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[Bucky's dreams are usually a nonsensical mash of things that happened and things that didn't, things that leave him in a cold sweat, heart gripped in a vice. Ivar knows that well enough about him, though Bucky has never been too terribly up front about what horrors his dreams contain. Tonight he'll get a sneak peek, though, apparently.

Everything is very cold, but the landscape is indistinct, Bucky's memory hazy with time and trauma. There are two of him, one standing with his arms crossed tightly, in sweatpants and a t-shirt, barefoot and strangely vulnerable, and one in leather tactical gear, being roughly manhandled by two soldiers wearing furry hats with red stars on them. To the side, a bald, severe-faced man in a suit, and a young woman with red hair, hands wrapped, in a black leotard, her face contorted in panic.

Bucky notices Ivar, but he doesn't even look sideways at him.]

I can't stop whatever is going on to bring you here, but keep whatever you see here between us. Please.

[This isn't the first time Ivar has ended up in someone else's dreams. Hell, this isn't even the first time he's ended up in the memory of a man once known as the Winter Soldier. But as before, Ivar feels a distinct sense of unease at experiencing something very raw and painful. It's as close to empathy as he's likely to get with someone he looks up to.]

You have my word.

[He can't lie and say that beneath the unease, he doesn't feel a little bit of curiosity, seeing what keeps his friend up on those nights when he tosses and turns, trapped in his nightmares.]

[There are some things that no one should see, and this is one of them. But due to whatever's going on, he doesn't have a choice in the matter. He hopes he can trust Ivar at least enough not to talk about this, not to spread it around. The real Bucky is clearly trying to keep his face blank, but it's hard like this, standing in the middle of one of his nightmares with a spectator.

The scene goes on, paying no mind to either Bucky or Ivar watching from the sidelines. The two soldiers manhandle the Bucky Barnes in tactical gear, shouting in Russian, while the man in the suit watches on disapprovingly. It wasn't his fault, the woman shouts, but a soldier jabs the electric cattle prod into the metal-armed man anyway, and someone moves to hold her back.]

...I always brought her nothin' but trouble.

[Ivar watches the scene with the intent of someone watching a particularly riveting program on television: there might interest there, but a lack of true, real emotion like most people would feel. Something just doesn't connect inside for him. It's too hard to reach for empathy that's beyond his grasp.

His eyes go to the redhead. He's yet to meet Natasha in the city, so there's no recognition there.]

Who is she?

[He knows how Ivar is by this point, but it doesn't feel any less intrusive. That's not all on him, though - it would feel intrusive with anyone watching this. The soldiers drag a younger Bucky away; by now he's gone limp and obedient, jolting from the shock, like an occasionally twitching rag doll. Inside, down a set of sparse metal stairs. They're talking to each other in low Russian, disapproving.]

Natasha. She was- We were together. Until recently. [He pauses.] If you meet up with her, don't- tell her you saw this. Let her have her privacy.

['Until recently.' There's a story behind those words, Ivar's sure of it, but not one that is his to know. He knows how he would feel about people asking about Letha when he didn't want to talk about her, so for once, Ivar doesn't push the subject.]

I won't. She's here in the city then?

Yeah. She showed up during the acid rain fiasco. She... is from farther along than I am, time-wise. [Which is why he hadn't even known they'd broken up until she told him over a tense post-mission dinner. It was probably one of the worst nights of his life romantically-speaking.

He gazes impassively at the scene still playing out around them, as soldiers drag him into one of the tiled procedural rooms to prepare his twitching form for cryostasis.]

I don't want to upset her more than I already have.

Somehow, I doubt that's possible.

[Sorry, Bucky, but your life is just like some tragic tale from the Norse legends. And trust Ivar, he knows tragic when he sees it. He watches as the dream version of Bucky gets dragged away for cryostasis.]

This looks familiar. [He saw something similar in the dreams of the other Bucky.]

[Well, he's pretty sure it is possible to upset her more. She wouldn't be too happy if she knew some strange kid had witnessed some of Bucky's memories involving her, he thinks.]

You know the other Barnes, don't you? This was... one of the things we had in common. They kept us on ice.

Was it the same sick group of people who did it to you as well?

[He'd had it explained to him without getting into the complications of what Nazis and the like were. It would have gone over his head. But people who thought they knew what the best way to run the world was, that he understood perfectly well. It had been ancient even when the Vikings were a young culture.]

Slightly different group of sick people. Their goals were about the same, though. [It was the Russians, for him, after the Nazis essentially blew him up, whereas it was HYDRA for the other Barnes. But he imagines the distinctions will be too subtle to really get for Ivar.]

And they did a lot of the same things to both of us.

[Ivar looks oddly pensive, going quiet for about a minute.]

You know, I'm not a good person. I've done some bad things.

[You don't torture a man to death by ripping out his lungs and still think you're someone innocent or pure. Ivar is the way he is: someone cruel, callous, and uncaring about most people.]

But I've never destroyed a person's mind and soul. That seems worse than just killing someone.

[He doesn't doubt that Ivar has done some bad things. He's a viking, after all, and the entire human population of that time period wasn't exactly known for peace and diplomacy. But then he continues, and Bucky has to agree, blowing out a slow breath.]

It is worse. Being used like that. Turned against everything you ever cared about. I hurt my own country, my own people, I killed innocent people on all sides. [The ache of this particular memory still feels fresh in his chest.] And they took away the one person who ever made me feel like a human being during those days.

I'd kill whoever did that to me.

[Revenge was a very large part of what had always driven Ivar. He lived for it, really, getting back at those that had essentially ruined his life. It was what gave him the motivation to become the feared leader of the Vikings that the history books remembered him as.]

Did you ever get back at them?

[That response doesn't surprise him. In a way, a lot of the time, he and Ivar think alike, when it comes to certain subjects. Revenge is one of those.]

I'd like to tell you I did. That it made me feel better. Made things right with the world. [He can't keep the bitterness out of his tone.] I tried to, you know. But I didn't get back at anybody for what I went through.

I found Natasha again. That... helped. But now we're broken up again.

[Ivar listens. That all completely sucks in his opinion. At least he'd been able to get a measure of satisfaction out of killing the man responsible for murdering his father.]

You know, every time when I think about how shitty my life has been, I'm reminded there's always someone out there who's had it worse.

[Such a kind and empathetic teen he was most definitely not.]

[It does suck. His comment gets a wry, humorless little smile out of Bucky and a dry,] Thanks. That makes me feel better.

[In a way... it kind of does. Just the commiseration on shitty lives lived helps a little.]

[The dream seems to be fading away now into mist and shadows. He recognizes that after being in more than a few dreams.]

I'll keep what I've seen here to myself.

[He wouldn't want anyone spilling his own secret memories, so he has enough respect to do the same for Bucky.]

[He nods once, shoulders relaxing incrementally.]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[The entire world is a little hazy around the edges. Bucky has a lot of memories, all contained in one damaged head, and it's too much at times. Some memories grow foggy. Inside a several yard radius, though, the colors are sharp and clear, edged with pain. The Winter Soldier, blank faced, faces down Steve Rogers in the Captain America suit. They've been fighting.

It's outside a warehouse, maybe, a storage area of some sort for dangerous things requiring high security. The Cosmic Cube glows innocuously when Steve takes it in his hand.

Bucky watches from the sidelines, the Bucky of now, tousle-haired and dressed in his sweatpants and sleep shirt, barefoot. He knows what comes next. He's seen this a million times in his nightmares, and... he knows Ava shouldn't be here.]

You shouldn't be seeing this.

I'm sorry.

[She isn't worried about seeing it so much as she is about what this means for him. Even if being able to talk, interact with people as memories play is better than it being something like the Quantum link she'd had once, she knows that doesn't make it okay. She doesn't try to play it down, just crosses to stand closer to him.

She pays more attention to Bucky in his pajamas, the way he stands, how he holds himself, and she's sure this isn't easy for him. But she can't help soaking up the details of his memories. She's had a lot of you shouldn't be seeing this moments lately, and she wishes there was a way to just walk away. But there never is. She wishes there was something she could offer. She settles for moving to stand next to him, letting her shoulder bump against his arm softly, a tentative touching/not-touching as they stand in the dream.

For better or worse, he's not alone, and she tries to be supportive. He's always been there for her.]

[His posture is closed off, arms crossing over his chest, and his face goes as blank as the Soldier's. There isn't any real escaping this memory, he knows that by now, so he doesn't bother telling her to leave or to close her eyes. It won't matter. He hates this, some of his worst moments laid bare for others' eyes.

Steve holds up the glowing cube, his expression intense beneath the cowl. Remember who you are. The flash of light is blinding, but brief, and the Winter Soldier's eyes go wide. He sinks to his knees with a heavy thud, screaming, clutching at his head like it's on fire.

Bucky only goes rigid, unnaturally still, watching himself from a few years ago, his entire life of horrors playing out in front of his eyes.]

[Having been on the receiving end of this herself, she understands what it feels like. But it hadn't been her worst memories, just some of the really bad ones. Red Room things she didn't even normally quite remember. Bucky's body keeping her from seeing it as she screamed in the background. Not the same, but she hates this too, hates feeling like she's complicit in hurting him.

She doesn't know how not to watch, to not soak in the details. The cube (the Tesseract?) and the look on Steve's face under the cowl of his uniform. The words and the flash of light and how he falls. It's almost familiar to her, in a strange way.

That moment in a shitty motel room, where they held hands and the light surged and everything that had been leaking over the past two years became one thing. Everything all at once. She remembers the pain, searing until she couldn't separate what hurt from what didn't, and that flow of memories that became so much more.

She'd been half-expecting it then, and it had still been hard on her. She can only imagine this would have been so, so much worse. And the memories--]

He gave you back your memories.

[Her voice is soft, caring, trying to bridge the gap. She doesn't want him to have to carry this alone. If she has to watch, she can at least try, anyway.]

[An entire life flashes before the Soldier's eyes, the good and the bad hopelessly intertwined, and Bucky remembers how it had felt. It had been toomuchtoomuchtoomuch all at once, crowding out every other coherent thought. He almost doesn't remember when he touched the Cube and vanished, ran away to the only place he'd ever called home.

The vision reminds him, acutely. Camp Lehigh is long-abandoned, run down, devoid of all but Bucky Barnes' ghosts. The Soldier is no longer the Soldier, and he breaks down into body-wracking sobs, curled up tight against a dilapidated building.]

Yeah. It never happened like this for- the other Bucky. He remembered things gradually.

[She watches him, and there's something similar to it. Watching how he curls in on himself and sobs. She shifts as she stands next to him, wants to offer something to make it better, but she's never been good at that. The words he says are easier, even if there are truths that still catch in her chest that lurk behind her own.]

He's still working on it.

[Words said soft and quiet. There's something a little familiar to the tone, a little sweet to the curve of her lips that is too sad to be a smile. But she remembers the fact that when she'd been pulled into James' memories (the other one) it hadn't all been bad. It had been Bucky showing Steve how to dance in a small room, and the music from the phonograph, teasing and laughter.

But she remembers how awed he'd been, like it was a fragile snowflake about to melt if he touched it. And she has her own memories of him, even if she hadn't really talked about them, not even to either of them. It's hard for her, when it's tied up in a complicated ball of the emotions of a thirteen year old girl who hardly remembered anything beyond the walls of her prison.]

Does it still hurt? What happened?

[Bucky nods once, solemnly, though he can't help but think that the other is still luckier than he was. He's always felt a little broken, maybe, but the other Barnes will maybe get to heal, with time.]

Not really. [It doesn't hurt like it did. Plenty of his memories have faded again, his brain not able to handle all of it at once and retain it. He exhales slowly as the scene goes a little more fuzzy around the edges; he doesn't remember too well, what he did immediately after this. He'd been too upset, in too much pain.] I remembered everything. You know how they say before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes?

That's how it was with me and Natasha, too.

[She finally volunteers that piece of it, of how it had happened, looking at him sideways. There's a sad smile as she sighs, and looks up at him a little shyly to meet his eyes. She understands. She knows that it's different, but she does understand what that's like. What that feels like. All that memory.]

Every piece of her, pieces of what they took from me when they wiped me. It felt like it burned until I couldn't tell what hurt and what didn't, like it was just- so much.

[So many parallels.] It's not the same. But I know a little bit of what that's like.

[It's hard for him to think that anyone might understand even a fraction of what it was like, but he nods briefly anyway. He doesn't have the energy to go down that conversational path. These dreams have left him feeling wrung out and physically exhausted.]

It's too much for anybody. [He finally agrees, voice quiet and a little rough. The memory goes fuzzy and indistinct. He doesn't remember what exactly happened next, just has a general timeline of what he did in those first days.]

[This isn't his memory. There is a sense of the familiar and a sense of the not to it, some of the scenery vague and blurry when he tries to look too hard, to figure out what is going on. Logically, he knows. It's been happening all week when he sleeps, but even the Winter Soldier can't avoid sleep forever. He just wonders what he'll see this time, when he spots Natasha across the way.

Hopefully she knows that he didn't choose to be here. He wouldn't purposely invade her privacy like this, knows what it's like to have it done to him and hates the thought.]

What is this?

No, no, no. You should leave.

[ But of course he can't. He isn't controlling this. She isn't either.

In the dream, the memory, whatever, Clint approaches, with a grim look on his face. It's an expression he's never worn well. Natasha does remember this, clearly, but she's kept it locked up— a room in her house she hasn't cared to visit. Clint takes her hand, awkwardly pausing: "'Tash," he says. "I'm sorry. But they've… he's…" Whatever it is, Clint is having a hard time thinking his way around it. He blinks once, twice.

"Bucky's dead. We think it was Zemo. Steve and Zemo, working together." He says it like a bitter joke, and doesn't laugh.

Natasha cannot feel her face. ]

[He opens his mouth to say something, make some crack about how he would leave if he could find the exit, but- that's Clint, far too grim, too serious, and Natasha... Bucky falls silent, staring at the pair, the dream, the- the memory, and.

Everything screeches to a halt. There is water rushing in his ears, but no, no water, it's all in his head. Zemo. Steve and Zemo? That doesn't sound real, it sounds like a nightmare, but this- he's been through enough of this shit this week to know it's a memory, something that happened.

Oh. So this is what she wasn't telling him. His expression hasn't changed, but he's a little pale as he watches the memory play out.]

I think you need to tell me what's going on. Natasha. Please.

Steve has been with HYDRA. Undercover, a mole. [ She anticipates the next question, and adds. ] The whole time, he says.

[ She doesn't look at Bucky— she knows he won't believe her, not right away. She doesn't look at the memory either, at Clint, lost like they all were, trying to make his face look kind. She can't watch herself, the breakdown she knows is coming. ]

Damn. [ It isn't much more than a whisper, held under her breath. This is all a secret she'd intended to keep. ]

That can't be right. [He whispers, eyes glued on the scene in front of him, the way Clint and Natasha interact, fixated on their words with a sickening horror dawning in the back of his head.] Steve wouldn't- He wouldn't work with Zemo. The shit that whole family put us through, he- he wouldn't. [He scrubs a hand over his mouth, reflexive, anxious. It's hard to rattle Bucky Barnes, but this...

He keeps watching.]

[ Natasha doesn't say anything— neither one of them can. In the memory, she falls onto Clint's shoulder, sobbing, her knees buckled. Watching herself, though, she keeps herself straight. It's terrible to watch herself come apart like this, but still somehow easier than looking at James.

In the memory, though, Natasha looks up at Clint, whose face is battling it's own demons. "He has to pay for this," she says. "We have to stop him." ]

[It's a trainwreck, and he can't turn his gaze away. Nice to know she mourned him, at least, he supposes, but- that's a bleak thought, edged in hysteria that doesn't bleed through to his outward expression. He seems... distressed, sure, but not near to panicking, even if he might want to. He would, if he weren't so well-trained.]

I don't understand any of this.

Then don't try to.

[ James wasn't stupid, but "thinking things through" wasn't exactly his strong point. Maybe that would save him. She didn't honestly know what it would do to him, knowing that Steve was a traitor. Maybe that was what really killed him. Maybe he hadn't been able to fight back. ]

Just… forget this is happening. Forget that it happened.

[ Because it did. It happened to her. ]

[When he finally speaks again, his voice is rough, betraying the struggle going on in his head.] You know I can't. [It would be easier if he could, but who can really forget witnessing a discussion about their own death? Their death by the hands of their best friend, nonetheless.]

What really happened? What's going on with Steve? At least tell me that.

He's been working for HYDRA this whole time. From the beginning. That's what the intel says.

[ It was difficult to believe, even though she had been living it. And she had been living it. Natasha can't meet his eyes. ]

That's what he says, too.

That- [From the beginning? No, that couldn't possibly be right. Bucky would have known. He would have seen it. They were practically in each other's pockets during the war, Steve couldn't have hidden something so massive from his partner.]

Natasha, that sounds insane. I know Steve. He's not HYDRA.

Yes. That's what everyone's been saying.

[ She hadn't wanted to believe it either. Years and years, and for Natasha to suspect nothing?

But that had all changed when James died. ]

It hasn't helped.

Something else has to be going on with him. Magic, or mind control, or something. [He just can't believe that his best friend is HYDRA, but at the same time... This is a memory of Natasha's. Something that actually happened. He's not sure how to reconcile that with the things he heard and saw because it can't be true, and yet.]

Even if he- He wouldn't work with Zemo. He wouldn't... kill me.

It isn't mind control. We tried… [They'd tried a lot of things, because of course, no one had wanted to believe it. ] Telepaths, magic spells. Every protocol any one of us could think of.

[ Just remembering all the meetings they'd had, puts something raw into her voice. They kept trying to find some thread of hope to follow, like a line of fire through the dark. And it had only worn them all thinner, made them vulnerable. Easier to exploit. ]

Someone's always tryin' to build a better brainwashing device. [But it sounds weak, even to his own ears. A grasping at straws from a man who doesn't want to believe the worst of his best friend, his brother.

But at the same time, he knows Natasha is thorough, and the internal warring is evident in his expression. Even now he's not exactly trying to hide his thoughts from her (it would be futile anyway, she knows him too well).] I don't know what to say. I- It's Steve.

Yes.

[ Her voice, then, is not kind, exactly, feeling. For an instant, she lets herself feel the contradictions of the moment, the sadness of losing a friend, losing James, the sharp needle of betrayal, every raw and bleeding thing she's denied herself for months so that she can keep going with the resistance.

But then she pulls her stoicism back. ]

There is— Tony and Clint, they had a new theory. About the cosmic cube.

[ She knows he hates the cosmic cube. ]

[He looks at her searchingly, almost, wishing he could tell what she's thinking right now. It has to be hard, to lose Steve to that, to- well, he doesn't really want to think about the effect his own death might have on her. He's not stupid enough to think it was easy to take just because they aren't together.

And then she mentions the Cube, and his blood runs cold.] What's the theory?

That someone rewrote the timeline. Possible, of course… [ It wouldn't be the first "Nazis win" alternate universe that the Cube created. ] But impossible to test. [ And at this point, Natasha has been burned too many times to make believe there's a way to make everything normal. People are dying. People have died. That is her reality. ]

[closed]

For Ivar

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For Ava

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For Natasha

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