Nothing But Ash

The hot water pounded her sore muscles. The water pressure in the tower was divine. As gently as she could, Ren washed her hair and tried to clean the grime off of the rest of her. After she felt clean she let herself stay in the shower a little longer, enjoying the feeling. No one was chasing her for the first time in a week. Not very long in retrospect, but she felt like she had aged years. 

If only Natasha were there. She really wished she could talk to her friend right now. Calling wasn’t even an option, not till they fixed their little Hydra issue. Happy said he would talk to Tony about it. According to Pepper he was in his lab all the time anyway. If they were lucky he'd find a solution quickly. 

Finally leaving the comfort of the shower she wrapped herself in a plush towel and strode into her bedroom. It was practically the size of her apartment. Across from the bathroom door was a massive picture window, under it sat a long black couch. The walls were a modern gray, not her first choice but she wasn’t complaining. Maybe once she fully moved in she’d put some stuff on the walls. The king size bed dominated the room and faced the front door. Tucked in the corner between the bathroom and the front door was a kitchenette. All in all it was a pretty nice place. 

The walk in closet was also a perk and was where she currently sat. On the floor she contemplated her clothing choices. Settling for black sweatpants and a dark green crop top she pulled the outfit on and threw her wet hair in a bun. Looking in the mirror she smiled. If only Johnny could see her right now. Still getting in fights, still not knowing when to shut up. 

It’d been months since she visited his grave, she realized with a start. Not since all of this had started. In fact, she had been thinking of him less and less. Ren felt unbelievably ashamed. Next time she left the tower she would visit him, she decided. She would have to leave anyway… to finally move out of her apartment.

Not that she needed it. The tower was becoming her home, and there was the house Johnny had left her in his will. The one she hadn’t even known he’d owned.

…

On her way down to the medbay she ran into Sam. He was trying to figure out the coffee machine. Teasing him was irresistible, even if she hadn’t known how to work it at first either. Stark was a genius, but he also loved to make unnaturally complicated machines. 

There wasn’t a permanent medical staff, though Tony had mentioned hiring one once the rest of the Avengers moved in. At first she’d thought it was funny that he was so sure they would want to. Now, it was looking like he was right. Steve and Bucky were still in the medbay, looking at some screens. Letting herself in through the heavy glass door, she went over to them. 

“What’cha looking at?”

Steve inclined his head, “Bucky’s brain,”

A black and white image was on the screen, the automated medical program had labeled the damaged areas. There were a lot of them.

“Anything we can do?”

Steve answered again, “No, but once we can get ahold of Stark he should be able to call in some experts,”

“Don’t forget about Bruce,” She told him, “People science is more his thing,”

“Good idea, but we still can’t reach him,”

“I might be able to actually, I still have his number on my old phone. He used a burner that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t know about,” He looked impressed and she shrugged, “Neither of us liked them very much,”

“Well, speaking of, I have to go debrief Fury,” He informed her.

“Why?” She asked, “He’s not in charge anymore, there’s no S.H.I.E.L.D.,”

“Yeah, uhm,”

“Oh my God, no,”

“They did good Ren,”

“They were Hydra Steve, I can’t believe you guys would want to bring that back!”

He sighed, “Look, we can talk about this later. I was just going to ask if you could help Bucky find his room,”

Barnes looked uncomfortable with their argument. There was no way he was happy about S.H.I.E.L.D. coming back either. “Yeah, of course,”

She caught his arm as he was leaving, “But we are gonna talk about it,”

A curt nod was all the response she got before he left. Captain America had been one of her heroes as a kid, now he was just getting on her nerves. However, his best friend was still there, so she turned back to him. “We can go up in a minute, I gotta get checked out first,”

He nodded, “How are you doing?” She asked him.

“Better, I think,” Sighing he looked at the screen again, “Seeing it laid out like this is just…” He trailed off.

“A lot to take in?” A nod, “It’ll get better, but staring at that screen isn’t going to fix it,”

Giving her one of his almost smiles he turned the screen off. Satisfied, she walked over to the scanner and stepped in. It was a handy little device that Stark was testing out, she wasn’t totally sure how it worked. All she knew was that it scanned you and then told you what was wrong. 

So many things were wrong. Her temperature always set it off, she was just too hot. Three ribs were fractured and a couple others were bruised. She had a concussion and had sprained her left wrist. None of that was surprising. Somehow, she’d also dislocated a toe. Barnes whistled at the list, “Not bad, Wright,”

“Eh, I could’ve done better,” She joked, “Maybe next time I’ll break a leg,”

“Please don’t”

Smiling, she pulled a bottle of pills out of the medicine cabinet, stronger than the ones from the plane. Maybe she would actually be able to feel them. 

“I'll do my best,” She said while reading the label. Satisfied she closed the cabinet door, “For now let’s see if we can find you a room,”

…

She decided to put him on the same floor as her and Sam. But she kept him on the first level, in the same hallway as her. Not that that meant anything. Before he opened the door to his room Ren realized he hadn’t eaten yet. 

“Do you want to get some lunch?” She asked abruptly.

Bucky looked surprised, “Sure,”

Walking back to the common room she realized that might’ve sounded weird. Did he think it sounded weird? It was just lunch though, how weird could it be. God, why was she overthinking lunch?

Turned out that they were both too tired to bother making anything, so they ordered some takeout. After a bit of deliberation they landed on Mexican. There hadn’t been nearly as many food options when Barnes was growing up, and take out wasn’t exactly an option as The Winter Soldier. So she was excited to get him some food from one of her favorite places. In fact, she had convinced him to go out some time to try other foods too. 

While waiting for their order the pair sat on the couch. It was a little quiet at first. Barnes wasn’t the most talkative person and Ren was ok with that. She was still processing everything that had happened. Processing the man next to her and everything he’d been through. Somehow, in the past few months, she had become friends with a couple assassins, a billionaire, a super soldier, and now… she was fairly sure she was becoming friends with Bucky Barnes too. Things were getting weird and she found she didn’t mind it. 

“Can I…” Bucky started, “Can I talk to you about something,”

Ren paused her thoughts and turned to him, “Of course,”

He sighed, whatever it was it made him uncomfortable, “I- it- it’s not actually important,”

“Barnes,”

“It’s just, I’m not sure I’m ready… to remember, everything,”

That surprised her. She’d assumed he’d be anxious to get his old memories back, but she wasn’t in his shoes.

He went on after a breath, “I… don’t know who I was. I mean, I read about it at the museum and online, but… what if, I’m just not that person anymore?”

“You’re not,” She told him, “But don’t you want to know who you were?”

It took a second for him to think about it. He wasn’t looking at her anymore and his hair was falling into face again, “I don’t think that’s what I’m scared of,” 

Oh .

“I know that Steve wants his Bucky back but…”

“Steve just wants you back, Barnes,” Christ, what did she even say? 

Steve knew Bucky had changed, but she didn’t want to break his trust by telling Barnes about their conversation. Instead she decided to be vague about it, “He knows that you’ve changed, but he will always be there for you. Look at everything he’s done,” She hesitated before continuing, “And no matter who you turn out to be… I’ll be there too,”

“And what if nobody likes the person I turn out to be?”

JARVIS chimed in to tell them their delivery girl was waiting on the 53rd floor - the end of the unrestricted area. 

“Well,” Ren said as she stood up, “I like you plenty right now,”

…

The rest of their lunch passed without any more serious conversations. Sam came down halfway through and was offended they hadn’t gotten him anything, until she pulled out an extra box of tacos. They’d really been for her, since she needed an absurd amount of calories, especially since she was still healing. But she let Sam believe that they’d been for him. Him and Barnes didn’t talk much, but the conversation stayed light.

Once everyone had gone back to their rooms she pulled out her old cell phone from her nightstand drawer. After shooting a quick text to Bruce she pulled up another text thread. Bradley had been understanding when she took a rain check on their coffee date, but she did want to see him again. Not too soon though, since she looked like shit. She asked if he would be free next Thursday. He responded almost immediately. Looks like the coffee date was back on.