Run (A Bucky Barnes Recovery Story)

95 Victory

This chapter a tad early today because I'm moving in the morning and I can't stay up late enough to post at the very beginning of the day. So here, have this. :) -BB

They met Steve in the hall and Bucky recognized that maybe they’d had a similarly difficult time sleeping that night, but Steve was so good at standing up straight and smiling that anyone but his closest friend would have completely missed the heavy sadness in his eyes. Bucky wondered if he’d looked at his journal and how far he’d gotten. He knew if anything would put those dark shadows in Steve’s face, his book would and for a second, he almost regretted sharing it with him.

They discussed discreetly over breakfast, the plan. The base was close, in a remote location and mostly kept underground. They were to sneak in and locate key persons whose deaths would be a critical hit to Hydra and make sure those deaths happened. Then, they would blow up the facility and get out of Russia.

“We’ve done this a million times, right Buck?” Steve said. “Same problem, different year.” Not like this, Bucky thought and he was feeling so fearful that he couldn’t even pretend to joke back and his smile fell flat and his words failed him for a few tries.

“Yeah,” he finally replied and he hated how suddenly, everyone knew how afraid he was.

They arrived at the facility a few hours later and Bucky realized that he recognized it and had to look back and forth between Steve and Natalia to remind himself that he was okay.

“That’s it,” Bucky said quietly. “That’s the place.” I became this thing there, I was destroyed there. Spent years frozen and experimented on and tied down. Spent years staring down the barrels of guns of nasty handlers and men who gave orders and told me I wasn’t human enough, even though they were taking my humanity themselves. And I killed and killed and killed and killed.

“We’re gonna do it and get out,” Steve said now to Bucky as he was putting on his helmet and Bucky wondered just how much he could see that he was struggling. “We’ll be back home before too late tomorrow and you’ll have nothing to be scared of ever again.” And even that wasn’t entirely true, Bucky thought, or maybe it was simply that he didn’t know how to not be scared anymore.

The building was squat and small, disguised as some sort of miniature office building, and Bucky, Steve and Natalia sat outside it just a block away in a van, running over the plan again, making Bucky swear to stay close and determining their actions over a blueprint layout of the building. Bucky stared out the window at the place where he lost all humanity and listened silently to Steve strategize.

They got inside quickly, through some employee door in the back and Bucky recognized everything. He had been dragged down these halls, led away and feeling dead. It was beginning to hurt to remember now, like a sharp pain in the back of his head, so poignant that Bucky actually ran his hand through his hair to make sure there wasn’t actually something cutting into him. But he couldn’t stop the memories because he was surrounded by them; they were permeating the air and oozing out of the walls and he was the Winter Soldier now, he couldn’t escape it.

He followed Steve and Natalia, checking around each corner to make sure no one was there, sneaking around, guns in hand, until they found the elevator and then they were going down, down to the bottom to work their way up and the Winter Soldier knew that this was the worst of it. The bottom was where he was kept, the cell where he sat and stared at the wall and thought nothing, the room where everything was stolen from his mind, the cryofreezing, the pain, everything stolen from his memories to his humanity to the very basics of human autonomy that he had once thought to be his right.

Steve nudged the Winter Soldier as they stood in the elevator and for half a second, he wasn’t with Steve, he was with handlers, being prodded with guns and the Winter Soldier jumped forward, afraid, until Steve reached out and grabbed him again, saying, “Bucky, Bucky, it’s okay, it’s me.”