WASHINGTON D.C.
2014

JUNE could barely grasp what happened between her and Bucky in the bathroom.

Her skin still buzzed where he had touched her along her scar, and she felt his gaze continue to burn into her even after he left. The whole thing was ridiculous. When June checked her reflection in the small bathroom mirror, she saw that her cheeks blushed a bright red.

She stood there, motionless, everything too quiet, even with the blood roaring in her ears. Bucky was just in the next room, and June was all-too aware of it. Not knowing what else to do, she quietly shut the door. She replaced the rag against her brow, for it had begun to bleed again and in her distraction June had not noticed the trickle of blood snaking down to her eye. With the other hand she rummaged through Steve's medicine cabinet, pushing aside various pain medications and sleeping pills until she found a box of butterfly bandages. Carefully, June disinfected and dressed the cut (she thought back to her days in Hydra's labs, where they had grilled the basics of first aid into her brain like a brand) and drew in a deep breath. Time to face the giant.

June pushed the door open a few inches. Her eyes scanned the living room and kitchen—they were deserted. Despite her racing heart and upswinging anxiety, she stepped out into the hall, moving on cat's feet in a very Romanoff-esque manner, until a sharp noise interrupted her prowl. June's head snapped to the left, and she saw that Bucky had come out of his room and shut the door behind him, looking just as alarmed as she felt. June's stomach flipped. She opened her mouth to say something, (she did not know what) but Bucky was quicker.

"Tell me what happened," he said in a nervous rush. "With you. When you were with Hydra. What they did."

It was quite possibly the worst thing Bucky could have said. June's mouth hung open for a long time, closed, and fell agape again. Bucky's eyes softened.

"Please," he said. "I think it would help me know . . . know what to talk about."

June crossed her arms over her chest. "I wouldn't know where to start."

Bucky shrugged loosely. "Try the beginning."

June shifted. "Moscow," she said in a voice that did not surpass a whisper. "Everything starts in goddamn Moscow."

"You're tellin' me." Bucky cracked a shy smile.

June chuckled weakly. "Yeah. Well . . . life before Hydra wasn't so glamorous either, if I'm honest."

Bucky frowned. "What do you mean?"

"We were poor," June sighed, shuffling towards the living room. "We were so poor. My father would come home worked half to death, and my mother right after him. They could barely feed us some days." She sank into an armchair, watching Bucky from across the room. "But they always found time to love us."

"Us?"

"My siblings and I," June explained. "Odessa is the oldest—she's married with a baby, now. Nikolai and Samuel are my younger brothers. Probably in their twenties by now . . ." Tears began to mist her eyes. "But it doesn't matter. They don't know I exist."

Bucky's face screwed up in puzzlement. "What do you mean?" he said again.

June tasted bile in her throat. "Hydra let me go because I failed. I didn't kill enough, or didn't kill the right way, and all the experiments screwed up my neuro-chemical balance . . . I wasn't able to complete missions. So they let me go. Didn't even see the use in killing me. But they made damn sure I had nothing to go back to."

"They got to your family," Bucky muttered.

"Erased their memories," June said. "Wiped them of every recollection of who I was—and it didn't stop there. Hydra found every single person I had ever known or interacted with and wiped me from their minds. Demolished my records, birth certificate, social security—everything. I don't exist. It's like I never did."

Bucky's face filled with pity. "That's terrible," he said quietly. "I . . .  just . . . please, keep going."

June blinked, unused to people prodding her to share what she felt. The only two who had ever done that were Steve and Natasha. "I didn't know where to go . . ." she went on. "I had no home, I had nothing."

"How did you begin working for the FBI?" Bucky asked.

"It took a lot of effort," replied June. "But whatever Hydra did to me actually helped. 'Enhanced cerebral performance' or whatever the hell. I started working jobs here and there, paid for school and got my bachelor's degree. I even managed to get involved with Shield before they found out who I was."

"Bet you gave them a run for their money," Bucky said with a tentative grin. "You can fight—did Hydra train you?"

"Yes. Hours and hours every day, until more blood was on my knuckles and arms than inside my body," subconsciously, June clasped her hands together. "My handlers hated me."

"Because you weren't lethal?"

"Not lethal enough," June grimaced. "The first time I killed . . . I put a bullet in an agent's head and was sick for three days after. I vomited up every last ounce of my stomach. Every time I thought I was empty, I'd remember the way his head burst open and prove myself wrong." She swallowed. She felt rather ill right then. "It was horrible."

"And when the three days were up?"

"They made me do it again."

Bucky nodded grimly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," June shrugged. "I got over it."'

"I don't believe you," said Bucky.

Startled at his abruptness, June froze. She had not, in fact, gotten over any part of it. June remembered every life she had taken—far less than Bucky, of course, but a considerable number nonetheless. One murder was enough in June's opinion.

But she had crossed that line half a decade ago.

They stared at each other for a long time, everything so quiet June thought they must be able to hear each other's hearts beat. The cut on her face throbbed, blood pulsing through it in a steady swelling. The scar on her waist prickled. Her throat constricted painfully, trying to stop her from speaking, but June's voice tore through.

"I think about it every day," she said. "I think about every person I've ever killed, each a dozen times a day. I can remember their last words. I can remember every person they begged me to spare them for. I can tell you exactly how their blood stained my shoes, or my hands, my clothes. I've never gotten over it. I've never gotten over anything in my life."

Bucky studied June's face with immense scrutiny. June wondered if she looked as close to tears as she felt.

Finally, Bucky's eyes softened into a quiet powder blue that mirrored the sky on a mild spring day. "I know how you feel. I've got twenty-four assassinations under my belt . . . they all stay with me. I can't run from them—I've tried . . . so many times. Something always pulls me back."

"What do you think it would take," June began slowly, "to get away from this? What can we do?"

Bucky chuckled bitterly. "My first suggestion would be psychiatric analysis, but who the hell are gonna tell any of this?"

June gnawed on her thumbnail. "Steve."

"No."

"Bucky," June sighed in exasperation, "I can't keep him from his home much longer. Sooner or later—"

"—I remember telling you this," Bucky snapped. "I can't see Steve. Not after everything. Not after what he did for me," he ran a hand over his face. "And God, not now that I've been hiding out in his apartment for three weeks! What could I say? Or do? I—"

"—You've forgotten more than I thought," June interrupted gently. "How could Steve be angry at you? He loves you."

A look of horror passed over Bucky's face; he dragged his hands through his hair and turned away from her, muttering something incomprehensible, before spinning back around with eyes wild again. "Don't say that."

June recoiled. "Why—"

"—Because he's not that stupid," Bucky said. "I may not remember much, but I know Steve is smart—smarter than me, even. He's got brains enough to know that I'm beyond anything we had before. I can't go back to what I was. I can't be his best friend—I can't be there like I used to be. He's got to know. He must."

A sudden swirl of anger furled up in June's stomach as his words hailed down on her. She got to her feet and regarded Bucky with eyes filled with frustration and disappointment. "You sound like a child," she murmured.

"What?" Bucky's eyes flashed menacingly.

June lifted her chin. "Listen to yourself. You're complaining that the one person who you matter most to is still in your life when they, by all rights, shouldn't be. When I came out of those labs I had jack-shit to come back to. I had nothing. You have Steve. Don't act like that doesn't matter, and don't be so stupid as to push it away because you feel like you don't deserve it."

June exhaled with a tremble, but her kaleidoscope eyes stared down at Bucky, challenging him to argue. He didn't say a word, his face stricken with surprise.

There was regret lined around his eyes. June realized it, but did not care.

Suddenly, she was desperate to get away. Too many faces and too many memories were bombarding her, and she did not want Bucky's likeness intermixed with them all. She enjoyed being able to see him in a positive context, and was uneager to associate him with the rest of Hydra's beasts.

More than anything, June wanted Steve to be there in front of her, ready to comfort and assure and chase all the horrible things away. June realized with a sickening jolt that when Steve did come back, she would no longer have him to herself. Bucky would come first.

Not even a century could shift Steve's priorities.

June slipped past Bucky, headed for Steve's room. Before she could make her escape, he reached out and caught her arm in his metal fingers.

"June," he whispered, "please. I'm sorry—that was wrong of me to say, I shouldn't—"

June wanted more than anything to rip her arm out of his hold, but her temple gave another throb, the gash still pulsing, reminding her that he was still unstable and could inflict just as much damage on accident as intentional. So, she calmly wrapped her hand around his silver palm and moved his arm away, shaking her head in a gentle indication that she did not want to continue their conversation.

She returned to Steve's bedroom. Her head was still buzzing, but not from the flashbacks or phantom faces; her hand buzzed where she had touched Bucky's fingers.

June was certain there were things Bucky was not telling her about how he felt about Steve. She yearned to know. Did Bucky feel he needed Steve as much as she did? Did he really believe he was unworthy of Steve's companionship, or was it just the guilt talking?

June realized abruptly where she might find the answers she wanted. Momentarily astounded at her own stroke of devious genius, June cracked a small smirk.

She could read Bucky's journals.

note.
sorry this update took so long!! ive been sooo busy lately it's ridiculous.

HEY BTW!!! two quick announcements:
1) ive decides to extend this book out until infinity war. i think June has just as much story to tell.
2) i published a Loki fic!! go check it!!!