Touch Me I'm Going to Scream // [Stucky]

Chapter 15

The Soldier—

James—

Bucky doesn't fall asleep but he does feel like he's floating inside a dream. He can hear his mom's voice calling him, he hears his little sister calling for him, he hears... so many people. So many are saying his name, speaking to him, laughing with him, yelling, screaming, whispering. Because once he was a person.

He was Bucky Barnes, son of Winifred and George Barnes. His little sister was called Rebeca. Becca. Oh God, his little sister, with her dark hair, her dirty knees, her dimpled chin. (He has a dimple in his chin too, he remembers now, doesn't just know it as a fact because he looked in the mirror.) She was his emergency contact when he went to war in 1943. The first to be notified of her brother being killed in action.

His skull is going to split open like a ripe fruit.

Bucky doesn't want that to happen.

He wants the memories to stay inside his head.

"Becca."

"What?" asks someone's voice. Bucky feels like he would be able to tell who it belongs to if he could concentrate. But his head. Oh God, his head. He doesn't want to lose his memories again. He doesn't want to lose his sister.

"My sister," he pants. "Her name was Becca."

He hopes someone is listening.

"She hated pigeons, was terrified of them." Bucky laughs over the excruciating pain. "She stole food from my plate because... She said she wanted to grow as tall as me."

He feels pressure on his back. It's in the shape of a hand and it doesn't stop his brain from burning up but it feels like an anchor. Bucky takes a deep breath and stares at the dots behind his eyelids.

Bucky remembers more and more. Remembers her favorite dress and proceeds to describe it in detail to whoever is listening. Remembers her drawings, her friends, her shoes, her laugh, the way she pouted when she mimicked his own angry pout.

"She must be older than me." The realization is punched out of him and he can't stop a devastated cry from leaving his throat. "She's dead. Oh God, she's dead."

Bucky's face is damp and it feels hot, his eyes burn inside their sockets.

Bucky is thrown into the past. His head is spinning and the only thing that feels real is the arms wrapped around him. It feels like he's being rocked and images of his mother are pulled from his brain, one by one like the threads of a fraying shirt. They tried to burn her off his brain. They tried to erase her and they accomplished it for decades. He let them do that.

"...fault. Bucky, it wasn't your fault," the voice reaches him again and he's pulled back into his body.

He's swallowed by darkness and then spat back out.

Bucky's on his back and the first thing he notices is that his body feels like a ton of bricks. The second thing is that there's something damp on his forehead. He groans and tries to raise his hand.

"Bucky?"

He tries to orient himself before opening his eyes. He's not home and it's not 1943. He knows he's not still with HYDRA because they never called him Bucky—they probably forgot about the nickname after a few decades.

A hot hand touches his hot cheek and he groans. His eyes blink open and he hears someone exhale.

"Buck."

He needs another moment to associate a name to the face hovering over him. White man with blond hair sports a frown of concern. Blue eyes.

Steve, his brain supplies and then it clicks into place. Steve Rogers. Captain America. His mission. Failed mission.