Chapter Text
The sour taste of beer slid down Bucky’s throat with a grimace. It wasn’t the worst he’d ever had, but he didn’t drink it for the taste. Not that he felt anything from the alcohol anymore, not after the serum, but there was still some semblance of peace that came from the familiar feel of a cheap bottle of beer in his hand. His gloved hands thumbed the condensation running down the side of the bottle as he let out a sigh. Yet another session with Dr. Raynor left him somehow feeling worse about himself. How that woman ever became a shrink was beyond him.
“Need another, Barnes?” he heard. He met the eyes of the old bartender, Phil, who owned the even older bar.
When Bucky had seen that Wright’s was still open, he hadn’t thought twice about sticking his head inside for a drink. He remembered spending late nights with Steve in that very bar, finding girls to dance with and take home. Phil Wright’s father, Will, had owned the bar back then. When Bucky found out Phil had taken over his father’s position, he was happy to see it.
“No,” Bucky said, finishing off the last of his beer. “I should head back.”
As he made to pull out his wallet, Phil said, “Don’t bother with that, son. Everythin’s on the house today.”
“Some kind of special sale or something?” Bucky asked. He still dropped a twenty on the bar.
“Or somethin’,” Phil said. It was then Bucky noted the downward turn of his eyes. “Can’t keep the merchandise if I don’t have a place to sell it from.” Before he could ask, Phil continued. “The building is shuttin’ the place down on me, Barnes. Said I haven’t made my payments and it’s time the place went under.”
“They can’t shut down Wright’s,” Bucky said. A frightening panic of unsettling unfamiliarity pulsed in the back of his mind. Yet another thing in this world was changing and it was horribly out of his control. “If you need help-”
“No, no. In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve been my only customer for weeks now,” Phil said, gesturing to the empty bar around them. Bucky hadn’t minded the solitude. In fact, it was one of the reasons he loved this bar so much. “And I couldn’t ask anythin’ of you when I’ve already tried everythin’ to keep this place afloat.”
“At least let me, I don’t know–” Bucky ran a hand over his hair in desperate thought “–convince them to keep it open until you get yourself back on your feet.”
Phil laughed bitterly. “I’ve already tried it all.” He let out a long sigh before coming around the bar to face Bucky. “I’m an old man. My wife’s been beggin’ me to retire for years. You’ve been a good customer all these years, Barnes. My pop would talk about you and your little friend often. Never thought I’d be lucky enough to meet you again myself as an old man.” He held out his hand for him to shake. Reluctantly, Bucky obliged. “It’s been an honor to have you, Sergeant. Here.” Phil took an old photo from the wall, one of him and Steve when the little shrimp had just turned twenty-one. “My pop always loved this photo. It’s only right you should have it.”
Bucky took the photo, his eyes glazing over the black-and-white image. He looked so young, so carefree there. Steve was still that skinny little kid he had saved all those years before, but he was smiling so brightly that Bucky’s stern mein nearly softened. He could barely face his own reflection, managing to catch the strings of his short hair that fell over his forehead, as well as the unburdened laugh that was forever frozen in time. He couldn’t remember half of that night, but he wasn’t certain if it was from the amount of booze he had, or from Hydra’s tampering within his broken mind. He faced Phil again with a tight smile and said, “Thanks. Take care of yourself.”
“I’m not the one who’s been comin’ in here every Wednesday,” Phil said, clapping a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Any other time, he would have flinched away. He would have attempted to defend himself from attack. He would have killed . But those days were long gone. “You take care, Barnes.”
Stepping outside of Wright’s for the last time was like feeling a light dim in his chest. When Phil turned the Open sign to Closed , Bucky hung his head low with a clench of his jaw. The familiarity of Wright’s after a long and arduous session with Dr. Raynor was comforting and it always helped him connect who he used to be with who he was in this new era. That connection was severed beneath his feet, and he was suddenly plummeting from the tightrope he had been walking with no net to catch him. Instead, he walked home with the burning pain of knowing a good man had lost his livelihood, and he’d now have to find somewhere else to drink away his anxiety. Drinking at home was just too sad, and he’d never want Alpine to be stuck with him moping away day in, day out.
She greeted him at his door with a whining meow , rubbing her cheek against his leg before he picked her up to soothe her. He set the little photo of him and Steve on his fridge, sticking a magnet over the side to keep it snug. His eyes raked over it one more time before he retreated back to his living area and collapsed on the comfy cushions of the couch. Bucky laid back, Alpine curling up on his chest as he closed his eyes with a deep sigh. He gently ran his hand up and down her sparkling white coat before exhaustion overcame his eyes and he drifted into a restless nap.
#
“You seem tense today, James.”
Bucky folded his hands in his lap, licking his lips as he shrugged his shoulders. “Aren’t I always?” he replied.
“No, you’re usually just pissed you even have to be here,” Dr. Raynor said. Her eyes were almost bored as she scanned him over. He felt like a germ underneath a microscope every time he came. “Has something happened?”
“Nothing,” he said. She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know, it doesn’t help when you look like you’re trying to pull an answer from me.”
“It’s my job to pull an answer from you,” she said. “You want to tell me what’s happened?” When he didn’t answer, she grabbed her pen and notepad.
Bucky rolled his eyes. “This, with the notepad, again?”
“We’ve been through this,” she said, scribbling down a few notes. The sight made him squirm.
“Alright, I-” his fingers flexed in his lap as Dr. Raynor looked up from her notes, “Wright’s closed down the last week.”
“That bar you visit?” Dr. Raynor asked. He nodded, looking down at his hands. She finally set aside that damn notepad. “You’ve always gone there, since before the war. How do you feel about it?”
Bucky didn’t want to talk about the bar, but he knew she wouldn’t relent until he did. It was her job, after all, to make him talk about the things he rather avoid. “Lost,” he said. He gulped down his burning desire to keep quiet. “It helped me remember a lot.”
“I don’t think you went in there for the old memories, James,” Dr. Raynor said. When he glanced out the window, he heard her sigh before she said, “There’s a lot you’re trying to get used to. I can see why you’d want to find comfort in Wright’s, but at the end of the day, the rest of the world is still moving forward while you’re trying to stay stuck in 1943.”
“I’m not,” he snapped. “Wright’s was just-”
“Familiar,” she interrupted. “And a place from the past. I’m not saying it’s a good thing that it shut down, but I’d see this as an opportunity to stick your toes back in the water. Ever since the Flag Smashers, you’ve tried to go back into that shell you made. Find a new place to drink, or whatever it is you want to do there. Meet new people.”
It would have been easier if Sam had stuck around, although Bucky would never say it out loud. But his home was Brooklyn while Sam was still helping his sister back in Louisiana. With Steve becoming the government’s best kept secret, Sam had been the only person to push Bucky from his solitude. Now, without Wright’s, he wanted nothing more than to go back to that lonesome quiet. “I don’t think new people want to meet me ,” he said.
“That’s a bullshit excuse and you know it is,” Dr. Raynor said. He was used to her brazen methodology of forcing him to talk, but it still slapped him across the face when she called him out.
“You’re very mean.”
“And you’re making up reasons to avoid the rest of the world,” she said. “It would do you some good to listen when I’m being mean.” Bucky refused to meet her eye. He heard her tap her pen against her palm before she said, “Here’s some homework for you, James. Find a new bar. Someplace you’ve never been to. And once you’ve settled, talk to someone.”
Her words circled his mind for the entire ride back on the train. With his hands stuffed in his leather jacket, Bucky drowned out the screeching sound of the train turning a tight corner before he stepped off onto the platform. He wanted nothing more than to walk up to Wright’s and find Phil at the bar with a beer ready and waiting for him, but he knew better than to hope the old door would still be open. He hadn’t had enough time in that bar when he got back to New York after Wakanda. He had hoped to someday see Phil’s son take over the bar, a strapping young man he had met on occasion, but without the property, there wasn’t a hope in the world of seeing that happen.
When he passed by the door, he peered in, hoping to see someone wandering around. But it was already taped up and dusty. The chairs and tables had been removed, as had all the alcohol that lined the wall behind the bar. The stools were gone. There wasn’t a single flicker of light in the entire bar. The windows had already begun to frost over with dust and he noticed a disgusting amount of litter along the once beautiful wood floor of the bar. Phil had never allowed any trash in or outside his bar, just like his father before him. He’d have thrown out a man for leaving a cigarette butt on the floor. Already, the sidewalk outside the bar door was littered with garbage, the ‘good patrons’ of New York doing everything they could to make the city as disgusting as possible.
How had his home fallen so far?
Crime ran rampant and he’d witnessed men beat little old ladies in the street for no reason other than their own unbearable anger. Bucky was doing everything in his power to stop those kinds of people from running wild, but it was as if those in power cared nothing about the citizens of their own damn city. His fists clenched beneath his jacket pockets as he thought about it, kicking a loose stone into the road. He knew he shouldn’t have been stewing on everything he hated about the world he was now living in, but what he saw was devastating. Was this how Steve felt when he first woke up?
He shook his head. Bucky couldn’t think about his old friend without bitterness resting heavy on his chest. He had been to see the old man a few times in the nursing home, happy he had gotten the life he always wanted. But he always stepped out feeling alone and tired.
Bucky looked up from where he had kicked the rock, seeing another sign plastered on the building directly across the street from Wright’s. He crossed before he examined the sign that read, Velvet Vixen Bar and Grill. He peeked inside through the glass window. He saw a few televisions lined up on every wall, playing various stations of sports all at once. It almost made his eyes hurt to see so many different games playing at once with each TV having a different sport. There were a few people scattered throughout, tables set up in booths with miniature televisions on the walls beside them. It was a little early for a Wednesday drink, but a few people were sitting up at the bar, nursing various beverages.
He turned his head away, intending to go home and grab a beer from his fridge instead. He would handle Alpine’s whining at his home drinking. But Dr. Raynor’s voice trickled into his ear unwillingly. Bucky stopped in his tracks. He could see his apartment building just a few blocks away. He turned back to look at the Velvet Vixen sign. The last thing he wanted was to become a home alcoholic. Sam would never let him live it down. He wasn’t an alcoholic, he knew that, but there was a difference between being able to stop yourself after one or two beers in public and repeatedly going back to your fridge until your entire six-pack case was empty. With a grumble from deep in his chest, Bucky turned around and walked the length back to the bar before swinging the door open.
He was immediately hit with the sounds of televisions mixing with music from overhead. The wafting smell of various greasy foods entered his nose as the door closed behind him. Bucky’s eyes unconsciously peeled through the entire room, noting every entrance and every exit. Every window and every door. Unfortunately for him, the only entrance was the very door he had just come through. At least Wright’s had a back door to the garbage.
“Good afternoon, sir,” said a perky voice. Bucky blinked when a young girl smiled up at him from behind the hostess’s stand. She looked about eighteen, perhaps younger. “Can I help you be seated?”
He managed to find his words enough to say, “I’ll just sit at the bar.”
“No worries!” she said with a bright smile.
Bucky gave his own tight, uncomfortable smile as he passed by the girl to sit at the end of the bar, closest to the exit. He kept his eyes downward, trying to keep the flashing lights of the televisions around him to a minimum as he stared at the dark wood of the bar. He waited a few minutes, bouncing his leg against the stool of the bar when a shadow appeared over the bar. He didn’t glance up as the bartender asked, “What can I get you?”
“Just a beer, please,” he said.
“You got a preference?”
He shrugged his shoulders lightly and said, “Whatever you recommend, I suppose.”
He saw the bartender tap her fingers on the bar as a way to say ‘alright’. Bucky looked around the rest of the bar, examining the other laughing patrons. There was a group of older women all nursing glasses of wine and sharing a large order of crispy french fries. A lone man sat at the bar, drinking Samuel Adam’s. A middle-aged couple shared a booth, ordering only water and a couple of cheeseburgers. His attention was brought back to the bar when he heard the tap of a glass on wood in front of him. This time he looked up from the dark brew to meet his bartender.
“You seemed like the kind of guy who’d enjoy a good Porter,” she said as she set the glass down in front of him. The first thing he noticed about her was her long, bright cherry-red hair that tumbled down her back. It was held back by a black headband over her head, her curtain bangs falling over her forehead. Large, black-rimmed glasses sat on her nose as her brown eyes met his. She was dressed in black from top to bottom, making the red in her hair stand out. “Hope you enjoy it.”
“Thanks,” he said, glancing down at the dark brew. “I… don’t really know.”
“Well,” she said with an easy smile, “we’ll see if my intuition is right. Which, it usually is.”
Bucky managed a smile back before she walked away to tend to her next customer. As he drank his beer, he flickered his eyes over to her a few times. Given that it was early in the day, and a Wednesday, she didn’t have much action when it came to customers. But she was cute, he thought. Not a resounding beauty or someone he’d think to see in a movie, but just cute. She had a sort of button nose that would scrunch whenever the cash register refused to work, which happened an amusing amount of times in the minutes Bucky spent there. He looked back down at his drink, allowing the time to pass by. Before he knew it, he had finished his beer and set the empty glass aside.
He managed to watch one of the football games on the television, more zoning out than really paying attention, before he heard her say, “Was I right?”
Bucky looked back at the bartender, who had already taken his empty glass. With an impressed tilt of his head, he said, “You were.” He watched as she pumped her fist in a small victory. The sight made him laugh. “I never really took much thought into the kind of beer I drank.” It was still taking him forever to truly figure out the difference between the things he liked and the things he was forced to have.
“I don’t have that luxury,” she said, gesturing to the bar behind her. “But I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
Bucky took out his wallet and set the money on the bar. “Keep the change,” he said, causing her to raise her brows. “For the spot-on guesswork.”
“Oh, you can come back,” she said with a grateful smile. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. At least I know I’m good at my job.”
“Very good,” Bucky said. This time, he actually smiled as he stood from the bar.
“Have a good afternoon,” the bartender said.
“You, too.”
Bucky let out a long breath as he stepped out of the bar. The malt taste of the beer still hung heavy on his tongue as he began walking down the street back to his apartment. With a sigh, he knew he had to admit to himself that he would need to find a new place to bunker down whenever he needed it. Wright’s couldn’t be that place anymore, no matter how much he wanted to fight to make it so. He couldn’t say he particularly liked the atmosphere of the Velvet Vixen, but it was nice to have it close to his home like Wright’s was. There was so much going on within the Vixen, but if he continued to go back, perhaps he could learn to tune out the unimportant and focus only on his drink in front of him. Besides, the cherry-haired bartender wasn’t so bad to look at.
No , he thought, shaking his head. He couldn’t let those kinds of thoughts dictate his actions. He knew he liked the Vixen as a place to lay low after a long session with Dr. Raynor, and that was all that mattered. She’d be proud of him for even taking the first step and finding a new place to drink that wasn’t around in 1940. He, begrudgingly, knew she was right. Damnit, she always was. After everything that happened with the Flag Smashers and Sam taking up the shield, Bucky struggled to find his new place in the world that was remaking itself. Without Steve, who was he? There were still so many people across the country who saw him as the Winter Soldier. He just wanted to be Bucky Barnes, but he made it even harder for himself when he used that excuse to keep himself from the rest of society.
So, when the next week rolled by and he stepped off the train platform, Bucky walked on the other side of the sidewalk. He gave a glance to Wright’s, seeing the name had been stripped from above the door. He did his best to keep the burning sadness and roiling anger pushed down into his chest. It took everything in him not to rush across the street and peer into the windows again to see just how much worse the state of the old bar had gotten. He tried his best not to let his eyes linger on the garbage that was gathering in front of the door, or the window that had been broken by some lowlife already. Instead, Bucky let out a long breath to calm his nerves as he swung open the door to the Velvet Vixen.
The same hostess welcomed him back with a bright smile, one she couldn’t seem to dim down. There seemed to be fewer patrons in the restaurant on that Wednesday, but the bar would always have at least one person holding themselves over a drink. Bucky knew it was just the nature of people. This time, it was an old woman who fiddled with the wedding ring hanging from a chain around her neck. He knew better than to wonder why she was there over a glass of whiskey. Instead, Bucky took the same seat he had just the week before and gave a light smile to the bartender as she sauntered her way over.
“Welcome back,” she said with her professional smile. This time, her long hair was pulled back into a loose braid, strands falling rebelliously around her face. “What can I get you?”
“That, uh, beer you got me last time. I liked that,” he said, leaning his arms on the bar. “You have more like that?”
She tapped her finger on the bar in thought before she said, “I could get you a Stout unless you’d rather go for the Porter again. Just to keep it consistent.”
“I think I’ll just take your word for it,” Bucky said. “Whatever you think is best.”
Again, her finger tapped in a rhythmic manner as she went silent, her eyes glazing over him. He shifted, suddenly uncomfortable with the attention. She must have noticed, for she turned her eyes downward instead before she said, “I’ll get you the Porter again. We don’t need to mix it up just yet.”
“Play it safe, it is,” he said. “Sounds good to me.” Truthfully, he was glad. He didn’t know whether his fragile composure could handle so many differences at one time. He was still getting used to the new bar. And while he would like to explore the things he liked, he thought it better to play it safe for now rather than become suddenly overwhelmed by the choice of beer he wanted to drink.
“Alright, I’ll have that right up,” the bartender said. Her braid was loosely tossed around as she turned around to find the glasses.
It didn’t take long before she returned, the dark brew in hand. She set a napkin down before placing the Porter in front of him with a pleasant smile. “Thank you,” he said before taking a sip. The taste was slowly becoming familiar to him.
“Just holler if you need anything,” she said before she left. Bucky got a whiff of the scent of lilies before she walked away. He took a deep drink of his beer to keep himself from thinking about it and kept his eyes on his hands to keep himself from watching her. He could hear her low tones as she spoke to the older woman who sat in the middle of the bar. He knew he shouldn’t have listened in, but even with their whispers, his senses were dialed to eleven ever since he got the serum from Hydra. He could hear every word they were saying.
“Have you spoken to Jamie at all?” she asked.
“He wouldn’t want to see me,” the old woman answered. Her voice was gruff and raspy. “He thinks it’s my fault, what happened to his father.”
“Now, you and I both know that isn’t true in the slightest,” the bartender replied. Although her words were stern, her voice held an edge of soft comfort. Like a warm blanket. “He came in here just the other day, looking for you. He’s worried, Lory.”
“Then he can tell me himself,” Lory said.
The bartender gave a light sigh, but there wasn’t annoyance in the way she spoke. Just simple and pure concern. “Lory, I know you don’t want him to see you like this. But sometimes you’ve gotta let yourself find a shoulder to cry on. Jamie needs his mama just as much as you need your son.” She put a hand over Lory’s, giving her a small, comforting smile. “I’m not the one to tell you what to do. I just want you all to be okay. I know it’s been a few months, but some things still hurt long after they’re gone.”
Lory seemed on the verge of tears. “I don’t want Jamie to see me so weak.”
“You’re not weak. You’re mourning. It’s okay,” the bartender said.
Bucky tuned out the rest of the conversation as best he could, focusing solely on the soccer game above the bar to keep out of business that wasn’t his. But he couldn’t help but like the soft tones the bartender spoke in to comfort the poor widow. With another long drink of beer, he tried viciously hard not to think about it. Instead, he filled his time with meaningless red cards and multiple fake injuries.
Before he knew it, his glass was once again empty and the bartender was standing in front of him, her professional smile light on her lips. “Still enjoying it?” she asked as she took the glass.
“Still enjoying it,” he replied. Bucky’s eyes flickered to the widow, who was standing and putting a phone up to her ear. From the voice on the other side, he could only guess it was the son he had overheard them talking about.
Once the call had finished, the bartender called out, “Get home safe, Lory.” Lory nodded before meeting a young man outside the door, leaving just Bucky and the bartender. The casual conversations of a few restaurantgoers kept the situation from being overly awkward. “You want another?”
“Uh–” Bucky glanced at the clock on the wall, “–sure, why not?” Alpine would be angry when he got home later than usual, but she always calmed down once he held her.
“I’ll get that for you,” the bartender said.
As she was pouring the beer from the tap, Bucky bit his tongue before he said, “It was good of you. What you said to that woman.”
The bartender shrugged. “My job requires me to have to deal with difficult situations like that. But Lory I’ve known for a while,” she said. “She lost her husband just a few months after he came back from the Blip. She hasn’t had a chance to recover from either.”
Bucky couldn’t imagine that kind of pain. To lose your partner after just getting them back seemed a fate too cruel for anyone. “That’s horrible,” was all he could think to say.
“You see a lot of that around here lately,” she said. She wiped up a small spill when she gave him his beer. “Lory’s just had it worse than my average regular.”
“Well, you seem to know how to handle that kind of situation,” Bucky said. This urged a small genuine smile from her lips, not the plastered professional smile she needed to deal with unruly customers and new folks. “You’re good at it.”
“I’m just doing my best,” she said.
A silence fell over the bar before more patrons began to slip inside. Soon, the bartender was too busy taking other people’s orders to stop and talk with him. He didn’t mind, he knew she would be busy. But he liked listening to her talk. When he finished his second beer, she was right there to pick it up. He dropped his cash on the bar and once again said, “Keep the change.”
“What’s it for this time?” she asked, taking the money.
“Being a good person, I guess,” he said with a light shrug. That genuine smile came back to her face. It made him grin just a little bit.
“I’ll take it,” she said. “Have a good afternoon.”
“And you.”
He was learning he did like the Velvet Vixen. If not for the great beer, then for the kind company and the friendly faces. Seeing the bartender handle the most difficult part of her job with such grace was a breath of fresh air from the horrible actions he would witness on an almost daily basis. He was doing his best to stop it in his own way, but she seemed to be able to put an end to that sort of violence in a more gentle way. In her own way. One he liked to see. It wasn’t often he saw someone talk so sweetly and so compassionately to someone going through hell. If he had someone there for him during his stint as a fugitive, his time in Romania would have been a lot easier.
So, if only to hear her voice again, Bucky went back again the next week.
His new routine was starting to become second nature. He opened the door, greeted the perky hostess, and sat down at the bar. When the bartender noticed him, she smiled and excused herself from her conversation with another bar-goer. Her hair was back behind the headband this time. “Seems I’ll have to add you to my list of regulars,” she said. “Beer?”
“You know it,” he answered. “And you have a list of regulars?”
“I’ve never been the best with names,” she said with a wince, pouring out the Porter. “When I first got this job, I started a list of people who would come and go on the regular so I wouldn’t have to ask their names a hundred times. It’s a big city and I get a lot of customers telling me their names.”
“That sounds awful,” he said with a laugh.
“Just another part of the job. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t found a way to handle it,” she said. “Although once more people started showing up after the Blip, it became more difficult. But even then, I was happier to see more people around here. It just meant a lot of people got someone important back.”
Bucky hummed. He remembered what it had been like to be one of those who had disappeared. He remembered waking up as though from a short nap, Steve missing and the rest of Wakanda rallying for yet another battle. She set his beer in front of him and he gave her a small ‘thank you’. “You’ve been working here since before all that?” he asked.
“Since I turned eighteen,” she said. “Six long, boring years.”
“How many regulars have you had since then?” he asked.
She took out a small notebook. He couldn’t help the huff of amusement that left his lips when he saw it, thinking of his own small crossed-out notebook. “Oh, I can’t count all these,” she said with a laugh. Instead, she showed him.
“Wow,” he said, flipping through the pages. Lines upon lines of names and descriptions to match littered the pages in quickly scribbled pen and pencil. “You’ve been busy.”
“When people find a bar they like…” she said with a shrug. “Speaking of, how did you find Velvet Vixen?”
“I used to visit Wright’s across the street,” he said, pointing a thumb behind him. “Been going there since I turned twenty-one.” True, but she didn’t need to know he had turned twenty-one in 1938. “They, um… closed it down. Said their payments were lacking and old Phil had to step aside.”
“What?!” the bartender shouted. A few heads were drawn her way and she meekly put her hands over her lips with a whispered ‘sorry’. The sight made him chuckle. “Sorry, but I loved Phil. He was the sweetest man I’d ever met. I can’t believe they’ve shut down Wright’s.”
“You didn’t know?”
“I get out pretty late most days,” she said. “Most times I’m too focused on putting one foot in front of the other without getting jumped to notice the street businesses.” Her expression turned adorably sad. “I feel horrible I haven’t even noticed. Phil liked to come in sometimes to say hi.”
“Yeah,” Bucky said, sighing deeply. “When Wright’s went belly up, I had to find somewhere else to ‘shelter’, I guess. This place was closest.”
“Well, as much as I’m gonna miss Phil and his old Wright’s, you’ve been a great customer so far,” she said. She managed to smile. “And if you’re going to keep coming back through here, I’m gonna need your name to write it down so I can remember.”
“Only if I can get your name,” he said, his lip perking mischievously.
“You drive a hard bargain,” she said, feigning disappointment. She pushed her glasses up on her nose as she took out a pen and her notebook, flipping to the last blank page. “Alright, name?”
“Bucky,” he said. When she raised her brows, he said, “It’s a nickname. Bucky Barnes.”
“Bucky… Barnes…” she repeated as she wrote it down. He furrowed his brows, noticing there wasn’t a hint of recognition in his name. Or even his face. She was blissfully unaware of the man he really was. Either that, or she didn’t care. He would put his money on the former. People tended to care when they learned he was the ex-assassin who had tried to kill Captain America ten years ago. “Well, Bucky , in return–” she held out her hand “–Rowan Burke.”
“Good to meet you, Rowan.”
“Right back at you, Bucky.”