INDY

“You did a good thing,” Yelena tried to comfort me over a couple of bowls of oatmeal at the breakfast table the next morning. “It was a smart plan. Sounds like you had it handled.”

“Thank you!” I said with a mouth stuffed with strawberry-flavored oats.

Naturally, it was at that moment, with a full mouth, hair still a mess from last night, and a surly expression on my face that I saw Bucky slink silently into the kitchen.

Yelena, for her part, tried not to look too much like she wanted to bolt from the room. But she also had a flighty look in her eye, like she might just give into the urge to tease me.

Bucky, ignoring my glare, opened the fridge, snagged a water bottle off the shelf and turned to leave. Normally, I would hound him about eating a proper breakfast; balanced meals and all that. Not today. Let the old coot starve.

Though, a small part of me (the tiniest part imaginable, actually) worried about his health. I hadn’t said as much aloud, but the team had come to be something like a family to me. As mad as I was at Bucky, I did still care.

I just wasn’t ready to fold yet. He’d undermined me so many times. And I’d been surprised every damn time. I felt somewhat vindicated in my rage by the many red flags set off in the files from McKay’s computer, including something called Project Revival — a concerning label, to say the least. My impromptu foray into the field had yielded results. How unfortunate that I wasn’t talking to the one person I wanted to gloat to the most.

It was Sam’s night to cook dinner, so I stayed in my room with a book, waiting on intel to come in from lower-level field agents I’d sent out to follow the leads found in McKay’s stuff. The further the night wore on, the more restless I felt. Maybe it was knowing that the next phase would likely include a mission for my A team. Maybe it was the bad vibes between Bucky and I.

I’d gotten used to hanging out with him. That wasn’t something I had counted on. Honestly, in the beginning, there were times I thought he might hate me. But these days, he was more… open. He smiled at me when I talked to him. He no longer grew tense whenever I was near. He even started joking with me in his own dry way. It seemed like the bare minimum for most, but for Bucky, it was monumental.

I even thought he’d been growing to respect my work before our fight. But then, I’d thought that before. Sometimes I wondered what was going on in his head.

My growing irritation and my growling stomach forced me out of my room at around one in the morning. Sam was standing in the kitchen with a bottle of juice when I exited the hallway.

“Heyyy,” I murmured awkwardly, hoping he wasn’t upset with me for skipping out on dinner. “Some moon tonight, huh?”

Go ahead and throw him some finger guns while you’re at it, dipshit.

Sam gave me an unimpressed look and turned to the fridge, withdrawing a plate of ribs and vegetables with plastic wrap over it. My eyes widened as he held it out to me.

“Thank you!” I whispered excitedly, rounding the island to hug him hastily around the shoulders before throwing my food into the microwave and waiting like the vulture I strongly felt like.

“Look, Indy,” Sam started as my food revolved slowly. “I know Bucky can be-”

“A pain in the ass?”

“I was going to say overprotective.”

I scoffed. “It’s a little more than just overprotective. He doesn’t think I can do anything. He’s always acting like-”

“I know, I know,” Sam said, waving his hands at me in a pacifying gesture. “I’m just saying he was worried about you. I would have been, too, if I had known who you were going on that date with. But not because I don’t think you can handle yourself. Because I don’t want you to have to handle things yourself. We all care about you, Indy. Bucky… doesn’t care about things often. And when he does, it means something.”

I jumped when the microwave beeped next to me.

“He doesn’t think you’ll forgive him this time. Just try not to be too hard on him, huh?” He didn’t wait for a response before heading back down the hallway, but I wasn’t sure I would have been able to respond, anyway.

O o 0 o O

Sam’s little talk with me that night plagued me from then on. I didn’t know where Bucky was disappearing to these days, but he was rarely around the fourth floor. It didn’t take a genius to work out that he was avoiding me. And every time I looked around a room and started feeling like something was missing, Sam’s words would echo in my head.

He doesn’t think you’ll forgive him this time.

While Yelena had complimented my plan and the haul of information it had produced, she did end up cornering me so she could firmly insist that if I was going to make a regular habit out of going into the field the way I had, I needed more training.

I found it hard to argue with both her logic and her cool stone face.

So she and Kate dragged me down to the compound’s indoor shooting range, a half a floor of concrete walls and a precast ceiling hung with fluorescent lights. I had basic, departmentally-mandated gun training, but Yelena further instructed me on pistols and shotguns, and Kate gave me her version of a lesson in archery.

Over the dividers between bays, we started chatting, and I tried to be discrete about rubbing my sore inner arm like a baby. I was a better shot with the bow, but the slapping along my arm, I could do without.

“So, Indy,” Kate said, lining up another shot with her bow as I leaned against the bay divider. She started talking in that way she did when she was nervous, spitting things out at breakneck speed. “I’m thinking about painting my room yellow, but Yelena says that’s too bright. Now, I think it’s perfect, but she says I need a third opinion, you know, to break the tie. So, are you going to be pissed at Bucky forever, or do you like yellow walls too?”

I rolled my eyes, but still saw the impatient disbelief on Yelena’s face and the helpless shrug Kate gave her.

“First Sam, now you?” I muttered to myself, a twinge of guilt twisting my stomach.

“I went to lunch with him the other day,” Kate sighed, dropping her bow arm and coming over to the bay divider as Yelena came to stand next to me. “He was so… broody.”

“And that’s different from usual, how?” I scoffed.

“It is different,” Yelena chimed in, frowning a little as well. “I can’t put my finger on it, but he’s not acting this way out of anger, like usual. He cares about this team. I don’t think he likes feeling like he failed any of us.”

“And this is - what - his second or third strike with you?” Kate pointed out.

I sighed a little heavier and bent down like I was wilting before standing straight. “Look, Bucky is great, and I care about him a lot. But that doesn’t give him a free pass to keep walking all over me.”

They didn’t have an argument against that. Unfortunately, my big mouth didn’t seem to want to stop. Let’s overshare today, it seemed to think. Who needs boundaries?

“You guys don’t understand what it’s like to be me,” I had to fight the urge to violently cringe after saying that, but managed not to by keeping my eyes steadily trained on the joint of the compound bow in my hand. “You two are… capable. If someone tried what Bucky pulled on me, either of the two of you would have put up a fight. Could have put up a fight. I basically let him throw me over his shoulder and haul me out like a sack of potatoes. I’ve let him blindside me every time. My own teammate.” I paused, then added quietly, “Friend. Whatever.”

Yelena’s hand settled on my shoulder, and I looked up. She wasn’t looking at me, actually looked vaguely uncomfortable. I tried not to smile.

“We’re not saying you should forgive him. We’re actually on your side,” Kate said easily. “But maybe just… talk to him?”

“I mean, it’s not like the thought hadn’t crossed my mind,” I grudgingly admitted. “I’ve had time to cool off. But he’s been avoiding me, so I haven’t seen him around in a while. They called him a ghost for a reason, I guess.”

Yelena’s face darkened for a split second before she stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out her phone. “You’re the technology wizard and you didn’t think to text him?”

I opened my mouth to defend myself, but froze when I realized the possibility had never even occurred to me. Kate chuckled and patted my back.

“When we were kids,” Yelena said in a distant voice, her eyes locked on something faraway in the palm of her hand. “Natasha and I would play a game. I believe it’s called hide-and-seek here. She won every time. Hid in all the most obvious places. Places I overlooked.”

Kate and I stared at Yelena in awe. It was rare for her to let anything about her sister slip. She was as tight-lipped about Natasha as I was about my childhood.

“So, you’re saying I was too close to the situation to see the solution?” I asked gently when she seemed to have forgotten about us completely.

She blinked out of her reverie and refocused on Kate and I, cocking a quizzical brow at me like she had no idea why I’d arrived at that conclusion. “What? No. I bring the story up because you actually remind me of her a bit.”

I looked over my right shoulder. No one there. Then my left. I pointed to Kate questioningly.

“No. You,” Yelena said with only the barest trace of humor.

I gaped widely at her. How could anyone, by any strange contortion of the imagination, believe I was like Natasha Romanoff in any way? “But- But she was a bad ass sexy assassin spy. I’m-”

Yelena shook her head patiently at me. “That’s not what I mean. You’re a caretaker. She might have seemed detached or cold to those who didn’t know her; it was how we were raised. To never show fear or weakness… or attachment. But Natasha couldn’t help it. She cared about people. Deeply. So do you.”

I fidgeted a little. Staying angry with Bucky was becoming a little exhausting. And, if I was being honest with myself… I missed him.

“So talk to Broody Boy and make life livable for the rest of us again,” Kate sighed, flinging an arm over my shoulders.

After target practice, I sat on the end of my bed and stared at my phone. Why was I suddenly nervous? I huffed and stood from the bed.

I procrastinated by taking a shower, cleaning my room, organizing my office, doing a little maintenance on my computer, and even stress-baking some muffins. The whole time, I wrestled with the idea of being the one to extend the hand of forgiveness.

I wanted to stay upset. I was well within my rights to take issue with the way Bucky handled things.

But I remembered the look in his eyes the night the team had returned from Pennsylvania. Bucky Barnes had darkness in his past that I only knew from his personnel file. I saw the rage and pain and sadness that flared up in him from time to time, seemingly triggered by nothing and everything. And every time, a silly protective urge rose up in me.

Like I could ever be the one to protect him. The thought was laughable, but I couldn’t pretend I didn’t want to give the big man a hug whenever I watched his face crumple that way.

So, yes, I understood his motivations for this last bout of heavy-handedness. But beneath that understanding, beneath my ire, was hurt.

I couldn’t keep this distance up, though. I could be mad at him in the close range, but this complete lack of him in my life was intolerable. He’d been my irritating co-worker and teammate for so long. But somewhere along the way, he’d become an actual friend. Someone I could rely on. Even if he made me want to rip my hair out at the roots.

So, I ordered takeout, picked it up on my way to the park, staked out a picnic table, and texted Bucky to meet me there.

It was a nice day; the sky was a clear blue, kids were laughing, people were flying kites, birds were making a racket in the trees. It was days like this that I missed Tony. It was on a day kind of like this that I met him.

“Who are you and why are you loitering in my lobby?”

“M-Me? I’m just… a kid.”

“And let me guess, life is a nightmare? …. Well, you can’t stay here. It’s after hours, you know. So. You come with me now and we’ll see if you’re useful at all.”

“What kind of business closes at 2 pm?”

“Don’t ask me to answer that, kid.”

It took Bucky about 20 minutes to make it. He stood behind the bench opposite me, watching me with his eyes narrowed warily.

“Wanna sit?” I asked, squinting in the glaring sun that was starting to bleed from yellow into orange.

He glanced quickly down at the bench and away before blowing out a sigh and settling himself down.

I lifted the plastic bag from the bench beside me and sat it on the table between us. He watched in confused silence as I unwrapped a couple boxes of Chinese food and spread chopsticks out on a stack of napkins.

“In the name of peace around the compound,” I began, opening one of the Styrofoam containers and turning it toward Bucky, noting with satisfaction that a fair amount of steam still rolled off the food. “I would like to offer you the first egg roll… by way of apology.”

He met my gaze evenly for a few minutes, then snatched up a pair of chopsticks and plucked the fattest egg roll from the bunch. He held it uncertainly before him for a while before opening his mouth to speak.

I held up a hand to stop him, grabbing my own pair of chopsticks and popping the top on the other containers. “Eat first, talk later.”

We ate normally for a while, making small comments like, “Nice weather this evening,” and “Try the chicken and broccoli. It’s perfect this time.” It was comfortable, a natural return to our previous camaraderie. Just sitting, eating, and talking mindlessly without thinking too hard about how little faith he apparently had in me.

I flinched at the unbidden thought, hesitating in bringing a scoop of rice to my mouth.

“You ready to talk now?” he asked. His quick eyes missed nothing.

I nodded, frowning to myself as I stared at the edge of the table. My cheeks heated as I forced myself to say what I had to.

“I’m sorry for jumping on your case that night,” I began. “I know that as much as you pretend you don’t, you do actually care. And I appreciate it. I really do.” My frown deepened, and I lowered my gaze further to my hands in my lap.

“It’s just… I’m used to having to earn the right to people who care about me. If I’m not making a consistent enough contribution to the team, I start feeling like I don’t deserve to be beside such incredible people who can do these amazing things.”

When he realized I was done and probably wouldn’t raise my head on my own, he nudged my foot with his under the table. He was watching me with undisguised sympathy and grief in his usually icy blue eyes.

“You don’t need to apologize to me,” he said earnestly. “You were right. I should have trusted you more. It’s just hard not to be worried about you.” He looked momentarily perturbed, then pushed on in a rushed sort of way. “I mean, you don’t have nearly the combat experience the rest of us do. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a successful mission, I just- we all worry about you. Because we care.”

“So you promise you won’t run behind my back like that again?” I asked skeptically.

The corner of his mouth lifted, lighting his eyes up a little more. “I promise.”

Relief dropped my shoulders. “Thanks, Sarge.”

He nodded and looked back down at the food in his hand. We continued eating quietly for a few moments before he asked in a casually gloating voice, “So you think I’m incredible?”

I flung a piece of broccoli at him, and he dodged it with ease, chuckling.

BUCKY

When I had first started re-assimilating into society, I couldn’t have told you what the appropriate amount of eye contact during casual conversation was. Or what tone of voice was acceptable for what situation. Or even how to respond normally to a direct question. I’d practically had to relearn basic human interaction and communication.

In a lot of ways, that’s exactly what it was like discovering my own hidden feelings for Indy over the next month. I grew paranoid about everything I said to her. Was I too transparent? Had I smiled too widely at her? Let something slip that made my affection obvious?

But she continued to smile back at me — banter with me, tease me, talk to me, mope with me, be there for me — just as normally as always. With such heart-rending innocence. Would she still choose to sit next to me during movie nights if she knew how little attention I was paying to the movie? Would she still put her hand nonchalantly on mine when I was upset if I shifted my wrist just a bit and linked our fingers a little more meaningfully? Would she still joke around with me if she knew how often I thought about her laugh?

Would she still be my friend if I wanted her to love me?

I spent my days watching her with stars in my eyes.

And my nights in agony because I knew that even if, by some miracle, she wanted me, too… I couldn’t let myself do that to her.

It got harder once she told me about a project she’d started recently to assist in the weeding out of individuals implicated by Hydra activity. It involved some program or other that tracked them all… or something. I don’t know, but Indy seemed excited about it, so I was willing to believe it would work as effectively as intended. Once Indy got wind of Project Revival through McKay’s info, she got worried it may have had something to do with me. That maybe I factored into Project Revival in some capacity. So she’d started her own project in response.

“They want you back bad, Sarge. We won’t let them get you, though.” She’d smiled and put her hand up on my shoulder reassuringly, and it had taken everything in me not to lean down and kiss her. She was putting in so much work, all to keep me from returning to the nightmarish existence that I’d been saddled with so long ago.

I tried hard not to be alone with her after that; less temptation that way. But, of course, I also didn’t have the strength of will to stay away, either. So I stayed in her orbit, enjoying being with her from a distance, like feeling the warmth of the sun. When what I really wanted was to be engulfed. To be so close to her, that part of her soul would reignite mine.

Sometimes I would imagine what I would say if I ever broke down and gave into the selfish desire to tell her everything. I might tell her that she was the first woman I’d felt this strongly about in decades. But that reminded me of how stupidly long I had lived. How much younger than me she really was. So maybe I would tell her how safe I felt with her. That reminded me of how broken I was; how necessary ‘safety’ was for a guy like me in any relationship. I could think of nothing to tell her that didn’t also sting me with reasons why she should never even consider me.

Except one thing. The one, most viscerally honest thing I could tell her. The one forthright statement that had no other connotations or double-meanings. And it was the one thing I had to promise myself I would never say out loud. It was one thing to think it every time she looked my way. But to breathe life into it that way would be too much. I’d survived a lot. But I didn’t like my odds on that one.

O o 0 o O

“Come on, Bucky, I need help,” Indy whined, the bowl tucked into the crook of her arm tilting precariously as she leaned forward across the island. Cake batter nearly dripped out of the bowl as she whisked it frantically over the recipe card she was staring at.

I looked behind her at the food cooking on the stove. Sam’s birthday was this weekend, and since he had plans to go to his sister’s for it, Indy insisted on throwing him a small celebration at the compound before he left. Kate had enthusiastically volunteered to take on distraction duty while Indy and I prepped the place, so I assumed she had some nice torment in mind for him.

I’d already finished throwing red streamers haphazardly around. They looked… fine.

Indy, on the other hand, had over-extended herself. We didn’t have nearly as much time as she’d bargained on and she was now juggling dinner and dessert on a rapidly approaching deadline.

I’d been avoiding having to step behind the island with her to help out. For one thing, I was as terrible a cook as I was a party decorator. For another, Kate had shoved enough romantic comedies in front of us all that I was well-acquainted with the cozy cooking-together-in-the-kitchen trope. These moments kept popping up like mines and I kept having to sidestep them.

“I’d just burn everything,” I offered apologetically, leaning on my elbows on the island across from her. There was a tiny smear of flour on the side of her neck that I wished I could brush away.

Her eyes snapped up to me in panic. “I don’t have enough hands here, Buck! There’s brisket in the oven that needs to be basted, vegetables that need to be chopped, this cake needs to go into a pan, there are potatoes that need to be stirred, and that smell? It was supposed to be dinner rolls, but if they don’t come out in the next few minutes, they’ll be charcoal briquettes.”

Her shoulders were drawn in tight, eyebrows scrunched, stressed. I wanted to point out that she had been the one to pick the menu and set the schedule for this little party, but I couldn’t add to her agitation. I should have known that if she needed me, I would be there.

“Alright, alright,” I said, holding my hands up in surrender as I made my way into the kitchen. “What do you need from me?”

“Thank you!” She nearly collapsed with relief, turning to pull a cake pan from a cupboard as she pointed to the oven. “Pull the bread out for me. Then stir the potatoes. Think you can handle that?”

I grunted in assent and set to my assigned tasks. Maybe I was showing off just a little when I stuck my metal hand into the oven to pull the tray of brown-topped dinner rolls out. To my masochistic satisfaction, she looked up from pouring the cake batter into the pan with wide eyes. She looked from my hand to my face and laughed, shaking her head like I’d done something unexpectedly endearing to her.

I felt the tips of my ears grow warm and flexed my metal fingers. “I guess it’s good for something, at least.”

A tiny frown line smushed into existence between her eyebrows as I turned to the stove top to stir the potatoes.

After I had helped her tilt the pan the brisket was in (for basting purposes) and Indy had put the cake into the oven, she put me to use mashing the softened potatoes while she chopped down raw vegetables.

I tried not to let my eyes wander to her too often, but I was — once again — in a situation that I wasn't sure I was strong enough to defend myself against. We’d lived together for over half a year now. She was my friend. But being so alone with her like this, with her gentle presence just behind me, had so much potential for intimacy that I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from doing something stupid. That didn’t stop the thoughts that pestered me.

What if I just… hugged her? It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve hugged.

I can’t just hug her for no reason, though. That’s weird, right?

I glanced at her back, head tilted down as she worked over the cutting board.

My arms could slide around her so easily from back here, if…

If I was self-interested enough to make the move.

“Bucky?”

I didn’t register the distressed look I wore until I realized how worried she was. She set the knife in her hand to the side and wiped her hands off on the tea towel she had stuck through her belt. It took three steps for her to suddenly be there, just in front of me. She looked up, eyes darting over my face. My cheeks were hot, and I wanted to look away the way I normally forced myself to, but I was desperate for every ounce of care she showed me.

“You’ve been having nightmares again, haven’t you?” she asked softly, her gaze compassionate on mine.

I almost reared back in shock. It was the first time either of us had talked about that out loud. I knew she knew. That was different from hearing the words coming from her mouth. The worst part was that my knee-jerk response (denying having any nightmares recently) was actually honest this time. I wasn’t sure the dreams I’d been having in their place were any more restful, any less torturous.

“Why do you ask that?” I croaked finally.

She lifted a hand, and for a minute my heart stopped. Her fingertip lightly slid across the underside of my eye. “You look like you’ve hardly slept.”

When I do sleep, I dream of you. You touch my face and look into my eyes just like this, but somehow everything is different.

I cleared my throat and mumbled, “Yeah, I guess I haven’t gotten much sleep lately.”

She dropped her hand, and I let it fall instead of catching it like I wanted to. She looked like she wanted to give me some kind of advice, but ended up holding up a finger with an excited expression. “I’ve got an idea. Slumber party.”

I stared at her blankly.

“After Sam’s birthday dinner. All five of us. Right in there,” she pointed toward the living room. “We’ll drag a bunch of blankets and pillows out, snacks, movies, the whole thing.”

I knew what she was doing. She was hoping that surrounding me with other people, people who cared about me, during my most difficult hours might help sustain me through it. How could I say no to her?

“Haven’t had a slumber party since Steve and I were 14,” I agreed roughly.

Her smile grew wider, and it was immediately worth it.

“It’s really too bad Blockbuster isn’t around anymore. The slumber party experience just isn’t the same without wandering the aisles on a Friday afternoon.”

“Block-what?” I asked.

Indy giggled deeply. “Oh no,” she groaned, still smiling. “Now I feel like the old one.”

INDY

Considering we were all adults (some of us all but geriatric), we collectively embraced the idea of a living room slumber party with the verve of idiotic teens. All except Bucky, who good-naturedly went along with us all for the sake of Sam’s birthday celebration.

After dinner and cake and a horrendously-delivered Happy Birthday song, we all changed into sleepwear and lugged bedding out from every room. We morphed into a big pile of ice cream-eating, sitcom-watching limbs. Sam teased Yelena until she twisted his arm behind his back. Kate sat on the couch for a while and I sat between her knees as she braided my hair. Bucky and Sam played a few hilariously serious games of rock-paper-scissors during commercial breaks. We all talked and bickered and kicked each other playfully with socked feet.

Kate fell asleep first, with her spoon still sticking out of her mouth. I plucked it gently out, helping her shift downward against the pile of couch cushions she’d made into a bed for herself. Yelena fell asleep next, after poking many manyholes in the logic of nighttime television and then growing bored with the lack of action. Sam, at some point, drifted off as well. I almost didn’t notice; he stayed half-reclined against the edge of the couch, like he was keeping watch for something.

We’d shut the lights off a long time ago, so the only source of light now came from an advertisement for the greatest hits of Celine Dion on TV. Kate’s cushion cot sat to my left, her leg nudging mine. Yelena was breathing evenly on Kate’s other side and Bucky was to my right, with Sam propped up a couple feet away from him.

“Think you’ll be able to sleep, Sarge?” I asked him quietly, settling further down into the blankets I’d laid out as I shook out the last of the braiding Kate had done to my hair.

His T-shirt rode up some as he slid to lay down as well. He turned onto his side, facing me as the muted sounds of a hokey laugh track played comfortingly in the background. “Yeah,” he whispered back, his dog tags slipping out of the neck of his shirt and onto his pillow. “I think so.”

Maybe it was the fact that it was something like 3 am. Maybe it was the night of fun that had left my chest swelling with affection for these people who were mostly strangers a year ago. But suddenly I felt like I wanted to open up. Like it was time to at least crack a window if not the floodgates.

I reached out, hoping the boldness of running my fingers over the stamped little bits of metal on the chain around his neck would numb me to the normal aversion I felt when discussing my personal life. They were warm beneath my fingers.

“Can I tell you something?” I breathed.

He had gone completely stiff, but he still responded in a barely audible voice, “Yes.”

“This team is the closest thing I’ve had to a family since I was eight.” My voice cracked, and I was immensely glad none of the others were awake. “I love you guys.”

He inhaled sharply, and he seemed to struggle with himself for a moment before he raised his hand and settled it gently on my hair.

“We love you, too,” he said slowly, deliberately, like every word was important.

I knew how hard stuff like this was for him. So it was my turn to gasp silently when he leaned forward and kissed my forehead. And he didn’t just peck it and lean back away rigidly like I would’ve expected. His lips stayed pressed to my head, the tip of my nose skimming his neck, until I couldn’t keep from moving my hand from his dog tags to his chest. His heartbeat was uneven beneath the swell of his muscles. How long had it been since Bucky had been this tender with another person?

“Thank you, Buck,” I whispered as his lips left my forehead.

He didn’t move away. And I didn’t move away. My eyes stayed trained on the thrumming of his pulse at the base of his throat a hairsbreadth away. His hand on my hair turned into fingers running through the strands, like a more soothing version of my nervous inclination. His breath was warm against my forehead. In the gray area between awake and asleep, I found myself sluggishly reaching for his other hand, cold, metallic fingers twining easily with mine. Consciousness slipped farther and farther away, and before I knew what had happened, I’d fallen asleep with my ankles tangled together with his.

BUCKY

I’m such a fucking idiot.