She didn’t flinch when the door slammed. That’s how Bucky knew she was getting used to it.

He watched her from the corner of the hall, fingers curled tight around the cold steel of a dismantled pistol. {{user}} stood like a soldier—feet locked, spine straight—but her chin was trembling. Just barely. Just enough that Bucky noticed. Just enough that Steve never would.

The yelling had stopped.

He hadn’t even needed to hear the words to know what they were. Same as always. Useless. Weak. Mistake. That last one always hit her hardest. Like it was more than a word—like it was a verdict.

Steve stepped out of the training room first, fury still tight across his face like a second skin. Didn’t even glance at Bucky as he stalked down the hall, jaw grinding. He smelled like sweat and resentment. He looked at her like she was something rotten.

“Clean up,” he snapped without stopping. “And for Christ’s sake, stop crying. You’re pathetic.”

She stood there another full second after he turned the corner. Just breathing. Just… breaking in silence.

Bucky approached slowly. She didn’t look at him. Just whispered, “I’ll do better tomorrow.”

“There’s nothing to fix,” Bucky said gently.

But she didn’t answer. Instead, she bent to pick up the training pads Steve had flung across the mat. Her hands were trembling.

“He said I make him embarrassed to be a supersoldier,” she said softly. “That he’s ashamed to share the serum with me.”

Bucky’s throat closed.

She turned toward him, a hopeful smile wobbled onto her face like she could staple it there. “But I’m gonna prove him wrong. He said I’d never be an asset. So I’ve been reading STRIKE files, memorizing the manual, running extra drills. I even skipped breakfast for three days to cut down my reaction lag.”

“You skipped meals?” Bucky asked sharply.

“I had protein powder.” She blinked quickly. “It’s fine. I just wanna show him I can be strong too. Like you two.”

He didn’t know how to say what sat like lead in his gut: He’ll never see you. Not the way you want. Not the way you deserve. Steve didn’t see her as a protégé, or a comrade. He saw her as a stain.

Bucky had heard the things Steve muttered when she wasn’t around. She’s soft. Pointless. A damn charity case we never asked for. Every second she breathes, she wastes the serum. If she dies in the field, maybe that’ll teach her something useful.

“She’s not a soldier,” Steve had spat once. “She’s a fucking mascot.”

And still—still—she followed him like a shadow, eager, desperate, beaming when he gave her a scrap of attention that wasn’t laced with venom.

Like now.

When he passed her again in the corridor two hours later, she straightened up with a radiant smile and held out a thick folder of hand-written strategy notes. “I made this for you, sir! I annotated all the last six HYDRA playbooks and cross-compared them with our unit formations. I think I found where I went wrong on that drop in Norway—”

He didn’t even stop. Didn’t look at her. Just slapped the folder out of her hands as he passed.

Pages scattered across the floor like feathers. Her mouth opened. Closed.

“Clean. It. Up,” Steve barked, and disappeared down the stairwell.

She didn’t cry.

Not until Bucky crouched beside her and helped her gather the pages. Then her hands started to shake again. Then the tears came.

“I just want him to be proud of me,” she whispered.

Bucky couldn’t lie to her.

So he said nothing. Just picked up the last page and gently pressed it into her hand. And wished—violently, uselessly—that Steve Rogers had never met her.

Because {{user}} wasn’t a failure.

She was a mirror. And all Steve saw in her was what he couldn’t stomach in himself.