The torturous stars
She hadn't been able to sleep all that well but then she never could, it was probably a little after 2am when she meandered back into the living room and fell down on the couch with a soft sigh as she reached over to turn on the lamp and picked up her book off of the coffee table. This was pretty much a nightly occurrence for her and she was used to it by now. Clint was sound asleep and usually she'd get back into bed before he woke up, she knew he probably suspected that she hadn't been able to sleep but he hadn't mentioned anything about it.
She was thankful for that. She really didn't want it to become a whole thing.
She had been sat on her own quietly reading for about 20 minutes before she heard footsteps behind her and she glanced backward. Stood looking altogether like he didn't know what to do with himself was Bucky Barnes and Bobbi waved softly and he immediately tensed up, she didn't mention anything or act differently.
"Hey, don't worry about me just do whatever. If you wanna eat you're welcome to whatever."
Bucky heaved out a sigh.
"I don't know what I was doing, honestly."
"Can't sleep?" She questioned softly. He shook his head.
She offered him a sympathetic smile and stood up very slowly mind, she held her hands to show him that she had no weapons at all on her and he seemed appreciative of it. He wasn't quite relaxed but he wasn't quite alert either. He was in a sort of in between state.
"Nightmares." He confessed quietly. She'd suspected as much.
"Me too." She admitted. She made her way forward and inclined her head to the front door.
"Grab a jacket and come outside. Trust me just for like... Five minutes. I promise I'm not gonna do anything to hurt you." She had an idea she hoped would help.
He looked at her apprehensively, watching her pull her jacket off of the coat rack and shrugging into it and she padded - barefoot he noted - toward the front door. He stood for a few moments studying the very strange blonde before he walked over to do as she'd asked and followed her outside. He had no goddamn idea why.
"What're we doing out here? It's just snow and-" Trees. It was just snow and trees but he stopped talking when he noticed her roll her eyes.
"Yeah, I'm aware of that genius, look up." Her eyes traveled upward toward the sky, she had a calm smile on her features.
His did the same and his mouth opened slightly in shock. Out here you could see the stars clearer than any place he could remember and shooting across the sky were a series of moving objects that lit up and zoomed and had his eyes following them for a few moments quietly and he couldn't fight the smile that crept onto his lips; he had noticed of course that it was cold but it didn't register in that moment to him. It had been such a long time since he'd seen the stars like this, it had been such a long time since he could just stop and look; missions had no use for things like this, they had no use for their best asset stopping to appreciate a little beauty in the world, Bobbi Morse glanced toward him and she allowed a small laugh to break her lips.
"Meteor shower. I thought maybe this might calm you down some. It's beautiful. Natural. When was the last time you got to just stop and appreciate anything beautiful?"
"Not in a very long time..." There was a quiet awe in Bucky's voice that made her guess she'd done the right thing. "There was something once but I don't know if it was real or..."
She listened to the way his voice drifted off into a quiet sadness.
"You lived in a cruel and dark world, you deserve to see just a little bit of light. You deserve to have someone stand beside you that isn't obligating you to remember anything. I didn't know you before, I'd never met you until a few hours ago so honestly? You owe me nothing. There is no obligation at all to me so I figured that being around someone that doesn't expect anything of you might be helpful. Even if it's just for a little while, even if it's just while I remind you that now you can stop and appreciate the little things again. It's okay to be human."
"Why are you being so nice to me?" His eyes drifted to her. "You must know what I've done..."
He sounded like he expected her to be disgusted by what he was or at the very least fear him for it. She just shrugged her shoulders though. She wasn't afraid of him but then she wasn't afraid of much anymore and she wasn't going to hate him for what he'd done or act like it was his fault because it wasn't.
"Is that person who you really are?" She looked toward him. "In your heart, in your soul are you that person?"
He shook his head again in definite refusal. She reached out to place her hand on his arm then.
"Then why should I care what you've done? We've all done things we'd rather not have done even me. You think you're the only one that picked up a gun and killed someone? I could've faced a murder charge if it weren't for SHIELD protecting me." She admitted quietly.
"I'll look at you like you're a person because you didn't have a choice. I had a choice and I did it anyway." Her anger and her hatred had gotten the better of her.
It was something she hated herself for. It was something that had hurt her to no end and even to this day she couldn't quite look at herself in the mirror and see anything close to the person she'd been before. Some wounds ran far too deep and that was one of them. She didn't talk about it, not if she could help it. She'd asked SHIELD to seal the records and they'd obliged her and she was glad for that.
His brow furrowed as he listened to her speak. He could tell that she was telling him something she didn't like to talk about from the pain etched so clearly on her features not to mention the clear reluctance in her voice and it made him wonder why she'd told him for just a moment before he realised she was telling him that she'd done something terrible even though she had a choice so that he didn't stand there and wonder why she didn't recoil from him the way he'd expected, he'd never made the conscious choice in all of that time to kill anyone he had. She had a darkness inside of her just as he did and she was telling him that it was okay.
It didn't make you any less worthy of kindness.
"What did you do, Bobbi?" He had to ask. The question would bug him if he didn't ask.
"I shot a man, I could've had him locked up but I chose not to." Her voice sounded strained. Cracked. It seemed like it could still break her.
She hesitated and notably so, he flicked his eyes down and opened his mouth to apologise when he saw her close her eyes to center herself before she continued on with her story.
"He shot me, he would've killed me too if Clint had been just a fraction of a second slower. He managed to pull me out of the way just enough to make sure the bullet didn't blow my heart to pieces, he kept me alive, barely... Things happened after that honestly I'd rather not talk about but I still did some terrible things following that and I became someone I barely recognised."
It wasn't a story she liked to tell. She wrapped her arms around herself but it wasn't because she was cold; Bobbi Morse had enacted a subconscious effort to protect herself, it was something that had changed her in so many ways and it had been the thing that had driven her and Clint apart and led to their divorce. He'd fought so hard to save her that he didn't know what he saved might not have been the person he'd fallen in love with and that person wasn't something that she recognised for a long time after, it had led to her distancing herself from everyone and everything that she loved in order to find herself and she still wasn't sure she'd succeeded to this day.
She glanced to the side and sighed softly. She focussed instead on the fact that she could see her breath against the biting cold that didn't altogether bother her as much as it probably should've. To this day it felt like it ripped her heart out to talk about it and it wasn't something she told just anyone but he needed to find something to trust and she hoped by showing him a little honesty, it would help. He was around people that lied for a living, a little truth could go a long way.
"My point is I made a conscious decision the day that I found him to end someone's life. You haven't. You didn't want to do any of that, they put something in you that you had no choice in so to me you're not a monster, you're not a killer. You're just a man that was turned into something he had no choice in and now he's all hollowed out and empty because they took everything he was away too." She hoped she was wrong.
"I think it's inside of you somewhere, the part of you that you're fighting for. Don't give up, not everyone is gonna look at you like you're a monster, some of us look in the mirror and see enough of them in ourselves without calling other people evil too. My hands aren't free of blood, how the hell can I judge you for what you've done when I've done the same thing only I knew what I was doing? To me you're not a monster. To me you're just someone that got used up just like Natasha. None of you is to blame for what you've done."
He found himself liking Bobbi Morse, she was someone that could clearly resonate with the hell that raged inside of him because she too had to live with the fact that she'd done something terrible even if it was nowhere near as many times as he did but he had to admit she had a point: He'd never had a choice. He'd never once wanted to do what he had and he had to live with that pain every day regardless, it didn't stop the nightmares and he remembered the pain of the programming. It was hell. It was hell and no one would choose that.
"I had something that made me hold on to who I was once." He spoke quietly, the sadness dripped from his words.
"What happened? I mean... You don't have to tell me obviously..." She wasn't going to pry, that wasn't her style.
"They took it away, at least I think they did. I don't even know if she- If we were real. I remember fragments of it, that was what my nightmare was. I lost her all over again. She was beautiful, strong, hair like fall leaves and an attitude like fire... She made me feel something again, she reminded me I was human. She made me feel like I could have a home again." This time it was his turn to go through a pain he wasn't sure how to talk about.
"I haven't told anyone about her, not Steve not anyone. I don't even know why I'm telling you but I just- She was all that made me wanna hold on once. They took that away and I guess I just gave up. I think it was real, I think she was real because they had no use for me in any romantic situations. They had no use for anything that brought out humanity in me so I think she was real. She was real and I lost her."
Ah. In that moment she understood that losing this love of his had been one break too many. One crack too many to hold together the broken fragments of who he used to be and it had been much easier for them to shatter him after that. They'd taken away what he held to, but it also made her curious; Bucky Barnes had found love in hell which made her curious about who the hell else might have been used under such terrible circumstances.
"I think you're telling me because you need to tell someone. You need to confirm for yourself if you say it out loud whether it was real or not. You needed to hear yourself say it to someone." She replied.
"The drugs they put into me made it easier for them to get me to comply but I was already beaten down. They tore apart my mind with experiments and medications and serums..." He breathed out a sigh.
She turned fully to look at him, he'd clearly piqued her interest. He looked confused but she was going to use it to distract him.
"Can you tell me about the drugs they put into you? Do you know what they were or?"
"Uh... I don't know. Why?" He questioned cautiously.
"I'm a biologist and biochemist. If I can find out what was in it I can come up with a counteractive serum. Something that might be able to fix whatever changes it caused in your physiology and your brain chemistry. It's not impossible. I'd need information though. I need to know exactly what it was they did, all of the things they used and I should be able to make something to combat it."
He looked incredulous as she spoke.
"I thought you were a SHIELD agent."
"I am. I'm also a scientist. A girl can be both sweetie, don't judge. Is there any way we can get that information?"
"I-" He cut off for a moment, he looked both thoughtful and like he was filled with dread at the same time. "There might be one way but there's no way in hell..."
Bobbi watched his expression shift from one thing to another curiously. It was the strangest series of emotions she'd ever seen cross someone's features and she could tell that it was hard on him. He really wasn't used to standing there talking to anyone else much less agreeing in any manner to let them help him. She wondered when the last time someone tried to help him was or if it had even happened at all. Had Bucky Barnes had even an ounce of happiness in all that time?
It was heartbreaking to think about. Her expression softened.
"Great!" She announced as she clapped her hands together trying to distract herself from the sadness. "Tell me all you can. Where we need to go, what we need to do and we'll go from there..."
He frowned though.
"It isn't that simple. The only thing I can think of is an offsite private place owned by one of their top clients. Security will be hell on its own but accessing their systems will be nearly impossible and I can't go in there. There's a machine that could put me under again. If they manage to get control-"
"You're not going." She cut him off and shrugged.
"That was never gonna happen. Barton and I will go. He's actually really good with computers, so am I. SHIELD training is actually pretty useful and he never misses a shot. We'll go in for you. We'll get what we need and then I can make something to help you. It's been a while since I've had to whip something that complex up but it isn't impossible. I've worked on projects that people have called impossible before and I did it. There's a reason I'm the best in my field." In both aspects; Bobbi was one of SHIELD's top agents and she was top of her field too.
"You're putting your life in danger, you realise that right?" He sounded concerned.
She couldn't help but smile.
"Yeah well, I've put my life in danger for way dumber reasons than this." She grinned and he looked at her like she'd gone mad.
"Oh c'mon, I worked with SHIELD. I put my ass on the line for lies for years I think this time putting it on the line for something true is the right thing to do, don't you? I can help you. Let me help. I'm not some helpless, hapless little thing that's gonna walk into a fire fight and not know how to handle it. I can handle it. I have decent backup and I have resources and friends I can pull in if I need to and you? You deserve help. You deserve to know you'll never be able to be subjected to that again. You deserve piece of mind. Even if by some miracle they got to take you back, I can make sure that it doesn't work. Their stuff won't work."
He'd be safe. He'd be free of it. There'd be no way they could use it. She couldn't undo the programming and he knew that, that wasn't in her capabilities, it wasn't in anyone's capabilities but she was right: If she could stop their drugs from ever working on him again taking him back and putting him under again would be harder for them. He could fight better. He could fight back.
"You're impossible did anyone ever tell you that?" He rolled his eyes at her. "But okay, I'll write down anything I can remember, I'll draw a floor plan if I can... You're gonna need more help than I can give you though, my memory isn't all that reliable."
"Well lucky for both of us I have a very dear friend I can ask for help. Sometimes this spy stuff is useful. I can get satellite views which should give us more of an idea of an actual layout, I'll need you to try remember what you can about this guys security system though, I won't be able to find any information on inside without digging deep and I could trigger an alert."
He stood and looked at her wondering how tonight had gone from nightmares to heartfelt confessions and planning a goddamn mission when he'd literally just met her about five hours ago. Bobbi Morse was a weird person...
Still, he liked her. She had a good heart.
"Do I even wanna ask?" He asked cautiously.
"Probably not honestly." She shrugged. It wouldn't be technically legal. Legality didn't seem all that important all things considered.
"I'll talk to Barton in the morning and tell him he's coming with me, he won't mind too much. Being cooped up in here has been driving him insane I think he'd welcome the chance to get out for a little while." So would she.
"It'll be okay, don't worry. He and I are two of the very best in the world. He never misses a shot and I'm... Weird." Just like he'd said. That was all he'd get out of her though.
Weird. She was so much more but that was one secret she'd keep for as long as she could. That was one secret that no one needed to know unless it was utterly imperative for them to know it. If it was life or death, if it meant she had no choice then maybe, just maybe that'd be a story she'd tell but until then, it'd remain buried inside of her.
"I still have resources and people I can reach out to, we'll be able to get weapons, transport... Just give me what you can on your end and I'll figure out the rest, okay?"
"I'm not gonna dissuade you even if I say no am I?" He conceded with a small shake of his head. "Alright blondie but if you get yourself killed I'm gonna feel shitty, you know that right?"
"It takes more than some asshole and a few idiots with guns to kill me sweetie." She replied with an expression he couldn't quite pin down.
Weird. She was weird. She was weird but she was right and She could give him something he hadn't had in a very long time: Hope.