A/N: So, we don't really know where Bucky was between Winter Soldier and Civil War. I figure he ran around for a while trying to stay away from HYDRA, letting his head start to settle, and NOT going back to find Steve like he should have done. (Sigh. I'm not bitter. Nope. Not at all.) So, this is set several months after the helicarrier incident, and he's slowed down and ended up in Romania. And I refuse to believe he was completely alone that whole time, because that's just sad and awful.

For the purposes of this story, just assume that all the characters are speaking Romanian the whole time. On that note, as best as I can tell from Google, Iacob is the Romanian version of James, and Stefan is Steven/Steve. If you actually speak Romanian and I am wrong, please let me know and I'll fix it.

As always, property of Marvel, Disney, etc. Enjoy!

"Oh!" Elena cried out, colliding hard with something and losing her footing. She sat down hard on the landing, and thankfully it was her groceries, not her, that went rolling down the stairs.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," she said, accepting the proffered hand to find her feet again. The hand belonged to the young man from downstairs. She didn't think she'd heard him speak before. "You should watch where you're going, young man," she said.

"I'm sorry. I…Let me help you pick this up." He ducked his eyes away from hers and bent down, scooping up a loaf of bread and a cabbage before moving down the stairs to collect stray potatoes. He came back up with laden arms, still looking down. "Can I help you get this home?"

"Yes, thank you. This way." She moved down the hall towards her apartment, looking back as he followed. "Don't worry yourself so much," she told him. "It was just a little bump. Bound to happen in these narrow corridors." He nodded, but didn't say anything.

Inside, she directed him to her table, watching him as he laid her groceries out. She'd seen him often in the halls or down around the shops over the past month. He spoke very little, and always kept his head down, eyes hidden beneath the brim of his hat. Always something on his mind, it looked like.

"I think that's everything," he said, gesturing towards the table with a gloved hand. Looking at it, she realized she'd never seen him without that. "Again, I'm very sorry."

"No harm done," she assured him. The gloved hand seemed to be attached to a fairly muscular arm, and a thought occurred to her. "Are you any good with tools?"

"I'm sorry?" he asked, looking up at last, a question in his eyes.

She smiled apologetically. "It's just the window, you see," she said, gesturing over to the living room. A pane of glass was propped underneath the canvas-covered window. "My son was going to come down and fix it, but his little one has got the flu, so…" She shrugged. "He can always come next week."

"No, I…I can fix it," he said. "Do you have any tools?"

She pulled a box from under the sink and he got to work while she put away the groceries. Her eyes wandered across the room as she washed vegetables and heated water. Winter was coming on—hence the need to fix the window—but the afternoons were still quite warm. She saw that he'd removed his jacket, but not the single leather glove, nor had he rolled up his sleeves. It had to be warm work…perhaps the one arm was disfigured, or burnt, and he was sensitive about it. Yes, it was probably something like that. Best not pay it any mind.

"Ah, you have good timing, young man," she said as he started packing the tools away. "Just in time for tea."

"Oh, no," he said hastily. "I don't—"

"Nonsense," she cut him off. "I can hardly ask you to fix my window for nothing. You can wash up just through there." She gestured at the door to the bathroom and turned back to the kettle.

He came back as she was moving a plate of sweet bread to the table. He stood at an awkward distance from the table, as if contemplating moving for the door. "Sit down," she told him, taking her own seat. He did so quickly, stiffly, as if moving on automatic.

He looked supremely uncomfortable.

"My name is Elena, by the way," she told him. "What's yours?"

He looked surprised that she would ask. "Oh. Um, Iacob." He sounded a little unsure, like he was testing it out. "My name is Iacob." More certain now.

"It's nice to meet you, Iacob," she said, smiling warmly. "Would you like sugar in your tea?"

"Um, yes, please," he said. He seemed continually surprised that she kept speaking to him, and she got the feeling his life was a lonely one.

He took the cup from her gratefully, and they sipped their tea in silence for a few minutes. She knew he lived alone, in one of the small corner apartments on the floor below. His clothes would suggest he didn't have very much money. (Well, that and the fact that he lived in this building to start with.) The cap he always wore was dirty, his jacket frayed at the cuffs, and his shirts and jeans well-worn. There was a few days' worth of stubble on his chin, and his hair hung to his shoulders. But it was his eyes that kept drawing her gaze. They were a piercing steel blue, intense and deep and sadder than any man so young should have a right to look. It wasn't mourning, no, Elena had seen plenty of that in her sixty years. It was a faraway, old sort of sadness, the kind that settled in the soul.

"You're new to the building, yes?" she asked. "It's only been a few weeks I've seen you around."

Iacob nodded. "I, ah, I came here looking for work."

"Mmm." There were many young people who came to the city with such hopes. "What do you do?"

He shrugged. "What odd jobs I can find. Mostly at the docks."

Elena nodded. The docks paid a decent wage, for those who could manage the physical labor. "Well, if you ever need some work closer to home, I could find you something in the market district. I have a little shop there, and I know a lot of the other shop owners."

He looked surprised. "Why would you do that?"

"What are neighbors for, hm?"

He looked away. "You don't really know me, though."

"True. But I know you better than I did this morning." She smiled. "Have some bread with your tea." She pushed the plate across to him.

Uncertainly, he took a piece. "Thank you."

"Do you have family outside of the city?" she asked. He said he'd come looking for work, and his accent wasn't quite right for Bucharest.

He swallowed his bread before answering. "No."

A touchy subject, then. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to pry. You can eat in peace."

He looked across the table at her, a little color rising in his cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be rude," he apologized. "I just…"

She waved the apology away. "We all have things we don't want to talk about." He raised an eyebrow as if disbelieving this was true of her. She grinned. She had been a young woman during the Revolution, after all. "Much has happened in my sixty years, you know. I have my skeletons too." And there! A small success. One corner of his mouth twitched up in the start of a smile.

"So, if we will not talk of the past, we will talk of today. Working at the docks, you must have seen the decorations for the festival. The lights on the water are beautiful, aren't they?" A little reluctantly at first, he told her he had been hired on one of the crews to hang the lights. She asked a small question here and there, adding in points of her own about the history of the festival, and he began to talk a little easier. His reticence seemed to be more the result of being unused to having someone to talk to than any inherent rudeness on his part. Elena wondered how long it had been since anyone had shown any interest in the boy.

As they spoke, she would slide another piece of sweet bread onto his plate whenever it emptied. The mother in her knew a boy who didn't get enough to eat when she saw one, and he looked like he'd been living rough. He was skinny underneath all those layers. When he realized there was none left, he looked mortified, and apologized profusely once again.

"As I said, my son was supposed to be coming," Elena told him. "There was more than I could eat. And you looked like you could use it, hm?" she said with a wink.

In the days and weeks that followed that afternoon, she passed him often on the stairs or in the streets, and he would nod and return her greetings. She quickly learned that he was much more likely to accept an offer of tea or a meal if she prefaced it with a request for help with some sort of menial labor. With a grown boy of her own, Elena knew very well how much a young man could eat, but Iacob's appetite surprised even her, and it reinforced her belief that he didn't get good meals on a regular basis.

They still spoke of lighter things together—the town, the news, the neighborhood. Elena sometimes told him about her family, but he never reciprocated, and she never pushed. Truth be told, Iacob intrigued her a great deal, and she wasn't too proud to admit that she speculated at length about his history. She had decided that he must have been a soldier at some point. He was too young to have been in the Revolution, of course, but there was still an army. He carried himself like a soldier, and war seemed a likely candidate for whatever had happened to his arm. And there were things that happened in the military that could go a long way toward explaining the sadness in his eyes.

His eyes were still what kept her from pressing him. He spoke more easily with her now, and smiled on occasion, but his eyes were always sad. Something awful had happened to him, and he needed a friend more than she needed answers.

Sometimes, when conversation lulled, his eyes would rest somewhere in the room before drifting very, very far away indeed. Elena didn't know where he went, and she didn't think he did either—she had never seen a grown man look so much like a lost little boy as she did in those moments. She would have to say his name several times to bring him back, but if she knocked something off the table or clattered dishes in the sink, he would startle back into the moment with a grimace and a shake of his head. If he thought she wasn't watching, he would rub his temple or the bridge of his nose, which is how she found out about his headaches.

She tried to ask carefully, but he didn't really want to talk about them—hardly surprising—so she found some tea that her grandmother used to tell her was good for headaches and started keeping it on hand. Whenever he drifted, she let him be long enough to make a cup before making noise in the kitchen and simply handing the cup to him as she returned to her chair. She supposed the tea worked—he started accepting the cup with a tiny smile instead of eyebrows furrowed in confusion after the first few times.

The first time he ever revealed anything personal about himself was on Christmas morning. One her son and his family had come to visit, and Elena had invited Iacob to join them. He had protested, and she had insisted, and so he came and sat back in the corner. He'd looked so uneasy all morning that Elena had begun to feel bad for inviting him—she hated for him to be alone for the holiday, but being around so many people in such a small room was obviously making him anxious.

Little Maria approached his corner as they waited for lunch to cook, and he looked positively terrified when she patted his knee. Elena was moving to swoop over and grab the toddler when the little girl opened her hands and held up a small cookie. "Here go," she told him. "Me'y Ch'ismas."

Iacob looked down at her, stunned, for a long moment, then reached out his gloved hand and picked up the cookie. A smile spread across his face, the first full smile Elena had seen, and it may have been a trick of the fireplace, but she could have sworn his eyes glistened. "Thank you," he said softly.

Friendship established, Maria pulled herself into his lap and pulled his hat from his head, placing it on her own. She giggled as it fell down over her eyes. "Maria," Elena chided. "Leave Iacob alone."

"It's alright," Iacob said, reclaiming his hat as Elena picked up her granddaughter. "My sister used to do that when she was little." He raised the cookie in a toast to Maria then took a bite. Maria waved as Elena carted her back to the kitchen. It was only later that Elena noticed what he'd said.

The new year began, and with it came the snows of deep winter, and Elena noticed that it became easier to get Iacob to come over for tea. She wondered sometimes when she saw him outside if he wasn't wearing everything he owned. It would seem he didn't like the cold.

One evening, she arrived early for Mass and was surprised to find Iacob sitting in the back of the church. "I haven't seen you in here before," she commented.

Iacob shrugged. "A lot of people come to Mass." No surprise there, then, that the crowds kept him away. "But I like to sit here. It's a peaceful place. It helps me think."

Elena noticed a notebook open on his lap filled with small, neat letters. She couldn't read what it said—it seemed to be written in a mixture of English and Russian. Interesting. He noticed her gaze and slid the book down onto the bench beside him, closing the cover. Fair enough.

"My mother used to bring me to church when I was a little boy," he continued softly. "I always liked the music."

Most young people seemed to find the organ music archaic, but Elena agreed with him. "It is soothing, isn't it?" She smiled. "I'll leave you to your thoughts before the crowds arrive. Good seeing you."

He smiled gratefully and she moved on to her regular seat. A few surreptitious glances told her he had gone back to the mysterious notebook, and she didn't see him leave, but he was gone before the congregation started filing in.

She knew better by now than to ask him about himself, and he volunteered very little, but now and again, something would slip out. She complimented his skill in fixing her chair, and he said something about learning woodworking from his father. He hummed while he was changing a light bulb, and when she asked about the tune, he blushed and said it was a song he danced to with a girl once, and barely spoke a word the rest of the afternoon. How long had it been since he danced, she wondered?

Though any mention of his past was rare, when one did come, more often than not, it was mention of Stefan. Stefan and I used to play a game like that one. Stefan would put newspapers in his shoes so they would fit. Stefan liked to sketch. Stefan was a stubborn little smart aleck. Stefan always got me out of trouble. Stefan had a motorcycle like that. Stefan was always standing up to bullies twice his size. Stefan loved to go to the movies. Stefan was never any good at talking to girls, even after he got tall and handsome. Stefan got sick a lot. No matter where I went, Stefan always found me.

These little remarks were always in passing, prompted by something he saw or heard, and most of the time they seemed to surprise Iacob, as though until the words came out, what he was saying was unknown to him too. Asking anything about it was a good way to get him to close up like an oyster, but in those brief moments he spoke about Stefan, the sadness in his eyes deepened and lessened all at once. His tone was always fond and protective, and Elena thought Stefan must be a younger brother. She wondered what had happened to him.

By the time summer came around, Elena felt they had crossed some sort of threshold. Though she still knew very little about him, she counted him as a friend, and it would seem he was finally starting to do the same. He could be persuaded to come for meals now without feeling the need to do some sort of chore, and talked (and occasionally smiled) a little more easily. She usually saw him twice a week—once for a meal and once for tea. She would have liked to feed him more, but she didn't want to come across as pitying—that, and with his appetite, she wasn't sure her budget would allow for it. She knew his finances were tight as well, but he always helped with the meal—he would bring things to add to it, and he was a decent cook. Although, there was once when he was trying to melt some butter that Elena had to teach him how to use the microwave. She puzzled over that for quite some time afterwards.

Though the news was often something they could talk about freely, the exception seemed to be that business in Sokovia. They had been eating together that night and were watching the news afterward when the footage appeared. It was horrible what happened, and Elena didn't pretend to know why it had happened at all, but she was glad the Avengers had been there to stop it getting any worse. When she looked over at Iacob, he was staring at the wall. He seldom drifted like he used to, but tonight his eyes were worlds away. He stood abruptly, muttered something that might have been an apology, and left the room. She didn't see him again for over a week.

She wondered if the destruction he saw had bothered him. She still didn't know what had happened to him, and though he smiled more, it wasn't often enough, and the sadness in his eyes never went away. Perhaps it had reminded him of something—shellshock, they used to call it. She couldn't remember the new word they used. Something about trauma, which would be apt enough. Somehow, she didn't think that was it, at least, not entirely. There was never any shortage of devastation to be found on the news, and he never seemed particularly affected by it. Granted, destruction on this scale would affect anybody, but she still thought there was more to it that troubled him. She only wished she knew what it was.

Not long afterwards, once they had resumed their regular dinner routine, he was helping her peel potatoes one evening. "Elena?" he began. "Can I ask you something?"

She cocked an eyebrow in surprise—he didn't often ask questions. He seemed to be aware of how little he shared, and felt it would be unfair to ask what he was unwilling to give. "Of course, Iacob," she replied.

He was quiet a moment, eyes on his potato. "Why are you so kind to me?" he asked at last, looking up at her uncertainly.

She met his eyes. A quick, easy answer sprang to mind, but his eyes were so earnest, and she knew it must have taken courage for him to ask. "Well," she began slowly. "When we first met, I got the feeling not many people had been. To be honest, I still don't think it's something you see enough of."

He looked away. "Maybe I don't deserve it."

"Nonsense! Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness."

He huffed a small, humorless laugh. "You think so? You still don't know anything about me, not really. You don't know what I've done."

"No, I don't," she allowed. "All I know is what I have seen. And what I have seen is a young man who works hard and is kind to a lonely old woman. I have seen gentleness and bravery, when you help the very strangers who seem to unnerve you so much—like when you help Katrina from downstairs to carry things she cannot manage with the baby, or that time you stopped those young boys fighting in the yard. I have seen thoughtfulness, sorrow and loss, all when I look into those eyes of yours, and it makes the mother in me want to hold you close and make it all better. And I have seen the strength that allows you to carry on, to function day to day despite whatever it is that weighs you down so."

He swallowed hard and looked down at the sink, his hair falling forward to hide his eyes.

"What I have seen," she finished. "Is a nice young man who carries a heavy burden. Your past?" She shrugged. "It is just that. Past. I do not need to know it."

"I've done some terrible things," he said quietly.

Elena nodded. "So I had gathered. But you aren't doing them any longer, are you?"

He shook his head vehemently. "No," he insisted. "No. Never again."

She nodded again. "So I had gathered as well. We all have sins, my little one. God forgives, but our own hearts rarely give us such grace. We all must rise above." Taking a chance, she laid a gentle hand on the arm closest to her—his left one. He was so tense, his muscles were rock-hard under his sleeve, and he flinched, but didn't pull away. She squeezed his forearm warmly and pulled her hand back. "I am kind to you because I see someone trying make his way through the world, and we can all use whatever kindness we can find while doing that." She studied him a moment. "Does that answer your question?"

He nodded, keeping his eyes on the sink for a long moment. "You're much too good to me," he said softly, still not raising his face. "But thank you."

As she had told him, Elena longed to gather him up into a hug and assure him everything would be alright, but the touch to his arm had probably been physical contact enough. "You're welcome," she replied warmly. She moved to another part of the kitchen and took up another task, allowing him time to compose himself.

The meal was quieter than usual, but it was companionable. Iacob was deep in thought, but he was not far away this time—he seemed to be considering what Elena had told him. And maybe she was imagining it, but he seemed a little more relaxed. The weight hadn't lifted off his shoulders, certainly, but perhaps just a small bit of it had come away. And so, she would keep trying.

Winter came on quickly that year. Elena got sick, and Iacob brought her soup and tea, finally bullying her into going to the doctor when her cough became worse. He went with her, sat sullenly and silently in the corner of waiting room, but insisted on having the doctor repeat his instructions for her care before they left.

"I am a grown woman, Iacob," she snapped at him. "I am perfectly capable of remembering instructions."

"Remembering and following are two different things," he said calmly. "I'll come back after work to make sure you're taking the medicine."

"It's just a little cough."

"Then it should go away easily enough."

She smirked. "You don't scare as easy as my son, you know. He wouldn't have gotten me as far as the doctor's office."

Iacob grinned, a rare one that reached his eyes. "You're hardly the most stubborn patient I've known. At least I didn't have to carry you down the street."

"Stefan?" she asked carefully. She was probably pressing her luck.

He hesitated, and the smile left his eyes. He still didn't like answering questions. "I may have thrown him over my shoulder once and carried him to the clinic," he said at last, that fond, big-brother tone still there, even if the smile wasn't. "He didn't talk to me for a week."

"That sounds most undignified," she replied, smiling internally at what that must have looked like. She decided to change directions before he closed off. "I suppose I shall have to behave."

"I always knew you were a smart woman, Elena."

She was in good health again before Christmas, and Iacob joined them again—still reluctantly, but slightly less so than last year. He still sat in the corner alone and left early, but on his way out, he muttered something and handed a small box to Elena. Inside was a pink newsboy-style cap for Maria. Elena's eyes watered as she handed it to her granddaughter who clapped and giggled and refused to take it off for the rest of the day.

Spring began uneventfully, and then, very suddenly, everything happened at once. There was the bombing in Vienna, the Winter Soldier was in the news again, the floor below hers was raided and looked as though a bomb had gone off, and Iacob was nowhere to be seen. Then the evening news came on and there he was.

She'd been worried about him all day—downstairs was a war zone, and she was worried he'd been hurt. But there he was on television—the last place she ever expected to see him—being arrested with Captain America in the middle of the freeway. The thing they loaded him into looked like a tank.

She didn't eat that night, and when the inevitable calls from friends and family came in, she assured them she was fine, no it had all happened below her, who would have thought, the Winter Soldier, hiding in her building, no, she really was alright. It was all anyone she knew would talk about for days. She nodded, made appropriate noises in the right places, said very little.

Inwardly, puzzle pieces were slamming into place. Iacob was the Winter Soldier. She only knew about the famous assassin what she'd heard on the news two years ago, but some research at an internet café rewarded her with a little more information from old S.H.I.E.L.D. files. What she learned explained…well, everything really. She wondered if she should be afraid—she had known him, spoken to him, had him in her home. She'd even touched that deadly metal arm. But she wasn't afraid. She thought long and hard, and realized that she truly wasn't. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that Iacob was not the Winter Soldier. At least, not any more. He had been, certainly. There wasn't really any disputing that. But, as she had told him, the past was the past. She'd seen no evil in him. His actions had not been one of an actor playing a part, but of a good man. Broken, damaged, consumed by guilt. But good. Seeking redemption.

She followed the news closely, hoping to find some word on his fate. Though she knew him to be a good man, she wasn't kidding herself either—the past was the past, but it still had consequences. She hoped his judges would be merciful.

She couldn't bring herself to be too broken up over the fact that he somehow escaped them.

Some weeks later, there was a knock at her door. A dark-skinned man in a very nice suit was waiting with a briefcase. He verified her name, pulled out an envelope, handed it to her with a quick bow and left. Her name and address were on the front. No return address. No postage. A single sheet of paper inside.

Elena, it read in small, neat letters she'd seen only once before, in a notebook in a church.

By now you'll have seen the news. I've been on it a lot lately. You'll know who I really am, and what I've really done. I can't make excuses for any of that. I can't do anything really, except say I'm sorry, and that's never going to be enough.

You've got every right to hate me. I don't know why I'm even writing to you, except that for some reason it was important to me that you know the truth. I was the Winter Soldier. I did some truly terrible things. But I stopped. In 2014. What happened in Vienna, that wasn't me. I really was trying to stay out of the way and do the right thing. I still am. I don't know if you'll believe me, but I really hope you do.

You were kind to me when no one else was. You were kind when I'd forgotten what that even felt like. You were kind and you were patient, and I know you had so many questions, and I know you didn't ask because you knew I didn't want you to. You respected me, and no one had done that in a long time. You weren't afraid of me, and that hadn't happened in a long time either. You cared about me. I should have thanked you for all of that earlier.

I guess what I'm saying is, your opinion is one of the few that matter to me. It's important to me that you know that I am really am trying to be the good man you thought I was.

I know I disappeared quickly, and I hope I didn't worry you. I'm sorry about the mess I left. I just wanted you to know that I'm alright. I'm in a safe place, and there are good people here who are going to try to help me. And I've found Stefan. He never gave up on me, and I don't think he's ever going to let me out of his sight again. He's going to make sure I get better. I don't think there's anyone I'd rather have in my corner.

So, I'm okay. I hope you are too. Thank you for, just…for everything.

Your friend,

—Iacob

Elena smoothed the creases out of the letter and smiled. Wherever he was, she was glad he was alright. She was glad he had people to look after him, and that he'd finally found Stefan. Oh, she'd practically heard the smile in his voice as she'd read those lines! She hoped maybe Stefan could help him find the redemption he'd been looking so hard for.

She was going to miss him.