Bucky belongs to Marvel. I just own the action figure and a wild imagination.

Many thanks to my Betas Three: Imbecamiel, Nefhiriel and Nath. Your combined support and enthusiasm keeps me writing.

A/N: Something that started as setting-writing practice but quickly took on a life of its own. AU for the MCU, probably, though I took some cues from some of the Civil War photos, most notably what seems to be Bucky's apartment. I liked the idea of Bucky living on his own, trying to work through his problems and just trying to be a human again.

-o0o-

Bucky Barnes bent his head and pulled his collar tighter against the frigid St. Louis wind. Why he bothered, he didn't know, because the jacket was nowhere near heavy enough for the weather, not even with two shirts and a hooded sweatshirt underneath. He tucked his chin to his chest anyway and squinted with watering eyes as he walked against the driving snow. He seemed to be the only idiot in the city stumbling through the blizzard, so at least the risk of blindly bumping into anyone was low. His boots made little crunching sounds on the layer of snow covering the sidewalk. Left, right, left, right…watching his feet trudge forward in the whiteness, it felt almost like the world was moving while he actually stood still. Trees and trash cans, fire hydrants and cars—they passed by the edges of his vision like apparitions, all color and detail washed away by the scourge of winter.

About the same time he lost most of the feeling in his feet, the brick apartment building he called home loomed on his right, reassuringly red and solid. He hurried up the steps and huddled in the doorway as he fumbled with numb fingers to find his keys in his coat pocket. He dropped them twice before finally sorting out the right one and rattling it into the keyhole. He let himself in, then shoved the door closed, jiggling the knob up and down until he finally heard it latch. He remembered to step over the peeled-up edge of the faded green linoleum as he walked into the foyer. He grimaced at the trail of snow he left behind.

I need to fix that lino and mop up the mess…

For now, though, he simply pulled the yellow "Wet Floor" signboard out from where it was folded against the wall and set it over the blobs of rapidly melting snow. He glanced up and down the two hallways that stretched into the dimly-lit distance. All the doors were shut and, for a change, no music rattled the building, nor, thankfully, were there any jittery meth addicts bouncing off the walls and muttering about the bugs crawling under their skin. Just last week, he'd tossed out a meth head who'd wandered in off the street when someone hadn't latched the door completely.

He hurried to the stairwell, trying not to breathe in too deeply. The building reeked of urine, mold, cooked cabbage and, because it was Friday and Mrs. Eichelberger in 1B was a devout Catholic, fried fish. For a moment a fleeting vision of small hands working a rosary flashed through his head, but like a dream, it faded as soon as he tried to focus on it. Were the hands his mother's? A neighbor's? His own? Had he once been Catholic? He swallowed hard. Didn't matter. Didn't matter.

Keep telling yourself that, pal. Maybe someday you'll finally believe it.

He didn't really trust his frozen feet not to stumble, so he descended the stairs to the basement with a little more care than he usually did. He instinctively sidestepped the one that always creaked. He used another key to unlock the door at the bottom. It had faded lettering on it that at one time spelled "Maintenance" but now read, "Ma_nt_nan_e ." He touched it lightly before he let himself in. As home addresses go, that one fit. He had some letters missing himself.

He pushed the door open a few inches then paused, listening. When he was assured from the silence that no one was there except him, he entered. He fumbled for the metal chain hanging from the little room's single-bulb ceiling fixture. He yanked it and anemic yellow light chased three cockroaches back under his shabby dresser. The air was damp but warmish, which meant the boiler was working. That was good. It was too cold a day for it to go out.

He breathed a heavy sigh through his nose as he shut the door and shoved the deadbolt home. Then he leaned his forehead against the scarred wood, taking a moment to feel safe.

It was a lie he told himself every day. He wasn't safe, not by a long shot. But here at least was some privacy, a quiet spot where he could be out of the weather, warm and dry. The room was a dump, clean now but still riddled with dampness and mildew stains. At night the scritch-scrape of rats disturbed his sleep. Still, he knew he was lucky to have it. He'd met the landlord by chance at the soup kitchen at The Church of the Redeemer the next block over. Mr. Franklin, a big black man who towered over him by at least six inches, assumed somewhat rightly that he was a homeless vet and had offered him a room to sleep in if he could keep the boiler going and fix any other minor issues that the tenants reported. He had eyed Bucky narrowly for a moment longer, then added that he'd also like Bucky to keep an eye out for crime, most of which centered around meth making. "I don't want no meth labs blowing the place to kingdom come and killin' all my law-abiding tenants," he growled in a bass voice that Bucky swore he could feel rattle his metal arm.

When Bucky hesitated, too taken aback by the offer to speak, Mr. Franklin offered to throw in a hotplate, microwave and small refrigerator, since the basement room didn't have a true kitchen. Bucky didn't know a lot about himself yet, but he had discovered that he had a knack for fixing things and somehow still possessed a strong urge to protect people, so he'd dredged up a shaky whispered, "Thank you, sir." In the four weeks since, he was proud to have held up his end of the bargain. He had kicked out two drug dealers, unclogged three toilets, replaced two panes of glass, picked the lock when the lady in 4A forgot her keys, found Mr. Kowalski's missing reading glasses, fed his cat when he went on a business trip and fended off his half-hearted attempt at flirting. (That particular incident offered Bucky another bit of self-realization: he wasn't wired to find balding, middle-aged men with overpowering body odor and whiskey breath attractive at all.)

It was a simple life, with small problems easily solved, and plenty of privacy when he got lost in his head and needed to hide from the world and do maintenance on himself.

Mr. Fix It in more ways than one, that's me.

Another important consideration about his current residence: HYDRA, the US government, and anyone else hunting him (like, for instance, Steve Rogers and his flying buddy) were unlikely to look for him playing janitor in a shabby apartment building on a sketchy block of Dutchtown in south St. Louis. He wasn't altogether sure how he'd ended up in St. Louis, but as hiding places went, he could do worse. HYDRA had never had any sort of foothold here that he remembered. Not that his faulty brain was very trustworthy about most things, but he was pretty sure his memory of HYDRA bases was fairly intact, just like how he still knew to pull the trigger between heartbeats and that Arnim Zola was an asshole of the first order.

His left fist clenched, the thought of Zola and the horror that was HYDRA making the plates on his arm stir and lift like the hackles on a dog. He felt his breathing quicken, felt the rage building, but he shut his eyes and took several deep breaths, letting them out slowly.

Zola wasn't here, nor was anyone from HYDRA. Working himself up into an explosive fury would accomplish nothing save to get him kicked out of what had turned into a good situation, and he needed a good situation right now. He would eventually leave, go after all those people who stole his life from him before they could steal the lives of anyone else, but even after an entire summer and fall living on his own, he wasn't in any shape yet for what he knew would be a long and protracted war. For now, his guns and armor stayed locked in a trunk under his cot against that day when he could go on a mission of his own making and start tearing down HYDRA base by base. He had to be patient. Had to be smart about it. He was still too erratic, too prone to confusion and losing large amounts of time in flashbacks. He didn't know how long it might take him to be reliably functional. Though they were weakening each day, he still fought against urges to Report and Rendezvous, and he still had to battle the terrifying demand of the kill order any time he so much as glimpsed a photo of Captain America…

You're my mission!

No. He shook his head, hard. Grabbed a handful of hair and tugged on it until the pain dislodged his thoughts from the relentless circle of falsehoods HYDRA had planted.

"Steve is my friend," he whispered. "My name is...is... J-James Buchanan Barnes, and he has been my friend since childhood. HYDRA cannot change that fact. HYDRA... cannot...cannot..."

The floor seemed to tilt under his feet. He grabbed at the table, missed, and just that quickly he was on his hands and knees, not sure of how he got there or where he was. There was a buzzing in his head, and a darkness over his eyes. He was aware of…

Cold concrete against his splayed right hand.

A cold draft against his face.

Cold...

So cold...

Like ice...

Ice…

Cryo...

No...no no not again no...

His mind shut down.

...

...

...

…

Awareness trickled slowly back. He felt something hard beneath his cheek. He groaned and immediately clamped his lips shut, waiting for the blue fire of shock batons to wrack his muscles, drive them into spasms that left him unable to move or breathe.

Nothing happened.

He pried one eye open. Saw the rusty silver of a metal table leg. A stretch of bare concrete floor. A colorful braided rug by a closed door.

Wait...

A rug?

HYDRA never gave him rugs….

It snapped him back to the present. He groaned again, loudly, then mumbled a string of curses in Russian, German, and Portuguese before his brain finally found English again. He pushed stiffly to his knees and sat back on his haunches, squinting at his room.

How long had he been out this time?

The wind still howled beyond the window. The light seemed the same...

He looked at his watch. Thirty-seven minutes had gone by, but since the watch was analog, it could have been thirty-seven minutes and twenty-four hours. Or forty-eight hours.

Then he remembered all the food in his backpack. The milk. If it was still cold...

His right hand shook a little as he unhooked the sternum strap of his backpack. The left hand didn't shake. It never did, unless something went wrong with the wiring. The buckle unfastened with a small click. He shrugged out of the straps and plunked the backpack down onto the floor in front of his knees. Unzipped it and dug through everything until his hand felt very cold plastic.

He slumped with relief. However long he'd been out, it wasn't enough time for the milk to turn warm. The layer of air by the floor was cold, but not that cold. Thirty-seven minutes, then.

He scrubbed his face with his right hand. "Damn it," he sighed. Feeling as old as his 90-odd years, he grabbed the rickety table and hauled himself to his feet.

He slung the backpack from the floor to the table, then took a moment to simply breathe in and out. Slowly in, slowly out. In. Out.

Come on, Barnes. Focus. You're all right. You're safe.

He slowly peeled off his wet coat and draped it on the back of his single folding chair, then dropped bonelessly onto the seat. He still felt like he was only two-thirds of the way back to the real world, but a growing awareness of cold, wet feet went a long way toward drawing him fully back to the present. He fumbled to unlace and pull off his boots, then his wet socks. He took a deep breath and, trying not to hiss, tiptoed barefoot as fast as he could across the cold concrete. He wrestled open the top drawer of his battered chest, grabbed one of his three pairs of wool socks. He hurried back to his chair and quickly put them on.

He sighed. Dry socks felt so good.

His feet taken care of, time to put away the groceries. He unzipped his backpack's main compartment and pulled out three plastic bags full of food. The first bag held two cans of vegetable beef soup, two cans of chicken noodle soup and a can of chili, all of which he could cook on the hot plate or in the microwave. There was also a jar of peanut butter. The second bag contained two cans of peaches, a can of beans, a small carton of milk, a couple potatoes, a small bottle of root beer and another of ginger ale. The third bag held three bananas, a small box of Cheerios, a bag of baby carrots, something called a gooey butter cake, and finally the real treat: a Hershey bar.

He felt rich.

He'd gotten it all at the Helping Hand food pantry just down the street, where he helped stock the shelves in exchange for picking up a few things to eat, if they had enough stock to make it worth his time. It wasn't an especially good food pantry, as food pantries go, certainly nothing like the soup kitchen at the Church of the Redeemer. Helping Hand usually ran about eighty-percent-bare shelves with a paltry choice of dented cans of tuna or black-eyed peas and not much else, but today had been a lucky day. The lady that ran the place said each month a truck dropped off surplus government commodities, and this month the surplus included quite a bit of fresh produce and baked goods, hence his bounty of fresh fruit, vegetables and the gooey butter cake, which the lady forced on him, telling him he'd never had anything like it anywhere and that he'd love it. There had been a case of assorted candy as well, thus providing him the precious Hershey bar. It was more than a fair exchange for unloading the truck.

Working for those three bags of food made him feel good. He remembered being a hard worker, back before the war. Odd jobs at the grocer down the block. At the docks. Even selling newspapers. Every dime mattered back then, just as it did to him now. Working hard and working honest had been something James Buchanan Barnes insisted on, and that was something he relearned about himself very early on. There'd been low times in the beginning when he'd had no choice but to steal food and clothing, but as the days on the run went by, he learned how to live honestly. He overheard drifters talk about where to find hot meals in homeless shelters or free clothing at church clothing banks. After learning that, he took advantage of any he came across.

He still would prefer working over accepting charity, though. Pride aside, sometimes he simply needed cash. You can't trade a can of tuna for a bus fare. He remembered where to find stashes of HYDRA funds and had no compunction about stealing their money, but most of those sources had dried up quickly as HYDRA agents grabbed up all the cash before scattering to the wind. Getting a real job was a priority but unfortunately wasn't an option. Aside from the difficulties explaining away a high-tech metal left arm, he had no identity documents. He could hardly fill out job applications with his true date of birth; they'd think he was loony. When they checked his social security number, provided he could ever remember it, they'd quickly find out he was supposed to be dead. Far better right now to stick to the persona of a homeless vet, just another nameless face drifting across the country, part of a populace most people looked past without ever seeing. He'd just have to keep swallowing his pride until the day came when circumstances let him start living like a good man again.

He winced. A good man. As if working a job would undo all the all that blood on his hands. He'd never be a good man, ever—but he had to start somewhere. Stocking shelves, cleaning floors, fixing clogged toilets... at the end of each day, he might not have coins in his pockets but he at least didn't add to the shitload of guilt he carried.

He realized he'd been staring into space for the last ten minutes. He took a deep breath and turned his attention back to his groceries. He put the bananas, carrots and potatoes in a bowl on the table, then he put the milk, root beer and ginger ale in the tiny refrigerator and the canned goods on the shelf above the hot plate. He lined them all up carefully, the labels showing, shorter cans in front, tall cans in back and behind those the cheerful yellow box of cereal. Seeing all the bright labels and the shelf nearly full was very satisfying. Made him feel like maybe he might become an actual person despite everything.

He took a moment to run his fingers over the Hershey bar. He'd eat it one careful rectangle at a time, make it last. He didn't know when he'd get another. The plastic bags he rolled up carefully and tucked into an empty tissue box with the rest of the bags he'd accumulated. He didn't need that many, but he know what to do with them. There was a part of him that shamed him if he wasted anything, some sort of echo of a nagging voice chiding him to clean your plate, young man. Don't waste anything, especially food, because you might not get to eat tomorrow...

He guessed the voice was probably his mother's. It sounded like something a mother would say.

So he stored the bags, for now. He'd throw them away eventually, either when they filled the room entirely or when he worked up the nerve to ignore his mother's voice. He had never given much thought to the more mundane details of modern society. Mission-specific details, sure, but not things like how people bagged their groceries. Now that he was paying attention to the bigger picture, he concluded that the world was about to be buried completely in plastic bags. The damn things floated around everywhere.

He sniffed, then swiped his sleeve across his still-dripping nose. It was marginally warmer in the basement than outside, thanks to the boiler gurgling away on the other side of a partition wall, but the small window near the ceiling, the one that allowed him an ant's-eye view of the sidewalk and street, was ancient and loose and let in drafts when the wind blew from the north. He had stuffed plastic bags around the edges and taped several plastic bags over the entire thing, but cold still leeched through. He chafed his right arm with his left, but it didn't help. After such a long walk through the snow, those thirty-seven minutes lying on the cold floor had done him no favors. He felt chilled him to the bone. He dropped onto his cot, tucked his legs up and pulled his wool blanket up over his shoulders. He didn't like winter. Didn't like snow and ice and freezing winds. It made his brain stutter and shiver and try to pull up memories he didn't want to see and lose all the knowledge he had so painfully regained. Some days were so terrible that he ended up forgetting his own name.

But not today.

"James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant, 32557038," he whispered, his voice lost in the rattling roar of the wind outside and soft hiss of steam rushing through the network of pipes above his head. Then, because he wasn't a prisoner of war any longer, "My name is James...I mean, Bucky. My name is Bucky. My name is..." His thoughts stumbled. He gritted his teeth. "...is. Bucky. Barnes. H-hello, my n-name is... damn it."

He wanted to throw something. Break something. This shouldn't be so hard. He didn't understand why saying his name, or even talking at all, was so hard. There was no one here to beat him, to slap him or dunk his head in water over and over until he was certain he'd drown, or hook him up to wires and machines and shock him until he was senseless and compliant and no longer a man.

He was alone. He was safe.

He pulled the blanket tighter and stretched out on his back. Thinking about things he liked and disliked sometimes helped him focus. "I like chicken soup. And carrots. Hershey bars." He frowned at the ceiling. "I don't like...I don't like...um..."

What didn't he like, besides not being able to think straight? Then it hit him, a memory of a table set with chipped blue and white plates, with nice forks and spoons and a clear pink glass sugar bowl and green glass salt and pepper shakers. There was a platter with a roasted turkey ready for carving. He heard voices and laughter but the people remained shadows, a dozen blurred and faceless figures seated around an oval table too small for that many. In front of him, blocking some of the view of the delicious turkey, was a huge steaming bowl of little green... little round green cabbage-y, what were they—

"Brussels sprouts!" he cried and sat up, triumphant. "Brussels sprouts. God, I hate those things." It was an old memory that he knew was real, because he had eaten some only a few months ago and nearly gagged. Revulsion had hit him with the solidity of a dislike he knew had to go way back. Brussels sprouts were as horrible as Hershey bars were heavenly, and he was certain he had discovered that at a very young age.

Encouraged, he folded his legs close and tented the blanket so it hung over him like a teepee.

What else did he like.

"I like petting Mr. Kowalski's cat and hearing it purr. I like things to be neat and clean." He'd spent the first three days here scrubbing every inch of the floor, wall and ceiling. He'd even given the boiler a much-needed sponge bath. The repetitive motions of cleaning made a restful spot in his mind and unlocked some more memories, one of cleaning an Army barracks and another of two women in two different homes scrubbing their own floors. One was his mother, he felt sure of it. The other was…he frowned. Maybe a neighbor? Maybe Steve's ma? The name Sarah drifted through his head, but he didn't know if that was Steve's ma's name or just some lady he knew as a kid.

He carefully tiptoed around the thought of Steve Rogers as he was now, with all the deadly urges he still stirred up in Bucky's head, to think about Steve Rogers as he was then, who was very, very different, at least physically.

Same stubborn punk inside, though….

He blinked. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he went with it. It felt right. Steve Rogers was a punk. He shut his eyes and concentrated until he saw an image of a skinny little kid in bed with a pile of sketchbooks beside him and his nose buried in a book.

He grabbed the book out of Steve's hands.

"Hey, watch it!"

"Watcha readin', punk?"

"Tarzan. What's it to you?"

"You're only on 'Son of Tarzan'? I'm already halfway through 'Jewels of Opar'."

"Dry up, jerk."

The scrawny kid's indignant face faded and left Bucky staring at the wall across his room. So they'd both loved Tarzan books. And evidently he'd been kind of a pill. Another piece of the puzzle of who he was, or had been. He wished he could say what the Tarzan books were about, but he only had a vague memory of jungles and a man swinging on a vine. His brain refused to offer up anything more. He sighed. He still had so far to go, but he would get there, one slow step at a time.

In the meantime, he would reward himself for remembering Tarzan with a bite of the Hershey ba—

"Here you go, Bucky, your favorite breakfast because you were such a good boy helping Mrs. Rogers take care of poor Steve last night."

She put in front of him a plateful of golden, steaming pancakes, piled high and dripping with syrup and melted butter. He grabbed his fork…

Bucky's eyes flew open and he let his right hand, which had been reaching out for food that wasn't there, fall to his lap. "Pancakes," he whispered reverently. He loved pancakes. He knew he did. Without doubt. He remembered their smell, their taste… everything about them, even down to how to make them.

He scowled. HYDRA had made him forget his love of pancakes. One more reason the bastards would die.

As soon as the weather broke, he would get out some of his dwindling supply of money and buy the ingredients for pancakes. But in the meantime, he had better go trim that piece of linoleum before someone tripped over it, complained to the landlord and he lost his job and his temporary home.

Mr. Fix It had to earn his keep, after all. He had pancakes to make.