June 27, 2016

     I woke up for the day around 3 in the morning best I could tell.

     Bucky quit faking asleep somewhere around 4:30.

     Steve rose with the sun again even though he had been awake for about 45 minutes beforehand. I wondered if getting up at sunrise was his regular routine.

     After spending a few minutes in the restroom, Steve headed into the kitchen and began pulling some things out. Bucky got up and helped Steve.

     "Do you think she likes eggs and bacon?" asked Steve.

     Bucky's reply was, "I don't know. Mayb-"

     He was cut off by a loud clatter which made me flinch.

     "She's still asleep, dumbass! Be more quiet!" Bucky scolded Steve in a hoarse whisper.

     Steve hissed back, "I didn't mean to drop the damn frying pan, Buck!"

     Feeling guilty for pretending to be asleep while the two men were trying to be quiet because of me, I got up and went straight to the bathroom. I did not need to do anything in there except wash my face and brush my hair, but I spent several moments by myself getting ready mentally to face Steve, Bucky, and the day ahead of me.

     When I finally emerged, the sound and smell of sizzling bacon greeted me.

     Steve smiled warmly at me. "Good morning!"

     "Morning, Steve," I answered. "Morning, Bucky."

     "Morning, Doll."

     "How'd you sleep?" Steve asked as he tended to the cooking strips of meat.

     "Alright," I lied.

     Bucky inquired, "Are you feeling any better?"

     I told him 'yeah' even though I was not entirely sure what I was feeling.

     "Anything I can do to help?" I offered, wanting to avoid any more questions the pair might have for me.

     Steve thought for a moment. "You can grab the orange juice out of the fridge and some cups out of that bag."

     I soon had the desired items on the small kitchen island.

     "The bacon is done. Eggs will be ready in a few minutes," Steve informed us.

     Soon all three of us had a large steaming paper plate of bacon and eggs set before us along with a plastic fork and orange juice in a plastic cup.

     "So what else do I need to learn about?" I asked casually after finishing my first bite of breakfast.

     Steve started to say something, but Bucky cut him off and turned to me. "Doll, you don't have to do this."

     I put on what I hoped was a brave smile and said, "It's okay, Bucky. I can handle it. I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know."

     Steve told me, "After the Battle of New York, I joined S.H.I.E.L.D. to protect people."

     "And I thought that was what I was doing until this one mission where Fury gave Natasha a secondary mission and lied to me."

     "When I confronted him about it, he showed me Project Insight. It was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s response to the Battle of New York and consisted of three Helicarriers which were synced to a network of targeting satellites. The whole idea was to neutralize threats before they even happened."

     "So killing people before they possibly commit crimes?" I asked, crunching on a piece of bacon.

     Steve nodded. "I told Fury that I was not okay with that and he told me to 'get with the program'."

     "I was so mad I just left the Triskelion, which was S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Went down to the VA to see a friend of mine, Sam Wilson."

     "I met Sam when I was out for a run in the National Mall one morning in 2014. We hit it off right away. Talked about coming home from war, adjusting to change, and he suggested some music to me." Steve smiled at this memory.

     Bucky subtly rolled his eyes, but I did not think anything of it.

     Steve's voice cracked as he said, "He was leading a group on PTSD. I realized that I had the same problems they did."

     "Went back to my apartment and Fury was there. He told me that there were ears everywhere and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been compromised and only he and I knew about it."

     Steve turned to Bucky as if asking permission for something. Bucky's jaw was clenched and his breathing was erratic, but he nodded.

     "Fury was then shot multiple times in the back. He handed me a flash drive, which is a little stick that holds data on it, and told me 'Don't trust anyone'. My neighbor, who I thought was a nurse at the time, broke into my apartment and revealed herself to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and said she had been ordered to protect me."

     "Since she was there to take care of Fury, I took off in pursuit of the shooter. He was fast, strong, and had a metal arm."

     I looked at Bucky as the pieces started coming together.

     Steve continued, "Natasha and I met up at the hospital where they took Fury. Natasha asked me about the shooter and I told her what I knew. Maria Hill, Fury's right hand woman and at the time Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., joined us and gave us the results of the ballistics report. The three of us watched the doctors work on Fury as he died."

     "Natasha asked me why Fury was in my apartment. I told her I didn't know and she called me a terrible liar. Brock Rumlow, an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a S.T.R.I.K.E. team commander, told me that they wanted me back at S.H.I.E.L.D. immediately and his S.T.R.I.K.E. team would be the ones escorting me back for questioning."

     "I still had Fury's precious flash drive on me, so I stuck it in the vending machine that was being serviced in the hospital and-"

     I interrupted, "Wait, so you put the special information thing that Fury gave you with his dying breath in a FREAKING HOSPITAL VENDING MACHINE!?"

     "I didn't have any other great ideas!" Steve defended himself.

     Bucky confided in me, "He does dumb shit like this all of the time."

     "Anyway," Steve tried to return our attention to his story. "They took me back to the Triskelion and I met with Alexander Pierce, Secretary of the World Security Council."

     Bucky grimaced at the name, but I pretended to not notice.

     "He told me this story about how Fury saved a dozen people's lives back in the day before asking me why Fury had been in my apartment. I told him I didn't know why. He asked me if I knew that my apartment was bugged and I told him that I did because Fury told me. He asked me if Fury had told me that bugging my apartment was Fury's own doing and I didn't know that until Pierce told me."

     "He then proceeded to accuse Fury of doing something very shady as well as selling classified intelligence. I told him that if he really knew Nick Fury then he'd know that wasn't true." Steve shook his head.

     "Pierce said that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. He pointed out that I had been the last one to see Fury alive and how he didn't think that was an accident. Then he asked me again why Fury was in my apartment. I told Pierce that Fury had told me not to trust anyone. And Pierce said that he wondered if that included Fury too."

     "As I was leaving, he warned me that he was going to find out why someone murdered his friend and that anyone who got in his way was going to regret it. I replied that I understood and then left his office."

     "I got in the elevator and Rumlow and some of his men joined me. But something was wrong. As more and more men entered the elevator, the feeling only grew stronger."

     "I asked them, 'Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?' and then all hell broke loose. I was able to beat all of them, but not before someone mobilized S.T.R.I.K.E. units to my location. Ended up having to jump out of the elevator and fall several stories to the ground."

     "Were you okay?" I asked, concerned for Steve's lack of natural self-preservation instincts.

     He nodded and continued, "I got my motorcycle out of the garage before it was put on lockdown. They sent a Quinjet to gun me down on the bridge. Lost my Harley, but was able to get away."

     "And I became a fugitive from S.H.I.E.L.D. because of that. Needing to get back Fury's flash drive, I went back to the hospital. Only the flash drive was gone."

     I sucked in a deep breath at Steve's stupidity.

     "Turns out Natasha was there and had already taken it. I pushed her back against the wall in an empty room and aggressively asked her where the flash drive was. She replied that it was safe. I told her to do better. She asked me where I got it from. I snapped back at her saying why would I tell her. Nat is smart and figured out that Fury gave it to me and she even told me as much and then asked why. I asked her what was on it and she told me she didn't know. I was pretty angry with her and was getting more agitated by the second. She told me she knew who killed Fury: an assassin called the Winter Soldier."

     I knew that name. Zimniy Soldat. It was embedded in my mind, but I could not place the origin of it.

     Bucky looked like he wished he could just stop living.

     Sensing our distress, Steve pressed on. "Natasha and I went to a mall to use a computer in an electronics store so we could see what was on the flash drive. It had a homing program built into it so as soon as we plugged it in, S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to know where we were."

     "The drive was protected by a form of artificial intelligence so she couldn't override it, but she could trace where the file originated from which was Wheaton, New Jersey."

     "We got out of the mall unnoticed and I stole a truck-"

     "I taught him how to do that by the way," Bucky commented.

     "Yes, and it has proven to be a very useful life skill," Steve said in a casual tone.

     "We headed for Jersey. That exact location where the file came from was the now abandoned Camp Lehigh where I was trained back in 1943. It seemed like a dead end at first. But we soon discovered what we were looking for."

     "It was the secret office where S.H.I.E.L.D. began. Inside it we found a secret basement with a ton of big computers like from the '70's. Even though all the tech was ancient, there was a modern port where Natasha could plug in the flash drive."

     "When she did, all of the computers came to life. It called both Natasha and me by our full names and told us the years that we were born. Nat thought it was some kind of recording, but the computer quickly recorrected her that it was not a recording."

     "Then what was it?" I asked.

     "First you need some context. Arnim Zola was a Swiss scientist who worked for HYDRA during World War II. He was also the one who experimented on Bucky in 1943 and later made him the Winter Soldier after he fell off of the train. I took him prisoner in 1945 and he died in 1972," Steve explained.

     Bucky's one hand was balled into a tight fist and his knuckles were completely white.

     "The computer wasn't a computer. It was Zola. He found a way to upload his consciousness into a computer system. Even though his body died, his mind lived on."

     "He told us how he was recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. and how HYDRA grew within S.H.I.E.L.D. for the past 70 years. He said that they had won and that my 'death' amounted to nothing. Also bragged that he had written an algorithm for Project Insight," Steve recalled.

     "He had just been stalling us so S.H.I.E.L.D. could fire a missile at us. Natasha and I barely escaped the explosion and the rubble with our lives. After we got out, Rumlow's S.T.R.I.K.E. team arrived and was searching for our remains."

     My eyes were wide. "What did you do?"

     "I found out where Sam lived and we went to his house. He offered us refuge. And breakfast."

     "Natasha and I figured out that we needed to kidnap S.H.I.E.L.D. Officer Jasper Sitwell. Sam offered to help us. When he served in the Air Force he used a specialized winged jetpack to fly."

     I noticed that Bucky did not seem to be particularly fond of the mention of Steve's friend as I looked at the picture Steve showed me of a man grinning ear to ear and wearing a wingsuit.

     "We call him Falcon," Steve told me.

     "Sam told us that the last one of these was heavily guarded at Fort Meade. But Natasha and I had no problems stealing it."

     "Since we were also the two most wanted people in Washington at the time, we couldn't exactly show our faces by going out and about. Sam was kind enough to do that part and bring Sitwell to us."

     "After a little bit of unorthodox interrogation, Sitwell told us that Zola's algorithm was a program for choosing Project Insight's targets. It would kill anyone who was a threat to HYDRA, either now or in the future."

     I took a sip of orange juice before asking, "How could it know the future?"

     "In the age of information being easily accessible via the Internet, the algorithm would evaluate people's past to predict their future," explained Steve.

     "I had planned on using Sitwell to get into S.H.I.E.L.D. and shut down Project Insight before it ever got the chance to launch. At least that was before he was ripped out of the car by his neck and killed by the oncoming traffic he was thrown into."

     I glanced over at Bucky who seemed to be intently studying his eggs at the moment.

     "Our car was simultaneously attacked by the Winter Soldier and an armored S.T.R.I.K.E. vehicle. The steering wheel was ripped out and the car crashed multiple times. But I was able to get us out safely before the wreck happened."

     "They launched a grenade at me and I was knocked off the bridge and into an oncoming bus. It must have gotten into an accident because when I came to it was on it's side," Steve remembered.

     "There was just a barrage of bullets. Once the gunmen were taken care of, I went after Natasha and the Winter Soldier. He would have killed her if I hadn't gotten there. It was just me and him, no holds barred."

     Steve continued, "And somehow in the process I ripped off his mask and realized that it was my dead best friend's face staring back at me. I couldn't believe it was him and I said 'Bucky?'"

     Bucky added, "And I said 'Who the hell is Bucky?'"

     "And then he tried to shoot me in the face, but fortunately Sam had caught up with us at that point and I didn't get a bullet put between my baby blues. Natasha helped too."

     "We were swarmed by Rumlow and his S.T.R.I.K.E. agents and put under 'arrest'."

     "I didn't resist them. I couldn't...." Steve trailed off with a far away look in his eyes. "All I could do was wonder how Bucky was still alive and how he had become the Winter Soldier."

     "Sam, Natasha, and I were loaded up in a transport. They were taking us somewhere to kill us."

     "I told the other two about Bucky. I put together the pieces of what happened to Bucky since we had been apart."

     "Natasha had been shot in the shoulder and was losing a lot of blood. Sam insisted that she see a doctor and one of the guards pulled their weapon on him."

     "And then used it on the other guard. Turns out Maria Hill had been with us the whole time. She helped us escape before Rumlow got to perform his little execution party," Steve shared.

     "Maria took us to a dam facility and to see Fury."

     "What? Like his body?" I asked.

     "No, Fury was very much alive. Injured, but alive. He faked his death because of all of the distrust and betrayal at S.H.I.E.L.D.," clarified Steve.

     "Natasha saw a doctor while Sam and I told Fury about Alexander Pierce and Zola and HYDRA and Buck."

     "Maria explained to us that we needed to replace one of the targeting blades or chips on all three of the Helicarriers in order to keep them from triangulating with Insight satellites and killing a lot of innocent people."

     "Fury said he hoped we could save what was left of S.H.I.E.L.D., but I told him that we were taking down S.H.I.E.L.D. along with the Helicarriers. Maria, Natasha, and Sam all backed me up."

     "After that I went outside on top of the dam to clear my head. I kept thinking about all the times that Bucky had been there for me," Steve said wistfully.

     "Sam came to talk to me. He told me that whoever Bucky used to be and whoever he was now wasn't the same person and now he wasn't the kind you save, but the kind you stop. I admitted to him I didn't know if I could do that. Sam reminded me that Bucky might not give me a choice since he didn't remember me. I told Sam that he would."

     "That night I broke into the Smithsonian and stole my uniform from World War II. I had to lose my S.H.I.E.L.D. one earlier because it had a tracking device in it, plus I was hoping that maybe the old suit would jog something in Bucky's memory."

     "Sam, Maria, and I broke into the Triskelion and took over the control room. I used the PA system to tell all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents the truth about HYDRA and how Pierce was their leader and that S.T.R.I.K.E. and the Project Insight crew were HYDRA as well. I told them HYDRA was responsible for taking Fury's life and how Project Insight would eliminate anyone who stood against them. I asked them to fight for freedom." Steve's voice was full of passion.

     "I fought my way into the first Helicarrier and replaced the first chip. Sam got on the second Helicarrier and replaced his chip."

     "Sam gave me a ride to the third Helicarrier. Before we could get inside, we were ambushed by the Winter Soldier."

     "Sam ended up back on the ground and with his suit broken. I managed to stay on the Helicarrier and get inside. But the Winter Soldier was waiting there for me."

     I noted that Bucky was biting his bottom lip hard.

      "I told him that people were going to die and I couldn't let that happen. I asked him to please not make me fight him but he wouldn't listen. We fought violently against each other. I was so close to putting in the last chip when he knocked me over a ledge and the chip flew out of my hand."

     "He stabbed me and got the chip. I dislocated his right shoulder and choked him until he lost consciousness," Steve remembered.

     "I climbed back up to where I had to put the chip in and the Winter Soldier shot me in the back of the leg and then through the stomach. I used all the strength I had left to get up and insert that final chip."

     Steve explained, "The chips made the Helicarriers only targets each other."

     "So they would shoot each other down?" I asked.

     Steve nodded.

     "But you were still on board?" I questioned.

     "Yes. The Helicarriers opened fire on each other. Some debris fell on the Winter Soldier and he was crying out in pain so I helped him get free. I told him that he knew me, but he hit me and told me that he didn't. I called him Bucky and told him that he had known me his whole life. He beat me again. I got up and told him that his name was James Buchanan Barnes."

     Tears were welling up in both men's eyes.

     "I took off my helmet so he could see my face better, dropped my shield into the river below, and told him that I was not going to fight him because he was my friend."

     "He knocked me down and mounted me. He said 'You're my mission' and then savagely beat my face with his metal arm. I told him to finish it because-"

     Bucky joined Steve in saying, "I'm with you to the end of the line."

     "And then I passed out. That's all I can tell you," finished Steve.

     Bucky swallowed before he spoke. "As I realized who Steve was, a huge piece of debris knocked him into the Potomac River below. I let go of the Helicarrier and dove in after him."

     "I dragged his body onto the shore. When I knew he was alive, I left him there to be found."

     "Next thing that I remember is waking up in the hospital with Sam next to me," Steve stated.

     "He filled me in on what had happened while I was sleeping. S.H.I.E.L.D. had undergone some major changes, Maria was working at Stark Industries, Fury was officially 'dead', and Natasha basically told the whole United States government to kiss her ass."

     "Some time later Sam and I met Fury at his 'grave'. He told us that a lot of HYDRA operatives were still alive and well and that he was heading to Europe that night. Fury invited Sam and I to come with him, but we both declined."

     "Natasha met us and told us that she had blown all her covers and she had to go figure out a new one. She had also gotten me a file on Bucky."

     "Sam said that he would help me look for Bucky and that's when we began searching for him," Steve concluded with a sad smile.

     I turned to Bucky. "And what did you do after getting out of the river?"

     "I went back to the bank where HYDRA had been keeping me and encountered the same HYDRA scientists who had made me do terrible things."

     "They asked me to report about my mission and I told them that Captain America was dead. I came so close to killing them, but I couldn't bear to have the blood of anyone else, HYDRA or not, on my hands." Bucky shook his head.

     "After that I went to the Captain America Exhibit in the Smithsonian and found a memorial to the late Howling Commando Bucky Barnes who seemingly died in combat during World War II. And even though I knew that he was me, it felt like he was just one more person who I had killed."

     "I think after that I hopped on a cargo train outside of New York. Eventually ended up making my way to Romania. I decided that looking for answers would only invite trouble. But I still prepared myself for anything," Bucky finished.

     I did not know what to say after all I had been told.

     Our breakfast was finished and we cleaned up in silence.

     "I have to go into town and do some stuff," Steve told us. "I'll be back for a late lunch though."

     Bucky and I both said 'bye' as Steve left.

     "I'm going to go get a shower, Doll," Bucky said and took his things into the bathroom.

     All alone and with nothing else to do, I cleaned the grungy apartment the best I could and thought about all that Steve and Bucky had told me.