[ WWII AU ] a ghost story

[from_the_outside]

It's been almost two years since she's been home, and little by little, the grief has gotten easier to live with.

It hasn't gone away. But she's able to focus on her job, watch movies, chat with friends, sleep most nights. She still dreams about him, but the dreams are tinged with wistful longing and only sometimes does she wake up with tears on her cheeks. She can't have his picture out in this apartment, Kate's apartment, but it's safe in the mountain house, along with his last letter to her, and she has a scan on her phone to look at when the long day is over and she's in bed, the stars from the lamp he'd given her filling her dark room.

Steve has helped, more than she could ever explain, and she hopes she's helped him in return. Aside from a few deeply classified missions here and there, they haven't worked together all that much, but she still sees him almost every day. In the halls, she's undercover as his mild-mannered neighbor, Kate, but in her secure apartment they can talk over anything, everything.

And it works. Every day is a little easier. They lean on each other when they need to, and they spend hours remembering and reminiscing about Bucky, talking shop, chatting about how Steve's fitting into the future. It's nice. She still misses Bucky, an ache that never really goes away, but they can both breathe through it, work through it, live through it.

She's on her way up from the basement laundry machines when she hears a familiar step in the hall, and has to smile to herself – first her own, then Kate's sweeter, more open one. "Hey, neighbor."

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[nerves_of_ice]

"Be patient with me." It's a mere whisper, half prayer and half plea.

Bucky swallows hard against the tightness in his throat and tries to explain what he's slowly beginning to work out from tangled memories and new experience both. "It's - from what I can tell. Could tell, before, too. They didn't - didn't care what I thought. They knew - they knew they'd erase that between missions anyway. Or what I felt. That didn't matter to them either. Only-- only what I did."

[from_the_outside]

"As long as you need." She promises it, vows it. "Whatever you need, Bucky."

As for what she needs... going after HYDRA will be a good start. The ones she comes across might not be the ones who did this to him, but that's a distinction she doesn't care too much about making.

[nerves_of_ice]

Very gently, he squeezes her hand, then bows his head and presses an equally gentle kiss to her fingers before letting go - albeit reluctantly.

[from_the_outside]

She lets her hand come back to her side and steps back, though her eyes never leave him.

"It's okay, Bucky," she murmurs. "One day, we'll figure out how to get around it, or how to break it. And I'll be right here."

[nerves_of_ice]

Distress flickers in his glance at the way she removes herself from his proximity, although he swiftly controls his reaction.

"It's not your fault," he says again. "It's not anything you did that caused it. You can -- you can act. It's only when I - I tried to."

[from_the_outside]

The look in his eyes stabs into her just like any knife, and she steps closer again, reflexive, wanting to soothe. "It's not fair," she murmurs. "I don't want it to hurt you if you want me."

[nerves_of_ice]

“They didn’t care about fair. Only compliance.”

He reaches slowly to brush a lock of hair back from her shoulder.

[from_the_outside]

"I know."

She takes a breath as he brushes her hair back over her shoulder and gives him a wry smile. "I guess I'll have to do the wanting for both of us until we figure out a way around it."

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head and tries again to explain. “It’s not that I don’t want. Or not exactly. That’s complicated. But now, this - it was only when I, I tried to, to…take control?”

He sounds a little uncertain as he finishes, as it’s not quite the right word but he’s not sure how else to say it. “To do - to do more than respond.”

[from_the_outside]

"I don't want that to hurt, either."

She settles her hands lightly at his sides, looking up into his face. "I love you. I don't want you to be hurt by anything that has to do with me."

[nerves_of_ice]

“I know you don’t. I’m sorry. But it’s not your fault.”

He curves his right hand gently to her cheek for a second before letting it drop again.

[from_the_outside]

She sighs and reaches for his hand with hers, twining their fingers together. "Well, we won't be able to fix it right now," she murmurs, tugging at his hand. "So we may as well head back inside. But just so you know... I still want you as much as I ever did."

[nerves_of_ice]

He squeezes her fingers and leaves his hand in hers as they start to walk back again.

After a moment, he huffs a faintly amused breath. “If you were wondering if I did, I guess you kind of have proof now.”

[from_the_outside]

Sharon glances over at him at that. "I was," she murmurs, a little wry. "Wondering. So... that's good to know."

She flicks another look at him. "It's been a long time. Even without everything that happened to your memory... I'd have understood if you didn't feel the same way anymore."

[nerves_of_ice]

“I didn’t know I could feel anything anymore.” Low but clear. “I know I’m not the man you remember.”

[from_the_outside]

"I don't think I'm exactly the woman you remember, either." She looks ahead to the path they're taking, the thinning of the trees that means they're almost back.

"I had to hide a lot. Even from you."

[nerves_of_ice]

“I guess we’ll find out who we are now.” He glances over at her.

[from_the_outside]

"I guess so." People who still love each other, she hopes, or who can fall in love all over again. She knows what he says, but surely there's no way every part of Bucky's big and generous heart, that was so full of love, could be wholly gone.

At least some of it, she knows, was still there, for a little while. He'd loved Nat, too.

[nerves_of_ice]

“I’m sorry,” he says. Again. He doubts it’s doing any good but he doesn’t know what else to say.

“That I wasn’t able to stay. Stay him. Stay at all.”

[from_the_outside]

Him, he says, like he's not talking about his own past self, and she looks away, blinks back a sudden stinging scrim of tears as her throat thickens. Is she going to have to mourn him all over again?

Is the man she loved so much still, forever, gone? "You were taken," she says, flat. "HYDRA can make their apologies to me when I go for their throats."

[nerves_of_ice]

She looks away from him and he doesn’t know why, but he knows it was the wrong thing to say.

“Okay,” he murmurs.

[from_the_outside]

It's easier to focus on revenge than it is to think about her still-broken heart. Belatedly, she realizes her fingers have tightened almost painfully hard on his. It's an effort to relax them, but she does, after a moment.

[nerves_of_ice]

“Hurt, angry, or both?”

Quiet and matter of fact.

[from_the_outside]

"Let's focus on 'angry.'"

Which is really an answer of both, but it's not like he needs to hear her say it. She's hurt him enough already.

[nerves_of_ice]

It’s what he’d figured. Bucky looks up toward the house.

“Do you want me to stop apologizing?”