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WHO: Bucky Barnes and Kate Bishop.
WHERE: A...diner? Someplace they agreed to meet.
WHEN: Saturday night, I guess.
WARNINGS: None.
SUMMARY: Kate mentions having met Bucky before, and you know what they say about curiosity.
FORMAT: Whatever you want!

The way Kate'd talked made Bucky's stomach do flips. The kinda flips that said, this is a bad idea, Barnes. But the thing about Bucky was that he was always full of bad ideas, and so he'd learned to simmer down all his jumpy parts and press on ahead. The gaps in his memory did bother him, of course. How he knew this place at all, how he remembered Kate's name when he couldn't recall ever meeting her. This future really was for chumps.

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Kate really didn't want to have this conversation, not over the network and not face to face. Why did she have to open her big mouth? Why couldn't she ever shut up? She didn't want to be the one to explain the future to Bucky. Or what parts of it she actually fully understood anyway. The only thing worse than finding out the future was just getting snippets from a big-mouthed kid who liked to think she understood more than she really did.

Reluctantly, she arrived at the designated diner, poking her nose in the door to look for him. She didn't spot Bucky right away, however, and she ended up just lingering in the doorway, feeling like a complete moron. Funny how this seemed to be a recurring theme with them, no matter how old they were or what version of reality they were in.

He was seated in one of the booths already, hunched over a menu, making a fuss about taking his time. He didn't know (remember?) enough about Kate to recognize her standing in the doorway, and he was too caught up with himself besides. The waitress came over and asked if he was ready to order. He told her he was waiting for someone else. He might've told her a bit too loudly.

His voice caught her attention, and without and further hemming or hawing, she wandered over to his table, taking the seat across from him without even asking. How she hadn't recognized him before was just baffling to her. But then again, he looked a lot different in person, and he really did look younger.

"Hi." She gave the waitress a small smile before turning her eyes back to Bucky. "I'm late, huh. Sorry. You weren't waiting long, right?"

"Nah," he said. His elbow was already on the table, and he pressed his forehead to his palm before running his fingers through his hair. Bucky didn't really get fidgety, but some part of him knew this wasn't where he wanted to be.

Kate felt a little relieved by that. She wasn't sure why, since this whole situation had her on edge. But for some reason she was glad he at least wasn't inconvenienced by her. Slowly, her eyes fell to where his other arm should have been, and a few seconds later, she realized she was staring. In an effort to save face, she quickly turned back to the waitress and ordered some juice.

"So, uh..."

"Yeah. What've you got to tell me?" He figured he oughta just rip the band-aid clean off. But then he realized she might not know what she had to say. Girl was pretty— all the girls were pretty here, seemed like— but she seemed a bit lost. "Just start from the beginning. When you met." He wasn't sure if he was supposed to put "him" or "me" there, so he just left the sentence alone. Unfinished.

"Right," she nodded, taking a deep breath. Now came the hard part. "Well, it was Christmas Eve. You, er... he hit me in the face with the shield." She paused, looking only slightly embarrassed before adding quite quickly and with the slightest bit of pride, "And then we helped him take out a HYDRA base."

"Wait," he said. "Explain the bit with the shield."

"It was Patriot's shield," she said before adding, "Er, Eli. My team mate. He uses an old shield that belonged to Captain America. Anyway he threw it at you, you lobbed it back, it hit me, etc. etc."

"Patriot's not supposed to have a shield." He also wasn't supposed to be called Eli. He wondered what had happened to Jeff Mace. You gotta figure he'd be old by now. If he was allowed to get old, that is.

"Sorry. So what happened after?"

She cleared her throat, sipping the juice that the waitress had set before her. "Well, we messed up. We were about to go charging into a HYDRA base and Nick Fury sent him to stop us. And he tried, but it was a little too late, and he ended up taking us along. To take out the base with him."

"Dunno if I like the thought of ranking under Fury." It also didn't seem to him like the end of the story. "Go on though, I wanna hear the whole bit."

"Well, we helped him with taking out the base, and then we went our separate ways for like... a couple hours." She fidgeted a little. She didn't like feeling so antsy. "A few hours later, we all met up again. When we figured out who you were."

"And how did you figure that?" He sat there for a moment, thinking about taking a drink of water.

"It wasn't my hair, was it?" People from the future were always staring at his hair. Wasn't his fault western civilization had seemingly forgotten the art of pomade.

"Naw, it's not your hair. The Vision figured it out and clued us in," Kate laughed, shaking her head. "We wanted to tell you what an honor it was, to fight on your side. Because it was. And it is, you know. You're kind of a big deal."

"Yeah, I know." He smiled at that, he couldn't help it. A lifetime of cockiness oughta be good for something. There was a lot there that didn't add up, that he wanted to ask about, but he let himself keep the moment.

The waitress reappeared, and Kate ordered a sandwich, taking a long sip of her juice before settling her eyes on Bucky again. There was a lot more to say, more details, more glimpses of the future she could provide. She just wasn't sure where to draw the line. How much would be too much? "So, um. That's how I met him. That's how I met you. I'll open the floor to questions now."

"Let's start with how I'm a big deal but you didn't recognize me," his voice changed— he could get real serious, real quick.

"It ain't like my codename is subtle," he added, trying to soften things, the punchline to a joke he hadn't told.

She took a breath quickly before diving in. There was no way this would go smoothly. That's just the way of it. "We all thought you were dead, Bucky. Everyone did. You were the poster boy for why kids weren't supposed to get into this business. So having you show up as an adult sixty years after the fact, well... I mean, of course I didn't recognize you."

"I'm not a kid," which was true, according to him. He had a couple years on Kate, at least. "And I'm not in that business."

There was more, but he had to let it settle before he could speak it. The math was all wrong, for one thing, but he knew that. He knew some other stuff, too, but it was like his brain couldn't tell him, and it was all just forced down to unsteady feelings in his stomach.

"I guess not." She stared at her half-empty glass. It seemed unnecessary to have to explain how important he was. She didn't want to have to explain what his death had meant to everyone that put on a mask after him.

"I'm not sure all of what happened to you, okay. I know some of it, but I don't have the whole story. Some of it is just what I've heard, on the news and stuff." Kate sat up straight for this part. It seemed too important to slouch. "But you didn't die in the 40's, Bucky."

The thing was, Bucky'd never thought of himself as a superhero. He'd read about Namor and the Torch blowing up the Bowery in the papers, like everyone else. And he knew that after that, people in costumes started crawling out the corners of New York City, a place he didn't live. A place he'd never lived. They called themselves stuff like "Angel" and "Phantom Reporter" or maybe they didn't, maybe that was just something the press had drummed up. He'd even met a few of 'em, now and again, and they seemed sane enough, at least to Bucky, who'd seen an awful lot of things that weren't meant for seeing. They weren't like Namor, or Jackie— people who had powers, who needed to help people because of that.

The others, the ones who had nothing but a mask, and maybe a gun, if they were lucky, there was a name for them: tourists. But Bucky never felt like a tourist, either. Because he never would've run out to fight evil on his own. It was just an assignment, same as any the Army gave out. The costume was 'cause the cameras liked it, more than anything, just like the beard on Uncle Sam. And the mask, well, he figured it was so that if he died, they could stuff some other chump in there, easy. It was all calm and calculated and out of his hands and he was a bit lost without all that direction.

That was one of the reasons the future bothered him. He couldn't just put on a mask and punch people, but it seemed like that's what everyone was expecting.

'Course, he was a bit shorthanded when it came to punching people, anyhow, wasn't he?

All of this was gnawing at him patiently, with tiny rigid sets of teeth and no appetite for quitting. All of it stuff Kate was making him think of, that she didn't need to hear. So instead, what he said was, "I'm pretty sure I did. I was there, and I felt real dead."

Kate shook her head. She hated to disagree with him, but he wanted to know. He had a right to know what happened.

"But you weren't. You didn't die. You survived it. And some people found you." She frowned, bit her lip, then added, "The Soviets."

"No," he said, but not like he was disagreeing. It was just— a little voice in his head was begging him to stop. There were things a person wasn't meant to know, Bucky supposed. He didn't much care, but he did suppose.

"Just... just gimme a minute."

"Okay," she said quietly, staring at the table. It was out there now, and she couldn't take it back. But she could wait. It was the very least she could do. Meanwhile, the waitress brought the food and more water for them.

After a minute or so of waiting, she finally asked, "Are... are you okay, Bucky?"

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