barebone witches » bucky barnes | ✓

VIII

eight.

o'captain, my captain

BUCKY AWOKE SLOWLY, his senses coming to him in pieces. The first thing he noticed was the darkness, then the pressure on his metal arm, then the quiet voices that were murmuring about... him? He managed to open his eyes after a few minutes, his head lolling to the side, a headache hammering at his left temple. His mouth had a hauntingly familiar metallic taste and he ran his tongue over his teeth, despair hanging over him. He'd done it again. 

He'd turned into the Winter Soldier.

His chest tightened at the realization, a hollowness consuming him from the inside. The past few days he'd felt something bubbling inside of him, something he'd finally labeled as hope one night while staring at his ceiling. All because he was able to hold onto a few more memories, all because Maev was helping him.

Bucky hadn't felt hope in nearly seventy years until that Witch came barreling into his life, drunk off her ass, proclaiming she could help him. He hadn't kept his expectation particularly high, but to know that all the careful work they'd done together, all the days they'd spent sprawled out on her floor digging through his memories, all the days she'd guided him through his mind, helping him deduce what was real and what was false, hadn't been enough to keep him from turning back into the Winter Soldier... 

"He's awake." 

He moved his gaze from the concrete floor, slowly shifting it upwards until he could clearly see the two men walking towards him. He knew the one on the left, had spent hours decoding their past, had seen his face in his memories before HYDRA captured him, had fought him a few years before and dragged him out of a river. Before he knew it, the man's name fell out of his lips as easily as it had in 1940, "Steve."

Steve Rogers gave him a calculating look, "Which Bucky am I talking to?"

Bucky didn't blame him for the hesitation, in fact, he wouldn't have blamed Steve if he turned him in right now. But, as Bucky stared at the man, he realized that something was coming to the surface of his mind. He blurted out the memory, "Your mom's name was Sarah," his eyes grew unfocused, the barest hint of a smile on his lips, "you used to wear newspapers in your shoes."

Steve's eyebrows flicked up, "You can't read that in a museum."

"Just like that, we're supposed to be cool?" Sam Wilson asked him incredulously, remembering the punches the two had traded earlier that day.

Fear lanced through Bucky, "What did I do?"

Steve gave him a look, one he wasn't used to receiving, one of pity and sadness, "Enough."

He sighed heavily, his head hanging, "Oh god, I knew this would happen. Everything HYDRA put inside of me is still there, all he had to do was say the goddamn words." For a brief second, Bucky felt a hand land on his right shoulder, gently squeezing as an act of silent comfort.