Nightingale (Sequel to Solider Boy)

Three

"Morning Bucky," Steve said cheerfully, entering the room as he did every morning. He knocked every time, but he never waited for an invitation to enter either. 

"Morning," Bucky mumbled, face still buried in a pillow. 

"Hungry?" Steve asked, a clink of ceramic on the table and he caught the strong scent of black coffee. 

Bucky didn't answer for a moment. He was  fairly comfortable and wasn't sure he wanted to move yet but had to admit the coffee smelled pretty good. Finally, after considering the matter a moment longer, he sat upright and swung his legs out of bed.

"Thanks," he mumbled, sitting across from Steve like he always did. This had become a  routine they'd established since he'd come out of cryo. Steve always came into his room, bearing coffee and they'd either make breakfast or just sit and talk. 

"You're welcome," Steve said even as Bucky picked up the glass and took a sip, careful not to scald his tongue.  "Sleep well?"

"Same as usual." His nightmares hadn't gone away. Some nights he got lucky and slept too deeply to dream. Other nights, rarer still, he dreamed but they were pleasant. Those nights didn't outnumber the ones that were filled with the screams of dead people and coldness of Siberia.

Steve frowned for a moment, hands curling tightly together. "Bucky-."

"There's nothing to talk about," Bucky answered truthfully. "It was the same as it always is." Steve's blue eyes fixed him a moment. Bucky knew that look, Steve wanted to press the matter further, he knew Bucky too well; enough to know when he was holding something back. 

"I'm serious Steve," Bucky said, mildly annoyed as he grabbed an apple from the wicker basket on the table. "It was nothing new. Nothing we haven't already talked about."

"We haven't talked about everything though." Steve reminded him and Bucky took a small bite out of the fruit, the cracking sound like a bullet in the quiet apartment. 

"I'm not going back into the lab Steve." He said flatly as he swallowed. Steve had tried to push the topic over the last two weeks, but Bucky was not going to budge. He'd had enough of it. The hope that began as they developed a new idea, a new way to free him. Then the fear and anticipation that came as they tried it. Then nothing, a blank space before coming back and realizing it had been a false hope. It had failed and they were still back at square one. Bucky was done. He simply couldn't do it anymore and no amount of pleading was going to change his mind.

"I wasn't going to talk about the lab." Steve said, though Bucky knew because his friend did not meet his eye, that Steve was lying. "I was talking about the Nightingale."

Bucky's annoyance with the lie vanished on the spot. "Oh. That." Steve frequently checked on Bucky at night, afraid of the nightmares getting the best of him. One night, he'd heard Bucky screaming that name and had been curious about it ever since. It was the one thing they'd never talked about. 

Steve slouched in his seat and crossed his arms. "You were dreaming about her last night."

Bucky hadn't even told Steve that they were female, he'd figured that one out himself. However, it would be the only thing he ever knew about the Nightingale as far as Bucky was concerned. "I don't remember," he said honestly. "Might have been."

"You sounded scared."

"Nightmares have that effect."

"You need to talk about this Buck."

"I'm not ready to do that." And I never will be. A secret shared between many is no secret at all.  Outside of himself, Sharon knew about Melody's involvement with S. H. I. E. L. D. as did Sam, Agent Colson and Nick Fury. That was five people in total and that was risky enough. He wasn't going to add a sixth person into the mix.  Melody wanted to remain under the radar and Bucky wasn't going to be the one to take that away from her. 

Steve tried to hide the flicker of disappointment on his face. "Alright." Steve shifted in his seat, chair legs scrapping across the floor. "Clint managed to get a video call to his family yesterday."

Bucky smiled hearing that. Taking another sip of coffee he asked, "How'd he manage that?"

"Well the computers here are pretty advanced and with his whole background in espionage, he was able to set up the link so that it can't be traced. Don't ask me how he did it." Steve smiled, self-depreciating. "He tried to explain it to me and he might have been speaking German for all I understood."

"I get the feeling." He'd felt that every time Melody had tried to explain a surgery or test she'd performed at work. Most of it had gone over his head. "This while twenty-first century thing is a weird place."

"You're telling me." Steve said, a strange sort of gleam in his eyes. "When I woke up, I had no idea where I was or who was with me, so I tried to get out. I thought I might've gotten captured or something."

"Did you make it out?"

"What do you think?" Steve asked, grinning. "But I didn't get that far before I realized that this world was not like the one I was used to. It was almost like being on a different planet. All the flashing lights and signs, the cars swirling by and the way people were dressed. I was struck dumb by it all."

The laughter had died out of Steve's voice by then. Bucky didn't have to ask why, he already knew. "The future is a weird place." He said finally, setting his fork down on the clean plate. 

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "It is. But at least we're not alone."

"Yeah," Bucky found himself agreeing. "We're not." It was a blessing he didn't really think he deserved, but he wasn't going to turn away from it anymore. That time had passed. Now was the time to follow the kid from Brooklyn- in most respects anyways. He still wasn't going to follow the whole "keep trying" agenda.

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Chapter three is up! Thanks for reading!