AUTHOR'S NOTES: I cut it a little close, but I managed to update before the month ended, YES!! This would've been up sooner, but heaping salt on the Thunderbolts trailer distracted me, whoops. Anyways, enjoy.

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The next morning, Roxanne woke up and found Bucky already awake. He was sitting on the bedroom's couch, hunched over and looking down. He glanced up to look at Ro when he heard her stirring awake and sitting up on the bed. Something about him seemed off, but she couldn't quite tell what.

"Good morning," she greeted. "Did you sleep well?"

"As a matter of fact, I did," Bucky retorted. The truth was that he didn't sleep at all. He had forced himself to stay awake and watch her all night out of paranoia, but she had no way of knowing any of that. Or so he thought.

She slightly narrowed her eyes at him. Not only was she able to catch that the man's reply had been a lie thanks to her tingling temples telling her so, but even if she hadn't possessed that power, it wasn't hard to guess by the dark circles under Bucky's eyes that he wasn't as well-rested as he claimed to be. She briefly considered further probing him about it, but she once again decided it was best to leave it alone. After all, under their current circumstances, him being on edge was understandable. She herself had taken a pretty long while to finally fall asleep. The night before wasn't even close to being amongst her most restful ones, but she at least had managed to gather enough energy to take on a new day.

"How soon until we leave for D.C.?" Bucky demanded.

Ro rolled her eyes. Would it kill the guy to give her time to fully wake up first? She stretched her arms and her back as she stood up from the bed, loosening her locked joints.

"Well, first, I'm going to need to brush my teeth and get dressed," Ro explained. "Then, I'm going to need to pack before we grab breakfast in the lobby."

Now, it was Bucky's turn to roll his eyes.

"Everything you just said sounds like it will take at least an hour," Bucky complained. "And what do we need to get breakfast at the lobby for? It'll be a lot faster if we just eat the food I brought with me."

"What are you in such a hurry for?" Ro scolded as she walked to the bathroom. "D.C. and the museum are still going to be there an hour from now. They'll still be there two, even three, hours from now. Also, breakfast came with the price of the room. It'd be a waste not to take advantage of that."

Bucky growled in frustration as he laid back on the couch.

"You know what? Fine," he relented reluctantly. "We'll do this your way, but we better be out of here within two hours."

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45 minutes. They left the inn within 45 minutes, which was faster than Bucky's initial estimate, but this did not seem to impress him at all. In fact, Bucky spent the entire morning, including the two-hour train ride to D.C., in the same cheerless mood he had been in since last night. Roxanne had tried to converse with him to make the commute more bearable, but Bucky had been determined to remain silent and irritated. In the end, all Ro could do was put on her earbuds and listen to her music until the train reached its destination.

Once they arrived at D.C., the two continued on foot, with the young woman leading the way. Despite only previously having been there once, the years she had spent living on the street had made Ro develop a very good sense of orientation, allowing her to remember the way with a decent amount of accuracy. Ironically enough, her escape from the Winter Soldier made it even easier for her to remember how far the museum was from their current location.

Around 20 minutes of walking later, the pair finally reached the large facade of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. At the entrance booth, Ro bought tickets for the two of them and they entered. Still leading the way, she led Bucky to an area that seemed to be getting more influx than any other within the museum, the Captain America exhibit.

Bucky looked up to see the large banners bearing pictures of the hero, most of which depicted him looking up to the skies in a heroic fashion. Bucky raised an eyebrow and scoffed to himself as he saw this. He wasn't entirely sure why, but there was something about seeing this man being depicted in such an idealized and serious manner that made him want to roll his eyes and laugh at the same time, not that he could remember what laughter felt like.

"And this place is supposed to help me remember stuff about my own past, how?" he asked Ro, unamused, as they headed towards the exhibit area.

"Well, you'll see more once we enter," she began explaining, "but it's not just about Steve. I mean, yes, it's mostly a commemoration of Steve's achievements during the War, but..."

She trailed off, suddenly realizing something she hadn't really considered before. She stopped walking and turned to look at Bucky with worry. He glanced back at her and was caught slightly off-guard by the tenderness he found in her expression, which was something he was most definitely not used to being shown.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"It's just that, the memories this exhibit may unlock, there's a good chance they won't be the most pleasant ones," she explained with a bit of apprehension in her face. "It seems fair to give you a heads-up about that. You, uh, you still okay with entering?"

Grimacing briefly at her, the man simply ignored Ro's warning and walked past her and towards the exhibit, with the girl letting out a defeated sigh and following behind.

Bucky wasn't about to tell her this, but the truth was, almost none of the flashes of memory he had been getting since his defection had been pleasant. Even those that had the semblance of being from a more blissful time left him with a feeling of uneasiness as he was unable to fully recall their context, who the people he saw were, or even if they occurred before or after the several horrific memories of battlefields and dead bodies. At this point, he didn't really care if what he would find would be pretty or ugly. He just wanted something, anything, that could further help him put together the puzzle of his own identity.

Bucky raised the collar of his jacket around his neck, trying his best to hide his face as he tried to blend within the crowd. His pace gradually slowed down as he looked around at the many items and plaques on display, which as expected, revolved around Steve Rogers.

"A symbol to the nation. A hero to the world," a man's voice was heard in a recording through the exhibit's speakers. "The story of Captain America is one of honor, bravery, and sacrifice."

The narration continued almost unintelligibly as Bucky kept looking around, seemingly not getting too invested or hung up on anything he laid eyes upon, though internally, an odd mix of dread and familiarity was growing inside him the more he looked. Ro followed a few feet behind him, her eyes on Bucky the entire time. She was quietly starting to question whether bringing him to this place had been a good idea. Would remembering the horrors of war do him more bad than good? What if he saw something that triggered an extreme reaction? It was too late to leave this place now, so all she could do was pray and keep a close eye on her companion.

"Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield," the recording narrated as a particular item caught Bucky's eye. "Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of this country."

The man took careful steps towards a plaque titled "A Fallen Comrade." On that plaque was the name "James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes," and next to that name was a black-and-white picture of a man's face. HIS face. The picture had shorter hair and was slightly younger and more clean-shaven, but Bucky knew with one look that it was, in fact, his own face. Written beneath the name were the dates "1917 - 1944". He felt his breath catch in his throat as he stared at the picture and read the words on the plaque. The longer he stared, the more unpleasant memories began to resurface in his mind.

Unable to even imagine what must've been going through the man's head as he stood in front of his own memorial, Roxanne gave Bucky some space as she herself also studied the plaque from a respectful distance. The last time she had been in this museum, she hadn't paid any mind to this particular part of the exhibit, remembering how Manuel's class's tour guide had simply given James "Bucky" Barnes a brief mention before promptly returning to the main topic of Captain America.

This time, everything was different. Not only did she now see Captain America, Steve, in a different, more human light than the untouchable, god-like hero she thought he was on her last visit, or even when Maria Hill personally introduced her to him, but she also now saw Bucky. In a matter of a few weeks, he had become real to her in the most unexpected of ways. She never would've guessed she would end up here, back at this museum, accompanied by Steve Roger's "Fallen Comrade," but there they were now.

Once she felt enough time had passed, Ro cautiously began to approach Bucky. However, she sympathetically maintained her silence and her distance. Sensing her presence nearby, the man finally looked away from the younger picture of himself and blinked a few times as he cleared his throat, attempting to feign disinterest. He shouldn't have bothered. The young woman beside him had witnessed his true reaction from afar.

"So, your idea for getting me to remember who I am is to have me read a bunch of plaques written by people who have never once met me and who probably weren't even alive at the time?" Bucky scoffed, trying to hide his growing nausea from Roxanne.

"Okay, maybe the museum isn't as unbiased of a source as I thought it would be," Ro admitted, "but I was just hoping that maybe the pictures and items on display might jog your memory a little. Is there anything here that has triggered any memories?"

"I remember falling off a train going through some mountains," Bucky recalled, shuddering, "and a few other not-so-good memories."

"Like what?" Ro asked.

Like getting imprisoned in a metal and cement fortress with at least a hundred other soldiers. Like succumbing to exhaustion after days upon days of backbreaking labor and beatings. Like screaming his throat raw as a short, balding man with glasses strapped him to a table and subjected him to what felt like countless torturous experiments. Like repeating a string of words and numbers that once meant something over and over to himself just to stay sane. But, of course, Bucky wasn't going to share any of that with this girl he had known for less than a day.

"Like none of your business!" he snapped before striding away from her.

Roxanne grit her teeth at Bucky's response. She considered herself a rather kind and patient person, but being kind and patient took much more effort than most people give it credit for. Besides, even kind and patient people have limits on how much disrespect they can tolerate, and Bucky was officially testing Ro's. She dashed after him and cut him off, glaring into his dour, blue eyes.

"Listen, I understand why you're distrustful, and I'm not trying to force you to share anything you don't want to," she began, her voice as stern as her glare, "but I'm genuinely being nice to you here, and so far, you've been nothing but rude to me in response. If that's how you're going to keep on acting, this may not work at all."

Bucky blinked at her in surprise. No one had ever spoken to him like that before. At least, he couldn't remember anyone ever speaking to him that way. He could tell Roxanne was angry with him, but usually when his handlers became angry with him, their faces and voices would erupt with hatred and contempt, and blows would soon follow. Roxanne's anger was tempered with gentleness and compassion, as if she was angry with him but didn't want to be. He didn't know it was possible for people to feel that way. If Roxanne was angry with him, then surely he had done something to deserve the full force of her wrath, so why was she holding it back?

"Are you threatening to leave?" he asked, failing to hide his bewilderment.

"You said that I could, and you're seriously making me want to," she replied before pausing to take a calming breath, "but I won't, for now."

Bucky considered further pushing Roxanne into leaving him alone. On one hand, he could stop worrying about this girl betraying him and/or killing him, but maybe he had never been in any danger of that in the first place. Besides, that man he had pulled from the river had told her things about him, things he desperately needed to know. If she left now, he would never know them. No, he needed to keep her around, at least for a little bit longer.

"Look, I'm not trying to be rude," Bucky relented, "and as far as I can tell, you actually seem like you're trying to help me, so I'm going to make a deal with you. I'm willing to trust you more if you're willing to give me more reasons to trust you."

Ro frowned, wondering what Bucky could possibly want from her that would make him more open to trusting her.

"You want me to tell you what Steve told me about you," she realized.

"You implied that you would eventually," Bucky pointed out. "You might as well tell me now that we've seen what a bunch of historians had to say about me."

The girl weighed her options, taking Bucky's argument into account. Finally, she let out a sigh of defeat.

"Fine," Ro conceded. "I'll tell you over lunch."

"Lunch?" Bucky asked as if he had never heard that word before in his life.

"It's past noon, and I'm hungry. Aren't you?"

Feeling hungry was an unfamiliar concept for Bucky not because he never felt hunger but because he had been trained to ignore it. As the Winter Soldier, he only ate when his handlers told him he could, and he was only fed enough to keep him alive. After he ran away, he only ate twice a day on a strict schedule, regardless of how he felt at the moment, which meant this would be his first time having an actual lunch in decades.

"Well, now that you brought it up, maybe a little bit."

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As the two exited the museum together, Roxanne looked around for the nearest place where they could get something to eat. Bucky, still too absorbed in the flashes he had gotten in the exhibition, followed her absent-mindedly.

Since it was lunchtime, several food stalls were beginning to gather around the area. Suddenly, Ro spotted a nearby hotdog stand, her mouth beginning to water and eyes practically sparkling at this sight. She hurriedly asked Bucky if he would like to get one, and the shrug she got in response was more than enough to get her to dash out towards the cart to get in the line of customers. Bucky caught up to her at a much lower speed. He had probably never seen anyone get this enthusiastic about food before in his life.

A few short minutes later, they finally reached the front of the line, and the girl took a good look at all the topping options available.

"Can I get a hotdog with everything on it, please?" she asked the vendor before turning to Bucky. "James, what would you like on yours?"

Hearing what he now knew was his name made the man momentarily snap out of his still distracted state, and he stole a quick, uninterested glance at the condiments on the cart. "Uh, mustard. Just mustard. Maybe a little extra mustard."

"Okay," Ro replied as she took her wallet out of her back pocket.

Once the vendor prepared both items, he handed them to Roxanne who in return handed him the cash. She thanked him with a smile and began walking away, an unsmiling Bucky trailing behind. The two sat down at a free plastic table placed among several others right outside the Smithsonian, where other people were also having lunch.

Ro handed Bucky his hotdog with extra mustard. He took the sandwich in his gloved hands and stared at it, almost as if he didn't even know what he was supposed to do with it.

"Oh, at last, you are mine," Ro said to her hotdog, licking her lips excitedly. She bit into it, getting juice and condiments on her nose and chin. Thankfully, she took plenty of napkins with her before they left the vendor.

Bucky followed Ro's lead and bit into his hotdog as well, though much less eagerly. He couldn't remember the last time he had a hotdog, but something about the whole experience, from the snap of the casing to the salty, beefy steam filling his nose and mouth, felt familiar. He could feel the taste and smell pulling him into a memory buried so deep in the past he was surprised he could still remember it.

"James, are you alright?" Roxanne asked, noticing the distant expression on Bucky's face as he slowly chewed.

Bucky swallowed and turned towards her. "What?"

"Are you alright?" she repeated. "Is there something wrong with your hotdog?"

Bucky looked from Ro to the hotdog and back before answering, "No, the hotdog is fine. It's just that I..." He paused, turning back to the hotdog and staring at it as if his thoughts had suddenly appeared on it in writing. "I just remembered something."

"Oh, okay. Do you want to tell me about it, or would you rather not say?"

Bucky studied Roxanne's face as she took another bite of her hotdog, dripping condiments on her shirt and the tabletop as she did so. Bucky contemplated keeping the memory to himself, but something about this memory was different from the ones he remembered inside the museum. This one was not only older, but it seemed brighter and felt safer to share.

"I, I was at a place," he recounted as he looked down, trying to focus on the memory before it left his mind completely. "It was crowded and had all these booths and buildings with bright colors and a Ferris wheel and a roller coaster. I think there was also a place that sold hotdogs."

"Coney Island?" Ro asked as she cleaned herself with a few more napkins.

"What's that?"

"It's a place in New York with these amusement parks," she explained. "Some of the rides have been around for ages."

"Well, for some reason, I remember being there. I remember waiting in line for the roller coaster with some skinny, little kid with blonde hair," Bucky recalled, his eyes seeming to light up. "I remember being so excited, but the kid I was with, not so much. I remember saying, 'Come on, Steve. It'll be fun.'"

Bucky paused, realizing what he had just said.

"My God, I did know him," he gasped.

"Do you remember anything else?" Ro asked. She had heard this story before from Steve, but listening to Bucky tell it and watching his facial expressions change as he told it made Roxanne feel as if she was finally getting a glimpse of the real Bucky, and she wanted to see and hear more.

"I remember getting on the roller coaster with him," he continued. "We were having fun until he threw up afterwards, or..." He trailed off, his eyes darkening and his face becoming increasingly distressed. "At least, that's what I think happened. Was it how it happened?"

Seeing Bucky's growing anguish made Roxanne also become concerned. She rattled her brain, trying to think of what she could possibly do to help him calm down, and suddenly, her face lit up as if a lightbulb had turned on inside her head.

"Hold that thought, okay? I think I have an idea," she stood up from her chair and placed her nearly-finished hotdog close to Bucky's nearly-whole one. "Watch this for a moment, I'll be right back."

She then sprinted back towards the museum. Bucky was bewildered by the randomness of this action but stayed in place as he continued to ruminate on this latest memory and what it meant, completely ignoring his food.

Roxanne returned less than five minutes later, carrying a paper gift bag in her hands. She sat back down on her vacant chair as she placed the bag on top of the table.

"I bought you this at the gift shop," she explained as she took out the contents of the bag and presented it to Bucky. It was a medium-size, hard-back notebook covered in faux brown leather. A ribbon of matching color protruded from the bottom between two of its pages, acting like a bookmark.

The man took the notebook in his hands and inspected it. She really had bought that for him? When was the last time someone had gotten him a gift? He opened it and saw that a simple pen was attached to the inside with a small elastic. He flipped through the blank pages of lined paper before looking at Roxanne once again.

"What's this for?"

"Well, I, I know what it's like to have memories that come and go," she answered in a somewhat melancholy tone before perking up a little and looking up at Bucky's face. "So, I figured, if you wanted, you could use this notebook to write your memories down while they're fresh, and that way, you don't have to worry about them fading. As long as you have the notebook, you can go back and revisit them."

Bucky looked from the notebook to Ro a few times, once again unsure of how to respond, which seemed to be becoming a normal occurrence around this young woman. Before too long passed, however, he took the pen out of the holder, turned to the journal's second page, and rapidly began writing down what was left of the Coney Island memory in his mind's eye with as much detail as he managed to grasp. As he did this, Ro grabbed the remainder of her hotdog and looked away respectfully as she continued eating.

She finished her lunch at around the same time Bucky finished his writing. He closed the notebook and placed it face down on the table, resting his left hand on top of it.

"So, did that help a little?" Ro asked him with a hopeful smile.

Bucky gave an absent nod as he had once again become absorbed in his thoughts, staring blankly down at his new notebook.

Ro's smile faded as she studied her companion's distant expression. "Is something wrong?"

Blinking, Bucky looked all around him, checking to see that no other person was looking their way or paying attention to them. Once he made sure this was the case, he brought his hands close to his chest and removed his left glove, leaving his metal hand exposed. Surprised by this, Ro discreetly looked around as well before returning her attention to Bucky, who contemplated his metallic fingers intently as he slowly flexed them, an almost imperceptible whirring sound being heard as he moved them.

"Those kids in my memories," he spoke under his breath, sadness invading his voice as he kept his gaze locked on his metal hand, "they were so young and innocent and carefree. How did, how did one of them end up becoming," he paused, "me?"

Having no idea how to respond to that, Roxanne kept on looking at Bucky with pity and sadness in her eyes. An uncomfortable silence fell between them for a while before the girl finally thought of something to break it.

"Do you, uhm, still want me to tell you what Steve told me about you, or would you rather save that for another time?"

Bucky then returned his attention to Ro. He had gotten so caught up in the sudden flashback that he had almost forgotten about the condition he had given the girl just a few minutes prior.

He gave his answer some thought. He did still want to know what Steve had told Roxanne about him, but the amount of good and bad memories he had gotten in such a short period of time had frankly exhausted him. Besides, the brief conflict between him and the girl seemed to have calmed down, so there probably wasn't that much risk of her walking away. At least, not today.

"On second thought," Bucky finally spoke as he placed his glove back on his left hand, "maybe let's take a raincheck on that. I think I've had enough memories for today."

"Alright, if that's what you want," Ro replied understandingly. "So, does that mean you're willing to try and trust me more?"

The ex-assassin locked his eyes on her for a moment, raising an eyebrow, before finally giving a shrug. "Sure, why not?"

The arachnid hero's temples tingled, and her shoulders slumped in disappointment. "You still don't trust me."

"I just told you I did," Bucky retorted.

"But you didn't mean it."

"And what makes you so sure of it?"

"I can tell when people lie to me!"

Realizing what she had just said, Ro's eyes widened in alarm and a light gasp escaped her lips. She looked around herself once again and, as hoped, it seemed as if no one had minded her exclamation enough to call attention towards herself and Bucky. When she looked back at the man, it seemed as if his expression had frozen into a completely and utterly puzzled one.

"You can, 'tell'?" he echoed her words, his voice sounding as confused as he looked, "What is that supposed to mean?"

Ro's tense shoulders relaxed a bit. This situation reminded her greatly of when she had confessed to Maria Hill about possessing this unique ability. Back then, Ro had decided that it was best to share this knowledge with the SHIELD agent in order to prove that she was trustworthy. It would only be fair to do the same with Bucky. The thought that he could see this as an unintentional invasion of his privacy and prefer to walk away once she told him crossed her mind, but regardless of what he chose to do with it, this was information that he deserved to possess as her ally.

Ro exhaled sharply. "It means exactly what it sounds like," she explained as she began to fidget with a few strands of her hair, avoiding Bucky's gaze. "Whenever someone lies to me, something inside me literally lets me know it's a lie. It's one of my powers, like how I throw webs or can climb walls and such. Don't ask me why I have it or what it has to do with a spider's abilities because I don't know. I just, have it."

When she looked back up to see Bucky's expression, it had turned from confused to pensive, though his eyes remained on her. Ro was starting to believe that this man could win a staring contest against anyone on the planet.

"So, when I told you that I slept well this morning?" he began.

"I knew you hadn't," Roxanne finished.

"And you just let me lie to you?"

"It was your first night since you escaped alone with a stranger, and I knew you'd be on edge," she explained. "What exactly was I going to accomplish by getting on your case about you not sleeping?" She paused and her expression and tone softened. "Plus, to your credit, you haven't really lied to me ever since we met. Other than that, I mean."

Bucky sighed, confessing, "If any of my handlers could do what you can, they'd punish me every time I lied, no matter how small, not that I knew how to back then."

"I'm not your handler," Ro noted rather bitterly.

"Would you like to be?"

"No!" Roxanne cried. To Bucky's surprise, she seemed lividly offended, but her anger didn't seem directed at him specifically.

"Why would I want to be your handler?" she continued. "I know you haven't known me for long, but what about me makes you think I'd want to use my powers to hurt people?"

Bucky gave her one long, deeply intense stare and admitted, "Absolutely nothing. Which doesn't make any sense. You know what else doesn't make any sense? The fact that you didn't even try hiding that you can tell whenever I lie. I mean, what do you even gain from telling me that? If I'm going to be completely honest, nothing about you makes any sense."

"Thank you for your honesty," Ro deadpanned before softening, "and I want you to continue being honest with me, but don't feel as if you have to tell me everything. If there's anything you want to keep to yourself, just let me know, and I'll respect your boundaries."

"You mean all I have to do is tell you that I don't want to tell you something, and you'll leave it alone? Just like that?" Bucky asked.

"Well, yeah, pretty much," she replied with a shrug. "If there's something you're not comfortable telling me, you can always just write it down in your notebook," she then looked him straight in the eye with a solemn expression. "I'm never going to read what you write in it, I promise."

Bucky glanced at the notebook for a moment before looking back at Roxanne. His gaze had softened slightly, but he still looked overall unconvinced.

"Look, I'm aware of how unfair of an advantage this specific power gives me over others," she claimed. "But if you're willing to be honest and transparent, then I'm 100% willing to do the same. And if you're still not ready to take my word for it, then..."

She trailed off and hesitated for a moment, pondering on what she was about to suggest. After giving it some thought, she lightly nodded in determination and spoke.

"If you want, I can take you to Steve in person."

In the blink of an eye, Bucky's expression turned into one of barely concealed shock as he let Ro's statement sink in.

"What?"

"I know you said you didn't want to hear the stories he told me today," she elaborated, "but whenever you do want to hear them, well, he'll definitely tell them better than me, given how he's the one who was there with you in the first place. I still believe what I told you about those stories just being who Steve expects you to be, but," she paused and let out a regretful sigh, "at the end of the day, the decision should be up to you, not me."

Bucky's jaw had dropped in disbelief, and he turned his still astonished glance away from Ro. His brow furrowed in deep thought as he considered her offer very carefully. Could he possibly be ready to face that man once again? The two of them had been friends a long, long time ago, that much he knew was true at this point. But the last time the two had met had gone so, SO very badly. True, he had saved Steve from drowning, but that had been mere minutes after shooting and trying to bludgeon him to death. Not to mention, Steve was unconscious at that point, and Bucky had only saved him more or less on a reflex.

On top of what he could remember more clearly of this recent encounter, he also knew he had faced him at least once before as the Winter Soldier. Maybe more times than that. If he had to guess, it might have occurred not long before his most recent mind reset because those specific flashes somehow felt a lot more vivid than most. The desperation on Steve's face as he tried to make him remember who he used to be was as clear as a photograph in his head. As was the image of his bloodied, bruised face as the Soldier was about to finish him off, about to finish his mission. To this day, the last thing Steve had told him just before falling into the river still echoed in his head.

"...because I'm with you till the end of the line."

The former soldier still wasn't entirely certain about what that man had once meant to him, but one thing was for sure. He had hurt Steve. Hurt him badly, and not just physically. How could he possibly face him again?

"I get that it's not an easy decision to make," Roxanne told Bucky, bringing him back to reality and to the present. "And you don't have to answer me right now. If you ever feel ready to see him, you just have to say the word, and I'll contact him so that you can talk to him in person."

The man still didn't look back at her. He had no idea what to say.

This girl was so... understanding and gentle. So drastically, dramatically different from everyone and everything he had gotten used to dealing with. She didn't seem to have any expectations for him, neither good nor bad. And seemingly, all she asked for in return was for him to give her a chance and, of course, some respect. That was it.

There had to be a catch, right? Was she trying to manipulate him? That frankly felt unlikely. There were far more effective ways to do that, and none of them involved doing or offering to do half the things she had done for him. Besides, it wasn't as if there was any need for him to be manipulated. Everything had always been very straight forward with his past handlers. They simply needed to give him an order, and he would comply, no questions asked. Then again, she insisted she wasn't his handler. She certainly didn't act like one. What did she want, then? Surely, no one could show this much compassion towards him without an ulterior motive. He was probably the last person to deserve it, after all, so why bother?

"James?" Ro called his attention as she saw him remain unresponsive for a bit too long.

He finally regarded the girl, who was looking at him expectantly.

"I, I'll have to think about it," he said in a gloomy tone as he grabbed the brown notebook once again and contemplated it. "I have a lot to think about."

"Yeah, I understand," Ro told him softly. She then saw the pen that came with the notebook still lying on top of their table, and another idea came to her.

She moved her chair slightly closer to Bucky's and picked the pen up. "Hey, is it okay if I write something down in the last page of your notebook?"

Bucky once again gave her a confused look, though this one was much more brief. He opened the notebook to its last page and handed it to his companion. Ro placed it on the table in front of her and then brought her backpack to her lap, proceeding to open it and rummaging for something inside of it. She quickly found what she was looking for, the flip phone. She flipped its lid open and pressed a few keys before finally starting to write something on the notebook's lined page, looking from the phone screen to the paper.

She turned the notebook over and slid it towards Bucky, while simultaneously turning the phone's small screen towards him. Both the cellphone and the page displayed the name "Steve Rogers", and under it, a series of digits.

"This is Steve's phone number," Ro explained as Bucky compared the writings on screen and paper, confirming that they were identical. "I'll give it to you, so, in case you ever decide to leave, you'll still have the option of contacting him."

She then shut the notebook closed and gave it a last little push towards Bucky. Then, she put the old cellphone away in her backpack. Bucky felt legitimately surprised as he kept staring at the notebook, slowly realizing what having this meant.

Roxanne had genuinely given him the option of freedom.

Up until now, the biggest reason he had to stay around her was so that she could tell him what she had heard from Steve about him. But now, he didn't need her for that. He really could walk away from her any time he pleased and still have a way to access the information he wanted, and from its original source, no less. True, at this moment, he didn't dare access said original source, but he was nonetheless given the key.

And it was given to him willingly. He didn't have to threaten or harm Roxanne in order to get it. She had chosen to do it.

"You," Bucky began in a murmur, practically at a loss for words, "you're really okay with giving this information to me?"

He turned to look at Ro's face, and she softened it into a smile. A genuine, heartwarmingly tender smile. Probably the first one that Bucky had seen in years, and it took him aback, though not in a bad way.

"Of course," she replied without hesitation.

He lingered on her sincere expression and her kind green eyes for a bit before looking down once more. Ever since she had told him about her unique power, Bucky had wanted to resent her for taking away one of his only means of protecting himself from her, especially since, as far as he can tell, she still had the ability to hurt and manipulate him with dishonesty. To his surprise, no matter how much he tried, Bucky was unable to resent her, at all. How could he? He had never felt so safe around another human before. Even though he had no surefire way of knowing it, he somehow finally became convinced that this young woman, in fact, was telling the truth. She had been all along.

Bucky turned the notebook in his hands over and over again as he ruminated on Roxanne's almost angelic kindness towards him. Despite his best efforts not to, he couldn't help but feel a certain fondness for the girl, which filled him with a warmth he hadn't felt in a long time. In fact, if it hadn't been for this girl, he might have started believing such warmth didn't exist at all.

Unfortunately, he found himself fully incapable of expressing these feelings. The closest he got was a sad, half-hearted "Thanks." He wasn't even able to look at her as he said it.

Noticing Bucky's continued gloom, Ro reached for his hand, seeking to further comfort him. Bucky felt a jolt of fear pass through him as he sensed Ro's hand coming closer to his. He reflexively grabbed Roxanne by the wrist before she could touch him and pushed her away. The first thing he saw as he turned towards her was her startled face. They both froze for a moment, staring into each other's wide eyes. Upon realizing what he had done, Bucky slowly released her. Roxanne turned away from him, rubbing her wrist with a mildly pained grimace.

Suddenly, the warmth and fondness were strangled by the ice-cold hands of horror and dread as Bucky remembered what he had almost done to her as the Winter Soldier. He remembered the fear in Roxanne's eyes from the first time they had fought and the sound of her screams as she plummeted to what would have been her death if she hadn't saved herself in time. Neither of those things had bothered him before, but they terrified him now. If the Soldier somehow returned, Roxanne would be in grave, life-threatening danger, and Bucky could not let that happen.

As he pondered the best way to protect Roxanne from himself, Bucky remembered something that the Soldier had been trained to do just in case his handlers ever lost control of him. Of course, Bucky knew that Roxanne wasn't his handler. She said so herself. Besides, she was far too soft and innocent and lacking in self-preservation skills to be his handler. Strangely enough, those qualities only made Bucky all the more determined to keep her alive, and if he had to rely on his Winter Soldier training to do it, so be it. He took a knife out of his bag and held it out to Roxanne.

"Here," he said to her, while she stared at the melee weapon with perplexity. "Take it. Make sure you always have it on you whenever you're around me, okay?"

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AUTHOR'S NOTES: That took a turn, huh?

Who knew that one 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' post-credits scene was actually a Seda 2 teaser all along? ;D

I don't know if anyone reading this is a Sebastian Stan fan or a Bluey fan, but if you're either of those, you probably caught the references x) (Oh, and the ATLA one too, of course)

On a more serious note, writing about Bucky's trauma is painful yet quite interesting to do. The fact that he went through so much suffering, but doesn't use that as an excuse and still remains a good person who genuinely doesn't want to cause anyone any more harm is literally my favorite aspect of this character, and hopefully we made him justice in this chapter and in the ones yet to come. Poor guy deserves all the therapy and hugs in the world :') (Even though he's not really willing to accept the latter at this moment, but don't worry, we'll work on that. Oops, spoiler?)