Unravel

Whatever Bucky had anticipated would happen when they took Liz under their wing, he didn’t quite know himself in the beginning. However, what he knew was that she would put up a fight, she would yell and scream before she did as people told her, and if all else failed, she would sulk until she got her way anyway.

He hadn’t known her for too long, but the time he had spent with her in her apartment during which he had mostly observed her, when he wasn’t trying to come to terms with his lack of memories, had greatly contributed to his knowledge of Liz’s many moods.

During the first two days it had been, as expected, a mix of anger and her struggle to convince herself of her still-there independence. The latter had already lead to several fights, mostly between Liz and Clint. However, Bucky couldn’t really blame her on that front. He was reminded of the cause for their fights several times a day. It came to his mind again as he sat in the safe house’s kitchen - Clint’s safe house - watching the banter between Steve and him.

On the one hand, he was glad that the tension had finally started to let up, though not enough to make the environment seem calm. They knew what they were up against and were ridiculously outnumbered.
But he preferred the silence to the sometimes forced interactions and serious talks. There had been an abundance of the latter during the past few weeks and his answers to Steve’s questions mostly consisted of the same content. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

On the other hand, he would gladly have the tension back in the room in exchange for Clint’s jokes that he was usually the butt of.
This morning he even briefly considered waking Elizabeth up, so he would have someone to talk to, or even sit in silence with, and wouldn’t have to suffer at their hands alone. But he had thought better of it and left her to it. She never slept for long, anyway.

Picking at the enormous pile of scrambled eggs he had been treated to, he silently kept watching Clint and Steve. It still was a welcome change to many mornings spent talking about his memories, then mulling over strategies and plans for hours. The whole situation almost seemed mundane. He couldn’t quite remember the last time he had spent a sunday morning in a setting like this. He never even thought he would again. So he kept eating and watching them, sending glares at his friend and Clint now and again who just chuckled and brushed it off, returning to their conversation.

It didn’t take long until Steve and Clint joined him at the table to eat but the silence was promptly interrupted by Clint chuckling, his mouth full.

“What?” Steve asked.

“Look at us,” he commented, almost choking on his eggs when he laughed again, “Like a real… maybe a little bit dysfunctional, family.

“How old are you?” Steve laughed.

“In light of you both being old enough to be my grandparents, you probably shouldn’t ask that particular question.”

“Ever heard of ‘respect your elders’, Barton?”, a new voice suddenly chimed in with a laugh, making them snap their heads towards the hallway.

“I’d try but they don’t respect me, Wilson,” Clint laughed and returned to scarfing down his breakfast while the black man grabbed a chair and sat down as well and just like that, Bucky could feel the tension in the air again. He knew Sam had been on their side even before Bucky had remembered but he was now on Hydra’s radar for trying to help him, too. It seemed like all of the people in the house were.

“Found anything?” Steve then asked, focusing their conversation back onto their current dilemma. But when Sam shook his head, Bucky could clenched his fist subconsciously, making his metal arm whirr and Steve glance at him.

“How’s the girl?” Sam inquired but before Bucky or anyone else could even begin to think of an answer, all of their attention was drawn to a loud crash inside the house. While Sam immediately tried to assess the situation, fearing the worst, the rest of the men were already accustomed to loud noises throughout the house.

“Speak of the devil,” Clint sang as he lifted his cup of coffee to his lips and with another look shared between Steven and Bucky, the latter stood up to face whatever Liz had been up to again.
In truth they all knew what had probably happened as it had been happening ever since she had gotten here. She was too stubborn to admit when she was in need.

Slowly approaching the room Liz had been set up in and pushing open the door, he was greeted by a sight not too different than the one he had painted in his mind. He silently sighed anyway.

“You know you can ask for help, right?”

“I know but I thought I could do this on my own,” Elizabeth repeated her standard answer while she was struggling to stand up from the floor and avoid the shards of a vase that had fallen down at the same time.

Offering his hand, he watched as Liz reluctantly took it and carefully pulled herself off of the hardwood floor. Her stubbornness was making things difficult, not only for Hydra but also for the people who she needed to put her trust in. But Bucky didn’t want to tell her to drop it. He knew the situation was difficult as it was but suddenly being dependant on other people’s help when she always handled things on her own was a major setback in her independence. So he only offered his help when he saw she needed it. She had done the same for him, not pushing anything on him and telling him about himself or his past when he wanted her to. That was also what he liked about her. She always seemed to have a set of rules and boundaries set for herself, guided by a sense of justice and want to protect others from harm. Even through all that he had been through and forced to do, he could relate to that.

“Sorry for the vase,” Liz mumbled, bringing his attention back into the present and he held back a frown as he looked at her more closely as she gingerly rubbed her face. “I got distracted and took it down with me.”

“I think Barton can take the loss of one vase,” he replied and reached out, taking her chin and turning her face to the side where a bruise had started to bloom the day before. It seemed almost worse today. Blues and reds melting together and running down the length of her face, pooling at the edge of her mouth where even her bottom lip was still swollen. “Tongue?” he asked, slightly jerking his head in the direction of her face.

“Better. Still hurts but it won’t keep me from eating,” Liz replied with a nod. “Speaking of eating,”, she continued, a small smile finding its way onto her face which immediately seemed to brighten the atmosphere in the small stuffy room, “I smell breakfast.”

Instead of answering, Bucky offered his arm to her and after looping her arm around it, Liz started hobbling towards the kitchen next to him. Even though her leg still protested every move, making her falter now and again, she still kept moving forward purposefully. But before they reached their destination, Bucky felt Liz tense up next to him as suddenly chatter from the kitchen reached their ears. “What?”

“Who’s here?” There was a mix of fear and defiance on her face and he wondered for a moment what exactly he should tell her.

“His name’s Sam Wilson. He’s a..,” he hesitated. “He’s a friend.” Bucky didn’t know whether that was the truth. Wilson was at least a friend to Steve. Bucky had tried to kill him. But who hadn’t he tried to kill? Even the woman next to him had been subjected to the Winter Soldier’s violence, despite it not having been on purpose. “You don’t need to worry about him.” She definitely needed to worry less about Sam hurting her than him hurting her.

After a short pause he could hear her whisper okay before she started moving again, although only with half the strength of before. But the moment they walked into the kitchen and all eyes fell on them, not only her strength seemed to return. “Just to…,” she started but let out a breathy laugh, “How many of you are hiding here?” Liz asked and looked at the faces of the confused men. “Because I’m starting to think this place might not be as secret as you want it to be.”

Even though Clint snorted, no one went to answer her question as the new addition stood up and went to introduce himself to her. “Hey. Name’s Sam Wilson.” The black man was only slightly taller than her which was a welcome change in a house full of super soldiers.

“Liz Moore,” she replied, detangling herself from Bucky and shaking his hand in return, although somewhat limply. “You’re the guy with wings, right?” she concluded after trying to guess where he fit into this whole mess. Except for Fury there weren’t too many other black males directly involved back in DC. “I read about you in a file shortly after S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed but they didn’t know your name back then.”

“Yeah,” he answered and eyed her suspiciously for a moment. “CIA?”

“FBI. Although let’s see how long that will last for,” she answered and redirected her focus to the rest of the table and the food on everyone’s plates. “Right now I just want something of that.”

“Right,” Clint exclaimed as he went to get her a plate, too, and Bucky helped her settle onto one of the chairs before sitting back onto the chair he had occupied before.

Liz could feel her stomach grumble violently as soon as the plate had been set in front of her but hastily digging in wouldn’t do her any good, so she paced herself, watching the men around her. This was the first time she saw them occupied with something other than strategies and plans. She didn’t want to be the one to bring their full focus back to that again, so she bit her tongue and focused on every snippet of their conversation that could have revealed their progress on this matter.

Glancing at Bucky, she saw that he kept scrutinizing everyone around him, too. But when his gaze met Liz’s, she knew that he had been thinking the same.
No matter how ordinary and calm everything seemed now, this was a short lived thing and she knew that sooner or later, things would fall apart again.