Tangled Paths | Bucky Barnes

Chapter 25: Blue Bug

A sense of relief washed over Darla when she heard the softness in his tone.
"Which Bucky am I talking to?" Steve asked in the same stern tone he'd just spoken to Darla in a few moments before. There was a moment of silence that filled the room as Bucky thought of a way to appropriately answer the question.
"Your mom's name was Sarah." He said. "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes." He added with a small chuckle. A small grin appeared on Steve's face. He'd thought he'd lost Bucky again, this time for good.
"You can't read that in a museum." He said with a full-blown smile.
"Oh and just like that we're supposed to be cool?" Sam asked looking at Steve in disbelief.

Darla had heard enough. She pulled out a smoke and lit it as she sat down on an upside-down crate. She knew this conversation between the men wasn't over and she didn't want to interrupt so she thought it better to just wait until they were done.
"What did I do?" Bucky asked.
"Enough," Steve replied as his smile dropped.
"Oh god, I knew this would happen," Bucky replied as he hung his head. "Everything HYDRA put inside me, it's still there." He said defeated. "All he had to do was say the god damned words." He forced as he began to get worked up.
"Who was he?" Steve asked pulling Bucky out of his mind.
"I don't know," Bucky replied honestly.
"People are dead. The bombing, the set up. He did all that just to get ten minutes with you. I need you to do better than 'I don't know'." Steve pushed. Bucky closed his eyes with a defeated look and tried to think.
"He wanted to know about Siberia, where Darla and I were kept." He said as he opened his eyes, a rush of worry washed over him as he realized everything that just happened. "Oh god, Darla-"

Quickly she got up and walked into the room directly between Steve and Bucky.
"No it's okay, I'm here I'm okay." She assured as she knelt and sat on her ankles in front of him. He stared at her for a moment in regret. "Doll I'm so sorry." He tried to explain.
"James please, we can do this later. Keep talking." She encouraged him in a serious tone as she butted out her smoke on the ground beside her.
Bucky nodded back at her holding her eyes with his own for a moment and then looked back at Steve.

"He wanted to know exactly where it was." He said to his best friend.
"Why would he need to know that?" Steve asked in confusion.
"Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier," Bucky replied. Darla's face contorted into horror and it clicked. When she woke up, the room she walked by that was almost completely dark. It was full of Cryo tanks, the same ones that she was being held in. There were other people there. Left. Abandoned. Tossed away like trash.

"What the hell do you mean you're not the only Winter Soldier?" Sam asked.
Darla in desperate need of a distraction climbed to her feet and walked over to Bucky then yanked the crank back on the vice with all of her might and released him.
Bucky saw the look on her face and debated on asking her to leave as he pulled his metal arm out of the crank. His thought process was interrupted by the shooting pain in his shoulder blade. Instinctively he reached up and attempted to massage it over the metal which he knew wouldn't work. He gave up on it and turned his attention back to Darla, he opened his mouth to suggest her leaving but before he could get a word out she'd sat down right beside him on the small bench and reached for his hand. She didn't look at Sam or Steve, she just held onto him tightly and stared at the ground. Bucky looked at her for a second like she was the only one in the room and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before turning his attention back to Steve and Sam to tell the story.

"In 91, just before the Soviet Union crashed. Another super soldier serum had been recreated by Howard. HYDRA sent me to retrieve it. They took their most elite team of assassins and gave them all the Serum in an attempt to make a super soldier army. Not all of them survived the transition but the ones who did... Howard missed something when he recreated the formula. Something was wrong with them. They were angry. Cruel. Power hungry. They made me fight every single one to train them and they were all stronger than I was. Eventually one day one almost snapped my arm off and they tried to put him back in line. When they tried, he and the rest of them went off the rails. The man who was the head of the program made me protect him and locked all the guards in the cell to be ripped apart by the super soldiers. Funds ran low and patience ran thin and eventually they just put them in Cryo and left them there to collect dust." Bucky explained to the three.
"Like me," Darla said quietly from beside him. Bucky ran his thumb along the top of her hand in an attempt to comfort her as he kept his focus on the conversation at hand.
"Tell me more about these assassins, who were they," Steve asked as he leaned on the wall stiffly and kept his eye contact with Bucky.
"Their most elite death squad, more kills than anyone in HYDRA history, and that was before the Serum." He answered looking down at the floor.