Author's Note: Since I know I left the story as a big cliffhanger, and with the requests for a sequel, I have now finished the completion of this tale. It is fully written and mostly edited. I'll post every couple of days as the editing gets done. I hope that you enjoy, and please let me know what you think. So, since the only date previously given was when Steve and Star met was June, I have now included a more detailed timeline of the previous Epilogue AKA Chapter 42 for Act: One (as it's now to be thought of). The two events did not happen on the same day, but almost six weeks apart. Everything previously written still stands. FYI: Star and Steve have talked and had lunch a couple of times since their first meeting, getting to know each other.


Act: Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Song: Alone by I Prevail


Mid-June
Over One Week After Steve and Star Met

"On your left," Steve's voice came from behind the two of them as they casually jogged around the reflecting pool.

"Yeah, we get it," Sam sarcastically called out to him as he passed them yet again while she and Sam were still barely at the beginning of their first and only lap.

"Is he always like that?" Star asked Sam as Steve's form was already shrinking in the distance.

"Unfortunately, yes. Every damn lap. The worst part is that he isn't even showing off yet," Sam told her as they made the turn. "All Steve told me was that a friend of his was going to be joining us this morning, but I figured that I knew all five of his friends."

"We only met about a week ago," she started, guessing that Steve had intentionally not told Sam too much, wanting to give her the opportunity let Sam know only what she wanted him to know about her and Scary…Bucky. There was no way she was going to get used to calling him that. "We have a mutual friend. When we were talking, I made the mistake of mentioning that I've been running marathons for almost thirty years, so how could I turn down an offer to run with Captain America? Little did I know it was actually going to be a dose of humility."

"So, Lucy, do you work here in Washington?" Sam asked, trying to be subtle with his interrogation.

She had asked Steve to only call her Star when they were alone, so he had introduced her to Sam as what everyone whom they met would call her. Only Scary and Steve would know the name Star.

"Yes, I'm a special agent with the F.B.I.," she answered, which made Sam give her a very narrowed suspicious look. She could understand considering what Sam knew from the S.H.I.E.L.D. collapse and Scary's true identity. So he decided to alleviate some of his worry with, "I work in the Human Trafficking section specializing in sex traffickers."

Well, now the suspicious look had been replaced with curiousness.

"That's not a job for the faint of heart," he told her as they turned down a tree-lined path.

"You're telling me?" she joked with him, wondering what Sam would do if she told him the full truth. But even though Steve said that Sam could be trusted, along with Natasha Romanoff whom she had seen talking with the congressional panel, she was not just suddenly going to trust everyone. Even with Hydra being exposed, she remembered Scary's lessons on being careful. So she would only trust Steve for now.

For the next half hour, they jogged around the park and reflecting pool once, while Steve lapped them about five times. Star remembered watching him before their first meeting, and it was not something that one got used to easily she guessed. His speed was still an impressive sight today. Sam led her over to a small cluster of trees to give them some shade as they sat on the grass to cool down. Steve was still finishing his lap on the other side of the pool from them.

"So how did you meet Steve?" she asked, pushing a loose bobby pin back in that was holding her braid into a bun.

"Just like that," he pointed across the way at the sprinting man. "Back in April, on my normal morning run, he passed by me, doing that damn 'on you left'. Around the third time, I figured that it was his way of mocking me."

"Let me guess…you then tried to keep up with that," she then pointed at where Steve was heading towards them.

"Yeah. I think I about burst a lung," Sam said as Steve came to a stop near them.

"Finished making us look bad?" Star asked Steve.

"For today, yes," he grinned at them.

Glancing at her watch, Star saw that she had just enough time to get home, clean herself up and get to the morning briefing.

"Well, look at that. It's the time when people who are not superheroes need to go get ready for real work," she grinned at them as she stood up. She knew that Steve and Sam did a lot of classified stuff still, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up to tease them.

"Real work?" Sam smartly asked at her jest.

"Hanging out with Steve all day does not count as work," she joked with Sam.

"You have no idea how much work it is trying to keep him alive!" Sam told her, pointing at Steve.

"I am not that bad," Steve tried to defend himself.

Turning to her, Sam informed her, "By the third time we met, he was knocking on my door early in the morning because someone tried to blow him up with a missile."

"Ooo. Sam definitely wins this one, Steve," she smiled.

"Thank you!" Sam nodded in her direction.

"Would you be free Saturday night for dinner?" Steve asked her.

They only had a few moments earlier before Sam arrived to chat so she knew that Steve wanted to meet up to talk again.

"Sure. How about you come to my place, though? I'll cook us something instead of a noisy restaurant. Say six o'clock?" she offered.

"Sounds great," Steve answered at her suggestion.

"I'll text you my address. It was nice meeting you, Sam. And Steve, don't torture Sam...too much," Star laughingly requested.

"Not any more than I normally would," he smiled back at her while Sam threw his hands into the air in mock annoyance.

As she walked away, Star began to think about work, wondering if she would finally get the phone call she had been waiting for. Hopefully something would come from Alan, her contact from the Bureau who had been established for some time now inside of O'Connell's organization. They had managed to raid a few of their shipments, but she knew that many more made it past them. To be able to bring that family down after so long, especially after what they had done to her, she could finally retire knowing she had truly gotten a bit of revenge on them.


"So, you just happen to have a new friend who is an F.B.I. agent, and you are not the least bit suspicious of her true intentions?" Sam asked him as they both normally jogged back towards the edge of the park where they would split to head to their separate ways home.

"I know exactly what Lucy's true intentions are," he told Sam with a sly smile, which of course got him a raised eyebrow. "You can trust her."

"Sure. Because there is no way that she is a Hydra sleeper agent or really trying to get information on your best buddy so she can bring him in and make a name for herself," Sam sarcastically mocked him, bringing a smile to Steve's face.

"See, I knew that you understood," he joked back, putting on just a bit of speed.

"Oh, come on!" Sam yelled at his back.

He had wondered if Star would tell Sam about the true nature of their friendship…mainly that she knew Bucky and how she did. She had spent thirty frightened years of keeping quiet and not trusting, so he should not be surprised that it would take more than just one meeting for her to trust Sam, even with his assurances. Steve was sure that once she was more comfortable around Sam that she would tell him.


Ringing the doorbell to the townhouse, Steve looked around the neighborhood, checking the darkest shadowy alleyways for a familiar silver glint.

Nothing.

Turning back around as the door opened, he saw that Star had caught him looking.

"He's not there," she told him with an amused smile.

"How can you be so sure?" he asked stepping inside as she moved out of the way for him to enter.

His eyes instantly went to Star's long hair which was flowing free down her back, not braided like the last times they had met at the park or at lunch. She was dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a simple t-shirt, much more casual than the work or jogging outfits he had seen. They had been talking on the phone every few days for the past two weeks since their first meeting. She had a strange sense of humor that he liked and wondered if that was one of the things about her that had drawn Bucky to her.

"Scary never knew my real name, remember? There would be no way for him to even find me if he wanted to," she told him as she closed the door. "But considering what the Chair did to him, I somehow doubt that he does remember."

"There is always a chance," he told her as she led him inside her place.

"Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which gets filled first," Star told him as they walked through the large open floor plan towards the kitchen island. He shook his head and smiled at her comment. He liked her bluntness.

Steve had noticed the wonderful aroma the moment the door had opened, but now standing at the kitchen island, it was overwhelming.

"Nothing like keeping an open mind," he responded.

"I still have an open mind, otherwise I never would have come to meet you in the first place," Star told him, handing Steve a beer from the refrigerator and taking one for herself. She gestured to one of the bar stools so he sat down.

"You didn't want to let Sam in on who our mutual friend was?" he asked her, popping off the cap of the beer.

"Trust is not something easily come by for me," she admitted to him checking something in a large electric pot on the countertop. "Between Scary's lessons and then working for the Bureau, it was pretty well drilled into me to be suspicious of everyone."

"Except me?" he responded questioningly, taking a look around the large open living space. The entire floor plan was open, front to back. Nowhere for anyone to hide, he noticed.

"I've been researching both of you for thirty years so I was pretty confident that you could be trusted," she saluted him with her beer bottle. "I just never expected to meet you. You know, until the world found out about the whole frozen-in-time thing you had going."

"Trust me when I say that it was a bit of a shock to me as well," he smiled taking another sip. "I'm still trying to adjust to getting back into society."

"I know a bit about how hard it was for you," she said checking the timer on the oven.

"But you can also trust Sam and Natasha," he told her, to which she only nodded but probably had no intention of doing so. "They both helped to take down Hydra."

"But that does not mean that they are on Scary's side," she pointed out. "If he showed up tomorrow, what would they do? Welcome him with open arms, or call whichever security agency they have on speed dial nowadays?"

Steve wanted to give some kind of rebuttal, but he had actually wondered about that sometimes himself as he stared from his darkened apartment onto the streets below...hoping to spot Bucky. Sam was helping to try to find a trace of where Bucky had disappeared to. Nat was taking what she called 'a break', lying low herself somewhere now that the hearings were over but always there when he called.

Would either one of them really try to turn Bucky in for what he had been made to do for all those years of working for Hydra?

He hoped that his friends would not.

"I think that they would both take my side," he told her. "Sam is trying to help me find him."

"Do you think that Scary would tell me to trust them?"

Steve thought for a second then gave a chuckled answer of, "No."

"See…now was that so hard?" she smiled at him.

"You know, you can call him Bucky."

"And you can call him Scary."

"Touché."

Star then lifted up the large ceramic dish from inside the crock-pot on the counter, carrying it over and placing it on a trivet on the dinner table. Their places were already set to eat.

"Come on, I'm not going to make you wait," Star told him so he got up and sat at the table.

Steve found himself inhaling deeply of the homemade roast with vegetables as he sat down.

"I figured that you were just like Scary…a meat and potatoes man," she told him, handing him a large serving spoon and fork to use. "Fix your plate while I get the bread out of the oven."

"That would not be proper," he informed her. "Ladies first."

"Don't pull that bullshit with me," she told him opening the oven and pulling of fresh bread. "You are practically drooling."

"Will you shoot me if I at least fix your plate for you?" he jokingly asked as she moved to the fridge.

"I think I can restrain myself," Star pulled out a small dish with butter. "So, I'm guessing that since you were still glancing around that there has been no word?"

"No," he told her as he fixed her plate. "It's like he just entirely dropped off the face of the planet…again."

"From what I learned over the years, that's exactly what he was trained to do...hide in plain sight. Blend in with a crowd and don't leave evidence he was there," she said slicing up the bread. "I don't think he will be found until he wants to be."

"I had hoped that he would have contacted me within days after remembering me, but by now, there is no telling where Bucky could have gotten to," he said as Star brought over a plate of bread with the butter while he fixed his plate.

"As long as he is actually out there, free," she told him sitting down. "Are you still sure that Scary's free?"

"Yes, as much as I can be. There was a place here in D.C., inside of a bank vault, where Hydra had set up the Chair to use on him. We found the location about a week after the incident. It had been smashed to pieces and there were a couple of dead Hydra agents there," he decided to tell her. He had held off revealing this part until he was just a bit more certain about Star. "I believe that Bucky went back there after pulling me from the river. I'm not sure if he wanted help from them for his injuries and they tried to control him again or maybe he was just angry at them for the past seventy years. But either way, I'm sure that it was him."

"Good," Star calmly said, not fazed by the fact that Bucky would have done something like that. She must had seen the shock on his face at her candor. "Considering what they've done to him for so long, killing a couple of Hydra agents is nothing. Besides, there is not a lot in this world to surprise me, and there is nothing that Scary could ever do to make me fear him."

"I guess with everything that you have been through, that's true enough," he said taking a bit of the tender meat that fell apart in his mouth. Moaning in pleasure, "This is delicious."

"Like I said, a meat and potato man," she responded taking her own bite.

For the next half hour, they chatted about what he had gone through after first waking up from the frozen state he had been in, Star curious about how he had handled the new technology.

"I was only gone for four years, but when I got back home, it seemed more like a lifetime," she told him. "Television, music, clothing, hairstyles, video games. All of it was brand new again."

"Exactly. Almost everything electronic invented past houselights and refrigerators was new for me since we couldn't afford them at the time," he told her as she picked up their plates, taking them to the sink. Standing up, he followed her with the rest of the dishes. "I think that the clothing and music were the biggest things right after television. Except for maybe women's lib and the clothes that came with it."

"I can imagine," she grinned at him, as she took the dirty items from him. "I remember mentioning to Scary about women burning their bras and his comment was something like 'wouldn't that hurt'. I had to explain to him that they weren't wearing them at the time."

Steve had to laugh at hearing that.

"He didn't?"

"Oh, yes. There were a lot of times like that where I had to explain the meaning about a saying or phrase I would use," Star told him as she started to wash the plates by hand. "I think that most of them were probably movie or television related though."

"If you said them now, there's a very good chance that I would not get them either," he pointed out.

"You two are definitely peas from the same pod," she said, handing him a clean plate to dry off. Picking up the dishtowel, Steve just started to work next to her. Nodding her head at what he was doing, she said, "I eventually had Scary doing that."

"You made the Winter Soldier dry dishes?"

"Yep. After a few days, but before we had gotten close, he brought something over for me to wash after I had already finished. So I pointed to the sink and told him to do it…and he did."

Steve shook his head in disbelief.

"I sometimes wonder if he was just so used to having to take orders that he just naturally followed my simple instructions," she said handing him the other plate.

"There is that possibility, but if he didn't want to, then he would not have," he said.

"Was he stubborn when the two of you were young?" Star asked.

"I don't know if stubborn is the right word. Bucky would probably say that about me though," he said stacking the plates on the counter as he took the clean silverware from her. "He was definitely confident and bossy."

"Then he still was," she told him. "When he started me with the training during the last few days, he would have me doing the same maneuver over and over even after I seemed to have gotten it down. Like he was trying to drill it into me."

"That may have been a bit of his own training coming through. He was using techniques that were used on him to train you maybe," he said. "Natasha found some of his records from what happened to him. They basically took the soldier that he already was and took away everything else not necessary for him to be one."

Star seemed to be thinking about something, probably a memory of their time. Steve kept working until she was ready to speak.

"There were so many simple things that Scary had no understanding of. Did the two of you every used to dip cheese sandwiches into tomato soup?" she asked.

"All the time," he told her, curious about the question.

"When I did it for the first time, he questioned me about it before hesitantly trying it himself," she told him. "After that, he always did it."

"He didn't even remember such a simple thing?" Steve asked a bit heartbroken.

"No. I'm guessing that he'd had cola before, right?" she then asked, washing the large cooking pot.

"Yeah, from the local soda fountain," he answered.

"He didn't recognize the sodas we had for what they were. And when I made popcorn, he asked me why I was 'cooking bullets'."

Steve had not believe that the Chair was so effective, but from hearing everything that Star knew about, the horrible device was even worse than he had originally imagined.

"Did it really seem to you like every day normal activities were…missing?" Steve asked as they finished up with the last items.

"Yes. It did," she told him, pointing towards where the den met up with her kitchen. Moving that way, they both sat on the couch in front of her mounted television, at opposite ends. "One of the first mornings, I was brushing my hair and he questioned me as to why I would do it. I then realized that he hadn't done anything like brushing his hair at all. His long hair was always flopped over his face. He then allowed me brush it and that was the first time I got a good look at his face. I've always wondered why he sat there and let me."

Steve felt another small piece of his heart break at hearing that.

"Bucky was always so careful with his appearance. Not a single hair out of place. In street clothes or especially his uniform, he was dapper. Always ready to charm a dame," he told her with a smile. "Sometimes he would have a dame on each arm."

"I've seen a couple of pictures of him on the internet and in the museum where he looked like that…but it just doesn't seem right to me, having known him when I did. Even so, I think that anyone who didn't know him well would not recognize him," she told him. "I remember this one short clip of the two of you laughing at something. By the end of our time together, I saw Scary happy, but it still wasn't like that."

"I know that video. Do you know that I cannot actually remember what we were laughing at? We had just gotten back from a mission and the Commandos were there taunting us from the background while the reporter talked with us, but what actually started us laughing…I can't remember."

"Was Scary a funny guy? The first joke I heard him make was about food," she told him. "I asked him if he wanted more or less eggs to eat, and he said to always 'err on the side of more food'."

Steve laughed at that.

"Yes, he was always a joker or kidder, even if the moment didn't call for it. The only time he saw Red Skull, who trust me when I say was aptly named, Bucky asked me if I had 'one of those', joking about his bright red head, due to the serum in me. And we were in the middle of a factory that was exploding. I believe the term is 'dry humor'."

"I would like to have known him like that. Near the end, he would take to teasing me every once in a while, but I'm sure that it was much less subdued than how you remember him to be," she told him leaning over to pick up a metal tin from the coffee table. Opening up the top, he saw small pieces of powdered colorful items. "This was his favorite…Turkish Delight. There was not anything else sweet there. I always make sure that I have some around now."

Star held out the tin and he took a piece, placing it in his mouth as she got her own piece, placing the open tin between them on the couch. It was a delicious, chewy, fruity treat.

"This is good. I can see why he liked it," he said chewing. He had noticed that Star was again wearing the bracelet with Bucky's reminder items, and he hoped that she didn't get mad at him, but he had a few questions for her. "Star…your palm. I noticed it that first day in the park. Would you tell me about it?"

Star was leaning her left side against the back of the couch, so she held her left arm out towards him, her palm up, before scooting a bit closer where he could make it out better.

"The man who owned me was named Yuri Kozlov. Those are his initials on my palm…palms," she said lifting up her other hand so he could see the matching scars. "On one of the nights he was drunk, he did this to me. The funny part about these scars is that he did this to frighten me, telling me that his 'ghost' soldier liked to do this for fun. This Ghost also went by the name Winter Soldier."

That really got his attention. Did Bucky…?

"When Scary saw them, he actually got mad that Kozlov had threatened me by using his name," which made Steve feel a bit better.

Over the next few minutes, he sat and listed to how Star told him in detail about how she had found out that Bucky was the Winter Soldier. He was a bit surprised that with the obedience Bucky had for Hydra that when Star ran away that morning that he didn't kill her right then. But hearing how he had carried her back to the house, and then took care of her feet and hands…that sounded so much like his best friend.

"A little while later, once I was cleaned up, that was the first time that he showed my his arm," she told him.

"I had a pretty up close experience with it also," he grinned, remembering it all too well. Star knew a bit about how he and Bucky had faced off that day having discussed it during a lunch they had together.

"I'm sure that mine was a lot more fun," she deviously grinned at him, raising her eyebrow, making him blush a bit at the innuendo. "Have you ever seen the movie Jaws?"

"Yes, actually. It was on my list of movies to see," he told her happy that he actually knew it.

"Remember the scene where they were showing off scars?" to which he nodded. "Well, I had asked Scary if he had any scars after he had seen the ones on my hands, and when he said 'yes', I asked to see. He took his shirt off and showed me his arm. Up until then, he'd always kept it covered, wearing his gloves all of the time, even inside of the house."

"Weren't you scared?" he asked, not sure if he would have done something like that.

"No, not really. I'd heard it make the sound a few times, not realizing what I was hearing. He let me touch it, examine it slowly so that I would not be scared of him. Afterwards, I pointed out to him that I had won since I had more scars and he only had the one."

"You didn't?"

Star smiled at him nodding her head.

"I think that may have been the first time I heard him give a simple, single laugh," she told him.

Steve noticed her wording when it came to her scars.

Hesitantly he asked, "Do you have a lot of scars?"

"Unfortunately, yes. But without every single one of them, I may never have been there that day to meet Scary," she told him. "Over that week, every time that he saw a new one, or something happened that reminded me of Kozlov, Scary would want to hear the story behind it."

"And you told him?"

"Yes. There was no point in sugarcoating what I'd been through. Maybe hearing about all of it was what made him to feel sorry for me, so that he let me live," she said grabbing another piece of the sweet treat.

"I have a feeling that it was more than just feeling sorry for you," he told her, hoping that he was right. Steve could see the doubt on her face. "I knew Bucky better than anyone else, then or now. From what you told me of how he acted those last days, and especially what he said, even if he didn't understand what it was, I think that Bucky was in love with you too."

"Great," she said as he saw her eyes slightly tearing, "That makes it even worse."

"Star, I didn't mean to upset you," he told her, but she waved her hand to stop him.

"I'm fine. I've had thirty years to miss him. It's the fact that if he really was in love with me, that not only did Hydra ripped it away from him…but that he let them."

"To keep you safe. If he did truly care for you…"

"Then he should have run!" Star painfully cried out. "He knew what was going to happen when he got back! Why wasn't I important enough?"

When Star stood up to try and went to walk past him, Steve quickly stood up, grabbing onto her upper arm to stop her. She stopped, but her head was turned away, where he could not see if her tears were actually falling, but he guessed they were. Turning her slightly, he gave her a firm embrace.

After a few moments, Star's arms went around him as he felt her crying.

"Alright," she quietly said, "Maybe I'm not fine."

Standing there like that, even though Star may now be a grown woman and F.B.I. agent, underneath she was still a hurt, lovesick little girl. With his arms around her, he could feel her long hair against his skin, a smooth feeling he was unfamiliar with.

"Sorry. I haven't spazzed out in a while," she told him, sniffling and easing up her grip around him. "Not the best dinner party etiquette."

"It's your house. You can do whatever you want," he grinned at her. "And you were important enough. Scary may have understood the danger of trying to run, but it was Bucky that would never have let anything happen to you. That was why he went back. Hydra would have killed you on sight to get him back if he had run."

Releasing her, Star this time slowly made her way to the kitchen, grabbing two more beers from the fridge. She passed him one before sitting back down, to which he did also.

"I know you're probably right, all that 'heart one thing, head another thing' bullshit that people say. It's still painful though," she told him popping the cap off and taking a long swig.

"I don't think that it ever gets totally healed," he told her, taking his own drink. Maybe he need to bring up a lighter topic. "Star. Can I ask about your hair? Why do you have it so long?"

Star began to laugh at that, making him hope that this would indeed be a better memory for her. After a few moments, she answered, "Because of Scary."

Hearing that, Steve felt his shoulders drop a bit. He was not expecting that.

"When I was taken in 1978, a popular hairstyle was long and straight. Kozlov liked it that way because he was able to help use it to restrain me with rope tied around it," Steve about paled at hearing that, almost picturing what horrible thing she could mean. "When I met Scary it was about this long, only a couple of inches shorter. After it irritated me one day, I grabbed a pair of scissors from a drawer, saying aloud that I was going to cut it all off. Scary grabbed my arms, stopping me. He then asked me to not cut it. I don't think he even understood why he stopped me. But I figured at the time since I would be dead in only a few days, that I would just leave it since he asked."

How could Star sound so calm and collected while discussing what should have been her execution? By his best friend. But it had not happened. She had fallen for Bucky, he had let her live, and she'd had decades to think and reminisce with what happened. It wasn't the same horrible scenario now that it had been then. To Star, it was now a fond memory of her Scary trying to show some desire towards her.

"You've kept it that long for over thirty years because Bucky liked it like that?" Steve could barely believe it.

"Yes. It's been a nagging fear in the back of my mind that if I cut it, and Scary passed me on the street, that he would not recognize me without it," she told him while he picked up another Turkish Delight.

"And here I thought I had found a topic that would make you feel better," he informed her, taking a drink.

"You did, actually," she said. "I was going to cut it because it got in my way as I was trying to irritate Scary on purpose. I had it wrapped in a towel on my wet head, and as I was poking him in the chest, it fell down, covering me like Cousin It."

"Cousin It?" he asked, not getting the reference.

"A character from an old black and white TV show called The Addams Family," Star explained.

"So why exactly were you poking at him?" he decided to ask.

"Scary had snuck a couple of pieces," she started picking up some of the Turkish Delight indicating them, "and eaten them. Only he left some of the powdered sugar on his upper lip. I was teasing him about only being an assassin, not a spy, and therefore not sneaky."

Steve had to laugh again at picturing the interaction between how he had dealt with the Winter Solider compared to Star's version of him.

"Well, seeing as how we haven't been able to find a trace of him in almost three months, I think he's proving your 'sneaky' theory wrong," he told her with a smile.

Lifting up her beer bottle, Star told him, "Here's to Scary losing the longest game of Hide-and-Seek ever."

"I can drink to that," he said as they clicked bottle tops.