Once Upon A Dream
He’d been watching him for some time now, or rather he was watching him watching him. If that made any sense… Did anything make any sense anymore? Did that face on the memorial exhibit with the thousand yard stare resembling him make any sense either? His brain had begun to stick into blank spaces bits and pieces of memories, quicker than flashes of lightning in his mind’s eye, sometimes they’d stick longer than others but he had a few piled up and was trying to fit them into the correct order.
He was hesitating though. He knew somehow they were precious to have, precious because he feared at any moment HYDRA, whenever they found him, would wipe them all away and his work would have been for nothing. But maybe if he strayed long enough they wouldn’t find him this time and he’d be able to keep these few memories hidden away. Secret, always secret. This memorial helped a little, and by ‘little’ that meant barely at all. He had no frame of reference by which to place the little memory scraps into. He couldn’t remember which were lies, and which were real memories so he was afraid to start trying to piece the puzzle together.
That Captain America fellow though….he’d been the one to essentially provide the glue and the table to begin fitting the puzzle together. Somehow in only a handful of words he’d been able to jar the Winter Soldier enough to let him know there was something going on behind the scenes that he needed to pay attention to. Not just at HYDRA no, but behind the scenes of James’ own existence. He felt some tug of……something.
He didn’t know what to call it, didn’t know what to call himself even, didn’t know where to go, didn’t know how to function, but he knew how to lay out a grid of surveillance, how to track and hunt down targets, knew how to secure a perimeter, knew how to…protect… He didn’t know when to eat though, not until he was given a directive that would coincide with his handlers’ satisfaction. He knew how to get a disguise hence the baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and the hoodie his hands were tucked into, carefully concealing his metal arm. He didn’t think about shaving, or showering, or hair cuts, or typical everyday things. He only thought about this nagging feeling inside him, something…just barely tickling at him like the whisper of a touch a spider web might give on your finger.
You knew it was there, could feel it was there, but you couldn’t see it yet, couldn’t grab it without knowing where to grab. James was attuned to all the civilians milling around him like water passing over a stone in the creek, he was also attuned to the one figure that didn’t move. That one was a stone like him and stood, watching, and contemplating, farther back from the exhibits, but there all the same. He hadn’t yet turned around or tried to figure out who it was that was staring at him. For a little while he’d feared it might be a HYDRA agent, but it couldn’t be — he reassured himself — as they would have made contact with him by now instead of standing and watching all this time.
Pure exhaustion had set in once or twice since the fight on the helicarrier, and James had been forced to sleep in the darkest of alleys, however while he slept his brain had not. Dreams swam to him like driftwood and he clung to each furtively, frantically, while they drifted away from his fingers. The same face fogged over so many times before was now growing more clear in the dream visions of …a time…a time not now? A time where the world moved a little slower, people were different…technology was different.. he? was different?
He had always woken up in a cold sweat, stomach cramping from lack of food, but the meager water he used to wet his palate hadn’t been drunk in consumption to satisfy his thirst for actual nutrition and hydration. He probably stank to high heaven, he was dirty enough from sleeping on the disgusting concrete of alleyways, he hadn’t had much of a shower since his swim to rescue Captain America from the depths of the Potomac. At least it made the civilians avoid him and not try to bother him much. He was growing thin however with lack of food, the four days of stubble growing on his jaw and the deep rings under his eyes spoke of fevered nightmares and lack of sleep.
He didn’t know why he’d come here, he supposed he gravitated to the man that had begun this out of control spiral into his own mind, and maybe sought more answers from the glassed etchings hanging from the ceiling, the videos displaying old recordings, a face that looked hauntingly like him, was it him?? and the biographies of the man that had started it all. He had also been standing there at the memorial who bore his face for what seemed like hours now, civilian traffic milling around him, with some of the attendees giving his stoic poise a second glance at the oddity of his immovable posture.
Day after day it was the same routine. Sam called him crazy, insane really. The first few days he accompanied him, but after awhile he gave up and said that if wanted to become a security guard he would have gotten a gig at the mall where the girls were cuter. Steve had to smile at that. But as his eyes scanned from under the baseball hat over at the tourists at the museum, he just kept his cool and looked around. Each day since he was released from the hospital, Steve made his way down here to their exhibit. He never referred to it as HIS exhibit because it wasn't. His men sacrificed their blood and even what he thought, was their lives as well.
Moving along, Steve watched the videos for the millionth time. He had to smile as the old familiar one came upon the screen. He knew every smile, every dimple and twinkle in his eyes. He had long ago memorized every facial feature of that man staring back at him from behind the television screen. He used to trace those dimples in the darkness when he was skinny and no one would give him second chance. Yet Bucky did. Bucky looked at him as if the sun rose and set in his eyes. His heart clenched as he felt the emotion flood over him once again. He let out a shuddering breath as he tried to force the tears to go away. But they never did. No one would know what he lost that day on the train. Steve couldn't explain it to Peggy or the Howling Commandos. The words weren't there.
Fast Forward 70 plus years later and he found himself staring into those same ice blue eyes only now those blue eyes had looked at him with such blankness, suc emptiness and Steve never felt so alone in his life. He almost at first wished for death. Until he whispered the words that started to bring his Bucky back to him. "I'm with you until the end of the line." To anyone else those were just words a best friend said to another. Yet to Bucky and himself, those were more than that. In the age that they grew up that meant, "I love you." Because they couldn't say it any other way and not get looked at or judge for having a love like any other.
Just as Steve was going to turn to walk away, he froze. His heart started to beat wildly in his chest and his eyes fixated on a man standing near Bucky's memorial. He studied the man and his body broke out into a million shivers. He knew that face, he knew those features. The hair was longer but it was....it was him. Steve took a deep breath trying to calm himself. He immediately looked around trying to ascertain any danger. The last thing he needed was any rogue HYDRA agents popping out of the woodwork and endangering any civilians or Bucky for that matter. As far as he was concerned, if anyone touched Bucky they were going to die.
Steve walked over slowly as not to draw attention to himself. He could tell that Bucky was in desperate need of a shower and food as he approached him. Coming up to his side, and not from behind so he wouldn't scare him, Steve made it look as if he were looking at the memorial. He then turned his head and gave him a soft smile as he whispered. "Come on Bucky. Let me take you out of here and get you cleaned up and some food. It's time to come home."