Breathe

“What’s wrong ducky, you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Frank asked, concern wrinkling his kind face.

“I’m just tired, long day you know.” Eve answered trying to keep her voice light and even.

“Why don’t you take a poppy-seed cake and go sit in the backroom for a minute, catch your breath?” Sofie offered gently, pressing a muffin into her hand and taking her by the arm through the door that led to the backstage waiting area. “Go on, you just have a little rest now Ducky.”

“Thank you Sofie.”

Eve sunk gratefully into the lumpy couch, confident that Sofie would guard the door. She needed time. Time to think it through.

James, here, in Skippers Bay.

He couldn’t be looking for her. But why else would he be here? It’s not like Avengers regularly vacationed in the maritime provinces. He must be here for her. But why? Had something happened? Matt? No, the officer in charge of her case had promised to forward any news, and last she’d heard he’d been permanently removed from his father’s care.

James was here. She needed to apologize, to explain. she’d even practiced the words she’d say if she ever saw him again, but they all seemed wrong now.

A powerful gust of wind ripped through the window and startled Eve from her chaotic thoughts. “Pull yourself together, trin.” She said under her breath, before pushing off the couch to secure the window against the storm that begun to blow into the bay.

Jen’s voice rose above the chaos in the hall. “There’s a storm blowing in folks, best be on your way unless you’d like to spend the night here on the floor.”

What was left of the crowd flooded out as Eve returned to the main room, locking down windows as she went.

“This one looks bad Ducky, Andrew can drive you home, I’ll lock up.”

Eve had spotted a car and a familiar silhouette waiting for her in the parking lot, so she brushed off the offer with a bright smile that contradicted the clenching in her gut. “I’ll be fine Jobe, I’ve got a ride, Drew, you get this old man home safe now, alright?”

She watched them go with a cheerful wave and turned to lock the door. The keys trembled in her fingers as cold wet drops began pitter-pattering down her back.

The ocean roared and the wind screamed. Dark clouds boiling overhead, occasionally shot through with bolts of brilliant light. It was getting closer; Eve counted the beats as she walked toward the last car. One, two, three boom. And there he was. The man who haunted her dreams. Standing in a parking lot with a metal arm in the middle of a lightning storm.

One… tw- boom.

“Get in?” Eve asked, her words drowned out by the heavy reverberations.

Bucky stood, unflinching in front of the passenger door as rain began lashing down in heavy sheets.

Drenched to the skin and losing her patience, Eve walked around him and tried the driver’s door. It swung open easily and she dropped into the seat, slamming the door as another bolt lit up the sky.

Bucky opened the other door uncertainly.

“Get in James. Please.”

Flash- Crash-boom. Half a second. The door closed with a thump.

The adrenaline of the storm was overriding her nerves about seeing him again, focused on the task at hand: get home safe.

“Keys?”

It was a short drive to her house, but the wind was powerful as they reached the top of the hill, like an invisible hand intent on steering them off the road. Minutes that felt like hours later she managed to wrestle the car down the drive and into the shelter of the carport at the back of her house.

“Are you coming in?” Eve asked cautiously. His eyes in the dark asked another question in return. “I’d like it, I- If you want to talk, or not, its safe inside, and- please?”

Bucky followed her, an unreadable expression on his face, and she grew increasingly uncomfortable with the silence as she turned on the hall light and shucked off her shoes at the door. Bucky set his shoes next to hers on the mat and draped his coat over a hook on the wall.

Eve was moving automatically through the house now, putting the kettle on the stove. She felt his intense gaze on the back of her neck as she pulled out a little bundle of kindling and set it alight in the fireplace. A warm light and the soft snapping sound calmed her and she took another deep breath as she arranged a couple of logs over the flame.

She warmed her hands, shivering slightly, before turning to face her guest.

“You’re cold.” Bucky said simply as her teeth chattered.

“Uh, yeah. I- I’m going to change. Do you- make yourself at home. Just give me a sec.”

Eve glanced at his face nervously again and ascended the narrow staircase in the corner of the living room. A little balcony overlooked the fireplace and she walked the length of it, fighting the urge to look back, to make sure he was still really there.

Thick sweatpants and a warm sweater did take the edge off the chill in her bones and she gently pressed as much of the water out of her hair as she could before wrapping it up carefully. She spoke softly to herself in the mirror, “just breathe girl. You wanted a second chance, talking it through is the only way forward, so talk, just talk to him, it’s James, just James, you know he would never hurt you, he’s not him. Just get your butt down the stairs and talk. Ok? Okay.”

Bucky had migrated to the big picture window, but his eyes were drawn away from the storm to watch Elle descend the staircase, still shivering slightly. He’d waited for this moment for more than a year, and now that she was standing right here, tugging on her sleeves and worrying at her lower lip with her teeth, he was reminded of the second time they’d met.

Fragile despite her strong shoulders, fearful and flighty as a bird, and still a rock standing firm against the unrelenting tide.

The next flash of light illuminated her rosy cheeks and the crash that followed two long seconds later seemed to set her in motion again.

“I’ve just, we can…” she mumbled, looking away again. She took a bracing breath and setting her shoulders started for the kitchen. “I’ll pour the tea, could you set one of the big logs on the edge of the fire?”

The kettle whistled and Eve breathed the comfortable ritual in like a tonic.

Bubbling water, pouring musically into the rounded bottom of the old silver pot she’d found at a garage sale, the aroma of black tea and bergamot billowing out in steam. Bone China clinking gently as she lifted the tray over and set it on the low coffee table.

“Sit?” Eve offered, perching herself on the edge of the couch to pour the tea.

Bucky sat heavily in the comfy old rocking chair opposite her as she stirred just a splash of milk into his cup. A deep awful silence seemed to swell and Eve’s heart beat pounded in her ears as she sipped carefully at the tea. Bucky’s eyes hadn’t left her since she’d come back down, but he still made no move to speak.

Breathe Trin. Just breathe. You can do this.

“Hello, James.” She pressed her fingernails into her palms to calm herself as she watched unnamed emotions wrinkling across his forehead and eyes. “Do you want to start or should I?”

“Why’d you run?” Bucky asked.

“I was scared.”

“Of me?”

“No. You don’t scare me, James.” She said emphatically, then softening she dropped her eyes to her tea again. “I told you, when we first… became friends. I was afraid that you’d associate me with your recovery, that you’d get too attached. I… you had been controlled and manipulated for so long, I didn’t want you to wake up one day and realize that the way you felt about me wasn’t real either, I didn’t want to unduly influence your choices.”

Eve gulped a little more tea, clearing her throat before looking back up at him.

“I broke my own rule, I- it was so easy to be around you, and I fell for- I told myself it was ok, that as long as you saw me as just a friend it would be ok. But it wasn’t. I stepped over the line; I should’ve never let that happen.” Her shoulders and voice shook. “I’m sorry, James, I’m so, so, sorry.”

“Don’t. Don’t say you’re sorry.” Bucky shook his head, pushing to his feet and speaking over the low rumbling thunder. “I’m not.”

“And I shouldn’t have left like that, I just panicked, and I know that doesn’t justify it, I am truly sorry.”

He began to pace and she stared into her slowly emptying cup and tried to collect her thoughts.

“You found me. How?”

Bucky paused at the window overlooking the ocean before turning back to face her. “Skippers Bay. You told me you thought you’d live in Newfoundland one day, and I saw a flyer for your art show, you never changed your signature. For someone trying so hard to hide, you left a trail of breadcrumbs for me to follow.”

“I wasn’t hiding from you, I mean, I didn’t think you would ever look for me, and why would you, after the way I left.” Her face showed nothing but genuine confusion. “Why did you look, James?”

“I… needed to see you, to tell you-” Bucky started speaking, and paused again as he sat down on the small couch beside her, “-It’s been a year and three months, and I didn’t fall apart, but I never stopped wanting you to be there, I needed to know if you still feel the way I feel.”

He could read the uncertainty in her beautiful brown eyes and words weren’t enough anymore.

Bucky moved forward, slowly, giving her all the time in the world to pull away. But she didn’t. And then he was there, right in front of her. And when he brushed a rebellious curl out of her face and tucked it back under the wrap, she didn’t flinch away from his touch.

For a moment they were frozen mere inches apart their eyes locked.

“I’m not imagining this am I?” Bucky whispered; his voice rough.

Electricity seemed to dance across the space between them as he closed the gap bit by bit, waiting for her to speak, to object.

Instead, she met him halfway.

He kissed her like the world was ending, and she returned it with equal fervor. Lightning flashed and a loud boom rattled the windows, the power flickered. She pulled away first, her hands resting against his chest.

“That wasn’t all in my head.” Bucky whispered the half-question into the sudden darkness.

Eve met his gaze, and shook her head. “no.”

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.” He sighed, resting his forehead on hers. “What would my Ma say, kissing a girl when I don’t even know your name.” Bucky chuckled softly, without a hint of reproach.

“I’m Eve, Evelyn. Now, I mean. Evelyn Renae Laurent.” She recited almost mechanically, before pulling back to look at him. “My name was Trinity Brianne.” she stopped herself sharply, even now she couldn’t bear to say the name she’d once shared with the man who’d tried to kill her more than a decade ago.

“Trinity Brianne.” He traced the shape of her signature in his mind, the long elaborate stroke over the enclosed capital E or rather what he recognized now as a blocky B. “You kept your signature.”

“I couldn’t, it seems silly maybe, but I’d left so much of myself behind…” She felt briefly embarrassed before the understanding in his face reminded her just how well he knew what that was like.

“You held onto the one thing no one could steal, your art. That’s not silly, Elle.” He stiffened as the name crossed his lips.

Eve noticed and waved away his apology, “call me Elle or Eve, I won’t mind, you could even- if you wanted… call me Trin if no one’s around.”

“Trin.” He said softly, lifting her chin gently with his prosthetic hand. “I’ve come a long way to learn your name, Trin, and to tell you something I never got around to saying that day you left.”

She blushed and despite her efforts another apology slipped out before she could restrain it. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have run, I wanted you to be able to make your own decisions and-”

Bucky brushed away the end of her sentence with a cool thumb across her cheek.

“I love you, Trin. You are my choice and I will always choose you, if you let me.”