Summer awoke to the sound of a door closing softly. Or at least, to anyone else, it would have sounded soft; to her, it sounded like a small planet had crashed into the Earth at warp speed.

She cracked her eyes open against the offensive morning light and then immediately shut them, groaning and turning from her stomach to her back. Her head pounded and her body felt heavy and shaky, like she was in the middle of some kind of flu, and she laid there in confusion for a few moments before she managed to open her eyes and realize that the bed she was in was not her own.

Eyes wide, she shot up far too quickly than her head could handle. It throbbed in protest and a wave of nausea instantly rolled harshly through her stomach, and it all came rushing back to her.

Oh my God, she wailed mentally, I got drunk and called Bucky a sex lollipop.

And then, rather than her usual word vomit, literal vomit began climbing out of her throat at an alarming speed. It took every bit of nonexistent strength she had, but she somehow managed to make it to the bathroom in time.

After expelling the worst of the hangover and ending up half-sprawled out on the cold floor in recovery, Summer groaned miserably and couldn't decide what was worse - the hangover or the embarrassment of the previous night. When she heard another opening of a door, she quickly settled on embarrassment and looked up wearily at the man standing casually in the bathroom doorway.

Bucky looked down at the sight before him, looking equal parts amused and concerned. Before he could say a word, she muttered, "Don't judge me."

"I'm not," he said, allowing a grin to form on his lips. "David's still sleeping, by the way."

"... You checked?" she asked, voice smaller than she intended, giving away how suddenly touched she was that he'd do that. He nodded, and she got out a thank you before she sat up to barf again.

Now that she'd added to her already-gigantic embarrassment, she sat back once she was done and accepted an offered glass of water without looking Bucky in the eye. Some of her bodily shaking had decreased with the vomiting, but the pounding in her head had gotten worse. As if on cue, after she sipped the water a few times, she felt three pills being shoved into her hand. This time she looked up and gave her helper a weak smile. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Just don't let me drink ever again," she groaned, fully serious.

"I don't know," he said as she put the pills on her tongue and tried not to gag. "I kind of liked you drunk."

She knocked the pills back with a wince and then gave him a sidelong glare, accepting his hand and slowly getting to her feet. "That's not even funny."

"I'm serious," he replied, and she paused as she thought back on where her memories ended.

"Did I really... fall asleep in the middle of..."

"Yeah," he nodded, shrugging slightly as if to assure her that it was fine.

"I'm sorry," she said, cringing a little. "I didn't mean to."

"It's all right. I... managed."

Before she could think too long and ask what that meant, he was helping her out of the bathroom and steering her back towards her own room. She sighed and tried not to think about all the humiliatingly honest things she said the night before, waiting to speak again until she reached her door and smiled at Bucky once more. "Thanks again."

"No problem," he said, opening the door for her and ushering her inside with a hand on the small of her back. "I do try to be more than just a sex lollipop."

Then he grinned and was gone, leaving her to stare and try to grasp with her sluggish mind the fact that he had just cracked a joke. A real joke. She blinked, suddenly trying to remember if she'd heard him joke before or if this was the first time. When that just made her head hurt more, she groaned and closed her door, vowing to never, ever, so long as she lived, ever get drunk again.

A thoroughly unenjoyable shower later, Summer was half-slumped at the kitchen table, eyeing the perfectly good omelet in front of her with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, trying to ignore the gleeful smiles that her brother was sending her way from the other side of the table.

Today, it was just the two male members of her family and the super soldiers in her life at breakfast, but Paul was the only one on her nerves.

"I haven't seen you hungover in forever."

She glared across the table, pecking her plate with her fork. "Go die."

"You should have woken me up. I would have totally gotten hammered with you."

"I didn't even mean to get drunk," she muttered.

"How long's it been since I've even seen you drunk? Wait, I remember - it was that one Thanksgiving at my house. We watched 'War Horse' and you started talking about all the creepy things you wanted to do to Tom Hiddleston in front of my kids."

While Summer's face reddened with sheer rage, Bucky's attention was suddenly piqued. "Who?"

Waving a hand, Paul explained, "This British actor who is seriously ugly as -"

"He's a beautiful man!" She suddenly exclaimed, jabbing her fork in Paul's direction. "And you can shut your jerk mouth, trying to add to my embarrassment - what are you, twelve?"

"Who?" Bucky asked again, eyes full of confusion.

"Here, let me show you," Paul said, getting out his phone, and Summer threw her arms up in frustration. Yesterday, Paul had barely been able to look at Bucky without twitching and collapsing into a catatonic state, and now suddenly he was playing buddies for the sake of further tormenting her.

"See?" Paul said, leaning over and holding up his phone. Even Steve peered at it with mild interest. "Giant forehead. Tiny eyes. Even I'm better looking than that."

"Pffah!" she scoff-laughed. "Sure, Ed Sheeran."

After a moment of inspection, Bucky looked away and glanced her way with a mildly amused expression. She shook her head slightly, then glanced at Steve, who suddenly looked thoughtful and slightly puzzled as he looked away from the picture. "Kind of looks familiar..."

"Maybe," Summer piped up, "you should tell everyone about your crushes, since they're way worse than mine have ever been."

Paul scoffed and leaned back in his chair. "Impossible. And I'm married. I don't have crushes."

Summer raised an eyebrow. "Hillary Clinton."

While Steve visibly shuddered and Bucky looked at him questioningly, unaware of who that was, Paul suddenly froze and then slowly looked up, his expression the utmost of sobriety. "She's gotten better with age and I like strong women. Why you gotta bring that up?"

"Why do you?" Summer retorted.

"Because I have to! It's my duty!"

She groaned and gave up trying to force herself to eat. "I'm going back to bed. You're bringing my headache back."

Fully serious, she dragged herself up and off of the chair, looking at Bucky a bit apologetically before turning and heading back towards her room. David followed her very reflexively, and she'd gotten halfway to the hallway before Paul jogged up behind her. "Hey, wait a minute! I wanted to talk to you about something."

She groaned and turned around, replying as coherently as she was able to. "Ungh?"

"No, not about ungh. So I was thinking."

"Hope you didn't hurt yourself."

He smiled and shook his head. "Only a little. Anyway, I was thinking. And I know what you're gonna say at first, but I've decided that I don't care."

"... Should I be scared?" she asked warily.

Ignoring her question, he replied, "I know you never want to accept my help, but -"

Her eyes narrowed. "Oh, don't you dare try to give me money right now."

"I'm not trying, I'm doing it," he grinned. "Now I've got a little bit saved up -"

"You have like a zillion kids!" she exclaimed. "And one on the way! I can't take your -"

"I have a zillion kids, yes, but only one sister whose house just blew up, so hush. I'm not trying to give you cash. I want to take you out and let you pick a laptop." When she fell silent in slight surprise, he added, "You're a writer. You need one, whether you decide to keep on with school or not. So I'm gonna buy you one. My only condition is you have to actually write something."

She slouched a little bit, suppressing a groan. "I can't even think about writing right now."

"Well, I didn't say you needed to start today. But Summer," his tone became more impassioned, "you've got to start one of these days. You're sitting there on talent other people would kill for and not doing anything with it."

"... I made a hundred bucks writing about a brand of gardening soil for a blog a couple months ago," she replied weakly.

"You don't even garden. This is what I'm talking about."

She sighed, throwing up her hands and arguing, "I know, I just don't know what to write. Nothing seems interesting enough and I just have zero ideas."

"Maybe you're thinking too hard," he suggested. "I mean, if you're looking for interesting, start with yourself."

She wrinkled her nose. "Eh?"

"Do you know how many people write books and blogs about themselves who haven't had lives half as interesting as yours?" he asked rhetorically. "Just write about your life, fictionalize some stuff here and there, change the names, and bam, next great novel."

She stared at him for a moment, taking in the pure sincerity on her brother's face, and then burst into laughter. "Are you high?"

He put his hands on his hips and sighed in frustration just as the elevator doors from across the room opened. Summer glanced over to see a petite redhead sashaying out of the doors, and she turned back to Paul and smiled, "Yay, now you get to spaz out again."

His eyes followed to where hers had been and instantly widened. "Is that..."

Summer nodded. "It is."

Looking mildly interested and somewhat suspicious, Natasha stopped not too far away from where they stood and asked anyone in the room who would answer, "Who's this?"

While Paul stared, looking either slightly constipated or very stunned, Summer answered, "This is my brother, Paul."

"Oh. Hi," Natasha said, tone instantly turning bored but not impolite.

"I'm married," Paul muttered, and Summer rolled her eyes. "Extremely married. To a half-Puerto Rican woman. My children are beautiful."

Natasha furrowed her brows at the odd "greeting" before glancing at Summer and remarking, "He's definitely your brother."

Summer nodded in resigned agreement as Natasha then turned to presumably talk to the suddenly very cheerful Steve. Then Summer punched Paul in the shoulder.

"Ow!" he hissed, clutching the shoulder and glaring at her. "What the heck?"

"She already thinks I'm a freak, don't make it worse!" she hissed back. "I'm awkward enough for the both of us."

"I am not awkward," he contended. "You're awkward. I was just reminding myself that I'm married. It seemed necessary."

She rolled her eyes. "She's fondue-ing Captain America. She's not gonna look twice at anyone."

Paul's brows furrowed. "Fon-whatting?"

"Never mind," she shook her head. "So where are we going?"

"... Does New York have, like, a Best Buy?"

She smiled at the dumb question.

"Probably."

After she turned to head towards her room to change, urging David to come along, she heard Paul ask, "Did you say fondue-ing?"

She just laughed, the fact that she was somewhat in on the inside jokes of Captain America and his friends enough to give her a brief thrill of giddiness that was a nice change from her still-aching head.

The minute his sharp hearing had picked up on a few words of Summer's conversation with her brother and he realized that she was planning on making a trip out of the tower without him, Bucky had asked Steve for a favor. Now he was walking to her room, almost forgetting to knock before he walked inside. A part of him was still used to how it was when he first lived with her, when things like knocking and general societal niceties were a lot more lost on him than they were now.

She yelled for him to come in, and he opened the door to find her kneeling on the floor, struggling to get a sweater over her protesting son's head.

"Come on, we've gotta go bye-bye for a little bit with Uncle Paul," she said for what was mostly likely the tenth time, fighting to get him to put his arms through the sleeves. "Ugh, David, stop fighting me..."

Clearly, the kid did not want to go anywhere, and Bucky watched Summer struggle for a good five more minutes before David was finally dressed and quite unhappy about it. That was when Summer glanced up at him, smiling with a shrug as she got up to her feet. "Yesterday it took like half an hour so this is an improvement. Something wrong?"

He shook his head. "No. Where are you going?"

"I guess to a store to get a laptop. Paul's idea," she replied.

He glanced down at the floor and then asked, "Can you come with me for a minute?"

"Sure," she nodded, and he quickly turned and stepped out of the room. He walked the hallway, Summer a step or two behind him, until he reached his room, and after he walked inside, he flipped on the light and immediately headed for his dresser.

Neither of them said a word as he reached into the top drawer, but when he turned around holding a small gun for her to take, her eyes widened and she breathed, "... Oh. Right. I guess I need a new one of those."

His fingers brushed hers as she took the weapon. He glanced up at her, then turned around and pulled out something else.

"Oh... um..."

He handed her a small keyring holding a black can of mace and a knife, and she took it with her free hand. Not quite done yet, he then also handed her a taser, and she started laughing slightly nervously. "Are you gonna hand me a sword next?"

He didn't quite return her smile. "If I can't always be there with you, I at least want you armed."

She nodded at his more serious tone, looking down at her armful of weapons. "I'm sure I'll be fine, I mean... it's not like anyone really actually wants me." When he didn't answer, she added quietly, "... Right?"

"I'd rather not take the chance," he replied.

Then a brief moment of silence passed, and Summer suddenly wondered aloud, "Can I even legally carry a gun here? I probably can't, I'm sure I need a permit for this thing. I need to register it, because if I got caught with it without a license or -"

"You're taking it," he said firmly, leaving no room for argument in the matter. The law, as far as he cared, was irrelevant in this case, and could probably be sorted out by Steve if it ever became an issue.

She didn't seem willing to argue the point for very long. "Okay... well... thank you. If someone tries to attack me, I can stun them, mace them, shoot them, and then dismember them." Then she smiled, and he almost did too, just because of the odd things that she thought was funny.

"The gun's like your last one, everything's in the same place. I still want you to practice."

She nodded. "I will. As long as you keep teaching me. That was fun." He grinned faintly in agreement, and she returned it before drawing in a breath and saying, "Okay, this crap is getting heavy. I guess I'll go dump it all in my purse."

He then followed her silently back into her room, where she did just that, dropping her new armory into a new giant purse she'd bought the day before. After, she turned back to him and smiled somewhat shyly before walking up to him and placing a chaste kiss on his lips. "Thanks."

"Call me if you feel uncomfortable or suspicious," he said, face still the picture of seriousness.

"You're kind of freaking me out now," she said, voice dropping as she frowned slightly. "I wasn't even thinking about it before and now I'm probably gonna be paranoid."

His frown mirrored hers. "... Sorry, I just... I wish you'd stay here."

"I am," she replied. "But I'm not gonna never step outside."

"I know," he muttered, inclining of his head slightly, "I'm not saying that, but -"

"I know," she interrupted. "I know what you're saying. And it's just that... if I really stop and think about what happened, and I let it scare me the way I'm trying not to, and I let it get to me, I'm afraid that I might just... kind of... lose it."

He understood losing it. He also understood what it was like to think about something to the point of letting it unhinge you, and that was something he definitely did not want for her.

"So I'm trying to just go on like normal - kind of - and going out and, you know, functioning, is a part of that."

He nodded. "Just be careful and... keep your eyes open, okay?" When she nodded in agreement, he added, "And I mean it - call me if you need to. Even if it's nothing."

"I will, I promise," she said sincerely.

He looked at her for a moment or two before nodding again. "Okay."

A moment later, he was about to leave and let her finish getting ready in peace, but her voice stopped him before he could turn around. "I'm really glad you asked Paul to come here. I probably would have put off telling him for so long and made it a lot worse than it had to be. It means a lot to me that you did that."

He wasn't sure how to respond at first. Words were still far from his comfort zone, and her heartfelt gratitude left him even more lacking for words than usual. But luckily, she didn't let him flounder for long, stepping forward again and kissing him a little less lightly than she had a moment before. The fact that she never pushed him or nagged him to say or even do more than what his current comfort level allowed was something that he appreciated as much, he suspected, as she appreciated his invitation to her brother. Maybe more. Maybe he'd figure out a way to say it someday.

As she began to pull away, Bucky opened his eyes in time to see her flinch and grasp the back of her head with a hissed, "Ouch!"

A small toy that fell to the floor seemed to be the culprit, and he watched her turn around and glare at David, who promptly ran and hid in the bathroom. Summer turned back to him with a mix of a smile and a grimace. "He'll get used to us one of these days. Hopefully. But hey, I'll see you again in a few hours, okay?"

He nodded, and she planted one more kiss on his cheek before he turned to leave her room. As he walked down the hallway, unsure of where he was going, he began to realize how wise his therapist's advice was about getting a hobby. He'd have to find something interesting to kill the next few hours with, otherwise he'd end up following Summer and being her invisible, probably unnecessary and extremely overly cautious, bodyguard.

"That guy was flirting with you. See, why couldn't you have gone for someone like that? A guy who sells phones and computers and probably isn't a million years older than he looks."

Summer sighed and readjusted her purse on her shoulder as she stood in the middle of the electronics store. Her other hand was holding David's, and she gave Paul a look as she replied, "He was not flirting with me. And really? Can't you drop it?"

Paul shrugged, leaning against a counter full of various laptop displays and half-whispering, "Can you blame me? I have to leave tomorrow knowing you're living a hallway across from... you know who, and -"

"Now he's Voldemort?" she hissed back, fighting a laugh.

"Actually, yes, let's make that his codename. He's Voldemort and you're Bellatrix. Anyway -"

"I'm actually okay with that."

"Good. Anyway, I have to leave you here in his... hands... or hand... and I'm probably not gonna ever sleep again now that I know. Why couldn't you have gotten the hots for Captain America? Seriously?"

"Oh my gosh, Paul," she groaned. "I thought you were coming around by the way you acted at breakfast."

"I can ignore anything for the sake of embarrassing you," he shrugged. "And why do you keep looking around like you're checking for snipers?"

She suddenly froze, not realizing what she'd been doing, and sighed before briefly rubbing her eyes with her fingertips. "Sorry. He just freaked me out before we left, and -"

"Who freaked you out? Voldemort?"

"Yes - I mean no - he didn't mean to, but -"

"What did he do?"

She huffed and opened her mouth right as the allegedly flirtatious salesman approached them, carrying a box containing the laptop she'd picked out. "Follow me to the counter, guys," he smiled brightly, his sandy hair and moderately large build vaguely reminding her of a high school jock as she followed with a weak smile.

With talk of Voldemort momentarily tabled, Summer continued to fidget uncomfortably with her inordinately heavy purse while trying to ignore the overly cheery (and only now noticeable) smiles that the guy kept shooting her as he rang in their purchase.

"So you said you're a writer?" the guy asked conversationally. "Have I read anything of yours?"

"Probably not," she shrugged.

"So up and comer?" he smiled again.

"I guess so," she replied dully.

After Paul swiped his card, the guy chirped, "Hey, we do deliveries sometimes, so if you need help getting this home -"

"We're good!" she replied a little too quickly and too loudly. "I mean, thank you, but we've got it."

"All right," he smiled, nonplussed. "Here you go. You guys have a great day."

As Paul grabbed the bulky but lightweight box, Summer nodded and smiled in response, turning and heading towards the exit while consciously trying not to look over her shoulder or suspiciously at anyone in general, but that was getting harder to do the heavier her purse became, reminding her of its contents and why she was in New York to begin with. She shook it off as they left the building and Paul sighed noisily next to her.

"Told you he was flirting."

She wrinkled her nose, stepping out into the pedestrian traffic. "He was gross."

"Well, he was no Voldemort, but - hey, you're doing the looking for a sniper thing again."

"Ugh," she closed her eyes briefly, again fighting with the strap of her purse. "I can't help it. I didn't think I'd do this, but I think I'm seriously gonna have paranoia issues for awhile."

"I'm pretty sure that's extremely normal after what you've been through," Paul pointed out. "Although you need a new weapon now, don't you?"

She grimaced and shook her head. "Why do you think I keep moving my purse around and fighting with it?"

His eyes widened, staring at the purse in question and asking, "Do I even want to know what's in there?"

"The question is, what isn't," she replied. "Let's just make sure not to jaywalk or do anything else to get a cop's attention. I haven't even looked up the gun laws here yet."

"Could you even get to it if you needed it?" he asked skeptically. "I know what your purses look like."

"This one's new, so yes," she muttered. "Hopefully. Now can we talk about something else while we're in public? This isn't helping my paranoia."

"You know, not to be a negative Nancy, but I think you might have issues with paranoia and anxiety no matter what as long as you're here with him."

Giving him a side-glance, she replied, "Actually, he makes me feel safe."

"That seems like such an oxymoron."

She shrugged carelessly. "It is what it is."

"Well, do me a favor. Since I'm gonna need anxiety meds after all of this, at least keep me updated. And I mean it - the minute anything happens, you tell me, whether you like it or not. I don't want to have to wait for more cryptic texts from Voldemort to know that something's up. Okay?"

"Okay, yes, yes," she nodded. "I got it."

"Swear on Severus Snape."

The expression on her brother's face was so dead serious, it was as if he was asking her to swear on the life of his firstborn. Biting back a hearty giggle, she nodded. "I swear on Severus Snape, you nerd."

He breathed a sigh of relief. "Damn straight."

After a few more moments of walking in silence, a thought popped up in Summer's head, thankfully distracting her from the urge to keep looking around for potential bad guys. "Have I told you yet about how I met Thor and how he liked my chocolate cake?"

Paul spit out a mouthful of the water bottle he'd been sipping, and she laughed, knowing in that moment how very much she would miss him when he was gone.

"All right, and... done."

Natasha handed Bucky his phone after having tinkered with it for a few moments, and after he looked down at the map displayed on his screen with a blinking red dot in the middle, he looked up and nodded. "Thanks."

"No problem. Does she know there's a tracker on her gun?"

Bucky shook his head, glancing at Steve, who sat next to Natasha on the couch opposite Bucky, looking very disapproving about it all.

Natasha glanced at Steve, patting his knee and saying, "Relax, Cap. I tracked her for almost two months and she didn't know. It's no big deal."

"But it's not right," Steve replied. "And actually - why did you track her, Nat?"

She shrugged. "She was an unknown - still is - and too close to us. Always a good idea to keep an eye on all the variables."

"Still," Steve argued, "it isn't right. But it's one thing coming from you - for you," he turned to Bucky, "it's another. Just tell her you want to track her for peace of mind. I'm sure she'll understand."

Bucky sat there for a moment, staring at the slowly-moving little dot on the screen, considering both points of view before muttering a bit unsurely, "Would it.. seem..."

"A little psychotic? Overly protective?" Natasha guessed, analyzing her nails. "I think you crossed that bridge a long time ago, and I'd bet that she's aware."

While Bucky shot her the sort of glare that she was quite used to getting from him, Steve said, "I don't think it's unreasonable to track her. I think that doing it without her consent is unnecessary."

The word consent landed in Bucky's ears like a brick, and suddenly he knew that Steve was right. Consent was something he never wanted to compromise on in any particular situation with Summer, no matter how benign, and this, he realized, was an example of that.

"I'll tell her."

While Natasha rolled her eyes, Steve nodded in approval. "Good."

And later on, after Summer returned to the tower, when she somewhat timidly asked Bucky if he'd consider putting a tracker in her gun, just to give her some extra peace of mind, he only had to explain that she already had one in it before she understood why her request had made him smile.

One day later, Summer stood on a curb a safe three blocks away from Stark Tower, helping see that Paul's exit from the tower was a lot quieter than his entrance. David stood quietly at her side, holding her hand as she watched her brother shove his bag into a cab trunk before turning back to her and shaking his head.

"I'm gonna miss you even more now, kid."

She smiled sadly and braced herself for the bone-crushing hug that she knew was coming. When it came, she returned it wholeheartedly and muttered against his shoulder, "You should move here. Be a hot shot New York doctor instead of whatever you are in Cali."

"And you should come to California and live with your big brother while you write the next great American novel," he retorted, still squeezing the life out of her.

"The Dark Lord might object to that," she replied, sucking in a deep breath when he finally let up and pulled back a bit.

"This is all really ironic, considering you dressed up as Bellatrix that one Halloween in high school," he said with another slight sigh.

She shrugged. "At least my Voldemort has a nose. And hair. And -"

"I don't want to know what else he has," Paul said, shuddering slightly. "It was awkward enough saying goodbye to him and trying to accept all this without the icky details of your gross makeout sessions. Or whatever it is you two do."

"It's super scandalous," she replied with a straight face. "Can't say in front of little ears."

Paul fought off a grimace - poorly - and muttered, "You're disgusting. But speaking of little ears..."

Paul bent down to David's level, waving slightly to catch his attention as he smiled. "I'm gonna miss you, Buddy. Take care of your mama for me, will you? Did I earn a hug this time?" When David shrunk back a little, Paul held up his hands in surrender. "Okay. No hug. High five for the uncle that bought you a month's worth of candy yesterday?"

Reluctantly, David gave in and gave Paul a rare high five. Paul whooped in victory and then mussed the child's hair before standing again. "I got a high five. That's awesome."

"He just needs to see you more and you'd get hugs," she smiled back.

"Well, we'll work on that," he nodded. The cab driver honked at them, and Paul growled at the interruption before pulling his sister into one last lung-puncturing hug before he had to go.

"Text me every day, like always. And don't take forever to answer, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Stay safe " he said seriously as he pulled away.

She smiled. "You know Voldemort says the same thing every time he has to leave me."

Paul paused a bit and then shook his head. "I might wrap my head around all this in about... fifteen years or so."

"You're telling me," she chuckled. The cabbie honked again, and she added, "Better get going, doc."

Begrudgingly opening the cab door, he pointed at her and said. "I mean it about the texting thing."

"Okay!" she playfully exclaimed.

"I love you, kid."

"I love you too, nerd."

One more smile, and with that, he climbed inside the taxi and was gone just a few seconds later. She exhaled heavily as she watched the yellow car disappear down the busy streets, wishing that no matter where she was, she always seemed to be goodbye to somebody who wasn't around nearly as much as she needed them to be.

Nearly a week passed following Paul's arrival and subsequent departure. David slowly adjusted to his new surroundings, and gave up his hunger strike at last, much to Summer's relief. She took him once a day to the child care room that Pepper had invited her to use, and while he stayed away from the other kids present, he took to the room and the toys within fairly quickly. She made it a routine in advance of her interview, just in case it was a success and she got the job.

And so, when Thursday morning came, while David played in the childcare center and Summer nervously sat down ten floors above for her first interview in years, Bucky stood in the kitchen fiddling half-asleep with the coffee machine while blinking to force his eyes to stay open. He'd managed four and a half hours before his dreams forced him awake, and if it took an entire package of coffee to wake him up, then that was better than trying to face sleep again.

When he finally got the thing running, he turned around and realized that the odd noises he'd been hearing was Steve opening some kind of large box in the middle of the living room. He squinted and asked blearily, "What are you doing?"

Steve looked up and smiled brightly as he pulled out a few pieces from the box. "I found this the other day when I was out."

Bucky stared at the box, unsure of what "this" was, at least until Steve pulled the main part out and Bucky nodded. "Record player."

"I had one like this before, but I had to leave it in Washington," Steve explained unnecessarily, lifting the player to a glass coffee table and carefully setting it down. "It's the real thing, from when we were kids. And," he smiled again, "I happen to have some of my old records."

Unable to muster up much of the enthusiasm Steve seemed to have over the matter, Bucky turned and poured half of the now-finished coffee into one cup before walking out of the kitchen and sitting down in front of the coffee table. He glanced up mid-gulp when Steve said while still messing with the record player, "I know that sensory things are supposed to help trigger memories - sights and smells and sounds, and I figured -"

"Connor tell you that?" Bucky guessed, slightly annoyed for some reason if that was the case, though he wasn't sure why.

Steve stopped for a moment and shook his head. "No, I... 'Googled' it."

And just like that, Bucky's annoyance instantly faded. He looked down at his cup, unsure of what to say back to that, but Steve quickly started talking again and saved him the trouble. He was glad, because the idea of Steve pouring over the Internet's suggestions of how to help people with amnesia recover their memories made him feel almost uncomfortably grateful to have Steve in his life.

"So, want to give it a try?"

"Sure," Bucky shrugged, figuring that at the very least, it wouldn't trigger any HYDRA memories.

Steve left the room briefly and then came back with an armful of records that looked as old as the player, though they appeared well-cared for in their only mildly frayed sleeves.

"SHIELD saved all my stuff," Steve explained, sitting down next to Bucky and setting the records down on the table. "These sat in a warehouse for seventy years." He started thumbing through the records, then grabbed one and muttered, "Let's start with this one."

Bucky finished his coffee as Steve put the record on, and after he set his cup down, the soft strains of the first few notes started filling the room. They sat in silence for a moment, and Bucky tried to focus on the song, which was a slow, sort of languid tune. The sounds crackled gently and he tried hard to find a sense of familiarity in it, and to a small degree, he did, though the familiarity was more in the technical sounds of the record player than the music itself.

He had long learned to not be disappointed when an attempt to recall memories was unsuccessful, so his face gave nothing away when Steve asked, "Anything?"

He shrugged. "Not really."

"I figured that one probably wouldn't do it," Steve said, leaning forward to take the record off and put another one on. "But this one," he said, holding one up, "this was actually yours. Might have better luck this time."

Still skeptical, Bucky got up to get a refill of coffee while Steve set up the next record. He'd emptied the pot and had just turned back around when the livelier, instantly familiar song began playing, and it stopped him in his tracks almost immediately.

Where the last song left him blank and empty, this one immediately hit some place deep and well-hidden in his mind, tugging at threads knotted and scattered beyond his reach and pulling them free to flood his mind with dizzying flashes of a time long past.

The air was heavy with smoke and the cool weight of a half-filled glass in his hand anchored him to the vision of a somewhat dimly lit but loud and vibrant club, filled with other people and voices of all sorts, but it was all background noise. His one and only focus was on a feminine, sparkling laughter in his ears, and the lure of warm green eyes under rich red hair.

He laughed with her, watching his free hand reach up to brush an errant, perfect curl out of those eyes, and though he never heard the words leave his own mouth, he knew that he would ask her to dance, and she would say yes, and it would not be the last time that he would look into her eyes or feel her hair slip between his fingers.

It was over nearly as quickly as it began, but it felt as if it had lasted minutes rather than mere seconds. Reality came back with all the gentleness of a flashlight to the eyes, and as he nearly crushed the cup in his hand with the force of his grip and stared at the record player, it must have showed on his face.

He heard Steve ask if he was okay, but he didn't register the words. He was still clinging to that fleeting memory, still savoring the shocking clarity of it, the way that it left him feeling as if all it would take was a few more tugs on a few other threads, and maybe it would unlock a whole web of memories previously hidden from him.

The woman's name was on the tip of his tongue, her face so familiar and so well-known to whatever part of his mind that the image of her had been locked in that he knew, on a level made more of instinct than of sense, that she had been important. He felt it, knew it, but what was her name?

It was there, so close, just waiting for him to grasp it, if he could just remember...

And then, he did remember. "Vivian," he blurted out the moment it popped into his head with such ease that it was hard to believe that it had ever left.

Steve turned off the record, but the lack of music didn't stop his mind from continuing to race with this newfound piece of his history.

"I thought you might remember her," Steve said softly. "Do you... need to sit down?"

He did feel a bit dizzy, but he shook his head and looked at Steve. "She was... it feels like..."

"Important, yeah," Steve affirmed.

"You didn't tell me about her." He didn't say it in an accusatory way, but more of a slightly inquisitive statement.

"Well, I thought it would only frustrate you more if I did while you couldn't remember," Steve explained.

He suddenly had a myriad of questions, but he didn't want to fire them at Steve. Steve was right - it was better to remember for himself, because there was little worse than being told a story about yourself that you had no recollection of and no feelings regarding.

No, this, he wanted to answer for himself, and he was sure that if he stood there long enough and thought hard enough, surely he would be able to. That flash of a memory was the most vivid non-painful one that he'd had in so long, and he could almost feel everything else that was locked behind it, if he could just find the right way in...

He stood there, still in the kitchen though he'd eventually set his cup down, staring down at the counter in front of him and trying to connect the memory to others while it was still fresh and real in his mind. He was oblivious to the ding of the elevator, the clicking of heels across the floor, and the gentle calls of his name by Steve, at least until Summer's smiling face was suddenly almost directly in front of him.

Her exclamation started out joyous and then tempered off into caution. "I got the... the... are you okay?"

He blinked a couple of times and glanced at Steve, who had been gesturing somewhat pointedly to Summer, and he quickly nodded and forced himself to focus back on the present. "Yeah, I'm fine. What did you say?"

She looked at him in concern for a moment before her smile returned and she said happily, "I got the job! I start next week!"

Her smile was infectious, and it was then that he managed to look down and take in her entire appearance, still a bit thrown off by the previous few moments. He'd missed her that morning, so this was his first time seeing her that day. She had dressed like she already had the job, in a type of outfit he'd never seen on her before - black pencil skirt, white ahort-sleeved blouse, and hair up in a youthful but passably professional type of hold on her head. The black high heels were the nail in his coffin.

He managed to mumble out a half-coherent "congratulations" just as she grabbed him and hugged him in a fit of excitement.

"Thank you! I'm excited. I mean, it's extremely low-level and I'm probably just gonna be getting coffee and answering phones for a long time, but still, working here at all is so weird and awesome, and now I don't have to worry about being a jobless loser!"

He grinned at her rambling while his senses were assaulted with the scent of her clean hair and perfumed skin as she clung to him. Her presence was chasing away his newly discovered memory, but he didn't mind. He would have time, an abundance of it, to search for more memories that corresponded to the one he'd recovered, and he had a name and a song, at least, to help him do so.

It might have seemed like a minor thing, to remember one single moment and one woman and her name, but it gave him hope after a long time of remembering so little after so long. Something else he'd have to thank Steve for later.

When she pulled away, still smiling exuberantly, she took a closer look at him and let her hands frame his face for a moment as she asked, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," he replied, for once actually meaning it for the most part. "Really."

She seemed to believe him. "Okay," she smiled softly. Then her eyes brightened and she exclaimed, "Let's do something fun! Like a date! We should totally go on a second date. Can we?"

It was impossible not to smile at the rapidly changing emotions on her face, starting with excitement, pure happiness, and then slight unsureness after blurting out the date idea. "Yeah, why not," he replied, eyes flickering down to her legs again as she let out a very quiet squeal of excitement.

"Awesome! Can we do it today? What do you want to do? I'm talking too fast - I'm sorry, I'm just really excited," she grinned, blushing a little at her own over-exuberance. "And I've never asked anyone out before. This is super exciting. How do I look? I tried to look professional, but I didn't really know what I was doing so I just Googled 'personal assistant' and looked at the images that popped up."

When she finally stopped to take a breath, he opened his mouth to answer her question but fell a bit short. It didn't help that Steve was watching from the couch with mild amusement, and while he had a very pervasive feeling that such a thing never would have hindered an expression of a very detailed compliment before, it only served to tongue-tie him more now. Which was ridiculous and mildly angering.

"You look..." he trailed off, surveying her again from top to bottom, again getting stuck on the shoes for a moment and the way that they elongated her already-perfect legs. Then there was the skirt that clung to her shape and did a lot for it, not that she needed the help, but...

In the span of the few seconds that he spent trying to form a respectful compliment out of thoughts becoming increasingly not-respectful as the time passed, he had raised his eyebrows slightly and looked her up and down several times, licked his lips, and tightened his lingering grip on her hips, utterly unaware of any of it. Just as he was about to finally force out a disappointingly generic word, Summer cut him off with a grin and said, "Actually, don't worry about it. I think you just told me."

He huffed out a chuckle and admitted, "I like the shoes."

"Got a little bit of a shoe fetish?" she inquired quietly, still grinning. "I'm just saying..."

"It's probably more who's wearing them," he replied. "Are you going to be working with... desks?"

"... Yeah," she said a little slowly. "Why?"

As he debated on how detailed to express his increasingly detailed thoughts, he unconsciously moved in closer, and the sudden throat clearing of Steve - who was apparently still present - broke both of their concentrations.

"Anyway," Summer smiled brightly, blushing at little at the interruption and pulling away, "Uh... I'm gonna go check on David and think about where we can go later."

He nodded, and she gave him a quick kiss before darting back to the elevator with a spring in her high-heeled step. He watched her until she was gone, which was when he shook himself out of his thoughts and glanced at Steve, who still looked highly amused.

Bucky rolled his eyes and then made his way back to the couch, sitting down next to his friend and staring at the record player again before quietly saying, "Thank you for... doing that," he gestured to the thing. "Haven't remembered anything that clearly in a long time."

Steve nodded. "Good. And you're welcome. Oh, I thought of something else, too," he said as he started rummaging in the pockets of the hoodie he was wearing. To Bucky's surprise, he ended up producing a pack of cigarettes, of all things, and handed it to him. "Part of the sensory thing. You never did it much around me, because it made me sick, but I think you picked it up from her. Army probably didn't help, though I don't think you were ever too heavy with it. But I figure it might help you remember more."

Taking it from Steve's hand, Bucky muttered a thank you and didn't bother trying to see if he recalled smoking or not, because he knew he wouldn't. But that was the point of Steve giving them to him in the first place, he supposed.

"Just don't make it a habit," Steve said seriously. "Cell regeneration or not, it's still bad for you."

He couldn't help but snort a little at the admonition. He gave a little mock-salute as he pocketed the cigarettes, missing the way Steve's expression softened a little when he did it.

A few moments later, to break the silence that had briefly fallen, Steve said, "So, second date."

"Guess so."

Steve nodded. "Any ideas?"

"Not a single one," Bucky admitted. Steve sighed and nodded, apparently able to feel his pain. Then Bucky muttered, "I think maybe... I should... get... clothes."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "New clothes?"

Bucky gestured vaguely with his hand and said, "She puts so much effort into herself, and... I don't know."

"Okay," Steve nodded, not needing any further explanation. "Well, unfortunately Nat's busy today, so... you might have to rely on my questionable fashion advice."

Bucky was almost convinced then and there to say never mind, but before he could, Steve patted his shoulder and said brightly, "But it'll be fun! Hopefully. We'll leave in a little bit."

His fate sealed, Bucky stifled a groan, suddenly having two things to fret over today. But it was hard to feel too annoyed by anything when he could still feel the distinct sensation of hope running quietly beneath it all - hope that maybe Steve and his stubborn optimism wasn't as stupid as he had originally thought, and maybe he really could remember more and more as time went on.

And if it took more time than he'd like, maybe that could even be all right too, because at least he was making new, good, maybe even better, memories along the way.

A/N: Thank you all so much for reading & following this story, and for continuing to give great responses to each chapter :D I am super grateful, equally for those of you who have followed from the start and who've just picked it up. You're all awesome :D Also, my thanks to midnightwings96 for being her amazing self, as always :) Love to you all, until next week! :D