The start of the trip back to the tower was in complete, enveloping, smothering silence, with Tony taking the wheel when you barely had the wherewithal to remember to breathe, much less try to drive. He may have pledged his trust in your driving before, but that moment was over after your harrowing screech to a halt only a short time before. The color had been wrung from your hands under painful pressure as you struggled to bring your mind together, but you barely felt what you were doing until his hand hesitantly found them and squeezed tight to make them still.

"I'll step aside."

"What?"

"Your soulmate connected, right? That's what that was, and clearly, it's not me. So," he sighed heavily, the weight of the world crushing him, "in the best interests of fate, I'll step aside."

"You'll do no such thing," you whispered, your trance finally broken. When you looked to the man next to you, he was so much smaller than he had been mere moments before; he looked tired, older, and unbearably sad. It was the worst feeling that you had ever known to see that you were the cause, and it had to stop. "Tony, I chose you. I want you."

"The universe doesn't seem to agree."

"Then to hell with the universe. I don't know who this other person even is, and from what I could see him doing to Steve, I don't think that I want to. Would you really so readily step aside so that I could be with someone like that just because the universe is a sick bastard?"

"Hmm, no, 'spose not," he mumbled in reply. His offer to get out of the way wasn't really whole-hearted, and he was hoping that you would argue, so when he realized that he had gotten his way, he struggled to hold back the faintest curl of a smile at the corners of his mouth before having to turn away. "It's kinda hot when you fight for me."

"Really? That's your play?"

"It's the only play I've got, sweetheart. I have no idea what to do, so I'm just making shit up as I go along. So, in that spirit...I can't believe I'm asking this...but have you thought of anything that might give you a clue as to who this guy is? Did you hear a name, or something that Steve might have said that could mean help?"

"Ugh, I don't know," you groaned, closing your eyes and pushing your head back against the seat in frustration. You were only given pieces of the view your soulmate was offering, and even though they were perfectly clear, they were like a puzzle with the wrong pieces just forced together enough to resemble the original view. Steve's face was barely familiar to you within it, having known the man only a few short months now, but you tried to focus on the few flashes of it you could slow down, pushing your mind to cooperate.

People are gonna die, Buck.

"Buck?" you answered Tony softly, unsure. "Does that name mean anything familiar?"

Much as you had done, his foot slammed onto the brakes and squealed the car to a halt, with no care as to if you were on the road alone or not. Tony turned to you, eyes wide with just enough recognition of that name to know that it may not have meant anything to him, but it definitely meant a lot to one unfashionably spandex-clad patriotic teammate.

"Son of a bitch."

~~~

"On your left."

Sam turned to look at Steve as he rested in his hospital bed, still taken aback by how sufficiently his newest superhero friend had been beaten, and he still couldn't help but smile. Never in a million years would he have thought he'd see the day when he would be at Steve's side, fighting with Captain America himself; a man he had admired from afar for so long. Steve was a good guy, he knew that without pause, but Sam also knew that to hand out trust as readily as he had likely wasn't natural or easy for Steve. Now that he was seeing the man this vulnerable, he knew that the trust he was given had to be protected.

"Feelin' better already, huh?"

"Oh, man, I don't know," Steve grumbled, pushing himself up, "I feel like I've been hit by a truck."

"You were. Over and over. Then he threw you off a helicarrier just long enough to almost let you drown."

"Who did?"

"Uh...are you being serious right now?" Sam asked with shock, looking towards the door and back as if he was considering calling a nurse for help. Maybe that superhero stuff wasn't all it was cracked up to be, because Cap's head was definitely cracked. "I can't actually tell."

"Sam, I don't remember who did this," Steve answered flatly, pointedly with a stern expression, "and neither do you. You never got a look at who it was."

"I, uh...I never saw a thing."

"Okay." A ring of his phone pulled Steve's attentions away, but the sound was coming from his jacket on the far side of the room, and he was in no shape to get up for that kind of distance. "Would you mind?" he asked with a nod towards it.

Sam simply nodded back and stood, hurrying to retrieve it before the sound stopped. He had to dig into the pockets to find it, but when he did, he saw your name on the screen and turned back to his friend with a wide grin and held it up for him to see. "Haaaay, who's the girl?"

"Not mine. Gimme that."

"Then whose girl is calling you?"

"Stark's," Steve scolded, swinging his legs over the side of his bed to elicit the fear in Sam that he was hoping for, "now hand it over." Once he had his phone safely in hand, and once Sam was back in his chair and well out of reach, he opened the line and tried to stay calm. "(Y/N)? Is everything okay?"

"Are you? Steve, you almost died."

Steve's hand slammed over the mouthpiece and his eyes filled with fire as he looked at Sam, "who did you call?!" he hissed under his breath through clenched teeth, but you still heard.

"No one!"

"Steve, no one called us. I saw everything, right up until he pulled you from the river."

"How is that possible?" he gasped, then quickly pulled himself together and back into the lie. "I mean...um, when who-"

"Bucky."

"(Y/N)...I don't know what you're talking about-"

The look in Steve's eyes sent a chill down Sam's spine as he listened in; he leaned forward in his chair and again looked back towards the door for a quick glance as if something terrible was about to storm in. "What? Cap?"

"Steve, I saw it all, I'm telling you the truth. I could go into details to prove it if you want-"

"No. I don't."

"I won't tell anyone, I promise."

"Okay...well, thank you." The two of you held your silence then, waiting for the other to say something, anything that would break the pressure in the air, and then the realization finally came to him. He hadn't been hit in the head hard enough to completely miss it. "(Y/N), there's only one way that you could have seen that. No one was there, and we were sure to take out the video feed on all the carriers."

"Right."

"Does Tony know? Is he okay?"

"He's...Tony," you relented, but Tony wasn't why you called. "Cap, I won't tell anyone, so long as you tell me what I need to know. You're the only one who knows him, and if he's my soulmate, I need to know everything you can tell me about James Buchanan Barnes. I need to know how he turned into the Winter Soldier, and if there's anything of your friend left for me to find. Because if there is...I'll help you."

~~~

Standing alone in the Smithsonian, immersed in the Captain America exhibit, Bucky felt like there was no one in the world who could help him, and no one who would understand. Even Steve, the man he was currently reading about, couldn't possibly know what this felt like. Bucky was trying to get his memory to find something to grasp, but his mind was a swirling, blank slate that left him dizzy and exhausted the more he pushed back against it.

Even when he moved with the crowd and was now reading about himself, and the face looking back at him held a haze of familiarity, it didn't feel true; it didn't feel like he was living his life, but rather watching someone else live it for him.

The dizziness was getting worse with each minute that he kept this torture going, so he finally decided to leave; it was likely best to not spend too much time in public right now anyway, being a world-class assassin who had just helped to dump SHIELD and Hydra into the Potomac. Voices of children and their temper-wary mothers surrounded him, and he lost his focus; which way was out of this purgatory? He spun on his heel, just slow enough to not draw attention, but then surely the loud gasp he let out would do that for him.

"Who are you?" he muttered under his breath. "Why can I see this?"

Back in New York, you were caught in the moment with him, frozen in place at the sensation that sent a wave of nausea through your gut. "Find a mirror," you commanded, hoping that he could hear you, and feeling your first sense of relief that he could when the vision you were seeing began to move. Scurrying to your room and into the bathroom, you stood in front of the mirror and waited. And waited...and waited.

Maybe he took the chance and ran. You wouldn't even blame him for it; you might even be a little jealous of his freedom.

Or maybe he was just lost in the massive museum and struggled to find his way to the bathroom so that he could see. More so, rather, so that you could see.

And now, as you both feared and so desperately needed, the two of you were standing hundreds of miles apart, staring back at the other through eyes that weren't your own. You were seeing each other for the very first time.