WASHINGTON D.C.
2014
JUNE did not sleep well that evening.
Her eyes did not shut once. Her heart's pounding was like the pulse of a drum, a fist beating against her chest. Surely she had lost her mind.
Bucky Barnes was sleeping in the next room. The epitome of the violence and agony Hydra was capable of existed not ten feet from her, and the notion rendered June motionless. He could lose it. He could kill her, and some small part of her wondered if he still wanted to. Dozens of scenarios passed through her mind. June pondered the possibility of Barnes slitting her throat as she struggled to sleep, thought of him abandoning his façade and eliminating her like he was meant to months before. June loathed her imagination.
For hours, her ears strained to catch the slightest sound concerning Bucky, but she did not hear so much as the low rhythm of his breathing. Not a whisper came from the second room, and somehow this unnerved June even more. Her head turned restlessly on her pillow, towards the window, through which slanted pale beams of moonlight. A sickening guilt crept through her insides. She knew deep in her chest that she should tell Steve. She wished he was there alongside her, Sam as well. A pair of familiar faces would bring June peace — but she was not then living in a world with privileges such as that.
She thrashed beneath the blankets, frustrated and desperate. Sleep evaded her as if it was funny to see her so distraught, so anxious to lose consciousness. Her mind roared with fear. It was like June had been in a senseless daze when she agreed to let Bucky stay, and just now the effects were wearing off. Cold, numbing worry forked through her, worry about how Steve would react, what Bucky might do, what her own consequences might be. And now, to add to the load upon her shoulders, Barnes had told her the world had given her a new name. Cutlass. June thought it was a bitter word, not smooth or impressionistic or graceful. It did not roll off the tongue, nor offer any condolence — if anything, it sounded sinister. Cutlass.
June's chest flittered with doubt. Should she even sleep at all? Should she let her guard down for such a long time? She didn't think she'd be able to anyway, for so extreme were her anxieties she felt as if she could burst into tears at any moment.
Finally, she could take it no more. With legs numb and shaking, June disentangled herself from the blankets and got to her feet. Quiet as a moth, June slipped out of her bedroom.
When she stepped into the living room, her breath caught in her throat. Standing before the front door, just inches from the knob, was Bucky.
"Hey," June husked, her voice hoarse and unlike her own.
Bucky jumped and wheeled around, his pale eyes wild with alarm. June was sure if he had a gun in hand, it would be aimed at her forehead.
"What are you doing?" June asked him calmly, though the answer was rather obvious.
"Leaving," Bucky said flatly. "This was a bad idea."
June found herself speaking before she could think. "Don't. Wait, please, just . . . wait."
"Why?" Bucky said .
"I just — " June pressed her lips together, suddenly agitated. Why was she not encouraging him to leave? Was that not what she had so desperately wanted moments ago? For him to let her return to the quiet life she spent alone? "I don't . . . want you to draw attention to yourself. If you're arrested before Steve can talk to you, I'll never hear the end of it . . . . Just wait until morning. If you still want to go then, I won't stop you."
"Why aren't you scared?" Bucky demanded abruptly with desperation in his voice. "How can you stand it? How can you stand having me in the next room?"
June, utterly dumbfounded, gaped at him, her mouth opening and closing but not producing any words. Bucky stared right back, fists curled, eyes hopeless, and despite his build, despite the fact that he could kill her in a dozen different ways, June had never seen anyone who looked so weak.
"I am afraid," she said softly. Bucky seemed to deflate, and his crestfallen expression became even more miserable. June went on, "But there's . . . there's more important things than fear."
"Do you really believe that?"
June felt as if a thousand tons of lead had sunk to the bottom of her stomach. "I don't know."
Bucky was out the door the next second. But he had left his backpack behind. Fighting the sudden, overwhelming urge to learn just what was written in those leather-bound journals, June curled herself in a corner of the small sofa. Bucky would be coming back. But for now, he was gone. So her eyes closed, and sleep claimed her immediately.
• • •
June was awakened hours later by Bucky reentering the apartment. She had little idea how long he had been gone, but through the windows came blinding sunlight that suggested it was already midday.
They eyed each other once again, the atmosphere tense and still. Finally, and without warning, Bucky reached for his backpack and withdrew from its bowels an outdated newspaper clipping. He thrust it beneath June's nose.
"Tell me what happened," Bucky said urgently. "Your end of the story."
Cautiously, June took the paper from him. It was the front page of a Washington Times issue, bearing the headline, DISASTER ABOVE THE POTOMAC. June swallowed with immense difficulty; it was an article about the day S.H.I.E.L.D. fell.
"I don't like talking about this," she told Bucky, aching to go back to sleep.
His jaw tightened. "Please. You don't have to explain much, just . . . I just have questions."
"I don't have the answers you want," June replied quietly. "Steve does."
"Steve doesn't understand Hydra like you do."
June wished he had not said that. The usual wave of fear swept over her, chilling her very blood, tugging at her stomach. She sighed uneasily, shaking her head in resignation. "Fine. What questions?"
"How many died?" Bucky asked anxiously.
"I don't know. Too many."
He nodded, obviously unsatisfied. "How bad did I hurt him . . . Steve?"
Against her will, June's lips curved into a small smile. "Not so bad. He's out and about, isn't he? Searching like hell for you."
Bucky ignored the last bit of what June said. His eyes scoured her face intently, as if looking for something that simply wasn't there. At last, he broke his gaze. "There's . . . there's a lot I can't remember. Doesn't matter what I do. That ever happen to you?"
June was taken aback, a scowl creasing her forehead as she thought. "No," she whispered finally, to Bucky's immense disappointment. "They never wiped my memory, but . . . in all technicalities, I don't exist."
June decided right then that Bucky Barnes need not know about her full experience with Hydra. She was sorry even Steve knew, and as her mind continued to trail back to the nightmare she had suffered just hours ago, June was even less anxious to share the extent of her familiarity with Bucky.
But he knows you were there, a cold voice purred in the back of her mind. He saw you. You reminded him. You want him to know. You want him to understand. You want his to have been worse. . . .
June gave herself a shake. She desired nothing of the sort. If she wanted anything, it was to abandon the conversation. But Bucky was as intent as ever, his eyebrows lifted expectantly. June kept her eyes on her hands.
"Anything else?" she said softly.
"I just want to know more," Bucky murmured. "There's so much missing. . . . I get . . . flashes of things that I've never seen before . . . but they all seem real. . . ."
June had not the slightest idea how to respond. She opened her mouth to offer feeble condolence, but made no sound save for an odd noise in the back of her throat. Bucky did not seem to notice; he went right along talking, as if June was not there.
"I want to know what I had before," he said with new foundation in his voice. "If I was a decent person or not."
June made a face. "You couldn't have been all that bad if Captain America was your best friend." Suddenly, she was struck with an idea. "Wait a moment — aren't you in the Smithsonian? In Steve's exhibit?"
Bucky dismissed her almost immediately. "I've already been there."
"It can't hurt to try again."
"It could if someone recognizes me."
June felt color rise in her cheeks. "Do you want help, or not?"
Bucky's stature was taut and rigid, as if he was bracing himself for a fight. As she watched him, however, June noticed the doubt that lined his face, the terror that veiled his eyes; he did not, in fact, want her help. He had come to her with questions about a problem he hoped to solve on his own, for reasons June could not fathom. Perhaps he did not want anyone knowing just what went on inside his head. She found herself unable to hold it against him.
"We'll go to the Smithsonian tomorrow," June said evenly, for she knew Bucky would not reengage in the conversation on his own. "Or you could leave. It's your choice. I'm giving you a choice."
Bucky's shoulders relaxed almost instantly. For a wordless moment, he stared at June, quizzical and disbelieving. A choice.
"Okay," he said at last. "I'll do it."
June forced a minute smile. "Okay." Still avoiding Bucky's eye, she got to her feet and headed for the kitchen, thinking of putting on a pot of coffee just so her hands would have something to do. She took two steps before Bucky spoke again.
"Thank you."
June paused, her heart beating madly. "You're welcome."
Silence ensued for the rest of the day. It was, however, an easy silence that became like a third person in the apartment. Things were cautious, yes, but slackened, and despite the persistent anxiousness that gnawed at her insides, June did not find herself hopelessly dreading the next day's trip to the Smithsonian. In fact, June began to hope that something would indeed assist in Bucky regaining understanding of his past — she wondered curiously what kind of man he had been in 1945, when he did not have anything to fear but what was tangible.
Perhaps Sergeant James Barnes was a man June could get along with.
• • •
I actually hate this chapter but I'm publishing just to have an update. Ivarnes is pretty cute though, I'm not gonna lie . . .