He was walking up onto the shore again, dragging the unconscious man he'd been fighting… The one he'd just saved from drowning. He looked down at him. Steve. The memories came to his mind slowly.

A sickly kid taking swings at older boys he had no business fighting.

The same person, older, trying to dance with a woman, but only succeeding in stepping on her feet.

The man he was now dropping onto the ground, waking him up, looking entirely different from what he knew. Dragging him through hallways. The relief of seeing his friend again. The man with the red face.

Both of them with a group of other men they knew running through the forest, climbing through snow, laughing in bars.

He tried to shake his head and walk away from the man lying beside him but couldn't. He couldn't make his legs move. He shut his eyes, ready to use all of his energy to force his left leg to lift of the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he was no longer on the shore.

Hundreds of people were moving around him. He looked down. His black tactical gear was gone, replaced by the clothes he'd found in his efforts to go unnoticed. He raised his eyes back up to the wall in front of him. The one that displayed a picture of the face of James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. His face. He watched the soundless video of himself standing with Steve, laughing. He saw his date of death. The people moving around him began to stare at him with eyes growing so wide they began to cover their entire faces. He tasted bile rising in the back of his throat and tried to walk out of the building only to find he still could not move his legs. He heard all noise stop as the people around him, their eyes bulging out of their faces, stopped, eerily still, to concentrate on him. He became dizzy and tried to take several deep breaths to keep from vomiting but his lungs wouldn't fill. He threw back his head to look at the ceiling, anything to focus on except for those around him. But the ceiling wasn't there.

He stared up at the night sky. The city lights around him too bright to see many stars. He walked along a street that was both familiar and completely foreign to him. He'd grown up here. He'd walked this street a thousand times, but now everything was different. The signs, the shops. Most of the buildings were the same, but what was in them had changed. He watched as his shoes changed from boots to loafers while the sun came up too quickly.

He looked to his right to find Steve, a foot shorter, walking along beside him. Bucky smiled. Steve was going on about the baseball game they were walking home from. Steve was so animated at times like this Bucky thought you could almost forget he was sick.

"So, where you headed?"

Bucky's head whipped to the left to the man sitting beside him in the cab of the truck.

"Pittsburgh for now," Bucky answered, evenly.

"You running from or to?"

"I'm sorry?" Bucky asked the man, trying to focus.

"With hitchhiker's it's one or the other. Are you running from something or to something?"

"I'm just looking for work."

The man didn't seem to mind that Bucky hadn't exactly answered his question. "Work's hard to find just about anywhere these days. Hope you're lucky there."

"Me too." Bucky turned to look out the window, but the door to the truck was gone. Though the vehicle rolled along smoothly, Bucky felt himself being pulled from the cab. Unable to hold onto the seat he was in, practically unheard of considering his arm, he fell. Curling in on himself, he lifted his arms to protect his head and waited to hit the ground.

Bucky jerked where he lay. He held very still for a few moments and counted to ten. He reminded himself where he was. He took note of the bulky mattress beneath him, and the cover over him. He opened his eyes slowly. Above him was the same ceiling he'd been waking up to for the past year, the sun slowly lighting it through the window. He breathed deeply, allowing his heart rate to slow down some more. He was alone and safe in his small apartment.

He sat up slowly and looked at his clock. 5:55 a.m. He turned off the alarm that would sound in five minutes.

Standing up, he made his way from the bedroom to the tiny kitchen and living room, grabbed a glass and filled it from the faucet. He walked over to the window beside the armchair and small bookcase. Down on the street, he watched the town waking up. Maybe a dozen kids still making their way into adulthood walked drowsily along the sidewalks, stopping in coffee shops on their way to early morning study sessions, or home for some sleep after an all-nighter at the university library. In another hour or two, the street would be filled with students and locals alike attempting to coexist.

Bucky had meant to find a city other than New York to lie low for a bit, but then he'd stopped in this small Ohio town. To say it was smaller than Brooklyn was a hilarious understatement. Bucky had expected it to be difficult to go unnoticed in such a small, quiet neighborhood, but something made him stay anyway. It certainly wasn't a place he'd be expected to stay. Hydra and Steve could rack their brains forever and never think to look for him in this type of place. As it turned out, it had been ideal for him. The nearby university meant that half of the residents were preoccupied with dealing with the onslaught of students for most of the year and the other half were the students, busy with their studies and friends. A grand total of zero people had cared or even noticed when Bucky had started working at the garage that specialized in restoring old and classic cars. They certainly didn't pay him any mind if he sat in one of the little coffee shops for a while. For the students, if it wasn't their studies, it was parties. For the locals, if it wasn't complaining about the students, it was living out their normal lives. Bucky passed by unnoticed. Hardly anyone in this town cared about what was happening with the Avengers, either. They'd talk for a couple days if something big happened, but for the most part, it was too far away to really worry about. At any rate, it didn't seem anyone recognized him and it'd been a year.

Bucky finished drinking his water, sat the empty glass back down by the sink, and moved back through the little bedroom to his bathroom to take a shower and prepare for work. He stopped in front of the small mirror on the wall and looked at himself. Just like every morning, he repeated everything he knew was true.

"My name is Bucky Barnes. I was born March 10, 1917. My parents were George and Winnifred Barnes. I had a sister named Rebecca. I was a friend to Steve Rogers. I was a Sergeant in the 107th Infantry Regiment. I was taken as, and have been, a prisoner of war." He took a deep breath and continued. "The current year is 2016. I am 99 years old." Staring hard at his reflection, he forced out the last bit he knew.

"I am not the Winter Soldier."

Disclaimer: I'm leaving this blanket disclaimer here for the entire story. These characters are obviously not created by me with the exception of the OFC (and a couple of her friends) that will be introduced in the first chapter. If you recognize the names, they aren't mine. I'm just taking them for a joyride.

A/N: Hellooooo and welcome to this story. First things first, this takes place where Civil War would have started, but I wanted to change things up a bit. This will NOT be following Civil War, though I will be working in some plot points from the movie. All in all, I didn't much care for Tony Stark in that movie and I wanted to see if I could make him slightly more logical and sympathetic (in my eyes). You'll also notice that Bucky hasn't run away to Romania. Apologies to Mr. Stan's home country, I'm just switching it up a bit.

Second things second. To those of you who might be waiting on an update to the second story in the Winter's Rebirth trilogy-I WILL continue writing it. Life happened and I lost track of what I'd wanted to do with that story. I didn't make an outline before starting it and that was a mistake. When I decide where I want to go with it, I will outline and continue it, but I'm working on this one first. This one, I assure you, has been outlined and I know exactly where I'm going with it. I expect it to be around 22 chapters altogether, give or take some possible changes.

As always, thank you for reading this story! Any feedback is much appreciated and I hope you enjoy!