During the first time in which the Winter Soldier gets sent out on a solo mission without his handlers— after being beaten into a level of submission palatable enough for Hydra to want to try the ultimate test of effectiveness of his conversion to a weapon for their personal use— something both unpredictable and unexplainable happens: The Soldier, thought to be successfully stripped away from any and all ounce of self-identity starts to hum under his breath.

It’s a tune he doesn’t even recognize, and although the act itself feels foreign, the melody itself feels strangely familiar, as if somehow, his subconscious recognized something his conscious mind cannot quite grasp. It continues, although only in the moments when he is alone— despite his confusion about the origins of his newfound fondness for humming, the Soldier knows that doing it in front of his handlers would only result in beatings brutal enough to make his bones ache for months on end— and so on cold, lonely nights, with his broad frame crouched down before the torn up mattress laid across the iron lining of his cage, the Soldier hums his song, the lyrics long forgotten by his battered mind.

The reasons for the comfort that the action brings him remain unclear to the Soldier for a very, very long time— until flashes of blonde hair and the vivid teal of a pair of irises, a bloodied mouth and a name— “Bucky?”— bring about a myriad of fractured memories.

The first few ones are blurred and distorted, clouded like the murky waters of a lake, until he hears it one night after another exhausting day of being on the run: The voice of his mother singing that very song. The memory lands like a punch to the gut, and the Soldier— Bucky Barnes— sees the warmth of a smile on a face he had not envisioned in over seven decades, her features clearer than he ever expected he would remember.

Suddenly he is seven again, weightless with the kind of insouciance only a child can hold, watching as Winnifred Barnes bounced across the kitchen, humming a tune as she moved along, the smell of a home cooked dinner filling the air.

Bucky blinks and suddenly he is nine and sitting on the couch, peeking over the backrest as his mother sweeps the floor, that same tune falling from her parted lips.

His heart squeezes painfully in his chest as his memories flash again until he is ten and tucked away in bed, feeling the comforting warmth of Winnifred’s kiss on his forehead, her fingers pushing his hair back with tenderness before she sings a lullaby, the lyrics coming in bits and pieces to the forefront of Bucky’s mind, bringing tears to his eyes.

That night marks the very first time that Bucky Barnes feels like he has found a piece of himself again.