“Bucky!” Lithium called out, rushing over to him, wrapping her arms around his chest in a tight embrace. “We missed you at practice yesterday! Slacking won’t get you anywhere, you know. Anyway, want to join me today? I’m late for my jog, so Steve and Sam are well into it by now, but it’d still be nice to have company, you know? So, do you want to come with, James? It’d be nice to have you around. We were concerned, you know . . .”

        Bucky stepped back a moment, looking at her, a flash of this young woman standing in white dress, a mesh veil, a blush settled quietly onto her cheeks, teasing his mind. That was the sort of image Pierce had taunted him with. That was the sort of image his mind had left him with. It was a terrible thing to imagine when they’d shared but one kiss and only a few softly ‘intimate’ moments. With a shake of his head, he forced the imagery away.

        A frown crossed Lithium’s face, taking that motion as his answer. “You don’t want to join me . . . ? I’m sorry . . . ?” She said meekly, genuinely believing she’d caused him harm, believing that she’d done something wrong.

        Bucky paused, focusing his attention back to her, trying to keep the visions of innocence and white away as he looked at her. “That isn’t what I meant, Celeste,” Bucky told her gently. “I was thinking of something else.”

        “But you’re upset, aren’t you?” Lithium asked, her eyes growing with worry. “What’s wrong, James? I can fix it. I can try really hard to fix it, at least. I can help you, you know? I can help, James. Let me help you, Bucky, don’t be sad. Please, please, don’t be sad . . .” She grabbed his hands in her own, looking down at the sidewalk, the sun beginning to rise over the low set trees, creasing against the buildings and houses.

        “I’m not sad,” Bucky told her gently. “I promise you, Lith, I’m not sad . . . I’m just . . . Confused.” That was a fair way to put it without raising any red flags, at least. It was the best way he could think to phrase it without making Lithium worry about him further.

        “Oh . . .” Lithium replied quietly, glancing up at him for a moment. “Well, what are you confused about, James? Anything I can help you with?”

        Bucky shook his head carefully. “Not right now, Lith. So what about that run? We’re wasting valuable time, aren’t we?”

        She gave a small nod. “I suppose we are. How many miles should we go for today?” She asked, a concerned smile sliding across her lips.

        “Whatever you’re comfortable with, ‘Leste,” he told her, his gaze drifting down the sidewalk and where it stopped for a grassy path instead.

        ~~~

        Bucky had played out the scenario of the nonexistent ceremony at least ten times over at night. He was trying to imagine how it would have happened, how they would have gotten to that point in the first place. Certainly it would have been carefully executed. It would have been cautious, some level of terrifying, and five new levels of exhilarating. It would have involved passion and a cautious approach, a desire to have her by his side.

        It would have been accompanied by a desire to have her with him, a desire to make her his wife, but not even for a second would it have been for her body or her physical form. No, what Bucky loved most about her was her heart, and the way she complimented him so well. Even though they had both suffered by Hydra’s hand, Lithium had remained intact.

        Compared to her, Bucky felt like he had fallen apart.

        And somehow, she could be his key to getting pieced back together.

        ~~~

        “How old are you, anyway?” Bucky asked, staring out at the river they’d stopped at, their run long since finished. Now, they were simply walking around the town, exploring in the down time they were stealing from their other portion of practice. The water was no more than eight feet across, likely less than that deep, and it was a bit murky from the muddy runoff that was being added to the stream this time of year.

        “Twenty-four,” Lithium told him, stepping over a particularly large fallen branch. This section of forest was filled with them. Some sections of the path were completely blocked off by a tangle of fallen branches, both large and the thin, wiry sort that were twined together.

        Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together as she trekked on in front of him. “Truly? You seem younger than that, Celeste,” he pointed out, stepping over a mess of dead leaves and branches. It was a combination that had been left behind from several years worth of past seasons.

        “Truly,” she assured him, keeping her eyes ahead of them. “People tend to think I’m younger . . . At least, if they know me the way you, Sam and the captain do . . . Otherwise they usually think I’m older . . . The ‘clients’ Hydra sent me after for ‘business’ always thought I was older. More so when I was actually a few years younger, but that was because of how I acted around them. It was how Hydra trained me to be.”

        “How exactly did they train you to be?” Bucky asked, wondering what sort of behavior Hydra would have imbued in her to make her seem older to her former targets. Recalling that he had been one of her targets before she’d been liberated from Hydra, Bucky wondered what sort of behavioral tactics she would have utilized on him as a result.

        “It’s not important,” she told him, shaking her head. “They trained me to be a terrible person. Thankfully I was able to use those same tricks against the very men who taught them to me, and well, I managed to gain leniency if I ever stepped out of line, but it was always on accident, of course. Anyway, they were horrid tricks, that most certainly wouldn’t work even half as well in sweaty workout clothes.”

        “Oh?” Bucky asked, a bit of a challenge creeping into his tone. “I’d like to see just what they taught you.” For the first time since they’d met, at least as much as Lithium could remember, a bit of a delighted glimmer entered Bucky’s eyes. A quiet challenge, a small bit of playfulness that she hadn’t been expecting.

        And something that she didn’t want to lose. She liked to see it.

        So Lithium obliged him.

        “But it’s really not that interesting,” she insisted gently, her tone becoming a smidgen of a  higher pitch, turning her head so that the corner of her eyes caught a glimpse of him before she kept moving.  “I mean, it’s just the simple things that they made me memorize. Nothing special.”

        Bucky bit down a comment to say that everything about her was special, controlling himself and his thoughts. It didn’t even faze her. “I would still like to hear about it, Lithium,” he told her, his voice softening in response to her gentle, quiet tones.

        “Would you really?” Lithium asked, her voice becoming softer as she turned her head to look at him a moment. “It’s really not much, I mean, it’s just . . .” She gave a small shrug. “It’s what I was meant to be by their design, really.”

        “You can tell me anything,” James told her gently.

        “Promise?” Lithium asked, a timid smile spreading her lips, a bit of desire creeping into her eyes as she glanced at Bucky’s lips, down to his neck, his chest, a bit further south, then back up to his face. Lithium sat down on a fallen tree that had already begun to rot, the bark moist against her shorts and her skin.

        “I promise,” Bucky told her, sitting down at her side without hesitation. Lithium smiled a bit more, a flush filling her cheeks as she glanced away, brushing a few strands of hair behind her ear.

        “I mean, if you say so, then . . .” A bit of confidence slid into her expression as she looked up from the dead leaves and branches to Bucky’s face. “All right . . . I guess I’m just not too used to people asking for my side of the story . . .”

        “I understand,” Bucky assured her with a small nod. “Go ahead and think it through.”

        “Well, um . . .” Lithium started, her hand brushing against Bucky’s thigh, against the hem of his running shorts, trying to keep her mind off the fact that she was used to seeing the Winter Soldier this exposed. She was used to seeing him in combat gear, not a cotton shirt and shorts that cut off at just above his knee. “I guess it would be good to start with the fact that they always told me to make contact . . . Physical contact is supposed to help. Just, light and airy, suggestive . . . The sensation is supposed to be a fair distraction. A nice smile to show I’m interested, if a bit flustered . . . I want them to know I’m interested, but still seem innocent . . . I want them to want me . . . I have to seem uncertain so they’ll pursue . . .

        “Once they’ve shown receptivity, I lean in just close enough that my breath catches against their skin . . .” Lithium’s smile grew a bit as she came closer to James, her breath indeed brushing against the skin of his upper neck, grazing his jawline. Her hand pressed a bit deeper into his leg. “At least until they take the challenge and-.”

        Bucky kissed her.

        He kissed her deeply, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to his body, close to his warmth and his security. Lithium was safe. Lithium was wonderful. She was an angelic force in a dark world. She would be the rain to weather the abandoned town that had paved over his old life. She would help him heal. Bucky deepened the kiss, taking comfort in her presence and everything it stood for.

        Lithium didn’t fight it. She kissed him back.