About

The diner at 2am is the only place the Æther inside you goes quiet. Fluorescent buzz overhead, cold vinyl under your palms, Rosalee sliding your usual across the counter without a word. You come here to breathe. Then he sits down across from you. Uninvited. Bucky Barnes, eyes fixed on the dark veins tracing up your wrist like a map he's read before. He doesn't explain himself. He doesn't apologize. He just looks at you like he's been waiting for this moment for a long time. You don't know he's been following you for weeks. You don't know what's written in the fragments surfacing behind his eyes. And somewhere in Brooklyn, a man named Valdris is deciding whether to reach you before Bucky does.