a lion among wolves, bucky barnes (hiatus)

nine.

WASHINGTON D.C.
2014

JUNE found him standing alone on a bridge just
outside of the facility, hands shoved deep in his pockets, his stare fixated unwaveringly upon the quiet scenery before him. A creek gurgled softly below, a verdant forest swayed beneath a yellow sky, rustled by a caressing wind warmed by the waning afternoon.

"Tell me more about Barnes," she prompted Steve gently, stepping beside him and leaning against the rusted railing. "I only know him professionally as someone who wants to kill me."

Steve was silent, still and unsmiling as his eyes continued to survey the horizon. At last, he sighed heavily, gaze downcast and eyebrows creased. He joined her at the railing.

"His name was James," Steve said quietly. "James Buchanan Barnes. But everyone called him Bucky. Everyone loved him. He was a good man. He's not what he's done. That's not him."

"How long have you known him?"

Steve cracked half a smile. "Technically? A hundred years . . ." the smile faded. "Since we were kids. I always had him to turn to when I needed someone. I was on my own by the time I was eighteen."

June nodded in understanding, listening dutifully. She had a feeling Steve had never told anyone what he was telling her then.

"You said they tortured him," Steve added darkly, his voice deep and troubled. "What did they do?"

June bit her lip uncomfortably. It was unpleasant to recall. "I'm not . . . sure. We were kept on the same base only once—I saw him only once," she became fascinated with her hands, wringing her fingers anxiously, because remembering her days of being beaten half to death and then left in a vermin-infested cell to bleed until morning was a painful thing indeed.

"From what I could gather . . . they did things to his . . . to his mind. They made him . . .  cold. A shell of a human being. Murderous, invincible," she began to trail off, thinking of those agonized blue eyes, ". . . but powerless," she went quiet for a moment. "I think he may have recognized me. He spoke to me."

Something flashed over Steve's face, like pain but something else besides. Jealousy. "How could he have known you and not me?"

Now that, June could not answer.

"He doesn't know me, Steve," she insisted feverishly. "But I don't believe he doesn't know you."

June felt her expression furrow into a scowl. Something erupted in her core, something chilling and sharp and uncomfortable. Pity. She pitied the Winter Soldier inexplicably, for reasons she could not understand. She still felt the throbbing pain in her waist where his knife had dug into her ribcage, still saw those sparking dead eyes staring at her from across the highway. But the empathy was there, whether he deserved it or not.

"When Bucky fell," Steve said, also gazing down at his knuckles, "I thought I lost everything. And now that he's alive, I should be happy," he winced. "But now I think he'd be better off dead."

June shook her head at once. "No, you don't. It's not too late. You can still save him."

A third voice broke in. "The problem with that is," Sam drawled, "I don't think he's the kind of guy you save. He's the kind you stop."

Steve did not lift his eyes as the Falcon approached them from the same way June had before. "I don't think I could do that," he mumbled softly.

"He might not give you a choice," Sam continued sympathetically. "He doesn't know you."