Bucky had been keeping a close eye on Celeste since her self-harm. It had been a fairly close call, and he was still concerned. All the while, he’d been preparing himself to leave. All the while, Bucky had been getting ready to leave this dreadful scenario behind. How could he bear to face someone he’d caused so much pain? Not just one person now, but two. His oldest friend, and the girl who’d been naive and daring enough to befriend him while he was shrouded in darkness. He’d caused so much harm to both, and while Hydra had been the driving force behind the pain he’d caused, it was not possibly excusable.

        Bucky was fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to face either of them again. Not without being reminded of the crimes Hydra had forced him to commit, even to the innocent. No. They hadn’t been innocent. Their hearts were pure. Beyond pure. Because they had treated him so well knowing exactly what he was. “Innocent” wasn’t a strong enough word for what they were. They were more. They had always been more.

        They had given themselves willing to whatever cause they had served, or believe they served. Bucky had been taken against his will, another key difference between them. With a slow breath, Bucky came to the realization that he couldn’t linger here much longer. It simply wasn’t possible for him to stay, but his concern for both Steve and Celeste grew at the thought of his leaving.

        “We’ll fight.”

        Her words rang in his head again, the promise they’d made so long ago. Back when she’d been an angel in his eyes. She still seemed an angel. Celeste certainly played the part well. She’d been there for him so often, refusing to let him leave without a fight, always insisting on seeing the best of him. She’d always been sweet to him. Kind.

        Of all things, Hydra had somehow created an angel. One who’d apparently lost her wings and turned from him once she’d found that he had been the greatest source of her pain.

        How had he turned himself from her favor this severely when she’d known exactly what he was from day one? It seemed impossible for him to become worse than he’d been since they’d first begun interacting outside of Hydra. If anything, Bucky should have become better since they’d met. But thanks to Hydra, the past was a difficult thing to overcome. More so when it’s truth was a haunting thing.

        ~~~

        “You forgot to wipe the hard drive,” Romanoff instructed. “And you hesitated before shooting the guard. That’ll cost you points in training, and your life in the field.” The red haired woman was critical in her criticism, not holding back as Lithium finished her drills for the third time today.

        “I’m sorry,” Lithium murmured. “I just forgot. I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

        “You haven’t performed this poorly since your first day, Celeste,” Natasha scolded gently, shaking her head. “What’s going on with you?”

        Lithium glanced around WIdow’s apartment, which had been outfitted for the particular drill -- a laptop sat in the corner, filled with faux information, all of which was coded. Lithium’s job was to download the information onto a flash drive, all the while keeping a lookout for the ‘guard’. In other words, Clint, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, even though Lithium’s gun was loaded with nothing but blanks.

        It was a safety precaution. They wouldn’t take any chances, and it helped add in Lithium’s training of weapons, little by little. “I just can’t focus right now,” Celeste admitted reluctantly, her mind stranded as it lingered on Bucky. Her friend. Despite the pain, the torture he’d caused, it hadn’t been his decision to hurt her.

        It had been Hydra’s.

        And they would pay for their misdeeds.

        But if they were going to pay, then she and Bucky needed to work together. Not just among themselves, but among the former S.H.I.E.L.D. team as well. Together, they could become a dangerous group, and Hydra would truly have something to fear. Their crimes would not go unpunished.

        “Well why can’t you focus?” Natasha asked, looking at Lithium skeptically, Clint keeping a respectful distance. When Lithium refused to look at her, something clicked remotely in Romanoff’s mind. “You need to talk to him, don’t you? I don’t know what happened the other day, but you know what? If it’s bothering you that much, go ahead and go talk to him. Just take it easy. And if you come back like this tomorrow, I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget -- bulletproof vests may stop bullets, but it’ll still hurt like hell. You need to be at your best, Lithium. Now get the hell outta here and go talk about whatever it is that’s bothering you so much.”

        “You . . .” Celeste’s heart wanted to squirm out of her chest. “You know . . . ?”

        Natasha actually laughed. “How could I not? It’s plain as day. Just go see him. Tell him whatever it is you need to tell him. And tell him I’ll kick his ass, too, if you don’t show up in a better state tomorrow.”

        “But . . . How did you . . . ?” Lithium couldn’t quite imagine how Romanoff could possibly know about Bucky. His presence was a secret. It was illogical for her to know.

        And yet she was quite accepting about it. Romanoff passed no judgement over the situation. It was . . . Unexpected.

        Natasha smiled. “Get going already.”

        With a slow nod, Celeste was out the door. Only one destination was on her mind: Bucky’s apartment. Silently, she prayed he would be there. If Bucky was gone, how would she ever clear this matter up? How would she ever make it better?

        Bucky had to know that things would be all right, even if it hurt her to say it. Even if it scared her to forgive him when Iris wasn’t here.

        But Iris would’ve approved, wouldn’t she?

        Lithium wasn’t sure, but she knew that Iris would’ve done anything to protect her. Every part of her.

        Iris would want Celeste to reconcile with Bucky. And so, Celeste decided she would, even if the memories skirting across her mind’s eye were dark and dangerous, reminding her of what had been.

        After all, wouldn’t Celeste want the families of her victims to forgive her if they could find it in their hearts?

        ~~~

        Lithium paused at his door, her heart stampeding inside her chest. Bucky had to be inside. But what if he wasn’t? What would Celeste do then? What hope could she possibly have of finding him again? The odds were slim to none that social media would aid her a second time in pinpointing him. Eve less so without Hydra pointing her in the right direction after monitoring every shred of information regarding the Winter Soldier.

        Knocking reluctantly against the shoddily repaired door, Celeste held her breath. What would she do if he was gone? Every second that passed without an answer, the anxiety inside her built higher. Taking a deep breath, Celeste suppressed the panic that was beginning to build inside her. She would not be spending tonight in a cell.

        Grabbing a few of the bobby pins from her hair, Lithium kept herself calm and collected as she slid the tiny pieces of metal into the lock. After a bit of struggling, and a few curses muttered under her breath, the lock clicked back out, and Celeste slid the door open.

        It was from pure conditioning, spearheaded by Romanoff, that Lithium immediately noticed the open window on the other side of the apartment, more so, the grip of the fingers that had just left the open sill.

        “Bucky,” Celeste muttered sadly, pausing for a short moment as she closed the door again, heading over to the opened space. Looking around, she noticed Bucky’s shadow vanish into an empty alleyway. “Please, Bucky,” Lithium pleaded quietly, mostly just to herself. WIth a deep breath, Lithium leapt from the window, the metal in her skin solidifying as she anticipated a rough landing.

        Crashing down into the brick that overlaid the ground, she caused several cracks to spread through the hardened clay, her body rolling to a stop. Once the danger had passed, and not a second later, Lithium was up again, running towards the dark alley, a few storm clouds beginning to cross overhead, darkening the streets and the offset alleys. A few street lights began to flicker on a few hundred feet away. The storm was closing in quickly, most of the onset having started while Lithium had been trying to quietly pick the lock for nearly ten minutes.

        Lithium slowed her pace to a walk, then stopped walking altogether, a small wind brushing against her face. “Bucky?” She called out, looking around the alley. For a trained assassin, this place had to have plenty of places to hide, and that was assuming he hadn’t gotten far away from her already. “Bucky, please,” she called out a bit louder, pleading with him. “Please talk to me, Bucky. I have to see you.”

        No answer came to her ears, only another warm wind. “Bucky!” Lithium called out a bit louder. “James, please just come out!” Lithium took a deep breath, waiting for him to appear, but he didn’t. She could swear she felt his presence in some unnatural way and that he was watching her. He had to be. Either it was him, or her own paranoia. “Fine!” Celeste told him, or quite likely, just the air. “Don’t come out and face me! But I still have to talk to you and you can’t just keep yourself from listening! You better not run from me, Bucky!”

        A quiet roll of thunder swept through the sky. Lithium hadn’t even seen the lightning flash, despite the darkness. “Look, James,” Lithium began slowly, taking a deep breath as she prepared herself. “I know this might seem crazy or foolish or something of the sort, but I mean every word of it: I forgive you. You hurt me, yes, but you never meant to! You only told me so that I knew, and so I could have a bit of closure I didn’t know I was missing! That means the world to me, James! You risked every second of our future interaction for the truth . . . Not a lot of people can do that, Bucky. That means so much. It really does. And I’m more than proud to call you my friend. You may have pulled the trigger, but you also helped heal the wounds.”

        Celeste paused, listening as the wind swept through the alleyway. With a sigh, Lithium relented that perhaps Bucky was somewhere far gone by now. Seconds had stretched into a minute, and they were growing further. Closing her eyes, Lithium wiped her tears. Bucky would never know. He would never hear the words that had come straight from the pain he’d inflicted. Somehow, that thought caused just as much of a sting as the truth he’d told her days ago.

        “Did you mean that?”

        Celeste nearly jumped out of her skin when Bucky’s voice hit her ears, the man himself not just in the general vicinity, but a mere three feet away from her, in plain view. When Lithium saw him so close, she nearly burst into tears a second time. “Oh . . . I . . . James . . . Every word . . . I already told you that . . .”

        “I know you did,” Bucky told her gently, his eyes shifting to the ground at her feet. “But I thought that answer may change when you were faced with the offender and asked to repeat it.”

        “Not at all, James,” Lithium replied quietly, shaking her head. “I still mean every word of it. I can assure you of that right now.”

        “How did you find it in your heart?” Bucky asked, his breath escaping him as the air pressure shifted. “How could you possibly care for a killer? Not just a general killer and assassin, but one who took away your best friend.”

        “Because she wouldn’t want us to hurt,” Celeste told him slowly, shrugging. “She wouldn’t want me to hurt from it. It still aches, but I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. I know you’d do anything to not hurt me. You’d do anything to help heal me. That’s how.”

        ~~~

        Bucky stood there a moment, just watching her expression for some sort of deceit. He found none. Instead, as a flash of lightning struck through the clouds, the brightness reflected off the metal inside her skin, leaving her with an ethereal glow for that fractional second. Lithium still appeared as much an angel as she had the first day.

        And just as she had that first day, Lithium wrapped her arms around Bucky’s chest, holding him close in a careful embrace.

        Only today, Bucky didn’t hesitate to return it.