[ 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]

Steve can't move. He's frozen to the ground, his shield loose at his side.

Bucky. It's Bucky. But – how? Why? He'd seen his best friend fall, had heard his screams echoing off the mountainside. He and Sharon had held each other as they cried.

The Soldier – Bucky, Bucky – levels a pistol at his face, but before he can pull the trigger, Sam swoops down, hitting Bucky in the back with both feet at top speed and sending him sprawling.

[nerves_of_ice]

He rolls with the impact, over and over across the concrete, and finally ends up back on his feet beside another marble column. Voices begin to scream inside his head as he stares at his opponent. His target. His mission.

(confirmed death in ten hours)

Something wrenches sickly within him, and sudden desperation twists his features. He raises his gun again, only to duck as the red-haired woman launches a grenade at him from the other side of the fountain. It hits the tower, exploding it in smoke and fire and marble shrapnel.

He can hear distant sirens approaching, hear STRIKE yelling as Rumlow brings the perimeter in, and realizes the window of opportunity is closing. He'll pay for this failure, he knows it, but it would be worse to be taken alive by the enemy. He knows that too, as deeply as though it's engraved on his bones.

He has to run.

[marvel_npc]

Steve ducks as Nat fires a grenade and destroys the tower Sharon had been in earlier. When he straightens again, Bucky's gone.

Maybe he was never there. Maybe he's seeing things.

Sam comes jogging over, and Steve turns to him, his glance searching around the memorial. "Where's Sharon?"

[marvel_npc]

"She's fine, I dropped her over by the monument out of range of this mess," Sam assures him. "You okay?"

"Never mind that, we've got to go, now!" Natasha snaps, sharp, as she runs over to join them. "Come on!"

[marvel_npc]

He can't even begin to answer Sam's question. He gives Nat a quick onceover and notes that she looks bruised but fine, and takes refuge in what needs to be done. "Sam, get her out of here," he orders, and takes off at top speed for the Washington Monument, fueling every step with the adrenaline that hasn't stopped pumping through his body.

Was that really Bucky? Bucky's alive?

[marvel_npc]

She clutches the grenade launcher as Sam wraps his arms around her and heads for the sky, tracking the activity below. Nat takes one last shot, this time hitting STRIKE’s tactical vehicle as it starts to pull out. It goes up in a burst of flame, blown over on its side and skidding.

It’ll buy them the time they need to get clear, she hopes. She drops the gun - ammo exhausted, it’s useless now - and holds on to Sam as he arrows off in a dizzying, swooping flight to throw off pursuit.

She couldn’t see what happened to James. He had just disappeared.

Again.

[from_the_outside]

Sam had deposited her quickly but gently by the Washington Monument and told her to stay put as he cut her ties. She obeys, but not because he told her to. She's unarmed, in shock, and injured, and she'd be a liability in the fight, right now.

She bites off a yell as blood rushes painfully back into her arms and feet, while Sam swoops back up into the sky, and staggers upright, one hand on the gritty stone of the monument. Steve. Steve has no idea. She has to tell him, she has to –

What? What can she even do? Bucky's alive, but he isn't himself. She thinks of the way he'd watched her, cool and blank, how every touch had been to injure or confine or stifle. Her eyes squeeze shut as her fingers press into an impotent fist. He'd hurt her. He'd abducted her. He's trying to kill Steve.

The thoughts open up before her in a yawning pit. If she tumbles into it, she doesn't know how she'll get out again.

[marvel_npc]

He spots her right where Sam had said she’d be and veers in her direction. Relief grips him, followed by a sickening clench in his gut at what this news will do to her.

Nothing around him seems real. Everything yaws crazily, like the whole world’s a funhouse mirror. He makes himself focus past it on the immediate issue. “Sharon?” Steve comes to her side and puts an arm around her.

“Can you walk? We’ve got to get out of sight, to the rendezvous point—-“

[from_the_outside]

"I can walk."

She'd better. They need to get out of here, and she's not sure she could stomach being carried, even by Steve. He puts his arm around her, and she turns in to him, clutching at his shirt, her face pale aside from the red rectangle around her mouth. Blood wells from a few spots where the fragile skin had ripped off along with the tape.

They have to go. She has to tell him. "Steve – Steve, I saw his face."

[marvel_npc]

They have to move, but he can’t. He can’t. Steve stares at her. She saw him too.

“I wasn’t dreaming.” Bucky. Bucky with a metal arm, Bucky trying to kill him, Bucky—-

“It was him.”

[from_the_outside]

Steve saw him. Steve knows. Steve – Steve. What will this do to Steve? She nods, desperate. "It's him."

A siren wails, startling her out of her fugue, and she looks up at Steve, forcing her voice to stay calm. "Where do we go?"

[marvel_npc]

"This way." He keeps his arm around her as he leads her off to the side where they'd stashed the bike. She looks like she needs the support, and he knows he does, too.

"I'll get us there. Just hold on to me."

[from_the_outside]

Steve half-coaxes, half-carries her to a bike he'd hidden a little ways away, and once they're both on, she wraps her arms around his middle and clings to him, more grateful than she can say for his steady gravity. She leans her unbruised cheek against him and hangs on, as memories flood unbidden through her mind.

(if that doesn't work and it's possible for a ghost to keep fighting, I'll do that too)

The sirens fade away behind them, eventually, as Steve navigates them through the city, towards a quiet, residential block. She has no idea if it'll be far enough. Is anyplace in the city safe, anymore?

[marvel_npc]

They'd decided not to go straight back to Sam's house, just in case he was identified, and instead selected an apartment building in the neighborhood not too far away. Steve guides the bike into a spot on the street and leads her through a back alley and down through a basement window, then to the service elevator that leads to the roof.

Sam's pacing back and forth outside a greenhouse there, while Natasha leans against the glass wall, arms crossed. Although she looks outwardly relaxed, Steve sees how she's watching everything possible.

Relief passes over Nat's features as she sees them, followed by dismay as she takes in Sharon's state. She crosses to them and puts a gentle hand on Sharon's shoulder. "Hey, you."

[from_the_outside]

"Nat."

She finds a small smile for her friend, then leans in to hug her. "You just couldn't listen, could you?"

[marvel_npc]

"When have I ever?" She hugs her back, keeping her embrace gentle. "How badly are you hurt?"

[from_the_outside]

"He didn't break anything." And he'd kept the body blows just shy of hard enough to really damage her, internally. At least he didn't hit her with the metal arm, thank God. "I'm okay, Rome."

Physically, anyway. But the truth is, she's never been so injured in her life. She can barely probe at the edges of the confused agony that's ripping out her insides. "Lucky for me, he wanted bait."

[marvel_npc]

"I know you probably don't feel that lucky, but you really are," Nat assures her. James could have killed her without blinking, and would have if she'd been designated a target or if he hadn't had a reason to keep her alive.

"He's ruthless." At their side, Steve makes a harsh, broken sort of sound, enough of one to draw Sam to his side with quick steps. "Hey, man, are you hurt?"

[from_the_outside]

That sounds feels like it could have been ripped from her own chest. "Steve," she says, helplessly.

What can she say? What can anyone?

She lets go of Nat to put a hand on Steve's back, then looks back at Sam and her friend. "I saw his face," she tells them, ruthlessly pressing down on her own feelings. "The Winter Soldier is Bucky. Bucky Barnes. Steve's best friend. We – everyone thought – "

She struggles with the words, then swallows and continues, so Steve won't have to. "He was lost, back in World War II. Presumed dead."

[marvel_npc]

He slips his arm around her and holds on, trying to give her the support he knows she needs right now, grateful beyond words that however this has come to pass, he's not facing it alone.

Nat's gone pale for some reason, he notes. Sam's frowning at them. "How is that even possible? It was like seventy years ago."

"Zola." God, he wishes he could get his hands on the man, the computer bank, whatever, but that's no longer an option. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him."

[from_the_outside]

Her fingers clench into Steve's shirt at his back, where Nat and Sam can't see. "Whatever Zola did to him must have allowed him to survive the fall," she says, through numb lips. "I don't know how Bucky Barnes could be the Winter Soldier, but – we can't leave him like this."

Despite her best efforts, her words are tinged raw with desperation. "We have to get him out."

[marvel_npc]

"Listen." Sam's voice is kind, his tone gentle. "Whoever he used to be... the guy just tried to kill you. Now I'm sorry, I am, but I don't think there's anything left of your friend. The man he is now - that's someone who needs to be stopped."

Steve feels like he's going to be sick. "I can't do that. Not to him."

[from_the_outside]

She lets go of Steve's shirt and wraps her arm around his back the way he has his around hers, trying to support him, trying to let him know she's here, right here, and that she has his back. No matter what. "That isn't an option," she tells Sam, pale but determined.

Nat, she notes, looks vaguely ill. Sharon reaches out a hand to her, too. "Nat... trust me. Please."

[marvel_npc]

"His name really is James?" She's white to the lips, she's sure, and there's nothing to do about it. Nat looks back and forth between Steve and Sharon, who are clinging to each other like there's no other support in the whole world.

She knows the feeling. "That was - that's your friend's name, right? James Buchanan Barnes?"

[from_the_outside]

"Yes."

Sharon frowns at her, concerned and confused. "Nat, how did you know his name is James?"