Chapter Text
I knew something was off before I opened my eyes. The muffled light beyond my closed eyelids shone a warm, golden yellow, like the sun; not the usual cold, blinding pale that usually greeted me outside of sleep. I clearly wasn’t in the lab, or even the freezing chambers. I could feel my limbs, muscles not tense with premeditated action but instead sore and limp. My ankles didn’t sting from the chained cuffs — no, I wasn’t wearing cuffs at all. My head lolled slightly left, and that’s the other thing I realized: no splitting headache, no hard surface. My cheek felt like it was laying on linen, something soft and cushioned. Come to think of it, the whole of my body felt cushioned.
My last mission was in Berlin. It was to kill a travelling journalist who was reporting on a pattern of old, dead politicians who were all dying the same way. I remember the newspaper date during that time – 1999. They probably needed me to kill another possible exposé article-writer. Or maybe a runaway subject trying to escape via train. As long as I don’t have to work with one of the Soldiers, I think I can be back before bedtime –
“How are her vitals?” A cool, feminine, slightly raspy voice. English. American accent.
“Stable. She’s a little underfed, but that’s to be expected. Tube feeding during her time at the lab left her peaky. You got it from here.” A younger, warmer voice. Also a woman. American.
“Thanks.” I heard the footsteps disappear, like the young womans’. I quickly begin to theorize where I could possibly be – transferred, maybe? The last time that happened was very early on, from France to Russia…but that seemed like an eternity ago. I could have sworn my handlers had changed thrice during that time. Their hairs got greyer and skin sagged each time I woke, until a new person replaced them. I wonder if I finally got a female retainer. Not that it matters. I must’ve been transferred to an American base.
…I haven’t been forced awake yet. Why? They normally shake me harder than a child holding a gift on Christmas after their parents deliberately told them to be careful. This is the opposite, though. Whoever the lady in the room was, I could hear her footsteps walk a few paces away from me. Then sat down, from the sound of leather squashing. I was being waited on. I was being waited on, while warm light basked my skin like a gentle kiss. I was being waited on while laying on fine linen sheets on top of a plush mattress.
This must be some kind of conditioning again, it had to. Get me comfortable, then punish me the moment I yawn and snuggle a pillow. Yes, that’s it – well, I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of the quick reaction. I’m going to stay down, stay “dead” for as long as I can. The handlers usually get impatient after the first few minutes. I’ll wait for her to leave, then steal some barbiturates to finally overdose. Maybe I’ll actually succeed this time. I might’ve been exhausted from fighting, but taking pills for an eternal rest wasn’t nearly as difficult as attempting to escape. All I had to do was –
“Ach – oo!”
My eyes snapped open as my own nose betrayed me and my plotting. UGH. I blink multiple times from the brightness of the room, already mentally preparing myself for the worst while looking around. The whole place was buttery gold and decorated as if Truman was still in office with striped chairs, wooden frames, and even a shiny brown radio at my window. My window? I stared at the bright curtains, where the neon white of the Sun shone through the fabric –
“ – ow are you feeling? Are you alright?” The cool woman’s voice cut through my thoughts. She then spoke my name. Again. Repeated it in a way that I almost forgot that it was my name – I’ve gone by Alouette for so long, after all. It sounded like a mixture of odd sounds. I blink blearily up at her; tall, ginger beauty and all. Her eyes were some kind of glassy-green hazel, and much prettier than the old male handlers I’ve gotten before. Her clothes made me choke back a laugh: a plain white blouse, medium length brown skirt, black stockings and flat shoes that reminded me of the army women's uniform. Her belt had a golden buckle, though, that was way too fine to be bought with ration coupons if my memory decides to work for once. Her tie too – it was blue and had a silver thread pattern that looked pricy.
“Do you understand me, ma’am?” I blink back to attention. Right. Angel of death was asking me about my comprehension. She was a fake, after all – her collar was too rounded, the fabric, as I recalled as stiff from my day, looked soft and hugged her curves too perfectly. She was a pretender for something bigger. Претендент. I wasn’t entirely sure how this experiment was going to go, but if they went through this much to set up a dated look and actor, I may as well play along.
“You took a bit of a blow to the head,” The woman spoke slowly, gently. She was holding a clipboard and pencil. Her eyes flickered to the paper clipped on – it was blank. “What’s the last thing you remember?” Her lips were lined with the most vibrant red I’d ever seen – Victory Red, I think. I had a tube once myself, assigned, but I always thought it was stupid until a teacher mentioned Hitler hating lipstick.
I blink with faux-sleepy eyes. Maybe they were testing how loyal I’d stay if I was suddenly rescued. Or even a mind trick to see if I’d snitch. “I remember walking back to my tent at night. My…my friend, Becky, needed some help with her notes. We had a long day cataloging the dead.” I paused. “I just got the news that I was getting transferred.”
The woman blinked. “Oh? And where to?”
My brow furrowed. Now, the transfer part was true. But where? Come to think of it…“Hundred…and fifth? Sixth? No, seventh. Seven.” I don’t even know what those numbers properly mean now, probably some regiment. Transfers were common if men were understaffed on medics – really a game of what was convenient. Offensives, defensives, supply lines, all that mattered were how many men were coming and how many women we had.
She nodded. “And…how old would you say you w – are?” The lady almost didn’t say the ‘W’. Were. Technically didn’t make the sound. But her lips circled together for a moment, a brief moment that made me confirm the already-known fact that I’m probably older than twenty at this point (not that I look it, thank you very much).
“I’m twenty – twenty-two. My birthday was a few months ago.” I can’t believe I remembered that I lied about my age when enlisting. I was technically a week from turning seventeen, eighteen some eternity ago when I first signed up for the nursing corps, but it’s been a while since then – definitely not a teenager anymore. I add my fake birthday to make it sound more accurate. “September-seventeenth,” A pause. “’Scuse me, ma’am?” If we’re going to pretend that I wasn’t aware that I was being transferred from one HYDRA hellhole to another, I may as well bring out my old tongue while we’re at it. I fatten my vowels into some old stretchy twang from the old world.
The pretty lady blinked. “Yes?” I suddenly shifted to get up, my back like an iron rod trying to fit into a brittle wooden box. My shoulders shook at the feeling for a moment before sitting up. Looking down at the needles practically sewn in my flesh, I realized this introduction was taking too long; and I ought to speed things up in as little moves as possible.
The woman put her things on her bedside table before rushing to help me sit. I could smell her perfume – not that terrible alcohol and carbolic soap but instead something mature and powdery. “S-sorry, miss. Uh, I-I’m a little cold.” I smiled sheepishly through my nervous twang. “You don’t happen to have my jacket before goin’ further, do ya?”
“Oh,” The woman looked a little surprised. A moment of hesitation, before smiling. “I’m afraid your things are currently being cleaned and mended, but here – ” She ruffled off her coat, revealing a cream blouse with a round collar. Gosh, they really thought this through, didn’t they? I wonder what terrible test they have in store for me this time.
“Ah!” I yelped as I attempted to get out of bed. As the woman took off her coat, she threw her legs out of her bed and to the floor, trying to stand up. My legs buckled, as expected of someone with near-dead and dormant nerves, so I quickly grabbed my bed’s handles and the woman’s arm as she quickly swooped down to catch me. She had fast reflexes for someone who wasn’t stationed to fight – her uniform looked faker by the second.
“S-sorry, I’m just itchen’ to stretch my legs!” I laughed slightly, holding back the hysteria that comes with being able to walk freely for the first time since they cuffed my feet (I noticed my ankles had the cuff indents but not the actual metal links). “H-how long was I out?” I asked, still holding onto her arm.
The woman nodded and placed her coat around my shoulders. Not only was the fabric not stiff, it was warm and not scratchy. “...A few days. You fell and –”
“And now I’m here,” I hummed. I turned to the woman, studying her green eyes. Looking closer, they had a little ring of brown around the pupil. A few days – BULL. It’s been years, even I know that much. “Miss? What – sorry, what’s your name? I’m holdin’ onto you for dear life, and I don’t even know ya.” I give the kind of weak smile a poor, delicate, grateful patient would give.
She smiled in amusement at my accent. “Natalie. Rushman.”
“Well, that’s a real pretty name, Natalie-Rushman. And I’m real sorry for what I’m about to do.” My palm moved towards the back of her head before I could finish the last sentence.
SLAM!
I knew I hit her hard, but I didn’t actually think that it would knock her out. In my defense, I usually would have been tased by now for misbehavior – Natalie simply went limp against the ground as the only form of scolding that filled my ear was the sound of my heart beating out of my ribs. Looking at her perfect face, the only thing that changed was that her front bangs were now skewed from her face and a giant welt formed at her brow. Yeesh. Definitely not a handler, not that it mattered.
A bit of the curtain was now slanted from my hitting her head against the glass. The white light of what I assumed was the outside world was tempting to take a peek at, but my need to look for those little white pills containing my fatal freedom held precedence. Well, it did, until a quick search of the room made me realize there was no medication here. After unplugging myself from the cobweb of wires, I realize there’s nothing here outside of bandages and tongue depressors. Говно.
Well, I may as well take a quick look around at the new compound I’ll be forced to serve. Ignoring my shaky legs, I sprint out of my room to see my new environment. A part of me hoped to just see the same compound I’ve woken up to after every Session, but instead I’m greeted to blue walls instead of grey, filtered lights that weren’t blinding, and plastic flooring that was smooth (not concrete). My feet were barefooted, and looking down, I realized the teeth marks from my shackles were dented but not red. I was unchained and barefoot for the first time in forever. Good, I ran better without shoes anyway.
Truthfully, I hadn’t the foggiest idea as to where I was heading when I started to sprint; I just wanted to get as far away as possible from Natalie and whatever handler I was probably going to be pawned off to. The cold air wasn’t nearly as harsh as the ice, which usually made my spine ache something fierce.
I run. I run as fast as I can, as long as I can, even if it’s not much. I have no idea where I'm going, as this is clearly a new compound, but I ignore whatever fears I have to find some kind of exit. Looking around, the only things here are worthless – hiding in the bathroom would inevitably corner me, the closed windows are clearly not an option (especially since I can’t see what’s outside), and there are only more doors here, doors where I brace myself to be opened at any time. Christ – where in the SAM HILL am I!?
I suddenly stiffen as I hear footsteps coming up behind me. Hiding behind a corner, I see it’s some kind of an agent – standard suit, earpiece, sunglasses indoors – he’s too distracted to notice me coming from his side. He also had a gun to his belt – perfect. Just as he was about to get to my turn, I lunged, tackling his middle and taking us both to the ground. He cries out so loudly I remember anyone could be nearby and hastily slam his head against the floor to put him to sleep. I quickly raid him – I’m not wearing much other than a hospital gown and my birthday suit, so I steal his blazer and his gun. I was about to run off when I also took his sunglasses to use as a headband to keep the hair out of my face.
I sprint again, this time holding a gun with both hands at the helm and crouching whenever I think I hear something. My hands won’t stop shaking, even if I feel perfectly lucid – whatever drugs they’d given me this time clearly aren’t working. HYDRA’s losing their touch. I’d run down random hallways, rooms, but avoided elevators like the plague – this whole floor is huge, which makes me wonder what the hell the compound’s got in for me this time: no drugs, a random lady waking me, and no handlers? But this whole floor looks fortified and strong…it’s like an expensive dollhouse whose insides are all cheap and plasticky. Nothing makes sense here.
I’m gonna need a cigarette after this – do they even make those now? Whatever, I don’t even breathe that filth to begin with. Wait, do I?
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
“ALL AGENTS – CODE THIRTEEN! CODE THIRTEEN! YES, IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN!”
СУКИН СЫН.
Natalie’s pretty voice echoed across the hallway. I couldn’t even stop to be baffled at how she managed to wake up so fast when I instinctively took the gamble of taking the nearest elevator.
“You –!”
Another suited agent came out from a closed door and gaped at my being in the oversized dumbwaiter. I couldn’t help but grin like a sinner as the doors shut before he could even make it halfway to where I was. At this point I was bracing my back as I saw the number on the screen next to me slowly descend…seven…six…five…four…I oughtta pray or somethin’, right? HYDRA’s probably got a group of men with clubs cartoonishly waiting outside.
Ding!
Nah.
“...Говно.”
…I was kidding about the clubs, I swear, but the men in suits seemed to have read my mind before I could even finish the concept. Dozens of agents stop walking to point and lunge at me like seagulls to a fish. I don’t even bother to breathe as I duck down to slide past them with my bare feet. My legs ached and the skin of my knees burned, but I manage to topple and trip most by the time the air around me smelled less warm with people and cooler with –
“ARGH!”
One of the agents managed to get on top of me. He was hot, heavy, and blundering in a way that made every patch of my skin that he touched sear like it’s been burned. I didn’t even realize I was screaming at the top of my lungs and the deepest depths of my throats until after I manage to find a a gun at his hip and –
BAM!
“She’s armed, she’s armed!”
Hot blood oozed and blanketed my leg as I managed to get out from under the agent’s now-limp body. Then, an idea – I grabbed the collar of another nearby agent (he was trying to sneak away to call for backup) and placed the smoking end to his temple, making them all freeze. Looking down, my bare footprints were scarlet against the dark floor. The muscles in my legs were pulsing. The room was suddenly quiet as they all stared at me like a freak attraction at the circus.
“One of you guys is gonna tell me where the hell I really am,” I kissed the gun’s barrel to his temple even further, hearing his breath hitch. The adrenaline pumping through my veins makes my throat feel like needles. “Or he gets it.”
Notes:
Merged part 2 to look easier, I think
Chapter 2: A Price for a Patch
Chapter Text
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Suddenly, the agents all scatter to the sides of the wall. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea – even the man I shot in the leg from earlier, managed to be pushed against the wall. Aside from his groaning, the sound of footsteps filled the room. Two. One heavier and slower. Another softer and faster.
I wanted to laugh at the first man. Tall, bald, broad-shouldered adult in his sixties walked down the middle of the split hall. He had dark skin and an equally dark look in his eye, the same kind the Winter Soldiers back in the compound would have after completing a mission. But as he scanned the room, his eye did something theirs didn’t – twitch.
“Do all people from your generation put up a violent fight when they wake up from an ice coma, or is it just the army folk?” He looked around and studied the scene – the bleeding man, the hostage, the braced agents. Panicking less, I realized he was wearing an eyepatch, and a deep scar over the flesh. His closed coat was long and black, with matching gloves. No suit – clearly their boss. I stifled a laugh.
“Dunno. Do all pirates bury their treasure, or is Blackbeard just the weird guy in your friend group?” A ghost of a smirk haunted his face before he raised a brow.
“You’ve got jokes.”
“I’ve got a gun.”
“And one of my best men –” He nods his bald head towards the man she was still pressing the barrel to. “Oscar Simmons. Has a wife and three kids. All girls. He makes a mean horchata.” A pause. “It’d be a damn shame if you shot him.”
I couldn’t help the smile on my cheeks – this is the farthest I’ve ever gotten in a long time. “I don’t give a damn if he’s Jesus Christ served on a platter. And last I checked – ” My grip on Oscar tightened as I pointed the gun to Moses’ next. “Your eyepatch is giving me a hell of a target.”
“Then pull it,” He said simply. “You could’ve killed me, Oscar, and Nat over here a long time ago.” Natalie, now with her hair disheveled and a nasty, nasty bruise blooming over her brow, walked beside him. Her eyes weren’t as friendly as before, eyeing me curiously – definitely not friendly, but not cold like a Soldier. “Speaking of, you should be proud. Ain’t that right, Natasha? How the hell you managed to knock out a Widow I’ll never know, especially in your state.” He stared at Natalie – Natasha – with a raised brow, like a father waiting for an explanation for a broken vase. Ah. Widow. That explains her quick recovery time.
Her voice wasn’t cruel, nor was it warm. “Southern charm is a hell of a weapon.”
So that’s it? I’m in a Widow facility? Am I going to see the Red Room? I smirked, turning my gun back to Oscar. “Glad to know I’ve still got it.”
Eyepatch sighed. “Listen, sweetheart. That gun only has so many bullets. And you – your legs can’t take much standing. I can tell that much. And I know you won’t kill Oscar –” He ignored her clicking the gun. “ – Because you didn’t kill Phil here either.” He gestured to the injured man, nursing his shot leg with another agent's jacket.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He walked closer to her, making my eyes widen and jaw lock. My nose scrunched and eyes twitched out of instinct – a habit I’d developed as a way of showing my disgust even after hours of lab-ratting. “You could’ve shot Phil in the stomach, you know. But I saw the footage – you moved your hand down, even if it felt like hell to. You showed mercy.”
I tilted her head. “The stomach won’t bleed as much as the leg will. It has fewer veins and arteries. The blood spill can buy me time to run.” I don’t bother to think as to how the hell I even knew that.
The man stopped walking when he was about a foot away from me. He nodded at my reasoning, looking…impressed? I haven’t seen that in a long time, let alone for something that didn’t involve my knuckles turning purple. “You were a damn good nurse, weren’t you?
Nurse.
I didn’t drop the gun. I didn’t move from my position. The word almost seemed foreign to my ears as he said it. I remembered putting in so much effort into forgetting it for a while that I felt my stomach sour as he said it again. Nurse. So this was HYDRA’s new form of play – bringing up the past to those they hadn’t brainwashed yet. I know I shouldn’t play along, but…
“...I was the best.” It was like mentioning the dead.
Handler or not, Eyepatch looked almost sympathetic to me. “I know. You had a perfect track record. Hell of a healer. One of the few women who could get away with breaking orders of staying back if it meant carrying more men.” He paused. “And they let you because a save from you guaranteed one more unburied soldier.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed,” My eyes feel dry and heavy, almost as heavy as Oscar’s weight against my arm. “Over some trivia you could get through a book?”
He gave me a small smile, but the warmth didn’t reach his eyes. “I know you won’t kill him. Whatever the hell – and I mean Hell – you’ve been through, it clearly isn’t enough for you to lose your mind. That’s why we’re still talking. Why Nat here ain't dead –” Natasha rolled her eyes. “And why Phil is only asleep.” I looked at Phil, who was knocked out. Some other agents were wrapping his shot leg with their own jackets – funny, the HYDRA agents at my old facility were more Spartan about weak units.
“Tell you what –” He held his hand out. “I know what you really want. An explanation. Shoes. Real clothes,” His eyes flickered to my hair, and the sunglasses. “A comb. If you let Oscar go, I’ll give you the full works, with no consequences.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll take care of you myself – and believe me, sweetheart, I don’t normally kill old ladies.” I suddenly felt some kind of a weighted presence behind me. Turning my head, I almost jolt at the sight of Natasha staring expectantly at me. How the HELL did she get there!? Those damn Widows get better by the decade, it seems.
“What’s your name, Patches?”
“Nicholas J. Fury.” His hand was still outstretched. “But most just call me Fury.”
I scoffed before pushing Oscar in his direction. He helped the man up, who then ran in the other direction as fast as he could. “I’m keepin’ the gun,” I say flatly, despite feeling my stomach weaken from hunger and back hurt from standing. I quickly unloaded the gun, before letting it rest at my side. He didn’t look phased at all at the statement.
“Fine by me.”
I fight the urge to vomit as Natasha sits demurely across from me. My whole throat feels like sand and the peach of my skin is damp with sweat. Turns out that cobweb of fluids they were pumping into me were the only things keeping me full since taking me out of the ice. Now that they’re out, I’m only able to pant like a dog and fight the urge to sleep as I wait for people to reset my room up again.
My tongue was dry as I swallowed shallowly. “Sorry about the,” I nodded to her bruised brow. “...I overreacted a little.” A shitty attempt at humor, if I do say so myself.
Her glassy eyes dragged over my body, like she was assessing if I was worth talking to or not. I hate how perfectly pretty she is – really, if I had to pick my torture cult, at least the Red Room made their victims pretty. Minus the involuntary hysterectomies, repeated trauma, and psychological torture stemming from childhood. Maybe that’s it – maybe I’ve finally been disposed to the Red Room. HYDRA always did try to replicate their Widows to varying degrees of failure. Even my first scientist and handler once said – ‘Well, you might be our only successful attempt at a replication. ’ Though I never knew of what at the time.
It feels as if a metal poker is being jabbed into my left lobe. My stomach has a weight in it that doesn’t seem to digest or move. My head seems to pound harder. Natasha seemed to notice this, because she gives me a look of what I think is almost-pity.
“I shouldn’t have underestimated your strength,” She coolly admitted. “Withdrawals or not, you’re still technically considered a weapon.”
I give a shaky huff of a laugh. My knee won’t stop bouncing as my spine becomes a steel rod against the chair I was in. Fury had led us into a side room until my room was reset. “What happened to the Army roleplay?” I was still wearing the sunglasses and stolen jacket, but placed the gun on the table between us. I didn’t trust my twitchy fingers. “I liked the softer voice on you.”
She raised a playful brow. “What happened to the Southern charm?”
My patience with the pleasantries were shortening with each moment – not her fault, but stopped bouncing my leg to cross one foot on my knee and now the tip of my foot won’t stop wagging like a tail. “Just tell me where I am.” Patches stepped out to get my file, but I wasn’t really feeling polite. “Please.” I hated begging. I haven’t said ‘Please’ genuinely in years. I swallowed the proverbial sand in my throat.
“I wasn’t there when they extracted you, so it’s not like I can give you the full rundown,” I must’ve looked disappointed, because after a beat, she added, “But we found you in a base somewhere in Russia. Again, I wasn’t there so I can’t –”
“Russia,” I grunted, licking my lips. “Keep going.”
“A friend of mine found you. He said you put up a hell of a fight, though, even after realizing you were a prisoner.” A pause. “That’s why we tried the whole roleplay thing on you. We weren’t sure how far gone you were.”
Nodding along (and fighting nodding off), I ask, “Were there others? Like me?” To elaborate, “Subjects. Agents…others?”
She shook her head. “Just you. We think they rotated around, maybe caught wind of us being onto them. The place was flushed out.” That aligns with my own memory, but the idea of everyone managing to escape feels off to me – sure, they usually sent the agents out for missions, but staff? Handlers? Either the Widow was lying to me (possibly, wouldn’t put it past her) or someone tipped them off. Either way –
“And your boss is okay with you just saying all of this to me? Patches?”
Natasha tilted her head. “My friend was very adamant on vouching for you. Apparently your file made him go soft.”
I feign disinterest. “Hell of a friend you have.” She smiled. For a moment, the pain in my body felt tolerable. Sure, my head was pounding in every direction in an attempt to leave my skull and my jaw twitched a mile a minute, but the talking felt almost balmy to my mind. Still, the annoyance of my annoyingly dry, moves-with-me skin on my fingers made me want to jump her. Sorry, Natalie. I raise my brows (it hurts my head) and smile widely. “So…Widow, right? You’re shorter than I thought you’d be. Figured all of you guys would be tall, graceful gazelles…you’re more like me.”
Natasha raised a brow, looking at my shitty condition. “Okay, not like-like me, just –”
“Taller. Buffer. I got it.”
I snicker, my foot finally stopping its constant wagging. “Relax, I meant no offense. Really – did you know how many times HYDRA tried to make their own Widows? Spies are one thing, but Widows – y’all are daintier. Less controlled and more seductive. They even tried to make a few of their own.”
“Oh? And how did that turn out?”
I stand from my chair and remove the blazer from my shoulders. I lower the back of my hospital gown and show the back where a long, Frankenstenian line followed from the cervical of my spine to my lumbar, to further down. There used to be stitch scars, but the passage of time made it fade into what I can best describe as folded skin. Imagine bread dough that’s been divided with a scraper, and the split looking like a deep, dark line. I oddly relish the sickened look on Natasha’s face. Despite her Widow’s nature to keep a deadpan, her eyes were wide and nose was unconsciously scrunched. And her brows – oh, her brows – they were furrowed beautifully, gloriously slightly upwards. Since I first felt and saw my scars I thought I was going to go crazy thinking they were horrid – the handlers didn’t seem to react in agreement at all, even praising it as a miracle. It felt nice to finally not feel like it was not all in my head.
“Terrible – they usually die. Scientists never could nail the obedience thing without brainwashing or some kind of control switch. The seventeenth one survived, though, but she got tinkered a lot in order to stay maintained in between icings.” I walk over and offer her my hand with a grin. “Subject Seventeen.” I pause for a moment, then quickly mutter what I think (it’s been a while) is my real name. She returns her face back into something guarded. She takes it.
“Natasha Romanoff.” She stands to her proper height. Again, I thought she’d be taller. I stopped grinning as my head decided to catch up to my cheeks in pain.
“Hey, Romanova,” I huff, realizing how hot my breath is. That sandy feeling in my throat had dissolved and migrated to my chest and shoulders. “Can you do me a favor? Promise I won’t jump you this time.”
She turns her head slightly. “What?”
“Catch me.”
My eyes close before I hit the floor. My head felt like a ton of bricks while keeping lucid enough to talk. My body relaxes as I feel her quickly grab me, those fast reflexes kicking in again. My mouth is slightly open as my body finally drifts off to drowsiness, or at least it does, before I hear the door open –
“Really, Romanoff? Getting even with a sick woman? You knocked her out, didn’t you?” Fury.
I felt Natasha shrug her shoulders as she adjusted her hold on me. “Couldn’t let her think I felt bad for her, sir. She could still be loyal to HYDRA, after all.”
“Mhm. Sure.”
Chapter 3: Spoonful of Molasses helps the Medicine go Down
Chapter Text
It’s the year 2014, and I’m in New York City. I’m in a medical unit that’s run by a private operative government group called S.H.I.E.L.D., and they recently extracted me out of a HYDRA base in Siberia. Or, at least, that’s what the file at my bedside read. Fury gave me a brief overview of what they’d gathered so far and promised to keep me updated – but between me and myself, I know they’re probably unsure as to where my loyalties lie. Sure, I’m not brainwashed, but I still did the whole “Gun to temple” hostage thing and put a bullet into one of their guys’ legs. They’re definitely going to try and get me to spill about HYDRA, but I have no idea if I even can – knowing them, they’re probably going to send a Soldier to –
Говно. ГОВНО. SHIT.
They’re probably going to send a Winter Soldier to take care of this shitshow of a situation. They always do, and this time, they might just kill me instead of dragging me back.
Ебена мать. I still remember one of the last times I worked with one of those muzzled monsters – they made me track and gather intel while they took out some rogue soldiers (regular army ones) hiding in some Latin peninsula. They’re not gentle, not even with people who are assigned to work with them. The big bastard heard me confirm my stealing of intel and immediately started to blow the place to hell while I was still in there. Mind you, this was a two-person operation. When I nearly died escaping the place, that son of a bitch just grabbed me by the scruff like some dog and dragged me to the escape truck like I was nothing.
“Don’t – Don’t FUCKING touch me! Do NOT touch me!” I barked after he’d swung me into the empty space of the truck to catch my breath. I could feel where his hands were – burning against my own skin. Again, not gentle. You know how that disgusting monster bastard reacted to that? He scoffed and rolled his eyes, muttering a hoarse ‘You’re welcome’ before focusing on the escape ride.
I think – no, I know – I’d rather kill myself than go through that again. The humiliation of being carried back to base by some abomination and perversion of what HYDRA considers an ‘ideal specimen’, the burning touch that lingers when you come into contact with something filthy – those Soldiers are nothing more than scum. Brainwashed and trained, whoever they used to be now replaced by an automaton of a hunting dog.
I’d rather die than be taken back; let alone by one of them. Hell, I’d rather die than be touched or killed by one of them. They’re probably tracking me right now, probably already –
“ – Ma’am? Ma’am!”
I look up. A young man with warm brown eyes looks down at me with slightly furrowed brows. He’s wearing scrubs. I blink, hearing an odd beeping sound nearby. Looking at my heart rate monitor, the spikes of my beatings were raised significantly. “...What?”
“You need to breathe with me, ma’am. Your heart’s having stress palpitations.”
“...Oh. Right.” I copy how his chest rises and falls as he starts to smile awkwardly at what I imagine is his first day on the job. It would explain the inability to look me in the eye. Either that or I was now considered the unruly patient whom they had to draw straws for, which also checks out. The blue on his scrubs reminds me of the blue of my old uniform. The same kind of sleepy, dusty, periwinkle blue that I had back when I was a –
“So are you a doctor, or something?” I ask, studying him now writing something down on a clipboard. He smiled shyly.
“Me? Oh, no, I’m just a nurse. I’ve been the one setting up your stuff and making sure your medication is routinely updated.” He turned around and grabbed a tray from the table near the door. “Speaking of –”
I stiffened at the shine of the capped needle he was holding. I’ve had enough of those at the compound, but before I could even consider trying to get away, I notice –
“Am I fucking shackled to the bed?” It’s not the first time that this had happened, HYDRA didn’t like having loose rats scurrying about, but I’d assumed that in this new, probably non-evil setting that they’d be above this. He cringed apologetically.
“I wasn’t the one who suggested it. After you, uh…”
“...got rabid and slippery like a drunk eel on oil, go on.”
“Well, after that Director Fury didn’t want to take any chances.”
I sigh. “’Course he didn’t.”
“In his defense, you did shoot a guy and held another at gunpoint.”
“...I was cranky. Woke up on the wrong side of the world.” My tongue felt itchy. “Do you guys have molasses cookies here?” I suddenly ask.
“What?”
“Molasses cookies. I know they’re probably rationed, but are there any here at all?” He blinked like he was trying to comprehend what I was saying. I didn’t know why, but I had a horrid hankering for something sweet. That, and the jittering in my bones was getting to me. My head didn’t hurt as much, but I still felt jumpy. The bed shackle around my right ankle didn’t help.
I purse my lips suddenly. They don’t ration things anymore, last I checked. I hadn’t been outside in a while, but the last time I got defrosted I remember seeing restaurants and boutiques without a single advertisement of couponing nor long lines for soup. My cheeks suddenly burn.
“Uh…I don’t think we have molasses cookies, but I can check if we have anything else that’s sweet. You’re going through withdrawals, so it’s not like we can give you straight sugar, but I can definitely try and wrangle you something.” I smile weakly. This reminds me of a time where a dying trenchman begged for a smoke, but we’d been fresh out for a while. I ended up lying to him on his deathbed that the higher ups just ordered a couple of Cubans in order to keep the dopey look of hope in his eyes going before he croaked.
This guy was probably lying to me too. “You’re a good nurse,” I lean back and study him. He was cleaning my arm and trying to spot a fresh vein for my fluid line. His brow furrowed in the same kind of concentration that someone inexperienced and afraid of embarrassment would have. Despite the sudden chill running up my back, I give him a hand. “Don’t use your eyes to find a vein, kid. Use your fingertips, pretend you’re blind. Here –” Ignoring whatever worries I had before, I took his non-needle-holding hand before he could protest, and pressed his fingertips against my forearm. “Press down, see how it bounces back? Spongey, right? It’s not fatty like flesh.”
He turned pink, probably embarrassed about getting schooled by a patient. “...I knew that. I just suck at vein-finding.” I hum.
“Don’t worry. Once you figure it out, you won’t even think twice about getting the fattest needle and jabbing it into someone’s arm.” A pause. “Have to say, though, your syrettes look different. Ours had a little squeezy tube at the end, not a giant…” I eye the push attachment. “Thing.”
He smiled. “It’s been a couple years since the war, we’ve improved a lot with medicine since then.” Something about that made me feel sicker than I already was.
“How many years?”
The nurse’s face suddenly froze, like he was hesitant to tell me. Sure, I could do the math, but – “How many years,” I repeat. “Has it been?”
“...about seventy.”
Chapter 4: Oh Sweetness, I was only joking when I said...
Chapter Text
[1941 - French military camp]
It was a long day of patching up soldiers. One man, Robbie, had lost an eye and I spent the whole day trying to help him. I tried to be polite, I really did, even when he was being an absolute jackass to me.
“Get lost, sister,” That’s what the Canadian soldiers called us – sister. We were all so close in age, some of us, that it couldn’t be helped that we clung together like kids waiting for our parents to come back. Robbie was in a rotten mood, understandably, since his eye got jabbed with a wooden pike. He could easily pass as my little brother in age. “Nothin’ you can do. And that soup tastes like hell.”
I tried to ask for more salt, cream and tomatoes in the soup, but when Head Nurse Mearie (we (well, mostly me) liked calling her Drearie when she wasn’t around) overheard she gave me an earful of something awful. “You think tomatoes grow on trees?” She snapped.
Technically, yes. “No, ma’am.”
“It’s a waste of rations to be tamperin’,” She put her hands on her hips like she was my mother and not barely ten years older. “’Specially salt and cream.”
“But aren’t the good stuff meant to be used on our boys?” I tried to argue. “What else are we savin’ for, then?”
“Our healthy boys,” She corrected. Her undereye bags had gotten worse since leaving London. “Poor souls like Robbie can eat sleep for a while.” I knew it was bad to throw a fit, but I didn’t stop my face from forming a natural glare through my lids. Drearie clearly noticed, because she sighed. “I know you want to help. But we’re stretched thin as it is. Better we be smart and use what we have on whoever’s still walkin’ than a long shot like Robert, alright?”
Still, that night, after changing into my nightgown and waiting for the girl next to me fall asleep, I snuck out of my bedroll and wandered barefoot to the box of saved foods. Rummaging around, there was a pile of canned veggies in between the coffee and cigarette preserves. Looking around, I found a beat-up tin of tomatoes that was leaking at the end, but would definitely not be missed. The cream was the harder part to find, though – damn things were guarded in the ice box. Luckily, I knew a guy who had access – Mikey – who let me take a cupful in exchange for a letter exchange to his girlfriend Mary-Ann.
“Your feet look dirty,” Robbie noticed with his one eye the next morning. I wasn’t wearing stockings, so some dirt was visible (I could only bathe at night, so by now I looked a right mess) through my shoes. Poor soul was probably trying to get a feel for the new depth change. “What did you do?”
I smile and give him a bowl of soup. “Taste and find out.”
He did. Not bothering with spoons, he lifted the bowl’s edge and took a sip. His single dark eye widened. “Holy hell,” He murmured. “That’s some good stuff, sister.” My grin widened.
“I got some bread too,” I lifted a few slices wrapped in a cloth. “It’s still soft and everything.”
Robbie gave me the first smile I’d seen him give since losing his eye last week. It was half-lifted (half of his face hurt) and brief, but I could tell it was genuine. “This must be that fancy French cuisine I’ve been hearin’ about.” He paused, looking down at the bowl and the bread. “Thank you.”
A while later Drearie called me over to her station. She eyed my shoes and my mussed hair as she spoke. I was too tired to comb my hair early in the morning, which is something I normally did if I didn’t stay up late pilfering ration boxes. “Robbie slept like a baby today.”
I nodded, trying to look bored and nonchalant. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her eyes go over my body again. There was a long pause. “...Must be that new medication.”
I play along. “Must be.”
She hummed, then went back to her clipboard. “Keep administering, then. Back to work, sister.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
[2014 - Present-day]
“I know it’s not much, but it’s sweet and good. You’ve been tube-fed for so long, plus withdrawing, so it’s not like I can give you much, but –”
“It’s fine, you tried.” I stare down at the bottles across my bed tray. I’d spent the whole night wracked in layers of blankets, shivering half to death only to be thrown into a terrible sleep. When I finally woke, the nurse attending to me had set a tray of colorful, plastic-wrapped bottles in front of me. Juices of the most vibrant colors – modern farming must make the best kind of fruits, I surmise. I take a sip of the apple juice and make a face. It’s rich. Very rich, hitting my throat while sugar soaked my tongue. “Jesus – that’s very –” I pause, thinking if I was too ungrateful they’d cut me off of any sugar for my cravings. “...like liquid candy.” He gave me a sympathetic smile.
“Yeah, juices are a lot more sugary around here.”
I hum, looking at my fingernails. They’re unclipped but contain no dirt underneath. Licking my lips, the sugar still sticks to my mouth. Enough to suckle on as I ask, “Am I just gonna be kept here forever?”
He tilts his head. “What do you mean?”
“It’s been seventy years. I can’t exactly integrate back into society like nothing happened. Heck, I’m not even used to seeing a man be a nurse – no offense,” I quickly note, but he doesn’t seem offended. “I think my Russian’s better than my English now. There’s no place for me here. Even this room was made to keep me in. Not help me out.”
The man’s face softened in a way I didn’t like. Too kind. Too understanding – like he knew what it felt like to be frozen for seven decades. To only be woken up to be tinkered and taken out.
To kill people against your will.
My heart suddenly stilled against my chest. Forget nursing – I’m a sinner. Through and through. It doesn’t matter whose will it was, the blood on my hands was enough to ensure that I’d never be allowed a normal life. My fault or not. I suddenly felt like Robbie.
I’d been shivering all morning, even being given a sweater and extra blankets to accommodate my chills, but for this moment I was perfectly still. “You just got here,” He spoke slowly, clearly trying to be tactful. “There’s a lot you don’t know. A lot we don’t know, even. Sure, you might be behind, but…” Nurse shakes his head. “I wouldn’t call you hopeless.”
I smile bitterly. “You talk as if this place has had experience with war veterans who woke up after seventy years of refrigeration.”
That made him break into an awkward smile, the kind you’d have if you were caught laughing at a funeral but couldn’t help yourself. His cheeks pinkened but he didn’t say anything.
“Ma’am, you have no idea.”
Chapter 5: The Chills
Chapter Text
[2014 - Present-day]
It’s late at night again. The nurse – Jean – had to leave for the evening, apologizing for the billionth time about not being able to open the windows. “It’s for your safety,” He gave a weak smile, but it didn’t change the fact that I felt like hell.
The heat didn’t let. Since waking up and trying to escape, my blood had been hot and my skin had been cold. And that was the other thing – since my stint, my muscles had been sore. I can’t bend my legs, not without the muscle crunching inside me like I’d wrung it dry a hundred times. I tried taking off my hospital gown for some comfort, but I’d just shiver myself sick whenever I tried. It was either sweating all night or shivering, and usually fighting nausea by morning.
I couldn’t stop drooling either. The trash can next to me was always filled a quarter ways with spit by morning. Jean’d given me some odd tablet to put under my tongue, and the first few times I’d take it, I fought every muscle in my body not to just spit it out and try to break my ankle chain to make a run for it. It tasted like the saltiest, most rotten lime – sour and sizzling until my mouth was filled with acidic water that I couldn’t wait to spit out once dissolved.
It was the same routine every night, every hour – spit, shiver, gag. Spit, shiver, gag. Spit, shiver, gag, spit, shiver, gag, spit, shiver, gag. Jean stopped trying to comfort me by the third morning, and knew to just replace my trash can by the fourth.
I wanted to die. Hell had to be colder than here. I’d throw up for the umpteenth time, feeling only my head splitting open as my chest rapidly rose and fell before falling into a terrible sleep.
Eventually, though, I’d come up with an idea. I spent most of the day sleeping — for whatever reason I was still exhausted after seventy years of being refrigerated — but tried to keep my brain busy whenever I was awake. Whenever Jean was around, I’d quiz him on whatever I could. It would be abrupt and sharp, and he soon grew to dread it, but I always thought it was funny when —
“A soldier comes screaming into your tent with trench foot — ”
“Aw, c’mon, I just ate — ”
“Shut up — a soldier comes screamin’ into your tent with trench foot. You’re currently workin’ on a guy with a bullet infection, but he’s awake for once and talkin’. There’s also a third guy who came in earlier to treat his cold. Who do you care for first? ”
“Uh…trench foot? ”
I blew a raspberry. “Pbbt — wrong! You keep with the bullet boy! If trench foot is screamin’, that means he’s well enough to live. He can wait with sicko. ”
“But he could lose his leg! ”
“So? Bullet’s been asleep this whole time. He’s running outta time as is, so you better spend all your effort into motherin’ him. ”
It wasn’t half-bad, seeing his prim little polite face get frazzled. I once threw in a surprise answer of wound-cleaning — maggots — and laughed until I got a migraine at his reaction (“Hrrk — I think I’m gonna be sick, and I just watched a liver get removed last night!” ). I learned real quick that weak stomachs were still a thing in the nursing world — I always thought it was annoying when a girl would gag over a poor soldier’s wounds, but now it’s the funniest thing I’d see all day.
[1980 - Boxcar to Berlin]
“Ну-ну, милая Алуэтт, пожалуйста, следи за нашей темой.”
Now, now, sweet Alouette, please follow our subject.
I could feel the wind in my hair, a different kind of cold compared to the ice bath I was put in before this. Where the ice was wet, consuming, and invasive, the wind slid past me like I was nothing. It brushed and kissed against my skin as I stiffly made my way to the connecting boxcar. As the train shook from its own turn, I didn’t. I deftly moved against my own accord, one left going against the other in jumping the small gap to the other boxcar.
Its door was already open. I could see the man inside, shrunken and shaking. There was nothing in that car but hay and dust as I made my way to him. Closer, closer, step by step. The metal rods attached to my bones pulsed as I did.
The shrunken man saw me approach and suddenly began backing up against a corner, eyes darting desperately for a door, hatch, or miracle. His sweating face and flushed skin was only rivaled in intensity with his breathing.
“P-please –” He gasped, grasping at the straw around him. “You don’t have to do this. You – you have a choice, you have a choice, I know you do!”
My hands moved fluidly to my hip, where a gun was tied to my belt. I start to recite the words forced into my tongue by the handler in my ear. “You escaped HYDRA’s containment lab three weeks ago. Do you deny it? ” I began loading the gun – I’d run out of ammo taking out the other passengers.
His gaze narrowed. “No, no I don’t. I couldn’t stand another day of being opened up and tinkered with –” He closed his eyes and swallowed, looking as I slowly moved the bullet. “But that’s not you I’m talking to –” His eyes meet mine again. Wide, tired, dark. “Listen to me! You – you – I know your name isn’t actually Alouette!”
That made my fingers still their movements. Despite the gun in my hand, he clasps his shaking palms around mine like a prayer and looks up at me beseechingly. “I don’t know who you are, but I know you’re not brainwashed like the Soldiers! I know they’re making you do this! They made me do things too!” His panting lessened as a determined glint came into his eyes. “Fight! Throw the gun out and run away with me! We can finally be free from them!”
I hesitate. It’s the first time a target’s spoken back to me in a long time.
“I’ve seen you at the labs! I know you hate it just as much as me! We – we have the same blood, dammit!” It’s true – HYDRA always tried to keep as many people with the same blood type, so any kind of transfers would be easy to perform. “Please, sister!”
My eyes flicker at that. "...sister?" I croak. They called the subjects brothers and sisters due to their shared blood. Your sister was here yesterday. Your brother performed this poorly. But it wasn't just that. My hand twitches involuntarily.
Suddenly, my arm is yanked back into aiming position to his head. I couldn’t control it as my earpiece hisses – “Стреляй в него, Севентин! Чего ты ждёшь?!” Shoot him, Seventeen! What are you waiting for?!
The man on his knees in front of me isn’t afraid, though. “Fight,” He whispers so sharply it almost blends with the wind outside. “Fight it, please. Fight. I know you can. We can disappear, never be hurt again, just throw the gun away.”
"I -"
"Please. We can leave all this behind. You can tell me your real name, and I'll tell you mine. We'll never be cut again, doesn't that sound nice?"
My finger is fighting the trigger – it hurts like all-fire. My knuckle is fighting the unstoppable force of the order against my own reaction to his words. Fight. Free. Freedom. Just throw the gun out. Throw the gun away. That’s it, just turn your arm –
BZZT!
“ARGH!”
BANG!
My back suddenly snaps straight as a sharp pain ignites across all nerves and cells under and against my skin. As I close my eyes and cry out in agony, my finger instinctively crunches the trigger, forcing the bullet to deafeningly go off.
I fall to my knees as the pain ebbs from my body, realizing my mouth is suddenly coated in something metallic and warm. Raising my head and opening my eyes, I look at my surroundings. The whole boxcar was spinning wood as my vision clouds with black, dissolving spots. The man’s head is now blown off. Blood spatters behind him like paint, but also all over my chin and mouth. I spit out the fluid in my tongue, gagging as the voice hums into my ear –
“Ты такая стерва, даже после всех этих лет. Какой позор. Хорошо, что у нас есть эти профилактические меры, не правда ли??"
You're such a bitch, even after all these years. What a shame. It's good that we have these preventative measures though, isn't it?
The pain is still blinding as I catch my breath from the pain. At this point, it wasn’t the blood that made me gag but pain in my throat and back. I involuntarily shiver as a chill of agony goes down my back. I could hear the handler click his tongue in faux sympathy as he cooed –
“Ой, не грусти так. Вот, возьми себе что-нибудь, чтобы подбодриться.”
Oh, don’t be so down. Have a little something to tide you over.
I felt the locket, metal pocket attached to my belt beep. Then – click . The fastener unlocked. Inside was a small pill. I take it with shaking fingers and raise it to my lips to swallow, washing it down with the blood on my tongue.
The effect was immediate – my head stopped hurting and my back straightened as I stood. My eyes were wide with alertness again.
“Возвращайся на базу, Алуэтт. Тебе нужно вздремнуть.”
Get back to base, Alouette. You need a nap.
I look at the star-shaped spatter in his head. Nothing but meat beyond the skin. "Yes, sir."
Chapter 6: Carte Blanche
Chapter Text
“Razors have definitely been downgraded since my time.”
“Oh yeah?”
Sure, Natasha and I may have had a rough first meeting (She now no longer stands near walls when visiting me) but she’s become oddly present in making sure I recovered well. Jean says that she’s got strings that let her visit whenever she wants, but I doubt anyone would want to see me even if there weren’t any rules.
‘Spare me the pity, ’ I once chattered through gritted teeth. The first time Nat visited, she had that same tense, guarded look that she normally did; but with a hint of a worried brow. The same kind Jean first had that always pissed me off. Withdrawals were shit, but being treated like glass was shittier.
She does this thing where she brings a few modern objects to introduce me to each visit. “I was technically going to be in charge of your integration,” She recalled. “Before – you know.” She tapped her healed brow.
Sometimes it’s a newspaper clipping about the stock exchange (it’s weird to see it booming when in my time it literally crashed…apparently it’s never been that bad again and my generation was just unlucky. Great.), other times it’s new music (I don’t like Cindy Lauper…I think), and other times it’s just odd objects she thinks I’d find interesting.
This time it was shaving razors. I mentioned offhandedly that I wanted to clip my nails and clean the hair off my legs (being frozen does stop hair growth, but I’ve been outside cryo a few times enough to have some of it grow back since my last shave since…Roosevelt) and she showed up with a small basket of hygiene supplies.
“Gillette used to make all-metal safety shears, they cost a pretty penny but it was worth bein’ smooth,” I watched as she firmly pressed the plastic razor’s blade down my leg. “I’m surprised they let you bring these here.”
Natasha gave a wry smile without looking up. “They said you couldn’t touch it, but never about me doing it for you.”
“If this whole Black Widow thing doesn’t work out, you’d make a killing in the spa industry.”
“You think?”
“Absolutely. You’d be a real hoot with the other gossiping wrens from back yonder.”
Speaking of gossip, the one thing Natasha never gave me was information. Not with any kind of details since my getting out of HYDRA, nothing about the labs, not even the state of the hell I was in for the past seventy years. Not even about politics – I don’t even know who the current president is. I’d ask for any kind of update about the outside world and she’d just purse her lips and shake her head.
‘I can’t say anything, not until I’m given clearance. ’
‘Since when were you such a rule-follower, Romanova? ’
‘Since you’re currently souped up on withdrawals from opiates and are currently one bad heart beat away from dying. I’m not about to let someone who's strong enough to knock me out die easily.’
A sweet sentiment if I wasn’t slowly going stir-crazy.
I watch as she smoothly wipes the cream off my legs with a damp towel. For the first time in decades, my ankles were smooth. She couldn’t tell me anything, but maybe I could try telling her something.
“Do you want to know what I was actually doing on my last day before HYDRA?” She looked up. “Y’know, you asked me that when I first woke up. Before I knocked you out.”
“I remember.”
I leaned back, looking down at my hospital gown. The memory was so clear – it was the day before my birthday. Stationed in France, just before I was going to get transferred somewhere else. We had a long line of men, parties coming up with battered bones and god know what. There were only twelve of us, so each girl was in charge of a handful of men each.
I had gotten lucky – mine was the only batch of boys that didn’t get worse under my care, with the others a few of the guys had to be either discharged or transferred, but I managed to lose enough hours of sleep a night to keep mine breathing. That, combined with my birthday, the girls and I wanted to celebrate my existence with a night of fun. We raced each other on our bikes, indulged in molasses cookies (I had three) and coffee, and just before midnight, we snuck into a music hall and shared a bottle of stolen rotgut while listening to the town criers throw their voices out to Bei Mir Bist Du Schön.
The next morning I was sleepy, had a slight headache, and didn’t see the explosion coming from beyond the camp that would end up snatching me away for seventy years.
Natasha was quiet as I recalled the last part. “...and now I’m here, where no one tells me anything, shows me anything, and I throw up every other day because I’d been fed the wrong kind of medicine every time I woke up.”
There’s a long, uncomfortable pause that made me feel sicker as I finally decided to keep going with a bitter chuckle. “I don’t even know the full extent of what they did to me, do you know that?” I undo the back of my hospital gown, feeling the ridge of my spinal scar. “All I know is that they cut me open, attached some metal to wherever I moved, and now they can move me around like a puppet. As long as they were in my ear, I was theirs – if I tried to fight? I got zapped like a bad dog.”
Natasha watched without expression. “Has HYDRA been in your ear this whole time since waking?”
My smile widened. “Nah. Your friend made sure I was deaf of them.” I lift my fingers to brush the sore flesh of my left ear. Tender still, and I could feel the ridges of the scars. “Give the Captain my compliments on his handiwork. I owe him for that. Nearly bled to death for it, but freedom is freedom, I suppose.”
Her eyes widened slightly at that. “He didn’t mean –”
“I know he didn’t, honey,” I waved her off. “Doesn’t change the fact that it took seventy years of being half-deaf and a shield to the ear to change where I am right now.”
[Early 2014 - Siberian base]
I knew something was different when I was being taken out of the ice this time. There was only one handler instead of two, and half the lights were off. I wasn’t being checked for vitals, asked questions, or even dried off as the old man suddenly threw me a set of kevlar and boots, hissing at me –
“Рядом злоумышленник. Разберись с ним, Севентин.”
There is an intruder outside. Take care of it, Seventeen.
No syrupy tones of my code name, no information beyond “taking care of it” – not that it mattered. My body moved on its own as I mechanically moved to put on the gear. As I made my way down the base’s hallways, I noticed the flickering lights and lack of staff, lack of prisoners. They were usually so full, but now empty in their rooms. No screams, no murmurs.
I was cold in the suit. Not because of the material, but because I wasn’t properly dried from the cryo. My fingers were blue as I stepped outside into the freezing snow. I had two guns at my hip and a longer rifle strapped across my back. The only time my movements were my own was when I didn’t know where to look for the intruders, but I knew better than to run off – I wasn’t about to get electrocuted in the freezing cold.
The wind and ice bullied my face as I made my way around the building, only stopping to hear any noises. Nothing. The sky was grey, the snow was white and the building was already half-hidden in frost as I looked in failure for the invader. Until –
Footprints. Big footprints that easily engulfed my own. A man, it must be, maybe a rogue Soldier? But if that was the case, they’d deploy another to take care of it. Whatever – I follow the trail and see that it stemmed from a trail of dead black-trunked trees. Using my own footprints as bait, I carefully make a path for whoever made these to follow back before climbing onto the branches of the old wood.
That’s when I saw him. Tall, bulky, clad in navy blue. Like dark ink spilt on paper, with a helmet that covered his head and eyes. He had a silver star on his chest, which reminded me of the Soldier who had a red star on his metal arm.
That’s when it hit me – I couldn’t possibly kill him. If he’s enhanced, there is no way I could possibly take him out. He’d crush me easily. I whisper something along the lines of this to my handler inside my embedded earpiece – since being taken here it’d been practically sewn into my ear, impossible to remove – to which he impatiently says “Мне плевать! Уберите его, пока он не разрушил эту базу!” I don’t give a damn! Remove him before he destroys this base!
I was being sent to die, I realize. After seventy years, I was being sent on my suicide mission. My legs don’t even move on their own until he gives the order to attack.
When his back is turned, I instinctively take off my shoes. The sound of boots falling from the tree is enough to make the man’s head turn. Just as his eyes follow the base of the trunk to the branches –
BAM!
I don’t know how long I ran, or how many bullets my gun spat as I made an all-out attempt to his chest. The first bullet got lodged into the back of his spine, making him cry out before turning around. The second bullet missed his leg but got his foot. I began to sprint in the other direction before I could get a third.
I knew I wasn’t fast enough to outrun the guy, but I still did my best to make it to the farthest ends of the outer base, to the nearest frozen river where HYDRA would dispose of their chemicals in the spring whenever it thawed, his yellings of “ HEY! ” getting louder from behind. Taking a gamble, I turned around and shot another bullet to his face – he blocked it with a discus-shaped shield that told me everything I needed to know.
Before I knew it, I was tackled onto the frozen water with what was definitely over two hundred pounds of pure muscle. With a deafening cry, I twisted both my wrists in order to get out of his grip and grabbed the pocket knife at my thigh to jab into his waist. As he yelled in pain I took his shield and tried to hit his head as hard as I could, eventually knocking his helmet off his head.
Just as I did, he grabbed the shield back and knocked the edge of it against my head so hard that I felt an involuntary shock of pain jolt across my body so hard that I spasmed underneath him. My body jerked as I screamed from where my ear was now pooling red up to my cheek. Even he looked shocked – his blue eyes just staring as I sputtered for any kind of relief from my spine being set to sparks. He quickly tore off my guns and threw them aside, holding me down as his mess of yellow locks tousled from the snowy wind above.
I felt my nose bleed into my mouth as I looked at him. Captain America, all-blond, all-American, all-flaring with whatever righteous rage he was fueled with. He grabbed my chin with a force I was used to.
“Where are the others!?”
I gasp for breath, then cough. I tried to give him some shitty answer in Russian, but his grip tightened as he dug my cheek against the ice. The waters’ surface crackled like an egg beneath me. The frost clouding his breath made him look like a dragon. “Don’t do that! I know you understand me! Where. Are. The. Others!?”
My mouth opened and closed like a fish. “I don’t – I don’t know,” Swallowing blood hurt as he kept me laying there. “You think they – tell us anything!?” Bile bubbled as I fought the urge to vomit.
“Why not?” The Captain’s gaze narrowed. “You clearly work for them. You know something . I don’t know what they give you, but it’s –”
“Look around! Look at me! Does this look like I get paid!? ” I laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Coughing up more blood from my shredded throat, I knew I was on borrowed time. Dying, but I wasn’t about to go quietly. Maybe throw in one more curveball for my bastard of a handler who led me here. “The base is empty, Captain. Safe for one scientist inside, you can’t get anything in there but redacted papers and test tubes. I just get woken up to do their middle work.”
He’s panting too as he looks down at me. His voice isn’t as angry anymore, but still just as tense. “You…did you want to do it?”
It was getting harder to breathe. “Does it look like I do?” The wind whistles angrily around us. I admire my handiwork one last time – his trapezius was bleeding the same way a soldier I patched up did back in the war. A forehead gash was raining red all over his head. His uniform’s hip was dark red against navy. Blood, snow and blue.
“Kill me, Captain,” I breathe. “Please. I’ve sinned too long to keep living. I’m tired. Get your justice and go.” Looking at his jaw, a weak laugh escaped my throat. Christ, his jaw hasn’t changed since those Christmas ration stamps. War left me ugly but him a babe…
My vision went black after that.
[2014 - Present]
Patches – I mean Fury – came into my room one day to play a game of go fish. I had no idea why, but indulged him since I didn’t want another shackle to my bed.
“Any eights?” He asked. Looking down at my hand, I had two.
“Go fish,” I lied. His hand moved to the deck standing on my tray. “Any threes?”
“Fish.” As I grabbed a card from the deck, his single eye ran over my body. “How’s the recovery?”
“Less chills. More dizziness.” I pause. “I hate the chain. And the tube. But I hate the chain more.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Unless you can pay for Simmons' and Phil’s therapy, I’m not lettin’ you out.”
I glare at him, then change the subject. “Where’re you from, sir?”
“Why’d you wanna know?”
“I barely know anything about my handlers. This is the first time one’s playin’ go fish with me, so I figured I’d take the chance.” His eye flickered up at that for a moment before a huff escaped his nose.
“Alabama. You?”
“Amarillo.”
“Really?” Fury raised a scarred brow. “How’d a Southern Belle like you end up in Mother Russia?”
“Same way an Alabama catfish ends up in New York – lord knows.” That makes him let out an amused snort. I give a dead smile in return. “I almost like you, director.”
“You’ll almost like me a hell of a lot more soon. You’re getting another friend to visit you.”
“Oh? Not Romanoff’s spa days or bullying Jean?”
He shakes his head. “Rogers wants to see you. Figured I’d let him, considering the hell he raised to keep you in this room instead of a cell. Even after you woke up.”
My brow furrows. “Rogers?”
“Cap.”
Oh.
Chapter Text
[Christmas, 1941]
I liked Christmas for a lot of reasons that year, even if the war was hell. I’d made new sisters through the Nurse Corps and finally felt as if I was doing something worthwhile in my life, travelled to places I’d never thought I’d go to, even if they were mostly military hospitals and camps. By the time winter had rolled around, I was happy to just be alive.
I was planning on having a big dinner with the girls, check in on a few of the soldiers and maybe feed a few of the bed-sick ones Christmas cake, listen to the radio with my bunkmate Rita, and sleep like a baby.
I’d gotten up to feed some of the boys Christmas cake when Rita groaned from her bed when I dropped in. She’d gotten a nasty cold and had to be given a tray of dinner instead of eating with us. Still, she loved music and wanted to listen to the carols with someone, so I was willing to stay up an extra hour.
“I hear Captain America is comin’ to our camp,” Rita hummed dreamily. “That he’s gonna give out signatures and notes to any of the visiting nurses.” Rita adored the Captain, and loved to listen to his war bond’s song on the radio so much I’d had the damn ditty tattooed into my head.
Who’s strong, and brave, here to save the American Way?
Who vows to fight like a man for what’s right night and day?
“Really?” I hum on the bed next to her, watching the snowfall outside to the tune of Bing Cosby wishing for a White Christmas. I was working on darning an old sock. “Lucky for those nurses, then.” But Rita wasn’t done. She had a dopey little smile on her face, one that wasn’t from the fever.
“Ooh, if I could meet him…I’d die to have his signature. I’d wear my Victory Red and ask how his night is!”
I know where this is going. I pretend not to. “Scandalous, Reet. Real yellow journalist of you to ask such a thing.”
“...and I’d thank him for all his hard work, him and his Commandos…he probably sacrificed so much for us…”
I furrow a brow at that. “We all give stuff up for this fight, Reet. Don’t martyr him and call us lazy outliers.”
She giggled. Her innocence reminded me she was from Westport and didn’t know what it was like to grow up around dust storms. It was cute, if not a little ditzy. “Oh, I know. We’re all martyrs, we’re all dyin’. But I’d love for a signature. Just somethin' to read and remember that my hard work is seen.”
I put down my needle. “Reet.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“I know what you’re going to ask me, sweetie.”
She sat up from bed, cheeks flushed and brown curls bouncing. “ Please? I’m not even asking for something terrible! You just have to give him my name and wish him a merry Christmas! I’d do it myself if I wasn’t trying to get better!”
“I know, honey, but…!” I whine immaturely. “The damn hall is a ten minute walk! In the snow! And I’m cozy here!”
“You can be cozy in twenty minutes all the same! Pleaseeee – ”
“Ugh, fine! I’ll go, you spoiled sissy!”
Rita beamed and clasped her hands together. “Yay! Oh, thank you!” I roll my eyes and throw my sock and needle at her.
“Just fix this until I come back. I’ll be quick.”
It was not, in fact, a quick walk. I bundled up to the nines, put on my red tube of war paint on my lips (Rita insisted that if I was going to represent her, I’d’ve better look good while doin’ it) and curled my lashes with a warm spoon thinking it would be a swift nightcap. Instead, the damn line for signatures was leading outside the tent and filled with girls just like Rita, giggling excitedly at the prospect of meeting the biggest hero of the effort.
“ He’s so handsome! ”
“ Do you think he’s met the king of England? Or the president? ”
“ We’re only allowed one question, that’s so unfair! ”
It wasn’t that I wasn’t impressed by him, in fact, I was slowly getting impatient to meet the guy after ten minutes of standing. But I was tired. Most of the girls usually spent long days with rooms full of sick men to tend to, and some days I’d be arms deep in a guys’ gut while a doctor tried to fish a bullet out of him, so the idea that one guy got all the praise but we didn’t was a little sour to me. Not that I’d want lines of people waiting for my signature, but a thanks outside of Christmas would be nice.
“ – course, Merry Christmas!”
I was so up in my head about bullet wounds and triage that I didn’t realize I’d made it inside the hall. Golden-lit in a way you knew someone important was there. Someone important who was now sitting right in front of me.
He was a honey blond who looked like someone in a shampoo commercial, even I could admit to feeling a little funny in the knees when first looking at him. Still, the closer I looked, I noticed his eyes looked tired and his smile was small. Captain America’s mouth gets tired after smiling too much it seemed, what a revelation. Suddenly I felt less weak-kneed and a little more sympathetic for the guy in front of me. “Evening, ma’am. Merry Christmas.”
Remembering that I was wearing lipstick and, as Rita once said, had feminine charm, I shone my sweetest teeth as I smiled. “Evenin’, Captain. Merry Christmas to you too.”
“Who am I making this out to?”
“Rita Cosgrove, sir. R-I-T-A.” I randomly felt a little nervous now, wishing Rita was in my place instead. He’s probably heard a million questions by now, he must hate small talk. “How’s your night goin’, sir?” My voice was smooth, cool and sweet.
He looked up, blue eyes raised in thought. “Honestly? I’m not dodging bullets, nor am I getting punched in the face, so pretty swell all things considered. There are worse things than signing some papers for ladies on Christmas.”
I blink in surprise at his honesty. “Nurses,” I correct. “Not just ladies. You’re currently signing for a gal who spent the past three days tending to thirty boys who couldn’t even feed themselves.” Rita’d spent the whole week before tending to sick soldiers, and that’s how she got sick now. The Captain looked up, his eyes meeting mine as he tilted his chin.
“Then you should be sitting here, instead of me.” I paled, thinking he got offended at my lip, but he suddenly stood up slightly to shake my hand. “You’re the only reason why we boys aren’t wholly dead yet.” His palm was hard but warm as he took my fingers to shake. “Thank you.”
Cornier than popcorn. I take the paper and give him a truer smile. “Merry Christmas, again.”
“You too.”
Walking off, I look down at the signed paper –
To Rita — For being deadlier than death.
There was even a red cross with wings hastily scribbled onto the photograph of himself all suited up. Looking at the writing, I felt a little bad for being judgy before. He was good. A little corny, but good. And being called deadlier than death sounded pretty impressive to me.
“Deadly!? Like a disease!? I wanted him to think of me as delicate! Ladylike!” Rita didn’t.
“What!?” I exasperatedly made a face when I got back to the tent. “What’s wrong with being deadly? I told him you were a strong nurse!”
“I’m a lady , I’m not supposed to be strong!”
I roll my eyes. “Reet, wake up. It’s 1941, a modern world where women can be in wars. We can be strong if need be.”
“Exactly! If need be ! Not in front of a handsome captain, though!” She flopped dramatically bad into bed, sniffling. “Ooh, he probably thinks I got everyone contaminated – deadly like a disease –”
“Oh my God , Rita, you overdramatic little –”
[2014 - Present]
I feel the ghost of Rita doing backflips behind my shoulder. Or, at least, that’s what I must be feeling as Captain America sat across from my hospital bed with a small bunch of poppies in his hand.
Seventy years. That’s how far we both were from home. For a moment we just stared at each other, as if checking that the other was real. I take the flowers, carefully cradling them in my arms for a moment. I remembered seeing them on older uniforms from the first War, in books and pictures. Something in my stomach, in my chest, tightened at that fact. With a slow exhale and a dry swallow, I look at up at the man across from me and say –
“See, if they just started with hunky blond I wouldn’t have put up as much of a fight after waking up.”
That broke him out of his serious stupor. He coughed and turned red in the cheeks. “Ma’am.”
“Oh, don’t ma’am me after our last tryst, Captain. That thing you did to my ear made sure that I’d never see you as just a friend,” I sarcastically coo. “I’ve still got your branding, see?” Turning my head, I show where my earpiece once was, now replaced with a deep scar that tore out the thing that had puppeteered every action I’ve committed to for the past seven decades.
“You shot me first.”
I bristle slightly at that. “That wasn’t me. I had no control. And if you read my file like Romanoff said you did, you’d know that.”
He sighed. “Yes, I did. And I know.”
I stare at him, studying his face properly since Christmas an eternity ago. It wasn’t nearly as symmetrical as the posters shown. And again, his eyes were tired. Not fully blue either – there was a little green in them. But there was a deadness that I recognized in myself. The kind you get when you’re thrown into a world you don’t really know how to live in, and unable to go back to the one you called home.
“Why did you save me, Captain? I begged for you to kill me in Siberia. I’d meant it.”
He looked up, a still sadness forming his face. “I don’t know.”
My face twitched at that. “Don’t do that. That’s not good enough.” My eyes began to water. I wasn’t sad, but anger roiled behind my mouth. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing for these last couple of years, but I’ve been in hell.”
“I know –”
“ No, you don’t! If you did, you’d’ve left me there! You would’ve let me rot! ” My tongue rolled slightly as I spoke, fighting the urge to yell in Russian like I did whenever my handlers were being too handsy with me. “But you didn’t! So tell me, soldier, why didn’t you let me die!?”
“You think I wanted this!?” He raised his voice ever so slightly. Warningly, almost, like he didn’t have it in him to yell at a lady. Fucking corny. “To let HYDRA run loose!? I got you out because I was trying to fix my mistakes, not let you suffer there for longer!”
Silence fell between us. He swallowed, looking down from my eyes. “Sorry.” He rasped. “I’m sorry.”
Looking down at the poppies in my palms, I unclench my fists to show their petals crushed. I hated this. Hated living. Hated hating. Hated myself as a hot tear escaped my eye.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I say, seeing my glassy eyes reflect against the tinseled paper the blooms were in. “I’m not a nurse. I’m not a lab rat. Just someone with an unjustifiable kill count and no name.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Oh Captain,” I melancholically whisper. “Do you really think that?”
“HYDRA controlled your body against your will. Every inch of you got punished if you even tried to fight back. At some point, it’s not just your hands anymore.”
“You sound like you’ve said this before.” He gives a sad, odd smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Something like that. May I?” The Captain leaned back against his chair and looked at the chain at my ankle. He gets up and delicately lifts my ankle (thank god Nat helped me shave) to break the chain around my foot. It snapped like cheap plastic.
“Jesus. You’re like the Winter Soldier, you know that?” His head quickly snapped up at my mentioning, eyes widening slightly. I tilt my head, then realize what I’d just said. He didn’t spend the war fighting HYDRA just to be compared to one of them , that was low, even for me. “I’m sorry, that was –”
“No, no, it’s fine,” He placed the broken metal into the trash and sat back down. “You – you know about him?”
I smile weakly. “A thing or two. I’ve got training scars from forced sparring – hard to forget.” It was as if something in his head clicked, because he sat straighter and met me with the kind of gaze that would fill anyone with patriotism. He offers me his hand.
“Captain Steve Rogers. 107th Infantry Regiment.”
He was so corny I couldn’t help but wipe my tears and play along, giving him my own nursing title and position. “...What made you realize I was…” I try to be tactful of the fact we’re both older than this building. “...the same age as you?”
Steve turned pink again, suddenly rubbing the back of his neck. “...you mentioned those Christmas ration stamps.”
I furrow my brow for a second –
Christ, his jaw hasn’t changed since those Christmas ration stamps. War left me ugly but him a babe…
OH MY GOD, I –
“I thought I was thinking that, I –”
Steve laughed suddenly, as if the horror on my face was funny to him. “Don’t worry, I’m not offended. I’m flattered, really. And for the record, you didn’t age badly either.”
It was my turn to flush with embarrassment. “Christ. You’re lucky I’m old, Rogers.”
Thank God he was corny. One of us had to be.
[Christmas, 1941]
After Rita threw a fit, I had to step outside to laugh at her hysteria in the peace of the black night. It’s not nice, I know, and she was looking forward to the autograph, but really, it was getting ridiculous. I made my way to the medical tent to pick up some cough syrup for her grumpy ass.
I blow hair out of my face as I impatiently rummage the boxes for medication. There wasn’t any, though. “Shit,” I hissed. Rita’s been coughing her throat raw all day.
“Ma’am?” I jump at the sound of a man’s voice behind me. Turning my head, a shadowy man stood across from me. I turned red at the baritone – he sounded like authority. “It’s past working hours.”
I bite my lip. “I know, sir, but my friend is sick. Nurse Cosgrove’s got a nasty cough and there’s no syrup left.” I pause, then add. “Please don’t write me up on Christmas.”
That made him have a huff of amusement escape his chest. “Relax, I won’t tell. Cough syrup, huh? I think some of my boys’ boxes might have some.”
I stiffen at that. “Oh no, sir, I couldn’t –”
He turned his back to me and waved me off. “You could and you will. If a soldier dies because his nurse is too sick to save him, that’s a damn shame. Follow me, miss.”
I do, and we go down the group of tents to the furthest and most isolated group of pitched cloths. I frown at the color of the fabric – black, like the Howling Commando – oh. Oh. OH. Oh no.
“Wait out here, I’ll get the stuff.” His back had still turned to me while I waited outside what was probably his tent. I prayed that no one saw me and thought I was some pervert trying to find Captain America in his nightie. Maybe Rita was right – I should be more ladylike, maybe this isn’t a modern world and maybe I should’ve just shut myself up in the tent and let her stay sick so I don’t look stupid, maybe I do belong in the kitchen –
“Rock candy or cherry menthol?”
His voice broke me out of my spiraling. “Sir?” His face popped out of the tent with two little bottles smaller than his palm, one beige and one red.
“Pick your poison.” Oh.
“I have no idea which Rita prefers, so…” He shrugs and hands me the red bottle.
“You strike me as a cherry girl.” Looking up at his visage, I try not to break into a nervous, dopey smile. He was prettily pale, with wide, soft true-blue eyes. He had a stubble but it didn’t change from the fact he had a young lip and neat, combed brown hair. Strong jaw. My face heated as I quickly took the bottle.
“Thank you, sir.” He nodded, then gestured back to the farther tents. I tilt my head in confusion.
“Let me walk you back. Nurses aren’t exactly supposed to be up this late without a reason.”
Trekking the long way back to my tent, he asked how my Christmas was. I answer honestly, adding mild annoyance to the fit Rita threw. “What’s wrong with being deadly?” He asked as we made it to mine and Rita’s tent.
“That’s what I said, sir,” I say, cheeks still hot as I fought the dopey line forming on my lips. “Now she’s talking about what I should’ve requested him to write, as if I can change it.” The man looked thoughtful, almost biting back a grin. “Could you bring out the autograph? Just let me see it.” I make a face but go inside to fetch it. Rita was already snoring, so I took the paper from her bedside and hand sneaked back out. I gave him the paper, to which he suddenly took out a pen from his pocket and started writing on it. Despite him probably being above my station, I tried to reach out to his now-grinning self. “Sir, don’t –!”
He hushed me as he lifted his arm and chin away from my leaning face. “Hold on doll, you’ll thank me in a minute –” He handed it back to me, making me read it out loud.
To Rita — For being deadlier than death and daintier than a daisy. Keep being keen.
“...you’re really good at forgery,” I mutter. He smiled.
“Should hope so, I’ve known the punk long enough to copy his hand. I’ll tell him to be more delicate with dames next time.” The man takes one more polite nod at me before tonight. “Good night, miss. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.”
The next morning Rita woke up to rereading the autograph and squealing about the extension. I lied, saying it’s always been there, and she bought it without question. Meanwhile, I glared at my lips in the mirror. My lipstick had left a cherry-red stain on my lips all night.
Notes:
I mixed up the years of when Cap became Cap but I don't think the fate of the nation will fall bc of it lol
Chapter 8: Beneficiary
Chapter Text
[1981 - Nebaj, Guatemala]
The Sun was setting on the greenest village I’d ever seen in my life. Lush, flat emerald plains as far as the eye can see, and scattered across the grass were white buildings with clay roofs, white, graveled paths and locals going about their day as harmlessly as they did yesterday.
No one noticed me, or really cared to. They were so busy with their lives that a nobody asking around for directions to a certain street was as uncurious as their memory…but I was running on borrowed time. In approximately eight hours, at least five people will be killed, and tens more taken out as collateral two days after.
But that wasn’t my mission. It wasn’t even my concern. I’d been pulled out of the ice with nothing more than a muzzled mouth, spinal collar and tugged hair when they began to debrief me for this job. In rapid, graveled Russian. My handler looked grayer than the last time I’d seen him. Maybe he’ll die soon and be replaced. This would be the second time it’s happened, then.
“ Rebels will attack and try to remove the local government’s military personnel at the edge of the village. The government will likely attack and kill multiple civilians as retaliation. ” A perfect diversion. I’d been made to move in enough of these operations to know what their ideal premise is for a take-out at this point – banana republics, puppet governments, rebellions and military responses were all perfect distractions for HYDRA to walk in, take what they needed, and get out without any bloodshed being painted onto them.
“ There is a journalist by the name of Francisco Garcia who has been tracking us for three months under a fake alias. Take care of him. ”
I couldn’t help myself. “ If he’s been tracking us for three months without getting caught, maybe he deserves to live. ” The light mocking in my voice was enough to get myself backhanded.
“ He threatens our cause! ”
“Your cause,” I spit in Russian. “Not mine.” That gives me a jolt to the spine. I fall to my knees as the pain echoes across my body, underneath every cell of skin and underneath every hair I have.
His nose curls in disgust. “ The only reason why you’re not brainwashed is because we don’t want to risk your artificial synapses. Now, Alouette – stand. Up. ”
Speaking of artificial synapses, my back suddenly straightens to attention without my consent. My face is expressionless, even as my cheek burned and spine ached.
“ You won’t be doing this mission alone. The rebel attack could start at any moment, so we’re having you work with a brother in order to…make sure things are spotless. ”
The Winter Soldier next to me driving the stolen truck going to the village wore a hoodie, gloves, and two guns hidden behind his jeans. Underneath his large jacket was another, bigger concealed piece, one that I knew meant that things weren’t going to be spotless. His long hair made him look like a dog. I’ve grown to hate dogs.
I looked more regular, attempting to look casual with a linen dress and a single pistol hidden somewhere between my skin and the fabric. I tried to keep casual as I hopped out of the vehicle when he grabbed my arm. I tried to pull away, but even his grip was hot and scratchy, like nothing on his skin could possibly be gentle.
“Не будьте подозрительны.”
Don’t be suspicious.
I jerk my arm away. “Не трогай меня.” Don’t touch me. This time he grabbed me by my shoulder and whispered into my ear, tone more cold and harsh.
“Не будь таким трудным. Я тоже справлюсь, если ты будешь настаивать.”
Don’t push it. I can handle you too if you insist.
With what little autonomy I had, I pulled away and walked away in the direction of the target, flipping him off as I did. My legs may not be moving of my own accord, but I put in as much strength as I could to ignore the searing pain in my bent, disobedient muscles to pettily stick up the middle finger with gritted teeth. “Мне все равно, держи себя в руках.” Handle yourself for all I care. Even as my hand shot down in agony, I smiled as I walked into the village.
I’d spent the past hour looking for the man’s house. He’d had friends and family over, though, and I couldn’t even sneak in through the windows as they all insisted on dining on his patio on the second floor. He finally starts talking —
“ I’ve got something really important to show you guys. I’ve been working on it for a few months, and I think I need to share it before I risk publishing. ”
One of his friends chuckled. “ Oh, Cisco! You’re so paranoid! ” I purse my lips.
Finally, finally, Francisco makes his way to his room. I’ve been laying on his roof for the past hour, trying to find the right time for him to sneak in through the skylight next to me. It had to be a deft, quiet job. My gun’s suppressor was carefully aimed through the glass. My arms were practically sewn to the roof. I just need a moment, one good, quiet moment —
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Ублюдок.
The rebel attack started early, it seemed. Fine. Fine. I took one shot to Francisco’s leg and another to his throat before he could even look up. It looked as if a tomato burst and squelched all over his esophagus. My back suddenly straightened as I heard the Soldier’s voice in my earpiece.
“ It’s starting. Get out of there. ”
I could hear screaming from nearby, the other houses being filled with shrieks of women and children as men barked angrily to hide or run. I carefully slid and made my way into the procession, half-heartedly avoiding gunfire and trying to blend in with the panicked crowd when a thought suddenly hit me – I was alone.
Think about it – my earpiece was currently only connected to the Soldier, and he’s probably out on the other side of the village with his only order for me being to escape. My handler gave me the order to get rid of Francisco, he never said anything about what happened after. They were so panicked about being spied on for three months that they didn’t carefully plan my orders like they normally did. I could go. It was a sloppy and careless move on his part…and a boon on mine.
I looked around, quickly latching onto a nearby group of kids running. They seemed to look like me, college-aged and trying to find somewhere to duck in as rebels began to run in with weapons. I wallflower them until I reach a group of old men – joining them, hiding in the back as they were all taller than me and easy to hide behind. When one of them got shot, I darted behind houses, bushes, carts – I didn’t need to make it to the truck, I just needed some kind of a ride.
There – my salvation was in the form of a beat-up old car that probably would be invisible to everyone around. I just needed to cross the street. Ignoring the nearby gunfire, I cross the graveled rocks and did my best to –
“Пойдем.”
“NO!”
He grabbed me by the back of my neck before I even realized I got caught. One hand was ungloved and metallic, holding a steaming gun while the other unceremoniously dragged me through the back of the buildings to avoid gunfire (and recognition) as the rebels reigned chaos. I spat, I choked, I tried clawing at his wrist, but it was no use – the bastard just rolled his eyes like I was nothing more than a chore to babysit as we made our way to the outskirts of the village again.
“Bastard, bastard – you BASTARD ! Let me GO !” I hadn’t spoken English in so damn long I thought I’d forgotten it. My throat scratched raw as I yelled. He just huffed.
“I’ll do it when you’re not throwing a tantrum, Seventeen.” Before I could say something back, he suddenly shoved me against a wall as flashlights began to be used by the local authorities. I bit his hand and tried to get out from under him, but he just grunted and squeezed my jaw shut. When the light finally escaped from our area, he said – “Оставайтесь тихими, пока мы не выберемся отсюда.” – which made my throat instinctively close up and teeth grinding with forced silence. Grabbing my arm he drags me while making a break for the truck again. In the distance, I can see a destroyed schoolhouse – probably his going – as I’m shoved into the back of the ride. My skin was burning by then, as he forcibly disarmed me and tied my hands back. Suddenly, my throat opened up.
“ – Don’t – Don’t FUCKING touch me! Do NOT touch me! ” I spat as he started the truck again. The Soldier scoffed and muttered an annoyed ‘You’re welcome’ like I was beneath his help. Fucking bastard.
When we got back to the compound, he (as ex- fucking -spected) snitched on what I did, and as punishment I was made to go into a round of “testing” without being given any “help”.
[2014 - Present]
Sam Wilson was tall, dark, handsome, and absolutely suspicious of me. When Steve said he’d brought in a new army friend, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I’d been kept inside the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility’s little medical ward for a month now, most days just waiting for my withdrawal symptoms to end. Speaking of, when I told Steve of what “help” was at HYDRA – a reward system of painkillers that I’d be given in exchange for obedience after lashing out – he looked sicker than me. HAHA.
But back to Wilson. Steve looked excited when talking about having a new friend for me to talk to other than him (Natasha stopped visiting after a while – Steve said she had a mission). “ You’ll like him, he’s real friendly. ” Said friendliness started with the line –
“You haven’t jumped anyone in their car recently, have you?” His voice was low and slightly graveled, and most importantly, amusingly paranoid. Steve next to sighed and tilted his head.
“Sam, I told you, she –”
“No, no, I know, just…double-checking. You HYDRA alumni have a habit of being dangerous is all I’m saying.” He muttered under his breath something along the lines of ‘I don’t have the insurance for a repeat’.
I couldn’t help but smile out of amusement. I wasn’t treated as very dangerous at the compound, so it felt like a guilty pleasure to spook so many people. “Maybe I have. What’s to say I won’t?” It was now my turn to be given the exasperated, disappointed mother look by Steve.
“Play nice.”
I salute him with all the energy of someone who’d slept for twelve hours straight could muster. “Yes sir, Captain America sir.” He rolled his eyes. Sam huffed in amusement.
“’S’it true you used to be alive the same time he was?” Sam suddenly asked. I raised a brow.
“You mean back when his suit was made of cotton and not Excalibur’s filings?” I nod. “Met him once back then too.” Steve blinked at that. “Oh, don’t tell me you don’t remember, Steven.” I pretend to sound heartbroken. “Christmas? Nursin’ hall? All those girls and you don’t even remember little ol’ me?”
He turned red with embarrassment. “There were a hundred girls there. I couldn’t exactly remember all of you.”
I shake my head and click my tongue. “Damn shame. And here I was hopin’ I had something special with you.” I tilt my head at Sam. “Tell me – are our boys in beige still breakin’ hearts?”
Sam smirked. “Yes, ma’am.” Steve scoffed.
“Romanoff rejected you the other day.”
“Yeah, and then she gave me the therapist down the street’s number.”
“For therapy!”
“A win is a win.”
I watch their exchange in amusement. “What branch did you serve?” I ask.
Sam leaned back. Both men were in comically small visiting guest chairs across my bed. “Air Force. I was a pararescue man for a couple of years.” Huh. It's nice to know that the airmen are still active. I smile fondly at the fact.
“You have any old military connections, still?”
“Define connections.”
I shrug. “Bailouts, escape trips, I.O.U.’s…” Truth was, I was dying to leave my bed. I wasn’t kidding with Nick when I called him a handler. The lighting might be better, but I didn’t like that I wasn’t allowed anywhere outside my room, nor the fact that I felt like every action I did was being watched. Good behavior, bad behavior – I’ve had enough eyes on me for a lifetime.
Sam had an odd look in his eyes. “Maybe,” He mused. “But not for you. Not right now.” I roll my eyes at his suspicion.
“You said you’ve dealt with HYDRA agents before?” I continue.
His tongue clicked as he answered. “Oh, yeah. Understatement, but yeah.” He gestured to Steve. “In fact, ask him. He’s the more-informed guy about the incident. All I know is that one day I was trying to save lives when a giant metal arm broke through the car I’m driving; and your best man over here was suddenly dragging me and Widow out of an incoming car crash.”
I blink. “Metal arm.” Steve’s brow twitched.
“Sam.” Sam looked at Steve, unapologetic.
“Was I supposed to sugarcoat it? No offense man, but no amount of sugar can coat that.” Something in my head clicks.
“You just called him here for information,” I say. “See if I knew anything about the Winter Soldier with the metal arm.”
Steve looked guilty. “I was going to tell you after you two got to know each other.”
“So a meet-cute-turned-interrogation? How nice.” It stung. Another reason why I hated this facility — people could get whatever they wanted from me, but I couldn’t get anything back. Mainly getting out. Something in me felt pissed at that. Seventy years, and apparently getting “saved” didn’t change jack shit for me. “Well,” I start. “I’m afraid to say I don’t have a clue. We’re all kept separate from each other at the compound, so it’s not like I can overhear any details about the guy. If you’re looking for him, he’s somewhere no one probably knows.”
Steve’s jaw clenched at that. “Right.”
I turn over, grabbing the sheets and tucking myself in. “I’m getting kinda sleepy, so forgive me gentleman if I doze off.” Sam and him both stand up.
“See you around,” Sam nods. I nod back and he leaves. Steve turns around to do the same when I call out to him:
“Oh, and Steve? The next time you want to use me for intel, make sure I’m not cooped up for thirty days before asking. The next time you pull this thing, I’m running away again.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry, but I thought if I could get more intel I could help you.”
“And yourself, I surmise.” I sigh. “You’re not selfish, Steve, so don’t act like it.” Cripes, I sound like a mother. “Now get out and bring me a handsome man who doesn’t think I’ll risk his insurance.”
He gives a weak smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter 9: Aces
Chapter Text
[1938 - Amarillo, Texas]
A recipe for tumbleweed soup isn’t all too different from a recipe for your favorite bowl of greens and beans. The trick is to get the plants while they’re young in order to get a decent taste, otherwise you’re just eatin’ straight sticks. After that you throw in some beans, leftover chicken, skinny carrots and vinegar over hot water to have what’s probably the only good with a lot of bread and occasionally coffee.
I’d just finished high school, and was one of the few girls in town to do so. There’s not much use in bein’ educated unless you’ve got the money to back it up, but I stuck to my lessons as best I could hoping I could make something of myself. I knew it was stupid, but I thought if I could maybe read my way to get out of the poor place I was born into, I’d find my way into getting a nicer way of living – maybe be a teacher, or a governess for rich folk.
Which was why I was currently scrounging for tumbleweed out in the dusty plains beyond the roads of my family’s house. Because frugality was the only thing anyone could afford, let alone a train ticket out of the only place you’ve ever known. The only girls who were able to be school teachers are those who have schoolhouses to teach – and ours just closed a while back. Books were too expensive, and even if cities could get money from rich givers there’s no way an oil tycoon would be coming around here to give his two cents for anything meant for the poor, let alone books.
A train ride just to the capital was twenty bucks. I read on the paper, Texas had some of the lowest wages in the country, which just exacerbated the issue further. My family’s shack of a home was made, so no rent was needed. Food for everyone – grown-ups, big brother, littler ones – was half-grown, half-bought. A dozen eggs – sixteen cents. Bread – seven. Corn – eight per bushel. If a man – not even my working could make jack shit as a girl – worked, he’d be lucky to make a dime a day. If a man makes a dime a day, and I lived in a household o’ four, and we each ate one egg, one slice of bread, and the world’s skinniest chicken for each day for a week…a dollar and ten cents. If my old man and brother worked for a week…a dollar forty. Thirty cents with a side of hell leftover. If that thirty was saved each week, it would take me…sixty-six – over a year to save and leave. And that’s not including the fact we’re fatasses who eat more than a single egg and slice a day. I’ll never escape at this rate. Shit.
I hated living. I hated being poor. I hated being hot. I hated the tumbleweed that pricked my fingers as I got a feel for its thistles.
“Maybe if you worked as hard as you read, you’d be outta here by now,” Brother scoffed as I muttered math to myself. I flipped him off and kept searching for softer twines. He wasn’t wrong, though – I couldn’t do shit on my own. Even if I could find a job, I’d probably have the poorest work ethic just because I’d hate gettin’ my fingers in the mines, or the factory, or god knows where. Being a seamstress wasn’t bad, but no one would hire someone dirty-clothed like me. Sometimes I thank god I’m a girl, so I can at least excuse my poor work ethic on my sex and not because I hated the heat.
“Maybe if you read as much as you worked, you’d get a better job by now,” I spat back. I know he’s better than me, but that doesn’t change that I hated his guts. He rolled his eyes. We weren't even doin' bad compared to other people, but it still felt like a fight between the poor and the poorer.
“I will. I’m gonna get drafted and get the heck outta here.” My jaw tightened at that. There was all that talk about the war, but nothing’s happened that made the president bring us in yet. Still, people are already saying there’s gonna be a draft and take all our young bloods out to fight. “I’ll be a hero and you’ll be here.”
I’d read enough about wars to know nothing good came out of them. Not, at least, for skinny, lanky bastards like him. “Heroes have muscle,” I retort. “What’re you gonna do? Glower the Germans to their graves? Chew on the chancellor ’til he chokes?” He twists my arm until I hiss.
“I’d be doin’ more than you ever could,” He glared. “You couldn’t get a job to save your life.”
“I could if I wanted!”
“Then why don’t you? I hear they’re takin’ in young girls to train as nurses. You might finally get that goddamn ticket you’ve been yappin’ about.”
“I just might!”
Brother snorted. “I was jokin’, dumbass. Even if you can read better than me, you’d pass out at the sight of blood. You’d never make it past the classroom.” He lets go of my arm and keeps foraging. “You’d never make it outta this hell. And if you did, you’d probably just end up in a worse place from bein’ too greedy.”
My face twitched at that. “Greedy!?”
“Yeah! You always mope – too hot, too hungry, too tired – it’s like nothin’ is ever goin' t'be good enough for you.”
“It’s not my fault this place is ass!”
“Neither is it mine!” He turned around, gaze narrowing. “You know what your problem is? You think too much. You want too much. You dream too much. You do too much and not enough, and wonder why the hell shit ain’t workin’. Maybe if you’d just accept that life will always be like this, things might actually change.”
His words echoed in my ear as I’d gotten onto the train to Austin to the American military base’s hospital to receive training a few months later.
[2014 - Present]
I asked Natasha if there was any news on the search for leftover HYDRA operatives. Somehow, the conversation changed into being about Norse gods existing, even showing me a photograph.
“...God forgive me, he looks like a Greek statue.”
“Doesn’t he?”
“He doesn’t have a goddess girlfriend, does he? I might not be thousands of years old, but I’m almost a hun – wait, don’t change the subject! Answer the question.” She sighed in defeat.
“We don’t know.” I blink.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Steve already found the base –”
“Which was emptied out when he went inside. Which either means the place was cleaned out before he got there, or that the location you were in was a diversion.”
“How many bases could HYDRA possibly have?” I huff. The compound was undoubtedly the same, I thought. Sure, I was never kept awake long enough to get a tour of the place, but after a while all the walls ended up looking the same…come to think of it, that might be a cause to think that a transfer did happen.
The last time I was transferred was when I first got snatched in France. The base was warmer, and had similar walls (maybe HYDRA used the same materials in each building to keep everyone trapped) and everyone spoke French which was why I was initially code-named Alouette when I was passed on to the Russians. There the base was colder and dimmer. I question if the handlers destroyed everything before they left.
Natasha makes a noncommittal gesture with her head. “The place was dying by the time we got to it. Anyone who could save face was probably setting fire to anything with their names on it.”
“Who escaped?”
“We’re still counting the names. The few documents we did find are coded and classified to death, so it’s almost impossible to decipher.” I slump at that, leaning against my bed and staring at the ceiling. So that was it? Men cut me open and shocked me to death, and they got to get away? “...They might be after you.”
That broke me out of my stupor. “What?” She looked behind me to the door, then leaned in close.
“HYDRA moles being let loose from S.H.I.E.L.D. are causing panic to everyone. That’s why you’ve been kept here for so long. Steve just made sure you weren’t going to be sent to the Raft after he managed to find your file, but you’re currently considered detained by the state.”
So I was just being kept at another compound. “What happens now? I’ve been here for over a month.” Natasha shook her head.
“His hands are tied with you. He’s managed to buy you time here for your withdrawals and medical treatments, but once they consider you treated…”
“I’m bein’ sent to the slammer.” I deserved prison. That much I knew. I know it wasn’t by my choice to do what I did, but blood was spilt because of me and other HYDRA inmates anyways. It doesn’t change the fact that I was probably the last face some people saw before they died. “I don’t feel a lot of withdrawals anymore,” I push my own boundaries. “So why are they keepin’ me?”
Natasha pursed her lips, eyeing my neck. “Your treatments aren’t done.”
“...what?”
“You’re spine is attached to a neural connector –”
“Giant rod.”
She shakes her head. “They want to get it out. Along with everything else.”
Something in my breath scratches at that. I know what I just said, but – “No. No. They – they can’t – they can’t – not again – ” My eyes begin to water so hotly I don’t even hear Natasha saying my name.
“ – They hadn’t started, it’s just an –”
“I don’t care!” I exclaim. “I – I don’t want to be gutted open again – I don’t – I can’t – I can’t even bend my back because of this damn rod, and now they –” I start to dry heave at the idea of being cut open again. Natasha quickly grabs the trash can beside my bed and rubs my back. I could feel the dig at where the stitches met my spine. I’d just been introduced to eating solids after being tube-fed for so long, so I mostly coughed up bile.
“Please,” I say after choking up spit. “I know I deserve to be punished…but if I have to be gutted and lobotomized to do so I’d rather just get shot now.”
She shakes her head. “You’re not going to get cut open just yet. S.H.I.E.L.D. is weak as is and it’s been hard to show that the agency isn’t corrupt. If the organization tried to cut you now without other agencies consenting, we’d be sinking even lower.”
“So what do I do?”
Natasha hesitated, looking at the floor before looking back up at me. “It’s not my place to say. I’m technically not even supposed to be here anymore since my hearing –”
I grabbed her hand and squeezed it as tight as I could. “Nat, please. ”
Hey glassy green eyes look up at me. “Go into hiding. Stay low and keep an eye out for HYDRA cells and insurgents. The organization is dying as is, so they’re trying to gather as many leftovers as possible. That includes you.”
I smile bitterly. “I can’t even leave this damn bed. How the hell could I possibly escape the country?”
Nat smiled. “Steve would kill me if I tried telling you.”
[A few days later]
Steve sat across from me with a plastic bag of “takeout” and a manila file. He gives me the takeout first.
“...and it’s called takeout because it’s taken out of the kitchen…and here now? Wouldn’t the supper get cold?” I open the bag and take out a plastic box. The smell of salt and oil made my mouth water. It was warm on my lap.
He hummed. “That’s what I thought, but it’s a lot better than I expected. People order these things all the time now, since they’re cheap and convenient.” Opening the box, there was a slightly squashed burger, fried potatoes and a cup of what I thought was slawed cabbage. I take a bite.
“This is delicious.” It was the best damn thing I’d had in seventy years…God bless America.
“Right?”
“Which must mean whatever you’re about to tell me must be awful, and this is to soften the blow.” I take the fork in the bag and pour the cabbage onto the open patty before closing it again. “Nat already told me that I’ll be gettin’ cut open again, so I can’t imagine somethin’ worse than that.”
He bit his lip. “It’s not – it’s not worse. Not to me. But it’s not something I imagine you’d enjoy doing. If I could, I’d do it in your place, but I’m too…”
“Exposed?”
“Something like that. I haven’t visited this building since finding and checking on you. I’ve been looking for people.” He puts the file on my tray. “Including an old friend.”
I raise a brow, eyeing the paper. “Oh? Old like us? Or like Sam, who thinks I’ll light his car on fire?”
“Like us.”
I stop eating and wipe my hands quickly. Taking the manila folder, I open the paper to see –
“ What in the fuck is this – ”
“Listen –”
“You’re friends with –”
“ NOT him,” Steve quickly retorted. My hands quickly put the file down like it burned. On it, the picture of the metal-armed Winter Soldier on top of some burning building. His furrowed brow didn’t reach a glare, but he quickly took the papers and reshuffled them. “You know how the Winter Soldier was made.”
“My body was a guinea pig for them, Steven. The only reason why they didn’t inject me was because my back was broken before they had the chance.”
He nodded. “Well, he’s a little like you. The Winter Soldier isn’t my friend –” He takes out a smaller photograph, one that’s clearly aged and weak from time. “ – He is.”
There was a picture of him, laughing in his Captain’s suit. His hair was messy and face dirty, probably after a long operation. Next to him was a man of similar height, grinning cattishly in his direction. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, just a Henley and a lazy grin.
“Handsome devil. You’re alright too, I guess.” I mutter, savoring what I know will be the last moments before he says something that will probably make me dry heave.
Steve smiled sadly. “That’s Buck. I’ve known him since we were in diapers. We played together, fought together…we should’ve made it to the end of the line together.”
“So is that it? You’re Juliet without her Romeo?” He didn’t bat an eye to my smartassery.
“HYDRA took him. They made him into the Soldier. I thought he died, but…”
“HYDRA has a talent for grabbin’ dead bodies,” I finished the thought for him. I stare at the picture again. The man who dog-walked me in Guatemala, occasionally sparred me to a pulp before experiments, and undoubtedly had a higher kill count than me was once Captain America’s best friend?
“He’s out there now. I know he is – I couldn’t find his attendance in old compound records, meaning that he's hiding somewhere.”
I lick my lips and try to say what I thought very tactfully. “...Steven, he’s probably…too far gone to help. You know that, right?”
There was an almost-manic glint in his eye. “He’s not.”
“Steve –”
“He isn’t, I know he’s not. I’d managed to find him before I got to you. I even broke him out of it.” I stare in disbelief. Those Soldiers are brainwashed and iced constantly, so he’d have to have been out for a long time. “He could have killed me, but he didn’t. He remembered me. ”
I don’t know what to say. “...okay. Hypothetically, if that’s true, why isn’t he here now?”
“Because he’s in the same boat as you. Hiding before anyone finds him, and punishes him for something that isn’t his fault.” I couldn’t help but make a face at that. It’s not that I didn’t believe him, but I’d seen the Soldier enough times at the compound to not categorize him, or any of them, as a kind of angel. “I’m trying to find evidence and more agents with Sam right now. Anything that can help. But him – he needs something reliable on my end.”
“Like a safehouse?”
“Like a friend.”
A pause. Then, realization. “Oh, god – ”
“I didn’t –”
“You don’t got to, I already know what you’re goin' to say!” My face curled in disgust. “I already have to live with myself, I’m not goin' to live with that for god knows how long! I’d rather take the lobotomy!
“Would you!?” Steve’s voice rose.
“Yes, I wou –” I suddenly start to cough, choking on the bite I’d swallowed. The bile from the news rose to my throat and I started to dry heave. He cursed and quickly grabbed the trash can nearby, patting my back until I stopped hacking.
Watching me shiver, he mutters, “...you’ve been tube-fed until now. I shouldn’t have given you that. I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “You shouldn’t have given me the news that after seventy years of hell, my options are now getting my skeleton surgically torn open or hidin' with him for god knows how long.”
“Bucky’s not the Winter Soldier anymore –”
“He’s been an iced killer for seventy years. Even with the brainwashing broken, he’s still got red on his ledger...He might be hurtin' someone as we speak.”
Steve glared at me for that. Captain America glared at me. “Do you feel like killing anyone right now?”
“...no.”
“Well it’s the same with him! He’s not –” Steve shook his head. “I know you don’t like him, don’t trust him, but that’s only because you’d only seen the version of him that’s been broken. He’s not like that anymore. He could’ve left me to drown, but he didn’t. He could have killed me, but he didn’t. That’s Bucky. Not the Soldier. And he’s the only thing I’ve got now that I know is worth protecting.”
I look down at the picture. It’s tinged brown and gold with time. I couldn’t see the Soldier on his face, not really. His face had a familiar stubble, but his lips were wide with a smile. His hair was shorter. And even with the nonexistent coloring, I could tell he had more color on his skin than the grey tones that everyone’s flesh had at the compound.
“Was he a Commando?” I ask. Steve nodded.
“We fought against HYDRA together. If it were up to him, he’d’ve killed himself before letting his body get taken by them. Probably would’ve put up a fight to save you too.” Shakespeare couldn’t write that kind of irony.
I swallow my humanity. “And he’s now…this Bucky? This guy?” I raise the picture.
"...He's not exactly the same." Steve looks away. “But he’s not a monster anymore. He never was. And now he’s back. I’m just asking for you to see that too.”
“So I can hide with him.” He nodded hesitantly.
“We have a theory as to where he could be, but Sam and I don’t want to risk drawing attention by going to him directly. We’ve been tracking other HYDRA unsubs and trying to keep them detained.”
“...but without anyone watching his back, anyone could get him again.”
“Exactly.”
I look down at the picture again. Then I furrow my brow. “...Was he with you during Christmas? 1941?”
He raised a brow. “...yes?”
Shit.
You strike me as a cherry girl.
Shit.
Should hope so, I’ve known the punk long enough to copy his hand.
Shit.
Good night, miss. Merry Christmas.
Shit.
I look him in the eye. I wasn’t about to do this because I’m forgiving to the Winter Soldier. Nor because I have some deep, emotional connection to a stranger who gave me cherry menthol on Christmas. Only because I can attach a face before the carnage, could I possibly consider this.
“If he tries to kill me…I’ll try to kill him.”
Steve nods, as if expecting me to say this. “I’ll send you in with protection.”
“If I don’t feel safe, I’m leaving without a second thought.”
“I’ll give you a burner phone and some cash.”
“If he’s evil, I’m leaving.”
His jaw tightened. “He’s not, but alright.”
“...And if HYDRA comes, you better avenge both of us. Because if he’s anything like me, he’d rather die than go back.”
Steve softened. “Of course.”
I nod, staring at the glaring photograph of the Soldier, then back at his friend. With a sigh, I say: “...right. Whose car are we takin’ to smuggle me?”
He smiled. “Who said we’re taking a car?”
Chapter 10: Meet Cute: The First Safehouse
Chapter Text
[1963 - Siberian Compound]
When someone is taken out of cryostasis, the first thing you feel is extreme sleepiness. It’s not something that’s particularly known, especially since you’re covered in frost and usually spend the first few moments slowly dripping away however many years of sleep you’ve slept, but it’s true. If you’ve lived as long as I have, you learn another thing – treatment. If the handlers start roughly drying your body like a scruffy dog, that means they plan on experimenting on you and need you sterilized for the lab. If you don’t, and get shoved around, that means they want you to go on a mission, and don’t intend on letting you dry as they throw you into whatever act of violence they so wish.
This time, I got neither. I wasn’t harshly dried off, nor was I shoved into a locker full of suits and unloaded weapons. Instead, I woke as if I came from a nap, and blinked blearily at the cold blue lights above me. The smell of alcohol and carbolic soap let me know that I wasn’t alone in the room. Looking down, I was strapped to a chair, my skin still clammy and damp. I look down to see myself already dressed in a black compression shirt and tights. I could tell I lost weight because I could see the veins in my hands.
“ Ah, good, good. You’re awake. ” Looking up, there was my handler. I didn’t know his name, nor did I have to. He had a thick unknown accent, one that wasn’t at all from Russia. No, but his voice was crisp, curled, raspy and distracted in a way that let me know I wasn’t going to be let go to sleep anytime soon. He wasn’t running tests, otherwise he’d have the same clipboard he’d had the last time, but he was eyeing me with the same kind of curiosity he always carried when tinkering. His face was more wrinkled and grayer than I’d last seen it. Thick stripes of grey ran through his scalp in a way that reminded me of how a grandfather ought to look.
“ You, my dear little thing, will be playing a game today! Won’t that be nice? ”
I never met my grandfather, but I used to fantasize about what he’d be like. If he’d be kind, if he’d sneak candies for me when no one else was looking…sometimes I think he purposely speaks like this just because I don’t lash out as much when he does. He spoke in all Russian. They all did. I don’t know how long it took me to understand the language, but a part of my fluency only came with actions that my body took against my will, by their orders:
Walk = Ходить
Run = Бегать
Jump = Прыжок
Dodge = Уклоняться
Shoot = Стрелять
Kill = убийство
I just stare at him and his neutral smile. His stupid whimsical voice made me want to tear out his throat, but my mouth was muzzled and my limbs were too sore to do such a thing. “ You’re going to be playing with one of your brothers today. Don’t worry, I told him to be gentle with you – well, at least, as gentle as I can ask him to be. You know how gruff they are, but think of it this way – like a boy pulling on a girls’ braid, it just means they like you! ”
It doesn’t. It really, really doesn’t. Being body slammed against a concrete floor by someone who weighs more than you is not a pleasant experience by any means, let alone the idea that they’re infatuated with you. But I can’t exactly say that – not when I have a muzzling mouthpiece to my lips and my throat is all closed up from deactivation.
“ Follow me, Subject Seventeen! ”
If it was a mission, they’d call me Alouette. If it was an experiment, they’d call me Subject Seventeen. Other than that, I hadn’t heard my real name in ages, so much so that I think I’m starting to forget what it even sounded like. My legs move mechanically on their own. A wonder, the surgeon (if you could call him that) once explained while I was half-drugged. Metal poles are attached and intertwined with my bones so that every movement is controlled. Calculated. Down to my knuckles, and as I walk down the cold, dull, grey floors of the compound, I can see some of the other prisoners. The Soldiers are the heavily-wrapped ones – muzzled, surrounded by handlers who couldn’t possibly handle them if they’d lashed out, and cuffed like metal could somehow hold them back. Experiments were also chained and gagged, but with less handlers and leashed like dogs. I hadn’t had any chains, only because if I lashed out, my spine would instinctively lock up and shock itself.
The training room was made of concrete with only a glass pane separating the subjects from the scientists. A few were already there. My handlers indicated for my walking to stop by gently patting his hands on my shoulders. “ See how good she is? Not even a bite out of this one! ” The others chuckled in amusement from beyond the pane.
Ублюдки.
My back began to hurt – not from the giant metal rod they’d shoved in there years ago, but from the pain I knew was going to come. Those bumbling, bastard Soldiers are going to come in, beat me to a pulp, see how well the conditioning stands, and I’ll be thrown back into the ice for god knows how long until my next beating.
I wanted to die. Instead, I stand stiffly at attention until I hear footsteps from behind me.
God, those fucking footsteps. I think I hate those the most – out of the countless experiments, brutal missions, and painful shocks – the perfectly-spaced, near-silence padding of a Soldier’s boot is the thing that I hated most ardently in the compound. I could recognize it a mile away and gag about it all the same.
Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap…Slam!
The door behind us shut. My one way of escape was now locked. I was somewhat glad that my body was stiff – I didn’t want him to see the shiver I felt when he walked past me. Not from fear, nor from cold, but the sheer disgust that I had to stand across from him. He was wearing the same thing I was wearing, but the damn handlers had his sleeve fitted so that his gleaming metal arm was on full display. A cheap intimidation tactic, and one that I felt more annoyed by than anything.
“ Both of you, get into position! ”
We both suddenly changed stances – both in identical punching positions, it was ridiculous. I wasn’t delicate by any means, but I was definitely not nearly as bulky as him. It was like a stick bug mirroring a wolf’s pre-hunting pounce pose.
“ Fight! ”
I swing. He dodges. He swings, I dodge – but nearly get my nose knocked. We both curled our arms back into our chests before I mechanically went for a kick – he grabs my ankle and flips me onto the hard floor. The dull pain echoed in the back of my head as he suddenly pinned me to the ground – elbow to my throat, knee pressing against my stomach.
“ How disappointing – I figured after all these missions she’d be better. Shame we never gave her the injection. ”
О, черт возьми, нет.
I jabbed my knee to his groin and punched the side of his head. With the moment of his grip lessening, I pushed myself from under him and suddenly felt a hot shot of anger erupt from my chest. This was a fight I was going to lose. I always lose against them. Still, I yelled with a genuine rage as I grabbed his throat and shoved him to the floor. He hadn’t even used his metal arm on me yet – I always just take it as the blessing it is and punch out his eyes as best I could, even if I hardly left a mark.
“ARGH!” I suddenly yelled out as his metal arm grabbed the back of my scalp and pulled me by the back of my neck, scruff-first. If he pulls he’s interested, my ASS. “Сволочь,” I hissed. The Soldier looked unimpressed as he suddenly put his fingers around my throat, metal ones included, as his thighs closed around my waist.
“В следующий раз не будь таким слабым.”
Next time, don’t be so weak.
As if there’s going to be a next time. I felt my vision dance with black spots as his grip tightened around me. I let my muscles relax for a moment, and a brief, sweet, sweet bliss overtakes me. For a moment everything was silent. His heavy, carbolic-scented body didn’t even move from above me. I could feel his cold, flesh hand lightly grab my chin, as if examining if I was still breathing. Staring for a moment, undoubtedly, as the scientists beginning to whisper —
“ I could have sworn she’d last longer than tha— ”
WHAM!
The Winter Soldier suddenly flew back as I punched his nose as hard as I could. I could hear my own handler laugh as the Soldier’s head hit the floor. My throat was tight and undoubtedly bruised, but with as much bitterness and cruelty as I could, I spat —
“Отсоси мой член!”
Suck my dick!
Zap!
I cried out as my neck got zapped from the inside out. Falling to the ground next to the Soldier, we must’ve made a picture — his nose was bleeding as he kept staring at me, while my throat was probably red and swollen.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
My handler smacked his hands together to indicate the end of a session. “ Careful, Seventeen! Don’t hurt your brother too much! He has a big day tomorrow, after all! ” He cooed from beyond the pane. “ Now, stand up and make good with each other! Both of you! ”
We both quickly stood up, backs straight like we didn’t leave marks on each other. “ Hail Hydra,” I grunt, my tongue not even moving by my own will.
“ Hail Hydra. ”
A few minutes later, I was removed from the training room and into the labs to be recorded, poked and prodded. This time with emphasis on my neck — I must’ve been given an improved shock system, because the zap from earlier snapped harder than usual. It was my handler along with another scientist, one who was younger and scrubbing my neck with a cotton swab for something. I was chained to the examination table and sat as they spoke without a care that I was there.
“Думаете, мы добьемся успеха?”
Do you think we’ll be successful?
My handler spoke reassuringly as he scribbled something onto my file. “Конечно, сделаем. В конце концов, мы это уже давно планировали.” Of course we will. We’ve been planning this for a long while.
The other scientist moved to opening my jaw like a dog to gather saliva from my tongue. His grip was crude and his fingers dug into my cheeks. “Да, но это убийство президента. Средь бела дня, как ни странно.” Yes, but it’s killing a president. In broad daylight, of all times.
My handler looked up. “Вы сомневаетесь в дееспособности вашего дела?” Do you doubt your cause’s ability?
He stiffened. “Нет, сэр, я просто имел в виду..." No, sir, I just meant…
“Ничего. Ты ничего не имел в виду.” Nothing. You meant nothing.
They worked in silence after that. I stared ahead, at the window pane that showed the rest of the compound. Eventually, I hear those godforsaken footsteps again, steps I only recognize after years of hellish hearing –
Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.
I focused on the wall under the glass instead of outside. Where it stood – the Soldier, standing and staring at the lab through the pane…fuckin’ creep. He was probably getting prepared to get shipped out to god-knows-where to kill god-knows-who – oh yeah, nevermind, a fucking president …did Roosevelt die? Or is he going to kill him? Or have we done another election now? Is there a new man in office?
The Soldier doesn’t move…why isn’t he leaving? Why is he still staring? My jaw is still being held as the younger scientist took notice of the Soldier outside the pane. He stiffens, but my handler just hums –
“ Oh, relax. He hasn’t attacked anyone in a long time. He’s our most obedient model, actually. ” My handler chuckled. “ He’s probably just curious. ”
“ A curious Winter Soldier? What could he even be curious about – weapons? Combat? ”
“ Who knows. ” He looked up to see him, then his eyes trailed to me and my open jaw. An amused smile plays on his old lips. “ Ah. I see what it is. Let Seventeen go, Nikolai. ” Nikolai lets go. My handler wipes a stray hair from my face and lifts my chin so that I’d reluctantly face the window. I do my best to glare at the ugly gaze in front of me. “ He just thinks she’s pretty. Must be his old instincts kicking in. He’s only a man, after all! Do you like what you see, Soldier? Perhaps a kiss of good luck before your next assignment? ” He just stared.
Nikolai laughed, then tilted my head up to examine my bruised neck. “ Maybe we should leave these two alone! Make a few Winter Soldiers the old-fashioned way, eh? No serum required! ”
“ Should we put them in a little dollhouse too? Cut his hair, put her in a dress? They’d certainly be a handsome set! ”
“ Only if I get a full view of their bedroom! ” They both guffawed as the Soldier finally walked away, like it was the funniest joke in the world.
My handler looked at me with faux-thoughtfulness. “ It would certainly be a good reward system in keeping him obedie – ”
“ ARGH! ”
I bite Nikolai’s hand as hard as my teeth can do before I get jolted unconscious for misbehavior.
[2014 - Present]
The last face-to-face interaction I had with Natasha before leaving was when she helped me get dressed to leave. “Do you have a favorite color?” She asks, poking her head out from the briefcase backpack she’d brought.
I scoff. “Not since Roosevelt.”
She hummed. “I’ll put you in cream, then.” She throws me a thick, cable-knit sweater from the case. “It’ll be a little chilly, so you’ll want to layer up.” I tug the top over my head.
“I’m still gettin’ used to no stockings, Nat, let alone the constant air conditioning.”
“I figured. I packed a few in case you ever get nostalgic.” Who knew I’d get homesick over hosiery? I walk over and grab a thin, slinky pair to put over my legs.
“These feel nicer than the ones I had back in the day.”
“We don’t ration silk anymore.”
“Thank god for that.” I grabbed the skirt she’d put on my bed and zipped it over my stomach, feeling oddly cozy under all the layers. She throws me a big coat, and I wrap it around myself.
“When will the plane arrive?”
“About an hour.” I stare at the clock on the wall – 12:58 A.M. It would certainly be black outside. I try not to think about how I’ll be free for the first time in ages as I pull on some boots. How I’ll be outside for the first time in ages. I blame the ache in my arms on my old rods, and not the nerves. Nat takes my briefcase and offers me her perfectly-manicured hand. “Let’s go, the boys will be waiting.”
We make our way down S.H.I.E.L.D.’s white stairs, halls and through the empty lobby of the eventual first floor. Everywhere was empty except for reception, where an old man was sleeping away. I unconsciously cling closer to Natasha when we walk past him – I’m not used to not sneaking around.
The doors beyond us were made of glass, and I could see Sam and Steve chatting next to a motorcycle. Behind them was a black sky of night. Freedom. “I packed what I could, but if I’m missing anything just use the card in your wallet to get something.” Natasha broke my daze. I lift the small wallet she’d given me after shaking me awake an hour ago. It was leather but had a childish cat (?) design on it.
“ It’s Hello Kitty, ” She explained. “ Cartoon cat, she’s – well, she’s cute to girls. ”
“ Where’s her mouth? Teeth? Claws ?”
“ She’s a mute pacifist. It was also the only design I could fit when commissioning this bulletproof wallet. ”
“ Ah. ” I wanted to ask if her first name was Hello or if her first name was fully Hello-Kitty, but Nat had made me take a quick shower before I could.
“Will I ever see you again?” I quietly ask. Natasha, for all her coolness, tilted her head and gave a soft smile.
“Eventually. When things clear up. You also have my number on the burner.”
I raise a brow. “Will you answer?”
“...occasionally.” So never. I roll my eyes and pocket my wallet again before taking the leather briefcase pack she’d packed for me from her hands. “Stay safe out there. Keep your head down. Try not to drink.”
“I’m a Prohibition baby. I’d be lucky if I got my hands on a malt.”
That makes her huff in amusement. “You’re so old.” She suddenly pulls me into the first hug I’d had in seventy years. It was warm. Soft. Floral and gunpowder-scented. I bury my cheeks into her shoulder for a moment before patting her back. She pulls away. “Не умирай.” Don’t die.
I smirk. “Не искушай меня.” Don’t tempt me. She leans against the receptionist’s counter and waves as I walk to the entrance outside. The cold air kisses my cheeks, and my heart skips a beat at the sight of the open sky.
“Ready to go?” Sam’s voice breaks me out of thought. I nod. “Hop in, then.” He throws me a motorcycle helmet and pats the seat behind Steve, who's looking over his shoulder. My brow furrows at the lack of a third seat.
“You’re not comin’?”
“Nah, I’d rather not risk getting jumped again.” His playful grin makes me lightly smack his arm. Steve must’ve had a field day convincing him I wasn’t evil. “Just wanted to make sure you’re all situated – fake passports, I.D.’s, burners. Security is tighter than it was in your guys’ time.”
I nod and thank him. I then put on the helmet, attach my case to the back of the motorbike before sitting behind Steve. He suddenly grabs my hands and firmly places them over his muscle-hard waist. “You could at least take me out to dinner first, Captain.” He huffs.
“Not if you risk your safety by not holding on.” That was the last thing we said before driving away from the glass building I’d once woken up in. I knew the world had changed since I was taken — I’ve caught glimpses of it on missions and wasn’t very surprised at the sight of cars and monorails, but every time I looked up? Something about the endless black sky and the cold air made me want to think that maybe there is a thing called happiness. Maybe not for me, but at least for others.
[Henri Coandă Airport]
Again, it wasn’t shocking to be in an airport. It was a lot bigger than I remembered, and even Steve (who stayed for a while to help me get to my stop) had to ask around for help. We’d both scurried to make sure I didn’t miss my flight out of New York to Romania. He constantly kept checking our backs and told me to keep my head low for security cameras.
By the time we made it to my flight, the boarding had just begun. My stomach constricts as Steve quietly talks about looking for his friend, his file over and over again and how to call him on the burner phone in case anything happened. “And another thing —” He gently prodded my boot with the tip of his shoe. “In case…things don’t go to plan.”
There was a dagger hidden in my boot. Slightly longer than my hand, with a blue handle and black blade. “Do you really think a butter knife like that would do any damage to him, Steve?” I ask exasperatedly.
“You’d be surprised. Just don’t lose it — I had to look everywhere for it. It's vibranium, so it costs a pretty penny.” I don't know what that is, but nod.
“I’m sure.” I look at the long line of people beginning to board the plane to Romania. Something in me sobers. “How long will this be? The hidin’?”
“I don’t know, but hopefully not long.”
I sigh. “Yeah. Hopefully.” He suddenly hugs me — I’m spoiled tonight — and murmurs in my ear.
“Call me for anything at all, okay? Even if it’s just to complain.”
“Oh I will,” I hug back. “I still don’t understand how light-up shoes work. I need someone to bitch about who understands bein’ a hundred isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” I peck his cheek and give him a melancholic smile to the only man who had the same kind of childhood I did. “I’ll see you around, Rogers.”
“Yeah. You too.”
That was about twelve hours ago. After a long plane ride where I mostly slept, I’d left the airport and got a ride to Bucharest’s University Square. I know I said I wasn’t too surprised by the modern world changing, but Bucharest was something else. Cleaner. Fresher. The setting Sun made the sky bottle-blue, and outlined the architecture of the city. It’s what I imagined Paris was like before the war, with Greek columns and everything made of cobblestone. Shops with neon lights for sandwiches and liquor were based on bricks probably a couple hundred years old.
People dressed differently – undershirts and shorts instead of belts and skirts, slippers instead of loafers. So many different styles and colors, that no stood in nor stood out. And everyone walked everywhere – a perfect place to blend in. And that was the hard part. Steve had a theory as to where his friend – Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes (“Bucky,” Steve would call him, but I’m not wholly sure if he’d respond well if I called him that) – could be. Reports of him being occasionally spotted in Eastern Europe were backed up with a file of different HYDRA safehouses.
The HYDRA safehouses were usually hidden in plain sight, carried a small fortune of cash in case of emergencies, and enough open windows and secret latches to escape through if need be. I’ve been made to use them, the Soldiers probably used them at least once, but the catch? We don’t have direct coordinates. They usually either transport us there directly or, in the Soldiers’ case, just scrub their minds clean. Still, you can make a few educated guesses – despite the cash cache, it’s probably going to be in a poor district where tourists with cameras aren’t likely to go. Probably somewhere near a shopping square or hospital, or where lots of people go so they have quick access to targets. And, most likely, somewhere where the crime rate was high enough that a dead body being found isn’t going to get plastered all over the news.
I knew I looked weird. Not through my clothes, but the fact I was walking around the same squares and streets with a leather briefcase backpack and crumpled map I’d stolen off the airport lounge. I was untethered, so to speak. I could leave if I wanted to, even, get rid of the burner phone and live my own life – but I couldn’t. Not when I don’t even have my own home to go back to, nor anything going for me other than this debt I owe Steve. So I keep searching.
I occasionally walk past the markets – my god, the markets! I’d never seen so much food be openly sold here. Unrationed and being sold to housewives and tourists. Most of them were closing up because of the coming night, but I still looked around to see the pretty pots and pans. I buy a cold cup of cubed mango to chew on when –
“Cât costă?”
His voice was lighter. A lot lighter. But the depth was unmistakable. I look around and – there. Right between the roasted nuts and pastries. He was buying a bag of walnuts in a large hoodie and jeans. His hands – his flesh and his metal one – were gloved. But his hair gave it away – long hair framing his face the same as it always did. Just when I broke through a crowd of tourists to get a better look at him – he was gone. Without a trace.
Did he see me?
I asked the nut vendor where he went. Down the street. Problem is, the only thing that led me was a winding dark road of liquor stores and smoke shops. Not that it’s impossible for him to have a drinking habit after all these years, but they usually require I.D., an unnecessary security risk. I circle back to the market – closed and dark. Useless. Shit.
I decided to pull a Hail Mary and steal an old bicycle tied to a fence post to ride around the University square – there were four sectors, one with two sets of buildings and a corney alley. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Shouldn’t have wasted my time looking somewhere tourists frequent.
I ride past closing cafes and boutiques. Nothing. The fountains had nothing more than fighting couples and drunk businessmen who made the air smell like smoke.
The poorer districts weren’t any better. Ferentari made me hopeful with how run-down it was, but looking around, there were too many people outside to have any kind of anonymity. Same with Rahova, and the fact that a prison was nearby wasn’t entirely enticing. I end up ditching my stolen bike and walk through Sector Five on my own. I end up making it to another square, where I lean against an alley’s wall. The fountain nearby made the air cool, at least, but the only light I had were the orange street lamps and the moon. I take out the file again – Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, born 1917 and served until 1945. Comparing the picture I had of him as a soldier and him as the Soldier, both men had the same face, but one’s furrowed brow looked deadly while the other just looked mildly bothered. Lighter.
I close the file and tuck it back into my case. I’d never find him at this rate. I may as well just get a hotel for the night and –
“ Hrrk – !”
Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
My heart jumped out of my throat that was currently being shoved against a wall. Hard, but not as hard as he used to hit. I knew I was supposed to be a comfort to him, but I couldn’t help but say it – “Ты теряешь хватку, Солдат.” You’re losing your touch, Soldier.
His face twitched. “Shut up,” He hissed. English? Was this a trick he’s trying to pull to look less suspicious? Whatever. I knee him in the stomach and make a run out of the alley and to the empty square.
I know I should be kind. Understanding. Empathetic. After all, it’s what Steve would have done, and what I’d like to be done to me. It’s technically my job to help him.
But he also body slammed me fifty years ago, and I’d like some kind of revenge for that.
He quickly gains on me and by the time I make it to the fountain, his hands are on my back and shoving my head into the water.
Splash!
“Who sent you!? Which handler!?”
My throat and nostrils burn as he keeps me down. As if I could talk in this position. I thrash and thrash until he lets my head go and forces me to turn around as I gasp for breath. His hands arm firmly gripping my arms so that they couldn’t move much. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I spat, inching my fingers closer to my ankle. “What are you goin’ to do, kill me?”
“I would –” He dunked me upper half back in again, bubbles blooming as his painful grip undoubtedly bruised my arms. It’s fine, though, because –
SHRRK!
Holy shit, that actually worked. I rammed Steve’s knife into his shoulder, making him drop me completely into the fountain. I scramble out from under him and whip out a small pistol from under my skirt.
He stared at me. I stared at him. I was soaked, my eyes were blurry with water, and I was gasping for breath. He was also breathing heavily, but not from exhaustion – the blade was still stuck in his arm, but no blood came from it. His eyes met mine in equal realization – I tore into his metal arm. Everyone in the compound bragged about it being indestructible. An unbreakable weapon of a limb. And I just shanked it right in the red star. It was like proving god was fake.
I almost felt bad then. Not because I liked him, but because he probably leaned on that being the only reliable weapon to keep him safe. “I remember you,” He tersely spoke. His eyes never left my face. “I'm not going back.”
I scoff. “Shut up, Soldier.” I couldn’t help but call him that – an instinct if any. Reaching into my coat pocket, I take out a now-soaked letter written by Steve. One that was supposed to explain everything to him, from his friendship to why I was here. I pocket my pistol and hand him the paper. “Read it and then kill me.”
He did. His eyes would dart to the paper, then me, then to the paper for a few minutes before going back up to me. Then back to the paper, his hands perfectly still despite a knife sticking out of his metal deltoid.
“...he sent you.”
I nod.
“How do I know you’re not with them? S.H.I.E.L.D. or HYDRA?”
“Because S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to tear out my spine, and HYDRA has gone god knows where and left me to die. Your best man snuck me out of containment just to keep you company.” His jaw tightened at that. With his flesh hand, he tore the knife out of his arm and pocketed it. He folded the note back up and put it into his pocket before walking in the opposite direction. I make a face. The fuck do I do now?
“C’mon. Before the police get a noise complaint.”
[12:58 A.M.]
The safehouse was in Sector Five, in a run-down complex, where a winding path of five cases of stairs led me into a tiny dilapidated studio with only a bedroom and bath. The kitchen tiles were slightly peeling, the light was flickering, and I couldn’t see my reflection in the window.
“Can I have my knife back?”
“No.”
Fuckwad. He gestures at the couch. It had tears at the seams and a single, sad pillow. “It’s yours.” Then went into the only bedroom and shut the door behind him. Click. And locked it. Fuckwad.
I was still soaked from our dalliance. Going to the kitchen, I take some paper towels and do my best to dry myself off, then hastily stripped and changed into some warmer clothes. Another sweater, and some tights. Not sure what to do about my wet outfit, I hung it to dry on the empty oven handle. Then I called Steve on the burner. He picked up after the first ring.
“Hello?”
“He tried to drown me.”
A beat. “He what .”
“Your ‘ Oh, he’s not like that anymore! ’ best friend tried to drown me. In a fountain. He ruined my silk stockings.”
“You – you found Buck?” Despite my grievances, he sounded hopeful.
“Yes, Steven, I found him. And he tried to drown me.”
“...do you want to –” He sounded crestfallen, like a kicked puppy. UGH.
I sighed. “No, no. I’d been stalking him for over an hour before we spoke, so I guess it was justified. He probably saw my face and assumed I was with HYDRA. Which isn’t totally unreasonable, I guess.”
“...oh. Good, good. Where are you now?”
“Safehouse. I gave him your letter and he let me stay.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Aside from refusing to go back to HYDRA and confirming I was with you? No. Sorry.” I pause, feeling a twinge of pity. “I’ll call you if I have to, but for now I have to let him know I’m not goin’ to send him back to Siberia.”
“You mean build his trust.”
I scoff. “No. We’re not that chummy for me to want to do that.” I look at the sky outside the dirty window. A black sky with a glowing white moon greeted me. Back in the compound, moonlight would make the cells glow, and it was probably the only thing that kept me from going crazy. I’d spend hours between experiments and cryo staring at the light, and the dust particles floating looking like something beautiful despite the hell I was in. “But I do need to stay low for a while. For both our sakes, anyway. Plus I’m tired.”
He takes the hint. “I figured. Goodnight, Texas.”
“G’night, Brooklyn.”
I end our call and put the burner on the coffee table next to me before falling into an uncomfortable sleep on the world’s oldest couch.
[3:36 A.M.]
Ring! Ring! Ring!
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
Steve’s sharp breath could be heard on the other side of the burner phone. “Buck? Hey – I mean – did you get my –”
“She stabbed my arm.”
“ What .”
“She stabbed my arm. Your courier.”
An awkward pause. “...you did try to drown her, Buck. She called me earlier and said you almost killed her.”
“I thought she was with them . It didn’t help that she tried to track me from the market.”
“If she approached you normally, would you have trusted her?”
“That’s not the point,” Bucky’s voice snapped. “For all I know she could be a double agent.”
“She’s not.”
“How can you be so sure? She’s just as much of a liar as anyone –”
“You read my letter, didn’t you? I got her myself. The labs were dead, Buck. She was all that was left. And S.H.I.E.L.D. 's in too much hot water to do much other than try to detain and cut her open for any kind of scientific evidence, which she already wanted out on.”
A moment of silence. “I remember her. From before.”
“Yeah?”
“She screamed a lot. Bit the handlers a lot.”
“I’d consider that evidence that she doesn’t want to go back. If not already for the fact she’s willing to live with a stranger.”
“I’m not a stranger to her.”
“Yes you are, Buck,” His best friend spoke softly. “She only knows the Soldier. That’s not you.” More quiet on the other line. “Did you read my letter?”
“I did.”
“Keep an eye out for HYDRA insurgents. I’m scoping around for any on my end too.”
Bucky didn’t answer that. “My metal arm has a tear in it.”
“She stabbed your metal arm?”
“Right on the star.” A pause. “It looks like torn aluminum now.”
“Maybe be gentler next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.” Bucky grunted, then hung up. He placed the burner phone back onto the coffee table before going back into his room.
Chapter 11: Domestic Bliss
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Morning – Day 1]
After all the torture HYDRA had put me through, and after the time I’ve had to be free now that I’m a hiding woman, I thought my mind would be on something different. Revenge. Anger. Grief. Confusion, even. But I didn’t really care to think about all those things. If I thought too hard about all the terrible things they made me do, all I’d get was an upset stomach and a morning of crying. Instead, I was just hungry. Very hungry.
I’d been tube-fed whenever HYDRA put me out of cryo, so looking around this safehouse’s refrigerator was disappointing. I knew that he was a man, but I didn’t think he ate like one! All he had in his unit were yesterday’s bagged walnuts, half a bread loaf, two onions, and a box of goat cheese. Oh, and ketchup. Because that clearly makes this situation better. No one would assume he’s a wanted man in multiple countries with this diet.
I look outside. It’s six-thirty. Still dark out, even the birds aren’t even singing. He’s probably still asleep, or, at least, I hope he is. I put a skirt over my tights, throw on a coat from my pack, grab my wallet, and leave out the door with his keycard. So I know he won’t go anywhere (unless he climbs out the window…shit, I should’ve bolted those shut).
The trip to the market wasn’t that hard to follow. I nicked a tourist guide while at the airport earlier and just followed its map to the nearby bus transit. The ride to Sector Two led me to a giant market – Piața Obor București – that the pamphlet said had everything and anything. Which was great, since he also only had a single pan, a single fork (NOT EVEN A SPOON), small knife and the world’s tiniest bottle of cheap cooking spray.
I’d gotten as much as I could: A big bag to carry my things. Eggs, shampoo, olive oil, cream, a thick jar of honey, a cup of grape juice to tide me over (very crisp, not too sweet) before cooking, some spread called zacuscă, and some chicken sausage that an old lady insisted I have. She took one look at my shopping (I bought double of everything) and asked, “Esti sotie?” You a wife? I knew a little Romanian because of generic lab training (they wanted to see if we’d obey in other languages), so the best I could do was nod. It seemed enough, though, because she beamed and threw in a smaller pack of chicken sausage, with bits of apple and cheese. When I tried to give them back to her, she waved me off. “Bărbaților le este mereu foame!” It probably helped that I already bought a lot of links from her. I buy some spoons from another vendor and leave.
It was almost eight when I got back to the apartment. Looking at my haul, I wondered if all my things would even fit in the Soldier’s tiny fridge. Whatever. I put my bag on the counter and took out his tiny pan to ground the sausage into. I was in the middle of adding a splash of cream to the pile of now-cooking scrambled eggs when –
“You went outside.”
His voice was quiet but clearly accusatory. I don’t bother looking up.
“Relax, I put your keycard back on the table. You should really –”
“You could’ve been seen.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. He’s right, technically I should be more careful with my steps since he’s a wanted man and HYDRA’s probably spilled all over Europe, but – “I wasn’t. It was dark out and practically no one was at the market.” I finally turned around to look at him. He was still wearing the hoodie, but with sweatpants. The Winter Soldier was wearing sweatpants. “But next time I’ll add a ball and chain to my heel so you’d hear my leavin’. Y’know, like good ol’ days at the compound.” His jaw clenched at that, but he didn’t say anything. Just sauntered off to the bathroom in his room.
What a big baby. God forbid his diet consists of more than onions and ketchup. I keep cooking, and plate the eggs. It's messy and imperfect, but not bad after seventy years. I put his plate on his tiny table and mine sitting on the kitchen counter when he came back.
“You made food.”
“I gave you my leftovers.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do I know you haven’t poisoned it?”
“Why the hell would I waste food with poison?” I say through a mouthful of toast. “In this economy? It’d be cheaper to stab you in your sleep.” A pause. “But if you’re not hungry, I can always eat it –”
He huffed in annoyance and sat down at the table. I pretend not to study his reaction as he took a bite – it was the first time I’d cooked something in seven decades, so for all I know it tastes terrible to him. He chews, then pauses for a moment, looks at his plate, then keeps chewing. We both eat in relative silence when –
“Next time you want to go out, tell me first.”
I raise a brow. “I want to go out tomorrow. You don’t have a cutting board.”
“I have a –”
“The little plastic rectangle that came with your onions don't count.” His face twitched in annoyance. He probably thought I was going to wait for his convenience. Unfortunately, I wanted more food and proper cooking utensils. My eye wanders to his arm. The hoodie he wore hid the metal, but it didn’t change the fact that some of the fabric stuck oddly up from where I tore the “flesh”. Some of the metal must be sticking outwardly under the fabric. “How’s the arm?” Not because I cared, I just thought the fact that my little butter boot blade was strong enough to get his Soviet star. Remembering that he still had my damn knife, I suddenly felt annoyed with him again.
He seemed to remember too, because his face got stormy again. He quickly swallowed the rest of his plate. “Fine.” Then put the plate in the sink and walked back into his room. Click. Ugh.
The rest of the day was the same. I studied the map I got from the airport and read a book on his little shelf – a beat-up copy of “Discover Romanian” – and made a lunch of sausage sandwiches with onion and zacuscă when I plucked up the gall to ask him – “Did HYDRA give you the address to this safehouse?” He turned.
“What?”
“This safehouse. It’s clearly under HYDRA but you’re using it like no one’s going to find you here. Either they gave it to you, or –”
“I told you, I’m not going back. And I didn’t take the location from them.”
I raise my brow. “Then how did you find this place? Did you just trial and error break-in a bunch of empty apartments in Sector Five – ” He stopped chewing. “Oh my god, you did –”
“ Shut up. ”
“You did!” I cackle behind my sandwich. “Did you climb the vents until you found the cash cache?” He glowered at me, but I didn’t care. I laughed harder against the counter. “Oh, I know someone thinks there’s a Peepin’ Tom in their neighborhood because of your beady little Soldier eyes!” His head turned quickly in my direction, voice testy.
“You want to live somewhere else, Seventeen?”.
I stopped laughing. My face twitched. “Don’t call me Seventeen.”
“Don’t call me Soldier.” I felt like a vampire waiting for entrance. “Barnes. My name is James Barnes. Not the Winter Soldier.” It was as if he was reciting it more for himself than for me.
My eyes rolled, not wanting to look soft to him. With reluctance, I grumble my name as well. His eyes flickered to my face for a second before going back to his plate. “We’re not friends,” I add.
He scoffed. “We’re not.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
[Morning - Day 2]
He seemed to wake up before me this time. James. Barnes. I’m not sure which one I should say. I glare at him from the couch.
“Did you watch me sleep?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” There was a plate of eggs on the counter as he looked bored while reading the newspaper at the table. He was wearing gloves over his hands. “Hurry up.”
“You made me eggs.”
“I saved you time.”
I take a bite and try not to judge too harshly at how it was slightly burnt and rubbery. It looked messily made – messily chopped meat, uneven onions, and overly salted all around. The onions and sausage were cut up to death, though, something that couldn't be done in a rush even with its terrible shape. Something about that made my chest hurt. Must be the grease.
When we went outside, we awkwardly stuck together. Sometimes he tried to walk ahead of me, and I’d try to go to the side of the road. He’d randomly walk slower, and I’d try to get ahead. He’d push, and I’d pull. “Look normal,” Barnes hissed.
“Says the guy who's dressed like a creep.” He scoffed and pulled his baseball cap over his eyes.
We went to the same market as last time, with the same large stalls and oceans of fruits, vegetables, and edible niches. I’d brought my large bag that I’d bought last time, and was about to make a beeline to the fruit juice stall when I felt my hand get tugged back. His grip was firm but uncompromising. “We have to stick together,” He murmured. “They’re less likely to expect a couple.” They, as in HYDRA. S.H.I.E.L.D., maybe. Either way, I roll my eyes.
“They’re less likely to think you’re suspicious when you don't dress like someone who doesn’t ever go outside.” He doesn’t let go of my hand, still. “Ugh. Fine. What do you want, Barnes?”
As some other sleepy shoppers came in for the morning rush, he suddenly looked to the floor. “You said you wanted to go. Not me.”
“So you’d be fine if we went back with nothing, and you’re fridge only having ketchup and onions?”
He huffed but didn't deny it. “Just get whatever. I’ll take care of the payment.”
I’d felt like one of those rich wives with an inattentive husband. No eyes and all pocket money – he just stood beside me and stared at the produce while I fished around and got whatever looked good. I hadn’t had this many options before in my life – to think I used to look forward to buying extra eggs to now being sold egg custard in a powder was jarring. Or, at least, I thought it was egg custard. I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of asking and instead focused on carrying the small pot in my arms.
“Where’s the soap?”
“It’s here.”
“What? You mean all these are –”
“People don’t use bars anymore.” I stare at the bottled body soaps. Back when I was a nurse, I’d used Lifebuoy religiously – my skin felt like plaster with how much dirt it scrubbed off. I liked how much of a buttered turkey I’d felt whenever I thickly slathered on lotion afterwards.
I laughed. “Next you’re gonna tell me people use liquids for their clothes instead of powder.” He looked away, not answering. “Oh, ugh – ” I take it back. The modern world is terrible. I miss my Chipso. So pure it no longer floats, Ivory Soap. I sigh and grab something peppery-scented then keep shopping. An actual chopping board, tomatoes, spice mixes, sauerkraut, a head of cabbage, rice, lemons, a toothbrush and sour cream filled my bag by the time we revisit the butcher stall. The old lady was there again, and we both tried to hide our faces from her wandering eyes when –
“Ah, ăsta e soțul tău? E înalt, nu-i așa? E înfricoșător și!” I have no clue what she just said, but Barnes quickly grabs my hand and gives what I think is a tight smile. “Proaspăt căsătoriți?”
“Aşa ceva.”
She pointed at him with a beam. “Îmi dau seama. A venit chiar ieri, timidă și curioasă -- ar fi trebuit să știu că era nerăbdătoare să facă pe plac!”
His brows raised slightly for a moment before nodding. “...ea face tot posibilul.” The old lady laughed.
Why do I feel like he’s talkin’ shit. He’s talkin’ trash, isn’t he? I hastily grab some beef and lamb sausages to pay for before shoving them into my bag. We’re not friends. I’d only ever known him as someone cruel for years, and now I remember that he was given better language training than I had. It was still undoubtedly awful, sure, but the fact that his trauma came useful and mine didn’t stung in a way I knew was stupid. Whatever.
When we get back to the safehouse apartment I unload all of my groceries. Meat, toothbrush, rice, lemons, soap bars – huh? I frown at the small box pack in my hand. Cherry-scented, if the little watercolor wrapper print pattern could be trusted.
“...since you cooked yesterday.” Barnes quietly interrupted my curiosity, busying himself with locking the door. His eyes flickered up once before going back down. He walked off and closed the door again. Click. And locked it. The sound still annoyed me, but when I held up a bar and took a whiff – cherries, something nutty, and syrupy sweet cream – I almost felt bad for stabbing him in the arm last night.
[Day 6]
Each morning I’d cook, eat, and read. Then I’d cook, eat, and read in the afternoon, and cook, eat and read at night. With the same prior copy of Discovering Romanian , I tried to catch up on what he’s already mastered. I tried to mutter sentences to myself, even if I had no clue as to what it was supposed to sound like, and tried my best to translate whatever written text I could find around the safehouse. Lemon dish soap. Extra virgin, cold-pressed olive oil. First-aid kit. Emergency kit. Sweet cherry and almond soap. Orange blossom honey. After the Uniform: A Guide to Life After War, Trauma, and Loss. I stare at the small book tucked away in his already-small shelf.
Barnes would only come whenever I cooked. He’d eat at the table, I’d eat at the counter, then he’d put his dish in the sink and walk away. We’d never talk the entire time. At night, though, I’d notice something – whenever I stepped into the bathroom to take a shower, I’d come back to see the dishes cleaned. Sometimes they were messily done, suds still slipping while drying, but there was clearly an attempt.
I remembered back when I was a nurse, soldiers would sometimes get their arms and legs so battered you’d have to do everything for them. It was our job to help, and they usually didn’t question whenever we would rush to their side to help them move to something, but on rare occasions they’d get so offended – not me, but a girl named Sarah once tried to tie a guy’s shoes for him only to get rejected. “ I’m no baby! ” He snapped. I was so sure she’d cry with how loudly he hissed, but Sarah just gave him some space and came back later to help. When I asked how she didn’t cry, she just shrugged. “ I’m not the one who got my hand shot. ”
That night, after a dinner of (attempted) lamb stew, I asked Barnes about his arm.
“What about it?”
“It’s pokin’ outta your sleeve.” The metal was poking up the fabric a little on his deltoid.
“And whose fault is that?”
I click my tongue. “Do you want me to flatten it or what?”
He stared at me as he put his plate in the sink. “No.” My face twitched as I crossed my arms.
“So you’re fine handlin’ it on your own.”
“I’m not.”
“Then let me –”
“ No .”
My jaw tightened at that. I wasn’t going to hurt him – he could easily stop me if I tried. “Why not?”
He doesn’t bother turning his head to answer as he walked back to his bedroom.
“I don’t trust you.”
I glower at that. “I don’t exactly trust you either, but I’m still offerin’ you a boon.”
“Keep it to yourself.” Click. Jackass. I take out my burner phone and send a message to Steve:
Dear Steven,
I hope this message finds you well. Your best friend is a goddamned jackass whose mother clearly didn’t ground him enough as a boy. Either that, or he had no mother and that explains his being a walking commercial for anti-bachelor living. No, I’m not going anywhere, but I don’t like him all the same. He’s going to send my blood pressure up one of these days and when it does I’m framing the both of you for when I get a heart attack from it. And Sam just to stress him out.
I politely send my regards before pressing send. I haven’t written a message in a while, so I hoped I wasn’t too rude.
Notes:
I skipped lunch before writing this and it shows lol
Chapter 12: Cherries in the Snow
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Spring, 1944]
The Howling Commandos, despite popular assumption, didn’t get first pick of supplies whenever the crates came around. It wasn’t because they weren’t important, no, but because of the simple fact that they were used to making do with less, and often passed up on things so that other soldiers who needed them more could have them. That said, one thing that they all got that was brand new was surprisingly fresh: Swiss Army Knives. Dark scarlet handle, gleaming little switchblades and screws, and quite specially, engravings of each soldier’s initials.
“It’s so dainty,” Dum Dum noted when he was given his. “Those little scissors are smaller than my pinky.” He used said small scissors to keep his glorious mustache in shape, even when they were in the middle of nowhere or the night before a big operation.
Still, the novelty of the blades wore off after a while. While undoubtedly useful, most of the Commandos just used the blades to treat wounds and open cans. Morita even lost his and had to get it replaced. Gabe Jones would use his as a paperweight and always use Cap’s blade instead to open cans.
“That’s because you don’t even need yours,” Bucky mused. “You’re a walking all-in-one tool already.” Steve huffed in amusement.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Nazi-puncher, can opener, sleepwalker, lady repellant – ow!” His best friend cackled as his shoulder got punched. In his lap was his own blade, polished and sharpened. While everyone else’s army knives got worn down, rusted and scratched, Bucky Barnes’ blade was kept perfectly clean and spotless. Not a single scratch or spot of rust on the metal. “Careful, you almost made me drop her!”
And that was the other thing. He exclusively called his blade ‘his girl’. A lady. She. In between fights and traveling, his way of recalibrating was to get patched up, cleaned up, eat, then spend the rest of the night absentmindedly cleaning and making sure his knife was unbroken. It kept his hands and mind busy, and a way to get him bored enough to actually sleep for more than four hours (nightmares not included).
“Y’know, your girl’s made to be roughed up, Buck,” Steve amusedly pointed out. Bucky rolled his eyes and wiped the small scissor blades against his shirt. “Army gave us them for a reason.”
“No, Steven – my girl is a lady . She doesn’t know shit about bein’ roughed up and I intend for her to stay that way.” He almost looked sentimental while scrubbing the blade. “She’s the only girl who stuck with me through everything. Least I can do is treat her good.”
“That, and she’s probably the only woman who’s willing to stick with you through thick and thin. And you get into a lotta thins nowadays.”
“Oh yeah?” Bucky raised a brow. “And whose fault is that? It’s not like I’m the one attracting Nazis everywhere I walk.”
“Ouch, Buck.” Steve pretending to be hurt. “Didn’t know you felt that way.”
“Yeah, well,” He huffed. “When I die alone and delusional, clutchin’ onto a knife instead of a wife, I’m blamin’ you for it.”
“Not because of your own inability to understand women?”
“Nope. And for the record, I understand women a hell of a lot better than you.” His friend rolled his eyes. “What? It’s true! Remember three Christmases ago? You called a gal deadlier than death and –”
“ That was a compliment! ” Steve’s face turned into a deep scarlet. “Guys love that kind of stuff!”
“ Guys, Steve. Not girls. ’Specially not girls who’ve been arms-deep in guts all day just to no longer be treated like a delicacy.”
“That was one time, ” He groaned. “Fine. Whatever. You’ve got a PhD in talking to the fairer sex, happy? That’s why you call your knife a lady and keep everyone at camp awake with your dirty sleep talki –”
“Hey!” Bucky turned red. “That’s confidential, Rogers!” Rogers snickered. “But damn right, I know girls more than you. It’s why I treat my Swiss better than yours – remind myself what kind of man I am, what my type is.”
“Which is?”
“Gals who can shank good and kiss better.”
They keep chatting in relative boredom before Gabe awkwardly calls out a ‘ Cap, I think your knife’s scissors broke…wasn’t me though.’ which pulls the blond away.
Later, when Bucky Barnes plunged to what he assumed was his death, he felt his girl fall from his pocket. He tried to reach out and grab it, the scarlet handle holding a striking contrast against the white ice and snow, but his mind went black before his fingers could even touch it.
[Spring, 1941]
I’d always been proud of being a nurse. I’d taken an accelerated course and graduated with top marks, and adapted to field life a lot better than some of the other girls. I used to think it was stupid, how so many used to cling onto their femininity during the times we lived in tents. It was war, the last thing we needed to care about was how shiny our shoes looked. Besides, I’d never been in something big like this in my life – I used to just stay home and do chores, and now I’m in Europe working making a wage. So lipstick was something I thought was dumber than tar.
“To you,” My friend Rita sniffed when I told her the tube of lipstick I was handed was stupid. We’d gotten one last shipment of supplies, and the final crate was smaller than the others. I thought it’d be something important, like alcohol or bandages, but instead? A bunch of shiny little lipstick bullets that made all the other girls gasp and smile. “But some of us like bein’ girls.”
“I like bein’ a girl,” I mutter defensively, glaring at the tube on my pillow. “Just not a stupid one.”
“What’s stupid about lipstick?”
“Nothin’. But we could’ve used this stuff for bandages instead.”
Rita shook her head in disapproval, carefully lining her lips with her own bullet. “Think of it this way – if our boys are dying in our camps, don’t you want the last thing for them to see be pretty? You could be that.”
“You callin’ me ugly, Reet?”
She giggled. “Maybe. Besides – I hear the German chancellor hates cosmetics, lipsticks most of all. They’d apparently banned rouge in their country. So this is basically rebellion.”
“If you say so.” I try to put some on my mouth but just felt like a clown wearin’ it. “I look like Bobo.”
Rita rolled her eyes. “You’ve got a pretty mouth, sweetie. You just need some practice. And maybe a lip pencil.” She scooched over to my bedroll and held up her own lipstick. “Copy me.”
I tried my best to imitate her movements and kept my lip lines clear. “You grew up poor, right?” She asked.
“Didn’t we all?” Well, not really – Reet was from Connecticut. She only joined the war because her brothers had all volunteered.
She laughed. “Touché. But what I mean is, if you’ve had it so hard all your life, don’t you owe it to yourself to treat yourself nice at times? Lipstick, silk stockings, good soap and hot water baths – you’re not back home anymore. You get paid. You can live how you want to, and give yourself what the past never could.”
For someone who sucked at stitching wounds, Rita could be pretty wise at times. “...sp’ose so.”
Later, when I was in France and the explosion happened, one of the last things I saw before getting taken was Rita, laying in the dirt, clutching her lipstick. Her lips were red, half-bright with carmine and half-dark with blood.
[Day 13]
Barnes and I came to an unspoken agreement of getting groceries – sorry, supplies – once a week. He says it’s to maintain normalcy, but it’s really just to make sure he doesn’t live off of scraps. Man cannot live off ketchup and onions alone, after all.
I enjoyed going out, for what it was worth. I’d ignore the stiff back I’d get from sleeping on the couch, take the slip of paper that held all of the Romanian words I was learning that week and go out and practice my annunciation. I’d always stick to the same stalls, same people, and ignore how brooding Barnes looked behind my back. “Would it kill you to smile for once?” I muttered to him after buying some milky lotion from a lady. “You’re scarin’ everyone.”
“Good.”
“I thought we were supposed to blend in. Can’t exactly do that with the way you look.”
“Says the woman whose Romanian sounds like drunken Gaelic.”
I whipped my head around like that. He looked unapologetic as his eyes scanned the cart of borrowed books. “I’m tryin’ ,” I hiss, feeling my cheeks warm. What an asshole! “Not everyone got languages drilled into their head while they were at the compound. Some of us only got drills drilled into them.” That made him pause for a second. If he wanted to respond, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I turned back around and stomped off.
I knew it was dumb. I knew we both went through terrible things and shouldn’t act like I’m the only person who went through hell in Siberia. But I couldn’t help it. I took long strides, as far as I could, to get away from him and somewhere on the other side of the indoor market. Turning around, I noticed he wasn’t behind me anymore. Good. I can’t stand him.
I realized I didn’t know where I was. In the main middle of the market, people sold vegetables and bread, but here it was more metal wares. Pots, pans, spoons, mirrors, brushes…oh. I was in the little beauty corner. A small, sad smile itched my lips. In another life I would’ve thought this was stupid, but in this one I just looked around.
“Îți place ceva aici, domnișoară?” Do you like anything here, miss? I blink. While I was happy that my learning of basic phrases paid off, I had no clue how to respond. I politely shake my head. His voice had a thick accent, though, that sounded painfully familiar… French!
“Pardon, monsieur, êtes-vous français?” The words spilled out of my mouth before I could even think. I hadn’t spoken French since my hospital days there! The words were dormant in my mind, like a house I hadn’t visited in so long but instinctively knew my way around. The man smiled widely.
“Oui, madame. Je suis de Paris.” I try not to wince at that – last I heard, Paris was overtaken by the Axis. Hopefully he’s living here on his own accord and not…any other reason. Feeling happy, suddenly, I ask:
“Avez-vous du rouge à lèvres rouge? Des crayons à lèvres?” Do you have any red lipstick? Lip pencils?
“Oui, madame.” He takes out a few bullets from his stand, each from a different brand. I recognized some brands – like Max Factor and Revlon – but not the others. “Vous cherchez une teinte qui corresponde à votre carnation? Celle-ci est assez universelle.” Yes, ma’am. Would you like a tone that suits your skin? This one is rather universal. I studied the tube – Maybelline 612. Cherry Chic. I frown at it – since when did Maybelline sell lipsticks? It was a pretty shade of scarlet, though, and I requested a lip pencil to go with it. It’s a brown shade –
“Ah! C'est ton mari?” The vendor asked. Oh. He’s back. I don't bother turning around.
Barnes had to clear his throat. “Oui.” If my Romanian sounded drunk his French sounded dead. I keep a tight smile and hand him the last of my personal cash.
“Merci, monsieur. Bonne journée.”
I leave the stand with a new lipstick and lip liner, and a man who's clearly bothered by both. He kept turning his head behind us the whole walk. “Don’t disappear next time,” He lowly chided. “You don’t know who –”
“I know enough,” I retort. “Leave me alone, Barnes. I’m not goin’ to blow our cover just because I wanted to speak to a man who understands women better than you do.”
When we make it back to the safehouse, neither of us talk. It’s the same routine as usual, until dinner rolls around. Instead of retreating back to his locked room after putting away groceries, he goes to the kitchen and fishes something from the cabinet. A small bottle of cleaner, and a handkerchief. The entire time I cooked he was scrubbing something on the table.
“You finally got a bigger knife?” It’s not like I want to get talkative with him, but the question came out when I saw the reflection of a small red knife in his hands. It was oddly clunky.
He grunted. “Not for cooking.” I turn my head around briefly. A Swiss Army knife, and a shitty one at that. It looked as if it was a soldier itself, all rusted and chipped at the edges. The metal was no longer shiny and the handle had a thick-split cut in the middle. He must’ve gotten it at a secondhand stall while I was getting lipstick.
“If you have that, can I have my knife back?” I hate the fact I even have to ask for it. The stupid thing was a gift, and he took it! And for what? Because I stabbed him? He was going to drown me, what was I supposed to do?
“No.”
It was immature, but I turned around and hissed – “Why not!? I told ya, I’m not goin’ to hurt you! The damn thing –”
“I already said I don’t trust you. Nothing personal.”
Oh, BROTHER, THIS GUY STIN – “Oh, fuck off . I’m not personally offended, I’m personally annoyed – I practiced self defense and now I’m gettin’ punished for it.”
He didn’t say anything after that. After dinner he takes his plate to the sink but I beat him to the bit. “Don’t bother,” I hissed. “You’re ass at cleaning.” His jaw tightened but he didn’t say anything as he sauntered back into his room. Click. Fucker.
That night I sat up on the couch with a small compact that Natasha’d packed me in one hand and my lip liner in another. I felt something in my chest tighten and bloom as I carefully applied the tip to my lipline, outlining my mouth. The brown liner wasn’t as dark as I thought. I smacked my lips a few times before dabbing on the red. I don’t look in the mirror at first when I do it, a sharp feeling coming to my nose.
When I raise my mirror to see my mouth, my eyes water and I let out a sniffle. It was a perfect red lip. The brown added depth and made my skin look clearer. Most of all, though, I could hear my old self complain – I look like I swallowed cherries. Back when I’d tiredly stare at myself in the mirror after having my hands on bloody flesh and carrying half-slumped men across broken streets. Rita would’ve been proud – took me seventy years, but I finally managed to wear lipstick properly.
[2:13 A.M.]
Steve’s voice came back tired but alert on the other line. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Buck,” He sounded a lot more collected than the last call. Kinder, too. “Hey. How’s everything?”
“She wants her knife back. Seve –” He swallowed his words, then corrected his naming. “She wants the thing that stabbed my shoulder back.”
Steve paused. “You’ve had it this whole time?”
“I don’t trust being around a lot of sharp objects right now, and that includes her,” He grunted, as if it pained him to be talking this much. “The only reason I’m keeping her on the couch is because my room has a lock.” The knife was currently under his bed.
“Do you trust her?”
“Not really,” His mind flashed to the lipstick. A few hours ago he’d heard her sniffling – he didn’t mean to upset her about her Romanian. And she’d done all the cooking even if they both mutually disliked each other. Even offered to try to help his arm – not that he cared much about it. If it were up to him, he’d have the thing burned in a fire, but struggled to take it off. HYDRA had a talent of making their tech impossible to remove. They said it was meant for long-wear, but really it was an excuse to be cruel. To never let him fully remember a time when he was wholly his old self. “I don’t know. I could easily put her down if I had to.”
“Could she do the same?”
Silence. “...not without the dagger.”
Steve thought carefully before speaking. “Maybe give her a chance to prove she’s trustworthy. I sent her for a reason, Buck. You guys are supposed to stay hidden together – safety in numbers.”
“...I know.” He looked out his apartment’s dirty window. Sector Five didn’t have much outside but broken down, white buildings and streets that seemed to be made of the tiny white rocks that came from said crumblings. There was a shared silence for a minute on both lines.
“Do you need anything else, Buck? Anything at all?” Steve asked with a gentle hopefulness.
Bucky was about to say no and hangup, but remembered something. “...did I have a girl?”
“Hm?”
“A girl. I kept – there was a knife – I called her my girl –” He felt stupid just describing it. Saying it out loud, it had to be a fake –
“Oh – oh! Ha-ha! Yeah, you did!” Steve’s abrupt laughter made his head glitch. “You had a Swiss Army knife called Lady. You liked to polish her between missions. All the other Commandos treated their knives like trash, but you kept yours in mint condition.”
That was it – something in his mind felt warmer when he said it. Like a memory defrosting in his head in real time. “Did you have one?” He couldn’t recall Steve ever having one –
“Nah, Gabe always took mine and used it to open peach cans.”
“...Dum Dum trimmed his stache with his.” He was surprised he even remembered such a thing. Every morning, in camp, he’d stumble out of his tent and see the large, Teddy-Rooseveltian man trim his face with a kind of daintiness he didn’t think the other man had. He took out a small notebook from the side of his bed and began to scribble – Had a Swiss named Lady. Treated her like one. Gabe used Steve’s. Dum Dum shaved with his. Did I shave? He asked Steve if he ever used Lady for anything.
“No, you just kept her shiny and pretty. Always in your pocket.”
“Hm.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
Steve smiled on the other line. “G’night, Buck.” Bucky grunted then hung up. Staring at the Swiss Army knife at his bedside table, he ran his metal middle finger down its split. He’d found it while looking for her in the market. The nurse. There was a faded white cross at the edge of the handle.
His jaw tightened, though – he couldn’t feel the handle’s split. Not with his metal hand, at least. Bucky threw the blade back into his drawer before turning off the light.
A couple hours later, he went back outside his room for a glass of water. He briefly turned around to the couch to turn on the light, only to see her sleeping silently on the cushions. He nearly dropped the glass when he saw her lips – the same kind of cherry-red girls used to wear in his time. Her time. Their time, but it was no longer theirs.
Notes:
UGH I wanted to use Revlon Cherries in the Snow for this chapter (since the name was so apt) for the reader to buy, but the color was a painfully hot pink. Still used it as a title since it sounded cute. Black cherry was my backup, but it was too much of a dark purple in too many pictures. Luckily Maybelline came in clutch tho lol. I'm not sure if I should change the chapter title tbh. Heavy-handed on the cherry motif. Long live lipstick.
Chapter 13: A Farewell to Arms
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[???]
I couldn’t feel my legs when I woke up. I couldn’t feel anything. The last time they’d taken me out of cryostasis, they’d ended up joltin’ me halfway up to hell until I passed out. They wanted to see how much pain I could take before I fainted – “Стандартным дисциплинарным протоколом для нее станет восьмой уровень.” Level eight will be her standard disciplining protocol. But I didn’t know what he said at the time. Later on I did — level eight was the highest electric shock value the handlers had used on me before I collapsed — I could still taste the prickling shocks on my tongue, with my own saliva conducting electricity down my throat and making it into something sore.
I’d braced myself for another round of testing. How my first handler would drag me out of cryostasis, harshly scrub me down with antiseptic soap, then barely leave me to dry before taking me to a white room full of tools and a stiff examination table. But that wasn’t the case this time. It was an empty room, no tools, no table. There was a glass window on one side of the wall. My handler and a few other scientists looked at me through it. Through a grainy microphone, one says –
“Субъект семнадцать, приготовьтесь к обучению.”
Subject Seventeen, stand ready for training.
I didn’t know what they meant by that. Slowly backing from the door, I stiffen my back out of fear of punishment. Then the door opened.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I recognize the footsteps. Perfectly spaced, perfectly quiet. Perfectly him. The Soldier stood at the door, his mouth muzzled and his metal arm gleaming. His hair was long, and hid his eyes. No, no, no, no, nonono –
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Again. It was like the footsteps were mocking my fear. I keep stepping back, unsure when the wall would meet my spine. I didn’t care. I wanted to tell him to stop, but for some reason I could. I just kept backing, and backing, and backing –
Splash!
My throat burned and back ached as I was suddenly shoved into a pool of water. It was an empty room, so I didn’t know where it came from, but the soldier held my throat down as my head thrashed underwater. I tried to kick, scream, beg, but nothing came of it. My hands tried to scratch his arms – both of them were suddenly made of metal. My chest began to hurt, and I start to cry, hot tears as I yelled for my –
“ – ey! HEY!”
[? – ay 20]
My eyes snapped open. My lungs bloomed as I took a deep, gasping breath. Barnes was above me, shaking my shoulders firmly awake. My cheeks felt wet as he kept calling my name. “ – dammit, woman, wake up – ! Fuck. You’re awake,” He spoke in a way so shakily I was surprised his voice went that…soft? Vulnerable? His Adam's apple bobbed into a deep swallow as he took another once-over at me. His hair was a freshly-woken mess. He’d tucked strands behind his ears so that his blue irises got a good look at my face. I could see his eyes. “...you were screaming in your sleep.” His eyes flickered to my cheeks. Crying too.
I didn’t know what to say. If I’d even wanted to say anything. Looking at the little coffee table next to me, his Swiss army knife was laying with its biggest blade out. He must’ve thought there was an intruder. I wasn’t awake enough to feel embarrassed, or even mad that he’s being touchy with me. “’M fine,” I instead rasp. “Just dreamt of the compound. That’s all.”
Barnes froze at that. We both sat on the small couch in silence for a minute. He was wearing a thick, almost too-big sweater. I couldn’t see his metal arm at all, since that fist was now buried in his sweatpant’s pocket. His flesh hand momentarily clenched then unclenched, like he was contemplating comforting me. Instead, he stood up and walked to the kitchen. Opening up the pantry, he grabbed some sleep syrup I’d bought last week, and poured me a shot.
“That’s meant for colds,” I weakly croak. He doesn’t react, just pushing it onto the table.
Barnes just grunted. “Drink it.” I do, wincing at the “mixed berry” taste and lie back down. I expected him to go back to his room when he left my peripheral, but instead he came back with a box of tissues and an extra blanket. He placed the box on the table and threw the blanket onto my lap. Then he walked back into his room. “...knock if you need more blankets.” I heard his footsteps shuffle away, uneven, heavy and clearly tired.
He didn’t lock his door. He left the entrance halfway open before retiring back to his room. I was still cold after a few minutes, and knocked. He didn’t even seem bothered as he wordlessly got up and took his own blanket off his mattress (peeking into his room, he didn’t have any bedding) and wrapped it around my shoulders. When I tried to protest he just shushed me. “Warmth makes you sleep heavier. Less nightmares.” In the same quiet tone before going back to bed.
When morning came, and the rest of the day, neither of us acknowledged what’d happened. I’d read, he’d brood, and we’d both take meal breaks in between. The only change in our routine was him muttering a quiet “I got it” when dinner finished and he took to his usual routine of washing the dishes.
[Day 27]
Since living at the safehouse, and despite Bucharest being beautiful every time we shop, we hardly ever go out. Once a week for groceries, sure, but nothin’ else. Once, I asked about paying rent since the safehouse was an apartment room, and the sergeant just shrugged. “Mailed a check.” He only ever went out when I made him, which didn’t explain something I kept noticing – the books on his shelf kept changing.
I’d practiced my Romanian with the books on his shelf, along with my own old study book, but the texts would change from time to time. I’d wake up and there’d be paperbacks different from the ones yesterday. It didn’t happen daily, but it’s happened thrice now for me to notice. Whenever I practiced my Romanian, I’d read the changing titles: A Thousand Splendid Suns changed to The Kite Runner. All the Light We Cannot See changed to The Things They Carried, and that changed to Night a week later. All in Romanian, of course. Oddly enough, the Hobbit popped in once. It disappeared a few days later, to my annoyance, since that was the only book I recognized on the shelf.
I’d wanted to ask him about it, but ever since my little night terror outburst he’s been extra avoidant. Only talking in grunts, and when we shopped he’d only quietly stalk me to pay for whatever I get. When I get onto him about looking less grumpy or scary, he just hums noncommittally, like I bored him.
How dare he. I’m a goddamn delight.
Today I decided to ask him over breakfast. I’d made toasted cozonac sandwiches with jam and cheese, and while drowning my sandwich in honey I say:
“So when does the book fairy come?”
He stopped chewing and looked in my direction at the counter. I was sitting crosslegged on the countertop with some juice in a plastic wine glass. “What.”
“You always get new books every couple of days. There’s no library here, not without goin’ to the bus, and unless you’re no longer paranoid –”
“There’s no library.”
“Then what is it? It’s annoying to learn a language only to get your reading practice interrupted every few days.”
Barnes swallowed and took another bite. I thought he was going to ignore what I asked and go back to brooding behind his newspaper, but his grace kindly deigns me the answer of – “Nothing.” Rude. He then goes back to his regularly-scheduled stewing.
[Day 30]
I hear shuffling first thing when I wake up. Messy, sleepy, heavy. Uneven and ungraceful, held back in its movement. Either someone decided to rob us in the ass-crack of dawn, or —
“It’s six in the morning, Barnes. The hell are you doin’ up?” It’s almost goofy, what he’s wearing – a baseball cap, gloves, and sneakers like he’s a kid in winter, if you didn’t count the fact he was cut, tall and trim. “You look like you’re about to jump someone.” I noticed my shopping bag around his shoulder. He looked extremely reluctant to be doing this.
“Six is the earliest the book box opens. Hurry up if you want something, because I’m leaving in five.”
I squint at his face. He’s being serious. Whatever a book box is, I scramble to find out. After falling over the coffee table, yelping at him a ‘Don’t look!’ when pulling on a big shirt, and looking for my skirt, I realized a predicament – “...I don’t have any more skirts.” I’d always thrown them in the wash basket and never bothered to iron them, partially because we don’t have an ironing board and partially because I keep forgetting to find one. Barnes sighs and walks back into his room. For a moment I think he’s given up on goin’ when he comes back out and throws a pair of his jeans at me. I stare at them. Never in my ninety-four years of living have I ever worn… jeans. Sure, the compound had disguises and I’d worn tights before, but…
“They keep sagging.”
“What?”
“They keep – dammit, Barnes, you’re built like ox –” I felt heat rush into my ears because of how the fabric sags at my hips. He sighs again and strides over to me. “What are you –”
“Just hold still.”
His hands brush my hips, which makes me jolt. “Hey –!” The grip of his fingers tightened as he let out a warning growl. Kill me now, this was easily the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done in my life. With the grace and delicacy of a drunk bull, he got down on one knee (dramatic much?) and forcefully tugged the pants at the waist until it tightened somewhat. His hands, both the warm and cold one, nonchalantly ran their knuckles across my skin like it was nothing. Then he firmly fastened a belt around my hip that was as thick as his wrist. He looked up, fingers clinging to the belt loops.
“How’s that?”
I focus very hard on the window next to me. This damn book box better have a million dollars and a key to heaven. “Dandy.” He nodded then got back up to go to the door.
“You coming?”
“Whatever.”
The safehouse’s apartment complex was small and cramped. Given that it was in Sector Five, its decline was shown through its crumbled bricks, chipped paints, and constant odor of sour must and dust. When we went out and down the flight of stairs, the sky outside wasn’t even fully blue yet – still dark enough so that the outlines of the other poor buildings were black and shadowed. Still, it wasn’t all terrible – the clay bricks that laid on the buildings had small, colorful windmills clearly made by kids. And there were chalk drawings made all across the street. Farther away, there’s an odd white pile of dirt. “What’s that?” I ask Barnes. He doesn’t look up.
“Rubble border. The slums start there.” I almost yelped when he put his arm around my shoulder, nearly burying my face in his collar. “Don’t look around so much. You’ll draw attention.”
“Attention from who?” I scoff. “The early bird Peepin’ Toms? I could pull a Lady Godiva here and no one would notice.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Oh, right, sorry, I forgot you like to spy on people – hey!” I hissed as he tugged my ear. It didn’t actually hurt, but I don’t like how chummy he's been. “Don’t do that, I’m not your actual wife.”
He rolled his eyes. They were a vibrant blue, but in the bottled haze of the morning light, they just looked as grey as anything else. “If you were my wife I would’ve gotten a divorce by now.”
I scoffed. “Bullshit. If you were my husband I’d’ve poisoned your coffee before that.”
“If you did, I’d drink it just to get some damn quiet.” Okay, way too damn chummy, but luckily we finished the short and chilly walk to the book box. It’s a small wooden cabinet attached to a wall on the side of an abandoned building. The liquor store next to it, I surmised, was for when whatever book you read was terrible and needed to forget.
“Ain’t this stealin’?”
“It’s communal.”
“But we don’t got a librarian.”
He shrugged, opening the small hatch. Inside were two shelves and books lined on each one. Romanian titles on spines thick and thin. Barnes opened the bag and reshelved the books he took out. His metal arm, a weapon that I’d seen kill people, was now gloves and carefully putting a copy of The Tale of Despereaux back onto the old, chipped wood board. “English and French books are usually at the bottom,” He muttered before grabbing a book with the picture of a lady and reading the back. The…Dutch…house ? I need to practice proper nouns.
“I…I don’t —” I bit my lip. I had no idea what I wanted. It wasn’t like breakfast, where my tongue instinctively craved a flavor and I could just follow that. My head had been wrung so many times that I genuinely had no clue what I liked anymore. Not my favorite color, not my favorite book…I used to read a lot as a kid. Newspapers, adverts. Books were a little scarce. Barnes looked at me for a moment before reaching his hand out again. He grabbed a few books and handed them to me – The Hobbit (again? He must really have a type), Murder on the Orient Express, and Brave New World. I recognized the last two. “Do people still like Christie?” I murmur with shock. Suddenly I remembered – I used to eat up mystery novels. They weren’t offensive to the town church like romance was nor were they boring, so they were the only books really available.
“She published more after the war.”
“How many?”
He looked up in thought, then flipped the back of the book. “Sixty-six in total.”
“ Sixty-si –” The sergeant quickly covered my mouth and hushed me. I rolled my eyes, but inside, I was reeling. How much did I miss? I quickly scanned for nonfiction books – “Jesus, these people really like to read.”
“It’s mostly for the children. No one else reads them.”
“And you, the local creep.”
“Shut up.” I hastily grab a few copies of nonfiction – something about history, something thick about science, another about human geography. They all look a lot fancier than the others. “College students sometimes donate what they have.” Ah.
We went back home afterwards. The sun was just starting to peek through when we made it to the stairs of the safehouse. The bag on Barnes’ shoulder was bulging – I didn’t realize how heavy those textbooks must’ve been. He doesn’t seem to complain, though. His shoulder was covered by the sweater he was wearing, but I could see some of the metal where I’d stabbed him poking out of the fabric. He let me get books. Woke me from my nightmare. (Embarrassingly) Helped me get into modern pants. I hated how…not evil he’s being. It was better when he was bein’ a jerk, because then I wouldn’t feel bad when he didn’t want me to try to help his arm.
“Stai mai drept, soldat!”
Barnes froze. So did I. I instinctively clutch his arm before turning my head around to see a grumpy old man sitting in a plastic chair. Next door neighbor? He glares at Barnes like he knows him personally. We both share a ‘What the fuck do I do’ look with each other.
“”Ei bine, ce mai aștepți? Stai ca și cum ai avea un băț în fund!” What are you waiting for? You… I have no clue what the rest was. The sergeant seems to, though, as he grumbles reluctantly before straightening his back.
“Bună dimineața, domnule Ionescu.” Morning, Mr. Ionescu. Like a grandson who doesn’t want to be there. If the grandson was probably older than the grandfather, at least.
“You know him?” I mutter behind his hair. He grumbles again. Ionescu’s wrinkled face goes from scowling at him to looking at me. He blinks.
“Aceasta este mireasa ta? Mă mir că știi cum să vorbești cu femeile!” Is this your bride? I’m surprised you know how to talk to women! That makes his face pinken. He’s about to pull us back into our apartment when Ionescu yells a loud “AHT!” making us both pause. He raises a shaky, wrinkly hand from his puffer jacket and gestures for me to walk over. I hesitate for a moment, then go – until Barnes grabs my arm again. Then Ionescu spits a – “ Let her go! I’m not goin’ to steal her, you boar! ” I bite back a snicker as he reluctantly does. Ionescu takes a good look at me, and so do I – one big eye open, another almost squinting shut, a thin, long face full of wrinkles and a receding hairline of white hairs. A little creepy. I thought he was going to hit me with his cane when his mouth finally split into a wide, toothy smile. “ Such a sweet beauty! Like a cherub! ” Nevermind. I adore him.
Rubbing it in Barnes’ face that our neighbor likes me more than him, I sweetly chirp, “ Good morning, Mr. Ionescu. My boyfriend never told me he had such a…sweet neighbor. ” I picked boyfriend to sound young…god I’m old.
“ Bah! Your boyfriend doesn’t say anything! He’s only good for carrying luggage and brooding! ” His eyes wandered to my fake husband’s gloved hands. “ Afghanistan? Or Iraq ?”
Barnes doesn’t skip a beat. “ Afghanistan .”
Ionescu clicked his tongue. He took my hand, patted it, then kissed my knuckles. “ Such a pity that a beauty like you is stuck with such a military dog. Soldiers like us never appreciate our girls. ” Or, at least, that’s what I think he said based on Barnes’ reaction of locking his jaw and looking away. “ You’re better off with someone else than being stuck with such a stiff man . Too much of a burden. ”
Something in me stirred when he said that. I wasn’t head over heels for Barnes, but he wasn’t a burden. Stiff? Absolutely. Can’t talk to women? Definitely. But not a burden. Not after what happened a few nights ago. I pull back my hand and speak coldly. “ I’d rather be with my stiff man than with some happy bastard who doesn’t understand me. ”
My fake stiff husband coughed. Ionescu stared. Did I say it wrong? Damn, I –
“BAHAHA!”
The old man burst into laughter. “ A bold little thing! You have good taste in women, soldier! ” He waved his hand to get my attention. “ Living with men like him can be very draining. He’ll never be able to enjoy a moment to himself unless you tell him to. Back in my day, the solution was simple – give him babies, share his bed often, and make him do all the chores to keep him busy. Simple, right? ” I turned red but nodded. Ignoring the fact that I’m probably old enough to be the old man’s mother, I go back to Barnes’ side. “ And you! ” He points at him, making him stiffen. “ She’s not a soldier! Treat her like a woman, or god help me I’ll take this cane and shove it right up your —! ”
“ Yessir, Mr. Ionescu. ” I’d never seen him sound so resigned. It took everything in me not to snicker as we made it back inside. When he shuts the door, I giggle. “Shut up.”
“‘Yessir, Mr. Ionescu sir — ’” He puts the bag of books on the coffee table then saunters to his room. I laugh harder. “No, wait, you’re supposed to treat me like a lady, not a soldier!”
“I don’t see any ladies here!” He surprisingly called back before shutting the door to his room, leaving me to cackle.
Later that night, after dinner, he brought something up. “You can look at my arm. If you want.” He sounded like a kid who was reluctant to share his toys.
“Oh really? You’re not worried I’ll shank you in your sleep with my now-nonexistent knife?”
“You can have it back.”
“Wow, so generous.” I don’t give him the satisfaction of giving him a reaction. “Give me my knife and I’ll try to flatten your arm.” He gets up and goes to his room, then comes back with said blade after a minute of rummaging noises. Why do I feel like he just buried under his mattress? I take the blade and sit next to him on the dinner table. He stares at me. I stare at him. “I need your arm, sir.”
“Oh.” He unzips his jacket and rolls up his sleeve. The last time I saw the thing, the Soviet star was in mint condition at the compound. Here? Thanks to my handiwork, it looked like a tin can that’s exploded, and it’s spikey scars bending dramatically out.
“Have you just been sleepin' with this for the whole month? Snaggin' your shirts and stuff?”
“No.” I notice a small tear on the fabric. Liar. I raise the blade back to his arm, this time the flat side to the poking metal. He pulls away. “What are you –”
“If this can tear into you, it can reshape too – or, at least, that’s what I’m theorizin’. Just hold still before I tear into you again.”
For the next couple of minutes I gingerly try to move the metal around. He tenses, and his jaw clenches, but doesn’t say anything. “Does it hurt when I press it?”
He doesn’t look my way. “It’s metal, so no. It shouldn’t.” Shouldn’t.
“But it still does, in a weird way?”
“...kind of.” I don’t do anything too crazy to the tear on his deltoid. Mostly just flatten the sticking parts to go back to where they initially plated on his “muscle” and “smoothed” the area with the flat of the blade. “What kind of knife even is that?”
“Steve says it’s made of vibranium, whatever that is. I just know it’s strong enough to do all this to your deltoid.” He looked at me. Oh. “Deltoid. It’s the top muscle on your arm. It’s where your pecs and biceps attach, and the middleman to both of them moving.” I point at the area with the knife.
“Steve said you were a nurse, back when…” He doesn't elaborate and looked away.
I smile sadly. “Yeah. I was. And you’re a sergeant, right?”
“Was. I was a sergeant.” I don’t say anything to that and keep working on uncurling and re-flattening the metal. I was almost finished. “It could still stick out,” he mentioned. In a moment of thought, I grabbed the black bandana that came with the overpriced basket of strawberries I’d bought from our last market run and tied it around his “wound”. It covered both his star and his “scar”.
“There. Now you just look like a rebel and not a wanted man in seventy countries.” The arm was still metal, though. “Or, at least, stop from pokin’ holes in your sleeves.”
He inspects my work and nods before putting his sleeve back over his prosthetic. He ran his flesh fingers over the cloth for a moment before muttering the smallest “Thanks” I’d ever heard. Oddly enough, I didn’t care much for it. I just watched as he washed the dishes then slept like that wasn’t the most we’d spoken to each other civilly since meeting.
[1 A.M.]
“Hello?”
“Steve.”
“Bucky,” Steve suppressed a yawn but hardly felt sleepy now. “Hey pal. How’s everything?”
“I gave her the knife back.”
Steve hummed. “Oh, yeah? That’s great. Means you trust her, right?”
“I guess.”
“Any memories you wanna talk about?” Bucky opened up the small pocket book in his drawer. Scribbles of memories, newspaper clippings he’d printed and stapled messily on there about the Commandos…most of it was defrosting in his head. Easily coming back. But he didn’t feel like confirming anything tonight with his best friend.
“We bumped into a neighbor today. Old guy.”
“Yeah? How was he?”
“A jackass.” A pause. “He was our age, Steve.”
“...oh.”
Bucky’s jaw clenched. “He’s old, wrinkled, and a jackass – but he’s allowed to be. I’m not even allowed outside without worrying about insurgents –” He stopped himself from getting too loud, then exhaled through his nose. “It’s not fair. Not for me. Not for her. Not for you. We can’t afford getting old. Your nurse could pass as a college student but she thinks texting is the same as letter-writing.”
“She’s trying, Buck. We all are.”
“We shouldn’t have to.”
“I know, bud. I know.” A comfortable silence fell between them. “Need anything else?”
“How’s the search?”
Steve laughed humorlessly. “I’m trying to find stuff to clear your name. Sam is currently bickering with Nat, and I’m trying to throw Fury off your scent by helping him find left HYDRA agents…so pretty peachy.” Bucky snorted. “Get some sleep, Buck. Call you later.”
“Hn.” Both hung up.
Notes:
Insert Peter Griffin book joke. Currently craving cozonac.
Chapter 14: Dormi
Chapter Text
[Day 31]
I needed to do laundry. My mama would’ve had a duck fit by now if she saw how I was livin’ – not including the man in the other room, she’d kill me for that – by not washing clothes for a whole month. Sure, even during the Dust Bowl we were dirt poor, but we weren’t so filthy (usually). Once a week we’d clean shirts and even made money on the side doing the neighbors’ washing. It took us all day, but at least we kept clean. “Take off your pants, Sergeant.”
“ What ?” He choked on his cereal. Was it somethin’ I said? I’ve never called him sergeant before this, so that must be it.
“I need your jeans and shirts to wash. We’ve been throwin’ clothes aside for a whole month. It’s a waste of linens to single-use. Put the stuff in the bag and I’ll find a basin and –”
“We don’t…” Barnes swallowed. “People don’t do wash days anymore. There’s machines for that.”
I blink. A machine for laundry? I don’t have to spend the whole afternoon rubbing my palms raw in order to get rid of dirt? “Seriously? Where are they? How much do they charge?”
He stood up, opened the safehouse’s small door next to the entrance, and watched me gape at the little white machine in front of me. Cube-shaped and shiny. It’d been locked before, and I didn’t want to deal with the sergeant bein’ pissy by snooping, so I never looked. “This’d been here the whole time?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know how to use it.”
I smirk. “Shouldn’t be too hard. We’re both almost a hundred, and’ve been in labs before. We can probably science it – how hard can it be?”
It’s been an hour since I said that. We’ve been arguing as to how to turn it on.
“Load wash is obviously goin’ to start the –”
“There’s literally a start button –”
“START CYCLE, not START –”
“What the HELL is a cycle –!?”
“Somethin’ that a man like you’d never know!”
“Dammit, woman –”
“Don’t ‘woman’ me, James-Buchanan!”
We’d managed just fine at first – there was some liquid detergent that Barnes had bought by accident (the label said multipurpose cleaner, so we’d just been using it for dish washing, turns out you can use it for fabric too - damn thing was a modern miracle) and we’d read the back label of the bottle to get a start. After pressing for water, fill a cup up to an eighth in fluid and pour into machine. We managed to turn on the machine and I’d nearly yelped when it started rumbling, but we both relaxed after seeing its insides filled with water. We poured some cleaner in and watched the machine’s stomach bubble, but then it just…kept going. We poured the clothes in and that’s when the bickering started.
“Cold washes, cold water cleans better!”
“Really? You take ice baths now? Every time I go after you to clean up the water’s boiling.”
“Because I like the heat! But fabric is different!”
“Cold water makes the fabric worse. If I tear a shirt because my metal arm gets snagged again, it’ll be your fault, not mine!”
“Why am I even arguin’ with you, you’re a man, you’ve never done laundry in your life!”
“Yes I have!”
“Really? When?”
Barnes’ blue eyes flickered to the side. “Once. As a kid. In Brooklyn.”
“Once, really?”
“More than once, my sister was a lazy helper at times!”
“Oh, well if your sister was such a lazy helper at times then you must know more than –”
“Don’t bring my sister into this!”
“You brought her into this first!”
Knock! Knock! Knock!
“Shit,” We both curse at the same time. Barnes’ jaw locked and his hand went under the nearby pantry. He stored a gun in there just in case. I shake my head and slowly go to the door. It’s probably nothing, I reassure myself. Noise complaint. A lost neighbor.
It was old man Ionescu. “ I heard yelling, ” His cane tapped the side of the wall to indicate his room next door. His Romanian was slow enough for me to understand.
I blushed, feeling embarrassed to be caught over something as dumb as washing clothes. “ Sorry, sir, we — ”
“Aht!” He snapped his hands. “ Not you, girl! You did nothing wrong! I heard the yelling — ” His cane dramatically turned to Barnes' direction like a moth to a flame. He braced himself for his usual dose of scolding from the old man. “ And HE started it! What’s the matter with you boy, huh? ”
The sergeant suddenly looked like a scolded private. “ Nothi — ”
“ Lies! You don’t make your girl upset like that for no reason! What makes you think it’s okay to disturb such a beauty with your existence? ”
HAHAHA — I mean, I felt a little bad for Barnes then. We’d both caused a ruckus, but only he’s getting fixed for it. I gently step in: “ It’s my fault, sir. I’m not used to the laundry wash here and don’t know how to get this machine going. ”
Ionescu’s face softened at that, like I just came crying to him and his brows went upward in understanding. He patted my hand. “ Poor bird. It’s alright, I will help. ”
Barnes tried to step in again. “ It’s really not — ” Ionescu whacked his foot with his cane in such a way I remembered that Barnes had been a Winter Soldier for the past seventy years. I thought for a second he was going to give the old man a lesson in fighting, but he just slowly exhaled and stepped back to let him walk to the washer.
With the kind of patience he never had for Barnes, he kindly pointed out which buttons to push. “ And make sure you use hot water for the towels, pretty, or else they won’t clean properly. Back in my day, wives had manuals for these sorts of things, but I suppose husbands nowadays don’t bother giving instruction. Don’t blame yourself for not knowing, you couldn’t have known. ”
“ Yes, Mr. Ionescu. ” Barnes glared at me while I bashfully batted my eyelashes at the old man. “ Thank you, Mr. Ionescu. ” I say after he shut the lid and the machine began to whir. He pinched my cheek and hobbled back to the door.
Before leaving, he turned back to Barnes. “ You’re lucky I’m not on my medication right now, boy! If I hear you bothering this beauty again, I’ll give you a piece of my mind! She’s too young to be getting wrinkles from anger! ”
“ Yessir, Mr. Ionescu. ” HAHAHAHA – I wait until he’s gone and our door closes before I stare at him with the most held-back laugh in the world. “Don’t.”
“Gee Sarge, you sure are lucky he wasn’t on his meds –”
“Shut up, Nurse.” I laugh at the vein popping from his forehead.
[Day 36]
We hadn’t been to the book box in a while, and that was for a reason. The textbooks I’d made Barnes get me were the closest thing I had to catchin’ up to the modern world. Funny laundry incident aside, I didn’t like feeling helpless. The fact that I was in Europe, in some safehouse, hiding from my past captors didn’t comfort me either. I was effectively alone, thrown into a world that’s forgotten about me, and what I’d been through.
The English textbooks about history did help a little – transfer students from America being oddly convenient with donations aside, I’d tried to get a better picture of everything that had happened since the war. I’d even made a list on some paper:
- War ended, we technically won (Good)
- We also technically dropped bombs (Bad)
- Germany is no longer under Nazi control (Good)
- Cold War happened, Red scare and fear of Communism getting into America (Bad)
- Korean war split Korea into two states – North is currently in a dictatorship (Bad)
- Civil Rights movement and the advancement of pushing equality (Good in theory, but execution was long-drawn and badly handled many times, always a work in progress)
- Vietnam War (Bad)
The list was useless, though, as I read on. Maybe it was stupid, but since we’d all considered it “The War” I’d never thought there’d be another great fight after this one. The fact that three other wars happened soon after just felt like a slap to the face. And I wasn’t stupid, I knew bits and pieces about it – the handlers sent us outside to conduct experiments, and I’d overheard odds and ends, but something about my personal hell being more than just a terrible, singular nightmare made me want to vomit. It was halfway into reading about the last war that I did.
He found me there, dry heaving into the sink with his Swiss knife out thinking my choking sound was from an intruder (he’s really got to stop assuming the worse) and only stopped berating me with questions when he saw my eyes tearful. His eyes did the math as they flickered to the open book next to me. Barnes took the book off the counter, tucked it into the tote bag at the door, and held my head up until I stopped dry heaving.
“I’m returning that book tomorrow.”
“What? No!” I panic, trying to turn around and argue with him. “I don’t – I don’t want to be stupid about the world, dammit, I deserve to know –!”
“Sweetheart, you’re dry-heaving into a basin because of the world,” He snapped. “I can’t nurse you back from a breakdown, not when I’m in the same boat as you.” Upon seeing my tearful face, his impatient brow loosened. “You can do that stuff after Steve gets us. Not before.” He places his metal hand on my cheek, the cold metal soothing the flush I had. “...Can’t afford getting sick. We can’t walk into a doctor’s office or fake a prescription.”
“Maybe you couldn’t, but I could,” I retorted before the thought even finishes in my head. He raised a brow, looking almost…amused?
“That so?” I nod. “Then we can’t risk getting our only forgery expert sick either.”
We were gettin’ way too chummy. Luckily he went back to his regularly-scheduled grunting and brooding routine for the next couple of days, as if he noticed too. I’m too old to be nice, after all.
[Day 40]
After taking a few days off to cleanse my reading palate with Christie and Eminescu, I secretly flipped back into the science book we brought. While Barnes may have taken the history textbook back to the book box (he took it while I was asleep, the damn sneak) the science and human geography books were left unscathed. I’m guessing any modern discovery about culture and cells were, in his eyes, less mentally draining than learning about what (crimes) humanity has been up to for the past seventy years.
But it really was the cat’s meow – I learned to love the human body as a nurse. Sure, the first few cadaver labs consisted of me learning the hard way not to eat before going, but something about seeing how symmetrical and intricate the body was made my brain tickle. The veins connected to the muscles, the muscles connected to the nerves, the nerves to the skin, the skin to the nerves again, to the brain, to the spine, to the heart – I’d never considered myself much of a poet, partially because it’s a little boring (and Eminescu’s works seem to be cornier than pop) and partially because I never read enough poems, but the harmonic fluidity of the homeostatic body was something that always kept me up at night.
As a nurse, I’d sometimes struggle getting enough rest in between shifts – you couldn’t blame me, not after me and my girls were full-handed with a dozen injured men by the hour – I’d simply recite a mnemonic I’d heard through the grapevine until I fell asleep. Please eat some tasty orange fruit – parietal, ethmoid, sphenoid, temporal, occipital, frontal! Sally left the party to take Cathy home – scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate! It became my own language after a while.
The medical book was the most interesting to me — we’d made a lot of advancements into the future. Organ transplants (though the priority list made me feel sick to read about), antibiotics, penicillin — even I couldn’t help myself from bringing up the polio shot with the sergeant.
“They cured polio,” I said randomly over breakfast. I sat on top of the counter while he boredly flipped through the newspaper (for security, he reasons). He looks up.
“Seriously?”
“It’s all gone now. They made an injection for it. Last year America had zero cases of polio. And around the world it was under four hundred.”
He didn’t even try to mask his raised brows. “…damn.” Before going back to his toast.
The number of women in the medical field has grown since I was there — most nurses are girls. More doctors are girls. Specialists are girls. Girls, girls, girls. And here I was gettin’ teased for being too anal as a student — I could’ve been somethin’ great. Which was also a common denominator after a while.
I could’ve been something great. But I wasn’t. I’m not. That chance was taken from me, and now I’ve got too much blood on my hands to reconsider a new life for myself. I can’t even look back at my time at the compound without wanting to vomit. Cryo didn’t end my memories, since I wasn’t brainwashed (handlers said the artificial neurons would break if they did such a thing) I just kept remembering. It was a nightmare that I couldn’t go to sleep from.
I was even jealous of Barnes for a while, as useless and selfish as it was. His brainwashing meant that he would also remember, but it would be slow and gradual. Not something that flashes behind your eyes constantly, in between any moment of peace that you had. And the other thing, the thing that hurt the most — he was something. Commando. Sergeant. Brother. Best friend. Son. Hero. Things to put on a gravestone with pride. His face is probably in a museum somewhere, right next to his best friend who’s — somehow — also alive, seventy years later.
And what do I have? Nothin’. No name. No museum. No remembrance. I don’t have a best friend, and I don’t think I even have a birth certificate anymore. I was a nobody, with nobody parents and nothing to my name. When I think about it too hard, I sometimes think about something my old man would say, after a long day of working for only a dime:
“ Don’t listen to the teasin’, darlin’. Keep bein’ smart. Get outta this dump. Don’t be like me. Be smart and live a good life. ” A year later he’d be gone, and three more I’d be too. Seventy years after, I tuck the book in my bag and take a break from reading it. My eyes would water too much at the triage statistics anyway.
[Day 45 - Midnight]
“Barnes, Barnes! Wake up! Sergeant! Sir!”
“What? What is it?”
I’d never gone into his half of the safehouse – I slept on the couch, and he took the mattress, first-come-first-serve style. But I was feelin’ ballsy, and losin’ a bit of my mind as to what I was lookin’ at, so I used the military names to wake him faster. He quickly sat up, his long hair sticking slightly up as I sat at his bedside. Maybe I got too overexcited – the man looked like he fought with his shirt and lost – but I didn't care! I held the tiny burner phone in my hand and showed him the glowing screen. He deadpanned.
“If you looked up more international war crimes –”
“Shh! Just watch!”
Houston…Tranquility Base here…the Eagle has landed.
Barnes glared at the screen, squinting at the small rectangle that was barely bigger than my hand. The black and white craters were slightly fuzzy due to the grainy footage.
One small step for man…one giant leap for mankind…
“Is that –”
“It’s the fuckin' moon. ” His eyes seemed to widen slightly as to what he was looking at. “They landed on the moon, Barnes.” Neil Armstrong was currently singing ‘Hippity Hoppity’ while skipping on the white grounds of the moon. “Happened in –”
“1969.” He murmured, eyes still glued to the screen. “I once woke up to the scientists talking about it. I didn’t know what they were saying, though.”
“Happened in Houston, too! Of all damn places – I would’ve gotten a math degree after the war if it meant being part of that. ” As quickly as his surprise was, it went just as fast.
“Hn.” He rubbed his eye. “That's it?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes. Sorry for interrupting your clearly-workin’ beauty sleep, Sarge.”
“Sleep, Nurse.”
[3:30 A.M.]
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Buck!” Steve’s voice was clear over the receiver. “You caught me prime, pal. I’m breaking between missions. What’s goin’ on?”
“Did…” He looked up at the sleeping figure on the couch. Her head was slightly poking on the arm rest. Three hours ago she’d woken him to see the moon landing. She’d sounded so excited, waking him. It’d technically be the second time he’s heard of it now.
The Americans succeeded in their launch. We’re falling behind. The moon isn’t too far.
That’s the first time he’d heard of it, but he didn’t understand what they were talking about. He could barely understand anything at the time, his mind violently wiped and re-wiped over and over again. It was a cold, sharp feeling that always made him scream, meanwhile the scientists would be perfectly quiet and calm. Rubbing salt on his wound by their casual talking.
If it was nineteen-sixty-nine...He would’ve been fifty-two. Definitely retired, definitely in Brooklyn. Possibly married, possibly bouncing a baby on his hip. Child or grandchild, it didn’t matter. He and the other Commandos would’ve crashed at Steve’s place – because of course they would, annoying the punk was part of their favorite pastime – and cracked open cheap beers over what easily would’ve been the most exciting scientific advancement of their time. And after watching the moon landing in awed silence, one of the boys would’ve proposed a toast, something corny – to a better tomorrow, today. This is what we fought for, boys!
But that never happened. He got iced. Asleep and tortured for seventy years. And now, fifty years too late, he was watching it on a mattress, in some poor safehouse apartment in Romania. With a nurse who was in the same boat as him, but more of a stranger in familiarity than Steve or the Commandos were. A fake wife, fake home, and fake peace. People were after him. Her. Steve. Even if they weren’t caught, he wasn’t sure what to do with the rest of his life, not after the blood on his hands and the trauma he’s been through.
But he knew better than to tell Steve any of this, not when he sounded happy. “...Did you know they cured polio?”
Steve brightened on the other line. “Oh, did she tell you?”
“She’s a nurse.”
His best friend chuckled. “It’s great, isn’t it? And kinda stupid – millions of people dying and now no one does?” Bucky gives a silent, humorless laugh.
“How dare they find a cure after we froze," He grunted.
Steve snorted. “Right? That’s what I told Sam. Y’know what he told me? ‘ You’re just jealous I’m routinely inoculated, Cap. ’”
“...You’re a super soldier.”
“That’s what I told him! But all Wilson said was – ‘ Ooh, you wanna be vaccinated again so bad’. Wise guy, I’m tellin’ you.”
“Hm.” Better him than Bucky – last time he saw Falcon the Soldier had nearly driven him off the road in his own car.
"Anything else?" Steve asked.
Bucky quickly grabbed the small book under his pillow. "Did Becca do laundry when we were kids?"
"Rebecca? Your sister?" Steve blinked. "No, no. You used to complain about helping your ma with the washing since Becca never did. Called her a spoiled sissy while scrubbing her socks."
"Thought so." Bucky quickly scribbled it into his book - Becca was lazy. Didn’t forget, just a reminder. “Go back to your mission, I just wanted to see if you knew.”
“Alright. Modernity is pretty crazy, I suppose. Let me know if you want to talk again. G’night, Buck.”
“’Night.”
Chapter 15: Maria Elena
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[1942]
The first patients I had as a nurse weren’t very challenging. We’d have mostly broken bones, bullet wounds, infection sickness and, if the day was very unlucky, an amputation (also death, but that's a given no one wanted to jinx). It eventually became a personalized routine of changing bandages, feeding men, sterilizing tools, recording the dead, and administering medication. Until, of course, Private Jenkins.
He wouldn’t stop screaming. That was the first thing – all the girls would secretly dread seeing the poor soul because he was always mortified as to who was coming. You couldn’t blame him though.
“His whole flock got gassed,” Rita whispered after an hour of trying to change his wounds. I passed her a cup of coffee, which she took with shaking hands. Her uniform was all messy and wrinkled after wrangling him with arm strength she never used before this. “Mustard gas barely got him, but he’s blind now. Docs don’t even know if he’ll be able to see again. Thinks everything is an evil trick.”
“They’re not goin’ to send him out to fight after this, are they? Look at him, he’s all broken –”
“I hope not, he’s wound like a string. But that’s the other thing – I heard he’s got no mama at home. Poor man’s alone…”
Eventually, it was my turn to take care of him. I was supposed to give him medication for a gash on his arm, but he, in rare form, refused. “I don’t trust what I can’t see,” He hissed.
“But you can’t see anything!”
“Exactly! So back off, lady!”
Problem is, he needed to get his wounds cleaned by the end of the day. It’s been two days since he’s woken up from his last treatment and we couldn’t risk losin’ the limb, especially since there weren’t a lot of doctors in the area. Surgeons especially had their hands full.
He was like that my whole shift – I’d go to another patient, tend to them, go to him, and he’d hiss at me. I’d take another patient, check in on him, and get hissed.
“No!”
“Don’t bother!”
“Leave me alone, woman!”
“I don’t need it!”
Even the other soldiers were bothered by him. “He’s terrible,” One man muttered as I gave him some coffee. “You’d think we’re torturin’ the bastard.”
“Maybe he considers help torture,” I hum, annoyed. He chuckled.
We’d taken a break for dinner. All the other nurses took the rest of the night off, but I thought to stay up for Jenkins’ sake. Rita offered me some of her rationed chocolate as a way of cheering me up. “He’s so sour,” She’d reasoned. “You may as well have something sweet to tide you over.”
When I went to Jenkins that night, instead of screaming and thrashing, he was curled up and still. I called his name, but he didn’t answer. I could hear sniffling.
“C-can’t – can’t – c - can’t go b-back th-there –” His voice was muffled from the sleeves covering his face. Suddenly my prior annoyance and exhaustion was gone. I don’t touch him, and instead just kneel next to his cot.
“Go back where, Jenkins?” My voice switched into something softer, warmer.
“O-out there,” He hiccuped. “C-Can’t – can’t do it again –” His voice was so pitched, it sounded like a little boy’s. Which made sense, since he was only a few years older than me.
“Oh, there, there,” I coo, lightly brushing my fingertips along his ear and dark curls. I tried to do it the way my mother did when I was upset. “You’re not goin’ out there again. I promise. Not tonight.”
He sniffled, his eyes looking up. They were tinged red from tears. “W-what about tomorrow?”
“I’ll take care of you tomorrow too, how about that? You won’t be goin’ anywhere, soldier.” He nodded, like a child pacified for sleep. I took out the small, wrapped chocolate Rita’d given me and took the sweet out of its paper before handing it to him. “Eat this, it’ll help.” He held the food to his nose, sniffed, then put it to his lips to chew. Sniffling now, but not fighting.
“You sound like my mama,” Jenkins murmured as I took care of his arm wound. “All sweet and patient.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Thanks, Ma.”
For the rest of the time I took care of him, I realized as long as I kept his ears busy, he wouldn’t be makin’ as much of a fuss – makes sense, since he’s visually deprived. I talked about army gossip, recent war stories we got about the Commandos over the radio, what foods I’d been cravin’ the most since rationing. Somewhere between apple pie and Rita’s older, married sister Constance having an affair with a naval officer, he’d fallen asleep like a baby.
[Day 50]
The market in Bucharest was about the only time I could live out my fantasy of shopping until I dropped. Since HYDRA had a small fortune hidden in each safehouse cache, and rent here was less than 4300 Leu, I could get whatever I wanted as long as I ignored the sergeant’s grumblin’.
“We don’t need torte,” He glares disapprovingly at the small cake that was boxed in my palm.
“Lucky for you, it’s single servin’,” I dug a fork into the fudge. The taste was to die for – divine chocolate with thick cream and jam. Not that he cared. “Meanin’ all your hard work won’t die out,” I gesture at his figure. I knew he did pushups in his room sometimes – in the middle of the night he’d wake up covered in sweat, and instead of goin’ to sleep he’d just work out until his muscles were sore.
The nightmares were a problem for the both of us. I’d wake up screamin’ and he’d think someone broke into the safehouse, see me with tears, then pour me a shot of sleep syrup. Sometimes he’d throw in his blanket to keep me warmer, but emotional vulnerability was clearly not his forté. When he had a night terror, I’d hear him scream – a brief, low yell – then see him sit up straight from his mattress. I’d ask him if anything was wrong, but he’d always shake his head then close the door. Click . He’d then revert back to locking the doors. I could hear him counting – twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty… – along with the kind of huffing and puffing that came from working out. After two-hundred he’d come back out to get some water, skin shiny with sweat, then lock himself back in. Click.
But back to shopping. I’d made him carry all of my stuff while we took the bus back to Sector Five. Cobble turned to gravel and we’d usually be the first to come and go off the tram, since the morning was so early. Today, though, we’d taken longer than usual (I wanted to try the taste of pizza – yum – and made Barnes stand in line with me) so there were a few tourists on the line with us as we took the scenic route back to the safehouse.
Snap!
The sound and flash of a camera snapping captures both of ours’ attention. Not even bothering to be subtle, Barnes and I both turn our heads, thinking they could be spies, journalists, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who want to take me back and him too –
“L'architecture ici est époustouflante!”
The architecture here is stunning!
“La statue est si fringante!”
The statue is so dashing!
Just some French tourists. Two young girls, probably teenagers, took a picture through the bus’ windows to capture Bucharest’s University Square. I relax, feelin’ a little stupid now. I couldn’t blame them, at least. The statue was pretty gallant –
“Barnes?”
I briefly looked back up to the sergeant, whose pace was now white as a sheet – which was sayin’ something, considering he was already naturally pale (either that or HYDRA took the warmth out of him, which considering them, could happen). His grip on our groceries was tighter than usual. He probably bent a tin can in there (later I checked – he did). I touch the crook of his elbow and pat it. “ It’s nothing, ” I murmur. “ Just some kids. ”
“ They use kids. ” HYDRA used kids. Sometimes used recorded tracks of babies to kidnap people, other times just lured caring adults by thrusting a crying youth into their vicinity.
I smile slightly. “ Do they look distressed to you, sir? Poor girls just wanted a pretty picture. ”
“ The window could catch our reflection. ”
“ Through the back of the bus? ” His jaw tightened and he looked away. I sigh and change the subject. “ I’m going to make lamb-beef sarmale tonight. If you buy the cheap coffee again, I’m not going to make leftovers. ”
Barnes buys it, even though his blue eyes were still dartin’ like a fly and face was as white as a sheet. Probably playin’ along for my sake. “ The cheap coffee costs thirteen less. You already bought overpriced turkey bacon for it. And I don’t eat leftovers. ”
“ Sure. Must’ve been my imagination, then, that last night’s dinner disappeared before breakfast. ”
[Night 57]
“ГОВНО!”
The sound of a large Russian shit woke me up. Not even being crude – the curse echoed across the apartment. I wake up from my makeshift bed on the couch and sit straight up. The voice was low and gutteral, masculine and scary. Barnes was up. Before he could think about locking the door, I scurried to his side of the safehouse, where his barebones bedroom was unlocked and able for me to come into. There he was, throat shining with sweat, clammy-skinned and wide-eyed behind his long hair.
“Go back to sleep,” He croaked. “It’s nothing.”
“Sounds like a whole lotta nothin’,” I murmur, looking for a light that wasn’t the switch. There wasn’t any. I went back to the kitchen and made a glass of water, then went back to his room with an excuse to sit at his bedside. He doesn’t say anything when I hand him the cup. “Did you hear, sir?” I murmur. “Apparently T-Rexes are cousins to hummingbirds.” He looks up.
“It’s in my science book,” More of a medical book, but the genetic section showed a recent discovery of dinos having little feathers, the same kind as hummingbirds. “They got the same tiny feathers on their armpits.”
“Ugly-ass cousins,” Barnes muttered, eyes still darting to the window.
“On the political sector,” I say like I’m a walking newsie, “We’ve had a historic election. Democratic party’s presidential nomination were both demographic minorities, one was a senator named – ”
“Isn’t he currently president?” I nod, technically very old news but figured it was better than nothing. “Better than Hoover, I bet.”
I snort. “Anyone’s better than Hoover, sir.” He almost laughed, more of a forced huff.
“True.”
We sat in silence, in the dark where the only light came from the blue moon outside his window. “Those girls were nothing, Barnes. You know that.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t know that.”
“And you do?” I quietly snap. “They somehow knew that that day, I’d extend our shopping trip to taste pizza for the first time and take the scenic bus back here? And all the way from France?”
His jaw locked. “...no.”
“Then you need to relax a little –”
“HYDRA might be sweeping through their safehouses in each country,” Barnes interrupted. His eyes go back up to meet mine. “Even if they’re weak, they still have enough people to sweep from country to country until they find residents that aren’t supposed to be there.”
My stomach tightened at that. What do I even say? He’s not wrong, one foot soldier or a hundred they’d probably throw a manhunt just to clear their tracks of any possible loose ends – like us. I think carefully. “...Then we call Steve. We move.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as we have to. I’m not exactly keen on goin’ back either.” My teeth clenched at that. “I’d rather shoot myself dead than go back. And you feel the same, right sergeant?” His own jaw clenched as he nodded, as if remembering his own determination to never go back. “Then that’s that.”
We sit in relative silence for a moment. I get back up and take a shot of sleep syrup in the kitchen. I pour another shot and go back to Barnes so that he can take a sip. I’m not sure if it’s even effective on him, but he takes it and then asks – “How are you fine with all of this?”
God, I really can’t get philosophical at this hour of the night. I shrug. “I’m ninety-four with the body of a twenty year-old, currently takin’ shots with a muscular, shirtless man in his bed. My life is amazing.”
That elicits a proper laugh from him. A snort and a smile spilled from his lips for a moment before he covered his mouth. “Go back to sleep, Nurse.”
“Yessir, Sarge.”
[4:30 A.M.]
“ She finally kicked you out, eh? Good for her .”
“ Good morning, Mr. Ionescu. ” Bucky stepped outside the safehouse for a brief moment of fresh air when he bumped into the man on their shared staircase. The old grump was in a sweater and sweatpants, and swatted away Bucky’s attempt at pulling his plastic chair for him. He was grateful that it was so dark out, otherwise his metal hand would be obvious as he quickly shoved it into his pocket.
Old man Ionescu took out a small box from one of his pockets and a lighter in another. With shaking, wrinkled fingers he took out a cigarette and held it to his lips before lighting. “ Why the hell are you here? Is a beautiful woman sharing your bed not enough for you? ”
Bucky accepted that he was the old bastard’s punching bag a long time ago, and didn't even react to the question. “ Couldn’t sleep. ” His eyes flickered to the old man’s. “ Nightmare. ”
Ionescu let a puff of smoke escape his old mouth before he took another cigarette out and offered it to the man next to him. “ Well? ” He grunted. “ Don’t make me regret offerin’, boy. ” Bucky took the extra and let him light it. Taking a deep drag, he watched the dark city below them sleep. The smell of smoke clung to his shirt.
“ You’re wasting your time brooding out here, ” Ionescu said after a few minutes of quiet smoking. “ War won’t end with solitude, soldier. It’ll keep goin’ whether you like it or not. ”
Bucky looked at the concrete ground. “ I don’t want to fight. I’m tired of fighting. Sick of it. ”
“ I know, child, I know. ” The old man had a sad curve to his lips. “ But staying still in battle can cost you just as much as moving. I lost my first wife because I kept staying in my own head after deployment. ”
Bucky tilted his head. “ I’m sorry – OW! ” Ionescu’s cane smacked his skull.
“ Bah! She ain’t dead, dummy! ” He crowed. “ Just left me for the baker! ”
Gingerly rubbing his head, Bucky mutters, “ I’d kill the baker if I were you. ”
“ For what? ” Ionescu asked. “ For loving my wife the way I should’ve? No, my boy, it was bound to happen. We were doomed to separate the moment I came back from the war. Elena was too soft, she didn’t deserve a punk like me. ”
Bucky took a drag from his cigarette. “ Is this the part where you tell me I should treat my girl better than you did with Elena? ”
“ Hell no ,” Ionescu rolled his eyes. “Your girl ain’t soft. Not even close. She’d like to be – it’s why I treat her so delicately, you see – but she’s clearly got a spitfire in her .” Bucky braced for impact when the old man raised his cane again, but this time it gently poked his chest. “ Your job is to keep that spitfire going. Have some for yourself. ”
They smoke for a little while more. An hour passes, and the sun begins to rise when they both hear a – “ ‘Scuse me ?” Ionescu cooed before he even turned around. She was standing behind them, clearly just woken up wearing nothing more than one of Bucky’s Henleys and some stockings. They’d stopped caring about clothes-swapping a while ago, after realizing she looked less noticeable in plainer outfits.
“ Ah, there she is. Poor girl, I was just scolding your husband for leaving you cold and alone in bed! ”
Bucky blinked. “ No you didn’t – ow! ”
The old bastard glared at him again, back to his regularly-scheduled hating. “ I am now! Go back to your wife, you ugly bum! ” That made the girl in front of them snicker. She kissed his wrinkled cheek in thanks. “ And warm her up! That’s an order, soldier! ”
“ Sir!” She blushed. Bucky, however, just grumbled grumpily while walking back to her - like a child put to timeout.
“ Yessir, Mr. Ionescu… ”
When they both got back inside, the nurse asked - "What was that all about?" Bucky pinched her cheek with his two middle knuckles, making her hiss.
"Nothin'. Go back to sleep, I'll start coffee."
"Better not be that cheap shit, or else I'm tellin' old man Ionescu you're treatin' me dirty."
Notes:
Hoover still catching strays in 2014 is diabolical work ☠️ Sade's music is so pretty, might change the chapter's name for later -- note to self, 'Like a Tattoo' but idk
Chapter 16: Family sized
Chapter Text
[’39]
I wasn’t allowed to stand next to the plot while my Daddy got buried. I was a girl and, as one aunt put it as I watched all the men surround his casket, “shouldn’t look at menfolk’s business.” I kicked, I screamed, sobbed and put up a fight – but I wasn’t allowed to leave my seat. Not when I was bein’ held back.
The blanket above his body box was blue. We’d put it above the casket so that the recent rain’s moisture wouldn’t rot the wood. Bluer than the sky, the dye probably worth more than anything we’d owned before this. Everyone seems to have money to spend on you once you die, but never when you’re alive.
We tried to get along after he went, but we just couldn’t. Mama already went before this, so I had to take over mothering the house until things turned up. My brother and I bickered constantly – I still remembered how, fresh after the funeral, we’d nearly clawed each other out over eggs. It was selfish, since they were expensive, but I curled my nose to the boiled stuff on my plate. I’d wanted over-easy, and the argument quickly boiled hard after that:
“SPOILED BITCH –”
“ROTTEN BASTARD, IT SHOULD’VE BEEN YOU –”
“FOR BEIN’ RIGHT? IF I DIED FOR EVERYTIME I WAS RIGHT, I’D’VE CROAKED BEFORE I WAS TEN!”
“I WISH YOU DID!”
But again, we did try to get along. I tried to bite my tongue. He tried to be nice. Once, after a long day of workin’, he’d come back to me crying on the porch because I’d missed our parents so much. He just sat next to me in silence, then, with all the awkwardness of a brother who wasn’t used to being kind – let alone talkative – my bubba quietly said: “You sang real pretty at his funeral. Clearer than a catbird.” A lie – I’d burst into tears near the end of my song. “Wish I could sing like you.”
I lifted my eyes briefly from my knees. “You got to say goodbye to his body. And bury him.” I never had much of a will to live before, but it’d been harder to keep goin’ after the funeral. “Wish I was a boy like you.”
It never lasted, though. He’d get pissy whenever I washed the dishes wrong, and I got madder when he couldn’t cook the way Mama did. Once, after callin’ him a deaf-ass for not hearing the morning bell, he got so pissed-angry he almost knocked my locked wooden door so hard and loud, trying to get inside to do what I was sure was beating me purple, the hinges almost broke and the neighbors woke. I was so desperate that night, I’d climbed out the window and ran as far as I could until sunrise. By the time the war started, we were more than ready to leave each other. Born of the same family tree, but branches dried and dead and long-due for falling out.
[1950 - Siberian Compound]
I didn’t remember what had happened to me for the past few years in captivity. Not because I was brainwashed, but because of the pain I was in. Everything was in a metallic, bruising blur. I’d only ever remember crying so much, and realizing that putting up a fight was futile. They’d get their hands on me regardless, and would put me in ice when they were finished. Ice, wake, hurt. Ice, wake, hurt. Ice, wake, hurt. No, I didn’t question what was happening to me anymore, but I did just get more violent in my response.
They did something to my spine. To my joints. To my bones, and to my ears. I wanted to die every time I woke up, even hoping that it would finally be the day they’d tire of me. But the moment I heard a –
“Она — наш единственный успех, лучше использовать её как подопытного кролика. Остальные девочки всё равно от этого умерли.”
She’s our only success – we’re better off using her as a guinea pig. The other girls died from it anyways.
I saw the same shade of blue from my fathers’ casket on the examination table. On the thin sheet gown they’d put on me before cutting me open. In the other prisoners who’d be muzzled and forced around the compound before they’d mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again. By now, whenever I woke up in the compound, I’d noticed how empty it’s been. Not by lack of staff, but from a lack of surviving experiments. They’d lost in the game of survival of the fittest, and the “winners” would wear the blue that’d soon be red from surgery and training.
“Играй, Семнадцать.”
Play, Seventeen.
It was a new way of seeing how my puppetry would react. They’d attached artificial synapses with artificial dendrites to collect specific orders that only they could give. And they’d give it through my earpiece – voice altered through it by such a frequency only the artificial dendrites could send a jolt down my spine if I didn’t give positive reinforcement. I was Pavlov’s puppet, preparing for the worst if I disobeyed.
But it wasn’t just my spine. It was my feet. My fingers. Knuckles too – every inch of movement at the whim of my artificial nervous system, and they’d like to see if their control over me was still secure by making me play the piano. If the tiny bones of knuckles could still bend to make music, they can commit murder too. I knew I’d be sent out to kill someone because they’d make me play Beethoven’s first sonata in F minor, en Prestissimo – I’d heard them roll their r’s so sarcastically that whenever they’d say it I’d get so angry that I almost didn’t hear the screams coming from the other rooms. Rooms where I knew the Soldiers were probably training with ritualistic sacrifices of unlucky prisoners. I just set the funeral music, but the handlers just called it calibration.
It was rare I worked with a Soldier. The first Winter Soldier I’d ever met didn’t have a metal arm. He was another man from the same program, but it didn’t matter. Not when he geared up with the same uniform they all had, with the same coldness they all shared.
“ They called you Alouette in the French compound, hm? Well, I suppose if you’re imported you’d be too important not to break… ” The scientist across from me pondered. I was pushed into a little room wearing a black uniform of padded cotton and boots. “ But really, how good can you be if you’re not able to fight? Go on, fight your brother. Soldier – attack. ” Brother. Sister. Calling us that while we fought to the death – HYDRA’s idea of a family.
Sparring with the Winter Soldiers always made my stomach roil with dread, but none more so than my first. My bones felt like needles pointing in the forced direction of wherever I was made to move, meanwhile the masked devil in front of me kept punching me down. He battered me blue for what felt like hours – it was the longest sparring session I’d had, so much so I think some of my clothes got torn from it. So much so that even the other scientists behind the pane had muttered – “ She’s not dead, isn’t this enough? ” But the son of a bitch handler refused, something about wanting to see the finish.
I didn’t know how to fight back, not effectively. I still don’t, according to them. Something about that pissed me off as a result – if I’d survived hell for so long, I could at least protect myself a little. But in their eyes I was weak.
At some point they threw a gun in the room. The Soldier on top of me, trying to choke me out, saw it and tried to grab it first. I kicked him in the groin and quickly scrambled for it. His hands grabbed my legs and tried to pull me back, back, back – the searing touch of his fingers woke something feral in me, and with a scream I raised the gun to his head and –
BAM!
It was the first and last time I’d killed a Soldier. Apparently he was a new one, which explained why he was such a messy fighter, but I didn’t really register until later. At that moment, the only thing on my mind was how hot and metallic his blood and brain bits felt on my lips. How my nostrils couldn't breathe past his fluids.
[Day 70]
Barnes woke up screaming again. A few nights ago I did the same, and now it’s begun a routine where most days pass with us being quiet and despondent. It’s been like this for two weeks now. Neither of us knew how to acknowledge the nightmares we’d had, and we weren’t about to talk about it – heck, the last time I told someone I was in pain was in 1939, and all the guy told me was to “fix my mind” and walk it off. But it was getting to a point. I was worried about gettin’ too noisy, enough for people to snoop and question who we were to be screamin’ so much.
“Y’know, sir, if you keep screamin’ like that I’ll think that it’s because you like the attention,” I murmured this night. He looked the same kind of mess he always did after a night terror – covered in sweat, hair a mess, and heavily breathing. He started to sleep without a shirt just to stop adding more laundry, which, while he had nice muscles, didn’t change the fact that he looked as sick as a bug every morning. “You should really consider some bedsheets, by the by.”
He didn’t look up at me as I sat at the edge of his mattress again. Instead, Barnes swallowed shallowly and focused his gaze on my hands. “Guatemala.” I froze. “I…you tried to escape during a mission, didn’t you?”
“...yes.”
“And I stopped that. Stopped you. You were making your way to a car, but I got to you first.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. He just kept going. “I ratted on you after. The handlers kept drugging and hurting you as punishment.”
I try to remember what Steve told me. “Wasn’t technically you –”
“Was it?” Barnes’ head went up to meet mine. His eyes were bluer without the shadowy kohl paint they’d made us wear at the compound. Less cold. “I watched you get shocked behind the pane. They congratulated me. I went to sleep right after, like a baby.” He blinked, eyes now oddly bright. “I don’t even know why you agreed to this.”
I stared down at my stockings. “I wanted to get out of the compound for good. Like you.”
“And that means living with a man who’d helped in – no, who hurt you himself?”
My jaw tightened a little. “I never said that I’d let bygones be bygones. But it’s not you I’m truly mad about.”
He nods then looks down again. “I don’t…I don’t hit ladies. My ma would kill me if I did such a thing.”
I tilt my head, my voice softer now. “Yeah? Would she?”
“I punched my baby sister once when I was about five. I got clapped in the ear so hard I thought I’d lost my hearing for five minutes.” He fiddled at the end of the shirt I was wearing. “Learned real quick to never do it again, not to girls.”
I scooch closer to him, pulling his blanket up so his chest would stop going up and down so much. “Do you want me to sleep next you tonight, Sarge? Might help keep you quiet if someone was there to wake you.” Truthfully I hadn’t done anything like this in my life, so my stomach was jumpy while asking. But he looked so down, and so deadened that I felt like giving him a quick checkup and shot of sleep syrup wasn’t enough for tonight.
Barnes’ eyes widened slightly and he looked up, but quickly looked back down again. “No. I don’t...Don’t want to risk hurting you. Steve would kill me, at least.” He sounded like he was talking to himself now. Then looked back up again. “Could you give me an update before you go?”
“Yessir.” I clear my throat. “We’ve got some new states in our country now. Alaska and Hawaii have joined the union –”
“ Alaska? ”
“Yessir. And apparently Anna Mae Wong and Rita Hayworth are both dead.”
“Damn shame. Daughter of Shanghai was my favorite.”
“Buster Crabbe too.”
Barnes raised a brow. “You liked Crabbe,” I blushed. “That explains a few things.”
“Every girl did, sir. Anyways, the recent news in New York is…”
[Night 68]
“’Lo?”
“It’s me.” Bucky doesn’t wait to hear a response. “Did I hate my sister?”
Steve choked. “What?”
“All I remember of her was washing her socks and trying to punch her as a kid. Was I just a brat?” He’d felt guilty that his only memories of her so far was of being a bitter brother towards her. If he really wasn't a good person, he’d like to know now before getting his hopes up. He doesn’t even bother taking out his tiny notebook for this one.
“ What? Oh – no, no, Buck. God no. Don’t – no, don’t be an idiot. You weren’t a bad brother at all. You’re an old man, that’s why you’re all guilty and sentimental. You weren’t bad to Becca at all.”
“Somehow doubt that.”
“Okay, sure, you were a piece of work as a kid, I’ll admit, but you mellowed out as you got big – well, bigg-er. Unlike me you were never really a string bean, pretty fat as a baby actually, huge head –”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky turned red, not wanting to remember his baby pictures of all things. “Barnes babies are born big. I get it. Keep goin’ about Becky."
“Well, when money was tight and your ma worried about rent, you used to try to find odd jobs to make some coin.”
“Did it work?”
“Sorta? We ended up having a homework ring of –”
Bucky groaned. “Wait, didn’t we get caught doing that?”
Steve grinned. “Not before we made two dollars. You gave the money to your ma, and with the leftover coins you bought chocolate for your sister. Her birthday was comin’ up and you wanted her to have something sweet.”
“Oh,” He licked his lips, not out of hunger but recognition. Something in him came back – his sister had red shoes and a wide smile. Her small face was always giggling, spoiled but sweet. Sweet like chocolate. “Did – did she like it?”
“She loved it. Wouldn’t shut up about her big brother getting her chocolate on her birthday to the other girls in the neighborhood.” Bucky definitely remembered that. Oh, Nellie, your brother drew you a picture? Jamie got me Hersheys! Jealous? Chocolate wasn't that expensive, but it was hard to find. Nellie ended up crying, and Bucky made Rebecca apologize for bragging...but even he couldn't help rubbing it in. Say sorry for having a better present, Becky. A small smile tugged on his lips. He took his little memory book out. “...thanks, punk.”
“Anytime, jerk. Now go sleep, I have to go stop Sam from breaking Red Wing from all the tinkering he’s doin’.” Click.
Bucky put the burner phone away and carefully wrote:
Ran an illegal homework answer ring. Got Becca Hersheys. She loved chocolate.
Chapter 17: Sonder
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Room 5B - Day 75]
Doina was happily married, thank you very much, and was the proud mother of a hyper almost three-year old girl. Daciana was born screaming, so much so that she was named after her outspoken grandmother who’d passed just a few months before. Her husband Carl was a mechanic and car specialist, and would leave before eight and come back at five, though he’d very rarely call to tell her that he’d be working overtime and would show up at eight. Normally with an apologetic clutch of flowers, and a playful demand to see his ‘ladies’ before obnoxiously kissing his grumpy wife until she laughed.
Their life was simple, quiet, and perfectly happy. Today had become one of those days Carl would call in from work – I’m sorry, biene (he was German), but I’ll be working late. Kiss Daci for me, I’ll bring some chocolate fudge to share when I’m back! – and Doina sighed but took it in stride. She made noodles for lunch, ran ragged trying to keep Daciana entertained, and counted the hours until Carl would treat her to fudge and movies. Around six, just as she finished feeding her daughter and put her down for a nap, she heard a knock at her door.
Knock-knock!
Opening the door, a young woman stood nervously in front of her. She looked younger than Doina, but not a teenager. She wore clothes that weren’t properly fitted, but had an earnest look on her face as she nervously chirped a “ Excuse me, neighbor? I need some help in my kitchen, I think I’m doing something wrong… ” In a stuttering way that let Doina know she wasn’t fluent in Romanian and definitely memorized the line before coming. Still, she wasn’t about to tear the poor woman for not knowing.
“ Of course, how can I help? ”
The lady smiled in relief and suddenly took Doina’s hand to her apartment. She lived right across the hall and upstairs, her apartment looking slightly barren but clearly lived-in, if the many books and busy-looking kitchen was any indication. “ I can’t seem to wrap my sarmale properly… ” Doina spent the next ten minutes patiently tucking and retucking the cabbage roll until the woman got it, to which she beamed. “ Oh, thank you! I owe you one! ”
A few days later, Doina heard a knocking at her door. Opening it, there was no one at her steps, but a glass container of neatly-wrapped stuffed cabbage rolls with a little Mulţumesc! note was enough to let her know who it was from.
[Room 5A - Day 79]
Enzo was a college transfer student from Florence, who was now working at an internship at the nearby publishing building for the season. The job didn’t pay much, the work made him stay up late, and he only had his bike to travel with, but it was better than going back home to his disapproving mother.
Today, however, he was late to work. His bike was broken, and he was panicking. The chain was snagged on the lower spoke somehow and now he’d spent the past twenty minutes trying to free his only ride to a secure future without also breaking it. He’d lost all hope and thought to call in sick when –
“ Do you…need help? ”
Enzo nearly leaped out of his skin from the low voice behind him. Turning around, a large, tall man stood very still, like he was a soldier figurine with his big jacket. His hair was long, though, and a cap covered most of his face safe for his stubble. He also had gloves on, which confused Enzo since it wasn’t very cold out. How long was he standing there? Enzo realized he’d been blocking the apartment’s entrance to the staircase.
“ O-oh! Sorry, I didn’t – no, thank you, I can handle it fine on my own. ” The man’s eyes flickered to his bike again.
“ Doesn’t look like it. ”
He bristled slightly at that. “ Well if you’re such an expert – ” The other man rolled his eyes but knelt down. For a moment Enzo thought he was going to tug at it the way he did, but the man instead took out a small, scarred Swiss army knife and flipped out a small, delicate blade and started flicking the edge against the chain. “ Don’t cut it, it’s – ”
“ I’m not. ”
Instead, the mystery man gingerly kept making swipes until – snap! – the chain dislodged itself from the spoke and immediately straightened itself out back into position, perfect for cycling. Enzo gaped.
“ Thanks, mister. ”
The mystery man grunted and made his way back upstairs. He’d lived on the highest level of the apartment building, which surprised Enzo since he thought no one had lived there during his three months of interning. He’d never seen him walk in or out before this, and assumed that the man must’ve just moved in. The only other person who lived up there was old man Ionescu, and everyone knew to avoid him, after all, so Enzo always kept his distance from the highest level.
[Room 6B - Day 83]
Ionescu knew they weren’t a couple. Not in the traditional sense, at least.
He liked being alone. He liked having a whole floor in this sparse complex all to himself, and he liked even more that people avoided him. After his second wife, Ana, he didn’t have it in him to talk to other people.
Then came the soldier. The nerve of that bastard. He could tell he was a soldier the moment he’d seen him – straight soldiers, weary eyes, gloved hands. His hands – he knew there was something wrong with them. Always hiding and always stiff, the left always seeming unable to know how to move with the right. But that wasn’t what offended him – what offended him was his demeanor. The same kind he had when he was a soldier. The kind where you were made to do things you weren’t supposed to tell other people about.
“ Iraq or Afghanistan? ”
“ Afghanistan. ”
He probably lied about that too. The first time he’d asked, he was alone. Left to rot. Used by whatever country deployed him and now shoved into this apartment with whatever dying pension and nightmares he could hear through the walls with what little hearing he had left. The second time he asked the boy about where he served, she was with him. He still lied, of course, much to Ionescu’s ire. Couldn’t he see he was wasting his youth being cooped up?
The girl, he first thought, was different. She was kinder, warmer, sweeter. He thought that the boy had a girlfriend before the army and now dragged her into living with him since he had nothing better to do, when –
“ I’d rather be with my cold man than with some happy bastard who doesn’t understand me. ”
Something in her eyes changed. Colder. Deader. The same frozen look the soldier had, but the heat in her voice differentiated herself from him. That’s when Ionescu realized – she must be in the same kind of boat he was. But whereas the soldier was muted from his pain, the woman was angered by it. A spitfire that he could respect, at least.
But the boy was in pain. And the girl was bitter. There was no way they were a couple, not with how stiffly they held hands, and how they bickered when they thought the walls wouldn’t hear them. The boy couldn’t possibly tend to the girl with how shut-up he was. And the girl was too busy trying to distract herself from whatever reality they were in to get personal. Or, at least, that’s what his soap-operatic nosiness was telling him.
But the girl was trying to be sweet. Trying, like she wanted one thing to work for her. He could hear her speak English whenever they went out – American, undoubtedly – which made his heart fond. His mother was from America, though she hardly spoke much about home. He couldn’t blame her – her generation grew up in the war, so it wasn’t exactly filled with fond memories. So he humored her, called her pretty and scolded the boy in order to try and let her have something to enjoy. It wasn’t much, but it made her smile.
“What f – you could speak English this entire time?” She gaped when he once bumped into her. She’d cursed in English and he jokingly chided ‘ Delicacy, dear. Language. ’ Ionescu cackled.
“You never asked!”
When they finally left a few weeks later, Ionescu was surprised his own theory was wrong – apparently they had to move to a place with more rooms. Or, at least, that’s what the girl said when he’d bumped into them before they left. Ionescu knew they were lying, that they were probably trying to escape wherever it was that they came from, but it didn’t matter. His bones were old and his time was nearing an end anyways, so he was just glad to have the damn floor to himself again.
[Lobby - Day 87]
The first time Adrian met the man, he hadn’t said much. He thought he was going to rent out a bottom flat, but when he asked the man instead wordlessly slid a card to Adrian that confused him at first. He had no clue what the writings meant, but the moment his manager saw it? Mr. Petrescu turned white as a sheet and quickly took over the arrangements. When Adrian asked why 6A never paid rent?
“ Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to, boy. ”
He wasn’t necessarily a bad tenant, though. Never any noise complaints, though at night he could swear he’d heard something when he took a rare midnight shift. They normally closed up for the evening, but he’d stayed behind to overlook some repairs when he’d heard a hollow, muffled cry. Oh, at least, he thought that was what it was. It was a silly theory, but Adrian thought the walls were padded in their room. Everyone else’s apartment had thin walls, but theirs was conveniently quiet. He knew this because he once chatted with Enzo from 5C, and he hadn’t heard anything from the floor above. No footsteps, no talking, not even wind.
Adrian was also a good worker. Mr. Petrescu had a soft spot for him – he’d grown up in the apartments, after all, and later came back after his (Petrescu) father’s funeral to work and make something for himself. That’s why, over cheap drinks on his birthday, his boss told him while sloshed – “Many years ago, a deal was struck. Before you were born. Before I was born. A dark deal, a shameful one that is the reason why our apartment is still standing today. That man – ” Petrescu shivered like he doubted the tenant at 6A was even a man at all, but a monster hiding under his coat. “Part of the deal meant that someone like him could come and go as he pleased.”
Adrian was confused, though. “ Why not refuse him? Give him to the police? ”
Petrescu chuckled bitterly. “ My father refused a man like him once. He’s dead now, before his time, and this place is now poor and rotting. ” While the apartment was located near some of the poorer neighborhoods in Sector Five, it used to not look so worn. It used to be cleaner-cut, with whiter walls and cleaner glass. Now it wasn’t, but he’d just assumed it was over time and losing tenants.
He didn’t realize how relieved he was when they’d left a few weeks later. Something had happened – he wasn’t sure what, but the mystery tenant suddenly left the building without a trace, seemingly in the middle of the night. Him and his wife – of whom he didn’t even know existed until Petrescu mentioned her existence. They didn’t even check out properly – Adrian just saw the same red keycard on his desk that the man had once used when he first came.
The next time he'd be dealing with someone from the highest floor was when old man Ionescu died, and that was months later. Remembering the old man's neighbors as his distant relatives cleared out his apartment, Adrian asked Petrescu if anyone went to 6A to see if they cleared their stuff out. After all, it was apartment policy to do check-ins every once and a while, and a sweep-over when a tenant leaves. "No," Petrescu suddenly said. "And you never will either. Do you promise?" Adrien blinked. He couldn't even enter the room (apparently that red keycard was the only one of its kind, since all the other tenants had white ones, and Petrescu destroyed it in a paper shredder - he saw the card's remains in a trash bin), but he promised his boss anyways.
Later on there'd be police asking around for information of a man and a woman, and Adrian struggled to recall their faces. Petrescu vehemently denied it, though, and urged Adrian to do the same.
Notes:
idk how bikes work ok
Chapter 18: Beethoven’s first sonata in F minor, en Prestissimo
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[1990]
I never considered any of the handlers at HYDRA to be friends, nor likeable in any capacity. I’d been taken in and out of cryo so many times that I just learned to hate each one I saw, each somehow getting on my nerves the more I see them. They could be breathing and I’d despise their existence.
One handler, however, was special.
“Ю-ху! Алло? Есть кто-нибудь?”
Yoo-hooooo! Hello? Is anyone there?
She’d talk like a fucking teenager. Knocking on the glass panes of the cryostasis chambers like they were aquarium exhibits, and we were just fish weren’t entertaining to her. Poke and prod me during experimental procedures like I was an odd piece of slime rather than a person. And her voice – again, I hated her voice.
“Ну-ну, Дреа. Будь добра к Севентин. Она только что проснулась.”
Now, now, Drea. Be nice to Seventeen. She just woke up from her nap.
My faux-grandfatherly handler would chide her like she’s just a naughty little girl who pulled on a puppy’s tail. In response, she’d just pout and raise her brows like she was five.
She wasn’t. She was thirty-two going on sixty.
And she wouldn’t shut up.
“ My father won’t let me have dinner with the technicians – ”
“ Ouch! That papercut really hurt! Agh, you can’t imagine how it feels!”
“Do I have to cut open her spine right now? She’s not going to be drugged and will throw such a fuss, you’d think she’d get used to unmedicated surgery by now. I know I would – it doesn’t even look hard, just lay back and be quiet. ”
“ All this blood, Seventeen shouldn’t be bleeding so dramatically, it’s only a cut to the brain. She must be faking it for attention. ”
I’d glare at her at first. Her voice was nails on a chalkboard, and her visage was worse – imagine someone who was supposed to look young, but had been out in the sun for twelve hours and had wrinkles before twenty-one. And then they never brushed their teeth regularly, but got permanent whitening replacements, so their gums were ballooned and puffy on top of neon white dentures. Oh, and her hair – imagine straw, but burn it, and then leave out in the Sun. Now forget what I just said and intensify the dryness by 200 %. Bald people have better hair than her.
At some point, it’d become a point of rebellion for me to try to soak up as much of her shitty words as possible. Not as empowerment, just to see how long I can last before losing my mind and getting shocked. It was such an impossible task that I ended up losing my mind a little – I started to laugh every time I saw her. Half-purposeful, half-instinctive. She was so goddamn ugly, so annoying, so stupid, I wondered how God gave the okay to make her. He must not exist, because this lady couldn’t possibly be made in heaven before she was born. I’d end up laughing so hard, the echo bounced off the walls and other handlers began to stare from other rooms. A Winter Soldier even looked at me like there was something wrong, like the biggest form of rebellion was to find humor in an ugly bitch’s face was also the greatest offense to HYDRA.
“ Why is Seventeen laughing? She’s doing it again, sir! Make her stop! ”
ZAP!
Which, as I learned, it was.
[Day 93]
It’d been seventy years since I'd made any meaningful connections with someone. Seventy years since I’ve last been hugged, smiled at, even kissed. Emphasis on the last one.
Because I was currently making out with a ninety-seven year old man in the back of a supermarket soap aisle at seven in the morning. The Sun wasn’t even up outside yet.
It was a regular “supply run” for us. Barnes would wake me, I’d make breakfast, and we’d take the first bus to Piața Obor București to get our grocery shopping done for the week. I’d throw stuff into our bag, Barnes would complain about the necessity of some of the things I get (yes, a sample of Papanasi is important) while I got to float in my own head and soak up what was probably the only time we went outside during the week, safe for the book box runs we’d rarely go to now.
“Did you know there’s a special birthday dessert just for you, Sarge?” I asked today, perusing the detergents for something that was powdery. I still disliked modern liquid soaps, and wanted to get something flakey and sudsy instead.
“What, you mean like a birthday cake?” His eyes were darting under his baseball cap for anything suspicious.
I shake my head. “No, I mean, specifically for you. In Romania, they eat a dessert called Mucenici eaten specifically on the ninth of March. I think it has to do with holy martyrs.” Technically his file said his birthday was on the tenth, but Barnes doesn’t bother to correct me. He huffed.
“Martyrs. How fitting.” I started to become a lighter sleeper in the past few weeks. Not just when Barnes had the occasional nightmare, but because of how much his paranoia passed onto me. By the time we were shopping today, after living together for a while now, I thought I’d try … attempt …at bein’ friendly with him. After all, he’s Steve’s best friend before all of this hell, so he can’t be that bad.
“Kiss me.”
“What?”
“Someone’s watching.”
Somehow me tryin’ to cheer him up ended up succeeding a little too well, because just as I was about to let him make the very important decision as to what scene we should have – lemon splash or mountain fresh – my cheeks were suddenly cupped with the palms of his hands and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of his stubble against my chin.
Something in my chest got hit when he did that – my heart leapt to my throat as my nose was suddenly filled with the smell of mint and smoke (did he smoke with Ionescu again? He’s been doing that more often than not when he thinks I’m asleep). His lips were warm, painfully, confusingly heated as his mouth kept vying for attention from mine. Heat rushed into my face as I tried to pull away, but he just clung on harder, then used the crook of his metal arm against the back of my neck to keep me close to his chest.
“Is he – Barnes – hey – “
“Shh – ” He hissed as his flesh hand rested on the small of my back. His lips were practically trying to take over mine when I realized his eyes had been open and ahead of us the entire time. In between attempting to mama-bird tongue me he whispered a “Subject’s – watching – us – play along –” We kissed for about another minute until he finally pulled away, mouth shiny as he kept lookin’ ahead of us. “They’re gone now.” He grunted as he noticed my swollen mouth. Fucking bastard –
Smack!
Luckily there was no one in the soap aisle to see me bitch-slap him. “ Really, Barnes!? ” My face was still burning up from that kiss. I harshly scrub my mouth with the scratchy end of my jacket and tried to ignore how my eyes watered. “Usin’ me’s a bit old-world , ain’t it!? What are you, a handler!?”
“ Someone was watching ,” He hissed. “I just saved our faces from getting recognized. You’d rather get sent to the Raft?” Barnes’ gaze lessens in intensity when he sees my eyes watering. It wasn’t anything deep, but a kiss while I was half-asleep set a bit of a jumpstart to my heart this morning. Also, it was a little humiliating to have been kissed so intensely, only for it to be a diversion. “Sorr –”
I try to save face. “Save it. Good call. Let’s just go back already.” My face was red and I walked three paces ahead of him for the rest of the trip.
For the next couple of days I’d given him the cold shoulder while we lived in our cramped apartment safehouse. I’d take long showers to not see him wash the dishes, do laundry early without his heads up, and purposely pretend to sleep whenever he went on a book box run. He, deservedly, didn’t say shit to any of this. Sonovabitch even takes his beatings with grace. Fuckwad.
It wasn’t even the kiss that bothered me – we were in a fake marriage. Kisses were bound to happen. I just wish I didn’t get so caught off guard because of it. Being jerked around and used as a distraction made me feel like I was back to being Alouette instead of myself. A piece and not a person. And I didn’t mind playing a piece, but that was just it – playing. It stung a little to have forgotten that, like I got a taste of fake freedom from being in hiding and that made me delusional to the actual situation we were in.
Does any of this make any sense? Probably not. Whatever. Whatever, whatever, whatever.
[Night 99/ Day 100]
Motherfucker won’t stop screamin’ like a goddamn mountain goat. If his nickname wasn’t Bucky already I’d suggest El Chupacabra instead (a kid friend once told me about the damn thing so during my whole childhood I avoided hills). He was gettin’ worse than Jenkins after mustard gas at this rate. The one silver lining about me giving him the proverbial cold shoulder, however, was that he seemed to have less nightmares. I mean it – sometimes I’d wake up two nights in a row because of how many night terrors he had. And that’s not even including the ones I get, but now? Something about me not bein’ there to give him water and the “daily update” (meaning whatever I’d recently learned about the modern world) before he went back to sleep made him have a full week of not having nightmares.
Who knew being an asshole was the cure all along. Until it wasn’t, of course. The sleep I’d had since being in hiding was interrupted by the sound of Barnes waking up in a sweat. I contemplated not going to him tonight. To just take a shot of sleep syrup and pretend I couldn’t hear him.
But I couldn’t. I cared too much to let my anger get to me. Unfortunately (GOD DAMN IT ALL I WISH I WAS BORN A PSYCHOPATH) I knew we both could barely communicate, and after stewing in my bitterness for a week, I realized he probably just thought I understood what the kiss was for. Which I did, but still. Looking back, it was more about the humiliation of being caught off-guard and forgetting that couples kiss (give me a break it’s been seventy years) that got under my skin.
So into the scorned man’s den I went. His head was hung low, infuriating low like he’d been fighting the urge to cry as and thinking the blanket would newer him halfway into stopping his tears. Until he saw me, of course. Then his back straightened, pale, shiny face lifted and his moon-bright eyes looked away.
He looked ashamed. Hurt. Sad. Contagiously depressed in a way that I couldn’t bring myself to leave from.
“You seriously need a haircut,” I mutter, standing at the doorway. I felt bad for him, but after causing such a ruckus for the past few days, I couldn’t bring myself to sit at the edge of his bed just yet. Part-pride, part-shame, part-bitterness, part-guilt. Barnes doesn’t say anything. I sigh. “You’re going to need somethin’ more heavy-duty than sleep syrup at this rate — ”
“Did I really use you at the market?”
“What?”
“At the market. You said it was old-world of me to kiss you. You called me a handler.”
Oh. Shit. I’m an asshole.
Suddenly I’m swallowing my pride as I make my way to the edge of his bed. I sat and slouched slightly, getting a look at his face under his head of messy hair. He was so handsome in his old pictures. Still is, but sadder now. Muscles and a good jaw can’t cure a death-addled soul. I remember once, when I was a brattier little shit, my mother once gave me some advice in order to give a proper apology (I was a jackass as a kid, if you could believe a perfect, darling angel like me was so terrible).
Be straightforward about how you felt, and why you acted the way you did. See the sin of the deed, and sing sweet until they’re no longer wonderin’ why you’re still there.
What if they don’t forgive me?
Who said anything about forgiveness? This isn’t about you, it’s about them.
“I called you a handler on instinct. Because you surprised me, and I felt like a tool to avoid arrest.” I lick my lips, feelin’ like an idiot. “Which is technically my job to begin with. To lay low with you. For the record, I didn’t call you a handler because I thought you were actually a handler, but — ”
“HYDRA had a power hierarchy. I know. I was there too.” He spoke, his eyes returning to me. “Handlers controlled the Soldiers. Handlers also controlled subjects, but Soldiers were sometimes allowed to control the subjects during missions.” His eyes flickered up to mine. “Like you.”
“…just felt a little taken aback, that’s all. Forgot to brace myself, and you got pimp-slapped for it. Sorry, darlin’.” A pause. “You didn’t get a nightmare from this, did you?”
He shook his head. “Dreamt about Karpov.”
I tilted my head. “Who?”
“The name for the head handler of the Soldiers. I’d overheard it enough times to remember him. He keeps bouncing in my head and…” Barnes suddenly shuts up, regretting talking about it. We sat in tired silence for a while. “I’ll give you a proper heads-up next time I try something.”
“You don’t have to — ” He deadpans. “Ugh. Fine.”
“I’m serious. You’re the first lady who cried over me kissing them.” He grunted, half-tired and half-sardonic, with a pinch of annoyance. Barnes usually made weak jokes whenever he wanted a touchy-feely moment to end. “I usually have more sex appeal.”
“It’s been a hundred years, sir, be lucky my heart didn’t give out.” I think for a moment to leave, but then I try to cheer him up again. “You know, there was one handler I always liked.”
His brow furrowed in confusion. “ Liked? ” Looked at me like I grew a second head.
I grinned unapologetically. “There was this ugly bitch who’d always strap me to a chair. She was a lab tech, I think, but I just knew she was ugly as sin. Every time I looked at her I was reminded – I may be in hell, but at least I ain’t ugly. She never understood why I laughed whenever she was around, and chalked it up to my gettin’ shocked one too many times.”
I thought he was going to kick me out, or maybe scold me, but instead he said – “...Was it the lady with the small mouth? Like the size of my pinky?”
“Yes! She was supposed to be young but aged like milk! She was an ugly bitch, wasn’t she?” I cackled deviously behind my curled pointer finger. He started to smirk, and for a moment looked like the gorgeous bastard I briefly met back in Christmas ’41. God. What I wouldn't mind kissin' that instead of just locking lips to hide my face.
“Inside and out, apparently,” Barnes snorted. “Jesus.” Then he added, “Sorry about kissing you.”
I shake my head. “Don’t be. It was a very good kiss. Not at all worth cryin’ over." I pat his bare chest. "I just need more practice kissing back.” His face looked confused as to what I was saying but dawned on him while I stood up.
“Nurse.”
I didn’t mean to be so cheeky tonight, but my guess it was the late hour gettin’ to me. “Sarge.”
Barnes stared at me, swallowed, then looked away with pursed lips. He shook his head in silence. “Night-night.” I should be mean to men more often.
[Day 110]
It was all my fault, this outing. I complained to Barnes that we hadn’t been out except for our weekly outings, and he pointed out that we went to the book box. “Yeah, like, once every two weeks. For ten minutes. At the ass-crack of dawn. I want somethin’ proper.”
He lowered yesterday’s newspaper, unimpressed. “You want to risk getting caught because you want hardcover books instead of paperbacks?”
“Yessir. And for the record,” I raised my science-medical textbook. I hadn’t returned it yet because I wanted to finish reading it. The only hardcover in the book box, but it was worn and flimsy despite the solid binding. “Already got a hardcover. I just want to give her a sister.”
“You call your book a girl?”
“ My girl, ” I correct. “And she’s my baby, so I gotta treat her well and not read her too much.” Barnes’ face softens for some reason as I tell him that. For a moment I think he’s going to gently say no, but to my surprise –
“Alright. But we’ll go near eight. Too early and we could risk ourselves with tourists.” A pause. “You want to go to the one in Lipscani? It’s open ’til ten.”
I brighten with surprise. I was going to suggest the one at University Square, but Lipscani’s way better! “You’re spoilin’ me, Sarge.” He rolls his eyes.
“Don’t get used to it.”
Cărturești Carusel wasn’t too far, just a bus ride away where Barnes kept tugging at my stolen beanie down like it was trying to fly away. “I’m not five, Barnes,” I grunt as he nearly blinds me to the view of the beautiful all-stone and columns in the shopping district. The sun was setting low, and everything had a cool-blue tint to them.
The bookstore was even prettier outside than inside. Three floors, Greek columns, swirling fences taller than me, and bridges atop the third floor that would probably make you feel like a king. Warm, glowing lighting. Stuccos with curled cartouches. Giant greenhouse-glass roof. Even Barnes was a little speechless.
“...I really hate HYDRA.”
“Agreed.”
He didn’t need to say it, but I could tell Barnes felt bad for making us stay only for an hour. The place was so beautiful, it was worth bein’ caught for. I’d never seen so many books in all my life! I had the stupidest, dopiest smile as I struggled to find something to read. Mystery – I liked mystery most, right? But modern romances seem so dirty I want to see what all the fuss is about! And nonfiction – I think I saw a hand-painted print copy of Grey’s Anatomy, I remember in nursin’ training my teacher had a copy that she’d reference all the time –
“You want that one?”
“Huh?”
Barnes motioned at the Grey’s Anatomy textbook. It was huge, leather-embossed and gold-leaf printed lettering. It was one of the prettiest things I’d ever seen in my long, terrible life. HYDRA had left cash in the safehouse anyways, so why not? The only thing was –
“...it’s forty dollars, Sarge,” I mumble, reading the international pricings. He usually took care of the money, so I wasn’t sure how things cost nowadays other than handing cash at times. But my mind was still in ’41, and forty dollars for a book of all things was…stupid. Very stupid. And selfish. (A/N historical context: $40 in 1941 was $661 in 2014) Even I wasn’t that greedy.
Barnes just shrugged and grabbed a copy with his gloved hands. “You need a sister for your girl, right?” He muttered, flipping the pages. The sketches inside were the same as my teacher’s – intricate, veined and a million little labels in the tiniest, bunched together font. I turned red, embarrassed at the fact that he was willing to spend forty dollars on me. After all, I did stab him when we first met. “Steve won’t say it, but this hiding thing will probably be longer than both of us think. Least we can do is not lose our minds.”
“You sayin’ this trip was a good idea?” I grin.
“Don’t push it.”
We went to the checkout and paid for the book through the cashier. She looked at me and beamed. “ Fan of the show, are you? ” I blink in confusion but politely smile and nod, praying to god she doesn’t grill me on anything. “ Me too. I love Meredith and Derek, I sure hope nothing bad happens to them in the latest season! ”
“What show was she talkin’ about? Is there a medical talkie that’s popular here?”
Barnes shrugged as we walked out the store, sun setting to dark. “Beats me.”
“I know forty isn’t the same as it was in our day,” I stare at the heavy book in my hands. It really was beautiful. The heart musculature drawn on the cover seemed to be a reflection of mine. “But this is beautiful, Barnes. Thank you.”
Barnes softened. “Just don’t ask me to buy something that isn’t instant coffee shit again. That stuff is a waste of Leu. ”
“But books aren’t?”
“Books are smart. And they can double as paper weights and coasters if they’re not good. If coffee is bad, you just wasted your money.”
I was just about to rebuke the claim for more expensive instant coffee, when Barnes suddenly stops my walking with his arm. He’s suddenly stiff. Looking ahead, there’s a woman in a wide hat approaching us. His cap was already pulled low, but his eyes focused solely on the ground as she approached. She had blonde hair, tall, and eyes covered by sunglasses.
Sunglasses at nine in the evening?
“ Excuse me, can you please tell me where I can find Rahova? ” Her voice was pointed, pitched and polite. And had a warbled accent.
I look at her clothes. Trench coat and boots. Scarlet scarf that looked expensive covered the lower half of her face from the cold. “ You’re a long ways off. ” Barnes tersely said. “ Go on a bus in the other direction. ”
The woman nodded. “ Thank you. ”
I pushed it, even if I felt I shouldn’t. “ You live there? ”
The woman smiled, lowering the scarf from her mouth.
Tiny lips. Ugly face. Мерзкая сука.
“Нет, но у меня там живут люди.”
BANG!
I don’t remember who shot first, but someone did. Barnes took out his gun from under his waistband and began shooting at her. While I had my fighting knife from Steve, there was no way I could bring a knife to a gun fight. Luckily he threw me a backup on the other side of his waistband (for once I’m glad for his paranoia). She’d taken out her pistol and began firing back, but began sprinting as fast as she could back down to the old streets from which she initially came.
“ So how long were you two a couple, eh? A Soldier and a subject, how romantic! ”
“ You talk like you’re not being shot at! ” I yell back. It was probably the first time she heard my voice. We were nearing the cobbled entrance of the Gara de Nord train station – shit, she was probably trying to escape with a ride. The station was closed too – did HYDRA shut down the station for tonight to lure us here?
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Our guns went off again, this time we took turns shooting her on each arm, and then warningly between her legs. She screeched like a banshee, at the top of her lungs and hunched down from the pain. “ Don’t move. You can’t even fight us. ”
The ugly bitch smiled. God, she aged terribly but wore pink lipstick like it would help. It didn’t. “ Oh, I know. But I’ve got a camera – ” We look up. Shit. Gara de Nord is covered in security cameras. One long, underground hall with steep staircases and train tracks attached to poles. Said poles had cameras on each sector. “ – And a voice. ” She lowered her chin into a necklace at her chest, small and metallic.
Subject Seventeen. Drop the gun. Attack the Winter Soldier.
My whole body stiffened with a kind of echoing pain that made me want to cry. I dropped my gun. No. No. NO. Nonononononono —
I couldn’t control my movements. While Steve tore my earpiece off, the woman didn’t need to speak to me through one. Her modulated voice had my fingers twitching for my Vibranium knife, turning to Barnes. She then broke the necklace’s modulator — I’m guessing her pride thought that this was enough to keep him busy — He realized in horror what was going on as well. His voice shook as he kept calling my name:
“ Shit — stop — dammit, STOP FIGHTING ME!”
One jab, then another. A kick to the ribs with enough force to leave a bruise to my ankle. A punch in the face and a knee to the stomach. It was sparring all over again.
“Stop — go — after — her — !” I choke out through my closed throat. Barnes looked back at the woman now trying to run down to the front of the train tracks to escape via the next ride. He shot her in the ankle — BAM! — before turning back to me and my forced fighting. Her scream echoed across the empty station. His own arms didn’t reach for an offense in my hits, instead going for defensive positions as he tried to stop the knife in my hands from ramming into his skull. My eyes were watering the entire time.
“I-I’m sorry — I’m — ”
“It’s — shit — okay — ”
He couldn’t order me to stop, not when he didn’t have any equipment. There was only one way, we both knew, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. Using his metal arm, he smacked the blade out of my hand and held me down as I screamed.
Every pain receptor in my body went aflame in that moment. I screamed louder than the bitch down the hall, and nearly choked on the vomit that came from my mouth. I cried, feeling like a dog being forced to be put down as I rode out the punishment protocol for not following the order. “ Stop! ” I howled. “ It hurts, it hurts! Please, James — ” Another shock jolted through my spine before I started seeing spots.
“Just a few more, sweetheart — shit — how many — 's been seven so far - ”
Ten. The protocol was ten jolts, in case I built up a resistance. I never did. By the time the jolting stopped, I was covered in sweat, lying on the floor. Choking on my own tears and spit as he finally let go of me. “Stay here,” He shakily ordered, as if I could get up. I couldn’t see the sergeant, not with my spotty vision, but I could definitely hear him. The blood pounding in my ears muffled most of it, but it was guttural, angry Russian.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
She stopped making noise after the third, but he just kept going. I hope he put one in her ugly mouth. After a few minutes, I heard more shootings, but in different areas of the station. As each deafening bullet echoed across the empty station, I felt envious of the ugly bitch. She was allowed to finally die. As the pain ran through my body with the grace of a paper shredder, I wanted nothing more than for one of those noises to be the last thing I ever heard. I was ready to go, but always teased just out of reach, it felt.
I was barely breathing through my nostrils by the time he came back. I didn’t realize I was bleeding through my nose until he wiped my mouth. He took off his flesh hand's glove and wiped as much as he could before covering his fingers again. He was shaky with his touch, trying to clean what was there and tensing at the warmth of everything. I’d been unconsciously sucking my own blood that had been coming from there, and made it hard to get air. Looking at my reflection later, it was like my mouth and chin were painted red. HYDRA would’ve given me painkillers by now to combat the pain and continue the mission. But I didn’t have any pills on me, and just laid as my muscles were lessened with echoing agony.
He looped an arm under my legs and back before scooping me up. “Her body’s going to get run over by the first train that gets here. I shot down the cameras, but that won’t give us any time. We have to go now.”
“Back to the safehouse?” I croaked through a mouthful of dried blood.
Barnes — James hadn’t looked at me since cleaning my face. He shook his head, focusing on sprinting as fast as he could out of there. His boots and jacket had spatters of blood that he carefully covered – using my body to cover his jacket and muddied his boots as soon as we made it back outside. “No. We have to go somewhere else.” His eyes gazed down and studied my sweaty face. “We can’t stay here anymore. We’ll be gone before midnight.”
When we made it back to the streets of Lipscani, my eyes caught the gleam of gold lettering. The Grey’s Anatomy book he bought for me had a bullet shot right through its cover, right on the heart. I'd dropped it in the heat of the skirmish.
[10:23]
James carried me in his arms the whole way back to the apartment complex, only once muttering a “Stay awake doll, you’ll need to walk a little soon.” against my ear. We made our way upstairs to the dark staircase. It was black outside now, the sky only lit by the moon.
I hadn’t said anything since the train station. I kept replaying the moment in my head — I’d shot her in the arm, the shoulder, only to get dog-walked and put down. I felt hollowed out.
“ The hell are you doing at this late hour, boy? ”
Ionescu’s voice came from next door. He was smoking on his plastic chair, glaring at James suspiciously. Seeing me in my eyes, clammy, sweating, clearly crying, his glare lessened. James almost opens his mouth to say something when I interrupt —
“I’m pregnant. I’d been throwing up and fainted.” I speak with a fake, shaky clarity. “We have to move, sir. There's not enough room here.”
Ionescu stared at us, clearly skeptical, but James nodded in agreement and started to unlock the door, not caring about the old man’s response. “ I’m surprised you had the balls to knock her up, boy. Hmph. Very well then. ” Before James could take inside, Ionescu hobbled over and took my hand. He pressed a kiss to my knuckles like when we first met. “ Good luck with this one, child. ”
“ Thank you, sir. ”
“ And you! ” Ionescu turned to James, narrowing his gaze. “ Don’t fuck it up! Remember what I told you! ”
James stiffly nodded. “ Yessir, Mr. Ionescu. ”
[1:23 A.M.]
“Hell — ”
“A handler found us,” Bucky doesn’t bother waiting for Steve to even finish his word. He put the phone on speaker and rested it on his lap. “She almost followed us to the safehouse.”
Steve straightened on the other line of the burner phone. “Shi — what happened? Are the two of you okay?”
Bucky takes a moment to take a turn on the road. After quickly packing their bags, he stole a truck for the two of them to escape the city in. “I’m fine. She’s…” The she in question hadn’t spoken in hours, and was currently asleep in the other seat. Bucky took the remaining amount of sleep syrup they had and made her finish it, drinking from the bottle before helping her into the ride. “…the handler controlled her.”
“How?”
Bucky laughed bitterly, no humor in his chest. “You don’t need an earpiece, as it turns out. As long as your voice is a certain low frequency…she had a wire in her necklace and got cocky. I shot her, though. HYDRA must be weak if they sent her of all people out.”
“But it was still enough to do damage.”
His jaw tightened. “Yeah.” Bucky didn’t want to think about how wounded her scream sounded against his ear. How her pleading — she’d never called him James before this — was so desperate, so scratchy from tears. With every spasm from her back, Bucky was sure she’d die — he was mortified to think she did. The way she got quieter and quieter with every jolt, eventually spitting up bile while her nose bled…it was more like watching a dog with rabies get put down than a grown woman.
Both men hang on the line in shared, tense silence. “Where’re you guys up to now?”
“We left the safehouse hours ago. Going to a new location.”
“HYDRA safehouse?”
“No. But it’s somewhere I know is isolated. I took some cash and the card, but neither are traceable. HYDRA over-succeeded on their ability to hide.”
Steve shook his head exasperatedly. “How did the handler even find you guys?”
“They must’ve made her scope through every safehouse. It’s not like they have stronger resources at this time.” His metal hand bent the steering wheel slightly with his grip. “They’re able to bring a woman to their knees but not catch us for months. It’s fucked.”
“Yeah. It is.” Steve’s jaw tightened. “But I should’ve been able to catch her. The files — ”
“ — only contains valued personnel,” Bucky nearly swerved off the road when the nurse next to him finally spoke. “Not some spoiled intern who got into HYDRA’s ranks through nepotism and didn’t have the experience or expertise to conduct experiments on her own. She probably got sent to only spy on us. Didn't account that we were armed and outside.” Her voice was laced with exhaustion and resignation. She looked run-over still. Steve answered with her name.
“How are you holding up?”
She doesn’t answer. “You guys should end your call. Border crossing is coming up.”
Steve hesitated and Bucky eyed her. “Whatever you want, nurse.” He put the phone off speaker and into his ear. “She’s right. We have to go for now.”
“…right. Call me when you get there Buck. And again, I’m — ”
“Don’t finish that,” Bucky said tightly. “I’ve already been let down by everyone else on the outside. Don’t force the blame onto yourself too.”
Steve swallowed. “The point still stands, Buck.”
“I don’t care. I’ll call you later.”
“Stay safe.”
Click.
Notes:
Really want cheeto fries and a good lip oil rec rn
Chapter 19: Travelogue
Summary:
Not a main part of the story, but a fun little extra piece I had made while listening to a playlist.
Chapter Text
Modern Travel Etiquette – a field guide to the inexperienced traveller on the road! Check off the list as you go! Name: Jack Barnette
- Don’t panic: This trip is supposed to be fun! Getaway drives are meant for the open road. Just you, some music, and the path to your destination. You may not have left home for a while, but that’s no reason to feel like a fish out of water. As long as you’re moving, you’re on the right track! Write about your feelings in between drives under this prompt! Pre-travelling rituals, what you’re craving, etc.!
I feel fucked. It took me twenty minutes to clean the blood off of my clothes. Then I had to burn my fake wife’s clothes because of the DNA left behind. Oh, and I had to destroy the safehouse. I didn’t burn the place down, but I did put some toxin powder so that mold forms and our DNA would be impossible to track. I feel very stressed. I’m craving bootlegged beer and cigarettes, but the Prohibition and war ended so no one makes that stuff anymore. I blame Hoover.
- The more the merrier: You can’t possibly travel without a companion! A friend, family, pet, even a radio podcast whose voice keeps your ears busy. Who's going to keep you during this long drive down the winding roads of the world?
My fake wife of almost four months hasn’t spoken since the handler. I'm worried she won’t talk ever again, which I don’t want. I like her voice bouncing off the walls a lot more than my own. Steve is on the other line, but I can’t risk calling him so much, not when people are looking for me. I don’t want to cause him more trouble…I seem to be causing everyone trouble.
- What did you pack?: Just to double check, do you have everything? Look over your pack and see that you have everything! List what you see!
For me: Lady the Second (the secondhand Swiss army knife he found) , almost five hundred thousand in Leu (in a card), my memory book + pictures, the past few newspapers. A lot of shirts, pants, underwear and jackets. We’re sharing everything but the boots and bloomers at this rate. Packed mostly clean clothes in bulk. And shampoo, to avoid her teasing (if she ever talks again). Batteries for the burner phone. SIM cards.
For her: Lipstick and makeup tin (she looks like a USO girl when she smiles with it), medical book from book box (no one was going to miss it), skincare (??? She once got mad when I asked what an exfoliant was). A lot, a lot of soap. She likes the fancy bars for baths. Steve’s gift knife. Comb and nightgown. Maybe she’ll talk if she sees me fold her stockings. Call me an idiot. Girl stuff, I don't know.
For us – Two guns. Three packs of emergency ammo, but the incoming safehouse should have its own stuff. A bottle of sterilizing alcohol. Matches – 2x. Salt and oil. “Missus” bought an obnoxious bulk box of both the last time we went. Detergent (I still stand by warm water washing). Toothbrushes and toothpastes.
- Reasoning: Why are you going on this travel-cation?
We shot a woman on camera and now we’re back to being wanted criminals. Snitched after I put her on the tram's tracks for ruining my gift for her.
- Memories: Do you have any past experiences in travel? Any fond experiences – not just on a car, but on a plane, a bus, or even train!
This is a stupid question and I don’t have any fond memories of trains. Go to hell.
- Outer Goals: What do you hope to get from this trip? Rest and relaxation? High-action adventure? Making new friends? Trying a new culture?
The government wants to arrest and kill me. HYDRA wants me back as their lap dog. My main goal is to not die. Or become too much of an alcoholic. Second one optional.
- Inner Goals: What are some personal goals for yourself on this trip? Inner peace? Letting go of the past? Moving on?
I want my memories back. All of the real ones. I want to have a beer with Steve without worrying about tomorrow. I want to stop hurting people. I don’t like killing. I hate killing. I don’t want to kill anyone anymore. The handler felt as good as the moment before the bloodstains began to spatter. I can’t even be nice without it going wrong – it’s my fault for being so careless with using a HYDRA safehouse, and now she won’t talk to me. It's not her fault for getting caught by HYDRA.
I feel guilty for what I did. I have no peace at night, no peace during the day. Nothing tastes good and nothing feels good. When the nurse helps the feeling is only as temporary as she is near me. Same with Steve. I’ve ruined a lot of people. And now that I’m not brainwashed, I feel like I’m just meant to hurt people. I hurt people when I’m part of HYDRA. I hurt people when I’m not part of HYDRA. I don’t deserve nice things. Not Steve. Not his calls about home and my mind, not after nearly killing and forgetting about him. Not her. Not when I'm ruining her freedom. Not her waking me from nightmares with shitty one-liners and updates about modernity. Not when I'm impossible to live with. I miss my family, but I can't go back. And I have to somehow live with that.
I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and not glare at my arm.
- Let’s face it: there’s always one view, or one ceremony, or one tour or even one food that we all want to experience while on the road. What are you craving?
Better kissing skills. Some quiet away from the city. Mucenici.
- What is your biggest challenge on this trip?: Are you facing any fears? Looking forward to any personal quests? Traditions?
Making it to 98 without losing the other arm. Or get caught. Or trying to understand modern cars – why the hell is there a screen on the dashboard, this is a TRUCK –
- Any tunes?: What playlist or track are you blasting on the speakers? Hip-hop? Punk? Classical? Lofi-beats to study/sleep/relax to?
Who the hell is Lofi. The sound of silence. Maybe if I’m lucky, she’ll finally talk. The sound of this burning in the bonfire I’m currently starting to get rid of any evidence. What a waste of twenty Leu, this was. Thought this was a magazine and bought it for her, only for her to never write in it. I don’t know what to do now.
Chapter 20: Mountain Retreat: The Second Safehouse
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[1942 - En route to France]
The girls and I were in a bit of a situation. We were supposed to travel by train to the next army hospital, and had packed all of our things to go. We all packed light, even Rita, but by the time we were ready to take the truck to the station, our ride had broken down halfway. Gus, our driver, had spent the past hour apologetically tryin’ to get the damn thing to start. Even the other nurses tried to help, even though we didn’t know jack shit about cars.
“Maybe turn it off and on again?” Mary queried.
“Already did, ma’am.”
“Maybe it just needs some cleaning,” Rita suggested.
“’Fraid not, otherwise the engine will worsen.”
“Kick it?” I joined in.
“Half-tempted to, miss.”
Rita sighed, glaring at the cold sky. It was almost sunrise, and at this rate we’d be running late. “I hear some nurses fly on planes,” She muttered, kicking the gravel road with her heel. “What I wouldn’t give to be a flight nurse right about now.” I patted her back, absentmindedly flipping through my notebook. We were carrying supplies too, so the fact that we were running late made everyone antsy. Stupid car was ruinin’ everything.
“You have to keep your chin up, hon,” I respond, eyes still in my book. We needed to be at the new location in a few hours. “Things like this are bound to happen. Do you think things’ll go right a hundred-percent of the time? Or that a miracle will come to save us?”
“Like a bunch of hunky American soldiers will drive our way and give us a lift to the base?”
“Exactly,” I hum, not noticing Rita’s grin. “Things like that just aren’t realistic, you gotta – oh, you’ve gotta be shittin’ me. ”
You can guess what I saw. Supply truck with an American flag painted to the side, Gus quickly waved his arm and the other vehicle came to a stop in our direction. A tall man with a glorious mustache came out of their driver’s seat and walked in our direction. He saw us nurses and took off his hat. “Ma’ams,” He nodded, making Rita giggle. He and Gus spoke for a little while until the mustached man nodded, turned back, and called out to the truck: “Sir! Permissions to pick up ladies, sir!” Some nurses blushed at that. A voice from the truck’s shotgun said:
“Granted!”
Gus turned back and smiled. “Don’t worry girls, you won’t be missin’ your train anytime soon.” As the other girls excitedly began to make their way to the other ride, I asked how long the drive would be. “Only an hour, ma’am. And the boys are nice, don’t worry. They were goin’ in your direction anyways.”
“It’s not the boys I’m worried about.” I murmur, pocketing my book.
The ride wasn’t that bad. It was cramped and a little warm from the amount of people, but the boys kept the girls busy with chatting. Turns out they were returning from a covert operation – “Or, at least, was covert until Morita opened his mouth,” One man muttered. Rita was having the time of her life, hearing said Morita go on and on about how he helped break some of his fellow countrymen out of a P.O.W. camp. Some of the other boys teased him.
“Didn’t Rogers carry you like a princess when you broke your leg then?”
“No, he just helped me escape!”
“By carryin’ you!”
“Potato-Potahto, Monty. And not in front of the dameses!”
Halfway through our ride, I could hear a groan from behind me after we went over a bump in the road. A guy was laying on the backseats, his head covered with his military jacket. “Uh…Is he alright?” I asked Monty. Monty snickered.
“Oh, the Sarge is just a big baby, that’s all. He got a bad cold yesterday after running in the rain, so now we’re haulin’ him for a while until we can get our hands on a proper doc.” A snore broke through our talk. “Again, big baby. The only thing we haven’t done for him is change his britches.”
I dig through my pocket and take out a tiny vial of cough syrup from Christmas. Since it wasn’t technically part of the supply round-up, I carried it in case someone got sick. Which happened a lot more often that I’d like to admit. “This bottle’s almost done, he can top it off when he wakes.” Monty grinned.
“You’re an angel and a half, you are. Thanks.”
When we finally got to the train stop, all the girls were carefully carried off the truck (theirs were bigger than ours, probably meant to be fought in) and back onto God’s graveled Earth. We said our thank-yous and watched as the truck drove off into the trail. “What was that about no miracles?” Rita giggled, her face still flushed from when the mustache man let her feel his arm muscles.
I rolled my eyes, just glad to get rid of the cough syrup that was wasting space in my pocket. “Shut up.”
[That same truck, an hour later]
“Bet you a nickel he’ll puke.”
“Make it a dime, I wanna take a picture!”
“You guys aren’t going to let him rest, are you?”
“Nope.”
Steve rolled his eyes as Gabe and Dum Dum leaned over a snoring Bucky Barnes, whose homemade parasol of a jacket fell off his head and left his ear perfectly open for pranking. Gabe leaned over with a canteen of ice water, biting back a snicker as he poured a splash over the sick soldier’s ear.
“GAH!”
Snap!
“WAKEY-WAKEY PRINCESS!”
Bucky nearly fell out of his makeshift bed at the back of the truck. Dum Dum cackled as his Kodak perfectly caught the face of his blue eyes bulging out of his head and his mouth opened wide like a trout. Gabe laughed so hard that he doubled over, while Steve shook his head in bemused disapproval. He switched shotgun with Morita about half an hour ago.
“What the hell!?” His best friend sputtered, wiping his now-wet hair back.
Steve smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, pal. The boys thought you were dead. Thought you could use some resuscitation. You already slept through the nurses visiting.”
“Nurses visited?” He straightened. “Why didn’t you just ask one of them to resuscitate me…would’ve been a nicer thing to wake up to than you guys’ ugly mugs. Probably a better kiss of life than this.”
“We considered it, but didn’t wanna traumatize ’em with your face first thing in the morning.” Dum Dum grinned as Bucky flipped him off. He threw him a bottle of cough syrup. “Here. We got you a present from them.”
“Gee, thanks,” He deadpanned, but unscrewed the cap and drank, wincing at the taste before wiping his mouth. “You guys didn’t tell them about the mission, did you?”
Steve smirked, finally joining in on bullying Barnes. “Only the part where you almost got shot in the ass – ”
“Hey!”
[Day 112]
“...The mountains. You drove us to the fuckin’ mountains.”
I’d been asleep the whole ride over. Aside from waking at the pit stop we made for directions, the sergeant didn’t stop the truck until we were face-first with the Carpathian border patrol to wake me. He’d handed the guard some fake documents and spoke with a tight smile.
“ Purpose for coming? ”
“ Visiting family. ” The guard peered over and stared at me. I looked like shit, so James rubbed my arm and added, “ Wife’s sick. We’re going to go to her mother’s so she can get better. ”
The guard took one look at my glassy eyes and clicked his tongue. He stamped our papers. “ Approved. Get well soon, miss. Watch out for ice on the road. Winter comes early here. ”
I was too embarrassed to talk during the whole ride. Sure, my body was still sore from the train station, but I also felt terrible. The simple truth of us getting caught was because I got too greedy and wanted to go outside. After a few months of hiding I got cocky. It was all my fault that we were doing this now, and I didn’t want to make the situation worse by opening my stupid mouth again. I was selfish, and I’d been selfish from day one. So now I was being selfish with my words and kept quiet.
I also felt what I assumed to be the female version of emasculated – my body hardly resisted the order to attack, immediately trying to jump the man currently driving us to safety like some attack dog. I’d cried like a baby when my body got proverbially and literally shock-collared, and now I’m starting to wonder how much of my own liberty I had. My body was my own until someone told me what to do. I was still theirs, even after everything. Once a puppet, always a puppet.
“We’re here.” His words properly woke me.
My brooding was interrupted by the sight of dark, misted rolling hills and cobbled roads. For all of my negativity, I couldn’t help but stare at the endless layered hills and trees. At some point the skyline was outlined with grey hills, and I wondered which distant, grey layers were mountains and which were clouds. Everything seemed to melt together like a pretty watercolor painting.
But then I realized – our next safehouse would be here. And that’s when the words slipped out of my mouth. The first words croaked since that nightmare two days ago.
James looked in my direction. “It was either this or the city, and there’s too much of a risk going somewhere urban.” A pause. “You got any better ideas, nurse?”
My jaw clenched. “No sir.” It’s my fault, I remind myself. It’s my fault we’re here now.
We spend the next few hours driving down the winding roads, hardly seeing anything more than rolling dark hills and trees. The deeper we drove, the more trees began to form around our path, and the less I could see the endless cloud skyline I initially knew.
“How much did the news see of us?” I asked as we drove under a pass of branches. Slivers of light and shadows ran over our window, almost compensating for how shitty I felt inside.
James’ didn’t look my way, eyes still glued to the road. “Enough.”
“Your face or mine?” He hesitated to speak, eyeing the rearview mirror. “Sergeant.” He sighed quietly.
“Mostly mine, but the footage is really blurry. Mostly suspect. They know you as an accomplice now, but weren’t able to put a proper name to your face.” The space between us was suddenly more tense. “Most major cities and densely populated areas were given the heads up, but nothing else.”
I bit my tongue momentarily. “So the world knows we’re around.”
James couldn’t answer me. I wanted to open the door and throw myself out, but the lock kept me firmly shut-in.
We kept driving down the road for the next half-hour until he started to swerve in his movements. Purposeful and firm, as the road suddenly stopped bein’ so smooth and a hell of a lot more rough. “What’re you – ” I yelped as the ride suddenly jerked me forward from my seat.
“The safehouse is off-road from here.”
I clutch onto my seat. “How do you – shit – even know this place?” He hardly seemed phased as the truck worked through the now-surrounding forest, somehow managing to avoid the large trees and thick trunks, making us jerk slightly from our spots.
He seemed hesitant to mention it, but shook his head. “I was tasked to find someone here as the Soldier. They were last seen living here. Even if it’s abandoned – ”
“Did you kill them in this damn house?” I couldn’t help but ask. Again, he didn’t answer. “James.”
“...not in the house.”
“Jesus Christ, sir.” All this because I got greedy for some fresh air. I hate myself.
[11:28]
It was well past dark when we got to the safehouse he was talking about. I had no idea how the hell he was able to drive through the trees without causing us to crash, but James managed to stop just before we died in a tragic accident where no one would ever see us again. The lights of the car shone the safehouse…if you could call it that.
He opened my side of the truck door and grabbed our packs from my foot area. “C’mon. Inside.”
“Inside?” I mutter. “Can’t we just stay in the truck?”
“Already tore off the license plate, so no. C’mon.”
It was a cabin in the woods. Dark wood that I could barely see safe for the faintest outline until James took out a flashlight from god knows where and reminded me of the abandoned houses in Amarillo when someone’s meemaw died. It looked like somewhere little kids would go in and hold seances after being dared.
Inside wasn’t much better. It was even smaller inside, if you could imagine. All wood, and a small table that took up a fraction of the walking space. Across from it was what I assumed was a black counter, then realizing it was a big, dusty, cast-iron stove set. I open one of the stove tops: Nothin’ but black insides. I opened the oven and blew inside it. I coughed at the smell of soot blowin’ into my face.
“How old is this place?”
James shrugged, setting out stuff down on the table. “I was assigned to this place a couple decades back.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Someone had lived here once – the bed was layered in old quilts that, once I blew, had dust flying from it. Great. How the hell am I gonna do laundry here?
“There’s a supply shed out back,” James stepped out and took a peak at said tiny shed. “Mostly guns and ammo, though. Canned food too – but I’m not sure how good they’re sealed.”
“Any buckets?”
“A few.” Great. Looking at the small bathroom attached to the house, I found one upside – running water! But it was freezing , and I went back to being mopey. “We should sleep,” I say, trying to find somewhere that wasn’t too dusty to rest in. Cleaning this place would be hell and a half, but that’s tomorrow me’s problem. “I’m takin’ the floor.”
James nodded, rummaging through his pack. “I’m going to walk around the perimeter. See if everything’s secure.”
As I smushed my pack into something I could rest my head on, I counted the seconds I’d laid on the dusty floor until I could smell must. It was one second. My fault, I thought. This whole mess was my fault.
[1 A.M.]
Bucky locked the doors and drove the car far from their safe-site. After that, he circled the perimeter and double-checked that there was nothing in the trees and bushes. After that, he took a fifteen–minute walk down the hidden trail to where he remembered a nearby village was. There, in the distance, it was. Still small and sleepy, with a few lights glittering. It’d be too much of a risk to go there anytime soon. After that, he made his way to the river outside their cabin.
He put his boots in the water, the hard rubber stopping the coldness soaking into his socks. The light of the flashlight was dragged along the rocks – nothing had changed from the last time he was here. One rock in particular – a large, jaggedly round thing, was still unmoved from its spot.
The memory of the Soldier was like a never ending nightmare in his head. He’d walked through the river, finding his target outside taking a walk. He’d spotted him before he was even seen, and chased the man until he’d fallen into the water. ‘ Please! Stop! Spare me! ’ He’d cried, his glasses already cracked from the rocks. Bucky internally winced at the memory of his crying. The target - no, man - was so scared, but he still put up a fight. In a fit of strength, the man threw the rock towards the Soldier’s way, but he just swatted it away with his metal arm like it was a fly. The man’s leg was shot down, so he was scrambling, laying in the riverbank as he got closer. It was an easy kill – he’d wrapped both his hands around the neck of the man until he went still, and left as if nothing had happened.
Bucky shouldn’t be here. Not here, he doesn’t deserve to be. His mind wasn’t his own, but it didn’t matter. He was half-tempted to call Steve about it, but between his best friend probably being grilled for possibly being in cahoots with him, and not wanting to disappoint him with his memories, he just stood still in the running water. Bucky didn’t leave the spot until sunrise, just before the nurse could wake. He just kept staring at the running water and broken rock.
What was he doing here?
Notes:
timeline is a bit off, but it's not too big of a fuss
Chapter 21: Catfishing
Chapter Text
[1927 - Brooklyn, New York]
It was stupid, really, what Bucky was doing. But he had to do it – if he didn’t, his sister would keep throwing emotional fits until Sunday, and it wasn’t exactly like his folks had the money to buy her a new satchel.
“Rope?”
“Check.”
“Pa’s boots?”
“Check.”
“Really long stick we found at Prospect?”
“Do we have to sacrifice it, Buck? It’s a really cool stick, we could use a fishing rod or something…”
“Sacrifices have to be made, Steve. It’s what turns boys like us into men.”
“But –”
“Tonight, Steve. We’re turnin’ into men!”
“Ugh. Fine. We’re tunin’ into men…in the sewers.”
Some bullies took Rebecca’s bookbag on her walk home from school and ran away with it before the little girl could scream for her brother. While Bucky was able to chase said boys down the street, the bag had the unfortunate luck of being thrown near the sewers – not directly into the waters, thank heavens, but onto a bent metal rod that hung teasingly above the dirty waste of New York.
It was a tactical mission. One of the utmost importance – mainly because it had Becca’s homework inside, and she’d spent so long carefully stitching little flowers on the side so other girls could see it and talk to her. Even Bucky knew better than to take it.
“ They took it! ” Becky sobbed. “ I just borrowed a book from Jenny and they took it! I had a cookie from her birthday saved inside! ” It was all he needed to hear. He asked his best friend to “Take her to Ma!” before sprinting for his little life to get the bag. Bucky managed to catch up to them and yell out a “GIVE UP THE BAG!”, which spooked them enough to do so, just through the worst possible throw.
“Still think we should’ve thrown some hands,” Steve thought aloud as Bucky tied the makeshift rope around his middle. The “rope” was really old linen scraps that were thick enough to support Buck’s weight. The blond initially offered to be the one to get roped down to retrieve it, but Bucky pointed out how he was shorter, and so his limbs probably weren’t going to be long enough to retrieve it. Plus, they needed a lookout. It was almost midnight when they snuck out, and a few hours since Becky got her book stolen.
“Next time some jerks take Becky’s bag, you can tell ’em to hold real still and fight, Steve.” Rebecca really was heartbroken, though. One of her hands held Steve's as they hurried back to her family's apartment, the other was covering her crying eyes. She was practically howling in her mother's arms when they got back. Bucky's Ma tried to comfort her, saying that she'll alert her teacher about her homework, but couldn't say anything that could truly console her daughter about the borrowed book and cookie. She sounded like a wounded puppy, and it ate away at Bucky.
“Har-har.”
They tied the other end of the cloth rope to a nearby metal streetlamp, and Bucky prayed that he wasn’t too heavy as he carefully lowered himself down the bank’s edges. He could barely see the silhouette of the bag, but the dark red of the fabric was barely able to shine through the moonlight.
‘Dear God, I promise not to fall asleep in church again if you don’t let me fall…’ Bucky silently prayed as his arm outstretched to the nearby strap. He was a few inches off from outstretching his stick to grab the bag. Shoot.
“We have any more rope, Steve?” Bucky looked up, but was in too deep to see his friend.
“Sorry Buck,” Steve nervously echoed. “You gotta swing a little now.”
“Right,” He swallowed. “Right. Swing. I can swing. It’s – it’s like recess, that’s all.”
It was not, in fact, like recess at all. Bucky nearly broke the bones in his feet with how hard he kicked against the brick bridge, and barely got any traction. It took everything in him not to cry out, especially when realizing he’d have to climb back up with said bruised ankles, and tried a softer approach. He took a handkerchief his mother made him always carry (“You have to be presentable, Jamie,” She’d chide, but it was really just an excuse to wipe his face whenever he ate too messily) and tied a knot around his wrist, then around the stick to connect it. He kicked again, swinging as far as he could.
“C’mon, c’mon…just the end of the strap… please … Yes !”
Bucky whooped as the stick managed to loop through his sister’s bag, and he tilted it upwards to get the red of it. Steve peeked down. “You did it, Buck!”
“Sure did! Here, take it!” He threw the bag upwards and Steve caught it, both boys grinning wildly at the success of their impromptu plan. All they had to do now was run back home and sneak into bed like nothing happened! Nothing could possibly go wrong now –
Snap!
“Wha – OH SH – ”
“BUCKY!”
SPLASH!
The linen rope tore from all the stretching and Bucky plunged head-first into the stream below. It wasn’t that deep, though, and the boy managed to swim his way back out of the black water with a gasp, “I’M OKAY!” And waded his way to the nearby banks to meet with a panicking Steve.
“Jesus Christ, Bucky!” He exclaimed, seeing his friend soaked from head to toe and shivering. “What’re we gonna tell your Ma!?”
Bucky grabbed the bag and raised it like a trophy, knowing damn well his mother was going to ground him for a month for this. “That Becky gets to return her book to Jenny and eat her cookie,” He spoke with a triumphant glint in his eye.
“JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES!”
“Ma, listen – ”
“You could’ve DROWNED, SNAPPED YOUR NECK, BROKEN SOMETHING – ”
“But we didn’t – !”
“THE POLICE COULD’VE CAUGHT YOU!”
“But we got Becky’s bag back!” Steve tried to chime in. The boys were now both currently standing at the entrance of Bucky’s family apartment. Bucky was currently shivering. Mrs. Barnes turned to him, making the boy shrink even smaller than what he already was.
“I’m tellin’ your mother too, young man! Ooh, just wait until your Pa comes home!” She looked up the stairs and called out a “Rebecca! Start the hot water for the tub! Your idiot of a brother is going to use the rest of this week’s hot water because of his…his…his recklessness !”
Bucky spent the rest of the night getting his skin scrubbed raw by his mother while sitting in a tiny copper tub like a naughty wet cat. The entire time she’d be muttering, “ Can’t believe…so reckless…just wait until your father comes home! ” under her breath. By the time she finished, his skin was red, soap-scented, and hair soaked. He wore his mother’s old nightgown as his mother hissed at him to “ Stay put! ” to find some hot water for him to drink in case he caught a cold.
“Jamie?” A little voice came from behind. Rebecca looked like she just woke up, dark curls a mess and clinging to her stuffed rabbit. Her eyes were alert, though, the same blue he had now eyeing his wet hair. “What happened?”
A beat passed. Bucky suddenly forgot about the grounding of a lifetime, and walked over to their family’s little dinner table. With a grin, he flourished the bag: “I got your bag back, what else?”
Rebecca gasped, eyes widening as she dropped her rabbit and ran to her brother’s proudly open arms. “Oh, Jamie! You saved my baggie!” She took her satchel from him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, thank you, thank you !”
Bucky gagged at his sister kissing him, pushing her away. “ Hrrk – sister germs. Gross.” Rebecca just giggled, though, and fished out the oatmeal and raisin cookie that was still neatly clothed in her lunch can.
“Here. You deserve it.”
Bucky accepted it and took a bite. “Darn right I do.”
[Day 113]
We spent most of the day cleaning the cabin in silence. There wasn’t much to talk about, other than the fact that my bein’ greedy was the reason why we ended up here. The whole place was covered in dust and rust, so we just did a big wipe-down with whatever clean clothes we had, then I used a bucket from the shed to clean as many linens as possible. My fingers were blue by the end of washing some old quilts – the running water was freezing. There was hardly any insulation out here. I dreaded thinking about how I’d try to shower later, let alone brush my teeth. Painful molars and tight skin. Wonderful.
Later I looked at our packs – mostly clothes, hygiene and soaps, which were all good, but we didn’t have a lot of fresh stuff. My instinct to buy a jar of salt and one of those tins of olive oil was really lucky (though, I mostly had bought them at the time for reasoning that we’d save money), but that was where our luck ended. The canned food we had in the shed had a fresh-by date of…1975. Great. Even better.
“Could last longer,” James reasoned, carefully eyeing the seal of some canned bananas. “Could still be edible.”
I gave him a look. “Edible? I know you’re a super soldier but – ”
Pop!
He used his metal hand to open the tin he was holding. The smell was – Jesus – indescribable. Powdery, bitter, and deathly. “Bananas aren’t supposed to be black,” I glare at the stuff in the can. James bit his lip. “No, don’t even consider eating it.”
“It’s not me I’m considering,” He muttered. His eyes landed on me. The non-super soldier who’d probably pass away after a few days here. I don’t like the furrow in his brows, probably remembering the last time I ate was during our drive, and it was sleep syrup and a small granola bar. I wave him off.
“I saw a village down from beyond the shed. It’s a bit of a walk, but that seems like a decent place to find food.”
James put the can back and shut the shed door. “Not right now, though. Both of our faces are probably getting shown on every screen across Eastern Europe. Laying low for the next few weeks, even two months will have to be our main goal right now.”
Oh. I suck on my teeth. “We could fish,” Looking at the river beyond the back of the cabin, I try not to imagine how icy the water must be. His eyes locked on the water too, expression unreadable.
“...we could.” James’ eyes flickered to my face again. They matched the color of the sky. “Is that what you want?”
I blink. What I want? I look away. “What I wanted is the reason why we’re here,” I muttered. “You shouldn’t get too caught up in what I want.” Before he can say anything, I go back inside the safehouse-cabin to clean the small cabinet and put our clothes away.
Later on in the day he ended up making good on his idea of fishing. He looked reluctant to go down to the river the whole time we walked out there, but never said anything about it when I put my hands in the cold water. “Uh…do you know how to fish, Sarge?”
He blinked. “Do you?”
“Uh…I normally order catfish at the store.” And that’s when it hit me – the best idea I ever had in my entire life.
“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” James deadpanned as I took a sharp stick from nearby and aimed it at the running water “You’re not Tarzan, you know that, right?”
“You’re just sayin’ that because you’d like the loincloth look on me.”
“Hell no.” A pause. “Shut up.”
I snort and roll my eyes. “It’s a really good stick, though – ” I squint one eye and try to follow the movement of the stream. “You’ve never had a really trusty stick before, Sarge? As a kid, you never found one?”
His eye twitched. He muttered something along the lines of ‘Been betrayed by one’ but didn’t protest further as I attempted to catch something edible. I threw the thing like a spear against the water. To my surprise, it caught! I shot him a triumphant look before taking the stick out and staring at…the tiny guppy that was flapping at the end. It was barely the size of my pinky. I refused to look at James, who was now looking away with the sound of hitched huffing under his breath.
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say – ”
“I can hear your thoughts!”
We went back inside the safehouse after that. While perusing through the shed – there was a lot of ammunition, as was expected – and inspecting the rifles, James breaks the silence with: “It’s probably better you didn’t catch anything anyways. That river’s…no good.”
“What do you mean?”
He looked at me looking at him, his blue eyes being oddly intense. Then he shook his head. “...nothing. Nevermind. We’ll find another way.”
[2:13 A.M.]
“...can’t find anything under the water.” A pause. “...yeah. Not worth the risk.” Another pause. “I have another idea, but it’s a long shot. Literally.”
I woke up to the sound of James talking on the burner phone to Steve. It had to be Steve, since no one else’s number was there. The painful tightness in my chest came back – I’d been stifling it all day. My fault , was all I could think of whenever I think about our shitty situation.
“...feels like shit, I think. She won’t say much, but she definitely blames herself for this.” My cheeks burned hot as I could hear his low voice rasp to the other line. “...’course I don’t blame her. The handler was goin’ our way anyways. She was even asking where to find Rahova.”
Him not blaming me made me somehow feel sicker. My eyes watered behind my closed lids. I hated how patient he was. How patiently and pityingly he treated me. I’d been treated like crap my entire life, and now fate gives me someone understanding? How the hell do I deal with that? Back in HYDRA, if I fucked up, I got shocked and cut open the moment I got back. Back home, if I fucked up, I got the cold shoulder and yelled at until my skin had bruises. And now I was getting nice ? I didn’t get it. Didn’t want it. I missed when he was meaner. That made more sense than this. I wish I had someone to talk to about this.
James suddenly chuckled on the other line. “...yeah. With a stick. Reminded me of the time we went to the East River to get Becky’s bag.” Pause. “God, that plan was awful in hindsight.” Another beat. “Mn. Don’t call so much. ’S not worth the risk.” He clicked his tongue. “You and your conscience. Whatever.” Then hung up.
I wish I had a best friend who conveniently got frozen with me for seventy years. Steve was a friend, I reasoned, but the only reason he broke me out was because of his own mission. And his own mission was influenced when he found the sergeant, hopeful to save others. I’m basically a tagalong. Third wheel. I could’ve easily been left behind or forgotten without any repercussions because of how much of a nobody I am. Sure, I was a decent nurse, but what else? I was a twenty year-old kid with no family and no friends to share any childhood adventures with. No one to miss me when I went. My envy made my chest burn.
I’m beating a dead horse, aren’t I. Whatever. The dead horse probably has more loved ones than me. We were both in hell, but at least one of us has someone they know with them.
Chapter 22: Rabbit-Hearted
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[1932]
Poor man’s guide to finding food in broken crops, a quick foreword:
Since the Natives helped the colonies all those years ago, we at the Nature’s Guild would like to extend this old pamphlet of help to those currently struggling to find edible crops in the Dust-Bowled states of Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas.
Until the Hoover Administration can pass decent legislation on a federal (no, Mr. President, One cannot rely on only local government when a whole nation is hungry) project to give sustenance to our hungry countrymen for the rest of this period, or, at least, until the next election, it is up to our fellow countrymen to help one another in times of crisis.
Survival ought not be made through stealing nor cheating, especially when other countries are currently on the cusp of chaos as well. No, we must care for ourselves in a way that keeps our dignity intact despite the hardships that we are currently living through. This guide was written with the goal of helping people living in Dust Bowl states to forage and identify edible plants, berries and roots that will sustain the human body until better days come.
[1943]
“Target is on sight.”
“How far?”
“Twenty meters north.”
“Describe target.”
“Fatter than a baby on buttermilk, sir.”
“Shoot it.”
On a rare day off between hunting HYDRA agents down and fighting Nazis, the Howling Commandos thought it was a good idea to hunt for their dinner. Mainly because the rations they had weren’t cutting it, and the men had all collectively complained about wanting a hot dinner enough times to agree to do just that when the time was right.
Bucky Barnes carefully lined his rifle to the view of the bunny. It was eating some grass, wholly unaware of the hungry soldiers who were dying to eat something that weren’t C-rations.
“Any last words for the feller, gentlemen?”
“Yeah – die.”
BANG!
With a swift pop, the rabbit made a small shriek before going still. Gabe, who was hiding next to Bucky, made a noise. “...this feels wrong.”
“We’re at war, but this is what makes you squeamish?”
“It’s a bunny, Sarge, not a Nazi!”
“And now it’s dead, so it’s a bit too late to feel bad.”
“Cold, Sarge. That’s cold.”
When the Commandos brought the game (multiple rabbits, one for each man) back to their little camp, each guy was responsible for their kill. Skinning and gutting included. Bucky stared at his dead rabbit. It had long eyelashes. “What’s wrong, Buck?” Steve asked, already fluidly running a blade over his kill. “Don’t tell me you’re chicken.”
Bucky glared at his best friend. “Am not.”
Steve snorted. “You are, aren’t you?”
“Shut up, punk. I just…just don’t like the eyes. Or the face. Too much like a baby’s.”
“Aww, so you do have a heart after all.”
“Buzz off.”
[Day 114]
My back hurt as I was shaken awake this morning by James. I hadn’t really bothered with changing into something more comfortable than my pants and jacket for the past few days, partially because his were the only clothes we had, and the only clothes I did have – stockings and a grandma-ass nightgown that I bought because it made me homesick to look at – were too nice to be wasted on this wooden floor that still didn’t feel clean. He didn’t take the bed either – we both side-eyed it since it didn’t look particularly warm or inviting.
“C’mon. We need to get you food.”
I glare at him. The sun wasn’t even out yet. “You make it sound like I’m a dog.”
He doesn’t entertain my complaints and throws one of his big jackets in my direction. Like his pants they’re hard to walk in and constantly sleeving over my hands, but it was technically warm…and technically stupid. The hunger was getting to me, though, and I wasn’t in the mood for much small talk once I started seeing spots in my vision. When I began to stumble, he offered me his hand. The fuck? I make a face and swat it. “You ain't a gentleman before this and you ain’t one now,” I mutter, making my way past him.
As we trekked down the forest, I noted how the weather seemed to be getting chillier with each day. Sure, we’d only been here three nights now, but the season clearly decided to make a change just as we’d arrived. How long had we been hiding for? It was warmer when I first arrived in Bucharest…maybe it’s fall. Mountains get colder faster than flatter terrains. Whatever. I eye the village from beyond the trees – they were far enough that the buildings all looked like tiny spots in my vision. Either that, or my hunger is gettin’ worse.
“Do you think they have cherry phosphates?” I ask, already craving eggs. My stomach overrode my grumpiness from earlier. “I think the last time I had one of those was when Coolidge was president.” I lick my lips with the imaginary flavor of sweet-and-sour.
James looked around us. “Doubt it, and it’s not like we’re getting anything sweet from here.”
I frown. “What do you mean? Aren’t we goin’ down to the village?”
Click.
James took out a rifle hidden from his side and – “Nope.”
“Then what are you – ”
BANG!
“ HOLY shit! ” I instinctively duck at the sound of it goin’ off, my hand clutching his bicep. “ Jesus - Christ – what in the actual – ”
“What?” He reloaded the barrel. “You need to eat. We can’t go down there. There’s enough magazines in that – ”
“So you shoot bunnies!?” I gazed at the white-and-red lump of fur that was now in our peripheral. “You shot a baby bunny! You – ”
It was his turn to make a face. “We’ve both killed people, sweetheart.”
“People, not bunnies!” Really, I was just reeling at the fact we weren’t going to a diner. But the dead baby bunny didn’t help my emotions at the moment. “That’s evil, James-Buchanan! I can excuse murder, but I draw the line at animal cruelty!”
“You can excuse murder?”
“Yes, I can!” I can't, don't quote me.
He sighed, turning my way with a deadpan look on his face. “It’s either this or risking capture down at the village. Do you really want to risk it over food?”
I hate when he’s right. “...no.”
BANG!
I flinch again, instinctively covering my ears at the sound of the gunshot. It wasn’t because I wasn’t used to the noise, no, but the sound was too familiar to those from past missions. What was happening to me? I used to be more nonchalant about loud noises. It was annoying. James looked over his shoulder and noticed my hard reaction.
“You can go back inside, if you want. I’ll bring the game when I’m done.”
“...thanks.” I didn’t like being seen as scared, but I hated the noise even more. As I separated myself from him, I began to look around the forest path that the safehouse was in. The woods were expansive, to say the least – the only reason why I didn’t get lost in the trees was because of the familiar rocks and bushes that followed me. And that’s when it reached the corner of my eye –
A dandelion. A couple, actually. Bright yellow, like the color of childhood and hunger.
Something in my head clicked. Oh. Oh… Oh! I run down to the cabin shed, grab a bucket, then run back outside. It was like when I was a kid, and the dust storms were so dry that I’d think that I had no more tears in my eyes when I got hungry. When my old man passed and we hadn’t eaten meat for months before the war, we ended up trying to find tumbleweed to can and stew. But it wasn’t just those memories that ran through my head – old lessons I’d picked up through neighbors, friends, trial and error ran through my mind too. Wrap nettles in cloth to avoid the sting, then boil to eat. Dandelions could be eaten from bulb to stem. Only young tumbleweed is edible. Yucca root – golly, a hygienic jack of all trades – could be used as a soap and shampoo, and as a way of cleaning clothes; you just had to cut and hit them a few times with a rock. Sorrel can replace lemon. My favorite – lamb’s quarters – could replace spinach. Flavorless, bitter, but technically filling.
The Carpathian Mountains weren’t Amarillo, that’s for damn sure – the grass was greener here, the plants had dew, and nothing seemed sunburnt. My head suddenly had the mindset of – This is just Texas’ opposite sister. She lives in Europe, is colder, lusher, greener and prettier, but basically Texas. As stupid as the mindset was, it worked: I suddenly didn’t feel as isolated in the mountains, and the far-off sounds of the sergeant hunting were less prominent in my ears when I froze at the sight of, if memory serves, some young sorrel. I didn’t fill my bucket, especially not because I didn’t want to shave off what could possibly be the only spots of edible plants around, but I gathered a few of what I recognized: dandelions, sorrel, nettle wrapped in a handkerchief (despite it bein’ almost a hundred years, the Itch of ’37 haunts my mind), and lamb’s quarter (okay, maybe I squealed a little and took the whole clutch). I was about to start tugging on some purple spikey flowers in hopes of finding some burdock in replace of turnips, but I ended up yellin’ at the feeling of a hand on my back.
“What are you doing?” James asked, seein’ me knees-deep in the dirt. I huffed in annoyance and raised my bucket.
“I was gettin’ us dinner, duh.” He stared at the bucket, halfway filled with edible plants.
“Those are just weeds.”
I deadpan. “Not everyone grew up in rich Old York, Barnes. Some of us had to look for our food.”
His face twitched. “I wasn’t rich, kid.”
“And I ain’t a kid! I’m your age – ” He raised a dead – “Jesus –!” – rabbit in front of my face, making me squeal. I hated how long their eyelashes were. “Stop showin’ me dead bunnies, James-Buchanan, or I swear to GOD – ”
“See? You’re a baby.”
“Am no – STOP THAT!” The last time I saw a dead rabbit up close was high school, it had been beheaded and lost its body. Ants crowded around its neck like somethin’ VILE – aaaand I’m dry-heaving. “You – hrrk – better skin and gut that yourself, Sarge. I’m not touchin’ that.”
“Why do I have to? I’ve been hunting all morning while you’ve been picking weeds.”
“Do these look like weeds to you?”
“Yes, they do. They look like what I’d give to my Ma when I was five and thought anything colorful was a flower.”
“Whatever,” I scurry ahead to the cabin to avoid touchin’ the poor dead baby. “You’ll be eatin’ these weeds whether you like it or not!”
The safehouse-cabin was waiting for us with barely-lip lamps and shitty heating. James spent the past five minutes trying to light a fire until I amusedly point out the little fireplace’s logs were too wet to get burnt. “I knew that,” He grumpily muttered before trudging back to the shed to get an axe.
I raised a brow as I peeked outside to him squaring up against a tall fir. The trees here were on the thicker side. “Sir, you do realize that those are too thick to– ”
WHACK! James wound his metal arm like a wind-up toy and threw a punch like it was nothing. When the trunk tilted from the impact, he thwacked the axe and the rest of it dipped in one fell swoop. He turned, maintaining eye contact as he nonchalantly threw the twelve-foot log over his shoulder. “You were saying something?”
Damn show-off. Why was he even doin’ that? I’m no sweet USO girl. I purse my lips and ignore the heat threatening my cheeks. “Nothin’.”
For all of his hawking, James didn’t leave me alone in the cabin with a dead rabbit before he went out to get wood. No, he left me alone in the cabin with a gutted and skinned dead rabbit, where I’m pretty sure he buried its head somewhere for me to find next time I go foraging. Hell, it looked like double-ended chicken legs. I hate my life, I kept muttering to myself as I took out the Swiss knife he’d left behind for me to use for cooking. We’d had to look inside earlier for any pots and pans, and there was really only a single cooking tin and pot that wasn’t hopelessly rusted.
Since we were rationing our supplies, I only used two capfuls of oil to slather the small bunny in. After that, I washed the plants I gathered and threw them in the pot with a lit match under the stove. After salting, I let it slow-cook for about two hours.
It looked more like a gamey stew than a dead bunny, all things considered. The greens I put inside were also there, but I was apprehensive about eating it. James did first.
“Watery. But not raw.” He shrugged, eating out of the pot before giving me the spoon. “Your turn.”
“I don’t have flour,” I mutter, trying to put some sorrel on my spoonful before taking a bite. The bunny was a little chewy, a little like chicken, if it kissed a lamb. A little sour from the salt and sorrel. “Maybe if we went to the village – ”
“Nope.”
I scowl. “You get off on rejecting people wanting to eat decently?”
He takes the spoon and takes a bite. “Absolutely. It’s the one thing that makes me sleep like a baby afterwards.”
“Bull. Babies don’t scream as much as you do.”
[1:30 A.M.]
My statement was proven right a couple hours later. We went to sleep after bickering as to how to take a bath – the cold running water made neither of us want to go first until I won three rounds of rock-paper-scissors. Neither of us took the bed still, and James took the other side of the room until I heard him gasp.
I pretend to be asleep. “I know you’re awake, nurse.” Shit. I sit up and rub my eyes.
“You do this often enough, sir. I’m surprised I haven’t tuned you out yet.” I actually wasn’t — back in the day I learned to be a light sleeper for this exact reason. Ignoring the ache in my bones from the hard floor, I go over to his side of the safehouse. “’Fraid I drank all the sleep syrup. You want me to call the Captain for you?”
His head shot up. “What?”
I shrug. “I know you call him at night sometimes. He’s your friend, isn’t he?”
His jaw tightened and he shook his head. “Not tonight,” He swallowed.
“Well, if that’s the case…” I fold my ankles under my bottom and perch next to his knees. “Do you want the daily update? I can make nettle tea, too.” In the dark of night, where no sight of our settings existed and only the sound of each other as company, I could almost imagine this wasn’t the modern world. I could take a breath of the cold, woodsy air and think that I was back at base. That the man who was breathing quickly in front of me was just another sick soldier, and that I wasn’t seventy years too far from that fantasy.
James shook his head again. His blue eyes flicker up to me. I could barely make it out because of the moonlight. His metal arm had a dull gleam behind his shoulder. “How many of me did you treat?”
I blink. “What?”
“Before everything. How many unlucky men did you treat?”
“Couldn’t tell you, sir. Lost count after the first day.” His wide gaze softened at that.
“Hn. Figured.”
“I remember their faces, though,” I interrupt whatever thoughts he had. My fingers itch to brush the long hair from his face, his face wasn't at all like the Soldier's - dark and glaring - but he still looked so tense. “A soldier with dark skin liked to have his hand held at night. A soldier with blond hair never smiled when I snuck him chocolate, but always ate it. A guy with no fingers once cried in my skirt because he couldn’t tie his shoes anymore.” My eyes burned at the last one. He cried a lot. Said he had nowhere to put his wedding band on, so I made a little necklace out of shoestring to loop the ring on. He died a few days later.
His hand inched closer to mine. The flesh one, but our fingers didn’t touch. “You always take the nightshift like this?”
I huff a weak laugh, wiping my eyes. “Not really. But you’re one of my boys, aren’t you?” Even if I felt bitter towards him most days, the sour feeling was held at bay in my chest as I spoke. I suddenly felt like a gutted rabbit. “It’s my job to care for you until I can’t.”
James licked his lips. “...you said something about the daily update?”
I nod, and take out a piece of paper folded up in my pocket. I’d made a list of interesting things I discovered back in Bucharest. “We’ve had four female Supreme Court Justices so far, three currently servin’.”
“Not more? Only four?” I shake my head. He clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Keep going.”
“Organ transplants are a new-fangled treatment where one organ is transferred to another person to save their life. Kinda like blood transfers.”
“Organs?”
“Yessir. A dead person’s heart or liver is given to a livin’ person. They have to be the same blood type, I think. They put it in an ice box like ice cream.”
“Don’t put organs and ice cream in the same sentence.”
“Or in the same ice box,” I snicker, then clear my throat. “This ain’t important, but I found a real hunky president was elected in the sixties – ” I giggled. “He was awful handsome, made a moon speech and everythin’. His name was – ”
“Kennedy.” My talking was interrupted, though, with James’ hand grabbing my list. His face looked particularly pale as his eyes scanned it. “He got killed, right?”
I nod, hesitant. “A man named – ”
“Wasn’t him.”
“What?”
“It wasn’t – ” He took a sudden, sharp breath before pushing the list back to me. “I did it. I got the order. Back in ’63.” A sharp voice came from the laboratory in my head.
Yes, but it’s killing a president. In broad daylight, of all times.
"...oh."
We both sit in silence. I didn't know what to say. It wasn't that I didn't kill people at HYDRA, but the targets I was given were never famous. Never in a history book where people can read in, their face plastered on museums across the country. Then something rings in my head. “...wasn’t you, remember? Soldier – ”
“No amount of smartassery changes the fact that it was my fingers pulling the trigger,” James flatly said, cutting me off. He stands up and looks out the window. “I’m going to go for a walk.” His eyes flickered to the bed. “Take the mattress.”
“But – ”
“You already have to live with me. I took the bed for four months. Take the mattress.” Then took his boots near the door and trudged out.
Something sick stirred in my stomach as I lay under the quilts of the bed that night.
Notes:
I wanted reader to be Southern so she could be opposite w Bucky, and to show how the Depression effected different parts of the U.S. differently
Chapter 23: Are You Man Enough to Take the —
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[11/22/1963]
The torrential downpour that befell Dallas had stopped just before the president visited the city. This was almost a problem, you see, because if the rain had kept going, the president’s car roof would not have been removed, and therefore the whole operation would have gone to hell just for the single fact Mother Nature was not on their side that day. The second gamble was the second man, though it was less a gamble and more a waiting game. The Soldier walked along the roof of the conservatory, just a few buildings down the publishing building. While the Secret Service was there, and some people had raised suspicions of a man with a gun in those windows, other people assumed that it was just the president’s people. The other convenience was that the man was bald, and looked nothing like the Soldier. This meant he wouldn’t get recognized at all.
Since his actions towards the advancement of Civil Rights, the president had started to lose his popularity in the South. Some had even considered him a wanted man in the Southern states because of his desire for equality and equity. But reelection was coming up, and Jack Kennedy needed to check off all of his bases. He took his wife and him to a breakfast that cool morning in the hopes of bolstering goodwill among the Southern states of America.
All throughout that breakfast the Soldier prepared. He didn’t know who the president’s name was, outside of Kennedy, nor that he was going to be running for reelection. He didn’t know nor care about the fact the president’s wife had miscarried five months before this, or that their marriage had been closer since the loss. He didn’t know nor care about his high approval rating, and he didn’t want to. He just knew that HYDRA had a target – that the president was digging too deep into CIA files, trying to uncover dirt for past injustices, and that it was his job to take care of anyone who risked their cover. It didn’t matter if his assigned target was a forgettable beggar or the leader of the free world, all that mattered was that their organization was safe. That their puppetry would keep its stringed symphony across all continents and systems.
The president didn’t trust his system anymore. Not since the Bay of Pigs, and not since the Missile Crisis. He’d joked about being elected so young that he’d have to learn-on-the-job, sure, but being failed twice and nearly bringing the downfall of a third of humanity in the span of thirteen days had nearly driven him mad. Not to mention being dog-walked by Khrushchev when they first met. He’d cried when he thought no one was watching during that entire crisis, and afterwards only trusted his brother Bobby as an advisor – and that was a problem.
It was a humid day. Not too hot, like Texas normally was, but the combined factors of the end of fall and the recent rain made it so that it wasn’t terribly warm. Maybe hot if you were wearing nice suits and had to stand out for more than a few minutes, but enough for no one to question a woman with a headscarf walking along the lines of the forming motorcade.
That was the only indicator for the Soldier – he remembered that the handlers first wanted one of the test subjects to go with him – Subject Seventeen, maybe – but then thought it was too much of a risk to bring two HYDRA agents to a presidential killing. One of the scientists went instead, carefully standing a few feet from the position in which the Winter Soldier was supposed to aim.
And then came the wait.
He was in an abandoned warehouse building. Everyone had stood out on the floor for lunch, and all he had to do was stand in position until he was given the signal – a simple hand wave from the woman in the scarf.
12:00. It’s been three hours since he positioned himself. The crowd of spectators began to gather for the incoming president to wave at them.
The Soldier’s mind didn’t have much inside. It was a forced thing, that much he knew – something was being cleaned and scraped off from his brain every time he went out. Burnt at the synapses, dying to be remade. Like flowers trying to bloom, only to be rejected by a lawnmower. His thoughts were flowers, and they were constantly being cut at the bulb.
The only thing that kept replaying was his most recent training session. All of his handlers avoided him. Treated him either like something not to be touched for too long, or like a dog who did jumps for treats. For his latest performance, he had to fight Subject Seventeen to see if he was physically fit for this mission. It was a standard spar, how she’d kick, he’d punch, she’d claw, and he’d eventually dominate and knock her out. It was a standard spar, until she lost too early, and the Soldier’s mind began to take root. The way she laid there, it was fami –
WHAM!
“Отсоси мой член!”
Suck my dick!
The hit stung his nose. It made a spiked feeling prickle the roof of his throat, and had him fall to the floor like a sack of flour. But it was gentler than the mind-wiping, gentler than the manhandling the handlers took it upon themselves to do in order to keep him “docile”. But that wasn’t what kept him from lunging at her. No, that was because of her eyes – they looked right into his. People hardly looked into his eyes anymore. Despite being so tall, so big, he’d always be sitting down, shirtless and vulnerable on the examination table of the labs. Always looking up. If he asked a question, said anything, the handlers would look at their clipboards instead of him. Like a dog begging for food, but its master being too busy to oblige with more than a “later”.
His mind was floating because of the mind-wiping, but her gaze – her intense, hate-filled gaze, her insult that was filled with the kind of passion he wondered he even had…it made his mind focus for the first time since waking. He’d rather be called a bad dog than not be acknowledged as one at all.
12:07. More people. Security lining the roads. A few people are squinting at the bald man in the other building. The scarf-head woman was perfectly still. Children began to litter the street with their parents.
“Президент немного опоздает — не теряйте бдительности.”
The president will be running slightly late – do not lose vigilance.
The voice in his earpiece made him re-focus. His mind began to calculate the aim that he’d have to take – with the incoming children, he’d have to account for their incoming hands. With the security, he’d have to aim above their heads to get in line with the president. With governor of Texas, he’d have to wait for the bald man to make the first move. Then with the wives he’d have to keep in one rigid position so that his bullet didn’t miss. It wasn’t that he valued the lives of the women or children, it was because the mission was the only thing on his mind. The only thing allowed in his mind. The only thing that hadn’t been scrubbed away yet was the way everything else did. Not that he knew what “everything else” was.
12:15.
“Цель на виду.”
Target on sight.
Not on sight, but near. The people began to cheer, but the woman in the headscarf was perfectly still. As expected, the children began to jump up and down, waving their hands in a fevered frenzy. The adults too – the ones who didn’t believe that Kennedy was a dead man for believing in Civil Rights – began to wave little American flags and crane their necks to get a peek at the incoming president before the motorcade was insight.
The Winter Soldier didn’t move his shoulder. Being that it was metal, it was perfectly still despite his breathing, despite the action below. He cocked the rifle down slightly, just a little above the incoming cars.
It was a hot day. Not warm. Not humid. Not pre-far. Hot like New Mexico, or the Middle East. Not that he knew what either of those were, not outside of missions there. The handlers said it wouldn’t be hot, and that was what he believed too at first when he positioned himself against the window – but he was sweating. His suit was too thick, too dark, too sun-soaked. Why did he believe them?
12:27.
The Winter Soldier tilted his head slightly. The president was coming down the road of Dealey Plaza in a blue suit. His wife was wearing pink. He used the brightness of her pillbox hat to tilt his aim slightly at the side, where the man’s head was. The governor was in front. The president behind. Combed and handsome like a movie star.
BANG!
12:28.
The first bullet rang as a tester. A fraud, but it hit hard. It wasn’t satisfying, but the Soldier felt something akin to silence in his brain when the president began to clutch his throat. His wife thought he was choking and held her hand out so that she could catch whatever he was stuck on. The Soldier’s face twitched at the sight of the governor, though – the man recognized the sound of the bullet immediately. Like he was a soldier himself, never truly done from duty. If he had an idea of what respect felt like, the Soldier would almost approve of his alertness. But right now, it was a problem.
BANG!
12:29.
A bullet to the leg, through the car. It hit the governor. Later, the Warren Commission will say that this was the same bullet that came out of the president’s head – despite the mapping of the bullet, which would then mean that after it went out the president would take a 180-degree turn mid-air to land right in between the governor's legs.
His eye briefly went to the First Lady, who was still trying to catch the nonexistent vomit on her glove. Despite the horror of the shots, her eyes were determinedly focused on her husband, unafraid to call his name despite the now-known chaos. The Soldier’s brow furrowed – no fear?
It didn’t rationalize. Didn’t make sense. Why wasn’t she ducking? Why was she in the way of his aim? It didn’t make sense, dammit, she should have moved by now! His chest began to tighten, this wasn’t going according to plan, not as the scarf-head woman raised her hand –
BANG!
12:30.
[Night 115]
He didn’t wait until the nurse fell asleep to leave the safehouse-cabin. No, James Barnes just ordered her to take the bed they’d been both avoiding to then scoop up his boots and leave the door. The sky was black outside and the wind was cold as he stepped out. Something sick simmered in his stomach. In his throat. In his ears, in his head. His whole body burned inside as the world outside tried to cool him down. Nothing worked.
It was supposed to be innocent. He’d woken from a nightmare, the same garbled pain of getting his mind scraped and burned to the point of no remembrance, until he’d woken up. And her – the nurse, her, his assumed caretaker – tried to cheer him up. Talked about the night shift. History. Medicine. A quick quip about ice boxes. Then came the thing that truly broke him out of his stupor, in a wrap of giggles and a dreamy voice –
This ain’t important, but I found a real hunky president was elected in the sixties – His stomach suddenly dropped at that. Combed and handsome like a movie star. He was awful handsome. Made a moon speech and everythin’. His name was –
Kennedy. Her face, her pretty, familiar, listening, never-could-have-guessed-she-was-tortured-for-seventy-years face looked up. Her brow initially furrowed in confusion at his being able to finish her sentence. He was killed, right?
He felt scummy. She was only trying to be kind. A nurse. One of her boys – something in his chest hurt at that. One of hers. Hers. One. But he had to say it. A truth that no one but God and HYDRA knew. That God only heard through thoughts and whispers in a now-abandoned compound, not said out loud in the all-empty and all-full Carpathian Mountains: I did it. I got the order. Back in ’63. He felt nauseous at the sharp breath of realization she took a second later.
Splash!
Bucky vomited into the river before he could even think. Everything was hot. His head was pounding. His eyes were watering, but no tears dared come out.
How dare he. How dare he live where he once killed a man. How dare he cry in the river he pleaded for his life at. How dare he watch the moon landing in awe, like he didn’t end the man who was the reason behind it even happening. How dare he —
“James. Barnes. Sergeant. Sir.”
A voice broke him out of his thoughts. She was there, looking at him with no-longer-shocked eyes. Perfectly still, like a flat pool of clear water. “You’ll choke on your vomit at this rate, handsome,” She whispered. He was hunched over the water, gritting his teeth at his reflection.
“I don’t — ”
She raised her hands up slightly, like trying to calm a scared deer. “I won’t be here long. Just didn't want to see you choke.” She held up a handkerchief in front of his mouth, cupped like she was ready to catch something in case he choked something else out. Then, after a moment, she gently wiped his mouth.
“I could’ve vomited on your hand.”
“Better out than in, sir.” She then walked upstream, where he didn’t vomit and the water was clear and clean, to dip the fabric in the water. She then walked back to wipe his face.
Her name had been a third in the order of how his instincts saw her. Subject Seventeen. Alouette. Then her name. Or, at least, it was the order now. He watched as she wiped his clammy, stubbled chin and cheeks with the kind of hand movements his mother would use after he ate too quickly and too messily as a kid. But her hands were softer, warmer than hers. Her eyes looked into his eyes without hesitation. There was something there — not an innocence, but an understanding of what this was. He knew he didn't deserve it, but he liked that her eyes were warmer on him now. It made him feel like there was something worth keeping, something that Steve wasn't just deluding himself with and something he thought had died a long time ago. Worth looking at still.
“You should be asleep,” he muttered. She shrugged.
“I sleep better knowing I’m safe. Can’t be safe if there’s no one to keep me company.”
His jaw tightened. “And you think I’d keep you safe?” It wasn’t arrogant, her words. But something about them made Bucky want to rip his ears out for hearing them.
“Better than anyone else out here, sir.”
He grabbed her chin and made her look at the river. The running water was clear, cold, and made both of them shiver as the air around them got chillier. “I killed him. The target. Here. In this river.” He pointed at the cracked rock. The middle of the water, where the stones layered to form a step in the water to run over. “He broke his leg and backed up right there. That cracked rock is what he tried to fight me with. My arm broke it like it was glass.” He turned higher chin so that her face could face him again. “Do you still feel safe around me?”
He could feel her jaw move from under his flesh fingers. “I tried to drown you when we first met in Bucharest,” he kept going. “Made you sleep on the couch like a groupie. Dragged you out to the mountains when you had a breakdown. How can you live with me?”
Her gaze was dark, even if her expression was neutral. “Then do it.”
He let go of her chin. “I’m not saying – ”
“No, do it. Don’t be a pussy. Do it. I’m an easy kill right? And you've been pushing me away,” Her lip curled in a way that made Bucky suddenly feel ashamed of himself. “Do it, bitch. Order me. На русском языке. You know how my implants like it – low and gravelly. Kill me if you’re so damn gung-ho. Big man, it should be easy to kill a little bird. Look, even the river gave you two pre-cracked stones from the last guy.”
Bucky didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t about to do such a thing. He’d rather kill himself than order her like that. He could still hear her screams from the train. “I’m not – I can't - no -"
"Why not?"
"Because," He shook his head, still thinking hard about the past. "Because - you're -"
“Because you’re nothin’. ” Her face got close to his. She caught his chin in a way that reminded him of Dallas. In a way that made his stomach sick, because he realized why the woman in the pillbox hat wasn’t afraid to reach out for her husband despite his being shot. The kind of feeling when death had grabbed you enough times for you to grab back. The kind you do to try and get back in control.
“You don’t have it in you. You don’t have the balls. The gonads to treat me like a puppet. So stop acting like it.”
He looked away. “It doesn’t change what I did. I’ve killed people.”
Silence fell between them for a split second, then she let his chin go. “No shit, Barnes. We both have. Your buddy Steve was lucky to get crashed into the ocean. God had three people to save but one hand, and he was obviously goin’ to preserve the one with the giant shield. No one here is innocent.”
Bucky huffed, unmoved. “Am I supposed to be comforted by that?”
“No,” She rolled her eyes. “It just means you can’t treat yourself as a martyr. It won’t…it won’t get you out of your situation. At some point, you have to realize no one is going to come get you. That you have to get out yourself.”
“How the hell do I get out of shooting a president? Of breaking a man’s glasses before killing him?”
She looked at him. Her eyes were no longer angry, not in the way the compound made her. In the moonlight, he could tell she had long lashes and discoloration from under her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping well either. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to find out after you put a bullet to your head.” She takes his hands. “Come back inside. You never know who's out here.”
Despite not feeling tired, he followed her back into the cabin. He spent the rest of that night slicing slivers from a small log next to the fireplace. The nurse pretended to sleep in the bed across from him.
Notes:
I love Clarity by Zedd,,,I listened to it the whole time I wrote this but it's not enough I need it in my veins
Chapter 24: Hunter-Gatherer
Notes:
Re-upload because I left a part out by accident
Chapter Text
[Day 120]
That night my mind mocked me. Not with memories of HYDRA, amalgamations of getting hurt, or even the trauma of tending to so many sick soldiers during the war. No, instead, my mind mocked me with something else – food. We’d lived in the mountain safehouse for a week, and had been living as if we were in the Dust Bowl all over again. And, like my childhood of rooting and gathering, I began to crave foods that I no longer had the pleasure of tasting. During Christmas we used to be able to afford a plump chicken and roast it inside our tiny oven until it was crisp and fatty. Soft-baked sweet potatoes with pepper would go so good with roasted onions, and a side of olive bread – were olives even around anymore? Even if you weren’t Christian, you could easily get a plate after waitin’ a few hours after church, and sneak in a small bowl of treasure for yourself. I know I did.
And like childhood, when I woke up, I was disappointed that it wasn’t actually real. Sure, the bed was surprisingly springier, but no amount of layers changed the fact that I was in the middle of nowhere, living off of root and rabbits like I was twelve again. Well, that’s a lie – Texas doesn’t have a lot of rabbits. Not unless you’re one of those rich weirdos who keeps food as pets.
Bucharest spoiled me in particular. For four months I got to eat food that wasn’t in a tube, wasn’t rotten, hot, fresh, and made my tongue sing with a different flavor each time. I’d never seen so much food in my life before my first time going to Piata Obor market. But here? We’d been in the safehouse for a week and I’m pretty sure I’ve already developed cabin fever. I hate that we’re here because of my outburst. Because HYDRA couldn’t leave their old houses well enough alone.
We’d begun a new routine since living here. Wake up, wash up, hunt, forage, and cook. Cut wood occasionally. Try to read. Emphasis on try – we found some books in the shed of the cabin, but neither James nor I could read ’em. “It’s in some Russian dialect,” He muttered. I could speak Russian from my time at HYDRA, but I wasn’t ever really given learning material. The handlers usually just told me where to go too, so I never had the need for understanding Cyrillic. James, however, surprised me.
“I thought they programmed the Soldiers to be fluent in everything?” I raised my brow. He doesn’t look up from the pages, flipping them randomly and occasionally pausing to attempt a read.
“Fluent in everything but bullshit,” He muttered. He put the book back in the shed, where it had no picture on the cover and only big, blocky letters. “I’ll use it as kindling later – ”
“Wait,” I say, taking the book. I couldn't read it, but I didn’t want to burn it! Aside from my medical book, I didn’t have anything interesting to read. I needed some kind of mental stimulation, and even if it was hopeless, I wanted to keep it. As my favorite book Belgian once said – the little gray cells in my head would die at this rate without something new. At least the illusion of having options. “I…I want to try and translate it. Please?” I look up. His eyes had been tired since last week. More so than usual, probably because of the night at the river. He’d been avoiding talking for too long since, not even teasing me with dead bunnies. James’ blue eyes looked into mine with an unreadable expression.
“Yeah. Sure. All yours.”
He’d been depressed for eight days now. Not smart-mouthed and closed off like he was in Romania, but ever since I stupidly brought up Kennedy he’s been shuttin’ up. He’d sleep on the floor, get dressed, and spend almost the whole day in the forest. I initially thought it was a good idea to leave him alone in there, may he could focus on getting game, but the more he came back with only a rabbit or two, and a tired look in his eye, the more I felt like runnin’ into that river just to see if he’d even react. He won’t even talk to Steve – I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but when I’m half-asleep I’d sometimes hear him muttering on the burner phone. That means he’s probably going to be less paranoid in the morning if he has someone to talk to (definitely not jealous).
“I want you to teach me how to use a gun.”
“What?” He looked up from cleaning his Swiss. I was eating a breakfast of nettle tea and leftover salted rabbit this morning, missing the taste of grainy semolina with cream that I’d had once in Bucharest. We didn’t even have bread — I tried wrapping the bunny in lamb quarters but it wasn’t the same.
“I wanna learn how to hunt, James. Pull my weight n’ all.”
James scratched his stubble with his metal hand. Not to be creepy, but whenever his scratchy stubble itched he always used his metal fingers. They probably scritch better because of their little metal ridges. “You already know how to use a gun.”
Yeah, on people, I internally wince. But I didn’t want to sour the morning so quickly. “Not on animals, Sarge. I wanna learn how to hunt.”
“You flinch whenever the sound goes off.”
“That was one time, ” I rolled my eyes exasperatedly. I didn’t want to tell him the actual reason was because I didn’t want him to be alone with his thoughts for too long, but he was really pushing how far I would go before just spelling it out for him. “Please? I don’t like bein’ inefficient. ’Specially not in times like these.”
James sighed, like I asked him for twenty dollars. Standing up, he threw me his spare pair of boots. God, I hated how everything was ill-fitted to me. I’m not overly-teeny nor am I overly-robust, but everytime I wear somethin’ of his I feel like I’m either-or. “C’mon. Before the rest of the forest wakes up.”
We blend into the forest pretty well, all things considered. The cool morning air made me shiver, and the light, wet smell of dew was nicer than the smoke that covered some parts of the last city we were in. “What animals are even here? Do only bunnies live here?” I look his way. His hair was messily tied back in a way that only a man who wasn’t used to taking care of long hair would do it. I reach out, making him tense. “Sorry. You…your hair’s messy. I can tie it back if you want. You’d at least see better.”
James hesitated, but nodded slowly. He turned around and kneeled so I could get a decent reach for his hair. With a little forgotten rubber band in my pocket, I began to gather some of his hair back. “Rabbits are the easiest to kill here. They spook easily but even in the panic you can get something.”
Do I have to shoot a cute bunny, though? “Any other game?”
“There’s technically some deer. Bear.”
“I’m not really cravin’ bear jerky.”
“There’s duck,” He offered. “But they’re hard to find because of the cold.”
I pat his shoulders to tell him I’m done. Gosh, his jawline shone stronger without hair in the way. I purse back a smile. “Think we can mix things up and get a bird this time?”
James grunted. “Just don’t scream when the silencer isn’t quiet.”
We hiked along the forest for who knows how long in silence. I absentmindedly made a mental note of all the plants I could recognize in the areas we’d walked through. There were some wild onions starting to bloom, and another patch of spiky purple bulbs that might be burdock. My mouth watered at the idea of steamed fish and mashed root. James stopped me from walking after a while, making me almost bump into his broad back. “Hide here,” He instructed. We made our way to a little clearing in the forest, where some puddles surrounded a pond. Must’ve rained recently. We both crouched behind a bunch of bushes.
Just beyond the clearing stood a flock of ducks. They were small, plump, with a plunge of speckled feathers. “Why are all the animals here so cute?” I quietly groan. I was about to chicken out when I felt something heavy get pushed into my hands. A rifle. James looked at me expectantly. I sigh and aim –
“You’re doing it wrong.”
My right eye twitched. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Your shoulder’s too loose.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just because the Soldier had more far-range stuff doesn’t mean I can’t – hey!” I hissed as James suddenly got close behind my back. He smelled like soap and grass. My whole body stiffened as he put both his hands over mine on the gun. He wasn’t wearing gloves, not since leaving the city and crossing the border.
“You’re too tense,” He murmured, his stubble scratching my now-hot ear. Holy hell, I’m going to die here. “And you’re aiming too far-off. This isn’t close-quarters. You need to move up a few notches.” His flesh hand lifted the long end of the rifle by a few. “Wait until the view is clearer.”
We stayed still, watching the clearing of ducks lessen before getting a better aim. James repositioned my arms just so, moving with the birds. “You always this chummy with nurses, Sarge?” I say, trying to ease the tension in my burning chest. He didn’t answer at first, and I thought I’d left us in awkward silence when –
“Only with the ones who know how to shoot.” He rasped. A beat passed. “Pull the trigger.”
BANG!
A flurry of black and grey ran through our eyes as the other ducks began to panic and scatter at the noise. When the commotion stopped and the view cleared, the view of a slumped lump of fat came into view. I hardly even recoiled at the sound, and I managed to make a perfect hit! James let go of my limbs and patted my back. “Good shot. Next one will be all yours, nurse.” I blow a raspberry at his backhand. We cross through the bushes to collect the bird. I felt a little bad looking at it – its wings were gracefully splayed out, with its beak opened like it was about to sing. James simply picked it up and put the bird in a little cloth bag he pulled from his pocket.
“Are we done?” I ask, my mouth watering at the idea of a fat roast duck with mashed pota – oh, I wish I didn’t think of potatoes just now. I’d kill for a french fry.
James shook his head. “We need something for tomorrow too. C’mon, there’s probably some rabbits nearby.” Ugh.
“We’ve been eatin’ bunnies for a week straight,” I mutter. “Can’t we get some fish or deer? Or a buck – oh, sorry,” I bite back a snort after the look he gives me. “Rabbits are fine. Great, even.”
We had the same trek around the forest, keeping our eyes peeled for something small and jumpy. We eventually found a perched rabbit, and this time I didn't wait for instruction to take aim and shoot. James barely had time to open his mouth to say something about me bein’ careful when –
BANG!
The rabbit slumped over like a sack o’ flour. I look at him and smirk. “You were sayin’ something?” He rolled his eyes and walked over to collect tomorrow’s lunch. “Wait,” I tug his arm before he could make his way back into the safehouse again. “There was some stuff back there I wanted to collect. Onions. Turnips.”
“Turnips?”
I shrug. “Could pass as turnips if you ignore their earthiness. C’mon, I’m not goin’ alone.” His face was curious, for once, instead of depressed and followed me as I made my way back to where I initially found the wild onions and burdock blooms. I crouched to inspect the youth of the onions.
“How do you even know what to pick?” James asked, staring at me running my fingers over the thin, tall stalks. I wave at him to crouch down. Feeling bold, I ask for his hand and run his fingers to the bottom of the stem near the dirt.
“They’re kinda soft here,” I murmur, pinching my pointer and thumb to the neck. “Spongy, right? Soft neck means they’re ready. And the more purple the bloom, the more fresh the roots are.” He nodded, trying to imitate my movements before I started to pick some onions and roots.
“HYDRA teach you this?”
I shake my head. Thinking about it, it was almost a nice thought, knowing I had something useful outside of nursing that wasn’t taught from the cult. “After the crops dried up, we had to scrounge around for anythin’ edible. Some of us knew which plants were edible, and just spread the word.”
James tilted his head, frowning. “You guys didn’t have penny restaurants?”
“The hell is a penny restaurant?”
“A cafeteria at the end of Brooklyn. You could get soup, bread and potatoes for a penny.”
I gape. No fair! I was starvin’ in the country while city boy over here got to have a hot dinner for only a little Lincoln!? I complained about this to James, who only huffed. “The food wasn’t that good, doll. Steve would eat there thrice a day and he’d still be a stick. He had no fat on him for the first twenty years of his life.”
“I don’t believe you.” Steve? The Captain? The guy who could probably crush a watermelon with his thighs? A surprising smirk entered his mouth. I hated how handsome he looked, like it was second nature for him to be so naturally charming. Was this the same guy who glowered behind me during our grocery runs in Bucharest?
“Believe it. Punk was a scrawny stick all our childhood. The serum buffed him up, though. When he broke us out of prison, I’d not seen him in a while. Barely recognized him because of how bulked-up he was.”
I hum, getting up. “I’m guessin’ you were also a stick, then.”
He coughed. “...sorta. Not really.”
I turned my head. “What, were you a fat kid growin’ up?” I perked up. “Wait, were you one of those stupidly fat babies — ”
“ No, ” James hissed. His cheeks…were red? Oh my god, he was one of those stupidly fat babies. The idea that he was one of those tall, stupid, fat babies who drooled everywhere and had eyes looking in the opposite direction, only to grow up to be so buff and serious was hilarious to me. All cheeks, no thoughts to whatever behemoth was standing beside me. That’s so CUTE – I cackle, which makes him tug my ear scoldingly. I just squeak and laugh harder. “Shut up. I had muscle before the serum. It just enhanced what was already there. I was the opposite of Steve growin’ up. He’d get into fights, and between the two of us I had more muscle. So I dragged him from getting his only workin’ lung punctured a couple of times.”
“Must be hard bein’ a single mom,” I tease as we make our way back to the house.
He grunted. “Yeah. He was a handful and a half at times. Glad he’s still with me, though. Means I haven’t completely lost my mind after being the Soldier.” The smile dissolves from my face a little at that. The ugly thing of envy and loneliness prickles my chest. We walk the rest of the way in silence.
When we take our game and plants back into the kitchen, I thought I was going to just wash the roots and wait for James to gut and skin the animals, but felt a hand at my waist. I turn, and he hands me his Swiss. “You got dinner tonight. You cut it.”
I blanch. “...Hell no.”
He deadpanned and called me by my name the same way an unimpressed mother would. I groan and take the blade. “You kill it, you prep it.”
“I don’t even know how to.” He moved over to my side of the stove and took my hand into his again. He does know no one is watching us, right? My cheeks burn as his metal hand firmly holds over my other palm, which was holding down the rabbit that was now in a bowl.
“Hold your breath,” James muttered before slicing the blade under its belly. Red spills out like a burst water balloon. It was a blur – his hands would move, removing its innards and whatnot, all while occasionally muttering tips (“ Skin it here first, then just peel it off. Lift a couple of times to drain it. Your hands are softer, so keep a feel for… ”). But something in my head hurt. The bunny kept looking up at me as I cut it. I suddenly felt like I was a HYDRA surgeon, cutting myself open and gutting out whatever I didn’t like. I didn’t even hear James calling my name at first. I looked up, unaware that my eyes were shiny. “...shit.”
“Hm?” I ask, not wanting to acknowledge how locked my jaw was. He shakes his head.
“Wash the plants up. I’ll take care of the dinner meat.”
“What?” I shake my head. “No, it’s fine, I can – ”
“Go, sweetheart.”
I lock myself in the safehouse cabin’s tiny bathroom to wash the blood off my hands. My breathing turned hot as I tried to not sniffle and hiccup tears, avoiding my reflection. I can’t even cut meat. All I do is complain about bein’ lonely and hungry. I hated feeling so helpless. I furiously scrub soap on my fingers and splash my face with water before drying up and leaving.
Dinner was better than usual – the duck was lightly coated in oil and baked in the tiny, shabby old oven we had. The roots were boiled and mashed, with the wild onions and leftover sorrel tasted more filling than what we had in the past week. It tasted a little bit like chicken, but fattier and meltier. I kept slathering on the duck's oils on top of the mashed root with the back of my spoon. Even James said something about it – “...I’ll keep an eye out for ducks from now on.”
I nod. “Anythin’ else, James?”
His eyes flickered up. “You can call me Bucky, you know.” They darted back down again. I'm pretty sure my eyes were still bloodshot from the bathroom, so this was probably him pitying me. “I won’t get mad.”
I was still depressed about my little bathroom breakdown, but played along. “Okay, Buck.”
That night he took the floor again, as I took the bed. Despite the mattress being softer than the hard wood, I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t warm. My chest hurt. The image of the gutted bunny kept replaying in my head. I buried my head. If I was going to have a crisis every time I went hunting, I seriously need to consider going vegetarian.
[1:32 A.M.]
“’Lo?” Steve sleepily picked up the burner phone. Bucky didn’t normally call this much, but the scare at the train made him paranoid to be in touch with the only man he currently trusted wholly. Steve, for his part, wasn’t complaining about having a chance to talk to his best friend.
“You up?”
“Am now.”
“I made her cry today.”
Steve blinked himself awake at that. “Who, the nurse?”
Bucky’s frown deepened. “No, the trees – yes, the nurse. I made her gut a bunny.”
Steve’s brow furrowed. It wasn’t that the image didn’t sound upsetting, but he just assumed she was stronger than that. “...oh. Poor gal. The violence must’ve spooked her.”
“No,” Bucky huffed on the other line. “It probably reminded her of being cut open in HYDRA. Except she’s the operator, and probably saw herself in that bunny.”
“...oh.” Steve repeated. Then winced. “Maybe leave the butchering to yourself then, pal.”
“I figured.”
“On the bright side, you’ve gotten more poetic. That’s the most metaphorical I’ve ever heard you talk. Miss Johnson from third grade would’ve been real proud of you just now.”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “I told her some things. From our time at HYDRA.”
“Oh? Want to fill me in?”
“Not yet,” It wasn’t because Steve couldn’t handle it, nor because he didn’t deserve to know. But his best friend still held him in such a kind light, Bucky was worried he’d call less if he found out he shot a literal president. Not that he wouldn’t give him grace, but…he just couldn’t bring himself to say it.
The nurse handled his confessions better than Bucky would have, but the nurse was an anomaly in his eyes anyways. He was a little envious at how well she’d been coping compared to him. Sure, she had nightmares, and obvious trauma if what happened earlier could be relied on, but she just…seemed so much more sure of herself than Bucky did after being freed. She'd buy foods and indulge in Europe, instead of being afraid. Even with Steve, Bucky felt like fragments of himself were missing. She never seemed to have that issue – she could talk about nursing and Dust Bowl plants like it happened yesterday, meanwhile he had to reference his own childhood through a little book in his pocket like he had dementia. The penny restaurant bit was something that he’d only recently remembered, and even then it was a gamble in his mind, wondering if it was a real thing or not. It wasn’t fair. It made him a little jealous of her, at times. Steve too, to some extent. “But I had a question about something else.”
“Oh yeah? Shoot.”
“Was the penny restaurant really that bad at making soup?” Jealousy aside, Bucky was grateful she went hunting with him today. He’d normally take longer, not because the hunt was hard, but because he’d sometimes spend hours in a depressive stasis, sitting under a tree, wondering if the pain would go away. But when she joined in? It was easier. Cheekier, even. His hand unconsciously flexed where she guided him for onions. And their talk about the past made him smile properly for the first time in weeks. But then he pushed his luck and made her cry by holding her hands, and he wanted to bury his head inside their tiny oven (he would have too if his head wasn't so damn big) like that one lady-poet he read about in Bucharest. It was like kindergarten with a dash of cult trauma.
Steve groaned. “Don’t remind me. Those split pea soups were practically water. Always cold too. I think they just marketed it as cold so they didn’t have to waste money heating them.”
Bucky huffed. “Apparently Texas didn’t have them. They looked for food in the dirt.”
Steve cringed. “I take it back. That soup was good.”
They talked for a little while, and Bucky gave him whatever things he thought were interesting from the nurse’s little list of modern advancements and discoveries. “...and she said it was like ice cream.”
“Gross,” The blond gagged. “Tell her not to use organs and ice cream in the same sentence.”
“I did. She said, ‘or the same ice box’.”
“Wise-gal over here.”
Bucky froze at the sound of rustling fabric behind him. She was stirring in her sleep. “Gotta go. She’s a light sleeper.”
“Say hi to the missus for me.”
He coughed. “She’s not – ”
“I was jokin’, pal.” He could hear Steve's grin.
“...Jerk."
"Punk."
Chapter 25: Anatomy & Physiology
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[1921]
Dear Peach,
You are one year old today! Just a year ago you were born, kicking and screaming into the world like it owed you money. I even nicknamed you Peach because of it, all soft, sweet and warm. Now you’re one year old, but you’re so little I don’t think calling you old would be very polite. Especially because your mama would scold me, saying you’re too much of a little lady to be called old. I agree.
Taylor (Hi Peachie! Happy Birthday! - T) the shopkeeper is writing this letter for me. I’m not very legible myself, so he’s been kind enough to make this out for me. Since you and your brother’s births, I’d decided to make a new tradition for our little family – that on your birthday, you’d get letters written to you to look back on this time fondly.
I wish I had more time to be present as your Pa, but I’ve been busy working. The farms only pay so much, so I can’t really be around when you’re awake. It’s alright, though, because when work gets awful lonely, and I get very tired, I dream of you. Feeding you nice things, like fruit and chocolate cake, and you’d giggle with glee at the sugar. I hadn’t had chocolate cake since I was a boy myself, and have forgotten the taste, but I imagine it’s better than what we have at home. I hope I can afford you a chocolate cake one day.
I remember when you were born, your mama used to cry a lot. You weren’t a naughty baby by any means, quite the opposite, but you were so pretty and sweet that she used to worry about how the world would treat you once you got so big. Once you were too big for a cradle, and your mama couldn’t protect you with blankets and cream. She hates the idea of you one day getting married, and being sent away from her. I don’t blame her – ever since you were born you’d slept on her chest.
I want to find a better job for you and your bubba. Something better than farm sweat and dirty hands. I’ve been trying to improve my reading and writing skills, and I’ve gotten better at writing my signature by practicing every night. I never thought I’d be someone’s Papa, but life is a river that doesn’t have a map. Maybe the river will take me down another good path, and make me a shopkeeper or something smart. Maybe a barber, so I can keep your pretty curls curly. That’s another problem, young lady – we spoil you too much. I try to be smart with the leftover money, but the moment you giggle at some ribbons or buttons, I can’t not get it for you. You’re going to make a man’s pockets weep someday.
Your mama is very proud of your progress. You eat good, say Ba-Ba, stand up on your own, and can waddle-walk. She says she’s currently trying to teach you how to give and blow kisses, but every time you give me one, I just get a chin full of slobber. I don’t mind, though. Better baby-spit than soil.
I love you, darling. I’m very glad you’re growing good, and I’ll make sure to be a Pa you’re proud of. I’m going to make sure that you have a better future than me and your ma, your bubba too, and have a nice life being taken care of. Mama says you’re too smart to let anyone but yourself take care of you, but we’ll see. I agree, though. I’d like you to be smarter than me. I’d like it more than chocolate cake. I hope you're smart, taken care of, and if you do get married (much to your mama’s horror), that your husband treats you well. If not, tell me – I don’t know how to read, but I know how to use my pistol.
I hope you have a better life than me, more than anything else. That’s a better gift than cake, than money. That you’re as smart as your mama says, and you use that brain to live a good life.
Happy Birthday,
Pa-pa
[1941]
It was during one of my last cadaver labs did I finally get the courage to talk to my nursing teacher. She was a tall, serious, glasses-wearing woman who hated it when girls acted overly delicate towards the corpses. Once, a girl next to me hesitated to cut open a man’s stomach, and my teacher gave us an earful about “being weak in the face of non-combat”, that because we were goin’ to be nurses, we had no excuse in being afraid. Seeing as I didn’t want to stay in Texas forever, I just kept my mouth shut and held my breath whenever I had to examine a cadaver.
Whenever we had a new system, organ, or physiology she wanted us to study, she always had her notes on one end of her desk, and an open copy of Grey’s Anatomy that was open to whatever chapter was related to our lesson. If you were a good student, you were allowed to take a peek and reference whatever you needed, instead of asking her. An act of trust that I was lucky enough to be allowed thanks to my scores. On our last day of teaching, as a graduation gift, my mentor gave us each a small pack of silver scalpels with re-placeable blades. “For my girls,” she said monotonously. She then gave us an earful about the importance of having a clean set, and to always try to have quality materials in order to properly treat anyone.
When the other girls left the classroom for the last time before we were to get separated and deployed, I lingered.
“What do you want, girl?”
I jumped at the voice behind me. She sounded cold, but I knew her tone enough that she wasn’t actually mean-sounding. She just had a naturally-harsh rasp even in casual atmospheres. She was currently shelving some forgotten books from the desks. “I wanted to ask you,” I start. “If there were any other medical classes we could take.” For all her harshness, anatomy was my favorite. The other classes, like prescriptive chemistry and assistant procedures, were fine, but I wanted to cover all of my bases in studying. The girls had the choice between a few elective classes, and whatever we picked would decide what kind of nurse we’d be on the frontlines.
She turned her head but kept shelving. “None more for you, young lady. Why, do you already miss me being a droll?”
I snort. “No. I just wanted to see if I could learn more before bein’ transferred. Cover all my bases.”
“You already picked and completed your electives, didn’t you?” I nodded. “Then you’re done. Unless you’re trying to stall being made to go into the frontlines, too cowardly – ” I quickly shake my head, which makes her narrowed eyes lessen their intensity. “I know. You’re a smart girl. But the war needs medics now, not until they’re ready to teach classes themselves.”
“...oh.”
She gives me what I almost thought was a smile. “I appreciate your candor, girl, but you’d best leave that to the men in this fight. They’ll need it more.”
I glower, not caring that she’s my superior. “Why are only men allowed to have candor?”
“Because they’re the ones fighting,” She hummed. “When you go home, you won’t be as traumatized as the man who got shot in the legs in a losing fight.” A pause. “But I know what you mean.”
“Do you?”
“I do. Where are you from, again?”
“’marillo.”
Her tongue clicked. She shook her head. “I hear the dust storms there are just awful. Horrid, horrid things. Has the weather there let up?”
I shrug. “Does it matter?” I had as much love for Texas as an alcoholic had for teetotaling.
“It does if that’s what you’re going back to. Speaking from experience, but once this war is over, the army will look at your file and send you back there. Unless you’ve got a husband or babies somewhere else, you’re going to probably be sent back there.”
I blanch. “What.”
“Yes, didn’t you know?” She hummed placidly. “Soldiers have their pick of places, but nurses are usually wives and mothers with homes. They have to go back.”
“But I don’t…” I imagine my old man’s coffin, the empty wood house that was probably rotting by now. “I don’t want to go back.” My mentor stopped shelving. “I was hoping I’d stay in a hospital, or somethin’. Stay useful to the boys.” I was too shy to say it, but I heard that some nurses could be doctors if they had the right letters and money. Maybe go to college. But that was shootin’ too high. So I thought to be more tactful in my wording.
My mentor stood across from me in silence for a moment. Stared at me long and hard, like she was thinking about doing something she might regret. Then, she went behind her desk and took out a sheet of paper. Wrote something down, and took out a small book – probably her own diary, by the looks of it – and wrote something there too. She closed her book and put the paper in an envelope, then handed it to me.
“War is no place for a young lady,” She said snootily. “It’s no good thing for a girl to be placed out of her delicate life and into the harsh soil unless duty calls for it. After the war, I highly doubt you’d want to continue such a thing. If you’re lucky, you’ll meet a soldier, and fall in love, and never have to worry about fending for yourself again…” Then she pressed it against my fingers. “But…if you wish to keep at it, after all this terrible fighting, send this letter to the address in the back. Hospitals could use a clever thing like you. I’ll even try to get you night classes.”
I beamed. “Oh, thank you, Miss – ”
“Aht!” She raised her hand. “Like I said. If this war will be as long as the last – which I assume it will be, if not longer – then I doubt you’d want to surround yourself with blood anymore than you have to.”
“Still,” I gave her the truest smile I could muster. “Thank you, ma’am.”
She huffed then pushed the gifted scalpels into my other hand. “Just pray I don’t forget you in five years, girl. Now go, you’ve got to pack. Europe is a much bigger world than this little army base, so you’d best prepare. Pack a lot of good soap and linens.”
I’d kept that envelope close to my chest for the entirety of my nursing in the war. When the explosion happened, I remembered one of the last things I did was clutch the envelope in my pocket like it was the last thing that could get me out of there.
[19XX]
Subject No.: 17
Age taken: 20/22, unverified
Previous location: French compound, three years of capture
Sex: Fem.
Known risks: No closely known connections. Clear for keeping.
Weight: XXX
Height: XXX
Eye color: XXX
Discernable features ex.) Tattoos: XXX
Notes: French transfer nicknamed her Alouette. Way of remembering her procedure.
Procedure: Spinal and nerve transplant. Remove individual sectors of the spine, and attach metallic conductors before re-attaching. Connect through the back of the neck to the brain. If the procedure is successful, repeat and reattach for all other major bones and joints.
Post-op: DO NOT CONDITION. Cryostasis between treatments, maintain the conductor’s systems through regular exercise. Surgical replacements will be routinely administered when necessary. DO NOT INJECT. MINIMAL SEDATION. ADMINISTRATION OF OXY. WILL BE LATER TESTED.
[Day 134]
Ever since my little outburst, Bucky – it feels odd to call him that, but I once called him James and he gave me a look – no longer trusts me with butchering our game. Hell, when I asked to join him on his hunt, and he agreed, I first thought it would be a normal romp until he gave me a bucket and told me to look for plants. He thought I was too scared to even kill. It was insulting. I wasn’t delicate. I wasn’t proud of my time at HYDRA, and he knows it, but he seems to have forgotten that I’m a survivor too. Blood and bunnies don’t scare me — normally.
At dinner he’d always try to quickly drain and gut the meat so I wouldn’t see it. I’d go outside to get something from the shed, only to see him dump animal blood far outside our safehouse before I even came back. It was thoughtful. It was polite. It was stupid. So I decided to do something about it.
Bucky is a light sleeper, and from my experience he usually conks out an hour after he thinks I’m asleep. When he does, I slip out of bed and throw on a jacket and some boots. I grab the rifle from the shed and track into the dark woods.
We went to bed early that night, I had made an excuse of eating too much and gettin’ sleepy as a result. Ever since I said I liked duck, Bucky had been trying to capture more fowl. The moon was out, but I used a flashlight and carefully made my way around the woods, making sure to have the safehouse within view. I wasn’t looking for a duck this time. I needed a rabbit.
It was freezing outside. I could see my breath, even in the black of night. I carefully trudged through the damp grass, looking for a familiar burrow. I knew there was a sleeping rabbit here, I saw them earlier. It was skinny and always eating, so it was probably snoozing in the same spot under the trunk. Lo and behold, I was right. I carefully aim, my flashlight’s light never touching its face…
BANG!
Some other animals began to hoot and squawk nearby. Maybe I got too overconfident. Whatever. I bag the bunny and run back into the safehouse before I have the chance to know if I ruined tomorrow’s game. Was this a bad time to mention I looked like a serial killer? Well, probably. Making my way back into the safehouse, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see Bucky’s lump still sleeping on the padded floor, where a bunch of old quilts were. Heavy-ass sleeper. With an old lantern I found a few days ago in the shed, I set up my little lesson on the table.
I carefully skinned the rabbit. Held my breath where I could, and held off guttin’ it. With an old marker, I started drawing old labels of what I assumed were body parts. Lungs. Ribs. Spine. Stomach. Intestines? Do rabbits even have intestines? Whatever. Anatomy class never was an art.
Maybe it was cruel of me to waste a rabbit like this. I never liked the notion of rich people shootin’ birds for fun, and me gutting this little guy wasn’t exactly done for the sake of dinner. But I didn’t like how I reacted. How weak I seemed to be. I used to have a strong stomach. Cadavers didn’t shake me. Nudity didn’t scar me. Screams were just noise. The fact that I’d burst into tears over a stupid rabbit was not only embarrassing on a social level, it hurt somewhere in me that I thought was untouchable. I was – was – a nurse. In the war I used to watch doctors take things out of boys’ abdomens like it was nothing. Used to not bat an eye to vomit. Not because I was strong, but because I was used to it. Because of HYDRA, it seemed as if none of that existed anymore.
But maybe that was the point. I was a healer once, but now I’m not. I’m the opposite. By my volition or no, it doesn’t matter. It’s not exactly like I can say I was fully living by the Nightingale Pledge - a missioner of health. I had. My hands, that used to bandage men, had now had a history of causing wounds. Nothing was sacred. Nothing was special. And me being afraid of blood, triggered by surgery – by being an unwilling patient for so long – I was confused as to how to feel.
Maybe me cuttin’ n’ guttin’ this rabbit was just my bein’ in denial. Maybe I’m so far gone from being a good person, regardless of the technicalities, that I’m just clinging onto the past. Saying that if I don’t gag while gutting this bunny, that if I can identify this rabbit’s anatomy, then I’m not entirely gone yet. That maybe I’m not evil.
As if that can excuse the dead behind my back. The shadows on my shoulders. Looking down at my hands, covered in red, I no longer felt triggered by the dead bunny. It was just red. Just shiny. Just –
“ What the hell are you doing? ”
I freeze. Remember when I said I probably looked like a serial killer? Wearing a giant jacket, stockings, boots like I was burying someone in the middle of the night? Well, Bucky was starin’ at me like I was one. He stood at my left, away from the lump of quilts – dammit, those stupid quilts were just fluffed up to look like him. UGH.
“How long have you – ”
“Since you left,” He snapped. His hair was a mess and he had a shotgun in his hand. “I heard the gunshot and thought something happened to you. What the hell are you – ” His eyes went back down to my hands, covered in blood. “Don’t tell me you’re – ”
“I’m not!”
“You don’t even know what – ”
“I’m not tryin’ to prove I’m not a pussy,” I retort. “I just – I wanted to see if I still had it. If I could still identify parts of its body.”
“Woman, it’s two in the morning. You couldn’t have done this during the day?”
“Would you have let me? You don’t even let me hunt anymore, Buck!”
“Because you were crying!”
“Am I cryin' now?” I challenge. I was half-tempted to smack him with my dead bunny but refrained. His jaw locked.
“No.”
“Then there’s no problem. Go back to sleep.”
He crossed his arms. “Can’t. The light’s too bright and this place smells like blood.” His eyes flickered. “What even is all of this.”
I roll my eyes, pointing at the entrails. “These are the large intestines, duh.”
“They don’t look large.”
“Size isn’t everything, sir. It’s called large because of the thickness. It doesn’t coil the way the small intestine does.”
“And that?” He points at the small, dark-colored blob next to it.
“One of its kidneys. Most mammals have two.”
“Since when do rabbits need kidneys?” Bucky muttered to himself. “They don’t drink.” A pause. "Bunnies don't drink vodka, do they -- "
I deadpan. Parts of his brain must be asleep, still. “Kidneys filter blood. Gets rid of the old and filters the new. Alcohol gets slowly broken down by the liver.”
“What else?”
I blink. “Huh?”
He gestures at the dead rabbit. Pulling out a chair behind him and sitting, like this was entertaining. “What else? You clearly remember more. It’s not like I can sleep now, and neither can you.”
I stare at him, waiting for the punchline, but there isn’t one. I suddenly felt like my old anatomy teacher, tutoring a pupil. Something in me switched – I started going off on the major organs the bunny had, comparing it to a human’s – “We have four chambers, here, here, here, and here…” – and he’d nod like he knew what I was talkin’ about. Occasionally he’d ask dumb questions – “If it’s a boy rabbit, where’s its dick – ” – and I’d roll my eyes and answer with the kind of tone I now understood why my teacher had when dealing with us.
By the time I was finished with my little anatomy lesson, the sun was rising. Bucky didn’t even look the least bit tired, watching me ramble on about how the immune system worked with the nervous system in order to keep the rabbit/human safe from getting sick. My lamp had lost its light, and sun began to fill the safehouse cabin by the time I was done. I could see the dried black-red on my fingers when I finished the last part of its hindquarter muscles.
“Nice work, doc,” Bucky finally got up, grabbin’ the knife from my hands. His voice was still laced with sleep, something I didn’t even realize in the passion of the lesson. “Now wash-up before you get one of those brain-eating infections you just talked about.”
“Rabies,” I correct. “But fine.” I was about to walk off to the bathroom to do so, but turned to ask, “Does this mean I’m allowed to hunt again? Not just frolic and flower-pick like I’m Snow White?”
He sighed. “Yeah. Sure. Just don’t sneak out next time you have a point. I’ll hear you out.”
I grin. “Thank you, sir.”
[Forty minutes later, when the nurse crashes out asleep in bed]
"Hello?"
"She gutted a bunny at two in the morning, Steve. I think Bambi's next."
"...What?"
Notes:
Imagine waking up to see ur roommate gutting a bunny at like 2 in the morning,,,I feel like any good relationship is where the girl is a little crazy and the boy is okay with it, and I hope this comes across as such
Chapter 26: Noxius et Periculosus
Chapter Text
[1942]
I’d once nearly gotten fired because I got too good at my job. Or, at least, that’s how I see it. Ask Head Nurse Drea – I mean, Head Nurse Mearie and she’ll tell you a different tale.
The difference between nurses and medics is that medics are always on the front lines, whilst nurses are usually delegated to the camps, and only go to the front when absolutely necessary. Matron Mearie would only let us girls go in batches in order to keep at least a few girls in the makeshift hospital at all times. The hard part was delegating which girls would see the front lines. Surprisingly it wasn’t because of fear – we’ve all become hardened from our time as nurses, but the reason why it was difficult was because everyone volunteered. It actually almost became more selfless to stay at the hospital tending to bandages and boiling rags.
I was one of the girls who always got sent out. I was the fastest runner, and I could easily duck and hide in case anythin’ happened. The front lines were usually filled with fighting, dirt and shaking earth. While I never was in direct gunfire, I could certainly hear them – they were deafening. I’d help drag back whoever was bleeding and quiet, and only get the hearing back into my ears after the hour was over, and another girl pulled me somewhere to sit and breathe. But again, I’d do it all in a heartbeat if it meant doing my job.
And that’s when the trouble starts. I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t stop myself. Some of us girls were being sent to the frontlines in our signature blue covers and equipment, and we’d only come back after a few runs back and forth from the hospital. It wasn’t a long run, but because there was an active fighting zone nearby we technically weren’t allowed to go out for much longer than that. After all, there was risk of gettin’ shot, and everyone knew that since Edith Cavell it was considered a great sin to kill a nurse, on either side of the fight. We were technically precious cargo.
Technically. But this fight seemed louder than most. Messier than most. I’d never seen so many fallen boys just slumped over in the dirt, so much even the medics that we’d worked with were usually out of breath trying from goin’ back and forth trying to administer as much medication before triage would deem a few of those unlucky silent soldiers dead before even gettin’ a chance to be seen. “Is that it!?” I exclaim, after a medic brought over his last man. I could see more boys slumped over in the dirt, far, far away.
I wasn’t mad at him, but his head shaking made my jaw lock. “There’s too much right now,” He huffed. “I’ll bring as much as God lets me, but – ” I couldn’t hear much after that, since the far-off gunshots interrupted us, but I didn’t need to. As the medic sprinted off beyond the safety lines I’d made up my mind as I switched out with another girl.
It was a blur as I snuck back out. I had one goal in mind, as stupid as it sounded – there, just beyond the border, I could see a body slumped over in the dirt. An American flag was stitched on his sleeve. Technically too far for us to grab, and technically close enough for me to get shot, but I figured if I ran fast enough, I could grab the man before I could even get caught. So that’s what I did – my ears were immediately blanketed at the sound of fire, and I mostly just ran. Ran, ran as fast as I could too and from the sight, with the blood pumping to my ears to my throat. My arm hurt because of how heavy the man was – he was thin, but as men go he was as heavy as any other. "You dead?" I barked at the man slung on my back. He barely shook his head. "Keep it that way!" By the time I'd come back, I definitely looked a mess - my uniform's ties undone, covered in sweat and dirt.
“ What in hell were you thinking!? Stupid child, you could’ve been killed! ”
“ I don’t care, I don’t care!”
My muscles were still burning as I sat in Matron Mearie’s tiny office. It was a hot summer night, and before this some of the other girls saw that I’d snuck off and came back, and made sure I was okay before snitching about what I did. With shaky hands, Rita wiped dirt off of my face and made sure I drank water before I got dragged into Mearie’s office by the arm. “ I could kick you out for this, ” She’d said. “ We’d waste a lot of energy in order to send you back, but I could do it .”
I stiffened at that. I’d had a good track record before this, and I’d dedicated long hours doing shifts for the other girls. But I couldn’t go back – no one would hire someone like me back home. No one would even look at me kindly. Mearie glared at me, then sighed. Her shoulders slumped. “You’re a stupid girl at times, you know that?” I open my mouth to say something, but she raises her hand to silence me. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. You…” She sighed. “I won’t send you back, that much I’m sure. But you’re going to be stuck in the back from now on.”
I gaped. “But – !”
She warningly called my name. I shut up. “Leave the saving to the men. You can’t risk yourself to save a life.”
“But I’m good at helping,” I retort.
“I know you are,” Mearie leaned back. “But it’s no use if you’re dead. No use to the men who could’ve used you for their wounds. No use to anyone who loves you. Don’t you have anyone at home? Don’t you think it’s unfair for them, for you to be pulling this?”
I deadpan. She sighed again. “Just don’t do that again. Stay back from now on. Don’t be reckless.”
Hospital work wasn’t that bad — it wasn’t just bedpans and bandage-changing, but I wouldn’t see a field for a while after that. And as for the soldier who I dragged back – he recovered just fine. I never told him that I got in trouble, mainly because he was often sleeping, but I’d change his bandages and give small talk about the weather like nothing happened.
[A few months later]
Bucky Barnes sighed as his arm, newly-stitched and wrapped, stood stiffly against his sleeve. Dernier, as good of a man he was, didn’t have the best medical skills. They’d also just run out of ointment, and his scar itched like crazy.
“We really need a medic,” He muttered to Steve. Steve, who was cleaning the grime off of his pocket knife, looked up and winced.
“Don’t scratch that, Bucky.”
“I’m not,” He huffed. His arm was rubbing up and down some tree bark. “The tree is.” He’d taken a slice from a renegade private back at the HYDRA base they’d just sacked. “ Sorry, mate, ” Dernier winced as he started to give hesitant stitches to the sergeant’s arm. “ ’Fraid I’m no nurse. ”
Steve shook his head and patted his friend’s back. “Don’t worry, we’re gonna walk past a town in a few days. We can get you some stuff for your arm when we get there.”
Bucky sighed. “I’m not sayin’ we need a whole hospital with us,” He glared at his skin. “Just a medic. Or a nurse. Or a medic and a nurse.”
Steve hummed thoughtfully. “I could try and ask for a doc, how about that?”
“A doc for only a handful of us boys?” Bucky scoffed. “Nah. That’s a little selfish.” A pause. “I heard from a gal that some crazy nurse snuck out past the borderlines to get a guy. We need someone ballsy like that.” Steve raised a brow.
“Which gal?”
Bucky smirked. “A gal.”
He deadpanned at his impishness. “Uh-huh.” The Captain looked up in thought, though. “But a medic wouldn’t be half-bad. Nurse too. Just one of each.” He winced. “Wouldn’t want to bring a girl out here, to all this, though.”
Bucky nodded. “What if they volunteer? They already listen to what we get up to on those radio shows.” Sort of – they embellish a bit to not reveal anything private. But the stories boost morale, apparently. None of the guys would hear them, though – they always got a little sheepish at the sound of waxing heroics.
He gives him a look. “Radio and reality are different, Buck. You know that. No gal worth her salt would risk her skin for a bunch of guys who fight Nazis and HYDRA on a daily basis.” It was true – even when they travelled to different camps, they didn’t really have time in between to relax or breathe. Days off were as uncommon as any other soldier – with the added task of tracking operatives. “A medic, maybe, but not a nurse.”
Bucky sighed. “Wouldn’t hurt to ask, though. My arm is killin’ me, and I’m pretty sure not having anyone who actually knows how to bandage and stitch is a morale-killer.”
Steve sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I know, pal. I’ll draft a note, see what we can get.”
He grinned. “Maybe ask for the crazy nurse, see if she’s available.”
[19??]
Part of the calibration protocol after cryostasis is exercise. Not through running or drills, but combat and missions. They can range from playing piano to assisting in taking out a target, but the end result has to always be the same – all joints are compatible with the wiring, and all wiring can be commanded. Essentially, see that the strings on a puppet still move when controlled.
“Убить цель.”
Kill target.
The order was purposely vague. In the neural wiring of my spine. The physiological aspects of my movements are no longer controlled by my brain to my body. Instead, it’s from their order to my body. They’d give vague words to see how my body would go about whatever they tell me to, regardless of how much of a fight I try to put up.
I was just outside of a hospital. A hospital that was just outside a HYDRA base in Cambodia, where I’d spent the past few days laying low in the watery countryside in order to avoid suspicion. My body’s wiring worked with whatever past experiences I had with words, and mixed them with the order. For instance, laying low – when I was younger, I’d hide in whatever spot my small body could find, and could stay for hours without moving before my next action. Now? The same childhood muscle memory was being used to hide in a rice farm, where my knees are submerged in water and under wood planks to get my target. My muscles would burn from the contrast before my body was even forced to move.
The target was a doctor. He’d discovered that HYDRA was taking some patients and experimenting on them, before taking them back to the hospital to see if they’d fully recover from what they did to them. Brainwashed, they’d go back to the base and repeat the whole cycle. The doctor picked up the odd repeat patients and began to investigate. Since HYDRA’s base here was small, Siberia took care of this one as ensuring full anonymity.
The doctor was already lured to the countryside by an anonymous tip. He was standing just a few meters across from where I was hidden, if not at an elevated position. That’s when I was given the order in my earpiece.
Kill target.
I’d never killed anyone before. Not before HYDRA. Not in the war. Sure, some nurses fought, but my muscles never had the practice of delivering a finishing blow. HYDRA, however, in covering all its bases, made sure I knew how to take a life before I even stepped foot outside the compound, whether I liked it or not. I raised my pistol from the water, and took an unconscious breath.
He smelled familiar. Musky, strong and clean. Like soap. Carbolic soap, the kind that I once used daily. The kind of soap anyone working in medicine during the war used. It’s how I was able to recognize him as a doctor.
BANG!
He fell like a sack of potatoes.
[DAY 150]
Our mornings in the safehouse wasn’t too different from our time in Bucharest, safe for the fact we were isolated in the mountains, hunted for our food, and I took the bed this time. Oh, and the lack of books – I hated that the most.
I could live without the yummy food from the city (that’s a lie), and I could live without the occasional interactions with Old Man Ionescu, but books? I’d gotten so used to readin’ and practicin’ in Romanian, I’d basically been driving myself up the walls in this new place. All I had was the medical textbook from Bucharest and the mystery Cyrillic book, both of which I treated differently. I had no idea as to what I was goin’ to do with the mystery text, so on most days, I stuck with a random chapter in my textbook to study up on the night before hunting. Why? To annoy Bucky, of course.
“Sergeant?” I’d start whenever he was looking for something to shoot. I’d sometimes join him, sometimes forage. My voice would all soft and sing-song-ey.
“Nurse.” He’d already resign himself for whatever I was going to say, knowing it would last our whole trip.
“Bioprinting,” I recite from my mind. “Is when three-dimensional models of tissues and organs are replicated in hopes of transplanting them into the body.”
He breaks away from the far-off deer and furrows his brows in the “what the hell are you on about woman” look that I’ve become all too familiar with. I’d been runnin’ out of things to say from my little sheet of “modern things” paper, and so I’d switched to my medical textbook for entertainment instead. The thing is, the sergeant wasn’t nearly as much of an academic as I’d hoped he was. Not in medicine, at least. I sigh and simplify: “They’re makin’ organs from scratch, sir.”
“How? Like, clay?”
“No, through printing. It’s the latest fad – they’re not goin’ to use ice boxes anymore, instead it’ll be printin’ presses.”
He just squinted again, even more confused. “Like…the newspaper?”
I puff up one side of my cheek, prayin’ for some kind of patience with this old man. We’re the same age, I remind myself. “If you needed a new brain, would you stuff yourself with newspaper, Buck?”
“If I'm a scarecrow, yeah.” I sigh and roll my eyes. Bucky went back to his aiming. “I’m old, Dorothy. Cut me some slack. If I need a transplant, I’ll get the Wizard to do it.” I cross my arms and glare.
“You are so incurious, James-Buchanan.”
BANG! A deer falls down with a great slump a few meters away.
“If I knew what that meant, doll, I’d be offended.” He’s been callin’ me that a lot more. In slips. Out of habit, it seemed. Doll. Sweetheart. Something old in my heart hurt whenever he did. His file said he was from New York, and the only way I’d hear that heritage was whenever he let the old terms slip. We go over to collect dinner for the rest of the week. I don’t like deer that much, but it lasted us the longest – I hated how tough it was to chew on, though. Buck – ironic the name, but I don’t have the balls to say it – seemed to favor it most. God, I sound like a wife.
It was while I was making flanks of “steak” that Bucky asked me something. “You said they make organ replacements now? Not cutting open?” He’d just come back from getting wood. If he had a bad dream from the night before, he’d punch the tree before swinging his axe at it. I’d not heard any punches for the past few days, though.
“Yessir.” I avoid looking at his shiny hand. He’s always worn oversized sleeves to cover it. Even when he slept without a shirt in Bucharest, he’d always somewhat cover it with a blanket. Now that the rooms weren’t separated, he almost constantly wore long sleeves.
“I used to think medics were always a little uppity," He muttered. “Book-smart and field-smart. Made me feel lacking at times.” He crouched next to me, using his metal hand to throw wood into the stove’s belly without the embers bothering him. “Now I wish I knew as much as them.”
“Why?”
Bucky stands up and opens his palms next to me. “I lost my arm and had a metal replacement for seventy years. I don’t even know the bones of my body.”
I stop staring at the meat in the pan and look at him. His eyes could practically burn a hole through his hands, of which he was glaring at. I bite my lower lip in hesitation, then take both palms into mine. I start quietly reciting the little lullaby mnemonic I used to sing when I had to study:
Sally left the party to take Cathy home,
Though she thought she was better off goin’ alone,
She looked at her hand and started to contemplate,
Scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate and hamate!
I delicately pressed where the bones would be in his palms. His hands were rougher than mine, leathered and veined, so I could easily get a feel as for where was where. I felt his eyes on me, and I suddenly felt a little self-conscious. “This big one is your metacarpal, these fingers are called phalanxes, each one’s got their own name…this sector is the metacarpus, this lower half is the carpus…oh!” I curse as I almost let the dinner burn. I quickly flip it, meanwhile Bucky just stares at his hands again. Then at me, then he closed his hands so his fingers touched where I brushed against his palm. “Y’know, there was another way of rememberin’ the bones, but I never told anybody.” He looked up. I grin. “The first letter of each bone – Some Lovers Try Positions They Can’t Handle.”
Bucky coughs suddenly. “Jesus, nurse. It’s been seventy years, give a guy a warning.” I laugh.
After dinner, I laid on my stomach in bed as I re-read my medical book. Barnes was cleaning his Swiss. He looked up as I flipped a page. “You ever considered what happens after this?”
“Hm?” I answer, my eyes still on the transplant page.
“After hiding. If Steve actually finds us a boon and we’re in the clear.” My eyes look up. “You read like you want to go to medical school, or something.”
My jaw locks and vision burns at that. I look back down at my book, where the picture of a surgeon was working on a patient’s heart transplant. “...I’ve killed people, Buck. I don’t have a place in a hospital. I’ve broken the Nightingale Pledge more than I’ve lived by it.”
Bucky’s hand stops cleaning, as if remembering we both came from the same facility. Like he probably thought between the two of us, only he needed to answer to the justice system. “...right.” He looked away, licking his lips.
Neither of us said anything and went to bed shortly after that.
[2:25]
“Hello? Bucky?”
“Hey,” He spoke quietly on the other line. Bucky stood outside the safehouse, crouching at the small porch where the wood that made up the steps were probably younger than him. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing much,” Steve leaned against a tree. “I was on a run just now. What’s up?”
Bucky looked at the sleeping silhouette in the safehouse cabin. She’d buried herself in the old quilts like she was trying to disappear. He’d only heard her start breathing slower and heavier thirty minutes ago, and didn’t want to jinx it. “What are you going to do if you do find the evidence to help us? Or the insurgents?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” He took a quiet, deep breath. “We’ve both killed people. By our control or not, we’ve ruined lives, families and communities because of our time at HYDRA. Do you really think getting some names and people will undo all of that?”
Steve went quiet on the other line. “...Buck – ”
“She’s smart, Steve,” Bucky rasped, looking at his flesh hand. She looked so mesmerized while singing her little song, sounded so sweet, that Bucky even forgot to be jealous of her good memory. Her hands were softer than his, like if he didn't know she was a part of HYDRA he would have never had guessed. She looked so fond, just recalling her past studies. Even during hunting, she wouldn’t shut up about whatever interesting thing she found in that giant textbook of hers that was splitting at the seams, and Bucky just grew to get used to the noise. It was better than being alone with his thoughts by a mile. “Real smart. But she’s going to waste away after all of this because of what they did to her. And so will I.”
“Don’t say that,” Steve’s jaw tightened. “Don’t – don’t say tha – ”
“Say what?” He challenged. “The truth? I’m not innocent, Steve. No matter how many ways you spin it, I did things to people.”
“You were brainwashed! ” The other man retorted. “And she was controlled! Neither of you had the autonomy of – ”
“ That’s not the point! ” Bucky was half-tempted to throw the phone against the wall, but instead just dug his flesh fingernails into his palm. It was starting to bleed. “It’s not about the technicalities, Steve! It’s about the result! My hands pulled the trigger! I was the last thing people saw! She’s acted against her pledge. She’s hurt people more than she’s healed! It’s happened, and now people, systems, governments — you do realize how big HYDRA is, right?”
“I know how big HYDRA is,” Steve answered, trying not to grit his teeth. “But that’s not fair to simply say it was just you – ”
“Then what is, huh? That some scientists were also a part of it?” Bucky chuckled bitterly. “You know they’ll only get slaps on the wrists. Not real punishments. Not when my face is the thing that’s best remembered.” His chest began to tighten. “A firing squad is the only thing that’s at the end of this. Nothing more.”
Steve was silent on the other line. They were both quiet. A full minute passed, then – “Do you think she deserves it too, then? What about the other bullied by HYDRA to do their bidding?”
“It’s not about what I want,” Bucky calmed down for a moment, but the emptiness in his chest stayed. He could still hear her softly singing in his head, how sweet and undamaged she sounded. Like nothing haunted her. “It’s about what the families and survivors deserve. You think that they won’t get pissed, hearing that Captain America is trying to help some HYDRA agents because he was friends with one once? I might’ve killed their dad, but now I’m getting grace while all they probably got was depression and drinking problems? That she killed people, but because she was a nurse once it covers everything?”
“Why are you trying to make this black and white, Buck?” Steve quietly asked. “Don’t you think those people 'you' hurt also might give you a chance if they knew you like I did? You're right, justice needs to be doled out, but a firing squad isn’t justice. It’s just what looks good for newspapers so politicians can say HYDRA is no longer a problem.”
“What are you even saying?” Bucky sighed. “I don’t – no one wants to hear ex-HYDRAs out. I know I wouldn’t.”
“It’s not about what you want, remember?” Steve pointed out. “If we get the truth of what happened – the whole truth – it’s a lot more meaningful than you strapped to a chair or in front of a firing squad. And getting those scientists, agents, handlers – I’m not planning on letting them get slaps on the wrists. Or just a few years in prison.” His tone deepened, the kind Bucky recognized when he was trying to hold back old rage. “You’re a victim here too, Buck. The both of you. You both deserve justice.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“I know, pal, I know.” Steve’s voice softened. “Probably won’t for a long time. But you don’t deserve whatever your head tells you. You know that, right?” Bucky doesn’t answer. Steve sighed. “Go get some rest, Bucky. Please. You need it.”
Bucky hung up and stayed out on the porch until sunrise.
Chapter 27: Playfighting
Chapter Text
[1990]
I’ve bumped into a few Natashas before meeting the redhead in 2014. Black Widows are infamous in the underworld – smart, strong, sexy, and silent, like Winter Soldiers they can bring down governments and kill enemies in a second. The difference was that they looked good doing it, but the other, more major one, was that they weren’t brainwashed.
It was some time in 1990, if the newspaper stand I sat next to could be trusted. California was hot, and I’d been sitting across a business building for the past hour. The place was colorful, a lot more colorful than I thought the state would be. People were wearing odd clothes, with flares and bright colors that made it sore to the eyes. People were smiling.
My target was working, and it was my job to steal some of his files once he came out. He was an older man, a ladies’ man, and I just had to bump into him with my own fake files to make the swap. Simple.
“Oh! I’m sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it, honey – ”
I’d feel my mouth stretch unnaturally as the papers scatter. They were in the same kind of manila folder he had, and it was easy to make the switch when I pretended to hastily pick them up on the floor. I took his, and he took mine. I apologized shyly again, he smiled and handed me his business card, and I scurried off in the other direction.
My directive was to go to an alleyway where a truck was supposed to pick me up. All I had to do was make the call. My legs didn’t even feel movement as I made my way to the little convenience store I made a detour in to make said call. I was about to press my earpiece when –
“’Scuse me? Which one of these looks better – Peacock Blue, or China Blue Frost?”
I hear a voice next to me. Warm and kind. I turn around. A woman, about my age, with dark hair and hazel eyes. Pretty, definitely pretty. Long brows and a pale face. I stare, and look into her hands. Eyeshadow. Oh. I open my mouth, but not a sound comes out. It’s been a while since I've spoken on my own.
“Oh, don’t be shy. You look pretty, you should know the feeling – your shadow runs out, and you have to get a replacement, but you’re not sure if you should get a new color or stick with what you know?” She sounded so casual. So all-American.
I give a weak smile and shrug, clinging to my files tighter. I was about to tell her to go to the clerk to ask, but she suddenly says –
“ГИДРА действительно кормит своих подданных через трубку, не так ли? Ты же сложен, как призрак.”
HYDRA really does tube-feed their subjects, don’t they? You’re built like a ghost.
I froze as she suddenly scurried off. Realizing who she is, I give the report of the files and the encounter to my earpiece.
“Иди за ней, Севентин. Узнай, что она задумала.”
Follow her, Seventeen. See what she’s up to.
My head turned to her direction, like a heat-seeking missile. She was fast, but I rushed out of the store before she had the chance to disappear. The sun was beginning to set as I followed her through the busy streets of the city, across roads and bus stops until I managed to corner her in an alleyway.
“You really don’t know when to let up, do you?”
I glare, not really in the mood for small talk. Not that I could, but she didn’t know that.
“Do they even let you talk?”
I pull out a pistol from my purse. She sighed
“Of course they don’t. And they wonder why their replications fail so many times – a lack of autonomy will not subdue the neurons like they think it will – ”
BANG!
She narrowly dodged my aim before lunging at me, trying to get the file. I kick her in the shins and pull her by her scalp. The Widow cries out before taking my arm and flipping me onto my back.
Za – ap!
“Argh!”
That was enough to make me cry out – the hard concrete hit my spine hard, making a sudden jolt go through my body. Pissed, I grabbed her foot and dragged her down with a swift pull. She cursed in Russian as I grabbed her head again and hit her brow against the road’s edge. “You’re good, I’ll give you that – ” She panted. I suddenly felt her nails dig into my hand, trying to pry the files away. I don’t let go, and aim my pistol at her wrist. “Oh no you don’t – ”
BANG!
“ARGH!” The Widow screamed. I stared – her wrist was spattered across the concrete, but my pistol wasn’t smoking. Looking up, my eyes landed on the driver at the wheel. Muzzled mouth-cover. Oversized trench. Black rifle. He must’ve had an assignment too – it would explain the screaming I’d heard from the compound before I got here. I don’t know what they do to the Soldiers before an assignment, but I know it involves a lot of screaming, likely disciplining. But if a Soldier was here, it probably meant that I’d be put back to sleep soon as well. Another nap awaited both of us.
I don’t say anything as I step on the writhing Widow’s body to climb into the van. The file I was holding was now spattered in blood, but the documents inside were still unscathed. Looking back, her pretty face was now contorted with pain as she staggered to get up. The Soldier revved up the car before she could start again and drove off.
“Вы чуть не потеряли файл.”
You nearly lost the file.
“Пристрелите меня или заткнитесь.”
Shoot me or shut up.
There was a good chance he would have, but this time he didn’t. The only reason he didn’t, I thought to myself, was to not get electroshocked himself. Big, scary dogs are just whimpering puppies to a shock collar. It’s probably also why he didn’t kill the Widow – the Red Room was too big of an entity to anger if he squashed one of their bugs.
Whatever. None of it mattered, anyways. Once we got back to Siberia, I got shoved into the labs, muffled with sleeping gas, then thrown back into ice before I could even notice that my fingertips were still stained black with her blood.
[Day 162]
I took the burner phone while Bucky went out for some game. We’d both familiarized ourselves with the layout of the forest around us, and I needed some time alone. Ever since he mentioned medical school and the future, something in me dampened. It’s not like I could say anything to him, but I stopped annoying Buck with trivia and I hid the book in my bag. I figured that if I stopped readin’ after two weeks, I should put it in as kindling. It’s not like I had any business owning it anyways. I’ve got two more days before throwin’ it into the fire.
But that’s not why I took the burner phone. It was technically mine – given from Steve, like my blade, and technically I was allowed to call him. But ever since I’d stayed in hiding, I haven’t even once used it, safe for the occasional complaint. I hadn’t directly spoken to Steve in months now. Bucky used the phone more than me, and something in my chest felt heavy whenever he did.
It was the kind of jealousy that was stupid in hindsight. But something in my head simply said – he’s in the same boat as you, but gets to have someone who loves him at his side. When you got defrosted, you had no one. Left for dead if your handler didn’t let you loose. I tried not to think about it too hard. My eyes would get hot and water whenever I did.
“Hello?”
“Remember when I beat your ass fresh out of a coma?”
“You talk a lot of trash for someone whose tube-fed.”
“Not anymore, I’ve eaten a lot since then.” mostly wild spinach, but it still counts.
“Lucky girl.” Natasha’s voice was dry and unmoved on the other line, but she didn’t hang up. I could’ve called Steve, but I didn’t want to have a pity-friend just because I was living with Bucky. I know he wasn’t like that, but I wasn’t about to go into psychological technicalities. “How’s your honeymoon in the Alps?”
I raise a brow. “How did you – ?”
“Steve’s very chatty when it comes to his friends. He’s happy his best man found a girl, even if he has no idea where they actually are.” My jaw locked at that. A girl. His wife. The nurse. I wasn’t any of these things – either not ever, or not anymore. She must’ve sensed my tension, because she then mused – “Don’t get so delicate. You know he’s just glad that he’s got company now.”
“Is that all I am? Company? You do realize I was an afterthought, even by the people who took me, right?”
Natasha, for her end, didn’t sound amused on the other end. “We’re all afterthoughts to them. Doesn’t mean we don’t matter.”
“I don’t even have a name anymore, Romanova. I’ve sinned and been sinned on for seventy years in a lab as a science project, and now I’m playin’ house with a guy in the same boat as me, except he’s got someone who cares.”
“Steve cares about you.”
“By proxy,” I wince at my own bluntness, but I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t had too many kind thoughts about myself in a long time. “I was either asleep, gettin’ cut open, or hurting someone. For seventy years, I’ve just been blacking in or out. And now it’s over.”
Natasha went quiet for a moment. “How’s the other guy holding up, if he’s in the same boat as you?”
I shrugged. “I found him coughing his guts out in the river after remembering the folks he killed in the middle of the night. He doesn’t talk much unless I annoy him.”
“Oh? And what do you do to annoy him?”
I shrug. “Dirty talk, o’course.”
Natasha huffed with mild surprise. “Dirty talk?”
“Mhm. Organ transplants, skin graftin’, triage statistics, surgical procedures done on eyeballs…y’know. Stuff you don’t tell your mama.”
“Wow. Real raunchy.”
“Mhm.”
“Why’d you stop?”
My head hurt again. I didn’t respond for a minute. “...I’m not a doctor, Romanova. Quite the opposite.”
“You could be.” She hummed. “Definitely have the passion.”
I scoff bitterly. “And the body count to back it up,” My head shakes, as I continue, “How the hell are you even allowed to be free, Widow? Don’t you have red on your ledger too? How the hell are you even an Avenger?”
I could practically hear her thinkin’ on the other line. “I’m only here because of a friend, just like you. I haven’t redeemed myself in the slightest.”
“Heard you saved the world from some Norse god.”
“That was a group project,” There was some noise in the back. Was she on a mission? Some guy was wheezing in the back. Rude. “I’m still making up for what I’ve done. People like us always will.” She sighed. “You’re jealous because you think Cap helps the Winter Soldier redeem himself? He’s just helping with the pain. Probably still feels just as scummy as you do.”
“I don’t even know what to do after all of this,” I mutter. “It’s not exactly like I can look people in the eye after killin’ their loved ones. And what about the scientists? They’re gonna get away with cuttin’ me scot-free.”
“It’ll probably never get better,” Natasha answered truthfully. “But you can at least own up to it. It’s what I’ve been trying to do.”
“Really? And how’s that goin’ for you?”
“It’s better than nothing.”
I lick my lips. “You know, I think I might’ve helped kill a Widow back in the day. 1987. Shot her in the wrist.”
Surprisingly, Natasha didn’t get offended. “She probably deserved it. Criminal politics are hard to navigate.” A pause. “What did she look like?”
“Like you,” I hum. “Tall. Leggy. Black hair. Hazel eyes. Liked the color blue. Why, you know her?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
I sighed. “Is that code for ‘you shot my mama’ or somethin’? Because if so, let me know now before I walk past the running river that’s perfect for drowinin’.”
I could practically hear her rollin’ her pretty little eyes. “I never said that. And I meant it – could’ve been anyone.” I then heard a very loud, audible ‘ARGH!’ comin’ from a man’s throat on the other line.
“You busy with a date?”
Natasha sighed. “Unfortunately. He’s got terrible manners.”
“Probably better than mine – I’ve never lived with a man, but I think most don’t brood as much as mine does.” I take out the wallet in my pocket – the one with the creepy cartoon cat she’d given me before I flew out. I hadn’t bought anything with it in months. Not since Bucky said our faces were bein’ screened across Eastern Europe.
“Better a brooder than a pervert,” She hummed. “You guys do anything there to pass time?”
“Aside from bein’ depressed? No.”
“Have you ever sparred with him in the compound? The Winter Soldier?”
I scowl. “Shut up. I hated those stupid exercises. I always got my ass handed to me.”
“Maybe try throwing hands again. See if he’s softened up. It’s a good way of getting the anger out of you, at least. A little fooling around never hurt.”
“And if one of us – likely me – ends up in a body bag afterwards?”
“I’ll give a eulogy about how beautiful and perfect you were.”
I grin for the first time in over a week. “Throw in killer thighs and humor.”
“ Goodbye, nurse.”
“Abyssinia, Romanova.”
[Day 163]
I asked Bucky to spar the day after we went hunting, that way he wasn’t too tired or grumpy to object. No, instead, he just looked at me like I grew a second head. I’d found two sticks and leaned against the tree outside our cabin.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I could kill you,” His brow twitched. “Why the hell else?”
“You sayin’ you don’t have any control over your own movements?”
“No, I’m saying — ”
“I know what I’m asking for, Barnes. I know you won’t kill me because you don’t have it in you to do that. But would it kill you to humor me?”
I threw him a stick, which he reluctantly caught. Taking one look at it, he threw it aside. “You want to fight?”
“Yes.”
“Spar? Like in the compound?”
“Not like the compound, just something to keep my instincts going. Ever since Bucharest I felt like I’m low-hanging fruit for ass-kicking.”
His jaw locked. “You’re serious about this?” I forgot to mention, but I was holding the keys to the shed. If he didn’t spar me, I wouldn’t give them to him. I didn’t know why I wanted to act like a particularly annoying little shit today, but something about never being able to live a normal life because of the sins I committed against my consent was slowly eating away at me. So much so, that my blood began to slowly simmer since. I pocket the keys in my jacket. “Fine. But put the sticks aside.”
“Dandy.”
He didn’t make the first move, or even the second. It was like he was seeing if I was kidding, like I’d giggle and say I was messing with him and demand some duck for dinner again. But I didn’t. I swung, and he barely dodged. Then a kick. Then a slap. Then – then – he swung his arm at me.
Not even his metal one. Something about that pissed me off too.
“The hell is wrong with you!?” I hiss, throwing a kick his way. Bucky grabbed my leg and shoved me back. “Go harder, dammit! Make it hurt!”
“Why – the hell – would I want to do that!”
“You agreed – ” I swung at his face, which grazed his nose. “To fight me. Fight, goddammit! You didn’t have any qualms in almost drowning me in Bucharest!”
“Are you mad!? Mad that I don’t want to kill you!?” His voice sounded thin, like it was about to waver.
“Just fight, Barnes! Stop with the metaphors!”
I didn’t even know why I was swinging at that point. But it was a procession – a leg to the chest, thrown off by an arm. Another arm, another swing. Another swing, another shove. Another shove, another hit, another leg, another kick, another, another, another, anotheranotheranother –
The back of my head suddenly hit the ground. The back of the skull, where the optic nerves were. I remembered with sight, some of the nerves are crisscrossed, and go to the opposite side of the – why does it matter? I’m not that anymore. I never will be. I don’t deserve it.
Laying in the grass, something in my head breaks. I’m no longer a nurse. A student. A person. I was too far gone for that. None of the anatomy matters. The physiology was obsolete. I was obsolete.
“ – ey, HEY!”
Bucky’s voice brought me out of my dazed stupor. He’d been calling my name thrice now. He was panting too. His cheek was red from where I scratched him at some point. Both his hands were grasping my arms, but he hadn’t lifted me from the grass yet. “I told you, Barnes,” I said shakily, swallowing the dryness of my throat. “’M dandy.”
“This isn’t about the train or the handler,” Bucky bitterly pointed out. Despite the tone, he gently pulled me back up to my feet. When I swayed, he held my shoulders up. “So stop saying it is. If you’re pissed about the Soldier hurting you, just tell me. I would’ve let you hit me without an excuse.”
Wait, what?
“What?” It was my turn to make a face despite my struggling to breathe.
“What else could it be?” He shook his head. “You’re pissed, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but not – dammit, Barnes, not – ” I gaped my mouth open and closed like a fish gaspin’ for water. “It’s not about you, sergeant!”
“Then what is it, nurse!?”
“I can’t – I’m not – ” I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “I’m not a nurse, goddammit! Stop calling me that!” Shit. A hot tear slipped from my eye, which I hastily shoved from my cheek. “God!”
Silence stood between the two of us for a moment. Then, with a weak shakiness, he responded: “I’m not a sergeant anymore either, but you still call me that.”
“It’s a habit.” I stare determinedly at the ground, like I didn’t look a mess.
“So’s nurse.”
“Yeah, but I’m not – ” I swallowed, then shook my head. “Nevermind.”
“The hell do you mean, nevermind – you just tried to get me to – ”
“Yeah, well, I’m hormonal. Is that a good answer for you to stop talking?”
His jaw clenched. I didn’t mean to get snappy, but I couldn’t think anymore. I go back inside the safehouse, throwing the key to the shed down to the grass. That evening, I threw my medical book inside the fire. Barnes tried to be civil, for some reason, gutting and skinning the game from earlier despite us takin’ turns for a while now. He kept taking glances at me when he thought I wouldn’t notice. We didn't speak for the rest of the night, though.
The air was colder than when we first came here. My feet were freezing as I laid in the old bed, trying to ignore the wetness of my pillows when I buried my eyes in the cases.
Chapter 28: Permafrost
Chapter Text
Medical purging: The act of the body rejecting negative substances all at once in order to speed up the recovery process. Withdrawals are a form of medical purging. A symptom of purging can be sudden shifts in mood – depression and irritability may increase. Disorientation and lack of structure is common. Once the body fully flushes out all of the negative inhibitors, the recovery process can begin.
[???]
I couldn’t feel my back. That was the first thing that was different about me. The second thing? Everything but my spine was burning, and no matter how loudly I screamed, no matter how much I cried, the pain wouldn’t go away. I tried to escape it, raise my wrists to scratch myself into some kind of relief, but to my horror my arms were still. At a stasis, along with my legs. My skin was on fire, but I couldn’t move for any kind of relief. All I could do was scream.
“ Quiet her down! She’s worse than my dog! ”
“ The French compound said she was the only surviving one, imagine if we had to deal with two of this bitch! ”
‘ Please! ’ I tried to cry out. ‘ It hurts! Mercy, please! ’ I didn’t even know what I was looking at, seeing odd moving spots readjusting every so often, until I realized that they were shoes. I was looking at the floor – I was laying on my stomach.
“ Cervical vertebrae first. Removing from C1 to C7 .”
I wanted to vomit at that moment. I knew where they were talking about. I didn’t know who they were, but I started to cry harder at the numbing sensation suddenly snapping into full attention as my shoulders began to sear in agony from the sudden pull of my back.
‘ Please, stop! Stop! ’ I’d sob. I wanted my mother. My father. Someone, anyone to help! Couldn’t they see they were hurting me? And why couldn’t I cry out? Why couldn’t I say anything? I tried to scream again, but I could barely get a broken, hollow wheeze out. One of the men of which I presumed a pair of shoes were attached to began to chuckle again.
“ She sounds like a dying seal. We really should have done this sooner. ”
“ Hush, hush. We’re recording this. We can all have a laugh over some drinks when watching this later .”
“ Alright, alright .”
My neck was suddenly lifted from the scruff like a dog, causing me to let out a sharp whimper from the sting that ran through my head. The scientist wore glasses. A small, fat, balding man with a small mouth. Everyone before this had a thick Russian drawl in their accents. His had a German pull. “ She will be the last of these subjects. The others are already dead, and continuing this project is a waste. ”
Another scientist interjected. “ But sir –! ”
“ Dissecting her is as insightful as dissecting a frog. Play with her if you like, but the serum is of utmost value. Keep her for spare parts, if you must. ”
My neck was suddenly slammed back down, making my body run hotter. I was surely sweating, as my face felt wet. I was sick of hearing mysterious accents. I wanted to go home. To camp. Anywhere but here.
“ Removing vertebrae, ” Another scientist chimed in. “ From T1 to T12. ”
“Stop!” I screamed from my back. “Stop, stop!”
“ Adhere to restraints – ”
“STOP! STOP! STOP IT, STOP IT – ”
[Night 171]
“ – ake up, wake up!”
I didn’t realize when my dream stopped and my eyes snapped open. I thought I was screaming in only my dream, but I could feel the guttural cry tear through my throat before I even sat upright in my shitty bed. The second thing I felt were my cheeks – cold and wet, like I’d been sobbing. The third was my back, arms and brow – I was sweating profusely. My spine was aching, but not in a jolting, shocked way; just in the kind that you’d get when you laid in the cold for too long in one position.
Barnes looked at me with apprehension. He sat at the edge of my bed, his hair a sleepy mess from taking the floor. Despite the cold hardwood, he never once complained about taking the ground for a mattress. “You were screaming in your sleep again.” His metal hand quickly went to my already-burning face. It was cool and soothing. “Hell, you’re burning up.”
We hadn’t really spoken since my outburst last week. I wanted to be left alone, and I’d meant it. That said, my subconscious clearly wanted something else. “Stop bein’ so damn nosy,” I give the hardest scowl I can muster. I didn’t want to talk to him. Not because he did anything wrong, I just really, really, really hated my situation at the moment. I've become more sensitive to sounds, recently, which I blame the isolation. Every creak, every thump, every rustle, every clatter, every hiss – they made my gears grind. Barnes just stared.
“You’re burning up.”
“I had a nightmare.”
“It’s freezing outside.” That’s true – it’s been gettin’ colder. A lot colder. Instead of snow, however, our small part of the Carpathian Mountains have been getting frosted instead. Recent rain froze over to make way for ice, and so Barnes had begun the habit of getting more and more wood every time he went outside with his axe. Oh, and that’s another sound I hated – the thuds that came with axe-swinging. Barnes’ eyes flickered to my hands. “Your fingers are blue.” Despite my attitude with him, he took my hands into his and tried rubbing them with his only flesh hand. Something about the earnestness in his attempt made my jaw lock with revulsion. He didn’t notice, though, and just focused on trying to keep my fingers from freezing. “Steve says it’s going to snow soon. You should sleep in one of my jackets from now on.”
I pulled my hands away and jammed them under my armpits. “Anything else that Steve has to say?”
His brow furrowed. The room was dark, but the pale moonlight was barely able to capture his face. “You kept begging for mercy in your sleep.”
I scoff. “Quit bein’ so melodramatic, Barnes. I’ve heard you say worse things in Russian when you snore.”
That made Barnes glare at me. “You’re talking like you’re not covered in sweat from snoring.”
“Fuck off, okay? I don’t want a goddamn therapy lesson – from you, of all people!”
“What then, you gonna look in your textbook for help?” My mind suddenly flashes to the blackened and charred copy that remained in the stove’s fireplace across from us. “Tough shit, sweetheart.”
“Ugh, go away!”
[194?]
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear –
“You guys don’t have to sing me a birthday song,” I cringe as some of the nurses giggle at my embarrassment. Rita, who is leading the chorus, shakes her head.
“Keep going, ladies! If she’s embarrassed, that means it’s good!”
Happy birthday to you!
I give my friends an exasperated smile. “Thanks, girls. Real great concert. Can I go now?” I always thought birthday songs were awkward – what the hell do you even do during them? Just sit there whilst they sing at you?
It was sweet, though. And something, I thought, was a sign from the universe that things were lookin’ up for me. Ever since my reckless runaway stint, Mearie has kept a tight leash on how much I can do for help around the tents. It was annoying, being the only girl who wasn’t allowed clearance unless expressly told so. That was, of course, until I got called to visit her office the day before my birthday.
“ What I’m about to tell you does NOT mean I condone your mast recklessness. ”
“ Yes ma’am .”
“ And does NOT mean you should be running into danger willy-nilly. ”
“ Yes ma’am. ”
“ And does NOT mean you are all of a sudden going to have a clean record in your files. ”
“ Yes ma’am .”
“ This is not a reward, girl, understand? ”
“ Yes ma’am. ”
I got rewarded with my recklessness with the transfer of a new regiment to tend to — apparently my impromptu run had gotten the attention of a few soldiers who were in desperate need for a medic and nurse, and while they’d already found a medic, they needed a nurse to assist him. That’s where I was comin’ in. Mearie had apparently put in the word since higher-ups said, and I quote from her, ‘Someone who isn’t afraid to join a fight at random times, stays up late hours, travel constantly, and has a fast pair of legs’. She insists the last part is the reason why she wrote my letter of recommendation to the 107th Regiment. I had no idea who was in the regiment, since we were all separate and busy with our own groups, but I looked forward to knowing who decided to hire my reckless ass after telling Rita the news.
“What? Then that means you’re going away!”
I smile apologetically. Rita had grown on me over the months we knew each other. “I’ll write constantly, I promise. It’s not like I’ll be replacin’ you, anyways, since it’ll just be me and a medic.”
“Gosh, how scandalous,” Rita hummed, not at all scandalized. I raise a brow.
“What? No lecture on bein’ a lady?”
Rita shook her head, eyes twinkling. “You’re going to be stuck in the mud for the rest of the war, I think you need to grow a pair instead.”
I clutch my nonexistent pearls. “Who are you and what did you do with Nurse Cosgrove? She's from Connecticut, not Jersey!” We both laughed.
“But seriously, we should celebrate! Your birthday is tomorrow anyways, so it'd be like a goodbye party too.”
“Well, if you insist.”
And she did. She got a small handful of our friends and we decided to have as much fun as we could as a last hoorah before I got trucked off to who knows where to do who knows what. A girl named Anna snuggled in some shitty liquor in her flask, a girl named Lisa somehow got hold of some cookies, and Rita had somehow smuggled us into a music hall.
Of all the boys I’ve known, and I’ve known some,
Until I met you I was lonesome,
And when you came in sight, dear, my heart grew light,
And the whole world seemed new to me…
We all watched as the singer crooned along to a song from the radio, discreetly passing sips of bitter rotgut and sweet cookies. When Rita passed the bottle to me, she whispered, “What do you think about the future? You think this war will end soon?”
“It better,” I hum, wincing as I take a sip. I never did like the taste of alcohol, but the buzz was nice on occasion. “I can’t keep sleepin’ in those shitty tents, Reet. I can always hear those goddamn soldiers toss in’ and turnin’ and thumpin’ and creaking — ” That’s also why I hated liquor — it always triggered my short temper. I stop drinking and hand the bottle back, deciding I had enough for the night. I shove a cookie into my mouth, the bitter taste of rotgut overtaken by the milky sweetness of vanilla and cream. “I’ll just be glad to have somewhere warm to sleep.”
“Amen,” She hummed, taking a bite of her cookie. “Who knows, maybe you’ll find a soldier you like.”
I rolled my eyes. “That Johnny boy really is making’ you a glass half-full, huh hon?”
She blushed. “Well why not? Love is lovely. In my experience, at least, it gives me something to put my heart into. Makes me feel safe.”
“Safe?” I make a face. “Reet, we’re in a war zone. Your boyfriend could go any moment — ”
“I know ,” Rita waved her hand. “I don’t mean that. What I mean is…I can tell Johnny anything, and I know he’d never call me silly for it. He treats my feelings like something important. My past boyfriends never really did that.” A pause. “It’s nice. I’d like every girl to find that safe man for themselves.”
I hum, not wholly convinced but not about to ruin the moment she orchestrated for my birthday either.
I could say “Bella, Bella” , even “ Sehr wunderbar ”,
Each language only helps me tell you how grand you are,
I’ve tried to explain, bei mir bist du schoen,
So kiss me and say that you understand…
[Night 177]
“Hello?” Steve picked up before the first ring had ended. Since their last call, he was apprehensive that Bucky would shut down on him. Or worse, do something reckless.
“It’s me.”
“Hey, Buck. What’s going on?”
Bucky sat on the porch of their safehouse, staring tiredly into the dark. The nearby little village that was nestled in the Carpathian Mountains still had small lights flickering from afar. “I don’t know. Don’t know what to call it, at least. It’s her.” Steve suggested her name. “Who else could it be?” Bucky’s brow twitched.
“Sorry, pal. Keep going?”
Bucky shakes his head. “We went hunting today. Or, at least, I thought we were. It was halfway through that we separated.” He thought to leave her alone when she first disappeared. That she needed some solitude, like he did when he got into one of his moods. That he would later find her, curled up against a tree, nonverbal, and that he’d take over dinner that night. He didn’t mind. Bucky was usually the depressed one anyways, between the two of them, and he knew the solitude was slowly getting to her.
“Did you find her?”
“Yeah. She was at this frozen lake. Kept staring at the water. I thought she was going to try and cross it or something, but then she got jumpy at me when I showed up.” Jumpy wasn’t a good word. More like pissy.
‘ Why the hell are you here!? Isn’t there a bunny that needs to be killed? ’
‘ Why the hell are you trying to cross the ice? Did you drop something? ’
‘ Leave me alone, Barnes. God. Go talk to Steve or something. ’
And that was the other thing – she’d reverted back to calling him Barnes, like he was a private or a stranger. He didn’t like that. Not after all the jackassery she’d put up with, and he was trying to be less of one. So he naturally did the other thing – call Steve.
“She’s been acting up lately. Doesn’t eat as much, which I first thought was because she doesn’t like hunting, but if I don’t make her, she’d skip eating the whole day. Stay in bed. When we foraged the other day all she came back was with some weird mushrooms that I’m pretty sure were poison, so I made her throw them out.” It wasn’t just that – after any outings where Bucky made her go with him, she’d just curl up in bed and do nothing, similar to how he got after a bad night.
Steve winced. “You want me to talk to her?”
And that was the other thing – Bucky would rarely mention Steve, as he thought it was understood that he was both of their friends, but she’d just get all shut-up and quiet whenever he did. ‘ Well if Steve knows so much, he may as well be hidin’ in my damn place. ’ But he wasn’t about to tell Steve that – he’d get worried and spiral at the idea that the only other person from their time disliked him, and Bucky wasn’t about to pass on their bad moods to him. “She’s not very…talkative right now.”
“What do you think’s causing it?”
Bucky shrugged. “Isolation, probably. It’s getting to me too. Doesn’t help that…” He looked out back. The river was slowly turning frosty at the edges with the looming winter. Snow too, he could see the green leaves of the nearby trees slowly turn silvery with frost. Maybe in a day or two. But back to the river. “...doesn’t help that this place doesn’t hold a lot of great memories.”
“Wish I could help. It’s not like S.H.I.E.L.D. has any safehouses nearby, though.”
Bucky gave a humorless huff. “It’s not like S.H.I.E.L.D. would give the Winter Soldier any if he asked. How are they not even on our trail?”
Steve hummed. “I broke her out when everyone was asleep. Cameras were getting maintained that night. Lied to Fury. Sam backed up my alibi.”
“And survived?” Bucky recalled the only time he’d seen the guy up close. If his memory served, he didn’t look like the kind of man who took kindly to deception. Or random attacks, but that was neither here nor there.
“He’s busy looking for HYDRA insurgents in Malaysia right now. We’re all on our toes at the moment.”
“And you’re currently talking to the Winter Soldier on some shitty burner. Sitting on gold.”
“ No, ” Steve patiently corrected. “I’m talking to my best friend, Bucky Barnes. The guy who's currently so bad at marriage his fake wife is considering a fake divorce.”
“Jackass.”
“Dumbass.”
Both men laughed for a moment before going quiet again. “I think it’s my fault.”
Steve let out a silent groan. “Buck, please, we talked about this. It’s – ”
“No, I think it actually was this time. It started after I’d asked her about life after all this. She always talked about medicine, so I asked if she wanted to go to medical school. She reminded me that she couldn’t, not with her track record, and since then she’s been spiraling. Even tried to fight me at some point.”
“ What. ”
“Emphasis on try. She was mostly just egging me on. I didn’t realize she had a martyr complex like mine before that.” The morning after that incident, Bucky had found her medical book burnt in the stove’s stomach. With the amount of times she’d read it, it ate him away that she just threw it out like that. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What does she do when you’re depressed?”
“Annoy me until I talk. Or help me vomit in rivers.”
Steve deadpanned. “Give me something to work with, pal.”
Bucky sighed. “Steve, neither of us are right in the head. We both scream our heads off on bad nights. She stays with me until I tell her to go away. She just gets pissy. At this point it’s just us taking turns on who's having a worse day. HYDRA’s usually the common denominator for everything we get depressed about.”
“Yeah? I bet. Why don’t you talk about HYDRA, then?”
“Really? And how would that go? ‘Hey sweetheart, remember when I judo-flipped you before being shipped out to Guatemala to kill someone? You looked real cute trying not to die.’” Bucky snapped, then winced. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’ve got a more reliable read than I do with the hellhole.” Steve stared out the window of the room he was in. “You’ll figure something out, Buck. If anything, consider it progress from how you first met her.”
“She said she misses when I was a jackass.”
“...I don’t know what to say to that. Peggy always did get on me about not bein’ able to read girls.”
“So you admit.”
“Yeah-yeah,” Steve rolled his eyes. “Give it some time, Buck. She was able to hold out with you when you had bad days. She deserves something similar.”
“Hn. S’pose so. Between the two of us, she’s the better aid. Which makes sense.” A pause. "I missed it when she talked about life before everything." He couldn't bring himself to say 'the past'. "Current stuff too." She sounded so dreamy talking about liver transplants.
"Yeah?" Steve softened. “Guess you’ll have to be in touch with your delicate side. If you have one.”
“Ha-ha.” Bucky glared. He looked up. “Sun’s comin’ up. I should go before she gets mad at the sky.”
“You do that, Buck.”
Chapter 29: The Buck's Elegy
Chapter Text
[Day 180]
The first thing I’d noticed when I woke up was how freezing cold the cabin was. Even Barnes, who was biologically enhanced, looked surprised when he raised his flesh hand after waking to find his fingertips blue. Luckily we had more than enough wood to tide us over because of his obsessive chopping, and within the hour were able to defrost the cabin before the weather outside got worse.
I hadn’t really spoken much for the past few days. I don’t know why, but everything just seems more exhausting to do nowadays. I went out when I had to, but I mostly just stuck to picking plants and locking the shed. The bed, as shitty and old it was, was suddenly the only thing I looked forward to each day. Barnes, to his credit, learned real quick that I was in no talking mood, not since burning my book and trying to throw hands with him.
At some point you have to realize that no one is going to get you. That you have to get out yourself.
I buried my face further into my thin pillow. Stupid. I think I was ridin’ on a high from Bucharest. Busy with trying to catch up with modernity, and tryin’ to keep my promise to Steve and take care of his best friend to realize just how bad of a place I was in. And now that I know, I’m too drained to follow my own advice. How could I? Who said I had to get out? I’m already exhausted from waking up every day.
Sometimes, though, things clear up. Just for a moment, I get distracted, and slightly less tired. Today contained one of those moments. It was when I noticed Barnes not throwing a jacket over his Henley, where he just kept starin’ outside the safehouse cabin’s window.
“The hell are you lookin’ at?” I croak.
“It’s snowing.”
I blink. Turning to the side, there it was, clear as day – neon-white snow. Frosted and powdered all across the land outside our little room. Something about the snow – how clear it was, how pale, crisp and all-encompassing it was – made me want to get out of bed. So I did. I was half-dressed, in my own Henley and old stocks, as I ignored Bucky’s calling about how I’ll freeze and throw my boots on to go outside.
Brr!
I don’t remember the last time I’d seen snow. Probably not ever – as a nurse we used to drive through the snow and frost through trucks. Rides. Maybe I’d never touched snow – no, nevermind. HYDRA made me freeze in Siberia enough times that I lost count. But looking down at what’s on my boot, how soft and wet it was, not hard and harsh, the past memories almost didn’t count. Like this was god sayin’ ‘ See? This is what snow is supposed to look like. Not Siberia. ’ I dip my hand into the slush. Cold, but like putty against my fingers. The chill, despite it being all-encompassing, was gentler than the cryostasis pods the handlers would shove us into. What once felt like a million, tiny sharp knives against my skin now instead felt like a gentle hug.
“Pretty,” I murmur, not realizing I had company. Barnes stood next to me, surveying the snow around us.
“Yeah,” I hear him say, still focusing on the frost on my fingers. I was trying to make a snowball, but it was smushy and lumpy. “There’s not going to be as much game here. Should hunt extra today.”
“We could also go down to the village,” I mutter, back to being a jackass. “It won’t be the end of the world.”
“Not worth the risk,” he grunted. “Steve just gave us the clear, it’s best we don’t jinx it.” I mutter something under my breath. He glares. “Steve doesn’t hunt but he has common sense. More than you.” I don’t bother with an answer and go into the forest. I grab a bucket from the shed and take a quick run into the woods – partially because I was mad at Bucky’s retort, and partially because I needed to be alone with the snow. At least for a minute.
“Huh?” I stop when I reach a clearing of trees. There, just there, I could see something nestled under a trunk. Blue-grey like stones, oval and fat. Eggs! In this weather? Whatever – I take them into my bucket and go back inside the safehouse before my toes freeze over. I was planning on getting some roots, but this was much better.
Bucky took one look at the bucket I returned, puttin' on the stuff on table and had suspicions. “There was no mother nearby?”
I don’t look up from my pot, where I was melting some snow to use for later. “Not that I know of. I was planning on boiling them.”
“We have oil.”
“Not enough,” I look up, giving him a scowl. “Someone won’t let us go to the village.”
His face twitched. “You want to get caught? Be my guest.” Bucky turned around and did something to an egg. Before I could even get a better look, he announced with a petty huff – “Tough shit. Your eggs are fertilized.”
“ What? ”
He raised an egg to the fireplace, his metal hand gleaming extra bright under the shell. The thin membrane was translucent against the flame, and I could see the shape of an ugly, unborn foetus inside its casing. “’Fraid you’ll have to put these back.”
I snatch the egg and put it in the bucket with its siblings. “You’re just glad that we can starve faster.”
During the entirety of our hunting I felt like cracked glass. My bones felt tight with the cold and moving them seemed to trigger the old rods fused in my bones to ache my body inside-out. It caused me to limp, grab my hip like I was actually actin’ my age and not just saying it. Bucky, who delegated me to carry his rifle while he pushed around the frozen grass to find meat, once offered me his arm to climb over a thick, fallen log. I flip him off and push forward, despite the pain making me want to aim the rifle back to myself. I instead focused on the ground, where the ice and his oversized boots made me slip more than a few times. Just because we shared clothes doesn’t mean everything is a fit – his clothes always hung off of me like a scarecrow puffed up with corn husks and old scrap, something that looks both over-done and not warm enough.
I’d tried to layer – I took out my large nightgown, linen, ankled and white and jammed a shirt over it. Thick jeans. Then a jacket, and his gloves. Stockings, socks, and boots too – but to no avail. I looked like a kid layering jackets over their underwear, and still I was freezing. Barnes, meanwhile, didn’t seem to have any problem. Despite the morning chill, he didn’t seem to have any qualms with the cold that covered the forest.
He stopped, all of a sudden, letting his arm out with a single word: “Deer.”
Whump!
“Ow!” I hissed behind him. I tripped over a root and couldn’t get up – his big-ass boots were impossible to walk in at times, especially because the slushy snow made everything slippery. “Don’t do that,” I glower when Barnes tries to help pull me up. “You won’t let us go to the village, and you only packed your own clothes. Don’t get touchy.”
Barnes’ eye twitched. “I only packed my own clothes because I didn’t know what you wanted to keep.”
“So you only packed my nightgown!?” I huff, then laugh. “Oh, sorry – my underwear too. How kind.”
His face was unreadable. “You have something to say?”
My jaw locked. Looking down, I was still holding his rifle. I’m sick of the forest. Sick of hiding. Sick of everything. In some way, it had also bled to Barnes – I was getting sick of him as well. One second kind, the other closed off. From depression, from anger, from nightmares – I lost count of the technicalities of his moods. In some ways, the same could be said about me – I tried to be sweet when he had nightmares, I really did, but other times I hated the scenario I was in. In Europe, in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere. Seventy years away from home. I felt reckless in a way I’d swore I’d never be, back when I first signed up to be a nurse and try to have a life worth living.
I raised the barrel before he could react.
BANG!
The deer that stood beyond scurried off at the crack of the gunshot. And, if the birds flying out of the trees could be trusted, all of the animals nearby did too. Nothing would be killed today because of my little stunt.
Before Barnes could react, I ran, ran as fast as I could and as far as I could. Through the ice, the snow, the wet stones and grey grass. My pulse pounded in my ears as I breathed through my mouth, tryin’ to get out of sight from anyone and anything. Barnes’ voice could be heard, barking, echoing my name across the Carpathian forest, but it didn’t matter. I’d slipped, and through a dip in the ground I slid down an icy ditch that hid me from the view of the rest of the forest. I couldn’t hear Barnes’ voice at all. I was alone.
The ditch wasn’t actually a ditch — the forest lowered itself into a colder floor as trees were slightly crooked and bushes were slumped like pillows from the edge. “Shit!” I curse, trippin’ over my boots again. Ugh. Whatever. I untied my boots and discarded them to the snow. My body was hardly phased, since I wore socks over over my stockings and the snow squashed under my feet.
Walking down the edge of the mountains, the trees seemed to be thinner and crooked, bent in an attempt to get now-cold water from the stream nearby. The river was fatter down here, untouched from the cold where the ice had frozen everything prior to it. Cold water. A cup of cold water for parched lips. Cold clay. Suddenly my old man’s voice rang clearly and true in my head:
As I walked out on the streets of Laredo,
As I walked out on Laredo one day,
I spied a poor cowboy, all wrapped in white linen,
All wrapped in white linen and cold as clay.
I don’t know where they buried my daddy. Not from where I am now. Disconnected from my home, my family. Where they buried my brother, my mother. I was like a baby cut from its cord, but instead of bein’ returned to my mama, I was shoved in an ice box and made to rot for seventy years. And in those seventy years, I was shipped oceans away from my home, from my tumbleweed and thistle to somewhere I don’t know. To a man I’d just left, and a life I no longer had.
If I ever had one to begin with. What did I have to my name, really? Poor. Unlucky. Always tryin’. Always strugglin’. Always something but success. Left home for a better life, and got punished for hoping. Left with only one person to call my living family, hated him more than sin, and now I missed him as much as I missed hellhole Texas. I missed the awful dust storms and the nights where my eyes were so dry I no longer had tears to shed, missed starving in my father’s arms each night; because where dinner didn’t fill me his hugs did. Missed unruly soldiers, but I was so stupid as to mistreat the one I’d been living with for the past few months. I’m sorry, Bucky Barnes.
I missed sinning. I missed praying. I missed believing in someone, because now I think he never believed in me to begin with. That he had no doubt he’d put me here, no matter what I did, all for the audacious hope for a better life. A better tomorrow. But I’d slept through tomorrow. And the day after. And the one after that. Siberia took that from me, HYDRA took that from me, a bunch of unnamed, un-faced scientists and handlers took that from me.
How many tomorrows did I reject? Three-hundred-and-sixty-five multiplied by seventy…maybe twenty-five something. Thousand, knowing me. Carry the zeroes twice and cross two spaces. My math teacher once taught me that. As I try to think of him, the classroom, my classmates – their faces are still attached to my memory. Blond hair and freckles. A too-thin face and gap teeth. Pretty red hair. Lost and nobodies, like me. Their grandchildren probably don’t know what they look like, and think their faces are all gone to history, too poor to be photographed, not knowing an old child is standing in front of a river, remembering what they looked like; too old to be young and too young to be old.
Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin,
Get six jolly maidens to bear up my pall.
Put a bunch of roses all over my coffin,
Roses to deaden the clods as they fall.
I wonder if people held a funeral for me. For Barnes. For Rogers. For people taken without bodies. How they had late nights where they thought so surely we were watching over them, drinking a beer with their ghost.
Steve must’ve thought his best friend was gone. He must’ve cried so much, and thought of him as he fell asleep, thinking he'll be having everyone who loved him waitin' for him in Brooklyn. Thinkin' he had his best friend, maybe his mama, maybe his girl, waitin' with open arms. How disappointed he must've been to wake up. I suddenly felt ashamed to have been so bitter with him in my thoughts.
Barnes must’ve thought he was headed for heaven, to watch over his luckier best friend. No longer skinny, no longer worryin’ about him dying, or his sister. He never told me much outside of the laundry machine. I wonder if his sister got married, had babies, and thought to herself after pushin' out her first boy, thinkin’ her brother was in heaven – you seein’ this, Bucky? I named him after you! Only to fall on deaf ears.
I wonder if anyone mourned me. I doubt it. I doubt I have any museums with my name, or newspapers with my face. People in my town could barely read, depending on the day of the week. The last public memory of me was singin’ in my old man’s funeral, and even that would easily be forgotten. Just another sad girl in a sad town.
Looking down at the waters, the rushing was louder than anything. Cold because of its movement, and crashing so intensely against the rocks that the water practically looked sharp. Like it would hurt if someone were to jump in.
…Would it?
I start to strip down from my jacket. My sweater and jeans fell to the dirt. My socks too – nothing to weigh me down. Nothing but white linen and stockings, like a child bein' put to sleep. Like a cowboy wrapped in his too-poor shroud. I ran down the riverbend, looking for somewhere with the least amount of rocks. In the last bit of energy my bones had, weighed down by the metal rods and electric wirings cross-stitched with my veins. An abomination of an autopsy, under my skin, no longer mattering as the wind rushed against my skin as the last form of excitement I’d felt in a long time. There, just there, I could see a softer rush of water. White with no rocks, no crashing – like a bed of fluidity. Cool water made cool winds around my legs.
“Go bring me a cup, a cup of cold water,
To cool my parched lips,” The cowboy then said.
Before I departed, his spirit had departed,
And gone to the round up – the cowboy was dead.
SPLASH!
I thought the ice water would hurt the metal rods in my bones. Seeping pain into my skin, as the cold soaked through my skin like a sponge, but as I felt my throat close up, kinder than how the HYDRA handlers ever muzzled me, I felt something akin to peace.
It wasn’t like cryo. Immediate and invasive. It was slower. Kinder. Warmer.
My throat closed up, slower, not immediate – not like the almost-death cryo gives, the way the ice would shove itself down your throat and make you into a husk of cold meat, but slower, like a sunset. I wonder when the last time I’d seen a sunset was…
SPLASH!
Motherfucker. I take it back. I hate Bucky Barnes.
“What – ” I hacked violently as my body was shoved back on the snowy ground. “ – in the Sam HILL – ” I yell out as his metal hand smacks the back of my shoulders, hard enough to make me cough up the last of the river water that was lodged in the bottom of my throat.
“ What the hell are you doing!?” His voice was louder than I’d ever heard it. But it sounded familiar – must’ve been from the compound. The kind of guttural cry that'd come from harsh disciplining, mind-scraping - because wiping was too kind of a word to describe what it really was.
“What does it look like, asshole!?” I bark, trying to bury my brow in the snow, my body suddenly running hot. “You – you – ” With a sudden movement, Bucky manhandles me to lay on my back, where I get a full view of his mortified, shiny eyes. The Winter Soldier never looked mortified. James Barnes, however, had his jaw tightening and gaping; back and forth as if he didn’t know how to react. Like a fish forced out a pond, gasping for water. His brown hair was soaked, clinging to his cheeks and neck like a wet towel. “SEVENTY YEARS!” I gasp out, my throat opening and closing because of the cold. “Seventy years of bein’ in limbo, of sinnin', and now I’m finally free, and you – GOD – won’t even let me burn in hell for it – !”
“NO SHIT, sweetheart!” Bucky choked out. He was practically straddlin’ me like I was an unruly horse. As if I could get out of his hold. “You think you’re the only one whose got issues!? That you’re owed a late death!?”
“Then why won’t you let me!?”
His eyes were bluer than the pale-grey sky. “Because I can’t, woman! I can’t! I can’t have anyone else die on me right now! I can’t have another loss! Not you, not Steve, not anyone!”
My jaw locked. I shoved his chest as hard as I could, but my muscles were heavy. I could feel the rods attached to my bones. “You – you selfish jackass, you, James-Buchanan – !”
“ I’m selfish!?” Bucky exasperatedly huffed, like it was almost funny if we weren’t both soaked. “YOU – ” He suddenly stopped, his eyes focused somewhere on my face. Swallowing his panting, his shaky metal arm – like it had nerves to shake – reached up to cup my cheek. I felt his thumb brush against the skin under my nose. What was it called? Philtrum. My skin was too numb to differentiate the cold of his hand from the cold of my flesh. When he lifted his metal hand back up for inspection his eyes widened at the red streaked on the edge of his palm. “Your nose is – ” He looked down at my face, where I’m sure all the fight had left my features. Bucky swallowed, jaw locking for the final time before burying his face in my chest.
We stayed like that for a while, my hands eventually entangling with his wet locks. The heat of his breath warmed my breast, even if the rest of my skin was so cold I reckon my flesh’d turned blue. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I heard him say, slightly muffled and shaky. “'M sorry.” What for? He wasn’t the one who jumped. Didn’t give me a reason either, other than leavin’ me alone for too long. But even that was of my own volition. When he lifted his head, his eyes were shinier. “Let’s just go back, okay?” His arms were still firmly grasping my shoulders, speaking shakily and softly to me like I was a frightened fawn threatening to scramble away from him.
I didn’t say anything as he carried me back, as he followed the riverbend and trail of clothes I’d abandoned back to the cabin safehouse. I didn’t say anything as he boiled water for a bath, or after, when I was given privacy to change, he’d left a mug of steaming nettle-water and the last of our duck from yesterday, heated on the stove for me to eat. I didn’t say anything as he climbed into bed with me, lifting me on top of him so I’d be laying my chest on his middle.
“Your back must be killin’ you, doll. Cold’s no good for you.” How did he know? Was he there when the handlers cut me open? In the room as they took out, attached a rod to my bones n’ back, and reattached my insides all over again, but with wires and a voltage? Because I did. I remember. I do. He doesn’t. That’s his role – to forget. Whatever. I was too tired to get annoyed, too sad to fight, and too comfortable as his body ran warm. It was as if he sat next to the stove (which was still burnin’) to warm his body up just for me.
I almost laughed as I fell asleep, feeling his stubbled lips against the crown of my head. All of a sudden he was being affectionate, and it was almost funny. We were buried under old, thin quilts and jackets. I almost wanted to ask him the rhetorical question of him having any memories of HYDRA or Siberia, but I was too tired to bother. Whatever. He was recovering from brainwashing, so everything was goin’ to defrost one way or another. Nothing that I’d forgotten, though – and that’s what made my mouth slump before I finally resigned myself to sleep.
How I'd never forget anything that happened to me at HYDRA, no matter how much I try to bury it.
Chapter 30: Drop Cherries
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[1945]
She’d forgotten how we actually met, but I hadn’t. I don’t think I ever really did. I still remember the first time I laid eyes on her.
My name is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. I’m part of the 107th Infantry Regiment of the United States. I’m twenty-eight. A Howling Commando. I’m from Brooklyn. Born in Indiana. My parents are Jimmy and Winnie. I'm a big brother. I got little sister named Rebecca, but she's not so little anymore. A best friend named Steve Rogers. His mom’s name was Sarah. She died and I wanted to take care of Steve, but he was too stubborn to let me. I still did. He once helped me get a date with Dolores, then helped me lose it. He used to stuff the newspaper in his shoes to look taller. My last girlfriend was…who was my last girlfriend?
I developed a habit of reciting every bit of information I had of myself under my breath, after hours of those lab-bastards trying to break me. They’d strap me to a chair and force something into my mouth, and suddenly my head would spin a hundred miles a minute and I’d be winded like I ran them. It was after the umpteenth attempt that I realized they were trying to take my memory, when I couldn’t remember who my last date was. My brow tried to furrow in concentration – it was a double date, right? Probably with Steve? Definitely with Steve – and the girls' names rhymed; Connie, Bonnie, something. Flying cars.
I consider remembering the outer details a win, not because it was accurate, but because I was too tired to keep going. My arm hurt – or, at least, what used to be my arm hurt. Ever since they dragged me into this cell for the first time I couldn’t stop sweating. At first I thought it was the heat, but after seeing the handlers dry I realized it was because of something else. My arm was killing me constantly. It was the only clean thing on me – the red, bandaged stump kept me from turning to the left too much. I couldn’t bring myself to see it, not when I could still feel my fingers.
SLAM!
It was when I was reciting the names of the other Howling Commandos that I saw her for the first time. The cells they kept us in were cold and dark, but there was an opening in the concrete wall that let in a long strip of moonlight. I’d sometimes count the dust bunnies that would float under the bright light until she was thrown in.
I first thought she was dead. The smell of blood filled my nose and I felt something sick form in my stomach. HYDRA was full of bastards, but I didn’t think they’d be the kind to lock a prisoner with a dead body just to scare them. She laid so still, so unmoving that I just assumed she was gone. Her face, half-whitened by the hard moonlight, showed someone who was hollowed from the inside out. Her skin almost looked grey. She must’ve been tortured longer than I had. She wore a hospital gown like she was a patient.
No longer losing my sanity, I carefully move her face to get a better view. She looked pretty, even if she was a corpse. The prettiest woman I’d ever seen, actually, and she was dead and thrown out like trash. Christ, I didn’t want to think what they put her through. She looked younger than me, maybe early twenties, enough to still have baby fat on her cheeks and a pout to her mouth. And that was the other thing – her lips were swollen. I don’t know why it was, but I assumed it was probably muzzled like mine. If her mouth wasn’t so puffed up, I would have assumed she was just peacefully asleep.
I couldn’t look at her for too long. I knew what a corpse looked like, and I didn’t want someone so sweet-looking to puff up, rot, and drool blood in the coming days where I could see. She deserved at least some kind of dignity, so I used my one arm to carefully push her to the other side of the cell, where the shadows gave her modesty. If her body got ugly, I’d at least never see it, and remember her as a person.
[A few we – days later]
My name is James Buchanan Barnes. I’m a sergeant. I’m part of the 107th Infantry Regiment, and a Howling Commando. My parents are James Sr. and Winifred Barnes. There’s a tradition in my family to name the first boy James, after their dad. I’m the third – no, fourth James. No, third – there would have been a fourth, but my great-something grandpa was named John instead. A great family joke, since his ma wanted to name him after her recently-deceased pops.
They tried to muzzle me again. Strapped me to a chair and wrung my brain out with whatever rotgut-type system they had, and afterwards I felt like I was beaten with a crowbar. The smell of sweat followed me everywhere, safe for the moments where they’d dump cold water over my head to keep me awake. I started to list things to keep myself alert, trying to remember as much as I could before I fell asleep and had to deal with nightmares: Rebecca loved chocolate. Steve once barfed from the Cyclone at Coney. I once dated a girl named Dot who hated polka dots. My dad used to apologize to my mom by obnoxiously singing until she forgave him. Ma would only let me have thirds because I was the tallest. I used to share a bed with my littlest sister sometimes because she had bad dreams – what was her name again?
SLAM!
I didn’t realize my cell was even empty until she was thrown back in again. The pretty girl, back from the shadows of the handlers who shoved her back inside like she was trash they didn’t want to touch. It was only then, when I saw that her face hadn’t puffed up in the moonlight, drooled blood or smelled like rot did I realize that she’d been alive this whole time. Her face was sallow and sour-smelling, like they’d taken their time poisoning her before putting her back here. It was fine, though, because it at least meant I had something other than the scent of my own rotting stump to deal with.
I tentatively shook her shoulder. Her hospital gown was a vibrant, vibrant blue – I didn’t realize it at first because of how dark my surroundings were, but the fabric was bluer than the damn sky. It was as if they sent me my own personal splash of color. “Hey, wake up,” I murmur, gently shaking her shoulder. Her skin was cold and limp. “C’mon, sweetheart, don’t go dark on me now. ’S rude to fall asleep in the middle of a meet-cute.” She didn’t budge from her slumber. I wondered if she was even breathing. “Stubborn, huh? That’s alright. Just don’t die, and I’ll look forward to our second date.”
I gently pushed her back into the shadowy part of the cell, where she was hidden again. Not because she was dying, but because I didn’t want to risk any unwanted eyes creeping on her. I went back to my memorizations, muttering to myself – I’m James Barnes. Bucky. I’m twenty-eight. A sniper. 107th Infantry Regiment. Howlie. Sarge. Steve Rogers is my best pal. Becca’s a brat. Ma made soup on Sundays…
[Some time later]
I’m Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th. I’m a sniper after Steve rescued me from the first HYDRA prison. He probably thinks I’m dead now, though…shit. Doesn’t matter, I’m not going to let them take me easily. If I’m lucky, I’ll die before they do.
SLAM!
I didn’t realize that my cell was alone until she was thrown back inside. Mystery girl. Pretty girl. I wish I could give her a name, but I couldn’t assume anything. She slumped over like an overstuffed bag, and my jaw grinded at the sound of the handlers rubbing their hands like she had invisible dirt to remove. Her mouth was bleeding – I could see it from the moon-lit spotlight. Red and dark, like it had no business being in the black of a Siberian cell.
Red? My brows furrow as I get close to her sleeping form. She actually does look familiar – red lips! I remembered her, all of a sudden – she was the cherry girl! I’d bumped into her during Christmas at the start of the war. I tried to flirt with her, but I was so tired I think I just exasperated her with the naming and the note-stealing. How the hell did she wind up here?
“You look like someone who should be at a USO dance, not in hell,” I murmur, trying to wipe the red off her lips. She slumped her head to one side, looking more like an abandoned doll than a person. “Did they scramble your brain too? Is that why you’re asleep? Poor girl.” Again, I used my only arm to push her near the shadowy side.
I tried to think again. Morita liked cream in his coffee. Steve’s Swiss was stolen by Gabe, but Steve never minded. Dum Dum shaved with his. Monty got fussy if he didn’t have a fork or knife to eat with. Peggy wants Steve to take initiative, but Steve’s too shy. Stark made a flying car…sorta. Maybe Stark can make one that actually works and get me out of here. Girl too.
[A few…days?]
I’d woken up on my own, for once. My arm was killing me. No, my lack of arm was killing me. My skin was hot, despite the chilly cell. My name is James Buchanan Barnes. I’m a Sergeant. Howlie. Son. Brother. Best friend –
SLAM!
God, they aren’t gentlemen at all, are they? Cherry girl was thrown at the wayside, blue hospital gown clinging to her sweaty skin. I didn’t know I had the energy to push her to the side again, but I tried. “C’mon, doll,” I whisper, my right arm aching from a lack of support. I missed my other arm. She wasn’t heavy, but not being able to lift her made me want to cry. “You can’t just – hey! ” My heart suddenly jumped to my throat as her body moved, shoving me away from her. I cried out in pain, not because it was a harsh shove, but because my left stump scraped the concrete.
She looked like a frightened fawn caught in a hunt. Her eyes were blown wide open, skin shiny from sweat and gleaming in the moonlight. Her limbs were shaky as she suddenly scrambled to sit up. Ignoring the pain to my left, I raised my arm. “Easy, easy,” I croak, but she just tensed up again. God, I must look like shit. “I’m not – I’m not with them. I’m not gonna hurt you, alright?”
She just stared at me, mute and locked-jawed. Desperate for some kind of interaction that wasn’t angry Russian or taunting, I say, “They stuck us in the same cell. I think they wait for one of us to fall asleep before taking the other.” She kept staring. I try to clear my voice into something more recognizable to myself. “My name is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. I’m part of the 107th Infantry Regiment. I’m part of Captain America’s Howling Commandos, but I…I got captured.” I licked my lips. “I’m from Brooklyn. I’m twenty-eight. I’ve got my folks and friends waiting at home for me…please say something.”
That seemed to make her face switch. Her eyes were no longer widened, but watered, and her mouth downturned. “Why…you don’t understand me?” She shook her head and hesitated for a moment before edging closer to my side of the cell. Opening her mouth, I realized why her lips were covered in blood. “What the hell did they do to you?” The words slipped out before I could even think. Her gums were bleeding and purple, even her tongue was red in some patches. The worst were her teeth, though – unnaturally white, like they’d replaced each tooth underneath. Something about my shock made her let out a sob, quickly covering her mouth with her hands like she was hoping her hunch was wrong. “Oh no, no, shit, no, sweetheart don’t – ”
She shrunk, practically melting back into the shadowy wall across from me. I could see her weak silhouette, curled up and burying her face in her knees. Her voice wasn’t there, but I could hear hints of it through her sobs, whimpering like a kicked puppy. Those bastards. And me – I was clearly losing my touch. My back straightened as I carefully scooted to her end. “It’s still better than the handler’s teeth,” I tried. She raised her head, her sad eyes deadpanning in a don’t lie kind of look. “It does! Soldier’s honor – ” I gently lift her chin with my fingertips and tilt her head towards the moonlight. From the outside, her lips just looked slightly puffy. “You’re still the prettiest thing I’ve seen here.”
Her face at me saying that crumpled again, and her hiccupping tears came back. Shit. I really was losing my touch. “Shit – no, wait – you don’t have a boyfriend, do you? I’m sorry, ma’am, I shouldn’t’ve made you creeped – ” She shook her head. Shakily leaning over, her hand carefully grazed over my bloodied, bandaged stump. I’m crying while you lost your whole arm, she was probably trying to say. The pity made me bitter. I force a smile. “Let me worry about that, sweetheart. Don’t sweat your pretty little head about it.” She didn’t look wholly convinced. “Why don’t I try to guess where you’re from, hm? Think it’s not fair that I just spilled my life to you and you get to be a mystery.” I press my fingers to my chin in fake-thought.
“You American? Either that or Canadian.”
A nod.
“You… you’re a nurse?” I already knew that, but my blood boiled all the same as she nodded her head. My jaw clenched. “HYDRA really doesn’t have a limit when it comes to their hit list, huh?” She looks away. I sigh. “You a city girl?”
A shaken head.
“Country?”
Nod.
“Midwest?”
Shake.
“South?”
Nod.
“Hmm…Georgia?” She made a face. I chuckled. “Geez, sorry for assuming. New Mexico?” Shake. “Louisiana? No? Texas?” She nods, her cheeks forming a ghost of a smile. She looks cuter now than when she was crying. I grin. “Well, there you go. Nice to meet you, nurse.” I offer her my hand. She shakes it. “Bet I can guess the your name – ”
“ЭЙ! НЕ РАЗГОВОРИТЬ! ДВИГАЙСЯ!”
A bald, ugly bastard swung open the cell door and grabbed the nurse's arm. She cried out in pain, trying to pull away. “HEY! LET HER – ”
SLAM!
The door slammed shut before I could even lunge. Shit. Shit, shit, shit .
Hours later, she’d come back. I’d wake up, and she’d fall limply to the ground after being thrown back in. Back asleep, but this time I moved her to the small shadowy corner so no one could bother her. Her skin was shiny with sweat, and I hated how helpless I felt. No arm, no weapon, I can’t even protect a nurse from a guard – for as long as I could, I tried to stay awake that night. Reciting the same thing, over and over again. My name is James Buchanan Barnes. Soldier of the 107th. I’m a Howling Commando. Steve Rogers is my best friend. I’m from New York…
[Some time later]
My name is James Barnes. I’m a soldier. A sniper. A Howlie. I’m from Brooklyn. People call me Bucky. I was named that because Steve was lazy. So was my sister. She hated doing laundry, and it somehow became my chore. My arm hurts like hell.
It was hotter than usual. My arm was going to drive me crazy – it keeps throbbing, but whenever I try to do something, rub it, tug it, something, anything – goddamn thing won’t cooperate. I still feel my fingers, but whenever I stretch my shoulder, my stump won’t move. I felt like an idiot, a dog trying to chase its tail. But at least dogs had tails.
“Hn?” I groan, feeling someone tap my arm. It’s the nurse. She’s almost always asleep whenever she’s thrown into our cell, and on the rare occasion she is awake, it usually means they’re going to take her away in a few minutes. But I don’t say that out loud, though. “’S matter, dollface?”
She points at my stub of an arm. My shoulder was the only thing constantly wrapped, whenever they’d strap me to the chair, they’d yell and taunt me before muzzling and ripping my thoughts out with jolts and volts. One they made sure I was too delirious to move, they’d wrap my arm in gauze like packed meat. Like they’re just waiting for me to give up, so they can properly treat me. I won’t give those bastards a chance, though – not if I can help it. “It’s nothing, go back to sleep. It’s – ” I suddenly stiffen as her fingers delicately wrap around my left shoulder. I almost pry her away from me, when her palms gently massage where my skin had been “itching”. It was like water in a desert. I lick my lips, cupping her cheek with my palm. “You’re an angel and a half, huh?” She lowered her chin, bashful. It was cute, very cute. “Must’ve been a damn good nurse, hm?”
Her peaceful face suddenly froze again. She bit her quivering lip, and that’s when I knew I fucked up. “Hey, hey, shit – ” I move my hand to her waist and pull her to my chest. “You’re not – you’re still a good nurse, you know that,” She buried her face in my neck, shaking inhales and sobs making my shirt wet. “I’m one of your soldiers, one of your boys.” She looked up, eyes looking up at me beseechingly. “Yeah. I’m one of your boys. You can’t break on me, not when I'm still fightin’ for us. Need a pretty face to fight for, not a sad one.”
She still looked sad as she pulled away, still massaging my shoulder and making me sleepy. “Y’know what my best friends call me? Bucky. You can call me that too.” The nurse blinked, like she heard something weird. “Yeah. Bucky. Like a beaver. It’s because of my middle name – Steve used to call me that because he kept sayin’ it wrong. You can call me that too.”
Her lips opened slightly, her pink tongue flicking out to lick like she’s about to speak. “...Buck-ey.” Her voice was pitched, wheezy and hoarse. Clearly fried, and clearly not how she normally talks. Her eyes widen in mortification at how she sounds.
I speak before she can spiral again. “Yeah, that’s me. Sexy, right? Don’t wear it out.”
“Bucky,” She tries again, but her voice is still raw and weak.
“Atta girl.” I pat her side.
“...’s not very sexy,” She mumbled. A wheezy whisper that made me snort.
“Oh? And what’s your name, huh? Got somethin’ better than Buck?” Looking out at the cell’s bars, she quickly leaned against my ear and whispered it. Her soft, warm hand pressed against my chest. Her breath is hot against my ear, and I suddenly feel self-conscious about looking like a mess. I taste how it sounds on my tongue while pronouncing it. “...yeah. Okay, you win. That’s better than Buck.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
We both freeze at the sound of footsteps. I quickly shove her to the other size of the cell, putting a silencing finger to my mouth. If they catch us getting chummy, they might separate us, and I didn’t want to imagine what would happen to her in another cell. To her credit, the nurse slumped like she was asleep, so still that I almost didn’t hear the whimper that escaped her lips when the handlers dragged her out for another round of god-knows-what.
I watched helplessly, then tried to palm my shoulder the way she did. It didn’t feel the same.
[Time after]
My name is James Barnes. Soldier, sniper, and Howlie. Ma’s name is Winnie, and dad’s Jimmy. Mailed from Brooklyn, New York. Becca’s a brat. Steve’s a sucker. Peg’s all class. I try to remember as many faces as I can, but my head hurts too much. A pounding headache, the kind you’d have after drinking a whole bottle of bootlegged rotgut.
The pretty girl who laid across my cell was asleep. Or, at least, I thought she was, until I heard her groaning when the food trays came in. Only one tray, though – it was meant for me, if I could trust the handler shoving it in my direction. Hard bread, some oat mush, and a glass of water. When was the last time she ate? “C’mere, nurse, have some,” I quietly called out, not wanting to disturb her too much. I never know what they do to her, no matter how many times I ask, she just shakes her head. Even when her speech improved, she wasn’t much for words. Said nurse lifted her head slightly and shook in rejection. “Don’t be like that. You’ll waste faster than me. You’re already small here.”
That was true – I could tell they were starving her. I think that’s why she slept so damn much, because she had no energy after being beaten to a pulp by the handlers and scientists. I make my way with the small tray. Tearing off a piece of bread, I dip it into the mush and lift it to her lips. “Open up.”
“Buck…”
“Please?” Like it was a great task, she reluctantly sighed and opened her mouth. She chewed for a second before she started coughing. “Shit – ” I lifted the cup to her lips and she practically choked trying to swallow everything. Her hand clamped over her mouth as I smacked her back. “You really can’t eat anything, can you?”
She shook her head. “...they closed my stomach. Think they’re gonna close my throat next.”
“Christ.”
She shakily sits up and pushes the tray back to me. “’S alright, sir. It’s not like it tastes good anyways.”
“Really?” I raise my brow. “Brown mush ain’t a delicacy in the South?”
That makes her huff in amusement. Another almost-smile. “Naw. I like cornbread more than that.” I knew she was from Texas, but the slight twang threw me off. It must've sounded prettier before Siberia, because even now it was sweet.
“You seem like a sweets kind of girl,” I muse.
The nurse scoffs. “Hell no. I like my cornbread with Tabasco and black coffee. Chicory, if I got the extra pennies.”
I scrunch my nose. “That sounds disgusting.”
She shrugs. “When coffee’s low in winter, I take shots of pepper sauce in between shifts. Makes my belly hot real quick.”
“Are you the kind of gal who – ” My question is quickly interrupted by her shoving me to the other side of the cell with my tray. Handlers came a minute later, and she got dragged away by her feet. When her blue hospital gown disappeared from my sight, the whole room went dark again.
[ ???]
I couldn’t stop screaming as the handlers threw me back into the cell. Everything on my left felt like it was being wrung through a metal claw over and over again, like keeping me awake was the only option in dealing with the pain. They seared something onto my skin, something that was, in their words, a promise for what’s to soon come. It was heavy, and felt a million invasive bites along my shoulder stump.
I couldn’t even hear her calling my name at first. Everything hurt too much, was too fresh, too loud. I couldn’t move my metal arm, not without crying out from the scraping sensation it did to my flesh. They knew that – I wouldn’t be able to fight with the painful weight of this hell-limb and made sure to take advantage of it. My metal fingers kept clawing the floor – the concrete having little lumped dents from my pressing. I kept trying to scratch the metal at the flesh of my chest, but it just made me bleed with no relief.
“Your name is Sergeant James Barnes,” She started quietly, hesitantly crawling over to where I was. Even she looked weak and worn. “You’re a soldier. Sniper. Steve is your best friend.” I had no idea what she was saying until she mentioned my family. She must’ve heard me talking to myself enough times. “Becca is your sister. Winnie is your mama. Jimmy is your daddy. You’re from Brooklyn. You like Coney Island.”
She took my metal hand, which was currently clenching itself, and started to firmly pull the fingers away from digging into my metal palm. “I think I was gonna get transferred to your place. I got the news the day before I was taken. It was the day before my birthday too, so I was awful happy. Then on my birthday I was taken to a French compound. Now I’m here. Russian.” She pried my thumb off first. “I was thinkin’, if I got through the war in one piece, I could work at a hospital. Somewhere not so hot, like Texas. Take night classes.” My pinky was next. “My teacher has this copy of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, and I think it’s the prettiest book I’ve ever done seen.” Ring finger. “I lied a little to you – I do like sweet things. I like chocolates, oranges and peaches. Had chocolate cake once on my birthday, my old man worked real hard to afford all the ingredients. Tasted real nice too. My mama added sweet potatoes so we didn’t have to use so much eggs, milk and butter.” Middle finger. “I miss my daddy. My mama too. I wish they didn’t leave me so quick.” Pointer finger. “I hate the noise that came with ’em, though. I love my daddy, but I hate his temper. Passed onto my brother too.”
The pain was still there, but I wasn’t wholly losing my focus the way I used to. She cradled my metal hand like it was something precious, keeping out of my eye’s view. “I could be your brother,” I weakly rasp. “Treat you better than yours.”
She smiled bitterly, not at all reaching her eyes. “I’ve had enough brother for a lifetime, sir.”
“Good,” I lick my lips. “Because you’re too pretty to be my sister anyways.” I take her other hand and squeeze it with my flesh fingers. “How many days has it been?”
She hesitated, then said: “Twenty days.” I knew she was lying, and probably blurted a number to keep me from spiraling. I don’t mention it, though, and instead press her fingers to my lips before falling asleep.
I’m Bucky. James Barnes. Buchanan. Sarge. 107th. Brooklyn. Howlie. Sniper. Twenty-eight. Winnie. Steve. James. Becky. I’m not left-handed. I never was.
[???]
I could hear her before I could see her. The nurse was screaming all the way down the hall, where her cries echoed into my ears enough times to wake me up. My arm had been intolerable to look at, unusable, and hell to feel when I was alone with my thoughts. I was almost grateful for her screaming until I had the scent of blood fill my nose. Just then, she filled my peripheral, screeching and sobbing while two loud, gruff handlers threw her back into the cell.
“СУКА МЕНЯ УКУСИЛА, ЕБАНАЯ ПИЗДА – ”
SLAM!
They threw her onto the ground with more force than usual. She kept screaming as I waited for the coast to be clear to check on her. Her blue gown was no longer blue, but black and shiny – wet, I realized. Soaked to the back and clinging to her. They must’ve waterboarded her. That’s why she was screaming – shit.
“Doll – calm down – wait, it’s over – ” But she kept crying out, like an injured dog. Her back was turned to me, curled up like a ball. I put one hand on her shoulder when she suddenly cried out –
“DON’T TOUCH ME, DON’T – ARGH – !” She screamed at the top of her lungs again. I quickly pull my hand away, wiping the wetness onto my shirt.
“Shit – ”
That’s when I saw it. It wasn’t water on my palm, on her back. It was blood. Her screams still echoed shamelessly across the hall as she sobbed. “They took – they TOOK – THEY TOOK IT OUT, THEY TOOK IT OUT!”
I carefully moved my flesh arm over her chest, so her body could be lifted from the floor a little. “Took what out, sweetheart? What did they take?”
“My – my – my back! They tore my fucking spine out, I know they did! Then they put - something - back in with it!” She started to dry heave, which made me lift her forehead from the concrete. The smell of iron filled my nose to the point where my throat began to get scratchy. “I want – I want – I want to die, James, please – ” She sobbed helplessly. “Please, please, I want to die, I want to die – ”
“Don’t say that!” I hurriedly retorted, trying to figure out how to help with her pain. She just coughed up spit in response.
“You – you have – a metal hand, you’re stronger, you – you can – ”
“ Do you know what you’re asking me!? ” I choke out. My own eyes start to water as my useless, piece of shit metal arm wraps around her waist. I carry her to a cleaner side of the cell and lay her on her stomach. “I’m not putting you down like a dog, nurse!”
I thought she’d scream at me. Cuss me out. Instead, she just wailed again, then her cries reduced to weak wheezes and whimpers. “You’re breaking my heart, honey,” I murmured, pressing my flesh hand to her brow. She was burning up something fierce.
“I wish I was dead,” She croaked. “I wish they killed both of us, and I wish we died before they had the chance to do all this.” Her body suddenly writhed again, a spike of a whine escaping her lips. “This – goddamn floor – !”
Before she can start screaming again, I collect her to my chest. My metal arm was good for something, I guess. There was a small cot at the corner of the cell, but neither of us ever used it. The idea of giving HYDRA the satisfaction of depending on them for comfort was reason enough for neither of us to use up until this point. But I took both of us over and laid back on the fabric. “Cold’s no good for you, not when your bones are weak,” I mutter to myself, laying her on my chest. Her head was to my heart, her belly to my hip. I put one hand to her scalp, the other to her arm so she wouldn’t writhe again.
She cried herself to sleep that night, and neither of us slept much.
[Time after]
My name is Bucky Barnes. My best friend is Steve. I’m from New York. My mother’s name is Winifred. I lost my arm after I fell off of a train. Steve cried when I fell.
I wished I was Steve right now. Since her back was broken and stitched, the nurse hadn’t spoken a lick. She’d lay on HYDRA’s cot, looking aimlessly to the bars across from us. The handlers hadn’t taken her since then, and the blood dried to something black and matted to her skin. Congealed and pressed.
If Steve was here, he’d say something kind, sweet to her. Try to keep her mind busy, make a shitty attempt to cheer her up and try to fight the handlers for her dignity. But instead she got me, who was barely able to move with his arm and could hardly think straight after getting his mind scraped over and over again. I could barely get myself to eat, let alone have her drink water.
“C’mon, babydoll,” I croak, trying to lift the cup to her mouth with my flesh hand. My metal arm was limply dragged next to me. “You have to stay with me. Swallow something. Doesn’t have to be a lot.”
She stared at me, then straight ahead, like I hadn’t said anything in the first place. I sigh, trying to rack my brain for something, anything. I never was a healer, not like her. “God, you make it impossible for a guy to want to kiss you, you know that?”
Her eyes flicker to me, as if wondering what the hell I was saying. “Yeah, you heard me. I’ve been trying to impress you this whole time, but it’s been impossible. I try to flex my arm, but you flex it for me. Show off my muscles? Pshh – forget it, you start massaging me like I’m just another soldier.”
For a moment I thought she’d reject me. Go catatonic. Ignore me, scream, cry. But instead:
“...you are just another soldier.”
I put the cup down and clutch my chest. “Ouch. And here I thought we had something special.” She was laying on her side, I’d repositioned earlier, so I crouched close. Face-to-face. “You’ve ever been kissed before, sweetheart?”
She looked at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. “No.”
I click my tongue. I genuinely couldn’t believe it, but I tried to hide that. “I don’t believe it. You’re too pretty not to be kissed.” I look up in thought. “If you drink the water, I’ll kiss you. Give you something sweet, as a belated birthday gift. How about that?”
“...It’s past my birthday.”
“So I should give you a gift as soon as possible, right? But I can’t unless you’re ready to receive it.” I lift the cup to her lips again. She takes a couple sips. “Atta girl, good girl. Don’t choke now, I still have to give you my end of the deal.”
I take a few sips from the cup as well, sucking on my gums for a moment before facing her again. My flesh palm cupped her cheek with all the gentleness I could muster. “You…you really haven’t been kissed before?” She shook her head. Christ. In a HYDRA cell in Russia, of all places. Her skin was clammy but soft, with her eyes looking at me like I was the only thing that hadn’t hurt her yet. The moonlight gave her a halo. I look at her lips, remembering how they’d looked on Christmas. My cherry girl. She really did have a beautiful mouth.
Suddenly I was in Coney Island again. With a girl I really liked, after a whole day of chasing each other at the pier, screaming on the Cyclone, and sharing cotton candy before getting cornered in an alleyway. The coldness of the cell was compartmentalized as just the cool night breeze as I held her chin before going for her lower lip. Careful and light for a second, remembering her back, then pressing firmer when I also remembered she’s a woman who deserved to feel as pretty as I saw her.
I forgot my name when I went for thirds, forths. Not because HYDRA had won, but because I was reminded how sweet it was to kiss a girl. For the first time since the damn train, my cheeks felt hot as I tried not to get too hungry against her tired frame. At first she didn’t know how to reciprocate, but eventually copied my own motions into something that definitely wasn’t torturous to either my metal arm or her back. Clumsy but earnest, tired but sweet, my cherry girl was.
When I pulled away for air, I’d forgotten how chapped my lips were. I suddenly felt self-conscious as I realized how shiny her eyes were. “I knew I was rusty, but I normally have more sex appeal,” I croak, breaking the silence. She sniffled, shaking her head.
“...just wished we could’ve met under better circumstances." a pause. "I used to have a prettier voice. Used to sing. Could've sung for you. Wish we met when I sounded nicer."
“Me too, nurse. Me too.” I link my now-warm fingers with hers, pressing my forehead against her brow. “But y’know what? When this is all over, I’ll take you back to my place. Show you around Brooklyn. Introduce you to my Ma. My folks. Steve. They’d love you, and tell you to leave me for someone better.” That makes her chuckle. A weak wheeze, but it was enough to make me grin. “Take you to Coney Island. Win you a shitty bear or waste five dollars tryin’. And after, I wouldn’t let you leave my bed for days .”
Her skin runs hot against mine when I mention that. “My daddy would kill me if he discovered a city-slicker was the one who made me a woman.”
“Aw, c’mon, I’m one of the good ones. Ma would make me marry you just to make sure it’s all proper when the babies come.”
“Babies?” She huffed exasperatedly. “James-Buchanan, we hardly know each other.”
“Lucky that will take nine months, then, huh? I can date you between doctor appointments and nursery decoratings.” It was the cell-fever that was getting to me, but I didn’t care. This was the only sweet moment I’d had in a long time, and I didn’t want it to go away. Loopiness be damned.
We don’t mention the fact that we were in a cell, in Russia, in the middle of nowhere. Nor the fact that her body couldn’t move properly when I positioned her to sleep on my chest again, or the fact that my metal arm was stiff at my side. No, she let me kiss her brow while I go on and on about Brooklyn, and life after the war. Somewhere between offering to stay at home to raise our out-of-wedlock babies so she can go to medical school, and her wanting to get taken out to dinner first, we both fell asleep.
[The morning after]
I woke up with a harsh shove to the ground. The nurse was screaming – I called out her name in my tiredness only to feel hands hold me down. Handlers, a whole bunch of them, kept me down as she was dragged away. God bless her, she bit the handler’s hand. “ – NO! NO! DON’T — DON’T FUCKING TOUCH HER, you bastards! ”
“LET ME GO, LET ME GO! BUCKY – ” She shrieked, before a man knocked her head against the concrete so hard she went limp.
I kept screaming her name as she was dragged out of my cell, and kept writhing under the hold of ten men until my vision went black. The next time I saw her, I didn't recognize her face one bit.
[Day 181]
My memory of her wasn’t perfect – it was mostly replaced with missions and mind-wipes. It wasn't like Steve, whom I'd known since we were tiny, and could recall warm memories without any semblance of pain. Whenever I’d think too hard about HYDRA, about Siberia, it was more like recalling a nightmare. It came in flashes – her blue gown, my metal arm, her hands, her blood, her kiss, getting beaten, her name.
‘ I remember you ,’ I said in Bucharest. When we first met, my memory wasn’t as reliable as it was now. I’d recognized her as the girl I’d coped with back when I was first taken, but I also knew her as the one the Soldier dragged into a truck after an escape attempt in Guatemala. I recognized her eyes, staring at me dreamily after our kiss, but also glaring at me full of hate after hitting the Soldier so hard my nose bled before a mission. ‘ I’m not going back. ’
She didn’t remember me, though – but I couldn’t blame her. I’m pretty sure they’d operated on her bones afterwards, putting whatever rods into her body without sedation so that whatever memory she’d have before this would be as good as gone. Even now, the pain was enough to make her go mute for days, so I couldn’t expect her to remember what we were before she had electric rods forced into her body.
When she jumped in the river, I panicked. I couldn’t lose her, not after losing everything else. I’d considered telling Steve about my memories of her, of what we had – but I couldn’t. Not because he didn’t deserve to know, of all people he did, but because she herself barely even liked me at first. It wouldn’t be fair for him to know and not her, who actually experienced it.
I’m not sure I’ll ever tell her – not when I know I’d trigger terrible memories of her time there. Whatever I felt back then, and whatever we shared, it had to stay between me and my heart. I could tell her later, when we weren’t wanted by the government. When my depressive moods aren’t so terrible. And that was the other thing – our brief moments together didn’t change the next seventy years that HYDRA made us go through. I still had my own issues. I can’t even bring myself to smile most days, and even when I tried to be civil, it wasn’t the same as being sweet. I wasn’t the man I was before the train; and she wasn’t the girl she was before France.
Still, I couldn’t help but want to go back at times. A heart that’s been caught once can’t go back to just beating for itself. I took her in because I recognized her from before. I knew I couldn’t trust her after HYDRA made both of us unstable, but I still bought soap and made breakfast as an attempt at an olive branch. I tried to get her a copy of Grey’s Anatomy because she’d mentioned it once before, and even I could see her time indoors was getting to her. Half-stranger, half-familiar.
She was still new to me all the same, though. What she said in the cell was true – we hardly knew each other, and as I’ve gotten to know her after months of close proximity, I’m oddly relieved we’ve stayed hidden for so long. She was trying to heal, while I was spiraling. We both needed time. When the moments were good, I wanted them to last longer without something coming along and ruining it for the both of us. We at least had a chance at that here, in the solitude of the safehouse.
“We can go down to the village after your fever breaks,” I say while pressing a cold cloth to her head. “It’s been more than two months. We can go.”
She glared at me. “You’re just saying that because I tried to go for a swim.”
Stubborn woman. “We’re also low on oil and salt. But sure, doll.” I nearly had a breakdown when I followed the trail of her clothes to the riverbend. Suddenly all those thoughts of her being nothing more than a familiar stranger were gone as I fished her out of the freezing waters. She was crying the whole time she cursed me out, but I doubt she even noticed because of how cold she was.
I had a terrible habit of pulling the ones I love out of rivers, it seemed. But at least she was alive. It was my fault, though – if I hadn’t kept her cooped up for so long after the scare in Bucharest, I doubt she’d be spiraling like this. She didn’t have a problem before, and my dumbass thought it’d be a brilliant idea to bring up medical school like I hadn’t been brooding on my own sins. And now we’re here, where the nurse in front of me doesn’t know who I was outside of the asshole who once manhandled her and was now worrying about her suicidal ideations.
“I don’t want to go to the village.” She hoarsely said after I made her eat the fattest goose leg I could find that morning. “Not anymore.”
“Tough shit,” I grunt, wiping her clavicles down. She was a lot more delicate whenever I was in a bad mood, and I envied how everyone I knew seemed to have more grace than me with comforting others. “We need stuff.” I wanted to call Steve and ask how I was supposed to comfort her, what to do after all of this. It was ironic that I was going to him for girl advice, but I didn’t care. Not after yesterday. But I couldn’t – knowing Steve, if he found out that one of us tried to kill ourselves in the middle of nowhere, he’d throw all security risks to hell in order to fly down and check on us. He’d probably refuse to even leave, and we’d end up getting caught because someone tracked Captain America down in the middle of nowhere in the Carpathian Mountains. Besides, if the news could be trusted, he already had enough on his plate – New York seemed to be the only place in the world that supernatural villains and aliens liked to attack, and the last thing the world needed was for Steve to disappear right before an invasion. And god knows if he’d even be sorry about it, the punk.
I crawl back into bed with her, ignoring how she’d stiffen whenever I did. It was freezing, the temperatures outside were getting below zero, and the snow wasn’t helping. “Sleep, you can complain more tomorrow.” I murmured as I pulled her over my chest.
She scowled. “Hell no.”
My brow raised warningly. “You want me to call Steve about it?” Her jaw clenched. “Good girl. Now sleep.”
“Winter bastard – hey!” I pinched her cheek before closing my eyes.
Notes:
Continuity confusion? I double-checked and somewhere it said Bucky had like four siblings, but other spots says he only had a sister. I could've sworn he only had a sister, but wtv I'll just tweak it
- peep the times I’d try to hint at this memory reveal (why else would Bucky be written in third POV???) lol (emphasis on try)
Chapter 31: The Village
Chapter Text
[1942]
You know how I said that there was a period of my nursing that I was stuck behind in the hospital instead of doing runs in the field? Well, the work wasn’t necessarily bad – all work in the war was considered invaluable, since we needed all hands on deck while soldiers were out fighting. But at times, I couldn’t help but feel like I was doin’ boring work by staying behind and just checking on bandages. Unless I was called to assist the army doctor, I mostly did middle man work.
Administering medicine, changing bandages, and prepping medical spaces was one thing, but catching up on paperwork was something I despised. I’d have to sit in an abandoned crate after a long shift, in the middle of the night, careful that my flashlight didn’t wake anyone who was sleepin’ nearby. Sometimes it was just supply charts, making sure everyone was accounted for, logging all the procedures and prescriptions. Other times it was more sobering – seeing how many people were dead, writing the list of fallen people who needed a letter written to inform their families they were gone, fetching said information so that the higher-ups could write the letter properly. It was that kind of paperwork I hated the most.
“Burning the midnight oil, still? Impressive.”
I look up. There was a well-dressed lady in front of me, with brown curls and red lips. British accent. She must be with the transferred forces that were passin’ through. “Evenin’.” I wasn’t in much of a mood for talking, though.
She knelt to fetch the nearby files leaning on some other crates. “You ought to work on files in the morning, at least you’ll have better light.”
I deadpan. “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?”
She smiled. “I meant no offense. But nurses are usually stretched thin here anyways, I assume you’d want some rest after a long day.”
“I did, but Drearie thinks otherwise.”
The woman furrowed her brow in confusion. “Drearie?”
I snort. “Sorry, uh…Matron Mearie is making me do paperwork until she thinks I won’t run into active fire again.” I raise the paper I was workin’ on. “So I’ve been doin’ this the past few nights.”
She outstretched a perfectly-manicured hand. “May I?” I handed her the paper. It wasn’t technically part of my job, but a soldier asked me to mail his watch to his baby boy on his deathbed. He could barely croak his name, ranking and address before going still in my arms. Her eyes soften when reading the file. “You’re doing a good thing, going the extra mile.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, real nice. Nice, until his widow has to get remarried for money so that the baby won’t go hungry. She’ll probably have to sell the watch to keep food on the table.” Said watch was still in my hands. It was fine and shiny, clearly well-made and expensive-looking enough for me not to trust anyone to steal it; hence my holding it. “This is just a consolation prize. Now baby can say daddy fought Nazis in between working third and fourth jobs.”
The Brit tilted her head. “You don’t know that. Plenty of people would hate to see a child without a father, step in and help.”
I smile bitterly. “No offense, lady, but no one gave me a hand. I doubt they’ll give his boy a hand either.” I take the paper back and continue writing information. “The only reason why I even became a nurse was to stop bein’ poor. You think I like almost dyin’ out here?” A pause. “Well, that’s a bit of a stretch. I kinda do.”
She raised a brow. “Masochist, are you?”
“Must be, otherwise I wouldn’t have snuck into the firing range.”
That makes her look surprised. “You’re the firing girl.”
My left cheek puffed in exasperation. “I can’t be that famous already.”
She gives me a pitying smile. “Only to the folks around the camp, darling. I won’t say I don’t admire your spirit, though.”
“Yeah?” I raise my brow. “Wish you could tell Mearie that. I’m gettin’ stuck here for my ‘spirit’. I only did it because there was a guy that no one was gettin’ out. It was like he was invisible.” I shook my head. "I'd hate to be forgotten and left behind like that."
Her brown eyes softened. She looks like a movie star, or somethin’. Must be that British poshness. “I’m sure someone will recognize your efforts. I’m sure your head nurse was just panicking when she saw you out there. It’s not exactly like girls like us are expected to help in the fight. Just the aftermath.”
It was my turn to raise a brow. “You tellin’ me girls like me should stay back?”
To my surprise, she lets out a loud laugh. “ Ha ! Heavens no! Why, it’d be hypocritical for me to say such a thing, then go back to my work! No, absolutely not.” She shakes her head. “All I’m saying is that there will be a time and place where people will appreciate your efforts. And soon, I’m sure.”
I scoff. “What, you sayin’ you’ve got connections to transferring higher-ups? No offense – uh, what’s your name?”
“Call me Margaret. It’s technically my name.” She offers me her hand to shake. “And you?”
I take her hand gave her my name. “But if you ask Mearie, I’m ‘stupid child’.” That makes her chuckle again.
“Well, either way, it’s nice to meet you. I mean it when I say you ought to keep your head up – I don’t doubt things will pick up for you here.”
She sounded so sincere with her words, I didn’t have the heart to say that I doubted that. “Thanks. Hope things go good for you too.”
A week later, before my birthday, I get pulled into Mearie’s office with the news that I’ve been transferred.
[Day 190]
My fever had broken two to three nights ago, but I’d yet to regain my appetite. It’s the reason why we hadn’t gone down to the Carpathian village at the edge of the mountains, or, at least, that’s what Bucky says. I think he’s more paranoid than anything – it’ll be the first time we’ve been around other people in over two and a half months, since the scare at Bucharest and the high security risk that comes with going down there.
“It’s a thirty minute walk to and from the village to here,” He reasoned the other night. I didn’t want to eat, and he wasn’t about to let me sleep until I had something. “I can’t have you passing out on me halfway through.”
He’s been neutral. Patient, at best. Kind at worse. I hated it. Hated how sweet he’s been, as if me pulling that stunt was a cry for sweetness. He hadn’t been smiling, cooin' or good, but whenever I’d give him lip, he’d hardly react. If I woke up crying from a nightmare, he’d scooch over to my side of the bed and let me bury my face in his chest. Too goddamn chummy.
“I’m not hungry.”
He crossed his arms. “Do you really want to risk being alone in the safehouse? It’s not like Bucharest, where getaway cars are everywhere. Not like we have any other place to rely on.” I scowled as he pushed a bowl of hot soup into my lap. “If you want to kill yourself, be my guest. Just make sure to do it when I’m not around.”
I still remembered how jelly-eyed Bucky looked when he fished me out of the water. All weak and soft like he hadn’t committed himself to being a grump the entire time we lived together. When he buried his face in my chest, it was like watching a kid hide his head in a pillow – unsure of what to do and desperate for something to not go wrong for once.
Since then he’d developed a habit of bed-sharing with me – because of the cold, he says, but I knew it was actually because he was worried I’d start acting up. Once, I’d woken up in the middle of the week because he was breathing heavily in his sleep – when I woke him, he just muttered that it was a nightmare and went back to the floor for the rest of the night.
We were two dysfunctional people trying to keep afloat. What a mess.
This morning, however, was not like that. It was the first warm morning I’d had in forever, and since the river, where the heat of the fire was still enough to keep me toasty in bed, and I’d accidentally migrated to sleeping on Bucky’s chest again. He didn’t even grumble when I did, just kept a hand on my shoulder so I’d stay pillowed on his chest. I was too tired to look tough, and buried my nose into his clavicle instead. It was peaceful. Soft. Then the wailing happened.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!
I’m not joking. I heard a baby’s cry, and even if I hadn’t opened my eyes, I’d stiffened. Bucky did too, under me. We both knew HYDRA used pre-recorded babies in the past to lure people out, but my head was still spinning when I’d heard it. “Go back to sleep, kid,” He sleep-mumbled, his mouth to my brow before getting up. Tucking the quilt up to my neck, he blocked my view of the door with his fingers patting my cheek. “It’s nothing. I’ll handle it.”
Call me ridiculous, but something about how calm his tone was made me feel like I could sleep through a HYDRA scare. We’d stuck together long enough now for me to think that I could at least rely on him for muscle in case things went South. I went back, drifting to sleep and dreaming about nothingness. It was warm, dark, and comfortable until I heard –
“ – please don’t eat our toes! ”
“ It’s not even my fault, Andrei wanted us to go here! ”
“ Did not! ”
“ Did too! ”
The nervous babble of two Romanian kids woke me up with a start.
“ Maa-aaaaaa! ”
And a baby. If HYDRA was using kids as lures, they clearly knew how to pick ’em.
“ Hush up! You’ll wake my wife at this rate! ” Bucky’s muffled voice hissed at the kids. He sounded so terse it was almost funny. No longer asleep, I get out of our bed to check what’s goin’ on outside. “I finally got her to sleep after a week of hell!”
Maybe Bucky fishin’ me out of the river last week was a good thing – because the view now was worth living for: A little girl, about seven, with skinny blonde plaits and a giant jacket was standing in the snow. Behind her was who I assumed was her twin brother, looking about her age and size with the same kind of blond hair and jacket, but he was curled up into a scared ball and using a flower he’d clearly found in that moment as a possible weapon. And Bucky – oh god, Bucky – he was wearing his gloves, luckily, with his sweater on backwards which proved he was still half-asleep. That, and his messy hair, but that wasn’t the best part of the picture. The best part of the picture was the little, fat, pink-faced bundle of joy he was awkwardly holding in his outstretched arms like a ticking timebomb. Except the timebomb wasn’t ticking, it was crying.
“ I’m already awake, ” I grunt from my spot on the porch. Everyone looked at me except for the squalling babe. “ Give ’em to me. ”
Bucky hesitated. “ I had it under control. You’re still recovering, go back inside and – ”
“ Clearly, ” I don’t bother asking for permission again before taking the upset child in his arms. Suddenly all of my problems melted at the view of the kid’s fat little pout and watery eyes. Poor thing must’ve only been six months. “ Ooh, look at you. Aren’t you just a darling? Poor precious, was the ugly old man scary? Oh yes he was, yes he was! ” I hadn’t practiced my Romanian since burning my medical book, but despite my depressive episode I could still practice my talking. I put the baby in a nursing hold and offer a clean pinky for them to suckle on. They shut up quickly, safe for a watery whimper. I look up and deadpan at the brats (Bucky included). “ Inside. Now. ”
Bucky frowned. “ You don’t – ”
“ Now, Jack Barnette. ” He grumbled and joined the shuffling kids into the safehouse. Once inside, I boiled some nettle tea and gave a cup to each kid. I didn’t give anything to Bucky except for the now squirming bundle of curiosity, who was dressed up like a little puffed star in his little lilac jacket. To his credit, he seemed more awake and less freaked out when holding the kid this time. “ That’s Mihai, ” The little girl quipped. “ He’s our little brother. ” Said little brother was currently gnawing on Bucky’s metal pinky through his glove. He turned around so the other kids wouldn’t catch a glimpse, but in my eyes it was almost funny to see his arm, which was legally considered a weapon, now a teething toy for a baby.
“ Why is Mihai up here? ” I ask. “ And you two? ”
Andrei, I assumed, turned pink and pointed to his sister. “ Alina got dared by Elena to go up here! We thought the old hunter’s cabin was abandoned! Or had ghosts! Or monsters who ate toes! ”
Bucky, who was gently bouncing the Mihai, turned his head to deadpan the kids. “ And you had to drag your little brother into this ?” Mihai squeaked like he knew he was being included. Thank god my ovaries are dead.
Alina puffed her cheeks in frustration. “ We had to take him. Our mama had an early shift and we didn’t want to wake her, so – ”
“ So you instead decide to scare the daylights out of her by disappearing and taking her baby. Great plan, sweetheart .” Both kids turn red with shame. Bucky sighed. “ You guys from the village? ”
Andrei nodded. “ Yessir. ”
“ You guys know your way back? ”
“ Yess – ”
“Wa – wait! ” I interrupt. I give a strained smile to the kids and excuse me and Buck to our tiny kitchen. He gave me Mihai while he covered his hand with his glove again. “You can’t make them walk all the way back out there, Buck,” I whisper, looking at the two kids. They were now playing some kind of patty-cake between themselves. “The snow outside could make ’em slip, or get lost!”
“If they can make it up here without a problem, they can make it down just fine.”
“Seriously? And what about the baby?” Mihai cooed, nuzzling into my chest. Sorry kid, I’m not an open tap. “They could drop him, they’ve got weak arms!”
Bucky hesitated, looking down at the squirming child in my arms. If my mama saw Mihai, she’d fuss over how he wasn’t big enough. Too small, and definitely too delicate for the snow. Suddenly our thoughts are interrupted – “ Hey mister, did you do that? ” We both turn around, and notice Andrei peeking at the shed. Bucky had shot down a huge deer last evening, and had been carefully skinnin’ and guttin’ it. Bucky nodded. “ Mister Yossef would kill for that pelt! ”
“ What do you mean, kid? ”
Alina looked at the two of us. “ Meat’s imported to us from the cities. No one’s brave enough to go hunting too deep into the forest, since a lot of funny stuff went down. Whenever someone lives in the hunting house, they always turn up dead – ” We both share a grimace…our sinning pasts are suddenly laughing at us. Alina misinterprets our faces. “ Oh, but that was forever ago! Back when our parents were little! I’m sure it’s safe here now! And like my brother said – the butcher loves it when he doesn’t have to pay city prices! If you haggle, I’m sure you can get a lot of stuff! ”
“ Haggle? ”
She shrugged. “ He prefers to trade instead of sell. But either works if you get enough meat. ” That makes us both pause – a way to get supplies without the risk of a traceable debit card? I look at Bucky . He takes one glance at me sighed.
“ Fine. I guess we’re doing this. ”
Back in Texas, in the long days of reading books under my favorite little kerosene lamp, I used to fantasize about what I wanted to do when I grew up. Being a schoolteacher seemed to be a fine dream to have, but at the moment, I was currently realizing how stupid that idea was. I thought it would be like gatherin’ ducklings to follow their mama, but instead it was like wrangling hyper puppies to a bath. Alina refused to hold hands with Andrei. Mihai kept whining, probably hungry. Bucky stiffened whenever the boy asked if he’d ever killed anyone (“ Because you look so big and scary! ” I felt bad for him at that moment). “Back in my day my mama woulda whooped me for pullin’ this much fuss,” I grumbled next to Bucky, who was currently letting Alina dangle off his secretly metal arm. Suddenly I was grateful that Mihai was just fussily rooting in my arms as I carried a wrapping of hunted deer on my back.
“I don’t know how my Ma did it,” Bucky muttered. “Four brats under one roof.” We’d both dressed in large coats before going, hoping we didn’t stand out too much. Andrei whined for a turn on his other arm, and Bucky was effectively turned into a super-soldier jungle-gym during the half-hour walk to the village.
I blink as Alina giggled. “Four? I thought you only had a sister.”
He nodded. “I’m the eldest of four, she’s just one of them.” Bucky swung his arms to make the twins squeal, and not hear us talking. “How about you? Got a big brother or something?”
“Yeah, actually,” I blink. How did he know that? Lucky-ass guesser, I guess. “Once.” Silence filled between us. I force a smile and lift Mihai. “Not nearly as cute as you, though, handsome!” He squealed.
The village was bigger than I thought – a lot of old, white buildings with smooth pathways and even a few people already outside. The snow was already carefully shoveled away so that people could walk. It was the crack of dawn by now, so everyone else must’ve been waking up. Bucky, to my impression, managed to quiet the twins down ("You two have to be quiet now, okay? Everyone else is asleep...") and have them hold his gloved hands as we followed their directions to their house. “We look normal,” I notice as no one bothers to lift their head from opening shops. Only shopkeepers seemed to be awake, but a few kids waved at them with backpacks on their backs.
“Looking is different than being,” Bucky muttered. I noticed his hair – it’d grown a little, reaching past his jaw. When we finally made it to the twins’ house, little Mihai was crying from hunger and the twins were babbling to their mama about how the hunting lodge wasn’t haunted.
“ Oh my – where have two been, I’ve been talking to the neighbors! ” She nearly cried in relief, then smacked them both upside the head. Bucky and I both had to hide our faces to not laugh.
I handed her Mihai. “ Your baby is so fat, ” I couldn’t help myself by having a dreamy tangent. “ What percentile is he? How’s his speech and language development? Is his back developed properly? How’s nurs – ” Bucky’s arms suddenly snake around my shoulders as he politely smiles away her thank-yous and pulls us away. I could hear the lady still yellin’ at the kids when we left eye-shot. “I wasn’t done, dammit!”
“So you ask her about nursing?”
“I was a nurse once, jackass, sue me. Why, are you afraid of boob-talk or something, Barnes?” He coughed and looked away. “Oh my god – ”
“Shut up.”
“Sorry sir, I forgot you were delicate – ” I rolled my eyes. I think I forgot how we were both raised in the same generation somewhere between the river and Bucharest. “Bet you were one of those uppity, uptight kids.”
He made a face. “Hell no. Steve and I raised hell and we were good at it. He caused trouble and I carried us away from getting caught. Brooklyn was grateful when I got drafted, because it at least meant she had one less hellion in her care.”
“Since when are you so open?”
“Since you’re talking more than a sentence for the first time in weeks, and that doesn’t count the bitter stuff.” Before I could respond, Bucky then looped my arm under his as we navigated our way to the butcher’s shop. It was a small, clean place with old wood tiles and a proud display of beef, chops of different cuts, and sausages. A middle-aged man with thick hands and peppered hair nodded at us walking in. Bucky asked if he sold. He did. He offered the deer he shot from earlier, and gave him a peek. The butcher whistled.
“ No one’s hunted in the mountains in a long while. What’ll you have for it, sir? My wife runs the general store next door. ” His eyes flicker to me and smiles kindly. “ Your wife can buy what you need and I’ll weigh the costs. ”
I cough. “ Oh, I’m not – ” Bucky kisses my head, reminding me of the act we have to put up as wanted people. With a weak smile, I responded, “ Thank you, sir .” I quickly make my way to the next store over. The woman at the register seemed to already know that her husband sent me, because she handed me a basket and pointed at the small grocery corner. Despite my depressed state from before, I perked up a little at the sight of fresh produce. Like Bucharest, I thought, as I tried not to get too greedy with the fresh oranges. I grabbed only a few things, though – flour, oil, salt, brown sugar, cinnamon, spice mixes, and a lot of thick vegetables that weren’t just flimsy roots and leaves that came from the forest. Even got a bottle of beer, not because I drank, but because I was reminded that Prohibition ended. I went a little overboard with the tomatoes, if the amused look on her face meant anything as she wrote down a tag for me to take to the butcher.
By the time we made it back into the cabin, we had enough to make a normal dinner – not Dust Bowl soups but an actual dinner. Bucky didn’t even let me do most of the cooking – though he hadn’t said it, I know he doesn’t trust me using possible weapons anymore – instead just making me peel the potatoes and stir the rice. It was almost funny – back in Bucharest, I was the one who was so gung-ho on the lack of rations, but here it’s him. “Why aren’t you baking the tomatoes?” I ask. When he roasted the duck legs, he didn’t put the fruit in there as well. Bucky shrugged.
“Ma didn’t like baking tomatoes. Said the water inside ruined the cooking, and was better off on top.”
“You guys could afford tomatoes?”
Bucky blinked. “You couldn’t? Even the poorer boroughs could get their hands on some vegetables.”
I scoff bitterly. “We weren’t lucky enough to have that kind of soil. Not when the dust storms hit.”
He didn’t look offended at my jab. “When Wall Street went to hell, my Ma panicked. All of a sudden sugar cost too much and all the good produce went rotten. Turns out ice had a price tag too.” He almost looked wistful as he threw in a log. “Steve and I would cycle around the different shops to see which stores were cheapest before our mas went shopping, just so we could save a nickel or two.”
“You guys had a lot of stores?”
“A lot of stores? Yes. A lot of options? No. Becca once cried in her pillows because she thought we weren’t gonna have gingerbread for Christmas. The littler ones tried to cheer her up by buying a whole bag of ginger root as a gag gift.”
“Was she pissed?”
He gave a ghost of a smile. “Nah. Ma made it into gingerbread before she even noticed. We had enough to share with the neighbors, and I smelled like molasses the whole night.”
When he took out the duck (he said it was because his metal arm was heat-proof, but I call bullshit because he still used a towel as a handle), it was perfect. It actually looked like food, and we both had seconds. “Why are you tellin’ me this stuff?” I say in between bites.
Bucky takes a sip of the beer I’d given him. It’d been chilling in a bucket of snow the entire time we cooked. “You told me about stuff. Rooting for food. The moon landing. Organ stuff. Figured I’d do the same.”
I snort. “What, like a trade?”
“Why not? It’s not like we know anyone else whose almost a hundred around here.”
If this was his attempt to get me to talk more without sounding bitter, it was stupid. Even if he looked nonchalant, I wasn’t about to fall for it. That night, before we went to sleep, I said: “Texas had a lot of horses.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Blue ones. With horns. And it snowed every day.”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Brooklyn rained diamonds and everyone loved Hoover.”
The conversation would halt my thoughts, and so would goin’ to the village, but at night? I realized I still felt the same kind of emptiness. I thought the swim had been a fluke after today, maybe it was in my head, but I realized I just took a break from my thoughts, not actually doing something about them. I felt stupid, stupider still when I think about how Bucky was tryin’ to play nurse now. Like it was my turn to be broken. I didn't like that.
Chapter 32: A Study in Contrasts
Chapter Text
[1933]
This year’s Christmas was more draining than the last. I was able to find a job before the holidays at Martie’s, but it usually meant long hours after high school that would cut into my study time. Not to mention how spent I was afterwards, and for what? Hardly made much, but my Ma would kiss my cheeks like I was a baby again whenever I gave her my wages. Okay, that part wasn’t bad. She always told me to keep the money for myself, but with the holidays coming up, I didn’t want us to worry about going red. Not that we didn’t have enough, but it always seemed we were always passing by the skin of our teeth. It didn’t help that my younger siblings were getting bigger – Janie needed new shoes, Becca needed pencils, and the baby always needed milk.
The apartment was already filled with boarders – people who stayed temporarily and paid a portion of rent to the actual tenant – but it was still hard to get by at times. Steve’s place also had boarders, and one of them passed on a cold to him. He couldn’t get a job because of his health, but always tried to keep me company at mine. “I know you’re bored outta your mind right now, pal,” I poked my head out to see Steve staring at the peas lined up in cans.
He shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Buck. These peas have extra salt, it’s real interesting.”
“Real interesting, my eye,” I muse. Still, to pass the time we talked about the upcoming holidays. Steve was looking forward to having time off of school. I was looking forward to time off of work, and we both agreed to share whatever our parents made into a little feast while listening to the radio for the Fireside Chats that was scheduled that night. Not because we really cared about banking, but Steve and I had an ongoing debate on who had the better Roosevelt impression. Everyone says his is better, but I still think mine is best and they’re just jealous. “We still on for Christmas?”
Steve grinned. “Yep. Once everyone gets slumped I’m sneaking out.”
Well, maybe it wasn’t all bad, then. Or, at least, I thought it was, until I’d walked home. That’s when I heard crying. “’Lo? Anyone up there?” I poked my head in my sister’s room. Rebecca had always been the needier of my two sisters, but I couldn’t exactly fault her. Even if Tommy was a baby, she was The Baby of the family. “Becca? Kid?” A mess of brown hair and shiny red shoes greeted me, but the rest of her was hiding under a blanket. “Did Tommy drink your milk again? You know he’s a baby – ”
“No,” She sniffled. “I just overheard mom. She said there’s not enough money for Christmas. ’M scared we’re gonna go down like the Marten family at the pier.”
“...oh.” I couldn’t exactly sugarcoat that. The Marten's boy was in her class, and she’d always talk about how he’d get picked on for having the same smushy pea sandwiches for lunch – I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the only thing he ate, though. Becca must think she’s gonna end up like him, which, if things didn’t go exactly to plan…wasn’t entirely far-off. I shake my head, trying not to think of that. “Don’t be dumb, Becca. Even if Christmas doesn’t have sugar doesn’t mean we’re all going to go belly-up.”
Becca didn’t look convinced. “It feels like it. I saw the grocery list – we’re not gonna have gingerbread this year, we always have gingerbread.”
I wince. We’d all debated over what should be eaten for Christmas dinner, but Becca always had an eye for sweets. I scrub her wet face and ruffle her hair. “Won’t be that bad, I promise. Ma’s probably just gonna save that money for something better, like a ham.”
“But we haven’t had ham in forever.”
“So? It’s the holidays, kid, anything can happen!” I felt scummy for lying, but I wasn’t about to make her worry even more. This whole stupid Depression was making everyone spiral. “C’mon. I can help you with your homework, and you can help with mine. Sound good?” She nodded, still looking a little reluctant. “Atta girl.”
When Christmas rolled around, I was mostly dreading the dinner – not because it’d be bad, but because Becca would definitely cry over the lack of gingerbread like it was a bad omen. In a way, it felt like it. To my surprise, the night before Christmas Eve, I got woken up in the middle of the night. “ Psst – wake up! Mister Barnes?” Mister? I’m only sixteen! I crack my eyes open to see my other sister Janie and baby brother Tommy. Tommy was sucking on his thumb, clearly sleepy with his post-milk slouch as he clung to her, but Janie was wide-awake.
“Who you callin’ old, kid?” She gave me a toothy, teasing grin. “What’s up?”
“I need help counting, Jamie. Is this enough for fresh ginger root?” In her palm were some pennies, a nickel and a dime. Eighteen cents. Ginger was twenty-five. More than one root would be almost a dollar. She must’ve taken it out of her allowance. She’d stopped getting paid a while back, so this was definitely a rainy day thing. “I sold Tommy’s old blanket for a nickel.”
I blink, rubbing my eye before taking the coins. I pretend to count them, knowing the actual math wouldn’t add up. “Absolutely, kid. It’s more than enough. Let me put it in a pouch so you won’t lose it.” She beamed, and I got up and carefully hid the money in front of me. While rummaging through my drawer, I grabbed some money I’d meant to use on popcorn for the movies, and added them into the money mix. I’d been saving them up for a date with a girl down the shop – Jenna – but I figured I’d take an extra shift to split the diff. Coney Island was open year-round anyways. I return with the money in a pouch. “Go on, give it to Ma.”
“That’s so corny, I think I grew a third ear,” Steve huffed as we hung out in the attic after Christmas dinner. True to his word, he brought some sweet potato pie from his place. I brought the gingerbread, and we both got a little coffee from my mother as a treat. I’d just told him the little story. “Was Becca happy, though?”
I nod through a mouthful of pie. “Oh, yeah. She hogged five pieces before getting sick on the third.” Steve snorted. That dinner was better than usual – turns out Ma was saving up for ham, and the gingerbread was the cherry on top. Becca was all-teeth with her smile. When the kids got tucked in, she called me to the kitchen and cupped my face before peppering it with kisses. “ Ma! ” I groan, feeling my cheeks turn red.
“You – muah! – are – muah! – a little angel – muah!” She finally pulled away, handing me a napkin that was wrapping something. Looking inside, it was the hard edges of the gingerbread, which were coincidentally my favorite bits. “You’ll make a wonderful family man one day. Now, go share these with Steve. You deserve it. Take some coffee too while you’re at it.”
Steve raised his coffee mug and said in his worst Roosevelt tenor, “My fellow Americans…to lying to small children.” Later on I had to work a double-shift, but I didn’t mind too much. The store was slow, and Jenna’d actually dropped by to say she won a lottery for tickets to a movie. I think it was a sign from the universe that things weren’t all bad. I huff and reciprocate.
“To lying to small children.”
[Day 210]
Even though we had access to the village now, we both agreed that it’d be better that we’d stick to our side of the woods for as long as we could. Or, at least, I assumed – she’s gotten shut-up again, the nurse. The night before she had a nightmare, and I almost turned a knife to her thinking HYDRA had broken into our place. When I asked her about it, she just shook her head. “...was it the compound?” I ask. She shook her head.
“’S nothing. We have to shoot tomorrow, so back to sleep,” She’d say before burying her head under a thin pillow. We both hated the idea of crying in front of each other, if not for pride’s sake than for pity’s.
It’s not exactly like I was doing much better. I’d gotten nightmares that came in sweaty flashes, of my mouth shoved with a guard and my mind scraped and wiped. The sharpness of the pain seemed to taunt me whenever I got even a minor headache – like the lingering chance of possibly getting my mind wiped was enough to bring back my nightmares of code words and killing people. Neither of us were very talkative, not unless we had to. I’d try, sometimes she’d recognize a plant, like wild onion, and I’d mutter “we bought onions in Brooklyn” only for her to grumble about being too broke for buying. Then we’d go back to being quiet.
This morning, we got a knock at the safehouse door. We both froze, then she took a knife to hide behind her back before opening it. It was those twins. Christ.
“ Do your parents know you’re here? Where’s the baby? ”
The girl grinned and raised a basket. “ They sent us this time! As a thank-you, since we got some imports! ” She points down the hill. “ They’re right there this time! ” Her mother was at the end of the hill, holding a chirping little baby. After saying some awkward thanks (Neither of us wanted to risk having our faces recognized, so we both just stiffly waved at a distance) we just stared at the basket. It was prettier than anything in this godforsaken safehouse, with a ribbon stitched into it and a bunch of confections inside. Baklava, coffee, a jar of honey, a half-loaf of bread and a block of gingerbread. Despite our angst, we both awkwardly just avoided eating from it that day. Not because it wasn’t tempting, but because neither of us had really gotten a gift in a long time and we didn’t know if we even deserved to indulge. That’s not even including the fact we’ve both killed people.
I called Steve that night, telling him about our situation. “...then they came back up here to bring a gift basket as a thank-you. I think we’re going to get compromised at this rate.”
Steve chuckled. “I doubt that. Maybe save it for a picnic with the nurse, or something. Speaking of, how is she? You sound tired, is she the same?”
Uh…….How do I say she tried to drown herself and is now being the bigger jackass between the two of us in a way that wouldn’t warrant a welfare visit from Captain America? “Fine.” Lie. “Better than me, at least.” Even worse lie. “Between the two of us, she’s keeping her head afloat a lot better than I am.” I’m going to hell for that one. How are my pants not on fire?
I imagine Steve brightening at that. “Good, good.” He’s probably been strung every which way with his current position as Cap. I remembered when we were young, how he’d always try to stick to a job as long as possible, sickness be damned. Now he’s probably drained from being overworked and flown out constantly. Not that I knew what he was doing – HYDRA made sure we were in a goldfish bowl at all times. The first time I’d read about what Steve’d been up to at the Smithsonian, then online before the nurse joined me in Bucharest, I wanted to choke at how much I missed. He was in the same boat as me, but on the other side of the world, and working with aliens, spies, and whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. was working on. Doesn’t help he’s been scrutinized for every mission that’s been debriefed – Steve couldn’t catch a break, it seemed. And he’s probably lonely – I wonder if he’s still thinking about Carter. He probably is, constantly, poor sucker.
I open my book and write some stuff down. Had gingerbread for Christmas. Steve had a terrible FDR impression. Took Jenny to the movies after she’d won a lotto. Ginger was a quarter. I read the stuff from my memory pocketbook to Steve for confirmation. He agreed on everything but the FDR impression. “You’re still jealous? It’s been seventy years!”
“No, it’s the truth.”
“Uh-huh. Sure. Keep deludin’ yourself, pal.” He laughed on the other end. “Say, why don’t you ask the missus – don’t make that face Buck, I know you are – about her own memories? She wasn’t brainwashed, so her mind’s probably still fresh. Could even be fun.”
I didn’t want to burst his bubble. “Yeah, maybe.”
[Day 211]
We went hunting the next day, and I told her to bring the basket with us. She made a face. Her features could morph so easily, I noticed – when she was relaxed, she looked young, like a wide-eyed lady looking for someone, but when she wasn’t? She’d stare through her brows with a tight jaw that made her look nowhere near as soft as what she once looked. HYDRA strained the sweetness out of her and left nothing but a pulp. I wondered if I looked something similar to her. I couldn’t blame her, I’m pretty sure she only stopped hating me because I stopped making her sleep on the floor. Honestly, if I were her I would’ve left a long time ago, not stay with a piece of work like me.
“Are we going to spend the whole day in the forest?” She asks over breakfast. The perk of going down to the village was that we finally had something that wasn’t just meat to chew on. She recovered her appetite a lot faster with jam and toast instead of dandelion salads and rabbit. Still tired-eyed, though.
I nod, focusing on cleaning Lady. “Get enough to keep for ourselves, and enough for the butcher to keep. If we keep our heads down low, we can get things at the crack of dawn without anyone even knowing we were there except for Yossef.”
“Didn’t know you were on a first-name basis with the butcher.”
I shrug. “Bring the basket with us. Better we don’t make backtracks to the safehouse and not waste food.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yessir, Barnes sir.” Before she could saunter off again, I grabbed her arm. She turns around “What?”
“C’mere. You need to wear something that fits.” Ever since she complained about my clothes not fitting her, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It wasn’t that she looked bad – my stomach felt weird whenever she wore one of my sweaters, and it didn’t help that the scent of her soap would linger whenever I zipped up after her – but she clearly needed her own boots. Her own pants. I threw her a small bag of sweaters and pants. “They should fit.”
She lifted a pastel blue one with small flowers at the collar. It was the only thing they had, okay? “You bought girl colors.”
“Aren’t you a girl?” I don’t look back, not wanting to make this even weirder than it was. I already had to ask the lady at the village store if they had her size, let alone her colors. I just imagined she looked good in each thing I grabbed.
The nurse shook her head but took out a pair of old jeans. They were at least her size, and same with the boots (“Burgundy?” She deadpanned. I don’t know how that’s a bad thing). We spent most of the day trudging along the snowy woods, trying to get game. Since the ducks have mostly migrated, the only things that were up for grabs were deer and rabbits. Luckily we managed to shoot down three bunnies before taking a break near the water. The nurse handed me a jar of coffee, which I’d realized I hadn’t had coffee since the war. Sure, she’d bought coffee in Bucharest, but it was expensive and the price alone made me not want to drink it. Old habits die hard, I guess. “We’ll go back inside when we get our hands on a deer or two.”
“Two?” I pass the jar over and give her a sip. “It’s already a lot of work gettin’ just one.”
“We can get more stuff with two.” I steal a bite of gingerbread from the basket. It tasted like childhood Christmases. She’d already been eyeing the baklava, but I think she’s too shy to eat sweets in front of me. “You just have to track them, I’ll carry them both to the butcher after.”
She nodded, then lifted her head slightly. “What’s that smell?”
“What smell?”
“There’s something spicy in the air, can’t you smell it?”
I blink. Oh. I offer her a piece of gingerbread. “It’s just this.”
“What is that?”
“Don’t tell me you guys didn’t have gingerbread back in Texas.”
Her cheeks warmed at that. “Shut up.” Snatching the block, she stuffed it in her mouth before gulping back more coffee. Her eyes widened at the taste. “...it doesn’t taste like ginger. Not in a bad way, at least.”
“You have to use a shit ton of sugars and molasses to make it bearable. And cinnamon. It’s why you only ever really eat it on Christmas.”
“I know how holidays work, Buck.”
“You just asked what gingerbread was.”
She rolled her eyes again. “Texas didn’t have gingerbread, at least not where I lived. We also didn’t have snow. Or giant trees in the middle of the square.”
“Then what did you have?”
An odd smile landed on her face. I wasn’t even sure I’d label it genuine, but it came so suddenly that I knew not to call it forced either. “Oranges. We’d juice them and have fried chicken. Pecan pie too. I had the best pie recipe in the neighborhood. But I loved the orange juice best. Slept like a baby afterwards.”
“You ever had hot cider?”
“Ain’t that just hot apple juice?”
I remembered a time where I’d dared Steve to chug a whole jug of cider in under a minute – he ended up not being able to eat anything for the rest of the day. It’s a miracle neither of us had gotten our stomachs pumped before twenty. “It’s more tart. Sour. Sharp. Tastes good with gingerbread.”
The nurse took a bit of baklava out and drizzled it with honey. Seventy years of HYDRA and she’d finally developed a sweet tooth, it seemed. “You mentioned your sister threw a fit over gingerbread?”
I nodded. “She thought we were gonna go homeless because we couldn’t afford the fresh roots.”
“Were you?”
“Does it matter?” I huff bitterly. “We got her the stuff. She was happy. I thought things were gonna turn up after that. Things didn’t get worse, but then Japan came, and…” We both fell silent. I looked at the frozen river. The cold water was white, almost blending in with the snow. Staring at the nurse next to me, she was the most colorful thing in the forest – her face was bright from the winter contrast, and lips red from the hot coffee. Even the clothes, as much as she complained about them, made her look like a crouched blossom, all bundled up. Like a splash of watercolor on white canvas, soft and gradient. “I didn’t want to get drafted, but I didn’t have a choice. Then Steve did, and…” I still remember how my head went blank when I caught always-retching Rogers almost signing up. I’d felt sick – thinking the army was going to eat him alive, my best friend, my family. I missed when that was my biggest worry, wondering if the people I loved were going to make it. “What about you? Did your brother ever get you stuff for the holidays?”
She stopped chewing, and bit her lip, like she was debating on spilling her darkest secrets. There was a dead look in her eye, contrasting with the sweet freeze-burn flush the winter had given her. Then with a flat tone: “I almost stabbed my brother on Christmas because we got into a fight over who fucked up the eggs. Our old man had died and neither of us could stand each other. The only gift I was given was the fact he told me I’d be dyin’ the same way our pa did.” She scrubbed her mouth and closed the basket. “HYDRA took the sweetness outta you. I never had any to begin with. I’m not built for lovin’.” Then she stood up, brushing the snow off her jeans. “C’mon. My ass is gonna fall off at this rate.”
We got two deer by the end of day, and we managed to get a sale on both of them before sundown. When we went to sleep, I wondered how much the sweet nurse I once shared a cell with was gone because of Siberia. Even if Texas made a mad daughter of her, she was once a good nurse. And when she was feeling like herself and not a monster, still is a good nurse. Maybe she forgot like I did. Because even if I deserved hell, I couldn't imagine her being stuck down there with me.
Chapter 33: Footprints
Chapter Text
[1936]
Christmas in Brooklyn was always a treat, even when times were hard. The Rockefeller folks had started putting up this great, glowing tree at the square two years ago, and all my family and friends would join the huddled crowd to look at the big fir. Ma joked that we didn’t need a tree, since it was so big we got a view of it every time we walked past for groceries. Despite the expensive prices, my parents would try to make something nice every year – last year it was custard. Before that it was French omelets. Before that was chocolate bread. Basically we’d all debate over whatever expensive thing we’ve been craving, and after a vote, we’d save up for it and eat it on Christmas day.
This year it was apple pie, for once a unanimous vote. Steve had joined us this year – his Ma had died in the Summer and I meant what I said when I promised I’d help take care of him. Stubborn sucker wouldn’t let me normally, we still lived separately and he’d reject anything I’d give him, but I refused to let him be alone for the holidays. Maybe it was me being annoying, or him wanting to have a family to be around, but Steve for once joined in on our scheduled Christmas scheming three weeks before the big day.
“Key lime pie!”
“Big steaks!”
“Lobster!”
“Becca, you’ve never even had lobster!”
“So? It looks funny, I wanna try it!” It was the usual Great Debate, where the adults would lean back and amusedly watch the kids bicker about what they wanted most that Christmas. I interjected on the lobster comment, not wanting to waste our holiday treat on a gamble, but then looked at Steve’s amused smile. He hadn’t been smiling much lately, and I didn’t like that. With war overseas getting louder and louder on the news, we’ve all been a little restless.
“How ’bout you, pal? What would you want?” I gently nudged him. We watched the littler ones bicker like politicians over funding. Steve shrugged, his thin shoulders always a little slouched.
“Not much of a lobster guy. They always looked like bugs to me,” He grinned sheepishly at Becca’s ‘aw, man!’ “Sorry, Becca!” She stuck her tongue out at him, which made my mother pinch her ear. We both laugh. “Honestly, I’m just glad to have some time off.” He’d been working odd jobs like the rest of the guys in the neighborhood – it’s been almost impossible to find something steady, and even when you did it’d usually be in the richer parts of town where the walk was long. Steve’s lungs couldn’t handle the long walk, though, so he was stuck working at the empty nearby stores. We’d sometimes meet up in between breaks to split an apple and complain.
“ Did you get into another scrap again? ” I’d asked in our last hangout. His knuckles were bruised when I gave him a slice. Steve grumbled. “Steven.”
“ They were harassing a girl, ” He stuffed his mouth with apple before I could react. “ She was crying and they wouldn’t leave her alone. What was I supposed to do? ”
That was the thing with Steve – good to a fault. I couldn’t hate him for defending a lady, not when I’d do the same, but unlike me he usually bruises a lot more easily. “ And did they go away when you said ‘hey, back off’? ”
“ ...no. ” He turned to me, eyes fierce. “ You saying I should’ve just watched? ”
I shake my head. “ Just sayin’ you could’ve been more clever about it. Pull her into the store, lock the doors. Don’t have to sacrifice your muscles to make a difference. ”
“ Har-har. ” I offered him another slice. He politely shook his head. “ ...just wish things would go right for once. Wish we had apple pie instead of apple slices, y’know? ”
I smiled sadly and put my arm around his shoulder for a half-hug. “ I know, pal. I know. ”
But back to the upcoming Christmas – the Great Debate had reached a boiling point, and the little ones were running out of ideas for what they should eat. Janie was currently bickering with Becca while Tommy just wanted a treat for being good –
“We already had gingerbread last year!”
“We can do it again, it’s good!”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Yuh-huh!”
“Tweat! Tweat!” He waddled from his chair to me, smacking his hands to my lap. I grin and sit him on my legs. When he was first born I avoided him, not really considering little kids my forte – that was until Malia from down the street saw me holding him, and I quickly realized how much dames liked a handsome guy who was good with kids. Oh, and because I love him. That too. Technically.
“What do you think, Tommy?” Steve tickled my brother’s chin, making him giggle. Despite the money struggles, Tommy hadn’t seemed to pick up on the stress of everything. I hope he stayed that way until things got better. “What do you wanna eat?”
“Tweat! P’eas and tank ’ou!” He chirped again. He clearly had no clue what he wanted, but was happy to be involved.
I turn to Steve. “What about you? What would you want?”
Steve waved his hand. “Oh, I don’t – ”
“I’m serious,” I pat Tommy’s head to shush him. “You’ve been through a lot, pal. You deserve something nice.”
He gives me a look. “I’m not a charity case.”
“Never said you were, Rogers. You’re family too, though, and family gets to put in a vote for Christmas dinner.”
Steve hesitated. Clearly not wanting to offend anyone, he says, “...cookies?”
I scoff. “Try again, punk. Something you actually want, other than a knuckle sandwich from the catcallers down the street.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. You know what I’d want? Apple pie. Hadn’t had something that sweet and rich in a long time. The kind with caramel inside and fancy salt on top.”
“Apple pie?” Becca poked her head up from debating with Janie. She smacked her lips. “I want pie!”
Janie joined in. “Me too!”
Tommy clapped his little hands again. “Tweat!” Steve had turned bright red at the attention his suggestion caused, but didn’t stop smiling when my mother patted his cheek.
“Well, I suppose that settles what we’re gonna be savin’ for this year for Christmas dinner! Big apple pie!” My Ma wasn’t dumb either — she and Sarah Rogers were friends, and was probably going to make Steve whatever he wanted regardless of what my siblings were going to say if it meant cheering him up a little. She was good like that. That Christmas, I remembered how happy Steve looked after Ma gave him a slice. It was probably the best Christmas we’d had in a while too.
[Mid-war, HYDRA prison]
I thought I was going to die. I was prepared to die, even, as I felt my muscles go slack with whatever the hell those bastards injected me with. It wasn’t until I heard someone calling my name that I realized I wasn’t quitting just yet.
“ – cky? Bucky! Buck! Wake up, dammit!”
Now I knew Steve was fifty flavors of ballsy and crazy, but the man that stood above me when I woke up completely made my head spin. He wasn’t even skin and bones anymore, no, but taller (taller than me – Christ), more muscular, and actually able to throw a punch that didn’t hurt him back. “What the hell happened to you!?” I gasped as he pulled me out of the heated building.
Steve spoke like it was the most obvious thing in the world: “I joined the army!” Like he joined the boy scouts. If I wasn’t so out of it, I think I might’ve just thought everything was a nightmare. No, though, because a minute later a bald, red-skulled man named Red Skull (because creativity was something fascism clearly had a lot of) was trying to kill us in an already dying building. By the time we’d gotten out, I thought everything was a fever dream – instead of three cheers for Captain Rogers, I had to say three cheers for Captain America, and watch as he finally got the girl. A fever dream, but considering how I wasn’t dead, and everyone I loved was alive, I considered this a win.
When we took medical breaks between missions, I was just glad to be with my best friend again. War was hell, but at least I had someone I was familiar with. I didn’t really care much about Captain America, more than I did about someone who once used to get into losing fights in order to do the right thing, and used to scheme with me after school about what we’d do in the future once the Depression was over. No, I was following the guy who once beamed at having a whole Christmas pie to himself after thinking he was alone for the holidays, not a prop poster.
[300 Days ago, Potomac River]
The ship was burning, we were falling, and my head was hurting like all-fire. It wasn’t just because of the mind-wiping this time. No, it was something else. It was something that I had lingering feelings of, but hadn’t been able to fully feel in a long time. Something that I’d get slapped if I focused too hard on – confusion .
“ You know me. ”
The man in the blue suit and helmet spoke so calmly, it was as if I hadn’t been trying to kill him this entire time. Captain America was beaten to a pulp, with the same kind of strength as me, but hadn’t done anything but made my head run in circles.
I knew him. I knew him. I had to.
“NO I DON’T – !” But it didn’t matter how I’d felt, right? I couldn’t compete with what had been drilled into my head in between sessions, with each jolt harder than the last. NO, I didn’t know Captain America. The man was WRONG, HYDRA was RIGHT, and –
“ Bucky, I’ve known you my whole life – ” I tried to slam my fist into his face again. “ Your name is James Buchanan Barnes – ”
“SHUT UP!” I punched him. I didn’t mean to sound so juvenile when I said it…between the two of us I was older – what ? How did I know that?
“ I’m not goin’ to fight you, ” His shield fell from his hand. It slipped through the open glass beneath us, right to the open waters below.
“ You’re my friend. ”
Something inside my head snapped when he said it. It hurt, everything hurt – something burning, like it’d been trapped inside my mind for so long, and only now I’ve been starting to feel it. I couldn’t handle that, not now, not when my mission was so clear, and I was so close to ending it! I shoved my mission against the broken glass, punching its face again and again –
“ – Because I’m with you until the end of the line. ”
I felt something sick form in my throat as we both fell through the broken glass, splashing into the waters below. I’d barely managed to fight the urge to vomit as I dragged his body out of the river and watched the wreckage above us burn, all with one thought in my head:
What have I done?
[Day 230]
I woke up screaming again. The nurse didn’t even jump this time next to me. We’d been sharing a bed with each other for weeks now, but neither of us hardly reacted when the other had a bad dream, or memory of the past. Instead of doing her lists, or making me drink something, she just lights the lamp in our safehouse and sits behind me. “Go back to sleep,” I rasp. “It’s not something you can fix.”
“You were talking Russian in your sleep again.”
I didn’t want to know what I said. “What did I say?”
She shook her head. “Mostly code words. Old triggers.” a pause. “You started mumbling names. Brooklyn. Morita. Dottie.”
I stand up, going over to the drawers to take on a sweater and some gloves. We were in the middle of nowhere, technically, but eyes could be anywhere. “I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back in ten.”
She stared, her face neutral but not mean. “Ten.”
I walk outside. It had been snowing in Carpathia, winter just in time for the holidays. It wasn’t Christmas, that much I knew, but it was coming soon. The little village at the edge of the mountains and near our safehouse was hanging up little lights, and the butcher we’ve been carefully trading with had even given us a discount because we were apparently the only people who ever brought in meat for him. It was domestic. Quiet. Hidden.
Undeserving.
“Hello?” Steve’s voice was clear on the other line. He used to sound sleepy, but then perk up at the sound of my voice. I don’t deserve that.
“It’s me.”
“Bucky,” He patiently said. “What's going on? How’s hiding?” My stomach felt sick. I didn’t deserve that kind of grace. Not after everything I did.
“The safehouse we’re in,” I start. “I’ve been here before.”
“Yeah? I think you mentioned that once.” I never told him where it was, just that it was in the mountains. Again, eyes and ears everywhere.
“I killed a man here, Steve. I broke his glasses and snapped his neck like a twig because HYDRA told me it’d preserve history.”
Silence. My chest rose and fell like I was the tiniest bit winded, and not because I was finally saying the hard truths out loud. I kept going.
“I killed a president. Kennedy. Tried to kill Fury. I also killed a man’s son because he was a witness to a murder. I’ve been in warzones, in developing countries, in remote villages – I’ve ruined history. I’ve been the last face of so many people’s lives.”
More silence. For a minute, the only thing that was standing with me was the snow. “That wasn’t you, Buck.”
“They were my hands.” I start shaking my head, the helpless feeling coming back to my mind. “I’m never going to have peace over this.”
“I really want you to,” Steve sounded broken over the phone. I seem to be hurting everybody, it seems. “The same hands that hurt also saved my life a couple of times.”
“A couple of times doesn’t compensate for what I’ve done as the Soldier,” I huff weakly.
I could feel Steve shaking his head on the other line. “So what are you gonna do, Buck? Something reckless? Because if you are – ”
“I can’t, ” I swallow bitterly. “Not right now. Not like this. Not when…” I turned my head back into the safehouse. She was still up, stitching something. Like we weren’t wanted. I said her name quietly, so she wouldn’t hear. “She tried killing herself the other day. I can’t have another name on that list. Especially not her.” Not when she was in the same boat as me. As Steve too, when it came to our loneliness.
“What?” Steve’s voice rose slightly. "Give her the phone, actually don't, I'm going - "
“ Don’t come here ,” I hissed. Not that he could, but I wasn’t risking it. “I’m not telling you this so you can visit and get arrested with us. I’m saying it because…because there’s nothing left for us but that.” I stare at the river beyond the back of the safehouse. Where I’d taken a life, and saved one decades apart. “None of this is worth it. I think you know that.”
“Don’t tell me how to feel about what you’ve been through,” He retorted on the other line. Seventy years and he’s still got a temper. “I knew what I was doing when I sent her. When I lied to Fury. I know the Soldier’s done awful things – but you’re not him.”
“Saying I’m not him won’t change how I feel.”
“I know. But that's all I can do right now.” A pause. “I love you, Bucky. You’re all I got. You’re the only person I’ve got left from home.”
"Sure." I say, not feeling like I had much control in anything anymore. We both stand in silence again for a while. Then I add - “Nurse is also from our time.”
“I don’t think she likes me very much,” he admits. “She and I haven’t spoken since Bucharest. I think Nat had a better call rate than me.”
“Maybe.” I stare at the stars outside. “I’m not going to call this line again for a while. I don't trust the signal here.”
I knew Steve deflated a little when I said that. “...right. If you think that’s best for now.”
I hung up and sighed. Going back inside, the nurse was stitching the sweater I’d traded for her. She said she didn’t like it, but was currently stitching little birds at the hem. The same hands that once stitched wounds for soldiers, were stitched open and shut by HYDRA. Then killed. Now stitching again. How old we were.
“Why are you here?” I ask, sitting at the edge of the bed. She looked up. To her credit, she doesn’t look surprised. The last time I asked this was in Bucharest, and she said some smartass answer that just showed that the taste of freedom was distracting from the reality of our situation.
“I owe Steve a debt. You know that.”
I nod, frustrated at her answer. Her voice had changed from the broken rasp of the HYDRA cell of when we first met. “But you don’t have to live with me. You don’t have to hunt with me. You could live in the village, or in another safehouse, watching me from afar. You could’ve rejected this whole thing entirely. You could’ve destroyed the burner phone and disappeared without a trace.” Soon my own personal frustrations began to spill out. About everything – HYDRA, the brainwashing, the mind wipes, the disappointed sound in Steve’s voice, in being drafted , in getting imprisoned twice only to be kept the second time around for seventy years – I had to swallow the bile in my throat. She took a long, hard look at me. Put her sewing down, and sat at the edge of the bed with me.
“Because your footsteps aren’t the same.”
She moved her foot in a uniform, shuffling motion on the floor. One up, one down. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“When I was in the compound, I hated how sensitive my hearing got in between experiments. I hated how I could hear the muffled screams. The taps of scientist’s pens. The taunts of the handlers. Most of all, though? I hated the Soldier’s footsteps.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “Somethin’ about how they clicked perfectly together, I despised. I wanted to rip my ears out every time I heard them. Their cadence, their echo. When I first landed in Bucharest, and I was lookin’ for you, I was keeping my ears peeled for the Soldier’s footsteps. I was ready to kill because of that sound. It was worse than any order I’d be given, just because of the amount of rage I’d get from hearing them. It was like they represented just how low my life had gotten.” A small, sad smile formed on her face. The structure of her face changed into something more kind when the apples of her cheeks caught the light. “I didn’t expect to get you instead.”
She started to shuffle her feet on the floor. Drag them, mimic stumbling. A small, immature giggle escaped her throat. Breathy at best. “You don’t even have a pattern. You slump when you get tired and drag your feet when you’re in a mood. Even when you’re fightin’, it’s not the same. My blood doesn't boil when I know you're there.” Despite the anger and bitterness she’s had since the river, she looked perfectly serene in talking to me. “Oh, sergeant…you don’t walk like him at all. Not even if you tried.”
Something in her gentleness made me want to choke. It wasn’t as intense as Steve breaking decades of mind control, or as strong as a mind wipe, but something in the sincerity of her words made my chest tighten. I lick my lips, unsure of how to argue with that. “...I don’t walk like him?”
She took my flesh hand and squeezed it tight. Then, after a moment, the same with my metal one. “No sir. Not even close. That's why I stayed - you're a different man than him.”
My jaw tightened at that. Not out of anger, but something I didn’t want to name. I avert my gaze from her lamp-glowing face and stare at the bed. “We should sleep. It’s late.”
“Alright. If you want.”
Chapter 34: Looking Normal
Chapter Text
[Day 245]
My arm was acting up again. When I first started sleeping next to the nurse, my biggest worry was that I’d either hurt her in my sleep or one of us would accidentally trigger something – HYDRA made both of us unreliable after seventy years. While neither of us had choked the other out in our sleep, it didn’t mean I’d sometimes wake to her thrashing and screaming because of what she’d later explain as the blankets being too restricting to her body. Or I’d wake up, take Lady out from under my pillow and expect a handler would try to make me do something I didn’t want to do. Unstable, we were both unstable.
Something odd would begin to happen, though, as a result of this. The louder one of us screamed at night, the more violently we’d wake up, the other would try to be more amenable to the other. I learned quickly she won’t eat after a nightmare unless it was something sweet, and she’d always avoid making me breakfast when I had a bad night, instead just brewing me the shitty coffee I’d liked. If we went down to the village, she’d buy me a beer for the night and I’d get orange juice for her. It wasn’t peaceful, considering how often the night terrors came, but afterwards there seemed to be an unspoken understanding that we weren’t going to push the other’s temper when something happened.
Most days it’s quiet, though. If I wasn’t wanted in multiple countries, aware I was running from HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D., or the fact we were seventy years into the future, I’d think we were a quiet, boring war couple hiding in some American mountains. With her accent, I could easily lie and say we were from Appalachia, or something. I’d cut wood as an excuse to hurt something, she’d sew with a secondhand kit she found in the village, and we’d both be asleep by nightfall like life was boring.
But that wasn’t tonight. Maybe it was because I began to punch the trees again, or I started swinging my arm out of habit, but something made me want my already-gone flesh hand to crawl out of my metal skin. I hardly got relief from it otherwise, since we’ve been cooped up constantly. Instead of waking up screaming, or trying to fight a pillow, I just couldn’t sleep. She was already curled up next to me, her head facing the wall as just sat straight-up in bed.
“You need to sleep,” a tired voice croaked from behind me. “It’s gettin’ real nasty out there.” The snow had been piling more and more since winter had started. The coldness affected both of us – not just because it sometimes reminded me of cryo, but the way the chills would get to the nerves of my left shoulder, feeling like a bruise. I knew it hurt her too, in how she’d boil waters for baths and wince when she stood too long outside. The metal in her bones must be freezing and bruising her on the inside out.
I turned to face her. She was wearing her nightgown again, this time with small patterns now stitched on it. A red cross on the left collar. Flowers on the hem. Tiny four-pointed stars. Dark red stockings that reminded me of blood. “Arm’s acting up. It’s nothing.”
“Oh?” She winced as removed herself from the comfort of her warm sleep spot and made it to the cold edge of the bed. “Does it itch?” I shake my head. “Bruise?” No. “Can still feel your fingers, can you? Hurts in a way?”
I nod. “Feels…cold. It shouldn’t feel cold. Shouldn’t feel like anything. It’s metal.”
She hums. “I’ve had a lot of soldiers who got their arms and legs blown off. If they weren’t itchin’, they were bruisin’. If they weren’t bruisin’, they were sweatin’ from the sensation of ghost-limb.” A pause. “Say, I might know a trick to help. If you’d let me.” Her eyes flicker to my deltoid, where the black bandana was still carefully tied over where she last “touched” my arm when we met. I didn’t want her to touch it, but I was going to lose my mind at this rate at how nothing seemed to help. I backed up against the wall and pillows and gestured her next to sit next to me.
She had a light touch. The kind that was hesitant, testing the waters as she made her fingers go up to my shoulder, where my old scarring met metal. The moment she pressed firmly against my collarbone, a muffled cracking of the joint escaped my muscle. I shakily exhale, my head even almost swaying. So that’s what that was. Even if she forgot, her hands didn’t as she started to massage my shoulder the same way she did when we shared a cell forever ago. My breathing suddenly felt hotter in my throat with how much looser, relaxed my limb felt. Once a nurse, always a nurse, I guess.
“How long has it been hurting like that?” She asked.
I shook my head. “It’s always been like that.” I wasn’t able to look at her face while she massaged the “muscle” there. “I don’t know what to call it. I don’t know any of what this is.” The echo of her little hand song bounced around in my head, but that was just flesh – metal was foreign. Something I wasn’t wholly fine with and something even she wouldn’t be an expert in. “It’s an instinct, not a limb. If something upsets it…” Her palm kneaded my shoulder again. “It just stays there.” I started feeling tired again, and my head was spinning at her closeness. Just a few weeks ago she was cursing me out, but I didn’t mind her helping me. “You can stop. It’s gone now.”
“Would you like to know what’s there? If you could?” She asked.
I shake my head, unsure. “It’s not my real arm. Just a weapon.”
“It’s also the thing that cuts wood and feels pain when it shouldn’t. You’ve had it for so long, bein’ at least a little aware wouldn’t be bad.”
Leaning back into the sheets, I give a humorless laugh. “How? Is there a prosthetics expert in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains who’s willing to look at the Winter Soldier’s arm for…what? Peace? Acceptance?” She just stared. Sighing, I pat her thigh. “Go to sleep. Your back will make you hobble tomorrow if you stay up for any longer.”
She deadpanned. “You gonna tell me to take my pills and drink prune juice too?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
[Day 260]
I went to the store next to the butcher’s while the nurse went out to get some bread. I had a nightmare that we would get caught from having DNA tracked back into the cabin, so now I was trying to look for a small bottle of petrol in case worse came to worse. We both agreed we weren’t going back, so I wasn’t about to tell her what I was doing in case it made her spiral again.
I eventually found a small tin of petrol next to the tool section and put it into my bag. I was about to go back to the butcher’s wife to pay when something caught my eye – a book in the book section. It was old, white, paperback with crinkles at the spine, and a creepy drawing of someone’s back muscles, but the title is what made me stare – Gray’s Anatomy, Classical first edition. I debated on grabbing it – the last time I tried to get it, remembering her mentioning how she adored her teacher’s copy, how she was fascinated with physiology, I’d wanted something nice. Even if it was undeserved, stupid, and delusional since she didn’t even remember me, I didn’t care – not when she looked at the pretty copy in Cărturești Carusel like it was a boy she liked and was too shy to talk to. This copy wasn’t like that. It was old, folded, and definitely not up to date…but it was on sale for twenty-seven Leu, so I grabbed it anyway. It was stupid, and I wasn’t even sure I’d give it to her, but her last copy got shot through the literal heart. Hopefully this one had more spine – pun not intended.
I went out with a cloth bag of my stuff, looking for my fake wife. I thought she’d be sitting at the bench, eating the bread we bought with an excuse that “it’s my (her) bread too”, instead I was greeted with nothing.
“ Oh, how sweet! And it goes well with toast? ”
“ Yes! My father prefers it with butter, but in my opinion it’s best mixed with marmalade. ”
“Gosh,” I heard her murmur. A few paces away, a small stand of fruits and jams were being sold by some guy in his early twenties. If I didn’t know that HYDRA had refrigerated her for seventy years, I’d think that they could be the same age. It didn’t help that she was blushing over a damn jar of honey.
“ How much for this one? ”
“ Since we’ve had a lot of customers, it’s on the house. ”
Her skin turned into a dark shade of red at that, probably not used to people being so willing to share good food. “ Oh, I couldn’t – ” She tried pressing the jar back, but he gently pushed it back to her. He looked stupid, with his brown haircut and blue eyes. Doesn’t he know better than to annoy people? I could get us some honey if I wanted to, she just never asked.
“ C’mon, sweetheart. Let’s go home. Now.” I make my way to them and throw some money onto the table. I throw the jar into my bag and loop my arm over hers. She glares as we make our way back to the long path to the safehouse.
“James.”
“Hn?” She harshly elbows my side and glowers at me.
“Men,” She hissed, getting out of my grasp and stomping off. “It’s a wonder why women of the future still want to get married to a man after the birth of IVF!” Who the hell is IVF?
“What the hell did I do?” I ask, raising the jar. “I got the damn stuff. Isn’t that what you were vying for?”
“Not just the honey, sergeant!”
I huff, biting back saying something crude. “You might look twenty, but it’s still cradle snatching all the same, sweetheart.” She turned her pretty head and gawked at me.
“I was not – !”
“Mhm. Sure.”
She made me sleep on the floor that night (“I’ll tell Steve you snore if you don’t! ” What the hell did I do?), and refused to share the honey over breakfast.
[Day 267]
When we went to the village that day, it wasn’t to trade for goods again. I actually just wanted to grab a tourist map and a few books (“ There’s a library here ,” The nurse wanted to look at books again, for some reason) when we noticed how everyone was gathering around the little chapel at the end of the town. Adults were holding candles, kids were singing in Romanian, and everyone seemed to be slowly crowning into the small entrance. It looked like one of those Victorian Christmas cards, all snow and warm lighting.
“Sir, I think it’s Christmas.” She was right, if the big tree that glowed through the entrance wasn’t enough of an indication. Something clawed in my stomach at that fact. She grabbed my arm and gently pulled away. “We should go while there’s no eyes on us.” I nod, turning around with her.
“ Mister hunter! It’s you! Hi! ”
Take a wild guess who broke our anonymity streak. I groaned quietly, about to beg the woman next to me not take the bait, but she was already waving back to the twins. Their baby brother was strapped to his sister’s chest in a sweater and little shoes like it was his Sunday best. His cheeks were fattened up to his eyes because of the earmuffs he was wearing. “ Oh, how handsome do you look! ” She cooed at the baby. Mihai proudly smacked his tiny lips when she made little kissing noises in his direction.
“ Are you coming inside? There’s going to be cookies! We already opened presents weeks ago, so now we get to eat sweets! ” Weeks ago? It must be a tradition to open gifts early. Either way, there’s no way we were going in.
“ Of course! ” Shit.
Five minutes later, we were sitting in the back of the chapel with our heads down low in the hopes that no one would recognize me as the guy who was wanted in multiple countries. Technically her too, but she was currently taking out her tiny makeup tin from Bucharest to paint her lips red like it was a USO dance. “Did you have to do this,” I mutter, glaring at her. Her mouth was stupidly proportional too. She didn’t look up from dabbing some of the red on her cheeks as well.
“I didn’t want to disappoint the little ’uns, Buck. Sue me.”
“I will. When we get caught and sent to the Raft, I’ll make sure my attorney gets your name first.”
The service was given by the local friar. I could smell the nurse’s shampoo when she leaned over and asked “Was Jesus born today or tomorrow?”
I look at her. She looked the exact same as she did on Christmas in the war, even if my memory of her was blurry I still remember that stupid cherry line quip that flew over her head. I could see why I used it, though. “You don’t know?”
“Just answer the damn question.”
Suddenly I was glad that my mother used to get onto me about snoozing in church as I went off on a tangent about what I could remember. “…and then when King Herod heard about the Magi giving baby Jesus presents, he got pissed and killed a bunch of babies to try and cover all his bases.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, they didn’t get him.”
She stared as the friar continued a long excerpt from his big Bible. “…I’m not sure about the dates, though.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked down at her makeup tin, where a small red lipstick and liner rolled around in the casing. “The Roman sun god was also born tonight. Wouldn’t it be easier to convert the Romans if the messenger had a connection to their past faiths?”
“How the hell do you know that?”
She shrugged. “One of the books from Bucharest had a religion section. In Judaism he’s not seen as a son of God. In Islam he’s rescued from his Christian fate.”
I can’t get philosophical while trying to not look suspicious, but at least it’s nice to know she’s still smart after seventy years. “Why’d he get rescued?”
She shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe one person wasn’t enough.” A pause. “If Jesus died for humanity’s sins, he also died for what you and I did. Do you think that’s fair?”
The people around us start standing up. “I think you’d have to ask Jesus that, doll. It’s his sacrifice, not mine.” I didn’t want to talk too much about faith. Not after everything that’s happened, everything I’ve done. On our way through the sea of people, I accidentally bumped into an old lady. She dropped her glasses, so I picked them up.
“ Oh, how handsome! Thank you, young man! ” I was then given a fat red kiss on the cheek that made little miss cradle snatcher snicker behind her hand.
“She was seventy, Buck — ”
“And you’re almost a hundred, woman,” I hissed, but she just laughed harder.
“Cradle snatcher!” She gleefully pointed her finger at me. “Ooh, my daddy would have a plum fit if — ”
While she kept cackling I grabbed her hand and led us back to the safehouse before she could get too distracted by the sponge cake that was getting handed out at the door. To my chagrin she still managed to get a tin of the stuff. She babbled all the way home, something she only did if she was in a good mood.
“…and I saw this telephone, did you see it? They were playin’ music from it! No jukes!”
“You know films can be watched through phones.”
“Yes, but I have no idea how they do it. Electricity can’t possibly be in the air!”
That night we changed out of our jackets and had some of the sponge cake with leftover honey she had from the market. “I thought I was banned? Or, at least, you ate it all.”
She kept primly drinking her coffee, despite my jab. Her lips were still painted red, and some of it printed on the cup. “It’s the holidays, Sarge. Call it a pity.”
I roll my eyes. “Lucky me.” That reminds me, I grab the beat up book from my bag. “I found this at the market. I don’t know if this interested you, but if not I can use it for kindling and — ”
“ Oh, thank you, darlin’ ,” She looked so entranced by the book that I don’t even think she heard the words slip from her mouth. I say that because right after she spoke, the nurse blinked like she got caught. “I mean – I’m no medic anymore, Buck, but thank you.” Then, to my surprise, she pecked my cheek.
“...yeah. Sure.”
“I have something for you too, but I didn’t do it for the holidays. Just thought you’d appreciate it. I’ve been workin’ on it all week.” Going under the safehouse’s bed, she fished something out. A little journal looped by thread. Taking a better look when she hands it to me, it’s…drawings.
“Is that my arm?”
“I didn’t have a book to reference from, but I tried my best to remember.” That was an understatement – flipping through, the book had drawings of different kinds of prosthetic arms in graphite, with neat cursive explaining the anatomy of each joint, each artificial movement. How it connected to the nerves, how phantom limb can occur. She basically made a how-to guide for people who lost their arm to HYDRA.
“You mentioned that you didn’t have a plum clue about your arm, or the pains that came with it, so…”
“So you became an expert,” I was joking when I brought that up.
She looked sheepish. “Only what the library could give. I’m afraid that some of their copies were dated, but – ”
“No,” I say, still staring at the pencil sketches of my own arm, with little notes on the side. “It’s good. Really good. Thank you.” I wasn’t exactly fond of my arm – but it was something I had to live with. Sometimes I thought I could feel things with it, and thinking about it felt so stupid – but lo and behold, there’s a section in her little book about “old sensations and neural re-routing”. “Better than my crappy penny dreadful.”
“No way, I think this one was better than the one from Bucharest! It’s got a life of its own!”
I raised a brow. “So the other copy I got was bad?”
That made her fluster. “No, no – I just – I meant – ” I pinched her cheek, which made her burn up more.
“I’m pulling your leg.”
“...oh. You ass, James-Buchanan!” That night we both flipped through our respective gifts. I wasn’t much of a bookworm before HYDRA, but after containment I was looking for any kind of mental stimulation that wasn’t a jolt to the head. Bucharest had the book box, but here, I had nothing. It wasn’t bad, occasionally asking her what her cursive said, or making her explain something further. She’d grab my hands and trace her fingers in line with her explanation.
It was thirty minutes after my last question that I turned to ask her something about phantom limb, that I noticed her slumped over her book’s section on spinal anatomy. I pried the book from her hands and threw a blanket over her body. I wouldn’t consider tonight a proper Christmas, not with us being wanted and trying to hide away, but it wasn’t the Raft, and it wasn’t HYDRA, and I got a gift from a woman I knew I shouldn't like, so I wasn't going to complain.
Chapter 35: Before Sunrise
Notes:
A what-if chapter since I like period costumes
Chapter Text
[Day 280]
The village library was small, barely-decorated, and mostly inhabited by students and small schoolchildren, but I didn’t really care. I hadn’t had so many literary options in my life! Think about it – small-town Texas didn’t have anything, and Bucharest’s book box was at the mercy of whoever was feelin’ charitable, but here? I did the counting – twelve whole shelves of books, all at my disposal! Bucky was unsure, since a library card would mean we’d have to talk to someone, but I promised to just read in the building and leave once I finished.
It was during one of my trips here that I realized two of the shelves didn’t even carry books, but little disks. When I asked the librarian, she responded like it was the most obvious thing in the world – “ Yes, we carry films too! Would you like to borrow one? ” Suddenly I was using my fake alias for the first time in months to rent out Snow White.
I didn’t explain to the sergeant as to why I was suddenly rummaging through the village’s secondhand store’s technology section, but demanded he get me one of the screen-players that was about the size of a book. “Is that…Snow White?” He squints when we get back to the safehouse. I made a whole ordeal over it for myself – made nettle tea, took out some leftover bread to toast, and stitched the nightdress I was currently wearin’ while watching the film. Bucky, meanwhile, smelled like metal and snow because he’d been outside all day getting wood. The snow has yet to clear up, but it’s stopped intensely, at least. It had been for the last three days.
I nod. “I remember sneaking a view of it in the theatre back in Amarillo. Real pretty.” It still was – though, I suppose, Snow White being able to be so merciful after a life of hard work was rather hard for me to fathom, more than the fact that squirrels and birds followed where she sang.
Bucky took a peek at it. Since hiding, his already-long hair had gotten longer. Messier at times. It used to bother me a lot more, back when I was trying to act like HYDRA hadn’t happened, but now I’ve gotten used to it. Something about its color against his serious, pale face made me feel funny. Same with the scruff, but occasionally I’d feel it against my shoulder when we slept and it was annoying whenever he refused to sha – I need to stop sounding so damn familiar. His blue eyes stared at her making pie intently, his irises glowing a little because of the old screen’s oversaturated brightness.
“You actually liked this film when it came out?”
Was he crazy? “Of course I did. You didn’t?”
To my surprise, a snort escaped his breath. “The colors were nice, and the cartoon was decent, but…”
I scoff. “I’m surprised you even watched it.”
“My date wanted to watch it, not me.”
My turn to laugh. A lot. I ended up having to cover my mouth a little. He was handsome, no doubt, but – “You had dates ? With women?”
“Is that so shocking?”
I was fighting for my life trying not to make my reaction worse. “No - no, I mean – you said it yourself – sex appeal – just –”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “I had a lot more of a life before HYDRA. More than you, at least.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He blinked for a second before clearing his throat. “You said it yourself, didn’t you? Texas wasn’t much but dust and hunger.”
I shake my head. “So? Doesn’t mean that I was stuck there. Nursing made me more adventurous.” He was staring at me weirdly again. Jesus, what’s with him?
“...you had a soldier during the war?”
I blink. Intrusive, but whatever. “Briefly. Just a Navy guy named Jack. He flirted. We exchanged letters. Stopped after a few weeks, though. His dad seemed real particular about his image.” Really, I wouldn’t even count it as that – the men there were transferred and had to stay the night at our base before bein’ shipped off. I don't even remember his face now, and I thought he was kidding when he asked for my particulars, but he’d occasionally send me updates about life at sea. I never responded, maybe once or twice, but…what a damn minute – “What’s it to you?”
He quickly shook his head. “Just thought – never mind.” I scoffed again.
“What, did you think I was a ditz back in the day, like now? I was all business, Barnes. I didn’t have time for fun. I figured you didn’t either.”
“I wasn’t as serious as you probably were, nurse. If we met, you’d probably find me insufferable.”
I huff. “I already find you insufferable.”
That night, as Bucky stayed up cleaning his Swiss, I wondered if we’d actually get along if we met. Probably, I mused. He was a part of the 107th, so we might’ve bumped into each other. But if he was anything like he is now, or like Steve, I’d probably step over him without a second thought.
[In a hypothetical 1943 where HYDRA didn't intervene]
“Good luck, ma’am.”
Those were the last words Colonel Phillips said to me before riding me out with Margaret this morning. Well, not Margaret – turns out she hadn’t used her full and fancy name in a long while. “Agent Peggy Carter,” She formally reintroduced herself. British MI6, and has some kind of a PhD. Fancy and class, and I felt really self-conscious about my old Mary Janes next to her. To her credit, she was nice. “You needn’t worry, this group of boys are just like any other.”
“You say that, but we’re currently bein’ driven away from the original 107th men. I thought the infantry needed more nurses?” Come to think of it – “If they needed more nurses, why’d they only ask for one?”
A patient smile graced her features. “You’ll see in a minute. The medic is already on sight and treating some of the boys from their last mission. Some of the others are left on the field because they’re too delicate to move.”
“You want me to run out there?” I stare at the upcoming terrain – it was roughened by fighting, fires and explosives. There was smoke billowing from the far-off trees beyond the horizon. None of the enemy was there, but I don’t doubt some of the boys were still jumpy. I suddenly started to regret accepting my transfer.
She blinked, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You are the firing girl, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but – ” I licked my lips. “That was a one-time thing. Most of the soldiers aren’t in the middle of combat expectin’…how many of these guys are there?”
“Seven, so you’d best not lose count.”
I blanch at that. “Only seven survived?”
“No, darling – seven were chosen, seven you’ll serve.” Looking at my nervous face, which probably made me worsen my chances of respect, Agent Carter rubbed my arm and smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. They’re all gentlemen, and tough as nails. I have no doubt you and the medic will do just fine in patching them up. Often, too, if Rogers and Barnes are accurate in their plannings of raiding HYDRA bases.” Our Ford stopped suddenly at a small camp clearing. “Got that fastened tight, do you? We need you to be recognizeable.” She gestured at my little pea cloak. It was a rich blue, which made me stand out from the burnt grass and greys. Part of the uniform, I was told when given.
“What even happened here?”
“HYDRA attack,” She explained. “We found a base hidden in the hills and figured it’d be better if we used Guerilla warfare instead of waiting for backup. The plan worked, of course, but we hadn’t counted the explosives being made.”
“...explosives?”
Carter nodded. “Yes. We miscalculated – didn’t account for the grenades being made during the invasion. Human error, unfortunately, can be more fatal than gunshots at the worst times.”
I nodded, feeling my chest tighten. Right. Burns. Scrapes. Acid burns. Infections. I knew how to treat those. Still, I felt nauseous – especially lookin’ at the burnt grass and the smell of smoke filled my nose. “Just a quick job,” I say to myself. “Clean wounds, add pressure, and wrap. Help carry them back to camp.”
The morning sunrise was barely beginning to rise when I began to break my stride. The smell of sweet, wet morning dew mixed with ash. There were a few men scattered about. With bad legs, with fellow men keeping them company until help came. I guess I was help.
“’Scuse me,” I cleared my throat, seeing two men laying in the dirt. One man had dark skin and a green uniform. The other was unnaturally pale-faced and had a dirtied shirt. “Lift the leg?”
I made sure to make quick work over the injury. Gabe Jones, the healthier man introduced himself, explained that his friend Dernier got his leg scraped when a grenade went off. He was right – the shrapnel was pretty deep, and Dernier’s leg was bleeding something fierce. “You the medic?” He asked.
I shake my head. “Just the nurse. Medic’s at camp, he’ll get a better look at the leg once you boys get back.” Jones was kind enough to raise Dernier’s leg while I carefully cleaned and wrapped his ankle.
“Careful, miss, he’s heavy,” He huffed as Dernier groaned. Jones wasn’t kidding – his body nearly knocked down my own as we each took one shoulder to get under to carry.
“Who else is back here?” I couldn’t turn my head to get a good look at the dugouts, so I focused on gettin’ Dernier to the pickup instead.
“Just Barnes and Rogers,” he explained. “Rogers is fit but Barnes got a bad hit to the head. When we tried to lift him he just started sicking everywhere. Doesn’t help that his shoulder’s stuck with metal. We’re worried he’d choke if we picked him up, so…”
I nod, trying to keep my knees from buckling as we put Dernier to the pickup. Feeling a hundred pounds lighter, I sprint my way back into the field. Damn, this whole place is blown to hell. I didn’t want to think about where these would have gone if the base wasn’t stormed in.
“Over here! Help!” I perked up at the sound of a man’s yelling. There, a blond fellow in a striped uniform with a raised hand got my attention. I made my way there. A guy wearin’ a blue jacket and pants, matching my own uniform, was lying next to his crouching form. Say, he looked awfully familiar…I stopped running when I saw the star on his chest. He’s Captain America.
“Captain,” I called back, trying not to sound too surprised. “How is he?” The man next to him was also pale, practically a sheet, with his hands clutching the grass despite being unconscious. The posters won’t ever show it, but Captain America’s brows were furrowed with the kind of worry I hadn’t seen on paper.
“He’s bleeding out of his head, and his shoulder’s got stuck. I can’t pull him out without Bucky throwing a fit.” Bucky? What a funny name. I take out my small bag and start cleaning his injured head. When I started applying pressure for the bandages, Bucky’s face (which was hidden to the side before this) tried to shake in refusal. “C’mon, pal, don’t do that – ”
“It’ll feel like hell in a minute, but if he’s still it’ll feel better. Hold his head?” I started wrapping above his brow. I noticed his hair – it looked like it was combed before it got messed from the fight. Strong jaw, but a young face. He had the kind of handsome hollows that would’ve made my heart skip a beat if his eyes opened.
His eyes opened, looking directly at me. Hell.
His brow furrows, and his chest begins to rise and fall next to my knees. “...am I dead?” Captain America next to me chuckles.
“No, Buck. You just got a tumble. We got that nurse you’ve been pestering about, though.”
My brow furrows at that. Pesterin’? Must be some locker room talk. I felt his skin, initially clammy and barely-warm, get warmer under my hands as I tied the wrapping. Luckily, he wasn't turning red, so I guess he was just waking up. His eyes don’t move from my face, definitely aware of who I was. “Sergeant, we need you to stand up. Can you work with us?”
He blinked, dazed. Then shallowly swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah, I can – I can work with you…” Captain America went under one of his shoulders, and I went under the other. He was a lot lighter than Dernier, but I think it’s because the Captain’s so strong. When we got him on his knees, he retched again. I patted the sergeant’s back. The Captain winced.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“Better out than in, sir.”
We made our way back to the truck, and the four of us went back to base camp. “Not bad for your first day,” Carter hummed that night, passin’ me a canteen of water. The medic had to operate in order to get the shrapnel out of Barnes. I got to step in and help, and the whole thing took an hour that now made me fill out paperwork for prescriptions. “We’re going back to the main base soon, you’ll be able to talk to the other nurses then.” I stiffen.
“I’d rather not.” Ever since I pulled my little running stunt, and got news of my transfer, I overheard some of the nurses talk trash about me not following orders. Not all of them, but it was enough for me not to want to talk to other people for a while. “Besides, I have to study.”
“Study? I thought you nurses were trained.”
“We are, but…” I raised the book in my bag. “I want to take night classes after all of this. Better get a head start. I’m gonna just keep watch on Barnes and Dernier until then.” Carter smiled and nodded.
I made my way to the tent where the two Commandos laid asleep. “Howdy handsome,” I murmured absentmindedly to a sleeping Barnes, sitting next to his cot. Opening my book, I couldn’t help but occasionally take a peek at the muscle sector of my anatomy book – he’s…annoyingly proportional. His shoulder was wrapped and skin was cleaned, so I got a good view of his broad shoulders and defined chest. Focus, I remind myself. I need to focus.
“Hey yourself, gorgeous."
I jumped from my seat, realizing Barnes’ eyes were barely cracked open. “Sir, how’re your – ” I put my book down and turned up the lamp light next to us. His eyes looked a lot more watery in the warm glow of the bulb. I take the little flashlight in my pocket and start examining his face. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got a grenade to the ear,” He muttered, sounding husky with exhaustion. “Where am I?”
“Back at camp. We’re going back to base as soon as you and Dernier are able to be mobile.”
“You the new nurse?”
“Yessir.” I start wiping some of the sweat forming on his face with a cold cloth. He didn’t have a fever, but the humidity of the area wasn’t doing him any favors. When I make my way to his chest, his eyes make it to my hands and he starts talking again.
“You called me handsome,” Barnes murmured. OH BROTHER –
“I call everyone injured handsome, sir. Keeps them from feeling self-conscious about their scars.”
“Didn’t call Dernier handsome.”
“Dernier’s asleep.”
“So was I in your eyes,” I fight the urge to roll my eyes as I tuck the blankets back under his chin again. “C’mon, just say you think I’m pretty. I can say it back, easy – you’re really pretty.”
I deadpan. “You’ve got a lot of balls to be talkin’ like you didn’t just vomit on my Mary Janes.” That makes his eyes widen slightly.
“...sorry.” I sigh, feelin’ bad for having so much bite.
“It’s fine. You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last. Besides, these shoes are old, they can take a beating.” I take one more once-over at him. His face really did look good against the dim lamplight. Damn it. “Do you need anything else before I go?”
A small smile formed on his lips. “A kiss goodnight would be nice. Y’know, help with the pain.” EW. I turned off the lamp to hide how hot my cheeks suddenly felt. Barnes chuckled as I gathered my things to go. “Aw, c’mon sweetheart, you don’t have to be shy! Or do, it’s cute –”
“Good night , sir!”
When we got back to the barracks, Carter wanted me at her side the whole time. Thought it would be educational, since the Howling Commandos do a lot of on-the-ground work and I’d have to be aware of where they’re goin’ at all times. “The medic doesn't have to learn all of this,” I mutter, taking notes next to her at lunch. She raised a penciled brow.
“The medic won’t be getting a letter of recommendation from me or Phillips for medical school if he follows me, he’ll just be getting a fist to the face.”
I looked up, surprised. “Really?”
“Unless, of course, you’re not interested in schooling after this war. Which is perfectly acceptable, and – ”
“No, no,” I quickly say, going back to my note-takin’ over rationed mashed potatoes and toast. Thank god for Tabasco, otherwise I’d be eating even less. “I’ve got plenty of time on my hands. All the time in the world, actually.”
“Excellent, because I’ll be visiting Captain Rogers for some planning. He’s with the other Commandos celebrating, so we’ll have to fit the occasion.” I blink.
“Huh?”
“Dresses, dear. A bit old-school, but a nice bit of feeling like a lady rather than an officer or a hand for once.”
Suddenly I lost my appetite. “...we have to wear dresses?” I didn’t have a dress. I couldn’t afford much before the war, and when I finally started gettin’ paid, I did my best to just save money; and that included not buying new clothes unless necessary. Linens and underwear were a basic need that I routinely bought, but dresses? The last nice dress I had was made out of a flour sack and sewn by my mother for my birthday when I was really little. Pretty, but not useful. I suddenly felt like an ugly duckling next to a swan. A tall, leggy, British swan. Luckily the swan smiled kindly at me, seemingly not wanting to embarrass me by asking why I looked so shy.
“I can lend you one of mine. Stitch it a little so it fits you, and you’ll look so lovely that the boys will want to win the war for us.”
I stiffen at that. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly – ”
“Why not?” She asks bluntly. “I’m constantly working with leering men in order to bring this terrible chancellor down, and sometimes primming myself helps calibrate my sanity. I imagine being arms-deep in blood and sweat all day would make you want to feel the same.”
Damn her reasoning. Feeling somehow outnumbered, I nod weakly. “...alright. Thank you, ma’am.”
“Of course,” she said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Now, what are your colors? You look like you’d look lovely in midnight…”
A few hours later, I took the most meticulous wash of my life before gettin’ worn in a borrowed black dress that made me feel like it was too extreme for a quick visit. It wasn’t a dramatic gown, and the pencil skirt was as long as my ankles, but the exposed collarbone made me worried it was too low of a sweetheart neckline for a briefing. My hair was neatly brushed. I absentmindedly played with the little Red Cross necklace that I usually wore under my uniform. “I look like my rich husband just died,” I say, standing next to Carter. She was all curves and perfection in her red dress as she fixed her lipstick.
“You look like someone men wouldn’t want to bother unless they were feeling very brave,” She corrects, smiling at my shyness.
“I’m wearin’ black stockings. I never wear black.”
“Yes, and your ankles look the lovelier for it. Now come, come – let’s remind the boys who they’re fighting for.” Medical school, I remind myself as she offers me her arm to take. Medical school. When we go down some stairs and halls away from the barracks, I can hear the sound of men laughing and making jokes. “Back straight, chin up.” I quickly corrected myself.
The bar was small, cramped, and warmly lit. All of the Howling Commandos, along with some of the other 107th, were hunched over counters and tables enjoying their break from the chaos of the war. They all hushed up when we walked in, probably because the lady next to me was so pretty. A few craned their necks to get a better look. “Captain Rogers,” Carter’s voice breaks from my stupor. I let go of her arm, feeling like a lost duckling as she spoke to Captain America; who looked oddly flustered – for someone so handsome he really is quite shy. Instead I make my way to the back of the little tavern, not really feeling like drinking and just wanting to not be bothered.
“You lonely, honey?” Oh, Jesus. A stocky, blond man with a gap in his teeth sat next to me. Never mind the whole row bein’ free, he got very comfortable next to me.
“No.”
“You sure? Ladies are rare here, in the 107th. You got a boyfriend?”
I stare. “That’s none of your business.”
“Why not? What if I’m interested?” He got too close, too warm and too drunk for my liking.
“What if I’m not.”
“Aw, don’t be like that – it’s the army, let the men blow off some steam – ” He started leaning in again, and my eyes screwed shut instinctively –
“Hodge, can you move? Your big back is blockin’ the good whiskey,” A lazy voice called behind me. Familiar. “And the lady said she wasn’t interested, so go bother someone else.”
Hodge glared behind me. “I’m busy, Barnes.”
“Really?” the sergeant turned to me, hair much neater than when I last saw him and in a different jacket. “You said you didn’t want him, right?”
“Yessir.”
He looked back up, eyes innocently blinking. “You heard her.”
Hodge glared at him, then stared at me, then back at Barnes again. He muttered something under his breath before saunterin’ off. “Thank you,” I said as he walked past me to the whiskey cabinet. He smiled. “I owe you one.”
“Kinda the opposite, don’t you think?” He offered me a glass, but I shook my head. He poured himself a drink. “You patchin’ me up and all.”
“It was a minor concussion, not saving your life.”
“Agree to disagree,” He said before taking a sip. “Hell of a dress you’re wearing.”
I felt my cheeks heat up. “It’s Carter’s. She lent it to me.”
“Really? Because you wear it like it’s yours,” What’s that supposed to mean? Before I could ask, he kept going. “Is it true you ran into the open battlefield to get a guy off the ground? Dragged him on your back to camp?”
I shrugged. “I got in trouble for it.”
“And got rewarded by working for Captain America,” He points out. “Pretty good deal if you ask me.”
“And got annoyed by Hodge,” I retorted. Barnes sighed.
“He’s a jackass. Was the same with Carter. Just stay in the clear and he won’t bother you. Too much, at least.”
Medical school had a price, I suppose. “Yessir.”
His face softened a little at how down I sounded. “Chin up, nurse. It’s not like you’ll be seeing him often. We usually have our own rogue jobs. Your pretty little feet will probably be stuck running around making sure we don’t die from something dumb instead of dealing with his thirstiness."
I raise a brow. “Or dodging foreign projectiles.” He turned red at that, which made me suddenly burst out laughing. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself – !” I quickly covered my mouth to conceal my laughing red lips.
Barnes huffed. “Anything to get a dame to laugh, I guess. Especially a serious little thing like you.”
I stop guffawing and smile. “I’m not that serious.”
He scoffed. “Yes you are. The entire time you were going back and forth checking on Dernier and me, you looked so focused. I don’t think you even heard when Dum Dum stubbed his toe outside the tent.”
I blinked. “Is that why the Captain carried him in later?”
Barnes clicked his tongue. “See? Totally too-focused. You need to loosen up a little, doll. You dance?”
“Like a fish on land, sir.”
He takes another sip. “If you’re not too put off by our meet-cute – ” I rolled my eyes. “I’d be glad to give you a lesson or two. Alone, of course.” Then he looked up, where Carter was making Cap turn red by something she said. “Or make it a double date – that way you don’t think you’re the worst dancer here.”
I hum. I doubt it, not with the track I was goin’, but I couldn’t help myself. “Maybe when we’re not too busy fighting fascists, sir.” He smiled.
“So soon, I bet?”
“Sure, sir.”
I’ve dealt with unruly soldiers before. Today, however, was different. This morning was my second week at camp. I was getting used to being in a smaller group, since it was just seven soldiers and one other medic. Hell, I was gettin’ used to waking up to a camp full of boys only – none were perverts, thank God, but I hung at the back of the base when washing my face at the basin in my long nightgown. The other men were still half-dressed, and I was too comfortable in the only warm thing I had to be in any rush either.
“Ow!”
“Shit, sorry – ”
“Distracted by something pretty, Sarge?” Looking up, near the fire Barnes accidentally bumped into Dum Dum. His eyes went to me before turning pink. Dum Dum snickered.
“Shut up, Dugan.”
“Mhm.”
Considering I was the only girl at base, I figured he was just lonely. Besides, that wasn’t the crazy thing that happened to me today. Today was the first time a soldier attacked me. Now, some men are jumpy and sometimes angry when they’re brought in, but when the Commandos came back from a mission with a bunch of prisoners of war, the medic and I figured it was the trauma talking. It was in the middle of one of these checkups that a man, wide-eyed and too-still, suddenly lunged to put his hands around my throat.
“HEY – !”
Suddenly some of the guys surrounded us and tried to get the man off of me. It wasn’t until the sergeant pushed him off by force that I was able to breathe for air again. I felt Rogers scoop me up, but my eyes were focused on the current image of Barnes straddling a guy while punching his face.
“Shit – ”
“He’s probably still out of it – Bucky, do NOT – ”
“ Aaaand he’s playing hero, Jesus – ”
“Packs a strong left hook, that one!”
“Bet five on Barnes if we can pull him off!”
“Bucky! That’s enough!” Rogers barked.
“He’s going to make him worse at this rate!”
The other men pulled them apart before Rogers went back to carrying me to the tent cot where I couldn’t see the outside. “Stay here,” He patted my shoulder before running back out, for what I presume is to prevent a murder. My face burned hot with embarrassment as I could hear the yelling outside. If my throat didn’t get all closed up from the attack, I’d be cursing up a storm right now.
The next morning I was allowed to go back into my own personal tent. Since I was the only girl, I got to have one. I could see Barnes outside of it, pacing back and forth. He wasn’t wearing his standard blue jacket, instead just his sleep shirt like he hadn’t had rest. I throw a pebble at the back of his head. He quickly turned around. “Hey, you okay?”
Smack!
It wasn’t a hard hit, but it was enough to convey the message while I angrily pointed at the spot where the fight happened. Really? A fight!? He huffed.
“He choked you out, nurse – ”
I stomp my foot. No difference! It’s part of the job!
For once, his gaze darkened and his jaw locked. “You can’t even talk, sweetheart. Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t have done.”
“ I can handle myself! ” I had to get close and whisper-hiss in his ear. Before I could pull back away, his palm held the back of my neck, making me flinch hard.
“I know you can, but look at that reaction. I don’t want to see that happen to anyone, let alone someone who just wanted to help.” His blue eyes were almost brilliant in the dawn. “Your neck is black and purple, do you know that? You look like a hummingbird, and not in a pretty way.” My nightgown was white, and my neck was purple – hummingbirds had white bellies and purple throats. How melodramatic.
“ I like hummingbirds ,” I whisper, surprisingly fine with how close we were. Hodge didn’t have as much luck as Barnes did, I guess. His gaze softened.
“Yeah? They suit you. A pretty bird among a bunch of howling dogs, you oughta deserve more than this,” He removed his hand and sighed. “I know you can handle yourself. You shouldn’t have to, though.” I rolled my eyes. “Alright, alright, wise gal. I’ll get outta your hair for now.”
“ Wait, ” I whisper. Looking down, I noticed his knuckles were purple and green from impact. Grabbing some ointment from a medical crate, I carefully rub some over the irritated flesh. Barnes turned pink and pinched my cheek.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
From then on I could occasionally see him hang outside the medical tent in his spare time. He wouldn’t say anything, but he’d occasionally glare at the men who he thought were too snappy with me. What a sap.
The first major job I had to patch soldiers up as a nurse for the Commandos ended with me covered in blood and sweat. My uniform was a mess and I could hardly stand. I’d worked for twelve hours without a moment to lay back, not because the seven men were injured, but because they’d brought in some prisoners of war who needed immediate attention until a batch of medics could come our way. The entire night I was stretched so thin I was worried I’d accidentally poison someone with the wrong medication or something. Luckily that didn’t happen, but I was exhausted all the same.
Triage drained me. It always made me feel terrible, but something about the medic just firmly leaving some of the injured boys to their own devices made me feel sicker than usual. By the time I’d finished my shift, I’m pretty sure we’d lost more than a few men we initially estimated. My eyes were dry by the time I stepped out into the dawning Sun, and I didn’t doubt that I looked a mess in my uniform.
“You look like hell, nurse.”
I didn’t even respond when I heard a familiar voice come from nearby. It hurts to blink, let alone speak. So I didn’t. Barnes, who himself looked exhausted from the mission, came up to me and the crate I was sitting on.
“Hey, you with me?” I wasn’t. “When was the last time you ate something?” More quiet. He cursed. “Hell, wait here.”
He ran off, and when he came back, his hands were carrying a small tin of hot rations and crackers. A water canteen was balanced under his arm. He dipped a cracker into the cheesy broth ration and lifted it to my lips. “C’mon, I know you’re tired, but you need to eat something. Open up.” I reluctantly take a bite. Then another, then another. He smiled. “There you go. You already look like a doll, you don’t have to act like one.”
I looked up, suddenly feeling my eyes water. “I want to go home,” I quietly admitted. I had no idea where home was, but I couldn’t stand the smell of smoke and dirt anymore. I let a quiet sob escape my lips as I rubbed my eyes again from the sun. The sergeant put the rations down and put his palms under my elbows.
“Yeah?” He murmured. “So do I. We’ll get there soon, okay?”
I shake my head. “No we’re not.”
“Yes we are, we’re closer than we were before, just a few more HYDRA bases,” He wiped my tears with his hands. “C’mon, don’t cry on me. You’re too pretty to be crying over us silly soldiers.” A sharp breath escaped my lips and he suddenly buried my face in his chest. I clung to his jacket and sobbed as he ran his fingers through my hair. “Shh, sh. You’re going to get sick at this rate, sweetheart. We can’t exactly nurse a nurse.” He stands up from kneeling and offers me his hand. “C’mon. I think my cot is the only one here that’s empty. You need some sleep and privacy, I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”
True to his word, he took me to his own tent and let me sleep for a couple of hours. At some point I woke up from my slumber and overheard him talk outside — “I swear, Steve, if this damn war goes on for much longer…”
One time in my tent, I could overhear some yelling. The sun wasn’t even out yet, so I first groaned into my sheets as I prayed whoever was throwin’ hands would soon get knocked the hell out. I was so busy that night, I didn’t even properly change out of my uniform, just slumped into a cot with a blanket. It was soon that I felt a hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me awake. It was Captain Rogers, looking very apologetic.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but…”
I deadpan. “What.”
“Hodge and Barnes are at it, and it’s about you. At this rate they’ll wake everyone in camp and — ” He sighed. “He needs a reminder not to cause a fuss when it comes to dames.”
I nod, rubbing my eyes and getting up. Going out of my tent, Barnes was in a Henley and pants while Hodge looked even worse for wear. We’d picked up some soldiers that needed patching up the other day. They were both glaring at each other, but Hodge looked smug. If Barnes didn’t have such a death glare on him, I’d be having more butterflies in my stomach in seeing him in only his Henley. Him and his collarbones.
“Don’t take is personally, Barnes, just — ”
“Just what? Say it again, I dare you — ”
I quickly cleared my throat. I was still half-asleep, and glared at both men for causing a fuss. “Mornin’, sergeant,” I came up next to him. “Why don’t you go back to sleep, hm? Sun ain’t been out and everyone else is snoozing — ” Gabe, Dernier and Rogers, who woke up to the ruckus scoffed. “Bad for your blood pressure, I’m sure.”
His eyes don’t leave the other man. “He said he slept with — ”
“Really? Interesting,” I yawn, putting my hand on his chest to rub. Holy hell, it’s sturdy. I shake my head, remembering I can’t afford a baby out of wedlock. “Why don’t you tell me all about it in my tent, hm? I got a cot in there just for you.” That’s a lie, it’s for other nurses, but who are we kidding here? Barnes’ jaw is still locked as I pull his arm again. “C’mon, sir, you’re just stressed, that’s all. There you go.”
“ When we bicker, we get laps. When Sarge almost kills a guy, he gets to tent-share with the nurse?” Gabe huffed. The other guys rolled their eyes as I walked past them with a pissy man. Rogers tilted his head.
“Relax, Captain. He’s gonna take the other cot. It’s only for two hours before sunrise anyways.” He sighed but nodded. When we made our way back into my tent, I realized I made a bit of a mistake — there was only one cot, not two. My other tent at the other base had two cots, not this one. Shit. “I — hey!”
Barnes suddenly pulled me with him to the edge of the cot. He laid back and then held me to his chest. “Sleep. Before I punch the son of a bitch for saying he slept with you.”
“You’re an idiot, sir.”
“Sleep, woman.”
It was when he thought that I was asleep did I actually wake up. I could feel him playing with my hair. “You’re trouble and a half for my head, you know that?” he murmured.
[Day 290 - Back to Reality]
You’d think I wouldn’t be complaining if I ever woke up to a muscular, shirtless man chopping wood outside my cabin. Unfortunately, I would.
Thwack!
“Bucky, what the hell? It’s three in the morning!”
Thwack!
“Go back to sleep if you’re tired.”
Thwack!
I glower at him. There was snow, I was shivering at the steps, but the man just kept swinging like the tree insulted his mother. They don’t call him the Winter Soldier for nothin’, I guess. “Sir, if you don’t come back inside right now I’ll scream and cost us our location.”
Thwack!
“You wouldn’t.”
Thwack!
“I would! I’m tired!”
Thwack!
“You’ve been asleep for seventy years, I somehow doubt that.”
Thwack!
“James-Buchanan, I swear to GOD – ” I hate how well-defined his back muscles are in the moonlight. If my hormones weren’t currently defrosting from HYDRA’s torture, I’d want to study muscle anatomy with them. Unfortunately, I was in no mood. I take a deep breath and walk over to where he was and put my hand on his back. Solid. “Please put the axe down, sergeant. I’m tired and for once I didn't have any nightmares of the compound.” That makes his movements stop, like he remembered what empathy was. He turned around, eyes searchin’ and tired.
“You had a good sleep?”
“Real nice. Almost tasty. I can see why those kids dreamt of sugar plums, and all that junk.” His shoulders slumped a little as he put the axe down. “I’m guessin’ you didn’t?”
Bucky nodded. “...I wanted to hit something.”
My anger lessened a little. “Well, you can always fall back asleep and try again. Come back to sleep with me?” He sighed and followed. “Thank you.”
With the wood he’d let out his anger on, the room became much warmer as he heated the old stove. I wondered if all safehouses were this shitty – Bucharest’s was old and poor, this one was making us live like it was medieval times, etc. When Bucky joined me in bed, he sighed. I shivered, and he pulled me close. “You’ll freeze at this rate,” He muttered. I grumble and doze off again.
Before sunrise, I could feel something cold touching my head. I realized it was his metal fingers, despite my eyes being shut. Bucky was playing with my hair. “You’re trouble and a half for my head, you know that?” He murmured. I nuzzled closer, proud that I was no man’s peace. That’s what I think he meant, anyway.
Chapter 36: Insult to Injury
Chapter Text
[A hypothetical 1943]
Aside from the indestructible Captain Rogers bein’ able to walk off a bullet within a couple of hours (He kept apologizing when he got shot through the stomach and made me almost cry, the damn bastard), the rest of the Howling Commandos, to my surprise, were painfully mortal. Dernier has dislocated his shoulders three times now. Dum Dum gets terrible bruises everywhere, Morita gets concussed whenever he acts like a hero, and the list goes on and on. Tonight, the sergeant decided to get his legs taken out by electric HYDRA batons. I had no idea what those even were until he was carried into camp on a stretcher, shaking and sweating. When I pressed on the purple-red wound, he cried out in pain so loudly you’d thought I’d stabbed him. “Residuals,” Rogers explained. “He’s getting literal aftershocks. They’ll eventually wear off, if the lab reports we stole can be trusted…”
“Jesus Christ, sir,” I mutter while looking at the white-faced Barnes. I’d seen him in action from afar – he’s taken out men miles away with a single, quick bullet, easily shank men with the small knife in his boot, sneak without the sound of steps, and would annoy the Captain with a pushup contest during training sessions. He’d always lose, but the men would always try to keep count of a new record – he got to a hundred before slumping to an apologetic Rogers, who wasn’t even breakin’ a sweat. Strong, essentially.
Being the only nurse for these men had stretched me thin at times – we’d run low on supplies after gettin’ injured, or blown up, or even just giving things away to others who needed it more. It meant I had to get crafty with the system in order to get things. “How did you get a new load of morphine so quickly?” Captain America asked in amazement as I recorded a new shipment. It was a small case, but more than enough for the men.
I smirk. “You’d be surprised to see how generous higher-ups get when you mention the welfare of random ladies who happen to be friends with their wives,” A pause. “Of whom they somehow know intimately well.”
He bit back an amused smile. “Now ma’am – ”
I blinked innocently. “Sir? What? Am I not supposed to be concerned over my fellow countrymen? Especially children that their wives don’t know about? They deserve homes too, don’t they?”
He shakes his head but doesn’t stop smiling. “Just patch up Bucky before he starts crying for his mother. We’ll be back by morning.”
“Yessir. Good luck on the mission.”
Aside from occasionally getting up to change his leg bandages, I didn’t have to do much for the sergeant. After all, he’s a heavy sleeper and didn’t even react when I accidentally dropped a bunch of noisy tools on the ground. I fell asleep and woke up before sunrise, uneventful as I got cleaned and dressed for the day when I finally heard groaning.
“Ugh…” Turning around, the sergeant was trying to get up from his cot. I stopped combing my hair and made my way to him. “What happened?”
I press my hand to his chest to lay him back down. “You got shocked, sir. HYDRA batons.”
“That’s why my head is killing me…” He groaned again. I make quick work of checking and refreshing his bandages, of which I realize his eyes were on me. “Where are the others?”
“Out on a mission. Should be back in time for breakfast.”
Suddenly Barnes’ eyes were more alert. “No one else is here?”
“Just us, sir.”
He shook his head. “You can’t – that’s too dangerous,” His hands began to clench and unclench. “One woman alone, in the countryside, with an unconscious soldier? No one can protect you out here…”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m just fine, sir. I have protection.”
“A knocked out soldier doesn’t count as protection, nurse.”
“Who said anything about soldiers?” I raised my skirt slightly to show my ankle. Strapped on top of each stockinged thigh was a vest pocket Colt. His eyes widened for a second before I straightened the fabric over my legs again. “Agent Carter gave me them and taught me how to shoot before bein’ sent out with you boys.”
His eyes were still on my skirt. “Killer,” He swallowed. Clearing his throat, he went back to my face. I was gettin’ a fresh shirt for him to change into. “You always this prim in the mornings?”
I shrug, resuming back to fixing my hair and lipstick. “I’m a girl living with a bunch of boys. Least I can do is not fall into the majority.”
I turn around when he starts peeling his shirt off and changes into the other. “This one’s softer,” He murmured from behind. Turning around, he's running his fingers over his clean shirt, which was technically old and worn. “Why?”
“Asked Morita for a splash of vinegar from his fancy pack when doing laundry,” The man liked to carry a small bottle as a “multitool” for “housekeeping” in between fighting fascists. “Traded him with my spare toothbrush for the rest of his old bottle. Then I just threw your shirt in there for good measure.”
“Thanks,” Barnes looked surprised at my niceness. “You trade often?”
“When I have to,” I hum, then turn back around to administer some medicine. It’s not morphine, but a shot of some nasty syrup to keep his throat clean. “Open up.” He makes a face.
“Hell no.”
“Sir, please.”
“Nurse, that’s disgusting, please – ” I deadpan, not moving from my spot. He groaned. “I’m gonna smell like bitters for the rest of the day. You ever kissed a guy after he’s had a few bitters?”
“Sergeant, you have to take this, we’re too far from the nearest hospital to do anything if you get sick,” Then an idea hits my head. “I might kiss you if you drink this. Bitters and all.”
His back straightened at that. “Would you?”
“Just might, but I don’t lock lips with men who don’t listen to their prescriptions.”
His lower lip pursed as he nodded, taking the cup from my hand. “To health and dames,” He mutters before taking a deep swig. “GUH – ” He instinctively gagged at the taste. I sympathetically patted his pack as he fought the urge to vomit. After a minute, he lifted his head again. “Do I get a reward kiss now?”
I hum. “Maybe. If I like you.” Leaning in, I could smell the bitter tinge on his breath. Yeah, no, I’m not kissing that. Besides, the Commandos will be back any minute – and I'd rather die than get caught makin' out with Captain America's best friend, by Captain America. All that bein’ said, I still lean in.
“Finally, hadn’t had a gal since…” I could feel the sergeant’s hand on my jaw before the warmth of his hot skin nearly grazed mine.
Splash !
“Hey!” He exclaimed as I took a canteen hidden at my side and flicked the water to his face.
“Cool down, soldier. Did you really think I’d kiss you? With that breath?”
Barnes opened and closed his mouth like a trout. “...maybe.”
I roll my eyes. “Try again, sir.”
When the rest of the Commandos came back from their mission, they had no idea why the sergeant was in a grumpy mood. “You alright, Buck? You’re red as a beet,” Rogers snickered.
He stared at me while I calmly patched Dum Dum up like a mother ought to (“ Gosh, sir, your muscles don’t quit, do they? ” “ No ma’am, they sure don’t. Haven’t felt a dame’s delicate hands in a while… ”). “Dandy. I’m real dandy.”
Later, Gabe Jones actually managed to find some extra bandages from the HYDRA base they’d raided. “Better we use them than HYDRA, right?” He shrugged. I gaped. We’d been runnin’ low! I thank him and kiss his cheek. “Mon dieu!” He jokingly exclaimed, then saluted me. “Permission to break rank, Captain!” Rogers laughed while Bucky muttered to himself about brotherly betrayal. All in all, a good way to start the day.
[Back to reality - Day 300]
I had a terrible start to my day. It started when I fell asleep the night before – I had a terrible nightmare about gettin’ cut open and gutted for the sake of HYDRA. Except when I opened my eyes on the operating table, who do I see? Not some little, bald, fat man with glasses but the Winter Soldier. He held the scalpel like it was a gun, pointed up before holding my throat down so I wouldn’t get up.
“У субъектов нет горла, чтобы говорить.”
Subjects don’t have throats to speak with.
Before I could scream for help, he’d plunged the blade into my belly without a second thought. Luckily I’d woken up, but I didn’t feel comforted at all. I’d skipped breakfast despite the fact that we’d be hunting and foraging all day today, and ignored Bucky’s questioning stares when we got dressed and started our trek through the snowy woods.
The more I thought about it, the more confused I became. Bucky isn’t the Winter Soldier. I knew that in my soul, I wasn’t stupid, but it still felt wrong to have nightmares of his body when it wasn’t in his control. Looking at him now, what has he done for me that’s been so terrible? Minus the initial drownin’ attempt in Bucharest, where he assumed HYDRA was tryin’ to take him back, he’s generally left me alone. Let me stay with him, even read books despite the security risk. He let me annoy him with factoids even after terrible nightmares and quiet walks. Even when we shared a bed, he never acted like a pervert about it, and stuck to one side. It made the cruel, dead-eyed image of him as the Winter Soldier even more jarring in my mind.
I shake my head. Seventy years of containment wouldn’t go away so easily, I knew that, but it still felt terrible to think about. The same hands that pulled me out of my drowning attempt were the same hands that once beat me to a pulp in Siberia. Even his name – the Winter Soldier versus Bucky Barnes? One sounded serious while the other sounded childish.
“Careful, here,” My thoughts stopped as I nearly tripped over a thick root. Bucky put his hands on my waist to gently lift me from the gap. When he put me back down, he just nodded and went back to hiking. See what I mean? A few ice-sleeps ago, the last time his hands held my waist was to body-slam me. It wasn’t personal, but it was jarring all the same. I wonder if he feels something like that towards me. Without any preconceptions of us knowin’ each other before HYDRA, does he see me as a cover of Subject Seventeen? Or does he still see the savage puppet who occasionally flutters around in his missions, but who no longer gets shocked when she speaks out of line? Is he aware he can order me around? It doesn’t seem to fully process that he technically could – lower his voice and speak a certain tongue of HYDRA Russian, and I’d be all his to do as he wished.
The only reason why I’m even thinking about this now is because the wonder of finally bein’ free has melted away after hiding for so long. That, along with Bucky being a lot less cold to me after my trip to the river has made me feel like something is terribly off.
BANG!
I flinched suddenly at the sound of gunfire going off. It’s just my fake husband killing a real rabbit. He’s so nonchalant about pulling the trigger, that I sometimes wonder about how much muscle memory. Then his eyes move to my tense body, softening a little.
“Sorry, should've given you a heads-up.”
I shrug. “I should be used to it by now, shouldn’t I?” I watch as he walks over to collect our dinner. “Y’know, I might go vegetarian after Carpathia. This all-carnivore diet is slowly making me sick of meat.” He grunted in acknowledgement. “We should hide in a yummier country next. Turkey or India.”
“And what about the officers who’d arrest you at the airport? Do you think your reasoning would get you out of the Raft, that you risked containment for…what? Curry?”
“Curry is worth riskin’ arrest, I believe,” I smirk, but it doesn’t make my eyes crease. We trudge along the sludge of snow until I hear some chirping. “You up for some roast bird?” He nodded, cocking his gun again. I first consider throwing a pebble at an estimated spot, but then have a better idea: Chr-rp! Chr-rp! Chr-rp!
Suddenly, a flurry of birds come chirping back, two or three even come fluttering out of their tree to see who it is.
BANG!
Then comes the wider flurry of duck, all scattering away at the sound of Bucky’s bullet. After taking a moment to see the birds fly away like leaves to the wind, he asks – “How did you know how to do that? The chirping?” - while collecting our kill.
“Something I learned as a kid.” There was this rich girl in my class, Forgothername, where she once showed off her pet bird for show-and-tell. A buttery yellow canary who sang when tweeted at. After watchin’ Forgothername chirp, I just imitated her call to the bird during recess. It caused a fuss when the bird began to try and fly out of its cage, unaware there was no possible mate for them. Forgothername was so mad at me she told the teacher I’d almost made her lose her pet. Not wanting her daddy to sue them, they beat my hands and made me write a letter to Forgothername. I still remember what I wrote:
For XXX,
Understand I meant no harm in singing to your bird. The
Conscientious choice of alarming your bird was cruel.
Know that I am deeply sorry.
Your bird was a victim to my poor choices.
Only time will be able to show my change in character, and I hope you
Ultimately see it.
I wrote the letter out in the snow for Bucky to understand what I meant, and when he took a good read at it, I saw his teeth flash in an amused huff. “Did she understand what you wrote?”
I rolled my eyes. “Nah. Too dumb. Flew right over her head.” He shook his head with a snort. “I’m surprised you don’t know how to chirp. Thought HYDRA took their time to drillin’ shit into you Soldiers’ heads.”
“Languages aren’t singing.”
“Oh, so do I know somethin’ that you don’t?” I tease, but he hardly takes the bait. “I could teach you, you know. It’s not too hard.”
“I’m tone deaf.”
“Who said anything about notes, Buck? Just try to copy my lips. It’s just targeted whistlin’ at the end of the day.”
I felt self-conscious, suddenly, as his eyes wouldn’t leave my mouth as I formed a whistling position. I made a simple chirping tune, slow movements to show when my muscles would fold to make the illusion of a chirp by skipping a beat in the whistle. “Wait,” He murmured, lifting his flesh hand. He hesitated for a moment before holding my jaw. For a moment I thought he’d kiss me, and the closeness made my cheeks heat up. “Do it again?” I form another low whistle-chirp. He tries to copy – emphasis on try. It just sounds like a sad hoot, though. I bite back a laugh as he let go of my jaw to roll his eyes. “Not everyone was a bird in their past life.”
I skipped ahead of him in the snow, occasionally chirping mating calls just for the fun of it. After a beat, he’d try to copy, even if it was just a low, poor whistle. It was sweet. Playful, even. I hadn’t had playfulness in my vocabulary in seventy years.
“Argh!”
That’s when my day went from bad to good to terrible, when a sudden shock of pain shot up my leg. Looking down, hidden in the snow, was a rusted bear trap chomping on my left leg. Bucky, who was trailing a ways behind me, was suddenly sprintin’ to my direction. Something about the pain made me panic, the suddenness of it reminding me of the electroshocks that HYDRA would rub through my body at the push of a button. It’s why I was frantically trying to tear my leg away from it, trying to avoid feeling something jolt in my metalled bones.
“Easy, easy – shit, stop moving – ” My face burned as Bucky knelt to my thrashing ankle. Without a wince he put both his hands to the trap and began to try it open. It quickly snapped open with a groan, which made him fling one of the jaws to one end of the forest and another jaw to the other side before catching my buckled knees. “Shh, sh. It’s okay, you’re okay. I’ve got you, sweetheart. You’re fine.”
But I wasn’t – my leg was bleeding something fierce, and the pain was still burning over my skin. It must’ve triggered a nerve, or something – even if it didn’t reach bone, it hurt like hell. Looking down, the white snow was now slowly dripping red. Something, I doubt, could be fixed with the tiny thread and needle of the cabin.
“Village,” I sob, clutching onto his shoulders as he turned us back around to the safehouse. “We have to go to the village!”
He didn’t answer. I couldn’t see his face, as he hastily threw me over his shoulder and started going faster to the upcoming shack. Once back inside, he hastily set me to bed. “Bucky, you can’t – ”
“I know,” He hurriedly began to rummage for something. His gloves – he hastily covered his metal and flesh fingers before going into his backpack. He hadn’t touched it since coming from Bucharest. My leg was making me groan louder, the more my ankle was outstretched. He pockets some things into his jacket before scooping me up again, this time with more delicacy. “When we get there, keep crying. I’ll handle most of the talking. You’re my wife for the next two hours.” I nod, the pain and embarrassment making me want to die.
The walk to the village was thirty minutes even when you ate breakfast and jogged across non-snowy earth. Bucky, as if he remembered what he was injected with back in 1945, sprinted down with what I knew was at least half the time without breaking a sweat. His speed made my leg bounce, making me occasionally let out a cry. When the clearing began to show sleepy buildings with grey, slated roofs, I buried my face in his neck. Too embarrassed, the blood in my ears drowned out any noises that might’ve come from people who saw us.
I knew we were in the village’s little emergency clinic when the air around was a lot softer, a lot warmer. I also felt stubbled lips press against my forehead. “ You’re alright, doll. Don’t worry. ” Lifting my head, I noticed that Bucky’s jaw was locked while looking at me. I realized why soon enough – there were security cameras at the entrance. Feeling sicker, I pulled his face in for a trembling kiss, hoping his face would be covered if it was occupied with me. He took a sharp breath between my lips. A nurse quickly noticed us (they must not get a lot of people) and waved us over.
I was soon put on a wheeled stretcher and taken to a small, white room. The blinding white lights made me feel sick – they were the same kind of neon-pale that the HYDRA compound had. I’d always get dry, pained blinks because of how long I’d been made to lay down on my back and let them cut me open for study. I quickly grabbed the edge of Bucky’s jacket and tugged him to stay at my side while he was gettin’ questioned. Luckily they didn’t ask me much, safe for pain and my fake name, which I gave with a shaky sob that made it clear that I was in no mood for talkin’. Bucky handed them fake documents for identification and we somehow managed to get cleared without a question. He put a chair next to my stretcher and sat on it whilst we waited for someone to patch me up.
“ You need to get out of here, ” I whisper when the door closes. “ You can’t – if they catch you – ” I wasn’t even sure what I was saying at this point. All I could think of were the cameras – one good shot, and he’s sent to the Raft. Or worse, HYDRA somehow catches on and gets to him. “ – I can handle this on my own, you have to – ”
“ Shut up, ” He hissed, but there was no heat to it. His eyes were still focused squarely on my leg. “ You said it yourself – we’re not going back. We won’t. I’m not risking leaving you for HYDRA either, so shut up. ”
“ I only said that because you said it first ,” Recalling what he said when we first met. The first thing he said and made it very clear – he’d rather do anything than go back to Siberia, to become the Winter Soldier. An unspoken suicide pact was vaguely understood between us, then. So why was he staying? Better we go our separate ways than to risk both of us gettin’ shipped back. “ You should still go. ”
He shook his head. “No.”
“ Why? ” Bucky hesitated, looking down at the ground in contemplation before lifting his head again. Before he could open his mouth, the doctor came in to properly clean and treat my leg. It wasn’t bad, to my relief. I still cried to avoid talking, but he explained that it just gashed through my skin. Terrible shock, that’s all. My trauma must’ve made the feelings worse. My ankle was lightly wrapped and I was given some generic painkillers, recommended to come back in some time. We both knew that wasn’t possible, but nod anyways. When he started suggesting a possible x-ray, which surely would’ve revealed my identity, I quickly interrupted by saying I just wanted to go home. Despite the concerned frown, the man nodded and gave Bucky some scheduling dates and advice. We forwent the wheelchair they offered us, a watery laugh even escaping my lips when Bucky lifted me again in front of the curious nurse who was now no longer questioning us.
“Thank you,” I whispered again as we made our way back to the safehouse. I was still terrified of the security cameras – when I brought this up with Bucky, he shook his head.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“How? Did you steal some HYDRA tech before leavin’, or something?”
“Just an old kill switch.” I knew what he was talking about – HYDRA had these special little remotes that could easily kill power across an area when aimed right. He was probably going to kill the camera’s live feed when we got back. “It’s dying, but it can probably handle one more push.”
When we got back inside the safehouse cabin, Bucky stepped outside to do what I assumed was removing our tracks. He laid me down on our bed before stepping out, and a few minutes later stepped back in. “I don’t know how to pay you back for this, Buck,” I murmured as he peeled off his gloves. I turned my head so he could change.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Then why did you do it?” The rustling behind me stopped.
“Would you have rather I left you in the snow?”
“No, I – ”
“Then don’t worry about it,” he resumed changing. I turned my head back around when I felt the space beside my bed sink with weight. Bucky had changed to an old Henley and sweats. “The weather is going to get warmer soon anyways, so just focus on recovering before spring.”
“Why so?”
“Tourists are more likely to come when it’s not freezing outside. If we have to move, it’ll be when the snow clears.” Oh. I hadn’t considered that. Now I wished I wasn’t so damn careless with myself. He must’ve noticed I was startin’ to spiral, because he put his left arm around my shoulder and gathered me to his chest. “Go to sleep. You run too cold.”
I sighed and shook my head. “You run too warm.” I place one hand over his chest and another under my cheek. I thank him again. He clicked his tongue. “What? It’s true – you’ve been a better big brother to me these past few months than my real one had for the twenty years we’d lived together!”
He stiffened after I said that. Was it something I said? Did he not consider me close? Before I could apologize, he ruffled my hair. “...yeah. Brother. That’s me.” Before I could press on, he turned the small lamplight next to us off. “Go to sleep, kid.”
But I couldn’t. Did I overstep? He had a real sister, probably now all gone – ugh, how could I be so self-centered? I forget other people came from loving families, with normal siblings. I probably am a nightmare compared to her, and tried to insert myself into something personal. I didn’t want to assume anything personal in case he didn’t feel the same – it’s not like he ever responded well to my fake-flirts. Idiot, I’m an idiot!
Chapter 37: Second Sonder
Chapter Text
[Butcher Yossef - Day 310]
Because the village was land-locked by the mountains, Yossef hardly ever expected new customers. Sure, on occasion a relative would visit, or some hiking tourists, but otherwise the whole place was a naturally-gated community. You’d be hard-pressed to find anything new here, and people preferred it that way. Besides, everything here was self-sufficient – one shop sold clothes, another had vegetables, another had cosmetics and hygiene…everything ran on its own. Aside from the city imports, no one really went beyond the road.
It’s why, of course, Yossef was surprised to have a hunter come to his shop for the first time in ages. He was tall, strongly-built, young, probably mid-to-late twenties, with a heavy stubble and long brown hair that reached his jaw. He always kept his head down and spoke in a low tone, as if reluctant to even be interacting with anyone. He didn’t even haggle, which made Yossef always feel bad and throw in a discount without even mentioning it.
His wife was a different matter entirely. Yossef almost didn’t notice her at first, just because she always hung behind him and spoke quietly. She was more shy than reserved, though, and would give smiles to Yossef and his wife whenever she put her basket up for checkout. “ Maybe they’re ex-military, ” She theorized. “ At least the man is. Maybe his girl’s just shy. ” It would explain the game they brought in – always clean kills, single bullets, and always either big or multiple. A large deer slung nonchalantly over his shoulder. A clutch of ducks. Once, a large elk at the crack of dawn.
“ Doesn’t that hurt your back ? The snow must’ve made this even harder to carry! ” Yossef once asked as the hunter set the animal, neatly-covered and wrapped, onto the weighing table. That was the other thing – the hunter’s wife handled the shopping, and she hardly ever bought enough to compensate for the weight. Her husband would come with massive creatures, and all they’d leave with would be a small bag of rice, some tomatoes, a bottle of yogurt and maybe a small cut of lamb.
The hunter shrugged. “ Used to it, ” His voice was low and wiry, like he wasn’t used to conversation. Yossef would busy himself with weighing and cutting the animal while the other man would just awkwardly sit in the front until his wife came back from the store next door. She’d walk in, and he’d stand at attention the moment she did. Looking at the stuff, Yossef would usually make polite small talk with her, realizing she’s a lot more open than her husband.
“ Lamb and rice? ” Yossef guessed as he checked her basket once. The wife gave a small smile and nodded. Reaching from under the counter, he added a small bag of spices. “ Put some of this with the rice as it cooks and the meat as it marinades. It’ll taste better. ”
And she’d always looked surprised at the kindnesses. “ Oh, no, I’m not – ”
“ No, it's alright, your husband’s work definitely covers this little thing. Don’t worry about it. ”
She’d smile again, this time reaching her eyes, and nod. “ Thank you, sir. ” A beauty, his wife once remarked. And, admittedly, she was – if you could see beyond the boyish clothes (he was sure she was just wearing her husband’s jacket) and the always-lowered chin, she was a picture. Pretty in a way that reminded Yossef of his great-grandmother in old photos, when he once saw her at Christmas mass with red lips like it was 1943.
All in all, they were quiet customers. The hunter had a reputation for being big, scary and mysterious by hardly speaking to people, but Yossef was pretty sure it was because he was just socially awkward, not because he had some kind of a dark secret. No, perhaps not, especially with how he’d always soften whenever his wife would come into view. Whenever she’d take long talking to Yossef, the hunter would develop a habit of playing with the ends of her hair without her even noticing. Sometimes she’d come in with a non-essential, like a bar of perfumed soap or little bracelet, and all he’d do is nod in approval. “ You look cold, you need more fat, ” He once overheard the hunter gently scolding her outside his shop. His gloved hands were carefully tying the bracelet to her wrist.
“ It’s not my fault I’m sick of mountain meat, ” She’d smartly retort.
They’d always leave before the sun had fully risen, and always with him carrying their things in one arm and the crook of her elbow in his other.
[Andrei and Alina - Day 317]
Alina was dared by Elena who was dared by Vasili to go to the hunter’s cabin. Rumors of the old shack that was thirty minutes away and hidden deep in the snowy mountains where it was haunted by ghosts past. “ Someone was killed there! ” Vasili swore once in the middle of lunch, but the other kids rolled their eyes. They think they would have heard their parents talk about such a thing from when they were kids, no? To their surprise, it was true!
“ It’s not something that we like to talk about, ” Alina and Andrei’s mother admitted when they asked her after school. Mihai had just woken up from his nap and was being breastfed under a scarf. “ But…yes. The old lodge does have some rather bad luck. No one who lives there lasts long. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone coming back alive. ” They went quiet after that, safe for the baby’s hungry little snuffles. “ Do not go there, kids. ”
They went there.
In their defense, the plan was foolproof – just go and check it out before their mother woke up. Come back before anyone even notices. The first hiccup started at home, however – the twins were getting ready to sneak out when Mihai started randomly crying, ever the light sleeper. That’s when Andrei suggested – why not take the baby with them? Give him some milk before they go and it’ll be fine. The second hiccup came with actually finding the cabin. Snow was everywhere, and the trees got thicker as they went deeper into the woods. At some point Alina tripped and they all started screaming because they thought they heard someone – so then they ran. Luckily the safehouse came into view after twenty minutes of getting lost and panicking, so much so the kids would have shrieked even more if it weren’t for the roofs of the village peeking beyond the edge of the hills.
“ Who the hell is there?”
“AAAAAAAAH – ”
Right, that was the other thing – they weren’t alone. Turns out people were already living in the shack. A big, broad, shadowy-faced man with sharp blue eyes made all three of the kids scream and duck for cover. Mihai started wailing for his mama, and that’s when they knew the jig was up. The scary man took one look at the kids, cursed, then started scolding them while taking the baby out of Andrei’s carrier to quiet him down. His wife came out later, much kinder but just as reserved. When they got back to the village, they got a terrible earful from their mother.
The one upside to the whole thing was that the twins got bragging rights – they went to the haunted shack and lived! Sure, there were already people living there, but they didn’t add that part. People just thought the new hunter and his wife were just from the out skirting homes, not up the mountains. Mostly - they did occasionally let things slip.
“ Missus Hunter !” Alina once spotted the couple walking from the butcher shop in the early morning. She was babysitting Mihai and waved. The husband stiffened, like he hated the sudden attention, but his wife beamed and waved back, making her way to them.
“ Oh, how are you? Are you keeping warm and eating well? ” She crouched to talk better. Mihai cooed, which made her giggle and pinch his cheek. “ Yes, I know you eat well, you fat little angel. Getting bigger than when we first met! I’m surprised your little wings haven’t fallen off yet! ” He squealed and squished his double chin into himself, like he was bashful of the attention he got from the pretty lady.
“ But he has no wings, Missus Hunter! ”
“ Oh? Really? Then how is your baby brother such an angel? ”
“ We have to go, dear. ” Alina looked up to see the hunter awkwardly standing behind her, patting her back. His wife sighed and stood up. Alina waved at the leaving couple. The man paused for a moment before stiffly waving back.
[Friar Ion - Day 324]
The couple would come down once a week to sell meat and get supplies. Friar Ion thought they were a curious duo, since they always went and left early, but figured they were just shy and preferred to be practical. They even went to the chapel on Christmas, so who was he to judge?
They hardly ever came on Sundays, though. Unless seven days passed and eight was a Sunday, whilst others would come down to attend service they wouldn’t. Again, maybe they weren’t very religious, but Friar Ion figured it must get lonely living in the woods.
One day the hunter’s wife stared curiously outside the little church. She peeked inside, looking at the stained glass portraits of baby Jesus and Mother Mary at the farthest wall. “ Would you like to come in? ” Friar Ion politely asked. She jumped, not realizing he was sweeping next to her, but quickly collected herself and shook her head with a polite smile.
Another day the hunter himself did something similar, staring at the wooden cross at the front of the church. Curious for an interaction, Friar Ion politely asked, “ We have Sunday dinners every week. Would you like to come to tonight’s? We’re also holding extra confessionals after dessert. There will be chocolate cake. ” The hunter hesitated, like he was tempted to say yes for a moment. He was handsome, but like his beautiful wife he was guarded. He then shook his head.
“ No thank you, father. ”
[Dr. Balan - Day 335]
Dr. Balan was dealing with a terrible predicament for the past few weeks – his cameras weren’t working! His computers too, but luckily he always had backup medical tech just in case. But security cameras? Those usually took a while to come and install. He thought he’d be smart and install some himself from the secondhand store until his nicer ones arrived, but when he attached them, the power went out for those as well! The nursing student who studied there, a French girl named Camille, was at a loss as to what to do as well.
“ Well, at least nothing major has happened. ” She noted. It was true, thank goodness – only ever the regulars came in with scrapes and burns, maybe the occasional twisted ankle from a reckless kid. The last eventful thing was when the far-living hunter had rushed in with his crying wife in his arms a few weeks ago, around the time the cameras broke. The man had a reputation of being silent and intimidating, partially because no one could hear his footsteps and partially because he always had the same kind of hardened look on his face, but at that moment? His eyes were darting everywhere with energy as he nearly knocked the door down getting in.
“ Hunting accident, she accidentally stepped into a bear trap, ” He tersely explained while refusing to leave her side. It wasn’t like she was in a state to be talking, what with all the shocked crying and face-burying. Dr. Balan quickly cleaned and wrapped the wound, assuring them it was a lot more minor than they thought, but they ought to come back for a checkup a little later. A little later had passed, and the couple had come in again, this time only to get her wrappings cleanly removed. When Balan suggested an x-ray for her limp, though? Both quickly rejected it. Odd, but he surmised they didn’t want to deal with the fuss. It was almost funny, though, how the hunter would carry and fuss over his wife whenever he saw them. She’d either laugh, swat his hand and or roll her eyes whenever he worried about her.
They’d been here for more than half a year now, and while they were technically new to the mountains, the village people quickly accepted their brief appearances. They were quiet, quick and practical, so they’d fit right in.
Which was why Dr. Balan was surprised when a man and woman in suits showed up one day, asking if they’d seen the couple. The husband’s face was in a small picture in her pocket, same with the wife’s. The man actually looked scary in the photo – whereas he was just withdrawn and observant in real life, the man in the picture had shadows around his icy eyes that looked as if he was ready to draw blood. “ Oh, you mean the hunters? ” Balan blinked. “ Yes, they live up in the mountains. Bit of a walk aways, though, and hard to find. ”
“ How long would you say they’ve been here? ”
The doctor shook his head. “ Maybe a few months? They were here for Christmas, why do you ask ?”
The woman was wearing sunglasses despite the melting snow. She shared a look with her equally well-dressed partner. “ Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Thank you for the information. ”
Dr. Balan was aware of the deadly curse that came with the cabin in the woods, but figured it was nothing. But a few days later, when news around the neighborhood came out that the shack was up in flames, he had a sickening feeling he might have said too much.
[S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Louise Dubois - Day 340]
It had taken them five days to find the cabin, five weeks to find the general location, and more than five months since they got the new that the Winter Soldier and an unnamed ex-HYDRA operative were hiding somewhere in Eastern Europe. The search was more thorough than that, as the agency was now cleaning itself from the inside-out for any more possible moles or signs of corruption. Now that S.H.I.E.L.D. was running on fumes, it wasn’t exactly like they can get a whole task force over a rumor, let alone after the disaster that was the leaked transcripts at the Triskelion. No, she was only able to get Agent Roberts on account of an old favor as he searched for a new agency to work at.
But she was sure, so sure that at least one of them would be here. After combing through years of old HYDRA files, they made an estimation of him possibly being here – well, they initially checked a few more spaces, but they were empty. This was the thirteenth spot.
“I swear, I’m only doing this because I’ve got nothing better to do,” Roberts muttered, shivering from the cold. The snow was watery and beginning to melt, but it was still freezing outside. “Ready to go?”
“Ready.” Neither of them were strong enough to handle the Winter Soldier, obviously, but they figured if they could just survive and press onto his location, that would be good enough. Their getaway truck was far off North, but it was enough for them to escape if worse came to worse.
Arriving at the safehouse, they were a little underwhelmed. It was small. Shabby. Wooden. Clearly old. “Dead end,” Roberts shook his head in frustration. “Cripes, it’s like they know we’re onto them or – ”
“Wait, look!” Dubois pointed. Looking through the old, dirty window, they could just see it – messy sheets. Someone had been sleeping in there. Maybe two, if they squinted. And if the very modern-looking calendar on the wall was any indication, it was recently. Both agents stiffened.
“They’re not in there though, are they?” Roberts murmured, reaching for the doorknob. It was locked, but they quickly picked it. Stepping inside, it wasn’t much. Used pots and pans, cleaned, folded clothes and an old book open, but nothing more. “Two sheets, some lady’s clothes, guy boots…married couple.”
“What do we know about the ex-HYDRA again?”
He shook his head. “Just that they were an experiment. Occasionally sent out to aid the Winter Soldier in his missions. We caught them once before but they somehow snuck out.”
“Why would the Soldier keep them around?”
“Who knows.” Looking at the window near the stove, they noticed a shed. Both agents stepped outside to check it. Opening the door, it was empty, safe for a few old canned foods. “Looks practically vintage,” Roberts joked. “This place must be as old as me.”
Dubois snorted. “I somehow doubt that – ”
BANG!
The wood between the agents was suddenly punctured with a black, burnt hole. A bullet cleanly cut through the shed and made a can burst. Whipping their heads around, a shadowy figure stood atop some thick branches with a tall rifle pointed upwards. “Shit – it’s him!” Both agents ran in opposite directions to ensure that he’d have to pick only one to take. Dubois took out her own pistol and started sprinting into the thickest part of the woods.
Her heart was pounding in her ear as her boots cut through the slippery snow and crunchy earth. It was almost impossible to differentiate the directions here –everywhere she turned seemed to be more trees! As cruel as it sounded, she hoped Roberts was the one getting chased, because at least he had a chance of getting to the getaway car through clear snow.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
“ARGH!”
As soon as she thought that, Louise Dubois felt ashamed of her imagination. “Roberts!? JOHN!?” The echo was too far off for it to be anywhere near her, but loud enough to know what it meant. She suddenly felt sick, hunching over and vomiting as the idea of her old friend being shot on sight was running through her mind.
She had to get out here. Report back as soon as she can. Looking up, the thick, icy trees hardly provided her context as to where she was.
Chr-rp! Chr-rp! Chr-rp!
Bird chirps! They must be nesting near water – if Dubois could just find where they were, maybe a clearing can help her get back, like a river or stream!
Chr-rp! Chr-rp! Chr-rp!
There it was again! No longer mourning her friend, the agent’s back straightened as she began to sprint in direction of the noise. Just her and the birds.
Chr-rp! Chr-rp! Chr-rp!
She could hear it, the sound of rushing water. A river must be nearby, and the trees were clearing up. All she had to do was hang on a little longer! There! A clearing! There was water!
Chr-rp! Chr-rp! Chr-rp!
The rushing waters were a relief to see – Dubois stared at the running waves for a moment, almost grateful for whatever bird had been singing to her. She crouched, gun clasped in between both of her fingers’ hands while scanning. Looking up, she expected maybe a small songbird, or a swallow –
“Hello.”
Or a person. She stood perfectly still, not a hair out of place, unlike Dubois. Where the agent wore a suit and tie and looked perfectly disheveled from running, this young lady stood in an oversized hunting jacket, billowing nightgown, red stockings and boots like she just woke up. But her hair was neatly made, face perfectly pretty, and not a single thing had a wrinkle. Her hands were behind her back as she smiled serenely.
Dubois stared, panting. The bird – where was the bird? The young lady tilted her head, staring for a moment before letting out a small sigh of a laugh. “ Oh, I’m sorry. You were expecting a bird, weren’t you? Well, I suppose I can give you their hellos.” Her lips opened slightly and then a sound came out –
Chr-rp! Chr-rp! Chr-rp!
“You…you –!”
BANG!
“ARGH!”
Before Dubois could even raise her own, a sharp pain shot through her fingers, knocking the gun out of her hands. Her hands were bleeding, and looking back up, the lady was holding a rifle. The same kind the shadowy figure had.
The Winter Soldier hadn’t shot at them at the shed. She did.
“I’m really being nice, you know,” Her voice rose over the heart pounding in Dubois’ ears. “Soldiers who get shot in the hands get honorary discharge, without their important organs actually bein’ in any imminent danger. Since it’s the hand, most of the damage will go to the nerves rather than any major blood vessels.” A pause. “But I suppose you would be unable to snap your fingers again.”
“You’re working with the Soldier!” Dubois hissed. Despite her injury, she pressed the radio snapped onto her belt to remind her location. “Why!?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Don’t be like that, hon. I wanted to shoot you in the foot, but you had a gun in your hand. As for your question…well, I’d rather not get my spine torn out.”
Dubois’ lip curled into a snarl. “You wouldn’t have to if you didn’t work for HYDRA!”
That made the girl’s face twitch. Something ugly morphed her calm features, like a rock thrown into a still lake, rippling with upset. “Is that what they told you?” Her voice went cold. “That I had a choice ?”
BANG!
For a moment, the agent thought she had gotten shot in the foot, her body falling hard onto the earth. Looking next to her, the leaves on the ground steaming, she realized it was a deliberate miss.
Wham!
Suddenly her stomach got kicked. Hard. The ex-HYDRA somehow crossed the water and started stomping on Dubois, over and over again until her mind got dizzy. “You think I wanted – this shitty life!? I didn’t! And now, I’m being punished for something I never wanted! HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D., what’s the damn difference between the two of you if both want to cut me open all over again !?”
Click!
Dubois’ eyes burned as dirt grained her vision. Opening her lids, she could see the circle of the end of a barrel pointing at her face. “Honestly, you all disgust me.” The ex-HYDRA operative looked as if Dubois was scum beneath her shoe as she itched her finger –
Wham!
Dubois’ vision suddenly went black. “DAMMIT, JAMES – ” Was the last thing she heard before going unconscious. A few hours later, the smell of smoke woke her as the doctor from the nearby Carpathian village looked over her with worried eyes. Apparently they found her next to the old hunting shack, tied to a nearby tree as the cabin burned from the inside-out.
Chapter 38: Wicked Game
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[A hypothetical 1943]
This morning was pretty peaceful, all things considered. The Howling Commandos had taken us to some barren French countryside, looking for Nazi and HYDRA bases alike. So far, I’ve slept in cramped tents, small caves, even under a waterfall once, for some reason, and I’d managed to stay in one piece. The medic, a man named Philip, was generally polite but not much of a teacher. No, I just did whatever he told me to do, which suited me just fine.
BARK! BARK! BARK!
Ugh…it’s those goddamn dogs again. The other soldiers sleep heavy, and hardly react when a stray hound walks through camp. Back in Texas, dogs weren’t exactly welcome since they usually stole food. Once, there was this skinny greyhound that used to trail the thinnest people of the Dust Bowl, and we’d nicknamed him the Grim Reaper because of it. When I complained to the Captain about it at five in the morning, he just politely nodded from his cot and then snored back asleep. Rude.
This time, I was takin’ matters into my own hands. The dog was scamperin’ around camp, specifically sniffing medical supplies and trying to bite on delicate boxes. I wasn’t about to let it slide, so –
BANG !
“HOLY - !”
Relax, I didn’t shoot the damn thing. Just the grass it was next to with one of my baby pistols. It did the trick, as the dog barked out of fear then ran far off into the fields, hopefully for good. Sergeant Barnes got out of his tent first to check on the noise, half-dressed and nearly fallin’ out of the flaps to see what happened. “Nothin’, sir. Just a rat. A very big rat. Scared me, I’ve never seen one before, so…” I spoke in that innocent-baby tone that always got me out of trouble with my old man.
He took a long stare at me, and for a second I thought he was going to tell me off. Which would be a shame, considering how handsome his clavicles looked. Instead, however, his frown just lessened as he slowly nodded, going back inside to sleep more.
“I’m surprised you let her off the hook,” I overheard Gabe talk to Barnes later. “You nearly lost it when Dernier shot a squirrel at six in the morning.”
Barnes grumbled. “Shut up, Jones. Dernier's a soldier and should be used to rodents. She's a dame, so she probably isn't.”
"Mhm. Sure."
We trekked to the nearest French border. Despite the war, this part of the countryside was surprisingly open, with wide fields that weren’t burnt or just dented dirt. We all walked and talked among ourselves quietly, even the Captain joining me in the back for a brief talk. “Happy belated birthday, by the way,” he noted. Right, did I forget to mention? It was my birthday. Perfectly uneventful, no HYDRA explosions or kidnappings of any kind today. Not that something like that would happen to me , right? Wouldn’t that be silly, haha !
“Thanks, Cap.”
Barnes perked up from close by. “It’s your birthday, nurse?”
I nod. “Yessir. One year older.”
An hour later we’d taken a quick water break before packing back up to walk, when I was suddenly tapped at the back of my shoulder. “For you, miss.” Sergeant Barnes was holdin’ a yellow bloom in his hands, offering it to me with a handsomely wide grin. My mouth itched to smile. Damn him.
“Sir, did you just give her a weed?” Gabe Jones’ voice broke from ahead.
Barnes’ face twitched. “No, it’s a flower!” He raised it. “See? Petals!”
“Nuh-uh, that’s a weed if I’d ever seen one! Dernier, look – isn’t that a weed?”
"The hell do you mean, nuh-uh - "
“Looks like something I’d give my granny when I was five!”
“You guys are blind, it’s clearly a flower!” Dum Dum interrupted.
“ Thank you ,” Barnes nodded at Dum Dum. Morita scoffed.
“Sarge, that’s clearly dandelion.”
“Steve, throw me a bone!” The sergeant then called to the blond, who was clearly trying not to get involved.
“Uh…sure Buck. Flower. Real pretty.”
He deadpanned. “Thanks, pal. Philip, flower or weed?” The whole of the walk the guys ended up bickering about if my birthday bouquet was a flower or a weed.
“Alright, alright,” Captain America waved his hand, not wanting his soldiers to lose focus. “That’s enough, boys. Nurse, how’s it to you – weed or flower, put Barnes outta his misery.”
I blinked. Looking at it, it was definitely a dandelion. I’d eaten enough of them to know what they looked like. But looking at the man who was holding it, with the kind of observant eyes that clearly rejected his lazy smile’s ‘I don’t care’ energy, I couldn’t help but throw a bone. Taking the bloom, I lightly kiss a petal before tuckin’ it behind my ear. “I think it’s lovely.”
The boys around me quiet a little, as if remembering what the point of the plant was. Barnes suddenly had a much truer smile, nodding self-satisfyingly to himself. Jones still rolled his eyes and passed the Sergeant a dollar. “So you can buy her an actual bouquet next stop.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Barnes rolled his eyes, but didn’t stop smiling.
[Back to Reality - Night 338]
The day started with Bucky having a nightmare in the morning. To anyone else it would seem repetitive, the constant nightmares and random moments of zoning out, but at this time we’re both unfortunately used to it. I usually had a few methods of reacting – making him a drink, turning on the light and trying to stay up, or, to my annoyance, when I’d wake up half-asleep and he’d shush and manipulate me into thinking it’s nothing (then he acts twitchy for the rest of the day, which ruins the point of trying to treat him). Tonight, however, I tried something I did something a little different – let him talk.
“What’s Brooklyn like, Sarge?”
Bucky, who had been staring off into the distance like he couldn’t bear to think, blinked out of his stupor. “What?”
I shrug. “What’s Brooklyn like? I’ve never been to a city before the war, so it must be different from the plains I grew up in.” Bait him, I have to bait him. “Sounds awful fancy, livin’ in the big apple.”
“...wasn’t that big. Not when you stick to the same streets growing up.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded, leaning back again. “I never went past the red building at the end of the street. I heard the butcher had a temper.” A pause. “Doesn’t change the fact that I once broke the fire hydrant a few paces behind it.”
I smile a little. “A what? ”
He pursed his lips, like he was trying to recall the memory as clearly as he could. “It was so hot when I was eight I took a baseball bat and smacked open a fire hydrant. All the kids in our neighborhood ran across the water before the adults overheard us and got mad.” I could sort of see it – he had a strong punch. “My folks got so mad at me, but I was the only one who wasn’t sweating that night.”
I whistle in envy. “We tried to get ice in bulk some days. My favorite snack was just suckin’ on a cube before breakfast. Anything else?”
He looked up in thought. “Steve and I once got dared to go into an abandoned house on Halloween. We ended up getting all of our doughnuts stolen and Steve caught a cold. Our moms had to buy us rock candy to cheer us up.” I snickered at the idea of him as a kid bursting into tears because his treats got stolen. Bucky gave me a pointed look, despite his disheveled hair and sweaty forehead. “Like you didn’t have Halloween in Texas.”
I cross my arms snootily. “Nah. My daddy didn’t want his little princess gettin’ snatched, so he’d make my mama bake cookies instead of going outside.”
“You weren’t allowed outside?”
“James, I lived in 1930s Texas. No one who wasn’t rich, pale n’ male was goin’ out at night.” I remembered watching a clip of Gone With the Wind once on the burner phone. Scarlett seemed well-written, but they made the warring South way too righteous at times.
“Oh. Right.”
I lay my head back down on my pillow. Even with the facial hair, Bucky had a handsome side profile. “Tell me more about Brooklyn. What did ya’ll eat? Do?”
He turned his head slightly, fiddling with the fabric of my shirt’s sleeve. “I liked pretzels the best. Hot dogs were pretty good too, especially after a ball game.” He looked up. “Have you ever been to a game?” I shook my head. “Hn. You’d like the lemonade.” A small smile danced on his lips. “Coney Island was the only spot I’d go for a date when I was in high school. I’d be broke at the end of each outing, but my cheeks would be covered in lipstick – ”
“Okay, okay, Romeo,” I scoff. I did not want to hear about the women he’s been with. I didn’t even want to imagine it, the idea that he had another girl on his arm. It was stupid. He was stupid. Ugh. “We get it. You got a lotta tail.”
“What, you jealous?”
“No,” I huff. “I just don’t want to hear it. Besides, you’re no longer screaming, so go to sleep.”
“Yes ma’am.”
[Day 339]
The morning after that was still. We’d stayed in this safehouse for so long that we’d gotten comfortable on the shitty bed, and knew how to kick the stove just right so the heat would warm up the cabin quickly. “Chocolate torte,” I mumbled, burying my face in the pillow. “With extra cream. That’s what I want to eat right now…”
“We can grab that,” Bucky’s eyes were still closed, and his voice was husky with sleep.
“Really?”
“Yeah, just go out and pick them from the cake bush outside.” I flick his forehead. “Mornin’, nurse.”
“Buzz off, Barnes.” I slip out of the warmth of my side of the bed and shiver at the pleasant coolness that surrounds our cabin. Gosh, the weather was finer than usual. Back in Texas, winter wasn’t actually winter – before the Dust Storms, we got mini-monsoons of rain and wind during the fall, so Christmas would be cool but not snowy. Here, though, it was the opposite. Snow and ice as far as the eye could see, but just as it started to melt into spring, the Carpathian Mountains would surprise me by how similarly cool the forest would get to Texas. More cold air than actual frost.
Breakfast, whilst not torte, was still good. I no longer had to forage, and got spoiled at the local village for whatever they had. I think even Bucky liked it, because he’d purposely get bigger game so that we’d have more options for dinner. I wasn’t much of a cook, but I realized quickly he’d eat just about anything…likely a product of HYDRA treating us like crap, but ignoring that, he hardly ever complained. Once, I made watery greens (it had been seventy years since I’ve cooked greens, alright? I forgot how much water they carried!) and he still had seconds. I’m startin’ to think he’s so diligent with choppin’ wood and working out before bathing so he doesn’t forget he’s a fighter – he’s certainly still trim (that, and the nightmares – I think he’s afraid of not being able to outrun HYDRA operatives if he doesn’t move enough times during the day). Today we had my first attempt at cornbread in ages – we had no eggs or buttermilk, so I had to use yogurt, and no molasses, so I had to use peach syrup, but we both just sat close and ate straight from the pan, all forks and no knives.
“This was supposed to last us until Wednesday,” I groaned with a sore stomach as he sipped his coffee. Bucky hummed.
“It’s fine. We can just go to the village early.”
I blink in surprise. “A free trip? Riskin’ capture? Who are you and what have you done to the sergeant?”
Bucky scoffed and pulled on his boots. “Just get dressed before I change my mind.”
When we went hunting, we’d do one of two things – stick together, and I’d help him hunt, or I’d go off and forage. I’d always return after collecting a bucket of roots with a:
Chr-rp! Chr-rp! Chr-rp!
And he’d always respond with a low whistle, or an attempted chirp (more like hoot, but it was cute) to show that nothing bad had happened to the other person. Today, however, I followed him hunting. “Did you know?” I’d start humming, picking a yellow dandelion to put in his pocket. “Mister Fox is havin’ an affair with Mister Duck.”
Bucky raised a brow, playing along. “Really? Is that why I saw him with feathers in his mouth the other day?”
“Yessir. I’m afraid he’s rather shameless with his lust, despite bein’ married.” Then we’d stop. He’d gesture at me to kneel down behind some bushes, where we’d spot our target. Lo and behold, it’s Mister Duck! “Gosh, sir, are you sure this is the right reaction?”
Click!
“Missus Duck and Fox deserve to have their honor preserved,” He aimed. “This is that justice. Cover.” And I’d cover my ears before a loud –
BANG!
In order to have my subconscious less wary of Bucky Barnes, I started to list the things that were different and similar to the Winter Soldier. So far, these are the things the sergeant does that the Soldier would never do:
- Learn to give me a heads-up to cover my ears for gunshots
- Carry me carefully when I’m hurt
- Let me talk his ear off about whatever I want (whether he talks much back is a different thing entirely)
- Let’s me run around the village without dragging me back inside
- Wash the dishes and does his own laundry
- Heats up water, we used to take turns but now he just does it in exchange for bathing first, which I think is fair
- Makes me wonder if this is what a proper family acts like
I never brought up the brother thing again, what with how uncomfortable he looked. Honestly, I felt bad for even thinking about it, but I couldn’t help myself at the time – I didn’t know what a good brother was. Or a fair marriage. My parents had both good and bad moments, but at some point growin’ up I was confused to see how knocking a door off its hinges in a fit of anger could be forgiven in the morning with joking words and bread. When Bucky and I argued, or, more specifically, we’d have a nightmare or bad day, the other just gave space until we “came back”. I was still reelin’ as to how he apologized when he pulled me out of the river. Why’d he even do that, anyways? It’s not like he threw me in the damn thing…
Dinner was lamb and rice, with tomatoes I’d gotten as a treat to be cut on top. While I’d chop wild onions, he’d handle gutting the bird from earlier, and the entire time we’d “bicker”:
“You’re seriously tellin’ me you think a needle is more valuable?”
“If the polio shot didn’t happen, you wouldn’t have your precious heart transplants. The doc’s mom would’ve died before he was even conceived.”
“You don’t know that!”
“And you do?”
I’d open a page of my gift Grey’s Anatomy book (I randomly selected the heart page, so I decided to defend heart transplants tonight), and the little slip of paper of modern things from Bucharest, and pick a modern thing to argue superiority over. Thing is, Bucky always picked polio shots. Penicillin if he was feelin’ frisky. Heart transplants, chemotherapy, artificial organs, hell, even cuttin’ away half of a child’s brain and them makin’ a full recovery, and he ALWAYS stuck with those damn injections.
“Some people don’t think injections work, that’s why I’m gung-ho on them,” He mentioned once.
“Seriously?”
“I overheard someone in the village say it made babies brain-sick. Stupidest thing I’d ever heard. I’m no doctor, but I know when something works. Shots work.” I’m pretty sure we bickering is the most I’ve heard him speak too.
Maybe not brotherly, but I liked cooking with him. My parents used to work long hours, daddy at the dying farm and mama washing linens for the neighborhood, but at night my brother and I would watch them cook. It was their form of loving, I think. It’s not like they could afford dates, so they’d instead sweet-talk (aka argue about spices) over creaming onions and toasting bread. When I passed Bucky a spoon of the butcher’s gifted seasoning in the dinner to taste, and he muttered that it needed more salt, I think it was the closest thing I’d had to familial bonding in seventy years. Damn HYDRA.
Dinner was delicious, though, and I was sleepy before I even finished my second bowl. Not wanting to waste food, though, I passed my unfinished helping to Bucky. "How do you even know all these recipes?" He asked. "Even if you weren't brainwashed, it's been years because of cryo. I'm surprised you've remembered how to make cornbread and all that other stuff."
I shrug. "Whenever I felt like I was losin' myself in HYDRA, I'd recite stuff. Recipes, names, things I liked and disliked."
He quickly looked up. "Was I ever on the list?"
When he was the Soldier? Nah. "I kept everything outside of HYDRA in my head. Besides, I've always had a good memory. It's hard for me to forget anything." Bucky stared at me for a moment before nodding again, finishing up my plate.
After dinner I’d read for an hour while he cleaned his Swiss army knife. He used it often, but was so thorough with his work that if it weren’t already old, it would look new. I’d open the mysterious Cyrillic book that I didn’t understand and make up some story. So far, it’s a murder mystery. “...And the lady actually used roses to poison the lord.”
“Wasn’t he already dead because of the poker?”
“Yes, but I changed my mind.”
While Bucky locked himself to the bathroom to bathe, tonight I figured I’d do something I hadn’t done in forever – call Steve.
“Hello?” His voice carried on the other line.
“Brooklyn.”
“Texas,” He sounded surprised, but then his tone warmed. “Hey. How’s everything?”
“Stable. Quiet. No scares, lately. No one is trying to trap your best friend or tear out my spine, so all in all, pretty good. I was actually just a little bored.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. When I first met your friend, I thought he’d be the Soldier. I was so ready to throw hands with him. But he’s…”
“Not him?”
“Quieter. More tired. Doesn’t sleep easy. And yeah, not him.” A pause. “Thanks for convincing me. It’s been nice to be awake after seventy years of frozen hell.”
Steve’s voice softens on the other line. “’Course. Any time. You know I'm here for you.”
Gosh, he really was Captain America, isn’t he? I should put hot dogs next to a chimney on the Fourth of July this year to see if he’ll appear. “On a lighter note, I’m totally bored. I haven’t been treated like a lady in forever .”
“Oh really?” I could practically hear him roll his eyes.
“Yeah, so here’s my idea for entertainment – one of these days, you sneak down to where we are, but in, like, a cloak.”
“A cloak.”
“To look mysterious, Steven. All the modern romances love men with cloaks.” Mind you, Steve wasn’t my type, but since the blond hunk was one of the only two eligible men that were my age and not dying, I had to exercise my power a little . You would do it too! “And show up with flowers. Tell the sergeant that you’ve got your head screwed on straight and realize your love for me.”
Steve practically choked on the other line, half-coughing and half-chuckling. “Ma’am – ”
I cackle behind my curled finger like a villain. “I ain’t done, blondie – anyways, then you guys fight for my honor, with either those really billowy shirts or none at all , skin all shiny, and I’d be forced to make a decision!”
“And you would choose…”
“Neither. You guys are both old. But both of you would willingly join my harem as sister-wives.”
Steve was laughing on the other end. “Go to bed, nurse.”
“So is that a no to bein’ oiled up, or – ”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“But you’d make such a patriotic pin-up!”
“ Goodnight, Texas. Sweet dreams.”
“Night-night Brooklyn.”
Twenty minutes later, Bucky would come out of his wash in a fresh shirt, pants and long hair clinging to his neck. “Your turn. Clean water’s still hot.”
“Thanks.”
I shivered as I stepped into the small tub we had. HYDRA really did a number on both of us with cryo, it seemed, because Bucky and I both loved hot baths. The more scalding the better. After I scrubbed the day’s hunt off my whole body, washed my face and made sure I smelled like pie, I got out to finish primping before bed. After getting changed, I stepped out to see Bucky reading my Cyrillic mystery. He had a funny look on his face.
“What?”
“...don’t worry about it.” I thought he couldn’t read this dialect of Russian?
“Tell me, you look like you’re about to combust.” He muttered something, almost ashamed to say it while looking away. “What did you say?”
“...it’s a bodice-ripper.”
“WHAT.” I snatch the book before he can take it back – mind you, I can only speak Russian and not read it, but squint like I could understand. “This whole time I’ve been reading – how do you know!? Prove it!”
Bucky sighed and took the book back, lifting his finger to the pages. “... Alexei growled as he kissed Andrea, their tongues fighting for dominance. Despite being a virgin, Andrea’s body naturally already knew what to do as she climbed on top of him like he was a stallion. Like a sword, Alexei unsheathed his – ” Headlines: The Winter Soldier reading shitty smut in the Carpathian Mountains whilst being wanted in seventy countries.
“Okay, okay, shut up, I get it!” I say, voice slightly strangled as I felt my face gettin’ hot.
“You asked, – ”
“And you actually listened!?” For a moment we just stared at each other in disbelief, then – “ Pfft — haha! ” A wheeze, then chuckle, then a full-on laugh escaped my throat. I had to lay on our creaky bed while my stomach began to ache with humor. Eventually, I heard him snort, then join me in laughing too. By the time we were done, wheezing like we hadn’t breathed, I noticed how much warmer his face was and started laughin’ up again. “You really liked the riding part, huh?” I cackled.
“It’s been seventy years since my last girlfriend, give me a break, sweetheart – ” He huffed before putting the book aside. “I’m burning that book first thing tomorrow.”
“What!? Why?”
“Because,” He dimmed our shitty lamp light so that the room was dark blue from the moon outside. “You’re having way too much fun. Security risk.” Was he being playful?
“Sure. Definitely not because you’re lonely – !” He put a pillow over my head, which muffled my squealing and cackling. Come to think of it, this was probably the best day I’ve had in seventy years.
“Sleep, nurse.”
[Day 340]
On days neither of us were woken by the other’s nightmares, we both slept in like babies. Peace was a rare treat, after all, and a full dreamless night was better than torte. Tonight I dreamed that I was a bird, flyin’ high in the air before singing. I chirped, looking for a mate, only for no bird to show up. I felt lonely, after, the way I did at my old man’s funeral. Melancholic, but whatever. Better than metal drills bein’ put in your bones or unknown hands touchin’ you in Russian. When I woke up, I felt oddly warm.
Bucky was holding me. Sometimes he’d outreach his arms when we’d sleep, but not like this. Not full-armed, him partially laying on me with my face buried in his clavicle. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to wake him, not when he looked so peaceful; jaw not tight and brow loose. So I didn’t. Besides, I already considered him family, right? Family comforts each other.
When he started to shift, I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep heavy. When I was a kid, I once pretended to be asleep to avoid chores. Instead of gettin’ yelled at by my mama, she just brushed my hair and kissed my forehead. Later she admitted I looked so sweet and innocent that she didn’t have the heart to wake me. “Shit,” Bucky murmured with that tired, wiry voice of his. He sighed though his nose, then I felt his flesh hand graze my jaw. My cheek was cold but his fingers were warm. His thumb pressed the fat of my lower lip, and for a moment I thought – never mind. He sighed again and pulled away but didn’t get up from the mattress. I waited a few minutes before shifting in a way that mimicked waking up.
“Cold,” I whispered, barely opening my eyes. Bucky, laying next to me, turned his head. “My back’s gonna ache like a bitch later…”
“C’mere, then,” My breath hitched as he suddenly pulled me back to him, rubbing up and down my arms to warm me up. “Sleep well?”
I nod. “I miss my daddy,” The words slipped from my mouth before I could even think to filter it. A sad look flashed across his face. God, now he’s gonna think I’m made of glass this whole damn day. Ugh.
“I know.”
“You do?”
“You mentioned it once, when we first met.” Seriously? Kill me now. God, this was too damn chummy. It’s been a hundred years, we should be collecting social security, not this corny shit. Before I could pull away, he said, “I think the bakery has torte today. Chocolate.”
Never mind, depression is great! “Really?”
“It’s not like we have anything for breakfast, so sure. Sugar’s not exactly rationed anymore either.”
“God bless Roosevelt.”
I combed and scrubbed myself nicely this morning, wanting to feel pretty while eating chocolate. Looking for something pretty, all I had was my nightdress. I’d stitched colorful little patterns and designs onto it, but the white linens still made it look homely. I wish I had a real dress, Rita’s words of treating yourself ringin’ in my ears. Whatever. I pull it on and tie an old scarf like a sash around the middle. Maybe our next safehouse will be in Paris – all the nice couture and boutiques would be fun to peruse.
It felt funny. Getting gussied up after almost drowning myself in a river when we first got here. Like all I needed was a little time. I considered painting my lips red to match my legs, but changed my mind. Fit in, you’re still in hiding, silly nurse.
No one stared at us when we went down to the village anymore. Not that many did to begin with, but we used to get curious looks as new faces. Now people didn’t bother doin’ double takes whenever Bucky would come in with a giant animal to trade into. Medieval, but good. After the butcher, where I bought some more oil, lemons, and honey, we went to the little bakery at the end of the village. It was nicer than the one in Texas, where the old wood would blend in with the breads. Here there were white walls and pretty cakes on display. I felt Bucky’s gloved metal hand squeeze my flesh one. “ Pick one, sweetheart. ”
My face suddenly went pink. When was the last time I’d had a treat like it was my birthday? Looking at the displays, I pointed at a little chocolate torte with syrupy strawberries chunked on top. Feelin’ bold, I didn’t bother waiting until we went back to the safehouse to eat it. “There’s a hill nearby,” I pointed behind the bakery. “I want a picnic. There’s no cameras.”
Bucky huffed. “Spoiled.”
“Now, sir. And bring napkins.”
The cake was great – richer and spongier than I thought as it densely stuck to my gums, but the sharp, syrupy sweetness of the jammed strawberries burst into my mouth as a balancer. By the time we finished, even the sergeant looked serene, not looking over his shoulder between bites.
“Relax, sergeant. It’s not like anyone’s gonna find us here. You look like a kid stealin’ cookies when you do that.”
He shook his head. “Still can’t risk it.”
“Carpathia’s been good to us. I think we can breathe a little.”
His eyes landed on my face, studying it. “Yeah. Guess it has.” Standing up, he neatly folded the little cake box to throw away later. “We should get going.”
“Yessir.”
When we walked back to the safehouse, careful to avoid the melting snow, I started to chirp again. Not because I was lost, but because I wanted to laugh at his dumb hoots.
Chr-rp! Chr-rp! Chr-rp!
Hoot.
I snickered when he rolled his eyes. Honestly, it’s funny to see him be bad at something.
VROOM!
I was suddenly shoved against a tree, hand covering my mouth as Bucky’s face was close to mine. We both stood still behind the fir as the sound of wheels crunching the nearby ice and leaves passed us. We both shared a look – Who the hell would drive in the middle of the forest?
[Bucky’s P.O.V.]
I always had a thought in the back of my mind that this safehouse would be temporary – mainly because it was abandoned decades ago, and no organization has a claim to it. Because of that, I’ve always had it in my head that there was a slim chance that someone would come and try to take it.
I didn’t expect that chance would come today.
The truck was old, stolen, and clearly not issued by whoever sent them. If they were, the tires would at least be better quality.
“It’s either Interpol, S.H.I.E.L.D., or HYDRA,” She whispered underneath my hand. “Two of which are basically the same thing.”
Don’t think about that right now, I silently begged. We had to get out of here quickly, and destroy our tracks while we’re at it. My mind goes to the small bottle of petrol I bought on Christmas. We needed to escape. Get out of here. Avoid fighting, avoid killing – the lady at the train station deserved what came for her, we both had a long enough history of suffering at her hands to justify it. But them? But I couldn’t vouch for these guys, and I wasn’t sure I had the patience to. I didn’t know if that was the soldier, or the Soldier in me speaking.
We followed them, hidden and crouching behind the thick trees and melting snow. Two agents. A man and a woman. S.H.I.E.L.D., if my perfect vision could be trusted to read the tag on the woman’s coat.
“Bucky,” Her voice broke me out of her thoughts. It was less warm, not the kind of spoiled, sweet tone she had when she was happily eating torte an hour ago. Colder. More like when she was a test subject. Her gaze doesn’t leave the agents. “I’m going to go to the shed. Now. When I give you a gun, you’re going to wait until one of the two to run in the direction of the left tree path, and take care of them. Get the truck too.”
“Why would they run in opposite directions?”
She stood up and straightened her dress, untying the little sash at her waist and wrapping her dominant hand with it like a makeshift glove. Her eyes focused on the safehouse like it was her enemy now. “Because I’m going to shoot at them until they get the point. Go. Don’t make me tell you twice.”
She didn’t. Something familiar came to me as I ran to the farthest end of the safehouse, where the trees got thick and hard to run through if you weren’t familiar with the terrain. I watched as her silhouette carefully made her way into the shed, nearly silent in opening its door as the two agents still tried to look through the window. Fifteen feet between her and being sent to the Raft if things went wrong. She knelt and carefully opened the door, grabbed our two handguns and rifle, and hid the other firearms in a nearby bush as she quickly ran in my direction. She handed me the two handguns. The agents had just picked the lock in the safehouse.
“Don’t lose it,” I say while hiding one of them in my pocket.
“Don’t get caught,” She retorts. Before I let her go, she tugged my coat. When I turned, she lightly kissed the corner of my mouth. For a brief moment, I could smell the sugar from earlier before she pulled away. “If you fuck up, I’ll kill you in Siberia.”
I ignored the spike in my heartbeat. “Back at you.”
She started carefully climbing a nearby tree, and I took my cue to start going into the woods in the direction of the truck.
BANG!
It doesn’t take long for her plan to set in motion. Like birds, the agents scatter in an attempt to get their information out, even if it means losing their lives. I could respect their determination, but their carelessness made me not have much remorse as I began to aim at the male agent who was running across the woods.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
“ARGH!”
I don’t plan on killing anyone. Not anymore. But I don’t plan on getting caught either. The agent fell after I aimed at both of his feet. I took a third bullet to his ankle just to be safe. Making my way to him, I’m careful to not show my face, holding his head by his hair and speaking to the back of his ear: “Who sent you!? S.H.I.E.L.D. or HYDRA?”
To the agent’s credit, he didn’t break, despite being in obvious pain. “Wouldn’t you like to know!?” Definitely S.H.I.E.L.D., and my jaw locks in realization of what I have to do later.
Wham!
I hit his head hard against a tree with my metal hand, making sure he’s good and unconscious. I dragged him to the shed, where I found some twine. Then I carried him out to the river in the back and tied him to a rock. At least he’s less likely to burn if he’s near water, right? The villagers are smart, they’ll find him quick enough. I start running down the stream where I knew she’d be farther down in, since the agent went in the other direction it would be a safe bet that they’d be following the water.
BANG! BANG!
Christ. I just told her not to lose it.
I ran faster. Making my way down the thicker bends, I find my fake wife beating the crap out of the female agent. I don’t think she realizes how different she looks when she thinks HYDRA is involved – no longer relaxed, smiling or sweet, just still-faced and angry-voiced.
“ – if you both want to cut me open all over again!? ” She's definitely out of it - must think the agents want to torture her with an operation or something.
In one swift move, I knocked the aimed rifle from her hands and kicked the agent unconscious. “DAMN IT, JAMES!” She exclaimed in surprise as the lady between us went limp. The cold look in her eyes was extinguished into something more wide and shaken. Not the same fearful look she had when we met in Siberia all those years ago – that part of her probably died a lifetime back. “What the hell – ”
“We can’t afford to kill, you know that.”
“She was goin’ to kill me! And you were fine with doing it to the HYDRA lady!”
“The HYDRA lady tortured both of us for years,” I say with gritted teeth. “She was already wanted. This lady isn’t.” Said lady was still knocked out cold. Might’ve gone too hard. Shit.
“Ugh…” She groaned. Never mind, she’ll live. I sling the rifle over one shoulder and throw her over my other. The air was colder, despite the upcoming spring, because of how much water was here. The nurse’s back must be killing her. She still glared as I called her name to follow me.
Whatever. It’s not like I’m in a good mood for what was about to happen in a few hours.
[Back to central P.O.V.]
Bucky had been yelling on the burner phone since we made our stop. In a rush we packed our essentials in our two packs and left everything else behind for the petrol to eat — Bucky only took a moment to make sure the truck we stole wasn’t rigged or tracked before driving us off to another safehouse. I’d been shivering since then, half-cold and half-shocked from the sudden change that came in our day.
I’d forgotten we were wanted and got too comfortable. Too cocky.
We’d driven in tense silence for about five hours before Bucky made us take a pit stop at a store. While using the ladies’ room I fought for a moment not to dry heave, splashing my face with cold water before my skin went hot again. If I could describe this whole day in one word, it would be upsetting. I didn’t even remember most of the cabin after climbing the tree, just goin’ as fast and as silently as I could to track the agent. Something angry fueled me, the rage of seventy years of ice and scalpels making me realize that I’d never be able to enjoy peace again, not in this lifetime. I put on an angry front with Bucky, but I was a little relieved he stopped me from killing her. I don’t trust my head anymore.
That, and he’s currently too angry to argue with at the moment.
“ You said that no one knew! I never even told you where I was! How the hell did they get here!? ”
He’s been like that for an hour with Steve. I knew because I could hear him on the other line, voice just as raised. At some point I started drowning out the noise, like my brain remembered what to do when family members argue right in front of you.
I knew it wasn’t Steve’s fault. He snuck me out of New York, so it wouldn’t make sense that he’d all of a sudden switch up on us.
“ That’s not a good reason to trust you. ”
Again, I genuinely doubt he was responsible. He’s probably got bigger fish to fry at the moment anyways. I’d still bet on him, but Bucky clearly thinks otherwise. They’re best friends, but brainwashing makes you doubt a lot of things. I wasn't even brainwashed, but I still sometimes wonder if my own reflection is real. His trust was definitely a lot more breakable, following that logic. I don’t doubt he’s trying to figure out what’s worth trusting in his head. I'm surprised he even trusts me, but I don't want to push it.
“ Don’t bother. ”
I felt nauseous as he hung up and made his way back into the truck. The burner phone was no longer in his hand. “Hold on, I feel sick. I’m gonna get some ginger ale.” He nodded, jaw grinding.
“Be quick.”
Going back into the store, I grab a soda can and sneak to the back entrance. The burner was thrown on the ground where he left it. I dust it off and hide it under my pants’ waistband before going back out, making sure that my hands show that they’re only carryin’ my drink. “We can go.”
I was too worried to ask where we were going, since anyone could be tracking us, but when I did, all he said was “far away”.
My mind is still imprinted on the safehouse cabin — up in flames, he’d asked me if I was absolutely sure I had everything packed away that I wanted to take with me. I had no idea where he even got the fuel, but suddenly everything was getting doused — from our bed where we slept on a few hours ago to the shed with the expired cans, to the guns I'd hid in the bushes, I couldn’t stop staring as the view in front of me got brighter and brighter. I couldn’t even think, until Bucky said the only thing that I knew was true now:
“We can’t stay here. We have to go.”
Notes:
Idk if the domesticity is overdone here, bulking but hopefully it gets the message across - btw u could tell I was hungry HAHA
Chapter 39: Living List
Notes:
A quick middling travel interlude list
Chapter Text
Modern things I’ve learned 1920-ish?-1943-ish? to 2014+2015
- War ended
- Bombs, lots of explosives and dead people
- More war, for some reason
- Like a lot of war
- Why are we still fighting have we learned nothing
- Push for equality is a slow and slippery road that has improved greatly
- I’m not kidding about the war stuff it’s a lot
- Liquid body soap is a thing
- Phones are now rectangles and can show films and music, it somehow knows what I like, though, and therefore I do not trust it
- Maybelline has made more than just mascara now
- Mascara is no longer in a powder
- Neither is detergent
- We cured polio, somehow
- And injections, everyone is getting injected
- Everyone famous from my time is dead…RIP Buster Crabbe and Clarke Gable
- Agatha Christie wrote MORE Poirot!??? Must get more
- WE LANDED ON THE MOON!!!???
We got a hunky president, he got killed on camera- Female Supreme Court Justices are in order
- We can transplant organs like replacing bad parts in a car, but there’s a lot of technicalities
- We can three-dimensionally print organs…somehow? Sarge is also confused, but I think he’s purposely acting dumb sometimes
- We can reattach limbs (don’t tell him this one he might get upset/jealous)
- Smoking is bad now
- Penicillin, Bucky likes that one best
- I like neurology better, though, but I think that’s my HYDRA trauma projecting
- People still trade and sell, thank goodness
- Disney made more of those pretty films, I want to watch the other ones in order…I saw a warrior one that looked interesting
- Pocahontas seemed rather inaccurate, wasn’t she a child when she met John Smith? The lady at the store says I should “Google” it…but I’d rather not. The word sounds vulgar
- Despite the Dust Bowl being over, I still have to forage at times
- Men don’t sleep with shirts…I thought it was an army thing, but no, it’s just a man thing
- When he gets nightmares, get a bottle of beer from the butcher. He sleeps better afterwards (Did NYC not have Prohibition?)
- If you pout, the sergeant will get whatever cut of meat you want…get lamb
- We have colored pictures of space!
- There are a lot of television shows now
- Food is much better here
- Dress warmly when metal rods act up again
- Offer massage when his arm is acting up
- Anything old is flammable
- I get boat-sick, apparently
Chapter 40: Reset/Reboot: The Third Safehouse
Chapter Text
[Siberian Compound - 19??]
I remember when I saw Subject Seventeen for the first time. I thought it was odd how they spoke of her. How they gave her some kind of a moniker. She was the only person who’d survived the rigorous testing that HYDRA's French compound had put her through before rewarding her with a transfer to Russia. Out of a hundred, only one. When they brought her to me for the first time for a mission, it was the first time I’d seen a young woman in the compound. Most of the handlers were old men who thought they had a chance of subduing me. I doubted she could either.
“Солдат, познакомься с задержанным.”
Soldier, meet the detainee.
She was muzzled, the same way I was. Forced to stand in front of me like a disobedient child waiting for judgement. I assumed they would tell me to kill her, or extract information, but instead –
“Она в вашем распоряжении, и вы можете распоряжаться ею по своему усмотрению, чтобы завершить эту миссию.”
She is yours to do with as you wish, in order to complete this mission.
That caught my attention. I’d never had control over something before. Only ever been controlled, made to go from one place to the other. As long as I got my mission done, I had free reign to do whatever I wanted, but I’d never had the ability to act as a handler to someone else.
I stepped forward and got a good look at her. I don’t doubt they put her into ice like me – she looked wet and clammy, the same way everyone did after getting taken out of cryostasis, but instead of being sat in a chair and getting spoken at like I did, she was just given to me. No, she was just thrown without a mission. Her handler was her mission. I was her mission, her sole focus.
“Выходи вперед.”
Come forward.
Her legs moved before I even finished my sentence. Well-calibrated, to say the least. I nod as the men around me instruct me where to go and who to kill for my next assignment. A long, tedious list that I had no interest in getting personally involved in. When it was her turn to get spoken to –
“Делай все, что говорит Солдат.”
Do whatever the Soldier says.
My mission was in France. A small bar that had a regular patron who knew about the whereabouts of some ancient artifact that HYDRA needed to get in order to keep its grip on the world. Seventeen’s job was to distract the other men while I took the target to a hidden room. All I had to do was sit in the shadows and wait until everyone else was distracted to take the man away.
Alouette, gentille alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai,
Alouette, gentille alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai…
I hadn’t gone on an espionage mission before. I wasn’t used to waiting for my targets, or working with outside factors. Seventeen’s voice made it hard to focus, with its metronome-like lilt drawing most of the men in the room to look up at her. On stage, she didn’t look like someone who could be made to kill – just in a simple dress and red mouth.
The same kind of red that would be leaking from the man’s mouth later as I injected him from behind his seat and into his neck. He wasn’t hard to extract intel from, nor was he difficult to put down. It was almost annoying, how quick it all was. I was able to handle someone and spent hours tracking a man, only for him to slump over after twenty minutes. Not that it matters – the first part of my mission was done with this assignment.
“ You kept singing after I took him out. ”
It was the first thing I noticed as I left the room and got into the getaway truck. Never mind the bullets flying our way – it was as damaging as drizzling rain – as the test subject was already sitting on the side seat, waiting for me. I could hear her singing echo even after I left the room, and now that I’m in the truck, the melody lingered in my mind.
“ What’s it to you that I kept singing. ” Not a question. A blunt statement. Bold for something that was supposed to be subservient. Her voice was no longer sweet like when she was singing.
“ You’re supposed to do exactly as I say. ”
“ You wanted me to distract the men. I did. You never said what happened after .”
I turned my head. “ You’re not supposed to get smart. ”
That made her snort. She hadn’t had her mind wiped, not like me. It would kill the implants in her brain if she was, making forced obedience impossible. “ You can’t force someone with a brain to not have one, Soldier. Unlike you, I wasn’t made to be stupid. ”
“ I’ll be telling your handlers about this. ”
“ Do it. Then they’ll hurt me, and I’ll be put to sleep. Then I won’t have to hear you talking. ”
I didn't have to tell anyone anything. The moment we got back into the Siberian compound, she was grabbed by the scruff and dragged across the floor like a rabid animal. She was still wearing the disguise from France, and as the fake pearl necklace scattered on the floor, I could hear her scream:
“ I’ll see you in Hell, Soldier – stoking the goddamn flames! ”
It wasn't her words that stuck with me, or even her voice. It was the fact that she was supposed to be mine to handle, but she hardly acted like something for me to control. I didn't like that.
[Day 342]
I knew he wasn’t in a good place since the cabin, but it’s been two days and Bucky’s been having the same symptoms over and over again. I didn’t like how it looked. Made me feel sick too. He’s been mutterin’ to himself constantly, low enough for me not to hear but enough for me to get worried. They sometimes sound like questions, other times like statements.
We’d driven past the border of Romania and that’s the most I can say. With how worrying this all was, I developed a habit of just curling up in the seat next to him and sleeping, burying my face in the cushions and praying this was all just a bad dream; and I’d be lucky enough to wake up in the good old Dust Bowl again. But it wasn’t a dream. I haven’t the foggiest as to where we are now, not with the black of night and him goin’ mute a few places back. I wasn’t afraid of Bucky because he’s considered the Winter Soldier at the moment, I was afraid of Bucky because he was acting like he was in Bucharest. Lost and distrusting. Looking over his shoulder constantly and checking things – the time, the date, where we were, like it wasn’t just a dream he was in. It was like all that hard work of exercising his memories went back to square one, or something.
“We’re here.”
After nearly a whole day and night of constant driving, we stopped. Looking outside our truck’s window, I start getting that uneasy feeling in my belly again.
“That’s…the ocean.” My cheeks heat with worry again. Were we going to swim? I couldn’t handle water, not after all those hours HYDRA would – shit, it’s getting hard to breathe again…
“No. There’s a guy who runs the ferry. He should be here.” In a few minutes he showed me what he meant, as the edge of the pier showed a man walkin’ up to us in a baseball cap and thick jacket. Spring was making people still feel chills, and I wasn’t an exception it seemed. He spoke in a language that I couldn’t understand, but Bucky spoke perfectly fine in. Like I said, I slept through most of the ride, so I couldn’t tell you where we were, but I knew this much – we were far past Romania now.
The man raised his hand, as if to reject whatever Bucky was going to say, but went still when Bucky pulled something out of his pocket. At first I thought it was a gun, what with how the man reacted, but upon closer inspection it was some kind of card. I turned around. I didn’t have it in me to get a good look, not when I had a decent hunch as to what was on there.
Dirty. We were going to one of their safehouses.
“You took the agent’s card?” He nodded. Using one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s safehouses? Was he crazy? They’d smoke us out in a minute!
“If they’re anything like HYDRA, they probably have a lot of agents either deployed or in between missions, it wouldn’t be weird if someone accessed one,” The look on my face was clearly enough to break the vow of silence he’s had for the past few hours. “That, and because they think we went back up North.” Right, he’d done the work to make our tracks look forward instead of back. Even so, I couldn't help but bring up the obvious:
“This doesn’t have to do with you not trusting your head, is it? Steve didn’t – ”
“I don’t know anything with him,” Bucky jaw clenched at that. “Aside from when we spoke on my missions and the Smithsonian. That’s all I can say I know.”
A lump gathered in my throat. “James – ”
“C’mon. We have to go in the dark.”
We stood at the pier when a small boat came our way. Something faintly uneasy roiled in my stomach as Bucky stepped into it, my own steps stumbling. I instinctively grabbed his arm, to which he pulled me closer to his side. Bucky’s gloved metal arm firmly wrapped around my waist as he spoke something in the different language again. The man across from us, the same guy at the pier, nodded and started the boat again.
Now is a good time, I suppose, to mention that I’ve never been in water before. Ever. The fact that we were wholly surrounded by black water of the ocean terrified me. I buried my face into Bucky’s hoodied shoulder. “Tell me when we get there,” I say, too afraid to open my eyes.
“We’re here,” he says about an hour and a half later. I would say I fell asleep, but my stomach was too heavy to rest. I mostly just hoped we wouldn’t drown while I felt the water rock us back and forth. Another pier, this time, though, instead of an open road, I could see dark, shadowy buildings waiting for us. We got off the boat and I tried to ignore how shaky my legs were from the boat ride as we began to walk the sleeping streets.
The biggest difference between here and the Carpathian Mountains? It was a tall neighborhood, not a crowded forest. Yellowed, old arches and curled fences. Beautiful, but aged. Old, but not poor – the ground under us was made of neatly flat stone bricks, the buildings were close and narrow to walk through, but there were restaurants in every few sections we cut through. I could tell it was beautiful, even if it was still dark out.
“Where are we?”
“Corfu. Greece. Small island.”
“What.” My voice faintly registered. I suddenly wanted to vomit even more. I’d spent over half the year hiding in a shitty shack in the mountains, and now I’m on an island!? Not landlocked!? Somehow I miss that awful safehouse, and mourn the fact that it’s burnt to a crisp. Great, just great! Я хочу домой!
The sky was barely blue by the time we made it to our safehouse – a small corner of an apartment at the edge of a narrow-streeted neighborhood. It was small, white-walled, but clean. Not worn-down like the last place, but not exactly lived-in either. No, we didn’t have any sheds, old stoves or terrible mattresses. Well, actually, that’s a lie – there was a hard blue slab of cushion that I thought was supposed to be a mattress, but I didn’t want to look at it. Everything else looked more up to date than the last place, if not dusty and not nearly as homely as the last place we left. No sheets, no books, no comforts.
It wasn’t hard to set up the place. We only brought our two packs, of which we didn’t remove much from other than our clothes, soap and books. Weapons and cash were stuffed in and hidden with the bags beneath the floorboards. I was careful to keep the burner phone hidden in my backpack now, under the wood, otherwise Bucky might get mad. Just because he doesn’t trust Steve doesn’t mean I feel the same. Speaking of:
“Sokovia’s been attacked.” I read from the newspaper I stole from a closed stand from earlier. I didn’t understand Greek, but I understood pictures well enough. “An evil robot wants to destroy humanity, based on the pictures.” I raised it to him while he was trying to fold his back into the floorboards. “Raised the ground from the sky and tried to destroy everyone.” How the hell did we not get note of this? Were we that cut off? Come to think of it, the mountains were a heavy blockade for information…
“How’d they stop it?” Bucky took the paper from my hands and scanned the text.
I blinked. I couldn’t read Greek, between the two of us he had basic training. “How did they?” He quickly closed and folded the paper, putting it into the trash bin. “What?”
“S.H.I.E.L.D. took care of it.”
“So they’re not controlled by HYDRA anymore, huh? You think Steve helped?” He didn’t say anything. “He did, didn’t he?”
“Does it matter?”
So he did. I knew I couldn’t argue with him on this – partially because of how quiet he’s been, and every time he spoke it didn’t seem kind, and partially because I knew that he and I were thinkin’ the same thing: How much of HYDRA is left in S.H.I.E.L.D.?
“You don’t actually think Steve ratted on us, do you?” I quietly asked as he took off his gloves.
“I don’t think I care anymore to know. It’s not like there’s much to trust anywhere.”
“You trust me,” I point out. “For all you know, I could’ve had a tracker – ”
“Don’t say that,” Bucky sharply interrupted, making me wince. “It’s like you want to get sent back when you do.”
My face twitched. “I’m just pointin’ out a plot hole – you’ve known me for less time but keep me around longer than him.”
“Would you rather be left behind?” I didn’t say anything to that. He sighed. “You’ve proven to me enough times that you’re not a mole. No secret agent would try to kill themselves in the middle of a mission, or share a bed with the Winter Soldier.”
My cheeks burn at that. My cheeks have been burning a lot, recently.
“The best traps are made with honey, sir.”
He walked my way, his metal hand suddenly cradling my jaw. My breath caught to my throat as his sharp blue eyes suddenly focused on only me. He’s been so tense and mad this whole trip I thought I’d smart-mouthed too much. “You’re not. Not with how you came to be here.”
“You sound so sure,” I exhaled as he let go of me. “Sometimes I think you know more than me, or somethin’. Which would be funny, considering you’re the brainwashed one.” His hands ball at that. Shit, that must’ve been a low blow. “I mean – your memory, mind-wiped – ”
“I know what you meant.”
“I meant no offense,” I looked away. “You just seem to know everything, and what to do all the time, seeing you get all distrustful was…scary. Thought you’d punch him over the phone, or something.”
His tense brow had been low and menacing this whole time. Me saying that he looked scary lessened it a little. “You would too if you knew what was in my head.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I rasp, ignoring the tiredness in my muscles. I was still so shaken from yesterday that my arms and legs were still sore from the sudden kicking and fighting I did. “But it still spooked me more than the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at our doorsteps. When you took us out of there, it…I didn’t like how it felt.”
“I just don’t want to go back. I thought you did too.”
“I do, I do. Guess I got too spoiled up in the mountains. Just you, me, and the forest. Thought that nothing could touch us there after a while.”
“So did I.”
We didn’t say much while the sun began to rise for the morning. Both exhausted, especially him, I let him take the first shower while I tried to set up the place for us to live in. Since we were in a small, Mediterranean town on a small island, I was hopeful we’d stay as long as we did in the mountains. After all, it would be nice to be closer to people. All that safe hiding without the mental loneliness that made us go off the deep end at times. Those always made my head hurt.
Almost as much as my head right now as I suddenly hit the floor, my vision going black.
Chapter 41: Fever Pitch
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[19??]
I was extra combative when they took me out this time. I didn’t like how my head was spinning – I know they caused it, but I didn’t know how. The mind wipes would muzzle and make me sit through shock waves of my own thoughts getting burnt. Then they wondered why I’d kill one of them the next time I woke up. I only serve for HYDRA, not whatever they feel comfortable with.
My mission was in Vietnam, in a jungle. A village of local rebels were hiding their leader in some huts where marshes and muddy waters could alert untrained feet to get caught. Traps and springwires everywhere, not to mention hidden explosives. I was given a boon to lessen the legwork of crawling.
“Непослушный.”
The disobedient one, the handlers simply described her and I immediately knew who they were talking about. She matched my own attire of black and kohl with a forcibly locked jaw. No matter, it’s not like she has a say in any of this anyways. Even if I can’t kill her, I can hurt her. I’m her mission, not the other way around. One way or another, this will get finished. Or, as the handler said it:
“ Go across the wires and traps to disarm the guards. Clear the way for movement. Take care of the Soldier when he’s occupied, make sure he doesn’t die under your watch. ”
She didn’t say anything as we crouched down to start the assignment. Her footsteps were light and silent. Good. While she moved I circled the village to enter through some backwater entrance that, if the maps were to be trusted, led me to my target. All I had to do was wait for her to get the job done.
BOOM!
Under normal circumstances, I would chalk the explosive going off as someone being incompetent or another agent getting careless. But knowing her, I knew it was neither.
She’s rebellious in a way I despised. In a way that made my job more difficult. In a way that didn’t go with the fact she’s supposed to be servicing me, HYDRA, not whatever stupid, delusional plan she thinks would free her.
No matter. It’s not like a small bit of disobedience would stop me from getting my mission completed. While everyone was moving outside, getting out of the way from the black smoke that engulfed the once-green grasses, I made my way to the safehouse that held the leader of the resistance. He wasn’t in the main room. Looking around, I noticed a small, circular rug on the ground. I kicked it as hard as I could, knocking the wooden trapdoor underneath down without resistance from its hinges.
“ Shit! ”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Говно. The man went down in two shots – one to the neck, the other to the forehead – but not before getting my shoulder. A trick of stupid luck that wouldn’t have happened if Subject Seventeen set off the alarms for movement. When I found her waiting in the trees like the handler had told her, I dragged her by the collar against the tree. The rest of the village was burning – I’d set fire to the rebel bases, and it spread quickly as people didn’t realize gasoline-based flames don’t get deterred by water.
“ I should kill you for that stunt. ” My metal hand wrapped around her throat. Her fingernails dug into mine, but her gaze was unmoved and stubbornly dark.
“ Do it, bitch. Then I can be free. Do it. Do it. DO IT – ”
BANG!
There were bullets flying in our direction, making Subject Seventeen kick me away and run the other direction; where the truck we’d arrived in waited for us. I got to the driver’s seat before she could, and shoved her to the back. “ SON OF A – ” I slammed her head back against the wall before she could finish her sentence. If I knocked her out that’s better, not because I cared (I actually preferred her dead than disobedient), but because the base would put me to sleep longer if I killed another unintended unsub. I’d just made it past the marshes and almost to the roads beyond the trees when –
BOOM!
The back of the car suddenly launched both of us forward. My vision went black. Quickly, my head lists what was supposed to have happened – destroy traps, kill rebel leader, burn village… technically, my job was done.
When I wake up, I feel something heavy on my shoulder. Looking to my right, it was wrapped in gauze. To my left, there was a fire.
“ No, no, stay down. A minute more and the fire would have taken you .”
Subject Seventeen’s voice was across from me. She was sitting cross-legged against a tree. The kohl around her eyes made her gaze more narrowed in on me.
“ Why didn’t you. ”
“ Third sentence of the order, snow bastard. ”
My brows furrow in thought, then – oh.
Go across the wires and traps to disarm the guards. Clear the way for movement. Take care of the Soldier when he’s occupied, make sure he doesn’t die under your watch.
Puppeteering her wasn’t an exact art, but clearly some technicalities helped. “ I’ll still be telling the handlers of your recklessness. You still caused the first explosion. ”
She snorted, getting close to my face. “You just don’t like the fact that you almost killed the one who got you out of there. Hrrk – !” I grabbed her throat and tightly wound my fingers around her throat.
“ I could do it now. No one would care. ”
She started to laugh under my palm. “ Do it. You want to hate me so bad, Soldat. But you love your mission more, huh? Even your balls are rented – ” I shoved the back of her head against the tree behind her, making her body go limp. Checking her neck, she was still breathing. I throw her over my shoulder and get started on returning to the checkpoint. I'm six hours behind because of her.
I don’t want to hate her. I already do. She’s a burden. A chore. She doesn’t make missions easier. "She’s supposed to follow me, but she never does.” When I told the staff in Siberia this, they assured me that they’d do something about her. I knew that didn’t, though, because they mind-wiped me afterwards. Meaning, for some reason, me disliking her was too much of a rebellious act on my end to keep in my head. I still remember her words, though – you want to hate me so bad.
[Day 350 - Bucky’s P.O.V.]
I blame what’s happened entirely on those agents. It’s been over a week and the nurse’s fever still hasn’t let up. After my shower I’d found her laying on the floor of the safehouse, unmoving and silent. At first I thought there might’ve been an intruder, or a “bug” the agents snuck into her bag that made her knocked out, but upon feeling her cheek in my hand I realized it wasn’t that at all. She was sick. And as for the past few days – very, very sick.
I shouldn’t have gotten so careless in my anger. That’s my fault. Because of those S.H.I.E.L.D. agents suddenly found our location, we had to move, and she got herself so worked up that it jumpstarted her panic systems. I’ve lived with her long enough to know that her spine hurts when something is off – when it’s too cold outside, when she’s too stressed about something. The metal rods seem to egg on whatever pain she’s in and amplifies it to a hundred – HYDRA loves to keep punishing their subjects, even when they’re not in their labs. I don’t want to think about the bruising she must’ve gotten from being in ice for seventy years.
“C’mon, you have to eat something – ”
“No, no, please, please – !” Getting food in her was its own hell. Because the safehouse was in a small town, it was easy enough to get something, but I learned quickly that nothing stayed down for long. Even oatmeal seemed to make her choke whenever I’d brace myself to wake her from sleep. It was like the HYDRA cells all over again, with her fugue state making her think I’m a scientist forcing something into her skin again. All that hard work of hunting for her in Carpathia seemed to be given the middle finger every time she bent over to the trash can and convulsed with bile coming out of her mouth.
My biggest worry was her dying. It’s not exactly like she’s as robust as me – not when it comes to her immune system. HYDRA would make the same people who would spar against Winter Soldiers be kept weak in between matches by tube-feeding and freezing. Apparently stress and adrenaline seemed to have the same kind of core triggers, since the nurse hadn’t moved in days. “James?” She once whispered in a rare moment of clarity. Her skin had been lifeless for two days now.
“Yeah?”
“’M worried about Steve. Do you – do you think they’re keeping him safe? From HYDRA? His friends?”
I didn’t want to think about Steve at the moment. Not when I saw those agents, I remembered what we were up against and how fragile the system around us was. How many moments in my head were fake, and how many were real? Even if Steve was true to my mind, it didn’t change the fact that nothing has kept me safe in this world since escaping HYDRA. I’ve been let down by everyone, and the last thing I needed was another gamble –
“...you’re spiraling again, sir.”
I take her burning hand and squeeze it with my metal one. “I’m not, sweetheart. Just go back to sleep.”
Her glazed-over eyes landed on me. “With me?”
I hesitated. “You know you can’t risk it…” I wasn’t immunocompromised like her, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t pass anything on.
“Please? I’m freezing.”
I sigh, joining her under the sheets that night. Despite the chills that racked her, she was burning under my touch. If this went on for another day or two, I might have to take her to the nearby clinic, which wasn’t like Carpathia. Where the mountains were landlocked and the sleepy village was detained from suspicion since there’s hardly any new people, Corfu was a tourist hotspot where anyone could see our faces. Not to mention the fact that their tech would be more up to date, so it’d be harder to hide from.
But I don’t mention any of this to her. Instead, I cup her sweaty forehead with my cool metal hand and try not to move so much. “You’re breaking my heart, honey,” I murmured, remembering the first time I’d said this seventy years ago. I never thought I’d be in a position to be saying it again, to the same girl who no longer fully remembers me.
[Back to Central P.O.V. - ???]
I was in the compound. I knew that much because of how cold I felt. Looking down, I was wearing a bright blue hospital gown. Looking up, the room was freezing, smelling faintly of sanitizer and metal. Someone had been killed here recently, or, at least, stabbed. Neither mattered, just the fact that I was up next.
“Тема семнадцать. Подход.”
I walked forward, my legs jerking North through the words spoken from the walls. Looking around, there were no watching windows, but instead walls made up of mirrors. I couldn’t see my face, though – my lips and nose were blurred, and my cheeks were distorted with my jaw. My eyes were the only thing that stared clearly back.
“Драться.”
Fight? Fight what? I was alone? Circlin’ the room, there was nothing there but –
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Ублюдок.
I throw a fist before I can even think. He didn’t even flinch when catching it, and I felt my knuckles bruise as my wrist still dug into his palm. Suddenly I heard piano playin’, the same melody I’ve played to death for the scientists to show I’m fully calibrated for obedience – Первая соната Бетховена фа минор, en Prestissimo. We both look up, which surprised me since I wasn’t even aware that the Winter Soldier could even feel things like shock, and I take the chance to ram my other hand into his face. He takes the bait of my other fingers and I shove a boot to the groin.
He stumbles back, mumbling something. “ Speak up, Soldat! ” I hissed. Be careful, I remind myself. Bucky Barnes is in there – but this isn’t him. He doesn’t even look like him – if Bucky Barnes was a handsome hawk, the Winter Soldier was an ugly owl in terms of facial expressions. People who read Greek stories might think owls are smart, but in reality, those birds are slower than molasses in winter. Which I think is apt for Athena, considering how I doubt she’d last a second in Amarillo –
“.. .for we loved our comrade, so brave, young and handsome. We all loved our comrade, although he’d done wrong. ”
I’d never heard Bucky sing. He could barely whistle, so him carrying a tune was impossible. But he sounded so different – I recognized the voice as my old man’s. He’d overheard the song from work, and carried it to me.
Suddenly his face morphed into someone else. One I couldn’t recognize. A scarred face, angry and hateful. Same eyes as I – then a shot of hate burned from my chest to my throat. I ran to punch him again, purpled knuckles be damned – “You’re just turnin’ into everyone I hate, huh!? Soldier, brother – you gonna turn into that tiny little scientist next!?”
He looked up, eyes going from his to mine, mine to his, all while he grabbed my collar and spun me. I did the same, and soon we were draggin’ each other in the room of spinning mirrors. He started reciting again – not singing, just speaking in that horrid, hoarse tone he always had post-cryo:
My father oft told me, and of times chided me,
And said my wicked ways would never do,
But I never minded him, nor ever heeded him,
always kept up in my wicked ways…
“I bet your daddy wished a lotta things for you,” I spat, gathering my losing strength to shove him against the mirrors again –
CRASH!
Suddenly the reflective wall behind us shattered, and we fell into the black abyss. When we landed, I felt that I was alone again. I cried out, the hard floor smacking hard right on the most delicate part of my spine. My vision went spotty as I tried to not make a fuss, not so much like when the scientists would shock me if I got too loud.
My cheeks were both hot and cold, as I cried angry tears at my situation. It somehow elevated to screaming, like a wounded animal that didn’t know it had rabies but knew no one would be kind enough to put it down. My back was on fire, in such a way it felt foreign and familiar all at once. My head felt as if it was splittin’ in two –
“ You’re breaking my heart, honey. ”
The pain muffled for a moment at the words that echoed in my ears. Opening my eyes, Bucky’s big blues were looking down at me with a tearful worry that I’d only ever seen when he had nightmares he never wanted to talk about. His face looked younger too. I couldn’t help it – I clawed his arms and started crying quieter, softer, sadder. I tried to say something, but my own voice felt muffled, like I couldn’t even figure out what I was saying. My voice was foggy and faint. Still, he softly cooed like he understood:
“ Took what out, sweetheart? What did they take? ”
I sobbed like a child into his chest. “ My – my – my back! They tore my fucking spine out, I know they did! Then they put - something - back in with it! ”
He hushed me, wiping my tears with his palms like I was a baby. Both his hands were flesh, but cool. “ Want me to kiss you better? ” I nod, desperate for something that wasn’t painful. His lips were soft, warm and chapped against mine. He didn’t have his stubble, and I couldn’t taste smoke on his teeth like Bucharest. I was warm, then – my chills gone as he kept kissing me like I was the only thing that mattered.
“ Brooklyn’s great, ” Bucky murmured as he pulled me away. His nose gently nuzzled my cheek. “ I’ll take you to Coney Island first. Take you on the Cyclone, then cotton candy. You’ll hate how sweet it is, but get all giddy at the juices they sell. And then I’ll steal a sip, and you'll chase me down the pier… ” He kissed me again, as if to keep me in his arms. “ I’ll kiss you stupid and beg for forgiveness. ”
I smile weakly, pain slowly ebbing away. “ Anythin’ else you'd do to annoy me? ”
Bucky playfully scrunched his nose. “ Nah. Maybe beg you to sing something sweet for me. ”
I hum. “ I’d sing for you even if you didn’t ask, sergeant. ”
“ Yeah?” His thumb caressed my cheek. “ You’d sing at our wedding too, right? The one after we have our scandal babies? ”
I snort. “ Yessir. I’ll make a ballad about how their daddy is a horny bastard with a heart o’ gold .” Bucky grins with pride at that one.
“Damn right I am. Steve’ll walk you down the aisle, offer you an out, knowing damn well you’re too stubborn to say yes, then dramatically say ‘Welp, I tried to save her!’ Before giving you to me.”
“ Is he the kind of guy to propose to an expectin' gal to preserve her honor, even if he doesn’t like her like that? ”
“ Yeah, but only after shoving me against the wall and demanding I do it first. ” That makes me laugh. “ Lucky for you, I’d marry you even if we didn’t have a baby on the way. ”
“ I don’t think I’d be a very good wife, ” I hum. “ I don’t like housework. Cooking is fine, but I hate washin’. ”
“ I’ll do laundry and dishes if you cook and sew. ”
“ And medical school? ”
“ I’ll sharpen your pencils and make the same kind of sandwich until you become sick of it, so much so you threaten to divorce me. And then I’ll call you crazy, take a walk, and buy that same lunch meat at the butcher’s while bragging about how my girl’s the smartest in the city. ” A pause. “ Yeah, when we get out of here. ”
“ We will? ”
“ We will .”
[Bucky P.O.V. - Day 351]
She started thrashing in her sleep again. She’s been doing that more and more lately. It would always go the same way: A whimper would escape her lips, then she’d start twitching in my arms. I’d give her space, and suddenly she’d be writhing and crying while begging me not to hurt her. Like I was a scientist or handler. Then, like my voice did something, she’d go quiet when I started hushing her. Cling to me until morning.
Her fever broke last night, which was a relief as she refused to eat. I don’t even think she was even aware when she was awake – barely blinking up as I tried to feed her water and oats, but she’d swallow as soon as she heard me beg. Then go limp after a few gulps.
“Hey,” I murmured while wiping her chest down. I’d changed her shirts a few times, just to make sure she doesn’t stew in her own sick. Now in my red Henley, I noticed her last shirt had less sweat, hardly any at all. Progress. “I’m gonna take you to the doctor’s today. Risk be damned, I think I can pull it off – ”
Fwump!
I suddenly felt a weight pull me off the bed. Her hands were on my chest, eyes blown wide at the pupils. The sun caught the darks of her eyes with the lights, skin flushed and shining with sweat. Like a sick angel. She was panting with her mouth, out of breath like she ran a thousand miles just to knock me to the floor.
“... I remember you. ”
Notes:
Renamed from Silver Springs
Chapter 42: Jackass of the Year
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[1963]
The next time I saw Subject Seventeen was when she was taken out of cryostasis before I was assigned to kill an American president. Not when we sparred, but when I walked past her cell, but she couldn’t see or hear me.
“ ...all wrapped in white linen, all wrapped in white linen and cold as the clay… ”
Her voice wasn’t rhythmic like in France, where her voice was a metronome that drew people in. No, it was raspier, warmer, quieter. Subdued. The raspiness of the melody made my mind itch, like I’d heard it before. Maybe in her speech, or her tone – but she’d never spoken to me or anyone in HYDRA like how she sang, soft and quiet. Not that it mattered.
After our spar I stared at her through the looking glass of the experimentation room. She glared back, as if she had any kind of power over me. Stupid, delusional. I stared back, trying to imagine how her hard face could possibly look young and sweet, as if she had any in her. When the other scientists noticed me, they jutted her chin out for a fake kiss.
As if I’d ever touch that thing’s lips. I left, not wanting to be late for my mission.
[Day 351]
“How long have you known?”
“...a while.”
“Don’t do that.”
Bucky – Barnes – James – the sergeant – looked at his feet. “About a month before we met. I was researching about my past, and I went to the Smithsonian. Passed the nurse section. Didn’t think anything of it until I started to remember more in chunks.” A pause. “This was all before we met in Bucharest. I only really confirmed it being real in my head recently, the day before we left the mountains. The day before yesterday.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your hunch earlier?”
He huffed, but there was no amusement in his eyes. “How was I supposed to say it? ‘You know how we used to hate each other like dogs? Well, before that, I’m pretty sure we were cellmates who were five seconds from hooking up with broken limbs and running away together!’” He shook his head. “You didn’t even like me. And in my brainwashing, I didn’t like you either.”
I leaned against the wall. My fever broke but I was still shaky on my legs. The sergeant tried to help me back to bed at first, but I shoved him back. “I wish you told me. At least with your hatred I’d know you would’ve been honest.”
My memories were the only thing that kept me sane in HYDRA’s Siberian compound. The fact I wasn’t a Soldier, therefore not brainwashed, and kept to my thoughts in between cryostasis was the only thing that let me from goin’ crazy. And now, the fact that there was a chunk of my life that I’d been left out on?
So that’s why Bucky was so withdrawn when we met. Why he still is now. I didn’t even lose all of my memories like him and I’m already halfway into not knowing who or what to trust. No wonder he crashed out on Steve.
“What else?”
“What?”
“What else did we do? Did the handlers do?” I knew my memory between my transfer to France and Russia was blurry, but I always chalked it up to the pain of my surgeries. The experimentation breaking into my unscathed skin against my will. Like when mothers give birth, and forget about the stress of labor a year later when they want their second child. But I didn’t want a second of anything. I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
Barnes shook his head. “You wouldn’t say. They’d drag you out and throw you back in, and you’d be knocked out most days.” He’s been sitting across from me for the past few hours. “You looked dead. You looked dead when I first saw you. Handlers treated you like trash.”
“And you? What did you think?”
He looked at his metal hand, clenching and unclenching the knuckles. I can’t believe I’d made a scrapbook for his damn limb. No, I shouldn’t be mad. But I wasn’t happy. What the hell was I supposed to be feeling? What would you say? For seventy years, I hated him. Then I started to get used to him. Tolerate him. Like him. Befriend him. Think he was handsome. And now I’m supposed to get used to the fact we had a moment, once? What was my mind doing? What was I doing?
“...I thought you were beautiful.”
My cheeks burned at that. “And Bucharest? You tried to drown me. I stabbed you. Acted like jackasses to each other.”
“My head wasn’t all the way there. I tried to go out on a limb with a lot of things, because I didn’t know what to do. That’s why I let you in. Tried to contact Steve more.”
Okay, that made sense. “But Carpathia? The night at the river? When I tried to drown myself? When – ”
I miss my daddy.
I know.
You do?
You mentioned it once, when we first met.
Whenever I felt like I was losin' myself in HYDRA, I'd recite stuff. Recipes, names, things I liked and disliked.
Was I ever on that list?
I kept everything outside of HYDRA in my head. Besides, I've always had a good memory. It's hard for me to forget anything.
How about you? Got a big brother or something?
You read like you want to go to medical school, or something.
And medical school?
I’m just pointin’ out a plot hole – you’ve known me for less time but keep me around longer than him.
You sound so sure. Sometimes I think you know more than me, or somethin’. Which would be funny, considering you’re the brainwashed one.
You would too if you knew what was in my head.
I remember you. I’m not going back.
Warmth makes you sleep heavier. Less nightmares.
I’m serious. You’re the first lady who cried over me kissing them. I usually have more sex appeal.
You’ve ever been kissed before, sweetheart?
I knew I was rusty, but I usually have more sex appeal.
I could be your brother. Treat you better than yours.
I’ve had enough brother for a lifetime, sir.
Good. Because you’re too pretty to be my sister anyways.
...yeah. Brother. That's me.
Your back must be killin’ you, doll. Cold’s no good for you.
Cold’s no good for you, not when your bones are weak….
You always take the night shift like this?
Not really. But you’re one of my boys, aren’t you? It’s my job to take care of you until I can’t.
I’m one of your soldiers, one of your boys…yeah. I’m one of your boys. You can’t break on me, not when I’m still fightin’ for us. Need a pretty face to fight for, not a sad one.
My teacher has this copy of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, and I think it’s the prettiest book I’ve ever done seen.
“You call your book a girl?”
“My girl,” I correct. “And she’s my baby, so I gotta treat her well and not read her too much.” Barnes’ face softens for some reason as I tell him that.
I wish I was dead. I wish they’d killed both of us, and I wish we died before they had the chance to do all of this.
I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry.
I couldn’t help but laugh through my watery eyes. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t in the least – but the son of a bitch had been dangling my lost memories right in front of me! James stared at me as my body began to sway at how hard I was heaving my chest in amusement.
“Don’t – ” He reached out to catch me. I shove him back again.
“Do not – DO NOT touch me!” I smack his hands hard before leaning against the door again. “You knew! You knew and didn’t tell me – ”
“How the hell could I!? Force you to remember the worst years you had at HYDRA, so much so your mind blacks out at them!? And I was supposed to bring it up when we first met in Romania!?” His blue eyes were brighter than usual as his jaw contracted and relaxed. “Don’t put that on me, nurse! Don’t you dare!” I fought the urge to sob at his tone, focusing on my glare. “When Steve broke me out of brainwashing, it was the most painful, confusing two months of my life. It still is. I didn’t want that on you, especially because you’re not – ”
“Exactly, I’m not brainwashed! So you should have told me!” I shook my head again in disbelief. “You never cared once about my pain when we first met, so why the hell didn’t you tear off the bandage then!? How much do you know? How much do I don’t?”
He didn’t say anything. Fine. Be like that. “Did we fuck.”
That makes his face twist. “What.”
“You said we had something in Siberia. Was it deep? Did we – did you – when they tried to turn you –”
A strangled noise escaped his throat. “Do you think I would?”
My lower lip trembled. “...no. Not at all. I don’t – I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.” He sleeps next to me every night. Never kissed, never touched. That used to comfort me. Now I feel empty at that fact.
What have I done? What have I said? Why would I think that? How could I think that? I wanted to vomit again. His brows furrow in a sad way I’d never seen before. Like this was killing him as much as it did me. “You don’t love me, do you?”
“...I don't know.”
He sounded like a shy child presenting a wilted flower to another kid at recess. I start silently chuckling again. I was blushing, I was sobbing. I wanted to kill him, I wanted to kiss him. At some point, my knees sank to the floor and my left palm clenched my scalp while my right covered my mouth. It wasn’t like the river, where Bucky didn’t hesitate to pull me out – here he crouched to outstretch his hand, then paused. Unsure if I was okay with him touching me. With him in general.
I started crying so much I started to dry heave, and soon my chest began to hiccup with bile. That’s when he breaks out of his stiffness and grabs me, jerking me to the nearby basin to vomit in. My knees buckled in the middle of sicking my guts out, and he held me up so I didn’t make my reaction worse.
“You’re alright, you’re alright,” The sergeant’s voice murmured against my hot ears as I sobbed up more sickness. His cool hand cradled my sweaty brow while his warm one was cupped under my ribs to keep me standing.
The same hand that choked me was now cradling me.
“Shit – you’re all hot again, you need to lie down – ”
I pulled away from his arms, despite how sour and sore my throat felt. “I’m takin’ a shower.”
“You shouldn’t – ”
“Shut up. Don’t talk to me. Just – just leave me alone.”
His fingers balled again as he stiffly nodded. “...alright.”
Despite my preference for hot water, I take the coldest shower I can. I needed to purge this stupid sickness once and for all, at least so my head can stop pounding. I hated it. Bein’ delicate. Bein’ unaware. Him knowing more than me? Wasn’t it my job to take care of him? And he just KNEW, THIS WHOLE TIME – how much more does he know? How much do I not?
My memory only goes so far in Siberia. Only so far, from when my head would let me. Cold and cruel, how I’d get strapped into a chair and made to allow whatever they deem curious enough into my bones, my blood, my skin. And in between? Black. Haze. Aches and bruises.
I should’ve jumped in the river. I should’ve done it at night, where I couldn’t have been stopped. Not if I was going to be this goddamn stupid.
Helpless. I was helpless. Mearie was right – I was a stupid child.
Bits and pieces would leak into my mind against my will. I didn’t want to remember – not deal with the humiliation of not being strong enough to remember, the pain of forgetting something, someone so kind and tender.
Did he expect me to reciprocate? Surely not, otherwise he would have told me. But he shared a bed with me. Kissed me. Befriended me. Was willin’ to play strangers even if he didn’t feel like it.
No, no! He was brainwashed, he was healing! He didn’t owe you the truth, not when he was – BUT I WAS HURTING TOO! AREN’T I OWED SOMETHING!? It’s my life!
He needs grace. He didn’t mean to withhold information from you, not when he wasn’t even sure which memories of his were truthful or not.
But it’s the PRINCIPLE ! The way he dangled hints of it principle! The way that, at some point, he remembered it bein’ true and decided not to tell me!
It’s been seventy years since he’s had any connections with anyone! He just cut off Steve! His head isn't all the way there all the time! Do you really think he’s going to be perfect at being human –
I don’t know and I don’t care!
He didn’t do it to hurt you!
We slept next to each other! He held my hand! Bought me orange juice! We cooked like my parents did! Was he just doing it because he wanted me to fall for him again!?
When were you ever so romantically inclined? You never were before HYDRA.
Since I feel like my freedom has been nothing more than a narrative. I’m fine with falling in love. I’m not fine with being fated. Fate is bullshit.
Who said he was feeling like that? He hasn’t actively wooed you. Unless…you wanted him to? Organically? But because he already has, and you barely remember it –
Shut up. Please…shut up.
[Bucky’s P.O.V.]
If I couldn’t hear her crying from beyond the locked door, I would have thought she drowned herself by now. It’s been thirty minutes.
I should have told her. Should have said it when I still was more mixed in the head with the Winter Soldier, so then at least it would be more honest. Crueler, cooler, but less mean than if we were friends.
Memories are fickle, though, aren’t they? Sure, you’ve doubted your mind a thousand times over, but some thoughts are just true from the moment you conceive them.
What thoughts?
When Steve broke you out. Your friendship. The love you had for life and people when you were just another man. The exhibitions at the Smithsonian. The photographs. Your pocket book. Lady the knife. Her.
What, so you’re saying I’ve always known a little bit that those memories were true, and I was stalling because I wanted…what? A break?
A fresh start, more like it. Well, at least, as fresh as a fugitive terrorist wanted in over seventy countries can have.
Well, I tried. And I got selfish and careless as a result. Didn’t consider the fact that I could undo her memories as well, and now I got her sicker as a result of it.
She’s just processing. It’s not exactly you had a smoother transition. If anything, she’s handling it a lot better than you did your memory-reveal. You beat the shit out of poor Steve on a burning airship. Almost drowned the both of you guys.
Oh, yeah. Much better, her getting sick and having a breakdown. I shouldn’t have shared a bed after she recovered. Shouldn’t have tried to befriend her. Tease her with the truth.
You were just trying to see if she remembered. Gentle her way into it the way you never got to have.
And look where it got me! She probably thinks I’ve still got the Soldier acting up in me – lying to her like that. Teasing her mind like bait. What’s wrong with me? Maybe it is him in there - it's not like I trust my head at night, so what's to say the daylight saves anything?
You shouldn’t pass judgement on yourself for this. It’s not your singular experience, and you were acting how you thought best.
Thanks doc. Real helpful. I’m all cured now, all seventy years of HYDRA. I might lose my fake wife that I wished was real, but at least I’m blameless! Just like all the murders, and the terrorism, and the hell that I put everyone through.
I got so caught up in her reactions and our banter that I got delusional. Forgetting why I’m here. Carpathia got me solitude, and cut off from the rest of the world. I hardly could tell Sokovia happened, and now I’m shocked when my actions bite me in the ass. Have I learned nothing?
[Back to Central P.O.V.]
When I got out of my shower and changed, Bucky still hadn’t looked at me. Just asked if I was alright. I nodded, not really feeling like talking anymore. Not after the embarrassing fit I threw.
Dinner was small, mostly just leftover oatmeal and water. We ate in silence. When it was time to go to bed, Bucky quietly said – “I’ll take the floor,” – before grabbing some old quilts and moving to the other side of the safehouse. Something about the solitude of lying alone made me want to cry.
I was confused by a lot of things. But now that I’d slept on it, I was mostly just upset. Upset at not knowing. Not being more aware of my own head. Blaming Bucky for something HYDRA did…why did I get mad at him? Why did I ask if we slept together? Idiot, I’m an idiot. If confusion and humiliation were a disease, I clearly tried to spread it to him. And, painfully, I think he took it.
I’m an asshole. Certified jackass.
He didn’t deserve that. Back in Siberia he was just tryin’ to be kind. And he was doing the same here, too. Even if he didn’t know what it was like to be naturally sweet, he tried. And I spat it back like a monster. He didn’t deserve that.
He let me in because he felt bad for me. Because he remembered me, and wanted something kind between the two of us. Because he trusted his old self more than his new self. And I liked both of them – I fell for the old Bucky, and the new Bucky made me feel…idiot. I’m an idiot.
The next morning, I lied and said I had to go outside to check the perimeter of our safehouse. I took my backpack with me when he wasn’t looking.
I had to go. I don’t deserve him. I have to go.
Notes:
guys i got hot sauce in my eye should i b panicking
Chapter 43: In need, indeed
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[???]
When I was taken out of the ice this time, things were different. There were less men in lab coats, more folks in suits. Even more wearing black shirts with padded vests for protection. Either they woke up a Winter Soldier and it didn’t end well before me, or they were going to do something especially unsavory with my body in the lab today, and wanted to make sure I didn’t resist.
An old, tall man with sandy hair and pale eyes walked up to me. He had a fine suit and looked a lot less apprehensive than everyone else surrounding us.
“Subject Seventeen, did you sleep well?”
English. He was speaking English. I hadn’t spoken English in a long time, not on my own volition. I didn’t answer back. Couldn’t, not without an order to.
Smack!
“I said – Хорошо ли спалось?”
“Answer, Seventeen.”
His palm made my cheek burn, but I hardly looked up as I nodded.
“Good to know at least one of them is properly calibrated.” Then nodded at the other men around them. “Prep her for later. If worse comes to worse, we need all hands on deck.” I was dragged out of the barred cryostasis chambers to the bright-white walls of the labs, where scientists don’t bother being gentle when checking my blood, heartrate, muscle memory – afterwards they changed my old hospital gown for a new one before throwing me into another cell.
Slam!
That was the oddity – my muscles hurt more than usual. It meant they didn’t inject me with painkillers beforehand, and the mixture of ice on my bones meant that my body felt more bruised than usual.
“ They threw you in here too. ”
I recognized his voice across from me. His stupid boots could just be seen through the corner of my eye. For once, I didn’t have the energy to hiss back.
He must’ve noticed the purple on my skin. “ They’d punish you less if you stopped putting up so much of a fight. Asked less questions. ”
Without the muzzle, the Winter Soldier’s voice was a lot less harsh on the ears. More tired. Almost confused, hazy, even. I looked up. Without the kohl and brainwashed hatred, he just looked like a lost kid. A big, murderous, bumbling lost kid.
“ Is that what they told you before smacking you? ”
His pale cheek had an imprint of red. I thought he’d huff and smack me back…but he just nodded. I wasn’t exactly feeling empathetic, though. “ Maybe you should have performed your mission better, Soldat. ” My voice was dripping with sarcasm.
The Soldier’s eyes didn’t leave the bars of our shared cell. That’s when I realized – he had a shock chain to his leg. BAHAHAHAHA – “ I did complete my mission. I did nothing wrong. Just asked if…if the man at the bridge was familiar. ”
I really didn’t give a shit. “ Shut up and let me sleep. ”
Later, I was woken and shoved back into ice. I had no idea why I was even woken up in the first place, but it didn’t matter. A while after and I’d be taken out again in a weak, dying attempt to fight Captain America and lose.
[Day 365]
Corfu was a hotspot for wedding couples, as I’d learned from hiding on my own for the past two weeks. Photographers took pictures of brides and grooms on beaches, restaurants, even renting out streets to be empty in the mornin’ so that their shots don’t get ruined. I discovered very quickly that any place where the streets are too wide and the sun shone too bright to avoid, in order to not get caught in a photo.
Every few days I’d stay at a different hotel, a different inn, with different aliases. Stay inside with the air conditioning and the nightmares, where I’d wake up to having an empty pillow next to me. If Bucky were here, he’d keep the light on, sit with me for a minute, then lay back. Then he’d pull the back of my collar down to the pillow again and turn off the lights. But he wasn't here anymore, so I just curled under my cushions.
Neither of us were ever goin’ to talk about HYDRA to each other. Not in detail. There was a mutual understanding that the hell we went through there was something that couldn’t be spoken over messy sheets or cold drinks. Sure, sometimes it’d be brought up, certain people, certain moments, but missions? Testing? Going into painful details about experiments? Mind wipes? “Disciplining”? Hell no. If there was a slim chance that even talking HYDRA would make some random handlers burst through our safehouse’s walls, we weren’t about to take the risk to speak about it.
Still, I’d gotten used to him. I know I’ve mentioned “main” days, days where we talk more than usual, or something important happens, but most days are quiet. Uneventful. Nightmares are a given, but during the day? I’d read or sew, and he’d scribble in his little book, undoubtedly trying to recover his memories, clean his knife, or whatever old chore that could keep his mind busy. If he really felt brave, he’d bring up a memory he’d defrosted. Penny restaurants. Brooklyn. Halloween.
Not that it matters now, though, right? I’d left. Wrote a small letter, and prayed that he didn’t track me. He probably could, he’s the Winter Soldier, but he hasn’t. Either he doesn’t trust his head again, or he’s respectin’ my wishes.
But if he’s not trusting his head again…shit. I shouldn’t have left him alone. He was already losing sleep from Carpathia, then from my travel sickness – being back at square one was worse when you're left alone.
But I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t. Not when I started spiraling myself, wondering how much HYDRA took from my head. Trying to focus on it, after getting kidnapped, a lot of my initial memories of the French and Siberian compound were a blur. I truly went black during that time, but I couldn’t exactly call it brainwashing.
Maybe they mindwiped me so I wouldn’t recall Bucky the next time I saw him. No, but that’s not it…mindwiping wears off, and you’d have to do it routinely in order to make sure it stays. Even I knew that, I’d seen enough Soldiers and experiments start to rebel the moment they had a few lucid moments alone. Steve breaking him out with the power of friendship was a prime example of this – sure, his grasp on what to trust is clearly fucked, but he knows some things to be true now that HYDRA isn’t burning off his synapses’ gathered information every few hours whenever he’s awake. But just as easily they can break, they can also cause terrible side effects – peek at the constant nightmares and sense of distrust shown prior.
I wish I had someone to talk to about this. Wish I could annoy Bucky like I did in the mountains. Wish I didn’t fuck it up with my own personal confusions…it’s not fair. They don't exactly give you a rulebook, "How to Live After Seventy Years of Frozen Hell". Escaping HYDRA didn’t make me free, it just made me lonely.
Well, almost lonely. I suppose I could go out on a limb, even if it’s been a while.
“Hello?”
“Brooklyn?”
“Texas, hey,” Steve’s voice was clear on the other line. “What’s going on?”
I felt bad for Steve. The last time he answered this burner, Bucky yelled at him halfway into hell for something that wasn’t his fault. “You alone?”
“Just me and my coffee, ma’am.”
I wanted to tell him what had happened before. About how I’d recently got my memories back, had reacted disgustingly to his best friend’s words, and how I wanted to walk straight into the ocean and never return. I wanted to cry and tell him I wished I had someone to talk to that wasn’t my terrible thoughts. But I didn’t.
“I saw you on the news. Real heroic stuff, Sokovia. I can’t believe killer robots exist in the modern world.”
If he was hurt from Bucky’s last call, he didn’t show it. “I’m honestly surprised I’m still alive. One second I’m fighting Nazis, the next…whatever those things in the sky were. I just got used to saying ‘my friend Thor’ the other day. It’s not all bad, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Made some new friends. Seeing someone. Or, at least, trying to.”
“Oh? How’s that going?”
“As well as you’d expect from a guy whose last spark was when Truman was in office.”
I chuckled at that. I know Bucky mentioned Steve bein’ a string bean when they were kids, but it’s still weird to think that a hunk like him would be so awkward with the fairer sex. If I hadn’t been witness to his bashfulness myself I would’ve rolled my eyes. “What, you’re tellin’ me dames don’t like it when guys pull up with flowers anymore?”
“More like they’re too busy. Which I can respect, but now I have no idea what kind of angle I’m supposed to take when asking if they want to grab some coffee together.”
I pout. “Poor baby. Big, strong Captain America can’t talk to a girl who has a life.”
He snorted. “Har-har. How’s things going on at your end? How’s…how’s Buck?”
I had a breakdown over the fact that your friend kissed me once seventy years ago and now we’re living in separate spaces and I’m pretty sure I’m never gonna see him again.
“Quiet. Paranoid.”
Steve went quiet on the other line, before quietly saying my name. “I didn’t send those agents, I swear. I’d never – ”
“I know, Steven, I know. I don’t doubt you were too busy saving the world to even do such a thing. I know you’re no snitch, Captain.”
“Bucky doesn’t think so.”
“Do you know how mind wipin’ works, sir?”
“Can’t say I have, ma’am. I just know that he’s forgotten me, and remembered, and now…”
I shake my head. “They burn off literal cells in your brain, Steve. They don’t let you form thoughts. They cut the information right at the synapse’s terminals so that the receptors don’t get anything to process through their myelin sheaths. Those myelin sheaths already have natural electric currents to transfer messages, but because they’re undone, tampered and burnt, people become aggressive and confused as a result. Like a thought that was supposed to form but never did, then multiply that effect by a hundred.” That’s not even mentioning the painful shocks that came with it all. Strapping you to a chair, muzzling you…maybe it’s my time away from HYDRA talking, but I felt a little bad for the brainwashed Winter Soldier. Between the two of us, he got the chair so many times, I’d sometimes hear him in the lab. He...he really did put up a fight, even when he was "gone".
I didn’t know that because I’d overheard some scientists at the compound explain it. I just put two-and-two together with my medical book in Bucharest and my own experiences with electric shocks. Shabby, but probable. “At some point, they start burning the sheaths too, so nothing can process. That’s when they brainwash you – if you can’t think for yourself, you’re more likely to do whatever they want you to do.”
“I know that much,” he said with a sad bitterness. “I was there for that much. I thought we were getting better from there.”
“You were,” I softly reassured. Suddenly I felt as if I was comforting another guilty private over not doing good in training, not something much more complicated than that. “But when you’ve been mind-scraped for seventy years straight, and put into a disorienting ice-sleep in between committing major moral sins against your will, your paranoia goes from zero to a hundred real quick. Hence us livin’ in an abandoned shack for seven months, and him cuttin’ you off so quickly. It’s not personal, it’s…”
“I know, I know. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt all the same.” I hum. “He hasn’t hurt you recently, has he? If his mind isn’t all the way there, then – ”
“Oh, no,” I say, shakin’ my head. “For, like, the first half of this year we hardly even stayed in the same room out of safety measures.” And because we didn’t share a bed, but Steve doesn’t need to know that much.
“That’s good. I was worried one of you guys would try to hurt each other again, or something.”
My jaw locks at that. “It – it hasn’t been wholly easy, but he’s usually quiet. Keeps to himself, and I’m the same.” A pause. “’Cept…”
Steve’s voice picked up on the other end, clearly expecting the worse. “What? What happened? Do you need me to – ”
“Oh, no, no,” I shake my head, my voice gettin’ watery against my will. “It’s nothing he did, promise. I was just – just a goddamn idiot, that’s all. I…I kissed him.” Bit of a detour, but not entirely off the mark. “In Carpathia, before the agents.”
“...oh.”
“I thought – I don’t know what I was thinkin’. Just thought that, if this was it, he ought to know I didn’t hate him as the Winter Soldier anymore. That he wasn’t that bad of a man.”
“And he didn’t feel the same?” Steve’s sad voice made me want to drown myself at the beach.
“...Yes. No. I don’t know. He might’ve, but I haven’t spoken much since then. I’d…I’d panicked after the mountains. Got scared about…things and pushed him away after. And now lookin’ back, I think I overreacted in a way I shouldn’t have.” I bite my lip. “And because his head isn’t doing so good right now, I’m worried I just made things a hundred times worse – oh Steve, I messed up!” A sob escaped my throat, then another, and soon I was bursting into quiet tears while the phone was cradled against my cheap mattress. “I ruined everything!”
“Hey, hey, no you didn’t — ” He spoke my name so gently it sounded almost motherly. It just made me cry harder. “Please don’t cry, please don’t. You’re — you’re human, nurse. You can’t give him the grace that comes with surviving HYDRA without having none to yourself.”
“But I wasn’t brainwashed,” I choked out. “I was just — just confused. Bitter. Blacked out for a minute, but I’m all lucid now. ’M not used to things bein’ like this.”
“Yeah?” He said softly. “Neither is he, I bet. I know I’m not. Neither are you. We’re all a little imperfect. You shouldn’t think to beat yourself up over that fact. I bet if you went to him and talked about it, you’d have a lot more luck than you think.” A pause. “Did he freak out about the kiss?”
“No, just…looked really down when I freaked out.” When I kissed the corner of his mouth, it was out of impulse. I didn’t know why I did it, it was impractical and a security risk, but I couldn’t stop myself. Not if that would have been the last time we’d seen each other. His reaction then was unreadable, not like the subtly let-down look he had two weeks ago.
“Then he probably just wants to have some clarity. Y'know, the thing his mind had been lacking for the past seventy years.”
I felt guilty. His best friend just chewed him out and here I was crying about my issues. He’s struggling with someone he loves, while I’m struggling with someone…someone I’m still trying to figure out. When I tell this to him, he just hums. “It’s not that I’m not hurting, but my pain doesn’t come from you. I’m actually glad you’re doing better with him. And I’m glad that I’ve got someone else who's my age that doesn’t hate me, for once.”
I give a watery laugh. “I’m only two years younger than you, Rogers. Don’t push it.”
“So I’ve got seniority, is what I’m hearing.”
“You wish, blondie,” A smile itched my lips. “God, and here I thought my brother was the only one who got cocky about bein’ older.”
“I could be your brother, if you want.”
“You would? It’s rotten work, I’m a horrid sister.” You know how some women say they weren’t meant to be mothers? I’m pretty sure I wasn’t meant to be a daughter, or a sister. “Terribly spoiled. Last guy who took the job joined the army as an excuse to leave me.”
“I don’t mind. I like a challenge. Still a kid to me.”
He’s going to make me cry again. “…alright. I’ll be your sister, then. Make fun of datin’ skills and such.”
He huffs, but there’s a warmth that I wished I heard more of from the world. “Sure, and that's because you’ve got a lot more game than me, right?”
“Absolutely, Rogers. Babe magnet is my middle name.”
“I thought your middle name was — ”
“Shh. Be delusional with me, brother.”
“You know, you sound just like my friend Thor when you say that…” we both laugh at that. I’d seen pictures of the guy from Natasha and the newspaper, but I was still grappling with the god’s existence. Yeah…I’m not gonna think too hard about that. Then I heard beeping on the other line. “Shoot. I have to go. Hill wants to talk about something again.” His voice softens for a moment. “Take care of yourself, alright? Not just Buck — you deserve peace from HYDRA too.”
I smile sadly. “Yeah. You too, Rogers. Stay safe out there.”
Click.
It was a nice reprieve, talkin’ to Rogers, but – shit. I forgot the main part – the part where we hadn’t spoken for two weeks! Говно! Maybe it’s for the best – he’d freak out, rightfully, if he knew. He was right all the same anyways - I needed to talk.
I had to find Bucky. Even if he hated me after all of this, I could at least tell him he’s not shitty for not tellin’ me our shared past.
[Day 367]
Retracing my steps was harder than I thought. Because there were so many identical buildings, it was hard to see which one was the safehouse. That, and because there was currently a crowded part at the town square, where people were drinking and dancing like it was 1927 – I can say that because I was there.
There were too many people to avoid crossin’ the crowd. No, too many people, smells, neon lights – it wasn’t like a speakeasy at all as I tried to wriggle my way around the crowd. “Hey!” I yelped when I felt some hands brush up against me. Too familiar, too much like –
“Shit!”
I narrowly escaped the partying crowd that spilt onto the cobbled streets. But that didn’t matter, not when I couldn’t breathe. The smell of sweat and dirt made me dry heave, and my palms, currently on the cold stone paths as I curl on my knees to gather focus, was too cold for my comfort. It felt like the lab. Like when they’d cut someone open before my going and wheel me in immediately after.
I don’t know how it’s been since I've been dry heaving on the floor. I hated this stupid place Corfu was, for my limited scope, too much for me. Not like the mountains, where we were hidden, and sleepy and quiet, no here everything was spinning, the colors were too bright, sounds too loud, and people –
“ – ey, hey!” I felt a hand shaking my shoulder as my name was getting called. Too firm of a palm to be flesh.
Bucky Barnes crouched next to me, his eyes wide. He was still wearing the jacket from Carpathia, despite it being a cool springtime. For a moment, we just stared at each other while the little rave flashed behind us with golden lights. His eyes shone a sunny amber in its blue reflection. Like the sunny sky on a snowy day.
“How…how did you find me?” I hoarsely find my voice. His eyes don’t leave mine.
“I’ve known since you left,” He licked his lips. “Didn’t want to risk you getting caught, just in case.”
Just in case? Is that what they're callin' it, nowadays?
"'M afraid I can't, though, sergeant."
"Why not?"
"I can't escape without you, sir, now can I?"
Notes:
idk about brain anatomy ok I'm just referencing what my memory remembers when I was like 15 in hs
Chapter 44: Aegean Blue
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[A hypothetical 1943]
I think the sergeant is annoyed by me. That must be the case, because of how he treats me like some kid.
Since bein’ the nurse for the Howling Commandos, I’d learned that rough terrain was a given. Icy mountains, humid marshes, and the occasional HYDRA base – they were all par for the course at this point. This time, we were making our way to a nearby military outpost that cuts through a giant forest in Eastern Europe. Cap said we had to travel on foot since everyone else is, and just because we have special missions don’t mean that we’re special.
Shk!
All that said, I wish we did use the special card every so often. That was the third time I almost fell on my face because of all the stupid mud around us.
“Here, I got you.”
It was during the third slip-up that Barnes lagged behind to carry me through the rough patches. It was embarrassing! Whenever we’d climb over a large fallen log, or there’d be a large river crossing, he’d turn to me and expectantly open his palms. I was confused at first, but learned real quick he’d lift me by the waist across any steep jumps or waters.
“I can handle myself, sir,” I hiss-whisper so that the other boys don’t turn around and see the humiliating image of me getting lifted like some precious artifact. He set me down after crossing the river, patting down imaginary dirt from my skirts and cape.
“’Course you can,” He hummed, but then the next log he held his hands out for me to fall into like a damn baby.
“Sir!” I hissed again, my cheeks burning hot. At this rate, the Commandos were gonna see us! Cap, who near ahead of us, turned his head slightly and said –
“Ma’am, just humor him. Barnes thinks he’s doing his civic duty if he helps you.”
Well light me on fire and chant around my corpse, I wanted to die right then and there. Barnes, who was still waiting for me, tilted his head with a small grin. “C’mon, nurse. Captain’s orders.”
“He’s not even – he got that title for show!” I grumbled as he helped me down again. “I’m not a helpless thing, sir.”
“Never said you were, I just don’t like seeing primmed-up dames like you getting all messed up from war.”
Primmed up? I’m not prim, not like Miss Carter, or trying to maintain a ladyhood like Rita. “I’m not – ”
“You are,” His eyes do a once-over to my form. “You don’t see it, but I do. Guys act a lot more gentlemanly when they see a pretty lady combing her hair in the corner of camp.”
“You watch me comb my hair?”
Barnes’ ears turned pink. “Can’t not, ma’am. Most of us barely get put together in ten minutes, so seeing you getting dressed in a war camp like a doll in her house is a little distracting.”
“I’m not eye candy, Barnes.”
“I know that. If you were, I would’ve had to fight off the other men if they looked.” I opened my mouth to say something, but he kept going. “Relax. They know better than to bother nurses."
“Do you?”
“Not when they’re able to make blood stains and twelve hours of tent shifts look as good as you do.”
He needs to stop that. It’ll just break my heart further when this war is all over and he’s not – “I’ve seen too many soldiers like you, sir. Watch yourself.”
Barnes didn’t look apologetic in the slightest. “Yes, ma’am.”
The jeep was waiting for us at the edge of our camp. We wrapped everything up to go and climbed into whatever cramped seats we could find. “Wait, who’s driving?” Morita asked. Dum Dum was the best driver, but he sprained his hand in the last mission. My fellow medicine man, Philip, was about to politely offer, when Captain Rogers raised his hand.
“I’m captain, aren’t I? I’ll drive my group forward.”
No one seemed bothered by it, but suddenly Barnes was white-faced. “Steve, you really think that’s a good idea? I mean, you’re tired, Philip just said he was willing to – right, Phil?”
“No, no, Buck. I insist. I’ll get us there in record time.”
That somehow made him turn whiter. “...that’s what I’m worried about.”
Five minutes later and everyone understood why.
“SWEET JESUS – ”
“I WANT MY MAMA – ”
“OH GREAT HEAVENS – ”
“STEVEN GRANT ROGERS, DO NOT MAKE THAT RIGHT TURN – ”
“Why not? Looks safe!”
“THERE’S ROCKS, HOW THE HELL IS IT – oh, Jesus, I’m gonna get sick again – ”
The captain couldn’t drive for shit. “He still thinks he’s too short for the pedals,” Barnes explained in between clutching on his seat for dear life. “He could barely reach ’em two years ago, now he’s all tall and has no idea how to move!”
“You make me sound like a clumsy giant, Buck!”
“Stop smirking, Steve! If we survive this drive, I’m still gonna haunt you! I swear to god, I'll buy one of Howard Stark's flying cars and haunt you down main street!”
The terrain, along with his terrible driving, make us jerk in every direction in our seats. That, and everything was green and grassy, so we had no idea how Rogers was still able to understand the path to the next base. Not that anyone really cared when our bones got jostled every five seconds.
“Eep!” I yelped as I practically got flung into the sergeant’s chest. I felt my face heat up as he clutched my arms. “Sorry, sir – !”
“Fine, it’s fine – ” He squinted. “Holy hell, you’re gonna fall at this rate – c’mere, sit here, it’s safer with more padding.”
“That’s just your lap, sir – ” The jeep jerked forward again and I quickly ignored all semblance of shame. The moment I tried to lightly sit on his legs, he pulled me against his waist and tightly held my middle. At first I thought he was trying to make a move, but then I saw how green he was turning. “You carsick, sir?”
“Only when he drives.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Feelin’ sympathetic for the poor bastard, I wrap my arms around him and rub his chest. "Poor baby."
“Hey, no canoodling back there!”
“Give me a break, Steve! It’s compensation at this point!”
I rolled my eyes. “Sir, just keep driving. There’ll be no canoodlin’ if he throws up on us.”
With a shaky voice, Barnes murmured – “Please don’t encourage him, sweetheart, he’ll – oh no – ” I could have sworn I heard Steve cackle a little while speeding up again. “’M gonna die at this rate.” A pause. “Then again, I guess there’re worse ways to go, than in a dame’s soft hands – ”
“Captain! Speed up again!”
“Yes ma’am!”
"Don't you dare - STEVEN - "
[Day 368]
The safehouse looked, to put it kindly, a mess. By the time we’d left Carpathia, our little shack was cozy, with old quilts, neatly folded clothes and a constantly-running stove. I’d even hung little anatomy sketches as decoration on the windows. Here? Two weeks gone and it didn’t look like our last place at all – the bed was still messily made, clothes haphazardly-piled, and trash that hadn’t been taken out. But the trash was the main thing – mainly glass bottles, apple cores, and the occasional burnt cigarette. How well had he been eating? I turned around.
“Why?”
He shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. “Got nightmares. Needed a way to sleep.”
“You normally did pushups and slept afterwards when I was – ”
“But you weren’t.” Looking at the bed, I noticed a slip of paper folded under a pillow. It was my letter, but it looked wrinkled, opened, and folded multiple times. On the bedside table was the book I’d made for him for Christmas, opened on some page where it was filled with my cursive, pointing at his sketched arm. “So I had to make do.” My cheeks burned with shame at that.
“...It was only two weeks, sir.”
“I know.”
My directive suddenly seemed a lot more clear than before. I didn’t know how I felt about our memories together, or how I wanted to live after hiding, but I was sure about one thing – I didn’t want Bucky Barnes to lose himself. “C’mere,” I took his hand and sat him on the bed, then rummaged through the cabinets to find something somewhat edible. After making sure he was eating a granola bar and water, I bagged up the trash and started clearing up the place.
“What are you – ”
“We’re movin’ again.”
He frowned slightly. “We just got here. It hasn’t even been a full month.”
“Yes, and durin’ that time, I got sick, had a mini-breakdown, ran away, and you started livin’ your best Prohibition fantasy.” I take out his bag and double check his guns. “Greece isn’t meant for us. Besides, people are gettin’ hitched here during the Summer. Photographers everywhere, tourists, newspapers…not a good idea.”
“You know a place?”
A small smile danced on my lips. “Yes, actually, I do.” The past two weeks weren't just me moping in my room. Well, actually, it was mostly that, but aside from it I’d been looking around for other possible safehouses. Abandoned apartments, anywhere where there aren’t a lot of eyes around here. To my luck, there was, and it was just a boat ride away. “It’s smaller, quieter, and since it’s next to here, more folks are gonna come to Greece instead of where we’re goin’ to party. We’d be hiding in plain sight with the locals.”
“Why didn’t you go on your own earlier?”
I looked away. “I was savin’ it for you…between the two of us, I wanted you to get somewhere safe if worse came to worse. I’d found it and planned on gettin’ you the tickets so that you’d escape if S.H.I.E.L.D. does end up finding this place occupied.”
“What about you?”
I shake my head. “It matters more that your safety is ensured. Until everything clears.”
Bucky suddenly stands up, taking his backpack from my hands. He seems taller than usual. Bulkier, like he’s been tensing his arm muscles this whole time. Studying him, I don’t think he combed his hair – not that he ever really did after a shower – or even wore a new sweater over his arm. That’s silly – he knows the old fabric bothers the metal…“You act like this safety thing isn’t a two-way street.”
I look up. “Isn’t it? I’m your nurse, sergeant. I…I’m not budging for anything.” My hand instinctively goes to his metal hand, where a string of fabric snagged his finger.
He nods. “Neither am I.”
[Day 370]
He didn’t question where I was taking us, when we took a long, empty bus to the middle of grassy nowhere or when I told him to keep an eye out for a certain kind of car. Despite how I hissed at him last time we touched, Bucky let me sleep on his shoulder for both rides.
“Sorry – ”
“It’s fine. I doubt those cheap hotel mattresses did good for your spine,” He adjusted his arm to go behind my back. “I don’t think either of us has had good sleep since Carpathia.” A pause. “Are you still sick?” His hand flew to my brow to check. I waved him off.
“Not dyin’. Just taking advantage of having less of an appetite. Budgeting groceries, and all that.” And by groceries, I mean stolen fruit and bread, but I think us hiding from the government for so long left us more comfortable with disguising stressful things as just daily chores. Stealing food? Groceries. Hacking into systems to blur your face? Fixing the engine. Burning your shack down because some agents were there? Flame weeding. “The Depression might’ve left, but frugality never dies.”
We made it to the docks by the middle of the day. There should be a small ferry coming to pick us up, if my tickets were as reliable as the website could shakily translate. There were a few other people here, mostly just couples and a small family. Right away I realized something was off – we stood out, and not in a good way. Well, not that there was a good way when you’re with the Winter Soldier. We both still dressed like it was Carpathia, with jackets and boots, even though spring in Greece was cooler and sunnier, we looked a little more like mountain hikers than honeymooners.
A boat finally shows up, small but pristine and white. “Pretend we’re hiking honeymooners,” I whisper as my hand goes to his. His gloves were surprisingly warm, despite it being only metal under the fabric. Right, he’d been holding me for the past few hours so I can finally sleep. I think I’d slept best since Carpathia on that bus. Bucky nodded, and when the boat opened up we made sure to go up last. It was small but spacious, with neat rugs and jazz music that definitely didn’t come from our time.
“Well, we definitely fitted right in,” I hum as Bucky threw out packs in the little compartments. We were in some small bedroom with white sheets, wooden walls, and what was probably the comfiest bed we’ve had in all our time hiding. “I didn’t account for lookin’ the part.” I take out my old linen dress and change in the bathroom. Definitely not fancy, but if I tie a sash into a ribbon it’ll just look like a lazy dress. Coming out, Bucky took off his jacket and was only in his Henley. He had his thinner gloves on too, not the thicker ones he wore in the mountains.
“It’s fine, we’re only on here for a few hours,” Bucky murmured before laying beside me on the mattress. He closed his eyes, probably to sleep, but I couldn’t bring myself to let him. I make myself lay on my stomach and nudge his shoulder. “What?”
“I’m sorry about before,” I start. “You were just doin’ what you thought was right, and – ”
Bucky shook his head. “Don’t be. I reacted much worse when Steve brought me back, and I was brainwashed.” A pause. "I still can't trust my head, so I can't exactly expect the same from you."
“Brainwashed or not, I shouldn’t have been so surprised. For so long, I thought my mind was the one thing HYDRA hadn’t completely ruined; and when I was proven wrong, I…”
“I know.” His eyes fluttered open, where the small window above our shared bed was putting a gold ray of light above us. Bucky’s irises were softer, and bluer than the summer sea we were floating on. “I wasn’t trying to tease you, either, with the hints. I just wanted to see if the bandage could come off without ripping.”
I focused on the stitching of my hem. “I’m awful sorry, Bucky.”
To my surprise, he let out a quiet laugh. “That’s ironic – I think I’ve beaten your ass in the compound enough times for that to be the other way around – ”
My cheeks warmed up. “I’m tryin’ to be genuine!”
He shook his head. “You can be a little mean, sweetheart. It’s allowed. Hell, I missed it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, if we’re going there – ” I smack his arm. “Cigarettes and beer, really!? The war ended ages ago, sergeant!”
“I had an apple, nurse, that’s enough to keep the doc – ”
“I’m no doctor, James-Buchanan, and I’m telling you to eat better, super-soldier be damned!”
“Alright, alright, woman. No more cigarettes when nurses are present. That good enough for you?”
I laid back into the plush linens and shivered at how comfortable they were. “Yes, it is.”
I don’t know how long both of us slept in for, considering how we were both spent. My dreams were black and heavy, no night terrors or screaming. Bucky must’ve had the same, because when I shifted in my spot, I felt him instinctively pull me to his chest. His breath was heavy, meaning he wasn’t even awake for it.
I allowed myself to remember the last time I was held like this. Not in Carpathia, or when I was sick, but in the compound. I’d remembered having such terrible spinal aches, my body couldn’t really perceive that he was holdin’ me. Despite that, when I did start to have feeling in my front, I could feel how warm he was. Despite seventy years of cryostasis, his body was still warm.
Knock-knock-knock!
A few hours later, and my eyes fluttered open. I could hear light rapping through our muffling door. Bucky’s eyes next to me snapped open with the same kind of deer-in-headlights look. Before I could get up, he stood and opened the door. It’s one of the staff, in a fancy jacket and a polite smile. I could barely hear them talking when Bucky turned to me, taking me by the hand and pulling me up. “ C’mon, sweetheart. There’s a live show. ” He spoke Romanian, so I played along and nodded. Fixing my hair and painting my lips red, I then followed Bucky to the top deck of the ferry.
The sun was setting, and the whole sky was a breathtaking gold. It was like god decided to be expensive to match our tickets. “I should let you pick our tickets from now on,” Bucky murmured in equal quiet awe. I smiled. Other couples were too occupied with the music and scenery that they hardly noticed two criminals sitting in the back. I was about to take the seat next to him when I felt Bucky’s hands pull my waist to his lap. “Shh. Everyone else is doing it.”
Looking around, he was right – girls were sitting on their boys’ laps, enjoying the romantic scenery. I tried to ignore the blush on my face as I felt his hands adjust his hold on me, his gloved metal hand on my lower waist and the other fiddlin’ with the sash on the back of my dress. “Bucky?” I softly ask.
“Hm?”
“Do you…” I shake my head. “Never mind.”
His eyes flickered up. “No, say it.”
“What happened in the compound, before the brainwashing, before everything – do you…still feel that way?” I’d already asked him this, but I hoped for a truer answer.
“I might. Might not.” I suddenly felt very aware of his hand on my lower waist. “But it doesn’t matter right now. Not when everyone’s looking for us.”
“Would you…hate it if those just stayed memories? And nothing more?”
He went silent, fingers no longer playing with my dress. “Do you want that?”
The setting sun was suddenly very bright, so much so that I turned my head to hide from it. “...I don’t know. I sometimes think I want a friend. Other times I don’t.” But friends don’t share a bed, do they? Kiss when they think they’re going to be sent back to Siberia. My stomach tightened at the roiling feelings inside of me.
“I can be your friend. Whatever works.”
I shake my head. “I can’t ask you to – you just said - ”
“Who said I was asking?” Bucky interrupted bluntly. “I haven’t had choices since last year, nurse. I don’t mind seeing how this plays out. It'll be my decision all the same.”
I hoped the setting sun was hiding my face right now. Steve wasn’t kidding about that loyalty streak in his file. Feeling warm, I pressed a firm kiss to his prickly cheek, then to the edge of his mouth again. A slight print of red showed on his skin. “Thank you.”
His voice was slightly strained behind me. “Friends don’t kiss like that, doll.”
“We do,” I hum looking back up to the music playing. The live band was calm and lazy, like the lapping waves. But I knew what he meant. I couldn’t exactly deny it – I had a crush.
I had a crush on Bucky Barnes.
Notes:
Since Carpathia was so long, I always figured the next safehouse would be much shorter - partially for the plot, and partially just to balance things out. So Greece won't have a sonder chapter, just this. Title parodied off that one Enya song
Chapter 45: Status Update: The Fourth Safehouse
Chapter Text
[Bucky’s P.O.V. - Day 322]
She won’t ever mention this memory because she’s embarrassed, but I think it’s worth talking about. If only for the reason that it cemented how I felt for her as something new, instead of something old or expected. When I fell for the girl in the blue shift in Siberia, I knew my mind was halfway gone. I’d been fighting it for as hard as I could before something in me burned away. When I got all loopy and started talking about taking her to Brooklyn, Coney Island and kids, it was partially out of desperation for something, anything good. Maybe, if we did get out, we’d have those moments together. Maybe not.
When I saw her again, and got to know her better, I’d learned very quickly she wasn’t the same sweet nurse that fell into my cell in Siberia. Not that it shocked or gutted me – HYDRA scraped their victims from the inside out of any goodness and replaced it with only pain. She was no exception to this fact. She was now brash instead of bashful, cold instead of caring.
Then Carpathia happened. We’d been left alone for so long that we’d hardly sleep well. The silence was both a blessing and a curse – we had no eyes on us, but we also had no noise to deafen the thoughts in our heads. At first I thought it was just me, even though we both had nightmares, I always had the more violent reactions. Brainwashing meant that every single terrible memory I’d had would slowly creep up on me, leaving me with no peace in my head at night.
When she got suicidal, I knew I could no longer treat her like the stranger I wanted her to be. I cared too much – the old Bucky cared too much – for this still-young face that’s been through seventy years of hell. And I wasn’t dumb, I knew I felt something for her – when bits of her old self came out, the caring girl who would massage my shoulder, or talk about whatever new thing she learned that was too interesting not to share, I couldn’t help but stare – but I just chalked it up to loneliness. But I could always tell, the warmest, most colorful thing in the forest was my fake wife, and I couldn’t help but get a break from my bad thoughts whenever she was around. Even before, when she’d hunt with me and I’d try to get closer to her, I knew it was to scratch the itch in my brain that wanted something, anything , that could bring us to the kind of closeness we once briefly had in Siberia.
Then I had the nightmare about getting my mind wiped. About waking up in the chair again, getting muzzled for no reason other than “failure”, and told to get shocked until there was nothing left to shock. I’d put up so much of a fight, screamed and thrashed so much, only for Zola to congratulate me – your transformation is almost complete. You’re soon to be perfect. Before his hand moved, and I’d wake up screaming, expecting a jolt.
I called Steve. Felt worse. Went back to bed, stretched thin and angry, considering sleeping in the shed in case I wanted to hit something, when –
Because your footsteps aren’t the same. You don’t even have a pattern. You slump when you get tired and drag your feet when you’re in a mood. Even when you’re fightin’, it’s not the same. My blood doesn't boil when I know you're there. Oh, sergeant…you don’t walk like him at all. Not even if you tried.
Afterwards, I felt very warm and very drowsy. Like a terrible question had been answered in a way better than I expected, and the relief that came with it made me realize how much I’d exhausted myself with worrying. We both knew how much she abhorred the Soldier, so it’s not like she’d lie about such a thing. …I don’t walk like him?
No sir. Not even close.
I didn’t want to say what I felt. It felt too early, too unready. I didn’t trust my head to be fully reliable, not when random words triggered me and nightmares controlled what I’d do during the day.
But back to the “embarrassing” moment. It was a regular day in the mountains. Actually, it was laundry day, meaning we’d boil snow and wash whatever shirts we had like it was 1929 again and later bicker over where to hang them up to dry in order to avoid frost forming on the fabric.
Near the stove would just burn the linens, you know that.
Then just make sure they don’t burn, genius.
That’s not how that works and you know it.
‘Ooh, that’s not how that works and you know it!’
After she mocked my voice for the umpteenth time, I got up to get some riverwater to boil. The stream behind our safehouse was a no-go, so I initially went farther down to get some; but when I got there, I realized it was too dirty with mud and slush to use for cleaning. So I went back to our safehouse to try and get some from the stream.
Mind you, I didn't want to use the stream behind our house – too many terrible memories, too many sins. But we needed to stay clean, and the sooner I did this, the sooner I could go back inside. So I kept going. Crouching down with the kettle I brought, I kept my head down as I opened the top to gather water.
That’s when I saw two black shoes standing in the water.
Looking up, it was the man I’d killed decades ago, the man I never learned the name of and barely remembered his face. His features were small and pointed, with black irises and a worried furrow to his brow. The same kind of nervousness that he had when I –
Why are you here? Is it not enough that you’ve killed me here? Did you have to come up here, to my final resting place for water? The same shakiness, near-tears warble he had when begging for his life.
I – I –
It got hard to breathe after that. My back went fully stiff and I could feel how hot my blood was. I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe. My throat was practically closing up from dryness by the time I heard her voice calling out my name:
“ – ky! Bucky! Please, wake up! Snap out of it!” I suddenly gasp out of my mind with her eyes looking down at me, blown wide and watery. Had she been crying? Did I make her panic from my panicking? The nurse kept shaking me until I put my hands over hers, which were shaking my shoulders. Both our fingers were blue and purple from the coldness of the river. I ended up bruising my chest from falling so hard — I was in such a panicked state of mind I didn’t even realize I’d fallen into the shallow end of the river.
“You’re alright,” She’d try to say in between her own worried hiccups. Her eyes were near tears and chest rising and falling rapidly in her own kind of panic. “You’re – you’re gonna be f-fine, and you’ll sleep. You were just spooked, that’s all…”
The nurse made me take my shirt and the rest of the day off. We both hated the feeling of cold water, so she dried me half to death and heated the cabin up so that I’d become less antsy. Then she’d give me a tin of ointment, asking “You can do it yourself or do you need to borrow my left hand?” A reference to my metal arm, and a subtle way of seeing how I was doing. I tried to take the tin myself, but my hand was still shaking. “No worries, I’ll do it for you after I heat up a water bottle for your hands.”
She didn’t flinch at me gasping for air, or how close the bruising was to my chest. I could have sworn the last time she’d seen me shirtless and soaked, it was in the compound after cryo, probably bitter and ugly. Here, though? She was humming and careful as to where to press. “Your eyes are still watery,” I quietly croak.
She gives a sad smile. “You scared me a little, that’s all.”
“You looked like you were going to pass out.”
“Only because you did first.”
Her hands worked quickly to try and get rid of my bruising (kind of ridiculous in hindsight, since I can heal quickly, but pretending to be normal did help a little, I guess), and soon she was going back to her regular chores after making me a drink and insisting I take it easy for the rest of the day.
This isn’t the embarrassing part of the story. None of what I said earlier is worth blushing about in her eyes. What was? Me not wearing a shirt.
Now, she’s definitely seen me without one before. In HYDRA they always made sure to add an extra level of vulnerability to their work, and even in Bucharest she’d seen me without a top before. It wasn’t anything new or shocking, when she’d briefly get a look at me. But that was just it – brief, in the dark, and we were both a little too tired to keep up a semblance of self-consciousness. Here, though? I broad day – well, evening – light? I didn’t notice how heated-up she was until she was getting ready for bed, already changed and still reading her book. Normally she would have put it down and gone to sleep. When I called her name, she didn’t bother looking up as her hand waved me off.
“One more chapter, Buck.”
“How exciting can liver anatomy be?” A small, strangled noise escaped her lips, and that’s when I noticed how bright her cheeks were. “What, you on the reproductive chapter?”
“James-Buchanan!”
“You’re a tomato.” I prop myself onto my elbows, looking at her. “C’mon, it’s late. I know you’re tired.”
Still looking down, she nodded. That’s when it hit me. The familiar lowered chin and downcast eyes she had when we were in Siberia together – she was bashful. Normally I’m dead inside from my own thoughts, but for once, my head felt light as she took the quilts out to clearly sleep on the floor. Somewhere between HYDRA and falling in that river, I forgot I was good-looking. Well, she definitely reminded me just now.
I called her name as she folded the sheets. Shoulders stiffened again. “Come here.” With all the reluctance of a toddler being put to bed, she shuffled my way. “Come to bed. It’s dark. We both don't sleep well enough for you to stay up like this.”
“I know, I just…”
“Just what?” I deadpan, pretending not to notice her avoidant eyes going anywhere but on me. Seventy years of being abused and frozen, only to turn shy like a schoolgirl when a man isn’t wearing a shirt. We both grew up at a time that some things, no matter how obvious, weren’t acknowledged. Like pregnancy and shirtless super soldiers. Only after kissing the baby and putting a shirt on you’d point it out.
“Bed. Now.” When she climbed in, pulling the sheets up to her chest, I finally decided to say something about it. “I can sleep on the floor, if you want.” I started to wear sweaters in the mountains since it was so cold, but panicking made me heat up terribly.
“Please don’t, it’ll hurt your shoulder more.”
I stare at her through my brows. “Do you know how old that makes me sound.”
A quick snort escaped her throat, then a giggle. “Yeah, that’s why I said it.” Her cheeks were still pink, but she was laughing now. Rolling my eyes, I pinch her cheek, tugging at the fat of it until she hisses. “Hey!”
“Keep that up and I’ll make you sleep in the shed.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
She’s right. I wouldn’t. At some point, when she was still working through her own shaking hands and hard breathing from my own panicked state, I realized who was next to me. Someone who was somehow able to juggle two messes, including themselves, and then manage to blush and laugh right afterwards. Someone who could weather through storms and still smile afterwards, who knew my past in painful, physical detail and was still able to smile at me. Take the risk of staying.
I couldn’t make her sleep in the shed. I loved her too much. Well, as much love as someone like me could possibly have, anyways. The Soldier made my chest close up like a lock when it came to people. Aside from Steve, who I already knew, it wasn’t like I was about to switch up after seventy years of coldness so easily.
[Bucky’s P.O.V. - Day 371]
Carpathia left me careless, that much I knew, but Italy ramped up my paranoia to a higher degree. We’d been isolated in the mountains, and in brief second we were in Greece I hardly went outside, but here? Otranto, Italy was on the edge of the water, where the old town’s buildings were low and their sandstoned streets were wide enough to escape if worse came to worse. That’s where the good things came to a stop, though. The first thing I noticed was there were a lot of people – we had a lot of people in Bucharest, but most were just local residents who never went outside after a certain time of day. Here, it was the opposite. Beach goers lined the water, families chatted while sitting on the outdoor tables at restaurants, and small, nosy children were everywhere. My mind went to those twins in the mountains – two kids almost cost us our location. I didn’t want to think about what more would do.
I missed Carpathia. “The mountains were more secure,” I muttered as we walked up to the safehouse. This one wasn’t a shack or even an apartment, but a small house in the corner of some neighborhood. Old white bricks, dry gravel paths, and overlooking the beach and fountains nearby. Pretty, but not enough to sway my opinion.
She turned her head to face me while unlocking the door. “The mountains didn’t have any supplies, and didn’t even have hot water.”
“It was running.”
“And freezing. Honestly, the fact I hadn’t caught pneumonia there, and got sick only in Greece is a damn miracle.”
“How can you even get this?” I ask, looking inside. It was bare, but unlike Greece, not barren. Cream walls, a decent-looking kitchen, tables that didn’t look old, a squashy couch and a couple’s bed near the back wall. There was even a shelf of books.
The nurse grinned with pride. She looked like a kid with her glee. “I used some of that HYDRA money from Bucharest. Since we never used the card in Carpathia, I thought, why not? The rent isn’t even a lot, since this place is so cozy.”
“You mean small.”
“No, cozy. The shack was small.”
Looking around, I tried to find a place to hide our packs. That’s when I realized – “This isn’t a safehouse at all, is it.”
She crossed her arms from the bed. “Never said it was.”
“And if someone finds us?”
“We have guns!”
“And no bulletproof walls.”
“The shack wasn’t bulletproof. C’mon, no one would expect us to be livin’ in the residential district. They’re probably thinking we’re in some other issued spot, not here.” She stands up and makes her way to me. Her flesh hands take my gloved, metal fingers. “We already hid in all the spots you wanted to hide in. It’s my turn.”
“I didn’t know being fugitives meant taking turns.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t know a lot of things.”
That night we went to bed early. I made a mental list of all the locks we’d have to get, and counted how many bullets we had until our next safehouse came into view. Not that I wanted to think about that – safehouses are supposed to be long-lasting, but with how scrutinized the search for me is, we’ve been practically going through our share of safe spots like sugar in a candy shop. I didn’t want to think about what happened when our sugar would run out.
As usual, I took the left side of the bed while she took the right. Unlike the mountain shack, there was no draft. Not all bad, I supposed, but I didn’t want to argue with her. For the two weeks she was gone in Greece, I wasn’t able to keep my head afloat very well. I couldn’t distract myself with her talking, or go hunting to tire myself out, so I was just trapped in urban hell for fourteen days. I was so used to the normality routine we’d developed in Romania that I felt angry when I woke up alone. Why didn’t I tell her sooner? Why can’t I get my head straight, my memories right? Why is my life like this? Why is it so hard to let people in that you already know? I was relieved she came back when she did, because she was right – Greece wasn’t good for us.
“Let’s go clothes shoppin’ soon,” She hummed after her bath. Her skin smelled faintly sweet, like sugar syrup. “We dress like we’ve been hiking in the mountains.”
“We have been hiding in the mountains.”
“And now we’re in the South of Italy. Upgrade.” Her fingers ran neatly through her damp locks. “I want dresses. Nice linens. Pretty shoes. Fabric ain’t rationed anymore, and I’d like to enjoy that. Hadn’t had a nice dress in years…”
“What about this one?” She was wearing her old one from the mountains. The nurse rolled her eyes.
“This isn’t nice and you know it. I got it secondhand in Bucharest and it looks it.” It doesn’t. I thought she looked pretty in it, anyway. When we were on the ferry, and I pulled her onto my lap, I thought we looked normal. A pretty girl, at least, with how the sun made a halo behind her head when she asked if we could be friends. Then kissed my face like she was trying to seduce me into thinking otherwise. If Interpol wasn’t going to end me, she definitely will one of these days.
“Whatever you want, nurse.”
Chapter 46: Lost in Translation
Chapter Text
[Day 373]
We’d spent the whole of this morning and afternoon mapping our new location out. Otranto was a lot different than the mountains, and I didn’t want to get lost here the way I did in Greece. With the same strict rules we had in Bucharest, we’d go when the flow of people was low, stick to the same routes and try to look as invisible as possible. “Pay in cash, do you still have that pocket money from the village in your wallet?” I take out my little cat purse to show him. “Good. We’ll have to go to an exchange for that…” Our cover was simple – since we’d been hiding in Romania for a year, and could speak the language pretty well, we were Romanian expats who were working from home. Likely datin’, in case someone asks for a marriage license, and because I liked the scandal that came with premarital hand-holding and being wanted in multiple countries.
What was our big mission? Groceries.
“I don’t look like a local,” I hum, staring at myself in the mirror. In Carpathia, I could get away with that. The forest didn’t care, and the locals at the village were practical people who cared more that you weren’t going to cause a ruckus at odd hours of the day. Looking outside here, though? Everyone wore thinner shirts, looser linens and were much chattier amongst themselves. Surely we’d stand out with our jackets and boots. “Neither do you.”
Bucky looked at his metal hand. “You can’t exactly hide this without gloves.”
“I can go on my own,” I suggested. “You won’t have to worry about anyone thinkin’ anything of you, and – ”
“No,” He quickly shot me down. “Just – we narrowly missed those agents because we were together. It’s not worth the risk to split up. Until the colder months come again I can think of something.”
My eyes go over his form. A hoodie could cover his metal arm decently enough, but the jeans were too stiff for the upcoming warmer seasons. I suddenly felt bad for him – his metal arm had been a sore point in Bucharest, but he’d gotten a lot more fluid in using it in the mountains. Now he’s back to hiding it. “Guess I’ll have to be pretty on purpose,” I muse, trying to break up the tension I knew was forming in his head. “Dress so nice that no one notices you.”
Bucky stared at me for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. On purpose.”
An hour later, we carefully made the walk to the market that was supposed to be thirty minutes from our safehouse. Since it was still cool from winter, Otranto didn’t bat an eye when the two of us still went out in sweaters and hoodies. This would only be for a short while, but best we take advantage of the fact than not. The streets were so much more different than Bucharest! Instead of modern buildings and old architecture, it was mostly smoothed sandy stone and old signs, like you couldn’t tell which was older, the business or the building. Bucky and I kept our heads down, which just made us look like the other curious customers peering for good quality.
“ What do you want? ” I murmur to him in Romanian. Instinctively, I wrap my arm around his the way I’d seen other nurses do with their soldier boyfriends seventy years ago. Looking around, other girls are doin’ it too. Something about seventy years not changing that makes a small smile form on my lips.
“ Whatever you pick is good ,” Bucky quietly hums. We passed a few meat and vegetable stalls, where fresh fish was being weighed and cut on slabs of stone and bread was being displayed like new cars. “ You’ve got a better memory of food than I do, at least. ”
I frown. “ Don’t be like that, ” He was doing so good in the quiet of the mountains, recalling penny restaurants and childhood treats. Almost gettin’ taken by S.H.I.E.L.D. and not talking to his best friend did something to his head. So did our initial leave of Bucharest, but I just thought that was a fluke. It was Greece that made me realize he spirals a lot more easily than I thought – not that I was in any place to judge. “ I don’t know what’s good here. Throw me a bone, what do you like? ”
Bucky pauses as we pass through a big, fancy cheese stand. “ The goat cheese we had from the village was good, ” He peered over to see if they had some of the crumbly white stuff. “ I liked the sandwiches you made out of them. ”
“ Sandwiches? What sandwiches? ” I knew what he was talking about, but I wanted to see how much of him I could get out of his shell. He's been so reluctant to talk ever since the end of Carpathia.
“ The ones you made with the leftover bread and duck. With the onion and salt. ”
“ You want that for dinner tonight, Buck? ”
“... yes. ”
I bit back a smile while he spoke to the cheese vendor. It was funny and cute, seeing the big bad Winter Soldier get quiet and awkward over what he wanted for dinner. Then again, I don’t think he’s ever actively asked for anything for supper before. Usually he just eats what I make him, or, as Greece showed me, went for whatever he could find, or felt normal. Now that I think about it, he’s a lot more withdrawn since moving. I think he, like me, realized how spoiled we were in that shitty shack. I sober up a little at that before suggesting buying some coffee.
We got a few more things before returning back to the safehouse. We didn’t want to stay out for too long, even though we both needed better clothes for the upcoming warmer season, but this was good enough. After unpacking, I messed around with the new kitchen and started what I’d promised earlier for dinner. We both sat at the table and quietly ate.
“Y’know, I think that’s the first time you’d asked me to make you something,” I say, taking a bite from the sandwich. The butcher didn’t have duck, so I used chicken instead. Not nearly as nice, but it did the job. Still salty, though. “Before that you used to eat whatever I gave you.”
Bucky stopped chewing for a second before going back. “It’s not like you’re a handler,” He murmured. His voice was quieter than usual. “And it’s just dinner.”
“Still.” There was more silence before something came floating into our apartment. A melody – someone was playing piano outside. Suddenly the food I swallowed went down the wrong pipe and Bucky was smacking my back to get me to stop choking.
“You okay?” He asked, his eyes wide with disturbed concern. “The hell was that about?”
“Nothing, nothing, just – ” I swallowed and downed the water bottle next to me. After that I quickly got up and shut the window with a slam. The music stopped playing so heavily. My face was flushed with shock and embarrassment. I must look so ugly right now. “Piano’s really ugly this time of night, huh?” I laugh nervously.
He just stared.
“Why don’t you put the plates away for washin’ up. I need to brush my teeth.” He nodded, his eyes still on me as he gathered our bowls before finally turning around to put them in the sink.
At night, when we both laid down to sleep, Bucky spoke: “That song sounded familiar. From outside.”
“Yeah?” I hum, trying to play dumb. “Must’ve been on the radio or somethin’.”
He shook his head, still studying the ceiling above us. “It wasn’t the radio. It was somewhere else.” A moment of silence, of which I hoped he’d just drop the damn subject. He didn’t. “It sounded like the music they’d play at the compound while they conditioned us to kill someone.”
“It’s not.”
“Not the same?”
“No. It’s not the same song.” I pause, not sure if I should even be talking about this. He might sleep worse if I do. At the same time, an old anger in me came out, and Steve’s words of ‘grace after surviving HYDRA’ echoed in my mind. “The man outside our window was playin’ Allegretto. HYDRA always played Prestissimo.” Another pause. “Always made me play Prestissimo. You probably heard me playing while you…”
I couldn’t look at Bucky’s face. “Why did they make you?”
I raised a hand to the ceiling. You couldn’t see it, but each bone in my hand had a special, thin metal rod attached to it. “To see if I was fully calibrated. Every order, every movement, done to the letter. If they could control me down to the note, the knuckle, it meant I was less likely to fuck up a mission.”
“You still did,” he recalled. “In Vietnam you let unwanted explosives go off.”
Surprisingly, a laugh escaped my throat. “Technically, the objective was to clear the way for movement and disarm guards. I technically disarmed them through murder, and cleared the place of any explosives. Smart-assed my own system.”
“You left me alive, though.”
My smile went as soon as it came. Even thinking about the people killed that day made me shut up. “Third sentence of the order. Make sure you don’t die under my watch. Третье предложение приказа. Смотри, не умри под моим надзором.”
“That’s why you didn’t let me die.”
“I wanted to. But technically that one was too specific to fight. Not without getting electrocuted within an inch of my life.” I turned my back to him. “Small fights like that didn’t change the outcome, anyways.”
“...yeah. It didn’t.”
[Day 385]
The quiet acceptance of my feelings for Bucky Barnes was initially cute, and peaceful. A crush – I hadn’t had one of those in ages, and I figured it was a result of him being so different with me than in our time at HYDRA. But ever since our talk about music that night, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. How we’d both killed people, how our perspectives were so different. He just thought the music was familiar, like a dream. I almost choked on my dinner.
It wasn’t like he was some blood thirsty killer, not like he was before. I knew of him now – bits of his childhood, his memory, we’ve shared a bed and he’s even let me see him be vulnerable. I knew bits of Bucky Barnes. But it didn’t change seventy years, did it? Suddenly my crush was more guilty and sobering. And that was another thing – he wanted to have his own decisions. His own choices. I’d said I wanted us to be friends before kissing his face like a wife. All because I remembered my feelings of old, when we shared a cell in the compound. It'd mixed with what I was already feeling, warm and soft, and like salt drew out and expanded upon it.
Did that mean I liked him now? Or the old him? Or the him that occasionally came out on good days, like when he could recall his childhood with smiling detail and when we shared our first laugh over a terrible read? Which Bucky Barnes did I like? Did it matter?
I was a mess and a half, simply put.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I saw him peek outside the window. His broad shoulders came into view, and I’m reminded how much bulkier his physique is to me. Even in torture, HYDRA made sure their Winter Soldiers weren’t malnourished. Not that they could, but the super soldiers were routinely given injections of god knows what in between getting their brains scrubbed and their bodies jolted to submission; looking more like twitching bugs on the ground instead of humans.
Test subjects, on the other hand, were tube fed and purposely kept weak to avoid altercations. It didn’t matter how you came into HYDRA – if you had baby fat on your cheeks, muscles on your arm, meat on your bones – you always ended up being a drained stick afterwards. Maybe that’s why I had such an appetite after Steve shipped me here.
“You need clothes, and there’s a market open a few paths down.”
“So do you.” He shrugged, like he was mainly doin’ this for me.
“You said it yourself, nurse – look so nice that we don’t get a lot of attention.” That makes my cheeks turn pink. He’s saying it like I’m a beauty, or something. God, my feelings were going to make me choke again one of these days.
It was awkward, going to the market this time. Everyone seemed to dress more normally than us, and it showed. I felt like a fish out of water, clinging onto Bucky’s hand for life while we stuck near the wall across the stands. “Aren’t you going to get something?” He murmured.
I felt my cheeks heat up again. “Like what? I don’t have a sense of style, not since Roosevelt.”
“Neither do I, but we need to blend in somehow.”
I huff, exasperated and feeling oddly angry at the humiliation of the situation. How long has it been since I had a sense of style? Hell. I go to one of the stalls and start looking at the dresses that were there. Empire-waisted tops, short skirts, butterfly ruffles…style has changed since our time by a lot. I look across from me, where some girls who look to be my age (subtract seventy years, mind you) are giggling over some shoes they liked. I suddenly felt lonely. I wish I had a friend to girl over right about now.
“You want that one?”
“Sir?” My train of thought was interrupted by Bucky’s voice. Looking up, I realized he’s been staring at my hands this whole time. I was holding some thin linen thing, my fingers absentmindedly running over the stitched flowers. “Oh, no, this is…I’m pretty sure these are night clothes, with how thin they are.”
“No they’re not, those girls are wearing them right now.” Looking up, I notice he’s right — those girls were wearing similar dresses, more legs and less care. It looked fun, and not something I was used to. “Try it on, see if it fits.”
“What?” My voice came slightly strangled. He points ahead.
“There’s a small changing stall in the back. If it fits, we’ll get more and blend in better.” He looked so perfectly nonchalant about it, I wanted to run into the ocean behind him and drown. I went to the stall instead.
Changing into the dress, I felt funny. The last time I wore something like this was…well, never. Couldn’t afford pretty things as a kid, and saved my cash as a nurse, so I felt out of place. Like a chicken wearin’ swan feathers. The dress was good for the weather, white cotton with little flowers stitched on edge of the bosom's collar and flimsy straps at the shoulders. The skirt was long. It was both the prettiest, comfortable and most embarrassing thing I’d ever worn. Do I even wear stockings under these? I could barely hide my bra straps, for crying out loud!
“Buck? I can’t tie the back…” I try to keep an air of normalcy when coming out of the stall. I decided not to keep the dress — it was too unusual and not even well-fitting, it was too soft, flimsy and light. I’ve killed people, for crying out loud! I was about to finish the sentence by saying we needed to put it back, but his hands were quickly to the skin on my scarred spine. Suddenly my skin felt like a thousand degrees as he deftly pulled the strings behind me. “I didn’t say — ”
“Hold still,” He muttered, clicking his tongue and tugging me closer when I tried to slip away. His voice was warm near my ear. “We’re trying to look married, so you can at least dress the part.”
I felt too shy to look at his face when he turned me around. “You look like a mountaineer,” I weakly pointed out as my heart beat out of my chest. He was currently rummaging through the other dresses and picking things that looked like the one I wore. He then got some thin hoodies, which were probably for himself.
“A mountaineer with a wife, which is kind of the point.”
“I look stupid.”
“You look…” His eyes flickered up before going back to the hoodies. He’d shove the clothes meant for him under his arm with impatience but carefully folded the ones meant for me. His gaze went back down. “You look married. Like a honeymooner.”
“I look like I’m sleeping for my wedding night.”
“As long as it’s some kind of married to me.”
When we approached the stall owner to buy the clothes, she spoke in rapid Italian to Bucky, who nodded nonchalantly. Pointing at my dress, she smiled and said something. I felt embarrassed, not able to understand her, but Bucky just pulled me by my waist and pressed a firm, prickled kiss to my jaw before rapidly speaking again. He was smiling, saying something with a fond look in his eyes. God, he’s a good actor. My cheeks heat up, imagining him sayin’ something sweet and fake and whatever would make me wish it was genuine. He proudly patted my waist, nodding as the two spoke to each other. That’s my girl, I imagine him saying. She’s a doll, isn’t she? Bless her, she’s just a shy little thing to strangers, I keep telling her to try and talk but she never does…Yeah, we just got married. Wanted some new clothes for my bride. Yeah, honeymooning for a few months, the wedding was last Friday…
God, I needed to get a grip.
When we got back to the safehouse, I looked at the clothes that I didn’t ask for. “We could just…not go outside,” I stare at the dresses. They weren’t bad by any means, but I had as much practice with delicate things as The Hulk (I read the news and I’m still not sure of calling him Hulk or The Hulk) did. “Avoid groceries.”
Bucky, coming out of the bathroom, walked past me and started shutting the blinds. “Is that what you want?”
“Is that what you want?”
He paused for a moment before pulling the string. “I don’t know what I want.” Well, now I feel bad. He hadn’t a choice since HYDRA and I’m whining about dresses. Looking up, he was wearing one of the hoodies he bought. It wasn’t too different from what he normally wore, safe for the fact his clavicles were showing. I quickly look back down again.
“You have good taste in dresses, at least.” He did - some were plain skirts, others were empire-waisted shirts, some similar dresses in pastel or white floral, all cotton and comfortable...how did he have such good taste? Then I remember - he's had girlfriends before. Duh. I try to reason that maybe he doesn't remember his past girlfriends that well. For once, I was hoping that part his memory was still defrosting like the rest of his mind.
Bucky shrugged. “You kept looking at them, so…”
That night, as we climbed into bed, I thought about how he was with me during the day. It was so easy, him acting like a husband when the situation called for it. Meanwhile I just stood there like an idiot. “Buck?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you teach me Italian?”
He shifted to his side. “I’m not exactly a grammar teacher, nurse. HYDRA – ”
“I know, I know,” I shake my head, ignoring how my heart shivered at his tired rasp. “I just…wanted to know a few phrases. Basic stuff. Whatever you and the lady were sayin’.”
Bucky stared at me for a moment. Reaching out, his metal fingers fiddled with my dress’ top strings. “She just asked how we met. How long we were together.”
“And you said?”
“I was an ex-soldier. You were my nurse. We fell in love, planning to get married. That you’re taking a gap year before applying to med school. That we both came from Bucharest.”
Oh. Unromantic, then. Friendly, even. How nice. I want to die. “Seemed like a long talk for just four sentences.”
He hummed. “She asked if we had any plans for the future outside of school. Family, moving. I told her we just wanted to have some alone time before any of that.”
“Where’d the kiss come from?”
“When she asked if we wanted to have kids, and you turned shy.” He looked up. “I should’ve – ”
“No, no, it’s – it’s a cute cover story. What did you say about the…”
Bucky suddenly coughed and looked away, repositioning himself on his pillows. “.. .said we were trying for a baby because she kept insisting we were too good looking not to .” He said it so quickly and so quietly I almost didn’t catch it.
The Winter Soldier just said he wanted to have kids to make a lady shut up about his looks. A snort slipped out of my throat. I quickly covered my mouth to muffle my laughter. He scoffed, but it sounded slightly strangled. “Like you could have had a better cover.”
“Nope. That’s all you, handsome – haha!”
Suddenly my face was shoved by a stray pillow, and I cackled harder. “Go to sleep, woman.”
“No, I think we need to elaborate on the – mph! Hey!” His strong arm suddenly pulled me in so I stayed muffled under the pillow, and then let go just as fast to sleep. Meanwhile, I was still giggling with a hot face. "C'mon," I crooned. "I'm serious about the Italian thing. Teach me something, at least. I don't want to look like a sittin' duck next time."
He held himself up on his elbows. Bucky was only wearing a tank top, a stark contrast to the laying he did in the cold mountains. Looking at me, he started speaking rapid, curled Italian. I purse my lips and respond in Romanian:
"You know that's unfair."
He huffed. "Tough luck." Then went back to rapid Italian. Then he paused. "Repeat that."
"I don't - " I shake my head.
"No, repeat it." He said it again. My cheeks burn as I attempt to warble it back. His eyes were wholly on my mouth. "You're saying the last part wrong, slow down your tongue." I tried again. "Better."
"What did I just say? It better not be filthy." Bucky rolled his eyes.
"You just said 'I'm almost a hundred but look like I'm twenty, but act like I'm five when I have to wear dresses instead of men's jeans'. Now go to sleep, nurse."
Chapter 47: Lonesome Dove
Chapter Text
[???]
I still remember my first mission that HYDRA had given me. It was when I was still trying to fight back, when I still cried over what they’d do to me, and what they’d make me do. Back when I thought I could afford a luxury like hesitation, and guilt.
I couldn’t recognize my surroundings as I was taken out of the ice. I’d been set in cryostasis for the first time, though I had no clue what that was. I just knew that I was in a heavy sleep, and that my body was a giant bruise after all that ice hit my metaled bones.
“Посмотрим, насколько хорош будет ваш контроль сегодня.”
We shall see how good your controls are today.
I opened my mouth to say something, but –
“Не отвечайте. Вообще не говорите.”
Don’t talk back. In fact, don’t talk at all.
I had no idea they’d wired my jaw bones as well until my tongue got snapped over my teeth. I heard beeping in my ear – the earpiece they practically fused into my ear’s canal had been turned on, so that they could control everything I did even at a far distance.
Like Niagara Falls.
You’d think they’d make me do tests in a lab, or a low-level mission of gathering intel and stealing a few menial artifacts, but no. Instead, they wished for me to kill a journalist who was hiding in Canada after he’d published their connections in the War with a powerful ancient artifact that’s been in the hands of Nazis until Howard Stark got involved. Or, at least, that’s what I think happened. My Russian was barely functioning then, only for orders. Either way, he’d discovered where it’s been and they’d written a hit piece a few weeks ago and disappeared. Not that it mattered – HYDRA found him anyways, and sent me for target practice.
“Проберитесь по мелководью водопада и найдите его хижину.”
Climb through the waterfall’s shallower ends and find his cabin.
SPLASH!
I grew up during the Dust Bowl. I was malnourished as a teen and, despite having developed a decent endurance and strong temper, didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t remotely strong enough to scale a waterfall. Under normal circumstances, though. These weren’t normal circumstances.
My body wasn’t my own, and my movements weren’t my own. My legs refused to budge against the weight of the crashing water as it seemed into my clothes. My fingers practically dug into the rocks it was clinging onto. For reference, water can definitely have a weight when pressurized and freefalling. The waves crashing into my skin was the first time I’d experienced aches in my bones from the cold, and it was practically bruising me from the inside-out.
I was dry heaving by the time I’d gotten to the top of the falls, dragging my feet against my will into slumping against the grass. To show how cruel HYDRA had been, I relished the second, the brief second, that my cheek touched the earth in rest. Like water to a desert, like sleep for the tired. The stillness was kinder than any forced painkiller the scientists would put into me after gutting me like a pig.
“Подойдите к дому и не попадайтесь на глаза.”
Approach the house and stay out of sight.
And just like that, the “kind” moment was gone. I couldn’t even groan, or sob in pain when my back straightened and my legs stood straight. I just panted heavily until I reached the small, wooden cabin that was hidden in the Canadian border’s woods, where my mouth was suddenly clamped shut again.
“Посмотрите в окно.”
Look in the window.
Crouching under the wooden window sill, my eyes took a peek as to what was inside. What I saw made me want to hurl.
The writer was a thin man with glasses and a tucked in shirt. He was sitting at a small couch, where his blonde wife sat across from him at the dinner table. There was a sleeping dog on the rug. But those weren’t the reasons as to why I wanted to vomit.
I wanted to vomit because there was a cradle in the corner of the room.
“Стреляйте в него.”
Shoot him.
Despite my order, my aiming hand shook as I tried to fight the order. Did we have to? I didn’t want to. I’ve been good, I let them do whatever they wanted to me, and I didn’t put up a fight, so why can’t I –
Zap!
A full-body jolt seized my spine as I doubled over in pain. It took everything in me not to cry out.
“Не заставляй меня повторяться, Seventeen.”
Don’t make me repeat myself, Seventeen.
Despite the pain still echoing my bones, my wrist was raised again and my fingers twitched as I aimed. Like an instinct that made things worse as my head began to throb uncontrollably. No, no, nono nonoNONO –
BANG!
There were screams. Red spatters, broken glass. Mostly dog barks. The baby wouldn't stop screeching. Then somehow my body made it back to a checkpoint. Eventually, I started screaming on the way back to base. The handlers had to hold me down, all fifteen of them, before I got stabbed in the neck with a tranquilizer in order to keep me still. The entire time I was strapped to the back of the truck, hot tears fell freely and rapidly down my face. HYDRA had yet to control my tear ducts, at least.
I was brought back to the white-walled base where they forced me out of the kevlar I was in and back into the hospital gowns they made all test subjects wear. The scientist, a short, bald man with round glasses, spoke with a thick accent.
“Сидеть.”
There was a bench and a piano in the room with him. I sat at the bench, eyes puffy and throat raw.
"Играть."
Play.
My fingers began to twitch again as he requested the song. The same song, every time:
“Первая соната Бетховена фа минор, en Prestissimo.”
Beethoven’s First Sonata in F minor, en Prestissimo.
My fingers began to move on their own, like gears in a clock clacking the keys under their pads. My mind was a hundred miles away, where the dead man was in Canada. Where his baby was screaming in confusion in fear, probably deafened and sick. Where the mother was bleeding from the bullet going through her arm and into her husband's head. The dog kept barking in my head.
Dan-dan-clink!
Shit. My hand faltered –
Zap!
I let out a cry of pain as a shark jolt jerked my body upwards. Sometimes blood would come from my nails, but this time the white keys stayed clean. The scientist, who was staring intently, hardly looked phased.
“ Again. ” Bastard.
My fingers twitched again at the order. Again, my digits flew across the keys, going at a rapid pace as the song required while my eyes had spaced out and my ears were muffled. The only thing that filled my mind were their screams, until I started to hear them outside my head. Perking up, I thought I heard screaming.
Thump!
Then a muffled scream. My hands still kept playing the melody, but my eyes quickly looked around the room. No one was there. It must be outside. More thumping. More muffled screaming. Then more thumps, then silence. The song continued, and so did my playing. When I was done, I braced myself – after painful sessions, they’d give me painkillers before going into the ice. I wouldn’t call it a kind thing, but it let me go on autopilot for longer.
Cryostasis was already painful, every nerve and skin cell of yours suspended in crackling ice, where nothing can reach through to you. Not even your own thoughts – just a void of screaming nothingness that you know you’re in but have no idea how to get out. The painkillers would at least just stop the throbbing in my head –
“ Throw her in. ”
What? Suddenly I felt two sets of hands grab my arms and drag me back. I started to scream – it wasn’t fair! My head was practically splitting open! My muscles were on fire! Being put to ice was like using salt to draw out taste – the pain was intensified without treatment. The scientist just looked at me, unphased and serene.
“ You’ve hesitated too much on your test, child. If you want help, you must assist our experiments first. ”
I remembered crying, pleading, thrashing as I got carried into the icing chamber. Practically clawing the glass window as I felt the telltale frost sinking its teeth into my spine, making me cry out –
[Night 400]
I woke up screaming. It was so bad Bucky shot up from his slumber, grabbing the gun under our mattress. When he realized it was just me, he put it back down on the bedside table and turned the lamp light on. I was breathing heavily, forgettin’ my line of ‘go back to sleep’ when –
“You dreamt about the ice, didn’t you?” My head shot up from staring at the sheets.
“How did you – ”
“I recognized that scream. Same kind you had when everyone got put into the pods. You always screamed the loudest.” His hair was a disheveled mess but his eyes were blown perfectly wide and alert. I looked away.
“I could feel the ice in my bones pushing against the rods,” I raise my hand up to my eye-level. If I flexed my hands, I could see it, just slightly – a protruding extra vein, unbent under my skin. But it wasn’t a vein, just the small thing that ensured that my palms wouldn’t move without HYDRA’s approval if need be. “Ice made whatever pain I had worse.”
“You don’t like the cold?”
What kind of question is that? “Of course not.” Bucky got up from bed and made his way to the safehouse’s kitchen. I wasn’t in the mood for whatever he was gonna do, so I just slumped back into my cushions and closed my eyes for a few minutes, when I felt something warm press against my belly. Something loosened in my core when I opened my eyes. “What are you – ”
“Give me another minute, the other one’s still heating up in the kettle.” Looking down, there was a hot water bottle pressed against my middle. He then came back with another one, this time pushing it up against my back.
“Why?”
“You’re less likely to dream of the ice when you’re warm.”
He was right. The warmth seeped through my skin and I felt my muscles relax on both sides of my body. I let out a shaky sigh, shivering from the sudden heating. “Thank you.” He nodded and turned the lights back off.
[Day 405]
The first couple of weeks of the safehouse weren’t anything to boast about. Same routine of cleaning, brooding, and cooking. We’d sometimes switch things up by havin’ nightmares in the middle of the night (and by sometimes I mean more than you think) but other than that, it was mostly me trying to get Bucky out of his shell. After he mentioned the lack of choices he’s had since HYDRA, I’d realized something: I’d been so caught up in what I’ve been feeling that I forgot he had emotions too.
So I started to ask him when we went out – what did he want to eat? It’s not like we had a lot of things goin’ for us, so I tried to copy what my parents used to do and reach out with food. Most times he’d just shrug, letting me get whatever I wanted, but other times he took the damn hint and:
“ Those peaches look ripe. ”
“ Those rosettes are on sale with the other rolls. ”
“ Dried apricots, maybe .”
“ I liked the lamb-rice you made in the mountains. ”
“ ...beef arancini? ”
I’d chatter between the two of us while cooking, while he either washed dishes or scribbled in his little memory book. One day, I had to ask about it – “How much of that is filled out?”
Bucky looked up. “Not much. Just stuff I told you, and whatever I got from before.”
“Can I look? I won’t write on it or nothin’.” After a moment’s hesitation, he slid it to me. He was right – it was mostly childhood stories. HYDRA must’ve jumbled up the specifics of things when he got older, mainly his army days. Smaller details, like clothes and objects he remembered. Flying cars and stockings. Coney Island and chasing cats. He’d added underlines on things he thought were full memories, like Christmas with his sister or Halloween as a kid. Others, not so much – a date with a girl had question marks and half-filled blanks.
“Did Steve help you fill in some blanks?”
He tensed slightly at the name. I knew he was spiraling from before, but sometimes I wished his brain could ease up. I could practically hear his head – too comfortable. You got too comfortable. “I don’t know anymore.” A pause. “You were part of the war. Do you remember everything?”
I shrug. “Most things. The uniform. The work. The barracks, the food.” He nodded, pursing his lips in what I assume was frustration. “If you want, I can tell you a few things. Help jog your brain on your own. It worked a little in Carpathia, so why not again?”
That dinner was mostly just me, rambling about whatever I remembered from the past. I don’t even think it was really that useful to him, since nurses weren’t soldiers in the least, but he’d still ask things and occasionally scribble something down.
“Were there any main groups?”
“Yeah. Captain America and his Howling Commandos. Think that was you, wasn’t it?”
“The Smithsonian said so.”
I raised a brow. “And you?”
“Bits and pieces. I remember the boys’ faces. Their names, their habits.” His eyes wandered away from his face. “Missions, though…HYDRA erased those. I think that’s why they’d strap me to the chair for so long. Target things that would make me rebel, like when I used to fight against them.”
“How long were you a Commando?”
He flipped through his little memory book to check. “For about three, four years.”
Christ. The obliterated four years of life straight into the black of his mind. I didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t either, and we both went back to silence until we got ready for bed. When the lights were turned off and I was about to close my eyes, he asked in a low, quiet tone:
“Were there any songs that played on the radio?”
“Huh?”
“There was a song that always played on the military jukes. Some girls would sing them.”
I rack my brain. “A few songs. There was a trio of sisters who’d sing. Then there was Captain America’s song, and a few wartime – ”
“Could you sing one?”
“What?” I hadn’t sung in forever. I’m pretty sure HYDRA took out my vocal cords.
“Forget it, never mind – ”
His quick refusal made me switch up. “No, no, I can – I remember a bit, still…” I was either about to humiliate or redeem myself as my throat cleared. “ Of all the boys I’ve known, and I’ve known some, until I first met you I was lonesome. And when you came in sight, dear, my heart grew light, and this old world seemed new to me… ” Even though it was pitch dark, I was suddenly self-conscious as Bucky didn’t say anything to my voice. Like a little girl wearin’ her nicest dress and the boy she liked didn’t say anything about it. A few seconds after I finished my song, I felt him breathing next to me. He’d fallen asleep. Sehr wunderbar. I’m never doin’ that again, he clearly didn’t like it.
[Night 410]
This time, it was Bucky’s turn to wake us. He didn’t scream, he’s been doing that less now, but it didn’t change how violently he’d thrash on his side of the bed. After realizing he was awake, he’d take one look at me and shake his head. “I remember their faces better than my own childhood.” The ones he’d killed. My eyes were suddenly less tired.
“...it’s inevitable, sergeant. HYDRA makes you forget good things, even without mind wipes.” His face was hidden through his disheveled sleep-hair as he nodded. “...makes you do things you can’t forget, or take back.”
“I’ll take the couch,” He muttered before trying to get up. I grab his hand.
“No, please don’t.”
“I almost hit you in my sleep. I can’t – ”
“You didn’t. Please, please stay.” When I was a nurse in the war, I hated having my sleep disturbed. I could turn downright murderous at times. Now I wanted nothing more than an excuse to stay awake, if not to avoid my own dreams. “If you don’t, I’ll – I’ll sing to you again. And you know how horrid I sound.”
To my surprise, a scoff escaped his throat. Bucky’s eyes were still wide and darting, and his brow still had a sheen of sweat, but he at least he didn’t move. “You don’t sound bad.” His voice has always been quiet, low and beaten down. But whenever he slept badly, it was almost near-impossible to hear him. When we briefly shared cells, his voice was a lot more emotive and clear – HYDRA took the noise out of him, it seemed.
“Yeah?” I scooch closer. “How about a trade, then? I’ll sing for you, and you teach me some Italian.” Tire him out, I theorize. Annoy him to sleep, at least. He looks reluctant but nods. I open my mouth and start to softly sing, this time a different song. At some point I realize he’s starin’ at me, the moonlight illuminating his consuming eyes on my face. A nervous giggle escaped halfway through, but Bucky hardly seemed to notice as he leaned back against the bed next to me.
“That wasn’t a radio song.”
“Sorry,” I rasp. “I get the lyrics mixed up with the Andrews sisters, so dying cowboys is all you get tonight.” That tune was the only one I liked, anyways. Childhood always had a way of sweetening things. “Didn’t like it?”
He shook his head. “I never said that. You said you wanted to learn some Italian?”
“I’d like to talk trash in more than just English and Romanian, sir.”
He did a few phrases as we sat in the dark. Introducing myself. Askin’ for directions. Formalities. Curse words, which made me giggle when I demanded to know them. Despite still looking shaken, he rolled his eyes and humored me. “C’mon, gimme more phrases. Those are always funny to hear,” I hum, lining my shoulder against his. He used to tense when his metal arm would brush up against mine in bed, but not anymore.
Bucky’s eyes looked a little low. He was getting tired, it seemed. Good, good. I’ll heckle him a little longer and then he can go back to sleep in peace. With a graveled tone, he started reciting again. I try to copy, but it doesn’t sound as good. I stutter through the middle and garble the ends. “Try again,” He’d say, and repeat the first third for me to copy. Then the second, then the last.
“What’s that one mean?”
He looks up at me for a moment, then looks back down. Shakes his head. “Say it all together, and I might tell you.” I purse my lips but try again. My Italian sounded half-baked when repeating him. Bucky clicked his tongue, taking my chin, as if trying to shape my jaw into properly saying it. He said it one more time, slower. Bucky’s breath was warm against my own. I copy him, carefully and slowly saying it. His eyes flicker up as his palm moved down to cup the back of my neck. “...perfect.”
“Now will you tell me?”
He nods, saying it in almost a whisper – “ You don’t deserve to be stuck here with me, fighting for your life because of a debt. You’re too good for it, even my mind can’t disprove that. You deserve better than this life. Than me. ”
I could say the same. “But I want to stay.” My eyes start to water a little, for some reason. I felt unreasonably mad at that. “I don’t – you’re the only person I can trust, Buck. I don’t like the world outside anymore. Please don’t say that.”
A strangled laugh escaped his throat. "I used to bully you in Siberia. You don't think that deserves a little bit of punishment?"
Something about that question pissed me off. I lived with him long enough to no longer feel like that was the case. "Zola deserves to be punished. The handlers deserve to be punished. The people who strapped both of us down and gutted us deserve to be punished. You don't. And you sure as hell don't get to decide how I feel about it all, or how I live my life!" I was taken aback by my own temper about the subject. I swallow my emotions down from gettin' worse. "I'm not stayin’ with you because I have to, Buck. I’m stayin’ with you because there's no one else I can fully trust anymore but you. That I even want to trust but you." My brow loosened a little. "Okay? Now let me get some more blankets and you can - "
Bucky kissed me.
For a moment it didn’t even register, just the prickle of his facial hair and the warmth of his lips against mine. How swiftly the forgotten hand firmly kept my mouth against his. But then it did, and my heart punched my sternum, my throat, in a way I suddenly remembered the feeling when he first kissed me back in Siberia. My chest suddenly began to get hungry for more as my face got febrile in my reciprocating. His fingers moved to cradle my cheek as I tried not to lose my breath. I could hear his breath hitching against me. Only when my fingers went over his did the sergeant abruptly pull away.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” He whispered, sounding slightly strained. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” I could barely understand what he just said when Bucky quickly got up and went to the other side of the safehouse. “James – no, please – ” I try to take his hand, but he pulls away.
“Please go to sleep, nurse.”
Chapter 48: Cioccolato All’arancia
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Day 420]
The past week has been a stiff-backed hell. What the fuck. What the hell. What the triple-dog-dared, smack my mama and kill my daddy hell. I went over the list in my head again as I tried to look nonchalant while fake-reading:
- I had a nightmare
- Bucky comforted me
- Bucky had a nightmare
- I comforted him
- He kissed me
- ???
I've liked him since Siberia, before forgetting him. I even had an attraction to him before I got my memories back of him, before Greece. And now that I do, I’ve been tryin’ to keep my head straight. Figure out my feelings. Sometimes I need a friend, other times I don’t. He’s been a friend. We’ve had fun. We’ve kissed. Platonically. Ish. Not really. We’ve burned down a shack together, that’s got to mean something.
Bucky’s been practically mute since then. Shaking his head, nodding, grunts and too-short answers. But he hasn’t really spoken properly to me about it. When I tried to bring it up the next morning, all he said?
“You don’t have to bring it up. I took it too far.”
My cheeks went aflame at that. How dare he give mixed messages. That’s my job. And he had the same low, quiet tone when he did. Something about that made this all hurt even more.
I felt guilty. Maybe I’ve been too comfortable with him. I was a nurse, he’s my soldier, he’s not supposed to kiss me. Maybe it’s that old story trope – that thing where patients fall for nurses out of bein’ grateful, not genuine affection. Maybe it’s him realizing where this is heading and he’s trying to cut it at the nib.
I hope not.
I still felt rotten all the same. I was supposed to watch out for him, not seduce him. Not get so close where he felt obligated to do that. Or make his head spin. He’s been through enough because of HYDRA, the last thing is for me to make his mind worse because of my words. God, why did I kiss his face on the boat? How stupid am I?
I might. I might not.
Might not. I should’ve played it safe. Not do that whole “I trust you” tangent, where I made it clear that he was my one and only. Not because he wasn’t, I couldn’t even wholly trust Steve (because he’s with S.H.I.E.L.D., not because he himself is evil, bless him) the way I trusted Bucky, but because it puts a lot of weight on him.
We’re supposed to be hiding from the government, not…all of this mess. It’s 2015, not 1944. There’s no time for falling in love with soldiers and playing coy. My stomach churned at all the times I’d made a subconscious move. Acting like a wife. Making him laugh. Sharing memories. I should have just stuck to the projective – keep him safe. Follow his lead. Don’t get selfish and drag him to the South of Italy to play out whatever romantic fantasy you have cooking up in your old head.
When we went out for groceries this time, he didn’t even give me the heads-up. Just a simple look over his shoulder and a “You coming?” Like we were in Bucharest again and I’d just stabbed his shoulder. I try not to take it too personally, though. He’s hurting just as much as me, right?
“Yeah, in a minute.”
I quickly threw on a different shirt in the bathroom and some old ballet flats I’d gotten from the last run, where he suggested I get them because they “suit you”. Now he won't even look at me twice.
Men.
When we went out to the market, Bucky randomly offered me his arm like usual. I walked ahead, ignoring it. A few minutes later, I turned around and asked in Romanian: “ You want anything specific for dinner ?”
Bucky focused on the fruit in front of us. “ Anything you make is good.”
I didn’t know if I wanted to strangle him, kiss him, or apologize.
It’s not his fault, I think. I mean, really? Who am I to judge? He confessed that we had a fling in Siberia and I disappeared for two weeks – am I REALLY in a position to be upset when he pulls away because of whatever trauma-based emotions he was feeling?
…yes.
That night I made pasta for the first time for dinner. We were in Italy, so I thought it’d be apt. The entire time I was in the kitchen, Bucky was cleaning his knife. He normally flipped through his memory book, but this time he didn’t. Didn’t look at newspapers either, or ask about the war. When I gave him his plate, I didn’t know if I even wanted to sit next to him. Not after I spurred him at the market. Do I act petty? I sit down, but eat quickly and wash the dishes without waiting for him. When I dried my plate, I heard him calling my name and I quickly turn my head around.
He shakes his head, looking away again. “...nothing, never mind.”
SLAM!
I jumped at the sound of the window being shut abruptly behind me, almost dropping my plate. Looking back away, Bucky’s face was towards the now-closed glass. “Sorry. Piano music.” Taking a moment, I realized what he was saying. The street player was at it again, with the same song.
“It’s okay. Thanks.”
That night was quiet. It wasn’t that we had unpleasant dreams, but if we did we didn’t acknowledge it the next morning. This time it was my turn – I woke up before I could scream, and saw that Bucky was still up. He was scribbling in his book on the couch, but when he saw that I was awake and upset, he got up and made his way towards me. I firmly wave him off, almost jerking my hand away.
“It’s nothing. Go to sleep.”
“You sure?” When did he talk so much?
“I’m dandy, Barnes.”
I bury my head into my pillows again and try not to cry. Guilt, confusion, and whatever made my chest burn was all that was in me at the moment. I should have pulled away from his kiss. Or maybe I should have made it clear I wanted to stay just friendly. Or romantic. I don’t know. I just wanted him to stay.
[Day 425]
Click!
“Remember that time you shaved my legs and called me old?”
“Remember when you tried to flirt with me despite having clear withdrawal symptoms?”
“Sue me, Romanova, I grew up durin’ the Hays Code.”
“My point exactly.” I could hear her heels’ footsteps echo from her end of the phone. “What is it?”
“Can’t I call my favorite ginger?”
“Depends. Do you have information about HYDRA operatives?”
I shut up on the other line.
“I’m kidding. I know you’re totally innocent and clueless. And that you’ve lost your mind and this is just me trying to talk you into turning yourself in to get dissected.”
“Absolutely,” I play along. “But in between talking me into justice, could you throw me a bone?”
“Shoot.”
I look around me. I had the safehouse all to myself today, since Bucky had to go out to grab some weapons from an old connection he had. Well, not really – it’s an old cache that’s hidden somewhere on the beach. Is what he really said. Either way, the code was clear – I want to be alone. So I let him. I couldn’t think when he was around anyways. “How far is too far? In terms of helping someone?”
“Define helping.”
I tilt my head. “Y’know…you hide from capture with him. He killed an old handler that used to torture both of you. Pretend to be his wife. Cook for him.” I considered telling her about Carpathia, but figured she might not be wholly reliable. She’s a Widow, after all – nothing personal, but you can never tell with them. Bless them and their non-brainwashed spontaneity. “Kiss him when you get scared.”
“Did he kiss back?”
“It was on the corner of his mouth.”
Natasha hummed. “You could just chalk it up to good luck.”
Damn. Good point. “What if it’s on a boat? Specifically a couple’s ferry after the scare? And you said if you didn’t know if you wanted to be friends or more, so he agreed to give you time?”
Natasha paused, and I knew she was side-eyeing me. “...and then what happened?”
“I kissed his cheek and the corner of his mouth again.”
“...hell of a friendship if I’ve ever seen one.”
“And then you both try to comfort each other after bad scares and dreams.”
“ That’s not wholly romantic,” She quickly points out. “You don’t have to be married to do that. Would you do it for him even if you felt nothing?”
“Absolutely.” A pause. “I wouldn’t kiss him afterwards, though.”
Her catwalking stopped over the phone.
“Well, he kissed me, technically speaking.”
She said my name in a warning tone.
“After he said something in Italian about me deserving better, which was after I sang to him. Did I mention we share beds now?”
She muttered something in Russian that I will not be repeating. “Did you, now?”
“And before that he took me dress shopping and – ”
“You old people are so repressed. Must be the ice.”
“Hey!” I turn red. “I’m tryin’ to gauge a situation here! It’s not like I can call Steve for this! ‘Hey, your best friend and I are in this weird situational relationship that neither can define, hope you’re okay with that!’ The whole point of me bein’ here is to avoid trouble and keep him sane!”
“And are you doing that, technically?”
I deadpan. “Technically, we’re in the South of Italy hiding from your boss.” a pause. “How is he, by the way?”
“Legally, dead.”
“Legally, condolences.”
“Legally, thank you,” She hummed, going back to walking wherever she was. “How do you feel about this all personally?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. Terrible. Confused. Guilty. I shouldn’t have made this go so far. I didn’t even like him at first, neither of us did, it just…”
“Happened?”
“...yeah. And now I feel like a scumbag because of it.” My eyes start to water. “What am I doing, Natasha? I don’t deserve a relationship. Not after everything I’ve done. Me playing house is me gettin’ my hopes up.”
Her voice was less wry and more soft now. “Maybe he feels the same. After kissing you, what did he do?”
“He said he shouldn’t have done that and now we’re all weird and avoidant with each other. I don’t know if I’m mad or not.”
“He’s probably mad at himself for confusing you,” Nat’s voice was low and whispery. Was she on a mission? “Even if he doesn’t feel the same, it wouldn’t be fair to kiss you and cut off.”
“But his head, Nat,” I insist. “It’s not the same as it used to be. Neither of us are. HYDRA made us develop avoidant attachment styles and terrible nightmares.”
“Exactly. Both of you. You can’t beat yourself up if neither of you can fly the plane. Best thing you can do is your best.”
“And the kiss?”
Natasha sighed. “You can feel however you want about it. So can he. But how you react? It’s all you. Do you want to be mad at him? Leave?”
“No, no! Hell no, I just…” I shook my head. “I’m fine if he’s not…ready. Well, not really, but I can accept it because he deserves the choice too. I just don’t want him to leave. I don’t…I’m not like you, Romanoff. You got out the good way. Through a friend and an organization with open arms. HYDRA doesn’t make their victims look like victims once they’re done.” I wince. “Sorry, that made the Red Room sound kind.”
“No, I know what you mean. If it makes you feel better, normalcy isn’t something that I’m really gearing for anymore.”
“Really? No dates, no friends?”
She hummed. “I never said that, but…you and I, we’re not meant to live normal lives. We’re cursed like that. People like us aren’t born lucky, we have to make our own happy endings.”
“But I don’t want to be cursed. Just the other day I saw this kid with their parents on the beach and got so jealous I – ” I let in a shaky breath. “I haven’t had my period in seven decades. I don’t even know if I wanted a family before they took me, and now I don’t even have a choice. To either be the kid or have the kid.” I bitterly chuckle. “I don’t even know if they took out my uterus or if they just mistreated me so badly my body just gave up.” A pause. "Sorry about the tangent."
“It's alright. I know what you mean,” She said, a melancholic lilt in her rasp. “I know exactly what you mean. But it’s your life now. And if he’s avoiding you, he’s welcome to do so. Just as much as you’re welcome to react to it.”
“I just don’t know what to do next. I just want him to stick around.”
“Then tell him that. No smart one-liners.” A pause. “You know, I always thought you guys were supposed to be the smart ones. Being so old and all.”
I roll my eyes, knowing she’s trying to change the warmth between us. “Oh, ha-ha. You wish you looked like me at 96.”
“Oh, definitely. Bad attitude and all,” Her voice dripped with fake-sweetness. “Honestly, I’m surprised the two of you haven’t gotten together already. You already share a bed, and…”
I huff. “We take turns gettin’ nightmares and not being able to sleep. We’re hardly fit for it. Besides, we don’t share a bed more than we just stick to one side. We’re both frozen. Literally.” A pause. “Plus, Bucky flinches whenever something touches him. I’m not sure how well I can seduce against HYDRA touch-trauma. Only reason why I don’t feel the same is because I wasn’t…never mind.”
“I understand. Baby steps.”
“I guess you can call it that.”
“Sure.” Something clicks on the other end of her line. Then the sound of her running hits my ear. “How about after hiding? Once you’re safe? Take some time not looking behind your back every few seconds?” Honestly, after everything HYDRA put us through, and the scares we’ve had, I wasn’t sure if we were ever goin’ to be safe. My smile falls at that thought – safe. What a mean word. With our luck, Steve won’t clear Bucky’s name, and instead incite some kind of war in order to make sure we get out alive…okay, that sounds unrealistic, even for me. I’m sure the Avengers are doing just fine right now. It’s not exactly like they can split up, or something.
“Really?” I deadpanned.
“I’m just saying, it could help the defrosting process. That is, of course, unless you’re waiting for fake marriage from your fake boyfriend. I don’t judge, of course, you come from a different time and as long as you’re comfortable – ”
“Oh, ha-ha Widow – ”
BANG!
I jolted. Her phone’s line had a gunshot go off. “Are you – are you on a hit job right now ?”
“...maybe. Maybe not.”
“Наталья Романова.”
“This guy is boring, okay? And I’m not going to kill him…just traumatize him a little so he’ll talk. Like the twins from the Shining. Have you seen that one? I made Steve watch it, saying it’s a period drama, and he totally – ”
“I’m hangin’ up now. Go back to work, young lady.”
“Ugh, yes ma’am.”
Click!
[Day 426]
I’d fallen asleep after calling Natasha. It was by accident, one moment I carefully put the phone back into my pack under my bed and the next I was blacked out from laying down for too long. Then when I opened my eyes again, it was three at night. Despite falling asleep on the couch, I’d been placed and tucked into my bed with layers of blankets and a hot water bottle to my stomach. Squinting in the moonlight, Bucky was silently snoring on the couch.
I went back to sleep, and woke up a few hours later. Natasha’s words helped clear my head a little. I had a crush on Bucky, and he kissed me. He got scared, and pulled away. We both have guilt complexes. I wasn’t a licensed therapist, and he wasn’t exactly an easy patient, but I wasn’t gonna deal with this weird routine any longer. Besides, I had a new craving this week.
“Can we go to the market today? I want to try to make fried flowers, but I don’t have any of the right cheese or blossoms.”
Bucky looked up from the table. He’d been organizing the weapons cache that he’d found yesterday. Replacing bullets and getting some new fighting knives. His eyes widened a little, like he was surprised I was talkin’ to him again. Gosh, he really did look young when he wanted to. I started to feel a pang of pity as he nodded. “Yeah. We can go right now, actually.”
“You sure? You look a little – ”
“No, it’s fine.” Then, with the swiftness of a Winter Soldier, he deftly clicked and snapped the undone guns back together and pocketed the pocket knives within seconds. Was he just fakin’ it? Oh my god. Men. “Just let me get some cash.”
I slipped into a linen dress (I’d reverted back to hiding in Henleys for a few days) and my slippers before stepping outside with him. I raise a brow. “No arm?”
“You want it?”
Honestly, you’d think I was the one who kissed and pulled away. “If we want to look normal, yes.”
Otranto’s market was busier than usual today, but it was fun to get distracted by all the shops and wares. Even Bucky looked a little curious at some of the stands. “What kind of cheese do you want?” I asked. He didn’t hesitate this time, pointing at the goat cheese. By the time we finished shopping, we’d gotten more than I anticipated – more than just the squash blossoms, club soda and cheeses, some lemons, dried mint, and a small glass bottle of goat milk. That’s when something caught the corner of my eye. A gelato stand. It looked like ice cream. Sweet, and the perfect way to lessen whatever hard talk I wanted to have.
I tap Bucky’s arm. “I want gelato, James. And I want to eat it on the steps like childhood.”
He nodded. “Alright.”
Bucky ordered the plainest-looking one – milk and cream – while I tried not to stare too long at the different flavors. It was heartbreaking, choosing just one. After much deliberation, though, I made the painful choice of getting dark chocolate and orange. It tasted like sweetness after rejection – bitter but brightened with juice. How apt. We sat on some hidden steps where no one could see our fugitive faces while we ate.
“You haven’t called me sweetheart in a while,” I start (in Romanian, of course. Even if I was hurting I wasn’t itching on getting caught) after getting halfway through my cup. Bucky stops stabbing his frozen cream with a spoon. “Or doll.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. “I thought I called my girlfriends that, back in the day. But I think HYDRA just put a fake memory in there. Or something mixed in my head.” That did make me feel bad.
“So you stopped calling me that?” He nodded. “Girlfriends?”
“I can’t get the memories properly down, but yeah.”
“I thought I was ‘too far’. Not a girlfriend.”
That made his jaw shift a little. “I didn’t mean – ”
“You said you’d see how it goes. Then you kissed me. Then pulled away.”
His eyes were downcast to his melting cup. “I thought I was. Now I’m not sure.”
“Why not?”
A huff escaped his throat. “Do you think we’re in a position to think like that? When there’s a fight around every corner?”
“So you regret kissing me?”
His face softened. “I didn’t say that. Just that we can’t afford to…think this will be real one day. That it’ll last.” Bucky’s gloved hand brushes a stray strand from my face. He’s been wearing the old jeans from Carpathia, but the new hoodies from here. Not fully letting go. “Besides. I still stand by what I said that night.”
“And I still stand by what I said.” I looked down at my gelato. Next time, I was gettin’ honey. Or maybe sour cherry. “We were good in Carpathia, weren’t we? Wasn’t that nice?”
“Yeah. It was.”
“Couldn’t we do that again?” Play house, I wanted to say. Let me play something that isn’t a puppet for HYDRA. Play family. Act like I had a whole life ahead of me instead of the Raft, and an electric chair. “...and we’d be – we’d be close.” I didn’t want to say friends. “Friends.” Goddammit. “Pull this little marriage act for everyone else. I just want you to stay. Be safe.”
“The last time you called me your friend, my face was covered in your lipstick.”
I pout. “Sorry, sir. You’ve got a very fine stubble, too good not to be kissed.”
That makes a chuckle escape his throat, which in turn made my thoughts hiccup. He really did have the handsomest smile, handsomest teeth. “You’ve been exhausting me since the cell, you know that?”
“Likewise.” My heart hurt at what he said – we wouldn’t last in the real world. Not with how things are going. Even in my head, I felt guilty at times, thinking about how much I abhorred him at the compound, only for him to be so different after freedom.
That evening I made fried squash blossoms and talked about the cute cat I saw. Bucky went over some of what he read on the news, and some things he wanted to confirm in his head with me. At night, when I climbed into bed, I pulled his arm in with me. “Married, remember?”
“I knew that,” He muttered, climbing in next to me. “Just thought I was still on the couch.”
Physically? No. Emotionally? A little, but I can’t hate you for it. Not when I’m in the same damn boat.
“No, but you are gettin’ me gelato daily from now on.”
Notes:
currently craving Italian food
"it's not like the Avengers can split up" and I'm gonna hold your hand when I say this
Chapter 49: Winter to Spring
Chapter Text
[Bucky's P.O.V. - 1930-something]
My first kiss was when I was in high school. I remember it pretty clearly – I’d asked this girl out – Claire – out on a date to the park. There was a little show being held there, and I thought it would be worth the gamble to have fun with someone pretty. It was a good date, we got to see some stand-up, shared popcorn, and I even got a little souvenir bracelet for her. Claire must’ve thought it was good too, because when I’d walked her back to her folks’ place, she got on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to my mouth right outside the porch.
“G’night, Bucky.”
“G’night, Claire.”
I was on cloud nine the entire run home. Steve had to endure me not shutting up about the date for the whole weekend, and my dad ruffled my hair, saying I was becoming more of a man each day. My mom, however?
“Congratulations, dear. You know how to handle a girl on a good day.”
I blink. “On a good day?”
She nodded. “Well, yes. On a good day. It’s not all skipping home and kisses, James. You know about the good half, but not the tough half.”
As if dames even had a tough half. Don’t get me wrong, my ma’s tough, and my sisters were real characters of their own, but the way she put it, you’d think the fairer sex was a different species entirely.
Then a couple of years passed, and I suddenly had sisters who were teenagers. Then I understood what she meant.
“I didn’t want these, I wanted the red ones!”
“You said you wanted onions, Janie, so I got the white ones!”
“That’s not an excuse! How am I gonna make fried onions now?”
“You could just cook with – ”
“No, I can’t!”
Ma refused to explain what was happening, but all of a sudden, I was ganged up on by two middle-schoolers who had nothing but hair pins and anger issues to their names.
“James, do your sister’s ironing too,” My mother said when she saw me ironing my shirt. I blink.
“What? But Rebecca’s – ”
“Now, young man.”
But god forbid I point it out.
“Becca, you’ve been acting weird lately. Are you sure this existential crisis of yours isn’t just all in your head?” I once asked her when she threw some fit in my room for the umpteenth time.
Rebecca stared at me like I just told her Santa was fake. Then her eyes watered. Then she smacked me, screaming for Ma like I wounded her. “James! Stop bullying your sister!” She scolded me while giving Becca money for a slice of cherry pie from the bakery down the street. What the hell?
“I don’t understand,” I groan in my bed. Tommy, who was too little to know what was happening, played on my stomach. “One second they’re fine and now they're eating all the good food and sleeping in constantly. Ma would kill me if I did that.”
“Twouble,” He cooed. His teeth were like little pearls, gleaming through my suffering. I poke his baby belly, making him giggle.
“You and me, we’re never dealin’ with all that. Men's club only. No crazy dames allowed.”
“Wha’ ’bout momma? She pwetty.”
“...okay, maybe her. Only because I’m not about to give you baths and feed you.”
Now that I think about it, my momma didn’t act the way my sisters did. Maybe the crazy gene skipped a generation? I asked my dad, but he wasn’t much help.
“Son,” He clapped my shoulder. “There are some things you can only learn through living. Like how to care for a woman.”
What. “I just asked why Ma isn’t bonkers like Janie and Becca.”
“Because she’s older, and can handle things better. That, and because she has me to take care of her when things go…routine.”
“Routine?”
“Routine. You’ll figure it out soon enough.”
Yeah, that was a confusing talk. Eventually, I learned just to steer clear of my sisters on those days. Do whatever they asked, whatever my ma asked, and don’t get too bitter when they get to have sweet things. It was only when I became an adult did I realize why they acted like that, but honestly, by then I was just glad that it was over.
[Back to Central P.O.V. - Day 437]
Bucky’s been on my last nerve all morning. It started when we woke up, and he wouldn’t budge out of bed. I didn’t want to tell him, it was too early to talk, but he just wouldn’t catch the damn hint! Eventually I had to shove him off the bed in order to get started on laundry.
“It’s really early to be doing this,” He grumbled. He didn’t even have his morning ‘don’t bother me’ fake-pissed look when I walked past him to get soap.
“I’m sorry I don’t want bad linens,” I hissed. Everyone else here looked so normal compared to us! We looked like we were wanted by the government, and it didn’t help that none of the clothes were useful. I had a nightmare last night, not because of HYDRA, but of the fear that S.H.I.E.L.D. was in the area, takin’ the hint from the mountains and gone down South. To the Greek safehouse, and was probably scouring the area to find us. When I told Bucky this, he just waved me off.
“There’s nothing in the newspapers that suggests they’re in the area…they’re still cleaning up Sokovia from the Chitauri, whatever that is.” He looked up from the table and folded the paper. “You want to see?”
My face twitched at that. Isn’t he supposed to be the paranoid one? He didn’t even throw a fit when I visited our neighbors that morning, asking where to find more newspapers.
“We need to fit in, anyways.”
The weather was getting warmer as winter melted into spring. I suppose the one nice thing about hiding in Otranto was the view – the turquoise ocean made both of us stop and stare. Looking at the endless waters, I felt melancholic. My true youth never saw waters like this. Just the same grey, cold, concrete cells of Siberia. My sadness left the moment Bucky annoyed me by patting my back to keep moving.
“We need groceries.”
I scowl at him. I don’t think he noticed. Bucharest me had the right idea of shanking him in the fountain. Especially when he had the audacity to actually want something for dinner after I asked sarcastically. I’m not his maid, goddammit!
“Those peaches look ripe.”
His greed sickens me. Clearly, his gluttony clearly knows no bounds.
Even worse was when he took me for gelato. “I don’t want this,” I scrunch my nose at the cone of cream he got me.
“You’ve been eating a cup a day for the past few — ”
“Yeah, but did I ask today?”
His jaw clenched for a second before he turned around and handed the cup to a wide-eyed little boy who stared longingly at the treat. He was tiny and blond, with big blue eyes that looked so surprised that a stranger would get him something nice. I grab Bucky’s arm. “Wait, get him some syrup, he’s a growing boy. And where’s his mama?”
Bucky stared at me like I grew a second head. “She’s right there.”
“She should be ashamed of herself.”
“For what?”
“Ugh. You wouldn’t get it.”
Poor precious doesn’t have a mom who would get him gelato. I was in a fizzled mood for the whole walk home. When it was time to make dinner, Bucky pestered me with his memories. Which, normally, would be fine, but for some reason, he wanted to talk about something other than his army days, or Brooklyn, or his friendship with Steve. No, he wanted to talk about something disgusting.
“Do you think they keep a record of war volunteers?
“I dunno. Why do you ask?”
“I think I remember one of my old girlfriends mentioning being a part of a group.”
I burnt the chicken that night. How could I not? We had a shared love, then forgot. Then remembered, and things got messy. Then he kissed me, then said we couldn’t be together, then started talking about girlfriends! And all he did was stare at me when my face got all hot so I had to restart. “I can take over – ”
“Shut up, Barnes!”
I skipped dinner that night and locked myself in the bathroom instead. It took me who knows how long to fight the urge to scream and break the mirror in front of me. When I got out, Bucky, as per FUCKING usual, just stared. Does he ever do anything but stare!? I miss the Winter Soldier. He would have had the decency to at least leave me alone. Fuckwad.
“What? Am I not pretty enough today?” I glower. I didn’t wear a linen dress today, or any of the clothes we got. Just an old sweater and pants, mainly because everyone around me looked so much better than I did. Bucky even did, rugged stubble, messy long hair and all. He seriously needed a haircut. Him and his stupid jawline. GOD.
He shook his head. “I’ll take the couch.”
“What? Why?” Was I too much for him? Well fine! I didn’t want to be near anyone anyways.
Bucky stared at me for the billionth time today. He pursed his lips then shook his head. “Just want to write some things down.”
Men. They think they’re so important – Ooh, I wanna write things down for my novel, look at me, I’m so deep! I have thoughts that any girl at the age of six would think of! Give me a medal for my mediocrity! And then they get mad about the creation of birth control and alimony!
I wasn’t going to cry. No, I wasn’t. I’ve done terrible things, and I didn’t deserve softness. Not that of an innocent’s child's eyes, or the fake domestic bliss I was torturing myself with. But it wasn’t fair. All of that pain, and torture, only for me to left alone with the illusion of normalcy. Like a last fuck you from HYDRA, to have a functioning form despite the hell they put me through. A kiss that was taken back immediately after, and some stupid advice that just dug me into a deeper hole. Nothing was fair.
[Bucky’s P.O.V. - Day 444]
She’s been bleeding for the past week, and thinks I can’t tell. I can.
It started a couple of days ago, when she shoved me off the bed – I woke up, panicking and thinking someone broke in, only to see her scurry past me with the sheets all bunched up in her arms. At first I started to breathe heavily, seeing a streak of red on the white. Was she injured? Did I finally hurt her in my sleep? The panic of that made me start to spiral, until I heard the water run in the bathroom and her muttering behind the muffling door:
“ Nonono, please, no, it’s – it’s been seventy years, I can’t – can’t – ” Then some sniffling. It all clicked pretty quickly after that.
Here's my theory: HYDRA used her to experiment on bones and muscles, and probably the stress and constant icing put her body on pause for so long. That, and tube feeding meant she wasn’t getting fed enough to bleed. My mom always gave my sisters extra portions when they started middle school – it was odd that I remembered that. Probably the likelihood of the Winter Soldier breaking his brainwashing because of his family was low. Anyways, a year of eating actual food probably helped her body get back to normal. Sure, things were stressful, but she wasn’t getting cut open, or put into ice. Her body probably saw that low standard as the closest thing to stability and took its chance to function regularly before it could possibly get worse. Poor kid.
I didn’t get onto her about talking to the neighbors because I knew she needed more than just newspapers. When she came back with a bag of more than just the magazines, her eyes were still shiny and she got snappy when I tried to make things sound normal by checking the daily report. I wasn’t about to argue with her, though. I also knew better than to just nonchalantly bring it up – it wasn’t exactly gentleman’s talk, and I knew it would just make her feel more humiliated if I did. I knew she wanted to be more of a modern woman post-HYDRA, but some old habits died hard.
I tried to be less of a jackass to her. Ever since we had that talk over gelato about the kiss, she’s been looking more dim. I didn’t want to tell her, but I still stuck by what I knew was the truth: I don’t deserve her, and we’re not in a position to risk capture. I used to hurt her when we were in HYDRA. To be kissing her felt both warm and undeserving. Like biting into a forbidden fruit, and only feeling bad after your hands are sticky. No, it was better I didn’t push it. Having her with me again after all these years was already a damn miracle, and I didn’t want to push my luck.
For some reason, it felt like nothing I did was right by her. I thought she liked peaches, but she looked like she was five seconds away from stabbing me Bucharest-style again for suggesting it. Then she got upset when I got her gelato, but I’m guessing her stomach was in pain. Then she looked sad at the little boy I gave the food to, but got annoyed by me asking again. When we got back for dinner, I quickly realized what my dad meant all those years ago, with the “routine” – I tried to bring up my memories, but realized that I fucked up when she almost dropped a plate.
Girlfriend. Hell, that one was obvious. Something sick filled my stomach when I could hear her rapidly sobbing in the bathroom, trying to shut herself up. Then after, when I tried to give her space and she ended up crying herself to sleep again. She sounded like a kicked puppy, wheezing and whimpering at a pitch.
But that was a couple of days ago. This was now, where I think she mellowed out a little. The nurse still looked dim and down, like everything seemed to exhaust her. It wasn’t like the mountains, where her eyes always had a hint of bitterness and anger at me after she attempted in the river, but instead just a drained look of resignation.
When we first got here, she’d try to make me talk more again by shopping at the market. I wasn’t good at healing like her, not after decades of hurting others, so at first I just kept my distance. I already stung her once with that kiss, I didn’t want to do it again.
One night, after another burnt dinner, I flipped through my memory book. I stopped asking her about memories, mainly because she looked sad whenever she recalled her nursing days. Like recalling a dead mother, or something. I read some of the things I updated: Morita dipped his pineapples in saltwater, saying it tasted sweeter. There was an alleycat I used to sneak broth-meat scraps to after Ma told me to throw them out. I watched one of Steve’s movies when he was Cap…I think I made fun of him for it. Steve was a sore point – I didn’t know how much was real and not real in my head, but I wanted to trust him. Then Carpathia spat at us, reminding me what happened if I took too many chances. If I get too comfortable. I couldn’t do that again.
“I’m going to take a walk.” Her words broke me out of my thoughts. Looking up, she was wearing one of the skirts I got her, but with an old shirt of mine on top. I think her hips hurt, because she keeps constantly hugging herself there. The nurse’s voice was hoarse and tight, like she’d been crying again.
“It’s dark out,” I point out. Her face twitched.
“I don’t like bein’ cooped up.”
“I’ll go with you, then.”
Her teeth grinded behind her closed mouth, but she nodded. God, I’m really pushing it today. We went out when the sun was already setting, when the sky was dark blue and there were hardly any people out. We walked past the closing markets, and I suddenly remembered that she hadn’t eaten dinner. She hadn’t eaten anything, as of late…I don’t think that’s good. My mom always fed my sisters a lot when they had their cycles, if she doesn’t eat, she must be trying to force it to end early. I remembered overhearing my mother - don't force Mother Nature to end before her time, even if it hurts! It'll get worse if you do! - when she saw Janie almost down a big glass of ice water once. I couldn’t afford to have her sick again. “Wait here,” I tell her as we come up to a fruit bar. I asked for a cup of whatever they had, some water and a pack of salt before coming back.
“I’m not hungry,” She croaked as we made our way back to our neighborhood. Just then, the image of the ocean interrupted our walking.
“It’s not for you.” It’s for her. I led us down to the in order to make sure that she ate everything. If we ate inside, there was a good chance she’d sneakily try to throw it away. Sitting at the edge of the pier, at least, I had a chance of making sure she didn't do that. I open the lid of the plastic cup and put a chunk of pineapple into my mouth. I offer another chunk to her.
“I don’t like pineapple.”
“Have you ever even had a pineapple?”
“No, but I don’t have to. Rita says it makes your tongue hurt.” I don’t know who Rita is, but I know what she’s talking about. I uncap the bottle of water I had with me and pour some of it into the fruit cup. Then, I tear open the salt packet and pour that in there too. Then I closed the lid and shook it for a minute, ignoring the weird look she was giving me. I opened the lid again and offered her a chunk. Curious, she took it and popped it into her mouth. For the first time in days, her eyes widened. “How did you know how to do that?” She asked.
To my surprise, this minor memory was one of the clearest in my head. I guess HYDRA saw that it was harmless, and didn’t need to target it when mind-wiping me. Back in the war, the Commandos had rations like everyone else. Like everyone else, we got tired of them quickly and tried to get our hands on better stuff when we could. By some miracle, or, more likely favors, Private Jim Morita got his hands on some fresh fruit crates for us all to share. He never explained how he got them, just smugly basked in us thanking him for the stuff. When I took some pineapple to cut, I was surprised at how sharp the fruit flesh was on my tongue. I’d only ever grown up with the canned stuff in Brooklyn.
“ Salt it, Sarge, ” Morita explained, throwing me a small tin of salt. I didn’t want to waste fruit, but Jim seemed pretty sure of himself. After doing so and taking another bite, I was surprised. The meat of the pineapple was sweet and spongy, not sharp and sour. I asked him how he knew to do that. “ I’m from Fresno, we grow a lot of fruit and know how to eat ’em. But the saltwater thing was taught to me by my gramps when we’d go to the beach .”
When I told her my story, she didn’t look so down anymore, just interested. Her cheeks were puffed up from being stuffed with fruit, which made her look like an adorably greedy squirrel. “I’ve never been to the beach,” The nurse admitted after swallowing. “Not before HYDRA sent me overseas for jobs. Sure, I’ve flown over it durin’ the war, but…” She watched her feet’s reflection dangle under her.
“Do you think you’d see it if HYDRA didn’t?” I ask.
“Maybe a honeymoon in Galveston,” she snorted. Just then, our attention shifted to some noise behind us. Laughter, coming from a small family that was walking past the beach. A man, a woman, and their two kids who were shrieking at the top of their lungs while chasing each other with sticks. The adults looked on with fond exasperation. Funnily enough, the smaller sister was gaining on her big brother.
“Bet you five the girl’s gonna – ” I start, but stop when I see the nurse’s face. Her eyes didn’t leave the family, but her lips jutted in a sad attempt not to cry. Shit. I quickly stand up and grab her arm so she’d go up with me. “Let’s go inside, doll. It’s getting late.”
I didn’t think I’d be sleeping on the bed tonight, but I ended up doing just that. Even more surprisingly, the nurse was sobbing in my arms inconsolably. “ ...why, why, why did it have to c-come b-back!? ”
“It’s just a sign that your body’s getting back to normal,” I tried to softly reason. “You could have a family, if you wanted, after all this hiding.”
“W-with w-who!?” She despaired, burying her face into my chest. “I-I don’t even – I don’t even know i-if I want – I just saw the kids and remembered - god, why did it come back!? Who would – ” Her words stopped, getting dissolved into tears again. If I wasn’t such a terrible person, if hiding wasn’t an issue, if we’d met during the war?
I would, I thought, recalling Siberia. I wouldn’t mind. In a heartbeat, if you'd just ask.
"You'd be surprised," I weakly try, but she just shook her head and cried herself to sleep.
[Back to Central P.O.V. - Day 445]
I woke up feeling better than I had in a while. Bucky let me snore on his metal bicep, even though it probably bothered him a lot.
“Does it even fall asleep?” I yawn after realizing where my head was resting. I quickly turned my face around to hide how puffy it was. I was bloated – I had a lot of salt the night before, you see.
Bucky hummed. His hair looked messier than usual. “It feels heavier, but not much of anything else.” His eyes don’t leave my wrinkled nightgown. “Had a good sleep, sweetheart?”
Kind of? My head was a lot lighter, but I think that was just because I had a good supper yesterday. I’d been avoiding heavy foods because my stomach hadn’t adjusted since Carpathia. I shrug. “I want some peach gelato, but I reckon havin’ that much cream and sugar before twelve is a disaster waitin’ to happen.”
Bucky groaned as he got up after me. I’d accidentally slept on him, which would explain why I felt so warm. His body always ran hot, which was why my back didn’t hurt as much. “You can shower first.”
I blink. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I need to check the newspaper anyways. Water should be hot.”
After my shower, I changed into a skirt and blouse before going back into the kitchen. When I looked at the table, Bucky was already wearin' his outside gloves and putting down two cups of pesca-flavored gelato on its surface. I blink.
“Did you run all the way down to get that?”
He opened up the newspaper and started reading. “No.”
“You did! You totally did – ”
“Just eat yours before it melts.” I did, and he let me finish his cup too.
“You’re spoilin’ me, Sarge,” I hum. My feelings weren’t as intense as before. My heart still felt like all-fire when he was with me, but I didn’t feel so weepy and bitter (well, I did, but I didn't feel like stabbing him and sobbing about it). Bucky didn't look up as he flipped to the next page.
“It’s just part of the routine, nurse.”
Notes:
wanted to practice my unreliable narration but idk
Natasha after this: Damn what happened to it being no uterUS bruh
Chapter 50: Ares & Aphrodite
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Day 456]
I woke up this morning to Bucky not next to me. Usually he leaves the bed and takes the couch when he doesn’t trust his head, but he wasn’t there either. The room was annoyingly warm too – since we were near the ocean spring would usually be chilly, but the recent sunshine had toasted things up a little. That’s actually a little odd, now that I think about it: this little house was supposed to be recently-made.
Squeak-squeak-squeak –
At first I thought it was a mouse, until I realized the noise was too frequent to be so. Lookin’ out from under my covers was a sight more eye-widening than coffee: Bucky fixing our air conditioning box in with only a wrench, metal arm, and –
“Sergeant.”
“Nurse.”
“Where’s your shirt?”
“In the wash. It’s too hot in here.” It didn’t explain why the sunlight was gleaming on his muscled skin, or why his metal arm was practically blinding under his chin. Feeling my cheeks redden, I pulled the sheets up to my chest despite the oceanic warmth. Come to think of it, this must be the first warmth since Winter ended. “Go back to sleep. I’ll stop when this damn thing starts working again.”
Was my hair messy? I should comb it. When I was a little girl, I was told that sleeping with perfume and oil in your hair was ladylike. I used to think it was stupid, but not anymore. His eyes looked up at me, making me look away. “Bad dreams?” I nodded, and he clicked his tongue. “I’ll put sleep medicine on the list, for both of us at this rate.”
Feeling bold, and ignoring the fact that I really shouldn’t be getting my hopes up since the boat, I shake my head. “...I’d rather just sleep in with you. Your arm’s all nice and cool at night.” I hate how shy I feel right now. I hate even more when he puts his wrench down and doesn’t remind me that we only had to act married in public. Bucky gets up and closes the blinds, which now muffled the rising sun. Then he turned around and made his way back to the bed, climbing in next to me and extending his metal arm out like a pillow. I stare.
“Well? Don’t want a repeat of Greece, do we?” Oh. Yeah. That’s why he’s doin’ this. I force myself to keep a poker face as I nuzzle up against his bicep, praying he doesn’t hear how fast my heart was going as he yawned and closed his eyes behind me. Maybe I should put – “Did you put perfume in your hair?” Bucky’s voice mumbled through my thoughts.
“No? Just almond oil. They were havin’ a sale at the market.”
“Hn. Soft.” Then his nose nuzzled behind my scalp like he didn’t tell me once that we weren’t in any position to get comfortable whilst on the run from the government.
A few hours later, I woke up, properly, and saw that I was alone again. The room was cooler too, so Bucky must’ve fixed the air conditioning when I was asleep. I checked the clock – it was halfway to nine.
“ E-e-e mi ha staccato un dito a morsi! Quel grassone! Dopo che gli avevo detto di no! ” The high-pitched squeak of a kid filled my ear.
The sound of a tongue clicking in disapproval. “ Gatto cattivo. Lo cucinerò più tardi, solo per te. ” Bucky? Looking at the door, I see him crouching. He’s put a shirt on, and his gloves. Next to him is a pudgy little toddler. I recognize him as the neighbor’s son. He doesn’t even reach Bucky’s leg, with messy auburn hair and baby fat still on his cheeks and belly as he waddles around like he owns the place. He spots me and points. Bucky nods. “ Quella bella signora è mia moglie. Salutami, ragazzo. ” The little boy flaps a little hand in my direction.
I wave back, getting up, walking over and crouching down to his level to pinch his cheek. Looking up at Bucky, I ask in Romanian, “ Where’s his parents? ”
Bucky shrugged. “ Probably looking for him. ” He turned again to the boy. “ Dov'è la tua mamma, bambino? ” The little boy giggled. “ Te la sei svignata, vero? Cattivo ragazzo. Dovrei cucinare te invece del gatto. ” Then he picked him up with one arm and ruffled his hair so roughly that I thought the kid got scalped before he giggled with glee.
“ No, no! ”
“ Perché no? Sei altrettanto grassoccio e veloce! ” The kid stayed with us as I made breakfast, Bucky’s normally tense demeanor gone as the kid played with his gloved fingers and babbled in his lap while I tried to feed him some cut fruit.
It was a little while after that his parents found us, living a few doors down and apologizing. They’d gotten new locks and the kid managed to already figure out how to sneak away. When they left and Bucky closed the door, he had that melancholic look. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
That night, over some fried eggplant cutlets and creamed spinach, he had that same distant look. Sad, with how soft his lids were as he flipped through the pages of his memory book. I quit playin’ dumb. “Bucky?” He didn’t answer. “Buck!” His head snapped back up to me. I shook my head. “Ever since that kid wandered here you look like someone stole your ovaries, or something.”
He scoffed at that. “You’re one to talk.” I smack his arm.
“Tell me. Unless we had some secret kid together in HYDRA and you’re tryin’ to gentle me through that one too – ”
“Alright, alright,” Bucky coughed behind his spoon. He’s so old it’s almost funny at times (I’m only three years younger, shut up). “He just… looked like my younger siblings. Had the same teeth and cheek. Waddled around making demands, running to me, crying for comfort.”
Oh. “You…you remember more of them? More than just your sister, and Christmas? You mentioned havin’ a sister in Siberia, but…”
He nodded, flipping through his books. “I’ve got two. Two girls. A boy.” A pause. “I can’t find a picture of Tommy, though. Only Becca’s alive now, but I can’t find any newspaper clippings…she’s really old, though, and I don’t doubt I’ll never see her again.” His hand lifted, taking a deep inhale. “Pass the salt?”
Something about how nonchalantly he said it made me want to cry, which was why I was suddenly tearing up over my supper. He looked a little alarmed. “It’s fine, it’s – ” He reached up to scrub my tears from my cheeks. “I found out about them before we even met. There’s a whole archive at the Smithsonian about my life, and – ”
I shake my head. “You don’t feel a little…?”
Bucky looked down. “There’s nothing I can do about it now, so.” I must’ve still looked sad to him, because he added, “It’s fine. I’d already said my goodbyes when I got drafted, so it’s all wrapped up.”
“But that’s not – ”
He suddenly leaned in and kissed my mouth. A light peck, but lingering on my lips all the same. His forehead pressed against my own. “Leave it.” Then he pulled away and stood, presumably to wash up for bed.
That night I couldn’t stop thinking about how plainly he said it. Unlike me, I always presumed the great tragedy with his life was how nice things were goin’ for him before the compound. Sure, the Depression made everyone wanting, but from how he talked about it, he definitely had riches in other ways. A loving family, a best friend, girlfriends and places where he could call home. Wealthy in every way but his pocket, and he was more than content with it. But what did he have now? This Italian house was fancy, but hardly filled with family. His mind is a blur, and he has to recall his memories in a book. His trust is thinner than anything. And as for girlfriends…well. He fixes and breaks my heart all the time, without even trying. I can’t imagine how much of a local tomcat he was before HYDRA.
I thought he’d be sadder, but from what I could tell, he was perfectly accepting of his losses. I tried to imagine Bucky Barnes as a brother – less stubble, more cheek, more smiles. A smaller version of him? With his big blue eyes, I don’t doubt a littler version of him being too sweet to forget, let alone be so nonchalant in letting go. I could let go of my own brother because we couldn’t give a rat’s ass about each other in the Dust Bowl, but him? Brooklyn raised and loved? It didn’t feel right.
[Bucky’s P.O.V. - Day 460]
The nurse isn’t much of an actor when she’s trying. When we hid away in the mountains, it was easy to get comfortable with each other, and it wasn’t hard to pull off a married couple act when each visit was brief and quiet. I liked how she walked around the general store next to the butcher, lost in her own world. She always had the shyest smile when she wanted something, and even now she does too.
When we walked past a fruit stand the other day, I offered to get her oranges when I noticed her eyeing the crate. She mentioned oranges being hard to find in her childhood, and only a winter treat, so I figured getting her a small crate for dinner would be nice. Her beam practically cost us our cover, what with how bright it was. That night she went through half the load with sticky cheeks and a goofy smile. Even when she got a sore stomach later, the nurse just giggled through it like it was the best pain she’d ever bore. I almost forgot we were fugitives.
But later? When an older lady asked us how long we’ve been together, she just froze up. Another time our neighbors asked if we were honeymooners. It was a simple question with a simple answer, but she just looked at them like they just told her that Interpol was at their doorstep.
I knew part of it was my fault. I’d drawn the line in the sand, to stay apart, and keeping to it meant that you’d have to get burned sometimes. She’d sometimes freeze whenever someone calls us a couple. I’d have to take a smoke break whenever I see her flirting with the vendor for a discount (seriously, why does he have to flirt back? Can’t he just give her the damn discount? Or better yet, why can’t I just pay for it myself? “Oh, Buck, it’s the experience!” My ASS – I need to stop before I punch someone, preferably him. I don’t remember much, but back in my day you didn't let Vinny the fruitmonger talk to my – I mean, your girl like that). What happened in the cells was sweet, but reality isn’t kind, and neither is getting caught and being shipped off to Madripoor because of one wrong move.
“It could cost us our cover,” I brought it up while cleaning a knife. The ones hidden in the HYDRA cache were just as sharp as I’d remembered them. Good, I don’t want to go through any more scares with some stolen guns, rifles from the ’70s and two pocket knives. “Now they know that we’re in Europe, they’ll search everywhere.”
“They already know we’re in Europe,” She retorts. Other ex-HYDRA agents have been caught hiding in France and London, so Europe’s been scoured to death. I don’t doubt security agencies know more than what they report on the news, so we have to always be on our toes. “But we’re so hidden here, what’s the big deal?”
She can’t be serious. “It’s about not getting sent back. Or to S.H.I.E.L.D., or to the Raft.” I sigh. “It’s just an act. You said it yourself, just play it for everyone else outside.”
Her jaw jutted for a second before she swallowed another bite of her food. “I don’t know how to act, Buck. Give me a damn break. Not everyone grew up with parents who got along.”
“I thought you said – ”
“My daddy spoiled me but not my momma,” She grunted, like this was the last thing she wanted to talk about. “I don’t know what lovey-dovey looks like. I know what it feels like, but I’m not tryin’ to pretend my emotions for anyone.”
[Bucky’s P.O.V. - Day 467]
A few days later, we went out for some groceries. If we bought things in bulk, it would be more efficient, but the nurse insists on wanting to look normal. Because of that, we quietly argue in Romanian over when to get food as a means of trying to get some control in our terrible lives.
“ Morning means there aren’t as many people here, and – ”
“ Morning is when the weather is the warmest too, I don’t want that! ”
“ It’s not about wanting, it’s about making sure we don’t – ”
And so it goes, until we make our way through the market with whatever things we both needed and didn’t need. I always tried to avoid too many of the same stalls, since Carpathia I'm reminded that blending in too well meant people remembered your face, and that’s the last thing we needed. In between bickering, she’d still ask me what I wanted for dinner.
“ What do you want ?”
When she first asked me that question, I had no idea how to answer. This entire time I’d been preoccupied with either not getting caught, staying alive, remembering myself, or maintaining sanity (multiply all this by two when you include her into the mix) that I didn’t really know what I wanted. It’s not like HYDRA fed us, and Carpathia was all about survival. Then I remembered how gross I felt for the two weeks she left – my diet was shot, to say the least. So I first just tried to get whatever I thought she’d like. Or what was easier. But eventually, I started trying to actively ask.
“ Those fried flowers you made were good. What did you put in them? ”
She always smiled when I answered. “ I used besan that was on sale and discounted goat cheese. Speaking of, you want rice with goat for dinner? You seem to really like the goat stuff. ”
“ Sure. ”
The woman who sold us coffee looked at us. In Italian, she remarked, “ You speak like my grandparents do – always bickering, but then so mellow! If you weren’t so youthful, I’d think you two were a hundred! ”
Lady, you have no idea.
The nurse, whose Italian was still weak, could only smile shyly while I took over answering: “ Thanks. Sometimes it feels like it .”
“ Newlyweds? Honeymooners? ”
We both nod. She beamed. “ Oh, how romantic. Where are you two from? ”
I take the nurse’s hand and swing it a little, a soft smile melting on my face. The linen dress she was wearing made her look like one of those Italian coquettes that were on the postcards nearby. Then again, she looked good in practically anything – HYDRA couldn’t take her looks away, just her spine. “ Bucharest. I'm on a work break and she’s a medical student. ” I knew she understood that, because her cheeks brightened. It’s not like it’s a lie – she reads the Grey’s Anatomy book from cover to cover every other night. She’d always pick a chapter to hyperfixate on and fall asleep with the pages on her chest.
“ Oh? How smart! ”
I remembered how my dad used to talk about my mom. He’d brag about her like she was a Tiffany’s diamond, especially when she was mad. Look at my woman, all dolled-up just for me! He’d say when she looked a mess, wrangling a kid into a bath after almost burning dinner. And she’d glare at him, threaten to divorce, and he’d dramatically beg for forgiveness on his knees. Remembering that, I say, “ She’s too smart. Sometimes I wonder if she’s just staying with me as an experiment, like I’m her loyal lab rat. ” The coffee lady cooed.
When we left, the nurse jabbed my middle with her elbow. “What was that for?”
“Was that not acting like a normal couple?”
She pursed her lips. This morning she’d painted them red and tied a scarf around her head to look nice. I’d watched her spend ten minutes in the bathroom just scrutinizing her image to fit in, looking like a bird preening in a birdbath. Was that why my dad would stare at my mom when she combed her hair at night? Should I even make a note of that in my memory log? “Normal couples hold hands and smile. That’s normal. Not all that…romance-film stuff. Braggin’ and holdin’.”
"Bragging and holding aren't unrealistic," Seventy years of mindwashing and I still had a better grasp at romance than her, it seemed. No wonder I was her first kiss. “Couples also bicker, and forget about it a second later.”
“Not my folks,” She scoffed. “They’d break a few things first.” Our upbringings couldn’t be anymore different, from what I could tell – aside from the Depression making everyone poor, and her parents technically loving her, it seemed her life was always unlucky. I couldn’t imagine my folks going so far in an argument as to break things. Maybe my ma would twist my ear if I was being stupid, but never hit me. Same with my old man. And siblings – I couldn’t imagine leaving my siblings behind voluntarily. Becca was in tears when I got the draft, not just because of the war, but because none of us had ever even been that far away from each other or home before. Maybe that’s why the nurse rejected my offer to be her brother when we were in Siberia, not that I was complaining.
Later the nurse wanted to go and get a laptop. I had no idea why, since it would be a risk to our security with its signal, but she insisted on it – she wanted to see what the fuss was about. “Basically electric typewriters, but with a brain,” She hummed.
“You already know what a computer is,” I pointed out as we perused an electronics shop at the farther corner of the town. “The compound had – ”
“I know, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to re-learn it,” She rolled her eyes. “If HYDRA owned cats, they’d keep tigers. They pervert everything they touch. I want to see what the good in things are, even if they hurt me once.”
She approached a computer salesman, some college-student-looking kid who looked totally bored while I busied myself with one of the tablets. That’s when I heard her voice perk up after a few minutes of talking:
“... and you can touch its screen, like this. Try it. ”
“ I see, how nice…oh, I’m sorry, it – ”
“ No, no worries, it’s just being silly. Here, this is how you – ”
That loser college student was suddenly making her look nervous when the monitor was acting up. Making her smile in relief when it wasn’t actually broken. Giggling after realizing how silly her confusion and panic was. She’s giving him a sweeter emotion than when I had to live with her during her period. That, and he was compromising our anonymity with how close his face was to hers, their shoulders touching, looking at her red mouth like she painted it for him –
“ C’mon, sweetheart, let’s go. ”
“ What? Hey, I’m not – ! ”
I took her by the waist before he could identify either of our faces. “James,” She hissed in my ear after we exited the shop and made our way back to the streets. She pulled away when we neared a small fountain. “What the hell was that for?”
“Your face was too close. Honestly, we could have been caught because of how careless you two got.”
“Careless!? Close!?” The nurse’s face burned. “That’s not – how childish are you?”
“You can’t be that blind,” I deadpanned. Even if we weren’t a couple, we had to look like it. “Honeymooners don’t get cozied up with people they aren’t married to.”
“We were talking!”
“He was looking at your lips.”
“I’m wearing red! It’s an unnatural color, it’s inevitable!”
She can’t be this – hell, she is. I pull her wrist to me again and sit down at the edge of the fountain, pulling her to my lap. She tried to pull away, but I wasn’t about to make a scene and keep her down. “Why would he be looking at your lips, huh? Just because? Do you see anyone else doing that?”
“You do,” Her gaze narrowed. “Does that mean you want to eat me?”
Yes.
I take a low exhale, brushing a stray strand away from her face, trying to calm myself down. “You don’t get it, but I do. Trust me, it’s not because he’s curious that he’s trying to get close.”
“I’m not innocent, Bucky.” She shook her head. “You didn’t throw this much of a fit in Carpathia, when I chatted with the butcher.”
“The butcher was married. That kid thinks he has a shot with you.” I look ahead. The tech shop was farther away, standing out from the older shops next to it. “People would notice if newlyweds aren’t acting all lovey-dovey.”
Her cheeks burned under my hand. “I wasn’t trying – ”
“I know. But it doesn’t change the look.”
“I don’t know what…marriage is supposed to look like, okay? Give me a damn break, Barnes.”
“I know what a marriage is supposed to look like,” My dad once got all huffy when a florist gave my ma a free rose for her birthday. He was a neighbor, but it didn’t change how worked up my old man got at the guy. Careful, pal, that’s my job! He’d jokingly said, but then acted pissy and grumpy for the rest of the day. My mom had to cajole him before bed. I’ll get the flowers from Sally’s instead, alright? Silly man. Which made him beam like a kid. "And it doesn't look like you getting cozy with a shopkeeper that's not your husband."
“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do other than hold hands and kiss cheeks.”
“You’re not a bad actor, but when you’re trying it's too obvious.” I adjusted the little bow that her headscarf made at the back of her scalp. “Just in the specifics. Anyone can tell you’re not a flirt.”
“You talk as if you are.”
“I was. Once.” I try not to get too bitter of what I’ve forgotten. “But I don’t need a lesson. You do. You can’t just get cozy with people like that – anyone could recognize your face. We’re already on thin ice from the mountains, we can’t afford…” The worried look in her eyes made me feel guilty. “You have to be careful.”
“...I’m sorry, sarge.”
I pat her hip. “Don’t be, nurse.” Then, with the spontaneity that’s given me both grief and comfort before, she gave an apologetic peck to the corner of my mouth. I scoff. “You always kiss me there. Do I have bad breath or something?”
That made the nurse look down in embarrassment. “No, I just…I told you, I’m not used to this.”
“You can’t be shy when you kiss your husband,” The sun setting was not helping my focus, making her cheeks gleam gold with its rays. “Remember the clinic, you kissing my lips to hide my face? That was a smart move.”
“Those S.H.I.E.L.D. agents showed up anyways.”
“Yeah, but not because of those security cameras. If that was the case, my face from that day would be plastered everywhere.” That, and I technically disarmed them, but it was still a good last-minute backup move. “But you’re not used to it. You should be.”
“What, you want me to practice kissin’ you, or something?”
I was just going to tell her that she shouldn’t be shy, but – “If that’s what it takes.” I felt her stiffen on my legs, but then nod. She leaned in like she was bracing herself, which made the old Bucky in my head scoff. I know it’s been a while, but damn. I grab her chin. “Don’t – you – no, you’re not supposed to dread it. It’s a kiss, not a needle.”
“Then – then how do you…”
I shake my head, trying not to overly-fixate on her lips. Whenever she wears lipstick she’s always so precise with the lining, making her mouth shaped like petals by the time she’s done. “Just…just follow what I do. Push and pull.”
Her lips were soft, light and warm. Cupping her cheek, I could feel how hot the nurse’s face was burning with every time I pressed my lips against hers. I suddenly wasn’t in Italy, or on the run – it felt the same, the same warmth and clumsy sweetness she had in that cot seventy years ago. Only this time she had the energy to kiss back, and it showed.
“... don’t – ease up on – yeah, yeah, like that… ” If my head wasn’t jumbled before it was now, I could barely instruct her in between our lips tasting each other. I’d press, and she’d lean back. She’d press, and I’d lean back. My hand wandered to her head, accidentally gripping so hard her silk scarf fell off. My gloved metal fingers dug into her skirt, first to keep her there but now trying not to lose it. I could hear her breath hitching when I softly scolded her. “ ...don’t bite, you don’t know what – be good and – ” My tongue pushed past against her lower lip before she suddenly pulled away.
“Almost fell,” The nurse whispered as she pulled away, hiding her mouth with her wrist. Looking behind me I noticed what she meant – I nearly tipped us over into the fountain. As she readjusted the scarf on her head, I realized how swollen her mouth had gotten, lipstick smudged and shiny. My mouth must look like a mess. Kissing her was like a relieved exhale, but my tongue watered for more. “Sorry, Sarge.”
“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.” I swallow the lump in my throat. Yeah, I was definitely sleeping on the couch tonight – my heart was ten seconds away from exploding between my flapping lungs. I normally only breathe this heavily after a bad dream, so my head was a little dizzy with instinctive confusion. Looking up, I see the tech worker from earlier taking a smoke break, his eyes wandering onto us. Without thinking, I grab the back of her neck and pull her in for one more hard kiss before gently pulling her off my lap. Her knees wobbled a little as there was a dazed look in her eyes – I guess I still got it. “Let’s go, nurse. It’s going to rain soon.”
“Yessir.”
While walking back down the streets to the safehouse, I noticed a stall that sold trinkets. The nurse’s eyes longingly stared at the costume jewelry that was on sale. An idea suddenly popped into my head. I take her hand and lead her there. “Pick one,” I say as we approach the small display of rings. She looked surprised, but took a quick, dreamy peek at all of them. She points at a shiny one that had a pearl blooming out of the tiny metal lotus petals nestled underneath. The ring was designed to be slightly twisted, so I looked for a band matching that. When I did, I paid the owner in cash and turned to the nurse, sliding the ring onto her finger. “Did your parents have rings?”
She shook her head. “Too expensive. Or if they did, it was too precious to wear and risk losin’.”
My parents had bands. It was pretty, even for a guy like me who had no clue what was considered beautiful, my mother’s ring was something that always caught my eye. Even when she was covered in flour, or sleeping in her bed, she never took it off. A shiny, carved silver band with a square diamond in the middle. I wondered if any of my sisters inherited it, or maybe Tommy got married and – I can’t think like that. Tommy was barely half of my height when I left. I can’t imagine him with a bride. He’s still too little in my head. “I don’t need to explain this one to you, do I?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. I know some things about love.”
I patted a cheek and grunted an “Atta girl” before we made our way back to the safehouse. I’d slipped the band on my left finger out of instinct, which my thumb kept trying to get a feel of. It felt like I could…I wanted to feel it, but I’m not sure. I knew I was touching it, but I wasn’t sure if that was my head or my thumb telling me that.
The storm was quietly drizzling outside just after we made it back inside. I quietly helped her prepare some rich meat stew that soaked up the rice underneath it for dinner. Ever the Dust Bowl baby, she insisted on having a tureen of peaches and the last of our oranges in some ice for dessert. “You need to stop callin’ me a medical student every time you introduce us,” She muttered while peach juice dribbled down her chin. The way her pearl ring clung to her sticky fingers despite the mess reminded me of my own mother’s romantic stubbornness.
I looked up from my rice. “Why?”
“You know why.” Shit. “I know you ain’t tryin’ to be mean, it just…hurts. ”
I nod. “Yeah. Got it.”
We ate in relative quiet after that. “No memories tonight?”
I shake my head. At that moment, I didn’t want to look at my book, to recall old memories. Just to make new ones of her.
That night I watched her comb her hair before bed. I was going to stay up to double-check our weapons, but the way the light caught her stranded locks was distracting. When she noticed me staring, she just smiled serenely.
“G’night, Bucky.”
“G’night.”
Hell, the line we drew was getting harder and harder to remember each day.
[Back to Central P.O.V. - Day 472]
Ever since Bucky got me the ring, I’d felt like I was in his debt. Even if he’s rough around the edges, annoying, and grumpy at times, he wasn’t an idiot when it came to anonymity. And listening to him recall his parents, I noticed the same melancholic look he had a few nights ago when he brought up his little siblings. I wanted to do something for him, if not to balance things out than to help with his head.
Another morning, when Bucky wasn’t feeling all paranoid and jealous, I’d made my way to the secondhand store (not tech – he was right, there were security cameras) and looked around for anything useful. There was! A tiny, cheap, shitty, forgotten tablet that cost practically nothing with how slow it was. The lady warned me – it couldn’t make videos or take pictures, so really all you could do was read and research on it. Perfect, because that’s what I wanted.
It was after dinner that I brought the tablet to the sergeant. “I got you somethin’. Thought it might help.” He looked up from flipping through his memory book. I presented him with the tiny tablet.
“Nurse, you know that – ”
“Hush, just look.” Turning it on, I pressed a few keys and opened a little reading app. I’d saved some articles I thought he might find useful – CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE COMMANDOS SAVE THE DAY. BRAVE REGIMENT OVERCOMES SURPRISE ENEMY AMBUSH. CHRISTMAS, 1944 ON THE WAR FRONT FOR FAMILY AT HOME. Along with as many articles as I could about him – there were a few, not a ton, but definitely some he missed. I also threw in Steve, and whoever’s name in the Howling Commandos I could find to jog his memory.
Bucky just stared, his eyes reflectin’ the brightness of the screen. “You…found all of this?”
“They archive the newspapers now, Buck. Modernity loves preservation.”
He kept looking at the screen like I handed him a winning ticket. “...thank you.”
I smile. “You’re welcome.”
That night I slept in bed. I thought he’d be next to me after I fell asleep, but when I woke up in the middle of the night, he wasn’t there. Turning my head, I saw Bucky’s back as he hunched over the small tablet. Just as I squinted, I could see the font of the text on the screen: WAR HERO’S BROTHER FOLLOWS FOOTSTEPS.
He kept rereading that article for the next hour until I finally got too tired and slipped back to sleep. He never noticed me staring.
Notes:
Idk what to title this chapter but it sounds aesthetic, might change
Chapter 51: A Pearl
Chapter Text
[A Hypothetical 1943]
I never really knew what went down during the missions. I wasn’t a Commando, so most days I waited until the men came back to patch them up. They always reappeared after a few hours or days, smelling like sweat, smoke, and at least one person bleeding. This time it was a few – Dugan, Barnes, and Falsworth. Even Captain America was sporting a bad shoulder.
“It was as if they were expecting us,” Rogers waved me off when I went to him in between treating the other men. “I’m not priority. Trust me, give me a day and it’ll go on its own.”
I was glad of his triage, because Dugan looked worse for wear, while the other men were just flat-out unconscious. “Barnes got hit too hard on the head, and he got a sprained leg,” My fellow medic explained after looking at them. The sergeant’s brow was an ugly purple, while Monty’s leg was a funny color. Both men didn’t get injured often, being long-range snipers, but the gamble clearly didn’t work this time. While I was patching up the sergeant, his eyes fluttered open. Instead of being flirty or charming, his face was locked and his eyes were dartin’ every which way.
“What – shit – Steve – !” He loudly mumbled, disoriented beyond belief. I had to call his name a couple of times, unsure if it was a good idea to touch him. “Nurse?” Barnes finally croaked, looking sweaty and bright-eyed. His eyes were bluer than usual, but his face was sweetly human. I try not to stare too hard. He’s just another soldier, I remind myself.
“It’s alright, sir, you’re back at base,” I hummed, checking on his sprained hand. “How are you feelin’?”
“Like I got hit with a cinderblock,” He coughed. “I was covering for Cap, when – ” Barnes shook his head. “I really hate those guys. Did the mission at least go well?”
“I think so. No one died, and Carter apparently arrested some higher-up HYDRA officers.”
Barnes nodded, not really in a talking mood at first. At first, though – after a while, he started to do something: try to get my attention. Shamelessly.
“Nurse? My head’s killing me.”
“I’m cold, can I have more blankets?”
“Ma’am, I think I need help walking…”
“My hand’s too shaky to eat…”
That last one made me deadpan. “Sir, your left hand got injured. Not your right.”
He blinked. “Yeah, but…like, in spirit. Because of…trauma. I can’t eat.”
Steve, who was keeping his best friend company (and helping me keep record of storage), rolled his eyes. “Need help eating, Buck? I can feed you.”
“Nah, it’s okay.” He quickly switched up.
Fightin’ the urge to laugh, I turned around. “Oh, so your hand is fine? I was gonna feed you – ”
“Nevermind, I’m hurting again.”
“Great! Captain,” I throw a snickering Rogers a spoon. “He’s all yours.”
“Open up, princess – ” Barnes groaned as he swatted his friend’s hand away.
“Shut up, Steve. Gimme the damn spoon.”
A short while later, I volunteered to take the night shift at the tents. Phil’s had a long day, and I figured he could use the extra sleep. Barnes was the only one left, anyways. I sat next to his bedside and started stitching some torn shirt I’d been avoiding.
“No, no, no…!” At first I thought I heard rustling, but then the sound of the sergeant’s sleepy voice was picked up by my ears. He was shifting in his cot, head turning left and right on his pillow. “NO!”
Barnes shot straight up before I could even shake him awake. His eyes were blown wide, face covered in a thin sheen of sweat as he sat straight up. “Sarge?” I tentatively ask. He turned to his side.
“That was – I was – ”
I wave off his explanation. The dim lamplight easily illuminated his young features. His face was always so hardened, jaw so tight whenever they came back from missions. But now? He was just pale as a sheet. Clammy. “Want me to make you a cup?” I ask mildly. “It’s cold out, and I was plannin’ on makin’ myself some tea anyways.” He stiffly nodded.
“Thanks.”
Turning around, I start the little boiler we had, making the water just warm enough to put some weak leaves in before pouring them into mugs. I passed one to him. “I must be the most annoying roommate you’ve had,” Barnes quietly rasped.
“Trust me, you’re not,” I smile. Surprisingly, it was the truth – I despised living with my brother because of how much of a nightmare he was whenever he was tired. Barnes was practically an angel compared to him. At least I've never seriously considered killing him for some quiet, unlike the other guy. “It’s more like a fussy baby, than anything, you waking. No one hates it when a baby cries.”
His cheeks glow under the lamplight. “...I’m not that weak.”
“Never said you were, sir.” I take a sip. It didn’t taste very good, but it was warm. “Just sayin’ your worst ain't that bad. That’s all, sergeant.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Bucky. You can call me Bucky.”
I nod. “Alright, Buck. Now go back to sleep, sir. Long day tomorrow.”
“Will you be there when I wake?”
“’Course.”
[Back to Reality - Day 480]
It was an accident, really. I kept tryin’ to tell Bucky that, but he didn’t feel convinced in the least. After all, he’d hit me in his sleep. Not fatally, but I wouldn’t be lying if I said it didn’t knock the wind outta me. And shoved me off the bed and to the floor. Hard. But again, I still saw him as blameless.
“Bucky, please, don’t – ”
“This was a shitty idea to begin with – ” When he woke up and saw me on the ground, he immediately started to spiral. Walking, pacing away from me like he wasn’t sure to leave or stay. He sounded so shaky, so furious. “Shouldn’t have – ”
“I asked!” I insisted. “And it was an accident! We both get thrashy at night, don’t – ”
“Look at you!” I’d never seen his eyes blown so wide, not since the river in the mountains. “You’re shaking!”
I shake my head purposely. “You’re tellin’ me you’ve never shared a bed with a sibling and knocked them off the mattress before? Ever? This ain’t my first rodeo, sir. I doubt it’s yours, too.”
His jaw locked. “It is. And stop acting like you asked me to push you off, I – ”
“I wanted you to have a mattress, because you’ve been sleepin’ on that damn couch for the past few days. It’s bad for your arm, your back – ”
Bucky just kept shakin’ his head. “I’m not sharing the mattress anymore. Too risky.”
Something in my chest chipped at that. “What? No, you don’t have to – ”
“I have a metal arm that’s considered a weapon on its own, let alone on me. I shouldn’t have – this is an act anyways. Go to sleep.”
“Just because – ”
“Go to sleep!” His voice snapped up, no longer its usual low, depressed tone. Bucky scowled at his feet before pulling a jacket over his shoulders. Zipping it up, then putting his gloves over his shoulders. He’s not leaving, is he –
“Buck, please – ”
“I’m taking a walk. I’ll be back by morning.”
Morning came and went, and he still wasn’t back. I spent the afternoon impatiently staring at the ocean, as if he would just reappear in a puff of seafoam. By evening, I was halfway to panicking, considering calling Steve on the burner Bucky thought he’d thrown away months ago just for my sanity’s sake.
He didn’t leave, did he? Of course not, his traveling pack is still here. Bucky wouldn’t just leave it behind, not when it had all our fake documents, cash and weapons. But what if he left in spite of that? He’s a Winter Soldier, they can easily disappear without a trace – it’s how we’ve been able to be so easily hidden for the past year.
Was this how he felt when I was in Greece, wanderin’ about? It’s awful.
Knock-knock!
It was after dinner that Bucky made his way back. Not even dinner, I didn’t have it in me to cook, so I just shoved a mouthful of what was available past my lips and brushed my teeth afterwards. It’s been drizzling for the past few days in Southern Italy, and I could tell because of how wet his hair was.
“What happened?” I asked, half-tempted to scold him before I remembered my own two-week fit from a few months ago. Bucky just shook his head. He smelled like smoke, very heavily like smoke. “Have you been smoking?”
“It takes the edge off.” Then he walked past me and straight to the bathroom, shutting the door before the sound of water running hit my ears. When he came out, I buried myself in a layer of blankets, attempting to look normal by annotating my medical book. To my surprise, he sat next to me. “What’s that?”
“Spinal musculature,” I say, as if I hadn’t been spiraling all day. “I wanna see what parts of my body HYDRA put a metal rod into.” I raise my hand, where a faint, straight line could be seen through my thin skin. Not a bone. “Where I can’t normally see, anyways. I wish this came with a neurology section, so I can get a better insight.”
“I can look for something next time we go out. If you want.”
NEXT TIME? JAMES-BUCHANAN, YOU JUST DISAPPEARED ON ME ALL DAY, DON’T TRY TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER BY ATTEMPTIN’ RETAIL THERAPY – “Thanks. Just make sure it’s in English, or Romanian.”
Bucky nodded, watching me scribble into my book for a few more minutes. When the sky was fully black out, he stood up (he still faintly smelled of smoke despite his earlier shower) and made his way to the couch. He wasn’t kidding when he said he was distancing himself again. “G’night.”
[Day 498]
Our days have been generally normal, where we don’t acknowledge the obvious and go to bed with a cold cushion on the other side of our bodies instead of the other person. Bucky, to my confusion, had been distancing himself from me. Not just from sharin’ a bed, but also physically. The couple act we’ve been gettin’ comfortable with now seemingly making him recoil metaphorically back to his side of the safehouse. He’d hold my hand in public, wear his fake wedding ring, and kiss my cheek whenever it was needed, but behind closed doors he was more formally friendly than before. I didn’t like that.
Tonight had been the same as other nights – the rainstorms had let up, but it didn’t change the upcoming heat that was starting. Even though it was technically spring, living near the ocean here meant that the sunniness reflecting the waters made things speed up. It had been hotting up, so much so that it started to remind me of Texas in a way I didn’t like. “I want to go to the beach tomorrow,” I said over dinner earlier. He’d occasionally ask me questions about the past, but not since accidentally knocking me down in my sleep, so we’ve been operating in silence at night. “It’s gettin’ too hot for my comfort.” Besides, we’d been in Italy and had only been down to the ocean properly once. I wanted to enjoy the waters as more than just a view.
Bucky nodded. “Alright.”
That night I actually had something to look forward to, carefully shaving my ankles and painting my nails a pretty pastel pink from a polish pot that I’d gotten earlier. I remember one of the nurses bragged about going to the beach all the time growing up, drinking lemonade and running in the water. My turn after seventy years, I suppose.
That morning I only ate a peach for breakfast (I heard that you can’t eat before going into the water) and waited for Bucky to get ready, practically bouncing in my dress. I tried to pick the thinnest fabric I had, since I wasn’t used to swimsuits, but I was still worried about attracting attention. I’d once read on the news of a girl who got arrested for wearing too short of a swimsuit – while I don’t doubt people have relaxed since then, the old paranoia still got to me.
The waters outside our safehouse were a lot cooler than I thought. Not cold, but not warm either. The sand felt odd on my feet. I wanted to go barefoot, which I now regret as I hissed at the feeling of sand in between my toes. Another problem? The beach itself was too wide, too open. Too many people, for too long of a period of time. People with cameras, on vacation and tryin’ to get memories. I start to regret my decision to go out when Bucky surprisingly gives a suggestion. “I know a place,” He only said before leading us to a long, hidden side of the beach. There was a rocky cliff that separated part of the ocean from us, where a small cove was made through the structure of the stones.
“How did you know where to find this place?”
Bucky shrugged. He was only wearing a hoodie with some plain shorts and shoes. He still wore gloves, but they were jammed into his pocket. “The weapons cache was hidden here.” He said before situating himself on a rock. I thought Bucky would do nothing, or keep watch, but he took out his small Swiss and started polishing it.
Call it wishful thinking, since he’s never once been playful – well, maybe you could count when he tried to chirp back in Carpathia, or the dirty book we’d accidentally read – during our time in hiding, but I was hoping he’d join the waters with me. Unlike HYDRA’s cryostasis pods, where the unforgiving frost encapsulates your body in a way that feels like suffocation, here the warm ocean hugged my toes. At first it was unwelcome, almost, how gentle the waters were. Then, after braving my ankles, my knees, my thighs, I realized how much fun it was to push around the seawater and fun my fingers along the seafoam. My dress was soaked up to my chest, but I felt like a kid dipping my head underwater for the few seconds my lungs could handle.
“Is that all you’re going to do?” I hear Bucky’s voice call out from the shore. I’d fashioned a small towel as a food carrier to hold water and some fruit, which he was now working on an apple.
I shrug. “I don’t know how to swim, Sarge.” I could climb through Niagara Falls through robotic command, but on my own? Never.
For a second I thought he’d leave me at that, since he hadn’t been much for talking lately (or ever, technically), but to my surprise he put the apple down and got up. After checking the coast was clear, he unzipped his jacket behind a rock and joined me in the water, the ocean covering his metal shoulder with her waves. Ever the paranoid one. He swam in my direction.
“Now you’re just showin’ off,” I saw as he made his way to me. Bucky’s long hair was now bunched to the back of his neck, clinging like a mullet (but a lot less ugly). He shook his head and took my wrists. “What are you – ”
“Trying to make sure you know how to doggy paddle,” He grunted. “In case you need to not drown while running from agents.”
“Wow, so kind.” I deadpan. Still, for the next couple of hours, he became a teacher. At first he would make me go underwater and try to keep my eyes open, then hold my breath. Then teach me how to move my legs, then a proper breaststroke. The entire time he was surprisingly patient.
“Keep kicking, you’ll get somewhere eventually.”
“No, you shouldn’t try to drink saltwater, it’s not medicinal.”
“Relax your limbs, you’re in the ocean, you have to be as fluid as she is.”
“You’d be surprised by how many agents can’t swim.”
“Does the rod in your spine hurt when you’re in the water? No? Hmph. HYDRA must’ve known, that’s why you weren’t trained in the water chambers. The last thing they’d want is to give anyone a bit of comfort.”
By the time we were done, we were both equally soaked, and equally spent. We’d gorged ourselves on the fruit I brought in silence, but after workin’ through most of it, we were just watching the sunset while picking at the last of the green grapes. I look at my hands – wrinkly, like how they should normally be by now if HYDRA didn’t take me in my youth. The pearl ring Bucky had bought me for our cover gleamed a golden beam from the sun. Looking over, he had his ring on too. A thin, shiny, braided band. He hadn’t put on his gloves yet, despite leaving the water. Or his hoodie. I think the day ending left us both a bit relaxed.
“I think – ”
“You haven’t – ”
We both spoke over each other at the same time.
“Oh, sorry – ”
“No, go ahead – ”
My cheeks heat up in embarrassment as he lets me go first. “I just wanted to say, I think you’ve been sleepin’ better recently. Even if you don’t think so, you haven’t had an incident since…”
Bucky shook his head. “I’ve been taking more sleep syrup, that’s all.”
My brow furrows in concern. “Isn’t that stuff habit-forming? You shouldn’t – ”
“It’s better than risking you again, so I don’t mind.”
What kind of broken logic is that? Sometimes I think he’s still in love with me from the cells, even though he agreed to keep his distance. Though, I suppose we haven’t been good at that when he taught me how to kiss a while ago. But since then he’s been dialing back. “I’m not delicate, Buck. Quite the opposite.”
He huffs, but the amusement doesn’t reach his eyes. “Maybe not, but I can’t help it sometimes. You don’t act like me, all broken.”
My brow furrows at that. “I am, Buck. I just hide it better. I still cry at night all the same, just like you.” I pop another grape into my mouth, the bursting sweet juice soaking my tongue contrasting with how bitter I felt. He looked at me, as if contemplating saying something. The gleam of his metal shoulder illuminated his chin like he was something holy.
“Sometimes my head tells me I’m still back there. Or on a mission.” Bucky looked away. “That you’re just a test HYDRA made, and that I’m failing it because I…haven’t hurt you yet.”
“A test?”
He nods. “Like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Day in and day out. That you’ll say those code words, and…” His jaw clenches. “I keep trying to think it’s not real, that it’s just brainwashing. The parts of my head that are loose. It doesn’t help that you’re so damn sweet.”
I blink. “Sweet?”
“You hated me in Siberia. And I hated you. And my brain saw that as normal. Now we’re out, and even when we bicker, you stick by me. Stay up with me at night. Help me when my arm is acting up.” A pause. “And I’m just waiting for you to stab me as punishment for getting too careless. Same as Steve. Same as everyone else.”
Something in my heart aches at that. “Steve didn’t hurt you,” I point out. “And neither would I.”
He shook his head. “Does it matter? Even if my mind isn’t wiped, I’m still…not all back at times. Everything was new in Bucharest. Carpathia kept me busy, made me think. Greece was a blackout. But here?” His face turns to me, those wide blue eyes looking at me with so much worry, for once unguarded. “Things are coming back. Things I don’t like.”
I scoot closer next to him. “I won’t hurt you, Buck. Won’t betray you.” He still looked unconvinced. “If there was a way to fully reverse the brainwashing, I’d learn it in a heartbeat. Maybe there is, and we just have to – ”
“But there isn’t,” Bucky bitterly interjects. “There isn’t a way. So I have to recall my own life through a diary. Through newspapers.” Something akin to a laugh escapes his lips. “Y’know the ugly handler who caught us in Bucharest? Who controlled you?”
“Yeah?” I was so far-gone after my body was electroshocked, that I could barely recall that incident safe from the sound of gunshots, him angrily yelling in Russian, and her screaming.
“I don’t think I actually killed her.”
What? “What – what do you mean?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I shot her legs. Her hands. Her arms. Left her to the side of the tracks…but I didn’t leave her for dead. Technically. Anyone with lights on their train could see her and stop. And a part of me knew that. Hoped someone would.” A pause. “Later, there wasn’t any news of a dead person, just someone severely injured.”
I knew he was more against about killing than me, but considering how I wasn’t brainwashed for my murders, I was a bit more blunt with my next statement: “What’s the problem, then?”
“The problem is…I’m not sure if Bucky Barnes wanted to spare her, or the Soldier was following orders. Not to attack HYDRA workers.”
“That hasn’t stopped the Soldier before.”
“No,” He hummed. “It hasn’t. But it’s been eating me away ever since. That night I pushed you, I dreamt she ordered me to attack, and I did. I just didn’t realize it was you on the other side. And when I woke up…” Bucky stared at the sand. “Sometimes I worry about dreaming the code words. As if that could somehow trigger my turning.”
“Do you even remember them? The words?” Soldiers get mind-wiped so much, I somehow doubt it. It’s an instinctive, Pavlovian response after a while.
“No. But the chance is always there. And that’s what kills me.” Bucky looked up at me, those sad eyes staring at me with a naked vulnerability that made my chest hurt. “If that ever happens, can you promise me you’ll put me down?”
“What.”
He licked his lips, chest rising and falling rapidly. “I mean it, nurse. I can’t – I can’t do this again. I can’t. Even if there’s a chance to bring me back, it’s not worth it – I’m not worth – ”
“ Do you realize what you’re asking me, sergeant? ” I say, reflecting on how I begged him to kill me all those years ago in Siberia. When the pain was so terrible and I was so desperate for a way out. We both agreed we'd rather die than go back to HYDRA, but something about him personally requesting me to be his executioner made me sick. I knew it was selfish of me to reject his request, but – “You’re the only person from HYDRA I don’t want to kill, and you’re – ”
“People could die if you don’t!” He snapped. “You do realize that, right!?”
“I – ” My eyes start to water, feeling all sorts of conflicted. I don’t even realize when the first tear falls to my cheek until Bucky’s frown breaks and he starts scrubbing my face.
“Shit, I didn’t mean – ”
I couldn’t help the sobs breaking my face. “If you say it like that – I don’t even get to have you stay? After everything? Not even you?”
“It’s for the good of everyone,” Bucky weakly argues.
“Everyone but those who love you,” The word slips before I could even think about it, but I was too mad to care. His eyes widened for a second before gettin’ guarded again. “Then it’s a jackass move.”
“I never said I wasn’t one, sweetheart.”
“Well, so am I.” I retorted. “You can’t make me do something I don’t want to do. Not after HYDRA did that to me all those years. If I say I won’t, and that means I’d have to find a way to keep you here and everyone else safe, then that’s my choice. Not yours.” My eyes get angry for a second, landing on his face. “Got it?”
Bucky looked away from my gaze, ashamed. “Yeah. But the option is always there. I won’t hate you for it. I’d be grateful.”
“And I’d be grateful if you shut up with all this talk. Like I’d end you just before things start gettin’ better for us. Before anything of substance happens.”
“Like what?”
I shrug, feeling more tired than passionate now. “Dunno. Something useful.”
Bucky goes quiet, his tone changing to something softer next time he speaks. “Things have happened already, though.”
“Like what?” I scoff.
“I taught you how to swim. You taught me how to chirp.”
Haha. “Your chirpin’ sounds like a barn owl, Barnes.”
“No it doesn’t.”
“Yes it does. Watch:” And then I start tweeting like a mating bird.
Chr-rp! Chr-rp! Chr-rp!
On his end, Barnes opens his mouth and whistles a low –
Chr-rp.
I stare in surprise. He looks away, looking oddly...withdrawn? His ears got red, and his cheeks turned pink. “It wasn’t hard after watching your lips.” Oh. Before I could think, I leaned over and kissed him. He kissed back, his brow briefly pressing against mine before pulling away. “You’re getting better at that.” His voice was oddly hoarse.
I give a small smile. “It ain't hard to learn, not with you as a teacher.” His pupils dilate slightly before he goes back to watching the sunset.
When it starts gettin’ dark, Bucky puts his gloves and jacket back on so we can leave the cove. The sky was black when we got back to the safehouse. We both took showers to wash off the salt and sand of the ocean, then got dressed for bed after a quick dinner of leftovers. Bucky almost made his way back to the couch when I grabbed the hem of his shirt. “Please?” I plead, looking at his long hair. After a moment, I add for his sake - "If it gets bad, I'll take the couch." I tuck some strands behind his ear so I’d get a better view of his handsome face. “Don’t take the sleep syrup tonight. Let me be with you instead.”
“And if I have a nightmare? My mind gets bad again? Then what?”
“Then I’ll stay with you until it gets better.”
“Would you?”
“’Course.”
Chapter 52: Third Sonder
Chapter Text
[Fruit Vendor Alessandro P.O.V. - Day 510]
Alessandro had a few regulars in his job, but most of his work came from tourists. Tourists who had heard of his country’s delicious cuisine and fresh ingredients, and wanted to have a taste for themselves. He was happy to provide, but generally kept a polite distance since he didn’t see many familiar faces. Aside from giving directions to places and suggesting what’s in season, he generally distanced from his customers.
“ S-s’cuze? ”
That was, of course, until he caught his eye on a particular woman. She always wore the same pretty clothes – light linens, red lips, and a silk scarf around her head to protect from the sun. Her face was lovely, youthful, undoubtedly fresh from life and unburdened from the past. She had a shy voice at first, which Alessandro quickly realized was because she wasn’t fluent in Italian, not in the least, but tried to practice whenever she went shopping.
“ Good morning. Would you like to sample our peaches? They’re fresh and in season. ”
“ Oh! Er…yes, thank you. I would like that very much. Thank you. ”
What the language barrier didn’t have, her expressions compensated tenfold. When Alessandro passed her a peach slice as a sample, her eyes went wide with a childish dumbfoundedness that he thought was adorable. It was like she never had this much fresh food, or something.
Soon she became a regular, and her Italian improved as she spoke with him.
“ How much for strawberries and watermelon? ”
“ What’s the best fruit for pastries, do you think? ”
“ Did you know pineapple goes good with salt? ”
“ Thank you for the lemon cream pastry recommendation. It went very well after the beef dinner I had. ”
She was a darling, a charmer for sure. He quickly grew to enjoy her occasional visits to her stall. That is, of course, when one day, they were interrupted.
“ Sweetheart, we have to get going. ”
“ Alright. Give me a moment. ”
Alessandro didn’t know the young lady was taken, let alone married. Which was a bit of a problem, since he’d started to develop a crush on her. It didn’t help that she’d always get so bashful when he’d give her a discount or a sample – he learned the hard way that she was married, by the view of a tall, broad-shouldered, tough-eyed man who didn’t seem moved by the pleasant weather or the good food around him. And he knew, he knew , Alessandro liked his wife. He could tell by the hard glare he’d give Alessandro, the way he’d wrap an arm around his wife’s shoulder the moment she was around him. Of course, the mystery man never scolded her, even if he looked like he was five seconds away from gutting Alessandro with his own fruit knife. Instead just asking her if she got what she wanted.
“ What did you get? ”
“ Plums. I thought we’d switch things up . You don’t mind, do you? ”
“’ Course not. ”
[Bambino Tommaso - Day 517]
Tommaso liked to cause trouble. It was fun, seeing his parents scurry around, trying to find their son in little nooks and crannies of their house. Whenever they did, they’d always give him the same lecture, even though they knew the little boy wouldn’t listen.
“ You mustn’t wander off too far! There are bad people everywhere! Wanted crooks on the loose and such! ”
Crooks? Like his toys? Like when the superhero would stop a bad guy? Tommaso wanted to be a superhero! Naturally, he did what anyone aspiring heroism would do – scout for trouble. His parents called it ‘breaking and entering’, whatever that means.
Meow!
Eventually, Tommaso found himself a worthy adversary. The fat stray cat that always tried to steal people’s food, and bite his toes. Undoubtedly the deadliest target in his neighborhood. After sneaking out of his parent’s home, he’d make his way to the cat, who was usually trying to steal food from a food stand. “ Ah-ha! Bad cat! Fat cat! Very bad! ” Tommaso would say, pointing an accusatory finger to the feline. The cat would hiss, and the boy learned very quickly it was as fat as it was fast, because he’d always get chased down the street whenever he tried to face off his enemy.
Hiss!
“Ow!” Tommaso once took it too far when the cat swiped his hand. Hard. His fingers looked all red and pink, like burnt sausages, but not nearly as yummy. But Tommaso couldn’t cry, not when he’s supposed to be a hero! Not too much, anyways. The boy was halfway into bursting into tears while sitting on some random doorstep, when –
“ ...a kid? ”
Tommaso fell on his bottom in surprise at the voice behind him. Turning around, it was the tallest man he’d ever seen! With hair like his mother’s and an unreadable, stern face. It was the sternness that made Tommaso burst into tears. It made the man stiffen in alarm, then quickly crouch down to his level to try and quiet him.
“ W-woah, woah, easy, bambino. You’re not – quiet down, sh, sh – ” Tommaso just squealed and cried harder, wanting his mother to rescue him as the man awkwardly carried him inside his home. “ What happened, hm? C’mon, tell Uncle Nobody. ”
To his surprise, the tall and scary man wasn’t that scary to talk to. He looked scary, but was much more quiet and sweet than Tommaso expected. He even teased and introduced him to his pretty wife! She fed him mangos until Tommaso’s mother showed up, frazzled and mortified that her son disturbed two newlyweds with his drama. Neither seemed to mind, though.
Tommaso developed a habit – whenever he wanted to sneak away, he’d hide on the porch of the house with the red roof so that his parents wouldn't scold him when they caught him outside. Besides, the scary man wasn’t mean to him, just stiff and sweet.
“ Does your mama know you’re here? ” He’d gently scold before letting the boy babble about narrowly escaping the cat, how his mother didn’t let him have any candy, how he wants to be like Captain America from the television…the man looked distant whenever Tommaso talked about the television. Maybe he didn’t have one of his own?
“ You remind me of my younger siblings, ” The mystery man once hummed after handing him a cup of his lemon gelato. “ You even have the same name. You’d like him – you’re both hungry little brats who can’t be told no. ” Tommaso had no idea what he was talking about, but giggled when the man ruffled his hair in a way that reminded him of a dog roughly shaking itself in order to get dry. Sometimes his wife would join them on the steps, and Tommaso would learn Italian words with the lady, who apparently didn’t know much.
“ What’s this? ”
“ Uh… ”
The big man clicked his tongue with fake-disappointment. “ Tommaso? ”
“ Tablecloth! ” He chirped, which got him a small candy as a treat. His wife crossed her arms and deadpanned.
“ You are vile, Mr. Barnette. ”
“ It’s not my fault a kid is better than you at speaking, Mrs. Barnette. ”
[Coffee seller Giulia - Day 520]
The young couple would always ask for a bag of coffee once every week, sometimes twice. Giulia assumed they were insomniacs, as they both had dark shadows under their eyes that suggested that neither slept easy. Good for business, terrible for living. She could also tell because they always came in bickering:
“ It’s not disgusting, putting cream in your coffee. ”
“ Yes it is! Add some sugar and flour and you basically have cake! ”
“ You know that’s not how that works. ”
“ It is if you’re not a loser. ”
They’d always come in, bickering about something: coffee. The weather. Cheese. The news. Organs, for some reason. Vaccines over transplants. What should be eaten for dinner. It always ended in a similar way, though:
“ Ugh, you’re impossible to cater to! ”
The man would pause and pick up a bag of powdered beans, pay for it, and then pinch her cheek with a gloved hand. “ So you do want stracciatella gelato, huh. ”
“ ...yessir. ”
Giulia once amusedly remarked to the man, whose face was shadowed by the overly-sunny day: “ You adore her, don’t you? ”
His normally hard stare breaks for a moment. “ Lady, you have no idea. ” Then walked away to join his wife at the confectionary stand, planting a sudden peck to her cheek, making her hiss and fluster. She smacked his arm, but there was no heat in it as they shared a little cup of sweetness as they walked back to wherever they came from.
[Neighbor Marta - Day 524]
Marta had seen the woman before she’d seen the man. The girl looked so young, so youthful, for a second she’d wondered if she was an exchange student. Then when her husband shadowed beside her, it was only then did Marta realize the lady was married. The man himself hardly had a face, since it was usually under a baseball cap, hidden behind long hair and a growing beard. When she did get a look, however, Marta could tell he was young too, maybe only a little bit older than her.
The first time she’d met her neighbor, Marta was still half-asleep.
Knock-knock-knock!
The dawn had yet to break, and yet there was already a knock on her door. Who could it be at this hour? Was there an emergency? Opening the door, it was a young woman she’d never seen before, who had the face as fresh as a dewdrop and eyes as shiny as one. She’d been crying, so much so that her sad lip made her look more like an upset kid than a grown adult.
“ I’m sorry, do you have any…supplies? ”
“ Supplies? ”
“ My cycle came, and I’ve yet to get groceries and… ” The poor woman seemed to be dying on her porch, trying not to get too specific. Marta patted her shoulder and invited her in. After making her a cup of tea and giving her some pads and newspaper, the girl seemed oddly adamant on checking the status of the world. “ Thank you. ”
Since then Marta assumed she was a young, single woman. She’d seen her at the market, grabbing recipe cards and vegetables without a care in the world, seemingly going at the beat of her own drum. It wasn’t until she lost her son Tommaso one morning that she realized the woman was married.
“ Is this your son? ”
“ Oh my god, yes! ”
A tall man with broad shoulders held up her boy to her face, who was giggling and sticky-mouthed. Marta hardly got a good look at the man’s face, as he quickly turned around to excuse himself. Fix something, or whatever. He had long hair, though, and some kind of a stubble. And with how his voice sounded, probably a similar age to the woman, who was now reassuring Marta that her little boy was not in the least a bother. “ Really, he was a sweet surprise, ” She hummed.
“ Still, it’s rude to interrupt a young couple’s honeymoon! ” That made the young lady’s mouth shape into a bashful smile, like she wasn’t used to being called a couple, but happy all the same. Nevertheless, she politely reassured Marta again and they bid their farewells for the day.
The man was the enigma, Marta realized. She didn’t even realize he’d lingered behind the woman until she saw her again at the market, his tall form somehow blending in seamlessly with the crowd of shoppers. It’s only when her neighbor turned around, a curious question on her lips or a tug to his gloved hand (why was it gloved?) would make the man soften his naturally hard stare. He always looked tense, like he’d rather die than be outside for so long, but he’d tolerate it if it meant she got some air. Marta always assumed it was more of a one-sided relationship – where he liked her more than she liked him – at first, since she hardly seemed to lean on him. Then, one day, while Marta was grabbing some meat for dinner, she’d overheard them at the gelato stand – or, at least, near it.
“ I don’t want the sour cherry flavor. ”
“ What do you want, then? ”
“ I want to cry. ”
The man sighed, softly muttering her name in a tone so low she couldn't hear. It had been a while since the girl came to her for period products, so Marta assumed maybe it was the hormones speaking. Luteal phase, or something. Either way, she saw the young woman’s lower lip jut, eyes water, and the man quickly losing his hard demeanor to cup her cheeks with both of his hands. “ Shh…you’re getting messier than me after a bad night, doll. ”
“ I think I’m ugly, Jack. ”
That made him huff in amusement, which surprised Marta, since she thought he didn’t have a funny bone in his body. “ I guess my type is ugly women, then. Lucky for me, my girl’s the ugliest – ” She’d lightly smack him, which makes him grin – he had white teeth and a handsome smile. “ See? Even you know you’re not ugly. Don’t whine, sweetheart, it doesn’t look good on you. ” His wife would cling onto his hoodie as they perched on the corner steps where they thought no one could see them, and he’d rub her under eyes with his thumbs until she pulled away, scolding him for acting too husband-like. He didn’t look offended in the least, his blue eyes going soft for the first time Marta had seen in the time they’d been here. “ That’s the point. ”
Another time, Marta had taken her own husband and son to the beach, hoping to enjoy the setting sun. To their surprise, the young couple was there too, resting on the pier. The young woman was napping on the wooden stretch, while her husband lay next to her, not sleeping, just resting his wide palm around her middle and watching her sleep. His face was hidden (it somehow was always concealed by something, this time his hoodie-wearing back was just turned to them) “ They remind me of you, ” Marta smiled at her own husband, Giovanni. Gio huffed, his cheeks red with a pleased look in his eyes.
“ Whatever you say, woman. ”
The last memory she had of the duo was in the middle of the night. Gio had gone to bed early for work, and Tommaso was down for his bedtime, so Marta had the whole house to herself in peaceful silence. She was going to relax by reading her book when she suddenly heard screaming outside.
“ No, no, listen, listen, listen to me – let me tell you something, LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING! ”
“ YOU FILLED MY BOOTS WITH SAND, WOMAN – ”
Looking outside, the husband was chasing the woman down the shore, who had a face crinkled with glee. Cackling as she ran for her life, while he ran with a shoe filled with mud. He was inhumanly fast, Marta noticed, speeding up behind her and grabbing her by the waist and making her shriek with horrified joy. Instead of hurting her, he just took them both in the water and spun her until both her dress and his hoodie were soaked. She was laughing so heartily the whole time, while he was saying something in English as the water swirled around them. For a moment, the moonlight shone on his muscled form, and Marta could see his visage for the first time. After spinning her, his handsome face watched as she was pressed close, giggling uncontrollably. There was an exasperated, fond look in his eye.
Then, when they were both thoroughly soaked, the man threw her over his shoulder. When he realized she was still cackling, he took a gloved hand and placed a hard smack on her backside, his face absolutely red while he tried to look scary and grumpy again. She just squealed louder.
When Marta got back to her romance novel, she just sighed in disappointment at what she was reading. Looking outside for better material, the couple was no longer at the beach.
[??? - Day 532]
He hadn’t seen Subject Seventeen since they’d been taken out of the pods many sleeps ago. He’d hardly remembered her too – her blue shift was the only thing that clung to his mind. Sky blue, a pure blue that seemed all the more mind-boggling as he tried to focus after each mind-wipe. The handlers were wrestling her into some shackles to cut her open for the umpteenth time, so badly that the metal-armed Winter Soldier was ordered to do whatever it took to keep her unconscious. It took only a second for him to slam her head against the wall, making her go limp.
Something about her still body unnerved him. The Winter Soldier had been perfectly nonchalant before, but the isolation made him figure that his mind was slowly beginning to spiral. When he was taken out of the ice again, he was expecting another mission. The handler, only one this time, read the words as he was getting defrosted from the cryostasis chambers, which made him gasp and jerk with every syllable she uttered. By the time she was done, he was fighting the urge to vomit, but perfectly ready to comply.
The blond woman studied him. It was the same one from last time, but her face was wrinkled and aged with ripples of wrinkles and sour breath that came with bad teeth. She wore a garish pink lipstick, as if that absolved her ugliness. She held up a photograph of a man with long hair and a deathly scowl staring back at the camera, clearly footage from a security roll.
“We need you to find him. He was last spotted in Romania.” Her hand shook as she handed him the paper. That’s when he noticed – her hands were heavily bandaged. “We need you to take him back.”
He looked up. “Where’s everyone else?” His eyes darted back and forth from the room. “There’s no one else here.”
Her jaw tightened. “Busy. They’re all rather busy. But we’ve got a connection that agreed to help our cause, and the last thing we need is more hands on deck. Not that you need to understand. I’ll be accompanying you, of course.”
“Should I kill him?”
A great pause. “If needs be. You must be a good Soldier, after all.”
“Understood.”
Chapter 53: L'appuntamento
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[1939]
Before I took the train to my nursin’, I thought there was no hope in me leaving the state. It wasn’t like I had the money, nor like I had the ability to get a job – most of the places were occupied by men, or required experience that I didn’t have. Not to sound like a terrible person, but I was a little relieved when the war started – not because I enjoyed war, but because opportunities started to come up again, even if they weren’t ideal.
But I digress. I wanted to get a nursing job, get proper training to help, but I didn’t have the money to get on the damn train. I needed the funds, and I spent the past few weeks trying to get some coin in my pocket. Through working as a night nurse, I’d managed to save five dollars. Another few weeks, and I’d made three dollars working as a bookkeeper for a teacher. Eight dollars in eight weeks. I needed twelve more to leave Amarillo.
Since our parent’s passing, my household’s pockets have been much wider. As cruel as it sounds, havin’ your dynasty cut in half saved a lot of money. My brother and I mostly lived off of bread and coffee, no longer really carin’ about quality of life. “ I…I don’t feel right in the head. I feel like dyin’. ” I say after our old man’s funeral, hoping for some kind of comfort from a guy who never comforted me. He just scoffed and told me to get over it.
The draft was coming. On a technical level, my elder brother was healthy. On a technical level, he was able to fight. But the moment I saw him come home with a bag of folded clothes and a slip of paper, I said the first thing that came to my mind: “You won’t last five seconds out there.”
The bastard just smirked. “You’re just jealous I get to leave and you’ll be left here to rot. Lord knows you can’t survive on your own – you’ll probably die like an ugly damsel.”
I take a butterknife and try to jab it in his arm. Easily, he takes it and throws the blade aside. Then he bends my hand in such a painful way that I yell out. “Keep throwin’ a fuss. It’s not like it’ll matter. You’ll miss this. Need someone you delude yourself into thinkin’ they care about you. But no one will be there.” He shoved me aside. “I need to pack. Fold my shirts.”
Bastard. I don’t fold his shirts. I spare myself that indignity, after bein’ made to wash his goddamn clothes. When I finished, I was also packing my own bags. A desperate plan to sneak onto the train with the other girls to try and get into nurse training. Delusional, I know, but the last thing I wanted to do was spend the rest of my life in that shack. The morning he was supposed to leave, my brother put thirteen dollars on the table. The last of our savings. I stare in disbelief.
“I don’t need it anymore,” He grunted. Mind you, this was a man who nearly made us starve before…bein’ kind? As much as I normally hated him, I knew when to give someone their dues.
“Thank you. Really.”
“It’s more for your funeral,” His soldier’s jacket was being buttoned by his bony fingers. “I stand by what I said. You’ll get eaten alive. Even if you are smart enough to pass – which, considerin’ it’s you, you’re not – you won’t last five seconds as a nurse. The soldiers will make you a joke. It won’t be some happy little family life.”
“And how I’m livin’ now is better?”
“I’m just sayin’,” He pushed the money towards me. “You’re never gonna find it. That happy endin’. We’re not those kinds of people. You aren’t that kind of person. You’re too hateful to be a healer anyways.”
“I’m ain’t hateful. Just hungry.”
“Were you hungry when you tried to stab me just now?”
That would have made my eyes water if I wasn’t fightin’ the urge to stab him for that as well. After all, he was payin’ for my future at the moment. “Take the money. I won’t need it anyways, so it’s either you or the local hobo.” He made his way to the door, the door with broken hinges from how much it’s been slammed, not even bothering for a final glance before opening it to leave. “Which, considerin’ it’s you, ain’t much of a difference.” Then he left out of my sight for what I didn’t know would be the next seventy years of my life.
I was half-tempted not to take it. To be in his debt was a terrible thought. But the war was comin’, and the train was goin’ to come to the station soon. I reason that it was my parents' money first, which hurts slightly less, and in the next few days I leave Amarillo and never look back. With my last dollar, I buy an orange to eat on the train in celebration of finally getting out.
I was going to get my happily ever after, goddammit.
[Day 539]
We’ve started to have a curious routine at night, whenever the other person has had a bad dream. Bucky doesn’t scream as much – not as much as he did when he slept alone, more like a violent jerk and his eyes would be wide open.
“Easy, Buck,” I’d whisper. His hands would find my nightdress, but not in a hungry, angry way – more scared and scrambling, like a child but with a terrible vice-grip. “Italy’s a lot warmer than Siberia, don’t you think?” Remind him where he is, who he is. I stopped doing the modern report after I’d run out of things to talk about, but I think keeping him up for too long would make him spiral more anyways. His hands would flex, once, twice, then he’d realize how hard he’s holdin’ onto me before lettin’ go.
Bucky wouldn’t say anything at first. He’d just nod, tight-jawed, a dead look in his eyes as he repositions himself to go back to sleep. If the dream was awful, graphic, he’d get up out of bed and mutter some weak apology before going to the bathroom. Then the muffled sound of water and the quietest, almost-unheard sniffling hits my ears. I’d pretend to be asleep, eyes closed, and after twenty minutes he’d come back out. I’d hear some shuffling, water steaming up for him to drink (I’d thrown out the sleep syrup – that stuff made us both too antsy, and the dependence was reminding me of how I’d lean on the medication HYDRA would give) before he’d climb back to bed. He’d smell cold and fresh, and in the morning I’d make sure to nuzzle up to him, pretending that what happened earlier didn’t actually occur. Just compliment his scent. “You smell like a man,” I’d tease, and he’d scoff before getting up.
When I had a bad dream, I’d always scream. It didn’t matter how bad it was, since my mind would always end with the threat of the scalpel touching my skin, or getting electroshocked for disobedience. The scream would never fail to make Bucky jolt awake, instinctively grabbing the blade sheathed under his pillow for whatever intruder he thinks came in. Then he sees me sitting up, puts the knife down and sighs. The lights flicker on, and I lay back down. Once, his hands brushed against mine and he noticed how cold they were, so now he’ll take my palms into his to rub and huff warmth into until I fall back asleep. Thing is, I normally don’t, so he started doin’ something funny – he does my own damn bit.
You know how I’d give him the “daily report” back in Bucharest? Well, maybe it’s the exhaustion, or the fact we’re already messes, but he tries to do his version of it. Mind you, he’s not as talkative as me, so it’s mostly him being awkward while he opens some book he’s gotten and reads parts of it like it’s the news.
“...did you know that the prefrontal cortex only fully develops when you’re twenty-five? Is your brain even fully developed, then? I mean, I know HYDRA took you before twenty-five but does seventy years of sleep count? Is my brain even fully developed?”
“Left and right brains are a myth. Once, a little girl got a whole hemisphere taken out and – oh, wait, you told me that one already. Still pretty impressive.”
“Your head’s mostly water…three pounds…but takes up twenty percent of your energy to think. Talk about high maintenance.”
“They put brains in jars. That’s disgusting. I’m not buying pickles this week. Or next. Look at it, if I have to, so do you.”
Today it was my turn, and instead of just reading until I pretended to fall asleep, he kept droning on until the sun rose. Feeling bold, and somewhat loopy, I kiss his cheek. “Thank you,” I whisper before gettin’ up. He nods.
Breakfast was whatever I wanted. I think Carpathia was just Bucky’s wilderness fantasy, since we ate whatever he caught along with what we could get at the village. But here? I got free reign, and even when he did request something, I’d already be craving it. Hive mind, and all that. Today it was scrambled eggs, fattened with goat cheese and drank with coffee, which I’ve grown to love since realizing that it was no longer rationed.
“That’s…” Bucky stared as I drank the last of our hot sauce. We were running low, and he let me have the last shake. He didn’t stare until I raised it to my lips. “Is that what you meant? In Siberia, when – ”
“When we were low on coffee? Yeah, it’s a real energy-starter. Now I just do it for fun. Wanna try?” I offer the empty bottle. He stared, half-eaten brioche in his hand forgotten.
“I’m good.”
We swim at the cove. Well, I do. Bucky just rereads his memory book and occasionally rolls his eyes when I try to splash him. Eventually, I wade out of the water and come back up to his spot on the rock he was sittin' on. I must look a mess, in my wet dress and salty hair, as he stared at me with a slightly open mouth and wide eyes. “Hold this for me, handsome?” I handed him the pearl ring he’d bought me. He nods, slipping it over another one of his flesh fingers. I caught a glimpse of his own band – he’s naturally right-handed, but had never tried to put either of our rings on his metal digits. “What’s new in your brain, Buck?”
He didn’t look up as I helped myself to some cheesy, tomatoed pizza I’d packed. There were also swordfish-steak sandwiches, but those were mostly for him – the man only eats twice a day, and sometimes only once when he thinks I’m not lookin’. “I got drafted for the war.”
“Yeah? You mentioned that.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I wanted to kill anyone then.”
I give a dead smile. “Most soldiers don’t, sir. That’s how war works.”
His jaw grinds a little at that. “It was just a means to an end. Only if someone was trying to do it first, but – ” A pause. “Clearly it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It does if you don’t want to kill anymore.”
“I sent that handler into a coma, nurse.”
“Coma ain’t killin’. And you said it yourself – you’re not you when you’re brainwashed. You’re currently two people in a car, fighting over who gets the wheel.” I look up. “For what it’s worth, Bucky Barnes has the wheel whenever I’ve spoken to this body since last year, so take that for comfort if you want.”
He closed the little book in his hands. “You weren’t brainwashed.”
“No sir, I wasn’t.”
“You were going to kill that agent in Carpathia.”
A funny smile made my lips. “Yes. I was.” Looking at the waters, Otranto seemed to be a slice of secret paradise. “I’m not merciful. Not like you. Never could afford to.”
“…You’re fine with killing.”
I shrug. “Not fine, more accepting of the situation. I was awake for all my kills, Barnes. At some point, even if I couldn’t control my body, I could control my mental reaction. And eventually, I had to become numb. Besides, I never killed as much as you did. Usually just as a form of calibration, or low-level missions. So it’s easier for me to rationalize.”
“But you’re still fine with it.”
“Hence why I don’t belong in a medical school.” That sobers me. “I still want revenge. If a HYDRA agent shows up on my operating table, I don’t think I can stick to the Hippocratic Oath for too long.” I look back up at him. His sharp, muscled body contrasted with his soft, shielded eyes. “What about you?”
Bucky stared at the waves across from us. “I wouldn’t leave them to die…but I wouldn’t give them painkillers either.” A pause. He look almost ashamed to say - "I have to remind myself killing is a last-resort thing when I get too in my head, not..."
I sit up. “Well, then you’re a better man than me. That’s progress, sir. Now you can’t call yourself wholly the Soldier when awake.”
Bucky scoffed. “Yeah, only at night and when I get worked up. Then it’s when I’m pissed or asleep – fifty percent.”
“Better than a hundred.” My hands find his hands. Specifically, the metal one. “I know you don’t think so, but between both of us, you’re the only one who ain’t hungry for violence. Not the way I am.” Looking up, the bandana from Bucharest is tied around his deltoid. The metal lining was almost invisible, safe for when the sunlight highlighted the flat jagging. “You’re just a hurt hunting dog, sergeant. I’m just a bitch.”
“You’re not a bitch to me.”
I smile ruefully. “Oh? What am I? Same girl you kissed in Siberia?”
He just stared. “A plucked bird, more like.”
I raise a brow. “You still remember that stupid song?” That stupid nickname, Alouette, they’d given me in the French compound before I was shipped off to Siberia when they realized I was the only successful (A.K.A. surviving) test subject. Corny, in my eyes. Mocking, at worst.
“It was my first memory of you when I was the Soldier, so yeah.”
I shake my head. This was gettin’ too metaphorical for my tastes. The truth was simple. I liked to hurt people who hurt me. Bucky did too, until he remembered that he doesn’t. Then it was just me. Just me. No him. The thought of him leaving because I was too angry was sickening. How close was he in Carpathia, if he hadn't called Steve? How long –
“You want gelato?” My thoughts end prematurely.
“Huh?” His eyes were on my face, probably seein’ me spiral early. “Uh…yeah. Sure.”
We made our way back to the safehouse, where I quickly bathed the beach off of my body before changing into another dress. Despite our earlier talks, I wanted to feel pretty. Girlish, even – it was the first time in my life where I had enough food in my belly and someone who gave a rat’s ass about me without question, and I wanted to revel in it. So I lined my lips with brown, colored it with red, spooned my lashes and brushed myself nicely. Looking into my small collection of clothes, I fish out a dress I hadn’t worn yet. Light, slightly ruffled and gauzy, with soft sleeves at the shoulder and colored a light, seafoam pink. A small, red rose at the center of the collar and a matching thin shawl for the night breeze. Delicate and clingy, definitely doesn’t scream ex-HYDRA.
“How do I look?” I ask, proudly grinning as I come out of the bathroom. “I don’t look like I’ve been cut open for the past seventy years, do I? I tried to copy those Vogue magazines, where the models look all perfect and un-traumatized. I don’t think I have the same kind of genetics, though.”
Bucky, changed into another hoodie and jeans, definitely not expecting something dressy, stared at me for a moment. Then another moment. Then another. His eyes got wide, like he was waking up. I thought he was goin’ to say something when his lips parted slightly, but he didn’t. His mouth just closed and nodded. “It - it’s good,” he murmured, getting up. Good? Seriously? I put my hands on my hips.
“James-Buchanan, I didn’t soak myself in rose milk soap just to be told I look good – ” I get interrupted when Bucky, who was now wearing his gloves, slips my pearl ring over my ring finger again. “Where’s yours?” He takes off his glove and shows his flesh hand, banded with fake marriage, before puttin’ it back on again. I frown. “You don’t have to wear it, you know. I’ve always thought it was kinda weird for you to buy a ring for yourself if you’ve always got these gloves on…”
Bucky shrugged, offering me his arm. “Husbands wear rings, nurse.”
It was dark out when we got gelato. Honestly, I thought the stands would be closed, but for some reason, they were open. “Why are they open?” I ask, waiting for our orders.
Buck looked out onto the streets. There, at the square, outside the stone church, there was a large congregation of people. Dancing, laughing, chatting away. “A wedding?” He guesses. The oddity was that they were holdin’ candles. When we got our snacks, Bucky asked the seller in Italian, who explained: “It’s a saint’s day. Everyone’s staying up for it.”
“...huh.” I stare at the people, who seemed blissfully in their own world. Music was loudly playing, and people were singing along with the beat. “Can we stay out here longer? I wanna watch.” He nods, and we find a walkway with a stone railing to lean against. Well, I thought we’d lean against, but Bucky quickly sat up and pulled me onto his lap. I yelp a little. “You really like the lap thing, huh?” I realize how it sounds a little thirsty and snorted. His ears redden.
“I used to let my girlfriends perch like this.”
“Oh? What happened to bein’ friends?”
“Shut up.”
We people watch for a while. Men with tall, painted statues carry on their shoulders recreating some story from canon, and we watched as everyone seemed to point and chatter about what it meant. Taking a taste of my gelato, the tart, syrupy sweetness of the sour cherries are blanketed by the rich, creaminess of the gelato base. “Not bad,” I hum. Bucky offers me a spoon of his stuff. It’s orange-flavored. My eyes widened. “That tastes like juice!” He offers me another bite before going back to it.
“I thought you preferred cherries,” Bucky muttered. “The first time I met you, your lips were as red as they were now.”
I smile. “I still like cherries, but I think I outgrew them. Oranges are more rare, anyways.” My mouth lessens for a moment in its grin. “My old man used to spoil me with fruits. Whatever money he had left, he’d get fresh stuff for me to enjoy.”
“Yeah?” His eyes were soft. I used to hate how melancholic he looked, but at the moment, I just wanted him to know everything about me. I nod.
“I mean…he’d always save the first taste for me. Give the rest to the rest of the family, but the nice parts always went to me.” Now that I think about it, maybe living wasn’t hell all the time. Maybe I was just ungrateful for wanting more. He couldn’t help his temper, could he? We were all poor, hungry and unlucky. Bad feelings were inevitable. “Still didn’t change his temper, but…guess we were all runnin’ on fumes. Dust Bowl and all.”
Bucky watched me watching my hands. The pearl ring I was wearing suddenly looked real fascinatin’. “Are you running on fumes now?” What a weird question.
“No.”
“Are you mad now?”
“No.”
He offers me the last spoonful of his gelato. I take it before he puts the cup aside. “Then you can’t really call yourself a bitch, nurse. Not when you’re not normally so bad.”
I raise a brow. “You can talk like that about me but not to yourself?” Bucky’s face twitches a little at that.
“...it’s different for me.”
“How?” I quietly challenge. “Becuase you didn’t have the thought capacity or fortitude to fight back? It’s a little hypocritical – ”
He huffs exasperatedly. “Doll, I fought it. I don’t know how long, but I fought the mind-wiping each time. It’s only when they started doing it repeatedly, that I got worn down and…” Silence. “It’s my fault because I’d managed to fight it off at first, but then I couldn't. That’s why.”
My brow furrows. “You can’t fight for seventy years, sergeant.”
Bucky laughs, but it’s humorless. “Why not, nurse? I’m a super-soldier. I can take it. Hell, even you put up a fight – you were always mean, biting, trying to escape – meanwhile I just gave in.”
Something in my head clicked. “What’s it matter that I fought?” I say. “We both got forced into the ice. Into murder. Into being knifed and hurt. One person versus a cult like HYDRA…it’s not a case of if. It’s a case of when.” That makes me sober. We were bound to break. We both wanted something – he wanted something peaceful. I wanted revenge. Neither of us could get them, though. Suddenly my lipstick felt more like clown makeup. I felt his flesh hand cup my cheek. No gloves, all warmth. “We both fought, and we both lost. Outnumbered. And now we have to live with it, don't you think?”
His eyes don’t leave my face, making my cheeks heat up as he gets close. “I think…” He licks his lips. “I think we have to move again.” The suddenness made me almost drop my cup.
“What?” My voice wavers. Where did that come from? The guilt in his eyes makes the proverbial knife twist into the bleeding rose on the chest. “No, no – you can’t – ”
“Sweetheart – ” Bucky tried to quiet me, rubbing my arms up and down with his palms, but him saying my name fell on deaf ears.
“You can’t!” I plead. “Not when things have been good! It’s – it’s been good, I’ve been good, we’ve been hidin’, and – and we’re safe, happy. Please, sergeant.”
“Nurse.”
Hot tears glaze my eyes now. “I know I’ve been a lot,” My voice was strained and thin with the threat of sobbing. “I’ve been draggin’ you everywhere. Wantin’ stuff, but we’re…we haven’t had anything. There’s nothin’ comin’ here.”
Bucky couldn’t meet my eyes. “Reports of activity from Interpol have been going up in the Mediterranean," His voice was small.
“Then can’t we just lay low?” I try. “Just don’t go out durin’ the day. Stay quiet. No beach. No gelato. No nothing.”
Bucky shook his head. “...it’s just an idea. Nothing is safe here. You know that.”
“Yeah? Yeah, I guess I do.” Something breaks in me as a watery giggle lets out. I try to ignore the tears in my eyes, glaring at a dancing couple in the distance. How stupid I felt, dreaming of the most sweet and unspoken things. “Oh, who am I kiddin’? You hate the social stuff. You always look stiff when we’re out. Your sleep hasn’t changed. All this must be terrible to you.”
“Not all of it,” He murmured. I look up, where his hand goes back up to my chin. Our faces suddenly got close, breaths away from each other. “Not all of it was terrible.”
“You don’t have to lie. You hate this social stuff. Hate how hard it is to hide your arm. My damn hormones, even.”
Bucky barely shook his head, bright blues still on me. “I don’t hate everything I’ve had here.” His thumb brushed under my eye.
My eyes flutter shut, hoping for something inevitably sweet to soothe me, only for nothing to come to my lips. I open them, seeing Bucky’s face no longer close to mine. His blue eyes were fixed to the distance. Jaw clenched.
Before I could ask, his hand gently turned my chin to look back, in the direction of the shore. There, in the distance, on the shore, was a man in a suit. A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, if the tag barely visible on his clothes could be trusted. He wasn't looking in our direction, but he was definitely searching for something.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
Notes:
I blame Padme Amidala's wardrobe for the fit check
Chapter 54: Chat logs
Notes:
Travel interlude
Chapter Text
Texas: Dear Brooklyn, is it true that people don’t write letters anymore? Best, Texas
Brooklyn: Dear Texas – yes. But don’t worry, we can still talk here. – Brooklyn
Texas: Dear Brooklyn, why is bread so expensive now? I converted the Italian money to USD and it wasn’t two dimes anymore. Best, Texas
Brooklyn: Dear Texas – I know! Inflation means it’s still cheap to get a loaf, but paying a few bucks for a roll feels wrong at times. Everything feels expensive, even when it’s supposed to be affordable. A quarter for gum feels like a hit to the head. – Brooklyn
Texas: Dear Brooklyn, why do men think it’s alright to bother the girls they live with? A certain man keeps bothering me with talks of his past girlfriends and wanting to stuff me with gelato. Why do you men folk have the audacity? Best, Texas
Brooklyn – Dear Texas, he’s probably trying to accommodate you with the gelato. As for the girlfriends, he’s probably trying to get his memories in check. But I’m guessing that’s not what you want to hear. So, to answer your question – I don’t know, ma’am. I apologize. You’re right about everything. Men don’t deserve anything. – Brooklyn
Texas: Dear Brooklyn, I can’t sleep well. I keep thinking HYDRA will get me one day. It doesn’t help that the sergeant is always looking over his shoulder. Those agents spooked us something terrible. Best, Texas
Brooklyn: Dear Texas – I’m sorry. I haven’t been sleeping well either, not with everything that’s happened in Sokovia with Ultron. If it makes you feel better, though, the agency has been more busy with overturning corruption, and I’ve been helping train new members. I’ll do my best to keep you under the radar, you have my word on that. – Brooklyn
Texas: Dear Brooklyn, was the sergeant a ladies’ man back in the day? Sometimes he acts too smooth for his own good, then acts clueless afterwards. It makes my head spin. Best, Texas
Brooklyn: Dear Texas – Oh, lord. Where do I start. Better yet that I don’t…if he’s being a flirt, though, he might just be trying to get your attention. Crushing on someone hasn’t changed in the past few decades, last I checked. Go with the flow, I say. – Brooklyn
Texas: Dear Brooklyn, does the sergeant like cats? He keeps sneaking bits of leftover meat to the stray outside. Petting and whistling at it. When a dog comes by, though, he’s a lot more awkward. Best, Texas
Brooklyn: Dear Texas – He liked to feed the stray cats outside his neighborhood after dinner. I couldn’t tell you the amount of times he’s showed up to school the next day with scratches on his hands. Better you pretend not to notice, otherwise it might ruin his fun. – Brooklyn
Brooklyn: Dear Texas – sorry for the sudden message, but I had to ask: Do girls like flowers? Are roses too generic? Dramatic? I’m a little out of my depth here. Always have, now that I think about it. – Brooklyn
Texas: Dear Brooklyn, I like flowers. Roses seem lovely. Maybe if it’s a quick bite, yes, it’s a little much, but on a proper date it’s sweet. But maybe I’m unreliable – we’re both rather old, after all. Best, Texas
Texas: Dear Brooklyn, some nights are impossible to think through. The noises outside make me want to hurt something. Other times it’s the nightmares. I think I’m too broken to think properly anymore, and I hate it. I can’t tell the sergeant, not when he’s in the same boat as me. Will this end? Best, Texas
Brooklyn: Dear Texas – I know what you mean. Sometimes I just feel like nothing I do is right. Sometimes the only remedy is just waiting it out, until one day you get out of bed with a clearer mind and a gentle mental reminder that nothing is permanent. At least, in my experience it is. – Brooklyn
Texas: It just seems unfair. That nothing is permanent. HYDRA’s hell isn’t permanent, and that’s somehow insulting to me. That it’s all over, and now I have to hide away forever.
Brooklyn: I know. I’ve had to say goodbye to everything that I once saw as young, and I have to be fine with it. I'm back home, but I'm still somehow homesick. I’m sorry that you’ve had the same kind of thoughts. That said, I mean it when I say the hiding won’t be forever. Please don’t think like that. One day, soon I’d like to hope, we can all meet up and have lunch together. Talking in peace. I want that day more than you'll ever know.
Texas: Dear Brooklyn, the sergeant’s developed this habit of acting weird around me. He likes to sit me on his lap when we eat gelato on the steps. Plays with the hem of my dress when he thinks I’m asleep. He’s never been much for talking, but it’s been weird now when he's quiet because he's always got this wide, soft look in his eyes. I’m wondering, I think his head is getting confused that this married thing is just an act. Should I be concerned? Best, Texas
Brooklyn: Dear Texas, you sweet summer child. No, quite the opposite. Do you want him to stop? – Brooklyn
Texas: I…don’t think so. It just feels weird – the Soldier used to bully me in HYDRA. Not that he is him, but it’s a little ironic at times. I feel guilty for wanting him to continue. I used to be so mean to him, back in the day. We both were.
Brooklyn: Don’t be. Trust me when I say you both shouldn’t fight it. You both deserve this.
Texas: CAPTION I STOLE BUKCYS BOOT AND FILELED IT WIHT MDU HLEP HE’S GONNA GET MESEND HELP
Brooklyn: God have mercy on your soul, nurse. You’re on your own with this one!
Texas: STOP CAKCLIN G I KNOW YOU ARE BOY
Brooklyn: I have no idea what you’re talking about, ma’am :)
Texas: FAKE ASS FRIEND
Brooklyn: Language ♥️
Chapter 55: Migration: The Fifth Safehouse
Notes:
Posted twice, this and the prior chapter in one go just for convenience
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
[???]
I could see my blurry reflection in the metal room. My face was scarred and mottled, the skin clearly damaged beyond repair. I’m not sure if I’d gotten the scarring from a mission gone wrong, or if I’ve always had them.
Always? Like the past? I could barely see it, like shaky water in a rippling lake – I was someone once. Before this. Before I became another Soldier, one of many in a program that was as touch-and-go as its founder. Hazy and warm was my mind, despite the ice that I was forced out of. Looking around, I was no longer sleeping with my brothers in Cryostasis.
Where was I? Who was I? Brothers…no, that’s not right ––
“Повинуйся. Двадцать один. Праворукий. Жара. Корни. Голод. Винтовка. Сентябрь. Одуванчик. Синий.”
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I’m compliant. I’m compliant. I’m compliant. I’m an asset ready for use.
Two handlers take me to another empty room, the same kind of metal walls and reflections staring back at me. They want me to spar. With who? I felt more irritated by the minute – I wanted to hit something. Kill someone. Maybe then the pounding in my head would stop. Maybe then my blood would stop boiling so goddamn much.
I was presented with my reflection walking up to me again. Same muzzle over the mouth. Same dead eyes. Same tactical shirt. His metal fist gleamed in a natural flex.
Suddenly the room was spinning as my arms were wrung back and forth, legs kicking violently as I was pushed to the hard ground without so much of a warning. That just made my blood run hotter, my throat ripping from the scream I emitted. I wasn’t used to being weak. No, I wasn’t the weak one. I wasn’t. I wasn’t weak, I wasn’t pathetic, I’m a SOLDIER –
WHAM!
Another hit. I could feel hotness run down my nose as I kicked my let up to retaliate. I’m not supposed to be weak. I’m not. Not unlike other people. Other people. Weak. Pathetic. Couldn’t possibly –
WHAM!
My vision went black. When I woke up again, head throbbing and nose caked with dried blood, I was strapped to the chair. I didn’t even have a chance to say something when –
SNAP!
The last thing I saw was a flash of blue before my mind went white.
[Bucky’s P.O.V. - Day 540]
From what I could tell, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents didn’t get any tips of us being seen here, just checking their bases after realizing we’d disappeared right from the mountains to nowhere up North. They must’ve taken a break, to take care of whatever happened in Sokovia before getting back to chasing HYDRA unsubs. But for months, we got comfortable. It was the end of Winter when we left Carpathia and Greece, and now it was the end of summer. The last time we’d hidden this long was the mountains, and it wasn’t nearly as nice as Otranto.
“We have to go, now,” I’d repeated myself for the umpteenth time to the nurse. She’d been silent the entire time we’d packed. She was crying – she wouldn’t say it, but her downturned eyes and glassy irises said enough. If there wasn’t an agent ten minutes away from us, I’d gather her in my arms, let her sob, and push me away to pretend nothing happened. But we didn’t have the time. We barely had time to “contaminate” (HYDRA has this powder that lets you make your DNA unrecognizable – the fact I still had a bottle leftover from Bucharest is a blessing) the safehouse before leaving with our packs in the black of night.
It wasn’t too difficult to escape the city, running our way across the square and into Lecce, where I’d gotten us impromptu bus tickets out of Puglia. Since it was nighttime, the ride was almost empty, safe for the driver and some sleeping old lady. I look to my left, to where she was sitting next to me.
“You alright?” I asked, but I knew it was a stupid question. She was still in her dress, her hair now slightly messy from the wind and lipstick hastily scrubbed off. I wrapped her in one of my jackets, but she still looked despondent. She barely nodded after a moment.
Things were going good. They were good. The hard nights were contrasted with the easy days, where dreams of my reflection killing someone were interrupted with the mornings of her singing folks songs while making coffee.
If Siberia made me feel something for her, Carpathia made me remember what love was, and Italy made me want it to stay. It wasn’t much, most days were repetitive and boring, but I liked it. It was almost quiet, almost peaceful. And when she was around…I almost got careless at times, remembering it was supposed to be an act. But how could I? We wore rings like lovers, practiced kissing like teenagers, and swam like there was nothing wrong with either of us. Like we didn’t have blood on our hands, like my mind wasn’t half-gone some days.
On good days, really good days, where neither of us got nightmares, where I helped her cook, and she helped with my memories, I’d watch her as she studied – she’d always insist that it was just for passing the time, but it sometimes felt the opposite. Like if I just pretended a bit better, I could imagine her as a student, that I was her lucky boyfriend and we were spending a romantic summer in the South of Italy before she had to go back to school. I was half-tempted to sometimes kiss her whenever she rambled about what she found interesting, or when she demanded I talk to the butcher so that she could try and make ossobuco, only to change her mind and demand pizza instead. Kiss her stupid, do the things that I used to do with a girl I really liked back when I felt more safe in my mind and body than I do now.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t, not just because of the risks that came with it, but because of how broken we were. I’d jump if something I couldn’t see touched me, worse-case scenario thinking that a fight was starting. She’d sleep on the couch when sleeping too close to another body made her scared. But we were getting quieter, dammit, until that goddamn S.H.I.E.L.D. agent showed up.
Italy made the nurse prettier. She always was, but the sun and food made her look more alive than when she did in the compound, or before in the other safehouses. There was more color on her face, no more gray, fat restored to her cheeks, and a sweetness in her voice that I’d never heard before this. Like she realized that there weren't as many threats here. It showed especially when she’d go swimming – HYDRA’s experimentation on her body meant she’d ache randomly, and you could tell because she’d start randomly slouching or leaning on things until there was a cushion or relax on, but she took to the water like a mermaid. It didn’t help that she looked like one whenever she’d come out of the seafoam, looking all dewy, skin-soaked and calling me “handsome” like I wasn’t actively trying to recall my memories before she stopped my ability to think.
When she came out of the bathroom, smelling like roses and looking like one, I was tempted to not even go out for gelato that night. Keep her there in bed, with me, and finally stop acknowledging the past if it meant a night in the present with her. Like an actual husband, like an actual wife. Like how I promised we’d have in Siberia once we got out, fears and pains be damned. I don’t even think she noticed how hard I was biting my bleeding inner cheek.
But again, that goddamn agent.
I apologized like it could fix what we were about to do. Like it would fix the fact we were running again. I know that I shouldn’t, that he’s my best friend and broke my mind free of HYDRA, but sometimes I wonder if Steve’s part of why they’re looking for us so hard now. That he’s just another mole. If he was, I wouldn’t even be shocked. After everything I’ve been through, nothing felt sacred. Not love, not friendship, not trust. Everything felt wrong. Even if he sent the nurse to me, and the only reason I trust her was because of our shared history, our own relationship, and feelings of hate towards HYDRA, it’s not like I was stupid. Tracking can happen any way, and maybe he tried to use her at first.
What was I thinking? Steve’s my best friend, he’d rather die than –
But he might. Anyone might. If they’re from S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, anywhere that could cause trouble. I’m sick of trouble.
I was reminded of this when, in between bus rides, the nurse had to change out of her pretty dress and back to the drab old clothes from Bucharest, back when we were more willing to kill each other if things went wrong. Her eyes were bloodshot and cheeks swollen from crying. I tried to comfort her, cup her cheeks and kiss her brow like we were married, but it didn’t help. When we got onto the next bus, she buried her face in her travel pack like she was asleep, safe for the occasional sniffle that escaped her throat.
“Where are we going?” Is the question she finally asks after our second bus stop at Rocca Imperiale, a beautiful city layered with buildings we’ll never see properly from the confines of the transit. She still had the color that Italy had given her, but the joy in her eyes was gone.
“Munich. There’s a safehouse there from the eighties that I think hasn’t been touched.”
“How do you know?”
I actually didn’t, but if my hunch was right, HYDRA probably already checked the place before we got there, like the handler at Bucharest. Since it’s in a major city, it’s more likely to be prioritized as emptied. And when it is, they’re likely to leave it alone for longer. Before I could explain my logic to her, the nurse’s voice broke my train of thought. “...do we… have …to go to Munich, of all places?” She looked at me through sad brows. “Germany, of all places?”
My brow furrows, realizing what she’s alluding to. It's not like she's wrong - the place I'd once fought against, she used to heal against, now supposed to be our refuge? “It’s not the same as it was during the war, doll. Don’t worry about it.” I agreed with her, but the last thing I wanted was to make this stressful situation worse. She still shook her head.
“...still doesn’t feel right. Settlin’ down there.”
Again, I agreed, but bit my tongue in favor of squeezing her hand. “We won’t be there long,” I promised. “I’ll look for other safehouses, and when a better one comes up, we’ll leave for there as soon as possible.” HYDRA’s hub was moved to Russia, anyways, so as long as we avoided regions near the Federation, we should be fine.
But she didn’t look fine. If anything, her jaw clenched as she stared at the incoming and outgoing rides. “Is this all that we’re goin’ to do now? Forever? Hidin’ until hell or high water?”
“You act like I wanted this, nurse,” I say. Ever since the handler in Bucharest, the agents in the mountains, and now the agents at the beach, I’ve been sick of all the moving, just as much as she is. A new goal had started to form in my mind, other than regathering my past and avoiding capture – quiet. Try to have some form of quiet. Some form of stability. Not to cause trouble. Or harm. I wasn’t the Soldier anymore, even if my head liked to goad me at times. “We’re going to find somewhere quiet. This won’t happen again because of us.”
“And what about the rest of the world?” She challenged. “Ever since they started weeding their own offices, agencies all over are lookin’ for HYDRA folk. Doesn’t help you’re a poster child and I’m a runaway.”
I study her face. Her eyes have been darting ever since we left the safehouse. She was heartbroken over the clothes, books and pretty cups we had to leave behind, even if she never voiced it. When I told her we had less than five minutes to pack, the nurse just grabbed what she could before leaving with me. “I’m trained to be invisible. The agents searched all over for months before finding us in the mountains, and even then, they lost us. The only reason that handler caught us was because she knew where the Romanian safehouse was. Not because she knew we’d actually be there. They hadn’t even spotted us leaving Italy. Or Greece, for that matter.”
When our bus came, we both went to the very back to avoid getting stared at. Since it was nighttime, the only people on were a few late-night commuters and sleeping travelers who didn’t wake at their stop. The window next to me showed only a black sky. “My job was to keep you safe, sergeant,” She spoke after the bus began to move. “Safe until things got better.”
I readjust her coat as it was slipping off her shoulder. “There is no better for people like us, nurse. Just quietly hoping that there won’t be anything worse happening in the future.” The far-off look in her eyes made me hope to find a better hiding spot next time. Germany, of all places. We really were pushing it here.
“Then why did you let me play house so damn much?” She quietly asked. “It’s real mean that you did instead of tellin’ me to hide and – ”
A small chuckle escaped my lips when she said that. My fake wife, real girl stared at me. “Let you? You’ve been doing what you wanted ever since Bucharest. Even when I told you it was a security risk.”
Her teeth grinded a little at that, I could tell. “So it’s my fault.”
I shook my head. “No, sweetheart. Not at all.” I didn’t like it when she looked mad – it reminded me too much of the compound, when I’d see her get mistreated by the handlers. The way I was perfectly unmoved by her actions back then made me feel sick now. “You playing house helped make my head quiet down. Even if it's for a few minutes. It’s…good.”
“So you want me to keep the housewife bit up.”
“I want you to keep doing what you want,” I say. “It seems that whatever you do makes my focus a little better, anyways.”
That lessens her temper a little bit. She looks down at my gloved hands. My ring was under the fabric of my right. “You’ve surprised me a little, you know.”
“In what way?”
Her eyes look back up to me. Specifically my eyes. “Winter Soldiers…they’re all the same to me. I kinda hated yours the most, because of your arm makin’ you stand out, and because of how the hits always seemed to hurt extra, but…you’re a lot more mellow. Peaceful, at times.”
That makes me scoff. Peaceful? After all I just said? The nurse rolled her eyes. “Call it corny, but it ain’t just your footsteps. Something in your eyes changed too. You’re not all wide-eyed and gross. Lookin’ over your brows for a fight. Not normally, at least.” A pause. “Back in Amarillo, I’d sometimes see owls at dusk. They’d always be far-off, over dead barns and dyin’ crops. The Winter Soldiers would have the same look as they did in their eyes. Waitin’ for a weak thing to snatch and kill. You don’t have those eyes anymore. Sure, you’re still paranoid and aggressive, but it’s more like a front. That’s all.”
“At least owls are smart,” I grunt. Now I feel like everything is going sideways in my life. At least when I was the Soldier, all I had were objectives…not that I missed it. God, no. Not in the least.
She snorts. “No they ain’t. They’re emptier than feathers. The Greeks just know how to lie, those birds are all eyes and no thoughts. Kinda like the Soldiers. After their mission, they don’t got shit in their brains. How do you think Steve snapped you out? Through careful calculation? Naw, just appealed to the time when you did have more goin’ for you. After that it’s just a matter of recovery.” A small smile was on her lips. “You ain’t an owl anymore. More like a stubby pigeon.” Then she started snickering, which I then realized she was pulling my leg. I tug her ear with a scoff.
Her and her metaphors. I think I was pretty smart before HYDRA, but she just seems to have another way of processing entirely. When we go under a tunnel, I reposition my shoulder slightly, hoping she’d lean on it. “Get some sleep. We’ll be in Munich in a couple of hours. I’ll keep watch.”
The nurse yawns and nods. “G’night, sir.”
“Night, nurse.”
[Back to Central P.O.V. - Day 541]
I still remember how Bucky looked on the cove. He was never comfortable enough to properly take off his hoodie, exposin’ his metal arm, unless he was swimmin’ with me, but he hardly did that either. More of a quiet thinker, with his book of memories and thoughts. The last day in Italy, he looked so relaxed, almost sleepy, watching me do lazy breaststrokes on the water. My face and body got so hot when I noticed his eyes on me, I had to dive underwater just to cool off.
But back to his face – it was so relaxed. A face that I hadn’t noticed at first, until we had a night where I fucked up dinner. I’d been stewing meat for ossobuco when I realized I forgot to get wine (I’m a Prohibition baby, alright? Old habits die hard), so I threw a plumb fit until Bucky assured me it wasn’t worth the fuss. I thought he was rereadin’ old newspapers about his past, since that’s what he normally did at night, but he wasn’t. The book was already put aside as he got up to help me cut carrots. Even when I complained about his messy chops, he didn’t look the least bit bothered as he made some excuse about it absorbing broth better (bullshit). That’s when I realized the sergeant got comfortable in Otranto as well, even with all his trauma, paranoia and bad dreams.
It wasn’t anymore, though. Since seeing the agents on the beach, the man had the same stiff look on his face – tight jaw, shifting eyes, and clenching and unclenching fists. He had the same tense face he had when we first met in Bucharest, the one he had when the agents caught us in the mountains, so on and so forth. I’d hoped it was from stress, after we’d gotten on two buses to travel. After all, we were both bothered by our peace bein’ disrupted. But, after a couple hours of sleeping, dreaming of Mulino’s plum cakes with hot lemon…
“Wake up, we’re here.”
“You look awful, sir.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could even think to rub my eyes and apologize. Bucky, however, didn’t even seem phased.
“Hopefully bad enough to not be recognized.”
I didn’t like Germany. It felt weird, bein’ in the place I’d once considered corrupt in the war. For what it was worth, the city was beautiful – with castle-like buildings and smooth stone walkways that clearly showed its aristocracy – but between the war and my own discomfort, I held no interest in stayin’ long. Bucky managed to get us a ride to the safehouse, where the neighborhood was next to the nearby train station, clearly meant for escapes when HYDRA agents finish their missions. When we got out of the car with our backpacks, I pretended to fuss over his jacket for a moment to kiss his lips. “You better mean it, that we ain’t stayin’ long here,” I murmured in between our breaths, making sure to not sound sweet. To his credit, he kissed me back with –
“I do, doll.”
Notes:
I love bird symbolism if u couldn't tell
Nightingales are linked to that one Greek Ovid myth where that one princess got turned into the songbird after getting mutilated in order to exact revenge, symbolizing sorrow and change. That, and Florence Nightingale, the mother of nursing, so it's apt
Chapter 56: Blut und Wasser Schwitzen
Chapter Text
[Night 545]
Bucky woke up screaming. It was so bad, it made me scream too. This would have been comical if he wasn’t shaking like a leaf and sweating like rain down his front. “Sorry,” He croaked. I put a hand on his bare back and rubbed up and down his spine until I felt him shiver under my palm.
“You cold?” I ask. Without waitin’ for a response, I say, “C’mere.”
Bucky’s chest was still rising and falling quickly, but he turned around to face me. The white moon made his eyes bluer, though also illuminated the sweat on his face. If he had any prior hesitations, it didn’t show as his hands went to my sides, clutching tightly with shaking fingers. His face buried into my collar, taking slow, painful, shaky breaths.
“You know,” I tried to joke as my fingers made their way to his scalp. It’s been longer than usual. “I could kill you in this position. Get that justice I always think I’m owed, and you think I gotta have.”
Bucky didn’t take the bait, he didn’t even laugh. Instead, his nose buried into my neck as he shuddered, “...I wouldn’t mind going out like that.”
Suddenly I was very aware of how hot his breath was against my skin, making my own face heat up. When he pulled away, I got confused. “...’m too heavy for you. Go back to sleep. I’ll take the couch.”
“Oh, no, Buck, it’s – ”
“Sleep, nurse.” But to show there wasn’t any anger on his end, he kissed my eyelid before leaving the bed cold on his side for the rest of the night.
[Day 546]
We’d been stalling with our groceries ever since we left Italy. It was an unsaid thing, the discomfort of bein’ in a new place that carried old feelings. It didn’t help that the city was much different than the town, where Otranto had wide, yellowed streets and fresh salt water near her beaches, Germany felt cooler (Even though it was still late summer on a technicality) despite its humidity, and the neat streets didn’t change how uncomfortable it was seein’ so many cars outside. I’d developed an irrational fear of someone pulling up to the safehouse, breakin’ in and snatchin’ me away in my bed.
We’d been living off a low diet of whatever bread and fruit I’d wake up to see on the counter, as the sergeant has never been one to have the most ambitious diet compared to me and hated stayin’ in bed for too long. I couldn’t blame him, I knew that the agents made him spiral more than I did. He’s been going to bed later and later at night – what was once an improvement, him going to sleep before eleven was now suddenly upended. It’s funny – by the end of our time in the mountains, despite having less to live with, we’d been farin’ a lot better than how we were currently doing in comparison. I think if I’d asked him right now, he’d probably prefer a dinner of dandelion and rabbit to fancy German bread and cheese.
But I was hungry, and we needed to get used to our environment. “Sarge?” I say, rubbing the sleep off my eyes. I’d always woken up late, which used to be a point of embarrassment for me, but now I liked seeing him already up. He looked handsome, his big blue eyes staring at the rising sun before handing me a cup of weak tea in bed. “Do we have peaches?”
Bucky, who was reading some stolen magazine, looked up. His eyes softened a little once it landed on me. “No. We do have plums, though.”
I pout, not really wanting to eat sour stone fruit so early in the morning. “Sir…” I sigh. “I think we have to go shopping. In a proper store, not some tiny stand off the far markets.” My fingers find and fiddle the pearl ring on my hand, where it hadn’t moved since our last gelato outing. Oh, gelato…I shouldn’t think about it too hard.
His jaw did something at that. Very emotive, his teeth are, but I don’t think he was more angry than he was unwilling to step outside. But again, I was starving. “Please, Buck. Just…just think of it like Bucharest again. Romania wasn’t scary, was it?”
That makes him deadpan. “We tried to kill each other in Romania.”
“Details, details. Besides, you love me now, right?” I wink, but for whatever reason he chokes on his tea when I say it. Ignoring that, I get out of bed. His thick shirt acted like a sweater over my nightdress, which swished around my ankles like tissue paper. I didn’t feel nearly as nice as I did in Otranto, but I wasn’t about to lose my humanity over a scare. Besides, I was too harsh on him when we first moved to the safehouse here – it’s not his fault that the agents got to us. “Again, please? I’ll make something nice for dinner, and you can write in your little log, and it’ll be like Italy again.” Well, not exactly like Italy – Italy’s safehouse was warmly-lit and rustic like a honeymooner's house, meanwhile the safehouse here felt like a safehouse: grey walls, cold lighting, and a single, stiff bed that made both of us groan when we got up in the morning. From a lovers’ suite to a dying den, it felt like. Well, at least it wasn’t Carpathia.
Bucky sighed. “Alright. Get dressed, we’ll go in twenty. I’ll find us a place to shop at.”
I hopped in the shower and scrubbed the stress of the past few days off of me. I’m glad I packed some of the nice soaps we got from the last place, since it gave me a pleasant boost of warmth in its familiarity. When I got out, I threw on an old shirt, jacket and jeans, hoping that the German people weren’t known for bein’ fashion forward. Not that they were in my time, not that I liked them in my time.
As I left the bathroom, Bucky stared at me. “You’re not wearing a dress?” He asked.
“You expect me to?” I raise a brow. “How old-world of you, sir.”
“No,” Bucky coughed, as if he realized what he just said. His cheeks pinkened a little. “Just…thought you liked the dresses from before.”
Ugh. Don’t remind me. “I did, until a certain someone made me leave a lot of them behind so we could escape.” That shut him up. Okay, maybe I was still bitter about the move.
We left the safehouse apartment and walked down the block, taking turns and stairs as Bucky seemed to have memorized the little map of the city that he’d picked up after we first arrived. Modern couldn’t even begin to describe how the main part of the city square looked – like Bucharest, it was covered with old buildings that bragged its age, but with newer signs for clothes, in fancy rectangle glass panes and bicycles parked in every sector of the shopping district. “They’ve upgraded since the war,” I note in Romanian, which makes him huff.
“I wonder how much was made after the war.” I did too. Apparently, after realizing they were losing, a lot of the higher-ups had abandoned the main cities in order to hide from their crimes against humanity. Left their own people to die, the pussies – and that was after bombing Munich! I shake my head. I didn’t want to think about it too hard, how I used to be so well-informed about the war before HYDRA, and now I’ve been spat out with nothing more than educated guesses and vague answers from the internet. Books were expensive nowadays, to my disappointment. Thank god libraries still exist.
To its credit, Munich was a beautiful city. Cream-bricked buildings were kissed good morning with golden sunlight as we stuck to the shadowy walls to avoid attention from joggers and commuters. Eventually we made it to a rather small-looking corner building, which when walking through its doors, revealed a much bigger supermarket. Everything was cold, chilled, refrigerated with proud displays in a rainbow of colors from every kind of produce and product you could imagine. I abandoned Bucky’s hand to grab whatever looked shiny and colorful – tomatoes, lemons, cream, spices, bread, chicken and cheese sausage, a magazine, etc. – meanwhile I think he just did his best to look invisible. Which, I later realized, was difficult because of his build – not only was he tall, but he was proportional and strong. I don’t think I truly realized how much of a bane that was until some old lady from across the bread aisle kept starin’ at us. I kiss Bucky’s cheek to get his attention.
“I’m done, handsome. Let’s go.”
We walked in relative silence back to the safehouse until the sergeant finally spoke. “How old do you think she was?”
“Who?” I ask.
“The old woman who was staring at me.”
Trying to recall her face, the amount of wrinkles she had, I shrugged. “Pretty old, I guess. Why?”
His eyes looked a little dead. “She looked our age, that’s why.”
My brow furrows. “...Okay? What’s the big deal – oh.”
Oh.
Our age. In Germany. Gee, I wonder what side she was on during the war. “She could be younger, sergeant,” I tried. “I mean, we look rather pretty for ninety-somethings – ”
“Nurse.”
“What do you want me to do, Buck?” My hands clench the bag I was carrying. He did most of the heavy-lifting, probably to hide his face, but I still wanted to feel a little useful as he let me carry the little paper bag that held only a tin can of coconut cream and salt. “Exact my revenge on her?” Now that I think about it, I kinda want to. Anyone who’d side with those people shouldn’t be allowed to live, let alone to be that old. But I couldn’t exactly voice this, not when Bucky looked more narrowed in his gaze by the second.
“You once said you wanted revenge.”
“Yeah?” Shit, he’s got a point. “On handlers. Scientists. People who don’t have a fleetin’ memory, who get the luxury of just forgettin’ all the terrible things they might’ve done.” Mind you, we don’t even know if that lady was our age or on the bad side of history. “I prefer getting revenge on people who I can put a face to the memory.” As we crossed the street, Bucky still looked tense. When we make it to the other side, I tilt my head and give my best doe-eyed look. “I’m not sayin’ let bygones be bygones, but there’s a difference between gettin’ revenge and gettin’ identified because you punched an old lady in the name of karma.”
That makes him scoff. “I wasn’t going to punch her.”
“You looked like you were about to.” He rolled his eyes, which gave me the clear to breathe easy again.
When we got back to the safehouse, I quickly went to work on making dinner. Bucky always tried to help, but he never was the most graceful when it came to cooking, so I just relegated him to tea and vegetable prep. Tonight I made some coconut cream curry concoction, with the sausage from earlier and eaten with some of the bread from the bakery. It was a lot tougher and nuttier, but not bad in the least. While I ate, Bucky flipped through the magazine I’d gotten. It was a news tabloid that liked to dramatize what was goin’ on in the world. “How are things after that killer robot?” I ask.
He doesn’t look up, flipping a page. “Sokovia’s still ravaged,” he murmured. “It’s a mess.”
“Can I see?” Bucky handed me the folded page. In front of me looked like a city that could have been ravaged from our time – all you had to do was put a black and white filter, and the horror was all too familiar. “Christ. Is that for everywhere?” He clicked his tongue.
“The main cities. The countryside isn’t nearly as messed up, but…” I shake my head. Who was he kidding? No one lived in the countryside, and those who did were probably not used to the influx of people now coming in to seek refuge. At least a couple hundreds of thousands people, either displaced or damaged. Millions more reeling.
“And the Avengers? S.H.I.E.L.D.?” I ask before I could even think to hold back my tongue. Bucky looked away, looking up at the clock through his brows.
“They’re on some new missions. I don’t know.”
I push my luck a little. “I thought they were looking for more HYDRA unsubs. Do you think they know about the other Soldiers?”
“If they do, do you think they’d broadcast it?” Bucky suddenly snorted, but there was no amusement in his eyes. “They want to look good. So if they don’t know something, they won’t say it. If they do, they still won’t.”
I had to disagree. Ever since I found a news article about the stunt Steve pulled at the Triskelion, openly announcing his own job’s corrupt system, I don’t doubt he’d be the first to be honest if things were awry. He probably doesn’t even know, not really, about the existence or vastness of the program. “Steve might.”
“Well he’s not here, is he?” Bucky snapped. He took the magazine back and picked up his plate to take to the sink.
Oh, brother – “James, don’t be like that – ” I start feeling irritatingly exasperated. “The system and him aren’t the same – ”
“It doesn’t matter,” He interrupted, turning around to face me. “If he’s part of it, he’s helping it. The same system that wants both of us dead.”
“He snuck me out, for you! ” I retorted. That makes him hesitate for a moment before shaking his head. “He’s currently making it better!”
“Even if he’s not bad, you can’t vouch for everyone else, can you? It’s not like they willingly let you out of containment.” He corners my back to a counter, the most minor of his face muscles shifting into thinly-veiled anger. “If they had a Winter Soldier in their hands, they’d kill them. Not care about their past, or their brainwashing. All they care about is ending the problem, not finding the root of it. You said it yourself – they wanted to take your spine out when they first got you. Wait until you were prime and then cut you open.”
My eyes wanted to leave his face, but I couldn’t. “HYDRA was also a major part of S.H.I.E.L.D. at that point. That could’ve been them speakin’, not the actual good guys.”
“Does it matter?” Bucky’s hand went under my chin. “They would have gutted you like a fish, and left you to rot in the Raft. Execution, if not. No matter how many good people are in the system, if they can’t take care of things on a major level, what’s the point? How many mes and yous would there have to be until things change, huh? How many gutted girls and brainwashed boys?” For a moment his blue eyes dug into my sight, before he closed them and sighed deeply. “You said you want revenge. I want quiet, and my mind back. You say S.H.I.E.L.D. is getting better, but those last agents in Carpathia were more than willing to smoke us out and kill us. If they hear our story, they won’t care.”
“You don’t know that. Not all of them.” I remember Natasha, her red ledgers somehow bein’ given a second chance despite all of her sins. She’s probably gotten or was going to get revenge on her handlers too, and S.H.I.E.L.D. let her stay.
“Work with me here,” Bucky’s voice entered a gentle, frustrated pleading I’d never heard before. “I don’t want to get delusional again. To think that we’ll be given something good if we just lay back and let go. It’s better we do what we’re doing now.” His hands find my waist, gently pulling me close to him. That familiar heat starts pooling from my ears, to my cheeks, to the rest of me as he does. “We can’t stay safe if we trust anyone again. Not right now, maybe not ever.” He brushes a stray strand away from my face. “Did you read the other page of the magazine? There’s whispers of an ex-HYDRA asset hiding around Eastern Europe.” My blood runs cold at that, and the heat suddenly sours in my stomach. He huffed at my reaction, but there was no smile of ‘I told you so’ satisfaction on his face. “It’s me. But it’s been months, and they only just now released information to make themselves look productive. It’s all a lie, doll.”
I remember Steve’s words, the soft promises of a better tomorrow and a hopeful future, melting in my head with the harsh flame of reality. “...it still doesn’t mean they’re all bad.” Who am I kidding? I just wanted a system that could let me hurt who I wanted to hurt, and I’m bothered by the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t that. A sad look flashed across his face before he collects himself. Bucky shakes his head again, this time breaking my thoughts with a deep, slow kiss. Feeling weak, I kiss him back. It was hard to focus, feeling both dread at the news he just gave and bashfulness at feeling both his hands – metal and real – firmly on me. I didn't even realize my eyes were watering until he pulled away, his face breaking into something more melancholic.
“You’re right, sweetheart. Not all of them are. But I’m not about to let what happened in Bucharest and in the mountains touch us, touch you , like that ever again. Alright?”
“Why?” The question escapes my tongue, despite it having nothin’ to do with the topic at hand.
Bucky’s blue eyes stayed on my face for a long moment before looking aside. “You know why.” Before I could respond, he pats my cheek and pulls away. “Get ready for bed, I’ll wash the dishes tonight.”
That night I couldn’t sleep – first because my heart was beating too rapidly because of Bucky sleeping next to me, his arms finding his way to myself, then because of the sick realization of what he said: We don’t know how much they know. I couldn’t even have the peace of thinking about what he confessed in the kitchen, not when the world outside us is running on a million men a minute, with plans that could jump on us at any time. Suddenly my plans of revenge felt small, and childish. And, like a child, I burrowed myself into Bucky’s arms – not crying, not after a nightmare or fever – which he didn’t even question before adjusting his hold onto me.
“Are we in trouble, Buck?” I whispered the world’s most stupid and redundant question, and even more stupidly hoping for a perfect answer. Despite being half asleep, he murmured against my brow:
“Not if I can help it.”
The sick feeling in my stomach didn’t leave, but I let myself sleep that night, reasoning that I should savor this quiet in case worse ever comes to worse.
Chapter 57: Sich um des Kaisers Bart Streiten
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[??? - Siberian Compound]
I haven’t really spoken a lot about my time as a test subject, and that’s for a reason. When HYDRA takes you to gut and cut, they either drug or give you the worst kind of pain imaginable, the kind where your body burns a thousand degrees afterwards and makes your throat bleed black until you no longer have a voice. When they’re done, the scientists usually wrap you up, drug you some more if they already haven’t, and put you to sleep. It all happens in very brief, painful flashes. Seventy years condensed to a few days, weeks, months worth of terrible memories that you can’t be freed from.
It’s why I’m less hard on the kills I’ve done. Not only was I lucid and numb, but I really did take less than the Soldiers who were trained for worse. Much less, and even if that still didn’t absolve me, it was enough for my head to wrap around, saying this isn’t normally you. Even if I despised that line of thinking, it wasn’t like I had much of a choice otherwise – it’s not like I had control of my body whenever they sent me out to see how well whatever modifications they had on me turned out.
But I digress – it’s not something I try to recall on purpose. It happens in flashes – a glass of red juice reminding me too much of the bags of blood they’d extract from me. Certain shades of white lighting that recalled how my eyes would be fixed to the ceiling as my organs were being grabbed and prodded and cut like dinner meat. In my most restless dreams, where I’d shut my eyes after seeing Bucky next to me slumber, I’d open them to see myself back in Siberia, back on the table, and back in hell.
The man laying next to me wasn’t Bucky Barnes, but a muzzled man whose eyes were closed. Winter Soldier. Drugged into submission, no doubt, and too unaware to know what was happening. I, however, was wide awake – I’d overheard a scientist say they didn’t want to waste painkillers on a non-Soldier, which would explain the hell my body felt despite my always seeing them inject something into my saline bag.
My sight was blurry, one head looked like ten, and the walls were both closing in and opening up on me. There was a white lab coat, a scientist, walking up, grabbing my arm. I wanted to yell, hiss at how cold his gloved hand was. The plastic rubbed against my skin in a way that made me want to scream from overstimulation, worsened even more when a needle was suddenly positioned over my skin, threatening to pierce me.
Aside from the white lights and terrible pain, the only thing I could ever truly count as notable in the HYDRA labs were the looks of bored indifference that all of the scientists leering above me shared when I screeched in agony.
[Day 552]
I should have known this was going to happen, but I nevertheless completely forgot about it.
“You’ve had it this whole time?”
“It’s mine, isn’t it?”
“That’s not the point!”
Bucky found the burner phone. It had accidentally gotten crushed at the bottom of my travel pack, but it was technically hidden. Since his paranoia peaked with the angry call in Carpathia, he probably just assumed that it was left to die in the back of that general store. But I’d taken it in order to still be connected to Steve, and, if desperate, Natasha, in case things turned for the worse. I let him look through my bag since he needed to count how many pocket knives we were currently carrying as the last safehouse was packed away in such a rush and that's how he found it.
“Sergeant, you know that those burners don’t have the same kind of traceable signals that other phones have,” I glare at the now-broken little flatscreen in his metal hand.
“Not wholly,” He snapped. “They can still check the cell towers for people who don’t have names on their accounts. For all we know, those agents in Italy might’ve followed any foreign signals.”
The thought of that makes me sick, but I stand my ground. He wasn’t wrong on the chance of being seen, but I didn’t realize that. I’d kept the burner because I wanted to keep in touch with Steve, have a connection to the outside world if need be. “Have you been using it this whole time?”
“To text Steve and call Natasha,” I say, as if that would somehow soothe him.
He stared at me like I grew a second head. “You called the Widow? ”
My cheeks burned at his disbelief. “It’s not like I have a lot of people outside of you, Buck,” That just makes the shadows around his glare deepen. “Besides, at least Steve isn’t stir-crazy with paranoia.”
That makes him scoff. “Don’t tell me you’re still upset about Otranto.”
“Maybe I am, can I?”
“Did you tell him everything? For all you know someone could be spying on –”
That makes me sputter. “Do you think I’m that naive?”
“Sweetheart, you didn’t even know how to kiss before me. And that's not even including Siberia.”
Oh. Oh. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.” A pause. “Holy shit, you are – ”
Snap! His metal hand twitched at my last word, making the phone buckle in on itself. “You’re a child, James-Buchanan,” I start to hiss as he puts the burner aside and pulls on his gloves. He’s probably going to take a walk to blow off some steam. Big man with a goddamn tiny brain. “You’re a hundred years old but a goddamn child!”
“Yeah?” He challenges back. Like I thought, he was throwin’ on his hoodie and heading towards the door. “At least I haven’t possibly put us in jeopardy for the sake of a few texts from the opposite sex.”
“Where the hell are you going?”
“Somewhere where I can’t be found because my wife won’t throw away her damn burner!”
“Fake wife, dipshit!”
“And thank god for that!”
He swung the door open and left it unclosed as his hard stomps went down the safehouse apartment’s stairs. Fuckwad.
If I told you we had a tragic vignette in Siberia, would you believe me? Whatever. Bucky showed up back to the safehouse smelling like something bitter and not lookin’ me in the eye. Lucky for him, I didn’t want to look at his stupid face in the first place. His stupid, handsome face that now looked like a sullen dog denied a treat. So I didn’t, and I pretended to be asleep on the couch by the time he came back. I could hear him sighing, cursing under his breath before going to the kitchen to make whatever shitty dinner he can. He better not burn the damn water.
[Day 560]
We’ve been oddly civil since the argument. Bucky doesn’t sleep with me, but doesn’t get angry and glare. At worst he’s gruff and blunt, at best he’d try to be something not mean until I wave him away. When I had a nightmare from bed, he got up from the couch and tried to comfort me. I hissed when he gave me extra blankets, but he didn't leave until I was properly-wrapped and warm. Then his eyes would get this big, sad, slightly drooped and dopey look in them that would be impossible to stare at for too long.
I didn’t feel like staying inside. Not when the safehouse was grey and empty, not when Bucky would do whatever the hell he does on the couch all day while I hide on my turf on the bed.
“I need air,” I say briskly. I’d gotten dressed in one of my few dresses I’d saved from Italy, pulling a jacket over it. It was immature, but I didn’t want to treat him with how nice I looked underneath. Men don’t appreciate women anyways, even in this modern era –
“Does it matter what I think?” Bucky stares through his brows in that ‘We are not amused’ look that he does whenever he’s trying to look tough.
“No. It doesn’t.” It’d been a week since we went out, anyway. Grocery shopping ended as soon as we bickered – now it’s back to bread and fruit, like Roman emperors but with less glamour and lovers of questionable age. I was cravin’ some kind of sugar, honey, molasses, even sorgo would do. “Don’t bother tryin’ to follow.”
“I wasn’t.”
Jackass. I flip him off before leaving and closing the door.
Truthfully, I had no idea where I was going. When I left the safehouse, I just wanted to leave the neighborhood and get some damn air, but now looking around, I had no clue where I wanted to go. In my pocket was a tourist’s guide to Munich, and since I was hungry, I was trying to follow the winding map to the nearest bakery. The problem came when I kept going in different directions – I’d end up backtracking, mixing up and rereading signs, missing signals…I’m a natural wanderer, so it’s not like I take good to directions. Literally. By the time I was supposed to be in front of a famous French-like patisserie, I ended up just getting lost in front of some closed boutique. Now, I knew where the safehouse was, technically, but that didn’t mean I wanted to come back empty-handed. It would be like lettin’ Bucky win, after all – naive about everything. Then it becomes an angry spiral of childhood jeers of my own helplessness in the Dust Bowl, and then what would I do?
No, instead, I take a few more educated turns until my wandering takes me to somewhere interesting – a large, cubic white building with thin, rectangular windows scattered about. Historical site, were the only words in English, but I felt as if I had a pretty good hunch as to what it was leading to.
My hunch wasn’t wrong. The lady at the desk assured me the museum was free, and I let my legs carry me wherever I could stomach. Past worn planes and glass displays of red-banded uniforms, where I’d stop and stare at the posters in front of me. Almost cartoonish with their hatred, but genuine in their message of it. Something in me roiled in a way that felt like the moment before vomiting.
There was one picture that made me stare longer than the rest. It wasn’t powerful and tall, of men in straight uniform or noble blonde women praying for their husbands to win, the man’s face wasn’t even shown. He was curled up, on a brick ledge, where some broken down house was destroyed behind him.
“Tragic, isn’t it?” A voice comes from behind me. I turn around to see a man in a long coat behind me. Neatly combed, short hair. A small, thin lip, with a light shadow of facial hair – not like Bucky’s, who did it to hide his face. I’d almost consider him handsome if he didn’t have such a shrewd look in his eyes, like he was searching for somethin’ to tattle on. He also had a bit of a baby face, but again, his eyes were old. The glasses on his face were clear and rounded. “All that fighting for nothing.” The man stood like he was an aristocrat, like someone who was once important.
I nod. His accent was odd, curled. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I’d heard it before…Eastern European? I put on my own fake accent to avoid detection. French, thanks to my nursin’ days. “Indeed. Most unfair. But apt, no? Considering the side he was on, what he likely believed, or thought was good…”
He nods, his brows lifting to show open agreement. “Oh, without a doubt. Yes. Do you know why it happened?”
Buddy, I was alive then. “The last war was an embarrassing loss for the Germans. They wanted to restore glory, expand everything for themselves, and that somehow justified all that they did in the next couple of years.” a pause. “Among a few other things.”
The man hummed. “Do you think they all agreed with the war?”
“No, but they still fought, didn’t they? Drafts are a cruel thing that only humans could possibly think up.” I don’t doubt many thought they were in the right. I also don’t doubt a lot of people had no choice. I also don’t doubt that it somehow doesn’t excuse their actions or help their sorrow. “You don’t see animals who disagree force their children to fight in their name. Then again, what could they be fighting over?...Food?”
The mystery man chuckled. “No, I suppose they are inherently purer than us on that front. They don’t have the kind of hierarchies of power that we do. The idea that a few strong men are able to control the fate of millions…it is painfully human.”
“Such is corrupt governing. Too much power and not enough control.”
“So you agree?” His head quickly turned to me, and I could see my reflection on his lenses. “That overpowered individuals can cause the bane of so many people?”
Who wouldn’t? “Of course I do. Unchecked, anything can happen,” That’s not even with power, it’s with anything. Invading gods thinking they deserve to rule among men, believing to be benevolent. A group of scientists with scalpels on a sleeping subject, ‘in the name of science’. An overzealous leader who hadn’t been told no. “And afterwards, it’s the survivors who have to pick up the pieces. Unfair all around.”
“And if the survivors are hurting? Want justice and retribution?” There was an odd glint in his eye that I couldn’t blame on his glasses.
I shrug. I wanted revenge. Retribution. Not like Bucky, who had unintentionally hurt so much against his will that he just now wanted an end to the hell he was in. But not a sadist, either. I just wanted to hurt the people who hurt me…generally. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if Bucky would like it if I did that – wait, why does his opinion matter to me? My mind flashes to Carpathia, down by the river. First the look of fear when fishin’ me out, then the look of anger when I nearly killed the agent. How much, now looking back, the look of fear filled me with something warm. The idea that someone cared about me…when was the last time someone cared about me? Seventy years of nothing? “I think…I think they’d be feeling a lot of things. Anger. Fear. Hurt.”
“Would you say revenge is justified?”
Oh yes, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t, for some reason. “It wouldn’t be impossible to fathom. And it depends on the revenge. Who would you have in mind, if you were so terribly wronged?”
“Revenge on the powered people, of course.”
That’s it! I knew his accent! It was Sokovian! I’d seen screens of the interviews done by the survivors of Ultron while traveling on our way here! The televisions were still showcasin’ all the damage and destruction the attack had. “Are you Sokovian, sir?”
His chin lifted. “I’m sure you’ve heard the news.”
My brows instinctively burrow into something sad. “I’m sorry about what happened.” Feelin’ ballsy, I take his hand and squeeze it for a second before letting go. “Everyone’s been thinking about your country.”
To my surprise, the man chuckled. “Everyone but those who are in charge. They are…wherever they are. Back home, job done. No evil robot, therefore no worries, in their eyes.”
“Then they’re rather stupid,” I bluntly say, French accent slippin’ for a moment before I collect myself. “And they should be ashamed of themselves.”
He nods. “Yes, they should.”
We stand in silence, staring at the picture of the cursed soldier once again. “Are you always this philosophical with strangers, sir?”
The mystery man had a small smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. I wonder how much he lost in Sokovia. “Only when they’re interesting. Research trips are hardly fun otherwise.”
Well, I was getting rather creeped out by him talking to me for so long. I was wearing a thin scarf that I’d gotten back in Carpathia over my mouth, using the excuse of the cold air conditioning that seemed to make my nailbeds almost-pale. “Well,” I say breezily. “I must go. My husband promised to take me to a bakery that I’d picked out, but I have no idea which one to go to. You don’t have any suggestions, do you? All those thoughts, I’m sure you must have at least one sweet spot.”
That makes him huff in amusement. “Do you have a map?” I hand him the one in my pocket. He takes out a small pencil and lightly draws some lines of direction. “This one has the most delicious cheese danishes. This one has the best loaves and coffee. And this one has wonderful bienenstich and strudel.”
“You’ve been to all of them?”
“In the past. With my wife and son.”
I smile behind my scarf. “Thank you. I’ll check them out.”
Following his directions, I wandered out of the museum and down the streets. Through some odd shortcuts and bridges, I’d went through each store and gorged myself on heavily-cheesed pastries, bread and coffee. When I was finished, for the sake of the future, I got a German plum cake with an overly long name and extra crumble top. I made my way back to the safehouse, where I loudly placed the plum cake without much of a warning as Bucky jolted from where he was napping on the couch. I was still working on my third danish and rolled my eyes at his dramatics.
“You weren’t even careful,” he eyed the cake across from him like it was poison.
“Nope. And it was lovely. If the rest of my life will be damned to paranoia, pain and running away, I may as well have a little fun.”
“Not everywhere is Italy, nurse.”
“Would you rather me be attached to your side? Never be out of your side, sewed to your hip?”
My stomach fluttered when he tilted his head. I hate how well his long hair suits his stubble, his smokey-colored beard around his jaw contrasting with his cold blue eyes, which itself contrasted his pale skin. Like a black-wooded tree in the snow that had small blue flower buds blooming from its branches. He’s gotten even more handsome than when I first met him in Siberia, somehow. For a long moment, I thought he wasn’t goin’ to respond. “There’s going to be rainstorms coming soon. I’m getting groceries alone. You’ll stay here.”
I make my way to my side of the safehouse, stripping off my jacket and socks. “Whatever.”
[Bucky’s P.O.V. - Day 563]
I wasn’t jealous, she’s just being ridiculous. Steve’s connections could cost us our safety. Her keeping that damn burner might’ve been the reason why those agents in Italy showed up when they did. Sure, it could also have been part of the prior search reports, but it could always be a case of either/or both. And besides, jealous of what? There’s nothing to be jealous of – Steve just talks to her when she can’t talk to me. Or the Widow. Or when she’s scared and I’m too out of it to converse. Even though she could technically talk to me about it, it’s not like Steve knows what HYDRA’s like. I do. But it’s not like I’m jealous. Not at all.
I’m not. Steve’s not even a viable friend option anymore –
You know he is –
Like I said. An overreaction and an act of recklessness on her part. Nothing more. And I wasn’t going to admit anything that wasn’t true, so she can do all the wandering she damn well pleases.
The other day she came back with a bag of food, specifically a bunch of baked goods. I’m surprised she was even willing to share after our spat, but then again, she is the more patient of the two of us. Probably the nursing side of her not willing to let someone starve under her watch.
I went to the store alone today. It was later in the afternoon, and so there weren’t a lot of shoppers in there. Ever since Bucharest, I’m still getting used to the stifling amount of options – not because I’m not used to the view of a market, just how weird it is to be fed something other than the bare minimum from HYDRA. Even water was rationed in Siberia, not out of necessity, but from discipline.
It’s when I reach the grains section that I start recalling a familiar memory – it’s like falling through the cracks, my past. In brief flashes, in bright colors, what my mind filters as truth and fiction. Sometimes it’s clear as day, like Steve after his ma’s funeral. Other times it’s not, like the missions I went on during the war. This one was something in the middle, but it feels real enough – the first barracks I lived in as a training private. I shared a bunk with this other guy, who, while I couldn’t really recall his face, I did remember one thing very clearly – the man was skin and bones. He reminded me of Steve, which made me wonder how the hell he even got cleared to fight. It was during a lesson in wrestling that I realized why he got cleared – the bastard could scrap better than anyone, almost even knocking me out. And during lunch, he’d gorge himself on the hot grain, meat and bread we’d get.
“There ain’t much back home,” He explained when I noticed. “This damn war is the only thing keepin’ me fed. I used to fight and steal scraps for my folks, so this is a definite improvement."
Despite being a harsh fighter, the guy was decent to be around. I even joked that he was the lady of the group, since he was so quiet and mellow. That made him laugh loudly – “That’s ironic. Ask anyone back home, and I’m an asshole and a half. But I guess a few hot dinners can make anyone a dame.”
I take a bag of grains into my basket and make a note to write the memory down in my log later. The nurse was like that too – she always seemed so bitter, whenever recalling her home life. Then she’d confuse me by switching around and being a sweet caretaker when I’d get a nightmare – maybe the war brought out her good side when she realized she wasn’t one of the worse ones off, or at least after she got fed.
I didn’t actually want to stay mad at the nurse. I knew she was upset, and had a right to be. I think after our talk at the bus, she realized that this wasn’t going to be some brief stint of hiding from the government, that there really was no one out there to save us. That, after being freed of seventy years of hell, she was now stuck in permanent purgatory, not headed for heaven as compensation, with a now-docile Winter Soldier, of all people. No, I couldn’t get mad at her for that at all.
I started looking around the store for some other things – that terrible, cheap, instant kind of coffee that she likes, thickly-jammed and sugared little batter cakes, pepper sauce – in hopes that one of them would make her lighten up. Not that I was much for words, but I was hoping that this would at least convince her to let me sleep with her again. I hate that damn couch, and I hate even more the whimpers that I could hear from the other side of the room whenever she’d dream terribly.
I sound like I’m married. Like how my dad sounded when talking about my mom. My wife. I didn’t mean for it to slip out in the argument, but it just happened. But how could I not? I love her, and even back in Siberia where our heads were as messed up as our bodies, I wanted to love her. She said once that she wasn’t made to love, but I think if she saw herself from my eyes, it would shut her up real quick. If I had any balls, or, better, a sense of safety, I’d have already told her, but that would be too far. Because then what? An actual marriage? With what papers, what stability? What home life? In a safehouse? Hell no. With what family? Even if she got her period back, and she was sure she wanted kids, what hospital would aid ex-HYDRA unsubs? Every option was given the answer of an unmovable brick wall. It was hopeless to act like a married couple in private, to do actions that would only result in nothing.
“ Do you sell chocolate torte? ”
“ Yes, little ones. Would you like one to-go? ”
“ Yes. ”
But the nurse liked torte, and my back hurt because of that shitty couch. Besides, I think she’s going to start bleeding again – she has a habit of getting irate at little things a few days before. It would at least explain why she broke a fork after biting down on it too hard this morning. But again, not married.
It was drizzling on the walk back to the safehouse. Munich wasn’t what I expected, at least – on missions the memories of going to cities were overruled by my objectives, no pretty buildings or nice streets compared to the sound of a unit exploding or the scream of a target. It felt wrong, in that sense, to even enjoy the air or the coolness, but nature kept going my way regardless. I made a list in my head of the things I needed to do as I got back – set the bags down, change, try to make a proper dinner – if I mess up, the nurse might talk to me, give her the grocery bag specifically made for her, write down memories, and somehow find a way back to bed…
All of my thoughts ended, however, as I walked past the grassy plains to the apartment down the street; where a familiar handler in a yellow hoodie stood, clearly waiting for a certain someone to show up.
Notes:
I wanted to explore Maslow's hierarchy of needs with Bucky's pov, since I've been trying to use it with the psyche of both of them, esp y/n, but I'm not sure I pulled it off? While they do trust each other, they don't have a stable roof over their heads. They go out for food, but are still deeply afraid of getting recognized. Y/n isn't in her self-actualization because of her own limitations, while Bucky acknowledges things more clearly because of his old mindsets coming back from a time where all his needs were met...but it feels off?? - I'm writing this a/n mainly as a reminder for myself to look over when I want to practice this again lol
Chapter 58: Happy Birthday, Please Don't Call
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Day 563]
I nearly screamed when Bucky broke through the back window to enter the apartment. His gloved metal hand quickly flew over my mouth, shushin’ me. “She’s outside,” He whispered. Askin’ who was a stupid question – we both knew there was only one ugly bitch in Europe who clung to the compound like a spider to cobwebs. The bigger question was why she hadn’t broken in yet, but I didn’t want to stick around to find out. We both quickly grabbed our bags, destroyed our traces with powder, and in under five minutes Bucky was back to the back window, where I realized a steep drop went from our floor to the ground.
My stomach felt sick. We were really pushin’ our luck here. “How – ”
Bucky shook his head, already putting the lower half of his body outside the sill. “Let me out first, then on my okay I’ll catch you. Just don’t be afraid, alright?”
“Easy for you to say, you’ve got bones o’steel – my bones are just attached to the stuff.” Still, I watched as he made his way down. True to super-soldier form, Bucky landed gracefully without a second wince, like the concrete was a cushion, like he was jumpin’ on a bed. His arms then outstretched, palms wide and fingers beckoning me to jump. Sweet Jesus, Dear Heavenly Lord, Zeus, the president, capitalism, mama –
“It’s alright, I got you,” My stomach dropped to my feet before I felt Bucky grunt in catching me. I wasn’t dead! Still feelin’ my heart in my throat and my body pressed against his, I planted a big kiss to his lips as thanks. His breath hitched. “Thought you hated me.” Bucky muttered.
“I’m still considerin’ it. Thanks, handsome.” I go for another kiss, sighing into his mouth. Bucky returned it briefly before pulling me away and onto my feet.
“Easy, sweetheart. We’re not done yet. You can give me a proper thank you in the next safehouse, alright?” Despite his words, there was no teasing in his voice. If anything, the sergeant was whispery and tense as we started to stick near the walls while sprinting along the neighborhood. The rain wasn’t letting up, and even though it wasn’t stormin’, the drizzle had evolved into a proper quiet shower. “We have to go. Now.”
We were already dressed for the weather, luckily, I just had to throw on a jacket over my clothes while Bucky was perfectly invisible with his coat and cap. No, we just looked like travelin’ students, maybe poor ones but harmless all the same. “We’re goin’ to the station, aren’t we?” I quietly ask, almost not bein’ heard because of the rain. Bucky nodded. That did the opposite of soothing me. “That’s a cop-out, James, you know that HYDRA used to travel with it all the time – ”
“Do you have any better ideas?” His hiss was slightly strangled. “The only thing we can do is be hidden now. It’s all we can afford. At the very least, we can get to the countryside and think of something better there.”
“The countryside? ” That was even worse! Carpathia nearly cost us because of how isolated we were, this was –
“Just for a pitstop. We’ll think of something better once we’re in the clear.”
If I wasn’t so stressed, I would’ve argued with him. But as it was standing, we could either be on a train in the next few hours, or the Raft. The cold and wetness did something terrible to my bones, my whole body feeling like a giant bruise as Bucky pulled me in closer against his chest while we made it halfway to the station. The neighborhood we were staying in was small and poor, so it wasn’t like crimes were the most uncommon thing here. All that said, I still screamed when the sound of a bullet hit my ear.
BANG!
Looking ahead, the concrete streetwalk was marred by a small, steaming black crater where the bullet had hit. Further up, there was a man with a rifle cocked right at us.
“Run!”
Bucky suddenly shoved me in between some buildings that were next to us. Because it was nighttime and raining, I could barely make out the turns in front of me. Looking back, Bucky was sprinting across the street. In Romanian, he yells – “ I’ll see you at the station! ”
BANG!
The sound of another bullet is the thing that makes me sprint down the dark alleyways of the neighborhood. I didn’t know any German, so the signs were useless as I just tried to keep an eye out for no walls – the confines of the buildings, however, made me realize that I was probably back into the city sector since we were now technically outside the neighborhood.
BANG!
Shit, who the hell did that bitch bring? Siberia – the compound had to have been abandoned, but the Soldiers…oh god, she didn’t –
“ There you are! Like a fast little mouse, you run! But then again, you’re rather used to being a lab rat, aren’t you? ”
Speak of the devil and she shall appear.
Her yellow hoodie made me see her despite the darkness of the night, and the drippings of the rain making everything a little blurry in my eyes. I should attack her. Kill her. Run away. But I don’t. Instead, I look at her form and ask –
“ How are your hands? Legs? ”
I snicker at the anger that contorted her face. She stood right across from me in the alleyway. There were more signs after I’d ran for a few minutes, which must mean the station was nearby. “ Do you know how painful it is to get your body attached to metal, Seventeen? ”
Is she being serious.
“ Because that’s what happened to me after your Soldier pulled that stunt! And now I have shunts where there shouldn’t be shunts! ”
Gee, I wonder how that must feel. My fingers go to my jacket pocket and itch for the vibranium knife that rested in there.
“ If you want, I can add a few more. ”
I could see her horrid teeth flash in disgust.
“ Fuck you, Seventeen. ”
My hand brandishes the blade out, its dark blue hilt now black from the night – the last time I used Steve’s gift, it was a terrible miscalculation. I don’t intend to do that again.
“ You wish. ”
[Bucky’s P.O.V.]
BANG!
I know another Winter Soldier when I see one, but his front doesn’t even meet my eyes when I start chasing him down the street. Munich at night was dark, and its twinkling lights hardly did anything for comfort as the rain spat above us, making everything warble in my eyes.
BANG!
Meet her at the train station. That’s what I told my wife. But how could I? I was on one side of the road while the Soldier was on the other, nearly invisible in his black vest and muzzle.
“ Soldier, stop fire! ”
“ Negative. ”
BANG!
That was a stupid idea – I didn’t know his trigger code. The only person in this damn city who knew was currently on the other side of the neighborhood, where the station wasn’t –
A shriek so loudly pierced the air, making the both of us stop. My chest seized, fearing for the worst when I noticed that the other man’s head was now rapidly turning from side to side, clearly trying to find where the source of the noise was coming from.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
I didn't waste time shooting at him while he was distracted, and he ducked behind a nearby car in order to avoid injury. My leg ached as I sprinted across the street, trying to follow the signs to the train station.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
“SHIT – ” My shoulder suddenly made me sway, almost making my whole body fall to the floor as pain burst from my right arm. Looking back, the bastard was trying to gain on me, but didn’t have the same kind of momentum. Come to think of it, he wasn’t a very fast runner – his long legs didn’t compensate for the less intense pace he was going at.
“ Dammit, Soldier, stand DOWN! ” I yelled in Russian but to no avail.
“ Negative. The mission isn’t done, not until you’re dead. ”
BANG!
I get behind cars, eyeing the nearby train station sign. The rain was really coming down on us now, as thunder cracked in the distance. Knowing that a Norse god was responsible for making this escape ten times more difficult pissed me off. I tried again in Russian: “ I’m your brother. Why would HYDRA want you to shoot me? ”
BANG!
“ I don’t know. I don’t care. ”
The bullet sounded closer this time – I restarted my way to the station, this time turning around to run backwards and click my gun into position to start shooting as well. After shooting in his direction a few times, the Soldier suddenly stumbled and clutched his stomach. Wait, no, I shouldn’t –
“ Don’t make me kill you, Soldier. I don’t want that. ”
“ It’s not your job to want – ! ” Just then, another shriek pierced the air. The Soldier looked up again, his narrow gaze suddenly widening as he tried to track the direction of the scream.
BANG! BANG!
I shot perfectly into his hand and hip – the rifle spattered with his blood on the wet pavement, and the other gun attached to his belt burst. The yell that came out of his throat reminded me of how broken I sounded when Steve kept confusing me on the airship. “ Do you care about her!? ” I say when he starts chasing me again down the station, referencing the ugly handler. There, I could see the opening – railroad tracks and a long, empty waiting bay on both sides of the road. “ If you do, stop fighting, Asset! ”
“ Stop!? ” That seemed to piss him off. “ I can’t stop! ” His bleeding body seemed to do nothing to deter him as the white lights of the station finally gave me a clear view of everything. We were both drenched to the bone, his wet hair sticking to his neck as his eyes stared at me with such hate. The nurse was right – we did look like birds of prey. Despite his body being much thinner than mine, the Soldier lunged forward and started throwing punches, one after another. The speed and intensity of his hits made my eyes dart back and forth, left, right, up and down in order to see which directions they were coming from so I could block them.
WHAM!
I managed to land a hit on him, his eye now screwed shut as he cried out again. My throat swallowed the vomit forming in my stomach.
“ Soldier, ” I tried again, knowing it was no use. “ Stand down. This mission is futile – ”
“ Shut UP – !”
WHAM!
The Soldier punched me again, making me resort to my left hand. Despite the blood coming from his hand and abdomen, he kept going like nothing was wrong with his body. Goddamn serum. It’s when another scream pierced the air that his punching stopped again. His whole body froze, like he was afraid. Fuck it –
“ARGH!”
I punched him so hard in the jaw that he fell over, nearing the tracks.
Clack!
There, in the corner of my eye, I saw something rounded and black fall out from him. It was his muzzle, the thing that covered his face up to his eyes. In front of me now was a face that had a hard jaw, snarled nose, scarred and mottled skin – lunging back at me, pulling me onto the ground and onto the tracks with him.
We started to wrestle, our bodies taking turns being pushed against the metal rails of the station. My metal fingers jammed into his eyes, making him yell out. In retaliation, he punched my groin. It was sparring all over again – I’d managed to launch him off me, getting up to punch him again when I noticed his face again, then his body. Then his wrestling stance.
Skin and bones. Tall and lanky. The bastard that could scrap better than anyone was suddenly throwing another punch to my face, seventy years later.
[Back to Central P.O.V.]
Call it ridiculous, but I found a way for the handler’s orders to not reach my ears – scream as loud as I can. Every time she tried to give me an order in Russian, I’d counteract by making noise so whatever receivers in my ears won’t take it. That said, it was harder to land punches because if she got too close, not only could I smell her rancid breath (I’d just eaten, after all), but she could puppet me into doing whatever she wanted. Not only that, it could alert the authorities – I took that gamble, however, thinking that I could trust Bucky with whiskin’ us away before anyone could get us.
“ You bitch! ”
“ Let me go! ”
“ Fuck you! ”
I’d barely managed to follow the signs down to the train station, where the white lights cut through the black rain that surrounded Munich’s streets. My hands and cheeks were bruised, but luckily no bullet wounds. The handler was a terrible shot, anyways, and I managed to grab her gun and throw it away earlier before dragging her by the hair to the train station. Well, hair was too kind of a wording – best call it hairs, with how her strands were thinnin’.
I didn’t even know why I dragged her here, just guided by my anger and seventy years worth of rage. “ You’re going to die here, ” I say, feeling empty as the station gleamed brighter and brighter. “ You’re going to die on these tracks the way you should have gone a year ago. ”
“ Oh, you mean when the Asset couldn’t do it? How is he, by the way? Did he miss me? He always was my favorite, the most handsome – ”
WHAM!
I dirtied my boot with her bloody scalp. What a waste of leather. “ You bitch! You know it’s true! Are you jealous, maybe? Is that it, hm? That he chose not to kill me? ”
“ He spared you because he didn’t want to kill anymore, not because he felt something for you. ”
She snorted. “ I see, I see. And how would he feel, if you killed me? ”
Just for fun, I kicked her jaw. A tooth fell out. I’m surprised it’s real, but it’s yellow enough to be genuine. “ He’d have no qualms. ” Would he? Recallin’ the river, how wide-eyed and upset he looked when I nearly killed that female agent.
But she hurt me. That at least deserves a curve stomp.
BANG!
The sound of a bullet goin’ off made my grip lessen as we finally got onto the steps of the station. My heart fell to my stomach as I saw Bucky wrestling a man on the tracks, but before I could yell for him, the handler got up and lunged me to the ground again. While the men were on the left tracks, the girls were on the right, both going back and forth over who would get slammed against the rails.
WHAM!
The handler’s filthy hands slammed my scalp against the metal rods, making me cry out in agony. A single, searing jolt connected across my body, from my brain to my tailbone.
“NO!”
Bucky’s voice echoed across the station where he was wrestling a man to the ground. A Soldier, if the vest could be trusted. The man kept trying to get out from under the sergeant, fighting tooth and nail to get to our direction based on how his arms were flailing. On his end, the sergeant was using his metal arm to keep the bastard in place. The Soldier’s long limbs terrified me.
“ You love him, don’t you? ” The handler’s hot breath made me gag. “ Your Soldier? How about we strike a deal? You come with me, and I’ll call him off. That way, we all finish this in one piece. ”
Hell no. We both agreed that we’d rather die than go back to HYDRA…but…“ Just me? Not him? ”
“ Just you. ”
“ Prove it. ”
She tilted her head up, whistling at the Soldier to get his attention. Suddenly he stiffened under Bucky, who practically suffocated him with his elbow to his throat. “ Remember your sister, Soldier? ” The handler called out in Russian. “ If she surrenders, you stop wrestling with your brother and come to me. ”
The Soldier didn’t speak to that, but Bucky did. His voice was cold as he barked my name. “ Don’t be stupid, don’t – ”
“ Do we have a deal? ” She looked at me for reference as the two men watched, Bucky’s yells getting more and more uncontrolled by the moment as the Soldier beneath him itched for action, going back to writhing and kicking.
I look back up at her. “ Deal. ”
WHAM!
The blinding lights shadowed the Soldier’s low-hung face as he got up, using the last of his fighting strength to knock Bucky over and shoving him so hard that he launched to the other side of the rails. Then, to my horror, the man took a gun that had been thrown aside and forgotten from his scuffle and aimed it at his fellow Soldier.
“ Don’t – ! ” My body jolted again from another push to the railing as Bucky quickly got back up.
BANG!
Bucky’s flesh shoulder was already bleeding, but now there was a bullet to his thigh as well. I turned to the handler, who smiled serenely. “ You bitch – ”
“ Hush, now. He’s technically left alone, isn’t he? ” The Winter Soldier made his way to railing, the side of his cheek that I could see swollen purple and bruised beyond recognition. I couldn’t get a decent look on the other side of his face as his face was lowered. “ There we are. Reunited at last. One out of two is better than none, hm? Now, be a good Soldier and – ”
WHAM!
I was suddenly punched so hard that my vision went blurry for a moment, stumbling back just enough for the handler to lose her grip when she got punched in the face as well.
“ WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU – SHIT – ” She cursed. I could suddenly hear Bucky’s voice as my arm was harshly jerked forward, launching me straight off the railing and back onto the station platform.
“Holy shit – ” I felt Bucky’s arms sweeping me up into a tight hug before I could see his worried face. Because of his shot thigh, we were both leaning against and holding each other up. Quickly, I take my vibranium blade back out, now bloodstained, pointing it to where an inevitable fight – but there never was one.
“ You brute, let me go! Let me – LET ME GO, I ORDER YOU, SOLDIER, YOU’RE JUST AN ASSET, LISTEN TO ME – I ORDER YOU TO – ”
But he didn’t move. His legs stayed firmly put as the two of them positioned themselves right onto the rails. Even more shockingly, he kept staring right at me, his narrowed gaze focusing solely on my face. His brows were frowning, but his eyes were wide with no heat in them. Familiar. Familial.
The sound of a train whistling in the distance did nothing to break me out of my thoughts. The horrible realization that came crashing down on me: The reports of an ex-HYDRA asset lurking around Eastern Europe weren't of Bucky.
It was of my brother.
And just as my mind was filled with a million nauseating questions, just as Bucky tried to reach out and save him, the incoming train ran through both of their bodies.
Notes:
tried to make a jack antonoff pun to cope w the fact that I can't title things for the life of me lol
Chapter 59: I Know the End/She's Always a Woman
Notes:
Just a Travel Interlude
I seriously need to up my name game to things that aren't just songs I think sound cool from tiktok
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
I made a deal with HYDRA in order to keep that brat safe.
From the moment she was born I deemed her an unwanted piece. Honestly, before that, when our folks tried to ease me into the idea of havin’ a baby brother or sister, I gagged – especially at the idea of a sister.
To my displeasure, she didn’t die after bein’ born. When my parents called me up to their room, where my mama was in bed with a bundle of blankets in her lap, I prepared myself for the worst. Then, the worst didn’t happen.
“This is grandma’s baby,” My mama lied. “She just wants us to take care of her for a while.”
Mind you, I was a baby myself and bought lies easily. So for the first few weeks of my sister’s life, I just ignored her. She was grandma’s baby, after all. She’ll come by and pick her up once she is done doin’ whatever she was doin’ that needed to get done. Of course, that was before it hit me that:
My grandma’s dead.
That’s when I realized the horrible truth that I was, in fact, related to a sissy. Naturally, I coped the best way I knew how:
“Don’t sit on your baby sister, she’ll die!”
In my defense, she was very cushiony.
I realized real quick things weren’t fair with a girl in the house. Suddenly all my folks’ attention was on her , all of my daddy’s time was for her , and I was completely forgotten.
“You’re a boy,” My old man explained while bouncin’ my baby sister on his knee. She was wearin’ another new dress that my mama made her – mind you, she’s goin’ to grow out of it in a few weeks. A waste of linens, one that my mama would have tanned me for suggestin’ wantin’ something new to wear. “It’s not manly to be spoiled for too long. Girls are a gift, though, so they can keep gettin’ sugar for longer. Ain’t that right, precious?” She had the audacity to coo.
I should’ve given her the cow’s sick milk when I had the chance.
When I was seven I got the pox. I don’t remember much, just that I was playing out in the fields one day, and when I looked up, the sky was black and my knees gave out.
No one was allowed to be near me. The doctor came every so often, but other than that, I wasn’t allowed to see anyone but my mama. For weeks, it was like that, and that’s not even mentioning how my face looked, with all the little dry patches littered across my face.
“Oh, you’re still a handsome boy,” my mama crooned. To her credit, she tried to make things normal. But how was stayin’ inside all day normal, when everyone was outside playin’ games and havin’ fun without you? I hated stayin’ in bed all day. Like my pa said, bein’ spoiled is a girl thing. I ain’t a girl and I didn’t want to stay inside like a damsel in distress.
“You still sick’m?” A squeaky voice woke me up one day. My head was spinning a hundred miles a minute, but I recognized that chippy tone anywhere. There, lookin’ like a goddamn cupcake, my little sister sat on the stool next to my bed. Another new butterfly-blue dress, courtesy of my old man finding some fine fabric at the store. We didn’t have much money, but my sister always had dresses.
“Apparently.”
“Oh,” She played with the ruffles at her dress’ hem. Her little lip jutted into a pout. “Want me to sing you a song? Daddy does that when my tummy hurts.”
“That’s because he gets you too many rock candies and you eat ’em all in one sittin’.”
She blinked in confusion. “Ain’t I s’posed to eat ’em?”
Not in one sitting, you stupid baby. “Just sing, you spoiled sissy.”
“Kay-kay,” my sister then positioned herself to sit all straight and cross-legged, like the princesses in her story books. “ Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine… ” She sang until I fell back asleep. When I woke up, there was some hot tea that was served in a tin mug next to my bed. I knew it was my sister’s because it was blue – my mama was surprised later, since it was some forgotten sick tea in the back of the pantry. The medicinal herbs helped my voice lessen its croakiness.
“Good instincts,” my mama muttered.
I used to think all girls could sing, since my sister could. Her voice was clear, high-pitched, and sweet. Turns out it was only because my old man taught her, which later made me bitter – why wasn’t I taught how to sing?
“Because your job ain’t to be pretty,” My old man explained to me later. He passed me a shovel. “But don’t worry, it’s even more important.” The words still didn’t comfort me much when I spent the whole day covered in sweat while my sister got to cook with my mother inside the kitchen all day. She complained about getting her little hands burnt when I got cuts from the wood. Even if she’s only six, she’s spoiled.
Our folks never truly got along. Don’t get it twisted, they loved us, made sure the house was always running for us, but their actual marriage was a trip and a half. It was after a bad argument on Mother’s Day that my sister and I spoke about, only once in our lives. “I don’t wanna get married,” She mumbled, cradling the now-broken homemade soap she’d spent all day makin’. I’d helped her make a card and listened to her make up a song the whole time we colored, but it was never sung. We were currently upstairs, on my bed, hidin’ from our yellin’ parents.
“Me neither,” I agreed. “Girls ain’t nothin’ but trouble anyways.”
That made her glare at me. “Daddy started the argument, not momma.”
“The fight wouldn’t have started if momma wasn’t married to him.”
“That’s not her fault!”
“Nuh-uh, she could’ve said no!”
“No, she couldn’t!”
“Yes, she could!”
When our mama passed away, she wouldn’t stop crying. I cried too, but only a few hours after the funeral where no one could see me. Then I took a bath, ate dinner, cried some more, and slept it off. By next mornin’, I was perfectly fine.
But she wouldn’t shut up. I want my mama, I want my mama, I want my mama… like that would somehow bring her back. My papa let her, always kissin’ her cheeks and agreein’ with her, but it didn’t change how she wailed like a baby. It was stupid – when I cried, I got nothin’ from my old man. Only my mama let me bury my face in her lap and let me sob – and that’s only if she wasn’t so busy; or when that little brat wasn’t hoggin’ her.
“Shut up already!” I eventually yelled at her over dinner when she hiccuped that the soup didn’t taste the same as when momma made it. I then smacked her mouth. Instead of sobbin’, she just stared. Then screamed, and hit me back.
After an hour of wrestlin’, we laid on the floor, her snifflin’, me scratched-up, for about five minutes. Then we cleaned up the mess we made so that our old man didn’t discover what we did and hit us for it.
When the soil started to dry up, and the dust storms made us all hide inside, when things cleared up there was a big problem. There wasn’t much food to go around. If at all. Because of that, meat got expensive, and even when we had the budget for it, it would be skinny and dry. I was a teen by then, and workin’ with my father to make money, while my sister tried to replace our mother. Thing is, our mother never had to make soup out of nothing. Luckily, I got us a boon.
“Why a bucket?” She asked as we trekked out into the more greener plains an hour away from our house. I made her carry a big bucket.
“The neighbors get their vegetables from here. If they can get some, so can we.”
“But it’s all weeds…” She scrunched her nose at the dandelions.
My face twitched. “Do you want to starve? Then shut up and pick. Spoiled sissy.”
“It ain’t spoiled to not want to eat weeds.”
“It is when we don’t got another option.”
Eventually, she stopped whining and we’d pick whatever things we could eat in the grass. Pokeweed, young thistles, tumbleweed, burdock. My sister would sing whenever she was out of my sight so I knew I didn’t lose her. Sometimes she lets me pick the song.
And that was the other thing – she had options. My daddy let her go to classes, fill her brain with books instead of wages as long as she could make dinner and keep up with her work. He’d somehow make room in the budget for her slate and chalk, for her single book and pencil. “She needs to be smart,” he explained. “Men can become rich while bein’ dumb, but a stupid girl is as good as dead.”
It wasn’t fair. I could be smart. I liked riddles. I could read more if I had the time, but it all went to her. Her, her, her. And for what? She was gonna get married and push out babies when she’s my age, so it’s just a waste of time for her to do such a thing.
She’d always come back late. The walk to and from the school house was an hour, and the sky would be black by then. My father would always make her walk home with someone, which always confused me – if she wasn’t such a sissy and walked home alone at night, she’d be back faster. But I’d always be tired and grimy while her blue dress (she’d only get new dresses because our father said it was important for her to fit in, but when we were low on money she wore the same things she had since she was ten) was still clean and only slightly wrinkled from the walk. “You hungry?” She’d ask.
“Duh.”
My sister would always roll her eyes at that, but then get to work in the kitchen. When she wasn’t looking, I’d steal looks at her slate and book. “If you want lessons, I can teach you.”
“I don’t need ’em. I can read and write like you.”
“Can you add big numbers? Multiply?”
“Can you?”
“Duh.”
Over dinner she’d teach me stuff – state names, math, songs. She tried to teach me science, but we always end up bickering when we did:
“Elements can’t have electricity in them! They’re not wires!”
“Yes they can! They’re in cathode tubes!”
“What the heck is a cathode? It sounds stupid.”
Her eyes would darken. “You’re stupid. I wish Marie Curie was my sister instead of you. At least she’s a scientist.”
“Girls can’t be scientists, idiot.”
“Yes they can!”
“Cannot!”
“Can too!”
Then we had the same cat fight we had like always, and like always we’d clean up and act like nothing happened
It was stupid, how hopeless she was. I’d have to steal food when times were tough. Punch people when they get too close. Sleep outside her room when the doors were unlocked and unsecure. She doesn’t even appreciate it – I’d bought her the only lock we had and she refused to unlock her door when she got mad. “I knew you were goin’ to punch me. No one punches a door like that just for a pinch on the nose.”
“I do.” She didn’t believe me. Whatever. It’s not like I care about her anyways. "I thought you were goin' to kill me, with how you were makin' the hinges crack." It's not my fault she insulted me first.
“Then you’re stupid.” I say over the dinner she made. That made her teeth grind. “You can be a bitch all you want, but it’s either me or the rest of the world, and the world won’t be as nice as me. If you don't want a beating, don't give me a reason to make you purple.”
We ate separately after that. I still made sure no one got too close, as my mother told me a long time ago about wandering men, but I thought it was stupid. It didn’t even matter anyways, when she found a new family. Then she’ll be their problem. She’ll teach them how to read. Make them good food. Sing. Be interesting. Bullshit.
Then our old man passed, and things went to hell quick. My sister sang at his funeral, her pretty voice all sad and low and sniffly, then never spoke again for weeks. She just stayed in bed all day, lazier than ever. Since school was done, it was time for her to either get a job or get married, but she just did neither. And when I tried to say it?
“You don’t get it. You never did.”
“Don’t get wantin’ to die? Yeah, I guess not. Guess you’re not as smart as you think you are if that’s how you think.”
That triggered her eyes to snap open properly for the first time in forever. She grabbed a dull blade and chased me with it, knowin’ full well she doesn’t have shit in terms of hurtin’ me. For hours we’d argue after I worked, and this time we didn’t have a scary pa to stop us. “I think there’s something wrong with my head,” She murmured once, for whatever reason going to me for comfort. I’m not her mama. “I want to die.”
“Don’t be a wuss. Life’s always gonna be like this.”
“Then why don’t you leave me to die?” She challenged. “Why stay?”
Recallin’ how she used to teach me at late nights, sang during hot foraging days, made me medicine when I was sick, and was the only one who got me anything for my birthday…I really had no clue. It’s not like she did anything useful. “Because I promised our parents.”
In a way I was glad the war happened. I got some food in me for once, and I never had to see her again. Knowing her, she’d realize bein’ a nurse is different than learning the alphabet, and that signing up was a mistake. I always meant to write to her, send her money since I knew she wouldn’t be makin’ any, but never got around to doing it. When I finally started to eat better meals, I wondered how they compared to her food. My favorite was still the chili she made, with the cheese toast – back when we could afford milk, o’ course. Whatever. I can buy stuff now.
Then I got taken. HYDRA had a secret base camp in the middle of the fields, where the soldiers I worked with travelled over and suddenly disappeared after hours of waitin’. Of course, no one knew what was takin’ them, but the rumors were catchin’ on like wildfire. And my team, like all others, tried to go and investigate, to save our fellow men. It didn’t work. The last time I remembered the year, it was 1945.
I’d woken up, on my knees and hands bound behind my back. I was in a small, grey room with a single lightbulb flickering above me. A man, Zola, as I’d later learn, peered over me like I was a rare bird. “Good thing you woke up, I would have dumped you and your sister out if you didn’t.”
Sister? I hadn’t heard from her in three years. “Who the hell are you? What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Was I a prisoner of war now?
“Language,” the German purred. He had a nerve considerin’ he was half my height and in perfect kicking position. Not to mention bald and ugly. Sure, I had the pox, but I didn’t have a bad face. Unlike him, who was ugly – the man was short, fat, with a tiny mouth and a baldin’ head. I was tempted to laugh. I did. “What is so funny?”
“You’re just…Jesus, you’re ugly as sin, ain’t you? No wonder you’re evil – gotta balance the bad with the bad – ARGH!”
ZAP!
He pressed something and I felt a harsh, prickling jolt across my body. Like a thousand large needles in my skin, my muscles, my flesh. “Since you want to be a child,” Zola hissed, then opened the nearby door. An arm poked in and shoved something towards us.
Sour sickness fills my stomach as I see her thrown across from me. She’s limp, wrapped shittily in gauze and bleeding from her back. A blue hospital gown was worn as a shift, the same shade of sky blue our pa’s funeral shroud was. The smell of her blood makes me vomit on the floor to my left.
“We just got our hands on her the other day – a miracle, really,” Zola continued. “Two siblings of the same blood type? Orphans? A perfect match for experiments. A backup, a second lung or heart…perfect prisoners.”
My eyes are still glued to the floor, where she lay. Gray as the concrete, bleeding from the nose. She looked just like our old man when they showed us his corpse.
Watch out for each other. I used to think that line of words was redundant. But now I feel the ghost of my father watching me.
“Let her go,” I quickly say. “Just let her go – ” I meant what I said to her – cruel truth, my sister was weak. Pathetically so. She never was the kind of girl to last in a fight. And in prison? In a compound of only men? No, I start to gag again.
“Patience. I figured you’d be amenable, but who’s to say you’ll be like that for long? Family ties are only so strong. I really have no intention of letting you two go – ”
“Why not make a deal? I’ll be whatever you want as long as you don’t let her die, or get taken advantage of, or – ”
“Whatever I want?”
“Whatever you want.” My jaw locks. How could I even pull this off, when the stakes were so high? The result wasn’t just failure if I wasn’t smart. It could be murder, rape, torture – I started to miss my parents. The shitty house. I wish I had my folks to take care of this. I wanted to go home. “Just keep her alive.” The man nodded, looking up thoughtfully.
“Alright. You have a deal.”
I don’t know who she is. I don’t know who I am. The handlers shocked me when I saw someone get hit. She wore a blue shift, stumbling when she fell – something about it felt wrong. Not because I cared about her, but…it just felt wrong. Like something was broken. A deal? A promise? They strapped me to the chair and stabbed my brain from the inside out when I asked.
Then I was woken up. The handler asked me to join her in Germany. Kill a rogue brother. I did. I didn’t like it. He was clearly holding back. His punches were weak, not the same as we once sparred. Then a shriek pierced the sky – what? Was that her? Wait, who is ‘her’?
You care about her don’t you!? Then stop fighting!
Who? The handler? Something was wrong, very wrong. I’m not supposed to be here…but I had a mission. I had to fight. It didn’t matter if they had my sister.
Sister? What?
There were more shrieks. More agony. More moments of freezing. It cost me some bullet wounds. Shit. Why was I losing it? I had to be successful, successful, otherwise they’ll –
Dammit, listen to me, private! Snap out of it!
What?
I wrestled with him, and for whatever reason, he looked…sad. He kept saying something…a name? Who the hell was he? There was no one here but me. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.
“ARGH!”
Suddenly another shriek, coming from the other side of the station, on the other train tracks. It’s a different shade of blue from the compound. She was getting body-slammed and roughed to oblivion, her body even seizing up.
They shouldn’t be doing that. We had a deal.
What fucking deal?
You know what deal.
No, I don’t –
“Remember your sister, soldier? If she surrenders, you stop wrestling with your brother and come to me.”
Sister . I don’t have a brother. This man – he’s not what I was promised. They promised they’d keep her safe if I did what they wanted. But here she was. Slammed. Roughed up by some ugly bitch in yellow. I was supposed to protect her – how long has it been since I protected her?
WHAM!
The handler screeched when I punched her, but I didn’t care. I punched my sister first, to make it look like I was targetin’ her, but then I punched the other woman too. Shoving her back to the safe side of the station, my fellow Winter Soldier did something that confused me – hugged her. Tight. His face looked familiar, in the split second his brows let up.
The Soldier loved my sister. God. What terrible taste she had. Looking at her, she was wearin’ a baby blue sweater. Pastel, like the dress she once wore when she sang to me when I had the pox. Not sky blue, like my father’s shroud. Not like the dress at the compound. Her skin was…radiant. There was baby fat back to her cheeks. A softness in her eyes as she looked up at the Asset in front of her, then hardening again when she brandished her blade at me.
I was half-tempted to laugh. It’s not like she’d ever beat me. Thinking about it, I could recall the chambers of Siberia…the other Winter Soldiers were asleep. Probably as good as dead. If I let this handler die…if I die, meaning one less Soldier…then she’d be free. A broken bargain finally gone.
I look at her. The man next to her was a freed Soldier. Good. He could at least protect her dumb ass. Looking at my sister’s face…she looked a lot more like our mother than I thought. I always thought she was ugly, but I guess mind-wipes helped clear your head of predispositions. Predispositions. She taught me that word. I must've loved her very much.
Could she teach me her name if I asked?
[Bucky’s P.O.V. - Day 565]
I don’t know where this boxcar is going, but it’s not like I can ask now. After running as fast as I could for almost an hour, catching up to an outgoing train with her in my arms, I just jumped into whatever was open.
The nurse was quiet at first. Looking at the mangled body of the Soldier, fixating on his broken head. It hit the wall on impact, a juicy snapping sound echoing in the station before his body went limp. The handler was thrown to the side, undoubtedly dead. The top half of his head was crushed, only red paint and grounded flesh. The second half, though – she kept staring at his mouth, clean, scarred, slightly open like he was about to say something. I kept calling her name, but she wouldn’t listen. Eventually, I had to lift her.
“No, no, NO, NO! MURDERERS! MURDERERS! MURDERERS! ”
It was like she was in her own world, how her throat wouldn’t stop screeching at the top of her lungs and clawing at my back to let her go. MURDERERS. MURDERERS. MURDERERS.
“NO, NO, no, oh GOD, no… ”
A broken, hoarse wail escaped her throat as I carried us out of the station before police could catch us. I just kept running, running until I saw grass instead of pavement, until the sky turned bright again and the rain stopped in lieu of morning dew. I don’t even know when she stopped using her words, just that she kept crying until her throat made weak, dying noises like a wounded animal.
Now we were in a shitty boxcar, going a million miles a minute, and she’s been hardly responsive. “Sweetheart,” I tried again. “You have to eat something. It’s been a day now.”
Where she was laying in the corner of the boxcar, she looked practically dead all curled-up. I attempted to get up, wincing as I did. “Shit – ” The private’s bullet did fuck-all to my shoulder and thigh. I still couldn’t believe it was him. I thought Steve rescued all of the soldiers that HYDRA initially held in ’43. He saved me and the Commandos, after all. I’m guessing they must’ve transported him –
Suddenly the nurse gets up. Her hair is a mess – when I refused to let go of her, she started clawing at her face, her eyes, and then her hair. The skin of her pretty cheeks were now red and scarred with light lines. Her eyes were blood-red. Immediately, I forget my injuries. “You hungry, doll? I can – ”
My wife didn’t say anything, instead just reaching out for her pack. With perfectly still hands, she extracted the first-aid kit she’d made in Carpathia. Homemade with stolen cleaner, bandages, medication, parts of a sewing kit…I wince as she starts tugging my shirt off. “Alright, alright. I can do it.” Then I took my shirt off. Even though it was a waste, because I was a super soldier, she started to patch me up. With tweezers, she managed to take the bullet from both my shoulder and my thigh. All robotic movements – the wiping down, the extraction, the cleaning and wrapping. Her pupils were small, unfocused as the sun flashed them to me.
The Soldier must’ve terrified her. After all, when was the last time she’d seen one? We’d always bullied the test subjects during our training. When they acted out of line. And now she saw one help her…her head must be spinning. I know mine was, and I actually knew the guy, unlike her.
That was the other thing – he just kept staring at her, like he was curious. I recognized it because I had the same face when I bumped into Steve during missions for HYDRA as the Soldier. I got slapped for it, but my reflection still looked back at me with soft confusion. Someone I once knew, a brother-in-arms, a…
…oh.
I’d never let one of my sisters sign up to this war if I could help it, I once said over lunch. My bunkmate next to me chuckled, that familiar Texan twang echoing in my head.
Seriously? I practically kicked that kid outta the damn house! For once, she wasn't my responsibility, meanin' I don't gotta share my wages. She’s a nurse now, meanin’ she’s other boys’ problems.
Exactly. You aren’t worried in the least, Texas?
He stopped chewing. Looked down at his food like it wasn’t nearly as appetizing anymore. …My sister’s smart, Brooklyn. She can take care of her damn self. She can – she can handle it.
Looking back at him as the Soldier…he had the same intense gaze as my wife did when she was angry. The same mouth. The same brows. But while he looked aged through the war and the compound, she looked unmarred and untouched. A curiosity.
Oh god.
Suddenly I heard more sniffling above me. Her jaw was barely set, barely holding it together. I tried to reach out, to comfort her, but she hissed and pulled away. The nurse’s hands were shaking. “Can – can I keep these?”
“Keep what?”
“The – ” She swallowed, hot tears slipping from her dead eyes. “The bullets. Can I keep them.”
I nod. How could I not? That’s probably the last of someone she loved (-ish). Or, at least, that’s what I thought as she broke down into tears again, this time in my arms. Until she spoke a few hours after, when the sky was dark again and the boxcar hummed on top of the rails. “I’ll do it, sergeant.”
“Do what, sweetheart?”
“Kill you. If you turn back into the Soldier. I’ll put you out of your misery. I promise.”
Notes:
pov practice but I don't think this could even be called a redemption since I didn't see it as such? Idk how perspective interpretation works clearly lol
Y/n 🤝 Y/n/b
Laughing at ugly people/ having a bklyn to their tx
Chapter 60: Glass Child: The Final Safehouse
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Day 590]
“Where are we?”
“Bucharest.”
It’d been a few days since we left Germany. I think. I don’t know. I’ve mostly been curled up in bed. I haven’t had it in me to go out with Bucky, even though he keeps asking me. At some point he stopped. This is the first time I asked him where we were, though.
Our safehouse looked more like a shitty dollhouse that expired during the Romanian revolution. Yellowed walls, broken tiles, weak lights…it wasn’t a safehouse at all, I think. The world’s smallest two-seat couch, accompanied with the world’s smallest table. Covered in newspapers. I don’t even know when or where he got them. I'll call things as rooms - living room, bedroom - but there really wasn't much compartmentalization. Just my weak attempt at privacy since the place was just one small, shitty studio.
I hadn’t been cooking. Or cleaning. Or reading…or much else. It’s been too tiring to try. My chest already roils whenever Bucky helps me sit up, I don’t think I can handle much else at the moment. He doesn’t help me sit up all the time, since I can move on my own to the bathroom and kitchen, but whenever he thinks my back’s been in one position for too long he tries to move me like a doll. Something about that reminds me of HYDRA, making me move without my permission. Something in me wanted to scream whenever he did, but my back ached less after he finished. This time I finally asked him where we were.
“Is this the same safehouse?” A redundant question. It’s obviously not.
Bucky shook his head. “New place. An actual apartment. Figured it’d be nice to have somewhere that’s actually quiet. Like Italy, you were onto something there.” His voice was light in a half-hearted attempt to make me talk.
If my voice wasn’t so hoarse, if I didn’t feel gutted from the inside out, I would have laughed. Italy felt like an eternity ago. The sergeant’s voice breaks me out of my thoughts. “You hungry?”
Why does he always ask me that? I shake my head. If it were up to me, I’d starve. Hell, I tried – but Bucky started feeding me by hand, so now whenever he comes by my bed once a day with a plate, I eat it after it gets cold.
My mind is always going back to the station. Flashes of red, flashes of white. Bucky said something about the handler and him being untraceable, so it just seemed like a lone terrorist attack.
“...terrorist?” I croak. Is that what the people think of my –
“No, no,” Bucky quickly backtracked. Like he realized what mistake he made with his wording. It didn’t matter as my eyes watered again. “It’s – shit, no – they don’t even have his face, sweetheart, his skull was so badly crushed that – ” He cursed again as I curled in on myself. “...your brother’s a fallen soldier in the eyes of the public. Nothing more. Like me. That’s not so bad, is it?”
No, but it was still his head crushed against the wall. His blood. His mouth. His lip was still open, like he was about to speak. Speak with no eyes attached to his body. How clean his lower mandibles looked. Cryo maintained his face.
The night wasn’t better. Bucky would always debate on whether or not he should sleep with me. He wanted to, I could tell he did, but every night I’d always have the same dreams – of the handler’s yellow jacket, the howl of the train, the deal that was struck…it always ended with the image of his crushed head. Of me waking up, screaming and sobbing.
Bucky tried to comfort me at first, but at some point I screamed at him, something mean and foul in Russian, ordering him to get out. Repeatedly. Screaming at the top of my lungs, until my voice was scratchy, hoping to hell that at the moment that he’d be done with me, that he’d leave me and abandon me to die in this bed. To go somewhere else in the world to hide. But he didn’t. He didn’t like it, but he didn't leave – his eyes would get wide for a moment, then go back to a deep frown, then his jaw would lock as he took a deep breath and slept on the couch for the rest of the night.
It’s ironic – when we first met, it was me who slept there.
I’d sob a lot. When I woke up, I’d cry. When I slept, I cried. I’d wake up crying, I’d fall asleep crying. Then I took a bath break where Bucky would force me to keep the door open – his old fears of me drowning myself from Carpathia came back, and honestly, he was justified in his fears. I refused to look at my reflection. I haven't combed my hair in a while now. I’d eat something, mostly water, and go back to my curled up position. Sometimes, if I had the energy to stand for five minutes, I’d wander to the kitchen to boil a kettle.
“ Hey, hey – ” Bucky’s voice quickly elevated into something panicked and breathy. “That’s not – sweetheart, do you want something? Hungry?” I pointed at the hot water bottle behind him. His chest visibly lowered in exhalation as his shoulders relaxed. “Okay. I can do that for you. Just go back to bed, okay? You want a book?”
A book? The last thing I wanted to do was read. The bedstand was piled with books, though, of things he thought I’d like. Modern Neuroscience by Stephen Strange. History of Biomedical Engineering by Bruce Banner. My old Grey’s anatomy book. He’d gotten them secondhand, stolen, traded, something. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d burn them all. But since I didn’t have the energy to, I just shoved them under my bed where I couldn’t see them.
Whenever I did, Bucky would just bend down and place them back onto my stand. At some point he added a pencil there, like that would somehow help. His hope was embarrassingly pathetic.
It’s not like he was doing better too. I’ve drowned out his own nightmares, his own screams, as time passed here. I never even noticed when he did have a bad night, or a bad day, until I saw him walk past my bed with tired eyes or messy hair. When I looked up, and he noticed, Bucky would just ruffle my hair as an attempt to not make me worry. Lucky for him I wasn’t. It was after a random grocery run that I finally noticed how terrible he looked. The sound of plastic bags being carried behind the door roused me, for some reason. That’s when I realized – oh, right. I was hungry. I haven't eaten since…the last grocery run. That was last week. Mostly water. Mostly nothing. Bucky noticed my twitch before I could hide back to bed, and gently pulled me out. That’s when I noticed he wasn’t faring much better than me.
“C’mon, open up.” He threw me a peach, which just landed on the floor. I stared at it for a second before picking it up, then stared at him. It wasn’t just the messy hair, or the tired eyes. His eyes were perpetually downwards now. “You want salt with that?”
I didn’t want to deal with the pains of digestion, but he was suddenly grabbing a stool for me to sit on. I shivered, not used to being out of bed since the move. “I’ll make you something warm if you eat it,” He mentioned. Taking his jacket off, I notice his shoulder. His metal one, where the skin around it was angrier and redder than usual. Bucky’s arm must be killing him. I’d sometimes massage it when it got bad. He must’ve been suffering from it for a while now, and if the scratch marks could be trusted, clearly trying and failing to self-soothe.
An old part of me wanted to help. I ignored her.
A few days later, I noticed more things at my bedside. My little tin box, that held my makeup. My brush. My sewing kit. Then new things. A random coin. A small sample bottle of perfume. A chess piece. I felt stupid when I woke, always moving my eyes straight to the bedside to see if the sergeant added something new. When he didn’t, I’d turn my back to the table and fall back asleep.
[Bucky’s P.O.V. - Day 600]
I wonder if the passengers on the Titanic felt like this. When I was a kid, it was all over the news, even years after it happened. If the boat split in half, if there were ghosts in the ocean. One of the painful things about living in the modern world is no longer having the wonder of questions from childhood – apparently they found the damn thing, and even have videos of it. I never looked it up, since it seemed rude to look at a mass corpse. I did read about it, though, since there’s a lot more information about the whole thing now – apparently the musicians of the ship sank with the boat, playing music to her and the dying to sleep before drowning themselves.
Sometimes I’d hear singing, rocking herself in the bed. It’s been more than a month, and she’s been wasting away there. I don’t think I’ve heard her properly speak since last week, when she finally asked where she was. I don’t think it properly hit her that we were back in Romania, not when she keeps staring at the books in confusion, as if wondering why they’re written in Romanian.
But back to the metaphor – I felt like I was a musician on a dying ship. The bullets did hell to my body. Not because I didn’t recover – being a super soldier meant that if you stripped me right now, you’d see no scars on my body safe for my missing arm – but because of the pain flashes I’d get. Something about my shoulder getting shot reminded my body of when my arm was torn off into chunks when I fell from the train back in the war, and now I could barely sleep at night. That, piled with how loudly the nurse screamed in her sleep, and it was a cocktail of pain all around.
I thought I could try to comfort the nurse first – I wasn’t a healer, but I hated how broken she sounded. I’d climb into bed and shush her when she’d whimper in the night, but she’d either pull away or keep being in pain. Eventually, my wife snapped in Russian when I ran my fingers through her hair.
“ GET AWAY! GET AWAY! GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT! GET OUT! I HATE SOLDIERS! I HATE ALL OF YOU! EVERYONE I LOVE BECOMES ONE! GET THE HELL OUT! ”
I drank my weight’s worth in plum brandy that night. Somehow the reminder that I couldn’t get drunk hurt me more than her words. At least she said she loved me.
I hid the knives and the guns under the floorboards, along with our travel packs. It felt scummy, taking her blue blade away from her again. But again, I couldn’t trust her with it – this time not because she could hurt me, but herself. And I couldn’t even trust my own will to live at the moment with the news of her brother being plastered on every crime forum – it just felt like another failure.
I tried to save him. Before I even knew they were related, I tried to save the private. He looked so serene just staring at her, that I was buffered, confused. Then my arm tried to reflex, save him from the large train that came in through the corner of my eye –
WHAM!
It was so fast. One long, kinetic movement that reminded me of how a body of a target would move once killed through impact alone. The Winter Soldier killed another Winter Soldier as part of his sin list. And then I saw his censored head across those goddamn news channels…I specifically brought in newspapers that didn’t have them. It wasn’t considered worldwide news, since neither the body of him or the handler could be identified (HYDRA’s track-covering kicks in again), but the local German stations were all abuzz. It’s been a month and they’re still talking about the goddamn thing. I was half-tempted to make an exception to my no-harming civilians rule if it meant breaking into one of the radio hosts’ houses, destroying their stuff, and making it clear what they shouldn’t be talking about.
The only reason why I didn’t was because I was worried she’d drown herself before I got back.
I thought it was a goddamn Christmas miracle when she got up to go to the kitchen, only for her to start boiling water. For all I knew, the nurse was trying to kill herself with it, or do something reckless. Same with bathing, same with eating. She hardly ate, and there was no blood in the sheets that week. In some twisted way, I was glad she stayed in bed. All I knew was to kill people. I couldn’t help others equally depressed for the life of me, but at least my failures didn’t jeopardize her comfort.
Only her sanity. Her health. Her mental health. Her will to live. Your will to live. Your already impossibly-high hit list. You’re nothing more than a serial killer who can’t seem to get it through your head that dreams are just dreams. What you fantasized in Siberia with her was just you being loopy. This is Siberia. This is the cell. You missed the old version of you and her so badly? Here. Have fun.
I’d read and re-read my memory book, over and over again, but specifically to a certain point. Before HYDRA took me. Before the horrible war took my life from me. But even that wasn’t a comfort – I started to fully avoid anything that involved Captain America. Anything that involved my family. Anything with the Commandos. Nothing but trouble. That hardly left much for my head to work with. I couldn’t think much, though – not because the nurse would sometimes weep so intensely that I could tell she was too out of it to care, so loudly that I knew the thin walls could possibly pick up on it. Miscarriage, I once told myself. If anyone asked from the neighboring doors down. We were just a very unlucky couple.
Very unlucky.
Sometimes, when she’d cry, I’d have to go outside to stop from weeping too. My head was heavy since Germany. Since I got stupid and snappy with her over that damn phone. Have I always been that controlling? Now whenever I’d go out to get food, she wouldn’t even stir from bed. I shouldn’t have snapped at her. I should have recognized the private before she did, that way I could have carried her away from – what was I saying? If I did, I’d be robbing my bunkmate of seeing his sister one more time before death. But she’s wilting now because of it. I don’t know what to do. Why was I here. I didn’t ask to get drafted. I want to go home. Getting put back into the ice was better than this. If I had the chance, I’d put myself to sleep so none of this would happen again. People only seem to get hurt or killed when I’m around.
“What’s this?”
“My number.”
One morning I went out to grab whatever was on sale at the market when the vendor, a young woman of my wife’s age, passed me a slip of paper. Looking back up, her cheeks were red and hopeful, the same kind of bashful look my girl had in Italy when people called us honeymooners. Despite my state, I gave a weak, apologetic smile and took off my glove from my flesh hand, showing off my braided band. The vendor looked mortified despite my stiff attempt at reassurance. I was given the bread for free that day. When I walked home, I kept the glove off.
Something about the interaction gave me a shot of energy in my eyes. No, I wasn’t interested in calling her, but it reminded me of the rings I got for us forever ago. She was so happy despite everything – I used to wonder how. Then Greece happened, and I saw how terrible she’d react when she’d realized that her brain wasn’t as impenetrable as she thought. Even if it was love, the nurse hated the idea of not being aware of herself. The one thing that set her apart from the Winter Soldiers, from the other subjects whose heads were all screwed so terribly due to trauma. Her brother was like Greece, but multiplied a thousand fold. Now it’s not a question of if she’ll come back, but why.
Entering back into the apartment, I could see the familiar, sleeping lump of her body slumped on the bed. Once, I saw her laying on the kitchen floor and nearly vomited, thinking she actually succeeded in killing herself. Turns out she just got tired halfway through walking from the bathroom and got lost in her own residence. When she woke up, she just looked confused as to why my eyes were so watery, and awkwardly shuffled back to bed.
Checking on her now, she was, once again, asleep. No sleep syrup, she’s just constantly in and out of wakefulness. Even when she is awake, she’d just stare off into the distance like it was so interesting. Well, not really – when the nurse is interested in something, her eyes light up and she babbles a million miles a minute. Here I’m not even sure if she knows what she’s looking at, so lost in her thoughts. I couldn’t blame her though, not when I was doing the same 24/7.
Looking at her desk, all of her things were still there. Books I tried to get her to read, trinkets I thought might make her curious…I don’t know. I just wanted her to do something. Anything. The silence of the house didn’t help my head, and I knew it didn’t help her either. But I’m no doctor, quite the opposite. And she would have been one if HYDRA didn’t fuck everything up for the both of us.
Despite her prior outburst, I climbed into bed with her that night. Taking her hand as she slept, I studied the ring on her finger. The pearl that gleamed so brightly in the moonlight, despite how dark everything was. How my ring beamed in response, as if aware it was nearby. Like a bird perking up at the sound of its mate.
“I don’t deserve you,” I quietly say, tucking invisible hairs behind her ear. “So if you don’t come back because of me, that’s okay. It’s not like I’m worth that anyways. But you are.” The smart you. The happy you. The one that liked to talk my ear off about printing livers and demanding treats every night…“Please, sweetheart, don’t stay like this.” My girl’s eyes were perfectly shut, her breathing perfectly heavy with sleep as she ignored me for whatever was torturing her in her mind. I take the hand that held the Italian ring and kiss the pearl; and despite knowing it was futile, I say –
“I love you.”
Notes:
the repetition gives me the ick here frfr
Chapter 61: For Better, For Worse, For Richer, For Poorer, in Sickness and in Health
Chapter Text
[A hypothetical 1943 if HYDRA didn’t happen]
It was a terrible scare, really. HYDRA agents were near the base and the Commandos were doing their best to take them out. All that said, the worst case scenario did happen: an enemy got to base. I was sleepin’ when it happened, but woke up very quickly.
BANG!
His death was as swift as it was sudden. I grabbed my pistol from under my pillow and went outside, took one look – his back was facing me – and aimed. He fell like a sack of potatoes. The sound of the bullet was the thing that disturbed me most – not the blood dying the ground red, or the way his head twisted to look up, just the noise. I spent the rest of the morning smoking a cigarette to ease the pain.
I was a nurse. I stitched men up. Calculated dosages. Wrapped bandages. Killing was a last resort I didn’t think would actually happen. But lo and behold, my skirts were now ashy and my boots now stained.
By the time the rest of the men came back, they stared at the sight. Their boring old nurse, motherly despite her youth, smoking a cigarette as the sun rose for the morning. The Captain reacted first, askin’ me a million questions a minute as I waved him off. A bad morning. A rough start. Really, Miss Carter teachin’ me how to shoot was really noticeable here. To my surprise, the sergeant behind him interrupted.
“That’s not the point, nurse.” Looking up, he still had his war face on. Tight jaw, darkened gaze. That was odd – he usually would have relaxed the moment he got back.
I shake my head. “I’m afraid it is, sergeant.”
His face twitched. A few hours later, I got notification that my quarters would be moved right next to his, with extra security protection. “Buck was really adamant,” Rogers explained. “But honestly, I’m with him.”
Seriously!? “Sir, I ain’t a soldier, but – ”
“Ma’am, please…” The Captain shook his head. “Don’t argue with this. Bucky nearly passed out from how angry he was.”
Oh, GOD. So it was a man thing, was it? Of course it was. Whatever. It’s fine. Since I’ll be given more locks, it’s not like I’ll be seein’ him anyways.
That was a few nights ago. Then I had a nightmare, screamin’ my head off. The funny feelin’ in my chest, dormant like a bad, bruisin’ thing burst as I opened my eyes. My throat feltlike all-fire as I shot up, scrambling for a gun, some kind of protection – when there wasn’t, I just kept clutchin’ the blankets like a baby. Then I nearly screamed again when I heard my name outside.
“ – ey, hey!” I poked my head out to see the sergeant in nothing but an old shirt and pants. His hair was a mess, his cheek had a print from his pillow, and his blue eyes were blown at the irises. Lookin’ down, Bucky had a gun and a knife in his hands. “Was – you okay?”
I nodded, embarrassed at the worry on his face. “Yessir. Just a scare. Thought he came back.”
He nodded, still breathing a little quick. “Right. Right. Sorry, then.” Just as Bucky pulled away, I called out to him.
“Will…will you stand outside? Just for five minutes, until I sleep again?” Under normal circumstances, I would have been blushin’ for askin’ such a thing, but my heart was still tryin’ to slow down. Bucky’s gaze softened.
“’Course, sweetheart. I’ll be right out.”
That made my cheeks heat up. “Thank you.” My cheeks heated up again a few hours later, when I saw that he was still outside my sleeping space. He’d dozed off, but the knife in his hand was primed forward for jabbing. I hesitantly tap his shoulder. He blinked up, sleepy.
“Sleep well, ma’am?”
I hope he couldn’t hear how fast my heart beat at his morning voice. “Yessir. Thank you.”
“Mn.”
The sergeant didn’t stand outside my door, not since then. But since then, if I looked at him too long during planning, he’d give a small smile before goin’ all dead-eyed and serious. That made my cheeks burn and made Miss Carter question if I had a fever.
[Back to Reality - Day 614]
Bucky usually puts small things next to my bedside. He’s added to the collection, even buying a small, rectangular tray to put them in. A small crystal. Coupon for a pastry discount. Somewhat melted tea candle. All small, all hardly taking any room. But it’s been a while since he put something new down. More than a week. That irked me.
I got up from bed, shivering at the lack of warmth in the air. Wasn’t it supposed to be summer? Whatever. As long as it wasn’t winter in Carpathia…Texas winters were just rain, then dry air. Wind. I miss that hellhole. The rain was nicer there than in Germany. Even if the dust storms weren’t. When we did have them, it would be so hard to see outside, I’d have to take turns with my bro –
Remember your sister, Soldier? If she surrenders, stop wrestling your brother and come to me.
How nicely his head was crushed at the top, but so clean and formed at the bottom. A clean jaw underneath a crushed skull, a crushed brain. Spatters of red behind his ear, pooling. For so long I just assumed and accepted he died, then he passed right in front of me.
What was I doing up again? I’m really tired.
[Day 620]
There was a pale white ribbon on my tray now. I don’t know who put it there. Sometimes a plate of bread would be on my bedside, and I’d swallow bits before going back to sleep. It was a nice routine, since it didn’t keep me awake long.
I dream of him every night. Wake up crying. Try to sleep again, trying to remember his face. But I couldn’t – it was a blur. A blur, where nothing was clear…his hair was shaggier. Like Bucky’s after cryo. My brother knows what cryo feels like. I burrow deeper into my blankets. He’s not supposed to know that, his job is to stay sunburnt in Texas in my head. Some stupid, failed, delusional war hero. Not…not a Winter Soldier.
How long was he there? Have I seen him before? Surely not, surely – they’re all muzzled. Each of them. To keep them unseen. And I hate looking at them, looking at them so much that I never once squinted to see if one was the reason why I was transfusing blood whenever I was taken out for operations and experiments. Was I really that stupid? Incurious? He was right in front of me, next to operating tables, opposing me during sparring…the mission in the nineties. Where I shot that Widow. Could that have been him? No metal arm means he could have. And I didn’t even see him.
Why else would they keep someone for that long? If he didn’t have the blood and backup organs if need be. No wonder they didn’t take out my uterus. Did he have the same spinal procedure? The Winter Soldier program meant deadlier men made each generation, and if full bodily obedience was what they needed…
I need to sleep, it hurts too much to think about. At least if I slept, I could see him again. Even if his skull gets crushed, it’s his skull. His blood. My blood.
[Day 623]
I woke up to the sound of pained groans. It was the middle of the night, where nothing seemed to be awake but me and the noise. I didn’t know I had it in me to get up, but the groans turned into hissing, and I recognized the noise. The same kind soldiers made when they got hurt and tried to look fine, but the moment they think they’re alone in the tent they’d start breathing funny and try not to cry. Out of old world instinct, I got up to follow where the sound was coming from.
Making my way to the living room, Bucky was sitting upright on the couch. His shirt was off, and there was a small book in front of him. The lamp nearby was barely on. Looking closer, I realize it was the booklet I’d made for him in Carpathia during Christmas. He didn’t notice me until I was standing right in front of him.
“Shit,” Bucky froze when he noticed me standing. His flesh hand was clawing at his metal shoulder, making the skin around it red. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his brow, and his hair was curling under his chin and mouth. “Go back to bed, I can – ”
I sat next to him, and flipped the pages of the booklet. There was a page written in cursive, Armed Torques , that explained the fluidity of his arm. One look and you’d know that his constant tension caught up to his shoulder, always poised for a fight and therefore always positioned like that too. Without much warning, my hand grabs his deltoid and starts pulling it down, making him instinctively jerk away. Shit. Didn’t the handlers handle his arm like that? “Sorry,” I croaked. My voice broke from lack of use. “Can I help?”
Bucky relaxed a little. “Yeah. Sure.”
It took a few tries to remember the motions, but I managed to massage his shoulder to a point where a small pop went off. Bucky huffed exasperatedly. “ That’s what’s been messing with me since we came here?”
“Your shoulders are always tense. It was inevitable.”
“Yeah? It’s been like that for a month but you fixed it in a minute. Thanks, sweetheart.”
I didn’t want him to call me sweetheart anymore. Or doll. Or nurse. Even my name. It felt out of place, like me in this world. But I don’t say that, instead I just nod and go back to bed.
[Day 625]
Today I didn’t get a trinket in my tray. I got a calculator. It was ugly. Blue. Too big for the little tray and didn’t match anything that was there, not pretty and not petite. Something about it pissed me off. Why the hell would he get me a calculator? He knows I’m not interested in academics anymore. Was he mocking me now? I wanted to stay in bed, stew, but the randomness of it existing somehow sparked something in me – annoyance.
I made my way to the living room to throw it away in front of him, but Bucky beat me to the bit. “Oh, that’s where I put it. Sorry, doll.”
I blinked. “What?”
He shook his head. “I was trying to do the math for a coupon but then I left that somewhere. Ended up paying extra for bread this week because of it. Where was it?”
“My table.” A pause. “You…want it back?”
“Next time I go out, yeah. It’s not like the HYDRA cache in my bag is a million dollars.”
Oh. Right. I give him back the calculator, but don’t go into my bed just yet. “How much did you pay for bread?”
“It was ten percent off for the brioche if I bought three pounds. I did the math wrong and only got six percent off.”
Before I get sleepy again, I say, “I can go with you next time. So you don’t have to miscalculate.”
He looked up. His blue eyes were the most vibrant things here. “Alright. I’ll wake you next time.”
[Day 626]
Bucky woke me early, like a kid on Christmas. Not excited or grinning, but I nearly screamed when he shook my shoulder awake. Right. Grocery day. It took me a while, but I managed to stumble out of bed and get washed up, then dressed. Stealing Bucky’s stolen leather jacket, I notice it’s slightly too big on him as well – looking at the sewing kit next to my bed, I make a mental note to stitch to size it before I get sleepy again.
My stomach hurt in discomfort at first, walking outside for the first time in forever? What if the handler was standing outside? What if someone shot at us? What if S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were scouring the area? I didn’t like it. Not one bit. I should have gotten rid of the burner phone before Carpathia.
“This is what I was talking about.”
Bucky’s voice brought me out of my spiraling. Looking around, I didn’t even realize I was in the Piata Obor market, looking the same as it did a year earlier when I was more negative about his existence. Same big squares of produce, same stands with bottles and posters…looking in front of me was some bread. “How do you mess up the math here?”
He shrugged, showing me what he did. It was like he was messing up on purpose with his measurements. “No, you don’t – don’t do it like that, it’s not – ” I quickly take the bag of discounted bread from him and start scribbling on a scrap of paper he brought for math. “When you want a discount, you add one to the percentage and multiply by 1.1 – not the other way around.”
Bucky nodded. “Anything else, ma’am?”
Ma’am? That’s out of character for him. “...no.” Suddenly I felt like stewing again. My chest felt too light and stretched.
When we went up to pay, there was a young lady taking our items. She stared at me for a moment in surprise, then said – “ Oh, is that your wife, sir? ”
Bucky nodded, wrapping an arm around my waist. “ She’s shy. ”
“ She’s very pretty. You have good taste. ”
Taste? Seriously? I look awful right now. “ Thank you. ”
That night when we got back, I wandered to the kitchen. Not to make a hot water bottle for my metal joints, but to make something that wasn’t just fruit or water. “There’s not much,” Bucky noticed me searching the barely-cold fridge. “It’s hard cooking when you don’t have a good memory of past recipes.” He wasn’t kidding – all he had was corn flour that was at a discount, oil, and some apples.
“I can make cornpone,” I say, looking for a pan. “Do we have any milk?”
Bucky stared at me, like he was waiting for me to get tired. For once, I wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, this food was for him, not me, but it was hard to lose focus after being lucid for the first time in ages. “Bottom shelf.”
It took me about fifteen minutes to make a stack before going back to my bed, but I felt Bucky’s hand stop me before I could. “You can’t get all bones on me, sweetheart.” I can’t handle another one from your line dead on my watch.
“I’m tired, Buck.”
“So dinner in bed.” He was pushing it, but I was hungry. I let him sit me on the other side of the tiny table and we didn’t bother getting another plate, just picking off the little cakes with our hands. I had about three before I knew I couldn’t take more time away.
“I’m done.”
He nodded. “G’night, nurse.”
[Day 630]
I woke up to screaming from the couch. It felt so shocking my body seized up for a moment, waiting for a jolt from a HYDRA handler until I realized it was just the sergeant from one spot over. Bucky was panting, sitting straight up on the couch, metal hand flexed as if ready to grab something. He didn’t even notice I was there at first.
“You can join me in bed, if you want.”
Barnes slowly looked up at me with a long look in his eye. “You sure?”
I nod. “I’m cold, anyways.”
He didn’t waste any time getting up from the couch, abandoning his thin blanket and pillow to make his way to my side of the apartment, where a small bed was waiting. I didn’t realize he’d given me the better sleeping bag until he joined me in laying down. “Can I?” He asked quietly. His flesh arm twitched as he laid on my right. I nodded, and he wrapped his arm around my waist before dozing back to sleep.
[Day 634]
That morning I woke up crying from my dreams. Bucky was confused, groggy in his voice until he saw me shaking. “What is it?” He asked. I shook my head, wanting to disappear.
He was supposed to stay in Texas, I wanted to say. Stay in Texas, grow old and bitter, and I was never supposed to see him again. But I couldn’t, not when it hurt too much to talk about it again. Not when it felt like an open wound on my chest. The pain was different from the one I had from HYDRA – where the labs felt like an eternity ago because of cryosleep, where my memories there felt like terrible dreams of which I could avoid in the morning since it was all over, here I couldn’t. Too fresh. Too new.
I didn’t notice when Bucky turned his back to me to grab something. He turned back to me and put something into my palms. The two bullets, cleaned and warm from his palm, now cradled in mine. That’s it. That’s all I had left of my brother. Not even the memory of a bitter goodbye, HYDRA making sure I saw him as a monster instead. Like seeing your mother turn into the devil right in front of you. Not even my bad past was respected by them. Everything was twisted, from my bones to my brother. I sobbed harder, burying my face into Bucky’s chest.
“I hate my head,” I say after an hour of sniffling and shaking. “I hate my head so much.”
“That’s a shame,” he grunted. “Your head is the only thing that’s kept me from becoming a hermit this whole time. You babbling fills my mind too much.”
I give a watery scoff. “You are a hermit. You never go outside now.”
“Oh. Well…no one’s perfect.”
I look up. “Bucky?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you…did you ever see him in Siberia? With the other Soldiers?”
He hesitated. “...I probably sparred with him a few times, looking back. We all had to fight each other.”
That made my stomach flip. Why did I ask? I kept wondering that as I left the bed to vomit. I felt Bucky keep my head up from the rim of the basin as I gagged again. When I finished, he wiped my brow with his palm and tried to comfort me. “It’s over, you know,” Bucky’s voice didn’t sound much louder than his normal low tone, but he didn’t waver. “HYDRA…HYDRA’s not gonna send anyone else out. You said it once yourself – they had to have been weak if they sent her out. And if your brother – ”
“If they have my brother, they probably resurrected my father,” I spat. “And my mama just to spite me. And that Steve is workin’ for them. And all that. We’re never gonna find anything peaceful.”
Bucky’s jaw clenched. “No. Not that. We lay low. This isn’t a safehouse. We managed to come back here after two scares. If they can’t find us after searching Romania twice, no one can.”
He’s talking weird. It’s not hopeful, but angrily, quietly determined. “It’s just us. And if we don’t cause trouble, if we live how we should have before all this hell happened…”
“What do you mean?”
I suddenly noticed how Bucky breathed. It wasn’t panting, dramatic, but I noticed how his chest went up and down at a constant pace. “We act like we’re ex-HYDRA, then that’s what we are. If we’re worried about causing trouble, trouble will come. But if we just stay here, quiet, live like a husband and wife…then that’s all we are. This is an apartment, nurse. Not a safehouse. In some invisible neighborhood, with nothing new.” He looked a little pale, like he was worried too, but tried not to sound it. A trouble-free life? With his kill count and my trauma? It was delusional.
“Didn’t we do that in Italy?”
“Italy was after Sokovia.”
“After I gossiped with Steve so much that our cover got blown.”
Bucky’s eyes looked downwards. “No. That wasn’t your fault. It…it wasn’t his either. Nor Carpathia. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” He took my hand, where the pearl ring shone brightly under the shitty lights of the bathroom. “I wish we met before Siberia. I could have gotten you something nicer.”
“If we met before Siberia, we would have never liked each other.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He stood up, offering me his hand. “C’mon. I wanted to ask something about the draft.”
I knew his ploy. He was trying to get me out of bed. Bucky knew plenty about the draft from his research and defrosted memories, but…“Fine. Give me your book.” I tried to ignore how his shoulders relaxed as I took him up on his request, or how I wanted him to keep touching me after he kissed my sweaty brow.
Chapter 62: But a Mermaid has no Tears, and Therefore she Suffers so Much More
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[A Hypothetical 1943]
Christmas during the war meant most people who were shipped out didn’t come home that year. Unless you had special deferment, it was unlikely you were going anywhere but the base or camp for the holidays. The Howling Commandos weren’t an exception, and so everyone spent their time off at base. It wasn’t bad, all things considered – everyone was usually in a better mood because of the lack of work, and people liked to show off what they got from their folks back home.
“Got something for everyone!” Rita chirped. She’s from Connecticut, and has the money to get everyone treats courtesy of her parents; that way anyone who didn’t get anything from Father Christmas at least got something from Rita’s loaded family. The other nurses and I curiously gathered around, where a box with assorted bracelets, stockings, French-imported cookies and even shiny powder cases were neatly stacked inside. Everyone was allowed to take one thing, maybe two if there was extra, and since I was Reet’s bunkmate during the start (we hadn’t seen each other in a while) of the war, I was given special permission to take two. “Always the practical one.” She noted when I picked out two pairs of silk stockings.
“The stuff is already rationed as is,” I smirk. The fleshy fabric felt buttery under my thumbs, I swear I never felt anything finer in all of my life. Note to self, wear only off-duty. “Thanks, Reet.” I kissed her cheek as a gift.
She waved me off, rollin’ her eyes. “Oh, it’s nothing. So many packages have been lost or delayed, I just felt terrible! I told my mother and daddy that we had to do something to boost morale.”
“Well, you’re a saint and a half. I don’t even think Howard Stark got anything for the ladies other than a signed picture of himself.” I’m not kiddin’. First thing I woke up to was a picture of the sexy bastard in my mail. It was traumatizing, not in the least because he was dressed as a pin-up Saint Nick with the written promise of, and I quote, ‘ One free sit on Father Christmas’ lap’ , like he’d make a list of what we wanted. Honestly, it’s good that he’s a bachelor – the day he gets married and has a kid is the day we get invaded by aliens. Lucky that that’ll never happen!
Rita giggled. “Oh, but he’s so cute about it. I might just take him up if Johnny boy won’t give me anything. But how about you? You want anything particular for the holidays? I’ve been begging my daddy for a new comb, maybe some silk gloves.”
I shrug. “Not really.” A pause. “Well, maybe one thing.”
“Yeah?”
I lick my lips. “I’ve had these special kinds of cherries once, as a kid. All jellied and pretty, but really tasty too. They go on top of ice creams…ever since sugar got rationed, they’re all I can think about.”
Rita blinked. “Oh, you mean maraschino cherries?”
“If that’s what they’re called.”
She suddenly snapped her fingers in frustration. “Darn. If those weren’t hard to find, I could easily buy you some for the holidays.”
Oh, you angel. “Bless your heart, Reet, but these stockings are better than cherries. They’ll at least last longer!” We both share a laugh before joinin’ the other girls with their new presents.
[Bucky’s P.O.V. in a Hypothetical 1943]
I watched as she walked past me with some other dames. The nurse hadn’t been around other nurses in months. Other than Carter and the medic, she’s been knees-deep on her own in patchwork. “Heard that, Steve?” I hum. I knew he didn’t, though, since five minutes ago he’s been in la-la land because the agent gave him a friendly kiss under the mistletoe. Emphasis on the friendly. He’s been staring at his reflection where a giant lipstick stain was left courtesy of the agent.
“What was that, Buck?”
I rolled my eyes. “She wanted cherries. The fancy kind.”
Steve blinked. “Those are pretty rationed. I doubt you’ll be able to woo her with nothing.”
Who said anything about wooing? I just liked how she looked while focused. And when she’s studying and thinks no one can see her. And how she smiles for no reason. It’s not like Coney Island is nearby anyways. “Who said anything about wooing? I just want to thank her for all of her hard work.”
“Did you offer the same kind of thank-you for Phil, since he’s a medic?”
No, Phil doesn’t pat my cheek whenever he checks my temperature. “Sure pal. Just help me get them before someone else does.”
Sure, things were rationed, sugary fruits were on the low when there wasn’t a fight, but that didn’t mean we had nothing. I don’t doubt the base had some kind of sweet cherry in syrup, at least a small can so that the navy can have their ice cream (I’m still jealous about that). We spent an hour loitering around the storages looking for something that resembled sweet fruit until Phillips (not Phil) caught us.
“What are you two men doing down here?”
Steve and I both straightened to attention. Nevermind the fact he’s Captain America and I’m a sergeant, he’s got both of us whipped. “Sir. We were just…uh…hungry.”
“Really? You, Rogers, who doesn’t even need to eat anymore?” Steve blanched a little at that. His lying hasn’t improved since joining the army.
“Sir, one of the nurses wanted something sweet for the holidays,” I say. Wasn’t technically a lie, I just left out the part where the nurse was my girl. “The girls worked so hard, I thought they’d like something after all of their hard work.”
Phillips looked at both of us with that usual shrewd glare that probably got him through the first war. “You boys aren’t seeing any of the nurses, are you?”
“Nossir.” Steve promised. He clicked his tongue.
“I know you, Rogers,” He grunted. Then the man stared at me. “It’s Barnes I’m thinking of.”
What? What did I do? Well, there was that girl in…“Sir, I barely know any of the girls here. It’s purely admiration.” Mostly. His pale eyes stared down at me for a second before sighing.
“Fine. Since it’s the holidays. Just don’t get too much of anything, and stick to the left crates. The rest are for active action and not festivities. Only because ‘Captain America’ was here.”
For all the corniness his hand carried, I was glad to know Captain America instead of Steve Rogers for once. “Back to work, boys,” I said after the two of us were in the clear.
We scoured through the right crates, carefully opening, searching, and closing the boxes for probably an hour. No dice. “Another pineapple?” I groan as I pull out another can of chunks. “Jesus, you’d think Morita was here.”
Steve, however, had a big grin on his face. “Hey, Buck, look,” His hand raised from the box to show off a shiny little jar, written in French – Luxardo Original Maraschino Cherries. Jackpot!
“I swear, I’ll name my first boy after you or something,” I grin while taking the little container. The cherries were like blood rubies with how they were smushed together in the jar. Steve rolled his eyes.
“Steve Barnes sounds terrible, but whatever. Let’s get this to your girl.”
I try to sound normal. “She’s not my girl. Not officially, anyways. Not that she knows.”
“Sure. You just make sure to sleep nearby, give her your extra rolls, get bothered when Dum Dum flirts with her, get mad when she kissed Gabe on the – ”
“Shut up, Rogers.”
Anyways, the nurse’s face lit up like I’d never seen it when we presented it to her outside the base. It was snowing outside and some of the soldiers were having a snowball fight, while others were gathering around a small stove to heat up. Her lashes looked white because of the frost on them. “We got them after I pulled the Captain card,” Steve joked.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have – ” She giggled, all sweet and pitched. “Thank you so much!”
“It was Bucky’s idea, really.” And speaking of, why can’t I talk all of a sudden? I just can’t, not when she’s…she kissed Steven’s cheek.
“Muah! Thank you!”
Steve blushed. “Just glad to help, ma’am.”
Then she turned to me, her lips as red as the cherries in her hand. “And you, ain’t you a darlin’ and a half!” I almost passed out when she pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. If I wasn’t leaning on a post, I definitely would have fallen over.
“...yeah. Y-yeah, no problem.” Then, to my heart’s exasperation, she took my hand (okay, and Steve’s, but she had a glove on that hand and gave me her flesh one. That definitely meant something, right?) and dragged us to the stove, which was now emptied out safe for the hot coals and embers. We spent the next two hours chatting away, about the holidays back home and how she apparently never touched snow before here.
“I’m always blue,” She complained. Somehow, she got her hands on toast and shared the cherries with us as we talked. “I ain’t built for the cold here. Is New York this bad?”
Steve shrugged, his mouth pink because of the maraschino toast. She'd insisted on eating by the fire ("like in the books!" she'd say), putting a big scoop of cherries on a slice before handing one to each of us. “You get used to it, ma’am. But then again, my mother always made me bundle up like a baby.”
I snicker at that. “No, you always looked like a stick wrapped in bubble wrap. All puffed up and almost falling from how heavy the clothes were on you. This guy wouldn’t weigh seventy pounds soaking wet.” She shivered again. Now or never, I guess. “Hey, why don’t you sit close to me? I’m all hot from the fire.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the nurse nodded. She finished the last of her food and sat next to me, but not technically near me. “C’mon, sweetheart. It’s cold, you’ll get sick – ” I excuse myself then pull her waist closer to me, practically putting her on my lap. To my surprise, she didn’t object. Steve was unimpressed by my moves.
“Really, Buck.”
“What? It’s cold, Steven. Can’t let our nurses get sick.”
“Mhm.”
“You cold, doll?” I ask, but I could feel how heated up my girl was all up next to me. She squeaked, embarrassed. Then let out a small sneeze that let me know that I was at least in the right as I rubbed her arms up and down.
“Jesus,” Steve groaned when I smushed my cheek into her hair. “I’m gonna have to keep you two on opposite sides of camp at this rate.”
“We ain’t a couple, sir.”
“Of course not, ma’am. Of course not.”
[Back to Reality - Day 640]
I don’t know how to describe my wife now, after my terrible, over-complicated living proposal and getting her to talk. One moment she’d patiently massage my shoulder and let me bury my face in her chest when nights get too painful, but then the morning comes and something melts. My girl is cold and quiet, and doesn’t smile the way she did in Italy. Doesn’t talk the way she did in Carpathia. Hell, she’s no longer curious like she was during our first stay in the city. No, something in her has flickered out since Munich. I used to struggle understanding the weird feeling of familiarity I got when looking at her when she got closed up like this, but I got it recently:
She’s acting the way I did when we first met in Bucharest.
Sure, we share a bed now, she lets me kiss her, we have rings and definitely looked like a couple on the outside, but aside from turning more verbal and expressive, the nurse isn’t one for habits anymore. She doesn’t read, doesn’t eat, doesn’t bother me with whatever ideas she had to annoy the hell out of me. I think she even contemplated throwing away the bullets from Munich once – I saw her lingering around the trashcan with them in her palm until I asked her what she was doing. She waved me off. Unless it’s about the past, the nurse is mostly quiet now.
“What people were there?”
“Dunno. Forgot.”
“How much was milk?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Which states were also affected by the Dust Bowl?”
I wasn’t even asking for myself anymore, I just wanted to see if her head was still drifting.
“Probably Texas.”
Probably. God. If this was in Brooklyn, I’d probably complain to Steve about this. Then he’d roll his eyes and say Poor you, your girl just realized you’re only nice on the eyes, huh? I sober at that idea. I’ll probably never see him again at this rate. If we want a life without problems, cutting everyone off would have to be the case. Besides, I doubt he even cares about me anymore – after all the hell I’d put him through lately, I wouldn’t blame him.
Never seeing Steve again? Ever? But he’s always been a constant before the war.
…it’s a need. This is all this is now. Even if he was a constant, even if he miraculously saved me both times from HYRA and broke me out of my brainwashing, I can’t – can’t stay in that part of my head. To wish for my serial-killer guilt to go away, to think that Steve would get us out of purgatory, to hope for something better than this. Besides, he already did enough by bringing me back. Anything more was just wishful thinking.
“You should get her number.”
“What?”
My girl’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. Going out for groceries, we stopped by the fruit stand. I look up. She was staring at the mini bakery across from us, where the same vendor’s daughter was working. “She clearly likes you, Buck.”
What.
“Sweetheart, I’m married.”
“For an act, James. You can wander a little, it’s allowed.”
I burnt down a mountain shack for you back when you friend-zoned me – she’s depressed, she’s depressed. If I lost my brother I’d start trying to isolate myself too. Well, more than usual. Who am I kidding? I’m worse than her some days. Was this how I acted in Carpathia? Hunting alone for hours and she still maintained some level of civility? “Would you start seeing someone, then?”
“Hell no. I’m already tryin’ to deal with you.” She sighed. “It’s not the same, okay? Everything’s heavy in my head at the moment. You know how it is. You said it yourself – if we act like we’re caught, we will be. Better we just enjoy this place before it comes to hell again.”
“And what makes you think that I’m in a position to date?” My teeth grinded together. “I was a Soldier. I don’t even – ” I stop and sigh. Then look at her. The nurse has been sleeping a lot more lately, but she actually gets up and eats after a while. The words of what she said a few weeks back echoed in my head: I hate soldiers! I hate all of you! Everyone I love becomes one!
I put an arm around her shoulder and kept walking. “How’s sleeping?” I ask, knowing it was a stupid question. Neither of us slept well, but she’s been worse than me now. “I can grab tea if you need it.”
“I’d rather have sleep syrup.” I ignored that and grabbed a box of whatever tea leaves were closest. When we passed by the secondhand wares, I paused to scan for anything useful. My Swiss was mostly just to keep me busy, since Italy let me get my hands on actually effective weapons, but it wasn’t a bad investment when it was the only knife we had in Carpathia.
“Is this where you got your knife?” The nurse asked. I nodded.
“It looked like…it looked like one of the knives I had back in the war. Before things went bad. Well, worse.”
For once, she looked a little interested. “Is that why you polish her every other night?”
I nodded again. “I used to clean my old Swiss in my spare time. Another soldier once told me it’s good to have some kind of a habit to practice in between fights. Keep your hands too busy to strangle yourself.”
She hummed. “I used to stitch a lot.” I knew that – whenever my jackets would tear, specifically when the metal of my shoulder would stretch the fabric too much, I’d usually lose it a day later. Then, the next day, my jacket would be back on my bed perfectly fixed. “At some point I stopped because the needles kept remindin’ me of the stitches I’d have to do on boys, and…” She shook her head.
“Your hands seemed pretty still when you patched me up in the boxcar.”
My quip made her huff, but there was no smile on her lips. “That was just muscle memory. Experience takin’ over. My hands were in Germany but my head was a million miles away.” After a moment, she added, “still is.”
I watched as her fingers brushed along the antique clutches. Aside from her little tin case, she didn’t have a purse to carry things in. I’d always find things in my jeans whenever she’d wear them before me: coins, bottle caps, bandage rolls…“Does your head hurt?”
“Not really. Why?”
“My head hurt when St – I first got broken out of brainwashing.” I didn’t want to say Steve’s name. Not when it hurt knowing that I’d never be able to see him or true safety ever again. And I wasn’t about to jinx it with her as well, by trying to jeopardize our new place by getting so comfortable. “I kept feeling sick because I’d get new memories so often. At first, anyways. It doesn’t feel good remembering your childhood at the same time as all of the kills you’ve done as the Soldier.”
She stopped walking, staring at a certain clutch. It was magenta with gold beading. “No. I wasn’t brainwashed, so I didn’t get any migraines after Germany. I just…” Another exhale, but this one sounded like a hiss. “Even my hatred wasn’t sacred.”
“I thought you said – ”
“I know,” Her face twitched and her jaw locked. “I don’t know. He’s technically my relative. I don’t hate him enough to be fine with what HYDRA did to him. I…wanted to love him. Clearly it didn’t work. He never comforted me growin’ up. Never once wrote to me durin’ the war. Am I supposed to be so devastated because I lost someone I cherished? Because I don’t.”
“But you said loved.”
“Yeah. But not liked. Maybe if we were less hungry as kids, I’d’ve been more depressed over him dyin’.” That’s when I knew she wasn’t fully there. She’d been in bed for weeks after Germany, but in her head, it was nothing at all. “It’s whatever now, though. There are worse things going on. Sokovia’s still destroyed. We’re still hiding. Nothing is fixed. He should have died sooner, but his passing now doesn’t change anything, so it doesn’t matter.”
It matters when your wife is in bed constantly and loses the will to live, but I bite my tongue on that.
That night we went to sleep early. She gets tired more easily now, and I get a view of her primming herself each night like nothing was wrong with our lives; which makes my thinking malfunction and my chest tighten in a way I hadn’t felt in decades. It was the first time I'd seen her being vain since Italy, where I'd remember trying to avoid staring for too long. I'm reminded as to why. Sometimes my head slips when I notice her getting pretty for sleep – I fed her peaches once in Italy, and my mind would start to wander when she kept biting her bottom lip to taste the remaining juice before teasing me after noticing how locked my jaw got watching her. She cries after a nightmare and instinctively climbs on my lap, which is a special kind of hell when she falls asleep with her lips to my metal shoulder – I hate that I can’t feel her lips there. I noticed her having this habit – whenever she got flustered, she’d instinctively lift the back of her right hand to cover her mouth, pressing the pearl of her ring to her lips. Sometimes I’d get an odd high in my stomach whenever she’d do it in response to something I did. Other times I was just jealous of that damn pearl.
In all these moments, I feel a pull that I can’t name, or better, I knew better than to name – it’s not exactly like we’re in Brooklyn, where she’s just my girl and I’m her boy, and I could make good on that promise I made her in Siberia. Now she’s stitching the hem of her own nightdress, and she has that same focused look she has when she reads and I feel that familiar clawing in my insides again. Italy was too far, too comfortable, but…
“You should sleep.”
“You first, sweetheart.”
That makes her stop stitching. With her canines, she snaps off the leftover thread from her stitchwork. Making her way over, I thought she’d just take her side of the bed like usual. Instead, the nurse climbed over to my side, crawling next to me. The scent of perfumed soap and sweetness filled my nose. “I’m not the same I was as Siberia, you know.”
I couldn’t look at her face for too long, not when the shitty lamplight gave her a glowing halo over her skin and made her lips look pinker than usual. Instead I focus on the ring on her hand. “I know.”
“So I’m not your girl. Not anymore.”
Something in my chest twists at that. She’s just sad, I remind myself. But what if that’s how she really feels? I wouldn’t blame her – I’ve been dragging her wherever and making her even more miserable with every move. “Never said you have to.”
Her face was unreadable. “So if I left, you’d be okay with that.
“I never said that,” I say without thinking. Looking down, I tug at the little drawstrings that her dress had. “You saw what happened when you left in Greece. I don’t do good alone, but if you wanted – ”
To my surprise, and confusion, she suddenly kissed me. Soft, warm, and firmly pressing against my lips. Taking a deep inhale, I shuddered as she put her hand to the back of my neck. She hadn’t been romantic since Otranto. Hasn’t initiated anything since then. My cheeks heat up, like I remember what it felt like when she kissed me at the cove, my nose almost expecting to smell salt and water as I cradled her head. When she pulled away, there were tears in her eyes.
“I know what I said before,” My girl whispered. “About – about hatin’ you. But I don’t. ’M just scared – I don’t – don’t want HYDRA to – ” She burst into quiet tears then, hiding her face in my collar as I wrapped my arms around her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said quietly, moving one hand to turn off the lamp and stroke her head. “Not if I can help it. Alright, sweetheart?”
“I hate hiding,” She sniffled. “I hate it so much. I hate HYDRA. I hate them all. I wish they just left us alone.”
I kiss her cheek and pull a blanket over us. I agreed, but I didn’t want to make things worse. At this rate she’ll get another bad dream, and wake up screaming. It doesn’t help that I’ve started to dream about Munich too. The train tracks. The private’s blood all over the bricks. Whenever I’d wake up, I wouldn’t scream, but everything felt heavier. It was the first time our running had cost someone their life, and the fact that I wasn’t even fast enough to save an old friend, an old friend who I couldn’t even recall his name before…I’m glad I turned off the lights.
“I know, sweetheart. I know.”
[Back to Central P.O.V. - Day 644]
I felt bad for being so distant with Bucky. I knew it wasn’t his fault, but it wasn’t something I could help. I didn’t hate him – I couldn’t even if I tried, but I meant what I said from my outburst. It seemed that everyone I ever cared about was desecrated by HYDRA, left me, or was dead. Since moving from Bucharest, I think the part of my brain that used to be more practical, more realistic about her reality woke up. No, this wasn’t freedom from hell. We were back, but had more wiggle room. No, it wasn’t the Dust Bowl, but it didn’t mean we could get frivolous – that I could get frivolous.
It was difficult, getting out of bed every morning. It’s not like we had anything to do – well, I had nothing to do. Bucky was perfectly content doing whatever research on his past, reading stolen news reports and scribbling in that memory book of his. I think his head’s more back than he likes to admit, but he’s too afraid to jinx it. I know I would. On my end, I didn’t do much. I lost my appetite in Germany, and it’s taken a toll on my health. That old hunger came back, not for food, but for pain relief. When HYDRA would feed me funny pills and make my head float – since Steve freed me I did my best to ignore the watering in my mouth with almost anything else, food, books, the sergeant’s heartbreakingly handsome face – and it mostly worked. It wasn’t as if I ever wanted to go back to that primitive, needy state, but ever since the train station I just wanted some way out. It annoyed me to no end when Barnes would baby me with mild teas and hot water bottles instead.
I felt like my mind was mocking me whenever it would get quiet – in the morning when Bucky was still asleep. When I’d get bad dreams and think I would get shocked or thrown into the ice…I’d wake in a cold sweat I hadn’t felt since I got rescued and put in medical care.
I didn’t want to read the books that Bucky would get for me. The little Romanian secondhand shops, where they’d put their cheapest, on-sale books outside on a cart for people to peruse. It was a waste of Leu, and unlike food it didn’t keep us full.
Then one day I had a terrible craving. It came after a particularly bad night – where I’d wake up to see myself strapped to a bed, where men with scalpels would hang over me. I’d scream, trying to escape – only to feel the cold wind overtake my body. Then I was in Germany, where the rain made my back ache something fierce as I laid on the ground. I was laying on my stomach on the train tracks, where low vibrations made me feel nauseous. Looking across from me, there he was, sleeping with a muzzle in his mouth, my family of old – I hated him, and rage surged into my chest as I instinctively reached out to get him away from there, but my body couldn’t move. How could I? Even my worst relationships weren’t special to HYDRA. Looking up, I saw a train in his direction. Then the ground shook beneath me, and just as I looked up to see a blinding white light getting bigger and bigger – I’d wake.
Same routine. Same pain. Bucky was patient, even doing his best to grit his teeth and bear through the fact that I’d been trying to create distance between us. But still, I’d sometimes look at him…when he wears only that red shirt, with his arms all defined, I’d make myself chalk it up to loneliness when my face gets all hot. Same whenever his long hair somewhat hides his face but extenuates his jawline. It didn’t help that whenever we went out, I’d get butterflies in my stomach when he got blunt with other people but kept a soft hand on me. Loneliness. Seventy years of ice sleep. The last time you got comfortable, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents showed up.
I know what he said – if we acted married, we were going to look less suspicious, but I hadn’t had much romance in me anymore. Not when the same night replayed in my head over and over again every time I slept, every time I woke.
But back to the terrible night, and terrible craving. I needed a distraction, something, anything, to get my mind off of things. I didn’t wake screaming, so I didn’t want to bother Bucky with my angst. He hardly slept well either, and on his side of the bed, he looked so peaceful. Looking at the pile of books stacked next to him on the bedside table, I grabbed one out of instinct. Whenever I was shaken as a nurse, I’d make myself memorize lines from books until I wasn’t scared anymore. His conditioning has laid down rails along which he’s got to run. Happiness is a hard master – particularly other people’s happiness. A much harder master, if one isn’t conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth. Everybody’s happy now. They had heard the word repeated a hundred and fifty times every night for twelve years. I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin. But maybe my memory isn’t as good as it once was – I can’t remember the book these words came from. Whatever.
Opening the book Bucky had gotten me when we first moved in hopes of my talking, I realized something queer – it was already annotated. Odd, messy scribbles of familiar English. Huh. I grab another book. Same thing. And another. Same thing. I realized that Bucky must’ve read these before giving them to me, leaving little quotes – I know you love anatomy, sweetheart, but this looks disgusting. On a page where a man was cutting open for another man. Didn’t his brother almost destroy the world? I read that in the newspaper. In the chemistry book, where he circled the element Thorium. She looks a little like you. At a picture of a smiling woman winning an award.
My head still hurt, but I went back to the shitty medical paperback he got and tried to read as much as I could until I fell back asleep. When I woke up the next mornin’, I was tucked back into bed with the book open on the page I stopped at page 76.
Notes:
when y/n is depressed she doesn't have a twang, which Idk how I feel abt writing like that since I'm so used to having a voice in first person but wtv
title is a book quote in reference to y/n reading
tried to do parallels from the first bucharest stay
i added a christmas special bc I love young howard stark...he's my little homeslice ok I adore him he's my fave lol
"young howard stark or buc -- " "YOUNG HOWARD STARK YOUNG HOWARD STARK YOUNG HOWARD STARK YOUNG HO -"
guys i think she likes young howard stark
just remembered -- everyone from the 1940's got an epithet now lol Steve - captain, Bucky - sergeant, Y/n - nurse, Y/b/n (or wtv u name him) - private, Peggy - agent
"lucky that he'll never have a kid or get invaded by aliens" y/n PLEASE stop saying shit like that...ur powers of premonition r too powerful, ur like wanda but purple HAHA
Chapter 63: Steel Magnolia
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[A Hypothetical 1944]
Bucky wouldn’t stop lashing out was what I heard. I was on the other side of camp when it happened, so I couldn’t initially pick up on the ruckus. In order to keep your head straight during times like these, you have to very quickly get used to tuning things out. Crying, screaming, violence – not because they don’t matter, but because they don’t contribute to the task at hand. My current job was to just check over the stitches a rescued soldier got when Captain Rogers burst into my tent.
“He won’t listen to a man,” He explained. The poor bastard looked exhausted – his perfect, gold-blond hair was covered in soot and his slightly glassy red eyes indicated that he hadn’t slept in a while. The operation the men had been sent out on was longer than usual, more violent than usual. As I’d worked with the unit for a year now, I’ve learned a few things. One of these things was that while Captain America loved to take out the enemy, Steve Roger didn’t. He hated bullies, and wanted to stop them, but taking lives wasn’t something he was proud of - a last minute thing if he could. “I think he just sees all of us as the enemy. They – they locked him up for only a couple of hours, but…please, we’re all trying to find a way to get him to sleep. He nearly broke Falsworth’s hand when he tried to give morphine.”
“That’s because you don’t give morphine, you inject it,” I smart-ass, but dread was rollin’ in my stomach. Combative patients were always fifty-fifty in terms of persuasion, and usually not the good half. Medic Phil and I would get stretched thin because of them.
As I headed out of my tent to the foggy mornin’ grass, where the putrid smell of rot and smoke filled my nose, I did my best to follow the noise. Voices of men trying to be gentle, trying and failing through no fault of their own.
“ C’mon, Buck, it’s over, we’re not gonna – ”
“ No, no, it’s not – shut UP – ”
“ But it is, friend, it’s – shit, no don’t – ”
“ Back off! ”
“Does anyone else know what’s happened?” I quietly ask Steve when we start seeing the sergeant’s tent through the fog.
He shook his head. “I might tell Peggy if things don’t get better, but…” Steve shook his head. “Please. He doesn’t see you as combative like everyone else, so you’re our only hope.”
If the situation wasn’t so serious, I would have found amusement in that statement. Ask anyone what I was like back home, and they’d call me an asshole and a half. Combative if food was withheld and sleep was deprived. Here I was a last hope. We made it to his tent, but instead of goin’ inside, went to the back of it. There, in the backdrop of the old canvas, did some of the Commandos gather around a man with wild eyes and a single Swiss army knife. I recognized it because Bucky would sharpen it in his spare time, never once using it in battle, but for once it was red-stained and dented at the handle. It wasn’t just his eyes, though that was the most damning part – his hair was a wild mess, curtaining around his brows and cheeks. His clothes weren’t just wrinkled, but torn in some parts if not already blood and dirt-stained. Bucky was clinging onto the back of the canvas with his other hand so tightly his knuckles were white, like they were the only thing anchoring him to this world.
“’Scuse me,” I murmur, making my way past Dum Dum. For such a big man, he looked small as his knees bent to try and ease his fellow brother-in-arms. He frowned, realizing I was throwing myself as a possible helper.
“Miss, this isn’t just a knocked out guy, Barnes is unstable – ”
My face twitched. Bein’ delicate is the last thing I wanted to be considered as. After all the hell I’ve been through, it’s an insult to my character. “Let me do my damn job. Move.” I don’t look at his reaction and push past him and the other boys. Said unstable man stopped glarin’ at Gabe when I made my way into his peripheral.
When dealin’ with difficult soldiers, I’ve learned there are a few ways to approach them. One way is through sweetness – if they’d been through something loud and bloody, quiet and quick hands was the best approach. They just wanted to be left alone, so the quicker and kinder you were, the better. Another way was through bein’ ‘mean’ – not actually mean, but bein’ firm and stern. If they try to fight whatever medicine you were tryin’ to shove down their gullet, no matter how life-savin’, you’re responsible for keepin’ it down there. It doesn’t matter if you look or act worse than the soldier afterwards, as long as they ain’t dead. I really hated the second option – their touching was unwanted, I always felt degraded afterwards, and spit usually stained me, but it was my job. It was easy to keep your mouth shut afterwards anyways, when you walk past so many other men with lost limbs and thousand-yard stares.
Looking at Bucky, I decided to try and be gentle. Maybe a little firm, in case he tries to lunge at me the way he did everyone else. “G’mornin’, Sarge,” I purposely lay my accent thick to throw him off a little. My tone was sweeter too. No one would want to hurt a lil ole Southern Belle, would they? “This weather is ass, ain’t it?”
Bucky stared at me wearily, unsure if he should keep pointing his blade at me. The dark red on it secretly made my heart race, but I did my best to look nonchalant. Bending down, I snap off a long leafy weed to point in his direction too. I was harmless, compared to him. A blade of Swiss steel compared to a blade of grass. “Remember when you got me a bloom for my birthday? I don’t think I’ve seen flowers since then. Just these ugly ole things.”
His knife didn’t lower in the least, and now looking at him, I notice his eyes are red. “Where were you?”
“In the tents. Like usual.”
“How do I know you’re not with – ” The sergeant’s footsteps began to increase again, and suddenly the other Commandos started goin’ forward again. “Let – LET ME GO, LET ME GO – !” He screamed as the men held him back from getting too close to me. The other men didn’t, yelling at him to calm down as he clawed against them again. In the middle of the fight, he dropped his blade and his hand kept tryin’ to reach out to me. Without thinking, I take the Swiss and pocket it, then grab his hand with a firmness that even surprised me.
“Loosen him a little, boys. I need to give him morphine.” Steve, who was now holding Bucky’s right side with his enhanced strength, looked at me like I was crazy. “I mean it. At least give me room with his chest and head so I can get him to sleep proper.” I’d snuck a small syrette of the sleep stuff in my apron’s pocket, so all I had to do was get him to relax just enough to take it. Problem is that he’s a great sniper, with fast reflexes and a good eye. Nothing made it past him, including lies. Dum Dum was crouching, holding his kickin’ knees while Gabe held his other side. They gave me enough room so that his beady eyes made it on me. Because of the rising sun, I could see the red-pink under his eyes – he’s been fighting for hours, his back and neck must definitely be killing him.
“I’m not – not tired, nurse.”
“I know you’re not, sir,” I hum, trying to maintain a picture of delicacy. I know what I said earlier when Dum Dum tried to protect me, but whenever Barnes was around, I’d always get self-aware at how much I cursed. It was annoying.
“But they’re – they’re outside, just – just a couple of miles – ”
I know what he’s talkin’ about. They’d rescued him from the base a few miles out, but that’s the thing – the Commandos set fire to the damn place once they scrubbed that place clean of the opposing men. He doesn’t trust it, though. The idea of them bein’ truly gone. “Sir, please – ”
“No, NO! You don’t get it, they’ll get you, they’ll get Steve, they’ll get – ” His body starts thrashing again, and the men holding him back are suddenly grunting in keeping him still.
“Nurse,” Steve whispered, his eyes getting shiny and worried again. I patted his shoulder as he crouched next to us.
“Sir!” I grab Bucky’s face, his cheeks in my palms. He lets out a shuddering gasp at the warmth of my hands – his skin is softer than I thought, even if he’s got a ghost of a stubble on his face. The flesh was damp and clammy, and I couldn’t help myself as I ran my thumbs under his eyes. “Stop. Stop that. The base is burnt to a crisp. You saw it yourself, didn’t you? That tall thing o’ smoke was so big even I could see it from here. And that was after Cap got all of the men inside.”
His blue eyes were blown wide, unmoving from my face even if the rest of him was twitching and erratic. “He got them all?”
I nod. “Good and bad. Miss Carter’s real pissed – she wanted to interrogate some of ’em, but in the heat of the moment Rogers went overboard in exacting justice with the guys who took ya.”
“No I didn’t,” Steve muttered under me, soundin’ rather childish. I rolled my eyes.
“It’s gone now, sir. I promise.” The rising sun made his cheeks flush pink like morning blooms. The sergeant’s chapped lips were a carnation red. “But you’re dented up real bad. So I’d appreciate it if you let me look at you. Inside your tent, preferably.”
For almost a minute, Bucky stares at me. For almost a minute, I began to assume the worst, thinking I’d have to force morphine into him – but then he nodded. I hide my relief as I tell the boys to let him go and lead him into his tent again. “Lay down, sir.” I tell him to lay down onto his cot and start my checkup. His hip needed stitches and there were nasty bruises all over his back, long black welts that made me sick to look at as I rubbed ointment and wrapped it with thick cloth. Afterwards, I dipped an old towel with water and patted away the sweat from his chest, neck and face. He just stared at me the entire time, so much so that I prayed he couldn’t hear how fast my heart was beating as my face began to heat up. The canvas was dark and shadowy, so hopefully my face wasn’t too illuminated.
“They did something to my head,” Bucky croaked after a while. “Something…strapped me to a chair and…it really hurt. Something.”
“Yeah?” My heart sank a little at that. I couldn’t treat internal brain trauma, not really. I wish I could. Maybe I should study the brain in medical school, if I impress Miss Carter and Colonel Phillips enough for a letter of recommendation. My hand went to his head, tryin’ to smooth the messy hair on his scalp into something more handsome. His eyes got a little droopy as I did. Poor guy probably misses his mama. “Does your head hurt as much now?”
He shook his head a little. “Not anymore.” I get up after wiping him down and tucking him with a blanket. Since everyone else was probably doing chores and training at this hour, I should help too. That’s when I felt his hand grab my wrist. “Will you stay with me?” Bucky quietly asked. “I don’t – I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts right now.”
“And you trust me to help?” I weakly joke.
“You help my head more than anything else right now,” He rasped. “Please.”
I nod, expectin’ him to just let me sit next to him. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest when he pulled me onto the cot with him, his nose nuzzling my shoulder as his eyes began to flutter shut. He didn’t wrap his arms around me, but clutched my apron instead.
Just for an hour, I tell myself. I keep telling myself that as I suddenly became aware of Bucky's breath on my neck and how warm it prickled my skin. After a long while, assuming it’s been an hour, I manage to pull out from under the snoozing sergeant. I left the tent, feeling the morning breeze welcome me back. Five minutes later, I heard my name being frantically yelled out. Looking behind me from the crates I was accounting, sergeant Barnes had the same wild, panicked look in his eyes. Everyone else was busy with their work, but Steve who was nearby shook his head exasperatedly for some reason before telling Buck to calm down. Buck ignored him. Instead he made his way to me, stumblin’ on his own legs as he did. I reached out to grab his elbows, but he was faster as his hands took my wrists. My face burned at the look in his eye, his jaw taut with what I realized wasn’t anger.
“You weren’t there.”
I lick my lips. “It’d been an hour, sir. I need to go back to work.”
His furrowed brow lessened. “...oh. Sorry.” As if he realized what he was throwin’ a fit over, he let me go. My heartbeat slowed down a little, but I felt bad. His hair was messier than I last saw it, meaning he probably thrashed in his sleep while I was gone.
“If you want, I can – ” What was I doing? I had to do work, I had to study and tend to the other boys. He’s not – he’s not a baby. But – “When I’m done with the others I can sit with you again. I’d be studyin’, but I won’t leave your tent again.”
He looked up, hopeful. “Really?” I nod. There was a funny look on his face, all serious and soft. “That’s – ” He swallowed. “Thanks. Thanks, doll.”
I smile and go back to work. A few hours later, I find him in his cot, not at all asleep but rubbing his Swiss clean despite it bein’ already the shiniest thing in camp. When I point it out, he shakes his head. “I can still see it,” he said. Still, Bucky settled down when he saw me sit across from him. “You can share my cot,” He quietly offered. His eyes looked a little downturned, as if it was the first time he’s been tired since the mission. “I won’t try anything.”
“You sure?” I settle myself to perch at the end, near his feet after he laid down.
“I sleep better with the weight. Your weight, specifically.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, his eyes fluttered shut again, fast asleep.
[Day 650]
I didn't realize how badly scarred my body was until I caught Bucky staring at me. After changing into an old dress from Italy, I don’t bother throwing a sweater or shawl over my back. We weren’t in public, so I didn’t see the fuss. The morning was uneventful until –
Clink!
The sound of delicate resin breaks behind me. Looking back, Bucky’s eyes are wide as a glass is shattered under him. Despite the weight that’s been hanging in my head since Germany, I humorlessly say – “Don’t tell me that I’ve got severe bacne or somethin’.”
His face twisted into something painful. “I wouldn’t drop a plate over that. Is that – ”
I know what he’s talking about. “You’ve never sneaked a peek before? It’s no big fuss.”
“No.” He said bluntly. “It’s all across your…does it go all the way down to – ”
My face twitched. “Maybe it does. But it’s not like you’d even get that intimate with me to know, right? Fuck off, Barnes.” I turn around quickly to make my way to the pantry. I grab the small dust and bin and shove it into his arms. “Clean up.” Without thinking, my legs make me retreat to the bed again. It’s been my refuge for the past few weeks, since everything that’s happened. If I curled up, nothing could touch me. The cushions muffled my thoughts.
I knew what he was talking about. The long, dividing scar down my back, from my nape to my tailbone, from which they did the initial spinal transfer decades ago. HYDRA did perform other surgeries, but the scarring for the other cuts usually healed after a decade of ice. The biggest cut never did, though, and now I’m suddenly reminded of its ugliness as I stare at myself after my shower. Long, ugly and jagged. The thing that made Natasha even look mortified when we first met – even in Italy I managed to cover it with shawls and shirts, but looking at it now…I don’t think I ever acknowledged how the rod on top of my bones made the scar appear a mixed red and black in the white light of the bathroom.
I’d know when it’s been a few years since a surgery has been done when my body stops aching at the cut site. For my back, though, it seemed to have never recovered – even the worst cuts, like along my arms and legs, were gone after two rounds of cryostasis. But my back was practically a reactor to my environment. Too much stress? Pain. Too cold? Pain. Too winded? Not pain, but the threat of it from how tense my shoulders would get. When Munich happened, the bed had the one upside that the pain was cushioned, but it still hurt.
I hated Bucky asking that. I know it was harmless, but I hated it all the same. The last thing I needed was another embarrassing delicacy, another thing that made me look pathetic – poor girl, she forgot her own family, her first love, and now she’s freshly grieving all because of fascist murder cult! Give me a goddamn break.
Before bed I watched as Bucky changed out of his shirt. I normally was bashful, my face would get all hot and I’d have to always look away, but this time I just studied him. Past his bulk and muscle, past his softly gleaming skin. The redding around his metal shoulder was still harsh after all these years. Bucky noticed me staring. “What?”
I shake my head. “You look good.” I say, recalling how much agony he was in when he first got the metal limb. How he couldn’t even control his grip – god, they did a number on both of us. To my surprise, his ears reddened. Then his neck. Bucky’s whole face, really, as his gaze averted mine.
“...You’re too sweet for me, doll.” His metal hand went over to briefly caress my cheek. Then, to my dismay, my heart skipped a beat.
…dammit. I was supposed to be bitter about him.
[Day 656]
A few days had passed since the little cup-breaking incident. Bucky, I think, felt bad about his reaction since he became a lot more avoidant when looking at me. He used to always stare whenever I’d walk past him, but now he only does if my face is in view, not my back.
I started going on autopilot whenever we went outside. Nothing seemed fun anymore, although our roles have swapped – Bucky used to look over his shoulder, but now he’s just shepherding me from one stall to the next. I used to peruse, but I think I lost my appetite.
When we stopped by the soap stall, my old vanity came out a little. I used to try and stay obsessively clean as a nurse. And initially after HYDRA, I still tried to keep the habit in order to feel human. Initially, though – now I seemed to just avoid the temptation of drowning myself whenever I stood in the shower.
“ Ma’am? ” A voice pulled me out of my thoughts. A vendor was offering me a cake of soap to sniff. I take it and take a whiff, where woody florals fill my senses. Not really my type, but not bad. “ It looks suitable for you. ” I shake my head and try to smile. I think it looks more like a grimace, based on his politely amused reaction. “ How about this one instead? It’s more herbal, but many enjoy the musk. ” I humor him and hold the new bar up to my nose. The smell isn’t herbal at all – it’s sharp. Medicinal. Clinical. Tar-like. Carbolic. The smell of the war. The smell of the lab. The smell of the doctor I killed. The smell of sinning –
“ Excuse us, we’re done here. ” Bucky’s voice broke me out of my spiraling. He was murder-glaring at the vendor for some reason, despite how gentle his hand was cradling mine. “ C’mon sweetheart. Let’s go. ”
I didn’t realize that my chest was beginning to quickly heave as I inhaled more of the stuff, and just as I did he snatched the bar and handed it back with the same rough speed of someone who didn’t want a breakdown in the middle of the market. He took my shoulders with his gloved hands and steered us both to some corner where they sold baskets and cooking pots. Despite the fact we were in public, Bucky, after taking a moment to make sure no one was watching, took his glove off and pressed his cool, metal hand against my cheek. I didn’t realize I was going febrile until he did and let out a shaky sigh. After almost a minute of that, he slipped the fabric back on again.
“I killed someone who used to smell like that. Smells just like the labs. Like getting gutted first thing after waking up.” Like me, I wanted to whisper. Someone whose hands once healed. But I couldn’t. Too shameful. “The scientists always smelled like that soap.”
Bucky nodded. “One of the handlers used to always wear a dark green sweater when torturing me in the chair. I think he did that to make me scared.”
“Did it work?”
“I almost panicked in Carpathia once because one of the villagers wore something similar. Not that it matters – the Soldier managed to kill him after a while.” His eyes went back down to his feet. We both stood quietly for a moment as the rest of the market bustled around us. I take his hand and squeeze it, for once remembering the point of my hiding with him. Be amenable. A friend. A comfort.
“I’m hungry, Buck. Can we wrap this up?” I didn’t know how to comfort him, not when I had the same damn problem. It wasn’t like a nightmare, where I could talk his head off – not that I wanted to anymore. I lost my voice a while back, and my energy. Bucky himself did the same and we both stopped eating right these past few weeks. His eyes went back up, like I offered him a boon from his own thoughts.
“Yeah. You want to pick up something on the way back?”
“Sure.”
We went home ten minutes later after Bucky ordered some takeout stew from a vendor that was so hot that he had to use his metal hand to carry it back home. During the entire walk, I held his leather bomber jacket’s collar up to my nose – it smelled nothing like the soaps. It was fuller, warmer, and with a hint of woodsmoke. A little like him. He hadn’t worn the jacket since Carpathia, so it wasn’t marred by the scent of the city until I stole it. He stole it first anyways, from a thrift in our first stay in Bucharest.
We washed up and had dinner in relative quiet. While I was putting some things away, I heard Bucky curse under his breath again. Turning around, he was trying to wind his shoulder again. He’s been doing that more than usual, like it didn’t work for him anymore. Like he outgrew HYDRA’s engineering, or something. “Need help?” I offer. He nods. When we settle for sleep, I crawl to his side of the bed and start adding pressure again. It was stubborn, but after a few minutes, a small snapping noise and a relieved exhale let me know my job was done.
“I’m surprised your back doesn’t do the same,” He murmured with his eyes on me. I stiffen, and Bucky’s gaze averts. “Sorry.”
I wanted to get mad. To push him off for the horrible offense to assume that I was in pain from the labs. The labs were over, goddammit – I didn’t want to think about how they cut me while holdin’ me down, while drugging me to the nines. “You want to see?” Instead, something hardened in my chest. He’s shown me his wounds. Even in our first stay in Bucharest. When was the last time’s seen mine? Since Siberia, when I was thrown back into our shared cell? Back when I was still innocent enough to think that I had the option of dignity? Of being treated like a person? I needed someone to see it. Someone who mattered. Someone who might know what it felt like. When he looked up, I slipped the shoulders off my nightgown, feeling the fabric behind me slide off like water off a duck’s back.
Staring at the window, where the black sky was only cut off with the glowing moon, I debated saying something as I felt Bucky sit up. He brushed the hair from my nape and let both his thumbs follow down the scar that lined my back, never directly touching where they hurt me. “They operated on me in parts. They took one long cut, just to open the narrow canal and replaced each bone, column by column.” It must’ve taken hours. I blacked out everything that had happened before and after that operation. That’s how I forgot Bucky’s humanity in the cells. My fingers flutter to my nape momentarily. “The first seven are the cervical vertebrae. They cut off that part in one big chunk and put it back with something heavy. A metal shunt that moved me whenever they needed me to move. Too heavy to fight.” My fingers moved down. “T1 to T12 – Thoracic. I studied each part of them cutting me open in nursing school. They drilled screws to make sure that nothing – ”
“Stop it.” Bucky’s voice was tight. “I got the picture. That’s why you bled so much.”
“S’pose so.” I don’t tell him about the ninety-nine other candidates who died from the procedure. How I only survived because they didn’t drill too deep into the nuclei of my spinal cord, or how they angled it just right and that’s how I barely got spared from their primitive surgical techniques.
“I remember seeing this in Siberia,” He quietly spoke after a minute. “When we met again in Bucharest for the first time, I thought I was hallucinating how deep the cut was. That maybe you recovered. That way you screamed when they threw you inside the cell altered how I remembered it…” Just before his hands could slide down to my tailbone, he stopped. “...I was wrong.” After a moment, he slid the shoulders of my nightgown back up, covering up the long scar with fabric and modesty. Modesty – that’s not something I had in a long time. Not the religious guilt kind, just the kind that came with being a human wanting to be treated with dignity. Not getting stripped immediately after cryo and being cut open to have metal shoved in your nerves. When I was sick in Greece, I think he did something similar – I was too out of it to recall, and I know he’d never mention it for my sake, but he definitely changed my clothes a few times.
Bucky clumsily tied a knot behind my back. There were two small strings of ribbon in the back of my dress’ nape to loosen or tighten the collar at the front. “Sorry, that was supposed to be a bow...” he murmured. Clumsy. Like his attempts to cook, to kiss, to protect – but attempts nonetheless. He attempted to get my attention after Munich, even though he hardly slept well with shitty trinkets and comforts. Even his guilt – it was purer than mine, always so self aware of his movements and holding back. I couldn’t hate him for sparing the HYDRA handler, even if it cost me the last of my past. Not when I knew what he's like.
My eyes started to water, but I bit back the tears threatening to spill. Instead I turned around where he lay, grabbed his hands and studied the fake wedding band on his fingers. I’m not good at loving. At grieving. At being in pain without hurting others. And neither was he, and yet…“Do you…” I bit my lower lip in hesitation. Bucky tilted his head.
“Yeah, sweetheart?” My heart skipped a beat at the name. No. I couldn’t ask. Not while we were in hiding. Not when we were hurting. Instead I shake my head and kiss him. His hands cupped my cheeks, and when we pulled away, his brows were furrowed. “What is it, nurse? What’s bothering my girl? Is it Munich again?”
My cheeks burned as tears came down my face. “Yes,” I lie, a sob escaping my lips. “Yes, that’s exactly it.”
Bucky clicked his tongue, pulling me to rest my head on his chest. His hands ran through my hair. “I wish I was faster. I wish I could’ve grabbed him instead of staring in confusion like an idiot. What’s the point of being a super soldier if you can’t even – ”
I shook my head. Did he seriously blame himself? My brother literally punched me in the face – for all we knew, he could have still been unstable. Beyond salvation. It wasn’t like Bucky and Steve, where their bond was so strong that it broke him free from HYDRA’s codewords. Even saved Steve's life, despite the initial confusion in the sergeant's head. “It’s not like he recognized me. I looked familiar, that’s all. He was probably just confused as to why a test subject was running away with a Soldier.”
“Still,” Bucky rasped. “He was salvageable, and – ”
I let out a watery laugh at that. “Salvageable? James, don’t be so grace-giving. He was gone. HYDRA took everything from him, just like they took everything from me. Our bodies, his mind, our autonomy…up to our faces. Everything but our eyes, they took. There was nothing left of him in there.”
He disagreed. “Steve managed to bring me back, nurse. The private might’ve been able to have been brought back.” A pause. “All the Soldiers could be, if someone gave a shit about them.” A soft scoff escaped his throat. “Not that any good would come of that. If I remembered all the hell that I put everyone through at that moment, I would’ve saved Steve and let myself drown in that damn river.”
I quickly look up. Something sick roiled in my stomach. “Don’t say that.”
“But it’s the truth.” He said it not nonchalantly, but there was a quiet firmness in his voice. “Even you were hurt because of me when I was the Winter Soldier.”
“And before that, I managed to feel something for you. When you were the sergeant. In the brief moment we were together. You don’t think that means something?”
“Yeah, it means we lost something good for something terrible.”
My face twitched. “And me? I used to be good. And unlike you, I was awake for my kills. My operations. I killed less than you, but it’s still sinning all the same. What the hell am I, if not something similar?” That shut him up. I was depressed, but not stupid. I was a terrible person, but he wasn’t. Just someone who has to now carry the burden of something he never deserved to have. Didn't we have this talk in Italy? We could speak this a hundred times, and a hundred times it would stay the same. “It’s getting late. Turn off the lights.”
He did, and I felt his heartbeat under my palm. It was steady, but slightly quick. “You deserve better than staying with someone like me.”
No, I don’t. I lucked out with you. Compared to me, he’s a lot more understanding of pain. More human about it. He only holds me up with such grace because of Siberia. “I want to stay with you.”
“Why?”
Because I love you. I don’t deserve you, but I love you. And I want you to love me back, but I know that means you’ll be damning yourself to a life of getting hurt. I can't even help myself, so how the hell can I keep you happy? You don't deserve that.
“I’m your wife, ain’t I?” I made the worst-delivered joke I could. He didn’t laugh in the least. Instead Bucky just pulled the sheets closer to my neck.
“Yeah. You are.”
Notes:
tried to reference the story title in this chapter, not sure if it worked because I hate clunky references
Chapter 64: Then Fare Thee Well Darlin' I'll be on my way, then Fare Thee Well Darlin', no Longer to Stand
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[A Hypothetical 1944]
It wasn’t a big fuss. Or, at least, that’s what I kept telling myself afterwards. It’s not even like I got injured, so what’s worth writin’ home about? Well, maybe one or two things. The medic Phil and I were being given special instructions for a mission the boys were to be goin’ out on, which was a first for both of us. We usually just hung back and waited for when they came back, but the Brit was adamant on our help.
“There’s going to be a lot of men, so it’s better you set up camp just outside,” She explained.
“Outside?” Phil echoed. Phil was an older man from Illinois, long face and little circle glasses that you’d never expect could be so brave in the line of fire and noise, but then shut up when proven wrong. It was funny, workin’ with him – he’d ramble on about his wife and teenage daughter, then turn to me and ask what I’ve been up to. Then I’d talk about camp gossip Rita wrote to me and he’d be completely out of his depth.
Miss Carter nodded. “You’ll be hidden, but the amount of men isn’t one we can take lightly. If worse comes to worse, we need you two to be as close as possible. Things might get messy and we need all hands on deck.”
“And if worse comes to worse comes to our camp?” I ask.
Her face was perfectly calm and pretty as she turned to me. “I taught you how to use that pistol for a reason, nurse. Surely you’ve gotten used to it by now.”
Here’s a good life lesson for anyone who wants to work for Peggy Carter in the future: The words ‘might’ and ‘maybe’ actually mean ‘definitely’ and ‘without a shadow of a doubt’.
“I’m a healer, but…” I sigh a few hours later, taking out my little gun. True to her words, Phil and I heard unfamiliar footsteps approach our way in camp. To our luck, we were both on opposin’ sides, so we couldn’t even stick together as we both scrambled to hide from the approaching footsteps.
I didn’t know what words were being spoken, but I held my breath as I heard them just beyond my eyeshot. At this point my body was all curled up under a desk, a weapon in each of my hands.
I looked at Phil, who was on the other side of camp – I could barely see him. I knew he wasn’t afraid; hell, he’s been brave since I saw a dozen blood-soaked men get carried in and all needed treatment within the hour. He worked both of us to the bone and hardly broke a sweat safe for asking the lord to forgive him when he cursed afterwards. Even so, my stomach felt sick as I could only see the tip of his boot behind a tree.
Snap!
Oh shit. I could hear a twig break from a nearby boot that definitely wasn’t the sergeant’s. His steps were lighter and graceful, indicative of him bein’ a swift sharpshooter. This one was heavy and mufflin’, with a long, shadowy figure –
“Shit!”
BANG!
My heart leapt to my throat as I felt something spatter onto my face. Hot. Metallic. Looking down, the soldier was now crumpled to the ground, a hole in his head that looked black compared to his brown scalp. I nearly screamed when I saw a familiar pair of dark boots stand in front of me.
“Nurse,” Bucky set his rifle to his side, his blue eyes wide and jaw set tight. As if realizin’ what’d just happened, he kicked the corpse with such a force that I guessed his toe would be bruised later, then grabbed me out from under the desk. “You okay?” I don’t know. I didn’t want to talk when there was another man’s blood on my mouth. He shook his head. “Of course you’re not. Here. C’mon sweetheart, we’re done here.” Bucky took a rag from his pocket and did his best to wipe my face clean, then momentarily pulled me close for a hug. Despite the shock of before, I didn’t want him to let go.
I was practically mute when the rest of the night unfurled. A blur – some more of our soldiers came back, Carter was angrily saying something to someone, some of the other men were talking over maps…I just sat stupidly on a crate while I felt my face getting scrubbed. “Blood doesn’t stand a chance against your pretty little face, huh?” Bucky’s voice broke through my thoughts. His tone was all soft, but it didn’t do much to make me want to talk. I think that he was still upset over the mission, though, since he dismissed me a second later. “Go with Phil, doll. Me and the boys need to talk. Sleep in tomorrow, even.”
Phil, who had his glasses off looked sterner when his grey eyes weren’t covered, gestured to me to follow him. “C’mon. Bedtime for us bandages.” I went inside the tent, but he didn’t follow, instead standin’ outside. A few minutes later, I heard yelling.
“ What do you mean, she was part of the plan!? ”
“ Calm down, sergeant! She was aware of the – ”
“ No she wasn’t! She knew what it was on paper not – not in reality! ”
“ Barnes, I know it was bad, but you can’t get all caught up with your – ”
“ That’s rich coming from you, Carter – hey, remember when you nearly shot Steve after you caught him making out with Phillip's secretary? He told me that – ”
“ That was testing out his SHIELD, not – ”
“ Is that what dames are calling it now? ”
“ Both of you, enough! ”
Again, though, it was over. That was a few days ago, where some stragglin’ men from the other side tried to escape. Bucky personally took out a couple before sprintin’ back when he saw one escape his scope. The annoying thing was when he kept tryin’ to baby me when we traveled afterwards.
“Did you sleep?”
“You didn’t skip breakfast again, did you?”
“You look a little off. I’m gonna tell Phil to give you a break.”
“Here, eat this.”
“Here, drink this.”
“You shouldn’t be walking back alone. If I’m not around ask Steve to – ”
“Thank you, sir,” I bit back a glare. It was embarrassing, bein’ fussed over like this. I wasn’t a baby. I knew what I signed up for just like everyone else. But still, here he was! He didn’t seem to pick up my independence at all. UGH.
It didn’t help that Miss Carter seemed to be in on it. Rogers too, a little. When we took a day to travel through a small town in the European countryside. The Commandos were given a little break, just for an hour, to peruse what they liked and send any necessary letters. “Oh, and nurse? Barnes is your lackey for the day. You hear that, sergeant?” The agent asked.
Bucky nodded, not looking as serious as before but not really grinning either.
“Seriously?” I make a face. Turnin’ to Steve, he simply shrugged.
“Sorry ma’am. Ladies get special treatment.” Oh, gross – and like the whipped man he is, he followed Miss Carter to whatever postal shop she wanted, probably to carry her heavy deliveries like her own personal valet.
“Where do you wanna go?” Bucky turned to me. I shake my head.
“Don’t you have some letter to send? Gun shop to peruse?” I grunt. “I’m fine, Barnes. Go flirt with one of the other nurses, or something.”
I could feel him starin’ at me as I walked away. “But there are no other nurses!”
He followed me like a lost dog. Nevermind that he had his own day off to enjoy, the sergeant trailed me everywhere – the bakery, the store, the boutique. If I stared at something? “Chocolate or vanilla?” He asked when he noticed me staring at the little opera cakes in the bake shop.
Honestly, if my books weren’t packed away, I’d be goin’ over my notes right now. “Paper.”
Then, when I went to a shop, looking at the hand creams – “I can get it, if you want. I know you hate when your hands get chapped after being covered in blood, dirt and alcohol all day.”
How does he even know that? “No, the blood feels lovely, sir. Excuse me.”
“Yes ma’am.” Christ.
Then the beauty shop – he could at least pretend to be buying silk gloves for his mama. Instead he holds up a little gold bullet. “For you. It’s not a flower, but it’s called ‘Carnation’, so I think it balances out.” That’s it. He’s never acted like this. I grab his hand and take him back outside, to the nearest alley and push him against the wall. That makes him chuckle. “Sweetheart, if you wanted some alone time with me you could’ve just – ”
“Stop it!” I hissed. “Stop – stop doin’ all of this!”
Bucky’s easy-going face stiffened for a moment. “Why not? It’s a free hour off, I can do what I want.”
“And that includes bothering me?”
“I was trying to comfort you!”
“Why?” I make a face. I’m not a soldier, I’m the last person who needed comfort! And I was good at my job, so it’s not like anyone was yelling at me. I don’t need anyone’s pity! “Why not treat everyone else like this too, then, huh?”
His jaw clenched. The hollow of his cheek shifted a little, and suddenly I’m reminded of how tall he is in uniform. “Because not everyone had their face and lips covered in the enemy’s blood after twelve hours of patching up men. Soldiers are expected to go through that. Not nurses. Not people like you.”
“People like me.” I scoff. “Elaborate.”
Bucky looked up at the blue sky like he was lookin’ for a boon. Then looked back down at me, his palm going under my chin. “We’re in the middle of a war, sweetheart. Don’t make me spell it out for you.” He then let go, making my face feel oddly hot. I didn’t know why I felt wounded, but I did, and refused to look at him when I felt the sergeant’s eyes still on me. He sighed, then handed me the small tube of lipstick he bought earlier. “I’ll get out of your hair, then. Sorry, ma’am.”
When we set up camp at our next base, I ended up sittin’ on the crates outside the main tent in order to avoid having dinner with the others. “Mind if I join you?” It’s Miss Carter, holding a small mug of coffee and brioche she must’ve bought at the last stop.
“Go ahead, Miss Carter.”
“Please, I keep telling you to call me Peggy.”
“Okay, Miss Peggy.”
After a moment of quiet, she spoke again. “You know the mission wasn’t intended to hurt you, right?”
I nod. Of course I did. It was a bit of a shock, but at least it was over now. “It’s war.”
“Good, good. The sergeant gave me an earful about traumatizing you.”
A scoff escaped my throat. “I’m not traumatized.”
“Yes, I presumed, but it didn’t stop him panicking. His poor girl, covered in blood after a long day of hard work and nearly killed because he almost wasn’t fast enough.”
“What?”
“Oh, yes. He was rather mortified by the idea that he couldn’t save you. For all of his sharpshooting repute, he felt like he nearly failed to live up to his own standards the other day.”
“N-no, no, not that, just…his girl?”
Peggy blinked, her brown eyes clearly bewildered. “Oh! Oh, dear, I’m sorry – I just assumed – ” She gestured to my lips. I was wearin’ the lipstick he got me – I was only wearin’ it because it’d be a shame to waste it, okay!?
“It’s fine – does – does everyone think – ”
She gave an odd, weak smile. “Anyone can see he’s got a soft spot for you. I once saw him get all bitter because you sang another soldier to sleep, but when it was his turn, you just gave him a once-over.” Wait, I remember that – that’s why he made a private do extra pushups? Because of me? Me?
“...I’m not worth that fuss.”
She clicked her tongue. “Tell that to him, dear, not me.” After downing the rest of her drink, Peggy gave me her uneaten brioche. “See you later. Thanks very much for the company.”
The next morning, I went to find the sergeant before his next outing. He wasn’t even changed out of his sleep shirt, hair messy as he stood outside his tent. “Sir?” I call out to him. I was already dressed, mostly just waiting for Phil to come out in a few minutes. Bucky looked up.
“Hm?” His blue eyes flickered to my mouth, where I’d painted it red. Suddenly my breathing hurt a little – like inhaling felt too tight. I looked away.
“You…good luck out there.”
Bucky’s gaze softened, giving me a small smile despite my actions earlier. I don’t get him – if I showed my folks lip, I would’ve still have been let known of it. His ease made my stomach flip. “Thanks.”
“And don’t get mad at soldiers for things you can’t control,” I remember Peggy’s words. “That’s not their fault, sir.”
He raised a brow. “Depends if they got something I wanted. I don’t like sharing.”
I rolled my eyes. “Then use your goddamn words next time.”
That made him chuckle – it was so unexpected that it made me stop thinkin’ for a second. “Yes ma’am.”
[Day 662]
I started reading the books Bucky got me. They weren’t that interesting, and my focus wasn’t what it used to be, so I could only bring myself to read for half an hour at a time. The humanities were the quickest to get through – he’d got these little travel brochures and a thin book of Romanian art throughout history that I flipped through while he made dinner. “Find anything interesting?” He asked. I shrugged, showing him a picture of some cave painting found in the countryside. “Probably the only thing here older than both of us.”
Somehow, my copy of Grey’s Anatomy was still with us after Italy. I’d hastily packed it in Germany, but a part of me wished I left it behind. It hurt too much to look at, to read again. Some things felt safe, though, even if my head felt too heavy to do much most days. Not my medical book, but other things – Bucky’s old leather bomber was something I wore both in and out of the house. “You don’t mind, do you?” I ask before we go out for groceries one day.
“’Course not.” Later, when I washed it, he was oddly frowning while holding the collar to his nose. “Did you switch shampoos?” I shook my head, explaining that I just did laundry. His mouth pursed in an odd way. “I prefer it smelling like you, not soap.” And I prefer it to be clean even if I’m not, but I bit back the retort.
Another safe thing was soap, ironically enough. Since realizing I hated the smell of certain soaps, certain alcohols, I tried to distract my head by grabbing bars of syrupy-scented soaps, sugary winter flowers in oils, and even stealing aquatic cologne samples. Always small, and not too expensive, but sometimes after a bad dream I’d fiddle with a bottle just to distract my nose from searching for the smell of blood and rot – I used to think I could smell it on my shirt, and after a particularly bad dream about a particularly bad operation, I’d scrubbed my skin raw in an attempt to get rid of the smell. “You smell fine,” Bucky tried to reassure. Ironically, his scent calmed me a little. I used to associate the Winter Soldier with the smell of sweat and iron, but Bucky Barnes didn’t normally smell like murder. Whenever I didn’t sleep well, I’d bury my face in his shoulder at night and wait for a better morning.
Food wasn’t something I had much of an appetite for anymore. When my old man died a hundred years back, I did the same thing where I skipped dinners in favor of crying my head off; and then chugging water because of how badly my head ached. Here I initially did the same thing, safe for the occasional fruit Bucky would try to give me. Then he started bringing in takeout, which mostly consisted of him bringing in food and complaining about things he saw while out. “Men don’t pay for things anymore, it’s pathetic.”
I stopped working on my tocană – while I lost my appetite, the smell of hot oil and meat made my mouth water enough to get out of bed today. “What do you mean?”
“I overheard this couple on a date. The guy made the girl pay for her half.”
Mind you, I’ve never been on a date. I’d be lucky if anyone back home considered me pretty, so paying your half sounded fair in my eyes. When I told Bucky this, he gave me a glare that made it clear my decision was a stupid-ass one. “Even when the Depression made my wallet small you wouldn’t catch me dead making a dame pay.”
“Why? She does she have to be helpless?”
“No,” He shook his head. “Honestly, you’d think you were the one who forgot the past – you don’t make a girl pay. It’s impolite. If you can’t cover her dinner, how can you afford her a home? Kids? School? Clothes?”
Despite how I hadn’t even brought myself to read today, I had the energy to argue. Because of course I did. “What if she wants to cover it, because it means she’s worked hard enough to take care of herself?”
He thought for a moment. “She can work hard for what she wants. But she can keep that money for herself. It’s still bad to make her pay. You can’t even call yourself a man, since only boys rely on someone else to cover for them.”
“Oh, and you’re a man?” I raise a brow. “With your stolen HYDRA money?” We were sitting on the small, two-seated couch that was really too cramped for the both of us. I had no idea how Bucky would sleep on this thing some nights when things got more difficult. Still, he scooched closer to me, nudging my legs. I had no idea what he wanted until he lifted my ankles to rest on his lap. It was warm and comfortable.
“But it’s mine now, isn’t it? And we’ve got enough for a long while, since we only spent it on cheap rents. Even if we live in a poorer district, I could get you whatever you wanted.”
I rolled my eyes, giving Bucky the rest of my stew to finish for me. “You’re just sayin’ that.”
“I’m not.” Pulling me onto his lap with one hand, food in the other, his face studied mine. I used to think his eyes were a light, sky blue. Looking at him under warmer lamp light, they looked more saturated, more of a true blue. HYDRA’s horrid lighting took the color out of them in the compound. Something in me wanted to look away. Another didn’t. “What do you want, nurse? More books? Another ring? A real one? That soap you liked in Otranto?”
“What are you goin’ on about, Barnes?”
“I’m trying to find something that would make you stop acting like me.”
I scoff weakly. “Ain’t imitation the best form o’ flattery?”
Bucky didn’t look amused. I realized he was holding me with his flesh arm when he put the soup down next to us, so his metal palm was warm as he rested it on my thigh. “It’s not when you’re copying me.”
“And you think bein’ my sugar daddy would cure me?”
“No,” he looked away. “But it’s better than nothing.”
That night I thought about what he said. I was a broken record at this point, and so was he. And it wasn’t like buying things would cure me. Maybe they’d distract me for a moment, but I can’t outspend a nightmare. A trigger. I shivered under the sheets. “Bucky?” I whisper. His eyes were already shut on his side.
“Hn.”
“I want stockings. I only have the dark red ones, and I think they attract attention. Can you try and find a pair at the shops?”
“If they don’t have security cameras.” Despite his risk response, the next day, when I woke in the afternoon, I found three pairs of hosiery in black, dark blue, and brown. Layering one under my pants gave me extra warmth that made me actually want to sleep through the night.
[Day 674]
I had an old nightmare this time. One that I hadn’t had in seventy years. One that came with the war – I’d tended to so many soldiers, but they’d all seemed their own individual. One soldier used to give me a shitty joke each time I checked on him.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Interrupting cow.
Interrupting co –
Moo!
It was awful, visiting his cot when I had to. The other men were usually asleep, which meant I was just stuck with the bastard the whole damn shift. The only good thing was that if he had energy to joke, it meant he was fine. Triage rules meant that he’d be fine.
Knock knock?
Who's there?
Your old man!
My old man who?
Gosh, you’re really old to not recognize me, mama.
I’m five years younger than you.
He died the next morning from infection. The doctor said that it was a last push of energy that caused him to joke. I was just confused as to why he spent his last bit of energy making a joke that didn’t even make sense.
I’d dream of the last joke, and see a sheet of blue on his bed, the same color of my old man’s shroud. But now it’s morphed – there was a body on the bed. Head perfectly crushed, perfectly in half. I’m wearing a lab coat, and the whole room is white. I’m a HYDRA scientist. He’s wearing a muzzle. The sound of an incoming train wakes me, and I open my eyes to tears coming down my face.
Bucky knows the drill already. I know it’s a disappointment to him – he turns to my side, probably wanting something akin to me in Italy, in Carpathia, just to see a pillow damp with tears. He wordlessly wipes my face and gets up from bed, trying to live normally, quietly. All the while missing his old self, his old friends, his old loves.
I bumped into a neighbor for the first time today. We’ve changed since our first stay in Bucharest, but our habit of being reclusive from the other tenants hasn't.
“ Oh, sorry! ”
“ It’s alright. ”
The man was young, about my age. Wide brown eyes, long face, glasses and messy auburn hair. Probably a college student. He was reading and didn’t see where he was going. The book was now on the floor, and I picked it up for him. It’s The Odyssey. My favorite teacher had a single copy, and she’d make everyone share reading a passage a day. I never really understood it, but there was one scene I remembered vividly. “ It’s my favorite, ” He bashfully explained. “ I can’t help but reread it over and over again. ”
“ What’s your favorite part? ”
“ When he and his son reunite, when he tricked the cyclops, when he shot the arrow…how about you? ”
“ I liked it when the dog died. ” Argos, I think his name was. He’d been waiting for the old guy for years. Got kicked out from home and starved in the meantime. And, when he finally saw him again, where Odysseus couldn’t even break his cover to save his dog, the old hound got so excited his heart gave out and ended up dying in his own filth. Odysseus wanted to cry but couldn’t break his cover. He was twenty years into a new world, in his old home, and the last bit of comfort just left him. The neighbor snapped his fingers.
“ Oh, that’s a good scene. I really felt bad for Ody there. ”
“ Ody? ”
“ You don’t give characters nicknames like they’re your friends? ”
Is this something kids do nowadays? Befriend characters? What’s next, rewriting their endings into something they prefer? Pretending to be a part of the story? And here I thought I had coping issues. “ Not normally. ”
“ You should, it’s fun! ” He offered me his hand to shake. Gave me his name. I don’t have it in me to remember it. I gave him my fake one. Barnette – the fake last name on all of our passports. “ You just moved? ”
“ Something like that. ” I noticed the guitar on his back. “ You play? ”
He nodded. “ I’m surprised you haven’t heard me. The other neighbors definitely know what I sound like. ”
When I told Bucky about bumping into the neighbor over dinner, I was surprised that he didn’t get pissy about paranoia. He didn’t look happy that it was a guy, but kept watching me talk. Then again, I don’t think I’ve spoken in a few days. “I can hear him. He practices guitar under us.”
“For how long?”
“Since we got here. He plays at sunset.”
How did I miss such a thing? Then again, my ears don’t react well to piano, not since HYDRA ruined it for me. Bucky suddenly stood up, making his way to the window across from us. The view wasn’t pretty, which was why I was grateful for the flimsy cream curtain that covered the outside world. When he pulled it back, I could see the dark bricks and walls that indicated it was nighttime. Then, soft strumming. Making my way to the window, I sit under it like a kid hiding under a chair to watch Santa. Not with nearly as much joy, though. I try to hum along to the guitar.
“Do you know the song?” Bucky asked after a while. He sat down next to me. His metal hand was rolled up, a rare thing for him to show it so openly, even inside. Then again, he’s been trying to do stuff in the kitchen, and needed a hand that didn’t burn when he messed up.
I shrug. “It sounds like somethin’ I heard on the radio.” I attempt a low hum, attempting to follow. My voice is hoarser than I last recalled it. Oh, hard is the fortune of all woman kind…she’s always controlled, always confined…Controlled by her parents until she's a wife…a slave to her husband for the rest of her life…
I don’t remember all of the words. It’s been almost a hundred years, and I’d only heard it at an old general store that closed when the dust storms got bad. At some point I just started humming the rest of the melody. Looking up, Bucky was staring at me with…something? His eyes were wide, not with shock, and slightly soft. “No good?” I say.
He shook his head. “Didn’t say that.”
A few mornings later, there was a shitty crank radio next to our mattress. Definitely secondhand. Definitely stolen. “Just to keep in touch with everything else,” Bucky explained. Ironic, considering all of the channels just had Romanian folk music and trending pop.
Notes:
I'm specifically referencing Buell Kazee's 1928 cover of the 1734 song the Wagoner's Lad and paralleling the first Bucharest stay's parallel chapter where y/n consumes a ton of media in dormi, but here it's much more limited
I'm not wholly sure of this chapter - I wanted slow, domestic gentleness and angst, but lightening up a little? Idk
I love the Joan Baez cover of this song tho lol...it's my FAVEE
Chapter 65: Mr. and Mrs. Jack Barnette
Chapter Text
[A Hypothetical 1944]
The sergeant didn’t sound good when he was brought in. He didn’t look good either – nasty fever, sweatin’ up a storm. I thought takin’ off his shirt was enough, but changing his bandages made me realize how hot he’d get. The worst indicator was when I was dismissed from Bucky’s case. “ What? ” My face morphed into something scared, never being betrayed by Phil before. He’s always tried to include me, in order to let me learn, and only ever made me leave when he thought things were too delicate or too depressing for me to handle. Out of the hundreds of men that’s come past us, he’s only ever dismissed me for about a dozen. I wasn’t babied in the least. “But he’s not even bleedin’ out like – sir, please – ”
And with the patience that reminded me that he’s handled upset daughters before, my mentor would sadly shake his head, apologize, pat my shoulder and stand his ground. “I’ll tell you when we’re in the clear.” That’s code for either dyin’ and needin’ a letter written or recovering treatment. It’s almost never recovering.
I’d spent the entire time sitting outside the tent with Steve, who was beatin’ himself up for not seeing his best friend down faster. His eyes were red, and the same kind of shaken look he had when he realized a rogue HYDRA agent got to camp ages ago. I think he has a fear of things gettin’ out of his control, which I couldn’t exactly blame him for. I offered him my hand to hold. I wasn’t Peggy, since she’s always busy working on the inside with higher-ups, but he took it. “What are his odds?” He shakily asked after a minute.
“He looked better than the other men that Phil made me step out on,” I tried. It’s the truth! But Steve didn’t look soothed at that at all. I couldn’t blame him. The only reason why I didn’t look the same was because I did all of my dry-heaving, vomiting and crying before anyone else could see me. If you didn’t focus on the whites of my eyes, you’d think I was perfectly fine.
“He still made you step out, though.” Lookin’ down at his boots, I could see how worn he was. I don’t know when, but at some point I stopped seein’ him as Captain America. Somewhere between him staying up late to write letters for the men who were too injured to write, blushing at Peggy Carter’s kindness, and being so focused on taking out HYDRA bases that he ended up changing in my eyes from an American pin-up hero to just a very dedicated, very good man. He hesitated before speaking again. “There’s something you should know, ma’am. Something that…that Buck wanted me to tell you in case he didn’t – ”
Suddenly my name is called behind us. Phil was outside the tent, taking off his black (because he hated the look of bloodstains) apron and motioning me to come over. We both freeze. That makes him sigh exasperatedly. “He’s fine. For now. Delicate at best. I made you step out just to be on the safe side. Nothing fatal, just a scare.”
The captain and I both deflate against each other. A sigh of shaky relief, then I looked up. “What were you goin’ to say, sir?” The relieved smile on Steve’s face suddenly froze.
“Uh…don’t – don’t worry about it.” Before I could press further, he quickly stood up. “I’ll come back when Phil clears Buck for visiting. Right? Right.” Why do I feel like it was something important? Whatever. I’m given instructions to help clean up the medical tools in his kit, then after half an hour, I’m called to the corner of the tent that’s been closed off for the sergeant.
“You can take care of recovery now. I’ll be outside if you need me.” I knew the song and dance already – the next couple of hours were just going to be me and a sleeping body. Walkin’ through the canvas, I see Bucky first. From his neck to his feet he’s covered in a long, thick woolen blanket. His head was the only thing poking out, and where the sergeant’s eyes were closed like he’s just been sleeping this whole time. When I touch his forehead, it’s no longer burning up. I let out a shaky exhale that even surprised me. Thank god. Thank god.
The next couple of hours were just me routinely checking on him, changing his bandages, and writing down any notes. When I lifted the blanket I realized he’d been stripped out of most of his clothes, which made me shudder to think about how bad his fever was at some point. I tried not to look at his head for too long – I felt guilty for how shy I felt whenever I focused on how his dark lashes contrasted from his pretty, pale face. His pretty face that was pale from injury and sickness, and here I was swooning! It was shameful.
When it was dark out, he finally woke up. I didn’t even notice at first, because I was so tired from constantly stressing and checking on him. I’d actually started closing my eyes before I heard a quiet groaning next to me. Bucky’s eyes were open. “Sir!” I got up from my seat, grabbing the little flashlight in my pocket to examine his eyes. His breathing was slightly labored, but I think that was just him adjusting to being awake.
“What – what’s – ”
“You got taken down on a mission and Phil treated you,” I explained while holding his bare shoulder down from gettin’ up. “Look forward for me?” His consciousness seemed intact, but he looked a little disoriented.
“How long have I been out?”
“Just a day, sir. Everyone else is perfectly fine.” He hummed, still looking slightly unsure of everything.
“How long…how long have you been here?”
“About eight hours.” I don’t tell him about the four hours I sat outside, nor the moments in between where I almost sobbed myself sick at the idea of losing one of the few men that I’d ever consider as kind in my life. “Just relax, I’m gonna be nannyin’ you for a while.”
The rest of the hour was just me taking care of him. I’d changed his bandages and started on his clothes when he suddenly waved me off. “But Phil told me to help dress you – ”
Bucky’s face was suddenly so flushed I was worried his fever came back. “I can pull on pants by myself, doll. Just – just turn around for a sec, okay?” He seemed so adamant that I just decided to humor him. After a minute of him cursin’ under his breath and the sound of fabric rustling, he called my name again, perfectly dressed if not pained in the face. “See? Perfectly capable.” Uh-huh. Sure.
An hour later, I was going out and bringing him back a tray of food for him to eat once his body felt up for it. I tried to ignore the way his eyes followed my walking until –
“I think I’m in love with you.”
I nearly dropped the tray, luckily I had my back to him and composed myself quickly before placing the food down on the nearby crate. He’s delirious. That’s all. Traumatized. Shock. Lonely. That’s what I kept yelling in my head as my skin suddenly felt hot. “Sir, I think you need to sleep.”
“I’m not tired,” He murmured, his eyes still on me. “And I think I like you. A lot.” A pause. “Haven’t felt this way in a long time now.”
It’s nothing. “You’re just grateful, sir. That’s all.” Soldiers fall for girls who take care of them. Sometimes they’re the only girls around. It’s nothing of substance in reality. “You’re not actually – ”
"Don't do that,” Bucky quietly interrupted. “I know what I’m feeling. And it’s not gratefulness.” His jaw did that funny thing which made the shadow in his cheek shift. “If you knew what I felt, you wouldn’t call it that at all.”
“Then what would I call it? It’s war, sir, that’s the only reason why you think — ”
“I know what I feel, nurse.” He frowned at me. “I’ve been feeling it ever since you splashed water on my face and went back to memorizing your medical notes. Believe me, I don’t feel grateful when you get snappy at me, but I definitely want to keep feeling it. If it means you’re around, I want to keep feeling it. And I want you to feel it too. How I feel when you’re being too smart, too sweet.”
I can’t stand this. My chest already feels uneasy when he’s around. Ever since he saw me eyein’ a pretty ribbon in the USO hall’s ceiling, and he somehow gave it to me the next day (for some reason he and Steve were covered in bruises, with Steve muttering something about debts to Bucky). Since we started traveling in between missions, he'd purposely lagged behind so he could keep me company and talk together for however many hours. I hoped it was just in my head – if it was, it’d be easier to work with. To live with. Sure, I’d want to vomit whenever I saw other nurses in passing groups talking to him, but I could live with knowin’ it was just my daydreaming.
“Please stop this, sergeant. Just go to sleep.”
There was a sad look in his eye, clearly unsatisfied. “I know you feel something too.” He swallowed, looking oddly nervous. “I know – I know you’re innocent, but you can’t be that blind.”
My face twitched at that. “I ain’t innocent.”
“You are.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.” Then an odd laugh escaped Bucky’s throat, cheeks red. “See? I can’t even get mad at you. Please, sweetheart. It’s war, we can’t keep running forever.” I wasn’t sure what to say. What to think. This wasn’t part of the plan. The plan was to be a nurse. Make some money. Medical school. Work. Not…not this. How do I even add this to my plans?
Why not take it out? You don’t need a relationship to live.
And lose the chance to stay around with him? I don’t want to say no. Not to him. He’s too…too…shit – I catch him staring at my probably conflicted face. He sighed. “How about something else, then? If you think I’m so lonely, and this is just me being abstinent for too long?”
“What?”
“Kiss me. And if you don’t like it, we’ll leave it at that. And stay friends, from here on out. But if you do like it…” He bit back a stupid grin that made my face burn like all-fire.
“You’ll go to sleep either way.”
“Yes ma’am.” Gathering my courage, I made my way to the edge of his cot, where he laid back. Placing my hands on his chest, I could feel the thumping of his heart underneath my palm. “Relax, private. This isn’t a drill.” I deadpanned at him.
“Then what is it, sir? I’m just doin’ this so you’ll sleep. It’s not exactly like you can prepare for this.”
“Sure you can. It’s all in the wrist.”
“The wrist? I thought kissing was – ” I’m suddenly taken off-guard when his lips press against mine. My throat makes a muffled noise of surprise, stiff from the sudden contact as I realize what was happening. Face on fire, I tried to move my lips the way he did, but it felt clumsy in comparison. So many things were happening at once – his hand on my nape cradling me at first, then pressing fingers more firmly against my hair. Bucky’s other hand gripping my apron like a vice. Fire, fire, fire, fire – in my chest, my face, my throat, my stomach. When we pulled away, his brilliant blue eyes fluttered open, looking up at me, slightly glassy and dazed. It was as if he was drugged, but there was a hungry clarity in his gaze that morphine couldn’t conjure.
“That’s – ” Bucky swallowed for a moment. I could see his Adam's apple bob from under his chin. “That doesn’t count.”
“Why?” I didn’t have it in me to talk. Not when my mouth was oddly watering.
“You don’t know how to kiss back,” He rasped. There was an odd roughness in his voice. “Can’t be a fair, feelings-deciding kiss if the other person is inexperienced.”
That bothered me. Just because I was inexperienced, didn’t mean I was unsure of my feelings! Just to prove how sure I was about him, I kissed him again, not botherin’ to be shy. My heart was pounding a million miles a minute, almost sickenly fast as I clung to his shirt as an anchor as my teeth accidentally grazed his lower lip. Before I could even think to apologize, Bucky cursed under me. “ Fuck – ” His hands suddenly adjusted so I’d be resting on his chest as we kissed, one arm wrapped around my back’s waist and the other in my hair.
I lost my ability to think, to process anything but the smell of sweat and smoke that came from the sergeant. My stomach flipped when I felt something flicker between my lips, before I realized it was his tongue – tongue? Unwilling to stop, I instinctively shivered and sighed when his hand moved from my hair to my jaw, guiding me to open my mouth a little more to let him in –
Bucky suddenly pulled me off of him. Not harshly, just slipped away from my lips and gingerly pushed me back a little by my waist. His eyes lingered there for a moment, pupils blown wide and throat swallowing shallowly again before looking back up to my face. His fists were clenching the thick quilt over him so tightly his knuckles were white. I remembered just how hot I felt right then and there, as he tried to smooth my uniform with a shaking hand. “Sorry doll,” He panted, mouth shiny and face flushed. I didn’t realize how much of a mess his hair is until I saw how it clung around his face. “Almost ate your pretty little face there. Your poor mouth’s all swollen.”
I couldn’t bring myself to process what he was sayin’, more focusing on breathing through my mouth. It was like a daze, where something stronger than butterflies stirred in my stomach. As if he somehow knew, he patted my hand to get my attention. “Sweetheart, you should tell Phil that I feel like eating again. I’ll get better sleep medication then.” Sleep…medication? Oh. Right. He needed to sleep. Alone.
I almost tripped on my way out of the tent, that syrupy feeling still whirling up my insides. When I finally get some cold, fresh air, I bump into Steve. He takes one look at my face and sighs exasperatedly. “He finally told you, huh?” I nod, and for some reason, I’m told to take the rest of the hour off.
[Bucky’s P.O.V. - Day 680]
I wouldn’t call living here as an improvement, but I’ve noticed a pattern with my wife after Munich. She reacts better when she thinks no one is watching. Doesn’t like to talk too much anymore – which stung since I prefer her voice to my thoughts – except to occasionally bicker if I pick the right topic. There’s comfort in small things – heat. Soaps that don’t smell too alcoholic or clinical. Staying inside. Safe for groceries, but even now she prefers to just wait for me. Unless I want us sticking together, the nurse doesn’t like going outside.
I’ve been trying to put my bad sleep on the backburner. Nothing’s changed much, not the scream that came from falling from the train, the scientist’s taunts, the piercing pain of the mind-wiping machine, the burning confusion that I’d felt when Steve confronted me on the airship. It would all come in horrifying flashes, but would all now end with a —
Sch — ckk!
The squelch of blood, and a whoosh of wind. Then a distorted chant – murderers, murderers, MURDERERS!
The anguish cutting from her scream was the only thing I could clearly recall now from then. Was this the pain that HYDRA was putting her through? In some way, still? In a way that I cooperated by failing to save him? I think of as many people as I can during the nights where I painfully recall the faces of those I hurt – how many mothers, friends, brothers, sons and wives thought the same thing as her?
It’s hard to think why Steve thought I’m worth being watched over. And clearly, it didn’t help – sure, at first she did. The nurse helped bring back the warm parts of myself that I’d forgotten, not just from brainwashing but from how harshly I’d been living. But now she's even drained. At this point I was mostly trying to push things forward for her. If I’m not worth saving, at least she is.
I miss the nurse we met in Siberia. I miss the nurse when she was happy in Italy. In Carpathia.
I know.
I miss Steve. I wish he wasn’t so gung-ho on playing the hero all the time – it’s hard to deserve.
I know.
I miss things before all of this. I miss Brooklyn, I miss my home. My family, my old friends.
I know.
We’ll never have any of it again. Not Steve. Not her. Not a home. Not peace.
I kept telling Steve to pick something that didn’t involve fighting. And that somehow snowballed into me somehow being here. Not that it was his fault, not even close – I just feel like at some point, something went terribly wrong and I don’t know how to reverse it. Not that I can – the things I’ve done, even beyond my control, are too permanent to take back. It hurt even thinking about it. My past. My present. My future. Even the memory book felt futile at times.
“Buck?”
I looked up. The nurse is wearing the stockings I got her underneath one of my shirts, where her thighs were – I swallow my thoughts. I’ve got to stop doing that. It’s too sweet, and not something I deserve to fantasize about. “Yeah?”
“Where’s the dryer?” Oh. She wants to do laundry. I haven’t gotten her to read again, but laundry is a better step than none.
The only problem is that we didn’t have one. “We don’t have one, but there’s some string and clothespins in the closet, I think.” This shitty apartment didn’t even bother properly cleaning out the place beforehand, but I took it as a boon. Mixed D.N.A. evidence was always useful in covering up tracks.
While she went to find somewhere to set up her drying station, I made my way to the kitchen. I didn’t have much taste for taste, not like her, but I tried to find things that weren’t so terrible – fruits, juice, granola bars and bread. If the nurse was awake for longer than usual, I’d get takeout as an excuse to keep her lucid before midnight. I make us both coffee and grab the last nectarine for her to eat. “Do you know anything else about our neighbors?” She asked, currently pinning up a drying line in the small corner of our apartment that wasn’t broken down or questionably yellowed. “Other than the book guy who likes to practice guitar?”
I shrug. “They’re not nosy like the twins in the mountains, if that’s what you mean. Most of the people here are adults.” It’s not like we lived in the pretty part of Bucharest, where tourists would have cameras following us. The only people here who were curious were the students who needed somewhere cheap to live, and prioritized budget over a life free of chipped tiles and old wood. “I think there’s two other couples and some old people. That’s all.”
A few hours later my words are proven right when we were both about to fall asleep –
“ How dare you, Stefan! That was my mother’s! ”
“ If it’s your mother’s, why are you complaining? ”
The nurse, who’d curled up into a ball on her end of the small mattress, opened her eyes. We both shared a look.
“ Oh no, I have to be depressed because I broke a failed art project made by an alcoholic! Whatever shall I do!? ”
Smack! Stefan definitely got slapped.
“ She’s on NALTREXONE! That was part of her manifestations! ”
“ SAME THING! ”
I initially was going to say something. Cover her ears, offer to set something up on the couch so she’d be more comfortable…but her eyes were wide with interest, probably for the first time in a long time. “Do you want me to shut them up?” I mutter.
She shook her head. “I’ll sleep after, Buck.”
I almost got caught stealing her a crank radio but gossip is the thing that keeps her interested?
“ I want a divorce! ”
“ You wish! You still haven’t gotten one after I said that I imagined your twin sister the first time we kissed – ” Another smack .
“Bet you five that they’ll keep yellin’ ’til dawn,” The nurse murmured. I scoffed. No way. In my personal experience, this is all just foreplay.
“Bet you the couch that it's just a kink.”
Not even a minute later I won the bet and watched as she grumpily moved to the cushions. I was originally going to just call her back to bed, but after hearing the start of those ungodly noises from the thin floor, I figured it’s better I just plug my ears with old earbuds and leave the nurse blissfully deaf.
The good news was that staying up made us both too tired to get nightmares that night. The bad news was that I was now traumatized in a way that I’m seriously considering risking our hiding in order to sue the apartment for their thin floors.
[Day 688]
This morning I woke up to her in my arms. It was the first time she shared a mattress with me in a week, since the neighbors wouldn't shut up. I nearly combusted inside when I first realized where she was – not just the regular yearning reach I’d accidentally do in my sleep, but her head on my shoulder, arms curled up in my chest and her legs intertwined with mine. It was hard to breathe, not because she was heavy, but because she hasn’t been very touchy since we came here. Not unless I put her feet in my lap, or she gets so sad that she wants something akin to comfort from me. I suddenly feel her shifting awake. “Sleep well?” I croak.
The nurse nodded, her eyes tentatively opening. “...do we have eggs?”
Do you actually have your appetite back? No, don’t jinx it – I can’t afford for her to get sick. She was actually worse in our first stay in Bucharest – I could tell she was freshly-freed because there was hardly any meat on her bones. Even in my confusion I could tell that she needed to eat, so even if I despised it, and, because of HYDRA, somewhat-despised her despite knowing it wasn’t genuine, I didn’t follow her to the market the first trip. The last thing she needed was a Winter Soldier, and I for one was too paranoid to join her. It was only my own fears that let me go with her the next time, and her vomiting the first time from reading crimes against humanity that I realized this wasn’t the test subject that HYDRA conditioned me hate. That she was just a girl, and I couldn’t hate her for being so curious. A girl I once felt something for, then forgot about. She got easier to live with when I kept reminding myself that. At some point in Carpathia, I didn’t need to keep saying it in my head – she was just naturally too personable for me to be convinced that HYDRA's brainwashing of her on me was very good.
“I can buy some.” That made her shake her head. I clicked my tongue. “You can’t live off of only candy bars and fruits.”
“You do.”
“I’m enhanced, I don’t count. A truck could run over me and I’d walk it off.” I could tell by her eyes that she was more rested than usual, probably for the first time in a while. “C’mon. There’s gonna be free samples of stuff if we’re early.” That got her perked up – I credit the Depression for making us both too frugal for our own good at times. The nurse gets up and I follow suit. In about ten minutes I’m ready to go while she’s zipping up my leather jacket over herself. I couldn’t think too hard about her wearing my clothes – how she’d pull and roll up my jeans, how she’d play with the hem of my Henleys. The leather jacket was the thing that always made me crave a cigarette – she wore that damn bomber of mine everywhere, and when I’d get my hands on it, it always smelled slightly like her. Then my head would actively hurt when I’d force myself to put it in the wash basket and she’d be confused when I’d randomly kiss her senseless afterwards.
We were regulars at the nearby market. It wasn’t ideal, since we were supposed to stay hidden, but no one seemed to recognize me from the news since I wasn’t wearing what was practically black tar over my eyes or a large muzzle. “ Where’s the missus? ” One vendor would ask. He and the bread stall were about the only two people who properly noticed we were a couple, so I don't think we were too suspicious. “ Asleep, ” I’d say, and something stupid would rush into my chest when I did. How could it not? She said she was my wife, and she always looked so peaceful when she was asleep. Like a kid, not someone who's been cut open a million times and experimented on like a test dummy. Then when I wake her, her cheeks would be all puffy from sleep and she wouldn’t hiss when I’d give her whatever little trinket I’d find. My pretty wife is asleep. Not severely depressed at all. And neither am I. She’s waiting for me to get her food. I’ve got a quiet life with my girl. That’s all. No troubles here, safe for when we sleep badly at night. It was almost nice.
“ Ah, she’s come with you today! ” The mustached man at the coffee stall noticed. The nurse’s eyes would always widen at the scent that the displayed beans would waft, so I tried to bring her there when I could. “ How are you? ”
She always looked a little embarrassed to be missed, but smiled nonetheless. “ Fine, thank you. And you? ” Her under eyes have slowly tinged into something off-color since Munich, something I think was the reason why she’d always cling behind me when we walked. She thought she looked sick, but I think she still looked good. At least it brought out the shape of her eyes.
“ Jack? I like this scent. And this one. ” She held up two little vials of perfume samples. They both smelled good, but one was lighter and watery while the other was sticky and sweet. Both would be hell to sleep next to at night. I pay for them.
“ Want any books? ” I suggested when we passed a table full of them. She used to read a lot, at a much faster pace than I did when we first met. It was almost annoying in Italy, how I’d be moving to the next paragraph and she’d already flip the page when reading next to me. Now I miss it.
“ It’s hard to focus. I’d rather not. ” When I grabbed a small paper back that looked half our age, she made a ‘stop pushing me’ face.
“ It’s for me, ” I’d grunt and she’d sigh all the same.
When her hands would brush against some baskets on our way out the store, I’d notice the nurse’s ring gleam in my direction. If I wasn’t wearing gloves, I’d look at my own to match. Instead I intertwine my fingers into hers and kiss the back of her hand, right on the pearl. “ You’re too into the act, ” She’d mutter, and I’d scoff.
“ And you not enough. ” While we walked back to our shitty apartment, I figured it’d be better to talk somewhere where she can’t hide in a mattress for comfort. “ You’re letting food rot when you skip lunch. ”
“ I thought you ate it. ”
“ Why would I eat your food? ” My face twitched. Pain, I remind myself. She’s in pain. “ You’ll get sick again if you keep this up, you know that. And you also know we can’t afford an incident like Greece again. ”
The nurse’s jaw grinded slightly. “ Greece wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t withhold the truth from me. ”
“ I thought you forgave me for that. ”
“ I do. But don’t pretend all that shit happened because I didn’t feel like eating a plum all the way through. Leave me alone, sergeant. ”
When our apartment was in our view, I resigned myself to a day of mostly brooding. That was, until, I heard humming from nearby. Looking up, it was that neighbor from downstairs. The student. Looking next to me, the nurse’s face lightened up a little when seeing him. The music he played at night would soothe her. Something ugly prickled in my chest at that reminder. Instead of going up the steps, I take her hand and lead her to a shadowy corner of the building. “ What are you – ? ”
“ Why do you look at him like that? ”
She stared at me incredulously. “ Like what? ”
“ You get all soft when he’s near. You sing when he plays. I’ve been trying to keep you afloat and it just seems to tire you. Is it because HYDRA and I used to – ”
“ What!? ” The nurse stared in disbelief. “ Jack – ”
“ Don’t call me that. ” I whispered her name like it was a secret. It was. I didn’t want HYDRA, or S.H.I.E.L.D., or anyone else taking her away from me. To upset her again. “ Why are you all soft with him? What is it that he has that I don’t? ” Everything, though – he’s her age, if she hadn’t been frozen for so long. He’s a student, what she wanted to be before all of this. He’s also a music-lover like her. Both arms intact, with no blood on either of their hands. He didn’t drag her across Europe, traumatizing her with each move. I did.
“ Nothing, ” The nurse’s hands clung to my jacket as I put the bag of groceries on the ground next to us for a moment. She smelled like a mixture of herself and me, and it made my head spin. But not like a mind wipe – more gentle and aching in the chest, not at all violating. “ You’re being too paranoid. I just smile at him when we walk because he’s polite, that’s all. ” Her forehead pressed against mine. “ You’re being a child, sergeant. ”
My gloved hand goes under her nape, thumbing her hair. My nose nuzzles hers for a moment. " And you’ve been making me ache since the cells. Do you even know that, nurse? ” Before she could answer, I kissed her. Her lips were cold, but quickly heated up with the rest of her. My other hand finds her cheek as a sweet, sapid sound escapes her lips. I didn’t eat much today, but my eyes suddenly felt lighter with energy as I kept pressing my lips against hers. It’s only when I quietly whisper to my wife to open her mouth does she finally stumble back, as if finally remembering that she needs air to live, her knees slightly buckled like a newborn fawn. Both of our cheeks ran hot, and I winced as I saw how my beard made her lips swollen.
“Sorry sir,” She mumbled, doing that thing where she covered her mouth with the back of her hand. For once I wasn’t jealous of the pearl, since it didn’t know how soft my wife’s lips felt when bitten. “People will watch. I’m hungry anyways.”
“ Oh, so now you’re hungry. ” She smacked my arm, which made me snort.
“ Shut up. ”
When we went back towards the front of the building, the neighbor was still there, reading his book on the porch. He looked up and smiled. Then his eyes widened when he noticed us together. Good. “ Oh, I didn’t know you guys were a thing! I thought he lived a few doors down or something! ” He groaned. “ And here I thought my musical wooing worked. ”
My wife smirked. “ Nah. He’s just awkward, this one. ”
The neighbor smiled and stood up to go back inside. “ The handsome ones always are. ”
Wait, what.
“ Oh, I know. He’s terrible with appearances. Just hopeless. ”
“ And yet you still bagged him. I envy your courage. ”
“ Chin up, I’m sure you’ll find the right man. ”
Before I could even process what was just said, my wife took my hand to go back to our apartment. I stared at her as she bit her still-red lip. “How long have you known.” I repeated her name, and she started to snicker.
“You were jealous – jealous of a guy — who doesn’t even like – HAHA – ”
I muttered a low curse in Russian as she just cackled harder. “AND HE LIKED YOU – !” She wheezed, her knees properly failing her as I fought the urge to drop her. Instead I help the damn woman up by the scruff of her collar. “H-holy shit!”
“It’s not my fault he smiles at you every other day!” I hissed, but she started shaking her head. I realized she was starting to tear up from glee, which made me bite back a snicker. When was the last time she teased me? Laughed her ass off? “Shut – shut up. It’s not like – shut up!” My wife started to squeal when I threw her over my shoulder, smacking her thigh in a way that I knew mortified her. “Say you’re sorry, then I'll let you go!”
“Fine, fine! I’m – ” She laughed again, which made me make my way to our little brown couch and pin her there. As her body tried to struggle out of my hold, I kept bullying her –
“Say it, say it or – ”
“Sorry!” She gasped, still giggling. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry you can’t take a damn hint from a mile away! Even if it winks at you every time you go out!”
“Damn right,” I grunt, pinching her cheek hard. “I’m gonna wash up. Don’t start hitting up other gay guys while I’m out.”
“Like you’d notice.” I ruffled her hair before getting up. “James-Buchanan!”
Over dinner I read the book I got. “What’s it about?” She asks. I shrug.
“Just some thriller. Someone keeps killing the newborns in a hospital.” Her eyes go up at that.
“A mystery?” Something clicks in my head. She liked mysteries, didn’t she? In Carpathia she kept trying to make up shitty plots for the indecipherable book. “Can I see?”
“Sleep next to me tonight and I’ll let you. Not by me, next to me.” Like a proper wife and husband, I wanted to say. It’s not a medical book, but I take my chance with it. Maybe the hospital stuff will interest her; and if I can hide my face in her hair when I sleep, that’s just a perk. Her eyes widened slightly before looking away, sounding much shyer when she agreed.
“…alright, James.”
That night my wife washed up and came to our shared mattress smelling like one of the perfumes she bought at the market, her skin and hair scented damp and dulcet. My mouth watered slightly after looking away. Before I could offer my book to her, she settled next to me, shivering slightly from the cold of stepping out of the bath earlier. I play with the hem of her sweater, noticing the stockings painted her legs a dark blue. I was right about the color on her. “Start?” Was the only thing she said so I could open the first page. Like in Bucharest, in Carpathia and Italy, her eyes scanned the page faster than I could. Not that I complained, though, since she'd been sluggish for so long.
When we made it to the fifteenth page, my girl's lids started to droop. I didn't mention it, instead waiting until her eyes rolled back and fluttered shut to close the book and turned off the nearby lamp. “Decent progress,” I muttered, but I wasn't wholly sure of what. Not the book. Her sleep was still shot, but she looked like she'd actually last through the night for once. Not wanting to jinx it, I ignore the pounding in my chest and stare at the ceiling until I eventually fell asleep next to her.
It was rare that I'd see nothing in my sleep, that all I'd get is a blissful black before the next sunrise. Here, I got that, but it was lingered with the scent of sweet soap and the sighs of a girl next to me who I wanted to keep safe from HYDRA, the world, and myself more than anything.
Chapter 66: Stronger than Slivovitz
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[A Hypothetical 1944]
I’ve been avoiding the sergeant since the kiss. Whenever he was around, or even when mentioned by the others, I tried to just keep my distance. I hated it – whenever he’d walk past me, his eyes dartin’ up to meet mine, I’d suddenly get so winded and flushed that I couldn’t think right. So I’d look away and scurry off. At some point I think he got the point that I didn’t want to see him, as by the time we started traveling to another base, I’d dissolved into the pack of other soldiers while he’d stick with talkin’ to Steve.
I had plans. I had a future. One shot. I couldn’t afford to fall in love, or get married – not when nothing was waitin’ for me back home. If I did end up with Bucky, lose focus on my work and lose my chance at a recommendation, I’d have to depend on him from then on out – I’ve seen my parents, I've seen that future and I didn’t want that. And if we didn’t work out? Not improbable, with my cattishness, I’d be left with nothing. No future, since I spent all my time with a boy, and no love. Then I’d spend the rest of my time here watching him flirt with other girls and vomit afterwards.
No. No, no, no.
Today we’d spent most of the day on-foot, across grassy Eastern hills and tall trees from the nearby forest. Since we were ahead of schedule, most of the men were tryin’ to convince Cap to take a break. “It’s so hot,” Falsworth pointed out. “I’m not about to sweat through my clothes just to set up camp and go to sleep.”
Rogers wasn’t moved. It was like watching a mother tell her children they have food at home. “Mhm.”
“Plus, I think I got a hangnail.”
“That’s nice, Morita.”
“C’mon, pal, everyone’s tired, even you’re tired. All seven feet o’ you.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Buck.”
“You’re slouching, Steve.”
“It’s a new exercise I’m doing.”
Eventually we crossed the small forest to find a clearing. Not a HYDRA or any other enemy base, but a pretty waterfall was in front of us. More than pretty, actually – there was a tall river that fell to a crashing bottom, where we stood. You could run up the grey rocks to cannonball into the white waters below. The nicest part? The water’s cool rush that emanated from the wind. It was spring, but the air was still cool and dark. We all looked at Captain America, who was clearly dreading his decision. “One hour. That’s all you’re getting.”
“YES!”
“FREEDOM!”
“CANONBALL!”
“RACE YOU TO THE TOP, TELL YOUR MOTHER I SAID HI!”
You’d never assume these were grown men who’ve fought Nazis with how they spoke. A bunch of strong, grown men sprinting to the water, throwing down their packs and hastily stripping off their boots and buttons to jump into the water. Steve, Medic Phil and I stared. Steve broke our shared silence first, sighing while unbuttoning his jacket. “’Scuse me. I have to make sure no one drowns while playing mermaid.” After he walked off, I looked at Phil.
“You ain’t goin’?”
He shuddered. “And get all those germs? No thank you. The last thing I need is a flesh-eating virus into my skin from one dip.” Then he sneezed. “Besides, all this greenery is making my allergies bad. I’ll just keep watch.”
I didn’t know how to swim, but I wanted to enjoy the cool shade next to the water. Since the only one was the little cave behind the waterfall, I snuck behind the rounded pond where the guys were now lazily makin’ laps to hop over the slippery rocks and sit behind the rushing waters. It was nice, sittin' there – I stayed cool, and avoided the view of a bunch of muscled men who were currently wrestling in the pool (you’d think it’s sexy until you’ve seen their bodies cut open and injured so many times. Then it’s just your eyes instinctively thinking something is wrong because people are shirtless. Shirtless = badly bleeding, fever, etc.) I was enjoying the pretty view of the white curtain of water when I heard a splash nearby.
“Hey boys, I’m gonna – ” Bucky’s head poked out from under the water to land his gaze on mine. His hair was practically black from being soaked. We both froze. Then his lips formed my name, only to quickly switch it to – “Hey, nurse.”
I nodded, trying my best to not look at his body. I don’t think I’ve ever seen his abdomen before. When he got out of the water, I focused very hard on my Mary-Janes. Shiny from the water, like his abs – GODDAMMI – “Sarge.”
“You’re not gonna swim with everyone else? It’s probably going to be the only break we have for a while.” He gets out of the water, where his pants were thankfully on and wrinkled from his swimming.
“I don’t have a swimsuit,” I tried to joke, but I think it sounded more scared than I wanted. The men weren’t naked out there, but I wasn’t about to join them. Along with Phil, I was the only one who was wholly-dressed and dry – well, sort of. My hair got splashed when trying to sneak behind the waterfall, and now strands were sticking curling to my head and face. Bucky looked up in thought, all casual like I hadn’t been avoiding him for the past two weeks.
“Wait here a second.” Before I could stop him, he went back into the water. A moment later, he came back with an old shirt in his hand, dry and clean. “Put this on. Leave your old clothes here to change after.”
On one hand, I didn’t know how to swim and felt self-conscious wearing a man’s shirt. On the other, Bucky was speakin’ to me for the first time in forever, and I didn’t want it to stop. So I nodded, and he went back out to let me change in privacy. I hastily stripped out of my uniform and shoes, so that only my plain legs remained under his large dark green shirt. I even mussed my hair, reasoning that the water was goin’ to bother it anyways, so I may as well make it easier to comb before that. Stepping out from behind the water curtain, I looked for Bucky in the water at the edge of the pond. I locked eyes on him, and he stopped splashing Steve to stare at me. In fact, everyone was quietly gaping – it was like they remembered I was a girl, or something. Then I stiffened at the wolf-whistle.
“Nice legs, nurse! You sure you're not part of the USO?”
“Hey, wanna learn how to swim? I’m an expert!”
“Back off, Morita! You’re not her favorite, I am! Ma’am, swim with me?”
“Dum Dum, you get hurt so much you’re definitely the least favorite! The nurse and I speak French together, so I should – ”
“So does Dernier, Gabe!”
I fought the urge to snicker at them pretending to fight over me. It wasn’t anything serious, since I figured some of them had girls back home, but it still made my cheeks go hot when all of them stopped swimming and talking to look at me. Then I felt stupid when I suddenly got thrown over someone’s shoulder. Barnes’ shoulder. A very pissy Barnes’ shoulder.
“EYES OFF! She’s a lady, boys! Not a pin-up, and not for sale!”
One of the men snickered. “Sorry, Sarge, we didn’t know she was spoken for!”
“I’m not – hey!” I yelped when he gently pinched my thigh before takin’ me to god-knows-where. I didn’t want to think about how sturdy Bucky’s upper half was, since my kicking and protests were barely reacted by him, or how warm his skin was even though he’d been swimming for the past twenty minutes. And his back – it was manlier than the one in my anatomy book. Perfectly shadowed and muscled, not overly-ripped but handsomely shaped with old scars and tendons that moved when he did – snap out of it! I’ll catch a fever with how hot I was getting…
“ – what the hell, Barnes!? Let me go! Let me – ” I hissed when he finally put me down on the grass. We were hidden behind some bigger rocks, in a smaller cove with a smaller pond. No waterfall. Lookin’ around, I realized that this was hidden on the left of the waterfall, just beyond some trees. I could hear the boys behind us chatting and swimming beyond the stones. “Why did you do that!?” My face was definitely on fire. Bucky’s face wasn’t red, but his ears were.
“Isn’t it obvious? They’re men, you shouldn’t – ”
“Gentlemen!” I retorted. “And besides, you’re a man, too, so why do you get to throw me around and – ” Manhandle me in such a way that I discovered something new about myself? No. “ – and make a scene! You even gave me this damn shirt to swim in!” Nevermind that I don’t know how to swim.
Bucky huffed, his neatly-combed hair now straightened into strands and clinging to his brow. “I was going to tell you to swim here so no one would peep on you. Keep watch. Only talked to Steve for a minute to tell him where I’d be until you made everyone shut up and stare at your…” his eyes flickered back up from my ankles to my face, and then back to the ground. “Affects.”
I deadpan. “Affects? Really?”
“You have no idea the effect you have on people. If you did, you would’ve waited in the water.”
“I would’ve, but I don’t know how to swim.”
He blinked. “Seriously?”
“I grew up in the dust, sir. Not a lotta water.”
Bucky looked back out from the rocks, to where the men were. Then back to the pond. “I could teach you. It’s a good survival skill, at least. You want that?” Seeing as we hadn’t interacted in two weeks, I felt unsure at how I felt bein’ alone with him. The last time I did, I practically kissed his lips off and he let me. On the other hand, we were adults, and he definitely caught the hint at me not wanting to be in a coupling at the moment. So really, it should be fine, right? I nod.
“Alright.”
Besides, it was swimming. I’ve never done it, but it hardly looks difficult. Just move your arms forward and kick your legs, right?
Wrong.
“Sweetheart, let go of my neck – ”
“But I don’t want to sink!”
“Let go of your legs, let go of you – ”
“No, no, nope, wait, don’t let me go – !”
“Chin up, feet down, you’ll sink if you – ”
“I’M GONNA DIE – ”
“YOU’RE NOT DYING, YOU’RE JUST – ”
He eventually gave up on teaching me anything more than a doggypaddle. After that, Barnes let me just wade in the water, my arms wrapped around the back of his neck while he held us both up above the waves. After a few minutes of just quietly leaning on him while floating, I started to talk. “You don’t have to get pissy at the men. They didn’t mean to offend, sir.” My chin rested on his shoulder, where the water made it cold.
The sergeant looked down at his reflection. “I know. I wasn’t thinking when I took you. Not really.”
“What do you mean?”
His head turned to me. “C’mon, nurse. I’ve been wanting a moment with you for a while now. You know that. Even if it’s just a rejection that I already know about.”
My cheeks burned. “I didn’t – ”
Bucky smiled bitterly. “You don’t have to say it, doll. I heard the message loud and clear.” His hands went over my elbows to let me go of his neck. He repositioned me to be facing him while floating. “You don’t want me. Not really.”
“What? No!” I blurted. Wait, what? He’s technically not wrong…not right either…“..this just isn’t part of my plans. That’s all. It’s not – not because I dislike you.” Then, quieter, I say, “...I think you’re good. Too good for me, really.” I pause, getting my thoughts straight. I look up at him. “I want a life, Barnes. After this war. I want to go to medical school.”
To my surprise, he didn’t scoff. Whenever I told my brother that he’d always scoff, so I assumed any boy my age would think my dreams were stupid – women at work was only a war thing, after all. “I know. I’ve seen you scribbling notes enough times to tell you like the stuff that you do.”
“You have?”
He nodded, then tapped my brow with a wet finger. “You get this cute furrow whenever you concentrate.”
I started feelin’ all stupid and gooey inside, fighting the urge to smile – wait a damn minute. “See! That’s the issue – I can’t be your girl. Being a wife is a full-time job in this world. It’s unequal and unfair for me to put my whole future aside just to make you dinner and go on dates. One little flirt and I'm expected to be giving everything up! So as much as I like you…”
Bucky frowns. “Who said I wanted you to put your whole future aside?”
“Even if you don’t, the world does.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t care what the world thinks. The world is currently at war with men who think their cause is worth dying for, even if it’s not. I don’t give two shits about what other people think is right and wrong. If you want to keep doing your own thing, keep doing it. Just let me take you to Coney Island every other Sunday and I’d be happy to call you doc instead of mine.” A pause. “Well, I’d still want to call you mine. Sorry. Guess you’re right about that.”
My cheeks burned. “I’m not the most romantic.”
“Lucky for you, I’m such a heartbreaker all the babes in Brooklyn wept at my drafting.”
“I don’t do boy’s laundry.”
“I hope not – I like to hog all the good softener for myself.”
“I sleep at terrible hours.”
“I’ll keep the bed warm until then.”
“I won’t be there all the time.”
“I’ll pretend to be a widower to get discounts.”
“I’m not experienced in controlling myself.”
“I have experience.” A pause. “A lot.”
“This might not be permanent. With the amount of missions you guys do…”
Bucky looked at the water behind me. “That’s my line, lady. And even if it isn’t, I’ll be the judge on if I want to stay or not. Alright?”
God. What do I do to argue against that? No fair. Not at all. Now I have to keep him in rotation.
Well, technically you don’t have to –
No, I HAVE to. He’s too good to let go. He's not a want if he's been around for this long...right?
“Alright.”
After a while, he leads us out of the water and onto the little rocky cove burrowed behind us. We both sit on the soft ground, shaded from the noon sun. I noticed him starin’ at me, cheeks flushed. “What is it sir?
He reddened. “Don’t call me that while wearing my clothes, doll.” For a moment his eyes flickered to my legs for a second. “Are you even wearing a slip under there?”
Why does he want to know!? My face burned. “No, I didn’t want my nice linens to get dirty.”
Bucky looked up at the sky like he needed to compose himself for a moment. “Christ, woman. If we get back and they’re missing, I’m going to kill someone…” Then, to my surprise, he kissed me. It was fuller than last time, where he was too bedridden, but here one hand cupped my cheek and the other circled my waist where I sat, pulling me to be pressed flush against him. I briefly opened my eyes to see his brow furrow in closed concentration, his mouth adamantly against mine. Closing shut again, I sighed against his lips, which made him shiver against me.
My arms wrapped around his neck, and both of Bucky’s hands moved to hold the back of my ribs as I’m suddenly laying on my back. The sun was pleasantly warm, and the sergeant’s mouth moved more and more urgently against mine, so much so that I almost couldn’t keep up. His eyes fluttered open, and my heart skipped a beat at his blue irises lookin’ down at me. Pupils blown wide. I don’t deserve someone so handsome, do I? An odd quiver possessed my back as his palms slid down to my waist, where his gaze refused to break mine; even when I tried to hide my bashfulness by turning my head.
“...How long do we have until moving, again?”
“I’m not sure, sir. Why?”
A strangled noise escaped his lips as his forehead pressed against mine. Suddenly I could feel his warm breath prickling my clavicles as he let out a shaky exhale. “Sweetheart, I already warned you about calling me that when we’re alone – ”
“JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES.”
We both yelped at the sound of a loud, deep, powerful baritone coming from our right. There, standing on top of the rocks, hands on his hips and holding a righteous glare in only a tank top and shorts, did Captain America zero in on the sergeant. Bucky, to his credit, didn’t burst into flames right then and there; instead noddin’ up like he just bumped into Rogers at the market. “Hey pal.”
Steve’s face turned red, making his way over to where we were. My face and body went hot with embarrassment as I quickly realized the compromising position Bucky had put us in. He’d slotted himself between the plush of my thighs, so my ankles would be behind his waist. Before I could scramble away, Steve yanked Bucky back up with his arm so roughly I thought his damn limb would come off. Luckily that never happened. Ever. His arm was perfectly fine. Totally didn’t tear off – wouldn’t it be awful if it did? Haha!
“Really, Buck? In the middle of war!?” Steve hissed, whispering low like it was rude for me to hear. “Do you even have anything to – ”
“Relax, I do – ” Buck patted his pocket, where he always carried his wallet and a mint tin that was always mysteriously tied shut with string. “Calm down, pal – ”
“I’m writing to your mother, Buck – ”
“Steven – ”
“I would!” He glared, then turned to me. My face burned with shame again, but to my surprise, Cap was softer with his gaze now. “You okay? C’mon, let me help you up…” Like a gentleman, Rogers pulled me up and somehow knew I’d have shaky legs as he cupped my shoulders. Then, like a mother hen, he dusted off Bucky’s shirt and readjusted it to cover my clavicles. Patted my goddamn head like I was a kid. “You didn’t know what he was about to do, did you? Uh…you know, fondue?”
My face burned, unable to speak. I want to die. Captain Rogers caught me makin’ out with his best friend. It couldn’t get any worse.
“CAP, DID HE FINALLY FESS UP?” One of the men crowed from beyond the rocks.
I spoke too soon.
Steve sighed. “YEAH, AND ALMOST A LITTLE MORE!” The echo of whoops, laughs and an ‘ABOUT DAMN TIME, HE WOULDN’T SHUT UP ABOUT HER’ rang behind us. His face then switched from soft to scary as he rounded back to his best friend. Bucky looked stupidly smug, despite bein’ currently manhandled by two-hundred pounds of pure all-American muscle. “Seriously Buck, I’m moving you to the other side of camp away from her from now on – ”
“Seriously? That’s not fair, you and Peggy – ”
“Are coworkers!”
“Really? So are we!” A pause. “Ish!”
[Back to Reality - Day 692]
The problem started when we went out for groceries. Bucky and I walked hand-in-hand from our trip when we passed an alleyway. There, I heard a loud, echoing bark – WROOF! WROOF!
Just a stray. It sounded identical to the ‘test’ HYDRA had sent me out on in Canada, where I had to shoot that journalist in hiding. His dog’s barking that once haunted my dreams was suddenly sounding off in real life, and I got so panicked I shrieked and dropped the bag I was holding. Bucky panicked at my panicking, looking around and breathing heavily until realizing the problem; then cursed and snatched my hand before practically carrying me with his arm back to our place. We were both panting when we locked the door, in which my knees buckled and my hands were only anchored by the wood panels underneath us. Bucky stood stiffly, his back tightly against the door while I curled up and tried to shut myself up. Eventually my shriek-heaves turned into whimpers, and my body was febrile in a way that only came when my anxiousness grew to a boiling point. For the brief moment I looked up, Bucky seemed to have a thousand-mile dead stare at the wall, gripping the doorknob with his metal hand to the point where it was clearly crushed. My eyes closed shut again as my back ached more than usual.
Eventually, I heard Bucky unlatch himself from the entrance and let out a shaky exhale. It was the first time our negative moments synced, and neither of us could help the other. My hips hurt too much to get up, until I felt the floorboards creak near me, indicating he was near. “You have to get up,” He croaked. I nodded, and with unwilling legs, stood.
We both skipped dinner and Bucky told me that he’d come back in half an hour before leaving the apartment. True to his word, he came back with a few bags of bruised fruit and a tall bottle of brandy that was definitely stolen. “...are you gonna drink all of that?” I asked. I’ve seen Bucky drink weak beers, but nothing this strong. He’s a super-soldier, so I didn’t know if the liquor might trigger something. He looked up.
“I can’t get drunk.” Grabbing a chipped mug behind me, he poured himself a big shot. After swallowing, a small hiss escaped his throat. “It still burns, though.” He then offered me the bottle. I decline. I made a clear deal with myself after that hellish first month free from HYDRA – no drugs in the system if I could help it. Liquor too – I had enough bad stuff injected in my body, the last thing I needed was more pain. Then again, when was the last time I drank? 1942-ish? Pre-HYDRA. Birthday rotgut, Jesus.
“Need to break my drought eventually, I guess.”
“You drank a lot back then?”
“Nah, but I can make a rough guesstimate.” I rummage through the pantry and try my best to ignore his gaze behind me. My muscles were still sore from stress, and if I bent my knees, my thighs would feel bruised from the unused fight-or-flight.
“You shouldn’t drink that much – wait, here – ” When I took the brandy and started pouring it in a tall glass, Bucky clicked his tongue. He looked around the cabinets for a small teacup. When taking it out, I felt insulted – it’s not vodka, for crying out loud.
“James, I’m depressed, not fifteen and sneakin’ into a speakeasy.” James rolled his eyes and then threw a bread roll at me. I caught it.
“Eat that and then I’ll pour you one.” He said, then drank more brandy.
“You’re responsible for my drinking but not your own?”
“We can’t afford a hospital visit again. Eat.” I tore the bread into chunks and stuffed them into my mouth. After two minutes of that, Bucky passed me the cracked teacup filled with the dark stuff.
I take a deep swig and start choking – it was the most vile, sharp, earthy, hard thing that’s ever burned my throat. Poison, paint thinner, straight firewater! Humanity has strengthened its liquor since Roosevelt. It did something odd to my muscles, making my back arch and tense – HYDRA and alcohol don’t mix, apparently. I didn’t even hear Bucky’s panicked voice at first calling my name, but I realized it soon enough. “ – ammit, spit it out!” His eyes were wide. Looking down, his open metal palm was offered for me to spit out in while his other hand kept smacking my back. After today’s hell, I close my eyes and breathe through the swallowing burn. When I opened my eyes, Bucky stared at me like I was a freak. “If you die, I’m going to put ‘failed teetotaler’ on your grave.”
I shakily flip him off. “And I’ll put ‘failed pacifist’ on yours.”
I steal a quick swig from the bottle before gagging, in which Bucky snatched it back and downed the rest in smooth, unmoved gulps. He squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again. “That’s enough for tonight.” His voice was oddly tight. Like his ass. Sorry. Liquor.
…I don’t remember what happened after that.
[Bucky’s P.O.V.]
For some reason, the nurse felt like monologuing. “Y’know…I usually…usually haves a temper whennnn drinkin’...think HYDRA fucked-up my drinkin’ response?” She slurred. Her lips, usually pretty, were made into a lazy ‘o’ like she forgot to close her mouth. Her right brow was also twitched up, like she was suspicious of the cup in her hand.
We had an awful day, so when I saw the drink out in the open, I took my chance with it. We both needed something to self-soothe, and neither of us were therapists. I cursed my liver for not being able to get drunk, then nearly had a heart-attack when I saw my wife’s body convulse and twitch like an injured bug. Now I’m here, realizing that she can still get drunk, and wishing I didn’t steal that brandy. I closed her jaw for her, and it stayed in a pouting form. “Thanks, sexy. Forgot where my mouth was for a second.” That’s what she says clearly? Christ.
“Sweetheart, you need to sleep,” I stood up to grab some water. Her head was going to ache like a bitch later, I just knew.
“No, no…wait – ” I paused when her hand went on my back. She’s developed this habit at the store of clinging onto me and patting my middle absentmindedly while waiting for our things to get paid for. It reminded me of how my mother would do that to my father, rubbing his chest after work. Like any other husband, I turned around. She giggled, the sweetest, most crooked smile ending up on her face. Her eyes twinkled in the shitty lamplight. “Golly, you’re handsome. I think you’re the reason why my uterus came back!” Of course she only talks clearly when flirting. Of course.
I sigh, going back to fill a cup with water. “Your uterus came back because you’d eaten real food for the first time in seventy years. I had to hunt for that damn uterus.”
My wife’s brows raise comically upwards. “Really? You…hunted…for me? Oh, Jamie…” She then threw her arms around me, smelling like sugar and bitters. “I’ve got…gotta fantasy for ya, honey…”
I take the opportunity to lift her by her waist and carry her to our mattress. She squealed, kicking her feet in the air. “Yeah?”
“Mhm,” She sighed dreamily. “I’d come home…foragin’...and you’d be there…next to the fireplace, on a fur rug…only a fur rug, no nothin' on…rose in your teeth…” My face burned as the nurse squealed like a school girl again. “And – and you’d – you’d say, you’d say – hic! – ‘baby, I won the lottery, pick all the cakes you want!’” She did a gravelly tone of what I assumed was a terrible imitation of my voice.
“I don’t sound like that.”
“‘I don’t sound like that!’” I rolled my eyes while laying her on our mattress bed. She already changed into a nightgown, so I turned off the rest of the lights safe for the small night one next to us. The water cup rested next to her.“Jamie?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“I wanna kiss. Please?” She pouted, spoiled, and reached out her arms like a child. Mind you, she stabbed me when we first met, and I tried to drown her. Now I ignore how drunk she smells in order to kiss her like we’re under mistletoe. My wife sighed into my mouth, tugging me closer. When we stopped, she started to nibble at my neck. Against my prickled beard, her lips were like soft petals; light and made me withhold a shiver. Groaning at the fact I hadn’t had a girl in decades, I gently pulled her away, making her whine. “But…”
“You’re drunk, dollface. Go to sleep.” Her lips were shiny as she drooled slightly. I wiped the edge of her mouth, pressing the fat of her lower lip for a moment. “You’re already going to regret this tomorrow anyways.”
That made her giggle for some reason. “...Nnnooo, I won’t. I’m real – hic! – dandy. But you won’t – ” She sniffled. “Why won’t you – !?” Her face turned redder as she suddenly burst into drunk tears. How old were we again? Right. Late-nineties. But we look twenty and act like we’re thirteen when drunk. “Am – ’m I that UGLY to you!?”
“What? No, I don’t – ”
“It makes sense though, doesn’t it?” I suddenly stiffen. My wife’s eyes are still drooped and her mouth is still slack, but her voice is cold and sharp. She’s speaking Russian. “I’ve been cut open so many times, like Frankenstein’s monster, my body’s an ugly amalgamation…do you know what your organs look like? I do.” A long smile stretched across her mouth, almost looking forced. “They held my small intestines like they were rope. Stretching and sewing…injecting…whatever worked, they probably gave to you. Do you know what your organs look like?” She repeated, her pointer finger digging into my chest. She suddenly started switching to another language. French. I recognized it, not because of HYDRA, but because Gabe and Dernier spoke it amongst themselves so much Steve and I and the others eventually learned from them. “It’s like meat. It’s all meat. I see my eyes in the rabbits you hunted in the mountains. My tongue in the deer. My blood in the birds. Do you know how much they drugged me? I sometimes still crave for the numbing painlessness that oxy gave. I shouldn’t but I do. I just need one taste of it, and I’ll be back where I've been for the past seventy years.”
In response, I say - “Don’t do that. I just got you back from Munich.” I don't think she realizes how intimidating her dead stare is.
“Munich?” She blinked out of it. “Oh, yes…I don’t have a family anymore.”
“You have me,” I switch back to English. Her mouth was slightly still open, so I put the cup to her lips so she could drink. “I can be your family.” Something ached in my chest – I missed my folks. I tried not to think about it too hard, but I did. I missed having a group of people to come back to. Not just Steve, but all of them. Now Steve’s away and she’s all I have. I hate HYDRA.
The nurse stared at me, pausing from her sipping. “You’ll be my family?”
Her arms were still wrapped around my neck as I nodded. “Whatever you want. Lover, friend, confidant.”
This entire time her lower lip had been jutted like it’s been priming for a break down. Now that I said that, her eyes got all big and watery, face bright with drunk blood rushing up to the tips of her ears. “B-but we can’t, we can’t! I wanted you since-since Italy, n’ Siberia, n’ it never worked!” Her legs started to kick the mattress next to me, clearly working herself up again as she started to hiccup. “It’ll jinx it! Can’t never be more!” The drunken childishness of her tone was cut with the serious meaning of her words. “So I gotta-gotta keep it bottled-up, y’see…no-no lovey-dovies on my watch.” She then proceeded to pepper my lips and beard with little kisses, like a bird pecking the ground for seeds. I say her name once, and she blinks innocently. “It don’t count if I don’t say ‘I love you’, mister. Or if you say it. Them’s tha rules.”
OH REALLY.
“Yeah?”
She nodded, her lips still slightly puckered as her eyes squinted. “Nothing before I love you counts. That’s what I read in a magazine. Hic!” Then a giggle escaped her throat. “Oh…when did I get so girlish? I used to think lipstick was so stupid…you’ve ruined me, James-Buchanan.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Not yet. If I really did, you’d probably hate me.”
She batted her eyes at me. “Oh?”
Jesus. I need to get her to sleep. Now. Or I might just kill someone. Or sign up to be a celibate monk in the mountains. Be bald and wear robes. My arms started moving to tuck her into the little bedroll we had, where her eyes were still dreamily on me like I hung the goddamn moon and not shot the president. “If everything before I love you doesn’t count…I have no idea how I’ll behave after you say it.”
She yawned, smushing her cheek against her fingers. “Really? What would you do?”
“Get a decent mattress. Real ring. Do the math, doll.”
That made her giggle. “I’m surprised you’re not all-frozen down there – ” My wife squealed when I pinched her nose to shut her up.
“I was before you happened. Then you started to fill my damn head.” The evil woman had the nerve to titter with glee at that. She probably just thinks I mean screwing her – which wasn’t wholly a lie.
“Really? When was that?”
When you stabbed me in the arm when we first met, it was the first time my head spun since getting my memories back. When I had to help you put on jeans. When you brought back the first truly clear memory of my mother by complete coincidence. Kissing you in general. When you slapped me. When you were so kind and apologetic afterwards, even though we weren’t more than tolerating roommates – not that I felt romantic towards you, but I felt bad for thinking about our past. When we moved to the mountains, after we went to the village, and you looked so radiant in the firelight. When I accidentally saw you bathing in the river after getting soaked in mud, and I had to sleep on the floor for like a week because you reminded me I was a man for the first time in seventy years. All of Italy. The two weeks you were gone in Greece where the little book you made for me was the only thing that smelled like your hair. When I thought Steve had a better chance with you than me in Germany. When you patched me up, even when you were at your lowest. When you started having dinner with me again, even if what we eat now is somehow shittier than what we ate the first time we lived in this city. When you kept me briefly lucid in Siberia. I can’t even chalk it up to libido anymore, not when my memory recollection was worse but I still had the same feeling of deep sensitivity when you’re around. Back when I kept debating on your trust so I had to avoid you to feel safe.
“Probably last week when we made out.”
“Hot.”
Ouch.
“Can we make out again? Gimme a kiss.” She cooed. “It’s fun. You get all hungry and handsy.”
No I don’t. I just don’t know where to put my hands, not when the whole of you feels softer than anything I’ve touched in decades. Still, I humor her, giving her a modest peck before the wind is pushed out of me when she bites my lip. Shit, shit, shit…I burrowed my lips to her lips, her jaw, her neck, while her fingers scratched my scalp before I reluctantly pulled away, pressing my brow to her collarbone. “You’re going to be the death of me, do you know that?”
She snored in response.
You ass.
[Back to Central P.O.V. - Day 693]
My head hurts. And my ears. And the back of my ears. The whole of my skull was as heavy as a bowling ball, and the shitty mattress I was laying on didn’t do much to soothe my headache. I groaned – even that hurt.
“Morning to you too, sunshine.” The morning would have been beautiful to anyone else enjoying the late autumn weather. Unfortunately I was too hungover to notice.
I tried to lift my hand to flip Bucky off, but the muscles there were oddly sore. Somehow hearing his footsteps ached. I tried to get up, but then my whole body hunched over my pillow as a wave of simmering nausea rolled through my stomach. Before I could even cover my mouth, I started to gag, dry-heave as I lost the feelings in my legs to stand. Before I could vomit, I felt the back of my head get grabbed and turned to the side of the mattress – I sicked over a bucket that Bucky held. I didn’t eat much, not since the panic of yesterday, and yet my stomach emptied itself tenfold for the next couple of minutes. By the time I was done, my body shivered at how warm Bucky’s hand felt against my hair, smoothing it back from the plastic pail.
“Christ. I knew I was a lightweight, but I figured after seventy years…”
Bucky scoffed but his gaze wasn’t hard. He looked…guilty? “I shouldn’t have given you that brandy. I forgot that we’re not the same kind of enhanced.” That’s true – his body was basically metaphorical metal while mine was merely tinkered by it. Not the same. Not as strong.
I waved him off. “I didn’t do anything stupid, did I?”
“You started singing La Vie En Rose in your sleep.”
Someone shoot me. Well, at least I didn't kiss him or say anything stupid.
Notes:
note to self: talk by Beabadoobee
Goodnight n’ Go by either Imogen Heap or AG?
If Brooklyn Baby suits Bucky I’d say Paris, Texas suits y/n lol
Chapter 67: Bruised Fruit
Chapter Text
[??? - HYDRA Labs]
In order to work in medicine, you have to have a good grasp at the human body in order to treat it. Because of this, a sufficient grasp of anatomy, physiology, and chemistry is vital in order to ensure efficiency in treating patients.
I knew the human body well, well enough to know what parts of me were being operated on whenever I was woken up from my ice-sleep. A lot of people may think it’s horrifying, the unknown. But it’s not. It’s more horrifying to know. It’s even worse to be familiar.
My eyes are heavy, and so is my brain. They injected me with one shot of morphine and forced a pill down my throat – likely oxycodone, both extremely low dosages. If they went a certain number higher, they’d kill me, and then they’d have to go through the horrifying fuss of picking out another one-in-a-hundred body. Because that’s the true tragedy – not desecrating people, their bodies, their dignity or their autonomy, but the terrible agitation that comes with going through a few more hundred bodies to find the right recipient. Then, god forbid, they’d have to halt their experiments by a few months, and rely more on their small clutch Winter Soldiers more than usual.
Something hot filled my chest – it would be anger, if my body was fully lucid. I wasn’t awake enough to be truly pissed, but I knew I should be. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not at all.
“Blink twice, Seventeen. Keep your eyes open.”
My eyelids moved on their own, but nothing more. The scientists couldn’t afford to keep me asleep, otherwise I’d have a chance of dying. No, they needed my brain alert in order to see how much of my body had control of itself and how much it didn’t.
I wasn’t laying on my stomach this time, meaning that they weren’t going to operate on my spine. My hospital gown was rolled up to the knees, and my arms were splayed out, so definitely the major limbs were going to be operated on. My hands too, probably.
The first incision comes to my ankle. It doesn’t feel like skin cutting, more than it feels like my body being unzipped and peeled. A gross squelching noise if they were working with my organs, but instead the lab’s operating table just had the familiar humming of white light.
There was a cold, pulsing, bruising pain that let me know where they cut from my leg. In between the muscles fibularis longus and extensor digitorum longus. From the end of my leg to the knee. Back when I was training to be a nurse, the color of the muscles on the cadavers were all yellowed from a lack of pumping blood. Looking at the head scientist who was mincing my limbs, his white gloves were stained with the most brilliant scarlet. Everything was white, safe for the colors of blood and my hospital gown.
“I need the screw now.”
“Here you go.”
That’s how I knew they were replacing my parts. Probably a long operation, then, starting feet-up. The old metal rods were not nearly as advanced as the new, and they wanted to see just how much of me they could control. If their experiment on me succeeded, they’ll implement it on the Winter Soldiers, at least the new batch, anyways. Brainwashing was effective yet dated, and they needed to be ahead of the curve in the cutting-edge ways of abusing people’s bodies and violating their volitions.
The cold, bruising pain began to seep across my leg as they began to focus on my common fibular nerve – when that’s damaged, it means that I won’t be able to bend my foot backwards at the ankle, not without the rods to lean on, at least. They made my body wholly dependent on those things in order to move.
But it felt light, having it removed. Nevermind the fact that I’d technically be permanently disabled if they took out all of the rods at this point, but my body felt light without the metal rods. It hurt, but it was free of true agony. Of HYDRA’s meddling. The one not-bad thing about getting your limbs “upgraded” was the brief relief that the removal of them gave, even if not having them upgraded meant your body would deteriorate. I was on borrowed time if not for the experimental surgeries. Wholly dependent, just how they fucking liked it.
And that’s the horrible thing that came with knowing – I knew that I couldn’t just up and leave, even if I could. I wouldn’t last long because of how they changed my body.
“Committing to extraction and replacement…”
Then came the screaming. I’d scream whenever they’d jab a freshly-made rod into my nerves, into the whites of my muscular stems. Not nails on a chalkboard – but fingers in dead flesh, digging your half-crescents into the white, thin fibers that veiled certain parts of red meat. Tugging at them until they came off, scraping the bits underneath your nails and smushing them back into the brawn, guesstimating where they used to be. Nevermind the extra filth added in by their human touch.
The HYDRA scientists didn’t know anatomy well. If they did, they would have stopped there, but they didn’t. The reason why they had to constantly replace my rods in between experiments was because the metal they used deteriorated when gone against antigens and human movement, because they’d always engineer the rods per the limb they’re attached to, and not the body as a whole. Not a cohesive unit, until someone orders me. Then the outdated artificial synapses would work with the new shunts in order to make my body move against its will.
But this would be hours. Hours of my chest burning with what I knew should be anger, of me forced to stay awake against my will. And afterwards, I’d see another scientist inject my other arm with something, and I’d finally go to sleep. Then I’d wake in a cold, metal room, with a man standing across from me. I’ve learned a long time ago not to look down – the angry dark reds and stitches could be seen through gauze, because the scientists weren’t nurses. Nurses would at least give thick wrappings so soldiers don’t have to see the horrors of war reflected on their body. Here, no one gave a shit.
“Stand up.”
I did. It hurt. He’d gesture to the piano.
“Play.”
I did. I’d feel the needle-like sharpness of the new metal in my fingers. But again, be careful, don’t look down – but I could still feel the wetness of the piano keys. I was bleeding from my nails, my stitches across my digits.
“Good.”
Today I’m lucky. They give me two pills of oxycodone to make the sharp, needling feeling dull into old soreness, and I’m pulled back into the ice chambers. I don’t scream as much because of my double dose. The oxy made my mouth water, the roof of it and tongue craving for more and a low, pained groan escaped my throat as the frost pierced my spine.
The Winter Soldiers will probably be given something similar. The new ones, of course – the older ones were considered perfected, and now the labs were pressured to make advancements by the quarter. Work deadlines for world domination, and such.
I wonder how many of them will have their limbs rot because of the old shunts in their system.
The murders HYDRA sent me out to do were clearer than the surgeries they’d performed – I was drugged to the nines whenever I was on the table, so it’s not like I could remember how many hundreds of times they cut me open. At least with killing people, I had the sober and lucid memory of my senses – screams, blood spatter, deafening gunshots. Even when I was zapped for disobedience and drugged afterwards, I could feel the sun briefly on my face and hear the world around me. In the lab, all I had was the drugged feeling of their hands on my body and my past screaming in my ear – my old anatomy lessons coming out to play in real time as they pulled back each layer of me.
[Day 714]
Winter in Bucharest didn’t come on an exact day, but you’d definitely feel the chill in the air. After Munich my sense of time was shot, and Bucky didn’t exactly bring a calendar. I knew Italy was nearing the end of summer, but not much more than that. Autumn in Germany was brief because of our stay getting cut short, and I was in a fugue-state when we first came here. Even now, I was too antsy to really tell where we were going sometimes – I’d cling onto Bucky and hope for the best. Luckily we usually just went to the markets then straight back home.
“Frost?” I noticed the ice on our backdoor’s window one early morning. I shivered in bed, not much comfort coming from Bucky’s metal arm since it seemed to absorb whatever temperature the world currently was. It was freezing to the touch when my fake husband’s arm clung onto my nightdress, and I nearly shrieked because of it. Not that the sergeant noticed – he just hissed a Russian curse in his sleep from the lack of response on my end. Whatever.
I snuck out of bed to see the view of little white crystals blooming on our glass – winter was coming early. Recalling our first stay in Bucharest, it was getting chilly near the end of our stay, but we moved to the mountains before the snow hit. Then Carpathia happened, and the snow was severely present during our time there. I could hear my name being croaked from behind me. Bucky was up, and his hair was a mess. His loose shirt and sweatpants made him look like a raggedy cat. “...come back. Cold’s not good for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine. You’re the one who gets pissy from the weather.”
“Bullshit,” He grunted, but turned around and made his way back to our little makeshift bed.
The cold weather was a pleasant change, but it also showed us how woefully unprepared we were for the cold weather. Bucky didn’t need much, since his body was built for endurance, but me?
Clink!
A sudden, sharp pain shot up my joints when I was making myself a cup of coffee. It made me drop my cup, and made me stumble. Bucky’s fast reflexes let him catch me but not the damn glass.
“I’m fine,” I wave off his watchful stare, my cheeks burning up. My heart always seemed to speed up whenever he was around, and him giving me attention just made the feeling worse. “I’m – it’s nothing I’m not used to.” Somewhat of a lie – I was used to pain, but this was of an entirely different kind. It had that same directed sharpness that came with the rods being put into my body, but this time it was a lot clearer, a lot more…awake. I was so drugged during surgeries that the pain was muffled, but since I wasn’t now, I could feel the full effects of it thanks to the coldness. It was worse than I’d imagined.
Bucky didn’t look convinced in the least. “Sure. Whatever you say, nurse.” My face twitched as he suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders and redirected me to the couch.
“I’m not porcelain, jackass,” I hissed. Again, he didn’t care.
“No shit. But there’s glass on the floor and I’m not gonna have another spill because of you.” Ever since I got drunk, he’s been edgier lately. It’s annoying, because then he’d switch up and be sweet again. Hence why he’s now offering me a new cup of tea. I glare at him until he gets the damn hint.
At night I take longer than usual to get ready for bed. The hot water felt good against my limbs, especially since the air in the apartment was getting colder. Because the place was so cheap, the air conditioning could only do so much. Cold or warm air, they’d come at a slow rate, and by then your fingers were already blue. It’s better to just stew in the hot water instead, but it was always hell getting out. More so than usual nowadays too.
Even if he was curt earlier, Bucky would try to be sweet at night. He’d make me feel embarrassed whenever he’d nonchalantly pull one of his old, ribbed thermals over my nightgown and throw me a pair of sweatpants to wear over my stockings. “I don’t – this isn’t cute, James!” It wasn’t! It ruined the old look I had – when I was younger I hated nightgowns, thinking they were too thin, but at least they looked pretty. Now I look ugly. Like someone’s over-bundled kid. “You’re not even – ugh!” He looked like he slept for summer, in only a t-shirt and sweats. If his body didn’t run so hot, I’d assume he was a psychopath.
Bucky rolled his eyes. “When you don’t get sick because of the water being a degree colder, then you can complain. Until then, cover up.”
“God, you’re a nun.”
Later that night I’d shiver and he’d pull me under him, and I’d hate how sweet it was. The world didn’t treat me so delicately, not since the Dust Bowl, so why is he? He seemed to be so aware of his size, his harsh movements – not at all like the Winter Soldier, who’d sometimes be purposely clunky and harsh. Even now, half his form pressed against mine, all warm and consuming. “You’re too heavy,” I croak, my eyes angrily watering. I loved him, and I didn’t want to. It’s better I didn’t, right? I got too comfortable in Italy, and immediately we left. We shared a cake in Carpathia, then we had to burn the damn place down. Even our first stay – we went out for a nonessential book run, and ended up almost getting caught.
Bucky, half-asleep, clung onto me tighter. Pressed a prickled kiss to my hair before sighing himself back to quiet slumber. Idiot. Doesn’t he know this is just an act? I curled my fingers against his, ignoring how the pearl on my fake ring pressed against his braided band.
[Day 722]
Today we went to the market, and it was the first time I’d felt piercing cold since the mountains – hell, since cryo. Even Bucky tensed – he packed only two coats from the cabin when we left, and neither felt warm enough.
The streets were just as pretty as the first time I came here, though – smooth tiles and a long line of old buildings, Greek columns and Renaissance architecture casually looming behind people on smoke breaks and people walking their dogs. All that again, but freezing. My fingers were going to fall off if Bucky hadn’t made me put my hands in his jacket. “What, scared I’ll pull off the lost-limb look better than you?” I muse.
He huffed, his breath forming frost in the air. “Sure. That’s why.”
When we made it to the market, I made us go straight to the clothing stalls first – I needed a proper jacket, not whatever the hell Bucky hastily packed away. On the way, we heard some familiar voices:
“I want this one.”
“It’s so expensive, though. Why don’t you pick something else? How about this green one?”
“Green? Seriously, Stefan?”
“It’s not my fault you’re taking forever, Maria!”
There, just where the women’s coats were being sold, were our neighbors, the bickering couple. It was weird, attaching a face to their voices. Bucky let out a quiet groan. “I can give you my coat, we don’t have to go where they are – ”
I grin. “Yes we do. Besides, you’re like him in a way.”
I swear, I’ve never seen him look so offended. Behind his long curtain of dark hair and smokey beard, Bucky squinted his handsome big eyes into something ugly and exasperated. HAHAHAHAHA – “How the hell am I – ”
“Remember Carpathia? Those burgundy boots you got me?”
He pursed his lips. “Those boots were good, I don’t – ” I peck his lips and he shuts up. Y’know, I wonder how much I’ve got of him wrapped around my finger. Sure, I loved him, but he didn’t know that. In his eyes, our last proper spark was in Siberia, maybe Italy, and this marital agreement was for the sake of normalcy. How much of this marriage act could I milk?
“Please, James?” I whisper, adjusting the scarf around his neck all wife-like. “You know I love your man-clothes, but I’m a lady. I need somethin’ nice just for me.” Jesus, I’m laying it on thick. My fingers scratch his prickly jaw – act or not, I knew he liked my hands. They were softer than his. “Like a real wife.”
Hook, line and sinker! His crisp blue gaze got all soft and quiet on me. “Okay. Whatever you want.”
I pat his middle and kiss his cheek. “Thank you, darlin’.” I wonder if having a sugar daddy was like this. Flying cars, they said.
I grab a few things – a light grey scarf with patches of white inside, a pale, pastel pink and tweed peacoat, thick woolen leg warmers, etc. By the time I got some knit arm sleeves, Bucky was practically my lackey in carrying my stuff. Like when we first got to Bucharest, except here he wasn’t grumbling when I made him carry our groceries. Instead he had this funny, fond look in his eye. When paying for the stuff, we bumped into our neighbors. Stefan took one look at me and him and huffed at Bucky. “Women, eh? All they do is buy, buy, buy. My condolences, bro.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bucky’s face more thinly veiled with disgust. ‘Don’t call me bro. I’m not your bro.’ was definitely what he wanted to say, but instead he just grunted noncommittally. I wondered if he thought of Steve at that moment - he's probably the only person who could get away with calling Bucky "bro", even though he never would. Looking at the vendor, he pulled out a small red-pink chapstick that was being sold next to us. “This too,” He muttered. When we got my clothes bagged, he pulled me in for a surprise kiss. “Your lips are cold. Put this on.” Then handed me the little wax stick before leading the way home. Looking behind us, I could see our neighbors gawking. Dear god. My heart flapped as my face burnt. As I walked away, I heard –
“Why don’t you ever do that for me?”
“What!? I already got you all of this!”
“A green jumper and some buttons? That’s nothing!”
Despite how sore my legs were from the cold, I giggled all the way back. “We’re really good at this,” I grin. “Bein’ a couple on the outside. I think it’s because we got all the chemistry in Siberia, don’t you think?” That hurt to say – my heart was for him, but pretending quelled the ache a little. Not much, though, as my heart skipped a beat as he spoke again; like I was hungry for him to be with me.
“Could be, but they also just seemed terrible for each other.”
“Why do you think they’re even together anyways? My money’s on money.”
Bucky snorted. “Sweetheart, if their apartment is anything like ours, money isn’t the reason. Besides, you know why. I know you can hear it on the nights I make you sleep on the couch.” He only makes me sleep whenever there whenever the couple underneath us argue past midnight. Something about being too old to be a gentleman but not old enough to be deaf.
My ears burned – I’m not sure if it’s because he called me sweetheart or because of the memory of them keeping us up at night with their…“bickering”. “Besides, it’s obvious they like it that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“They bicker because they like it. Then they have sex and bicker some more. It’s what they do.”
“Sounds like a terrible relationship model.”
Bucky stared. “We bickered over milk this morning. I don’t think it’s that unrealistic.”
“Only because you think milk is necessary in our diets.”
“It is. You’re a nurse, why are you even against it?”
“Milk is for babies, sir. Not centenarians who’ve survived HYDRA.”
Bucky rolled his eyes, but then stopped walking when I stumbled. It wasn’t anything, I swear, but the sharp pain came back to my legs. “It’s nothin’,” I reassured. “I just need those leg warmers, that’s all.” The sergeant didn’t look convinced in the least, but we were nearing the apartment anyways, so who cared? “Want fried apples for dinner? I feel like cookin’ for once.” I didn’t, but I hated the frown he had on.
That night I ended up cooking for the first time since Germany. A proper food, at least, that wasn’t just cornpone. I made fried apples and put them over hot grain and granola. It tasted like a poor man’s apple pie, since there wasn’t any crust but enough brown sugar to make the apartment smell sweet. We had some leftover takeout, salted chicken with rice, before that and Bucky made tea. The fried apples were not nearly as good as takeout, I mused. He huffed in disagreement. “I hate takeout. It’s not as good as the stuff you pulled off in Italy, or even during our first stay in the city.”
My face burned at the compliment. “That’s because you hadn’t eaten anything in seventy years, Buck. Not because I’m good.” I licked my lips – the fried apples were admittedly perfect, though. My mouth tasted sweetly-spiced, warm and syrupy, so much so that I kept sucking on my gums afterward.
He shrugged. “Better than what I can make.”
That made me snort. “Anyone can out-cook you.” When we both finished, I got up to get the plates. I felt like I had enough energy in me to not go to bed so quickly, for once. “I’ll take care of them tonight."
“You sure?”
I nodded. “And let the window open a little, I want to hear him play. Just turn the heater up so that the chill isn’t – shit – ” That stupid, hot, sharp pain shot up my ankles again. It came from the rods, I knew it, but it didn’t help as my knees buckled. Bucky sprang from his seat and caught me, his grip tight on my elbows. “I swear, I’m fine – ”
“You’re done for today.”
My face burned. “James – ”
He said my name once in that finalizing tone that I knew meant I wasn’t going to be able to argue against. Seeing me wilt at his voice, Bucky sighed. “Just sit on the couch. You made dinner, so I can wash up for us.” He propped me to lay back on the little sofa, legs cushioned on the little pillow that he placed under my ankles. After a minute of him going behind me to the kitchen, he called out my name. Looking up, he threw a hot water bottle at me. I caught it and put it under my ankles.
When the water started running and the sound of scrubbing filled the studio, I carefully rolled up my tights’ sleeves up to my ankles. Looking at the skin under, my heart sank to my stomach as something sick roiled inside me. I hastily rolled the fabric to cover my legs again. There, on the curve of my calves, were murky, long, dark splotches coloring my skin. It wasn’t severe or heavy, but clearly there. Distinct enough to know that it wasn’t just dye, or my head messing with me. I could also see a faint bump on my Achilles’ – the metal shunt’s only indication of its existence. The spot there was a low purple.
How often did HYDRA replace my rods? I don’t know. But I’d wake up from the ice, go on a mission, or do an experiment, or something gets tested, or I spar…then a while later I’d get operated on. New replacing old. But this wasn’t HYDRA anymore, and my body wasn’t preserved in ice.
I was rotting.
No, no I – no I wasn't. I couldn’t think like that. I couldn’t afford to. Besides, rotting meant bad smells, getting sick, and dying – I hadn’t gotten sick since Greece, and I felt perfectly energetic. Sure, Munich happened, but doesn’t everyone get permanently scarred when their past dies in front of them seventy years later? “Here, your favorite.” Bucky’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. On my lap he placed a book, a little mystery paperback he found the other day. I give a tight smile.
“Thanks.”
He hummed. “You haven’t read the medical stuff, though. I’m pretty sure you like those more.”
My eyes widened. The medical books! Maybe they had something, anything…I give another smile. “Pass me the one by that Banner guy?”
That night I carefully scanned the first twenty pages of the book – damn thing was just a history textbook for parts, not actually anything modern. I could feel Bucky looking over my shoulder. To my surprise, he kissed the back of my collar. “I thought you’d never get back into reading those,” He murmured, sounding slightly relieved. He must think I wasn't as depressed, that I was interested in medicine and healing again.
I wanted to vomit. Instead I smiled. “Well, you’ve always had a better intuition than me.”
He hummed, then pried the book from my fingers. “You can read the rest tomorrow. It’s getting cold, and it’s better if you sleep through it.”
“Since when did you become my life coach? Aren’t you a hot mess?”
Bucky didn’t even look offended, the bastard. Instead he took my hand that held my ring and thumbed the pearl. “Yeah, but you make me wish I wasn’t. That I could have all of my memories, not be brainwashed, and can trust people normally again.” I felt something roil in my throat as he turned off the light next to us and pulled me in close to his chest. I let out an unintentional whimper when his legs intertwined with mine, where the bruised part of my legs bumped against his foot. He frowned slightly. I shake my head.
“You’re too big, handsome.”
Even though it was dark, I could tell that calling him handsome made Bucky huffy. “Go to sleep before I imitate our bickering neighbors, sweetness.”
But I couldn’t. I pretended to, but inside I felt the slow horror of being trapped in my own flesh-hell. No, I had time. It would be slow, I know it would – HYDRA would always space a couple of years, so it’s not like I’d be running on a few months. I'd be fine, for at least until spring, maybe summer…but a year? Next winter? Without a strong physical buffer like cryo...what would I look like then? How much could I move? We can’t afford a doctor. The burner got destroyed in your pack.
I cling onto Bucky tighter than usual that night. When he woke up to me crying, he asked if it was a nightmare. I nodded, and let myself break apart in his arms.
Chapter 68: Talik
Notes:
readjusting the time for two years made me realize idk how calendars work, darn
Chapter Text
[Day 730]
I should tell him, shouldn't I? I kept telling myself I would, but I didn’t have it in me. I know I’ve been a lot since Munich, my head isn’t even all the way here anymore some days, and I know he’s going through something similar even before Germany, but I just couldn’t. I’d try to say it, but then look at him, and all of a sudden my thoughts are thrown out the window like trash.
“Bucky?” I once said over dinner. I tried to cook again, making Romanian chicken and creamed mushrooms, but I’m pretty sure I slightly burnt the chicken (I blame our shitty stove – there’s only one working burner and it needs matches to work). The sergeant didn’t seem to even acknowledge it, however, and offered me the last bit of potato bread without a second thought.
“Yeah?” During our first stay, he never looked at me for long. Now he always seemed to look up beyond his lids for me, and it made my heart hurt. Why, why does he have the softest, most melancholic gaze? The Winter Soldier was dormant, he insisted, but you’d never think that with how he’d look at me right now. I looked down, biting my lip.
“I…I’m…” Shit. I can’t do it. It’s so quiet tonight. We’re warm despite the winter, and our musical neighbor’s guitar was still playing. Why desecrate it? “Do you like my new shirt? It kinda looks like your red Henley, don’t it? I don’t really like the little white lacin’ at the edges, though…” I swallow my emotions. “...I wanted to match.”
Bucky’s brows let up slightly. “It’s pretty. You’re pretty.” I want to die. Instead I smile and go back to my dinner.
While brushing my teeth alone in our bathroom, I rolled up the fabric from my leg again. The lights above me were harsher, so maybe what I saw last week was shadows.
It wasn’t.
Again, it was more grey, more dark than anything. Not dark brown like a mole, not a bruise, not a birthmark…unnatural but murky. It hurt to touch. Rolling my pant leg down again, I change into black stockings in order to avoid any slips from Bucky’s eyes. I didn’t want him to see, want him to worry. He’s been antsy since Germany – he’d scream in his sleep, and even in my fugue state I could hear vague, muffled yells from his end of the apartment. At least with me being more lucid, I could see his eyes widen with alertness. Less depressive, sometimes. How would he react to this? Remembering Siberia, his voice cracked when I begged him to kill me. How sad he sounded, how openly desperate. No, no. No. I wasn’t dying, I couldn’t. Maybe lose the movement in my limbs, but…
Wait…what about my spine?
I strip off my shirt and look in the mirror again. Long, dark scar splitting my back in two, but it wasn’t anything new. Nothing severe, but now that I see it, I realize the scare is the same color as the murky bruising. It’s always been that color. Have I always been slowly rotting?
Breathe, breathe. Breathe. Calm down, it’s nothing. You’re no doctor. You haven’t been a real nurse since the war. You don’t know anything definite.
You know that the metal HYDRA uses disintegrates, and now it clearly harms the body –
But killing? Don’t be stupid. Don’t spiral. You can’t afford another bad thing. You can’t afford another Munich. Bucky can’t afford another scare. He’s relearned more of his past, and you’re currently on your monthly cycle. You’re healthy. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t currently be bleeding. It’s not spreading to your organs, since HYDRA tube-fed you. There’s nothing to say it’s gotten to your heart, especially since there’s nothing in your rib cages.
But you fell when you lightly bumped your ankle against a pole the other day. You nearly cried. Randomly losing feeling in your leg isn’t –
Delicate skin ain't the same as dying. Shut up. Hell, we don’t even need to really tell Bucky, not right now. It’s not like it’s hurting me, aside from the occasional ache. The rods, from my own observation, are at least designed to last a few years. Cryostasis helps that. There is no borrowed time.
The fact they used cryostasis implies that the heat of your body is exacerbating the process.
Fuck.
That night I wasn’t sure I wanted to lay next to Bucky. Partially because his body ran much warmer than mine, and partially because I felt that the sweeter I am to him, the meaner the reveal will be. I was going to sleep on the couch, I decided. “Why?” He quietly asked when he noticed me gathering my side of the mattress to move. He liked it when I was close, I knew, because I always smelled nice after my showers and he could play with my hair. I felt scummy as he sounded like a little boy who had just realized none of his friends came to his birthday party.
I give a tight smile. “I have a feelin’ the neighbors will argue tonight.” They didn’t. They were perfectly quiet. Still, Bucky didn’t budge, and I slept on the cushions that night. It’s only when I head low, growling mutters did my eyes snap open. Despite my earlier decision, the exhaustion of waking up in the middle of the night made me loose for rule-breaking. “What’s wrong?” I whisper. Bucky’s eyes snapped open – I hated how he looked after a bad night. He’s already got a low tone from paranoia, but the nightmares made him hesitant to speak, as if he’d suddenly start breaking out into Russian orders and become the Soldier again.
“Dreamt about Steve. I thought I killed him.” A pause. “Is the burner destroyed?”
I suddenly felt more awake as a jab of sickness bullied my stomach. He probably feels guilty right now for the cut-off, regardless of the fear that came with interacting with the outside world. “Yes, but I don’t doubt Steve is fine. If you want, we can find newspapers tomorrow to keep tabs on him.” Bucky shook his head.
“...it’s fine.” He played with the hem of my sleeve for a moment. I was about to offer him tea and go back to the couch when he asked – “Can you come back? I don’t – if you’re scared I’ll push you off like I did in Italy – ” Oh, no. I can’t say no to that. I couldn’t. Rotting bones and all, I couldn’t.
“It’s alright. I can come back tonight.” I grabbed my things (only a pillow, really) and laid myself back onto the little bed next to him. Bucky reached out and pulled me in close against him, making me regret my decision. No, no…worse case scenario, I keep telling myself. Worse case scenario. Though I don’t know of what – him discovering my problem, me panicking, or the low chance of me dying. His words broke me out of my thoughts.
“Can you sing that song?”
“Which one?”
“The one you sang while drunk. The French one.”
I’d learned it from the crank radio he brought in. I nod, trying not to focus too much on how my leg was pressed against his, aching so much my eyes watered. “Quand il me prend dans ses bras…il parle tout bas…je vois la vie en rose…” Looking down, I brush a stray hair from his face and tuck it behind his ear. He looked up at me with a thoughtfulness that even the dark of the room couldn’t dim. How horrid I was.
Bucky’s metal arm rested on my hip. I don’t think he even realized it was metal, because he kept running up and down, from my ribs to my thigh like he could feel the warmth from my flesh. I envied him a little – his metal was on the outside. His pain was always honest. Eventually the sergeant’s eyes fluttered shut, just before a tear slipped down the side of my face.
[Day 742]
Winter in Carpathia was unforgiving and all-consuming. Fresh and pretty, but lethal in its cold. Here it was similar, but more beautiful with Bucharest’s architecture and golden streetlamps. Unfortunately, I couldn’t enjoy the view since our apartment was in the less-pretty part of the city. Great for security, terrible for spirits.
I miss talking to Steve. Not because I felt a flutter in my chest, or because I disliked my fake husband (no, that flutter was too painful and strong to ignore), but because I missed speaking to someone who was wholly from my time, and wholly kind. Bucky wasn’t mean, but he was very quiet when he wanted to be. Whether it’s because he’s in his head, trying to recall memories, or because he’s just the quiet type, I sometimes felt like speaking would ruin his concentration. Steve, however, was like a diary, I could text him anything and he’d give me a thoughtful, colorful answer that would make me feel like I wasn’t crazy for feeling what I felt. Natasha was similar, but I’ve only ever called her twice, and she’s never texted me first; so I assumed she preferred distance in her relationships. Steve didn’t, though, and I felt very happy giving him dating advice and complaining about modern appliances with him whenever he spoke first. Our talks were always brief, but made me feel a little lighter afterwards.
Now that it’s just us two, I sometimes feel lonely. Bucky was sweet, and could act so smitten with his eyes that I wondered how in the Sam Hill I could have ever hated such a soft face for seventy years in Siberia, but was withdrawn by nature of his person. Steve told me he used to be a lot more extroverted, a lot more friendly – by how Buck glares at other people, I somewhat doubted that.
In my spare time, I’ve begun to spiral because of the rods in my body. How long would it be until dark splotches showed on my arms? My neck? How could I hide it from Bucky then? I started to scour through any secondhand science and medical book I could find in the markets for something, anything that could help. Prosthetics, replacing limbs, etc. The closest I could find were hip replacement joints, and they were mostly for old people and mostly successful. No corroding metals that ate away at the flesh from the inside out.
I’ve decided not to distance myself from Bucky. Partially because it was cruel, and partially because I’ve seen what being alone looked like – in Greece he hardly looked happy, and the safehouse looked depressing when I came back after two weeks of solitude. I tried to be sweeter instead, let him hold me at night and kiss me at random times of the day despite us not being in public. After all, he did propose normalcy, and who was I to reject that?
It was the start of an early winter in Eastern Europe, and the first signs of snow made me feel a twinge in my chest. “Remember the mountains?” I say after dragging a half-asleep Bucky to the windows to see the layer of snow falling on the world outside. Like the clunkiest, prettiest blanket of glittering white. “Fall flew by, didn’t it?” It didn’t, though – I was just too depressed to recall it. Let’s see…winter and the start of spring in Carpathia, then spring and summer in Italy, fall in Germany…then the Blur…the last two months of fall ended quickly because of how unreliable my head got. But we were undoubtedly in the thick of winter now. Have been for quite a while.
“There’s probably going to be more tourists because of the Christmas markets,” Bucky grunted. “It won’t be good for supply runs.”
“I’m guessin’ you're startin' to miss that little village?”
“...yeah.”
For the past two weeks I opted to stay home instead of going with him for groceries. I think he was worried, since it could mean I was spiraling again, and lord knows two spiralers were worse than one, but I just didn’t want to risk my legs. On one hand, the cold could be a boon in preserving my movement. On the other hand, I’ve had a history of having pain in my HYDRA rods because of the weather. The warm ocean in Italy was a stark contrast to the icy rivers of Carpathia. One helped, one hurt.
“You should come with this time. I don’t know what to get.”
“You never do,” I tease, ignoring my discomfort. “But I make do and dinner is always somehow edible. Just do your best, darlin’.”
But goddammit, he was insistent for some reason. Bucky shook his head. “The vendors are gonna start selling a lot more things. I don’t…they’ll prefer you to me.” More like he was too unwilling to talk to new vendors who might recognize his face. I nodded, dreading the pain that could come from this. No, don’t think like that – layer your leg warmers, don’t get cold – but warmth increases the degrading process. Говно.
“Alright, if that’s what you want.”
I layered as best I could and looped my arm around his when we stepped outside. The snow made it hard to walk, more like shuffling from one area to another while the light gray sky matched the frost beneath it. Looking up, Bucky really did look handsome in the cold. Blues, greys and blacks suited him so well – in Italy he blended in with the warmth and the sun, but here he lived up to the winter part of his moniker. I teased him for looking like a stubby pigeon on our ride to Germany, but he wasn’t stubby or soft at all. He was masculine and grounded and –
“Is there something on my face, nurse?” Shit. My face burned as I realized he caught me staring.
“...nossir. Just…you look good, Buck. The beard looks good on you today.”
He patted my hand. “You used to say my hair looked like shit and needed to get cut.”
“Only because your war photos looked so nice,” I retorted. “I…I wasn’t used to long hair. Men with long hair isn’t somethin’ normal on the farm. Brought in too much heat, so it was better for the boys to keep trim.” And even though the war exposed me to more people, more styles and cultures, Bucky’s long hair was a different thing entirely – I used to see only the Winter Soldier through it. Reminded me of the dangerous man in the compound who used to spar me until my skin was purple. That’s why I’d offhandedly say he needed a trim. But the Winter Soldier never tied his hair back, nor did he ever tuck it behind his ears or hide it under a baseball cap. Bucky did, and the small habits would break whatever thoughts I’d have of him as the other guy. The Winter Soldier looked like shit with long hair. Bucky didn’t.
Bucky was right about the stalls in the markets being fuller than usual. “How long has it been like this?” I muttered. I really missed a lot these past two weeks. Bucky grumbled, equally unwilling to go into the crowd.
“Since you hadn’t gone with me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
God. And to think he was made into a monster by HYDRA. If we weren’t in public, I’d kiss his face until his beard pricked my lips red. Instead we hit the stalls we normally went to. Christmas was in a few weeks, and Romania had a beautiful way of celebrating – starting at the end of November, then through the whole of December they would have traditions of singing and gift-giving. Or, at least, that’s what Bucky picked up. It would explain why so many people were crowding the Christmas tree stall pop-up, where a large truck held stalks of green for the incoming days.
When we made it to the meat stall, I gave a weak smile to the vendor. “I’m guessing most of the good stuff is gone?” I ask. The man shrugged.
“We have plenty of chicken, but pork and turkey are…scarce.”
I’ve cooked with less during the Dust Bowl. “That’s alright. Just give me what you can.” We ended up with a lot of chicken and a few fish scraps for soup. Much better than nothing. We also got two bags of half-price vegetables and coffee from our regular vendor, but really quickly did we realize just how crowded things are.
“Are you two going to get a tree? Because they’re giving away a few free little ones over there – most don’t want them, but they are charming.” Our coffee guy said.
Who’d want a little sapling compared to a big tree? Still, we both nod and make our way over there in order to look normal. “You feelin’ the Christmas spirit, Buck?” I muse, looking at some brats currently trying to climb a pine. He huffed.
“Yeah. Totally.”
I approached one of the tree sellers and pointed at the little free saplings. He nodded and handed me one, a sad, dinky little thing that was in its only little baby bundle of tin foil inside a clay pot. It had a little white flower tied around its circumference, as if that made it better. I held back a snicker when bringing it back to the sergeant. “...that’s the saddest baby tree I’ve ever seen in my life.” Bucky said after one look.
I bite back a laugh. “Sir. Be nice. She’s just petite.”
“And dehydrated. No wonder it’s free – they’re trying to get rid of the dying ones.”
My face twitched. “Well, even the dyin’ deserve something nice, don’t they?” He stared at me. “Let’s go back before I catch a cold.” You’re not dying, I remind myself. You’re not…not good, but not dying. Don’t be stupid. This sapling is worse off than you.
When we got back, my leg muscles were shot from the cold. I could even hide it, clutching the railing to our apartment and leaning on it until the skin of my knuckles turned white. Bucky let me lean on him. “I should’ve bought another heater,” He murmured when I shivered. I shook my head, ignoring the bruising pulse in my calves.
“Don’t. Waste of money. Only so much cash in the cache, after all.” Besides, the warmth of the apartment made both of us shudder when we went inside. I go straight to the little brown couch and lay back, only taking off my coat and gloves. The sapling was cradled in my arms still as I watched Bucky unzip his jacket. Frost laced his lashes and red flushed his cheeks. “Could you boil water, Buck? I’ll make soup in a bit, but…” He nodded, taking off his gloves.
An hour later and I still didn’t change out of my sweater, skirt stockings and leg warmers. How could I? As I made soup from the fish scraps and discounted vegetables, Bucky tinkered with the crank radio. “...latest from today. The erecting of a memorial after the destruction of…” He managed to get it angled towards some news. I was about to compliment his hands when – “...back to New York, where apparently every major international event happens. While the Avengers have established themselves as Earth’s protectors, acting as a cohesive unit, many question the allowance of these super-powered individuals to – ”
Click!
And just as quickly as he found it, Bucky skewed the signal. I thought he wanted to hear about Steve’s whereabouts. I guess that was enough. “People are still reelin’ from Novi Grad,” I casually say, not looking up from the pot.
“Who isn't? That place is basically a graveyard now.” Bucky exhaled through his nose. “But it’s not like people in charge will actually do anything to help outside of general aid. Alien invasions aren’t exactly normal.”
I nodded. “But what happened in Sokovia was partially man-made.” Or, at least, that’s what my theory is. When Ultron came about, it was easy to connect the dots as to who could have the tech to create such a thing. It’s never confirmed, but being trapped in HYDRA taught me long enough that the government didn’t give two shits about honesty in times of instability. I knew Tony Stark’s father as the guy who talked about making flying cars in the newspaper – you could imagine how gobsmacked I felt seeing his Ironman suit on the news in between our travels on TV news stations. I wasn’t about to judge a guy I didn’t know, but it doesn’t take a genius to wonder how a metal being came to be when it has such similar anatomy to said suits. Still, though, if Steve didn't complain about him over text, or try to expose him like S.H.I.E.L.D. when it was overtaken by HYDRA, I don't think he's evil.
But I digress - all observations from afar, from a nobody. “Maybe it’ll get people talking for a change.”
“Like what?”
I shrug. “Being more careful, I guess. These are human lives, affected by human intervention.” For once I didn’t envy Steve’s freedom – I wonder how stressed he felt about Sokovia. It’s not like he ever brought it up in our text conversations – there was always an understood undercurrent to not talk about anything too serious, not when everything else in our lives were. That, and because anyone could be listening. “As long as we’re not seen, though, I’m not jinxin’ for anything radical or dramatic. As long as the Avengers don't fuck things up too much, we're not goin' anywhere.” He nodded in agreement, and that was that.
Dinner was the stew and some discounted cookies with coffee for dessert. The entire time, Bucky was annoyed by the constant caroling. “...you can’t think without some brats outside singing about Jesus and rejoicing.”
We sat on the couch as he spoke. I had the little sapling in my lap. “What, you don’t like the miracle of Christmas? Where’s the joy in your heart?”
He deadpanned at my sweet sarcasm. “Locked away in Siberia.” The mere crude mention made us both pause, then let out a surprise chuckle. I rested my feet on his lap, where he took off the warmers so that his hands heated up my stockings. I tried to ignore the funny shiver that spread across my skin as his palms ran up and down my legs.
“Still,” I hum. “It’s sweet that the kids get to have a whole month for the holiday. I don’t think I can think of somethin’ nicer.”
Bucky nodded, looking down at my calves. “When we were kids, Steve used to write to Santa Claus to make him taller. I still remember bits of the damn letter.” His voice switched into something slightly lighter. “Dear Saint Nick, My name is Steven Grant Rogers, and I would like to be tall enough so that the boys in class won’t bully me anymore. I’ve got three dimes and a nickel and will donate all to Jesus if you let me grow two feet by next year. I do not like stuffing my shoes with newspapers.” A quiet snicker escaped his throat. “Poor punk.”
I giggled at that. A skinny Steve Rogers already sounded unbelievable, but here he just sounded downright adorable. God, I wish I had that burner phone right now – I’d kill to hear him deny the short man allegations. “And what did you ask for?”
Bucky shrugged, a content look on his face. “The usual. Money, candy, pencils, the girl I liked to like me back.”
“And did you get them?”
“Everything but the money. The Depression made sure of that.”
I fiddled with the little bunch of blooms around the sapling’s middle. “And now? If you could ask Santa?”
“Doll, I don’t believe in that sort of thing anymore.”
“But if you could?”
He looked at me. “We already have the stolen money from HYDRA,” his eyes flickered to the plate of jammed cookies. “We sort of have something sweet already. Wanting a pencil nowadays is low-balling it to hell.”
My chest felt tight. “And the last one?”
Bucky’s gaze lowered as he pulled me closer to him. “...I think that’s not up for me to decide.” His metal fingers moved from my thigh to the little plant pot, gently pinching the little buds between the pads of his thumb and his pointer. “...mistletoe.”
I nodded, feeling my face heat up as he suddenly turned to me. Our faces inched closer to each other, and I could still smell the fresh snow from outside in his hair, even if it's all gone now. “I think we have to be under it, though.”
He tilted his head. “Do we?”
My eyes fluttered shut as Bucky’s lips pressed against mine, feeling him sigh as his arms circled around my waist. I kissed him like I wanted to be burrowed into his chest, hiding there like it was the safest place to be. The only one who didn’t mean to hurt me, ever – what we shared in the cell was dormant in us, and now it’s woken back up.
Placing the little plant aside, I climbed onto his lap and whined. “You run too damn warm,” I quietly scolded as his skin felt hot, even as he wore a simple shirt and pants. Bucky let out a quiet huff, sounding the slightest bit sheepish.
“That’s not my fault. Besides, you have too many layers on,” He murmured, his fingers trailing the hem of my stocking’s thigh. Bucky softly whispered my name as I kissed him again, shivering as he slowly slid one off my leg. My heart suddenly began to pound as I felt his hand cup my hair, the other squeezing my bare calf – shit. A sharp bit of pain made me yelp, and he immediately froze. I could feel his eyes trail down to my leg, and widen at my marred ankle. The next time Bucky says my name, it’s a lot less seductive.
“Sorry,” I shakily say, unable to meet his gaze as I buried my face in his clavicle. “Looks like you got coal this year.”
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