Blood in the snow. A redheaded woman bleeding out from a wound through her abdomen, the man behind her letting out a death rattle.
“You helped shape the century.”
Headlights. A face in the driver's seat, eyes wide in shock. A flash of recognition before he swerved, shouting a name. “Steve!”
The car went into a ditch, moving too fast. By the time the Soldier got to the vehicle, the passenger was dead, the driver close to it. “Steve,” the driver said again. “You're alive?”
“Now I need you to do it one last time.”
The man on the bridge. The one with the dark hair and blue eyes.
“But I knew him.”
This was the mission. The chair had renewed that. Destroy this man. Mission complete. One last time. He was a weapon, a tool. He could be shelved after this, locked away in the unfeeling cold, or even disposed of.
Mission. Parameters reinforced by pain. They had wiped him until there was nothing left but the programming.
Until the man with the blue coat had been fighting him. Talking to him. Saying that name again and again.
“People are gonna die, Steve. I can't let that happen.”
Steve was twitching, moaning in his sleep. His metal arm had shredded the blankets and sheets under it. If he could only kill this man, this mission, would he be free? He couldn't fail again. This had to be completed. One last time.
“Please don't make me do this.”
My mission.
---
They took shifts. Sam first, Bucky second, Steve last. Bucky had every confidence that Steve could be depended upon, that he could be trusted if just given the chance. If Steve was willing, if he wanted to do this, that was all Buck needed to hear.
Bucky quietly walked the hallways during his shift, but besides the wheels on the tracks below him, for the most part he couldn’t even make out the snoring behind the doors of each private room. For the most part.
He did hear the shifting in Steve’s room. Bucky put his ear to the door. Was there a girl in there? Steve was a lot of things, but Casanova wasn’t one of them.
Bucky decided to knock on the door. “Steve?”
---
The Soldier was awake and alert by the second rap on the door, though Steve was still caught up in the memories. The Soldier cared nothing for the room, only slipping into the shadows beside the door. A knife appeared between his fingers, picked up from the floor. He waited there, silent, listening through the door. Past the wheels of the train on the tracks, he heard breathing, a beating heart.
The train car was vibrating slightly as it moved across the rails. He studied the motion, then as fitting, the door was thrown open, the intruder grabbed and pulled in. He tried to throw the subject to the ground, hopefully as they were startled off balance.
---
Bucky was pulled in with a start. He was about two seconds too late in realizing something was wrong as he hit the floor with a thud. Anyone else it might have registered as a deep, dull pain to set in later, but Zola’s experimentation was apparently good for something.
“Steve!”
Bucky spent the next few precious seconds trying to figure out what was wrong with Steve. There were a few things he could have done: attacked, positioned himself more defensively, but this was Steve. Bucky just got him back. He wasn’t going to jeopardize that now until he knew what was happening.
---
Here was the mission. The door was abandoned as he turned back to the target. The name made him pause for an instant, but the Soldier growled and struck with his stronger arm. He didn't realize the growl contained words.
“Shut up!”
This was the mission. One last time.
---
Bucky just took the hit. It was hard enough to leave a mark but the skin didn't split. Yet. He caught the gleam of the blade in Steve’s hand, but thankfully the Winter Soldier hadn't attacked with it yet.
“Snap out of it, Steve! You're Steve Rogers! You're no one’s weapon! We’re safe here!”
Steve wasn't asleep, but there was nothing in his eyes that said Steve was with them, either. He remained on the floor with his hands up half defensively.
---
“You're my mission,” he said, lashing out again with the metal arm. Something was wrong. The target wasn't fighting him.
He twitched almost violently at the name. The knife slammed into the floor barely an inch from the target's jugular.
He had no name. No wants, no desires. He had the next mission. “Stop.” The word came unbidden, but it was hard to know who it was directed at.
---
Bucky would have been hurt if he hadn't been so focused with staying alive long enough for Steve to come to his senses. When would he just be Steve’s friend? Was his presence dangerous to Steve’s recovery? The other passengers?
“Protecting the train is your mission, Steve. Til the end of the line. You agreed. I'm not going anywhere, pal.”
Then the knife slammed down and Steve had uttered one word. Bucky was relentless: “I know you're in there, you punk! Fight it, Steve!”
---
“Stop!” More desperate this time. The body under him wasn't reacting as it should. This was entirely outside of his parameters. And that name, that name.
The Soldier blinked. For a flickering instant, doubt crossed his face.
Words were doing something. So, stop the words. His hands slid to his target's throat and began to squeeze.
---
Bucky couldn't fight back. Or if he did, he had to do so carefully, defensively. Because Buck couldn't let Steve kill him, either. Steve would be pissed at Bucky if Bucky let it happen.
“I … Didn't bring … My shield to … Drop.”
Unless… Steve got mad that Bucky didn't fight back. Maybe it would wake up the part of Steve’s brain he was buried in.
Just hold out a little longer…
---
Shield. The image came to mind, a round shield, painted like a bull's eye. He could remember how it felt in his arm.
Blue eyes widened. Steve drew away with a gasp, releasing Bucky from his grasp and moving back until the wall stopped him.
“No, no, no, no….” Steve shut his eyes, hands pulling at his hair.
---
“Stevie,” Bucky sounded more raspy than he meant to, sitting up but letting the other super soldier keep his space. “Closing your eyes and pulling your hair ain't gunna make this go away. You wanna talk or just sit a bit?”
Bucky considered.
“I think I'm just gunna sit.”
Breathing wasn't easy yet but it was steady. His face was slowly turning back to a normal shade from the red it had been.
“Is it me? Am I making things confusing for you?”
---
Steve shook his head. He didn't want to talk, he didn't want to sit, he wanted to tear out the part of himself that they had made, tear out the thing he was. He just wasn't sure there would be enough left afterwards to be Steve.
“I hurt you.”
He slammed his left arm back into the wall, leaving a deep crack in the wood. “Goddamn it. Just kill me already.”
---
“Never gunna happen,” Bucky shot back with a glare. “You’ve beat this thing twice already and you’re going to beat it again if you have to. I already told you, I ain’t gunna let you hurt anyone else and if I got to take a few of your knocks in the meantime, then I will. Where’s that rabid chihuahua Steve I knew? The guy who never backed down from a fight? You ain’t backin’ down from this, pal. I got your back.”
---
“I'm not him anymore!” Steve shook his head. “They took him out. Made me… this. I…” He held out his hands. “I don't want to be like this. But it… it pushes at me, and…”
He fell silent, and falling to his sides in defeat. There was no way to describe being pulled apart, no language existed that could explain it. In order for their precious programming to be effective, they'd had to destroy Steve Rogers.
Not enough. Not when a single word from Bucky Barnes could drag him back. But it was hard.
---
“Sure you are. You think I don’t know who my best friend is? The man too stupid to just let himself be brainwashed like a normal fella? You’ll push back. You always do. And I’ll be there to help however I can. So punch at the walls if you gottah. Be angry. Just don’t think I’m gunna let you tap out of this fight.”
Bucky crossed his arms, ignoring the new bruise forming on his face.
---
He did punch the wall. And the floor. There was a large hole behind his elbow when he was done, and another on the floor between his legs.
Then he leaned back and shut his eyes. “Goddamn jerk.”
After another moment, he lifted his head and sighed. “....sorry.”
---
“Feel any better?” Bucky asked.
---
Steve shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe.” He looked at the destruction and frowned. “...maybe I should apologize to the Conductor.”
---
“Depends on how cute she is,” Bucky said, almost with a straight face.
----
Steve rolled his eyes, but the faintest blush crept up into his cheeks. “Don't think I can handle any dames right now, Buck. I can barely keep my head straight. I just want to…” He shrugged. “Make sure she's not gonna kick me out or something.”
---
“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to her for you.”
Sometimes with Bucky it was hard to tell if it was a genuine offer of help or if he had ulterior motives. Maybe because Bucky was never quite sure himself.
---
Steve arched a brow at him, but let out a sigh. “You're an idiot, you know. A real goddamn moron. I read about you. I'm not gone a damn week, and you crash a plane into the fucking Arctic? No one ever taught you to land? Christ, Bucky.”
---
Bucky’s smile may have faltered for a microsecond, but he put on a good act, “Any landing you can walk away from, right?”
---
Steve glared at him. “Don't even joke, man. You didn't expect to walk away from that, and you know it. I know it. It's a goddamn miracle you survived at all. What was it, the experience with Zola? He did it, didn't he? Managed to replicate the serum. That's how you survived, that's why you could keep up with me. And you dove into the water.”
Steve ran his hand over his face. “And you call me reckless.”
---
Bucky looked off to the side and shrugged, “Probably.”
He generally did his best not to think about Zola or the crash. They were unpleasant, to say the least. All he wanted to do was focus on his pal. If Steve got better, it would solidify Bucky’s attempts to act as though everything was fine.
---
That shrug, that nonchalant look away. It spoke volumes, libraries of information that Steve hadn’t realized he knew. He was suddenly sorry for saying anything about it, and realized, again, just what Bucky Barnes had meant to him. If even the fragmented memories he had struck him with this kind of emotion… would he have acted any differently if he’d been the one struggling to go on?
Steve pushed himself to his feet, closed the distance between them, and grabbed Bucky by the arm, pulling him to his feet and wrapping his arms around his best friend. He closed his eyes and buried his face against Bucky’s shoulder, breathing in that familiar scent and letting it settle in his mind, connecting fragments of memory and stirring up more.
---
Bucky hugged back and grinned, “Does this mean the lecture’s over now, ma?”
Two hugs in as many days. Bucky wondered if this would be the last time, or if this was the beginning of an unending loop where Steve snapped back into the Asset, snapped out of it, they hugged and then started over again. Bucky wondered if there was anything he could actually do besides hug back.
---
One hand snaked up and smacked Barnes on the back of the head. “Hell no. I’m teaching you how to fly a goddamn plane. And then we get to talk about parachute safety. Yeah, I read the reports that were posted on the internet. Reckless bastard.”