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?

18. Wouldn't It Be Nice?

A/N: Regular updates do happen! Not much to fill you in on. Thank you to everyone who followed, favorited, and reviewed. I know I go long stretches without updates and I understand that this corner of the fandom isn't as active as it used to be so I really, really appreciate everyone who has stuck around and everyone who has found me in recent months and weeks. Extra love to Not Enough Answers, who not only has been a wonderful beta but also has bounced so many ideas with me recently that I am really fired up to get to the next few chapters…which I think will be some of my favorites.

Usual warnings for language, mature themes, and mature situations apply! Song title originates from the Beach Boys but there are tons of amazing covers…I specifically listened to Trousdale's cover while writing part of this chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel. I think you know that.

Chapter 18 – Wouldn't It Be Nice?

"So, what do you see?"

Sadie circled the digital rendering, biting the tip of her tongue in concentration. The holographic model was nothing short of a modern marvel, rendered by layering hundreds of scans of the same patient together to create a three-dimensional depiction. She raised her fingers, following the patient's clavicle, skipping to the head of the humerus where she frowned. On the curved head she could identify the places where tendon anchored to bone but where one tendon should have bled naturally into the supraspinatus muscle, dipping beneath he acromion to make up part of her patient's shoulder, there was a blunt edge to the tendon and a sizeable gap between it and the supraspinatus muscle.

To Sadie's immediate left, her patient sat ramrod straight, one side of her hospital gown unbuttoned and pinned away to show her right shoulder and arm, held in place by a white brace that disappeared beneath the gown to wrap around her chest. Like all other members of the Dora Milaje, Makena's shaved head stood out, especially next to the funky silver cuffs that Shuri wore in her braids that morning. She also looked comically stark and stoic in her white and grey gown compared to Shuri's eye-watering neon yellow minidress and translucent white jacket. Also, like all members of the Dora Milaje, Makena was conditioned to handle her pain with as little outward complaint as possible. She'd spent her adolescence and young adulthood training with the world's finest, she knew how to take a hit but Sadie wasn't sure anyone was truly capable of gritting their teeth and bearing their way through an injury this severe.

"I see a torn rotator cuff," Sadie traced her finger tip through the digital model, along the blunt edge of the torn tendon. "It's a complete tear of the supraspinatus muscle from the tendon anchoring it to the humeral head. I can also see some minor tearing in the surrounding tendons, likely sustained from the trauma of the fall that caused the primary injury."

Doctor Omondi, the doctor assigned to help oversee Sadie's slow transition from tinkering with samples in petri dishes to human patients, nodded. "That is correct."

The question and answer were plain as day and anyone with even a half-complete medical education would know it, but Sadie felt gratified to hear the praise all the same. Doctor Omondi was not easily impressed, halfway ready to dismiss Sadie altogether after their first meeting because, in his esteemed opinion, real medicine couldn't be practiced by waving one's hands and expecting miracles. It took a few hard conversations, a handful of demonstrations on diseased tissue samples and trading war stories of Sadie's time in the field hospitals before Doctor Omondi slowly warmed up over the course of the month and a half he'd been on Shuri's team, beginning the day after the delegation returned from D.C.

As the days wore on and they spent more time together, he'd emerged as an eerily familiar guidepost in Sadie's life. It took her a few weeks to realize that he was, essentially, a grumpier, less-eager version of Ian Holmes, a man who recognized talent when he saw it and doing his best to develop it in his own way. He'd sent a veritable library to Sadie's tablet, making somewhat smart-aleck suggestions that some of the chapters would go over her head, but that hadn't stopped her from diving in and returning with lists of questions that he deigned to answer though she thought he was privately pleased at the chance to show off.

"So how will you approach the job?" Doctor Omondi asked, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

Sadie pursed her lips together, taking another pass around the model. One big lesson she'd learned during preparing for this first major heal since Representative Greene was that she couldn't just attack the problem half-cocked and hope for the best. Even with her powers she had to be methodical and logical. She needed to approach the repair of Makena's torn rotator cuff the same way an orthopedic surgeon would, with thoughtfulness and a structured plan.

"The good news is that I don't see any bone spurs on the underside of the acromion. From the scans the muscle and tendon tissue look healthy. I'll address the large tear first, using little bits of power to urge the muscle to stretch to meet the tendon and from there use more power to encourage the cells to begin regenerating, rejoining everything. After that I will address the minor tears and then do a full scan of the entire joint, ensuring I didn't miss anything before easing any lingering inflammation."

Doctor Omondi mulled over Sadie's plan. Over his shoulder she watched Shuri whisper something in Makena's ear and the young soldier cracked the shadow of a smile and her started to shake in a half before she stopped. The blink-and-you'll-miss-it flinch that rippled across her face was the only sign she was in pain. At the other side of the lab, T'Challa leaned against one of the counters next to Bucky, their heads tilted towards each other in quiet conversation. Sadie would have loved to know what they were saying but she didn't have the time to ask.

"That is a sound plan," Doctor Omondi said at last and turned to Shuri. "Your Majesty? If all of your sensors are in place, I believe we are ready to begin."

Shuri gave the thumbs up. Sadie recognized the familiar sensors adhered to Makena's skin, spaced at even intervals and periodically flashing a blue light. As one, T'Challa and Bucky straightened, both men interested in the outcome of today's experiment but for drastically different reasons. T'Challa was hoping to see a major leap forward, a sign that Sadie was capable of using her powers without winding up in a coma. Bucky was watching and waiting for any sign of things to go sideways, determined to step in and stop the whole circus before things got out of hand. Sadie's placations that everything would be fine fell on his deaf ears and while he was insistent that he wouldn't intervene unless she was about to go nuclear again, Sadie wasn't so sure she trusted his impulse control.

But the moment wasn't about T'Challa or Bucky or even Shuri as she brought up several screens designed to monitor the real-time data as Sadie did her work. This moment was about her patient, a willing participant in Sadie's training program. More importantly, Makena was an accomplished young warrior and, whether she showed it or not, she was in pain. Sadie retreated to a sink to wash her hands with antiseptic soap, accepting the sterile towel from Doctor Omondi.

She came to Makena's side and offered the most confident smile she could muster.

"Hi Makena, are you ready to get started?"

There was a note of distrust swirling in Makena's large brown eyes. Sadie didn't really blame her. Trusting anyone to use a still largely untested mystical ability to heal something as major as a complete rotator cuff tear was a big ask even if she had volunteered of her own free will. Though Sadie suspected that Makena's decision had a lot less to do with Sadie's abilities herself and the drastically shorter recovery time, even compared to Wakanda's advanced surgical techniques. A torn rotator cuff healed the traditional way would still take a few months to heal. If all went well with Sadie's method, Makena would be back in the training rooms in forty-eight hours.

"Bishara says you have done this before?"

"I have," said Sadie. "You can even ask Shuri, she was my first test subject."

Sadie could practically feel Bucky rolling his eyes out of his head at the sight of Shuri's shit-eating grin. She held up her unblemished palm. "You'd never know!"

Makena looked even less convinced. Sadie took a step to her right, blocking Shuri off. She touched Makena's wrist, ducking her head to meet her eye. This hesitancy was something she'd seen many times before, in civilian women unwilling to submit to exams, clutching their children to their breast, fearful of unknown doctors after seeing far too many horrors for one lifetime. Sadie met her gaze head on, unblinking and certain of one thing.

"You don't have to do this if you don't want to. I have healed other patients before as well as myself. I can heal your injury with no issue but ultimately it's your call. If you want to return to the hospital and undergo surgery I will completely understand."

The tightness in Makena's wrist eased up, the tendons standing out in her hands releasing. Slowly she shook her head, blinking a few times and shedding her nerves.

"I want to do it. If Bishara says you're trustworthy then that is good enough for me. Let's move forward."

Sadie nodded. "Would you prefer if King T'Challa and Sergeant Barnes step out?"

Over her shoulder, Makena eyed both men. She opened her mouth to say something and then thought better of it. "No, they may stay."

With Makena's final consent, Sadie and Doctor Omondi got to work, carefully removing her brace and reclining her into a comfortable position in the exam chair. Shuri pushed a rolling stool over to Sadie and she raised it to full height perching on the edge where she was comfortable. Doctor Omondi injected her with local anesthetic and once it took effect, Sadie rolled to her side.

"Okay, Makena, we're gonna start off slow and I'll tell you everything I do it as I go. The anesthetic should keep you comfortable but if anything feels uncomfortable or you feel any pain let me know and we'll stop."

By now, tapping into her powers was as easy as blinking. Sadie's eyes blazed vivid green, saturating every living thing in green light. "I'm just going to take a look at your shoulder and make sure we didn't miss any other injuries in your scans and confirm the severity of your tears."

Makena's shoulder was a mess of rust-colored muscles and tendons. Years of repetitive motions in training had taken a toll on her joint. "The scans are accurate, the tear is complete and the extent of the minor tears is a little worse than we could see. Alright, let's get started."

The damage was so extensive and the muscles in the area so inflamed that it took her a while to isolate the correct muscle and tendon. Lifting her hand, she urged the smallest amount of power to rise to her fingers, hovering over Makena's shoulder. The light swirled about her finger before settling on Makena's skin and sinking below the surface where Sadie directed it to the torn muscle. Through trial and error with tissue samples and plants, Sadie learned that a little bit of nudging went a long way. Under her influence, the muscle fibers stretched out towards the shorn tendon. She spoke as she worked, walking Makena through her actions, flooding the gap between the tendon and muscle. The process was slow, using her powers to urge the cells to regenerate until, bit-by-bit the muscle and tendon knitted back together to form a seamless unit. Sadie then shifted to each micro tear until the entire joint was healed, the green tissue and bone bearing just a tinge of rust from inflammation.

"All I need to do is ease the slight swelling and–all done!"

Sadie withdrew her powers from Makena's body. The green light filtered up through her dark skin and back into Sadie through her palm. She blinked a few times and the room around her and everyone in it returned to their normal selves. Without missing a beat, she got to her feet and gently took Makena's elbow and bicep.

"So, how do you feel?"

"I feel–" Makena broke off, waiting while Sadie moved her arm in a few gentle positions, testing her range of motion. The apprehension holding her stiff melted away when she realized the pain she expected wasn't coming. Wide-eyed, she regarded Sadie with a mixture of awe and confusion. "Great. It is as if–as if I never tore it at all."

Doctor Omondi took over from there, insistent on performing his own examination and taking a new set of scans to compare the original with Makena's shoulder now that it had been healed. Sadie rolled her stool back towards Shuri's counter and held the edge while she got to her feet, experimenting with her balance.

"Take it easy!" Shuri chided her when she swayed uncertainly for a second.

Bucky and T'Challa weren't halfway across the lab to help her when Sadie paused, held up a hand and then smiled at her overseer. "I think I'm okay. Suddenly starving but that's about it."

As she expected he would, Bucky ignored her self-evaluation and shoved her aluminum water bottle in her hands. "You sure you don't need a minute?"

"Honestly!" She said, a little indignant in the face of three unconvinced faces. Bucky had good reason to doubt the veracity of her claim, he'd endured her 'I'm fines' way too many times to be believed but she'd expected more from Shuri and T'Challa. "Oh for heaven's sake. If I was going to have a seizure or pass out I'd have done it by now, I have zero control when I'm tapped out. Look at me now–" she gestured to her body, hair spun in a neat chignon at the nape of her neck to reveal her healthy coloring all the way past her olive green shirt dress to where she stood in a pair of wedges, no wobble or even a hint of instability. "Good to go."

"As is your patient."

Doctor Omondi's interruption was a blessing that Sadie ran with. Pointedly ignoring her doubtful friends, she let the good doctor show her the latest scans, highlighting her rousing success and Makena's shoulder, likely in better condition than before the tear occurred.

"See?" Sadie gestured to Makena who was already swinging her arm in several motions she recognized from training lessons with Bishara. "She's good as new! But that whole process took a lot longer than expected and if I don't leave in the next two minutes I'll be late to meet Nakia."

With that pronouncement, Sadie gladly turned her patient over to Doctor Omondi for further instructions. She gathered up her things, shoving her water bottle into her bag next to the binder of detailed information on the various cities she was helping Nakia review for expansion and the tablet she was slowly but surely growing accustomed to using. As she prepared to finish packing up, Doctor Omondi stopped her.

"Here, the materials you requested. After today, I believe you would make an excellent if–" something akin to humorous light danced in his deep brown eyes– "interesting addition to our roster."

Sadie took the information and hastily put it away before anyone's prying eyes could catch a glimpse. With a bow of her head to T'Challa, a promise to meet in the morning to discuss data to Shuri, and a swift, discreet kiss on the cheek for Bucky, Sadie hurried out of the lab and into the blazing mid-afternoon sun.

X X X

Nakia graciously accepted Sadie's excuse when she almost fell through the doorway into her office. Trying to jog in wedges was a fool's game and more than once her ankle threatened to roll just from her brisk walk that garnered more than one befuddled stare. Not wanting to waste any time, Sadie transitioned from clinician to philanthropist in a single breath.

In the first triumph of Nakia's career as the head of Wakanda's humanitarian outreach, the Oakland outreach center was now officially under construction. She hired a local area contractor who was under strict orders to use as many local craftsmen, designers, and artists to transform the abandoned building into a community space that reflected the people who lived all around it. So far, all of the photos and videos of the progress were promising and with the project in responsible hands, Nakia felt comfortable to pivot her focus from it to the next endeavor. Sadie spent several long meetings with Nakia and her staffers running through ten presentations for cities spread across the United States and three in Europe, hunting for the best place to take their efforts to help underserved Black communities. Sadie did most of the listening and notetaking, throwing in helpful comments on general American culture and geography but, at the end of the day, the decision belonged to Nakia to decide where she wanted to go.

Ultimately, she landed on Detroit. With that decision in hand, the true hard work began. Nakia learned a hard lesson from Oakland about the dangers of barging in with plans in hand and little initial interest in what the local community had to say. This time around she approached the issue with a greater amount of care, plotting out her moves well before she ever made them. Politics was an integral part of the process and, despite vehemently hating the games, Nakia was quite good at playing her opponents. Her initial overtures to the Detroit mayor had been met with some resistance but he came around quickly after Nakia bypassed him to appeal to the city council. From there began the tedious negotiation process, discussing the scope of the outreach and quibbling over matters of financing, staffing, tax breaks and input from the communities across the city.

That led them to now, both women barefoot, charged on fresh coffee and leaning over a digital rendering of Detroit, sprawled across the long glass table in the conference room. Little flags stuck out from various parts of the city, each one a marker for a tight-knit neighborhood that met certain criteria: it sat below the poverty line, lacked adequate access to affordable housing and medical care, and was predominantly black.

"I like this spot." Sadie walked around the table to the fifth flag marker. Reaching into the rendering, she pinched her fingers together and pulled them out wide, zooming into a close-up view of Camden Hill. She spun the map to a different angle. At her side, Nakia crossed her arms over her chest, lips pursed in thought. "There are several abandoned buildings that are large enough to accommodate a lot of long and short-term housing units and–" she reached for her binder, flipping through the pages, she tapped her index finger on a report on subterranean structures– "the underground pipes system is in really good condition, creating less upfront work to get any building up to code."

Nakia nodded slowly. "What about the school system?"

Sadie flipped to another page. "Practically at the bottom of the barrel. If our partnership with IHAP goes through though, you can count on a steady supply of teachers to help with teacher training, literacy, and tutoring to help struggling kids get up to speed. We could even do outreach with area schools to ensure every student is getting two square meals a day."

"I like the sound of that. Do you have a building in mind?"

Sadie zoomed in on a large warehouse building. "This one. It's been abandoned since the mid-nineties, six stories, huge footprint and still room for expansion. The roof is large and flat, allowing for the installation of solar panels and potentially even a rooftop community garden. It has a largely open floorplan inside so it can be remodeled to fit any kind of blueprint you want."

Sadie hid her smirk when Nakia unconsciously reached for Sadie's binder. After months of being teased for her ancient methods of handling her business, it seemed that even Nakia had come to see the occasional usefulness of hard copy. Several pages devoted to the Camden Hill neighborhood were littered with highlighting and Sadie's notes jotted in the margins.

"Access to medical care?"

"Shoddy at best. I believe you could build a large clinic in the bottom floor and staff it with Wakandan doctors and nurses looking for practical experience along with a few seasoned IHAP vets and you could get one up and running with little trouble. They'll have their work cut out for them but fusing Wakandan tech with IHAP experience could prove to be a potent solution to the problem."

"Or…I could just send you in there," Nakia said with a little wink in Sadie's direction. "From what I hear you've finally got that pet of yours under control."

"So far anyway. Although, I certainly wouldn't say no to going back into the field."

Nakia snorted. "And here I thought you were finally happy being here. Don't tell me you're getting restless already."

Sadie tugged one of the rolling chairs out and plunked down into it. Through the hologram of the warehouse building, she watched as Nakia followed suit. With a passive wave of her hand, Sadie banished the hologram for the time being.

"You know, you're finally starting to get the hang of the tech stuff."

Her shoulders rose in a half-laugh. "It was bound to sink in eventually. And to answer your question, I am happy. Things are…finally in a good place."

A good place meant many things. In the month and a half since she woke up in Shuri's lab, she'd been busier than ever, splitting her time between the training halls with Bishara, poring over new test subjects with Shuri, and working with Nakia. With so much going on at once, it was easy to feel a little overwhelmed but that was how Sadie liked it; she thrived on pressure and at last, after wandering seemingly aimless for the past four months, she finally felt like she had a purpose and a direction. In fact her only complaint was that she was almost too busy, leaving her with precious little time to coordinate her schedule with Bucky's, which was similarly hectic. Every time they would find time to sit down for dinner or watch a movie one of them was inevitably called away. The intelligence community never slept and neither did Nakia's contacts, living half a world away and insisting on having calls on their schedule. More often than not they were relegated to sharing a handful of hurried kisses, cramming in as much conversation as they could over their morning coffee or a quick dinner. Even then, pressed for time and juggling their respective duties, they'd fallen into a familiar pattern, reminding Sadie of the long days of their love, bouncing all over Europe and finding ways to make time for each other.

"So, why are you suddenly expressing interest in going back into site work?"

Nakia crossed her arms over her chest, drumming her fingers along her bicep while she waited.

Sadie glanced at the still-open binder on the table, opened to a page on Camden Hill's almost non-existent medical structure and reliance on overstaffed hospitals that couldn't keep quality staff due to low wages and crushing hours. She shrugged a shoulder.

"I was a good nurse before I joined the army but being in the field hospitals was where I excelled and it's what I enjoyed the most. There I was more than a nurse, I had more leeway with patient care to take on tasks nurses wouldn't normally do and I felt more useful there than I ever had."

"You and I are far too alike," Nakia said. "I enjoy doing all of this and know that it's worthy work but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss actually being out there doing the hands-on work."

"Well once the center in Oakland opens, hopefully you'll get that chance again."

"That's the plan." Sadie wondered if T'Challa knew that was her plan but swallowed her question. Nakia hated sharing the intimate details of her relationship with T'Challa about as much as Sadie hated sharing about Bucky. They were two private peas in a pod. "What about you? If you want to go into the field again, surely you've got a pathway in mind."

"Actually, now that you mention it. I do."

Nakia sat up a little straighter now, mouth parting in surprise. Sadie dug back into her bag and produced what Doctor Omondi had given her earlier that day.

"Nothing's official yet," she said handing the reading material over. "But Doctor Omondi said he would write a reference and so has King T'Challa. With that kind of support, getting in is pretty much assured."

Nakia's surprise gave way to a slow-growing smile that eventually stretched broad across her face as she skimmed the admissions requirements for the Wakandan University's medical school. "So, Doctor Reid, huh? And here I thought you'd never get around to going for what you really want."

Sadie took the stack of papers back, slightly pink-cheeked. "I want to be more than my powers. And if I woke up tomorrow without them, I want to know that I still have a future in medicine. That's where I really belong, treating patients. If I'm going to really live in the twenty-first century, I might as well take advantage of every opportunity I didn't have before."

"And I commend you for it!"

Nakia got to her feet and held out a hand for Sadie.

"What are we doing?"

"Celebrating! There's bound to be a bottle of champagne somewhere around here! And if not we'll walk down to a restaurant nearby and get one."

Sadie laughed as Nakia dragged her out of the conference room, pausing just long enough to step back into her shoes. "I haven't even gotten in yet!"

Nakia could not be persuaded to abandon the pursuit. When their search of the building turned up empty, she pulled Sadie all the way out of the building and down a block and a half to a restaurant with a large circular bar with a stained glass ceiling, bathing them in multicolored light while they waited for their drinks.

"When we get back, let's go over more details for Camden Hills and then for the Broadmoor neighborhood. I want to do some comparisons. But for now–" she accepted her champagne flute and handed Sadie the other– "we drink! To the future Doctor Reid!"

That was a prospect Sadie would gladly drink to.

X X X

Bucky tried to focus on the sound of Shuri's breath. Coming in soft, even intervals, the steady in and out was somewhat soothing though not quite enough to lull Bucky into fully shutting down. He sat on a thick circular rug next to her, hands resting on his knees, eyes closed while he tried to follow Shuri's example. Slow and steady, he matched his breath to hers, drawing in deep sips of air before exhaling in a steady stream.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Lately, the simple act of shifting to a slower gear and focusing on the cadence of his breath was enough to help him find a little clear space in his cluttered mind. Meditation was by no means easy for Bucky but he had gotten better at it, using the time to methodically untangle the knots in his emotions, reorder his memories and bring a little bit of order to a chaotic mind. Progress in tinier increments was better than no progress at all and the longer Bucky kept at it, he finally started seeing results. These days, he could keep up with Sadie and Steve when they talked about the past, could recall memories and tiny details about his life before either of them and wasn't nearly so melancholy when reflecting on the life he'd lived before all of this. Sadie once told him that, given enough time, his sorrow would ease and the memories would become bittersweet and Bucky found that to be true. He could think about Rebecca with only a small sting of regret and had come to accept the lost life he would never have. Meditation gave him uninterrupted time to come to grips with so many things, finding acceptance in what he couldn't change and he was slowly beginning to make sense of the overwhelming guilt associated with his brainwashed decades.

On an early afternoon, the day after Sadie successfully healed a Dora Milaje soldier's torn rotator cuff, Bucky simply couldn't settle. He'd done all of his usual tricks, counting down from fifty, focusing intently on his breathing, naming off all the states he could remember, listening to every tiny movement Shuri made, nothing worked. Every time he closed his eyes and started to sink down into that deeper state of mind was like falling through the looking glass into a waking nightmare. Or rather, it was a continuation of the nightmare that woke him at three that morning, drenched in sweat and halfway down the hall to find Sadie before he realized where he was and had to scramble back to his bathroom, just barely making it to the toilet to throw up the remains of his dinner.

His restlessness shouldn't have come as a surprise. The nightmares came and went, each one typically associated with another one of his pitiful attempts to muster up the courage to tell Sadie the truth. The night before he was half-prepared to tell her everything when she got back from Nakia's office, only to throw the plan away when she excitedly told him all about medical school. Bursting her bubble right when things were finally going her way felt cruel. There was no telling exactly how she would react, but Bucky was certain that whatever her reaction, it wouldn't be good. What if he told her only for her to fly off the handle or, even worse, pack her bags and go? Bucky feared being without her almost as much as he feared her reaction. And so he continued carrying the weight of his lies, finding silence when he should have found the strength to be honest. There was always an excuse or an interruption, something that forced the words back into the pit of Bucky's stomach where they would roll and roil, eventually manifesting in nightmares.

Even now, he blinked a few times and sank beyond the darkness behind his closed eyes, right into a dank room. Dark green tiles lined the walls and the floor was wet in patches beneath his boots. He blinked again, through jagged strips of greasy hair, not even wincing beneath the harsh overhead light that reflected off the viewing window. He could still smell the stale note clinging to the air, sharp through his nose and souring in his lungs. The rough cotton shirt and pants he wore chafed his skin, the white bearing blood and sweat stains, all souvenirs from the grueling brainwashing process. His jaw ached from clenching it hard enough to shatter his teeth and his fingernails were split and torn, nailbeds caked with blood. Stepping into that moment felt odd, as though he were more in control of the moment now than he had been seventy years ago. Bucky's heart tripped over a beat and then down an entire flight of stairs.

Because the most horrifying part of revisiting this particular memory wasn't stepping back into the shoes of the newly minted, confused and ragged Winter Soldier. It was the fact that, at the time, he hadn't recognized the woman shoved into the room with him, barely upright, clinging to what little of her life she had left. Somewhere beneath her matted hair, her overstretched, waxy skin and her gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes, Sadie was still there. Bucky should have recognized her. In any other universe, he would have recognized her and fought tooth and nail to get her out of there. Somewhere, deep, deep in the recesses of his scrambled brain, he did recognize her. But that part of him was locked away, rattling the bars of his mental cage while the monster took over and did the unthinkable.

Arnim Zola was a cold, calculating bastard and he was also quite risk averse. He'd worked far, far too hard to systematically break Bucky down to his barest components and rebuild him from the ground up to squander his achievement. With Steve lost somewhere in the Arctic Circle and his family thousands of miles away in Brooklyn believing him dead, the only liability left was Sadie. The great irony of that was that Sadie was indispensable to Zola's success. When he was first recovered from the snow, his survival was a touch and go matter. He'd survived multiple surgeries to repair internal bleeding, reset fractured bones, then to remove the remainder of his left arm and shoulder, and then finally the brutal procedures that saw his skin peeled away, metal anchored to bone, and his left arm replaced with the first of several prosthetics. It was well over a year before Bucky was fully recovered and it was a cake walk compared to what came next.

Three more years passed in a blur of various torture techniques, ranging from weeks spent in total isolation to sleep deprivation to starvation. Nothing worked. Fueled by his anger and enhanced by his particular variant of the serum, Bucky resisted again and again, backing Zola deeper into a corner where his only options were to give up on the Winter Soldier project altogether or find another way. Bucky didn't realize his colossal mistake until it was far too late. Zola had found another way. His other way was dragged kicking and screaming through the double doors into the main room where Zola did most of his work on Bucky.

Zola made good on his threat years earlier in Azzano, manifesting Bucky's worst nightmare. Because even years later, with time and distance and death separating them, he loved Sadie as fiercely as he ever had. Sadie was his greatest weakness and thus was Zola's ultimate trump card.

From there it was only a matter of time.

Eventually Bucky's valiant efforts were all in vain and Zola, all too aware of Sadie's profound effect on his patient, would leave nothing to chance. No matter how confident he was in Bucky's programming, there was always the risk that something could undo it and Sadie was undoubtedly the greatest threat. Consequently, she was also the best test subject. If Bucky, in his newly altered state, could look upon the face of his former lover and still carry out his orders, then the programming would be considered a success and Zola had one less complication to worry about.

"Kill her."

That was it. Two words spoken in Russian over a crackling loudspeaker was all it took. Sadie hadn't even seen it coming until it was too late.

Over his knee, Bucky's left fingers clench down, so hard he felt them grinding against his bone. Months of poor nutrition had left her so weak a stiff breeze would have knocked her over. His left hand was an unassailable force and she barely choked out his name in confusion before it closed over her throat. She weighed next to nothing and the force of his assault lifted her clean off her feet, any scream dying in her lungs. Bucky remembered her wide eyes, tears streaming from them and the pleading look he didn't recognize then before the light left them. She hit the floor with a sickening thud, mouth still halfway open, gasping for a final breath that never came, glassy eyes open, seeing nothing.

Nobody ever saw what Bucky did. The tiniest puff of green slipping off her tongue just before she died and, because nobody bothered to talk to him afterwards, he never told a soul. When one of Zola's terrified assistants came to take her pulse, he declared her barely alive. Zola chalked it up to Bucky's inexperience. For a moment he weighed the options of forcing Bucky to finish the job but then recognized the potential of holding onto her should Bucky ever throw his programming.

"Put her on ice."

Zola kept Sadie as nothing more than an insurance policy in case Bucky ever went off the reservation. He never even knew the magnitude of the gold mine he locked away in cold storage, a fact that Bucky was now grateful for.

"Sergeant Barnes?"

Bucky didn't mean to snatch Shuri's hand when she gingerly touched his shoulder. She yelped in surprise and fell backwards onto her ass when she jerked back and he let go, snapping hard into reality. Swinging onto his knees, he rounded on Shuri, reaching out to help her back up.

"Sorry."

"Are you alright? You were really out of it for a few seconds."

Bucky's heart tried to hammer its way out of his throat. Cool beads of sweat formed at his hairline. He felt clammy all over, faint tremors shaking his neves down to the root. Had he merely gotten lost in a thought or had his detour been something more?

"I'm okay."

Shuri didn't believe that any more than he did. Pursing her lips, she chose to ignore him at first, rising gracefully to her feet and leaving him behind. He grimaced when she returned a moment later, carrying the last thing he wanted to see.

"C'mon, Shuri, not right now–"

He tried to push her hands away but she ignored him, maneuvering in a different direction, holding up the scanner. The various metrics Shuri rattled off were not news to Bucky. He didn't need her technology to tell him that his pulse was fast, his blood pressure a tic too high, and that his oxygen levels were a hair lower than normal.

"You're stressed, more than usual. Which for you is saying a lot."

If Bucky could roll his eyes any harder they'd swivel into the back of his head. "We are not having this conversation."

Judging from the way Shuri plopped back down on her rug, crossing her legs and leveling her chin to stare pointedly at him, she thought differently. Bucky's insides squirmed. Even touching on the broad brushstrokes of his bloodied past tread close to dangerous territory. Setting her genius and unconventional sense of maturity aside, Shuri was technically still a child. What right did he have to go around telling a teenaged girl anything about his life? Especially the worst parts of it?

"Look. I'm not trying to pry." Bucky's eyebrows threatened to disappear into his hair. Shuri lolled her head around, waving a dismissive hand as if that was enough of a course correction to satisfy him. "Okay, so I am trying to pry, so what? Have you ever considered maybe part of your problem is that you refuse to talk about any of what happened to you?"

Bucky snorted. "My inability to talk about it is the least of my problems."

Shuri's eyes narrowed and for a split-second she opened her mouth to fling a sharp retort at him before she thought better of it. Sealing her lips, she watched him carefully, eyes flickering over the finer details of his face, the weathered lines beginning to spread from the corners of his eyes, the handful of grey hairs fighting for dominance in his short beard, even the drawn quality of his mouth.

"There's no nobility in suffering in silence, you know."

It wasn't so much the substance of her words as it was the soft, withdrawn way she said them, speaking volumes about her more than she likely intended. The great upheaval to Wakanda in the wake of T'Chaka's death was not exactly a secret. Although he had nothing to do at all with T'Chaka's death, Bucky still felt the weight of responsibility. Yes, Zemo killed him, but he'd used Bucky's face to do it, capitalizing on the global perception of him as a cold-blooded killer that endured even after being cleared of at least that particular crime. The instability that followed Zemo's monstrous actions left an indelible mark on a country that was still healing and, in particular, on a teenaged princess who should never have had to bury her father so young. Shuri covered up the lingering vestiges of her grief well enough but Bucky knew that wasn't an easy thing for her to achieve.

"Trust me," he said gently, thinking about the radical difference between Shuri's road to recovery and his. Shuri was an innocent, giving her leeway to grieve as freely and fully as she needed. Bucky didn't have that freedom. It was hard to achieve any kind of acceptance for his past when he was wiping away his tears with blood-stained fingers. "I'm not trying to be a martyr. I don't think–" he shook his head, wishing he didn't see Sadie's empty, dead eyes every time he blinked– "even if I could talk about it, I'm not going to tell you. And it's not because I'm treating you like a child. It's because I won't put that burden on you. Especially not after everything you've done for me."

He offered her a weak smile that grew just a hair when she huffed a little, falling back to plant her hands on the rug behind her. "You know I really hate it when you pull the adult card on me."

That got him, dragging him a little ways out of the mud, giving him a little room to breathe. Shuri, whether she knew it or not, had an uncanny ability to make him forget about the worst of his sins, even if just for a little bit. For that he would always be grateful.

"I let you poke and prod me to your heart's content! Suddenly that's not enough for you?"

He clambered to his feet and held out his metal hand for her. Shuri delighted in the flashy mechanics of her handiwork when he pulled up with ease. Little things like that always worked on her, the slightest petting of her ego that could nudge her out of her temporary melancholies. Bucky liked their relationship, caught somewhere between co-workers, friends, and siblings. Sometimes he swore she was Rebecca reincarnated but then stopped himself from saying anything. The beauty of Shuri was that she was her own brilliant, vivid person and he would never do anything to suggest otherwise.

"Speaking of poking and prodding!" Clapping her hands together, she whirled around, sending her long braids flying, clinking the little beads together. "You promised me new neural scans two weeks ago, so come on," she opened a drawer containing the familiar and dreaded neural sensors with a flourish. "Time to pay up, old man."

X X X

"Okay," Sadie muttered under her breath. She tapped the sheaf of papers in her hands to create a neat stack that she set down on the dining table in front of her. Steam wafted up from a cup of tea and the saucer held a pear divided into neat wedges. "You can do this."

The top sheet of paper bore the crest of the Royal University of Wakanda's Medical School. Translated into English and printed specifically for Sadie, the entrance materials contained an overview of the application process and how it would be tailored to her particulars and experience. Although Sadie knew that, thanks to King T'Challa and Doctor Omondi's pending recommendations, her acceptance was a given, she still needed to go through the proper channels for documentation so she could one day receive a valid medical license. Just seeing the list of forms she would need to complete and personal information she would have to track down was dizzying. Even more daunting were the essays she'd been asked to write, explaining her personal history, describing her education, and summarizing her field experience. She wasn't sure it was even possible to distill her wartime experience in fifteen hundred words or less. Most of her field reports for a single operation were longer than that.

Then there was the breakdown of the work she would need to complete prior to beginning classes for the winter term. Although Wakandan medical school students were required to have certain degrees and take the grueling entrance exam, she'd been offered an alternative course of entrance. Nakia joked that she was being offered a crash course in modern science prior to starting medical school, but Sadie found the independent remedial coursework she'd been asked to complete overwhelming to say the least. She knew the human body and she understood diseases, practical treatment, and had an outstanding bedside manner. But she didn't remember a thing from her college chemistry and biology courses and from what she understood, most of that had changed anyway. Getting caught up on the foundations of science in such a short timespan was a high bar to clear, but it was also the least she could do in the face of such a generous offer.

Blowing out a sigh, she flipped through the papers until her once tidy stack resembled a jumbled mess, littered with sticky notes containing her personal thoughts and reminders. There were pieces of her information and history that she wasn't even sure she could get. Her records of army service would be a breeze; one call to Rhodey and he could connect her to the right people. But what about her birth certificate? How did one go about getting college transcripts from nineteen forty? Blowing out a soft sigh, she jotted question marks on a sticky note and pressed it just to the side of the section listing the required documents.

Sadie wanted to be a doctor and in the long run, a little bit of paperwork wasn't going to stand in her way, but why did this have to be so difficult? And why was it an oddly painful reminder that she was so far removed from her old life? A frown tugged at her lips. It cropped up in odd ways, the disconnect from her origins. Sometimes she was reminded in big ways, like every time she struggled to use a computer or when Shuri teased her for preferring to have everything in hard copy. But then there were little moments like this, sneaky little barbs that needled her still-healing heart. What was she supposed to put down on the application for her parents? That her father died decades ago at Pearl Harbor? That if someone went scuba diving they might still find his remains trapped somewhere inside the hull of a ship? She snorted in dark laughter as she pushed her tea aside and got to her feet, retreating to the small wet bar and the bottle of red sitting on the counter.

The cork made a delightful 'pop' when she tugged it out. She'd opened it the night before to have a glass while she ate dinner alone, with a digital chemistry textbook for her company and a note from Bucky apologizing that duty called and he promised he would make it up to her tonight. The deep burgundy sloshed into her wine glass as she realized that he still wasn't back.

"That's odd," she murmured to the empty room.

She double-checked the clock; he was supposed to sit for a few scans with Shuri but promised he'd be back for dinner. Sadie had been so consumed with her application that she'd lost track of time and it was already seven-thirty, thirty minutes past when he promised he'd be back so they could have dinner and have an elusive night to themselves. He'd probably just gotten caught up. Shuri had a knack for eating up more of his time and hers than she realized. It was hard to excuse yourself from the company of royalty, especially a young genius princess who liked using them as her personal playthings.

Sadie stuffed the cork back in the bottle and took a sip, savoring the warmth that trickled down her throat to disperse through her. Tea was wonderful but it didn't have the same effect as a full-bodied red.

Almost as if on cue, she heard the door open and a voice drift from the entry.

"That is the last time I let that–that–child come within fifty feet of me."

Sadie smiled down into her wine before turning around to greet Bucky. "Hello to you too, Buck Sergeant. Long day?"

He raised an eyebrow, not nearly as amused by her blithe greeting as she was. "Sometimes I think she actually likes seeing how many electrodes she can glue to my head. Don't smile at me like that, you know exactly what I'm talking about. She just pushes and pushes to get what she wants and to hell with boundaries and–"

"Here," she took his hand and shoved her wine glass into it. "I think you need this more than I do."

"I don't even like wine," he grumbled down at the glass.

"Drink it-you'll feel better after you do."

"Nurse's orders?" Bucky enquired and she grinned at him over her shoulder as she went to pour another glass.

"Have I ever steered you wrong?"

"No." He took a sip and made a face but dutifully took another.

"Good, now sit." She sank down onto the bench near her papers and patted the open spot next to her. Bucky did as she asked and his shoulders sagged a little as he peered curiously at her. "And just take a beat, okay?"

He blinked owlishly at her, as though he was expecting something else entirely. The corner of her mouth twitched toward a smile. She wondered when Bucky was last told to just stop moving, stop talking, stop doing and just relax. Turning her back to the table, she reclined against it and dropped her head back, gazing toward the ceiling. The exposed beams were carved with a flowing pattern of Wakandan knots, astonishing in their beauty and Sadie quietly admired the painstaking attention to detail while Bucky slowly loosened up next to her. She could practically feel each of his muscles begin to release, letting go of so much tension that hovered uncomfortably in the air for a moment before slowly dispersing. The bench shifted as he resettled his considerable weight, following her example and leaning against the table as he drained his wine. Her eyes fluttered shut as she savored the comfortable silence and the feeling that they were more and more like themselves with each passing day.

"I still don't like wine," Bucky mumbled as she heard the gentle clink of him setting the empty glass on the table.

Sadie smiled. "Well, I won't hold that against you."

"Thanks. I was worried there for a second."

Her light laughter drifted toward the ceiling. She'd missed his sarcasm, the dry wit that was a nice complement to hers. They'd often traded little barbs that raised eyebrows and shared jokes nobody else understood but this was the humor in him she liked best. When she dropped her chin back down, it was to discover him facing her, metal elbow supported on the table and chin in his hand. A light flush stained her cheeks; had he been staring at her this whole time?

"I know you don't want to upset Shuri, but you really need to start being more forceful. The reason she walks all over you is because you let her."

"That's easier said than done," Bucky countered. A tendril of hair escaped the bun at the back of his head and she reached out to brush it from his face. "She's done a lot for me."

Sadie considered Bucky's indebtedness to Shuri. There was no way she could ever understand the burden of having trigger words buried in her brain or the unimaginable relief of having them removed. On a basic level, she could wrap her mind around the enormity of Shuri's actions but the way Bucky felt that impact was beyond her. Rather than continue to push the envelope, she let her hand drop away from his face and smiled when he caught her fingers in his and folding them into his warm palm.

"How can I help?"

"This is enough. My headache'll go away in a while."

Sadie rolled her eyes. "You know I can fix that for you, right?"

Bucky's scowl was answer enough. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and didn't quite meet her eye. In all the weeks they'd been reunited, Sadie still couldn't quite figure out why his reticence toward her powers ran so deep.

"I know you can."

"But?"

"But just because you can doesn't mean you have to. I dunno, I don't want you to ever think I'd take advantage of you like that or expect you to fix every little thing that's wrong with me just because you can."

It sounded exactly like something he'd said to her during the war, when she was there patching him up after one scrape or another. Sometimes it was cuts and bruises he got in the field, once it was a cut eyebrow he earned saving Howard from a punch he likely deserved, other mornings it was nursing his hangovers, and then taping up his cracked knuckles after he went one too many rounds with Steve. Bucky always lamented that he could take care of himself, wallowing in some unnecessary guilt about Sadie taking time out of her day to dote on him yet again, completely ignoring the fact that, while Sadie certainly didn't like seeing him hurt, she didn't mind doting on him at all.

Bucky swallowed hard when she set her wine aside and rose up to her knee, bridging the gap between them. He'd trimmed his beard the day before and it was crisp and coarse beneath her fingertips as she grazed his sharp jawline, tipping his head up so she could kiss him. Holding onto the control, she moved her mouth slow, searching out every single nerve ending she could find on his lips until he was wholly transfixed by her. A sneakier person might take the moment of his distraction to heal him but she let the fight go, saving the argument for another day and a bigger malady. Instead she savored the taste of burgundy on his lips and sweep of his tongue past hers before they parted.

A little loving look filtered across his face when she kissed the tip of his nose. "Bucky, you are the last person I would accuse of taking advantage of me. I'm not offering because I think I should. I do it because I want to. Because I don't want to see you in any more pain if I can help it."

"You're one in a goddamned million, Sarah Grace," he whispered. "Maybe a billion."

Sadie rolled her eyes and he laughed when she gently slid out of reach. "Well now you're just being ridiculous. If you don't want me to use my powers, I will respect that but I can still help you."

"What are you–whoa!"

Taking care to ensure her summery lilac sundress didn't fly up, she stepped onto the bench next to him and then the table behind him. Leaning down, she took his shoulders and turned his back to her. Sadie sat down behind him, tucking her skirt neatly between her legs that she placed on either side of him, bare feet right next to his thighs, showing off her pale pink pedicure.

"Sadie…what are you doing?"

Sadie bit back a smile. "There's more than one way to get muscles and tension to release. After long shifts at the field hospital or days at IHAP, my friend Ruthie and I used to take turns doing this."

Hooking a finger under the elastic holding his hair back, she pulled it out and his hair fell down the back of his neck, still damp from the shower he'd taken to wash out the glue Shuri used on her electrodes. She combed her fingers into his hair to partition a section and pushed it out of her way. She moved until she found his left temple and then began to rub her thumb in gentle, light circles over his warm skin. Bucky's whole body tensed for one second at her touch and then eased, his back melting into the table and his shoulders pressing against the inside of her knees. Assured that he was comfortable, she began working on his right temple, moving her thumbs in unison and slowly working along his hairline in methodical circles.

"Jesus," he muttered under his breath.

"Hmm, nope, just me," she teased and he grinned, tilting his head as she prompted. "Does it feel okay?"

His little grunt of acknowledgement was answer enough. An awful implication buried itself in her mind. In her chest, her heart constricted around itself, thinking of all the years Bucky suffered the bite of HYDRA's whip and the cold years he spent alone, stumbling from town to town searching for any semblance of himself. She hated that he'd gone so long without true affection and, more importantly, without her touch. Their brief tryst a few weeks earlier aside, Sadie wasn't sure the last time she'd seen him this relaxed, abandoning his usual vigilance to slumping against the table while she massaged his scalp. Surely it was the last time they shared his bed, half-melted into the mattress, basking in the afterglow of sex, neither of them knowing it would be their last time together.

Anxiety tickled her throat, little butterfly wings that fluttered lower into the pit of her stomach. It had been over seven decades since the last time they were intimate together. Sadie wasn't even certain she remembered the last time they had sex. And for almost two months now they'd been skirting the undeniable sexual tension that practically filled up any room they shared, becoming more intense with each covert look that passed between them, every time they touched and—God help her–those brief but intense moments when he kissed her with unfettered passion, recommiting each other's bodies to memory. Though their opposite schedules, Sadie's draining healing sessions and their own personal hangups kept them out of his bed and hers, the anticipation of that inevitable moment often kept her up late into the night.

A not insignificant part of Sadie thought it might be better for both of them if they just ripped each other's clothes off and got it over with. Maybe if they were both sated, they wouldn't be so damned polite to each other all the time, terrified of taking things too far and upsetting the delicate balance of their still-undefined, newly mended relationship. Because as she continued to massage Bucky's scalp, helping his tense muscles ease and his headache dissipate, she couldn't help but focus on his shoulders pressed between her knees, the warmth of his body sinking into her and just how easy it would be for him to turn around and pin her down to the table.

Sadie wanted that and him so badly she could barely think of anything else.

And then, he did the last thing she expected. Slow, sneaky, but utterly undeniable, his right hand snaked behind her calf and curved around to slide up the length of her shin. Sadie froze.

"Please, don't stop," he murmured, even as his hand crested over her knee, long fingers sinfully smooth on her lower thigh.

The moisture in Sadie's throat evaporated. Tongue nailed to the roof of her bone-dry mouth, she did her best to ignore the way he dragged his palm and callused fingers back over her knee, down her shin, and then back up. How on earth was she supposed to concentrate on anything when he touched her like that? If she'd been unaware of the intimate space he took up between her legs before, she was painfully aware of it now. What had seemed like an innocent gesture only a few minutes earlier now felt downright scandalous. Because there he was, touching her, taking full advantage of their close proximity and her bare legs. One thing was abundantly clear: whatever hesitation he had about crossing this particular line with her was dying as rapidly as her willpower.

She tried to humor his request but as she went to continue her ministrations, Bucky turned his head and let the tip of his nose brush along her thigh near her knee.

Sadie's mind dropped out of her head and into the gutter with all the grace of a boulder falling into a tranquil pond. With his hair tucked behind his ear, she could just make out his profile and had to bite the tip of her tongue to stop herself from all but whimpering when his lips curved into a wicked, wolfish smile.

"God, I missed you." He nudged the edge of her skirt just a fraction out of his way and she bit her tongue even harder to stifle a gasp when he kissed her thigh.

It was like being struck by lightning. As though he'd shoved a metal pole down the back of her dress, she sat bolt upright. Bucky's hand on her leg gently clenched down, holding her in place when she almost squirmed free in her surprise. His mouth was so soft and yielding to her that she couldn't believe a single, chaste kiss could have that effect on her but heaven help her, it did. Seven decades hadn't even remotely diminished the effect he had on her; Bucky was just as electrifying as ever.

He continued to kiss her leg, leaving a trail of little jolts, each one as surprising as the last, even though she watched him as he began to rotate his body to follow his mouth. Her hands fell away from his hair, palms bracing on the table to catch her weight as she threatened to sway backward when he started to turn. The visual of him knelt low between her legs became too much to bear.

All she had to do was reach down and touch his cheek to bring him up and from there he followed her silent command. A metal hand gripped her waist as his flesh fingers dove into her hair, caging her head in place as he kissed her. She reached back to support herself, catching the stack of papers which slipped beneath her. Bucky's metal arm caught her before she fell back, his body surging forward to catch her, pressing himself into the gap between her thighs. His teeth sank into her lower lip when she moaned softly in response. The forgotten papers floated down all around them like oversized confetti.

"This is what I should have done when I saw you for the first time," he muttered between breathless kisses, using the scant time between each to search out the details of her face, as if incredulous he ever forgot it.

Sadie's hands developed a mind of their own and began to wander while she deepened their kiss, tongue darting out to taste the wine on his. Supported by his metal arm, she was free to drag her fingernails over his shirt, bunching and gathering the fabric at the hem. His hot skin grazed her knuckles as she slowly worked the shirt upward. Bucky paused long enough to peel the shirt over his head, throwing it carelessly over her shoulder to land on the other side of the table. He groaned into her mouth as she pressed her palms flat against his back, pushing him onto her and sinking the tips of her nails into his muscles, creating ten neat crescent-shaped depressions in his skin.

When he tore himself away for air, he reeled backward slightly and Sadie's gaze dropped to his chest and abdomen. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open in shellshock. The last time they'd been together she remembered he was well-muscled, with dark hair dusting his chest and often a set of dog tags gleaming against his golden skin. Almost numb with shock, her fingers tripped past his dog tags to bump over the cut muscles in his torso. Everywhere she looked he was a perfect specimen, made of sharply defined muscles, one packed right on top of the other. She couldn't think of anything to say, too stunned by his almost unbelievable physique, reminding her of the marble statues of the gods in drafty museum halls.

His chest rose and fell with a distinct tremor and then she realized he wasn't looking at her. Rather his chin was tipped toward his metal shoulder. A stark-white line of heavily knotted scar tissue defined the fissure between man and machine. He almost flinched away when she traced the line, feeling the contours of his scarring and the distinct hardness just beneath his skin, where the metal extended to presumably anchor to his bone. Sadie was so caught up in momentary clinical curiosity that she forgot he was staring at her until her eyes flickered to his face, to his shoulder and back again.

"It doesn't matter," she said without a second thought.

And then she curled her hand around his dog tags and pulled him back to her, kissing him hard.

Bucky's metal hand landed on the table with a loud thud, catching him as he leaned over her. Sadie's hands were on him again and he grasped her knee, drawing it high on his side. Her light skirt fell down and she involuntarily rocked against him as he traveled higher on the outside of her thigh, curved past her ass to the small of her back. Holding her fast against him, he ground his hips into hers.

Everything around her faded away. The waning sun cast its final rays through the windows, slanting over the table and the occupied couple but she didn't feel its warmth. Outside, the capital city could have been ablaze and she'd never have known. There was nothing else in the entire universe but the man kissing her like he'd been waiting a thousand years.

"Goddamnit," he muttered, his metal fingers slipping on the comically tiny zipper pull at the back of her dress.

"I've got it," she reached behind her back and tugged the zipper down to her mid back and reached inside, unclasping the pesky strapless bra. Bucky tugged the bra from beneath her dress and it sailed over the counter sliding to a stop in front of the fridge. She coiled her arm about his waist, eyelashes teasing her cheeks as he massaged her breasts over her dress, dipping his thumbs beneath the fabric to catch her nipples, teasing and flicking them until they were so tight she hurt.

"Bucky." His name floated from her lips in a needy sigh.

"I fucking missed this," he muttered against her neck, lips grazing her sensitive skin. When he bit down on her pulse point, her moan flooded the room. "When I was on my own I thought about you constantly. About touching you and the way you said my name. I thought about your legs around me and being so deep in you I–" he grunted into her neck, clutching her waist hard enough to bruise when she hooked her leg around him and thrust his hips against her.

Taking his face in her hands, she guided him back to her. "I missed you, too."

Bucky rewarded her with a wolfish grin. She hadn't noticed his right hand disappear beneath her skirt until she felt him dance along her inner thigh. A familiar light glittered in his dark eyes, dangerous and playful. A shudder ripped down her spine. She knew that look and she knew what it led to.

"Oh, you did?" He enquired, drawing forward to graze his teeth over her earlobe. "How much?"

"You know how much," she whispered, fingers curving around the back of his neck. Her whole body tightened and heat pooled between her thighs when he moved from one leg to the other, tracing lazy circles just centimeters away from where he really wanted her.

"Tell me." His voice was velvet in her ear. Maybe he couldn't flirt with her to save his life but he certainly knew what he was doing now. "I want to hear it."

"Please, Bucky," she breathed, eyes fluttering shut in response to the tip of his index finger teasing the edge of her underwear. It was hard to swallow around her bone-dry throat. "Please."

Seven decades was apparently long enough to wait because he chose not to toy with her further. Pushing her underwear aside, he dipped two fingers inside of her. She bit down on his neck to muffle her moan, sending it reverberating through his body and back into hers. Spurred by her reaction, he curled his fingers inside of her, caressing her in a slow, almost tortuous rhythm, setting her nerves off in cascade after cascade, triggering her muscles to ripple and clench, her hips grinding slowly in time against his incredible touch.

There were some things that just transcended memory and the way Bucky instinctively knew how to touch her and build her toward a climax was apparently one of them. He didn't even seem aware that he'd fallen into a sort of trance, his whole body following her as his expert fingers teased her, ratcheting the tension tighter and tighter, drawing Sadie in on herself as her muscles tightened around him and she panted for air. It was becoming too much and Bucky lost himself in the moment. He began muttering under his breath and in a split second of clarity, she realized he wasn't speaking English. Sadie spent enough time in Kiev during the war to recognize Russian when she heard it.

"What are you saying?" She moaned as his slick thumb slid up to press into her aching nerves.

Bucky's lips brushed past her ear. She didn't need to see him to know he was still grinning that infuriating, sexy grin. "I said I wanted to tear your skirt open and bury my face between your legs."

The very thought threatened to undo Sadie. When a reply died on her swollen lips, she reached between them and urged him to withdraw his hand. Bucky's mouth fell open in soft surprise when she leaned back and opened her legs a little wider to him.

In an instant her back was flat on the table. Bucky grasped her thighs and pulled her to the very edge of the table. Though he didn't need to tear her skirt open, he all but tore her underwear away from her body. Her lower back came clean off the table as he slid his hands beneath her ass, lifted her up and–

"Oh my G–" the words died on Sadie's tongue as Bucky did exactly what he said and buried his face into her, beginning his assault with a single, hot stroke of his tongue. And God in heaven help her, it was incredible.

Sadie tangled a hand in her hair, head banging against the table, eyes screwed shut in pure ecstasy. He refused to relent, alternating between dipping his tongue into her, licking, kissing, nipping, and sucking at her until she was writhing on the table, legs draped over his shoulders and half her body lifted in the air. The air in her lungs refused to stay put, coming out in breathy pants punctuated by moans so loud anyone on their luckily otherwise abandoned floor would surely hear. But Sadie didn't care. Oh, God, she didn't care as Bucky locked his lips around that tight bundle of nerves, circling the sharp tip of his tongue around it and then sucking on her, driving her to the knife's edge between pleasure and pain.

He gave her one final hard draw and she fell apart, his name racing toward the ceiling. Sadie's entire body went rigid as she felt her orgasm crash through her like a tsunami. She felt it everywhere, from the release pulsing through her lower abdomen to the tingling in her fingers and toes. Bucky wiped his mouth and came back over her, pulling her up and into his arms.

"I stand corrected," he said, far too pleased with himself for his own good. "That's how I should have greeted you after seventy years."

"Oh just shut up and kiss me." She dragged his mouth back to hers, tasting herself on his lips.

Bucky wrapped her still-shaking legs around his waist and lifted her off the table. In that moment she appreciated his super soldier strength more than ever because he carried her away from the table and toward his room as though she weighed no more than a feather. Her back hit the wall outside of his door with a thump and he held her up, continuing to ravish her mouth while he fumbled to open his door.

Her feet grazed the ground as they stumbled inside and he fumbled with his belt buckle while she hastily worked on the rest of her zipper. The dress fell down, the snug bodice catching on her narrow hips. Bucky moved to push it the rest of the way to the floor. She felt his palm move across the slightly more sensitive burn scars and then he was gone as though the scars themselves were white hot.

Naked chest heaving and more confused than anything else, Sadie stumbled back to sit down on the edge of his bed.

"Bucky?"

He staggered backward to tip sideways against his dresser. She was at his side in an instant, reading the blank expression on his face as he lost himself down a rabbit hole she couldn't follow. The moment holding them shattered and her desire receded, leaving her anxious heart pounding in her chest, desperate to understand what had happened to so rapidly destroy the mood.

"I can't," he whispered into the chasm between them, widening with each terrifying second. "Oh, God, Sadie, I can't–I–"

"It's okay," she moved to draw him into her arms but he stopped, carefully moving her back and gathering her hands in his.

"We need to talk." The way he bowed his head cut the ties holding her stomach in place and it sank through her like a leaden balloon.

"Okay," she agreed, unsure of what else she could possibly do. "Should I be worried?"

He didn't nod or shake his head. Bucky simply met her gaze, brows turned downward and uncertainty flashing in his eyes.

"Just let me change my clothes." She could barely force out the whisper before she kissed his hands. Wordlessly, he nodded.

X X X

Bucky hated himself.

Of all times to suddenly, fully understand the gravity and weight of his mistakes, mere seconds before finally having sex with Sadie was probably the worst moment imaginable. But the trigger holding back the deluge of memories and the reminder that Sadie was still none the wiser was featherlite. And although Bucky wanted nothing more than to take it all back and take her to bed, he couldn't. Doing that to Sadie was wrong. She deserved the world and, more than that, she deserved to know him–and herself–completely before she chose to give her love to him again.

His knees gave and he sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands for a long time. Drawing deep, steady breaths was the only way he managed to calm his heart, drawing his blood flow back to all the rest of his body only for fresh nerves to set in. Ten minutes passed before he was able to find his legs, stagger to his dresser and tug a clean shirt over his disheveled hair. Both of his hands shook trying to gather his hair into an elastic and every step felt like crossing an insurmountable distance, closing the untold miles he'd placed between them all because of a selfish lie.

Sadie was waiting for him in the common area. She'd changed into cotton shorts and a white shirt, cleaned up their discarded clothes and stacked the scattered papers back together. Bucky paused just inside the hallway, watching as she drifted from the table to a narrow table in the window where three potted plants resided. The plants were another of her experiments with Shuri, determining the scope of her powers and whether she had the ability to influence the physical state of all living things and not just people. Sadie tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear and then brushed her fingertips over a wilting leaf. Swirls of green light twisted in the air, shattering like emeralds as the waning sun passed through it. The second the light touched the leaf it shuddered and rose up a little higher, the curled edges broadening back out and the brown spots disappearing.

A tiny smile played at Sadie's lips and Bucky's heart plummeted to somewhere beneath the building, cratering deep in the earth below. She continued on with her business, using tiny nudges to help her plants along, ignorant to her audience. It was just as well. Bucky wanted to savor these last seconds he had, drinking up the image of her now, bright and healthy and, most importantly, finally happy. Because in a few minutes all of that would be gone, replaced with an untold amount of shock and sorrow and anger both for herself and even more for him.

It was hard to believe that mere minutes ago she was steadfast in his arms, kissing him like the last seven decades hadn't happened. When he saw her this way, seemingly untouched by the ravages of torture and time, it was easy to forget how she looked in the end, a ghost of a woman, reduced to her skeletal frame, dying from the inside out. But he knew better. From a distance she was a vision, a little slice of southern comfort plopped right in the middle of Wakanda. Up close he could count the scars and recount the moments she got each and every one of them from the tiny white nicks on her hands from a bombing in Italy to the burns on her side where one of Arnim Zola's lackeys branded her like cattle.

Bucky shuddered.

Even now he could still hear her screaming.

Sadie leaned forward to smell the sweet scent coming off a large white and pink bloom. She'd twisted her hair into a bun at the nape of her neck where he could see the silver chain disappear beneath her shirt. He knew the trinkets that hung from the chain as well as he knew anything else about her, the little objects of comfort that carried her through war and carried the promises they never fulfilled. Bucky's heart clenched so hard he swore he felt his heartstrings rubbing together, fraying under the enormous pressure. Over the last couple of weeks he'd warred with himself, burdened by his lies but also daring to think maybe, just maybe, some of those promises weren't made in vain.

Would she feel the same way when all was said and done?

Bucky swallowed hard, digging deep to dredge any ounce of courage he still possessed. There was only one way to find out.

He cleared his throat and stepped into the common area, catching her attention. She said nothing but didn't need to. Bucky could read the worry on her face from a mile away. He longed to kiss away the pout on her lips but settled instead for leading her to the sofa where he took her hands in his. A little part of him broke when she rubbed her thumbs over his hands, giving the same affection to his flesh and metal alike.

"Whatever it is, whatever has you so worried, you can tell me."

He wanted to believe her so badly.

She moved to cup his cheek but he turned out of her touch, consumed with the guilt that burned stronger every second he stalled.

"Bucky, you're starting to scare me." Bucky blinked at her. The reply that she should be scared almost forced its way out of his throat but he wrestled it down. "Just…talk to me. Please?"

Shuri's counsel from earlier that day came back to him. There truly was no nobility in suffering in silence but damn, why did opening his mouth have to be so hard? All he had to do was start because he was confident, once he got out those initial words, the story would pour out of him. Zemo was right. Once Bucky opened those floodgates the misery would pour and pour out of him, a bloody deluge with no discernable end.

And then, one more voice cut through the white noise obscuring his mind and choking up his throat. If I learned anything from Siberia it's that it's always better when they know. Steve lost everything, his career, most of his friends, and his home, all because of a lie. Bucky didn't have much in the way of career or a home to lose but he did have something infinitely more important and he knew for certain that if Sadie found out some other way he probably would lose her forever. Maybe Sadie was strong enough to go on without him for almost five years but he wasn't her. Now that he had her again, he couldn't fathom losing her.

With that in mind, he took her face in his hands and leaned forward, kissing her forehead. Squeezing his eyes shut tight, he savored the feeling for a second longer before falling headfirst off the cliff, straight into the pit of his worst fears.

"It's not easy for me to talk about–" his tongue felt like a hundred-pound weight in his mouth, every word was almost impossible to form. Drawing in a frustrated breath, he stalled out, stumbling blindly for a way to say I lied to you without having to actually say it.

"Is this about–" he shook his head, stopping her before she could finish her thought. Normally, Bucky didn't mind Sadie's habit of reading his mind and filling in the blanks for herself. There was no way she could guess where this confession was about to go and Bucky feared that if she interrupted him he might chicken out. He needed to get the whole story out and then deal with the fallout, come hell or high water.

"Please." He hated the way she withdrew her hands, twisting her fingers together. "I need to–"

A sharp rap on the door almost sent him out of his skin.

"You have got to be kidding me," Sadie muttered. Both of them waited, staring at the door for another few seconds before they heard more banging. Blowing out a long sigh, she rose to her feet. "I'll handle it. We can't get five damn minutes of peace around here, can we?"

Unfortunately for them both, there was no such thing as handling the situation when Shuri was involved. She blew into the common area like a hurricane, hovering somewhere between irritated and thrilled. It took a few minutes before she finally spat out the true reason for her visit: they were being summoned to see T'Challa. Another moment passed before she revealed the purpose of the summons: Sadie was being called to a UN Accords council meeting in Vienna.

"I thought I'd get both of you because while my brother can't be bothered to go himself–" Shuri rolled her eyes, though Bucky suspected she was thrilled at the idea of going on an international trip without his oversight– "He won't let you leave our borders without your guard dog over there."

Bucky resented being called a guard dog but kept his offense to himself. With Shuri tapping her toe, swatting Sadie towards her room to put nicer clothes on to see T'Challa, Bucky was left with no choice but to fall in line. Sadie caught him before she disappeared, lowering her voice so Shuri couldn't hear them while she inspected Sadie's plants.

"I'm sorry. Do you still want to–"

Bucky forced a weak smile and he shook his head. The last thing he wanted was burdening Sadie right before she had to go put on a brave face and make nice with the UN.

"It can wait until we get back."

X X X

The lobby of the UN building was teeming with people. Sadie couldn't imagine all of them were there for the Accords meeting, though she wondered if the tense atmosphere had to do with the planned meeting. Several people stopped and stared when she walked in with Shuri and Bishara. They made an interesting trio, Sadie dressed in navy wide-legged pants, her suit jacket buttoned over the white camisole that was barely a whisper of silk against her skin, Bishara somehow looking even more threatening than usual in a black sheath dress and Shuri completely at home with her eye-watering orange dress and funky sneakers. Even if they weren't an oddly-matched grouping, they were hardly the only surprising faces in the crowd. They paused briefly to greet Agent Everett Ross, who was far more pleasant upon their second meeting. Shuri in particular took a shine to him, leading Sadie to believe there was more to the story than she'd been told.

One of the other surprise faces was Pepper Potts. Sadie hadn't seen her since their first meeting at the Avengers compound but as soon as they caught her eye, she politely excused herself from her company and cut through the crowd. She was just as crisp and professional as Sadie remembered, though her smile was warm, as was her hand when they shook.

"I'm sorry you got pulled back here on such short notice. Tony wanted to be here but had a prior commitment, so here I am." Pepper turned the full force of her easy charm on Shuri. "Your Majesty, I'm honored to finally meet you."

Shuri hated formalities and caught Pepper slightly off balance, ignoring the polite bow of her head to thrust a hand towards her. "You too! I'm a big fan of your efforts to take all of Stark Industries complexes off the conventional power grid, using the arc reactor technology to achieve zero emissions operations."

Judging from Pepper's somewhat abashed, but pleased smile, flattery went a long way with her. Sadie wondered how long she suffered in her career before she really started receiving the recognition she was due for her contributions. Shuri managed to pull her into a light conversation, fishing for more information on the company's plans to make that technology widely available for commercial and residential use along with praising her for actually executing Tony's vision of pulling Stark Industries out of the business of weapons and into the business of saving the planet. Bishara sidled up to Sadie.

"The perimeter sweep is clear."

Bishara neatly folded her hands behind her back once more, lightly shaking her kimoyo beads back into place on her wrist. The report must have been a quick alert from Bucky, doing his part by prowling the streets in disguise, following up the scant intelligence they could gather at the last minute. There were a couple of other Wakandan Intelligence operatives in nearby cities that came in just for extra precautions but so far their arrival had been quiet and uneventful. Sadie forced herself to ignore the tightness in the pit of her stomach when she thought about Bucky, who, after being interrupted by Shuri hadn't quite been himself.

"Did you expect otherwise?" Sadie asked under her breath.

"No, but we do not have a great track record with this building."

"Fair enough."

"Sadie." She blinked owlishly at Pepper, jarred by the sudden shift in conversation. "Tony wanted me to remind you there's a room at the tower in New York with your name on it. I believe his exact words were 'get out of Oz and come see the rest of the world, I'll throw in a steak from Gallaghers for the hell of it.' If it makes you feel any better, I took the liberty of rolling my eyes on your behalf."

"I appreciate that."

"Yeah, I'm sure giving you the grand tour is all he's interested in." Shuri snorted and looked even more amused with herself when Sadie put a neat elbow into her side.

"Say that a little louder, I don't think everyone in Vienna heard you," Sadie hissed, cheeks turning pink from the litany of insinuations someone could make from Shuri's observation alone. Though, deep down, Sadie suspected that she was right: Tony had a secondary motive for almost everything he did and the opportunity to lure Sadie to his lab for a handful of scans and tests of his own was likely far more valuable than all the fine dining in the city combined.

"I'll reach out to thank him for his kindness and whenever I'm ready to step out of Wakanda for a while, he'll be the first to know."

Pepper nodded her head graciously and made her goodbyes. Taking advantage of the lull in the introductions, Sadie excused herself to the restroom. When both Shuri and Bishara hesitated, Sadie huffed out a sigh. "For heaven's sake, I'm a grown woman in the middle of a secure building. I think I can go wash my hands without an armed escort."

Bishara narrowed her eyes but the twitch at the corners of her mouth told Sadie she liked her little display of moxy and let her go without a fight. Sadie slid between the small groups of people and into the restroom and when she exited took a right to a small coffee counter hidden by the stairs. Yet another familiar face was in line when she approached.

Her previously tetchy mood fizzled out and she took Doctor Emmanuel Greyson's hand when he offered it. "I think we need to stop meeting in beverage lines, Miss Reid. People may start to talk."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'll risk the rumors for the coffee."

"Last minute flight?"

She nodded. "Even with Wakanda's jets it's not a short trip. What brings you here?"

"I'm leaving a meeting with a panel on efforts to expand genetic testing to countries without adequate resources and high affected birth rates."

That, in and of itself, was utterly fascinating and she urged him to explain more while they shuffled up in line. Later, after he insisted on paying for her coffee, they paused near the staircase.

"Anyway, it's an uphill battle in some places because the locals don't always trust new medicine and technology and are especially wary of foreign doctors telling them what to do."

That was a struggle Sadie understood. "Sometimes it takes time and the right staff."

"That it does and you would know." He tipped his coffee towards her in a silent salute. "What about you? Has more time in Wakanda given you time to figure out your next steps?"

"As a matter of fact, it has. I've decided to go ahead with medical school."

Greyson's handsome face was a sight to behold when it lit up with delight. Devoted to Bucky or not, Sadie wasn't dead, and she was ashamed to admit her heart sped up under the beam of his smile. "That's wonderful news! You'll make a fine physician, Miss Reid, truly."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm a little nervous. I haven't been in school in a long time and quite frankly, I've got to play a lot of catch up before I start in the winter."

"If you have the time before you leave, I'd be happy to take you to lunch so you can pick my brain! It's been a few years since I was in school myself but I'd love to share any insight that might put you at ease."

Sadie wished she didn't find his openness so refreshing but she did. Everyone else approved of her decision to move forward with her career but not with the kind of enthusiasm that Greyson, a practical stranger, had. He was even more thrilled to learn she'd worked her way through several of the books he'd recommended, that she found his offer to share more of his knowledge was too tempting to ignore.

"If you're still in Vienna tomorrow, I know we don't have much planned before we fly out. Are you free then?"

"I have a meeting at ten tomorrow morning but it won't take more than an hour. The genetics institute is expanding to have an office branch here in Vienna to continue working in close proximity to the UN and I'm sticking around for a few days to check on the construction. How about eleven-thirty? There's a charming bistro about two blocks away from the new location."

Bishara appeared in Sadie's line of sight. It was time to head up to their meeting.

Sadie smiled at him and nodded. "That sounds perfect. I'll see you tomorrow at eleven-thirty."

A/N: Oh Bucky.

That's it. Those are my thoughts. Next chapter picks up where we leave off.

Liked it? Loved it? Think that Bucky and Sadie have a funny little habit of doing intimate things in places they really shouldn't? I'd love to know any and all thoughts! Much love – Kappa.