"Mamihlapinatapai (n.) A look shared by two people, each wishing that the other would initiate something they both desire but which neither wants to begin."
The Winter Soldier. Bucky Barnes. They were the same person.
Erin sat in a lecture hall at Oxford University in London starring at the photograph her grandfather had given her all those years ago. She couldn't believe it. Bucky Barnes, her grandfather's friend was alive. Not only that, but he was the most infamous assassin in the last 50 years.
Details of the attack on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Triskelion had just been released. Her mother had sent her an e-mail that morning. Class hadn't been particularly interesting that day, so she read it during one of her lectures.
Erin and her mother hadn't talked in a few weeks. If she was being honest, she hadn't been happy with her mother all summer. Whatever "contacts" her mother had talked about dealing with, they always took precedent over Erin. She was busy with her internship at the STARK lab in London, but a check in once a week instead of once a month would have been appreciated. It would have made her feel less alone. Whenever they did get to talk, her mother always seemed far away, like she was on a completely different planet.
Erin read the e-mail. Then reread it, trying to make sense of it all. HYDRA had been secretly infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. all along under everyone's noses. Alexander Pierce, head of S.H.I.E.L.D. was actually a member of HYDRA as well as several other colleagues Erin's family had come to know and trust for years. Some of those people dated back to the beginning of the organization with her grandfather. Erin felt sick to her stomach. She had met Mr. Pierce. He was her best friend Jill's uncle. Her father respected him.
She closed her eyes, trying to ease the nausea away. The next paragraph of the e-mail contained details about how Pierce used an assassin to kill Nick Fury.
Nick Fury is alive. Her mother wrote in between paragraphs. He's in hiding.
But it wasn't just any assassin that had tried to kill him. It was the Winter Soldier. Credited with more than 50 kills he was easily the deadliest assassin of the 20th century. Some didn't believe he was real, but his ghost story fascinated Erin. She had even done enough research to do a paper about him in high school.
Now, Erin knew he was very real. He was the man she admired in the picture all these years. Little did she know when she looked at him, a smile plaster on his face, and his arm around Captain America, she was looking at the Winter Soldier.
At the bottom of the e-mail her mom wrote:
I've found them. All of them. And this time they'll answer for what they did.
I love you.
Erin felt like everything she knew had been turned upside down. She sat back in her lecture seat as breathing became harder and harder to accomplish.
"Ms. McCall?" Her professor called. Erin tore her eyes from the screen to look at him, "Are you alright?" He asked.
Erin didn't answer. Instead, she slammed her laptop shut, shoved it into her backpack, and ran out of the room. Just as she closed the door behind her, her phone started to ring. It was her mom.
"Mom?" Erin answered it urgently.
"Erin?" A voice said over the phone. It was Cara. "Are you there?"
"I'm here," Erin said, "What's going on?"
"Erin... I'm sorry." Cara said. Erin could hear her voice break.
"What happened?" Erin pushed.
"Your mom..."
Erin's entire body went numb. She didn't feel herself hang up her phone. She didn't feel her legs start to move as she made of straight line for the nearest exit, walked out the doors, and didn't look back.
****
May-July 2017
The weeks past. Everything Erin did fell into a routine. Wake up by 7:30. Breakfast. Train. Lunch. Work on Bucky's arm. Do whatever chores she felt the need to get out of the way. Dinner. Team Meeting. Sleep. Repeat.
However friendly Steve and his team were, Erin still felt like an outsider among them. She felt comfortable with Wanda and Clint kept an extra eye on her, but something still felt different. The rest of the team had a flow that connected all of them. Whatever that flow was, Erin didn't have it.
At least she wasn't alone in that feeling. Bucky was very much the same. He didn't talk much at meetings or meals. He trained with them and would laugh with Sam and Steve sometimes, but it seemed like there was something out of rhythm with him as well.
Since that night in the hall, he hadn't attempted to talk to Erin much. They sometimes made small talk while she worked on his arm, but it always ended in silence. Every day she thought about telling Bucky about who she was and who her grandfather had been. She almost took the photo out of her back pocket dozens of times, but every day she chickened out. She wasn't ready yet and she didn't believe he was either.
If Bucky had any indication of who she was, he didn't show it. Erin wondered if he even remembered her grandfather. She wasn't sure she wanted to find out either.
Work on Bucky's arm was slow but steady. For now he could use his metal arm again for most anything: climbing, firing a gun, punching, and hand to hand combat. He couldn't hang from things or pull him self up effortlessly with one arm anymore, but there was still some room for improvements. Erin knew she could do this. She had to.
This was the sole reason why she was the one who spent the most time with Bucky apart from Steve. They spent hours together while she worked on his arm and he would come to her whenever he felt it was becoming a problem. Other than that, he mostly kept to himself just like she did. Although they had spent many hours in each other's company, the Winter Soldier was still a mystery to Erin and if James Barnes had any interest in her life, he didn't show it.
One afternoon, a book sat in Erin's lap. The Wakanda sun covered her as she sat in the corner of the garden, a place that had become her sanctuary these past weeks.
Erin finished the last line of the page from her book and moved her finger to turn the page when something caught the corner of her eye. She looked up and saw him walking towards her. His dark hair hung over his face. He was wearing a dark blue baseball shirt and his two hands stuck in the pockets of his jeans. One hand was human the other metal.
She dismissed her thoughts as Bucky came to a stop in front of her, his blue eyes bright in the sun.
"Hey," She said looking up from her book at him.
"Hi," He said, looking from her to the bush next to them and back. Did he look nervous?
"Is there something wrong with your arm?" She asked, standing up to examine the metal.
"Umm, no, it's fine," He said. He rubbed his human hand on the back of his neck.
"What's the matter?" She asked him.
"I was just... a couple weeks ago you offered..." He ran a hand through his hair.
"Ahh, finally surrendering?" She teased him, smirking.
He gave her a small smile.
"Come on," She half grinned at him. She closed her book and elbowed him in the shoulder as they walked back to the house together.
****
A few weeks ago Erin had been working on his arm for a full hour when she had made the offer. That day they had both been silent and for some reason the silence made her want to scream. The first few times she had worked on his arm without Steve there watching, the silence had been fine. She was usually too focused on wires and tools that she didn't feel the need to fill the space with small talk.
For so long she had only been studying his metal arm, like it was the only part of him that existed. But this day she let her eyes wander to his other features. She allowed herself glances at his face, broad shoulders, and the line of his jaw. And yes, she couldn't help but notice his wild dark hair.
"I could give you a hair cut if you like." She blurted out.
He turned to look at her. For some reason, the look on his face was not what she was expecting. It was soft with a hint of amusement. It was enough to make her stop fiddling with the wires in his arm. It felt like this was the first time they had really looked at one another. Sure, they had made conversations at meals and during training. Small smiles were offered when Erin was feeling sassy, but it felt like it had only been in passing. She had never allowed herself to drink him in.
The strangest thing happened then. He actually laughed. A wide grin broke out on his face, "What?" He asked her.
Her cheeks instantly grew hot and she wished she hadn't said anything, "Your hair, I could trim in for you if you want..." She looked down at his arm and began fiddling with the wires again.
"It makes me look that bad huh?"
"No!" She added quickly, the heat in her face continuing to burn. "I just thought... you keep playing with it so I thought I would offer. Sorry, it was stupid of me." She definitely couldn't look him in the eye ever again. Ever.
She could still hear him chuckling as she continued her work.
Over the next few weeks, Bucky continued the joke. She was embarrassed at first, but after a while it became a sort of banter between the two of them. He would tease her and she would tease him back. Nobody ever knew what they were talking about, but Erin liked it that way.
*****
Ever since that day, something had been different between them. There was a certain warmth and level of comfort that hadn't been there before she had made him laugh for the first time. It wasn't precisely friendship either. She couldn't quite put a finger on it.
Now in her bathroom, he had finally asked her to give him a haircut. They were silent for a while, nothing but the sound of the scissors snipping his hair away.
For the first time, she could focus on another part of him, a part that wasn't made up of metal. She ran her fingers through his dark hair and found it surprisingly soft. Maybe HYDRA was just a short name for hydrate, their secret shampoo and conditioner hair care line.
She chuckled to herself at the thought.
"What's so funny?" Bucky asked her, "You didn't mess up the back of my head did you?"
"No," She let out a small chuckle, "Just a joke to myself."
"Mhmm," He said. She couldn't see his facial expression as she continued shaping his hair.
"You're sure you know what you're doing?" He asked her suddenly.
"I've done this a hundred times," She assured him.
"Can I ask who for?"
Erin missed a beat. A small pain she hadn't allowed herself to feel in a while bloomed in her chest. "I used to do this for my brother," she replied quietly.
"Who does it for him now?" Bucky asked cautiously.
"No one," She paused, the weight of what she was about to say settled on her heart. "My brother's dead. My whole family is."
A paused, "Hey, mine too," He let out a small laugh and looked at her in the mirror. Erin met his gaze. He'd meant it as a joke, but Erin didn't find it funny. When she didn't laugh, Bucky let out a dry cough and dropped his eyes from the mirror. "I'm sorry, that was really bad humor."
Erin returned her attention back to his hair. She was quiet for a moment then said, "I'm just glad there's something left in you that can joke." Her voice quiet, "Although the humor may not be that great." She added jokingly.
"What kind of jokes do you suggest?"
"You could try, 'That's what she said,' or you could just make fun of Twilight."
"What's Twilight?"
She had to suppress a laugh, "You definitely don't want to know." She looked back up at the mirror and smiled at him.
She saw a ghost of a smile pass over his face as she laughed. "That book you were reading, The Count of Monte Cristo, I didn't take you for a Alexandre Dumas fan." He told her.
"Considering this is the longest conversation we've ever had, it doesn't surprise me."
"I guess you make a fair point..." He flashed his eyes to her in the mirror. "Truth is, I never know what to ask you." He said it carefully but with a ring of honesty behind his words. "Everyone else seems to talk to me like I'm fragile... everyone except for you." She saw him look at her again through the mirror. "It unnerves me for some reason."
She stopped cutting and looked back at him in the mirror. "You can ask me anything," She said quietly, "I can't promise I'll always answer, but you can ask." She said snipping away the remainder of his uneven locks. She shook out his hair and examined her work. "There," She said putting the scissors down, "Not too short, but it should stay out of your way," She offered him a small smile.
He looked at the mirror and ran a hand through his freshly cut locks, "Feels weird," He chuckled. "Thank you," He whispered. She looked into the mirror to find his blue eyes looking at her intently. His gaze held her there and she couldn't seem to look away.
"You're welcome," She whispered back.
He looked down and stood up from his spot on the bathtub. He turned around to face her. Erin became suddenly aware small space between them. He towered over her, looking at her like he was trying to decide something, but couldn't make up his mind.
Erin swallowed as her face became suddenly hot. She cursed her heart for beating faster just because he was close to her.
"Erin," He whispered her name. He leaned closer to her, his human arm brushing her forearm. Something in his body language told Erin he wanted to be closer, but something else made him cautious.
Her stomach exploded in a burst of butterflies. This should not be happening. She had closed off the part of her a long time ago.
Bucky continued, "I-"
A knock on the door made them both jump way from each other.
Clint opened the door, "Oh," he said, "Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt." He raised his eyebrows, "Erin, Wanda's looking for you." Erin nodded at him and Clint turned his eyes towards Bucky. "Nice haircut."
"Erin's work," he said, turning to her and flashing her a rare half smile. She returned with her own shy smile.
"Uh-huh," Clint said looking back and forth between the two of them.
"I should go," Erin said, "I promised Wanda I'd help her cook tonight. She's trying to teach me to cook that that next time everyone won't have to lie to me when they say they loved what I made," She chuckled nervously. "I'll see you both at dinner?"
Clint nodded his head, leaning against the doorframe to give her room to get out. Erin looked back at Bucky one more time. He was looking in the mirror, studying his own reflection.
As she walked out of the bathroom, Erin couldn't help but still feel the touch of the Winter Soldier's fingers brushing her arm.
"It's exciting when you find parts of yourself in someone else."
-Annaka Silvia