Full Summary:

"The broken pieces… take the ones you do have, the ones you'll find, the ones you'll make and build something… build someone, who you could live with."

Now a fugitive, he can barely recognise the world that he had a hand in shaping. Everybody who's anybody is hunting the Winter Soldier. Be it indoctrination, revenge or friendship. His mind, no thanks to Hydra, is in such a fragmented mess that he can't even trust himself. But for the first time in decades, he has a name: Bucky. A start to finding himself.

Before his programming has him walking back to Hydra on his own two feet, he goes on a search to break it. On a stakeout, he crosses paths with a young woman and her addiction to a certain pulled pork sandwich from a food truck. And when her hectic life of hopping from place to place, project to project, catches up to her, the little fragment of a hero that couldn't be carved out of him gets him tangled up in a kidnapping attempt.

Disclaimer: The Marvel characters belong to Marvel. This is for entertainment purposes only.
The original characters and certain concepts are my own.

Warning: in a non spoiling way, in this story, there will be content that may be triggering to a person. (Eventually)

Hope you enjoy this.

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(Edited 2018 05 11)

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Chapter 1: The Prologue - Snow Coffins

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Fear.

There was so much fear in those blue eyes. So much fear carved into the features of that face. So much fear that pumped through my own veins.

He desperately tried to fight it, caging me against a thick tree trunk. His fingers dug into the wood. His feet shifted trying to keep them out of the current.

So much of this was his worst fears, and there was nothing I could do to quell them.

I could barely register the splintering of the wood right next to my ears. Nothing else could be heard over the roar of the monster that was the snow flowing around us. Not even the scream that must have torn from his throat.

But the suffocating terror in those eyes, that was loud and clear. That was until his face disappeared.

I couldn't reach out in time. He was ripped right out of my fingertips. I could only hope my spine could handle what was to come.

A painful yank around my waist pulled me away from the tree trunk and into the raging river of ice.

'Swim.' The single thought echoed through my mind.

Muscles fought with all they had, forcing themselves through the thick torrent, desperate to break surface. I had to break surface.

Sinking meant death.

Nobody was coming. There's no rescue on its way.

A second of air.

A second to gasp.

A second before snow shoved my head back under.

It was slowing down. There's be no way to move once it settles.

I curled up. Hands pulled to my face. Ribs expanded. Legs still kicking up a storm.

If I could only hope to break surface again.

The only inkling I had that he was still close was the rope tugging painfully around my waist. There was a weight on the other end.

I blatantly shoved out of my mind the possibility of it being tangled around something. That he wasn't there on the other end. He had to be there. He just had to.

And then everything stopped.

I struggled with everything I had, thrashing to make space before the snow settled. I could hear it creaking into place.

Silence.

Deafening silence.

Pretty sure I was somewhat upside down, being that my head pounded with blood. A little dribble of spit confirmed that. Upside down and faced down. With any luck, the brightness of the snow meant I wasn't buried too deep.

I had a little bit of wiggle room. More around my legs, but they were in an odd position. One somewhat "straight" and the other one drawn up, bent at the knee, ready to kick.

A deep breath in and I lashed out with everything my legs had, bracing with my arms. Hoping, praying that I was close to the surface, that there was some give to this icy embrace.

Wasting a second breath for freedom, I found it. By some miracle, it came to me. My foot could move. I could rotate it at the ankle.

With my fight renewed by absolute desperation, I kicked and wiggled, trying to free my other leg.

Every drop of air was precious.

Every second more so.

My hands dug, releasing pockets of trapped air. It bought me some time, but what I needed was to remove the rope around my waist. It pinned me in place but it was also what told me where he might be. The more I struggled, the less give the snow had. It was like fighting concrete. Nothing soft about it.

Anxiety weaved through my veins and settled in my heart. 'Are you alive? Are you there? Are you with me?'

My mind tried to fight it, but it was growing exhausted.

My body screamed for a break. But I couldn't. I didn't have that luxury.

It wasn't just my life to give up.

My other leg managed to break the surface. With the weird space my bent leg had left, I pulled my knees in as hard as I could. My hands pushed against the ice wall above my head, or below in this case.

"FUCK!"

This had to be the only moment in my life where I wished the human body was tubular shaped. Or even a cone, so long as my feet was the wide end.

"Why the hell do we have boobs!?"

All they did was take up space and hurt when I attempted to slip through the space my lower ribs once occupied. Not that I could move much with the rope, pinning me in this godforsaken prison.

My feet desperately kicked out, pushing my body further into the stupid hole, freeing my ribs from the little space my waist had made. With my teeth, I pulled off my gloves to claw at the snow with my nails. If I could just get an arm through to where my legs were, I'd have my survival blade in hand rather than strapped to my calf.

'It better fucking still be there,' I couldn't help but think.

Exhaling as much as I could, I pushed my body to one side the best I could and forcefully shoved an arm through the little space. Blindly groping for the knife, I would've sighed out in relief if I had any breath left in me. But I didn't.

A few careful wiggles, I managed to cut the rope. A few more, the knife was buried safely in the ice wall in front of me. Out of the way of a few more mad thrashes and I was mostly in the little cave my legs had made.

Folding my legs under me, I pulled my head and arms through the narrow bottleneck my waist had made. Probably should have expanded my stomach instead of my ribs, now that I thought about it.

Gasps of fresh air were barely savoured before I pulled on my gloves, collected my knife and climbed onto the surface. Sparing a second for a quick scan, it was mostly white only broken up by the tops of the freshly buried trees.

No movements.

For now.

Scrambling down what I thought was the length of rope, I dug with everything I had. My gloves couldn't move much of the snow. Packed too tightly by the avalanche. My fingers couldn't break through fast enough. It ate away too much time.

Time none of us had.

With a sheathed knife, I desperately dug wide, hoping that he hadn't sunk down to the bottom. I wouldn't be able to get to him.

Hope bloomed in my heart at the soft tink that caught my ears.

Metal.

The sheath hit metal.

'This better not be the fucking snowmobiles.'

As useful as they might be, it wasn't what I needed.

Clearing a bit of snow, the shiny gleam I would know anywhere greeted me. Vibranium alloy plates.

Urgently, I dug for his face, searching for it with my hands. A sheath to the face wasn't ideal.

There wasn't even a twitch on the plates when I hit it. He would have reacted. He wasn't conscious. Time was slipping through our fingers.

'You better not be dead.'

My arms screamed for a break. My fingers cramped up from use. The cold air burned my lungs.

I couldn't give up.

Not on him.

Not after all he'd done for me.

I couldn't do that to him.

I had to keep fighting. Even if it was against my own body and this frozen hell.

I'd keep fighting for him.

And then, a face. That beautiful face. Even upside down.

'Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.'

Those piercing blue eyes shot open.

Panic.

Pure, unfiltered panic.

My hands immediately covered his mouth, muffling his screams. I could hear the whirring of his cybernetic arm as he struggled to move. He couldn't. Probably not even a millimetre.

"Bucky," I hissed, hoping he'd hear me. "Bucky, stop."

He didn't.

He couldn't.

Not when he was trapped in his own personal hell.

He's been here before.

Another place. Another time. Another life.

"Bucky. Listen to me. Quit screaming, or Hydra will fucking find us."

The light in those eyes dulled a bit. His screams stopped. He was listening.

I went back to freeing his body while my voice tried to find him in the tattered mess that his mind was likely in.

"You're not in Europe. You're in the Rockies. Canada, 'kay? They're not going to get to you. Not again. We're getting out of this. You with me?"

There was some recognition in his eyes. But panic was quickly consuming it.

I could only offer him a small smile in hopes to comfort him. "Hang in there, 'kay? I'm not going to let you freeze to death."

"I… I can't… I can't b-b-bre-breathe." His words were so soft. So small. So feeble. It was heart wrenching.

"Is your body rather straight, or is your head tilted?"

"St-st – "

That was all he needed to work through his clattering teeth and small gasps for air. I scrambled, digging like a mad dog.

I needed to free his chest first. He needed the ability to breathe. The metal arm would be next, so he could help get himself out.

By the time we got Bucky free of the snow, the sun had disappeared beyond the mountains. I was a sweating mess, struggling for more oxygen than my lungs could hold. Bucky was a shivering ball of fear and misery, trapped in his memories and reliving his nightmares.

I took a moment to truly take in our surroundings, now that neither of us were in immediate danger of suffocating to death. Still no movements.

Hydra wasn't close by. Couldn't be more content if they were all buried and or dead.

But none of that stopped my heart from plummeting into my stomach.

"Wh-where ar-re… wh-ere are… are w-w-we-we?" Bucky clattered out.

"I've got no idea…."

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Author's Note:

So that's the Prologue.

It's set in future of the story.

This is mostly here because of Bucky's chapters.
The chapter titles will be the name of the person's POV the chapter is written in.

And I'll also like to thank aereul for beta-ing the first chunk of this story and for dragging me through the summary writing.

For some reason, this was difficult to summarize. Could have something to do with how I just hissed at everything like it was going to be a spoiler and didn't want to include any of it.