“Hey, I’ll even go with you. If you’re gonna drag me to the ass end of Russia, you can at least let me tag along on the better trips.” He emptied the soup into the pot, clicked on the gas, and then stirred the clumpy mess a little longer before looking over at her.

Natasha looked so, so tired. It wasn’t exactly something he’d point out, like You look like shit, but the truth remained that he generally healed faster than her, and he’d also never seen her quite this haggard. She rarely ever let a situation get to her this badly. Which meant this truly was personal.

So. Instead of focusing just yet on that impossible task awaiting them — a high-security jailbreak, and striving to take down a global organisation which had sunk its claws into the world, just as insidious and slippery and brutal as HYDRA — he focused on that thread of impossible daydream instead.

“At the risk of this sounding like the saddest shit ever, I haven’t been on a vacation in decades,” Bucky pointed out, after a pause. “I could probably go for a Hawaiian shirt and a piña colada on a beach.”