Archive of Our Own

Leah was utterly and absolutely screwed. Completely and wholly and thoroughly fucked. And the worst part about it was that it was entirely preventable had she not been a fucking idiot. She knew that walking home alone after work was a stupid idea, but the idea of taking a bus when the walk was minimal at best was just too appalling after the shitty day she’d had. Not only had she been stood up by a lunch date before work, but during work she’d gotten chewed out by her boss for something that wasn’t even close to her fault and had no less than 3 drinks “accidentally” spilled on her while she was working tables. So yeah, the idea of spending a half hour getting home on a dirty bus smelling like cheap beer and bad tequila when her apartment was a 10 minute walk just did not make sense to her stress addled brain in the slightest. So like every statistic of a kidnapped or assaulted woman ever, she chose to walk the streets of new York, in the middle of the night, alone, and with nobody waiting for her to get home.

It only took a few minutes of walking before Leah realized that she was being followed. In fact she was kind of ashamed that it took her that long, she was usually much more attentive when it came to her surroundings. When Leah finally did realize she had a tail, she took a deep breath and tried to figure out if this person behind her was actually following her or if they just happened to be walking in the same directing. In retrospect, thinking there was any possibility of a coincidence of travel when it was nearly 2am was optimistic at best, but sue her, she was scared. Looking in their reflection in the windows they passed, Leah could see that the man-- tall, hooded, and with a big backpack on-- was walking close enough that she could hear his footsteps, but out of immediate reach. One check for the “just a coincidence” column, as well as a big old red flag in the “I'm going to get kidnapped” column. Once she started speeding up her walking she could see that he sped up in tandem and the same with her slowing down, never getting further away than hearing distance.

Leah couldn’t tell if it was the change in her walking speed or her mounting anxiety that was causing her breath to speed up and her heart to pound in her ears.

Leah tried losing him next. Taking abrupt turns into cramped alleyways, nearly sprinting down short streets to the next turn, constantly glancing behind her to see if he was still there. And every time, Leah’s heart fell. He was constant and steady, like a shadow if your shadow hated you. The drumming of Leah's heart in her ears was so deafening it drowned out the pounding of his boots on the asphalt behind her.

Leah couldn’t chance slowing down for very long, but looking around at the street she’d ended up on, she realized with mounting dread that she had no idea where the hell she was. Panic threatened to overwhelm her. Okay sure, so her frantic attempts to lose the man tailing her were not only a failure but also an active detriment to her situation. That was great, just terrific. But Leah couldn’t dwell on that now. So instead of doing what she wanted, mainly curl up into a ball on the ground and sob her eyes out, she found the man’s reflection in the windows they passed and went fumbling for her phone.

She didn’t want to take her eyes off of the reflection of her pursuer, too afraid that the moment she looked away he’d be upon her, but she needed to get into her purse. Leah had a plan, but for it to have even a snowballs chance in hell of working in her favor, she needed backup. Specifically, Leah was looking for backup in the form of the biggest, scariest, most intimidating looking guy she has ever met. A man that had also once bought her a bouquet of flowers for a date that ultimately failed and then brought another bouquet of flowers weeks later to apologize for that failed date and the subsequent weeks long ghosting. Her friend James, who Leah hoped to god lived nearby.
***

Bucky was awoken from a fitful sleep to his phone ringing. Fumbling, he reached for it next to him on the floor, only just barely managing to not crush it in his sleep and nightmare induced confusion. Not bothering to look at the caller ID he opened it and started with saying “Sam I swear to god if you're calling me in the middle of the night to talk about Marvin Gaye again I will strangle you in your sleep.”

To Bucky’s surprise, he did not hear the instant snark of his friend snapping back, and that immediately put him on edge. Sitting up from where he was laying, he listened intently to the still mostly quiet call.

“Hello,” he asked, wary. “Who is this?” Another moment passed and all he could hear from the call was passing cars and someone breathing heavily. Bucky considered pulling the phone away from his ear to actually see if the person calling was someone he knew when he heard a voice. A familiar, very frightened sounding voice.

“James?” Leah asked, breathless, and Bucky was instantly up, pacing around his small apartment to look for his pants and jacket.

“Leah, what’s wrong?” Bucky said, in lieu of an answer. He pinned the phone between his ear and shoulder as he pulled on the first pair of pants he found in the pile of clothes he did last week and couldn’t be moved to put away.

Her answer came shaky and quiet and Bucky made his way towards where he stashed his gun. “I think I'm being followed, James. I don’t. I don’t know what to do. I've been trying to shake him off but I don’t know where I am now and I need he-help. Please James I know its late but—“ Bucky cut her off. “Where are you now? What street?”

“78th I think. The next street sign I'm going towards is Myrtle ave, I think-I think I can see a cemetery,” she answered and Bucky breathed a sigh of relief.

“Ok good. Take a left on Myrtle and get to 80th. I’ll meet you there. You're going to be fine, Leah,” Bucky promised. “I'm coming to get you now.”

Bucky could hear her palpable relief, cutting through the panic that was threatening to overwhelm him. “O-okay, James,” she said, voice watery and wobbling. “Could—could you just keep talking t—to me?”

“Talk about what?” Bucky was pulling on his jacket now, quickly switching his phone from ear to ear, not willing to waste a second in going to her.

“I don’t know,” she barked out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Anything. I just don’t want to be alo—“ her next words were cut off in a shout. All Bucky could hear past the pounding in his head was a scuffle, muffled screams, and an abrupt silence. He dropped the phone, blasting through his door and onto the street, breaking into a dead sprint.
It took Bucky seconds to make it onto Myrtle. The street was completely deserted. Every step that he took felt like he was wading through molasses. Turning onto 78th he nearly crashed through a window as he skidded around the corner. Through the red clouding his vision, Bucky could see a single moving truck pulling away from the curb with its door almost closed. Between the moment that he saw it and the moment that the door was closed completely, he could hear a woman’s muffled shout coming from inside.

He ran faster, quickly closing the distance between him and the truck. Once he was within range, he could hear shouting from inside, almost muffled by the roar of the engine and the huffing of Bucky’s own breath. But underneath all of that, the engine and the voices and Bucky's pounding heart, he could hear muffled sobs.

He leapt.
********

Leah was completely, indescribably, incandescently pissed. She was pissed at herself for not being smart or quick enough to avoid this whole situation. She was pissed at New York as a whole for letting this happen. She was pissed at James for not being faster. But most of [fucking]all, she was pissed at the asshats who thought it’d be a good idea to snatch her moments away from safety. She was so close to James, the man who Leah’s pretty sure invented the “Fuck around and find out” look.

But no.

Taking advantage of her distraction on the phone, the man that had been following her closed the distance between them, wrapping one arm around her waist to lift her off of the ground, the other hand closing bruisingly tight over her mouth. She tried screaming, kicking, gouging at his eyes, biting his fingers, but nothing worked. His arm around her ribs was like iron and she was distressingly easily pulled back towards a waiting truck. Leah glimpsed the truck with its open back in her peripheral and her struggles only increased, swinging her legs back in an attempt to catch him in the knees or dick. She felt one of her heels clip something and he stumbled, her heart lifting, but a moment later another man appeared, this one lanky and greasy looking. Greasy grabbed her legs, holding them still enough that Bruiser was able to cross the last couple of feet to the idling truck.
They tossed her into the back of an old, smelly moving truck, climbing in after her. The impact was so sudden that Leah was barely able to keep her head from smashing on the sticky metal. As it were, she had the wind knocked out of her in a pained huff, the fall jarring her abused ribs. But Leah knew the instant she was closed off, she was done for.

Taking advantage of the adrenaline bounding through her, Leah scrambled to her feet and charged for the opening between Greasy and Bruiser. For a moment she believed that she could make it, that they wouldn’t expect her to just try to jump out. She took a step, then two, then three. The open street was so close, her hand outstretched she reached for it.

And Bruiser sucker punched her straight in the gut.

For a moment she couldn’t feel anything. It was like time had merely stopped and all she could see was this man’s leer in front of her, his yellowed teeth bared in disgust, eyes wide and hateful. Then time restarted and Leah realized that she fully could not breathe.

Leah fell, gasping like a fish as tears beaded in the corners of her eyes. A hand tangled itself in her hair, fisting a chunk of it near her scalp and using it to pull her to the back of the truck, scraping over the cigarette butts and plastic wrappers. She barely felt the pain through her spasmodic breathing. She could hear the two douchebags arguing over her, their voices coming to her as if filtered through water. Something about damaging merchandise? Maybe? Underneath all of it, she could hear the door rattle shut and lock. It sounded like a death knell. And for the first time since first spotting Bruiser following her on a deserted sidewalk, Leah despaired. She didn’t try to hide her broken, breathless sobs as her world crumbled and broke around her.

Between one choked breath and the next, everything changed. One moment and Bruiser was standing over Leah, sneer curling his lip, leg pulled back to send her gasping again. And in the next a huge thud echoed in the truck. The first thought that flicked through Leah’s addled brain was that they had hit a bad pot hole. This lasted as long as it took for her to glance up and see the massive dent now reaching into the truck. For a second, Leah thought that maybe somebody had tried committing suicide by taking a running leap off a building; that is, until she heard footsteps on the roof as well. From the look of her captors faces, they has as much of an idea of what was happening as she did, specifically, not a goddamn clue. But unlike her pure confusion, Bruiser and Greasy were wearing twin looks of pure terror.

The footsteps on the moving truck continued until they reached the drivers cab, where another smaller thud rung out. Leah could hear the brakes squealing as the truck lurched to a stop, jerking her and the two men with her into the back wall of the truck. Leah put her back to the wall, facing her captors and the door, watching for what she didn’t know. But what she did see was Bruiser pulling out a wicked looking knife as Greasy grabbed an empty beer bottle from the floor, gripping it by the neck. The sound of shouting and shattered glass cut through the silence of the space. Despite having even less of a clue of what was happening than her captors, she took pleasure in seeing them so scared.

“The doors locked, he can’t get in,” Bruiser said, his voice like an old smoker decided to gargle with gravel. The roughness of it nearly masked the quaver in his statement. Nearly.

“Yeah maybe,” answered Greasy, sounding more weasel than man, “But that means we can’t fucking get out, either.”

The footsteps made their way to the back of the truck. Not quickly, but very purposeful. It was at this point that Leah came to the conclusion that this was some kind of hitman, come after these guys after their years of bad dealings and however much she wanted to see these men get the shit beat out of them, she figured she’d use the ensuing fight to make her getaway.

“I knew we should’ve stayed out of Brooklyn. But nooo. It’ll be fine, you said. He won’t even notice, you said.” Bruiser snipped back at Greasy and Leah started to get actually worried. If this was some kind of mob fight, she did not want to be a witness, cause witnesses never stuck around for very long. She started feeling the floor around her, looking for a weapon but not wanting to call attention to herself. It didn’t help that this cab was nearly completely dark, only lit by a small camping lantern duck taped to the floor in a corner.

“Oh, fuck off. He’s not gonna try to fight us, there’s two of us and only one of—“

Greasy was cut off by a fist coming through the door. Leah tried to suppress a shout but what instead came out was a squeak. The fist was shining and metal, dark with rivulets of yellow running through the joints. It would have been incredible, if not for the fact that it quickly unclenched and gripped onto the door through the hole it had just made. With a massive groaning wrench, the garage door of the back of the truck was pulled off. It seemed to hover for a moment before it was tossed aside and the clanging of it hitting the asphalt jolted her out of her fascinated stupor.

With thing 1 and thing 2 fully occupied by Metalfist, Leah started searching the floor in earnest. Her hand closed around the neck of another beer bottle when the truck shook with the impact of somebody jumping in. Looking towards the new opening, all Leah could see was the silhouette of someone big, broad, and radiating anger. The streetlights glinted off of his left hand and Leah couldn’t breathe again.

The silhouette in the empty doorway of the truck radiated malice like Leah had never experienced before. He wasn’t even moving, merely standing there, but the outline of the man--stark in the yellow light of the street lamps-- spoke of a threat much more dangerous than either of the men that she had been unequivocally terrified of minutes before. His metal hand flexed and Bruiser flinched.

“Listen Soldier, if you leave us alone, there won’t be any trouble,” Bruiser choked out, badly faked confidence dripping from every word like poison on a knife. The man with the arm, Soldier, seemed to find that funny. He huffed out a small, emotionless laugh and Greasy twitched. Soldier shifted again and suddenly he was grabbing Greasy by the throat.
Soldier moved in a blur and Leah knew instantly that this person was not human, at least not fully. She lamented her luck. Of course the mob sends its enhanced goon to take out these asshats tonight and not the night before. They couldn’t have done it a day, a couple hours, hell even minutes earlier. No apparently not. It just wasn’t in Leah’s cards to make it out of this night unscathed, if what Soldier was doing to greasy and bruiser was anything to go by.

Soldier had Greasy by the neck, flesh hand gripping him by the throat and lifting him off of the ground in a single swift move. Greasy tried prying the hand off first and Leah could see him raise the empty beer bottle to smash over Soldiers head as she heard him gasp for air. Even in the chaos of the beat down that was happening, Leah couldn’t help but be a little satisfied that he was feeling the same thing that she was still recovering from. In an instant, two bottles smashed—one in Leah’s hand on the floor of the truck, leaving her with half of a bottle made of edges; the other over Soldiers head.

He didn’t even stumble. If anything, his grip on Greasy's neck only tightened pulling out a choked gasp from him as the glass hit the floor in tinkling shards. Leah heard a deadpan “Ow” a moment later and the next second Greasy was gone, flung out the gaping door like trash to crash down on the unforgiving asphalt.
Soldier stood there for a moment, watching the arc that Greasy made as he flew through the air. As he stood motionless, Bruiser ran up behind him, brandishing the knife in preparation to catch him in the back. Quick as a viper Soldier whipped around, metal hand coming up to grab the blade of the knife. Leah could hear it crumple in his grip like tin foil.

Still holding the blade of the knife, Soldier advanced, pushing Bruiser back with the sheer force of his threat. They walked one, two, three steps until Bruiser stopped abruptly, his back hitting the side wall of the truck. Soldier took another step and another, until he and Bruiser were nose to nose. Soldier released the blade of the knife, if it could even be called that anymore with how mangled it was. The metal hand then darted up in a blur to grip Bruiser by the chin, the other hand winding back and driving into his gut. Leah could see the pure dread in Bruisers eyes as he was suddenly gasping, unable to even double over as he was propped up by what seemed to be more akin to a steel bar than a prosthetic.

Soldier leaned in close, pulling the floundering Bruiser up to his towering height.

“If you’d left us alone, there wouldn’t be any trouble,” Soldier said, his voice deep but much more normal than she expected. Truly, the fact that he spoke at all was sort of a wonder to Leah. But something about the voice itself scratched at the back of her mind. Something maybe….familiar? And wasn’t that terrifying. That she might have met this person that was more machine than man before without knowing it. An involuntary shiver raced down Leah’s spine.

Leah didn’t have any time to ruminate on that thought before Bruiser was gone as well. Tossed like Greasy to bounce his way across the blacktop, as casual as throwing garbage in the trash.

Soldier stood there a moment, still and motionless as a statue. Leah tried to control her stuttering breaths, for some reason the idea that maybe he wouldn’t notice her if she was quiet enough keeping her from unfreezing from her spot at the back of the truck. It was not to be however, as her breaths turned into a hiccup and Soldiers head whipped towards her. She still couldn’t see his face but Leah could feel his gaze cut through her.

He stalked over to where Leah was up against the wall, long strides that banged on the floor like a funeral march. Leah held out the hand that clung to the broken bottle, pointing it at Soldier as he stood in front of her. She was shaking, light tremors vibrating the bottle in her grip. Soldier towered over her, his shadow falling over her cold and dark. He crouched, slow and deliberate, coming to kneel before her without making another sound. Leah was frozen to the spot, arm held in front of her in a paltry attempt to defend herself from this man, breath coming out in gasps. She could see the metal hand coming up, coming towards her and Leah couldn’t help it. She closed her eyes and waited, hearing only the deafening pound of her heartbeat in her ears.

Leah could feel the metal hand close around her fist, cold and unyielding, and she waited for the pain, for the snap that would come from him crushing her fist in his. As she waited, her eyes clenched shut, she felt something on her face. His other hand, come up to poke at the side of a cut on her cheek that she hadn’t even realized she had. Leah whipped her head back, away from his hand, away from this soldier and towards the unyielding wall behind her.

In the milliseconds between the action of pulling away and the conscious thought that it was a bad idea, Leah prepared for the impact that her head would be making on the metal, scrunching her already closed eyes as if that would do anything to lessen the blow. Suddenly her head stopped moving, abrupt and hard, and Leah braced for the pain.

And braced.

And braced.

But the pain never came. Not only that, but as her senses and her sense came back to her, Leah realize that her fist grasping the beer bottle was still being carefully held in the cool metal of Soldier’s prosthetic, not crushed in the vice grip that she had just witnessed.

And she realized, slowly very slowly, that the reason that she had not given herself a concussion to top off the shitty night that she’d been having was because her head was also being held. Soldier’s superhuman reflexes had allowed him to whip his flesh hand up in between Leah’s head and the wall, saving her from self-inflicted, stupid, head trauma and he was now cradling the back of her skull as if she was a child that he was holding.

What the fuck.

Leah’s eyes popped open, suspicious and searching, to find that she could see Soldier’s face a little more in the gloom with it being so close to hers. The first thing she focused on was his mouth, and it was moving. Wait why was it moving, was he talking? Oh shit he was talking. He was talking and all Leah could hear was the buzzing in her own ears and the sound of the traffic outside. He was talking and she had no idea what he was saying.

Was he threatening her?

Giving her instructions?

Saying something so blatantly vicious that she would have no choice but to take this interaction to her grave?

Leah didn’t know, couldn’t know, because her goddamn ears wouldn’t stop fucking ringing. And oh great, now the world was spinning; the world was spinning and her ears were ringing and her hands were getting so sweaty the broken bottle somehow still clutched in her fist that was also clutched in his fist slipped right out to clatter onto the filthy floor.

The more Leah’s world spun, the less she could breath. The less she could breath, the worse she felt. And don’t get her wrong, Leah knew what this was, but knowing the shape of the beast that’s eating you doesn’t make having a panic attack while being cradled by a superhuman hitman any easier. Leah almost wished that Soldier would just kill her and get it over with, break her out of this vicious spiral she found herself sucked into.
***

Bucky didn’t know what –the Fuck—to do. Getting rid of the bastards that had kidnapped Leah and probably countless other people was one of the easiest, and most guilt free, things he had done in recent years. But now, kneeling in front of Leah, her eyes glazed and terrified, breath coming in tiny, fearful pants, Bucky was clueless. He knew she was having a panic attack, he recognized the start of it better than most, having pulled himself out of his own brain more times than he could count. That didn’t mean he was [good] at it, didn’t even mean he knew what he was doing. But Leah needed help, and even his shitty help was better than nothing. Hopefully.

Bucky let Leah’s hand drop, instead using both to cradle her face and maybe give her something to grab on to, something grounding.

“Hey, Leah? Leah you have to breathe,” Bucky pleaded with her, “Please Leah, you have to breathe slowly, it’s alright. You're safe, they’re gone, they’re not gonna hurt you again, I promise.”

But the animal terror didn’t leave her eyes, her stuttering breaths didn’t slow. If anything she seemed to start gasping, as if her lungs were being squeezed by her ribcage preventing her from filling them.

“Leah please,” he tried again, his voice cracking, “You have to breathe, doll. Its ok, you're safe, nobody’s gonna get to you while I'm around.”

Her face was cold and clammy under his flesh hand and Bucky made a decision. He didn’t know what was triggering this-- fuck maybe it was him, it wouldn’t be the first time someone flipped out upon seeing his ugly mug—but he knew that being in this dingy, stinking truck was not helping matters. He let go of Leah’s face, put one arm behind her shoulders and the other under her legs and hefted her up. She squeaked a little bit at the sudden movement, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in his chest.

It took Bucky moments to walk out of the truck, dropping down onto the road while trying to not jostle Leah’s position too much. He walked a few paces away, passing the discarded door as well as the prone bodies of the discarded men, when he felt a dampness soaking into his shirt. Leah was crying.

Bucky sped over to the sidewalk, gently sitting her on the curb. As he placed her on solid ground, Leah’s hands slipped from around his neck to cover her face, nails digging into her hairline. Bucky’s hands hovered around her shoulders, unsure if he should do something or if touching her would just make everything worse. It hadn’t seemed to help yet.

As Bucky agonized, Leah continued to sob into her hands, the meat of her palms pressing into her eyes. She was choking in her breaths, every gasp raspy and labored, and Bucky was less than useless.

Bucky got Leah out of that situation, did what he did best, caused pain and suffering and delivered retribution in the form of a vibranium fist to the jaw. But now, confronted by a crying woman, a crying [friend], he was clueless. Sam would know what to do, he was always better with the personal aspects of the hero job, came with the territory of being a therapist, Bucky would guess. But Sam wasn’t here, it was just him crouched in the road, unable to provide even the bare minimum of comfort to someone he cared about.

Bucky settled on just sitting on the curb next to her, leg pressed up against her, and waiting. The wait was torture, every second stretching into hours as she sobbed and Bucky did nothing.

After eons of feeling laughably useless, Leah’s breathing started slowing down, evening out from the hitching gasps to deeps lungfuls of air. Her hands came off of her face, deep crescents dug into her forehead from her nails but thankfully not bleeding. Leah’s eyes were closed and she was saying something to herself-- counting, Bucky could hear faint numbers in her mumbles.

Bucky couldn’t stop staring at her, so immensely glad that she was safe that the thought of taking his eyes off her for a moment meant that she could be taken from him, and this time he wouldn’t be fast enough. He stared as she counted, finding a sort of calm in the patterns that she was making. He didn’t dare say anything and risk breaking the tentative peace they found, risk sending her back into a panic ridden spiral.

After minutes that felt like days, Leah let out one more purposeful breath and opened her eyes. Bucky couldn’t help but grin as he saw the steel in her gaze.

“Feeling better, doll?” Bucky asked.

Leah started, twisting around to face him so fast that she ended up accidentally smacking Bucky in the cheek in her haste.

“James?” she shouted, “It was you the Whole fucking time?!?”

“Whattaya mean ‘it was me’, who the hell else would it be?” Bucky just barely kept himself from shouting back at her.

“I don’t fucking know. I thought I was getting double kidnapped here!”

Bucky’s heart dropped to his gut. It was him. She didn’t know it was him, thought he was just another random dirt bag taking advantage of his enhancements and her distress. Goddammit. He’d finally had a friend that didn’t see him as a walking time bomb and he’d fucked it up.

“You thought—I didn’t—fuck.” Bucky buried his face in his hands, curling in on himself enough that he was sure he wasn’t touching her anymore. “I'm so sorry you had to see that.”

Bucky sat there for a moment, drowning in self-pity, not wanting to freak Leah out further but also not under any circumstances willing to leave her alone until she was safe in her apartment. He could hear her shifting beside him, still sniffling from the tears. He was so scared to look at her-- look and see fear where there used to be trust--that he just let her sit and stare at him.

Her breath started to hitch again, catching in her throat and making Bucky’s heart sink further in his chest. He needed to do something, leave maybe, get out of sight but still follow and make sure she stays safe. Alright, yes, that’s what he would do. He’d stay out of sight but trail her, maybe give the spider kid a call, have him swing over from Queens and give her someone to talk to. She’d stay safe and not have to deal with his dumb ass, making her cry for the second time tonight.

Wait, wait just a goddamn minute. Leah wasn’t crying. She was laughing. Loud, cracking cackles that echoed off the buildings around them in the relative quiet of the middle of the night in New York. Bucky looked over at her in shock to see Leah clutching her stomach, bent over double with the force of her laughter. She looked up to meet his eyes and Bucky could see the tears at the corners, leaking into her smile. Leah threw herself at Bucky to wrap him in as tight a bear hug as she could manage, latching onto him like a magnet. Bucky’s hands hovered around her waist for a moment before returning the hug. He could feel her shaking with the now silent giggles.

“Normal people can’t see in the dark you dumbass,” she gasped out between laughs, “I didn’t know it was you cause I couldn’t see your face.”

“Well, uh. Shit,” Bucky stuttered.

“And you know we are going to have some words about the goddamn metal arm and enhancements, dude.” She unburied her face from his neck to look at him. He could see the fresh tear streaks on her cheeks as she pressed her forehead against his, eyes closed. “Thank you.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say. Well he rarely knew what to say on a good day, but he felt like this was an important moment. He struggled with words for a moment before deciding that anything he said would just spoil it. So instead, he shifted his arms and stood, taking her with him in another bridal carry. She squeaked again at the sudden elevation change, letting out a barking laugh and leaning her head against his shoulder.

“I assume you live pretty close, huh?” she asked.

“Yup.”

“You know, I can walk.” Her protests were faint even to his enhanced hearing.

“Don’t worry about it, doll. Carrying you doesn’t even feel like much anyway.” Bucky couldn’t help but smile as he carted her back to his apartment, her arms winding back around his neck.

***********

Leah was absolutely reeling from the emotional whiplash of the last 10 fucking minutes. The cycling storm of terror and anger and despair had finally settled in her gut, bubbling up as a mad laughter and renewed sobs. She was still crying, quietly, gently, as James carted her back to his apartment. She considered protesting, insisting calls to the police and the paramedics before leaving the scene but a bone deep exhaustion stayed her tongue. All Leah wanted now was a cup of tea, a blanket around her shoulders, and some chocolate. Or maybe some alcohol. Yeah, booze sounded pretty good too. And a hug. God she needed a good long hug.

James’s long, purposeful strides ate up the distance between where they were and his apartment, and before she knew it, they were standing in from of the entrance to an alright looking apartment complex. Not chipped brick and yellow wallpaper level dingy but a little banged up nonetheless. She shifted in his arms, expecting to be put down so that he could get his keys, but he didn’t release her, only shifted his grip so that he could—holy shit—hold her [one handed]. James wasn’t even straining, what the hell, how did she not know this about him before now. With her now settled on one arm like a chair, Leah’s arms wrapped around his neck for balance, James was easily able to open the door to the complex and the door to his apartment, and Leah could finally breathe again.

Walking into James apartment, Leah noticed it looked like a washing machine and a dryer had a baby and that baby puked over the entire living room. There were so many clothes everywhere it took her a minute to even see the mattress, rumpled with use, laid out beside the couch. James weaved his way expertly through the clutter to place her sitting on the couch, gripping her shoulders for a moment before saying “I’ll be right back” and going into another room.

As Leah sat there, her mind seemed to empty. She didn’t fight it; felt it was probably better than the alternative, specifically another breakdown. She started gazing into nowhere, letting her eyes lose focus as she stared at the pile of semi folded clothes sitting beside her.

Minutes, or maybe seconds or hours, Leah couldn’t tell, James came back. A massive first aid kit, closer to a medic’s go-bag, was clutched in his metal hand. He came up to Leah and she looked at him instinctively. He was saying things again, things she should probably be listening to, as he rifled through the bag. His lips were moving, the sound was hitting her ears, but nothing was getting through. She just ended up nodding along whenever he looked up from his search through the bag and he seemed to take that as an answer, thank god. She wasn’t sure if she would even be able to make a coherent noise at this point. It felt like her vocal cords had been replaced with rubber bands, that any sound that she tried to make would just come out high pitched and keening and hurt her ears to listen to.

Glancing down at the supplies that James gathered, Leah could see a pile of white gauze and a couple of bottles of various disinfectants. Snapping gloves onto his hands, James soaked a small pile of gauze with something brownish yellow and held it up with a final questioning look. One last ask for permission. She nodded along once more, idly wondering why the metal hand needed a glove, really, it’s not like he needed to protect anything there. But really were gloves meant to protect the person wearing them or were they like surgical masks, meant to protect those around you. Maybe it was both? Maybe he needed to clean his metal hand, all gunked up with truck grossness and shattered glass. Yea shattered glass wouldn’t be very good to get in a cut, maybe that’s why he’s wearing them. But then why wouldn’t he have washed his hands while he was in the other room? Weird.

The soaked gauze dabbed at the little cut on Leah’s face and fuck. That stung like a bitch. She couldn’t help but jerk back at the pain, hands coming up to cover it as she let out a whine. The peaceful empty fog that her brain had been mired in for the last few minutes cleared in an instant. And suddenly, Leah was back in her body, sitting on a worn couch in her friend’s apartment not even an hour out from nearly getting kidnapped and worse.

Her friend, a man she knew for months, was crouched in front of her with frankly too much first aid supplies, like seriously who need that much gauze or paramedic grade tourniquets. He was looking at her with panic in his eyes; James, panicking at her pain; James, a man who apparently has some kind of military type prosthetic with the enhancements or mutations to go with it; James, who came instantly when she called at 2am but for some reason didn’t deign to mention those little character traits.

James, who was looking at Leah like she was the one with three heads, like she was the one that punched through a door, like she was the one to have hidden shit from him for months. Her body moved without her mind catching up with what it was doing. Her hand reeled back, she stared into his wide eyes, and smacked James flat across the face.
“Fucking ow,” Leah grasped at her throbbing hand. Goddammit that was like hitting concrete. At least James had the tact to have moved his head with her hand, probably preventing some broken bones or a dislocated finger to top off her shitty night. But he didn’t move out of the way. A man who was fully, easily capable of taking down multiple armed attackers in an instant didn’t shift slightly to get out of the way of Leah’s little slap, didn’t even try. Just watched her and waited for impact.

As the pain in her hand settled to a dull throbbing and she met James’s gaze to find his eyes filled with pure grief, the fire of Leah’s anger began to flicker and warp. But no, no. She needed answers and if she stopped pushing every time James gave her puppy eyes, she’d never learn anything. So Leah rubbed the palm of her hand with her thumb and hardened her resolve, grabbing onto her rage like it was the only thing keeping her from drowning.

“When were you going to fucking tell me about all this shit, James. Did you think I didn’t deserve to know? Did you,” Leah faltered slightly, choking on her words. “Do you not trust me?”

James’s eyes widened as she stared at him. He opened his mouth as if to start talking, but Leah plowed on.

“Because I'm gonna be honest here bud, it feels like you didn’t trust me. Like, I know your life is your life and you can keep secrets if you want to but James. We’re friends. You're my best friend. I've told you shit I haven’t told anybody since I was a kid. You met my mom. You know when my period is, for god’s sake. And you just didn’t remember to mention the whole mutant thing to me? What, did you think I was some kind of bigot? That I’d be an asshole about it, just because you’ve got some kind of rad arm and super strength? What the actual fuck, James.” Leah’s voice grew higher and sharper as she spoke, finishing her speech at a volume and tone that would probably be painful to most dogs. After, she felt as if every scrap of energy left in her body was drained. Like she was a deflated balloon and all the righteous anger and misguided fear left her in one fell swoop, leaving her sitting on a couch, exhausted, sad, and staring at the man that just saved her life that she just smacked in the face. She needed a fucking nap.

James looked at her for a long time, jaw working as Leah could almost see the gears in his head turning. He opened and closed his mouth at least three times, never breaking eye contact. Just as Leah’s guilt and bone deep fatigue chipped away at her desire for answers to replace it with a desire for a strong drink and a 16 hour nap, James finally looked away.

“Bucky,” he said.

“What?” Leah was caught off guard.

“My name. James is my first name but most people call me Bucky.”

“Why the fuck do most people call you Bucky?”

“It’s short for Buchanan. My full name is James Buchanan Barnes. I'm sorry I never told you.” He said his name like it was some kind of crime, like the words themselves were a confession to an age old offense, and fuck if Leah knew what that meant and she was so not qualified to try to unpack that baggage. But the name, the name was familiar. It scratched at something in the back of her mind.

“Wait, where have I heard that before?” Leah said, mostly to herself. She wracked her overworked brain for the connection when something clicked. The arm. The enhancements. The name. Those assholes that he wrecked, they called him Soldier. “Holy shit.”

Leah searched Jame—no—Bucky’s face, looking for anything that said that she was wrong, that this was some kind of extremely poor taste joke, but no. Nothing. Bucky looked at her, stone-faced and dead-eyed.

“You’re kidding me, right? I'm not that much of an oblivious idiot, to not notice that I'm best friends with the fucking Winter Soldier, right?” Leah could hear the crazed laugh in her voice, pitched higher and higher with every word. She wound her fingers through her hair and gripped tight. “Because if I've been friends with a fucking assassin from the 40’s all this time and didn’t realize it? I'm going. To go. Insane.”

Bucky’s mouth pursed into a thin line as he sat back on his heels, putting more distance between them. But then, that wouldn’t really matter would it? He was a hundred year old super soldier assassin and she was a bartender. There was no contest in who would win there, no question in her mind. As she sat there, nearly pulling chunks out of her scalp, all of the clues that she had brushed off came back to her. His strange strength, never taking off his gloves, never letting her see his apartment. Goddamn it, when they first met he’d even said he was 106. One Hundred and Six. She was fucking blind.

“I can leave if you need,” he said.

What?

“What?” Leah said.

“I can leave you alone,” he repeated.

“But this is your apartment?” The shock of the statement was enough to get her to release her head, unwinding her hands from her hair to let them fall into her lap and stare at him. He let out a dry laugh.

“Then I can call someone to walk you home. Spiderman’s always around getting into shit,” he said, moving to pull his old flip phone from his pocket. Oh god even the flip phone made sense now, she was such an idiot.

“Are you,” Leah started. “Are you telling me to leave?” Any other time she’d be hurt and insulted but now all she could think was, “You’re the one who brought me here?”
***

Bucky looked up to meet Leah’s gaze, expecting to find betrayal and fear but only seeing sharp confusion as she leaned forward more. Getting into his space as she scooted towards him on the couch. Bucky couldn’t help but lean back a little more. Was he intimidated by a woman that couldn’t be much more than a hundred pounds? Maybe, but in his defense that slap hurt.

“No?” he said.

“Then why are you getting someone to walk me home?”

“Because I thought you wanted to not be around me?” Everything he was saying was coming out as a question and it was really starting to bug him.

“I can’t- I don’t want to leave,” she said, the steel in her voice almost masking the falter.

“Why not?” Bucky couldn’t help but ask. Very few people stuck around this long, and none of the ones that had were just normal. Every person that had stuck around in his life since Steve saved him was either a superhero or related to one. No average person wanted to be around an assassin from World War II, and truly Bucky couldn’t blame them.

Leah’s eyes began to frost over with tears and fuck, he said something wrong again.

“Please, please don’t make me leave. I'm sorry I hit you I was just—I was angry and I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have. I can’t—I can’t be alone, not right now.” She collapsed back into the sofa, scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands.

Oh shit, and she was crying again. Give him a world ending alien invasion over comforting a crying friend any day.

Bucky stood up from his crouch, slow and deliberate, to sit next to Leah on the couch.

“Hey, you don’t have to be sorry, doll. It’s alright. I'm not making you go anywhere you don’t want to. It’s just,” he paused, “most normal folks don’t exactly hang with me after figuring out what I am, you know? Took me by surprise that you want to, is all.” Bucky lifted his arm to wrap it around her shoulders but thought better of it when he realized that it was his metal one. Instead he laced his fingers together in his lap, still wearing the surgical gloves, and knocked his knee into hers.

Leah looked up to meet his gaze, eyes red rimmed and weary, and gave him a fierce look.

“Who,” she said, no explanation.

“What?”

“No, not what. Who. You're a who not a what, Bucky.”

A moment passed.

“Oh,” he said, “I see.” He did not see.

She snorted a little, another small tear leaking out the side of her eye. She quickly swiped it away. “You said people leave after they find out [what] you are. You're not a what, you're a who.”

Ok. Well. That was not what Bucky expected. Truthfully, Bucky didn’t really know what he had expected, but it definitely wasn’t a call out of his self-deprecation. Maybe more accusations? Anger at hiding such a big thing from her? Fear, maybe, of the man that she was alone with that had killed more people than he had ever saved? Bucky knew he was gaping like a fish but he was just speechless again. Leah seemed to be very good at doing that.

“And I am sorry. I shouldn’t’ve hit you,” she continued. “I just—everything’s insane and I got it in my head that maybe you thought that I was the insane one? It’s stupid and not an excuse.” She scooted over on the couch, close enough to lean her head on his shoulder, which couldn’t have been comfortable. “And for the record, anybody who didn’t want to be around you after finding out about this is an asshole.”

Bucky paused for a moment more before wrapping his arm around her back. She was so small curled against him.

“Well, for the record, most people seem to think the whole mind controlled assassin thing is kind of a deal breaker.” Bucky wasn’t sure why he was arguing with her about that, but the words left his mouth before he had time to rethink them.

“Bucky, I've seen you near tears while watching the Lilo and Stitch,” she said, jaw cracking with the force of a yawn. “A kinda sketchy past isn’t going to erase that from my memory any time soon.”

“I beat the shit out of two dudes less than an hour ago.”

“Yeah, so?” She yawned again, the vowel drawing out long and stretched. “Those guys kidnapped me, you could’ve bashed their skulls in and I’d still be in this apartment.” Leah’s voice was getting quieter while they talked, the adrenaline finally wearing off enough to let her be tired.

Now, Bucky did not have the time or the certification to unpack that statement, so he leaned back on what he knew.

“We can talk about this more in the morning, Leah. For now, you need a shower. If I give you the stuff to do it, are you ok cleaning that cut yourself?” he asked.

She shook her head, “No, no, you can do it. You’ll be better at it than I would, I'm sure.” Planting an elbow into the couch, she leveraged herself back into a semi sitting position. Bucky mourned the loss of contact as she left his side. It had been a long time since someone was just comfortable around him. A lifetime.

Bucky could feel all the years he’d lived as he stood again to crouch in front of Leah. He busied his hands by grabbing a fresh pad of gauze and soaking it in more iodine. Again he held it up in front of her, offering it if she wanted to do it herself. Leah shook her head and leaned in towards him, eyes scrunched in preparation.

Bucky gently dabbed at the cut on her face again and when she did nothing but suck air through her teeth at the contact, he continued. He wiped away the filth and dried blood from the skin surrounding the cut first, discarding the dirty gauze to soak another piece. As he looked at the cut, he dripped the iodine into it, drawing out a hiss from Leah. Motivated by the knowledge that an uncleaned, closed wound would almost immediately start to fester, he put his free hand on the side of her face to steady her head and stuck the soaked gauze into the wound itself, looking to wipe out any shards of glass or pieces of gravel.

“Fucking hell, Buck, that shit hurts,” she hissed but didn’t pull away. Within moments, Bucky finished his ministrations, finding the cut to be as clean as possible without a good rinsing. He balled up the used gauze in one hand, pulled off his gloves, and threw bundle to the side.

“Well, good news is you don’t need stitches. Bad news is that you’re gonna get a scar. And it wouldn’t hurt to get a tetanus shot, too,” he said.

“How’s a guy from the forties know what a tetanus shot is?” She gave him a pained grin.

“I got a tetanus shot when I enlisted, jackass.” He grinned back, standing with his hand out to pull her off the couch. “Now come on, you really should shower.”
***
Leah took Bucky’s hand to stand up, the warmth of his palm in sharp contrast to the cool metal of his prosthetic that she could feel through the glove as it had pressed to her cheek. Her face still stung from the iodine in her cut, but she knew that without a thorough scrub, she was liable to get some dumb infection. So it was for that and no other reason that she followed Bucky to his bathroom.

Totally not because her skin felt too tight and every piece of dirt under her fingernails and scrape of muck on her arms felt like it was burning her.

Definitely not because she felt that if she scrubbed her skin red and raw she might get rid of the feeling of those hands grabbing her, tossing her around like she was nothing more than cargo.

She was only showering because Bucky wanted her to, to make sure she didn’t get an infection, nothing else.

Leah waited in the small bathroom for a few moments, sitting on the closed toilet seat with her arms crossed as Bucky puttered. He first grabbed a new bar of soap and a towel from under the cabinet, before leaving the room and coming back with a pile of clothes. He laid the clothes on the counter before moving to the shower to turn it on.

“This things kinda testy, so lemme just do this now,” he said, leaning into the shower to jiggle handles. Leah reached over to grab the clothes he left her. They were simple, sweatpants and a t-shirt in different shades of grey, both too large for her by multiple sizes. But they were soft and warm and smelled of lavender detergent. Leah ran her fingers along the worn inner lining of the pants and realized why these were so easy to find in the piles of clothes. They were his favorites.

The shower turned on with a sputter, startling Leah out of her reverie. She looked up to see Bucky, hands on his hips, nod at the shower before turning to meet her gaze.

“You should be good now,” he said. “If you need anything else just holler, I’m not going anywhere.” His face reddened as he glanced at the clothes she was holding. “Sorry, I don’t have anything for, like, underthings.” He gestured to his body in general, obviously trying not to linger in one specific spot and pointedly looking completely away from her as he did.

Leah couldn’t help but giggle. “You’re fine,” she said. “If you think I'm planning on wearing a bra after going through this shit, you're delusional.”

Bucky’s ears went even pinker, clasping his hands behind him as if he were at ease in a line up. “Sounds good, okay, I’ll just. I’ll just leave here now.”

Leah’s eyes followed him as he marched out the door, narrowly avoiding slamming it shut. Probably for the best. As it was, Leah could still hear the wood of the door creak from stress. She shook her head once she was alone.

‘God he really is from the forties’ she thought as she undressed to step into the shower. The man was a literal hundred year old assassin and had saved the world but one mention of a bra and he was a Victorian nobleman who just saw his first woman’s ankle. She would be annoyed if it weren’t so goddamn endearing.

The instant Leah stepped into the shower, her legs turned to jelly. The warm water on her tired body nearly made her collapse and as it was, she had to brace herself against the wall to avoid her legs coming out from underneath her. She was confident that Bucky would come to help should she fall in the shower, but he might never look at her again. Leah’s gaze turned down as the water soaked through her tangled hair and swirled around the drain, tinted beige with the dirt and grime streaming off of her. She grabbed the soap and a washcloth and started scrubbing.

Leah was in the shower until the water ran tepid, scouring every inch of her red and raw. There was not a single particle of dirt, one speck of filth left on her skin. She scrubbed the soap through her hair, under her nails, behind her damn ears for gods sake. At some point, she’d sat down on the floor of the tub, losing all of the energy that was just keeping her upright. By the end of it, she was just sitting on the floor in the stream of the rapidly cooling water, running her fingers through her tangled but clean hair. Leah couldn’t tell if she was crying again or if it was just the water in her eyes.

Leah pulled a hand out of her hair to rub her arms. She hadn’t realized she’d started shivering until rubbing a hand down her skin she found it rough with goosebumps. She took a couple of deep breaths then a couple more, grasped the side of the tub, and forced herself back onto her aching feet. The amount of soap still on the ground nearly made her slip again, but her grip on the fake porcelain kept her from braining herself on the faucet. She stepped out of the shower, not even bothering to try to turn it off after that complicated series of twists and turns that Bucky had to do to turn it on. Leah wrapped herself in the towel, drying off as fast as possible and twisting her hair into it to pile it atop her head.
She pulled on her borrowed clothes, cinching the waist of the pants as tight as possible and tucking in the dress of a shirt.

As Leah busied her hands with self-maintenance, rolling up the cuffs of the too long sweatpants, she finally caught her reflection in the half fogged mirror. She didn’t recognize this version of her gazing out, shades paler with deep, exhausted circles under the eyes and a newly reopened cut bleeding sluggishly down her cheekbone. She looked like a ghost, haunting the apartment of an already haunted man.

A knock on the door made her jump.

“Hey, Leah? You okay in there?” Bucky called.

Leah’s voice cracked as she answered, “Yeah, just a – just a minute, getting dressed.” She quickly grabbed her dirty clothes and made her way out of the bathroom. Bucky stood just a few feet away, throwing pillows onto the newly cleared off mattress. “Sorry, um, I don’t know how to turn off the shower.”

“That’s fine. I changed the sheets on here for you.” He glanced up to see her in the doorway, drowning in his clothes. “Oh shit, you're bleeding again.”

Leah had to stop herself from wiping away the blood she could feel creeping down her face as Bucky grabbed more gauze. Coming up to loom over her, Bucky gently wiped away the trail and pressed the rest of the wad of gauze to her cut, miming for her to hold pressure to it.

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you that it would probably reopen,” he said, walking back to the almost made bed on the floor. “Head wounds bleed like a bitch.”

“I don’t wanna push you out of your bed, Buck. I can take the couch,” she offered.

“Don’t worry about it, doll. I've slept better in a cave than on that thing. Besides, you really think I'm gonna let you sleep on a couch after tonight?” he gave her a small smile. “You must be crazier than me.”

Leah returned his smile as much as she was able, navigating around the messy room to stand by him at the mattress-side. Putting the last pillowcase on, he straightened and grabbed the gauze from where she was pressing it on her face. She saw it disappear into the grip of his metal hand as he walked back to his medical bag, grabbing a large square bandage and tube of something from within the recesses.

“Here, bacitracin and a bandaid. So you don’t get blood on my nice clean sheets,” he said, handing the things to her. Leah looked at them, mind embarrassingly blank.

“I can’t see where to put this, it’s on my face?” The question for help hovered between them, above her hands where the first aid supplies laid, unasked.

“What?” Bucky gave her a look before the realization dawned. “Ohhh. Sure, sorry about that.” He took the bandage back, making quick work of dressing the wound that felt like it should be bigger, more important. Not just something that could be covered up with a bandaid and some Neosporin. Leah went through the worst night of her life and all she had to show she survived was a little scratch that would heal completely in a couple weeks? Bullshit. She should at have gotten a cool scar out of that whole ordeal.

The cool metal of Bucky’s prosthetic hand met Leah’s cheek as he smoothed the bandage down.

Oh shit, she thought. Maybe don’t share that.

“There you go, all set,” he said, laying a hand on her shoulder for a moment before he pulled away quick. The near instant chill she felt on her shoulder from the metal made Leah realize just why Bucky was always wearing leather gloves.

“Thanks,” she said, eyes starting to close outside her own volition. The night had caught up to Leah about a half hour ago and was now knocking on her door to collect its dues. Though she did hope that Bucky understood just how much she was thanking him for. He was very literally the only reason she got out of there as unscathed as she did, or even at all. He’d dropped everything for her in the middle of the night, saving her ass in a very literal way, and since then had been a paragon of kindness and understanding, even when she felt she didn’t exactly deserve it.

Bucky was her best friend and she hoped he knew that, that he could hear it in the crack of her voice, because she sure as hell was not up for talking anymore for the next 12 hours.

Leah only realized she’d started swaying where she stood when Bucky’s hands landed on her shoulders to steady her. She startled at the contact before leaning into the touch, allowing him to lead her over to the mattress on the floor. They’d have to talk about that, that’s a good way to get a moldy mattress. She turned around with his direction, sitting heavily onto the edge where the covers were pulled back, and allowed herself to be guided to lay on her side.

Well, less allowed and more just kinda let it happen. Thoughts were flitting in and out of her head at that point, nothing substantial enough to grab onto and hold. The exhausted fog seeping into every corner of her skull made sure of that. Thinking just then was like trying to catch fireflys. You could see them light up, watch the trail they made in the gloom, but by the time you got to where you last saw them, they’d already blinked out and flown away, nothing but a buzz left in the air. She was dimly aware of blankets being pulled over her as the rest of her senses began to slip away. The last thing she remembered before finally succumbing to sleep was heavy footsteps and the sound of running water stopping.
***
Bucky was abso-fucking-lutely flabbergasted. He tucked Leah in in a daze, trying not to think of just how many times he’d done the exact same thing for Steve when they were young and he rode himself ragged over the course of a day of doing stuff he most definitely wasn’t meant to be doing. She was even his size. Or at least, his size before the army got to him.

He walked to the shower automatically, nearly breaking off one of the knobs on it in his haze, and went back out to sit on the couch. Logically, Bucky knew that Leah was just tired, just physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted with no other health issues, major or minor, to warrant his keeping watch. But he’d be damned if he could take her eyes off her, could ignore the sound of her deep breathing, could push away the extended adrenaline he was feeling and get some rest of his own.

But all he could see when he took his eyes off Leah was her sprawled out in the back of some grungy van, gasping for air under the heel of two men twice her size. And sometimes when he closed his eyes for too long he could imagine what could’ve happened if he’d followed through on his threat to Sam to put his phone on silent.

Oh shit, his phone. Bucky started tapping pockets, looking for the damned thing. When that turned up nothing, he started searching the floor. He stepped as quietly as he could, but quickly realized that Leah was about as dead to the world as they come without chemical assistance. He found it fairly quickly. It was open on the floor a few feet away from the door. Picking it up, he checked the screen.

Ongoing call, received from Leah, timer counting 71:53.

71:53.

One hour and eleven minutes.

The entire encounter, from beating the shit out of some traffickers to giving one of his only friends multiple panic attacks to the first time he’d told somebody his identity and they didn’t go absolutely shithouse, took an hour and eleven minutes.

One of the most traumatic experiences of Leah’s life was started and finished in less time than it took to watch a movie.
It had felt like days. It had felt like minutes. And it was over.

Bucky clacked the phone closed, sat heavily onto the couch with a deep inhale and started cleaning out his arm plates. If there was anything Bucky had come to excel at in the past few years of owning his mind again, it was the ability to keep it occupied.

The repetitive motions of maintenance coupled with the sound of soft, deep breathing carried him through the next hour of adrenaline crash. At the point when his muscles started twitching, he’d gotten up to inhale a banana and chug some water before quickly returning to his self-imposed vigil. When his eyes started to fall themselves, Bucky glanced over at Leah, her face hidden in the piles of blankets, and turned on the TV, muted, onto some random animal documentary about Antarctica.

It was when he was absentmindedly watching a leopard seal play with a penguin corpse that the noise in the apartment changed. Instead of the quiet snuffling and occasional snore from Leah, he heard her whimper and everything in him tensed. As he stared over at where she lay, trying to find her face in the recesses of fabric, he heard the start of a high pitched keening, gaining in volume as it continued. That’s when she started thrashing.

Leaping up and over to her, Bucky threw off the covers that she was tangling herself in to find Leah in the throes of a night terror, her face a mask of fear as she howled, her hands coming up to scratch at the bandage on her face, catching more of the skin around it than anything else.

“Leah!” he said, not quite shouting, and grabbed her by the wrists to stop her. If anything, it just made the nightmare worse as she tried to fight against his steel grip. She screamed and thrashed against him, feet beating against his legs, head thumping into the pillow as he tried more and more to wake her.

“Leah, doll it’s me, its James, you're okay, you're safe, nobody’s gonna hurt you, please wake up, Leah please, you're safe.” Transferring both her wrists into one hand, Bucky used his other to press Leah’s head into the pillow as he pleaded. The contact on her forehead gave her pause and Bucky could’ve laughed with relief.

The keening slowed to a stop in moments and then her eyes opened. Bucky could see the fear and confusion in them for a moment as she shook off the remnants of the dream, gaze shiny with unshed tears. She focused on his face, inches from hers and the fear melted away to pure grief as she looked at him.

“Bucky,” Leah said, voice weak and wavering.

“It’s me, you're safe, I promise.”

“I--,” she started, before her abused voice cracked. That was apparently all that was needed for the tears to gather in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks. Bucky released her wrists for her to wipe at her face and moved to not be crouched directly above her when one of her hands grasped onto his sleeve as he moved.

“Please stay,” Leah said and what could he say to that but—

“Okay.”

Bucky climbed into bed next to her, laying on his back with his arms crossed over his chest. He stared at the light from the still on TV shining at the ceiling, giving Leah the time she needed to collect herself enough to try to sleep again. Gasping sniffles floated their way to Bucky’s ears as he lay there. Minutes later Bucky felt a hand snake its way around his flesh bicep, looping her arm into his. Bucky let his arm fall to his side and she held onto it like a bear, one arm wrapped around it, the other with her hand in his. It was only moments before he could hear her sleepy breathing again, deep and even.

Between the stress of the night, the comfort of laying horizontal, and the warmth of a body beside him, Bucky could feel himself falling asleep. It only took one last glance at Leah’s face, smooth and peaceful in sleep, for him to close his eyes and allow himself to rest. He was out within seconds.
***
Leah woke up hours later to an apartment bathed in sunshine. She was sprawled out onto her back, blankets half on her, half stolen. Her throat was that special kind of dry sore that said that she had definitely been snoring.

As she shifted, Leah realized how she was laying. Most of her limbs were sprawled out, one leg over the covers, the other tangled with Bucky’s; one arm hanging off the mattress, the other pinned against her side. Her head was pillowed on Bucky’s flesh arm, with the other one wrapped around her waist, the metal of it warmed by the contact.

Moving to pull some of the covers back from the thief, Leah readjusted herself in Bucky’s hold, wiping drool off the side of her mouth quickly as she glanced at his face. Leah never truly realized just how solemn Bucky usually was until that moment, face smoothed in peaceful sleep, lines of worry and age gone as he rested.

Later there would be things to do, people to call, experiences to process and grieve. But that wasn’t then.

Right then, Leah was in the haze between awake and asleep, warm and comfortable and safe in the arms of the Winter Soldier, who was apparently a goddamn blanket hog.