but i did it

He was… unexpected. Had been ever since he surprised her on her birthday, a night she usually tried to both ignore and subsequently forget. He’d approached her then, purely by chance it seemed (the paranoid part of her brain questioned that, but she’d chosen the bar at random, it couldn’t be anything but chance). It was unexpected, wanting to remember her birthday, not feeling paranoid about him or his questions. Then he showed up at her house, and they’d spent a night together doing nothing but talking. Also unexpected, particularly for her. No booze, no sex, just… talking. And here they were again.

“More like an obsession,” she muttered, glancing over at him. “A… friend of a friend, he noticed something weird about this street sign named after Doom. And some other shit. So I’m just – paying attention,” she said, half-shrugging. “Plus there’s free food.” She could’ve done without the smell of booze in the air, making her throat burn and ache for it, but she’d live. Somehow she always did. (Another thing he’d understand, that no one else quite would. The survivor’s guilt of just existing.) “So you break up his marriage via goat ass, then you take him out for a year?” she asked, smirking at him. “Hard to argue against freedom though,” she added, almost as an afterthought. She followed his gaze, watched where he pointed. “Nervous tic, training, whatever – either way, I can appreciate it,” she said, glancing back at him. “What are the odds this thing doesn’t go to hell, am I right?” She paused a second, tapping her fingers along the lens of her camera. “Sorry,” she said suddenly. “If I made things weird the other night. Even sober I don’t have great judgment.”

The party wasn't great. Even if Bucky had been his old self again, the good time guy that was always down for more than a few pints, dancing with every girl in the room, he would’ve said that the whole thing had a strange air to it, like most of the partygoers were just waiting for shit to hit the fan. He knew what that was like, after all. It seemed as if, throughout the course of his life, every time his feet found something sturdy to stand upon, it was yanked out from underneath him, cracked and strained, even if it seemed impossible.

Steve had never been religious, no matter how many times his ma dragged him to church. The sermons never really made sense to him, and the sentiment was lost on him. God was an abstract concept, a nice idea, he didn’t hate it – he just had never seen the point.

But now, he was ready to fall to his knees and pray as long and hard as God wanted him to. If there was ever proof of a miracle, it was this moment right here. Not only was Bucky still alive, still safe, but he had finally shown up at his doorstep, like it was seventy years in the past and they were going to catch a train down to the water. Steve didn’t know what he’d done to deserve a miracle like this, something most people couldn’t even dream of – but he knew one thing. He wouldn’t waste it. He wanted to savor every extra moment, stolen away from fate itself.

Maybe Bucky wasn’t the same person he’d been. Maybe he wasn’t that figure in the museums, the face smiling back from old photos in the history books. Steve didn’t care. He wanted him just like this, wanted him real, wanted him sitting on his couch. It’d taken months to get to this point, but after seventy years in the ice, seventy years of thinking he was dead and gone – Steve could be patient. One step at a time. They’d keep walking one step at a time, right up to the end of the line. Just like they always did.

“Never did learn how to play that game,” Steve said, shuffling his feet. “Always needed you over my shoulder, telling me when to play the Ace.” Bucky had done his best all those years ago, but mostly their ‘double dates’ were two girls both interested in Buck, drawing straws to see who’d be stuck with little Steve Rogers for the night. Steve didn’t really mind, except for a couple of very pointed exceptions, girls who caught his eye and made him really wish he was bigger, stronger, that he could breathe without wheezing. Wishing that he was more like Bucky, really. That’s what it came down to. Things were different now. They were so incredibly different, sometimes it still made his head spin.

The tone shifted suddenly, sharply, and Steve’s eyes locked onto Bucky’s, the desperation and sorrow he felt reflected right back at him. Both of them had so much weight on their shoulders, such heavy burdens, mostly made up of their responsibility to one another. He would never set it down, not in another hundred years, but he knew the weight of it. Maybe, if he didn’t, if he didn’t know Bucky so well, even this version of him, he might’ve been confused by the plea. But it clicked instantly in his mind, and he nodded. “I promise,” he said, reaching out and grasping Bucky’s shoulder tight. “I promise you. There’s something, there’s always gonna be something. To the end of line, there’s something.”  

Something to hold onto. Something to connect them. Something to keep them going. Something worth fighting for, something worth remembering. Something to laugh about, even when they didn’t want to. Something to apologize for, even if neither of them would accept it. There would always be something between them. Something to help, something that hurt, something to love. Steve could think of a thousand ‘somethings’ he would do for Bucky. Because there was something alive left in those eyes, because Bucky wasn’t nothing, even if he might’ve felt like it. Steve wouldn’t let him go again, wouldn’t lose him. Never again.

Of course, that was a promise the world had made once. And failed spectacularly to keep. His father had died for that promise, the war to end wars. Steve would die for this promise if he had to. He wouldn’t even hesitate, if it meant keeping Bucky safe. If It meant giving him something of a life. After all, it was his fault that Bucky had lost so much, that they’d taken everything but his life in the end. And the life they left him with… it wasn’t much of a life at all. But now Steve had a chance to fix that. To make things right, to give Bucky the second chance he really deserved. Whatever anyone said about the Winter Soldier, whatever they thought, Bucky Barnes was a good man. Bucky Barnes was his best friend. And Bucky Barnes deserved something.

The words cut through him, but Steve forced himself to listen. He owed Bucky that much at the very least. Probably more, if he was honest, but he couldn’t go back in time. He couldn’t stop Hydra’s experiments, couldn’t change what happened on the train. “A book?” he repeated, brows furrowed. He knew Bucky was being facetious, a book that Pierce carried around constantly, wrote in – that had to be important. “Maybe we should look for it,” he suggested quietly. “Might… jog some things. Make them clearer. If that’s what you want.” Remembering their childhood, that was one thing. This was an entirely different part of the past, darker and more twisted, full of forgotten horrors they might not even be able to imagine.

“He does,” he said quietly. “Not as well as you do. But he definitely got his father’s brains.” Among other things – not that Steve would ever say so. It was strange to think that Tony and Bucky had never met, that these two major parts of his life had yet to collide. He couldn’t imagine what would happen if they did. “Howard – he was different than we knew him,” he said softly, biting his lip. “I don’t know it all, Tony doesn’t talk about it much. But it sounds like it changed him. The war, I mean.” He paused, sighing softly. “Guess it changed all of us. The whole world.”

The serum and the war, they’d changed a lot of things for him. Transformed him inside and out. But one that had never, ever changed – Steve Rogers was a stubborn son of a bitch. “I didn’t have you,” he insisted, jaw clenched for a moment. Not out of anger, but because he felt the sharp, jabbing ache in his chest, and it hurt remembering. Thinking about that night, all the ways it’d gone wrong, all the ways it went wrong afterwards. “I didn’t have you there, and I got on that plane knowing I wasn’t coming back.” Maybe not consciously, not at first, but there was an air of finality to the entire mission. “And as I was sinking in the ice, I thought – if it had to be the end, at least you’d be waiting on the other side for me.” He had never told anyone that, the history books only had his last exchange with Peggy on the record, and Steve didn’t talk about it. How it felt to hit the water, to feel the ice surround him. He barely remembered it, it only came back in flashes.

Bucky was spouting excuses now, Steve had heard it all before. Back when Steve would start a fight, need bailing out, and Bucky would get hurt in the process. He’d always say it was his own fault, that he hadn’t ducked or swung fast enough, something. Steve never believed him, but Bucky Barnes was his own brand of stubborn when it came down to it. “Peggy came to me that night. After it happened. No one else would get close, I think they didn’t know what to say,” he whispered, staring down at his hands. “She told me to ‘respect the dignity’ of your choice. And I tried, Buck, I did, but –” He clenched his jaw again, fighting off a wave of emotion, welling up in his throat, choking him slowly. “But it was still my fault. At least some of it, I can’t – I can’t let you carry it all alone,” he said firmly, looking up at him. “You could’ve been a leader,” he said simply. “They would’ve followed you. I followed you. That whole time, I was always following you.”

The serum had made him stronger, faster, more durable. It had amplified him, but he still had limitations. He knew he could be impulsive, that he thought with his heart more than his head, so whenever there was a decision to make, he talked it over with Bucky. He listened to him, even if they were just joking around. Did Bucky never realize how much Steve needed him, serum or no?

Steve laughed as they both spoke at the same time, saying essentially the same thing. “Probably,” he said, smirking at his best friend. Despite all the pain, all the messiness in their past, there was one simple fact. Bucky was here. Steve could put a hand on his shoulder and feel how real he was. “Good thing I’ve got you here, to watch my six.” Just like they always had. Just like they always would.

“Both,” he replied easily. He wasn’t ashamed of being a sap – they’d called him ‘sensitive’ back then, as Bucky knew. His mother fretted about it, but Steve didn’t much care what anyone thought. He was going to be a soldier no matter how ‘sensitive’ he was, and in the end, it was that quality that made him what he was. “I need you, Buck,” he said. “Pretty sure I’ve made that much clear. And I don’t care what you’ve done, what happened to you. I want to know everything you want to tell me. Whatever it is, I’m with you. To the end of the line, that’s how it always is. No matter where that line goes,” he said firmly, squeezing his shoulder tight once more before letting his hand fall. He laughed under his breath and clasped his hands together. “I can’t do this with anyone else, you know,” he said softly, looking over at Bucky. “Peggy’s gone. Howard’s been gone, the other Howlies – we’re the last ones left. The only ones who remember what it was like back then. How it felt to buy ice cream for a nickel. What it’s like dodging bombs in the trenches. All these memories…” He tapped his finger against his temple. “And no one in the entire world gets it like you, Buck.” He smiled and let his gaze drift away again. “She was pretty,” he said. “And she was happy you asked her out. Her brothers weren’t as thrilled,” he said, smirking lightly. Even then, Bucky had a reputation.

Bucky had tried, in the beginning. He had tried to listen to the words in his ma’s letters, telling him to keep faith, that Hashem would guide him to greater and better things. He had kept the Star of David tucked under his shirt, had flipped off those that commented on it, had pretended that the feeling of it pressing against the back of his dogtags and into his chest wasn’t suffocating him. The things that he did, the things he saw, they ruined it all for him. He had walked through fields that stunk of poppies, and he had seen the red of blood seeping through the ground, had seen the faces of men whose lives had been cut dramatically short. He had walked through the valleys of death a thousand times over with a gun slung over his shoulder, and he had known, then, that if Hashem was there, he had forsaken them long ago. Given up hope while he still could. Bucky wasn’t sure he could blame him.

After all, Bucky knew more than enough himself. He was an angel of death, the ones that were forbidden from the kingdom. During the day he fought with honour, followed the Howlies’ code, never shot a man in the back. During the night, though, that was something different. During the night he got a telegraph from Colonel Philips, or even from Carter - something he wasn’t much in the mind for revealing to Steve then, and definitely not now - and he would get a knife and go into enemy territory, put it across the throat of their leader.

He had done it, so he said, for the reason that anybody did anything in that war - to stop someone doing the same thing to their countrymen, to their blood, to their family. Truth be told, though, Bucky had always found his home in war. He hated it, but it suited him, sat well on his shoulders in a way it never had with even Steve. “You were too trusting, that was all,” Bucky said. “Probably heard your Ma in the back of your head telling you gambling was the Devil’s pastime, too.” Bucky had heard it as well, his own ma’s voice, but he was well adept at ignoring it even before he shipped out.

Perhaps it was pathetic, racing for scraps, trying to get anything that fell off the table, but that was all Bucky had to receive now. It was all that would make him a person again, all that would make him capable of existing in a world where he didn’t have continuous orders, where his path wasn’t laid out right in front of him, and his focus could be entirely on a target. He needed something to live for, and right now, Steve was promising that. It wasn’t fair, asking him to do that when Bucky knew he would still take a bullet in an instant, and for a ghost at that. It wasn’t fair, it was selfish, and if Bucky was a better person he would’ve never come back to New York.

“Guess we weren’t joking when we said that,” Bucky said, remembering how the words had come through him easily. At Steve’s ma’s funeral, the pastor had said something that Bucky had turned over in his head for an hour or more. Sarah had fought well, had helped so many people, but she had reached the end of the line, and now she would ascend. Bucky hadn’t known even then about ascending, but he had known that he was gonna be there for his best friend until the time came when they were separated by the big guy himself. “Never really pictured it extending to 2018, but I guess we were thoroughbreds. Might’ve lived this long even if we hadn’t died.”

Bucky had aimed for the joker during the war. He knew that often, the guy that was cracking jokes and laughing the loudest was the guy that was shitting himself the most, and it was clear as day. That wasn’t the case with him. He did it because for a long time, especially after Zola put whatever he did into him, war came natural. The bitterness didn’t resurface. Violence felt almost like a release. Steve had said that good became better, bad became worse, and that was true. Of course, at the time, Steve hadn’t known that Bucky was the same thing, or a bastardisation of it. He thought he was telling a story that affected nobody else, a story that he could be self-deprecating in as always.

Bad definitely became worse for Bucky. It kept getting worse, too. He wasn’t sure how much was him, how much was the serum running through his veins. “Yeah, like a red book. Maybe black, I don’t know. Had a star on it like this one. The star - it was silver. I think.” The colours blurred in his mind, but he remembered something about Vasily Karpov, as well. That name, though, wasn’t uttered out loud. He would take the risk of forgetting it again if it meant Steve never had to hear it. “I’ve already been hunting down Hydra,” he admitted. “Being a bartender only got me so far. Always find myself called back to it, you know? Every dickhead I’ve taken out had nothing. Just money and connections. Can’t take either of those to the grave.” You could, though, take secrets. Books. Who knew where the hell it was now? “Yeah. Yeah, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Father. It still seemed strange, somehow, to picture it. Strange to think that Howard had grown and aged. Bucky still remembered him in a vintage car, sunglasses on, models in the backseat. “What way different?” Bucky asked, raising an eyebrow. Then Steve kept talking, and Bucky’s gaze darkened. “Yeah,” he said. “Howard always had that kinda thing in him, you know? Something that wasn’t quite wired right. Used to think it was his eccentricities, you know how rich folks are.” War changed people, Hashem knew it had changed Bucky, but a part of him wondered whether it just brought out your true self, or a paradox of it.

“There’s going out in a blaze of glory, and then there’s what you did.” Bucky had listened to the tapes. Of course he had. He had frequented every Captain America exhibit this side of Manhattan, and the ones over the water in Europe, where they worshipped him with less of a reverence, even before the Civil War. He’d heard Peggy’s desperation, her heartbreak. “The cold must’ve got to your head,” Bucky said, voice laden, “‘cause no deity would ever put you and me in the same place. You saw the things I did. You didn’t see the others.” That had been the whole point, after all. The Howlies needed someone who was willing to do the dirty jobs. Philips had always trusted that Bucky would never refuse.

That was why he was reluctant to say that everything he had done with the Winter Soldier had been entirely Hydra’s doing. Bucky had always been good at following orders, at doing the things no one else wanted to know, no one else’s soul could bare having on it. “I would’ve been happy going out that day,” Bucky said, looking at him seriously. “I made a stupid mistake, let them get the best of me, but I still would’ve been good to go. Think we both knew there was no going home for me.”

The idea that the conversations they had at night over a smouldering campfire, or in a tent that definitely stunk out the entire forest, had some kind of impact on Steve almost made Bucky burst out laughing. He had progressed well in the army, he knew his opinion was worth something, but the idea of Steve following him rather than the other way about seemed impossible. “You know, before I knew Captain America was you, I used to hate the guy.” It seemed like a confession that didn’t need to be made, but it was a memory. A vivid one. “Used to stand out in front of the stage watching these newsreels, wondering whether the poor son of a bitch they put in that getup had any clue what it was like to be out here. You proved me wrong, Steve. You proved the whole damn world wrong.”

Bucky was quiet for a moment too long, and Steve wondered if he’d pushed too far. But then the other man blinked, and stepped inside, and Steve felt relief wash through him. Along with a few questions, questions he could never ask. Was he remembering more? Was he coming back to himself? Did he want to?

Thing was, Bucky had always walked around with an unshakable confidence, but Steve had been one of the few people to see through the facade. To glimpse the real insecurities beneath that charming smile, the hesitation when he buttoned up his uniform. It faded on the battlefield, there wasn’t time for uncertainty when seconds meant the difference between life and death. But Steve had always wondered if it was still there, buried beneath the surface. “I can think of a few people,” he said, smirking lightly. “Sarah. She was always happy to see you home in one piece.” She’d said as much when they came home after one of Steve’s scuffles, repeated the words to him after wrapping them both in hugs. “I can live without the cream. Don’t need nothing fancy,” he said, smiling gently.

Steve couldn’t get the last summer out of his head. When his friends and former teammates had been enemies, when ‘hero’ became a dirty word – unless you toed the line and kissed the ring. But Steve hadn’t trusted the boots or the hands that were ‘feeding’ them, and now he knew that trusting his gut had been the right move. “Yeah,” he said softly. “But maybe I went about making it the wrong way.” There were some things he said to Tony and the others that he could never take back. “Hannut,” he corrected, on instinct. “Normandy went a lot smoother than Hannut. That was…” He shook his head, the sound of tanks and gunfire booming in his ears, the smell of smoke thick in his nostrils. “You could’ve pulled it off. Everyone always said how pretty you were,” Steve shot back, smirk turning to smile as Bucky sat down. He wasn’t going anywhere, he wasn’t running. Steve wouldn’t have to chase him anymore. “It’s not bad. Don’t expect me to be Watson, though,” he joked lightly. “Melodramatic. That’s one way to put it,” he said, eyes never leaving Bucky as he set up the movie. Steve couldn’t help but feel like if he’d blink, his best friend would vanish again, right before his eyes.

The pencils felt right in his hands, the familiar scratch of the tip against paper was a sound he didn’t realize he missed quite so much. His muscle memory remained, he remembered sketching out the shape of Bucky’s face so many times before. Sometimes he protested or groaned, but he always sat for a portrait once Steve started. “I’ll do my best,” Steve laughed. “Can’t promise nothing.” He paused a moment, glancing up at Bucky. “I don’t think you noticed half the time,” he admitted. “Used to calm me down, before a mission. After. Figured the other guys would get weirded out if I drew ‘em too much, but you were different.” 

Bucky wasn’t entirely sure what it was supposed to feel like, reclining back on Steve’s sofa that wasn’t Steve’s sofa. It was too soft for that, didn’t stick into you in places you’d rather forget, didn’t have stains from years’ worth of Sarah’s shaking hands spilling coffee all over it. (She always felt the cold, until she got a bandage or syringe in her hand. Then, she might have given him a run for his money as a sniper.) He supposed that relief was the right answer there. He was supposed to be happy, at least, that he was free, that he was able to be here, able to see his best friends live. Truth was, though, he was far from either of those things. The government continued to hunt him down, and Steve hadn't lived the life that they had been fighting for everyone else to live. He had been drawn into this century by a pure fluke, and although Bucky was relatively pleased that he wasn’t the last of the Howlies alive, that didn’t undermine the fact that he was pissed at the universe for dragging Steve down with him.

“Sarah liked me ‘cause I caught the spiders,” Bucky said with a grin. He’d always been taller than both of the Rogers, had been able to catch the critters without a chair propped under him. Sarah felt bad about killing them - she was just that sort - at least until they came within a foot of her. God, Bucky missed her sometimes so much that it burned. He wished he could think of his own family with the same emotion.

He watched the side of Steve’s face, heard the softness in his words. “You can’t make the right call every time, Stevie,” Bucky reminded him, “and out of all of us, you were more than due your fair dose of stupid. Your intentions were good. The Accords - they would’ve taken away the freedom we fought so damn hard for. People … people can’t be trusted. People can’t be trusted with the power you guys have. So if I had been here -- yeah, I would’ve been with you. Even if you did deal with it all wrong.” It was impossible for Bucky to think that was the truth, Steve had always been harder on himself than he was on anyone else, but it was something that needed said regardless. To the end of the line didn’t just mean the straight line, after all, it meant following each other around the curves, jumping over the roadblocks.

Truthfully, Nadia didn’t know much about the Winter Soldier. The Red Room had never provided much backstory on its trainers, never told them where they came from. Who they’d been before, of course, was always irrelevant. Once you became an agent of the Red Room, you weren’t allowed to be anything else. You weren’t allowed to have any other identity, weren’t allowed to ask questions about any family you might have had or any friends who might be missing you. Nadia had heard of her father only when it suited her handlers, when they thought it might inspire her to invent bigger and better things, and it had still been more than most agents got.

What she had known about the Soldier had been learned only through interactions with him. She knew he was kinder than other handlers, knew that he never struck out at her in anger when she’d done something the Red Room wouldn’t approve of. She’d known he was quieter than most, speaking little of her grand mission. She’d known, on some level, that he wanted to be there about as much as she had. It had made her feel connected to him, allowed her to invent a world in which he was an ally instead of a fellow prisoner. Maybe now that they were both free, they could form some sort of alliance with one another. It didn’t sound all that bad.

“I can’t imagine why,” she admitted quietly. “I want to go to every party. I want to do everything I couldn’t before.” She had a whole life to make up for, years of living that she hadn’t gotten to do, and she intended to make up for it now. She couldn’t imagine why Bucky would shrug that chance away, why he wouldn’t want to be the person the Red Room had stolen from him the same way she did. “I’d rather see you than — Than someone else,” she replied, because that, at least, was true. She didn’t know how she felt about him, but she knew he was preferable to someone who believed in the Red Room. “What kind of intel are you after?” She’d be lying if she said her curiosity wasn’t piqued. Nadia was a scientist, and for a time, she’d been a spy as well. Those two things combined filled her with an intense curiosity about everything and anything. “I think I have. I met an astrophysicist who talked about the differences in the stars now that we’re not on Earth. I didn’t notice any differences, but I didn’t… For a long time, I didn’t see much of the sky at all.” She paused a moment before asking, “Have you found what you were looking for here tonight?”

Memories came back in fits and starts. There was nothing that Bucky could find that tied them together, that made it likely others would follow after an epiphany. It was trial and error, and even those memories that did return seemed hazy at the edges, as if they themselves weren’t quite sure whether they should be trusted or not. Bucky remembered violence, torture, training others in their use, and that was about the extent of it. The specifics were lost on him, probably always would be, but he could see them reflected on Nadia’s face. There wasn’t an anger there, at least towards him. Towards their general situation there would always be distaste, hatred, rage, but Bucky liked to think he had never subscribed totally to their whims, even when they scrambled his thoughts and made him forget entirely who he was.

The kids, he reckoned, had it worse. It was the same throughout all of history, in that the youngest and the oldest suffered the most, while the adults in between who were tasked with protecting and defending them got preoccupied with the war. Bucky knew that the Great Wars had been worth fighting, that the world would look very different now if they hadn’t succeeded, but the wars after that … Either way, the younger inhabitants of the Red Room did not deserve what had happened to them. Bucky had a life before, something to look back on when he could. They had nothing.

“You’ve just captured the essence of the California lifestyle, man. Clearly you were meant to be one of us. New York’s got nothing on the Left Coast.” Eddie wasn’t even a Californian by birth, but it was more of a lifestyle. And it was the first real home he’d had, more importantly, the first place that had meant more than just a roof over his head and three squares. That made it important enough even to argue for in an argument that was basically playful. But more important than that, the friendly bickering was a lot more fun than he’d thought he was going to have today. So this was really a net win for him, even if he didn’t actually win the friendly argument. “You’re asking the wrong person there, my friend. I am the king of small talk. I can talk to anybody.” This conversation was pretty much case in point. “But I mean, I can talk to people on the subway too, I guess. I don’t have a horse in this race.”

He nodded enthusiastically. Here, finally, was someone who got it. “Yeah, that’s it exactly! Like, if you don’t know where you’re coming from, none of it’s going to have any meaning, right? But you can’t keep doing the same old tired thing either. Just doesn’t work, you end up with boring sameness.” And sure, maybe it was more broadly applicable, but he was not having a deep metaphysical conversation today, goddammit. “It for sure is. Nobody would dare to hurt Coney Island, it’s just in the rules.”

“Look at me. I’m learning new things every day. The more you know the more you grow, ain’t that it?” Some sayings had changed since Bucky’s first attempt at life - did it count as a death if his heart hadn’t stopped, if for all intents and purposes it had been an extreme version of taking a tumble down the stairs? - but the grand majority remained consistent. People thought of the  war as being a century ago, as if there still weren’t survivors out there who hadn’t been put in cryofreeze in between. “I used to be like that, I think.” Self reflection had never really been Bucky’s strong point before the war. He did what he needed to do, and he did it well, but beyond that he never stopped to consider why he was doing it. “Guess I’ve got stranger since moving back here. Sometimes home comforts aren’t a good thing.”

There were a lot of times when she cursed herself for trying to be sober. On bad nights, when the voices in her head were so loud she couldn’t hear anything else. When she walked past a bar and caught the scent of whiskey spilled on the floor. When she was bored. Tonight though, she just wanted a way to settle her nerves, to make it feel less like she was about to vibrate out of her skin. 

“Yeah, you let me know how that turns out,” she muttered. But she flashed him a smirk anyway, catching his eye for a moment before following his gaze towards the crowd. She caught a glimpse of el presidente schmoozing in the corner, and she snapped a shot on instinct before making a face. “Jesus,” she said, shaking her head. “That was your goddamn dare wasn’t it?” The smirk on her face slipped a little when he finished the story, and she bit her lip. “Nothing lasts forever, I guess,” she said softly. As Doom moved closer to the stage, Jessica felt her already frayed nerves keying up even more. “You know the quickest way out of here?” she asked on impulse. “I tend to stay away from tourist traps and monuments. Never actually been in here before.” 

It was strange in many ways to have someone that understood what he had gone through. Others were empathetic, compassionate, but there was something to be said about having a person that had been through basically what you had, who knew what that amount of manipulation felt like, who didn’t feel safe in their own bones, who looked down at their hands and saw blood that they hadn’t chose to put there (and some that they had). Bucky wouldn’t go so far as to say friend, but it was veering that way, and standing beside her at the party felt a lot more comfortable than standing by the bar, drinking all night and not feeling the slightest bit tipsy.

She wasn’t the greatest P.I. Never would claim that, even if Malcolm thought she could teach him something, or Ms. Walker would’ve said it was good for ‘branding.’ But she knew a thing or two. Never let it get personal, take the case, take the clues, take the cash. Cheaters went to motels if they didn’t have money. Hotels if they did and weren’t scared about the wife seeing the statement. Trash was a P.I.’s best friend. If they’ve been missing for more than a week? They’re gone, in the wind, or in the river, but either way, they aren’t coming back. (She took those cases anyway because hey, more billable hours.) 

Possibly most important, was that what people didn’t say was usually more important than what they did. Bucky didn’t say a hell of a lot, but he still managed to speak volumes. Some people, their silence was like a scream. His was loud, deafening almost, but she didn’t call him on it. She figured hers was no picnic either. He said couldn’t have come back even if I wanted to – but he didn’t say he did want to. That silence wasn’t hard to interpret. She nodded when he gestured for the laptop, because it was unlikely he was here to steal her clients or her secrets. (Especially when she was giving them away like they were going cheap.) 

“At least they got your good side,” she quipped, as the images of headlines and tabloids flashed across the screen. It wasn’t even close to true. Every shot was either blurry or distorted, covered in shadow. She could’ve taken better shots blind drunk (and had.) But it was intentional – the shadows and the angles, they deliberately made him look sharp, dangerous, terrifying. They didn’t look like him. A far cry from the guy she’d started calling ‘pretty boy.’ Same face maybe, but in the rare shot they managed to capture his eyes, it wasn’t the same person staring back. The eyes in the pictures were glassy, not glazed over, but just… flat. Like the eyes of a dead man. “Not to mention your buddy’s buddies,” she said, glancing over at him. “Can’t imagine the other superfreaks of the world were entirely cool with you wandering around free.”

She knew that much from experience alone. After her trial, there were dozens of voicemails on her Alias answering machine. Some people were idiots, calling her a hero, asking for help when she was clearly under-qualified. Some were smarter, hit a little closer to the truth. They called her a murderer, a monster, something dangerous and dark, just like those pictures of Bucky. But even at her lowest moments, she knew that wasn’t the whole truth. She wasn’t a saint, but she wasn’t the devil. She had lived in the grey area for a long time she almost forgot what colors were like. 

Bucky probably understood that, too. She smirked, the corner of her lips curling up, but the expression not quite reaching her eyes as she looked at him. “Yeah,” she said. “Me neither.” They had both left a lot behind, a lot of memories, a lot of pieces of themselves. She wanted to believe it was better that way, that if she didn’t think about it, she couldn’t ruin what few good memories she had. Sometimes, late at night, she thought back to that house on Birch Street, and she remembered her family. The way Phil could always find an action movie on TV, and her dad falling asleep in the armchair. Her mom drinking sangria, which tasted like air freshner and shoe polish. They were always smiling in those memories, but sometimes she thought she remembered her parents yelling, or Phil slamming his door too hard, shaking the CDs on her shelf. She didn’t focus on that, pushed them back as far down as she could. And when you were made up of black holes, you had a lot of room to repress. “Guess we can settle for not being the biggest fuck ups in history then,” she said, running her hands along her jeans.

Even his laugh was like hers – longer, but just as hoarse and ragged, like he wasn’t used to it anymore. Another remnant of what he used to be, not what he was. “I’d say so,” she agreed, her smirk more genuine now, spreading wider across her face. “That’s a decent threat. Even if every sexually fluid guy I know can barely throw a punch,” she joked. 

It wasn’t a secret, what she could do. She never wanted to hide, even if Registration had forced her to for a while there. But she had never wanted to advertise either – these abilities, they were no one’s business but hers. Hogarth, in a rare moment of actual human emotion, had understood that. Or maybe it just made it easier to win the case, keep her perfect record intact. “Yeah? You could moonlight as a P.I. then,” she pointed out. “But if you start taking my cases, I’m gonna be pissed.” She was kidding, falling back on humor and vague threats like she always did when she didn’t know what to say. “When you went back to Europe,” she said suddenly, eyes flicking to the still-open laptop. “Weren’t you… concerned that they’d find you again? Goons of a Russian shadow organization, or Hydra, or whatever the hell they call themselves?” She stopped herself from saying ‘afraid’ even if it was closer to the truth. She kept herself out of the superfreak world as much as she could, but these days that didn’t take her very far. Even she knew what Hydra was, what they could do. How they’d react if they got their little toy back.

It was her turn to laugh, just a quick, scoffing sound. “You telling me he wasn’t always a boy scout?” she asked, noticing how much more alive he sounded when he talked about the Flag Waver. Like her with Trish, his one thread keeping him tied to the world. God, she hoped it wouldn’t snap, because ever since hers had, she’d been adrift. Floating aimlessly through the constant shit this city got into, trying to find the solid ground again, but never quite sticking the landing. She’d lost Trish, she gave up on alcohol (among other things – Matt’s face flashed through her mind, the image of him sitting almost exactly where Bucky was now.) Maybe that’s why her veins were starting to buzz, desperately seeking something to dull the throbbing ache in her skull, the one she always felt when things started getting serious. She was so close to him she could feel the intake of breath before he spoke, watched the doubt flash across his face. The rejection – no other word for it – made her sit up a little straighter, lean back some to get a more comfortable distance, but her expression didn’t change. She was still smirking at him. “You don’t get to tell me where I want to go,” she pointed out, but there was no anger in her voice. She was surprisingly steady, maybe giving up liquor wasn’t the worst thing. “Be whatever you want to be, pretty boy. Doesn’t matter to me, because – don’t know if you’ve noticed – but I’m not much of a person anymore either.” She took a breath, shrugged casually and let her hair fall over her shoulder. “No one smart puts time into me either,” she said simply. “That’s not what I was suggesting here.” 

Bucky had met with someone just like him, once. It had been where the money was khernys done, or both. there were other days,  - Czechoslovakia, he thinks, long before it split into two states. It was his third break from the Soviets, and there was something different about this one, someone different. Whoever she had been, they had taken her from him, and he had taken himself from them. He had hidden for two weeks. He couldn’t remember ever thinking anything. To him, his mind in that time had been a blank slate, acting entirely on instinct, on impulse. He had met another girl, though, one with blonde hair pulled back into a greasy ponytail. Her hands had been shaking as she took his order at the coffee stop. Her name was Ivana, and she was Vasily Karpov’s daughter.

His mind had been blank. He had acted entirely on instinct, on impulse. When she came back with his coffee and biscuits, he had stood up and put a gun to her head. The cafe had emptied. No one came to her rescue until the cops circled the cafe. Bucky had been intending to kill her for nothing but what she was, who she was related to, and then she had said, ‘Do it. I don’t have a home anymore.’

The ironic thing - the depressing thing - was that when a target asked him to do it, when they stopped begging and crying, Bucky hesitated. Ivana was not crying. She was not even shaking anymore. She was determined, was staring him down, and he had dropped the gun. He had left without more blood on his hands, and he had thought about home. He had realised he didn’t even know what that was anymore.

Jessica, at least, knew that New York was where home was. Europe, though, felt more like home than anything else. James Barnes was born in America, was a part of its history, but Moscow owned him. It always had. “Ha ha,” Bucky deadpanned, knowing rightly that there was no side in those photographs. “I don’t blame them. I brought down SHIELD on them, killed a lot of good people. Hurt Steve’s friends, too. If I was in their place, I’d want me in a cell. Maybe worse.”

Heroes didn’t get vengeance, though. Or they weren’t supposed to. They weren’t supposed to fight for revenge, out of anger. They were supposed to be better than normal people, they were supposed to be gods. “You questioning whether I can throw a punch? I’m offended. Metal arm or no, I can break a nose in a second.” Superstrength or no, too. Bucky had always been a scrapper, a fighter in more ways than one.

“Oh yeah? What would I put on my card? ‘Has seventy years’ experience being the world’s greatest assassin’? Putting myself on the map would just come with complications, even if I changed up my name.” The Avengers were everywhere, had friends in high and low places. the chances of running into one of them were high. Mercenary work was something else, something shady in ways they weren’t, and odd jobs here and there never asked many questions. “First place they expected me to go was back to America. They always overestimated patriotism. It wasn’t for my country that I fought.” It had been for the people in that country, and they were all dead. “In the Iron Curtain states, I had friends. Or at least contacts. Safehouses of my own making. I knew the languages, could blend in. Easier than coming back here, where everything’s blasted up on a screen.”

Having expected a panicked reaction, Loki was rather disappointed when the man acted quite nonchalant. Was he not terrified at the thought of being attacked by a demon? Then he went and pulled out a gun. That was equally unexpected. However, since there truly was no demon, shooting at nothing would make him look foolish, so Loki supposed it was a small victory.

At least it was until the imbecile not only declared that he was carrying other weapons, but actually had the gall to tell Loki to get out of the way. The fact that he was clearly unimpressed by Loki’s grand charade only made it worse. “How dare you, plebeian! I am being a noble savior by graciously offering to save your miserable life, and you dare to tell me to step aside?” Of course, if the man did start pulling out multiple weapons to shoot at nothing, it would be rather amusing. But if he had half a brain, he might eventually discover that he there was no demon there. And that would not look good for Loki. 

“Is that all you can think about–trying to make as much of a mess as possible? Do you not understand the concept of a glorious battle?” Loki huffed. The compliment about his wardrobe was met with a tiny bit of a preening expression, being as Loki always appreciated such comments. But then the man was hardly dressed in high style, so did a compliment from him even count? “Oh thank you. That is truly high praise from someone dressed like a vagabond. I doubt you would know anything fashionable, even if it came up and hit you in the face.”

This guy was definitely one of those from the acting troupes that Bucky had seen around the city. Only a few of them had guitar cases open for the masses to throw their coins into. The rest of them did it because they wanted to bring about enlightenment, or make the population more cultured, or some kind of shit like that. Bucky had never cared much for any of that. Steve was the artist. He was the math guy, and that had been more useful to his sniping career than drawing flowers would ever be.

The man standing in front of him, though, was taking this extremely seriously. Whatever role he was trying to play - someone that seemed vaguely familiar, but given how many movies Bucky had binge watched in an attempt to get caught up, that wasn’t as pivotal as it should have been - he was committing to it entirely. Bucky would've been impressed if he wasn’t pissed off, really. “Plebeian?” Bucky repeated. “Did Big Will himself spit you out here?” Miserable life, at least, was something he couldn’t exactly argue with, but he was damned if he wasn’t still offended. This was his miserable life, thanks! “I can handle myself, buddy. Pretty sure I have been for give or take the last hundred years.” The good thing about sarcasm was that he could say the truth and it would come across as nothing but snark.

@scvietwinter​

“You would let me like, be on the run with you, wouldn’t you?” Eli grins from his current position of sprawled out on Bucky’s couch, a jar of peanut butter and spoon in hand, the homework he had brought with him long since discarded. Bucky’s place is by necessity in a pretty quiet area, Eli likes hanging out here when he starts to feel overwhelmed by what’s going on outside–not to mention the fact that for all the stories about the brutality of the Winter Soldier, and the fact that he’s wanted, Bucky himself is actually pretty laid back. He’s more than willing to tell Eli what stories he remembers, about Jeffery Mace or about his grandfather before the serum had corrupted his mind–or to just listen while Eli rants about whatever is on his mind at the moment. Bucky is a large part of the reason Eli decided to study history when he applied to school–so that he could tell stories like that of Sergeant James Barnes, that so often get forgotten.

“I’m thinking pretty seriously about punching the president in the face, but that’s gonna make me a fugitive.” He laughs like it’s a valid explanation for his question, shrugs his shoulders. “Thinking it might be worth it though, if I can figure out the logistics.” He licks at the spoon before gesturing with it. “I kind of already technically am, considering it will be a cold day in hell before I hand over anything related to Patriot to him. I mean, this is insane right?”

Bucky’s safehouses over the past four years weren’t exactly the kind of places that you invited company over to, for health and safety reasons above all else. His apartment in New York, though, was something else. Sure, he had a couple of sofas pulled in that someone left in an alleyway and he was sleeping on a mattress in the middle of the floor, but home was home, and it was the closest thing to owning something he’d had in years. Bucky was up on a chair double checking his weapons cache currently stocked on top of the kitchen cabinets when he heard Eli speak and laughed, shaking his head as he stepped down off the chair. “Believe me, even you would get sick of peanut butter and cheetos after a few week, and I ain’t the type to help with geography homework.” Math, that was something else entirely, and he had unique insight into history, but maps were the devil’s work, reminded him too much of tactical meetings a mile away from the front.

Eddie wasn’t the slightest bit thrown by the thread of unnamed foot diseases. He was a superhero! He could handle the mean old streets of New York. “I never said we Californians were smart people. Just daring, and with a major hate for wearing things on our feet.” And okay, yes, it was possible that he just spent all of his time with the granola people of the state, but they were a lot of fun, so could he really be blamed for that? “Okay the first two make sense to me, but the subway? Man, I will never understand this city,” he lamented. Okay, yeah, public transportation, awesome. Except that just for starters, he’d never actually been able to try the subway until recently, since it wasn’t exactly build to accommodate people with horns. And then there was the teleportation thing. Having had that, the subway just seemed…kinda underwhelming.

“I mean, I get that side of things too. Sometimes, tradition sucks,” he pointed out. “Like directors putting stuff in their movies just for the nostalgia even though they could make something better, that kind of thing. Or, you know, actual serious things too, probably.” But movies were a lot easier to talk about with a complete stranger. So much less chance of stepping in something and ending up trying to eat his entire foot. His grin when his teasing inspired laughter was huge and bright. “Glad we can see eye-to-eye on that one,” he replied. “And man, if the Cyclone ever gets old, I don’t wanna know about it. I don’t need that kind of negativity in my future.”

“I can’t decide if I’m being sold on the Californian lifestyle or put off it even more. New York clings to its own, what can I say?” Even a century down the line Bucky found himself being protective of the city, and somewhat proud to be a part of it, even if the thing it was most famous for now wasn’t patriotism and freedom but rather being the hotspot for everything shitty that went on in the world ever. At least there were still normal people like this guy to talk to, people who were passionate and excited about life and, you know, hadn’t murdered people for an evil Soviet/Nazi organisation. The little things counted. “People even argue on whether the subway should be a thing or not, as if everyone can afford a cab, or wants to make awkward conversation with the driver. What do you even talk about? How many times are they asked how long they’re working in a day? Surely it gets old.”

@scvietwinter​

Normal had never been a good or even decent descriptor for Jessica’s life. She’d essentially been born into HYDRA, infused with spider DNA (god knew what kinds) and somewhere along the way, ended up a HYDRA agent and then one of the good guys. Her ‘normal’ was private detective cases that typically lead her on more adventures, dressed as Spider-Woman. So sitting across from a man she met in HYDRA that remembered in bits and pieces when he wasn’t completely brainwashed? Not as weird as someone else might have found it. Honestly, hanging out with Bucky was something that Jessica had gotten used to. Really, humans were capable of adapting to anything if given the right circumstances. “You’re buying the burritos this time,” she informed Bucky before digging into their shared plate of nachos. Technically speaking, the restaurant was supposed to be closed, it was well passed curfew, but Jessica had connections. Being a superhero got you many places, thank you very much.

“So, how’s the whole ‘memory’ thing going?” She asked between mouthfuls. She could have beat around the bush, asked questions that would have given her indirect answers, but Bucky (and Jessica) had been manipulated enough. After everything the Winter Soldier had endured throughout the years, he deserved honesty, and if Jessica was among the few willing to give it to him, well, it was her duty as a mediocre human being.

Bucky had spent four years travelling throughout Europe in an attempt to figure out who the hell he was, and what the hell he had done under the Soviets’ and Hydra’s control. That entire time he had been little more than a shell, not quite a machine, but far from the man that was depicted in the history books, the man revered as a fallen American hero. In the months since he had arrived in New York again, though, the memories had been coming back thick and fast. Maybe being around the Avengers had something to do with that, maybe it was because everywhere he turned there was another familiar face, but either way, it was giving him plenty of leads to follow up on, and at least he knew who was worthy of trust. Jessica Drew definitely fit into that category, and when it came to people with shared life experience, she ticked the box as well. “Deal. You know someone gave me twenty bucks last night to go and punch their brother in the face? ‘Just a light punch, really. More of a love tap.’ That’s genuinely what they said. Easiest twenty bucks I ever made. Apparently their brother mispronounced GIF?” Had Bucky just mispronounced it? Who knew, who cared, he was flush with cash and ready to eat burritos.

The thing was, as much as Bruce enjoyed the conversation, he was starting to feel like talking to Bucky was a little bit like holding an antique grenade. Would it still explode, when he pulled the pin? Maybe, maybe not. He didn’t even know enough to give the odds. In the same vein, he was feeling his way through, not really knowing if he was going to touch off one of his own issues, or one of Bucky’s, with any topic he broached. So far, family? Seemed safe enough. Sniping? He probably could have predicted that would go badly for himself, if he’d seen it coming. And yet, he hadn’t, and here he was, trying to somehow not give away the fact that his paranoia wanted him to be watching everything at once. He thought about suggesting that they go inside, but he didn’t think it would actually help. Times like this, he missed absolute isolation in nature, where he’d at least have some kind of warning if someone was watching him from the wrong end of a barrel.

“Yeah,” he agreed, quietly relieved that Bucky hadn’t pushed the issue, hadn’t questioned anything. His gaze skittered across the skyline before finally coming back to the conversation he was actually having. “Sorry. Just not my kind of thing.” He deliberately avoided passing any kind of value judgement other than that. Bucky had been a soldier. It had been a necessary fight. He didn’t need to disrespect that to get his point across. “I’ll make a list,” he agreed. If he tried right now, he knew that he wouldn’t come up with half of what he’d tried over the years, and half of that would be half-remembered at best. He felt comfortable making one suggestion right away, however. “One that actually worked for me, a little, might work for you too. Some kind of martial arts. Maybe look into a few, see if anything strikes your fancy.” Somehow, he couldn’t picture Bucky doing capoeira, but then, he didn’t think anyone, looking at him, could picture him picking even a little of it up either.

He shook his head. “I don’t think I completely agree with that. If you don’t look back, you end up with no idea how you got to where you are now, and no idea where you’re going.” The history lesson was intriguing, but he didn’t think the lesson it ended with was the one he would have taken away. “Not all of it is what I’d call a marvel,” he agreed readily. “But…some of it really is incredible.” Of course, he was well aware that he was biased. He’d gotten to watch modern technology grow up, after all.

For four years, give or take, Bucky had been careful. He had checked and double checked before he went to sleep every night (though two hours was the longest stint he had managed of shut eye before he woke up sweating, visions of a life he had long since forgotten flitting through his mind) that he had the weapons cache ready under the bed, that his backpack was stocked and ready to run, made sure the police channel he had hacked into weren’t discussing a potential ambush of the Winter Soldier. He had avoided people’s eyes on the street, had changed his patterns every couple days, had never walked the same street twice. These days, he wasn’t being careful at all by comparison. He was talking to Avengers. He was taking down Hydra stations without regard for discretion. He was standing in the middle of the street talking to another ticking time bomb.

Someone on the outside looking in would think that he was intentionally trying to get captured, and maybe a part of him was. The more he remembered, the more memories that came back to the surface, the more he realised he deserved to be in a cell, to serve out a sentence for the people he had killed, the lives he had destroyed. Then again, who else understood that better than the guy in front of him, who could only be putting himself through torture on the Avengers to atone for something? “I’ve been on the other side of it for a couple years now, too,” Bucky said. “I get not loving it, you know.” Still, he felt far more like a soldier than someone hunted. Old habits died hard. “Martial arts used for thinkin’ instead of fightin’?” Bucky mused. “Hell, why not? I’ll take a look into it.”

Though Nadia had been in New York for some time now, the majority of the city was still full of strangers. It wasn’t exactly possible to be entirely familiar with everyone in a city as big as New York, she knew, but determination and unparalleled friendliness made her certain she could change that, could somehow meet and get to know the majority of the city through willpower alone. A  party such as this one made it far easier. There were more people in one place than she’d seen in some time, all crowded together and in good spirits. They had food in their stomachs and alcohol in their veins, making them far friendlier than they might have been on the streets during rush hour. It was Nadia’s goal to speak to as many of them as possible tonight and, so far, she was doing well. 

She’d already made several new friends, turned more than one strangers into acquaintances before heading over to the bar to get herself a drink. She’d only been sitting a few moments when she caught sight of a face that didn’t belong to a stranger. She still wasn’t entirely sure how to react to the Winter Soldier (or James, or Barnes, or Bucky, Nadia wasn’t entirely sure which he preferred). She knew now that he had no intention of dragging her back to the Red Room, knew that he’d escaped just as she and Natasha had, but that didn’t mean her feelings weren’t complicated. Though she’d been fond of him once, he was still a reminder of what she’d been through, and Nadia preferred to actively avoid those. 

“I like parties,” she told him, returning his smile. “I think I’m glad it’s you, too. Would you be angry with me if I said I didn’t know for sure?” The things he’d done for the Red Room weren’t his fault any more than the things she’d done were hers, and he had every right to be upset with her for being hesitant in accepting him. She hoped he wouldn’t be. She thought they could be friends in time, if they worked at it. “I’m here to meet people. To make new friends, to speak to the people of New York. I’m not sure what I think of Doom. What about you? I didn’t think this sort of thing  was something you’d enjoy.”

Bucky wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to Nadia. After all, the situation wasn’t exactly one that he had envisioned needing to deal with. Before the war, he had been able to seamlessly handle any kind of social interaction, but that had been when he was more than aware of who he was, what he was. Now, he wasn’t entirely sure that he was even a good person, whether he was worth trusting or not, and that made things just about as complicated as their history did. Nadia was a good person, that much had been obvious even when he was training her (at least from what he could remember) but the elephant in the room remained. He had trained her how to murder, had been part of the machine that had kept her shackled during her childhood, and that meant that any kind of association she had with him couldn’t be entirely positive in any definition of the word.

He also couldn't ignore the fact that for all of the things that he did remember - bits and pieces of memories, visions of horrors that he had a hand in and those that he had no hope of controlling - there were a hell of a lot of things that were still missing. Nadia could be a part of that, she could provide him with something of an insight, or at the very least, could remind him that there was life after Hydra. In the first few months he had wondered whether that was possible, whether being taken out of commission would’ve been kinder, but Nadia was standing here, enjoying a party, living. If that wasn’t representative of hope, he didn’t know what was.

She couldn’t help but remember the Syndicate attack. The one right after Trish’s death (the only after that really mattered anymore). It’d started off just like this – well, not exactly. That hadn’t been a party, just a meeting Skrull-a-tor had set up, but they were just as vulnerable. She didn’t trust it, even after the successful party at Halloween.They weren’t at Stark Tower this time, there were no robots and no FRIDAY (as much as she hated to admit it) to keep the peace. 

“Somehow, it doesn’t,” she deadpanned, blinking when she realized exactly who it was. “But hey, we can suffer together. Seems to be our thing,” she said. As if they had a ‘thing,’ or even should have a thing. “Fifty is an understatment,” she muttered, making a face at the guy he pointed out. “Christ, I hope he’s not planning on kissing anyone tonight. His date is gonna be pissed.”

Jessica looked about as comfortable with the whole thing as Bucky was himself. Back in the day, he supposed that he had once thrived in situations like this. He remembered sitting in old, bombed out pubs, pretending to be way more drunk than he was (after Azzano, he couldn’t get drunk, not really. Buzzed was pushing it) and feeling more contented than he had for miles. Whether that was because he enjoyed the dancing or the Howlies’ company satisfied him, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that now, there was nothing familiar in this place, nothing to tie him back to that.

It’s not a competition. She could hear Malcolm’s ‘sage’ advice in her head, but it had never stopped her from comparing. Christ, at least she had good memories to hold onto. At least she knew exactly what happened to her. There was a comfort in knowing, she’d always taken comfort in answers, long before becoming a P.I. At least there weren’t any surprises, any skeletons lurking in her closet.

Except IGH, of course. Those twenty days missing. Karl Malus and whatever he’d done to her. Jessica shuddered just thinking about it – and because a strange flash of a hospital gurney ran through her mind – but she tried to play it off as just a normal shiver. She’d have those answers too, soon enough. Whether it made things better or worse that remained to be seen. Not all touch had to hurt – maybe not everything in the past did either, but she doubted it. The two of them sitting here, they were living proof that the past had teeth, that it sunk its claws in deep, that it could draw blood. 

She bit her lip and nodded. “But you couldn’t come back at first, right?” she guessed, glancing over at him. “Because coming back would mean pretending it never happened. That nothing had changed, when you felt completely different on the inside.” It was always easier, talking like this. Like it was someone else’s story, not one eerily similar to her own. Their traumas were just a shadow apart from each other, closer than the space in between breaths. She shook her head slowly. “Maybe it’s better. Leaving whoever he was behind. That way, you don’t ruin it,” she said softly. 

After Kilgrave, she had to run. Not out of the city, she wouldn’t give up everything. But away from Trish, away from the neighborhoods they grew up in, away from the bars she used to frequent. (They were all too bright for her taste now anyway.) For six months, she had pretended to be a new person, but it didn’t take too much acting. She was different, changed from the inside out. And so was Bucky. A new man in new times, in a new life for the third time. “Even today, people don’t like to hit girls unless they’re real assholes,” she answered with a smirk. “Please tell me you didn’t give him the satisfaction. If anyone deserves blue-balls, it’s closeted dickholes who take out their aggression on the less repressed.” 

Jessica shrugged. “They’re not fiction,” she said, because she’d never wanted to hide. “But I’m no soldier, in any goddamn sense of the word. Freak accident,” she explained, which was about as much as she could explain. “My shark of a lawyer, she tried keeping that shit out of the papers. How deep did you read to find out?” she asked, quirking a brow. Not that it was much of a secret anymore, once she’d registered with Skrull-face. 

I get it, he said, and he was one of the few who she really believed. He didn’t get it exactly, because trauma left different scars on everyone it touched, but he came closer than most. “Jumpy,” she repeated, a weak smirk on her face. “That’s one way of putting it.” She took a breath, and brushed her hair back, street names on repeat in her mind. “Glad you didn’t. I am not goddamn bulletproof. Pretend to be sometimes, helps with the day job.” 

He seemed so much smaller than someone with a file that big should be. But it was a deliberate choice, she could see that much from how he kept himself pressed to the side of the couch. Keeping himself from pulling a gun out maybe? Or just trying to seem less threatening, as if she were scared of him. She should be scared of him, but he just seemed… too much like her own reflection, if she was being honest. And apparently that’s what they were doing tonight. “You wish,” she shot back instantly, though now that it was out there, the thought was crossing her mind. She couldn’t help but think of Luke, of saying to him I’ve never done it with someone with powers before… A laugh burst from her lips, a short, scoffing sort of sound, and she shook her head again. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. But hey, whatever gets you laid,” she said, and if she were drinking, she would’ve toasted the sentiment. As it was, she settled for flashing him a sideways smirk. “That’s just in this apartment,” she said, raising a brow. “There’s also the bitch who shot at me because she had an issue with your buddy Flag Waver. Put a hole in my favorite jacket.” His smirk grew wide and his tone was teasing, and she couldn’t help but lean forward. “I could think of a few things, pretty boy,” she said, smirking just as broadly. This was dangerous, and she should stop, but her mind was slipping closer and closer to the point of no return. And god knows she loved crossing lines. “A good time guy. That how they said ‘man slut’ back then?” she teased. “Was. Did that change?” she asked lightly. 

Bucky didn’t think that he would ever be grateful for the ability to make bad decisions. In fact, for a long time he had been sure that was what would ultimately kill him. Joining up for the war effort? Bad decision, and one that he had actually avoided. All the others, though, he hit square on the head. Making friends with the biggest punk this side of Brooklyn, fighting with his folks, avoiding any good girl that could’ve made one hell of a wife, killing on his very first mission even though the C.O tried to tell him to walk before he could run, kissing other guys out the back of washed out pubs, pretending that the entirety of Brooklyn couldn’t see them if they were looking for it. Bucky Barnes was reckless, he was foolhardy, he had a head as hard as the tarmac road and still, he was here. He was alive, or at least breathing, which was more than his mother ever would’ve expected of him.

Then again, to his mother, it had been his bad decisions that had gotten him killed. He had chosen to stay with Steve, to form the Howling Commandos, even when he was told that he could get out on medical leave. The opportunity that had been, a way to get out of the war as a hero and go home while there was still a home to go back to, that was something that he often wondered whether he should have taken. Then again, all of his good memories, all of the happy ones, came from those years in Europe. Leaving Steve wasn’t an option. Leaving the war wasn’t an option, even now.

“Couldn’t have come back even if I wanted to,” Bucky said. He spotted Jessica’s laptop sitting on the coffee table, and he gestured to it, as if to ask whether he could use it. Once she agreed, he reached out and typed ‘Winter Soldier’ into the search bar. The top results were all warnings that had been plastered over newspapers and TV screens, numbers to call if you thought you saw James Buchanan Barnes walking the street, the various crimes that he was accused of. “SHIELD might have fallen, but the FBI, CIA, even the cops were still swarming. I had to go out to Europe for a bit, let it all die down.” Outback Europe, far away from the cosmopolitan wonders of Paris or London, to the states that had long since been forgotten, that were still trapped in time. Maybe that’s why he was most comfortable there.

When Jessica said that it might be better, Bucky wasn’t entirely sure what she meant. Was she talking about leaving the old Bucky behind, not tarnishing his memory? Was she saying that going back to Steve was selfish, that he was better off without him? Or was she personifying the city? “Maybe it is better,” Bucky said, “but I ain’t ever been good at being better.” Good choices, they were Steve’s stock in trade far more than they were ever Bucky’s.

Bucky laughed, the sound strained and unfamiliar, almost clenching in his chest. “Just decked him back, put him on the ground. Left him with a threat that I’d spread a few rumours if I saw him around there again, then he’d have assholes like him coming after his pretty face instead. Ended pretty well, all things considered.” Things had changed since then, but not entirely. People still hid in the shadows, whether for who they loved, or what they were. “Deep enough,” Bucky replied. “Research is kind of my thing. More a soldier than a spy, but the Soviets liked their espionage. They liked knowing who they were putting a bullet in, in case it made things worse.” Hydra were far less conscientious.

Aiding people with their vendettas was always a complicated matter. For years, Laura had been used that way, an assassin, killing every person assuming people could pay the Facility’s high price. With Bucky, she was not doing anything that was against her morals. Quite the contrary, she wanted every HYDRA cell wiped from the face of the Earth, and being trusted to help him was an honour. It was not her cause, it was not Laura hunting down members of the Facility or its leaders, but HYDRA and the Facility were admittedly similar. Projecting would be effortless, though she had no desire to feel that angry. Her emotions were best in check, and in this instance, she wanted Bucky to feel secure in their partnership. If he wanted to literally burn it to the ground, she would support that, and if he were overcome with emotion, Laura needed to be steadfast. This was his vendetta and in response, Laura would be malleable however Bucky needed. After all, it was essentially what she was born to do without the horrific connotations.

“I doubt anyone knows the specifics of what HYDRA has done in the past,” she replied. They were a secret organization, a corrupt one, and people working with them would never want their secrets aired openly. “I assume nothing good,” Laura replied. “We can search for more information regarding what happened to the children. They may have moved onto become their own force, yes?” That would mean they were alive most likely, though Laura wasn’t sure that was an ideal situation. With HYDRA, it sounded like being ‘disposed’ of was much more preferable. “Not necessarily,” she replied honestly. Bucky’s question had been one that implied vulnerability, an inquiry into how Laura had overcome the brainwashing the Facility had subjected her to. She had no desire to lie to a friend. “You’re fighting everything they made you, that’s liberating, but it won’t be easy. You will be uncomfortable, you will doubt yourself, but the freedom is what you deserve.” Satisfied with her answer, Laura’s attention returned to the compound, paying close attention to her enhanced senses. She still sensed nothing, though Laura wasn’t confident that was a good sign. “Every horrific group of people seems to be that way,” she said bitterly. It was partially why Laura fought so hard to combat them, she was ruthless, a survivor, and capable of handling whatever people like HYDRA and the Facility threw at her. “At least they’re innovative,” she agreed. Following behind Bucky, Laura hopped onto the ropes easily and worked her way down. “I have enhanced eyesight, but it doesn’t translate to the dark. There is water at the bottom, if you follow me, we can go by that.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t confirmed to be where they needed to go, but it was close.

For almost seventy years, Bucky had been relying on the fact that he would be taken out of the ice and given a mission within the hour. He didn’t need to focus on anything else, wasn’t allowed to. There had been times, of course, that he was allowed more slack on his rope, but the Soviets - and Hydra, as the years progressed - had their own ways of reminding him just how trapped he really was, how every move was being monitored, watched over in ways that would send shiver down your spine. When the brainwashing was broken through, though by no means broken entirely, Bucky was left wandering the world without a reason for existing. He had been a soldier for so long, had relied on having a battle to fight, that to have nothing made him feel … empty. Being back in New York, more than anything else, was helping to fill that void again, and Laura seemed to understand that. She had a mission again, a purpose with the X-Men and as Wolverine. It was time for Bucky to try to find his.

Revenge seemed an easy place to start, even if every Hydra piece of scum he put down didn’t exactly feel as much of a relief as he had envisioned. Some would wonder whether it was a smart move, becoming what they made him into, but Bucky knew that he had always been this way. Hydra had shifted his alliances, his morality, but not his innermost self. “I tried to piece it together,” Bucky admitted. “Missions I can remember, targets I took out, countries I operated out of. None of them add up. I can’t get a solid goal out of any of it, besides chaos.” Maybe that was all the villains of the world wanted - for nothing to make sense, to have power over a world where everyone felt powerless. “It’s possible. I’ve met a few of the people I trained. None of them have gone full civilian.” ‘Met’ was a bit of a strong term, but knowing of them was enough. The last thing they needed was a reminder of the Winter Soldier, of the horrors they had faced. “You should really put that on a t-shirt,” Bucky deadpanned, but a small smile came onto his face, grateful as ever for Laura’s blunt honesty. “I’ll follow your lead,” Bucky said, slowing up until Laura moved past him, and then sliding down after her. She moved quickly, confident in herself, and he stuck nearby. “Have you taken down many facilities like this?” Bucky asked curiously.

“Yes,” Steve said emphatically, probably too quickly, too forcefully. “God, yeah. It’s better than okay.” He couldn’t help himself. Moments ago, getting out of bed meant wrestling with existential questions about his mortality (or lack thereof), and now it meant another day with his best friend. The things in his memories, the waffles and the strawberries, the sundaes, none of it mattered, none of it was important. He had the only real important part standing right in front of him.

During the war, there were no atheists in fox holes. But when the dust settled, and they saw the horrors left behind – even the most devout had a hard time believing in a god that would allow something like that. But any doubt Steve ever had (and there was an awful lot) was erased anew every time he saw Bucky. After the train mission, he had screamed, he had wished, and he had prayed for a miracle. Here was the miracle, he was holding donuts in his apartment seventy years later. It wasn’t the way he expected, but it was a miracle, and Steve refused to think of it any other way. 

Of course, sometimes he wondered if Bucky felt the same. If it felt like a miracle – or more like a curse. 

Today, they didn’t have to go there. Today, they could just pretend to be old friends for a few hours – that was the real gift. Steve shook his head. “Not many. Like I said, sometimes it’s hard to find the time to go to the classes. And the fans have been fewer ever since the mess with the Registration Act,” he said, shrugging. “Never wanted fans anyway.” Bucky knew that already. (Or he used to know – maybe it was one of those memories that was still buried too deep.) He smiled, feeling as sheepish as Bucky had looked moments ago. “Hope so,” he admitted quietly. He cleared his throat. “Kind of the best thing that’s changed. I’m still reeling from it.” He’d hoped for a laugh like that, but he wasn’t sure he’d hear it until it happened. A weight rolled off his shoulders, the anticipation lifted off his chest, and finally he could laugh along with his best friend again. Definitely a good birthday. Probably the best he’d ever had. He settled into an arm chair facing Bucky, remembering how to balance the sketchpad on his knees purely through muscle memory. “You calling yourself Sherlock now?” he asked with a teasing grin. “We’ll see how things go,” he added, opening the box of pencils and studying them more carefully. “She’s… she’s not like anyone I’ve ever met. Can be hard to get a read on, she’s fooled better men than us before,” he quipped, twirling a pencil in his fingers. “Hot Fuzz,” he said. That movie was on the list several times over, and yet Steve had yet to actually watch it. “Pull it up,” he said, nodding towards the remote. He had started to sketch without meaning to, his eyes flicking between the pages and Bucky, the curve of his spine, the familiar shape of his jaw. His eyes – just the outline for now. Steve would take his time with the eyes, they were always the most important part. 

With one word, Bucky felt as if he had been hit in the face. The full force of a memory came back, the first time they had gone out on a double date that had actually ended somewhat well for Steve. A quick kiss and no follow up would be a failure for most, but for Steve, that was pretty monumental. He remembered the girl looking at him for a long moment, then asking if he was going to kiss her, and how Steve had blinked a few times and said ‘yes’ so quickly that the poor girl almost got whiplash. Bucky blinked a few times, coming back to the present day with no smell of popcorn in the air and Betty not hanging off his arm, and received yet more affirmation that being around Steve was bringing things back.

Whether that was a good thing or not was yet to be determined, but thus far, there had been no bad memories that had resurfaced with Steve that he hadn’t already remembered on his own, so that was enough to encourage him to continue. “Don’t think anyone’s been that goddamn happy to see me,” Bucky teased, stepping into the apartment, looking around at the place as he went. He hadn’t focused that much on it the last time, but now he was taking everything in. “Now you’re makin’ me feel bad for skimping out on getting the cream filled donuts, Steve.”

The Registration Act. Bucky wasn’t sure what he felt about that. After Azzano he had hidden his abilities, had purposefully ran slower than he could, lifted less than he should be able to. He had been instinctively private, and he reckoned that would’ve continued if he had lived. “You had a point with that whole thing,” Bucky commented, looking at the sofa for just a moment before sitting down. “Orse was an alien, Spider-kid got demasked, the whole thing turned into a shitshow, just like that frontal assault on … Normandy?” That didn’t seem right. “Yeah, I know. Shame really. You have just the right face to be one of those showgirls.” The smirk on Bucky’s face continued to grow, and slowly he settled down into the cushions. “Better than the alternative,” Bucky chimed, rooting around for the remote. He found it tucked behind the cushions, and got up Netflix. “Winter Soldier is definitely melodramatic, right?” Bucky made a point of scrolling through the menu, typing the search in, but he was watching Steve out of the corner of his eye. Sure, he was built like a brick shithouse, but to Bucky, he looked every inch like the Steve he remembered moving in with.