like real people do iii.
“about that night, the bugs and the dirt / what did you bury before those hands pulled me from the earth?” — Hozier
cw: allusions to nightmares and canon-typical trauma, they flirt over text and it’s stupid and cute
part ii | series m. list | part iv
pt. 3: shifts
Being awake as it were comes with ups and downs. Now, instead of sleepwalking through every day, Bucky is hyper-aware of every glance, every phone, every little noise that amounts to the building settling or people being normal and yet puts him on edge. Instead of a soundtrack of white noise, dying brain cells, and his own heartbeat, he hears everyone else’s conversations.
Mostly, to his relief, those conversations are musings about whether or not he could hear them. The irony is not lost, but on the third day of wincing whenever agents would bring him up in whispers, he goes straight to Sam’s room to borrow headphones. Sam grumbles about giving away two of his headsets to supersoldiers over 100, but hands them over and refuses to take them back.
A box is outside Sam’s door later that day, a pair of unbranded headphones. Bucky has no favors with Tony, but. Tony likes Sam. And he’ll never stop owing Tony anyway, so why not add a pair of headphones to the list?
It takes a couple weeks to find a routine — he was checked out enough for his old one, but there’s only so much to discover walking the same route everyday. He hasn’t returned the book on Darwin yet, so he grabs his journal and tries drawing. It becomes his favourite (read: only) hobby, despite how absolutely terrible the sketches are. But the repetitive brush of pencil on paper helps with his anxiety, as does reading up on all things gardening in the books you let him borrow. Maybe Steve was onto something with the whole drawing thing.
Steve shows Bucky Spotify and Youtube, and so Billie Holiday is the soundtrack to his morning run. He gives himself an hour of running to check out. His feet know the path, his lungs know the air. When he gets too close to the border of the property, he switches back, finding another deer trail to follow until he reaches the compound again.
And then comes something truly remarkable. He voluntarily goes into the kitchen and gets food.
It’s just an apple. But not even Yelena makes a sarcastic comment.
Bucky sits on the floor of his room, bed made to regulation despite no one coming to check and all his clothes folded in a neat pile in the corner. The crisp smell of Gala apple floats through the room on a gentle breeze from his open window with the smell of warm sun and fresh cut grass. The AC is on, but it’s only open an inch. Bucky rationalizes that Stark can afford to heat an entire compound, this won’t make a big dent in the energy budget.
He opens his journal, reading through the pages of memories or scrambled thoughts he’s pieced together. The margins of the most recent pages are decorated with drawings of flowers. Headphones on, Ella and Louis singing a live recording of an album that has some covers of his old favourites, he busies his hands.
That’s another thing. He hears the first notes of a familiar melody, and a blurry memory comes into soft focus. Still malleable. Marred by uncertainty. But they’re there — a peach (or was it pear?) cake he brought to Steve when he had pneumonia, a dance hall, a half-full pack of Camels (Lucky Strike?) he definitely wasn’t supposed to have. Slices of canned apples on top of bread pudding for his birthday. Heavy paper between his fingertips, telling him he’d been drafted. Drinks in a bar in Italy crawling with soldiers and realizing he wasn’t getting drunk. Looking down the crosshairs of a sniper rifle… though that particular memory bleeds. It’s as unspecific as the smooth beige of his ceiling.
The Ink Spots sing ‘We’ll Meet Again’ five times before he figures out how to un-loop the damn thing, and at that point the tears are already falling.
Bucky gives himself the next song — If I Didn’t Care — before he switches the second of two playlists he has saved. The first being Steve’s old 30s and 40s radio, made by Nat, and the second called ‘defrosting’ also by Natasha. He laughs at the title, only really sinking in just then. Some Irish guy sings at him about sunlight while he gets himself together enough to go ask Sam for a favor.
It’s not about needing advice or anything. He just needs someone. A friend, maybe. Someone who won’t judge.
“It’s really not that difficult,” Sam sighs, face down on his desk. The surface is covered in paperwork, and he’s obviously very busy. But he’s capitalizing on Bucky actively seeking him out to avoid finishing the mission report on his screen. Bucky sits across from him, phone open to your messages and stares at it distastefully.
“Just write her a goddamn letter and get over it,” Sam says. “It’s old-school. She’ll appreciate that kind of thing.”
“That won’t arrive until like, Wednesday.”
Sam sighs deeply.
“Here, how about I type something I would say and you can revise it?” he offers.
Bucky blinks. That could work. He nudges the phone over to Sam, frowning.
“I used to be good at this,” he laments.
“You walked her home and got her to give you her number, you aren’t as out of touch as you think,” Sam deadpans.
“I didn’t ’get her’ to do anything,” Bucky scoffs.
Sam doesn’t argue, just taps the desk thoughtfully. “How much do you want to say?”
Bucky shrugs. Sam’s been surprisingly level-headed about this. Still ribbing, but not as… irritating. Maybe it’s just Bucky. Maybe awake-Bucky likes Sam.
…No. That would be crazy.
“Do you know her?” Bucky asks suddenly.
Sam glances down guiltily.
“Does everyone on the team know her but me?” he grumbles, feeling suddenly like he’s been missing out.
“She’s not the open book she pretends she is. You’ll have to ask her,” he says cryptically, typing on his phone.
Bucky’s brows furrow. “That’s not an answer.”
“How about this?” Sam pushes the phone back over.
| hey gorgeous ;)
“What the hell is the semicolon for?”
Sam, exasperated, takes the phone back and deletes it. “It’s a winky face.”
Bucky stares, unblinking. “I don’t think I’ve winked in eighty years.”
Sam grins, shaking his head. “We’ll work on that.”
“’We?’”
“Sure, why not?” Sam replies easily. “How about instead of the emoticon, it’s a little Y2K, use an emoji.”
Bucky is exhausted. Technology, he decides, is fucking exhausting.
“Just help me write a goddamn text message and I’ll leave you alone for the next twenty-four hours.”
—
The message comes in while you’re in a Zoom meeting. Thank god for Stark Tech wifi routers, otherwise you’d be shit out of luck for this grant. Mandatory online orientation is keeping you from being outside in your happy place. A couple families with small kids are wandering around. Volunteers scheduled for 4pm. You check over your calendar.
Yeah. Still packed.
You sneak a glance at your phone, eyes widening in delight at the contact that pops up.
| Hello sunshine. 👋.
It’s the period after the emoji that really gets you. You dissolve into giggles that you cover as a coughing fit. The Zoom leader seems just as bored as you are, and breaks for lunch early after the disruption.
| finally figured out imessage? you reply.
You bite your lip, wandering outside to sit by the pond.
God, more to-do’s. The pond signs need reprinting, thanking the Marine Park for donating some native marsh plants. You’ve gotta check on the powdery alligator and arrowhead, because neither bloomed this year—
A small, fuzzy ball of anger charges you. A duckling attacks your boot, tugging viciously at your laces.
You snap a photo and send it to Bucky with the caption, how my lunch break is going
You get an immediate response.
| Standing by if you need backup.
You laugh, scooping up the angry swarm of downy feathers with one hand and stroking its back ‘til it calms down. Then you snap a selfie with the wiggly, but happy, duckling and send it to Del, who constantly threatens to adopt one of them. They’re barely wild at this point anyway, but you have a feeling her down and upstairs neighbours won’t appreciate the noise.
“I think I know who you’re texting,” a familiar voice carries from behind you. You twist to find Nat leaned against a tree, two large coffees in hand.
“Is one of those for me?” you ask hopefully. She holds one out, only to snatch it back at the last second and take a sip. Then she hands you the other one with a smile.
You lean your elbow on the back of the bench, facing her.
“It’s the punctuation, right?” she asks. You nod helplessly.
“It’s just really funny,” you say. “And endearing.”
“Малышка, pull yourself together,” Nat says, eyes sparkling behind her aviators. “Good news. Bucky’s been eating with us.”
You frown. “Does he not usually eat?”
“We’ve both been where he is. It’s not a good place,” Nat sighs. “Three different spy organizations walk into a bar.”
You laugh. “Are we the bartenders in this situation?”
Nat shrugs. “Sure.”
“Any almond-flavoured drinks off the top of your head?” you reply coolly.
“This is why I love you,” she sighs, smirking. “How have you been?”
You fold immediately under Nat’s gaze. You knock your knee into hers, head falling back to stare up at the shifting leaves. The day is grey, windy, and still warm.
“Tired. Fury offered me a consulting job,” you admit, the words dry in your mouth. “I’m already working like four jobs in one. I’ve never done more work in my life and I used to…” You trail off as one of the families round the pond. “You know.”
Nat hums sympathetically. “Maybe having Bucky around will be good. I know Joe is a friend and you have your volunteers, but it could be nice to have someone who gets it.”
“Besides you,” you point out. Nat smooths her hand over your arm.
“I’m not around enough to look after you,” she says, a mix of sadness and regret colouring the words.
“You don’t have to,” you reply. “I do alright.”
The quiet stretches as you sip your coffees. There was a time when Nat dragged you out of bed every morning and made sure you got back up after a fall. But you’re stronger now. She taught you how to be.
“Steve and I are looking at buying our place,” Nat says abruptly. You gasp, suddenly bursting with excitement.
“Really?”
Nat can’t hold back a smile as she gestures vaguely around. “What can I say? We missed you too much,” she says theatrically. Then, quieter, “Sunny… what has life become?”
You contemplate her question. She doesn’t sound sad. The opposite, in fact. You study Nat — the crows feet around her eyes, her smile lines, the easy way she relaxes on the bench. The blonde is almost entirely grown out. She’s wearing her aviators, and a SHIELD tee you’re 90% sure Steve shrunk in the dryer. Loose clothes. Her knee pops as she stretches her legs. She’s looking for a home with her soulmate, she’s out of the game barring another multiversal threat, she has her family. She’s recovering and doing well.
You take inventory for yourself: you still keep at least one knife and a .22 on you at all times, or at least in your desk when the volunteers are around. You live alone. You love your job so much that, once again, it is your entire life. You’re isolated away from both your friends, old coworkers, and the city. Nick Fury keeps trying to contact you about your car’s extended warranty. You met a guy barely two weeks ago. He’s deeply haunted and handsome, and you’re full of regret and sorrow that stays locked down so tight it loops back around to starlight and rainbows.
“Cheers to that, babe,” you breathe. She lifts her coffee.
“Salud.”
“Slainte.”
—
Bucky frowns at the tiny duck attacking your boot. Lunch break. Not lunch.
He sighs. He’s reading too much into it. How forward is too forward these days? Was he allowed to ask if you ate lunch? Is he supposed to care? How much time is too much time to not respond to a text before a new conversation begins? An hour?
He should have asked Nat before she slinked off to god knows where. Or Sam, before he got back to work.
He thinks back to what you said about the street cat — she glares but she cares. He types the text, deletes it, then re-types more carefully, as if it changes how the text will be perceived.
| Steve said the bakery on the corner is good.
| Have you eaten?
A bubble appears, then disappears. Then reappears, then pops. His stomach sinks. Bad idea. He has made a faux pas, his first of the 21st century if you don’t count the murders.
Quack quack — he suppresses a smirk at his new ringtone.
| have you? 🧐
He lets out a dry laugh. He types out a response and leaves his room to head for the kitchen, immediately regretting his decision when he hears Sam and Steve laughing with who he thinks is Barton.
| I asked first, Sherlock.
| ↳ what do you know about sherlock?
Bucky scoffs. You gotta be joking.
| Those books were written in the Victorian Era, sunshine.
There’s a long pause.
| so they’re a bit young for you, huh?
Dear lord, Bucky thinks. Then, another text rolls in from a contact he has only called once, because she’s always on Steve’s phone.
| up your game barnes
Attached is a photo of Sunny, sipping a large coffee and smiling at her phone.
Bucky is sure his face has never been more red in his life.
—
“No,” you say, horrified. “Natalia Alianov—”
Nat slaps a hand over your mouth, eyes wide with mischief.
“I’m just messing with him. He gets very grumpy about it,” she laughs. “Does not warrant the government name, солнышко.”
You glare at her coolly behind her hand, and bite her palm (gently-ish) until she removes it.
“I’m gonna tell him you did that,” Nat teases. “Hand stuff in the park.”
You narrow your eyes, fighting a grin, but she doesn’t back off. A text pings and you lock your phone before Natasha can snatch it away.
“I know your passcode,” she challenges, holding it out and typing what is a suspiciously close attempt without looking.
“Wrong,” you say back. Another ping. The lock screen only reads: James from the garden :) [Encrypted data]
Nat pouts. “Do you think I should cut my hair again? The bob was cute right?”
“I think it’s cute however you do it.”
“Yelena braided it last night. You should come over sometime, we need a girls’ night.”
“Smooth segue. But I miss you,” you concede, flashing her a signature smile. “So I’ll make it work. Let me know when, I’m there.”
“Tonight?”
You grimace involuntarily. Nat sees it.
“Or later down the line. Soon, though,” she says softly.
“I can do tonight,” you say, shaking your head. “Volunteers leave at 7 and I’ll drive up if that’s okay? I just, um…”
Nat knocks her boot against yours and slides closer on the bench. “I’ll get you in without Fury knowing, it’s fine. He doesn’t own the place.”
“Good. That’s much easier than having to hack Tony Stark in his own residence,” you sigh.
—
Nat texts you to bring pajamas and sweats and absolutely nothing that could be considered ‘real’ clothes, but you show up in your one pair of nice jeans (read: they don’t go anywhere near the garden, so you don’t ever wear them) and leather jacket anyway, bag slung over your shoulder. You’re already nervous at the sight of the large building looming ahead of you. QJ hangars to the north, training grounds east and south, the forest west. Still the same, since you left.
You roll up, flash your ID, and put Nat on speaker. The security guard seems reluctant until you take off your helmet and frown at him, pretty sure you taught him in a strategic combat seminar for junior agents. You were probably seventeen at the time.
Nat meets you in Tony’s garage, its own separate building housing three very nice cars and both Steve and Nat’s motorcycles, as well as a worn-down but fairly nice Harley in the corner. You park your bike next to Nat’s.
“Looks good there,” she pokes your side. “C’mon. You’ve missed this place. Admit it.”
You roll your eyes, but offer her a smirk. “I will not be admitting anything of the sort.”
As soon as the doors open to the sixth level, which houses the Avengers still living at the compound, it is positively chaos.
Sam is getting pelted with any soft item in the vicinity by Yelena and a girl with dark hair, the latter looks apologetic while the former carries on with glee. Someone is yelling from down the hall, indecipherable words but frustration clear in her tone as Clint rounds a corner with his own pillow and sneak-attacks Yelena. Laura comes around shortly after, waving and clearly in need of a drink. Or a day of uninterrupted sleep. Steve sits at the kitchen bar, sipping tea out of a mug.
“Hey, Sunny,” he says quietly, wrapping you and Nat up in a hug. “I’m going to bed. Just wanted to say hi.”
“Okay, grandpa,” you tease. He laughs, cheers-ing you with his mug.
“Have fun.”
“Is that—!”
You’re nearly bowled over by Yelena, who both trips and catches you. “You must help me defeat Wilson,” she says, grasping your forearms and staring into your eyes intensely.
“Is it like this all the time?” you laugh.
Yelena shrugs. “Többé-kevésbé.”
“I don’t speak that one,” you shriek as she pulls you into the fray. Immediately you’re caught in the crossfire of who you deduct must be Kate, judging by how Yelena pulls her by her waist behind her to fend off the pillow attacks from Sam and now Barton.
“Good to see you, gorgeous!” Sam winks before launching a pillow at you. You catch it, wicked grin taking over your face.
“I call dibs on Natalia!” you yell, turning to hit Yelena instead and ducking behind the couch when she throws a teddy bear at your head. Nat crouches beside you, nodding once.
“Traitors!” Yelena yells, laughing loudly.
“This is girls night?” you murmur.
“Yeah, usually. Wilson likes to stand around and annoy us until we devolve, but it happened rather quickly tonight,” she says. “Probably because I was with Steve.”
You wince and tilt your head, folding a blanket into a suitable pillow. “Happy for you, but please. We’re in the middle of pitched combat.”
Nat laughs sharply. “Not like that.” She pops up from behind the couch with flair, rolling over the cushions and across the floor. The coffee table was pushed to the wall in preparation, opening up the room for maximum combat area.
“Ugh! Such a poser!” Yelena grumbles. You peek over the couch, immediately dodging another teddy bear.
Following Nat’s lead, you tumble over the couch and into the scene, popping up and twirling around Kate before hitting her with a gentle smack of a throw pillow. She laughs, getting you back with the same less-than-forceful gusto.
“Nice to meet you,” you grin.
Kate salutes, pulled back by Yelena who grumbles about ‘fraternizing with the enemy’.
You chuck a pillow at Sam, realizing your mistake when Nat folds her arms and sighs.
“He’s hoarding ammo,” she grumbles.
“You requisition all those pillows, Wilson?” you ask. Yelena tries to sneak one away from him and earns a scoff and a thwack with a pillow.
“Whatever! All I’m saying is Star Wars is better than Star Trek—”
“And you’re wrong!” Yelena calls back, rubbing her head. You bend to pick up a small throw with embroidered corners, admiring the handiwork, missing Sam’s targeted throw with one last teddy bear. It’s too late to duck. You feel the whoosh of air as it arcs across the room and accept your fate.
…Your fate does not arrive.
Instead, the smell of cedar and bergamot wraps around you, Bucky’s vibranium arm outstretched inches from your face. You give yourself three seconds to stare at him in surprise (and maybe, deep down, a little bit of appreciation) as he scowls at Sam.
“All of you are very loud,” he says simply, turning his head to glance at you. You press your lips together, eyes trailing up his arm. It’s nice. From a purely scientific standpoint, of course. The Princess of Wakanda did a great job.
His profile relaxes as the chaos dims, Yelena and Kate collapsing onto the couch. He looks tired in the bright overhead lights, you note, but, who are you kidding? He’s still gorgeous.
You shake off the thoughts of Bucky and refocus on the scene at hand, which is the living room covered in pillows and blankets and Sam trapped on the side without a door. Not the least violent combat you’ve ever experienced. Not the most, either.
“I just got here, actually,” you say. He hands you the teddy bear and you drop it on the couch.
He looks over the room, calculating like he’s assessing a battlefield. His gaze lands on you, noting your bike jacket, still on but slightly disheveled from being whacked with pillows. “Sunny’s team wins,” he says.
Like it’s that simple.
“Thanks, Ref,” you say, clapping your hands once for emphasis. You grin.
“Hey, that’s not fair!” Sam whines. “They’re—”
He’s shut up by a teddy bear right in the face. You look around innocently, pulled by Nat into the kitchen. She’s smug, pouring a strong drink and finishing it off with an orange slice.
“Unusual turn of events. Typically a winner is only declared once Yelena or Sam physically beat the other out of the lounge,” Nat says. You sip the drink, smile slowly slipping until your lips sit comfortably in a smirk, listening to Kate and Lena bicker over a movie.
“This is good,” you comment. “I love my gin with a splash of tonic.”
Another sip. Nat’s eyes flick over your shoulder. You twist around and find Bucky standing there, fingers twisting together in a nervous habit.
“Sorry about that.”
“Sorry for what?” You tilt your head, offering him a small smile. “We would’ve ran Sam outta the building if you hadn’t stepped in.”
He leans against the fridge, adjusting a magnet to align with the others with intense focus. You take in the fridge as a whole — magnets and to-do lists adorn most of the surface area, but every note sits in a parallel and every magnet is lined up to practically the millimeter.
The bookshelf, you remember. He kept coming back to it. You know it’s haphazard at best and follows no rules of organization at worst. You got a biology degree at the Academy, just barely, and they definitely didn’t offer classes on the Dewey Decimal System.
A task for next Thursday.
You refocus your attention on the glass in your hand, fishing out the orange slice from the fizzing drink and taking a bite. Bucky watches from his place by the fridge.
“You’re quiet tonight,” he points out. Nat wanders back into the lounge area to shoo away Sam (again), but he’s insisting that he’s “just passing through” despite his relaxed position on the arm of a very fluffy chair. Clint seems to be in charge of brokering peace.
“Long day,” you sigh. “Are we back to three word sentences?”
You don’t look at him, but you know he’s calculating. You decide to tip the scales, just a little. Tell the truth. It’s not something you practice often.
“It gets better,” you hum. “At least, easier.”
His eyes flash in recognition. He regards you with curiosity, you can see the gears turning behind his blue eyes. The corners of your lips twitch up, pulled into a softer smile than the one you wear on a daily basis.
Three words. How much time had you lived on three words? “Joe showed up on my doorstep with scones and taught me. He talked about anything and everything until I found a few words. Not the right ones, certainly.” You shrug, downing the rest of your drink. “But words nonetheless. I had to make sticky notes with three-word phrases and put them around the house. You’re much better with the whole words game than I ever was.”
Bucky shakes his head, eyes that look like the morning sky staring curiously at you. “Not true, sunshine.”
“Yes, true, James,” you laugh, settling against the counter and staring into your glass like it would reflect the memories back at you. “I moved during the Blip. I wouldn’t have…” your laugh fails as you think about the ‘what if’s. What if Joe hadn’t dropped by, the neighborly guy that he is? What if Tía hadn’t given you a mission — to make a space for people to come together in a time when everyone seemed so far apart?
“Wouldn’t what?” he says, rough around the edges.
You shrug, smile slipping back into place. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t be witnessing a throw pillow throwdown in the living room.”
He huffs a small laugh, reaching for your hand hesitantly. You hold out the glass, and he makes you another drink — less heavy pour. The proper amount. Two orange slices.
His fingers brush yours as you take the glass, sending sparks up your arm and, hell, speaking of monarch butterflies. He has no idea how endearing he is.
You risk eye contact as you take a sip, smiling behind the rim of the glass.
“Mm, not as boozy as Nat’s,” you assess. “But I think this one’s better.”
He nods once, like he was waiting for your approval. An uproar in the living room sets him frowning again, and you wish you could frame the previous moment. That little smile — the same one you’ve seen in an old black and white photo Steve keeps tucked in his jacket. Your heart beats faster, and you don’t realize you’ve stepped closer until Bucky’s eyes flicker to track the movement.
The moment is ruined by a teddy bear flying at you, missing by a mile. You turn to glare and find Stark with Morgan on his back.
“Hey, Mo!” you exclaim, immediately unable to keep the grin off your face.
“What am I, chopped liver?” Tony jokes. Morgan swings her legs on his back, reaching out to boop your nose.
“Stark, can I please have a moment with the world’s most incredible kindergartner?” you ask sweetly. He sets Morgan down, who’s already half-sliding off. You spin her around like a princess, smile setting genuine as she laughs.
“Isn’t past your bedtime, kid?” you crouch in front of her, tucking her hair behind her ear. She swings your hands in between you, shaking her head. “When’re you coming to visit the garden? Your Uncle Steve’s name is on a building!”
Morgan Stark is a marvel. The smartest kid in a room and yet, she seems to live by the three-word rule as much as you or Bucky.
“Come closer, Sun,” she whispers, dark eyes wide and serious. You match her expression, glancing at Tony as he moves around the counter to make himself a drink.
“Tin Man?” she asks. You hide your surprise behind her ear, letting her whisper in yours.
You shake your head. “What about ‘im, Mo?”
She grins like a maniac. “You’re friends now?”
You shrug. “Ask him.”
“Tin Man!” she yells, and you flinch away from her. She covers your ear as she continues. “Are you friends?”
The entire room turns to look at Morgan, and, as a result, Bucky as well. He freezes like he’s just discovered seven hair-trigger snipers trained on him.
“Mo, don’t call him that,” Tony chastisizes. Then, dryly. “He’s not made of tin anymore.”
You can’t help but laugh at Bucky’s deadpan expression.
“And remember, loud noises in people’s ears can be scary,” Tony says patiently.
She removes her hand, whispering again. “Sorry.”
You grimace apologetically at Bucky and Morgan follows you into the kitchen. You pat Tony’s shoulder.
“How’s that tin heart?” you ask.
“Okay, first of all, you know it isn’t aluminum—”
You smirk, sipping from the drink he just made.
“—and second of all, what on God’s green earth are you and Natasha doing with my good gin?”
You find Nat pointedly looking away.
“I ship that from Iceland,” he adds.
“Wait, actually?” you balk.
He just stares.
“I just drank my paycheck for a month,” you joke, but it comes out weak. Tony tsks, and you know what’s coming before he even opens his mouth.
“You could always—”
“Stark.”
“—work for SI.”
“Tony, I was kidding. You and I both know I wouldn’t last a day in a corporate office. Remember London?”
You had ended up stabbing someone with the heel of your ridiculously tall pumps that were part of the women’s uniform on a supposedly non-violent recon mission. For reasons completely unrelated to the mission objective. Without any warning.
To be fair, the guy was ogling you all week and tried a move on one of the other girls. And you liked Asha. She was smart.
“Hey, does that guy have any function in that hand?” Tony asks.
“I didn’t exactly follow up, Stark,” you say dryly, skin itching. You blame it on the alcohol. Really, it’s because Bucky is staring into his glass of water, confusion knitting his brows together.
“You worked in London?” Bucky asks. Tony claps you on the shoulder and wanders to the living room, unaware of the mess he just created.
You did come to the compound. And it would have happened eventually. But… you wanted a little more time. Time to just be Nat and Steve’s old friend Sunny from a quiet street in Brooklyn.
“Yeah. Three weeks undercover,” you say. You glance down at Mo, clinging to your leg. She looks zoned out. You don’t trust it. “Chasing a lead on a couple bad guys.”
You reach down, moving to tickle her, but she shrieks and jumps away before you can, cannonballing across Kate and Yelena.
“She’s already running recon. I’m so proud of her,” you say, smiling and shaking your head.
You’re watching Morgan pick out a nail polish, so you don’t see Bucky staring at you. Something shifts, small and not visible. But you feel it. The realization. The connection. Dread crawls over your shoulders.
“Bad op?” he asks, tone neutral. Careful.
“Hydra cell, running a lab doing god knows what, but they torched it before I could get the intel,” you explain quietly. You don’t look at him. “I also may have stabbed an office predator with my heel.”
“Impressive,” he responds.
“Thank you,” you clink your glasses together, hoping he doesn’t notice how the ice in your glass rattles. You keep your eyes firmly on your drink.
“So that’s how you know everyone?” he asks carefully. “You’re an agent?”
You stare at the floor. “Yeah. Sorry, I—” You shake your head. “I figured they would have told you.”
You didn’t want him to know. Not yet. If he could be James from the garden, at least to you, then maybe you could be Sunny from the garden, to him. Not Agent 92, not the remaining half of Strike Team November.
But you could never be her, not for any longer than this. You let your grip on that fantasy slip away and finish your drink.
Bucky doesn’t speak for a minute. “Why?”
“I didn’t mean to lie, I just—”
“No,” he interrupts, and something in his tone catches you off-guard. You glance at him. His expression is careful, but… not cold. Not distrustful like you expect. His eyes give him away — confused, maybe. Or something softer, like curiosity. “Why are you sorry?”
You stare, unsure how to answer. Or how honest to be.
Because I’m delusional and like to believe I could be someone better than this.
You decide that’s perhaps too much information. So you settle for a different truth.
“I didn’t want you to feel… monitored, I guess, while at the garden,” you say. “It’s supposed to be somewhere safe. I wanted you to have a place outside of all this.”
You gesture around you, at the compound. Not necessarily the team in the living room, but still. Somewhere close to normal.
He looks at you. Really looks at you, like he’s searching for something. You try not to put your guard up.
“’S’all good, sunshine,” he says, but there’s something behind it. Something dull, a knife pulled without sharpening it. Sadness. You’ve just joined the long list of people who’ve lied to him, for no good reason.
“For the record, I’m retired,” you blurt out. “Not working for Fury. Not even taking his calls.”
Bucky tilts his head, the question waiting on his lips, but Morgan barrels back into the kitchen.
“Night, Sun,” she says, grabbing the leather of your sleeve.
She turns to Bucky and holds out her pinky. You glance at Tony. He watches.
Bucky holds out his pinky and they shake, Morgan giggling like a madwoman as she looks between you two.
“See you later, Tin Man,” she says. Tony flicks her ear. She whines. “Hey! You call him that—”
Tony heaves her into his arms, interrupting her sentence with a shriek of laughter.
Bucky is still looking at you. But the moment passes. He doesn’t ask.
“Get your asses in here!” Yelena calls.
Nat has strategically made room at the very end of the couch. You sit down, gesturing for Bucky to sit if he wants. He chooses the floor, but settles where his shoulder brushes your knee if you move even the slightest bit. Nat gives you a pointed look.
On screen, Keanu Reeves is tearing his way through some assassins on motorcycles.
“That’s not accurate,” he comments.
Yelena throws a piece of popcorn at him. “It’s not a documentary, Barnes.”
“If we want to watch a documentary, there’s one—”
Nat stops you with a hand on your shoulder. “Honey, I love you. But the last time you chose a documentary for us, we listened to an hour and a half of British nonsense about jellyfish.”
“There were sharks, too,” you mutter indignantly.
“I’ve done that, though,” Bucky says, gesturing at Wick shooting someone while spinning his bike. The room falls dead silent.
You nudge his shoulder with your knee, feeling that perhaps your past is common ground, not a minefield. That maybe it’s good that he knows. Something shared.
“Who here hasn’t?” you quip.
If it wasn’t so dark and the rest of the room wasn’t laughing so loud, you would swear Bucky laughed, too.
Girls night, which turns into movie night with Sam, Clint, and Bucky, is a success. The lounge smells lightly like popcorn and oranges, cozy blanket nests piled around the space. Yelena convinces everyone to watch National Treasure, but you head out early with a yawn. You’re still tipsy and too tired to drive, anyway, so Nat offers her room. Stark tries calling you a car, but you insist you’d already used up his hospitality with the booze and being his daughter’s favourite Sun, which made Yelena laugh so hard her shot of vodka came back up.
And maybe it’s the three gin and tonics. Maybe it’s that Nat’s room is still warm and lived in despite her staying at Steve’s most nights. Maybe it’s the familiarity. Maybe it’s knowing that there’s someone on the other side of the wall, that you aren’t completely alone.
But you sleep.
Until you don’t.
They always come back.
So you do what you used to do. Admittedly, not on this floor. You were on five, one below. Same layout, slightly different rooms. You go to the lounge. Shake out and fold the blankets, rearrange the pillows. Pick up loose pieces of popcorn. Generally be as silent as possible in case the residents with super hearing happen to wake up.
You’re not paying attention, carefully balancing popcorn in your hand to bring to the trash can. The coffee table is still catty-corner from how you moved it to sweep underneath. Your foot rams into it first, then your knee, throwing you shoulder-first to the floor. You clutch the popcorn like some live-saving USB, refusing to let go. Which is how you fucked up your shoulder in the first place. You can almost smell it, the warm grass and heavy sting of metal wheels on tracks.
But the impact doesn’t come, this time. Instead, two arms loop around you, catching you halfway to the floor.
You look up, finding Bucky frowning down at you, unimpressed.
“Nice save,” you whisper into the dark.
The tension in his expression melts. He rights you and you spin to face him, continuing your journey to the trash to throw away the popcorn. He trails behind you, too close to be casual.
“Walk much?” he asks, voice low and rough from sleep. It’s nice. Every new thing you learn about him makes you want to know more, like if that’s what he would sound like walking into the kitchen in the morning.
Okay, slow down, babe, you think. You just met him. And he has more important shit. It’s the tiredness. End-of-the-week tiredness. Insomnia-for-months tiredness. It all blends together.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” you ask, disposing of the precious popcorn. You roll your shoulder, stretching until the joint pops.
“No,” he says. “I was awake. Heard shufflin’ and Clint sleepwalks, so.”
I nod. “New development?”
Bucky shrugs. “Whenever he visits.”
You walk back to the lounge, almost tripping over a loose pillow, this time, and plop down on the couch. Bucky hovers.
“Go get some sleep, James,” you say.
“’Re’you stayin’ up?” His words are slow, but his eyes are wide and alert.
You take a deep breath. That was the plan, yes. But if he wants the space… this is his house. Kind of. His communal living space down the hall from his room.
When you don’t answer he makes the executive decision to sit next to you, and, gods, he’s warm. Like a furnace. You shiver and he leans back to grab one of the blankets you folded — the one you and Nat shared earlier — and drapes it over your lap without a word. He mirrors your posture, turned enough towards you that it’s clear he’s focused on… something.
“What happened to your shoulder?” he asks.
“Miscalculated.” You roll it again, almost a habit, the familiar twinge of pain between your shoulder blades making itself known. “I jumped off a train.”
He hisses. “Ow, sunshine,” he grasps his shoulder like he can feel the pain. He probably could, actually.
“Could’ve been worse,” you shrug, biting back a smirk. “This was on pretty flat terrain, not exactly the Alps in winter. Springtime, actually. Japan has grass like a Ghibli movie.”
Bucky blinks, slowly. You’re afraid for a moment that the two of you aren’t close enough for dark humor yet. Then the corners of his lips curl up, and your smile grows wide.
He laughs, quiet and deep in his chest. He does know Ghibli, actually. Shuri made him watch Princess Mononoke while he was in recovery and Nat likes the fluffy rabbit neighbour.
“Yeah, coulda been worse,” he says, flexing his arm. You burst into a fit of giggles.
“You’re insane,” you laugh, feeling the tension from the nightmare melt away. Night fills the space, somehow more comfortable with Bucky than alone. How long has it been since you had someone with you after a nightmare? After a panic attack? Since someone was just…
Here.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, words drifting across the quiet of the lounge.
“Nothing,” you say, too quickly. You can feel the glare in the dark. “You first.”
Bucky exhales, barely a sigh. For a second, you think he won’t push. Then his hand lifts, softly resting on your shoulder. He’s so careful, just barely touching you, giving you space to turn away. Your heart stutters, ribs in danger of collapsing. You can barely see him — without the city light pollution, the building is very dark.
You don’t know what your face is doing, but you feel his eyes on you. Dangerous.
“You got night vision or something?” you joke. It falls flat.
“Or somethin’,” he murmurs. He drops his hand, and you immediately wish he hadn’t. “Right. Me first.”
You stutter, surprised, “Y-you don’t have to, I was just deflecting—”
“I know,” he says, not unkindly. Then, “It’s too cold.”
“Tony has clean heating and cooling, he’s very proud of the efficiency,” you mumble.
Bucky sighs. “Feels like reminders.”
The cold. Cryostasis. The Alps.
“I can imagine.”
His hand brushes your shoulder, a faded SHIELD tee that’s stretched and worn over time sitting unevenly across them. He fixes the collar so it’s symmetric, barely touching your skin. Then he rests his arm on the back of the couch, head falling onto his bicep.
“It’s the vertigo… it never stopped,” he says. “For so long. Not even asleep.”
You bite your lip. You understand. “For me, it’s…” Rule of three. “Like pulling strings. Waiting to snap.” Shaky inhale. Ignore the burning behind your eyes. It’s not like you haven’t admitted this, not to anyone. You told a therapist. They wrote you a prescription for anxiety meds. You threw them away.
You curl onto your knees, feeling them press against his thigh through the thick blanket. You realize, suddenly, he’s in sweats and a hoodie during the hottest May on record. His hair is ruffled, the shorter pieces falling in his face. You can just barely see the outlines of his features — strong jaw, the slope of his nose, the curve of his lips. His eyes catch the faint moonlight, pale grey in the dark.
“Distance is cold,” you manage, hating the rough scrape of the words as they leave your mouth. “Like drifting at sea.”
“How come this week was my first time meeting you?” he asks. There’s an underlying current, like standing too close to a frayed live wire.
“I’ve not been good to be around,” you say quietly. “At work, I’m Sunny. I only have enough energy for that.”
He tilts his head, listening intently. Like what you’re saying matters to him. Like he wants to know, even though this isn’t light.
“It sounds silly,” you say, exhaling sharply.
“It doesn’t,” he says. A pause. “At the risk of mixing metaphors… the sun doesn’t shine all the time. It rests, too.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “That’s scientifically inaccurate. The sun does not simply blink out of existence at night,” you say, a smile working its way across your face. “Or had they not discovered that yet when you went to school in the Dark Ages?”
He flicks your shoulder where his hand rests, touch still light, like he’s testing the water. “You know what I mean.”
You smile, but it’s twisted up with an emotion you don’t want to name. You lean into him, feeling him tense for a moment. Then his arm that rests on the back of the couch drops slowly to your shoulders, pulling you into his side. You shift, and let yourself be held. Just for a minute.
“Yeah, I do.”
a/n: getting into it!!! our sunny is so lonely oops. i’m not projecting… anywayyy, how did we like this? more character interactions!! some old friends!! lots of natasha <3 as always, likes and reblogs and comments are appreciated but never expected :)) ty for reading!
