Captain America Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Steve Rogers Fan Fic - The Constant

Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Winter Soldier & The Constant - Watching

The Winter Soldier & The Constant – Watching

It's not normally somewhere you would be. You're not sure you want to be here. So why are you here?

*

Life at the mountain base had settled down into a routine long ago. You found it cold, uninviting, and there was hardly anyone you knew to talk to. You had made the decision not to get to know people, it is too dangerous for both them and you. Especially you. It hurts too much when you lose them.

Maggie is the exception of course, but you have never admitted that to yourself. You and she have fallen into a friendship, although neither of you realise it. You both fill a hole in the other one's life. You as her daughter, and she as your mother. It did not take long, you were both in need of someone.

You are technically older than she is, but you still look as if you are in your late twenties. You feel older though. Maggie is in her early fifties. You don't realise that the easy way you have of talking to her is as a daughter would talk to her mother, because that is something you yourself have never experienced. And Maggie? She tells herself she is doing it to please Alex Pierce. Both of you love the men in your lives; both of you worship the men in your lives, but both of you are also growing to love each other and have become more than friends. There is a bond there, a connection.

You do not keep a running tab of how many times you have been woken out of cryo. They usually bring the Winter Soldier out for a mission but from time to time it can be for training instead. And that is what it is this time – training.

Or so they said.

In the old days you would be brought out and kept busy but you never knew really where in time you were but now it is different. You often find small gifts from Maggie in your quarters when you return. A new book, music, a pack of cards. She teaches you to play solitaire. Sometimes there are even magazines; just small things that make your life more pleasant – an illicit jar of caffeinated coffee that you have to keep hidden from the Winter Soldier. Last time it was a pair of fluffy slippers as Maggie knows how cold you get. They're all things that tell you there is someone who likes the fact you are in their life and that they care about you. Maggie will drop by when she accompanies Alex to the base and is in the process (the long process) of teaching you how to use the computer in your quarters. She is now threatening you with something called a laptop and for the first time ever you feel you are allowed to let go in someone's company. You can be yourself.

You got the giggles. "A lap what?"

And Maggie laughed, a real laugh, and then before you knew it the two of you were laughing so hard you were almost crying. It wasn't even that funny. Your sides hurt and you can hardly breathe. She has tears running down her face.

"You youngsters are all the same," she tries to say and that just makes you laugh even more – youngster! This year you will be ninety-six (you think). And that is what sobers you up and before you know it you are crying instead and Maggie is hugging you. How easy it is to go from laughing one minute to crying the next. "Hey don't, come on..." she murmurs, passing you tissues, and you look at her and you see she is crying too.

"What do you think we did in a past life that was so terrible that it makes us deserve the life we have now?" she asks you quietly, and all you can do is shake your head - you don't know but it must have been something bad.

Both of you at times talk about the men in your life; you only have each other that you can talk about them to. You know that Maggie cannot live without Alex and she knows you cannot live without James.

And it is so unfortunate that at that moment the door opens and the Winter Soldier walks in.

When Jackson Caldwell told you the Winter Soldier would be different, you had asked him how and he had admitted he didn't know, but at least he would no longer think of you as a whore. But one thing you know now is that although the Winter Soldier is not told you are that anymore, it doesn't necessarily stop him from thinking it - especially when he is in his possessive, paranoid moods.