Chapter 3
3.
He escapes while on a mission in America. He doesn’t know why he does it, or how, but he’s been free for five days. He’s been wandering, picking up food and street clothes along the way, finding gloves to hide his metal hand. He blends in. He doesn’t know why he’s doing any of this, but he knows that he needs to get far, far away. He needs to...find someone.
He’s wound up in Brooklyn. His head hurts to think about the name, but he’s made it here, like some invisible thread has been leading him the entire time. He’s been wandering the streets for a while, observing and calculating. Nothing stands out. Nothing catches his eye.
Everything is familiar.
He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t even know his own name, the one he had before he was named ‘the Asset’, or ‘the Winter Soldier’. He’s not even sure how he knows he had a name before those ones.
He finds himself in an alleyway, drawn to it by the sound of a fight. There’s a storm brewing above the city, rolling in through the sky and crackling through the air. It’s going to be a cold night, he knows. There are kids in the alleyway, four of them. Three of them are beating on the forth - a smaller kid, with hollow cheeks and thin arms.
Fierce protectiveness wells in the Asset like a fire he never knew he possessed, and he stalks forward like the predator he is. The moment the three kids see him, they scatter like they know just how dangerous he is. The Asset feels dimly pleased, but then he focuses on the kid on the ground.
He’s scared, the Asset realises. It turns the Asset’s stomach over, making him want to hurl. He doesn’t. Instead, he holds a hand out. The kid ignores it and hauls himself up, holds back a wince with gritted teeth.
“I had ‘em on the ropes, mister,” the kid says, and spits out a glob of blood.
The Asset has a strange urge to roll his eyes. The kid’s looking him over, and it makes the Asset’s skin crawl in the strangest way. He takes a step back, making to disappear, but then the kid’s reaching out and taking a hold of the Asset’s right wrist.
“Are you a vet, mister?” the kid asks, and then pales. “I-I mean -”
“I was in...the war,” the Asset mumbles, staring down at the kid. He doesn’t know how he knows this. Without meaning to, the Asset has hunched his shoulders in an effort to appear smaller.
The kid looks him over again, and he must be trained in reading people or something, jeez, because then he asks; “do you have somewhere to go?”
The Asset shakes his head, and frowns.
“You could come over for dinner at mine. Ma will let you stay. Pa was in the war - he died before I was born, though. I’m Steve.”
And so the Asset ends up sitting at the dinner table with Steve and his mother, eating his fair share of their dinner. Steve hadn’t lied - his mother had welcomed him with open arms after learning how him and her son had bumped into each other. Bucky felt strangely...warm, like he had finally found somewhere safe.
He’s invited to stay the night. He accepts, and takes the couch with stuttered thank yous.
The night brings nightmares. He wakes in a cold sweat, and is on his feet in a second. Coughing. Someone’s coughing. He can hear Steve’s mother making quiet shushing noises, but they sound desperate. Quietly, melding with the shadows, the Asset creeps down the hall and observes the scene in Steve’s bedroom.
The kid is laying in bed, looking weak and frail. Sickness has taken to him in the night. Somehow, the Asset expected this - like it is something that happens often. Before he can be seen, he backs away and returns to the couch to wait for the morning.
~
The morning, as always, brings nothing good.
Just as Steve’s mother has begun to tiredly prepare breakfast and the Asset is getting ready to leave, Hydra finds them. He tries to fight, he does, but he’s their Asset. They know how to subdue him. He’s just about to succumb to the sedatives when he sees Steve and his mother being executed.
It hurts far, far more than it should.
When he wakes up again, he doesn’t have time to mourn before he’s shoved in the chair and forced to forget. Maybe he thanks his handlers this time.
*