It takes too much time. All of it. It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult or this long when he just came here, but now it seems to only stretch and stretch in time. Bucky pushes his cap lower and opens the door of the local bar—relatively popular, so there are enough people to obscure his presence, and certainly a place where different gangs meet up and chill out after a long day of pillaging and wreaking havoc on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. When he came to New York City he thought he would find a gang in need of help, catch a ride with them across Atlantic sooner rather than later and that’d be it. Instead he got shot, then got rescued by the lady with heavily misplaced kindness, and only now he’s finally fully regenerated and ready to proceed with the plan.
    He orders a beer, the bartender barely even glances at him, and with his mug in hands he shuffles towards the conveniently empty table next to a corner one. Every day Bucky discovers new and fascinating leftover habits from the Winter Soldier. For example, he never—and it means never ever—sits anywhere where at least one, and if possible two, of his flanks aren’t covered. He never sits with his back to a door. He never picks a place where he can easily get shot, he picks the one that is barely seen from any vantage point a sniper would choose, the one that has a clear and convenient escape route—if not multiple—and the one that provides him with as much visibility as possible.
    Quite frankly, he’s fucking picky, this prissy Winter Soldier Bucky carries with him in his own head.
    Bucky barely takes a sip from his mug. He isn’t here to drink himself stupid, he is here to observe and make a deal. Of course, mafia bosses never go to bars like this one, but it would be impossible to approach them anyway. Which can’t be said about their subordinates, who aren’t as fancy and full of themselves. Bucky scans the room out of the corner of his eye. He tried to avoid going anywhere in the past few days, even after his recovery, but it was impossible to track any of gangsters without actually getting out in the field. So he had to, as much as he disliked it. He’d say that by now he is relatively well-accustomed to Hell’s Kitchen, and Hell’s Kitchen, luckily, doesn’t seem to either know or care about him. Well. Except for that lady out in the alley.
    But she is definitely one of the crazy exceptions, that Bucky can tell for sure.
    A group of guys, some with clear Italian accent, catch his eye on the other side of the bar. Bucky watches them occasionally, very subtly—the way the Winter Soldier would watch his target before shooting them dead. The thought of it makes Bucky wince ever so slightly and take another pretense sip from the mug. He has so many questions about himself it’s uncomfortable. He can use all of these skills almost without thinking—hell, most of the time without thinking! And his metal arm—metal hand now hidden under a glove, as is his other hand—and none of it makes much sense to him. A part of him wants to just stay here and enjoy his life, whatever it turns out to be, while the other part knows that there is no life of his own, neither here nor anywhere else, until he at least knows what happened to him. The full story.
    So Bucky keeps watching the Italians and thinking through his strategy.