Saving Bucky (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

Chapter 4 - A Strategic Push

Convincing an adversary you're worth saving is difficult. But simultaneously concealing the fact that you plan to use them as they save you is nearly impossible. 

But if anyone can do it, you can. 

You know it will come down to two things: time, and the little details. Everything from the way you speak, to the way you dress, to the way you carry yourself must convey the same identity. Every single detail matters. 

Which is why those handwritten notes from 1991 cause you pause.

You have poured through the intel file provided by the Spectres and corroborated each piece of information. You've memorized the timeline of the Winter Soldier's assassinations and spy work. You had even pulled up the Smithsonian's virtual exhibitions and spent a few hours pouring over their documentation of the Howling Commandos. 

But there's still a single loose thread - the notes.

It was easy enough to ID the handwriting in the report itself. It appears frequently throughout the file. The Winter Soldier wrote that report. But the signature? It appears nowhere else. You ran it through every database The Company has access to, and yet each search result yielded nothing. 

The only thing you know for certain is that two identical hands will never exist. Graphic individuality is as inherent to each of us as our speech. We learn it as children, and it's acquired through movements of the arm. The wrist. The fingers. The odds of finding someone whose fingers dance the exact same way yours do across the page is over 1 in 68 trillion. But the odds of being able to teach your fingers to dance in an entirely new way, removing all identifiers? Even slimmer.

As you walk through the Keep clutching that page of handwritten notes, you stop just short of central control, taking a moment to assess them one last time. As your eyes caress the text, you analyze the print. Each letter is nearly perfect, matching in width, height, spacing and slant. They are the definition of robotic and rigid withdrawal. This is the Winter Soldier's hand.

Yet the signature is chaotic. Wide, looping curls impaled by a single line struck straight through the middle of the mass. An internal battle manifesting outwardly on paper. The slanting, the spacing, the height, the width it's all...wrong. This hand is angry. Aggressive. A prime example of emotional and dramatic expression.

Your eyes flit back and forth between the sharp letters and looping signature. The dances are completely different. Statistics tell you the Winter Soldier did not sign this report. And if there are two different hands, that means there are two different people. You need to know who the other hand belongs to. Are they still alive? What do they know about the Winter Soldier? Could they also have the code words you seek? 

"Ma'am?"

You jump slightly and quickly shove the notes into your blazer pocket, glaring at the guard who had poked his head out.

"What?" you bark.

"Sorry, ma'am, but the lights in your isolation cell are on right now. This timer only has them lasting another 3 minutes."

You nod at the guard and follow him into central control, immediately finding Barnes on the screen.

It's been three days since you established first contact and released him from the cuffs that kept him chained to the table. After you left his cell he had ignored the food tray and immediately laid down on the cot, able to stretch out for the first time.

"Has he moved since I was last in there? At all?" you ask, scrutinizing the small black and white screen, watching Barnes as he lays flat on his back.