As Time Goes By

by BouncingKappa

Sequel to Songbirds and Bombshells! Sadie Reid disappeared in 1949, never to be seen again until she resurfaces in 2016 with no memory of how she got there and one clue: the dog tags of her supposedly dead fiance, Bucky Barnes. Bucky is in Wakanda hoping for a chance at the freshest start he can get. Love found them once in the unlikeliest place, can it bring them together again?

14. Time After Time

A/N: Listen, I'm just as surprised as you are that I've updated so soon. Let's not question it and just enjoy the random burst of consistency while it lasts.

Thank you so, so much for all of the follows, favorites, and for all of your lovely reviews. Last chapter was a big gamble and I am humbled by your feedback. To the wonderful guest who reviewed that she feels seen after so long – I wish I could reach out to message you directly! I want you to know that I see you and your review was so beautiful and so meaningful to me. Thank you for reaching out and sharing this little bit of yourself, I'm sure that it wasn't easy but your words were incredibly powerful and I am honored that you support my work!

Additional thanks to the wonderful Lyssxo and Stencil Your Heart who both beta-read this chapter. I have to say, it's one of my favorites so far.

Disclaimer – I don't own Marvel. You know that.

Chapter 14 – Time After Time

"Is your bedside manner this shit with all of your patients?"

Emmanuel Greyson ripped away the last strip of tape covering a large rectangular bandage on Rumlow's back. "I don't think you're in any position to complain about your treatment. Unless you've another doctor on call."

Rumlow muttered a couple of obscenities under his breath but stayed where he was, face-down on the exam table, stripped down to nothing but his boxer briefs and a sheet. Emmanuel could see what the untrained eye couldn't. There were layers to his scars, old bullet grazes from his early years of military and SHIELD service, healed gashes and burns peeking out from beneath the gnarled scar tissue of his burns from SHIELD's collapse and then the new sets of burns, cuts and still-healing surgical sutures from his most recent brush with death in Lagos. Although Emmanuel found Rumlow repulsive on a personal level, he had to admit that the man's body was an exquisite, if somewhat disturbing, work of art, a monument to what the human body could overcome.

He'd seen similar miracles of the grotesque. If he closed his eyes and concentrated hard enough, he could still hear the echo of pained voices, see the rows of painted white beds occupied by listless bodies, and feel the misery that soured the fresh air. In his time he'd seen men lose all their limbs, learn to communicate and eat while missing almost half their face, or be relegated to pissing through a bag for the rest of their lives and somehow heal enough to survive. They were doomed to a miserable life of social disgust and isolation and likely wished they were dead but scraped through a half-existence. Even then, Rumlow might have had them all beat. Despite the injuries that should have killed him, he endured, fueled almost entirely by spite. Emmanuel would be tempted to commend his reluctant partner in crime if he weren't so utterly bored by Rumlow's motivations.

Brushing off any lingering curiosity regarding Rumlow's extraordinary collection of scars, Emmanuel focused on the task at hand. Taking care, he examined the newest scar tissue and the handful of neat lines marking places where Emmanuel sutured deeper wounds caused by debris strong enough to pierce Rumlow's thick body armor. Given the circumstances, everything looked as it should.

"Well, your sutures are healing along nicely," he pulled at one of the suture lines, satisfied that Rumlow made no involuntary movement to indicate pain. There were no signs of swelling nor did Emmanuel see any indication of infection or drainage, all good signs that Rumlow was entirely on the mend. That, of course, was in spite of his recent foolishness. Emmanuel prided himself on his ability to keep his thoughts to himself but even he had to point out the obvious. "No thanks to your adventure in Vienna's sewer system."

Rumlow made a facial expression that Greyson interpreted to be a raised eyebrow, but with so much scar tissue gumming up his musculature it was hard to tell. There was little point in recounting the laundry list of bacteria that lived in the sewers or describing in horrific detail the diseases Rumlow might pick up as a consequence.

"I did what you wanted, didn't I? I got Cap's attention just like you asked."

"Yes, you did," Emmanuel conceded. He set to work replacing his old bandage with a fresh one, hopefully his last bandage change for the foreseeable future. "Though I fail to understand how that led you into the Godforsaken sewer of all places."

"You never went up against Rogers before," Rumlow argued with an air of authority that Emmanuel found grating. "He's a fast motherfucker and if I didn't give him the slip, he would've caught me. And we don't want that, now do we?"

No, Emmanuel supposed he didn't. After all, the entire point of the exercise in Vienna was to raise the alarm bells and cast suspicion on his grumpy, vengeful red herring. "As long as you believe it worked."

"It did, trust me."

Emmanuel really had no other choice. So much of his plan hung on Rumlow's ability to uphold his end of the bargain. Emmanuel would happily hand over Barnes and anyone else who got in his way as long as he got his prize. The best way to ensure his path was clear was to cast suspicion on Rumlow, working Captain Rogers into a tizzy that would eventually suck in everyone else in his orbit. Nobody would suspect the mild-mannered geneticist that barely spoke to his quarry for a handful of seconds at the cocktail reception celebrating the success of the Accords, not when Brock Rumlow was back from the dead and on the loose.

His mind trailed back to Vienna, to the City Hall ballroom that housed a number of special guests alongside the glitzy UN delegation, often so far removed in class and socioeconomic status from the populations they served. Finding Sadie Reid in the crowd hadn't been particularly difficult. Even from across the room, he recognized that she possessed an ineffable quality that separated her from the statuesque beauty from Wakanda at her side or even King T'Challa in his untouchable, intimidating glory. No, he'd been instantly drawn to Sadie. Perhaps it was how she could stand perfectly straight and still maintain an ease that took years of practice to perfect. If she was uncomfortable, she never let it show, her full pink mouth drawing into a radiant smile for each person she met, shaking one grabby hand after another. She was the center of attention and almost surely knew it but put on the believable air of ignorance to her popularity, pulling the performance off with such gusto that he didn't hear a negative word against her the entire evening.

Their meeting had been brief but illuminating. Emmanuel was rarely nervous but he felt the slight quake of anxiety as he approached her. Yet she didn't recognize his nerves or anything else about him, taking his hand in a firm shake that almost surprised him. Her grey eyes drifted across his aristocratic features, pleased by what she saw and even more pleased to let him go after their perfunctory greeting. He'd wanted to talk longer but he was just one of many clamoring to claim her acquaintance and after exchanging a few brief pleasantries, he found himself swept away to the far side of the room where the bartender awaited him with two fingers of stiff scotch.

Emmanuel wasn't too bothered. They ran in the same circles now and would certainly meet again in two weeks' time in Washington D.C. for King T'Challa's first state visit. He was a patient man. He could wait.

Rumlow sat up after he finished applying the bandages, turning his chin from one side to the other to crack his neck. For a moment he regarded Emmaneul carefully, as if just noticing some invisible detail for the first time. Emmanuel ignored him, retreating to the sink on the far wall to wash his hands.

"I gotta ask, Doc. How do you even know how to do all this shit? I thought you were a geneticist and I know they don't slice and dice on the regular."

Emmanuel's hands stilled beneath the stream of hot water. He watched the suds from his antibacterial soap run off his pink skin and down the drain. Though he owed Rumlow absolutely nothing by way of an explanation, he supposed a little nugget of information wouldn't hurt, especially if it would induce Rumlow to continue to trust him the deeper they got into their dealings.

"I didn't start out in genetics. In fact, my experiences as a surgeon and former employment led me down the path that eventually led to genetic research." He shut off the water and reached for the paper towels. "Some skills don't leave you and knowing how to make a perfect suture is one of them."

Rumlow took him at face value. After he'd dressed and shuffled off to do God-only-knew-what, Emmanuel cleaned up the mess and retreated from the abandoned hospital that Rumlow called home for his corner office in a sleek glass and steel building on the other side of the city. Over a strong espresso, he let go of the stresses related to caring for such an unfortunate patient. Perhaps Emmanuel had his own personal agenda but he also had a real job that required his attention. He turned his attention to the stack of files his secretary left on his desk.

As he flipped open the cover of the first file to read about a patient study, he absently reached for his bone china espresso cup. The tremor ripped through him with no warning. Espresso sloshed over the golden rim of the cup that sprang free of his spasming hand, shattering on the hardwood floor at the base of his desk. Skin burning from the steaming liquid and still flexing uncontrollably, he snatched his hand against his chest.

"Damn," he muttered.

Staggering from his chair, he lurched across his office and yanked the door to his private washroom open. He practically fell against the sink, clutching it with his good hand to save his precarious balance. The entire left-side of his body continued to convulse and as he jerked his head up to face the mirror, he watched in despair as his mouth involuntarily curled into an ugly sneer, his cheek and eye visibly twitching.

And then, as soon as it happened, the tremor was gone, leaving him feeling weak and breathless. Emmanuel splashed cold water on his face to little effect. Though he no longer shook, he felt rattled.

"The third time this week," he murmured, fighting a frown.

The incidents were becoming more and more frequent, presenting with decreasing warning. This time he'd had no idea at all until he was bathed in espresso. He frowned at the state of his clothes and reached for the spare set he always kept on a hanger in the washroom. Once he was dressed, he passed back into his office, ignoring the shattered cup and small pool of espresso on the floor.

Producing his car keys, he isolated a desk key on the ring and unlocked the bottom drawer. A single file rested on the bottom. Emmanuel placed it on his desk top and brushed his fingers across the front cover and down the side-tab bearing the subject. It took him far too many years and more than a couple of victims to track down this lost but precious piece of history. If anyone knew he had it, he'd surely be the target of multiple investigations but he was too good at covering his tracks. Though he'd memorized the contents, he still took in a tight breath when he opened it. No matter how many times he saw it over the decades, he was still always a little taken aback by the sinister HYDRA symbol, even when it was innocuously printed on the top corner of the front page.

"Perhaps I don't have as long as I'd hoped," he muttered to himself, thinking of his ailments and the last hope he had for a cure. Sadie Reid was pretty in pictures, including her service photo attached to the front page of her HYDRA file, but no photo could really do her justice. "But things will be better soon enough."

He turned to the last page, marveling at the picture of Sadie, asleep, battered and bruised inside her cryo tube.

"Soon enough."

X X X

Sadie was avoiding Bucky. There was no other answer to why, in the week since she returned from Vienna, she'd become a ghost. In the mornings she was always already awake and gone when he came out, whether off to meet Nakia for a working breakfast, to Shuri for further evaluation of her powers or, much to Bucky's chagrin, a training session with Bishara. Bucky resigned himself to eating breakfast alone and stopped making a second cup of coffee on the fourth morning of her absence. After breakfast he left to meet with the members of Wakanda's intelligence department to continue getting up to speed but when he came back, it was always to an empty living area because Sadie was either still out or had shut herself in her room under the guise of reading or doing work to help Nakia prepare her big presentation to the Oakland City Council in two weeks' time.

Bucky didn't know why he was so bothered. After bucking HYDRA's mind control, he'd lived just fine on his own for two years in near total silence. He hadn't minded his solitude then but it bothered him now. When Sadie wasn't at the counter or curled up on the sofa pouring through a history book or trying to learn the ins and outs of the Internet on the tablet Shuri insisted she learn to use, the common area felt too big and the few sounds he made echoed off the windows, a pitiful reminder of just how alone he really was.

Truth be told, Bucky missed Sadie. He'd missed her when she was away in Vienna and he missed her now. This was especially frustrating because he knew that she had her reasons for avoiding him and he suspected that they began and ended with the meeting she'd had with Shuri upon arriving back from Vienna. From the little bit he gleaned from T'Challa and Shuri, nothing happened in Vienna that would cause Sadie to pull away from him so harshly only to break down sobbing mere minutes later. No, something had happened at Shuri's lab. She must have learned something new about her powers or something else equally unsettling that tipped her over the knife's edge of her sanity and Bucky's sinking suspicion was that whatever it was, either he was somehow tangentially involved or it was the final straw on a pile of Sadie's grievances which included him. One way or another, she could barely look at him and it was driving him up the wall.

"You know, you just might have to suck it up and talk to her," Steve counseled one evening on a video call. They'd long since wrapped up the video-conference with T'Challa, discussing the alarming news of Brock Rumlow's return and comparing the scant intelligence notes they'd gathered in the days since the shocking news came to light. Steve stayed on the line after T'Challa hung up, taking the rare opportunity of some downtime to catch up with Bucky.

As their conversations often inevitably did, and much to his chagrin, the subject of Sadie - and Bucky's almost non-existent relationship with her - came up. Bucky wiped his face with his metal hand.

"I can't exactly talk to her when she's never here. I don't know what happened. Things were better, we were talking and spending time together and I thought-" he broke off, remembering then that it was his fault they weren't in a better place. He was the one who all but shoved her away after his lapse in judgment led to their first kiss in seven decades. "It's worse than that stupid roller coaster at Coney Island. We're both up and then down but we're just-"

"Never on the same page?" Steve suggested.

"Yeah."

Steve rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You've both been through a lot. It's really not a big surprise you're struggling. I mean, you didn't think this was going to be easy, did you?"

Of course Bucky didn't think that reconnecting with his ex-fiancé seventy years after they were both kidnapped by HYDRA and brutally tortured was going to be easy. "No, I wasn't expecting a walk in the park but I wasn't expecting this either."

"What were you expecting? I mean, it's not a secret you were looking for her before I found you. Out of curiosity, what were you going to do if you'd found her first?"

That was an excellent question, one to which Bucky had no concrete answer. The way he didn't meet Steve's eye was answer enough and Steve sighed. The ancient sofa Steve took up creaked when he leaned forward and Bucky fought a groan. He was familiar with that expression, the one where Steve was aware that he held the moral high ground and wasn't afraid to preach from it. This was one side of Steve Rogers that he hadn't missed.

"Okay, can I ask you a different question?"

"You're going to anyway, aren't you?"

"Where Sadie is concerned, what do you actually want?"

Bucky stared at Steve. What did he want? What he wanted was as confusing of an answer as quantum physics or seeing beyond T'Challa's infamous poker face. He could list off a dozen things he wanted where Sadie was concerned. He wanted her to start talking to him again. He wanted to protect her from every awful thing that might befall her. He wanted to get in a time machine and drag her back seventy years so she could live the life she deserved. He wanted to carry her to his bed and make love to her until she forgot her own name. But above all, he wanted to love her, so completely and unreservedly as he used to, the way she still loved him.

"It's complicated," he grumbled. Steve rolled his eyes so hard, Bucky was surprised they didn't pop out of his head. "Don't sprain anything."

"Stop overthinking this. It's a really simple question: What do you want?"

Bucky frowned but relented.

"I want Sadie, I do. B-"

"Don't finish that sentence," Steve cut him off. "There's no 'but' about this, Bucky. If you want to be with her then go be with her!"

"It's not that easy!" Bucky argued and flopped back on the sofa, scrubbing his face. In the face of Steve's unrelenting optimism, Bucky's tendency to hold his cards close to his vest went out the window. "You don't get it, Steve. The whole reason she wound up here in the first place is because of me - because she got close to me. Sadie was my weakness and if Zola was willing to exploit that then who else will? And even if none of that was a factor, what kind of life can I even give her? I'm a wanted man and sooner or later that's going to catch up with me. I won't drag her down with me."

"Bullshit."

Bucky raised his head from where he'd been brooding toward the floor, stunned by Steve's matter-of-fact response.

"Excuse me?"

"That is all just a giant load of bullshit. How many other excuses do you got? We should probably get through all those too!"

"These aren't excuses, they're-"

"Bullshit," Steve interrupted again. Bucky was on the verge of telling Steve if he said the word 'bullshit' one more time he was going to reach through the screen but pulled up short when Steve shook his head, taking on a more somber look. "You have a second chance with Sadie, Buck. Sadie. She isn't a random date you can barely remember. She was your fiancé and despite your idiotic behavior lately, she still loves you. Whatever your excuses are, they're just that: excuses. You're doing the same thing you did back in '45, assuming things for her when you know that she would stand by you through anything and risk it all for you." Steve had no idea how much Sadie was willing to risk for Bucky. "Do you have any idea what I would give for the opportunity you've got? No matter what happened in the past, if I had a second chance with Peggy there is literally nothing that would stop me from doing everything in my power to be with her."

Bucky didn't even know what to say in response. Neither man was prone to gushing about their emotions and these conversations were rarities but even then, Bucky had never heard Steve talk about his feelings for Peggy so frankly. Sure, he knew there was always something between the two; he used to joke about it all the time. But hearing Steve express his regrets for the way things happened, for losing a love he never even got to experience was a sobering revelation.

"I think you two can help each other if you're willing to let her in. After everything you've been through I think you could use all the help you can get. All you have to do is just be honest with her, Buck."

The truth. Now that was a problem that he couldn't side-step or ignore. Guilt burned through him, droplets of acid trickling through his veins because he alone knew the truth.

"If she knew everything–" he started to say and then stopped himself, realizing what he was admitting to.

Steve crossed his arms over his chest and nodded slowly, wholly unsurprised by Bucky's slip. "I thought maybe you knew more than you were letting on. No matter what it is, you just have to tell her. She deserves the truth."

"She deserves to be happy," Bucky argued. "And if she knew what I know? I don't think she'd ever forgive me, or herself for that matter."

"If I learned anything from Siberia it's that it's always better when they know."

The toll of Steve's regret was vivid on his pale face, highlighting the dark circles beneath his eyes while it dragged his broad shoulders down deeper into the moth-eaten sofa. Though Steve was a grown man who'd made his own choices, Bucky still couldn't help but feel at fault for Steve's predicament. Bucky vividly recalled the abject horror on Tony Stark's face when the pieces fell into place and he had to face judgment for one of his greatest sins. And yet, Bucky often found himself wondering how different that moment might have played out had Steve told Tony the truth years earlier.

But there was no sense in dwelling on 'what ifs' and Bucky shook his head. Steve could argue until he was blue in the face that Bucky was being an idiot and he was mostly right, except for this.

"This is different." The way he spoke left no room for debate. "It's not about what I did as the Winter Soldier. It's–"

A part of Bucky wished Steve was there, to clap him on the shoulder and bolster him as he tried to untie his tongue to make up the words. He wasn't even sure he knew how to tell Sadie the truth, how to bare his soul and, by telling the end of their story, bare hers too.

"You don't have to tell me," Steve said, gentle and forgiving, stalwart as ever. Bucky nodded, grateful for the reprieve. "I can't imagine what it was like and I understand the impulse to protect her, I really do. But it's her life too, Bucky. And Sadie's entitled to the whole truth."

He was as right about that as he was everything else.

"She'll hate me," he whispered.

"She'll get over it," Steve argued.

"All of us do," Sam interrupted, flopping down on the couch next to Steve, a microwave cup of ramen noodles in his hand. "What are we talking about?"

"Nothing," Bucky snapped. He would rather free fall off the Brooklyn Bridge than talk about his personal life with Sam Wilson.

Sam smirked around his large bite of noodles. "Alright, alright, no need to get testy."

Bucky didn't know how Sam did it, but he had a knack for aggravating his already raw nerves. Rolling his eyes, he looked pointedly to Steve. "I've got to go," he lied. "Keep me updated on Rumlow."

"Will do. See ya, Buck."

With that Bucky shut off the video call and slumped against the back of the sofa. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a world where Sadie would waltz through the front door and settle herself into his side, head nestled on his shoulder and fingers tapping in time with his heartbeat. Maybe Steve was right; maybe all of his excuses were bullshit. Maybe he just needed to get out of his own way, but how? How could he try and mend their tattered mess of a relationship when she was practically a ghost these days? Bucky swore he heard the door click open and he turned, expecting to see Sadie.

Yet the door remained closed and Sadie nowhere to be seen.

X X X

T'Challa's assistant had become Sadie's least favorite person in the whole of Wakanda. The young man was pleasant, brilliant, accommodating, organized, and had become a thorn in Sadie's side. He'd taken up the role of coordinating everyone's itineraries for the upcoming Washington D.C. trip. This job was more involved than simply jotting down time slots for events. Two days after Sadie returned from Vienna, she'd woken up to three large three-ring binders stuffed to the brim with preparation materials. Each tab in the binders was set aside for each individual event from the formal greeting in front of the White House, to the highly anticipated state dinner, to the Pan-African Symphony Orchestra performance at the Kennedy Center on their last night in D.C. Behind those tabs were pictures and biographies for every confirmed attendee, pointers on etiquette, the order of ceremonies, when they were arriving, when they were leaving, even seating charts. If Sadie had a question, the answer was surely in her binders. She might have been offended by Geteye's fastidious planning and general assumption that she didn't know which fork to use at a formal dinner if the sheer volume of information she needed to learn wasn't so damned overwhelming.

The one positive of having to find time to cram this information on top of her already busy schedule was that Sadie barely had time to think about what she was going to eat for dinner, much less all of the other things bothering her. It was hard to lie in bed all day and throw herself a pity party when there was just so much to do. She also suspected that Shuri had quietly tasked Sadie's few friends with keeping her extra busy. There was no other explanation for why Nakia insisted on frequenting several popular local restaurants for dinner several nights a week, why T'Challa had engaged her in helping him master several Western dances in preparation for the state dinner, or why Bishara had decided that Sadie was ready to begin learning the basics of spear fighting during their additional training sessions. One day, Sadie would have to thank Shuri for recognizing that she wasn't the type to heal through meditation and self-reflection. Maybe her coping mechanisms weren't the healthiest, but there was no denying that staying busy kept her mind occupied, prevented her from wallowing and, best of all, gave her an entire laundry list of reasons to continue avoiding Bucky.

A week before the trip, Sadie continued to follow her now-familiar pattern. Rather than spread out on the dining table in the common area, she retreated to Nakia's office where she often spent her late afternoons sitting on the floor, a cup of coffee cradled between her hands while she made sense of the pages from her binders she'd spread out on the floor, reordering things and making notes until she could digest everything. If Sadie was avoiding Bucky - which she was - she chose not to admit it in favor of explaining her absence away on being close to Nakia to assist her with her own big presentation to the Oakland City Council, a task she would take on alone while the rest of the delegation stayed in D.C. If Sadie thought she was nervous meeting the president of the United States, it was nothing compared to the nerves that Nakia quietly displayed while she hashed and rehashed her speech.

"It's going to be fine," Sadie reassured her for what felt like the hundredth time. From her spot on the floor she watched Nakia pace back and forth in front of a large screen, biting the tip of her thumb and considering her chosen statistics on access to quality food. "You're bringing free resources to an area that desperately needs it. The council would be foolish to reject your offer and deny the zoning change."

"Well, I know that and you know that," Nakia mused, pushing herself up to sit on her desk. "But King T'Challa has expressed some concerns of pushback. Apparently the council doesn't like the idea of strangers coming in and telling them they're running their city wrong."

Sadie hadn't thought of that possibility, but now that she did it made sense. "I suppose I could understand that." Nakia scowled at her over the top of her tablet. Holding her hands up in defense, Sadie shrugged her shoulders, bared by the cut of her high-necked tank. "You have to admit, it's a little unbelievable that after sitting on this bounty for decades you're suddenly just coming in with open arms. Honestly, Nakia, it would be insulting if you weren't so damn sincere."

Nakia's eyes rounded and she stopped swinging her bare feet back and forth. Her cheeks puffed out in a huff once before she wagged an angry finger at Sadie.

"Insulting? How is bringing free education and the most advanced medical care available to underserved communities insulting? Of all people I would have thought you would understand!"

"I see both sides. I'm not saying what you're doing isn't incredible, it is! But I've been reading about the evolution of Wakanda's medical technology over the last one-hundred years. Do you have any idea how many more men we could have saved with your technology at the time? Knowing that Wakanda could have supplied us with the ability to send more boys back to their mothers but chose not to? I dunno, Nakia, that's a bitter pill to swallow. And something tells me the members of the Oakland City Council probably feel similarly, regardless of your pure intentions."

"I've been an advocate of opening our borders for years! Lots of Wakandans feel that way." She jabbed a hand toward her window to the thousands of faceless and nameless Wakandans going about their day in the city. "Besides, we had reasons for why we never shared our technology with the world," Nakia's voice was soft, almost dangerous and Sadie understood her message without her having to say it. "If it ever fell into the wrong hands…"

"You don't have to explain yourself to me. I was a field nurse, I saw things in those hospital tents that would turn your stomach inside out. I know firsthand the horrible things people can do to each other. And you don't need advanced technology to do them either."

Nakia crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her head as curiosity replaced frustration. "I've never heard you actually talk about the war before. Sometimes I forget you were in it."

"Yeah, well, lucky you," Sadie muttered and Nakia let out a whistle, a small grin pulling at her lips.

"Look who let their bitter finally show! Don't apologize! I was wondering when you'd finally drop the polite act and let me see the real you beneath all those prim and proper old-timey manners."

Nakia slid off her desk and padded across the room, stepping lightly over Sadie's meticulous grid of papers to sit next to her, resting her back against the wall. For a moment the women sat in silence. Absently, Sadie withdrew her chain from beneath her collar and started turning her father's wedding ring on her finger. A set of nimble fingers intervened and Sadie obliged Nakia's silent request, lifting the chain over her head and handing it to her friend.

"I know you don't want to talk about it," she began and despite her gentle approach, Sadie's stomach clenched painfully.

"There's really nothing to talk about."

"That isn't true. I just want you to know that I'm sorry and I am always here if you want to talk."

Sadie felt the familiar pinprick of tears. A long sigh drew itself from her lungs and she let her head fall back against the wall, staring up toward the ceiling. "I don't even know what to say. To me, it feels a lot like waking up in a new century. It is what it is."

"Is that some Depression-era bullshit that you old folks say to convince yourselves you're fine?"

Against her volition, Sadie snorted in humorless laughter. "You are so much like my friend Betty it's uncanny."

"Who was Betty?"

Sadie smiled, thinking of her bombshell of a best friend. "She was one of my closest friends from nursing school. We enlisted together."

"She didn't join the SSR with you?"

Shaking her head, Sadie felt her heart sink into her stomach. "No. She died in an airstrike in Italy." She toyed with the gold bangles on her wrist, a gift from T'Challa to celebrate her successful coming out on the world stage. Somehow, Betty was different from the rest of her lost loved ones. Sadie supposed it was because she'd had real time to grieve the loss. She thought about what Betty would say if she could see Sadie now and only assumed it included some snarky expletives and expressing jealousy that Sadie could now drink like a fish to no effect. "She was sharp and funny like you. She wasn't afraid to speak her mind and had a talent for getting me to loosen up."

"She sounds wonderful."

Sadie's smile was genuine.

"She was. A real dame, if you will." She got to her feet and padded barefoot across Nakia's cavernous office to the sleek silver coffee maker sitting on a handsome credenza. Nakia nodded when she held up a spare cup. Sadie set to work preparing Nakia's coffee and hers. "I didn't mean to insult you or devalue your work. What you're doing is phenomenal and I think you know that. All I wanted to do was give perspective on why you might face resistance."

"You didn't insult me. Honestly, I never considered the possibility that people wouldn't want our help or why. We've been secretive for generations and I hated it. Wakandans aren't always the most humble."

"You don't say," Sadie teased, handing Nakia her coffee when she came to pour in her own cream. Nakia chuckled and dug a gentle elbow into Sadie's ribs.

"But maybe being humble is exactly what I need to do."

"My mother always said you catch more flies with honey."

Nakia wrinkled her nose. "That's disgusting."

"But true all the same. I can help you, as soon as I figure out how to put this stupid binder back together. I cannot believe how much we're doing in seventy-two hours. It's mind-boggling. I didn't even know a person could wear so many clothes in three days but you should see the wardrobe that Geteye delivered to me this morning."

"Oh! Speaking of which, King T'Challa asked me to remind you to look at your uniform to ensure all of the medals and ribbons are correct."

Sadie's good mood vanished. On the second day of the trip, T'Challa was scheduled to appear with the president at Arlington Cemetery, where he would lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier. The ceremony was a common rite of passage for heads of state and something that none of T'Challa's predecessors had done before. He was eager to cement positive diplomatic relations and this was another important step. To further shore up a good response, he'd specifically asked that Sadie attend and when her name was put down for the event, the United States Department of Defense requested that, as a further sign of respect, she don her military uniform.

To say that Sadie was hesitant to step back into the shoes of Captain Reid was an understatement. Though she'd left that life behind, she couldn't deny that her tenure in the army was the primary defining event of her life, crafting her into the person she was now. Still, there was a large gap between acknowledging her military service and wearing it. Yet, she wouldn't do T'Challa the dishonor of rejecting the request and so a brand new dress uniform was delivered all the way from the United States, decked out with a barrage of service ribbons and medals. It hung inside a protective plastic bag, sandwiched between the suit she planned to wear for a tour of the Holocaust museum and the floor length gown earmarked for the state dinner. The tag on the hanger listed the intended events: Wreath laying at Arlington and tour of the WWII memorial. Sadie was as reticent to don the olive drab as she was to face the rows of snow white graves at Arlington.

"Yes, I'll check when I get back."

X X X

Sadie found the uniform in her closet when she returned to her rooms a few hours later. With her arms full of the binders, she barely got her door open and didn't bother to shut it after she dumped them on her bed. Bucky was still away doing God-only-knew-what with Wakandan intelligence and, if the past few days were any indication, wouldn't be back for a while. It felt nice just having her door open for a little while. Though she knew she was being childish avoiding Bucky, she just couldn't help it. Sometime in the last few days, her sadness soured into anger and she felt like a tinderbox just waiting for a spark to send her up in flames. Sidestepping a fight of disastrous proportions was in her best interest; Sadie wasn't sure how she and Bucky could continue any kind of cohabitation if she lost her cool and said what was really on her mind.

Shoving thoughts of Bucky away, Sadie opened her closet. Over the past several weeks the once sparse collection had filled out. Whether it was Nakia having designers deliver items for the trip to Vienna, Geteye bringing outfits for the trip to D.C. or the few times she'd been out in Wakanda's capital, Sadie's wardrobe had expanded to include dresses of all colors and styles, an array of pants and different fabrics she'd never worn before. She was particularly fond of the pants she wore that day, a loose-legged style that Nakia was fond of, comfortable for long days spent preparing for their upcoming trips. But Sadie wasn't focused on the modern updates to her once standard wardrobe. No, her focus lay on the past and she rifled through the clothes marked for the D.C. trip until she closed a hand over the right hanger.

A sigh escaped her lips when she tugged the plastic off and laid the uniform on her bed. A reference chart was pinned to the lapel. Sadie wondered if Geteye ever missed a detail. Sadie didn't need the reference chart for certain details, though. She ghosted her fingers over the shining gold captain's bars on the shoulders, so pristine she could see her reflection in them. Two U.S. pins and two caduceus pins decorated the lapels of her jacket. Two tiny oak clusters were affixed to the purple and white ribbon, each piece a representation of her three purple hearts. Sadie counted the two ribbons for two theaters of war, a rainbow ribbon for victory, and the red white and blue ribbon for her silver star. She brushed her thumb over the ribbon for her service in the SSR and the green and white ribbon for her army commendation medal. There was another ribbon and tiny star pin for the two bronze stars she'd earned, one for the successful evacuation of patients while under enemy fire in France and the second for her service in Okinawa. She noted a couple of other mundane ribbons and finally counted the ribbon for her distinguished service medal. Absently she reached for her scarred shoulder. The night she earned her scars was the same night she earned that medal - helping Major Bradley hold the field hospital together under the barrage of bombers, carrying patient litters and even dragging boys to the safety of foxholes to wait out the intense bombing that made the Nazi attack on the 80th look like child's play. A tiny smirk touched her lips; that was the same night she'd earned the nickname Sadie Steel.

"Well it's all there," she muttered and flipped the diagram over to ensure she wasn't missing anything. Sadie rolled her eyes. Geteye's painstaking handwriting scrawled across the card in the words 'try on!'

Sadie supposed it made sense to ensure the damned thing fit properly. Taking up the uniform, she padded into her small bathroom and shimmied out of her clothes and into the sharp, nicely tailored shirt, khaki pencil skirt, and finally the jacket. Sucking in a tight breath, she did up the new brass buttons and then returned to her room to step into the brown leather pumps. The peaked cap that went with the ensemble sat on her dresser and she paused to twist her hair into a suitable knot before resting the cap atop her head. Drawing in a deep breath to brace herself, she stepped before her floor mirror.

For a moment she swore she'd stepped right through the looking glass and into an alternate universe. The last time she wore her uniform was Christmas 1946, when her mother's church held a service honoring gold star families and those servicemen and women who returned home safely. Sadie remembered being the only woman in uniform in the church and the target of far too many scrutinizing stares. After enduring an evening of pitying looks and fielding a slew of uncomfortable questions about her time in the ANC, about Steve Rogers, and how she possibly went that long without the creature comforts of home, Sadie happily packed her uniform away in tissue paper and never bothered with it again. The last she heard, her original uniform and medals were on display at the Smithsonian and as far as she was concerned, they could stay there. She had no desire to relive the glory days beyond this one perfunctory performance in T'Challa's service.

"Still, it's not so bad," she muttered, examining her profile in the mirror.

Sadie was surprised at how at home she felt in the colors and pageantry. Staring at her reflection was like seeing an old friend after too long apart. This was the woman she remembered, a woman of action and service. Despite her jaded perspective on the war, serving in the army showed Sadie her purpose and gave her the courage to step beyond the traditional expectations for a woman of her social status. It was hard to be bitter about the experience that shaped her and led her to step up and grasp her future for herself.

Removing the cap, she smoothed her hair and then fussed with the caduceus on her right lapel, straightening it out. She'd been so far removed from home and time that her life as a nurse felt like a life lived by someone else. Sadie wondered what her wartime self would say about her present circumstances. As a nurse, she had boundless compassion for her patients. Oftentimes, one of the most important parts of her job was to hold hands, listen to sad stories, and provide reassurance that things would work themselves out. But whether she could extend the same compassion toward herself remained to be seen. From a rational perspective, it was easy to affirm that she was entitled to be depressed and that she was allowed to be angry about how almost none of what happened to her was her fault. So far, however, Sadie had been unable to give herself the same grace she would afford anyone else in her spot. Would the reflection of her former self do the same?

Standing there before a stranger in the mirror, Sadie now understood part of Bucky's struggle. Everything from their past was a literal lifetime ago, leaving her feeling as though they were just reincarnated versions of themselves, tripping blindly through history with an entire catalog of memories and no idea what to do with them. The sad truth was, however, that she wasn't divorced from her past self. Sadie and the woman in the mirror were one and the same and her life one continuous story, broken by a prolonged intermission.

Yes, even ripped apart and taped back together, this was still her life and her future was still hers to decide. She'd been beaten to her limits and pushed into the mud but there was nobody keeping her there but herself. Sadie didn't have to stay in this protracted state of misery. No, unlike so much of what had happened to her, she now had a choice on how she went forward. Victoria Holmes returned to the forefront of her mind, a beautiful example of how just two generations could change a woman's prospects. As she tugged on the bottom of the jacket to straighten it out, she found herself asking the same question she'd asked herself when considering her post-war options. Why shouldn't she return to IHAP to help continue her ongoing legacy? Why shouldn't she get her nursing license again? Why shouldn't she go to medical school? Why not her? Asking that question seventy years ago yielded some spectacular results, why not now?

"You're down," she murmured, ignoring the faint circles beneath her eyes and the drawn quality of her mouth to admire the straight line of her shoulders and the way she stood just a little taller in her uniform. "But you're never out."

X X X

A mandatory royal review of the Dora Milaje forced Bishara to change the time of her usual training session with Sadie. Rather than be ready to train at seven in the morning, Sadie rearranged her schedule to meet her trainer late in the afternoon instead. After she'd carefully removed her uniform and slipped it back into the protective bag, she tugged on a pair of leggings, stuffed her small chest into a sports bra and pulled a loose singlet over her head. She emerged from her room, shoes dangling from two fingers in one hand and her compact practice staff in the other. Even late in the afternoon, the common area was blissfully empty. Without Bucky's brooding presence, she felt free to move about the kitchen, filling up her water bottle and slicing an apple into wedges that she munched on while she considered the coming session.

Training with Bishara had become the closest thing that Sadie had to meditation. No matter how hard Shuri tried to get her to sit down for more than five minutes and clear her mind, Sadie found herself incapable. Stillness was not in her nature. As a child she fidgeted her way through Sunday School, tapped her toe under the table during cotillions and found fulfillment in busy hospital emergency wards. The Army was both a blessing and a curse for Sadie. So much of the pomp and circumstance of service required restraint but she found ways to keep her hands busy during the slow periods of work in the field hospitals. Sadie found no peace trying to achieve a blank mind and total stillness. But working through the complexities of hand-to-hand combat with Bishara brought Sadie something akin to a blank mind. Her teacher was relentless and unforgiving and Sadie found she couldn't let her concentration slip for even a second because the second her mind stepped down a side road, Bishara struck and Sadie inevitably ended up flat on her back on the practice mat. There was a strangely calming ritual to wrapping her hands up and landing methodical strikes on a punching bag. As the days wore on and her endurance increased, Sadie found that she could get through an entire training session without even once considering the mountain of problems casting a long shadow over her.

In the days following the revelation of her infertility, Sadie had needed those precious hours in the training hall more than ever. Any fool could see something was amiss with Sadie but Bishara had the good sense and tact to leave it be. Instead she found subtle ways to bolster her student, finding creative compliments and advancing her to the next steps of her tutelage. Sadie was surprised but pleased when Bishara handed her the compact training staff, citing her noticeable improvement.

Sadie popped another apple slice in her mouth and sat down to tug her socks and shoes on. She'd only finished tying off her second shoe when the main door opened. Swallowing hard around her apple, she kept her face resolutely turned to the floor though she could still see Bucky's silhouette in her peripheral.

A thick blanket of tension stifled the room. Sadie bit the inside of her cheek. After their initial reunion, Sadie thought it was impossible for their situation to become any more awkward. Oh, how wrong she'd been! As she straightened up, prepared to gather her things and make a beeline for the door, Sadie found Bucky leaning against the counter, watching her. A shiver slipped down her spine. Bucky's piercing blue gaze was so intense she felt her insides squirm, feeling more exposed than if he'd walked in on her naked. There was no trace of his usual wariness or an indication that he didn't completely recognize her. Concern softened his mouth and blunted his hard blue eyes, reminding her of the way he searched her face when they were alone after she'd had a long shift or woke from a nightmare. He stared at her in a way he hadn't in a long, long time. Bucky looked at her like he wanted to say a thousand things and, more importantly, like he still loved her.

"Hey."

All it took was a single word to light the match that set the tinder in her chest ablaze. Hey? That was the best he could come up with? Anger like white hot fire raced through her, burning through her muscles to lick along her very bones until it consumed her entirely.

Reining in the impulse to give into the overpowering emotion was so difficult, Sadie barely got the words out. "Hello, Bucky."

Somehow she managed her demure greeting.

"Leaving again?" If Sadie had any doubts that Bucky picked up on her aversion tactics, he dispelled them at once. Of course he knew what she was doing; he'd have to be an idiot to miss the signs.

"Bishara moved my lesson to this afternoon," she replied, doing her best to avoid his gaze.

Sadie took the long way around the sofa to keep as much distance between them as possible. She did not see Bucky scowl toward the ceiling, locked in some internal struggle that she didn't understand but at this point she didn't even particularly care.

"Right, lessons." Something in the way he said it stoked her ire like a red-hot iron. She snatched up her water bottle and started to reach for the compact staff only to realize it wasn't on the counter. "I gotta be honest, I don't really see you being an honorary member of the Dora Milaje."

Bucky turned the small staff in his hands before he hit the sensor on the side and jumped when the staff extended to full length. A small smirk pulled at the corner of Sadie's mouth. His wide gaze bounced from the staff to Sadie and back again. He further stared when she held her hand out for her staff, fingers wiggling in a command for him to give it back.

"What exactly do you see me doing? Reading history books? Being Shuri's model patient?"
"I don't know," he countered. "Getting back into nursing or something but not this. Come on, Sade–" she bristled at being called 'Sade'- "throwing punches and spears? This isn't you."

"That's really rich coming from you." The last tethers of her self-control burned away. She took her staff away from him and retracted it, clutching it in a white-knuckled hand.

"I didn't mean it like that, I just meant–"

"Oh please, you meant it exactly like that and you know it. You walk around pretending like you don't know a damned thing about me anymore until it suits you and suddenly it's like old times! But God forbid I raise any of my own concerns because then it's the end of the goddamned world! I am so sick of it, Bucky."

"That's different," he countered, laying his hands flat on the counter. The tension running up his arms to his tight shoulder was so palpable she swore even his metal arm was tensed.

"Different" she echoed, feeling the word resonate through her., "So what? You can make your own decisions and fuck anyone else who cares but the second I do something for me it's a problem?" A bitter laugh tore its way from her throat. "I swear to God Bucky, that was a load of garbage then and it still is."

"This has nothing to do with whether or not I get a say in your life! I've spent the last seven decades in a fight and I'm here to tell you it's not all it's cracked up to be. And seeing you trying to do it is–"

"It's what?" She prompted him when he broke off, swallowing the end of his sentence. They both knew exactly what he was going to say but she wanted to hear it. The monster within her had taken control and she wanted him to goad her, to egg her into a blown out response because no matter how much she would regret it later, in that moment it felt good to have him on his heels, retreating to any safe ground he could find.

"It's wrong, okay? You're not a fighter. You hated carrying a gun in the middle of a warzone for fuck's sake. What the hell are you doing running around with the Dora Milaje? That's not your job, Sadie. It's not who you are."

For a long moment, Sadie stared blankly at Bucky. He'd said it twice now, pointing out the obvious. Of course learning to fight wasn't her. No matter how much she improved there would always be a part of her that recoiled at the notion of violence, of inflicting hurt on another person. Whether or not Bucky was right or wrong didn't matter to her so much as the conviction with which he spoke.

He'd finally dropped the charade. At long last she wasn't a stranger to him - because she never was. Of course he knew her. How could he not? The certainty that rang clear and true in his assessment shook her to the core, rattling part of her self-righteous indignation but not enough to fully slake her fury.

"You have no right–" she jabbed a quivering finger toward him, as angry at him as she'd ever been. Bucky's foot slid back a half-step and the lingering concern vanished from his face, replaced with a trace of fear and perhaps just a little bit of stubborn anger of his own. "Let's get one thing clear, Buck Sergeant. When it comes to judging me for my decisions, you don't get to stand on the moral high ground. I am doing the best with what I've got and if I'm not fitting into your perfect ideal of who you think I am, that's just too damn bad. Because I am in a strange country in a new goddamned millennium with absolutely no clue as to how I got here. I don't even know who I am anymore."

"I'm not trying to do that-I'm just–you don't know what the outside world is like! Why do you think I joined the Intelligence Corps? I did it for you. Because you have absolutely no idea what's waiting for you out there."

"And you do?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do. And I can fucking guarantee you can't beat it off with a spear!"

Sadie recoiled as if she'd been struck. She could count on two fingers the number of times he'd raised his voice at her. "I didn't ask for that, Bucky! There you go, making assumptions about me all over again. I swear to God it's like we're back in '44 and you're off making choices that affect both of us with absolutely no regard to what I want!"

"Well, what the fuck do you want from me? I leave you alone and you're mad. I try to protect you and you're mad. I try to be your friend–the worst idea you've ever had by the way–and you're mad. Everything I do makes this worse! Sadie, I can't read your mind. I can't fix this if you won't let me."

"You can't fix this!" Her shout echoed off the walls. Sadie thought about everyone she'd lost, every scar she carried, every major event she'd missed, and everything that would never be. Even in the thick of her anger she wanted to laugh because the idea of Bucky picking up the pieces wasn't just ridiculous, it was laughable. It was impossible to even dream that one person could fix all of that, they would be crazy to even try. "Unless you have a time machine to take me back, there is absolutely nothing you can do to make any of this better."

"Oh yeah, that's great, Sade. Real fucking helpful." He raked a hand through his hair and retreated a few steps before turning back. Long gone was the softness on his face, replaced by anger of his own, fueled by his own grievances where she was concerned. He dragged his metal hand over his face. "You know what? Just forget it. I don't know why I'm even trying. You're just gonna do the same thing you always do. You put that mask on and tell the world you're fine even when you're drowning and you know what? Go ahead. Go be fine."

"I was fine!" Shaking her head in bitter laughter, she buried her face in her hands and then pulled them away, shoving her ponytail over her shoulder with a huff. "Before I wound up here I was doing fine on my own. I was finally happy. I had my work and my friends and my family and now all of that is gone! I don't even recognize my own legacy anymore and everyone I love is dead except for you and Steve. And every single morning I walk out here and you look at me like I'm some stranger, like I'm nothing, just someone from your past that should be long dead."

"I wish you had died!"

The air in the room went as still as the air in her lungs. Sadie didn't dare breathe. She didn't even raise her hand to her chest to check if her heart was still beating. Bucky's words clanged and echoed through her head as though he'd struck a gong right next to her ear. Whether or not he could feel the instant change in the air, she couldn't tell because in his own burst of anger he'd closed the gap to only a few feet between them, jabbing his finger angrily toward the ground as he spoke.

"Do you really think I wanted this for you? I wish to God I could take you back. I wish that you could go save the goddamn world. Better yet, I wish you'd actually moved on with your life! Gone and met some handsome guy and married him and had the white picket fence and two perfect kids. I wish you'd had it all, Sade. Anything but this."

Bucky's words doused her in cold water, extinguishing the fire of her fury and leaving her a cold, shivering shell, burned from the inside out. Every stilted beat of her heart echoed through her. She thought of Bucky's so-called wishes for her, as empty and meaningless as the womb within her. Her chest hitched over a breath and she reached up to touch the fresh tears on her cheeks; she'd started crying without even realizing it. The response came to her before she could even question whether it was fair.

"Well, I hate to burst your bubble but that perfect picture is never going to happen because I can't even have children"

Without another word, she sidestepped him and strode out of the common area.

X X X

Bucky wasn't sure how long he stood in the common area, feet rooted to the floor and eyes glued to the spot where Sadie once stood. Stunned into a near-catatonic state, all he could do was replay Sadie's parting words over and over again. He always hated fighting with Sadie because, more often than not, she was right and had an uncanny way of taking his legs out from beneath him before he knew what had happened. Over the days she'd spent avoiding him, he figured she was also avoiding their inevitable dust-up and he expected her to take a few hard shots at his frankly atrocious behavior, but he hadn't expected this. Never in a hundred years did he expect Sadie to make such a shattering revelation.

Everything made sense now. Surely, Sadie's meeting when she returned from Vienna was about this news. No wonder she'd been so detached when he saw her! She'd just had her entire world turned on its head and instead of giving into his instinct to comfort her, he'd just let her walk away to try and face the magnitude of this alone. Things were already so strained between them but adding something so personal as infertility to the equation had clearly tipped her scales, leading to the breakdown that she'd been fighting from the moment she woke up. And his presence had to make that even worse for her. How could he have been so stupid? So utterly blind to her suffering?

More times than he cared to count, he'd caught himself wondering if he was doing more damage to Sadie than good since her return and if she truly was better off somewhere far away from him. Caught up in the midst of his selfish brooding, it never once occurred to him that she needed him just as badly as he needed her. Bucky thought there was no way he could help her in his damaged state. How could he be of any comfort when he was barely holding himself together? He'd taken for granted how good she was at covering her pain and was reminded of a conversation he'd had with Steve years ago on a mission. Sadie didn't need the perfect man. She didn't need him to be whole and untarnished. She just needed him to try, to recognize that she too was holding the world together with knotted string and that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't do it alone.

Sadie needed him. Regardless of how angry she was with him and how much he deserved her anger, she needed someone who knew her and Bucky knew her better than anyone. Setting aside his reservations of what the future might hold, he decided that Steve was right. If he wanted to be with Sadie again he also had to be there for her and right now, whether she liked it or not, she needed him.

Bucky left his post at the counter and sought out the training room in the lower level of the palace that Sadie used for her lessons with Bishara. With any luck, her trainer wouldn't be early so he could maximize the time he had to try and resolve their fight. He paused in the doorway. Sadie stood at a punching bag, ponytail swaying as she lunged out, landing a hard right hook to the bag's surface. The tank top she wore cut away at her shoulders to reveal her scars from Japan, only a sampling of scars she accumulated from their shared time together and after his death. Those scars ran far deeper than the surface and Bucky knew that no matter how hard she tried to deny and push back her suffering, she couldn't do it forever.

He wasn't sure what he was going to say but he knew he had to try; she had to know that she wasn't nearly as alone as he'd led her to believe.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he approached her slowly, watching her pause and reset her feet and square her shoulders to the bag, muttering instructions to herself as she did. Even in the midst of their turmoil, he almost smiled. Sadie had a funny habit of talking to herself and not even realizing it; she'd done it the handful of times she'd treated him for one scrape or another, muttering through her list of supplies and the steps of whatever she was doing. Bucky didn't agree with her choice to take up fighting - even for self-defense - but he had to admit she had a good teacher. Sadie's form was almost perfect and she struck the bag with confidence, albeit a little shaky due to the anger he suspected she was trying to vent.

When he appeared in her line of sight, he only glimpsed her pink cheeks and steely-eyed concentration before she let her mask slip and her frustration show, eyes rolling toward her dark brows.

"If you're here for round two, can we take a rain check for a few hours? Because I don't have it in me to fight with you again, Bucky, I really don't so just-" she lashed out and the bag swung under the force of her impact. Bucky wondered if she was imagining him in place of the bag. "Go away."

Bucky ignored her dismissal. Where Sadie was concerned, his days of running were over. Her scowl deepened when he moved behind the bag and steadied it for her.

"I'm not here to fight. I'm tired of fighting."

Sadie's snort of laughter hit him in a way he didn't expect. "Yeah, I bet you are."

Bucky wasn't used to this side of her and though he knew her anger toward him was warranted, he wasn't going to let her bait him into another round either. He allowed a rare warning to slip into his voice, a very soft signal that he was done trading barbs. "Sade."

"Don't do that," she growled. Her strike was strong for her size but Bucky was far more immovable than a punching bag and she frowned when the bag barely moved in his hands.

"Do what?" He asked, far too innocent for his own good. Although he knew it was wrong and that he should be apologizing, he couldn't help but find the humor in the vitriol of her glare; her distaste for him reminded him of the day they met.

"Talk to me like that. Like you know me so well after weeks of pretending that you don't."

"In my defense, I really didn't for a while. My memories took a while to come back. They still are, for that matter."

"Yeah, well, it's really annoying."

"You're telling me."

She hit the bag again and though he barely felt the impact, he could tell from the way she threw her body into each punch that she was nowhere near ready to talk like this.

"What are you doing here? I know it's not to make fun of me. You're not that stupid."

Oh, he was definitely stupid. But Sadie was right: he wasn't quite that moronic. "I came to apologize."

"Go right ahead, I won't stop you."

Bucky frowned. Sadie still wouldn't look at him, keeping her eyes resolute on the punching bag and he was certain she was picturing him now.

"You're acting like you don't believe me," he murmured. There was a hitch in her breath and he watched as she lost part of her form, stepping back from the bag to readjust before returning.

"Why should I? Ever since I got here it's been one step forward, two steps back and half the time you act like you can barely be in the same room with me only to talk a big game about protecting me. I'm starting to think I should just take Tony up on his offer."

That caught Bucky off guard. His eyes narrowed in surprise but he wisely kept the sharpness from his tone, doing his best to simply ask the question. "What offer?"

"To spend some time in New York," she replied matter-of-factly. "And seeing as how you clearly don't want me here, maybe it's for the best."

Oh no. No, no, no, had it really gotten that bad? Even without Tony Stark adding an entire anxiety-ridden layer of awful to the scenario, Bucky's body viscerally reacted to the notion of Sadie leaving. He'd hated her being gone to Vienna for two days!

"That is the last thing I want."

Sadie only barely got her next jab off when he spoke and, so surprised by his candid admission, misstruck the bag. Her wrapped knuckles slid off to the side and her middle knuckle connected with the tip of Bucky's metal finger with a resounding crack. She was gone in an instant, letting loose a string of colorful curses she'd learned from one Commando or another, snatching her hand into her chest. Bucky darted out from behind the bag and before she could refuse him he'd gently taken her arm in his hands, moving to loosen and unwrap it.

"Jesus, I'm so sorry, Sade. I didn't mean to–I should find someone to call a doctor for you. That sounded really bad."

"Bucky," she managed through gritted teeth but he continued unraveling her hand as fast as he could without jostling what was almost certainly a broken knuckle.

"It didn't even occur to me that you might accidentally do that. This hand is such a pain in the ass sometimes. Someone'll have to reset it, oh who am I kidding - you know better than me and –"

"Bucky!"

He blinked at her as the wrap fell away, leaving her bare hand resting in his. "I don't need a doctor."

"But–" he glanced down at her hand where a definite green glow danced beneath her smooth skin. The light was gone within seconds and she raised her hand, wiggling her fingers before closing them in a fist a few times.

"Some party trick, huh."

"That's not exactly what I'd call it." Bucky watched as she twisted her fingers once, conjuring little wisps of green light that twisted and turned before sinking back into her. "But you're getting pretty good at that."

The corner of her mouth rose. "And here I thought you hated my powers."

"I hate knowing where you probably got them," he corrected, ignoring the lie buried within his words. When she didn't reply, he swallowed thickly and then spoke. "I'm sorry, Sadie. For what I said back there and how I've been acting. I'm sorry that you–"

She shook her head, as though she couldn't even bear to hear the words. Her whole body quivered and when she drew in a deep breath, her chest rattled. Bucky caught sight of her watering eyes even when she tried to turn away from him. For maybe the first time in his life, he did exactly what Steve told him to do. Bucky stopped thinking. He stopped worrying over the implications of his actions and the defenses he'd build up. Without a second's hesitation, he reached out and gently took her wrist. Sadie spun back right as he stepped into her, bringing her against him and wrapping his arms around her.

Even seven decades and a whole host of physical modifications later, she still fit against him like they were two adjoining puzzle pieces that made up a whole picture. At first she stood stone still but then she all but melted into him, winding her arms around his middle as she pressed her face into his chest and began to cry. The tips of her fingers dug into his shoulders and he felt her need sink deep into him just as he knew it would. He remembered now how easy it was to love Sadie, how they could so openly need one another despite either of them never needing someone before. Keeping her safe in the fold of his arms was more than comforting, it was right. It was as perfect now as it had been all those decades ago when he held her close on dance floors and in the dark of night even when the world was coming down around them.

Steve was right.

Bucky still loved Sadie.

His feelings weren't just longing for better or easier times and he wasn't inventing this love because he thought that was what he was supposed to do. This was the same love, enduring his memory loss, resurrected from the ice and brought back to him by the extraordinary woman who gave up everything for him. Bucky bowed his head over her and crushed her closer to him. The truth was that he never stopped loving her and that was why HYDRA kept her hidden away, because there was no amount of brainwashing that could fully cleanse his mind and heart of Sadie Reid.

"I want you to stay," he murmured into the top of her head. "I'm sorry that I ever led you to believe I didn't want you. I'm pretty shitty at all of this now."

Despite herself, Sadie laughed into his shoulder. She pulled back just a fraction, her hands gripping his sides as she steadied herself. Bucky reached up and took her face in his hands, brushing her tears away with his thumbs.

"I'm sorry, too," she said, voice still thick from crying. "I've been mad for weeks and I was itching for a fight. I shouldn't have dropped that bomb on you like that."

Bucky nodded. He took her hands in his and led her to one of the benches resting against the far wall. She took the moment to unwind the wrap still on her other hand. He'd never encountered a situation quite like this and wasn't entirely sure what to say. More than once he opened his mouth to speak and then stopped before he forced himself to start somewhere.

"You found out when you got back?"

"From Vienna, yeah."

"Did–did HYDRA–"

"No," she interrupted him. She rolled the wrap into a neat coil. A humorless half-laugh filled the tense air between them. "Unfortunately not every bad thing in life is HYDRA's fault. I was born like this."

Bucky let out a low whistle. "Sade, that's–"

"The way things are," she whispered, eyes fixed on her hand wrap. She toyed with the corner of one edge. "Honestly, it's probably better this way."

Somehow, Bucky sincerely doubted that. "How so?"

Her lower lip trembled. "I've been living in the past, stuck on this fantasy of what our lives would have been like if you hadn't 'died,'" Bucky hazarded a smile at her sarcastic air quotes, a trick she likely learned from Shuri. "This is a really painful reminder that nothing is perfect and we would have had our own struggles." Hastily she wiped away more tears. "In a way I'm glad we didn't have to go through it because I don't know how I could have survived being so desperate to give you a child only to disappoint you."

Bucky's jaw dropped. Sadie was grappling with infertility and that was what she was worried about? She started when he tucked a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear, his metal fingers featherlite on her skin.

"I don't know how things would have turned out but I do know we would have figured it out together," he promised, meaning it with every ounce of his being. "And you could never disappoint me, ever."

He was pleasantly surprised when she turned at once and embraced him once more, pressing her face into his neck. Bucky held her as close as he could, savoring her closeness while he could. He didn't know how things were going to pan out between them and he took advantage of the moment while he had it.

"Thank you." Her voice was muffled in his neck and he nodded. "Even if you did wish me dead."

She was only half joking and Bucky shook his head at her when she drew back, a sheepish little look only further endearing her to him.

"It came out way wrong," he admitted ruefully. "You're here because of me, Sadie. There's no use denying it," he pointed out when she opened her mouth to argue. "I just wish that you'd gotten to live your life. You said that you were finally happy and you built an entire life for yourself after me. No matter how much I love having you here I will always regret that you didn't get that life."

"I feel the same way about you."

Bucky nodded. "It's true for both of us."

"We make quite the pair, don't we," she joked. Bucky couldn't disagree with her. "I guess you're right. We really can't just be friends, can we?"

He smiled when she dropped her head on his shoulder and naturally shifted her body when he brought his arm around her. "Not really, but we can figure it out together, too."

"I like the sound of that."

Bucky swallowed the urge to tip her chin up and kiss her. He knew from experience this wasn't the moment, things were still too raw between them. For now it was enough to break down the physical barriers separating them, to feel her body close to his and to stand on significantly more level emotional ground. All things considered, they'd accomplished a lot in a matter of mere minutes and that would have to do for now. Bucky loved Sadie but he didn't want to rush it and risk messing things up again. Instead they sat in comfortable silence for a moment longer before she sighed softly.

"Bishara will be here any minute."

Bucky latched onto the topic to avoid an awkward goodbye. "About that," he got to his feet and held his hand out for her. "I think if you keep your left shoulder a little more square and readjust your feet just a little bit you'll get better leverage."

A shocked laugh popped from her lips, she released his hand to give him a gentle, playful push. "Are you really about to start arguing with my teacher? One of the Dora Milaje's finest? You're either really brave or really stupid."

"Bit of both," he joked and jerked his head toward the punching bag. "C'mere, I'll show you."

Things weren't perfect. Bucky had a lot of work left to do and for now he let the truth of their past remain shrouded. Much like kissing Sadie senseless, some things required timing. But this new turning point was a fresh start and for now, that was more than enough.

A/N: Turns out I do still know how to write a happy ending but I've got to tell you, writing that fight was SO MUCH FUN. Happy holidays to you all, don't say I never got you anything. Next chapter begins the Washington DC mini arc!

Liked it? Loved it? SO relieved Bucky finally took his head out of his ass? I'd love to know any and all thoughts. Much love – Kappa.