[ WWII AU ] what a night to go dreaming

[from_the_outside]

There's no doubt that things have shifted, a little, since the day they spent tangled up together in that sun-dappled cottage, tucked away in the trees behind the nearby town. The other Howling Commandos have, seemingly by silent agreement, stopped flirting so outrageously with her, though she's caught Jim and Gabe giving Bucky more than one fondly exasperated glance. She still dances with all of them, and enjoys their company, but they yield the floor to Bucky at the end of the night, and he's the one who, as she said she wanted, walks her back to her tent. 

And then there are their rendezvous' out in the field, where she still checks, each night, for a portal opening in the air. It never comes, but she spends hours there with him, walking and laughing and dancing under the starlight, stealing every moment they can together.

Aunt Peggy says nothing, but Sharon knows she can tell things have changed. There's a worried frown that lives between her brows, but she doesn't forbid her niece to see Steve's best friend, knowing it would only backfire.

Other things change not at all... like the morning tests Howard still makes them do. They're nearing the end of the sequence today, and she lets go of Bucky when Howard tells her to, careful not to linger. It's difficult to say what Stark thinks of his findings; he mutters to himself and snaps at his assistants, but all she can glean from it is that the resonance is still fading at a regular rate from her cells.

But none of them know why.

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[from_the_outside]

Howard’s throat bobs as he swallows, but he catches a stern glance from Steve and gives himself a shake, waving Sharon forward.

“Over here, Agent,” he tells her, and directs her to stand where she’d first appeared, before his lab techs come to drape her with wires and sensors.

[nerves_of_ice]

“So how is this going to work exactly?” Bucky asks, watching as the techs set up equipment around Sharon. Her aunt’s watching too, he notices, making sure there’s no impropriety.

“We’ve got a couple of options to try,” Howard says, turning to him. He waves at the wires and generators. “First we’ll create an electrical current, since that’s what Agent Carter said happened in her lab, and we’ll use the field generated to interact with the resonance your cells are still radiating. Then we’ll target where the tear in the sky was.”

“Target it with what?” Bucky asks, with the sinking feeling that he already knows.

[from_the_outside]

"With the weapon," Howard explains, as the lab techs cover her with wiring and equipment. "We need the frequency to try and reverse the resonance Agent Carter is emitting."

"Reverse it?" Sharon says, surprised, and casts a wary glance at the wiring now covering her torso. "You're not going to zap me with that thing, are you?"

[nerves_of_ice]

“The hell he is,” Bucky snaps, expression hard. “I saw enough soldiers turn into dust and ash with one hit, we’re not risking it here—-“

“Simmer down, Sergeant,” Howard grouses. “That’s what the wires are for. They act like a Faraday cage, got it? Whatever’s inside doesn’t get hurt. And anyway we’re not aiming it at her, we’re aiming it at you.”

[from_the_outside]

“You’re doing no such thing,” Steve says, sharp, before she can open her mouth the protest. “Howard, no.”

Stark turns to him, exasperated. “It’s safe,” he promises. “We’ve tested it over and over. It won’t hurt the Sergeant.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Sharon says, heated. “Absolutely not.”

[nerves_of_ice]

“We’ve tested it!” Howard argues. “What more do you want?”

“Why do you need to fire it at me?” Bucky interrupts. Howard turns to him. “Because you were the anchor point, right? For her arrival. We need you to anchor the reversal. And it has to be you because of the resonance. No one else has it but her.”

Bucky takes a slow breath. “Okay.”

[from_the_outside]

"You absolutely don't have to do this," Sharon tells Bucky. There's no room for negotiation in her tone.

All she can think about is the way he'd said it didn't hit me this time after she'd arrived. The thought that he'd have to endure being hit by it again is almost too much to bear.

[nerves_of_ice]

“I know,” he murmurs. He does, but. But.

But if he doesn’t, if they don’t try, then maybe Sharon never gets to go home. He can’t do that to her. He can’t.

The agonized look on Steve’s face tells him his best friend knows exactly what he’s thinking. Steve turns to Howard. “Are you sure? Absolutely sure?”

“I wouldn’t suggest it if I thought it’d - well. If it’d do that,” Howard says. “At worst a shock, maybe, from the wires. Faraday cages are safe. That’s why we use them.”

[from_the_outside]

He'd told her he'd do whatever was necessary, and she knows he'd meant it, but that doesn't make any of this easier.

It's his decision. And she knows he'd never forgive himself if they didn't try and missed their one shot at sending her home.

Howard checks his watch and looks at Bucky. "Sergeant," he says. "I know I'm asking a lot. I need you to trust me."

[nerves_of_ice]

“Do it,” Bucky says, firmly. “I’m ready. Whatever you need.”

He looks at Steve, then at Sharon. “It’ll be okay,” he promises.

[from_the_outside]

She keeps her gaze on him as Stark's techs finish with their equipment, the wires a net around him and around her, too. Off to the side, Harry Jackson activates the weapon with a whine and familiar blue glow, and goosebumps chase along Sharon's skin.

Howard glances at his watch again, then gestures for Steve and Aunt Peggy and the techs to step back. "Okay," he says. "Just about there."

Sharon looks across the short expanse of field to meet Bucky's eyes, her own dark and solemn as stark starts counting down and her breath quickens.

This might be the last glimpse she gets of him, and she refuses to blink, to lose even a second of it.

[nerves_of_ice]

He finds that he’s holding his breath, every muscle tense and every impulse screaming at him to run as Howard counts down.

He doesn’t run. Bucky holds Sharon’s gaze, looking at her for as long as he can, right up to the moment that Harry fires the weapon. Blue light hits the cage of wire around him, and he hears the generators wail as they start to overload, as the world around him turns the blue-white of pure lightning.

[from_the_outside]

The cage around her crackles into life and she squints to keep from being blinded as electricity surges and her hair lifts onto its ends, giving her the kind of clouded halo Bucky's teased her about so often.

She can't see him anymore, or Aunt Peggy either. She can hear Stark shouting, but she can't understand what he's saying.

Sharon looks up, hoping to see the sky crack open above them. The hum of her cage increases, shrieking with resonance, and as a blast of blue light hits the air above her head she braces for the feeling of being tugged, of falling backwards.

But nothing comes. And the sky stays stubbornly closed.

[nerves_of_ice]

The world is burning light and white fire around him, but there’s no pain, not like he remembers from Zola’s lab. He can’t see Sharon, can’t make out anything but a few voices yelling. Bucky stays still, holding his breath.

One by one, the generators scream and burn out. The power surge fades, leaving darkness and a searing afterimage behind.

“Bucky!” He can’t hear Steve yell like that and not try to answer. “I’m okay!” he calls back. “Sharon?”

[from_the_outside]

The generators scream and burst. Stark is swearing. She can see nothing aside from the glare of electricity, until with a wail, the last generator burns out.

There's a moment of silence, and then Steve calls out, followed shortly by Bucky, and though he calls for her, Sharon can't bring herself to answer. Or – not that, exactly. She can't answer. Hope had burned as brightly as that surge in her chest... and then nothing had happened.

It hadn't worked.

She swallows, hard, as the seconds tick by. She can't see him or Steve or Aunt Peggy or Stark, but as her eyes adjust, she can see the stars once more. She can smell the grass of the field, the cool night breeze.

"Here," she says, finally, her voice ruthlessly level. "Still here."

[nerves_of_ice]

“Howard?” Peggy says, crisply. “Stop swearing and tell us what’s next.”

“Next is that we go back to London and I see what I can do in my workshop,” Stark snaps. “There’s nothing else to be done here. We threw everything at it that we could. I need better equipment, better facilities, and more data.”

Bucky scrubs his eyes to clear them and trades a grim look with Steve. Peggy turns to Sharon. “Let’s get you out of these things,” she says, softly.

[from_the_outside]

London.

Away from the field, away from any lingering tear in time and space. She's silent as Stark's techs buzz around her like bees, removing the wires and equipment. Aunt Peggy's shape is ghostlike in the dark as her eyes adjust to the lack of light.

She doesn't dare look at Bucky, only nods to her aunt. "Probably a good idea," she says, still keeping her voice carefully level.

It didn't work. And, for the first time, she allows herself to wonder if something happened, back home. If her traveling through time wasn't the only problem that came with working with the cube.

Maybe there isn't anything left there to return to.

[nerves_of_ice]

“We’ll walk you back,” Steve offers. Bucky nods, finally stepping free of wires and monitors and scrap metal and mess.

“All of you go ahead,” Stark says. “Me and the guys need to take some measurements before we clean up.”

[from_the_outside]

"Thank you, Captain," Aunt Peggy says, and Sharon feels her aunt's hand gentle against her arm. "Come along, dear."

Sharon steps out of the circle of wires – the grass is burned and dead where they'd touched, she notices – and goes where Aunt Peggy guides her. Once they're close enough, she studies Bucky, worry pounding dully through her chest. He hadn't sounded distressed, but – "Are you okay?" she asks him, once they're close enough.

It's easier to focus on him than on her own roiling thoughts. "Did you get zapped?"

[nerves_of_ice]

“I’m okay,” he promises. “Not even singed.”

It’s slowly sinking in that she’s still here, she’s still here, with everything that means. He’s not sure what to think or how to let himself feel, and can only stare at her.

[from_the_outside]

"Good," she says, soft. Aunt Peggy is protective at her side and Steve's at Bucky's other shoulder, but whether by design or luck they've let the two of them walk next to each other. Sharon looks back over at him, meeting his glance, and smiles, crooked and more than a little wry.

"Hey."

[nerves_of_ice]

“Hi,” he murmurs. Bucky takes a careful breath. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep trying,” he promises. “We’ll find a way.”

[from_the_outside]

“There might not be a way, Bucky.”

She doesn’t care if Aunt Peggy hears her call him by his name. It’s the first time she’s allowed herself to say it out loud, and it’s taking up all the space in her head and chest, like a swarm of bees.

Her voice is steady as she stares at the path ahead of them. “If they could get me back, they’d have done it already.”

[nerves_of_ice]

“Just give them more time. Or us, even. Once we take that cube away from Schmidt, that’ll help, if Stark hasn’t figured out something before then.”

Bucky throws a desperate look at Steve. “Right?”

[from_the_outside]

"Right," Steve says, instantly, solid and dependable, and Sharon just feels so damn tired. She can't drum up the optimism that never runs dry for Steve Rogers, and she doesn't want them to throw any more of that blue light at Bucky in the name of getting her home.

She looks up at the sky. Where the hell are you, Nick?

"Well, it will all have to wait," Aunt Peggy says, practically. "We'll need to start packing for our return to London shortly."