Bucky lay back in the grass, eyes closed, letting the sun wash over him. He was half joking about that nap, but now it doesn't sound like such a bad idea. What else can he do out here? He's the least dangerous when he's asleep, and coming out of cryo always made him tired, he remembers that much. And he didn't get much sleep last night.

After they both turned in from dinner, he lay there for at least two hours, half tired and thinking too much to sleep. About how dangerous this was, how he shouldn't be this close to her with his brain still not his own, wondering why he still wants to be anyway. Wouldn't it be better to hurt her feelings than to hurt her?

His mind swam with memories, not only of his time as the Winter Soldier, but of the memories he's held on to. It's more than he ever thought he would get back. And still he wishes for more. For everything. Every moment, good and bad. Everything short of being able to see his family again and grow old with them. He misses them.

He wonders if Kate misses her family. That was the first time she mentioned her parents. He wonders where they are, when she last saw them. If she has siblings. Probably not, since she likely would've mentioned it.

She merely laughed at him and walked off, probably going to explore, like she said. He didn't open his eyes to watch her go. Part of him wishes she would keep her distance. At least until his brain is his own. But all of him knows she won't listen to him on that front. Like she thinks she's invincible or something. Or she trusts him even though she shouldn't. He sighs softly. She stresses him out.

~_~_~_~_~

Footsteps awaken him from a light doze, the sound less startling than the fact that he managed to fall asleep at all with the sun right in his eyes. These are louder footsteps, casually paced, not made by a particularly large person. Non-threatening, not spying. He opens one eye, spotting red hair practically glowing in the sun. He was right; it's Kate. "Find something interesting?" he asks.

"They have white rhinoceros. And they are so beautiful. They're huge and domesticated," she says. "Can you imagine how hard it would be to domesticate a rhino?"

Bucky sits up, brows furrowed a bit. "Well, maybe they're more tamed than domesticated."

"No, they're in pens. Big pens, and I saw some people working on armor for them. Rhino armor. Do you realize how insane that is?"

"How many rhinos were there?"

"I saw at least a dozen, but there has to be more. I didn't go very far or talk to anybody. Gosh, I wanted to talk to everybody."

He chuckles, watching her eyes light up just talking about it all. This is that excitement he should've appreciated the first time he saw it. He sure does now. "Why didn't you?"

"Well, everybody seemed so busy, and when I got kind of close some kids gave me weird looks and I didn't want to bother anybody. Also, we're technically not supposed to be here, so..."

Bucky sighs. "That's true."

Kate looks around for a moment, seeming to take everything in as if seeing it for the first time again. Her eyes hold pure amazement, pure wonder at this place. Bucky wishes he could feel that, too, as strongly as she could. He's so busy worrying about his brain, in the back of his mind. It's always there.

"Well, I guess it's time for lunch," Kate says, turning back to him. She doesn't quite meet his eyes. "What do you want?"

"Oh, I don't care. Anything is fine." He truly didn't know what to make of the food sent with him. He hasn't been awake long enough to really try anything new here, save from what they ate for dinner last night. Kate seemed to know what she was doing there, and he did, too, to a degree. It was just stew. He'd made stew. He'd had to cook for himself while in hiding, he'd learned some things. Was it always good? Absolutely not. But he'd never had dishes like this before. He doesn't even know what they're called. Kate does, though, so he'll leave these decisions up to her. He's not picky, besides.

She disappears into her hut for a moment, then emerges with some of the food they'd sent for them. "What are you in the mood for?" She held up a container filled with green. "I think this is a kale dish of some sort. Haven't had it yet. There's more stew. They didn't exactly send instructions on how to cook this stuff. I guess they figured we'd cook it how we want? I don't know, they were in a rush."

Bucky shrugs. "We'll figure it out."

"Sure. I've eaten this. I can... Yeah, this'll be fine."

She choses a dish — something with vegetables — and Bucky gets to work, doing what he can. He lets her take the lead, and they work quietly, Kate starting the fire, figuring things out. Her brows furrowed in concentration, looking at the ingredients, probably trying to remember the dish as she ate it before. They end up with a finished product, though whether it's exactly right or not, neither are sure.

"This is probably close," Kate says, looking at it closely before taking a bite. "I've had this one only a few times, and I didn't really pay attention when I ate it; Shuri and I were working in the lab through dinner."

Bucky pauses. "Working in the lab? On...?"

"Your brain?" she finishes. "Yeah. We've mostly been doing that."

He has to admit he's curious. It's never not on his mind, and the idea that he could be free of this, of everything HYDRA did to him, it's too good to be true. Talking about it makes it feel real, and as much as he wants it to be real... He sighs. "How... How close are you? To being..."

"I think we're almost done. Of course, with things like this it could be trial and error. But we'll keep trying until we get it right." She smiles at him reassuringly, but Bucky won't let himself feel reassured.

"Sounds like a lot of effort."

She shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not. This first solution could be the answer. We won't know for sure until we try."

"No, it... You've already put in so much effort. You've done so much. Why?"

"Why not?"

"That's not an answer."

Kate sighs, setting her food aside. "What do you want me to say, Bucky? You know already you're one of my heroes, I told you before. You didn't wanna talk about that, so we didn't. You didn't want any questions, so I haven't been asking any, as hard as that is. So what is this all about? You don't believe I would take the chance to help you, you of all people?"

No, he believes it. Of course she would — she is. She just doesn't understand why she shouldn't.

"I could've killed you," he says quietly. "I almost did. I still could, out here. I shouldn't even be near you."

"That wasn't you."

"Kate-"

"It wasn't." She picks her food back up, stares into it while she eats. She curls in on herself, and Bucky stops arguing with her. He's upset her again. He should've accepted that in the first place and moved on. Stayed in his own hut and never come out.

He picks up his lunch and goes inside. She doesn't want to be around him right now anyway.

~_~_~_~_~

Kate tried to think about something else — anything else — while she finished her lunch, but she couldn't. She said too much, she said it wrong. They agreed not to talk about it, and he was the one to bring it up, but she pushed too far. Or he did.

She just got so... upset. With him, with what happened to him. With the way he sees himself. She didn't understand it. Why did nobody else but she and Steve see who he really was? Not even Bucky himself could see it. That was the worst part. It got to her, and she said the wrong thing. Pushed him away. She didn't know if he'd ever come out of that hut again.

She waited until now, until dinner. Spent the afternoon thinking, drifting in and out of sleep, trying to braid her own hair out of boredom. Now she's going to cook the meat they sent. They ate it braised last time, with T'Challa and Ramonda. She isn't exactly sure how to braise something and probably doesn't have the tools. But she'll do her best. There's enough herbs and spices here that she can do something with it. And then they'll have some vegetables on the side. Or she will. But he can't just not eat.

By the time the food is done, he still hasn't come out. The smell wasn't enough. Kate hesitates, but she won't give up yet. She walks over to his hut and stands outside of the door. "Are you going to eat dinner tonight?"

It's silent for a while, then she can hear him shift, but he doesn't come out yet. "I don't know. It smells good."

"I tried." He opens the curtain, and Kate steps back. "Thanks for joining me."

"Thanks for making dinner."

They sit down in silence by the fire, across from each other. The distance between them seems even greater than it's been before, and Kate certainly isn't responsible. Either he's still mad at her or he's still thinking about being afraid of hurting her. It upsets Kate all over again. She eats most of her food, tries to forget about what happened earlier, but she can't help herself. The silence is deafening, and there is nothing else at all on her mind. The best she can do is speak quietly. "Why do you think you're a monster?"

He stops chewing. "Are you kidding me?"

"What, dumb question or you don't think you're a monster?" Kate says. "l'Il give you a hint: The right answer is option two."

"Why can't you understand what I am?"

"What? A decent human being? A friend, a-a brother, a son, a soldier who deserved better? I could go on. I think you're the one who doesn't know who you are."

"You're naïve."

"You're stubborn."

He feigns a gasp. "You actually recognized that I have a real flaw?" He shakes his head a bit, sighs. "Look, Kate, I'm really sorry, but I'm not your hero. I'm not the man in the Smithsonian exhibit or on the TV in those documentaries or in your probably glowing essays. I am not the man you think I am. Maybe I was once — at least something close to it. But I'm not anymore."

Kate looks down. He's wrong, he's so wrong. But what else can she say to get him to see it? "Don't criticize my essays like that. I'm proud of those."

Bucky just sighs, putting his dinner down. "I don't wanna argue with you, okay? I don't. I'm going to bed."

It can't end like this. They didn't get anywhere, just like last time. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe what went wrong last time is that she didn't get to push far enough. So she lays it out for him, tries to get him to finally see it. "You're not a monster because you didn't have a choice."

To her relief, he stops walking. "What?"

"You're not a monster because you didn't have a choice," she repeats. "They made you into that. They forced you to do those things. As much as you want to fight and argue with me over all this, you didn't have a choice. You can't say I'm wrong about that."

"What does it matter?"

"Monsters are people who have a choice." Despite her best efforts, her voice breaks. Because she knows very well what a monster is. "And choose so obviously, horribly wrong."

Bucky goes quiet, looking right at her for so long she starts to feel transparent. "If I didn't know any better I'd think 'people' just meant you."

Kate stares at the grass, her chest beginning to warm. "Then you don't know any better."

"Kate-"

"Do you know what I did? Do you have any idea? Did you see the news?" She fights down the fire as she speaks.

"Kate-"

"I built a killer robot. I built a thing that wanted to destroy the whole planet. The thing that destroyed Sokovia. The thing that destroyed the Avengers. The thing that led Zemo to frame you and hurt all those people. All of this, everything. It's my fault."

"You're crazy."

"It's my fault!" she shouts, fists clenched as they turn red. "And I chose to build that thing!"

"Did you know what would happen?"

"That's not the point-"

He nods. "So you didn't."

The fire is building inside and if she doesn't let the anger and hurt out in words it'll come out in an explosion and catch everything on fire. Every word is torn out of her. "I should've said no. I had the chance to — I almost did. But I let myself be sucked in by the stupid thought that I could do something good."

Bucky doesn't blink. "Just out of curiosity, who made the formula that makes all our clothes and huts and every cloth we have out here completely fireproof? Who was that again?"

She shakes her head, hot tears forming. "You don't listen."

"I don't listen? Kate, I don't know what you thought was gonna happen when you built that thing, but I know it wasn't what it did."

"It was... It was supposed to protect the world. We built it to protect humanity from what was out there." She gestures to the sky, to space, up in that great expanse of stars now so obviously full of danger that they can do nothing to prevent. "Ultron decided the best thing was to kill the Avengers. Maybe he was right about that... Of course, his ideas just kept evolving into total genocidal crap but it started from somewhere."

"And you didn't build him alone. What makes you more responsible than anyone else? Who else built it? Stark, right? His name was in the news."

Kate nods. "Tony and Bruce. Tony made up for it, or tried to, with the Accords. Bruce just flew away. Gone. We still haven't found him, and I don't know if we ever will."

"And your solution to that is to beat yourself up and call yourself a monster?" Bucky asks. "You know, Zemo chose to do what he did, and he knew what would happen. He planned out every step. There. That fits your criteria. You call him a monster?"

Kate thinks for a moment. She wants to; she could. He hurt a lot of people. Maybe she should. Maybe he is. But part of that is her fault, isn't it? "I don't know. I don't think I have the right."

"Well. I'm stubborn and you're naïve and we're both bad at listening. I think we've learned a lot here tonight." He sighs. "Do me a favor, actually think about what I said. Maybe you'll learn something that's more useful."

Kate looks up at him, looks him right in the eye. "What, that you're a better person than you think you are?" Bucky starts to speak, but then he closes his mouth. Kate smiles a bit. "Yeah I got you with that one, didn't l?"

"Go ahead," he sighs. "Be proud of yourself."

"Will do. Goodnight."

"Yeah, yeah."