The Winter Wraith (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

Chapter 22 - Bitter Betrayal

You slam the file shut, a cloud of dust erupting in your face. Chances were, you knew as much about the Winter Soldier as he knew about himself, making this feel like some strange invasion of his privacy, like reading a strange diary he didn't know he was keeping. Yet you knew if your positions were reversed, you would want him to open your file. Clutching the delicate paper with a too-tight grip, you open the gates to the Winter Soldier's identity.

The pictures slowly move to the side of the page, guided by your gentle hands. They seem reverent, somehow, like this small file was a shrine to a past life. His past life. Underneath the photos lay Hydra's records of the Winter Soldier. The weight of limited time sitting on your shoulders, you begin to read.

~

His name, his real name, was James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. You mouth the words to yourself, pleased with the way they roll off your tongue like the gentle lull of ocean waves. He was born on the 10th of March 1917. Which would make him... old. Too old, meaning he must have been in cryostasis for most of the time he was not on missions.

You know you don't have the time to read the entire file, and its unlikely you will get this opportunity again, so you focus your mind on skimming through, memorising the important parts to tell the Winter Soldier. You won't forget anything you read; an ability you have Hydra to thank for.

The file tells you he was part of a group of men called the 'Howling Commandos'. The name seems familiar and, thinking back to the museum trip, you remember why: they were on the information stand outside the World War exhibits. You mentally kick yourself for not paying more attention to the stand, but from what you gathered, they were some heroic group of Americans serving the army during World War II. It was a strange kind of connection, matching the dates on the paper with solid proof of the Winter Soldier's life. Like when you know something, but don't really grasp it until it slaps you in the face. It wasn't even the fact that the Winter Soldier himself was a war relic, it was more that he had been an actual person with an actual life. There was something else about the amusement park photo, the one with the scrawny looking boy. The boy's blonde hair and blue eyes, coupled with the way he held his head high, reminded you an awful lot of Captain America, and the Winter Soldier had claimed to know him. Huh, you think back to the museum exhibit, guess Soldat was right. It would also explain why you didn't recall a second world war: Hydra would have kept you in cryo whilst they worked on the Winter Soldier. One enhanced soldier was hard enough to handle, they would have made sure they had absolute control of the Winter Soldier before allowing you both out of cryo at once.

The Winter Soldier, or rather, Bucky, had fallen from a train after the Howling Commandos had been ambushed, ending up in the care of Hydra. So, unlike many of the soldiers you had previously encountered, he wasn't a volunteer. Further down the page are notes about the Winter Soldier's temperament. Amongst various forms of praise for his brutal efficiency lay mentions of a man who struggled against having his memories wiped.

Wiped. That was the word Lenkov and the other man had been using, something they were planning to do to you and the soldier. You had not been able to work out what they were 'wiping', but the black ink in front of you holds the answer: your memories.

You're standing on the edge of a cliff, a sea of emotions crashing against the rocks keeping them at bay. One wrong step, one slip, and you'll plummet into the ocean's icy depths. You tiptoe along the edge, the ground crumbling beneath your feet, knowing that if you fall into your thoughts you won't be able to read the rest of the file, you will not be able to do what needs to be done. Ignoring the salt spray licking at your feet, you put one foot in front of the other and step away from the edge. For now.

Your eyes scan further down the page and come to rest on a rough timeline of the Winter Soldier's progress. He was put back in cryo almost immediately after every mission he completed, with activity all throughout the late 1940s to the 1970s. The timeline stops abruptly at around 1980, so you assume someone either gave up on documenting the Winter Soldier, died or, most likely, or switched to some online version.