Domestic
It was no use; his mind was all over the place. His brain felt like it might burst; he would have scraped the insides of his skull raw if he could. Sleep was not an option, for several different reasons. Firstly it was the harbinger of nightmares. Then there was the fact that he was still paranoid about HYDRA finding him here, even though nothing pointed towards any activity on their part. That didn’t have to mean anything; they were used to being covert. It wasn’t like they would announce their plans openly on national television. All in all, it was prudent to put nothing past these people. He wasn’t even exactly sure what they had done to him. He knew they had used him as a weapon, a trained attack dog. He had, at present, little to no memory of anything before the fighting on the Helicarrier. He recalled the pain, the buzzing and whirring and crackling of electricity, being restrained in a chair and the feeling like his brain was being put through a meat grinder; so guessing that they had done something to very invasively mess with his head was a reasonable conclusion. Lastly there was you; he puzzled over you most. Why were you helping him? What was in it for you? Upon your first encounter you had seemed eager to be rid of him as soon as possible. Why were you so kind to him now? Who even were you?
The sun had risen over his nightly ruminations, bathing the living room in the first warm rays of sunshine. The Winter Soldier heard your alarm clock sounding shrilly and petulantly, and picked himself off the carpeted floor, leaving the bedding on the couch undisturbed yet another night.
“Morning…” you waved sleepily as you walked down the short hallway from your bedroom to the bath, stretching your shoulders as you yawned deeply. When you re-emerged, you found your house guest scowling indecisively at the kitchen cupboards, weighing a plate in one hand and a brightly colored bowl in the other.
“I’m having cereal. What would you like?” you interjected his troublesome deliberations. He considered the dishes for another moment, then replaced the plate with another bowl and carried both to the table.
“Coffee?” you half-asked, half-suggested when he returned for spoons and received a cursory nod.
His eyes shot open, and he swallowed deliberately slowly as he put his coffee mug back down on the table. You flinched guiltily. You liked your coffee strong, as in a coffee water ratio that left the beverage practically solid, and black as sin and cosmic voids. Skye used to joke that if the coffee you brewed was a person the Avengers would finally find their strength matched (you thought that was probably a little bit exaggerated; also you didn’t quite agree with the concept of your favorite beverage not only turning anthropomorphized, but also antagonistic, but that was a discussion for another time).
“You alright? Is it too strong? Do you want some milk?” you asked apprehensively. As far as you knew, you were quite alone in the world with your preference here.
“This stuff could raise the dead.” He answered emphatically. Well, emphatic considering his usual flat and hollow tone. That was still very much there, but a trace of emotion and a shadow of an accent had stolen themselves into his voice, something New Yorkian, maybe Queens or Brooklyn. It was too faint to really tell and it had been a while since you’d lived there, having left some time before the attack on New York City two years prior. You stored away the information in your head and regarded him watchfully as he picked the mug back up, taking another sip.
“So no milk then?” you chanced. Instead of answering he took a long, indulgent gulp, savoring every drop it seemed like.
“Where have you been all my life!?” you exclaimed enthusiastically, earning not quite a smile but a trace of a twinkle in his eyes. A tiny little light. It was a start.
You had left for work, instructing him again, though in person this time, to call in the event of…anything, really. The Winter Soldier had nodded gravely and remained completely still until the door clicked shut behind you, and in fact for the next quarter of an hour. This was due not so much to any internal over-stimulation (as well it might have been, for his mind was of late running at least four different thoughts at a time and it was rather wearisome and difficult for him to focus), but rather to the fact that his gaze had fallen on a framed photo in the bookcase. It showed you, a decidedly younger version yet still undeniably you, along with a slightly younger girl with long dark hair and shining dark eyes. Both of you were smiling, broadly, brightly, cheek to cheek while the sun shone down on you. This must be your friend, he concluded, the one on whose behalf you had learnt to deceive authority figures and evade punitive action. He noticed there were no other photographs in your apartment, no other friends, no family. Unless you’d hidden them somewhere it would appear you had no one else in this world (you did, in fact, have a huge album of older photos in your closet and several gigabytes worth of them on your computer, though he couldn’t know that). The thought stirred something inside him that was not quite sadness yet, bafflingly close to sympathy and somehow devastatingly familiar. ‘You are my friend!’ the voice of the man in the blue-red-white suit insisted. He lingered upon the image for a while, considering it carefully, waiting if it would trigger anything but a deep sense of terror and confusion mixed with regret, anything resembling a recollection, no matter how vague. It did not. He shrugged it off and took to the bathroom to drown his disappointment and mountingly pungent body odor, now that the time of sponge baths administered by underpaid and overworked nurses was over.
The beard on his face was suddenly very itchy, now as he was carefully rinsing some of your peach-scented shampoo from his hair – in fact it was very itchy indeed, and distinctly uncomfortable, crumbling his resolve from the previous day to make himself as indiscernible as possible. He regarded the electric razor for a moment, trying the buttons and observing the rapidly buzzing blades with suspicion, before turning his gaze to the mirror and his reflection in it. He pointedly tried to ignore the images rising inside of his mind, wherein the edges of the mirror morphed into the porthole of a cryogenic chamber and the condensation of warm water clouded over the glass icily. He broke through it, somehow, and experienced for the first time in this life the freedom of making a choice not ruled by functionality but personal predilection. The razor buzzed in his hand, foreign and ungainly. He gripped it tight, like the handle of a gun, and he had to start over several times and even out spots he missed afterwards, and he mentally cursed all the way through in idioms and languages he hadn’t even been aware of he knew, but in the end it was worth it. He went on to inspect the tangled, but by now at least clean, mass of dark, shoulder-length hair on his head, and was forcibly removed from his ruminations on whether or not to do something about that by a petulant wailing outside the window. He quickly stalked to the bathroom door, stealthily, and opened it a crack. The wailing grew louder and more demanding. He thought there might me some hissing mingled in there. Closing the door behind him soundlessly, he slipped to the edge of the kitchen and peered to the window cautiously. A skinny red cat sat there, cocking its head upon seeing him, questioning how her human had wound up looking so different. She meowed again, demandingly and superior yet all the while endearing as only cats can, and the Winter Soldier remembered his instructions. He strode through the small kitchen, eyes never leaving the animal, not even as he bent down to retrieve a tin of cat food from the respective cupboard. Bad things could happen when you lost sight of your target - that he knew for certain, even if he didn’t really know a lot of things besides these kinds of things. In any case he fulfilled his mission objective unfailingly, and the cat seemed to warm to him with every noisy munch she took. Not that he was likely to notice that, not at this point anyway. He looked around the room, his gaze falling on the sink filled with this morning’s dirty dishes, and those of the previous evening, and then some.
You returned home with shoulders stiff as concrete, a small part of you fully expecting your inadvertent roommate to have bailed in the meantime. You were too exhausted to deal with the conflicting feelings of abject horror and complete apathy and a not inconsiderable amount of affront the notion instilled in you.
“I’m …home?” you asked flatly into the silence of your apartment. You were answered with something that sounded a lot like mewling, which deeply unsettled you in its absurdity. Deeply. You set your bag down with a sigh, shrugging off your shoes and shaking your head to rid it of any …unsoundness of mind.
“Anyone home?” you inquired, vaguely hopeful. Your house guest appeared in the shadow clouding your living room. The cat that you had taken partial ownership over in your mind was trailing at his heels and he looked substantially perturbed. You noticed, absently, that he had shaved and even put his long and frankly very unkempt, but now at least clean, hair up in a loose and not very skillful ponytail. You weren’t quite sure what that meant but you decided to take it as a good sign. And perhaps as a sign towards learning how to use a hairbrush.
“So, I take it the cat was there today.” You remarked nonchalantly, and went forth into the kitchen to determine what to have for dinner. Your mystery man trailed you and the cat trailed him, even after he stopped to glower at it both menacingly and uncertainly. You tried very hard not to snicker.
“It won’t leave.” He complained, apprehensive. You shrugged. “Cats and women will do as they please.” You turned to wink at your feline acquaintance before switching on the light and letting out a delighted gasp.
“Did you do the dishes?” you inquired, inspecting a shining clean plate daintily, sure you had to be imagining this. He bit his lip and frowned and generally looked unreasonably worried.
“Well, thank you then. I was not looking forward to having to do that, though you really didn’t have to.” You admitted. The cat meowed in corroboration. You moved to put some leftovers on plates to heat up while the Winter Soldier was left to try and compute that you were not, in fact, upset about anything. Quite the opposite, actually. He looked down at the cat, entreating it mentally to please explain his predicament and general weird spot in the universe right now, predictably to no avail.
“So, we adopted a cat now?” you questioned, rather amused, while the microwave crackled industriously behind you. Your inadvertent roommate looked down at the cat now seated atop the kitchen counter. The cat looked levelly up at him and meowed softly but insistently before standing on her hind legs, stretching her entire body like a sentient slinky, and placing her paws on his chest. Then she started licking his cheek and purring. He turned to you, looking somewhat helpless by so much feline affection coming his way. This had, in fact, been going on for most of the day and he was no closer to understanding this phenomenon, much less how to deal with it.
“Or maybe she adopted you.” You concluded, subtly clutching your sides.
His expression was one of intense disquiet. You felt you deserved some kind of very important medal for not bursting out laughing. Also you felt slightly horrible for your mirthfulness. Slightly.
“I’ve been feeding you for a year yet all he has to do is show up. I am wounded.” You addressed the cat with mock hurt. She artfully draped herself all over his broad shoulders and ignored you. He drew his lips into a thin line and crossed his arms more protectively than demonstratively. All that was missing was a huff, you thought, bemused.
“You should name her.” You told him after a prolonged pause that was largely characterized by his mounting befuddlement and the cat’s blithely oblivious purring. “It only seems apt after she’s basically imprinted on you.”
He looked at you with subtle alarm, coinciding with the microwave’s insistent pinging as it finished heating your dinners. You smiled at him encouragingly as you carried the plates to the table. He followed haltingly, awkwardly balancing the presence on his shoulders that was utterly devoid of need for such measures, being in no way gravitationally challenged.
“…Becky –“ he said quietly after a prolonged moment of intense internal consideration, one that, in fact, had carried on through most of dinner. The newly-christened cat meowed her approval, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, which caused him to squirm somewhat uncomfortably for a second. You hummed appreciatively through your post-feeding haze, pleased that your evening had turned out to be so entertaining, endearing even, if more than somewhat surreal. Becky. What a sweet name.
Wait a moment.
“Who is Becky? Anyone in particular?” You wished to retract your words immediately, upon seeing his face crumple, troubled and utterly lost. Damn. You’d thought that maybe, maybe he remembered something, or someone. That would be good for an amnesiac, wouldn’t it? That would be a great, exciting thing. Even a clue, perhaps, because you did not for one moment believe that absolutely no one was missing him.
“I don’t know. Someone I used to know growing up, I think.” His face was scrunched up in intense concentration, his voice was thin and quiet and his eyes were lost and uncertain. It tore your heart right out of your chest, figuratively, though it felt quite frighteningly literal. Suddenly possessed by an idea, you signaled him to wait right there for a moment, while you went diving into some drawers. You re-emerged victorious with a simple notepad and a pack of complimentary pens gotten from various places, which you placed in front of him, smiling somewhat shakily. He frowned down at the implements, then up at you, not taking your meaning. You supposed it was possible he was still caught up in recollections, or lack thereof, about Becky. Not Becky the newly christened cat.
“It might be a good idea,” you started, trying to sound confident, “to record what comes back to you, even if it seems small, or if you’re not sure. That way you can keep track and, uh, crosscheck, maybe, later on?” you faltered, waving your hand around vaguely. He considered this for a moment, and seemed to deem it plausible enough for he nodded pensively and didn’t look quite as tortured anymore, and even somewhat – grateful?