[ 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]

Steve catches clumsily at her hand, and she lets him hold onto her, his grip uncharacteristically weak. "Don't let him go," he mutters, and she smiles at him again, small and sad, but real.

"I'm on it, Cap," she promises. "Just rest. Let me take over with this, okay?"

Don't let him go. She doesn't have the first intention of letting Bucky disappear, not now that he's calling them by name, not now that he's looking at them with recognition. She's spent too many nights dreaming of seeing his face even one more time.

Sharon lets her hand stay in Steve's as Sam works on him, then braces herself before she looks up again. She needs to: the wave of grief and longing and agony and wariness that slams over her would wash her away, otherwise. She swallows, sets her shoulders and lifts her chin.

SHIELD might no longer exist. But she's still Agent Thirteen, and she can take it. She can take anything she has to. "You know me?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He swallows, and nods his head. "I do now," he says, low but clear.

She'd descended from that copter like the angel he used to tease her about being, her hair blown around her as bright as any halo.

He doesn't make any attempt to move toward her. "Sharon. I know you."

[from_the_outside]

He says her name, and a million memories flood through her mind: the field in France, his room in London. Her name on his lips; whispered, laughed, sighed, moaned.

She allows herself a deep breath. "Good."

The smile that curves her lips now can hardly be called a smile at all; it's more a shadow that tucks against one corner of her mouth. "Welcome back, Sergeant."

[nerves_of_ice]

He can't hold her gaze, not in the face of her kindness and the subtle shift to her expression. He lets his own drop, looking at where Steve's lying so still beside her while the other man works over him.

He's brought such pain to these two he'd loved so much. It would have been better if he'd died in the fall; for them, for the world, for everyone.

"You have to get him to the hospital," he whispers. "Somewhere safe. Please."

[from_the_outside]

"We will." At her nod, Sam begins unfurling the sling, and she shifts to help him move Steve onto it.

Her glance keeps returning to Bucky – Bucky, Bucky – and she frowns at the way he's holding his right arm. "You need medical attention, too."

[nerves_of_ice]

"It's not - I'll be fine." It should be worse. Would have been worse, if Steve hadn't been trying not to hurt him more than he had to, where he'd been trying to kill the man who was his best friend.

"You need to hurry."

[from_the_outside]

"We're going as fast as we can," Sam tells him, sharp. Sharon helps him clip the sling around Steve, then looks up at Bucky again. "Come with us."

Sam slants a look at her, but she ignores him. "Bucky – "

She has no idea even what she wants to ask, what he can even give, but she knows she can't let him go. Not for Steve, not for herself. She shakes her head at herself. "Will you come?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He doesn't miss the look the Black man gives her, and he can't blame him even the slightest bit. He shakes his head.

"I'll meet you there." He's careful to say nothing about when.

[from_the_outside]

She can't bear to think of him vanishing once more, but he's right: they have to get Steve to the hospital, and it'll take both her and Sam to get him back up to the copter. "Promise me," she says, low and desperate.

"You've made me promises before. Steve, too. Promise me again."

[nerves_of_ice]

All the breath sighs out of him in a rush as though he's taken a hard punch to the gut.

He doesn't want to do it, but every second they delay makes Steve worse. "I promise," he says, low but clear, then repeats it to be sure. "I promise. Both of you."

[from_the_outside]

It'll have to do. She nods at him, which sends dizziness swirling through her head once more – she hasn't eaten in far too long – and finished clipping Steve into the sling.

Getting up, she unclips the line from her harness and runs it beneath the sling, then clips it to itself and clips her harness to the sling as well. "Bring us up," she tells Fury and Nat, as Sam gets on the sling.

As they rise back up through the air, her gaze never leaves Bucky, standing there below.

[nerves_of_ice]

He watches as they disappear into the helicopter, and doesn't move until it flies off in the direction of the city and the nearest hospital - a good one, he hopes. Only then does Bucky pick up Sharon's forgotten phone and head into the underbrush, making his way across the north end of the island. Long before they'd built the Triskelion at the south end, Roosevelt Island had been a national park and preserve; due to a combination of political influence exerted by environmentalist groups and a good deal of public pressure, half of it is still. Right now, that suits his needs perfectly.

He avoids the established trails and circles around the memorial in the center of the island, moving through the trees like a ghost. It won't be long before more rescue crews start to arrive, and he's got to be gone before then. He stealthily makes his way into some bushes at the edge of the water on the west side, studying the pedestrian footbridge before he approaches it. For the most part, it's empty of people, save for a few foolish souls who are congregating on the far end, pointing at the smoke rising from the wreckage and trying to film it with their camera phones. Good enough.

It's a little hard to use his right arm still, but he hadn't lied to Sharon. He's healing already, he can tell. He unsnaps one of the ammo pouches at his belt and pulls out a tightly-wrapped fabric ring, which he slides over his left wrist and unrolls into a thin black nylon sleeve that he uses to cover his left arm. Once that's done, he steps out onto the trail and hurries out onto the bridge, darting glances over his shoulder every so often, just as though he's another one of SHIELD's escaping personnel. Nobody pays much attention to him; they're all looking at what's left of the south end of the island. Nobody notices when he moves past the bicycle racks at the end of the bridge and into the parking lot, stopping at the nearest motorcycle. It's the work of a moment to trigger the ignition; mere seconds after that, he roars off, accelerating up the George Washington Memorial Parkway and away from the ambulances and police cars that are screaming down the highway toward the devastation that he's left behind him.

He abandons the bike inside the mouth of a sewer tunnel and disappears into its darkness. It's not far to one of the emergency caches, where he can get what he needs.