Work Text:
It was nine pm at the Barton homestead with a fresh blanket of snow falling over the farm and the places beyond the pine trees. Cooper, Lila, and Nate were all glued to the window with fingers crossed and tape on their white socks, praying that there would be no school tomorrow. As inches piled on top of inches, it was clear that there wouldn’t be a chance in frozen hell that they would have school in the morning. Laura knew this too; still, she called for all three of her kids to go upstairs to get ready for bed.
After losing five years, Laura had found that her best coping mechanism was to stick to a routine. Her only means of control in a world that could turn to dust with the snap of someone’s fingertips. In the past, on red sky nights like this, her and Clint would let the children stay up watching movies with fresh popcorn or put on their snow pants to go sledding down the hill. Clint preferred movies, Laura preferred watching the kids play in the snow. Laughing at them and with them in the dead of night, however, that just wasn’t an option anymore. Having the kids in by nine gave her the peace of mind that she knew they were safe. That only in case men, monsters, or magic got the better of the good guys, she would know exactly where her children were—tucked in bed.
Deep down, a part of her was self-aware that maintaining a routine was just an illusion. Sometimes it was easier to just play pretend than to continually live in the dark shadow of the truth. She called for her kids to come upstairs again, this time slightly louder.
The kids didn’t budge, except Cooper, who went to turn on the PlayStation. Clint stepped out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee in hand. He cleared his throat causing Lila and Nate to break their gaze from the window.
“But, Dad.” Each of the children groaned.
“I know. I know.”
Cooper slumped himself into the couch, “There is no way there is gonna be school tomor-”
“Once again, I know. That being said, as we all know, she runs the house.”
Little Nate let out a slight yawn, “Can we just go outside for a lil’ bit.”
Lilia laughed, watching her youngest brother barely be able to keep his eyes open. She ran her fingers through his hair, “You baby, you are about to pass out.”
Clint looked over at the staircase as he took a sip of coffee. “I’ll cut you guys a deal. You have any tests, projects, book reports due next week?”
All ears perked up as they shook their heads no.
“Scout’s honor?”
“Honor.” They all said in unison.
“Okay. I will take your words for it. Next week, your mom is going to visit your aunt for the weekend. She is going to be leaving Thursday night after dinner. And if by some off chance, all three of you have food poisoning in the morning—” he took another sip of his coffee, “I’ll let you stay home from school Friday. Deal?”
Nothing could ever make a child smile more than the very idea of a three day weekend. Before Laura could call for her kids a third time, they were all already running up the stairs. Clint stood against the door frame of the kitchen, waiting to hear the last of the footsteps, even Laura’s. As the final bedroom door close, he returned back to the kitchen. He poured himself another cup of coffee.
“Cute kids, Barton.” Bucky pushed his empty mug across the kitchen table. He leaned himself back in the kitchen chair. He remembered back in the day, after the war was over, wanting to get married to a cute redhead. Then moving into a beautiful bright blue suburban home in Long Island and starting a family of his own. He pictured himself having three kids like Clint, just with three boys instead. He even picked out names for them too: the first would be a junior, the second named after her grandfather, and the third (who he also pictured being the runt of the litter) after Steve. He would get a job at a 9 to 5, his wife would keep a lovely home, the eldest would become a doctor, the middle a baseball player, and the youngest a soldier. Also, as childish as it sounds, he even pictured Steve living right across the street. In a bright yellow suburban home, with a family of his own who would get bullied by Bucky’s three boys.
In the bunks, he and Steve used to map out their entire lives as bombs fell above them. Daydreams were the only thing that used to keep them sane. Now, the thought of having a family of his own had long since passed. With the way the world was paired with the things he had done to make it that way, he knew his dream of being the cookie-cutter family man was never going to be possible with blood on his hands. That being said, his voyeuristic visits to the Barton homestead in between missions allowed him a taste of what could have been. Especially on the warm sunny July days this past summer when he and Nate would toss a baseball in the backyard.
“Thanks. More coffee?”
“No. I’m good.”
Except, Bucky’s visits as of the past three weeks were not as light-hearted.
“What’s your plan for her tonight?” Clint nodded his head towards the kitchen window, which right outside, only a few yards away, was the shed that had a dim yellow light on.
“Same thing as every other night. Talk to her.”
“I don’t think she is going to break. When I go out there to try and give her food and water, I talk to her. I think I have ran through every dad speech in the playbook. Nothing. Just takes a few sips of water, and that’s it.”
“They trained her well then.”
Clint turned his attention back towards Bucky. The two had grown an unlikely friendship with an immense amount of depth unknown to the rest of the Avengers. With Nat gone, Clint had relied on Bucky to discuss the five years he had lost himself to grief. Bucky never flinched; he had no right too. Even as Clint went step by step to what he did to those men in the Cartel, Bucky only spoke to him with understanding indifference. Their late-night coffee dates served as small baby steps for the father of three young children to be a father again. Even more importantly, be the father that Laura needed him to be for her to maintain her own healing process. Clint poured the rest of the coffee pot down the sink, “You think she is one of them? What you used to be?”
A few weeks ago, when Bucky arrived on his back doorsteps with a battered unconscious girl in his arms asking to keep her hidden in his shed. Clint just followed along. It was the least he could do.
“A Winter Soldier? No, all of them are long since gone. From what I can tell, they have no intention of reviving that program anytime soon. That being said, the way she fights? It's them. But-”
“But?”
“There is something else there. It doesn’t make sense, but when I look at her in the eyes—she just has this look.”
“Well, your right, that doesn’t make sense. Then again, a lot of things don’t make sense anymore. Obvious example, you’re 94 and look about ten years younger than me. Don’t make much sense, yet here we are.”
“You got a point.”
“Always do.”
Both men chuckled. Clint grabbed a set of keys from underneath a jar on top of the fridge.
“Either way, Barnes, all those years back, Steve used to say the same thing about you. He turned out right. Took a couple of rounds in the parking lot for that point to be proven,we still got there. That being said, however-”
“The kids?”
“And Laura.”
“Understood.”
The two men put on their jackets and went outside, which was unusually bright for a winter night. The bright red sky had turned into a thickening maroon. Fluffy white snow was now just small little pricks of ice, causing a hazy blur. Branches of the surrounding trees were bent towards the ground allowing the dark edge of the horizon to be more apparent than before. Taking in a deep breath, Bucky felt a familiar burn in his lungs while Clint unlocked the door to the shed.
“Do you want me to stay out here?” Clint rubbed his hands together for a minor sense of relief from the cold metal of the lock and keys.
“No, go to bed. I’ll keep everything under control.”
Clint tossed the keys to Bucky, tipping his head as a silent goodnight. Bucky waited for Clint to make it back inside before entering the shed.
She still sat in the same position, feet forward, back straight, hands bound with rope behind the wooden chair. The black eye he gave her was no longer a deep purple, instead fading into sickly hues of yellow. The red dress she wore, that was torn up during their altercation, had started to turn black from the bloodstains.
“Do you need water, kid?”
She remained silent.
With in the past year, the team had given Bucky more freedom to go out on his own. Most of the time, he was still paired up with Sam or T’Challa on missions that easily could be one man, which they would usually end up being. Bucky would complete whatever task at hand while whoever would watch the door. But now that it was clear that HYDRA no longer held a tight grip over him, Bucky was given at least one primary mission a month to go out and play on his own. While working with a team had been a welcomed adjustment in his life, working alone was a familiar comfort.
This last mission he was on was supposed to be a simple one. All he had to do was run around to each vacant government building in D.C on Christmas Eve. Do a simple checkup on some hidden security measures the team had put in place. Nothing special. He finished hours earlier than he had planned for him to take. Knowing that everyone else was away for the holidays and the base would be empty, Bucky had figured that grabbing a beer in a hole in the wall dive bar wouldn’t hurt. No one was waiting up for him. But, Bucky never made it to the warm light of any bar that night.
In fact, he had only made it halfway down a one-way street where he found her hunched over a dead man in a grey suit in an alleyway. Her hands glowing a bright green holding on tightly to a small knife. An overwhelming sweet smell, like spun vanilla sugar, seemed to be oozing out of her pores.
She had put up a good fight, but Bucky had years over her and one good sucker punch to the underneath of her jaw.
“You got to be hungry, at least.”
She didn’t even lookup.
Bucky grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, “I’m going to need you to at least drink some water.” He took are by the chin forcing the bottle between her lips, “You aren’t looking too hot, kid.”
She only took a few sips, but still said nothing. Bucky walked around to the back of the chair. The rope was still tight, but the skin around her wrists had started to break. Her hands were marred with burn scars, which he took into his hands in an attempt to warm them.
“You know, I think in most movies this would be the part where I would say, ‘I’ll let you go, but only after you start talking.’” Bucky grabbed a chair and sat in front of the young girl. “But we both know, that if you wanted too, you could have been out of here weeks ago, kid. Probably have this whole place leveled out too. Why haven’t you?”
He gave her a chance to respond.
She didn’t.
“Is it because it hurts?”
For the first time, the young girl looked up at Bucky.
“The burns on your hands, are they from what you can do.”
The vacant stare in her green eyes was enough of an answer.
“I know a group of people who can help you. They are the same people who helped me too, kid. You just have to talk—tell me your name—something anything. I told you this before, I’ll tell you again, the people who did this to you don’t care about you. They will use you again and again for their own gain no matter how much it hurts you. However, I can’t help you if you don’t talk. I need you to talk to me ki-”
A small green flash appeared behind the girl. She winced in pain as the rope that tied her hands turned to ash. “Jessica. My name is Jessica.” She rubbed the sides of her wrists which had already started to blister. “If you call me kid one more time—” her voice trailed off.
“Jessica. You got a last name?”
“No last name.”
“Everyone has a last name.”
“Don’t have one.”
Jessica’s bones cracked as she stood up and walked around in a small circle. Three weeks of sitting in the same position left her body stiff. The places where her dress was torn, along with the burn wounds, Bucky noticed deep purple surgical scars on the side of her stomach.
“I know I said this to you before, but this doesn’t have to be it for you. I was you onc-”
Jessica cut him off quick, “/I was you once, Winter Soldier, this doesn’t have to be your life, the things you have done aren’t your fault, I’m part of a team, a family, we have a kid who is almost like you/—you repeat yourself a lot.”
“Well, I’m not usually the speech giver.”
“What happened to the usual guy?”
“Retired.”
“The other guy that comes in here does a decent job at it.”
“Barton? He has had years of practice.”
“I can tell.” Jessica ran her fingers across the walls of the shed admiring the various bows and arrows that hung up on the wall. “Is he a hunter?”
Bucky let out a small laugh, “A pretty good one.”
“Does he take his children with him?”
“Did he tell you about his kids?”
“No, but I can hear their footsteps in the house.”
“He takes his daughter out with him from time to time.”
“Well, tell him to be careful. A family of wolves have been making their way over here.”
“I’ll let him know. Anything else?”
“It’s temporary alliances.” Jessica turned her focus back towards Bucky.
“Temporary alliances?”
Jessica walked over to Bucky, barely making a sound. “Every other night, you come in here repeating yourself.”
“My offer stands all the same.”
“But you don’t understand.”
“No, ki-Jessica, I do. The people who did these things to us—” Bucky pulled his shirt down off his shoulder, revealing the thick red line that combined machine and man.
“They created the Winter Soldier. They only made me.”
“Made you?”
“Gave me a warm bed, three meals a day cleaned me up, trained me, I can go on and on. But what I can do,” she lifted her hands up into the air, “isn’t them. They didn’t create this.”
“Then why work with them?”
“Because they found me first.”
“Does that logic justify all the people I’m sure you have hurt? Because they found you first?”
Jessica’s face gave a hint of a smile while blowing air out of her nose, “What’s the first thing they teach you?”
“Complete the mission at any and all costs.”
“/Complete the mission at any and all costs./” Jessica echoed back as she pushed the rest of her hair behind her ears. “Same speeches.”
“But you don’t listen.”
“I can tolerate anything if it means I get what I want.”
There was a brief moment of silence between the two. The only sound being the light gust of wind knocking against the glass window of the shed. Bucky stood up from the chair towering over Jessica. “Then what’s your mission, soldier?”
“Secure my own survival.” She whispered.
“Temporary alliances?”
“Temporary alliances, until my needs are met.”
“Then what?”
“I move on.”
“To what?”
“I won’t know if you keep me here.”
“Which you could have—”
“I needed you to trust me.”
Jessica stood up to match the stature of Bucky: chin up, shoulders rolled back, arms crossed. The spun vanilla sugar smell had made its return. For a brief moment, Bucky saw a warmth in Jessica’s green eyes. “Since you aren’t one for speeches, I will keep this short.” He stepped over to his left and started to knock down the various tools off the wall, “Since I am a man of my word, I’m going to let you go.” He then walked over to Clint’s workstation and flipped the table over, causing papers to scatter across the floor. “That being said, I will be keeping my eyes on you.” Grabbing the chairs both of them had been sitting on, he threw them to opposite sides of the room. “And if you step out of line,” he punched several holes into the floor, “or if my team finds you—”
“Understood.”
Bucky pulled a knife from his boot then slid the sharp blade across his cheek. He tossed the knife back to Jessica, “You can have that back.” He then took a seat on the floor against the wall, “I know it hurts you to do, but can you—”
“I can do it just enough to leave you paralyzed for about an hour.”
“Works for me, kid.”
She placed her hand on his chest. Taking in a deep breath, she allowed herself to let go for a brief couple of seconds. “Jessica.”
Buky felt his whole body go numb. His breathing slowed down to almost a complete halt. He only had had enough function in his eyes to watch Jessica pull herself together. That brief warmth she had only minutes ago turned back into that cold demeanor she had every night before. She busted the lock on the front door giving Bucky one last look before running off into the night.
The winter winds brought inside ice and snow. Bucky just sat there, unable to feel any of it at all.