Author's Note: Marvel owns what it owns, and I own what I own, let's keep it that way shall we? Don't Sue me!

Recommended Listening: This Land by Hans Zimmer; Wakanda by Ludwig Goransson; Fly Away by Lenny Kravitz; Here I am by Bryan Adams


Ch 36: Terms and Conditions

The sun was warm and bright, and Maggie found herself sprawled out on her back, soaking up the warmth from under the shade of one of the many trees clustered around Jelani's workshop.

It was lunchtime, and Jelani had all but forbidden her from doing any work between the hours of noon and two. So she'd brought her heavy plainsmen blanket, her frozen mango cubes (along with the rest of her lunch), and her water-skin so she could lay out in the shade in comfort as she watched the clouds roll by through the branches of the tree.

She was trying to practice some quiet mindfulness, even as she kept her ears open for the sound of a mule led feed delivery cart.

It was Tuesday, and it had been four days since her wet trek through the jungle with James Barnes. Their subsequent conversation was replaying on loop in her head as she tried to understand what had happened and what the hell she was going to do now.

Maggie squeezed her eyes shut. She was exhausted, she'd been exhausted for a long time. Perhaps now that she had gotten this thing over with between her and Barnes she could rest.

But it really hadn't been settled had it? He'd apologized and acknowledged what she'd been through. He'd told her that she didn't owe him anything. That was everything that she'd convinced herself she wanted. That should be the end of it. The operative word, of course, being should.

Only it wasn't. It might have been if James Barnes had been the cold, heartless bastard she'd built him up to be in her mind.

In all fairness to her, she had been in the Winter Soldier Trenches for the last two years, and yeah, after the guy failed to materialize at his sister's death bed, she'd formed some opinions. Never mind all of the horrible shit that had happened to her because of him.

But that hadn't been his fault, and she'd tried to remind herself of that. He was a victim of Hydra. Yet, somehow, in all the anger and pain and sheer frustration that reminder, that truth had been obscured, and her brain had transformed Barnes into the convenient scapegoat.

Then he hadn't been the heartless bastard she'd built him up to be in her mind. He was by no means the Romeo she'd built up in her mind before Becca's death either. He was simply an unknown entity, and Maggie's experience on the mountain had made her realize that she had both severely misjudged James Barnes and been tremendously unfair to both of them.

It was surprising to admit, and no one was more surprised than she was. She'd gone from irate to ambivalent in less than three weeks, and now she was waiting to see what would happen next.

Maggie opened her eyes and rolled onto her side. Picking up a mango cube from the little dish she'd brought with her, and popped it in her mouth chewing thoughtfully. She couldn't help but think about what he'd said.

You don't owe me a goddamn thing...I've taken up two and a half years of your life. You don't owe me any more of it.

The bastard had used her own words against her. Maggie wasn't sure how she felt about that. She didn't know how to feel about any of it, but she did know that she wanted to talk to Barnes.

That, she knew, was because of Becca. She also knew that Becca was part of the reason she'd been so angry, part of the reason she was still hesitant to talk to Barnes, and part of the reason she still wanted to talk to Barnes. She knew that she didn't owe Barnes an explanation. It was that she'd been given the memory of James Barnes, Becca's memory of James Barnes so that Maggie could give him the message from his sister.

Your family did not forget you, and they loved you very much.

When Becca had told her that, Maggie had been willing to do exactly that for her friend, a woman that Maggie had loved with all of her heat. She'd wanted nothing more than to carry the memory of her friend's older brother and carry her final message to him. Only then her head had been filled with fantastical accounts from the seventy-year-old memory of the man's youngest sister. She hadn't crossed the point of no return yet, hadn't dug through the Winter Soldier's history yet, hadn't seen the chair and cryo-chamber in Argentina yet. Hadn't witnessed, and read, and then dealt with the subsequent fall out of everything that had been perpetrated against and by the Winter Soldier.

Now she had. Now she had come face to face with the man that remained from those experiences. Now she was left to figure all of this out, and didn't have the damndest clue how to honor her friend's dying request.

Did Barnes want to talk to her about his sister? She knew now that he knew they were friends, that they'd been close while Maggie had been on the hunt for him. Was he as protective of Becca as she was? The only way to find out was to ask, and the only way she was going to be able to do that was when he showed up for feed delivery.

"Heyi, Cowgirl!" Maggie jerked into a sitting position at the sound of Jelani's approach.

"Sir?"

The older man chuckled, shaking his head. "You can call me Jelani." He said, stopping at the foot of her blanket. "How long has it been since you've been on a horse."

"Years, sir, uhhh, Jelani."

"That's no good. Clean up your stuff and meet me by the paddock." Maggie opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. "You need to be in a Wakandan saddle, on a Wakandan horse before you shod any of my horses."

Maggie couldn't argue with that. She nodded and rose to her feet, collecting and packing away her things. Stowing them in the shop out of the way, she followed Jelani over to the paddock where there were two horses tied, saddled, and waiting for them.

"Pick whichever you like." He said, motioning to the horses.

Maggie paused. Was this a test? It felt like a test. She glanced at Jelani and then at the horses before ducking between the fence slats and entering the paddock.

It was familiar, although it had been forever since she'd done this. With her herd back on Last Chance, they'd known what she was going to do before she did. Now, with these horses, in this place, she was dealing with unknown entities.

Seems to be a lot of that going around.

She stopped before she reached the horses, exhaling a long deep breath. Horses were good therapy animals for a reason, and she was about to have a very intense session if she didn't check herself.

Check your emotions, or the horse will do it for you. She could practically hear herself say to one of her clients.

God, she missed them, she missed that part of running the ranch. She missed helping people, missed facilitating the deep relationship that many of her clients formed with the ranch horses. She missed it. Missed the community, missed her animals, missed the feeling of accomplishment.

"You okay, Cowgirl?" Jelani's voice pulled her back.

"Yeah, sorry," Maggie said, blinking she shook her head before she approached.

She did a quick but thorough evaluation of the horses, checking their hooves, flanks, mouths, and teeth, as well as surveying the tack. Stepping back, she put her hands on her hips and frowned, "Huh."

"What is it, Cowgirl?"

"What's the catch?"

"I don't believe I understand."

"This is a test, isn't it?"

Jelani looked her over, "You think this is a test?"

What was she supposed to say? She thought it was a test, what other reason would there be for such an ordeal. "Yes."

He nodded, his expression giving nothing away. "Choose a horse, Cowgirl."

"Right." She nodded. If it was a test, Jelani was going to keep it to himself. She turned to the two horses. One was a mare. One was a stallion. Both were brown with white markings. Functionally there wasn't a lick of difference between them. However, the mare had a calm sort of energy about her and a white spot that looked like a star between her eyes that made Maggie smile.

Approaching the horse, she extended her hand before gently rubbing the horse's head and nose. "What's her name?" Maggie asked absently as she untied the mare from the paddock fence.

"They don't have names," Jelani said as he entered the paddock and untied the stallion.

"Is that some kind of Wakandan naming convention I should be aware of?" She inquired, glancing over at him.

"No. We let their first owners give them their names." Jelani replied. "What do you think you'll name them?"

Maggie paused as the words sunk in, opening and closing her mouth like a fish out water until she managed a simple "What?"

Jelani chuckled, leading the stallion from the paddock. "The King wanted to ensure you had a horse of your own to use for the duration of your stay. In honor of your name day, he instructed me to select two for you as a gift. Both as a birthday present and to welcome you into our community."

"You mean." Maggie stammered, glancing between Jelani and the two horses. "These are my horses?"

"Yes. You may stable them with my herd, but they are yours to do with as you please." Jelani nodded.

"I don't know what to say. I don't know how I could ever repay you." She said, her mind spinning.

The King, the King of Wakanda, had given her a pair of horses for her birthday? There was a lot to unpack just in that one sentence. First of all, what day was it? She hadn't been keeping track, and apparently, her 33rd birthday had come and gone without thought or comment. Second of all, holy shit, she'd just been given two beautiful horses, and tack apparently, by the reigning monarch of a country that she would have been hard-pressed to place on a map two months ago. She didn't know how she should respond.

"Put them to good use," Jelani replied, as he mounted the stallion with a grace and ease that she wouldn't have expected from the man. "Come on. We're going for a ride. We won't be gone long."

Nodding wordlessly, she adjusted the stirrups and climbed into the saddle. The front and back of the wooden saddle were higher than she was used to, but it was comfortable, and the fit was good.

"We'll ride single file until we get to the grassland just over the next hill, then we'll see what you're made of," Jelani said, before urging his mount into a brusque walk, and Maggie followed behind.

They rode in silence as she and the horse became acquainted. The horse was tremendously well trained, and hyper responses to Maggie's commands, to the point she was almost convinced she could've controlled the horse without the use of the reigns at all.

Walking at a leisurely pace, Maggie leaned into the rhythm of the horse's gait and could feel as the tension started to slip from her body.

She'd missed this. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed this. That last six months on the ranch she hadn't gotten on a horse, just out of time and necessity, then she'd been in hiding, or on the run for the last two and a half years. It had been nearly three years since she'd been on a horse, which for someone who had spent a sizable portion of their life in the saddle felt like an eternity.

The sky was clear and a nearly impossible shade of blue, and white cotton candy clouds drifted slowly by while the warm wind cooled Maggie's sun-kissed skin. Leaning her head back, she exhaled, a huge smile across her face. She might be halfway around the world, in a country that was not her own, in a place not of her choosing, but on the back of this horse, it felt like going home, and she felt more like herself than she had since Riley had died.

"My King tells me you competed in the Charreada," Jelani commented, pulling Maggie back to the present.

"Some. Yes. When I was very young." She answered, picking up the pace to ride side by side with him as they left the narrow trail and the rolling plains spread out before them. "Mostly, I helped my family with our cattle growing up, but that's been well over a decade as well."

"Well, we do not do most of that there. I will have to teach you how we heard our animals and handle our horses." Jelani replied.

"I look forward to learning something new." She answered.

"Good. Let's see what you can do." Jelani commented with a wink. "Do try to keep up, Cowgirl." Without another word, he took off, and Maggie followed after, urging the horse into a gallop.

Following Jelani around the field, they weaved and turned, stopping and starting, slowing down and speeding up, testing her horsemanship. Jelani was a phenomenal horseman, and as it had been three years since she'd even been on a horse, her own horsemanship was rusty and paled in comparison. Fortunately, her horse was well trained and was able to correct and compensate for her inadequacies.

"Not bad for your first time on a horse in years." Jelani laughed as they slowed to a walk.

The horses were breathing hard, but Maggie was breathing even harder. She nodded, laughing weakly.

"How do you feel?"

"Good. I feel good." She managed.

"Good." He smiled, "Now, let's get back. We should make it just in time for dinner."

"Dinner?" Maggie echoed. How long had they been out here? She'd lost track of time. Shit the feed delivery.

"Indeed. You will come and have dinner with my family and me, won't you?" Jelani commented.

"Of course. I would be honored." Maggie heard herself respond, but she was still miles away.

She'd missed Barnes. She'd missed her opportunity to talk to him and to apologize for her previous behavior. She hadn't even really told him "thank you" for dragging her out of the rain.

"There is a midwinter festival in a few weeks. Do you think with a bit of training, you would be able to help us move cattle and other livestock?" Jelani inquired as they started back toward the village.

"I would be happy to."

"Good. You will make a good student, and an even better horsewoman once we get you trained up a little bit." He cracked a wry smile.

Maggie might have risen to the bait, but she knew when she was being ribbed, particularly by older men who wanted to give her a hard time about something unimportant. She smiled and nodded, "With any sort of luck."

"We should get back. We don't want Tee to think that I'm misusing you." Jelani commented as he started them back in the direction they'd come.

It had been a glorious afternoon that had certainly gotten Maggie out of her head and back in the saddle, literally and figuratively speaking. But she'd missed an opportunity to talk to Barnes. She wanted to try to set things right so that she could get him out of her head, and put this whole retched affair behind them. Now, it would be yet another week before she'd get that chance, and with everything going on, a week seemed like a lifetime away.

Yet, as they rode back and Maggie thought through what she and Jelani had done, and what Jelani had proposed, thoughts of Barnes melted away as she thought about her new task, her new goal. She was going to help Jelani and his team move cattle and other livestock during the midwinter festival. That was something to work toward. She had a purpose, and she had a goal, and she got to be back on a horse. There was certainly a lot that could happen between now and then, but for the first time in a while, she felt a little bit like her old self again. And that was worth missing a chance to settle this thing with Barnes. It had waited two and a half years. It could wait a little bit longer.


Bucky awoke with a start. An occurrence so familiar he almost didn't notice that his whole body was shaking. He'd had that dream again. The one where everyone was dead, the one where everyone was dead, and it was his fault. The walls of his hut were closing in on him again. So he rose from his bed and stepped into the night. It was a new moon, and the stars glittered across the sky, so bright and vibrant, you could see the arm of the Milky Way galaxy. He inhaled deeply.

The night air was cool, and a gentle breeze made the grass and the trees sway this way and that.

Safe. You're safe. He repeated over and over to himself like a mantra. But it wasn't working, not tonight, not right now.

Bucky exhaled, running his fingers through his hair, and started walking, his feet carrying him along one of the familiar goat paths.

It had been a quiet day. He'd looked after his goats, gone on his normal route with the feed, he'd made himself dinner, read some before he'd fallen asleep early although his mind and his PTSD had apparently had other plans.

Progress would be slow. Shuri had warned him. I can remove the hydra programming, but the memories and their trauma will still be there.

He hadn't expected any less. He hadn't wanted anything less. He'd wanted his memory back, and he wanted to remember, and now he remembered everything, and he would have to deal with the consequences. The consequences, of course, being flashbacks, nightmares, paranoia, anxiety, and a whole host of other things that he'd never imagined were possible to cohabitate in a single human being.

His mind was reeling, and his feet carried him through the Wakandan countryside. While he was aware of his surroundings, from the crunch of dirt, twigs, grass, and gravel underfoot to the sound of the wind whistling through the trees, he didn't particularly care where he ended up. All he knew was he needed to walk and walk and walk until he outpaced the speed of his thoughts, or until exhaustion did the work for him.

He paused at the sound of someone humming, putting him immediately on edge. His eyes scanned the perimeter, his mind finally catching up to where his feet had led him. He was now nearly three miles over the hill and toward the horse village. Why he'd decided to head that way he didn't know, but he glanced around, unable to identify precisely where the humming was coming from.

"Down here, Barnes."

"Ramirez?" He lowered his eye line and found her sitting in the grass.

"Hi." She said as they made eye contact.

"Hi." He echoed. Glancing around, he realized he was actually no more than two hundred yards from her hut and the horse village. Of all the places in Wakanda, his feet had brought him to practically Ramirez's front door. Why?

He'd expected to see her today during the feed delivery. Only she'd been out on an errand with Jelani. At the very least, that's what Sisay had told him. They hadn't spoken since he'd hauled her down the mountain. He'd tried not to think about her. He'd mostly succeeded. It had been a busy few days since their misadventure. Yet, the questions he had were still with him, still rattling around in his overfilled brain. For him, while the whole question of Ramirez was a difficult and somewhat painful subject, it was easier for him to think through those things than it was to deal with any number of others.

"Sorry I missed you today," Ramirez commented.

"Sisay said you were out on an errand."

"Jelani was getting me acquainted with Wakandan horsemanship."

"Sounds like fun." He offered uncertainly.

"It was, but I did want to talk to you."

She wanted to talk to me? Bucky hesitated, uncertain of how to respond. "Why?" Seemed a little too direct at the moment, but with his head pounding and his mind still racing, he was drawing a blank.

As if sensing this, Ramirez took pity and continued, "I wanted to say thank you for what you did the other day and apologize for withholding information."

Withholding information? She'd written out three journals, detailing everything she'd learned, and written a letter giving him a blank check to ask whatever the hell he wanted, and she was apologizing for withholding information? What did that mean? What could it mean? Bucky didn't know, so he focused on the first part. "You wanted to say thank you?" He could hear the disbelief in his voice. "For what?"

"You got me out of a dangerous situation when I was less than gracious about the entire thing. You could've just let me wander around the Wakandan countryside lost until someone else found me, or for that matter could've left my ungracious ass on the mountainside when I slipped and sprained my ankle. So thank you for not doing any of those things." She paused a moment. "All mitigating circumstances of our history aside, you didn't owe me that, and I am grateful."

"It seemed wrong to do otherwise, regardless of who it was." Which he felt was mostly true. He would've done that for anyone. It was just doubly true because it was her.

Ramirez nodded, "I appreciate it, Barnes." She held his gaze a moment before looking down and away, chewing on the corner of her mouth. She appeared to be debating with herself, although what she was debating, he didn't know. After a moment, she reached a consensus and looked back up at him. "I have a message from your sister."

So that's what she'd meant about withholding information. Bucky could feel his heart race, pounding loudly in his throat as his stomach twisted into knots. "Okay." He searched her expression as eagerly as she searched his.

"She wanted you to know that she never forgot you that your family never forgot you and that they love you very much." She said slowly. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner. I wasn't sure if I could or if I should. What happened Friday, made me realize that it wasn't my place to decide that. I certainly don't owe you anything, but I did owe my friend the dignity of delivering her final message to her brother."

It felt like a punch to the gut. Why had Ramirez kept that out of her letter? Why hadn't she told him immediately?

Then a thought occurred. Ramirez hadn't known if he deserved Becca's message if he was worthy of it. After all, she'd delved into the world of the Winter Soldier, and everything that he'd done after his sister had died. "Did my sister know?" Bucky managed, "Did she know what I'd become?"

Maggie exhaled slowly, breaking his gaze, she put her head down, her hands fidgeting with a chain around her neck. "You wanna sit down, Barnes?" She asked, glancing back up at him. "I'll tell you what you wanna know, but there's a lot of it."

Bucky was being offered answers. He didn't actually think he'd get answers, that he deserved answers after all of it. Now, after everything she'd been through because of him, Ramirez was once again offering them to him freely.

Ramirez said nothing a moment, waiting for him to make his decision before she nodded, took a deep breath, and began. "Your sister did ask about you. Becca saw you on the news, as the Winter Soldier, after the hellicarriers went down in D.C., and then after Steve showed up and said that he'd seen you, she was able to put two and two together. Steve wouldn't give her details, wouldn't talk about it. He wouldn't talk about you with anyone, me, Sam, Becca, anyone. It was just too painful. It was one of the reasons that he introduced me to your sister, I think. At first, I asked a lot of questions about you, who you were as a person, before 1945, since I couldn't get that information out of Steve." She shook her head.

"You wanted to get a better picture of who you were looking for." He interjected.

Ramirez nodded. "Yeah. And Becca was happy to oblige. We talked a lot about you in those first months. But then she wanted to know what had happened to you. She knew something terrible had happened to you, and she wanted to know how much of her brother was left to save."

Bucky flinched. He hadn't meant to, and nothing in Ramirez's voice had been harsh or cold, but hearing that Becca had asked how much of her brother was left to save hurt. Hurt in a way that he hadn't expected that it would. Somehow even Becca had known something terrible had happened to him. "So, what did you say?" He asked shortly.

"I told her the truth about what I had seen while you were on the ranch with me. That I could sense you were dangerous and capable of hurting me, but that I never felt afraid. I knew I should have been, perhaps that it might have spared me and ranch everything that I've gone through since then, but I knew that as much as you were a danger to me, you were more of a danger to yourself." Ramirez chuckled weakly. "All of that seems so long ago. But I still remember how adamant you were about fixing the roof, and that you stuck your neck out for me with Roberts, and helped around the ranch when you didn't have to, when in fact it was a detriment to you." She shook her head. "I told your sister there was something compassionate about you, about the man that I had seen in my barn, that although you were scary and capable of tremendous violence, there was something worth trying to help still left in you."

A rush of feeling washed over him, grief, shock, relief, and pain mixed into one. After everything she'd been through, Ramirez had told his sister there was something worth trying to help still left in him. "You told her that?" Bucky asked weakly.

"I did."

"Did you believe it?"

"At the time, yes." She answered.

"And now?"

"It depends on the day," Ramirez admitted with a shrug. "But I think that's more of a me thing than a you thing if I'm honest."

There it was, the anger, the fury, the feelings and the person that Bucky had expected to find when he'd seen her that day she'd given him the journals. "You have more than enough reason to hate me, Ramirez."

"You know, I really wanted to hate you." She paused, "Are you sure you don't wanna sit down? This seems really strange having this conversation with me sitting on the ground and you standing like twenty feet away. I promise I won't bite."

"I wouldn't want to intrude."

"I wouldn't consider it an intrusion. I did invite you to sit down. Twice, now."

Bucky hesitated, "Why are you telling me any of this?"

"Because I want to." She said. "And because I want to know."

"Know what?"

"If any of this was worth it."

If her sacrifice had been worth it. Bucky couldn't help but notice what she hadn't said. He took a couple of halting steps toward her. "Are you sure you don't mind?"

"I don't think we're going to get a better chance to sit and talk this through than in the middle of a field at two in the morning. If we're going to live and work in close proximity, we should try to resolve this, whatever this is so we can move on with our lives."

He nodded but said nothing as he crossed the distance between them, and sunk down on the far corner of her blanket. There was a pause, and the sounds of the night edged in around them, the wind, the rustle of the grass, the sound of animals and bugs taking up space in the night. "Why are you out here, Ramirez?"

"Couldn't sleep, you?"

"Same."

Ramirez surveyed him a moment, and he was almost sure she was going to call him out. Instead, she just nodded before glancing up at the multitude of stars overhead. "Thought I might try to stargaze until I realized that I didn't have a proper star map and that it had been years since I'd been stargazing properly. But it was nice to get out of the hut and into the open air for a bit." She stayed quiet a moment, her eyes scanning the night sky, with its endless depths before she looked back down and over at him. "So. What do you wanna know, Barnes?"

What didn't he want to know? A thousand questions were swirling in his brain. Mercifully he was able to latch onto one and put it into coherent words. "Why'd you do it? Decide to help Steve look for me?"

Ramirez paused, taking in the question, mulling over her answer, before slowly, she began. "At first? It was because I wanted to go home. Steve and Sam and the Avengers had me declared dead so that Hydra wouldn't keep trying to come after me. I figured the faster I found you, the faster I could go home." She paused, wincing to herself. "And then I found out Becca was dying. At that point, I think I'd more or less realized I wasn't going to get to go home any time soon, but that if I worked my ass off, uncovered enough clues, found enough bread crumbs that I could get her brother back, and you would get to say goodbye and have closure, in a way that I never got." Ramirez shook her head.

"With your brother, Antonio." It slipped out before he could stop it, and Ramirez turned to look at him, her expression creased in confusion as she looked him over.

"Yes," Ramirez said slowly, skepticism in her voice. "You've done research on me, haven't you?"

"I did." He replied, bracing for the anger, for the indignation and hurt to cross her face. Instead, relief, passed over her face, nearing an all-out smile. "What?"

"It really isn't as strange as I might think, all things considered." She said, echoing what he'd told her only four days before.

"Yeah." He nodded. "I did a bit of research while I was on the run, of all of the Winter-all of my victims. People I'd killed for Hydra."

"Only you didn't kill me."

"No. But I left you for dead."

"Oh." She frowned, "I mean. Yeah. I guess you did. But if it's any small consolation, that's not how I saw it."

"And how did you see it?"

"You were frightened, and you warned me that I was in danger. I feel like had you just up and left without at least giving me warning that Hydra and that bag of dicks were headed toward me, then yeah, that would've been leaving me for dead."

"So, that's not why you wanted to hate me?"

"No. No. I wanted to hate you for the subsequent ways that your presence on my ranch ruined my life, and how it got me involved in the hunt for you, but when it came down to it, it was and is actually a "me" problem rather than a "you" problem." She paused. "Sorry, not to circle back around to this, but you did research on me? What were you looking for? What did you find out?" There was a mix of horror and amusement in her voice.

"Just what the internet could provide." He answered lamely.

Ramirez looked him over, opened her mouth to speak, hesitated before proceeding anyway. "Did you happen to write all this down?"

"Yeah. The journals were confiscated by the U.N.; otherwise, I would hand over what I wrote about you." He said.

"That would explain why the international community took an interest." She sighed, shaking her head. "I appreciate the gesture Barnes, but bad quinceanera photos and family home videos aren't exactly medical history and a kill list."

It took everything he had to keep from flinching at her words, but it wasn't like she was wrong. Still, Bucky knew he needed to say something. "Doesn't make it any less personal."

Ramirez took a moment to contemplate this before she answered. "True." She agreed.

"I do appreciate the measures you took to make my information as secure as possible," Bucky commented slowly. "I take it, Romanoff trained you."

"She did." Ramirez nodded. "Though not the same way that you trained her in the Red Room."

"She tell you that?" Bucky could hear the incredulity in his voice. It didn't sound like 'Tasha to tell Ramirez about their history together, but then again Ramirez had broken more precedents than he could keep track of. Whatever her answer, it would be novel either way.

"I figured it out. She confirmed."

"So you know you spent two years hanging out with two of my former..." He sought for the right word and came up blank.

"Details didn't come up. I suspected mostly with Natasha until she confirmed it for me. Steve was evasive as best, but I figured that was because he was hurting, and finding you were going to be the only way he could heal from that hurt. They didn't volunteer information, and so I didn't dig. It didn't seem important to our mission of bringing you home. Which is why it doesn't appear in the journals, amongst other things." Ramirez paused. "But I think their perspective was important to how I understood you or understood who you might be." She said slowly. "The James Barnes that each of them knew was different, very different, but they all said the same thing. They all said that you were a good man." Ramirez shook her head. "It's probably why I kept at it as long as I did; it felt like it would be worth it in the end."

"Was it?"

Ramirez chuckled, shaking her head she flexed her left hand before rubbing it gingerly with her right, "I don't know. I think I'm too close to the situation to be able to say for sure, at least right now." She glanced up at him, "Sorry that I don't have a better answer. Ask me in six months to two years. I'll have a better answer then."

Bucky nodded, and there was a long pause as he tried to find the right words to express everything that was going through his head. He'd ruined this woman's life, and now, even after everything that had happened to her, and after everything she'd learned about him, about what he'd done, still had it within herself to not hate him. "You should hate me."

"Probably, and I did want to, I tried, Barnes, trust me." She said after a moment. "It just ultimately wasn't a productive use of my time. Why would that make it easier?"

"Easier?"

"I dunno. Sometimes it's an easier emotion to quantify." She shrugged.

Perhaps it would make it easier, knowing there was someone out there who hated him more than he hated himself. There certainly were plenty of contenders, but none quite as convenient as Magdalene Ramirez. However, as she had said, hatred was an easier emotion to quantify than anything they'd talked about this evening. Hatred would be easier to understand. Hatred would be easier to overcome. Whatever she felt, it was more complicated than that.

Ask me in six months to two years.

He would laugh if it weren't true. They were stuck with one another for the duration, and what that meant remained to be seen. However, now it felt they were on slightly surer footing than they'd been only three weeks ago when she'd first arrived. "So, what do you want?" Bucky asked.

"Want?" She echoed.

"Out of our future interactions." He said slowly. "If you never want to speak to me again, I understand."

"Oh." Ramirez paused, frowning, she thought this over before proceeding. "I'd like to be able to talk to you about Becca if that's something you'd be interested in." She said. "I know that if there is anything I don't regret about the last two and a half years, it's getting to know your sister for the short time that I did. I'd like to be able to share that, share her with you."

Bucky could feel his chest ache at the mention of Becca, and the friendship that she and Ramirez hard formed. He was jealous, of that time, of that opportunity, of that chance. Yet it sounded like Becca was probably the only thing standing between him and Ramirez's outright hatred. The fact that Ramirez wanted to talk about his sister, talk about his sister with him, that was an opportunity worth its weight in vibranium, or gold, take your pick. "I'd like that." Bucky nodded.

"Me too." Ramirez started a smile that transformed itself into a massive yawn. "Damn." She shook her head, glancing at her Kimoyo bracelet. "I'm afraid that's going to have to wait for another time."

"Yeah, I should get back." Bucky agreed, rising to his feet, he watched as Ramirez collected the blanket and rose to hers.

"It's going be a long day tomorrow I need to try to get some rest," She paused, looking him over uncertainly. "If you ever can't sleep Barnes, or you wanna talk about Becca, I haven't been sleeping well. I don't mind the company. Even yours."

"Thanks?"

"No problem." She laughed. Shaking the blanket out, Ramirez folded it carefully and then turned to him. "Well, goodnight! Get back to your place safe."

"Thanks. Night." He replied, turning he started walking away, only vaguely aware that he was being watched by Ramirez as he walked over the hill and out of her line of sight.

His mind was still spinning; the blood and screaming and horror were never far away. Yet, for a brief moment, as he paused, looking out over the lake just outside of his hut, he felt relief and felt peace. He'd gotten answers to some of his questions, and he would continue to get answers as he and Ramirez talked about Becca. What tomorrow would bring, he didn't know but riding the tailwind of his conversation with Ramirez. He knew he'd be able to find a little bit a rest with the little bit of certainty that she had provided him. Becca had remembered him, knew what he was, and had still loved him.


I hope you all enjoyed! A slower chapter compared to the last few, but finally, these two jerks are talking to one another! Nothing but good things in store for the next few chapters (I promise!). R&R, I always look forward to hearing what y'all have to say! (It also feeds the plot bunnies!) Until next time, happy reading!