|1| Promise Me ✦ {Bucky Barnes}

Chapter 3: Home

In all likelihood, the girl I knew had probably passed away already, and if not, she'd be almost a hundred years old. But what frustrated me the most was that I couldn't remember a single thing about her. Not a name, or even what she vaguely looked like. I don't know if I would have remembered her had the Agent not taken me to the museum today. But at the mention of the words "I made a promise to a doll back home, and I intend to keep it," I remembered one thing; the promise I made her. I promised to come back to her after the war. And I never kept that promise. That I regretted more than anything.

The sliding doors opening broke me out of my thoughts. The Agent walked back inside and shut the door behind her and walked over to the barstools at the kitchen counter where I sat. She sat down on the one next to mine and sighed.

"I figured that if we're going to be living together, we should try to come up with some house rules or something," she suggested. It wasn't a bad idea, but I guess I didn't really know how she lived already, and I thought that living somewhere with protection was better than being on the run forever. But still, boundaries were definitely a good thing, even if it wasn't my home, "I generally get up at six o'clock every morning. I take a shower and get dressed and ready. I'm usually done by six-thirty, then I have a cup of coffee and relax. At around six-forty-five, I make breakfast and I'm out the door at seven for work. I'm rather persnickety about my morning routine, and I really don't like it when something fucks it up," she told me, "when I finish in the bathroom, you can take a shower. I'll cook for now, but once you get settled we can take shifts for meals," she stated. Although I didn't know how to cook, I thought that was fair. I figured she'd teach me over the next few days.

I did have to get used to the modern days. There were things I had heard from the HYDRA guards outside sometimes, but it didn't often give me an insight into the modern world. What gave me the most insight was the odd time I was given a mission. Even though I was focused on one thing, I found myself watching the crowds go by as the decades flew past me. I watched as women became independent in society and when they joined the workforce. I watched as men cooked and cleaned in their homes with children at their side, waiting for their wives to come home from work. I watched the world change as the decades flew by. I watched as I missed every year, every change, every new thing. And yet, I still couldn't help but miss my old life.

"So I guess we can move onto some rules then," she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, "rule number one, clean up after yourself. I'm sure that's an easy one to follow," she stated. I nodded in agreement, even though I particularly disagreed with that last part of it. I wasn't a messy person, HYDRA never tolerated that. But I wasn't the type to colour-code my front closet either. I thought that it may not be so easy for me depending on what her version of clean was,

"rule number two, any expectations SHIELD lays out for us, follow. It'll cost me my job if you don't. As I get to know you and as SHIELD begins to trust you, those expectations will change," she told me. Okay, that wasn't so bad, and I guess I didn't have much choice in that one, "this entails that until my boss says differently, you have to go everywhere with me except for when either one of us has therapy or we're at SHIELD headquarters. On Tuesdays, I have to take you to a therapist set up for you through SHIELD once a week. I see mine Thursdays at HQ when I have to go into the office once a week to fill out a mission report. For that whole day, you won't see much of me, so you follow my boss' orders," So basically she had to babysit me? I didn't like that, but I guessed this was the price of taking up her offer. I was a wanted man, and the only thing that stood between me and being arrested was her. I could deal with it as long as this wasn't the rest of my life.

"And my final and most important rule, you will never, ever, under any circumstances, go into my bedroom. Not if someone breaks in, not if the building is on fire, nothing. If anything happens, I'll know about it and get out on my own. If you need something from me and I'm in there, knock and I'll come out. This one isn't negotiable," she stated firmly. Now this one made my stomach churn a little bit. She had just made it clear that there was something she didn't want me to know and to just abide by that. I didn't know what it was, or how bad it could be. I didn't think she was secretly a HYDRA agent, but I didn't want to rule that out completely either. It was still possible, even though it would have been against orders to take me to that museum. But there was one thing I knew; when the time came that the rules with SHIELD changed, I was going into that bedroom. I couldn't trust her until I knew what was in there that she so desperately wanted to keep from me. For now, I had to just keep my head down and follow the rules. But I needed her to trust me in order to get to that room, "can you agree to these?" She broke me out of my thoughts.