"Rhodey was a complete jerk about it." Toni grunted as she reached above her head to strip another wire. "He was all: 'You know I love you, Tones, but the king'll kill me if I teach you to fight,'" she said, in a mocking tone.

"Uh-huh," Bucky responded vaguely. His attention was more on the scaffolding she stood atop of, and the way it swayed just a bit too much for his liking.

"But, just when I would've turned into some emo pre-teen," she started feeding the wire into the chandelier box, "that's when I found and borrowed Howard's library. By that, I of course mean, 'broke into' and 'stole', but whatever, because, he had all the books on math, physics, and engineering."

"Uh-huh." He shuffled a little closer, just in case.

Bucky spit out the tree. "And then, when there's a good updraft, the parents gather all the hatchlings at the front of the cave and shove them out."

"Wow." Toni huffed out a laugh as she took a saw to the branches. "Talk about trial by fire. Do or die, huh?"

"Nah. Younger dragons are lighter, and there's the innate magic; they bounce."

"Did you make it your first time out?"

"Uh, no."

"Hey, I bet almost no one gets it right the first time." She tossed that branch away and started on another.

"Didn't get the second time either."

"Third time's the charm?"

"Not really."

She glanced up at him with raised eyebrows. "How long, and what's the average?"

"'Bout a week," he said, sheepishly, "and, um, maybe a day or two."

She snorted out a burst of laughter, a completely unattractive noise that, nevertheless, made him chuckle too.

"I am a perfectly good flyer now," Bucky reassured. "But it's, uh, it's how I got my name. Sky just seemed to buck me right out and onto the ground."

He leaned down to grab a branch in his teeth to rip off, but a sharp rap on his muzzle from the flat of the saw made him flinch back.

"Stop that," Toni admonished, but the corner of her mouth was crooked into a smile. "I need even cuts, not torn wood. Just sit there and look handsome."

He huffed out a frozen mist, just for show, before sitting back and angling himself to let the sun make his scales glitter.

"It was so much easier than I thought, once I got it all working together." Sparks jumped as Toni did something inside the chest piece of her armor. "I just wrote letters as Prince Anthony asking to borrow advanced texts from various institutions, and no one had a problem. If anyone wrote back asking about a princess, I'd just say something about a vapid twin sister."

"Vapid?" The stone steps in front of Bucky iced over at his amused puff of breath.

"Hey, I can act!" Peering out around the chest plate, she grinned up at him. "How do you think I've stayed unwed this long? Howard's been trying to unload me since I was twelve."

That…that was unthinkably young in dragon years. He had no idea what it was in human years.

"How old were you when you showed up here?" he asked.

"Sixteen. I'm eighteen now." She shrugged and went back to making things spark.

"Humans pair off so young?" He scrunched his muzzle in distaste.

"Royals do. But I wasn't about to let Howard sell me off to some old, overweight, balding, slob. So I acted. I acted friendly, gregarious, so eager to meet everyone, and I made damn sure I offended every one of them, too. Oh, I made it look totally innocent, like I was an idiot who just didn't know better, but it was still unforgivable."

"I wish I could've seen it." Bucky sighed, wistfully.

"It was amazing. Howard looked like he was gonna have a coronary every time, and Rhodey could hardly keep a straight face. Even mom kept covering her mouth like she was trying to hide a smile."

The sparks stopped and Toni sat back on her heels.

"Couldn't go on forever. Enough good suitors run away, Howard gets pissed off enough, and Tiberius saw his opportunity. If I hadn't managed to forge those orders shipping him out, and gotten them in Howard's office when he was drunk signing things that day, I'd already be married to that-that-ugh." She shuddered, a look of revulsion crossing her face.

"No you wouldn't," Bucky said, with absolute certainty. "You're a genius, remember? You fix things. If that hadn't worked, you would've figured something else out. It's what you do."

Toni was silent for a few moments before looking up at him. Her eyes were shining as she smiled softly. "Yeah, it is, isn't it?"

"Don't think about it much. It was another life." Bucky's voice was a gentle rumble as he lay, stretched out in the keep.

"Okay." It was simple, accepting, not pushing one way or another.

He could feel Toni turn over onto her side, even through the thick fur she'd draped over the top of his head. Then he felt - oh. She'd put on her armor gloves, was using her fingers to scratch at the scales around the base of his ear.

Bucky rumbled in approval and lowered that ear, giving her better access.

"I never wanted to be the Winter Dragon, wasn't something I made myself into. HYDRA made it outta me."

"HYDRA. I've heard of them." Her tone was grim.

"It's always worse than you've heard. Living it is…I don't remember much, and I think that's on purpose, maybe. It's before and after, and I just wanna be in the after."

"If that's what you need."

He sighed in relief, then twitched his other ear pointedly.

"How did you decide on this castle?"

He felt her move around before metal-covered fingers were scratching at his other ear.

"I don't know how I got here; I don't remember choosing to be here. I remember bits of traveling and starving and trying to find someplace safe, and then I woke up here. It was empty and no one came to claim it, so I just never left."

"I can see why. High walls, one side up against a mountain, it makes a secure home."

He snorted, covering the table in front of him with frost. "This was just somewhere to stop running. Wasn't home." He thought about that for a moment, reconsidered. "Didn't think of it that way, 'til now."