[ 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]

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."

[marvel_npc]

"Can't?" Peggy says, her eyes narrowing.

There is much to despite about her mind's difficulty in grasping when she it, but it is made her a good deal more sensitive to the tenses her visitors use. "What do you mean, 'can't'?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He hadn't meant to say that, hadn't meant to - he shouldn't have come. He should leave, before he makes things any worse.

Bucky eases forward in the chair, preparing to stand, and looks up at her. "I'm not - I'm still trying to find my way home," he says, softly. "I haven't made it yet."

[marvel_npc]

He shifts, getting ready to move, and she puts the whipcrack of an order into her voice. "Stay put, Sergeant."

She frowns as she studies him, trying desperately to put the shattered pieces of what she knows or can guess together. "Are you in some sort of trouble?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He freezes, utterly immobile, her command snapping through every part of him with a power she couldn't have anticipated.

(ready to comply)

His wary glance meets hers.

"A little. I'm... it's okay. I'm sorting things out."

[marvel_npc]

"Don't prevaricate, Sergeant," she says, curt. "It wastes everyone's time. And goodness knows I haven't enough of that left."

Peggy reaches for her tea, tapping a finger on the delicate china and hoping this moment of clarity will last. "Are you safe?"

[nerves_of_ice]

She really hasn't changed, not down at the core of her, he thinks. From what he can recall, anyway.

"I am now." Simple and to the point. "Some people are looking for me, but I'm ... good at avoiding that kind of thing."

[marvel_npc]

"Hmph."

She frowns at him over her teacup. "It sounds to me as though you could use a place where you might be able to have a moment to find your footing."

[nerves_of_ice]

He gives a very small shrug, and doesn't argue. She's not wrong.

"Don't worry about me, Agent Carter." He's not worth her time. "I'm pretty persistent."

[marvel_npc]

"That, I hope, was never in question," she sniffs. "Tell me, when has telling someone not to worry ever worked?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"It wasn't," he says, mildly, then gives another small shrug.

"I had to try. I didn't come here to worry you. Or anyone."

[marvel_npc]

"Then what did you come for?"

She looks at the door, then back at him, suspicion creeping in. "Do Steve and Sharon know you're here?"

[nerves_of_ice]

It's an excellent question, and one he doesn't have an answer for. Impulse, longing, doing things for himself alone - none of these are things he's been allowed for so long he's not exactly sure of the last time.

(Natasha. He thinks that might be it, all those years ago, until - until what had happened. His plea to be allowed to remember Steve certainly hadn't been permitted.)

"I thought you wouldn't mind," is what he says, right before he freezes again, cursing himself in all the languages he knows.

"... no. They don't. They know I'm... back," he settles on. "But not that I was coming here. I lied to your - your assistant. I'm sorry."