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The mission was simple. Not easy because when was anything in John’s life easy? But simple.
His squad was to infiltrate a ghost town– A rickety collection of disconnected buildings swallowed by dust decades ago. According to the last intel, the settlement had been occupied by a small group of runaways, former military personnel gone off the grid, or civilians who never made it out. Reports didn’t make it clear.
Supposedly, for the past few hours, they’d been sending out coded distress bursts on an old emergency frequency. Then, just as the command started paying attention, the signal went dark.
John and the team were to fan out and sweep the area. Standard procedure: staggered formations, weapons up, comms live. The town covered more ground than the map suggested. Rows upon rows of collapsed roofs, broken in walls, vehicles covered in a thick line of sand and dirt. Their numbers were thin, but every person knew their job and moved like perfect clockwork.
Still, John couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
He entered what seemed to be a bar back its heyday, but now is a shell of its former self and ratty beyond belief. It stank of must and dampness, air thick with mildew and dust.
He moves fast through the first floor, sweeping every corner and blind spot. Splintered tables, overturned chairs, darkly bruised and collapsed walls. Each footstep caused a dirty crunching sound, a mix of shared glass and dirt under his boot.
Then he smelled it.
Iron. Rot. The clawing, pervasive stench of blood long settled somewhere.
He followed the trail carefully, leading him into the backrooms– where the employees once worked. The door made a high-pitched creak as he pushed it open.
Inside was a scene of hell.
A man’s corpse lay sprawled on the floor, blood dried around him in a dark, stomach turning crust. Hard to tell how old he’d been dead, but easily more than two, maybe three days. Even in the dark, John could see the marks of a fight, of a struggle: A shattered bottle neck, a smashed chair, the rusty lock of the door flung onto the floor.
And in the corner, another man.
Already, John raised his weapon at him, eyes narrowing to align the other’s head behind sights. As he steps closer, he can hear the other mumbling something Russian.
The man is slumped against the wall, head bowed, and only dressed only in black leather. Against his dark clothes, the deep gash at the left side of his neck, still seeping blood, sticks out like a sore thumb. A large gun and multiple knives lay at his side, looking as if they were discarded.
Then it clicks. This is the Winter Soldier. Infamous. A horror story in the trenches, a myth he would scoff at. But the man in front of him, almost skinny and scared, seemed more human than the described skin crawling monster he was whispered to be.
Hostile, John thought automatically. The response was pure instinct.
He had already placed a finger on the trigger when a flicker of movement made him hesitate. Through the man's dark hair and deeper shadows, he catches a glimpse of the man’s face.
Past the smeared dark paint or grease, soft, maybe even delicate, eyes looked back at him.
And in that beat, John recognizes him for a second time. Or, at least, he thinks he does. Maybe? It’s impossible, it can't be real. Because the man in front of him bears an impossible, startling resemblance with Sergeant Bucky Barnes. A soldier who had died 70 years earlier.
The stranger lets his head loll against the back of the wall, a ragged breath leaving him. His chest heaves, heavy with effort. “Steve?” He murmurs through cracked lips, barely audible.
John's throat tightens to an almost suffocating degree. He’s heard this exact voice over terrible, decade’s old recordings. This is impossible.
He’s gone crazy, hallucinating old war heroes.
“Steve,” The Winter Soldier whispers again, a breath lodging itself in his throat. “Is that you?”
The barrel of John’s gun dipped, just barely. Not enough to say he’s lowered his weapon, but enough to cause every instinct and bit of training in his body to yell at him. Training says hold steady, don’t hesitate.
It’s not that he didn’t, but it’s that he can’t.
“You’re not…” John says carefully and uncertain, voice thin. “Buck?”
“It’s me, Steve, I promise.” He rasps, airy.
John can only stammer, mind and heart beating synchronously at 200 miles an hour.
“I survived. They took m’ body from th’–” He takes a moment to blink, barely gripping onto consciousness. “Ravine, after I– fell.”
“Took you?” John mumbles.
“Dragged m’ through snow,” He gulps, jaw tightening. His chest heaves with every word. “Took me to their base and programed m’ into their slave.”
John can’t be taking any of this nonsense the other man is spouting seriously. But he can’t bring himself to fully doubt it.
“‘Steve,” The Winter Soldier slurs, eyes fluttering. “They’re gonna take me, again. ‘Was able to break out after a failed mission but–”
“Who? Who’s they?” John edges closer without realizing it, couching down. He knows he should stop. He needs to stop. This is how soldiers get killed, when sympathy overrides sensibility.
Everything about what’s happening is impossible but he can’t help inch closer.
The man’s eyes are half lidded and glossy, struggling to lock on John’s. He mutters something in Russian. From what John can tell, the slip is involuntary.
John stiffens as the other soldier clutches his head desperately, hand tangling through already disgruntled hair.
"We need to get out of here.” The Winter Soldier grumbles, forcing himself upright. The effort only lasts a second, as his knees buckle and he crumples back down. As he slumps again, he lets out a choked but obviously pained groan.
And that's what gets John. His weapon lowers stupidly, clattering on the floor.
He moves without thinking, catching the man underneath the shoulders and guiding them gently back against the wall. Up close, he can see how hard this man is shaking and how cold his skin is. Far too cold. He can also finally see how gnarly the gash on his neck is, how deep, ugly, and crusted it is.
“I took out their tracker on me.” The Winter Soldier mumbles, noticing John’s starring. John follows the other’s gaze to the floor, seeing a small metallic device near their feet, bent and bloodied. “The one on m’ arm too. But it,” He coughs. “Systems wreaked.”
John’s eyes flick to the shining metal arm. It stays at his side more like a dead weight than anything else, completely limp.
“We need to run. Agents–” The Winter Soldier’s words are clipped, shredded at the ends, like they are the only ones he can manage. “They’re gonna get me.”
He sways, eyes glossing over, and the final he exhales is “Hydra”. A name that should have been dead years ago, buried underneath rubble and denials. And yet here it is again, crawling out of a man who, like the organization itself, was believed to be dead.
John thinks for a moment now would be a good time to shoot the bastard. Clean, efficient. He’s practically already gone anyways, bleeding out fast enough. A moment's hesitation, small and stupid, could be scrubbed away from the mission report. No would catch the twitch of blind sympathy.
He reaches across the floor and picks up the gun on the floor, metal cold against his hands.
The man’s chest rises in a shallow rhythm. Barely breathing. Barely alive.
And yet something in him lingers before he shoots. He’d seen that monsters far outside of his imagination could exist after the whole Avenger's fiasco, enough to know that the world housed more possibilities than he’d liked.
So if Steve Rogers could come back from the dead, then what if Bucky Barnes could too, even if it was in this perverse form as the Winter Soldier?
It’s absurd. Impossible. A pure fantasy that his teenage self would squeal over.
And yet the idea had already taken root, like a virus. Already sat in the back of his mind long enough where it didn’t feel so impossible anymore. Long enough that doubt morphs into something dangerously close to belief.
“Let’s go Buck.” He declares to himself, voice thin and weary.
He stomps out the last bits of sanity and reason in his head. The gun hangs loosely on his side, heavy but forgotten, as he slides an arm around the unconscious soldier's torso. Deadweight. Completely limp. Bucky’s boots drag across the floor as John half-carries, half-drags him out of the room.
John fumbles for his radio. “Lemar, I’ve got a casualty. I’m bringing him out now, request immediate med support.”