as it starts, but it’s violent and horrible. And she screams and curses in every language she knows. She struggles and spits and howls.

The screams are by far the worst, sounding exactly the way they had before when they had been locked together and tortured. Even worse is the silence that follows when she’s finally subdued.  

The plane ride home is dead silent as well. No one seems to know what to do or say.

~

They keep her isolated.

She won’t eat.

She loses weight and fights anyone who enters what can only be described as her cell.

After a week she has to be subdued again and given a nutritional IV. This happens every few days to keep her alive and healthy for the most part. They won’t let Bucky see her which means he spends all of his time pleading his case or watching her on the security cameras.

She’s terrified, cornered, and alone. Bucky knows exactly how she feels and so when three weeks have passed and everyone but himself has been in to see her, they finally decide to let Bucky try.

As a peace offering he brings her food. It’s not much, a bottle of water and some fruit, something easy on her empty stomach. The door to her room hisses open and her eyes dart to the door from where she’s sitting in the corner of the room. Bucky frowns at the temperature of the room and shivers as the door closes behind him. He would bet the cold bothers her just as much as it does him.

She looks at him with something close to real terror in her eyes and so he sits as far away as possible from her, on the other side of her small concrete cell. It’s meant to be an interrogation room and even though there’s no two-way mirror he knows they’re being watched.

“Hi,” he says quietly. “I don’t know if you remember me. But I’m Bucky, we used to…we used to be held by Hydra together.” When she only stares at him he whispers her name in desperation. "Please talk to me." 

That gets her attention, makes her whip her head around. Something about the plea seems to have triggered a response. He half remembers saying it once before. “That is not my name.” Her voice is rough, strained. “My name is Nadiya, Nadiya Kijek.”

“That isn’t true. It’s a false identity.” He repeats her name.

She shakes her head. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe anything you say.” He opens his mouth when she suddenly shouts, “You kidnaped me and took me from my home and locked me in this fucking room! Why would I believe anything you people say?”

Bucky says her full name. She cringes away again, seemingly in pain. “You’re from Poland. Your memories are limited like mine, am I right? Sometimes things come to you and it hurts. You pass out or scream or get sick. But it always feels more real than that other shit floating around your brain, am I right?”

Instead of giving him an inch she lifts her chin and says, “I’m not from Poland.”

“Then why are we speaking Polish right now?”

She snaps her mouth shut, confused. She hadn’t realized. Her heart starts to hammer. “I don’t know,” she whispers, terrified of the flimsy memories swimming in her mind. Of a metal fist raised against her, a harsh laugh, a wild lash against her spine.

“Where did you learn it?”

“Why do you care?” she counters. “Why won’t you leave me alone? They hurt you but you hurt me. And I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to go home.” She squeezes her eyes shut and sees a flaming village, “I want to go home. Why can't I go home?”

The crack in her voice shatters his heart. “I want to go home too.” She looks up. “You have to believe me. I never hurt you. Why would I?”

“Then why didn’t you protect me?” She asks, anger shifting in her tone. Her accusation startles, makes his heart jump painfully in his chest. “You were a soldier. I was just some fucking civilian they found! You should have protected me! They forced me to be with you!” Bucky can tell by the way that she sways against the wall that she’s remembering this in real time and shouting it at him as she remembers. “They forced me in a cell with you! They said to me that we’d be together a lot and that I’d better just accept it. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want you. Some broken American soldier.”

She pauses as Bucky tries to control the panic attack sneaking up on him. “Do you know what they were doing to me before they forced me in there with you? I’d been in the facility a few days already.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Do you know what they did to me?!” Her voice raises to a hysterical pitch. “Do you?! Passing me around like-like-like some half-smoked cigarette.”

With a shake of his head he says, anger and a deep resounding hatred flaring in his gut, “You weren’t the only one. I’m sorry.”

“The only what?” She seethes.

“The only one they raped. Everything they did to you, they did to me too.”

She sucks in a harsh breath before she starts to shake, curling into the wall behind her. “I want to go home, Bucky.”

He figures the use of his name is a good sign and moves a little closer. “I’m trying to bring you home. Will you let me take you home? They can help you here. They’ve helped me. We can help you.”

“Will you leave me again?” Her voice breaks, conflicting, confused thoughts passing though her mind.

“No.”

The line of her shoulders is loosening, calmness filling her bones. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“That’s okay. You can come upstairs with me. They have hot food and a bath and beds.”

She examines him with suspicion. “Will you hurt me?”

“No,” he’s adamant. “I won't. I didn’t hurt you, not even on command. But you never believed that in the first place did you?”

She hadn’t, or at least she had been doubtful. But she still feels as though he played a part in the thieving of her life. He’s the only person from her memories though, that she knows.

An image comes to her suddenly. The Soldier is on one knee, looking up at her as he holds out a small buttercup he had picked just for her. She had whispered her thanks, the expression on his face never changing as he stood and marched across the field toward their target’s burning car.

“You will take me home?”

“I promised you a long time ago that we would go home.” He pauses and swallows. “I’m just keeping a promise.” When she doesn’t respond again, just stares longingly at the food, Bucky pushes forward, gauging her reaction to him coming so close to her. “Do you want something to eat?”

She nods and reaches for the container of fruit, not bothering with the fork and picking it out with her fingers. Bucky sits by and waits for her to finish before giving her the bottle of water. “Better?”

A nod. “You’ll stay with me? I had to leave you once before.” Confusion masks her face. She wants to trust him but doesn’t know if she should. She doesn’t know what to believe.

Bucky reaches out and puts his hand over hers. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m sorry we scared you so bad, doll.”

Doll. Now that was familiar. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

“They thought I would make things worse. They thought I might make you violent.”

She grips his hand back and looks to the door. “What did they do to you?” She yanks him closer and tries to examine him for hidden injuries. "Have they hurt you? Why did-,"

“No, no, they aren’t like that. They aren't Hydra.” Bucky says. “We won’t keep you here against you will any longer. I wanted to give you a chance to remember me. But I won’t make you stay.”

“I want to know what happened to me.”

Bucky leans forward to put his forehead against hers, the screaming and arguing from before forgotten already. “I do too.”

Her fingers curl against his and she feels closer to home than she has in all her time searching the past two years.