"Morning Bucky," Steve said cheerfully, entering the room as he did every morning. He knocked every time, but he never waited for an invitation to enter either.

"Morning," Bucky mumbled, face still buried in a pillow.

"Hungry?" Steve asked, setting a tray down on a nearby table. Already, Bucky could smell the enticing mix of eggs and bacon.

Bucky didn't answer for a moment. He wasn't starving by any means, but he could eat, but he was also fairly comfortable and wasn't sure he wanted to move either. Finally, after considering the matter a moment longer, he sat upright and swung his legs out of bed.

"Thanks," he mumbled, sitting across from Steve like he always did. This had become a routine they'd established since he'd come out of cryo. Steve always came into his room, carrying something for breakfast and they sat at the table together while Bucky ate.

"You're welcome," Steve said even as Bucky picked up a fork and dug into the meal. "Sleep well?"

Bucky swallowed a mouthful of fried egg before answering. "Same as usual." His nightmares hadn't gone away. Some nights he got lucky and slept too deeply to dream. Other nights, rarer still, he dreamed but they were pleasant. Those nights didn't outnumber the ones that were filled with the screams of dead people and coldness of Siberia.

Steve frowned for a moment, hands curling tightly together. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Nothing to talk about," Bucky answered truthfully. "It was the same as it always is." Steve's blue eyes fixed him a moment. Bucky knew that look, Steve wanted to press the matter further. He always worried that his friend was holding something back.

"I'm serious Steve," Bucky said, mildly annoyed as he bit into a piece of bacon. It crunched between his teeth and tasted sharply of salt. "It was nothing new. Nothing we haven't already talked about."

"We haven't talked about everything though." Steve reminded him and Bucky set down his fork, no longer hungry.

"I'm not going back into the lab Steve." He said flatly. Steve had tried to push the topic over the last two weeks, but Bucky was not going to budge. He'd had enough of it. The hope that began as they developed a new idea, a new way to free him. Then the fear and anticipation that came as they tried it. Then nothing, a blank space before coming back and realizing it had been a false hope. It had failed and they were still back at square one. Bucky was done. He simply couldn't do it anymore and no amount of pleading was going to change his mind.

"I wasn't going to talk about the lab." Steve said, though Bucky knew because his friend did not meet his eye, that Steve was lying. "I was talking about the Nightingale."

Bucky's annoyance with the lie vanished on the spot. "Oh. That." Steve frequently checked on Bucky at night, afraid of the nightmares getting the best of him. One night, he'd heard Bucky calling out that name and had been curious about it ever since.

Steve slouched in his seat and crossed his arms. "Are you ready to talk about it?"

He asked that a lot and Bucky's answer never changed. Bucky had plans to tell Steve everything about Hydra, eventually. Some parts he already knew, others not yet simply because Bucky wasn't ready to discuss them openly. But there was one matter Bucky would never discuss with his best friend and that was Melody. He hoped Steve could live with never knowing what "nightingale" meant.

Bucky finished off the strip of bacon before answering. "No, I'm not." And I never will be. A secret shared between many is no secret at all. Outside of himself, Sharon knew about Melody's involvement with S. H. I. E. L. D. as did Sam, Agent Colson and Nick Fury. That was five people in total and that was risky enough. He wasn't going to add a sixth person into the mix. Melody wanted to remain under the radar and Bucky wasn't going to be the one to screw that up.

Steve tried to hide the flicker of disappointment on his face. "Alright." Steve shifted in his seat, chair legs scrapping across the floor. "Clint managed to get a video call to his family yesterday."

Bucky smiled hearing that. Taking a sip of strong black coffee he asked, "How'd he manage that?"

"Well the computers here are pretty advanced and with his whole background in espionage, he was able to set up the link so that it can't be traced. Don't ask me how he did it." Steve smiled, self-depreciating. "He tried to explain it to me and he might have been speaking German for all I understood."

"I get the feeling." He'd felt that every time Melody had tried to explain a surgery or test she'd performed at work. Most of it had gone over his head. "This while twenty-first century thing is a weird place."

"You're telling me." Steve said, a strange sort of gleam in his eyes. "When I woke up, I had no idea where I was or who was with me, so I tried to get out. I thought I might've gotten captured or something."

"Did you make it out?"

"What do you think?" Steve asked, grinning. "But I didn't get that far before I realized that this world was not like the one I was used to. It was almost like being on a different planet. All the flashing lights and signs, the cars swirling by and the way people were dressed. I was struck dumb by it all."

The laughter had died out of Steve's voice by then. Bucky didn't have to ask why, he already knew. "The future is a weird place." He said finally, setting his fork down on the clean plate.

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "It is. But at least we're not alone."

"Yeah," Bucky found himself agreeing. "We're not." It was a blessing he didn't really think he deserved, but he wasn't going to turn away from it anymore. That time had passed. Now was the time to follow the kid from Brooklyn- in most respects anyways. He still wasn't going to follow the whole "keep trying" agenda.

Chapter three is up! Thanks for the reviews left on the last chapter! They were really nice to log into! Thanks for reading, as always! :)