Lessons To Be Learned [Bucky x Reader]

Lessons to be Learned, Part I

"He shouldn't be given second chances sometimes." A particularly drunk Stark was sitting in the Tower that night, a shot of half-sipped scotch in hand, the other a slim data file on none other than the Winter Soldier. The rest of the team had recently heard the low-down on the events in D.C., some wondering why a call for help was never offered. Steve had to keep reminding the team the entire thing happened within a matter of three days. His thoughts were so occupied, he never considered it.

"Bucky is still my friend. I'm sure, with the right circumstances--"

"Steve, the man punched you multiple times in the face with a metal arm. Your lower lip is still healing. Your abdomen is still healing. What 'right circumstances' are you talking about?!" Steve tried hard not to lose his cool with the drunken friend sitting beside him. He wasn't sure how to explain it to any of the team right now, save for the Spider. But he knew from the burning in the bottom of his stomach, he really didn't like what Tony had said about "no second chances" moments ago.

"If not the Avengers, Tony, I'm sure somebody will give Bucky a second chance. He hasn't gone back to HYDRA."

"And how do you know, Good Captain?" Thor had asked, looking up from the borrowed book from Jane Foster.

Steve Rogers wasn't able to explain this one either. All he could settle for was the "I just know" phrase.

_______________________________

Some distance away from Stark Tower, at a local grocery store


"Um, excuse me hun?"

He hadn't planned on being caught. With his large jacket, he was certain nobody would notice the can he'd stashed into it to eat for the night. Unless of course he saw, as he turned around, said can had... fallen out.

And wind up into the hands of a woman.

The woman held the can in both hands, thumbing over the dent the can had received after falling to the floor. For a moment, he was wondering how he never heard the can falling in the first place. He could pick out one man's breathing in a room full of people just before squeezing the trigger and--

"Hun? Is everything okay?" The woman before him had called him to attention again, passing the can from hand to hand. He was sorely tempted to wrest the can from her hands mid-pass and run out... but the nearly... motherly tone, she harbored in her voice, he didn't think about it too seriously.

For now.

"I'm guessing you don't have much money, now do you?" Her voice dropped softly, eyeing the price stamped into the side of the can. It was rather expensive for what it really was: a can of re-fried beans. But a solider had to have protein, right? His temptation to grab-and-run got stronger, calculating how fast he could get out of here and predicting just how fast she was in other reflexes. But that tone in her voice was still as present as ever. Motherly.

"...No..." he found himself softly saying, not daring to make eye-contact with the woman behind the metal cart...