Chapter 16: Longing


Rain puddles and sneezing people were a ridiculously common sight on the streets of New York during May, especially in Central Park.

Andy hummed tonelessly in appreciation at the blooming cheery trees lining the paths of the massive park. She leaned her head back against the worn park bench, letting her eyes droop sleepily as she silently enjoyed the feeling of the light breeze on her clammy skin and the scent of the flowering fauna of springtime.

Imagines of a childhood moment in a park similar to this one a long time ago flittered across her vision as she calmly watched a handful of children laugh and shriek in delight as they chased a flock of pigeons. It took her back to a nicer time in her memories.

Well, at least back before the shit storm that had happened earlier that day…

"Are you going to let me go outside today or what?" I drawled as I leaned against the working stove I had found earlier in the dumpster that week. I crossed my arms tightly after several seconds of silence and glared at the obviously brooding man by the door.

It had been fine for the few weeks, I mused as I flickered away a stray piece of hair from my face.

I had been completely content without going into the outside world for a little while longer while I tried to cope with the horrible nightmares and constant panic attacks I continued to have during the first week we spent holed up in the crumbling apartment together. The first few days I spent either trying to get some sleep without any nightmares, eating whatever food Bucky would somehow magically produce from somewhere, and trying to sort out the jumbled mess that was my life now. The panic attacks would hit at the most random of times but they nearly always ended with me curled up on the bathroom floor near the toilet with a silent Bucky keeping visual nearby.

Other than that, I would merely sit quietly by the corner as I chewed over my wild thoughts, occasionally watching my quiet companion's meticulous habits and mannerisms when I wasn't lost in my own world.

In turn, he watched every single move I made like a hawk, never letting me go out of sight unless I was unconscious or in the bathroom.

It was extremely uncomfortable at first but eventually, the intense burning gaze became an almost welcome presence every time I felt it. It at the very least meant someone was there with me.

I really didn't want to be alone right now.

Though that didn't stop me from letting the quiet assassin slip away into the night occasionally whenever he would leave for his frequent late excursions.

It was strange.

He would wait until he knew I was asleep, leave for hours at a time, and come back empty-handed nearly every night those couple of weeks. The only way I even knew he had even left was for the obviously fresh dirt and mud around his boots I had seen every time I woke up.

I couldn't help but wonder what he was doing exactly.

Looking for his lost memories somewhere out there in Brooklyn?

Wasn't he the one here that thought I could help him with that?

Isn't that why I'm here?

I shook my head.

'Like I could ever really help with that…'

The soft whirring of a metal prosthetic abruptly cut through my depressing thoughts and returned my focus to my quiet roommate who was now staring at me.

Bucky had finally shed his Kevlar uniform and bloodstained clothes from the museum and hidden them away somewhere days ago after he had acquired some used clothes for both of them from an army surplus down the street, though the leftovers seemed to be a bit too small for him and a bit too big for me.

He leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed for a while longer as he looked at me.

"No" he answered flatly as he mirrored me, though his stance was much more intimidating.

Whereas his presence screamed of danger, mine screamed of fragility.

I sucked in a deep breath, forcing down the horrible anxiety that clawed at my insides, and raised a challenging eyebrow at him.

"Why not?" I huffed.

"I said no" he ignored the question as he turned his back away from me and began striding towards the door again.

"And I asked why?" I bit out quickly, my voice sounding a lot stronger than I felt.

"Hydra is still out there" he barked back, slightly taken aback at my unusual boldness.

"That doesn't stop you from going out there!"

Bucky visibly clenched his jaw as the plates in his metal arm shifted again. He growled before stomping over and grabbing my shoulders in a vice grip.

I winced at the painful grip.

"I am a weapon." He stated simply. His icy gaze and metal grip locking me into place emphasized his point.

The I can defend myself… went unsaid.

I gritted my teeth at his words, my anger finally boiling over my breaking point.

Oh, so that's how he's going to play it.

When he didn't let me tear out of his grasp I made up my mind and quickly lunged forward with a speed I didn't realize I had until I gripped the collar of his still too tight sweatshirt and dragged him down to eye level.

It was his turn to flinch violently, nearly crushing the girl's shoulders on instinct, though he had the quick thinking to remember his strength compared to the woman in his hold.

He knew he could absolutely break her.

Ignoring the pain, I gritted my teeth against the bruising hold as I strained on my tiptoes to hiss into his ear.

"James Buchannan Barnes, you are not a weapon, you are a person. You may be able to defend yourself but you're more at risk than I ever am. I was only there for a day and I got messed up in the head Bucky, I can't imagine what they will do to you if they get their hands on you again! For Christ's sake, they had you for 70 years. 70 damn years! They hurt you, twisted you, and made you bleed! So, stop telling me you're a weapon Bucky because you aren't! You are a person made of flesh and blood, just like me, and you bleed just like me."

I had to force myself to stop and take a breath as my lungs shook from yelling and my eyes stung with a sudden onslaught of salty tears.

"I don't ever want to hear you say that ever again. Do I make myself clear Sargent!" I hissed, my temper finally hitting the roof at this man's complete and utter disregard for his own sense of being.

If he kept thinking like this, he would surely get himself killed first before anything stupid I could do would hurt him.

'Jeez, no wonder he and Steve had gotten along so great. They're both fantastically suicidal.'

He suddenly broke away from my hold and reeled back for a moment. His eyes went impossibly wide as his stony expression crumbled. His eyes flickered as he remembered something. For something less than a millisecond he had the most vulnerable expression I had ever seen on anyone's face before, movie or otherwise.

He stayed like that for a moment longer until his face went carefully controlled and blank once more. His blue eyes seemed to almost burning like an icy fire with some kind of intense emotion I couldn't place.

Painstakingly slow, he leaned in towards me again and moved his hands from my shoulders to my waist, gripping tightly.

I flinched in surprise at the gesture, my hands falling uneasily onto his forearms.

I was more than helpless to turn away from his terrifyingly intense gaze as he pulled me closer. His voice must have dropped a couple of octaves when he spoke in my ear because I had never heard him sound this gruff.

"Stay. Here." He growled before releasing me, swiftly turning on his heel, and thundering towards the door.

I remained frozen long after the floor stopped vibrating from when he slammed the door closed.

My hands slowly rose to my face and gently cradled my cooling cheeks as I started at the wall across from me in bug-eyed bewilderment.

"What…what the hell was that?"

I continued my staring match with the peeling wall as I struggled to figure out what in the world that entirely out the blue response was about and why it made me feel so strange.

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out if it was a good or bad kind of strange.

After another minute of lost thoughts, I shook my head and rolled my shoulders, electing to ignore that problem for another day.

'What a healthy coping mechanism I have.'

My bare feet noisily padded against the creaking floorboards as I made my way over to the single, cracked, window in the apartment. The bright blue sky and an endless horizon dotted with the tops of skyscrapers and other smaller buildings that greeted me only made my mood plummet even further. Staring longingly at the sunny sky and fluffy clouds only made the urge to roam stronger.

"Damn, the one time I actually want to go out and enjoy the day I can't because stuffy McScrooge left me here to go run his super-secret assassin errands", I huffed, spinning away from the scenic view and stomping back into my dark corner of depression.

My foot was dangling halfway off the ground when a sudden pain shot through my stomach.

"Ah man", I hissed, "What the heck is it now?"

I massaged my abdomen as the pain intensified before suddenly dimming as quickly as it had appeared. I almost sighed in relief before it came back, as strong as it was before. I pressed my hands against my pulsing stomach.

My brows scrunched together in confusion before nearly shooting up to my hairline in shock and surprise when I felt something trickle down my leg and down to my foot.

I stared unblinkingly at the warm liquid gathering by my foot as a blush slowly started to bloom across my face

"Oh…well, perfect timing for once I guess?"

"Ahhh~"

I hummed, a satisfied grin slinking across my face as my shoulders and joints popped loudly.

A few of the remaining customers in the store cast surprised and wary glances at the strange homeless woman contorting her body outside the corner store. I ignored the passing glances I received as I sauntered away from the drug store, my 'purchases' safely tucked under my hoodie and in my pockets.

I confidently strutted away from the location of my grand heist until I passed a corner and promptly collapsed against an alley wall with a sigh.

'What was I thinking? Walking in there without any money. Man, I must be super out of it to completely forget that. It's a good thing these pants Bucky got me are too big, they're great for my impromptu life of petty crime. Yay.'

A sour frown crossed my face for a moment as a pang of guilt nagged at the back of my mind.

It wasn't like this wasn't strictly necessary.

'Oh boy, if Nana could see me now…'

I shook my head, dispelling my wayward thoughts as I forced herself to remain in the present.

"Well, nothing I can do about it now" I groaned as I rolled my shoulders again, loosening a bit more tension from my stiff muscles, and moved out of the ally.

That's what one gets from going to sleeping in a comfy mattress to an uneven floor for over two weeks straight.

A sudden gust of wind hit me as I rounded another bend, playfully sweeping back my hood and fanning out my tangled hair behind me.

'Wow. It sure is nice to feel the breeze on my face again', I breathed in the damp spring air gratefully as I let my thoughts wander.

'Never thought I'd be so happy to be out and about in this kind of neighborhood before', I deadpanned as I passed more broken- and run-down shops that seemed if not seedy than questionable at best and some other not so nice places most people wouldn't like to be around at night.

'Though I guess after falling into a fictional universe, getting kidnapped, and then tortured tends to make one more appreciative of the little things'

I scoffed to myself.

"Eh. Take what you can I suppose." I mumbled as I passed another group of teenagers loitering by the steps of another rundown building near my own.

Usually, the minded their own business and never bothered me. However, this time I forgot about two things while I was stewing in my depressing thoughts.

One: My faithful guardian was always with me when this happened. No one got within a 10-foot distance of us with him around. Ever.

Two: My hood was always up, helping to somewhat disguise me or at the very least, my gender.

Put that all together and you get a recipe for disaster. Which is exactly what I had just walked straight into.

"Hey ya!", A sudden voice interrupted my stream of thought. I blinked in surprise and confusion. A cold sliver of ice trickled down my spine when I accidentally made eye contact with the man who called me out. Dark brown eyes set into a youthful but sharp face leered twistedly back at me.

My steps faltered slightly as I quickly yanked my hood over my head, nearly covering my eyes as I picked up the pace.

I definitely did not want to deal with this now.

"Hey! Hey, wait up sweetheart, I wanna talk ta ya!" the shrill voice jeered again. The sound of rustling reached my ears as the rest of the teens on the steps began moving.

I eyed the crumbling building I had been staying in down the street, measuring the distance. There really was a good chance I could make it, but was leading a bunch of most likely horny, delinquent, teenagers to the place I was staying really a smart idea? Not only would I be cornered if they somehow got in but if Bucky finds out what's going on he'll definitely know I betrayed his trust and left. Not to mention probably break one of their necks.

…or all of their necks.

'He might finally decide I'm not worth the trouble and leave.'

I winced.

That was not an option.

I definitely would not make it out here in this place without some sort of protection. Without him, the option that would be most likely for me, as grisly as it may be, would be death or worse.

"Oh screw it"

Like war drums, my blood suddenly began pounding in my ears as I jumped into action, turning on my heel and sprinting down the way I came.

"HEY!"

The sound of worn rubber soles streaking against pavement grated against my ears as the teens began their chase.

'Damn, damn, damn!'

I huffed, nearly kissing the pavement as I sprinted around another corner at breakneck speed.

The pounding of feet grew louder as the teens started gaining ground. My heart thudded painfully against my chest as I struggled to push myself faster. Running was not my strong suit but experience and fear were great teachers.

"Come here, sweetheart! We ain't gonna hurt cha!" another oily voice called back, this time much closer than before.

'As if their nauseating voices didn't give away their motives enough'

I bit my lip, hard enough to taste a familiar coppery flavor, as I pushed myself faster.

Too fast for me to comprehend, my foot suddenly snagged against something, and I went rolling down the sidewalk.

Pain exploded across my knees and hands as I skidded roughly against the concrete. Patches of red smeared against my hole-patterned pant legs as I stumbled back to my feet and surged forward again.

Before I could make it around the next corner I abruptly heard the sound of loud cursing.

I chanced a glance behind me as I was darting around the corner and felt my eyes widened. The small group of winded teenage boys that had been chasing me, all with equally dazed expressions of pain, were sprawled out on their backs amongst a multitude of brightly colored packages that had fallen from my pockets and littered the ground where I had fallen.

My brain shuttered to a stop even as my legs did not and took me around the bend, further away from danger for once. I couldn't help the breathless peals of laughter that escaped my raw throat once I realized what had happened and how my sheer dumb luck had saved me again.

It felt good.

Slumping further against the side of the stone bench and curling my legs closer to my chest I finally found the moment I desperately needed to breathe. The almost overpowering scent of cherry blossoms and wet earth washed over me in waves as I let myself drift off for just a moment, content to ignore the world around me.

It had most likely been well over a few hours since I had escaped from the group of teens that had mercilessly chased me across the back streets of New York City. I really had thought I could find my way back to the apartment where Bucky and I were staying, but after hours of walking through alleys and streets I had given up when I found Central Park. Immediately after entering the massive park I decided to give my aching feet a rest by the moss-covered stone bench, hidden underneath a grove of blooming cherry blossom trees.

Bucky must have already found out about my disappearance, or he would eventually when I didn't return to the building because, as much as I hate to admit it, I'll never find my way back to that apartment, even if I was given a hundred years to search for it. I knew without a doubt I was hopelessly and completely lost in one of the largest cities on the eastern seaboard. Honestly, unless Bucky was searching for me, I would never make it out here.

I had no illusions that he would even want to at this point.

'This is probably easier for both of us. Whatever misguided sense of warped responsibility he seems to have towards me probably has to do with how I can help him get his memories back. Which is a dead-end seeing as I'm useless in that department aside from just the generic stuff he could probably pick up at the Smithsonian. I really can't help him any more than that.'

I sighed heavily, watching a few stray cherry blossom petals that had landed on my head float to the ground.

'I'm pretty sure he regretted finding me at the hospital in the first place. He definitely acts like it. Which is fair, all I do is lead trouble straight to him, seeing as I can't escape it wherever I go. Like I said before, we'll both end up dead in a ditch if I stick around. He cannot, under any circumstances, die. He's much too important.'

The steady mutter and roar of the crowds and foot traffic slowly began to die away with the sunlight, as I stayed adrift in my thoughts, though I distantly felt the chill in the air as the sun started to sink.

'Besides, I also have to start standing on my own two feet right? Even if I did stay with Bucky he wouldn't be able to protect me all the time. Kind of like with those guys I just outran…except maybe more than that? I'm going to have to learn to be more independent, even if it is a near-death sentence with Hydra wandering around every nook and cranny.'

As the last few strands of sunlight sank beneath the dark trees the lamp posts along the park began to flicker on.

'There are a lot of people in this place that have the strength to beat their odds. After all, it's literally a universe of superheroes.'

"I really wish I was like those people"

I closed my heavy eyes and settled my equally heavy heart as I leaned my head back and watched the sun fade below the treetops. Slowly but surely the people began to disappear down the paths to their own homes as night crept over the city.

I rubbed my stinging eyes, painfully aware at how damp my sleeves were getting as I tried to stop the flow of tears dripping like a leaky faucet down my face.

Gosh I am such a crybaby

The lump in my throat only grew in size the more I sat on that bench, breaking bit by bit under the crushing weight of loneliness and hopelessness. I hid my face in my arms when the crying wouldn't stop and bared my teeth as I tried to ride out the pain ripping my chest apart from the inside.

"I don't know what I'm going to do…what I'm supposed to do…" I mumbled pathetically to the night air.

"You're going to come back"

My crying fest was immediately broken at the deep yet soft voice that hit me like a freight train. I choked on my tears and a strange half gasp half hiccup escaped my throat as I whipped my head up.

Bucky stood directly in front of me. Not so much as a footfall or a whisper of wind announcing his presence beforehand.

Tired, hard, eyes burrowed into my wet ones as I struggled to hold his intense gaze; him seeing and acknowledging everything I wanted to and couldn't say at the moment.

Neither of us moved, just simply breathed in the crisp night air as the din of New York City filled in the silence between us.

It was a peace both of us had needed so desperately for so long.

That peace was shattered when I gave a loud, squeaky, hiccup.

I slapped my hands over my mouth as he gave a light chuckle.

That was new.

He moved slowly, crouching down onto the balls of his feet until we were eye level.

He sighed tiredly and motioned me closer.

"Come ere, doll"

My eyes widened in disbelief and more tears crawled down my face. Before I knew what I was doing, I had slid off the bench and had tackled the immobile super solider, wrapping my arms as far as they would go around his ridiculously broad shoulders.

The first thing that I felt was the sheer, unholy, amount of heat that seeped into my pores and chased away the iciness of the frigid night air. It immediately made the weight on my chest begin to melt away, slowly lifting the crushing pressure until it was nearly gone.

The second thing I felt was how tense the soldier had become the moment I grabbed him, though his tense posture slowly began to soften after a moment's pause. I had never really stopped to think about it before but the sheer amount of muscles and raw strength I felt as I hugged him both terrified and surprised me; yet another reminder that he wasn't fully human and I wasn't home anymore.

The last thing I felt was a large hand, one that easily dwarfed my own, gently reach up and begin moving from the top of my head, down into my hair repeatedly; skilled fingers gently detangling the various knots within my rat's nest of a hair without even the slightest pinch of pain.

Whatever advice and excuses I had given myself to prepare for this moment vanished in a puff of smoke, going somewhere I'm not even sure Stan Lee could find, as I caved like wet paper.

I hugged him harder as something broke inside my chest.

I didn't realize until much later that, that painful, awful, noise echoing through the empty part of the park were my sobs.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please don't leave. I'm sorry…" my mantra continued, as apologized for everything.

He didn't say anything, just continue petting my hair with his flesh hand and tucking me tightly against him with the metal one.

After that, everything was a blur of tears and cherry blossoms.

But I do remember thinking, for that brief moment, that it was such a nice feeling not to be alone anymore.


Guess who is ALIVE! I'm back in action and the shop is in full swing. I don't know what happened here but it sure was fun to write. Anyhow, please review and let me know what you think!

Until next time my favorite people!

EDIT: Updated and checked for grammar on 2/11/2020