Let me know what we're thinking,

Listen to Bravado by Lorde for this chapter.

-g.

Tala took her trade mark three breaths, as the fear and self-loathing Bucky felt amplified with each moment she didn't react to his words or her own revelation.

She tamped her own emotions down as to not influence the man in front of her, and to bring herself back to her calm even state of mind.

Trusting any form of media was the kiss of death, without proper research she didn't know anything of the true story behind what James was, or wasn't.

She had heard the reports on a mysterious figure that had been the semi-quasi rival to Captain America, facilitating the master plan of an evil organization. Each report she'd heard had become more and more far-fetched bringing thoughts of Captain America being the true villain, of the so dubbed 'Winter Soldier' being the mask for Iron Man considering one of the only tid bits they knew of the villain himself was a bio-mechanical arm.

She also knew that whatever this faceless villain had been painted as, the face he held was that of Steve Roger's best friend and a hero. No mention of a metal arm was made in the memorial for James, although a death date had been provided.

Whatever had happened within the date of his 'death' and the events that had taken place a few weeks ago, that was what found this version of the man before her.

Suffering, and angry.

Of what she knew, she found a wounded soul only reacting out of self-preservation when threatened, and taking the role of protector when he'd had no obligation to do so.

He'd felt all the emotions of a soul sick human being, not a ruthless killer as he'd been spoken of.

Ruthless spoke of no conscious, and no man who felt guilt was no such thing.

Tala refused to react as James expected her to, already prepping his mind for the disgust and fear he expected from her.

Instead she reached towards Shadow, running a hand through the thick fur of her companion her focus and eyed refusing to flinch away from the dramatic show made by James.

"And who are you today?"

The question floored Bucky as he leaned back against the wall, staring at her in disbelief. He had absolutely no idea how to react now. Anger and attacks he could understand, he would know how to react after so much ingrained training. He'd come for this reason true, to find out who he truly was, but he hadn't put much thought into the reality that what he'd become while under the control of Hydra was also a part of himself now.

Just because he now had a potential different life, it didn't change what he'd done.

"What do you mean?" His question was short and raspy, as he pulled his jacket sleeve down to cover his arm once again, flexing his fist as he began to pull his glove back onto his uncovered hand.

"Well, you've got a mouthful of names. James, Buchanan, Bucky, Barnes, Winter Soldier. Alliteration you have, hands down. You said and I quote 'It will give away who I am.'. So, I'm asking you, who are you?"

As Tala spoke she scooted across her floor, reaching her hands out to grasp his own as he attempted to pull on the glove to cover his metal skin. He jumped pulling his hands away in a jerking motion, but she managed to keep a grip on his hands pulling them gently back to her.

She pulled his glove off of his normal hand, and tugged the other glove before placing the pair in her lap. She hesitated to pull her hand away, her fingers warm against the silver metal that felt smooth and cold.

After another moment, she let his hand go struggling for a moment with where to place her own before laying them palm up in her lap on top of his gloves.

Flexing his hands experimentally, feeling bare after having hidden his arm for the better part of three weeks, he answered her slowly with Steve in the back of his mind who called him by a name he knew nothing about till this morning.

"I'm the Winter Soldier… and I'm Bucky. I am both, but I don't remember much of one, and none of the other. Who does that make me now?"

Tala smiled as he spoke plainly with her, letting his guard that had been slowly declining since petting Shadow fall drastically. His emotions, although still frightened of the situation, shifted to one of sincere earnest. He wanted her help, no matter his disguise of aloofness, even if he didn't quite understand how.

Tala shrugged and leaned back onto her hands, her legs still crisscrossed as her knees touched his shins with her stretching movement.

"That is completely up to you, Bucky." Bucky watched her move, the scene comfortable and he couldn't understand why. He'd been with this woman just a few hours, and he now sat intent on speaking about their feelings. Feelings for heaven's sake, when he was supposed to be some sort of super soldier.

Tala yawned for a moment, glancing towards her kitchen, her stomach giving off a rumble.

"How 'bout we continue this over some sandwiches handsome?"

Tala sat with her chin resting on her balled fists watching Bucky as he held a knife with expertise as he cut the crusts off the four sandwiches he'd assembled through her direction.

As they'd moved to her kitchen, He'd begun to speak fluidly without the grunted sentences he'd given her so far.

He spoke of his reasons for heading to the Smithsonian, his need to find out what he was to Captain America. He never divulged what made him search in the first place, but Tala didn't bother to probe him for the answer. As he spoke, she used a small thread of her already stretched thin powers to search through the emotions he exuded while speaking of his intent to find information, and expanded her awareness to delve deeper into all the emotions that interconnected to the ones he held.

She'd found this ability in the first century of her life after dealing with a son of a neighboring tribe who had been dealt a vicious head blow by a trapper party that had left him with amnesia. She had sought to only ease the fright within his mind, and had fallen into the boys very soul as every instance where he'd felt fear resurfaced, and the several different emotions he'd felt within those memories came unraveled like a woven blanket coming undone.

After days of focused work, and clumsy probing, she'd pulled all the memories tied to his emotions from the clouded areas of his brain, to its front. He'd remembered his mother, and his betrothed, knew his dislike of delivering the final blow to elk, and his own name.

After that experience, she'd grown the skill with each case, and acquired the ability to stifle memories by dulling the emotions attached to it.

She could effectively alter a humans emotions on any subject with a few hours and focus after so many years of perfecting the ability.

The emotion most prevalent when Bucky spoke was confusion.

Drifting between reality and the world unfolding within Bucky's mind and her own, Tala pushed her thread into the area of his mind which held his past. His memories to her mind's eye looked like severely burned skin. Puckered, discolored, and blurred past recognition. Images so marred, as her power slipped through, she couldn't make out anything within his memories of confusion.

Choosing a particular image, and widening the thread of her power to resemble a net, Tala captured the moment and began to dig through the scarring prying to pull away the wrinkles that marred her vision, to bring fresh 'skin' so to speak to the surface.

Several minutes passed without any movement at all, Tala growing frustrated as her own mind began to buckle under the weight of the extensive power drain from her already depleted stores.

Just as the moorings of her net began to loosen, the imaginary burned envelope of the particular memory began to shed within her net, coming free in flakes to drift into the ether, harmless as it gave way beneath her power.

Snippets began to show, of a clean cut Bucky. Hair cut short and slicked back in an old military style, clean shaven and a hesitant smile. The edges of the memory still blurred, but the confusion came from the hesitant acceptance of a friend now turned legend whose likeness was being plastered to a camp wall. Past Bucky had felt a part of himself unsure and confused if this same 'Captain America' was going to be the same man with paper in his shoes and a sense of justice as large as his heart. He'd helped the kid in so many brawls, he didn't know what he was going to find when he came face to face with Steve again. A man who could kick his ass no doubt. A fellow soldier came to stand next to Bucky, chewing a cigar butt noisily before spitting the thing to the dirt before them, giving Bucky a sense of disgust at the act.

"A beacon eh? He's lily white he is." The insult meaning the soldier viewed Steve as a coward who'd never seen filth of war stuck in Bucky's craw as he turned to give the man a piece of his mind.

With the waning power, Tala had practically no control over the last tendrils of her power as her consciousness was suddenly whisked to another scarred memory, this one with a more modern feeling. As the skin flayed itself from the memory, she only caught Bucky peering out at a full room, his arms and body strapped to a chair as mechanical equipment around him gave off small rumbles. Disgust ran rampant, nearly sending Bucky's stomach into an upheaval at the thought of carrying out the bidding of the men surrounding him. His mind hurt, hurt with effort of trying to understand what he'd done since he'd been released. He'd killed someone, he'd hurt others, and as a jolt suddenly shot through his thoughts sending everything in his mind scrambling, he lost the battle against his stomach as he emptied the contents onto his chin and chest.

Tala's mind buckled under the weight of the extreme emotions running throughout the two sets of memories now reawakened within his mind, she fell through his subconscious returning to her own mind.

As sure as she knew her own name, she held no more power within her, completely tapped out for the time being.

Gasping with effort and a slight pounding in her own mind, Tala opened her eyes to find Bucky frozen. Eyes glassed over, his grip on the knife tight, his muscles tense and bulging as he stared into nothingness reliving the memories within himself.

Sweat streaked her face and as she reached up to wipe it away before it wandered into her eyes, Bucky returned to their world his wild eyes finding her instantly as he bellowed frantically.

"What did you fucking do?"

His tone was harsh and accusatory, and was instantly followed by a snarl to his left where Shadow had been taking a nap, but was now on his feet his muzzle pulled back in a snarl, teeth barred ready to attack.

Bucky jerked towards the dog holding the knife up for protection, which sent Tala into a wild movement of flinging herself between her dog and him.

"Don't." The command reminiscent of earlier in their day, instantly brought Bucky's hand down as he dropped the knife to the kitchen counter, sliding his body down her cabinetry to practically pool on the floor.

Bucky's mind felt as if something had pried its hinges from their mooring, not completely open but stretched and with it fresh memories had sprung forth flooding him with strong emotions as he saw himself as a soldier of the United States, and a slave soldier.

The impact of each small scrap had sent him reeling with its information, and as he tried to stay calm had felt Tala's influence expanding his aching mind, and had acted feral in panic.

Tala snapped her fingers to Shadow who instantly calmed and sat looking as innocent as a dove before turning back to the shambled Bucky. No fear in her stance, she moved around the island in her kitchen to move onto her knees before him, resting her bum on her heels reaching her hands to smooth against his arms as Buck sat with his back against the cabinets, his feet flat against the wood, knees high and spread apart his own hands holding onto either side of his head. His breathing was labored as he panted softly.

"I'm sorry if that caught you off guard, I didn't mean to go so deep so quickly. I was just probing and got caught up… It was an invasion of privacy, so you are totally within your own rights to be absolutely furious with me. Technically speaking, it is what you were wanting, but that is beside the point… So, it seems you've a strange and scary past darling. That was just a small taste, but I am not sure which side you play for, but no worries I'm not running for the hills yet.. You've been used Buck, and this is going to be harder than I think either of us have thou-"

"Tala, please, shut up."

Bucky softly pleaded to Tala as his raw emotions slowly began to settle, storing his older/new memories within himself to assemble with the rest of himself later. For the moment, all the revelations her intrusion had brought upon him faded with the warmth transported by the friction of her hands against his arms as she moved them in a comforting manner, his arms now uncovered in a t-shirt as his jacket hung on the rack in the corner next to her own.

She felt heavenly as chills ran throughout his body, tamping down his panic at the new memories with fresh fever.

Reaching forward with his metallic arm, Bucky caught her face once more and pulled the kneeling woman between his bent knees, to capture her lips for himself this time.

Tala clumsily fell forward as Bucky pulled her forward, twisting her body to land on her hip right at the apex of his legs, her own legs curling behind her as he kissed her hungrily.

His metal hand held her cheek tenderly as his other hand grabbed her legs behind her knees pulling her closer to his chest, cuddling her into the center of his body as he bit at her lips impatiently.

Bucky felt the tension that had ridden his back hard since he'd fled from the water's edge leaving Steve behind bleed from him as he gathered Tala into his arms. Exhaustion was hitting him like a train after the weeks he'd ran, and now with his quickly reawakening memories that this woman was bringing on in scary rapid succession.

It frightened him to his very core, and he needed to react on instinct to bring himself back together. She was absolutely breathtaking, and the kiss she'd given him in the train station had done little to negate the feelings of primal need that had existed since she'd offered her small hand to him in the damn museum.

After all this time of pain and anger, Bucky needed to feel something else. Rather than the death around him, he needed something nearer to life affirming.

Tala felt like a doll as James pulled her closer to him, his kisses although clumsy and rusty, made up in fervor and wanton as his hand moved from her face to sink into her hair, deepening his kiss as he opened his mouth slowly to run his tongue against her lower lip as if asking for permission to enter.

Opening her own mouth to match his passion, Tala let out a sigh as her tired mind shut down as endorphins flooded her being, making her skin hot and itchy.

At the back of her mind, Tala vaguely registered that the man who held her now was indeed a killer, whether by his own volition or not was still to be decided but with the way his hand now rubbed against the small of her back she could hardly think straight.

Her hair felt like silk threads against the metal that made up his arm, sending shiver throughout his body as his other hand massaged the small of her back. As she joined in the passion of the kiss, He slowly moved his hands underneath the bottom of her tank top his fingertips delighting in the feeling of her warm smooth skin.

As his fingers touched bare skin, Tala felt tingles race from each point he touched that raced throughout her burning body, to the center of her stomach.

Tala, having found sense somewhere in the back of her mind, pulled her mouth away from Bucky, her body staying wrapped within his own, unable to move even if she asked it to.

Meeting his gaze, which burned into her own, a fire dancing within his pupils which begged her, as Tala's mouth curved into a silly lilting smile.

"I think, we ought to separate now."

Her voice was low and husky as Bucky leaned forward nuzzling the small triangle a the base of her throat as he mumbled dangerously.

"You move first."

Swept up in the feeling of his tongue against her skin, Tala nearly threw her inhibitions to the very wind. The sobering thought was the flash of his own memory of killing a man that found her reluctantly detaching her body from his grip, and scuttling very inelegantly backwards away from him to sit hard on to the floor.

Bucky raised his right hand to feel his lips were Tala's nipping had swollen his bottom lip slightly, his eyes still smoldering at her watched the woman in front of him. He wanted her, she knew he was dangerous, hell she knew he'd killed, and still handled him with a fair and impartial mind.

He didn't deserve this, he hadn't earned the peace she offered, and yet as she watched him with the eyes of sea foam he yearned for it.

Minutes passed between them before Tala spoke plainly, crisscrossing her legs, leaning back on her hands as she had just before coming to the kitchen.

"I think we need to do some research, after a pair of cold showers my enigmatic darling."

"Research?" For the first time Bucky's voice was filled with a playful hint as he placed both wrists on his knees, moving his legs in an awkward manner to shift himself in his jeans, which now pinched without room.

Tala shrugged, lolling her head on her shoulders taking her three deep breaths.

"We've got memories, and we've got this magical thing called the internet. So, no more touchy… at least until we conduct some research."

With another wink from Tala, Bucky sucked in a breath, wondering if he'd signed up for a new form of torture.

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