I started writing this right when I got back from the cinema to see the Winter Soldier. It was supposed to be a short, quick, plotless description of Winter's feelings as he was slowly becoming Bucky again. But it got out of my hands so I'm dividing it.

Also, I feel obliged to warn you that there will be torture in the next chapter. It's not bad but well, people do put warnings into their stories so you've been warned.

Let me know what you think about the story, please.

He has always been the Winter Soldier. He hasn't known love, compassion or friendship. He didn't need emotions; the only things he ever needed were ability to kill, assassinate, murder. He had to know how to torture a man, not how to love one. He had to be able to think of ten various ways how to kill a man in few seconds, he was programmed to murder in blood colder than ice. He had a metal arm to slay not to caress. He wore a mask to keep his identity not to hide tears of pain and facial expressions.

He doesn't remember anything else so it must be the truth. Why would he not remember it if it was important? And if it wasn't important why would it exist? His memory that only keeps the necessary knowledge he needs for killing doesn't provide him with anything else, anything useless, with a single memory of something nice, pleasant or good. He doesn't remember going to a cinema with friends so it must be a redundant activity. He has never known somnolence people feel when they fall in love and therefore love must be unimportant. He has never run his fingers down a soft skin of another person, he has never smelled a flower just to do it; he has never done anything but killing.

His mind tries to convince him he doesn't need it. He has never needed it; he was successful on his missions and that was what mattered. Compassion would be only a burden if he was supposed to kill somebody he knew or simply somebody pitiful. He doesn't need to know what a kiss feels like to slit a throat. He doesn't need to hear whispered love confessions to throttle somebody. He needn't know what it feels like to hold a person in his arms to pull the trigger.

And yet his body struggles. It's only weak and he has never felt it before, but he knows it has been there all the time. Only all the doors leading to it were safely sealed so he won't see the truth. His mind is broken and twisted and he feels like a stranger in his own body. He knows he once was a sovereign of both his soul and frame and tries to find the way to feel whole again. He was satisfied when he knew nothing about the possibility – possibility – of having a free will. He hadn't needed to control his life before he realised it was possible.

But all that has changed because of him. In one brief moment when they looked into each other's eyes and something changed within them both. They just stared, forgot they were supposed to fight and read the confusion in each other's eyes. They were both asking questions and no answers came. Their eyes locked and something was processing in Bucky's mind. Suddenly, as if he wasn't just the Winter Soldier. It felt like he had known the other man and not only from the last mission. Something was telling him they were close. The way the blond watched him was not new, the set of emotions written all over his face were so easy to read in he must have seen them before, the way he was puckering his forehead when thinking was all too familiar.

He shouldn't have known it. He was the Winter Soldier. He had no redundant memories, he only existed to serve the people who woke him up from his induced sleep every once in a while. He wasn't supposed to be thinking; he was leaving that to others. The only thing he was expected to consider was a way how to execute his task. He wasn't supposed to ask so he wasn't asking.

But that has disappeared in the moment when he locked his eyes with the other man and something clicked in his mind. Those blue eyes were burning holes into his soul and into the well-shaped layer of ignorance covering his mind. He knew this man recognised him.

"Bucky?"

Bucky? Bucky? Who was Bucky?

He shielded his emotions with mask of indifference but his mind was working very fast. His body was reacting to that name. No, he wasn't responding only to the name even though the name was familiar. He had a momentary feeling he had heard it being pronounced by the exact same lips many times before. Many times – with worry, sorrow, pain, anger but also with compassion, affection and desire. For a while he almost remembered something. He could practically feel it resurfacing after many years in exile deep in his mind, but then it drowned in his hopelessly dull memories again. It slipped through his fingers and he knew it was because of the metal arm. It couldn't capture fleeting image because it was too cold, too inhuman.

Bucky. Was he Bucky? Or was the other man Bucky? Or was it someone else? Or was it an animal, a thing, something. He had to know; maybe it was the key to that ephemeral thought. He suspected it was a very important fact but he couldn't grasp it. Why would it be important? If he was called Bucky, then what? How did matter when he was a tool that didn't need name? If the other man was Bucky, it was just as unimportant. The people who told him to kill this familiar stranger knew everything about the man. Just because they didn't bother to tell him didn't mean they didn't have the information. And if Bucky was somebody or something else, it was pointless to lose time thinking about it. And yet he just needed to ask.

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

All what happened after that remained a bit blurry. It was so intense he simply didn't know what to focus on. There were just too many perceptions his brain shut down from exertion. His question triggered thousands of emotions from the other man. He held the shield loose in his hands, stared at him with his mouth agape. His eyes begged the Winter Soldier to withdraw the sentence. He looked so lost and desperate. It would be so easy to kill him now, now when he was confused, disorientated and lost. Only few steps divided them, he wouldn't have had any chance. And yet they both stood on the spot, watched each other and the world stopped existing.

Why was this man so familiar? Why did it hurt him when the Winter Soldier didn't know who Bucky was? He was a soldier - of winter, summer or whatever else – and he wasn't given names when he didn't need them. And once they weren't needed, they were erased from his mind. But this one was different. He wasn't remembering the name and yet he was certain it had a great meaning and importance. Somehow he knew this name had influence on him and yet he couldn't point on what might have caused it.

The Winter Soldier walks slowly towards the lab where they will pin him down and erase his memory once again. He has never minded before, the recollections of previous missions had no meaning to him, they had no value. But this time it was different. He wanted to remember the face of the man who touched his soul. The man who looked at him for a mere second and said one single word and influenced his life more than he could remember any other person to do so.

That man is important part of his life. He doesn't know how that can be possible since he has no real life, no experiences worth recalling, and no memories worth keeping. And yet that man looked at him as if he was an important person. And not important as a dangerous assassin but important as a human being. Does he know something the Winter Soldier doesn't have any idea about?

Suddenly it isn't only about the emotions and recollections that surrounded the mysterious man, now it is hunger for information. It may be more of a wish than actual fact but he is determined to catch the man who said one word that had thousands of meanings and ask him what he meant. He wants to ask hundreds of questions but most importantly the only one.

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

Because the answer to this question may hide the real one, the one he doesn't dare to dream of getting. But the man with shield looked at him, through him and said one word. Bucky. The real question isn't who is Bucky. The question is who is the Winter Soldier and if he is Bucky.

He lets the men surrounding him lead him to the secret lab but inside he wants to scream. He's not a puppet and he can't be controlled or abused, which is precisely what they are doing, as he now understands. Since the moment he looked into the eyes of the guy with shield made of the hardest metal he had ever held in hands – and damn he had experience with metal – he's known he wasn't told everything. And in the other pair of eyes he saw a promise of something else, something more. Explanation, story and maybe if he was good enough even the truth. He knows it's probably only his imagination telling him things – maybe they're testing him or something – but he can't help but hope. He will meet that man again. It doesn't matter that they are going to erase him in a while. He's convinced that if the other man really is as important as it appears, he will stay in the memory of the Winter Soldier forever. Maybe not as clear memories of a man with face, because these images were always too specific and were the first things to be taken from him. But the vague, abstract feeling of self-awareness couldn't be taken away from him because it is not a recollection. He is angry, hell, he's furious because he can do nothing to stop them from deleting his mind, but he still feels victorious. It has no meaning keeping the thought too visible in his mind; he's learnt that long ago. He suppresses it and sends it deeper into his consciousness.

'Sergeant Barnes', somebody leans above him. Pain, confusion, fear. All the pain, smell of metal and blood, fear for his own life. 'Bucky, no!' another man shouts and the voice is familiar. He's so close to knowing, to recollecting, but it hurts so much, he's falling down faster than he thought was possible, wind slaps his cheeks roughly.

'Bucky, no!' he hears it again. And he keeps falling. Everything is white, so white his eyes hurt. He doesn't remember hitting the ground, but he must have hit it.

Shouldn't he be dead? He should be dead. It hurts. Death isn't supposed to hurt. Was he alive then?

'The procedure has already started,' the same voice that called him Sergeant Barnes adds. He can't see the man who produces it, but it has a terrible German accent. What is he doing somewhere near a German?

Agony shields his mind, sounds of whittling, fire within his fibres. He can't say if he's awake or if everything is a hallucination. And amidst that all, that familiar voice.

'Bucky, no!'

Bucky? Was he Bucky? How did he get this memory?

He cries from the pain and anger and why did they take the other man from him? He knew him, he was sure he knew him. Was he his friend?

'You are to be ze new fist of HYDRA.' He hears. He notices he has caught some man's throat. He knows it's his hand throttling him, but that's not his arm, it can't be his arm. His arm is made of flesh, tanned not cold and metallic. He lets go of the man in disgust.

'Put him on ice.' He doesn't have time to understand the situation before they put him into a small box – a coffin?! – and it freezes. Hurts and yet tempers, it freezes so much he feels like he was set on fire. And slowly he loses grip of reality and slip into nothingness.

Before he knows what he's doing the anger he feels projects into his behaviour. His metal arm clench into a fist and he punches one of those – doctors? Mechanics? Whoever – that stands the closest. Soon enough many guns are pointed at him. He forces himself to calm down even though it only angers him more. Is he an animal in zoo?

"Mission report." A man enters the room. What was his name? The soldier can't remember. Maybe he wasn't told it, he wouldn't be surprised. He stares in front of himself blankly, completely lost in his memory. He's certain he got further this time. That man he thought he had never seen before was in his mind. Maybe he was projecting him there. And maybe he wasn't.

Why would he picture the man shouting his name – his name? – as he falls from a train if it wasn't true? Why would he picture this situation in particular? He did remember the falling – it was so deep within his soul nothing was going to ever rob him off of it. Was his imagination more skilled than he assumed or was it the truth? Could it be the truth? Did he truly once know the man whose eyes narrated epics?

"Mission report, now!" says the man, dressed so fine he could not do anything else to look more alien in the surroundings in the building that served as a lab, dormitory and sometimes a prison for an assassin.

But the Winter Soldier doesn't see that. He still sees the blue eyes. Those specific blue eyes he is sure he once knew and as he realises wants to know again. He remembers their fight. They must have known each other, no matter what others said, he has wrestled with that man before. He is a superior soldier and he has great reflexes and skills, but he has never fought this easily. He didn't need to think about his next move; he just did it as if he knew his opponent's weaknesses by heart. But so did the other man. The predicted each other's moves and it felt as if they had trained it before. It felt like dancing based on a learnt choreography. And it was beautiful as nothing else he remembered.

The noble man comes closer and bents down to level his eyes with the soldier's.

He continues on giving him a blank gaze that says nothing. Suddenly he wakes up from his trance by a slap to the face. It doesn't hurt but it surprises him.

He feels dizzy and disorientated. He's sure he was close to understanding an important fact that had impact on his life. He thought he could give the face and voice a body and even some memory. But that left with the slap. Usually he would be very angry and rage but he is so deep in thoughts he doesn't realise he was punched.

"The man on the bridge," he says. He doesn't seem to notice he was asked a question; he just has a confused expression on his face. He tries to think but the thread leading to the solution was torn in half. But the image of the man still fills his mind, the blond with blue eyes – a god of perfection – looking at him in pain. Who is this man?

"Who was he?" the Winter Soldier whispers weakly.

"You met him earlier this week on another assignment." The man replies and it is such an obvious lie the soldier doesn't even bother himself with pointing it out. Yes, he did meet him – he remembers it – but that is not the whole truth. That only confirms the Soldier's opinion that the man is an important part of his life. He can't remember him but he was brainwashed thousands of times and he spent the majority of his life in his frozen coffin. And maybe – just maybe – he had a life before the fall from the train.

"I know him," he murmurs and looks down. He doesn't know why he said it. He even thinks it was a bad idea to reveal just how much he figured out. But he isn't acting logically – he's so overwhelmed and excited because he knows somebody. He has never known anyone. Only met and let go or killed. It was a wonderful feeling to say he knew somebody. He had no idea how he could know that but something was telling him he did indeed know the man.

"Your work has been a gift to mankind," the man dressed in suit sits down before he speaks as if he didn't hear what the soldier said, "you shaped the century. And we need you to do it one more time."

One more time? And then what? Will you kill me? Or won't you waste such a good tool? Will you let me sleep for centuries before I'm needed again? Will I become even more confused and isolated than I am now? That's what you want – to force me to be alone?

"Society is on the tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning we're going to give it a push." The man explains as if the Winter Soldier was an idiot. He understands it all. He just no longer sees the aims of this man as his priorities. His most important thing is to find the shield guy, to find out who he is and maybe his own identity. "But...you don't do your part and I can't do mine. And HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves."

The Winter Soldier considers it all. He feels like a child in kindergarten but he gives those ideas a try. It has some part of truth in it, but as he has learnt, every lie has a bit of truth in it. It wasn't important if the world deserved freedom or not, he couldn't care less about the outcome of this mission. He needed to find out something about his past.

"But I knew him," he responds, as if it was the only correct remark. He curls his lips in a grimace that says 'I'm sorry, but I'm not in this.' His opponent sighs, stands up and goes towards one of the men the Winter Soldier has learnt to call keepers.

"Prep him." He says coldly and the Soldier can't help but smirk. That was it. Fate must be very cynical to let this happen.

"He's been out of the cryotube for too long." Somebody replies in horror. The soldier has no idea what they are talking about.

"Then wipe him and start over." The director orders and everybody glances at the Soldier who smirks for himself and tries to save as much of his new-found memory as possible. He also keeps the hatred for this man who thought he could be giving orders.

He lets them tie him down and his last conscious thought belongs to the blond man with shield. Then everything goes black, white and colourful at the end, the world stops existing and only the pain that feels like somebody was smashing his fibres in attempt to break them into atoms surrounds him and finally lulls him into merciful unconsciousness.