The Fallen

She finds her new home tiresome. There are people surrounding her always, she isn’t trusted to be alone for concern of the safety of others and herself. Bucky, the Winter Soldier, doesn’t leave her alone. He’s always hovering and asking her questions, making sure she’s eaten and ensuring that no one has been unkind to her. He even abandons his friends to eat dinner with her in her room, though he says the only people that are truly his friends are the small assassin and the tall blond and that they don’t mind. She won’t admit it to him but she likes that he hovers and questions, finds comfort and safety in his nearness.

Not once does he lose his patience with her obstinacy, in fact he seems to enjoy the fact that she wants him near. Someone mentions that it may be unhealthy for them to spend so much time alone together and so, a week into staying at the horrible cold, metal and steel Tower, she decides to stop speaking English, to prevent them from attempting to separate them. And because Bucky is the only other person that speaks Polish he’s made to be her translator.

They hire a real translator the next week and force Bucky away from her, ruining her plan. A heated debate ensues in which Captain America takes Bucky’s side, and so does the man with wings and the small assassin. Another woman, she thinks the witch, agrees with them also. She says they have a positive influence on each other’s moods, that she can see it. The therapist still disagrees and so she wins. So, she stops speaking altogether, besides the occasional Czech word that no one, not even Bucky, understands.

Another meeting takes place, she eavesdrops for the second time, and the witch doesn’t rat her out again. She thinks she and the witch might be becoming friends. The translator is fired and Bucky stays by her side again. It’s better after that. Because even though she isn’t sure what to think about him, she knows he’s the only person she trusts to be near her. The translator, a man with dark eyes, had made her nervous.

Steve notices right away that his best friend seems to do better with her around. He isn’t as closed off, takes it upon himself to introduce her to the team and soothe away some of her anxiety around them. He tries to get them to interact with each other. But she doesn’t trust anyone, sticks to Bucky like a bee to honey, wide eyes tracking everyone’s movements with suspicion.

Bucky loves having her around. He doesn’t feel so different, so lonely and odd and alien. There’s suddenly someone around who intimately understands what it is he had been through, even if a lot of it is confused for her at the moment. The therapist, who Bucky now has to translate for, has said she's mixing implanted memories and repressed ones. In short, Hydra had tried to make her forget what really happened. And then they had layered two sets of false memories. The first layer was her fake, normal life, and the second a brutalized picture of the Winter Soldier. Just confusing and similar enough that it’s difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t, in case the first layer of memories ever broke down.

Or, at least, that’s the general theory. No one is completely sure and it’s likely they never will be.

A routine develops between them, starting with Bucky retrieving her from her rooms every morning and the two of the taking a walk together. Usually they would speak in quiet voices about similar things they remembered. It’s peaceful, if a little morbid. The rest of the day is spent with her silently shadowing Bucky and speaking to various therapists and medical teams.

She’s been staying with them for maybe a month when something changes.

He senses a presence in his room before his eyes are even open, it’s probably what wakes him up in the first place. Steeling himself for what he’s about to see he rolls over and opens his eyes.

“Bucky,” she says by way of greeting him. Her eyes are downcast, hands folded on her lap where she sits at the edge of his bed. She’s wearing a t-shirt he thinks is his, and he frowns because he isn’t sure where she might have gotten it or found the time to steal it when they were always together. Her thighs are bare, the expanse of smooth flesh exposed and covered in goosebumps. “I want to apologize to you,” she continues when he doesn’t respond, only stares at her strong thighs.

He looks up at her as her hands flutter nervously in her lap, eyes skirting his. “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” Bucky whispers as he wonders how she got into his and Steve’s apartment.

“But I do. I said terrible things to you in that cell. I said that I didn’t want you with me when we met and that just isn’t true. I was very worried about you when I first saw you. You were hurt and very confused but so was I. I never wished I spoke English before that moment. Do you remember that day?” She questions, meeting his eyes head on.

“Vividly,” he breathes, looking away from her to pick at a loose thread in one of his many blankets. He takes a deep breath and slowly sits up. “I remember that day. I remembered it and now I can’t forget it.” He pauses for a moment, “They told me you weren’t real.”

She blinks. “I’m real.” Then she continues, voice straining and leaping as she tries to push the words out all at once, “At first I was relieved they were leaving me alone but then you spoke and your voice was very kind. I was glad to have you. And I’m sorry I was so mean.” She stays quiet a beat before she says, “I have so many things floating around my brain. And they all seemed to be coming upon me in that moment and…I didn’t know which were real. So, I said what I felt right then. And I was so afraid in that room by myself. Every time the door opened and one of your friends came in I thought they were there to hurt me. And I couldn’t think of what I’d done wrong. I suppose hiding must have been wrong.”

Bucky reaches out and lies once hand over hers. “You didn’t do anything wrong. When they first found me, I was even less willing to talk and more prone to violence. I understood the fear you were feeling. It’s okay. I know you’re confused and afraid, even now.” She shivers in his grasp as her other hand strokes over one of his many blankets. “Do you like it?”

“It’s very soft.” She murmurs, shivering again. “I dreamed about you. That’s why I came. I was worried something happened to you and I needed to check.” Her fingers twist to wrap around his wrist, counting the reassuring beats of his heart. “But you’re here and you’re okay.”

“What happened?”

“They killed you.”

He doesn’t ask for her to elaborate as he doesn’t enjoy it when Steve asks him to do so. “Do you want a blanket?”

Before she can answer he lies back down and opens the pile to her. She releases his wrist and slides next to him as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. Her forehead rests against his collarbone as she tangles her fingers with his. It feels very familiar. It feels good. He thinks about her bare thighs against his sweatpants clad legs and how good it feels to be warm again.

~

The girl is staring at him. Steve tries to ignore her but she hasn’t stopped looking at him from the moment he entered the kitchen.

And then, “Hello, Steve.”

Bucky’s taught him a few words of Polish and so he says, “Cześć.”

“How are you?”

Steve is surprised that she’s speaking to him but quickly recovers. Right away he decides he won’t draw attention to the fact that she’s speaking to him at all, or in English. “I’m okay. What about you? Settling in alright?” The coffee pot beeps and he starts to pour himself a cup. She’s still sitting at the kitchen island on a barstool, and is quiet for a very long time. Eerily so, and he turns to make sure she's still there. She is. Staring blankly down at the countertop. “You want some coffee?”

He makes sure to look her in the eyes. “I’m okay. Yes, could I have some coffee?” He pours her a mug full and slides it across the island to her.

“No need to be so formal.” He smiles at her, and she sends him a fractured one back. It's something at least. She's trying.

She tilts her head to the side. “Bucky talked about you, you know.”

Desperately Steve tries to control the rush of emotions that floods him, to keep his face neutral. But it must fail because she reaches over and puts her hand over his. “He waited. When he realized you weren’t coming he said something terrible must have happened to you. That you would have found us if you’d had the chance.”

“We looked,” the words are seemingly pulled from his mouth. “I looked. But it was so far down and-,” He cuts himself off. “What happened? In the beginning?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know how long he was there alone before they brought me to him. Not long. He didn’t have a metal arm yet. That took a while and it took a lot of tests.” She pushes one hand over her face, almost like she’s wiping away the grim coating her memories, trying to get a clearer image. “And he gave me his identity tags. They sparkled, dented but clean.”

“He gave you his dog tags?”

“And I kissed him when he told me why he gave them to me.” Steve watches as she takes a sip of her coffee. “I’m sorry for hitting you in Prague. I was very afraid. I'm still afraid here.”

“It’s okay. Can you tell me a little more?”

As he walks around the island to sit next to her she frowns. “Hasn’t Bucky said anything?”

“He won’t tell me.” Steve had planned on going for a run, but this is better. This is important. “Will you?”

As she nods she bites her lip. “He was always so kind. He learned Polish so quickly. And anytime someone tried to take me he fought tooth and nail.” She smiles, “Once he told me stories all night and day while I was wildly delirious with a fever. He used the water they gave him for drinking to keep me cool. Mostly he told me things about you and…his mother? And sister? Sisters?”

With a smile she looks to Steve for confirmation. “Sisters.” She looks victorious for a moment.

Then the grin suddenly disappears, “There were bad things too.” She says this as though what she had said previously hadn’t been bad. “When they found his dog tags on me they couldn’t figure out why he might hide them. Or why I might hide them for him. I was beaten and raped repeatedly in front of him. They wouldn’t let him tell them why. It had to be me.” She says all this dully, as though she’s reading from a newspaper.

He stifles his horror and disgust and asks, “Did you tell them?”

“Eventually they made Bucky tell them. I wasn’t going to say anything, they’d have to kill me first. I’d seen firsthand what happens to his people and they were already so terrible to us. They had figured it out by then but they wanted to hear him say it. He was going to tell them but they made sure to electrocute him first. And then they beat him and then he disappeared for three days. I cried and cried. I thought for sure they’d killed him.” She turns to Steve, lies one hand on his arm, “Please don’t mention this to him. I don’t think he remembers it. I don’t want him to remember it. He never told me what happened while he was gone. He said it was too terrible.”

He agrees and so he nods. “When he was the Winter Soldier-,”

“I don’t want to talk about that.” Her voice is razor sharp and dangerous.

“Do you have trigger words?”

The young woman next to him says nothing for a very long time. “Not exactly. My instinct is to protect the Soldier, that’s all I know. All the discipline disappears if I think he’s in real danger.”

Her hand is still on Steve’s arm when Bucky enters the kitchen, bleary eyed and grumpy. Bucky automatically greets her in Polish and stumbles over to kiss her cheek. “Morning, Stevie,” he says, yawning as he makes his way to the coffee pot.

Something like astonishment threads through Steve as she pats his arm and watches Bucky, a giggle escaping her. She giggled. Around anyone but Bucky she’s usually passive and emotionless. She mumbles something else to him which makes Bucky turn and smile, his eyes flick to her hand on Steve’s arm and his smile tightens just a bit before he answers her.

Then he turns to Steve, clearing his voice a little. “How long have you two been up?” Bucky asks.

“Not long,” Steve answers.

“Don’t you usually go running?”

Steve shrugs and looks at him, “We just got to talking.”

Bucky nods and holds out his hand to his girl, murmuring something to her. She nods, a small smile on her face. “Bye, Steve. Thank you for talking to me.”

He nods, a little dazed by the whole experience. He had been convinced that she would never talk to anyone other than Bucky. And then she kisses Steve’s cheek, takes Bucky’s hand, and is gone.