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The Asset could not tell you why he pulled the man out of the Potomac.
Bucky Barnes knows that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Steve Rogers.
The Asset has a mission to complete.
Bucky Barnes wishes the fall had killed him
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The Asset was unsure of what to do.
The mission had been terminated, his handler was gone, Hydra was silent, and the man on the Helicarrier had called him Bucky. The Asset was not sure why the last fact was significant, but he had learned long ago not to dismiss any information as irrelevant and the Asset had a feeling that nothing the man said was irrelevant.
With no mission or directive, the Asset defaulted to his basic goal: surviving. After pulling the man (Steve a small part of his mind screamed) out of the river, the Asset went to an old bunker to grab supplies. After patching himself up and changing his clothes to be more inconspicuous, the Asset disappeared as quickly as he arrived, making sure to leave no trace behind.
For months the Asset lived in a state of limbo. He was no longer answering to Hydra but he still felt like theirs. A week after the Helicarrier Incident, the Asset found himself at the Smithsonian looking at a picture of a grinning Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes with an arm slung around the shoulders of one Steven Grant Rogers. The man in the photo looked like him, but whatever part of him was James Buchanan Barnes had long since gone silent; he was not the man the Captain remembered.
The Asset decided that the best course of action would be to remain hidden. When Hydra regrouped (and the Asset had no doubt that Hydra would in fact regroup) they would come looking for him, not to mention the Captain and his team were looking for him at this very second. The Asset decided to do what he did best, disappear.
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She reminded him of another woman he had known years ago.
They both had the same long red hair that cascaded down their backs like rivers of blood. Both women moved with a quiet sort of power in their steps. However, where Natalia had been a dancer (ever so graceful and ever so deadly), this woman was a storm. She never stood still for a moment, always moving and always staying busy (almost like she was afraid of what would happen if she took a moment to think.) This woman reminded him of the girl he had trained and loved, but they could not be more different.
The Asset had first seen the woman three months, sixteen days, four hours, and thirty-six seconds ago in a small diner in New Mexico. She had the look of a traveler, her long red hair (as red as the blood on Steve’s lips) tied in a messy ponytail and her emerald green eyes (the two woman even had the same color eyes with the same haunted look in them (the Asset briefly wondered what ghosts she carried)) were dulled with fatigue. In her arms was a child, no older than a year, with the brightest blue hair the Asset had ever seen. The patrons of the diner were giving the woman a wide berth (more than a few of them were giving her judgemental looks as if they did not have worse skeletons in their closets) but the woman paid them no mind. The Asset was sure that she had faced worse than the ire of strangers. When the woman left the diner an hour later, the Asset was ready to write her off as another stranger he had seen and would soon forget.
The Asset could not stop thinking of her.
Hair as red as blood (eyes as deadly as the blade she held against his throat.) No, she was not her. This woman was not the one he had known long ago (the one he trained, the one he had shared his bed with, the one he had shot through the stomach, the one who stood at the Captain’s side.)
Having anything to do with this woman would go against the Asset’s directive of survival.
The Asset would leave the woman alone.
(Forget that red hair and those haunted eyes.)
(Did she know what it is like to lose someone?)
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The Asset followed the woman to California.
He justified this decision by telling himself that it was a tactical decision. He had to keep moving less Hydra or the Captain find him (it was the first time he had felt the desire to do something in so long. It was the first time he felt like there was something in him other than the Asset.)
When the woman moved onto Oregon, the Asset followed (always a ghost, always a shadow in her wake.)
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Up until the incident in Michigan, the Asset had made sure not to do anything to be seen or noticed by the woman. He followed from a distance, never infringing on her space (he kept surveillance to an absolute minimum, only watching enough to know where she was heading next.) He did not want to do this woman a disservice (something about her drew him in, and he could not keep saying it was the reminder of another woman. She was a force of nature by herself and he could not stay away.)
In Michigan, she had checked herself into a moderately nice hotel. The Asset decided to check into the motel two buildings over (he had been quietly taking money from people throughout their travels but never enough to draw alarm, so he had to make do with cheaper options.) He noticed her leave for dinner at 6:54 PM, but he made no move to follow (it was one of the days where all he could focus on were the screams of people long dead.) However, when the clock struck 12:00 and she had not returned, he decided to follow her. The Asset justified it as a surveillance operation (but he had long since given up on truly justifying his actions regarding the woman.)
He found her on the verge of punching someone at a local restaurant. She had the child in her arms and a look that could kill painted across her face, but the man before her did not seem to take the hint. The Asset could tell from the door that the man was drunk and angry by the way he was holding himself threateningly over the woman, and the Asset nearly stalked over to the table himself when the man raised a hand towards the woman. However, before the Asset could take action, the man went flying into the bar. The woman stood, looking calm as ever, and left a bill on the table before calmly passing the Asset on her way out of the building.
(Two women of fire with hair as red as blood. Both more dangerous and deadly than anyone could believe. Both made the Asset want to find Bucky Barnes.)
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The Asset was not sure how to proceed once the woman found a place to settle down.
When the woman purchased a prime piece of land high in the mountains of Vermont, the Asset felt a sense of dread. He had been following this woman because she had been looking for something too (the Asset was not sure when the ghosts in her eyes had faded in the background), but she seems to have found it; if she found what she was looking for, why was the Asset still as lost as the day he first saw her? She had succeeded in her goal, which only served to remind the Asset that he had not.
For the first time in months, the Asset left the woman behind.
_______________________________________
The Asset was hoping to find answers in Brooklyn.
James Buchanan Barnes had grown up alongside Steven Grant Rogers in the streets of Brooklyn, but, to the Asset, the city was just another place. He did not recognize any of the buildings or people (some part of him, some part that Hydra could never erase, was subconsciously looking in every ally for a skinny, frail man who had not existed since 1941.)
Brooklyn might have been Bucky Barnes’ home, but it was not the Asset’s.
The Asset’s home was currently in Vermont.
It was then that the Asset realized he had a new mission.
_______________________________________
For all that he thought about the woman, he had never intended to interact with her.
She was a constant, a stone that he used to ground himself on days where he could still feel Hydra in every part of his body and mind. She was a reminder that he could be more than the Asset (she was a reminder of his past mistakes, his past love, and a hope for something more.) She was never meant to be anything more than a symbol (he had always been one to follow symbols), but then he collapsed in her garden.
In the Asset’s defense, he had never intended to collapse in her garden. It had been one of the days where he could hear the echo of screams (some of his victims and some of his own) with every step. He settled in the oak tree overlooking the woman’s garden (she had always loved the roses the best, but the Asset had not yet determined why) and decided to wait out the episode on his perch. However, in his anguish, the Asset had failed to take into account his body’s needs (when he had been under Hydra’s fist, he had always been told when to eat and drink, so he’d never needed to do it on his own accord.) The Asset did not realize what was happening until it was too late to do anything about it, and he was already losing consciousness when he hit the ground, crushing the red roses (roses as red as her hair.)
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His first interaction with the woman did not go as he might have thought it would.
His mind (in an effort to be prepared for any eventuality) had come up with numerous scenarios of what the woman would do if she discovered him, but sitting him down for dinner had not been one of them.
(She might look like Natalia, but she was nothing like her (yet she was exactly like her in the way she affected the Asset.)
After their first interaction, the Asset fled for a week. He did not leave the woman (he had long since accepted that some force would always drag him back to her) but he redoubled his efforts to make sure that she never noticed him. He watched her tend to her garden (with the red roses) and move about her day. He watched her take care of the child (the Asset wondered if the child was hers) and occasionally host the girl (the girl with the blonde hair and the same type of fire in her as Sarah Rogers) for dinner. He watched the woman compile a family and began to desperately wish he could be a part of it.
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In the back of his mind, the Asset had always known that he was James Buchanan Barnes, but it was only after being in the woman’s company for so long that he began to feel like James. He had never been able to think of himself as anything other than what Hydra made him to be, but she (the girl with the blood-red hair and fiery eyes) brought out everything human that was still left in him.
“James.”
“Pardon?”
“My name is James.”
“Well, James, it’s lovely to meet you. I’m Dahlia.”
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It was that interaction that broke the dam in James’ mind. He began to remember more and more of who he was before Hydra. He remembered Steve, the Howling Commandos, teaching his sister how to braid hair (he wondered if Becca had a good life after he died), but, most importantly, he remembered how it felt to be alive.
There were still days when he felt more like the Asset than James, but then he thought of Dahlia. He thought of her fiery red hair, her passionate green eyes, the way her face lit up when she talked about the ones she loved (he hoped to be a part of that group one day.) Just as she had been since the day he laid eyes on her, Dahlia was his rock.
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“I want you to meet Teddy.”
James had been through a lot in the past 70 years or so (even if he couldn’t remember all of it), but he couldn’t recall being more frightened by a statement in his life. These days, he was more James than the Asset, but he still wasn’t sure if he could trust himself around someone so vulnerable (Dahlia was anything but vulnerable.) Still, he couldn’t bear the thought of letting Dahlia down, so he agreed to meet Teddy.
A few months after their acquaintanceship began, Dahlia explained Teddy’s story to James. James learned that Teddy was the son of two of the bravest people Dahlia had ever known (and that Dahlia clearly felt responsible for their deaths, even if she never put the thought into words) and that she, being Teddy’s godmother, took it upon herself to raise him away from the pain of the Wizarding World. At first, Dahlia was hesitant to bring Teddy around James, but she seemed to have had a change of heart as of late. Dahlia arranged for both James and Mia to be present for Sunday night dinner with her and Teddy to “bring the most important people in her life together.” Unable to ever say no to Dahlia (her bright red hair and glowing green eyes kept him ensnared), James agreed.
James had always had steady hands. Before he was captured by Hydra, he had been the Howling Commandos’ sniper, and no sniper worth their salt had shaky hands. After Hydra, after they took away everything that made him human, James’ hands had been steadier than ever. However, as he walked towards Dahlia’s house on that fateful Sunday, he felt his hands shake more than they ever had since he was six years old and had to confess to stealing candy from the local shop (he hadn’t wanted to steal, but Steve’s cough had been getting worse and he just wanted to give him something to bring a smile to his face.) James was afraid that he would lose control and bring everything he had found for himself crashing down around him (he barely survived leaving Steve on the shores of the Potomac; he didn’t think he could survive losing Dahlia too.) When he hesitantly knocked on the front door it was immediately thrown open by a bubbly blonde girl with a shit-eating grin on her face.
“So you’re Dahlia’s man!”
It took a lot to catch James off guard, but that did it. He stood there staring at the girl in shock for a few moments before Dahlia shoved Mia out of the doorway and offered him an apologetic grin.
“Sorry about her, she wouldn’t know manners if they hit her over the head with a broomstick.”
“Whatever you say, witchy girl,” Mia snarked before disappearing further into the house.
“Well, are you just going to stand there or come in?” Dahlia teased James gently as she opened the door wider.
James said nothing as he carefully stepped over the threshold. He was still tense, but Mia’s nonchalant attitude had eased his nerves (he wished she was telling the truth. He wished he deserved Dahlia.)
“Come to the kitchen,” Dahlia called over her shoulder as she passed James, “Teddy’s helping me make the mashed potatoes.”
As James followed Dahlia he learned that “helping make the mashed potatoes” roughly translated to “throwing the mashed potatoes at Mia while Dahlia laughed.” James stood in the doorway, unsure of what to do, when suddenly he was hit in the face with a mushy substance.
“James!” Teddy cheered as he threw another handful of potato.
The kitchen was dead silent for a moment before Dahlia’s unfiltered laughter flooded the room.
“I’m sorry,” Dahlia wheezed, “but you should have seen the look on your face.”
For the first time in 70 odd years, James felt like he was home.
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“So can I ask you a question?”
In the year that they’d known each other (James still woke up some mornings believing that it all had been a dream, that she had been a dream), James and Dahlia had taken to having drinks on the porch after Teddy had gone to bed. It was times like these that they shared the most vulnerable parts of themselves; it was a night like this that Dahlia had told James about her parents and Tom Riddle, and another night when James confessed to Dahlia what he had done under Hydra’s control (for a moment he had been terrified that Dahlia would turn her back on him, but she offered him a look full of what he could only describe as love instead.) That night, it seemed that Dahlia had something specific to talk to him about, and James was willing to answer anything she wanted to know.
“Go ahead.”
“Feel free not to answer,” Dahlia said, “but your silence might be an answer in and of itself. I don’t know much about American history seeing as I’m British and haven’t attended an actual school since I was 10, but I am fairly certain that you’re Bucky Barnes. I might be wrong since Barnes was born in 1917 and you don’t look like you’re over 100, but I’m pretty sure I’m right. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to though.”
James hesitated for a moment, but decided that Dahlia had done so much for him in the past year (more than she’ll ever know), so she deserved to know the truth about the man that she let into her home.
“I was Bucky Barnes,” James answered slowly, “and I think that part of me still is him, but most of him died on a train in the Austrian Alps in 1945. I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“I do,” Dahlia said quietly, “I know that you are one of the strongest people I have ever met, and trust me I’ve met some strong people. I know that you’re caring and loyal, and I know that there is nothing you wouldn’t do for the people you care about. I know that you’re a good man, James, and I hope one day you’ll see that too.”
James wanted to be the man that Dahlia described, and that day he vowed to try.
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James was not amused.
He had just started his first day at Marauders’ Flowers and he was already contemplating murder.
James hadn’t met the regular customers before, but he was sure that this man wasn’t one of them. There is no way in hell Dahlia would have put up with the likes of him. From the second he had walked into the store, James knew he was bad news. He leered at Mia as she walked by and turned his nose down at James with a scoff. However, he hadn’t said anything outright offensive so James was doing his best to ignore him; he didn’t want to let Dahlia down after he had trusted him with so much, so he was resigned to just waiting for the man to buy something and leave. That was before he insulted Mia.
“Where’d that blonde bitch go?”
“Excuse me?” James said darkly.
“You heard me,” The man sneered. “That blonde bitch, I recognize her from the whorehouse. I bet she’ll still get on her knees for a quick buck.”
James snarled, already preparing to give the man a beating he would never forget when the man decided to dig himself an even deeper grave.
“Speaking of whores, where’s the owner of this shithole? Now there’s a girl who looks like she’d do anything for a bit of cash. I wonder how many dicks she had to suck to afford this shitty store.”
The next few moments were a blur of rage. It seemed like James was watching himself stalk up to the man and grab him by the throat; he felt like he wasn’t in control of his own actions. James felt nothing as the metal of his left hand slowly choked the life out of the miserable scum in front of him. For his part, the man looked petrified as he feebly grasped at James’ unrelenting hand. James briefly thought that Dahlia wouldn;t be happy if he killed someone in her flower shop, so he decided to do the next best thing.
With that, he threw the man out the window.
_______________________________________
Even after being out of Hydra’s control for over two years, James didn’t like to think about his arm.
He could still feel phantom pains where his left arm should be. He could still feel the flesh of the innocent people he killed under his fingers. He looked down at the arm and all he could see was the blood on his hands.
James didn’t like to think about his arm.
_______________________________________
He didn’t wake up one day and decide that he is Bucky Barnes.
He knew he would never again be the boy in Brooklyn who got drafted into a war when all he wanted was to stay home with his friend. He knew that some part of him died in 1945. He knew all of it.
He also knew that he loved Steve just as much as he did when they were back in Brooklyn. He knew that, if he went back in time, he would make the same choices and the same sacrifices over again. He knew that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for the ones he loved.
He didn’t wake up one day and decide all of this. Moreso, as time went on, he began to gather the pieces of the man he once was and he began to work on becoming the man he wanted to be. However, he knew he couldn’t move on and rebuild himself if he ran from who he was. He couldn’t call himself James when he knew in his heart who he really was.
He knew he was Bucky Barnes.
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“Hey, Dahl?”
“Yeah?”
“Mind calling me Bucky from now on?”
“If that’s what you want, then sure, Bucky.”
“Thanks.”
“No, thank you. If we’re being honest, it was kinda weird calling you by my dead father’s name.”
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The night everything changed started like any other night from the past few months. Teddy was fast asleep in his room and Bucky and Dahlia were having drinks on the front porch. Dahlia was sitting cross-legged on the porch swing while Bucky elected to sit on one of the chairs near the door. Dahlia had been nursing the same glass for nearly an hour, seemingly deep in thought, and Bucky decided to wait it out rather than pushing her. After around an hour of companionable silence, Dahlia spoke.
“Are we ever going to talk about it?”
Millions of different scenarios ran through Bucky’s mind (most of them bad), but he settled on a neutral response.
“Talk about what, doll?”
“Talk about the way we look at each other.”
Bucky froze. He hadn’t realized that Dahlia knew how he felt about her. He ran through the past two years in his mind looking for the moment where Dahlia figured it out only to realize he’d been wearing his heart on his sleeve the entire time. Bucky took too long to respond, which Dahlia took as disagreement and immediately became self-conscious.
“Unless I completely misread this entire situation and I’m just making a fool of myself.”
“You didn’t misread anything, Dahlia.”
Bucky braced himself for the inevitable rejection, but, instead, Dahlia seemed to shift gears and changed the topic.
“In my fourth year at Hogwarts I had a crush on this guy named Cedric Diggory. We had played Quidditch against each other the year before, and I had fallen off my broom because of a dementor attack. He hadn’t realized what happened and caught the snitch, but when he realized what happened he demanded a rematch; he said he hadn’t won fairly so the win shouldn’t have counted. That’s when I started to have feelings for him, but, in our fourth year, we both got chosen for the Triwizard Tournament, so I tried to put my feelings behind me. Then I started having feelings for a girl named Cho Chang. She was also a Quidditch player (and honestly that should have been the first clue that I have a type but whatever). Anyway, a part of the Triwizard Tournament is the Yule Ball, so I decided to ask Cho to go with me. You will not believe what happened next, Buck. Turns out, I waited too long to ask and she had already said yes to Cedric fucking Diggory.”
Dahlia paused for a moment to take a breath and gather her thoughts before continuing.
“I could not believe my luck. The two people I had crushes on were dating each other. I thought that it was the worst case scenario, but then Cedric died. Cedric died right in front of me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I still have nightmares about it sometimes. After that, my feelings for Cho were still there but they were tainted by Cedric’s death. We tried to date in my fifth year, but neither of us could let Cedric go. After that, I gave up on dating until the end of my sixth year when I fell in love with Ginny Weasley. Shocker, she was a Quidditch player. I thought I was going to marry her, but then the war happened. I broke up with her before Ron, Hermione, and I went on the run. She wanted to make it work after the war, but I couldn’t stay in England and look and everything we had lost.”
Dahlia took a shuddering breath and Bucky was overcome with the urge to comfort her, but he decided against it; she needed space to get her story out.
“While we were on the run, Ron left us. It was just me and Hermione for the longest time, and I began to fall in love with her. It was only natural, we were the only people each other had, but she was straight and in love with Ron. One night I got drunk and kissed her, but she kindly informed me that she only saw me as a sister and sent me to bed. During the Battle of Hogwarts, her and Ron finally pulled their heads out of their arses and kissed. They’re going to get married later this year.”
Dahlia paused again, lost in her memories, before continuing.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all of this.”
“The thought did cross my mind,” Bucky said carefully, “but I’ll listen to anything you have to say.”
Dahlia offered him a small smile and looked down before continuing, “I wanted to tell you all this to show you that I don’t have the best track record for relationships. The people I love tend to get hurt, and I couldn’t bear you getting hurt, Bucky Barnes.”
Bucky couldn’t stop himself from getting up and moving to sit beside Dahlia. He slowly grabbed her hand, causing her to look up, and looked her in the eyes before saying,
“Dahlia, there is nothing in this world that can hurt me more than I’ve already been hurt except for losing you. I could die a hundred painful deaths and it wouldn’t feel close to the pain I’d feel from not having you in my life. I’m so sorry you’ve been through all that and I can’t guarantee that any relationship we have won’t have its bumps, but I have been hopelessly in love with you for three years and that’s not about to end. I want to be with you in every way you’ll have me.”
Instead of responding with words, Dahlia surged forward and captured Bucky’s lips with hers. Bucky had kissed and been kissed a fair few times in his life, but nothing could compare to the feeling of her lips on his. Her lips felt like home and he could get lost in the taste of them for hours and still never feel like he got enough. He lost track of how long they kissed for, but when they both finally drew back they were breathless. When their eyes met, Bucky smirked and Dahlia chuckled softly.
“I feel like we’re doing this all out of order,” Bucky whispered in her ear, “shouldn’t I be taking you dancing before bringing you home?”
“Is this your way of asking me out on a date, Sergeant?” Dahlia asked breathlessly.
“Yes it is, doll,” Bucky said, lips still next to Dahlia’s ear, “what do you say?”
“I say that I’ve been waiting to hear those words for a year, so this better be the best date of my life, Barnes.”
“Don’t worry, Dahl,” Bucky said as he gently caught Dahlia’s ear between his teeth, causing Dahlia to shudder, “it will be a night you won’t forget.”
The two continued to kiss for a while, getting lost in the feel of each other, before Dahlia stiffened and drew back. Bucky, afraid that he overstepped, backed up and looked at her questioningly.
“You said that you’ve been in love with me for three years,” Dahlia said slowly and, at Bucky’s nod, continued, “but we’ve only known each other for just over two years? How have you been in love with me for longer than you’ve known me.”
Well shit, Bucky thought to himself, he had some explaining to do.