barebone witches » bucky barnes | ✓

XV

fifteen.

(—welcome home)

HE DREAMED IN small bits and pieces.

Flashes of a world long gone, consumed by technology and humanity's need to push forward. He dreamed of towering buildings and busy streets and the smell of cigarette smoke filling the gaps in between people. He dreamed of black and white movies and an almost flying car and popcorn, his arm slung casually around a girl whose name he couldn't remember.

He dreamed of a fitted uniform and a gun slung across his back, an easy-going grin stretched too wide on his face as he said goodbye to his best friend, struggling to not let any of his fear peek through his facade. War, he was off to war, and only God knew when he'd return; be it in one piece or a casket.

He dreamed of dirt stuck underneath his fingernails, the smell of gunpowder filling his nose, shouts ringing in his ears as he fought side by side his childhood friend who'd grow a foot and a half since the last time he saw him.

These flashes were brief but brought forth a sense of belonging, of happiness.

Then something twisted and someone was falling— he, he was falling through the frigid cold air, a scream startling from his lungs until the impact knocked him unconscious.

It was here that everything was ripped away from him. His memories, his sense of self, his dreams, his ambition, everything just... gone within a matter of seconds, thrown down a dark hole with no hope of return.

And in place of his emotions was an all-consuming nothing that quickly bred a never-ending rage.

This rage tinted everything red: the training, the surgeries, the assassinations, the wiping. Over and over and over again, a cycle that was slowly killing him, a cycle that would've killed him if he hadn't been tasked to kill the man who'd helped him through everything from high school to war. Bucky, the man had called him, but he didn't recognize that name. Not anymore.

The rage flickered away leaving behind a void that accompanied him through the countries he traveled through, his head held low as searched. He didn't know what he was searching for, only that he knew he was missing something important, something critical.

He finally settled down, staying for more than a few months in a cramped apartment, living off of the meager sums he'd procured through his travels. The numbness stayed and he grew to live with it, piecing together fragments of his memories as he relearned what it meant to live, what it meant to be free.

Then, he dreamed of her.

She came into his life half drunk and with such an intensity it had left him breathless. He thought of sitting in her living room, watching as her hazel eyes were consumed by darkness, palms uptilted as she helped him draw out his memories one by one. He thought of watching her carefully cut out newspaper clippings, wondering why on earth she was helping him when she surely had better things to do.