𝗙𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 | bucky barnes

34: Lighter...

"I.." began Cat. "You know what? Let's sit down."

Bucky shrugged and sat back down on the doctor's bench behind him. He moved over to give Catarina room, and she sat.

"Okay..." she picked up where she had left off. "Do you... um.. do you remember at all when we were back in Bucharest, and you said — you said, um, that, um, that the government organization that took me and trained me, it could have been HYDRA?"

Bucky tilted his head to the side and furrowed his brows.

"Yes..."

Cat swallowed. "You were right."

Bucky sighed and put his hand to his forehead.

"Natasha's giving me my files tomorrow," she said. "She's decoding them — I'm more science than tech, anyway — and, um, I'm gonna see what they did."

"And what you did," he said.

Cat looked down at her feet dangling off the bench.

"Yeah."

"Cat, that's a lot to handle, you know that right?"

"I know," she said.

"I mean, once you find out... you can't erase that. If you did anything at all. It's there forever. I'd know. Cat... I don't want that weight on you."

Cat knew he was saying that because he cared about her. But she didn't want to listen. She wanted to know. She had to. Otherwise, she'd just have a part of her life missing. Never knowing what happened. And now she knew that time was missing. She had to know.

"I know."  She turned back again to look at him.  "But... even if I never find out — isn't that weight already on me?"

Bucky nodded slightly and looked down at the floor, then back up at Catarina.

"I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing," he said.

"Thank you," she said. 

In their silence, Cat remembered something that felt like ages ago for her, though maybe not for Bucky.  The kiss.  For "luck," she had said.  Maybe it was a little bit for herself, too.

"And listen, um, about that kiss," she started, breaking the silence.  "It was a — a spur of the moment thing, and if you didn't —"

"I liked it," he said, stopping her mid-sentence.

"You — you did?"

Bucky nodded. "I did. But if you didn't mean to—"

"No, no, I, um... I liked it too."

Bucky smiled.

Cat bit her lip. She could feel she was blushing, and she was sure he could see it, even if she was looking at the floor. When she finally did look up at him, he was already grinning at her.

She leaned in closer and he caressed her face with his hand, as their lips locked for a long awaited kiss.

When they came apart, Cat looked down. Bucky's hand was still on her face.

"You still like it?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," she said. "That was better than the last one. Bet you had a lot of girls in the forties, didn't you?"

Bucky laughed slightly. "None like you," he told her.

"I'll take that as a compliment," she said. 

Bucky smiled and finally looked away from her eyes.  They were drawn to the injury on her shoulder, where the bullet had grazed her arm. 

"How did this happen?" he asked, examining it.  "Is that — it is.  Cat, is that a bullet wound?"