Assimilation Unsustainable
Chapter One | You Don’t Belong In Politics
Congressman! Bucky Barnes x Congresswoman!Oc ; slowburn political thriller; romance (slowburn-ish) ; action ; angst x romance ; annoying begrudging teammates to worse ; alluded sa trauma but no explicit mention ; violence! ; we both kinda suck at this politics thing but we have a strong sense of justice and also guns! Poc! Oc ; desi oc ! banter banter banter
The Subcommittee Hearing Room Was always cold. It seemed a flaw of the Rayburn House Office Building–these perpetually cold rooms, built to stave off the heat from stuffy suits. The morning was similar to nearly every other before such a debate, with senators and representatives sitting around. Songbirds fly outside the grounds, their chirping a sarcastic greeting to the grim, coffee-spurred faces of the politicians within the cold coffin Subcommittee room. More than tension, there seemed an overall fog of fatigue covering the sleep-deprived politicians of Washington, DC.
Cameras, charged and ready, line the floor capturing the faces of the first line of representatives seated and ready for the debate about to occur amongst the Subcommittee on National Security and Emerging Threats . Well, it was expected to occur.
The Chairperson glances at the wall clock, a sick sense of satisfaction growing with every passing minute the walking wildfire he was waiting on was to being late. Scary. Maybe a debate wouldn’t be too intense today…
Perhaps no one was more annoyed to be in the room than one Congressman Barnes. Seated against his will on the panel as an Invited Witness Expert for the hearing. It’s a load of bullshit and he knows it. The metal of his arm resting on his wooden chair grips and loosens around the edge of the arm rest. The semi-permanent frown on his face deepens, nearly buried under unshaved stubble. The flesh of his fingertips soothes down the roughness of it, gauging the length it’s grown out. He needs to shave, something about public appearances or whatever.
That’s why he’s here anyways: Congressman James Barnes, newly minted and in dire need of a good PR move. It’s clear as day, especially to the Secretary of Defense, who’s the reason Bucky’s here anyways. At 10 in the fucking morning. He side eyes the old man (who he’s got a few decades on, anyways) from across the spacious room, fidgeting in his tight suit. Why the fuck have’t they started yet anyways-
The growing noise outside the Subcommittee Hearing Room crescendos when the doors all but burst open. Like gunshots on marble, a high-heeled and pencil skirted woman strikes in the room and everyone seems to sit up straighter. Any thought of sleep seemed to have picked up and left the room. Alarm bells sounded silently in their minds simultaneously, Bucky’s included. He didn’t need an explanation, she was one of her own. Standing tall, wearing daggers for shoes in a sharp-cut blazer, the woman was a walking force.
This is why they were waiting.
The tick in Chairperson Reynolds’ jaw said enough. His eyes narrowed as a flustered aide chases after her with flushed pale freckled cheeks and a heaving chest.
“Congressman Arora, you were supposed to-”
She brushes past him without breaking stride nor eye contact with Chairperson Reynolds, upon whom her fiery gaze seemed set upon unmovably. The bronze skinned, slicked-bunned woman beat down her path through the center of the room. In one hand, a briefcase. In the other, a stack of slightly mussed papers. Her hands flexed and in the harsh lights of the room Bucky’s eyes caught the ink stains hidden beneath her nails.
“Ah, Congresswoman Arora. So good of you to join us. We were just about to begin,” Chairperson Reynolds licks his teeth. He barely disguises the note of disapproval in his tone. It’s harder to like than the condescension he drips.
Congresswoman Arora drops her chairperson on her bench and takes a seat. She lets the legs of her chair scrape the floor noisily and sighs as she drops into it.
“Wouldn’t miss this circus for the world.”
Aisya Arora folds her hands on the table calmly but her fingers tap the smooth counter top to the beat of her heart pounding in her throat. She doesn’t need to scan the room to know all eyes are on her. Chairperson Reynolds subtly signals for her microphone to be delayed. Aisya rolls her eyes and leans in.
“You ladies plan to start this morning or…?” she tilts her head as she eyes the room. Her eyes seem to stop on a face she’s seen only on television. Congressman James ‘Bucky’ Barnes. A small scoff leaves her lips before she continues her mental calculation of her opposition in the room. Of course, they brought in the ex veteran and super soldier as a witness for the Superhuman Oversight Resolution law.
“Congresswoman Arora, we were waiting on you,” Chairperson Reynolds narrows his eyes. Aisya clicks her tongue and taps her watch with a sarcastic smile.
“Actually, I wasn’t late. You were early. And if I’m being asked to listen to a five-star warhawk justify spying on civilians, then I suggest someone bring me my tea. It’s going to be a long morning.”
Reynolds sighs exasperatedly as the camera is adjusted, wanting to capture the walking spitfire seated on the benches. The sound of the gavel silences all of the heightened whispers of disagreement and disapproval in the room. Chairman Reynolds adjusts his microphone with a silent arrogance built over years of never being silenced. White haired. Thin-skinned. Oily hands.
“This session of the House Subcommittee on National Security and Emerging Threats is now in order,” he said, his voice amplified, yet still so very repugnant. “Today’s hearing concerns the ongoing discussion of the Superhuman Oversight Resolution, a bipartisan legislative effort responding to increased unauthorized activity by enhanced individuals, vigilante actors, and foreign operatives on American soil.”
Aisya poked her inner cheek with her tongue, her eyes narrowing on the e printed title in the folders placed before every seat. How vexing to name something so inappropriately, it was the sort of thing only political pigs could manage. Settling her stomach with a long sip of her tea–thank you, personal assistants–she tried to swallow down any violent urge to stand and object immediately. They hadn’t even tried to hide it, calling it a resolution when it was a scantily concealed means of obtaining absolute government control. But why would Aisya be surprised? She knew who proposed this…
“The resolution proposes establishing a permanent federal oversight authority,” Reynolds continued, “to monitor, license, and if necessary, detain super-powered individuals who act outside authorized jurisdictions.”
He paused, eyes sweeping the chamber as if daring someone to object too early.
“We will begin with statements from those in support. Representing the Department of Enhanced Affairs, we welcome back General Harlan Dupree and Dr. Nina Foulkes, defense strategist and national security advisor.”
There it was.
Aisya’s gaze sharpened like a blade.
Valentina’s fingerprints.
Foulkes — sleek bun, neutral suit, thin-rimmed glasses — took her seat beside the microphone, hands folded over a thick binder. She looked exactly like the kind of woman who made deals behind tinted glass.
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” she said, her voice polished yet squeaky, like floors under hurried shoes. “The American people deserve to know who walks among them. Who can level cities, who can disappear at will, and who is being trained by hostile governments. This resolution is not surveillance but security. Oversight ensures accountability, and accountability is peace.”
A few light taps of approval echoed from committee members. One or two aides nodded.
Aisya’s smooth fingers rubbed at her forehead openly in disapproval, a shot she’s sure the camera caught. Nothing she’s not used to, she’s become a sort of political show for the masses. If it makes politics accessible through her entertaining call outs then she’s fine with performing.
She could already feel the words building at the back of her throat. Sharp, indelicate, true. But first, she had to let the room hang itself in red tape.
Dupree leaned in next, his hands steepled like he was praying to the military-industrial complex.
“We’re not targeting heroes. We’re asking for registration. Transparency. Coordination. These people work in shadows and some of them are ghosts. We’ve seen what happens when one man —” (he didn’t look at Bucky, but the pause made it clear) “— becomes judge, jury, and executioner. That’s what we’re here to prevent.”
The room tightened. Rustling from suits shifting against leather seats. Clicking pens. Whispers softly. Aisya tapped her pen against the desk once. Twice.
Under the fluorescent lights, Bucky didn’t move but his stubbled jaw locked. He kept his hands folded under the table. If he felt the tension rise, he didn’t show it. He didn’t have to.
She was already planning to shatter the whole thing and he could see it. Bucky could not stop staring. His ears were perked, listening to every word of jargon falling from Dupree’s lips. Attentive, in fact, to the insinuation at him. Bucky was completely aware of the reason he was in this room. A walking example of why such regulations were needed. Acting as a witness for this resolution was good PR, showed he was on the government’s side, showed he wouldn’t act out of line as a congressman. Essentially, showed off everything he hadn’t planned to do.
There were nods from some members of the committee, a few murmurs of agreement, the soft scratch of pens against legal pads. Cameras clicked from the media box. The air in the room felt like it had been vacuum-sealed.
“ Thank you, Senator Dupree, for your opening statement,” Chairman Reynolds looked down at his notes for no reason but to take the necessary pause before the verbal tsunami it was necessitated for him to introduce, “The committee now calls upon Representative Aisya Arora of New York’s Twelfth District.”
He sighed almost inaudibly and looked up, “The floor is yours, congresswoman.”
Aisya Arora stood up, looking like a scalpel in a room of blunt instruments. Her soft hands roughly grabbed the microphone, tapping it unceremoniously and requesting the AV Aide to turn up the volume before turning back to the floor. She stepped past the boundaries of her bench, much to the annoyance of several men in the room.
Aisya offered no bow of respect, no perfunctory nod. Just a brief tightening of her jaw as she adjusted the mic and stood tall.
Bucky recognised her from television but seeing Aisya Arora in action was something else. She had stormed into the subcommittee room like she owns oxygen and everyone else is borrowing it. Wavy brown hair unapologetically wild and tousled from the fight up the flight of stairs to the room with aides chasing her. Jaw locked. She spoke with a voice already sharp with disdain before the mic was even on.
From his seat at the back, Bucky Barnes watched her. He'd seen a lot of fire in his life. Literal, metaphoric, manmade and alien-born. But what she carried in her eyes wasn’t rage. It was purpose. And that was worse. Rage burned out fast. Purpose stayed warm and cruel.
He couldn’t look away.
“Gentlemen. Let’s drop the act,” she turned on her heels to focus on Dupree with enough venom in her gaze to make him swallow some of his glass of water faster, “We are not here to ensure accountability. We are not here to legislate fairness. We are here in yet another gilded hearing to weaponize fear. To dress it up in policy, wrap it in legalese, and hope the American people are too tired to read between the lines.”
Aisya sighed roughly, a grunt of a noise as she turned to face the entire room. Her eyes traced every face there meant to be backing the American people and failing once more. Not on her watch.
“The Superhuman Oversight Resolution isn’t about justice. It’s not about protection. It’s about control. It’s about political theatre. It’s about people in this room , people with pens, not scars deciding which lives are worth saving and which ones are worth monitoring. Why are we forgetting that these superhumans we are so concerned about constantly monitoring are humans too. Dare I say, humans first.”
Aisya scoffed and stalked closer, ““This isn’t the first time we’ve tried to file heroes under threat level. The Sokovia Accords were supposed to bring order. Remember that? Order. Oversight. All the same hollow words you’re feeding us today. What they brought was division. What they caused — was blood.”
She turned away from Dupree, gesturing at everyone and nothing simultaneously, ““You want to talk about casualties? Let’s talk about how many lives were lost because people like you decided to regulate help instead of earn it. Let’s talk about how many hands stayed still because they were waiting for government clearance.”
Her voice was growing louder, impatient with the negligence of the subcommittee.
“You talk about unchecked power like you haven’t voted to fund it for the past two decades. You talk about civilian safety, but not civilian loss. You talk about heroes like they’re your liability , not your excuse.”
Her feet calmly led her back to her bench, where she leaned with palms flat against the wood. Her eyes burned holes straight into Chairman Reynolds.
“I didn’t come here to play nice. I didn’t come here to negotiate the dignity of people who bleed for a country that can’t decide whether to thank them or register them.”
Her tone went colder now, sharper. Congresswoman Aisya Arora was not the kind of name that quietly settled into political margins. A former investigative journalist turned elected representative, she had built a reputation on being as incisive with policy as she once was with the pen. Sharp-tongued, disruptive, and unapologetically unfiltered, she wasn’t easy to handle and she made no effort to be.
“I came here to say no. No to the backroom deals. No to the surveillance. No to the slow, legal dehumanization of anyone strong enough to scare you.” She was a verbal battering ram against the state.
A pause. Then— “The Sokovia Accords didn't keep anyone safe. They kept good people scared. And this — this is the same story, rewritten with a shinier headline.”
She let the silence fill the room, daring anyone to disagree. Aisya’s eyes looked around, making eye contact with as many representatives as possible. Shame hung beneath their eye bags, and she knew that she was making waves. The livestream signal on one of the cameras caught her eye. She sucked in a breath and turned back to Chairman Reynolds, steel like.
“How many more names do you want on the ledger before we admit this isn’t about justice? It’s about control.”
There’s something in Aisya Arora that made the air in any room she was in charge up. It’s not just anger , it’s conviction. Brutal and unrelenting. A kind of holy fire she’s holding in her chest and daring everyone else in the room to flinch first. Somewhere deep in Bucky’s bones–in the parts of him that remember being the Winter Soldier, and the parts trying to unlearn it — he recognizes that fire. It’s the same fire that once kept him alive.
Others may call her impulsive. Disrespectful. Dangerous.
But Bucky sees it clear as day: she’s the only one in the room not lying.
She finished to a room that had grown noticeably quieter.
Senator Dupree leaned backwards, gulping. His glass of water barely held an inch of anything left inside it. He turned to his side, trying to glance at Dr. Nina Foulkes as though for support. Whatever they had been expecting, clearly Congresswoman Arora’s delivery was harsher than anticipated. And with the session being live…there wasn’t a lot of time to come back with a good enough retort.
Verbal battlefields were how Aisya won her greatest accolades. The young representative, with her loose wavy hair and brown skin, once held New York’s love and respect as a journalist who packed more punches without lifting a finger than anyone else in court rooms. So eventually, she swapped to join those rooms. If New York counted on her to change policies, she wasn’t going to disappoint. The half-Indian, all American foul-mouthed representative had unexpectedly become a political darling without meaning too. Though she was far from a political princess.
“Thank you, Representative Arora,” Dr Foulkes began, voice molasses-smooth. “Always a pleasure to hear from New York’s most…spirited. But I must ask,” Foulkes continued, eyes glinting, “what do you say to those who’ve lost everything to unsanctioned enhanced activity? Who fear another city leveled, another child orphaned?”
She opened her mouth, but the doctor had raised a finger first, theatrically polite. Aisya flared her nostrils with unrestrained annoyance.
“If I may,” she added, with mock deference. Then she turned. “We’re joined today by someone who knows both sides of this very well.”
Her gaze landed down the bench like a pin dropped into a minefield.
“Congressman Barnes.”
Bucky didn’t move. His jaw ticked and his eyes, previously fixated on the spitfire in the room, shifted slowly to Dr Foulkes.
“James Buchanan Barnes,” Foulkes said, as if tasting the syllables. It must have been metallic, she hissed softly before continuing. “Formerly of the 107th Infantry. Also known as the Winter Soldier. A man shaped by war, puppeteered by foreign powers, implicated in multiple global incidents. But also, I believe, a recent consultant to the Global Intelligence Council?”
Still no movement. His expression was granite. Bucky missed the black coffee he had chugged before this meeting. If he knew the turns it would take, he would have brought another gallon into the room and hidden it under his seat.
“I’d be fascinated to hear your thoughts, Mr. Barnes,” she finished sweetly. “Surely, you of all people understand the importance of oversight.”
Aisya laughed. Scoff-like. A huff. The room turned to her. She tilted her head at Dr Foulkes, not turning to Bucky as she sat back in her leather seat with unrefined poise.
“Oh, of course,” she said, voice all sugar and knives. “Wheel out the reformed assassin for emotional impact. Nothing says balanced policy-making like a little trauma porn in a suit.”
A few heads turned. Bucky’s among them. A few outraged sputters were heard and Chairman Reynolds banged his gavel, urging for decorum in the Hearing Room.
She didn’t flinch. Just tilted her head, eyes cool. “By all means. Let’s hear from Exhibit A.”
Bucky’s scowl directed at her now, irritation starting to prick his neck. He set his frown in a thin line. His communications director sat next to him, eyes urging silently for Bucky to respond in the room as they had practiced. As had been ordered. As he had been told to. For PR.
For his good image.
And he knew damn well he should have, but he was now staring right at Aisya Arora. Into her dark, challenging eyes. For someone with such soft features, she managed to intimidate with just her looks. The edge of her lips was curled upwards, in a mean smile that seemed much more spiteful than pleasant. She was daring him to speak, or was that just a trick of light? That glint in her eyes, like she knew this was a performance. Like she’d already made her judgment and was waiting for him to prove her right.
“I’ve been through a lot of versions of this,” he said finally, voice low. “Governments trying to keep people like me in check. First it was Hydra. Then it was the Sokovia Accords. Now this.”
He glanced up. Just for a second, and something in her expression had changed. More solemn. Was that a hint of empathy in his eyes? He couldn’t tell from this distance.
“They all said the same thing. That it was for protection. I’m not saying we don’t need rules. But this...” His jaw flexed. He looked away from the panel. From Aisya, “This doesn’t look like safety. It looks like control. And I’ve lived through enough of that.”
He didn’t say more. Didn’t need to. The silence after him felt heavier than the speech ever could have been. A beat passed.
Then another.
Dr. Foulkes leaned forward, face frozen in a polished smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “With respect, Mr. Barnes, that wasn’t quite the direction we expected your insight to take.”
She said it lightly. But her voice had gone colder than the room they were in
“You were brought here to speak on the necessity of oversight—”
Chairman Reynolds banged the gavel once. “Doctor.”
But Foulkes was already raising her hand, waving like she could dismiss the tension out of the air. “No, I understand. It's difficult. Emotional. That's what happens when survivors speak from a place of unresolved trauma-”
Aisya sat up so fast her chair scraped against the cool floors, nearly falling.
“You don’t get to play that card,” she said sharply, cutting through the murmurs. “You don’t get to parade him in, ask him to relive his past for your narrative, and then, what? Gaslight him for not sticking to your damn script?”
Bucky blinked at her. She wasn’t defending him. That much was obvious in the venom lacing her voice when she turned toward him. Bucky felt something in his chest, more akin to a memory recognised. An old spark, maybe. In that split second, all he could confirm was that this was something he had felt long before all this: Congress, the Avengers, Hydra, the war…
“But don’t think for a second that means I’m on your side,” she hissed, “You may not have said the words, Barnes, but you were supposed to. And silence is just as useful to them. That’s what this was. A performance.” She looked back at the panel. “You wanted a show of unity. A war hero. A reformed killer. Someone palatable. You knew what this was, and you still sat there and danced around the truth like a good soldier.”
That hit. Hard.
The words landed like a fist pressed hard against something raw inside him. A good soldier. She didn’t just see the man; she saw the cage he’d been trapped in his whole life. The orders he’d followed, the truths he’d bent, the identity he’d tried desperately to escape. When had Bucky been allowed by anyone to be anything but a motherfucking soldier? A good little soldier.
It wasn’t just an accusation. It was a mirror held up to every scar he carried. He could see it emanating off of her. His personal mirror, his personal hell. Every loss, every betrayal, every moment he’d fought to be more than a weapon.
Her voice, sharp and unforgiving, echoed in his mind. He’d come here ready to testify, to toe the line, but now her words tore through that carefully rehearsed script.
This wasn’t just politics. It was personal.
She hated that Bucky was playing along with the system and that his silence or half-truths were being weaponized to support the resolution she despised . In her eyes, he was complicit — someone "dancing around the truth" instead of fighting it outright . So what can she do? She was warning him (and the room) that respect for his suffering doesn’t need to translate to political alliance.
His fingers curled against the table, steadying himself. He didn't rise, not yet. But the air around him changed like something old and dangerous had stirred under his skin.
“I didn’t dance around anything,” he said, low, measured. “I told the truth.”
“No,” Aisya shot back, “you told a version of the truth safe enough for headlines and government press kits.”
“You think you know what I should’ve said?”
“I know you’ve sat front row through every abuse of power this government’s ever funded,” she snarled. “And you still showed up for them.”
“Not for them,” he said, steel threading into his voice now. “For people like you. Who think screaming louder makes your hands cleaner.”
She flinched — not from the words, but the fact that he finally looked at her when he said them. Really looked. She hated that she could recognise the burning behind those dark eyes. Bone-deep tired, but not dying in the slightest. Congressman Barnes was more awake and alive than ever, and he wasn’t going down without a fight it seemed. Not so much a mouthpiece anymore.
“Oh, don’t you dare put this on me,” she said, rising again, seething. “You can’t halfway endorse fascism and then blame the people calling it out.”
“I’m not endorsing anything,” he said. “I’ve seen what no oversight looks like.”
“And I’ve seen what your oversight looks like,” she said. “Bodies. Cages. Kids growing up with numbers instead of names.”
The room had gone silent again. Watching. Recording. A hundred eyes and a dozen cameras caught the collision of two survivors shaped by different horrors, a seismic fault line crackling between them.
Chairman Reynolds looked like the weight of it aged him ten years in ten seconds.
“Representative Arora,” he said, voice strained, “Mr. Barnes, enough.”
But it wasn’t enough.
The line had been drawn. Clear and bloody. Neither one dared look away.
The gavel banged again.
“Order,” Chairman Reynolds barked. “We are not here to assign character attacks—”
“No,” Aisya snapped, her head turned to face Chairman Reynolds smoothly. “You’re here to rubber-stamp a resolution that puts more people under the boot. That’s what this is. And now that the Winter Soldier won’t parrot your PR, you’re flailing.”
“Representative Arora,” Foulkes bit out, “if you continue this line of accusation—”
“Oh, I’ll continue,” she, her voice crackling with fiery intent “I’m just getting warmed up.”
Chaos broke like thunder.
Reynolds pounded the gavel again, shouting for decorum. Members on both sides began talking over each other. Security shifted by the doors, uncertain. And through it all, Bucky didn’t move, just watched her, silent and still.
Fire, he thought again.
Not the kind that comforted.
The kind that burned you down.
And Aisya?
She didn’t look at him again. Didn’t need to. The damage had already been done.
✼ ҉ ✼ ҉ ✼
A recess wasn’t enough. It was clear the committee wasn’t ready to decide on the resolution diplomatically, not today. The tension still hung thick in the air as Bucky stood just outside the hearing room, his communications director leaning in close. The woman spoke in a hushed tone as she filled up her coffee cup from the machine in the corridor they were in. Bucky nodded but didn’t respond. His mind replayed every word, every jab, giving special attention to Aisya’s. Before he could process more, the sharp click of heels echoed down the corridor. He seemed to subconsciously know who it was before she appeared, storming toward him like a thunderclap.
Aisya Arora entering a Hearing Room was enough to make people sit straighter. Aisya Arora charging straight at you? Bucky tensed silently even as he tried to maintain some air of relaxedness.
“We’ll spin it,” his Communications Director muttered. “You held the line. Didn’t throw anyone under the bus, didn’t get dragged into—”
“Were you seriously going to let them use you like that?”
Aisya’s voice sliced clean through the hall. Her sharp eyes glared at him, and she came to a stop ignoring his Communications Director completely.
Bucky didn’t flinch. He turned slowly, meeting her eyes as she strode up like she was walking straight into a fight she already planned to win.
His comms director stepped forward, hand raised, already tense. “Representative Arora, this isn’t—”
She turned to the woman, over whom she had a few inches over and shot her down with one singular look. It almost looked apologetic, outside the Hearing Room’s harsh lights. Then she turned back to the man in question.
“I’m not talking to you,” Aisya said, without breaking stride or eye contact. “I’m talking to him.”
A heavy silence marked the space between them in the corridor. Eyes were starting to turn, narratives building in their heads. The remaining cameras not interviewing representatives on what had just happened snapped back to life, wanting to capture anything juicy between the two sparky new representatives.
Bucky let Aisya come, let her speak. Because she wasn’t like the others in that room. She wasn’t posturing for the press or rehearsing outrage. No, she was trying to draw blood—and that, he understood. Oh, how he understood it so well.
“You really think staying quiet makes you neutral?” she asked, low and cutting. “They’ll use your silence like scripture. You gave them exactly what they wanted: calm, clean, controllable.”
“I wasn’t trying to be anything,” he said, voice level.
“That’s the problem. You weren’t trying.” She stepped closer. “You know how this government works. Now they’re trying to prop you up like some symbol of healing. A reformed murderer who plays by the rules.”
He didn’t interrupt her nor did he try to defend himself. He just… watched. Not coldly. Not dismissively. Measured. Like he was listening more carefully than he wanted to admit.
And maybe that’s what unnerved her most. She breathed hard, kept going. “I’ve seen what these policies do, Barnes. So have you.”
Something in those dark eyes–brown, he realised now. From this distance. Brown. A dark brown. Rich, like soil. Not that he was paying attention to that sort of thing–had softened imploringly.
“This resolution goes through, it won’t just be red tape. It’ll be surveillance, raids, internments. legalised. Sanitised. Backed by your image.”
“I never asked to be their image,” he rerouted , quiet but firm.
“No, but you let them take your silence and make it mean something. That’s complicity.”
The words hung there. He blinked once, slow. “You done?”
“Not even close.” Her voice lowered. “Because right now I need to know something.”
He tilted his head, just slightly and glanced away at the rows of scattered representatives and journalists watching them closely. Not then Aisya cared, she used to be standing in those lines she must have grown comfortable. Unlike him.
“Whose side are you on?” she asked.
That landed. Bucky’s head turned back to her before he could stop himself. Not because he didn’t have an answer. But because it demanded he say it. Out loud. In a way that couldn’t be walked back.He looked at her then, not as a representative, not as an agitator, but as someone trying, in her own unrelenting way, to pull him off the ledge before he got dragged fully into the machine. Before he got turned into another cog in the machine. That didn’t mean she wasn’t getting on his nerves.
He stood there all stoic, unreadable like she hadn’t just laid it all bare.
Her jaw clenched. “You really think this is redemption? Sitting through hearings while people disappear under the same system that made you a weapon?”
“You think yelling at me makes you a revolutionary?” he cut her off, voice flat but laced with challenge.
“Better than letting them dress you up like a folktale–Sergeant Bucky Barnes or Winter Soldier, they'll change your title to suit their narratives, Mr Barnes ,” she shot back, already wound up, already climbing. She stepped closer. He didnt’t move back. She lowered her voice, peering up at him despite the heels she was wearing “They have agendas. You could’ve burned it all down, Congressman Barnes. Instead, you played diplomat. Wore the suit. Took the seat. Did their job for them.”
“I’m not on anyone’s leash,” he growled under his breath, watching her from under his thick dark lashes. His blue eyes seemed colder than the frigid morning air stifling the damn place, “You think they’re listening to you?” he muttered. “All they see is a headline they can spin. You think they won’t use your rage to prove their point? I’ve seen what happens next.”
Aisya’s eyes narrowed, almost skeptically as she took a small step back. Bucky scanned her face momentarily. Aisya Arora wasn’t tall. Not really. Not without those heels. But you wouldn’t know it the way she squared up like she was used to taking on rooms bigger than her. People bigger than her. Still, up close, she should have been barely up to his shoulders without her tall heels. . Up close, she looked... different. Softer, somehow. Brown skin. Big, wide eyes that didn’t match the way she wielded her words like knives. A complete contrast to her personality, essentially. Her nose was soft, sloped downwards, and ended in the slightest curve. A mole beside it. A glint of metal through her nose. And when she got angry, she flared her nostrils. Just like she was doing now.
“I’m here to fight, Congressman. That’s how real change comes about,” she jibed.
“And that’s all you do,” he bit back. “You throw punches in every direction hoping one lands, but no one’s listening.”
Aisya seemed to falter. He caught the slight way she fumbled for just a millisecond before recalibrating. She wet her bottom lip, processing his words. She was sizing him up, deciding if he was just another obstacle or something more complicated.
She sucked in a breath, then fired back, voice sharp and unyielding:
“Trying isn’t enough when people’s lives are on the line. Do you think standing still and playing by their rules changes anything? It doesn’t. It never has. You want to act like a martyr for your ‘redemption,’ fine, Congressman,” she threw his new title in his face like it was something he wasn't suited to have. And honestly, Bucky felt way out of his depth. Verbal sparring sessions were not his forte.
Bucky’s jaw clenched tight. His voice was low, rough like gravel, “Maybe your noise just makes it harder to hear the real fight.”
She stepped forward, nostrils flaring.
“You wanna play the redeemed hero? Fine. But don’t act like you’re the only one who’s fighting.”
Bucky’s eyes darkened for a moment. Yeah, maybe she’s right. Fighting meant more than just words or posturing. It meant getting inside the walls, knowing the game even if it meant getting dirty. He was here to gather intel, to understand the system from within. Not because he trusted it, but because sometimes the best way to break a cage was to learn its lock. But admitting that? That was dangerous. Especially to someone like her.
Her laugh cut through his thoughts, sharp and bitter like a blade. “Doesn’t matter what you say. You’re either part of the problem or standing with the people who want change. There’s no middle ground.”
His silence this time wasn’t defensive. It was dangerous. And hers didn’t last.
“You don’t belong in politics, Barnes,” she sneered it out , eye violent and yet so very knowing. She stepped away from him, putting some distance between them. Each step was heavy, like a silent battle between her resolve and the magnetic pull of their shared, if conflicting, convictions. The air between them crackled with unspoken truths and sparks born from two people who saw the world differently but couldn’t deny the reflections of themselves in each other. A man like him…she would saw through him to carry on in her path if she had to and she wondered if, had they met earlier, would he have done the same.
He didn’t flinch. “Neither do you.”
A woman like her, too fiery and with no understanding of the silent diplomacy and compromise. Neither of them liked the idea of surrendering even a portion of what they wanted, Bucky had simply learned the consequences of not doing so more…seriously. She didn’t understand that kind of silent warfare; to her, bending was surrender, and surrender was failure. Neither of them was willing to give an inch, but while she charged headlong into battle, he carried the scars of every blow he had absorbed. He was doing this for something greater than himself. Bucky had to be careful. And he wasn't good with careful, at least when it came to fucking diplomacy.
They stared each other down—jaw tight, eyes hot, and something heavier boiling beneath the clash of egos. Recognition, maybe. Or resentment at the parts of themselves they saw in the other. She tore her gaze away first, not from defeat but because she’d drawn blood. So had he. They were still standing, but something in the ground had shifted.
They hated the same things. Maybe even for the same reasons.
And that made it worse
