Prologue

Kamar Taj

Day Nine

"If we survive this, Yelena—I think we owe it to ourselves to give this a legitimate shot."

"You mean…?"

"I'm all in, Yelena. I'm all yours."

Ten seconds. That was all the time Bucky and Yelena had to bask in it.

They had ten seconds of uninterrupted bliss, of smiling at each other, of holding each other and kissing each other and beaming about the promise of what the future held for the two of them—that's all they got. Ten whole seconds.

And then, they heard it. Sounds of chaos, coming from outside.

"Hold your fire!"

"—Wanda, the hell are you thinking—"

"Listen to me, Wong—"

"Bucky! Yelena!"

The two of them snapped back to reality, and wordlessly rushed towards the door.

The second they got outside, it was easy to see what all of the commotion was about.

Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff were standing across from them.

This Side of Paradise: Chapter One

Indian Ocean - Unnamed Remote Island

Eight Days Earlier...

Day One

When Bucky woke up, Yelena Belova's face was the first thing he saw, and the first thing he felt was her mouth against his.

This, of course, was followed swiftly by more chest compressions, and the sensation of water rushing out of his lungs.

"Oh, thank God," she exhaled, collapsing onto the ground. He coughed out the last of however much ocean water remained inside of him. He took a second, heaving in air, before he finally gathered himself and got a good look at his surroundings.

Palm trees, white sand, and nothing but ocean for miles on end.

He turned to Yelena. She was pretty beat up—she had a sizable gash in her forehead, and most of her uniform was singed. But it looked like the bleeding had at least stopped, and—aside from the gash, the start of a sunburn and chapped lips—she was, by all appearances, fine.

It came rushing back to him, all at once. The cargo ship they'd infiltrated. The fight below deck. The crossfire, the ambush, and then—finally—the explosion, the one that blew them overboard. Just as James and Yelena ducked out of the way, he'd managed to at least partially inflate his portable life-raft—and apparently, it had been enough for them to drift to shore, however many hours later.

Alexei and Antonia were with them, on the ship—were they alive? Did they wash up on the other side of the island? The only sound James could hear was the ocean waves and a couple of birds, chirping off in the distance.

"How long was I out for?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I woke up maybe ten minutes before you did. I couldn't say."

He swallowed the lump in his throat. Judging by how dry his mouth was and how low the sun was in the sky, if he had to hazard a guess, it had been at least twelve hours since the fight and the explosion.

He knew it was a long-shot, but he tapped his earpiece. "Walker, Alexei? This is James. Does anybody copy?"

He paused for a moment. He didn't even hear static on the other end of the line.

"Well, I guess that answers whether or not these are waterproof," he managed, yanking the bluetooth out of his ear.

"What do we do?"

It was a fair question for Yelena to ask, but it annoyed him. "That's what I'm trying to figure out. I have absolutely no idea," he snapped. "I'm open to suggestions."

She shut her mouth before she could say anything.

He sighed. He knew he shouldn't blame her—those last six months, in the time they'd been training together, working with the other Tunderbolts and completing various missions across the globe, she'd gotten to know him in one capacity, and one alone: Team Leader. Because as much as he hated to admit it and as hard as he tried to reject it, for better or for worse, he was—somehow—the de facto leader of the Thunderbolts team.

How in the hell that happened, he'd never know.

"I'm sorry," he conceded. "I'm frustrated. I shouldn't take it out on you."

Yelena shook her head. "Don't worry about it." And then she cracked a small smile and said, "Honestly, I'm relieved. I was wondering when I'd finally get to see some personality from you."

He rolled his eyes. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. The version of him she'd gotten to know had been the strong, silent, observe-but-don't-speak version of James, the one that had spent the better part of three years in therapy and working through his PTSD.

That version of him was a bore, and he knew it.

"Yeah, well. I guess if being stranded on an island doesn't raise my blood pressure, I don't think anything will." He cocked his head in the direction of the underbrush, away from the shoreline and towards what he could only assume was the center of the island. "C'mon, that sun's getting pretty low in the sky—and I don't like the idea of us staying out here, where we're exposed. We should probably find some shelter."

As it turned out—shelter wouldn't find them until the next day.

"Seriously, Captain," Yelena whined. She was lagging a good fifteen feet behind him, and he wasn't sure if her blisters were as bad as she claimed or if she was limping for dramatic effect. "We've been walking for hours. At this rate, we might as well just call it a night."

He didn't stop, didn't slow down, didn't turn around to face her. He hated being called "Captain"—which Yelena very well knew. "It's still too sparse," he shouted, shaking his head. "We need solid cover."

Yelena groaned, and swore in Russian under her breath. "I seriously doubt anyone who's looking for us is going to find us out here."

She was right, and deep down, he knew it—but he didn't dare entertain that thought. That they were stranded in the middle of the Indian ocean, hundreds of miles away from civilization, on a classified mission for the United States government. As far as any of their friends or family back home were concerned, they were "out of town" for a business trip. The only people on the face of the planet who would even know they were missing were their fellow Thunderbolts, Valentina, and Ross.

Nope. There wasn't a shot in hell anybody was going to find them.

You could always use the pager.

He tried to file that thought away as quickly as it occurred to him. He knew what it was meant for. And while him and Yelena were in a dire situation, he knew the implications, and what would happen if he paged the person on the other end of the line.

Instead, he stopped in his tracks, and turned around to face her. He lifted his left arm. "Do you know what this is made out of?"

She shrugged. "I'm assuming not iron? I imagine Stark trademarked the whole metal."

"Vibranium," he corrected her. "Before the Blip—before Thanos—I spent some time in Wakanda. This was a gift from the Dora Milaje."

She stepped up to him, and before she could think better of it, placed a hand on his arm. She attempted to lift it up, but it didn't budge. "It's heavy," she murmured.

He nodded. "Not only that, but it has a specific chemical signature. The same way we found Vision last year… I mean, it's not ideal, his whole body is made of Vibranium, I only have the arm. But anybody who's looking for us only needs to trace Vibranium decay."

She looked up from his arm, and set her gaze squarely on him.

Deep down, he knew he wasn't fooling her—they'd spent the last six months tracking down Vibranium, and there wasn't a single instance where Valentina or Ross had them track the decay signature, aside from their fluke finding Vision.

In their team dynamic, Yelena liked to play the role of the annoying kid sister, but James saw right through it—she was sharp, much sharper than she let on.

"You mean anybody who's looking for you," she said, slowly. She sighed. "You do realize what this means for the two of us, right?"

"I mean, I figured we'd already be glued to the hip, given we're marooned here together…"

Yelena half laughed and half groaned, smacking his shoulder. "You are going to get so sick of me, Captain."

"Keep calling me that, and definitely." He motioned towards the underbrush. "C'mon. Fifteen more minutes, tops. Then I swear we can pack it in for the night."

Even though he'd been free of Hydra's mind control for years, he still had nightmares.

Given the events of the day, James fully expected to have one of those nights where the second his head hit the ground, he'd be fast asleep. For better or for worse, though, that didn't happen. While Yelena promptly passed out and was snoring next to him within a matter of minutes, James lay awake, staring at the constellation of stars and planets above him.

Maybe this is a blessing, he mused. After all—going to bed, for a long time, had been the least favorite part of his day. He never knew which horrors from his past would come to visit him in his dreams.

Even though him and Yelena had hiked for what felt like hours, he could still hear the crashing of the waves against the shoreline, off in the distance. His fellow stranded Thunderbolt tossed and turned until she'd curled up into a fetal position, her face all of six inches away from his. Chirping crickets, hooting birds and insects emanated from the jungle around him, and combined with the sound of Yelena's breathing, the rise and fall of her chest, and the feeling of her breath against his skin, he felt himself slowly be lulled to sleep, enveloped in the cacophony of their desolate island.

That night, he didn't dream of any bloodshed. He wasn't the Winter Soldier, and he wasn't under Hydra's control.

For the first time in nearly seventy years, his dreams didn't turn into nightmares. Hell, he wasn't even sure it if was a dream, or if it was something that actually happened while he was half-asleep.

He dreamt of Yelena. He dreamt that she curled up next to him, nuzzled her head into his chest and whispered, "at least we have each other." He dreamt that he kissed her forehead in response, just as the two of them fell asleep, wrapped up in each other's arms.

A dream within a dream.

And when James awoke the next morning, he remembered what Doctor Strange had told him, right after he joined the Thunderbolts—about the Multiverse. About what dreams actually indicated, thanks to their recent findings.

"When we dream, it's a window into an alternate universe. What you're seeing is actually happening, somewhere out there, in the multiverse."

James wasn't sure if he actually kissed his universe's version of Yelena Belova, or if it was something secluded to another universe. But when he woke up the next morning, he knew something for certain—

He didn't see Yelena Belova quite the same way. And that meant he was in goddamn trouble.

Author's note: Thanks for reading! Check back in a few days for an update—next chapter, we get to see Yelena's POV on her and Bucky's situation, and a little bit of their dynamic before being stranded.

Let me know what you think in the reviews, any and all feedback is much appreciated!