"James."

Bucky stopped his assault on the training room's punching bag and took a deep breath. More often than not, he'd come down here to clear his head, getting up bright and early to get a little workout in before breakfast.

Natasha knew exactly why, but she never said anything in hopes that he'd come to her when he was ready, but it had gone too far.

Having Tony drop in was nice, but it was such a surprise that it had caught everyone off guard, including Bucky.

And Natasha was beginning to see how his moods and his apprehension was rubbing off on Alya. It were as if she were taking cues on how to behave from him.

"Come on, this isn't healthy." She rested a hand on his shoulder once she was close enough. "We have to talk about this."

"About what?" He asked gravely, unwrapping his knuckles.

"About you. About what's been going on here for the past few days." She took his hand and began to unravel the wraps by herself. "It's obvious. We all see it."

And he let her.

"Alya sees it."

It was probably a low blow to bring up Alya, but she knew that it would get him to start talking.

"I know." He sighed. "That's why I stay out of the way."

"But you don't have to." Natasha insisted. "You live here. You're free to to whatever you want. This is your home, too."

"It isn't really." He looked directly in her eyes. "He has more right to be here than I do."

Natasha figured that something to do with it. "Steve and I were talking, and we think that it would be better for everyone if we found somewhere else to live. Someplace to call our own."

And to show him what she meant, she pulled out her tablet, that had been placed under her arm, and showed him the screen.

A Brownstone in Brooklyn was for sale. The neighborhood was nice, the cost was pretty decent, and it was big enough to hold all of them, plus a few more if the need arose.

"You, Steve, and Alya are used to being in Brooklyn. I can see it on all of your faces, you don't really like Midtown." She let out a chuckle. "Wanda doesn't like being in the heart of the city, either. Yelena will go wherever I go, and I'm not very picky."

"Moving isn't easy, Talia." He used his finger to scroll the pictures of the house. "Packing up and leaving….Those kids needs stability. I know you guys were moving all over the place when you were on the run."

"One more move isn't going to hurt anyone." Natasha held her ground. "It would be a welcomed change. Staying here isn't going to be healthy for you or for the kids."

"Alright, say we do move." Bucky humored her. "How would this help Alya and Tony?"

"Alya and Tony need to work this out for themselves and being under the same roof isn't helping. In fact, I think it's making everything worse. She's upset and he's oblivious."

"She doesn't look like she's getting along with Morgan either." He chortled. "Poor kid just wants to get to know her, but she won't budge."

"She gets that from you." Natasha teased. "So, what do you say?"

Bucky looked down at the house one more time and tried to mull it all over.

It was a really good idea.

It was a multi-family house, that way, no one had to look for some other place to live and they could all stay together. There were four floors with plenty of bedrooms and a basement where they could fit another. He, Natasha, Alya, and Wanda would live in the main suite, Steve and Yelena would get their own floors where they could come and go as they pleased.

There was even a well maintained garden in the back which would give the kids enough space to fool around and for Fanny to run.

It was perfect.

"Okay." He gave in. "Let's do it."

"Do Wanda and I have to share a room?" Alya asked as she carried a box into the new house.

She had been more than excited to move back to Brooklyn and actually be able to enjoy it without the threat of the authorities finding them and catching them. This place was huge and the thing she loved best about it, was the fact that no one had to go anywhere.

They could still be together.

She practically vibrated with glee, counting down the days before they could actually move.

Now that the day had finally come, she could hardly contain herself. She was all smiles and she didn't even mind the several trips they had to make to bring all their belongings in.

"Not if you don't want to." Natasha responded holding a box of her own.

"I'll pass." Wanda spoke immediately. "Alya, I love you, but I think I need my own space."

If there was one thing she learned from sharing a room with Alya while they were on the run, it was that the girl had a lot of energy and her curiosity knew no bounds.

Wanda was getting older and she needed more time on her own without her sister being there to look over her shoulder or snuggling up to her all the time.

That was enough to get a laugh out of the four adults.

"Can I still come in and hang out with you?"

"Sure." The teen nodded. "We'll set aside some time where you can come in, deal?"

"Deal." Alya nodded and hiked her box further up before making her way up the stairs, trailing Wanda.

From behind them, Natasha gave Bucky an 'I told you so' sort of look. Things were working out just fine.

They made the right decision.

"Hi, Papa." Alya greeted her father as he approached her from where she sat on her new swing set in the garden out back.

It had been nearly two months since they moved back to Brooklyn and everything was going so smoothly. Steve and Bucky got it in their heads to put together a sturdy swing set in the garden for Alya to enjoy whenever she wanted to.

It was for Wanda, too, but the teen was at the time in her life where she didn't want to admit that she might enjoy such things.

That didn't stop her from sneaking out without a good book to read while she swung.

"What're you doing out here all by yourself?" He sat down on the swing beside her.

"Just thinkin'." Alya looked down at her boot-covered feet. Her legs gently pumped back and forth to create a soft rocking motion, but nothing too vigorous.

"Penny for your thoughts?" He joked. "What's on your mind?"

"Uncle Tony."

"What about him?" He asked gently.

"When we were running, I was so mad at him. Peter talked about how great he is, but it only made me mad." She admitted. "But then he got hurt and I thought that was it…..and I wasn't mad anymore."

Bucky didn't say a word. He just nodded and made sure she knew he was listening.

"I said I forgave him and I wasn't angry anymore." She shrugged. "But then when he came to visit, I got mad all over again."

"That does sound like a problem." The man commented. "Can you tell me why you feel that way? Do you know why?"

"He said things…..awful things about me and you." Alya's hands clenched against the handles of the swing she was sitting on as she remembered that moment she spent with Tony in his lab. It may have been eight years to Tony, but it was only two for her and the wound was still fresh. "He tried to kill you."

No matter how hard she tried, Alya just couldn't seem to let that go.

"Doll, I know it's hard, but try looking at it from his point of view. I killed his parents."

"Hydra made you do that."

"Yes." He agreed. "Hydra made me do it, but sometimes, grief doesn't let you think properly."

"He was thinking properly enough to calculate how to shoot missiles at your face." Alya deadpanned. "And he tried restraining Uncle Steve just to get to you."

Bucky blew out a breath, trying to figure out a way to get around her stubborn resolve. She wasn't wrong, but he was trying to get her to see it a different way. "I know. He thought that what he was doing was right. The Winter Soldier has done a lot of damage, Babydoll."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Peter's parents are dead because of me." She bit her lip. "They're gone and it's all my fault. We had a mission and I got all the intel and gave it to Mommy so she could finish the job."

"That wasn't your fault." Bucky unwittingly began walking into a carefully laid out trap. "That was the Red Room and you didn't have a choice."

"But doesn't that mean that Peter can try to kill me?" Alya questioned, her voice devoid of emotions. "Because it wasn't your fault, Hydra made you, but Uncle Tony still tried to kill you anyway. It's the same thing."

Bucky had no answer for that.

"Your daughter is something else."

"My daughter?" Natasha let out a laugh when Bucky came back inside to find her in the kitchen, preparing something for lunch.

"Yes, your daughter." He emphasized.

"What'd she do to become my daughter?"

"She's so stubborn!" He threw his hands up before stealing a piece of carrot she was cutting.

It was going to be such a blast trying to get Alya to eat these. Maybe he'd go to the store and pick up some ranch dressing or something to make them seem more appetizing.

"She gets that from you." She sang. "Did she tell you what was bothering her?"

"She did."

"And what is it?"

"She's still upset with Tony." He told the redhead. "I tried to get her to look at what happened from his point of view and she just wouldn't buy it. If you want my honest opinion, I think that we need to start looking into law school for that one. She's sharp. Her argument threw me."

"She's good at that." Natasha laughed, slapping his hand away when he reached for another piece of carrot.

"I tried, Talia." He leaned against the counter. "She won't budge."

"Can you blame her?"

"Of course not." Bucky scoffed. "But I don't like seeing her like this. Steve told me how close they were before all this garbage happened. She loved him."

"But she loves you more." Natasha smiled. "I don't think her relationship with Tony is going to change much." She said with a quick shrug of her shoulders. "I think that maybe she feels that if she forgives him, she'll be betraying you."

"That's crazy."

"Is it?" She quirked a brow. "Every time anyone asks her what the problem is, it always comes back to what happed to you."

Bucky chewed on his bottom lip the way Alya always did when she was thinking something over.

"This is one of those things that you can't really fix. Sometimes, relationships change and they're never the same again. That's life."

"You're gonna break the remote if you keep doing that." Steve plopped down next to Alya.

After her talk with her father, Alya decided she was done swinging for the day and headed back inside. She headed all the way upstairs to Steve's floor and sat down on his couch without a word.

She had been channel surfing ever since.

"There's nothing good on."

"How would you know?" He teased. "You're flipping through the channels so fast, you don't know which is which!"

Alya huffed at his tone and settled on a channel that was playing 'Gilmore Girls'. The two main characters reminded her of her and her mother…..but more coffee obsessed.

But her father was no Christopher.

"Ah." Steve commented. "I've heard about this one; nothing but good things."

"I like it."

"Your parents told me what's been going on." He stopped beating around the bush. "It isn't healthy to hold onto all of that."

"Well, I'm still angry."

"It's okay to be angry, Buddy." He pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger to grab her attention away from the screen. "But you have to let it go at some point."

"Did you let it go?" Her eyes bore into his.

She needed to know how he felt because he was the only other person in that bunker, and he loved Bucky just as much as she did.

"I did."

"How?"

"Well…." He inhaled sharply, trying to think of a way to explain the process. "It wasn't easy at first, nothing worth doing ever is. At first I tried to ignore it, the way you're doing right now. It didn't help, so then I tried to forget about it. I couldn't." He spoke softly. "Eventually, there was no way to avoid it, so I told Tony how I felt."

"What good did that do?" Alya scrunched her nose at the idea of talking about her feelings.

She still wasn't very skilled at it, but she was working on it.

"It made me feel better. It took that heavy weight off of my shoulders." He told her. "It gave me a chance let him know that I was a little hurt by what happened. When you can talk to someone and tell them that something they've done hurt you, I think that's the first step to healing."

"I wanna stay mad."

"I know, Buddy." He smiled despite himself. "You didn't get to be mad at the people who hurt you very much when you were younger, huh?"

Alya furrowed her eyebrows at his spot on assessment of her before she felt herself nodding.

"I can't imagine how good it must feel to be allowed to do that now." He validated her emotions. "After a while, it isn't going to feel so great. You're partially angry for the right reason and partially angry for the wrong reason. Something's gotta give or else it'll eat away at you."

"No."

"It doesn't have to happen right away, Buddy….Just think about it."

Alya frowned and huffed an annoyed breath of air before she shifted to use Steve's legs as a pillow, her eyes focused on the television in front of her in an attempt to disregard the conversation.

Steve chuckled at her expense, but placed a heavy, yet gentle hand on her back, grounding her and keeping her thoughts from spiraling out of control.

She didn't have to do anything right now. She was entitled to feel the way she felt.

Everything would come in its own time.

When she was ready.