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When in Romania

"And I can't help but wonder out loud
If only we could go back to square one,
If finally we could pinpoint where we lost touch;
I stand alone, reaching out my hand to you,"

—Survivor, "Oceans"

X: Lies by Omission, Part I

Clint hesitates, but he doesn't ask the obvious question. He tweaks Milena's stance by nudging her feet apart, explains how she should distribute her weight and how to position her arms, and how to make a fist.

"First off, no," he says. "That's a sure way to break a finger."

She sniffles every now and then, but listens to him intently and executes his instructions with careful movements. By the time she tries out punching his hands, she's stopped crying and completely focused on the impromptu boxing lesson.

"Before you try it on the bag, put on some gloves. You'll wreck your shit doing what you were doing."

There's a rack of them near the free weights, so he finds a small enough pair that'll fit her and helps her strap them on correctly, then directs her in how to use the punching bag.

"If the joints in your arms or shoulders hurt after a few swings, you're doing it wrong," Clint says, delivers a few quick jabs to demonstrate. "Do it just like that, but slower. Do this enough times and maybe those noodle arms will be good for somethin'."

Milena gives him a sidelong look, but the tease has its intended effect and gets a small smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

He supervises her while continuing his own strength conditioning, barking out corrections and tips every so often. It reminds him of his SHIELD days, when he and Nat used to break in the new recruits. They were given the top scorers, the best of the batch, and that's what he liked about it. They were raw, but they were the ones with the most potential. He saw a lot of that in Wanda when he first met her, and even more now that Steve and Natasha had spent a couple years training her and helping her focus her mind.

He can't say that Milena needs all that, but if she's gunna be hanging around with a bunch of (extremely wanted) Avengers and dating the Winter Soldier (also extremely wanted), Clint figures learning how to punch is a good start. With all of them combined, Clint doesn't even want to hazard a guess as to how long their laundry list of enemies goes.

"Why don't you pick up some weights? Nothing crazy. Five pounds to start," he suggests after he notices Milena leaning heavily against the punching bag and panting for air. She peels the gloves off her hands and tosses them to the floor. But when she plops down onto the mats next to him and drops her sweaty head into her hands, Clint gets a hunch that the waterworks are about to start again.

"Okay." Clint nods and pauses from his crunches, sets his own weights down next to him and sits up. "We're gettin' to it now, huh?"

She shakes her head, tucks her knees up to her chest and holds onto her legs with shaky, fatigued arms.

"I just…I can't do anything right." After a few seconds of waiting for her to continue, Clint looks over at her with expectant eyebrows. Her gaze is pinned to the floor.

"So," he starts casually, "what started the pity party?"

With an exasperated huff, Milena shoves his arm and snaps, "Are you incapable of sensitivity, or is it just a personal preference?"

He laughs and holds up his hands in surrender.

"All right, go on. What was so bad you came in here lookin' like a drowned cat?"

She sighs and crosses her legs on the mat, leaning her elbows on her thighs. Staring at the far wall is easier than looking at Clint, whose eyes are too sharp and too focused on her. She doesn't want to open the door, the one even Bucky hasn't tried to pry.

But if Milena doesn't let something out, she might just short fuse and have the nervous break she's been avoiding since being imprisoned on the Raft.

"You know when you…force yourself to forget," she starts. "Because you have to."

Clint nods marginally. Now he knows what kind of conversation this is going to be. "Sure."

She sighs shakily, clenching her hands over her knees. "I haven't thought about my mother in a long time."

Clint glances over at her. It takes another minute for her to collect herself, but eventually she gets there.

"She…died. When I was young," she confesses. "Even then, I knew it was…difficult for her, to be married to my father. She still tried to teach me things."

How to be kind. How to understand bitter, empty people.

Milena shakes her head. "When she was gone, I felt like…I hadn't done enough for her. And then, like I had disappointed her."

"Why?" Clint asks. She couldn't tell him that. Not really.

"When I could, I let myself forget her, and everything." That much is the truth. She feels the burn of it behind her eyes again.

Clint sighs, and scrubs at his face. "You can beat yourself up however much you want, but it's not gunna change what happened, or how it happened."

"I know that," Milena says, glancing at him with an edge of irritation.

"Do you?" Clint asks pointedly. But he feels bad enough for her that he shakes his head at himself and rubs the back of his neck. "Look kid, everyone makes shitty decisions. Maybe you were young and scared, and selfish along the way. Fine. But you're grown now."

"I know," she glares at him. In fact, it's weird to think she's actually older than Clint.

"Would you let me fucking finish?" he sighs. Her lips purse, but she stays quiet.

"You can't get rid of whatever you bury," he says. "You can deal with it, and you move on, and you live your life. Or you don't."

They sit in relative silence for a while, side by side while a few of the Wakandan staff use their breaks to run on the treadmill or ride the stationary bikes. It's when the silence starts to get uncomfortable for Milena that Clint finally asks the question she thought she'd successfully avoided.

"So what happened to make this can a' worms open up?"

.

.

.

That night, Mila draws a fork through her mashed potatoes.

"Self-defense?" Bucky asks around a mouthful of chicken. "Like, lessons?"

"Yes." She looks at him curiously. "Why do you sound so surprised?"

"Well…you sense people coming before you see them."

"Okay, yes. But—"

"You can neutralize a threat before it touches you," he says. "That's a pretty good defense."

The others eating at the table shoot glances their way, but keep their "attention" to their own food and smaller conversations. Even Steve keeps to himself on this one, but he's not fooling anyone with his shifty eyes.

Milena puts down her fork and tilts her head at the man sitting across from her.

"Somehow I thought you'd be more enthusiastic about this," she says. For a war veteran and former assassin, she thought he'd want to teach her himself. "I don't mean combat training. Just some basic moves."

Bucky just stares at her, but she feels his conflicted emotions churning underneath. But why, she wonders. It's not that big a deal.

"Look, she didn't even know how to throw a decent punch until today," Clint speaks up from her right. "With the amount of shit we attract, it's probably a good idea."

Bucky only glances at Clint before his eyes meet hers again.

"Could we talk about this later?" he asks, purposefully in Russian. Milena blinks.

"Why? We're talking now." His brows furrow.

"In private."

"Why do we need to talk in private? It's a simple thing."

Bucky is visibly thrown off then, and she bites her lip in a nervous habit.

"Why did you just…?" he asks in confusion. She just answered him in Romanian.

"I don't know. It just came out." She bits her lip as she fidgets with the napkin by her plate. His eyes narrow slightly as he notices.

"What do you mean?"

"What—"

"Uh…hey, lovebirds," Scott cuts in from next to Clint, waving his fork. "We're all still here. But I mean, we can all clear out if you need."

Both turn their heads and give him similar looks, and he withers a little at realizing that it's the Winter Soldier giving him a death glare. He seems to realize how he could literally die a multitude of creative deaths right now, just with that fork clutched in the guy's metal hand.

"Uh, never mind. That was…stupid of me. Please continue in whatever language that was…uh, happening in."

Steve wants to cover his face with his hand. He can't actually remember the last time he had second-hand embarrassment for someone, but he buries it down and drinks his soda while discreetly watching out for Bucky. He looks uncomfortable.

Milena shakes her head with a huff of a breath, but her eyes flick to Bucky's awkwardly. He avoids it by picking at the chicken on his plate.

After a moment of extended, painful silence, Sam sighs heavily.

"Yo, Tic Tac. Pass me the mashed potatoes before you eat that foot you've got shoved up your mouth."

"He's got this big room with all kinds of tech," Scott explains while he washes dishes and Milena dries. Clint and Wanda sit at the kitchen island they've basically turned into a bar. Clint holds a scotch on the rocks (now that he's cleared of pain meds) and Wanda with a book.

"Something about the supercomputers intermittently shorting out the circuit boards, and if there was anything they could do to correct the power balancing problem."

"Doesn't he have people to figure that out for him?" Clint asks.

"Oh yeah. Shuri, his little sister—that girl's basically a genius. You met her yet?"

"Ooh, yes," Wanda nods. "At the memorial feast for King T'Chaka a couple months ago."

"She was lovely," Milena agrees. "It was so sweet to see her grab T'Challa by the hand and get him to dance with her."

She thought it was especially sweet to see him offer his mother Ramonda a dance. What an elegant woman she is, too, Milena thinks, remembering the flowing, raven-wing gown the Queen Mother wore with grace Milena could only hope to have.

"Well, she thinks my suit is cool," Scott grins. "Wanted to see how it worked. I ended up having to shrink down and jump in between the panels, alter some wiring lines…I'd explain but—"

"It's fine. You really don't have to."

Scott shoots Clint a bland look and contemplates dropping the plates into the sink hard enough splash soapy water in the archer's direction. But with Scott's luck, he'd just get himself drenched. Or worse, he'd manage to get dirty dish water on Milena or Wanda. Both can feasibly make his life miserable without lifting a finger.

"After that he wanted me to look at some new tech they're developing…up close."

"He wanted you to, or you pestered his ass until he let you to shut you up?" Clint asks knowingly. Scott sighs, but doesn't deny it.

"You're good at building things?" Milena asks, drying and shelving the last of the silverware.

"I'm no Stark, but I like tinkering," Scott shrugs. "Got to play with some cool toys, not gunna lie."

"What kinda toys?" Clint asks. His eyes are glinting with thinly veiled curiosity at the prospect of new weaponry. He doesn't know a whole lot about this country yet, but getting a look at the royal armory would be interesting.

Scott gives a half-apologetic look before handing off the last clean plate to Milena.

"Wish I could tell ya. They're real hush, hush about that stuff. Made me sign a form and everything."

"What is it with you boys and your guns and machinery?" Wanda asks. For the first time in a while, her gray eyes glance up from her book.

"We like shiny things," Scott grins. Her brow arches, and Milena senses her amusement.

"Not all of us have magic powers to fight the bad guys," Clint teases. Wanda subtly rolls her eyes at him. She doesn't see the allure in guns or knives, or any weapon really. Natasha made sure she knew how to shoot a gun just to cover the bases of training, but Wanda has no intention of ever shooting one if she can help it.

"You don't use guns, Clint," Milena points out.

"I'm a marksman. There are few weapons I haven't handled, or mastered." He doesn't say that in a prideful way, just factual. Milena believes him.

She's never even held a gun before. The closest she's ever gotten to a weapon is her kitchen knives, but she used to catch Bucky twirling them enough to know that he's very comfortable with weapons. She saw the footage from the bridge in D.C., too.

She chances a glance over at the living room and only sees the back of his head; him, Steve, and Sam are watching some action movie with fighting robots that change into cars and planes and things (she likes action films, but those kinds aren't her favorite).

Milena can't move things with her mind, or even half of what Wanda can do. Hell, she doesn't even have a quarter of Bucky's strength or agility or speed; in a lot of ways, the serum her father made was a watered down and altered version of ones they had used on Bucky, with several chemicals added in that cancelled out some of those enhancements, in favor of others. If he was right about being hunted, then just knowing how to sucker punch isn't going to be enough.

She knows what she told Bucky, but maybe she should think a little harder about what she could learn from having Hawkeye as a teacher.

Two days though. That is not enough time for her stamina to have improved any. She doesn't care what Clint says.

"You know, you're a bit ambitious for someone who can't do ten pushups," Clint remarks. "No one's puttin' pressure on you to do this but you, you know."

"Look." She sets her hands on her hips and leans back from her "ready" stance. "This isn't just some exercise in self-confidence. In the long run, this will give him peace of mind too."

"He doesn't even know you wanna do this, does he?" Clint asks knowingly. Milena sighs, making the archer roll his eyes.

She and Bucky hadn't specifically talked about it, but that night she apologized for acting the way she did at dinner, and Bucky apologized for how he'd reacted. And yes, he thought her learning to protect herself more practically was a good idea. He just didn't want her to get hurt in the process.

She promised him that she'd be careful.

"I'm starting to get why he's so moody."

"He is not—"

"You've got enough to hash out with this guy as it is." Clint gestures at her. "And you're gunna add 'secret combat training' to the list?"

What almost makes him laugh is how she thinks she'll be able to keep secrets from someone like Barnes, when she can't even lie with a straight face about how the last few chocolate chip cookies Sam made went "missing."

"He already thinks you're teaching me how to disarm assailants," Milena throws her hands up flippantly. "Might as well add knife wielding and gun shooting."

"Whoa, whoa. Slow you're roll," Clint says, holding up a hand. "We've got a lot of work to do before you get even close to a weapon."

"Great," she says gamely (even though her arms and nonexistent abs protest).

"What's first?"

Literally the worst idea you've ever had, she thinks to herself when she's finally out of the shower and only half-dressed in front of the mirror. The bright overhead lights in the bathroom make her wet, stringy hair and the large bruise on her sternum look fantastic. But that doesn't bother her as much as the fatigue in every non-athletic muscle in her body.

I'm starting to think I wasn't meant for any physical activity that requires heavy machinery, mats, or boxing gloves, she thinks sourly.

Milena huffs and lets the blue oversized dress shirt fall in favor of grabbing her comb. She found that particular article of clothing hanging on the towel rack. No surprise there. She's notorious for leaving things hanging off chairs and doorknobs…any available corner really. It's convenient, and it sometimes drives Bucky a little crazy (his things are almost always in order). She threw on the shirt because she hasn't done her laundry in a week. It hangs down to her thighs, which tells her it's one of the ones she "borrowed."

"Isn't this mine?"

Milena shrieks as her comb flies out of her hands to clatter in the sink. She whirls around and her wet hair whips against a broad chest. But when familiar hands sooth down her sides, she sighs in exasperation while Bucky laughs—a full-throated laugh that almost has Milena melting at how bright his smile is. Well someone's in a good mood.

"Why do you do that?" she whines. When he really tries (and when he's feeling particularly playful), he can and will use his sneaky stealthy-ness to scare the shit out of her. Just like he used to hide her things at the shop and frustrate the delicate balance of her organized chaos.

She grabs onto Bucky's grimy arms anyway. He smells like sawdust and dried sweat, and she can see his shirt is still damp with it even after the long car ride back to the palace.

"Teaches you not to be so distracted," he smirks, greeting her with a languid kiss that she pulls away from before it can make her too much weaker at the knees. He really does smell.

"I get enough of that from Clint," she says dryly. Turning in his arms, she reaches for her discarded comb and finishes getting out the tangles from her dark hair. Distracting her, however, are the hands palming down her body and under the shirt, not to mention the scruff scratching her shoulder deliciously after one of her sleeves is tugged down.

"Good day today?" she asks knowingly.

"We only have a couple houses left. Almost everyone who wants to has been able to move back into their homes." His lips move against her skin, making her shiver involuntarily. He smiles and sweeps her newly combed, wet hair to the side (smells like the flowers she used to keep in the shop). His lips move to the sensitive spot on her neck that makes her turn to mush inside.

"That's great," Milena breathes, biting her lip when his hair starts tickling her ear. She watches him through the mirror and grins. "Why don't you celebrate with a shower?"

"I'm not that bad," he chuckles, and glances at them in the mirror. First at her—soft brown eyes watching him take her in—then at himself. His hair and clothes are a mess, and he thinks not in a good way, like hers. Not for the first time, he eyes the facial hair he's been sporting for roughly seven decades, shaving just enough to keep from looking like his old self. His hair could use a trim, too. It's brushing past his shoulders now.

He looks too much like the Soldier. All that's missing is his old suit.

"I should shave," Bucky muses. He doesn't entirely realize he's said that out loud until he sees Milena's gaze turn questioning.

"You do shave," she says.

"I mean…"

"Like, the whole thing?" He nods, making her tilt her head thoughtfully.

"I've never seen you clean-shaven. I mean, I've seen the old pictures, but…" She smiles. "You'll look handsome either way, I think."

Bucky's brows raise as his mouth tugs upwards.

"Really?" he states more than asks. It has Milena smiling more.

"You really did have that charming soldier look down, but I…don't mind the scruff. I actually kind of like it." There's a blush at the end of that that piques Bucky's curiosity. Because when she says kind of, she usually means a lot.

"Oh yeah?" His hands find her hips again. "Why?"

He meets her eyes in the mirror head on with his own until she finds her voice and raises her hand to his cheek.

"It really is handsome. And feels nice," she admits, flushing a brighter shade of red as his beard prickles against her hand, "…in places."

Bucky smirks and kisses her palm. "Good to know."

His hands move on her, but they both tense when his fingers tease over ribs, and she winces. It's obviously pain, not pleasure.

"Don't worry about it—" she starts to say, but Bucky's already lifting the hem of her (his) shirt. Not even the sight of her bright red underwear distracts him from seeing the large, yellowing bruise marring her skin.

"It'll be gone in a couple hours," Milena promises. She winces again at the deceptively blank look on his face (it's not hard to pick up what he's feeling, even without being able to literally feel it).

"It was my fault. He told me to dodge one way and I—"

"This is a bit aggressive for the first day." His voice is quiet, but the intensity in his eyes is unmistakable.

"Well, technically it's the second day," she says. By the way his lips purse, she knows that didn't help.

"Look, accidents happen. And it really was my fault," she insists. Her hands lead his away from the bruise and pull the shirt back down. "We'd been practicing the same thing for a while, so I told him not to go easy on me. I was tired enough that I confused what he said and bam. He felt so bad about it, he got me ice and everything."

Actually, he tossed her a mild "oops," and told her to catch her breath and shake it off before they tried it again. If the look on Bucky's face was anything to go by, he called her bluff.

"It's really not that bad. It doesn't even hua-ha-haaa…" Bucky lets her push his hand away from the tender spot, but the point is made and his raised brows say everything for him.

"That was mean," Milena glares at him. "It's just one stupid bruise. It'll go away by the time we finish watching the movie we started last night. And we're going to finish it this time."

Despite his lingering dark thoughts, Bucky smirks.

"How do expect me to concentrate on anything else when you're like this?" He gestures to her current outfit. Then his fingers skim up her bare thigh and hip, bunching fabric up to her waist. "You make my goddamn shirt look like…"

"A satin nighty?" she teases. He smirks.

"Maybe better." And all he really wants to do is rip it off.

"It's comfortable," she insists with a grin. To be fair, sometimes she does forget that he's from a time when women didn't lounge around in little more than their underwear. "But if you don't want me wearing it, you can certainly have it back!"

She starts to pull it off (it's big enough that she doesn't need to unbutton it), but Bucky's hands stop her.

"Keep it," he says, even though he knows he's not going to pay attention to any movie. "You…look good in blue."

"All kinds of blue, or just navy blue?" she asks cheekily. She remembers from the online pictures she saw of the Captain America exhibit in D.C., his old Howling Commando uniform was a similar color. It's pretty much why she wore that dress to the memorial feast. She even tried to style her hair and makeup at least a little like the classic '40s look, though she doesn't think she got it quite right.

But I could always try again, she muses.

"Navy's good," Bucky says predictably. He tries to pull her close, but she stops him with her hands against his chest. She gives him a teasing, but firm look.

"Not until you shower."

They end up in her bed after dinner, watching Red 2 on a laptop. This is the kind of action flick Milena can get behind, although she wonders if the Russian assassins part of the plot is hitting a bit too close to home. But she doesn't sense any discomfort from him—only his focus on what's going on between Bruce Willis' character Frank Moses, a retired CIA agent, and his girlfriend Sarah, a civilian who wants nothing more than to be included in the dangerous situations Frank finds himself in while being targeted by old enemies.

Actually, the more Milena thinks about it, maybe this wasn't the best thing to watch. But they already saw the first movie with Sam and Steve, so it only made sense to watch the second one.

"You okay?" she asks when she sees Bucky frowning, his brows furrowed.

"This lady's gunna get herself killed."

"It's a comedy, Bucky. I highly doubt it."

"If this was real—"

"That's true for most people in movies." He shoots her a look, but his frown stays in place, especially when one of Frank's gifts to Sarah (in a black velvet box and everything) is a shiny new gun, just in time for him to send her off to corner a potentially dangerous Iranian ambassador alone.

Now, Bucky usually enjoys movies. Even romance ones, as long as they aren't too sappy. But by the time the credits roll and Milena closes the laptop, he feels…unsettled. And he knows Mila's already picked up on it by the way her hand soothes up and down his arm—the one that can actually really feel it.

"Well, it was supposed to be a lighthearted comedy," she jokes. It gets the corner of his mouth to lift a little.

"Sorry," he offers, and leans back against the headboard with all her pillows behind him. "I know, it's just a movie."

"It's okay. I know what bothered you about it." Milena smiles slightly and rolls toward him, so she can slide her arms across his chest and rest her head against his shoulder.

"Look, right now this place is safe. But we both know one day, we'll be somewhere that isn't," she says. Her hand grips his where it rests over her stomach. "Sometime soon, you'll have to trust me to protect myself."

"I do trust you," he says eventually. Somehow though, he knows she's right. The problem is, while he doesn't want her to have to fight, he fears what would happen if she's ever taken from him. Especially if it was because of him.

.

.

.

Most of his sanctioned kills were single shots. Long distance, and clean. His targets would be dead before they realized they were a target. That night, he dreams about a messier one.

He hadn't missed, but it's not a confirmed kill.

"The Asset can't be seen," they told him. Except if he's required to give chase.

The target tries to slip out the back of the rickety building, down the fire escape. He moves—jumps from the roof of the next building over and lands yards behind. He follows, snow barely crunching underneath his boots, and yet the target is just slightly faster. Even wounded and dragging the hand of someone smaller (possible second target), a dark braid of hair flies behind her. He'll wait to shoot until he can shepherd the target into a more contained area.

She makes it easy for him by ducking into an alleyway.

Sloppy, he thinks.

He turns the corner seconds after her and at first finds the alley empty, until he's forced to dodge a serrated knife that glints in the darkness. He has at least sixty pounds on the target, but he knows better than to underestimate, especially when the edge of her knife (and a few of her blows) eventually finds its mark in a long scratch down his arm, cutting through leather and barely slicing skin. She was trained well.

It's all the focus he needs to disarm and stun her with a solid punch to the ribs. In a flash, his gun is in his hands.

The target goes down after two slugs, point blank in the stomach.

His grip on her leather jacket allows her to slide down the wall all the way to the floor. Her dark eyes stare up at him with cold resignation—until a whimper pierces the silence. The target's gaze shifts, and his does too. A child. A boy with round eyes filled with tears, staring at the target. Staring at him.

Scared. He's scared, is the thought that makes the Asset hesitate to raise his gun.

"Go," the target barks. "Don't look behind you."

After a moment's hesitation, the child stumbles from behind the dumpster and disappears. The Asset looks back at his target, slumped against the wall. The snow underneath her is stained black.

"Let him go," she begs him, even while struggling for every pained breath. "He doesn't…know HYDRA. I only…wanted to keep it that way."

Behind the mask and goggles, the Asset regards her with silent curiosity. He isn't too concerned about catching up to the second target, but something in the woman's eyes…no. Former agent. The agent makes him pause.

"Please," she begs again. Her once cold eyes turn glassy brown, filled with things the Asset can't identify.

He turns from her, pockets his gun while her eyes close, and makes his way out of the alley. The second target isn't hard to find, running down the nearly empty, snow-covered road. It takes less effort to corner down another alley, closed off at the end. Large eyes stare up at him. Scared.

He hears their voices in his head, remembers the things they carved in there like a brand.

The Asset can't be seen.

Bucky bolts straight up in bed, quickly realizing it's not his bed. Or the room he's come to think of as his.

"Oh, thank goodness," he hears, and feels gentle hands on his arms, her voice coaxing him to breathe. Finally he meets her eyes in the darkness and already starts feeling calmed by them, even before they start glowing. The longer he holds her hands, the more the panic fades, and eventually he's able to breathe normally. But the images are still at the forefront of his mind—snow and darkness and blood.

"Can I ask you to do something?" Bucky asks, so he can hear her voice block out theirs. Milena looks up at him sadly.

"What do you need?" she answers in English, making him frown.

"Make this one go away," he says. He needs her to make the memory fade, at least for a few hours. "Please."

It's her turn to frown, the sadness in her brown eyes growing, but he doesn't understand why they start filling with tears.

"I don't know if I should," she says. It surprises him to the point of confusion.

"I'm asking you to," he insists.

"But would it help you? Really, in the long run?" Milena squeezes his hands, both in support and for emphasis. "Can you tell me what you saw?"

Bucky swallows past the painful ache in his chest. The thought of even trying to tell her makes his stomach churn.

"All this time, I've been making it worse, haven't I?" she says, shuddering as she blinks past tears. Bucky stares at her blankly.

"The hell are you talking about?" he asks incredulously. Without her, he probably wouldn't be functioning.

"I know why you can't sleep, Bucky. I've seen some of it," Milena says, "and yet you still can't talk about it, because you won't let yourself. And that's partially my fault."

Bucky lets go of her hands so he can rub at his tired face. When his hair falls into his eyes, he brushes it back in frustration.

"How the hell is that your fault?" he asks. He doesn't understand how she can blame herself for his decisions. He leans forward and gently takes her face in his hands, but she's avoiding him and biting her lip the way she does when she's hiding something.

"The same way you think me being here is your fault," she says. "But now I know for sure…I'm letting you do what I've done to myself."

Bucky's heart breaks a little when the tears in her eyes finally start falling, but his thumbs wipe them away as soon as they do.

"If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be," he says. "I'd be frozen in a box downstairs."

When she flinches, Bucky represses a guilty sigh and kisses her forehead, even as his brows furrow again in confusion.

"I don't get it," he says earnestly. "Where the fuck is this coming from, Mila?"

He tries to get her to meet his eyes, but Milena continues to avoid him, until he tilts her chin up and gives her a firm look. He'll wait as long as it takes for her to answer him.

Eventually, she lets out a long sigh.

"I was in the library a few days ago…"

You know what, we need some more Steve and Sam up in here. I'll get on that for next time.