They were sent on a mission to thwart a terrorist group off the Florida Keys just after lunch and Bucky was almost grateful to have a break from the tower, from the routine, and just maybe from his beautiful little neighbor.

Everything had gone as planned except there were about thirty less soldiers than they had anticipated so it was a long night of traveling with not a lot of action with half of them there. They were on the way back and he was tired, leaning back in his seat with his eyes closed. When someone slid into the seat next to him, he instantly knew who it was.

And he really wasn't in the mood to talk to her.

"You can't keep ignoring me," Natasha whispered.

Bucky didn't move. "Wanna bet?"

"I have a proposition for you."

He would have told her to fuck off, but he had a bad feeling her "proposition" involved something – someone – he was more than a little interested in. When he didn't say anything, she took it as an invitation to continue.

"I had lunch with Marley today," Natasha started.

Bucky was all too aware of that. Watching her eat the lunch Natasha had procured for her with all of those little nummy noises did a number on him. It had been just way too easy for him to envision those gorgeous lips wrapped around his cock instead of that banana and making those same sinful noises. Almost made him hard again just thinking about it.

"And?" Bucky prompted.

"I've asked Steve for permission to take over her physical training," Natasha explained. "Considering how… powerful she is, she needs more than Avenger calisthenics 101."

That didn't make it better. Now he'd imagine sparring with a Marley with Nat's fighting style. If she got her thighs around his head…

Shit. He had to focus. Okay, Nat training Marley to fight in her style.

"I can see it. You're comparable in size," he said, thinking out loud. "What's in it for you?"

"What do you mean?"

Natasha had said that way too innocently for Bucky to buy her benevolent act.

"You know what I mean. You don't offer to do anything without incentive. No offense."

"None taken."

When she didn't speak for a long moment, he opened his eyes and glanced at her.

"What she's got… her abilities… They are impressive. But it's not enough. Marley has to be able to physically fight, to fend for herself, and you know that. If I had to, I could get around her fire power and possibly take her down. You probably could."

Bucky snorted, thought about her words, trying to read her to get what she was really saying.

"You're worried about her?"

Natasha nodded. "She's not like us. Even with everything the world's handed her, she's not even slightly bitter. Not yet."

"Not yet? What do you mean?"

"There's a lot in her back story. The fires, the casualties, HYDRA, the abusive ex."

That got Bucky's attention.

"Abusive ex?"

"So, you do like her?" Natasha's small smirk wasn't quite triumphant.

Bucky shook his head. "What's not to like? The girl's gorgeous and… nice. I can like her all I want but there's no way. Her and someone like me? No."

Natasha stared at him hard. "Why not her and someone like you? There's no reason why you couldn't test the waters."

Bucky scoffed. "Even if she was like us, no. Just no. I'm way too much baggage for a dame like her to handle. She deserves a lot better than me."

"Shouldn't she decide that?"

"She's interested?"

"Maybe."

He wasn't touching that one. It wasn't even an issue. Marley was still mostly scared of him. Maybe in time, she'd get over that. They seemed to be on their way to becoming friends.

The part of him that was once good, that once was Bucky, would have loved her. Would have treated her like the princess she was. He would have pampered her, could have loved her gently.

HYDRA made him hard, gave him darker appetites. The man he was now could only pretend to be the gallant prince she needed for so long before the more dominant needs he had came out. And then she would run from him. That he didn't think he could survive.

"Tell me about the abusive ex," Bucky said instead.

"Dead. She killed him in the apartment fire," Natasha explained thoughtfully.

He knew about the fire, had heard her explain to Steve that her powers had emerged from her fear. The apartment fire was the first time they surfaced. What had the abusive ex done to make her so afraid? That had to be the reason.

How could anyone hurt her? Even if he hadn't seen firsthand what she could do with all that fire power, in his mind she was the most gentle woman he'd ever met.

"I didn't ask what happened with him. I didn't have to. It's obvious in the way she moves, her body language, that someone hurt her. Badly." Natasha's gaze met his.

Bucky frowned at that.

"I want to help her. Think about it. Someone like her has the potential to be the baddest bitch the world has ever seen. I want to contribute to that."

Bucky chuckled at that. It was like imagining a fire-breathing kitten. Even when he'd been able to motivate Marley to unleash that fire, it almost felt like a defense mechanism as opposed to a deliberate act. Sure, Marley had great power within her. She just couldn't wield it and maybe she'd never be able to.

But if Natasha wanted to train her, to help keep her safe, well, he could help with that. He wanted that too. Even though she'd come from the dark clutches of HYDRA, even more so than himself. The miracle of it was that she was kind and beautiful. Bucky didn't want to see anything happen to her to change that.

"So, what's your proposition?" He asked for clarification, knowing what his answer would be.

"Help me make her deadly," Natasha bid him. "Help me make her one of us."

Bucky nodded. That he could do.

They made it back to the tower and it was almost 3 AM. They trudged off the quinjet, were evaluated by medical, and one by one made their way back to their own places. Steve waited for him and they walked together back to their floor, stepping off the elevator and seeing light in the hallway.

Marley's room. They exchanged a glance and headed in that direction. There were no sounds of distress, much to his relief, but he realized that half of them had left the tower for the mission. They had to be smarter than that. It was something they needed to think about with HYDRA looking for her.

As it was, Natasha and Marley were curled up on the sofa, drinking chocolate from steaming cups and laughing about Steve taking a tumble off a building earlier on the mission.

"Making fun of me, Romanov?" Steve grinned from the doorway.

"Always," the redhead told him, then finishing the story while Marley giggled, the sound messing with Bucky's head.

Marley rose from the sofa and waved him and Steve in, still listening to Natasha. She poured mugs for the new arrivals and delivered them. Her hair was a wild mess and her robe was open to reveal a thin t-shirt and short shorts for sleepwear. The fact that she wasn't wearing a bra wasn't helping him at all. Her legs were long, smooth. He could just imagine what they would look like wrapped around his waist.

"Are you okay?" Marley had asked.

It took Bucky a moment to figure out she had asked Steve on the heels of Natasha's story. Steve's face flushed. He'd been checking her out too and for a split second had thought he'd gotten caught.

Bucky realized he didn't like his best friend's gaze running up and down her form.

"I'm okay," Steve assured them. "Just clumsy in my old age."

The girls laughed, Natasha staring up at Steve thoughtfully. "Your ninety-seventh is coming up soon, isn't it?"

Marley's eyes were huge at that. "Really?"

Oh yeah. Besides all of the reasons he'd already come up with that he was a bad choice for her, he was approaching one hundred too.

"Yeah," Natasha assured her. "It's a good thing Tony's having those fire extinguishers delivered. With that many candles to blow out, we could end up with an inferno."

Steve smirked. "Because that is getting funnier each time you joke about it."

Marley returned to her seat on the couch next to Natasha with Steve and Bucky taking the chairs at each end, Bucky sitting closest to Marley. It was a fun conversation with many jabs traded between Steve and Natasha with Bucky throwing his hat into the ring here and there. Marley seemed content to just listen, appearing to hang on every word they said. Somewhere along the line, she'd pulled the thin robe she wore around herself better, and he appreciated that. He was better able to focus on the conversation that way.

It was a happy time. It made him yearn for things he'd never have.

He could imagine coming home from missions just like this, coming home to her.

Natasha yawned, stretched. "Well, off to bed so we can do all of this all over again tomorrow." Smirking at Marley, she added, "You ready for this?"

"I hope so," Marley said with more than a little hesitation. "You've got your work cut out for you."

Tomorrow Natasha wanted to start training her – with his help.

"You'll do better than you think," Natasha leaned over to give her a friendly elbow.

"Right. I'm the person who stands for ten minutes in the produce section trying to open those flimsy bags. It's going to take a lot to do something with me."

"Confidence is a big part of it," Steve's tone was dangerously close to his Captain voice. "Once you start learning, you gain confidence in your abilities. It will take time. But you can do it and you'll discover your strengths and weaknesses along the way."

"You're a super soldier," Marley's tone was heavy with doubt.

"Yes, but I was about your size once," Steve reminded her.

And truthfully, Steve had been her size once. Bucky remembered.

"I know you really don't like knives, but Bucky here," Natasha tipped her head in his direction, "has agreed to help with your training. No one handles knives better than him."

Steve rose from his chair, quirking an eyebrow at that.

"If you'll let me," Bucky threw in with a teasing grin. The way he'd yelled at her the first day, she may not want him.

"Okay," Marley said finally, meeting his gaze. "Thank you. I just hope I don't test your patience too much."

She'd put him to the test, no doubt. When she got nervous, she chewed on her lower lip, as she was at the moment, and it drove him crazy. If he could keep his head on straight, not daydream constantly about shoving her against a wall and fucking her until she screamed, it might go okay.

Marley's face flushed and her gaze dropped to the mug in her hands.

Did he make her that nervous? Bucky was good at reading people. He didn't pick up fear from her in that moment though. It felt like something else.

"You'll be fine, doll," he assured her.

They headed out of her apartment, Bucky shocked to see Natasha hug her goodbye. Natasha was not normally a physically demonstrative person. Steve headed out leaving him there as Marley stood by the door.

"Bucky?"

He came to a stop in front of her, shoving his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. "Doll?"

Marley grinned at that.

"What?" he asked.

"Doll," Marley said.

"Sorry," Bucky told her, recognizing the old habit but not knowing why it recently resurfaced with her. "Does that bother you?"

"No, not all." The color in her face heightened again and he couldn't help wondering how far that blush extended. "It's a nickname. I've never… I've never had one before."

He couldn't help smiling at that. "What was your question?"

"Do you… do you think I can learn any of this? Please give me an honest answer. I feel like they are being kind and encouraging but… something tells me that you'll tell me the truth. Even if it's not what I want to hear."

Marley saw a lot.

He considered his words carefully. Bucky couldn't say with absolute certainty that she couldn't learn to fight, couldn't learn to use whatever ability HYDRA tucked away in her to whatever end. Just maybe she could.

But something about the ability she was cursed with filled him with dread. Bucky was so afraid that it would overpower her in the end, destroy her. Part of him wanted to push away now and not be part of it. He wasn't sure he could bear to watch as HYDRA destroyed something else, especially as good as this small woman.

Another part of him, wanted to try to help her, to protect her. And that was the part that was currently winning. That he was attracted to her didn't help, but he could keep a lid on that. He had to.

"You don't know until you try." It was the best answer he had. "I'll help you. If you find that all this is not for you, then we'll find a way to help you to control it, so it can't be used against you or anybody else. Sound good?"

Marley nodded. "Yes. Thank you."

"Night, doll," Bucky said, the line meant to mark his exit.

"Good night." Stretching up on her toes, she pressed a kiss to Bucky's cheek.

His heart clenched in his chest as she closed the door and left him in the hallway.

What he wouldn't give to be just a regular guy right now. The old Bucky would've been grinning ear to ear and plotting how to get her to agree to a date. He'd be angling for a real kiss after a night of dinner and dancing and walking under the stars.

The man he was? That man was long gone, lost in the storm of the Winter Soldier who ruled his soul for decades. The soldier had killed, destroyed innocent lives. One of those lives has been his own.

What was left was a shell of the man who had once been James Buchanan Barnes. A man who desperately wished he had a heart, a life, and a future to offer to a beautiful girl like Marley.