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A Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Fic - The Constant	By : TheConstant1944 Category: Marvel Verse Comics > Captain America Views: 2391 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel characters. They are solely owned by Marvel and MCU. No money is made from this story.

Chapter List
- 74
- 75
- 76
Chapter Seventy-Five
It's A Wonderful Life
(Please see Author's notes at the end of chapter)
“Hey Buck – It's A Wonderful Life!”
He wakes with a start and tries to move, but his whole body aches and he recognises the heat. He is injured. He doesn't know where he is or how he was injured and for a moment he works on calming himself and taking time to access the situation and it comes to him: he was on a mission.
And he had failed. He knows that much.
His head hurts. Not only hurts: it pounds and his ears are buzzing. He tries again to stand but only gets a couple of feet before he has to back up and sit down on the edge of the bed. The room is spinning.
He clutches his head for a few moments thinking that by applying pressure it will make the pain go away. He looks down and sees that the carpet on the floor is a garish orange with a purple pattern but it looks familiar. He looks up and it comes to him. He is in a motel room. The patterned wallpaper is almost as bad as the carpet.
He frowns. He remembers saying that to someone.
And then it all comes flooding back. All at once. He groans and falls back onto the bed.
He has been here for two days. He is alone.
When he first arrived he was with another man. Rollins, it was Rollins who booked them into the room, paying cash for it. Brought in food and drink. Also bought a change of clothing and a few others things he thought the Soldier would need. Soap and antiperspirant was high on the list.
Rollins left him with a knife which was all he could spare and that he had taken from one of the men he left dead at the abandoned garage. He had made sure the Soldier was settled in, reluctantly helped him strip to shower, and that is when the Soldier had discovered the money in his pocket. She always sent him out with it in case he found himself alone. Rollins had not seen it, doesn't know about the other thing he found with the money. And Rollins has left now. It's doubtful they will ever see each other again. He was a man sensible enough to get out whilst he could.
“Thanks. I couldn't have done it without you,” the Soldier had said to him. Rollins had hesitated, and then smiled.
“Yeah, you probably could have. Keep your head down.” He took the SUV when he left. The Soldier had fallen into bed and slept the rest of the day and night through.
Slowly the Soldier sits up and reaches for the glass of water on the bedside table. His hand is trembling, and not because of the pain of his healing arm. He takes his right hand in his left and massages it then tries again and this time it is not so bad. He takes a gulp of water and then a deep breath.
He needs a plan. He needs to decide what he is going to do. The serum has done a good job of healing him except for his right arm, but he will worry about that another time. He makes another attempt to stand, and this time finds it easier and he heads for the bathroom with the intention of taking a shower. He then dresses in jeans, a black tee shirt and blue lumberjack shirt and trainers. And gloves. He must never forget the gloves.
He has remembered what it is he is going to do today. Leave here and visit the Smithsonian Railway Station.
The key. The one he found wrapped within the money his Constant put in his trouser pockets. As he thinks of that his mind shies away from her - from even her name. He doesn't want to think of her, can't think of her, of what he did, otherwise he will fall apart. He cannot afford to fall apart.
He cleans off everything he thinks he may have touched in the room but he knows it is not foolproof: if someone wants to find him they will do. With his mind in its current state he is vulnerable - his thoughts are over the place and he is finding it difficult to plan, but it's a start.
*
It takes him far too long to travel the distance needed. He knew roughly where he was headed but there was no way he could keep up the pace he set himself. By the time he reaches his destination he is in trouble, both mentally and physically. He needs to stop, to rest. It is late afternoon. He spots a hotel: seedy, rundown and in a back street. Perfect. He pays for one night in cash and then falls down on the dirty bed until the light streaming through the window wakes him. It's already the next day.
He wakes with a start and goes cold when he realises how vulnerable he has been all night. His only precaution he sees is a chair he wedged under the door and his knife under the pillow. At least he remembered to do that. But he cannot continue like this, but then another thought plays on his mind, seems to always be there in the background until he is forced to acknowledge it – does he really want to survive?
He is getting low on cash and he needs a plan but his mind just cannot keep up with his thoughts. Memories are starting to push their way through and his head feels as if it is splitting in two. The paranoia is beginning to creep in along with them. He leaves the hotel certain that everyone is watching him. He spots a drug store, and buys Advil and a bottle of water. Once outside he takes a handful of them not worried about side effects, the serum will take care of those. He then stops at a greasy spoon that sells everything from coffee and food over the counter, to drugs and guns under the counter. He orders food which he consumes so quickly that he's done as the waitress comes up to give him a refill of coffee.
“Ex-con, huh?” It's not a question. She seems a decent sort but she has had a hard life and it shows in the lines around her mouth.
“How can you tell?” The Advil is beginning to work but his head is far from clear.
“Who else would eat in here?” She croaks out a laugh and walks away again.
The room tilts. The food he has just eaten makes itself known and he has to make a run for the rest rooms where it all comes back up again. He is in there for a good amount of time and when he has finished bringing everything up he splashes his face with water and returns to the table. No one noticed, no one asks him if he is okay.
He is close to asking the waitress if she knows of anyone with a room to rent but when he looks at her he realises that she seems to be studying him. Has she called the police? Does she know who he is? He looks around without seeming to and he is sure everyone is staring, everyone ready to hand him in, everyone knows what he has done. He has to get out of there.
He has to make it to the station, has to see if he is right about what the key is for. Somehow he knows it is his only chance.
It's past two in the afternoon when he finally gets there. He can see the banks of lockers but doesn't know if it is a trap. What if Hydra know about the key? What if she did it to...no. She wouldn't. Not Freya.
“She said she loved me,” he murmurs to himself without realising, and a young girl walking by makes a wider berth than she would normally have. And that sick feeling Freya's name now brings threatens to make him weep. He catches sight of himself in a mirrored surface and cannot blame the young girl from keeping her distance, he looks like a crazy drifter, muttering to himself. At least it will keep people away.
The station contains a food court from where he can sit and watch the lockers. He stops at a newstand and pretends to read the back of a book. If there is anyone watching the lockers he cannot see them, but then at the moment he knows he cannot trust himself or his instincts. As he walks his eyesight blurs, he has to rub his eyes. The light is bright and he ignores the posters and the paraphernalia advertising what he can visit around the city. If he had taken notice, one thing would have stopped him in his tracks: a large poster with the legend Welcome Back Cap! and showing details of the new exhibition at the Smithsonian. This lack of spotting these details showcases just how much the Winter Soldier's mind is suffering, how his mind is compromised, how it is just about coping enough to be able to walk and do this one thing.
He uses the facilities as an attempt to tidy himself up, then pulls down his baseball cap over his eyes. He then orders a drink and a sandwich and takes a seat. He is hungry but ensures that he eats slower this time. He pretends to read one of the free newspapers, sitting there for two hours, but he does not spot anyone who may be watching for him. He has spotted nothing out of the ordinary and he laughs bitterly to himself - how would he know what ordinary is? By this time his head is beginning to pound again. He buys a bottle of water, drinking it straight down, and then knows he just does not have any more time to waste. He has to take the chance.
He goes over to the lockers, still studying the area around. The key is attached to a fob and says "No11". He looks at locker eleven and slots the key in. It fits. He turns it to open, then tenses in case anyone shouts or makes a move on him. He looks around once more and then opens the door. Inside is a backpack. He takes it out and finds it is heavier than it looks. He looks around again and then closing the door and locking it he walks away. He is sweating heavily, convinced any minute now there will be someone shouting, police in riot gear or a STRIKE force...but there is nothing. As he gets outside he breathes in deeply, his heart racing.
He walks out of the station, checking everything and everywhere. He throws the key into a bin making sure it cannot be seen. His ears are beginning to hum, the light is far too bright for his eyes and he is sweating so heavily that he can feel it run down his back. About ten minutes of hard walking brings him to a small open area - Garfield Park - and he enters it and finds a bench he can sit on before he falls down. There is a cool breeze coming through the trees for which he is grateful for. He listens to the children screaming and playing around the play park and for a moment he allows himself to close his eyes.
His hand clutches the backpack next to him. He doesn't let go of it for a second.
When he had first found the key he did not know why it was there. He didn't want to think about her, didn't want to think what he had done...but in a moment of clarity he had remembered her last words to him: Smithsonian Station. He had known the key was to do with that. Had she seen this day coming?
Now he pulls the backpack close to him, undoing the zip at the top and looking around once more he then looks in. The first thing he sees is money, the second, a gun. Then a small map of Washington. A letter. A few other bits and pieces. The weight is caused by two bottles of water and he can't help but smile before he realises he is doing so, she always nags him about drinking enough water. But then before he can investigate anymore he finds himself crying in throaty, deep sobs and he can't stop. A couple walk by and pretend they do not see him; crying in public is simply not the done thing. He tries to pull himself together, talking himself down. He cannot empty the bag here.
He leaves the park with the backpack thrown over his shoulder. He needs a place to stay and it needs to be out of the way, and he realises that the motel Rollins took them to was perfect. It is a long haul back and he arrives there just as the sun is going down and uses the last of his cash to book the room for a week. He has to sign his name and for a moment he stares at the man behind the counter. Then he clears his throat.
“Hunter, Mark Hunter.” He has no idea where the name comes from but it is there in his mind. The man looks at him for a second too long and then turns the register around for him to sign.
“From out of town, I'm guessing...” he says drily and the Soldier nods. “Car registration?”
“I don't have one.” The Soldier starts to sweat, trying to think, are these questions that would normally be asked?
But the man really is not interested: he gets all types staying and as long as they pay their money and don't make any waves he won't either.
He asks for the same room and it is available. It gives a clear view of the front of the motel and the road leading into it. Around the back of the motel is an empty lot that no one can come onto without being seen, there is no cover and the back window looks out across the expanse. It's perfect.
*
He repeats the previous night, does the same thing as he did in the hotel: shuts the door behind him, locks it, puts a chair under the handle. Pulls both sets of curtains closed.
He leaves the backpack on the bed. Sits in the chair and stares at it. Then he gets up, opens it and empties it out onto the bed. Money, the water, the letter, the gun, the map, a small notebook with an elastic band around it and a note attached, other bits and pieces including two packets of beef jerky, painkillers, a torch, gloves and, of all things, underwear fall out. “She packed me underwear,” he says under his breath and then gives a laugh. Short, sharp. He closes his eyes.
“I can't do this,” he mutters. In his mind he can see her packing the bag, moving around their rooms at the base and talking under her breath so she doesn't miss anything. He knows exactly what would have been going through her thoughts. She was there to keep him safe. And he had been there to make her life a misery and finally thank her by killing her in the cruellest way possible. He is remembering enough now to know Hydra had fooled him about her. She was the only thing he had and she is gone. He is alone.
Opening his eyes again, he looks back at the things on the bed. He doesn't want to open the letter, not yet - he moves both it and the notebook to one side so he cannot see them. He checks the money. There is enough there to last him a while, to cover for him until he can figure out what to do. He picks up and opens one of the bottles of water and takes a drink and then, fiddling in his pocket, takes out the Advil and washes some more down. She has given him several packets of the ultra-strong pain killers they give him normally and he will keep those for the times when the pain is unforgiving.
He hears a car enter the lot and immediately stops and listens then goes over and peeks out of the curtain. It is obvious that there is no worry, a lady and a gentleman. Well. Not so much a lady or a gent - they are a walking business transaction. He lets out a sigh, dry washes his face. His arm is aching, he smells, needs to be clean and so to waste time more than anything he decides to shower. He leaves the things out on the bed and pads to the bathroom. The water feels good on his body, washing the dirt and sweat away - if only it were that simple to wash everything away.
Back in the main room he looks around and then his gaze falls on the TV, which has a coin slot. He now realises this is what the change machine next to the Registration Desk in the main lobby is for - anything electrical needs cash.
The room has a small kitchenette and he knows he must think about eating, but he does not have any food with him. He decides to worry about that later. Meanwhile, he uses some loose coins to pay for the TV and leaves it on for background noise because he needs to hear other human voices even if it just the murmur of them.
He makes a shopping list of things he needs: a change of clothes, food, toiletries...and suddenly it overwhelms him, these small inconsequential things that make him human. He has not had to worry about them for so long - he hasn't been human for over seventy years. It would be so much easier if he could go back into cryo and never be woken again.
Tiredness overwhelms him; his body is trying to tell him to rest but his mind won't stop working. Instead he clears the bed, puts the light out, and lies there watching the TV. For a moment he flicks through the channels until suddenly he sees a name and a face he recognises: Jimmy Stewart. They are introducing a season of his films from the 1940's. The one they are about to screen is entitled It's A Wonderful Life, but although he recognises the actor he does not recognise the title. There is another short introduction from a film critic who gives a brief history of the making of the film, tells him the film was made in 1946. He smiles wryly. No wonder he doesn't recognise it.
It is black and white and for nearly two hours he loses himself in a world he once recognised, a world he used to live in. At the end of it he finds that he is crying. He doesn't believe in angels, how could anything like that survive in a world like this? In a world where someone like him is allowed to exist? Where he is alive and so many honourable people are dead.
Then he hears something on the TV that makes him look back at the screen. A voice, one he recognises, one he knows so well but hasn't heard in so long.
Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers is on his screen.
The interview is an old one but it holds his attention. The commentator is updating everyone on Rogers' condition: he is still in hospital but expected to be released in the next few days. It then shows a well dressed man going into the hospital and at the bottom of the screen is a name he recognises but he doesn't know why: to his knowledge he has never seen the man on the screen before. Stark why does that ring alarm bells. The announcer is saying that Tony Stark is there to visit his friend and fellow Avenger, Steve Rogers.
Steve Rogers.
So much of his mind relates to that one man. He needs to know why this man is so important to him. What do the scraps of information and memories mean that keep feeding into his brain? As he tries to concentrate so his headache worsens and this time it is blinder. Not so long ago he took some Advil but without considering that he sits up and reaches for the tablets Freya had left him and takes some.
The physical pain is bad but the mental pain is worse. He cannot stop thinking, cannot stop the sickening images that come to mind, the sounds that go with them which are so loud he puts his hands over this ears but the noises are still there. To anyone else the room would be deadly quiet with the exception of the heart wrenching sobs he is making. His heart has started to pound, panic and paranoia are feeding into his thoughts.
“Please stop! Please stop!”
He stumbles up off the bed, turning as if trying to get away from what ever it is tormenting him. He falls against the wall and it stops him from falling to the floor instead he slides down it and on to his haunches. He curls into a ball with his hands still pressed over his ears, still trying to keep the sounds and images away but he can't stop them. Blood trickles from his nose and stains his tee shirt. “Please stop.” His voice so quiet it doesn't even make a noise.
He sees the images of guards in Russian uniforms, lining up ready to use him; he can smell the foetid mattress where they had held him down and raped him. He can hear the sound of the wipe machine as it powers up ready to scour his mind, the smell of his flesh burning. Then his left arm starts to burn with its own memories - he can feel them stripping the flesh from it, sawing the bone off as he tries to scream. Another image – more pain and the images begin to merge into one.
He cannot live with this.
He cannot do it. He looks up, tries to get up and sees the gun on the chair where he put it. If he can reach that he can put an end to this - but then he knows no more. Pain shoots sharply through his temple making him cry out and he drops back to his knees clutching his head and groaning, spatters of blood hit the carpet. As the television switches to the latest in home entertainment advertising he blacks out and falls to the filthy carpet and the Winter Soldier begins fitting. The voice of the announcer covers his groans.
*
The next forty-eight hours go by in a blur he can hardly remember, just images of things he has done to try and survive, small conversations with people, hurrying to hide back in his room, the fits and always the pain not just in his head but all over. His chest constricting as if he was going to die. The hope that he will not wake again.
*
He wakes to the noise of static on the TV. The pain has receded to a point he can cope with. There is only a small lamp on but he finds that too bright and goes to stand so he can switch it off. As he makes his way to the bedside table he sees a bottle of bourbon on it and sitting next to it the gun. He knows it is loaded.
His face feels wet and sticky. He wipes it on his arm and comes away with blood so he turns and stumbles to the bathroom making the mistake of switching the light on. The brightness hurts his eyes, the light flickers and buzzes so he switches it off. By leaving the door open there is enough light from the lamp still to splash his face with water and wipe a towel over it and then lurching slightly he heads back to the other room. Everything is either a little out of focus one moment or too sharp the next.
He was stupid enough to think he would get better. Each time he has one of the fits he comes out of it paler, sicker, with more questions, more things going around in his mind driving him insane. There is no context. One minute he could be remembering someone's name and then next minute he could still be looking at them but not knowing who they are, what they were to him. Yesterday he even began believing he knew someone that turned out to be just a picture off a commercial for toothpaste on the billboard outside of his motel. His brain does not keep the memories and thoughts organised; they could come from anywhere, from any point in his life. And then there is the blind pain that accompanies it which leaves him sweating, vomiting, sobbing, unable to breathe.
“I can't do this any more,” he says to himself. He reaches for the bottle of bourbon not remembering where and when he bought it. He cannot get drunk because of the serum but he doesn't know that. He twists the cap off and takes a pull and it makes him cough, burns his throat. He sits down in the easy chair clutching the bottle, looking at the gun. “I can make it stop,” he whispers to himself. “One simple bullet to the head.” But then a stupid thought comes to mind. Yes he could kill himself here, but what about the cleaning lady? He wouldn't want her to find the mess he would leave behind. He has only met her once but she seemed honest and hard working. Hasn't he hurt enough people? How would she get all of his blood out of the carpet? It seems so important that he takes a few seconds to realise what he is thinking.
The river.
And he frowns. What river? The Potomac. The one just over the way. He can see it clearly in his mind and knows how to get there. He even knows the exact spot he could use and yet if he stopped and really thought about it, he would know he has never been there, cannot know its location. But his mind is still planning. Climb over the side, sit on the ledge, one shot to the head and his body would tumble into the fast flowing water and be washed out to sea. He would never be found. No mess left behind for anyone to clear up.
He stands, seeing stars for a moment. He walks to the night stand, picks up the gun, puts it in his jacket pocket. He looks at his jacket, he can't remember putting it on but he has.
He still has the bottle in his hand and, unsteadily, he leaves his room. The cold air hits him, makes him breathe in sharply.
He has no idea of how long it takes him to get there. On the way he hears a clock in the distance chime two. He sees few cars and no people.
Eventually though he reaches the bridge. His head is clearer with the air. And then the bridge is there in front of him. He walks onto the pathway running down the side of the road on it. The metal is cold when he puts his hand on to climb over, but he manages and then he is sitting on the edge of the ledge. The ledge is wider than he thought; several people could stand on it. He can feel the cold metal through his trouser legs, feel a slight breeze coming up from the water and he shivers.
He stares down at the cold black water rushing by under him.
I'll have no grave, he thinks. “But then...I don't deserve one,” he says aloud. "I'll have no one to mourn me anyway,” and as he says that a smiling Steve Rogers in Army uniform comes to mind but he doesn't know why.
It makes him cry.
*
“Hey Buck, you remember the time we all went to see that Jimmy Stewart movie together, you know the one, Its a Wonderful Life, right?"
Someone comes and sits next to him. Someone he feels he knows. He turns his head to his left to look at the shade of a man and it doesn't seem at all strange that the man is there, or that of all things he is wearing a bowler hat with his army uniform.
“You got that wrong...” he murmurs.
“Nah, not me. I remember Stevie, there he is...huge Captain Fucking America and he's crying his eyes out like a baby!”
“We'd have all cried our eyes out if we had been there. But we weren't, you're wrong.”
“Oh yeah? How so?” Dum Dum Dugan could always be argumentative when he had been drinking, and he has been drinking: Bucky can smell it on his breath and see it in the angle of the hat on his head. He always wondered how it stayed on.
Bucky looks away. “It was made in 46. In 46 I was on some table in a Hydra research camp having my brain put in a blender. Didn't see the film until now. It did make me cry though.” And Bucky laughs at how he had watched the film and tears had threatened to overwhelm him. “Besides which I'm hardly Jimmy Stewart – get real...” He turns back to the man “...I'm the fucking Winter Soldier," he sneers at his own name, and the subsequent laugh holds no humour.
“Looks wise you're hardly any Jimmy Stewart but back in our day you had his charm, his innocence, people liked you. But hey, when I'm right, I'm right, right. It's the same principle. You're going to do yourself in, I'm here to stop you, I'm your guardian angel. Well, one of them anyways.” Dum Dum peers down at the water. “Just don't expect me to jump in.”
“Is that what you are?”
He shrugs. “What do you think I am?”
“A figment of my imagination.” Then, quieter: “I don't deserve a fucking guardian angel.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, a bit late aren't you? Could have done with you and your wings when I fell off the train.”
“Well thats the thing with angels; you never know when they're going to appear.”
“Or disappear,” murmurs Bucky again, taking another swig from the bottle of bourbon in his hand.
The shade seems to shimmer and becomes someone else. A softer, kinder voice talks to him.
“Hey, Buck. You're being too hard on yourself, man." And it's Gabe Jones sitting with him. Bucky offers the bottle and to his surprise Gabe accepts, takes a drink, and then hands it back.
“I know exactly what I am. I can't remember it all but its coming back to me, I know what I did...what've I done,” and Bucky laughs again, takes another pull.
“Did you know what you did for Stevie? Really did for him by being in his life. You gave him purpose, you made him realise that someone loved him. You always said he changed your life but you never considered what you gave back...your friendship, your loyalty...your love. He was devastated when he lost you.”
Bucky cannot answer that with anything but a sob and he takes another drink so he doesn't have to answer it with words.
“You saved our lives,” Gabe says gently.
“We've all saved one another's butt at some time or other.”
“No Buck I'm not talking about our Howling missions. I'm talking about before we even knew you.”
Bucky frowns, looks at the man.
“Zola...” Gabe says the name with disdain.
Bucky hitches his shoulders to say he doesn't understand. Gabe looks down as if trying to work out how to say what he wants to say and then he looks at Bucky, at the torn desperate man in front of him.
“Zola would have taken one of us if he hadn't taken you. You saved us.”
And Bucky laughs. “Fucking unbelievable. Is this what my mind believes? Is that the trash I've told myself? How honourable of me...” And he lifts the bottle up and shouts: “Bucky Barnes, saviour of the world.”
He brings the bottle down, drinks again but this time the liquid makes him choke because he is crying. “Shit,” he snuffles, using the sleeve of his jacket to wipe his face, his eyes. He doesn't deserve tears. He is a monster. He needs to die. Bullet to the head, blow his brains to kingdom come, fast flowing river, no body for people to have to bury. No final resting place.
But he doesn't move. Doesn't take the gun out.
“You had an angel,” the voice of James Montgomery Falsworth says. His voice isn't chastising, simply just stating a fact.
“And I killed her,” Bucky says quietly, seeing his Constant in his mind. He draws a sharp breath. The memory hurts like an open wound. “Tell me, what did she do that was so bad that she deserved me?” he asks.
Falsworth does not speak. Instead his shade shimmers - changes.
“You can't, can you?” Bucky goes back to drinking.
“You loved her,” Jacques Denier says, and Bucky turns to look at him. He is looking out over the river. “You loved her. She never had anyone love her before." He turns and smiles at Bucky. “We all need someone to love us.”
“I...did love her but she always knew I loved Steve even when I didn't know, even when I couldn't remember...and she stayed, she still stayed...why didn't she leave?” he whispers it to himself.
“You know you never told her you loved her,” the shade says, shrugging. Just another simple fact.
“And now it's too late,” Bucky grips the bottle so hard it is in danger of breaking.
Jacques' French voice sounds like music and he shrugs his shoulders in that Gaelic way. “Is it?” But before Bucky can say anything more the shade changes again. “And here you are, Bucky Barnes, sitting on a bridge in the fucking cold whining and feeling sorry for yourself. Give me that bottle!” The new shade swipes the bottle and takes a long drink which empties the bottle. He looks at in disgust, and then throws it into the river.
“Hey...” Bucky says as if reaching for it, “that was mine, I hadn't finished it.” Instead he has to watch it hit the water fast disappearing under the foam. “Shit.”
“Oh you hadn't had you? Sounds like you're finished to me. So what'yr going to do?” Jim Morita asks him. “Sit here bleating, shoot yourself, throw yourself in. You gonna let them win?”
Bucky looks down into the water and suddenly feels so tired. He rubs his face with his hand. He has been sitting here for too long and his limbs are going numb with the cold.
“I guess so,” he takes the gun out of his pocket. It's loaded, he knows it is, he loaded it counting the bullets even though he only needs one.
“Well fuck boys that didn't work...whats Plan B?” Dum Dum's voice is loud over the sound of the water rushing by underneath. Bucky looks up to see the whole group of his Howling Commandos and he knows in this moment he recognises them, all of them, and the tears start again.
Dum Dum steps forward, takes his hat off, scratches his head and then puts it back on. He crouches down next to Bucky and looks him in the eyes.
“Look kid, go find Steve. Hell, get married! I've heard you can do that now! This is a whole new world. You need to live, don't let them win. Don't let them destroy more lives, don't let it all happen again. You need to tell the truth, you need to let people know what they did...shit, its easier I know to throw yourself away but you have to do this. There is no one else.”
He pats Bucky on the shoulder and stands up, rejoins his colleagues and they begin to turn away from Bucky. There is no more that they can do: it is up to him now. Bucky watches as they start to walk away, becoming like mist out over the water, and they begin to fade.
“Don't leave me,” Bucky begs them, his voice full of desperation. He leans forward and suddenly has to reach out to brace himself on the side so he doesn't fall in.
Dum Dum is the last one to leave, he smiles as Bucky lets out a large sob. “You can do this. You can do this Buck: for us, for everyone.”
Bucky watches as they finally fade and there is nothing left but him. He is alone again. His jaw tensing, he tries to stop the tears, tries to pull himself together. Dum Dum had promised Steve such a long time ago to look after Bucky, and he has always kept his promises.
Bucky is silent and still for a moment and then he slowly puts the gun back in this pocket and stands up, stretching his legs, trying to get feeling back into them. He gets back on the pathway and he walks away from the bridge, heading back to the motel. In the distance he can hear the clock chiming two again; it sounds like bells tinkling. It stops him in his tracks. The air is silent and then the noise comes again, fainter. “Well fuck me...they must have got their wings,” he actually laughs to himself.
He begins walking again but something strange happens. He finds a quiet calm starts to overtake him so that he can no longer hear his footfalls. Instead, he hears another noise. If he didn't know better he could swear it was singing. He cannot identify the song at first but as he walks it gets louder and he realises it is an old one. An old one from his time and he remembers it - Jimmy Dorsey's I'll Never Smile Again.
He finds himself actually stopping to listen to it. He can hear the words now and he sings gently along with it.
I'll never smile again, until I smile at you.
I'll never laugh again. What good would it do, for tears would fill my eyes...
My heart would realize, that our romance is true...
And for a minute, just a single moment, he closes his eyes and he feels as if someone is holding him and he knows who it is. He feels Steve Roger's arms around him, protecting him.
And when he opens them he isn't outside. He isn't anywhere but his motel room. He is lying on the floor. The music is coming from the television which has an old time show on. He lies there for a moment. His head still hurts but it is manageable; his heart has stopped pounding and his ears no longer hum.
He sits up, still a bit unsteady. He looks around the room. He is alone. The show has ended and instead the TV is now blaring conflicting messages concerning local shops and which its best to shop at. He slowly stands and turns, meaning to switch it off but it is now showing an advert for a programme to be repeated the next day and when he hears the song words he blinks - talk about sending him a reminder as a voice hollers:
'Watch'er going to do when they come for you, Bad Boys, Bad Boys.'
He reaches over and switches the TV off.
“I'll tell you what I'm going to do...I'm going to make them fucking pay,” he says under his breath.
Bucky will not let them win. He will make them pay. He will hunt them down and destroy them even if it is only one at a time. He may not still remember a lot but he is starting to remember something, and he feels an awakening of someone he hasn't heard from in a long while. Someone that he needs, someone who can cope with all of this. The second personality of the Winter Soldier.
He stretches to get the kinks out of his neck and walks over to where he had put all the items from the backpack and as he does his foot hits something and he looks down to see an empty bottle of bourbon. He knows now he never bought it, he doesn't know where it came from, he doesn't even like the stuff but it was always Dum Dum Dugan's favourite drink. As that thought goes through his mind, he picks it up.
Who the fuck is Dum Dum Dugan? he wonders. He stands the bottle on the night-stand and then he reaches for the letter, sits down in the easy chair and opens it. The first thing he pulls out is a colour leaflet and he breathes in sharply when he recognises the man shown on it: Welcome Back Cap it says in large letters.
Everything always comes back to Steve Rogers.
He puts it to one side and takes out the letter. He recognises the handwriting: it is Freya's. He closes his eyes just for a second. “You can do this, you will do this,“ he says to himself. Then he opens his eyes, unfolds the letter and begins to read.
***
Authors note: This chapter pays homage to one of the all time great movies entitled 'It's A Wonderful Life,' made in 1946 and starring the awesome Jimmy Stewart. Many shows have paid homage to it Red Dwarf (my favourite), The Muppets, The Simpsons, The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, The Big Bang Theory, Warehouse 13, Laverne And Shirley, Beavis And Butthead and countless others have borrowed the film’s fantasy premise for their holiday specials.
Link for the Wiki page if you would like to read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Wonderful_Life
Someone has loaded it on to Youtube (God bless them!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDAXjRupTn8
Bad Boys song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GazE8PAL-DE
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A Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Fic - The Constant