The Winter Soldier is trying to learn how to bring light into his eyes. He’s shut himself in the bathroom and clipped photos of Bucky Barnes onto the mirror and he stares at his own face. Natalia is right to say they could be brothers. The Soldier has a striking likeness.
He attempts a few small smiles, and then tells himself to think of something happy and smiles big. Again, Natalia’s right. He doesn’t look happy.
But he does look like Barnes and the Soldier can’t stop thinking about that. His eyes go back and forth from the photos to his own face, and he turns his head from side to side, examining. It’s almost uncanny. Then, pieces come together in his mind and he gasps, staring at himself. Barnes disappeared around the same time the Winter Soldier’s memories began. Surely that isn’t a coincidence. And they have the same face, after all.
What if… He can hardly think the words. What if the Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes?
He didn’t have to wonder why he hadn’t considered it before. Natalia had seemed so sure, so positive that he wasn’t, and he didn’t question her. And Barnes was the exact opposite of everything the Soldier was, things like happy and gentle and loved. It seems like an obvious idea now, but before, the Winter Soldier hadn’t thought it was an option.
What if Bucky Barnes survived that fall? What if Hydra found him? What if he hit his head, lost his memories, and spent the next eight years being whipped into the kind of person Hydra wanted him to be? Would he turn out like the Winter Soldier?
Could the Soldier have been looking into the face of Bucky Barnes all along?
He stares at himself more. He imagines all the things he knows about Bucky Barnes, the dates and the names and the ideas. He tries to apply it to himself.
“My birthday is March tenth,” he whispers as he looks into his own eyes. “My family lived in New York. My best friend was Steve Rogers.”
He’s never had this sort of context before. He’s never had a life, a name, a history. He finds it strange to settle into, like trying on an old pair of shoes that don’t fit anymore. He still sort of thinks of Barnes as a person separate from himself.
“All that love,” he realizes. “All those people who miss him. They could be missing me.”
The Winter Soldier thinks that this is the most unbelievable part of the whole idea.
He also decides that he won’t share this idea with Natalia. Not just yet.
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Haunted By Him
FanfictionAn Anastasia Winter Widow AU "If you want to pass yourself off as Bucky, you gotta be a little more friendly," she accuses. "Oh no," the Soldier grumbles. "Don't tell me this Barnes guy is some sort of cheerful do-gooder." Natalia shrugs, shifting h...
