Run (A Bucky Barnes Recovery Story)

98 You Deserve to Know

When the clamps on his wrists and ankles were loosened, the Winter Soldier fell forward onto the concrete and lay there. He pressed his forehead to the ground and brought his arms up over his head, curling his knees underneath him slowly like the world was caving in. He was silent.

He was beginning to register things through the white noise in his mind. The concrete; cold. His head; pounding. The blackness; overwhelming.

And there was a face, there in the black, a hole, a cut out portion of him that he was all-too aware of, like a missing limb.

And still, the Winter Soldier said nothing and curled himself tighter. There was a rhythm in his head, words. Breathe? Was he supposed to remind himself to breathe?

A few of the remaining handlers stepped forward and two of them reached down and grabbed him by the arms, hauling him up, and he let them, his head hanging forward.

“Winter Soldier,” someone said, but the Winter Soldier didn’t care to look up and see what it was. That thing that was missing in him, that cut out portion, distracted him so badly. He felt… Well, he wasn’t quite sure. But he didn’t like it. “Winter Soldier, look at me when I’m talking to you.” Slowly, the Winter Soldier raised his head and stared forward at the man speaking, someone in a lab coat. “Tell me, who do you answer to?” The Winter Soldier honestly wasn’t sure, there was no name in his head, no face, no memories, no nothing. He supposed he answered to whoever gave him orders or whoever hit him the hardest.

“You?” The Winter Soldier asked quietly and the man nodded.

“Me,” the man replied. “And I’m here to give you one more mission. In fact, they’re almost here, you can just wait.” The Winter Soldier’s handlers dragged him backward into some metal folding chair in the corner and sat him there. “And if you’ll excuse me, I have a get-away car to join.”

“What am I supposed to do?” The Winter Soldier asked from his chair, mumbling, confused, nearly whispering.

“Kill the intruders,” the man said as though it were obvious as he shrugged on a coat. “We’ll be back for you, stay here when you’re done.” The Winter Soldier sat back in his chair and watched as the man went to say more, give him more orders, presumably, but a bullet whizzed behind his head and came out in-between his eyes and his words drained away. The man collapsed and blood began to pool and the Winter Soldier jumped to his feet. His handlers panicked and the Winter Soldier watched a red, white and blue shield ricochet off of walls around him until all the rest of the men in the room were on the ground and then, the intruders entered the room.

It hurt to look at them, the blonde man and the beautiful woman in black. He felt a sting in his head, a pressing, like… Why, it was like a dam, like something was pushing against a wall inside him. Pushing against the blackness inside him. He stared at them as the man caught the shield and clicked it into his back. Then, the man approached him, he was… Smiling? And the Winter Soldier stared. The man was talking, he was saying something, he was saying…

“... something worried about you something something Bucky something Okay? I’m so sorry-” the Winter Soldier felt the pushing, the pressure in his head like pain and once the man got close enough, he reached up with his metal hand and grabbed him by the throat, stopping him. The man choked and for a second, tried to pull away, but the Winter Soldier pulled him closer to his face, yanked him, and tightened his grip until the man was scrambling at his hand and the Winter Soldier studied his face. It hurt, it hurt, he was… Familiar. Something reaching out of the blackness.

Bucky. Who was Bucky?

The Winter Soldier let go for just a second, let the man back away, choking and coughing and holding his throat.