To put it bluntly, his life sucked.
    He didn’t even understand how to address himself anymore. The Winter Solder? Nope, not him right now. The distinct absence of emotions was gone the moment he dragged Steve out of the river and checked he was well and alive. James Barnes? Nope again. The brave sergeant was long gone, lost somewhere in Europe, a soldier who never returned home. And, perhaps, never will. The only way he can call himself is Bucky. That’s how Steve called him multiple times on the hellicarrier. And if ever he needs to tell anyone his full name, he’d say Bucky Burnes.
    Bucky burns in hell. For the first time in a very, excruciatingly long while he doesn’t have any orders to follow. Total freedom appears to be shitty as fuck. The hell he knows what to do with himself now? He went to the museum in DC. Cause that seemed to be a logical thing to do. To check out who that ghost of the past James Barnes even was. They made him sound heroic on those walls. Very loyal. Very good. Bucky is thinking about him all the way up to New York. 
    If anything, he knows one thing: he needs to get away from the US as quickly as possible. He also needs to check out all those facts about James Barnes. Thus, his first stop will naturally be Brooklyn. Brooklyn, where he supposedly grew up together with Steve Rogers a century ago.
    Tired after many hours of walking along the road, hidden by the woods, Bucky finally gets to Brooklyn only to realize that he has no idea where anything is. He stands in front of the Brooklyn museum and feels nothing. Not a single fucking thing. He can distinctly remember killing a target around here, though. And you’d think this story is supposed to get better at this point, eh? Bucky adjusts the cap so it hides his eyes, puts the hood up and walks away. A grey hoodie he stole from one of the shops on the way here helps him easily blend in with the evening crowd.
    Maybe he needs something more—how to put it—more impressive.
    Or maybe he needs to pile all these places up in his head until they break some sort of a dam that is meant to hold his memories away from his consciousness. To be honest, Bucky has no idea how anything in his head works, and it bugs him so, so much.
    He walks away from Brooklyn up into Manhattan. Fancy buildings and tourists don’t interest him in the least. Bucky knows exactly why he is here, and it has nothing to do with the daily life of New York. He’s looking for someone who is willing to hire him as a guard on a ship and won’t ask too many questions. He’s looking for mafia. The last he heard, one of mafia’s favorite places was Hell’s Kitchen. A fitting name for a fitting place.
    Bucky finds trouble much easier than he finds mafia.
    Why anyone would think he has money or anything to spare is beyond Bucky. It’s late in the evening. A guy who suddenly puts a gun to his back has thick accent. Unfortunately for him, Bucky’s reaction isn’t a plea for his life or a hand full of crispy dollars. Bucky doesn’t even register his own reaction up to a point where he slams the guy headfirst into the asphalt with his metal arm and pushes with a certain intention to crack his skull. He stops just as abruptly as he broke into action a few moments ago and slowly releases the guy. The Winter Soldier’s reflexes will give him a heart attack any day now.
    “Look, pal, I don’t want any trouble,” he says a bit lost.
    Thinking that the conversation is over, as the guy sits up on the ground looking at him with huge eyes and apparently no intention of answering, Bucky slowly steps away. Keeping his eyes on the gun in the guy’s hand, he keeps walking away until there are good few meters between them. Then he turns and runs. It was scary just now. Bucky feels like the Winter Soldier stirs inside of him, dangerously gentle and calculating in his cold actions to keep their common body intact.
    A shot finds him a mere second later.
    It rings in the air and goes right through him, the next one Bucky catches on his metal arm, and the one after that he dodges, ducking sideways into the alleyway in between streets. His body burns up immediately, but Bucky stubbornly keeps himself walking. He shoulda broke that guy’s arms, he thinks. He shoulda been more careful. He shoulda disarmed him. Bucky stumbles forwards as the familiar sickness of regeneration sets in. He can’t be found though, and he definitely should stay away from trouble. Which, to think about it, contradicts the main point of his plan, that is finding mafia.
    Bucky hobbles across the almost empty street, right to the alleyway on the other side where he leans on a wall and slowly slides down it right next to a dumpster. His hoodie is covered in blood and torn where the bullet went through his stomach on the right side a bit lower than the ribcage. Bucky swears under his breath and shivers. His temperature must be something like 39°C now. You’re gonna be fine, he tells himself.
    You’ll just have to survive the painful regeneration process in all its fucking beauty, he corrects himself.

Отредактировано James Barnes (2017-07-29 19:39:50)

    The world is a bit blurry by now. Heck he forgot how bad it gets if he is shot. The Winter Soldier has a willpower made of steel and can function with any number of wounds as long as there is a mission to be completed. But then again, the Winter Soldier almost never got shot. Because the Winter Soldier never ever leaves his opponents alive. Bucky, on the other hand, is not the Winter Soldier, and right now he feels it so distinctly it would be amusing if it wasn’t so painful.
    The good thing is, on the streets like these people don’t care. Even an occasional police car would maybe flash its lights and make a sound but the policemen wouldn’t be much interested in actually going up close to investigate. This thought comforts him. He’ll need a night to recover to a point when he can move, and once that happens he will leave this place and hide somewhere more suitable for a person with an unexplainable metal arm with a red Soviet star and a long history of assassinations. Not that it’s written on his face, thank you very much.
    When the world swings back into focus and some woman’s voice starts talking to him, Bucky jolts upright—and sags back against the wall in pain, looking at her defensively. She looks tired. She doesn’t have a uniform on her so that’s good. She’s making a joke—that is probably good too. Bucky can’t imagine a policeman making a joke like that to a person with a gunshot. Probably.
    He keeps silent in a vain hope she’ll go away and leave him alone.
    Apparently, it only prompts her to explain herself and her sudden interest in a weird guy lying on the street next to a dumpster. Bucky closes his eyes and visibly shivers, his hair messily sticking to his forehead. Upon hearing about a hospital, he jolts up again, frantically looking for a way to make this lady go away as quickly as possible.
    “No,” is the only word he has enough breath to utter and he tries to shake his head to reinforce his quiet voice.
    Too late—the woman gets on her knees and puts her nurse gloves on and all in all it looks like Bucky’s opinion doesn’t really matter. Or she didn’t hear him. Damn you, reinforced regeneration. You save lives—and you complicate them irreversibly, too.
    “No hospital,” Bucky utters again, and stubbornly and childishly hides his wound under his right, organic palm shaking his head again. As if that’s gonna make her go away, right. “Can’t go to a hospital.”
    At the same time, he tries to move his metal palm away where she won’t see it. This encounter just keeps getting more and more complicated for him. Bucky would think of something believable to say but it takes a lot of effort for him to even keep his head up. Pain along with heat are pulsating through his entire body.
    “I’m fine,” is the only thing he can muster before closing his eyes and shivering once again.

    She agrees all too quickly and it makes Bucky suspicious. Or it would have if he was able to think straight, which he isn’t. He is tripping on his temperature, and it is not the nice LSD kind of tripping either. So he misses half the stuff she says, catching the glimpses of the essential information—Claire, lives nearby, couch, secret safe. He didn’t realize that he had a huge “I am the guy with a secret” sign written across his forehead, but perhaps the bit about hospitals is giving him away.
    For a moment Bucky wants to fight her to tell her to stay the fuck away, to be gone, but then he weights his options. He would definitely get better sooner if he had qualified medical help and a cozy couch underneath him instead of cold asphalt. And he does need to get away from here as quickly as possible much more than he needs to keep his metal arm a secret. Finally, Claire’s suggestion outweighs Bucky’s fears.
    “Bucky,” he whispers hoarsely. “Name’s... Bucky.”
    Bucky gets up slowly, pressing his organic palm into the wound—he’s been at this point too many times already. He feels like a whiny little bitch compared to what the Winter Soldier did despite any wounds and hits. He doesn’t have half the determination of his other self. But that’s okay because the tiny lady is supporting him, Jeez, when did it get to this? Bucky honestly tries to shift his weight in such a way that doesn’t let Claire get too much of it on her shoulders. He’s a freaking mind-calibrated Russian assassin, he can handle a gun wound and a regeneration process. Even if the mind-calibrated bit is in the past.
    The only thing he can’t prevent is her putting his metal arm across her shoulders. He knows his metal arm weights much more than any organic arm would. Bucky is so used to compensating for its weight that he only ever remembers about it in situations like this.
    “The arm. Don’t tell,” his tone is stubborn but also alarmed, and however weak, his voice also sounds a bit threatening.
    As if, if she does tell he will come and hunt her down. Old habits die hard, eh? That’s what the Winter Soldier would do. Not Bucky. He thinks about that for a moment while most of his concentration is devoted to putting one foot in front of the other and not tripping over. The world keeps swinging in and out of focus which makes him slightly dizzy and shaky but Bucky does his best to hide that. Sometimes he shivers violently—and with that there’s nothing he can do.