"You know, why don't you take my bed?" Bellamy suggested one morning as she watched Bucky stare unseeingly straight at a wall. His lack of sleep lately was worrying her, and she tried as best she could to make her suggestion sound casual, but it seemed to snap him right out of his state as he sent her an incredulous look.

"What?"

"I mean I'm a lot smaller than you, I can take the love-seat. I'm a heavy-sleeper, I can fall asleep anywhere—"

"Bellamy." He stopped her with a shake of his head and a short chuckle. "What are you doing?" She tried to playing it off and stared back at him, innocently quizzical. "I used to think you were good at lying, but I know you a bit better now." She sighed as he waited expectantly.

"You need more sleep."

"You don't have to worry about me." He tried to tell her forcefully, but she shook her head and joined him on the love-seat.

"Right. Well, while you were staring at the wall like a zombie," he rolled his eyes. "I was researching sleep relief. It's all very broad, or not applicable. Though, there were a few things you could try, yoga, for instance—"

"What? Bellamy, listen," He interrupted her again, frowning and beginning to smile at the same time. "I'm not taking your bed, got it? I'm still in debt to you for everything else and I'm starting to run up quite the tab." She scoffed. "The last thing I'm going to do is take your own bed in your apartment."

"What keeps you up?" She questioned softly, inspecting his face. "Is it…that you can't fall asleep? Are you just forcing yourself to stay awake? Is it nightmares?"

"Nightmares." He mumbled back softly in confirmation, eyes unseeing again. She swallowed.

"You don't have to tell me about them. But…I did read one thing that you could try." She pulled her legs up on the couch and sat crisscrossed in front of him. "If it's the same kind of dream, reoccurring or similar, you could try writing them down to analyze. They say it helps to then reimagine them when you're conscious to have a different, better ending. It helps about 70% of people." Bucky nodded slowly.

"…I'll try it." She smiled, thinking of all of his progress thus far and knowing he meant it.

As agreed upon, they practiced baking a lot. She was happy to see Bucky helped more and more with each pie, flattered more so that he actually tried a bite of each one after they finished, even when she told him he didn't have to. Their rookie mistakes were long gone, and it was nearing perfect.

When they weren't trying to bake, they spent time reading on the love-seat silently, side by side. Bucky was a quick reader, to her surprise. A talking pig and an intelligent spider surprised him in a good way; he was very intrigued. Every so often, she would glance away from The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner to watch his eyes flit across the pages, book in one hand with the other hand ready to turn the page. Sometimes he would catch her, but only because he had been the one staring first.

It wasn't long before it was time for them to volunteer. It was easy to get Bucky approved since she'd been so involved with a particular foster home in Harlem, in partnership with the Children's Aid Society. She'd done everything from tutoring to giving important speeches, but she particularly enjoyed spending time with the younger children, the precious impressionable youth, which is what she and Bucky would be doing together. It was sure to be light and easy-going, or so she thought.

Once around the children, Bucky stuck close to her side, rigid and seemingly terrified as he carefully avoided the small children, picking his way around them as though they were small bombs about to go off. He especially took care to have his metal hand jammed into his pocket at all times.

"Cynthia, please don't run sweetheart, come and paint. It's a special painting day, your paper plate is empty. Oh, that is a very good monkey, Andre. Jasmine, take the paintbrush out of your mouth, you hold it in your hand. Like this." Bellamy found a second to glance up at Bucky standing beside her from where she was kneeling in front of the craft table and grew sympathetic at his wide eyes. He had no idea what to do.

A child squealed in excitement and he jumped.

"Hey, Bucky? You can go outside if you need a breather?" She told him reassuringly. He glanced down at her.

"No, they're fine." She wasn't convinced, until a small boy ran into his legs and giggled as another boy chased him. They played around his legs, weaving around him.

"Hey, hey," she told them, trying to nudge them away from Bucky the best she could with paint covered hands. "That's rude boys, you should apologize when you run into someone. Right?" The two boys both nodded.

"Sorry!" They both chirped cheerfully up at Bucky, undeterred by whatever presence he thought he had.

"No problem, boys." He said, and that was when that look came back. Of wanting to be better, of wanting to try. Only because it was on his face, she asked him if he wanted to join.

"…Sure." He answered, after he took another look at the children around them to make sure. Bellamy stood and clapped her hands twice.

"Okay, little ones." She called, earning their attention. "My friend Bucky here needs a partner and he's really, really good at painting."

"No I'm not," he disagreed beside her in a slightly panicked whisper. She ignored him, but stifled a smile.

"Who wants to team up with him for our painting contest?"

"I do!"

"No, me!" The kids were more excited than he could have predicted, than even she could, and they each tried to outdo each other by sticking their hands up in the air higher and higher. One little boy decided to climb a chair to get his hand higher, and of course, the idea caught on like a little wildfire.

"No, no—don't climb the chairs!" Bellamy told them quickly, trying to get them all down and catching sight of one other little boy with one foot on a chair, raising the other but slipping and nearly face planting onto the wooden chair. She gasped and felt her heart jolt and tried to reach out, but he didn't fall. Bucky had been closer, and faster, and caught him somehow firmly and gently at once, with his metal hand supporting his chest.

The boy squealed happily as he teetered in the air, balanced on Bucky's glinting hand before he placed him gently on the ground. Once there, the boy grabbed at the hand quickly. "Woah, your hand is cool! It's shiny, look!" He said as he inspected it. Bellamy grew worried as the kids began to surround him, all pulling and touching his hand.

"Hey, hey, give Bucky some space!" Bellamy tried, but was drowned out by children's wonder and amazement.

"Mr. Bucky, Mr. Bucky!" One voice rose above the others as a small girl, Jada, Bellamy recognized, pushed through the others in excitement. "You're just like me!" The other kids quieted down as she excitedly began to pull her right pant leg up to reveal a prosthetic leg. "I'm not supposed to show people, but you're just like me so it's okay, right?"

Jada stared up at Bucky with big brown eyes filled with a certain kind of happiness Bellamy could never understand or comprehend, but it was enough to fill her heart at the sight. Bucky stared down at the tiny girl with a look that was something of stunned horror that she realized was at the cruelty of the world itself. In slow movements, he knelt down in front of the little girl with soft understanding eyes and the beginning of a smile.

"Yeah, it is okay, sweetheart." He spoke gently before he gave her a bigger reassuring smile, and raised his hand as a means of inviting her to grab it. "I guess we were meant to be friends, huh?"

"I knew my prayers would be answered." Jada dodged his hand completely and flew into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face into his shirt. "I asked God for a friend like me, because you're supposed to pray for things you want. And now you're here." Slowly, Bucky raised his normal arm and rested it lightly against her head, and then raised his other hand to rest on her back as he returned the hug. Maybe it was the first one he'd had since 1945.

"I'd be honored to be your friend." His reply came out like a wisp of air, his voice light and peaceful. It was the gentlest tone she'd ever heard him use.

"Can I paint with you?" She asked as she pulled away, now full of eager energy that made the tight black coiled curls framing her face bounce.

"That's what friends are for, right?" Jada beamed and pulled on his hand to guide him over to her spot at the craft table, and Bellamy realized she had a smile herself.

"Alright, let's get back to paining, everyone."

Bellamy paired up with Hayden, the little boy who had nearly face planted on the chair, and the cozy little group of them crafted everything from a lion to an octopus. She kept an eye on Bucky, but realized she didn't have to when she noticed the ease on his face, the way he didn't have to worry about hiding his hand around them. Now that he knew they didn't see him as a threat, now that he had used what he thought made him a weapon for good, that a sweet little girl saw him as a hero for it, he seemed lighthearted.

Bucky answered every question thrown his way graciously; he'd lost his arm because he was a solider ("My daddy was a soldier!"), he just turned 30 ("You're really old."), and his favorite color? "Uh...red."

At one point, Bellamy glanced up and noticed Bucky had, somehow, gotten paint on his nose.

"Bucky," she tried quietly to get his attention. "Bucky." He looked up from the lady bug in progress on the plate only when Jada began nudging his arm. Bellamy hid a smile—perhaps of extra satisfaction after her embarrassing hot dog incident—as she pointed to her own nose. "You've got some paint." Suddenly all the children at the table began to laugh. Amazingly enough, Bucky laughed too after a moment.

"We match!" Jada had dabbed red paint on her own nose. This of course led to the rest of the kids doing the same. Bellamy even allowed Hayden to spot purple onto hers.

"Are you and Bellamy a couple?" Cute and giggly Jasmine asked when the nose-painting craze died down. Bellamy nearly ruined the clownfish she was painting. When she looked up, she made the mistake of locking eyes on Bucky, who stared straight back at her. Flustered, she redirected her gaze to the curious little girl.

"No, no. Bucky and I are just roommates."

"So you guys are married?" Somehow, she had made it worse and she wasn't sure if her face was growing flush or drained.

"Do you sleep in the same bed?" Hayden asked as he looked up at her with innocently questioning eyes. Giggles began to erupt, surely a bad sign.

"No…" She wasn't even sure how to go about it. Across from her, Bucky was looking directly down. "You all are like a big family, right? Here together, you guys have each other. Well, right now, in a way, Bucky and I just have each other."

"Like love?" Jada piped up. "Families love each other."

"There's different kinds of love. There's married love and family love and friend love…" Bellamy swallowed. "Bucky is my friend."

"Best friend?"

"…Yeah. He's my best friend." Bucky looked up now, eyes furrowed. "Alright, are we all finished?"

Of course, there was no clear winner; they all were and got to celebrate with pouches of apple juice and goldfish snacks. Bellamy read to the children after that a story about a family of raccoons. Bucky sat crisscrossed on the ground listening with the children—Jada wouldn't leave his side. She allowed him to leave only after he promised he would be back to visit, something that seemed more than easy for him to do. In fact, it seemed as though it was harder for him to leave her.

"I'm sorry about all the questions." Bellamy told him later in the car. It was dusk, and given that, it seemed safe enough for him to sit beside her in the passenger seat.

"They're kids." He shook her apology off dismissively. "It's really something, how blunt they are. Kinda makes you wish adults could be that straightforward."

"You're right. They certainly don't hold back." She agreed with a chuckle. The streetlights came in waves, washing over them for a second before they were drenched in darkness once more.

"Listen…" He said after he cleared his throat. "I know they put you in a tough spot back there. I didn't really know what to say, and I understand why you said what you said." Bellamy glanced over at him quizzically, and it took her a moment to understand.

"You think I lied." She realized finally, with a chuckle. When she glanced at him again, the lights illuminated his dumbfounded expression.

"Didn't you?" Directing her gaze back to the road, she smirked.

"I thought you could tell now when I'm lying and when I'm not." He said nothing. "You asked me at what point do the people I spend my time with stop being strangers. It's when you spend more time with them than you have with your own mom in the past five years, in closer quarters than you could ever prepare for." He was looking out the window the next time the faint orange light made him visible.

"Best friends don't—" She reached over and put her hand firmly over his hand. He flinched, and she realized it was his metal one, but she left it.

"Stop." She told him gently. "Did you see what you did with this hand today? I didn't say I was best friends with the Winter Soldier, did I? I'm friends with Bucky Barnes." He swallowed, but nodded. Like sleeping, like going out in public, everything was a work in progress.

"But I feel like…" He trailed off, searching for a way to continue.

"You don't consider me your best friend, huh?" She mused, teasing. "Of course."

"No, no." He disagreed quickly, snorting and sending her a look. "It's just, best friends know more about each other."

"Sure." She concurred.

"I feel like you're holding back still."

"It's not that I'm holding back. I mean…what am I supposed to say. I am just…an unemployed former agent. By the books and painfully boring."

"You're not boring, Bellamy."

"I don't have a life."

"Of course you do. You volunteer—those kids love you. The McGraths love you. You've read more books than I could imagine reading, and your music?"

"Alright, let's not." He chuckled.

"I can tell you you're not boring. That's not what I'm asking."

"What are you asking?" He thought for a long moment.

"If you could be anything you wanted, anything in the world, what would it be?" His head was leaned back against the seat as he stared out at the city passing by. It felt like a leisurely Sunday stroll, like they'd somehow been here before.

"Spontaneous." She decided after a span of silent thought. "I think about other agents a lot. About how they can do anything and it doesn't make them uncomfortable and I think about me, and how I got so lost in it all. And I wish I could just…let the moment take me and act on whatever I felt." Bucky was smiling at something outside the window, before he turned to her. And that's when she realized he was smiling at her.

"Girls just want to have fun, huh?" She rolled her eyes, but chuckled. "That's one of your guilty pleasures, isn't it. And you can't lie; it was in your library."

"Ah, yes. That proves I'm not boring." She responded dryly, and Bucky laughed. "And what would you want to be, out of anything in the world?"

He grew serious again and let his head rest against his seat.

"Good."

"You are good." She told him lightly, but resolute. "Anyone could watch you today and see that."

"I want to be better."

"Maybe we can. Who says we can't just be these things? We just have to try right, I mean, what's stopping us?" He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing."

"We've both just, hit a low in our lives. But when you reach a low point, there comes a time when you have to go up." Bucky took a breath, but looked in agreement at her. Resolved.

"Well, up we go then."

Bucky was nearing the end of Charlotte's Web, not surprisingly in a short amount of time. Bellamy was too enraptured to notice as she too was winding down on The Flamethrowers, until she heard a sniffle. At first, it blended into the background, but then it came again, and stopped her reading eyes, directing them to Bucky beside her, who sniffled once more and lowered the book. His eyes were glossy. She stared without even one inkling on what to do.

"Bucky?" She asked uncertain and feeling helpless. One tear slipped from his eye delicately. "Bucky." She said, now in growing alarm at the sight of the fallen tear, and put down her book. His face was breaking, but also trying to fight the emotion away as he tried harshly to blink away what he was feeling. "Bucky, hey, it's okay." She scooted closer cautiously. At the movement, maybe at the words, he scooted forward to the edge of the love-seat and buried his face in his hands, his elbows on his legs. Now broken, he was trying to cry quietly, but she could see his frame shaking.

Bellamy stared, unable, unsure, and their prior conversation popped into her head. Other agents and their actions—lately she'd found herself asking, what would Natasha do? She'd been trained to rely on logic, head, head, head. Your mind is your biggest weapon, she was always told. But now, she had to think with her emotions. What was the right thing to do now?

Not thinking about boundaries, not being afraid, she placed her arm gently over his back, embracing his much bigger body the best she could.

"Just let it out." She told him gently, though she felt a bit guilty, and bewildered. He sniffled again, and straightened up, shaking his head.

"Sorry." He apologized, shaking his head in a bit of apparent disdain. "I don't…I just…" She waited silently beside him. "Steve." He finished simply, and that was all that needed to be said. She frowned down at her lap.

"Don't apologize, Bucky. It's okay…it's natural to get overcome with everything." He stared at the ground with a tear-streaked face, and she stared at him and bit her lip. "You know…I can call Steve." Bucky glanced over at her, and swallowed.

"No. It isn't that. He's just the biggest reminder of my past life. It reminds me of everything I once was and…everything I'm not anymore." He leaned back beside her. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks from his tired eyes and stopped any words she could offer from coming out. Instead, she merely sat, wishing over and over that she had the power to take his pain away and transfer it to the perpetrators, or even herself rather than him, anything to stop the tears from dripping down his so very doleful face. So lost, defenseless.

And that was when she realized she still had it all wrong even when she thought she finally had it right.

Bellamy needed to be a whole reconstruction team, a builder, who nudged him in the right direction of his future. Somewhere along the way, she had begun to only see his pain. Pitiful was the only thing that came to mind. There was no other colors there in her single selective sight—that's what she had started to believe—but Bucky was a mural consisting of not only bloody crimson, but misty and somber grays and indigos that blossomed to lovely violets and exuberant gold, speckled with bright oranges and yellows all over skies of both blue and black. Beyond the colors, he was hazy. His lines were sharp and sometimes blurry—sometimes they weren't straight or well-defined or able to make any shape at all. And she realized, instead of feeding into her own pity for him, she needed to help him see his own colors—the colors he himself had painted on his own canvas—and that meant opening her own eyes wider to see them first, and the story it created.

"Maybe you don't have Steve, or anything anymore, and maybe it'll work out again someday and you two will be friends again and you'll feel peace…but until then, you have me." He stared at her for a long time, his tears drying.

"Is that why you gave me this book?" She wished she could have said yes, that it had always been her intention, but truthfully, it was what she thought would be a nice way for him to pass time, to take his mind off of things. Maybe it turned out to be more important than that, just like the volunteering trip had been.

"I didn't mean for it to make you cry," She apologized, but smiled in reassurance. "But that's okay. Sometimes you need to." He leaned his head back.

"I wish I could just…unstrap everything. Let it all go." Her smile fell, but his words gave her an idea.

"Maybe you don't need to let it go." He looked at her, and she softly continued on. "Did you know every S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters holds a Wall of Valor? It's a display of heroes to S.H.I.E.L.D. who sacrificed everything selflessly and heroically. Your name is on there, I've seen it more than once. And I can't take you there anymore to see it…but there is somewhere else I can take you with the same significance."

"Why?" He asked, sitting up. They were closer than they'd ever been before, except for the time when he'd had his hand wrapped around her neck, death in his eyes. That had been so long ago, and yet, it still felt like years in comparison to the actual time that had passed.

"Maybe it's not about just letting it all go. You still like hot dogs. You still hate apple. You're still good, just like you always were, and I'm not the only person who thinks that. Maybe you have to remember and keep the important things of who you were, and then just continue to…grow."

And he didn't even ask where, he didn't ask for her to explain any further what she meant; the look of confusion, of aimlessness was overpowered and gone like his tears. Now, he stared back with complete trust, and nodded decisively.

"Take me there."