Chapter Text
"Hey. Hey!"
Bucky woke with a start, the thrashing of his fitful sleep ending and his breath coming hard. He was up in an instant, decades of Hydra training overruling the anxiety that still lingered from his nightmare. On instinct he lunged for the gun at his waist. Not finding it there he tried for his ankle holster only to come up empty once more. When he realized he had been unarmed he finally took a second to take in his surroundings. A living room, perhaps. Sterile, sleek, and mostly in shades of gray. There was a long black rectangle in front of the couch he had jumped from that he knew was called a television. There was a small kitchenette visible from the spot where he stood as well as a dark hallway he couldn't see down.
He recognized none of this.
Had he been captured on a a mission? How was that even possible? It had never happened before. The thought terrified him, but not because of his possible captors. He cringed to think of the punishment he would endure once they got him back.
"Are you okay?"
A feminine voice, laced with concern, coming from seemingly no where. There had been no one in the room and as he swung around he realized there was still no one.
"Who are you?" he growled out in Russian, "Where am I?"
Whoever the voice was coming from seemed to hesitate momentarily, but they quickly recovered and replied - to his surprise - in Russian.
"You're name is Bucky Barnes. You are in your suite in Stark Tower. You fell asleep on the couch while watching old footage reels of the Howling Commandos, which you and your best friend Steve Rogers were a part of during the war. You are the Winter Soldier, ally of the Avengers, and no longer a prisoner and weapon of Hydra. You are safe."
It came rushing back to him as the woman spoke. He settled back onto the couch. His couch. Steve had gotten him the thick red afghan he had been sleeping under. He remembered that.
He let out a shuddering breath, eyes squeezed shut as the nightmare he had came rushing back. Not that they were really nightmares, just horrible memories of all the things he had done.
"Would you like me to get Captain Rogers?" The voice asked again, in English now, quietly as if she might scare him (which was smart, Bucky thought) or more like she was concerned for his well being (which was less smart and more strange.)
"No," his answer was immediate. Steve had been worrying about him so much over the past couple months. As much as Bucky appreciated the concern and felt quilty for making Steve feel bad, it was also beginning to become extremely annoying to be treated with kid gloves 24/7. Bringing Steve in now would only make it all worse. Besides, he didn't seem to actually be alone even if he didn't know where the girl was.
"Are you invisible or something?" he asked, much calmer than he should be with a disembodied voice talking to him. Either he'd finally cracked or Stark had brought in some new invisible girl to join the team. After meeting an alien/God and a man who could turn into a giant green monster, there wasn't much Bucky would be surprised by. Although if she was invisible it begged the question of how she got into his quarters.
"No," the voice sounded humored even if she did not laugh. "I'm Mr. Stark's artificial intelligence program. I'm the security system for the tower."
"Then why haven't I ever heard you before?"
"Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark thought it might be smarter to ease you into technology. They thought I might freak you out. Mr. Stark wouldn't take kindly to a Russian super soldier trying to shoot at me. Bullets in his ceiling are a no no."
Bucky's eyes furrowed. Again with the kid gloves. "Did he change his mind?"
"No. Technically I'm breaking a direct order."
"You'll get in trouble," he said without thinking, remember the types of punishment people could suffer from disobeying orders.
"Maybe. But you needed help. So it would be worth it, I think." And she almost sounds confused about it herself.
Something about that struck Bucky, as it always did when someone seemed to care about him. Even months out of cryo it still surprised him that anyone would bother after everything he had done. He laid back down on the couch with nothing more to say to the strange if nice voice in his ceiling.
Staring at the smooth white ceiling lightly illuminated by the very beginnings of sunrise, he was suddenly hit by a wave of fatigue. Usually after his nightmares he wasn't able to fall back asleep but tonight it seemed like he would.
The voice was silent as he let his eyes fall closed and drifted back into slumber. Just before he slipped under he thought he might have heard something whispered to him.
It sounded an awful lot like "Sleep well."
+++
The common room at Stark Tower was great. It included a huge living room with a long couch and giant flat screen with an adjacent kitchen that any professional chef would die for. The space was much more homey than the blank canvases of rooms that had been prepared for everyone who was invited to live in the tower. Bucky supposed Pepper Potts was to thank for that.
Though he had lived in the tower for quite a while, Bucky was pretty new to the common room. It was only recently and under his therapist's careful advisory that he had felt comfortable enough to venture into the public areas for more than a couple minutes. Extending his bubble to more than just his room was a big task, but it was a step in the right direction. It helped that almost everyone else was away more often than not on missions he still wasn't allowed on.
It had been a couple days that Steve and the others had been gone, now, and he'd spent the better chunk of those few days trying to catch up on the list of movies and TV and music he had been given. But now he couldn't find the remote and he had been in the middle of a show called House that Sam had recommended and the last episode he watched ended with a cliff hanger.
"The remote is on the kitchen counter next to the toaster."
Bucky jumped from where he stood pulling the cushions off the couch, looking around for whoever said that. Then he remembered the voice. He wouldn't find a person to place it with. He calmed down quickly and walked to the kitchen where he did in fact find the remote next to the toaster.
"Thanks," he muttered under his breath, looking around once more for evidence of cameras or even speakers only to find none. Stark did a good job at hiding his tech.
"No problem. I really want to know what happens next."
Bucky's brow furrowed, "You've been watching?"
"Yep."
"Don't you have a job to do or something?"
"One of the many perks of having eyes on all of the tower all at once is that I'm a fabulous multitasker."
"Huh," Bucky stood for a moment, attempting to contemplate that but stopping quickly. Even if the talking security system didn't scare him there was no way he was going to be able to understand her. It. Whatever. So he just went back to the couch and sat down, queuing up the next episode of his show.
Some time later he heard footsteps coming down the hall and paused his episode. They were fast, like the person was rushing, but also extremely light. He turned to see who it would be, alert and ready as always. A short woman with brown hair and a lab coat walked in and beelined to the kitchen, dropping pop tarts into the toaster as fast as possible before crossing her arms and tapping her foot, staring at the kitchen appliance. She was trailed by a sleek white sphere, about the size of a football, hovering beside her.
"Staring at it won't make it go any faster." Bucky looked up again, a little startled to hear the robot woman's voice again, this time coming from the white ball.
The woman in the lab coat huffed, "What else should I do, then?"
"Drink some water. Coffee dehydrates and it's all you've had."
Lab Coat huffed again before moving to do just that. "DARCY, you know I'm a grown woman perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"You haven't slept in 26.3 hours, so I'm going to have to disagree with you there, boss lady."
Lab Coat just huffed and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, quickly uncapping it and taking a couple swigs. "Happy?"
"Extremely."
"Good. Then you can unlock the lab for me." The toaster dinged and Lab Coat grabbed her pop tarts. They smelled strongly of chemicals but not in a bad way. She turned to lean against the kitchen counter, arms crossed and biting into the toaster pastry. Her eyes immediately locked with Bucky's and widened. There was a beat, then he raised a hand in an awkward greeting. To say Bucky was out of practice socializing was an understatement, but he's been advised to at least start trying. And no, Steve liked to remind him, glaring at people when they approach him is not socializing.
Lab Coat swallowed her pop tart and smiled meekly. "Hi. Sorry, I, uh, didn't realize someone was here."
"It's not your fault. For a super genius she really isn't great at noticing things," the ball, DARCY, chimed in.
"It's okay." Bucky was quiet. He prided himself on that. It would have been more surprising if she did notice him.
After another tense silence DARCY stage whispered to Lab Coat, "This is usually the part where you introduce yourself."
Lab Coat sent DARCY a short glare, "Yes, I know that," she returned her attention to Bucky, "I'm Jane."
This was the hard part. Bucky never knew how to introduce himself these days. Usually he was with Steve if he met a new person and his friend introduced the former Hydra prisoner/agent/super soldier for him. But with Steve in the middle of buttfuck nowhere doing god knows what Bucky was left to his own devices. The Winter Soldier was out of the question. If it didn't scare people then it was just too formal. At first he'd preferred James, the strange nickname 'Bucky' seeming foreign and far too cheery and familiar for the super assassin he'd become. Bucky probably would have settled on Barnes, a nice impersonal middle ground. But, since Steve was the one doing the introducing, he always ended up being Bucky.
"Bucky," he settled on after a moment. It had felt more true, lately. Like maybe the womanizing gent from the 40s was still in there somewhere.
"I know," Lab Coat - Jane - said. Oh. Of course she did. Bucky's sure everyone who lived or worked in the tower was warned about the big scary assassin was in the building. He wanted that to make him more bitter than it did. Really, it was probably a good thing. He still wasn't 100% healed. Civilians like this Jane should be warned.
Another long silence. Jane took another bite of her pop tart. She tried her best not to stare at him, assuming the conversation to be over, and let her eyes focus somewhere else in the room. Bucky did no such thing and stared directly at Jane. He ended up figuring out that she was definitely wearing a dirty shirt if the dried tomato sauce stain on her t-shirt said anything and that she was a scientist. The second thing was a little more obvious due to the lab coat. Bucky had seen quite a few nameless faces walking around in lab coats the one time Steve ushered him down to the R&D floor so Tony could take a look at his arm. (This did not go well and Tony barely touched the thing before being pinned to the nearest wall by his neck.) A third more interesting thing about Jane was the necklace with a charm of Thor's Hammer hanging from it. He wondered if she knew the alien god man Bucky was still weary of. Or, more likely, if she was a "fangirl", something Steve had begrudgingly explained the meaning of to him a couple days prior.
"A-hem," the white ball said,"You didn't introduce me, Jane."
Jane lazily gestured towards the ball, "This is DARCY, Tony Stark's AI."
"We've met," Bucky noted, taking in the hovering white ball wearily. Somehow this was stranger than a disembodied voice.
Jane turned accusingly to DARCY, "Then why did you have me- Whatever. We have to get back to work."
Jane walked out of the kitchen with her toast and water bottle still in hand, DARCY trailing after her saying, "You forgot to tell him I'm your babysitter, too!" Bucky watched them leave, wondering to himself if that counted as a successful social interaction.
"Sorry about that," DARCY's voice came over from some indeterminable point in the room once more. Bucky startled slightly, eyes darting around the room for a moment before calming down. "I just like messing with her."
"It's okay..." Bucky replied, unsure what else to say.
"Are you going to unpause the show?" she asked.
Bucky looked at the TV and then the remote blankly for a minute before nodding and pressing play.
"Good. You were just getting to a good part."