unedited

chapter two; mutuals

DARLA DARWISH WAS QUITE A FASCINATING CHARACTER. Bucky had decided this the moment they met, but had constantly been proven correct each time their paths crossed. She was constantly scribbling something in a notebook, or chewing on a piece of gum to help her concentrate. She was always cold, and more often than not found herself with The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani stuck in her head.

It wasn't as if their friendship had blossomed into something rare or beautiful. It was more of a...mutual agreement. After his therapy sessions, Bucky would go into Darla's office and sit opposite her, watching as she wrote her book. They didn't share many words, but sometimes he'd ask her what she was humming, or she would ask what a word in Russian meant. They weren't friends so much as they were colleagues or acquaintances.

It was the third or fourth time they'd spent the afternoon together when Bucky's phone had started to ring. He didn't bother checking it, but after a while, Darla grew impatient and looked up from her work. "Are you gonna answer that?"

"No."

She blinked. "Why not?"

He shrugged. "Cause I don't want to."

"Why don't you put the phone on silent?"

Bucky stared at her. "I don't know what that means."

She held her hand out, gesturing for him to hand it over. "I'll do it for you, then."

He hesitated, before reaching into his pocket and taking his phone out, tossing it her way. It clattered onto the surface of her desk as she failed to catch it. Darla swore softly under her breath, and he turned his head to hide an amused smile. By the time he looked back, she was tapping into the piece of tech without any issues. The perks of being an adult in the digital world, he supposed.

"So, you're from...England?" he tried to start a conversation. It had gotten a little easier as the days had passed - she never seemed to judge him for the topics he was interested in. She never pried about his personal feelings because she had no reason to; she only wanted to know a few things here and there about HYDRA.

"Yep," she didn't look up from the phone. "Born in London, but I used to travel with my parents. I spent ten years in Saudi Arabia with my dad's family, then I came back to the UK to study."

"What brought you to the states?"

She shrugged. "Curiosity. America is one of the most fucked up places in the world, you know."

Bucky shifted a little as her use of language...and at her statement. "I wouldn't say that."

Her eyes flickered up to him. "Why not?"

"Well," he looked down at his gloved hands. "It's filled with opportunities."

"For some people, I guess," she said.

"Hey, I fought for this country," he sat up a little straighter, growing defensive. "Steve fought for it too."

"So?" she didn't seem offended by his protest. "If you're not a straight cisgender man, it's a damn difficult life to lead. Right from the start, there's been hatred towards anyone different."

"Yeah, but-"

"Your government turned against you," she continued. "They're only interested in what benefits them, and for a time you weren't what it wanted. You're allowed to walk free because Steve Rogers was a good man, and his word was always the one to follow."

She was right about that.

"Don't get me wrong, there's beautiful culture and history to be found, but you can't just ignore centuries of genocide and oppression."

Bucky pursed his lips. She was right about that too. But she didn't say it in a way that made him feel dumb. She just said it how it was. He looked up and met her gaze. "Steve always saw the beauty in everything."

"Of course he did," she smiled, though there was a slight sadness it. "How else could one remain so hopeful?"

 ★☆

After a little while, Bucky and Darla started taking turns walking each other home. They wouldn't really talk, but eventually they began taking detours. Darla had never been to the Natural History Museum, so Bucky took her there. She had pieces of trivia for almost every exhibit they passed, whether it be about dinosaurs, meteorites, or whales. 

"How do you remember all this?" he asked after she told him that the tongue of a blue whale can weigh as much as a car. 

"I just forget all the important stuff," her tone was joking, but there was something else behind her eyes. "I mean, I still have no idea what trigonometry is."

For the first time in front of her, he chuckled. She was taken slightly by surprise, and chuckled too. They stood like that for a few minutes, chuckling together underneath the gigantic blue whale suspended several feet above them. 

When he returned to his court-mandated therapy, Doctor Raynor asked him about his homework assignment. 

"So, James, did you make any new friends over the past couple of weeks?" she looked over at him, watching as he stared at the wall behind her. It was nothing new; he was uninterested and uncomfortable. "Have you talked to Darla?"

"Yeah, but I wouldn't say we're friends," he gave a lazy shrug. 

"But you've been spending a lot of time together," she said. He looked at her, and she smiled. "I've seen you going into her office, even if we don't have an appointment. She makes quite good company, doesn't she?"

"She doesn't expect me to talk all the time," he muttered after a moment's silence. "And she likes museums."

"You went to the museum together?" Raynor inquired, raising her eyebrows. 

"She's never been to the ones in New York," he replied. "I was born in Brooklyn and I've hardly seen 'em all." 

"So would you say that your...acquaintanceship with her is getting you out of your apartment more? Letting you experience normal things?" 

"I guess so," Bucky scratched the back of his head. "I've been walking her home some nights. She lives in a pretty rough part of town, but doesn't seem to care."

"And does that worry you?"

He shrugged again. "I'm just trying to be a good person."

Another silence. Bucky usually didn't mind them, but in therapy, it always brought him discomfort. 

Raynor thought for a little while, before she pointed the end of her pen in his direction. "How's your list going?"

Bucky reached into his pocket and threw her the notebook. It belonged to Steve almost a decade ago, and he'd adopted it for his own state of mind. Inside it, the names of all those he had wronged. "I've been talking to Yori some more."

"Would you call him a friend?" 

"I can't call him that," Bucky shook his head. There is was again - the feeling in his chest that wrapped around his heart and squeezed. His fists clenched unconsciously, and he bowed his head. "Not after what I did."

"That wasn't you, James," Raynor said softly. "You can't blame yourself for something you had no control over."

No matter how many times she said it, he couldn't believe her - he never would. He could recall every single crime he committed; every murder, every theft, every corruption. Though he had no choice, he could picture it all in his mind. 

"You've crossed quite a few names off, though," she continued, her finger running through the list. "And you're following our rules?"

He couldn't hide his smirk. "Yeah, of course."

"James..."

"Where's your faith in me, Doc?" he joked. She shook her head with an unimpressed expression and handed the book back to him. "I'm just an old man trying his best."

★☆

"You know there's a myth that Van Gogh only sold two paintings in his lifetime?" Darla said as they stood in front of The Starry Night. Personally, it wasn't a favourite of hers - she preferred the Neoclassical and Romantic era (and at a push, surrealism). It was the academic standards and historical relevance they held that made them so interesting to her. She like how clean cut everything was, and how it all seemed to mean something larger. Bucky, however, quite liked Van Gogh's style. It was like someone had taken a look inside his head and put it on a canvas. "One was to a man named Julien and the other to a woman, Anna. But, it was likely that he sold more than that, if you consider trading artwork for food and resources."

"I'll do you one better," Bucky said, looking around the room. "Half of these are fakes."

She turned to him in surprise. "What are you talking about?"

He pointed to one across the room. A Eduoard Manet one he didn't know the name of. "That one's in a private collection in Madripoor. That one over there is in a crime lord's home in Malaysia. And that statue? One of the HYDRA officers bought that for his wife."

Darla wandered over to each of the artworks he had spoken of. She stared at each for a while, trying to find a flaw. Bucky stood behind her, watching as she got as close as she was allowed, studying every inch in captivation. "That's crazy. I'd never be able to tell."

She turned to face him, lowering her voice. 

"Are we supposed to, you know, report this kind of thing to security?"

"No point. They're halfway across the world under lock and key," he went to pat her on the shoulder, but refrained from doing so. It was the kind of thing he'd do to a friend, but he didn't know if he was capable of making any of those these days. 

The only people that believed he could was Raynor, and the woman in front of her. 

 ★☆

:))))) xoxoxoxo

I juss wanna establish a relationship between them ig 

they're just two lonely mfs and I love them

also I don't plan for this story to be super long so that's why its already moving kinda fast loololol