He was tired. He was angry. He wanted to be alone with his frustration, not sitting in front of an old grandpa of a doctor in the back of a closed butcher shop. But, that was what he did twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays at 9 AM, because somehow doing this was supposed to help him "get better".
After initially resisting and refusing to speak at all during the sessions, eventually Bucky had begun to actually participate and allow the doctor to do his job. The man had treated others who had suffered somewhat similar situations as he, or at least that's what Steve told him, and though Bucky was highly wary at first, Steve vouched for the doctor's trustworthiness.
But today, he wanted nothing to do with any of it.
"You seem a bit more on edge today than usual," Dr. Connor observed from behind the old desk that separated them. He was in his 70's and had half a head of thin white hair, and kind, wrinkled brown eyes that made it hard to believe that he had been in SHIELD's service for nearly five decades. "Would you like to share what's on your mind?"
He shook his head, though only barely, not wanting to even give that much effort.
"Well, that makes my job a bit hard to do." The doctor paused, then asked, "Have you recalled any new memories since our last session?"
He ignored the question, staring at the desk like it was the center of his very existence.
"Something has clearly taken place since last Friday. I cannot help you sort it if you don't tell me, Sergeant."
"Don't call me that," he snapped, instantly wincing for breaking his silence.
"Forgive me," Dr. Connor nodded. "Mr. Barnes. If you would like, I'll give you as much time as you need to decide if you would like to talk or not. If you do not, that's fine. We'll pick back up on Friday."
It was almost annoying how accommodating the doctor was. It was strange and went against every memory that Bucky had of doctors. He remembered men and occasionally women in white coats poking and prodding him and wrestling him into submission, not speaking softly and smiling and never pushing him into anything he didn't want to do. Sometimes he wondered if the old man was actually a doctor or just someone Steve was paying to be nice to him.
He sat in silence for ten more minutes before he eventually caved and opened his mouth, prepared to receive a scolding that would probably send him marching out of the makeshift office in a rage never to return again.
"The girl that I lived with is here. She's visiting."
The doctor's eyebrows rose and he gave a small, friendly smile. "Oh! That is good to hear. And how is the visit coming along?"
"It was going fine."
"Was? Did something happen?"
He sighed lightly and decided to just come out with the full story for the first time. Might as well, because the sooner he got the doctor's reaction, the sooner he could decide to storm out or not, depending on his reaction. "When I lived with her, there was a couple times that... things happened."
"Okay. What sort of things?"
There was only a brief pause before he answered, "I kissed her a few times." Technically she had kissed him first, and had initiated plenty of the others, but it seemed somehow more proper to ascribe the responsibility to himself.
The doctor nodded neutrally. "I see."
"And I took her on a date Monday."
"A date. All right. And how did that go?"
He had expected a long, heavy sigh or a tone of disappointment, followed by the aforementioned scolding, but the doctor seemed to take this in stride. How odd. "Great."
"Okay. Then that can't be what has you on edge."
His jaw tightened. He hadn't planned on getting this far into the story before leaving. "She... I had a flashback while we were..." He trailed off, slightly unsure of how to describe exactly what their current state had been. The whole thing was a bit fuzzy, which made him angry on a whole other level.
"Intimate?" the doctor guessed, still no trace of judgment in his tone.
"No." He paused. Although what did that mean exactly? "I don't know. She was... we were in my bed but we weren't..."
Dr. Connor nodded. "I understand. Tell me about the flashback."
His expression darkened. "I touched her neck and it made me remember some woman. I don't know who she was. I was crushing her throat and watching her die."
"I see. Did you lash out during this flashback? Did you harm her or yourself?"
He shook his head. "I don't remember it but she said I got away from her before anything could happen."
"That is good. What happened next?"
"I told her to leave. Slept for maybe a hour before I came here."
The doctor nodded, folding his hands on the desk and leaning forward as he said, "We need to address your sleep later, but first, I want to point out to you the positive side of what happened. You were in a vulnerable position, had a very violent flashback, and your instincts kept you from harming her or yourself. This is very good."
Bucky scoffed; he couldn't help it. He crossed his arms and shook his head. "You don't get it."
"Then explain it to me."
"For once I..." he paused for a moment, unsure of how to word his thoughts. "I felt... a lot. I'm feeling a lot. But it doesn't matter because even when I'm not thinking, the flashbacks still happen, and I can't get away from it. And I'm gonna hurt her. I know I will."
"And what exactly are you feeling?"
Bucky was slightly annoyed by the question, but he answered anyway. "Like I'm actually alive."
"Lust?"
The word seemed too cheap somehow, but he shrugged. The doctor then went on, "I imagine that this is a very significant development for you. But this is as much a part of your recovery as learning to eat and drink again was. You are a human being, you're a man - you are no longer being drugged and trained in ways that take that away. So this is very healthy and positive. It will probably be overwhelming for awhile, until you get used to having these feelings again."
Bucky stared in slight disbelief. Positive?
"Now, let me ask you a few questions. First of all, do you care for the girl?"
He nodded without hesitation. Caring was a simple thing. The word didn't spark panic or a fit.
"Good. And she is aware fully of your history?"
He hesitated. What exactly did she know? "Not all the details." Even Steve didn't know those. Bucky himself didn't either.
"But she knows about HYDRA, the brainwashing, etcetera?" Bucky nodded. "Good, good. Now I can tell by the look on your face that you expected me to disapprove of this relationship, but I want to remind you that I am not here to judge or dictate your choices. Your life is your own and your decisions are your own. My job is only to help you put the pieces back together and give you the tools you need to fully reclaim your life. My advice is just that: advice. You can choose to listen or to ignore it. And I won't think any less of you or treat you different either way."
Though it was not the first time that Bucky had heard the man say such things, it was still a strange concept to comprehend. When he had left Summer's home to live with Steve, he had assumed that he would be surrounded by people trying to control him for "his own good" and that it would be a constant struggle, but instead, everyone seemed to want him to make his own choices. Natasha was one possible exception, but she was irrelevant as far as he was concerned.
"Now, as far as this relationship, how would you describe it currently?"
At this, he drew a very large blank. "Uh..."
"Do you plan to date her more?"
His expression worsened again and he muttered, "I don't know. She's only here for a week. And I..."
"Yes?"
"I don't want to hurt her," he said through slightly gritted teeth.
"Well, that is a concern," Dr. Connor agreed, "but I don't think it needs to be an obstacle. And as far as the distance, perhaps that is best for now. It's easier to take things very slowly when there is no choice but to do so."
"I'll hurt her eventually. I've hurt Steve."
"You've hurt Steve when he has woken you from nightmares and when you were dissociated," the doctor pointed out. "If the two of you use certain precautionary measures, I could reasonably believe that she would be safe. But, I also have to tell you that, in my opinion, physical intimacy should wait at least until you've finally accepted that arm of yours."
Bucky furrowed his brows and stared at the doctor. "What?"
"Until you accept that the prosthesis is as much a part of you as your other arm, you will not have the sort of control over it or your actions for that to be safe, I believe."
As he was fairly sure that he would go to his eventual grave still despising the arm and hating everything it represented, he assumed that taking this particular piece of advice would mean also going to his grave celibate, which wasn't a very attractive option given the fact that it had taken him seven decades to get his desires back in the first place.
"And the flashbacks are a concern as well. Steve is durable and can handle you when you're not in your right mind, but I can safely assume that this woman cannot. And your flashbacks are very unpredictable and erratic in their triggering."
That much was obvious. Maybe it was hopeless, doomed from the start, and all because of him.
"Don't mistake my meaning," the doctor added. "These are concerns, but I think that this relationship could be good for you, so long as you both approach it realistically and slowly. And cautiously. I cannot emphasize this enough."
Caution. He hadn't used a lot of that when he'd thrown Summer on his bed the night before.
"What you both need to know and always keep in mind is that a relationship will not be easy, and you have a long recovery ahead of you. This is only the beginning. She needs to know what she's getting into, and you need to be as patient as you can and accept that setbacks will happen. They will - the trick is to learn from them and not let them derail the process you make."
The doctor made sense, to Bucky's slight chagrin. The problem was, he had a hard time believing that, distance or not, Summer would stick around for any significant period of time when he was such a mess. She might like him now, for some reason, but if he couldn't accept himself, how could she ever be content with him? There was a world full of men out there that she could pick from instead, and surely, in time, she would. A part of him still thought it absurd to even be thinking about any of this in a serious way.
"What do you think?"
Bucky frowned at this question, eventually answering, "I don't know."
"Well, there's no rush. Take your time and talk to her, have an honest conversation about the realities you'll both face. Then tell me about it on Friday."
Dr. Connor then smiled, and Bucky merely sighed and looked away. If he'd just had a shred of self-control the night before...
"Now, let's talk about your sleep."
His jaw tightened again. This conversation would be even less pleasant than the last one.
If being stared down and mentally undressed by Bucky made her squirm uncontrollably, then being analyzed and observed by Natasha made Summer want to hide behind Steve's couch with David. At least he had the good sense to be avoiding the woman at all costs.
It was moments like these that made her doubt her sudden place in this world of Avengers and spies and women with red hair who were shorter than her but still managed to scare the ever-living crap out of her. But she did her best to not let it show, sipping coffee while trying to pretend that the woman didn't exist, which was hard to do when she was sitting directly across from her at a rather small table.
Steve clearing his throat to her left thankfully gave her something else to focus on, looking up at him as he stood by the table with his hands on his hips. "It's been an hour, so I'm gonna go pick him up now."
Her eyes widened fractionally, silently begging him not to leave her with Natasha. It wasn't that she actually feared for her safety, but she did have her limits when it came to the levels of intimidation that she could handle for prolonged periods of time.
Steve paused for a moment, then glanced at Natasha and began, "Do you want to come with me or -"
"No, I'm good here. I don't get many chances for girl talk," she shrugged, and internally, Summer wanted to sink to the floor and disappear.
"... Okay," Steve replied, giving Summer a quick look that said I tried, and she smiled weakly in response. He really was ridiculously nice. "Be back in twenty or so."
And then, in a moment, he was gone, and it was back to trying to appear nonchalant as Natasha leaned back in her chair and resumed her casual staring. Summer wasn't sure that she could take twenty minutes of this.
"So," Natasha finally spoke. "I hear that - ow!"
A tiny plastic Loki action figure struck an inch away from Natasha's left eye, and both women's eyes snapped towards the living room to see David leap behind the couch.
"Sorry," Summer half-smiled, leaving her seat briefly to grab the toy. Then she looked at the couch and called out, "David! No throwing! Especially no throwing things at people!"
She glanced back at Natasha to find her unscathed, of course, but a little bit annoyed, and Summer was having a hard time not laughing. "He's not really used to being around other people," she shrugged.
"I'll survive," Natasha replied dismissively. "Which is more than I can say for you."
And there it was. Summer sighed, gathering up her courage and replying, "Look, I can tell by now that you don't like me, but..."
"It's not that I don't like you," Natasha shrugged. "Barnes thinks I hate him too, but I don't. Though I have reason to. It's not as simple as that."
Summer swallowed and looked around the room. "Um..."
"Most of us had no choice but to be a part of all of this. Some of us got thrust in out of nowhere, some of us - like Barnes - were forced, and some of us have been doing this since we were kids and don't know anything else," Natasha said, impressively emotionless as she said this. "All of us have been through enough in the last five years to want nothing more but go disappear on an island somewhere and not come back for a very long time. I'm sure that to you, there's a sense of intrigue and maybe even glamour -"
"Are you kidding me?" Summer interrupted, shocked with herself that she actually spoke but unable to let that one slip by. "There is nothing glamorous about a half-dead guy with a robot arm puking on your kitchen floor and screaming all night every night for a month. This has all been super weird since the day I met him but there's never been one time that I thought it was cool or 'glamorous'."
"So it's pity, then," Natasha surmised.
"No," Summer shook her head. "He would probably throw me out a window if I ever acted like I pitied him."
Natasha paused, then switched tactics. "How much do you know of his past?"
Summer paused, wishing for a way out of the conversation, afraid of where it was headed. "I read some of his files before they were pulled from the Internet. I know enough."
"And you feel safe bringing your five year old boy around him as if he was just an average guy off the street?"
"He saved our lives in Virginia," Summer replied, about to get genuinely pissed off.
"And who put them in danger?" Natasha half-smiled. Summer scowled, but she went on. "It won't be an isolated incident. He wants to help us go after HYDRA. He's not going to get an office job somewhere and live a normal life. His normal is nothing like yours. His normal is hunting and fighting and death."
"I know," Summer muttered irritably.
"Then why are you here?" Natasha asked bluntly.
To her frustration, Summer found herself at a loss for words. And it was a bad moment to draw a blank.
She looked up at Natasha, who looked far too satisfied with herself. Summer felt like all of her uncertainties and foolishness had just been yanked out of her and put on display for all the world to see. And instead of making her want to crawl under the table and hide, it was making her angry.
"I'm here because I care," she answered honestly. "I fed him and clothed him and took care of him for a month, and I know how hard it is for him to just get through the day."
"And you think you can help him?"
"No," Summer answered somewhat honestly. "Maybe. I don't know. But I really don't see why I need to defend myself to you."
"You don't," Natasha shrugged.
"Then why are you asking me all of this?" Summer asked a little desperately.
"Because I don't have the same blinders on that Steve does," Natasha replied. "He can't help it. He looks at Barnes and sees a sick best friend who needs his help. I, on the other hand, see the man who managed to shoot me twice and almost killed two people who are important to me."
"That's all you see?" Summer asked, shuddering a little at the thing about being shot twice. No wonder they didn't seem to get along.
"No. I happen to have a very good personal understanding of what HYDRA did to him. And Steve's not the only one who's had to fight a brainwashed friend. I'm actually very sympathetic to what Barnes has been through. But I also happen to be a realist."
Summer sighed and glanced behind her, checking on David, who was still hiding behind the couch and currently planning another toy launch attack. She turned back to the other woman and replied, "I'm not an idiot."
"I never said you were. But you have the choice to either live a normal life outside of this chaos or dive head first into it. And once you dive in, there's no getting out. I can guarantee you that."
Suddenly feeling as if the conversation had far surpassed what her actual reality was, Summer replied, "I'm only here for a week. I don't think that really qualifies as 'diving in'."
"And if Steve asks you to move here?"
Summer's eyes widened. "What?"
"Hypothetically," Natasha clarified. "Let's say he got you a job up here and asked you to move here for the sake of his friend. Would you say no?"
"I... I don't know," Summer half-stuttered. "David's... I don't think I could do that because of him. And I don't think Steve would ask me to do that."
Natasha smiled slightly and replied, "You don't know him very well yet. Steve would do anything for him. And if he thinks that keeping you around helps him, he'll figure out a way to make you say yes."
Summer couldn't think about that. Just the very concept made her head spin.
"My point is," Natasha said after a moment, "you have a choice, which is something that most of us never get. Don't take it lightly."
Summer didn't respond, looking across the table to the other woman with lingering irritation that was fading under the truth of what she was saying. But, she was quick to remind herself that she was not moving to New York, that this was only a visit, and Natasha had to be greatly overestimating her role in Bucky's life. But that thought wasn't as comforting as it should have been.
Then a toy helicarrier flew through the air and would have hit Natasha's forehead if she hadn't caught it first, and Summer whipped around in her chair. "David! Stop it! One more time and I'll take you back to the hotel and you won't get any time with Captain America today!"
After ascribing that sentence to her mental list of things she never thought she would say, she turned back around to find Natasha holding the helicarrier and examining it with a critical eye. "Very inaccurate. Not as bad as the Loki one, though."
After a moment or two, Summer plucked up the nerve to ask a question. "What would you do? If you were me."
Natasha grinned and replied, "I'm not sure that you should be putting much stock into that answer. I'm not exactly a role model."
Before Summer could ask for the answer anyway, the front door unlocked, and the conversation ended as Steve and Bucky walked inside, wearing their brilliant incognito looks consisting of hats and little else in the way of disguises. Bucky walked in second, briefly meeting her eyes before looking away. She felt a spark of anxiety, hoping that the prior night's events hadn't affected him too badly.
She glanced back at Natasha, who looked perfectly neutral as Steve dropped his keys on the counter and smiled at them both. Bucky walked to his room without a word to anyone.
"Girl talk go well?" Steve asked, making Natasha give him a wry grin.
"Yeah, it was fun," she answered while Summer looked to the hallway with slight worry.
"I'm sure," Steve replied, grinning back and clearly not believing her. Then he turned to Summer and said quietly, "He's fine. He said he wanted to talk to you when we got back. You can leave David out here."
"Oh. Okay," she replied, definitely anxious now. She got up from the table, feeling Natasha's eyes on her and ignoring her as she gave Steve a smile and then made a pit stop to peer behind the couch, remind David to not launch any more surprise attacks against the scary lady, then turned and headed down the hallway.
His door was left cracked open, so when she reached it, she knocked softly on it before pushing it open. The room was illuminated softly by sunlight through its lone window, and he was sitting at the foot of his unmade bed, his head raising up when she stepped into view. She smiled softly at him and then debated for a moment what to do with the door, leave it slightly open or close it. In the end, she shut it and turned back towards Bucky, who was still watching her.
"How was therapy?" she asked, her tone light without overdoing it, walking to the bed and sitting at his left.
He looked at his hands in his lap and replied quietly, "Same as usual."
Though she didn't know what the usual was, she nodded anyway. "I'm glad you're doing it. It helps. I know."
He turned his gaze on her, and a few seconds passed before he looked down again and said, "I told him about you."
"You hadn't before?"
"Not... everything," he replied, and she understood.
"Oh. So what did he have to say?" she asked, anxiety suddenly blooming anew. This was probably the point where he would tell her to go home because he had enough to deal with, which she wouldn't be able to argue with even if she tried to.
"He said it could be a good thing," he replied, voice still small and tone unsure, like he thought speaking the words out loud were strange. "But to be cautious and... slow. And that long distance might be a good thing."
She blinked a few times, having to briefly process a few things - first, that a therapist would approve of them dating in any capacity, and second, that Bucky was talking about a long distance relationship. It was a big jump from one date and a handful of kisses to that. And third, how could distance ever be a good thing?
"Wow," she eventually replied, while he had been watching her and waiting for a reaction. "Okay."
He studied her for a moment, then said, "And by slow I mean... slow."
His eyes flickered to the rest of the bed behind them, and she nodded. "I know. That's all right. That's better for me, too." Better, maybe, but not easy. Then her tone became slightly disbelieving as she asked, "You really want to do the long distance thing?"
His brows furrowed and he stared off for a moment. "I'd rather you be here."
"I can't," she said softly. "I mean, I could think about it, but... I don't know how I could." She watched him nod absently before she furrowed her brows and asked, "You really like me enough for this?"
He turned and looked at her as he had quite a few times before, like she had just asked him the stupidest question he'd ever heard. She resorted to her default mode and started babbling. "It's just that I've only been here for a few days and you only lived with me a month before, and most of that time we didn't even talk that much, and... this is not how I imagined this trip going, not that I'm complaining, it's just -"
Her heart nearly stopped when a tiny, amused grin showed up on his face in the midst of her rambling, and it did stop when he shut her up by pressing a gentle kiss to her lips. Eventually, she knew that she would have to stop falling apart every time he touched her, but such an idea seemed impossible, even when the kiss was short and sweet and ended with him drawing away before she wanted him to.
A short silence passed as he looked down and gathered his words. "The problem is that I could kill you without really trying, without knowing what I'm doing. And after last night, I..."
After he trailed off, she replied, "I know. But I'm okay. You didn't hurt me. And I know when to leave you alone. I hated hearing you scream in your sleep before but I knew better than to try to wake you up."
"It's more than just that," he replied quietly.
She studied him for a moment, then said, "Then we'll figure it out. I'm not all bright and shiny either, you know." He met her gaze once more, and she added, "And I know what I'm getting into."
"You really don't," he muttered. "You only know what you've read."
It was true. She had offered to listen many times, but he had always refrained from telling her anything of his dreams or memories, and as a result, she could only guess what made him stare off into space or turn away from her.
"Okay," she said. "Then let's change that. Can you tell me what happened last night? What you saw?" His jaw tightening told her that he was not a fan of this idea, but then she reasoned, "I already know that you've killed a lot of people. I know that most of them were good guys. You're not gonna shock me."
She almost told him never mind as she watched him fight with himself, clearly not wanting to tell her, and she didn't want him to do anything he didn't want to do. But before she could tell him, he finally spoke.
"I was killing someone. Crushed her throat, watched her die. I don't know who she was."
She had imagined that it was something like that, since she'd lost him when he started staring at his metal hand when it had touched her neck. Though it was jarring and terrifying and horrible, the slight tremble in his voice and disgust etched on his face would not belong to a man who had willfully done those things.
She drew him out of his sudden dark state by placing her palm over the back of his hand closest to hers, his metal one, and he looked down at it before looking up at her. "See? Didn't scare me away."
"It should," he muttered.
She then made a decision. Since, if they went through with trying to make this an actual relationship, then chances were, this was going to come up a lot. Given that he was struggling to accept what all he had done, he would naturally view everything through guilt-tinted lenses, and think her better off without him or that she would be right to fear him. Best to state her stance on the issue and do everything she could to put it to rest.
"Look," she began, "if you try to do this thing where you tell me that I shouldn't like you or that I should be afraid of you or that I'd be better off without you, it's gonna eventually start pissing me off. Are you forcing me into this?" He shook his head. "Have you ever forced me into doing anything I didn't want to do?" He shook his head again. "I'm here because I want to be. I know who you are and what you've done. And I choose to be here anyway. So... respect my decision, okay?"
He stared at her in slight bewilderment, and she felt a bit tingly following her proclamation, but she couldn't help herself. Between Natasha's warnings and Bucky's self-loathing, she didn't want to be mistaken for someone being taken advantage of or ignorant to the reality of it all.
Eventually, Bucky nodded, and Summer started wondering about all the implications of what they were doing being official and over a long distance. Bucky would need a phone of his own. She would need to tell Paul about him a lot sooner than she had originally planned. And this meant that her personal boycott of boyfriends for David's sake was over. That had the farthest reaching consequences of anything.
"This is a big deal for me," Summer said. "I haven't dated in five years because I didn't want David getting confused or attached to guys who wouldn't stick around. So... you're serious about this, right?"
He nodded, his expression serious, and she thought for a moment before asking, "Are you sure you don't want to, like, try meeting other people first? See what else is out there? Make sure there isn't someone you like better? Especially since I'm gonna be in Virginia and you... you know..."
The look that he gave her told her that he found that idea to be nothing short of horrific. She smiled a little at his aghast reaction and tried to explain, "It's just that, you know, I know it's been a long time for you, and you're a guy and you have..." she trailed off and then realized that she was making a rather naive assumption. She turned to him and asked, "Has it been a long time? I've just been assuming all this time that you probably didn't have the time or chance to..."
"It's been a long time," he confirmed, not quite meeting her eyes as he said this.
She nodded. "Okay. Just checking. For all I knew you were surrounded by a bunch of super hot Natashas on missions."
The way that he spoke his next few sentences told her that he found them utterly embarrassing. "Wouldn't have mattered if I was. They gave me drugs that... prevented distractions."
Was it not bad enough to take someone and brainwash them into fighting against the side they died for? Did they have to erase everything that made him a human being? She thought for a moment of what to say, but expressing how terrible it was wouldn't help him and it would be stating the obvious. She ended up settling on a semi-positive statement. "Well, at least that's over." Then she smiled a little bit. "Clearly."
His eyes met hers again, and she glanced down at their still-joined hands and added, "And if it helps at all, I haven't done much better. There was the time I got pregnant, which doesn't actually count, and besides that," she shrugged to end the statement, trying not to cringe a little as she mentioned that.
When she looked up, he was staring at her in disbelief. "Never?"
There was no point in fighting the blush engulfing her cheeks. "Nope. I mean, I did my share of fooling around in high school, but that's it," she said, feeling her face get hotter by the second. Then she forced out a smile and quipped, "Aren't we a pair?"
He didn't smile back. She let her smile fade as she watched his expression go ever darker as he let his gaze wander to the wall. After awhile, he muttered very quietly, "I'm scared of hurting you."
The honesty in his tone made her chest feel tight. She laced her fingers through his metal ones and she replied, "I'm a little scared of that too. But I'm not scared of you. Does that make sense?"
He looked at her and replied with an exhale that was almost a chuckle, "No."
She smiled and looked down at their hands, shaking her head as she explained, "I guess I mean that I know that if you do hurt me someday, it won't be because you wanted to or meant to."
"That won't matter if you're dead. Or in a coma. Or... if I just hold you a little too tightly and break your arm or -"
This time, it was her turn to grab his face with her free hand and silence him with a kiss. She caught him completely off guard, but he quickly recovered and kissed her back, enough to make her lose her breath and have to pull away a moment later. She smiled and looked up into his eyes, finding them a little heavier-lidded than they were a moment ago. "I've always wanted to do that. And the dresser thing from last night too. I know it didn't end very well, but..."
He stared at her briefly before blinking and replying, "I barely knew what I was doing, I was just..."
"... Yeah, me too," she smiled again, ready to dump ice on her face to put out the cursed and seemingly permanent blush there. "But I guess that can't happen again for... awhile."
He nodded, eyes on her lips, and she wondered if he was even hearing what she was saying. "Slow," he muttered, and she nodded, guessing that he had heard after all, and then his mouth was on hers and she was falling apart all over again.
He started at a lighter, less intense pace, and she reminded herself to not get carried away and lose her head, but that flew out the window at the first slide of his tongue against hers. She let out a sound that instantly embarrassed her, and he shuddered a little when the sound reached his ears, and then it all became a pleasant blur of lips and hands and her blood pumping so loudly that she was sure that he had to be able to hear it.
His left hand was planted on the bed, as far from her as possible on purpose, and that left his other hand to make up the difference, starting at her hair and then sliding to her shoulder, moving down until it gripped her waist while their kisses grew to breathless, rapt messes. He groaned into her mouth when her nails gently scratched against the nape of his neck, and the sound made her suddenly open her eyes and tear her lips away from his.
"Slow," she reminded him in a pathetic voice, gasping, though he had already moved on to her neck, and she wasn't exactly discouraging him by holding him here.
"Slow," he repeated, and the thrum of his voice against her skin between kisses sent a chill down her spine and almost made her brain check out again.
"I don't think... I... Bucky," she half-whined, closing her eyes and quickly losing her will to protest as she felt his breath against her ear.
"Summer," he replied, low and hot in her ear, sending a jolt through her at lightning speed and making her all but jump away from him.
"Okay," she smiled, face on fire, holding him back by his shoulders, "you can't do things like that or else I'll end up... I'll just..."
"You'll what?" he asked, breathing through parted lips and looking at her like he was on the verge of devouring her again.
"Combust," she smiled, "or jump you and completely go against your therapist's advice."
He nodded, then grabbed the back of her head and brought her lips back to his, and she melted against him again, only having so much self control and needing to take what she could get for now. She'd gone so long without anything like this, without passion and without touch, and she would be satisfied with just this - at least, that's what she told herself.
She gasped a little when she felt his teeth nip at her bottom lip, and as it left her back on the brink of losing it, she pulled away panting again, opening her eyes to find his burning into hers before being distracted by her heaving, apparently eye-catching, chest. It reminded her of sitting in front of him on her bed back home, shell-shocked and wearing a shirt that he'd torn in two for completely non-sexy purposes, except this time, he didn't stare with underlying embarrassment and awkwardness, but more like he had every right to look and was slightly annoyed that her shirt was intact this time.
Smiling a little, she placed her finger under his chin and lifted his head, bringing his eyes back to hers before she leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Her skin was tingling and she wished that she could just lay back and tell him to do what he wished, but it was for his sake as much as her own that she ignored the voice in her head telling her to do exactly that. She then kissed his jaw and laid her head on his shoulder, her nose lightly touching his neck, and she breathed him in as he eventually brought his right hand to rest on her back.
While her breathing slowly returned to a semblance of normal, a thought rattling around her brain made its way out of her lips. "Any chance of a translation yet?" She would ask him every day until he finally gave in and spilled.
She heard a puff of air leave his nose, then a few seconds passed before he murmured, "Counterproductive."
"To what?"
"Waiting."
She sighed, stifling a groan. "Would begging change your mind?"
"No."
"Would... never mind," she shook her head, not even sure what had just gone through her head but pretty sure that she didn't want to voice it. She straightened up and looked from his lips to his eyes before giving him a small, sweet kiss, then slowly standing up from the bed.
"I'm gonna... go... do something," she said, running her hands through her hair, glancing down at Bucky and finding his eyes glued to her. "Maybe get some air, or stick my head inside your freezer and scream. I don't know. I'm just gonna shut up. But you should come with me."
He nodded, right hand in his own hair as he muttered, "Yeah, just... give me a minute."
She nodded, turning around and biting her lip to keep from smiling, glancing back at him when she reached his door. Was it cruel to take just the tiniest, most minute bit of satisfaction in his frustration, only because she still found it kind of thrilling that she could cause that in him in the first place?
He looked up at her, narrowing his eyes a little at her lingering smile, but it only grew bigger.
It was ridiculous. The entire situation. And yet, as she watched him glare a little at her, this relic from her grandmother's generation who was as damaged as she was an awkward and forever bumbling fool, she was pretty sure that it would all never stop being surreal.
"What?" he asked, finally, clearly thoroughly annoyed with her grin.
She shook her head, turning towards the door and twisting the knob, and as she left the room, she muttered to herself, "You're so hot you make me want to die."
While any normal man with normal hearing would not have been able to pick up what she said, Bucky did, and after she closed the door, he furrowed his brows for a moment, processing those words. Then glanced down at the floor and grinned a little, his lack of being well-versed on modern vernacular not hindering his ability to understand and appreciate the sentiment.
The days were passing by quickly, Bucky began to notice as he walked Summer and her boy back to their hotel after night had fallen. It was a strange feeling, wondering where the whole day had gone, and wondering what he would do once she was gone again.
Of course, he knew what he'd do. He would just pick up where he'd left off before, and one of his few pleasant distractions would be gone. He'd miss her again.
"Back to the deep thought face," he heard from his right side. He turned his head to see her smile at him as they walked quietly down the sidewalk. "I'm not complaining. Your profile is... it's good."
He would have smiled a little at the slight fumbling of her words, but something wasn't right, and it was setting his nerves on edge. It had been that way since they left the apartment, and at first he tried to shake it off, but the feeling wouldn't leave.
There were fellow pedestrians, as there always was, but one in particular had his gut feeling inching closer and closer to something bad. It was someone dressed similar to him, nondescript and with a hat, almost far enough behind them that he could barely see the figure. It was a short walk to the hotel, but it felt longer than usual the less at ease that he felt.
"You're making me nervous looking back every five seconds."
He glanced at Summer, finding her eyeing him a bit warily. He didn't reply, looking back again instead, and this time, the suspicious figure was gone.
He furrowed his brows, steps slowing as he looked around, taking note of everything that wasn't right. Suddenly all the other pedestrians were gone, and just ahead was an alleyway that marked the halfway point to the hotel.
He stopped walking. Summer did too, and David looked up at them both curiously.
He wasn't thinking at this point. He was operating on his sharpest, most well-developed instincts, which in his case, was far more reliable than his thinking.
Without looking at Summer, he said quietly, "Get your taser out and take cover behind a car."
To her credit, she did not panic or start asking him questions about why and what was happening. She only gaped at him for a moment before digging into her purse and then disappearing with David behind a car parked behind them. After, Bucky walked silently towards the alleyway, eyes still darting all around the perimeter, then focusing when he heard a very faint, nearly imperceptible male voice coming from the small space.
He listened, not moving a muscle. The voice grew slowly closer, though he couldn't decipher what it was saying, and when he could tell that the voice's owner was within a close enough distance, he shot forward into the alleyway and grabbed the man by the neck with his metal hand.
The man let out a noisy cry as Bucky shoved him hard against the concrete wall, and Bucky gave him another good slam headfirst before loosening his grip on his neck slightly and narrowing his eyes. The man was big but not too big, dressed exactly as one who would want to blend in would, and there was one way to determine if the man was an operative or not without having to ask a single question. With his right hand, Bucky searched the man's ear for a comm device, and when he found one, he dropped it to the ground and crunched it under his boot as he glared at the man.
"Who are you?" he growled, noting that the man was making no move to fight back - in fact, he looked absolutely terrified.
"You know," he replied in a choke, barely breathing under Bucky's grip.
Bucky winced and shoved him against the wall again, finding little satisfaction in the sound of the man's skull cracking. "How did you find me?"
"You... you think we ever lost you..."
In the brief moment that Bucky's head clouded with anger, the man produced a knife and tried to drive it into his side; Bucky released his chokehold and grabbed the knife before it could reach him, blade-first with his left hand, and while it could do no damage to the metal, it shorted out the holographic cover on it, leaving it useless and exposing the hand. A knee to the man's groin later, Bucky ripped the blade out of his grip and flipped it in the air, catching it by the handle and then pressing it to the man's throat as his eyes grew wide with fear.
"How many others?" Bucky demanded, but the man shut both his mouth and his eyes. In fact, he had seemed oddly resigned to his fate the moment Bucky grabbed him, like he thought that he was dead already. Bucky pressed the tip of blade just far enough to let loose a droplet of blood and repeated his demand, but at that moment, a woman's startled cry from the street derailed him.
His head snapped up and a cold shot of dread struck him right in the gut, and without blinking, he punched the man in the head with his metal fist, sending him to the ground unconscious before Bucky raced out to the street. What he saw, he'd later find remarkable.
Summer was on her feet, still behind the car, clutching her taser as its charges shocked a man nearly twice as large as she in the chest, who fell to the ground but not completely. Bucky recognized the figure as the same one that had been tracking them before.
Bucky started after the man, who was only felled by the taser for the briefest of moments before he was back up on his feet and racing away. Bucky's feet wanted to race after him, to grab him and slam his head to the ground a few times before extracting the truth from him, but something stopped him in his tracks as the man disappeared from view. He looked at Summer, still holding her taser and staring at him with wide eyes and breathing hard as her son hid behind her with his hands over his ears, and Bucky instantly abandoned the drive to run.
"Are you okay?" he asked, grabbing her upper arm and drawing her close.
She nodded quickly. "Yeah, I'm fine. He didn't see us at first. He was talking to someone in his ear and I heard him say 'winter' and he was headed for you, so I -"
Bucky nodded. "There might be others. Come on."
She nodded as he let her go, then picked up her son and followed him back to the sidewalk. When they reached the alley, Bucky's anger rekindled when he found it utterly empty.
Clenching his jaw, a part of him wanting nothing more but to track down the other guy despite the fact that a voice louder than any other was screaming to get Summer and her child to safety before anything else. He didn't waste time being torn, however, instead taking her by the arm again and walking them quickly back towards her hotel once more.
Watching their surroundings with an eye sharpened even further by adrenaline and still-burning anger, Bucky looked over his shoulder and shoved his metal hand into his jacket pocket as he scowled out into the dark street and muttered in Summer's ear, "Call Steve."
While it had not been nearly as traumatic as her last encounter with HYDRA, Summer's hands still shook as she fumbled with her phone to follow Bucky's order and call Steve. David bounced back much more quickly, surprisingly, only letting her hold him for a moment before squirming to be put down after she finally got the call through to Steve, but that was probably because she had been careful to make sure that he didn't see or hear anything during those few moments of fear. Which was a good thing, because she had heard rather clearly the sound of a skull being bashed against a building several times, all the way from the street, and that wasn't something David needed to hear.
Tasering the other guy had been rather similar to shooting the female HYDRA agent who had threatened her son back in Virginia. She had just done it, without thinking twice, then afterwards felt like she'd been watching herself do it rather than actively participate in the event. All in all, the aftermath was more anxiety-riddled than the event itself. It seemed like that was true of any bad thing.
Bucky walked her back to the hotel so fast that she'd had to half-run to keep up with him, and once they were inside and into her room, he talked to Steve on her phone in hushed tones while pacing about the room, making sure that all of the windows were shut and shielded to the world. She watched him as questions started to swirl through her head, doubts and worries making their way to the forefront, along with Natasha's words from earlier that day.
This was indeed Bucky's normal, and she had no idea how long he would be hunted by others. Maybe he always would be, and things like this would be as routine as brushing her teeth in the morning. His skills, his past, his future, his enemies, it was all part of what came with the territory, and she'd never ask him to change. She was even pretty sure that she could accept the risks to herself to stay close to him, but did it make her the world's worst mother to accept the risks to her son?
While Bucky growled on the phone, she tried to stop overthinking as she dug through her stuff to find David a snack. He was acting like their walk back had been nothing short of routine, and she wasn't sure if that was a poor reflection on her or not. Maybe he was just used to hiding and covering his ears by now.
Frowning at her thoughts, she moved around on autopilot, getting David settled in bed with a movie and a drink to go with his snack, then glancing at Bucky as he stood in a corner of the room near the window, back to her, still muttering on her phone. She sighed and wandered off to the bathroom, wishing her leftover jitters away.
By the time she re-emerged, dressed in her more comfortable sleep clothes as if in the hopes that it could make her more comfortable at every level, she found Bucky perched on the edge of her empty bed and David peering at her from under the covers in his own bed, holding a book in his hands that she often read to him at bedtime. She smiled softly at him and then looked at Bucky. "Everything okay?"
His expression was quite unreadable as he replied quietly, "I'm staying here with you tonight. Just in case."
She blinked, then looked back down at David before nodding. "Okay. Um... I just need to get him to sleep, and then..."
Then what? She didn't know, but he nodded and stood up, handing her her phone when he reached her. She took it, then met his eyes as he furrowed his brows slightly and looked as if he was searching for words, but instead he pursed his lips and stepped around her. She watched as he disappeared from the room, no doubt to do some kind of perimeter check, and she sighed before taking David through his usual bedtime routine.
These days, David slept a lot easier than she did. He fell asleep fast and stayed asleep, but her slumber never managed to be quite as peaceful as it had once been. Tonight was no different, as he fell asleep with little fuss, and she laid next to him in the too-small bed, eyes wide open and brain overactive as ever. She waited to hear the door click open and signal Bucky's return, but it never came.
Instead, as she laid there contemplating her recent decisions and what they meant, a brief chill was her only slight warning before she felt a hand gently touch the bare skin of her upper arm. She gasped and shot up with a start, looking up to see Bucky take a step back quickly with his hands up.
"Sorry, I -"
"No, it's okay," she assured him, willing her breathing to calm down if only to put him more at ease. "I didn't hear you come in. I never hear you coming."
She smiled up at him, but his face was set in a stubborn frown. She sighed and crawled out of the bed, making sure David was comfortably covered up first, then rising to her feet and looking around the small room for a moment. It wasn't overly small, and there was a small couch near the kitchenette on the opposite side of the room, but there was no way that Bucky could comfortably smash himself into it to sleep, and for that matter, neither could she.
"Look, you don't have to stay here..."
"Yes I do."
"But... they weren't after us."
Bucky looked at her with slight impatience as he replied, "They've seen you with me twice now. You're a target now, a way to get to me."
She gulped a little, having not expected that. He looked as if he utterly despised himself for speaking those words. "Oh." She swallowed again and then asked, "So... what does that mean?"
"It means that you're in danger until we find them."
Knowing that "we" couldn't refer to that many people, superpowered or not, she asked, "They were HYDRA?" He nodded. "But... if they know where you are, why would they care about me? I'm not -"
He gritted his teeth as he replied, "I'm not taking any chances."
She didn't exactly want to either. After a moment, she muttered, "I guess those agents that hang out in front of my house will be sticking around."
Bucky nodded. "It would be better if you stayed here, so I can keep you safe myself."
The sentiment made her feel a bit warm, but there was no point in entertaining the notion. "You know I can't." She watched his grimace deepen, and as she tried to think of something else to say, the shine of his metal hand at his side caught her eye. "Did something happen to the hologram thing?"
He nodded, reflexively shoving the offending hand into his pocket, saying nothing. She could feel his frustration and agitation, see it in the way that he hid that part of himself from her view despite the fact that she'd never been uncomfortable with it.
Slowly, she reached forward and gently touched his arm with her fingertips, then let them run down until they reached his wrist. Then she carefully drew his hand from his pocket, letting her fingers tangle easy with the hard, cold metal ones, drawing his stare down to their entwined hands. He always stared when she held that hand.
"Remember what I said earlier about respecting my decision?" she asked. He looked up and nodded. "I meant it." Even if she wasn't currently sure if she respected her decision herself. "I know that things like this come with the territory. And I'm not totally useless. I've defended myself pretty well so far, I think."
"You shouldn't have to," he replied, not meeting her eyes and gently detangling their hands before turning to go sit angrily on the tiny couch.
She sighed yet again. Regardless of how genuinely frightened she was about the situation, she couldn't take watching him ascribe all of the blame to himself when she was hardly an unwilling party. But maybe that was something he would just have to adjust to over time, refraining from heaping guilt upon his head for once. She doubted there was little she could do to make it any better.
Seeing no other better options, she walked to the couch and squeezed into the small space of it that he was not occupying. He didn't look up or acknowledge her until, after a moment or two of semi-uneasy silence, she turned towards him and tried to draw his attention by gently letting her fingers run through his hair. He blinked a few times but still wouldn't look up.
"You can have the bed if you want," she said softly, still trailing through his hair. "Like before."
He shook his head. "I won't sleep anyway."
She furrowed her brows and asked, "At all?"
He shrugged lightly. "Not enough to take your bed."
That made her frown. She could only imagine how not sleeping would make the issues he already had that much worse. "Well, the offer stands if you change your mind."
When he still didn't so much as grunt in acknowledgment, she let her hand drop from his hair to his cheek, then gently moved his head to the side so she could lay a small, easy kiss on his lips. After, she pulled away an inch or two and watched as he looked at her lips, then her eyes, but his own eyes were too far away for her to reach. She didn't want to push him, so she simply kissed him again, on his cheek, and told him to try to sleep before getting up.
At first, it was strange, going to bed with him basically standing guard on the other side of the room, but she reminded herself that they had slept only one thin wall apart for a month not too long ago. And, she had to admit after turning off most of the lights and crawling under the covers, she did feel incredibly safe with him there.
Without his presence, she might not have had a hope of turning off her brain and actually falling asleep, but to her surprise, despite the night's disturbing events and her sudden role as a HYDRA semi-target, she fell asleep relatively quickly. If she wished that he could be lying next to her, holding her in a way that she'd never experienced from anyone ever before, she kept that to herself and let the thought fade into the night.
In a way, he envied her.
Every cell in his body screamed for sleep, but every defense mechanism in his brain fought against it. The exhaustion that followed him faithfully throughout his days was a fair trade off for a lack of nightmares and a lack of new memories of another death at his hands, or at least that's what he told himself. Even if he didn't resist, the most he could manage was still only a couple of hours, so what was the difference?
He wished that he could sleep like her. Just lay down under a mess of sheets and simply shut down, breathe easily, and maybe awake the next morning feeling slightly more alive than dead. It would be a nice feeling. It would be nice to escape, just for a few hours, the constant strain of trying to keep his head clear of everything weighing it down and trying to twist it into knots he couldn't undo.
He had tried various sleeping pills that Dr. Connor had given him during his first month of therapy. The first batch made no difference, being burned up by his metabolism too fast to do a thing. The second helped him fall asleep but not to stay asleep, and it made his dreams more vivid, which was a particularly cruel torture. After that, he lost interest in trying anything else.
Sleep simply wasn't for him. Maybe it would be someday, but that was no comfort to him now. For now, he had very little else to do but sit and think. And what else could he think about but HYDRA?
He told Steve on the phone earlier that he would not accept being sidelined in the hunt for HYDRA anymore, not after tonight, and that he didn't care what Steve or anybody else thought of it. Stable or unstable, whatever the hell either of those terms meant, he had earned the right to oversee their downfall during his years of "service" to them, and if Steve was half the friend he claimed to be, he wouldn't stand in the way of that.
Steve hadn't had much to say to that. Bucky hadn't cared much either way at the time. Maybe, just maybe, if he managed to get his hands on what was left of HYDRA and got to personally watch the remnants go to hell, maybe he would be able to sleep for once.
And in the meantime, if they touched one hair on either of the heads currently asleep in the room with him, that would most likely ensure that sleep would elude him until his dying day.
It was in the midst of these thoughts, a few hours after Summer had fallen asleep, that a muffled sound from her bed drew his attention. He straightened from the uncomfortably reclined position to sit up and look her way. Another moment or so passed before he heard it again, and that was when he got to his feet and started walking towards her bed.
He could see her moving under the sheets, not exactly tossing and turning, more... struggling. He reached the foot of the bed, then walked around to the side, and something in his chest tightened when he saw her start gasping disjointedly, like she was trying to breathe but no air was reaching her lungs. She was curled up into a tight ball, her hand fisting into the pillow under her head, and his hand was on her shoulder before he had a chance to think twice.
He shook her as gently as he could, calling her name softly, but it didn't rouse her. Her breathing became more erratic, and he gave her a firmer shake and said her name more loudly. She stopped for a minute, but only for a minute. His third shake was what woke her.
She sucked in a huge breath and opened wide, confused eyes, shooting up in the bed as he took a step back to avoid her head colliding with his. She looked around, looking from the bed to her lap to Bucky as he knelt beside the bed, feeling a bit clueless as to what to do now. Then relief spread visibly across her features, and her shoulders relaxed and slouched as she lowered her face into her hands.
"I'm sorry," she muttered. "Stupid dream."
He hadn't thought much beyond what he would do once she woke up, so he lingered slightly awkwardly next to the bed as she calmed herself down. After a moment, she raised her head and turned her tired eyes to him, quietly murmuring, "Thank you for waking me up."
He nodded, unsure of what else to do. The exhausted part of him wanted to slump forward on her bed and not move until dawn, but the other part of him led him to stand up and start to head back to the too-small couch.
However, her hand on his stopped him before he could take more than one step away.
"Please don't go. Can you just... can you sit with me?"
He looked down at her, confusion slightly growing on his face. "Sit?"
She let go of his hand and shook her head slightly. "Yeah, I mean... just stay with me for a minute?"
He opened his mouth to say something, though he didn't know what, but nothing came out when he watched her shift slightly to the side to make room for him. Then she looked up at him, a faint neediness in her eyes that he wasn't sure he'd ever seen before, and without another thought, he gave in and slid himself down into the bed.
He was aware of how odd he looked because he felt even weirder, sitting with one foot on the floor and one on the bed because the space was so small, but not a moment passed before she took his arm and led him to lean back against the headboard. He looked at her somewhat questioningly, but she simply dragged the sheets up around her and then curled up to his left side, between his body and his arm.
For a second, he was at an utter loss. If she wanted to do this, why wouldn't she pick his other side, which was considerably softer and probably a lot more comfortable to curl up to, not to mention less obviously dangerous? He held his breath as she laid her head on his chest, right over his heart, and brought her hand up to rest in front of her eyes. His arm hung suspended at his side, angled away from her and awkward as he fumbled with what to do. She exhaled and closed her eyes, and his mind raced with all the horrible things that could happen if she fell asleep like this and he let himself doze off as well.
Her voice interrupted his thoughts, soft and sleepy as she murmured against the shirt under her cheek. "Your heart is racing."
He didn't reply, still keeping his arm away from her. The scent of her hair, so close to his nose, was flooding his senses and taking him back to a time when the scent had been one of the only familiar, comforting things that he encountered on a daily basis. It had the same relaxing, lulling effect that it always had, but he couldn't let it, or the warmth of her as she molded herself to his side, coax him to sleep.
"Bucky?"
He blinked out of his thoughts. "Yeah?"
"Can you wait to get up until I'm back to sleep?"
"Okay," he replied softly, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them again and staring down at her, at the way in which she was half-draped over him. It felt better than he could have imagined.
He felt her relax completely against him when he finally let his left hand come to rest on her back. Her breathing evened out and her sleep returned to her as he let his metal fingers run through the ends of her hair, wishing those fingers could feel it the way that his other ones could.
His eyes grew heavy, but fear of waking from a nightmare and harming her kept him from giving in to the kind of rest that Summer made look so easy in comparison, even if her own sleep wasn't as peaceful as it should have been.
He kept his promise to keep her close until she was sound asleep once more, and he lingered still beyond that. He might not have slept, but her presence and her warmth kept his thoughts calm and more peaceful than they'd been in ages, and he would not dare to not take advantage of that while he could.
A/N: First let me just say - I LOVE YOU ALL :D I am super grateful for the response to this story and the reviews and feedback you guys have left. I'm generally terrible with answering them individually, but let me say that I am incredibly grateful for each one and I greatly appreciate the time and effort it takes to leave them. So THANK YOU :) I'll see you guys next week, as usual :D
