Run (A Bucky Barnes Recovery Story)

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Natalia waited for the Winter Soldier in their private sparring rooms the next day, but he wasn’t there. He didn’t show up the next day either, or the day after that, and Natalia couldn’t help but think that it had something to do with the questions he couldn’t answer about himself the last time she’d seen him. On the fourth day of the Winter Soldier’s mysterious disappearance, Natalia decided to go looking for him. The compound was a large place, but there were rooms unspoken of in the darkest corners there that she thought would be a good place to start.

The first few rooms were empty, mostly dusty storage rooms and empty barracks. But the further Natalia crept, the more apparent it became people had been down there recently. The lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling were new and there were scuff marks on the floors and walls. Natalia was briefly afraid of what she would find while looking for the Winter Soldier.

As Natalia was about to give up and turn around, however, she found something. Not necessarily the man she had been looking for, but something. It was a small room at the end of the hall, with machines and filing cabinets that weren’t caked in dust and a doorknob that was too shiny to not be suspicious. Natalia crept inside and the first thing that caught her eye were the words Codename: Winter Soldier on a table. She was in the right spot.

Natalia picked up the papers and began to sift through them. There were pictures of the Winter Soldier, and a name-James Barnes. Natalia crammed everything she’d found into the folder on the desk and carried it out.

The next day, Natalia waited in the sparring room once more for the Winter Soldier, and this time, he came. He looked different, though. He moved gingerly, like he could feel bruises with every step, and his eyes had lost the small something she’d seen in them earlier. He approached her, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and didn’t offer her his hand.

“You look like hell,” Natalia said bluntly. The Winter Soldier didn’t respond, so she continued. “James.” There was a spark now in his face and he stared at her.

“I’m supposed to spar with you again today,” he said.

“Does that mean nothing to you?” Natalia asked.

“What, sparring?” He replied.

“Your name, James,” Natalia said and pulled the file she’d stolen out of her jacket, sliding it across the floor to him so it hit his foot and stopped. She watched James look down and slowly reach to pick it up.

“What is this,” he asked.

“Read it,” she instructed and slowly, James sat down, cross-legged, like her, and opened the folder. “It’s awful,” she warned him and James didn’t respond. She watched him read the whole thing and when he finally looked up, he was shaking. “Do you remember any of that?” She asked and he shook his head. He looked down and she waited as he read it again. “I told you everyone had an ordinary name,” Natalia said. “So this is yours.”