WARNING: This story is (obviously) one big spoiler in a bad disguise! Also, there are several references of blood, so if you're REALLY sensitive to that stuff, this may bother you.

The Only Tree in Brooklyn

Pain is the sting of iodine and scraped knee, the sniff of a blonde little boy trying to be brave when you say that the leg has to come off and you pretend to amputate it with a short, fat stick from the only tree in Brooklyn

Pain is the throb of a black and blue eye, the souvenir of your first fight defending the scrawny punk from getting beat up in an alley again

(Pain is the agony of a mangled arm, the torturous scarlet of blood against snow and desperately wishing for death)

Fear is falling out of the only tree in Brooklyn and his voice screaming for help when you hit the ground and stare curiously at your arm because you didn't know it could bend like that before the pain hits and there is only black

Fear is watching him shivering and sweating, his face as pale as the sheet kicked onto the floor as he throws up again for the thousandth time and huddles on the couch and asks if he's going to die

(Fear is biting the flimsy thing they put in your mouth and waiting in dread for the half-remembered pain that tears your mind apart until there is nothing left and you are no one and you don't know why they say "it happened AGAIN" when in your head there is nothing before this but white noise)

Nothing is staring straight ahead at the blank, unchanging wall with the draft papers slipping through your frozen fingers and drifting to the ground, because they're tearing you away from your life and sending you to a place called Germany to fight in a war you never asked for

Nothing is knowing that you're going to Germany so you can die and you can't even have your "bestest friend in the whole wide world" by your side because he's too small and weak to fight, so he's staying here with the only tree in Brooklyn

(Nothing is staring into your mission's eyes and pulling the trigger and seeing the bright red blood that spatters the wall and it's nothing new because it's just a target and there is always blood)

Horror is screaming into the pillows in the middle of the night like a little girl because you are both reading about Dracula sucking people's blood, huddling under the covers during a sleepover with the flashlight on and not enough air and sweating like pigs, asking what if we're next and screaming into the pillows again like it'll scare the vampires away

Horror is watching his skinny chest stop moving for far too long and thinking it's the end and God please no not my best friend until he suddenly moves again and you swear your heart stopped and you sob with relief under the only tree in Brooklyn

(Horror is something waking inside in the tears that fall down your face because there is blood on your shirt and it won't go away and all you can see is her terrified face and the crimson stain won't get OUT)

Guilt is hanging your head and whispering sorry for accidentally breaking his brand-new binoculars when you were playing Spies and they fell out of your hand from almost the top of the only tree in Brooklyn

Guilt is the bitter taste that ruins the sweetness of the peaches you and he stole from the rich neighbor across the road and ate behind the dumpster on the way home from school

(Guilt is knowing you failed to obey when you let him live because of the little kids who sobbed and begged you not to kill their daddy and knowing that you deserve the agony and shame they torture you with because you didn't kill him and you didn't obey)

Grief is the awkward lump in your throat when he tells you, with tears in his eyes, that the fire burned part of the only tree in Brooklyn and that they might have to cut it down, and the pain of knowing that there will be no more amputations, broken arms, or Spy games because there are no more trees in Brooklyn

Grief is the frown etched into his face, is his too-stiff, too-straight back, and is his dry, red eyes as you lay the white roses on his parents' graves and the silence as you lead him away from the grave to walk him home

(Grief is his horrified cry as you fall from the train and fly through the air and the shame of hoping he'll cry for you at the funeral as the wind and snow sting your skin before there is only blood and pain and the memory ends and there is nothing before this but white noise)

Haunted is hearing her voice in the kitchen, smelling her in the bed sheets, hearing her yell at you to stop climbing the only tree in Brooklyn before you fall and break your neck and feeling her presence because she was your mother and you could never forget her but she isn't here for real and the memories and the loss won't leave you alone

Haunted is the shaken look in his eyes when he finds you among the metal and needles and torture machines and saves you from Zola and Schmidt and God knows what else

(Haunted is the terror and screams and tears and the faces that torment you in the bloodstained darkness and frigid knife of the ice and in the jagged shards of your own shattered mind until you scream and sob and beg for mercy before they wake you to kill a target—again, they say, but there is nothing before this but white noise)

Hope is hugging the only tree in Brooklyn because it still stands tall and strong despite the blackened scar that mars its bark and maybe they won't cut it down after all

Hope is the weak but crooked smile the punk gives you when he walks unsteadily into the kitchen after two torturous weeks and says he feels just a little bit better and promises that he'll take care of you if youfinally succumb to the contagious power of his pneumonia and start throwing up yourself

(Hope is disobeying orders and hesitating and not pulling the trigger because who is Bucky, and the glimmer of light that still glows in the dark even when the boss slaps you because you let your mission get away but you knew him you knew him you knew him and now there is nothing before this but white noise)

Love is laughing and crying at the same time and hugging him close because he's going to live and don't you dare ever scare me like that again, punk

Love is him saving your hide again and shooting the bad guys that actually aren't Nazis, they're something else but who cares because they're trying to kill us all anyway and he's not going to let you die and have to go back to the only tree in Brooklyn without you, jerk

(Love is the blood and the rattle of death in his chest as he stares at you through dying eyes and won't fight you and tells you to finish it)

(Love is him saying the words you forgot and your eyes open wide because it can't be him and you remember again but it's too late, all too late)

(Love is reaching into the icy cold water that swirls around a metal hand and grabbing his uniform and dragging him out of his watery grave as twisted metal burns around you and the sirens are coming and you know him)

(Steve)

Love is two little boys with ice cream cones, two best friends sitting with their backs against the only tree in Brooklyn, whispering and giggling and solemnly swearing I'm with you to the end of the line, pal

A/N: So I was sitting downstairs eating lunch today, and I was thinking about some of the ways authors present the Winter Soldier's thoughts in their fanfics… and I thought, "How would he perceive memories and emotions coming back to him?" (Something along those lines, anyway.) So I started thinking up some of these lines, and I decided to write them down. (BTW, to all of my fellow grammar Nazis, I don't usually write run-on, badly punctuated sentences like this; it was just the style of the fanfic, I promise.)

I apologise (not really) if I made you cry; I teared up myself (which probably just means I'm lame), I'll admit. In case you were a little confused, the black italics, specifically the ones in parentheses, were the things the Winter Soldier remembered after HYDRA captured him (from the point at which they find him in the snow to after the movie is over); whereas the normal text (like so) were Bucky's memories before his capture (from childhood up to falling off of the train).

The title may seem a bit weird, and I have to say it may not be all that accurate. But I pictured it like this—the boys were born in Brooklyn in the mid-1920s and grew up in the late 1920s, early 1930s. So I imagined them living in a poor section of Brooklyn with mostly buildings and dumpsters and nothing good to look at, except for one big, random tree a little ways from their apartments, the only one growing in the area. Because it was the only one, they grew attached to it, and a lot of their childhood memories were built around it; thus the title.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this; I loved writing it!

-Arwen ;)