Bucky slid down the wall beside the door, seating himself there as if for the night. I lowered myself in front of him, sitting cross legged, facing him like a mirror.
He was biting his lower lip again, eyes distant, haunted, his mind clearly still reeling from everything he'd just learned.
"Does she know… about Hydra?" he asked.
My gaze dropped to my hands, where I was now picking nervously at my nails and the skin around them. "She wasn't born there. She's overheard things in passing, but honestly… I'm not sure how much she understands."
He nodded, his head gently tapping the wall behind him. The movement was slow, as though weighed down by memory.
"You probably have a lot of questions," I said softly. "And I imagine somewhere in there is the big one, so I'll get it out of the way."
He looked at me, his brow lifted in subtle challenge, unsure which question I meant to answer.
"I'm sorry I didn't come back for you," I said, voice trembling. "Or try to fight Hydra. But I had to protect her. I couldn't leave her, not with the risk of being recaptured or worse losing her."
My voice cracked. I barely held it together.
"You don't have to be sorry," he said gently. "I'm glad you didn't come back. She needed you. And… I probably would've hurt you both if you had."
He tapped his boot lightly against my leg, a small comfort, but enough to unravel me.
Those words. After all these years… I was free.
Tears spilled from my eyes before I even realized it, and I tucked my head against my fist, trying to hide my face. The guilt I'd lived with for so long, of surviving, of escaping, of leaving him, it cracked and poured out like floodwater.
Every day I'd looked at her and remembered him.
Every day, I wondered what I could have done differently.
Every day, I carried the weight of not going back.
And with one sentence, he lightened my chest.
I cried like a child.
I heard the quiet shuffle of denim across the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his large, dark figure sit beside me. He pulled me gently into his chest.
At first, I flinched, my body reacting to memories. In response he whispered into my ear, "Shhh… I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe."
His voice was softer than I remembered. Or maybe just softer than I'd ever heard it.
I let myself go limp in his arms, resting against him. In his embrace, I felt small, fragile, even. I hadn't felt like that in years, since before everything.
I gripped his jacket like a life raft, like it was the only thing keeping me from sinking.
He smelled different than I remembered. Not metal or gunpowder, but something warmer, oak, leather, something like home, comforting.
I don't know how long we stayed like this. All the feelings I'd buried clawed their way out. I let them. For once, I didn't try to be strong.
When I finally found my breath again, after thoroughly soaking his jacket with my tears, I gently tapped his shoulder. He released me slowly, his hands settling on my shoulders.
Our eyes met, his, glacier blue, carrying ghosts he couldn't name.
Mine, deep brown, heavy with the ones I couldn't forget.
In the quiet between us, something stirred, tender, unspoken.
Our silence said what our voices never could.
It was everything we'd endured, finally exhaled.
He reached for me. The cool leather of his glove brushed back the stray hairs by my ear, then drifted down in a reverent touch until his hand came to rest at the curve of my neck.
A shiver shot down my spine like the first drop of rain on parched earth.
Our hearts raced, syncing in a jagged rhythm, thudding out the same aching melody. It felt as though they'd been trying to find each other all this time.
"Vivian?" he asked, my name catching on the growl in his throat.
He remembered. He truly remembered me.
I gripped the sleeve of one his extended arm, grounding myself. My other hand rose to his face, tracing the contours beneath his beard, rediscovering the man I remembered.
"Bucky," I whispered.
I closed my eyes, saying yes without saying a word.
And then…
His lips found mine.
The world vanished.
The weight of the years, the chains of memory, the hollow silence of grief, all of it was gone.
There was only this:
His mouth on mine, tasting of something wild and soft and strangely sweet.
Something like hope.
Time held its breath.
The ghosts quieted.
Our hearts, no longer alone.
When we finally pulled apart, I gasped like I'd surfaced from warm water, lungs open, body reborn. He did the same. His breath shook; his chest rose as if he, too, had just remembered how to live.
He slid his hand behind my head, pulling me forward until our foreheads touched, skin to skin.
And there, in the stillness after the storm, we said nothing.
We didn't have to.
In that shared touch, we learned everything about the other.
What we'd lost.
What we'd survived.
What we'd found, again.