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Sharon supposes she should move, since SHIELD has been dismantled and the guy she was protection detail for isn't even across the hall any more. Staying is probably the worst kind of procrastination, but handling a move on top of debriefing with the government and performing a complicated courting dance with the CIA just seems far too much effort. She'd rather not come home after lie detector, aptitude, and combat tests to wrap glasses in last week's newspaper.
So, she doesn't. She kicks off her shoes at the end of the day, turns on something mindless, and doesn't even think about shifting.
Maybe it's a testament to his skills, or a sign of the lapsing of hers, that it takes her two days to realise Steve's apartment is far from empty.
She's slipping out with another load of laundry when she sees the door ajar, just an inch or two. She hasn't seen Steve since the airport, but she knows he didn't take much. That he'd come back to grab more things, maybe pack, is the obvious reason. She sets her basket down, nudges the door open.
“Steve?” she calls out.
The man in Steve's lounge room is definitely not Steve. Her hand goes to her sidearm, and the man's hands go in the air. He's wearing a dark leather glove over one of them.
“Steve said I could be here,” he says. Despite raising his hands he doesn't look alarmed. He just flicks his eyes over her, cool and assessing. “You're the neighbour, right?”
“Right,” she says, cautiously.
“Steve said I could stay if I kept the place tidy, fixed some things,” he says, and jerks his head towards the wall.
Sharon only allows herself to flick her eyes in that direction, and the sections of the wall that he's prepared are obvious. A sheet is carefully laid out on the floor and on it sits a pot of spackle with a plastic, disposable scraper. Slightly further away is a little tin of paint and a piece of sand paper wrapped around a wooden block. A paper dust mask hangs around his neck.
“You're cleaning up after yourself,” she says, finally.
The man shrugs, lowering his arms slowly. “Just trying to be a good guest. Show my appreciation for his hospitality,” he says.
Sharon nods, because the Winter Soldier doing home improvement is a little too weird for words.
“I'll try to keep the noise down. I know you're a nurse, work long hours,” he says with a little smile that Sharon knows means I totally know you're not a nurse.
“Thanks,” Sharon says.
“Oh, and I didn't know what silverware was yours. It's in the kitchen,” he says, before turning back to study the wall, even though Sharon's still got a gun on him, is still standing there with her mouth half open.
In the kitchen, all the silverware is spotlessly clean and laid out in little piles of matching design on the countertop, so it takes Sharon all of five seconds to locate her missing spoons. The remainder, she puts in the silverware drawer, and as she slips out of the apartment, she can hear the gentle sweeping sounds of sandpaper smoothing out dried spackle.
“You have a notorious assassin living in your apartment,” she seethes later.
“Oh, good,” Steve replies, sounding utterly unperturbed. “I didn't know if he'd take me up on it.”
“Well, he did,” Sharon says, taking a large mouthful of her wine.
“Do you know if he needs anything? There wasn't much food left in the apartment,” Steve asks, sounding concerned.
“Well, since he managed Home Depot, I think he's probably going to be fine with getting groceries,” Sharon says.
“Home Depot?” Steve asks, and Sharon can just see the brow wrinkle.
“He's spackling and painting over the holes he shot through your walls,” she says, and pours herself another glass.
“He always was good with his hands,” Steve says warmly.
*
For an enhanced Hydra weapon with a truly terrifying kill count, he's an excellent neighbour.
She no longer doubts Steve's assertion that the Winter Soldier and Bucky Barnes are one and the same – that first meeting convinced her of it. History hadn't been her strongest subject, but she'd sat on her great-aunt's knee and looked through photo albums from the War. There had been plenty of the Howling Commandos, and many of them had featured the dark haired man with the easy smile at Steve Rogers' side. Even dressed in jeans and a hoodie, with his long, messy hair scraped back into an elastic and his face more solemn than mischievous, she'd seen the man in the photos in the man who was mending Steve's wall and who had washed and sorted her silverware.
Though she still sleeps with her gun on her dresser, she appreciates that he doesn't use noisy power tools and that he keeps the volume on Steve's record player turned down low. From what little she does hear, she doesn't think he has a favourite album but she's pretty sure that he's just working through whatever Steve has.
The next time she actually sees him, he's standing on the fire escape, smoking a cigarette. It's pinched between his thumb and forefinger, the coal cupped by his hand even though there's no wind.
Sniper, her great-aunt's voice says in her mind.
“Those are bad for you,” she says, and he startles a little, like he'd been lost in his own head. He doesn't run though, or fight, just turns to look at her and blinks while awareness comes back into his eyes. “Just thought I should tell you, as a nurse, in case you didn't know.”
“I know,” he says, and takes another drag. “Steve always used to cough worse around 'em, so I'd smoke outside, like this,” he says, gesturing with his hand, smoke clouding behind it. “Could you tell him to lay off? He keeps fussin'. He said a coupla things, like he was thinking of coming back, and that wouldn't be right. They need him more than I do. I can take care of myself.”
“You look fine to me,” Sharon says, and it's mostly true. He looks tired, his eyes haunted and hollow. He's maybe a little on the thin side, but he's been calm and rational and functional when she's seen him.
He smiles, and she can see the ghost of Captain America's loyal friend behind it.
“I'm Sharon,” she says, and reaches out a hand. He takes it awkwardly with the wrong hand, the one in the glove, not holding the cigarette. It's unyielding and hard in hers, but he's gentle. “What can I call you?”
“I've got a lotta names,” he admits. “Most of 'em don't feel like mine. Some of 'em feel like mine, but I wish they didn't. Steve still calls me Bucky, but I ain't him no more, not really. I remember enough to know I never liked James all that much. Hydra called me the Winter Soldier, or the asset, and they ain't proper names for a person. The kids call me Yasha,” he shrugs. “It's as good a name as any.”
“Yasha,” Sharon says with a nod. “It's nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Yasha says.
“You can ask me if you ever need anything and don't want to bother Steve,” Sharon adds.
Yasha nods and looks like he's seriously thinking about it for a moment. “Hold on,” he says. He stubs his cigarette out and drops it in an empty planter, before ducking inside. Sharon hears him walking through to the other side of the apartment and then back. “I finished out in the lounge room,” he says. “But the bedroom needs a repaint.”
“You didn't shoot the bedroom,” Sharon says and he treats her to another rusty smile.
“No, but it's ugly as hell,” he says. He holds out a fistful of paint chips. “You any good at picking colours?”
“I'm telling you, he's fine,” Sharon says later, while waiting for her microwave dinner to finish cooking. “The man is spending his time looking at home furnishings on the internet.”
“Really?” Steve asks, quiet and hopeful.
“Really. He had me inside the apartment, comparing paint chips to the furniture and curtains. He looked genuinely excited when I said I knew a guy who could lend him an orbital sander,” she says. She tries to retrieve her meal, mildly scalds herself on escaping steam, and grabs a dish towel to carry it with instead. “How's it going at your end?”
Steve sighs. “Could be better,” he admits. “Robbie's not well. The gentle introduction to school was about as big a mess as I've ever been part of. Alexis has hardly talked to me the last three days.” He sounds exhausted.
“Well, you focus on that. I've got this end handled,” she says, and he exhales, long and low.
“You'll tell me if anything changes?” he asks eventually.
“Of course,” she says.
*
Sharon has barely been home long enough to slip off her shoes when there's a tentative tap on her door.
“Hey,” says Yasha.
He's leaning on the jamb in a way that might seem casual were he not so pale.
“You've got blood on your face,” she says, and he doesn't lift a hand to scrub at it like anybody else would. He just nods. “You're hurt.”
“I need maintenance,” he says in a flat voice. “This body has taken damage.”
“Come in,” she says, holding the door wide.
Her deadly-assassin home-improver neighbour winds up sitting on the edge of her bathtub while she steri-strips a long wide gash across his ribs closed.
“I couldn't reach it,” he admits, some of the inflection coming back into his tone. “I tried, but I just kept pulling it open, making it bleed every time I stretched.”
“Hydra?” she asks, and he nods. “You crossing people off?”
“Sometimes. Not today,” he says with a hiss. “I just needed some milk, beans, bread. They jumped me while I was walking back to my bike.”
“I can keep you out of it, but I should call it in, let people know there's activity in the area,” Sharon says, smoothing a little more antiseptic cream over an area that looks deeper.
“They've been neutralised,” Yasha says calmly.
“Then I'll call in for body disposal,” Sharon says.
“They're in the dumpster behind the grocery store,” Yasha says with a minute shrug. “It was there, convenient. I'm used to working with a clean-up crew.”
“Makes our job easier,” Sharon says with a smile. She sets her phone to speaker and calls in the incident. She knows whoever's taken over from SHIELD will just send a truck to pick up the dumpster, leave an empty one behind, and clean up the alley of anything else before they drive away. No one thinks garbage collection is suspicious.
“They broke my milk,” Yasha says with a little frown, like that's the worst, most annoying part of nearly being killed by a hit squad.
“I can give you some milk,” Sharon says. She digs in her cupboard for a milk jug she never uses, a piece of a complicated dinner set she inherited years ago. She fills it almost to the brim with milk from her carton, then shoves a half a dozen slices of bread into snaplock bags for him to take, too.
“I'm assuming the beans made it through okay?” she asks.
He smiles for the first time since she opened the door. “Yes,” he says. “Great as projectiles, blunt objects. People don't expect them.”
“I can imagine,” she says. “I think I'll stick to my FNP-45 Tactical.”
“Don't tell Steve. Please?” he asks as he's leaving.
“Okay,” she says, and realises she means it.
*
The next time there's a tap on the door, it's Sam.
“Sorry,” he says. “Steve sent me.”
“Unless there's something wrong with the kids...?” she says.
“They're fine,” Sam says. “I'm here about the assassin next door.”
“He's sanding, today,” Sharon says, and Sam cocks his head at the vibration of the orbital sander through the walls. “He asked permission and apologised for the noise in advance.”
Sam's eyebrows jump up.
“C'mon in,” Sharon says, and makes them both a cup of coffee.
“From the way Steve was talking, I was expecting you were keeping him alive,” Sam confesses. “Shopping for him, showing him how to drive the remote.”
“I gave him some milk once,” Sharon says. “His carton got busted, and he didn't look like he wanted to go all the way back to the store.”
“And now he's, what? Redecorating?” Sam asks
“He started with the bullet holes in the wall and kind of kept going,” Sharon says. “He got my advice on colours. I think he's chosen russet for the trim.”
Sam huffs a laugh, then stares down into his mug for a long moment. “I know you and I have different areas of expertise, worked in different organisations, but we're still both military, and we've seen what that does to people,” he says, and she nods. “Tell me straight – do you think he's dealing? Or hiding?”
Sharon thinks. “I think he's doing both,” she admits. “I think he's doing the best he can to process an impossible situation. And most days, I think he's doing okay. The one time he had something he couldn't fix himself, he came to me. He talks to me, and I think he's talking to Steve. He seems lucid and aware of his surroundings. He seems to be getting some memories of his life before, and he's working to accommodate them. I think he could do with eating a little more, but stress can affect appetite, and he's trying. He doesn't need someone to hold his hand.”
Sam looks satisfied. “Good.” He tugs a business card from his pocket with the details of the V.A. on it. “Think he'd take this? Just in case.”
“You can ask him yourself,” Sharon says, aware that the sander next door has gone quiet.
The figure on the fire escape is about as far from the polished assassin as possible. He's in a white vest that Sharon thinks maybe used to be Steve's from the way it sits a little loose across his chest. His hair is salt-and-pepper with paint flecks, as is his skin, excepting only the area around his mouth. The dust mask hangs down around his neck, and his hand-rolled cigarette is sending out wisps of smoke from where it's tucked into his palm.
“Hey,” he says immediately, not lost in thought today.
“I've got a friend with me,” Sharon says, and his eyes flick to Sam.
“You had wings,” he says, his eyes narrowing. “I broke them.”
“Yeah,” Sam says.
He grimaces a little. “Sorry.”
Sam shrugs. “I'm okay, so, we're cool,” he says. “Just don't do it again, or I'll have to kick your ass.”
He huffs an almost-laugh and offers his free hand, the metal one. “I'm Yasha,” he says.
Sam doesn't even blink, just takes the offered hand and shakes it. “Sam Wilson,” he says. “Good to meet you.”
“Steve sent you to check up on me?” Yasha asks, smoke curling out of his mouth and nose after another drag.
“Yep,” Sam says.
“You think he'd have enough to worry about right now,” Yasha says, shaking his head. “You hear Robbie might need an operation?”
“Yeah,” Sam says. “Maybe he's worrying about you because he knows you can take care of yourself, so it's safer than worrying about the kids.”
Yasha snorts. “That makes no kinda sense,” he declares.
“Yeah, well, people do and think a lotta stupid things,” Sam says. “You like pizza?”
“What?” Yasha asks.
Sam shrugs. “I skipped lunch, and painting's hungry work. Thought I might order some pizza. You guys want some?”
“Sure,” Sharon says.
Yasha shrugs.
They eat pizza on the fire escape and drink through a six-pack of beer that was still in Sharon's fridge from the last time she had someone over for dinner. Yasha even consents to Sam taking a selfie of the three of them with beers and slices, which he sends to Steve with the caption, “Operation: Feed and Water – Successful”.
“Maybe now Steve'll stop frettin' about me,” Yasha says. He's eaten most of a pizza all by himself and put paid to a lot of garlic bread into the bargain.
“You know, he might worry less if he could see you,” Sam says.
“I'm not ready to visit,” Yasha says firmly, shaking his head.
“That's fine. You don't have to visit. You talk on the phone, right? Well, you can use Skype – it's a computer program that lets you make a video phone call over the internet,” Sam says.
Yasha shrugs. “Tried that. His computer's not so great.”
“I could take a look if you want. I'm not a computer science major, but I keep the shitty V.A. machines going,” Sam says.
“Okay,” Yasha says.
While Sam pokes at Steve's old laptop, Sharon admires the work that's already been completed, and listens to Yasha's plans for the rest. Steve's apartment had mainly been dark and light browns with warm cream paint on the walls before, which was nice enough but did make it look a bit like a museum piece. Yasha's keeping a reddish brown for the trim and doors, but the walls are going to be pale leaf green and ice blue, and he's even talking about maybe replacing fixtures in the bathroom – a sink with chipped, rust-stained enamel, a leaking faucet.
“You had a bunch of spyware and malware,” Sam finally says.
“What?” Yasha asks.
“Like computer diseases,” Sam says. “I fixed them, installed a free anti-virus program. It's like vaccinating your machine. It should run better now, handle a Skype window okay.”
Yasha nods and peers at the open laptop like he might be able to see the difference. “What's this?” he asks, picking up the business card.
“That's for the V.A., where I work. Support for veterans. We help them get back on their feet after they leave the military for whatever reason. We try and help with education, housing, medical care, employment. Some people just need someone to talk to who understands what they went through more than the average civilian off the street,” Sam says.
Yasha stares down at it as though he's memorising the contents.
“You don't ever have to come or call,” Sam assures him. “But me and any of the other people there, we're there to help. You've had an intense time, for a really long time. There's no shame in asking for support like there used to be, back in the day.”
“Thanks,” Yasha says, placing the card carefully on the table again. “I'll think about it.”
“You do that,” Sam says. “I'll tell Steve you're okay, and that you should be fine to Facetime with him now.” He waves a hand at the laptop when Yasha frowns slightly and smiles when the frown disappears.
“I should get back to work,” Yasha says. “I promised Sharon and the building super I wouldn't use the sander after nine, and I still have a whole wall to go.”
“No problem,” Sam says easily. “I'll see you round.”
“You want the rest of your pizza?” Yasha asks, when Sam turns to leave.
“Keep it,” Sam says with an easy grin. “Hungry work, remember? And if you've got cold pizza, you don't have to stop work to cook dinner.”
“Thanks,” Yasha says and actually grins back.
Sam just tosses Yasha a little two fingered salute.
When Sam's let himself out, Yasha turns the smile on Sharon. “I like him,” he says, then walks away. A moment later, Sharon hears the sander power up again.
Sam said Bucky's adjusting faster to the 21st century than me, Steve texts Sharon in the early evening.
He's exaggerating slightly, but Sam's right that he's doing fine, Sharon replies.
A long pause follows, long enough for an ad break in the program she's watching to start and finish, before her phone tinkles again.
I'm glad, Steve replies, and all Sharon can think is, are you really? Because for all that Steve's where he needs to be, for all that he has a dozen kids relying on him to be there and help them, Sharon thinks Steve's just a little bit hurt that Yasha's mending himself without Steve right there at his side.
*
“I'm going out of town for a few days,” Yasha says on Sharon's doorstep.
He looks well. He's clean-shaven, for once, and not hollow eyed or bloody or covered in sawdust or paint. His hair is still long, but it's clean and tied back, the shorter strands that normally hang beside his face tucked under a ball cap. He's got his keys in his hand and a small backpack slung over his shoulder. With the long sleeves and the glove covering his prosthetic, he looks like nothing so much as an average guy, nearing thirty, headed for the gym.
“You need back-up?” Sharon asks. She's a handful of weeks away from being a proper member of the CIA, once she's completed her period of being shepherded. She's certainly not the only ex-SHIELD member who's interviewed for the CIA, but she's one of the highest ranked agents to actually be accepted. Her leash is very very short, but she's not going to let Yasha go haring off after Hydra cells alone if she can help.
Yasha shakes his head. “It's Robbie,” he says. “His operation's on Monday. I thought maybe I should be there.”
“Steve'll be happy to see you,” Sharon says.
“Probably,” Yasha agrees, “but I'm not going for Steve.”
“He'll be happy whatever your reason,” Sharon says, and Yasha nods.
“I just thought I'd say. So if you didn't see me, you wouldn't worry,” Yasha says.
“Thanks,” Sharon says. “I'll keep an eye on your place.”
“I'd appreciate that,” Yasha says. “I don't have any plants to water, but you never know who might sneak in, decide to stay.”
There's a twist of mischief to his smile, a sly sense of humour that she's never seen before outside of black and white.
“I'll see you when you get back, then,” she says.
“Yeah, you will,” Yasha says.
*
Two days later, Steve sends out a mass text.
Robbie came through surgery. Still sedated in the PICU. Will let all of you know when he wakes.
Glad to hear it, Sharon replies, certain her text mirrors those of at least a dozen other people.
Later, when she's settled in to watch a movie with a glass of wine and some microwave popcorn, her phone tinkles again. She expects a status change from Steve, but the number's unfamiliar.
Sticking around in NYC for a few more days, it says. Steve could use the company, and there's something I need to do.
Take your time, Sharon says. The apartment will be fine until you come back.
Thanks, is the reply.
Sharon smiles and adds the number to her phone's address book under Y.