Red Star ✴️ Bucky Barnes X Reader

16: Poppy Seeds & Honey

When Bowman woke, she had one thing she was craving.

Poppy seeds.

Not to eat. Rather, for science. She wanted to see if her dream was accurate, and if she in fact recognized the smell of poppy seeds.

Also, she wanted to taste honey. Mostly out of curiosity.

She got out of bed with this new purpose, getting dressed quickly before heading to the dining hall. It looked to be the break of dawn, which was perfect: shed be able to test her little experiment before anyone had any time to question why the hell she wanted poppy seeds and honey.

The kitchen staff was sparse, minus one guy who looked to have arrived a few minutes ago and was just setting up the kitchen. He had his head deep in a dirty pot, so Bowman simply stood there patiently waiting for him to notice her.

He continued to wash the pot, his mind so enveloped in his job that he didn't notice the young girl standing at the counter. Suddenly, a commanding voice spoke from behind her.

"Excuse me, sir?"

The cook turned to see a roughly six-foot blonde standing at the counter. Based on the sweat stains, he'd just returned from his morning run.

"Oh, yes Captain! Apologies, I didn't notice you were there." The chef smiled. It took a second for him to see the girl standing beside Steve.

"Oh, sorry miss, too!" The chef apologized profusely. "I guess I got wrapped up in morning prep. What can I get you?"

"An omelette, please." Steve responded, before gesturing to Bowman. "and you?"

She stood there, silently cursing herself for jinxing herself on this. "Uh... Do you have any poppy seeds and honey?"

The chef looked at her, confused. "For breakfast?"

"No! Uh..." She stammered, rubbing her hand against the back of her neck. "For science."

The chef, still not completely understanding what she meant, merely shrugged: he'd been asked to cook weirder things. He got to work making Steve a world-class omelette, adding hash browns on the side for good measure and a glass of orange juice. Then, he walked over to the spice cabinet and grabbed two containers. With an oddly amused smile, he slid both containers across the table. Seconds later, a silver spoon followed.

"Thank you!" The two said in unison before turning to leave.

Embarrassed by everything, Bowman went to retreat to her room, but to her dismay, she wasn't going to be let off that easy.

"Hey, Bowman, where are you going?" Steve questioned.

"Uh... My room?" She responded, not completely confident in her answer.

Steve shrugged. "Well, I mean, you can always eat your breakfast with me. I won't judge."

Feeling obliged, Bowman reluctantly turned to sit with Steve at one of the abandoned tables in the large lunchroom.

Bowman took a seat across from Steve, sitting her jars in front of her like a meal. She sat the spoon to the side before sitting stiffly in her seat, patting her hands against her knees.

Steve took a few bites of his omelette. After a sip of juice, he shot her a questioning look.

"If you don't mind me asking, why poppy seeds and honey?"

She blushed, immediately looking away. "Oh, well, uh, funny story! Actually... Well, Bucky-- uh..." She stammered, trying to figure out the best way to explain it.

Steve chuckled. "Please tell me you didn't end up in one of Bucky's stupid betting wars?"

"What?"

Steve let out a light laugh. "Oh, yeah. Bucky has this thing - I don't know if he does it anymore, but we did it a lot as kids - where we essentially dared each other to do slightly more and more risky things. So like, I bet you won't drink this coke with raisins in it. Then you do it, and return serve with something like, I bet you won't shoot a spitball at that taxi."

Bowman simply shook her head. "Uh, yeah no. Kinda wish that's what happened though, that sounds amazing."

"We were dumb kids in Brooklyn. What else was there to do?" Steve shrugged with a chuckle. "So, how'd Bucky lead to this?" He asked, using his fork to gesture to the weird mix of items in front of Bowman.

"Oh, right!" Bowman remarked. "Well, last night, I had something at dinner that tasted familiar. Bucky said maybe I was remembering my past, like he did. So we did some research, and some things started connecting."

"So you come from the land of milk and honey, but it has poppy seeds?" Steve joked.

"Nooo!" Bowman laughed, appreciating the joke. "I come from Poland, apparently. I guess all that research ignited something in my brain, and flashes of memories flooded into my dreams. Like, I smelled poppy seeds, but I was confused about how I knew that. And the taste of honey. So I wanted to see if what I felt in my dream were accurate - maybe I'm onto something."

Steve nodded along during her explanation, having finished the rest of his breakfast as she spoke. "Well?" He remarked, grabbing the container of poppy seeds and unscrewing the lid. "Let's see, shall we?"

He held the container a few inches from her face. She leaned over, taking a sniff. Earthy... And kinda nutty. Yup. That's exactly what she smelled. Before fully processing that fact, she swiftly poured a droplet of honey into a silver spoon and ate it.

"Yup," she smiled, swallowing the sweetener. "I'm definitely onto something."

Steve just smiled, screwing the lid back onto the poppy seed container. "So, Poland you said? Got an idea on a year?"

"Sometime between 1985 and 1991, I was in a hospital. Before then, I remember poppies, a woman, and..." Bowman stopped for a moment. "Something else. It's hard to piece together, I think I was young.'

Steve's lips pursed, thinking through his brain. "What did you see?"

"Lots of flashes. And I heard popping sounds. A lot of people were running around me, but I was short, so I didn't see anything above their knees. That's why I think I was young, and why things were so blurry."

Steve nodded, taking that information in. "Maybe you need to look into the history of Poland. A timeline or something. If there were a lot of people, someone had to write it down."

Bowman nodded, taking a mental note of Steve's advice. "Hey, by the way, where's Bucky?"

"I dunno. Probably asleep, though it's unlike him to sleep in this late."

"It's 7am."

"Yeah, and he's usually up at 3 or 4. Maybe he's finally getting a good night's sleep."

Bowman's lips curled into a semi-smile at the thought of Bucky getting a good night's sleep for the first time in a long time. It was a sign to her that, someday soon, maybe she too can move on from Hydra's haunting eye.