[ 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

[nerves_of_ice]

The woman sitting on the sofa is much older than the one he remembers and who he'd just seen on the movie screen, white-haired and fragile-looking, but the snap of her voice reaches right down to his core and yanks him straight upright as if ordered to attention before he can even think about it.

Bucky makes sure the door is shut, then takes a couple of steps forward, and tips his head back so she can see his face. "Hello, Agent Carter," he says, quietly. "It's been a while."

[marvel_npc]

That voice... "Oh – "

She breathes in sharply, her frown vanishing as her eyes widen, before she peers much, much more closely at him. "No, it... "

Drat it all to hell, she'd thought – hadn't Steve said – but it's just possible she isn't remembering things clearly. And yet, how could it be anything else, when he still looks so young?

For a moment, her frown returns, as her glance tracks over his shoulder, looking for someone else. "It couldn't possibly be."

[nerves_of_ice]

He glances over his shoulder but doesn't see anyone. Bucky takes another step closer and pulls the cap off of his head. "It's me," he says again. "Sergeant Barnes. Bucky. I know it doesn't make sense. But I - I didn't die."

[marvel_npc]

"I know who you are." The words are a little sharp, even as they're just slightly uncertain.

What had Steve said? And had he and Sharon really been here together? She looks again over the Sergeant's shoulder, and is again surprised not to see Steve there, or her niece.

She fixes her gaze on Sergeant Barnes, an impossible man saying impossible things, and frowns at him, then lifts a hand and crooks her finger imperiously. "Come here, Sergeant."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Yes, ma'am." He crosses the room the rest of the way without hesitation and goes down on one knee in front of her so that she doesn't have to look up at him.

[marvel_npc]

She leans forward to study him. Her hands are older now, frail, but there's warmth still in the palm she cups to his cheek. He, like Steve, looks the same age as he had been, but there are differences, too.

The hair, for one. And Bucky Barnes had always had laughter in his eyes and a smile on his lips, the charming rogue. A troubled look crosses over her face like a shadow, before she frowns again. "Then... it did change? The future?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He holds still under her touch. "No. I'm sorry," he says, quietly. "I fell, like Sharon warned me. But I didn't die. Zola's experiments, after Azzano - they changed me."

"No one knew," he adds, after a quick, soft breath. "It wasn't anyone's fault. I don't - I don't blame anyone. That's not why I'm here."

[marvel_npc]

Her frown deepens, and she lifts her free hand to her temple, trying to sort through her muddled memories. The older ones are clearer, and she can quite easily recall the day they left for that mission.

The day he was lost, and Sharon pulled away. "Well." She catches his chin gently in her grip. "Steve and Sharon must be over the moon. Where are they?"

[nerves_of_ice]

I made sure she didn't see the news, the housekeeper had said. As Miss Carter asked. The way she frowns and concentrates is deeply, deeply familiar to him from when he's trying to find something in his own mind.

(but I knew him)

Bucky finds a smile, just a little one, and holds still as she catches his chin. "They had a couple of things they needed to take care of first," he says. "I came on ahead. I hope that's okay."

[marvel_npc]

She searches his eyes, uncertain. "You're always together, you three," she murmurs, and glances up once more, looking for her darling niece, for Steve.

They aren't there, and she's starting to feel as though something's wrong. The echo of her own furious voice sounds, muted, in her memory. "Everytime I turned around, there you were, right next to her."

[nerves_of_ice]

"That made you pretty mad, too," he says. "A couple of times, at least, from what I remember."

He's beginning to think it was a mistake to come; he doesn't want to do anything that'll harm her in any way, and it's clear now that she won't be able to answer any of the other questions he had without him shattering her world the way he'd shattered everyone else's.

"Want me to go away and wait for them to catch up?"

[marvel_npc]

"Hmm." Her fingers tighten on his chin and she narrows her eyes at him. "You had better be treating my niece like the lady she is," she warns. "I'll not stand for you breaking her heart again, Sergeant."

Being presumed dead is no excuse.

She shakes her head at him and lets go of his chin. "Don't be ridiculous. It's been years. I'm not about to turn you out on the street."

[nerves_of_ice]

He winces at that, and something bleak flickers in his eyes; he can't help it. "She deserves every good thing," he says, simply, and covers any other reaction as best he can by getting up from his knees and moving to an armchair nearby.

"So, um, how have you been, these last years?" he asks.

[marvel_npc]

Her sharp gaze arrows in on him at that flicker of expression, those words. Once he gets up and moves to the chair, he's too far out of reach for her to grab his ear, more's the pity, but she isn't yet so infirm that she could allow that cowardly attempt at a conversation shift to stand. "And what is that supposed to mean?" she demands.

Yes, certainly she agrees. Her darling niece deserves only the best; but she clearly recalls Sharon putting down her foot about that including the man now in front of her. "I did give her your letter, you know."

[nerves_of_ice]

It takes him a second before he realizes what she's talking about. The memory of a night spent writing, desperately aware of time running out, slams into him. "Thank you," he says, quietly. "I'm sorry you had to, but thank you for taking care of that for me."

He takes a deep breath and makes himself meet her eyes. "I'm not well," he says, blunt and direct. "I've been... lost... for a long, long time. I have to figure a few things out. She's not happy about that, and I don't blame her."

[marvel_npc]

"I know all about not being well, Sergeant," Peggy tells him, crisply, before she relents. "And I can tell you my niece has been instrumental in helping me through this... blasted infirmity. Steve – Captain Rogers – also, of course."

She lifts her eyebrows at him. "So you could hardly be in better hands."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I know. There's no one better than they are." Quiet, but with a certainty that goes all the way to the bone.

He does know it. Now, anyway. Bucky studies Peggy's expression carefully.

"Are they - they've been doing okay, right? Happy?"

[marvel_npc]

"I don't suppose you think they'd put anything but their best face on when speaking with me, these days."

She remembers – or thinks she remembers, at any rate – Sharon's grief, her darling girl's head in her lap and her own hand gentle on that golden hair. "They're happier to have you back, I imagine."

She looks expectantly at the door, then back at him. "Where are they? I know how you three like to stick together."

[nerves_of_ice]

What flashes in his treacherous mind is the last time the three of them had been in the same place, there on the dock with him dangling from a crane and Steve and Sharon trying desperately to remind him who he was. He ducks his head for a second to hide his expression.

“They had to take care of a couple of things first,” he repeats. “I came on ahead.”

[marvel_npc]

She glances up as the door opens and Anna comes in, bearing a tea tray with a pot, cups, and a small tray of biscuits. "Here you are," she says, comfortably, and sets the tray down before pouring Peggy her tea.

"Thank you, Anna," Peggy tells her, then sips at her tea and sets it down once again as her nurse leaves and closes the door behind her. Turning back to her companion, she opens her mouth to invite them to take some tea, then takes a sharp breath in, her hand going to her heart. "...Sergeant Barnes?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He blinks at her in confusion before realization strikes, and understanding dawns in his eyes.

“It’s me, Agent Carter,” Bucky says, as gently as he can. “You’re not imagining things.”

[marvel_npc]

"Oh, my."

Tears come more easily to her these days, and they sparkle in her eyes now, as she thinks how happy Steve must be, how happy Sharon must be. "It's so good to see you."

[nerves_of_ice]

“It’s really good to see you too,” he assures her, and he suspects he’s never meant anything more, even as his heart aches at the sight of the tears welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

[marvel_npc]

"Yes, well." She dashes at her eyes with a hand and clears her throat. "I suppose a little lack of punctuality can be forgiven."

She studies him: his long hair, the lines on his face. He looks as though he's been through hell, and her own expression softens. "It broke their hearts to lose you, you know," she murmurs. "Both of them."

[nerves_of_ice]

Past and present blend unexpectedly into one immutable truth as flashes of recollection stutter across his broken mind. "I tried to stay."

The desperation in Sharon's eyes - the way she'd stood in the apartment, clutching her weapon - staring at him in horror, afraid of him - pleading with him not to go on the mission, not to go not to leave her not to go not to--

He swallows, hard, and hears Steve's scream ringing in his head.

("Your name is James Buchanan Barnes."

"BUCKY!"

"Bucky?")

He looks down at his hands, one gloved, one not. "I tried," he whispers. "I can't. Couldn't. I'm sorry."