Bucky was sat on the small, sagging sofa in his apartment in Bucharest with a notebook open and balanced on his leg.
The cramped, studio apartment was near delict, with holes in the plaster walls, but compared to his previous accomodations it was more than sufficient for his needs. It was situated in a fairly quiet area of the city with a landlord who didn't ask too many questions and didn't mind cash payments so long as they were regular. The top floor apartment allowed multiple exits from both the front door and the roof. It was sparsely furnished in case he needed to get a quick get away; a stained, uncovered mattress with a sleeping bag, a metal table, a few kitchen utensils and the sofa was the only furniture he owned.
A late summer rainstorm was beating against the newspaper covered windows, keeping him inside on his day off from the warehouses rather than wandering the city, as he was often wont to do when he wasn't working. He knew every road, alleyway and highway within a fifteen kilometer radius of the apartment building and had numerous escape routes mapped out in his mind for any eventuality.
The notebook he was thumbing his way through was one of several he owned, the rest of them stored under the floorboards. He wasn't writing in it, a cheap biro untouched on the arm of the sofa, but rather was rereading the memories and facts that he had written down. This was a common habit for him; he often found that he had forgotten things in the time between writing and rereading them for a second time, and so he was trying to reinforce the memories in his mind.
Women used to match their lipstick and nails.
Steve's mothers name was Sarah.
The Cyclone was a roller coaster in New York.
A distinct thunk, thunk, thunking sound caught his attention, making him sit up straight and alert, narrowing his eyes at the door. Footsteps became audible as well - a heavy suitcase being dragged up the stairs of the building, hitting every step as it went.
The thunking sound turned to squeaky wheels as it reached the top of the stairs. His eyes darted quickly to the floorboards that hid his escape bag and hand brushed the knife tucked into his boot as the footsteps came closer still, on his floor and right outside his door.
Tense as a bowstring, he waited, ready to spring into action at the first sign of an attack. His sharp ears picked up the faint jingle of keys and the sound of a door opening - next door to him.
He relaxed ever so slightly.
There were only three apartments on each floor of this building; this floor had his own apartment, one belonging to an old, nearly deaf Romanian man and an apartment that had been empty since his arrival three weeks ago, one that had been out of his price range due to being in significantly better condition than his own.
It would appear that he had a new neighbour.
Old Mr Paraschiv was harmless, he knew, but a new neighbour presented unknown variables and a possible threat.
Wanting to assess the situation, he made his way to the door and looked out of the peephole, but the angle was all wrong and he couldn't see their door. He was about to move away when he heard the sound of the apartment door closing, then a dark haired, feminine figure wearing a raincoat walked briefly passed his door before skipping down the stairs, much lighter on her feet going down than when she had been coming up with the heavy suitcase.
For the next half hour or so she came and went with two more suitcases and a few boxes, laboriously dragging them up the several flights of stairs to the top floor. He couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for her; the elevator in the building had been out of order since before he had moved in and they were six floors up, but also wasn't about to go and offer help to a complete stranger.
He was rather surprised by the sudden flash of guilt that then followed that thought, practically hearing his mother's voice chiding him for not helping a lady in need.
Their apartments shared a thin wall and he could hear her moving about the space once she had finished carrying things upstairs. A muffled conversation followed, though he couldn't hear anyone else speaking so assumed that she must be on the phone. He could hear that she was speaking English though, which was mildly alarming - he would have prefered it if she was Romanian, he was too easily recognised to English speakers.
Curious, he put his ear to the wall that adjoined her apartment to listen, hoping to glean some information on the new neighbour.
"... furnished in the most minimal sense of the word, I'll have to go furniture shopping ASAP," she was saying, her accent distinctly British and tugging on memories of being based in London during the War. "The mattress and table are fine, but everything else … Yeah, Mum would go spare if she saw this place … It's not my fault, Will! This was the best I could get last minute … Water damage from a burst pipe, apparently. Enough to make the upper floors unstable. The whole house was written off and is going to be demolished. At least I think that's what they were saying, you know how crap my Romanian is … Yeah … This building seems alright - well, aside from the broken lift - and the neighbourhood is fine from what I've seen, but it's just a pain ... Yeah, I know … I know, Will! This isn't the first time I've lived on my own … You're such a jerk ... Anyway, I better unpack what I can. I'll call you next week … Yeah, yeah, Iove you too ... Bye."
Deciding that his new neighbour would need further scrutiny to deduce her threat level, Bucky made his way around his own apartment, checking each of his nooks and hiding places in case he needed to leave due to her presence and mentally recalculating the viability of each of his escape routes since going through the previously vacant apartment was no longer as feasible as it had once been.
He was trying to ignore the faint noises coming from his neighbour's apartment, but the sound of a knock on a door a few minutes later - not his own - had him jerking to attention once again, having been busy checking the ammo in each of his guns. The knock was followed by the quiet murmur of a conversation, then a brief silence.
Another knock, this time on his own door and loud enough to make him flinch automatically,
He clicked the safety off his gun as he stood - it was the first time anyone had ever knocked on his door since his arrival.
Hesitantly, he made his way to the door and looked warily through the peephole once more, the loaded gun lowered by his side.
A young woman was standing outside, the same height and colouring as the new neighbour that he had glimpsed earlier but no longer wearing the raincoat. She was distorted by the glass, but he could make out that she had dark hair and was wringing her hands in front of her like she was nervous.
Seeing that she wasn't visibly holding a weapon, he carefully opened the door just a crack, keeping the gun hidden in his gloved metal hand.
The girl looked pleased that he had answered the door and smiled up at him.
"Hello, my name is Georgiana," she said slowly in heavily accented Romanian, clearly trying her hardest and stumbling over some of the words and grammar. "I am your … recent neighbour. I want to … greet you?"
Bucky stared at her for a long moment, trying to work out if this was a trap of some kind.
She didn't look all that threatening, barely even clearing his shoulder, but he had trained enough Red Room assassins to know that looks, particularly feminine looks, could be deeply deceiving.
She was wearing a button up blouse and jeans that were wet through at the hem. He could see that her long hair wasn't as dark as he'd originally thought, but rather it was heavy with moisture, no doubt from the heavy September rain outside, and drying to a lighter, reddish brown colour at the ends.
The girl's smile faltered and she shifted awkwardly under his scrutiny - he realised that he had been silently staring at her for far too long.
"You're not from Romania, are you?" he decided to reply in English - speaking to her in his native language was a risk, but if she was a threat then it would be better to deduce her motives sooner rather than later.
She visibly brightened at his words, looking like the sun had come out. "You speak English!" she replied, a wide and relieved smile spreading over her face. "No, I've just arrived today. I'm studying here in Bucharest for a year for my PhD before I go back to England. I was supposed to be in a student house but that fell through just a few days ago so I had to find a flat pretty last minute," she explained, speaking far too quickly and making him blink at her as he digested the torrent of information. "I've been trying to learn Romanian over the summer, but based on the conversation I just had with Mr Para-Paraschiv - Paraschiv, am I saying that right? - well, I clearly still have a long way to go," she said with a faint, self-deprecating laugh, stumbling over the Romanian name as she gestured to their other neighbour's door.
He simply stared at her - that was the most anyone had spoken to him in months.
Her enthusiasm visibly wilted when he didn't reply, but then seemed to rally herself, another smile appearing on her face. "Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself - Mum says it's the neighbourly thing to do," she said with another small laugh, clasping her hands and rocking on her toes. "So, I guess I'll, uh …" she trailed off and gestured towards her own door.
He didn't reply, still watching her with his head cocked ever so slightly to one side; she nodded once at him, gave him a small smile and then turned to head back to her apartment.
He was just closing the door, ready to mentally unpack the brief, unexpected conversation and decide her threat level, when she called out to him once more.
"Hey, wait a second," she said, having paused and turned at her doorway. "I didn't actually catch your name."
That was because he hadn't given it to her, technically she hadn't even asked.
"Bucky?" Steve said in shock, straightening up and staring at him in the midst of their fight in the streets of DC.
He stared at the woman, parting his lips ready to reply to her.
"Your name is James … Buchanan Barnes," Steve said, gasping for breath as they fought on the burning helicarrier.
He had given a fake name both to his employers at the warehouse and the landlord of the apartment building, but somehow, curiously, he now found himself wanting to reclaim a small part of his actual identity.
He had been mentally referring to himself as Bucky for months now, since leaving Hydra after the helicarriers, but he knew that Steve was looking for a Bucky and he had to stay hidden. It wouldn't be safe to give her that name.
"... James," he said eventually, his voice hesitant and rusty from disuse. "My name is James."
The girl, Georgiana, smiled at him once more with her hand wrapped around her own doorknob. "Nice to meet you, James."
Still working on Broken Things, but have hit a wee bit of writer's block ... With Christmas just around the corner this lighter, sweeter plot bunny was just begging to be written.
Got several chapters planned out, intending this to be a much shorter story than some of my other works.
Leave a review, my darlings!