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!
TW: self-harm, mentioned animal death, blood
Recommended Listening: Ugly Side by Blue October; The Run and Go by Twenty One Pilots; When You Were Young by The Killers
Chapter 41: Gone With the Wind
The day had been a total clusterfuck, and that was putting it lightly. It was always staggering to Maggie how much could change in a few hours, never mind in a whole twenty-four, and as she walked toward the village where Barnes resided, she wasn't entirely sure what exactly she was walking into.
For her part, she'd been thrown from her horse, Skywalker. She'd been learning a new technique, hadn't been paying attention, and the horse had decided that enough was enough. She'd been thrown from the saddle and had landed incorrectly on her left hand and wrist. That had been early in the day. So she'd spent most of her day with her hand on ice, moping around the workshop, trying to wile the hours away.
It was while she'd been doing a bit of cleaning up and trying not to feel sorry for herself that she'd overheard a conversation between Jelani and Omondi. Her Wakandan still wasn't great, but she knew enough to catch White Wolf, goat, dead. Not exactly a lot to go off of, but Maggie knew that whatever had happened, it hadn't been a good situation. Losing an animal, under any circumstance, was never easy. She'd lived on a ranch for most of her life, and occasionally shit just happened. It had happened to her on the ranch, and it hadn't been a good situation. No more than two weeks after Riley had died, Last Chance had gotten one hell of a bad thunderstorm. A horse, one of Riley's favorites, had kicked her way out of the stall and barn and had impaled herself on a fence post. By the time Maggie had found her, it was too late, and there was nothing to do for the poor creature but to put it out of its misery.
It had been a crushing blow, but Maggie had been able to handle it as a professional. Whatever had happened with Barnes and his goat, it couldn't have been an easy thing, and she could imagine that he was taking it personally. Her first instinct had, of course, been to call and cancel their standing dinner date...arrangement. There was no reason to put him through social interaction after an ordeal like that. Something, however, had stopped her. Barnes, for one, hadn't called to cancel, indicating in some small part that he wanted her around or was looking for her company. If he didn't want her around in the aftermath, certainly he would've called and said something, right?
Maggie didn't know, and as she walked down the now familiar path toward his dwelling, she could feel a swelling sense of anxiety. The unknown factors all creating a churning bubbling mess of dread in the pit of her stomach.
Then she smelled it, the smell of utter despair, burnt food. It was the harsh, horrible smell of a kind of defeat. At least that's the way that she had always felt about the smell and the experience, and a likely indication for how their evening was going to progress.
Rounding the last bend toward his hut, she saw him, hunched over a squat little table, trying to manage a grater and potato with one hand. There were marks on his hand and arm, indicating that he'd somehow been hurt, although the nature of the injury Maggie couldn't tell from a distance. She could see the source of the burning smell, a large pan discarded in the dirt, the greasy, charred remains caked inside.
None of this was a good sign on its own, but as she approached, he didn't lookup. Instead, his eyes were down, and his mouth moving in silent mutterings.
"Hey," She said as she approached, doing her best to ease herself into his periphery as gently as possible.
He flinched at the sound, not looking up to meet her gaze. "I didn't think you'd come."
Maggie nodded as she set her bag down on one of the logs surrounding the cooking fire and turned to join him at the low squat table. "I am a little late. I should've called to let you know I was running behind." She paused, her resolve momentarily wavering before she charged on anyway. "I'm sorry about what happened. That's never an easy thing."
There was a long leaden pause. His head still down, Maggie could see him grit his jaw, swallowing hard before biting out. "You heard about that?"
"I did." She nodded, stooping down to pick up the pan, she gingerly picked it up and carried it to the compost bin, scraping it out.
"Is that why you're here?" He asked flatly.
"I figured we'd made plans yesterday, and I'm anxious to cross another movie off our list," Maggie paused as she walked over to the table. Standing over him, she waited for him to look up at her. She knew that his face would tell her everything she needed to know about what had happened.
"Is that all?" His voice was dry and scathing, but not, Maggie felt, entirely directed at her.
"Well. You didn't exactly cancel. I figured that you might want the company."
Barnes sighed, his shoulders sagging, and he looked up at her. "Who told you?"
There was anger, frustration, but most of all, sadness in his expression as he surveyed her. Maggie knew, in her heart of hearts, that whatever had happened, Barnes had been forced to put the poor creature out of its misery, and that he felt personally responsible for the animal's gristly end. "No one did, actually. I overheard Jelani and Omondi talking, caught some key phrases, and was able to piece together some of what had happened." She explained slowly. Maggie paused, "May I sit down? Or do you want me to go away?"
Maggie watched as he mulled things over, clicking his jaw, as he did. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, he nodded, and Maggie slowly sunk down across from him, collecting a rag, she doused it with cooking oil before setting about the task of cleaning and reconditioning the pan so that they could resume using it.
"I take it the first round of latkes didn't come out right." She commented dryly as she worked, determined to find some way to break the silence, and lighten the mood.
"Not exactly.
"Well," Maggie continued without pause, "Whatever the case, you have all the proper equipment. This pan is tremendously well seasoned. How long have you been using it?"
"Since September." He said flatly. "It was a gift from Omondi. He said he was looking to replace his, thought I could use it."
"Shit. Does he have any other well-seasoned pans just lying around? If I even tried to borrow my abuela's cast iron, I would've been drawn and quartered. This pan must be a dream to cook with. Omondi must like you, or doubt your ability to season one properly yourself." She said, wincing as she moved her left wrist the wrong way.
"What happened to your hand?"
"Oh." She hadn't expected that. So he'd noticed. He's not entirely in his head. Maggie wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not but decided that she'd let that work itself out in due time. "I fell off Skywalker today."
"You okay?" His tone was sharp and brittle, but his expression bore the faintest lines of concern.
"Yeah," she nodded with a slight exhale. "Landed wrong, my wrist isn't happy about it. I'm sure I'll be right as rain in a few days. It did take me a little longer to make the snacks for this evening. Between dexterity issues and an aching wrist, it was not a good time."
It freaked me the fuck out, but yeah, otherwise perfectly dandy. It had been a while since she'd been thrown like that, and she'd fallen all wrong. Bad shit could happen if you didn't fall right. She'd seen it first hand. But he didn't need to know that, not when he was dealing with his own barrage of horrible things.
"I can imagine."
Maggie looked down, watching what he was doing a little more carefully. Blisters had formed where he'd been burned by the hot oil from the pan she was cleaning. Then there were scratches, cuts, and light bruising up and down his forearm that hadn't been there the day prior. Were they a result of what had happened today? It didn't matter. At the moment, He was struggling to keep a firm grip on the potato, which kept slipping over the grater's surface, mangling the potato he was attempting to slice up. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." He bit out.
As he said it, the potato he was grating slipped, and he jammed his thumb along the grater's surface, taking a sizable chunk out of his nail bed, and knuckle. Barnes jumped up and back, nearly upsetting the table.
Maggie grabbed both corners, steadying the table before standing up, towel in hand ready to leap, if necessary, into action, and froze mid-motion, trying to take in everything she was seeing.
He was just standing there, looking at his hand as his thumb blossomed a magnificent red bloom. His eyes were transfixed, his chest heaving, and yet Maggie couldn't help but notice, his face was smooth and flat. This, she realized, was self-harm or something approximating self-harm, and now her job was to find a way to break the spiral he found himself in before it devolved into something else.
Is that really your job? The mean little voice in the back of her head questioned.
Why the fuck wouldn't it be? I'm not just a therapist. He's my friend. She would've responded full chested, had she responded out loud at all.
Instead, she looked Barnes up and down, "Barnes?" She called, with no response as he watched the blood run down his arm and drip from his elbow into the dust. "Bucky."
His eyes snapped up, locking with hers, something between anger and fear, filling them as they maintained eye contact. "You're bleeding. Let me staunch the blood flow and help you bandage your hand and arm."
"I'm fine. It's fine. I can do it myself." He snapped, even as his voice shook, his eyes darting down and around.
"Okay." She nodded, taking a metaphorical step back.
This was familiar. She recognized this. This was the anger she'd had when she'd needed Sam to help her wash her hair those first few months. This was the pain, anger, and frustration she'd felt when trying to relearn to play guitar. This was the feeling of helplessness and anger when you knew that only a few months ago, you would never have had this problem. Barnes was experiencing that right now. Only his was worse. He'd lost the same arm twice. He'd been forced into a life of brainwashing and torture. He'd been made to commit atrocity after atrocity, where his only respite had come by being shoved into a freezer and left until next use for years on end. If one could call that a respite. He had been through so much without time to process what had happened and what it meant. Now, after he'd finally had a quiet moment, tragedy had struck, and all of this was rearing its ugly head.
So, where do you fit in?
Maggie wasn't quite sure. If he didn't want her help, she couldn't exactly force him to accept, while at the same time, she couldn't let the guy hurt himself. He wasn't her client, and she wasn't his therapist, but he was her friend, and she wanted to find a way to help him without crossing that very precarious threshold.
"I understand that you can do this on your own," Maggie said slowly. "You're more than capable of taking care of yourself, of getting by on your own," she faltered as his gaze snapped back to her. "But the thing is, you don't have to." She concluded lamely.
It wasn't her best line, but something crossed his expression, something unreadable, and after a long moment, he nodded and extended his hand toward her.
Maggie crossed the space between them, stopping before they met. "I'm going to wrap your thumb with this towel, squeeze it in your palm to stop the bleeding while I get my first-aid kit from my bag." She paused, glancing up at him. "Is that okay?"
"Yeah." He breathed, nodding firmly.
"Okay." She moved, quickly wrapping his thumb, watched as he squeezed it with his other fingers before she went for her bag, aware of the ways his eyes watched her.
They were back in the outbuilding once again. Only this time, she knew what he was capable of. Though she would admit it did help the situation slightly, he was down an arm, hadn't just been stabbed, and wasn't running away from Hydra. That aside, there was still that wild-eyed panic that she'd recognize anywhere that resided in his expression.
"You carry a first aid kit with you?" He asked dryly as she dug through her bag.
"I do." She nodded, retrieving the desired items. "It's always handy to have one around. I've done that ever since I worked as an EMT back in college." It was a good sign that he was talking. It meant that he wasn't immediately hyper-fixating on anything.
"Handy," He chuckled mirthlessly.
Naturally. She'd let him have that one, at the very least.
"All right. let's sit down on the log, that way I can face you, and see what I'm doing." She said as she swung her leg over the log and sat down.
Barnes said nothing, moving toward her, he sat straddling the log to face her. Opening the first aid kit, she flexed her left hand, rubbing it gingerly with her right. He was watching her. For what purpose, she didn't know exactly, but somehow the observation made her stomach twist in nervous knots.
Well, this is all very familiar. She glanced up at him and sighed, "Okay. So while we wait for the bleeding to stop, I can clean and dress those scrapes and burns on your hand and arm."
"Oh." He said flatly.
"Oh?" She echoed, pulling her hands away from the first aid kit.
"I should've guessed you'd noticed that," Barnes replied, not quite sheepishly, but close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades.
What exactly he meant by that, she didn't know, but the sheer amount of shame in his voice made Maggie do a metaphorical double take. I can do it myself. That's what he'd said.
Maggie knew that feeling, probably more than she cared to admit. The shame and anger as she tried to figure out how to wash or put up her hair or button her jeans without help. That and the countless other things she'd needed help with when her hand had been in the various stages of surgery, pins, and cast. The frustration and fury she'd felt when after she'd gotten the cast and pins out and off, she'd started figuring out the countless things that she couldn't do anymore, that she would never be able to do anymore. She'd been alone with that feeling of helplessness of anger, and she didn't want Barnes to be alone with that now.
"I don't know what you're going through, not exactly." She said slowly. "But I know some of what it's like to feel so helplessly and completely angry about a situation that you can't think straight. That anger, that's okay, it's okay to be angry at your situation, at what happened to you, at what was done to you, but don't let that anger convince you that you deserve to hurt, or convince you that you're alone, because you're not alone, and you don't deserve to hurt. Don't let it consume you when you're so much more than what it's telling you that you are."
Barnes surveyed her a moment, his eyes searching for something, and then wordlessly, he nodded and extended his arm to her.
"All right." She explained, removing the appropriate items from her kit, wincing slightly as her wrist twinged. "I have an anti-bacterial for the scrapes and an aloe for the burns. I'll apply the aloe to the burns first. That'll alleviate the immediate discomfort."
"You don't have to help if it's hurting your hand and wrist," he mumbled, as if searching for some way out of this, some way to let her off the hook if she wanted.
"I'll let you know," Maggie answered, pausing as she unscrewed the aloe. "It's not so bad anymore. It certainly has gotten better since you gave me the bracelet," She hazarded a glance up at him and found him avidly avoiding her gaze. "But, thank you for your concern." She said as she started applying the aloe with her left hand, her right hand holding his arm steady.
He winced, hissing between his teeth.
"It's a little cold. Sorry. I should've said something."
"I've had worse." He bit out shortly.
"Certainly. At least this time, there isn't a knife protruding from your shoulder. By that measure alone, we're going up in the world."
Barnes snorted, shaking his head, but didn't try to pull away from her grasp even as his hand shook.
"Nevertheless, the same rules apply, let me know if I'm hurting you."
"It's just cold."
"Well, all the same," Maggie said as she worked.
He nodded, but said nothing, watching her with those bright eyes. He was the perfect patient. He let her manipulate his hand and held it still, although she could feel him trembling.
Maggie wanted to tell him it was going to be okay, that this feeling would pass. There were any number of platitudes that she would've said in soothing tones, had she thought any of them might have helped. But she knew they wouldn't, and so instead, she hummed, focusing on completing her task quickly while trying to minimize as much of Barnes's discomfort as she could possibly manage.
"And we're done!" She announced as she finished securing the bandage around his thumb. "How does that feel? Better?" Maggie asked brightly, feeling more like the school nurse than someone patching up a former brainwashed assassin.
"Better." He agreed. "Thank you."
"Of course. Anytime." Maggie smiled gently, watching as he slowly withdrew his hand and rose to his feet. She wanted to call him back. She wanted to reach out and grab his hand and hold it in both of hers and tell him it was going to be okay. She wanted the pain drawn lines in his expression to ease, and for him to smile and laugh as they'd done only twenty-four hours before.
The feeling came over her so suddenly, and with such force, she almost didn't know what to do with herself. What are you doing, Magdalene? She would've screamed.
He's my friend!
And it was true. He was her friend. She was concerned for him. Now, whether or not she was just a convenient distraction for him, she didn't know, and at this point, she was afraid to find out.
"Hey, Barnes." She called, watching as he stopped, his back to her before he slowly turned to face her.
"Yeah?"
"It is okay that I'm here, right?" She asked uncertainly.
"What do you mean?" He replied, perplexed.
"I mean. Do you want me here? I can leave if you want."
Barnes hesitated, looking her over a moment before speaking again. "Why are you doing this, Ramirez?"
"Well..." She began slowly. "I was having a bit of a shit day yesterday, and you came to my rescue, were game for an adventure, and we had a lovely time. Since you never called to cancel after what happened, I figured you might be looking for a distraction or even a sympathetic ear." Maggie paused, chewing on the corner of her mouth. "This living in Wakanda thing is hard, and a friend would be nice to have, someone to turn to when shit gets bad. And well, the shit that happened, that's not something you should have to deal with on your own."
Barnes nodded, lowering his gaze. "I don't think you want me as a friend, Ramirez."
Was that an "I don't want you as a friend so you shouldn't want to be my friend" type comment, or, "I'm not someone you should want as a friend" type comment? Maggie wasn't sure. So she wasn't going to attempt to guess.
"Well, fortunately for both of us, you don't get to decide who I want to be friends with." She paused as he shifted uncomfortably. "But then again, I don't get to decide who you want to be friends with either. The only question you have to answer is, do you want me as your friend?"
"It's all as easy as that, huh?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No, not quite. Friendship and all relationships, for that matter, are a moment by moment exercise in consent. Two willing participants. Choosing when and how they wish to interact and communicating their desires with one another."
"Sounds novel." He commented wryly.
"Right? Well. It only works if both people are honest," She said slowly. "Which makes this next question important. Do you-"
"Do you want to stay?" He asked, cutting her off.
Maggie exhaled with a small chuckle as she shook her head, "that's not the point."
"I think that is the point, Ramirez. You were just the one talking about two willing participants."
"I'm also the one who's in your home, invading your space after you had a shitty day."
There was a long pause as if Barnes was drawing in a long breath. "Stay." He said, forming the word purposefully. "I want..." He faltered. "I want you to stay." He concluded firmly. Barnes stopped, glancing back down and around at what remained of the potatoes and the rest of dinner that still needed to be prepared. "Although, I'm not sure if dinner is in the equation."
"Will you walk me through it?" Maggie asked hesitantly.
"Huh?"
"I'm willing to make dinner if you tell me what to do."
He paused, a slight twinge of a self-deprecating smile twisted at the corner of his mouth. "I should hurt myself more often if it means having a beautiful dame patch me up and cook me dinner."
If it had been anyone else or even another circumstance, Maggie might have protested. Instead, she chuckled, cracking a small smile of her own. "Why James Barnes, ever know a woman who wasn't a doll or a dame?"
Barnes shook his head, "What was the line Dana Andrews responded with?"
"Yeah, one, but she kept walking me past furniture windows to look at the parlor suites." Maggie supplied.
"So the line, 'A doll from Washington Heights once got a fox fur out of me' that comes before or after that exchange?" Barnes said, squinting into the air as if straining to recall.
"Yeah, before." She nodded. "So, how 'bout it, Bucky Barnes?" He looked back at her, brows furrowed. "Dinner?"
"Oh. Yeah. Right." He hesitated, "You'd probably have a better feel for the latkes than I would at the moment. If you're willing to take my instruction."
"Absolutely."
"Then it sounds like a plan."
"Sounds good." She smiled. It might only be dinner, but for now, it seemed that they were headed in the right direction.
Ramirez jumped quickly into action. Cleaning up the first aid kit and stowing it away, she sunk down at the squat table where he'd been working and started back grating potatoes, after she'd washed and cleaned all of the stuff he'd gotten blood on. Bucky watched as Ramirez worked the grater and expertly added and mixed everything together, forming and patting the potatoes into their proper shape.
She hummed pleasantly as she worked, her eyes focused on her task, occasionally asking him for guidance, though he couldn't help but notice that she already knew the answer before he'd even said it. Her hands and her mouth worked separately. Becca or Steve'd obviously coached her during her time with them. He couldn't help but imagine the chaos that would have been Becca's kitchen during any number of family holidays and gatherings. Steve towering over the group, too big and in the way, Ramirez diminutive and trying her best to keep her distance as an outsider, while Becca and the rest of her family surged in around them, pushing them both to the center of the fray.
He felt jealous, angry, hurt, and somehow confused all at once. What he was feeling, and why he was feeling it swirled inside him, creating a maelstrom. It wasn't fair, none of it was fair, and he could still feel the anger, simmering just below the surface. He felt shame too, and it welled in his chest, nearly overtaking the sour, bitter taste of the anger that threatened to devour him completely.
His left shoulder was stinging, a sharp pain in his spine, the air where his left hand and arm should have been burned and ached. It had been stinging all day, ever since...well, what had happened had happened. His right hand, his only hand he mentally corrected, was throbbing, the little cuts and bruises, and burns stinging and aching as he flexed his fingers.
He could see it still, the goat staring up at him, eyes glassy and wide, practically begging for the end. Of course, he'd put the poor creature out of its misery, but then again, that's really all he was good at, wasn't it? He'd been good at it as a soldier. He'd been even better at it when he'd been with Hydra. Now, even thousands of miles away from that rat hole, missing a limb, and allegedly free from their programming, he was still in their insidious clutches. He was still capable of causing pain, suffering, and death.
Omondi had assured him that he'd done the right thing, that sometimes these things happened.
But they shouldn't. I should've been able to stop it. I should be better than this.
He hadn't said that, but he felt it, in his bones, down to the very fiber of his being. He felt inadequate. He felt useless. He felt like a complete and total idiot for thinking that he might be able to move past what had happened to him, for thinking he could be something more than what Hydra had made him into. Yet here they were.
Bucky glanced up at Ramirez, who was patiently waiting for the oil to heat as she prepped the rest of dinner. He'd invited her over for dinner to thank her for being his friend, and now here she was patching him up and cooking him dinner, yet again.
Why is she doing this?
He'd asked her that. And she'd said because she'd wanted a friend, that she'd wanted to be his friend. Because she was bored? Because she was lonely? He didn't know, and as she'd said, he didn't get to decide why she wanted to be friends with him.
"How's your hand feeling?"
"Better," Bucky replied with a slight exhale, doing his best to relieve the tension still balled up in his chest, trying to claw it's way out.
"That's good, I'm glad," Ramirez commented, placing the first of the latkes into the pan. She hummed to herself, her eyes watching the potatoes as they bobbed in the oil.
"Do you like cooking?" He asked slowly after a moment as she flipped the potato cakes over.
"Some." She nodded, "I prefer cooking for other people. There's just something about cooking a meal with and for other people that I really enjoy. I don't know if it's a me thing, a Mexican thing, or what, but I've always enjoyed the fellowship a good meal creates." Ramirez glanced up at him and smiled gently. "How about you, Barnes? Did you pick up any good recipes while you were out in the world?"
"A few."
"You'll have to share some time. I'd be happy to give you some of mine if you'd like. Do you keep kosher?" She asked brightly without skipping a beat as she scooped the first latkes out of the oil and placed them on a plate beside her before placing the next batch in the oil.
The latkes were golden brown and glistening, and the smell that wafted off of them made his mouth water. He could practically hear his mother scold and swat him away as he tried to sneak one before it was time. The force of the memory was so strong that he could feel tears start to well in the corners of his eyes.
"Taste test my work, see if it's up to snuff," Ramirez commented.
"You sure?" He managed, blinking.
"Absolutely. I need to know if I need to change anything before I do the rest of them."
He gingerly picked up one of the little potato cakes and took a careful bite, exhaling as the hot greasy mass burned the inside of his mouth. That hadn't changed at all, and the taste...the taste was close, as was the consistency, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what exactly was off as Ramirez's expression of expectation grew and spread in anticipation. "It's good." He said, swallowing the first bite.
"May I?" She motioned with her chin to the latke he was holding.
"Huh?"
"Shove some in my face? My hands are occupied, but I'd like a taste test."
"Oh. Yeah, sure." He rose, extending the latke to her, watched as she took a careful bite, likewise contemplating what she was tasting.
Chewing and swallowing, she glanced up at him. "So, what's the verdict, Barnes?"
"What do you think?"
"I mean, I'm trying to recreate your mother's latke recipe. You tell me." She chuckled, removing the next round of potatoes.
Bucky hesitated. What was he supposed to say? What did she want him to say? She was here, making him dinner when he'd specifically invited her over so he could make her dinner, and now she asked him to critique her cooking. "It's close." He admitted after a moment.
Ramirez nodded in consensus. "Yeah. Your niece, Stephanie, and I tried to get Becca to write down the recipe. She followed Becca around with a set of measuring cups and spoons while Becca was making the latkes and wrote down all the pinch, dash, etc. Still not quite right. Then again, Becca said the same thing about her latkes too."
"Abby and Rachel were always the ones helping ma' with dinner. Becca always found a way not to be in the kitchen when food was being made." Bucky commented distantly.
"That sounds about right." Ramirez chuckled. "So. What do I add? What do I take away?"
"I dunno." He frowned, shaking his head. "That's a pretty good base recipe. We'll have to play with it a bit. There are a few more days of Hanukah left to perfect the recipe."
"Sounds good. I did bring apple sauce to eat with them, since I know that was something your nieces and nephew insisted had to be present as well. You can get it out of my bag if you'd like, but be careful. I have the buñuelos on top."
"Buñuelos?" He echoed as he rose and crossed the yard to where her bag was sitting.
"Crunchy tortillas with sugar and cinnamon." She explained quickly, as she added the final round of latkes into the pan.
"Ah." He said as he removed both containers and returned to the small table.
"Bit of a Christmas tradition for my family, something I didn't get to make this year." She commented lightly. She paused, shaking her head.
"What?" Bucky asked.
"This whole situation sounds like a bad set up to an even worse joke."
"The one-armed Jew and the Mexican-American Catholic walk into a bar?" Bucky raised an eyebrow, doing his best to ease the angry, bitter edge from his voice.
"Something like that." She nodded with a sigh, a heaviness sinking onto her shoulders. "You never did tell me if you keep kosher."
"Oh." He said shortly. "No. I don't. Why?"
"Trying to be respectful of your culture and traditions. Becca kept kosher, as did her kids. Steve and Wanda, not as much. I guess I wanted to know how bad I should feel for feeding you pork while you were with me on the ranch," She explained, starting on the roasted chicken and greens, as the last of the latkes came out of the oil.
"That." He stopped as a lump formed in his throat. "That's very kind of you, Ramirez. But regardless of if I keep kosher, there are exceptions to those rules when it comes to emergency medical situations."
Besides, at the time, I didn't know who I was, never mind what faith I belonged to and it's particular practices.
Bucky could still only vaguely remember those first days. He'd been barely conscious, never mind human, but he did remember the green chili stew broth she'd given him. It had been the first thing he'd been able to hold down on his stomach after Hydra. Yet, it wasn't just the broth. It wasn't just the food that she'd given him to help him regain his strength. It was the trust she'd shown by allowing him around her, her clients, her volunteers, her property, and her animals. It was the fact that she was one of the first to treat him like a human, like a person since Hydra had taken him. She'd taken him in, and she'd protected him, she'd saved him.
He licked his lips, unable to formulate what he was trying to piece together. How could he express that to her? That she had prevented Hydra from finding him just long enough so he could get away. That the very reason he was Bucky Barnes and not back in a Hydra facility as the Winter Soldier again was in large part because of her bravery and willingness to help someone who frankly wasn't worth saving. It was too much to try to say.
"It's good to know regardless. However, now I know that I can make my green chili stew again without having to find pork alternatives," She shrugged.
Bucky nodded, looking her over. "Thank you. For all this. You didn't have to." It wasn't enough, it would never be enough, but it was all he could manage at the moment
"You found the two rings I'd lost, and you helped me the other week with my hand, and you bought me a shaved ice."
"You're not keeping score, are you? Because I don't think any number of shaved ices is going to balance the scales."
"Well." She answered deliberately. "I don't see it as keeping score. I see it as friends helping one another out. Yanno, being friends."
You don't want to be my friend, Ramirez. He wanted to say, but they'd already had that conversation, and it wasn't one that he was going to be able to win.
Friendships are a moment by moment exercise in consent.
But what about trust? Did she trust him? Could he trust himself? He didn't have an answer, or rather, didn't have an answer he liked at the moment.
"All right. Dinner is ready." Ramirez announced, and the task of fixing plates and settling down to eat filled the empty space between them.
Everything was delicious, and her homemade applesauce complimented the salt and spice of the rest of the meal. Once dinner had concluded, they moved in tandem to clean the dishes before Ramirez unwrapped her package of buñuelos, and he set about the task of making their customary popcorn.
Then before they could go inside his hut to start the film, Ramirez hesitated. "Are you sure you're up for watching the rest of the film?"
Was this her out? Was this her way to quietly excuse herself and avoid further contact with him?
No. Moment by moment exercise in consent, remember?
"Yeah. Sure."
"Okay," she said, eyeing him uncertainly. "It's just-I mean, now that I've come and tormented you with my presence and made sure you've eaten dinner, do you want me to leave you in peace? You're not obligated to spend your evening with me just because we made plans." She said.
"Tormented?" He echoed. "I wouldn't call what you did torment."
"Then what would you call it? Being patched up by a beautiful dame? That was the expression you used earlier." A playful smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, before she looked down, the slightest hint of a blush rising on the apples of her cheeks. Clearing her throat and smoothing her expression, she looked back up at him. "In all seriousness, though, I don't want to subject you to me if you'd rather be left alone."
Bucky nodded, thinking through what he wanted to say next.
If this had been an hour ago, he would've told her to leave. He would've been content to wallow, to lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling as his self-loathing and all the horrifying things he didn't want to think about crowded around him and filled his brain with even worse thoughts. Earlier, when she'd asked, he hadn't even been sure he could stomach eating anything, never mind maintain enough mental and physical energy to have her around long enough to finish the movie. Yet, selfishly, he'd told her yes, stay, that he wanted her to stay. He had wanted her to stay, but more out of concern for what he might do if she left, rather than for the pleasure of her company. Now, he wasn't sure what he wanted, or furthermore what he should do. Shouldn't he tell her to go home, that he wasn't good company, and that they could watch the movie some other night? Wouldn't that be the responsible thing?
However, If he was honest, he didn't want to be alone with his thoughts, selfish though it was, and so he'd ask Ramirez to stay, whether she accepted was entirely up to her.
A moment to moment exercise in consent.
"I'd like you to stay." He said slowly. "So long as that's okay with you."
"That sounds good to me."
Bucky nodded, and they moved wordlessly into his hut, and sat down on his sleeping mat, positioning their snacks and drinks around them, before turning on the film. Dimming the lights, Bucky could feel the knot in his chest ease slightly as he felt her relax beside him in the dark. There was a certain level of familiarity and comfort to the whole thing now, watching a movie, eating snacks, in the dark with her.
He did his best to focus on the movie, but he remembered now why he'd fallen asleep twice in the theaters. It just went on too damn long. Now he found himself having a hard time focusing on what was going on. At the very least, it seemed that Ramirez was enjoying herself, although out of the corner of his eye, he could see her blinking heavily, her eyes drooping, her head bobbing in that unmistakable sign of nodding off.
"You okay?" He murmured just below the movie's audio, but loud enough that she could hear him.
"Hmmm yeah, fine." She answered, rubbing her eyes sleepily as she pulled his border tribe blanket closer to her. "My eyes are tired."
You can go home if you want to. He almost said it, but couldn't quite form the words.
Bucky wanted her here with him. Her presence was calming, comforting even. He found that even when his thoughts had been loud, she'd been a fixed point that could cut through all of the noise. What perhaps surprised Bucky most was that she'd been here, again, without him even having to ask, to extend the hand of friendship and pull him out of his head when he needed it most. She'd said it, multiple times and in multiple ways: friends, friendship, this is what friends do, and you don't have to do it alone.
That sentiment, that statement, the combination of action and words, that wasn't out of boredom or obligation. It couldn't be. And she certainly wasn't here because this was all a barrel of laughs. Which could only mean she was here because she knew he was having a bad day, not despite it. She was here because she saw him as a friend.
I'm a friend, not just a way to pass the time.
He turned that thought over and over in his mind. It was the only logical conclusion for why she'd decided to show up and further had more decided to stay when he wasn't exactly the most pleasant company at the moment.
He was angry. He was moody and unbalanced. He was dangerous. What puzzled him was that Ramirez knew all of that, on an academic and practical level. She knew all of that, and yet here she was, extending the hand of friendship when he was wholly unworthy and perhaps incapable of being a good friend in return.
Bucky froze at the sensation of pressure against his right shoulder, and he looked over and down to find Ramirez slumped against him, eyes closed, breathing even, face smooth.
He opened his mouth to wake her but hesitated.
She trusts me. She trusts me enough to fall asleep in my presence, to let her guard down so completely and totally that she was able to nod off here in the dark with me.
Bucky stayed perfectly still, watching as she adjusted her position slightly, her head and shoulder against his shoulder and arm, her hair falling from its messy bun and streaming over their shoulders. He knew he should probably wake her, but he wanted to take in this moment a little longer.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he exhaled a long, slow, shaking breath.
It had been a very long, tough day. Tomorrow would likewise be long and difficult, as well. But this, right here, with Ramirez, whatever it was, he felt like he could breathe, like a little bit of the world had lifted off his shoulders, and had dulled the pain away, if only for a little bit. This, he decided, was friendship, and he wanted it, and furthermore wanted to deserve her friendship.
Opening his eyes, he slowly moved his arm and adjusted the blanket around her shoulders as she leaned even further into him, her breathing deep and even, her expression peaceful.
And the movie played on.
A/N: I hope you all enjoyed! Comments, subscriptions, and favs are always welcome, and they certainly feed the plot bunnies! Happy Reading all!
