[ 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]

"Because he chose it. For a cover," Nat says, and Steve staggers as he feels the ground shift beneath his feet.

He'd just confided in her earlier that he trusts her now, but-- "You knew?"

Nat takes Sharon's outstretched hand and gives him a pleading look. "I didn't. Not this. Your friend's name is in your file, but there weren't any pictures. I didn't know, Steve, I swear it."

[from_the_outside]

The bombshells just keep falling, cracking the air around her ears and making the world skew crazily from side to side. She grips Nat's hand and holds on, unable to parse any of this.

Nat knows him. Knew him. Knows him. Bucky, her Bucky, Steve's Bucky. James. Who shot her in Odessa, who kidnapped Sharon from her apartment. Steve looks shocked to the core, but Sharon takes a look at Nat, then turns to him. "She's telling the truth," she says, staunchly defending her friend. "She wouldn't lie to you about this, Steve."

[marvel_npc]

She's glad of Sharon's support, but she wouldn't blame Steve for not believing her, and starts trying to think what she'll do if he doesn't, how to adapt so they can all survive.

But he stares at her, then at Sharon, then visibly shakes himself and blows out a breath. "Okay," Steve says. "Okay. I believe you. But how-- what cover?"

"It was years ago," she says, feeling the ache as though it was just yesterday. "Before I got out. He... he helped train me. We worked together for a while."

Surely that's enough. Surely she doesn't have to tear herself wide open right here in front of them all. It has to be enough. Doesn't it?

[from_the_outside]

Sharon squeezes her hand. "Okay," she murmurs. "Okay."

She looks over at Sam, at Steve. "If he picked the name 'James,' maybe he does remember something," she says, knowing she's grasping at straws. "Subconsciously, anyway."

[marvel_npc]

The hope that flashes through him at that thought nearly brings him to his knees. He can't speak.

"Okay," Sam puts in, looking back and forth between them all. "Say he does remember something, deep down somewhere. How're we gonna ask him about it? Because he's still trying to kill y'all."

[from_the_outside]

"He still has my phone," Sharon tells them.

She pushes away thoughts of Bucky marveling at her 'magic camera' and sets her shoulders. "We can contact him that way."

[marvel_npc]

"Call him," Steve demands, turning to Nat, and Sam holds up both hands to try to slow them down. "Whoa, whoa, hold on a second."

Before any of them can turn on him, he continues, "Look, I'm not saying don't do it. But I am saying we need to think this through first. Plan it out." He's pretty sure he's the only one of the three who isn't emotionally compromised in some way, which means he has to be the voice of reason, no matter how much he sympathizes with them all.

What would he do, if he were able to get Riley back? He puts that into his face, his voice, and meets Steve's eyes. "You're likely only gonna get one chance at this, man. We need to make it a good one."

[from_the_outside]

"He'll try to complete his mission," Nat murmurs, and Sharon takes a deep breath.

"Then we'll need to safeguard against that," she says. "But even if he weren't already strong and fast enough to be hard to tackle, that arm is a problem."

[marvel_npc]

"My Widow Bites should be able to short it out. At least for a moment or two," Nat offers. "But it wouldn't be for long."

He hates this, hates thinking of Bucky like an enemy that they have to bring down, but if it means he can save his best friend he'll do it in a heartbeat. "I can match him for strength," he says, low but clear. "If we could just get him restrained somewhere long enough to talk. There has to be a way to get through to him."

[from_the_outside]

"If you can short out the arm," Sharon tells Nat, "that might give us the time we need to immobilize it. But how?"

"A vise?" Sam wonders, out loud. "Put something real heavy on his hand?"

[marvel_npc]

"As long as we don't hurt him." His voice shakes a little; he can't help it.

[from_the_outside]

Sam looks doubtful and Nat looks grim; Sharon spreads her hand over Steve's back and looks at the others. "Can you guys give us a minute?"

[marvel_npc]

"Sure," Sam says, with an easy smile. He glances at Nat and tips his head toward the greenhouse. "Come on. We can go look at the flowers."

Nat trades a look with Sharon before following Sam across the roof. Steve has no idea what it means, but he's not sure it matters. He looks at Sharon. "You don't think I'm wrong, do you?"

[from_the_outside]

"You know I don't." She comes around to stand in front of him, reaching for his hands as she looks up into his face. Even he, the supersoldier, shows the marks of a fight with the man now known as the Winter Soldier, and she knows that, like her, the worst injuries aren't even visible. "I don't want to hurt him. I don't even want to restrain him, even though he... "

She drifts off, then squeezes his hands to come back to herself. "If hurting him a little now means saving him in the long run, then we might have to make that choice. Even though it'll hurt us, too."

[marvel_npc]

Even though. Steve can't help himself, and frees his hands so that he can pull her into a gentle hug, holding her close. How much must she be hurting right now, after what she's just been through at the hands of the man who loved her?

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm so sorry, Sharon."

[from_the_outside]

Steve isn't wearing body armor, and Steve doesn't have a metal arm, and Steve touches her now with only the intent to soothe and comfort, but she still stiffens for a moment before she relaxes and puts her arms around him in return. She can't break, not yet, but for a moment she presses her face into his chest, allowing a few shaky breaths with which to steady herself.

"He tried to kill you," she whispers back. "He didn't recognize your name, or mine, or Nat's... he – "

Her throat locks up, and she swallows, hard. "Somehow, he's part of all this. He's their weapon."

[marvel_npc]

She tenses, and he almost lets go, afraid he's hurt her somehow, but then her arms come around him and he just holds on instead.

"We'll get him back." He refuses to entertain any other option. "There has to be a way. He's still Bucky. He has to be in there somewhere."

[from_the_outside]

The certainty in his voice is a balm to everywhere she feels sliced open, raw and bleeding.

Sharon looks up at him, longing and fear and careful wonder mixed across her face. For once, her expression is as cracked and clear as his own. "Steve," she says, soft. Beneath it all, the pain and worry and shock, wild hope is beginning to spark. "He's alive. Bucky's alive."

[marvel_npc]

"All this time." He'd survived the fall. Sharon had even asked, once Tony'd raised the suspicion: could Steve himself have survived it?

He hadn't known. He'd been sure Bucky couldn't have. And he'd been wrong, so wrong, and hadn't even looked. Two years.

"We'll get him back," he says again. "Whatever it takes."

[from_the_outside]

A shadow crosses his face, darkens his eyes, and she's pretty sure she knows what he's thinking. "Hey."

She reaches up to cradle his head in her hands, meeting his gaze with her own steady one. "We'll worry about the rest of it later. Right now, let's go get our boy back. Okay?"

[marvel_npc]

"You bet we will." And he'll deal with his guilt then, and later, and probably for the rest of his life - but she's right.

"Come on." He turns to walk beside her, one arm still around her as he leads her toward the greenhouse. "Nat and I need to bring you up to speed, too. There's a lot that's happened."