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She first sees him when he walks into the office and says a quiet, “Hey,” while she’s preoccupied with the dated fax machine. Paula’s seen every shade of person walk through Doctor Ong’s clinic’s doors and so she keeps her eyes carefully trained on his, as to not draw attention to the very obvious lack of a left arm, empty hoodie sleeve hanging limply at his side.
“Hi,” she greets with a soft smile. “How can I help you?”
“Are you taking new patients?”
She pinches her lips to the side and says, “Depends on what the visit’s for. We have a waiting list for one of our programs-”
“Sleep meds,” he interrupts quietly. “That’s it.”
She nods, and makes a mental note to herself to look up his info on the state’s website after he’s registered to make sure he’s not doctor shopping or being prescribed a crap load of narcotics. “Okay. What insurance do you have?”
“I’ll pay cash.”
He’s not very expressionate, and it makes her curious despite herself. She turns away from the finicky fax machine and gives him her full attention. “It’s sixty dollars for the visit. Cash or check. No cards.”
He nods, once, and so she turns to grab the new patient registration forms. After she’s entered James Buchanan into the system and looked him up on the automated prescription reporting site - which literally shows nothing; no narcotics and seemingly no other doctors prescribing anything - she takes him back to an examination room after asking if he wants his weight checked. He doesn’t.
“Doctor Ong will be in with you shortly,” she puts his chart into the bin beside the door. “We have a couple students on rotation. Are you alright with one, or do you just wanna see the doctor?”
“Just the doctor,” he says just as blandly as all their interactions up until that point.
She nods, plucks a pen off of her Nightmare Before Christmas lanyard and makes a note on his chart of ‘No PA’. “Thanks,” she says with her customer-service smile and closes the door.
She doesn’t even notice when he leaves the office twenty minutes later until she goes to clean the room for the next patient.
Paula notices it when he signs in on the clipboard two weeks later without a scheduled appointment. Doctor Ong allows walk-ins, so it’s cool, even if it messes up her scheduling and puts her behind on fifteen minutes of work.
“Good morning,” she greets. He gives a noncommittal grunt. She doesn’t even roll her eyes. That’s not even half as bad as she’s had to deal with other patients.
She pulls his chart, and glances at the notes from his last visit as she stamps it with the date - Symptoms: 1st visit. Complains of insomnia. Tried melatonin. PH: amputation arm-left. PTSD. FH: none. Observations: looks tired. Heart, lung, abd normal BP 143/95. Assessment: Insomnia. Possible PTSD. Plan: clonidine 0.1mg 30#1#hs. Rtn 2-3wks - and then puts it in the ‘waiting’ bin. There’s three patients ahead of him.
He still doesn’t want his weight, or a student, but she thinks she sees something flit across his face when she apologises for the wait.
She notices when he leaves that time because she’s looking for it.
She’s in the middle of helping a little girl pick out a sticker when he wanders into the office, still without an appointment, a week later.
“These one’s are scratch ‘n sniff,” she holds up the strip of cupcake and ice cream-shaped stickers in front of the girl. “Or I have princesses.”
The little girl pouts, “Do you have Black Widow?”
Paula tries not to frown. Her sticker collection is impressive, but all the kids took the Avengers stickers practically the day after she bought them. “I think I still have some Hulks or Iron Mans left…?”
The little girl pouts more, and her brother interrupts, “Do you have any Cars?”
She hears a snort, and looks over her shoulder to see James not looking in their direction while he scrawls his name on the clipboard. Paula figures he must’ve been watching her fail with the little kids though, and twitches her nose in his direction before going back to delegating stickers.
Her life, she swears.
James is sitting in one of the worn ancient chairs in the waiting area when the homeless woman with a history of schizophrenia comes in a little over a week later. Paula’s helped her find a place in a woman’s home before, even arranging transportation for her with a taxi service with experience with medical patients, and is familiar enough with the woman to know that she has to get Doctor Ong ASAP, even though he’s in with another patient.
“Doctor Ong,” she knocks on the examination room’s door before twisting the knob. “There’s a patient here asking for you. It’s urgent.”
She leads the doctor down the short hall to where the woman is standing on the scale and loudly complaining that she’s fat, when she actually could stand to gain another ten pounds or more.
Doctor Ong listens attentively to her complaints, nodding and offering suggestions while she rapidly goes from one problem to the next. One of the students has come out from behind her desk to see what all the shouting is about, and Paula shakes her head at her in a silent order not to intervene. Paula wedges herself between the doctor and the open archway to her desk in reception, keeping an eye on the doctor - looking for signs if the woman has an outburst and turns violent - while simultaneously fielding the bare minimum of her duties, or those she can while rolling the phones over to the voicemail and looking over the waiting area, seeing if any of the other patients are getting distressed at the noise or slew of curse words. There are children in the office.
Eventually, Paula interrupts with a, “Do you want me to call the woman’s shelter for you? I can see if they’ll keep a spot open for you tonight.”
“No!” The woman shouts. “No! I’m not going back to that horrible place! I got hit! The bastards there are mean!”
“Okay,” Paula says calmly, with what she hopes is a soothing tone, “I can call around. See if there’s another shelter that can-”
“No no no! No!” The woman shouts and a hand flies into her large handbag. And then suddenly there’s a gun.
There’s a gun pointed in her face.
“I’m not goin’ to any goddamn shelter!”
Paula immediately puts her hands up, and she thinks she hears a scream in the direction of the waiting area. A child’s scream.
And Paula doesn’t regret using her god-given powers to get control of the situation.
She focuses, breathes, and pulls the dirt and clay from the potted cactus on her desk, coating the gun in clay, slamming it high up on the opposite wall, out of the woman’s hands, and simultaneously encasing the woman’s hands in clay and dirt, and pulling her hands down until she’s pinned on the floor.
The whole thing lasts a few moments, but there’s more screams, and there’s people running out of the office crying ‘mutant’ like a slur.
She meets Doctor Ong’s eyes - he knows; she was his patient once upon a time - but the student, Maria, doesn’t, and she’s gaping with her eyes nearly bulging out of her head.
“Call the cops,” Paula snaps, and she doesn’t even notice it when James leaves the office, slowly, after he’s watched the whole thing and sized her up for good measure.
He, apparently, decides that she’s not a threat because he’s back in the office when it reopens three days later.
He doesn’t sign his name on the clipboard, but just looks at her until Paula gets fed up with his staring and glares at him.
“What?” She huffs, tries not to hiss. Her nerves are frayed enough as it is.
“You have a black eye,” he states without inflection, and she doesn’t know what to make of the statement.
But she’s had enough inquiries about her eye already, and it’s only the morning. Not to mention all the calls and patients muttering about ‘mutants’ and ‘sinners’ and ‘monsters’ in the office. And yet people still show up to see Doctor Ong, even though the likes of her is working for him and running his office.
Fucking assholes.
“Some people don’t like some people, when they’re different,” she almost-sneers, barely maintaining any sort of decorum of professionalism. “And so then they feel the need to prove a point.”
She stares at him, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t sign in or anything else. “What is it?” She sighs after some time, deflating, all the misplaced anger leaving her with her breath.
“You did good,” he says, as quietly as he was when they first spoke all those days ago, “the other day. I saw whatcha did. You protected a lot of people.”
A smile tries and fails to form on her face. “Thanks,” she says instead.
“Don’t let anyone give ya any shit for it,” he adds, and finally signs in on the clipboard.
Paula thinks that James just might be her favorite patient of the day, if not the year.
She’s allowed to have favorites; she’s not the doctor.
She’s walking her dog in the park two days later when she’s attacked again.
Paula had decided that she wasn’t gonna let any discrimination or hate keep her from living her life, so when Saturday afternoon turned out to be blessedly rain free, she leashed up Buster and walked to the park.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, she lived within walking distance of the clinic. Also fortunately, or unfortunately, a lot of their patients lived in the area, too.
Some were really, really unfortunately ignorant dickwads with a huge case of mutant-hate.
“I’m not gonna fight you just ‘cause you want me to!” She yells at them, hand on Buster’s collar to keep the young lab from lunging at any of the dickwads. Last thing she needs is for some judge to decide Buster has to be put down for biting someone, even if he’s just protecting his person.
“C’mon bitch, we know what you’re about. Prove your stuff,” the dickwad leader sneers.
One of them has a knife, and Paula just doesn’t know what to do.
She doesn’t want to fight, doesn’t want to get arrested for assault, doesn’t want Buster to be put in a situation where he might get hurt, doesn’t want to get hurt herself… It’s a mess, really.
“What is the point?!” She yells. “Just fucking leave me alone!”
The one with the knife gets closer, and suddenly there’s someone barking ‘Hey!’.
All eyes turn towards the newcomer, and Paula feels a physical sense of relief at seeing James there. She hopes he’s called the cops already.
“Get outta here, man,” the dickwad leader shouts, but James doesn’t budge.
“Are you threatenin’ that lady?” James drawls, and Paula can actually detect a dangerous edge to his words. It gives her a chill. “‘Cause we’re gonna have words if ya are.”
Apparently, as Paula sees from where she’s crouched against the ground with one hand wrapped around Buster and the other fisted in the grassy dirt, ‘words’ means an asswhooping. ‘Cause with one arm and no weapons, James hands the dickwads their asses on a platter. They run off while the can still walk, or, well, hobble.
Paula doesn’t even care. There’s no point in calling the cops, now.
“Holy shit,” she says, and looks up at James with wide eyes. She’s still trying to process what she just saw. “T-thanks,” she stutters while he walks over towards her, a visible frown of concern marring his rugged features. This is the most expressionate and vocal she’s ever seen or heard him, and he just saved her hide.
“Are you alright?”
She nods and stands, hand releasing Buster’s collar and grasping the lead. The lab pads a step forward and sits at James’ feet. “Thanks again,” she whispers, free hand coming up to wipe at her forehead. She feels a little dizzy, if she’s being honest. “Seriously,” she meets his stormy eyes with her own chocolate orbs, hoping to convey her gratitude, “thank you.”
He shrugs like it was no problem. And maybe it wasn’t.
James looks at her for a moment, and waves his hand towards the opposite end of the park. “C’mon, this calls for ice cream.”
Paula follows him out of the park, around the corner of the opposite block to the ice cream shop, orders a scoop of sorbet for herself and an ice-cream-less cone for Buster, and wonders what is her life while she watches her knight in shining, stained hoodie eat a banana split like there’s no tomorrow.
Seriously, her life.
Paula starts running into James here and there. After the first two or three times she catches him, she’s convinced he’s following her around. But if he’s decided to play silent, watchful protector, she’s okay with it. She’s harassed less, not assaulted again, and starts to feel better about herself. She even invites him to lunch with her on her breaks a few times, or to join her grocery shopping while he’s standing in the shadows as she waits at the bus stop with her grocery totes draped on her forearms.
They start a routine, and after another handful of trips to the ice cream shop after walks with Buster, she invites him over to watch Netflix and have a warm home cooked meal.
She’d, admittedly, google-mapped the address he provided on his registration form, and she found that he’s staying at St. Augustine’s. It’s not fair that the best damn guy she’s ever met is homeless and suffering from PTSD-induced insomnia. She figures he’s a vet, seeing as it’s St. Augustine’s and all, and given what he’d done to protect her, and it’s all so very much not fair.
He makes a face when she tells him she’s vegan. He makes another at her blackbean burgers, and she can’t stop laughing for a long, long time.
Paula thinks they’re probably friends when he very valiantly eats the entire burger, New Girl playing in the background.
She knows they’re friends when she tucks him in with her favorite quilt on her torn-up pleather sofa, and he snuffles a snore in a content, deep sleep without having taken any medicine.
Paula’s surprised sometime later when the Netflix and dinner thing become something regular, and she hasn’t scared him off yet with her veganess, or her habit to talk to Buster as if he’s a person, or her mutantness, or her taste in bad TV, or her taste in bad music, or anything, really.
She invites him to a baseball game at the tail-end of summer, and she learns his passion for the sport. She just wanted to go to try the soy dogs she’d heard so much about from her brother, but she ends up with a lecture and a history of the sport dating back decades.
Paula takes him to two more games after that.
It’s the most she’s ever heard him talk.
He tells her the night after that third game, voice quiet but expression so heart-breakingly sad, that he’s from Brooklyn - she’d figured somewhere in New York given the accent - and that he can’t go home because his friend’s looking for him, and he’s not ready to face him just yet.
She wants to press for details, but she doesn’t. She hands him her half-eaten pint of chocolate soy-milk ice cream and turns Netflix to his favorite episode of Friends. After, Paula cuddles into his side and falls asleep with her head pillowed on his shoulder, empty sleeve wrapped up in her arms.
She’s pretty sure he moves himself into her apartment at some point after that.
She only noticed because suddenly there’s a duffle bag that’s not hers and is full of stuff in her front closet, and the couch is occupied by James’ broad, long-legged frame every night.
Paula buys some guy-smelling organic shampoo and conditioner, an electric razor, a toothbrush, and a slew of other toiletries without a word about his move. She also buys a him minute phone that she pays for herself, and texts him frowny faces on busy days at work.
Eventually, he finds himself a job paid under the table at the deli down the street, and suddenly a year and a half flies by from the first time James had come into Doctor Ong’s office and into Paula’s life.
“I think I’m gonna go to New York.”
Paula blinks up at James from where he’s perched on the edge of the couch, and she’s straddling Buster on the floor while she tries to clip his nails. The statement was just so random that it takes her a minute to figure out what he’s even saying.
When she does, she sets the clippers on the coffee table and brushes off nail debris from her shirt before standing. Buster dashes off to the kitchen, but she pays him no mind. What James just decided is much more important.
“You gonna see Steve?” She asks, though she figures the answer before she even asks it. They’d spoken a little about Steve before. She knows they grew up together and they’re practically brothers, but after James finished whatever he was doing - she’s been thinking Navy Seal or something, maybe something in Afghanistan, she doesn’t press - he hasn’t seen Steve again because James can’t face his disappointment or his reaction to him not having an arm, she guesses the last bit, though he knows Steve is looking for him, which is why he isn’t in New York.
James nods. “He’s been stayin’ with a friend in Manhattan. Still has a place in Brooklyn, though.”
She doesn’t ask how he knows this even though he’s been out of contact with the guy for over two years. She’ll put her money on facebook-stalking at the public library.
“I’ll go with you. We’ll take a Greyhound... I can get Marty to watch Buster. Just gimme a week or two to arrange time-off at work.”
The smile he graces her with is totally worth it.
The last thing Paula expected was that Steve’s friend would be Tony Fucking Stark, but it’s a hard fact to dispute when James leads them through the fancy revolving door into the lobby of Stark Tower with an unwavering stride. She has a sinking suspicion on just who ‘Steve’ really is, too, and she has no idea how she feels about the whole thing. It’s just too sudden. And frankly ridiculous.
All she can do is hold James’ hand and try not to stare too hard at all the fancy light fixtures or sleek furniture dotting the lobby as they walk up to reception.
Her suspicions are confirmed when James answers the receptionist’s question on who they’re there to see with ‘Steve Rogers’. But what she doesn’t expect is for him to say his name’s ‘Bucky’ when the receptionist asks.
“James?” She whispers in question at that, but he doesn’t look at her.
Less than a minute passes by before Steve Fucking Rogers and Tony Fucking Stark are in the lobby across from them. Staring at them.
“Oh my God,” Paula can’t help but squeak and clutch James’ hand tighter. It’s the Avengers.
“Bucky?” Steve all but gasps. James nods, and then he’s draping his arm across Paula’s shoulders, seemingly defensively, maybe even to reassure himself of something, when the blond takes a step forward. Steve blinks, and then his impossibly blue eyes are looking at her for seemingly the first time, as if he’s just noticed she even existed. “Uh-”
But he doesn’t get a chance to finish that thought, because, just as suddenly as this whole thing’s been, there’s armed men and women storming the lobby from every direction demanding The Winter Soldier to surrender.
Paula continues not to know any fucks about anything, even when she’s in a SHIELD interrogation room clutching a cold cup of coffee - paper, she’d noticed, and not ceramic; they must know she’s a terrakinetic - having just been interrogated by someone named Agent Sitwell about practically every detail about her life.
It was invasive, and horrible, and she’s still reeling trying to figure out what the fuck. And that’s not even considering all her swirling thoughts about James.
At some point during her brooding thinking session, she’s interrupted by the door opening and the tall silhouette of one Steve Rogers, Captain America, standing there.
He shuffles in and closes the door. It’s both intimidating seeing him there, and awkward. Strange, too. He’s technically older than her grandfather, yet he looks about her own age. It’s very nearly surreal.
“So. You’re, uh, Bucky’s-”
“Jesus!” She throws up one hand in exasperation. “We’re friends. How many times do I have to tell you people?”
“I was gonna say roommate,” he smiles sheepishly before nodding at the chair across the table from hers. “Alright if I sit?”
She fights an embarrassed flush to her cheeks before shrugging.
He sits. It’s still awkward.
“Why do you call him ‘Bucky’,” she asks at last. “Is it because he’s related to your friend Bucky back in the day, or somethin’?” Even as she asks it, she knows that it can’t be it.
“He didn’t tell you?” He frowns a bit. “Buck- he’s, well, he’s my same friend from ‘back in the day’,” his lips twitch.
“How?” She gasps. “Was he frozen in the plane with you?” Everyone knows Captain America’s story, and by extension they know his bro Bucky Barnes died during the war, but James- Bucky is here, in the flesh, so that can’t be it. History must be wrong.
He shakes his head. “He- well, as far as we can gather, he was cryogenically frozen for some time.” He looks sad when he says it, and Paula finds herself mirroring his expression.
“The history books say he died.”
“I know.”
They just look at each other for a moment, perhaps both trying to place how their respective friendships with the same guy factor into how they interact with each other. Eventually, Paula asks one question she isn’t sure she should, “Why did those guys call him the Winter Soldier?”
Steve seems to physically brace himself. “Because he is.”
Paula freezes. After the incident in DC everyone knows just who the Winter Soldier is by reputation alone. Well, she thinks, that does explain some things. “Shit,” she breathes, and wipes a hand across her eyes. “Oh, my God, James.” She takes a long moment to try and get her thoughts in order. “He’s not- he’s not like that,” she tells Steve firmly. “James, he saved me from gettin’ jumped. He’s a good guy. The best I’ve ever met. He wouldn’t- oh my God. They’re never gonna let him go, are they?”
Steve looks troubled, and so, so sad. “He doesn’t have the arm anymore,” he says carefully, “and he seems to have broken the programming.”
“What do you mean ‘programming’?” Paula spreads her hands flat on the table and looks hard at Steve.
“He-” He seems to be struggling with what to say. It belatedly occurs to Paula that these things might be government secrets. “He was… brainwashed into being the Winter Soldier. None of that was his choice.”
Paula closes her eyes and sits heavily in her chair. Everything is starting to take its toll on her. “No wonder he could never sleep,” she says after some time, opening her eyes to look at Steve. “He tried so hard every day just to be… well, a functioning person. At first, he never smiled, never laughed, never cried. But after he moved in, well, he started- started being somebody. Maybe… himself, I guess.” She pauses, and she can see how much havoc her words are playing on Steve, but she continues all the same. “He smiled the whole way to New York, you know. I’ll,” she swallows roughly, but still says it, because it’s the truth, “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you if his life’s ruined just because he finally had the courage to see his best friend.”
It looks like she’s punched him. “Paula,” Steve says with honesty and truth and all those things the history books said Steve Rogers was, “I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to see that Bucky is a free man.”
Months pass, and Paula can’t bare to be in her apartment by herself; it’s a stark reminder of James’ absence and just where he is, where he’s suffering. Alone.
Then one day she comes home from work to find Tony Stark in her living room petting Buster enthusiastically. She curses explosively and he laughs at her.
“Hey, shortstuff,” it’s not a very creative nickname, given Paula is a short woman, “Rogers wanted me to come get you. So, grab a bag, and let’s get goin’.”
“What?” Her brows furrow severely. “Does this have anything to do with James?”
“Barnes?” He asks, and shrugs, “Kinda? He’s still in lockup, but they’re thinking about letting him have visitors.”
Paula’s never packed that fast. Stark even helps her pack up Buster’s stuff and drop him off at her brother’s. Marty is hilariously star-struck, but Paula can’t enjoy it because she’s wracked with nerves and fucking hope.
The hope’s the worst, because she ends up not getting visitation rights, as a pessimistic part of her figured, but Steve does, and she writes James a letter. It’s strange, and sad, and so, so many things.
She’s stuffing her face with fried tofu while watching Dog Cops with a guy who introduced himself as Hawkeye - her life, seriously - when Steve comes back from wherever they’re holding James.
“How is he?” She asks as soon as he’s through the threshold.
He smiles faintly and rubs the back of his neck, and she takes that as a good sign. The lack of tears or murderous intent decorating his face is a plus too. “Bored to death,” his smile widens. “He liked your letter. Uh, sorry, but Agent Coulson read it before I could give it to him.”
She shrugs, “I figured someone would.” She pauses a moment before asking, and in the meantime Steve comes over to the living room where she’s still sitting with Hawkeye - she’ll have to learn his real name at some point, “how’d things go with you guys?” It’s something she’s worried about, honestly. She knows bits and pieces of their relationship - stilted broken little stories from James, and what she could gather from her previous interactions with Steve, and the history books - but she could only imagine what it’s like now. James had hid from Steve for a long, long time after all.
Steve has a weird look on his face for a moment before he replies. “We… talked,” he says slowly. “It didn’t go as I’d expected.”
Paula quirks a brow, “Is that a good thing?” And he nods with a soft smile crinkling his laugh lines. The expression loosens one of the knots of worry in her shoulders.
Before he can say anything more, Tony Stark practically skips into the living room with all the dramatics he’s known for. “I hacked SHIELD’s file on you,” he singsongs and points at Paula accusingly. “How come you never said you were a terrakinetic?” There’s a manic edge to the grin that suddenly overtakes his features, “Wanna play with some concrete?”
They ‘play’ with concrete, and it ends with Stark offering Paula a job as his personal assistant-slash-mutant bodyguard. Because apparently he doesn’t have a mutant bodyguard in his veritable legion of bodyguards and it’s a travesty that he doesn’t have one. He has a personal assistant though, but he claims he doesn’t like him and can send him to HR. It seems he was really impressed with her animated gollum, even if it was only three feet tall and she wasn’t even trying to be impressive.
She accepts, because he offers to pay her double what she’s making now, full benefits, free housing in Stark Tower, even with Buster, and a five-thousand-dollar wardrobe budget since she said she didn’t own anything that counted as ‘business’ wear. There’s the added benefit of being closer to Steve - the only person who probably loves James as much as she does.
And she does love him; she’s never had a best friend before, but she figures James is it. Needless to say, it was hard for an awkward, quiet mutant girl to make lasting friends growing up, and her adult life so far hasn’t exactly been filled with a slew of people willing to be a permanent fixture in her life either.
She has a more meaningful conversation with Steve later that night in his apartment in the Tower once she’s free of Tony’s mania, and discovers the true depths of Steve and James’ relationship. Steve apologises profusely that he can’t give her more details - a lot’s classified, he explains, and so he has to be vague about more recent things - but what she does learn only solidifies her ideas of the epic bromance between Steve and Bucky she learned about in school and pieced together from conversation.
She’s trying to mesh up Steve’s Bucky in her head with her James, but there’s a lot of gaps. She can only imagine with dawning horror what that must mean for what James has been through.
“What about you?” Steve asks, “How’d you meet Bucky?”
She can’t help but smile and say, “He was a patient at the clinic I… worked at.”
Steve raises an eyebrow, and she feels a flush crawl up her cheeks despite herself as she recounts, “There was an… incident at work. A patient pulled a gun, and, well, you know I’m a mutant. I, uh, stopped the woman. A lot of people found out what I am that day. James,” she still hasn’t been able to call him ‘Bucky’ aloud without having his permission to use his moniker, “he had been supportive, of what I did, even though it exposed me to a lot of hate. It had never been as bad as it was then. I’d never been jumped like that because I’m a mutant before, but I was walking my dog Buster, and James swooped in and scared off these guys.” She smiles broadly at Steve, despite the horribleness of that experience; she’s proud of James, and so grateful. “And after he’d kicked their asses, he took me out for ice cream!” She snorts a laugh at the memory playing before her eyes, “It was ridiculous, but so, so sweet.” She’s realizing her smile’s probably turning a bit dopey, “And, well, we started hanging out, and-”
“And then he decided to move in, take care of you, and never let you out of his sight?” Steve’s grinning, “Yeah, I know something about that.”
His grin turns wistful, and Paula’s smile dims. “You miss him,” she says, and it isn’t a question. She sympathizes with him so much in that moment. “Do you think… will he ever be free?”
The question was asked quietly, and Steve doesn’t break solemn atmosphere the conversation has turned to when he replies just as softly, “I’m working on it.”
It’s a long four months before Steve makes good on his words. James is released into the protective custody of one Captain Steven Grant Rogers, and it’s been nearly as long as Paula’s known James that he’s been in lockup. But even after all that time she still holds him as her best friend, one sided letters and all. And that’s even considering the fact that she’s made more friends since working for Stark, including Steve.
Sometimes she’ll admit to herself that she still misses Doctor Ong and her cramped one-bedroom apartment, especially when her new apartment seems far too open and empty and the feeling of something not right claws at her gut on sleepless nights, but she doesn’t miss her old life right then - not when Tony has James’ things stored away in the guest room in Steve’s Tower apartment, or when all the new things he had ordered for him are stowed away in boxes just inside the waiting space.
But more importantly, James is on his way here, right now, and Paula is very nearly overwhelmed with nervous excitement while she waits; it’s all she can do but bounce on her heels and stare longingly at the elevator’s doors.
JARVIS announces their ascent even before the light blinks on the elevator, and Paula’s about to burst, with what, she doesn’t know.
It seems like it’s tears, though.
As soon as the metal doors slide open to reveal a rather worn-looking James flanked by a happy-looking Steve, Paula’s hand flies to her mouth muffling a relieved sob and tears spill from her eyes, and onto James’ shirt when he steps towards her, his arm outstretched in invitation. It feels just so damned good to hold him again, and she doesn’t want to let him go.
She feels him press a lingering kiss to her hair, and she cranes her head up to look at him. There’s a steeliness to his gaze that hasn’t been there since the early days of their acquaintanceship, and the bags under his eyes look like they have bags, but-
“Your hair,” she whispers and without thinking about it, stands on her toes to brush her fingertips across the shorn hair at his temples.
She doesn’t think she imagines it when he briefly presses his shaved head into her fingers, seeking contact.
“I know you liked it long, doll,” he mutters, and God is it so good to hear his voice outside of her memories. “It’ll grow back.”
She shakes her head and feels tears pressing at the backs of her eyes again. “It doesn’t matter James. It’s just- I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Bucky,” he says and bends his face closer to hers. “I’d like it if you called me Bucky.”
Later, when they’re curled up on Steve’s sofa, the glow of Netflix illuminating the room after Steve’s gone to bed, Bucky tells Paula he credits her with having saved him.
“I’d’ve probably gone from shelter to shelter until someone caught up with me,” he says, face too shadowed in the dark for his expression to be clear.
“But you still ended up incarcerated; you’re not free,” Paula whispers, guilt coloring her words.
“Freer than I would’ve been had I never met you,” he declares. “I was still too much the Soldier, before,” she can barely make out the hurt playing over his face at that. “I wouldn’t have gone quietly, and not by my own choice.”
“So you did know that’d happen,” she breathes. The idea had come to her before, but she had hoped he wouldn’t have brought her to New York to say goodbye, or to see Steve one last time.
He nods, “I figured it was time.”
The quiet stretches, oppresses, and Paula asks, “Did you know you’d be let out?”
“No,” he says, and she wants to scream at the unfairness of it all.
“Are you,” she has to clear her throat, “do you regret that you are?”
“No,” and he turns more fully towards her on the couch. “They helped me. I… never expected that, but,” he looks away, “they say I’ll be pardoned, eventually.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
He shrugs.
Paula may have unknowingly helped to pull Bucky free of the last chains of the Winter Soldier holding him and preventing him from embracing choice and life, but Steve helps Bucky embrace freedom.
And love.
It’s beautiful to watch. And Paula tells herself she’s not jealous, not really, and that she’s so thankful for Steve, but it hurts to see them grow closer while she seems miles away on the sidelines. Merely a spectator to their relationship.
And one day Bucky is pardoned, miraculously so, and Bucky and Steve are never more than a foot apart from each other the whole night the Tower celebrates.
Paula didn’t know it was possible to feel so happy and yet so sad at the same time, mourning what she once had in face of such a blessing.
Bucky escorts her to her apartment when the evening winds down, having just taken a shot with Natasha and received a playful shove from Steve.
Paula looks at him before she turns towards her door, and he looks happy. He’s a changed man, she knows this, and it’s a good thing, but there’s a part of her that will always ache for her James and the memories of the time they’d spent together.
“Goodnight, Bucky,” she whispers, but he must read something in her tone, because instead of wishing her a goodnight he says,
“Hey, you know I’m gonna stay here, right?”
“I know,” the smile on her face feels strained. “You’d never leave Steve.”
“Or you,” he adds seriously.
Paula blinks, thrown off guard. “You… do you mean that?”
“You, me, and Steve - we’re a team ‘sfar as I’m concerned.”
She searches his eyes, looking for something she isn’t sure of. “Really?”
He envelops her in a hug, and it feels so good. “Really, doll,” he breathes deeply, “I’m the luckiest fella in the whole damn world. You both love me, hell if I know why. But I know that much.”
“I do love you,” she admits into his chest.
“I know. I love you too.”