Hello all! Thanks for the wonderful support, it always makes my day.

So, this chapter takes place between chapters 6 and 7 in "This Is Where We Start". Also, I'm posting these stories online because I am working on becoming a better writer. I wanted to try something a little different on this chapter, because I think Bucky would be really complicated. So feel free to let me know what you think of this style or what I could work on!

Bucky

Almost similar stories.

That was how Natasha had said it. They had almost similar stories. But what did Natasha know of his story. What did Natasha know of almost. She knew the facts, the effect his life had had on other people although she couldn't understand the effect his life had on him. And she might have even been able to feel a small amount of empathy for someone else somewhere deep, deep inside of her stony exterior. But what right did she have to say that he and this small, strange, white haired little girl have anything in common.

The girl healed people.

He destroyed them. Even the ones he didn't kill.

There was nothing similar. He had lost his memories, sure. But he had also gained them all back. She hadn't, and she wouldn't. She got a new slate. A chance to start over. He got nightmares and guilt and pain in his chest every time he saw someone he knew because if he knew them, if they knew him, then he had hurt them somehow. Couldn't anyone see that? Couldn't Steve? Was it that hard to be able to understand why he preferred strangers? He was a monster, not a small innocent girl who had no problems holding onto metal hands.

Natasha had no right to compare him to her.

Then again, the white haired girl wasn't what she seemed. She had healed his messed up mind, or, at least, the messed up part that usually caused him to have no choice in his awful actions. She had taken a shot for him. A bullet. She had grabbed a man and pressed him into electric bars and burned herself in the process of trying to kill someone else. She had burnt her own arms and hadn't complained about them once. She had fried a person and hadn't even blinked. Then she had asked him to drag around the corpse so that they could use the corpse's fingerprints. She had set the Hulk loose. Even worse, she had set him loose and trusted him.

Natasha hadn't seen what Georgiana became when she became desperate, but maybe Natasha had gotten just enough of a glimpse to guess. Maybe Natasha was right. Maybe he and the white haired girl where almost.

They both knew what it was like to be pressed up against a wall. No one else knew what that felt like. Natasha and Clint, they could understand, but they could also disappear when they wanted to. Wanda and Vision, they were too powerful to be kept from doing what they wanted. Tony and Steve, they always did what they thought was for the best, they had somehow achieved that privilege in life. Bruce may not like turning into the Hulk, but the Hulk would be able to eventually get him out of something he didn't want to be a part of. Only he and the white haired girl knew the caged feeling.

He and her were almost. After all.

She had broken down in the underground tunnel earlier today. After she had reached for his metal hand. After she had intertwined their fingers as if it were natural. As if it was a comfort. She had called herself a monster. As if she saw herself as a monster instead of him and the metal hand she held.

He had expected to feel pain at that, when she called herself that. He hadn't. It had made him feel better, actually. Because he had looked down at her as she called herself a monster and had just known that she wasn't one. And if he could know this about her, then maybe he could try to believe it when Steve said it to him. It was like she was healing him without even having to use her powers. She was a strange almost.

Now she was sitting on a wooden swing with bare feet in the middle of the night, and he was sitting with his back leaning on the trunk of a tree, waiting for her to fall asleep. It had been a long day, she should have fallen asleep hours ago, when everyone else had. Instead, she was still staring up at the stars and glancing over at him. He wondered what she saw in her glances. Could she feel that they were almost?

He fell asleep before she did. He woke up to find that she had pulled a blanket over him and had put a pillow behind his head, as if to protect his hair from the bark of the tree. She had also wrapped a blanket around herself and was resting her head on a pillow that she had shoved into the side of his leg. He knew what she was doing. If he moved, she thought the pillow would move and then she would wake up. But she was too deep asleep for that to work, even if she had planned for it to.

Why in the world was she half snuggled into his side? He felt odd. Almost like a seasick feeling. Gently, because he was still confused if she was fragile or tough, or maybe both, he lifted her from the ground and quietly carried her back to her room. She had reached for his metal hand earlier today, but he felt pain at the idea of touching her with it. He made sure that there was a blanket between that arm and her. He put her under the quilt in her bedroom. He left her so she could sleep in peace.

He should leave in the morning. Things would be better for everyone if he did. Trouble always followed him, as it does to every monster. Even monsters who were healed and could no longer be told what to do without being given a choice.

He almost left right then, just to make sure he really did. Almost.

He couldn't completely get himself to do it. Surely it wouldn't hurt or change anything if he stayed one more day.