Yesterday, Tomorrow, Today

Rose came out of the studio kitchen after putting away the lunches—enough for both her and Bucky to last the week—to find Bucky standing in front of an unopened crate. It had arrived last week, before she’d found him living in the studio. 

“Can you help me lift this?” she asked, pointing to the crate. 

He gave a stiff nod and grabbed the side of the wooden box. Rose rushed to help but by the time she’d crossed the studio Bucky already had the crate up on a table. 

Well that’s handy. 

Rose usually sweated through her dresses when she had to wrangle crates by herself. 

“Thanks, Bucky! But next time lets lift it together, okay? I don’t want you hurting your shoulder again.” She pulled a stool from the corner and pushed it toward him. “Here, sit if you like. I’m gonna get a crowbar to get this thing open.” 

She grabbed a crowbar from the storage room and came rushing back into the main studio space, a grin on her face. 

“I love new commissions,” she babbled and shoved the flat end of the crowbar beneath the boards. 

She pushed down hard and a corner of the crate lifted with a reluctant creak. 

“Of course I’ve seen pictures, but it’s so different in person. And you just never know how much work there is to be done, or how complex it’ll be, until it’s in your hands and you’re running the tests. Most of the time you hope for an easy case, but sometimes you really do need something to get lost in. That’s when the hard cases feel like the best ones.” 

Rose continued on talking at Bucky as she worked to pry the crate open. Finally, with one last push of the crowbar and the squeak of metal nails on wood, the lid sprung free. Rose shoved it aside and snapped on some latex gloves. 

Sifting through the packing material, her hands finally found the canvas. She retrieved it gently from the crate and set it on the tabletop near Bucky. 

A shaky breath squeezed from her lungs. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. 

The painting, titled Aphrodite, was commissioned by a private client. It was a small, square canvas depicting a lush, flowering meadow. And at the center of it all, lounging nude amongst the flowers, was Aphrodite herself. 

Rose snapped immediately into restoration mode, swabbing different solvents across the various colors and taking samples of paint from the sides of the canvas. But Bucky was still admiring the painting and the goddess depicted in it. Her brown eyes, hidden behind a layer of yellowing varnish, were intense. She looked forward, as if staring right back at the observer in challenge. A pink blush covered her cheeks and waves of hair cascaded over her shoulder to cover one breast. 

He couldn’t help but think that the goddess looked a bit like Rosemary. 

“Help me get this to the storage room?” 

Rosemary’s question snapped him out of a trance. He nodded and grabbed the other side of the empty crate. He could carry it alone, even if his shoulder hadn’t already healed. But he let Rosemary hold one end of the crate anyway. They set it down towards the back, among the stockpile of other thin crates. 

“Thanks!” Rosemary brushed her hands off on the skirt of her dress and left the storage room. 

He glanced up at the rack he’d slept on while hiding in this room. The latch on the small window above it was locked shut. He continued into the studio room. 

Watching Rosemary at work was like watching How It’s Made. She moved to different tables and cabinets throughout the space, constantly producing a new tool or vial of some kind. And she narrated as she went about her work. 

“You have to move pretty slow with this. I like to do it in sections. I put solvent down on one area and then go back to work on the area that’s already been sitting a while, that way I’m not waiting between sections.” 

She glanced up at Bucky to see if he was watching. He was. 

“Different conservators will do it differently, of course. It all kinds comes down to preference to be honest.” 

If Rosemary narrated an episode of How It’s Made there’s no doubt it would be the most watched in history. Bucky liked this so much more than the TV. Maybe that was because each time Rosemary walked by she was trailed by a sweet floral scent that was either on her skin or sewn right into the little flowers patterning her dress. She smelled like spring and sunlight. 

No wonder she’d been so determined to get him cleaned up when he arrived at her apartment. His brain flashed with an image of her from the day she’d finally gotten him into the shower. 

Pink underwear with flowers embroidered down the side seams and a bra to match, complete with a little bow between her breasts. Even wearing hardly anything, Rosemary had looked like a gift, carefully wrapped for some special occasion. 

When all the varnish was removed from the painting Rosemary decided they should take a break for lunch. When she retreated to the small kitchen, Bucky relaxed for the first time in hours. The constant scent of her, the occasional passing brush of her skirt against his leg, had put an unexplainable tension in his shoulders. 

That tension snapped back into place the moment she walked into the room. And then she sat down beside him, scooting her chair closer. Rosemary peeled the lid off a container, releasing steam and the scent of warm food. Bucky’s stomach clenched. Thin fingers pushed the second container in front of him. 

He looked at the contents, as he did with every meal she offered. Nothing looked off. It smelled alright too. Though, there were poisons even his senses wouldn’t pick up on. But if Rosemary wanted to kill him she’d have done it by now. 

Bucky picked up the fork. 

“Mm, what did you do with all that tupperware you took from the fridge before?” 

He shoved a bite of food into his mouth. It was good. Everything she cooked was good, especially the cake. 

“Earth to Bucky,” she waved a hand in front of his face. 

His own hand shot out and grabbed hers. It took a fraction of a second to pin her forearm to the table. 

Rosemary yelped. Her fork clattered on the table. She tried to yank herself away from him out of instinct. The grip on her arm prevented that. 

He could see it in her eyes, the instinct to run, to fight the thing trapping her. It was an animal urge he’d seen before in many other eyes. Blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes. Dead eyes. 

The steel plates of his arm whirred quietly as they tightened. She yanked again and whimpered. 

He let go. 

Rosemary snatched her arm out of his reach and cradled it to her chest. Angry red marks in the shape of a hand lined her flesh. He turned back to the food. 

She didn’t eat much or talk much after that. When he finished his food she gingerly pushed her portion in front of him and snatched her uninjured arm away. As he started on the second meal she slid off her stool and disappeared down a short hallway, towards the bathroom. 

He heard the door shut, heard the faucet run, and heard her quiet sobs. He pushed the meal away, no longer hungry. 

The Asset had made many people weep, but not one of them had ever tried to hide it from him. 

Rosemary returned a short while later. Her cheeks were red and there were smudges of makeup under her eyes that she’d failed to clean up, but she was smiling. 

“Let’s get back to work then,” she chirped and scooped up the tupperware, taking them away to the kitchen. 

She came back into the room and began applying tiny dots of paint to a large landscape painting that was already set up on an easel. Bucky watched from his seat. She didn’t narrate her work for the rest of the day. 

Rosemary ushered them home at 4 o'clock, mumbling something about wanting to avoid the rush. She held out her hand for him to take when they left the studio. 

He took it. Her fingers quivered. 

“Let’s sit here,” she said quietly, pulling him along to a pair of seats in the corner of the subway car. 

Rosemary sat by the window and he sank down beside her. She let go of his hand and shrank into her seat. Her eyes never left the window. 

Bucky sat tensely, scanning the train car with a steady eye. A man sat on the opposite end of the train car, facing away. Music played from the wires in his ears. A woman halfway down the car was fiddling with something in the pocket of a stroller. He expected the flash of a blade when her hand pulled free of the pocket. Instead, it was a small bag of cereal. 

They rode the train for 12 minutes before Rosemary touched the back of his hand. He’d been so focused on the man who’d gotten on at the previous stop that the touch startled him. He flinched. Rosemary snatched her hand away before he could blink. 

“We’re the next stop,” she whispered. 

Bucky stared at the back of his glove where the tips of her fingers had made contact. He couldn’t feel the sensation through the leather and metal beneath it. The metal arm had pressure sensors—sensitive ones—but it could not feel heat, or cold, or care.

Rosemary’s touch had done little more than alert him to a potential threat on his left, just as the pressure sensors were meant to. But Rosemary was not a threat—he was starting to see that. 

The subway came to a stop and the doors slid open with a hiss of air. Rosemary stood, hiked her tote bag higher on her shoulder, and stuck a hand out for him to take. 

Confusion churned in his gut. This was different from the facility, so different that at times Bucky wondered if it might be one of their experiments. But that thought was quickly neutralized. Because the only thing he knew with complete certainty was that this—Rosemary—was not a hallucination brought on by hunger, or thirst, or the chair. 

His stomach was full, he’d had a sip of Rosemary’s water bottle before they left the studio, and there was no possibility of him forgetting a single moment spent in the chair. 

No, the chair and all the pain that came with it could not conjure up anything that felt like Rosemary’s soft hand in his, guiding him across the subway platform. Not even Zola would have been so cruel as to make this up and plant it in his head. 

“You did really well on the train, Bucky.” Rosemary smiled up at him as they finally exited the station and started down the street. 

It was a lie. He’d nearly attacked her again. 

But her heartbeat remained steady and her eyes sparkled with the afternoon light when she glanced over at him. And in that moment, on a sunny D.C. sidewalk, Bucky came to the conclusion that either Rosemary was the most skilled liar he’d ever met or she was sincere. He wasn’t sure yet which one was worse. 

They walked through the metal gate in front of her apartment building and Rosemary locked it after them, then pulled on the bars to be certain it was firmly shut. She did the same with the apartment door once they were inside. Rosemary hung her keys and bag by the door, double checked the deadbolt and chain, then wiggled the doorknob. She seemed satisfied. 

Bucky was not. The locks were a temporary safety measure at best, and whether they were meant to keep others out or keep him in, the locks weren’t sufficient. 

His eyes darted to the large potted plant by the door. In the pot, below a few millimeters of dirt, was the knife he’d hidden on his first night here. It was one of Rosemary’s steak knives from the wooden block on the counter. She hadn't seemed to notice it missing yet—or the five others hidden throughout the apartment. 

The locks would not keep him inside or keep an attacker out, but if they came he was ready. 

Dinner was a quiet affair. Rosemary heated leftovers for the both of them and they ate silently, letting noise from the TV fill the gap where her near-constant babble should have been. When they finished eating, she washed the dishes and disappeared into her bedroom with a mumbled “goodnight.” 

Bucky sat on his stool at the kitchen counter, staring at the door she’d disappeared behind. 

He spent a long time in that spot. Long enough for the sun to completely fade behind the gauzy curtains in the living room, long enough for an ache to start up in his shoulder, even long enough for the TV to prompt whether he was still watching. He was, but not the TV. 

He had listened to Rosemary shuffle around her bedroom, changing clothes and sliding into bed. He heard short videos playing, likely on her phone. And when she was settled in bed and her phone was silent, he heard the quiet sniffles with which she stifled more tears. 

When the apartment was silent and lit only by the faint glow of the TV screensaver, Bucky stood from the stool. He toed off his boots and placed them on the shoe rack beside the white sneakers Rosemary had worn to work. His bare feet made no sound on the wooden floors. Bucky shut off the TV and sank down in the corner between the window and couch. 

If he peeled back the curtain, he would have a clear view of the street. It was a good vantage point and allowed him to see each corner of the apartment, aside from the bathroom and Rosemary’s room. The bathroom was safe—no windows—but the bedroom was vulnerable with windows on two walls. 

It took a while for sleep to find him. When it finally did, Bucky wished it hadn’t. 

A gloved hand twisted the doorknob slowly. He moved a millimeter at a time, prioritizing stealth over ambush. The target could be easily overpowered if the time came, but his directive was to always prioritize stealth. 

The door swung open with a barely-audible creak from the lower hinge. The woman in the bed did not wake. She lay amongst in a pile of overstuffed pillows. Her face was barely visible beyond the thick blanket that was pulled up to her chin. 

Leather gloves squeaked when the asset tightened his hold on the knife. His suit was caked in dried dirt and blood. It smelled bad. She had hidden it in the back of the hall closet, on top of a box labeled Tara. 

The woman shifted beneath the piles of bedding. She reached out in her sleep and tugged a pillow close to her chest. Her gentle sigh hit his senses like a scream. 

Images of a red-haired woman with kiss-smudged lipstick flashed through his head.

“One more minute and then I have to get inside, Bucky, or my dad’ll kill you and me both,” she giggled against his mouth. 

The Asset stumbled back. The women in bed—Rosemary, he remembered—huffed in her sleep and hugged the pillow closer. The memory went as quickly as it came. 

His eyes flashed to the woman in the bed. Brown hair. No lipstick. 

It wasn’t Rosemary that he’d seen in his mind, but he couldn’t remember who she was. The Asset blinked once to clear the spike of pain surrounding his skull. It persisted, harsh and almost as biting as the chair. 

Find focus. 

His attention landed on Rosemary. He counted the seconds between each rise and fall of her chest, matching his breathing to hers until the steady inhale and exhale was the only thing occupying his mind. 

He startled out of the trance when Rosemary shuffled under her blankets and flipped onto her other side, taking the pillow she clutched with her. 

The Asset took a step backwards, out of the bedroom. His grip around the knife was loose. The straps of his uniform were too tight. He retreated to the living room, to the corner where he’d left the soft pajamas that had been set out for him. 

When Rose woke the next morning, her eyes landed immediately on the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar. She always slept with the door closed.