Bucky had a difficult time falling asleep, unfamiliar as he was with the environment and constantly listening for any concerning sounds from Harper's bedroom. Once he did finally fall asleep, he actually slept reasonably well for several hours. He awoke to the sound of feet quickly scurrying to the bathroom. The enhanced soldier listened carefully, comforted when he heard the shower turn on. He checked the time on his phone, discovering that it was just past 8am. Too late to go work at the shipping center, but also too early for Harper to be up already.
The former soldier ran his fingers through his hair, trying to straighten it out a bit in an effort to look a bit less unkempt. He shifted uneasily, wishing he had something to occupy his body with. He had the distinct feeling that Harper wouldn't appreciate it if he did any sort of straightening up or if he washed her dishes. It would make him feel better to stay busy by taking care of Harper in whatever way he could, but he also knew it would undermine Harper's sense of independence and capability. She had already made her hesitance about letting him into this part of her life known, and he didn't want to give her any reason to regret having done so. Her trust in him was something he had just discovered and he didn't want to lose it. The Winter Soldier was a monster, Bucky was broken, but James was a friend to a woman who had dedicated her young life to helping the most vulnerable members of society.
The sound of a hairdryer assured him that his anxious wait was nearing its end. It occurred to him that he could leave her a note and make his escape, but that didn't agree with his sensibilities. He couldn't leave before assuring that Harper was okay. Perhaps it was something left over from his previous life as Bucky.
He heard the bathroom door open and turned as Harper emerged. She looked relatively well with her dark hair clean and falling in waves over her shoulders. But dark crescents beneath her eyes and her simple attire of black leggings and a matching hoodie spoke to her fatigue.
"Morning, James," she greeted. "I hope you were able to sleep a bit?"
"I slept fine," he nodded. "More importantly, did you sleep?"
"I did," she nodded. "I appreciate your concern and your help yesterday. I was thinking that if you're free, we could grab breakfast nearby? I should be okay for a few hours before I'll have to be back here."
"Sure," he agreed easily, realizing suddenly that he hadn't eaten since lunch the day before.
Harper gave him a soft smile, and said, "Great. Let's go."
Over a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and sausage, Bucky caught a glimpse of the normal, well Harper. She also kindly and smoothly drew her boundaries, which he could appreciate and respect. He had been invited over the following weekend, which would still likely fall under the current cluster cycle, but would be nearly a week before he would be allowed into her struggles again.
Without his usual Wednesday coffee with Harper, Bucky decided to stay later than usual at the shipping center to make some extra money. He had his eye on a couch at a thrift store in his neighborhood. One of the books Harper had lent him touched upon insomnia and other sleep disturbances. It raised an interesting notion he was looking to try out – keeping his bed solely as a place to sleep. Since running to Bucharest and securing the dingy studio, he had been using his lumpy mattress for sleep, to read, and to write all of his memories in his journals. The good, the bad, and the bloody were rehashed and recorded as he perched on the mattress, and then nightmares would plague him. If he had a separate place besides just the rickety, uncomfortable barstools at the peninsula dividing the kitchen and living space to sit and work through at least some of his demons, maybe sleep could find him easier in bed.
"What, no date today, foreigner?"
Bucky glanced at one of the other shipping workers. The company employed by the shipping center provided the former assassin with an interesting perspective. As a young man, he had been entirely guilty of seeking out the company of many pretty dames. He enjoyed little more than dating, kissing, and some heavy petting. It was a bonus when he could get more. He had always thought he was respectful towards women. While he had always been kind and polite, in retrospect, he had probably led on many of his dates with no intention at all of committing to them. Dames were fun, and he was all about fun before the war. However, there was a whole new flavor of disrespect in the shipping center.
"I've told you that I'm not dating," he sighed.
"Fine, whatever, not getting laid today, foreigner? Would rather spend the afternoon with us?" the other man laughed lecherously.
"I'm not meeting with my friend today, no," Bucky replied firmly.
"Shove it with your prim and proper bullshit, ya pansy," one of the other workers barked, heaving a crate onto a dolly.
Bucky rolled his eyes, effortlessly adding another crate. The first man added, "Seriously, foreigner, I don't get you. If I had a hot, younger piece of ass to plow every week, you'd bet I'd be in here bragging about all the ways I was havin' her. So either you're too shy to share with us, or you're actually not screwin' around with her."
Conversations with the other men were rarely tasteful. Even though most were married or in long-term relationships, they talked about the things they did with their partners, about the pretty women who worked at the nearby bar they frequented after work, about whether they could get away with making a move on the young woman at the market. And the single ones bragged about their exploits, the working girls they frequently commissioned. It rubbed him the wrong way, even taking into account his own past issues with women. He regretted ever mentioned Harper, even though he hadn't gotten into specifics. They knew she was another foreigner, that she was several years younger than him, and that he didn't work into the afternoon on Wednesdays or on the weekends because he spent time with her. Unfortunately, they all assumed that meant that he only spent time with her because he was sleeping with her.
"I keep telling you that she and I are just friends. You can all drop it," he replied tersely.
"Jeez, foreigner, you always got a stick up your ass. You need at least a blowie to take the edge off that attitude, if not a good lay. Get yourself a working girl if your friend won't fuck ya," a third worker counseled.
Blue eyes rolled again, and the former assassin held back from reacting to their needling. He continued unloading crates from pallets, and the others eventually conversation moved away from him. Bucky was saddened that so many men could speak about women the way these did, and that his old self had, though more politely, treated the dames he dated with similar disregard for their personhood.
For an hour and twelve minutes, Bucky watched on helplessly as Harper paced, tissues balled up to her nose and streaming eye. Every so often, a strangled sob parted her lips. To Bucky's chagrin, the large orange cat took up perch beside him on the couch as all three waited out Harper's latest headache. Before it had settled in, Harper revealed that in this cluster cycle, the evening headaches were the mildest. Her medication was reserved for the late morning into early afternoon headache, as well as the one that took root at night after she had fallen asleep. The nighttime ones were the worst. Bucky couldn't fathom the pain she was in if the untreated headaches he had seen were the least debilitating.
Finally, Harper stopped pacing. She ambled over to the couch and dropped down onto it, clearly spent. Aslan immediately moved to ball up in her lap. Her fingers threaded clumsily through his orange and white fur until she mentioned, "I'm cold."
Bucky obliged, scooting in closer and allowing the young woman to support her weight against him. Big green eyes glared up at him as he came in contact with the old cat's human. He looked down at the creature warily, the two of them locked in a bizarre stalemate.
"I hope you don't feel obligated to be here," Harper muttered. "I can really handle this on my own. I have been for six years."
"I don't think 'obligated' is the right word. I just thought it might be even just a little less daunting to get through if you weren't alone. You're far from your family and your friends, so I figured I might try to step in a little. Is my being here making things worse?"
Harper let her head fall to his shoulder. "You're definitely not making anything worse. It's just embarrassing. But this is a better way to recover than to just pull a blanket over my head and cry out my self-pity."
Bucky frowned. "You're entitled to every ounce of self-pity, you know. You don't deserve this kind of pain."
"You really perseverate on the concept of deserving," Harper mused. "Makes me think you're preoccupied by what you feel you do or don't deserve in your life."
A wry smile formed on the former soldier's lips. "Do these headaches heighten your observational abilities, or lower your usual careful avoidance of saying things that might make me uncomfortable?"
"The latter," she chuckled tiredly. "I can never quite find it in myself to pretend when I'm this fucking tired."
"When you aren't tired, you expend your energy on pretending what?"
The dark haired woman scoffed. "What don't I pretend? I pretend I'm happy, I pretend that I find work fulfilling, that it doesn't frustrate me that I just can't seem to get better at speaking Romanian, that I don't see how much pain you're in, and that your pain isn't one of the things that first drew me to you."
"That doesn't sound like a magnetizing quality," Bucky replied evenly.
"I desperately needed to meet another foreigner as lost and unhappy as I felt. Of course, the longer I've known you, the more obvious it's become that my problems are petty in comparison. There's some heavy fucking shit going on up in that handsome head of yours."
"Astute."
"You don't deserve your pain either, you know."
Bucky's chest clenched. "That I do deserve."
"I don't know what happened while you were serving, and I don't expect for you to ever share that with me. But being an instrument of war doesn't make you the guiltiest party. The conductor of the instrumental orchestra holds that distinction."
"But each instrument still played. And some even had a solo."
"And good on the soloists who didn't let that honor go to their head. Who retained their modest humanity and continued to try to lead a normal life."
"It is the least a soloist can do after what they did to the audience."
"It is also the least they can do for themselves after escaping the control of a conductor who thoughtlessly put them through such a trying performance."
"Ultimately, the soloist needs to take ownership of their actions, and to accept what that means."
"Ownership is important, but not to the point of self-destruction. Everyone has the capacity for redemption."
"I'm not sure I believe that."
"Maybe you are misunderstanding redemption," Harper guessed. "Redemption doesn't erase what has been done. Redemption is freedom from sin or evil. It's moving forward and rising above what has been done while making every effort to remain free of it. Do you really believe you can't move forward without conducting yourself as you did while serving?"
Bucky didn't answer, but Harper didn't seem surprised or put off. It was the heaviest, most honest conversation he'd had about himself with her. He wasn't sure if he had been converted to her way of thinking – he certainly still felt like he didn't deserve someone like her in his life – but it felt good to be a little more honest with her.
It had been six months since Bucky met Harper, and nine since fleeing Washington D.C. There had been no signs at all that he had been tracked or discovered, for which he was grateful. He hadn't originally planned on staying in one place so long, but he no longer had any interest in running away again unless he had to. Living as normally as possible was his new goal, and he was enjoying it. His dreams were still bathed in blood, pain, and glassy eyes that told him he didn't deserve normalcy, but when he awoke, he knew there was a young woman who could reassure him that he did.
Books on memory were his new favorite to check out from both the local library and the library of Harper. One had offered an interesting perspective, framing memory health around overall nutritional and physical wellbeing. It was because of this book that the former assassin found himself in the middle of a very busy market one day after finishing work at the shipping center.
Crowds had become somewhat easier, although on a personal level they still felt terribly uncomfortable. But hiding in a crowd was just as easy as hiding in the shadows. He perused rows of fruits, stopping in front of several crates of plums. Though he had his journals, he didn't want to have to rely on them alone. He wanted to remember. His family, Steve, the Howling Commandos, the experimentation, the fall from the mountainside, the deaths, Harper…
Looking up at the vendor, he asked, "How much?"
Working at the docks was significantly better than working in the shipping center. The dock manager had hired him immediately upon seeing how much he could lift, and he oftentimes got assigned to unload boats with only one or two other people. Everyone was more spread out, which kept conversation to a minimum. When there was conversation, Bucky was careful not to even mention Harper so that none of them could badger him about doing explicit things with her. After many months of listening to his former coworkers talking about her in that way, he had begun to find it difficult to ignore that she was, in fact, an attractive woman. He had shamefully thought of her a few times when tending to his needs, and he desperately wanted to stop thinking of her in that way. A challenge when every day he was surrounded by men talking about women, and the only woman he came in contact with was the one they continually inquired about. His playboy days were over, and Harper was his friend. He didn't dare think any further than that.
Another benefit to working on the docks was that he got to spend time outside. The cool dawn air fading into the warm spring days and the spray of saltwater on his skin made him feel alive in a way he hadn't in a long time. When had he last appreciated the visceral feeling of being a man outdoors?
Plus, the pay was much better. He got the couch he had wanted and was able to pay Harper back for all of the dinners she cooked with lunch or breakfast out at the nearby diner which had become another staple haunt for them. Life was deliciously normal, and he actually felt like maybe he was happy again.
James: Do you already have dinner planned for tomorrow?
Harper: Nothin fancy. Why?
James: One of the fishermen I've gotten to know offered me a free dinner. I figured we could cash in on it?
Harper: Sure he wasn't asking you to dinner? On his dime?
Bucky flushed brilliantly at the implication.
James: No, I'm quite confident that was not the case. He specifically said I should bring a guest.
Harper: And you're inviting little ol me? Why, James, dear! How flattered this old spinster is!
James: Are you reading Pride and Prejudice again?
Harper: Mayhaps. Or mayhaps I am four hours into the six hour mini-series with Colin Firth.
James: And how far into a bottle of wine are you?
Harper: Oh, that was gone by hour two.
The former soldier couldn't help but chuckle to himself. There was something incredibly charming about Harper when she was drunk.
James: I'll send you a reminder text in the morning about dinner.
Harper: That is probably for the best. You're the best, ya know?
James: That sure sounds like the wine.
Harper: No way! All me.
James: Sure, sure. Night, Harper.
Harper: Night, James. Sleep well! May your dreams be full of crabs and shrimps!
"She's something," Bucky couldn't help but laugh.
A/N: Apologies for the slightly belated update! I was doing so well sticking to my self-imposed schedule, too... Regardless, thank you so much for all of the reviews, favorites, follows, and views. I'm really excited that there has been interest in this story. I still worry a little about my pacing and my characterization of Bucky; any feedback would really be appreciated. Thank you again for your continued support.