Southern Surrender

The barn was quieter in the late afternoon, that in-between time where the world hadn’t quite decided if it was winding down or gearing up for evening. Dust motes swirled lazily in the shafts of sunlight that slanted through the high windows, and somewhere deeper in the rafters, a swallow rustled its feathers, wings fluttering against old beams. The air smelled of hay and sweat and the rich tang of leather—warm, familiar things that should’ve brought comfort.

Bucky leaned against a grain bin in the central aisle, arms folded, boots crossed at the ankle, watching as Yelena worked Boss in the cross ties with quiet precision. The red gelding stood relaxed but alert, flicking one ear toward her as she moved around him with a kind of grace that most wouldn’t notice, but Bucky did. She didn’t waste a single movement. Not one flick of her wrist, not a single step. Everything was efficient. Clean. Intentional.

The saddle came off with practiced ease. She moved like she was still in training, and in a way, she always would be. The widow was still there under the breeches and boots—just disguised by her affection for grumpy horses and strange obsession with disgusting snack choices. She slid the saddle into its designated rack, adjusted the girth so it didn’t sag, then paused to run her hand along Boss’s back, fingers pressing with slow deliberation against each muscle.

Hot spots. Soreness. Pressure points.

She was checking the way a soldier checks gear before deployment.

Bucky tilted his head, watching silently. Even her brushing had an edge of calculation to it. Her strokes weren’t just to clean him—they mapped muscle, tension, sensitivity. She wasn’t grooming. She was cataloging.

Still, she was quiet.

Too quiet.

He narrowed his eyes. “What?”

Yelena didn’t glance at him, just moved around Boss’s hindquarters and checked his fetlocks. “What what?”

“That look.”

She finally raised her eyes to him—cool, assessing. “I don’t have a look.”

“Bullshit.”

Boss snorted as if to agree.

“You’ve been weirdly silent for the past ten minutes,” Bucky went on, still leaning but now slightly more alert, arms folding tighter across his chest. “Which for you is suspicious. So either you’re planning my death, or you’re thinking too hard. What’s going on?”

Yelena shrugged one shoulder and ducked under Boss’s neck, coming out on his other side. She adjusted his halter, not meet Bucky’s eyes. “Just observing.”

“Observing?”

“You’re twitchy,” she said flatly. “Like full-on, perimeter-checking, exit-mapping twitchy. I’ve seen crackheads more relaxed during withdrawals.”

Bucky exhaled, eyes sliding shut for half a second. “It’s nothing.”

“Liar.”

He cracked one eye open, clicking his tongue against his teeth in agitation. “You’re nosy.”

“Always have been.”

There was a pause then, broken only by the slow swish of Yelena’s brush and the rhythmic stomp of Boss shifting his weight.

“You wanna tell me what’s wrong or you want me to start making horse metaphors until you cry?” she asked, still without looking at him.

He sighed. The grain bin behind him creaked as he shifted his weight. “I don’t know what it is. I’ve had this… itch. Like something’s off. Ever since we got here. And it’s not going away.”

Yelena hummed, brushing down Boss’s side with long, firm strokes. “Could be the town. Too close to Fort Bragg. Probably smell like old, not repressed trauma.”

“I had a memory,” Bucky said quietly. “When you and Torres were messing with that damn bazooka. It wasn’t clear, but it was something. Felt like I was aiming—like I hit something. Watched it fall.”

Yelena didn’t respond right away. She just kept brushing, letting the silence settle between them like dust.

“And that guy today,” Bucky added. “The father. Something about him… it’s wrong. He looked at me like he knew me. Not my name—me. Like he was waiting for something to click.”

Yelena’s strokes slowed. Then she sighed, stepping back from Boss and letting the brush drop into her grooming bucket with a quiet thud.

“Come here.”

Bucky frowned. “Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“Not the compelling argument you think it is.”

She leveled a look at him. “Do you want to spiral or do you want to distract your brain for five minutes?”

Bucky hesitated.

Then, slowly, he pushed off the grain bin and walked over, boots echoing faintly on the concrete aisle.

Yelena handed him a stiff-bristled brush and stepped aside. “Groom his left side. Firm strokes, not that nervous kitten shit. He’ll sense it.”

Bucky stared at the brush in his hand like she’d just handed him a live grenade. “I’m not exactly—”

“Start at the shoulder,” she interrupted, “and shut up.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Bucky moved up beside Boss, who gave him a half-interested side eye before flicking his tail and standing still. The gelding was solid muscle, but he didn’t so much as twitch as Bucky raised the brush and dragged it over his shoulder in a rough, uncertain stroke.

Yelena clicked her tongue. “You’re petting him. Groom. He’s not your boyfriend.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and tried again, more pressure this time, longer sweeps along the grain of the hair. Boss huffed once but didn’t move. With each stroke, some of the tension in Bucky’s shoulders began to bleed out. It wasn’t gone—but the rhythm helped. So did the quiet. So did having something tangible in front of him.

He moved along Boss’s side, switching hands when needed, brushing out dust and sweat with quiet concentration.

Yelena stepped back and leaned against a post, arms folded, watching him with an unreadable expression.

“You’re better at this than you think,” she said finally.

“I’m brushing a horse,” Bucky muttered.

“You’re RELAXING while brushing a horse,” she corrected. “Which, frankly, is more progress than I’ve seen from you in two days.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, the brush still moving in long, practiced strokes down Boss’s side. “Careful,” he snarked under his breath. “Sounding suspiciously like a therapist.”

Yelena snorted. “You wish you could afford me.”

He didn’t smile, but there was something in the shape of his mouth that softened for a moment—something old and worn but fond, like a piece of wool pulled from storage and found surprisingly warm. The brush moved in steady, repetitive lines down Boss’s ribcage, and for the first time since arriving in Southern Pines, Bucky’s shoulders had dropped half an inch from their usual, rigid perch.

“Now do his feet,” Yelena said, casually tossing a hoof pick at his chest with zero warning.

He caught it by instinct, blinking.

“Fronts first. Stand to the side, run your hand down his leg, and squeeze just above the fetlock. Don’t yank.”

Bucky hesitated, then crouched beside Boss’s left foreleg. The gelding turned an ear back but didn’t flinch, even when Bucky’s metal hand closed gently over the thick tendons of his leg.

The hoof lifted easily.

“Good,” Yelena said, chewing on a piece of hay she’d plucked from the stall door. “Now don’t stab him.”

“I’ll try not to disappoint,” Bucky murmured dryly, squinting down at the dark sole of the hoof.

It came to him quicker than he thought it would—working through the debris packed into the grooves, careful not to dig too deep or miss the frog. When he finished the first, he moved automatically to the second, then the third. Yelena offered corrections only once, and even then it was more out of reflex than necessity. Bucky took to the task with a kind of quiet diligence, as if the motion itself might distract the rest of his brain from screaming.

But she was still watching.

Her arms folded lightly across her chest, she stood just behind Boss’s shoulder, her eyes drifting—not just to Bucky, but out through the open back doors of the barn, where Sam and Torres were still in the field, wings glinting in the last of the day’s sun. From this distance, their voices were little more than echoes, but the sound of laughter still carried—Sam’s low and easy, Torres’s more manic and shrill. The kind of noise that sounded like life.

Yelena turned back to Bucky. Her gaze sharpened slightly.

“So,” she said, drawing the word out like a blade. “You gonna tell me what else is going on?”

Bucky kept his head down, brushing more dirt off the edge of the hoof. “I told you. It’s just a feeling.”

“Bullshit.”

“Yelena—”

“You don’t get to brood in silence for two days, break my tactically acquired bazooka, and then pull the ‘just a feeling’ card. Try again, Barnes.”

He exhaled sharply, brushing a knuckle over his eyebrow as he straightened from the third hoof. Boss snorted, bored with the delay.

“There was a memory,” Bucky said finally, voice low. “Something new. Or maybe not new. Just... long buried.”

Yelena didn’t speak, didn’t interrupt. She just let him keep going.

“It was a cliff face. Sandstone, maybe. Heat like I haven’t felt in years. I was climbing—deliberately, slowly. Not like a soldier rushing toward an objective. More like... like I’d done it before. Like I knew every handhold. And I was trying to get high. Elevated. A better vantage point, maybe.”

He frowned, his hands dropping briefly to his sides, the hoof pick slack in his fingers.

“But I don’t know why. Or what I was looking for.”

Boss shifted his weight, impatient now.

“And this was in the desert?” Yelena asked, reaching up to rub Boss’s withers absently, as if she could transfer some of the tension out of the air.

Bucky nodded once, distracted. “It felt... old. Like Winter Soldier era. But it doesn’t match any of the other ops I remember. And it’s not vague in the way most memories are. It’s tactile. I could feel the grit in my teeth.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, and in that space, Bucky bent to reach for Boss’s last foot. The gelding raised it easily at first, but the moment Bucky’s tension spiked again—his thoughts racing, his chest tightening with the weight of what he couldn’t remember—the horse’s muscles stiffened. And then, in a flash of frustration, Boss yanked his leg back and kicked out—not hard, not maliciously, but enough to catch Bucky’s shoulder with the flat of his hoof.

Bucky grunted, stumbling back a step, dropping the pick. “Goddammit.”

Yelena didn’t move. She watched him calmly as he straightened, rolling his shoulder with a wince.

“That’s why we don’t brush horses when we’re pressure cookers,” she said.

“Thanks for the insight, Dr. Phil.”

Boss pawed the ground once, snorted, then stood still.

“You gonna tell me what that was?” Yelena asked, her tone sharper now. “That moment just before he clocked you?”

Bucky hesitated, then let out a breath and looked toward the barn’s back doors. Sam was just now packing up his wings, crouched beside the duffel Torres had dragged into the grass. His movements were slow, easy. Familiar.

And that’s when it hit.

A flash—so quick he almost missed it. Sam’s face, lit by that same smile. The one he used when he was half-teasing, half-soft. The one Bucky saw in quiet mornings and post-mission debriefs and sleepy kitchens.

And then, following it—cold. The weight of that memory from the cliff. Something sharp in his chest.

‘If I go looking for this… I might lose him.’

He didn’t say that part out loud. He couldn’t.

“I don’t think we should dig,” he said instead, voice tight.

Yelena’s brow furrowed. “Why not?”

“I don’t know. I just—” His jaw clenched. “It feels wrong. Like I’m chasing something I’m not supposed to find.”

“That’s vague and unhelpful.”

“I know.”

“So we investigate. Carefully.”

“No.” His voice came out sharper than intended, clipped and immediate.

Yelena blinked, startled. “What the hell, Barnes?”

He turned from Boss, eyes stormy. “Just—don’t. Okay?”

She stared at him, hard, her posture shifting—less instructor, more Widow. But she didn’t push. Not yet.

“You’re acting like this thing is going to unravel you,” she said, quieter now.

“Because maybe it will.”

They stood like that for a beat too long.

Then Bucky exhaled hard through his nose, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

Yelena looked at him for a moment longer, then sighed and reached up to unclip Boss’s halter. “You’re tense and spiraling. You’re not sleeping. You’ve got trauma brain. I’ve seen it a thousand times.”

She gestured with her head. “Come on. Let’s get him out.”

They walked side by side into the late afternoon light, leading Boss toward the pasture. The gelding perked up instantly, tugging at the lead rope with renewed enthusiasm.

Yelena opened the gate, unclipped the line, and let him go.

Boss bolted.

Tail flagged, ears pinned, he shot across the pasture like a rocket, scattering the younger horses who’d been loitering near the fence. One nipped at his heels. Another squealed. The entire field erupted into thundering hooves and kicking dirt.

Yelena watched for a moment, then turned to Bucky with a devilish gleam in her eye.

“You,” she said, jabbing a finger into his chest, “are coming into town with me tonight. We’re getting drunk—well, I’M getting drunk—you’re going to pretend—and we’re singing karaoke at the shitty dive bar Sam’s going to fall in love with.”

Bucky groaned. “I can’t even get drunk.”

“That’s your problem.”

“I don’t sing.”

“You do now.”

“Yelena—”

She cut him off with a glare. “Non-negotiable. You’re spiraling. I’m fixing it. Go put on a shirt that doesn’t make you look like a depressed lumberjack.”

She was already halfway back to the barn before he could argue again.

And despite everything in him wanting to dig deeper, to claw at the edge of whatever he’d remembered, part of him was glad she didn’t give him the choice.

Because maybe she was right.

Maybe he needed a little bad singing and shitty beer.

And maybe—just maybe—it would quiet the storm. Even for a night.

-------------------

Yelena’s truck was far too small for four grown adults, two sets of wings, and one overly ambitious playlist that seemed hellbent on covering every genre from 2000s emo to Eastern European techno—but that didn’t stop her from treating the cab like it was a party bus barreling toward a war zone. She drove with one hand on the wheel, the other occasionally flying up to emphasize the lyrics of whatever song she was mangling at the moment, her blonde braid bouncing in rhythm with every sharp turn she took down the winding, tree-lined road away from her cottage.

Bucky was crammed into the backseat between Sam’s solid, warm body and the window, his knees awkwardly pressed up against the seat in front of him. Sam wasn’t exactly small either, but he had a casual sprawl to him that made the space feel even more limited, as if the whole truck was slowly tilting toward his gravity. Torres had claimed shotgun the moment they stepped outside, declaring himself the “DJ and front-seat vibes manager,” only to immediately get into a wrestling match with Yelena over control of the stereo.

“Yelena! Oh my god—turn it down before my ears bleed!”

“It’s a classic!” she shouted, throwing her elbow into Torres’s ribs and swatting his hand away from the dial. “Don’t touch the sacred aux!”

“We’re going to die,” Torres howled, flailing as Yelena put him in a brutal finger lock with one hand while continuing to steer with the other. “This is how it ends! At the hands of a Slavic gremlin who worships Taylor Swift and has a death wish!”

“It’s ‘Cruel Summer,’ you heathen!” she shouted, singing off-key as she cranked the volume up even higher. “You WILL suffer for your blasphemy!”

Bucky, half-leaning against the door with one arm braced against the window frame, watched the chaos unfold in the front seat with a long-suffering expression that masked the fondness curling somewhere deep in his chest. The cab vibrated with Yelena’s voice and Torres’s dramatics, and though it was loud, ridiculous, and bordering on deadly, it was familiar. Messy in the way families were supposed to be.

He turned his head slightly, catching Sam mid-laugh.

God, he looked good when he laughed.

The amber glow from the dashboard lights played off Sam’s features, catching in the corners of his mouth, the fine lines beside his eyes. His head was tilted back against the seat, throat exposed, laughter rich and unrestrained, his eyes squeezed shut like he didn’t have a single care in the world. He was dressed casually—dark jeans, worn boots, a soft gray t-shirt that stretched just right across his chest—but to Bucky, he looked like something carved from sunlight.

Even here, crammed in a too-small truck with a screaming playlist and two chaos gremlins in the front seat, Sam exuded something effortless. Steady. Solid. Warm.

And Bucky couldn't stop looking at him.

Sam cracked an eye open and caught him staring. A slow, toothy grin spread across his face, his dimples flashing. “What?” he asked, leaning in slightly. “You’re looking at me like I’m dessert.”

Bucky flushed, glancing out the window and back again. “Yeah, well. I kind of do.”

Sam chuckled and reached forward, grabbing the collar of Bucky’s tight black compression shirt. He tugged gently, pulling Bucky toward him. “Yeah,” he murmured, voice lower now, teasing. “But I like hearing you say it.”

Bucky smirked, his voice quiet. “You’re annoying, Wilson.”

“Mmhm,” Sam said, dragging his eyes slowly over Bucky’s outfit—the fitted black jeans that clung to his legs like a second skin, the black combat boots, the ever-present metal arm glinting faintly under the overhead light. “You dressed like this on purpose?”

Bucky clicked his tongue, giving a slight smirk. “Thought I’d make you suffer.”

Sam leaned in closer, brushing his lips against Bucky’s. “You’re succeeding.”

Bucky hummed, smiling into the kiss. Sam’s mouth was warm and familiar, the kind of softness that made Bucky’s stomach flutter and his mind briefly quiet.

And then Yelena slammed the brakes.

Sam’s forehead flew forward—but Bucky, reflexes honed by decades of combat, shot a hand out and caught him just before impact with the back of Yelena’s seat.

“What the hell?!” Sam barked, half-laughing, half-annoyed as Bucky held him there a second longer than necessary before letting go.

“Seatbelts, lovebirds,” Yelena cackled. “Try not to mate in my backseat. I just cleaned it.”

“We were kissing,” Bucky muttered, adjusting his shirt.

“Disgusting,” she said cheerfully, whipping into a parallel parking spot with all the grace of a battering ram.

Torres, already twisting in his seat to grin at them, pointed dramatically at Bucky. “Okay but like... serious question—why is it always black? Like, do you own other colors? Or is this part of the ex-assassin aesthetic?”

Without missing a beat, Bucky deadpanned, “So people can’t see me bleed.”

Torres blinked. “Wait, are you kidding or—”

Bucky didn’t smile. Just stared.

Torres slowly turned back around. “Jesus.”

Sam stifled a laugh beside him.

“I love messing with him,” Bucky said under his breath, grinning.

As Yelena cut the engine, the cab filled with silence for the first time in twenty minutes, save for the buzz of nightlife drifting in from the town beyond. Bucky turned his head, peering out the window, and let the noise wash over him.

Southern Pines at night was... beautiful. Fairy lights twinkled from the awnings of boutique shops and restaurants, draped across alleyways and balconies. Couples walked hand-in-hand down the sidewalks, clusters of teenagers gathered around outdoor ice cream stands, and music floated from open bars and corner cafes. Everything glowed soft and amber, the air warm and humming with life.

It should’ve felt like peace.

But the feeling—the one that had been haunting him since they arrived—still lingered.

It didn’t scream. It didn’t jab. It just sat there, heavy in his chest, whispering that something wasn’t right. That something was coming.

He looked at Sam again. Sam, who was climbing out of the truck with easy grace, who reached back in and offered Bucky his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And Bucky took it.

Not just the hand, but the unspoken promise that came with it—the grounding weight of it, the sheer solidity of someone who never flinched, never wavered, never pulled away. He let their fingers lace together, let the warmth of Sam’s palm cut through whatever storm still brewed beneath the surface of his skin.

Tonight, he vowed. He was going to keep it together. He would swallow whatever this creeping thing was, bury it so deep that not even the ghosts could find it. Because Sam was smiling at him like he was worth holding onto, and there was no way in hell Bucky was going to ruin that. Not tonight. Not ever, if he could help it.

Sam tugged him gently forward, then leaned in and pressed a quick, firm kiss to Bucky’s lips—soft and sure, a touch of home in the middle of downtown Southern Pines. “Come on,” he murmured, eyes bright with mischief. “We’re gonna lose the gremlins.”

Ahead of them, Yelena and Torres had already taken off like they were racing for Olympic gold, whooping and hollering as they sprinted down the sidewalk in a blur of motion. Yelena’s braid whipped behind her like a banner, and Torres was shouting something about “first pick for karaoke,” though it was lost in the wind and laughter.

Sam grinned and took off at a jog, his hand still firmly holding Bucky’s. “Let’s go, Sergeant.”

Bucky snorted, breath catching in his throat from the sheer absurdity of it all, but he followed. Let Sam pull him through the crowds, past groups of locals milling around restaurants, weaving between couples, ducking under hanging lights. People laughed and clapped as they passed, some raising their drinks, and Bucky didn’t even care. His lungs pulled in warm, night-heavy air, and the sound of Sam’s laugh—loud, unfettered—made it easier to keep moving.

They finally reached the bar, breathless and grinning, Yelena doubled over by the entrance as she handed her ID to the bouncer with one hand and flipped off Torres with the other.

“You cheated!” Torres gasped, leaning on the brick wall beside the door, half-doubled over and heaving. “You elbowed me in the ribs halfway through!”

“Untrue,” Yelena said sweetly. “You’re just weak.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and stopped a few paces back, completely untouched by the exertion. The serum had its perks.

Torres noticed, still panting, and waved at Bucky with a vague scowl. “You’re not even breathing hard, man. That’s not fair. You didn’t even sweat.”

Bucky raised a brow. “Should’ve stretched, kid.”

Sam laughed, still catching his breath as he handed over his ID. “Remind me to never let you train him, Buck. You’d probably kill him.”

They stepped into the bar and the atmosphere shifted instantly—cool, dim, and rich with sound. The music was loud, but not so loud it drowned out conversation. Classic rock thumped through worn speakers overhead—something with a heavy bassline and a singer who sounded like he gargled whiskey for breakfast. The whole place was low-lit and lined with wood, like an Irish pub someone had tried to modernize with a few LED signs and a questionable jukebox. It smelled like beer, sweat, and old leather. Clean enough, though. No sticky floors or broken barstools.

Bucky liked it immediately.

Yelena led them to a booth tucked in the back corner, near a brick wall where shadows pooled comfortably and two small round windows looked out onto the side alley. He settled into the corner seat, instinctively turning so he had a clear line of sight to the exits. No one commented, not even Sam. They knew him well enough by now.

Yelena kicked Torres toward the opposite side of the booth. “You’re loud. Sit there.”

“Rude,” Torres muttered, but obeyed.

“What do you want to drink?” Yelena asked, already standing again, her coat slung over one shoulder.

“Shots!” Torres blurted instantly.

Sam, settling beside Bucky with his arm brushing up close, held up two fingers. “Beer for me. Whatever they’ve got on tap.”

Bucky leaned back against the wall, exhaling slowly. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, voice low. “Can’t get drunk anyway.”

Yelena rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, we know. Super soldier metabolism. Tragic. I’ll get you something moody.”

And then she was gone, shouldering her way through the crowd toward the bar like a missile with combat boots and a vendetta against every patron in her way.

Torres bobbed his head to the music, clearly feeling himself. “You know,” he said, tapping his fingers on the table. “This place isn’t half bad. It’s got character. And sticky notes on the bathroom wall. I like it.”

Bucky tilted his head. “How do you already know what the bathroom looks like?”

“I researched. Had to make sure it wasn’t haunted.”

Sam barked out a laugh. “You’re the weirdest kid ever, I swear man.”

“You only say that ‘cause I’m the best.”

Sam gave him a look. “You almost clipped a kid with your wings yesterday. I wouldn’t get so cocky.”

“Yeah, but I DIDN’T.”

Bucky chuckled under his breath, watching them with quiet amusement. The bickering, the warmth, the way Torres kicked Sam’s shin under the table just to be annoying—it all pulled at something deep in his chest. He wasn’t used to this kind of noise, this brand of affection that came with no strings, no hidden knives. He still didn’t quite know what to do with it, even now.

Yelena returned a few minutes later, balancing four drinks with the skill of someone who’d once assassinated a man using only a teacup. She slid a deep amber drink toward Bucky. “This one’s for your drama,” she said. “It’s got like, sixteen kinds of sadness in it. You’ll love it.”

Bucky raised a brow. “It better.”

She handed a lime-green shot to Torres, who sniffed it suspiciously and then downed it with a grin. Sam took his beer with a grateful nod, and they all lifted their drinks like it was second nature.

“To bad decisions and questionable music,” Yelena said, raising her glass.

“To karaoke,” Torres added.

“To not being chased by deranged war criminals for once,” Sam said with a smirk.

Bucky lifted his glass last, voice dry but warm. “To this family of gremlins.”

They clinked drinks with a satisfying chorus of dull thuds and clinks, laughter echoing softly beneath the blare of the jukebox and the faint buzz of the crowd. Torres tossed back his shot like it was water, immediately coughing as the burn hit him, while Sam took a measured sip of his beer, mouth twitching in amusement. Yelena knocked back her drink without flinching, lips curling into a smirk as she licked a smear of salt from her thumb.

Bucky leaned back in his corner, letting the glass rest against the table, the condensation slipping slightly beneath his fingers. For a moment—just one bright, easy moment—the air around them felt lighter. Softer. He scanned the bar with casual detachment, his posture loose, eyes flicking from the pool tables in the back to the line of folks near the old-school jukebox. The place was humming with life. Nothing dangerous. Nothing off. Just a Friday night bar soaked in too much laughter.

Across from him, Torres leaned back in his seat, chewing noisily on a handful of peanuts he must’ve scavenged from a bowl by the bar. He glanced toward Yelena, expression curious.

“So,” he said around the crunch. “Why Southern Pines?”

Yelena, mid-sip of her drink, paused. And Bucky noticed it. Just a hitch. Barely anything. But it was there.

Something flickered across her face—gone in half a second. But not before Bucky saw it: hesitation. The smallest crack in the armor.

Then she shifted, slouching back in her seat like a queen on a throne, her expression sliding easily back into that same infuriatingly confident smirk. “It’s quiet,” she said, swirling the ice in her glass. “Nice horses. Better whiskey. Far enough off the grid that no one bothers me. Close enough to Fort Bragg to keep things entertaining.”

Sam chuckled. “Entertaining how?”

“Let’s just say,” Yelena drawled, “some of their inventory ends up in better hands.”

Torres laughed loud and sharp, nearly choking on a peanut. “So you ARE still stealing shit from the military.”

She shrugged, completely unapologetic. “I call it redistributing resources.”

Sam and Torres dissolved into laughter, Yelena shooting them a smug grin as she sipped from her drink. Bucky watched her, though. Watched the way her jaw tensed just a bit too tightly between smiles. The way her eyes flicked toward the windows, the street beyond them.

There was something else. Something she wasn’t saying.

Yelena always played her cards close to the chest—hell, half the time she built a new chest just to keep people guessing—but this didn’t feel like her usual evasiveness. This felt deliberate. Weighted. She wasn’t just hiding a personal reason.

She was protecting something.

That old itch, buried beneath his ribs, stirred again. Crawling up his spine, whispering something he couldn’t quite catch. He knew that look—he’d worn it himself enough times to recognize it on someone else. And right now, she was wearing it like a mask.

Bucky reached for his beer and drained the rest in one long pull, the cool bitterness barely registering. When he set the glass down, all he felt was more of the same. Nothing.

He sighed, resting his elbow on the table and pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s not fair,” he muttered. “Can’t even get a buzz.”

Sam, who was halfway through his own drink, chuckled and nudged Bucky’s shoulder. “You sure you’re not just being dramatic?”

“Super soldier metabolism,” Bucky grumbled. “Ruins all the fun.”

“Oh come on,” Torres said, grinning. “There’s gotta be a workaround. You ever try, like, fifteen beers? Maybe your liver gives up around number sixteen.”

“I’ve tried twenty,” Bucky replied flatly.

Torres blinked. “...What happened?”

“I got full.”

Sam snorted into his beer.

Yelena leaned forward, chin propped on her hand, her grin wicked. “So what you’re saying is, we need to find you the world’s strongest shot. Something that punches you in the face before it hits your stomach.”

“No,” Bucky said immediately. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“I bet we could get Torres to invent something,” Sam added, looking far too delighted by the idea.

“Oh no,” Torres said. “I don’t want to die. Or worse—accidentally succeed. I don’t think I’d want to see Barnes drunk.”

Bucky sighed dramatically, leaning his head back against the brick wall behind them. “I miss the days when people feared me.”

“You’re wearing jeans tighter than mine,” Yelena said dryly. “No one’s scared of you anymore.”

Sam grinned. “I don’t know. He’s terrifying in a domestic way. Like, I still think he could kill me with a spoon, but now he does laundry too.”

Bucky gave him a sideways look. “You love when I do laundry.”

Sam raised his glass. “I do. Folded like a soldier, smells great.”

That made Bucky laugh—quiet, low, but real.

It slipped out before he could stop it, a sound rougher than it should’ve been, catching in the back of his throat like he hadn’t used it in a while. He leaned in, unable to help himself, brushing his lips against Sam’s cheek in something gentle and unguarded before letting them find their way to Sam’s mouth. The kiss was quick—barely more than a press of warmth—but it felt like something grounding, something real. Sam hummed into it, soft and pleased, before pulling back just enough to look at him.

“You keep doing that and I’m gonna start demanding tips,” he teased, his eyes bright, the curve of his grin nothing short of blinding.

Bucky gave a soft huff of amusement, watching as Sam drained the rest of his beer and stood with an easy stretch. “I’ll get the next round,” Sam said, patting Bucky’s thigh as he stepped out of the booth. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Not planning to,” Bucky said, smiling faintly.

Yelena and Torres immediately cheered at the announcement of more drinks, raising their empty glasses like victorious warriors. Bucky chuckled under his breath and settled deeper into the booth, content for a moment to simply observe—watching as Sam wove through the growing crowd toward the bar, ducking past a couple of dancing college kids and greeting the bartender with a familiar nod.

He looked good in this space, Bucky thought. Confident. Light on his feet, like the world didn’t sit too heavy on his shoulders anymore. Like he belonged in this moment, in this little southern town full of dive bars and glowing fairy lights.

But then Bucky saw him.

The father from the riding lesson.

The one with the clean-cut military presence and the hollow stare. The one whose voice had been too calm, too even, too carefully curated for someone just picking up their kid from a pony ride.

He was at the bar.

And worse—he was talking to Sam.

Bucky’s body went still.

Not in a dramatic, overt way—but in the way a predator goes still before striking, in the way a haunted man forgets how to breathe. His fingers, still curled loosely around his empty glass, tightened. His jaw set. The warmth that had bloomed so easily moments before vanished like smoke, replaced by that cold creeping sensation he’d been trying for days to ignore.

Something was wrong.

Something was OFF.

Yelena, who had been mid-sip of her second drink, noticed it instantly. Her eyes flicked to him, sharp and assessing. Her hand twitched at her side—just a reflex, but it was enough. The movement at her wrist barely noticeable, a whisper of muscle memory near where her Widow’s bites had once been.

“What is it?” she asked, low enough that only he and Torres heard.

Torres immediately straightened, sensing the shift. “Everything okay?”

Bucky didn’t answer. He just motioned toward the bar with a subtle tilt of his chin.

Yelena followed his gaze, and her expression darkened. Her brow furrowed slightly when she saw who Sam was talking to. The man stood easily beside him, posture relaxed, one hand wrapped around a pint glass, the other resting casually on the bar. His eyes crinkled with laughter as he said something that made Sam chuckle.

Sam didn’t just know him.

He seemed COMFORTABLE with him.

And the man—he wasn’t the cold, tight-lipped soldier who’d looked at Bucky like he was an experiment under glass. Now he was affable, open, playing the part of an old friend like he’d worn it for years. But even from here, Bucky could see how perfectly rehearsed the man’s expressions were. How his smile didn’t reach his eyes. How those eyes occasionally flicked to Bucky—just for a second, like a tick—before returning to Sam.

“I don’t like it,” Bucky said, voice flat, teeth gritted.

Then he felt it—that familiar scrape in his chest, the shift of something inside him clenching too tight, the old instincts rising.

Before he realized what he was doing, his hand had closed too tightly around the empty beer bottle.

There was a sharp crack.

Then the wet sound of glass slicing through skin.

Torres flinched. “Shit—Bucky!”

Bucky blinked, only now registering the pain in his palm. The neck of the bottle had snapped in his grip, a shard slicing through the thick scar tissue at the base of his palm—the same scar he’d rubbed anxiously since they’d gotten to town. Blood welled up quickly, sliding down his wrist in a thin, hot line.

Yelena leaned forward, but it was Torres who reached first, grabbing Bucky’s wrist and pulling it toward him, pressing a napkin over the wound to stop the bleeding.

“It’s deep,” Torres said, voice surprisingly gentle, his usual humor gone. “Piece of glass went straight through. Stay still—just stay still—”

“I’m fine,” Bucky said hoarsely, trying to pull away.

But his eyes were locked on the blood.

It had soaked through the napkin. It was pooling at the crease of his palm, cutting a line across that old scar like it had split something open beneath it. Like the blood had unlocked something.

His stomach twisted.

And then he was somewhere else entirely.

The noise of the bar vanished, replaced by wind and grit and sun that burned white-hot behind his eyelids.

He was climbing again—Afghanistan, maybe. Or somewhere like it. A sheer rock face beneath his hands, the texture of it sharp and unforgiving. His body ached with effort, muscles screaming with the strain of each movement. The desert air was dry enough to make his throat feel like it had been scraped raw. He moved with silent, surgical precision, crawling like a spider toward a vantage point high above some distant outpost.

Then—his foot slipped.

He scrambled for purchase, fingers scrabbling for a hold. His right hand caught on a jagged rock, slicing it open clean down the middle. Blood slicked his grip, and he almost fell. Would’ve, if not for the cold, brutal strength of the metal arm Hydra had given him.

The weight of it yanked him back to the wall, the cable beneath his harness jerking taut.

The mission. The orders.

He had to finish.

He had to reach the top-

“Bucky,” Torres’s voice echoed faintly through the haze. “Bucky, hey—what the hell, talk to me—”

Bucky gasped and ripped his hand away, the pressure and heat and sound of the memory still roaring in his head. He stumbled back into the booth, breathing hard, his eyes wide and distant.

Yelena didn’t speak.

She just watched. Eyes narrowed, assessing.

Quiet.

It pressed in around him like a second skin—tight and unrelenting—as Bucky stared back at Yelena across the booth, her gaze locked on his face with the kind of unflinching scrutiny that had nothing to do with concern and everything to do with strategy. Her eyes, sharp as broken glass, flicked between his bleeding hand and the tension coiled beneath his shoulders, her fingers tapping silently against the side of her glass. He didn’t like the look she was giving him. Too perceptive. Too KNOWING. As if she were stitching together a puzzle with pieces Bucky hadn’t even realized he’d dropped. And worse, she was close. Close to something. The curl of her mouth suggested she didn’t like what she was figuring out, and Bucky found himself resenting her for seeing through him when he barely understood what he was feeling himself.

He opened his mouth to say something—anything to cut through the weighted silence between them—when he heard it.

“Hey!”

Sam’s voice, bright and unbothered, cut through the fog. Bucky blinked as Sam approached, his smile easy, the lines around his eyes crinkled with genuine warmth. There was someone with him, walking just behind him, tall and confident with a polished step Bucky could’ve spotted from a mile away. His entire body tensed before he fully registered why.

“Look who I found loitering near the bar,” Sam said, practically beaming. “Bucky, Torres, Yelena—this is Austin. Austin Jones. We worked together back when I was with the Falcon program. He was Delta. We used to get lumped together on all the fun assignments.”

Austin stepped forward with the kind of relaxed, contained energy Bucky recognized immediately—he carried himself like a man who could move without being seen, who could kill without raising his voice. His smile was polite, his handshake firm as he extended it toward the group, but Bucky’s blood had already gone cold.

“Kandahar,” Sam continued, nodding to himself. “Last time I saw him, we were in Kandahar, what, at least ten years ago?”

That name—Kandahar—hit like a hammer to the chest. Bucky’s breath hitched, and for a moment, the buzzing of the bar faded behind the sudden, bone-deep silence ringing in his ears. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, his instincts screaming before he even understood why. His right hand throbbed. Blood still trickled past the napkin, unnoticed.

“Damn,” Sam said, his smile dimming as he slid into the booth next to Bucky, finally noticing the red staining Bucky’s palm and dripping into the creases of the wooden table. “What the hell happened?”

Bucky didn’t look at him. Didn’t look at anyone. His eyes were locked on Austin, who now stood beside the table, watching everything with a calm, calculated detachment. “It’s nothing,” Bucky muttered, voice low. “Just a bottle.”

Sam didn’t hesitate. He took Bucky’s wrist gently but firmly, applying pressure to the wound with the napkin he already had in hand. “That’s a lot of blood for ‘nothing.’ You didn’t even feel it?”

“I’m fine,” Bucky said again, forcing the words through clenched teeth. He could feel it—eyes on him. Not just Sam’s, not Yelena’s or even Torres’, who was now shifting forward, instinctively beginning to clean the shards of glass with his drink napkin. No—it was Austin’s eyes that pinned him down.

Cool.

Assessing.

Predatory.

Austin’s gaze moved between Bucky’s face, his blood-slicked hand, and Sam’s gentle attention like he was gathering data for a report. Then, slowly, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a clean, white cloth napkin—folded too perfectly, too deliberately—and handed it to Sam.

“Here,” he said, tone calm. “Sterile. Keep a few on me. Comes in handy.”

Sam took it without hesitation, murmured a thank-you, and pressed it to Bucky’s hand. The moment it touched him, Bucky felt something shift.

Something WRONG.

There was no logical reason for it—no scent, no sensation he could name—but every nerve in his body recoiled from the cloth like it carried poison. He didn’t flinch outwardly. Didn’t move. But deep inside, where instinct overrode thought, something screamed that this cloth, this man, this moment—none of it should be happening.

He smothered the feeling, forced it down like bile. Sam was watching. EVERYONE was watching. He couldn’t afford to fall apart now, not over a fucking napkin.

“Don’t squeeze too hard,” he said softly to Sam, trying to redirect. “I don’t wanna snap your fingers.”

Sam gave him a brief smile. “Yeah, yeah. You’re very scary.”

But Bucky barely heard it.

Because Austin was still looking at him.

That smile had changed—flattened into something that didn’t reach his eyes. Something deliberate. He wasn’t trying to pretend anymore, at least not to Bucky. And Bucky, jaw tight, stared back without blinking, his shoulders tensing under the weight of the moment. It took everything in him not to reach across the table and grab the man by the throat.

Only Sam kept him tethered.

Only Sam, who still believed this was just a casual meeting with an old friend.

“Small world,” Yelena said suddenly, her voice lilting and pleasant. She stepped closer to the booth, eyes bright with the perfect balance of interest and innocence. “Your daughter is a gem. I genuinely enjoy working with her. I hope you’re not being rotated out too soon—I’d hate to lose her mid-season.”

Austin turned to her, the tension in his body shifting like he’d changed gears. His smile grew softer, more genuine. “Thanks. She loves the horses. Gets her out of the house, which is no small feat. My contract’s open-ended, but we’re not going anywhere yet.”

Yelena nodded, sipping from her drink. “That’s good to hear. Always nice to have steady families in the program. Most people just cycle in and out.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. There it was. The angle. The probing. Subtle and clean. She was trying to get a read on his timeline. His presence. His intentions.

Austin didn’t bite. “We’re happy here,” he said simply. “Southern Pines is... quiet. Just what we needed.”

Torres was still quietly collecting the broken bottle shards, mopping up the blood. Sam remained focused on Bucky’s hand, his fingers moving with gentle precision. And Austin? Austin looked at Sam once more—soft, familiar—before glancing back at Bucky with that same cold flicker of something far too calculated to be casual.

“I’ve got a few buddies across the bar,” he said, stepping back. “I’ll let you get back to your night. But hey—Sam, we should catch up sometime. A lot I gotta debrief you on. Drinks, maybe.”

“Yeah,” Sam said distractedly, still watching the blood stain the napkin. “Definitely.”

Austin nodded, offered a final polite smile, and turned toward the back of the bar, disappearing into the shadows like a man who’d never been there at all.

For a moment, Bucky sat there in silence, the noise of the bar warbling around him like distant water. Sam was still beside him, hand pressed firm and sure over the wound in his palm, his brow drawn in a soft furrow of concern. The cut was deep, sluggishly oozing despite the serum already beginning to stitch it closed. Sam hadn’t let go once, and now he was murmuring something under his breath, thumb gently brushing along the edge of Bucky’s wrist.

“You gotta stop pretending you’re made of stone,” Sam said, the fondness in his voice almost disarming. “Bleeding like a stuck pig and still trying to act like you’re the toughest guy in the room. You’re such a damn headache.”

Bucky blinked, startled by the softness, by how easily Sam could slide back into this—into caring without condition. His throat worked, but nothing came out.

Across the table, Yelena raised her beer to her lips and sipped, her expression unreadable. Her eyes, though, never left the shadowed space Austin had disappeared into. She watched like a hawk who’d seen a snake slither into the brush—calm on the surface, but with every muscle poised to strike.

She set her glass down with a delicate thud, the foam clinging to the rim. Then, like someone tossing a casual pebble into a pond, she turned her gaze on Sam and asked, in a voice light as silk, “So. How exactly do you know Captain Tall, Dark, and Creepy?”

Sam didn’t flinch, but his eyes flicked toward her with a bit more caution than usual. He shrugged once, shoulders tight, like the motion cost him more than he wanted to admit. “We ran a few joint ops. Back in my Falcon days. Delta teams were always bouncing between hellholes. He was usually the guy covering our six.”

“That’s all?” Yelena tilted her head. “He seemed… familiar. Like you two were close.”

Sam looked away for a second, then smiled—small, practiced. “Not really. We weren’t tight or anything. Just worked together here and there. He kept his head down. Solid guy. Reliable. Not much else to say.”

But there was something else in his voice. A hesitation that hadn’t been there before. And it wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk about Austin—it was that he really didn’t want to talk about that time. That part of his life.

Bucky felt the weight of it shift, like the tension had pivoted to settle between Sam’s shoulder blades. Something unspoken passed between him and Yelena, and Bucky caught it in the air—silent and taut.

He turned slightly, his injured hand cradled loosely in Sam’s grip. “You okay?” he asked softly.

Sam met his eyes. The weariness there wasn’t obvious, but it was real. The years he never really talked about. The memories he carried like armor.

“I’m good,” he said. Then, after a beat, “It’s just… those days were heavy. You know? Lot of shit happened. Hard to shake sometimes.”

Bucky didn’t press, but he didn’t look away.

Torres cleared his throat, dragging a hand through his hair. “Riley,” he murmured.

Yelena’s brow furrowed slightly. She leaned forward, resting one elbow on the table. “Who’s Riley?”

The itch returned before the name even fully landed.

Bucky felt it down his spine, like ice water poured along his vertebrae, soaking into the soft tissue beneath. He didn’t know why the name clawed at something primal in him—he knew about Riley. They’d talked about him countless times.

Sam’s expression changed—just slightly, but enough. A soft grief passed over him, the kind that had long since settled into its proper corner but never truly disappeared. He exhaled through his nose, looking down at Bucky’s hand, which was now only faintly bleeding.

“Riley was my best friend,” he said. “Back when I started flying with the Falcon program. He was the first guy I trusted to have my back. Smart. Quick. Funny as hell. Got me through more bullshit than I can count.”

He paused, rubbing his thumb along the inside of Bucky’s wrist. “He died on a mission. Special ops bullshit. Shit went sideway and well...he just never made it out.”

Yelena’s face softened, her usually sharp mouth tugging into something quiet and respectful. “I’m sorry.”

Sam waved it off gently. “It was a long time ago. Still hurts, yeah, but… war does that. It takes people. And the rest of us have to keep moving.”

Torres nodded along, the heaviness settling over him, too. They didn’t talk about this stuff often. They didn’t have to. It lived in the spaces between their words. But sometimes, it surfaced like a bruise pressed the wrong way.

Sam gave Bucky a smile that was all warmth and resilience, his arm sliding around his shoulders, grounding him. “We’re here now. That’s what matters.”

And it was.

It should’ve been.

But Bucky couldn’t shake it. That low thrum of tension hadn’t gone away. If anything, it had sharpened, as if someone had taken a whetstone to his nerves. He tried to focus on the bar again—the laughter, the clink of glasses, the feel of Sam’s weight against his side—but his thoughts kept drifting back.

To Austin’s eyes.

To Kandahar.

To that name: Riley.

He didn’t remember Riley’s face. He wasn’t supposed to. Sam had never shown him photos—there weren’t many. But now, the name and that smile Austin had given him, so polite and sharp-edged, echoed against something jagged in his chest.

Across the table, Yelena was watching him again. But this time, the calculation was gone. Replaced by something colder. Clearer.

Fear.

Not the kind of fear Bucky inspired in others. Not the fear of what he could do. But something else.

She sipped her drink slowly, never breaking eye contact.

And Bucky?

He just sat there, heart hammering in his throat, the napkin in his hand soaked in his own blood, as the itch in the back of his mind burned hotter and louder, threatening to finally tear its way free.