Chapter 2: That's Life

Bucky listened to Montgomery's story as he replaced all the tools he'd used that day into one of the cabinets along the back wall. Montgomery was strict about everything being in its proper place. He insisted that he liked order, but Bucky realized soon after he'd started on at the garage that Montgomery's eyesight wasn't what it once was and he relied a great deal on his memory of where things, especially small things, had always been.

"So the idiot insists I have to pull over just after we get off the bridge," Montgomery told Bucky, waving his hands. "Won't tell me why, just insists I pull off the road. What does he do? He walks back up on the bridge, undoes his pants, and pisses onto the road below! Then he just comes back, gets back into the truck, and says we can carry on. And I said, 'Bill…' I said, 'Bill, this is why I have a hard time trustin' you.'"

Bucky laughed. "I'm sure you'll find a way to pay him back," he said, closing the cabinet.

"Equal to exposing oneself and pissing off an overpass?"

"Equal but different," Bucky clarified, grinning.

Bucky met Montgomery the first day he'd come to town and started working for him on the second. Bucky had ignored the "Help Wanted" sign when he'd first passed the garage, but the sight of the Citroen Traction Avant had made him stop short. He hung back for a couple of minutes and just stared at the car that he'd remembered seeing in the streets all those years back. He'd barely even noticed the man leaning over a work table.

"Well, don't just stand there. Have some manners. Come in and say hello."

Bucky slowly walked into the garage, stopping about ten feet from the man who'd called to him.

"You know how to work on a car like this?"

The question startled Bucky and he gave the man a confused look but didn't answer.

"Would you know what you're doing with the engine? Or the body work?"

Buck blinked a couple of times. "The engine, yeah. I know something about them. The body… no."

"You a fast learner?"

Bucky shrugged. "Depends."

"You gonna be stickin' around for a while?"

"I think so."

"If you can actually work on the engine, I can teach you about the rest."

Bucky shook his head. "I'm sorry?"

The man gestured to the sign in the window. "Been looking for help for a while now. Not many around here who know how to work on these older cars, or maybe they don't care to, and so far I haven't met anyone patient enough to learn. You patient?"

"Yes, sir," Bucky replied, unsure of exactly what he was signing up for.

"I'm looking for another pair of hands around here. Used to be able to work quickly on my own. Age is slowing me down. Job's yours if you want it." He walked over to Bucky and held out his hand. "Name's Montgomery, by the way."

Bucky cautiously shook the man's hand. "James."

"Pleasure to meet you, James. So what do you say? Interested in helping out around here?"

"How do you know I'm not lying about the engine part?"

Montgomery shrugged and looked Bucky up and down. "You're military, right? I know the look." Bucky nodded. "Enough vets coming home not able to make ends meet. If you are lying about knowing your way around an engine, I'll teach you that, too. But you don't seem the type."

Bucky realized he could be comfortable in this place. He also knew that he'd need a way to make money if he did want to settle into a place, and he preferred any way other than stealing what he needed. "Yeah, I'd like to work here."

Montgomery clapped. "Good!" He walked to the front of the garage and pulled the "Help Wanted" sign off the window. "Getting ready to close for the day, but you can start tomorrow morning. I'm always in at seven sharp, but you don't need to come in till eight if you're not much of an early riser."

"I can be here at seven," Bucky told him.

Montgomery nodded as if he knew that was the reply he was going to get. "Just so you know, I'll pay you well, but I'll be paying you in cash, if it's all the same to you. Where you staying, by the way?"

Bucky shoved his gloved hands in his pockets. "I dunno yet. Only arrived this morning."

Montgomery nodded. "Figured as much. I know the couple who owns the bookshop down the street. They live a few roads down, but there's an apartment above their shop they've been looking to rent out. Most people who rent around here are students and don't stay year round. They'll cut you better deal than usual, long as you're a good tenant."

Bucky shifted on his feet. "I don't have the money right now."

Montgomery waved him off. "Give me a minute to lock up here. We'll go talk to them. I'll tell them you're just starting here. They haven't had good luck with student renters in the past and I'm sure they'll jump at the chance to have someone a little neater."

Bucky had learned that Montgomery specialized in restoring old cars. He never had more than one in the garage at a time and Bucky wondered how he managed to stay in business. As Montgomery had explained, there were a lot of people who like to restore old cars, but then there were those who liked owning old cars, but didn't want the hassle of working on them. He was proven right as people from all around the area, and some people from pretty far away, brought cars for them to restore and were willing to pay a high price for Montgomery's expert services. Bucky had had to get used to calling cars from the 30s and 40s, and even later, 'antiques.' Montgomery had kept to his word and taught Bucky about restoring all parts of the cars they were brought. He explained that usually people only worked on restoring certain types of cars, but it had always been what he was interested in, and he was always willing to learn about models he'd not worked on before. Bucky admired the man's knowledge and equally his honesty when he didn't know about a certain model of car.

Montgomery had also helped Bucky get the apartment that was owned by Bill and Connie Richmond. Upon Bucky's first meeting them, Connie had immediately offered him tea and dinner, reminding him exactly of a younger version of the tiny old lady who lived in the apartment below Steve in Brooklyn. Bill and Montgomery wasted no time in regaling Bucky of their younger, ornerier years, though Bucky had suspected they were still plenty ornery. He would later learn he was right.

Before the end of dinner, Bill was offering the apartment above their bookstore to Bucky with a hold on the first month's rent.

"You'll be doing us a favor just keeping it tidy," Bill insisted. "Connie is busy most of the day with everything that needs to be done in the store, and the stairs up to the place are steep and my knees aren't what they used to be. Besides, if Montgomery speaks for you that means something."

"That's very generous, sir," Bucky began.

"Name's Bill, please. Sir makes me feel old. Never understood that saying before I got old myself."

Bucky smiled a bit and started again. "That's very generous, Bill, but all the same, I'd like to pay for the first month somehow."

Bill nodded. "Expected as much. Tell you what, a new semester is beginning, we'll be getting shipments of textbooks in. Help me unload and stock in the evenings and that'll be more than enough. Always hard to keep up with just ourselves." He gestured between himself and Connie. "We can always use someone younger for the heavy stuff… and all textbooks are heavy."

Bucky hesitated. "If you're sure that's enough…."

Connie laughed. "Wait till you see how many books we get in," she said. "It's enough."

Bucky had soon learned that Bill and Connie were still very capable for all their talk, but they had not been kidding about the amount of books that came in and continued to come in. He worked with Montgomery during the day and returned back to the bookstore in the evening to receive the shipments off of the truck and help unpack and stock the shelves. Montgomery was always chattering away and Bucky suspected that he was just as happy to have someone to talk to during the day as he was to have someone to help with the work. Sometimes he was in a mood and could be crotchety and stubborn, especially when a customer wanted something done to their car that he considered 'disrespectful to the model.'

"I've got no problem with folks wanting their vehicle to be more fuel efficient. That's just common sense. But who in their right mind asks for a Parthenon grille on a SS Jaguar 100? Honestly, these people have too much money and too little brains. It's not a Rolls."

Bucky learned to read Montgomery easily enough and knew that a customer mixing vehicles was good for a solid two days of complaining. During these two days, Montgomery would come up with a slew of impressively creative insults.

Bill and Connie were a little quieter in their work. Although Connie would help carry boxes into the storeroom for a while, she always stopped earlier and began to update the information in the computer by the register so that there'd be a stack of boxes ready for Bill and Bucky to unpack and place on the shelves. They did talk sometimes in the evening, though Bucky could tell they preferred a more peaceful workplace. At the end of the evening, they'd always insist that Bucky join them for dinner at their house. Somehow Connie always managed to make Bucky feel guilty about saying no, and he would find himself seated in their kitchen listening to stories that they both seemed to have an endless supply of. A couple of times during the month, Montgomery would join them as well and those nights generally ended in a jovial argument about who did what and what had actually happened. Bucky quickly began to understand that Montgomery and Bill were fairly laidback when apart, but when they were together each acted as the instigator for each other's more unruly behavior. Connie, for her part, took it all in stride and Bucky began to suspect that she could be just as mischievous.

Although being around Bill and Connie was nice, Bucky was relieved when the month ended and he was able to stay in his small apartment most nights. He'd taken to writing down his memories in a notebook to help regain them and be able to hold onto them more solidly. While he remembered a lot of what he had been, he still found himself forgetting basic facts and the memories that he did remember sometimes slipped away. Eventually he had several notebooks full of memories, unsure of how real they were, but wanting to hold onto them anyway. He had told Bill and Connie enough that they knew he had some type of amnesia that he wanted to work on, so they understood when he stopped joining them for dinner each night.

"Have anything fun planned for tonight?" Montgomery asked.

"Just stopping by the library then going home," Bucky replied.

Montgomery shook his head. "You're still a young man. You should go out and have fun sometimes."

Bucky smiled back. "I have too much fun with you here. Afterwards I have to go home and read a book just so I don't get too out of hand."

Montgomery came close to rolling his eyes. "That's damn near the saddest thing I've ever heard."

Bucky laughed a little and picked his pack up off the table in the corner, slinging it over his shoulder. "I'm fine, Montgomery. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Montgomery waved him out. "Yeah, yeah. See you in the a.m."

A ten minute walk ended with Bucky entering the public library. He nodded hello to the woman behind the counter and slid his book into the return slot. He made his way over to the fiction area intent on picking up the next book in the Patrick O'Brian series. As he walked past the aisles, something caused him to stop short. He backed up a step and looked down to see Mina sitting halfway down an aisle in the nonfiction area. There were several books open around her and she was reading the one in her hand intently with a piece of paper unfolded beside her. There was a part of Bucky that thought he should move on and not bother her as she was concentrating so intensely, but after noticing what was on the pages of some of the books she had open, another, bigger, part of him was curious enough to approach her.

"So, if you're not drinking coffee are you generally studying gunshot wounds in medical books?" He asked, smiling a little when she jumped.

Looking up at him, her surprise turned to a bright smile. "Well, I'll have you know that sometimes I have tea." She quickly extricated herself from the books on her lap and stood. "And technically I was doing research on stab wounds, but then I got sidetracked."

"Oh, well that makes perfect sense," Bucky teased, lightly. "Why stab wounds?"

"Actually, any type of wound caused by a blade," Mina explained. "It's research for something that happens in a scene I'm writing. I'm just making sure it makes sense." She bent to start gathering the books on the floor.

"You're a writer?" Bucky asked, helping her.

"I am, indeed."

"The published kind or the for enjoyment kind?" Bucky asked as they both stood back up.

"Both," she answered as she placed a couple of the books back on the shelf. "I enjoy it, but I'm also lucky enough that it pays the bills."

"So if I go to Byrne in fiction, will I find one of your books?"

"You will not. I publish under a pen name."

"Which is…."

"To be found out."

Bucky smiled a little, surprised at how easy it was to talk to Mina. For as bumpy as their first meeting had been, and for as few people as he talked to on the whole, he was surprised at how simple it was to fall into the conversation with her. It helped that she knew who he was. He'd never have to tell her a lie about where he'd come from or his past. Though, he realized, he wasn't exactly going to be open about all of it…. But at least she would be more likely to understand when and if he said there were things he didn't want to talk about. He couldn't trust her completely, but there was something very freeing in not having to hide his identity. Moreover, it'd been five days since their first meeting on the street and neither Hydra nor any of the Avengers had turned up in town. She'd kept her promise to keep his secret.

"You don't want me to read what you've written?"

"I'm shy," she answered him quickly. Bucky noticed a crack in how she'd said it. She'd meant to keep up the lighthearted tone of the conversation, but the flicker in her eyes said she was very much telling the truth. She was very shy about her work.

"What kind of books do you write?" He asked instead.

"Fantasy."

"What made you want to write fantasy?"

She grinned. "This is quite the line of questioning."

Bucky barked out a short laugh. "I'm sorry, it's been a little while since I've… done this."

Mina's smile softened. "Then you won't understand how cliché my answer is when I say that The Lord of the Rings is the reason I started writing fantasy."

"A lot of people like it?" He asked.

She nodded. "Um… I think it was out… Did you ever read The Hobbit way back when?"

A spark went off in Bucky's head. "Of course! Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, whole bunch of dwarves. People were wild over it. Steve and I read when it was published even though it was technically meant for kids."

Mina took the book that Bucky was still holding and placed it on the two she had kept. "Come on," she said, tilting her head in a gesture to follow her. She led him past aisles of books to the fiction section, turned quickly down the row she wanted and stopped halfway through. Reaching up, she pulled a huge book off of the shelf and handed it to Bucky. "This is what Tolkien published later. In the 50s. The ring that Bilbo finds in the cave during his meeting with Gollum has slightly more significance.

"He continued the story?" Bucky asked, turning the book to read the back.

"He did. It has a different feel to it than The Hobbit, though. This one is more meant for adults… Still, plenty of kids read it. I read it the first time when I was nine." Mina readjusted the books she held. "He opened the world up so much. He created languages for the different races of Middle Earth, even. There's a series of histories to go with it. And they were all made into movies, as well."

Bucky looked down at the large book he held in his hands. "Now that you mention it, I think I heard talk of the movies."

"Probably," Mina nodded. "They were kinda huge. Even now that it's years later. People like to reference them a lot."

Bucky smiled at her. "So this inspired you to start writing, huh?"

"It did."

"Then I guess I have to try it for myself."

"Then I hope you enjoy it."

They stood quietly for a moment in the aisle and Bucky was wondering what else to say. He remembered that he used to be good at talking to people. He could always find something to comment or, when it was time, the right way to end the conversation. Now, he felt slightly lost. The times of being at ease around people, especially women, seemed so very far away now in more than just years.

"So what are your plans for the evening?" Mina asked, breaking the silence.

Bucky was a little surprised, but answered quickly. "I'm just going back to my apartment, making dinner and reading."

"Would you want to come to my house for dinner instead?"

Bucky had not been expecting that offer. "Your house?" He nearly stuttered out.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "If you're not joining someone…We could talk some more, if you want."

"I don't want to intrude…" Bucky started.

"Oh, it's no intrusion," Mina assured him. "I'm normally alone for dinner, so company would be welcome."

Bucky's mind was stacking up with all the reasons he should say no to her. He should go home and write down more memories. He was dangerous. He shouldn't get tangled up in friendships, especially with someone it wasn't necessary to know. He had to work and he had to stay somewhere, so Montgomery, Bill, and Connie were necessary acquaintances and they didn't know who he really was. Mina did. He knew that by spending more time around her, getting to know her more, he could be putting her at risk if someone were to find him. He didn't know what the risk might be, but it was always there. Still, there was a part of him that very much wanted to say yes to her. She knew who he was but she talked to him as if he were simply a regular man she'd met one day, not like a trained assassin who'd run away from his handlers and his childhood best friend. And he desperately wanted someone to talk to. He didn't know if he and Mina could be friends, but he did want to try. Given what she knew about his past, the fact that she'd even offered had surprised him.

"You're not afraid for me to know where you live? To come to your home, even?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

She shook her head at him. "Why would I be?"

He blinked a couple of times. "Well, I'm a random man and you don't know me. Also, I'm…" He trailed off for a moment. "Ya know…. Me."

She shrugged and shifted the books in her arms again. "If you wanted to hurt me, it wouldn't be difficult for you to do. It's not exactly hard to find where I live, and you'd have no problem getting in." A dark look crossed Mina's face that Bucky had no trouble picking up on. "If anyone wants to hurt someone they'll find a way, really. A locked door isn't going to stop them." She blinked a bit, shook her head and the sadness cleared from her face. "You're not going to hurt me, Bucky." She stated firmly, looking him in the eye. "You're just not the type. Super soldier assassin or not. And even if you did, there's not a damn thing I could do to stop you."

If Bucky had begun to feel like Mina didn't really grasp the reality of what Bucky had been and still could be, he didn't anymore. Something in her honesty made him realize that she was more intuitive than he'd thought and she definitely wasn't stupid or trusting him blindly. He swallowed thickly. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

A soft smile came to Mina's face. "Good."

Sam Wilson wasn't frustrated, but he was getting there. "Every lead that says he went to Europe has gone cold, man. With the state of security in airports, it's unlikely he was able to catch a flight out of the States."

"So do we think he's still in the city?" Steve Rogers asked as they walked together along the corridor in Stark's tower.

"Big city, easy to hide. But no sightings." Same shrugged. "His face was flashed everywhere in D.C. and NYC for months. If he's here, he's changed his look or he is so far off the grid we might as well not bother."

Steve nodded. "He'd have learned to lay low with Hydra."

"That's what I'm saying," Same agreed. "If he's here, we're not gonna find him."

Steve sighed. "So we're out of luck until he wants to be found?"

Sam raised a hand to bring them to a halt and handed Steve the folder he'd brought with him. "Option three. There are several reports of him turning up in both D.C. and NYC for shorter periods of time. One report was even in your old neighborhood. No photos so we can't be for sure, but the person who reported it, sounded, and I quote "strangely lucid" for the batch of people who reported sightings. But then, a year and a couple months ago, sightings started popping up here in the states heading away from major cities. I'm thinking I'm gonna start checking up on those now."

Steve flipped through the file and listened to his friend. "I really appreciate you doing this Sam, you know that?"

Sam shrugged. "It's no problem, Cap. Kinda fun playing detective. I just hope we can bring him back."

"Hey boys. How's it going?"

Sam and Steve turned to see Natosha Romanov coming down the adjacent hallway.

"Why do you look so chipper?" Sam asked. Steve smiled a bit.

"Possible new bad guy to go after," she replied, holding up a folder of her own. "I found you as soon as I heard because there's something you'll both need to know."

"Who is it and what's special about him?" Steve asked.

"We don't know who yet, but we do know what they're after. Sort of."

"That's…helpful," Sam half said, half asked.

Natasha hesitated for a moment. "We're not sure who he is, but he's looking for Bucky."

Steve's eyes shot up from looking at the data in the folder. "Bucky? Do we know what they want with him?"

"Not yet, but they're being loud about the search. They definitely want us to know what they're doing. We're trying to track where all of the web searches are coming from but so far whoever this is is all over the place. We haven't been able to nail them down. We think they're also interested in the serum used on Bucky." Natasha paused. "Specifically the serum used on Bucky. They haven't shown any interest in finding the formula for the serum that was used on you."

Steve nodded. "That makes sense. Erskine's formula is long gone. They never were able to reproduce it."

Natasha nodded. "And whoever this is knows that. They have at least a little bit of information already."

Sam, who'd been reading the report over Steve's shoulder looked up. "They're looking for Bucky? Anything that says they're having any luck?"

Natasha shook her head. "Dunno. Maybe."

"Can we find out where they're looking?"

"Yeah, we can do that."

"I'd like that info," Sam said.

Steve looked at him. "You think this person can do a better job than you?"

Sam gave Steve a half grin. "I'm hoping I can use their tracking to support mine." Sam's smile fell. "Gotta use everything possible. Seems like it's a race now."

Steve nodded. "Yeah, and if they're looking for the serum, also, I doubt they just want to ask Bucky how he's doing."

Natasha crossed her arms. "You're not wrong. At least so far it doesn't seem like Hydra is behind this. Everything reads like this is either an individual or a pair acting on their own."

"Hydra or not," Steve said. "This isn't good. We've gotta be the first to find Bucky."

A/N: Hello and welcome back to this story!

First, thank you to littlestoryfreak for your review! I'm so glad you are enjoying it!

The song inspiration for this chapter was Frank Sinatra's That's Life. Awesome stuff.

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys this chapter! If you like, lemme know what you think!

Stay safe, everyone.