Stucky One-Shots (Angst, Fluff, Smut)

Free fall into foreign waters

so this is post-WS/pre-CW Bucky trying to find himself and his memories, lots of them revolve around our lovely Stevie

words: 1.9k

There's gotta be something more for me, more than framework and furniture, free fall into foreign waters, you tore me down

---

"Солдат?"

"Готовы соблюдать."

Stop anyone and anything that attempted to get in the way of the helicarriers launching. The cost didn't matter. Whatever it took. Even if it meant the Asset's life.

The Asset wasn't alive. Not to HYDRA. The Winter Soldier was their weapon. Nothing more, nothing less. The Winter Soldier was expendable.

Dismissed.

-

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes...."

"Shut up!"

A name. What did it mean? That's not the Winter Soldier's name. There was no other name. But the man insisted that it was. How did he know?

No time. There was a mission to complete.

Target acquired. Engage.

-

"You're my mission!"

"Then finish it. 'Cause I'm with you, 'til the end of the line."

The dam in the Soldier's mind cracked and crumbled.

There was a man--Steve--outside his front door. The Soldier--James--put a hand on his shoulder. Was that meant to be comforting? Touch meant pain. It always did. Not this time, what did it mean?

The floor collapsed, on instinct he grabbed onto a beam so he didn't fall. He watched Steve plummet through the glass and into the water. There was a frenzied need to save. To protect. He wasn't thinking. He went in after him.

He dragged Steve out and left him there on the sand. He didn't know anything about Steve except that he meant something. He meant something goddamn important.

Not long after the helicarrier went down, he went to a museum and he saw it. There was an exhibit about Captain America and the Howling Commandos. He found himself staring at an enlarged image of a man that vaguely looked like him. He had the same name Steve said, but he was called Bucky instead.

Bucky. A nickname. A start.

He knew nothing about the man in the picture yet he had this feeling that he wasn't the same. He wasn't that Bucky anymore. He wouldn't ever be that Bucky again. Now he was James, or so he thought.

The least he could do was learn who Bucky Barnes was.

-

"Let's hear it for Captain America!"

Memories appeared. Incoherently, disjointed, random. He didn't understand them. They were blurry, only flashes, broken parts of something formerly whole. Just like him. He didn't know who he was. He didn't really know anyone in the pieces of a past life that his brain managed to pull out.

When he looked in the mirror, he didn't recognize himself. He knew that he was supposed feel connected to the body displayed in front of him, but he didn't. It was as if he was looking at a photograph of someone he's never seen before. It shocked him every time he moved and the reflection would do the same. Most of the time he didn't feel like he resided in his body at all. He was always somewhere off to the left of it, floating. It was profoundly unsettling.