[ 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]

Peggy must have told him, he realizes, watching as Steve searches the area. He's careful to keep his head tilted a little, using the bill of his cap to hide his face. Whether she did it deliberately or not doesn't change what he's facing now. Did Steve come alone?

Bucky glances at the house, then across the driveway toward the trees on the other side, where he'd hidden his bike. He could run for it. There's nothing in the house that he can't live without, but maybe Steve'll think he's already gone. He'll hold position here and wait to see what happens.

[from_the_outside]

There isn't any other sign of him. He hasn't made a fire, seemingly, or played a record; only eaten and slept and gone... who knows where. Out into the woods where she and Steve had walked in those first days after she'd come back, she supposes.

Sharon comes to the front door and walks across the porch to lean on the railing and look over to Steve. "Any luck?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Not alone, he sees. For an instant, he considers the idea that maybe they're just trying to get out of the city for a bit and this is just an unlucky coincidence, only for that flicker of not-really-hope to be dashed when he hears Sharon's question.

"Not yet." Steve's voice carries clearly back, the worry and strain in it clear. Guilt weighs heavy. "Do you think he's gone?"

[from_the_outside]

"I think he'd put away the dishes before he goes, unless he's forgotten all his manners, too."

A joke is the only way she knows how to deal with this... all of this. Bucky, only a few steps ahead of them. Maybe almost close enough to touch. She looks out at the silent, welcoming woods and sighs. "I don't know, Steve. I hope not. Space to figure himself out is one thing... disappearing completely is something else."

[nerves_of_ice]

"If I could just talk to him." Frustration paints Steve's words, but he thinks there's something else there, too. Something almost desperate, tinged with a stubbornness that's suddenly, shockingly familiar. "I could get him to understand, I know I could."

He probably could, Bucky thinks. But the thing is, it's Steve who doesn't understand. Neither of them do, although he suspects Sharon may be closer to it. With a slow, sinking feeling, he realizes there may not be another way for them to understand, other than to let them see for themselves.

But is it safe?

[from_the_outside]

"Yeah," she sighs. "But maybe it's a good sign he's even in the area, you know?"

He's had days, now. He could have left the country at any time, but instead they find evidence of him here, at her family's home. Instead, he visited Aunt Peggy. "I haven't seen any car tire tracks, have you?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"No, but--" Steve shades his eyes with his hand and looks at the driveway with fierce concentration, looking for signs. "Maybe he ran out to get groceries or something."

They're not going to stop trying to find him, Bucky realizes. Not for a while, anyway. Not until they have a reason. Does he have the right to cause them that pain just to protect himself?

No. He doesn't.

Cautiously, he eases back from the tree until he can rise unseen. Bucky takes a slow, deep breath, and steps out from cover into view.

[from_the_outside]

There's a shift at the tree line, and her glance snaps up. In the next second, her breath catches. "Steve," she murmurs.

She doesn't take her eyes off him. She can't. He might vanish again.

[nerves_of_ice]

Sharon sees him first. He holds position, not allowing himself to move even the slightest bit, even as Steve whirls to face the direction Sharon's looking and spots him.

The expression on Steve's face is hope and heartbreak at once. He'll see it in his nightmares, he's sure.

He doesn't say anything. What is there to say?

[from_the_outside]

"Bucky."

Just his name threatens to cut her throat and break her heart as it rips out of her. Sharon grips the railing with bloodless fingers, trying not to move, as if he's a wild animal they might scare away.

She casts about desperately for something, anything. Words that can act as a liferope, that he can use to come back to them. "What do you think about the house?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"It's nice."

His glance flicks back and forth between them, watchful. "Peggy said I could be here. I didn't break in this time."

[from_the_outside]

"It's okay," Sharon says, quickly. "It's okay. She invited you, that's fine. You can be here."

He can stay here for as long as he wants or needs, easily. "I know you didn't break in."

[nerves_of_ice]

He knows better than to ask her what she wants, now; if maybe instead she'd prefer for him to not be here, in the place that means so much to her.

She'd wanted to share this with the man in the framed photo. Not the one who'd kidnapped and hurt her.

His glance flicks to Steve and holds, weighing him. "Any lingering injuries?"

[from_the_outside]

"No." Steve's still staring at him, still poised and tense to take off after him if he runs. He swallows, then nods to Bucky's right shoulder. "You?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm operational." He says it as a matter of fact, because it is. "I heal quickly."

[from_the_outside]

She can see it hit Steve like a bullet: operational. Bucky, who had been so full of life and charm and personality; now it's like someone had wrung all of that out of him, left him an empty husk of himself.

But he can't be empty. She won't believe it. "Come inside."

She says it too quickly, too plaintively, and visibly pulls back on herself. "Please."

[nerves_of_ice]

Steve flinches, and Bucky feels the ache of the blow he'd delivered in his chest, in his gut, as if he'd just punched himself with his own left fist.

He hadn't even meant it. He'd just been telling the truth.

Sharon's plea hits his ears, and he turns his level regard back on her. "Are you sure?"

Peggy'd twist his ear for not doing her the courtesy of assuming she was, but he has to ask. He can't let her do things for him out of obligation. He won't.

[from_the_outside]

"Yes, I'm sure. I'll... make some coffee."

Or something. Anything. Whatever it takes to get him to come inside, to let them see him, to be close to him. Her knuckles are white from how tightly she grips the railing. "Come in. Please."

[nerves_of_ice]

She's hanging on to the railing as though it might vanish if she doesn't, or as if she might. It's the other night in her apartment all over again, only worse, and he hates himself all over again.

He also knows he's going to accept. It's the only way to get through this; the only way to make them see, to help them understand.

Bucky nods and starts forward. He takes care to keep his pace slow and deliberate, so as to make certain it won't be confused for an attack. Only it seems Steve wasn't thinking like that at all, for as soon as he gets close, Steve crosses the remaining space between them in an instant and wraps him in a tight hug, his body shaking.

[from_the_outside]

Once again – like always – Steve does the thing that no one else can do, and before she knows it, she's vaulting lightly over the railing and running, gravel scattering under her shoes, barreling into both of them to put her arms around both.

There's just enough left of her sanity to hope he doesn't see this as an attack, but she's not trying to pull him and Steve isn't trying to grapple him. She has one arm around him and one around Steve and she presses her head to someone's shoulder, shuddering as her fingers grip into the cloth of someone's shirt.

[nerves_of_ice]

Steve shifts a little to the side, drawing Sharon in as she crashes into them. Bucky's afraid to move at first, but slowly raises his left arm upward to pat his best friend's shoulder. He curves his right arm around Sharon's waist, holding on, letting himself be held by both of them.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, each word choked, broken, and barely audible. "I'm sorry. Sorry."

It's all he can manage to say.

[from_the_outside]

His arm goes around her and she almost sobs at the feeling, how familiar it is, how strange. Steve's arms are around them both, and she's gripping into both their shirts like she'll never let go.

Bucky's voice is a bare whisper, hardly anything at all, but she presses her face into his shoulder, shaking her head, and listens as hard as she can. It's his voice, his voice, not the Winter Soldier ordering her not to scream. She can feel Steve's shaking breath through the arm she has around his back. "We've got you, Buck," he murmurs. "It's gonna be okay."

[nerves_of_ice]

It's not, he's certain. How can it be? But just for a second, for a second, he lets himself believe it.

"I'm sorry," he says again. "It would have been easier for you both if I'd just run. I couldn't. I'm sorry."

[from_the_outside]

For a second, she laughs, though it comes out almost as a sob. "Baby, neither of us has ever cared about easier."

He knows that. He'll remember it. He'll learn it all over again. "We care about you."

Steve presses his own head to Bucky's, his breath coming hard. They're both being careful not to crush her, she thinks, a little wildly. Which is nice of them.

[nerves_of_ice]

A violent shudder runs through him, but he tips his head against Steve's and doesn't pull away.

You shouldn't, he doesn't say. It'd be better for them if they didn't, but that's not who they are, it's clear. He doesn't feel surprised, so maybe he's always known that.

"I hurt you both. So badly," he whispers. "I know you can't forgive me for it. But I'm sorry anyway."