from_the_outside | [ WWII AU ] a ghost story

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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From:

from_the_outside

"Sounds good to me."

She looks back at Steve, and her expression gentles, despite the pressure she can feel building inside her chest. "See, Steve? It'll be fine."

From:

marvel_npc

He searches her face. "You're sure?" he presses. She'll know exactly why he's asking.

From:

from_the_outside

For a moment, she just breathes, very evenly. With Aunt Peggy so sick, there's no one on this planet who knows her better than Steve does. These days, she thinks he might be her best friend.

So he knows. And she knows, because all of this has hit both of them in their most vulnerable of spots. "I've had a shit day," she says, softly. "Let me go take it out on Sitwell."

From:

marvel_npc

He searches her face again, and reluctantly has to concede. "Okay," he murmurs. "But be careful."

"Do I get a say in this?" Fury asks, eyebrows raised.

"No," Nat says, without missing a beat. "You're dead, remember?"

From:

from_the_outside

"It's like we can still hear his voice," she tells Nat, and is gratified when Fury rolls his eye at her.

Sharon turns back to Steve, glancing pointedly at his injuries. "Just get better, okay?"

From:

marvel_npc

"It'll be healed by the time you're back," he promises.

"You know I'm going to have to do surgery here, right?" the medic - or, well, maybe he's a surgeon, Steve realizes - points out. "Minor surgery, anyway."

Steve gives him a look over his own shoulder. "Don't worry her."

Nat swallows a laugh.

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from_the_outside

"You have bullets in you," she points out.

Bullets that were put in him by his own best friend, who he – they – thought was dead. For a moment, the world sways around her, until she forces herself back into control. "I'm already worried."

From:

marvel_npc

Steve studies her closely for a moment. "Doc? I'll be right back." Without waiting for an answer, he stands up, snags his shirt from the table and shrugs back into it, then meets Sharon's eyes and tips his head toward the door.

"Go on," Nat says. "Sam and I will talk a few things over in the meantime."

From:

from_the_outside

She has no choice but to follow him – the sooner he says what he needs to, the sooner the doctor can look at him – but she's still thrumming with worry when she follows him through the door.

"What're you doing? Steve, you need medical attention."

From:

marvel_npc

"And I'll get it. But I don't think that's the problem. Or not exactly." He walks back down the hallway to the blast door and opens it into the fresh air.

The dam bridge is only a few steps away. Steve braces his hands on the railing and looks down at the water, then turns to look at her.

"Sharon. I'm sorry."

From:

from_the_outside

The fresh air feels good against her forehead and cheeks. She closes her eyes to it, then comes to stand next to him, nocking her hip against the railing and crossing her arms over her chest. "Steve..."

Hell, she's sorry, too. She's sorrier than she's ever been in her life. But there's no way out but through. They have the mission, and the mission is all that counts.

But she can't tell him it's okay or it'll be fine. She can't imagine the world will ever be the same again, not for either of them. She shakes her head and looks up into his face. "I'll get the intel we need. And then... and then we'll see what we can do."

From:

marvel_npc

"Uh-huh." Grief weighs heavy in his chest, the same way he thinks it does in hers. It brings back a memory, and he lets the words come unthinking.

"I tried to push him away once, you know." He glances at her face, then looks back out at the water. "After my mother died."

From:

from_the_outside

As she watches him, as he speaks, something complex and cracked open runs over her face before she shoves it away again.

But it leaves a bruise behind. Or maybe that's just her aching heart and sore chest. "Somehow I think that didn't fly with him."

She gives him a small, sad smile. "Right?"

From:

marvel_npc

He nods. "I told him I could get by on my own. He just smiled, and said I didn't have to. That he was with me to the end of the line."

Steve looks away from the water below the dam and holds her gaze. "You don't have to, either. I know how much you're hurting right now. Who better?"

From:

from_the_outside

Every now and again, she prods at her grief, looking to see if the oceanic swells of it have abated. It hasn't lessened with time, exactly, but it's grown more quiet. Quiet enough that she'd almost forgotten what it felt like to drown in it.

Now it rises up again, lashing with hurricane force, and she swallows, hard, her arms tightening. To the end of the line. And he had been... or so they'd thought. "I know you do."

Every word fights her. She tugs each one out, stubbornly determined, even as they stick like the tape that had been over her mouth. "But if I let myself think about it, I – "

She breaks off there, choked, and breathes for a moment longer before looking back at him. "I can't fall apart. Not yet."

From:

marvel_npc

"Okay. But when the time comes." Steve rests his hands lightly on her upper arms, not wanting to pull her into an embrace against her will in light of what she's just said, but wanting her to know he's here.

His glance catches on the marks on her face, and sorrow fills his eyes. He can't imagine any circumstance under which Bucky would ever, ever have done such a thing, if he were himself.

Of course, he'd never imagined his best friend shooting him, either.

"We'll get him back," he murmurs. "He's in there somewhere. We'll help him find his way out."

From:

from_the_outside

He looks her over and his eyes fill with so much sadness that she can't help herself, she has to step in to put her arms around him – carefully, not wanting to hurt him or press against his wounds. "Yes, we will," she promises, low but fierce.

When she pulls back, she reaches up to hold his head in her hands, her fingers against the back of his neck. "I can't worry about me right now, so let me worry about you, okay?"

Her smile is small, but real. "You watch my back and I'll watch yours."

From:

marvel_npc

“Deal.” He bends his neck under her fingers, tipping his forehead against hers. The last two years have given him a level of ease with her that he hasn’t had with anyone else but Bucky, and right now they both need that.

From:

from_the_outside

She can't imagine the last two years without Steve, and the thought of the last twenty-four hours without him strikes a chill deep into her bones. His forehead against hers helps her relax, just a little, and she breathes a bit more easily.

"After," she murmurs. "We can talk about it all after. I'll bring the Scotch. But until then..."

She shakes her head gently against him. "I'm sorry, too, Steve."

From:

marvel_npc

His breath shudders deep in his chest, a tremor running through him. "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky," he whispers. "The way he looked at me just now...."

The words refuse to come, threatening to choke him. He swallows, hard.

"We'll get him back."

They have to.

From:

from_the_outside

"I know," she says, helpless in the face of his agony and her own. All the times Bucky looked at her like she was the center of the world, with love and affection and humor and so much more – how he knew her better than anyone ever had – and somehow, he still could stare at her with that blank, bewildered expression.

"I know. We will, I promise."

From:

marvel_npc

"We will." He puts every bit of certainty into it, leaving no room for doubt. They will, because the alternative is unthinkable.

"You sure you don't want me to come with you to get Sitwell?"

From:

from_the_outside

"I'm sure that I don't want you to heal up around those bullets and make it harder to get them out."

She puts a little more strength into her smile. "Nat and Sam and I can handle Sitwell. He's a coward."

From:

marvel_npc

It's probably too late for that, but there's no point in making her feel worse by saying it.

"Okay. Go get him," he says, instead. "And then we'll clean house."