BRAINWASHED ─ marvel

I. Broken

Chapter One:
Bucky

I stare down at this drenched, bleeding, unconscious man, and all I feel is recognition when before all I felt was rage. In one moment he was my mission, my enemy, and then with a few simple words he's something different, something I can't put my finger on.

Steve Rogers. That's his name, I can hear it in my mind as if a memory is shouting it at me, urging me to remember it and why it's so important to me.

I don't know why it is important, but I know in my bones it is.

Steve Rogers begins to cough up water from the lake I just dragged him out from, and the sight fills me with terror. Not for my safety, he made it clear on the helacarrier he wouldn't hurt me, but for the truths he's trying to force upon me that I'm not ready to hear.

I turn away from him and head towards the trees, knowing that one of his friends will come find him and get him the help he needs. Right now, I need to focus on getting as far away from this location, this city really, as possible. With the destruction of PROJECT INSIGHT in such a public way, HYDRA will be exposed. Every officer, every agent, every scientist apart of the organization will have to flee like rats on a sinking ship. The entire world will be trying to eradicate anyone associated with HYDRA, and unfortunately that more than includes me. Everyone who knows about HYDRA knows about me, and it's because of that that I need to disappear.

It's safer for Rogers if I'm not here when help arrives.

I find a road on the other side of the tree line and I follow it for what must be a couple hours. The sun has begun to set, casting the sky in a mix of orange and pink, though with all the smoke from the city those colors look muted. It's astonishing that the smoke can be seen from so far away, just goes to show the gravity of HYDRA's destruction.

I used to bask in that destruction...now I don't know how to feel about it.

On the side of the road lies a convenience store that looks closed, but I don't let that stop me. Theft is the least of my concerns right now. I use my metal hand to break open the glass door and then I climb inside, trying my best to avoid the jagged pieces of glass still attached to the broken door frame. Within this convenience store are an assortment of artificial foods, bottles of various drinks, and some clothes hanging on racks in the back that all appear to be Washington D.C. themed.

I grab an extra large grey t-shirt with the name of the city written in blue letters on the front, as well as a pair of black sweatpants with the Washington monument stitched onto the pockets, then I head to the bathroom behind the check out counter. Once I'm in the bathroom I strip off my gear, carefully setting the weapons I have strapped to me aside. Once I'm in nothing by my underwear, I turn the sink on and take a couple paper towels, beginning to clean the blood off of my face and upper body, as well as assess any injuries I have. For the most part it's just bruises, maybe some torn muscle in my flesh arm from my fight with Steve Rogers.

At the reminder of him, I let out a sigh. I still don't know what to make of him. When we were on that helacarrier...he was willing to die for me, willing to die by me. He looked at me and saw someone completely different, gave me a name that's simultaneously familiar and foreign to my ears, and it's upturned my entire world.

Just as I know that Steve Rogers is somehow important to me, I know that the name he gave me is
my own. Once again, it feels like memories are urging me to remember. Like they are trapped behind a door, and they're trying desperately to break through and resurface again, but they can't manage to. All they can manage to do is leave me with vague feelings and inferences about what's real and what's not.

James Buchanan Barnes. That's the name Steve Rogers gave me. My name.

I stare at my reflection in the bathroom's mirror and say the name out loud, trying to see...I don't know, I guess trying to see if the name will feel right, if it will fir. It doesn't, but at the same time it does. I try it again, and it only makes me feel uneasy, like speaking the name out loud is somehow wrong, like I'm saying something taboo.

I turn my gaze away from the mirror and continue cleaning myself up, then once I'm done I get dressed in the new clothes, surprised at how well they fit me. They don't sell any shoes here, so I have to wear my boots, but I make sure to clean the blood off of them. I have a gun, a knife, and some extra ammo that I stuff in my pockets, then with my old clothes bundled up in my arms, I exit the bathroom.

I discard the clothes in a trash can, then I grab onto a black backpack and deposit my weapons inside, as well as any food and drinks I find remotely appetizing. There aren't many.

As I pass by a shelf of things called 'twinkies' and 'ding dongs', I notice a flyer posted on the wall just a couple feet away. It's a flyer advertising an exhibit at the Smithsonian museum back in D.C., an exhibit centered around Captain America and his 'heroic exploits during the second world war'.

A whole exhibit detailing Steve Rogers and his past.

I wonder if I'm included in that museum.

Going back to D.C. is a dumb idea, completely idiotic...but I can't help but crave the answers this museum might give me. I apparently have a past with him that I can't remember, perhaps this exhibit can help shed some light on the nature of our relationship...

But do I really want to start down this path? I could just ignore what Rogers told me and move on...but move on where? As of today, HYDRA is gone. No base is safe, no member trustworthy, if they ever were in the first place. I'm on my own. And what possible future could I have if I don't even know who I am? I'll spend the rest of my life wondering if what Rogers told me was true or not, questioning if throughout my time in HYDRA I had been a unwilling or willing pawn. Do I really want to spend the rest of my life as half a man? Because that's exactly how I feel right now.

No, I need to do this. It may be stupid, it may be reckless, but I need to do this.

I finish up packing supplies and then I rip the flyer off the wall and stuff it inside my pocket, resolve flowing through me as I exit the store. Outside the sun has completely set, the sky now a deep navy blue, the only light visible being the moon's. I head out into this moonlit darkness and walk back down the road I came from, ignoring my instincts and better judgment, ignoring the part of me that still believes I'm the Winter Soldier, HYDRA's top assassin and nothing more.

Instead, as I walk towards the last place on earth I should be right now, I focus on my name, whispering it to myself over and over again, hoping that one of the times I do the name won't feel so strange, that it will feel like mine.

"James Buchanan Barnes. James Buchanan Barnes. James Buchanan Barnes."