the weight of water

by A. X. Zanier

Sequel to covered in frost

2. part 2

the weight of water

part 2

calm before the storm

.

The private jet Yelena had acquired for them was both unmarked and fucking expensive. Reminding him of his now regretful adventure with Zemo, who, as it had turned out, had been an actual Baron and quite wealthy. Enough wealth that he still had pull out in the real world, even though he'd been ensconced in The Raft for over a year now.

Bucky had yet to figure out exactly how he communicated with the outside world, but as soon as he did, he would pass that information on to Ayo, who would ensure that line of contact was cut off, perhaps with prejudice.

The two pilots had greeted them on arrival, given them a quick rundown of the flight plans, sealed the jet up, and then headed to the cockpit, leaving them to their own devices. Once at altitude, Yelena had raided the tiny kitchen, making it clear she had been on this jet or a similar one on prior occasions, returning with both bottles of water and whiskey, which they spent a few minutes passing about.

Whoever Yelena's boss was, Bucky was going to owe them big.

Worth whatever the cost might be, he'd quickly concluded, given Nienna sat beside him.

They'd made certain she'd ditched every trackable piece of electronics on her person, both smartwatch and phone dumped in a trash can a few miles from the building and nowhere near the airfield they'd taken off from. Her laptop had never left the lab building and had hopefully been destroyed in the ensuing fire, which would destroy all the data she had on it.

Except for one, of course.

And he had to assume the nanobots had some kind of tracker built in.

But that was a tomorrow problem.

Today he had her back and that was all that fucking mattered.

Yelena had chosen a seat across the aisle facing the two of them. Ni in the window seat, her right hand wrapped about his left, squeezing it tight enough that he wouldn't be surprised if it left an imprint on her palm.

They'd said very little as she was clearly still processing how the events of the last few days had played out. Part of him wanted to apologize, to beg her forgiveness that it had taken him so long to realize the truth and find her. But something about her silence worried him. She had not relaxed one tiny bit in the couple of hours since they'd taken off. Her entire body was tense as if waiting for that next shoe drop.

"Doll-"

Nienna jumped to her feet. "No," she shouted, her voice sounding raw. She jerked her hand out of his, shoved her way past his legs, and into the aisle. Yelena stared at her for a long moment before glancing at Bucky with actual concern on her features.

Ni stalked away from the two of them and spun about to glare at Bucky, who had slowly gotten to his feet and faced her, the three feet separating them suddenly seeming to be a gulf wider than the Pacific and deeper than the Marianas Trench. "My name is Nienna Grace Lykaios. Not Doll. Not Baby." Her tone dropped from shout to an angry burr of red rage. "Not Lils."

He slowly raised his hands in surrender, oddly not surprised at her reaction, but before he could form something placating, Yelena spoke up.

"You're angry. Good. Don't let it eat you up inside. Find a purpose for it and use it."

"To do what? Some petty revenge? We all know that someone much bigger than Theo was running that lab. Given it was in London and not somewhere more discreet, probably a government agency. You think I have any power to change that? To fight the juggernaut?"

"Why not?" Bucky asked in a quiet voice. "I damn well know what you're capable of. And I'll help you however I can."

Ni's eyes flicked from Bucky to Yelena, who shrugged, and back.

"Just like that."

Bucky nodded. "Just like that." He lowered his hands and picked up the backpack. He pulled out the tablet and held it out to her. "No one will have power over you unless you give it to them." There were layers and layers of meaning to those words. So many layers. He hoped that she would be willing one day, once she'd recovered from this experience, to give some small bit of that power to him. Much as she had had an undeniable power over him, even when he had thought her dead and gone.

She gingerly took the tablet from him, hugging it to her chest with a look of relief in her eyes. "I... I need some time alone. If... if that's okay?"

Bucky and Yelena glanced at each other and then nodded to her. "Sure. Take what time you need. It's what? Five hours till we land?"

Yelena shrugged. "About that. Though don't go too far."

That earned a hesitant grin from Nienna. She sighed, ran a hand through her hair, then chose a seat at the back of the plane to hide in.

Bucky watched her for a few moments, then dropped back into his seat. "Shit," he muttered.

"That's putting it mildly," Yelena agreed. "She's been back in control for less than twelve hours, she's going to need time."

"She'll have it." As far as he was concerned, she would have all the time she needed, be it a month or a year. He knew from experience that it was not something that got better overnight. It had literally taken him years to piece his memory back together and to feel something close to what he considered normal. His case had been extreme, but he knew her road could end up being just as long. He hoped not. Hoped she would reconnect with her therapist and spend time dealing with the trauma, for trauma it was, instead of bottling up and permitting the guilt to eat her away.

Though it might not be guilt for her.

That had been his burden.

This definitely had the potential to be something that broke a person, destroy every bit of self they'd created, shatter it into some many pieces that reconstruction simply wasn't possible.

All the King's horses and all that.

He could only hope Nienna the resilience he'd noted in her when they had been together, remained, even if it had been dulled a bit due to what had happened to her.

She would get through this; perhaps with a few cracks and chips, but she had survived the Snap; she could do this. And much like during those long five years, she would have support from him, her friends, her family, she would be far from alone.

Bucky met Yelena's enigmatic gaze, then pulled out his phone, intending to lose himself in a book for an hour or so.

Yelena leaned forward and spoke softly, "You should go talk to her."

Bucky sighed softly. "About what?"

"About what?" Yelena echoed. "She's not like us, Barnes, she's going to need help understanding how to deal with..." She tapped the side of her head. "Nienna can't compartmentalize the way we were trained to. She will need help."

"And she has an excellent therapist who can assist her once we're back in New York."

Yelena snorted. She stood and shifted to sit directly across from Bucky, leaning in to keep their conversation as private as possible given the confined space they were all currently in. Nienna may have moved to the back of the plane, but that was only a half dozen rows. "You think she can tell an ordinary shrink about this? This isn't a toxic relationship she's trying to get over. She was turned into someone else. Forced to do things she would not have done if she'd been in control. A therapist might be able to help with the symptoms, but the deep trauma, the violation..." She shook her head. "She needs to understand that an outsider will not be able to give."

Bucky thought about that. I really thought about that. Ayo and Shuri, among others, had been understanding and patient, but reconciling what had happened to him had been beyond them. He had to do the work. Atone for the guilt. Accept the horrible atrocities he had committed for Hydra and move on.

He still remained very much a work in progress.

"Why me? Why not you?"

Yelena frowned slightly. "You have the most similar experience. I was me, just not in control of my own actions. Though I still can't decide if that is better or worse. You at least have some memory of what you did as The Winter Soldier. Nienna..." Yelana shifted slightly to see the woman seated in the back between the leather-bound seats. "She had herself turned off. Like you. However, the secondary personality - and we're assuming it was only the one - stored the memories elsewhere. She has little to no recollection of them, and has no idea what she might have done as that Lilith."

Bucky knew that no longer held true. "She remembers some of it now."

Yelena nodded as she put those pieces together. "Which explains her outburst." She tapped the armrest with a finger. "You already have a connection with her, and I suspect you will be the only person she trusts right now. Me talking to her would do little. Even if she believed me, she wouldn't trust me."

Bucky knew he couldn't argue that point. He didn't entirely trust Yelena. Oh, to complete the agreed job, yes, but after that... The former Widow was a free agent and could and would work for whoever she wished. Good, bad, or downright dangerous. A wild card in a loaded deck.

He understood that she would have a vested interest in not permitting this technology to get out to the world at large, but that did not equal trust. The fewer who knew the better, but as it had been pointed out, once something was known to be possible, someone would figure out how to do it again, perhaps improve upon it as this nanobot version had proven.

"This is so fucked up," he growled under his breath.

"Agreed. I want to say we can't let this information get out, but the chances that it hasn't already are-"

"Nonexistent," Bucky interjected. "Control and counters are all that can be managed at this point. Who has it and how they use it." He leaned back into the seat, left hand balling into a fist. "I don't have the right contacts to deal with this."

Yelena's eyebrows bobbed upwards. "Do you need to? Pass it on to your boyfriend, Captain America, and let him do his good soldier routine."

Not a terrible idea, but not a great one either. After their disagreement with the GRC, Sam had stepped away for a time, but in the last few months, he'd gone back to helping the air force. That kid, Torres, had resurrected the old Falcon suit and had been apprenticing, for lack of a better term, under Sam since. Other jobs had come up that Bucky and Sam worked together, but for the most part, they'd gone their separate ways since Nienna's death last fall.

Bucky feared involving Sam would mean involving the military, which meant involving the government, an entity he did not fully trust, especially given Thunderbolt Ross was looking to be the next president.

"Maybe," Bucky acknowledged. "I don't have to decide today. Are you going to tell your boss?"

A mask dropped into place on the Widow's face. "I have no plans to, why?"

"It's valuable intel."

"It's dangerous intel. Besides, for all I know, my boss is aware of it and will be unhappy with me for interrupting the testing."

Bucky went ice cold at that thought. Though in truth, even he had to admit it could be possible. Once back on the ground, he would set Iris on it. Tracking down who had commissioned that lab.

Yelena's eyes widened slightly. "I hope you never come after me with that look on your face."

His lips twitched. "Yeah, you do," he responded, his voice a low growl. He cleared his throat, rolled his shoulders, and forced his tense muscles to relax. He turned and looked between the seats at Nienna, who had the tablet in her hands, brows knitted in concentration. "I'll check in with her before we land; she needs time right now." He turned back around to look at Yelena. "You're right, she's not like us, and I want it to stay that way."

. . .

"May I sit?"

Nienna turned away from the window she'd been staring out of to look up at him. She nodded, picked up the tablet that had been on the seat beside her, and placed it down on her lap. "Sure. Is... is everything okay?"

Bucky settled into the seat, twisting so that he could face her as much as possible. "Yeah, we're about ninety minutes out. I... Are you okay? It's important to me that you're okay."

She tipped her head down to look at her lap instead of facing him. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I snapped at you earlier. I-"

"Doll- Fuck, sorry. Ni, stop. You have nothing to apologize for." He reached out and gently placed his left hand over her right. She didn't flinch, didn't pull away, instead she intertwined their fingers and sighed softly.

"I feel like an idiot," she admitted in a soft voice, unable to meet his eyes.

"Why?"

"Because once again, I needed you to rescue me."

Bucky felt stunned. "Ni, I thought you were dead. You did this."

She rubbed her thumb along the side of his metal hand, and he once again had gratitude wash through him. She had never treated his metal arm any differently than his real one. Simply considered it part of him.

"I didn't do anything," she argued, voice hoarse with emotion that fought to make itself known.

He shifted and used his right hand to gently touch her chin and encouraged her to look at him. "You woke up. You realized your situation was dire, and you got a message out. If you hadn't done that," he gave her a wan smile, "I never would have known you were out there."

"How... how long ago?"

"For me? A couple of weeks. Do you know how long you've been... waking up?"

She shook her head. "Maybe a couple of months?" she sounded unsure, so it was a best guess. "The gunshot wound was healed, and I have a full range of motion. There's some stiffness, but I've clearly gone through some sort of physical therapy for it. Given healing would be six to eight weeks..." She shrugged. "Least they took decent care of me," she sneered.

"Well, you were valuable to them," he pointed out, hoping to lighten her mood.

She frowned, eyes narrowing.

"You are even more important to me." He tapped the underside of her chin and lowered his hand. "I want you to understand I will always come for you."

Her eyes widened for a few seconds, then shut as if she were fighting back tears. She leaned her forehead into his shoulder.

"I know," she said in a tiny voice, "even if you shouldn't have to."

He leaned his head against the top of hers, hoping she was able to take some comfort from it. "I know it's too soon, but when you're ready to talk, I'll be here to listen."

"I have a therapist," she grumbled, but didn't move her head.

"True, but I don't know how much you'd want to tell them given the situation. I'm sure Sam would help, too, if you'd rather not talk to me. He used to help vets with PTSD and stuff. He helped me more than a bit."

"And he won't think the story is crazy," she said with a heavy sigh. She turned her head to face the seats in front of them. "Does he know? That I'm alive?"

"No. Just me and Yelena on the good guys' side. I... I didn't want to get your family's hopes up."

"Fuck. How am I going to tell my dad?"

"He will be thrilled you're alive, I know that much. And you don't need to do that today. Or next week. We can do this on your timeline."

"I think people will begin to notice I've returned sooner rather than later." She sat up, squeezing his hand. "I have no idea where I'm going to go. The Manhattan apartment is out. Maybe the cabin in Vermont?"

"You are coming home."

"Bucky, the apartment is yours, I can't-"

"Doll, you can and you will." He was oddly tempted to beg that she come home. "Your dad mentioned you wanted to ask me to move in, now I guess I'm asking you to."

She frowned deeply. "Of course he did," she muttered, cheeks pinking slightly as if in embarrassment.

"I was trying to refuse the apartment. He thought it better to explain than let it fall out during probate and such. Even then, I initially said no."

She narrowed her eyes, the question unsaid.

"The servers. Iris. Protecting the data on them seemed important and then..."

"Yeah. We can talk about that later." Ni's eyes flicked in the direction of where Yelena remained sitting a few rows forward, ostensibly sleeping.

Yeah, they would definitely need to talk about that and so much more.

"Let's just focus on getting you home. All of the rest can wait until tomorrow," he assured her.

"Then why does it feel like I need to fix it all now," she muttered under her breath.

He shook his head gently. "Take a moment to breathe. Trust me, you need it. If you're lucky, the end of the world won't end up on your doorstep just as you're starting to get your feet underneath you."

Her brows drew together for a long moment, but smart girl that she was, she figured it out quickly. "Jeez, have you ever caught a break?"

"Yes," he assured her. "Last spring, when I met you."

She managed a watery smile for him, but then said, "Whereupon I promptly got myself killed. Are you sure you want me around?"

"Definitely," he assured her. "No arguments. I didn't fly across the entire European continent twice for you to back out now."

He could tell she was indeed tempted to argue anyway, but managed to refrain and plaster a look of utterly fake innocence on her face. "Trouble," he mumbled, earning a smile, if still hesitant for his efforts.

He somehow knew they had a long road ahead of them, which was perfectly fine so long as they were together.

. . .

Bucky made them breakfast for dinner.

Mostly because he didn't have a whole lot on hand, as he'd been gone for the better part of two weeks looking for her. Pancakes with frozen strawberries from last fall, eggs, and bacon. Nienna had taken one look inside his fridge and shot him a worried look, given he had little more than several varieties of beer within. He'd grumbled something about ordering out a lot but didn't explain beyond that.

He honestly didn't spend a lot of time in the apartment, always out working either with Urban Refurb, a freelance job, or one of his own projects. He'd kept as busy as he could once he'd officially moved in. For, well, reasons.

While he had cooked - at his insistence when Nienna had attempted to take over as she had often done before - she had wandered around the apartment looking like a lost soul drifting through a life they had moved on from.

An accurate description, he supposed.

When she wandered into her, in her mind, former bedroom only to discover it untouched other than clean, she'd stared at him in confusion.

"I moved into the second bedroom. Even your family hadn't been ready to go through all your things and decide what to do with them."

She'd just shaken her head and moved on with her tour of the apartment.

He had touched very little overall. Some updates to the second bedroom, making it obvious that a male lived there. A few equipment additions to the tiny gym area, including a heavy bag and punching bag, which he suspected Ni might appreciate using. She avoided the office area, as if knowing that facing it meant the work to fix herself needed to begin.

A well-deserved night off to settle and get her bearings was probably the only time she would give herself before pushing forward with the work that needed to be done to deal with those nanobots. And that didn't even cover the work that would be needed to heal her mental wounds.

When she finally settled on one of the stools at the counter, a glass of water, her choice of drink, he asked, "What did Yelena say to you at the airport?"

"She gave me her card, so to speak, and said I could call on her anytime."

Bucky's eyebrows shot up in surprise. The reserved former Black Window didn't seem to be the type to offer her services to just anyone. "Apparently, you made an impression."

A wisp of a smile passed across Ni's lips. "Good or bad, is the question. She also asked that I keep her updated on the nanobot stuff."

That caused concern to rumble deep in Bucky's gut. "Why?" he asked cautiously, not knowing if Yelena had wanted the conversation to remain private or not.

Ni shrugged and took a sip of her water. "She wants to be able to keep an eye out for others potentially affected. After her Red Room experiences, I get the impression she's not a fan of mind control in any form. Plus, if she can identify people affected, she's one up on anyone else. Makes her more valuable to her boss or paying customers."

Bucky did his best to hide his surprise as he grabbed plates and slid pancakes atop them. Butter, fruit, and all the other condiments were already on the counter. Just like before. They had rarely used her four-seat dining table for eating. Though it had turned out to be a reasonably good height for other... activities. He forced those thoughts aside. Now was certainly not the time. Not only had they been on shaky ground that last evening, just barely discussing how to move forward together, but she'd just gone through a terrible experience and been used in ways Bucky could quite literally relate to as he had had similar experiences as the Winter Soldier.

"Life has gotten complicated," he finally stated, not sure if he should voice his concerns about Yelena potentially using the info or the tech itself to her advantage, because, of course, she would; that's what they did. And by they, he included himself. Leveraging that knowledge, however, he needed to.

Including blackmail.

However, they needed to dig deeper and find out exactly who had authorized that lab.

Tomorrow, though. Or the next day.

He stood across from her and watched her pick at the food. He made certain she actually ate some of it, though not nearly enough in his opinion, but he understood. He could tell she was thinking hard about something, or perhaps everything, and while he wanted to ask, he decided to give her the space she needed to settle in tonight.

Once it was clear she'd eaten her fill, they cleaned up together, and she told him she was going to take a shower and go to bed. Early for her, but the sun had gone down, and she probably had a serious case of jet lag happening.

"Doll... Ni," he reached out and took her left hand into his right, gently rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand.

She squeezed his hand. "I'm... okay," she assured him. She stepped closer, her other hand coming up to settle lightly over his heart, her head tipped down, watching her fingers as they played with the fabric of his shirt. They stayed like that for a few moments, then she calmly walked away, heading for her bedroom, the door shutting with a soft click behind her.

Bucky sighed softly in a combination of relief and worry before grabbing a beer from the fridge and heading for the office.

He had work to do.

. . .

Bucky had done some work with Iris for a few hours and then headed to bed, unsure if he would be able to sleep. He could not help but be worried about Nienna's state of mind, especially given he had no idea what it was. She'd been unusually quiet the previous evening. Not shocking, but still not like the woman he had known. He fully realized she might not be that person any longer. He knew that the Bucky Barnes he had become was markedly different from the man he'd been when heading off to war. The trials he had gone through all those decades of life had shaped the man he now was learning to be.

Ni's loss had had a huge impact as well, and he knew his goal to become better had been stalled, if not reversed, because of it. He had his rules, his limits on what he would and would not do, but he had quickly realized they differed greatly from what not only Steve would have done, but Sam as well. He, Bucky, simply never could be as good as either of them. Did he endeavor to do what was right? Yes. Mostly. Did he try to do it in the most right way possible? Well, to be honest, no. He would indeed use any means necessary to achieve the best ending.

Thanks to his time with Hydra, he had connections that he exploited as he deemed necessary. Those lines between good and evil blurred.

And he'd decided he could live with it.

He wasn't Steve Rogers or Sam Wilson.

He was James Buchanan Barnes and had to become comfortable in his own skin and, even more, become comfortable with his choices. Good or bad.

A soft shuffle of sound at the door to the bedroom, which he'd left open just in case Ni needed anything, got his attention.

Nienna stood in the doorway in her pajamas of a tank top and faded gym shorts, her hair a tousled mess, which probably meant she'd been tossing and turning instead of being blessedly unconscious.

He didn't say a word, just lifted the covers as an invitation and waited.

She padded over, her feet barely making a sound on the hardwood floors, and crawled into the bed. Instead of spooning back as he expected, she buried the top of her head under his chin, hands tucked between their chests.

He adjusted quickly, his right arm under the pillow shifting to wrap about her back, the reading tablet in his left hand where he could still read it if he so chose. He set it down on the mattress within reach and wrapped his arms about her, holding her close but gently.

She heaved a huge sigh with the hint of a sob at the end and relaxed, possibly for the first time since arriving home.

And she was home as far as he was concerned. In his mind, the place had always remained hers regardless of his technical ownership of it. Plus, he had liked the place just the way it was.

Had he seriously considered moving into the master suite on more than one occasion? Of course. His first night here, he'd slept in her bed, smelling her scent still embedded in the sheets and pillows. He'd slept but been plagued with dreams of her, which had been both a relief and painful, and had awoken with his heart aching at her loss as deeply as the moment he'd been told she had not made it through the stupidly simple surgery.

After a month of sleeping in the bed a couple of days a week and always hurting nearly more than he could bear after, he washed everything and remade the bed. Her scent was still there, but far fainter, the detergent minimizing the scent buried deep within the mattress.

After that, he settled into the second bedroom full-time and made it his own.

Bucky lay there, arms wrapped about the one person in the world who had become the most important, and simply thanked any and all gods that would listen for her safe return.

Out of all the women he'd dated, or just danced with, Nienna had been the only one he had come back to time and time again. The only one he had ever considered, if only as a passing thought or two, marrying. Not that it was a requirement for a lasting relationship in this day and age.

The fact that she had been considering asking him to move in, taking the relationship to the next logical step in the current reality, had blown him away.

He had no idea what he would have said if she had had the chance to ask, but he most certainly hadn't hesitated to bring her home when he'd gotten that same opportunity. Though at this point, he couldn't say if they were going to be just roommates or something more, and didn't need to.

Yes, he knew what he wanted them to be, or become, but he could wait on her for now. She needed time to process and regain her footing.

The fact that she had come to him, on her first night home, for comfort gave him hope.

So he held on. Gently, but with what he hoped was a presence that made her feel safe and cared for.

He spent hours lying there, awake for the most part, if dozing occasionally, to make certain she got the sleep she desperately needed. Eventually, though, he drifted off, the peace he used to feel when with her settling right back into its proper place and encouraging him into a restful slumber for the first time in months.

When he woke, the sun had risen, though it was still fairly early based on his slightly off internal time clock. He always found it amusing that even super soldiers got jet lag; he just tended to recover faster than ordinary folk.

Nienna had been gone for some time, based on the lack of warmth on the sheets where she had lain. For an instant, worry spiked, fearing that she might have done something drastic once out of his sight. What that drastic thing might be, he refused to delve into. A faint passing concern that the control program had been reconnected and someone else had forced her to simply walk away during those hours he'd been blissfully unaware of the world about him got him moving. Tossing off the covers he padded out into the main living area.

He could smell coffee, which eased his worry a tiny bit, though he would have felt better had he seen her sitting at the counter or in the living room, sipping at a cup of coffee. He noticed the dining room door to the office was open and headed that way, when he saw her sitting at her work desk, coffee in one hand, the other drifting lightly over the scroll bar, an unexpected tightness in his chest released and he had to force the sigh of relief to remain inside.

Before she noticed him, he ducked away, leaving her be for the moment while he got himself marginally human. He hit the bathroom, threw on a pair of sweatpants, not wanting to take the time to get fully dressed right now, grabbed a mug of coffee, and headed for the office, making as much noise as he could while barefoot.

He stepped up beside her, her lack of reaction signalling to him she'd been aware of his presence, set a hand on her shoulder, and then kissed the top of her head. She turned to him with a confused look on her face, and he sighed as he realized what he'd done.

It had been that easy for him to fall back into the old patterns, those sleepy mornings where they had shared a bed and just been comfortable with each other and happy and relaxed, and just being together.

"Sorry," he mumbled, refusing to regret his seemingly instinctive response or her ongoing presence.

"Don't be," she responded, a smile lighting up both her face and eyes, "I just didn't expect it is all."

He walked a couple of steps, hooked his chair with his foot, and dragged it over before settling into it next to her. "Did you sleep okay?" That seemed to be a safe place to start.

She shrugged. "I got a few hours with you. Had some weird dreams and got up just before dawn." She set a hand on his upper arm. "Don't do the frowny face, between jet lag and everything else, it's going to take me a few days to settle."

He nodded slowly, then sipped his coffee before saying. "If you want to sleep with me, you can. And I do mean just sleep. We'll... we'll figure out the rest later."

"You mean us."

"I do."

She shook her head, frowned, and turned away to stare at the screen before her. "Okay," was all she managed to get out, something bothering her, but Bucky feared making her even more uncomfortable and withdrawn, so he said nothing.

"What are you working on?" he finally asked.

"I was going to get the program uploaded, but there isn't enough space."

"Ah. So just order more server blades."

She gave him a droll look. "I can't. I'm not alive, remember, and don't have access to any of my accounts. My former accounts, that is."

He wanted to smack himself in the forehead for that bit of stupidity. "Right. Iris, can I authorize the use of the maintenance account to Ni?"

"Yes," Iris responded, using the generic voice he and Sam had picked for the AI before it became more.

"There you go," he told Ni. "Make a list of what you need and it'll get ordered."

"Thank you," she told him, sounding relieved. "I have... Iris is working on all the paperwork to bring me back to the living, but we won't push it through until I've settled some things. I'm thinking about two weeks at most."

"Doll... is it okay if I call you doll?"

She nodded. "If not, I will do my best to tell you instead of blowing up like unexploded ordnance."

"Fair. Though I can probably handle a grenade without too much damage."

She gave him a wan smile. "But you shouldn't have to." Then she segued back into the original subject. "I will make a list and let Iris use my contacts to order what we need; probably tomorrow."

He had a suspicion the list was not going to be small or cheap. "I have contacts that can get you top-of-the-line items if you want to use them; it's a bit more under the table, but there's no chance whoever was running that lab aren't going to be looking for you, and they might track purchases they think you'd need to undo the programming."

She tipped her head to the side. "That's not a terrible idea. Though it's not like they can't figure out where I've gone with a couple of phone calls. It's a matter of whether or not getting me back is worth the trouble."

He had come to the same conclusion. "They will have to go through me this time. And I mean literally."

She gave him a brilliant smile. "My hero."

His look remained serious. "Always, doll." She appeared to be stunned at his proclamation. "Now, how about some breakfast. I need to talk to you."

She narrowed her eyes but nodded. "Sure."

Together, they walked back to the kitchen where he prepared a repeat of the previous night's dinner. This time, he gently nagged her until she'd eaten a reasonable amount of food, not about to let her not take care of herself. She needed to be healthy to get better, even he knew that. He'd had to learn that lesson when he'd come back from the Snap.

Ni had insisted she had eaten more than enough and switched from coffee to water when he broached what he knew would be a touchy subject.

"I know you are going to hate this, but you need to be checked out by a doctor."

She froze in place, the blood draining from her cheeks with remarkable speed and turning her to a scary shade of pale.

He was quick to reassure her. "Not a hospital. I wouldn't do that to you. Especially after..." He trailed off, not wanting to remember that disastrous choice last fall. "I have a... guy. Legitimate doctor, works for certain clientele only, and he owes me."

She still didn't move, her eyes going scarily wide and round. "Why?"

He sucked in a breath and did his best to keep his voice level and calm. "You said you remembered that Theo made... Lilith his girlfriend. Is there any chance at all you could be pregnant?"

He could see in her posture that she wanted to bark 'no', but she held her tongue.

"Do you remember the last time you had your period?" he asked in a gentle tone, knowing she might be skittish.

She closed her eyes, trying to find any memory that might give her the answer. It became clear at her frown that though she'd accidentally gained some memories of the secondary personality, she had not gotten all of them, and that there were obviously gaping holes in her knowledge. "I don't know," she finally admitted. "I want to say I still have an IUD..."

"But you have no way of knowing what they did to you. If you are, you aren't far along and it could be... dealt with however you like."

She shuddered. "Oh fuck no." She slid off the stool and began to pace about the room. "I know it's been months, but from my point of view, I was last here, in this room, just a few days ago. A week at most. My time sense is off." She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. "Shit, shit, shit."

He walked over to her and set his hands lightly on her shoulders. "I can text him and see if he's available on short notice. Maybe this afternoon?" he suggested.

She stared down at the floor, but he could feel the tension in her shoulders. He didn't know if it was fear or anger wrapping her up in knots, or both. This particular scenario had never been one he'd had to worry about. Though he imagined it was possible that there were children of his out there that he knew absolutely nothing about.

And truly, he didn't want to know. He had no connection to them, however young or old they might be. And in many ways, they wouldn't be his, just a product of yet another Hydra experiment.

She finally nodded. "Yeah, let's get it over with."

. . .

Bucky's guy was available later that afternoon, so Nienna had killed time making that shopping list of items she would need to get to work on undoing everything that the lab had done to her. The list was not as long as expected, but based on his admittedly limited knowledge, it seemed to be what she needed, so he had Iris put out some feelers with his contacts to arrange pricing and work out a delivery schedule. He, for Ni's sake, wanted the items sooner rather than later, but also wanted the quality that she needed.

There should be more than enough to cover it in the accounts, Ni had left him quite a bit in cash, never mind her assorted IRAs and 401ks that he'd simply rolled over instead of cashing out. Also, he was far from broke. Urban Refurb covered his day-to-day needs, his freelance jobs paid much better, plus the occasional military contract he assisted with. He wasn't rich, but he wasn't hurting either. He could easily take several months off and still have plenty left. He had escrow accounts for the yearly taxes on the apartment; the outside office for Nyte Visions had been closed when she had died.

IAI Nienna, with the assistance of Iris when needed, still handled the New York city maintenance contracts, and therefore Nyte Visions was still paid a monthly stipend, which was generous indeed, and went straight into an account that paid for the ongoing maintenance of the servers that were at this point the cause of all the trouble Nienna had gotten herself into.

Of course, that had also been what had saved her.

He introduced himself as Dr. Smith, which caused Ni's lip to twitch slightly. Bucky had warned her that the doc worked anonymously, and while she could find out who he really was, at this point it seemed unnecessary. Did Bucky trust him? To a point. And that feeling was most likely mutual, which was fine.

A female nurse in scrubs accompanied him, rolling in a mayo tray with assorted items and a hospital gown.

Ni changed into the gown with only a mild look of distaste, keeping on her undergarments as instructed. The doc had explained they would begin with a general physical and go from there.

He ran through all the basics, and Ni passed with flying colors. Then the real questions began.

"All right, how would you like to proceed? You appear to be healthy, there are no obvious injuries other than a few minor scrapes and bruises. Is there something specific you would like me to... take care of?"

Bucky sat nearby, letting Ni handle things how she wished, as he had told the doc no specifics. It hadn't been his place to do so, no matter how worried about her he might be.

"I need to find out if my IUD is still in place and have a pregnancy test run."

Smith nodded. "We'll do a full blood panel, check all your levels, and look for any potential toxins. I can have those done in about an hour, if that is agreeable?"

Ni heaved a massive sigh of relief. "Yes."

He nodded to the nurse, who gathered up the necessary items to take several vials of blood to test.

"The pregnancy test will only take a few minutes, but I should be able to verify the IUD with an ultrasound." His eyebrows went up in an obvious question.

"Abdominal?"

He nodded. "If we don't see it easily, I can do a transvaginal as a backup. Also, if it is indeed missing, I can replace it for you today."

Bucky watched as Ni went extremely still.

"I appreciate the offer. I'll make a decision when I need to."

"Of course," he replied with a slight bow of his head. Bucky had warned him that Ni would be very skittish after a recent incident at a hospital without going into any details, and he had to give Smith points for handling her with kid gloves.

Nienna was strong, but after everything she'd been through recently, her being less than trusting seemed only natural. Bucky would be in her place.

The nurse took several vials of blood while Smith set up the ultrasound. He had Ni lie back on the table, a blanket draped over her legs, and had her tug up the gown to give him access to her lower abdomen. Ni hissed at the chill of the gel, but relaxed after a moment, watching the screen intently for the tiny piece of metal that needed to be found to ease her worries.

"There it is," Smith said after only a couple of minutes of hunting. He pointed to the screen and the bright strip of white amidst the darker area that would be her uterus. "It appears to be intact, and from what I can see, you have no other unexpected visitors, but we will confirm with the blood test."

The nurse had reappeared with a towel in hand and assisted Ni in cleaning up the gel. Then helped her sit back up. "The blood test is negative. You are not pregnant."

Bucky could visibly see the relief wash through Nienna.

Smith pulled up a stool and settled into it. "Is there anything else you want me to look at? I have both an MRI and CT scanner available should you wish for a more detailed examination. I see no need for a gynecological examination unless, again, you wish it. Though I must ask why the uncertainty about the IUD. It is not the most pleasant experience having it removed."

Ni looked to Bucky for a moment, then said, "Let's just say I've had some memory issues and remember very little of the last few months."

Smith nodded slowly, absorbing the answer. "Then perhaps that MRI and CT are in order, to make certain there is no damage to your cranium?"

Ni tipped her head, plainly considering something. "Have you worked with nanobots?"

Bucky shifted in his seat, not certain exactly how far they should trust this doctor, no matter how much he was owed in repayment. "Ni..."

"Can I trust him or not? Besides, who else do I go to? Strange? Banner? Is there anyone else you trust with this?"

Bucky sighed softly. She had a point.

Smith answered, "You are my client, I will use my utmost discretion, whatever your decision. I can offer you a standard contract if you wish, and I will be on call for you as needed. I have an entire team also bound by the contract, should I not be immediately available."

Bucky could tell by the look on Nienna's face that she was seriously considering it. She had doctors that she had trusted, but after this, perhaps a private concierge doctor with facilities might be the way to go. Hell, Bucky had used him more than once after getting himself beat up more than he could handle on personal jobs. So long as they didn't trust the doc or his people more than necessary... Then again, Iris could keep an eye on him and keep him and his in line should it be required.

"It's not a bad idea, doll."

"No, it's not," she agreed. "I'll take a look at that contract while we wait on the blood test results."

"Excellent. Now, yes, I have worked with nanobots before, mainly those used in medical situations. Healing, some of the newer ones used for insulin replacement therapy, and the like. It is not a specialty, but I can learn what I need as we go."

Nienna nodded. "Hypothetically."

"Of course."

"If one were to have nanobots implanted to mimic neural pathways, could an MRI cause them, and the neurons they were attached to issues?"

Smith blinked. "I believe in that situation, an MRI would be contraindicated. While tiny, they still typically contain metal and could cause damage to the neurons should they be shifted unexpectedly. While other nanobots have remained undisturbed and functional during an MRI, those attached to the brain..." He shook his head. "It's not a risk I would take without more details."

Ni nodded. "In theory, a CT scan should be fine and could potentially pinpoint the nanobots' positions if they are concentrated enough."

"Hypothetically?"

She smiled.

"Hypothetically. The CT return will return echoes of the metal, but given the size of only a few microns..." He trailed off, clearly thinking. "A modified CT could, in theory, locate them, but I currently do not know of one that can do so. Hmm..." He tapped a finger on his thigh. "I'll need to do some research on that."

"Me too," Nienna muttered. "Slightly less hypothetically, I need you to examine the blood in detail and let me know if you find any nanobots in it."

"I can do that. Can I presume you would like to take possession of any I might locate?"

"Yes," she told him. "Even if it's only a single one, I need it for... research purposes."

An eyebrow rose on Smith's forehead. "Have you any experience with nanobots?"

"Some," she answered. "My specialty is neurophysics, so I think I'll manage."

Smith hid the twitch fairly well, but his eyes widened slightly as he realized who sat before him.

"Doc," Bucky warned.

"Full discretion," Smith reiterated. "I'll get that contract printed for you." He stood. "I'll leave you to get dressed. When you're ready, please see yourself back to the waiting area, and we'll let you know when we have the results of the blood tests." He opened the door and stepped partway through before turning back. "If you need a collaborator on your hypothetical problem, please let me know. I would find it a most fascinating challenge."

Ni's lip twitched. "I'll keep it in mind."

The door closed with a click, and Bucky immediately got to his feet and walked over to her. "You okay, doll?"

"Better knowing that I'm not... that my IUD is still in place. Christ, I never want to feel that way ever again."

Bucky held out his hand to needlessly assist her off the table and watched as she dressed. If he had any say in it, she would never worry about anything like that again.

. . .

Back at the apartment, Nienna stopped behind the sofa, which hadn't moved an inch in the time she'd been gone, and stared out the windows. She'd been quiet the entire ride back, even with the good news that her initial blood tests had come back both clean and well within the norms. Smith had offered to do some more detailed tests as a precaution, as well as go through every drop looking for any stray nanobots.

Her confidence in being hale and whole, in body if not soul, faded quickly once out of the doctor's presence.

Still, she'd read through the contract, requested a few amendments that he'd agreed to, and they had both signed it, a digital copy in her possession even now. As binding as it could be, given what the man did sometimes bordered on the not quite legal. She hadn't cared. She needed someone outside the normal system to trust with her medical needs that her regular doctor couldn't take care of.

"Dinner?" he asked, then remembered the decided lack of food in the house. "I can run to the store if you want to be alone for a bit."

She turned about, fingers gripping the cushions of the sofa hard enough to turn her knuckles white. "I think I want comfort food and a few bottles of wine. I... I need to tell you something, and it will require alcohol."

"Okay." He pondered for a few moments. "How about I place an order with Vino, they'll send a selection of wine to match the food."

Nienna sighed. "That sounds amazing." She relaxed a bit, rolling her shoulders to release some of the tension there.

Bucky walked over to her, hesitated for a long moment, then set his hands on her shoulders. When she didn't flinch, he contained a sigh of relief. The last thing he wanted was for her to be afraid of him, even though it wasn't him she reacted to. Everyone handled trauma differently, and no matter what, she had most certainly been traumatized, and he wanted no part of adding to it, even by accident.

She seemed to have noticed his hesitation, slight as it may have been. "Bucky, I promise I will let you know if I don't want you or anyone else touching me."

"Doll-"

"You make me feel safe and I will never be afraid of you," she asserted, which caused him to swallow with some difficulty at the faith she had in him. "I know I'm gonna have issues, but none of it will be because of you." She poked him in the sternum with one finger, "Understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am," he responded. Then he encouraged her to turn around and move to sit on the sofa and at least attempt to relax while he ordered the food. Ignoring the need to kiss her in hopes of eliciting a smile, he handed her the remote and walked back to the kitchen to place an order with her family's restaurant. The gentleman on the other end of the line made three wine suggestions, and Bucky told him to send them all.

"It'll be here in about seven if that works."

Ni, who had done little more than turn on some soft music, nodded. "Less than an hour, that's a quick turnaround." She narrowed her eyes, thinking. "Do they push you to the top of the list when you call?"

Bucky ducked his head and then settled beside her on the couch. "Yeah. I tell them not to, but they are apparently under orders from your father that I am to be treated as a priority client. I try not to abuse it, and always over-tip to make up for it."

"My dad lets you pay?"

"Only after I insisted. I'm charged fifty percent, but pay full price with the remainder going to the team."

"You know they don't rely on tips, right? Mom made sure they were all paid a fair wage, even the servers and bussers."

"I know, but they're doing extra work just because I... was your boyfriend. I don't want them to resent me by seeming to take advantage of the situation." The truth. He enjoyed eating at all her family's places and hated the special treatment, even though not a single snide comment had been made by anyone and any of the restaurants. He was always welcomed by name and introduced to any new hires as part of the family. And he had truly no idea what he had done to deserve that.

"I have a weird question, but is there any chance you still have my phone? I have vague memories of giving it to you after I'd been doped up for the surgery."

Bucky ducked his head. "Uh, yeah. Still charged and active. It's on your nightstand."

She tipped her head, clearly trying to remember if she had seen it yesterday. "I don't recall seeing it, but that will make things easier."

"It's been a hectic few days."

She snorted. "No shit." Then shifted to sit with her arm against his and tipped her head onto his shoulder. "I'm going to impose on you again tonight."

He turned to look at the top of her head, the tip of her nose just visible. "In what way?"

"So I can sleep. After we talk, I'm going to be emotionally exhausted and need you if there's any chance of me sleeping."

"Not that I mind sleeping with you in any manner, but you can wait to tell me. There's no rush." And he meant that. He had no clue what she was going to talk to him about once she'd had enough wine, but he would always wait until she was fully ready.

"Thank you, but it's time. Past time, but I'm gonna need alcohol and patience."

"You'll have both, doll." He gave in then, and kissed the top of her head, before resting his cheek against it, just thankful that he had her back, if only mostly intact.

. . .

The food had arrived on time as always, and while Bucky hated the special treatment, he always appreciated the effort and made certain to thank those who worked on creating the fantastic meals. They'd sent three bottles of wine, one for each course, and, while Ni did indeed drink her fair share, he made certain she didn't overindulge. At least not too early, and that she ate.

By the time they'd reached the dessert portion – an amazing tiramisu - Ni had achieved that pleasantly buzzed stage and had become more and more indecisive on her former decision to tell him... whatever she had intended to tell him.

"Nienna-"

She shook her head, frowned, then sighed deeply. "When the Snap happened, I moved out of the tiny apartment I'd been sharing with my girlfriend Sabine and moved back into the family apartment in Manhattan because it seemed safer." She poured more wine, leaned back into the cushions, and rolled the glass between her hands instead of drinking. "It was chaos for the first few weeks, as you can imagine," she managed a wan smile, but still didn't even glance over at Bucky.

He had some inkling, based on stories he'd heard, not just from her but others, like Sam's sister Sarah, who'd gone through the ordeal of those first few weeks, hell months, after half the universe had vanished. He shifted, drawing one leg up and resting his arm on the back of the couch, while she stared at some middle distance in the room and waited for her to continue, not certain if he should encourage her to talk as it might risk her being unable to process what she had experienced into words.

"Once the initial shock had settled, I realized exactly how precarious my locale was. We'd moved there to make it easier for her to audition and work when she picked up parts. I could work from anywhere so long as I had good computer access, which I paid for. I didn't care so long as we could be together. The think tank job was nearly one hundred percent remote, with only the occasional on-site meetings. Easy peasy. We didn't even really need my car, but I held onto it for those work trips."

Nienna sipped her wine. "I took my time moving all our stuff to Manhattan as most of my friends and family had vanished." She shot a quick look at him, then added. "Lost my job, of course, as the work wasn't more important than surviving." She shrugged. "I had money, but with the world broken, it wasn't exactly needed." She shook her head as if realizing she'd gotten off track. "Which I've told you about before."

"Doll, you tell me however you need to," he assured her, meaning it. Even after a couple of years, few people liked to talk about those first few months and what they had to do to survive. He set a hand on her thigh, and she immediately grasped onto it like a lifeline.

"The place, as you know, is pretty high end, only a couple dozen apartments in the entire building."

"Massive apartments," he added, which was the truth, each one taking up nearly half an entire floor. Her family hadn't been one-percenter rich, but they'd been very well off by anyone's standards.

She snickered. "I can't argue that, but we did go to public school, not private. My parents lucked into the place and got it for well below market value." She patted his arm. "About half the tenants remained, and I knew most of them, as they were mostly families I'd grown up with that had been living there forever. We banded together to keep the place running, share food, and anything else. Eventually, others who had been displaced one way or another moved in. We always tried to help where we could. Some stayed a few weeks and moved on, others just for a night or two. A lot of those looking for family, they hoped, were still alive and just needed a safe place to sleep."

She downed about a third of the wine in her glass and twined their fingers together. "A man moved into one of the empty apartments and settled in. I... we did what we had with everyone else, and he seemed to mesh well with us. That first winter was... rough, but we got through it mostly because all those older apartments had working fireplaces. People froze to death in more modern places that relied on electricity to power the heat. We didn't turn anyone away. We would keep the big fireplace in the lobby going day and night in case anyone needed a place to get out of the cold, if only for a few hours."

Given that Bucky had heard stories about armed battlements in some parts of New York that first year, it was surprising that her community had chosen to go a different route.

"He seemed to fit in with the rest of us, came across as affable and as selfless as the rest of us. Offered advice for the winter greenhouse and the garden we started in our green space, come spring." She sighed and shook her head again.

"I take it it was all a facade?"

"Maybe? I can't say for certain." She turned to face Bucky, looking him dead in the eyes. "I need you to understand I was never anything other than polite and friendly to this man. Never gave him any indication that I wanted anything beyond the camaraderie we had established over the months. That I never-" She choked on that last word, and Bucky got this horrible sinking feeling in his stomach, but he didn't say a word, just rubbed his thumb along the side of her hand in hopes of offering what comfort he could.

"He showed up at my door early for a meeting the building was having. Final planning for the garden, I believe, and it was my turn to host. He proclaimed his devotion and began to explain how we were made for each other and all this relationship stuff that I simply did not understand. I was still mourning the loss of my girlfriend, never mind my entire family, and here was this near-stranger proclaiming his undying affection for me and planning how many children we should have to help repopulate this world..." Nienna growled softly, the anger still there, if usually buried.

"I take it you told him some polite version of 'what the fuck?'"

She snorted. "Yeah, you could say that. I was such an idiot, standing there confused instead of being scared. He, of course, did not take well to my response of just wanting to be friends and neighbors, and he grabbed me."

Bucky controlled the tensing of his hands and did not break the glass or Ni's fingers, making it her turn to shift their hands to reassure him.

"I only had some very basic defense training and got in a couple decent hits before he punched me in the face and sent me down to the floor, where I hit my head hard enough that the next few... however long it was to be little more than a pain-filled blur."

"Nienna, did he-"

She shook her head. "No, thank god. I was extremely vocal, and several of the other residents showed up before he was able to even get me undressed, but by then, he'd beaten me bloody and broken. I know they got him off me as I remember the weight holding me down vanishing, but not much more after that."

Fuck. Little wonder she'd reacted so violently to discovering that Theo had used her as a plaything. "Ni," Bucky said in a hoarse whisper. "Tell me they arrested him."

She gave him a tiny smile. "Bucky, I can honestly say I don't know. That system was just as broken as any other at the time. I doubt they called the cops or any of the local groups that were doing what they could to keep the peace."

"Then what?"

She shrugged. "All I can say is that he was never seen again, and the garden ended up being very prosperous that year, what with the excellent composting."

Holy shit. Had her neighbors really killed him and used him to feed their garden? He could see it and understand it, considering the probable lack of official channels in existence at the time.

"They cleaned up the mess and never told me what happened. Beyond that, I would never have to worry about it again. After that, we screened those interested in moving in."

Bucky looked at her and realized once again just how strong and amazing a woman she was. "How badly were you hurt?"

She shivered. "Bad. They got me to the nearest hospital, and I woke up during the initial exam. The doc was very dismissive when I told him what had happened, backed up by witnesses, mind you. One of those who assumes it's always the woman's fault in those situations. My treatment was haphazard at best, given I wasn't exactly coherent at the time. The nurses did more than the ER doc and finally listened to me when I said my side hurt worse than the concussion I'd gotten when my head had hit the floor."

She finished off her wine and leaned forward to set the glass down on the table. "When the doctor finally agreed to x-rays, they found a cracked skull and broken ribs, one of which had punctured one of my kidneys. The doctor, by being a dick and assuming I was just being overly emotional, had put it off for so long that my stats had begun to drop. They got me into emergency surgery, but because the supply chain had been so disrupted, they only had a limited supply of anesthesia."

He stared at her in dawning horror.

"I woke up early, and there was little they could do for me. The anesthesiologist did all she could to keep me calm and still, but I could feel everything. Eventually, I passed out again from the pain, but..."

"No hospitals, ever again. I promise," he told her. If he had known about this he would have found a fucking vet to have the bullet removed, or done it himself.

She granted him a watery smile. The tears were there in her eyes, but not falling. "I know things have changed, that the system is better than ever, but all I see is overhead lights and the eyes of the poor woman trying to keep me from freaking out while a surgeon tries to put my insides back together."

He reached out and cupped her cheek with his left hand. "I'm sorry you had to go through any of that, Ni."

She leaned into his hand, not caring that it was metal and most likely cold to the touch. "I didn't tell you for it to be a burden, Bucky, I just needed you to understand." She turned her head, kissed his palm, then stood, picking up her glass of wine as she moved away, clearly needing to pace and not because he had upset her.

"And you moved to Brooklyn a few months later?"

She poured the remainder of the wine into her glass. "Yeah, early September. I couldn't even go back into the apartment for months. I stayed with the Parsons for a few weeks while I healed, then moved into one of the other apartments. I started looking for other places as soon as I realized I couldn't live there any longer. I picked up a few freelance tech jobs that paid better than expected and bought the first corner apartment." She spread her hands to gesture at the area they were in. "Then the city came to me about the power grid and..."

"The rest is history?"

She smiled, though he could still see the pain buried deep in her eyes.

"Something like that." She paced back and forth, thinking hard from the looks of it. "I do not want to sleep alone tonight, if that's okay with you. Your bed, mine, I don't care, but I don't want to be alone. Please?" The last sounded both pitiful and desperate as if there were any chance he could refuse her.

He got to his feet and walked over to her, but gave her space, staying roughly a foot away. "Yes. Tonight and every night you want me to."

She sobbed, but swallowed it down, then stepped forward until her forehead thudded into his chest. He raised both arms and rubbed his hands gently up and down her back.

"Thank you, Bucky. I know this is a lot..."

"Doll, you've been there through me coming home broken and beat up all to hell, I can handle this. We can handle this."

She sighed and set her free hand on his side, and he simply held on until she was ready to step away.

He could feel the hitch in her breathing and thought for a moment that she might have begun crying, which he could fully understand, but a few moments later, she muttered a broken, "Fu-uck," and he realized she had the hiccups.

He tried not to snigger, but failed most spectacularly.

She lifted her head and glared at him. "Ev-vil, man," she complained.

"Yeah, but you like me that way," he stated in full confidence. He plucked the still half-full glass of wine from her hand, downed the remainder to keep her from doing so, as he suspected the hiccups were due to the amount of alcohol she had consumed.

"Sit," he directed, gently urging her back to the sofa. "I'll get you some water and clean up."

"But I can hel-lp. Fuck."

He chuckled again. "I think I can manage to get the lids back on the containers and put them in the fridge."

She pouted, but sat as requested. He took the wine glass to the sink, rinsed it, filled it from the filtered water in the fridge, and brought it back to her. She sighed, took it from him, and drank a fair amount since she knew he would stand there until she did so.

He tapped her on the nose and began gathering up their dishes. While he worked, he kept an eye on her. At one point, she got up and headed for her bedroom, presumably to hit the head given the amount she had drunk, and he half expected her not to reappear, but she did, settling back onto the sofa and making certain she finished off the water, all the while her hiccups continuing.

It took him a fair twenty minutes to get everything cleaned up, the dishwasher was humming quietly in the background as he added a few things to the needed shopping list, as well as another reminder to get it done. Tomorrow. With two of them living here now, he would need to keep the place stocked with more than beer and takeout.

"Ni?" he called out as he dried his hands. He didn't get a response, so he hung up the towel and walked to the living area to check on her. Without the least bit of surprise, he realized she had fallen asleep. While still comparably early, just after nine pm, he knew that not only had today been stressful for her in many ways, but she also hadn't slept well the previous night.

With a shock, he realized she'd only been home a little over twenty-four hours, and they somehow had fallen back into that rhythm they'd had before his walking away. Granted, their dynamic with each other had changed through no fault of their own, but that sense of comfort and peace, at least for him, had returned, and he couldn't imagine not having her by his side for as long as she wanted to stay.

With a tiny shake of his head, he scooped her up, causing her to grumble in her drunken slumber, and carried her to the bedroom, hers tonight. He managed to get the covers turned down without dropping her, then tugged her jeans off so she'd be more comfortable. After a few moments, she shifted, rolling onto her side and tucking one arm under the pillow. He pulled the covers up to her shoulders and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. "I'll be back in a bit, doll."

She muttered something he couldn't make out, then left the room, leaving the door open so that he could hear if she got up or called out. He had concerns she might have nightmares after the wringer she'd been through today. He went to the office and grabbed his laptop, and settled on the sofa to work for a little while.

Without looking up from the newest search results, Iris had come up with he said, "Let me know if she has any issues, please."

"Of course," came the soft reply from the nearest speaker. Nienna's virtual doppelganger responded and not Iris.

He worked for a few hours, planned a couple of trips, and did some preliminary research on a possible freelance job before deciding that the time had come to try to sleep. He didn't need to, per se, but he had promised Nienna he would be there with her. Besides, he could always read on his tablet while she got the sleep she needed to heal.

He returned his laptop and locked up the office, made sure the security had been set, and headed to bed. He cleaned up and changed into a pair of old gym shorts that were no longer fit for the gym in deference to the fact that while he and Ni might be sleeping together, that was currently all they were doing. At some point, they would need to have that relationship talk, but there was no rush. Where they stood with each other could wait until she emotionally stood on far more solid ground. She had a fuckton of reality to deal with, he would not burden her with something that could easily be deferred to a later time.

He slid into his side of the bed, where he had slept when they'd been together, his tablet within easy reach, and waited. It took less than five minutes for her to shift until she had settled herself with her head on his shoulder - the right one - sighing in what seemed to be contentment, then drifting right back to sleep.

He kissed her on the forehead, grabbed his tablet, and settled in for the night.

. . .

Bucky was carrying a dishwasher up a ramp when Iris - they still hadn't figured out what to call AI Nienna to differentiate her from the real girl version - knocked on the comms behind his ear. Both Ni and he had taken to wearing them full time as they acted as a GPS locator of sorts on top of permitting the three of them to have private discussions that didn't involve phones that could potentially be listened to by others.

The knocking was an almost but not quite irritating vibration they'd agreed to. He got the dishwasher in place in the kitchen for the plumber to complete and then tapped the Bluetooth device he'd taken to wearing on his ear so that it appeared he was answering a call as opposed to talking to the thin air. No one at Urban Refurb needed to know what he had going on in his personal life right now.

"Go ahead," he said as he headed back outside for the next piece of heavy ass furniture he'd volunteered to carry inside.

"I completed the search," Iris answered with worry in her voice.

"Which search?" Dozens were going on right now between him and what Ni had been working on.

"Who Theo is and who he works for."

Bucky ground his teeth together, his hatred for Theo not having eased in the slightest since returning to New York. Some days, he seriously regretted not killing the man that day. Or, you know, letting Ni have the honors. "I take it the news is not good."

"Oh, fuck no," she stated, ire dripping from her tone like venom from a viper fang. "I haven't told the other me yet because I know how she will react."

Well, of course, she would; they were, at least up to a point, the same person. "And how will I react?"

The line went dead silent for several long seconds. "Not well at all, but I suspect you will be far less surprised."

Bucky made it outside and chose a section of the kitchen cabinet to carry in next. "Rip the band-aid off," he told her.

"Theo knew Nienna."

That caused Bucky to stumble in surprise. He didn't drop the cabinet, but it was close. "How?" he growled.

"That think tank she was part of pre-Snap, he was one of the higher-ups. A section head of sorts, so he would have known exactly what she was working on and how far she'd gotten before his being Snapped away for five years."

Bucky tramped through to the kitchen and set the cabinet down, grinding his teeth all the while. "No wonder she kept getting all those requests after the Blip. Someone wanted to restart the project, and he knew she was vital to its completion."

"Oh, it gets worse," Iris informed him.

"Of course it does," Bucky muttered as he headed back outside for more large items. Some of these would normally need multiple guys to deal with, while he could manage by himself for the most part. He eyed the fridge and decided it would indeed require the oversized dolly even for him to get it in safely, even with the padding still in place. "How much worse?"

"The current project seems to be being run by NATO countries, but it's not tied directly to that organization. It reminds me of the joint projects run by the SSR or SHIELD when it was still active. The US and the UK seem to be taking the lead, but others are involved."

"Is that where the nanobots came from?"

"It looks that way. From what I've discovered, that project has been ongoing since the second Red Room was discovered, and, as we well know, they had some serious success."

Bucky wrangled the fridge onto the dolly, secured it with ratchet straps, and tipped it up with relative ease. It wasn't all that heavy for him, just extremely large and awkward, so much so that he was going to need to go up the ramp backwards with it. "I wonder what else they have going on?" he snarled softly.

"Working on it. I can say with certainty that the nanobots are theirs and they have been trying to recreate the Zola algorithm with limited success."

Bucky got up the ramp, calling out to his coworkers to let them know he was coming in blind with a large, heavy object. They cleared out as needed, with one guiding him once in the kitchen for placement of the large appliance. The man - Tim - assisted in getting the fridge unhooked from the dolly and then went back to his current task with a nod of thanks from Bucky.

He seriously debated telling Iris to stop digging, but knew she wouldn't. Hell, Nienna wouldn't now that they were in. She would gather every bit of information and use it against them to prevent this from happening to anyone else again. Sadly, Bucky knew it would do little good in the long run. Yes, this particular group might be shut down officially, but he damn well knew the projects would get shelved for a few months, maybe years if they were lucky, and then be resurrected by someone else, Citing the need to protect whomever the excuse would be this time.

It had become this endless cycle with every country or company trying to outdo the rest with the enhanced people they were creating. Most were under the guise of ostensibly helping mankind. Most were ultimately being used for far more dangerous and deadly purposes.

Bucky had a great need to personally break them into little pieces and mount the parts on the battlements of a castle he did not currently have for all to see. A warning to all to never do that again.

But he didn't do that kind of thing anymore.

Bucky Barnes mostly worked on the right side of the law these days.

Mostly.

"Can you keep her busy until I get home this evening?"

The comms devices buzzed harshly, causing his ear to ache horribly for an instant.

"Fuck," he muttered. Hauling the dolly behind him as he headed back outside for his next load. He pulled out his phone and glanced at the time. He still had a couple of hours of work before he could head back to the apartment and soothe what would surely be Ni's frazzled nerves once Iris cracked and gave her the information. Then again, giving her some time to work the problem on her own might be a good thing. If she truly needed comfort, she would call him directly, and he could be there as fast as traffic would allow.

He paused outside on the tiny dirt plot that would eventually be the front garden once the landscapers had had their turn and stared up at the sky for a long moment. "How do you think she'll react, especially to the Theo news?"

Iris was silent for roughly thirty seconds. "I don't know. I did not share those experiences, so... I would be upset, of course, but angry or sad, I can't be certain. She could go straight into more research mode. Iris is excellent at digging up information in a general sense, but I, she... we know how best to target those research queries. That makes Iris dangerous. I think... I think she'll be angry and then get back to work. Target Iris at who ordered the task force, who was really in charge, and go from there. What will she do with the information? That might be the worrisome part."

Bucky agreed. Nienna had changed, even after only a few days; he could feel the difference in her. The underlying anger that simmered just below the surface, awaiting that moment it would be permitted to boil over, sending burning hot water and steam upon anyone nearby.

A need for vengeance against those who had wronged her.

He knew how dangerous that need could be. More so when it couldn't be fulfilled. He'd wanted that at one point, but had managed to turn it into finding redemption. To prove to the world that Bucky Barnes was not The Winter Soldier. That all those terrible skills he'd been gifted could be used for some sort of good.

A task that he would spend the rest of his life doing.

"She has got to deal with this at some point. If she asks, I'll be home a little after six with dinner. If she needs me, she knows where I am." The oven had been unwrapped, and he headed over to it with the dolly. It was a fancy oversized gas monster that, while he could lift it, he most certainly wouldn't be able to see where he was going, so the dolly it would be. He got it strapped in place, then took a second to chug most of a bottle of water. His boss made sure they were hydrated. It might only be June, but it was always hot in the city with all the concrete to reflect the heat. He wiped the sweat off his face with the cloth he'd kept tucked in his back pocket. He'd taken the jacket off immediately, leaving it on his bike with the helmet, and worked in a T-shirt and jeans, just like the rest of them.

And he kind of liked that he was just another one of the guys when on the job. Yeah, he was little more than grunt labor, but that suited him. Let him turn off his brain and get something useful done. Not having to deal with yet another world-ending event had its good points.

"You're not angry?"

"Oh, I'm pissed, but this is her business, so to speak, and I'll back whatever play she makes."

"Huh. I'm going to hold you to that." And with that, Iris was gone, leaving him to finish his shift and figure out what he was going to pick up for dinner.

. . .

Bucky stepped off the elevator with both hands full of items, including various takeout bags and flowers, to be more precise, a miniature rose plant, as he remembered Nienna telling him that flowers were more than acceptable, but that she would prefer live flowers if gifted. The selection had been sadly limited at the florist shops he'd stopped at. Most specialize in quick grab and go flowers for forgotten anniversaries and birthdays, or oversized bouquets to prove the 'I'm sorry' was real this time. He could hear voices coming from the office area, but headed to the apartment door so that he could offload all the items before checking on Ni and how she was handling the revelation of exactly who Theo was and who he worked for, both past and present.

He set everything on the counter, locked up, shed his jacket, and headed for the dining room and the entrance to the office there. The door was only cracked open, muffling the words, but it sounded as if Ni was arguing with someone. Which shouldn't be, as she was continuing with the lie that she was dead for the time being.

"Doll?" he called out, not wanting to startle her.

She paced back and forth the length of the room, weaving between and around the few obstacles without being consciously aware of them. She ranted and raved her irritation and anger at the hologram of herself, who stood there mutely, a dumbfounded look on her face. She turned to Bucky, her eyes wide and with a stricken appearance that clearly said 'help me.'

He took a moment to assess, not entirely certain why the computer version appeared to be so worried. Then it hit him, Nienna, the real girl, while verbally flaying Theo and his team, spoke with a decided British accent.

And that was the furthest thing from good.

"Doll," he tried again. "Doll," louder. When that didn't work, he moved into her travel path and barked, "Nienna," which finally caused her to stop and snap her head about to stare at him.

"Bloody hell, what do you want, Barnes?"

It was so weird that the alternate personality had always spoken with an odd lilt to her tone, making her voice noticeably different from Nienna's. This sounded like an amalgam of the two. Nienna's silkier tones with that upper-crust British accent that always reminded him of Peggy.

"Ni, you're using a British accent."

She blinked three times before the words sank in, and she immediately waved him off as insane. "No, I am not."

This time, she heard it and went scarily pale. An honest to god look of horror appeared on her features. With her knees debating the merits of not holding her up, she walked over to her desk and picked up that tablet that they had taken care to keep charged and make certain it still worked, as it was the only certain source of the controls for the nanobots.

The servers had only just arrived, and she still had days of work to get them assembled and working to her satisfaction, before she could even begin the work on deprogramming the nanobots.

With shaky hands, she swiped across several screens, her shoulders sagging in relief after a moment.

"Well?" he prodded, striding towards her with care.

"It's still all off," she told him, her voice back to normal if filled with a weary dismay. She lifted her head to look at her doppelganger. "You didn't?"

The hologram shook her head. "No, I don't have access to the copy I downloaded. You have the only password for that. I have no idea what happened."

Bucky took the tablet from her, put it back to sleep, and set his hands on her shoulders. "Come on, doll."

Still in obvious shock, he steered her from the room and back to the kitchen, doing everything in his power to hide his worry.

Once she was seated at the island, she seemed to come back to herself. "I need a fucking drink."

He sighed softly as he pulled the food out and cracked open the lids, suspecting that how they ate would not be of any great importance tonight. "Ni, and I'm the last person to judge someone's vices, but you've been drowning your emotions a lot lately. And-"

She raised an eyebrow at his sudden foray into psychoanalyzing her motivations. Through gritted teeth, she said, "A berry seltzer, please."

He got her the drink, brought it and the roses, and set them on the countertop before her. She managed a broken smile for him as she leaned forward to smell the tiny blooms. "Thank you, James."

He nodded and went back to portioning the food. "Eat. I know you've been working all day."

"As have you," she said as she poked at the lamb curry in the container before picking out a sauce-covered piece and taking a delicate bite.

They were silent for several long minutes before he gave up watching her poking listlessly at the curry which he knew to be one of her favorites. He kept his first question simple. "Why were you speaking in... her accent?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. The program was still in standby."

"But that info is in the nanobots, right? Like downloaded to them?"

"I think so? I haven't dug too deeply for fear of breaking myself." Ni sounded exasperated, but he had gotten her to think instead of react. "If that supposition is true, then it's possible that even though the alt personality is off, the nanobots' base programming is still working, which is to potentially position themselves to replace certain neural functions, including speech patterns. It's possible that my ire triggered excessive neural function and I accidentally accessed the speech pattern," she mused aloud. "Or they have made their way in even deeper, and it's only a matter of time before I'm gone and replaced by whichever faceless doll they need today."

Bucky hated how stricken she sounded. As if all hope had already been lost. He shifted around the counter to stand beside her, wrapped his arms around her, and held on tight, hoping it could grant her some comfort. "Stop. Like you said, you don't know. The plan remains the same. Get the programs on the new servers and pick them apart."

"And serve Theo his own liver, raw," she growled.

Damn that was some glorious anger. "We don't even know he survived."

"Oh, he did. He's like a cockroach, he'd survive a nuclear blast."

Bucky managed a chuckle. "I'm not gonna argue with you right now. Do you have a plan now that we know who he works for?"

She gave him a dangerous smile, and in that moment, he feared exactly what she had planned for that man. "Already in the works. I need a few more pieces and want the servers up and working first, so... another week maybe? If... if that's okay? I'm admittedly getting a bit stir crazy here."

"Once you've done the big reveal, I'll take you out for dinner, okay?"

"I'd like that. I... Are we going to date or... or..." She trailed off as if unsure she wanted the actual answer to the question.

"I'll be honest, part of me still thinks we should take this slow." He settled onto the stool next to her, reaching across the counter for his food.

"You're still afraid you're going to hurt me," she stated.

"I always will be, I can't help it."

"Which I appreciate and respect, but, Bucky, I want to try to make this work. Yes, as friends, but I want more. If you need to wait until I'm... fixed, I'll understand, but I need you to know I have no intentions of going anywhere."

An odd tightness buried deep inside him released with those words. He'd hurt for so long after losing her that he had been concerned he might smother her with those tightly held feelings should they burst upon the surface unexpectedly. "Good. Neither am I. We'll figure it out together. I'm in no rush." True enough, he intended to savor every moment they had together, be it months or decades.

"I am," she grumbled. When he gave her a raised eyebrow, she shook her head. "I expect the affection to be shown."

"As you wish," he replied with all due solemnity, causing her to grace him with the tiniest of smiles. "But later. Eat now. Plot Theo's demise. Then affection."

She laughed, but then did as asked and dug into the food.

. . .

The caller ID read Cap Mark II and Bucky answered the phone with concern in his voice since Sam usually just texted and only called when shit had hit the proverbial fan.

"Why didn't you tell me she was alive?"

Bucky had to pull the phone away from his ear since Sam was riled up and using every ounce of volume he could muster.

"Who the hell... Oh, Nienna. Reasons, Sam. Good ones."

"How long?" Sam growled.

"Has she been back? A couple of weeks, but she hasn't gone public yet." The realization hit. "Wait, how do you know she's alive?" Bucky asked in suspicion.

"You don't know? I figured you were in on the whole plan."

Bucky sighed. He'd been at work all morning and then running errands all afternoon for a personal project. As far as he knew, Ni was still back at the apartment working on the servers. "Sam, just tell me." Bucky leaned against the nearest vertical surface.

"Find a TV, Buck, she's holding a press conference at the Brooklyn Borough City Hall."

"Shit," Bucky muttered. "Sam, I promise I'll explain everything later."

"I would have helped, you know. Getting her back."

"I know, Sam, but Captain America," he made certain to emphasize the title, "would not have been able to. Some of what I had to do wasn't exactly legal by any sense of the word."

"Shit, Buck. It wouldn't have mattered, she's my friend too, you know."

"Then back whatever play she's making now. I suspect she's going to need it." Bucky looked up and down the street, wondering if it would be worth finding the nearest bar and hoping they had a TV covering the news conference, though he seriously doubted it.

"I will, Buck, and I expect the whole story sooner rather than later, understood?"

"Sir, yes, sir," Bucky said mockingly as if Sam's title were an actual rank. "Let me find out what's going on first."

"Fine. I'll try to find out what backlash might be coming down for her, she's gonna piss off a lot of powerful people with this stunt."

"Great," Bucky muttered, wondering exactly what Ni had gone and done besides announcing her unexpected resurrection. "Thanks, Sam."

"Anytime." Sam ended the call, and Bucky immediately began searching online for Ni's press conference. It took mere moments to find a live stream of it on a local news station.

He only caught the last few minutes, but both Ni and her AI copy stood before a couple of dozen press, both live news and paper editions, though not surprisingly, the Daily Bugle was noticeably absent. Given what they had pulled at that fundraiser, he felt no shock at them being blackballed from this. He could just imagine how they would spin it once given time to catch up.

Ni pulled no punches and concluded the presser with the clear threat involving three simple words, "We'll be watching," and then ending the event with no questions. She simply picked up the projector that had provided the visual for AI Nienna, stepped away, followed closely by a man wearing glasses with red-tinted lenses and carrying a cane for the blind, and headed towards a door off to the side and out of reach of those who were shouting questions and being ignored.

"Fuck. What have you gone and done, doll?" Bucky knew he needed to watch the press conference in full to really know what she'd told them about her miraculous ressurection.

He suddenly understood why her father had texted him Thank you earlier. She must have given him a heads-up about being alive so he wouldn't freak out when she appeared on the evening news. And Bucky felt absolutely certain that this would make the evening news, not just here but worldwide. If Sam were freaked out enough to offer to keep an ear to the ground, then Ni had not just stepped on some toes, but smashed her heel down with enough force to break some.

Bucky headed home.

. . .

He had to wonder exactly how long she'd been planning this little stunt because not only had she revealed exactly why her death had been faked, but all the known players who had participated in it. She had found names, dates, internal emails, project names, you name it, she had found it and told it to anyone willing to listen, which had turned out to be just about everyone. She had straight up informed the world that she had recreated Arnim Zola's algorithm for duplicating a person within a computer system, not once, but twice, and then explained that she had applied for a patent for the process to block anyone from recreating it in any fashion similar to hers.

And that hadn't even been the biggest reveal.

No.

She'd gone on to explain that this Project Mirage had already created a modified version of the Red Room programming, one that completely took over a person and made them someone else, even explained the basics on how it worked, then assured all those in attendance they would have the detailed files in their inboxes momentarily. Within a few minutes, every single person there had glanced at their phones, which seemed to be confirmation enough for Bucky.

Bucky, who felt oddly hurt that she had not shared any of her planning with him. Ni had explained that it had been her doppelganger and he, along with an unnamed associate - protecting Yelena against possible retaliation from her as yet unknown boss - who had discovered the truth and not only found her, but were able to counter the implanted programming.

Nienna spoke for less than ten minutes total and, at least according to the news agencies, not only covering it but taking it seriously, had caused a major scandal for all the governments involved.

Not that any of said governments had responded to... it wasn't an accusation, not really, not when she had the evidence to back every single bit of it up and given more than just a taste of it to legitimate journalists.

He had been honestly surprised that it had only been Sam who had called him. Then again, he didn't exactly advertise his personal number. Those who needed it had it.

He paced the apartment, waiting for her to arrive, wondering when she'd become so devious. They both kept secrets from one another, most relating to their jobs, a necessity and not a deal breaker for either of them, but for her to plan this, and right under his nose no less, made him wonder what else he had missed.

He'd expected her coming-out party, so to speak, to be a far quieter event, and not begin by quoting Mark Twain with, "As you can see, the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," and then introducing the computer clone she'd created of herself.

"For fuck's sake," he muttered. He stopped at the bedroom door, staring at her bed, the one they'd been sharing almost nightly since they'd gotten back. The one where they'd renewed the physical side of their relationship just a few days prior.

Even he'd noticed that something within her had fallen into place, that last remaining bit of fear finally having vanished, leaving her sure of herself and what she wanted.

And what she had wanted was him. One Bucky Barnes.

She'd walked up to him, tapped him on the sternum, and asked for her necklace back.

Of course, he had obliged, brushing her hair to the side and fastening it about her throat much as he had done nearly a year prior. Once she'd turned about, fingers playing with the pendant, she'd once again been the bold one and kissed him.

He had utterly failed at resisting, and although he knew he would regret it later, let himself fall into that deep, deep water and drown in her.

Now, however, he wondered if it had been a ploy, a distraction so that when she revealed herself to the world, the hurt of it would sting a little bit less.

Yet, while hurt, he couldn't be angry as he would have probably done something similar given the situation. Besides, he had no hold on her life beyond where the two of theirs intersected. He wanted to be with her and she with him, but neither was truly beholden to the other.

Which he knew remained necessary for now. He had yet to figure out exactly who Bucky Barnes was or wanted to be, and she had to redefine herself after being, technically, dead for half a year. She had to find her place in the world again, and this had been the big first step for her.

He just kind of wished he had been a part of it.

She must have known he would have backed whatever plan she came up with with the same ferocity he'd used to find her.

Though maybe in her mind, she needed to do this on her own, for herself.

That he could understand.

So, instead of bemoaning the fact that he'd been left in the dark as to her plans, he set about making dinner for the two of them, having no idea when she might be returning home. He supposed he could have asked Iris/Nienna, who had been oddly silent since he'd arrived at the apartment, but decided he could wait for Ni and her virtual double to arrive to get the details.

He didn't have to wait all that long, he'd just gotten the main course into the oven when Iris announced the arrival of Ni, who looked oddly proud and confident as she entered, and locked the door behind her. She set her bag down, fished out the mini-projector that she'd used during the press conference, set it on the counter facing the main room, and turned it on.

"Are you mad?" Ni asked as her virtual self flickered into existence near the sofa.

"I was for a few minutes, then upset you felt that you couldn't tell me your plans, but figured you must have had your reasons," he told her as he wiped his hands on a towel and faced her instead of immediately cleaning up.

"Plausible deniability," Ni said. "When they ask, because they will ask, you can play dumb and say you knew nothing about Nienna," she hooked her thumb at the virtual copy, "and say all your interactions were with the Iris program."

"Why would I do that?" he asked, truly curious as to her answer.

"So you don't get charged with whatever they're going to try to charge me with," Ni explained.

He huffed softly. "The government was the one who had you working on this project originally. Hell, they abducted you to get you to repeat your success. They would need to charge themselves as accomplices or whatever."

She managed a soft chuckle. "Yeah, but that won't stop them. If they arrest me for something, then they can justify taking my servers. I not only exposed them, but showed them I'm better than them, at least with this particular bit of science."

"You threw down the gauntlet, and you made certain it was the plate mail one," he pointed out, knowing she would get the Robin Hood Men in Tights reference. "That's going to piss them off."

She nodded in agreement. "But it needed to be done. They fucking killed me and literally used a mind control technique they came up with to make me recreate the algorithm." Then she grinned. "Luckily for me, they have no proof that I succeeded on their dime."

"Which you used to your advantage by submitting patent requests for both versions. Risky move, but put the power in your court." He leaned back against the counter. "Do you think it will get approved?"

She shrugged. "Probably not, but it will take these versions out of their hands and force them to start from scratch, and they will have to create an algorithm noticeably different or risk an infringement charge."

"Seems you've covered all your bases then."

She walked around the counter to stand before him. "Bucky, please understand why I did it this way. It was to protect you from any repercussions that exposing this Project Mirage will create."

"But, doll, I was involved. I'm the one who found you," he reminded her, not that there could be any chance that she'd forgotten.

"After visibly mourning my demise for months. I hear TMZ did weekly updates on whether or not you had moved on. Which, for the record, I would not be upset by. You deserve happiness, even if it's not with me."

He sighed softly. He'd hated that even after so many months, the tabloids and paparazzi still followed him on occasion. He had done his best to ignore their intrusions into his life and hoped they would get bored eventually. Looked like there would be no chance of that now. "Doll, I admit I tried, but none of them were you. So, I guess you're kind of stuck with me. At least for now."

She gave him a wry grin. "Stuck. Yeah, that is not the word I would use." She leaned in and gave him a gentle kiss, testing the waters in his opinion. He returned it, but did not ask for more right then.

"What now?"

"We wait for the fallout. I imagine there's going to be some serious backroom discussions before they try to move on me. By the way, everything here is in your name, yes? The apartment, the servers, Nyte Visions, everything?"

He nodded. "Even your car. I think I even have your stake in the restaurants. I haven't figured out how to sell them."

She gave him a decidedly evil grin. "Good."

"Do I want to know why that is 'good'?"

"Because I suspect they're going to show up on this doorstep sooner or later to try and take the servers," she explained without going into any details.

"And you have a plan for that, I take it?"

"Several, depending on which tack they take," virtual Nienna answered. "Don't worry, we'll know when they're coming."

Because virtual Ni, thanks to Iris, had her fingers in a lot of very different pies. They might even have days versus mere hours of warning when they decided to move in and claim the servers.

"And what will you do till then?"

"Work on the nanobots, and I don't know, maybe just live again. It will be nice to get out of here and feel something vaguely resembling normal."

He liked that idea. A lot. "Don't forget I promised you dinner when you came out of the coffin."

She snorted. "Now that is an interesting phrasing choice. Do you want help with dinner or..."

He shook his head. "I've got this. Why don't you call your dad and then Sam to let them know you are okay."

"You sure?"

"Positive. Besides, I'll still have you for company." He nodded towards the hologram that leaned back against the sofa with arms and ankles crossed.

"Okay." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and moved off towards the second bedroom for some relative privacy for her calls.

"Are you truly not mad?" virtual Nienna questioned from where she remained against the sofa. She was limited on where she could move due to the position of the projector.

He shook his head. "I might have done things a bit differently, but Ni's plan seems to be solid."

"I'm not certain I like the idea of being merely a patent item."

"You will never be merely anything," he assured her. "The patent move protects the algorithm and hopefully slows them down on repeating the experiment."

"I know, I just... I want the opportunity to be more than just a fancy program, you know. I want to be useful. Do something besides pretending to be Iris."

Bucky frowned slightly, thinking. "And what would you do?"

"Help people, I guess. I may not be able to touch anything, but I can still create. I have all of Ni's skills, and I can work faster than her."

Bucky chuckled. "Don't tell her that."

"Oh, she knows. I'm currently running tests on the few nanobots Doc Smith recovered, as well as doing research into nanobot tech. She programs the simulations, and I run the tests. It's why we have two sets of servers that are not connected. One control and one for testing. If we break the test set, we wipe, reset, and try again without losing any current data."

"And not directly affecting the ones in her head," Bucky added. He damn well knew that until they had a one hundred percent guaranteed solution the ones in her head would remain untouched. At least until more issues cropped up. Her sudden use of Lils' British accent might only have been the first symptom of what was to come.

"Exactly. It is not part of our current expertise, but it will be."

"Let me know if I can help. I have industry contacts who might be willing to part with their knowledge if you think it will be of use." Some of those tech companies he and Sam had made deals with worked with nanobots. Bucky had mentioned Ni's idea to incorporate nanobots and Wakandan tech into his wings, and he'd liked that idea.

She smiled at him. "I keep forgetting you're no schlub when it comes to tech either. I wonder if Wakanda would be willing to assist," she mused.

"I can reach out if you like," he offered.

She shook her head. "Not yet, anyway. Right now, we want to keep the number of people who know the details about these mind control nanobots to a minimum. Not that I think anyone in Wakanda would abuse it, but I don't see them being too thrilled to know it even exists."

Bucky couldn't argue that point. A timer went off then, and the needs of the moment, mainly keeping dinner from being over-cooked, took up the majority of his attention.

. . .

Bucky waited until she had set down her cup before broaching his concerns. He had hoped that having her meet him for lunch at the tiny diner down the street from his current job with Urban Refurb that she'd be more willing to talk about what had occurred just the night prior, but so far he hadn't managed to even bring the subject up.

"Doll..."

"While I do appreciate you taking me out for lunch, I'm betting you have a reason beyond letting me see you all muscle-y in your heavy lifting work clothes, which, for the record, I do appreciate seeing you in." She gave him a grin, which he tried and utterly failed to return.

He didn't wear the polo and khakis that the more public-facing members of the team did. No, he wore tough jeans, a snug-fitting tee, and steel-toed boots, often topped with a leather jacket, which sat on the seat next to him. Mostly because he rode his bike to the job sites instead of taking her car. Ni liked it when he wore what she called dock worker couture, and had shown how much so on more than one occasion recently.

"Yeah, your nightmare last night."

Her grin faded swiftly. "Bucky..." she all but whined, clearly not interested in talking about it.

"No, doll, when you woke up, you weren't you." And she hadn't been. It had been that Lilith persona, and he had been entirely freaked out when he realized it. Nearly as freaked out as the women inhabiting Ni's body had been to wake up next to him, a virtual stranger, one who, from her point of view, had abducted her.

He'd managed to keep the woman from screaming and running from the room, but it had been a near thing, then almost as if a switch had been flipped, Nienna had flooded back in. Confused but conscious and aware of her surroundings, though mildly worried as to why her heart was racing and she was standing in the corner of the bedroom.

He'd assured her all was fine, then retrieved the tablet that controlled the nanobots, only to discover none of the settings had changed. The secondary personality still shut down, though technically not off. More like in a standby mode, which is all they had managed to do as they did not have access to the actual code of the program, which was buried in the nanobots themselves. Nienna may have been a neurophysicist and computer programmer, but she had only a limited expertise in nanobots and their design. Accessing the data in the ones in her brain was risky at best, deadly dangerous at worst, and the few that had been discovered in her bloodstream had been decidedly resistant to her efforts to gain access to their programming.

She had made copies of the program on the tablet and picked it apart in hopes of discovering a way to disable it completely, but with minimal success. So far, the tests had ended with her virtual brain fried multiple times. An outcome neither of them wanted to experience for real.

In the meantime, the nanobots continued their base programming of infiltrating and, in effect, taking over sections of her neurotransmitters. Which had resulted in more than one odd incident in the last week or so. Her yelling in a British accent had been just the first of many incidents, some no more than her just staring off into the distance for a few minutes before coming out of it on her own, to last night, where she had woken up as Lilith.

"I know. I wish we could have acquired the full nanobot programming, but all we have is this one personality. I'm doing everything I can, but I am not an expert on nanobots. And these, well, they're complex to say the least." She didn't like admitting she was out of her depth, but was glad she had, so that he would not have to bring up the subject first.

"So what happened last night? The personality was still off. Could the connection go the other way? The nanobots talking to the tablet and turning it on?"

She shrugged. "I honestly don't know, but I suspect that since the personality is still on the nanobots in my head, that in my dream state, I accessed Lilith and then woke up. Once awake, I reasserted control. No tablet needed."

"Ni, that's not good."

"No, it's not," she agreed. "I'm working as fast as I can, but I fear I'm out of my depth. Even my virtual self can't run the simulations fast enough."

Her virtual self being Cat. The virtual Nienna had finally settled on a name for herself. Nienna had a second middle name that was a combination of a family tradition and a religious one. Most Catholics took one when they had their Confirmation, and Ni's had been Catherine, as in Saint Catherine of Bologna, and had also been her mother's grandmother's name. So, Cat for short. Catherine Grace, to be specific, keeping with Ni's choice of dropping the family surname for business reasons.

"I think it's time to ask for help," he told her. He'd been thinking about suggesting it for several days, but last night made it a necessity.

She sighed heavily. "Who? The doc? I don't trust him. Yelena's friend? I don't think I should trust her."

Bucky agreed with that. Melina might be willing to help, but there was no guarantee she wouldn't then sell the tech to the highest bidder. "I was thinking somewhere a bit more off the grid."

Ni lowered her voice. "Wakanda?" He nodded. "Do you really think they'd help me?"

"I think they wouldn't want this tech out there in the wild any more than we do. Our government is pretending it didn't happen, even though you have made certain to keep it in the news." Which she and her lawyer had. Demanding first an apology, then reparations for the damage done to her life and business while she was... well, not herself. The stonewalling had reached impressive levels, with questions coming from every corner of the world. She had shaken that tree so hard that leaves were still coming down. Many other governments were condemning every aspect of the goals of that lab.

"But aren't they still recovering from that attack? And I doubt their current King would want me anywhere near the country."

Bucky couldn't argue any of that. The loss of T'Challa, followed by the loss of Queen Ramonda during an attack by a new player on the world stage, had shaken the country deeply. Princess Shuri had chosen not to take up the challenge to rule, and M'Baku, of the extremely insular Jabari tribe, had taken the throne. Wakanda had pulled back a bit on the world stage, but not as completely as expected, so Bucky hoped there would be some negotiating room there. As far as he knew, Ni was still considered a working partner with them even though she'd been unavailable for half a year.

"It can't hurt to ask. At the very least, they might have some suggestions to help."

She nodded slowly. "I'll admit I'd been considering it myself, but I hoped I could figure this out on my own." She held up a hand to stave off any commentary from him. "I can't. Not fast enough anyway. I'll reach out to Yama, try to open up a dialog, and go from there. Will you be contacting Ayo?"

He nodded. "And Okoye and maybe even Shuri. It's time I made amends to them as well. If nothing else, I can help them rebuild."

She picked up a fry from her plate, dragged it through the ketchup, and nibbled on it while thinking. "You know what?"

"What, doll?"

"I went and became just what you feared."

He blinked, having the sudden feeling that he'd missed part of the conversation simply because she'd been having her side of it in her head and not out loud. "Umm, could you give me a bit more detail?"

She snickered. "Remember last summer when you accused me of being a sleeper agent?"

He nodded. That had been their first... fight? Conflict? Him being an idiot when he realized exactly how attached to her he had become and subconsciously attempted to destroy the relationship before he could be hurt by it. Then it clicked that she had indeed become a sleeper agent of sorts, though not one targeting him. "Shit, don't tell me I manifested that."

She shook her head, the amusement at the whole situation causing her to laugh softly. "At least I'm not a spy," she stated, then tipped her head slightly. "Well, not this Lilith anyway. God alone knows how many other personalities they may have tested out on me before settling on that one."

"Fuck," he muttered. "Do you really think that's possible?"

She shrugged. "Based on the layers of coding I've found, yeah. Though a lot of it is fragmented, just in the background as if they didn't do a full wipe of the tablet before uploading a new one. Plus it explains some of the weird shit that has been happening."

He frowned. "Ni..."

"Yeah, I've been keeping it from you because I don't want you to worry more than you already are." She took a moment to drink some of the soda she'd ordered. "On the plus side, I have the funds to repay the loan you gave me, and I put a tidy sum in an offshore account to rebuild my personal savings."

Bucky narrowed his eyes and leaned across the table to tap her on the nose. "It was only a grand, there was no rush," he reminded. He hadn't cared if she had paid it back or not. A lot of the money was hers, she had left it to him when she'd died to care for the servers and the apartment.

"Oh, I paid back all of it, including what you spent on the new server racks."

"How the hell did you manage that?" he questioned, surprised as all get out at that news.

"I have mad skills at the stock market now. All legal, I promise, just some day trade investments that paid off in spades. I've never been skilled at that before, and I don't think it's part of the Lilith programming, so..." She picked up and waved about one of the fries.

"Which is why you think there might have been other personalities-"

"Or skills."

"Or skills," he agreed, "implanted at some point in time." Made sense, and given she'd been at that lab for roughly five months, they could have done just about anything they wanted with her. "And you think bits are buried in the nanobots and bleeding out into your waking mind."

"It's the only thing that makes sense. Hell, I could be an actual sleeper agent, full-on spy mode, and I would have no idea until that bit of code is activated by accident or design. For all we know, there's a different tablet for every personality, and someone with the right one would just need to wake them up, and I'd be gone. Again."

All the more reason to contact the Wakandans and see if they were willing to assist. He didn't trust their government to admit to their fuck up much less help fix it.

She glanced at her phone. "Don't you need to get back to work? We're pushing the definition of a lunch hour here."

"Nah. I finished my part early. One of the deliveries was delayed till tomorrow, so I didn't have all that much to do."

She cocked her head looking at him in all seriousness. "You don't seem... happy about that."

"I'm not unhappy," he assured her. "I'm... honestly, I'm bored. The work doesn't exactly require much of me. I lift heavy things and smash things when doing demos. It gets me out of the house but not much more than that."

She tapped a finger on the laminate of the table. "I figured that might be a relief after doing something more superhero-y."

He couldn't deny that. "It was, but now..." He shook his head, not certain how to explain it.

"Is it the adrenaline, or do you just want something that engages your mind more?"

Bucky didn't know. He just knew he wasn't satisfied with the work any longer. Any of it. His personal work was important, but it often had no impact on the real world. Not yet anyway. Some of what he'd been doing, hunting down old and forgotten Hydra bases, would need to come out eventually, just not yet. He still had pieces of his life to put back together. The jobs he'd been doing, the ones that leaned towards the left side of the law, had overall been in the name of doing good; he just hadn't gone about them in a lawful manner.

Sam had his team working with the military and accepted Torres as a trainee who looked to be taking over the mantle of the Falcon, having repaired the wings that had been damaged in Riga fighting the Flag Smashers.

And now, after working with Yelena to rescue Nienna, Bucky had become unsure he wanted to continue playing the part of hero, super or otherwise. Oh, if it looked to be another world-ending event, he would show up and do everything he could to protect his home, but otherwise, he no longer felt the need to seek out trouble just for the sake of being that proverbial hero.

He felt Ni's foot shift and rub along the side of his leg above the boot, trying to offer comfort without being obvious about it.

"I think I need a change. Maybe take a break from the hero gig. I'm not very good at it anyway."

Nienna, for her part, did not argue the point, just simply asked. "So what do you want to do? I know you aren't ready to retire; you'd be bored in a month. I thought you needed to use your powers for good?"

He nodded.

"I imagine you could re-up. I can't imagine any branch of the military saying no to a super-soldier."

"I think I prefer being a free agent," he responded, knowing damn well that if he even hinted he'd be willing to go back into the service at least three different teams would fight over the opportunity to snatch him up. He'd been contacted almost monthly once Nienna had been out of his life. Which had, for a time, made him wonder if he had indeed been the cause of her demise, if only peripherally.

She snickered. "Yeah, I imagine you do. You could go back to school, learn something new?" she suggested, and he had to admit he'd considered something similar.

"Doll, I don't know. Punching things doesn't seem to be enough anymore."

She stared out the window, contemplating options that came to mind without yet voicing them. A bus paused in traffic at the red light, and she smiled. "Well, that's always an option." She waved at the bus, which sported an ad for the incumbent congressman running for another term. The election was not for another year and then some.

"You want me to run for Congress?" he asked in honest surprise.

She turned to face him. "Why not? You'd be better than that piece of slime who can be bought by any lobbyist with enough money or women. He's done nothing but make money for himself and his cronies for almost a decade now."

"I'm not a politician," he argued.

"That might not be a bad thing," she pointed out. "You certainly have experience dealing with underhanded government dealings. And... and it would give you access to committees that approve task forces and groups that do things like abduct citizens to wipe their minds and use them to recreate algorithms that are dangerous at best." She sneered the last, still violently angry about what had happened to her and the government's ongoing denial of every bit of it, even with the proof being waved under their noses.

That same government had created Operation Paperclip, which had given both Hydra and more specifically Zola the in he'd needed to not only keep Hydra alive, but create the Winter Soldier program, which had all but destroyed Bucky's life.

His brow knit together as he seriously thought about the possibility. However, he knew the shadow of the Winter Soldier would color any attempt at running for office. "There's no way I could win."

She snorted. "We need a change, so why not. It's not like you have anything to hide; your dirty laundry, so to speak, has already been aired to the world. What else could they dig up?"

A point. A good one at that. "Start with a clean slate," he muttered, and she nodded vigorously in agreement. "I'd need a platform. What would Steve Rogers do, maybe?"

"No. God no. You, I am afraid to say, are no Steve Rogers."

He frowned deeply, insulted almost.

"And you shouldn't be," she added. "I get it. Captain Rogers was a great man in many ways and from what I understand ran his life on endeavoring to always do the right thing, no matter the cost to him, yes?"

Bucky nodded in agreement.

"You, however, can do what is needed, and I think in the current world climate that is far more important."

"What do you mean?"

"You can make those hard choices, the ones that might require sacrifices for the cause of the greater good. Captain Rogers tended towards sacrificing himself, his going down in the Valkyrie a case in point. You, I think you would try to find a way to take that plane down and still walk away."

"I mean, technically, Steve did walk away; it just took a few decades."

She grinned. "You can do this, Bucky, and I think you'd be great at it."

Bucky still wasn't convinced, but the idea intrigued him. "I'll think about it. Do some research, see if I even qualify. I am one hundred and eight. They might have age rules for centenarians."

"I doubt it, but I'll give you a week, then pester you about it." She reached across the table, grasped his hand, and squeezed it. "When you decide to run-"

"If."

"When you decide to run, make sure you do so as a single man."

"Uh, why? Are you going to break up with me?"

"Not a chance. You'll get more votes from women if you're single."

He laughed. "But I would be lying. I am not single."

She smiled. "We can keep it a secret until after you win. They'll just want to think they might have a chance with one of the most eligible bachelors in the city."

He sighed heavily, knowing she was probably correct. "I'll keep it in mind." He realized that he was seriously considering the idea even before doing any research on what running for office might entail. "You had your fill, doll?"

She nodded. "Yeah, let's go home."

. . .

"It looks like they're getting ready to make their move."

Bucky huffed out a breath. Of course, they had waited until he had left the apartment and was miles away, unable to do anything directly. "She's aware?"

"Yep. Having a grand old time watching them on the monitors. I spotted them an hour ago, but they were doing the hurry up and wait routine for some reason. They've decided to go full tactical for the initial attempt, and it looks like they have an IT team for the second wave." Cat snorted. "Like they're even going to get in the door."

Bucky grumbled under his breath. They had known this day would be coming. Ni's continuing pressure on the government to own up to what they had done to her would force them to move at some point. He had honestly expected it before now, but figured they had been arguing over what excuse they would use to try to take the servers. Not that having them would do them much good, at least not where it concerned Cat. While the servers in Brooklyn were her home base of sorts, she existed wherever she wanted to, most of her mind, for lack of a better term, living within the vastness of the internet. She could be anywhere and to a degree everywhere with some limits, all at the same time.

She'd used Iris to learn how to infiltrate systems and leave a permanent link behind. You could shut off one particular system without doing any damage to Cat, and that included the original servers. She didn't need them to exist any longer, only for updates that she requested of Ni.

The most recent one had been to dull her feelings for Bucky.

He had been a touch surprised at that, but only at first. Bucky could never care for the AI version the way he did for the real one, and Cat had come to that conclusion as well. She still cared about him and considered him a friend, but she no longer needed to experience those far deeper emotions that had been included when she originally woke up.

Cat needed to become her own person and not just a virtual copy of Nienna.

The official name change had been the first step in that.

Would she always need Nienna to grow? Maybe. But only if she wanted to. They were becoming more like sisters than clones, their lives not so intertwined as when she had first awoken.

He found it utterly fascinating.

"We have a plan," he muttered, mostly to remind himself. Ni knew what to do, and there should be no reason for him to worry unduly.

"Yes, we do. She's called her lawyer, who is en route, but won't get there before they try to get in."

"As expected. Let Ni know I'll be on the way in a few minutes."

"Of course. She wants to know if you want popcorn ready."

Bucky snickered. "Please remind her this is serious, even if it is a farce."

"I'm routing the video feed to your phone whenever you're ready to watch. Finish your paperwork and then head back home."

"Yes, ma'am."

He didn't rush, not wanting to have to fill the paperwork out a second time, and twenty minutes later, he had finished and headed out to where he'd parked his bike. "Everything going okay?"

"So far. Looks like her lawyer will beat you there, but not by much."

Bucky hadn't met the lawyer she had hired yet, but he didn't need to. If she trusted him, then Bucky most likely could as well. He drove back across town without seeing anyone tailing him. They had been prepared for him to be targeted separately from Nienna, though neither of them had been certain if it would occur. If he had been running the op, he would have made certain to keep them apart for as long as possible, even if just by a useless and time-consuming traffic stop.

As far as he knew, no one, in New York anyway, had any interest in arresting him, though a reason could have been faked if they had chosen to go that route.

So when he arrived, per Cat's suggestion, he headed for the parking garage from the direction opposite where the team had set up their command center, though he had been tempted to ride slowly past them and wave, but why give them a heads up when he could surprise them. He parked and headed for the tenant-only elevator, pressed the button for the top floor, listening to the soothing jazz that played over the speaker.

When the door opened, a half dozen heads snapped about to stare at him. Bucky quirked an eyebrow, ignored them, and headed towards the apartment door. Knowing they had come for the servers, he wondered why they hadn't tried to go in via the office door, or even both, but decided it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

The man who had walked with Ni at her press conference stood with his back to the door. Red-tinted lenses and a cane tucked iinto the crook of his arm, a piece of paper in the other. "Gentlemen, I have already told you this warrant is invalid. So, no, I will not be letting you inside to talk to my client." He tipped his head slightly, then turned to face Bucky.

"Sergeant Barnes, excellent timing." He gestured Bucky over, who did his best to hide his surprise at being recognized by someone who, in theory, could not see him. Perhaps the lawyer was only partially blind?

"Given it looks like a hit squad was about to take a battering ram to my front door, I would say so." The heavy metal bar was leaning against a wall, and a glance at the door showed a few nasty dents, but it had held up as advertised. "I will be billing the city for the damages." He got a look at the logo on a few of the jackets. "Make that the US government." The logo may have been for the FBI, but he highly doubted any of them were. "Now, how can I help you?"

A man, not in full tactical gear, grumbled forward. "As I have told both Miss Grace and Mr. Murdock here, we have a warrant to search for and take possession of any and all computers and servers on the grounds of threats to the government."

Bucky snorted. "Since when are the words 'we'll be watching' considered a threat?"

The man, who had ominously not offered his name, frowned deeply, his face turning a lovely shade of red in his frustration. "Open the door or we'll break it down," he warned.

Bucky shook his head. "You already would have if you could. May I see this so-called warrant?"

Mr. Murdock handed it over. "As I have told them, it's invalid."

Bucky read it over and caught the mistake quickly. "This isn't worth the paper it's printed on." He glanced up at the camera, held it up so that Cat could get a clear view of it, then said, "Doll, you good?"

Through the speaker mounted next to the door came, "Yep, just waiting for the go-ahead to open up from you."

"Miss Grace, the longer you delay, the worse it will be for you," the idiot in charge said in a raised voice.

Bucky turned to Mr. Murdock. "Do you want to tell them why they won't be coming inside today, or shall I?"

"If I do it, it will be a bit more official, if you don't mind me representing you in this matter, that is. We can negotiate a fee later."

Bucky fished in the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and pressed it into the lawyer's hand. "A deposit," Bucky explained, making the hiring of his surprise new lawyer official.

Murdock tucked the bill into his inner coat pocket and got straight to the point. "You have the wrong owner of the apartment listed on your warrant."

The man blinked. "What are you talking about? Nienna Grace owns both this apartment and Nyte Visions, which is where the servers are located."

"Miss Grace was only officially named as alive a few weeks ago, after having been abducted for several months and presumed dead. Sergeant Barnes inherited both the apartment and the company from her. Ownership has not been transferred back. Isn't that correct, Sergeant Barnes?"

"Correct," Bucky agreed, unable to contain the smugness in his voice.

"But the records-" one of the other agents in just a windbreaker began, only to be silenced by a growl from his boss.

"I'm afraid there is a backlog at the county level updating many of the records since the Blip," Mr. Murdock stated with false sympathy in his voice. I have copies of all the official documents that prove Sergeant Barnes is the current owner.

"Fuck."

A bray of laughter could be heard through the door, and Bucky was hard pressed not to join in.

"Gentleman, I suggest you vacate the area before my clients decide to press charges. And I will be billing your department for the damages, keep that in mind."

The stalemate officially over, the lead barked orders, and the team of fifteen that had been crowded into the hallway for at least thirty fruitless minutes began to disperse, most taking the stairs as the elevator would only hold about six of them with all the gear.

Bucky and Murdock waited until the last of them had vanished and he could no longer hear footsteps down the stairs before he said. "We clear, Ni?"

"Not quite. I want them back on the street and all are accounted for before I open up the door." A wise decision, as Bucky didn't trust the lot of them either. "If the door opens," she muttered, a tinge of irritation in her voice. "Bloody idiots."

Bucky worried for an instant that she'd slipped into the Lilith persona, but realized the accent had been good old New York and not British.

"Bucky Barnes," he said, deciding introductions might as well happen.

"I know. Matt Murdock, your new lawyer."

"And Nienna's?"

"Yes, as of a few weeks ago. I take it she didn't tell you?"

Bucky shook his head, realized that was stupid of him, and said, "No, but she doesn't answer to me."

"I would expect nothing less. For the record, she did it that way to protect you. She knew she'd be tipping over a few apple carts."

"Which I appreciate even though she doesn't need to. I can protect myself."

"She is very aware of that fact, I assure you, but she wanted to be certain your reputation did not suffer due to her choices in this matter," Murdock explained.

Bucky snorted. "My reputation. That is the last thing I worry about."

Murdock quirked an eyebrow. "So you are no longer searching for redemption?"

Bucky stiffened, knowing he damn well would be doing so for the rest of his life. "Always. But I have to do that for myself, not for others. Redemption will take a lifetime. All I can do is try my best."

Matt gave him a tip of the head in acknowledgement. "Miss Grace?"

Bucky could hear the giant wheel for the lock bar being turned, squealing as the dented door affected the mechanism, and a few moments later, it slid aside. "Howdy boys," Nienna said with a grin as she appeared in the space."Please, enter my humble abode."

She waved Matt in, and Bucky followed, pausing while she shut and locked the door, he kissed her on the cheek. "You good?"

"Yep. I have never been more thankful for the excessive slowness of the government."

"Have they left?" Matt asked, taking up position next to the kitchen counter.

Bucky glanced at the TV, which Cat had taken over and showed various views of the task force a block over, some closing up shop, others arguing, complete with hands waving and fingers pointing. "They are not happy."

"They are idiots," Cat said, causing Matt's head to shift to find the source of her voice.

"Your AI?" he asked.

"Yes, she's in charge of the security at the moment," Ni answered. "She'll let us know if they decide to try again."

Bucky removed his jacket and hung it by the door. He took a moment to examine the damage, the paint having split and chipped away at the force of the blows. He looked at the walls and found them undamaged. "I'm impressed it held so well."

Ni sidled up next to him. "I honestly didn't think they'd be dumb enough to actually use the battering ram once I said the word lawyer, but..." She shrugged. "What are the chances they were the FBI?"

"None," Bucky answered. "Though I'm not sure who they were. Possibly whoever was running that lab you were at in London."

"Miss Grace," Matt began, and they both returned to face him. "This is only going to force them to use less legal means."

She shrugged. "They may reconsider, given I live-streamed everything that happened here. It'll keep running until they have left the area." She gave Bucky a grin and headed into the kitchen. "Drink, Matt?"

He sighed. "You don't do anything by half measure, do you?"

"Nope." She grabbed a beer, opened it, and set it on the counter next to him.

He didn't even ask, just picked it up and drank.

She tossed a second one to Bucky and grabbed a third for herself. "To successfully thwarting the evil government agency."

Bucky shook his head in amusement but lifted his beer to clink the neck against the other two. "This is only round one, doll. Don't forget that."

"I know, but it was a necessary round," she reminded him. "I am not giving them my servers. Any of them."

He knew she meant both the original ones, Iris and Cat, had been created on, along with dozens of other AIs and programs, and the new set that she'd been using to try and get into the nanobots that had taken up residence in her head."

"That may not stop them from just taking them," Matt stated. "Can I hope you have a plan for that as well?"

"We do," Bucky told him. "It's not without risks, but until we know their exact moves, we can only best guess and prepare."

"And when you need to run?" Matt questioned.

Ni frowned. "I'm not running."

Bucky gave her a sympathetic glance. He knew that running could become necessary. And far sooner than later.

Matt finished off his beer. "You'll send me copies of your security videos so that I can file that request for repairs?"

"I'll have it compiled and in your inbox by morning," Cat assured him. "Legal audio and video only."

Matt grinned.

"I will also have a one hundred k retainer in your account by the end of business tomorrow. That should cover both me and Bucky for a while."

Bucky wanted to be surprised by the amount, but suspected that she'd continued to use that new skill to increase her funds in preparation for this war she'd started against the government. Right now, neither was likely to back down, which he didn't like since she needed to be focusing her skills on cracking into those nanobots, not this. She'd been home just over a month and hadn't had a moment of real peace since she had.

"That is far too generous, but I'll do everything I can to assist both of you. Now, I do have other clients, so I will leave you two alone to plan your next adventure."

Ni snickered. "Thank you, Matt. I'll keep you apprised of any other... complications."

"Please. Bucky, Cat, have a good evening."

Bucky went to the door and opened it for Murdock. "Thank you for being here for Nienna, Mr. Murdock."

"Matt, please. Take care of her."

"I will." Bucky waited until Matt was in the elevator and on the way down before closing and locking the door. "Cat, keep an eye on him if you would."

"Of course, Bucky. Want me to leave you two alone for a while?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind?"

"No problem. I need to run some sims on the nanobot programming anyway." And with that, Cat left them alone.

"Did she change her voice?" Bucky asked.

"Yeah, to better differentiate between us." Ni sniffed and wiped away a fake tear. "She's growing up."

Bucky chuckled. He walked over to Ni and took her hands in his. "Are you okay?"

She thumped her head into his chest. "Yeah. I'm just glad we had a heads up. Glad we have Cat looking out for us. But..."

"But what, doll?"

"What happens if next time it's an unmarked van and they grab me off the street?" She didn't appear to be overly upset at the thought, more that she wanted to be prepared should that event occur.

And she had a point, of course, and they had and would continue to plan for every possible move they might make. He damn well knew that in reality grabbing her would be just as effective as taking the servers since she had been the one to come up with the programs. However, as she had already proved, she could be stubborn and refuse to give them anything locked in her brilliant mind. Stealing the servers, which would still require breaking through her encryptions, had most likely been deemed the easier of the limited choices they had.

Besides, she had called them out on her previous abduction; if she were to disappear again, the whole of the world would question why. Never mind that Bucky himself would be excessively vocal on her having gone missing. No, he remained reasonably confident they would continue to try to block the patents and confiscate the servers.

"They won't. Not yet. They still think the servers are the easier target. Let's not disabuse them of that just yet."

She nodded, then rubbed her forehead.

"Headache?"

She tried to give him a confident smile, but missed the mark. "I have been burning the candle at both ends the last few days."

"But you don't think it's because of that, or not just because of that anyway." He had noticed she'd been going through painkillers at an increased rate and didn't even know if they had helped at all.

"No, I don't. Meds don't help. I... I think I'm running out of time here, Bucky."

He'd been afraid of that. And since they had no idea what would happen once the nanobots completed they're replacement of her neurons, he could in no way fix this. Within weeks, maybe months, if they were lucky, they would have replaced enough of her to stop her from being her. Making her a blank slate, anyone could plug a new persona into.

He would lose her all over again.

And he didn't think he could survive that.

"I'll reach out again." He'd gotten responses from both Ayo and Okoye, but they'd been noncommittal at best. Granted, he'd kept the needs vague, so maybe this time more details were in order. Wakanda had some of the most advanced tech and medical facilities on the planet, and aside from the actual creators, who were playing dumb and probably hoping Ni would just be turned into a zombie and leave them alone, were the ones most likely to solve her issues, and quickly.

Look at how long it hadn't taken them to remove the deep programming in his head. They hadn't fixed the resultant trauma, but emotional pain and physical pain were two very different beasts. Freeing him from Hydra's control had been comparatively easy. Freeing him from his guilt had been something only he could do.

She turned her head to rest over his heart, the slow, steady beats hopefully a comfort to her. "They're dealing with a mess right now, it would be so much easier if they just released the Project Mirage data and let me access it."

He chuckled softly and kissed the top of her head. "We both know that is not going to happen since it would mean admitting that they abducted and experimented on one of their citizens. Every project like it would come under scrutiny, and none of their super secret super hero projects would get any more funding."

"Would that be such a terrible thing? After what happened to me, I can only imagine what other horrible things might be going on. Even if they have actual volunteers, it still isn't right. I mean, how many steps went wrong before they reached the beta stage they were using on me?"

He didn't argue, didn't disagree, couldn't, as he agreed with her. But he also knew they wouldn't stop. He knew with an odd weariness in his bones that every government on the planet that had the means to had invested in some form of superhero creation. Thanos had been the cause this time, and not a world war or the imminent threat of one.

No matter that they had Guardians and Marvels that worked off-planet to protect their small blue world, the next threat could come from anywhere in the universe, and the next one might not be so easily stopped.

Not that stopping Thanos had been easy by any means, and that was ultimately the point he supposed. The need for more and more powerful protectors to defend the Earth as a whole against whatever might be coming next.

A few comparatively simple super soldiers like himself could only do so much against a fleet of fully armed spaceships that arrived in orbit with the sole goal of wiping humanity off the face of the tiny planet they occupied.

Thor had warned that we'd made our world a threat to others by use of the Infinity Stones that had fallen into our proverbial laps, and he hadn't been wrong.

Eventually, with the resources we currently possessed, a force too large to be defeated would come, and this experiment called humanity would be over.

Little wonder they pushed for more and more powerful heroes to be created.

What they had done to Nienna seemed to be for a far more covert purpose, but... but if it worked, imagine what it could be used for in any life form with a similar brain structure.

Imagine being able to take control of a chaotic being such as Loki.

And there was little he could do to prevent any of it.

"Doll, if push comes to shove, I'll show up on their doorstep and ask for forgiveness. I promise you."

She leaned back slightly to look up at him. "You mean that?"

"Yes. I'm not going to lose you again." He leaned down to kiss her, drowning in the feel of her lips and tongue, sinking ever deeper into those warm waters that he'd splashed into the previous summer and never wanting to come up for air again.

He lifted her, her legs wrapping about his waist, and he carried her into their bedroom.

. . .

Nienna wasn't home when they made their second attempt to take the servers.

They had been much better at keeping their plans a secret this time, as Cat didn't spot them until the unmarked helicopter had been nearing the building. It hadn't landed, which was smart as the roof most likely wouldn't have supported it. It hovered about fifteen feet above, and a group of ten rappelled down. Luckily for them, the greenhouse remained intact. Ni would have been pissed if it had been damaged and the bees disturbed. The sun had gone down, which means they should all be back in the hive, snug and safe for the night.

Half headed for the stairwell and elevator, the rest headed for the fire escape that led directly to the Nyte Visions office.

"Cat, arm the windows if you would."

"Already did. Should I let Ni know they're trying again?"

Bucky sighed as he headed for the bookcase entrance to the office, which he would lock behind him. Even if the ones coming down from the fire escape couldn't get in, those in the stairwell probably would. And they would find themselves trapped in the same room as one extremely overprotective Bucky Barnes.

The reinforced room the servers were in would be what he protected. The computers in the room did not function on their own, each one was tied directly to the servers. If they were taken, which he would try to prevent, or far more likely destroyed in the soon-to-be ensuing fight, they could be replaced with comparative ease. The servers were of far more importance to Ni and Cat.

"Yes. She and Matt should both know. You are recording, correct?"

Cat snorted. "Of course. The feed should be live in less than a minute. With invites to all the relevant news sources." He could hear the grin in her voice. "Make the show a good one, will you?"

"I'll do my best," he simpered, turning off the lights, which left only the glow of the sunset to illuminate the room. He waited around the corner of the server wall, out of sight of the office door, cracked his neck, and readied himself for the fight to come.

He heard when those who were on the fire escape tried to open the window, and the resultant scream when Cat activated the electric field rigged on the metal stairs. It pulsed outwards from the rails, catching not only whoever stood at the window but anyone on the stairs above.

No one out there even attempted to open the window or break the glass, which had also been reinforced, which meant he'd probably eliminated a third of the team in one fell swoop. "Thank you, Cat," he said in a quiet voice, not wanting to telegraph his location to those outside the door.

"They're using det cord. Ni is not going to be happy," Cat said via the comms.

Bucky sighed. "No, she won't, but her lawyer will happily sue them for the costs."

Cat chuckled softly. "As if it will make a difference."

"Countdown for the det if you would."

"Breach in three... two... one."

Bucky covered his ears and closed his eyes, shifting his focus to just feeling, which would protect those two senses from the majority of the damage they otherwise would incur.

A solid whump and the smell of acrid smoke assaulted his nose. He held position, counted slowly to ten, expecting a flash bang at five. There wasn't one, so at eight he opened his eyes and uncovered his ears listening for the sound of footsteps. He gave them points for their silence, as anyone with normal hearing would not have heard a thing, but he was better than that. Miles better.

The first one to get near him took his regular arm to the throat as he spun around the corner to face them, knocking the man onto his back on the ground. The second had just enough time to see his Vibranium fist lash out into his face before he joined his comrade on the floor of the office.

There was just enough haze in the room from the explosion to light up the laser sights they had on the weapons, which meant he could easily target each of them. In mere minutes, he had every single one of them on the floor, either out cold or moaning in pain. The worst damage had been a dislocated shoulder along with a few broken noses. He picked up and dismantled every weapon they wore and piled them all in a corner. None of them carried anything IT-like, which meant there was a second team about somewhere, just waiting for the all clear.

"Cat, find the nerd squad and broadcast their location if you would."

"On it."

"Oh, and has the fire escape team retreated to the roof?"

"Yes, though they seem to be having trouble with their electronics and have been unable to call for backup," she told him with an angry sort of glee in her voice.

"And Nienna?" One of the men on the floor found the wherewithal to roll onto his side and attempt to stand up. Bucky casually walked over and set a sock-covered foot on his back and encouraged him back onto the floor with enough force that all his air left him in a whoosh.

"She's... she's... They sent a team after her, too," Cat finally got out at a low hiss.

"Fuck," Bucky muttered, knowing she could defend herself decently, but if they sent overwhelming force... "Did they get her?"

"No. Her lawyer, Mr. Murdock, is quite a fighter. Though his law office needs some repairs." Cat sounded stunned as if in disbelief at what had occurred.

Bucky heaved a sigh of relief. "Are the locals on the way?"

"Yes. Shall I call them for this?"

Bucky thought about it. "You know what? Yes. Let's do this the right way."

"Huh. Patrol cars are already en route. Seems several of our neighbors spotted the infiltration team and called it in."

Bucky grinned at that, knowing most of the nearby buildings had people who had gone through the Blip with Nienna. They still watched out for each other. They had commiserated with Bucky when she had died and welcomed her back with open arms when she returned. He would have to thank them all later. "The cops won't be able to arrest them, I'm sure, but I want this invasion on the record." Just one more bit of proof in Ni's war against the government.

Sadly, this invasion would also be the proverbial last straw. They'd made that decision together, but it now meant that she would have to leave her home. For a while, anyway.

"Coordinate with Nienna. Keep her apprised of the situation here and me with hers, please."

"Will do. I'm already fielding inquiries about the live feed. If we're lucky, it'll make it onto the eleven pm news."

This time, the gauntlet thrown down had been made of Vibranium and would hurt a lot more than the plate mail one Nienna had used during that press conference. "The tech team?"

"A couple of blocks over in a parking garage. They thought killing the cameras there would keep me from finding them and turning them back on. They are currently packing up and leaving after learning the infil team failed."

"Please make them aware you are watching."

"Oh, I have, which is why they are packing up. They didn't wear masks like these guys, so I'm working on putting names to faces as we speak."

Cat, he had learned, possessed a vindictive streak a mile wide. Liking that idea, he went about the room and removed the headgear from every single one, so Cat could add them to her to-do list.

By the time the police had arrived, most of them were awake, sitting back against the wall with their hands on their heads, an angry former Winter Soldier glaring down at them as he leaned back on the larger of the two desks. Sadly, his desk and the monitors on it had been casualties during the fight and lay scattered across the floor.

The police had taken his statement, made liberal use of zip ties to secure the half dozen Bucky had wrangled. Cat had verified the group coming down the fire escapes, upon realizing they would not get in via the windows, had made their way to the ground and set up a staging area to cover the entrance of the IT team when they made their appearance.

Of course, that never happened, so when the cops showed up, they had faded away, heading to wherever their exfil point may have been. Bucky hadn't cared. Cat had dealt with all of that, including broadcasting their walk of shame for any who watched the livestream to see.

A couple of the cops kept checking their phones for that precise reason and had additional officers sent to both that parking garage and to that exfil location. The latter two might get away before they got rounded up, but Cat had gotten a nice, clear video of them and the various identifying marks on the vehicles.

Bucky damn well knew none of those arrested would be in jail more than overnight at most. Someone would get them out, and they would disappear back into the hole they had crawled out of.

It remained a win for their side as far as Bucky was concerned.

By the time Matt and Nienna had arrived at the apartment, the broken office door had been covered in plywood, and Bucky had moved all the damaged items into a pile to be dealt with later and swept the floor clean of any overt detritus. The broom leaned against the still-tipped-over desk. The Roomba had trundled about a couple of times until Bucky had sent it back to home base for the night.

Both Matt and Nienna sported scrapes and bruises, but otherwise appeared to be okay. Ni had her phone to her ear as she came out of the elevator.

"Yes, dad. Yes, I'm fine. Some minor injuries." She gave Bucky a wan smile as she walked past him and into the apartment. "Yes, dad. I promise. Love you too. Bye."

She tucked her phone away and looked straight at Bucky. "I'm fine," she assured him, then headed directly to the fridge and pulled an ice pack out of the freezer, setting it against her right cheek. Then rummaged in the other side for something to drink.

Bucky turned to Matt. "Are you okay?" He gave the man the once-over. He had similar injuries to Nienna. Cuts and scrapes on his face and knuckles, a bit of blood on his clothes, but otherwise in good shape.

"Fine. I'll have some bruises, but that's all."

"I am so sorry about your office," Nienna said, and based on the heavy sigh from Matt, it hadn't been the first time.

"You didn't know any more than I that they'd come after you there." He faced Bucky. "I honestly thought we'd be safe there. Even your Cat was surprised by their appearance."

Cat grumbled. "I can't see or predict everything. Whatever channels they used to plan this, I didn't have access to. We still made them look like idiots, though."

Matt snorted. "I wouldn't go that far, but their bosses are not going to be happy about their failure."

"I'm not happy about this," Ni snarled.

Bucky looked over at her, ice pack to her face, and simply raised an eyebrow.

Her anger didn't lessen one whit. "I'm going to go clean up. Matt, grab a drink if you wish. I'll be back in a few minutes." She grabbed a bottle of water, slammed the fridge door shut, and tramped off to the bedroom.

As soon as the bedroom had shut, Matt looked right at Bucky, which was oddly disconcerting given that the man was supposed to be blind. "She had an... incident during the fight."

"What kind of incident?" Bucky asked with a sinking feeling in his gut.

"She went down when she took that blow to her cheek. Didn't knock her out or anything, but rang her bell good. When she tried to get up, it wasn't her."

"Lilith," Bucky muttered.

"Probably. Nienna hasn't told me all the details, to protect me, according to her, but I know enough. The woman had no clue what was going on and..."

"And what?" Bucky all but growled, wanting that shoe to drop now rather than later.

"And she recognized one of the men who had broken in."

"Theo?" Bucky questioned. That would be bad news on so many fronts.

"No," Cat responded, "I would have recognized him."

Which meant someone else from that lab whom Lilith would have known, but not Nienna. "Fuck. They're not even trying to be subtle about it anymore."

"No, they're not," Matt agreed. "I know she wants to make a stand, get the government to admit what they did to her, but..."

"She's running out of time," Bucky finished and had to agree. "How long was she Lilith?"

"Less than a minute," Matt told him. "She spoke for a bit and then seemed to snap back to herself. Whatever is going on with those nanobots..." He shook his head. "She's losing the fight."

Bucky had to concur.

Matt's phone chirped. "My ride's here."

"Bill us for the damages."

Matt grinned. "Your retainer will cover all of it and then some. Keep me apprised of her condition, if you would."

"Yeah. Let me walk you out." Bucky did so, not just to the door, but the elevator, trusting that the man could find his way through the lobby and the car awaiting him on the street below.

When he returned to the apartment, locking the door and arming the security, Ni was waiting by the windows. She hadn't showered, just freshened up and tossed on some more comfortable clothes.

"Matt, head out?"

Bucky nodded. He strode over to her, removed the ice pack from her cheek, and examined the damage up close. Her left eye had blood pooling in it, filling the outside half of the eye, the cheekbone back to her hairline under her temple, also clearly damaged. He kissed the raised area with the gentlest of touches, earning a small hiss from her. He encouraged her to return the ice pack to place and noticed the scrapes on her knuckles, which meant she'd gotten some decent punches in.

"You should see how the other guys look." She managed in a faux jovial tone.

"Given you won, I can imagine," Bucky told her. "How are you, really?"

She gave him a wan smile. "Face hurts, some other bruises here and there, I'll do a full recount later, and I'm angry, Bucky. Very, very angry."

He grasped her free hand, running his thumb across the back of it, taking care not to press too hard on the raw skin. "Doll, it's time."

She sighed and turned away for a long moment. "I know. I have a blank spot during the fight. Right after I took that damn baton to my head. I can't fix this. Not fast enough to not lose me."

"You haven't cracked into the programming yet?"

Ni met his eyes, showing fear for the first time since she'd told him she was drowning. "There is no programming. Just the personality. There's nothing in them I can access that will fix this."

He stared at her, stunned, wondering how long she had known she'd reached a dead end. "Nienna, how long?" How long had she been carrying this burden around on her own?

"A week. The tablet doesn't have anything beyond the Lilith persona. The nanobots ' base programming is the neuron placement. Everything else is on the tablet or elsewhere." Her tone was that of utter defeat, and he hated hearing it in her voice. "I can't even tell them to stop what they are doing. I suspect they're supposed to get updates, but without that system, I can change nothing." She squeezed his hand. "Eventually, Lilith will be all I am. Or whoever else gets downloaded. I'll just be wiped clean. A blank slate for anyone to use."

"No, Nienna. Never. I think it's time we just beg for forgiveness."

"Bucky, even if we show up on their doorstep, they can still say no."

She wasn't wrong, but he truly didn't believe that they would. At least not those he considered friends in Wakanda. "We try anyway."

Tears began to spill over her lower lids, her lip trembling with the emotions she tried to keep inside, but had made their way to the surface, escaping the confines she put about the emotions. "I don't want to drown again."

He pulled her into a hug, the ice pack falling to the floor, as his arms wrapped about her. Hers coming up about his neck, tucking the right side of her face against his neck.

"You won't. I'll be here to hold you up no matter how deep the water gets." The tone meant to be reassuring but he knew damn well that if the nanobots completed their task there would be nothing he could do.

She sniffled, clinging to him and relying on his strength to keep her upright for long minutes.

"How do we get there?" she finally asked as she pulled back slightly to look up at him. "It's not like I can fly commercial to Wakanda, and we also have to transport the servers. I have money, but not enough to rent a plane large enough to do that. I am not trusting them to a shipping company."

Bucky gave her a tiny smile. "For that, I have a plan."

. . .

All those months Bucky had been finding and investigating former Hydra/SHEILD bases, he'd found more than just dirty laundry that could be aired out at any time, but storehouses.

In a lot of them, the tech had been ancient when compared to today's standards, but occasionally he'd come across items that could be of use. That's how he'd acquired his motorcycle. One of the bases had a couple dozen vehicles sitting collecting dust. Some had been completely unusable, while others could be fixed up and brought back into service if he so chose. One of the vehicles in question had been a quinjet. An earlier model, admittedly, but from what he could tell, intact.

After fixing up the bike and one of the oversized cargo trucks he'd begun poking at the quinjet without the expectation of ever having an actual need for it.

Until now.

Luckily for them, it had, much like the majority of vehicles in the garage, been designed for transport, so it was more than large enough to fit Ni's servers.

If he could get it off the ground.

Where before he had only tinkered with it, he now worked on it in earnest and managed to get it up and fully running in just a few days. Days that Nienna spent carefully shutting down her servers, which meant cutting themselves off from Iris until they could bring them back online. Cat moved as much of herself as she could manage into the cloud, so to speak. The servers were more of a home base than a requirement for her to function. She didn't cease being a "real girl" just because they had been turned off.

Cat admitted to feeling a disconnect without them up and running, but nothing that impacted who she was and what she could do overall.

Iris, that search program, however, required the servers to work fully. Those bits left behind in other systems remained but would lie dormant until reconnected to the main program.

Bucky had given Sam a heads up that Iris would be going offline, and while blatantly curious as to why, he hadn't asked. He had his own team, and while he still used Iris on occasion, it had mostly been Bucky and Cat making use of the program these days.

Cat could still access the security system in the apartment as it was not connected to the servers and would do her best to warn them of any trouble incoming.

Given that the base the quinjet was located at was several hours away, they had decided to camp there while he got it up and running. So in the middle of the night, he parked one of the cargo trucks in the alley and they had carefully loaded the servers onto it along with a few days worth of clothes, personal belongings, and food, and headed out of the city.

Ni had called her dad to let her know she'd be travelling for a few days and that she'd contact him when back on dry land, so to speak. The only person she told where they were going was her lawyer. Murdock would still be working on the various lawsuits and protection orders while she was away, the retainer more than large enough to cover anything they needed for the time being.

The old depot had bunks, offices, and a kitchen for those who had been assigned there so they wouldn't be roughing it per se. The ventilation still worked perfectly, but the electricity was minimal, just what he'd been able to get working, without putting major money or effort into it. Even though deep into summer, it remained cool in the bunker since most of it had been buried within a mountain.

Nienna had stared up at the roof seemingly miles overhead with a look of consternation on her face. "How many of these places have you found?"

Bucky shrugged. "Dozens. All over the world."

"And they've all just been forgotten?"

"Not all of them. But a lot of the old Hydra or SSR ones have been. Even after all the files were released."

"Did Iris find all of them?"

"Most. Some I remembered being at, just not getting there, so I used Iris to put the pieces together."

Ni grinned. "And how much blackmail and dirty secrets have you found?"

"More than you can imagine," he told her. "I could do a lot of damage to several governments if I wanted to."

"But you don't. Want to, that is."

He shook his head. "Not unless it becomes necessary."

She walked over to him. "Are you sure you want to keep more secrets?"

He cupped her cheek with his right hand. "No, but I don't want others to have them either. Not yet, anyway."

"And there is always a chance something might happen that you have the answer to," she observed in a dry tone.

"That too, doll."

She turned about and leaned back against him. He wrapped his arms about her and set his face against the side of hers. "I see one flaw in this plan."

"And that is?" He was truly curious, and he felt reasonably certain he'd covered all the bases.

"How do we get the quinjet out?"

. . .

They eventually found the door. It didn't look like a door, it looked like a rock wall, but once they found the controls and got them working, it opened up, squealing with a deep tone that echoed off the opposite side of the valley as gears that hadn't been used in decades moved slowly, splitting the rough hewn wall nearly thirty feet high and not stopping until fifty feet apart. He suspected they would not be able to close the damn thing, which would mean his stash of vehicles could be discovered by others, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make in the name of keeping Nienna safe.

They cleared the floor around the quinjet, and he made the first attempt to get it off the ground. The down draft from the wing blades blew dust and anything loose everywhere, but it had risen and hovered with little issue. The controls were oddly familiar, though he couldn't quite grasp onto the memory that permitted him to fly the machine.

Pleased with the initial success, he made a few tweaks, loaded it with fuel, and then flew it out of the hangar around the mountain and then back, landing it right back where it had been sitting, waiting to be found for years.

They loaded up the servers and belongings, spent one last day in the former SHIELD base, grabbed some sleep, and then flew out into the night, headed for Wakanda.

Fuel would be tight, but he'd done the math three times, and Nienna twice, and came up with the same answer every time. As it was designed to carry cargo, it had two pilot seats, and Bucky encouraged Ni to sit up front with him, and while there, he taught her how to fly the quinjet. He warned her that current models were a bit different with better tech and monitors, but the basic flight controls would be the same.

This meant he'd been able to take a nap during the long stretch over the Atlantic. Their flight plan kept them near, but not over, any land mass they could find just in case the older quinjet decided to crap out on them while over the ocean. Thankfully, they had no major issues, and he sent the first message to Ayo once within range of Wakanda. He didn't ask for permission to land, simply told her they were arriving and where he intended to park, well outside the capital but within the protective shield that hid exactly what lay within.

They would not be taking off again unless they could refuel, the quinjet running on fumes when he'd finally set it down.

Nienna had sent out one last message, requesting sanctuary for herself and Cat in hopes it might garner a response, but there had been none, at least not on the radio.

Still, they damn well knew that by breaching Wakandan airspace without permission that someone would be forced to respond even if it was just to arrest them. Not the optimal scenario, but one that would get them in the front door.

They settled in to wait.

In the interim, they managed to reconnect with Cat, who, technically, had no eyes or ears in the country, so she could only inform them of what had been going on back in New York in their absence. Matt had held a press conference denouncing the latest round of attacks and the fact that, although arrested by the local police, the attackers had managed to be bailed out and vanish into thin air.

Not unexpected, but disappointing nonetheless. Bucky knew that eventually someone would have to be thrown under the rug, a scapegoat named, if only to take the pressure off as Ni and Cat made every effort to keep the story in the news in one manner or another. Ni had recorded several videos before their trip that Cat would post to keep the pressure on, and Cat herself could create her own, not about to give the government a chance to rest, given it had been her they were trying to steal.

Or, rather, the code that had been needed for her creation.

Ni contacted her father to let him know they were fine and that she'd update him as she was able to.

After that, it had become simply a matter of waiting.

They eventually settled on some blankets under one of the quinjet's wings, the shade needed during the heat of the day. Ni fretted over the servers that, while off, could still suffer damage if they overheated, so the rear ramp had been left open to catch the breeze and keep the interior as cool as possible, given the remaining battery could only run the AC for a limited amount of time.

Bucky had eventually forced her to sit down, drink some water, and eat some of the food they had brought along. If no one had arrived by nightfall, he would head into the city, find a Dora Milaje, and request a meeting with Ayo. He fully understood they had a lot on their plate, but he seriously doubted that no one had noticed their arrival.

Which meant...

He wasn't certain, but had decided not to worry until he had to.

The sun had been well on its way to the horizon, the air still hot, but the evening breeze had kicked up when the Wakandan transports appeared, settling to the ground about fifty feet away.

He and Ni got to their feet and ducked out from under the wing to see exactly who had arrived to either greet or arrest them.

Yama in full battle gear stepped out of the crowd and rushed forward to wrap her arms about Nienna. "It is good to see you alive, my friend."

Ni returned the hug with as much enthusiasm. "It's good to be alive," she agreed.

Bucky gave a soft sigh of relief. They may have brought their weapons, but it was clear the Wakandans did not consider them a danger. Hopefully, it meant they had taken Ni's request for sanctuary seriously and would grant her permission to stay. For the time being, anyway.

Ayo approached with several official-looking men whom Bucky did not recognize. Not all that surprising, he had been rather sheltered during his time here, even though he had known and interacted with both T'Challa and Shuri personally. He'd spent quite a bit of time with the scientists and the warriors, but not much with the governmental hierarchy.

Last he knew, Everett Ross still acted as liaison between Wakanda and the US, but did not know if the man was in the country at the moment.

"Yama," Ayo admonished, but she gave Ni a hint of a smile and a tiny nod.

Yama didn't even blink. "I missed her, and I will be the first to advocate for her request for sanctuary."

Ayo huffed out a breath. "We are well aware."

Yama hugged Nienna one more time, whispered something in her ear, then stepped back to the group.

One of the men, wearing the full regalia of his office, whatever that might be, stepped forward. His English was heavily accented but more than understandable.

"The request for sanctuary for Nienna Grace and Catherine Grace has been granted." He bowed deeply at the waist, and the others who had come as representatives of the other clans followed suit. "Welcome to Wakanda."

Bucky saw the tension drain from her. Then she turned to him with glee on her face. "What, doll?"

"They granted Cat sanctuary," she told him in hushed tones.

I stared at her blankly, clearly not understanding.

"It means they recognize her as a sovereign being. You hear that, Cat?"

Out of Ni's phone speaker came. "Yes. Thank them for me if you would."

"You are most welcome, Miss Cat. Now, if you would join us, we have rooms ready for you. King T'Chaka would like to speak with you in the morning."

"And Bucky?" Nienna asked.

"He is welcome, of course," Ayo responded. "I believe an offer of assistance was made?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Whatever you need that I can do," he assured her.

Nienna took two steps forward, then seemed to balk.

"What's wrong, Ni?"

"The servers. I don't want to just leave them here."

Neither did he. What was on them was far too valuable, and while Cat seemed fine without that connection to them, who knew if that would last. They were in brand new territory here and had no idea what long-term effects not having access to the servers that she'd been created on would do to her. And he didn't want to find out.

"They will be taken to a secure location in the science division. No harm will come to them, I swear," Yama told her. "I will guard them myself if you so wish."

Ni shook her head. "No, I trust you, all of you. I just..."

"Doll, you came here for help, let them." Bucky wrapped his hand about hers and squeezed it. He looked Ayo dead in the eye. Hers were not nearly as hard as the last time they'd met in Ni's apartment last summer. "Ni's... sick. What little info we have is on those servers and a tablet."

"Understood," a newcomer said.

It took Bucky a moment to place him, one of the scientists he'd seen on occasion when he'd been here, having his brain put back together. "N'Kushe, right?"

He nodded. "Good to see you again, Mr. Barnes." Then to Nienna. "I will be taking care of your servers. We will be holding them in a secure location that you may visit tomorrow. Any decisions will be made after that."

Ni sighed, not quite in relief, but more in confidence that they would be with someone who had a clue. "Please don't try to bring them online without me, I have a unique connection technique."

"Of course not," N'Kushe agreed amicably. "We will await your arrival."

She gave him a nod of thanks, then turned to Bucky. "I guess it's time to see how much trouble we're in."

Bucky chuckled. "Here, very little, I imagine. Back home... We'll have to wait and see."

Yama and Ayo fell in step with them as they escorted them to one of the transports.

"You couldn't act until we made the first move, could you?" Bucky asked Ayo once they'd lifted into the air, headed back to the city.

"No, we could not." She turned to look directly at Nienna. "You have angered several governments by your actions."

Ni sucked in a breath ready to argue the point but Yama talked her down.

"Justified actions, Ni."

"But because of the somewhat precarious political climate, we could not overtly support either side," Ayo continued.

"But we could grant you sanctuary if you arrived here," Yama finished. "And I am very glad you are here, my friend."

Ni reached out and set her hand atop Yama's. "Me too. Does this mean I can learn to use your spear?"

Yama laughed softly. "We'll see. Let's get you settled first, shall we?"

Bucky looked over at Ayo, who had a tiny smile gracing her lips.

She gave him a nod of respect.

He settled deeper into the seat, just thankful that Nienna would be safe.

. . .

It took three days to hash out the details of Nienna and Cat's stay in Wakanda. Cat negotiated her own terms, and both sides left the virtual bargaining table satisfied with the agreement. Her servers would be turned back on, which would allow Nienna to continue her normal AI work and to keep Cat functional, but Iris would have to remain offline. The servers Ni had been using to work on the nanobot problem would be taken to one of the science labs so they could see what progress she had made, which, even in her opinion, hadn't been much.

Nienna hoped to transfer Iris to a more compact device, which would allow Bucky to take the AI search program back to New York with him and continue to use it. Iris had never had access to Wakandan systems, and Nienna promised it never would without direct permission. She even offered up the tracking code she'd embedded in the program that would permit them to find and purge it if it had somehow snuck in on its own.

Iris worked more like a worm program, digging into places and leaving bits behind that allowed ongoing access, but had no real mind of its own. Iris required direction. The program had an AI-like interface but no intelligence of its own.

Cat did not need that direction. She had been sentient from the moment she'd been turned on with the words 'happy birthday'. Which is why the combination of Iris and Cat had been so damn useful and no little scary.

Negotiating Nienna's needs had been both easier and yet more difficult.

While they had recognized Cat as an individual, they had also admonished Nienna for recreating Zola's algorithm and potentially putting the entire world in danger. They had wanted her to delete the program, and she had refused.

They had settled on isolating it on a single server that would not be connected to any other device for the time being.

Neither side had been happy about that, but it seemed to be an equitable compromise. Though in truth, Ni could probably recreate it in an afternoon from memory. Her request for patents, had not been rejected, but still awaited a decision. That did mean the US government could not touch those versions of the algorithm.

Didn't mean they couldn't come up with another, but those two Nienna had created belonged to her. If there was any fallout to be had, it would fall upon her shoulders.

Ni had contacted Matt a few times for the specificity of wording, not that he, in his words, had any clue about Wakandan law, but he'd still done his best to assist when she had asked.

Then came the request for help with her... condition. And with it, the entire tale of the Red Room and how they had controlled the women they had turned into killers. Bucky and Nienna gave them everything they knew about the lab, everything they had dug up, names, dates, places, everything they had discovered. Did that include some suppositions and best guesses? Yes. But they made certain to make that clear in those instances.

The Wakandans knew of the Red Room, but Project Mirage had not been one they were aware of or participated in. The fact that over a dozen countries had taken part seemed to be more of a concern than anything.

They wanted to keep the nanobots to study when, not if, but when they removed them from Nienna. She agreed, but only if they shared all the data. When asked why? She told them she wanted to be able to give the cure, whatever it might turn out to be, away for free. That there could be hundreds of other victims out there, currently having no power to save themselves and drowning, sinking deeper and deeper into the bottomless depths, having their lives stolen away in the name of one-upmanship. Every government wanted to have that next big thing in the superhero business.

No matter the cost.

Nienna admitted that she could not stop all of it, but if she could help, save even one more drowning soul, she would do so.

The Wakandans had agreed.

So today she'd spent the morning being examined five ways to Sunday and had, with serious trepidation, handed over the tablet that controlled the Lilith persona and with Bucky by her side, let the lovely woman with a soft soothing voice named K'Tara, turn it on.

Lilith had been most vocal, strapped to an exam table, that amazing Wakandan tech recording everything and gathering information that would hopefully remove the damn nanobots altogether and give him his Nienna back whole of heart and mind.

They kept Lilith aware for only five minutes this time before returning her to dormancy, the half dozen techs talking excitedly about the data they had gotten.

Bucky had watched with a deepening sense of loss as the eyes of the woman he loved turned from green to yellow, and was only able to feel relief when she was once again aware and in his arms.

He could tell she'd hated every moment of it, but also knew the necessity of it for her to be well again.

She'd spent the remainder of the day reassembling her servers. She'd been granted the use of an apartment, one typically reserved for visiting dignitaries and guests of the royal family, which she had tried to refuse, until they explained that she needed to be close so they could better monitor her.

It was Yama who had ultimately reassured her that she was indeed being treated as a guest and not as an enemy that needed to be watched, even if guards did follow them about at a discreet distance. Given the number of white people regularly seen in the country could be counted on one hand, it did make some sense. Just Everett Ross as far as he knew.

It might not be a bad idea to introduce Nienna to him.

Bucky had finally dragged her away in the late evening. She'd already taken to wearing some of the local clothes, ones Yama had acquired for her, as they were both clean and much more comfortable in the summer heat. New York got hot, but this just felt different.

"So, how did today go?" Bucky asked. He'd been in some meetings with various tribe members and Dora Milaje about what he had encountered with this Project Mirage, as it seemed to be of great concern to all of them.

"Good, I should have the servers up and ready for a test run tomorrow. They made those modifications to the spare room faster than I could have hoped. I should have Cat's home base back up in a day or two." She twined her right hand with his left as they walked through the long grass. He'd borrowed a personal skiff to take her on a tour of the countryside surrounding the capital, including the little hut by the lake where he'd lived peacefully raising goats for the better part of a year.

"Good. She seems to be doing well out there in the cloud, but she keeps feeling homesick."

Nienna snickered. "The things we're learning thanks to Cat. Did she tell you she wants to restart Nyte Visions? She's been running the maintenance programs for months without issues, which proves she can handle programming changes and upgrades, and it would let us expand. I'm not certain how to pay her, but I imagine we'll figure something out."

"Is that what you want? To go back to work?" he asked as they came to a stop in the tall grass.

She shrugged. "I need to do something? I design AIs, no reason to stop doing that."

"I thought you were going to spend your time holding the government accountable."

She frowned slightly. "That too, but even I know I'm screaming into the void. Until more are willing to stand up against them for using their people, for trying to turn their own citizens into weapons, it's just going to continue, they'll just learn to hide it better." She shook her head. "No. I think I'd rather build an AI that improves water quality in third world countries, or can better track disasters, or vaccine distribution, or, I don't know, a dozen other ideas I have. Plus, I need some sort of distraction while K'Tara picks apart the nanobots stuck in my brain and figures out how to remove them safely."

"Do they know anything yet?" It seemed far too soon for them to have any answers, but he knew exactly how good the tech was as he'd had the pleasure of experiencing it up close, and given it had been over five years since then, he doubted there hadn't been even more improvements.

"Some. They do think, much as you warned, that there is a kill switch. One that kills me, that is. That function was well hidden on the tablet, so..." She squeezed his hand. "There's hope."

He raised their hands and kissed her fingers. "Of course there is. I was only in cryo for a few months before they figured out how to break the Hydra programming. I'm certain this'll be no trouble at all."

They made their slow way over towards the lake, stopping at the edge of it.

"God, this place is beautiful. Why did you ever leave?"

"Because it was time to pay for my sins," Bucky told her. "I wasn't the Winter Soldier any longer, and I, Bucky Barnes, needed to take responsibility for what I had done, in control of my body or not." He turned to face her. "Besides, I kinda wanted to go home."

"Speaking of which, when are you heading back?"

"I don't know, doll. I have no immediate plans. Why?"

"Well, you do have a campaign to sort out."

"So Cat ratted me out, I take it," he said without sounding upset. "I was going to tell you, but we kinda had to cut and run if you recall."

She gave him a brilliant smile. "I know. What made you decide to do it?"

There were reasons, so many reasons, and yes, Nienna and what she had gone through had been a major contributing factor, but in truth, he needed to try something different. It didn't matter how strong he was, how hard he could punch, if, at the end of the day, it didn't make enough difference. Heroes, even if he was more of an anti-hero, needed to be able to do more than just 'save the day'. If he did this right, got on the right committees, he could effect actual change that would help everyone.

Or so he hoped.

If it didn't work out, he could just go back to punching things.

"Steve would have been better at this, I think, but I want to try. See if I can do what is needed. And with you and Cat on my side," he leaned in to kiss Ni lightly on the lips, "I know I can do anything." He smiled at her. "Though Cat is going to need to promise not to stack the votes in my favor. I win or lose on my laurels."

"Oh, you'll win," Nienna said with every confidence. "Which brings us back around to how long will you stay?"

"A few weeks," he responded. He had a lot of work to do setting up an entire campaign without any clue how to do so. Oh, he knew Cat would do what she could, getting him in contact with the right people, but the real work he needed to do all on his own. "I'll be back to visit as often as I can. It's not like we'll be out of contact."

She gave him a wan smile. "I know from my perspective, I wasn't gone very long, but in some ways it feels like forever. I..." she trailed off, shaking her head.

"What, doll?" He grasped her chin in his right hand and encouraged her to lift her head to meet his eyes. That glorious green bright in the light of the soon-to-be setting sun.

"I'm afraid. Afraid that if things go wrong, I'll drown."

He set his hands on her shoulders, then slid them upwards along the sides of her neck to cup her cheeks. "Doll, if you drown, we'll drown together." He tipped his head down and kissed her, his hunger and need for her rising upwards and washing over him like a wave, one that never stopped, just kept flowing over and over until he had been swept away by it.

When he pulled back, the waves still crashing far overhead, he said, "Marry me."

She laughed in surprise. "Bucky, you don't mean that. Hell, you don't want that."

"Ni, I think I know what I want." He dropped down to one knee, his hands wrapped about both of hers. "I love you, Nienna Grace, and have since that stormy night in the alley when you told me I should 'squeeze a bit tighter'. I just wish I had told you sooner."

"James," she said in a soft voice, her emotions having stolen away her breath.

"And I wasn't ready then. Wasn't ready to risk you being hurt because of me, whether directly or collateral damage. I am now. I lost you once." His breath caught in his chest, the memory of being told she had left him behind, left them all behind, still hurting even now, the hole slowly filling back in with her renewed presence at his side. "I won't lose you again. So, please, marry me."

She gave him a brilliant smile. "Yes, Bucky, I will marry you."

He rested his forehead against their hands for a long moment, then kissed her knuckles before standing and picking her up with his hands on her waist, hers on his shoulders, and twirling them about.

He lowered her to the ground, their bodies pressed together, and kissed her as the sun began to settle behind the mountains in the distance.

. . .

The wedding ceremony happened a week later.

Yama had tried to make a big deal about it, but neither Ni nor Bucky wanted that, so only a chosen few had attended - Shuri made an appearance, much to Bucky's surprise - and the ceremony had been short and to the point. Ayo had provided rings, well, a ring, a Vibranium band of black and gold that matched the style of Bucky's arm for Nienna. For Bucky, a slight modification of the patterning on his ring finger to simulate a ring, and the deal had been sealed.

As far as Wakanda and the world were concerned, Bucky Barnes was now a married man.

And yet he would be returning to New York alone.

Nienna would not be leaving the country until certain the nanobots had been removed and they had designed a way to not only discover those being affected by them but a way to turn them off without harming the host.

That, even with the astounding tech the country had, could not be done in a day.

Ni's home for the foreseeable future would be in Wakanda.

They sat on the balcony of her apartment. Cat had her home back, the servers running quietly in their air-conditioned haven. Ni still worked on transferring Iris so that Bucky could take the AI back to Brooklyn with him. It would now run as an overclocked desktop in conjunction with a regular computer and be just as useful as before.

He had his cake and could eat it too.

Except...

"Hey, if on the off chance I win-"

"When."

"If," he argued, knowing there were no promises in the game of politics. "Will you be there?"

She gave him a brilliant smile. "When," she emphasized, "you win, I will be by your side to see you accept the job. You can officially announce me as your wife then, if you wish. All those women will be disappointed, but you'll already have their votes, so..." She shrugged.

"I don't know if I can lie about that, doll."

"Then don't. Prevaricate. Obfuscate. Any of those other ates that will let you skirt around the truth. Your relationship status should not be the basis of your campaign anyway. I'm... in this case, unimportant and a potential detriment given I'll still be poking them with sticks even from here."

"I've heard King M'Baku has made some inquiries about the mind control side of it." Bucky hadn't suggested he do so, but the Jabari tribe had been known for its anti-tech stance, which is why they had stayed out of Wakandan politics for so long. Thanos had, however, softened that stance a bit. Who they shared said tech with had though. Not to the detriment of those they had been helping to raise up, but those who did not need it were left to their own devices and creativity.

That said, they quite possibly would be taking a more watchful position in an attempt to keep such harmful technologies from becoming abused.

And Bucky knew how easily they could be abused.

"So I have heard. We've given them everything we discovered. After that, I've been kept out of it. Matt is still pursuing my claims, but it's all at a standstill at the moment." She sighed. "Someone will crack eventually. Another victim will turn up, and they'll try to sweep it under the rug again. The more countries that I can get involved and on my side, the more scrutiny they fall under and the less likely they'll be quite so bold about it next time. Taking me was their mistake. If it had been just some poor soul off the street, that lab in London would still be up and running."

For all they knew, the lab had simply moved to another location, a reality she was aware of and understood, but also one they didn't mention often because it made the task of stopping them an even more daunting one.

"Doll, I shouldn't have brought it up. I want to spend this time together, not worrying about the stupidity of governments."

She reached out and twined their hands, the ring on her left glinting darkly in the darkness. "You still going to give me the grand tour of Wakanda?"

"That's the plan." It would mostly be day trips, with a couple of overnights as they visited various locations and tribes around the country. K'Tana didn't want Ni too far from the city in case she had another incident. They had observed three of them so far. After the second one, they had come up with a wearable device that recorded what was going on in her head; it looked like a simple circlet that stayed in place with some Wakandan magic, but it let the docs record her brainwaves day and night.

While turning out to be trickier than expected, K'Tana had every hope of a cure within a few months at most. If, and K'Tana had stressed if, the pressure of the other persona became too frequent or too much for Ni, they had agreed to put her into cryo until a fix had been created.

Not the optimal solution, but one that would gain Ni time in case she had begun to run out of it.

In case she began to drown again.

Bucky would be there with her this time.

Sharing the weight of the water.

.

.

fin