|1| Promise Me ✦ {Bucky Barnes}

Chapter 9: You Problem

A/N: Hey guys! So sorry for the long update! School has been getting in the way of my writing lately, and it's been hard to get anything done with this chapter. I swear, more will be coming, I don't intend on leaving this book unfinished.

Also, the new Falcon and Winter Soldier series is fucking awesome. I'm not going to lie, it's been taking up some time too- but it's been giving me ideas. ;) More to come soon! Enjoy this chapter!

- Harper E. Pierce

BUCKY:

Three days ago I was sitting in Steve's apartment, thinking about the night Briar had spent in my room after the whole incident that had taken place. Frankly, I didn't know how I felt about it. I knew Briar had her problems, but a past with HYDRA? That rocked me to my core. I was hesitant to tell her much about what I had gone through with HYDRA before. At the time, I didn't think she would really understand, even with her non-judgemental attitude. I guess I understood her reasoning for not telling me; she felt the same way. No wonder she never judged me.

But that night, at two in the morning when she came to me, something changed. It wasn't like the other nights when she tried to soothe me out of my nightmares. This was different. Briar's beliefs on keeping our relationship professional had flown out the window the second she walked into my room with nothing but a t-shirt and underwear on. Those once strong principles of keeping her personal life out of her assignment had disappeared the moment she broke down. And I was okay with it because finally, I knew something more about her than just that she was an agent. I knew something real about her.

I had gotten used to her quirks. Her obsessive need to keep her space organized, her early mornings, her fiery demeanour and competitive personality, her sarcasm, her obscene language and her strong, stubborn will to get things done. She was undoubtedly a fighter, but she had a soft side.

Briar cared about the people she loved more than anyone I had ever met before, almost to her detriment. She always put others' needs first, whether they were mine, her best friends, or the family I had just learned about. Whoever it was, her needs were always last, until she could no longer handle the weight of her own selflessness. She punished herself when she finally collapsed under the weight of others' problems, as I had seen only a week and a bit ago.

I wanted her to know I was there for her if she needed me to be because that's what friends did for each other. But what had been keeping me up at night at Steve's for the five days before coming to Tennessee, was if 'friends' were what Briar and I were. Thinking about the night she had spent with me, falling asleep on my chest without a care in the world as to who was watching us, made me feel something I hadn't felt in a long time; intimacy.

It reminded me of Madeline, the redheaded girl from my childhood. The girl I think I once loved. Briar reminded me of her. I didn't know what it was, but something about Briar gave me a sense of familiarity like I was home again in 1940. Just like Steve did, except I had never met Briar before six months ago. Maybe it was the red hair she shared with the girl from my previous life? I couldn't completely put my finger on it, so for now, I chalked it up to the resemblance between Briar and what little I remembered about Madeline.

Speaking of resemblances, Briar looked nothing like the secret family she had in Tennessee. Whereas her half-sister was a curvy, short brunette woman with tanned skin, and dark brown eyes, Briar was of course a redhead with bright green eyes, and she was around average height with a slim, athletic build. Both the kids looked much like their mother, with darker skin than her, and dark chocolate hair. I found it hard to believe that Briar and Elizabeth were even related, let alone from the same mother.

For the first twelve hours I spent at my roommate's sister's place, I found myself quite nervous about the new situation around me. I hadn't been around kids since 1942, and even then, it was just my younger siblings. Up until the morning, Briar left to drop them off at school, I barely knew her sister. Although the time alone with Elizabeth originally felt awkward, once she began to engage me in conversation, I began to feel more comfortable around her.