Winter Widow One Shots

All Good Things Must End - Part Three

"My name is James Buchanan Barnes." The words came out slow, like a recitation he had practiced too many times but never truly believed. "I go by Bucky."

"I was born in 1917 in Brooklyn, New York. My mom's name was Winnifred. Dad's name was George. I had a younger sister named Rebecca."

Across from him, Steve nodded, that same patient smile on his face, sitting forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. He'd heard all this before. Dozens of times. Every single morning since he had woken up. Since they explained the choice he had made and why. But he listened like it was sacred.

"I fought in World War II. After you..." He waved a hand vaguely toward Steve, toward the serum, toward everything. "I was part of the Howling Commandos. We stormed bases. Saved lives." His voice hitched. "But I didn't make it out. I fell from the train. I died."

His breath shook and he dropped his gaze to his hands. They hardly felt like his. One was still meat and bone, but covered in scars he didn't recognize. The other had been lost when he fell. It had been replaced with a metal one.

"Hydra found me. I don't know how long after. I only know what the files say. They turned me into a weapon. The Winter Soldier."

The words still tasted like metal—sharp, cold, and foreign. Not his, not entirely.

He looked up, eyes haunted. "Steve, please... Can we be done? This isn't helping. I don't remember those years. Or anything after. I'm sorry. I just don't."

From the corner of his eye, something shifted. A shadow, a blur of red moving down the corridor. Hair like a flame trailing behind a ghost. His body tensed before his mind caught up. Reflex. Instinct. Muscle memory that defied amnesia.

"We can take a break." Steve said, gathering his things and standing "Maybe tomorrow."

"It's been six months Steve" Bucky gave dry humorous laugh. "I don't think tomorrow is going to be the day."

Steve didn't argue. He just looked back to the hallway where she'd gone. "You never know."

"Yeah. You never know." He shrugged and left the main room. Pausing in the hallway.

It was 2025 now. Nearly a century of blank space stretched behind him like a wound that never scabbed. He should've been dead. Everyone he grew up with was dead. And yet here he was. Not alive, not really. Not dead either.

According to Steve, he'd spent decades in and out of cryo between missions—only thawed when there was blood to spill. "Only the important ones," Steve had said once. Like that made it better.

The 'important ones' still screamed in his dreams. The ones who looked him in the eye before they died. The ones who didn't fight back.

He made his way to the hallway that led to his room. But he waited just past the doorway. She always came after. Always asking about him.

"He's not getting any better, Steve..." the voice tugged on his memories. But no matter how hard he tried to follow them all he found was darkness.

"He's loosing hope, I can hear it. He-" she paused and bucky thought he heard a crack in his voice. "He doesn't want to."

Of course he didn't. 

The Winter Soldier had been a ghost—silent, precise, unfeeling. Bucky didn't want to remember him. Didn't want to be him. But wasn't that who he really was underneath it all?

The files were bad enough. The way they detailed death like inventory. Names, dates, photos. Some of them he couldn't even stomach looking at. A girl in Paris. A politician in Cairo. A man with kind eyes in Odessa. Howard Stark. Friends. Strangers. Collateral.

"He needs to see you." Steve's voice was hushed.

"No."

"Natasha-"