Seas the Moment
Bucky was cursing under his breath as he stuffed clothes in a burgundy backpack, tossing a hat over his messy black hair that had grown to his jaw. He couldn't stay in France anymore, no, not with Steve searching for him. He hadn't even slept the night after running from them at the train station, too distressed over missed opportunities with Mr. Signoret and too anxious that even the phantom noise of footsteps make Bucky jerk up in bed.
Where to next?
Milan? Prague? Dallas? How far did Bucky have to travel before he found Jane? Or, how long did he have to travel before he realized he needed to move on. For a second, he paused his rushed packing. Jane wouldn't want this for me. Heck, Bucky didn't want this for him. He didn't want to live a half life because the person with the other half was nowhere to be found.
But if it was one more plane trip or twenty more, if he found her. . . well, it'd be more than worth it.
Full of reassured determination, Bucky packed up his last shirt, tucked his wallet in his back pocket, and headed off. Before he left, he had one more stop to go. One more person to assist him.
He got into a taxi while the moon was still up and hopped out behind a restaurant. He climbed through a hole in the fence, looking around. Crickets were the only sound in the deserted land. "You can come out now." Bucky called into the air. "Praying mantis."
As if slingshotted from the stars, a redhead woman appeared from above. Her green eyes glared at Bucky with half amusement, half hatred. "The codeword was grasshopper, Barnes." She walks forward, a packet under her arm.
"Well, Nat, you know my memory has been spotty lately." A lot more than lately, actually.
She sighed. "Yeah, I don't care. I don't even approve of your little worldwide trek for this Janice Gilbert—"
"Jane Gilmore."
"I don't care. Steve should know," Nat argued. As she did every time since they'd run into each other in Puerto Rico, and instead of being brought in, Bucky had laid out his situation and begged her to provide intel in exchange for allowing Natasha to bring Bucky in when he finished, and for her to keep tabs on him, making sure he didn't cause trouble. "You might not know, but he's your best friend. He'd die for you." And Bucky was pretty sure he'd almost died for him. Anyways, every time Natasha brought this up. None of them had they been worth Bucky's time.
"He won't understand."
"You know, you shot someone I was protecting through me." Natasha shoved the package under her arm into Bucky's chest. "And now I'm going behind the backs of every intelligence agency who's keeping an eye on my back to deliver you some files about your ex. You're persuasive."
Bucky took a quick peak inside the files, more graceful to have Nat on his side then he could put into words. "No, I'm pitiful, and you're susceptible to pitiable people." He put the package inside his backpack while Natasha nodded guiltily. "What did you find this time?"
"Personal information about her life before Hydra. They'd been keeping tabs on her for a year before—"
"I know." He sure didn't need reminding. "Thank you, Natasha. I can't tell you how much this means to me." Neither of them were much for hugs, so a simple nod would do. Except, for what Natasha didn't love with touch, she smothered with words.
"Thank me by getting this over with." She grumbled, climbing the fence and preparing to leap back into whatever mysterious place she came from. Before the battered, black-haired man could part with her, though, the redhead spy turned back. "Bucky."
"Yeah?"
Her tone lost all of it's aggravated humor. "Don't play around with this. I can't promise you'll like what you'll see."
Bucky shrugged, continuing on his walk out of the city of light. "I don't expect to. Not until I find Jane."
The man had walked miles, miles, miles, and more miles until he was at a forest where an invisible line amongst the flora and fauna marked the border of France and Spain. Once crossed, he'd go to where Girona met the seas and find the Sedan Bridge yacht named Seas the Moment, because Natasha just had a golden sense of humor.
From there, he could go to Valencia, ask around for that little girl from so many years ago, probably a woman with years of age now, if she was still alive. If that failed, he was on his way inland to Toledo, to look for the man named Espinosa, though he was only called el Vidente. The Seer.
Before Shield broke apart, they claimed he was an agent who had gone mad; claimed to be able to see where everyone is, dead or alive. Bucky wasn't a small bit ashamed to say he believed in the supernatural, either. If this ex-agent could tell him where Jane was, he didn't care if the man used a crystal ball. As long as he didn't say she was dead.
As expected, the boat with shining gold lettering saying Seas the Moment appeared under the light of Bucky's flashlight. "Don't crash, don't crash, don't crash. . ." He murmured, taking the keys from the package Nat had given him and sending the boat off into the black waters. It'd been a while since he'd gotten his hands on a boat; he didn't ride them often.
However, his least favorite mode of transportation was by train, for obvious reason. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures.
In what seemed like no time, he went from watching the coast of Spain shift around until it became Valencia, a city with so many memories. . . it was sort of the beginning of the end, as Bucky saw it. Most of the memories were sickening, but it was also where Bucky had realized for the first time, how in love he was with Jane. And what he'd do for her.
And then. . .
Stop. Reminiscing won't fix anything,
He docked his boat and leapt out onto the beach, grateful for the cover of night as he scrambled into the city, camouflaging with the other people on the streets of the city, drinks and their loved one's hands in their grasps. None of these people could possibly know. . . their faces too young or betraying them as tourists. He needed to go deeper, past the shimmer and shine of the oceanfront resorts and restaurants.
Frustrated, Bucky pulled himself under the shade of a grocery store, thinking long and hard. If I can't figure this out. . . how would Jane do this? How would she think?
The realization hit him like a bag of bricks. Of course. . . she'd go to where it all began.
Like fire was licking his heels, he picked up his pace, running behind Parc Gulliver, where the tiny apartment where the Arzamendia family had been all the way back in 1969 lay inside a red building. Rising up the stairs as the sun rose in the sky, he came to same place he'd been years ago, with a shaking Jane at his side and a loaded gun in his hand. A mission poisoning his head.
Apartment 308. The faded white door was now a new, polished salmon pink. Sucking in a breath, he knocked. And waited. Waited. Waited. Until— a man appeared, likely in his mid-sixties. With a thick Spanish accent and tongue, he spoke. "Aye! I don't wanna buy what your selling, gringo. And I don't wanna give you directions either, so. . . so. . ." His eyes gradually widened as he surveyed the face of the young man who'd been at his door decades ago. Still the same face.
"What in the devil. . ."
"If I may have a moment of your time," it didn't take a moment for Bucky to remember his name. After all this time, he still never forgot the dozens of names belonging to those whose lives he took or ruined. "Rubén. I won't take long at all." When the man—his black hair that had evaded the bald spots now streaked with grey, his olive skin covered in wrinkles—didn't move, Bucky gently forced his way through the threshold.
"I am sorry, Mr. Arzamendia. I only want to ask a few questions—"
"How are you alive!" The man's voice shook and screamed so loudly, Bucky might've feared he'd bring the voice down. "Forty-eight years! I saw you forty-eight years ago! How did you not age a day!"
Holding his hands out towards the man from Bucky's past, Bucky talked in calm, easy Spanish. "When you saw me, you also saw a girl. She looked like this." Slowly, he took her picture from his back pocket in his wallet, holding it forward.
Rubén took tiny steps forward, glaring at it. "I recognize her, yes." He nodded, mostly to himself as he backtracked into the kitchen, acting like the cabinets were protective from the soldier from the man's childhood.
"Do you know where your sister is, so that I can ask her a question about this girl—" Bucky's voice caught in his throat when the man lunged forward, a pistol pointed between Bucky's black eyes. The man's hands weren't even shaking. Only pure determination in his eyes. A hunger for vengeance Bucky was all too familiar with.
He laughed, cold and calloused. "I'll tell you all about my sister, diablo. You may have questions, but I have a story." He shoved the barrel into Bucky's chest, forcing him into a dusty lime green chair. "And you're going to listen."
Thank you for reading this chapter of Snow and Winter! In the next chapter, everything about Jane, Bucky, and the Arzamendia family is explained out in 1969 time. I would like to thank my beta reader, SpiderParker7, and ask you all to go follow her account. They'll be uploading a Stranger Things fanfiction soon, and it's going to be amazing. Please leave a comment, favorite, and follow. Thank you!
