#falcon marvel

“Still, I don’t think you’ve seen an actual movie in literal decades. Me describing Star Wars shot for shot isn’t going to give you the same experience as watching it. But we don’t have a TV, and even then all the movies here are in Romanian.”

“Your Romanian is getting better.”

“I still can’t understand it half the time. And I definitely can’t speak it.” You lament, placing the apple back in the pile with a sigh that’s only a little dramatic. “What was it that one lady said my accent sounded like? Like I spoke with a mouthful of marbles?”

He smiles, open and affectionate, one arm wrapping around your waist to pull you into his side. “I can translate for you.” He says, pressing a kiss to the side of your head. The woman sitting behind the fruit stand smiles at the two of you, and you relax against Bucky a bit more as he speaks to her.

Neither of you are exactly…healed. But what you have is good. Very good. You stay up most nights talking about anything and everything, from your childhoods to which breakfast food you’ll stock up on the next day. You laugh and cry and lose track of time with each other more often than not, but it doesn’t matter. Neither of you have anywhere to be but with each other.

A few days after your first night together, he showed up on the roof with a bouquet of flowers. You laughed, called him old fashioned, and he kissed you so sweetly you felt like your heart might burst.

You still wake up screaming, memories of phantom needles being plunged into your skin and gloved hands holding you down against metal tables. But you always wake up to Bucky, keeping you from thrashing with strong arms and whispered words of comfort into your hair. And when he jolts upright in the middle of the night, shot out of a memory of a dark and horrible time and fighting back tears of his own, you’re there with him. You kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his lips, and you remind him who he is. Sometimes you talk through those nightmares until the sun creeps in through the window and the world wakes up around you.

Sometimes you don’t talk, and simply comfort each other with hands and lips and whispered words that remind you both that you’re here. Hidden away with each other where the past can’t find you.

It’s not perfect. Nothing ever is. He still goes quiet sometimes, his eyes haunted as he shuts down and buries himself deep in a place where you feel like you can’t reach him. He’ll touch you like you’re too delicate. Like he can’t remember a time when his hands were anything more than weapons, and one wrong move might shatter you. He’ll look at you like he doesn’t think he deserves this. During those times it feels like there’s nothing you can say to pull him out of the darkness. You just have to wait, and continue to reassure him in any way that you can.

Sometimes you snap, when you’re overwhelmed by the constant feeling of movement around you. You get a little more used to your new abilities every day, but they make the world seem to move so much slower. You notice too much. You feel too much. You were hyperactive before, always moving and thinking and coming up with some new idea. Now, you feel like the serum has taken those qualities and put them on crack. Your lab used to be your outlet, but you don’t have that here and sometimes it makes you feel so pent up you want to explode. In those moments, when you’re frustrated and twitchy and unable to stop pacing, he wraps his arms around you and helps to silence the noise, reminding you to breathe. Centering you.

There’s an unspoken understanding between you. A comfort like you’ve never felt. Even the darkest moments are met with patience and understanding. And through it all, you find yourself wondering how your life could have ever been without him. It feels like he’s been woven into every part of your being since the day you came into this world. Like even before you knew him, he was somehow still there, entwined into your soul and waiting for you to find him.

It’s not perfect, but it’s better. Because it’s real.

But nothing gold can stay.

You’re listening to Bucky speak with the woman behind the fruit cart, trying to decipher as much Romanian as you can, when the fine hairs on your arms stand up and an odd sensation trickles down your spine. You’ve become used to your new abilities enough to know to look around, scan the area, and when you do you see the man at the nearby newspaper stand staring at the two of you.

Really staring.

“Bucky.” You say, voice low enough for only him to hear.

His arm tightens around you at your tone, his hold immediately switching from affectionate to protective.

His gaze follows yours, and while he notices the man at the newspaper stand, you notice the woman a bit further down the street. She’s holding a paper too, and she’s also staring.

“Two o’clock.” You murmur. His gaze moves to the woman.

“Four o’clock.” You add a moment later, and he follows your gaze to the man at the booth nearby.

And then you’re moving, pulling yourself from his arm right as you feel it begin to tighten more. You walk up to the newspaper stand, and by the time you reach it you can feel every nerve in your body humming with that new adrenaline-esque feeling. You offer the man behind the stand a practiced, casual smile as you look to the nearest paper, but his eyes never leave the man standing behind you.

You may not be well versed in Romanian, but you recognize the most important words on the page:

‘Winter Soldier’.

You barely manage to whisper a quiet curse before his arm is around you again, beginning to pull you back to the apartment. You’ve planned for this. The go bag is beneath the floorboards. The airport isn’t too far. Your mind is already racing through plans A through F, and while you know Bucky’s enhanced hearing can pick up on your jackrabbit heartbeat, you could swear you hear his beating at the same pace.

He reaches up as you walk, pulls your ballcap down a little lower so it hides your face, and it takes everything in you not to break into a sprint.

“Guess we’re watching Star Wars in Spanish, then.” You mutter, already feeling winded despite the even pace. He says nothing, but his arm tightens around you just a bit more.

-

When you get to the door, he freezes. He hasn’t let you go since the newspaper stand, nearly carrying you up the stairs once you made it to the building. His arm finally pulls away, and the thrumming in your veins immediately feels like it’s picked up ten-fold.

He raises a finger to his lips and signals for you to stay put. You open your mouth to argue, but his gloved palm covers it before you get a chance to speak. He looks at you with so much emotion in his blue eyes that it makes your stomach twist, and you can do nothing but nod behind his hand. Someone is in there, and he’s going in first.

He pulls his hand back, looking you over like it might be the last time he’ll ever get to before he pulls you closer and presses his lips to your forehead, your nose, and finally your lips in a lingering kiss that feels too much like an apology. Like it might be a goodbye. No way in hell you’re letting that happen. You silently shake your head, pulling him back and kissing him one more time before parting with a look that makes your intentions very clear: he gets one minute. You’re not going anywhere.

He hesitates, like he might just grab you and make a run for it, before he steels himself and steps inside, silent as a ghost. You press yourself back against the wall and try to listen to whatever the fuck is going on behind the door.

Steve. You hear Steve’s voice.

You almost want to offer HYDRA a silent thank you for your enhanced hearing as you listen to the conversation inside, but you don’t manage to hear nearly enough before your ears start ringing and your veins feel like they’re on fire. Something is coming. Something big. You have to move or you swear you’re going to explode-

“-but the people who did are coming, and they’re not planning on taking you alive.”

You don’t even remember entering the apartment, but suddenly you’re standing behind Bucky and Steve is staring at you like you’ve just crawled out of your own grave.

Silence. You’ve always hated silence on a good day, but right now you can feel the oncoming threat in your fingertips and there is absolutely no way you can handle it right now.

“You’re alive.” Steve says, softness and surprise lacing his words, and there is nothing comfortable or relaxed about the smile you offer him in return.

“Surprise.” You try, voice sounding strained to your own ears.

His gaze flies from you to Bucky, who is already moving to put himself between you and the other person in the room. You watch Steve closely, watch him shift from friend to soldier, and you can practically feel him decide to file all of this new information for later, when the threat is gone and the two of you are safe.

“We have to go. Now.” You say unnecessarily, the top of your head and the soles of your shoes burning as German Special Ops close in on either side.

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.” Steve says.

Bucky takes off his glove. His voice sounds tired in a way you haven’t heard since you first found him here. “It always ends in a fight.”

You can hear Sam through Steve’s comms, but his words are useless. They’re coming. You can feel them.

“You pulled me from the river. Why?” Steve tries, sounding desperate now.

“I don’t know.” Bucky sounds numb.

Steve looks at you, and then at him. At the way he’s standing in front of you, keeping his body positioned between you and the entrance points like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Steve is looking for Bucky. For humanity. For proof that the Winter Soldier is gone and his best friend is the one standing before him. And in that moment, you know he sees it.

“Yes you do.”

And then, chaos.

The flash grenade gets knocked beneath Steve’s shield. The door busts open, and a flood of officers enters the apartment you’ve called home for so long. Bucky picks up the mattress you woke up together on just hours before, jumps in front of you and blocks a bullet before you even get the chance to move.

Punches fly, guns fire, and you freeze out of instinct. 

And then.

You feel someone behind you, and you move faster than you thought possible. A bullet hits the wall instead of the back of your head as you dodge without looking, reach one arm out to grab the pistol by the barrel, and yank it out of the man’s hand. Your foot comes out as if of its own accord, catching behind his and knocking him to the ground. You throw the pistol, and the butt of the gun collides square in the forehead with the officer behind Bucky.

Both men look at you. You stare back.

“Well that’s new.” You manage to say, just as shocked as them if not more. You haven’t exactly been getting into fights since the serum was forced on you. You didn’t know it did…well, this.

More officers bust into the room, and you stop thinking entirely.

Time slows down. You didn’t know you could move this fast. You predict every shot that comes your way with shocking precision, dodging and deflecting and disarming like you were born to do this. Somewhere in your peripheral, you see Bucky throw the go-bag out the window. Soon after that, he knocks the man currently attacking you in the back of the head, sending him to the ground, and pulls you with him onto the stairwell.

You think, afterwords, that if you didn’t have your new abilities, the amount of times he grabbed you and jumped down floors would have made you vomit. Point for superpowers.

You reach a lower floor, Steve still behind you, and begin moving down the hall with him without thinking. Maybe there’s another back stairwell to take. Maybe there’s a fire escape and you can-

“Sorry about this.” You hear, and you don’t have a moment to question what that means before Bucky picks you up and starts sprinting towards the window.

You’re not exactly bothered by heights, but this is definitely a time for lines to be drawn.

“Woah woah woah no no Buck don’t you fucking dare-!” You manage to get out in a breathless rush before you’re airborne.

The world drops. You drop.

And then you’re tumbling onto a roof, shielded from the impact by Bucky’s body. The wind is still knocked from you as you roll, and you have almost no time to recover as you’re pulled to your feet.

He looks you over, frantic, smoothing the hair from your face as he checks you for injuries. “Are you okay? You alright?” He asks, and you nod before giving him a look that suggests you’ll kill him later.

He grabs the bag, and you’re running again. For a moment, you wonder if that’s it. If maybe you’ve made it through the ambush and you’ll come out the other side in one piece.

And then you feel it again. The thrum of something coming. An inbound threat.

“Bucky, wait!” You grab for him, just one second too late, and then he’s knocked to the ground.

A man in what you can only describe in your adrenaline-fuled mind as a catsuit stands before you, and Bucky pushes you behind him again as he begins throwing punches.

You jump forward, determined to help, but Cat Guy’s reflexes are even faster than yours. He knocks you down before you manage to land a single blow and you roll across the roof, managing to shoot back to your feet just in time to see Bucky use a metal pole to block claws from digging into his face.

He looks over to you, and shouts one word.

“Go!”

Every part of you wants to stay. To help. But you know that every second you stay on this roof you’ll distract him. And one moment of distraction can lead to his death.

Fuck. Fuck.

You don’t have a choice. You’ll meet him at the rendezvous point. And he’ll get there. He has to.

You take off running, flinching at every sound of contact behind you, and almost make it to the edge of the roof before you’re airborne again.

You are getting really sick of being picked up like this.

“Holy shit.” Sam says, and the speed that he’s flying makes you really consider puking this time. “Cap’s right. You’re alive!”

Oh no. You’re gonna pass out. This is gonna be the part where you pass out. You’ve been thrown and flown and tossed around too much, and superpowers or not, your body can’t handle it.

“Surprise.” You say weakly, wondering if you’ll ever have a better answer to that statement, and then the world goes dark.