[ WWII AU ] I held a funeral for my past today

[from_the_outside]

She's not sure what she would have done without Steve. 

 

Sharon stays with him for the first two days of her week of liberty, although she hardly pays attention to the passage of time. The storms of weeping and grief roll over her multiple times a day, and the very first night, she wakes up from a stuttering nightmare she can hardly remember that leaves her muffling a wail into her borrowed pillow.

 

On the second day after her return, when she's found a little equilibrium, Steve takes her around the city. They don't go to Coney Island, but he walks her through Brooklyn, and later that night they sit together on the couch, quiet in their shared grief. She thinks he needs her curled against his side, her head on his shoulder, as much as she needs him steady and solid against her. He makes sure she eats and stays hydrated and both of them try to sleep, and in that way, they get through the first few days.

 

On the third day, she packs the clothes JARVIS had provided and she and Steve head together for Washington. She's already invited him to the mountain house after they visit with Aunt Peggy, though she doesn't know if he'll take her up on it. All she knows is that he's about the only company she can stomach just now.

 

What they'll do if Aunt Peggy isn't having a good day, she's not quite sure. It almost doesn't matter, though, as they pull up to the townhouse. She just needs to see her.

Comments

[marvel_npc]

It helps to have someone who understands, who misses Bucky as much as he does. He just hopes it helps her as well. Steve does the best he can to look after her in every way he can, anticipating from his own experience how loss might rip into her at any moment and trying to be there when it does.

He tries to make small talk on the trip from New York to DC, miserably aware how bad he is at it in general. But it's her, and the quiet works too, and isn't as uncomfortable as he might have feared. He asks her about Virginia, about what living in DC is like, about anything he can think of that might be an anchor. It helps that he's genuinely interested, too - or at least he hopes it does.

As they pull up outside the townhouse, Steve glances over at her. "Um. I usually check in with Anna first, but ... I mean, you'd know."

[from_the_outside]

She nods as she unbuckles herself. "Good idea."

Anna knows they're coming – and Aunt Peggy does, too, hopefully – but she'll be the one to tell them if today will be a good day or not. Sharon gives Steve a small smile and reaches for the doorhandle. "Let's go see what she has to say."

[marvel_npc]

She's already reaching to open her own door, but he comes around to help her with it anyway before walking with her up the few steps to ring the buzzer. The speaker's good quality, and it no longer surprises him how clearly he can hear Anna's voice. "Yes, who is it, please?"

"Hi, Anna. It's Steve, and Sharon's with me today. We were hoping to visit Peggy together."

[from_the_outside]

"Hi, Steve," Anna's voice comes. She sounds cheerful, but she usually does. "I'll be right down."

The speaker clicks off, and Sharon studies the door, feeling unaccountably nervous. Even without her jaunt back through time, she hasn't been able to come visit Aunt Peggy in a while, and her stomach is busy tugging itself into knots.

All she can do is hope it's a good day. And that Aunt Peggy can remember where she put the files and items Sharon's sure she held onto.

[marvel_npc]

Anna pulls the door open to let them in, and Steve smiles at her. "Thanks for always making time."

"You're never any trouble," Anna assures him, before looking at Sharon with mild surprise. "It's good to see you. I didn't know you'd met Steve."

"We, uh, connected last week," Steve puts in. If he sticks to the truth - the parts of it he can tell, anyway - it's easier, he finds. "In New York."

[from_the_outside]

Anna clucks her tongue. "That was an awful business."

"It sure was," Sharon agrees. She can say so easily, even without having been there. She leans in to hug Anna and exchanges cheek kisses. "How is she today, Anna?"

[marvel_npc]

"Mixed," Anna says. "She's been having a pretty good day so far, but with a few spells. You might just have to be a little patient with her."

Steve's heart sinks in his chest. Shock sometimes makes those spells worse, he's learned, and he can't help but think that they've got a large shock in waiting. Still, careful he can do, along with patient, and he's sure Sharon feels the same way.

[from_the_outside]

Sharon nods, masking her disappointment. None of it's a surprise, after all, and it's not like Aunt Peggy has any control over it.

And it could be worse. A lot worse. It's almost something of a miracle that Aunt Peggy is having a pretty good day, good enough to see them. "Patient is fine," she promises.

[marvel_npc]

"You bet," Steve agrees, and Anna smiles at them both. "She's in the parlor," she tells them. "Go on, and I'll make a pot of tea for you."

As Anna starts toward the kitchen, Steve glances at Sharon. "Ready?" he murmurs.

[from_the_outside]

"Ready or not," she says, with a long, wry exhale. She meets his glance and gives him the crooked smile that's the best she's been able to do since landing on a Manhattan sidewalk, then reaches to give his hand a squeeze before she walks forward and heads into the parlor.

It's all so familiar. The furniture, the scent. And the woman in her reclining chair, a blanket tucked over her legs, her iron-gray hair neatly brushed. Sharon can feel a sting in her eyes, and blinks it away. "Hi, Aunt Peggy."

[marvel_npc]

"Sharon, darling." She's already smiling as she turns away from absent observation of trees bending in the breeze outside the window, only to blink in surprise as she sees Sharon standing together with Steve.

Peggy blinks, and blinks again, confused. Her glance goes past them, looking for Sergeant Barnes, who's always hanging around when Steve and Peggy are together, then comes back to her niece's face and lingers.

"Sharon?"

[from_the_outside]

Sharon doesn't turn to follow her aunt's glance; she's familiar with Aunt Peggy searching for faces that ought to be there but aren't. "Hi," she says, again, more softly, and comes to kneel by Aunt Peggy's chair, reaching for one of her aunt's frail hands to cradle it gently between both of hers.

She smiles as strongly as she can. "Steve and I thought we'd both visit you today."

[marvel_npc]

"Both." She turns her hand in Sharon's and grips tight. Her skin's older now; she's older now. She knows what this means; she has to hold on to what this means. "Both?"

Her glance flicks from Sharon's face to Steve's. "Is it time? It's time, isn't it." It's not entirely a question, but he answers it for her anyway.

"It's time, Peggy," Steve says, so gentle. "She's come back."

[from_the_outside]

Sharon curls her fingers around her aunt's remembering that glossy brown hair and clear, soft skin, the snapping intelligence in her eyes. "I'm back," she confirms, and swallows against the lump in her throat, blinks against the sheen of tears.

Her smile shakes a little, but she keeps it. "I'm back. I got back a few days ago. Steve remembered me."

She squeezes Aunt Peggy's hand. "I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to say goodbye."

[marvel_npc]

She puts her other hand over Sharon's and pats it. "It was rather sudden."

It's easier to remember things from before sometimes, she finds, and that memory is as clear as anything has ever been. Blue light over the table, an impossible hole in the air, and her niece snatched away before anyone could act.

She searches Sharon's face, then looks up to search Steve's, suddenly uncertain. "How did you know? No--" She looks back at Sharon. "I think you better tell me what happened. When you got back."

[from_the_outside]

She knows – she knows – that certainty in her aunt's voice could go again in the blink of an eye. There's no time to waste.

"I landed in Manhattan," she says. "A portal opened and dropped me through. Tony Stark was there about two seconds later; he must have had some kind of alert set up for cube activity."

Sharon tips her head toward Steve. "I told him to send my photo to Steve. And Steve confirmed he knew me."

[marvel_npc]

"Well, of course he knows you," Peggy says, and Steve's heart starts to ache all over again. He comes to crouch down on his heels to the side, by them both.

"I came to get her when I got that message," he says. "And brought her up to speed on everything. She knows it all, Peggy. We're all on the same page now."

[from_the_outside]

Sharon nods and presses her aunt's hand, catching her glance when Aunt Peggy looks back to her from Steve. "Tony Stark did a bunch of tests on me," she says. "Just like Howard used to do. Aunt Peggy..."

She takes a breath, then pushes forward. "Did you bury those files? With the information about me, and – and Bucky?"

[marvel_npc]

Peggy frowns at her. "Of course I did. Once you left, it had to be classified to make sure no one tried to interfere with the future."

Her glance flicks over Sharon's shoulder again, looking for the sergeant, before she remembers he's not here. Not at this point in time, he's not.

[from_the_outside]

"But you didn't destroy them, right?"

She badly wants to ask about her things – the little lamp Bucky bought for her on their first real date, her phone, her letter – but forces herself to wait. The intel is more important. "Did you put them away somewhere? Back at Camp Lehigh, maybe?"

[marvel_npc]

Peggy frowns harder, mildly offended. "Of course not. I only destroyed the blood samples." She looks at Steve. "Your blood. They didn't need it. They weren't going to use it for anything good."

Steve blinks, startled. "My blood? Wait, from that very first day? They still had that?"

[from_the_outside]

"Zola wasn't the only one who would have wanted more supersoldiers," Sharon murmurs. "SHIELD wouldn't have stopped until they cracked it, too."

She's given many of her best years to SHIELD, has wanted to be a part of it since she was old enough to want anything, but even she knows SHIELD wouldn't let a little thing like morality or ethics get in the way of remaking the supersoldier serum.

Sharon looks back at her aunt. "Where are they? The files?"

[marvel_npc]

"I hid them with my personal effects from the war. Howard would have been furious, except by then he'd been able to use the resonance data to find the cube and was busy experimenting with that instead."

Sorrow fills her eyes as she looks at Steve. "We couldn't find you. We looked for so very long. We couldn't find you."

"I'm here now," Steve says, steady and sure. "It's okay, Peggy."

She nods. He's here, she's here. And Sharon's here too, which means--

Confusion clouds her eyes as she looks up again, then looks around, unable to find him, before turning back to her darling niece. "Didn't he come with you?"

[from_the_outside]

Her breath makes a hard, painful hitch in her chest, and just like that, the grief she'd been holding back rushes in again. "No," she manages, finally.

Suddenly, it's all too clear who her aunt has been looking for. The fourth one, who was always with them. "No, he... he's not here, Aunt Peggy. Bucky didn't come with me."

Something clicks in her throat as she swallows. "I'm sorry."

[marvel_npc]

"He didn't," Peggy starts, and Steve cuts in. He doesn't want to hear what question she was going to ask, not about this.

"He couldn't," Steve says, and somehow manages to keep his tone as gentle as before, swallowing back what feels like an ocean of grief. "He's still gone, Peggy. That hasn't changed."

He sees the moment it sinks in, when the uncertainty in her gaze shifts into sudden realization. Peggy's hands tighten on Sharon's. "I'm sorry, darling," she murmurs.