III.

…

"Captain Barnes, Captain Barnes!"

A mass of voices scream at him simultaneously along with slews and spews of mangled words, sentences, and questions. He barely understood what anyone was saying and he felt himself freeze at the sensory overload. His ears were ringing, his head and heart pounding, and his eyes blurring from the million hyper bright flashes snapping at every millisecond.

"Captain Barnes, Captain Barnes!"

His military monkey suit feels too tight; wrong with the slew of meaningless medals and ranks stapled in. He tries to keep his composure intact despite the creeping sneer of anxiety crawling up his spine. Back on the table… with Zola he'd felt the same way. Confused and disorientated with all of his senses assaulted at once. Like some lab rat un-seamed and ready to be poked, prodded, and dissected - with needles digging into his skin and howling laughter echoing in his brain even when Zola had long gone.

"Captain Barnes! Are the documents released by Agent Romanov true?"

How the hell did Natasha do this?

He swallows deeply, looking above the heads of the mass crowd of reporters ready to devour him alive.

"They are," he eventually answers and the crowd goes wild again.

"Captain Barnes! CAPTAIN BARNES!"

His patience and sense of reality was wearing thin.

"Agent Romanov," he interrupted, ignoring the continuous squawking of the reporters, "Released all of SHIELDS documents. Everything heavily classified and hidden for years. This included the early pre-SHIELD SSR files as well as the hidden HYDRA fi -"

"Captain Barnes! Was your wife the true Captain America? Why was this kept from the public? Captain Barnes!"

He feels his blood run cold as Winter settles deep in his veins again. He doesn't have enough patience to care about these reporters anymore. And he was done hiding the truth. It's eaten him half alive… and now that Stella was still -

"The SSR at the time," he hissed through the microphone with spit and fire, "felt that the world wouldn't be ready to accept a female super soldier. My wife - Stella Grace Barnes - was forced to play the gag of Lady Liberty and Captain America in an effort t- "

"Captain Barnes, your wife was also Lady Liberty? Lady Liberty and Captain America were the same person?! How did you come into play?"

"Yes, my wife was both Lady Liberty and Captain America. It was too seal her identity. When she had still been alive at the time, they had originally had her pretend to be a male under the pseudonym Steven Grant Rogers as well a-"

"Captain Barnes why were there so many covers? Wasn't she also a nurse in Holland or was this also a cover? Captain Barnes!"

"Goddammit NO. Are you people even listenin' to what I'm saying?! The SSR forced multiple covers on my wife in an effort to maximize discrepancy about her identi-"

"Captain Barnes, did your wife truly die in Holland? Captain Barnes documents released dictate she died in Switzerland! Captain Barnes had the SSR been aware that she had survived? Captain Barnes, what is the truth!?

"Captain Barnes, Captain Barnes! Who is the Pale Lady in the released SHIELD documents?"

Everything melds into one sense - freeze before he explodes.

"I'm done here," he speaks quickly, turning around and walking away from the podium as the crowd goes wild in frenzy. He can't release the truth under these conditions… not when these people are attacking him for information like hyenas. For the first time since the war started, he's not going to fucking listen to what anyone says anymore. He has to, and will, do this his way.

He has to find Stella.

He pulls out a one of his many small blades out from his pocket, twirling it between his fingers once before wiping in against the HYDRA agent who rounded the corner. The blow is quick and precise; ripping through the man's throat like warm butter as a slew of blood spits out at him. He doesn't slow down. Another comes up from behind, but he's already anticipated the movement and he counters with the brutality of the cybernetic arm. He smashes their skull with a single blow, pulling out a pistol and cleanly fires bullets into the three that round the corner before they can even pull the trigger.

Honestly, he's shocked that this base is so damn, fucking full.

They've been tracing Stella's misty whispers for months now. He's a damn good tracker and with Natasha, they're a lethally effective team, but they've only been able to catch wisps of Stella's trail. She's stupidly elusive, for someone who's never had much strength are care for stealth. In fact, it pisses him off even more, because half the time he can tell by the scarring of a base that she's gone in guns blazing without methodologically planning out an attack. But beyond that - the trails evaporate.

More so, when she does leave them clues, it's to her benefit. Clues that she chooses to leave behind to places she wants them to see from potential safe houses to HYDRA hubs she's destroyed and dealt with. Sometimes, she leaves the operatives dead, but everything is left perfectly in tact. Other times, all they find is ash. But the common factor amongst only of them is that they're left abandoned. Except today, in this particular facility. If one thing was clear, it was that she's more than well aware that they're following her and the sad part is, he's annoyed that it's only by her will that they know where she is going… but he's also overjoyed. Within some of her more prominent and well established safe houses, she gives the appearance of a crazed person.

There are maps, news clippings, and messy sketches of HYDRA operatives, bases, and connections. They're all caught in a web of red string with black sharpie scribbles littering the walls in circling's; rough memories of those who once held power above her, as she plots out her next move. But despite the insane hand written ramblings, she's drawing again. Messy, lacking finesse, but sketches with sharp, important details and always the next location. Never in words, but in pictures right out of her mind.

Yet, despite them following a quiet and well-hidden trail, she's left this building full.

Why.

They've made it to the squirming heart of this facility and everyone was still alive. Did she want them to clean this out for them? Was she testing their abilities?

"Yasha," Natasha calls from the entrance to the main command room, her voice controlled and tight. He stares at the dead bodies around them, his own anger evident in the way the corpses stained the hallway read. Sam looks at him and back at Natasha, eyes wide and his breath short from exertion.

"You'll want to see this."

"Natasha, are you sure he should?" Sam mumbles in a frightened whisper, but he hears it anyways.

He knows the Falcon is only doing it for his own emotional protection. The days following his recovery after Stella had pulled him out of the Potomac had been… rough. Rougher than usual that is. Despite his mangled body, he'd finally had time to sit and process everything that had happened in the past year, from learning how to live without her to realizing she's been alive all this time. Tortured and corrupted in HYDRA's perfect Pale Lady. Unfortunately, the world had discovered it too. And they demanded answers. "The truth". But his priorities were different now and he needs to find her. He knows Sam is trying to further protect his damaged psyche, but he's lived through this shock far too many times.

He's analyzed every fucking inch of the file Natasha had recovered from Kiev. He'd analyzed it for months, alongside the newly released HYDRA files leaked thanks to Natasha. He even learned Russian just so he could read and better understand what really happened to Stella after she fell… He… he knows how they tried to create her, the code words, the memory wipes, and every single recorded mission and kill. He'll never forgive himself for what he did to her because of his stupid fucking mistake. But now he has a chance to make it right.

He pushes past them without a word… and finally witnesses Stella's supernatural presence seeped into the wall. Rotting human flesh assaults his heightened senses. She'd slaughtered these operatives a long time ago…. All the equipment was destroyed and he recognizes the chair that he'd learned were designed for her memory wipes. The snapped electronics still crackled as he slowly made his way through the room, avoiding the sticky crimson liquid aged into the floor. There's a security panel still hooked up: old footage from the facility still recorded. There's a video on the largest screen playing in a loop… when he's close enough he feels yet another part of himself die.

She's in the chair. Sitting upright, blank and spooked with her hair wet and frazzled around her face. She's in nothing but a sports bra and the military, tight pants she had been in from when they'd fought her on the highway. Pierce, that piece of shit, walks up to her.

"Mission report," he asks her, but she doesn't respond. She stays frozen with her eyes gone. He asks again… and impatient for her response he… he slaps her right across the face so hard that her entire body moves with the furious blow. If Pierce wasn't already dead, he would have gutted that fucker like a fish himself. The video doesn't get better.

"The man on the bridge," her voice rings out all of a sudden in that familiar honeyed rasp and he feels his heart clench. "Who was he?"

"I knew him."

She had recognized him… she had known him.

The old feed becomes worse. He anticipated this. He knew she was inconceivably tortured for years, but… but to see it with his own eyes made him want to scream until his lungs burst. Slit his own throat for not going back when she'd kicked him up with the remainder of her strength, falling into oblivion with that smile on her face. He should have dropped down again and caught her instead of evaporating with the squealing wind. He should have looked for her b -

A rubber guard is placed between her teeth. The machine begins to move with sick twists as it binds her to the table. The metal rods lower down and when the electricity flickers like a bombardment of lightning, her screaming engulfs the audio.

He goes blank, horror piercing him like icicles before his metal arm screeches with tightened coils before embedding itself into the screen, shattering the screen and the video with it. It's when his breathing goes into anxiety; mind nothing but white noise with panic flooding from his body that Natasha and Sam's worried yells drown out from the crashing wave of shock freezing him in place. Its then… in this cytostatic state that he comes to realize there is a message written in blood behind the screen.

THIS I THEY DI D TO M E

Before the serum, Stella was frail, sickly, and we didn't have the money to be "frail and sickly". You name it, she had it from polio, to scarlet fever, to yearly pneumonia. During the Depression no one had money, but I feel like we had a little bit less than everyone else. I worked double shifts down by the docks (when I could) and helped my old man in his mechanic shop whenever I had some spare time. It was a little worse for Stella. She jumped from job to job, not because she wanted to, but because she was so sick all the time. Who the hell wanted to give their employee multiple leaves during the winter season? Not anyone in Brooklyn, that's for sure.

The thing is though, she could never stay down. No matter how small, how sickly, or how womanly she was, she had a talent for getting into fights. Stella was no belle and she never would be. Punk always had to stick her nose where it didn't belong. Once, some drunk guys were kicking a dog in a back alley. Most people would have turned a blind eye to it, since there were so many strays back then. But Stella? Stella was the type of gal that couldn't keep her mouth shut. She'd call them out and sometimes, she'd try to fight these drunk assholes who were twice her size. Losing was never an option, you know what that crazy girl would say when she was broken and bleeding on the ground?

"I can do this all day, fellas."

They've followed her bread crumb trail from the states, through Europe, and now into Belarus. The just finished analyzing another cleaned out base in Poland, and judging by her direction, she was going to move further into barren and overgrown, ex-Soviet territories. Natasha had earlier theorized that she was probably moving into the Siberian wastelands where many of the Red Room testing facilities lay in decay and ruin. More so, it was the most likely place where HYDRA facilities were still intact before the world governments deciphered the leaked documents and chose to make a stand.

They huddle in the small inn room, careful to bring out electronics or anything that would seem out of the usual for prying and curious ears. Sam is fast asleep and Natasha is nearly there, drinking her evening chai and monitoring him. She's been careful around him, tip toeing on his emotions and hyper-sensitive of his explosive rage ever since they began ghost hunting. She'll keep him company for another hour, before forcing him to get in at least a couple hours of sleep. It's on nights like this, when they sit in silence in old, worn, clothes that he pulls out his notebooks. He's been reading Old Slavic legends; analyzing the mythology from every angle to understand how they created her from Russian, to Polish, to Bulgarian - everything was included.

Polnocnitsa - his withered hand writing read - means "Lady Midnight" or "Midnight wraith". Originating from the Polish variation of Slavic mythology, called "Północnica", the Polnocnitsa is the midnight version of "Poludnica" or "Lady Midday"/"Noon Wraith". I can't find stable information on Polnocnitsas in Russian or any other Slavic language, but Natasha's translated some of the Polish texts we found. They're said to be a type of "rusałka" (kind of water spirit/mermaid/siren for the Slavs).

Either way, like the Poludnicas, they're considered spirits of malice and madness. Apparently, they caused "heatstrokes" and often appeared in the fields that killed the elder and stole children. Some stories suggest that they suffocated their victims in their sleep, other stories say that they gave people who came across them in the fields a riddle, that if answered incorrectly, lead to their deaths. Another variation Natasha translated for me was that amongst some Slavic groups, they were seen to torment and torture their victims before eventually killing them. - However this is for the Poludnicas.

Polnocnitsas are mostly described as being the midnight or "sister" version of the Poludnica, but the killing method is not described. Mostly, Poludnica is a seasonal demon; probably the pagan way to describe heat exhaustion and sunstroke. Since Polnocnitsas manifest during the night, they are "dissipated from time" the Bulgars describe them as a ghost that stands at crossroads and leads others astray.

They were malevolent spirits of dead women who died shortly before, during, or after their weddings. Or those, who were betrayed by their lovers. They appear as either young or old women wrapped in white cloth with loose, disheveled hair. When appearing as the elder woman, they can look akin to the crone like "Baba Yaga" - an evil kind of Mother Nature - or "the Widow Goddess" who made pacts with the devil in order to obtain eternal life. They hunt alone, and when they find their victims, they are more prone to playing with them and torturing them - I've found the phrase "making them dance" - before killing them.

From the legends and mythology, it makes perfect sense as to why they'd call her the "Polnocnitsa" and yet, staring and reading at his notes, a single word jumps out at him. Widow.

"Hey Natasha," he breaks the deafening silence, closing the book and setting it aside. "Why did they choose Polnocnitsa?"

The redhead - turned brunette now - sets her cup of tea down and shrugged her shoulders. "Because it fit? Because the Russians created her and wanted a monster mythos for their assassin?"

"How did you know her," he fires off right away, finally getting the question that's been dying to ask her off his chest. Natasha doesn't take kindly to it, staring at him challengingly and trying to distinguish whether his intentions were malicious or not.

"I didn't know the Polnocnitsa was Stella Barnes, if that's what you're demanding of me Yasha. No one knew."

He raises an eyebrow at her stiff form, and loosens his glare. He's been harsh around them lately. Apprehensive and adamant about this hunt across Europe. He doesn't mean to come off as aggressive, for once, and Natasha slowly picks him apart. It takes a moment for her to relax, but when she finally does, she begins to speak in barely a whisper - only loud enough for his enhanced hearing to catch.

"She… she trained me in the Red Room. The highest level of assassin; a true ghost and master of close combat who could seduce, torture, and murder efficiently. A ghostly widow… the ultimate Black Widow. Brutal, efficient, and dead on the inside; mourning a love like we all had. When she was in the Red Room they didn't wipe her as much and the Russians treated her with more respect. We called herPolnocnica but her officers called her Svetlana - "light". I used to always think that it was ironic for a midnight demoness, but now?" she laughed lowly, avoiding eye contact with him.

"It all makes sense. "Stella" means "star". They knew exactly who their assassin was and where she had come from."

He doesn't sleep well that night and the nightmares come back. He dreams of supernaturally blue eyes, vibrant and swirling. She's moaning and wailing in pain; his senses then overflowing with the touch of skin as cold as ice and the vision of a ghost with pale white hair. With a fog of sweeping cloth covering her ethereal form her realizes the ghost is Stella.

"You did this to me," she screeches, floating closer in deadly steps, her body poised and ready for combat. The cloth, to his panicking realization, is a ripped form of her wedding dress. The scent of decaying blood assaults him and she points a knife dripping in crimson right at him.

"You killed me. You didn't save me. You did this to me. You betrayed me."

He's been chain smoking ever since he woke up, having brought an old, withered pack of Lucky Strikes with him from the States. He'd initially bought it after defrosting, but after he'd smoked one and realized how horribly different the taste was, he'd thrown them into a stray drawer in his small apartment. He'd been especially disappointed when he found out online that the "lucky strike" within the Lucky Strikes wasn't actually a thing anymore, but now, when his mind was buzzing and he's reached his limit on file reading, it was a comforting.

Something to do with his hands, something that reminded him of old times… his times when he'd smoked more than a chimney and used them to count how much time has passed before the next assault. He was using it for the same purpose now - a way to count how much time has passed before the calculate Stella's next move. It was a familiar hobby… something he could actually relate to in the alien future he was still getting used to.

With every deep inhale he focused on the soft tapping of Natasha typing on the small laptop she'd brought with them. It's then that he held the smoke in his lungs and forced it to burn while zeroing in a Sam's gentle breathing. It's only when he's lungs would scream for air that he'd exhale the smoldering smoke through his nostrils and repeat the action. It reminded him of drowning with the ice cold liquid building up in his lungs that refused to kill him, as if a warning of what would happen when he'd leave the earth. Instead of freezing into a coma, he should he have looked for her. He will never forgive himself for not going after her, and so, he does everything he can to re-enact winter. The cold had forced him to feel alive just as she had been in ice.

Sam stares at him in analytical terror and he knows the other has been counting the seconds of his suffocation out just as he was.

"I didn't know you smoked, James," he comments lowly, ignoring the sudden spark of sound slithering out of Natasha's speakers. It was an American radio station and he knew exactly why she was listening to it. They've been cut off from the reality and chaotic turmoil in America. In fact, they were cut off from current events everywhere. It was good to know what was happening… especially when the government still didn't know what to do with any of them or the leak.

"I use'ta smoke all the time," he mumbles around the filter, ears training more at the silent volume of what was being said instead of Sam's worried gaze.

… Was Captain America really Lady Liberty? ..trust what Barnes says…?

"I've never seen you smoke before man, that shit is bad for your health. Especially the way you're doing it."

… "I think maybe the two were lovers, after all, no one cared about Stella Barnes in the first place. Maybe Lady Liberty was his side bit and Stella really was part of the Nurse Corps"….

… "Caller number 5, what do you think?" ...

…. "I think we can't really trust Barnes anymore. If the guy really was tortured like the leak suggests, maybe he just lost his head!" ...

"No offence pal, but I don't really give a flying fuck." The temperature of his blood was beginning to rise the more he listened to the stupid call-and-ask thing happening on the particular station Natasha had chosen.

… "I think people need to calm down. No matter what the truth is Captain Barnes is still a decorated war veteran who was responsible for saving the liberty of our country! It doesn't matter who Stella was, but people need to show the Captain some respect!"...

… "I disagree with your last caller, I think Stella Barnes deserves a voice! I mean, a woman who was so horribly oppressed by the patriarchy deserves to have her voice returned!"...

Sam just shook his head and looked at Natasha, pointing his finger at her menacingly.

"Turn that shit off Natasha, look at him," his arms were shaking and he brought the shaking filter up to his chapped lips again, inhaling deeply.

... Do you know what this could mean for women everywhere? Why was this kept from the American public!"...

He held the smoke. His vision begin to prickle as he held it as tight as he could just like he had when he'd screamed his lungs raw after she slipped away from his vi-

"He's going to have another goddamn panic attack! Turn it OFF!"

…"I want to know about "Captain" Barnes. Why was the husband chosen? How did Stella Barnes really d-"...

The radio went silent and he finally exhaled, slumping against the dirty inn walls before crushing the remaining stub of the filter between his metal fingers. Natasha stayed silent as she closed the laptop with their eyes picking him apart like he was some fucking animal in a wild cage getting ready to attack.

"We need to move out," was all Natasha said with finality. "I think I know where she'll go next."

I never liberated Azzano, but you can say I stayed there for a while. My unit and I were captured and were imprisoned at Azzano, as P. . Everything they said that the Germans did to prisoners was proven true. However, this wasn't no SS prison. It was HYDRA's playground. My experiences, I won't dwell on them, but suffice to say it was no five star hotel. I was picked for "special treatment" after I was involved with a colonel's "accident". Let's just say, they weren't appreciative of my helpful attitude and actions. It was after that, that I was introduced to Mr. Armin Zola.

So you could say I was Captain America, or at least, Zola's Bastard Copy. Envious of Erksine who had Stella the serum back the States (unbeknownst to my knowledge at the time) the bastard tried to recreate his own version of a super soldier. He failed.

Torture isn't fun. Forced drug therapy and being a pin cushion is worse. I still don't know how I survived or what made me so different from the ones before. I want to say it was because I was raised in Brooklyn, but in reality, it was probably just the devil's luck. That luck helped me escape in the form of Captain America. A husband is always happy to see his wife.

He thought that finding her would finally be his redemption. He'd exorcise the ghost out of her and he wouldn't let her slip from in between his fingers again.

They were too late… again.

The base is just on the outskirts of Murmansk in the northern, arctic tundra of Russia. Despite the freeze of winter, it was still smoking from heat. The blood of the base is warm and misting in the ice cold of her polar touch. It's revoltingly atrocious. He's never seen her clean out a base so gruesomely… so aggressively giving true credit to her title: Polnocnitsa. There are mangled bodies everywhere; killed in the most brutal ways possible. Sam immediately wretches at the stench of human flesh burning mingling with decaying blood. He chokes himself, covering his mouth and nose immediately as his hyper-sensitive senses revolt.

They make their way into the heart of the base and he doesn't think he's seen human bodies so ripped apart since the Bastogne. And that was from shrapnel and tree shards - this was done with premeditation.

"This was a testing facility," Natasha calls in a muffled voice from behind, covering her nose and mouth she like they had. "They tested us as Black Widows here. It's where she was kept the longest when the Red Room was still up and running."

The moment they reach the center, he believes her. As with her usual M.O, every piece of electronic equipment was smashed and destroyed; ripped and blown up by her fury. He more he moves in, the more awful he begins to feel. The message she leaves in this base, just above the mangled cryo chamber, is enough to make his eyes prickle and his knees to become weak.

THE DEAD - it reads, in her painstakingly neat calligraphy - COME BACK

He doesn't know how much longer he can do this without going insane from grief.

He finally stopped chasing after her… and it's one of the hardest things he's ever had to do in his life.

No matter how taxing, how horrible, how insane their game of cat and mouse was, it was so comforting as he fell back into a rhythm that's been drilled in him since he was a boy. He's always been the one to follow her. Whether it was in back alleys or into the "jaws of hell" he's always been there to protect her; trailing after her silently all across Brooklyn and Europe alike. He knew she was leaving the bases for them to find. She was leaving them messages on purpose but after the last one in Murmansk, he had completely broken down.

It was then that Natasha had hugged him tightly, whispering sweet, Russian, nothings into his messy hair before he killed either everyone around him or himself from succumbing to grief. It was then, on that night, that Sam had taken him aside and given him and forced him to listen despite how he'd almost strangled the man in his own shell-shock ridden tantrum.

"James, man you know I respect the hell out of you, but you can't keep killing yourself! You know what PTSD is brother and you have it! How do you expect to fix her, if you can't fix yourself? James you can't keep killing yourself. It's not going to help you or Stella. Healing doesn't just mean righting your wrongs man, it's about regeneration and growth. When she's ready, she'll come to you."

At first, he didn't even want to hear about therapy, working it out on her own, and healing. The only healing he ever needed in his life was her; the only heat he needed to melt and escape this insistent ice was her. The sudden halt makes him want to throw himself into missions all over again, freeze down into the Winter Soldier he had become… but he knows in the back of his mind that he can't. She's always hated people forcing her will and that was exactly what he was doing. If a part of her was still his Stella, she would hate him for this. For his own destruction and waste in favor of her rebirth.

He doesn't want to do "therapy" and listen to a shrink list all the shit that was wrong with him, but he needs to become Bucky Barnes again if she's to become Stella Barnes.

Moving to New York, back to Brooklyn no matter how different it was from the Brooklyn of his heart, was a logical choice. Keeping himself busy, on the other hand, was a whole different kind of animal. He thinks about regrowth, regeneration, rebirth and he thinks that maybe… maybe Sam is right. How can he fix her if he can't fix himself?

Writing to his sister isn't easy, but Rebecca was the closest to him and the only one he's actually been able to find so he writes to her. He spends his times on the street - reclaiming lost territory and making the barren apartment tucked away in Brooklyn an actual home. In the Depression they had nothing so he makes something, going as far as to buy pots and plants and make life on his balcony instead of creating nothing but death. In the evenings, when his mind begins to wander, it's when he writes like a madman. He fills up all his notebooks and journals of every detail of their life; filling in gaps and spaces; detail after detail and it's on another lonely Monday night that it hits him. He knows exactly how he can heal.

He needs to set things right but stating the truth. Buy finally telling everyone exactly how it was.

While the boys and I were having the time of our lives in beautiful Italy, America created their best soldier. The way she explained it to me, was that she got lucky. I guess "luck" runs in the family. Erksine saw something in her beyond her chicken bones and petite frame. He saw something purely good in her - something heroic that the rest of us lack. That wasn't good enough for the government. The serum she got, in theory, gave them exactly what they wanted. Except they wanted a fighting man. So what do you do with the perfect soldier? Have them sell war bonds. And nothing got America going like a pin up swinging her limber legs right in America's face.

They considered the project a complete and absolute failure just because she was a women. It didn't matter that she could pick up cars, run like an Olympian, and rip steal with her hands. Serum even got rid of that goddamn asthma she'd had ever since she was a kid. They didn't know what to do with her, but technically she became "government property" even though she could have snapped them like twigs if she really wanted to. But Stella was always a stubborn brat, always a punk that had to get herself into trouble. When they told her I was presumed dead, the first thing she did was make Howard Stark steal a plane and fly over to Azzano just to see if I was still kicking. Girl never could keep her hands off of me.

He wakes up from another nightmare with a startling shout. He's become so accustomed to them that they've almost become like second nature. Still, he didn't expect this one in particular to hit him so brutally. He isn't sure if it's because of the extra anxiety of dropping one of his notebooks anonymously at The New York Times a couple days ago, or if it's from his body's need to unleash pent up adrenaline. Either way, he's morning is slow. He sluggishly drinks his coffee and decides he's not going to go for a run. He rather stay home when his dreams become real enough to touch… needs to get his head on straight before he can even think about being near other people again.

He sits down, runs his hand through his now longer hair, and meditates over the warm cup in front of him. He doesn't know what to think and he refuses to let himself be caught in melancholy again when his cellphone rings out.

It's a text from Natasha, who was avoiding the States for now, and he's expecting some life altering event to be sent from her latest burn phone. Except… it's not.

"You're trending ;)" It reads and he scrunches his nose at it distastefully. Wasn't trending supposed to be a bad thing?

His phone chimes again and he opens the link she sent him… he'll admit, he didn't think that it would circulate this fast, but if the future was good at anything, it was spreading information. It appeared, that The New York Times accepted the anonymous notebook as credible and actually used it.

ANONYMOUS LEAK CONFIRMS LADY LIBERTY AS STELLA BARNES: NOTEBOOK SPECULATED TO BE WRITTEN BY CAPTAIN AMERICA TELLS ALL

He skims through the actual article quickly, catching a few of his sentences being cited directly before dropping into the online comments section. Of course there's an uproar. A lot are calling it a conspiracy, others refuse to believe it's actually his notebook, but the majority… is positive.

Susan W., Boston * 5 minutes ago: YES! Stella Barnes' story is ACTUALLY GETTING TOLD

PWD, Mountain View, CA * 30 minutes ago: I knew Captain America was fucking Lady Liberty ;)

Karekin, USA * 34 minutes ago: ^ Fuck you man. Lady Liberty WAS his wife. The only question that needs to be confirmed is whether or not she was also
Captain America.

But one… one catches his eyes in particular.

Dr. Allen Birch, Long Island, NY * 55 minutes ago: Sergeant Barnes, I don't know if you'll read this but I hope you will. I have the utmost respect for you and what happened to you and your wife was more than unfair. It's not just her story that needs to be told,
but YOURS as well. Would you consider writing an autobiography or releasing more facts? I'm not sure if you've gone into it or if you were aware that many of the
surviving Howling Commandos refused to do interviews and Margaret Carter was sworn to secrecy. No one alive can explain the actual historical events better than you.
Please consider it!

When Sam told him months ago to get a hobby… he told him he used to write. If could finally write his soul out and change history to his liking, he might not need to therapy after all.

He was finally doing what he should have done all along.

Sam's devotion and friendship to him was really… was really something else. He hadn't experienced someone actually caring about him since the Howlies and as much as he loved them, it didn't compare to the amount of effort the Falcon was putting into him. Hell, he'd moved into the Avengers Tower of all things, claiming that it was more convenient and "cool as fuck" to live with Tony Stark but he knew that the real reason was so he could keep a better eye on him.

He's grateful… truly he is and it's nice having at least one friendly face around on the days that were worse when he didn't want to crawl out of bed or open the blinds. Sam would come over anyways, force him to stand against the day - just as he had yet again this morning.

He feels better after he's gone jogging; forced himself to use up his pent up emotion and energy to a maximum that didn't involve annihilating everything he touched. His head feels clearer, and he immediately wants to sit down and keep scribbling into his latest notebook. The anonymous drops… they've been going well and he hopes to God that Stella catches wind of them… maybe she'd be curious enough to check… to want to learn more and -

- There's a crumpled piece of paper sitting on top of his notebook.

His inhales and his senses go into battle-ready-mode. There isn't a noise in his apartment. The windows are all shut and nothing appears to be out of place. It's only once he's secured the perimeter; double, triple, checked and swept for bugs or unwanted bodies that he approaches the paper with shaking caution. Slowly, he unravels the paper to reveal… a receipt. From a restaurant he never went to.

When he flips it, his heart jumps right up into his throat.

Its pictures; black, pen scribbles of him. Before the war - as a child.

Well, not a child but young. Fifteen or sixteen with what used to be his wide, infamous, flirtatious smile. They're messy, but the familiar scratching his a way of capturing detail despite the rough mistakes and strikes from the pen ink. They're from different angles with his expression a little different in each small portrait. In the bottom left corner of the receipt, "is this you?" is neatly written. He leaves the paper where he found it with his response written underneath in pencil: "yes."

His paranoia spikes up again after that and he almost always refuses to leave the apartment now. He's overly aware of every corner, space, nook and cranny for where he listens for her whispers. She's spirited through them all and when she leaves other small drawings, there are no traces of her.

It's driving him crazy.

The Polnocnitsa is a ghost and ghosts leave no bread crumbs. No DNA, no evidence, no hint or clue as to when and where she came. All that remains, are small, random drawings appearing like Easter eggs in his apartment. They're left on other receipts, newspapers, or napkins; commenting on his longer hair, his lifestyle choices, or asking for clarifications of his own changes.

She's finally… she's finally reaching out and he wants to leave something for her. Something that only she would appreciate; something that his wife would only recognize as his alone.

He buys her a large, thick sketchbook that would have cost an arm and a leg back in the forties. It takes him an entire afternoon, but he picks some of the daisies he's got growing on his balcony and presses them - just like he had during the war all those years ago. He leaves them littered amongst the pages and inscribes the first page with his most impressive cursive.

Stella,

People say that flowers die, but they never really do. They share their seeds; leave imprints and traces of themselves on the earth, and when the time is right, they grow again. Just like these pressed petals, every fragment of your memory is a trace of you. You imprinted your essence into me and I want you to grow again. When the time is right, I hope you take the chance.

All my love,

Bucky

He feels himself thaw with joy when the book begins to overflow with drawings and more refined sketches. The first big project that takes up the entire page is a rolling meadow. Flowers give the illusion of jumping off the page and the gentle shading instills a flow within the long grass. At the bottom, she wrote: I was here in 1968. But I remember it differently from a time lost before. Why?

She was remembering.

Remembering and growing on her own.

It would have looked bad if a woman broke us out of prison. It would have looked worse if the United States of America's best soldier, was also a woman. Well, it happened, and the generals just about lost their brains when they found out that not only had Stella made her way to Azzano, but that she exploded the entire facility and marched us P. back to the main camp. She'd proved that being a "man" didn't make you a "soldier" but that didn't mean shit to those in charge.

This is when it starts to get confusing. She stopped being Lady Liberty (thank God almighty) and because they wanted a man, they made a man. Stella had to wear a monkey suit, used a shield, buzz cut her hair, and stuffed it in a helmet. She was christened as Captain America and we, her merry men, where to save her ass when we'd go HYDRA hunting. But Captain America couldn't be a woman, so Stella Grace Barnes became Steven Grant Rogers. Hell, if you didn't talk to her when she was suited up you really couldn't tell. That was the problem. What do you do when your not-a-man has to hang out on base with the guys? They sure as hell they knew we weren't going to pretend, so in her downtime she played the cover of being a nurse.

Stella didn't care. She was doing good and that's all that ever mattered to her. Me on the other hand? I just about lost the rest of my goddamn mind.

If there's one thing he didn't miss about Brooklyn, it was the hot, sweltering summer nights. Even sitting on his balcony, enjoying the sounds of the streets coming alive was becoming more of an annoyance than a comfort. Hell, he even had the TV on for once because he just didn't know how to occupy his mind any longer.

He's… definitely calmed his emotions since the leak first happened. He's heard almost everything and anything people can throw at him and he doesn't give a fuck at what the small percentage of assholes thought. Most people had figured out that the anonymous notebooks were his doing but he still refused to go officially public with them. He wanted to stir the truth out slowly, make sure it was well in place and enough people actually thought about it before confirming anything officially. At this point, he's only lazily listening to the conversation of the latest CNN panel as he smoked on the balcony, drinking his lukewarm beer.

… "Can we truly trust Captain America - or as he's calling himself - 'Sergeant' Barnes?"...

… "What I want to know is why haven't the remaining Howling Commandos or Margaret Carter come out to either confirm or deny what these 'anonymous notebooks' are claiming?...

… "Well the situation isn't that simple, Diane. For one, Margaret Carter, unfortunately, suffers from Alzheimer's and is at an undisclosed nursing home"...

… "Coming up next! What happened to Stella Barnes? Shocking documents said to be the writings of husband "Captain Barnes" revealed after this quick commercial break!"...

Suddenly, there's a creek in the floor and he immediately whips around, only to see the silhouette… of Stella standing in his kitchen. She drops the notebook as if she's been burned. The hoodie of her sweater is up and she bolts out the window in one swift movement. This time though… this time he's right on her tail.

She expertly weaves her way through the fire escapes but he's just as fast. He's on the rooftop with her in a moment and as he jumps from one building to another, he finally gets a good look at her. She's in civvies - tight jeans and heeled sneakers, like the ones Natasha wears. Her hoodie is twice her size and when the hood falls off as she vaults from one roof to the next, it reveals a buzz cut as opposed to her long, flowing hair.

"Stella!" he calls after her, but she only increases her speed as she comes to the edge of yet another roof. "Stella!"

When he jumps after her and lands in an alley… she's gone.

Without a single trace.

He explodes. He can't keep his anger controlled anymore and he begins to punch the wall beside him. Blow after blow doesn't slow him down as he pounds at the concrete mercilessly. Chunks of brick begin to fly every time his metal arm makes contact with the building and eventually, the blood from his flesh hand begins to mix with the dust. It's only once the plates begin to his and the metal around his shoulder begins to burn that he stops.

With heavy steps he goes home, wiping his eyes roughly before opening the book that she had dropped onto his table.

The sketches are darker... Thicker lines that are twisted in what he can only call confusion. Unlike before, they are self-portraits. A few are of when she was small. Petite and sickly, confined to a bed before swinging her legs as Lady Liberty. Her facial expressions are different - cocky and seductive as if she had drawn another person before morphing into Cap with the short hair and the nurse with the serious face. Later they're of her as the Polnocnitsa - deadly and sharp with hair flowing of the page into crazed, red scribbles.

WHAT IS THE TRUTH!? - Is written right across the next page that reveal more drawings of her in these different forms. Some of them are circled with a red pen… before the red circles begin to engulf the page, turning into a raging mess. The next page has nothing but text:

WHICH ONE IS ME

He doesn't sleep for the rest of the night and when he gets another text from Natasha, he doesn't know what to do anymore.

"Another HYDRA base blown up - in Texas. She's in the States again."

As if he didn't already know that. He could have told Natasha that she was spending most of her time remembering, but the Black Widow tell him immediately to leave her alone without making any sudden movements. Too late for that - and he doesn't know what's worse: that she was clearly trying to remember, without wanting his interference? Or that he had clearly fucked things up for her. She needs to do this on her own… he realizes this and yet he feels so pathetic. She really was like a spirit, so close to him yet always a brush away in a realm he couldn't touch.

He tries to continue keeping a pace, since Sam refuses to let him curl up in a ball wanting nothing more but to drown again and stay dead. It's almost a month later that he notices her creeping again. Whatever had gone through her head the night she had furiously scratched into the pages must have processed… but hadn't gotten better. The little scraps of paper, is if ripped from larger body of work, began to scatter in every corner of the apartment. It's driving him mad and one night he reaches his limit. He doesn't care at Natasha's voice scolding him in the back of his mind - he needs to tell her himself how it was without the influence of the American pandemonium over the situation. He begins to scout the area; treating his own home as a potential threat as he scurries around the perimeter with silent ease.

After a week… he catches her.

He's crouched on a higher rooftop; in a sniping position from where he can see almost the entire kitchen from the open window. She's good at coming in silently, but the kitchen was where she left the most of her drawings. If he wanted to see her this would be his best shot. He steadies his breathing, sharp eyes calculating every possible angle she'd use to get in without him knowing. However, it's once he concentrates on listening beyond the sound of his heart beating… the noise of cars, people laughing, and animals crawling… that something sparks his attention.

It's a creek from the fire escape - an inevitable mistake since it was so damn old - and he watches a figure with the same dark, green hoodie slink onto the roof. He holds his breath and slowly straightens from his crouched position to stand up tall. Her attention immediately snaps to him - and she runs.

He sprints after her again, pushing his muscles been their enhanced limit just to keep her within his sights. He doesn't want her to take a sudden turn and disappear for months again. He'll let her go… but she needs to hear it from him before -

"Stella!"

She immediately turns around and pulls a pistol on him, sliding a bit on her toes before she comes to a complete halt. He slams the fingers of his metal arm into the roof and forces himself to stop at a distance from her, slowly putting both his hands up whilst trying to calm his pounding organs.

"Stella -"

"What is the TRUTH!?" her cold precision is quivering with overflowing emotion. The hood having fallen off again revealing her buzz cut hair again; tufts of blonde already peeking out from the roots. She... she has tears in her eyes with black mascara running wild in a smudge that reminds him from when he had first encountered her on the rooftop in Washington.

He takes a gentle step forward and she takes the safety off, holding the gun more firmly as she aimed at it his head.

"Stella... the truth is that you're all of them."

"But the Smithsonian said -"

"The Smithsonian is nothing but lies and war time propaganda -"

"But you said I was all of them!"

"You were… Stels, you were but the nursing was just a cover for -"

"For what," she snorts, her grip relaxing for a moment and he realizes just how dangerous this was becoming. "For Captain America? Or Lady fucking Liberty!"

"No… Stella look, the situation is complicated… I - I've been trying to make it right by -"

"You mean the "anonymous leaks" that everyone's going crazy about?! That's been you? I should have fucking figured… everyone's been just been fucking lying and I can't -"

"Sweetheart, no listen to me-"

"No you listen! You're just like HYDRA!" she suddenly roars, her grip re-tightened by her hand still quivering. She was lethally unstable.

"Stevie… I know it's all a shit-storm right now, but you've gotta believe me-"

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

"Stella please - let me help you."

"FUCK YOU!"

He feels his heart breaking at the sight of her and he stares at her finger testing the pressure of the trigger.

"If this helps you," he speaks firmly, staring at the muzzle intently. "Than do it."

"Shaddup!"

"Because," he grits staring at her feral eyes. The same eyes that she used to have… that she still had, "All I want to do is help you. If shooting me is gonna help ya' then do it-!"

The gun goes off and he closes his eyes waiting for the impact to liberate him. Instead his ears ring and everything is whole. He opens them slowly… there's a smoking bullet in the ground at his feet.

Stella is gone.

I don't want to talk about the details of how Stella died.

But know that in death, it only got worse. The male equation was solved. The Captain America question was a little harder. Who was going to fit the bill to keep those lovely war bonds coming in? Me. Out of everyone they could have picked for the job they picked me - because I had the bastard serum. I played their little game. I was tired of war, grieving the death of my wife, and shell-shocked out of this century but when I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I wasn't Captain America and that honor belonged to Stella alone. So I threw it away and became my own man.

I should've died at Bastogne. I should've frozen or been shelled. Instead I got a fancy nickname, the Winter Soldier, less for my valor and more for the death wish I had. She was gone. There was nothing else. I wanted it to end. But it didn't. So I put the Valkyrie down. I wanted to save my home, my friends, my family. But I also wanted to save myself.

"I got a'letter back from my kid sister," he speaks in a huff, slowing down his tempo so Sam can catch up.

"Oh yeah?" the other pants in question, coming up right beside him with his eyes fixated on the path before them. "That's good man! What did she say?"

"Says she an' my other siblings wanna see me. Says the miss me and love me and they wanna introduce me to their families."

"James… that's really great. Seriously man. I can't imagine how hard it is to rekindle with family after so many years. Well for them 'cause I know for you it's only been a couple of years."

"Yeah," he breathes slowly, spacing out at the thought of how big and boisterous his family was… He hasn't tried to meet up with everyone else that used to be his family. The Howlies, Tony, Joey, and Rosie. He's been so fixated on Stella since without her, he didn't even feel like her deserved to see his family again -

"For fucks, sake, James you need to stop that!"

He comes to a complete halt, slowly turning to Sam who had stopped running and had crossed his arms across his chest in frustration.

"S'cuse me?"

"You can't keep putting yourself down James - I can see it every time you get really quiet and space out! Dude, I wasn't kidding about what I said earlier. You seriously need therapy and having Stella back in your life isn't going to fix anything."

Words escape him… he's so flustered, shocked, and angrily defensive that he wants to tell Sam to fuck off and mind his own damn business, but before he can even open his mouth the other continues.

"The "Winter Soldier"? It's almost like a mode and I can when you are and aren't Bucky anymore. You know what man? I think she can too."

When he comes home, brooding and silent, he doesn't expect to see a sketch waiting for him on the kitchen table. It's… it's not a crazed doodle but an actual drawing that was penciled carefully. It's…. Their wedding photo. The same one that he'd kept with him in his pocket in Europe that had been mangled and disintegrated in the Valkyrie. He touches the page gently with his flesh arm, feeling the ridges and bumps from where she pressed in harder to get the fine detail out caressing his fingers. There were no words… just their smiles shining off the page.

His curtains flutter - when he turns around, she's there.

Her buzz cut hair has grown into somewhat of a pixie cut. It looks exactly like it had during her Captain America days. She's got the same wedged running shoes on along with black leggings and and jacket covering her muscled shoulders. She doesn't look like she's on the run again, but rather, like a regular person you'd meet down the street.

He doesn't dare breathe or blink, worried that she'll evaporate from his vision and leave him feeling cold again. To his surprise, she begins to walk up to him carefully and in the shoes she's taller than him. He can't keep his eyes off of her and when she lifts her shaking hand in the air, he's worried she's going to try and fight him. Instead… the raised hand slowly lands on his cheek. He flinches when their nose to nose; his heart bursting through his ears and his senses exploding from the proximity of her presence. Immediately, he melts into the touch.

"Bucky," she tries on her tongue hesitantly before speaking again, more confidently, "Bucky."

He swallows harshly, gaze drowning in the depths of those corn-flower, blue eyes expecting her to explode, to disappear, to something because he can't believe that she's in front of him again. So docile and so willing to stretch into reality and touch.

"You said I was your family," she speaks and he nods, not trusting himself to speak. Her thumb works down and she strokes his bottom lip thoughtfully. He can't breathe.

"Were we married?"

"Yes..." he whispers, her artist fingers dancing from his face to cup him behind his neck, playing with the longer strands.

"...Were we… happy?"

"Yes."

Her hand smoothed from behind to the front; grazing his Adam's apple before long fingers wrap around his throat. He freezes as the fingers tighten; squeezing further and further into his skin, hard enough to bruise. They're pressing in the right spots. If she wants to kill him, he'll let her do it. She could do it easily and the when his throat begins to tremble, the fingers loosen. She let's go and takes a couple steps back, before turning around and making her way towards the window.

"Stay," he can't help but croak out hoarsely, frozen and entranced in place.

Her back is still turned to him as she rumbles in the familiar bass, "I'm dangerous."

"As if I'm not-"

"No. I… You're better off without me, Bucky."

"I can't function without you."

She shakes her head and jumps out the window. This time… he doesn't follow her.

I will never forgive myself for not coming back for her, for believing that she was dead when she had believed that I was alive. I will never forgive myself for allowing them to twist history and slander Stella's name and squash everything she ever fought for like some slimy cockroach. I will never forgive myself for being frozen in a coma while she was ripped apart and sewed back together again some insidious creature.

Captain America died in the ice.

When I woke up from my little nap, I couldn't continue to live the lie I was forced to play during the war. I stayed with the nickname, "the Winter Soldier" and I let it become me. If history changed my lives than I would change the present. Captain America, that good, wholesome, pure American soldier died when my wife fell off a train in Switzerland. That hero will continue to stay dead - ghosts don't ever come back to life.

Summer has turned into fall; the leaves have changed their color in anticipation of the winter that will come and freeze them all. He can feel the cold of the season in his old bones and he wonders if he's going to freeze and hibernate for the winter or if he'll ever be warm enough to live like a human - and not a robotic soldier. He's… he really has been making an effort. He thinks he scared Stella off with his proclamation when she had come to him all those weeks ago. She hadn't been angry… nor as confused anymore… and hopes it's because her own memories are a confirmation of the truth he's been trying to create after almost a century of lies.

It's on a lazy Sunday afternoon with a warm cup of coffee and a heavy pencil in his hand that the doorbell rings. He's been expecting his youngest brother, Kenneth, to come over. They had an interesting relationship… despite never knowing each other too well. He had shipped out when the other was an infant and he'd only grown up on pictures and stories of him than actual recollection. He was like him and despite the old and withered skin of his "baby" brother, he had a flirty "Bucky" smile and a cocky attitude that he'd never known where he got from.

It was almost a reminder of what could have been if he'd never gone in the ice.

When he opens the door, the blood runs from his face and he feels winter seep back into his bones.

It's Stella.

She's got a long, red pea coat on and her hair has grown to her shoulders. It's softly curled, probably in rags from the looks of it, and reaches her chin. It's how she looked in the forties with a small, shy smile as she avoided his gaze.

"No window?" he can't help but ask, not knowing what to do with his hands as he continues to clutch the doorknob. Her lips curl upward and she finally looks at him with deep, wholesome eyes. So full and sparkling with life again. "That'd be rude. So, you gonna let a girl in or not?"

Wordless he opens the door wider, taking a step back as she walks inside. The moment the door is shut tight and the lock slides into place, she begins to speak again.

"I still don't have all my memories back you know."

She's looking at him now, the smile wiped off her face in a sad expression. She'd never been good at staying neutral, usually wearing her emotions on the cuff of her sleeve.

"Some come in violent flashes, shattered pieces, and I was confused… for a long time about what really was the truth. But you know," she continues, taking a step closer to his petrified form. "The one constant was always you."

"I love you," he finally whispers wetly, watching her face crumble as his own emotions explode in a hurricane. "I love you… I'm - Stella I'm so sorry."

"Bucky, no -"

"You shouldn't have saved me… and I should have looked for you -"

"Buck, I remember you. It was better that it was me -"

"No-"

"I forgive you, Bucky."

He looks up from his blurring hands only to realize they're almost nose to nose. She doesn't look sad anymore. Angry, or confused, or frozen in the icy banks at the bottom of a river. Warm, human hands grip his shoulders tight and she shakes him a little, staring right into his eyes with a ferocity he could never look away from.

"I forgive you, Bucky."

The words he didn't deserve set him free.

He collapses into her arms and she's there to catch him, squeezing him as tightly as she inhumanly can. He returns the embrace and feels himself beginning to thaw from Winter into Bucky again. He buries his nose into the spot between her shoulder and neck and begins to sob. Loud, ugly crying as he falls apart in her arms. He pulls her in closer as her scent rushes through his nose and revives all of his dead nerves. She shushes him gently and rubs her fingers up and down his spin like he would when she was at her sickest, fingers eventually combing his overgrown hair back. Her arms are wrapped around him protectively and he relishes the feel of her body slotting against his. He was finally complete again. He never thought he'd have this again. Have her.

"This is the beyond, Bucky," she whispers into his ear wetly, hands cradling him and she rocks them gently as he buries himself further into her warm, alive, body.

"There doesn't have to be a last time. We still haven't reached the end of the line.

Special Note:
The "lucky strike" in the origianl Lucky Strikes cigarettes sold during WWII was that one contained weed.

A/N: Thank you soo much to everyone who read and reviewed!