Certainly an unexpected character to be including in this series, but the idea popped into my head and just wouldn't go away. Honestly there was so much potential to explore between them and I'm sad we won't get to see it, if only for the fact that we'll never get to see Nat and Bucky roast the crap out of Steve, LOL.

enjoy.

Bucky holds up the jar in his hand and rotates it a few times as he observes the fireflies trapped inside. Sam's nephews had tossed it to him when they'd been ushered inside to head to bed and he'd been transfixed by it since. He'd seen fireflies on a few occasions in his life, though he'd never chased and caught them in a jar. He supposes that's mostly to do with having grown up in the city though, because he could easily see his younger self doing just that if he'd spent time in a place like Sam's hometown.

"Hey," Sam says as he approaches where Bucky's sitting on the edge of the dock, legs dangling over the edge.

"Hey."

"Lightning bugs, huh?" Sam comments as he takes a seat next to him.

"Fireflies," Bucky corrects automatically as he twists the jar again and tilts his head to get a better view. Now that the sun's fully set their light is even more prominent than when the boys had caught them earlier.

"You know, Natasha had a thing for them."

Bucky looks up at his words. Sam didn't talk about her often but whenever he did it was with a great deal of fondness. He raises his eyebrows in a silent request for him to elaborate.

"When we first got outta the Raft, she took us to this safehouse… God, where was it...Germany maybe? Anyway, she was sitting out on the porch with Wanda watching the lightning bugs floating around in this grassy area out front of the house. Despite the fact that the team had fractured in two and we were global fugitives on the run, she had this almost serene look on her face as she watched them. Honestly, it wasn't often she looked that peaceful, so it was memorable, you know? We came across them again the next year and she just sat and watched them for at least an hour. I found Wanda looking at her through the window with a little smile on her face and she explained there was a peaceful feeling radiating off Nat that she could sense. I guess the lightning bugs were special to her for some reason. Never got a chance to ask her why though."

Bucky grapples with what to say because he knows she and Sam had been friends. He'd known Steve had been good friends with her, and that Barton had been her best friend, but it wasn't until he heard Sam talk about her that he'd figured out how important she was to him too. Eventually he settles for, "I'm sorry" because he really has no idea what else to say.

"Thanks," Sam says with a slow nod as he reaches out with one hand for the jar.

Bucky hands it over and takes a second to scrutinize Sam's expression. It's one tinged with grief and regret - one Bucky remembers all too well from seeing it on his fellow soldiers' faces in the war. "You miss her, huh?"

Sam bobs his head once as he twists the jar around to look at the fireflies. "Yeah. She was real closed off at first, not unlike someone else I know," he says, shooting a meaningful side-eyed look at Bucky, "but eventually we became good friends. She was way more than the rumours and her supposed reputation suggested. She had a heart of gold, was loyal as hell, and spent her life trying to be better."

"She sounds like a hell of a person," Bucky offers. He'd never really interacted with her even though he'd known that they probably shared more in common than he did with most other people. Similar shared past trauma and all that, after all...

"She was one of the good ones for sure."

"I'm sorry I never really got to know her."

"You know," Sam says with a slow-creeping smile, "I think she would've liked you."

Bucky scoffs. "I tried to kill her on multiple occasions," he reminds him, "so I seriously doubt that."

Sam just shrugs though, apparently undeterred. "Nat didn't hold grudges over that sort of shit. She only held grudges against the people who deserved it. She would've liked you. You two would've had a lot in common, I think."

"Yeah?" His spirits feel oddly buoyed by his insistence that she'd have liked him. She was, after all, respected deeply by the people he respected...so he figures that means something about what they think of him.

"Yeah," Sam confirms, handing the jar back to Bucky before standing up. "I'm heading inside. Don't be out here too late, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," Bucky dismisses with a grin. "I'll be alright."

"Hey, no brooding," Sam says while pointing an accusing finger at him.

"I'm not brooding," he protests.

"C'mon, man," Sam says with a roll of his eyes. "You're sitting on a dock while looking contemplatively at a jar of lightning bugs. If that's not brooding, I don't know what is. It's like you're re-enacting a scene out of a drama."

"I'm fine, Sam. Really. Just thinking is all. Nothing dramatic."

"Well, come find me if it does start to get dramatic. Don't need you making any dumbass decisions."

"Oh, shut up." Bucky hears Sam's soft chuckles as he makes his way back up the dock. The sounds of his footsteps fade away shortly, leaving Bucky with just the sounds of the water and his own thoughts as he continues looking at the beetles floating around in the jar.

His mind wanders from topic to topic seemingly aimlessly as his gaze drifts out over the water, but he comes back to Natasha Romanoff when his gaze comes back to the jar again. He hadn't ever spent time with her but everything Steve and Sam had told him about her made him think he probably would have wanted to get to know her. She seemed, from what they said anyway, to have been a good person. Someone worth knowing. Sam had said she'd spent her life trying to be a better person and Bucky wonders if she'd struggled with the weight of the blood on her hands too. He'd seen some of the data she'd dumped the wake of taking down Hydra, and it hadn't been at all flattering for her, but she'd persisted in doing good things and being a hero despite what people said.

"Hey."

He looks up and smiles when he sees Sam's sister, Sarah, gazing down at him. "Hey," he returns.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, fine," he dismisses breezily.

"Just...out here in the dark…by yourself?"

He chuckles lightly because yeah, she had a point. "I guess that doesn't really scream normal, huh?"

"Not really, no," she agrees with a smile.

"Well, I'm fine. Just enjoying the peace," he says with a vague gesture toward the water.

"Guess it's not really something you've had a lot of in your life."

"Not for a long while," he agrees. "It's nice though. Thank you, by the way. For inviting me and letting me stay. I appreciate it."

She waves off his words as she begins to sit down next to him, smiling when he offers her his hand in assistance. "Sam speaks very highly of you in between his nonsensical grumbling, so I don't mind."

Bucky offers a wry smile. "Yeah, he's a good guy when he's not being a pain in my ass."

"Well, that doesn't leave a whole lot of time, now does it?" He chuckles good-naturedly in response. "So, what are you ruminating about out here by yourself?" she asks.

He doesn't know her well but he can tell she's the kind of person that's easy to talk to, so rather than brush off her question he decides to be honest. "Natasha Romanoff."

Her expression shifts into one that's puzzled and he doesn't blame her. It wasn't, after all, the most logical answer for him to have given. "Did you know her?"

"No, not really," he admits and her furrowed brow deepens in confusion. "We crossed paths back while I was the Winter Soldier. Tried to kill her a few times, shot her twice," he says with a grimace, still feeling bad about those missions and feeling a bit bad about his blasé delivery of that information, "and fought alongside her in Wakanda, but we never really talked."

Sarah surprises him though when she just smirks. "Guess you're lucky she didn't hold a grudge. From what Sam's told me, she was a hell of a woman and didn't seem like the type of person that you wanted to be on the bad side of."

He nods his head in agreement. He'd heard some stories about her ruthless efficiency, not to mention he had vivid memories of being shot at and nearly strangled by her on a couple of occasions. "No, definitely not. I've heard the stories from him and Steve, and crossed paths while we were on opposite sides. She was not a woman you'd wanna scorn, that's for sure."

"So, if the two of you never really met, what's got you thinking about her?"

He held up the jar and wiggled it for emphasis. "Sam mentioned she liked these guys and it got me thinking about her. So really, it's his fault," he finishes with a half-hearted smirk.

"What specifically are you thinking about?"

Distantly he wonders why he feels so comfortable sharing these thoughts with Sarah, a woman he doesn't know all that well, but after the aggravation of dealing with the Flag Smashers, it feels nice to unload a bit. And his gut, which admittedly he's only recently begun to trust again, is telling him Sarah's a good egg.

He lets out an exhale before he dives into his explanation. "Well, he said he thought she would've liked me and it got my brain going...and I realized we probably would have had some shared experiences given our histories. I mean, it was different how they did it, but for both of us they moulded us into weapons and took away our humanity. Only difference is, she fought off their hold on her long before I ever could ever be free of mine."

Sarah's brow furrows again at his slightly dulled tone at the end. "So, you think you would've had some common ground," she summarizes.

"Probably," he answers with a half shrug.

"That's not what's got your eyebrows frowning so deeply though," she says knowingly.

He smiles briefly at her ability to dive through his slightly wordy answer to the heart of it. He wonders if that's a Wilson family trait because Sam was frustratingly good at it too. "She spent five miserable years trying to fix things, to bring back the people she'd lost, to reunite her family. And just as that's within reach, she has to give it all up so everyone else could have that. Tough to think about, you know? She saved half the whole damn universe with what she did but she'll never get to know that it worked. To know that she got the last laugh over the people who'd tried so hard to rip away her capacity to love." I wonder if she ever knew she was a hero, he adds silently because he can't quite verbalize that part.

"Her family and friends know. We know. There are other people out there that know and appreciate what she did. Maybe she doesn't get as flashy a tribute as Tony Stark, but the world knows what she gave up." She reaches over and touches his arm to get him to look up and meet her gaze. "We don't get to dictate how our stories are written by the people in our lives. Sometimes they forget the stuff we want them to forget, and sometimes they don't. All we can do is live our lives the best way we know how, and hope that people will remember us for the good parts, and the good things we've done."

He blows out another breath. "I've done more bad than good," he admits. Oddly it feels good to have said it out loud. He knows Sam understands that to be how he feels, and he knows Steve had known it too, but admitting it felt...freeing in an unexpected way. It felt the same as when he'd admitted to Sam his fears of Steve having been wrong about him being worthy.

"Sam would disagree. So would my boys. So would a lot of people," she replies firmly and he knows her tone means she's not going to take any sort of disagreement from him. "But for you in your heart and your soul, you should come to realize the good you're doing now," she says and he's struck by how filled with wisdom she sounds. These are hard realizations but she's explaining them so effortlessly to him, and he's a little flabbergasted at her ability to strip it all down to the point. "I think Natasha Romanoff was the same - she overcame her past and the things she'd been forced to do, and chose how to forge her path forward. How to find a family, and be loyal to them. How to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. How to find a purpose with the skills she had...whether she wanted them or not. You can do that too. You are doing that."

He stays quiet. Her words are hitting home and it almost hurts to let them sink in. It's always been a war between what he wants and the weight of what he'd been forced to do, and he's never been sure how to make the right side come out on top.

"At a certain point, you'll have to let go of the idea that you have to shoulder the burdens people placed on you," she says while taking the now forgotten jar from his hands. "And once you do that, I think you'll start to feel free," she finishes as she unscrews the lid and allows the beetles to fly out of the jar and rejoin the rest. They both watch the pulsing lights disappear into the distance and then she touches his arm again to catch his gaze. "You deserve to be happy just as much as you believe that Natasha deserved that. I won't pretend to understand everything you've gone through but I think you need to start with accepting that you can be more than what they made you to be. That you are more than they made you to be. Sam may pretend to be grumpy and put up a front, but you know he respects you. You see the way my boys love you. You saw how people were appreciative of you saving them. You're far more than the Winter Soldier moniker. You're Bucky."

He lets her words sink in for a moment or two before he relaxes and tries to lessen the tension with humour. "So is the therapist-like perception a Wilson family trait, or...?"

She takes pity on his poor attempt at humour, he thinks, and smiles. "Come on, Sam found some good bourbon and we're gonna open it up to celebrate.

Bucky takes one last look at the now distant pulsing lights of the fireflies as he thinks of what Natasha Romanoff had accomplished in spite of everything life had thrown at her. Steve had believed he was worthy, and Sam had made it clear he does too. And so, as Bucky rises to his feet he thinks maybe, if Natasha had managed to carve out a life as Natasha instead of just the Black Widow, maybe he can find a way to be Bucky instead of just the Winter Soldier.

thoughts? feelings? let me know - comments do so make my day.

hope you're all staying safe in this wild world these days.

more to come.