Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was never enough time.

Except when there was too much of it.

Gray pressed her back to the twisted frame of a sedan, lungs burning, the sharp tang of smoke and cordite thick in her nose. The bridge pulsed with gunfire, air fractured by shattered glass and shouted orders. Somewhere behind her, Steve’s voice cut through the chaos—steady. Grounding.

But it was the shadow moving across the wreckage that held her still.

The soldier.

He moved wrong. Too fast. Too fluid. Time around him seemed to thin and snap, as if the world struggled to contain him. Her skin prickled, instinct screaming. Every trained muscle told her to run—but the part of her shaped by years in the dark whispered otherwise.

Watch. Learn. Remember.

A sharp crack split the air.

No.

Pain bloomed sharp along her ribs, searing hot, dragging a breathless cry from her throat. The shot had torn clean through—too deep, too fast. Blood slicked her side, warmth spilling beneath her fingers.

She could slow it. Could pull the seconds thinner, trick her cells into mending faster.

But not here. Not now. Not where it would cost more than the wound itself. Not where he might see.

Her vision blurred at the edges, the soldier moving in and out of focus. Another burst of fire—another impossible shift in speed—as if time bent to him as easily as breath.

Steve’s voice snapped her back, sharp as ice through the haze.

"Talk to me—are you hit?"

She dragged herself lower against the wreckage, ribs screaming. Not dead. Not yet.

"Ribs—through. I’m fine," she bit out, blood slicking her side.

"Nat’s pulling civilians clear—we can’t get to you."

Gray could just hear Nat’s voice over the comm, sharp and clipped—"Move! Keep moving—go, go!"—her words cutting through the crack of gunfire and the rising panic.

Another burst of gunfire chewed through the car above her head. The soldier moved again—closer now.

"Can you still do it?" Steve’s voice was taut, low. Not a command. A question.

Gray’s fingers curled tighter in the blood-wet fabric. Breath trembling. "I have to."

The air felt too thin to breathe. The weight of the seconds pulled tight across her skin, brittle as glass. There was no time left to think. Only to move.

Too late. The soldier was moving again—too fast, too fluid.

She forced her body lower against the wreckage, ribs screaming. Not dead. Not yet.

Instinct surged, raw and desperate.

He was almost on her now—black-clad, masked, a shadow with a metal arm gleaming cold in the shattered light.

She reached for it.

Her fingers curled into the blood-wet fabric at her side, grounding herself. One breath. Another.

Then her left hand flattened, palm against the cold wreckage beside her.

Pulse thrumming in her throat, she dragged time thinner—not with strength, but surrender. Loosened her grip on the present, let the

seconds pull taut and thin around her ribs, the air, the space between them.
A cold ripple licked along her spine. Her fingers trembled against the wreckage, breath faltering as the seconds thinned.

The world blurred.

The air itself thickened—shimmered faintly, as if she were looking through heat waves. Dust hung suspended mid-fall, frozen motes caught in an unseen current. Sound dulled, stretched thin, the edges of movement rippling slow as water.

She felt it in her blood—the wrongness of him, the slip and catch of time folding against itself.

But not him.

He moved through it. Through her. Through the edges of fractured time like breath through smoke.

Her heart stuttered. The pulse behind her eyes flared sharp and brutal—don’t touch it, don’t touch it, don’t touch it—but it was too late.

He had already passed through.

And in his wake, something cold lodged deep in her ribs—colder than the bullet, colder than the blood.

The seconds snapped back around her like a whip. Her breath caught sharp, pulse crashing.

She didn’t know his name. Didn’t need to. Some things the body remembered before the mind.

The air had bent. But not him.

And somewhere beneath the pain, beneath the training, beneath the cold grip of survival, something else flickered.

Recognition.

Not of the man.

But of the damage.

Chapter Text

The first thing she felt was motion. Then heat. Pressure. The unsteady rhythm of breath that wasn’t hers.

The cold weight in her ribs burned sharp and bright, but the press of fabric held it at bay—someone’s hand, steady, grounding.

“Hold on, Clara,” Steve said, voice rough, rattled. The van jolted, steel groaning until it came to a full stop. The four of them swayed. Boots scuffed outside, weapons drew out of holsters. Clara barely registered it—until the sharp hiss of compressed air and the snap of a visor being pulled back, pounded in her head.

“Ah, that thing was squeezing my brain,” a woman’s voice cut through—clear, sharp.

Maria Hill.

“We’re moving.” Hill didn’t wait for an argument. One hand flicked her belt—pulled a compact cutter device. “Cover her,” she ordered, nodding toward Clara in Steve’s arms.  She crouched low, bracing against the floor panel near the rear axle. “Drains run below. Secondary van’s waiting. Two minutes, tops.” Hill thumbed the cutter to life—a white-hot blade flaring sharp, spitting arcs of light into the dim cabin.

Sparks screamed against steel, the metal hissing beneath her hand, the stench of scorched paint and burning grease choking the air. Heat rolled out in waves, searing through the cold bite of adrenaline.

“New guy. Nat—cover.”

“Sam,” Sam said, voice tight.

“On it.” Nat dropped to a knee, weapon steady, covering the hatch.

The cutter traced its final arc with a shriek of torn metal. The last plate gave way with a grinding groan—the floor sagging, then breaking free, edges glowing dull red. Below—black concrete and dark water gleaming beneath faint, flickering service lights. The air that rose was wet, sour, old.

“Go,” Hill snapped. Sam dropped first, movements sharp, scanning the tunnel. Nat followed, fast and fluid.

Steve came last—one arm locked tight beneath Clara’s shoulders, the other bracing her legs. Her body pressed close, weight feather-light, the flutter of her pulse a fragile stutter beneath his palm. The cut steel smoked behind them, the bitter tang of metal chasing them down as they slipped into the dark. Clara caught only fragments—the jolt of arms shifting, the cold sting of open air, the sharp burn of sweat against raw skin. The world narrowed to motion. Breath. Heat. Pain.

“We’re almost there,” Hill’s voice cut through again, clipped and controlled, bootfalls echoing against wet stone as they moved through the underground

***

The second van was smaller, darker. They piled in fast—Hill taking the wheel, Nat sliding in beside her, weapons checked and ready. Sam settled opposite Steve, gaze sharp, questions already burning behind his eyes. Steve barely noticed. His focus stayed on the weight in his arms—Clara pressed close, her pulse fluttering fragile beneath his palm, blood slick beneath the balled-up remains of his torn shirt. He’d asked her to do it. Knowing she was hurt. Knowing it would cost her. He should have known better. But in that moment—when the soldier, when Bucky had turned, mask slipping, eyes not his own—he’d needed those seconds more than breath. And she had given them. Now her pulse stuttered beneath his hand, every beat a quiet accusation.

“How’s she doin’?” Hill asked as she threw the van into gear, engine growling beneath them.

“Hanging on. It’s the time hit that worries me,” Steve said. His voice was hoarse—shaken in a way Nat had only heard once before. Nat glanced back, watching him, gaze lingering—not on Clara, but on Steve’s face.

“The what?” Sam asked.

“She pulls time,” Steve said. He drew in a breath, steadying his voice. “Slows it. Distorts it. Gives us seconds we shouldn’t have.”

Sam blinked, gaze flicking to Clara—small and pale now, breath shallow in Steve’s arms.

“She’s done it before?”

“Yeah,” Steve said quietly.

“But not like this. Not after a hit like that.” He shifted his grip, hand firm against her waist, feeling the tremble beneath skin gone too cold. “The more she’s injured, the harder it is on her,” he went on. “Her body’s paying for it now—slower to heal, temperature spikes, disorientation. Sometimes a bleed—nose, ears if she pushes too far.”

“Jesus,” Sam murmured.

“She knew the risk,” Nat said. Her voice wasn’t cold—just true. “She always knows the risk.”

“And I asked her anyway,” Steve said, voice low. The words tasted like ash.

Nat didn’t argue. The weight of those seconds hung in the van, sharp as the name still trembling on Clara’s lips. Sam looked back and forth between Steve holding Clara, and Nat.

“She did that? Bleeding out?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Nat said, voice flat but not unkind.

Another jolt sent a sharp bolt through Clara’s ribs. She might have gasped, but no sound came—just a tremor through her frame.

“Hang on, Gray,” Steve murmured. His hand pressed firmer against her waist, the steady heat of it anchoring her through the spiral. For a moment, her eyes fluttered half-open—lashes dark against pale skin, breath catching.

“Bucky,” she whispered—broken, ragged. “How?”

Steve’s breath hitched. His grip tightened, almost involuntary—a desperate anchor against the spiraling air. Nat’s gaze flicked sharper.

“Clara—don’t,” Steve said softly, tightening his hold. “You need to rest. Let your body heal.”

Her lashes fluttered again and then from her trembling lips came another faint whisper, “Are you okay?” The raw note in her voice undid him.

Steve swallowed hard. “I—” His voice caught. “I don’t know.”

Her fingers twitched faintly against the fabric of his shirt. “You saw him,” she breathed. “You saw him, Steve.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I saw him.” “

Tell me—”

“No.” His voice gentled, firm now. “Later, Clara. You have to let your body heal first.”

Her breath stuttered. Eyes fluttering. Sam exhaled, gaze flicking back to Clara—small, pale, breath shallow in Steve’s arms.

“She knew him,” he said softly.

“We’ve talked about him,” Steve murmured. His gaze dropped to Clara’s face—shadow and light moving across her skin with each flicker of the passing sun. “Fractured time pulls us both apart,” Steve said quietly. “It’s what we have in common.”

Nat said nothing. Ahead, the city blurred past. The weight of the name hung in the van—unspoken now, but thick in the air. Steve didn’t loosen his grip.

“Almost there,” Hill called back, voice clipped. The van stopped. Doors flew open. “Go,” Hill ordered.

Steve didn’t hesitate. One arm steady beneath Clara’s shoulders, the other still pressed firm to her waist, he carried her into the low-lit interior. The familiar click of a weapon disengaging met them.

“It’s about damn time,” Fury said, turning in his chair. His eyes caught on Clara in Steve’s arms. The flat line of his mouth twisted into a curse. “Hell. Get her down. Nat—kit, now.”

“On it.”

Steve lowered her carefully, every motion precise, deliberate. The weight of his hand remained—a point of heat against the cold, anchoring her through the spiral. Seconds stuttered in her blood. Breath caught, shallow and thin. Cold spread up her spine, an echo of the seconds she’d unraveled. Her body shuddered once. No strength left to stop it.

“Gray?” Steve said again—closer now, voice tight.

Not just the wound. Something else in it. Bucky. A flicker in the haze—shadow, mask, metal gleam. The way he had moved—through her time, untouched, wrong in every way her body understood.

Fury’s gaze dropped—caught on the unmoving hands of Clara’s watch, frozen mid-second.

“That time stuck for a reason?” His voice was low, unreadable.

Steve swallowed. His thumb brushed unconsciously over the glass, smudging faint blood there.

The watch didn’t so much as tick.

“I think she pulled a little too hard,” he said quietly. “To get the civilians out of the way of him.”

Fury said nothing. The weight of it hung between them. Some things should stay broken. Her breath slowed. Body fading.

The safe house pulled away from her leaving behind a small trail of darkness. But the image remained; one of a shadow moving through fractured time.

Not the face.

Not the name.

Only the damage

Chapter Text

Safe house
Present day

The room smelled of antiseptic and iron.

Clara lay still on the low cot, her skin pale beneath the dim wash of overhead light. The stitches along her side were clean, precise—Nat’s work. A cooling pad rested against her ribs, the faint beeping of an old vitals monitor the only sound breaking the hush.

Steve sat at her side, elbows braced on his knees, gaze locked on the fragile rise and fall of her breath. Clara’s fingers twitched once against the thin blanket. Steve leaned forward, breath caught—useless instinct. The memory came sharp and sudden—one of the moments that mattered.

“You can’t will her to wake up out of this,” Nat said quietly, stripping off her gloves. “You know she needs to regenerate.”

“I asked her to do it,” Steve said, voice rough. “Knowing it would cost her just so I could have enough time to unmask him.”

Nat didn’t argue.

Across the room, Fury leaned against the far wall, arms crossed.

“We’re gonna need her again.”

“Not like this,” Steve said. “Not bleeding herself dry just to give us seconds to figure out what the fuck is going on.”

Fury’s gaze flicked to Clara’s wrist—the hands of her watch still frozen mid-second, faint blood smudged across the glass.

Steve exhaled, thumb brushing unconsciously over the watch face.

“If we don’t find a way to help her control it so it doesn’t beat her,” Nat added, “she’s going to keep paying more.”

Fury’s gaze didn’t shift.

“You think she’d even let us try?”

“If it means keeping us alive,” Steve said softly. “She will.”

Across the room, Clara’s fingers twitched once against the thin blanket. Steve watched her, jaw tight. And the memory came, sharp and sudden—one of the moments that mattered.

Victoria, Canada
Eight months earlier…

It had been six weeks of missions. Six weeks since Fury had pulled her out of deep cover and dropped her into Steve’s orbit—one operative anchoring another.

Before Romanoff. Before trust had to be rationed between too many ghosts. And somehow, somewhere in the long hours between ops and debriefs, they’d found this: a space between seconds where the past could be carried without breaking, and the future didn’t press so hard.

It was the first time Steve had let her out of his sight since the safe house in Connecticut.

He wasn’t subtle about it.

Clara glanced sideways as they moved through the crumbling edges of an abandoned warehouse district—quiet perimeter sweep while Hill and what was left of the SHIELD skeleton crew staged the next move.

“You know, if you hover any closer, I might have to start charging rent,” she said dryly.

Steve’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile.

“Just making sure you don’t pull any more seconds out of thin air on me,” he said.

“I’m on a strict no-time-manipulation diet this week,” she replied, voice light. “Doctor’s orders.”

“Fury doesn’t count as a doctor.”

“Please. The man knows more about field triage than half the surgeons I’ve met.”

Steve shook his head, a faint exhale of breath that might’ve almost been a laugh. They walked in silence for a beat—comfortable enough, the kind forged in the aftermath of chaos.

“How’s the shoulder?” Steve asked quietly.

“Still attached,” Clara said. “And if you tell me to sit this out one more time, I will personally trip you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They reached the edge of the old loading docks, light slanting gold through broken warehouse windows. Clara rested a hand against the rusted frame, catching her breath—not weak, just careful.

Steve hovered again.

“Steve,” she said, a warning now. “I’m not going to break.”

“You almost didn’t come back,” he said, voice rougher than before.

“And neither did you,” she answered, softer now.

That stopped him for a beat. His gaze flicked away, jaw tight.

“I didn’t ask him to be there,” Steve said quietly."On the train."

“I know,” Clara said. “But you two were a package deal and he wanted to be on that train.”

The weight of that truth hung between them. Too heavy. Too close.

Time to shift it.

“You know what your problem is?” she asked, pushing off the frame with a deliberate lightness.

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

“You have terrible taste in baseball teams.”

That earned an actual breath of a laugh.

“Don’t start.”

“Oh, I will absolutely start.” She grinned. “Still a Mets guy? Even after we saw the Sox play…”

“Born and bred,” Steve said.

“You poor thing.” Clara shook her head with mock solemnity. “You know there’s still time to switch. The Sox’ll take you.”

“Not a chance.”

“Come on. Ted Williams? Ortiz? The curse is broken, Steve. You could root for an actual winning team.”

“The curse was part of the charm,” he countered, lips twitching. “And I’m loyal.”

“Stubborn, you mean,” she said, but her smile gentled. “Fits, though.”

“How so?”

“You hold onto the things that matter. Even when they hurt.”

Steve’s throat tightened. A face in the shadows. A smile he hadn’t heard in years. But he held her gaze, steady.

“So do you,” he said softly.

The warmth between them wasn’t bright. Not simple. But it was there—threaded through shared ghosts and stubborn hearts. Clara looked away first, blinking against the tilt of late sunlight.

“Come on, Mets boy. We’ve got a job to do.”

Steve fell into step beside her—closer than before.

He didn’t tell her to slow down.

Not once.

Chapter Text

The first thing she felt was heat.

Then cold.

Then her own breath—shallow, sharp, too loud in her ears.

Her eyes snapped open.

Cot beneath her. Light too bright. Air too thin.

She shot upright—a sharp gasp breaking from her throat as her body obeyed before her mind caught up.

“Whoa—”

A voice—Steve. Closer than she’d realized.

Metal scraped—his chair shoved back, boots hitting the floor hard.

He was there before she could blink—hands catching at her shoulders, steady but not forcing her down.

“Clara—easy. You’re okay.”

But her body wasn’t listening. Heat flashed behind her eyes—sharp, sudden. A hot drip hit her upper lip.

Blood.

She blinked—vision swimming—nosebleed already running fast.

Steve’s palm pressed a clean cloth beneath her nose, the other bracing her back.

“Breathe. That’s all. Just breathe .”

Across the room—keys clicked fast—Sam at a battered terminal, head snapping up.

“That normal?” Sam asked, voice low but edged.

Steve’s jaw worked—his gaze locked on the blood sliding bright down Clara’s lip.

“She’s fine,” he said. His voice was rough—not clinical. Not this time.

Clara exhaled, breath catching once—the iron taste blooming across her tongue.

“Next time,” she rasped, voice rough but dry, “someone else can bleed for a change.”

Steve huffed—the sound half a laugh, half something else.

“Next time I’ll have to stop you. That’s the longest you’ve held on tight in a—”

“—I know.”

She leaned slightly into his touch then—not weakness. Just tired. Just human.

“How long?” she asked softly.

“Since the fight?” Steve’s hand shifted—not pulling away. “Couple hours.”

She closed her eyes—seconds stretching thin again—not her doing this time.

“So he’s gone,” she said, too low for Sam to hear.

“Just like a ghost,” Steve murmured.

Her brow furrowed faintly.

“How—” her voice caught—throat raw, breath thin. “How did I hear Fury?”

Steve’s hand stilled against her back.

“You weren’t hallucinating,” he said quietly.

Her eyes flicked open, searching his face.

“But he’s—”

“—Faked it,” Steve said. “Hill helped him. Needed Hydra to think he was out of the way.”

“But why—”

“—He’s got a plan,” Steve said. “We’ve got a plan.”

“Then tell me,” she said softly, gaze steady now.

Steve glanced across the room.

Sam had turned back to the terminal, typing fast—but watching them from the corner of his eye.

“Soon,” Steve said. “First you breathe. Then we fight.”

***

Fury returned an hour later—moving slower than usual, a sling cradling his arm, but eyes sharp.

“We’re gonna take down those Helicarriers,” he said, no preamble.

Steve straightened. Clara eased upright—still pale, but steadier now.

“Replace their targeting chips. Force them to crash.”

“And if we can’t?” Steve asked.

“Then we make damn sure they don’t launch.”

Fury’s gaze landed on Clara.

“You’re up for this?”

She wiped the last trace of blood from her upper lip.

“I’m not sitting this out,” she said.

Fury nodded once.

“Good.”

***

The Bank Vault

The vault doors groaned open—thick steel grinding back to reveal shadowed space beneath the city.

Flickering fluorescents buzzed overhead, catching sharp on the edges of metal crates, stacked weapons, pale faces.

In the center of it all—the chair.

The Winter Soldier sat strapped in—bare torso gleaming with sweat, breath harsh and ragged in the stale air.

His left arm—the metal one—twitched beneath the hands of two men in sterile coats, fingers working fast over fractured plates. The shield had done its damage.

Scars burned red along his shoulder—deep, brutal, the skin beneath the metal warped and raw.

Around him, five guards stood tense—automatic rifles trained low but ready.

And in the broken dark behind his eyes—the past surged like a blade.

He was falling—snow blinding, air stolen from his throat. Rocks below, sharp and cold and final.

"Sergeant Barnes."

Zola’s voice—slick, inescapable.

"The procedure has already started."

Pain. Ice. Metal biting bone.

Bucky! No!

Steve’s voice, raw—cutting through the roar.

Then cold. Colder than death.

Cryo. Frozen silence.

A jolt ripped him back—metal screeching under the wrench of his own arm.

Bucky’s eyes snapped open—wild, unmoored.

The two doctors froze.

"You are to be the new face of HYDRA. Put him on ice."

Zola’s words echoed—impossible, looping, wrong.

Bucky surged—metal arm catching one doctor full in the chest, slamming him hard into the drawers with a crash.

Weapons swung up—five rifles now locked on him. .

He sat panting—shoulders heaving, eyes burning, body coiled tight.

Something wasn’t right.

The fight— her —

There had been a pull. A drag.

"He's unstable," one of the guards snapped.

Footsteps echoed—Pierce descending, Brumlow close behind.

"Mission report," Pierce said coolly. No reaction.

He stepped closer.

"Mission report. Now ."

Silence.

Pierce slapped him—sharp, precise.

Bucky blinked—staring through the man like smoke.

"The man on the bridge," he rasped. "Who was he?"

Pierce’s gaze flickered.

"You met him earlier this week. Another assignment."

"I knew him."

Pierce’s mouth tightened. He drew the stool close, settling before the chair.

"Your work has been a gift to mankind," he said smoothly. "You shaped the century. And I need you to do it one more time."

Bucky’s breath hitched—Recognition spiking, unspoken.

"Society’s at a tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow, we give it a push."

A flicker—Steve’s eyes, reaching for him through smoke.

"But if you don’t do your part, I can’t do mine. And HYDRA can’t give the world the freedom it deserves."

"But I knew him," Bucky said—voice cracking.

Pierce exhaled, rising.

"Prep him."

One of the doctors hesitated. "He’s been out of cryo too long—"

"Then wipe him. Start over. "

Bucky’s jaw worked—a flash of wounded resignation cutting sharp across his face.

He opened his mouth—furious, trembling—teeth bared as they shoved the guard in.

The locks snapped down—metal arm pinned, human bicep crushed in steel restraint.

Breath wild now—recognition still burning—panic beneath the skin.

The machine lowered—spinning death descending over his skull.

Shock arced sharp—Bucky screamed—full, raw, shattering.

Guards looked away.

Pierce turned his back—already leaving.

And beneath it all—one memory still clung tight, unbroken.

"Bucky! No!"

Chapter Text

The air in the room tasted like dust and metal.

Concrete walls. No windows. A battered table beneath a single hanging light. Weird laptops in cases. Fury in an eye-patch, alive…

One hour left. Maybe less.

Nick Fury stood at the head of the table—patch in place now, sling gone, good arm braced against the scarred surface.

Across from him—Steve, stiff-backed, jaw locked.

Nat leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, gaze unreadable.

Sam perched near the terminal—still armed, still ready.

And Clara—steady now, but pale beneath the shadows, breath just a shade too thin. Her watch still frozen.

She sat between Steve and Nat—shoulders straight, hand resting light against the table’s edge.

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA," Fury said, voice clipped, tired beneath the steel. "We have to get past them, insert these server blades—and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what’s left—"

"We’re not salvaging anything," Steve cut in—sharp, raw, before the words had finished leaving Fury’s mouth. "We’re not just taking down the carriers, Nick. We’re taking down SHIELD."

Fury’s gaze snapped to him—one flicker of something darker beneath the patch.

"SHIELD had nothing to do with this," he said flat.

"You gave Clara and me this mission," Steve said—voice low, steady but burning beneath the words. "This is how it ends. SHIELD’s been compromised. You said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."

Across the table, Clara shifted—breath catching once. “Steve—” she started, voice quiet, sharp with warning—but he pushed on, gaze locked now.

"How many paid the price before you did?"

Fury’s jaw worked. No answer. Just a slow shake of his head—a sigh that landed hard in the silence.

"Look," Fury said finally. "I didn’t know about Barnes."

The name cut sharp through the air—Clara’s pulse flared beneath her skin.

Steve’s glare didn’t waver.

"Even if you had—" his voice caught—ache twisting through it now— "—would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too?"

A breath.

"SHIELD. HYDRA,” he shook his head once—final now, "It all goes."

***

The water rushed beneath the dam—low thunder rising through the concrete bones of the structure.

Steve stood alone on the broad cement bridge—boots scuffed to a halt at the edge, breath slow, arms braced against the rail.

Above him—steel struts webbed beneath the dam’s main workroom. Below—white spray caught against stone, rippling outward in endless concentric rings.

"I'm with you till the end of the line, pal..."

Bucky’s voice echoed sharp in his head—not memory. Not just memory. Something else.

Recognition burned behind his ribs—sharp and brutal and alive. Bucky was alive. All this time.

He swallowed hard—knuckles whitening against the rail.

Behind him, across the tree line—Clara moved between the shadows.

A battered jeep crouched beneath the branches—its frame already half-loaded with gear.

She moved slow—precise—one clip sliding into place, one rifle checked and laid beneath another.

Between motions—her fingers twitched, breath catching—eyes flicking once to the water beyond the dam.

She reached out, twirled her fingers slowly and watched time get caught and stretched thin in her hands bringing a gentle pause to the rippling water. The ripple beneath the dam froze —white foam suspended mid-curl—before tumbling forward again. She watched it once—expression unreadable. She took a deep breath and squeezed her fingers shut harder, her nails biting back into her palm. Time wisped like smoke, the water still, and then it all snapped back.

"He's going to be there, you know."

Sam’s voice.

Clara stilled—body still moving, but breath paused—ears catching the words through trees and distance.

She didn’t mean to listen—but some things carried, whether she wanted them to or not. Another curse of hers. 

Back on the bridge—Steve didn’t turn.

"I know."

Sam stepped up beside him.

"Look—" Sam exhaled once. "Whoever he used to be... and the guy he is now... I don't think he's the kind you save."

A beat. A pause. Steve didn’t react.

"He's the kind you stop."

This time, Steve’s jaw worked in frustration, his teeth clenching together, pulse sharp beneath his skin.

"I don't know if I can do that," he said quietly.

The water roared beneath them—steady as the ache beneath the words.

Across the tree line—Clara’s fingers curled against the edge of the jeep frame.

She closed her eyes once—breath tight.

"He might not give you a choice," Sam said. "He doesn't know you."

This time—Steve turned—slow, deliberate—eyes steady now.

"He will."

Sam held his gaze for a few seconds, then nodded once.

Steve looked out again—dam stretching beneath endless sky—Tension humming beneath the air.

"Gear up," he said—voice sharp now. "It's time."

Across the tree line—Clara moved again—faster now.

One clip. One weapon. One breath.

The water rippled beneath the dam—time folding and unfolding with each pulse of her breath.

The ache hadn’t left.

It wouldn’t. Not yet.

***

Tarmac
Scramble zone

The first rocket hit before Clara could exhale.

A wall of flame and steel ripped through the air—pilots scattering, the tarmac a blur of heat and smoke.

She moved without thought—hand out—breath caught—time folding thin.

The rockets slowed, foam blooming in frozen arcs, seconds stretched like cracking glass.

"Move!" she shouted, her voice carrying through fractured time.

Pilots staggered clear, jets abandoned mid-launch.

Another rocket. Another pull.

Her ribs ached, the machinery was heavy. There were a lot of S.H.I.E.L.D pilots in the crosshairs. Blood ran hot behind her eyes, but she held on as long as she could until as many people as possible were safe. 

And then— he was there.

Metal arm streaked silver, shining with the afternoon sun like a gleaming promise of ruin,a beautiful thing built to destroy. Now unmasked, it was incredibly clear this version of Steve Rogers’s best friend was locked up tight in a haunted prison of lethality. Eyes burning through the smoke.

The Winter Soldier.

And he was moving through it. Through her.

Recognition knifed through Clara so fast it felt like her body couldn’t catch up. Her breath locked behind her teeth.

“No,” she whispered. But the moment was already broken.

He came through the fractured seconds like smoke given flesh, too fast, too aware—eyes fixed on hers with something that wasn’t quite human. Worse—he was reading her.

She felt it in her skin, in her pulse—his awareness keyed to the thread between them, tracking her before she moved.

Then he struck.

Shoulder to shoulder—bone met metal. The jolt of it snapped something loose in her spine. His hand shot for her throat, fingers closing fast.

She twisted, breath tearing loose, instincts firing blind.

Block. Strike. Move. Survive.

Her body answered without thought—muscle and memory rising where her mind stumbled. Their limbs collided in sharp, brutal bursts—time a blade, too thin to hold.

He drove her back, breath knocked from her lungs, metal searing cold against her ribs—then he spun away, vaulting up in one impossible, liquid motion.

Onto the wing of a jet. Rifle raised.

The shot cracked out—a brutal echo in her skull.

Pilot down.

“No—”

She moved before the thought finished, hands catching the wing strut. Muscles screamed. It didn’t matter. She dragged herself up, tearing into the wingman seat, fingers clawing at the cockpit lock.

Above—he looked down through the rising smoke. His eyes met hers and held.

Nothing said. Nothing needed.

Recognition burned through every inch of her.

“Clara—ground report—come in.”

Steve’s voice jarred through her ear. Urgent. Close.

“A little busy,” she bit out, breathless, the lock refusing to give beneath her shaking hands.

“You okay?”

A shot rang off the frame—metal shrieked, too close.

She flinched, breath splintering.

“Not exactly.”

Above, the Soldier sealed the cockpit. Locked her out. Then vanished.

“Sam—I’m gonna need a ride,” Steve’s voice snapped again.

The Helicarrier loomed a heartbeat later, Sam dropping him down hard—fast.

The jet skidded to a halt. Empty.

“Where is she—” Steve began—

BOOM.

The Soldier hit. Steve flew backward, off the side.

“Steve!”

Sam sprinted. Clara tore from the smoke, bleeding, lungs dragging for air.

Recognition throbbed under her skin now, near electric.

She didn’t think. Her body moved.

Hands rose, trembling, as the Soldier swung Sam by a grappling hook, metal glinting against the ruin.

Wings tore. Sam fell—

“No!”

The scream ripped free, ragged. Her hands shot out, desperate, useless—time seemed to bend around the motion.

Sam caught the second. Parachute deployed. His fall broke against the wind.

Clara’s breath fractured. Vision blurred, tunneled. Blood dripped hot down her face.

And then—he looked at her.

Still. Steady. Recognition humming behind his eyes.

He stepped toward her, slow, sure.

“Why do I know you,” he said, voice low, raw, cracking at the edges.

Her breath caught hard in her chest. Pain carved deep beneath her ribs.

“You don’t,” she whispered. The lie tasted wrong as soon as it left her mouth.

But he moved again—faster now.

Clara surged upright, blood slick beneath her lip, breath tearing in sharp and raw. Her arms rose too late.

Metal slammed into her ribs—white heat. Her body reeled, but she spun with it—time snapping thin, just enough to catch the rhythm.

Strike. Block. Twist.

It wasn’t a fight. It was a dance.

A brutal, searing, aching dance. Recognition thrummed through every shattered breath, every pulse of skin against steel.

She could see it now—in his eyes.

He knew. Not her name. Not her face.

But the pull. The fracture that bound them.

“You slowed me,” he said again, voice a jagged thread. Recognition burned in every word.

She answered with her body—moving, burning, striking in refusal.

But he was too fast. Too aware. Reading her time before it could snap.

Then—his hand at her throat.

Metal cold and merciless. Crushing. Lifting.

Air vanished. The world tilted sideways.

Her hands scrabbled at his arm—reflex only. Her mind—

Her mind locked on his eyes.

Not the weapon. Not the shadow.

The eyes.

Blue. Haunting. Beautiful. Terrible.

And beneath them—embers. Flickering raw beneath the ice.

Something more. Something not the Soldier.

Her breath hitched. Sight narrowed. Darkness rushed in fast.

And the last thing she saw—

—was his eyes

Washington, weeks later.

The hearing room smelled of cold air and polished wood.

Too bright. Too still.

Nat sat at the long table, shoulders squared beneath the weight of a thousand lenses.

Beside her, Clara sat with the quiet tension of a wire strung too tight. Every inch of her held to careful stillness—not from discipline, but necessity.

Dark sleeves pulled smooth over her wrists, the cuffs of her coat lying flat beneath pale hands folded in her lap. No jewelry. No marks. Nothing to give the press a detail to pick apart.

But her hair was loose. Soft waves falling over her shoulders in dark, unbound lines—an unspoken refusal to be boxed in or stripped down to angles and containment.

She was beautiful. Beautiful in a way that unsettled people, though they would never name it aloud. A beauty sharpened by everything she had survived—a kind of living defiance against the cold brutality of the world outside this room.

Skin pale beneath the overhead lights. High cheekbones casting shadows that gave her face both edge and depth. A full mouth set against words she would not speak today.

And her eyes—God, her eyes. Lashes heavy, casting half-moons against her cheeks, but when they lifted, when they caught, there was no softness to be found. Only the ghost of blue burning through smoke and metal, threading her pulse still.

Alive. Whole. But not untouched.

Reminders of him lived beneath her skin. Every breath she drew tasted of iron and heat and the memory of his hand closing around her throat. Ache coiled beneath her ribs like a second heartbeat.

Across the room, senators shifted papers, casting glances as if they could read something beneath the surface of her composure.

She knew what they saw.

A survivor. A weapon. A woman scraped raw and left gleaming.

Clara held her breath steady and her gaze forward.

The world moved around her. She remained still.

“Miss Romanoff,” one began—voice clipped. “Agent Grayson. We have questions regarding your role in the events surrounding the Triskelion’s destruction.”

Nat’s voice came first—clean, measured, controlled.

“We did what had to be done.”

Clara heard none of it, not the words, the flash of cameras or the shuffling of papers.

She heard the hiss of metal.

Felt the cold weight of steel against her throat.

“Why do I know you.”

“You slowed me.”

Haunting. Beautiful. Captivating.

Eyes burned sharp—the last thing she’d seen before the dark took her.

The ache hadn’t left. It wouldn’t. Not yet.

“Agent Grayson?”

A shift beneath the table—Nat’s fingers brushed against Clara’s sleeve. Steady. Anchor light and sure.

Clara drew one breath, slow and even. Let it settle beneath her ribs.

“We stand by our actions,” she said. Her voice carried—clear, composed. The ache beneath each word buried so deep no one listening would hear it. “And Steve Rogers does, too.”

A senator leaned forward, fingers steepled. “Then why hasn’t Captain Rogers briefed this committee personally?”

The room seemed to sharpen—cameras angling in, pens poised.

Clara didn’t blink. Her gaze held level.

“Because Captain Rogers is recovering,” she said flatly. “From nearly dying to save this government and its secrets.”

The words landed with a weight no one missed. For a beat, no one spoke.

Then another voice cut through. “And what about the Winter Soldier?”

A pause. Thicker now.

Clara kept her face impassive. Inside, her pulse throbbed once—sharp, then gone.

“The Winter Soldier remains a fugitive,” the senator pressed. “No one seems to know where he is.”

Clara said nothing.

Silence stretched—controlled, intentional.

Then, with the smallest shift of breath, she pivoted. Smooth as a blade sliding home.

“This committee’s focus,” Clara said, voice cool, “is on the actions taken by this team to prevent catastrophic loss of life. If you have further questions about our operational decisions, Agent Romanoff is prepared to brief you in detail.”

Nat’s fingers tapped once beneath the table—approval, unmistakable.

Across the room, pages shuffled. The air shifted.

And Clara sat steady, unbroken, beneath the weight of a thousand lenses

***

Later. Arlington Cemetery.

The city hummed low beneath pale sky—spring wind sharp through the thin hush of stone and grass.

They stood in a quiet line—Steve, Sam, Clara, Fury—beneath the weight of a name that wasn’t gone.

NICHOLAS J. FURY

1948—20

Steve’s gaze stayed steady—shield gone now—nothing but breath and ache beneath the weight of too much undone.

Clara stood to his right—dark coat pulled close, wind tugging soft at her hair.

Recognition still burned beneath her ribs—sharp and bright beneath the ache.

Sam’s arms were folded—quiet for once—eyes sharp beneath the lines of loss.

Fury stood apart—one hand braced against the stone, breath low.

No words. Not here.

Nat arrived last—steps soft over grass—coat dark as the sky.

Her gaze flicked to Clara once—a nod between ghosts.

Steve spoke first—voice low.

“They’ll rebuild it. The next one.”

Fury’s mouth twisted.

“Maybe not.”

Sam exhaled, rough.

“You thinking about going underground?”

Fury looked at him.

“Already there.”

Nat glanced to Steve—then to Clara—Recognition quiet in her eyes.

“I’ll be going my own way,” she said—voice even.

She reached into her coat—pulled a thin folder—edges worn—placed it in Clara’s hands.

“It’s all we could pull,” she said. “Every trace. Every place.”

Clara’s breath caught once—Recognition humming sharp beneath the paper.

Steve turned to her—eyes steady now.

“You didn’t have to—”

“I did,” Clara said softly.

And meant it.

She passed the folder to him—slow, deliberate— Recognition sharp in her breath.

Steve opened it—photo first—metal arm, mask shadowed—eyes burning beneath.

“We’ll find him,” Clara said—voice raw beneath the wind. “Before the next time. Before he knows me for real.”

Steve nodded once.

“We will,” he said—voice steady.

Fury turned away first—steps soft through the grass.

Sam followed—eyes flicking once to Clara—a nod between them.

Nat lingered—met Clara’s gaze one last time—and offered a small smile. 

“Good luck,” she said.

Clara nodded once—breath low.

Then only Steve and Clara remained—wind cold now beneath the thin hush.

Steve looked at her.

“You still in?”

She nodded once.

“ Till the end of the line, right? Or whatever it is you two say.” she said.

Steve’s mouth twitched—not a smile—something heavier.

“Let’s find him.”

And together, they turned—burning beneath each step as the wind pulled the world thin behind them.

Chapter Text

In the year after Sokovia, the cracks began to show.

Ultron’s fall had left the world shaken—governments rattled, alliances strained, public trust fraying beneath every broadcast of iron towers falling in fire.

Then came Lagos.

An attempt to stop Brock Rumlow from stealing a biological weapon had ended in blood. Wanda’s powers had saved Steve Rogers’ life—had spared the team—but not the civilians above. Not the Wakandan aid workers whose deaths would burn across screens for weeks.

Now the world was watching closer. Blame followed every mission. The thin line they’d walked since New York was thinning further still.

And beneath it all—one truth remained.

The Winter Soldier was still out there.

One year gone, and they hadn’t found him. Not really. Leads dried out faster than they came in. Faces blurred. Names faded. Places grew cold.

And for Clara Grayson, the search had long since become more than a mission.

It had become a thread knotted through her pulse—a burning she couldn’t shake, not even in sleep. Recognition hummed beneath her skin, constant and sharp. And the longer they failed to find him, the more it pressed against every wound he’d left behind.

Steve saw it. Sam saw it. But neither of them said it out loud.

Instead, when the latest trail had led them through half of Europe only to vanish into smoke, Steve had called time.

“We need a break,” he said simply. No argument in his tone. No room for one.

That’s how they ended up here.

Borley Field. Tonbridge Baseball Diamond. The UK—not wet today, but cold enough that Clara’s breath showed faint in the air.

The park was quiet this morning. Empty but for them. A stretch of grass and clay beneath pale spring light, chain-link fencing silver and still.

Sam stood near the pitcher’s mound, rolling a worn ball between his fingers. Steve paced the batter’s box, casual but focused, jacket tossed over the dugout fence. Clara stood beside him, arms crossed, coat drawn close against the chill.

Her hair lifted faintly in the breeze—dark waves stirring soft against her shoulders.

“You sure about this?” Sam called. A grin played at the edges of his mouth.

Steve glanced to Clara, one brow raised. “Her idea.”

Clara’s lips curved faintly. Not quite a smile.

“I need the practice,” she said. Her voice was steady enough, but Steve heard the strain beneath it.

For weeks now she’d fought to control the burn of her powers—the fracture it left in her blood and bones when time bent too far, too fast. Each use left her raw, breathless, sometimes worse.

So Steve had thought. And finally, he’d suggested this.

Baseball. A simple idea. Sam would pitch fast—hard as he could. Clara would stand beside Steve and catch the moment—pause time the instant the ball left Sam’s hand. Hold it. Release it. Again and again.

Muscle memory. Breath control.

“Ready?” Sam called.

Steve glanced to Clara again. “If it gets to be too much—”

“I’ll stop,” she said. A breath drawn slow beneath her ribs. “I know.”

She stepped forward, close enough that her sleeve brushed Steve’s. He caught the flicker in her eyes—the tremor she buried beneath iron will.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “Let’s do it.”

Steve nodded once. Lifted the bat to his shoulder.

Sam wound up.

The first ball left his hand—a blur of motion.

And the world held its breath.

Clara caught it—time folding sharp and bright.

Another pitch. Another hold.

And again.

Each freeze burned deeper, left her breath coming shorter. Her muscles trembled now, pulse drumming hard beneath her skin.

Steve caught the shift in her stance before she spoke. He lowered the next ball.

“That’s enough,” he said, voice low.

Clara swallowed hard, forcing the tremor from her breath. Her hands ached now—skin prickling cold, the sharp hum beneath her ribs relentless.

But her mind pushed back, fierce. Not done. Not enough. Not yet.

Then Steve glanced past her toward the dugout, eyes narrowing in thought.

“Maybe not,” he said.

Before she could ask, he was already moving—striding across the grass.

Sam watched him with a brow raised. “Cap’s got a look,” he muttered, dragging a hand across his jaw.

Clara stood where she was, breath still ragged, watching as Steve crouched beside the dugout and dragged something out.

An automatic ball launcher. Old but sturdy.

He popped open the loading chute and began stacking in a cluster of worn baseballs, hands moving fast.

Clara’s heart kicked harder.

Steve straightened, meeting her gaze across the field. “You want to get better at this,” he said. Not a question.

Clara licked her lips, throat dry. “Yeah.”

“Then you’re going to have to handle more than one thing at a time.”

Her pulse fluttered. She knew what he meant. The battlefield was never one object, one moment, one strike.

It was chaos. Fracture. Motion in all directions.

The memory of a gunshot crackled through her mind—of metal flashing bright in smoke, of blue eyes burning beneath the ruin.

Steve adjusted the angle of the launcher, then looked back to her. “You’ll get a few seconds between each. No pressure to hold all of them—but try.”

Sam crossed his arms, watching her now with more than casual interest. “You got this, Grayson,” he said.

Clara drew a long breath, lifting her chin.

Her body screamed to stop. Muscles trembling. Skull throbbing faintly with each pulse.

But deeper than that—beneath the ache and the burn—was a sharper need.

To control it. To control herself. To not be the woman he had crushed beneath metal and ice and burning gaze.

She stepped forward, planting her feet. Lifted her hands.

“Okay,” she said softly. “Start it.”

Steve flipped the switch.

A low hum built—mechanical, steady. The first ball shot out—fast, sharp.

Clara’s breath caught—time folded. She froze it mid-air, the shimmer coiling faint around its seams.

Before she could release, the second ball fired.

Her pulse spiked. She reached—caught that too.

The strain knifed through her. Breath locked, vision narrowing.

A third ball came.

And this time, her grip slipped. The first ball snapped free with a crack against the backstop.

She gasped, staggering half a step. Fought to catch the third—but her focus fractured.

It slammed hard into the fencing.

“Again,” she said, voice ragged.

Steve hesitated, watching her carefully. Then he nodded once.

The launcher whirred. Another ball fired. Then another.

Clara caught one—held it a beat longer this time. Let the next sail past.

Each attempt sharpened her focus, burned her thinner. The air shimmered faint now around her hands, sweat slick beneath her coat.

By the sixth round, her knees threatened to give.

But she kept going.

Because beneath the burn, beneath the breathless ache—one truth remained:

She would not break again beneath him. Not next time. Not ever.

Steve’s voice cut through softly, firm. “That’s enough.”

She barely heard him. The launcher had stopped.

Steve was beside her now, hand at her elbow—solid, grounding.

Clara blinked hard, breath tearing loose in sharp bursts. Her vision swam, edges graying.

But her hands—shaking though they were—stayed open, steady.

“You did good,” Steve said quietly.

Sam’s voice floated in, low with a trace of real respect. “Damn good.”

Clara didn’t answer. Couldn’t yet.

She stood in the thin chill of the field, body wrecked, bones singing—but the burn beneath her ribs had shifted.

Not gone. But hers to hold now.

***

Bucharest

The room was too small.

A cramped studio on the top floor of a crumbling building in Bucharest. No view. No sun. Just the gray sprawl of roofs and smoke beyond the cracked window.

He’d chosen it for that reason. No one looked up here. No one asked questions.

The walls were bare. The narrow bed unmade. The small table beneath the window cluttered with paper and pencil stubs worn to the bone.

Bucky sat there now, shoulders hunched beneath a thin shirt, breath misting faint against the glass.

He hadn’t slept. Again.

Not because of nightmares—though those came, sharp and jagged every single time he closed his eyes.

But because of her.

The pencil moved beneath his fingers—slow, relentless.

Line after line. Curve after curve.

He couldn’t stop.

At first, it had been other things. Fragments of memory, half-formed—Steve’s face, younger and bright. The war—shadows of men he could no longer name. Stark’s eyes, cold as glass.

He’d drawn them because if he didn’t, they would bleed through his skull, stain every breath.

And then, without warning, her face had found him.

Now it wouldn’t leave.

The first time, he’d tried to fight it—ripped the page, thrown it aside. But the need had burned sharper the longer he resisted.

Now there were five. No—six.

Pages stacked against the wall. Some half-finished. Some drawn until the paper tore.

Her hair. Her mouth. Her eyes—God, her eyes.

He couldn’t get the look of them right. Couldn’t capture the way they’d burned through smoke and fear and metal, steady even when his hand had closed around her throat.

Every night, he told himself he’d stop. And every night, the pencil found her again.

Now his fingers moved before thought could catch. Shading the hollow of her throat, the curve of her jaw—unable to forget the feel of her pulse hammering beneath his hand, the way her breath had caught when the world tilted between them.

He hated himself for it.

Hated the need. The ache that coiled tighter with every stroke.

Because he didn’t know her. Not really. Not past the fracture between them.

But some part of him remembered. Some part of him burned with it.

"Why do I know you?"

The question haunted every breath.

And no matter how many times he drew her, the answer never came.

The pencil snapped beneath his grip.

Bucky stared at it—splintered wood and graphite streaking his fingers. His breath came sharp, shaking.

For a long moment, he sat there, the broken pencil clutched in his metal hand.

Then he reached for another.

And began again.

Chapter Text

A Train Somewhere

The train rocked beneath them—low and steady, a rhythm that carried through steel and breath and bone. It was late now, too late for most. The corridors had gone quiet hours ago, the hush of night folding around the thin lights above. Outside, Europe slid past in shadow—fields and ruined towns blurring beneath the dark.

In the small bar car near the center of the train, Steve nursed a glass of water, forearms braced on the narrow counter. Sam sat beside him, a beer untouched at his elbow.

Neither spoke for a while.

Across the screen of Steve’s phone, the press release flickered brightly in the dim light—headlines already churning fast.

ROGERS DEFIES UN: FIRST AVENGER SPEAKS OUT AGAINST SOKOVIA ACCORDS

Sam gave a low breath, leaning back.

“You sure know how to kick a hornet’s nest,” he muttered.

Steve’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile.

“Didn’t have a choice,” he said. His voice was quiet, rough-edged with fatigue. “Someone had to say it.”

Sam tipped his head. “Someone who still has a name that matters.”

Steve didn’t answer and another stretch of silence folded between them. Then Sam glanced toward the back of the car, voice lowering.

“What’s going on with Clara?”

Steve looked up, brow furrowing faintly.

Sam shrugged. “I mean—I know she’s with us. I know she’s dangerous as hell when she wants to be. And I know she’s... not okay. But I don’t know much else.”

His gaze held steady. “She’s younger than you, right?”

Steve nodded once. “A little.”

Sam waited.

For a moment, Steve just breathed—hands curling slow around the glass.

“She was a nurse. Back in the war.” His voice stayed even, but the weight beneath it was unmistakable. “Captured in the Pacific. POW camp in Japan.”

Sam exhaled low, shaking his head.

“Jesus.”

“She survived,” Steve said quietly. “But it changed her. The kind of change that doesn’t leave you.”

He looked down at the glass, fingers flexing once.

“She was experimented on like Bucky and fought to get free. Fought to stay free. ”

Sam let that settle.

“She said she couldn’t stop him.”

Steve’s gaze lifted. “Yeah.”

Sam rubbed the back of his neck, glancing toward the corridor that led to the cabins.

“She sleeping?”

Steve nodded. “Exhausted.”

Sam leaned forward, voice softer now.

“She’s carrying a lot.”

“We all are.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “But she’s carrying him, isn't she.”

For a long moment, neither spoke. Outside, the dark kept rushing past, endless and thin. Finally, Steve straightened, finishing his water in one slow pull.

“We find him,” he said. “We figure out why her powers fracture around him. Maybe it helps. Maybe it doesn’t. B ut we find him.”

Sam nodded once, firm.

“And we keep her standing until then.”

Steve’s mouth pressed tight—not a smile, not quite.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “We do.”

And beneath the hush of the train, the two of them sat quiet, watching the dark roll past—two men trying to hold a line between the weight of too many ghosts.

***

The dining car was half-empty—lamplit, shadows drawn long across the narrow windows.

Steve sat with Sam at a corner table, a small stack of paper files between them. Clara stood a few feet away, arms crossed, gaze out the window—watching the night roll past. None of them had slept much, just enough. The hum of the train wrapped them in thin, constant motion. Beneath it, the weight of waiting pressed sharper with every mile.

Then a voice broke through the low noise of the car—too loud, too sharp to ignore.

“… breaking news from Vienna tonight—”

Steve’s head lifted fast. Sam twisted in his seat. At the small wall-mounted screen behind the bar, a news feed flashed bright and raw. Clara turned, breath catching. A UN conference hall—Vienna. Cameras jostling. Smoke curling dark through the wreckage of the frame. The anchor’s voice cut clean and cold:

“A bomb has exploded at a United Nations conference in Vienna, where the Sokovia Accords were scheduled to be ratified today. Among those confirmed dead—King T’Chaka of Wakanda.”

Steve’s breath went razor-thin.

“Oh hell,” Sam muttered low.

The image shifted—T’Challa, face stark with grief and fire, standing before the cameras.

“… whoever killed my father is not going to escape justice.”

Then—security footage. Grainy. Unsteady. But the face in the frame landed like a blade. Metal arm. Shadowed eyes.

The Winter Soldier.

“Bucky—” Clara’s voice broke sharp across the air before she could stop it.

Steve rose fast, chair scraping.

“No—”

But the footage played on—freeze frame sharp on Bucky’s face.

“Authorities have identified James Buchanan Barnes as the prime suspect in the attack—”

Steve’s jaw locked.

Sam’s voice came grim. “You think they even waited to check?”

Clara’s heart slammed sharp in her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Her pulse burned hot, too fast—Recognition coiling tight beneath her ribs—she couldn’t understand it, how her body seemed to know him before any other part of her did. Her fingers twitched at her side. The air shimmered faint—dangerously—before she clenched her fists, locking it down hard.

Steve saw it. His gaze cut to her, steady.

“Clara—”

“I’m fine,” she said, voice shaking. “I—”

But she wasn’t.

No one had ever walked through her time freeze. No one. And now the world was hunting him, the one who did. Steve scrubbed a hand down his face, breath rough.

“They’ll come hard,” Sam said. “Every government on the board. Wakanda won’t wait.”

Steve nodded once, sharp.

“Then we find him first.”

He looked to Clara, voice soft but certain.

“You in?”

Her breath caught—but she nodded once, sharp.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “We find him.”

And beneath her skin—beneath the ache and burn—one truth rang clearer than anything the news could show:

She had to know why.

***

The flicker of the old television cut through the dark.

Bucky sat on the narrow bed—elbows on his knees, head bowed, breath thin.

He hadn’t meant to turn it on.

Hadn’t meant to look.

But the voice had caught him—sharp, familiar. Vienna. A bomb.

His gaze dragged up slowly to the screen.

Smoke. Cameras. A man’s voice, breaking beneath grief and rage.

“Whoever killed my father is not going to escape justice.”

Then the footage.

The face. His face.

Frozen in grain and shadow, a frame that landed hard beneath his ribs.

No .

The word didn’t make it past his teeth. His pulse slammed hot in his throat.

“Authorities have identified James Buchanan Barnes as the prime suspect—”

The glass in his hand cracked sharp beneath his grip. He let it fall, breath ragged.

It wasn’t me.

I t wasn’t me.

But the world didn’t care. The world would never care.

The edges of the screen blurred sharp—too bright, too loud.

And beneath it, beneath the burn in his chest, something else coiled tighter than fear.

Her face. Her voice.

You slowed me.

You couldn’t stop me.

The memory burned hot—her hands trembling, her pulse beneath his grip, the way she’d looked at him. Not with hatred. Not with pity.

Something worse. Something deeper.

He shoved a shaking hand through his hair, breath tearing loose.

“Why do I know you.”

He didn’t have the answer. But now the world was hunting him, and she was out there. He was coming, his friend, Steve. And she was out there with him, tracking him. She was coming, too. He could feel it.

The bag was already half-packed.

Bucky moved through the narrow flat with practiced speed—breath tight, movements clean, stripped of anything but necessity.

Military green jacket hit the bed first. Red henley folded fast beneath it. Jeans, boots. Gloves.

The hat was last—dark, low enough to cut his face in half.

He shoved the last knife into his belt, metal cold against his spine.

No hesitation. No room for it.

The television was off now. Had been for hours. The image of his face on the screen still burned behind his eyes.

“Prime suspect.”

His jaw locked.

Not here. Not now.

He had to move.

No more safe places. No more windows. He’d learned that lesson too many times.

He swung the bag onto his shoulder. The door stood open.

But something in him stalled—half a breath, half a beat—before he crossed the frame.

Her face.

Flickered sharp—unbidden—behind his ribs.

Dark hair tangled with smoke. Eyes burning with something he couldn’t name.

“You slowed me.”

His hands clenched hard beneath the gloves.

Why?

Why her? Why that moment?

He didn’t have the answer.

Didn’t want it.

Couldn’t want it.

Not now.

The world was hunting him.

And he had to stay ahead.

Bucky yanked the hat lower, hair shadowing his face. His breath steadied, thin and cold.

Then he stepped into the dark.

And ran.

Chapter Text

Avengers Tower
Manhattan, New York City

The elevator hummed beneath them—soft, too smooth to trust.

Clara stood beside Steve as the floor numbers climbed, coat drawn close, pulse a low thrum beneath her ribs.Sam leaned against the glass behind them, arms folded, gaze sharp beneath the low light.

None of them spoke.

They’d gotten the call less than an hour ago.

Return to Avengers Tower. Mandatory. Immediate.

No details. No time to stall.

But Clara could feel it already. The shape of it beneath her skin—cold, inevitable. Whatever waited for them above would not be a fight they were trained for.

The elevator slowed. A chime echoed once, sharp.

Steve shifted beside her—tension carried in the line of his shoulders. Sam pushed off the glass with a breath, and when the doors slid open, the weight in the air hit like a wall. The others were already there.

Tony stood near the long glass table, arms braced against its edge, gaze hard beneath the weight of something older than the words he would speak. Rhodey lingered at his shoulder. Vision stood farther back—still, unreadable. Wanda sat near the windows, shadows beneath her eyes, fingers twined tight in her lap. Clint stood at the far wall, arms crossed, jaw set. His gaze flicked to Steve first, then to Clara—one nod, sharp and sure. And at the head of the room, flanked by files and two unsmiling aides—Thaddeus Ross.

U.S. Secretary of State now. Suit sharp. Voice sharper.

“Captain Rogers,” he said as they entered. “Agent Grayson. Mr. Wilson. Please, sit.”

Steve didn’t move. Neither did Clara.

Sam gave the smallest breath of a laugh, no humor in it. “We’ll stand.”

Ross’s mouth tightened, but he gestured to the screen behind him.

It flickered to life—images Clara had already seen a hundred times. Sokovia, burning. The Lagos building in ruins. Civilians pulled from rubble. Stark towers aflame beneath Ultron’s war.

“The world is watching,” Ross said, voice clipped. “And they’ve run out of patience.”

He stepped forward, slow and deliberate.

“In light of recent events, the United Nations is preparing to pass the Sokovia Accords.”

A file landed on the table with a sharp sound.

“An international agreement to place the Avengers under oversight. Under control. A UN panel will determine where you go, when you act—and when you do not.”

Silence.

Then—Tony’s voice, low. “It’s overdue.”

Steve’s jaw locked. Clara felt it in the air between them.

Ross looked to him. “You’ve operated without restraint for too long. That ends now.”

Steve’s voice came level—quiet steel beneath each word.

“The safest hands are still our own.”

Ross’s gaze sharpened. “And who decides that, Rogers? You? Her?”

He glanced at Clara then, measuring. Calculating. Clara kept her breath steady, her voice cold.

“I’ve spent my life being controlled, Secretary Ross. I know exactly what it costs. I won’t wear another leash.”

Tony pushed off the table then, voice rough. “And how many have paid for that freedom, Clara? How many more?”

For one beat, the air crackled between them. Steve stepped forward, gaze locked to Tony’s.

“This isn’t about guilt, Tony. Or penance.”

“No,” Tony said softly. “It’s about accountability.”

Behind them, Sam’s voice cut through—firm, grounded.

“You start putting us on someone else’s chain, you better be damn sure who’s holding it.”

Clint nodded once. “I’m with them.”

From the corner—Wanda’s voice, low. “So am I.”

The line was drawn. Quiet. Final.

Ross gathered the files with one sharp motion.

“You have three days,” he said flatly. “All of you need to decide where you stand.”

Ross gathered the files with one sharp motion.

“You’d be wise to think carefully, Rogers—about what happens if you and your allies refuse.”

Tony pushed off the table, gaze cutting to Steve—then to Clara.

“Because if you don’t sign, we’ll stop you. I will.”

The words landed sharp, cutting through the room like a blade. Steve stiffened beside her, a half-step forward—instinct, not thought, and something in Clara snapped. She didn’t think. There was no choice, no restraint left to reach for. Her breath locked, pulse flaring white-hot beneath her ribs, heat blooming sharp and wild in her chest. Time folded. The shift started in her blood—a cold that wasn’t cold, an ache like glass sliding beneath her skin. The hum of her power rose sharply through her veins, burning and freezing at once. Her fingers twitched where they rested against the table, the wood grain beneath them blurring to something thin and distant.

Then, slowly— deliberately —she lifted her hand. The air around her shimmered faint, the first tremor of a storm too far gone to call back. Tony’s movement froze mid-stride, his breath caught half-open in his throat. Ross’s hand stilled above the file, mid-reach.

The room bent around her. Sound fractured. Heat pressed behind her eyes. Clara rose. Her chair scraped back in slow motion—echoing faintly through the frozen breath of the room.

She crossed to Steve’s side, each step driven by the sharp, bladed pulse beneath her skin.

“You do not threaten him.”

Her voice rang low—unnatural in the still air.

She flicked her fingers once—Ross’s outstretched hand twitched, caught in a tightening shimmer of air. His eyes widened, veins straining in his throat as the frozen moment held.

Steve’s voice broke through, tight.

“Clara.”

It reached her—not fully—but enough. She closed her fist. Breath snapped loose in her lungs—sharp, ragged.

And the room rushed back.

Tony staggered a half-step, catching himself hard against the table. Ross yanked his hand back with a curse, skin pale beneath the sleeves of his suit. Clara stood still—breath shaking, power crackling faintly in the air around her.

Steve moved beside her, one hand light on her arm—steady, grounding.

“That’s enough.”

She swallowed hard, and he slid his hand down her arm, fingers closing gently around hers. The gesture was subtle—like a big brother steadying a younger sister, like something inevitable between them, written long before this moment, even here, surrounded by a crossroads of heavy decisions.

Tony stared at her now—not angry. Wary. Measuring.

Ross’s voice came hoarse.

“She’s unstable. And you trust that ?”

Steve’s gaze didn’t waver.

“I trust her more than I trust you.”

Ross’s mouth twisted. He turned.

“You’ll regret this,” he said. “All of you.”

And with that, he strode from the room—Tony following, slower.

The doors whispered closed.

Silence held.

Clint let out a low breath. “Hell of a statement.”

Sam gave a half-grin. “Remind me not to get on your bad side, Grayson.”

But Steve’s gaze was still on her—steady, searching.

“You alright?”

Clara exhaled slow, every muscle trembling now with the aftershock.

“No,” she said. Her voice was low, rough at the edges.

“I need to go.”

Steve’s grip tightened around her fingers—protective, grounding—but she tugged her hand free, gentle but firm.

His gaze caught hers, searching.

“Clara—”

But the weight beneath her skin had tipped too far. The burn in her ribs, the tremor in her pulse—if she stayed here, it would snap.

Sam started to move. “I’ll come with you—”

“No.”

She shook her head hard, backing a step toward the door. The air felt too thin here now, the walls pressing sharp against her breath.

“I need space.”

Before either of them could stop her, she was moving—through the door, down the hall, boots ringing sharp against steel and tile.

No one followed.

Not yet.

She didn’t remember crossing half the tower—only the rush in her veins, the tremor in her hands. When she hit the street, the cold slapped hard against her face—welcome and biting.

And she ran.

Down past the tower, past the press vans still parked half-abandoned outside. Down the long blocks, breath tearing sharp through her chest.

Her feet carried her before thought could catch.

When she stopped, it was near the river—an empty stretch of walkway beneath the dark sweep of the bridge. Wind lashed cold off the water, sharp against her throat.

She braced her hands against the railing, knuckles white.

The ache inside her wouldn’t settle. The power still hummed sharp and high, wild beneath her skin.

She needed to stop it. To hold it.

She reached out—fingers trembling—and caught the nearest thing: a stray leaf tumbling across the concrete.

She froze it mid-air.

Held.

But her breath caught, pulse surging harder. The shimmer fractured; the leaf snapped free, spinning wild into the dark.

Her knees buckled against the rail. She gripped the cold metal hard, throat tight.

"Why do I know you?"

His voice burned through her again. The press of metal against her throat. The blue of his eyes—haunting, terrible, beautiful. She braced her hands against the railing, knuckles white. Her pulse wouldn’t slow. Her power still flickered beneath her skin, hot and thin and wild.

Her knees hit the rail. She gripped it hard, chest tight. Behind her, faint footsteps broke the dark. S he turned sharp, breath caught—ready to freeze the air itself—b ut it was only Steve. Alone. Careful, watching.

He stopped a few steps back, hands loose at his sides.

Clara dragged a breath in hard through her teeth, voice raw when it came.

“I couldn’t stop him.”

Steve’s gaze stayed steady.

She swallowed. The words shook in her throat.

“No one’s ever been able to walk through my time freeze. No one. And he—” Her voice fractured. “He moved through it like it wasn’t even there.”

For a beat, Steve said nothing. Then he let out a long breath, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Then maybe…” he said slowly, the faintest shrug in his shoulders, “…maybe finding him—figuring out why your time disconnects around him—will make things better.”

Clara pressed her lips together, hard. The ache beneath her ribs burned sharper than ever.

But she didn’t argue.

Because somewhere deep beneath the fear and the fractures—she wanted to know too.

Chapter Text

The cold came first.

Not a physical cold—something deeper, threaded through her blood, her breath. A cold that started beneath the bones and spread outward until her skin couldn’t feel the straps binding her to the table.

White light burned through her eyelids, too sharp to shut out.

She wasn’t sure if her eyes were open anymore. The world had collapsed into a single constant pulse of sound: machines hissing, steel groaning under pressure, voices low and clinical in a language she no longer needed to understand to know what they wanted.

The chamber sealed around her, thick walls swallowing every breath. The hum of the hyperbaric system rose in slow increments—first like a low tremor in her chest, then a crushing force against her skull.

Pressure surged.

Her lungs fought for air that thinned too fast, blood roaring in her ears. They would increase it further soon—she knew the sequence now. Every day, a little more. Every day, another threshold crossed.

Something slid into her vein—burning, unfamiliar, faster this time. Her fingers twitched against the leather restraints, nails scraping uselessly against cold metal.

They were changing her again. Breaking her.

Behind the thick glass, the two military doctors watched. One adjusted the settings; the other recorded something on a clipboard. Their faces were impassive, untouched by the agony unfolding feet from where they stood.

The pressure climbed higher. Bones sang with it. Blood vessels stretched, ready to tear.

Somewhere in the blinding edge of her mind, Clara felt her body slipping out of time—not drifting, but snapping. Something inside her curled hard against the suffocating force, pulling tighter and tighter.

The hum of the machines distorted. The sound flattened. Her heartbeat fractured—too fast, too slow, out of sync with the world around her.

And then—she held it.

Instinct, not choice. A reflex deeper than breath.

Her body locked in place, but the air shuddered. Molecules strained against each other. Time thickened in the chamber—too dense, too brittle.

The glass warped. The faint buzz of the lights fractured into silence.

She could feel the two men on the other side of the chamber—not their thoughts, but their weight in the air. Their motion slowed first, then stalled entirely.

And something inside her broke.

The force she’d held—a pressure that had built beyond what the chamber could contain—collapsed inward.

The space where the doctors stood twisted sharply, drawn toward a single point. Their forms distorted in an instant, flesh and bone folding in on themselves, a terrible reversal of motion no body could survive.

Sound rushed back like a scream—but there was no one left to hear it.

The restraints tore loose beneath her, body flung forward against the remnants of the console. Blood streaked her skin—hers, theirs, indistinguishable now.

The air was too still. Time snapped back so hard the chamber groaned beneath the weight of it.

But Clara didn’t move.

Couldn’t.

Her pulse staggered, breath clawing through a throat raw with the violence of what she had done—what she could no longer undo.

And in the shattered quiet of that ruined space, one thought spiraled through her:

She had never meant to survive this.

She had never meant to do this.

She would never be able to do it again.

***

Bucharest
Festival

The streets pressed in tight with sound.

Bucky moved through them with his head low, hat pulled down, breath even.

The crush of bodies gave him cover. No one looked twice at a man moving quiet beneath the noise. Crowds poured shoulder to shoulder across the square—flags bright above their heads, music rising sharp through the air. A festival. He hadn’t known which one. It didn’t matter.

But every blast of music hit like gunfire. Every cheer twisted wrong in his chest.

He didn’t remember where he was supposed to be. Couldn’t place the language buzzing through the speakers. Sometimes, he’d catch a scent in the air—roasted nuts, sweat, diesel—and it would punch through his skull like a blade, drop him back into somewhere else. Somewhere hot. Somewhere loud. Somewhere he wasn’t him.

The colors of the flags blurred. The year. The decade. A firework burst above the rooftops—crackling like shellfire. He flinched hard, shoulders tensing before he could stop it. His breath locked.

Too much.

He ducked his head, moving faster now. Military green jacket drawn close, red henley soaked cold beneath the arms. Hair in his face. Gloves on. His steps were calculated—not hurried, not cautious—just trained.

It was muscle memory. Not clarity.

His mind felt like static, fragments grinding against each other with every block he crossed. Some faces he remembered. Some names he couldn’t forget even if he tried. And one face haunted everything now.

He shook it off. Turned down a side street. He had another apartment. Smaller than the last. Quiet. Unremarkable. It would be enough for now. If he could just get there without falling apart.

That was why he’d stayed.

Not for safety—he didn’t believe in that anymore. But time. A window. A chance to think.

His steps paced steady across the cobblestones. Eyes scanned the crowd, always moving—faces, angles, escape routes. Hands loose at his sides. The weight of the pack pressed light against his shoulder.

No one noticed. He could feel that much. But beneath the calculated pace, something else thrummed sharp beneath his ribs. His pulse wouldn’t settle—not here, not now. Not since the screen. Not since her face.

He clenched his jaw, breath slowing by force. Not now. There wasn’t room for it. But the memory cut through anyway—unbidden. The way she’d looked at him. No fear in it. No pity.

Something worse.

Recognition.

And the way her body had moved—fast, too fast. The way the air had bent around her before she’d locked it down hard. No one else had ever slowed him. Not time, not space, not anyone. But she had. And now —he couldn’t get the feel of it out of his skin.

Bucky’s hands flexed beneath the gloves, breath sharp. Not here. Not now. He ducked beneath a vendor’s canopy—paused a beat. Scanned the street ahead. Festival banners twisted high in the breeze—bright cloth against dark stone. Children laughed near the edges of the square. A man played violin sharp and fast beneath the corner of the old church.

It would be hours before the light faded. He’d move again then. New streets. New cover. He wouldn’t be easy to find. Not even for them. But in the marrow-deep burn beneath his breath, Bucky knew—they were coming.

Steve.

Her.

He could feel it.

And for all the miles and faces between them, some part of him wanted to know why.

***

The streets of Bucharest were thick with festival crowds—vendors shouting, lights strung across narrow alleys, music echoing off crumbling brick. Firecrackers popped in bursts of color overhead, disguising the dull thud of footsteps moving with purpose.

Steve kept his hood low, eyes scanning the crowd. Sam walked just behind him, fingers twitching near his concealed weapon. Clara trailed close, breath tight, the weight of it all burning hot behind her ribs.

They’d caught a glimpse of him hours ago—just enough to know it was real. Bucky Barnes . In the flesh. Alive. Alone. Moving fast through the city like he had somewhere to be, someone to outrun.

Steve wasn’t letting him disappear again.

“There,” Sam murmured, nodding across the street. “Top of the stairs. Red shirt.”

Steve’s gaze followed. And sure enough—shoulders hunched, head down, military jacket pulled tight—Bucky moved up the stairwell of an old apartment block without looking back.

They followed.

But they weren’t alone.

A half block behind them, tucked into shadowed alleys and doorways, moved a different kind of pursuit. Black boots. Radios hissing in German. The quiet precision of a team used to staying out of sight.

They’d been tracking since the train.

Clara paused as they neared the building’s front steps. The air shifted around her—particles slowing ever so slightly, like the static before a storm. She turned, eyes narrowing, but saw only festival lights and the flash of fireworks overhead. Too many people. Too much noise.

She brushed it off and kept moving.

The apartment building was five stories tall and half-rotted—concrete crumbling, power flickering from one busted hallway bulb. Steve led the way. His chest tightened with every step, some instinct he couldn’t shake telling him they were running out of time.

By the time they reached the top floor, Bucky had already gone inside.

Steve reached for the doorknob.

Then a sound—barely audible over the distant music—a scrape of a boot against tile.

Clara’s eyes widened.

“We’re not alone.”

Sam spun, weapon out in a blink. But it was too late. The first soldier burst from the stairwell—rifle raised. Then two more. Then four. Steve shouted, grabbing Clara’s arm and shoving her behind him just as the apartment door blew inward off its hinges.

Splinters flew. The explosion rocked the frame.

And there, in the doorway—stood Bucky.

Frozen. Breath ragged. Eyes wild.

Hair in his face. Metal arm twitching at his side. The fight in him warring like instinct. For one second, no one moved. Then the German soldiers stormed in behind him—riot gear, dark fatigues, armed with stun rifles and electroshock batons. Local Bucharest military had sanctioned the op, but these men were clearly special forces. The kind trained for capture, not questions.

Chaos detonated.

The first stun bolt cracked through the air. Sam dropped like a stone, convulsing once before his body hit the floor. Smoke curled from his jacket.

Steve surged forward, slamming a soldier into the wall with a raw grunt, shield deflecting another bolt. The apartment exploded with movement—tight space, low ceilings, and far too many bodies.

Bucky didn’t hesitate. He turned— on Steve.

Fists flew.

Steve caught the first blow with his shield, but the second—a brutal left hook—sent him stumbling into the counter, knocking plates to the floor. He grunted, blocking the next strike with his forearm, then swept Bucky’s legs, sending him crashing hard onto the floorboards.

“Bucky, stop! It’s me!”

But there was no pause—only muscle memory, born from decades of programming. Bucky fought like a ghost made of knives.

Steve had to meet him blow for blow. Meanwhile, Clara moved so far Sam barely registered her. Two soldiers came at her while he pushed himself up off of the dusty wooden floor, pissed. Clara’s body turned fluid—a dancer’s precision, a soldier’s brutality. Her boot caught the first man’s knee at a sharp angle—crack. His leg buckled, and she spun, pivoting low to avoid a swing of the baton. The other lunged. Clara caught his wrist, twisted clean, and drove her elbow into his throat, dropping him in a gurgled choke.

Then one of them slammed a stun baton across her back.

She screamed—short and sharp—but whirled, teeth gritted, and ripped the baton free, jamming it up under his ribs with his own momentum. He jolted—twitched—and fell, smoke curling from his armor.

It was dirty. Sharp. Efficient.

She fought low, close, like someone who’d had to survive without a weapon before. Every strike was aimed to incapacitate, not to kill—but she didn’t hold back.

Except—on him .

She turned—and saw Bucky pin Steve to the floor.

His metal arm raised, ready to strike—

“James!” she shouted.

It was like a snap.

He paused.

Just long enough for Steve to shove up and slam his shield into Bucky’s chest. The blow sent him skidding across the floor, crashing into the coffee table.

Clara’s pulse thundered. Her powers flared at the edge of her vision—reality trembling faintly, snowglobe-fractured—but she forced it down.

Not around him. She couldn’t trust herself around him.

Another soldier lunged at her from behind.

She twisted—caught him in the neck with the edge of her forearm, slammed him back into the open door frame. His rifle clattered to the floor. Steve wiped blood from his lip, breath harsh. 

“They’re not going to stop.”

Bucky stood slowly, staggering once, eyes clearing slightly—Recognition just beginning to flicker behind the haze.

“ You …” he muttered toward Clara.

Clara backed into the center of the room. Her chest heaved. Her hands trembled. And then the lights flickered overhead— hard . The hallway went quiet. The soldiers paused. Guns raised. Radios chirping static. The sirens outside pitched higher—closer.

The apartment was a wreck.

Shattered glass crunched beneath boots. Lights flickered overhead, casting thin shadows across the wreckage. The air was thick with smoke and warning sirens far below. Outside, Bucharest’s festival had turned to chaos—sirens wailing, people screaming, helicopters cutting lines across the sky.

Inside, the tension was razor-sharp.

Bucky stood still, hands raised in surrender. His hat was gone, hair hanging in his face, red henley torn at the shoulder. Across the room, Clara was being dragged to her knees—one soldier yanking her arms behind her back, the other snapping a thick, metallic cuff onto her wrist.

She gasped. Electricity surged through her body with a sharp, punishing crackle.

“Don’t touch her!” Steve shouted, lunging forward.

He didn’t make it far. A baton cracked against his skull, sending him sprawling sideways into the wall with a grunt. Blood smeared where he fell.

“Steve!” Clara’s voice came out raw, instinctive—panic laced through every syllable.

The soldier holding her responded by slamming her face-first into the floor. The second cuff locked around her other wrist, both bands humming with a brutal current.

Her limbs jerked once, convulsing under the charge.

Sam’s shoulders tensed as he fought his own restraints, wrists bound behind him. “Hey! Get off of her!”

One soldier smirked, nudging Clara with the toe of his boot, flipping her over like she was nothing but a body to check for weapons. His hand dragged slowly down the curve of her hip. Too slow. Too deliberate.

“ Stop it ,” Steve growled from where he struggled to sit up. His vision was blurred, but he could see Clara—shaking, lip bloodied, a cut spilling red from her temple. She blinked dazedly up at the ceiling, limbs spasming under the voltage.

Bucky saw it all and something in him fractured. The cuffs still bound his wrists. The collar dug into his neck. But the second he saw Clara scream—when the soldier slapped her clean across the face—he stopped thinking. The metal arm moved before the rest of him did.

With a guttural sound that was somewhere between a breath and a growl, Bucky ripped through the cuffs, the chain clattering to the floor like a broken bone. His arm caught the first soldier by the throat, lifting him clean off the ground and slamming him into the wall leaving a large body shaped dent in the fold wood.

The second soldier went for his weapon but he was entirely too slow for the winter soldier. Bucky disarmed him, crushed the barrel of the gun flat with one fist, and then threw him across the room into the shelving unit. It collapsed on top of him in a crash of splinters and metal.

“Do NOT hurt him!” Clara shouted at the soldiers, barely conscious but still trying to rise—blood trickling from her split lip. Her voice was shredded, raw with fear and something else—it was like a memory she couldn’t shake.

Everything stilled.

Steve pushed to his knees, blood on his temple, finally tearing free of the cuff with Sam’s help.

“Bucky—” he rasped. “Stand down.”

But Bucky was already there—kneeling in front of Clara, hand hovering just above her shoulder. She was trembling violently, her breath shallow and broken. The cuff still hummed on her wrist, white sparks trailing her skin.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said, his voice low, hoarse. 

She flinched.

He didn’t move closer, just stayed at eye level, hands up in surrender—soft, careful.

Steve stumbled closer, nodding at Sam, who reached forward and unclipped the shock cuffs from Clara’s wrists. They clattered to the ground, sparking once before going dead.

Clara sagged.

Her hands curled against her chest, fingernails bitten deep into her palms. Her eyes locked on Bucky’s—still dilated, unfocused—but seeing him.

“You remember me?” she whispered.

Bucky didn’t answer right away. He just looked at her—drawn, breathless, eyes wide like he’d been hit with something sharp.

“I don’t know,” he said, voice wrecked. “But I couldn’t let them hurt you.”

Sam helped Steve upright, wincing as they took in the room—soldiers moaning, unconscious, weapons scattered.

Clara still hadn’t moved.

But slowly—one breath at a time—her body stopped shaking. Her bloodied lip trembled. Her voice barely held.

“He did it again,” she whispered. 

Steve froze. His gaze cut from Clara to Bucky, then back again.

“Then maybe,” Steve said quietly, “he’s the answer to why your time fractures. Maybe it’s not a coincidence. Maybe none of this is.”

Clara didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Bucky sat back on his heels, still watching her, as if some piece of him was trying to remember where he’d seen her before, and for the first time since the hunt for him began—since they’d crossed continents and watched the world crumble—Clara looked at him and didn’t see a ghost or a monster.

She saw a man trying to come back.

And he had chosen her first.

Chapter Text

The apartment was quiet again—but not in any comforting way. This kind of quiet was the kind that lingers after violence. The kind that pulses with what’s coming next.

Sam wiped blood off his temple with the back of his hand, tossing the limp cuffs onto the ground. Steve crouched near the shattered window, scanning the alley below.

“They’re going to call it in,” Sam said. “That whole damn SWAT team’s not gonna stay down forever. And if they’re here, Stark’s gonna be next.”

“We have to move,” Steve agreed, eyes narrowing. “Now.”

Bucky hadn’t moved from Clara’s side. She sat against the far wall, her knees drawn up, blood drying on her lip and cheek. The light above her flickered.

She was staring.

Not at them. Not at the wreckage.

At him.

Not Bucky—the soldier. The man who had slammed her into the floor. The one who’d cuffed her wrists, gripped her too tight. Touched her. His unconscious body was sprawled near the kitchenette, mouth slack, one leg twisted awkwardly.

And something in Clara was unraveling.

Her breathing stuttered—short, shallow bursts. Her fingers trembled, twitching against her knees. Her eyes didn’t blink. Didn’t soften. Didn’t move.

Bucky saw it.

“Clara,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

She didn’t respond.

Steve stood, following Sam toward the door. “Bucky, you said you knew a place—?”

He turned his head slightly, nodding once. “Yeah. About six blocks. Narrow roof access, but—”

But he didn’t finish the sentence.

Because the air shifted like something snapping beneath the surface of it. The dust stopped floating. The light bulb overhead froze mid-flicker. Steve and Sam stopped moving—mid-stride, their bodies caught in motion like statues suspended in water. Steve’s mouth was still slightly open. Sam’s hand hovered just above the door frame.

The room had gone still. Too still. Everything was frozen in place. Everything except Bucky. 

His eyes locked on Clara.

She was shaking now. Not violently, but with the kind of tremble that came from somewhere too deep to name. Her fists were clenched at her sides, nails biting into her palms. Her breath came in shallow gasps, chest rising too fast.

And around her—time warped.

The air around her shimmered like heat off pavement. A faint distortion, like something was cracking at the edges of reality.

“ No ,” she whispered.

She wasn’t speaking to Bucky.

“I told them— no — please —”

Still not to him.

Bucky stepped closer, slow, deliberate. He didn’t want to trigger anything else. Not when it looked like the whole world was hanging on the edge of her pain.

“Clara, look at me dammit. ”

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t see him.

“They said it wasn’t gonna hurt,” she whispered, voice distant, empty. “Then they took my clothes. They tied me down. And I couldn’t move.”

Her body jerked once.

And then the soldier’s body—the one she’d been staring at—began to twitch. Not with life. With pressure. As if the time around him was cracking—compressing, folding inward.

Bucky’s eyes widened. “Clara.”

She gasped, clutching her arms now. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t mean to—”

“Clara, listen to me,” Bucky said, crouching down. “This guy—he’s nothing . He’s not whoever hurt you.”

“I couldn’t stop them,” she whispered. “Not that time.”

Bucky glanced at the soldier, his face was reddening, his breath coming in tight gasps, his body curling inward—it looked like air and time around him were rapidly compressing inward.

Clara shook her head violently. “ No—no —”

But then the soldier’s nose started to bleed.

The distortion in the air had become a physical thing now, vibrating like glass about to shatter. The pressure—Bucky could feel it pushing at his skull, at his ribs.

She was collapsing time on him .

“Clara,” Bucky said, his voice cutting sharper now, urgent. “You don’t want this.”

Tears streaked her cheeks.

Her mouth opened—choking on something. Words that wouldn’t come. And then—

He touched her.

Just his hand—slow, steady—fingertips against hers.

And the whole room shuddered once, violently—

—then time released.

The air sucked inward.

Steve stumbled forward with a grunt. Sam staggered back against the wall. The lights flickered again—normal now. The dust resumed floating.

And the soldier collapsed fully to the ground.

Unmoving.

Not dead. But broken.

Bucky didn’t let go of her hand.

Clara blinked rapidly, eyes wide with confusion, terror still written across every line of her face. She looked around like she’d just surfaced from somewhere deep and cold. Steve glanced around noticing the shift in pressure and swore under his breath as he hurried over to Clara. Bucky shook his head like he was confused and Steve crouched beside her, eyes worried. 

“Clara—what happened?”

She shook her head. “I—I didn’t mean—he just—the way he touched me—” Her voice caught. Her chest heaved. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Bucky said. “You’re not the one who should be sorry.”

And Clara, still trembling, finally looked at him.

Not the Soldier.

Him .

For the first time, she fully and completed realized something that should’ve scared her—should’ve rattled her to the core. He was the only one who moved when everything else stopped. Everything else. Yes, he'd done so before, been suspended in her time freezing with her, but when she had the soldier's life in her hands, time's pressure building, not only did she feel everyone else frozen, she felt everything else frozen, too.

Clara dropped her head back against the wall and Steve stood up as the sound of sirens rang in the distance. Sam pulled his phone from pocket. Bucky looked down at Clara’s fingers still sitting in his hand, his fingers wrapped around hers. He stood up and pulled her up with him. They said nothing. What was there to say? She didn’t want to talk and he had no idea what to ask. 

“Thanks,” she said and pulled her hand back quickly. 

Bucky nodded and turned back to Steve who was busy scrolling through Apple maps on his phone. Bucky turned back toward Clara, but she was gone around the corner heading toward the broken door to the hallway.  Clara was mechanical, checking her pack, fingers trembling slightly as she zipped it closed. Her breathing was shallow, measured too carefully. She blinked once, then again.

And then the blood came.

First from her nose—a thin line down her upper lip.

Then, warm and wet at the edge of her ear.

“Shit,” she muttered, wiping at it fast with the back of her hand. Her voice cracked, sharp and low, edged in fury—mostly at herself.

Steve turned from the window just in time to see it.

“Clara—” He crossed the room in two strides, reaching gently for her elbow. “Let me—”

But the second his hand touched her arm, she jerked away.

Hard.

A sharp, guttural flinch like a feral animal being cornered. Her eyes went wide, all fight and fear and fury wound tight beneath her skin.

“Don’t—” she snapped.

Then instantly froze.

“I—sorry,” she breathed. “Steve, I didn’t mean—”

His hand hovered midair, then slowly lowered. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I shouldn’t have touched you.”

Clara nodded once—too fast, too tight—and turned away before her face could betray anything more. From her bag, she pulled a wrinkled handkerchief and pressed it against her ear, then wiped the blood from her upper lip.

Sam was already working silently behind them, cuffing the unconscious soldiers one by one with their own restraints. Every move precise, efficient, controlled.

“We need to go,” Clara said, voice clipped now. Back in command mode. “I’ll figure a way out.”

She didn’t wait for a response—just stepped over the debris and out into the hallway, boots crunching glass, the curve of her shoulders tight with effort.

Steve stood there a second longer, staring after her.

Then turned to Bucky.

They just looked at each other.

No words.

Just the wreckage around them, the blood on their knuckles, the weight of everything that had just gone down—and the woman who had cracked time itself because someone touched her wrong.

Steve swallowed hard, then stepped forward and pulled Bucky into a hug. Not a quick one. Not the kind they used to give each other before deployments or after missions. T his was different. This was bone-deep.

Steve wrapped both arms around his friend and held him tight, tighter than maybe he ever had. Bucky didn’t resist. He let his head drop into Steve’s shoulder, eyes shut, the tension in his body finally caving for a breath.

And Steve could feel it—every fracture in him. Not just the old ones but t he new ones, too. Bucky knew who he was. That much was clear. But everything else—the timeline, the years lost, the mess with Clara—it was all still bleeding in him somewhere.

“She okay?” Bucky asked finally, voice low, muffled.

Steve let out a long breath. “I don’t know.”

“She looked like she wanted to kill him,” Bucky said.

“She might’ve.”

“She froze time, like fucking everything.”

“I know.”

Silence stretched again—heavy and uncertain.

Bucky pulled back, eyes searching Steve’s face. “And I wasn’t frozen.”

Steve nodded slowly. “I noticed.”

They stood there for a beat longer. The apartment was starting to hum with movement again—Sam finishing the restraints, Clara’s footsteps faint down the hall.

Steve looked toward the door, jaw tightening.

“Let’s get out of here.”

And Bucky, blood still drying beneath his gloves, followed him into the aftermath.

***

Somewhere else

The cabin sat low in the trees, tucked back off an old logging road somewhere near the Carpathians. Cold air curled against the eaves, and a dusting of snow softened the pine-dark silence outside. It was quiet in the way only remote places could be—no traffic, no lights, no clocks. Just the creak of wood, the sting of frost, and the brittle hush of exhaustion.

Inside, the heat was just starting to kick. The old fireplace spat and hissed where Steve crouched, coaxing the flames higher. Sam leaned near the front door, arms crossed, one eye on the snowfall thickening beyond the windows.

Clara sat at the small kitchen table, burner phone pressed to her ear. Her voice was low, sharp with tension.

“No. No cells, Clint, not even one. That’s how they’re tracking him.” A pause. “We’ll lay low here tonight. But you need to stall Stark. I don’t care how. Tell him I’ve lost it if you have to—he’ll believe you.” Another pause. " Yeah. Thanks. Me too.”

She clicked the burner shut and dropped it on the table, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Her hand came away red-streaked from earlier, but she didn’t flinch.

Across the room, Bucky was seated against the wall—hood up, gloves on, red henley clinging to a chest still rising too fast. His hair hung in his face, damp from sweat and snow, and his eyes tracked Clara with a quiet intensity that hadn’t faded since the apartment.

He hadn’t said much—not since.

She stood abruptly, pacing to the counter and grabbing a chipped mug. The kettle hadn’t even boiled yet. She didn’t care.

“You okay?” Sam asked softly, voice just enough to carry.

“I’m fine.” Clara said, voice clipped.

Steve straightened, wiping his hands on his jeans. “We’ve got time to figure out our next step. Clint says there’s a backchannel in Prague.”

"You sure youj're good?" Steve asked this time.

“I said I’m fine,” Clara repeated. But her knuckles were white around the edge of the counter.

She didn’t look at Bucky. Not yet.

Sam shot Steve a look, mouthing, Don’t push it.

The kettle screamed. Clara turned the burner off without a word and poured. It wasn’t until she set the mug down that Bucky finally moved. He shifted forward, the floor creaking faint beneath his boots.

“Clara.”

She froze.

The sound of her name in his voice—it wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even memory. Just… recognition. Deep and gravel-rough, like it had lived somewhere in his chest even when nothing else had. Like he could see the yarn threads of her emotions unraveling in front of them. Years of pent up anger, resentment towards the world, and trauma, all bubbling to the surface.

Clara turned slowly.

Her arms stayed crossed. Shoulders square. Chin up like she was about to be punched.

“You remember me.”

Bucky looked at her for a long time. His jaw ticked once.

“I remember hurting you.”

Her expression flickered—then steeled. “That’s not what I asked.”

Silence settled, thick as smoke.

Then, low: “Yeah. I remember you.”

He said it like it hurt. Like the shape of her name tasted like iron and blood.

Clara exhaled through her nose. “Good.”

It wasn’t forgiveness. But it was a start.

Sam cleared his throat, moving toward the table with his usual ease. “Well, this just got real intense real fast. Anyone else want coffee? No? Just me? Cool.”

Clara didn’t laugh, but her jaw unclenched a fraction.

Bucky leaned back, letting his head rest against the wall. He watched her without blinking.

“You froze time.”

She didn’t answer.

He tilted his head slightly. “You… stopped everything. Except me.”

Clara finally looked at him. “That’s never happened before.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “Could be both.”

He smirked faintly. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Story of my life.”

Steve sat down across from her, elbows on the table. “We don’t have answers yet. But we’re going to figure it out.”

Clara’s gaze didn’t leave Bucky. “Did they do this to you, too? In the lab?”

Bucky’s smirk faded.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember a lot of it. Just… flashes.”

“Same.”

Their eyes met again. Something unspoken moved between them—burned and broken and unfinished.

Sam walked over with a blanket and tossed it toward Bucky. “Here. Don’t die of hypothermia just yet, Tin Man.”

Bucky caught it with one hand, arching a brow. “Did you just throw me a blanket?”

“You’re sulking in a corner like a haunted raccoon. Yes, I threw you a blanket.”

Steve snorted. Clara nearly smiled.

Bucky adjusted the blanket around his shoulders like it was a military jacket, straightening his spine and scowling for effect.

“Better?” Sam asked, amused.

“No,” Bucky muttered. “But warmer.”

Steve stood, rubbing the back of his neck. “We should take shifts. Someone keeps watch tonight.”

“I’ll go first,” Clara said immediately.

Steve raised a brow. “You sure?”

“I’m not sleeping anyway.”

He nodded. “Alright.”

She moved to the window, mug in hand, eyes scanning the tree line.

Bucky watched her for a beat longer before turning his gaze to the fire, jaw tight. He didn’t say it out loud—but the words burned anyway:

She knows me. And I remember her. And maybe that’s more dangerous than anything else.

***

The cabin was quiet.

Not silent—never that—but soft in the way places are when they’re full of sleeping people and too many memories. The fire had dwindled to low embers, pulsing dull red in the hearth. Sam was slumped across the small couch, arms crossed, head tilted awkwardly against the armrest. Steve had stretched out on a pile of blankets on the floor, one arm over his chest, the other resting just inches from the shield propped behind the door. He didn’t snore, but his breathing was deep, steady—finally at ease for once.

Clara stood just outside the cabin’s narrow front porch, barely past the threshold. The snow was falling. Not thickly. Not in a storm. But light and constant—flakes drifting down in slow spirals, soft as whispers. Her breath showed faint in the cold, curling white through the air, a nd then, with a flick of her hand, time fractured.

Not loud. Not violent. Just—still. The snow stopped. Each flake froze midair. Suspended. Hanging like stars caught between beats. Clara exhaled shakily, her eyes tracking the suspended particles—hundreds of them—each one a thread of focus she had to hold. Her hands shook faintly. Her head pounded. There was a slow bleed behind her right eye that always started when she held time for too long.

This was already too long.

But still—she kept the snow frozen.

She needed to feel like she could do this. Like she could control it. Like it was hers and not some ruinous reaction to pain.

Another second.

Another—

Her breath caught sharply. The snow fell all at once, a soft rush of sound like wind breaking loose from a jar. It drifted past her shoulders, against her coat. She leaned forward and pressed both palms against the porch railing, grounding herself.

She didn’t hear the footsteps until the wood creaked behind her.

“You know, most people would just go for a walk when they can’t sleep,” Bucky said quietly.

Clara didn’t look back. “Didn’t ask for company.”

“Yeah, well,” he muttered, “you’re getting it anyway.”

He stood in the doorway for a second, jacket pulled tight, metal hand gripping something at his side. The snow swirled across the porch, and Bucky flinched visibly. He hated the cold—every inch of him said so. His breath came in short bursts, teeth clenched, eyes narrowed.

Clara’s nose started bleeding again. It wasn’t much. Just a slow line, hot against the cold air. She swiped it with the sleeve of her coat like she’d done it a thousand times before.

Which she had. But this time—Bucky was watching.

He stepped forward and held out a folded towel from the kitchen. “Jesus. Take it.”

She glanced sideways. Didn’t move. “I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true.”

“No, it’s not.”

Clara still didn’t take the towel.

Bucky stared at her, then shook his head and muttered, “Stubborn.”

“Yeah.” 

He didn’t leave. Just stepped beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost brushed. Not quite. His arm was rigid at his side, towel still in hand.

“You know,” he said after a beat, voice lower now, “I used to think snow was peaceful. Before.”

Clara’s eyes flicked toward him. “Before what?”

His jaw clenched. “Before the war. Before Siberia. Before I started waking up in it with blood on my hands and no idea whose it was. Before the constant cryofreezing.”

The words hung heavy. But she didn’t flinch.

Instead, she looked back out at the dark, where the snowfall was thickening just a little more now—flakes catching in the cabin’s porch light.

“I like the cold,” she said softly. “It makes me feel clean.”

Bucky turned to her, frowning.

“It burns, yeah,” she continued. “Takes my breath away sometimes. But it’s honest. It doesn’t ask questions or demand explanations. It just is.”

He looked at her, really looked at her—at the dark sweep of her lashes, the pale shimmer of snow on her coat, the blood she still hadn’t wiped clean. For a long moment, they stood in silence, the only sound the slow drift of wind and the creak of old wood beneath their feet.

Then, finally, she reached for the towel. Their hands brushed. Brief. Cold fingers to warm metal. Neither of them moved. Bucky let his hand fall, shoving the towel that she hand't taken, back into his pocket.

“You could’ve frozen me too,” he said, tone unreadable. “Back in the apartment. When you stopped time.”

“I couldn’t.”

His eyes flicked to her face. “You mean you didn’t.”

“No,” she said softly. “I mean I couldn’t . I tried. You moved anyway.”

Bucky didn’t speak for a moment. Then he looked out over the railing, watching the snow spiral and catch against the edge of the trees.

“You and me,” he said, voice low. “We’re like walking trauma cases.”

Clara huffed, just barely. “Not wrong.”

“Should probably keep our distance.”

Her eyes cut sideways. “Is that what you want?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Just stared at the snow.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. Quiet. Honest.

Instead of answering, she exhaled slow, raising both hands—palms outward.

The world went still.

He didn’t see it happen. He felt it. A ripple in the air, like a drop in pressure, like everything else had stopped breathing for a second. And then the snowflakes froze mid-air.

Dozens. No —hundreds. All across the porch and field, every flake suspended like a glass bead strung in time. Some hovered inches from his face. He took a step back, startled.

“Jesus…”

Clara motioned for him. “Walk through it.”

He hesitated. His whole body bristled, caught between awe and muscle memory—between soldier instinct and the surreal.

“You sure?”

Clara gave a tiny nod. “Just go slow...”

Bucky stepped forward.

The flakes didn’t move. Not a single one. The air was quiet—too quiet, like he’d walked into a photograph. He held out his gloved hand, watching the snow hang motionless near his knuckles.

“Holy shit…” he muttered.

Behind him, he heard her breath stutter.

He turned in time to see her stagger slightly, her knees bending under her weight. “Clara—”

He lunged.

She collapsed toward the ground, but he was faster—arms catching her before she hit the porch. Her palms landed flat against his chest, fingers splayed and trembling. Her weight was barely anything, but her body was burning cold in his arms, shivering from head to toe.

“Dammit,” he muttered, steadying her. “Why do you keep doing this to yourself?”

“It just happens.”

Blood dripped again from her nose.

Before she could wipe it on her sleeve—again—he reached into his pocket and pulled out the towel. He swiped it gently beneath her nose, careful, precise.

Her eyelids fluttered.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

And then she passed out, her entire body limp in his arms.

“Shit—”

Bucky swore under his breath, shifting to get a better grip. He swept her up into his arms, bracing one arm beneath her knees, the other around her back. She barely stirred. The porch creaked as he pushed open the cabin door with his shoulder. Inside, the fire was low but still burning. Sam snored softly on the couch. Steve had turned over in his sleep but didn’t wake.

Bucky hesitated—thought about calling out to him.

But then he looked down at her again. Her lashes rested like ash against her cheekbones. Her skin was pale, her breathing uneven. She needed rest—not questions.

He kept moving.

The only bedroom was small, unused, dusty around the corners. Still, the mattress was made—thin comforter, a few folded blankets. He eased the door open with his boot and stepped inside, lowering Clara slowly, carefully onto the bed.

She didn’t wake.

He crouched beside her, adjusting her coat and brushing a piece of hair from her cheek with the edge of the towel. Her lips were parted slightly, and every now and then, her fingers twitched like they were holding something invisible.

He sat back, crouching on the floor beside the bed, his jaw tight.

She was powerful. That much was obvious. But this—this wasn’t just strength. This was something else. She’d frozen the world and nearly wrecked herself doing it. She pushed past pain like she didn’t care if it tore her apart.

That wasn’t strength. That was damage.

Bucky knew the difference.

And somehow, he couldn’t stop watching her—like maybe if he stared long enough, he’d remember why her face haunted every sketch on that old, dusty, broken apartment floor.

“Who are you?” he muttered.

Clara didn’t move. But her fingers curled faintly, like they’d heard him.

He didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do with someone like her. But for now, he reached up, tugged the edge of the blanket over her, and sat there on the floor in silence—listening to the sound of her breathing settle as snow tapped quietly against the window.

Chapter Text

The bedroom was still dark when Clara blinked awake.

The cold was the first thing she noticed—not biting, but deep. Beneath the covers, her hands had curled close to her chest, and her feet were tangled in the thin sheet. Her body ached. Not in one place, not even in an obvious way—just the ache of overextension, of trying to outrun something that didn’t have a name.

Her nose was dry now. Her head still throbbed behind her eyes.

But she wasn’t alone.

At first, she thought she was imagining it—but then she turned her head slowly and saw him.

Bucky .

He was asleep. Or as close to asleep as someone like him probably got. Slumped in the old wooden chair beside the bed, his arms crossed, chin tucked low. The blanket Sam had thrown earlier was wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak, and his gloved hand rested—still, unguarded—on the edge of the mattress.

He looked… young, somehow. Even under the exhaustion, the scars, the muscle. Something in the lines of his mouth. Something in the tilt of his head.

Clara stared at him for a moment, unsure what to feel.

Not fear.

That surprised her most.

She sat up slowly, careful not to shift the mattress too much. But his eyes opened anyway.

Sharp. Instinctive. Trained.

Clara froze.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

He sat up straighter, glancing at her nose, then her eyes. “You passed out on the porch.”

“I figured.”

“You bled a lot.”

“I figured that too.”

He hesitated. “Kind of alarming.”

That startled her. Not the words—but the way he said them. Like she mattered. Like he hadn’t meant for that truth to slip out.

She looked down. “I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t push. Didn’t tell her to rest, or to stop using her powers, or to be careful.

He just said, “You want tea?”

She blinked again.

And then—quietly, unexpectedly—nodded.

***

The kitchen was warmer by morning. Not by much, but enough that steam curled from their mugs without vanishing instantly. Sam sat near the window with a map spread out in front of him. Steve leaned over his shoulder, tapping something out on the burner phone.

Bucky handed Clara a mug.

“Peppermint,” he said.

She raised a brow.

He shrugged. “Steve said it helps with headaches.”

Across the room, Steve didn’t even look up. “It does.”

“Thanks,” Clara said, voice quiet.

She sipped slowly, letting the warmth settle in her chest. She hadn’t realized how cold her insides still felt.

“We’ve got two options,” Sam said finally. “Both suck.”

“Only two?” Bucky muttered.

Clara moved closer to the table. “Lay it out.”

Sam pointed. “Option one: we cut east, hit the border, and pray Clint can work some magic with old contacts to get us into Slovakia. It’s risky, but it keeps us off grid.”

“And option two?” Steve asked.

“Option two, we go to ground here. Hide in the Carpathians longer. Hope the heat dies down.”

“It won’t,” Clara said flatly.

Sam nodded. “Didn’t think so.”

Steve rubbed a hand over his face. “Slovakia it is.”

“We’ll need gear. Supplies. Untraceable transport.”

Bucky looked up. “I might know someone.”

Clara met his gaze. “Yeah?”

“Black market contact. Used to run safe routes across the borders back when I was—when I—I’ll make contact.”

“You trust him?” Steve asked. “At all?”

“No,” Bucky said. “But that’s doesn’t matter.”

Steve nodded. “It’s a start.”

And somehow, for a moment, they were just four people planning a mission again. Like it was old times. Like they weren’t all carrying fractures in their bones.

Clara leaned her hip against the table, staring at the route Sam had traced.

“Get what you need today,” she said. “We leave tonight.”

***

The snow had started again by late afternoon.

Steve had gone to meet Bucky’s contact. Sam was out scouting a nearby road for signs of surveillance. Clara sat on the edge of the porch, a thick scarf around her neck, a blanket pulled tight around her shoulders. The mug in her hands was empty now, but the weight of it helped her stay grounded.

Bucky sat beside her.

Not close. Not far.

Just… beside her.

Neither of them spoke for a long time.

Clara blinked. Her hands tightened around the mug. “You don’t sleep?”

Bucky shook his head once. “No.”

She studied him for a moment, his silhouette dim in the firelight, the way the shadows sharpened the lines of his face. “Because…?”

His jaw flexed. “Because of what I see. What I’ve done.”

She let that settle. “What do you see?”

A long silence.

Then: “Horrors.”

It wasn’t the word itself—it was the way he said it. Flat. Final. Like there was nothing else to add.

Clara nodded, quiet. “Yeah.”

She looked down at the tea in her mug. It had gone cold, but she didn’t move.

“I used to want to be a teacher,” she said.

Bucky’s brow twitched. He hadn’t expected that.

She gave a faint smile, one corner of her mouth barely lifting. “It sounds quaint now. Ridiculous, even. But it was all I ever wanted, growing up. Books, chalk dust, quiet afternoons with windows open. I thought it’d be enough.”

He didn’t speak.

“I ended up a nurse instead. I was good at it. Or maybe just fast. The war needed women who could keep their hands steady.”

Bucky’s gaze hadn’t shifted. Still on her. Not pushing. Just… there.

Clara inhaled slowly. “I was stationed in the Pacific when our convoy was intercepted. I don’t remember much about how they took us. Just heat. Smoke. Gunshots. And then quiet.”

She set the mug down on the porch rail, hands curling around her elbows now instead. Her voice didn’t shake—but it was lower now, cracked open.

“At first, they treated me gently. Watered plants near my bed. Let me rest. Asked if I was warm enough. I remember thinking it was strange—how kind they were. Even respectful.”

Bucky’s shoulders straightened.

“I know now why they did it,” Clara went on. “They were grooming me. Lulling me into trust so it would hurt more when they tore it away.”

The snowlight cast pale ripples across her face.

“I was transferred to a compound near Harbin. Cold country. Empty but for a few others. They called it a medical site. It wasn’t.”

Her knuckles had gone white. Bucky’s breath caught. Not a full gasp. Just a shift. The way a man who’s been in war recognizes the word that shouldn’t be spoken out loud.

“They studied frostbite,” Clara said, too calmly. “Burn trauma. Vivisection. Bacteriological weapons. I was… useful. I had medical knowledge. I mean I was a nurse.”

Silence.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t flinch. She just looked out at the trees like she could still see the perimeter fences between the pine.

“I learned how to lie still while they cut into me. How to keep my eyes open so they wouldn’t think I’d passed out. They liked it when we stayed awake. Said it made the data cleaner.”

Bucky was still. Entirely still.

Clara glanced at him.

“I’m not really a nurse anymore,” she said, voice quieter now. “And I never became a teacher.”

He looked at her, shadows etched hard across his features.

“I don’t know what I am,” she finished.

“Neither do I,” Bucky said. Rough. Barely above a whisper.

They sat in it for a long time—this place between past and present, pain and power. The snow fell around them like ash, soft and soundless.

“Why do you think you can move in my freezes?” she asked eventually, voice brittle as glass.

He shrugged, expression unreadable. “No idea.”

“Does it mean something?”

His eyes cut toward the dark line of the woods, jaw tightening.

“I think everything means something,” he said finally. “Doesn’t mean we’ll ever understand it.”

Clara didn’t answer. Couldn’t, maybe. But her gaze lingered on him a second longer than she meant it to. And for the first time, neither of them looked away.

***

That night, Clara couldn’t sleep.

The tension in her skull was too tight. The frostbite of old memories bit at the corners of her mind. Even wrapped in her blanket, even knowing Sam was on watch, she couldn’t let go. So she stood. Moved toward the window.

The fire had died low again. Bucky was sitting up on the couch—awake. Always awake. Bucky stood slowly, joints stiff, and walked toward her. Outside, the snow was falling again. Without thinking—without warning—Clara reached her hand out and stopped it freezing flakes midair. Just for a second. But Bucky watched it happen. He didn’t flinch.

“Can I touch it?” he asked.

Clara hesitated. Then nodded.

He stepped forward and reached slowly into the frozen air—fingers grazing a dust particle suspended like crystal.

He turned to her, brows raised. “You know… this is the first time I’ve seen something beautiful in years.”

Clara’s throat tightened.

“I’m not good at this,” he said. “The whole… people thing. Feeling things.”

They stood in silence.

And then Bucky did something he hadn’t done in seventy years.

He reached for her hand.

She let him.

Not tightly.

Not like a promise.

But just enough that both of them felt it.

The snow started again, soft and slow.

And for the first time, the cold didn’t feel so sharp.

***

The train rumbled through the dark. Snow flurried against the windows in soft waves, blurring the horizon into a pale smear of nothing. The rhythm of the rails—steady, metallic—echoed faintly through the cabins, a hum that never stopped. Outside, it was cold and endless.

Inside: quiet.

In one of the forward cabins, Bucky sat alone, hunched over a small laptop. The screen cast a pale blue glow over his face. His fingers hovered above the keys, motionless, as if he wasn’t ready to type the next word.

He’d already entered it once. He knew about it all. He knew it as himself, from before the war, had heard the stories, and he knew it as the winter soldier.

Unit 731.

He didn’t blink as the images loaded. He clicked through the grainy black-and-white photographs—barracks, operating tables, frostbite experiments. Diagrams. Names he didn’t recognize. Testimony he couldn’t read without feeling it in his ribs.

His eyes narrowed. One photo in particular caught his attention—an overhead shot of the Harbin facility. Cold, brutal. Identical to the way Clara had described it. His hand curled slowly into a fist beside the touchpad.

Footsteps creaked outside. A knock.

Then the door slid open.

Steve stepped inside with a beer in one hand and a tired expression on his face. “You’re gonna burn holes in that thing if you keep staring like that.”

Bucky didn’t answer. Steve handed over the bottle anyway. Cold. Sweating in the heat of the cabin. He pulled the other chair out from under the little fold-down desk and sank into it with a low grunt. They sat like that for a moment—just the two of them, the train thrumming beneath their feet, the laptop screen flickering silently.

“Not gonna get drunk,” Bucky said finally, nodding toward the beer.

“No,” Steve said. “But it’s the thought that counts.”

Bucky didn’t smile. Just leaned back in the chair and took a sip anyway. The bitterness filled his mouth. Empty satisfaction. He closed the laptop slowly.

“Clara okay?” he asked, quiet.

Steve hesitated. “You know I can’t answer that.”

Bucky turned his head. “I’m not asking you to tell her secrets. Just asking if she’s okay.”

“She’s alive,” Steve said, his voice flat. “She’s breathing. That’s what I’ve got.”

Bucky didn’t reply right away.

“She was shaking,” he said finally. “That guy in Bucharest—the soldier. When he touched her.”

Steve’s jaw tightened.

Bucky watched him. “It wasn’t just pain.”

“No,” Steve said.

“She froze time,” Bucky said. “Nearly crushed him into the floor. And she didn’t even know she was doing it.”

Steve exhaled through his nose and looked down at the bottle in his hand, twisting it slowly between his fingers.

“She ever tell you what they did to her?” Bucky asked.

Steve’s grip tightened slightly. “Her story is not mine to tell.”

Bucky leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “But you know.”

“Yeah,” Steve said quietly. “I know.”

Bucky’s voice dropped. “It was Unit 731, wasn’t it.”

Steve’s head shot up, eyes sharp. But he didn’t deny it.

Bucky nodded once. “She mentioned it. Not by name. Just… enough.”

Steve leaned back in his chair, his expression carved from stone. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky muttered. “I guess I just— Christ , Steve. I’ve done awful shit. I know that. I see it every time I close my eyes. But I didn’t choose any of it, right?”

Steve didn’t interrupt.

“She was awake,” Bucky said. “When they cut into her. Awake . And I know I’ve been on ice on and off for seventy years, brainwashed, memory wiped… but I’m not an idiot. I know what PTSD looks like for sexual abuse. I know .”

Steve closed his eyes for a moment. “I know.”

“I don’t think she even knows how bad it was,” Bucky said. “Not really. People like that—when the hurt goes too deep, they start looking at themselves like they’re not real anymore. Like their skin isn’t theirs. I saw it. That night in the apartment. That’s how I look at myself.”

Steve nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“She looked at that soldier like she wasn’t there. And then when she came back—she destroyed him. Almost crushed his chest with time.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Steve asked. “If you had her power and someone touched you like that?”

Bucky didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Steve leaned forward, setting his bottle down. “I saw the cuffs,” he said. “The ones they used on her. They were rigged to her nervous system. Experimental.”

“They weren’t aiming to restrain her,” Bucky muttered. “They were punishing her.”

“Exactly.”

They both sat with that.

The train rocked beneath them, carving a path through snow-wrapped silence.

“She reminds me of us,” Bucky said, voice lower now. “But worse.”

Steve looked at him.

“I get flashes,” Bucky continued. “Dreams. People I killed. Every face. Commands I couldn’t disobey. But Clara—she remembers everything. Every minute. Every scream. And she can’t shut it off.”

Steve nodded. “She told me once that time moves differently for her. That when she’s holding it, it’s like being underwater. She hears her own thoughts echo.”

Bucky’s voice dropped. “Sounds like hell.”

“It probably is, Buck.”

They sat in the quiet again, the kind that only comes after truth is laid bare.

“I want to help her,” Bucky said suddenly. It came out like it surprised him.

Steve smiled faintly. “I think she wants to help you. I  think you two are connected. I don’t know how yet, but it’s pretty clear to me you two need to be friends.”

Bucky looked over at the cabin door across the hall from theirs.

“I’ve known her a while and I don’t know if I’ve helped her.”

Bucky nodded slowly, eyes dropping to his hands—one flesh, one metal. The contrast between them always hit different in moments like this. Like the proof of who he was and who he’d become sat side by side, and no matter how long he looked, he couldn’t reconcile them.

“I’m fucked up, Steve,” he said, voice low and tight. “My mind keeps playing tricks on me, you know? I hear the cries of the people I’ve killed, I see their faces, the blood, the way they looked at me before they—” His throat clenched. “And then I’m in that chair again. I can feel the metal against my spine. I can hear the Russian. The numbers. The pain. And then, boom —” He snapped his fingers. “Suddenly I’m ten again, in Brooklyn, you’re coughing up blood and I’m trying to steal oranges from the corner store so we can get some damn vitamin C in you.”

He let out a bitter breath. “It’s like my brain spins a roulette wheel every hour. Trauma flashback? Childhood? Torture reel? Flip a coin.”

Steve didn’t smile. Just waited.

“I can’t tell what’s real anymore. Not always.” Bucky’s voice dropped lower. “Sometimes I still feel like I’m him . Like maybe the only difference now is I don’t get orders before I kill.”

Steve leaned in slightly. “You’re not him. Not anymore.”

Bucky didn’t seem to hear him. His eyes were glassy, locked on some middle distance only he could see.

“She was afraid of me.” His voice cracked slightly. “Clara.”

Steve blinked. “She wasn’t afraid of you.”

“She flinched. Back at the apartment, after I—after they cuffed her and I didn’t stop it. After I looked like one of them. She looked at me like I was the same.”

“She was in shock,” Steve said. “You saved her.”

Bucky let out a harsh laugh. “After I stood there frozen like a fucking statue.”

“You were processing. You broke out of the cuffs. You took them down.”

“I should’ve moved faster .”

Silence.

“And now she’s bleeding out of her nose and her ears and sleeping like a corpse because she’s killing herself to keep us safe,” Bucky added. “And I don’t even know how to talk to her.”

Steve sat back slightly, letting the words settle. Then he said, “You are talking to her.”

“Yeah. Badly.”

“No,” Steve said, quieter. “You’re honest with her. That matters.”

Bucky looked over, brow furrowed. “She’s got something broken in her, Steve. It’s not just the power. It’s like… like she doesn’t know how to stop burning.”

Steve nodded once. “She told me she doesn’t sleep. Says her brain won’t let her.”

“I get that.”

They were quiet a while. The hum of the train and the cold rattle of the tracks underneath offered the only background.

Steve finally spoke. “She’s got a whole world of pain in her, Buck. Not just what she did today, or in Bucharest. She didn’t come back from the war untouched.”

Bucky was still staring at the screen in front of him. The webpage glowed cold: Unit 731: Human Experimentation, Covert Bioweapons Program, WWII Japan .

“Steve.”

“Yeah?”

Bucky turned the laptop slightly. The images weren’t graphic, but they were enough. Test diagrams. Prisoner notations. A list of captured Allied medical personnel.

Steve looked over at him for a long beat. “She reminds me of you.”

Bucky let out a dry laugh. “That poor woman.”

“I didn’t mean it as an insult.”

Another pause.

“Steve…” Bucky’s voice was rough now. “I don’t know if I can handle this. Someone like her. She’s strong, yeah. But she’s fragile too. If I get too close…”

“You think you’ll break her?”

“I think I already have.”

“You haven’t.”

Bucky shook his head, leaned back in his seat, and closed the laptop slowly.

“I shouldn’t even be thinking about her. Not like that. Not when I don’t even know who I am yet.”

Steve didn’t argue.

But after a moment, he said: “Sometimes… the broken people find each other first.”

Bucky let that sit.

Then—quietly—“You think it’s possible? Two people that damaged… not making it worse?”

Steve shrugged. “I think if anyone could learn to stop burning through themselves, it’s her. And if anyone could learn to stop carrying the world alone, it’s you.”

Bucky didn’t say anything.

But for the first time in hours, he let his eyes close for a few seconds. Just long enough to pretend maybe he could rest too.

And maybe… maybe not be the weapon forever.

Steve stayed quiet. Just listened.

“I can’t tell what’s real anymore. Not always,” Bucky added. “Some days I swear I can feel their ghosts pulling at my sleeves. Like they’re stuck to me.”

“You’ve gotta fight it, Buck,” Steve said softly. “ I’ll help you. I’m right here. I won’t stop.”

Bucky huffed, bitter and empty. “Maybe you should stop. Maybe you should turn me in.”

“Not a chance in hell.”

“You think I’m joking?”

Steve leaned forward, voice firmer now. “You didn’t kill T’Chaka.”

Bucky flinched at the name. His jaw worked soundlessly for a second before he found words. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t kill other people’s fathers. Sons. Brothers.”

“I know what you did,” Steve said. “And I know what they made you do.”

“Does that really matter?” Bucky’s voice was sharper now, but not angry—just raw. “To the people who are dead, does it matter if it was me or the thing they made me into?”

Steve’s gaze didn’t waver. “It matters to me.”

Bucky dragged his hands down his face. “Steve, I’m not worth the trouble.”

“Bucky—”

“—I’m serious, Steve,” he cut in. “You’re risking everything, and for what? Some fucked-up ghost of the guy you used to know? I don’t even remember half of who I was. I don’t feel like him.”

“That’s because you’re carrying every scar he didn’t deserve.”

That stopped Bucky cold.

Steve pressed on. “You’re not the ghost, Buck. You’re the survivor. That’s harder. That’s the part they don’t write songs about.”

Bucky exhaled, the breath catching halfway out like it hurt.

“I didn’t ask to be saved.”

“I didn’t save you,” Steve said quietly. “I found you. There’s a difference.”

The silence settled again, heavy as iron between them.

“You ever think I don’t want to remember?” Bucky asked after a long beat. “That maybe forgetting was the only mercy I had?”

Steve looked at him, not with pity—but with that steady, stubborn loyalty he’d had since they were kids on a stoop with scraped knees and not enough to eat.

“Then we’ll take it slow,” he said. “You tell me what you want to remember. The rest—” He reached over and tapped his own temple. “—I’ll hold it for you, until you’re ready.”

Bucky let that sit. He didn’t say anything.

But for the first time in hours, he let his eyes close for a few seconds. Just long enough to pretend maybe he could rest too.

He didn’t know what the hell this thing between them was. He didn’t know why she could stop time but never stop him. He didn’t know why the look on her face after the apartment haunted him like a memory he didn’t have.

But he knew this: she’d survived something no one should survive.

And maybe—just maybe—he could survive what he’d done by making sure she never had to go back.

The train rattled on through the dark.

And both of them sat still, staring into it.

Chapter Text

Clara’s Cabin
EuroNight 346/347 Dacia

The train rumbled steady beneath the world—steel whispering over steel, carving a line through the snowy belly of Austria. The sleeper car had gone quiet. Only the faint clatter of rail and the occasional shift of metal groaned through the silence. Steve stirred from half-sleep. Sam shifted in the bunk across from him. They’d taken the front cabin, keeping watch, letting Clara rest in the back—alone. Bucky hadn’t slept, and probably wouldn’t.

But then—a sound.

Too thin. Too sharp.

A gasp. Then another. Then—

“No, please, get off me—”

Steve was on his feet before Sam could fully register it. The voice was muffled through the corridor, but it was her. Desperate. Drenched in something primal.

Clara.

“Shit,” Sam muttered, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

They were halfway down the narrow hallway when the gasping turned into frantic thuds. Sheets rustling, wood banging, the bed frame groaning under her struggle. The sound of someone choking on their own breath.

Steve reached her door and tried the knob.

Locked.

“Clara?” he knocked, voice sharp. “Clara, it’s me. Open the door…”

Nothing.

A single crash rang out from inside—like something had fallen. Or someone.

Bucky’s door creaked open at the other end of the car.

He looked like death. Sweat lined his temple. He hadn't shaved in days. But his eyes—haunted and hollow—were already tracking the hallway. He moved before they could ask.

“Let me try,” he said quietly.

“Bucky—” Steve began, but Bucky stepped past him.

“Let me try.”

Steve hesitated. Then nodded.

Bucky approached the door and rested his palm flat against it.

“Clara,” he called softly.

No answer.

He closed his eyes. Inside, her breathing had collapsed into something broken—high, shallow, gasping for air like the cabin was closing in. Her heartbeat pounded in his ears.

Then the air shifted.

The lights dimmed slightly. The weight of the train's motion warped. The world slowed by a fraction, not enough to freeze—just enough to fracture.

“Steve,” Bucky murmured, “it’s happening again.”

Steve’s expression tightened. “Can you stop it?”

“No,” Bucky said. “But maybe I can reach her.”

He glanced at them both, grim.

“Give her space. Both of you. Please.”

Sam and Steve hesitated—but stepped back. Sam gave a sharp nod. Steve didn’t move far. He stood near the corner, watching—worried, wary.

Bucky crouched slightly, pressing his lips close to the seam of the door.

“I know what this is,” he said, low, steady. “I’ve been there. Lights too bright. Sounds too loud. Breathing too fast. You think you’re dying.”

He glanced down the corridor. Still no movement. Just the ache of the train carving through cold.

“They used to freeze me when I got like this,” Bucky said. “Put me under like I was a broken machine. But you’re not broken, Clara. And I’m not letting them touch you.”

Inside, something thumped again.

He softened his voice. “Open the door, doll. Or I will.”

Silence.

Then a click.

Bucky slowly pushed the door open.

Steve craned his neck and saw her first—crumpled on the floor, pressed into the corner, hands clawing at her chest like she could pull her lungs out and breathe better. She was pale, soaked in sweat. Her whole body shook with tremors.

Bucky stepped inside.

“Close it,” he told Steve.

Steve obeyed. The door latched gently behind him.

Bucky didn’t rush her.

He knelt on the floor—close, but not too close—and waited.

Clara’s eyes flicked toward him, glazed with panic, not quite seeing.

Her voice was hoarse. “I—I can’t—”

“I know,” Bucky said gently.

Her fingers gripped the baseboard so hard her knuckles turned white. Her breath hitched—again and again.

He inched closer. “You’re on a train. You’re safe. It’s just us.”

She tried to shove herself backward, as if her body still believed the danger was real.

“Don’t touch me,” she gasped, her voice ripped raw from somewhere deeper than her throat.

“I won’t,” Bucky said immediately—low, steady, hands raised slightly. “But I need you to look at me.”

She didn’t. Her eyes stayed locked on the wall, wide and glassy, the pupils too dilated. Her chest stuttered with every breath. A faint tremor started in the floor again—just under his boots. Not the train. Not motion. Her.

“Clara,” he said again, gently—but firm this time. “C’mon, sweetheart. Look at me.”

The lights overhead flickered. Once. Then again. Longer this time. Shadows jumped across the walls like ghosts trying to get out.

From the hallway, Steve’s voice cut sharp and low.

“Bucky—”

He didn’t turn.

The air inside the compartment was warped—bent around her grief, her panic, her unsteady grip on time. The temperature had dropped. A lightbulb buzzed angrily overhead.

“Bucky,” Steve said again. Firmer now. “They’re gonna notice. You need to—”

Bucky stood his ground, jaw flexing.

Then, still facing Clara, he tossed over his shoulder: “Christ, Rogers, I get it. You’re a mother hen in a star-spangled costume.”

The door creaked as he pushed it closed again with the flat of his palm—just enough to block the view, but not to slam it.

“Let me do this,” he muttered through the crack. “Go be useful somewhere else.”

There was a pause—tension snapping tight like piano wire—and then Steve’s sigh echoed faintly, footsteps retreating.

Inside, Bucky turned back to Clara.

She was curled tighter now, still trembling, her breath choking her. Her fingers clawed uselessly at the blanket, like she was trying to climb out of her own skin. He crouched slowly, lowering himself again until he was eye level.

“You’re alright,” he said, voice quieter now that it was just them. “I promise. No one’s gonna hurt you here.”

Still no response. But her head twitched slightly. A muscle in her jaw moved.

So he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his glove, and peeled it off with careful precision. The metal of his left hand gleamed in the dim light—each plate catching a flicker of her broken time. Then, slowly, deliberately, he flexed it.

The panels shifted with a low mechanical hum, recalibrating. Smooth. Controlled.

“I know you hate being looked at when this happens,” he said, “but you’re doing great. Just try to stay with me.”

Her eyes flicked once. Not fully, but toward the movement. Toward him.

“There you go,” Bucky murmured, a little softer this time. “C’mon. One second at a time.”

Her chest hitched again. Not as sharp. Her fingers twitched against the blanket instead of digging into it.

And still—he didn’t touch her.

He just sat there. The lights above steadying. The pressure in the cabin slowly starting to settle again as the tension in her spine began to give.

“There it is,” Bucky whispered. “Good. Just keep looking at it. Just stay with me.”

Her breathing caught again—but a little deeper this time. Still ragged. Still broken. But starting to shift.

“I used to hate this arm,” he said. “Still do. Most days. But it’s mine. And right now, it’s helping me help you.”

Her eyes locked onto the movement of the metal as he rolled his wrist and flexed the fingers.

“Breathe with me,” he said. “In. And out. Don’t think. Just breathe.”

Her body jerked, but her gaze held.

“You’re not in that room,” Bucky said. “You’re here. On a train. In Austria. It’s winter. I think Sam’s still trying to beat Steve at chess and failing miserably.”

A sound broke from her—half a sob, half a laugh.

“There we go,” he murmured. “You’re back.”

Her breathing still stuttered, but the tension started to bleed from her limbs. She was shaking—but less violently now. Tears spilled down her face unchecked, but her hands finally loosened their grip.

“Can I touch you?” he asked.

She nodded—barely.

He moved slowly, gathering her into his arms. She sagged into him, fists still clenched against her ribs. Her face pressed to the crook of his neck, her breath ghosting warm and uneven against his skin.

“You’re okay,” he whispered. “You’re okay, Clara. You’re here.”

Her whole body heaved with quiet sobs.

“I hate this,” she choked. “I hate how weak it makes me.”

“You’re not weak.”

“I can stop time,” she whispered. “But I couldn’t stop them.”

Bucky’s grip tightened. His hand slid up to cradle the back of her head.

“You survived them,” he said.

She didn’t answer.

But the next breath she took was deeper than any of the ones before.

Outside the door, Steve leaned back against the wall—listening. Sam crossed his arms, eyebrows raised.

“Something changed,” Sam said.

Steve nodded once, expression unreadable. “Yeah.”

Inside, Bucky pulled the blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. She was quiet now, curled against his side like the shaking had exhausted her to the bone.

He rested his chin on the top of her head. The motion surprised even him.

But he didn’t move.

And neither did she.

“Every time you lose focus, I’ll move it again.”

Her eyes tracked his arm, just barely, but he noticed. Her fingers twitched, then reached. She looked up at him and his eyes never left hers. Though his heart hammered inside his chest, for some reason, he wanted to be touched but she didn’t take his hand.

“Can I?” she asked quietly. 

Bucky swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Yeah, if it’ll help.”

“I don’t know if anything helps.”

“Ouch,” he mumbled, chin in her hair. “And here I thought I was here to save the day.” 

A small sound escaped Clara’s lips, almost like a laugh. He pressed his head back against the wall. If this was the moment to smile, he would have if he wasn’t so goddamn nervous. She touched the arm. Just the edge. Just enough.

His breathing hitched, caught, slowed slightly. Her skin was warm, insanely warm under the jacket. He wondered what else her body went through when she pulled at the threads of time around them.

“I killed time once,” she said hoarsely. “Not just froze it. Snapped it. Everyone froze—but me. I felt everything. For seven hours. I couldn’t unfreeze it.”

Bucky didn’t answer. He just held still.

“I went somewhere else. I couldn’t come back. Steve found me. This was… a year after we’d met. Fury had sent me on a mission, just some stupid intel thing. There was one soldier, he was Japanese. Once I’d let go, they all dropped. Steve had to carry me out.” Her nails dug into her palms. “I couldn’t stop it. That’s what scared me. That’s what always scares me.”

“I get it,” Bucky said quietly. “I get it more than you know, Clara. They have words for me. They’re triggers. It’s like a switch built into me turns on the moment the last one is uttered. I’m aware of it all until that last word, then time is taken from me. Sometimes it was days, weeks… I’d remember something after coming undone and they’d wipe my mind and cryofreeze me. Then, I’d wake up differently. Again.”

She finally looked him in the eyes.

And for a heartbeat, she forgot how to breathe.

His face was still and shadowed, jaw set, shoulders tense like he was always bracing for impact. But it was his eyes—God, his eyes—that stopped her. Not blue, not exactly. Something darker. Storm-heavy. They held so much in them it made her stomach twist: fury, restraint, exhaustion, and a kind of devastation so familiar it nearly unmade her.

There was something ancient in the way he looked at her. Not old, but worn—like a blade that had been sharpened too many times. His gaze wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t soft either. It was watchful. Pulled tight. The kind of look you give someone when you’re afraid they might vanish if you blink.

His brow was furrowed, not from anger but from something quieter—worry, maybe. Or recognition.

Not the soldier. Not the ghost.

Just the man beneath both.

In that fractured second, Clara saw all the parts of him no one else had stopped to name—the boy who’d never come home, the weapon who’d never been forgiven, the survivor who hadn’t asked to be.

He didn’t flinch from her.

Didn’t look away.

And that, more than anything, made her realize she wasn’t alone.

Not in this. Not anymore.

“I lose control,” she whispered. “And I never know what I’ll take with it.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. Then he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled something out—small, flat, smooth. A river stone. Dark gray. Rubbed near white at the center from wear. He placed it in her hand and closed her fingers around it.

“I’ve had this since the day I pulled Steve out of the river,” he said. “I was seeing flashes after  he said something on the helicarrier. I could feel myself shattering. When my mind starts fracturing, I hold it. Just something that doesn’t lie to me. Something real.”

Clara stared down at it. It was warm from his body heat. She clutched it tighter. Outside, the train rumbled on.

Clara’s breath steadied. Her shoulders eased a fraction. The lights stopped flickering.

“Thanks,” Clara murmured, so quiet it barely reached him.

Bucky gave a small nod, once. The kind that wasn’t meant to reassure—just to acknowledge. To say, I heard you.

Her gaze drifted back up to his, and something had shifted there—something raw. Open. Not fragile, exactly, but stripped down. Unhidden.

“Why you?” she asked.

He didn’t answer at first.

Just leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closing like the weight of the world was always heavier behind them. His breath moved slow, measured, like it took effort just to stay still.

“I don’t know,” he said eventually. Quiet. Honest. Like maybe he’d stopped trying to figure it out.

Clara was painfully aware of how close they were now. How his arms—scarred, one warm, one cold—were clasped behind her back, caging her in without ever tightening. His chest was solid against hers, the steady rhythm of his heart like a drum muffled by old wool and Kevlar. His shoulders, broad and worn with tension, bracketed around her like armor.

It wasn’t possessive.

It was protective.

And something in her ached with the weight of it.

She glanced up—and that’s when she saw them.

Two small, pale scars on either side of his temples. Almost invisible in the dim light, but once you knew what they were, you could never unsee them. Places where the electrodes had gone. Where the pain had been fed into him, again and again, until it rewired everything.

Clara’s fingers twitched with the urge to touch them. To map them gently with her thumb, like she could soften the memory somehow. But she stopped herself, pulling her hands back into the space between them, folding them in her lap.

Her voice came again—so soft it almost wasn't a question. “Why you?”

Bucky opened one eye, dry and heavy-lidded, and looked at her sideways.

“You’re interrupting me trying like hell to close my eyes for an hour or two,” he said.

The faintest blush rose to Clara’s cheeks. She looked away, guilt flashing across her features. “Sorry—I didn’t mean—”

His mouth twitched. Barely. Not a smile. Just a flicker of something that could’ve been mistaken for a reaction if you weren’t watching closely.

“I’m kidding,” he said. “I don’t sleep, remember?”

She looked back at him, unsure. He caught the exhaustion in her face instantly—the dull edge behind her eyes, the barely-there tremble in her limbs.

“You should sleep,” he added. His voice softened, the weight behind it not gentle, exactly—but real. “Only God and science knows what’s happening in you when you pull time apart the way you do.”

She hesitated. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

He didn’t answer with words.

Instead, Bucky shifted—slow and steady—and stood, taking her with him as if she weighed nothing. Her breath caught at the ease of it, her arms instinctively looping around his neck. He crossed the cabin in a few long steps and lowered her carefully to the bunk, the mattress creaking beneath her.

She started to sit up, but his hand caught her shoulder—light, but grounding.

“Rest.”

He ran a hand through his hair, then cracked his neck to one side with a low roll of his shoulders. The room was dim, quiet. The only sound now was the train slicing through the Austrian dark.

Clara looked up at him, eyes clouded.

“Are you gonna be alright?” he asked.

She shrugged, unsure how to answer.

“Don’t you get tired of being alone?”

Bucky was quiet for a beat.

“I’m always alone. Even when I’m with people.”

It wasn’t bitterness. It wasn’t a cry for pity. It was just the truth and Clara, watching him in the quiet, knew it. Because she felt the same way.

Vienna
Safehouse
Dusk

The sky outside their safehouse bled violet and ash, streaked with the glow of a dying sun behind the Alps. Vienna shimmered in the distance—cold, glittering, too clean to feel real after everything.

Inside, they moved cautiously.

The safehouse was buried under an old bookstore—low ceilings, brick walls, half-powered lighting. The scent of dust clung to every corner. Clara sat cross-legged on the cot in the corner, a map of Austria spread across her lap, her eyes darting over the lines. Her fingers traced the rail lines out of the city. Her hands didn’t shake. Not this time. She had logged 5 full hours of sleep while Bucky watched her from across the cabin. Her, tucked into the blankets of the train cabin’s cot, him, on the floor, back against the wall. 

Why you? She’d asked. Twice. 

The funny thing was—and Bucky had little to find funny lately—he asked the same thing, except in the quiet confines of his jellied brain.

She felt steady. She felt good. 

For the first time in seventy odd years, Bucky had something to look after that wasn’t an order.

Clara could still feel Bucky’s hand wrapped around hers from the night before. Still remember the way his voice had stayed low when she told him about the experiments. He hadn’t tried to fix it. Hadn’t said “sorry” like it was a cure. Like someone had to apologize for being injected, trapped in the hyperbaric chamber forced to breathe without oxygen, tied down and touched until she disassociated so hard she’d frozen time and given herself a nose bleed. He’d just stayed. That alone had shifted something tectonic inside her.

Across the room, Steve was quietly assembling a burner laptop, muttering under his breath. Sam checked the perimeter one more time, his fingers twitching with unease.

“Something’s off,” he said, voice low. “No chatter on the police band. No drones. That’s not good.”

Steve barely looked up. “It’s just too quiet.”

Sam nodded once. “Exactly.”

Clara stood and crossed the room, her boots soundless against the stone floor. “Then we leave. Now. I can get us halfway to Bratislava in under three hours.”

“We’re not ready yet—” Steve started.

But he never finished. The floor above them groaned. Not a footstep. An engine. A hum of repulsor tech low and unmistakable. Then—impact. The ceiling cracked with a deafening crash. Concrete dust rained down, and light scattered through the room as part of the wall imploded inward.

They were surrounded.

Armor-clad tactical units burst through every exit—four, five, six men at once. Stark tech armor, repulsor rifles, non-lethal precision—but not S.H.I.E.L.D. Not quite military either. And leading them, floating just above the fractured doorway, was Colonel James Rhodes.

“Don’t run,” Rhodey called over the chaos. “Please don't run. You’re already out of options.”

Steve’s shield flew up instinctively. Clara’s fists curled, power coiling sharp behind her teeth.

“Bucky—” Steve shouted—but he wasn’t in the room.

Clara’s eyes darted toward the fire escape—where the hell was he—then her stomach dropped at the sound of fighting.

“Sam!” she shouted.

“I’m on it!” Sam lunged for the stairwell, but a stun pulse caught him mid-step and dropped him like a stone.

“Don’t move!” Rhodey called again. “You move, we’ll escalate. And I don’t want that. Not for any of you.”

Clara’s veins screamed. Time twisted faintly around her pulse. The air slowed. She blinked—and the dust in the air halted. Just for a second. She had it. That thread. That string of control she’d never had before. Her fear didn’t consume it—it sharpened it. She could do this.

She could—

But a metal hand closed gently around her wrist. Not rough. Not controlling. Just—anchoring.

“Not now,” Bucky said behind her, low and urgent.

He was there.

Sweat-soaked, panting slightly, bruised along one cheekbone. But there.

And calm.

“He’s right. We’re out of options.”

Clara swallowed hard and the world resumed. Dust fell again. Time released its breath. She didn’t fight. But that thread stayed in her fingers like a live wire. Bucky didn’t let go of her wrist even as Rhodey’s armed guards leveled him to the ground, her too. He didn’t let go until he couldn’t hold her anymore, until they were all in cuffs. 

***

Temporary Detainment
Stark-Aligned Holding Facility
Fucking Vienna

It wasn’t a prison. Not technically.

More like a repurposed high-security vault beneath an old bank—converted fast by Stark’s global security task force after the talk of the Sokovia Accords. Cold metal walls. Fluorescent lights that didn’t blink. Cameras in every corner. Stark tech—efficient, invasive, unfeeling.

Steve paced in his room, fists raw from pounding the door. Sam sat in his, arms crossed, gaze flat and furious. Clara was somewhere deeper. They hadn’t let Steve see her since they’d been dragged in.

But Bucky—

Bucky wasn’t even on the same floor.

He was locked down, isolated, under full surveillance. Because he wasn’t stable. Because he was still “the asset,” Rhodey had said, voice like a verdict. Because even Stark’s side didn’t know what the hell he was capable of. And the truth?

Neither did Steve.

If he was being honest—and honesty was something Steve had never been afraid of—he couldn’t say for certain what lived behind Bucky’s eyes now. Not always. There were days he saw his best friend. Others, just a man with hands too steady and a silence too deep to be natural. But what Steve did know—what he felt in his gut—was that Bucky was the only one who could reach Clara.

Not just speak to her. Reach her. Not with logic. Not with orders. Not with that sharp-edged command Steve had learned to use when Clara spiraled.

No. Bucky didn’t demand anything from her. He simply stood in the fire with her and didn’t flinch.

Steve had known Clara for three years. He could get through to her—but only just.

Only by pushing. By dragging her back through the grit of her own exhaustion, through the cracked knuckles of her defiance. It worked. Eventually. But it was never because she wanted to come back.

And Bucky—Bucky had known her for what? Ten days? Twelve? In seventy-two hours, he’d done more than anyone ever had. He didn’t push her. He anchored her. And Steve had tried. He’d tried like hell. Especially when Fury had begged him to. Because they needed her. Because she was a weapon no one could control. But Bucky never tried to control her.

And maybe that was the secret.

Rhodey stood on the other side of the glass panel in Steve’s room.

“I didn’t want it to go down like this,” he said.

“You tracked us,” Steve growled. “And you knew we weren’t the threat.”

“You’ve been off-grid since Berlin. You think that looks good? You think Stark’s not gonna act when a war criminal and a temporal anomaly are both in play?”

Steve’s jaw clenched. “Clara is not a threat.”

“She crushed a man’s lungs with a look.”

“He touched her.”

Rhodey hesitated.

Steve’s voice dropped. “You know nothing about what she’s been through. You’ve got her caged like she’s Hydra. And you’ve got Bucky locked in a box like he hasn’t spent the last week trying to be human again.”

“He’s dangerous.”

“He’s broken.”

Silence.

“We’ve got orders, Steve. Tony’s here.”

Steve turned his back on him.

He didn’t see Rhodey’s frown tighten. But he heard the hiss of the door sealing again and watched it open. Rhodey walked inside, uncuffed Steve, and gestured for him to follow. 

It didn’t take long for Steve’s blood pressure to rise incrementally, especially when he saw Tony in his stupid suit, with his stupid tie, and that stupid look of I’ve got it all handled, Cap. 

“I didn’t mean to make things difficult,” Steve said. “Really, but come on Tony. You have him strapped to a chair?”

“I know, because you’re a very polite person.”

“If I see a situation pointed south, I can’t ignore it,” Steve said as Tony got up to pace around the table. “Sometimes I wish I could.”

“No you don’t.”

Steve smirked a little, shook his head, and looked down at his feet, “No, I don’t… Sometimes—”

“—sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth. But I don’t wanna see you gone. We need you, Cap. So far nothing’s happened that can’t be undone if you sign. We can make the last 24 hours legit. Barnes gets transferred to an American psych-center instead of a Wakandan prison.”

Steve looked at the two perfect ink pens sitting in their velvet box and picked one up gently. He stood up from the chair he’d been sitting in and paced for a second. He twirled the pen in his hands.

“I’m not saying it’s impossible…”

Tony crossed his arms. 

“There would have to be safe guards, Tony.”

Tony uncrossed his arms, “Sure,” he said. “Once we put out the PR fire, those documents can be amended. I’d file a motion to have you and Wanda reinstated.”

“Wanda? What about Wanda? And Where is Clara?” Steve asked.

“She’s fine. We took the cuffs off of her and she’s got some water and a bed. I had Rhodey give her some ice since she was a little hot. She’s above Barnes.”

Steve scoffed. Turned. Ran a hand through his hair.

“Maximoff’s fine, too. She’s confined to the compound currently. Vision’s keeping her company.”

“Oh, God, Tony. Every time… Every time I think you see things the right way—”

“—it’s 100 acres with a lap pool. It’s got a screening room. There’s worse ways to protect people. As far as Clara goes, I had to give her a mood staibilizer.”

“What?”

“She was bleeding from her nose. Again.”

“Tony, you can’t just medicate people with—”

“—she imploded a guard who locked Barnes up, Cap. She is off the rails. It was for her own protection.”

“Protection? Is that how you see this? This is protection? It’s interment, Tony. For both of them.”

Tony held up his hand. “Okay, now, Maximoff is not a US citizen.”

“Oh come on Tony.”

“This government will not grant visas to weapons of mass destruction.”

“You drugged someone without their consent! Wanda’s a kid!”

“Give me a break!” Tony yelled. “I’m doing what has to be done. To stave off something worse.”

Steve ground his teeth, clenched and unclenched his fists, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. 

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” he said and placed then pen on the table next to the other pen in its velvet case. “Hate to break up the set.”

Chapter Text

The holding facility was colder than it needed to be. Steel and cement walls curved like the inside of a submarine, sleek and impersonal. No windows. No clocks. Just white light, reinforced glass, and the constant hum of air cycling through ducts overhead.

Bucky sat motionless. Motionless and angry.

He was strapped into something that didn’t look like a chair so much as a containment rig—cold, industrial, clinical. Thick restraints criss crossed his chest in an angular exoskeletal pattern, anchoring him upright in a clear, reinforced capsule. The material looked like a blend of Stark-engineered alloy and some kind of high-tensile vibranium substitute, all bolted into a frame that left nothing to chance. His arms were pinned at rigid right angles, locked in a system of overlapping hinges designed to neutralize strength—not just suppress it. Sensors pulsed faintly where metal met skin, like the entire setup was wired to monitor him down to the cellular level. It wasn’t just a prison. It was a statement. A warning. This wasn’t how you restrained a man.

This was how you quarantined a weapon.

It wasn’t pain that bothered him. It was the silence. And the chair. The way the capsule curled around him like a memory. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made it worse. Flashes. Commands. Blood. Clara’s face when he touched her shoulder that first time. Steve’s voice—years away and too close.

The door to the corridor opened with a hiss.

Bucky didn’t move. He was pissed.

Footsteps. Measured. Leather soles on polished concrete.

A man in a pressed gray suit approached the console. He wore the SHIELD-issued visitor’s ID clipped to his lapel. His voice was even.

“I’m here to conduct a psychological evaluation of the subject. My clearance is Level Six.”

The guard barely looked up. “ID.” The man handed it over. The guard scanned it, shrugged, and keyed open the glass chamber. The psychiatrist stepped through. He placed a slim briefcase on the metal desk in front of the containment unit and sat down, unbothered.

“Hello Mr. Barnes. I’ve been sent by the United Nations to evaluate you.”

Bucky said nothing. His eyes, sharp with a predator’s stillness, didn’t leave the stranger’s face.

“Your first name is James?”

Steve stood just outside the containment room looking through the two-way mirror, audio on high as they listened to Bucky’s silence. It wasn’t deafening. Steve understood. To his right, the doors opened. Sam walked inside with Sharon behind him.

“What the fuck,” Sam said, suddenly angry, his eyes locked on Bucky. “This Stark’s doing?”

“Psych eval,” Steve said flatly. “Don’t get me started.”

Sam walked up to Steve, stood next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

The psychiatrist spoke again, “I’m not here to judge you, I just want to ask you a few questions.”

Sharon—by some miracle—had convinced Tony to take a walk and release Sam. And now here they were, standing outside the fucking interrogation room. Watching.

“Do you know where you are, James?”

Bucky said nothing again, just kept the same straight face, angry, eyes glared, jaw clenched.

“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, James.”

“My name is Bucky .” he said finally.

Sharon handed Steve a photo discreetly and pushed a button that lowered some of the blinds in the space around them.

“What are you doing, Sharon?”

“I believe him,” she said. “And I believe Clara. The task force released this photo to get the word out, involve as many eyes as we can. Find that weird ?”

“I don’t find it honest,” Steve said. “We're supposed to be in the business of helping people, Sharon.”

“And… who did we help with this?” Sharon asked.

Sam looked between them and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Someone framed him to find him,” Steve said. “You bomb the UN, that’s going to turn a lot of heads.”

“Steve, come on . That doesn’t guarantee that whoever framed him would get him. It guarantees that we would.”

Before Steve could say anything else, a chill ran up his spine. Something wasn’t right.

“Tell me Bucky, you’ve seen a great deal, haven’t you?” the psychiatrist said over the audio.

Buck glared, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You fear that if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop. Don’t worry… We only have to talk about one.”

Around them, the room went dark, lights off, electrical currents completely stopped. Sam looked up, around, and then at Steve.

“Sub-level five. Northeast Wing. Clara first, but she’s probably already out knowing her. Bucky’s on the East Wing. Steve, hurry .”

***

Red lights flickered around them. Bucky looked up and then back at the man in the suit sitting outside of the containment pod.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, coldly.

“Why don’t we discuss your home? Not Romania. Certainly not Brooklyn, no. I mean… your real home.”

From inside the breast pocket of his expensive suit, the man pulled out a red leather book, star stamped into the leather, and a flashlight. He clicked the flashlight on and glanced up at Bucky.

Bucky’s body went stiff, cold as ice. Sweat broke out across his skin and in seconds, he could feel the heat of anxiety radiating off of him.

The man opened his mouth, a sinister, clipped accent, Russian, “ Longing .”

Bucky’s chest rose. He closed his eyes and shook his head, “No.” He slammed his head back against the chair and jerked against the restraint, his vibranium arm jolting hard enough to shake the bolts in the floor.

"Rusted."

Bucky swallowed hard, “Stop.”

"Seventeen."

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut tight, his arm pulsing in the restraint. He clenched his hand into a fist, unclenched.

“Don’t,” Bucky growled. “Stop—”

"Daybreak.”

Bucky groaned, pain radiating behind his eyes. The scream ripped out of him like shrapnel.

He clenched his fist again, struggling against the restraints. Sweat beaded his forehead. His metal arm grew hot, hungry with power. He grunted, groaned, and pulled his arm free then smashed the other restraint holding his human arm and sat up out of the chair.

"Furnace.”

Bucky screamed—raw, guttural, the sound torn from somewhere deep—and lunged for the air-tight sealed door. His breath came in savage bursts. The heat in his body surged like lightning under his skin. He slammed his metal fist into the reinforced window—once, then again, then again—each blow louder than the last. His metal arm vibrated violently with every impact, plates groaning and flexing under the strain. The sound wasn’t clean—it was metallic and tortured, a shriek of pressure and fury as the seams of the arm shrieked and whined, as if resisting him.

He had torn the restraints off moments ago, ripped the exoskeleton rig from his chest with the same desperation as a man clawing out of a grave. The pieces clattered to the floor behind him—sharp, sterile, lifeless—but his bare chest still bore the red pressure lines where the containment had gripped him like a vice. His human hand shook. Sweat slicked his skin. He wasn’t fully there—not yet. But not fully gone, either.

Somewhere, Bucky was still inside—fighting it. But the words kept coming. The voice outside the capsule was calm, surgical. Like a scalpel. And Bucky couldn’t drown it out.

“No,” he gasped, slamming the door harder, his vision starting to blur.

His knuckles—where skin met alloy—began to split from the impact. Blood welled, smeared across the clear window in jagged streaks. The lights flickered again, the temperature dropped, and for a second, something dark and cold overtook him.

He punched again.

And again.

And again.

His metal arm shrieked with effort.

The glass began to spiderweb.

He needed it to stop.

He needed it to stop.

He needed it to stop.

The man outside circled the containment pod, unrelenting, the flashlight glowing, red lights flashing.

"Nine."

The word seared through his skull. He roared, the sound raw and ruptured—and squeezed his eyes shut tight. Bucky strained against the words, against their call—each syllable crawling down his spine like barbed wire. His pulse thundered. His metal arm twitched in its socket, the servos whining with strain. His breath was ragged, shallow, caught between defiance and collapse.

And then—

Her.

Not the cold, not the mission.

Clara.

She came to him like oxygen in a drowning mind—sudden, desperate, necessary. He could see her, even behind the pain. The way her dark, almost-black hair spilled over her shoulders, waves of it catching firelight in the cabin, brushing soft against his jaw when she’d stumbled and fallen into him, bleeding from her nose after she’d frozen thousands of snowflakes in midair. The press of her hands—shaking, instinctual—curled against his chest like she didn’t even know she’d reached for him. How he’d held her steady, and how she hadn’t flinched.

Her eyes burned through him now, clear and fierce in his mind—hazel, yes, but deeper than that. The kind of eyes that carried memory and fury and unbearable gentleness in equal measure. The kind of eyes you remembered even after forgetting everything else. The kind of eyes that made him hesitate when he should have obeyed.

Bucky slammed his fist against the door’s window again. He would not.

"Benign."

Another word, "Homecoming."

His shoulder ached, the metal one. The connective tissue pulsing, pain shooting through his chest as he punched.

“One."

The glass shattered, his knuckles broke through. He kept going, harder, as hard as he could. He had to get out.

And then everything shattered.

Bucky roared. His eyes were wild—dilated, not with fear, but fury. He hit the door so hard the lights flickered.

"Freight Car."

He had t—

The door to the containment pod exploded outward—not with a scream, but a boom , like the air itself had snapped under the weight of something unnatural. Metal groaned and twisted, bolts sheared clean through, the reinforced locking mechanism splintering like brittle bone. It should’ve been impossible. No human strength could’ve done it.

But this wasn’t just a man anymore.

He stepped through the curling smoke like something risen from a grave, slow and terrible in his stillness. The fractured remains of the rig fell from his body in pieces, the heavy exoskeletal clamps swinging useless at his sides before thudding to the floor like shackles shed by a ghost.

He stood to his full height, shoulders squared, spine straight—but there was nothing alive behind his eyes. Just darkness. A void where the man had once been. His stare didn’t waver, didn’t flicker—not even to the groaning wreckage or the bodies left unconscious around him. His gaze cut straight through the air and landed on the man in the suit.

The assassin tilted his head.

His hair hung wild in his face, sweat now long gone—burned off by something colder than ice. His skin, once flushed and fighting, had gone pale and still, his jaw locked in eerie quiet. The heat of panic had bled away. What remained was something else —a thing honed in frost and violence, summoned with syllables forged in blood.

He wasn’t breathing hard.

He wasn’t sweating anymore.

Because whatever had been burning in him... had gone cold .

And that, somehow, was worse.

He was something else.

He was somewhere else.

“Soldier?”

“Ready to comply.”

“Mission report. December 16, 1991.”

***

The fluorescent lights buzzed low in the hallway—too calm for what was about to happen.

Clara’s fingers were poised at the seam of her cell’s lock, her breath tight in her throat, the tension coiled sharp and tight behind her eyes. She’d been working the mechanism quietly, steadily, for the last two minutes—calculated pressure, tiny time shifts, just enough to feel the pins start to give.

Then she heard it.

Screaming.

Muffled, distant, but unmistakable.

“Bucky,” she breathed, her stomach lurching.

And then everything snapped into motion.

“CLARA!” Steve’s voice boomed just beyond the door, before the entire thing ripped off its hinges in a burst of shrieking metal.

She staggered back just as the door hit the floor. Steve stood in the frame, breath ragged, panic barely masked behind his eyes. Sam skidded to a stop behind him.

“What the hell is that?” Sam said. “You hear that?”

“I hear him,” Clara said. “Something’s wrong.”

They didn’t wait.

The three of them tore through the corridor, boots hammering against concrete, the hum of fluorescent lighting warping into a high-pitched whine. They reached the east wing in under thirty seconds—and stopped cold.

Every guard.

Every technician.

Every Stark analyst.

Unconscious. Collapsed against desks, slumped over terminals, sprawled on the floor like dominos dropped by something unseen. Sam crouched, checked a pulse. Alive. Stable. But down hard.

“What the hell—” Steve muttered.

A groan cut through the stillness.

Clara’s head snapped toward it. The "psychiatrist" —the man who’d gone in to assess Bucky. His face was bloodied and he was groaning as he crawled across the tile like something had chewed through his ribs.

Steve didn’t hesitate.

He grabbed the man by the collar and hauled him up—slamming him hard into the concrete wall with a crunch of bone and a bark of pain.

“Where is he?” Steve growled. “What do you want?!”

The man’s mouth curled faintly, blood staining his teeth. “To see an empire fall.”

Steve didn’t blink. “What?”

“To see it crumble,” the man whispered. “From the inside out.”

Sam stepped back into the corridor—only for the concrete wall behind him to explode.

He dove just in time.

The Winter Soldier’s arm tore through the cement like paper—snapping the rebar like twigs—and grabbed Sam by the throat. The Soldier stepped through the ruined wall like a wraith, eyes blank and burning, face emotionless. He looked at Clara, then Sam, and without a sound, threw Sam straight into her.

They hit the floor hard.

Clara’s back slammed into the cell block wall with a sharp cry, Sam crashing down beside her, dazed.

“BUCKY!” Steve roared, turning just as the Soldier lunged.

Steve didn’t hesitate. He threw a punch—right cross, heavy and clean—and it connected with the soldier’s jaw.

But the Winter Soldier didn’t stumble. He caught Steve’s shoulder and drove a knee into his ribs. Steve grunted, twisted, used the momentum to roll them both back, then drove the soldier into the viewing room wall. Glass shattered and the guards on the floor didn’t move.

The soldier’s arm flashed—a blur of silver—and caught Steve in the side of the head, knocking him sideways into a table. Steve rolled and came up fast, prepared for whatever came next despite the blatant unpredictability of Bucky under the Soldier’s hold.

“Bucky—it’s me! ” he shouted, dodging a flying console.

But the Soldier didn’t hear him. Didn’t see him. The Winter Soldier was pure motion—fists like pistons, jaw locked tight, silent but for his breath. Steve met him blow for blow; left hook, block, knee strike, and countered with an elbow to Bucky’s collarbone. But the Soldier absorbed it, matched him, and kept coming. Steve’s heart pounded. He didn’t want to hurt him but Bucky was gone, and behind the Soldier’s eyes—nothing. Just orders. Just programming.

“REMEMBER ME!” Steve shouted, swinging hard.

His fist connected again. This time the soldier stumbled—just a step—but enough for Steve to tackle him, slamming him backward into the wall beside the glass. The room rattled around them. Outside the shattered containment room, Clara pushed herself upright, dazed. Sam groaned on the ground beside her. 

Clara blinked hard. Her pulse skidded. She couldn’t see Steve anymore—just the blur of movement, fists colliding, a snarl from the Soldier that didn’t sound human. Steve held the line, but barely, and somewhere behind all that noise, she could still feel him.

Bucky.

Still inside. Trapped.

Clara scrambled to her feet and stumbled toward the wreckage, glass crunching beneath her boots. Her balance faltered, blood streaking down her chin from the last blow—but she didn’t stop. She turned her head, spat red into the corner, and broke into a sprint.

“Clara!” Sam’s voice echoed down the corridor, warning sharp in his tone.

“Go after him!” she shouted over her shoulder, her breath ragged. “The one who did this!”

Clara veered right as the hallway erupted into chaos, catching the edge of a wall as she turned. Ahead of her, through the jagged hole in the wall, the Soldier was already throwing Steve like a ragdoll.

Steve slammed hard into a cement column, the impact shaking dust from the ceiling. He hit the floor on his side, rolled, came up in a crouch—but barely got up in time to block the next brutal swing of Bucky’s metal arm. The sound of their fists and arms hitting each other rang out like gunshots.

Clara skidded to a stop in a room behind them, hands raised instinctively, body vibrating with too much power—but Steve turned, sweat and blood on his face, and shouted through the chaos.

“Don’t!”

“I have to try!” she called back, breath catching in her throat.

“Clara—he’s too strong this way— shit! ”

Another vicious blow landed—Steve was slammed into the elevator doors with a deafening crunch. A panel snapped free and clattered to the ground. Before Clara could react, the Soldier delivered a final hit, and Steve dropped out of sight, vanishing into the elevator shaft with a crash and the sharp ping of snapping cables.

The Soldier looked down for a beat, then turned away without emotion.

Clara ducked low, pressing herself against the wall. She tracked him silently as he moved through the corridor, body coiled with lethal precision. He tore through the next security checkpoint like it wasn’t even there—metal bending, sparks flying—and dropped two more guards with vicious, economy-of-motion strikes. His red Henley was torn at the wrist, blood blooming where fresh skin had been scraped raw.

Then Tony dropped into the corridor from above, slamming his gauntleted fist into the ground with a pulse of light.

“Barnes, stand down! ”

But the Soldier didn’t flinch. He surged forward. Tony raised his hand and unleashed a repulsor blast that slammed into the Soldier’s chest and sent him skidding back several feet—but he didn’t fall. He shook it off, blinked hard, like something deep inside him was rebooting.

“Tony, stop!” Clara shouted, rounding the corner behind them.

But he didn’t stop. A second blast ripped through the hallway. This time, the Soldier ducked, rolled, and came up swinging. The blast charred the wall instead, leaving a blackened scar. Nat and Sharon entered from opposite stairwells like shadows, silent and lethal. Sharon moved low, quick, baton in hand. Nat moved high, launching from a wall ledge into a flying tackle.

Clara clenched her fists—time flexed slightly, pulsing against her bones—but she held it.

Then she let one fist close tight and Tony froze mid-movement, his gauntlet humming uselessly in the air.

Sharon didn’t pause. She moved in tandem with Nat, both striking with trained precision. Fists and feet blurred. The Winter Soldier caught Sharon by the arm and flung her backward into a crate of equipment with a crash. Nat landed a punch to his jaw, then a roundhouse kick to his side—he staggered, just for a second.

Then the Winter Soldier responded.

He caught Nat by the waist mid air. Her legs wrapped around his shoulders, crossed at the ankles while she pounded her hands against him, trying to get him to stop moving . He was unbothered. Tony grunted, his gauntlet sputtering to life. It recharged itself, lit red, and Clara held out her other hand while she watched the soldier slam Nat down against  a metal table so hard the frame buckled. He grunted, grabbed her throat, and squeezed. The edges of the table dented inward beneath her weight. Her legs wrapped around his waist, trying to twist free, but the metal grip didn’t budge.

“Clara,” Tony muttered, frozen from the neck down. 

“Shut up, Tony.” she scoffed. 

Her fingers clenched harder then released—Tony dropped to the floor behind her, his body shuddering as time released him.

“Bucky!” she screamed, desperate.

But he didn’t stop. His head snapped toward her at the sound of her voice—eyes wild, feral, unseeing.

And then T’Challa dropped from above.

Fuck .

He landed in a silent crouch, catlike, one hand braced against the floor. His black dry fit shirt barely hid the gleam of his necklace in the broken light. His voice was calm, clear, and deadly.

“Don’t,” he told Clara, standing slowly. “He needs to be stopped. ”

“Don’t tell me what to do, you’re not my King .” Clara said angrily. “He’s being set up and controlled. ”

“Do you have proof?” T’Challa asked as he lunged for the Soldier.

Clara moved instinctively—her hand flaring, time rippling—but T’Challa was faster than anyone she’d fought. His boot collided with the Winter Soldier’s ribs, sending him staggering. The two of them collided like titans, fists slamming into bone, steel, and reinforced armor.

Blow for blow, they tore through the room.

The Winter Soldier’s elbow caught T’Challa’s jaw—T’Challa retaliated with a palm strike to the gut. Clara tried to isolate the moment, tried to freeze it—but her focus was broken. The Soldier didn’t stop. Every hit was meant to kill. He moved like he was being pulled forward by something unseen—something darker than instinct.

T’Challa drew his claws, leapt again, and Clara snapped. She hurled herself forward, not toward the Soldier—but into T’Challa’s path. Her boots hit the tabletop, and she reached her arms out and grabbed him, her arms locking around his shoulders. She yanked T’Challa backward mid-jump.

They tumbled to the floor in a tangled mess of limbs and momentum. T’Challa rolled to the top—but Clara hooked her knee up around his ribs and locked her ankle in, flipping them again. She wrapped her arms around his throat in a rear chokehold, grunting through the strain.

“I’m sorry,” she hissed into his ear. “You don’t understand . You don’t see him! ”

“Clara,” T’Challa gasped, struggling beneath her. “ Stop! ”

But she didn’t. Not yet. She squeezed tighter, every muscle in her body screaming as his weight pressed down on her. T’Challa wasn’t like her. He didn’t hurt like her. He wasn’t like them . He fought her, but not fully. Not to hurt. Just to stop her. But Clara didn’t release—not until his muscles slackened, his body going still.

She rolled him off of her, gasping, chest heaving, and staggered to her feet. Blood trickled from her lip. Her head throbbed with the onset of another time bleed, but she didn’t stop. She stumbled forward—back toward Sharon, who was still unconscious, her arm draped over her face. Clara crouched beside her, checked her pulse—steady. Clara exhaled.

She stood slowly, wiped her mouth, and looked down the corridor.

Gone.

The Winter Soldier was gone.

And she had no idea where he’d gone—or how much longer she had until time frayed again.

But she knew one thing for certain:

She hadn’t tried to stop him.

She’d tried to protect him.

And she wasn’t done yet.

***

Steve’s voice tore through the rotor wash:

“Buck!” he yelled just as the helicopter's door slammed shut and Bucky sealed it from the inside.

The blades whirled above the rooftop perimeter—a whirlwind of rotors sending a wall of air so fierce it threatened to decapitate anyone caught unprepared. Steve didn’t hesitate. He sprinted forward—boots pounding against steel—and lunged, fingers scrambling for the helicopter’s landing skid.

He wrapped one arm around the thick metal leg as his other hand clawed at the yellow safety rail at the edge of the pad. His muscles screamed. Each second felt like hours as the chopper’s engines spat thunder, ready to launch. The railing trembled, chains rattling, antennas shivering with the strain.

Miles above him, Bucky sat in the cockpit. His metal fingers clicked against the glass, eyes dark and distant. He looked like a man transformed.

Steve pulled with every scrap of strength he possessed. “Bucky!” he shouted again—not as a name, but like a prayer.

The helicopter started to pivot. The nose dipped toward the edge of the pad. The whole thing groaned in protest—the rails buckling, the chain-link fence twisting, cement debris spilling over. Blades shredded metal with deafening shrieks as the landing gear cleaved through the barrier.

Steve jerked, slamming into the concrete. Dust and debris exploded in a white cloud around him. Glass from the cockpit window shattered outward. Metal shards hissed past.

He hit the ground, sliding backward from the blast. The rotors dipped as momentum pulled the aircraft forward—toward the edge—and Steve’s heart sunk as he saw Bucky’s arm burst through the destroyed glass.

His metal fingers curved around Steve’s throat with venomous precision.

“Bucky,” Steve rasped. The name felt wrong hanging in the chaos—but he said it anyway.

Bucky didn’t hesitate. His grip tightened.

The helicopter teetered. Steve’s legs kicked against the ruined concrete—desperately searching for purchase as he tried to break free. But the sickening reality was this: the Winter Soldier was here and right now, Bucky wasn’t in there.

There was no hesitation in the arm that crushed his windpipe.

The rooftop dropped away beneath them. The helicopter, Bucky’s metal arm, and Steve plummeted in unison.

Time stretched as they fell.

Water rushed up to meet them.

Steve tasted blood.

Then—

Steve burst through the surface, gasping for air, water streaming down from his eyebrows and dripping off his chin. In his other hand—still clenched—he gripped the back of Bucky’s blood-red henley, dragging the Winter Soldier shoulder-first up through the icy water toward the riverbank.

Bucky’s head lolled, unconscious, water pooling at the edge of his collar. Steve’s chest heaved with each crawl stroke. Finally, he flooded onto the muddy stone shore, collapsing with Bucky across his forearm. Clara was already there, crouched at the water’s edge, coat half-drenched, sleeves rolled up. Her face was pale, eyes wide with relief. She reached into the current, pressing her palms against Steve’s shoulders to help haul him both from the water.

Behind them, the cracked rotor of the helicopter bobbed, caught on partial wreckage just offshore. Lights flashed across the skyline—security vehicles, sirens, distant shouts—and yet no one had spotted them yet. Not here, not now.

Steve pressed his forehead against the drip of Clara’s coat, eyes moving upward until he could focus on her. He shook his head, water sluicing over his eyes. He tried to gather words but all that came out was a dry, reverberating growl: 

“Payback’s coming.”

He lifted Bucky like a limp duffel bag over his shoulder. Bucky’s boots kicked stiffly. His arm hung loose, soaked through, grainy with mud and splintered glass.

Clara took a step back, shaking mud from her feet. Sam skidded into view—water at his boots, breath already coming in ragged gasps.

“I lost that motherfucker,” Sam said, catching his breath. “And we’ve got maybe two minutes at most,” he finished scanning their surroundings. “They’re tightening the perimeter. I’ve hunted a helicopter crash before—this is going to bring attention fast.”

Steve’s chin dipped slightly. He spotted Clara. She nodded—understood.

Sam continued, “We need to go back underground. That safe house under the library. Just to grab our gear. No one’s going to think we’d double back there now. We get out shit, we get out.”

Steve grunted, shifting Bucky’s weight. He turned to Clara. She met his gaze. At that moment, Steve’s look didn’t need words: Freeze it.

Clara closed her eyes, shoulders still, then exhaled.

She dropped her focus to the atmosphere, listening—the sirens, the helicopter tearing free from its moor, the metallic creak as it nose-dived deeper, sliding beneath the surface. A growing murmur from the crowd, the sharp clicks of boots running, distant alarms.

Her palms tightened—skin splitting beneath her fingernails—then she opened her hands gently. Time fractured like a breath held too long. Seconds stretched into eternal quiet. The ripples on the water stilled. The crowd froze mid-stride. A child’s hand stopped inches from its parent’s coat. Siren beams froze in the sky. The entire block fell into suspended painting, an urban tableau. Her head spun—disorientation—but she steadied herself against a river pipe. Beside her, Steve and Sam paused mid-run. Steve’s step stopped, foot hovering over broken concrete. He looked at her, eyes jagged with determination and something like awe.

Sam’s hand shot out—lightly supportive at the small of Clara’s back—though she was already steady. She inhaled. Lips parted. Thin voice, but steady:

“Okay,” she stepped forward, careful, each heartbeat ringing in her temples, her focus razor sharp. “Let’s go.”

They hurried for about two blocks, out of sight, out of the direct focus of anyone or anything looking for them. The city was frozen in place.

Cars sat suspended in the middle of intersections, drivers locked in half-turns or mid-swears, mouths parted in arguments that hadn’t finished forming. A flock of pigeons hovered midair like a painting, wings outstretched, feathers rippling in a wind that no longer moved. Siren lights flared static across buildings, casting violent splashes of color across frozen pedestrians. A spilled cup of coffee remained suspended in a slow arc, steam locked in time.

They moved through it all.

Steve kept Bucky slung over his shoulder like a broken lifeline, jaw set, boots pounding in rhythmic urgency. Sam jogged slightly behind, eyes sweeping every alley and rooftop. He couldn’t shake the sense that even in this warped stillness, they were running out of time.

Clara stayed close, just off Steve’s shoulder, her hands flexed and half-curled, trembling with strain. Her breath hitched every third step, the effort it took to keep the time-freeze intact visibly working through every fiber of her body. Her fingers twitched like live wires, magic— or whatever it was —spooling from her like strands pulled taut against the current of the world.

She didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

Her eyes flicked to a stopped cab, its driver frozen in the act of honking, one hand lifted in a middle finger that hadn’t quite formed. A bird hovered beside a lamp post, wings mid-flap. The tension of holding it all— all of this —wrung sweat from her temples and down her spine.

Sam glanced back. “You okay?” he asked softly.

She didn’t answer, but nodded once, stiff. The movement was barely more than a flinch.

They passed an outdoor café where every single patron sat in suspended motion: a child with an ice cream cone melting in place, a server paused mid-laugh, a dog frozen mid-bark, leash slack between its owner’s hands.

Clara's foot caught on a crack in the pavement and she stumbled—just slightly—but Steve caught her arm with his free hand without slowing down. Behind them, the real world waited to catch up. The chaos, the consequences, the pursuit. But ahead—just two more blocks and a crumbling stairwell beneath a forgotten library—they had a chance.

And Clara was holding time itself at bay so they could take it.

The four shadows slipped under the iron girders of the old library, steps descending into ragged stone. Clara pressed her palm against the doorframe beneath the library floor, turning the lock and pulling it open. Steve made it out barely a breath before the door fell behind them—steel closing shut with a metallic echo. Above them, the wooden floor that Rhodey had broken through still fell in shattered pieces. Steve dropped Bucky onto a vintage couch—ragged cushions flattened beneath him—and dropped to his knees, checking for pulse. His shoulder touched Clara’s, eyes flicking to hers before she stumbled again.

She reached up toward her face, her knuckle brushing under her nose. Blood dripped slowly, steadily, but she said nothing, her eyes still locked on Bucky’s unconscious body. She turned and walked away to find a rag, something to blot her nose with.

Chapter Text

The auto body shop was a relic from another decade—rusted beams, half-smashed windows, the sharp reek of old oil soaked into cracked concrete. Fluorescent light flickered overhead in fits, casting everything in a sickly, haunted blue. Chains hung from steel crossbars. A hydraulic lift creaked somewhere in the shadows. It didn’t feel like a safehouse.

It felt like a grave.

Steve laid Bucky onto the metal workbench and sat him back against the cement wall behind him. His body was like a broken artifact, limp but twitching, shudders running through his frame like shorted-out wiring. Steve moved quickly, tugging over the heavy industrial vise—one of those Stark-forged hybrids that had been retrofitted to bend chassis frames. He cranked the mechanism open with his full strength and, with Sam’s help, slid Bucky’s vibranium arm into place.

The clamp hissed like a serpent as it locked down—tight and unforgiving.

There’d be no punching his way out this time.

Clara stumbled in last, clutching the doorway for balance. Her hair was matted to her face with sweat, her shirt smeared with blood. She dry heaved once, then again, and leaned out of the doorway, coughing. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. She looked wrecked. Unraveled. Like someone who had peeled back the fabric of the world and seen the stitching fray.

She slid down the wall, breath shallow, knuckles white as they gripped her thighs.

Steve crouched beside the table, knees creaking with the weight of too many battles. Bucky’s face was ghost-pale under the flickering lights, his jaw rigid, sweat glistening on his temple. His hair clung to his skin, tangled and damp, mouth set in a stubborn line.

“Bucky,” Steve said, voice low and coaxing. “Can you hear me?”

No response.

Steve’s hand found his shoulder, grounding him with touch. “Hey. Come on, Buck. You with me?”

There was a flicker.

Bucky’s eyes cracked open—glassy and off-center, like a man blinking his way through smoke. Blood had crusted at his hairline, smeared across his cheek. He looked like he’d fought the ocean and lost.

Steve waited. Held his breath.

“Which Bucky am I talking to?” he asked, almost whispering.

For a beat, nothing.

Then Bucky exhaled, shaky and guttural. “…Your mom’s name was Sarah,” he rasped. “You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.”

Steve’s head dropped for a moment, a silent breath of relief shaking out of him. He reached forward, pressing his forehead to Bucky’s. One hand gently curled around the back of his neck.

“Yeah,” Steve murmured. “That’s you.”

Across the room, Sam was trying to dab at Clara’s face with a damp rag, but she pushed him off, staggered to the dented utility sink, and threw up again. The sound was raw, violent.

Bucky’s head turned toward her, brow twitching. “Clara—”

Steve wasn’t the least bit surprised. Bucky sat up straighter, his neck careening to see her. She slumped against Sam, completely out of gas.

Steve looked down at the man still restrained beneath him—his best friend, his ghost, his brother. “You back?”

Bucky’s lips parted around a small, cracked breath. He nodded. Just once.

“It was Zemo,” he said. His voice was hollow. Frayed.

Steve’s jaw went steel. “What did he want?”

“The base,” Bucky said. “In Siberia. A Hydra facility. There are others—like me. Still on ice. Programmed. Weapons.”

From the far corner, Clara made a soft, choked sound. Not quite a gasp. More like a memory scraping its way out of her throat and threw up again. Sam swore under his breath and tried helping her stand but she pushed him away.

Bucky winced. Twisted slightly in the vise—reflex—but didn’t resist. “He needed me to get the coordinates,” he said. “I didn’t want to remember. I fought him. But he said the words—he kept saying the words, Steve. He said them until I—”

“I know,” Steve said. “I know, Buck. You tried.”

“I wasn’t strong enough.”

Steve’s hand curled tighter on his shoulder and the shop fell quiet. Only the sound of Clara’s breathing, ragged and uneven, filled the silence. Sam draped his jacket around her shoulders, and finally—she didn’t push it away. She let it fall over her arms like armor that wasn’t hers.

Bucky’s eyes found her again. Tracked the curve of her spine, the tension in her shoulders. Something in his face shifted—barely a flicker—but enough.

“She’s burning up, Steve.” Sam said.

“We have to go,” Bucky said. “To Siberia.”

“Yeah,” Steve said in agreement and undid the vice around Bucky’s arm. “Yeah. I’ll figure something out. Stay here.”

***

The air outside the auto body shop was thick with heat and panic. Sirens hadn’t started yet—but they would. They were out of time.

Steve paced at the edge of the roll-up door, shield on his back, eyes sharp on the dark streets beyond. Sam was kneeling beside the truck Bucky had spotted earlier, hot-wiring it like it was second nature. Sparks flicked in the shadowed interior, catching the edge of his jaw.

Inside, the old building Clara leaned against the far wall, her face gray, eyes dull and dazed. She was pale, sick looking, like a ghost in the flickering fluorescent light, her breath barely visible, her lashes wet from whatever she'd just thrown up in the busted-down bathroom.

“Clara,” Steve said, his voice a gentle warning. “Sit down.”

“I’m fine,” she muttered, though her knees buckled slightly when she pushed off the wall.

Steve took a step toward her. “Let me carry you.”

“No.”

“Clara, I—”

“I said no ,” she snapped, and the world flinched.

Not fully. Not yet. But a ripple pushed through the air, just enough to make Steve pause and Sam lift his head.

Bucky stood off to the side, hair in his face, arm still chafed red where the vice had held him. He hadn't said much since regaining control. But now his eyes tracked Clara like a wolf clocking a pulse.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t ask. He just moved.

One second, Clara was steadying herself against a workbench. The next, her fingers trembled. Blood trickled again from her nose, her ear…

She staggered. There was no balance left.

And Bucky was there.

He caught her before she hit the floor, arms solid and fast, the way someone moves when instinct drowns out everything else.

“ Jesus, ” Sam muttered. “We gotta move.”

Clara mumbled something incoherent. Her eyes fluttered half-open, but she couldn’t keep them there. Her head dropped against Bucky’s shoulder, her breath coming in ragged bursts.

“I’ve got her,” Bucky said quietly.

“I’ll carry her,” Steve offered, already moving toward them.

Bucky shifted back. “No.”

Steve froze. “Bucky—”

“ I said no .”

It wasn’t aggressive. Not quite. But it was final.

His metal arm hooked beneath Clara’s legs, the other wrapped around her back. He looped her arms around his neck like muscle memory, like this wasn’t the first time he’d carried something fragile. His jaw was set, his shoulders locked.

Steve stared at him a beat longer, then nodded once. Something in Bucky’s body language had changed—possessive, protective, and simmering just below his surface like something he hadn’t quite named yet.

“Let’s go,” Sam called from the truck. “I’ve got ignition.”

Steve turned, giving the street one last scan before jogging toward the vehicle. He yanked the back door open and motioned for Bucky to climb in. Bucky didn’t hesitate. He stepped up and into the truck, adjusting Clara carefully across his lap, her coat bunched under her cheek like a pillow. Her breath hitched again, but she didn’t wake.

Steve jumped in the passenger seat while Sam floored it.

As they pulled away from the alley, tires screeching and exhaust curling up like fog, Steve glanced back.

Bucky hadn’t taken his eyes off her.

Not once.

***

The drive was silent.

None of them spoke—not even Sam. The tension sat thick between them, the weight of too many decisions already made and more pressing in from all sides. Clara stayed unconscious, her forehead pressed faintly to Bucky’s collarbone. She was warm all over. Every time she shifted, he adjusted without thinking—hands solid, eyes dark, like he couldn’t let himself look away.

They reached the old safe house by dawn, one Steve and Clara had stayed in during a mission two years ago. It was tucked behind a shut-down shipping yard on the edge of the Danube, the kind of place only ghosts and smugglers remembered. The back entrance had been untouched, and everything inside looked the way they'd left it: gear still stashed in lockers, burner phones plugged into old outlets, a first aid kit tossed on the table like a forgotten apology.

Steve was already dialing. “Clint. We need exfil out of Europe. Now.”

“Jesus, what the hell did you get yourselves into this time?”

“I’ll explain later.”

Bucky didn’t wait to hear the rest. 

“She's burning up,” Bucky said, panic tightening behind the flat edge of his voice. “Steve, what the hell do we do?”

Steve was already crossing the safe house, scanning for the first-aid kit—then paused. His eyes met Bucky’s, sharp and clear.

“Bathroom,” Steve said. “Now.”

Bucky didn’t hesitate.

The bathroom was small, concrete-walled, all mildew stains and cracked tile, a flickering bulb overhead. Steve twisted the faucet, dialed the water all the way down to cold. It gushed out in a rush, splashing against the metal tub basin, steam curling off Clara’s skin where Bucky still cradled her against his chest.

“I’ll take her,” Steve offered, already stepping forward. He knew. Bucky hated the cold—had suffered enough of it for three lifetimes—but the girl in his arms was on fire. And time was running short.

But Bucky didn’t let go.

Instead, he shoved past him, boots slipping slightly on the wet tile, and stepped under the spray. The water soaked instantly through his henley, his hair flattening against his skull. He gritted his teeth and dropped carefully to one knee in the tub, positioning Clara so her feet hit the floor and her forehead rested limply against his chest.

“Come on, doll,” he whispered, his voice low, rough-edged. “Work with me and Steve here.”

She didn’t stir.

Steve reached in, gently peeling off Clara’s trench coat while Bucky steadied her with his vibranium arm. The metal hissed slightly beneath the cold, but his grip didn’t waver. With his human hand, he pushed her drenched hair back from her face, wiping strands away from her eyes.

Her lashes fluttered faintly, lips pale, chest rising and falling in shallow bursts. Her skin felt fevered against the coolness of his shirt.

Steve turned the showerhead, directing the full blast onto her back and shoulders. Water coursed down her spine, pooling around their feet. The cold bit hard, but Bucky didn’t flinch.

“I’ve seen this before,” Steve muttered. He crouched just outside the tub, bracing himself on the porcelain edge. “Back on the Orvieto . That cargo ship off the Azores. She froze time for twenty minutes while I pulled every crew member out. Twenty-five people. Clara held the thread the whole time… and crashed like this after.”

Bucky looked down at her. Her lips were starting to tremble. Not consciousness—just reflex. But something.

“How long did it take then?” he asked, voice low.

“Hours,” Steve said. “She came back eventually. But it scared the hell out of me.”

Bucky rested his chin lightly on top of her damp head. He whispered something she couldn’t hear, something not even Steve caught. His arm curled slightly more around her waist—not like a cage. Like a tether.

“She’s fighting,” Bucky said. “I can feel it.”

Steve nodded and rose, giving them a little space. “I’ll get blankets, dry clothes. Call Clint again. See who else is close.”

As he moved out of the bathroom, Bucky adjusted his hold, careful, slow. The water kept running, drumming a steady rhythm down both of them. Clara stirred faintly, her hand twitching between their chests. Bucky caught it and brought it to rest against the front of his shirt.

He carried Clara straight to the corner cot, easing her down gently, brushing her hair away from her face. Her head lolled sideways, lashes thick against pale cheeks. Her pulse was still strong. Her breathing was better.

He reached for a spare blanket and tucked it around her shoulders, then stood there watching—like if he stared hard enough, maybe he’d understand what had just happened. What she’d done. What he’d felt when it happened.

Steve came to stand beside him.

“Clint’s working on it,” he said. “Might take a few hours.”

Bucky didn’t answer. Steve glanced at him, reading more than Bucky wanted to give.

“She trusts you, you know,” he said. “Whatever that means.”

Bucky’s jaw flexed.

“She shouldn’t,” he said finally. 

“But she does .”

Bucky didn’t respond.

Across the room, Clara stirred faintly—just a soft sound, the kind people make when the pain finds them in sleep. Bucky moved before he realized it, dropping to a crouch beside the cot. Steve watched the two of them and for a moment, something flickered beneath his ribs—uncertainty, maybe. Worry. But also— hope.

Maybe, just maybe, they were the only ones who could survive each other. Maybe the cracks they carried weren’t meant to be patched—but mirrored.

Sam leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed.

“You think they’re gonna be okay?” he asked.

Steve didn’t look away from them.

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

***

The second bathroom was down the hall, past a door that stuck from water damage and another that had no knob. It was barely big enough for one person, let alone three, but they made it work—taking turns like they had in barracks, missions, bunkers, prison.

Steve went first. Quietly. No steam, just cold water and gritted teeth. He came out wearing his undershirt and jeans, his hair wet and dripping down his spine.

“Next,” he said.

Sam was already unzipping his jacket. “I got more road rash than skin. I’ll be quick.”

Bucky didn’t move. He was still sitting outside Clara’s room, his back against the wall, metal arm limp across his lap.

“She’s still asleep?” Steve asked.

“Barely twitched,” Bucky murmured. His voice sounded like gravel and smoke. “But her fever’s down.”

“That’s good,” Steve said gently. “She’ll wake up soon.”

“Yeah.” Bucky didn’t look convinced.

The door creaked open again. Sam stepped out in a towel, rubbing at his ribs. “I don’t think that water counts as clean.”

“You want a hotel spa?” Steve deadpanned.

Sam raised a finger, then dropped it. “Fair.”

He clapped Bucky’s good shoulder as he passed. “You’re up.”

Bucky pushed off the floor with a grunt, joints cracking. His whole body ached—every muscle blown out, skin tight and sore beneath the henley that hadn’t dried right. The burn in his shoulder had deepened, a hot pulse radiating from the seam where his metal arm met tissue.

Inside the bathroom, he locked the door and braced his hands on the rust-flecked sink. The mirror was cracked across the top, like a web. His face stared back at him, expressionless and hollow-eyed. Bruises bloomed purple and black along his ribs. A nick ran down his jawline from where one of Stark’s men had clipped him with a baton.

He stripped off the rest of his gear slowly. Every movement pulled at something—scar tissue, strain, exhaustion. He left the harness on the floor and stepped into the shower.

The pipes groaned.

Cold water hammered down like hail.

Bucky let it. He tipped his head back, eyes shut, and just stood there, water sliding down the metal and skin of him. The gash near his shoulder joint throbbed, hot and bright.

It took effort to breathe.

Not from pain. Not even from the fight. But from the moment before Steve had pulled him out of the water—when he’d let go. He remembered the metal of his fingers wrapped tightly, mercilisley around Steve’s throat. 

He scrubbed the dried blood off his knuckles and leaned his forehead against the tile.

Clara’s face flickered in the dark behind his eyes. Her body limp, curled into him in the truck. He didn’t deserve the way she anchored to him. He was so broken, so fucked up beyond repair. But he couldn’t stop thinking that she was safe with him. 

Bucky stepped out of the shower and dried off with the least-mildewed towel he could find. He changed into a plain black t-shirt and old cargo pants he found in the cabinet—probably Steve’s from a past mission, rolled to hell at the waist. His arm ached like hell. He popped his shoulder against the frame before leaving, just enough to keep it moving.

When he walked back into the main room, Steve and Sam were sitting at the kitchen table. A pot of weak instant coffee steamed between them.

“You good?” Sam asked.

Bucky didn’t answer right away. Just sat down hard in the third chair and picked up the mug waiting for him.

The silence was heavier than any of them could cut.

“We need a plan,” Steve finally said, but even he sounded tired.

“Zemo’s still out there,” Bucky muttered. “We don’t stop him, he wins.”

Sam leaned forward. “Then we stop him. But not tonight. You look like you got chewed up by a trash compactor.”

“You should see the trash compactor,” Bucky said, voice dry.

Steve cracked a smile. Barely. But it was there.

“We’ll regroup,” Steve said. “We’ve got gear. A safe place. Clara’s stable. That’s what matters right now.”

Bucky looked toward the bedroom, where she lay sleeping. His fingers flexed unconsciously—metal scraping metal.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “That’s what matters.”

And for the first time in hours, they let themselves breathe.

Later …

It was just past five, maybe later—time had stopped mattering sometime after they staggered in through the shipping yard entrance. Steve and Sam had passed out in the kitchen chairs hours ago, coffee gone cold between them. Bucky hadn’t moved from his post outside Clara’s room.

His metal arm rested against the wall. His flesh hand rubbed absently at the ache behind his eye. The pressure hadn’t gone away since the activation. That last switch—Zemo’s voice, the words—had cracked something deep. Not just pain. Instability. Noise in his head that hadn’t settled.

He hadn’t slept, not because he was afraid, but because if she woke up and he wasn’t there—

A sound hit him like a shot. Retching. Then the unmistakable scrape of porcelain and a choked gasp. Bucky was on his feet before he even realized it, shouldering the bedroom door open so fast it bounced against the wall. The bathroom light was on. The door half-open.

“Clara—?”

She was on the tile, clinging to the edge of the toilet, trembling hard. Her sweater had slipped off one shoulder. She’d barely gotten her hair out of her face before she vomited again, dry heaving, limbs going loose.

He moved.

Fast.

One knee hit the floor as he caught her under the arms just before she fell sideways. His metal arm took her weight easily, pulling her against his chest, while his flesh hand found the back of her head, pushing the damp waves out of her face.

“Hey— hey , I’ve got you,” he said, voice low and fast. “Breathe. It’s over.”

She slumped into him, her whole body sagging like her bones had been carved out.

“Sorry,” she whispered, eyes barely open. “Toothbrush—sink pouch— please —”

“Don’t worry about that.”

But she was already trying to move, breath hitching. He gently eased her back against the wall and crossed the small space to the sink. There was a canvas pouch open beside the tap—military-issue, rolled tight. He rummaged quickly, unzipping with practiced hands. Toothbrush. Travel-sized toothpaste. Tiny floss container. He grabbed them all and turned back. She was trying to sit up straighter, eyes glassy, skin pale with a flush across her cheeks.

“Here,” he said. “Let me help.”

She didn’t argue this time. He crouched in front of her and pressed the toothbrush into her hand, but when she fumbled it, he caught it again, squeezing her fingers around it.

“Lift your chin a little,” he said, not thinking, just moving.

She did.

He helped her rinse the brush, smear the paste, brought it to her mouth like it was the most normal thing in the world. She let him, blinking slowly, leaning forward to spit into the sink after. She didn’t say anything for a moment, just kept breathing. Shallow. Tired.

He stood back, his hands still bracketing her shoulders to keep her steady.

“You’re burning up again,” he muttered. “Dammit.”

Her head lolled toward him, but her eyes met his.

“No fever. Just… backlash. It happens.”

He brushed her hair from her face again, gentler this time. “You shouldn’t’ve done it. Holding that long—you scared the hell out of Steve.”

“I know.” Her mouth barely moved. “Didn’t have a choice. We had to go, Bucky.”

“You always have a choice,” he said quietly. “Next time, pick you .”

She gave him a faint look that might’ve been amusement. Or apology. Or disbelief. It passed too quickly to name. He stayed with her until her head drooped against his shoulder. That’s when Steve appeared in the doorway. He didn’t speak, just took them both in—Clara crumpled, Bucky standing in front of her, feet planted into the floor like it was sacred ground. His metal arm wrapped around her, hand flexing like it didn’t know how to let go.

Steve’s gaze met Bucky’s.

You know what this looks like, it said.

Bucky looked away.

It’s not that, his silence insisted.

But Steve didn’t say anything. Just nodded once, like he knew better, and turned back out of the room and down the hall. Bucky exhaled slowly.

“I should get you back in bed,” he said to her, already shifting to lift her.

But Clara was already asleep against his chest, hand still curled in his shirt.

So he didn’t move, not yet.

***

The room was dim when Clara woke.

Not pitch black—there was a sliver of grey light cutting across the floor from the narrow window above the cot. Her body felt leaden. Not in pain, not exactly, just… heavy. Like her bones had been filled with something denser than time.  Her throat was dry. Her mouth tasted like the tail end of a fever dream. She looked up at the ceiling, dust floating around her. She didn’t have to lift her hand to stop the floating particles, she just looked and then froze in the wisps of air. At least she hadn’t burned herself out completely. 

She pushed herself upright slowly, legs over the side of the cot, heart thudding faintly behind her ribs and the floor rushed to her, the space around her spiraling just a little. She was dizzy. 

“Easy,” Steve’s voice said gently from across the room. He stood with his arms crossed, one shoulder leaned against the wall beside the doorway. “You slept.”

She blinked at him. “How long?”

“Eight hours, give or take.”

“That’s illegal.”

He gave a soft huff of a laugh. “Clint just called. Wants to talk to you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What, he couldn’t call my burner?”

Steve pushed off the wall and walked over, holding out a clunky Stark-retrofit flip phone. “Said he figured you’d answer for me.”

Clara took it, flipping it open and raising it to her ear. She cleared her throat once.

“Didn’t think I’d hear from you so soon, Barton.”

Clint’s voice came through, rough and warm. “Didn’t think I’d have to do this much babysitting, but here we are.”

She almost smiled. “Guess you missed me.”

“I miss a lot of things, Clara. You calling me back before your ribs give out from trying to act fine is one of them.”

She didn’t have a snappy reply for that. Her eyes flicked toward Steve, then toward the bathroom, where the door was cracked just enough to see a familiar metal shadow just out of view. Bucky was nearby. Listening, probably. She didn’t mind.

“Barton,” she said, voice quieter. “You call for a reason or just to make me feel like I’m still a recruit?”

He sighed. “I reached out to someone from your old unit.”

Her brows lifted. “Which one?”

“Ranger Battalion. Colonel Hess.”

Clara went still. “Seriously?”

“His son is living in Moscow—contracting work, some offshore project, but he’s got access to get you guys to Siberia. Clean beds. Hot food. Real gear. We can get you there in-country, and you’ll be off radar. He’s setting it up now.”

Clara pressed a hand to her temple, the ache of exertion still ghosting there. “I’ll call him. Thank you.”

“He said you’d know the back channel.”

“I do.”

There was a beat. Then Clint’s voice shifted, softer. “How are you, really ?”

She hesitated.

Steve took a step back, respectfully. Bucky didn’t move.

“I’m upright,” she said. “Which is more than I expected.”

“You scared us, you know. Steve said you—froze two city blocks.”

“He needed time,” she murmured. “So I gave it to him”

Another pause.

“I’m sorry,” Clint said finally. “For Nat.”

Clara closed her eyes.

It hit harder than she thought it would. But she didn’t let it show in her voice.

“She made a choice.”

“I should’ve stopped her.”

“No,” Clara said. “You shouldn’t have.”

They let the silence sit for a moment.

“I’ve got a ride coming for you in an hour,” Clint said. “Four total seats. Don’t pack heavy.”

“I never do.”

He paused again. “You call me after Moscow. Don’t disappear on me, Clara.”

She smiled, faintly. “You always were clingy.”

And she hung up.

The phone clicked shut.

Steve gave her a long look. “Moscow?”

She nodded. “Colonel Hess has a son. He’ll get us further off-grid. Better chance at resupply.”

Steve’s mouth twitched. “You gonna survive the ride?”

“Depends who sits next to me,” she muttered.

Behind her, a faint metal scrape echoed as Bucky shifted in the doorway. Clara didn’t turn. But she didn’t have to. She could feel him watching her. And for once, she didn’t mind at all.

***

The ride out of the Danube safe house was quiet.

Snow fell in lazy spirals outside the windows of the unmarked jeep, blurring the edges of the world. The roads were mostly dirt and salt crust. Their driver didn’t speak—not to them, not even on the comms. Just drove. Controlled. Focused. Though he did salute Clara like she still held an active Army Ranger title. Maybe in some way, she did.

Sam sat up front with Steve, both of them half turned toward the windshield, eyes constantly scanning. The tension in Steve’s shoulders hadn’t eased since dawn. In the back, Clara sat with her coat pulled tight around her. She still looked pale, but her eyes were clearer now—no longer full of heat and static. The flip phone was open in her hand, set to a secure military frequency. She’d waited until they were far enough from the city’s perimeter to risk the call. Bucky was beside her, silent. His leg pressed faintly against hers—barely a touch, but present. Real. His vibranium arm rested across his lap, fingers motionless.

She hit SEND.

It rang twice.

Then a voice—gravel and command—cut through the line: “Hess.”

Clara straightened unconsciously. Years of muscle memory coiling in her spine.

“Colonel. It’s Grayson.”

A pause.

Then: “Well, I’ll be damned, Lieutenant. ”

Her mouth curved into something just short of a smile. “I thought you retired, sir.”

“Thought you were dead, since I haven’t heard from you,” he shot back. “Guess we’re both still disappointing people.”

From the front seat, Steve’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.

“You holding up?” Hess asked, quieter now.

“I’m here,” she said. “Moscow?”

“My son’s expecting you. He’s got friends in engineering, no military ties. The house is secure—guarded, outfitted. The intel your friend Barton sent over says Zemo’s still active?”

“Confirmed. He’s targeting legacy assets. Psychological warfare. Last facility breach was Stark’s.”

“You compromised?”

“No, not at all. But I did push it a bit.”

Another pause. Then, more gently: “Same thing, sometimes.”

Bucky shifted beside her, gaze sliding toward her profile. She didn’t look at him.

“You’ll need to ditch the ride three clicks from the Russian border. I’m sending GPS.”

“Copy.”

“And Clara—” Her name, not her title, stopped her cold. “I heard what they did to that soldier you’re with,” came the Colonel’s voice from her phone again, softer this time. “I looked him up. If it’s worth anything, the actual footage from Vienna exists. Someone tried to sweep it after they made a copy and doctored it.”

Clara’s fingers twitched. “Steve,” she said, already leaning forward. “Check under the seat.”

Steve, in the passenger seat, turned toward her. “What am I looking for?”

“Laptop. Secure case.”

He reached down, fingers sliding beneath the passenger seat until they hit metal. A click, and he pulled out a matte-black case marked with a faint, faded sigil—something between military and ghost protocol. Clara was already leaning over the center console, her body braced between the two front seats. Bucky shifted slightly to give her room but didn’t say a word. She flicked open the case, flipped the laptop’s lid, and typed in the three-level authentication with muscle memory she hadn’t used in months.

The screen blinked alive.

She found the secure thread, skimmed the subject line.

Vienna. Footage. Doctored Copy. Full Original—Undeleted .

A download bar ran quickly. When it reached 100%, she handed the laptop to Steve. “Play it.”

Steve hesitated, then pressed the spacebar. Sam angled toward the screen from the driver’s seat, jaw tight. The footage was clean. Unfiltered. Clara recognized the camera’s elevation immediately—ceiling-mounted security feed, probably pulled from the original facility grid. It showed the bombing in real-time. Only it wasn’t Bucky. Not even close.

The man planting the charge moved differently. Leaner build. Lighter on his feet. Wearing a tactical rig meant to mimic Bucky’s silhouette but not the body. Not the gait. A shiver passed through her spine. Steve's jaw tensed. She could see it—see the anger rolling in behind his eyes, slow and deep. He didn’t say anything, but his knuckles went white against the laptop’s edge.

Sam blew out a low breath. “You think Tony’s seen this?”

Clara sat back, her voice level. “Doubt it.”

“I vetted that tech myself. This footage is real.”

She nodded once, slowly. “Copy.”

“You call me if you need anything else, that’s an order.”

“Sir,” Clara said, agreeing. “Thank you.”

The call clicked off.

Steve didn’t move. His hand hovered over the trackpad, frozen halfway to rewinding.

Bucky’s voice was barely audible. “Doesn’t matter.”

Clara turned to him sharply. “The hell it doesn’t.”

His eyes met hers. Flat. Empty, almost.

“You think it’ll change anything?” he asked. “That they’ll unsee what they want to believe?”

Sam exhaled through his nose. “Maybe not. But it gives us leverage. Proof .”

Clara looked at Steve. “We need to get this to Sharon. Anyone not in Tony’s pocket.”

Steve nodded. Still quiet. But now he looked furious in that quiet way of his—like he’d let this happen under his watch, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. In the corner of her eye, Clara saw Bucky shift again, just enough to turn his body away from the laptop’s glow. Clara’s hand found his for a second—her flesh fingers brushing his metal wrist.

“We’re going fix this.”

He didn’t answer. But he didn’t pull away, either. They sat like that, quiet, the rumble of tires over rough road beneath them. His arm stayed near hers. She didn’t shift away. Her eyes were on the road ahead—but her mind wasn’t. Beside her, Bucky tilted his head just enough to look at her fully. He didn’t say a word. But he didn’t stop watching, either.

Chapter Text

The trees gave way to stone.

Through the windshield, the estate rose from the mist like something out of a forgotten century. All slate spires and sharp angles, balconies and arched windows etched in pale limestone. The drive wound between rows of perfectly clipped evergreens, lamps with wrought-iron necks casting a low golden glow even in the soft daylight. A fountain burbled in the center of the circular path, water catching in the bowl like it didn’t know war was coming.

Clara blinked at it slowly. “Well,” she murmured. “Looks like Charlie got promoted.”

Sam gave a low whistle from the front seat. “You sure this isn’t a Bond villain lair?”

Steve just looked up at the turrets. “Feels like 1940 again.”

The jeep crunched to a stop at the front steps. A man was already coming down them—tall, broad-shouldered, dark blond hair grown out since his military days. He wore a crisp black coat, the collar turned up, eyes hidden behind mirrored aviators despite the overcast sky.

Clara opened the back door and stepped out slowly.

“Charlie.”

He pulled the sunglasses off.

And for a moment, his features softened. “Lieutenant Grayson.”

Clara crossed the last few steps and hugged him. Brief, but not stiff. He smelled like clean soap and jet fuel.

“Last time I saw you,” she said into his shoulder, “you were thirteen and very angry about a bad haircut.”

“And you taught me how to break a man’s wrist with a spoon. Still one of my core memories.”

She stepped back with a dry smile. “Glad I made an impression.”

Charlie turned to the others as they approached, still grinning. “Captain Rogers. I—” He broke off, actually looked a little stunned. “It’s an honor.”

Steve offered a hand, and Charlie shook it firmly. “Thank you for helping us.”

Steve smiled faintly. “Of course, sir.”

Charlie turned to Sam. “And you must be—”

“—Sam Wilson,” Sam said, extending a hand. “The one who keeps the rest of these people from emotionally combusting.”

Clara snorted.

“Right,” Charlie said, shaking his hand. “Good to have you.”

Then his gaze shifted to the last one out of the jeep. Bucky stepped down slowly, thick coat tight over his bulky frame, blue hat down over his eyes as he swept the façade of the house like he didn’t trust it wouldn’t move. His metal arm caught the light. His face didn’t.

Charlie extended a hand. “Charles Hess. But everyone calls me Charlie.”

Bucky didn’t shake it. Just nodded once and walked right past him, boots echoing on the stone steps, disappearing into the house like it owed him something. Charlie blinked but didn’t seem surprised.

Sam shrugged, deadpan. “Don’t mind the old tin man. He’s due for his afternoon brooding session.”

Clara smacked Sam lightly in the arm as Charlie let out a short laugh, shaking his head.

“I can’t believe it’s really you,” he said to her, quieter now. “We heard rumors. My father always said if anyone could survive the worst of it—it was you.”

Clara glanced toward the house, where Bucky had vanished inside. “I’m getting tired of surviving.”

Charlie’s face sobered. “You won’t have to here. You’re safe, Lieutenant. No one gets in or out of this place without my say-so.”

He gestured toward the entrance, where a pair of tall double doors stood open beneath a stone archway. Beyond them, gleaming wood floors, heavy rugs, and a chandelier glinting with real crystal.

“Come in,” Charlie said. “Get warm. I’ve got gear waiting, rooms ready, and enough hot food to make you forget what month it is.”

Sam raised his brows. “Now that’s a welcome.”

As they stepped inside, Clara looked back once. The sky was starting to flurry and for the first time in a while, she let herself hope this place might actually hold.

***

The bathroom was full of steam.

Clara stood under the scalding water, hands braced on the marble tile as the spray hit her shoulders and ran in rivulets down her spine. The estate’s plumbing worked like a dream—steady pressure, constant heat, none of the rattling pipes and lukewarm drip she was used to from field showers or base facilities. She stayed under longer than she needed to. Let the water beat the last of the adrenaline from her body. Let the silence wrap around her like cloth.

Her skin was flushed by the time she finally reached for the soap. She worked slowly, deliberately, scrubbing away the grime of the road. She washed her hair twice, rinsing until her scalp tingled. Then she shaved, though she rarely needed to anymore. She was still, after all these years, learning the consequences of her time pulls. By the time she turned off the water, the mirror was fogged, and her limbs felt heavy but clean.

She dried off slowly with one of the plush dark grey towels stacked beside the sink, wrapping another around her hair. Her skin steamed in the cold air as she stepped out onto the heated tile floor. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she wiped the fog away with her forearm.

Her body told the story of every year she'd survived.

A bullet scar low on her ribs. A faint, jagged one near her collarbone. A deeper slash across the tight muscle of her stomach—stitched in the field with no anesthetic. The worst ran high on the inside of her left thigh, white and raised, the first scar the Japanese ever gave her, and possibly the worst. They used to make her flinch. Now they just looked like proof. Like survival.

Her skin had some color again. The circles under her eyes were gone. The low thrum of her minor healing factor—it had always been there, like an engine idling somewhere deep inside—was working hard now, flushing the last toxins from her blood.

She tightened the towel around her chest and opened the bathroom door.

And ran straight into a body.

Clara startled back just as a hand reached out—quick reflexes, warm, steady—and caught the doorframe to keep her from stumbling. A mug of tea sloshed in the other hand.

Bucky.

His eyes flicked down—just once—then up again with a speed that was maybe a little too deliberate. Like he’d trained for that moment, the lookaway, the don’t stare reflex.

“Tea,” he said, like that explained anything.

She blinked at him. Steam rose between them, catching in the hallway light.

“You okay?” he added, quieter now.

“I’m fine,” she said, still half in the doorframe. “Shower helped.”

He nodded once and lifted the mug slightly, as if offering proof. “Charlie’s got a stash of real honey and lemon. Thought you could use it.”

She glanced down at the mug. “Are you… bringing it to me or guarding the hallway?”

That earned the ghost of a smirk. “Maybe both.”

“Very gallant of you, Barnes.”

He handed it to her, careful not to brush her fingers.

“You smell like—” He stopped abruptly, looked somewhere over her shoulder.

She raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

He coughed once, like clearing his throat would help. “Like soap.”

Her smile curved slowly. “Very observant.”

Bucky scratched the back of his neck with his metal hand, something nervous and awkward about the motion. “You look—uh— better . Color’s back.”

“Didn’t realize I’d lost it.”

“You were white as a sheet,” he said, voice softer now. “Thought you were gonna pass out again back in the jeep.”

She glanced down, realizing too late the towel had slipped slightly lower on her chest. Her hand moved—subtle, not frantic—to tug it back up. But not before Bucky’s eyes flicked again. Just briefly. Then away.

Neither of them spoke for a second.

Then, almost tentatively, Clara stepped back toward the threshold of her bedroom.

“You want to come in?” she asked. “I mean—not for anything. Just—I haven’t really sat still with anyone since we got here.”

Bucky looked at her. Really looked. His expression unreadable.

Then he nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

She moved aside, letting him step past her into the room. She watched the way his shoulders moved under his shirt—the way the light from the hallway hit the silver lines of his arm. He didn’t look at her again until she shut the door behind them.

And even then, he said nothing.

But when she sat on the edge of the bed, tea cupped between her palms, and he settled on the floor beside her—leaning back against the wall, boots still on, body taut and quiet—there was something almost normal in the air.

Almost.

But not quite.

Because her pulse was still skipping, and his metal fingers were tapping once, slow, against the floorboards. And when she finally looked down at him, he was already watching her. Not like a soldier watching a threat. Not like a friend watching out. Just watching. And Clara, still wrapped in a towel, flushed with heat and clean skin and something that felt almost like peace, didn’t look away.

“You should shower,” she said suddenly. “There’s probably an endless amount of hot water here. I know you don’t like the cold.”

He didn’t answer at first.

Then: “I’ll use the one down the hall.”

Her head tilted. “You could use mine.”

Bucky looked at her. Not sharply. Not skeptically. Just saw her. She didn’t blink. Didn’t elaborate. But he knew that look. The look of anxiety. There was tightness behind her eyes and a faint drag in her voice. It wasn’t about the shower. Not really.

“You don’t want to be alone,” he said quietly.

Clara glanced down into her tea.

“No,” she admitted.

He pushed himself up slowly, and something about the way his joints moved—the tight pull of scar tissue, the stiffness he tried not to show—made her heart thud a little harder.

“I’ll go get my stuff.”

She nodded, and he stepped out.

Clara stood, padding barefoot to her duffel. She dried her hair with a fresh towel, tugged on clean jeans, pulled on a rolled up sports bra and then a soft black t-shirt over her head. The cotton clung faintly to her ribs. Her skin felt new. Too new.

By the time she turned, the door creaked open and Bucky stepped back in, silent as always. He held a change of clothes and a worn-out kit bag.

She gestured toward the bathroom with a half-smile. “Shower’s all yours.”

He didn’t speak, just nodded and disappeared into the steam. The door didn’t quite latch behind him. It stayed cracked open just an inch and Clara really didn’t mean to look. She didn’t mean to watch.

But she did.

Through the small gap, she caught a glimpse of him pulling his shirt off. His back was a roadmap of ruin. Scars old and new. The kind that didn’t fade. Across his left side, up into the torn junction of metal and flesh, the skin was raw, red, painful looking. The  image seared into her brain. The junction was brutal. Jagged scarring curved over his pectoral and shoulder like the metal had fused and torn too many times. Burned tissue flared red against otherwise flawless skin. The way he moved, slow and careful, made it clear— it hurt.

But god, the rest of him—

Her breath caught as he turned. Through the glass of the shower door, slightly fogged now but not enough, she saw the hard lines of his chest. Wide shoulders. Defined abs. Arms like granite. Everything about him looked carved—like he’d been molded by punishment, like he’d come out the other side harder, sharper.

She felt heat rise to her cheeks.

Clara turned away sharply, dragging a hand through her damp hair.

Get it together.

Then— knock knock .

She nearly jumped.

Crossing the room quickly, she opened the door a crack. A woman in a pressed grey uniform stood there, balancing an enormous silver tray on her arms. The scent hit Clara immediately—roasted meat, potatoes, warm bread, something buttery and spiced.

“Delivery,” the maid said softly, smiling. “Captain Rogers thought Mr. Barnes would be here.”

Clara hesitated. Then opened the door wider and took the tray carefully, surprised by the weight of it.

“Thanks,” she said, already barely holding back the ache of hunger.

The maid smiled wider. “He said the two of you might actually eat if it came without asking.”

Clara’s eyes flicked toward the bathroom door, still slightly ajar. Steam still poured from the crack. She turned back to the tray, and for the first time in days—maybe longer—her stomach growled loud enough to make her laugh, just once.

“Tell Steve he was right.”

The maid nodded and reached in to pull the door shut. It clicked shut behind her leaving Clara alone with Bucky and a tray of food full enough to feed a small army. Or just a Winter Soldier. Clara set the tray on the low table, lifting the lid to find a spread before her. A bowl of roasted root vegetables was smothered in butter and spices. Grilled chicken and steak probably, sliced cheese, olives and fruit and a pile of fresh rye bread still warm. She picked up a slice with one hand and tore off a piece with the other just as the shower stopped.

Her heartbeat, ridiculously, kicked again. She swallowed, still chewing, and didn’t look toward the door.

Not yet.

Steam still drifted beneath the bathroom door, curling into the warm light of the room like breath. Clara sat cross-legged on the floor beside the low table, elbow braced against her knee, picking at the bread and roasted vegetables as if eating too quickly might make her feel too much. She hadn’t realized how long she’d been listening to the sound of it—steady and grounding, the kind of noise that lets you breathe without knowing why.

The bathroom door creaked open.

Clara didn’t look up at first. She focused on her plate, slicing through a piece of grilled chicken with the edge of her fork. Don’t stare, she told herself. Be cool. Be casual. A moment later, she failed.

She looked.

Bucky stepped out of the steam like something carved out of shadow. A towel hung low on his hips, his torso bare—still damp, water glinting along the line of his collarbone, trickling over muscle and down the deep-cut ridges of his abdomen. His hair was wet and pushed back, longer strands curling slightly at the ends. His metal arm gleamed in the lamplight, sharp and silver.

Clara stilled completely.

Her eyes followed the mess of lines that spiderwebbed across his chest, down over his ribs. Bullet wounds, puncture scars, slashes. Every one of them told a story she hadn’t heard yet.

He hadn’t noticed her looking.

He walked to the corner where he’d left his change of clothes and started toweling off the rest of his hair, muscles flexing across his back with every movement. Then he paused. She realized her breath had caught.

Bucky turned slightly, catching her gaze through the haze of steam still coiling in the air.

Their eyes met.

And for a second—just a heartbeat—neither of them looked away.

Clara’s face flushed with heat, and she ran a hand through her hair, trying to look anywhere else. “There’s food,” she said quickly, voice too bright, too fast. “Steve sent it. Enough for you, me, and the other half of Moscow.”

He gave a small grunt—amused, maybe—but didn’t say anything.

She heard fabric sliding across skin, the shuffle of him pulling on jeans and a dark henley—soft cotton, military standard. Still warm from the radiator or the dryer or maybe just him. She couldn’t tell. When he moved into the room, barefoot, shirt tugged down over his torso, she forced herself to act normal. She held up a slice of bread like an offering.

“Rye,” she said. “Still warm.”

He looked at it then at her, and then, finally, sat down across from her on the floor, the edge of his knee brushing hers. Not close enough to touch. Just close enough to feel.

Clara swallowed. Her pulse hadn’t settled.

“I don’t think I’ve eaten anything that didn’t come out of a ration pack since Austria,” she said, reaching for the olives.

Bucky picked up a slice of steak with a fork, shoved the whole thing in his mouth, and chewed silently.

“You know,” she added, trying to keep it light, “normal people say things like thank you when someone lets them use the luxury shower in their room.”

“I brought you tea,” he said flatly.

She raised her brows. “You think that balances it out?”

He looked at her sideways, and she almost—almost—caught the flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“I didn’t want to leave,” he said after a long pause. “I wasn’t going to ask to stay but you were shaking earlier.”

Clara’s hand froze on the cheese knife. She looked up. He wasn’t joking anymore. Their eyes met again, and something soft twisted in her chest.

“I’m okay now,” she said quietly. “I think.”

He nodded once. “Yeah. You look it.”

Another silence passed. Not uncomfortable. Just full. Then he reached for another slice of bread and said, “But I’m still eating half this tray.”

Clara huffed a laugh and tossed him a chunk of chicken.

Eventually the tray of food sat pushed off to the side on the low table, half-empty. Warm bread crumbs dotted the wood between two empty plates. Clara was full for the first time in days—full and warm and tired in a way that felt earned.

The silence in the room had settled like dust in a sunbeam. She sat on the floor near the foot of the bed, knees pulled up, her spine curved against the side of the couch. A moment ago, Bucky had been talking—something about Charlie’s strange taste in art, the carved mask on the wall that looked vaguely haunted. She’d laughed. Just once. It felt good in her ribs.

Now, he wasn’t saying anything.

She glanced up.

He was still on the couch by the window, long legs stretched out in front of him, arms lax. His head tipped slightly back against the arm of the couch, his hair still damp, curling faintly at the ends. The metal of his arm caught the light from the lamp, a dull silver gleam in the room.

His eyes were closed and he was asleep. Clara blinked, suddenly startled by the softness of it. Of him . She wasn’t used to this version of Bucky. Not the soldier. Not the guarded, mission-focused shadow. Just—tired. Human. There was something reverent in the way he looked this way. She stood quietly, pulling the thick blanket from the edge of the bed. The movement was careful, practiced—habit from years of sneaking out of bunks or shared safe houses without waking anyone. She stepped close and gently draped the blanket over his lap and legs, letting the weight fall softly. His breathing didn’t change.

Her hand lingered for a second longer than it should’ve. She could see the fine scar along his collarbone. The hollow of his throat. The line of his jaw slack in sleep.

She crouched again on the floor, curling back into her place beside the couch, this time closer. Close enough that her shoulder nearly brushed his knee. The warmth of him was steady, grounding. She rested her chin on her folded arms, eyes watching him in the low light.

"You’re not the thing they made you," she whispered.

She didn’t expect an answer.

But his fingers twitched once—barely noticeable—metal scraping faintly against the fabric of the blanket.

Clara let herself smile.

Then— a knock came from the door. She tensed, instinctively reaching for the sidearm not there, and then the door opened before she could speak. Steve leaned into the room, eyes sweeping the space—taking everything in. Bucky asleep, curled on the couch. Clara on the floor, back pressed to the furniture, barefoot and quiet.

He didn’t say anything at first.

Clara met his eyes. There was no guilt in her expression. Just calm.

Steve’s shoulders relaxed. He stepped further in and shut the door gently behind him.

“You two fell off the radar,” he said softly, voice just above a whisper. “Sam and I thought maybe you snuck out the window.”

Clara lifted her brows. “Don’t think either of us is in window-sneaking condition.”

He smiled faintly, then looked toward Bucky.

“You got him to sleep,” Steve said. “That’s new I think. Don’t know how long he’ll last.”

She shrugged. “I just fed him.”

Steve studied her for a long beat. “I think you did a little more than that.”

Clara looked back at Bucky, whose hand now curled loosely on top of the blanket, metal glinting soft in the lamplight.

“I don’t think he knows how to rest anymore,” she said, voice low. “Not really.”

Steve nodded. “He does. Sometimes. But not with people.”

Clara’s throat tightened. “Guess I’m not people.”

“No,” Steve said gently. “You’re not.”

Another pause.

“I’ll let you rest,” he added, backing toward the door. “Just wanted to make sure everything was… good.”

Clara looked up at him, tired but honest. “It is.”

He gave her one last look—measured, thoughtful. Then nodded once and slipped out.

The door clicked quietly behind him.

Clara looked back toward Bucky, who hadn’t moved.

She pulled the edge of the blanket higher over his ribs and let her head rest against the couch cushion above her.

And this time, when she closed her eyes—

She let herself sleep too.

***

The room was dark. Still. Quiet, except for the soft rustle of wind pushing against the high windows. Bucky’s breath caught sharp in his chest. His eyes snapped open.

He sat up fast, his heart slamming against the inside of his ribs, breath jagged. For a second—less than a second—he didn’t know where he was. Then the room came back into focus: high ceilings, stone walls softened by lamplight, the edge of a tray on the table, snow curling against the glass outside.

He ran both hands over his face. His skin was clammy. His hair stuck to his temples.

Goddamn it.

He could still feel the phantom heat of the muzzle. The recoil. The way the man fell, limp and final, before Bucky turned—expressionless—and walked out like he hadn’t just stolen a life.

One of so many.

He exhaled hard, leaning forward, elbows braced on his knees. The cold from the window bled into his spine, anchoring him there, keeping him from getting up—until he saw her.

Clara.

Asleep on the floor where she’d curled beside the couch. Still in her t-shirt, bare feet half-tucked beneath her. Her cheek rested against the throw pillow she’d pulled down at some point, dark hair loose and spilling around her shoulders.

Too small a space. Too cold.

Too much like she’d just… let herself fall wherever she landed.

His gut twisted.

He pushed up slowly, metal arm flexing to catch the weight as he stood. Then he knelt beside her.

“Clara,” he murmured, barely above breath.

She didn’t stir.

He hesitated for half a second.

Then he slid one arm under her knees and another behind her back. She didn’t wake, but the moment he lifted her off the ground, her body shifted—arms slipping instinctively around his neck, her face tipping toward his collar.

Bucky froze.

The feeling shot straight through his chest, low and fierce and ancient. He didn’t say a word. Just carried her. The bed was massive—probably meant for some Romanov descendant or an oil magnate with too many wives. Clean sheets, thick duvet, pillows stacked in soft white heaps. Bucky laid Clara down with all the care he could muster.

Her arms slipped away, falling softly to the mattress.

He stood there for a beat, watching her.

Then, almost without thinking, he crouched again. Reached for the waistband of her jeans.

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath, working the button free, sliding the denim down slowly over her hips, her thighs, her knees. “How the hell do you breathe in these?”

He shook his head and pulled the duvet back, tucking it up around her bare legs. She shifted slightly, sighing in her sleep. One hand curled into the blanket. Outside, snow began to fall harder—soft and thick against the window panes. Bucky sat back on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring out into the night.

He shouldn’t be here.

He shouldn’t still be . But he was.

What the hell did he know about women like Clara? About people who fought with their hearts still open? About what they needed , what they wanted ? He wasn’t a man. He was a consequence, a bad habit the world hadn’t broken yet.

He dropped his head into his hands.

I shouldn’t be near her.

I shouldn’t let her—

Then she shifted.

Rolled onto her side. One arm tucked under her head, the other resting on the pillow beside her face. Her hair spilled across the sheets in dark waves, curling naturally now that it was fully dry. Her lashes were long against her cheeks, her breathing soft.

He looked at her and he didn’t move. He didn’t leave. He didn’t try.

Because something in his chest—low and stubborn and impossibly quiet—whispered:

Not yet.

***

The following morning Clara woke to warmth. The duvet was pulled up to her shoulders, the pillow soft beneath her cheek. It took her a minute to register the stillness of the room—the soft hum of the radiator, the faint scrape of wind against the windows.

And then the smell hit her.

Coffee.

She blinked once, rolled toward the nightstand, and found it there. A heavy ceramic mug—black, steam curling lazily from the top. A folded scrap of paper rested against the base.

Clara sat up slowly, pulling the blanket around her shoulders as she reached for the note.

Outside.
Coffee’s black. Two sugars.
—B

She stared at the handwriting for a beat longer than she needed to. Slanted. Clean. Not overly neat. Like he didn’t want to admit he took time with the pen. Her lips tugged at the corners.

Two sugars.

He’d noticed that?

She took a sip—hot and strong and exactly right—and sighed into it, already reaching for the clothes she’d dropped over the back of the chair the night before. Jeans. A thermal shirt. Her thickest socks. While she dressed, she kept the mug close—holding it in one hand while tugging her shirt down with the other.

The toothpaste stung a little against her gums. She rinsed, spat, wiped her mouth, and found a note scrawled on the mirror in soap.

Charlie says this one’s yours.

She opened the armoire beside the bathroom and found a parka waiting—deep forest green, fur-lined hood, reinforced elbows. She ran a hand down the sleeve.

Goddamn Charlie.

Boots next. Laced tight. The snow outside had piled up in the corners of the windows, soft and heavy. When she stepped into the hallway, it was quiet. The whole house felt wrapped in early morning hush. She followed the faint sound of voices and movement down the rear corridor. A door at the end stood cracked open. She pushed it fully open and stepped out into the courtyard—and exhaled. She was only wearing the parka because someone picked it out for her, otherwise she was fine with the snow.

The air was crisp and clean, snow falling in soft spirals from the trees. The courtyard was wide and stone-lined, edged in pines and old stone pillars. In the center, two figures moved. Steve. And Bucky, throwing the shield, talking. Steve laughed, loud, and Bucky had a stupid grin on his face. Clara didn’t want to disrupt…but then Bucky threw the shield again, like it was a fucking frisbee and they were playing catch.

Steve caught it and threw it back, not casually and not aggressively. Something in between. A rhythm, a pattern. Steve’s throw was precise, forceful. Bucky caught it with his vibranium hand, adjusted his stance, and sent it back. No words. Just the thump of boots on stone, the whirring ring of vibranium meeting metal.

Clara stood just inside the threshold, coffee still in her hand, watching them. The snow didn’t seem to touch them—just danced around them, light slicing through the flurries like they were suspended in time. Steve caught the shield again and finally noticed her.

He smiled. “Morning.”

Bucky turned too. He didn’t smile—but his gaze landed on her like gravity.

“Hey,” she said, voice soft from sleep. “Didn’t know we were training today.”

Steve stepped back a pace, breath fogging the air. “Figured you might want to get some practice in later. Ease back in.”

She held up the coffee mug. “Bribing me with caffeine was a smart play.”

Bucky’s mouth twitched. Barely. But it was there.

“I’ll warm up,” she added, nodding toward the doorway behind her. “Give me ten.”

Steve tossed the shield again, catching it without looking. “Take your time. We’re not going anywhere.”

Bucky didn’t say a word, but he watched her until she was gone.

10 minutes later, the snow had started to melt in the center of the courtyard, kicked up by footfalls and heat of bodies in motion. Sunlight cut through the clouds overhead, bright enough to sting. Clara stood across from Bucky, her sleeves rolled up, a faint flush in her cheeks despite the cold. Steve leaned against the stone railing on the far side, arms folded, watching with something between curiosity and concern.

“Alright,” Bucky said, voice calm, even. “We’re gonna try something different.”

Clara cocked her head. “Different how?”

“You’ve been training your power, how long you can hold it and stretch it, Steve says. But you haven’t trained what happens after. ”

She tensed slightly.

“After what?” she asked, though she already knew.

“After you burn out. After your body gives up before your brain does. After you freeze two city blocks to save two super soldiers and a mechanical bird and can’t remember your own name for five minutes.”

Steve chuckled, not allowing the jibe at Sam to fly by and his head lifted slightly toward Clara.. Bucky didn’t flinch.

“I sat up all night,” he said, quietly now. “Watching you breathe like your chest hurt… watching your fingers twitch every time the wind hit the window. You were still in it. Your mind was stuck there.”

Clara’s eyes darkened, lashes lowering.

“I know what that’s like,” he added. “Coming back slow. Not knowing if you want to come back.”

Steve stood straighter now. He didn’t interrupt.

“So what’s your idea?” Clara asked, arms folding.

Bucky stepped forward, close enough she could see the glint of steel where his sleeve was pushed up. “We trigger your cooldown response. Then we teach your body what it feels like to reset.”

Her brow creased. “That’s not a real thing.”

“It is now,” Bucky said simply. “We build a tactile pattern. Physical memory. Something deep enough it kicks in when your brain can’t help you.”

“Like muscle memory?”

“Like grounding. But on instinct.”

Clara hesitated. “What are you gonna do? Hit me?”

“Gray, you wound me,” Bucky said, but his expression didn’t change. “I’m gonna catch you.”

She blinked.

Steve stepped in, tone low. “This is risky.”

“So is Clara blacking out every time she touches time for more than thirty seconds,” Bucky shot back.

Clara bit the inside of her cheek. Then, she straightened. “Walk me through it.”

Bucky nodded. “We push your threshold just to the edge. You stop time, hold it. Not long. Not fully. Just a pulse. I’ll be right there. Then, when it ends—when your body wants to collapse or your mind starts to fragment—I touch the same three pressure points. Palm, shoulder, back of the neck. Over and over. Until you start recognizing it. Until it brings you back.”

Clara’s pulse picked up. “That’ll take weeks.”

Bucky’s voice dropped. “So we start today.”

She looked at Steve. He didn’t speak, but he gave the faintest nod. If you trust him. Try.

Clara exhaled.

Then nodded. “Okay.”

They faced each other in the center of the courtyard. The snow around them had flattened, trampled into slush. Clara closed her eyes, breathing slow. The air shimmered around her skin—time already bending at the edges.

“Three seconds,” Bucky murmured. “No more.”

She nodded once, a nd then everything stilled. The courtyard went silent. Wind froze mid-whistle. Snowflakes hung suspended in the air. Bucky didn’t move, d idn’t breathe. Time snapped back with a crack. Clara gasped, stumbling forward. Her knees buckled. He was already there. One hand against her palm. The other on her shoulder. The next touch—a whisper of contact at the back of her neck.

“Palm. Shoulder. Neck,” he said, low and steady. “You’re here. Right here.”

She flinched.

He didn’t let go.

“Clara,” he said again, firmer now. “Palm. Shoulder. Neck.”

She blinked, disoriented. Then again, eyes starting to focus. Steve watched from the edge, jaw tight, but he didn’t move.

Clara’s breath evened out.

“Again,” she rasped.

Bucky’s mouth twitched. “You sure?”

“Again,” she repeated. “If it works, we do it ‘til I stop flinching.”

And this time—she caught his hand.

The second round left her shaking, sweat prickling at her spine despite the cold. By the third round, Steve suggested trying to add fifteen seconds. They repeated forty-five second intervals for ten minutes until she called time and walked over to the low stone ledge at the edge of the courtyard. She sat breathing hard, rolling her wrists like it might dispel the ache crawling up her arms. Bucky stood nearby, arms crossed, watching her with an expression that sat somewhere between calculation and concern.

Steve approached, brow furrowed. “She’s got more in her.”

Clara looked up, half-laughing through a wince. “Don’t sugarcoat it, Rogers.”

“I’m not saying go full meltdown,” he said evenly. “But you need to test the edges. Hold longer. We won’t know what your ceiling is if we never touch it and each time we’ve blasted through it, Gray, it’s been because we’ve had no other options. I don’t want you to be the fall guy.”

Clara dropped her head back with a groan. “You’re both sadists.”

Steve smiled faintly. “I’m just supervising.”

Bucky didn’t smile. He turned away instead, gaze drifting past the treeline at the far edge of the courtyard. The pines were tall and thick, branches dusted white, their tips shivering slightly in the wind. He watched a trio of small birds shifting in the snow-flecked needles—tiny, twitchy things, all motion and breath. He crouched near the edge of the courtyard and picked up a smooth stone, not much bigger than his palm. Then he looked back at her.

“When the birds fly,” he said, “you freeze time.”

Clara straightened slowly. “You want me to test on animals?”

“I want you to test in real conditions,” Bucky replied. “You think time’s gonna wait for you to find a morally acceptable target?”

She frowned. “And if I stop their hearts?”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

He looked her dead in the eye. “I’m not worried, Clara.”

Steve stayed silent. That, more than anything, made her chest go tight. Clara nodded once. Quietly. Bucky turned back to the trees. The birds were still there, fluttering lightly across the upper branches, unaware of the tension just across the courtyard. He drew his arm back and threw the rock—not at them, but just near —a sharp crack of stone against bark. The birds exploded upward in a flurry of wings.

Clara raised her hand and the world stopped. Steve stopped. The snow hung still in the air. The wind died in her ears. The birds froze mid-flight, wings spread like glass sculptures in the sky, but Bucky didn’t move. He didn’t need to move. He watched her and then glanced down at his watch. “Timer’s running.”

Seconds ticked by.

Thirty.

Ninety.

Clara stood perfectly still, fists clenched at her sides. The skin along her arms had gone pale. Her shoulders twitched. Her mouth opened once—like she was trying to speak—but no sound came.

Three minutes.

Four.

Five.

Then—

Time crashed back in like a wave hitting the shore. The birds soared upward. The trees shuddered. Clara gasped—a full-body, staggering sound—and went down hard. Bucky caught her before she hit the stone. He dropped to his knees with her, metal arm bracing her back, his other hand moving fast.

Palm.

Shoulder.

Neck.

“Palm. Shoulder. Neck,” he said, rhythm steady. “You’re here. You’re back.”

Her eyes rolled before they locked on him. Wide. Terrified.

He repeated it.

Again.

And again.

Until her breath caught—and then steadied.

Her hands gripped his shirt.

“Five minutes,” Bucky said, not looking away from her, searching her face for something. “Steve, five solid minutes.”

“Yeah,” he said and shook his head. “It felt like 2 seconds.”

Clara’s voice was barely a whisper. “Let's go again.”

Chapter Text

Two hours later…

They got her inside before the cold sank too deep into her bones.

Clara’s legs barely worked by the time Bucky carried her through the back door, the world still catching up around the edges of her vision. Steve followed behind, wiping snow off his gloves, glancing at her every few seconds with the concern of someone trying not to show it.

“Set her on the couch,” Steve said quietly. “I’ll grab the blanket.”

Bucky didn’t answer. He moved automatically, lowering Clara onto the long, overstuffed couch that faced the tall windows overlooking the courtyard. She didn’t let go of his shirt until the cushions caught her spine. Even then, her fingers lingered at his collar, uncertain.

His hand brushed down her arm once. Palm. Shoulder. Neck.

She blinked hard. Her lips moved. “Still here.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “You are.”

Steve returned with the blanket and passed it to Bucky without a word. Bucky tucked it around Clara’s shoulders, slow and steady, and only then sat down beside her—not too close, not too far. Just within reach. Just in case.

She fell asleep with her head tilted slightly in his direction.

***

The dining table was long and dark-stained, the wood chipped at the corners from years of use. Charlie had someone cook something massive and filling—roasted potatoes with garlic and lemon, thick stew with vegetables and rice, crusty rolls that steamed when torn apart. The fireplace in the corner crackled, throwing gold light across the high stone walls.

Clara padded into the dining room barefoot, her damp hair had been braided back loosely, a few curls already escaping around her temples. She wore a dark t-shirt and jeans. Her body still buzzed from the time burn but her face softer now, less drawn.

Bucky was already seated, posture loose for once, hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows. His plate sat mostly untouched in front of him, but his eyes flicked up the second Clara stepped into the room.

She didn’t notice at first. Or maybe she pretended not to. Steve was talking with Charlie at the far end of the table, and Sam was stacking extra napkins beside the basket of bread.

Clara sat beside Bucky without hesitation, not across from him. Beside him. Their thighs brushed. They didn’t move. Sam’s brows lifted, but he didn’t comment until halfway through the meal, when Bucky passed Clara the stew bowl and she didn’t even have to ask. She caught his eye for a moment too long—silent, grateful.

Sam leaned forward across the table and grinned. “We’re gonna need a new house rule. No eye contact longer than five seconds. It’s making the rest of us deeply uncomfortable.”

Clara gave him a dry look, cheeks just faintly pink. “I’ll make sure to stare at you next time.”

Bucky just kept eating, but one corner of his mouth curved.

Steve chuckled. “I’ve seen that look. Used to get it when Peggy was about to punch someone in the jaw.”

Charlie raised a glass. “To complicated feelings.”

“To not talking about them,” Sam added.

Glasses clinked.

Bucky didn’t toast. But when he bumped Clara’s glass by accident, he didn’t pull away.

After Dinner
The Quiet

The others drifted off first—Steve to check the comms hub, Sam and Charlie toward the sitting room for a chess rematch Clara already knew Sam would lose. She stood slowly, stretching out the ache in her legs, and started stacking empty plates. Bucky joined her in the kitchen without a word. He moved past her to reach for the leftover containers. His hand brushed her lower back—just a touch. Just enough to make her stiffen slightly in surprise.

He didn’t apologize and she didn’t move away.

They cleaned together in near silence, the clink of glass and the soft rush of water the only sound between them. Later, she dropped onto the couch with a low groan, curling into the armrest. The firelight cast shadows along the rug. Bucky sat down beside her again—same place. Same angle. Their legs touched at the knees.

Neither of them shifted.

“You really think this training thing’ll work?” she asked after a long pause.

Bucky leaned forward, elbows on his thighs. “It already is.”

She looked at him, searching his face. “You really stayed up thinking about this?” she asked as she reached out toward the large fireplace, stopping the flames in their glowing waves, holding for a second and then letting go. 

He met her eyes. “I had an idea.”

They didn’t speak again.

The fire popped once.

Clara rested her head back against the cushion and closed her eyes. Bucky leaned back too, stretching his legs out, hands folded in his lap, watching the flames like they might tell him what the hell he was doing but he didn’t move. He didn’t move when her hand drifted over to brush his knee or when her head tipped sideways, just enough to rest against his arm. Not even when he closed his eyes too.

Sometime later, in the quiet of the space, the fire had burned low in the hearth, casting shadows up the walls of the high-ceilinged den. Most of the others had drifted off hours ago. Sam’s half-finished mug of tea sat forgotten near the windowsill. Somewhere upstairs, Charlie’s old stereo played faint jazz from another room.

Clara reached for the remote from the arm of the couch, her movements slow, relaxed.

“I haven’t watched TV in months,” she murmured, thumb grazing over the buttons.

Bucky, seated beside her, tilted his head slightly, curious.

“What made you stop?” he asked.

“Wasn’t really anywhere that had one. Between mission bunkers and blackout safehouses and, you know—government imprisonment—I kinda lost track of Grey’s Anatomy. ”

Clara’s voice was dry, but it made him huff. A sound halfway between a grunt and a laugh. The kind of reaction you give when something catches you off guard and warms you just enough to let your guard down.

“Never really watched anything,” he said, eyes still on the screen, though he clearly wasn’t watching.

She angled her head slightly to look up at him. “What, ever?”

He shook his head, slow. “Bits and pieces of news mostly. You gotta remember… for kids like Steve and me, TVs weren’t even available until the '30s. And even then, only in a few stores. By the time they started showing up in homes, we were already in the war.”

Clara didn’t interrupt. She just let him talk. His voice got quieter, but not uncertain. Like he was settling into a truth he didn’t say out loud much.

“Then, the 1940s came… By ’45 I was ‘dead.’”

He didn’t say it with drama. No bitterness or flair. Just matter-of-fact. As if it was a piece of history in a book. As if he wasn’t still living with the weight of it every day. He glanced down, then back to the television. Something flickered behind his eyes. Not pain, exactly. Just distance.

“The rest is all a bit foggy,” he added.

She shifted closer, her thigh brushing his under the blanket.

“How foggy?” she asked gently.

He rubbed the side of his thumb along her upper arm. “There are whole decades I only remember in flashes. And even those… sometimes I can’t tell if they’re real or just someone else’s version they put in my head.”

Clara’s chest tightened.

“But you remember Steve,” she said.

He nodded once. “Now? Always. The more I’m around him, the more comes back.”

“Me?”

He looked down at her then. Met her eyes.

“You I remember in color. Even when I’m him … you are vivid in my mind.”

Clara blinked, throat catching. He didn’t seem to realize what he’d said, or maybe he did—and that was the scariest part.

“It’s not just the time gaps,” he went on, more quietly now. “It’s how time works around me. I look in the mirror, and I’m still eighteen in the body and enlisting after Pearl Harbor But in the head… sometimes I’m seventy. Sometimes I can count the years. Sometimes I’m seven and crumpling up newspapers to shove in Steve’s shoes. Sometimes I’m back on that table and my arms gone, and everything else goes silent.”

Clara reached out and took his hand. Just that. Her fingers curled warm and careful around his much larger one. Her thumb moved—barely—a quiet pass over the curve of his knuckle. And Bucky… he nodded once, jaw flexing like he didn’t quite trust his voice.

Then, after a beat, he opened his arm. Just a little. An invitation, not a demand.

“Come here,” he said, voice low.

She hesitated—just enough for him to see it. Enough for the air to catch slightly between them. Bucky tilted his head, eyes on hers. Firmer this time. Rougher. Not harsh—just steadier. Like someone trying to hold something together from the inside out, he spoke again.

“Come here , Clara.”

The sound of her name landed soft but sharp in her chest. Her breath hitched—then she moved. Not rushed. Not careful. Just honest. She crossed the last inch of space between them, sliding into the crook of his arm, the other coming around her back as she settled against his chest. His hand found her shoulder, then her hip. Her head tucked beneath his jaw.

He exhaled. The kind of breath that lets a ghost go.

For a long moment, they just sat there—no mission, no past, no performance. Clara’s hand stayed over his heart.

Her head rested against his shoulder now, nestled in the crook between muscle and collar. She was warm, pliant, breathing slow but steady. Her legs curled beneath her, her body molded to his like she belonged there. Like she’d always belonged there.

He didn’t move.

He just watched her thumb tracing slow circles over his knuckles, the motion getting lazier, softer—until it stopped altogether. Her breathing shifted—longer exhales, slight twitches of her fingers. She was falling asleep.

But then, just as he was about to reach for the blanket, she stirred. Her voice was barely above a whisper—hoarse with sleep, but unmistakably curious.

“Did you ever learn to dance?”

He blinked. The question was so quiet, so unexpected, that for a second he thought he’d imagined it. He tilted his head, trying to see her face, but her hair had fallen forward, loose from its braid and curling at her temple.

Gently—so gently he surprised even himself—Bucky reached up and pushed the strands from her face, tucking them behind her ear with his fingers. He kept his hand there a beat longer than necessary, brushing his thumb over her cheekbone, then the soft dip just below it. He wanted her to sleep. She’d pushed herself too hard today—holding time like that, until it nearly broke her open from the inside. He’d watched it happen. He’d felt it.

But she was still awake. Still wondering. Still asking him things no one else had ever thought to. Bucky let out a soft breath. His thumb moved once more, this time over the curve of her eyebrow.

“Yeah,” he said. “Actually, I remember I dragged Steve to a dance hall once in Brooklyn,” Bucky said with a soft laugh. “I told him he was never gonna meet anyone if he kept leaning on a wall pretending to be tough.”

Clara made a small sound—something between a breath and a smile—against his neck.

“And did he?”

He shifted a little, so he could see her better. “Meet someone?”

She nodded against his chest, eyes still closed.

He hesitated. “Eventually. I… never had an issue with that,” he said, voice quieter now. “But… nothing ever really stuck. Not like Steve and Peggy.”

Clara’s hand found his again. She laced their fingers this time, slow and deliberate, like she needed to feel every joint and seam of him to believe he was real. Bucky stared down at their hands, the way her thumb brushed the inside of his wrist. Her touch didn’t hurt. It didn’t demand. It just was. He didn’t know how to describe it—but it was becoming harder and harder not to tell her things. He hadn’t asked her much about herself, not yet, and still she gave. She gave and asked and listened like she wasn’t afraid of what she might find in him.

He swallowed hard.

“I don’t know why it’s so easy to talk to you,” he said, so quiet it wasn’t even meant for her to hear.

But her fingers tightened faintly around his. And that was answer enough. Bucky reached over with his left hand, the metal one, and pulled the folded blanket from the arm of the couch. He draped it carefully over her legs and torso, tucking the edges around her side without disturbing her weight against him.

His metal arm came to rest across her waist. His human one remained cradling her shoulders.

And finally—finally—he leaned his head against hers.

Not to sleep.

Just to stay.

Just to feel.

Bucky adjusted slightly, careful not to disturb her. He rested his head back against the cushion, trying not to think too hard about what it meant. Why this felt heavier than it should. Why it made something in his chest feel sharp and unsteady.

He heard the footsteps before he saw him.

Steve entered the room quietly, eyes adjusting quickly in the dim light. His gaze landed on them immediately—Clara tucked against Bucky, blanket wrapped around her, Bucky still as stone but somehow soft in the edges. Steve didn’t speak right away. He crossed the room and sat down on the coffee table in front of the couch, elbows resting lightly on his knees, facing Bucky head-on.

“You okay?” he asked gently.

Bucky didn’t answer. Not right away.

Then, voice low, “I don’t know what I’m doing, Steve.”

Steve glanced at Clara, then back at him. “Looks like you’re sitting still for once.”

“That’s the problem,” Bucky muttered. “I don’t sit still. Not like this. And as much as she’s making it easy for me to… to do… I’m buzzing, Steve.”

“Stay still, Buck. Just—just for a second. Re-learn it. It’s okay .”

Bucky shook his head. “She shouldn’t—” He swallowed hard. “She shouldn’t want to be this close to me. Not me. Not with what I’ve done.”

Steve was quiet for a long moment.

Then, “Do you want to know what she said after Austria? When you were locked up and everyone thought you were the reason the building exploded?”

Bucky’s jaw flexed, but he nodded.

“She told Tony to go to hell and nearly passed out defending you. She had him and Rhodey in a vice and controlled the room before I had her stop. Then they tranqed her and—”

“—look where that got her. Burned out. Hunted. Thrown into another cell, this one with me, and the walls look a little different.”

“She chose this,” Steve said, voice firm. “She knew the risk. She knew you. She’s known of you, Buck. And she still put herself between you and the worst of it. You want to doubt someone—fine. But don’t doubt her.”

Bucky looked down at her, lashes dark against her cheek, mouth slightly parted in sleep.

“I don’t think she’s afraid of me,” he said quietly, like he couldn’t believe it. “What do you think?”

“I’ve known Clara a while,” Steve said. “She’s not afraid of much. Won’t go back to Japan, but that’s self-explanatory. No, Buck. I don’t think she’s afraid of you but you’re afraid of you.”

That landed harder than he expected.

Steve leaned forward slightly. “You’re not what they made you, Buck. You’re not the man who pulled that trigger a hundred times over. I’ll keep telling you until you go deaf. You’re the one holding a woman who knows it, and who’s safer sleeping against you than anyone else on this planet.”

Silence again.

Then, more softly, “If you’re waiting for permission to let yourself be human again—you’ve had it. From me. From her. From yourself . If you’d just stop looking at your hands like they’re still weapons…”

Bucky’s fingers twitched. Steve stood slowly, easing back.

“She’ll wake up soon,” he added. “You might want to be the first thing she sees.”

Bucky didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. But when Steve turned back at the doorway for one last glance—he saw the Winter Soldier sitting there with his arm around Clara Grayson, blanketed in firelight, still fighting ghosts.

And for once—

Winning.

***

The house had gone still again.

Bucky stood in the hallway outside Clara’s room, one hand on the doorframe, the other pressed absently to the small of his back where the warmth of her had lingered. He should’ve gone to his own room. Should’ve peeled himself off the couch the second she was asleep and left before it meant anything. But when she stirred slightly—just a shift of her weight, her cheek brushing his shoulder—and let out the softest sound in her sleep, something fragile and wounded, like her chest ached…

He couldn’t do it.

So he carried her.

She barely roused when he lifted her, just curled instinctively against his chest again. Her arms wrapped around him without thought. Her fingers clutched the fabric at his collar. He eased her bedroom door open with his foot and crossed to the massive bed beneath the tall, arched window. The snow outside had slowed, flakes drifting like ash. Moonlight cut across the room in soft silver lines. Bucky laid her down carefully, pulled the blanket over her legs, and stood for a long moment at the edge of the bed. He should leave now. Just go. Before he made this worse.

But he didn’t. He sat down and then he leaned back against the headboard, his body weighted in the mattress, legs stretched out beside her. At some point, his eyes drifted shut.

He didn’t dream.

Not at first.

Clara simmered him without meaning to—just the rhythm of her breath beside him, the warmth of her fingers still tangled near his knee, the steady rise and fall that matched his own. It was the first time in recent memory he’d felt human in sleep. Like a man, not a machine on standby.

He might’ve even smiled if he could remember how.

But then—

She shot up, bolted upright, breath ragged, one hand clutching the front of her shirt like she couldn’t get enough air.

Bucky jolted awake instantly.

“Clara,” he said, already shifting, already reaching.

She didn’t hear him. Her eyes were open, but unfocused, her mouth parted in a silent cry. Her whole body shook. He reached for her hand and hesitated— too close, too fast —but something in him knew hesitation would make it worse. That too much space could feel like danger. So he did the only thing that made sense. He grabbed her hand and tugged her firmly back into him.

Her body resisted for half a second, still wired from the dream—but then she fell right against his chest. His metal arm wrapped around her waist. His flesh hand cradled the back of her head, fingers tangling gently into her hair. He didn’t give her a choice. But god, he waited —heart in his throat—for her reaction. For the flinch. The freeze. The don’t touch me.

He knew that response.

He lived in that response.

But it didn’t come.

Instead, Clara trembled once—and then exhaled. Her body sagged against him. Her forehead found the curve of his collarbone. Her breath hitched, then found its rhythm again. Bucky’s eyes closed. His grip stayed steady, not tight. Not forceful. Just there. They stayed like that for minutes, maybe longer. Snow moved behind the window. The moon shifted across the floor.

Only after the tension had bled from her spine, after her hand curled lightly against his ribs and her legs drew in closer to his, did he speak. Voice low. Careful. Nearly a whisper.

“What did you dream about?”

Bucky’s voice was low against the quiet, his chest rising steady beneath her cheek. He didn’t push—just asked. He felt her throat move as she swallowed, the muscles tightening under his arm. Her breath slowed against him, not quite steady.

Then, softly, she spoke.

“I was in the field,” she whispered. “We were three weeks into a search operation outside Kandahar. Intel had gone bad, radios were dead. I was with two other Rangers. There was a blast. Then another. We were pinned—tight canyon, nowhere to go.”

She paused, her fingers brushing faintly over his ribs like she had to hold on to something to keep going.

“I remember reaching for my weapon… and then nothing. Just… everything slowing down. Like the whole world had dropped underwater.”

Bucky didn’t move. His hand was still curled around her shoulder, the metal one resting at her waist. He could feel every tremor in her voice through the closeness of their bodies.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” she went on. “Didn’t even know I’d done anything until I came to—face in the dirt, ears ringing, no blood. Everyone else said it was thirty seconds. For me, it felt like hours. Like I’d fallen into a pocket outside of time.”

Her voice went quieter.

“I thought I was dead.”

Bucky tilted his head down, gently brushing his nose along her temple. His flesh hand moved up, threading into her hair at the base of her skull.

“You weren’t,” he murmured.

Clara gave a soft, uneven breath. “No. But I wasn’t normal anymore either. I realized the worst of the freezes happened if I felt unsafe.”

She didn’t say it like she regretted it. She said it like a fact. Like something she’d lived with a long time.

“You ever wonder what it costs?” she asked. “To be… different ?”

Bucky didn’t answer right away. He just let his fingers comb through her hair again, slow and steady. 

“Every day since Steve said my name and I started remembering and every second after even when Pierce wiped me in the vault.”

They lay like that for a long beat—his hand in her hair, her breath finally evening out. The silence between them wasn’t empty now. It was full. Shared. Clara curled closer, her fingers grazing the edge of his metal shoulder.

“Thanks for staying,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes. His heart thudded slowly but heavy in his chest.

“Clara, I don’t think I could’ve left,” he said. “Not from you.”

And when she didn’t reply—just tucked herself tighter into his arms—he knew she’d heard him. Every word.

“You don’t sleep, Bucky.”

Bucky stayed still, back braced against the headboard, holding her against his chest, her legs half tangled in the blanket, her body soft and warm where it pressed into his side. The adrenaline had passed. But the ache hadn’t. Her breath was steady now. But he could feel it—how close it had come to breaking. And he knew that edge too well.

Clara shifted again, but didn’t speak. Her fingers curled tighter against his shirt. He stared at the ceiling, at the lines of moonlight across the plaster, and forced the words out.

“There’s a bunch I can’t shake. They’re not the worst things I did. Not by a long shot. But I remember everything. ”

She didn’t move, but her breath caught—just a little.

“He was a target in Tunisia. A journalist. He’d written about something he wasn’t supposed to. Hydra flagged him. I tracked him to a rooftop. He was young. Smart. Had a photo of his wife tucked into his coat pocket.”

His throat closed. He forced it open.

“I remember pulling the trigger, and he just—looked up. Like he knew it was coming. Like he wasn’t even surprised.”

Clara’s hand moved, slow, tentative. It found his on her waist and held it.

“I was gone before his body hit the gravel. They airlifted me out like I was just a tool they put back in a box.”

She lifted her head then. Looked at him in the dark.

“And you remember all of it?” she asked, voice barely audible.

“Every second.”

“Then it wasn’t you.”

His jaw clenched. “It was me, Clara.”

“No,” she said, firmer this time. “They programmed your body. Not your guilt. That part’s yours. And it’s proof you weren’t gone, at least not on some level. Not really.”

Bucky looked at her—and something broke open in his chest. A pressure valve he hadn’t meant to touch. He’d been braced for distance. Disgust. Fear. But she saw him and didn’t flinch. Her eyes searched his, gentle and raw, and without thinking, he raised one hand—flesh, not metal—and touched the edge of her jaw. She didn’t stop him and didn’t look away.

And then, slowly, like it was inevitable, he leaned in.

The kiss wasn’t urgent. It wasn’t even hungry. It was quiet. His mouth touched hers like a secret. Like a question he never thought he could ask. She answered with a breath, with a hand on his chest, with a sound so soft it broke something inside him.

When they parted, her forehead rested against his. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say. What could he say?

When was the last time someone kissed him with tenderness?

Only the sound of their breathing, synced again, and the snow falling outside. The kiss lingered like breath between them, forehead to forehead, the warmth of it still pressed against his mouth. Bucky hadn’t moved. Couldn’t. Clara’s hand was still on his chest. The heat of her palm sank through fabric and muscle and into something he hadn’t let anyone touch in years.

He exhaled like he was coming up for air. And then—slowly, cautiously—he reached for her again. Both hands. His flesh hand first, then the metal, careful and trembling as he brought them up to cradle her face. She smelled like strawberries, so sweet and simple. Her skin was warm beneath his palms. Soft. She let him do it—let him hold her like she was breakable, like he might fall apart if he didn’t.

His thumbs brushed along her cheekbones. His eyes—god, they were glassy , wet with something he hadn’t let surface since the helicarrier fell.

“Why me?” he asked, voice cracked.

She blinked at him, her own expression open and confused and so kind.

“Clara,” he said again, this time barely above a whisper. “ Why me? ”

Her brows drew together.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly.

And she didn’t.

“I just—” Her voice caught. She reached up, her hands resting on top of his where they still held her face. “When you’re close, everything inside me stops trying to break apart. It’s all static all the time and echoes of my own voice and then with you, it’s just not .”

His jaw clenched, fingers tightening slightly around her face like he could hold the truth there.

“I don’t have to fight it,” she went on. “The static. The pull. The power. I don’t have to control anything when you’re near me. It just… settles. ”

Bucky shook his head once, eyes burning.

“I’m not a stabilizer,” he rasped. “I’m barely a person.”

She shook her head right back, still in his hands. “You’re a person, Bucky . ”

Her voice didn’t break.

“You’re one of the only ones who doesn’t pull away when I lose it,” she said. “You don’t try to fix me, or put me in a box, or tell me to rest while they go save the world.”

His fingers moved along her skin like he was trying to memorize it. Still not believing.

“I don't understand it either,” she added softly. “But I don’t feel afraid when you touch me.”

That shattered something in him. His breath stuttered in his chest, and his forehead dropped to hers again like he couldn’t bear the weight of her words.

And then—

She kissed him again.

This time, she leaned in.

It was slower. Deeper. Not hesitant— committed. Like she was choosing this, choosing him, despite everything broken in both of them. His hands slipped into her hair, pulling her closer. His mouth opened beneath hers, and she answered without fear, without flinching. Her body came forward into his. The blanket slid off her shoulders as she pressed her hands to his chest again, fisting into the fabric of his shirt.

They didn’t rush.

They held .

And when they parted—breathing heavier, foreheads pressed together, her hand now resting against the side of his neck—neither of them said a word.

Because this was the answer.

Not why.

Not how.

Just here.

Just now.

Together

The Next Morning…

The first thing Clara felt was heat.

Not uncomfortable— anchoring. Steady. The weight of something warm and solid behind her, the brush of an arm across her waist. Breath against the back of her neck. Her heart didn’t race. Not this time. It thudded softly, evenly. She blinked against the morning light streaming in through the high window. Snow had crusted over the glass like lace, and beyond it, the trees were thick and unmoving.

She was still in bed and Bucky was still here. She turned slowly, careful not to wake him, but he was already watching her. His hair was mussed, jaw shadowed, eyes soft in a way she hadn’t seen before. There was a line of tension in his mouth, like he was waiting for something—maybe a retreat. Maybe regret.

Clara didn’t flinch.

“Hi,” she said.

He huffed a breath. “Hi.”

They stared at each other.

The silence between them was rich, full of the things they didn’t quite know how to say. That they’d kissed. That he’d held her through a nightmare. That she had let him. Bucky sat up slowly, bracing one hand on the mattress. His dog tags shifted under his shirt. She caught the way his metal arm hesitated—he still didn’t trust it not to ruin the moment.

Clara sat up too, drawing her knees to her chest beneath the blanket. “Are you okay?”

He glanced at her. Then, quieter, “Are you? ”

She gave him a small, crooked smile. “You stayed.”

“I know, I’m sorry. You didn’t ask me to.”

“I didn’t need to.”

Another silence. Then, a knock.

They both looked at the door.

“Grayson?” Steve’s voice said. “Are you decent?”

Clara groaned. “Define decent.”

Bucky smirked—but only for a second.  Steve didn’t wait. The door creaked open and he stepped inside, eyes doing a brief sweep. He didn’t stare at the bed. But he didn’t miss anything either.

He lifted a file folder in one hand. “Charlie found something. You’re gonna want to see it.”

Clara pushed the blanket off and reached for the hoodie on the chair. Bucky swung his legs off the bed and stood slowly, cracking his neck like the weight of sleep had taken something out of him.

Steve paused by the door. His voice dropped. “This isn’t urgent. But it’s not nothing.”

“What is it?” Bucky asked.

“A location.” Steve held up the folder. “Near Irkutsk. One of Zemo’s old Hydra leads resurfaced on a ghost comm. Could be a setup. Could be real. Charlie’s team flagged it last night.”

Clara stood, pulling the hoodie over her head. “When?”

“Soon.”

Steve looked between them, expression unreadable.

Then he said simply, “I’ll be downstairs.”

When the door closed, Bucky didn’t move right away.

Clara stepped closer. Not too close. Just enough.

“We should talk,” she said softly.

He nodded. “We will.”

She nodded too.

And together, without another word, they left the room.

After breakfast, after lunch.
After Steve called a meeting…

The old records room in Charlie’s wing of the house smelled like ink and metal and something faintly antiseptic. The walls were lined with deep filing cabinets, a few steel shelves stacked with printouts, aging comms equipment, and a flickering monitor that hadn’t been updated since the Obama administration.

Clara hadn’t planned to come here.

She’d only meant to find Charlie, maybe ask for a comm line to Clint or a pull-up on the Siberia lead. But the door was open, and Charlie was bent over the long central table, papers spread out around him like a war map.

And one page in particular—

Had her name on it.

She froze in the doorway. Her throat went dry.

Charlie looked up.

Immediately—too quickly—he said, “It’s not what it looks like.”

“You sure?” Clara asked, voice brittle.

She stepped inside slowly, eyes scanning the files. She saw a date. A stamp. A redacted line that could only belong to a department no longer in existence.

Her name.

Her birthdate.

A photo of her in uniform.

“Charlie,” she said, and her voice cracked on the second syllable. “Why the fuck do you have that?”

He dropped the pen in his hand and stood straight. “Because I’m burning it.”

Clara’s breath caught.

Charlie held her gaze. “That’s why I printed it out. I wanted you to see what they did —what they kept —even after they promised you it was erased.”

“You have access to this?”

“My father does,” He crossed the room to the comm terminal. “Watch.”

He pressed a button and the screen blinked to life. A few seconds later, Colonel Hess’s voice answered.

“Charlie?”

“Sir,” Charlie said. “She’s here. I showed her the file.”

There was silence. Then the Colonel’s voice came through—lower now, rough.

“Clara.”

She swallowed. “Colonel.”

“I didn’t want it to happen like this.”

“I thought we wiped them.”

“We did,” Hess said. “Officially. But someone in Japan—maybe two someones—had backup caches. Intel linked to their biomedical ops division. I only found out yesterday after I decided to dig. I’m having Charlie kill the rest. No traces. No shadows.”

Her hands curled into fists.

“And I promise you,” he added, “no one else saw them.”

Charlie looked at her then—level, honest.

“I didn’t read anything past the top line,” he said. “Didn’t want to. Didn’t need to. I trust you. My father trusts you.”

Clara dropped her weight into the chair behind her like her knees gave out all at once.

She stared at the printouts.

Her name. Her past. Her body. Laid out like a weapon report.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“For what?” Charlie asked.

“For assuming the worst.”

He moved around the table and sat across from her.

“After everything?” he said gently. “I’d be more worried if you didn’t. ”

She closed her eyes. Took a breath. When she opened them again, the papers were still there—but they didn’t feel quite so heavy.

Not just hers to carry anymore.

***

Bucky found the door open.

He’d just come from a comm debrief with Steve and Clint, where they’d laid out the approach paths to the Irkutsk site and started mapping fallback options. His mind had been on terrain and elevation and Zemo’s likely trajectory, u ntil he realized Clara hadn’t come back.

He stepped into the room quietly, metal fingers brushing the edge of the door.

She was seated at the long table, shoulders hunched slightly forward, her fingers smoothing the edge of a paper that looked too old to still exist.

Charlie met his eyes and stood. “Give you a minute?”

Bucky nodded once.

Charlie touched Clara’s shoulder gently before walking out.

Bucky didn’t speak right away. He crossed the room and stopped just beside her chair. Looked down.

He saw the printouts.

He didn’t need to ask what they were.

“I thought they were gone,” she said, voice small but calm. “Years ago. I signed a deal with Clinton. I gave them everything I had, and they swore it would never touch daylight.”

“They lied,” Bucky said, quiet. Not unkind. “Not surprised.”

“Yeah.”

She looked up at him, eyes tired but clear.

“I thought I was past this,” she said. “But seeing it again—I felt like I was twenty-two and screaming into a soundproof room no one wanted to hear me in.”

He knelt beside her.

And then—just like that night in her bed—he didn’t ask.

He reached for her hand and held it tight.

“You’re not in that room anymore,” he said. “You’re here. With me.”

Clara’s mouth trembled.

“I hate that it still matters.”

“It matters because you survived it,” Bucky said. “Not because it owns you.”

She looked at him like she didn’t know what to say. So she didn’t.

But she didn’t let go of his hand, either.

“Steve and I are going on a run. I’m feeling a little antsy. But, if you want to talk later, come find me.”

Clara looked down at him and he tugged her hand until it was pressed against his chest. 

“I don’t know why, Clara, but letting whatever this is happen doesn’t scare me so much when you’re looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” she asked and tilted her head.

“Like I’m saving you,” he said and shook his head. “You don’t need saving. Not from me.”

“Bucky—” she started as he stood up.

“Later, yeah?”

“Sure… yeah.”

Before she could say anything else, somehow make him stay, he navigated the long corridor back to the foyer and upstairs to the room he’d been staying in. He really need a run, or to run into something. Either way, he’d be running.

Chapter Text

The floor was cold beneath Clara’s feet, but not as cold as the ache in her ribs.

She knocked once.

Then again—softer. Like she already knew the answer.

The door opened almost immediately.

He stood barefoot, in jeans and a black tee, his hair loose and uncombed. His eyes swept her face—took in everything.

“Talk?” she asked.

“Whatever you need,” he said.

She stepped inside. The room was warm, low-lit by the amber glow of a single lamp. The bed was untouched. He hadn’t even turned the sheets down.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” she said—words shaped more like surrender than confession.

Bucky didn’t move at first. Then he spoke softly, “Okay.”

“I know this isn’t fair,” she whispered. “But I don’t want fair, Bucky.”

“I’m the last person you need to explain anything to,” he said gently.

He lifted his hand and brushed his thumb against her cheek. Her skin was warm, his, impossibly cold. She looked up. Her eyes were unsure, but she held his gaze.

“I just want you. Here. With me. And I don’t know why, Bucky. I know you’re not you. I know you’re probably not ready…”

His throat worked around something unspoken.

“I’m here,” he said. “For as long as you want me.”

Clara reached for him first. Her fingers slipped down his wrist, finding the calloused hand that had been lingering against her cheek, and she kissed it—slow, deliberate, like she could anchor both of them there. Then she let go, pacing a few steps across the room. The nervous energy was all over her—too big for her small frame, too alive for her to sit still.

Bucky’s eyes followed every step she took, his body taut with something he couldn’t name. God, she looked incredible. The flush across her cheekbones, the restless gleam in her eyes, the way her hair clung in loose strands against her skin—it undid him.

She stopped, turned—and caught the way he was staring at her mouth.

He didn’t bother to hide it. He wanted to taste her.

And when she crossed the space between them like she couldn’t hold herself back either, Bucky’s resolve snapped. His hand rose, hovering inches from her cheek, almost reverent—like her skin might punish him for touching, for daring to want this much. But she didn’t flinch. She leaned into him instead, closing that sliver of air like she’d been waiting all night.

The kiss was hard, desperate, nothing polite or careful about it. His other hand came up, framing her face, holding her there as though he was terrified she’d vanish between one breath and the next. He backed her toward the bed with slow, sure steps, every inch of her giving way to him, her hands sliding up into his hair and tugging until he groaned into her mouth.

It was too much and not enough all at once. He didn’t know if this was mercy or madness, if wanting her like this would destroy him in the end—but he also knew he’d swallow that poison every time. Because her wanting him back made him feel like a man again. Not a weapon. Not a ghost. Just a man who was breaking apart because she was letting him.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted, voice low. “Be a person who lets someone in.”

He was quiet for a moment and then a chuckle came—low and rough and real—from deep in his chest.

“Clara, you are preaching to the choir,” he said. He didn’t try to smooth it out. Didn’t make it pretty. “I don’t either,” he continued.. “But I want to try.”

Her chest rose and fell, once, and she nodded. “So do I.”

His hands hovered at her face, fingers trembling before they found her cheeks. Thumbs brushing the curve of her cheekbones. The edge of her mouth. Like a blessing. She leaned into the touch. Closed her eyes. Let herself believe it was safe.

“Look at me,” he whispered. “I don’t know if I can do this if you aren’t.”

She opened her eyes immediately. The pull in his voice was stronger than anything she’d ever heard before, ever felt. It still baffled her—the way they had ended up here. This man, this ghost, this legend. And yet here he was—asking, not taking. Waiting for her to see him.

His blue eyes weren’t cold. Not now. They were full—aching, sweet, and terrified.

“Still okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He leaned down to close the gap between them and kissed her—slow, reverent. Like he thought it might be the only time. His lips pressed gently at first, then deeper. She opened to him with a soft sigh, her fingers curling into the front of his shirt like she’d drown without the anchor.

When he pulled back, his breath was uneven.

“I want to touch you,” he said, hoarse, broken at the edges.

Her voice was a whisper. “Please.”

He reached for the hem of her hoodie and tank top in one slow, fluid motion—giving her every second to pull away. She didn’t. Her arms lifted. She let him undress her. The air touched her skin first—cool, still, then his eyes did, and his breath caught. She braced for the recoil, for the apology, for his hands to fall away. But Bucky didn’t flinch.

His eyes moved over every inch of her—each scar, each story written into the landscape of her body. The thin, healed slice down her abdomen. The half-moon just under her ribs. A burn scar at her side, faded but permanent.

“I’ve killed for less than the beauty in you,” he whispered.

He dropped to his knees in front of her like it was instinct. But then his voice—lower now, steadier—added:

“But I’ll never hurt it.”

Her breath caught. She wanted to believe it, wanted to believe someone could look at her and still see softness.

“Bucky…” her voice cracked. “You don’t have to—”

“ Shh, ” he murmured, lips brushing the scar just beneath her ribs. “Quiet. Don’t think too much.”

He kissed her there, then higher. And higher again. The edge of her breast. Her collarbone. Her shoulder. Her throat. He moved like she was sacred. And then she looked at him—really looked—and saw the tension in his mouth. The way his metal arm hovered just out of reach, like it didn’t deserve to touch her. Like it wasn’t part of him at all.

Her hands rose slowly. She touched the seam of his shirt—just touched—and lifted it in a quiet question, not a demand. He froze. Not long. But long enough that she felt it. Then, with a breath that sounded like surrender, he let her.

Her fingers moved carefully as the fabric rose. She peeled it back like it might tear in her hands—like he might. His stomach first. Lean muscle. Old scar tissue. A bullet wound, pale and healed, marked the line of his ribs. Another, higher—near his collarbone. Then her breath caught.

His shoulder.

Where skin gave way to metal.

It was rawer than she expected. Not sleek or tech-perfect like Stark’s suit. This wasn’t a choice. This wasn’t precision. It was punishment. It looked like they’d torn his arm off and stapled a weapon in its place. The metal gleamed in the low light, a patchwork of brutality and survival. Where it fused to flesh, the skin was tight, discolored, scarred, but she didn’t flinch and she didn’t ask.

Her hand hovered. Then— deliberate —she brushed her fingers along the jagged seam. Soft. Careful. Present. Bucky’s jaw locked. His throat moved, like the words were stuck.

“It’s not—” he started, but the voice cracked. “It never healed right.”

She looked at him then, her eyes wide and unwavering.

“It’s you,” she said, quiet but sure.

He blinked. A stuttered breath left him. Like he didn’t believe it. Like no one ever had. She leaned in and pressed a kiss to the edge of the seam. Then to the seam itself. His hands found her waist, fingers trembling. Not from arousal—yet—but from something else. Fear. Maybe memory. Maybe that ache of being wanted this way —on his knees, unarmed.

“You’re sure?” he rasped. “I can wait. I want this—but not if—”

“Absolutely,” she cut in, voice low and steady. “I want you . Not half of you. Not the version you think I should want . Just you.”

He swallowed hard. His hands flexed against her sides.

Something broke open in his face. Not a crack. A release.

“You don’t know what that means,” he whispered.

Clara reached for him—hands skimming up his chest. “Maybe not. But I want to learn. With you.”

He didn’t kiss her immediately.

Instead, he cupped the back of her head, and pressed his forehead to hers. She felt it then—how long it had been. Not just since someone touched him, but since someone touched him without expectation . Since it hadn’t been about control, about compliance, about becoming a weapon or a mirror or a ghost.

He kissed her then. Slow. Like longing. Like desperation or an apology. Like maybe he didn’t know how else to say thank you. And Clara—she kissed back with everything . Because there was no pretending anymore. Her body wanted him, yes—but so did the pieces of her that had sworn off needing anyone ever again. So did the scarred girl who thought she’d only ever be held out of pity or to be calmed down.

This wasn’t calming.

This was choosing .

This was heat and ache and stillness all at once.

And Bucky?

He let himself feel it.

When they moved onto the bed, it wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t perfect. But it was theirs.

Bucky hovered over her, his metal arm planted in the mattress so gently it didn’t even creak. His human hand, trembling slightly, skimmed the line of her ribs—like he didn’t know if he was allowed. Like every inch of her skin might vanish under his palm. He kissed her collarbone. Then the hollow of her throat. Then lower.

Each kiss was slower than the last.

He kissed her like each touch was a secret no one else could ever know. Her body answered in quiet surrender. A sigh. A shift of hips. A soft gasp when his lips brushed the curve of her breast and his hand followed, reverent and sure. She arched into him, giving more, not out of urgency—but trust. Her fingers found the back of his neck, curled there. Not pulling. Just holding .

He kissed lower.

Across her stomach. Over the thin, pale scars that cut through her skin like fault lines. He didn’t look away. He didn’t avoid them. He kissed them, too. She watched him with glassy eyes. Her hands moved into his hair, anchoring him. By the time he reached her thighs, her legs were already parting, slow and open, like her body had been waiting for this long before her mind caught up.

He settled between them, one hand curling around the inside of her knee, coaxing her further open.

Then— he paused .

His breath was uneven. Not from anticipation. From feeling too much.

“You’re going to ruin me,” he whispered, his mouth brushing the inside of her thigh.

Clara’s head fell back on the pillow. “Then let me,” she said, voice breaking. “Just for tonight.”

He lowered his mouth to her, slow and warm, pausing just long enough for her to feel the heat of his breath before his lips finally touched her. He kissed the inside of her thigh first—once, then again—slow, coaxing, as if every brush of his mouth was a promise he intended to keep. When he finally tasted her, Clara cried out, breath catching in her throat at the sudden, searing tenderness of it.

He groaned softly in response, the sound vibrating against her, and her hips lifted without meaning to. But he didn’t rush. He didn’t need to. He let his tongue move in slow, rhythmic strokes—exploring, learning, savoring—every motion deliberate. He mapped her with his mouth, responding to every tremble, every gasp, like she was a song he already knew by heart. His hand slid up, strong and sure, settling on her stomach to anchor her, holding her gently in place as her thighs began to tremble.

Her fingers fisted into the sheets, knuckles white, her breath unraveling into shudders. His name left her lips not like a plea—but like a declaration. Like it belonged to her.

And he just kept going, relentless in his tenderness, mouth never leaving her, until her body gave in—arching toward him, shaking, the sound of her breaking apart caught somewhere between a gasp and a cry, her whole body arching into him. And he didn’t stop. With an urgency she didn’t recognize in herself, she shoved her hand into his hair, gripped hard, and pulled him up. She kissed him, desperate and shaking, tasting herself on his tongue. Their bodies tangled. One of her legs against his side. Her arms around his shoulders. He braced himself, panting, forehead pressed to hers.

And then— he hesitated .

She looked at him, still breathless.

His voice was hoarse. “Clara?”

She reached up and cupped his jaw, thumb brushing his lips.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Ever.”

The words cracked something in him.

His mouth crushed into hers, not out of hunger—but ache. A deep, aching need to be closer, to be inside her in a way that stripped him of everything but her. Their teeth grazed. His breath stuttered. She opened her mouth to him like a promise, and he kissed her like he didn’t know how to stop.

Her hands were already at his belt, trembling slightly, but sure. He let her undo the buckle and the button—watched her fingers slide down the zipper—and then helped her, pushing his jeans down just enough. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

Of course he wasn’t.

Tactical gear. Habit. Speed. Utility. But now, here—her body bare beneath him, heat radiating between her thighs, her eyes glassy and wide—he felt raw.

Clara spread her legs beneath him, slow and deliberate. Inviting him in like she was made for this—like he was made for her. He moved over her, his knees nudging between hers, one hand sliding under her thigh to hook it around his waist, the other bracing by her head.

“Are you sure?” he asked, voice rough as gravel, shaking with restraint.

She nodded. “Bucky.”

That was all he needed.

He guided himself with one hand, the other still holding her thigh, keeping her close, open, steady. When he pressed into her—slowly, carefully—his whole body trembled.

Clara gasped.

He froze. Just for a second.

The feeling of her wrapped around him, warm and tight, made the air rush from his lungs. The weight of it—of her, of now, of being inside someone who saw him, chose him—hit like shrapnel. He clenched his jaw, forehead pressed to hers, as if trying not to fall apart.

Her fingers curled around the back of his neck. “You’re okay,” she whispered. “We’re okay.”

He looked at her—really looked.

Like maybe this was the first time he’d truly seen her, not as someone to protect, not as someone to hold together, but as someone who chose him. Chose this.

And then he kissed her again.

Slower now. Softer. Like he was learning the shape of her mouth all over again. Like he wanted to memorize her taste, her breath, the small sounds she made when he lingered. His lips moved over hers with something like reverence, like prayer—pressing in, then pausing, then pressing again, until even the spaces between kisses felt sacred.

He let his hips rock into hers, inch by inch, every movement drawn out—not hesitant, but patient. His metal hand slid beneath the nape of her neck, curling gently into her hair, cradling her. His other palm spread along her waist, anchoring her, thumb brushing the soft edge of her ribs as if to remind himself she was here. That he was here.

And Clara… she met him.

Matched him.

Her thighs flexed around his hips, holding him there, steadying him. Her fingertips skimmed the curve of his jaw, his temple, his back—like she was mapping the tremble in him and choosing not to fear it. Choosing to welcome it.

Together, they moved in a rhythm that wasn’t perfect. Wasn’t seamless.

But it was real.

It was full of breath and stuttered motion, of gasps caught between kisses and small, aching pauses where their foreheads pressed and neither of them moved—because it was too much and just enough all at once. Like two people who had been broken in different ways, and were now finding the places where the pieces met.

Her nails dragged lightly down his back, catching faintly along the curve of his spine as he moved within her—slow and steady. His mouth pressed kisses wherever it could reach: her collarbone, the side of her throat, the curve of her breast. His real hand never left her skin, anchoring them both in the now. His metal hand stayed where she couldn’t feel it, a secret in her hair, or still and careful—tucked safely against the mattress, like he was still learning where it belonged.

She felt the shift first as a tremor—low in her belly, then cresting fast. It stole her breath before she could warn him. Her body tightened around him, and then she gasped—soft, surprised—her head tilting back, lips parted, eyes fluttering shut as the release overtook her.

Bucky caught the sound of it, felt the shiver ripple through her, and stilled just enough to let her come apart in his arms. His hand slid from her waist to the center of her chest, palm splayed gently over her heart. Like he was grounding her through it. Like he was bearing witness to the storm and keeping her safe inside it.

“That’s it,” he murmured, voice low and shaken. “I’ve got you.”

She arched into him as it crested fully, a quiet cry catching in her throat. He kissed her through it—slow, open-mouthed kisses to her jaw, her neck, her temple—never rushing, never taking more than what she gave.

The moment stretched, languid and breathless, her body trembling beneath his and when she finally exhaled—completely, wholly—he was still there. Steady. Devoted. She blinked up at him, dazed and flushed and glowing in the low light.

And the look in his eyes—God, the look—like he’d just watched the stars being born. Then his rhythm resumed—slower now, deeper. With her, not in spite of her. His real hand found hers. She laced their fingers together and he buried his face in her neck when he came, breath ragged and shaking.

Clara held him through it, one leg still hooked around his waist, anchoring him to her body, to the now. Her hand slid up into his hair and stayed there, fingers soft against his scalp, even as he trembled through the last of it. She felt the warmth of him pulse inside her—and then the way he shuddered like the earth had split open and he was still learning how to breathe.

He didn’t pull away right away. Didn’t rush to break the moment or clean it up or fix anything. He just stayed there, chest pressed to hers, face hidden in the curve of her neck, like he didn’t quite trust the world to hold still if he let go.

Eventually, gently, he shifted his hips back just enough to ease out of her—slow, careful, like the act itself was sacred. He exhaled low when he did, his hand sliding along her thigh as if in apology for leaving her body even for a second. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. Then another to her cheek. Reverent. Tender.

Neither of them moved for a long time after that.

The only sound was their breathing. Slow. Tangled. Real.

Clara finally whispered, voice barely audible:

“I didn’t know it could feel like that.”

Bucky turned his face toward hers, resting his forehead against hers. His chest was still rising and falling like he’d just run a mile—but his eyes were clear. Grounded.

“Me neither,” he whispered back. “Not like this.”

There was something in his voice that cracked her open all over again—not just the weight of what they’d done, but the why. The years they’d both survived without this kind of gentleness. The ache of it was finally found.

Her fingers drifted up to the seam of his shoulder again. She traced the sensitive skin there, slow and unflinching. He didn’t flinch either. He let her. And when she pulled him in again, he followed without hesitation—curling around her, holding her close, like her body was the only place he could rest now.

She tucked herself against his chest, her leg still draped over his, her cheek against the rise of his collarbone. He smoothed his hand up and down her spine, no urgency in it, just rhythm.

Just presence

She tilted her head to meet his gaze. His eyes were wide open now—no shadows, no defenses. Just him. Raw and real in a way that made her chest ache.

“I thought I couldn’t. There’s something about assault that stays with you. I just assumed I was broken.” she said.

Get that, totally.

His thumb found her jaw and traced it lightly, his voice low and rough. “If I had to make a clinical assessment, I’d say you’re well within your rights to feel whatever it is you feel about it all.”

“You thought you were, too.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. She reached up and touched his face, brushing back the strands of hair that had fallen into his eyes. “You still do.”

His throat worked around the lump in it.

She leaned up just enough to kiss the underside of his jaw. “You’re not, either.”

He closed his eyes. Swallowed hard.

Clara’s hand slid into his hair and he turned his face into her touch like he couldn’t help it. Like the feel of her palm was the only thing keeping him here, tethered. Outside, the snow kept falling. Light seeped through the edges of the blackout curtains, dusting the room in the faintest silver. Her body still hummed from the aftershocks, but it was the stillness that rooted her—how quiet it felt here. How quiet he was. Not numb. Not detached. Just quiet.

Peaceful.

“I don’t know how long this is going to last for me,” he admitted. “I have good days. And I have days when I can’t breathe. It’s all blending together.”

She nodded, fingers brushing his temple. “You can’t scare me away..”

His arm curled tighter around her. His metal hand stayed still against the curve of her back, not grasping, not heavy—just there.

“I kept thinking,” he said, barely above a whisper, “that I can’t believe you happened.”

Clara traced the line of his collarbone, slow and steady. “I can’t believe you happened.”

His eyes opened. “Why?”

She shrugged softly. “World’s vicious. Fear is the heart of love. You’re trying, that’s all that matters.”

Bucky didn’t speak. He just watched her. And then—after a long moment—he pulled her in tighter and kissed her hair.

“I don’t want this to end,” she said, voice hoarse.

He looked up. “I don’t think it has to.”

There was a beat of silence. Then she spoke.

“Is that an order, Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky smiled against her hair— a real smile, not a ghost of one. “If I say yes , do I get to have you court-martialed if you ignore it?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sleepily curling closer, her voice muffled against his chest. “Depends. Are you gonna try and enforce it?”

“Oh, I could enforce it.” His voice dropped teasingly, but there was a spark in it now, one she hadn’t heard from him before—lighter. Safer. Maybe even playful.

“Big threats from someone who can’t remember what he had for breakfast” she mumbled, grinning.

He huffed a laugh, and without warning, his fingers curled at her waist—then skated lightly across her side.

She squeaked .

“Bucky Barnes— don’t you dare— ” She jerked, laughter bubbling up before she could swallow it. “I swear —”

He grinned— grinned , the smug bastard—and did it again, just long enough to make her squirm and bury her face into his shoulder with a gasp. “You gonna follow orders now?”

“You’re the worst,” she muttered, breathless from laughing.

“Mm. Pretty sure that title’s retired .”

Her laughter softened as she settled again, one hand spreading flat over his chest like she needed to feel his heartbeat to be sure it was real. Her thumb rubbed slow, distracted circles over his skin.

He kissed her temple. “Still awake?”

“Barely.”

“Good,” he murmured. “Now shut up and sleep.”

She smiled, eyes closed now. “You shut up and sleep.”

That earned her a low sound from his chest—half groan, half laugh.

Then, before she could register it, he shifted his weight and rolled halfway on top of her, caging her in. One arm tucked under her neck, the other planted beside her head. She blinked up at him, suddenly very awake again, her breath catching when she saw the look on his face—something slow-burning and wicked and stupidly fond.

“Go to sleep ,” he said, voice deep and rough with the kind of restraint that made her toes curl.

He smirked, pushing a hand into her hair, scrunching the curls at the back of her head. Her eyes fluttered. His touch was just firm enough to steal all her breath. Then he leaned down and kissed her. Not a teasing kiss. Not soft. A real kiss— mouth on mouth, breath on breath , the kind of kiss that made her whimper just a little against him, her hands sliding up to clutch at his back, nails dragging lightly across skin.

She arched instinctively beneath him, wanting more, wanting all of him again—

But he pulled back just enough to hover, lips brushing hers, breath warm as he mumbled, “ Sleep , Clara.”

She exhaled shakily, eyes still half-closed. “You’re not fair.”

He pressed one last kiss to the corner of her mouth before settling beside her again, arm curling possessively around her waist.

“Never said I was.”

Chapter Text

Moscow Safehouse
Clara’s Room, Morning

The first light of day cut low and golden across the windows, curling around the frost-glazed panes. It didn’t flood the room so much as caress it—a soft amber glow that kissed the sheets, spilled across the hardwood, and crowned the still shape of her body in something almost sacred.

Clara lay on her side, the duvet twisted low around her hips, spine curved toward the window. One bare shoulder peeked out from under the sheets. Her breath was slow, steady. Her hair curled over the pillow like a dark ribbon left in water.

Bucky hadn’t moved in over an hour.

He sat with his back to the headboard, one knee drawn up, the flesh hand between them resting just shy of her. Not touching. Not yet. Just feeling the heat of her presence—the proof that last night hadn’t been a dream.

His eyes traced the curve of her shoulder blade, the soft indent of her waist, the sliver of thigh exposed where the covers had slipped. She looked… whole. Peaceful. Younger. Softer. The scar at her temple nearly vanished in the morning light.

He didn’t want to blink. Didn’t want to risk missing a second of this.

His hand rose slowly—reverent. He ran his fingers through her hair, careful not to wake her. Just enough to feel the shape of her, the weight of her. His knuckles brushed the top of her ear and she stirred—not startled, just answering the touch. Like her body already knew him now.

His heart ached, full to the point of breaking.

His thumb traced the shell of her ear, then slid down beneath her jaw. She shifted again, lips parting slightly. A small sigh left her mouth—sleep-warm, completely unguarded.

“Clara,” he whispered, barely a sound. Not to wake her. Just to say it.

But her lashes fluttered. Her eyes blinked open—heavy with sleep, adjusting slowly to light and form. They met his. And for a beat, neither of them said anything.

Then her mouth curved faintly. “Hi.”

God, her voice. Gravel and sunlight.

He swallowed. “You always wake up this pretty?”

She blinked, bemused. “Depends who I’m waking up next to.”

His hand was still on her jaw. She leaned into it like it meant something. Like he meant something.

He bent toward her, his nose brushing the soft skin behind her ear.

“You smell like my soap,” he murmured.

“You like that?”

“Yeah.”

She rolled onto her back, hair spilling across the pillow. He followed her—propped up on one elbow now, hand still at her face. His fingers traced her collarbone. Down, then back up. He didn’t rush. Didn’t ask for more.

“I didn’t think I’d ever have this,” he said, voice rasping from somewhere wrecked, somewhere dark, floating in memories he could recite and some he couldn’t see at all.

She brought her hand to his wrist. “This?”

“Something real. Someone I could wake up next to and not feel like I’d poisoned the air just by existing.”

Her brow pinched and his breath hitched like he wanted to take it back. But she didn’t let him. She slid her fingers into his hair and pulled him gently until their foreheads touched.

“You’re not poison, Bucky.”

His eyes closed. His body stilled like he’d forgotten how to breathe.

Longing

r                                  u 

s                            t                                            e

                                                                                                                                                                                                 d

Fur                                                                                                                                                                                                         nace.

Day……… break

“I still hear the words,” he whispered. “In my head. Like echoes. Like a loaded chamber.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry they did this to you.”

“I don’t want to ruin this for you, Clara. You deserve more than me.”

“Let me decide what I deserve, okay?”

Bucky opened his eyes slowly and Clara ran her thumb over his bottom lip. She brushed her fingers against his cheek and just looked at him. The hazel in her eyes was grounding, like a river stone that had grabbed a piece of the sky, green grass, and the darkness of earth and speckled it across the rippling water. He leaned in and kissed her collarbone. Then lower—along the curve of her neck. Her breath caught and she arched faintly toward him, both hands in his hair now. Anchoring. Answering.

His mouth brushed over the scar near her shoulder and lingered.

“I’ve never felt this before,” he said.

She touched his face, thumb stroking the corner of his mouth again. “Me neither.”

Finally, he kissed her—slow, reverent. Like confession. Like each touch was a secret he never thought he’d be allowed to keep and when they parted, she whispered his name. It was like a vow, a promise. 

She was here. 

***

Late Morning

The house was warmer than it had been in days.

Sunlight spilled through the east-facing windows, glinting off the polished floors and steam rising from coffee mugs. The smell of eggs, toasted rye, and something rich—maybe sausage or roasted mushrooms—lingered in the kitchen. Someone had opened the windows just enough to let in the scent of snow and pine.

They’d all slept. Finally. And it showed.

Steve stood at the wide kitchen island, sleeves rolled to his elbows, studying a paper map and two burner phones lined up neatly beside it. Sam leaned beside him, half-listening while chewing through a mouthful of food, arms crossed and one eyebrow raised in amusement.

“You know we could just use a tablet,” Sam said.

“I like paper,” Steve said.

“Old man,” Sam muttered around a bite of bread.

From the hallway, Clara emerged—wearing fitted tactical pants, a black long-sleeve shirt, and the parka Charlie had left her. Her hair was pulled into a tight braid again, and her jaw was freshly set. Whatever softness the morning held between her and Bucky was still with her, but buried now beneath focus and steel.

She looked better. Stronger. Whole.

Bucky followed a few steps behind, gloved and zipped into a matte black tactical jacket that hugged his shoulders like a second skin. His silver metal arm was uncovered, glinting in the low light. His expression was unreadable, but his posture had changed. No longer guarded—just ready. He moved differently now. Not just as a soldier but maybe as someone who had something to protect.

“Clara,” Steve greeted, glancing up. “We’re set to leave in twenty.”

She nodded, stepping forward. “Gear’s packed?”

“Charlie loaded it into the SUV already. He’s staying behind, but his contacts will have eyes on us all the way to Siberia.”

Sam whistled low. “Nothing like a light vacation in the Russian wilderness.”

“Temperature’s going to drop below zero tonight,” Clara added, stepping beside Steve and glancing at the map. “We’ll want to move quickly. Any update on the coordinates?”

Steve nodded. “Encrypted file came through an hour ago. Looks like a compound—buried, half-frozen. Shield tech in the satellite image suggests leftover Hydra infrastructure.”

Bucky’s jaw twitched.

“This is the same region they dragged me through in ’73,” he said. “I remember the cold.”

Steve met his eyes. “You good for this?”

“I’m fine.” Bucky replied. 

Steve didn’t look away, didn’t smile, didn’t adjust to ask the question again. He just nodded.

Sam let out a breath. “All right. Let’s go knock on some ghosts.”

***

Outside

The SUV’s engine hummed in the courtyard. Snow had been cleared from the drive, tire chains already in place. Charlie stood beside the car, arms folded, sunglasses shielding his eyes from the midday glare.

“Ride to the airport’s secured,” he said. “I wish you guys luck. If you need anything, please call.” Charlie said.

The boys climbed into the SUV, Sam in the driver’s seat, Steve riding co-pilot, and Bucky in the back. Clara grabbed Charlie and pulled him in for a hug. He hugged her back instantly. 

“Thank you, for everything and for trusting me.”

Charlie pulled back and nodded, “For what it’s worth, Lieutenant Grayson, I think you’re doing the right thing with him.” 

“For what it’s worth,” Clara began turning back to the SUV. “I don’t give a fuck who thinks otherwise.”

And with that, she saluted Charlie and slid into the SUV. He stepped forward and shut the door. Sam pulled away, snow crunching under the tires. Clara didn’t say anything, but she and Steve shared a look through the rearview mirror. Bucky caught it, his hand twitching, itching to grab hers.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

Clara looked up at him. She was determined to set this right. Fuck Tony, fuck Hydra, and fuck anyone who stood in her way. After all she’d been through battling time, freezing it out of her control, losing bits of herself in the process, and struggling to rebuild, now she had the opportunity to give it back to someone who more than deserved it and damn anyone who stood in her way.

The look she gave Bucky said everything.

“I will be,” she said.

Bucky didn’t reach for her. He didn’t have to.

The way she slid just slightly closer in the back seat said more than touch could.

After a while, the SUV finally cut through snow-dusted streets, headed toward a private airstrip outside the city. As buildings gave way to trees and sky, silence settled in. Clara sat beside Bucky in the backseat. She held a copy of the mission file—reading, annotating. But Bucky could feel her attention split. Like her thoughts kept returning to the morning, to him.

His had never left her.

He shifted slightly, his gloved fingers brushing hers on the seat between them. She didn’t move away, didn’t speak. But, she turned her hand over—palm up—and let his fingers slide between hers. Bucky exhaled.

“I don’t know what we’re going to face when we pull in,” Steve said. “But we should be ready. For anything.”

“You don’t think this is going to be a huge thing do you?” Clara asked Steve.

“I wouldn’t have called Clint, Wanda, and Scott if I didn’t. I know Tony’s been tr—”

“—tracking us. Me too. How’d you figure?”

Steve turned his head toward Bucky and Clara, caught their hands clasped together, and looked back up at them. 

“Tony’s an arrogant son of a bitch but he’s not stupid.”

“Kinda stupid,” Sam mumbled.

“I just have a feeling. And if I’m wrong, I’ll sigh with relief. But if I’m right, we’re not going to get out of Moscow without some kind of… roadblock.”

***

Moscow Airport, Tarmac
Private Terminal
Late Afternoon

The wind howled low over the tarmac. The sun was sinking behind grey cloud cover, casting a bruised orange glow across the snow-laced concrete. A military transport jet idled in the distance, a beacon for escape—if they could reach it.

Clara’s breath came in short bursts as she adjusted the straps on her combat harness. Her braid was tight down her back, boots solid against the frozen ground. Beside her, Bucky rolled his shoulder with a grimace, the silver glint of his arm catching the light. He hadn’t spoken much since they arrived.

Steve paced a few steps ahead, shield already strapped to his back, every line in his body radiating purpose. Sam stood just behind him, arms crossed, wings folded tight to his back.

“Eyes up,” Sam muttered. “Come on, Buck.”

Bucky looked at Clara and she pulled her pistol from her hip holster and took the safety off. The static crackle of energy around them was palpable. He reached for her empty hand and tugged her quick, fast, against his chest which was covered in a black tactical vest. 

“Be careful,” he said quietly. 

“You be careful.” she said back.

Bucky turned and jogged ahead with Sam and Steve pulled his shield out in front of him. He and Clara began walking through the tarmac’s landing zone just as Tony in his suit powered up and buzzing, touched down with Rhodey. 

Vision hovered just behind them, pale cape billowing. Romanoff walked with her head down, face unreadable. T’Challa stalked forward in full Panther gear, low to the ground and hungry for blood.

And a kid. Small. Fast. Red and blue.

Parker, Clara realized.

“Jesus, how many teenagers did Stark recruit?” Sam muttered through the comms.

Clara didn’t answer. Her eyes were on Natasha.

And then Tony’s voice rang out, amplified by the suit.

“You’ve got one chance, Rogers. Turn back. You and Barnes surrender peacefully, and maybe we don’t have to drag this through the media.”

Steve didn’t budge.

“You’re not taking him.”

Tony’s helmet hissed and retracted. “He’s a fugitive, Steve. Your war buddy? Yeah, he blew up a UN building and killed dozens of people.”

“He was framed. We’ve got the footage. It was the psychiatrist, all him.”

Tony’s expression didn’t waver. “You should’ve come to me.”

“You sold out Wanda and locked her in a compound,” Clara snapped before she could stop herself. “Forgive us if your trust doesn’t mean what it used to.”

Tony looked at her. For the first time, really looked.

“And you. Superweapon with a history of going off-script. How convenient that you’re suddenly back in the game. What does it feel like being the deadliest liability on the tarmac?”

“We found it,” Sam said. “Jet’s in hanger five on the north runway. Right where Clara’s guy said it would be.”

Steve’s voice was calm. “I don’t want to have to do this, Tony.”

“I guess we’re done talking,” Tony said.

And all hell broke loose.

The first explosion hit like a thunderclap. Sam took to the air, dodging War Machine’s blasts while Wanda hurled Tony backwards with a wave of red magic. Clint fired three arrows in quick succession—one exploded, one wrapped a cord around Vision’s leg, and the third snagged T’Challa’s gauntlet, just long enough for Scott to grow to ten feet and punt him back into a loading truck. Rhodey fired a blast through the air toward Bucky trying to stop him and Sam from running, but Bucky grabbed Sam and pulled him behind a moving vehicle.

“I got this, Mr. Stark!” came an excited voice.

Bucky tore through a column of concrete as it launched toward him and Sam.

“Hey, dude, I really admire you but I have to—whoa!” Parker barely ducked as Bucky’s metal arm slammed down where his head had been.

Clara was knee deep in hand to hand combat with T’Challa, going at him punch for punch. It wasn’t easy, not with the way he surged as Black Panther. She glanced toward her right momentarily distracted by the sound of crashing glass and Spiderman in his blue and red flung through the glass ceiling of the airport. 

Clara kept low, flanking left, energy already pulsing beneath her skin.

But she wasn’t attacking. She was watching him. Bucky fought like a shadow, lethal and contained, but she could feel the edge fraying. The pressure building. One trigger word and he’d unravel. That’s when Vision blasted her and she flung backwards. Another blast of energy knocked her sideways. She rolled, came up in a crouch. Romanoff stood five feet away, baton raised.

“Clara, don’t make me—”

“You don’t understand.” Clara said.

They stared at each other.

Something passed between them.

A decision.

Then a blast of red came flying knocking Natasha off of her feet. Bucky and Sam hit the tarmac running toward the group just as Steve reached for Clara and pulled her off of the ground. 

“Scott, where are you?”

“Here!” he yelled, suddenly growing to normal size beside Steve. “Throw it. Now!”

What Steve expected was a large vehicle, possibly filled with water, to explode, knock back Rhodey and T’Challa, and give them enough time to run, but instead he got an airplane taxi, and Rhodey swearing. He was about to take off full sprint when Vision drew a line in the tarmac. 

“This has to stop,” Vision said. “Captain Rogers, I know you believe you’re right—”

“I am—”

“What do we do, Cap?” Sam asked, standing next to Scott, Clint, Wanda, Clara, and Bucky.

“We fight.”

***

Clara was breathless as she used her time freezes to hold Vision steady. He was dangerous the way Wanda was, which was maybe why they worked. 

“You can’t hold me for long, Clara,” Vision said. “I know what your powers do to you.”

“Stop threatening her, Vis,” Wanda said, flinging a metal storage unit at him.

Clara let go as soon as the storage unit covered Vision and looked over at Wanda to thank her but Wanda had her magic around T’Challa’s clawed hand. She flung him backwards away from Bucky. Steve threw his shield at Parker, Clint disarmed Nat, and then there was Scott, yelling from inside Tony's suit as they tried to disarm him.

“Cap,” Clint said, firing another arrow at Tony, and then at Vision who was rising from the rubble of the metal container Wanda had thrown at him. “We’re not making much headway here.”

“We gotta go,” Bucky said, skidding behind a crate, glancing at Steve.

Clara froze Parker mid swing, lifted her hands and dropped them fast. He hit the ground hard.

“We’ve got to draw out the flyers, I’ll take Vision and you get to the jet.”

“No, you get to the jet. You, Buck and Clara. Go.”

“As much as I hate to admit it,” Clint said. “He’s right. 

“The rest of us aren’t getting out of here,” Sam said. “This isn’t the real fight, Steve.”

“We need something big,” Clara said, wiping blood from her upper lip as Wanda pulled her behind a crushed car. They were both panting.

“Alright, fine. What’s the play?”

“I’ve got something kinda big but I can’t hold it very long. On my signal run like hell and if I tear myself in half, don’t come back for me.”

“What?” Bucky muttered confused. “He’s gonna tear himself in half?”

“You sure about this, Scott?”

Through the com lines, Clara and Wanda both screamed, a loud explosion bursted from Steve and Bucky’s peripheral and then shimmered in the air pulsating like acidic electricity. Vision paused in the air again as Wanda spun her magic around her fingers and knocked Tony back into a cement pillar.

“I do it all the time,” Scott said determinedly. “Well, once. In a lab. Then I passed out. But, I got this!”

Bucky bolted for Clara and Steve followed fast as Scott increased in size, big, bigger, and then even bigger. He grabbed Rhodey in midair and threw him hard, fast. Parker flung a web. Wanda pulled Clara from the ground and Bucky grabbed her arm. He shoved her toward Steve and the three of them ran for the jet. 

Meanwhile, Scott was gigantic and clumsy, crushing crates, throwing airplanes, and wreaking all kinds of havoc. Clint slid under his feet and fired arrows at T’Challa who was more than willing to size himself up to Clint. Scott punched the air as Rhodey flew toward him again, while Bucky, Steve and Clara ran. The others diverted objects being thrown as well as the ruckus of explosions but Vision made it through—literally—Scott and knocked over the watchtower. As it crumbled, Steve, Clara and Bucky ran faster.

“Go!” Steve yelled.

Then suddenly, the tower froze in midair, surrounded in red. Wanda held it for a moment giving them a second to run and then it crumbled. But not before Natasha walked out from the hanger, a grimace on her face, and T’Challa rolled out from under the crumbling debris.

“You’re not going to stop,” Natasha mumbled.

Clara’s fingers trembled, angry again at the righteousness of Tony’s entire scheme, including Natasha’s insistence to stand with him.

“You know I can’t.” Steve said, panting. 

“I’m gonna regret this,” Natasha said, sighing as she held out her wrist, fingers closed into a fist. 

Clara counted to ten, willing her to stop, hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but Natasha fired, except not at them. Steve’s head whipped around to see T’Challa stumbling in his stride and falling, disarmed and shaking as he hit the ground.

“Go.” Nat said. “I’ll hold him off.”

Bucky, Clara, and Steve sprinted for the jet behind the rising rubble and debris. Behind them, Vision fired again—a beam aimed at them through the rubble. But Rhodes, following too closely—

CRACK.

Rhodey went down in a spinning, metal tumble. Smoke. Sparks. A body crashing into concrete.

Tony’s scream tore through the air. “RHODES!”

They heard it all on the coms as Sam landed in the field by Tony as the jet’s engines screamed to life climbing faster with Steve in the pilot’s seat. Clara dropped into a crouch near the bulkhead, panting, shaking. Bucky slid down the wall beside her. Clara curled her knees to her chest, hands still trembling. Her powers surged just under her skin—begging for release, for pause—Sam’s I’m sorry, Rhodey’s Tony, I’m flying blind stick—she held it in.

She couldn’t break now. Beside her, Bucky reached out and touched her shoulder.

“I’m okay,” she whispered.

“You’re not,” Bucky said and pulled her gently into his side. “I’m not either.”

And they sat in silence—bruised, breathless, together—as the last light of Moscow faded beneath them.

***

The Raft
Offshore Detention Facility

The echo of boots on steel rang down the corridor like gunfire. Stark’s face was grim behind his sunglasses hiding his black eye and scraped cheek. His jaw was tight, posture military-straight. The guards didn’t dare stop him. He’d already flashed clearance codes that even Ross had no access to.

He reached Sam Wilson’s cell and stopped.

“You’ve got some balls,” Sam said, arms folded, still in his torn tac suit. His eye was swollen. His lip split. But his spine was straight.

Tony exhaled slowly. “I need to talk to you.”

“Great. Start with Wanda. Then move on to locking us in here without due process.”

“I know Bucky didn’t bomb Vienna.”

Sam blinked. But didn’t move. “What?”

“I was wrong,” Tony pulled out a drive. “The real footage survived. I was sent this. Steve was right. It’s Zemo.”

Sam stared at him.

Tony didn’t flinch. “I know I don’t deserve your help. But I need to know where Cap went.”

“Don’t, Sam.” Clint said from the cell across the large open space.

“Look, I know you didn’t mean to get Rhodey shot down, that was totally Vis. And I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, but I’m standing here telling you Steve was right. I need to know where he is heading.”

Sam rolled his eyes and stood up from the cot he was laying on. He paced his cell, annoyed.

“Why?”

“To stop this before someone else gets to those soldiers,” Tony lowered his voice. “To stop Zemo. I don’t want to fight Cap. Not anymore.”

Sam tilted his head. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because I didn’t come here with a strike team. I came here alone. And because I’m saying it now—” Tony hesitated. “I was wrong, Wilson. I was wrong about Barnes. I was wrong about Clara. I let fear and guilt guide me.”

Sam studied him for a long moment. “Say that last part again.”

Tony’s lips twitched. “Which?”

Sam arched his brow but didn’t flinch.

Tony sighed. “I was wrong about them.”

“About?”

“About Barnes. About Clara. They’re not weapons.”

Sam gave a small nod.

Then walked to the edge of the glass, arms crossed.

“You’re gonna want a parka,” he said. “And maybe snow shoes.”

***

Siberia
Remote Ridge
Late Afternoon

The wind cut like razors across the exposed cliffs. Snow whipped sideways in fine sheets. The trail was half-erased by time, the path sloping steep and dangerous as they climbed. Clara moved first, body hunched forward, scarf pulled tight over her mouth. Steve was just behind her. His face was flushed from the wind, the shield slung over his back like a second spine.

Bucky trailed.

Slower.

Stiffer.

Clara kept glancing back, trying not to make it obvious, but she knew. She could feel it. The heaviness in him. The unraveling tension. Every step cost him more. Not just physically— emotionally and mentally. His mouth was set in a tight line, his right hand twitching at intervals. The metal one barely moved at all.

They paused near a narrow overhang.

Bucky stopped and pressed a hand to the rock wall, his chest heaving. Sweat slicked his brow despite the cold.

Clara turned, walking back toward him. “Hey.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

He didn’t answer.

Steve stepped closer. “We’re almost there. You need to say something if—”

“I said I’m fine.”

The words snapped like a whip, echoing off the frozen stones. Steve stepped back. Clara didn’t.

She touched his arm—flesh, not metal. “Tell me the truth.”

Bucky’s eyes flicked to hers. Haunted. Desperate.

“I can hear them.”

She froze. “The words?”

He nodded.

“They’re not doing anything. But they’re there. Like… static. Like… a fuse that’s already been lit…” he said and rolled his neck on his shoulders. “I don’t know how long before it hits the powder.”

Clara stepped closer, chest tight. “You’re holding.”

“For now, Gray. But it’s getting harder.”

She looked over her shoulder. Steve had already turned away, giving them space.

“Let me help you,” she said, voice low. “Please.”

“You can’t.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

He stared at her, snow gathering in his hair. And for a second, she saw something flicker. Shame. And underneath it—something like want.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“You won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I do,” she said and her voice cracked. “I know because every time I get close to losing control, you’re the one who brings me back.”

He didn’t move so she reached up and gently touched the side of his face—the metal scars at his temple, the ones Hydra carved into him with ice-cold precision.

“You’re more than they made you, James,” she whispered.

His shoulders shook. Just once.

And then he nodded.

“Okay,” he said.

***

Elsewhere
15,000 feet above Siberia

The hum of the engines was the only steady thing in the quinjet. Outside, the world had vanished into endless white. Frozen ridgelines carved the earth below like open scars. Wind currents shifted across the hull in long, moaning gusts, as if the planet itself were warning him off. Tony leaned forward in his seat, elbow braced on one knee, helmet clutched loosely in his hands. His other hand hovered over the wrist console, not tapping. Just thinking.

The silence was louder than it should’ve been.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

“Yes, sir?”

“How long?”

“Seventeen minutes to coordinates. Jet stream’s in our favor.”

Tony nodded absently, eyes still on the nothingness below.

His HUD flickered to life with a soft ping.

“Sir—we’re being followed.”

His jaw tensed. “By who?”

A new feed opened, hovering over the main display. There—barely a dot on infrared—was a sleek, obsidian silhouette knifing low through the sky behind them.

Panther-shaped.

Tony stared at it, mouth tightening.

“Of course,” he muttered.

He leaned back in the seat, helmet still resting in his lap. Fingers ghosted over the edge of it, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to put it on or hurl it into the fuselage wall.

“You okay, boss?”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. sounded gentler now. Not robotic—closer to concerned. Maybe that was just the version of her he needed to hear. Tony didn’t answer at first.

Then, finally: “What if I was wrong about it all?”

There was a pause.

“Wrong about what?”

“About Barnes—sure he’s dangerous, but is it his fault? About Clara—Cap’s never wrong about people. What if I was? About all of this?”

“Did you not tell Sam Wilson how you felt at The Raft?” she asked.

“I did,” he replied. “But I wasn’t sure I believed it then. I think I do now.”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. didn’t speak. Tony exhaled through his nose and leaned his head back against the seat. His voice was quieter now.

“She was right, you know. Clara. When she said I locked Wanda up. When she called me a hypocrite. The thing is, I knew I was wrong when I did it. I knew it—and I did it anyway.”

“Because you were afraid,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. said gently. “And afraid people do what they think is safest. Even when it hurts.”

Tony didn’t speak for a long while. He looked back at the dot on the radar—the Wakandan ship trailing silently behind.

“Think the cat’s coming to claw my eyes out?”

“Unlikely. His targeting systems are dormant. Weapons are holstered.”

“Good. Because I’m tired of fighting people who don’t deserve it.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Pull up footage of the security feed again. The bombing.”

“It’s already loaded.”

“Play it.”

The holographic footage appeared, projected into the empty seat across from him. The slow loop of chaos—fire, smoke, Barnes walking in slow motion, back to the camera. A mask. A gait that didn’t quite match the Winter Soldier file.

He stared at it like it owed him an answer.

It didn’t.

“Enhance frame 342.”

A clearer shot now—Barnes’ eyes visible beneath the mask.

But something was…clearly wrong. He wasn’t present. Wasn’t conscious. Like he was watching through someone else’s eyes. Tony sat hunched over the console, elbows on his knees, hands steepled against his lips. The display flickered cold blue against his face. Outside the small window, the Russian tundra blurred beneath them—white, bleak, endless. He didn’t look at it. He was too focused on the ghost in front of him.

“Pull up the Lubyanka hit. 1962. Russian blacksite feed.”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. complied with a soft chime.

The screen shifted. Static. Timestamp. Grainy footage.

Then—

The Winter Soldier.

Walking down a hotel hallway in Moscow with the silence of a shadow. He moved like he didn’t touch the ground. Muzzle flash flared once, twice. The German oligarch dropped mid-step. One shot to the heart. One to the head. Clean. Unfeeling. Mechanical.

Tony stared at it.

“That’s the real one,” he muttered. “Not the Vienna frame job. That’s what they made him.”

He reached forward and tapped in the next command. “Now give me the UN bombing footage. The one with the fake Barnes. Vienna, 2016.”

Side-by-side now.

Two Bucky Barneses—if you could even call them that.

“Match them,” Tony said. His voice was flat. Tired.

“Comparing gait… strike cadence… ocular delay…”  F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s voice faded as the system processed.

The videos flickered.

And then merged.

A near perfect overlay. A near perfect stride side by side but the posture was off and so was the economy of movement. Yet, there was the same soulless precision. Two ghosts in the same shell. Tony’s fingers curled slowly into fists.

“Jesus,” he breathed.

It was like watching a puppet kill on cue. He let the footage loop again. Watched the breath leave a stranger’s lungs in grayscale. Watched the man Clara was risking everything for pull the trigger with no expression at all. 

“He didn’t do it on purpose,” Tony said, quieter this time. Like saying it out loud might rewire his own circuitry. “He wasn’t—him.”

The words stuck in his throat.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. didn’t answer.

She didn’t have to.

Because deep down, Tony already knew.

The man in that footage was no more Bucky Barnes than Ultron had been Jarvis.

Tony leaned back, breath shaky.

“Clara sees him,” he said finally. “Through all that.”

The screens went dark.

He didn’t ask for them to. He didn’t need to.

He sat there for a long moment, eyes shut. Then he stood, slow and deliberate, picked up the helmet from the floor and slid it under his arm.

“Well, F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” he said, glancing once more at the frozen window, at the snow rushing by far below, “Time to go apologize to a man who once tried to kill me. Again.” He sighed, resigned. Dry. Almost amused.

“…I should really see someone about this martyr complex.”

The jet engine roared louder. Siberia loomed ahead.

And this time, Tony Stark didn’t armor up to fight.

He armored up to face himself.

***

Siberia
Outer Edge of the HYDRA Compound

Dusk was falling fast. Not the soft kind. The kind that made everything look haunted.

The compound loomed half-swallowed by snow and time. Rebar jutted from the concrete like broken ribs. Cracked towers leaned overhead, their skeletal antennae long rusted and bent sideways from old wind. The place smelled like iron and dust, rot buried beneath layers of ice. A tomb—Soviet-born and HYDRA-reclaimed. No signage. Just the faint ghost of a red painted insignia, scraped down to bone.

Steve moved forward, the frozen wind lifting the edge of his coat. He shoved a shoulder against the steel door—its surface streaked with long scratches like it had been clawed shut from the inside. It groaned open in protest alongside its long shriek of metal. Dark air poured out.

Beside him, Bucky scanned the treeline one more time, rifle raised, then lowered again.

“Still think this place has decent curb appeal,” he muttered.

Steve grunted, shoulders rolling back. “Just needs some drapes. Maybe a scented candle.”

Clara stood a pace behind them, her breath clouding in the cold. The tips of her fingers pulsed faintly beneath her gloves—an itch of time moving wrong, thick here, like a field pulled too taut. She said nothing, but Bucky’s eyes flicked to her, registering the slight tremble in her jaw.

He stepped aside and held the door open—not for Steve, but for her.

“Careful,” he said, low. “Watch your footing.”

She nodded and moved past him, the chill curling into her bones.

Inside, the corridor was narrow and windowless, the walls made of cracked concrete and exposed pipe. Every few feet, a rusted sconce flickered dim yellow—powered by something old, dying. Cyrillic scrawls were half-scraped from the walls, warning signs or designations she couldn’t translate. It looked like the inside of a bunker that had been built for silence, not survival.

Bucky and Steve moved like they’d done this a thousand times. Clara followed, watching them, her senses tuned sharp. Steve’s shield gleamed against the low light; Bucky’s rifle stayed ready at his side. But there was something more between them—a rhythm, invisible but steady. They covered each other’s blind spots without speaking. They had history woven into the way they breathed.

And still—everything Bucky did, he did with her in mind.

When the corridor sloped downward and split around a cracked support beam, Bucky held his metal hand back without turning around—silent, instinctive. Clara took it and stepped carefully over a jagged gap in the floor, her boots scraping on frost.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

He just nodded, then released her hand slowly, like he didn’t want to.

They kept walking.

Cobwebs strung across the hall in long sheets. Bucky used the muzzle of his rifle to push them aside before Clara reached them, brushing the air clear without a word. He didn’t look back. But she saw the way his shoulder angled slightly toward her. The way his body shifted when she walked too close to the wall, always positioning himself so she stayed in the open path.

A sharp sound cracked from deeper inside—metal on stone, like something falling.

All three of them froze.

Bucky’s arm snapped out without hesitation—positioned in front of Clara, protective and solid. Steve’s shield raised a second later.

They held position. Listening. Waiting.

The sound didn’t repeat.

Steve lowered the shield a fraction. “Probably a pipe collapsing. Or ice.”

“Or not,” Bucky said.

But he didn’t lower his arm until Clara lightly touched his back.

“I’m okay,” she whispered.

He hesitated.

Then stepped forward again, glancing sideways at her—making sure she stayed close.

Their boots echoed down the corridor. Cold breath. Tension. History thick in the air.

Then—

“Remember that time we had to ride back from Rockaway Beach in the back of that freezer truck?” Steve said suddenly, like a match lit in a cave.

Bucky huffed a small sound. “Wasn’t that the time you blew our train fare on hot dogs?”

Steve shrugged. “I was hungry.”

“You were always hungry.”

Clara watched them—watched the way the tension between them softened. She stayed quiet, listening. It felt like slipping into a story from another life.

Steve smirked. “You spent three bucks trying to win a stuffed bear for some redhead.”

Bucky slowed, turned just enough to glance at Clara over his shoulder. The look in his eyes was crooked and teasing—the flicker of something warmer than the cold.

“She wasn’t half as pretty as you,” he said, then bumped her lightly with his shoulder. “But I guess I had a type.”

Clara’s brow arched slightly, the corners of her mouth tugging upward. “Oh, yeah?”

Steve kept talking like he didn’t hear it and Bucky rubbed the side of his head as if willing the memory to stay. “What was her name again?” he asked Steve.

Steve answered, still grinning. “Dolores. You called her Res.”

Bucky shook his head. “She’s gotta be a hundred years old by now.”

Steve chuckled. “So are we, pal.”

He gave Bucky’s human shoulder a gentle punch and Bucky caught it—gripped Steve’s shoulder for half a second in return. It wasn’t just camaraderie. It was grounding. Clara didn’t interrupt. But her hand drifted closer to Bucky’s again as they kept moving.

They reached the chamber where the cryo-pods had once been. Five coffin-shaped slots were hollow now—dark and open. One of them still held frozen condensation on the glass. Someone had been here. And not long ago.

Bucky lifted his rifle, tense again.

“He can’t have been here more than a few hours,” Steve said.

“Long enough to wake them up,” Bucky replied.

The floor sloped into shadow, where a rusted freight elevator sat sunken into the ground. The cage hung open—dark and breathing cold.

Steve tugged on the doors until they screeched open all the way.

“Ready?” he asked.

Bucky nodded. “Not even a little.”

Clara stepped in last. Her breath left her in one steady exhale. Her gloves crackled faintly.

There were only two buttons. 

UP. 

DOWN.

She pressed DOWN.

The elevator shuddered, then dropped—slow, groaning.

Metal scraped along the shaft as they descended. No lights marked their path. Just the occasional flash from Clara’s hands, and the glint of Bucky’s arm catching in the dark.

No one spoke.

But Clara felt it. All of it.

How Steve and Bucky had once held the world together.

And now—maybe—they would again.

This time, she was with them.

And beneath the ancient weight of the compound’s bones, something stirred.

Something waiting to be remembered.

Chapter Text

Siberian Hydra Facility
Inner Chamber

The elevator groaned open with a rusted, echoing screech, metal grinding against metal like a warning. Steve stepped out first, shield raised, cowl already drawn. Bucky followed close, rifle up, eyes scanning, steady. Clara came last—her boots hitting the landing with a quiet thud, power pulsing faintly at her fingertips.

Ahead, a loud, metallic bang cracked through the still air, and they froze—Clara just behind Bucky, one step above on the stairs. He didn’t move. Just aimed. Steve’s breath hitched, shoulders braced. Then the massive doors creaked open—too slow, too smooth—and a familiar red and gold silhouette emerged from the shadows.

Two glowing white eyes. A reactor pulsing bright in his chest.

“Ready?” Steve asked without looking away.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, voice flat.

But the threat wasn’t what they expected. As their vision cleared through the darkness, Tony’s helmet slid back with a hiss. He raised his hands in a faint gesture of truce. “You seem a little defensive.”

Clara reached forward, her fingers sliding into Bucky’s.

Not for him—for her. To anchor herself. To hold the fury. He squeezed back, a silent promise in his grip. She could feel it in the tremble of his hand: he remembered the jet. The cuffs. The muzzle of a weapon too close to her head.

“It’s been a long day,” Steve said.

“At ease, soldier. I’m not currently after you,” Tony replied, gaze flicking over Steve’s shoulder to Bucky.

Bucky didn’t move. Rifle still up. But Clara could feel the change in his stance—tense, unyielding.

“Then why are you here?” Steve asked.

“Could be your story’s not so crazy after all.”

“Maybe,” Steve said carefully.

“Ross has no idea I’m here. I’d like to keep it that way. Otherwise I’ve gotta arrest myself.”

“Well that sounds like a lot of paperwork,” Steve offered, lowering his shield slightly.

Tony scoffed, then gave the smallest nod. “It’s good to see you, Cap.”

“You too,” Steve said.

Tony glanced over Steve’s shoulder again, “Hey, Grayson.”

His voice was quieter. Almost… apologetic.

Clara didn’t answer. Neither did Bucky. Instead, a low sound rose from Bucky’s chest. Not loud. Not dramatic. But dangerous. A growl, almost feral, vibrating beneath his ribs. Possessive. Protective.

“Hey, Manchurian Candidate, you’re killing me here. There’s a truce, you can drop—”

Steve turned slightly, shooting Bucky a look. Clara squeezed his hand—firmer this time—and Bucky, jaw locked tight, lowered his rifle.

“Come on,” Steve said gesturing toward Bucky and Clara.

***

They moved deeper into the facility. Dust and frost bit at their skin. Steel beams groaned above them. Cement chipped and cracked beneath their steps. Tony’s palm lit the way like a flashlight as they entered the lower chamber. Clara drifted just behind the men, eyes sweeping the walls—every sense tingling. The energy here was wrong. She could feel time pulling at the edges like frayed fabric, unraveling.

Pods lined the walls—suspended, vertical tanks rimmed in frost. Inside: bodies. Preserved. Dead.

Bucky stopped breathing. Clara did too.

“What the hell?” Bucky mumbled, his rifle raised immediately. He turned around and looked into the darkness, breaking away from Clara as he walked, footsteps solid, boots loud against the ground.

A voice broke the silence, smooth and sharp.

“If it’s any comfort, they died in their sleep.”

The voice continued, calm and poisonous. Bucky jerked forward. Clara followed instinctively— but he kept moving faster than she could keep up.

“Did you really think I wanted more of you?” the voice asked, drifting through the walls.