[ 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."

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[nerves_of_ice]

He gives the tiniest of shrugs with his left shoulder, then blinks at her in surprise. He really hadn't been sure what to expect, but ... he'd promised. More than that, he'd needed to see her, to see with his own eyes that she was okay, as much as she could be after everything.

After that second's hesitation, he moves cautiously through the door, careful not to crowd her, and steps to the side to stand against the wall.

[from_the_outside]

Sharon closes the door but doesn't lock it. In the event that she needs to make a quick getaway, she'll need all the openings she can get.

She doesn't let herself think about how much faster he is than her. Or how he must have been holding back, before... before. If he'd ever been in a pitched fight with Steve back during the war, they couldn't have missed how much faster and stronger he was than he should have been. Could they?

But when the door closes, it feels like the apartment shrinks around her. Her glance flickers to the place where he'd slammed her against the floor and held her down in a horrible subversion of a lover's embrace, then lifts back to him. Her chest lifts and falls with rapid, shallow breaths.

After all this time. After all the times she'd wanted to see him again. After all the dreams and memories and tears and grief –

She has no idea what to say. The only thing she can think of, the only thing that surfaces, clear, from the slosh of words and recriminations and pleas that wash around her chest, is the one thing she knows is a priority for them both. "Steve will be okay."

Her voice is quiet in the still apartment air. "Sam's with him at the hospital."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I know. I went there first." It's just as quiet, and his glance is thoughtful as it rests on her.

Her breathing is shallow and too fast, and it hits him with the impact of a grenade. She's scared. She's scared of him, and she has every right to be.

Moving with deliberate care so as not to startle or alarm her further, he retreats all the way across her living room, giving her as much space as is possible within the confines of the apartment, and stops against a wall there. He's out of sight from the windows, but could be through one quickly if he needs to go.

Maybe he should. "Saw they treated you as well. How badly did I hurt you, Sharon?"

[from_the_outside]

He moves away from her, as far as he can go while still being in the same room, and her body can't decide whether to be relieved or unhappy about it. "It's not all you."

The deep slice on her arm had required stitches, and it's not the only trophy of her fight earlier. "I tangled with Rumlow, too."

[nerves_of_ice]

He nods, very slowly. "He's dangerous. Likes pain. Hates Steve."

Bucky studies her carefully, searching for any and all signs of injury and making note of everything he sees. There, damage to the corner of her mouth; there, a chafe mark from the harness strap; a bandage on her forearm, and those are just what he can easily see.

Bitter self-loathing threatens to swallow him, and in that moment he wishes again that he'd died years ago.

[from_the_outside]

"Not so dangerous anymore. One of the helicarriers fell on the Triskelion."

Smashing. Destruction. Clouds of dust and bursts of explosions. "He wasn't quick enough."

He looks her over, and she wonders what he sees. The last time they'd seen each other, she'd been in uniform, and so had he; she'd sent him off, bare-headed and brave, with a wink and a smile and foolish optimism. Sharon swallows, hard, against the lump in her throat. "Are you hurt?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm operational," he reports, automatically. "I'll be fine. After all, Steve wasn't trying to kill anyone."

It hangs there in the air between them.

[from_the_outside]

Operational. She thinks of the chair in the underground bunker and feels sick. "Bucky – "

It jerks out of her, reflexive, and she can't quite keep the anguish and guilt locked behind the agent, not when his name is on her lips. Not when she owes him this. "Bucky, I'm sorry."

[nerves_of_ice]

Shock spears through him, and he stares at her in dismay and utter disbelief.

"You're sorry? You have nothing, nothing to apologize for. Not to me. Not ever."

[from_the_outside]

"I have everything to apologize for." She's holding herself so tensely that she's started trembling a little, unconsciously. "If I'd told you sooner – if I'd told Steve – "

Old, bitter guilt seeps in, poisonous. "Or if we could have made you remember, at the boatyard – " She swallows, hard. "Or come for you, under the bank, sooner."

Or if she'd pushed to look for him, to dig up the cold case of how Bucky Barnes went missing in action, worked it through. Could they have found him? Could she? "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

[nerves_of_ice]

"No, you don't," he snaps, harsher than he means. She'd known a lot of things back then, things she couldn't tell any of them, but -- "You didn't know this."

Or had she? Sudden nausea twists his insides as the thought occurs, and his shoulders slam against the wall as he takes an involuntary step backward. He stares at her in horror.

"How did you know about the bank?"

No. No, it's not possible. Couldn't be possible. She wouldn't have, couldn't have - she didn't know who he was when he came for her, she didn't.

[from_the_outside]

He moves – away, but all she registers at first is the movement at all, and she shies back like a wild animal, her hand tightening on the grip of her Kahr before she realizes he's backing away from her.

"Sitwell," she answers, trying to slow her racing heart. "He spilled his guts, the coward."

He's watching her with horrified confusion, and she lifts her free hand, carefully, holding it up, palm towards him and fingers spread in the universal slow down gesture. "No. I didn't know this. But if I could have stopped you from falling, none of this would have happened."

[nerves_of_ice]

Sitwell. He'd been there during the most recent reprogramming, he thinks, when Command had given the order to wipe him and start over due to his instability. Sitwell would have known, and it's clear from Sharon's words that they'd tried to come for him when they found out.

He shakes his head once, back and forth, keeping his eyes on her.

"You tried. To stop it. It's not your fault we, we couldn't. It's not Steve's fault either." He draws a ragged breath. "You both thought I was dead. Should have been dead. Shouldn't have survived. You couldn't have known. None of this is your fault. Nothing. Don't apologize to me."

[from_the_outside]

"Bucky – "

All of it – the last two years, the last two days – it's all crashing against her like waves breaking on a dyke.

It's Bucky. Bucky. Here, and alive, and standing there looking at her. Different, but still him. Her breath catches like a sob in her throat. "I missed you so much."

[nerves_of_ice]

He doesn't know what he was expecting, if anything. His mind is a swirling mass of chaos, his memory restored but not whole, bits and pieces of a shattered reflection that cuts him with its sharp edges.

Like now. "I'm sorry," he whispers, low and desperate. "I'm sorry. Sharon. I'm sorry."

[from_the_outside]

"It's not your fault, either."

She breathes, very evenly, then slowly sets her Kahr down on the coffee table. Without it, she feels bare and vulnerable.

It used to be so easy to be vulnerable with him.

Sharon takes one careful, wary step towards him, then another. When she's a few feet away, she holds out her hands, palms up. When she speaks, her voice breaks, just a little. "But I missed you."

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head, denying it, but stays silent. It won't do them any good to argue, and he's not even sure he can, not with this.

She sets aside her weapon, and he stares at her, surprised, before his eyes widen in true shock as she steps forward, as she tells him she missed him, as her voice cracks.

He almost can't make himself move. Not even to meet her halfway. But he can't leave her standing there like this, either.

His shoulder twinges as he pulls his right hand from his pocket. He ignores it, and reaches out to her, palm downward, making it entirely her choice.

[from_the_outside]

He offers his right hand, and she only hesitates for a second before she curls her fingers around his.

– his fingers gripping her arm, clenched in her hair, pulling her head back, hitting her, hurting her –

She shakes her head and holds on, stubborn, despite the wave of dizziness, the way her stomach churns. "You're alive," she whispers.

[nerves_of_ice]

He nods, and curls his fingers gently around hers in turn, letting her hold on to him as she chooses.

His left hand stays in his pocket, the metal of his left arm hidden by the light jacket he's wearing. He'd almost rather cut that arm off again than touch her with it.

[from_the_outside]

Her breath is coming a little too fast; she consciously takes a deep, slow one.

"Aren't you happy to see me?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He tries to speak and can only make a low, strangled sound. Happy is a word almost entirely without meaning for him. Flickers of memory from so long ago and distant that they seem to have belonged to another person entirely flash behind his eyes. That man would know what happy means, he's almost certain, and would be able to feel it.

Not him; not the Winter Soldier. Weapons don't have wants, needs, or emotions, and he doesn't know what to do with everything welling up in him now.

"I nearly killed you," he falls back on, a barely audible whisper.

[from_the_outside]

"That's not quite true."

Her own voice is a low murmur. She closes her eyes and fights back the flashes of memory that come, unbidden, before looking at him again. "You were very careful to not kill me."

[nerves_of_ice]

She needs to understand. What it does to him is irrelevant. He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to see her face as he speaks.

"You were a high-value associate of the target that intel indicated he'd do anything to save. Keeping you alive but at risk was the fastest way to bring him out of hiding before the deadline."

[from_the_outside]

"I know." He's keeping his eyes closed. His lashes smudge against his cheeks in just the way she remembers. "I was bait. Good bait."

Lucky me, she'd told Nat. Despite everything, she had been. Very lucky. If he'd killed her and then remembered... if he'd killed Steve...

But he hadn't. "It made sense."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I wasn't expecting the man with wings. He wasn't in the files."

He opens his eyes again, having discovered he can't keep them closed; the internal yammering about threat assessment and situational awareness is too loud. He stares down at the floor instead.