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In the morning, Stevie goes running with Sam Wilson. They have their routs and their temp, but Stevie has to slow down to pace with Sam. She doesn’t mind, she needs to train on every level, and average pace counts, too.
They are running not because just running and that’s all. It’s a friendly run. There some things Stevie can talk better about on the run only.
When Bucky gets his arm back from S.H.I.E.L.D., he runs with Stevie instead of Sam. Stevie loves running with Bucky as well. She is starving for Bucky after all those years, but time comes for Stevie to be a bit tired of him.
Stevie is ashamed of it. A bit. A bit of Stevie being ashamed is a bit more than, for example, of Tony Stark being ashamed. Quite a noticeable bit. As she passed through the therapy in Sam’s group, she knows feeling ashamed is inevitable in her case. Still, she should rake care of herself.
Stevie doesn’t believe in S.H.I.E.L.D. therapists much, there’s Natasha’s part in it. Natasha says that you employer needn’t know what really runs through your head. Seventy-five years ago Stevie would disagree. After what she’s seen, she thinks it’s a reasonable point.
When Bucky is dressing up for the run, Stevie brushes her hair thinking of what they’ve talked with Sam. She ignores what she wants and what she feels not to hurt the others because she is naturally empathic and naturally protective. On the one hand, those are virtues. On the other, vices.
Captain America who cares about the others more than of herself is a legend, but Stevie is alive and sometimes she feels bad, too. To feel good, to be in shape, to hold on she needs to understand herself better. And Stevie understands what she is tired of Bucky.
It is not her fault, but it’s hard for her when to look him in the eyes. “Let’s go,” he says. Of course, she doesn’t call him Bucky. He is a Winter Soldier. He has agreed to be called James but he still denies Bucky’s personality. He went through hell in the beginning of the therapy, thank God he feels better now.
Recovery gave Stevie hell, too. Bucky was not alone, fighting for his sanity, there was the time it got so tensed Stevie couldn’t sleep. The fact they’ve become lovers when Bucky didn’t fully realized what was happening doesn't make it easier.
It hurts Stevie to see his tantrums or to be part of them, to hold on even if she can’t but she knows she must, she had to. Only to know if he feels better, another problem appears – Bucky, or Winter Soldier, or James has no sense of personal space.
He sits on the couch when she is reading, he stands behind her back when she is making coffee. As it's not enough to sleep and take the shower together, he follows her everywhere in the flat, silently like a ghost. When Stevie asks, “Why”, he can’t explain.
“Important”, ”have to”, “a part of the protocol”. That’s what Winter Soldier tells. Stevie suspect that being alone, Bucky faces his personal crisis one by one. With Stevie, he calms down a little as she is his anchor telling him he’s alright. Without her, he needs to find her and make sure he is still James, not HYDRA killer in cryochamber.
Stevie used to give more. Back in time, Bucky gave her a lot, and she is ready to give him exactly the same now, but she needs a breath of the fresh air, a friendly talk with the one who doesn’t depend on her for his whole existence. So she calls Sam and asks him for a morning run together.
When Stevie sees Bucky in the morning, solemnly putting on his sneakers, she knows she can’t tell him he is not going anywhere. It’s so important for him to know she’s always there for him, so Stevie can’t say him he is not wanted today. He suffered much, he is so broken, her poor Buck. She is not leaving him behind, but she is not leaving behind Sam, too.
“Today we are not running alone,” she says on the staircase.
“Why?” That’s exactly what she expected. Bucky is tensed, his jaw is firm like a nutcracker.
“I want a meet a friend,” Stevie answers calmly. That’s the way she worked out with Sam, she can speak of what she wants not making excuses. Yes, Bucky doesn’t want it, he doesn’t even need it, but she does want, and she does need.
“What friend?” Bucky’s manner of asking questions is more like a Soviet interrogation. His eyes are blank, the grayness of it is piercing like steel.
No. We don't need any friends. We run together. We need nobody else.
“You’ll see,” Stevie makes herself not to answer. This technique is especially hard for her, but she tells herself they both need to work this out. She has friends of her own, and Bucky has to deal with it.
Bucky remains silent until they get to the park. It’s a grumpy silence, he is displeased that they can’t run as usual. He is so devoted to the way they do everything together it feels like an obsession. He is angry to know she needs somebody else.
“Hi,” Sam says. “Hello, James.” He knows Bucky call himself James. “It’s been a while we met for the last time. How are you? How’s the arm? Stew says you will join the S.H.I.E.L.D. minor program when the recovery confirm.”
Sam talks with Bucky in the same way he talks to his most difficult vets. Bucky gives him a sullen look, he doesn’t interrupt him, he listens, examines Sam’s face and body. Stevie is pretty sure Bucky is scanning him like one of his targets.
“Okay,” Bucky says. He turns away and runs to the chestnut trees, their first checkpoint.
“Oh… well,” Sam looks at Stevie and she shrugs the shoulders. She understands Bucky and sympathizes him, but it’sjust the time she wants to tell him he is a jerk, though she realizes it’s not his fault.
They start running, Stevie in the center, Bucky’s on the right and Sam on the left. Sam says he nearly misses the army, especially stupid chants they used to invent just to make fun when the sergeant was right in the mood.
He asks Bucky if he remembers the army. Stevie pretends she is not listening, Sam is so open-minded sometimes he really needs a clip. Bucky is a PTSD war vet, but his case is specific with specific triggers, and Sam has just touched one.
“I remember my arm being cut,” Bucky looks forward. “How I was frozen and electrocuted. My memories erased.”
“Well, that’s not easy to live with,” Sam is hard to confuse, but Bucky was always good with confusing people, a thing he never missed even becoming HYDRA assassin.
They keep pace for a moment or two, and when Bucky start to quicken. A moment when he is feet ahead them becomes too fast.
“Don’t fall behind,” Bucky says.
“We decided to keep the pace. That’s not how it…” Stevie objects, but Bucky is not going to argue.
“Don’t fall behind,” he repeats. Stevie promised that run to Sam and keeps the pace, but Bucky’s back draws away as he gets deeper into the park, leaving the chestnut trees behind.
He always wears shirts with long sleeves and a glove to hide his metallic arm. He hasn’t sweated yet, he needs a mad temp to wet the shirt, so do Stevie, and Sam’s collar started darkening.
“Don’t,” Stevie says, feeling Sam starts to run faster. “You can’t catch up with him. He’s just like me.”
“Not sure he is,” Sam answers. He must be surprised with Bucky’s behavior, but he never shows, and Stevie is grateful for this. She can't say Bucky is Bucky all the time. She would prefer people just to know it and don't question.
“He is... difficult. But he makes progress and he will be okay.”
“Yes, he will,” Sam glances at her quickly. They ran in silence, gravel crunching under their feet.
The weather is beautiful, and the sunrise is either pastel or watercolors. Stevie tries to remember it in details to draw when she has time. She doesn’t feel like drawing, but she wants something but concerning about Bucky’s problems.
They haven’t ended the circle when Bucky catches up with them, his shirt dry. He looks forward, his jaw is still nutcracker hard, and he outruns Sam like Sam is nothing more than a problem on the track.
“Hey, buddy,” Sam starts again. “Slow down a little. You are not winning this heat, aren’t you? There is no prize in the end. Friendly run, isn’t it?”
Bucky is not going to talk back. There is no such thing as friends in his world, there’s just Stevie and everyone else. He hasn’t dropped a sweat yet, he needs a mad temp to wet the shirt. So do Stevie, and Sam’s collar starts darkening.
When they’re done running, Bucky waits Stevie at their point under the streetlight. He looks at her impatiently, he doesn’t want her to linger: he is going back home and she needs her to follow. But Stevie is not going anywhere till she says goodbye to Sam.
“Not that kind bad, huh,” Sam says instead of their regular after-run small talk.
“Awful,” Stevie knows it is. “8.5 and 8.5 due to the regular scale.”
”If you are tired…” Sam starts.
“I know where to find you, Sam,” Stevie raises her eyes. Natasha says that manner of her can disarm a man from a distance. Stevie doesn't understand what’s wrong with that habit of her. She doesn’t like to have long eye contacts from the times Bucky had to fight for her with bullies to leave her alone.
“Okay, okay,” Sam smiles. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I really miss our Great Avenger Morning Run. Always had a feeling there were not enough awkward talks for a day.”
“Now you’re saying,” Stevie laughs. “I miss them, too.”
“Okay,” Sam pats Stevie on the shoulder and nods Bucky who’s looking him from the street-light point. “See you, then.”
“See you.”
Bucky is gloomy all the way home. He doesn’t say a thing but his jaw is frozen, his back is tensed, his face is different. Stevie pretends she doesn’t notice that. She needs him to know if he want something to say he has to say it instead of making her worrying about it.
He has to communicate, even it’s hard for them both. It’s only for good, Stevie thinks, opening the door. Bucky slips into the flat in the same time like she does. That always makes Stevie feel uneasy, the way Bucky gets around. It feels like he is going to assassinate her like one of his victims, though in fact he is not.
Bucky kisses Stevie instead. He kisses her silently and thoughtfully, sinking into the kiss to never touch the surface. Bucky kisses with the same level of self-absorbance he fights, like all of his world fades away, leaving only him and his target.
It’s always a temptation to yield and let Bucky devour her or to make him stop. Stevie gives away just a little, but there’s something unnatural in the way he embraces her and sucks her mouth. He was angry with her a moment ago, and now he is holding her so desperately like he is falling into an abyss.
“James,” Stevie says, when he gets his hands under her shirt. It’s hard to remember not to call him Bucky when he touches her like this. “James,” she repeats, his hand slipping into her pants.
He raises his head. Framed by matted hair, it’s bristled, his eyes shining feverishly, his lips are wet with her, or his, or their spittle. Bucky licks them and reaches for more, pressing Stevie to the wall, but she pushes him back.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to.”
He looks at her misunderstandingly. It’s how it has always been: they making out after the run in the hallway, Bucky holding Stevie’s back to the wall, grievously trying to merge into her body, while not letting even a moan to come out.
“I don’t want to do it now,” she repeats. Still, he doesn’t understand. He steps back when she goes into the bathroom, following her to the door, but Stevie closes it in her face.
“I need to take a shower,” she says persistently. Persistence makes her heart bleed, but she can't do it in any other way.
“We can do it together.”
“No we can’t.”
“Why?” he insists. Bucky doesn’t understand what’s happening, he holds the door but doesn’t decide to open it as Stevie holds it from the other side.
“Buck,” Stevie sighs. “I want to do it alone today. Go make yourself some coffee.”
Bucky loses hold of the handle, but he still stand behind the door when Stevie closes it. And locks.
Looking into the mirror, Stevie listens to the silence behind the door. It means Bucky is still where, waiting for Stevie to open and to let him in. He is like a boy who believes his mother won’t leave him in the corner for long, she has to cancel the sentence because he needs her too much to believe she is angry with him.
Stevie turns the shower on. She hates the ones who did it to him, her Bucky had never been that way. He could be sulky and moody, but he never was so broken and dependent. He picked sides, and he picked Stevie’s side on his own just to make sure she’s alright. That was the reason she loved him, or, at least, one of the those: Bucky could always leave, but he preferred to stay.
Stevie's face in the mirror blushes. Stevie blushes often, but not because she is “cute captain Rogers”. Her capillaries are so close to the skin it turns pink every time Stevie’s nervous, and red when she’s more than just nervous.
She's sick and tired of the stories of heroic but a bit shy captain who blushes every moment she talks to the newsmen. She needs either to wear a hell of make-up to conceal it, or to find a way to never get excited about anything, and the last thing seems to be impossible.
Stevie suddenly remembers she’s just called Winter Soldier Buck. He hasn’t corrected her, though.
When Stevie walks out the bathroom, Bucky sits in the kitchen with a mug of coffee in the same sweatpants and shirt he went running. He doesn't drink much, yet the sugar-bowl is open, Bucky's fingers into it, the bowl is nearly empty.
“Bathroom is available,” Stevie says. She takes Bucky's mug and makes a sip. Her face becomes wry. He puts so much coffee in his coffee he needs the North Pole made of sugar to swallow it. “You can go.”
Bucky looks up to her, Stevie wearing a bathrobe, her face red from the hot steam.
“You can go now,” Stevie repeats. Bucky looks at her, not saying a word, but his face tells her more than any words.
“What's wrong?” Stevie asks when Bucky's silence is dragged. “You don't wanna go? Why?”
It comes to Stevie, every day more and more distinct, that Bucky is not making a progress, he's just coming into the symbiosis. Bucky is stuck into her, at this stage, he is HYDRA assassin on the one hand, but on the other he's more like an abused child, who doesn't know what does he wants or thinks or going to say, only worried if his protector still loves him.
It hurts Stevie to see Bucky this way, she remembers him different too well. Bucky she remembers was all-sufficient, bouncy a little, he liked to show off, bit did it in his own manner which was charming, not irritating. The girls adore it, as well as his look, too grown-up for a ladies' man he was, but Bucky was no ladies man for Stevie.
Bucky worked hard, sometimes he didn't even have time to sleep before his night adventures. He was working on night shift day earlier, sleep for an hour or two, made homework with his sister, helped Stevie with the sparking plug behind the shelves and only in the evening, dressed up in his his best, he went adventuring more exhausted than any boy of his age.
There was nothing Bucky Barnes got easily, and Stevie knew that. Stevie always knew that Bucky always had to care about someone else while there's nobody to care about him, so she tried to care for him, too. Stevie believes someday Bucky will come back because he promised her, he promised her that till the end of the line the day her mother died and he had to “adopt” a second sister. And even if Bucky is not coming back, Stevie is not leaving him this way.
“Tiled walls,” Bucky says. “Like an operation room.”
“But you still can go in, can you?”
“I can,” Bucky says distantly. Stevie nearly regrets they haven't made out, they both feel better after being intimate, but she cuts the regret. If she doesn't want to make out with him, she has the reasons of his own.
Stevie puts hands on Bucky shoulders. She imagined that in the other way, where she could just tell Bucky she's tired and he could get on with that, but the truth is he couldn't. Bucky barely stands Sam because he doesn't want to, but the demons of the tiled walls for him are real.
“You can leave the door open,” Stevie says. “And I will be in the living room. I want to finish that Christie's book I started in 40ies.”
“How's the book?”
“I don't know. I got frozen when I came to the outcome,” Stevie confesses.
Stevie knows she has been going distance herself, but she doubts she hasn't distanced enough. When Bucky tilts his head, she presses it to her stomach, running fingers through his hair.
“I think I had dropped the book earlier. I was on a mission and my sergeant fell off the train. I've seen a lot, but this time, I couldn't recover easily,” Stevie says. Bucky smells with shampoo and, a little, Bucky. He used to smell with ozone and electricity when she found him. That smell was chemical and unnatural like Stevie was hugging a robot, not a man.
“People die at war,” Bucky responds. His voice sounds hollowly because he's speaking into Stevie's stomach, covered with a layer of wet terrycloth. “One man can't make a count.”
“But he did,” Stevie objects, raising the hair at his nape. “He did count.”
She leans over to kiss Bucky in the one of the most insecure little spots, and he bends obediently, shivering from the kiss. There are scars from the electrical rewinder on the back of his neck as it was inserted right into Bucky's spine chord. HYDRA wanted to modify his spine, but they never really finished the work.
S.H.I.E.L.D. planned to end the modernization, and Bucky would agree if Stevie told him it's alright, that's what Fury wanted. Bucky was erased so many times he could hardly make a decision on his own, so Steve's aim was to stabilize him and to make him agree for the further procedures.
The problem was she's never been going to pick choices for Bucky. Stevie owed S.H.I.E.L.D. her allegiance when it came to saving the world, but it this case, she only needed S.H.I.E.L.D. to hold on to the time Bucky will recover on the level he can be responsible for his actions.
In case he won't, Stevie is not going to let them hurt him more.
Natasha says she wants to jump in in the evening. Stevie thinks she ought to order food delivery or something, she's not the cooking type. Back in NY, Bucky cooked because he had, in the end, he has a sister and Stevie in addition, so he started copying his mother's recipes, and, with the time being, what he made was quite edible.
“You'll come alone or with Bruce?” Stevie asks Christie's book under her arm. After the bathroom, Bucky sits next to her on the couch, and Stevie reads him aloud. When he reads himself, he has the fits of a headache.
He says it hasn't been so all the time, twenty or so years ago he used to read books in Russian just to remember he was alive, comprehensive and not a machine. Headaches started with the electric procedures, destroying Winter Soldier's ability of long reading.
“Alone. He's busy in the lab toady. Still, Hulk and Winter Soldier in one room will be too much for your block. It's so nice, I don't want to have it in ruins.”
“I don't like these jokes,” Stevie says knowing Natasha is right.
Bruce is not like HYDRA scientists, but Bucky doesn't like scientists and medical men in general. Accompanied by Natasha, Bruce may be acceptable. But Stevie finds herself thinking she wants to talk to the people, to listen to the human voices, to see someone who lives outside her flat more, than make a party no one will be hurt after.
“I'm not joking, they really can. Winter Soldier is uneasy with the fact Bruce dismantled his arm and made tests. If Winter Soldier provokes Bruce, we'll need to invite Thor and Tony to hold them back, and we will never have wine enough to tempt those two out to come. By the way, what should I bring? I would drink California Red or maybe Argentine dry.”
“They are good?” Stevie doesn't understand much about the wines. To get drunk, she needs much more than a bottle or two, but a bottle or two can raise the moods, and the moods need some rasing.
“They are not good enough for Tony, but they're just what normal people drink, so we'll do, too,” Natasha explains easily.
“I'll order some food,” Stevie says for the second time. She thinks about Italian food, she and Bucky used to go to the Italian eatery after her art classes, and it wasn't only pizza that made it taste so good.
“Don't order much,” Natasha warns. “Or be ready to eat the remains together with the Soldier. “I've had a lunch and I'm not that hungry. I can never be hungry like you in any way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Serum increases appetite and fastens metabolism. Don't tell me you don't know that.”
“I do. I don't dine out with normal people too often. At war, everyone was always hungry, so I didn't make a stand as a girl who can eat a cow or something if you say that.”
“Okay, but no dessert for me, remember that.”
Stevie hangs up the receiver and returns to the living room. Bucky waits her on the sofa in the mild twilight of suburbia. It's too early to be that dark, but there are thunderclouds behind the window, outstretched through the sky like gray clothings.
Stevie puts her head on Bucky's metallic shoulder. He feels uncomfortable, he wants to move away, her cheek on the cold metal, grown into the mutilated, scarred skin, but Stevie puts her hand into his hand.
“I don't want you to need me,” Stevie says. “I don't want you to depend on me like you depended on HYDRA. That's what I want you to do the things on your own. Because that's how it should work for us. I don't want you to stay here just because you've nowhere to go.”
“I can return to S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Bucky says. “They have a cell for me.”
Stevie raises her head just to look him in the eyes. Sometimes she thinks that Winter Soldier is less solemn she tends to look. Her sense of humor is pretty lame according to Tony Stark, but Winter Soldier has just been ironic and that surprises her.
“It's bigger than the cryochamber in any way.” In case Stevie doesn't get it, he smiles. It's a very awkward smile as only his lips are moving, and his eyes remain grim and sulky. The effect is always the same: he looks less creepy when he doesn't smile at all.
“You understand what I am talking about,” Stevie holds back an accidental sad laugh. Some thing never change, Bucky making her smile by saying things what make the others back off and shiver.
“Yes, I do.” He agrees vaguely. He is thinking of something else, Stevie wonders what.
“This time, Natasha will come alone and bring wine. But if she comes with Bruce one day, or I decide to call Sam, or someone else, any of my friends, I want you to promise me to you will try to talk to them. I know you don't want to, but it's important not only for me, for us both. You need to move forward, not sticking into the comfort zone, or your progress will freeze.”
“I will try.” He comes up on the surface, Stevie wants to believe he really knows what he agrees to.
“Promise?”
“Yes. Good, you don't have too many friends.” Bucky says in a strangely familiar manner.
“You have no friends at all,” Stevie feels the touch of the memory, Bucky used to tease her this way, perfectly knowing she doesn't need friends at all, her art and her family was quite enough. “So I am trying to make you some.”
“It's hard to make friends being the most wanted man in the history.” He moves his shoulders, leaning on the cushions. Stevie likes to see him this way, his eyes focused on her, he's taking part in the conversation, not only staring blankly at something only he sees.
“You was the most wanted man in Brooklyn, every girl wanted to go out with you, and still you...” Stevie starts, but Bucky interrupts her.
“Most of my friends are dead. Or killed by HYDRA.”
“Yours or Bucky?” Steve asks briefly. That briefness is enough for Bucky to lose the thread. He comes into the consciousness fast but comes out of it even faster when he comes in.
“I don't... We... Who the hell is... No, no. I don't have the memories.” He falters, looking lost again. His jaw gets firm, his eyes are blank, he seeks the truth in his mind, but he fails to understand.
“That's okay, James. You don't need to.” Stevie lies. She wants to shake his shoulders, demanding Bucky to showing off and to talk to her, but there's no Bucky here: the moment has gone like a flash of the sun. There's only Winter Soldier who feels lost again, so Stevie is the only one to open the door for Natasha.
Natasha comes with two bottles of wine. She looks fine, she always does. Stevie says Bucky to get the wine into the kitchen, Natasha says she can help him out with the screwdriver if Stevie will turn on the music, old-school vintage swing they both are into.
When Natasha takes Bucky and the wine into the kitchen, Stevie listens to the echoes of their talk. They are speaking Russian; they are speaking Russian often when being one on one. Stevie guesses that Winter Soldier has more in common with Natasha than with anybody in the team.
Stevie likes the way he talks to her, brief phrases, restrained and confident. He rarely feels lost in her company, though Stevie is always interested what are they talking about.
“Ты неплохо устроился. Как по ощущениям?”
“Так себе.”
“И лучше не становится?”
The glass knocks, the sound of running water hits the sink. The drawer is pushed open, a hand looking other the cutlery for the screw-driver, a familiar metallic sound of iron fingers traveling in the breakdown of the stainless steel cutlery.
“Нет.”
“Хуй там станет.”
“Я ждал большего.”
“Каша в голове? Скажешь, classified. У меня тоже так было.”
“Я не уверен в своей памяти.”
“Ты говоришь мне это не для того, чтобы убить меня потом?”
“Тебя не просто убить.”
“Знаю. Ты пробовал.”
The sound of the cork popping out the bottle ends the conversation. Stevie finds the CD with her favorite tracks, old-fashioned but mild, not like the modern music. Stevie is not jealous about Natasha and Bucky, though she suspect they were close, and she doesn't even know how far that closeness has gone.
Bucky was close with many women, but the man Natasha was close with didn't even realized whom he became. Winter Soldier might have his own reasons, but Stevie knew for sure that Winter Soldier on the peak of his abilities needed nobody at his side. Bucky was self-sufficient enough, and HYDRA used that part of his personality, sparing him of all forms of the devotion. Seems like it the end it destroyed him.
Stevie comes to the kitchen when the wine is poured into the glasses, her head is swelling like a balloon. A fit of headache is quick, Stevie's serum is much more stable than Bucky's, side effects are small and don't really bother her. Unfortunately, the stability of serum can do nothing with endless lassitude Stevie feels about that day.
“Are you okay?” Natasha asks Stevie when she sits down on the chair by the window. Bucky is watching her, a glass of wine in his hand. He is advised not to drink much, though his serum deals with alcohol quicker when he sips it.
“I am. I'm just tired.” Stevie shakes her head.
“You really look bad. Maybe you need to lie down for half an hour?”
“I'm okay. Let's eat something, I guess it's time to.”
“So,” Natasha says, opening the fridge. “There's all the Italian food we've talked about?”
“I never made a call,” Stevie remembers.
“For a supper, we have two bottles of wine, bananas, and peanut butter. Let me check... No, you don't have ice-cream.”
“We bought it yesterday,” Bucky says. They went to the market together, in the middle of the night, not interfered by anybody else, so he remembers it, he has no reason to forget. The memory of it makes Stevie feels warm, too. “And ate it yesterday.”
The ringing of the doorbell takes them by surprise, Natasha reaches for her bag – she has a weapon on her, but there's a Taser inside of it, and she's not going to open fire if she can use combat.
Bucky holds the screw-driver, Stevie can easily imagine him ripping out someone's throat with it. Stevie seems to be the only one unarmed, she says she really doesn't think there is U.S. Marines and city S.W.A.T. behind her door, but two former assassins tend to disagree with her. Natasha opens the door, but she needn't fight the visitor: it's Bruce Banner and a box of pizza.
“Hello,” he says, smiling just a bit nervously, glasses on his nose blinking. “There's a little black-out in the lab, so I'm free and at your service. And pizza, of course.”
When Bruce says that, the light blinks and goes off firstly, in the passage, when – in the whole flat. Stevie turns back to see the window in the living-room is black, too. The light went down on the block, even the emergency lights are down. The darkness embraces the park, dark silhouettes of the houses and blind street-lights.
“Energy project, huh. Stark's one?” Natasha asks.
“Well, yes,” Bruce laughs quietly. He has an apologizing manner of doing everything: stand, look, talk, and, especially, laugh. “When I left, we were pretty sure the problem is under control, but now I guess...”
“Do we have candles?” Natasha interrupts him, talking to Stevie.
“Yes. I bought aromatic, they are in the closet. I will bring them.”
Bucky moves in the darkness, passing by Natasha and Bruce quietly, just to stand behind Stevie's back. For him, Bruce Banner is the man who took away his arm for the examination. No matter what Bucky promised, he is not going to chat with Bruce. There are no reason for him to befriend with the man who dismantled him once, so he can do it for the second, third, any time again.
They go to the closet together. Stevie habitually turns on the light, but there's no light anywhere in the flat. She listens to Natasha and Bruce voices. In the stiff, dusty dark of the closet it makes Stevie blue, especially when she realizes the candles are not on the shelf she left them.
Bucky's hands are wondering the shelves, too. Stevie is pretty sure he sees no more than she does, but it seems like he needs no light. He's ambivalent towards the small rooms and closed spaces, but still he moves better than Stevie, though their mutagen is very close and they must have same abilities.
“They must smell with vanilla,” Stevie prompts, but Bucky doesn't need her help. He drags somewhere from behind the boxes a pile of candles smelling with vanilla ice-cream.
“I need no smell,” he says. “And no light.”
“You are better than a cat.”
“I liked to work in darkness.”
“When you go undercover, darkness works well.”
“I went undercover to kill.”
“I killed, too.”
“I killed plenty of people. I didn't know who they were, I wasn't interested in whom they were going to be.”
“Do you regret that?” Stevie's back is pressed into the peeling paint of the shelf. She knows it used to be peachy white, but she doesn't see it. She is more guessing the curve, and the wave, and the metallic steadiness on the left is Bucky's arm, assassins mechanic fingers holding the package of vanilla candles.
“I didn't know I do,” his lips are moving, but she doesn't see them, she just knows he speaks. “I killed with no regret.”
“Yes,” Maybe, HYDRA made Bucky more implants, Bruce says S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't know all the abilities of Bucky's body. He is a lethal weapon, a perfect soldier. And there is an imperfect soldier, but a good woman, holding her at that side of the moon.
Right now that woman is not sure about what she is doing.
“You don't know what it's like,” Bucky presses Stevie to the shelves, the jars behind her back are clinging. She grabs her hands, she is not stronger than her, but she is not stronger than him either. A fair resistance, he tells him to speak out.
“You get them into your flat, you want me to talk to them like I am one of them, but I am not. I will never be. I am a monster.”
Natasha laughs in the living-room, Stevie listens the glass ringing on the glass. Bruce's voice is lower than Natasha's, Stevie is perfectly sure he is now corrects his eye-glasses. They must be lopsided as it is every time he tries to drink and talk at the same time.
Bruce can't drink much because he doesn't want to lose control over his beast. Natasha was trained to drink like a stevedore, never getting drunk no matter how much she pours into herself. He is an unstable mutant, and she is a renegade spy, still hunted by her Russian colleagues. Also, they are Stevie's closest friends.
She always has a soft spot for the people whom she cares about. And whom she cares, she can never leave, because she sees who they really are, and if she does, she can't just close her eyes and turns away. Tony considers it a weakness, but he needs her faith in better persons, too, when he hits the bottom.
“I know what you have done.”
“Where do you know it?” Bucky rushes forwards, but Stevie pushes him aside. He wants to break free, but she doesn't let him. Natasha hears the ravenous rumbling of the jars and boxes on the shelves and asks if Stevie remembers she has a bedroom.
Stevie ignores her. She listens to Bucky's heartbeat. It's mad like a man on the run.
“I read the reports. That's why I wept that night. Because I knew.”
“Do you know what I've done?”
“Yes, I do.”
He hits the shelves violently with his back as he can't get rid of her hold. The jars start to fall, luckily, they fall into the strategic reserve of the old blankets on the floor.
“Bucky, please, don't do it.”
“I am not like them. I can't be like them.”
“I know. I knew in the very beginning. Nothing has changed,” her fingers clench his shoulders, she thinks she must hurt him, but he doesn't mind the pain. “It is not your fault.”
“Whose but mine?”
Bucky opens the door and gets outside, candles in his hands. Stevie follows him, catching her breath. Natasha takes the candles, she is already clicking the lighter ready to “light the fire” as she murmurs. Bruce asks Natasha if she smokes. He is gentle and cautious, and Natasha says “Of course, not”, though Stevie knows she actually does.
Another doorbell and Stevie opens the door, saying she's not letting anyone shoot the guests. She's quite accustomed to darkness now, she sees in darkness worse than Bucky, but better than most of the people. It's her flat, in the end, she can find anything in her flat with her eyes closed.
What she doesn't expect to find Sam Wilson standing behind her door.
“Hi. I'm really sorry for jumping in without warning,” Sam says. “I didn't like the way things went in the morning and I wanted to... Hey, are you having a party?”
“Not really,” Stevie says, leaning on the doorjamb. Natasha stays in the hallway with the handful of burning candles, she looks like a Hindu fire juggler, Bruce stands behind her, a candle on her head. Luckily, every candle is in thin metallic covering, so the wax is not getting into his hair.
“Take it as an invitation, soldier,” Natasha says demandingly. Bruce takes half of the candles away from her arms, saying she will get burnt.
“Not as bad as you,” Natasha gets the candle away from his hair. “Have you noticed, Sam? At Stevie places, you want to act as stupid as nowhere else. It's a kind of magic.”
“May I ask, how this one get into here?” Bruce asks when Natasha spares him of the candle in his hair. Natasha shrugs her shoulders, “Magic, I've already told you.”
“I didn't bring anything,” Sam says, entering the flat. “There's no use of a guest like me.”
“I don't think it's really necessary,” Bruce responds. He puts the candles everywhere in the living room, but mostly around the pizza-box, surrounded by the long and dark bottles of wine. “We still have more wine when the pizza, but I'm sure delivery is still...”
“Yes, sure,” Natasha takes a piece of pizza and bites a half, licking her fingers. With her mouth full, she still speaks more or less distinctly. “Get in and grab a piece already, Sam. I'm tired of talking and not eating.”
“That can be, erm, quite disturbing,” Bruce smiles. Finally done with the candles, he sits down on the couch. He puts the eye-glasses into the pocket of his shirt before he takes a pizza. He's too shy to ask Natasha to join him, but Natasha lands on his knee without invitation.
“Okay, you have the wine and the pizza,” Sam makes a little laugh, “and I didn't bring much. Stevie, is my guitar is somewhere around here? The one I took for the therapy sessions?”
“He also plays guitar,” Natasha pats Bruce on his another knee while he nearly drops the pizza on one of Stevie's cushions. “He must have girls tracking his down around his vet center.”
“Never noticed any of that,” Sam sounds amused. “Ain't that easy to find a girl if you are Avenger but not Tony Stark.”
“Sometimes the girl finds you, I need to mention,” Bruce grins, checking the eye-glasses in his shirt's pocket. Natasha has eaten her pizza, and as he still holds a part of his she bites his pizza, catching the olives before they hit the floor.
“You need to be clever enough for this trick,” Natasha notices. “And wear eye-glasses. Tony has a style, but without glasses...”
“He is not even green and giant,” Bruce adds and Natasha shoves him with her elbow.
Bucky is sitting next to them in the armchair, covered with shadows. He keeps calm, he doesn't show tenseness or nervousness, so Stevie puts aside all her cautiousness. They are together, in the same room, all the people she values the most, and nobody has killed no one yet – that can pass for a personal achievement worthy of a medal.
When Sam finds the guitar, Natasha has a glass of wine ready for him, he makes just a few little sips before start playing. Sam plicks the strings, listening to their trembling sound. He never knows what a song to pick because he never plays for himself. When he plays, he is his audience, and the audience just doesn't know what song to ask for.
“Knocking on heavens' door,” Bruce asks. “No, Blondie's Maria,” Natasha demands. “Chose one song, only one song for the first time,” Sam says, and Stevie suddenly asks, “Play the song you wrote in Iraq. About summer and everything.”
“You never listen to the music on my recommendation,” Natasha puts the glass away and slides down Bruce's hip on the couch. Bruce put his hand on Natasha's back, he doesn't smile when looking at her. He looks at her like she is a meteor of unknown origin, a tessaract of great power, and Bruce is happy to watch her, to be near her, to share her space and time.
When Sam begins to play and Stevie closes her eyes. She doesn't want to look at anyone, she doesn't even want to look at Bucky. She's so tired she doesn't want to deal with the people, all that she needs is in her head now, the memories of the street sounds and the smells of the heated asphalt, rubber, and sweat.
Bucky is helping Stevie to carry the easel with the canvas to the city park because late spring is always the Plein Air time for the class. They have to go by the tube, and by bus, and when to walk on feet just to get to the place Stevie wants to draw apple-trees at.
Bucky is lazy, and tanned, and sleepy because he went to sleep late that night. His sleeves are rolled and he tells Stevie to watch her steps because if she stumbles she smashes her paints like she did weeks before. They make a stop before the park because Stevie suffocates. Buck tells her to sit down and wait for him. He crosses the street to buy her water for her pills, but she feels better when he comes back, so they share the water.
The rest of it Bucky pours over his head and into the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. He says there's no “street shower” for Stevie because she catches a cold even sweating in the draft. Stevie argues with Bucky but she knows he is right: she manages to be ill even in the heat. If she wants to do her Plein Air session, she should be careful with that.
When they come to the point, it's afternoon and the sun melts Stevie's colors so they have to wait in the shade of the grove. Stevie's place before the apples will be safe to stay at without getting sunstruck in a few hours. Bucky pulls the sandwiches out of Stevie's bag he carries too, and says they are gross because the mayonnaise, salad and eggs are smashed over the soaked bread.
Still they are hungry, and they have nothing to eat but the sandwiches: sandwiches disappear in the blink of an eye, warm bottle of Cola Bucky manages to buy somewhere near the park pavilions goes well, too. Bucky wants to smoke, but Stevie rushes on him telling him his lungs will fall out one day if he keeps smoking that much. That makes Bucky go down the lane just to have his smoke peacefully.
There's a jolly company down the lane, and as Bucky is handsome – ladies like him, - and tend to look less defenseless when he really is when accompanying Stevie on her art missions, he gets into the fight because one of the lads decides Bucky put an eye on his gal. Bucky's eye-brow and lip are smashed after the fight, so Stevie is wiping the blood with her handkerchief while Bucky pretends he is okay.
They sleep together on the blanket in the shade of the grove like brother and sister, never sharing anything but an innocent accidental sleepy hug. Bucky's face hurts, but he falls asleep faster than Stevie. Stevie feels his head on her shoulder, his breath on her cheek, still bearing the faint smell of alcohol fun of yesterday. Bucky's eye-lashes are long and his hair tickles her temples, while she is watching the sun playing between the emerald leaves.
Stevie wakes up at the sound of broken glass. Bruce gets up from the couch, pale as death, and trots into the hallway. “Don't look,” Natasha demands, following him into the darkness, “Don't look! Here, look at me. You okay?” “You needn't worry,” Bruce shakes his head, his voice is weak. “I am... okay!” he breaks in a shout, the wall shakes violently with the sound of the punch.
Stevie understands what has happened when she takes a look at Bucky. His hand is soaking with blood, dripping on the table. Pieces of glass are sticking up from his hand, coming through.
“I'll bring a towel,” Sam says. He goes into the kitchen, but Bucky doesn't wait for him. He unclenches the fist, letting the shattered glass fall down. When he slowly, thoughtfully, takes the remains of the glass out of his hand one after one, putting them on the table.
Stevie stands up, turning to Bruce and Natasha. Bruce is still of his average size, standing in the doorway, Natasha holding his elbow. The door is open and Bruce seems pale even in the dark, he turns away from Stevie, briefing deeply. Natasha says abruptly that they need to take a breath of the fresh air.
“Of course,” Stevie knows that they are not coming back. Fighting Hulk takes Bruce much, he is ill for days after facing him. They walk out of the flat, Stevie hears the sound of their steps on the staircase as the elevator is down just like the lights.
Sam returns from the kitchen with forceps and a towel, but Bucky has already gotten rid of all of the glass in his hand. The odds and ends of it lie on the edge of the table in a blood-stained pile.
“I think I'll go home now,” Sam says. Stevie takes away the forceps and the towel and throws them on the couch. Sam takes his guitar and puts on his jacket in the hallway.
Stevie is watching him leaving. Sam doesn't talk to her much as Bucky is watching them from the living-room, and they both don't know what he can do next, though they prefer not to talk about it.
“Is it safe for you to stay by him?” Sam asks quietly. Stevie needs some additional time to understand the question.
“Bucky? He's been worse.”
“I know, but he also has been better. I remember him more stable. He can be dangerous...”
“No, he is not. I told it before, I will say it again – to Fury, to Stark, to anyone. Please, Sam. You understand. Don't make it difficult. He's fine. Maybe not now, but he will be.”
“I know you are Captain America,” Sam warns Stevie before leaving, “but – look, take care. I'm not saying Bucky is dangerous. I'm only saying he is unstable again.”
“Okay, okay,” Stevie promises. She closes the door and Bucky walks into the hallway, his hand covered with gore. His wounds get healed quickly, there will be barely scars at the dawn.
“You've done it because you didn't want them to be here,” Stevie says. “What's why you've done it, Buck.”
Bucky doesn't approach. He stands on the edge of the darkness and the weak candle light, smelling with blood, metal, and vanilla. The cocktail makes Stevie sick. It's not her stomach, not a kind of any physical sickness; she is sick from the inside.
Vanilla is milkshakes and Bucky in torn shirt because he's got into the fight again. Vanilla is Bucky's sensitive lips and moody eyes. Bucky thinks they are like brother and sister, bit it's a lie. The way Stevie feels for him is not sister-like at all.
“Every time I remembered, I got hurt,” he doesn't argue, he just talks back. “I didn't want memories to come, but I didn't make them leave.”
Stevie can't be angry with him. She could never be angry with anybody if she understands him, and she understands Bucky. She is not angry, she is just hollow, and tired, and sad. but Bucky thinks she is.
“I remembered the dances. You were wearing new shoes and they made your feet bleeding. You could barely walk and I told you to sit down on the bench. I put my handkerchief in the fountain, and wiped the blood.”
“What did you do when?”
“I kissed the toes. You'd drank a glass of beer and was falling asleep, you didn't even know. Whose memory is this? I know they are mine, but they are not. I wasn't there, I wasn't dancing with you, seeing you off.”
“I'm sorry, James,” Stevie says, shaking her head with blues in her heart. Too much of what she is not able to contain fills her. All this pain, Stevie needs to not to think about for some time. “I'm sorry, I can't talk right now. I'm going to sleep. And you are not coming with me.”
“Why?” The shortness of the question is desperate. Bucky follows Stevie to the door of her bedroom two steps behind, waiting for her to say something, to let him in, to cancel the punishment, but she doesn't do it.
“It's not a punishment,” Stevie warns him. “I'm just tired. I need to be alone. Understand that, please.”
Bucky is not looking at her, he is not trying to hold the door. He leans on the doorjamb, Stevie sees only his hair closing the face and his pale, mute lips, cramped in frantic attempts to say something he can't. “I'm sorry,” Stevie says again, having the door closed.
This night Stevie sleeps well. She is not waken up by Bucky's screams and nightmares. All the pillows are hers, both the blankets are hers. She feels safe just like in her old NY flat where she could hide from the world too cruel for small stubborn girls for days and days. There's a lamp on the nightstand, her watch, her pens, her book – everything she needs but Bucky.
Stevie sleeps, and sleeps and sleeps. When she wakes up, she lies in the bed looking into the ceiling, feeling like she doesn't want to sleep any longer. She is full of her sleep and of her rest, though she knows the price of it. Stevie feels guilty she can't do it in any other way, but she feels better than anytime living with Bucky.
Stevie knew that a soldier needed rest decades ago, but she had eventually forgotten it. Sam helped her to remember when she is exhausted, she needs to take a break. When Stevie needs the rest she should have it, that's what they've worked out at the sessions. The only problem is that's not how it works with Bucky because he can't take a break from his problems.
When Stevie opens the door from her bedroom she is afraid of what she sees. In her heart, she hopes that Bucky has his rest, too, or hasn't done anything they both regret. Of course, she has been mistaken.
Bucky sleeps sitting on the floor before her door, his back leaning on the wall, his head on his arms. The scars on his hand are barely visible, and when Stevie leans over him, he raises his face and opens his eyes. Bucky looks as bad as he was when Stevie found him with his arm stuck in the metal press.
“I know I'm sick. I don't want to be a drag on you.”
“You are not a drag.”
Stevie knees before Bucky and hugs him, kissing his bristled cheek and his ear with a small but deep old scar an inch higher the lope. She wants to apologize, but she knows there's nothing to apologize for. Still she wants to say something because they are both hurt, and lost, and tired.
“I still need you,” he says, and Stevie breathes into his ear, “I know.”
“This is not forever,” he says, and it's breaking Stevie's heart. Now he promises she won't suffer his recovery forever, though it's her who is in charge of his progress. Or not only her, they both are in charge of it?
“Yes. You will get better one day,” Stevie blushes just a little. She feels ashamed, and it's not because of blushing.
“What then?”
“When, I hope, you will stay because you want to. Not because you have no choice.” Stevie swallows the words. She is strong, she is brave, she is unbreakable. And she trembles to hear the answer.
“I have a choice,” her nape is in Bucky's iron hand. “I don't want to go.”