The Soldier and the Wolf

Chapter 19

9 months later

"We've been here for almost a year and your place looks like a wreck." I was hanging out in Bucky's room while I waited for him to get changed. I was facing to wall, and I stared at his "bed", which was a single pillow and a blanket. "Do you want me to buy you sheets or something at least?" Bucky came around the chair in a jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and a hat. He sat down on his bed and started to put on his pair of gloves.

"Like you said, it's been almost a year. If I can deal with it for that long, I can still deal with it now." I stared at Bucky as he put on his gloves. I stuck out my hand and touched his hair.

"Well how about a haircut? I don't mind the long hair, but don't you wanna change it up? I could probably find scissors somewhere." Bucky gently swatted my hand away.

"It stays like this okay?" I backed away from the topic and slouched in the chair.

"Whatever you say, I was just suggesting." I down at my watch. I pointed at the time for Bucky to see and he nodded. "Market opens up soon. We should get going." At the same time we both got up, but we misjudged the space between us so we were only a few inches from each other. We stood there awkwardly before Bucky scooted away and to the front door.

"You have the money right?" Bucky asked me, and I stuck my jacket pocket in the air to signal that I had the money. "Alright, let's go."

Over the past year, we've definitely developed a...relationship. It's a work in progress, but it isn't as awkward as it was before. We give each other space, but once in a while, we'll hang out with each other a bit and give each other company. However, there are those few times, like just now, where I can get a little annoying. But I feel like he secretly enjoys it when I am being annoying because even though he tells me to stop, he'll have this little smirk on his face for a few seconds. He would smile a lot more now, and even crack a little joke once in a while.

However, he nightmares still didn't stop. It would break my heart every single time whenever I had to rush into his room because I could hear him screaming through the walls. When I'd go into his room, he would be thrashing around on his bed, or he was just be lying there like he was blinded to the bed. Ever since that incident back in D.C, I was always more cautious of waking Bucky up, but he never hurt me. I would have to tap him a few times before he finally woke up. He would sit up straight and breathe heavily, and his face would be covered in sweat and the hair sticking to his neck and face. After I gave him time to recover, he would always apologize for waking me up and ask if he hurt me at all while he was asleep.

"You have no reason to apologize. And you know you wouldn't hurt me." Once he was reassured of that, I would grab his notebook front when top of his fridge and go over and sit down next to him on his bed. I would stay there as long as he needed me to be. I would watch as he inserted a new page into the notebook. He also had different colored tabs that I bought him so his notebook would be more organized. Yellow were missions and pink were personal notes I'm pretty sure. He also had blue notes in there, but I wasn't sure what that was. He would write as little as half a page to as much as two to three pages. Fortunately, as more of his memories came back, he started to remember who he was before Hydra. Unfortunately, he also started to have more frequent nightmares because the bad memories that were erased by Hydra were coming back as well. I could see the pain in his eyes whenever he woke up from a nightmare, but he would I try to hide it as much as possible.