Chapter Text
Bucky wakes up to light streaming through his window and into his room. The sunlight gently floods through his thin white curtains and makes itself at home on his floor.
He uncurls himself from where he's positioned in the corner of his room on the floor and stands up, stretching his arms above his head.
After all this time, Bucky still can't make himself sleep in a bed sometimes. It's too soft, and some nights he wakes up feeling like his blankets are strangling him or pulling him down into the too-soft mattress. Some nights it feels too much like the soft embrace of snow that had greeted him when he fell from the train.
One of the perks of being a super soldier: at least it doesn't leave his bones and muscles aching when he sleeps on the floor.
With a yawn, he tugs off his sweat-soaked shirt and changes into a simple grey t-shirt. With bare feet, he wanders into his kitchen and adds coffee grounds to the coffee machine. He ignores the way the cold of the tiles on his kitchen floor bites into his bare skin.
Bucky leans against the counter as he waits for the water to heat up and the coffee grounds to do whatever coffee grounds do. After what feels like an eternity of waiting, the coffee machine beeps.
His actions are still sluggish from tiredness as he grabs a plain white mug and pours the coffee into it. Usually, his movements would be awake and alert, but he's finally started to feel safe in his apartment. He feels safe enough to allow himself the momentary freedom from the constant state of alertness that he seems to live in every day.
Bucky pads over to his living room and leans over the couch to grab the remote, careful not to spill his coffee. Clicking a button, the TV turns on with a brief static noise.
And then, suddenly, Bucky freezes. All of the residual tiredness is immediately washed away like a bucket of ice water has just been dumped on him. He stares at the TV, not wanting to believe what he's seeing.
"--esterday, the Winter Soldier was spotted leaving this apartment complex--" The camera cuts to pan across a picture of a building before transitioning to smoking rubble and ash. "--just minutes before it blew up. The identity of the criminal is the thought-to-be-reformed James Buchanan Barnes, otherwise known as the Winter Soldier. If you see this man--" A grainy picture of the Winter Soldier leaving a building appears on the screen next to an image of Bucky's face. He nearly drops his coffee cup in shock. "--please alert authorities immediately."
Bucky pauses the news to look closely at the picture of the Winter Soldier. It's definitely his short hair and his black metal arm with gold accents, but the outfit is similar to his old one. Including a black muzzle that also has gold accents. It reminds him of memories that he would rather forget.
But Bucky is free from his code. He knows that he didn't go anywhere yesterday. It couldn't have been him.
...Right?
He's still staring at the image on the news when his phone starts ringing. In a daze, he picks it up.
"Bucky, why the hell are you a wanted criminal? I haven't even gotten to eat my toast yet, and you're on national television, man." Sam's voice immediately greets him.
Bucky is quiet for a few beats, still processing. "...I have no clue, but that wasn't me."
"Then who was it?"
"I don't know, some copycat or something?" Bucky shrugs. He's just as clueless as Sam is.
"Well, the government's file has pictures of that Winter Soldier taking off the mask and, well..." Sam trails off as Bucky anxiously waits for him to finish. "It's you, Buck. It's your face."
This time, his coffee cup actually slips from his hand, falling to the floor with a loud clank and shattering into several porcelain shards.
"That's not possible."
"I didn't think so either, but then they showed me the pictures," Sam tells him with a sigh. "Look, they're confidential, but I'll send them to you. You deserve to see them."
"Okay," Bucky says, already dreading what he'll see.
There's silence for a few seconds, and then his phone dings in his hand. He moves it away from his ear and puts it on speaker, and then he opens his texts.
As soon as Bucky clicks on Sam's contact name (which he had changed to 'Eagle' after Sam picked up the mantle of Captain America to annoy Sam, because America's bird is a bald eagle), he is immediately greeted with what is definitely his face.
It's uncanny. It's exactly the same face as the one he sees in the mirror every morning, give or take a few scars and smudged with ash. But it has the same terrifyingly blank expression that he knows he always had as the Winter Soldier.
"...Bucky? You good, man?" Sam's voice breaks him out of his shock.
"Yeah," He says roughly, still staring down at the images. "Yeah, I'm good."
"You sure?"
"Well, it's not every day you see your evil clone or something, but yeah, I'm as good as I can be, all things considered."
"Fair enough," Sam replies. "By the way, you might want to find someplace to lay low for a while. The government is going to be looking for you."
"Yeah, good idea. I'll start packing now."
"Okay, stay safe, you hear me?" Sam tells him. "And Bucky?"
"Yeah?
"Good luck."
"Thanks," Bucky says. "Bye, Sam."
"I'll see you around, Bucky," Sam replies. "Well, maybe not since the government is probably going to be watching me, but you get what I mean."
"Yeah."
And then Bucky ends the call. He stares, unseeing, down at the broken pieces of porcelain.
Everything almost feels like a dream.
It doesn't seem real that he woke up one day to see his own face on the news for blowing up a building. And a national criminal, no less.
But it is real, so he has to deal with it.
He pushes his thoughts away and moves to haphazardly pick up the shards with his hands, not caring when one slices his palm. The pain is grounding.
He throws the shards into the trash.
The hazy feeling follows Bucky as he walks into his room. He gathers his clothes and tosses them into a black duffle bag. He stops to pull on a black hoodie with some black gloves and his combat boots, making sure his metal arm isn't visible. He quickly moves on and continues packing.
As he picks up a picture of him and Steve, his hands are shaking. He puts it into the bag and clenches his hands, willing them to be still. It doesn't work.
Bucky moves through the rest of his house, systematically scanning the rooms for items that he might need and throwing them into the duffle bag.
He doesn't let himself linger too long. Doesn't let himself think about what is happening.
Briefly, he considers taking his phone, but decides against it. It would be too easy to track.
Once he has everything, he stands by his couch and gives his small apartment one last look. He takes a deep breath and stares at the TV, at the frozen image of someone who isn't him but looks like him, and then he slings the duffle bag over his shoulder.
Bucky goes to the back window of his apartment and jumps down. The pavement cracks underneath him as he lands in a crouch, and then he pulls his hood over his face and starts walking down the street, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.
When he finally makes it into the crowd of people walking on the sidewalk, some of the tension in his shoulders bleeds away. Not all of it, though. He still has to be on high alert, even if there's less of a chance that he'll be spotted.
As Bucky walks, he tries to make a plan on what to do. He still knows the locations of HYDRA's safe houses, but he doesn't feel safe there. And it's all too possible that HYDRA are the ones responsible for whatever is going on.
Bucky had thought that all, or most, of HYDRA had been taken down a while ago, but it's possible that a few members survived and built up strength again over the course of a few years.
And it's possible that they found a way to clone Bucky and make another Winter Soldier. A perfect Winter Soldier, one who doesn't remember being friends with Captain America. One who doesn't remember being Bucky Barnes. One who wouldn't question orders.
That thought sends a shiver down Bucky's spine.
It is, unfortunately, far too likely.
But if there's anyone who knows HYDRA better than Bucky, it's Zemo. Zemo, who is currently locked down in the Raft, a high-security prison. A high-security prison that would be all too easy for Bucky to break into.
Bucky knows the layout of the prison and about the security because he had forced Steve to tell him about his prison break plan in detail after the fight the Avengers had against each other, resulting in them getting locked up in the Raft. He had wanted to make sure Steve knew everything about it so the idiot wouldn't get himself hurt.
Which means that Bucky still knows that plan.
Now, he has no doubt that the security systems have probably been updated over the years, but it shouldn't be too hard to hack into a secure government folder and find the information. All he'll need is a burner computer and his years of experience with HYDRA.
Bucky is shaken from his thoughts by someone shouldering past him, hard enough that if he were a normal person, he would have fallen. He pays them no mind, instead continuing on his way until he finds an electronics shop.
Before going inside, he pulls on his hood to cover more of his face. Then he opens the door, and a bell jingles overhead, signaling his arrival. He picks the first computer he sees and pays for it in cash before rushing out of the store with it tucked under his arm.
After that, he finds the nearest abandoned building, which just so happens to be an abandoned mall. He breaks inside and finds the nearest room, placing the computer on the floor and sitting down in front of it.
Bucky sets up the computer and then makes quick work of hacking into the U.S. government's secure files. It's not too hard for him to do, but he knows that as soon as he's there, a ping with his location has been recorded and authorities have been alerted.
Which is why he immediately finds the files on the Raft and scans over the security plans. He knows that he has a few minutes maximum before there are police being deployed to his location.
Thankfully, years in HYDRA had also trained him to have a near-photographic memory. Bucky scans over the files as fast as he can, and then he breaks the laptop in half and sprints out of the building.
As Bucky runs, he lets his mind wander to think about the information that he saw in the files.
They're moving a prisoner into the Raft in a day, meaning that there will be a small slot of time in which it will be above water. A small system of time that Bucky can use to break inside.
From the blueprints and notes, he knows that there's a system of vents that make sure the prisoners have air while the prison is underwater. Unfortunately, they're blocked by locked gates. Locked gates that, when breached, will immediately lock down the prison.
Within five minutes, most personnel will move to secured rooms, with a few guards in heavy-duty gas masks positioned outside the secure areas.
Next, the vents to the prisoner's cells will be blocked by more locked gates, leaving them with just the oxygen in their cells.
After that, a poisonous gas will fill the air.
However, it takes 15 minutes for a prisoner to pass all security checkpoints and get to their cell. Meaning that if Bucky breaches the vents while the prisoner is being moved inside, someone will have to manually override the gas and set it to go off once the prisoner is secured. This will buy Bucky 10 more minutes.
He would try to break into the control room and do the manual override himself, but it requires a specific code and some complicated DNA with facial scanning or something. Of course, he could try to force someone to do it for him, but anyone working there would be instructed to die before they helped a prisoner escape.
Meaning that Bucky will have 15 minutes to get in, break into Zemo's cell, possibly fight guards, and get out of the prison before the gas is released and he chokes on his own blood.
Sounds manageable.
As Bucky finally slows to a stop and enters a safe house of his own making, he thinks that the hardest part will just be getting Zemo out fast enough so that they both don't die.