Run (A Bucky Barnes Recovery Story)

24 Spy

Bucky hadn’t seen Steve or Natasha in weeks. It had been exactly eighteen days since Olive Garden and the phone call and he had just disappeared after that. They had both attempted to contact him, but Bucky had thrown himself into his Hydra hunt and ignored their calls. He knew he probably would have done so anyway, but he had a better excuse now other than his broken emotions. Something unusual was going on with the targets he interrogated.

Directly after the last assassination in the stack, Bucky sat in his hotel room with the lights off and waited. He expected to see the man who picked the lock and entered his room silently, carrying a black bag, but the man didn’t expect him. The Winter Soldier was fast and before the intruder could set his bag down, Bucky had stood and grabbed his forearm tightly, whirling him around. The man gasped and tried to draw away, but Bucky held onto him tight.

“You’re Fury’s man, yeah?” The Winter Soldier said. The man looked down at his captured forearm in fear and Bucky followed his eyes. He was using his left hand. Bucky rolled his eyes and switched hands and the man seemed to relax considerably. Part of Bucky wanted to laugh at him, but another part realized that the man had a reasonable fear. “Well, are you?”

“Yeah,” the man said in a trembling voice. The Winter Soldier pulled the man closer to him, their noses inches apart, and glared.

“Tell Fury to stop sending people into my room. He wants to give me something, he can put it at my front door like everyone else, okay?”

“Sure,” the man said. “C-Can I go now?” The Winter Soldier gritted his teeth and pushed the man away.

“One more thing before you go,” he added and the man hesitated. “Tell Fury to send another jet. I need to talk to him privately.”

The next day, Bucky paced frustratedly in front of Fury’s desk in the middle of the grassy field, gritting his teeth. His fear was beginning to wash up on him like it had been for the past few weeks, a high tide of panic as he explained the weird problem he had been facing.

“It’s like they’re all playing some sort of game with me. Every target I assassinate gives me a different name and a different country,” he growled.

“Maybe we’re going about it wrong then,” Fury suggested and Bucky glared over at him, glossing over his fear with anger. He stopped pacing for a moment and stared down at his feet, sucking in breaths and rubbing his left hand behind his back, unable to keep completely still.

“What do I do,” Bucky asked quietly.

“You try a new tactic,” Fury said. “Follow the next target. Follow them for months if you have to, but just follow them. And watch.”

Bucky thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t a foolproof plan, and he wasn’t a spy. He wasn’t often sent on missions like this. He was worried that it wouldn’t work. But if he had some sort of back-up...

“I don’t want to bring anyone else into this,” Bucky muttered to himself and Fury heard.

“I’m afraid everyone is already into this,” he said to Bucky. “This is Hydra, it isn’t entirely you. What are you thinking?” You don’t have to do it alone. Bucky rubbed his left hand.

“I’m not a spy, sir,” Bucky said. “I’d appreciate some help.”

Fury considered this for a moment.

“I would suggest Black Widow,” he said. “Do you think you could work with her?” Bucky nodded silently. “I’ll brief her,” Fury said, his tone conclusive. “Is there anything else you need, Barnes?” Again silent and deep in thought, Bucky shook his head ‘no’ and was excused. He took the plane back, thinking now long and hard about working with Natasha.

***

That night, for no apparent reason, as Bucky was walking back to his hotel with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground, he was positively assaulted with memories, so much so that he had to sit down on the pavement and scoot himself up to the building beside him for something to put his back against as he held his head in his hands and remembered. Tears stung at his eyes. He saw his mother and his father. He saw trenches and gun smoke. He saw his reflection on the other side of a cryofreezing compartment. He saw Steve and penniless winters and a lot of time spent trying to nurse his best friend back into health.

No, he didn’t see it all, by no means. But it was more and it was something and it was like his brain was healing from years of torment one piece at a time. He sat there most of the night, underneath a streetlight, his journal in his hands, staring and thinking and writing, using his right hand to rub wetness away from his bloodshot eyes.

Steve really was sick all of the time, Bucky wrote. How could someone be sick so much? And I remember being scared all the time that I’d go to his house to check up on him and he’d be gone. I really loved him. Why can’t I love him now?

I can’t believe I was ever one to protect people.

My mother, it was my mother’s spaghetti. It was great, she made it by hand, we used to have Steve and his parents come over when I was really little and eat her spaghetti and that’s, oh wow, is that why I liked it in the end? Because I had a friend over when we had it. And I still like it.

I guess I still ate it with a friend.

Do I have no memories that aren’t somehow connected to Steve Rogers? We must have been conjoined at the hip. He was like a brother.

I remember my street had a lamp like this one.

Oh! I did like dancing! Maybe I should try that again sometime.

What was my dad’s name?

Did I like to read?

What were my favorite hobbies?

How long did I go to school?

Oh! The Starks. I killed the Starks.

Oh.

Oh no.