Breakfast was laying out when James came out. Her eyes avoided him as she walked past him.

"Help yourself. I'm going to shower."

"I think I used all the hot water." He remarked.

"It'll be alright."

The water was cold. It was freezing, but she wanted brisk. Out back in the living room, she expected to see James sleeping again, or at the very least, on the couch, but he wasn't. There was a plate sitting on the dining table, with half the eggs gone and almost all of the bacon too, but no James. Her head turned at the feeling of a breeze against her skin, and she noticed the opened balcony door.

There he was, standing on the balcony, looking out intently. The sleeve of his normal arm was rolled up, but the other was still down, pooling around his metal knuckles that glistened from the sunlight. As she stared, the peaceful breeze wafting in and gently ghosting her skin, a sense of melancholy washed over her. Before her, if she wanted to give in and pretend, she could still see Bronson, remember him wearing that outfit. Her eyes were watering as James turned and looked over his shoulder.

"Everything okay?" She asked, blinking harshly. He stared at her closely and she wondered if he could see her eyes glinting from where he stood. Regardless, he turned back around, away from her.

"I was hoping standing in the sun could warm me up." It seemed simple enough, but at the same time, there was something about his statement that sounded so depressing. Silently, she walked out and stood a little ways away from him.

When she was able to, she glanced over at him, watching him stare down at the street below.

"Do you…do you really not remember anything at all?" Her voice was small.

"It's like glimpses." He finally answered, though didn't look at her. "But there's two versions. The real thing, and something else. Some things are completely gone. Some things feel so real but it's like…trying to see something in muddy water. Then it's gone." He lifted his gaze to the sun, and somehow, even with the warm tones highlighting his features and eyes, he still looked distressed. "Then, it comes back. And it's so vivid…but I don't know if it's true."

It was a never-ending job, adapting to care for Bucky, harder when days like the shower incident reminded her it was a job she wasn't too good at handling. A few days felt like a few weeks. One night, their silent conversation was interrupted with her ringing phone. Bucky looked at it in great alarm, leaping to his feet, and she wished she had stuck with the default ringtone rather than one that sounded like an alarm that warned of looming destruction.

"It's Steve." She told him, reading the name before showing him herself. She stared at him for a moment before she nearly answered, until his hand swatted it to the floor.

"Don't," he protested, sounding anxiously angry, bothered by Steve's presence even when he wasn't there.

"That's suspicious," She told him calmly, and he hesitated. The two of them stared down at the back of her ringing phone.

"If you tell him I'm here I'll run," He threatened. Solemnly, she nodded.

"Okay," she agreed as she kneeled to pick it up, hoping the screen hadn't shattered. It wasn't, and she answered on the last ring. "Hello?"

"Where are you?" She chuckled at Steve's no nonsense tact. It reminded her of herself.

"Far away from you."

"Are you with Fury?" It was clear he wasn't entirely sure where she was.

"Why don't you ask him."

"He would lie. And I consider us to be friends, Bellamy." Her eyes locked with Bucky and she swallowed. Prior, lying to Steve was never an issue—it was easy to lie to any of the Avenger's faces. But now, it wasn't. "So as a friend, Bellamy, tell me where you are. Please."

"It's a personal mission. Not in the states. I can't tell you more than that, and you need to respect that, Steve. As friends."

"Okay." He agreed. His naivety hurt her, for a reason she didn't completely know.

"Why?" He sighed on the other end.

"I heard something. I suppose it wasn't true. There was a sighting of the Winter Soldier from civilians, a couple of days ago." Bucky was frowning with his eyes on her.

"I'm sorry, Steve, I can't help you with that." Before he could say more, she hung up and dropped the phone from her ear. Bucky's eyes were concerned, she couldn't tell if he had heard Steve's voice or not. At least the concern in his eyes were the only concerning thing about his appearance; after his shower, he looked much healthier and less like a starving sewer rat. If she was still shaky on figuring out certain things, it was reassuring to know she could at least get him to look alive.

"He's upset." Bucky either guessed or had observed.

"He's worried about you." She told him.

"That's why he called?"

"Yes." He hesitated, staring at her phone again. "If…if you want to use my phone or call him—"

"No." He had walked away abruptly, going back to sitting on the couch.

"Why don't you trust Steve?" She asked him. "You two were friends. Close friends."

"I know," he murmured. "But Steve is chasing after someone who isn't here anymore." Quietly, she sat in her grandmother's broken chair, staring out the window.

"Maybe not."

"I'm not the same man." He insisted lowly. She turned away from the dark sky and city lights, looking at the couch still unslept in.

"Are you actually going to sleep tonight?" He shot her a look over his shoulder. "You look awful."

"So do you." Fair enough, she was the one bruised still.

"I guess we both need sleep." As he gazed over the couch, she took the opportunity to leave. "Goodnight, Bucky."

Outside her room in the hallway ticked the old grandfather clock from her family. Inside it, she knew his files were there. She didn't need to retrieve them from anywhere, they were there. In her mind, her lie was for the better; she wasn't done with him yet.

Despite their apparent agreement of sleep, she stayed restless and awake in bed. The gun was gone from underneath her pillow—the only improvement. On her back, she stared at the ceiling, awaiting for the tiniest of noises. Just as she was beginning to think she was possibility overly paranoid, she heard the creaky floorboards signaling footsteps in the next room over, the study that acted as her office. The sound she could've perhaps imagined, but not the unmistakable noise of the squeaky drawer to the old desk opening.

Silently, she pulled the covers back to get up and stop him before he could ransack another room of her house; she still hadn't cleaned the living room and her own bedroom didn't feel as organized as it once had.

Bellamy knew how to step on the floor in order to remain silent, and she stood in the shadow of the door frame, watching him. His back was to her as he peered at the large bookcase behind the desk. Thankfully and much to her relief, he only looked. He turned away and stopped in his tracks at something hanging on her wall. A frown grew on her face as he grabbed it slowly, perhaps thinking something was behind it, but instead he brought it closer for examination. His grip had tightened so much on the picture his metal fingers crushed through the glass. As if it had grown hot, it fell from his fingers and shattered to the ground. It was a picture of her, standing with her diploma from Brown University.

Her gaze raised in shock from the shattered glass to him, unexpectedly finding him staring at her. He was in some kind of state again, only this time, he looked utterly horrified at the sight of her. Slowly, she stepped forward, only for him to back away.

"Bucky, hey. It's me, it's alright. I'm not mad." She couldn't understand why he looked so terrified. He wasn't in a trance, his eyes were very clearly there, now avoiding her gaze.

"Why are you letting me stay here," He'd asked before, though this time in a tone as though he couldn't even fathom it.

"Because, I'm trying to help you."

"Then help me and give me my file so I can go!" He snapped, yelling. It was as if floodgates between them had broken, the silent conversation disappearing as nothing was no longer held back. "Why won't you just give it to me!"

"Because I'm not done with it yet!" She yelled back. He flinched, and she realized she was breathing hard. Rarely ever did she yell, and it made her think of Pierce. Bitterly, she grimaced at him, her only outlet for her anger, her only reason to hold so much pain. "Everyone thinks that once you become an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D. on a certain level you automatically get in on all the secrets. But you don't. That's not how Nick Fury works. Even as Deputy Director I was never told how my own father died. I'm still trying to find out." Her eyes were watering. Bucky stared back at her evenly.

"That's why I'm here," he realized flatly. No longer did she know what to say. He gestured to the picture on the ground between them. "That's when you graduated. It's when he died." His voice dropped lower and trembled slightly. "Because I did it." The self-hatred oozing from his words dragged her out of her selfish emotions.

"It wasn't you. It was HYDRA." It sounded more like she were trying to convince the both of them. "But, you know what happened. Please, you have to remember what happened, you have to try and remember. I've looked in every file, everywhere. I can't find my father's file, I can't find my own—you're my only hope."

"I'm your only hope?" He snorted darkly. "I am the reason your father is dead. I don't have to try to remember, I remember it very clearly. I remember you. I remember you standing next to your brother in the elevator in a blue dress suit, I remember the look on your face as I dragged him out to kill him." Her heart dropped, her vision blurred between normal and red. "It was me. Those were my hands and your brother's neck; you should hate me." She shook her head, not in disagreement, but in an effort to clear it.

"I did. I hated you every second at his funeral, I hated you every second I stood alone in that elevator, screaming and trying to get out to him, every single day of my life I hated you. And then, you killed Fury, well, so we thought. And there I was, the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., without my superior, father, and brother…because of you. And then, I found out everything I'd ever known was a lie. I found out nothing I did mattered, and it was all at the hands of HYDRA and I am tired of hating. I'm done. I'm trying to help myself and help you get inner peace."

"I don't deserve it." He rebuked her without hesitating. "I'm not worth it."

"Yes, you are." She insisted.

"How can you even say that?" He snapped, cutting her off. "You don't believe that. I'm a monster and I really did do all of these things. I did it. It's not just a nightmare your head comes up with when you are the nightmare. I remember every victim. And I remember your father, and I wish I could switch places with him so he could be here and you could have him and help him, not me."

"What happened?" Her voice was a whisper. Bucky glared at the floor, shaking his head. "What happened?" The second time she screamed that night, her voice shaky as if it didn't know how to raise. Bucky swallowed.

"I remember every second…" His voice too was uneven as he struggled to speak. "Your father kissed you goodbye that morning. He promised you he'd be there for your graduation. You were valedictorian, and giving a speech. Said he wouldn't miss it for the world." It was a memory she hadn't relived, and her eyes shut at the perfect picture. Her father was never a man to make promises, he considered himself a man of honor and never made them if he didn't intend to follow through. She never made promises either. She was overwhelmed with joy that morning; work kept him away a lot, but having her parents and brother there would make everything worth it.

At her graduation, he never showed up. It was the first time she felt truly let down by him. As she made the speech, a part of her still hoped he was there in the crowd, but he wasn't. After the small party her family threw her at their house was when she found out.

"He didn't miss it." Bellamy stared at him in shock. "He was there, watching, hiding. He knew I would be there too. He saw your speech, he knew it was the perfect location." Bellamy felt the tears beginning to overwhelm themselves in her eyes until they finally slid down her cheeks.

"What? Perfect location for what?" Bucky turned his dark gaze to her.

"I was never after your father. I was never after your brother. You were always the target." Horrified, she realized she had a job lined up for S.H.I.E.L.D. with her brother and father after graduation. When her father declined, she chose the U.N. instead. "He knew I would be there, he was watching from the roof of a building nearby. Damaged my arm and stopped the mission. HYDRA decided to let you live a bit longer as long as you suited their agenda."

It was too much. All this time, she was the reason. She was the cause. Her family was dead, because of her existence. She's spent more than enough time looking at the Winter Soldier's list of political assassinations. She was supposed to be on it.

Bucky's sudden change of expression from hatred to pity made her realize how much she was crying. Without a word, she turned away. With rough recklessness, she toppled the grandfather clock over and pulled open the back to pull out the thick files of information she had. With them in her hands, she stared into the doorway of her bedroom, not giving much thought to anything anymore and marching in to retrieve her gun. Wordlessly again, she returned to him in the same position.

She threw the files, both HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. documents, on the desk and gripped the gun tightly in her right hand. Still, she had so many questions, only now she wasn't sure if she even cared for the answers. A fury she'd never known was boiling in her chest, and she could hear her harsh breathing and feel the tears spilling from her eyes—she'd never felt so many emotions all at once in her life.

Bucky's eyes raised to the files before he looked at her, his gaze slipping calmly down to the gun she still held tightly in her shaking hand. She stared at his blank face, feeling her breathing grow more erratic, before she scowled in frustration and dropped the gun and chose instead to leave the room, and the apartment. If he left while she was gone, she wouldn't care anymore.