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CHAPTER SIX
Who Are You
... ... ...
~ WASHINGTON DC - 2014 ~
The apartment was empty – of that he had been very certain before breaking in. The sole occupants had left for at least the duration of the weekend, gauging by the luggage they had hauled down the stairs and onto a bus.
He had gone about the business the old-fashioned way, using the stout blade of a utility knife to break the window latch far past its prime rather than the unnatural strength in either of his arms. Were an investigation done, there would be marks that could be explained, shrugged aside. As he would be taking only clothing and food, any investigation would likely be quickly dropped, but he was in no way inclined to be any less thorough for the sake of a maybe.
One of the men who lived there must have worked in construction, for there were several pairs of work boots with varying degrees of wear in the tiny hall closet alongside thick, sturdy jackets and safety vests. It was by pure chance that the boots fit, and while the jackets were a little large for his frame, that was a boon, not a setback.
In the days since the final (failed) mission, he had been laying low, sticking to places it wouldn't occur to authorities or any still active handlers to look for him. In that time the wounds he had sustained had mostly healed, but he was dirty and reeked of blood, stale sweat, and city grime.
Leaving the bathroom door propped open so that he could better hear any unexpected intrusions, automatic rifle propped beneath the towel rack ready to fire, he entered the shower fully clothed and stripped from his gear under the stream of water. All of the products lining the rim of the tub were scented too strongly for his comfort, so he utilized the plain bar of hand-soap from the sink to scrub down both himself and his filthy clothes.
The trousers were as good as trashed, but the vest and boots were salvageable, as were all his weapon holsters. All was too recognizable to wear, but he wouldn't have been able to dump any of it here even if he were inclined to do so.
Washing took a great deal longer than he would have preferred. Half for the time it took to wrestle his way out of the vest without a second set of hands and while nursing still-tender – if no longer broken – ribs. Half for the way seeing the blood and dirt and bits of dried gutter-muck swirling against the white of the tub set his unsteady head reeling with images of bullet wounds and red-streaked snow. He wasn't positive he hadn't completely blacked out for a moment or two in the timeless void of the bathroom.
The flashes were growing more numerous and increasingly intense. It was a problem. One he had no idea how to eliminate.
There was no in-unit dryer, so he hung the garments in the bathroom to dry while he re-dressed in clothes pilfered from his unwitting hosts. Jeans, warm flannel button-down shirt over a plain cotton t-shirt, thick socks, the least-worn pair of work boots, and a faded gray denim jacket. Then he went through the duffle bag he had taken from the HYDRA base in the bank vault; assessing each of the weapons he had liberated, taking stock of ammunition, blades, tools, med-pack, and sewing kit. The rations he had brought were long gone, and he could feel the dragging wane of his energy from the lack of calories. But he prioritized safety over food and did not seek out sustenance until he had properly catalogued his supplies.
The flier was taped to the fridge. Front and center. Almost as if left there specifically for him to find, which, of course, wasn't possible. Or so logic claimed.
The glossy paper was printed with a man's face - or, rather, the painted portrait of a man's face, executed with great skill and devotion, rich in color and contrast. But it wasn't the artistry of the graphics which caught his attention, it was that the face depicted belonged to the man on the bridge. The man he had seen, had fought, had recognized...had saved.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Presents –
Captain America: Living Legend and Symbol of Courage.
May 1 through September 15
There was a good three-quarters of a deep-dish pizza inside the fridge, which he wolfed down cold as he stared at the flier and ran through various calculations of risk and gain.
To go would be dangerous. He might be seen – recognized. At best this might result in increased difficulty in leaving the area and then the country, at worst it might result in recapture and containment, and most certainly punishment.
But if he were careful, if he used every tool in his arsenal and managed to keep the glitching in his brain under control, he might very well gain insight into the identity of the man who had known him by sight and by name. And thus, perhaps, gain some knowledge as to who he was - find some manner of foundation to better understand and decode the inexplicable and unfamiliar tangle of alien thoughts and images in his head. It might help alleviate the problem, or it might exacerbate it.
Whatever his choice, he must make it quickly. He needed to get out and away from the city as far as he could to avoid being caught.
In the end, he determined that the potential gain was worth it - though he couldn't be entirely certain that his capacity to make sound decisions wasn't at least partially compromised.
He would go at peak hours, the middle of the day, where the crowds would be thick and eyes would be more inclined to slide from an abundance of faces without taking much note of detail. He could gain entry easily enough through a service door, and it would take little more than a few hours of observation to discover the least used of these. He was confident in his ability to handle any wayward staff or security he might encounter, but he preferred to minimize the number - the better to control the situation. The more bodies that went missing or unaccounted for, the higher the chances someone noticed something was wrong and sounded alarms. He wanted to be able to get in and out undisturbed and with no one the wiser.
Before dawn broke, he was packing the Winter Soldier's now clean uniform into the duffel alongside the stock of weapons, adding a bunch of bananas from the kitchen counter and an unopened box of protein bars. The last thing he took before vacating the apartment the same way he'd entered was a faded old baseball cap, tucking his overlong hair up underneath and pulling the brim low to shield his face.
Normally he would have preferred to keep to rooftops and fire escapes when traveling across a city, but he kept to the alleyways and cramped, deserted back-streets instead. While it was still too dark for even the earliest of morning travelers to have spotted him, any agents still out combing the area for him would be aware of that same preference, and he wasn't sure whether they were more likely to think he would stick to his patterns or the opposite. He elected to assume they had people watching for both, and exercised as much caution as this called for.
Gradually he made his way back across the city to the Smithsonian campus, arriving early enough to stash his bag somewhere safe, stake out a spot to observe the flow of the museum employees, and wait for his opening. Once he narrowed down the options to choosing a point of entry, he situated himself up on the shallow overhang above to wait for someone to exit.
The door opened roughly thirty minutes later, admitting a man dressed in a janitor's coveralls.
Quick as a snake he lowered the long, thin piece of metal he'd been carrying around for just such an occasion, slid the end between the door and its frame to prevent the latch from catching. Once the man was well out of sight, he dropped silently down to the pavement and slipped inside, tucking the metal strip into the gap between the base of the wall and the carpeting.
He found himself in a service hall, just as he'd hoped. Also as he'd hoped, there was a schematic of the building and of the campus in its entirety in an expansive supply closet, which he studied long enough to formulate a rough mental copy – locating exits, choke-points, hiding places, and other such details – before moving on.
He experienced a brief, sweeping pang of vertigo when he eased out from the hallway onto the thoroughfare.
Scanning for anyone that might potentially spot him, his eyes had lit upon one of the planes suspended from the high ceiling – a bomber, he thought once his head had cleared of the dark spots. Painted a drab olive-tan, built to carry two, and old. He didn't know why this had triggered the momentary dizziness, but when the sensation didn't linger, he allowed it to pass and ventured onward into the tangle of people.
Advertising for the Captain America exhibit was plentiful: great, colorful banners suspended from the ceilings and extra wayfinding signs posted in what seemed like every corner that would hold them.
Security was tight in the public areas, but he had expected as much. Just as he had planned, the crowds were thick enough with bodies that he had no trouble concealing himself amongst them in order to maneuver unseen. He followed the signage as he did the flow of bodies, mimicking the slow, ambling pace of someone in no hurry to get anywhere in particular. The fact that he was in a museum, where it was expected that visitors would be gawking at their surroundings, perfectly masked the constant, scanning swivel of his head. And as tourists aplenty were content to keep hats on while indoors, even this didn't set him apart.
Truth be told, the trek up the two floors to the exhibit went so smoothly that it almost put him on edge, and he forced himself to keep his posture and motion loose lest he appear nervous, and thus suspicious.
While the opening to the exhibit was somewhat bland – the same repeated graphics from the advertising and a bland, uninteresting quote from a president which told him nothing – the first thing that caught his eye was the mural just inside the threshold, stretching along a wall almost fifteen yards in length.
The man on the bridge staring stoically into the middle distance, arm raised in salute, red and white striped flag streaming in the background.
There was something about the image which struck him as familiar in a way that reached beyond the surface-level details of facial features or costume or iconic colors. It was something about the tone of the depiction, something which didn't feel quite right...not unlike the way a report recounted by one soldier didn't quite align with the way another remembered it. Neither untrue, but neither in exact agreement.
It wasn't difficult to stick to the shadows in the exhibit space itself. The lighting had been designed for dramatic impact, and he lingered back from the displays, relying on the enhancement of his eyesight to read the plaques and labels accompanying each.
There were photographs, framed and hung, some enlarged to allowed closer scrutiny, and screens showing film footage – primarily in grainy black-and-white. There were items encased in glass: some very clearly tools and weapons that had been used in battle, some which might simply have been there to offer a physical sense of immersion into a time long gone. Others still which had very clearly been part of the personal history of the boy called Steve Rogers, who would one day become a military science test subject and subsequently the war hero Captain America.
On some level part of him knew that he was bound to see reference to himself somewhere in the exhibit. Still, the first time he spotted the image of his own face behind glass it was to realize he had been in no way prepared for the actuality.
A pair of photographs, with the softened edges and warm, sepia tones of old age, had been displayed side by side.
The one on the left featured two young men, faces still retaining the roundness of boyhood, standing together amidst what appeared to be a theme park of some kind, judging by the wooden frame of a rollercoaster and concessions stands in the background. The taller of the two, dark-haired and grinning, had an arm around the other boy's thin shoulders. The blond boy, small, lanky almost to the point of frail, looked a bit green about the gills but was smiling all the same.
'Steven Rogers and childhood friend James Barnes,' the caption read, 'Coney Island, July 1932.'
The photograph on the right was labeled 'Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes at Strategic Scientific Reserve Headquarters, London. January 1944.'
They might have been the same two men, but the eleven year difference was a stark, and not simply because Rogers was no longer small or sickly. The childhood softness their faces was mostly gone, and each man wore the things they had seen and done as clearly as they did their uniforms. Calm as they looked, each man carried the imprints of war.
To describe seeing the face he knew to belong to him mirrored in those photographs as disturbing would not have done justice to just how unsettled he was by it. A feeling which only proceeded to increase the further into the exhibit he ventured – rising as he watched shaky film footage of Steve and Bucky bent over a map table planning, leading other soldiers in a siege, or taking and laughing together, and spiking drastically when he entered the room housing the largest display.
Life-size replicas of custom uniforms, complete with perfect prop versions of weapons, backed by a dramatic, full-color mural of seven men. Including the man that wore his own face.
This man was not him. Couldn't be.
But was…
He stared at the quilted blue double-breasted jacket, the thick leather belt lined with pouches for tools, ammunition, and other weapons. The fingers of his right hand lifted without his conscious will to direct them, going to the place at his hip where one of those pouches would have sit, finding nothing but flannel and the tactical switchblade tucked in the pocket of his jeans.
For a moment he lost himself, his sense of time and presence warping completely as his vision swam.
He took the proffered can from Falsworth, hot from the campfire. A metal spoon scraped the sides as he scooped out a mouthful of thickly sated beans and hash. They were huddled around the orange blaze, telling stories, doing their best to keep their laughter low so as not to disturb the trees, or else what dwelled among them. Dugan had extracted a bottle of scotch from somewhere – refusing to divulge his hiding place – and they passed it around, taking long sips to ward away the winter bite.
What meaning the scrap of what must be memory might contain made sense only within the fragile, temporary walls of the episode. As soon as he managed to drag his head back above the pull of it and return to his body he lost what sense there had been to the picture. Names crumbled like sculptures of ash. Subconscious understanding washed away, corroded as if by so much by seawater and rust.
Disoriented, he turned from the display, withdrawing into a dark corner separated from the current of visitors. Breathing exercises brought down the rapid race of his heart, a mental checklist of the weapons concealed beneath and within his clothes re-centered him within the present and real.
Only when he was confident that he had himself back under control did he resume his self-assigned reconnaissance.
Cautiously he approached the thick, two-paned panel of glass carefully etched with a lengthy caption and detailed portrait of the man who shared his visage, absorbing the words there.
A FALLEN COMRADE
James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes
Best friends since childhood - when Bucky Barnes first met Steve Rogers on the schoolyard in Brooklynn, little did he know that he was forging a bond that would take him to the battlegrounds of Europe and beyond.
Barnes grew up the oldest child of four. An excellent athlete who also excelled in the classroom, Barnes enlisted in the Army shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After winter training at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, Barnes and the rest of the 107th shipped out to the Italian front. Captured by HYDRA troops later that fall, Barnes endured long periods of isolation, depravation, and torture. But his will was strong. In an ironic twist of fate, his prison camp was liberated by none other than his childhood friend, Steve Rogers, now Captain America.
Reunited, Barnes and Rogers led captain America's newly formed unit, the Howling Commandos. Barnes' marksmanship was invaluable as Rogers and his team destroyed HYDRA bases and disrupted Nazi troop movements throughout the European theater.
Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country.
1917-1944
It was a memorial. A memorial to another man's life and service. A man that was not him.
Reading it…hell, just being there felt like an intrusion, the wrongness yawning and cavernous and seeking to swallow him whole.
Pain burned in the back of his hand – teeth digging into his knuckles. He'd managed to knock two of them loose and send the punk running, and that was plenty worth the blood welling in the shallow grooves. Turning, he gave an exasperated sigh and bent to help his reckless idiot of a friend from the dirt.
Slowly he scanned the area through the lens of his scope, following the rubble at the foot of the old fortress' eastern wall and up along the ramparts. Something flickered in the shadowy gap between two stones. He paused upon it, watching intently beyond the intersection of the crosshairs, index finger settling a bit more heavily against the trigger. The movement came again, the metal gleam of a helmet and goggles, the white flash that was the sliver of skin between. Blood burst as his bullet punched through the enemy soldier's forehead. "Nice shot, Barnes," came Morita's voice from a point over his shoulder. The Nazi slumped sideways against the wall, still relatively upright.
He lay on his back next to the pile of couch cushions where Steve rested, listening to the rattling breaths under the crackling drone of the radio program. If he was counting, if he spent the seconds between each labored in- and exhale with his own breath bated, it wasn't conscious. All he could think was that this might be the time the pneumonia won and took his friend – his brother – for good.
"Hey, Buck…" A hand came down on his shoulder and he blinked. "Time to get moving again." He was so tired his bones felt brittle, the aches in his back and legs long gone numb from endless walking. But no amount of resting would be enough until they got to safety. That he understood. So, with a shallow grunt, he gripped Steve's hand and lurched to his feet.
He swayed, just managing to catch himself before he staggered sideways. His temples throbbed, ears ringing, as rattled by the rapid-fire flickers of sound and image as if a flashbang had gone off inside his very skull.
A flashbang might have been gentler, truth be told.
It took longer to come out of it this time, though the amount of time had no impact on what he retained. Both frequency and severity were increasing at an unacceptable rate. He had to pull back. There was no other option, he couldn't control the episodes, and couldn't afford to black out again somewhere public and vulnerable.
Forcing himself to move with casual looseness, he traversed a few yards further along the exhibit floor, eyes combing the area for exits.
There was an emergency door beyond the false wall to the far right, across the room. Too far. The nearest route outside from the exhibit itself lay on the far side – an indeterminate distance. Also unacceptable.
Casting his gaze upward, he zeroed in on the catwalk snaking above in an intricate grid pattern.
There.
Enfolding himself in the dark, he briefly paused for a cluster of people to pass by, and leapt - left hand, sealed away within leather glove, closing around the lip of the walkway.
With a silence bought by years of practice and skill beaten into muscle as strength was beaten into steel, he pulled himself up onto the metal scaffolding and made for the dim glow of the sign marking the way out. The sunlight seared deep into his retinas when he stepped outside, but for all the burn of it was welcomed, it did nothing to scald away the images burned into his brain, conjured, somehow, by the depths of his own broken mind.
...
~ BUCHAREST, ROMANIA - 2016 ~
It took only a few days for Ioan – the butcher – to determine that giving Bucky a shot had been a chance well taken.
Bucky hadn't necessarily gone out of his way to impress during this brief period of observation. He was a hard worker, sure, but that didn't take extraordinary effort so much as it did drive or willpower. He was thorough, meticulous, tended to predict what would need doing in advance, but whatever hadn't come from his time and training as the Winter Soldier had been a result of military conditioning, or else simply things that were naturally occurring. These weren't qualities that seemed very extraordinary, from his perspective, but he wasn't about to turn down the offer of more responsibility and a higher wage.
The shop didn't open until nine, but staff arrived at seven in order to receive deliveries and get a start on prepping and piecing out the meat and other products. There were custom orders to see to, measuring to do, amounts to allocate for sausage and to be ground, or for in-house smoking, wrapping, and packing - all which must be completed before opening. Then there were the typical shopfront tasks of tidying and readying all the display cases, cleaning, prepping the till, and so on.
Anything to do with the piecing down of the meat, orders, or money were tasks left to the butcher. Bucky was given leave to do whatever of the rest needed doing, which he did with great precision and a surprising level of satisfaction.
Taking care not to disturb the display he had just painstakingly put together, Bucky reached into the chilled case at the front window of the shop to place the printed sign advertising the daily special on sausage. He moved it twice before deciding the placement was satisfactory, momentarily bemused by the pains he had found himself taking with a task he had never expected to be presented with.
It felt good to be able to take some amount of pride in the work he did – even if that work was menial within the grand scheme of things.
"Your work has been a gift to mankind..."
An icy chill traveled down the length of his spine at the unwanted shard of memory, the voice belonging to the last in a chain of commanders to whom he had been bound and conditioned to obey.
The solid forms of the memories were fuzzy, as was the order in which they fit, but he could recall Commander Pierce's tendency to revel in his inability to feel or to act for himself. A dog on a leash had more autonomy than the Winter Soldier, and Pierce had relished that. He hadn't had the ability to feel revulsion at the time. Now, looking back on the scattered moments of needless cruelty…revulsion was not a strong enough word.
Forcefully he evicted thoughts of Pierce, the abuses, and empty platitudes from his mind, refusing to sink into that black place just now.
He would have plenty of time to wallow into that particular darkness. More than likely in the night, when the vulnerability of sleep dragged him down like an anchor whether he wanted it or not.
Movement caught his eye as he slid the latch of the case back into place. Ioan was making his way over to unlock the shop door, which sent Bucky into full retreat to the back room. There was no line this morning, but he still preferred to avoid even the slightest chance of contact with more people than he absolutely had to.
Most of the day's delivery had arrived earlier that morning. The beef shipment had been delayed and was now sitting by the rear door, still wrapped, and waiting to be processed. It was a whole half-carcass, which would have required either equipment or a second person (perhaps even a third), to lift it. Bucky required neither.
When certain he was alone in the back, he gripped the side of beef by both legs and swiftly relocated it to the cutting block to await Ioan's attention. He then went about the chore of thoroughly cleaning the cutting and preparing surfaces, the grinders, the tools, floors, and sinks. It was a task that was done several times throughout the day, depending on need, and one that he normally found rather soothing.
Normally being the operative word.
Today, as with the past few days, he seemed to be existing in a constant, fluctuating state of agitation. He would go a few minutes, perfectly fine, and out of nowhere find himself tense and on edge, glancing over his shoulder or pausing to listen or watch – the way he had many times during covert operations which required him to go undetected. It was as if he was expecting something to jump out at him, and though nothing had, the lack almost seemed to worsen the sense of impending danger.
He couldn't pinpoint what exactly it was he expected might happen. He just felt...off, unsettled.
Paranoia was beginning to encroach again, just when he'd been starting to think he might have been gaining a handle on it. Being outside made him feel exposed, while being inside for too long made him feel trapped. It was nowhere near the magnitude of DC, when he had been disoriented to the point of losing the ability to function, but it was near enough to it to feel like a building-sized leap backwards, and it was frustrating.
His mind had been circling back to DC quite frequently of late; fixating on the ever-clearer memories of what had occurred during that final mission. Today hadn't been the first time Pierce's attempt to cajole him had interjected itself like that, and he thought he might finally be figuring out why.
In the beginning, they hadn't bothered with platitudes - or, if they had, he didn't remember. Toward the end however, when he had been more difficult to contain and control, they had tried such tactics to redirect him, attempting to manipulate his rebellious moments into a shape that suited them. They had told him he was helping make the world better, that his efforts were in service to others – vile venomous bullshit, all of it. He couldn't recall if such attempts had ever worked. Not that it mattered.
He understood now that no amount of cajoling or threatening or corporeal punishment from Pierce could have kept him from breaking through the programming after that first fight with the Captain; when his mask had been ripped away and the face that had been labeled merely mission and enemy in his brain had seemed to fade back into partial clarity.
He hadn't been able to remember in specifics, not in pictures or complete thoughts, nor color or sound. It had just been…an inarticulate knowing in his bones.
In hindsight, he could recognize that it had been the emotional response from his former friend which reached so deeply beyond the conditioning that he had failed to complete his mission not once, but twice. The Asset hadn't been accustomed to people looking at him with much aside from outright terror, or else indifference. An aberration so powerful would have elicited hesitation simply based on the need to process it.
He hadn't had the opportunity or the freedom to observe the Captain. Steve, he corrected himself - once again - in the same manner as a familiar skip in a record listened to on repeat so many times that it seemed almost a part of the song itself. DC had been swarming with military and law enforcement, and while he had been capable of getting around securely enough to acquire supplies and information, the instinctual need to get out of the city had been stronger than almost anything.
This time, he felt secure in his ability to maintain safety and observe the source of a similar deep-reaching crack created by a surge of emotion he couldn't explain.
The woman with the haunting eyes still spent generous amounts of time in the market. The times were a little less exact – sometimes later, sometimes earlier – but she seemed no more or less occupied than she had when he had thought her watching him. The change, slight as it was, proved at least that she had been tailoring her visits to the times he tended to be there. Now they seemed more along the lines of loose routine which might have nothing to do with him. Still, he didn't regret acting on instinct. He'd had good reason. Reason which had proven true, if not in the way he had expected.
She had as good as admitted she had links to HYDRA, despite whatever context her pained fury at his accusation might have provided. For that alone he should have moved along to a new city – a new country even, to be sure. It was what the Asset would have done.
That was a lie.
The Asset would have tracked her back to the quaint little apartments where she returned every day, slipped in through a window under the cover of night, and slit her throat.
That was not something Bucky could do. Even if he'd had to - even if the stakes were as great as they could be, he wasn't sure he could have done it.
The longer he watched her, the more he felt it - a strange sense of déjà vu the exact parameters of which he couldn't quite identify. Her voice in particular kept cycling through his head, especially the softer, gentler tones she had used when assuring him that she didn't expect him to remember her. But he did remember...at least, enough to know that there was something to remember. In truth it felt a little like the trick of tying a piece of red string around a finger as a reminder. Its presence might cue the wearer to the fact that they were supposed to remember something, but not what they were supposed to be remembering. Which, in the end, was only so helpful at all.
The longer he watched her, the stronger he felt that looking at her was like looking at the answer to a question, though he might not know what the question was or why it mattered, only that it did.
It mattered just as the fact that he had sketched part of her face while in the lingering thrall of dreams or scattered remembrance. It mattered that he had done so more than once. Just as it had mattered that the cold, calculated drive of the Asset had ground to a halt when Steve had called him by name and refused to fight him. There had been an entire museum exhibit to explain that to him. For this, he had no such resource.
If she was aware of his observation, aware that he had followed her home just to sate the need to be thorough (and perhaps a bit of uncomfortable curiosity), she gave no sign of it. And unless this was some sort of long-term situation, the benefits of which completely did not add up, if she had been planted to capture, or to call in the cavalry, she would have had to do it by now. To all appearances, she meant him no harm. Just as she'd claimed.
He wasn't sure he was completely comfortable fully believing that just yet.
When Ioan came into the back again, it was to find Bucky in the midst of working on the list of the day's orders: pulling pieces from the storage fridge where they had been set aside earlier, wrapping and packing them for delivery or for pickup, and labeling them as notated.
"The beef come?"
Bucky nodded once.
"You moved it yourself?" The butcher's brows rose.
Bucky understood. He wasn't scrawny by any means, but he certainly didn't look strong enough to lift half a steer on his own.
"Driver helped," he offered by way of explanation, "we used the lift and hooks."
With a wordless rumble of acceptance, Ioan went to one of the sinks along the far wall to wash his hands and Bucky turned his attention back down to the meticulous work of wrapping and tying and labeling.
Throughout the day he fought the odd, agitated feeling which continued to gnaw at him. When he left that evening, string of sausages tucked into his bag, he made it a point to extend his route, doubling back at least twice along adjacent streets. Likely he shook off nothing but his own paranoia, but he preferred to be careful, even if needlessly.
Deciding he had probably done enough evasive wandering, he turned onto another street and began to head home in earnest.
It was early on a Saturday night and most people were inside having their dinner, though there were plenty out and about shopping and socializing. Normally he was quite good at navigating the sidewalks when there were other people around. He knew how to move about unseen. He knew how to keep distance without appearing to do so, how to be unassuming so that he melted into the background and notice slipped off him like water from oil. It had been all but hammered into his cells. It wasn't always as easy now as it had once been, but he managed. Always. Yet something in him was tilted, teetering, and his grasp on it not what it should have been.
It was a mark of just how off kilter he was that he couldn't seem to keep adequate focus on his immediate surroundings rather than the noise in his own head to the point that he simply did not see the three men walking toward him – laughing and raucous as they were – until his shoulder struck that of the one closest to him.
He flinched, startled less by the collision itself than that it had happened at all.
He needed to get out of his head. Yesterday.
"Excuse me," he offered over a shoulder, and at first it seemed like he would be allowed to be on his way without incident, perhaps with the exception of an expletive or two tossed after him. Then he felt the hand twisting the back of his coat.
The immediate reflex was to disentangle and insert distance, which he did, wrenching himself from the grip and moving quickly back. But the following reflex was to incapacitate, jab an open hand into windpipe and kick out the knee. This he did not do. He simply stood, wary and tense, surveying the group of men clearly a few drinks in and brimming with stupid choices.
"You owe me an apology," the one nearest to him – the one he had struck, or so he assumed – drawled, stabbing a finger in Bucky's direction.
Bucky said nothing. Granted, he only understood about half the words and was approximating what had been said, but that wasn't why he kept his silence. He recognized the behavior, the tone of voice and non-verbal tells in posture and gesturing, mirrored by the friends flanking the speaker from behind. He knew what it looked like when someone was itching for a fight, and knew that simply going along with whatever demands were made would no more result in de-escalation than would rising to the provocation.
Had they not been in the middle of a public street, he might simply have knocked their heads together and left them. They were deep enough in their beer that they would have relegated any unnaturalness to his speed or strength to addled wits. But that wasn't an option here.
"Hey—I'm talking to you!"
He didn't need to look to know the elevated volume was drawing eyes in their direction, to say nothing of the appearance of a standoff. Heads were turning, leaning cautiously over railings or out of the nearby shop doors.
This was far too much attention.
"Move away," he said, keeping his voice low and pitching it an octave deeper. "You won't want that fight."
His hopes of making the idiots realize they were barking up a dangerous tree were in vain, and he was certain that a decent percentage of this was because of his awkward phrasing. The ringleader, short and stocky, with the perpetually swollen knuckles of a boxer, was throwing out his arms in challenge.
"Yeah? Try me, you—"
The string of profanity that followed – which Bucky understood with absolute clarity – faded to formless noise as his focus narrowed against his direction, honing in on obvious weaknesses before he clamped down on the reflex. He would flee before he resorted to fighting. And if they gave chase, then he would lead them on until either they lost interest or he managed to lose them – whichever came first.
The joints in his hips and knees flexed, coiling tight to create the latent energy needed to burst into motion as he readied to run…
"What's going on here?"
Bucky's eyes darted to his left, and to the pair of policemen in their crisp, dark blue uniforms, heralded by the crackle of radio static as they made their way across the street toward the altercation that had just become ten times worse.
He gritted his teeth against a curse of his own.
He could not afford the notice of law enforcement. If he was questioned, asked for papers or identification he could not provide, he would have to fight – at least long enough to subdue in order to buy the time to escape. Such a spectacle would more than likely draw news coverage, which would mean going to ground. Starting over. And they would ask.
The officers had reached the sidewalk and were speaking to the other three men, who no doubt loudly proclaimed him to be the guilty party.
Subtly he shifted his feet, the heel of his left boot grinding against the pavement. It was a grounding movement, reassuring himself that the blade he kept tucked at his ankle was there, even when he knew it was right where he'd put it that morning. As were the ones at the small of his back, strapped to his wrist, and crudely sewn into the lining of his coat.
Adjusting his grip on the strap of his backpack, he mentally prepared, running through potential scenarios as quickly as he could and grimly noting the irony that he could have used some of the Asset's ability to process with the speed of a computer.
Because there hadn't been anything else like fear or dread to bog him down.
"What's your name, sir?"
Bucky's eyes flicked to the policeman that had addressed him, taking in the lines bracketing the man's eyes and mouth. Laugh lines? Or ones from strain?
"Sir—?"
His inhale dragged deep and long, carrying the scents of beer and sweat and starch and…tea.
"There you are!"
A slender hand curled around the bend of his elbow, causing him to jerk and the titanium plates to shudder beneath the unexpected touch. His head snapped around and down to the source, utterly unprepared to find her there, face upturned, offering a sweet, playful smile.
...
Stepping out onto the sidewalk, Zuzana adjusted the bags at the crook of her arm and rolled her shoulders for what might have been the tenth time that evening.
Definitely too much time spent hunched in front of the monitor today. She was usually diligent about taking body breaks to stretch and move around, but occasionally, if a case was particularly engaging, she could still find herself sucked in deeply enough that the passage of time escaped her completely. If it hadn't been for the alarm set for her appointment at the lab, she'd likely still be there, curling herself into a steadily tighter human pretzel.
And all right, that was a bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but her spine certainly didn't keep the same opinion. She would probably have broken her joints down to dust a long time ago had it not been for…well, a number of things, she supposed.
The lab visit had taken less time than expected, so she had taken the opportunity to run a few errands. The pharmacy to stock up on gloves, vials, and the lotion she had fallen in love with and couldn't find anywhere else, a craft supply shop for thread and embroidery floss, and – lastly – a tiny French bakery for pastries because she was weak and in a long-term relationship with butter and didn't care who knew it.
Now that she was more or less integrated, she rather enjoyed it there. But in truth, she had chosen Romania specifically for the distance between it and her other homes of the last three decades, and the subsequent surety that she would be even less likely to be recognized by anyone she might have crossed paths with in the past. She could never have imagined that the city itself seemed to possess an inescapable kind of kismet attuned specifically to her. She didn't really believe in kismet, after all.
At least, she hadn't before now.
It was pure luck that she happened to be out, that she happened to have completed her stops in the order she had to land her at that exact spot at exactly that time. It was luck that she heard the raised voices over the ambient noise of a busy Saturday night, and luck that she elected to turn and look rather than simply ignoring it.
Angling her head to glance behind her, she took in the scene taking place across the street. A pair of police officers appeared to be breaking up an argument between a group of young men – probably all drunk out of their minds. Except…
Her heart stuttered, seized in her chest.
Twice she had believed she'd seen the last of him. Twice she had been wrong.
Bloody kismet.
Alarm crackled along her veins. He was on every list of the most dangerous and wanted criminals in the world. Even if they didn't recognize him immediately, the more time he spent around law enforcement the higher the chance that someone did. The global focus on him would be right back to the level it had been in DC, and if he couldn't shake it a second time...
She was moving before her plan was fully formed, darting into the street, hitching the bags onto her other arm and sliding the ring from the middle finger of her right hand.
She could sell it...she just hoped he would be inclined to follow along. It was fortuitous that she happened to be coming from running errands, bearing shopping bags the way she was. And that he knew her. Or at least knew her face. It was fortuitous that she could read his body language the way she could, subtle though it may be. She just had to get to him before he determined it necessary to attack, the way he was clearly gearing up to do from the way he was widening his stance, the movement smooth as silk. Though she supposed she was the only one who would recognize it as such.
Most people would have thought twice before starting something with someone so powerfully built, or who radiated such a potent warning to stay away. The trio of boys – and they were truly still just boys – blustering in response to the policemen's measured questions truly must be too young and riddled with too much attitude to have much sense. Or else they were incredibly, ridiculously foolish.
Slowing her pace to a swift walk, she took a steadying breath and summoned all the delight she could muster.
"There you are!"
She felt the tension jump and crackle as she laid a hand on his arm, felt the agitated whir of the mechanisms beneath the hard metal plating no one but she knew was there. Belatedly she noted that coming up behind him like that might not have been the wisest of things to do. One should not startle the deadliest ex-assassin in the world, especially when not at his most stable.
His head jerked down, blue eyes flashing with surprise and confusion when they lit upon her, but he didn't lash out, thank goodness. Confusion she could work with. Violence - regardless of being defensive - would have been a harder sell, even with the story weaving together in her head.
She smiled at him, putting a hint of teasing in the upturn of her lips as she continued in affectionate - if rusty - Russian: "You were supposed to meet me at the plaza."
His dark brows rose by an infinitesimal degree, his eyes searching her face so thoroughly she imagined she could feel the weight of the stare as it raking across her skin.
Come on, Soldier, she implored with her gaze, you know how to play this game.
He might have been used primarily for the more brutal skills in his expansive arsenal than those of espionage, but she knew he possessed them. They had equipped him to be an intelligence operative as much as an assassin. It was part of what had made him so terrifyingly accomplished.
Shifting her attention to the five other men clustered some distance down the sidewalk, she let her smile slip just a little as if she had only just noticed them.
They had gone quiet at her sudden intrusion and were now watching with an expansive array of expressions ranging from bewilderment to annoyance - the latter settled firmly in the face and posture of one of the civilians. He was a hair shorter than herself, she noted, but was deep enough in the chest and shoulders to have posed a challenge to the average person on the street. She would have put money on him being the inciting source of whatever conflict had arisen here.
"What's going on?" she asked, switching seamlessly back to Romanian. She didn't have to reach far to dredge up the worry she displayed, nor for the false name – that of a former suitor, and thus a bit awkward, but serviceable for her needs. "Ilya...?"
"You know this man, miss?" one of the officers addressed her, a slender man in his early forties with a bit of a weak chin.
She cast him a look that rode the line between puzzlement and reproach.
"Of course I know him."
Her grip shifted, her hand curling around the bend of her Soldier's arm to ensure the plain silver band – slightly too big for her ring finger, but not enough for the casual observer's notice – was in clear view. It was imperious, possessive, and she meant it to be.
"He's my husband." She felt him twitch against her shoulder and steadfastly ignored it in favor of staring the officer down. "And I'd like to know what's going on."
The man made an appeasing gesture with both hands, his posture open and loose, as though he were actively trying to be reassuring to ease the escalation of even further tension before it could rise.
"It appears there might have been a misundersta—"
"Misunderstanding my arse. The bastard almost knocked me over!" one of the young men blustered, taking an aggressive step forward.
The older officer caught the boy by an arm and urged him none too gently back into place, but she could feel the intricate structure beneath her palm ripple under the layers of clothing, synthetic muscle cording in the way she remembered heralded a clenched fist.
A hint of fear prickled at the nape of her neck.
How in control was he? If he lost hold of himself, she wasn't going to be able to hold him back.
Zuzana increased her grip on his arm, her fingers curling into the thick, coarse cloth of the workman's coat he wore, and hoped he could feel the message in it.
Ignoring the trio of young men altogether – and their combative ringleader in particular - she spoke directly to the policemen.
"I'm sorry, we—Ilya is a combat veteran," she offered, stiffly.
Neither the statement nor the underlying tone that she didn't really want to divulge the information was a lie, and while what she was about to say might not have been entirely true to the situation, she was willing to bet it wasn't far off the general mark.
"Sometimes he has difficulty being around a lot of people for a prolonged amount of time. Today has been…tiring."
She nudged closer, leaning her weight into him as though offering comfort and support.
At first he was completely unresponsive, powerful figure as stiff and cold as stone, which was not at all following along. He didn't have to like it, but he needed to give least a shred of pretense until she could get him out of there.
She was debating sliding her other hand behind his back and administering a sharp prod in the ribs when finally - after a near to painful pause - he yielded. His posture adjusted, softened, the live-wire current simmering under flesh and metal easing. Unprompted, he lifted his arm, allowing her to nestle against his side, and with that, she allowed herself to feel some relief, content in the surety that he wasn't about to hinder himself with an obstacle (her, in this scenario) if he still intended to unleash the violence as of yet held in careful check.
Her hand found his chest, smoothing along the heavy muscle there. The texture of his shirt was edging toward threadbare, the pulse of his heartbeat strong and still just a hair too fast. He wasn't convinced her ruse was going to work - still worried he was going to have to fight his way out of disaster.
It's all right, she tried to convey with the gentle pressure of her palm. It won't come to that.
She would protect him. As he had once protected her.
...
He was starting to think he had been right upon his first assumption that she was a spy of some sort, or a former one. Not simply because she had appeared out of nowhere, but for the ease with which she had crafted and immersed herself – and him with her – into a story that she couldn't possibly have planned all that far in advance.
With a background like his and a life such as the one he now lived, he couldn't not admire such skill at spinning thorough covers completely without preparation time.
True, it had taken him a moment (several moments) to put together exactly what it was she was doing, the blame for which he laid squarely on the fact that she was the very last thing he could have expected.
"Ty dolzhen byl vstretit' menya na ploshchadi," she had stated, with a note of gentle scolding that leant an air of an oft repeated, and forgotten, reminder.
You were supposed to meet me at the plaza.
The sheer amount of affection she projected, soft at her mouth and eyes and wildflower sweet in her voice, was impressive. And not false. An act would have caused her to over-emphasize, seeking to ensure she was believed. This, however, was understated to the point that any less observant bystander might have missed it. Though the words themselves were, the sentiment was not an act. The sudden realization of it threw him.
Hard.
Her eyes were boring into his, the fondness undercut by a flicker of pointed intensity. Reading, very clearly: follow my lead.
The other men clustered before them were observing, evidently as caught off guard as he had been. The beer-addled punks were clearly absorbed in the appearance of an attractive woman, which only added to their general level of stupidity in his opinion. The policemen, however, were studying the way she interacted with him, the foundation of intimacy – illusion or otherwise – she was building.
"What's going on?" There was a crease of worry between her brows when she glanced back up at him. "Ilya…?"
Her voice had risen, hitching with a wavering note of cautious concern, but that wasn't what truly struck him. The switch from Romanian to Russian and back again had been smooth enough to imitate the ease of an everyday occurrence, immediately and effortlessly offering explanation for his awkward speech and slowness to answer. In the space of seconds she had painted him as a transplant still chest deep in cultural-acclimation.
Surely she must be an operative.
The officer that had been asking for Bucky's name, before the timely interruption, was speaking again. "You know this man, miss?" he asked, doubt caked in the shallow crows-feet creases framing his eyes.
Bucky felt the slide of her palm against his arm just above the articulated elbow. It was far beyond the description of strange to be touched so casually, but stranger still for that touch to be directed upon the artificial limb. He had to swallow down the impulse to extricate himself from her grasp, not entirely comfortable with the sensation of her slim fingers running over the plating – separated by two layers of fabric though they were.
"Of course I know him, he's my husband."
Ah. He supposed that would explain the touching. And…well, not really anything else.
For a moment he was distracted by his brain's unconscious determination to hyper-focus on the subtle inflection she had used. The claim, the words themselves, were part of the act. But her tone…the defensive assertion, even the faint hint of possessiveness, contained the ring of true conviction.
The outburst from the stocky young man he had collided with snapped him right out of the highly inappropriately timed daze.
"—the bastard almost knocked me over!" he was snarling, and Bucky registered the intent in him before he had even taken the threatening step toward them.
The second officer had put a stop to the attempt, but he had already begun to calculate the best and most efficient way to issue a takedown. He could bring the five of them down without a problem – hardly without blinking. The arm, and whatever had been used to modify his cellular structure, made sure of that.
The grip tightened on his arm. A quelling gesture.
Don't.
"Ilya is a combat veteran," she was explaining, with the underlying current of resentment that implied she firmly believed it was no one's business, but that she divulged the information solely for the sake of moving the encounter along. "Today has been…tiring."
He felt the press of her body against him, so close and so insistent that he had little choice but to move his arm to accommodate her, which she took intentional advantage of, tucking herself into the space between it and his torso. She was soft and almost disturbingly warm, though it had been rather a long time since he had had so much contact with another person.
Her hand was a gentle weight where she brought it to rest over his heart, light and absentmindedly familiar – appropriately so for the illusion she painted, for all that the touch sent a sharp jolt of awareness dancing like cool fingertips down his spine.
He'd thought to offer some kind of reciprocation, if for no other reason than out of respect for the work she was pouring into the effort of hauling him out of this mess he had all but stumbled into. Still it was unexpectedly easy to relax: for his hand to uncurl where it rested stiff and fisted against the small of her back, to mold his palm with the curve of her waist the way he had noticed other men do with women they accompanied. And she must have expected him to do it, or else something similar – she had been subtly pushing him to do so. Yet at the slide of his glove against her blouse where it draped, silky and smooth across her ribs, there was a tiny hitch to her breath which might have said otherwise. Or else said something else entirely.
Recovering quickly, she implored softly: "We apologize for the disturbance. If there's nothing else you need, I'd like to get him home to rest."
The officer looked markedly uncomfortable, glancing back over his shoulder toward his partner as if seeking advisement. "Well, we—"
"You want to know what started this silliness, you've got them right there."
The new voice – strangely resonant for how hoarse it was – came from the shop to their right, where an elderly woman stood stooped in the open doorway. She was a gnarled, wizened thing, but her gaze was keen as an osprey's.
"Waltzing along like they own the whole quarter. That one," she jerked her chin to indicate the man that had slammed into him and then demanded an apology, then again to indicate Bucky himself, "was looking for trouble. This lad just had the bad luck to cross paths with him."
"That true?" the second officer asked of him, hand still planted squarely on the man's shoulder in case of another bout of beer-inspired idiocy.
Bucky nodded once.
Seeming to require no further testimony, or much of anything else, the policemen made quick work of issuing a stern warning against further incitement of public disturbance and shooing the young men off. When they went about their own business shortly after, with polite nods all around, the woman at his side relaxed.
"I didn't know you were married, Nežka."
Though she pulled slightly away from him in order to face the shopfront, and the old woman that had come to their defense, the market girl kept contact with him – her hand softer now where it rested against his sternum.
Nežka. Was that her name? It had the flavor of an endearment more than anything else, and endearments implied a relationship of some kind, even one made in casual company. If she was here under cover, she had just compromised it to help him, which ran counter to everything he knew about spy-craft.
"There are quite a lot of things you don't know about me," she said conspiratorially. The teasing smile was back, curving the corners of her mouth, yet not quite the same. And while the old woman sniffed, there was a glitter of fondness in it.
A fondness which vanished when her focus slid instead to him.
She eyed him narrowly, raking him so thoroughly with her sharp old eyes that he swore he could feel the sting of it down to the marrow. A thin brow arched, and he had the distinct impression that whatever she saw, she found him wanting.
"It's a good woman you have there," she finally decreed. "You had best look after her like she's looking after you."
Bucky blinked, inexplicably unsettled by the comment and unable to pinpoint why.
Pivoting gracefully, his unexpected savior moved to his other side, adjusting the weight of the bags she carried. She tucked her hand beneath the bend of his other elbow and subtly – persistently – pulled.
"Thank you, bunica," she tossed cheerfully over her shoulder as she all but dragged him down the sidewalk.
At the edge of his periphery he caught the old woman's wave of farewell just as she dropped her bony arm, her parting mutter of "mannerless Russian dog" hushed, spoken under her breath, but not so quiet that he missed it. If the subtle tightening of the hand at his elbow was any indicator, his rescuer had heard it too.
"Don't hold it against her," she said upon a sigh. "There's a…deeply unpleasant history there. And you do pass quite well for Russian."
It was a tiny thing, hardly worth the notice, but it brought him up short as nothing else yet had.
She knew he wasn't Russian by birth or blood. That information had been classified beyond the access of all but the topmost level of HYDRA officials. To everyone else he had been without identity: without name, history, or nation. There was no possible way she could be that far up the ladder and be here now. Someone so high-level would never have been allowed in the field like this – the risk of losing classified information alone would have been enough to prevent it – and defection, even if desired, was not an option. There were too many safeguards against just such a thing, in the event someone so recognizable from within the organization manage to slip their guard detail.
How did she know this? What else did she know?
He glanced down at her as she led him around another corner to turn onto a quieter street, the bodies sparse and city sounds reduced to a murmur. Her hair gleamed brilliant gold in the waning evening light. She wasn't wearing a coat, he noticed, just the white blouse – likely now smudged in all the places he'd touched – and a gauzy scarf. She must not have intended to be kept out so long, had probably just ducked out for a quick errand before taking it upon herself to divert his imminent crisis.
He should thank her, Bucky noted. For all that she, and everything she might or might not represent, still made him nervous.
His mouth opened, gone suddenly dry and empty as paper, and by the time he was finally able to force himself to speak, what fell from his tongue was brusque and flat and utterly opposite of what he had been reaching for.
"I had it handled."
The woman beside him emitted a noise that was pure derision. In one smooth movement she dropped his arm and turned sharply to face him, her face set.
"Of course you did," she agreed, her voice thick with sarcasm and all but crackling with annoyance. "Pardon my reflex to help a wanted man avoid further notice from the police and possibly prevent the need for him to relocate unplanned. I'll leave you to it next time."
Adjusting the positioning of the shopping bags slung over her arm, she shifted her weight, clearly making to walk away, and he panicked.
Before he could think better of it he grabbed her – gloved fingers closing tight around her slender wrist and holding fast. She flinched, more from surprise than from pain, or so her wide eyes said, but he released her immediately; curling his fingers into his palm and pressing the hand into his pitching stomach, half positive he could still feel the lightning spike of her pulse against his fingers.
"I'm sorry—" he blurted, for the wrong comment or for the contact, or something else entirely. "I'm just…I'm not—"
He floundered, scrabbling frantically amidst the noise in his head for something to say.
Not used to people. Not used to the offer of help, or to accepting it. Yes. No. All of the above.
"It's all right."
When he looked at her then, she was no longer glaring. Everything about her seemed to have softened, from posture to the tension in her chin, down to the positioning of her feet – no longer poised to carry her away. There was a shallow furrow between her slender brows while she regarded him from across the sidewalk, more sympathy than outright concern.
Her lips parted, and she paused, as though hovering on the edge of whatever it was she had been about to say before evidently thinking better of it. And in that instant she was so intensely familiar that it hurt. But grasping for the why felt like grasping for purchase upon a pane of glass.
"I know you." It left him in a whisper, a plea stitched into shape with words that didn't quite convey it. "How do I know you?"
Her chest rose and fell with a clearly steadying breath, and he had the sudden feeling that he wasn't the only one lingering on a cliff-face.
"From times and places you'd probably rather not remember."
Her eyes were gentle as they traced over the lines and angles of his face. The scrutiny was nothing at all like that of the old woman's. Where that had been scouring and judgmental this was careful, cautious in the way one might have handled a bird with a broken wing. The look seemed to peel him open, vulnerable, and he fought the urge to turn away, to hide away from it. From her. And yet he couldn't quite stand to look away.
After either seconds or hours, she averted her eyes in favor of skimming the seemingly empty street.
"We shouldn't talk out in the open," she admitted at a hush. "Officially HYDRA might be gone, but that just makes whatever dregs are left that much more dangerous."
Bucky's insides gave a sharp, unsettling lurch.
"What?"
Her eyes widened, startled. "You didn't know…"
It wasn't a question.
Gone.
But how? HYDRA was equal parts poison and parasite. Its roots ran deep, and it would take a great deal more from minds far more advanced than his own to comprehend how precisely to kill it. As much as he might have wanted to believe it, Bucky wasn't sure he could so easily.
Her head angled back, eyes once again combing the street around them in a way that was almost compulsive.
He knew that look: that of someone who had spent a great deal of time looking over their shoulder, staring a little too long into shadowy corners, uncertain if they had caught the glint of eyes in the dark. He could see himself reflected in that look, in the flash of caution that wasn't quite fear, but edged too close to be entirely free of it.
She was undercover, just not in the way he'd assumed. Like him, she was in hiding - concealing herself from the reach of a force that would hunt to the ends of the earth to retrieve something that belonged to it. A force which she no more believed eradicated than he did.
"There's a park on the south end of the city—you know it?" She looked for his nod, hair coiling over her shoulder when she turned. "There's good tree cover on the far side. Past the sculpture garden. Meet me there tomorrow, or the day after, and I'll explain."
Bucky stared, certain he couldn't have heard her correctly. "You—you know what I am?"
There was a faint flicker of something in her gaze before it cleared. Apprehension? Grief? He felt no need to clarify. He saw in her face that she knew precisely what he was asking.
"I know who you were, yes."
"And you want to…meet me in the woods?"
Whatever he had expected in response to this, it wasn't the little half-shrug she offered.
"You have much more reason to be suspicious of me than I do of you. I'd offer my flat—" she gestured vaguely onward down the road, and he realized that they were, in fact, a few blocks from the apartment in question. "—but I thought you might feel better somewhere neutral and, I don't know, away from people."
It was a kind thing to say, a thoughtful observation to have made. And logical, all things considered. It would make sense to consider that he – unbalanced as he was – might be safer away from the extra sensory intake that came with being around other people.
Once again the usual pragmatic calm she displayed in his proximity struck him. He wasn't sure he could recall the last time someone had been this close to him without so much as a faint elevation to their heartbeat, a hint of nervous sweat. Not absent at least a dozen armed guards with weapons trained on his head.
"You're not afraid I'll hurt you?" he asked, so soft that it was near to a whisper.
Ever so slightly, her head tilted to one side as she considered the question, and out of nowhere he was struck by two things simultaneously. The first: while her lips were a soft, pleasant pink in the here and now, he was almost certain that they were red in his memory. The second: he seriously, desperately, wanted her answer to be no.
It wasn't something he could promise, he knew that, even if it was what he wanted. And yet, even still…he had the audacity to want it anyway.
"Do you want to hurt me?"
The words flowed over him with an eerie note of déjà vu, and half afraid to speak, he shook his head.
Her smile was full of knowing, and achingly sweet. "Then, no. I'm not afraid."
He was completely incapable of understanding his own relief.
For a moment longer he studied her in his turn. If there was one thing he felt secure in his competence about, it was reading people. It did take him a great deal of focus sometimes, but for the most part he could discern when he was being lied to or misdirected. But when he looked, he just saw her; a pretty girl with a story not all that different from his own, save for a few (perhaps crucial) details.
He had been informed – on multiple occasions with varying degrees of dislike – that his stare tended to put people off. And he was, undoubtedly staring now. If it bothered her, however, it didn't show. She might have been waiting for him to remark upon the weather, or the state of the roads, she seemed so unconcerned. It was…interesting.
"Here's fine." Lifting a gloved hand he indicated the direction which led to her apartment.
She looked almost touched.
"There's a courtyard at the back of the building—you can get in without a key through the door that way. I assume you don't have a problem getting over the fence to get there…?"
He nodded, oddly fascinated by the hint of what he thought was teasing in the lightning-quick curve of her smile.
"I'm on the fifth floor. Number 23," she added. "Just come by when you can."
She was moving again, taking a step backward down the sidewalk, then another. Unbidden his gaze fell to the motion of her hands, the nervous twisting of her fingers.
No, he realized as she turned in full and he caught the metallic glint in the cradle of her palm. Not nervous at all.
She had been sliding a silver band from the ring finger of her left hand.
NOTES:
This was unexpectedly tough to finish. I'm posting it now because I keep nitpicking for silly reasons and need to just get over myself. Also - a much truer testament to what my chapter length tends to look like. How do we feel about the time-jumps partway through the chapter? Is it hard to follow that way? I think I'll keep the 1950s flashbacks separate, but we'll see.
Credit for the writing on the memorial plaque for Bucky in the Smithsonian goes to the film writers and designers. I modified it slightly by including some of the overhead narration into the writing, but none of it is mine. I almost changed Bucky's date of birth to make him older, but decided not to because it's accurate for someone so young to both go to war and to die in service, even if it hurts my heart that he was only 27.
I know some combat veterans truly do experience something similar to the movie method of showing flashbacks - actually having them relive or re-immerse into the prior time and scene. I'm leaning between that and something I am familiar with by way of temporary in-the-moment dissociative episodes wherein I forget where I am or how much time has gone by and I can't remember if I was doing something. It's not the same as spacing out, but externally it probably looks similar. This is some of why I've tagged this story as having iffy depictions of PTSD. Mental illness related experiences are so intensely personal and difficult to describe, even for those of us who experience it in real life. I can't speak to the degree of truth in my depictions, I can only say that I'm doing my best to stick to reality as I understand it and tell a story simultaneously.
I don't know if it comes across on its on, but flipping the man-saves-woman-from-unwanted-attention trope on its head because REASONS was intensely satisfying. And it's not like it won't go both ways and more than once. We all save each other in this fanservice house.
Apologies for language translations - I am stuck using Google for it, presently. If there are ever any native speakers willing to toss out corrections, PLEASE and THANK YOU.
To all who have read thus far, bless you and thank you. Fan art exists in an interesting space that is at once highly personal and quite collectively interactive. The writing is compulsive, even if I enjoy it, but I think the interaction is my favorite part.
The world is a scary place right now. Take care of yourselves, be well, and until next time.