from_the_outside | [ WWII AU ] a ghost story

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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From:

nerves_of_ice

"She said she--"

But it's too much, too fast, and he shies away from the thought of asking about the letters directly as though it's bitten him.

"--I saw the exhibit," he says instead. "But it didn't say..." He looks back and forth between her and Steve, settling on Sharon. "When you came back."

From:

from_the_outside

"When I did? No, I guess it wouldn't."

Before Nat dumped all of SHIELD's secrets onto the internet, it had been classified to hell and back, but now... "Although I guess people might find out about it now, if they look hard enough."

From:

nerves_of_ice

He gives Steve an uncertain look. Had he not been clear enough? He can't press.

From:

from_the_outside

"Two years," Steve murmurs, in response to that look. "Something about time dilation. Half a year with us was only a week, here and now."

Sharon nods and goes to the fridge to pull out the milk as the coffee percolates. "Steve's right. The cube dumped me in New York, on the sidewalk, about a week after I left."

From:

nerves_of_ice

He frowns slightly, trying to follow it, but in the end, it doesn't matter, does it? Peggy had given Sharon the letter he'd left for her, but Steve had still gone into the ice. The past couldn't be changed. They tried, twice.

"Oh," he says, finally. His glance goes to Steve. "And you woke up... three years ago?"

From:

from_the_outside

Steve nods, his arms tightening across his chest. "Sorry, pal," he says, wry. "I guess I didn't figure out your warning in time. And when I got back to the base, Sharon wasn't there to ask, so..."

Guilt, familiar and heavy, knots in her stomach. "I'm sorry, Bucky," she murmurs. "I would have tried to keep him safe, if I'd been able to stay."

From:

nerves_of_ice

Absolute, complete confusion flickers over his features, and the look in his eyes is lost before he realizes that Peggy must have meant something different than what he'd thought.

"It doesn't -- it wasn't your fault," he settles on, finally. "I didn't mean - please don't."

From:

from_the_outside

"Still." In his letter, he'd told her she made the right choice, but how could that be, when this is what happened?

Her hair falls over her shoulder, obscuring her face as she sets up three mugs, one for each of them. "But Steve was in New York when I came back. Thankfully."

From:

nerves_of_ice

At least she'd had someone. Maybe it had helped Steve as well, in some way.

Bucky nods and accepts one of the mugs, silently.

From:

from_the_outside

She hands another mug to Steve, then doctors her own with milk, sugar, and a little cinnamon, then turns to lean against the counter, thinking about Bucky at the Smithsonian. What must it have been like, reading his own history? That of his friends and companions? "We actually came here, for a while, after I came back," she murmurs.

"Aunt Peggy had kept all the files and your letters. They were up in the attic."

From:

nerves_of_ice

He holds the coffee in his right hand, trying not to draw attention to his gloved left, and watches them both.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, low and harsh but clear. "I - I tried to stay."

From:

from_the_outside

Steve makes a choked sound and shakes his head. "I know," he promises, desperate. "We know, Buck."

They could play the blame game all day long, each of them trying to shoulder what they think is their share, the others rejecting it. Sharon swallows her own guilt and comes to Bucky's side, then sets her hand gently on his left shoulder. "We missed you," she murmurs. "But it wasn't your fault, Bucky."

From:

nerves_of_ice

A faint shudder runs through him as she touches his left arm.

(you are to be the new fist of HYDRA)

He stares down at the flat surface of the island, not looking at either of them.

From:

from_the_outside

He trembles lightly beneath her touch, and she casts a worried glance over at Steve. "I know we have a lot of questions," she murmurs. "Are you going to be able to answer them?"

From:

nerves_of_ice

"I don't know." It's low and weary. The island is clean and bright and spacious, he observes, absently. Just like the kitchen, and the house, and the two of them standing to either side of him. He's the smudge of darkness in the middle of it all.

He lets out a slow breath and looks up. "I'll try."

From:

from_the_outside

"Whatever you can," Steve says, bracingly. "This isn't an interrogation, Buck."

"It's definitely not that," Sharon agrees. "Why don't we go sit down and get comfortable?"

From:

nerves_of_ice

"Maybe it should be."

He glances toward the living room, then back at them, waiting for someone to lead.

From:

from_the_outside

Steve pats his friend's shoulder and starts coaxing him toward the great room and one of the couches, where he'll be able to sit next to Bucky without crowding him.

Sharon follows, then curls into an armchair nearby, where she can see both of them without straining her neck. "What do you remember from after the fall?" she asks, finally.

These questions will be awful for all of them, but there's no way out but through. "How did they get a hold of you?"

From:

nerves_of_ice

He sits where Steve indicates he should, leaning against the back of the couch with his body aligned and his back straight, hands resting lightly on his thighs as he waits, passive, for the questions to follow.

Bucky looks up at Sharon as she asks the first. "Cold." There's no hesitation. "Pain in my arm, what was left of it. I don't know how that part happened exactly. I smashed against a rock, or a cliff face or something - it was big and rough and my arm caught, and, well."

He shrugs. "Cold's what I remember most. It was snowing. The snow was soft, except for the chunks of ice and rock. I lay there and watched it snow for a while. I don't know how long. Two Russian soldiers on patrol found me. They dragged me to an outpost."

From:

from_the_outside

She sees Steve's tension as it rises, guilt swallowing him whole. "Steve – "

It's not quick enough. His hand clenches, and the mug he's holding shatters, sending coffee and shards of crockery over his hand and knee and the carpet below.

From:

nerves_of_ice

He jerks away and to his feet at the shot-like sound, whirling on the instant into a crouch, left hand partly outstretched and ready to respond to the threat --

--only to realize that there's no threat here, no shots fired, nothing but Steve and broken ceramic and an aching storm of grief and agony that tints the very air around them with pain.

Instinct overrides conscious thought. He goes down on one knee in front of Steve and catches the other man's hand in his gloved left, turning it over, palm-up, looking for signs of injury.

Edited Date: 2023-05-18 03:22 pm (UTC)

From:

from_the_outside

She startles, badly, at his swift motion, and hopes he didn't see the way she sloshed her own coffee as she jerked away.

Steve uncurls his fingers as Bucky reaches for his hand, showing a pinkened palm but no blood. "I'm fine," he says, and gives Sharon a rueful glance over Bucky's head. "Sorry about the mess. I'll clean it up."

"It's okay." Her pulse is finally beginning to slow. "It's just coffee."

From:

nerves_of_ice

Silently, he rises to his feet and retreats to the kitchen. He comes back with a clean dishrag that he'd wrung out under hot water, which he gives to Steve for his hand, and a clean towel that he uses to wipe up the splashed coffee, then as a repository for the pieces of mug.

He doesn't speak a single word through any of this, lost in his thoughts instead. Should he have lied? Would that have been better?

From:

from_the_outside

Bucky starts to clean up before either of them can do anything. Steve gives her a worried glance as he cleans off his hand, then reaches for the dirty, mug-filled towel from Bucky. "Here, pal. I'll take that."

As he heads to the kitchen, Sharon shakes her head and looks back at Bucky. "This is going to be tough for all of us," she murmurs. "Sit down, Bucky. It's okay."