Ordering the pizza was easier once we got the waiter back from wherever he disappeared to, then Bucky and I managed to NOT fall into too much more awkwardness. And I didn't make him wear more beer.

"You were one of the lost?" He asked, when our disappearing server reappeared with another beer for him and a basket of soft warm breadsticks for us to share.

He waited for me to take a stick first, such a gentleman. Even if I was stalling, and I sighed as I tore a bit from the end and squashed it between my fingers, feeling like the darkness was clawing to try to pull me back. "Yeah," I looked at the bite of bread and grimaced, thinking it looked beyond mangled, but it was my own damn fault, so I bit into it. Luckily mangling it didn't destroy the flavor. Buttery with a hint of garlic, I let the familiarity push the Snap away. "So were you," he'd taken a bite straight from his stick, and he chewed as he nodded. "When I got back -" I stopped, I hadn't really talked about it, not with anyone outside of the group therapy that all the returned had been talked into going to at first. I looked down at the breadstick in my hand, mirroring Bucky I took my own bite from the end that I'd torn the first bite from. Chewing as carefully as I'd stalled before, I considered why I was willing to talk to him. A stranger. Maybe that was it, because he was a complete stranger.

"As a stipulation of my pardon," our eyes met and he took a long pull from the green bottle he held in his gloved hand. "I have to do mandated therapy," his lips quirked as he set down the bottle. "Psych-evaluations, to be more -" he took a long breath through his nose. "It's a small price to pay to be home."

"Is it?" The question barely left my mouth when our food arrived. The pizza nearly filled our table, one of the reasons Romeo's was a favorite, and once the waiter had it perched on the stand, the shakers of cheese and flakes of red pepper near at hand, he backed away after I shook my head at his offer to serve the first slices. "I hope you remember the proper way to eat a slice, Buck." His eyes flashed to mine, and I grinned. "Brooklyn born and bred, right?"

We were back on the sidewalk with more leftovers between us than either of us expected, given how much we'd eaten. Romeo's didn't skimp on the portions, another reason they were a favorite of mine. I was preparing to say goodnight, but Bucky stopped me.

"Which way?" I stared up at him, ready to argue, but something inside of me beat that urge down. Tilting my head in the direction we'd come from, we started off, with him taking my half of the leftovers. "I know you can take care of yourself, Brooke."

"I know you're telling me that you think I can," I murmured, walking beside him, on the side that I'd bumped into. "I think that you and I both know that there are definitely things that I can't take care of myself against, so thank you for walking me home, Bucky."

I could see the curve of his smile in the streetlamps, and it was worth it. Letting go of my pride, at least a little.

"We were interrupted," we had a walk ahead of us, and Bucky seemed more than happy to chat. "Earlier when the pizza came," he clarified, as if I didn't remember. "You went to group therapy when you got back?"

I focused on the sidewalk, lit in the glow of the streetlights, halos that almost hopscotched from lamp to lamp. "Yeah," I thought back to when I returned, not the immediate, but the days afterward. How everyone was concerned with how I'd take the changes, but also the sameness. And how, in the end, I would have to find my own way regardless. "It was like we were all pinged or something. I'd been in my room, when it happened." I was reading, how lame, reading and thinking about nothing at all of importance. "So I came back in my room." Alone. In an empty house, my parents gone, and all their belongings gone. Luckily, the house wasn't sold, and my best friend had 'just known that I'd come home eventually'. "I was lucky, I guess."

"Do you -" I knew what he was going to ask, it was what EVERYONE asked, from the first person outside of my best friend and close circle, to the doctors who wanted to poke and prod at us. "I mean -"

"It's different for you," I stopped under a streetlight. "You've looked like THIS since 1945, right?" He was staring down at me, but didn't say anything. "I came back looking exactly like I did when I left five years ago. My parents died while I was gone." His eyes tightened, but I went on, like ripping off a bandage. "It was an accident, and it was quick, so they told me. They mourned me and my friends grieved my loss, well, aside from the one who kept my house and inheritance 'just in case'." I shrugged. "I'm a reminder, Bucky. Of five years ago, when a mad being came to Earth and decided to - I don't even know what." I shook my head. "It's easier to start over, isn't it?"

"So you're just giving up on everything you knew?" His head tilted and I was again reminded of a confused puppy. "How's that going?"

I snorted, unladylike and undignified, but warranted. Kicking the sidewalk, I started moving in the direction of my house again. "I'll let you know when I figure it out, how about that?"

Bucky walked me ALL the way to my door. Onto my porch, opening my screen door, and waiting while I unlocked the door, under the light of the porch light that I'd left on like a street smart Brooklynite girl should. Once my door was open, I turned and noticed that he'd backed off, almost to the top step.

"Are you afraid of open doorways?" I squinted at him. "I mean, I've heard of all sorts of phobias, but that one might be a new one for me." I bit my lip as he held out my leftover box for me to take.

"I just wouldn't want to presume," he was back to awkward Bucky Barnes and I was dying inside at the very idea. "We just met."

I nodded and took the top box from his hand. "Right, I mean, we just met and had dinner, and shared intimate details about our mental health issues while walking through Brooklyn in the pitch dark. I'd hate for either of us to assume that we were more than complete -" I swear I was going to add a cracked rib to the bruise I'd gotten from walking into his arm.

He was staring at me with something that looked like he couldn't decide if he wanted to laugh WITH me or possibly boop my nose very hard. "You really are JUST like him."

"Who?" I tilted my head, waiting.

"Steve," he shook his head and huffed out a laugh. "But you're cuter." I snorted again, and his laugh grew. "See, there it is. I swear."

"I don't know whether to be complimented by the fact you just compared me to Captain America and your best friend, or insulted since he's a dude." I moved back to the closed screen door and shook my head. "Are you SURE you don't want to come inside?" Bucky was looking so damn conflicted that I waited for a few beats before I gave another go. "Would it help if I promised to treat you EXACTLY like Steve would? Or would that make it weirder?"

Bucky's eyes were twinkling as he followed me into the house, his laughter a sound that I hoped I could hear more often. Because while I'd seen it in the flickering images in the Smithsonian, the sound was so much more than they could ever have hoped to capture.