[ 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."

Comments

[from_the_outside]

"Good think it's not needed, then," she tells him, without room for argument.

"Sharon's right," Steve says. "We're not using you for leverage or anything else. If we tell Nat, it'll be because she'd want to know you're safe."

[nerves_of_ice]

He takes a slow sip of coffee, watching them both over the rim of the mug. "What if it could help?"

[from_the_outside]

Steve sets his own coffee down, looking up at Bucky with a crinkled brow.

"How?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He shrugs. "I'm still working on that. I don't think it's a good idea for me to be in their custody."

Not to mention he's damn certain neither of the two here with him would stand for it.

"But if there turns out to be a way, maybe you shouldn't rule it out. Is all I'm saying."

[from_the_outside]

"We'll see," is as far as Steve's willing to go, and Sharon catches his eye again for a moment, one corner of her mouth tucking into a rueful half-smile.

"And if we do start telling people," Steve continues, after he looks away from her and back to Bucky, "I want to make sure we've got you covered, first. We've got to try and figure out how to undo what they did to you, Buck."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky feels himself grow still. He shakes his head, once; it seems to be the only movement he can manage.

"They reprogrammed my head, Steve. My mind. There's no way to undo something like that."

[from_the_outside]

Steve shakes his head at him, stubborn. "You don't know that. Nobody knows that for sure."

"Steve's right," Sharon murmurs. "If you were programmed, you can be deprogrammed."

"And HYDRA doesn't have anyone as smart as Tony and Bruce on their side," Steve points out. "We'll figure it out. I'm not just going to sit here and say we can't do anything."

[nerves_of_ice]

He flinches a little at Tony's name; he can't help it, even though he kicks himself for it. "I don't know Bruce," he demurs, trying to buy himself time, even just a moment before he has to shatter their world. Again.

[from_the_outside]

She'd let him keep this to himself the night before, whatever it is, but they both knew that was a temporary thing. "You've heard of him," she promises. "Bruce Banner. But, Bucky, I think it's time you tell us why you react every time you hear Tony's name."

[nerves_of_ice]

Nausea wells up in the back of his throat as the screams of the dead start wailing in his head.

("Sergeant Barnes?")

"Tony Stark won't want to help me." He keeps it as steady as he can, trying not to look either of them in the eye, cowardly though it may be. He looks into the air somewhere between them instead.

"Because I killed his parents. I killed Howard."

[from_the_outside]

She and Steve both stare at him, their coffees forgotten. "What?" Steve says, a little blankly, while Sharon shakes her head, disbelieving.

"They died in a car crash," she says. "Aunt Peggy told me."

[nerves_of_ice]

"December 16, 1991," he confirms, just as quietly as before. "I engineered the crash. Made it look like an accident. It wasn't. The mission was to sanction and extract, leaving no witnesses."

The look in his eyes is bleak. "Howard - I didn't know him. He - he tried, but I -- "

His ability to speak chokes off there and he shakes his head. "At least I made it quick."

[from_the_outside]

"The mission." Steve's clinging to that word with all she's got; she recognizes it, because she's doing the same thing herself. He's breathing hard, but his voice is ruthlessly steady as he goes on.

"They sent you to assassinate him? Why?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"He was a courier." Horror fills him as he suddenly realizes Steve doesn't know. Probably doesn't know. Would anyone have told him?

"For Project Rebirth. They were trying to reproduce the serum, Steve. The one that changed us. And they got far enough to test it."

[from_the_outside]

Abruptly, Steve gets to his feet, pushes his coffee mug away — so he won't break another glass, Sharon thinks, vaguely — and turns, running his hand over his mouth, before he looks at her. "Did you know anything about this?"

It's not accusatory, exactly, but she can't blame him for his suspicions. "Did Peggy?"

"No." She shakes her head, firm. "And I don't know, Steve... she might have. I've never heard of Rebirth, they must have locked it down tight, after... but I'm not surprised they tried it."

[nerves_of_ice]

He doesn't know, either. He'd like to say Peggy Carter would never have done it, but she'd been involved with the project that changed Steve, so he doesn't know.

A flash of memory rocks him - a bar in Korea, a fight that led to a replacement arm, a man's face. Bradley. That'd been his name. Isaiah Bradley. Who the Army'd put through horrors of his own.

None of this makes it to his expression. He stays still, stays quiet, and gives them space to come to terms with it.

[from_the_outside]

Steve leans on the island, palms and fingers flat, and she can tell he's doing his best to calm himself. For her part, she feels sick: Howard had been their friend. All of them. Each one of them now is revisiting his death in a way they almost certainly never thought was possible.

Finally, Steve takes and exhales a deep, slow breath. "You're right that Tony won't take it well. I'll... we'll figure something out."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Just. Don't get your hopes up." Whisper-soft. "He's going to hate me. It's understandable."

The thought of Howard's son hating him twists something in his gut, but there it is. He murdered Tony Stark's parents, and Howard's kid deserves to hate him for it.

[from_the_outside]

Steve shakes his head, staring at the island, before looking over at Bucky. "If he meets you — if he hears about the programming — "

"Steve," Sharon says, soft. "Whatever you're thinking, we can't hide it from him. Not for long. You can't. He'd take it like you've been lying to him."

[nerves_of_ice]

"He's your friend." Even if he hadn't already had an inkling of it from before, this would make it plain as day. Turns out he can still read distress in Steve Rogers' features as easy as any book.

"You don't deserve to lose any more friends. Or to have to try to lie to him."

[from_the_outside]

"So are you." There's no give in Steve's voice. "I won't lie to him. But I'm not going to stand around while he works out his feelings about his parents on you. Let me handle Tony."

He closes his eyes, a flicker of pain crossing his face, and she knows he's thinking of Howard as he was: charming, irrepressible, brilliant. Sharon pushes off the counter and comes around to put a light hand on his shoulder, waiting until he opens his eyes and looks at her before she lifts it away again.

He turns his head back toward Bucky, shakes it. "I don't blame you for Howard and Maria, Buck. I can't. That wasn't your decision."

[nerves_of_ice]

I blame me. It rises to his lips as his gaze flicks back and forth between them, and he knows, he knows it won't make a difference in how either of them feels.

Weariness hits him like a battering ram, even as he tries to explain anyway. "I know you don't. But I still did it. You have to accept that someone has to pay for that."

[from_the_outside]

"Someone will," Sharon says, grim, before she turns back to Steve. "Bucky says there are HYDRA bases all over. We've got to take them out."

[nerves_of_ice]

"How many?" Steve wants to know.

Bucky shakes his head. "Lots. I-- I know, at least all the ones I've seen, and I, I think I know where to find them. How to find them. But I have to pull it out of my head. I will. I will. I will, I swear, I--"

[from_the_outside]

"Bucky." This time, she goes to him, puts a hand on his arm, waiting for him to look at her. "It's okay. Don't try to force it. We need time to plan and regroup, anyway. And then we'll start looking."