[ 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

[marvel_npc]

* * * * * * *

Everything that's happened brought more questions than answers, but hopefully they'll find some of those at Lehigh. Steve concentrates on driving the borrowed truck, keeping his cap pulled low at Nat's instruction to avoid being caught by traffic cameras.

"It'll be easier once we're on the back roads," she assures him. "It might take us a little longer, but it'll be safer."

"Whatever works." He glances over at her, then back at the road. "You're sure that phone of yours is secure?"

She shrugs. "As sure as I am of anything."

"You realize that's not much comfort," Steve points out. Nat shrugs again. "Would you rather I lied to you?"

"No. I wouldn't." He sighs, but there's really no way around it. They have to risk it. "See if you can get a hold of Sharon. She needs to know what's going on."

[from_the_outside]

She's running hard up against the edge of when even she has to admit she needs to call in or rouse suspicion, but she hasn't found anything yet. Steve isn't answering his phone and neither is Nat – both good signs, she tells herself – and there's nothing in his apartment when she does a sweep. Even tracking Steve's race across the rooftop yields no results but shattered glass and a few bootprints that offer no answers.

But she can't go back to the Triskelion.

She's climbing back down the edge of the neighboring building when her phone goes off, the caller ID showing a number she doesn't recognize. Sharon hits accept and lifts the phone to her ear. "Who is this?"

[marvel_npc]

"You don't sound happy to hear from me," Nat murmurs, putting the phone on speaker so Steve can hear as well. "Am I interrupting?"

[from_the_outside]

A sigh of relief escapes her, and she looks down so no one will be able to read her lips. "Nat."

Hurriedly, she slips back into her own building and goes up the stairs as quickly as she dares. "As it happens, I've been given a brand new assignment. And so has everyone else."

[marvel_npc]

"Everyone?" Nat asks, archly. Steve thinks he sees a flicker of dismay in her eyes, but he can't be sure. "That sounds important. What assignment?"

He doesn't wait for her to answer. "Are you okay?" he interrupts.

[from_the_outside]

This time, she can't help the relief from flooding her voice. "Steve."

For a moment, she leans her hand against the stairwell wall, her head bowed, just to take a breath before she keeps going. "I'm okay. Hang on. Let me get secure."

A moment later, she's heading into her own apartment and locking the door behind her. "Secretary Pierce has instituted a division-wide manhunt," she tells them. "Every agent is looking for you, Steve. He told us you lied to him, that you withheld information. You need to get out of DC."

[marvel_npc]

He ignores the sudden interest in Nat's glance as she listens to Sharon's reaction, and focuses instead on what she's telling them. "Guess he needed a reason to justify sending STRIKE after me," he says, dryly. "Can't say I'm all that surprised. He really wanted to know why Fury came looking for me."

Steve blows out a rough breath. "Don't worry. We're safe, for now. But we know who killed Fury. We've also got a lead on why, and so we're trying to find out what he wants."

[from_the_outside]

She swallows her first impulse, which is to tell them to head to the mountain house – or, hell, to hop a plane and go to France, where Sharon owns a little cottage way out in the middle of nowhere, a perfect place to hide out – and focuses on Steve's intel. "Who?"

He hadn't had any details last night, only that the guy was fast and strong. "Why?"

[marvel_npc]

"They call him the Winter Soldier." Steve's already heard this, so she doesn't need to worry about his reaction. Instead, Nat concentrates on keeping her voice as natural as she can so that she doesn't give everything away, knowing that Sharon will be able to read anything wrong in a way that Steve can't yet. "Remember the assassin who shot through me in Odessa?"

[from_the_outside]

"You're kidding."

There's something in Nat's voice she doesn't like, but she can't quite pinpoint what it is. "I guess that explains the whole 'shooting people through walls' thing."

Her thoughts race. "Does that mean... SHIELD's been compromised by Russia?"

[marvel_npc]

"It sure does. He's an unbelievably good shot," Nat says. "Sharon, I told Steve this already, but he's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years. At least. And he's impossible to find. I know."

She draws a slightly shaky breath, and is glad when Steve steps in before she can reveal any more than she already has. "Whoever it is, what they want has something to do with the information Nat brought back from the Lemurian Star. Fury slipped me a drive with the contents."

[from_the_outside]

"Great."

A lethal assassin who can't be found, and SHIELD eating itself from the inside out. She blows out a breath and forces herself to focus on what they have right now. "Could you access it? The drive?"

[marvel_npc]

"Not entirely. It's protected by some kind of advanced encryption. I couldn't crack it in the time we had," Nat admits.

"You got farther than I would have," Steve points out. "Besides, we got a little. Enough to go looking for more."

He scans traffic, then glances at the phone as if he could see Sharon through it. "Listen. Be careful, okay? We'll check in as soon as we know anything else. Don't give them any reason to suspect you."

[from_the_outside]

"I can slow them down," she tells him. It goes fully against what he's just asked her, but she can't just sit here while her whole life comes apart around her ears. Maybe she can't be with him and Nat, but she can still do something.

"Point them in the wrong direction. Give you as much time as possible."

[marvel_npc]

"Right now you're the only connection we have to what's going on inside SHIELD," Steve counters. "I need you to keep your head down so we have a way to respond once we find out what got Fury killed."

[from_the_outside]

In his voice, she hears not only her friend and colleague, but the man she'd first met in an Army camp thousands of miles and multiple decades from here.

("If your cover gets blown I'd expect you'll be surrounded by a bunch of unfriendly guys with guns.")

Since then, he'd promised to watch her back and she his, both of them trying to take care of each other in the absence of the one person who managed to take care of them both. "Your call, Cap," she murmurs, relenting.

"If I don't hear from you beforehand, I'll check in at 0600 tomorrow. Okay?"

[marvel_npc]

"Copy," Steve agrees. "But we'll try to check in before then. Keep your eyes open."

He glances at Nat, who gives him a smile that's more than a little mischievous for some reason. "What he said," she confirms. "Stay out of trouble, okay? I think we've got some catching up to do over martinis some time soon, and I want to hear all the news."

[from_the_outside]

"Will do," she promises, and huffs a small, amused breath at Nat's teasing. "Then I guess you better stay safe," she tells her friend.

"Both of you. Watch each other's backs." Her fingers tighten on her phone, but she makes herself say it: "Talk soon."

[marvel_npc]

"We will." It's as much of a promise as he can make, and he puts all the confidence into his voice that he can. "You stay safe, too. We'll call as soon as we can."

Nat disconnects the call, then gives him a bright smile. "Soooo," she says, drawing it out, and Steve gives her an exasperated look. "Don't start."

[from_the_outside]

She lowers the phone and finds herself looking at the coffee table, where the mugs she and Steve had been drinking from just the night before still sit. Slipping her phone into the back pocket of her pants, she goes to collect the mugs and wash them while she puts another pot of coffee on. As she works, she mentally drafts the report she'll send.

Keeping her head down. Being the contact Steve will need at SHIELD... or what's left of it.

[nerves_of_ice]

Two targets, Level Six. I want confirmed death in ten hours. It's a short clock, but he's worked shorter. The fastest way to manage is to draw the targets out and make them come to him.

From the now-familiar rooftop, the Winter Soldier studies the third file photo he'd been given, then the window of the apartment below. He watches for several minutes, making sure she's alone, before he leaps to the roof of her building and begins to descend the wall.

[from_the_outside]

About half the pot of coffee is gone, and she's spent more time on the phone with Sitwell than she'd ever wanted. Steve had gone to ground, she'd told him. She'd continue to try and make contact, while tracing what tracks she can.

Currently, that means walking through her apartment, her Kahr snug at the small of her back and her phone in her hand, as the city lights up around her.

Steve and Nat haven't called. But they will. They will.

[nerves_of_ice]

She doesn't seem to be able to sit still. The only problem that presents is if she notices his presence before he makes his way inside, and that's not much of a problem. But since it'll make things more convenient if he has full access to the apartment for a time, he moves as silently as he can until he's balanced on the narrow ledge outside her bedroom window.

He doesn't see any of the signs that would signal an advanced security system, and thus doesn't hesitate to pull the window open and drop to the floor inside.

[from_the_outside]

In the living room, she flips the tv on to a news channel, scanning the chyrons like she's scanning social media for any hint either that Steve and Nat have been spotted or that they've been engaged.

There's nothing. And there's nothing from SHIELD, either; just a series of check-ins, each of which says the same thing: no contact made.

[nerves_of_ice]

The television comes on in the other room. Good. It will mask any sounds he makes and distract her.

Silently, he stalks along the wall to the bedroom door and waits there, listening, before he moves into the hallway and toward the living room. He waits just outside it for a moment, trying to determine from shadows and sounds and shapes against the light where she is in the room, then breaks from cover and surges into the room and straight toward her, left hand raised.