Mosaic

by FlyingRedPanda

(Bucky/OC, Winter Soldier x OC) "The broken pieces… take the ones you do have, the ones you'll find, the ones you'll make and build something… build someone, who you could live with." A story about two people and their interactions with each other, the people they come across, and the world around them. All while being hunted by friend and foe alike. (Re-editing, still posting new)

10. Bucky Barnes -Reflections in the Windows

To everyone who read chapter 9 in the week of November the 1st, 2017,

I'm sorry I messed up the titling. It was in Bucky's Point of View and not Val's. This time I made sure it was the right one.

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Chapter 10: Bucky Barnes - Reflections in the Windows

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Gathering the various boxes at the back door, I took a scan of the area. Nothing. Never saw anyone in the backyard. Seemed that the A.I. ghost had timed the drops to when I was asleep. I couldn't watch the food be delivered. I had no idea who delivered them.

For all I know, they could have poisoned the food. That fact never seemed to have crossed Valeriy's mind. Blindly trusting whatever the voice in the speakers set up. But so far, I haven't found anything wrong with the food. Nothing felt off when I ate them. Nobody had showed up to haul me off. Hydra hadn't been lurking around either.

Almost automatically, I unpacked the box of food. Shelving the non-perishables. Placing the milk, juice, and fruits in the fridge. Left the bread on the counter. Last was a sizeable box with a large V scrawled on the top. Likely for Valeriy.

She had come down some time this morning. Hadn't heard her move upstairs and didn't see her in her room on my way down. But she wasn't in the living room or the dining room. Checking the basement. Couldn't find her. She avoided it. Would be unexpected to find her there. And that left the front of house. With the big windows.

I frowned, picking up my pace. Hopeful I could get to her in time. Before somebody saw. Found her outright leaning on the damn window. A tablet on her lap. A phone in her hands. And one of those oddly colored mini orange slices between her teeth. Not a care in the world.

I quickly hauled her off the cushioned window sill and dragged her into the shadows.

"What the bloody hell!?" Valeriy yelped. She hadn't even realized that I was there until I wrapped an arm around her. "Should you be using that ar – Ow shit."

The metal arm seized up around her waist, clenching down. It took everything I had to fight through the pain to prevent the wayward weapon from crushing the young woman. She struggled, flailing about trying to push the arm away. To find some breathing room.

By the time the electric current stopped running rampant, we were sprawled over the carpet. "Sorry," I groaned out, flinching when her arm landed across my chest.

She gave me a pat. "Don't sweat it, Bucky." Valeriy sat up, adjusting her shirt and combing her hands through her hair.

Her head could be seen from the street. It wasn't low enough. So I grabbed her upper arm and dragged her back to safety.

"Seriously? What's gotten you so bloody wound up?"

"It's dangerous," I hissed at her, grinding down on my teeth. I motioned to the window. "You're out in the open."

"…Huh?" Valeiry looked away from me to one of the cameras. "Eve, didn't you explain the windows to him?"

"I don't believe I have…. Nope. Never told him about them. There's no reason for him to know about them."

"…No wonder you tried running through one the other day," she muttered with her head in her hands. "Explains all the hiding too…."

"You've said they're reinforced," I repeated, taking a moment to scan the surroundings. There was nobody. But they could be hidden. Or cameras recording.

"That's a small part of it. See any reflections of the window out there?"

The rear window of the car parked across the street. Reflected most of the house. I gave her a nod and Valeriy snapped her fingers.

A man, old, short, glasses, walked into the room, standing in the middle of the window. I whipped around, searching for the stranger, but there was nobody there. We were the only two people in the room. We should be the only people in the house.

Looking back at the reflection in the car, I could still see the man. Though now, he was clearly pulling the curtains partially closed. But the curtains weren't moving beside me. Not a sway to them.

"These windows are soundproof, bulletproof, and unless Eve wants someone to see through it, they're not going to. Even gets to mess with what people see. To the rest of the world, there's been a single male, a writer living in here. Not two people hiding away."

I quickly raked my memories of the recent three weeks for any mention about any of this. The only hint were a few confused eyebrow quirks from Valeriy. "Are all them able to do this?"

"Yup. Even the frosted ones. Probably for consistency. Surprised me that this house is decked out so heavily. Though these are only one way."

I peered at the seam between the frames and found nothing different. "You can tell? They look like any other window."

Valeriy gave a soft laugh. "I'd hope I could recognise my own brainchild no matter the iteration or the changes others ma…. Shit. Damn. Fuck."

"Did you hit your head and forget how to hold your tongue or do you like shooting yourself in the back, Valeriy?" The A.I. ghost did not sound one bit happy.

"Hmmm?" I hummed distractedly, waving the metal arm around. Not a sign of it in the car reflection. Still completely creepy how there was a man who wasn't in the room but was there in the reflection.

The young woman sighed heavily, running a hand through her hair. "Only a handful know that…. Damn it. Just don't tell anyone." She curled up in a ball, muttering into her elbow. "I can't deal with the aftermath of people knowing."

"I don't have anyone to tell." Whatever it was that I wasn't supposed to know.

A small smile tugged on her lips. "I guess, welcome to the very small club? So what's in the box?"

I grabbed the box nearby, holding it out to her. "This should be for you."

"Ooo wonder what work I got to do this time. Yay…." Sarcasm dripping from her tone. A second after her hands took the box, it dropped to the floor with a clunk.

I tensed. Was I not supposed to give it to her? Was there something dangerous inside? Judging by how her entire body bristled at the thing, it could have been a bomb, which had been unceremoniously dropped to the floor.

"Eve!" Valeriy practically seethed. "Why the fuck do you have this!? I threw it out!"

"It's nothing dangerous, Mr. Barnes…. And Val, you better hope you didn't break anything with that drop. They're expensive."

"Answer the bloody question!"

I backed away from Valeriy and the box. If I moved slowly enough, maybe I wouldn't be noticed slipping out of the room. If I slipped out, maybe she wouldn't take her rage out on me.

"I thought you might want them back. Someday."

"Are you kidding me!? I fucking don't!" She's been moody. She's been irritated in the last couple of weeks. But not like this. This rage. Huffing, she picked up the box and got onto her feet. "Bucky."

"Y-yes…?" I responded, freezing on the spot. I was so close. Five steps. Only five more steps and I would have disappeared around the corner.

With an annoyed sigh, she slapped on a grin. "How are you on sleep? Think you can stay up for a few hours?" She seemed almost normal if not for how my gut twisted when I looked at that smile. Still angry.

I gave a nod. A faint memory of cooperation hurting less than resisting.

"Good." Valeriy practically marched her way past me, grabbing my hand on the way and dragging me after her. Her tight grip on my fingers shook. "Let's see if we can get that tracker out in one sitting, shall we?"

'What…?'

She faced me, opening her mouth to say something, but instead, she charged right into the banister, ending up in a curled up ball of pain. She rolled onto her back and looked up at me, notably calming down. "I forgot about my ankle…."

"Whe… where do you want to go?" I asked, carefully.

"My room?"

Silently, I watched her for disapproval as I picked her up. There was none. Just an exhausted expression. Securing her over my shoulder, I made my way upstairs. Didn't need to risk crushing her with the arm again.

"Thanks, Bucky."

With every bounce of the box in her hand off my back, I expected pain. A hit. For her to unleash her anger physically. But she didn't. She didn't move much, hanging like deadweight on my shoulder. Whatever was inside of the box merely clinked together instead. With every bounce.

The tools finally arrived. It'd be one step closer to being free of them. Free of Hydra. Would be nice to have proper use of a second arm as well.

I could hear her pluck a pair of scissors out of a mug on the table from behind me, and I tensed, waiting for a stab. A cut. But there was none. Not even as I lowered her onto the edge of the unmade bed. She merely offered a tired smile and sliced open the box.

Valeriy carefully picked up a purple toolbox. Practically pristine except for the massive dent in one corner. But none too careful, she tossed it onto the bed, the fury from before flaring up again.

That was when I realised it. "You're afraid." That her anger was an attempt at hiding.

"Means I might spend more time in the bathroom than on your arm…." She flipped the box upside down, dumping its contents onto the bed and sorting through them. "Get comfortable, Bucky."

"Why the bed?" I frowned, shuffling back against the headboard.

"It's more comfortable than the floor? I don't have the stamina to hold random ass poses to get the right angle nor keep it any bit steady to do any work. From what I can tell, your arm's not detachable, is it?"

"…Not that I can recall…."

Valeriy reached out slowly and pressed her fingers into my left side. Around the upper ribs. Feeling for something. "…I'm pretty sure it's not…."

There was metal under her fingers. Under the shirt. Under the scars. Under muscles. Braced against my bones. "Felt it the other night."

"When I was…." Unable to remember a thing. Had no idea who I was. Had no idea who she was.

"Yeah." She offered a soft smile and then turned her attention to the mess of equipment behind her. Took a few seconds for her to settle next to me. A palm sized silver box in one hand and a tablet in the other. "Hopefully this whole thing doesn't hurt too much? Can't guarantee anything though. Sorry."

I had faint memories of the repairs hurting, but not much. Not enough to bother. And it was nothing compared to getting this arm on. Or having what was left of my arm removed. From the little bits that I could remember.

She pulled an apologetic smile. "Yeah…. With that current jumping around in there. It's going to at least hurt some. Sorry. I won't know more until I get a look inside. But I actually read most of the manuals on the new toys, so they shouldn't cause too much of a problem?"

I shook my head, backing away when she reached for me. "You're not going to strap me down?" I had memories of lashing out. Violently. Killing a good portion of those who worked on the arm. That was the last thing I want to do here. With her.

"No? You've already proven to me that you can hold still while lifting over a hundred pounds, so there's no need for that."

"I could hurt you."

Valeriy opened her mouth to say something but paused and shook her head. "I'll be fine, and I doubt you'd do it on purpose."

When she moved closer again, I shifted away. I couldn't trust myself. Not with this. What if I lost myself? In a rash temper. What if I lost my place? Back with them. What if I killed her…?

Then everything rushed past me. I stared up at her from the floor, terrified. Cornered. I couldn't help but eye the door. I could easily flip over her and get out. Escape. But to where? Hydra would find me with the tracker. The A.I. ghost would be more than difficult to shake.

"Bucky," her voice rung out clear over my thundering heartbeat.

My body almost flinched in response, trying desperately to sink into the walls.

"Get back here."

An order. I had no choice. My body moved on its own. I was lucky enough that she wasn't specific. So I stood at the edge of the bed. Willing myself not to yank my hands back as she held onto them.

"Bucky, it's going to be okay," Valeriy stated so softly. I could almost believe her. That everything's going to be okay.

"You don't know that," I argued.

"It'll be fine, Bucky. We'll take it slow. You'll communicate everything to me. If you're hurting, even a tad. If you're not okay. If I need to give you space. If you need a break. If you need sleep. Stuff like that. Alright? Can you do that for me? And I'll do my best to keep my temper in check. Keep things calm for you."

I gave an unsteady nod. I'd cling onto reality the best I could. So I wouldn't slip into the past. So I wouldn't have to add another thing on my long list of regrets. But I needed that tracker out. I needed Hydra out.

"Now just hold still for a sec. Going to do a very general check, 'kay?" She released my hands and grabbed the silver box again, pressing a button on the side before it beeped. "What the fuck does your arm need a receiver for? Oh shit."

"What's wrong?" I asked, a little panicked.

"Uhh… hang on." Valeriy removed her monitoring bracelet, tossing it over her shoulder.

Her finger motioned for me to lift my right arm as far away as I could. Another press of the button and another beep. Frowning heavily, she pulled off the glove that covered the silver fingers. The thing that gave the smooth plates some grip. I had to resist the urge to punch her to get her to stop rolling up the damn sleeve.

Valeriy glanced up at me, forcing a smile onto her lips. "Are you willing to settle down now?" She tugged at the arm.

I complied, going back to the uncomfortably soft bed.

"Okay, this isn't working," she laughed, patting the metal plates and turning her attention to the various devices scattered on the comforter. "Your arm's too big. So you have the choice of taking off your shirt or just pulling out your left arm. Eve, do we have a wife beater he'd fit in?"

"Nope. You could cut off the sleeve."

Thinking about it for a moment, I merely tucked the left side of my shirt over the shoulder. It barely did a thing to ease my nerves. Didn't want her to see it. I didn't even want to see the ugly mess. Not the arm. Not the mess of red scars.

"Thank you," Valeriy chirped, switching out the silver device for another one. This one with a cylinder sticking out of one end. When she faced me again, there wasn't even a shift on her face towards disgust. Merely propping the arm on her knee.

I quickly removed the arm from her.

"Hmm?"

"The electric current," I stated.

"It's fine. Just a little shock." She waved off with a laugh.

"It's not a little shock."

"She has insulated gloves."

"But I hate those," she argued with the A.I. ghost.

"Wear them," I said, holding the arm out of reach when she tried to grab it.

Pouting, Valeriy reached back into the purple toolbox and pulled out a pair of black gloves, slipping them on. "Happy?"

I gave a nod and gently rested the arm on her knee after shoving a pillow in between. Should be enough not to shock her for when the arm acts up.

"Eve, could you put something on the T.V.? Something Bucky would be interested in maybe?"

"I learned a lot of skills over the years. Mind reading still eludes me." But the television screen across from us lit up anyways. With a reminding warning out at me not to try this at home before going on about old west myths, guns and horses.

"Mythbusters, huh?" Valeriy laughed and started scanning with the second silver device, moving it up the arm as air was sucked through the cylinder at one end. It felt so weird against the sensors. Halfway up the arm, she yanked the comforter out from under us and wrapped me in it.

"What's the blanket for?" I asked when she started pulling it over my head. At least I could hide some of the scarring under it.

"You shivered. Figured you were cold. Father always complains about the temperature of my room." Which she kept at a cool 18 degrees Celsius.

Cold enough to induce uncontrollable shivering if left exposed in a cell. But not cold enough to pull one to sleep. Merely left to shiver into exhaustion and pain. Something even the serum in my veins couldn't fight against.

"The cold doesn't bother me," I muttered. As much as I disliked it.

"…Okay," she shrugged off, but neither of us bothered to move the comforter kept around me. She continued to use the second device, and I made sure to keep still this time. Once she reached the top of the shoulder where metal met flesh, she tossed the device aside and picked up the tablet.

"What's in the arm?" I questioned warily, taking a peek at the screen to find it with what looked to be chemical formulas.

She stayed silent. Only an involuntary wince managed to seep through a rather blank mask.

"Valeriy."

"Apparently me and Hydra think the same? We have the same fucking fail secure plan. Ayers Corp…. We use explosives too."

"…There's a bomb in the arm…."

"Sorry."

I shook my head. "You weren't the one who put it there."

"If I was, it'd be totally simple to remove. I'd know all the traps and triggers," she joked, switching back to the first device and twirling a marker between her fingers. "Mind if I draw on your arm? It'll come off. I'm going to just pinpoint where the things are. Better than digging around mostly blind?"

I merely rolled the shoulder in response for her to go on. For every beep of the silver box in her hand, a little symbol was drawn onto a plate. Meticulously working her way up the arm.

"There's a bomb in the monitors," I pieced together after some time. Having to move the bracelet away from the arm. What she said.

Valeriy winced, peering up at me, and that confirmed it. "Oh hey, they're not for you. Got nothing to do with you. They're for me. All these bracelets are made for me."

"Why would you need a bomb?"

"For the most part, it's a fail secure plan? If something of ours ends up where it shouldn't be, we can just dispose of it. Lessen the chances of someone getting my personal info through these bracelets. We can set off the small one and I'll probably get away less burned than trying to bake? Half of these tools are rigged up too. Even the detector I'm using has them."

"The small one," I repeated, picking up on her word choice, and glanced at the thing wrapped around my wrist. "There's more than one…."

"There's a much louder and destructive one? It has its uses. In need of a distraction, it's loud as fuck. Get stuck in a room or something, blow my way out. Probably makes escaping easier?"

"You're going to get yourself killed."

She laughed, shrugging. "Gramps made it so it never goes off unless we want it to. It's why we can use the small one to dispose of it harmlessly. If you're feeling wary of the explosives, I can remove the ones in the bracelet while I'm at this."

"No… Better keep it," I muttered. "If I lose control, it would be a simple way to deal with me."

Valeriy looked up from the arm, staring almost blankly at me. "…Bucky, we're not going to blow you up. Not even as a last resort."

I had no response to that, looking away from her when she reached up for my face. Her hand hovered in the air between us. I refused to look away from the television, where two men were trying to escape an old frontier jail with a horse of all things. Wasn't working in their favor.

A couple of tense seconds later, I felt the marker tip gliding across the plates of the shoulder. Silently, she pulled me away from the headboard to draw on the back. She didn't settle behind me, merely rose onto her knees. Probably so I could tell she wasn't doing more than just drawing on the arm from the way her body moved.

Wrap arm around torso. Crush the ribcage. Target incapacitated.

Shaking off the observation, I glanced down at the various symbols marked on the arm that congregated in two areas. One on the forearm. The other on the shoulder.

"There's two bombs in there…. Do they need to put two in?"

"Redundancies?" Valeriy offered with a shrug, settling back down in front of me. "They've got a tracker in each area too. Probably in the same unit or something."

"But why two? Isn't one enough to blow me up?"

"My guess? If you somehow lost the bottom half of the arm, with one boom they can stop any reverse engineering and deal with the people working on it. Doubt they'd use it for distractions. As for the one in the shoulder… yeah… that's a nasty one from what I can figure out from the formula…" she said, glancing at the tablet next to me. "Eve hasn't matched the two random things the sniffer picked up and they're not screaming out explosive to me. Can probably ignore that…?"

"…You sure know how to make something sound so reassuring," I huffed sarcastically.

"I got no bloody idea what those are," Valeriy laughed, patting the plates of the arm. "So… you got any ideas on how to open this thing up?"

"Pry the plates off." The words tumbled out automatically, and with an automated thought, the back end of the plates lifted.

"Whoa, that's nifty…. I guess it's a little late to ask if they used some special light while they worked on it, huh? But having a light sensor trigger with this setup would be dumb…. I need to check a couple of things."

With that, she grabbed a flashlight, trying to peer into the arm between the plates. She moved randomly from space to space. From the forearm to the shoulder to the underarm. Moving the arm or twisting her body to get the angle she wanted to look inside.

"Could you do that plate flippy thing again? About five times? Slowly, please," Valeriy said, donning a pair of glasses from a case that had dropped to the floor from her reckless habit of tossing things as she searched for something else.

While I moved the plates of the arm, she kept bumping her head against it with how close she was staring at it. At one point, she straight up leaned her forehead against the arm. Likely to steady her sight.

"Okay, whatever you do, this arm does not move while my finger's inside. Tell me if you so much as think you might move so I can back out. 'Kay?" she questioned, a carefree smile on her lips that clashed with her words.

I nodded and held my breath to completely still myself. She pulled off her gloves and braced her hand against the plates, sliding her pinky between the plates. Felt as if her finger disappeared from the sensors. I could feel nothing inside. Only what interacted with the top of the plates. What I could sense was her finger wiggling back and forth a couple of times.

Valeriy sat back. Now that her finger was out of the arm, I began breathing again, as she moved the glasses to sit on the top of her hair. Pinching the bridge of her nose for a few seconds, she practically sighed out, "Bucky?" The lightness in her voice completely gone. Not even an unsettling joke.

"Hmm?"

"Let's try this again. 'Cause I doubt I'm the only jackass who'd program that response to get the wires tripped… if those thinner than hair wires are what I think they are and they seem to be attached to all the plates."

I felt sick. Sick to the stomach. To the very core. I was still doing what they wanted. They still pulled my strings. I almost blew us up with what I said. They still ran my life….

Her hand grabbed onto mine, squeezing down almost reassuringly. "They've performed repairs on this before, right?"

I nodded, not trusting my own voice.

"Do you remember any instances of it?"

Another nod.

"Alright then. Let's try it this way. Walk me through exactly what they did to repair your arm. Or as much as you remember." When I was too scared to use my own voice, she spoke up again, "I only really need the first chunk of that memory."

"Val, his heartrate's too high."

"I guess I can always take this old school. Treat this like a bomb you find lying around."

'Why would a person find a bomb lying around?'

She grinned lazily, stretching out her arms and back. "Been a while since I've done this. Shall take some time. Could be fun, yeah?"

The slight break in her voice at the question practically screamed that this wasn't going to be "fun" for her. Even her face was a tad too green to be so. But Valeriy still pulled down the glasses into place and went back to peering into the arm. Finding ways to run through the loopholes in me.

And all I had to do was to find my voice.

I had the memories with the answers.

One of the first memories after the last time I sat in that chair. Finishing up with the repairs as they had said. Warily. Probably lashed out before they wiped me.

The young woman backed away from the arm. The back of her wrist pressed against her lips. Her pale grey eyes darting towards the bathroom for a moment before she shook her body out and pushed on with the examination.

"They…" I tried, swallowing the lump in my throat.

"Hmmm?" she hummed, her head popping up to look at me. The lenses on the glasses flickered from black to clear.

"…They put a rod between the plates… back here," I stated carefully, pulling off the comforter and showing her the spot at the back of the shoulder. "They do that before they do anything to the arm. Before they pry the plates."

A grin pulled at Valeriy's lips. "Now that's something I can work with."

Felt like a hand unclenched from crushing my heart. A lightness to my body. It almost lasted if I didn't have to stop myself from shoving her off the bed when her shoulder almost collided with my jaw at her rush to look at the area. Keeping herself in front of me.

"There's no strings attached to this plate either from what I can see. Hang on. Going to look around inside first."

She crawled to the foot of the bed and grabbed a thin wire off the floor. Then dug to the bottom of her toolbox for a tub of clear substance. She pulled out a piece of it, kneading it between her fingers.

"This globby thing will keep the snake cam anchored in place, so you should be able to somewhat move around? No clue if you should move the arm too much. Something inside might shift."

I tried to calm down. Reduce the movements of my body. While she set up the camera. I wanted to turn around so she wasn't at my back.

Valeriy chuckled, placing a hand on the nape of my neck, and I barely managed not to jump out of my skin. Her thumb giving a comforting rub. Almost as if trying to assure me that everything will be fine. "You can check out what I'm seeing with the tablet. Seems like there's a hole where the rod would go through. Hey, Bucky, what do you know of the rod?"

I picked up the tablet next to my leg. The black screen turned into an image of inside the arm. Metal, gears, cylinders, wires, circuit boards. "They've used metal and plastic."

"…O…kay…?"

"I don't see anything to complete a circuit."

"Me neither…. Think the snake cam can fit through that?"

"With wiggle room."

With that, the image on the tablet moved forward through the hole.

"How are you seeing this?" I asked. I had the tablet. The phone was halfway down the bed. The television was playing a show still.

Valeriy moved to settle in front of me again, and one of the lenses of her glasses was black. "I get see two things at once if I wanted to. A little jarring but useful…. And I do believe we've located one of the bombs…" she noted, touching two points on the shoulder plates. "Matches what I've mapped out."

Two black boxes. One attached to the arm with three rather thick metal wires each with a ring in the space between the boxes. The middle of the three wires was the only support for the second black box that had all the thin wires connected to it.

"That might be a pulley system…? Bucky, could you flip up all the plates again? I want to check something."

I did not like how the second box shifted when I moved the plates. Even if it wasn't by much. It moved even more with her finger back between the plates.

"Those metal eyes are worrisome," the A.I. ghost commented, as the camera did a look around.

"Sucks they're metal. No clue if it needs a completed circuit or not, since conductive plastics are a thing…" Valeriy agreed, pulling the camera out. "Bucky, do you know what the metal rods are made of?"

"Titanium." From what I overheard.

The young woman grabbed her phone. A few taps on the screen later, she went back to looking through the scattered tools on the bed. "Eve, which spray thingy is nonconductive?"

"…The green can if you're referring to the epoxy spray."

"And Bucky, your head's going to end up on my lap. Going into your arm from the top. So you get to pick between a face full of my stomach or you trust me enough to sit behind you."

I handed her the gloves. "I don't want you getting hurt."

Valeriy crunched up her nose in distaste as she reached for them. "Hoping you'd forgotten about them."

"Not a chance."

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.**.

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"What's wrong?" I asked when nothing had changed on the tablet for the past ten minutes and forty seconds. Except for a twitch with a thin straw that had been spewing out a clear plastic material. The pair of rubberized tweezers clinging onto the middle of the metal eyes to keep it in position stayed steady.

I could hear her breathing change with each ticking second. Growing more and more erratic. Even through the pile of pillows on the side of my head.

"Valeriy?"

"I forgot how to move," she mumbled through clenched teeth. Likely not risking movements by using her jaw when talking. "I don't know which way to go to get into position. I just need a moment to figure this out."

I doubt she'd figure anything out with the panic she's been diving into. How her tools stayed steady through it was rather impressive. Too much movement could mean triggering the bomb. Neither of us knew how much leeway it had.

How she was trying to negotiate the space in the arm had to be disorientating. One image on each lens from two different angles. One viewed from the back of the shoulder with the snake camera to what she was working on. The other a magnified view from the top of the shoulder with the camera on the glasses to keep an eye on how close her tools were to the trigger wires.

And I could watch it all unfold on the tablet in front of me while my head was stuck between two pillows sandwiched by her head and her lap. Her arms were anchored against my shoulders, so she'd move with any movements I made with breathing.

If this was anything like taking a sniper shot, then, "You need to clear your mind. You were fine for the first half of this."

"This isn't exactly like getting back on a bike after five fucking years," Valeriy snapped. "Oh now I feel like throwing up…."

'Not good.' She was stuck with me on her lap, and I was pinned into place by her head on mine and by all the things in the god damn arm.

"How hard is it for you to hold still like that?" I asked after a moment's thought.

"Easy enough. Easier than trying to figure out which bloody way to fucking go."

"Can you keep in place with your eyes shut?"

"I guess…?"

"Then let your eyes rest for a bit."

"…Okay."

And now something to take her mind off her panic. "The fancy windows."

"Huh?"

"What gave you the idea?" I tried.

Her head shifted slightly, and the image from her glasses on the tablet swung about before it refocused. "The windows huh?" she repeated, having found room to move her jaw. "I used to sneak out of the boarding school dorms almost every other night. Dragged Amber with me whenever she'd let me. We were roommates. Needed a way to not get caught not in our room. We figured that we could mess with the windows. For some reason Eve helped with the rendering."

"I couldn't stop you from being an idiot as a child. Why would I think I could stop you as teenager? I could only hope you'd grow up. Until then, had to make sure you weren't caught and expelled. Your parents would not be happy to get that piece of news."

"I'd be hung by my ears…." Suddenly, the tools started moving on the screen. Moving as though they naturally knew what to do. Covering the metal eyes with the clear goop sprayed out of the thin straw. "I don't think the school realized we switched out all the windows within a couple of months, and now it has a few ghost legends floating about. Perfect way of moving people away from a place."

"I still scare the staff and students there. When I feel like some entertainment."

"Seriously got nothing better to do, Eve?"

"It's tradition at this point."

"What did you two do when you snuck out?" I found myself asking.

'Hopefully not partying with boys and drinking,' I couldn't help instinctively think. A foreign emotion clawing to the surface.

"Research? It's all we ever really did back then," Valeriy replied, sounding much like the geek she probably once was and not the lazy mask she now wore. "Snuck out to the labs or the estate to do more research. Stuff we shouldn't have in dorms. Like some of Amber's poisons and plants. She mostly worked with those back then. I even played Guinea pig to some of her anti venoms when we were impatient."

"Did you skip class?" The question blurted out before I knew it. That foreign emotion shifting slightly into another equally unknown feeling. "Not everyone was so lucky to be able to go to school."

"You sound like what I think parents should sound like," Valeiry chuckled, before sighing. "Mine pulled me out of class a bunch. For fancy parties and stuff. Faked illnesses left and right since only one faculty member knew who I really was…. Needed something to tell everyone else…. Amber called me out on the bullshit the first time I tried it. It's how I found out about her brains.

"But we attended all the classes when we weren't too sick or injured to. We had mishaps… but neither of us really had our minds at school… and did the bare minimum work… and slept through most of class…. School kind of bored us out of our minds…?"

Irritation filled me. Some part of me longed for it. School. Felt… unfinished. But I had to make sure they were able to go. To finish.

'Who… who's they…?'

Within five seconds of the thought, the tweezers twisted free of the goop and she drowned the whole thing with more. It wasn't long before she pulled the tools and camera out.

Valeriy flicked the pillow off my head and grinned down at me, half shooing me to sit up. "While we wait for that to do its thing, I'm going to check out the other thing too. Cover our bases, yeah?" And dove right into anchoring the snake camera onto the edge of a plate on the forearm.

"This looks lacking…" I noted. No wires sticking out of it. Little black box just sat on a frame. Much like the other one.

"Good, less work for me," she grinned, pulling the camera out of the arm and flinging her gloves into the farthest corner of the room. "We got about a fifteen minute break before I can do anything else." She rolled onto her side, curling up into a ball with her eyes closed. "And Bucky? Thanks for getting me out of my head. I needed it."

I hummed a response, half hooked on an episode of Mythbusters about homemade jetpacks. Currently, they were showing clips of the inventions of the past for personal flight. One of them an expensive hover platform intended for military use.

It was oddly familiar to me. Reminded me of blood and flames. I wouldn't be surprised if I tested some version of this. Would save Hydra a dead goon. I could heal from a crash.

Suddenly the television footage changed. "What are you up to that involves a bioengineered virus cocktail?" a voice I heard recently popped up through the speakers. Eight days ago.

I only managed to catch a glimpse of a young woman on the screen since Valeriy yanked down the blanket and practically sat on me. Young woman of mixed Asian, in pyjamas and a Glasgow smile had filled the screen.

"Amber! What are you doing up at seven in the morning?" Valeriy asked, laughing nervously.

"I can still see his feet on the feed."

"…Damnit. Not a word of this. He's not supposed to be here. Eve, make sure you scrub the footage. Completely." She shifted off me, readjusting the comforter until I pulled it off my head and just made sure to cover my arm.

"…Isn't he supposed to be… dead?" Amber shrugged a second after. "Oh well, at least you're not alone. You do stupid things when you're alone."

This time Valeriy shrugged from beside me. "So what's this about a virus?"

"The thing you sent me. It looks like one can activate the other. That one seems to be latent and it probably "eats" all sorts of biological stuff. Not one for a long life span though. Send me a sample of the two. It looks fun to play with. Be careful not to mix the two."

"…Sure thing…?"

"Going back to sleep now. Night."

"Night," Valeriy chirped while the screen went dark. "So… now we know what those two random things the sniffer picked up are…. Holy shit! Bucky! No no no. Stop! God fucking damn it! I said stop!" she screamed, holding onto my arm. Struggling to pull it away from me. Completely failing until the order registered in my head.

"Please get it out," I begged. "I can't…. I…. I don't want that in me. Valeriy – "

"Of course I'm getting that out! Like hell am I leaving that in. Clawing your arm off isn't the way to go about it…. So far it's been stable. Your body's been through the shit. They made sure it wouldn't malfunction."

"And what if you set it off?"

"I won't," Valeriy stated with such confidence. No hint of doubt swimming in those grey eyes. "We'll get it out in one sitting, 'kay?" Her fingers squeezed down on mine in reassurance.

"What are the chances that your friend's wrong?"

"About the virus thing? Rare?"

"So there's a chance…?"

"Amber… she's a genius with these things, so she's usually right. Has her worried enough to break protocol and contact me the way she did. But it's nothing to worry about. The viruses will stay asleep."

It's unsettling how carefree Valeriy seemed about it at the moment, waving a dismissive hand before being distracted by something on the tablet. Like this was some sort of child's play.

"Eve, how many stupid fucking redundancies do you think they have in there?"

"Why don't you think about it? You're the idiot who comes up with some of the most… well, what would you do to keep a weapon out of the hands of everybody else?"

"Be nice, Eve. Bucky's not a weapon."

"But I am," I stated.

It was almost instantaneous how Valeriy's eyes flicked up, boring straight into mine, before the rest of her head followed to face me. I could read the anger bubbling beneath the surface. The twitch of her lip. The white that painted her knuckles from how tight she gripped the tablet.

"Oi, you need to stop that train of thought. Who says you have to be what they made you, huh? Last I heard, you don't even want to hurt people. But if you really want to be a weapon, I'm sure Eve could figure out something to point you at. I won't get in your way."

"I never wanted to kill anybody!" I snapped. "I never asked to be turned into this! I never asked for this arm. Torn apart over and over again! Until I can't even remember my own fucking name! Saying I'm not a weapon doesn't change the fact that is exactly what I am!"

"Never said it's simple, but it's a start, Bucky," Valeriy responded without missing a beat. Without so much as a flinch. "One step at a time. One day at a time. Nothing's going to change unless we try. Got to start somewhere." With that said, she turned away and riffled through the various equipment on the bed.

"Do you really think I can change…?" I questioned, pulling the blanket tighter around myself.

"Haven't you already?" she asked back with a grin over her shoulder. "You're quite different from the guy I asked if he was hungry. For one, you no longer grunt and huff words at me. And I haven't see much of the Winter Soldier from phone cam footage in the news. Mostly just the badass arm? Though looked like it moved a lot better at the bridge than it does at the moment."

"It was fully functional until a couple days after the Helicarrier…."

"Do anything crazy when it malfunctioned?"

"I was hiding."

"Huh. Interesting…. Urgh… Bucky, have you seen the glasses? I can't find them," she asked with a large pout.

"On your head."

Valeriy laughed, scratching her head and flicking the glasses to fall into place. "Mind if I take a quick scan of your body?"

I shook my head, and started removing the blanket only to have her stop me.

"That won't make much of a difference," she laughed, slipping them on, and the lens turned black at a click of a button. "It's a density thing I can adjust." Her fingers turned a dial on the side of the frames.

"You think they put something inside me," I noted, clutching onto the comforter.

"Good thing they didn't? Don't think I can handle trying to get that out," Valeriy responded, bending over until she was half mumbling into my leg and adjusting another dial on the frames.

"Is there something wrong with my shin…?" I asked as she rolled my leg from side to side.

"Your bone structure is insane. It's far denser than mine, and the way it's organized, you can shrug off being run over by a car… probably? Or at least your skeleton might? Here, if you want to check it yourself. Dials to adjust stuff." She held out the glasses to me with a grin, turning her attention back onto the tablet next to her.

Curiosity got the better of me. That was until, I brought the glasses up to my face. They were much too similar to the goggles that covered my eyes. "I…." I couldn't. With a twist in my gut, I lowered the glasses to my lap.

Valeriy dropped the tablet on my lap with a grin. "Eve, link the feed again." She moved my hands and glasses until the black tablet screen had the bones of my feet. "Just point the cameras on the glasses at whatever you want to check out."

It's amazing how advanced x-rays were now. I could see the bones in my toes move in time with how I wiggled them. The clothing was barely visible, but the flesh was. It even showed the pipes in the walls. Turning a dial, I could zoom in and see the water flowing through the pipes.

"What are those packages in the walls?" I asked. They were evenly spaced out. One in each wall. Though the exterior walls were solid. Couldn't see through it. Or make out anything in them.

She leaned over and with a glance at the tablet, she shrugged. "Explosives? Doesn't look enough to get to the neighboring houses. Demolition setup."

"…You knew this house was rigged to blow, didn't you?"

"Yup."

"How are you so relaxed about this? How do you even sleep?"

She shrugged. "Been sleeping with a bomb strapped to my arm since I was nineteen. Besides, the explosives are super stable. It's not going to accidently go off. It's not going to go off even if we set this place on fire."

"Do not set my houses on fire, Valeriy. I should have set you up in a steel crate."

Sometimes, I want to shake some sense into this woman. But she'd probably come out the other side with a concussion. So I just shifted the camera image to my leg, zooming in to the point of seeing the holes in my bones.

"Man, your hands are fucking steady. The image is barely even moving. I usually have to get Eve to grab a freeze frame or slow mo the footage," Valeriy commented, looking up from her phone and crossed one of her legs into the cameras' range, zooming out the tablet image.

She wasn't kidding about my bones being dense. They looked almost solid compared to hers. Even my muscles were denser than hers. Less transparent.

Hydra changed so much of me.

I had to wonder if there was anything left of me that remained.

"Valeriy?" I called out, waving a hand in front of her blank stare.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. There's not much else I can check without going inside…. Eve, has the thingy finished doing its thing yet?"

"Yes, the epoxy polymer has cured."

"Perfect. The forearm one is basically harmless," she grinned, tapping a finger at one of the metal plate on the arm, and I got the hint to flip them up so she could look inside. "So what do you remember with how they removed the plates?"

I thought about it for a moment and asked, "The bomb won't go off?"

Valeriy shrugged. "No idea. The goop's not going to budge the slightest. Does what the rod's supposed to do. I don't see any other external triggers. As long as you're in the house, it can't be set off remotely. They're multipart reactions so malfunctions are unlikely…. I've covered all the grounds I can think of…?"

"What's your estimation of the blast radius?"

"…Probably take down a house in every direction if this were a normal house? But this isn't? So it might not fuck with the neighbors…?"

"Go wait outside." Just might be safe enough for her. I couldn't leave the house. Hydra would find me. And with how she's stared at the door over the last few days, she couldn't leave either. Jekyll would find her. But maybe if I was in the opposite corner of the backdoor, she'd be safe enough.

"Why?" That bright eyed look of curiosity she sent my way made me wary of her self-preservation instincts.

"You shouldn't risk your life for this."

She laughed. "Not the dumbest thing I've done, Bucky. Not the most dangerous either." She shrugged again. "I guess now it's just a leap of faith in my skills and your memory."

From what I'd gathered, neither were reliable.

"I seriously just pry the plates off…? Doesn't sound right for something this sophisticated…. Urgh, might as well test the trip wire."

"Wait! – " I panicked, clamping down the plates when Valeriy slipped her pinky between them. I quickly grabbed onto her hand to keep it from moving before popping the plate up again.

"…Ow…?"

"Sorry."

"You realize that was too late, right?"

"What?" I demanded, looking down.

It's true. It's too late. The wire was caught by her nail and not the joint like I had assumed. It's been moved more than if the plates were busted from a fight. This was utterly reckless of her.

When I let her hand go, she pulled the wire more and nodded. Satisfied.

"Do you even grasp how dangerous that was?! You could have died!" I growled.

Valeriy gave another annoying carefree shrug. "It worked, and Eve probably would have said something if she spotted a flaw in my work. It's not just my dumb brain working here, Bucky. But I still can't wrap my head around just prying the plates off."

I sighed heavily trying to calm my racing heart. "Like this."

Now that the threat of blowing up was gone, I could show her. Pulling a plate up a tad before pushing it down, and it popped off.

I never liked having them removed. There was a loss of sensation. A hole in the arm. It was unnerving.

"And to put it back." I merely reversed the action, clicking it into place with a jolt of sensations.

"…Huh…. Okay. I can do that. You know what? I'm going to just cut all the trip wires now."

"Is that safe?"

"I'm going to have to do it eventually to get the bomb out. Which is like… step number one? Here, I'll test one and see if it does what I hope it does." Valeriy pressed her ear to the red star again and sliced a wire with a black bladed scalpel. "Yup. The pulley thing wheels it right in from what I can hear."

'I give up.' This girl's insane. With a sigh, I popped up all the plates for her.

Two minutes in, Valeriy vaulted straight into the bathroom. The door slammed shut. Music blasted from inside, hiding other sounds.

"She held up longer than I thought. How are you holding up, Mr. Barnes?"

I merely nodded, blankly staring at the people on the television. Mentally and emotionally exhausted. Between the explosive, viruses, Hydra's bullshit and Valeriy's recklessness, it's been a rollercoaster.

"…The Glasgow smile…."

"Amber?"

"What happened there?"

"The consequences of Val not doing a proper job when they were in Dublin. It's lucky we even managed to get her back alive."

.

.**.

.

"What the actual flying fuck!? Did they fucking weld the entire fucking bottom!?" Valeriy seethed, and I half expected a foot in the face in her mad attempt for more leverage.

The pliers slipped for the twelfth time, sending her backwards. I managed to grab onto her wrist with my good hand before she crashed into the wall and floor. Flopping onto the bed, she grumbled into the sheets.

"Are you sure you broke all the tacks?" I asked, hoping that she'd calm down. Her frustration could cause a slip in judgement and set off the whole house.

"Yup. There's too much movement for it to be welded down…. I've got no idea why it's bloody stuck like that."

"I have nothing to add. I can't figure it out either."

Valeriy sat up. A large frown on her face before it turned to confusion. "The hell? It's all twisted…. God damn it, you've got to be shitting me." She went back into the arm with the pliers, twisted her hand, and lifted out a thumbnail sized box. "That was… easy…."

A little circular nub with a notch stuck out of the bottom of the box. The feature that kept it attached in the arm. Rather amazing that it held up to the young woman's abuse.

Valeriy set the first device against the box and grinned. "Yup, they combined the tracker and explosives. That's one less thing to deal with."

"That little thing is able to take out this house?" I questioned, trying to wrap my head around that. It's so small.

"Yup," she chirped, opening a metal container, and dropping the bomb inside. "Let's make quick work of the other thing before getting the viruses out." And got right down to marking the placements of the plates, removing them, and setting them aside on the night table in their proper places.

Gingerly, the arm was draped over her knees. A laser cutter made quick work of the weld tacks. A twist of the tweezers pulled out another tiny box of explosives. A beep confirmed that another tracking devices were removed. Took a total of a ninety seconds flat opposed to the half hour of screaming of the first bomb.

"Alright, all things that go boom are in the safety box," Valeriy announced, slamming the lid shut. "Eve will have these far far away by this time tomorrow. Probably use them to have Hydra chasing their tails."

"You can't use those," I blurted out, pleading to the camera in the corner of the room. "The people transporting the trackers. They'll be tortured to get to me. You don't know what Hydra can do. The things they'll do to get what they want. Your people won't be able to handle it…. It'll be a mercy if they don't survive…."

Valeriy lightly wrapped her fingers around my arm. "Bucky… Eve's Pup–people, they'll be fine. They have Eve."

"You have no idea who these people are! They're everywhere! You can't beat them!"

"But they're spread thin, scrambling with what's left of SHIELD and others for the upper hand. After their failed genocide, they desperately want you back. Your skills and reputation are valuable, the Winter Soldier. Almost everyone who's anyone is looking for you. Revenge. Induction. Whatever it is, I am the only one outside of this house who knows where you actually are, Mr. Barnes, which means I'm not spending anything on trying to find you.

"Thanks to all that, I've almost never come across a situation where I can move under the radar easier than I can now. Fuck with one group, blame it on another. They'll destroy most of each other before they have a clue. I could do a lot of damage if that's what's in the plans. With whatever it is I do now, I won't lose people over it. My people are never pawns. They are my hands and feet. Each are precious."

I glanced at Valeriy, who had called herself a pawn. Their words weren't matching up.

"Not her who uses me?" the young woman offered with a shrug. "And she hasn't lost me yet? She probably has an easier time keeping her people safe than me. We're pretty good at ghost trails, Bucky. I'm probably partying it up across Europe to the rest of the world."

"Actually, you're currently traveling through Egypt or Peru. The other trails mostly died."

"Ooo, fun. Ancient ruins. Shall we get those virus thingies out? From what I've figured out, they're buried pretty deep in your shoulder…."

Eying her waving hands warily, I sighed heavily. Easy enough to know what she wanted of me. Me on my side. Her behind me. Again. Piling up pillows on top of me and the arm. What I didn't expect was her fingers running through my hair, tucking it behind my ear.

"Just a bit longer," she whispered. More to herself than to me. With tweezers in steady hands, she got right down into following a red wire deep into the shoulder from what I could figure out with the image on the tablet from her glasses. "Hmmm, I think I've found it? Mind handing me the laser thingy, Bucky?"

This was a very different experience from all the other times the plates were removed from the arm.

A soft bed to replace the hard tables and chairs. Pillows instead of restraints. Slowly piled upon me over the hours. Not cuffs or guns pointed at me. A television constantly playing Mythbusters as a distraction. An entertaining series. Valeriy would keep explaining what she was doing in the arm or talked about random things. Interacted with rather than treated like one of the equipment.

All of it was to keep me here. In the present. Not in some memory of the past.

"Thank you," she chirped, plucking the laser cutter from my fingers. Thirty seconds later, I felt something move. A nudge in my chest where metal and flesh melded together. Usually any sensation in that area came with me using the arm to bash things in.

"Oi, try not to move too much, Bucky," the young woman grumbled, tucking a short cylindrical tube into another box and tossing it across the room without a care of it breaking. "Three down. One to go…." She slumped over my side, over the arm.

"Valeriy?"

"Tummy's a little unsettled."

"Don't throw up on me," I tried joking and got a laugh for it.

"That's what the bucket's for. To avoid that particular scenario…. The thing left in your arm is harmless without its other half, so you can relax about the whole virus thing. I just need a minute. Sorry."

"Good to know I'm not going to be eaten alive by a virus."

"Amber's air quotes means it just looks like that. Probably?"

"…."

I almost jumped when her fingers threaded through my hair, combing out knots as they went. That gesture was far more comforting than her words. The fact that the arm no longer had multiple ways to kill me helped a lot more.

Elbow to the ribs. Puncture lung. Target incapacitated.

She would no longer pose a danger sitting behind me. But half the virus cocktail would be left in the malfunctioning arm.

The head scratching continued for a bit before Valeriy decided to pile more pillows atop of me. "This is not as soft as I thought it would be…" she mumbled, returning to her spot with a few pillows covering the arm. "Metal plates are harder than I thought."

"Why are you flopped over me?"

"Thought you might make a good heat pack? And you do. Are you running a fever?"

I flicked her hand off my forehead. "I'm not."

Valeriy chuckled, peeling off me with a stretch. "Let's get the last bugger out." A soft push to my back later, she got back to digging around in the arm. "So, Bucky, tell me about space. I could use a good distraction."

I rather her not be distracted working so close to my actual flesh, but she'd be distracted either way. So I talked about the various documentaries the A.I. ghost found for me. I only managed to get started on black holes when I felt another nudge in my chest.

She pulled out the other cylindrical tube and stored it away in a separate box from the other half. "And that should be everything, besides electrical mayhem stuff… to which I'm going to have to figure out by looking at everything… yay…."

"We should break for the night," I suggested, almost feeling a weight lift off my shoulders as I got up from my side. I grabbed a few plates, clicking them back into place. "You could use the break."

"Actually, I can use some grub. How does frozen pizza sound?"

.

.**.

.

0245. Dawn's not for another 178 minutes. I could go outside now. Walk beyond that measly meter of space the jammer allowed. I could leave. As a ghost. No one would know where I was.

But the arm would be left rather useless in combat.

I wouldn't have to worry about triggers and snaps. I wouldn't wake up to a friend's lifeless body. I wouldn't be constantly watched by the A.I. ghost. I would be free.

Just had to take the few steps through the back door.

"Would you like to go for a walk, Mr. Barnes?"

I nodded. It would be great to be outside again.

"I don't doubt your abilities, but at the very least, I would like to inform you if you've been compromised. So you wouldn't return here. Val still can't be moved at this time." The second drawer next to the door opened up. "So take an earbud or two. I can have your back, if you don't mind it. It'll allow me to warn you of troubles."

"You'd try to track me either way."

"I have some fun with it. You tend to get me to think outside of the box, Mr. Barnes. Though, I can't guarantee your safety in the least if you leave at this moment in time. Not because you're leaving, but because your arm is rather useless. It'll take a miracle for you to lose Hydra when they catch up. And we both know they will catch up… eventually."

"…You wouldn't force me back here?"

"Nope. You're free to do whatever you like. I've merely just been ordered to help you as you see fit, at least for now. All you need is an internet connection for me to communicate with you."

With a slight shrug, I plucked an earbud from the drawer.

"Feel free to leave it in your pocket. It'll vibrate if I need your attention. This neighborhood is currently clear."

I dropped the earbud in a pocket and reached for the doorknob only to hear another drawer open.

"Before you leave."

A Glock 21 sat in the drawer. Next to three mags.

"When… did these…? They weren't here…." I checked the house the first few days I was in here.

"Val put that in there a couple days ago, and it just looks like a Glock. It's been modified. Heavily. Electronic firing mechanism."

I nodded. I understood what that meant. Knew I've used it before. Couldn't recall any memories of having actually used one. "You're giving me a gun?"

"If you're going out, better safe than sorry. Have fun, Mr. Barnes." The A.I. ghost shut the door behind me, and I slipped into the shadows created by the back stairs, tucking the Glock under my belt.

First order of business, check the house and assess everyone in the neighborhood. Something I've been itching to do for weeks. Since I had arrived here.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The window to my right, there was the old man, moving about the dining room with the light on. There were no lights on in the house. Except for ten dimly lit nightlights plugged into parts of the halls and a couple of rooms.

Now that I stood outside, there shouldn't be any men in the house. But there he was, a man sitting at the dining table hunched over a laptop. This was what the outside world saw of us.

They didn't see us at all.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I climbed onto the roof. The master bedroom was empty. The sheets looked slept in, unmade. Missing twelve pillows and a young woman. The lamp on the night table was different. The tools weren't scattered on the floor.

Like we were never here.

Never existed.

Once I deemed the nondescript house fortified far better than I thought, I moved onto the house next door. Had to figure out who lived there. What they did. Some reassurance that they weren't obviously Hydra spying on us. I made my way around each house in a spiral. Peering in through the windows to assess.

I had to skip a part of the house across the street. The young boy of the house hold was reading under his blanket again.

.

.**.

.

.