[ 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

[from_the_outside]

She smiles, watching him, tracing her fingers lightly over the stone floor.

"Finding anything worthwhile?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Just looking." He finishes making the circuit and comes back to join her. Bucky crouches down on his heels beside her.

"It's a decent place to hide. The stone would interfere with scans."

[from_the_outside]

"That is something I was concerned about at age twelve," she says, straight-faced. "But yeah, you're right. It would block most things."

[nerves_of_ice]

He slants a sideways look at her. "You could have been precocious. Who am I to assume?"

[from_the_outside]

She smiles at him, cheerful. "Oh, I definitely was. Just not about OPSEC. That was really more a high school thing."

[nerves_of_ice]

"High school?" A complex look crosses over his face as a flash of memory whips through his mind of Yelena Belova and the other girls in training. "When did you start with SHIELD?"

He hesitates, then shifts from his crouch to sit on the ground, one knee drawn up in a controlled sprawl.

[from_the_outside]

A flash of remorse flickers over her expression for a second before she shakes her head at him. "I was just teasing," she clarifies.

"But I guess Aunt Peggy did pretty much start training me when I was a kid. I just didn't know that's what she was doing."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I guess since she knew, she wanted to make sure you were ready." It gives him a headache to think about how the present might have influenced the past, which in turn influenced the present - but since it sure doesn't look like anything was changed or broken except him, it's probably nothing to worry about.

"Sorry. I just don't know much about how SHIELD works, when it's not HYDRA." He considers that. "Worked. Maybe."

[from_the_outside]

"It's okay," she murmurs, assuring. "I can tell you about it, if you're interested. It definitely colored my whole life, I can tell you that much."

[nerves_of_ice]

He nods, and shifts his attention from the world around them to train his gaze on her face.

[from_the_outside]

Her lips quirk as she meets his silent glance. "Is that a request for more information, or do I just have something on my face?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Information," he replies, and is silently grateful that the confirmation in answer to her question doesn't activate the conditioning. He's not sure if that's because it's intelligence-gathering or not, but it's something to remember.

"If you're sure you don't mind."

[from_the_outside]

She shakes her head. "I don't mind."

There are some loose pieces of shale nearby; she picks them up to toy with while she speaks. "There's so much I always wanted to tell you and couldn't. Obviously I couldn't say anything about SHIELD, or too much about what I did or what Aunt Peggy was going to do. But I wanted to be like her from as far back as I can remember, and she did her best to make sure I had everything I needed to go just as far as she did, maybe further."

She counts off on her fingers. "Boxing lessons. Jiujitsu training. Rock climbing. Gymnastics. Tutors for languages. She was the one who brought me to a gun range and taught me to shoot and how to handle a weapon, as soon as I was old enough."

[nerves_of_ice]

He frowns hard as he thinks that over, trying to tease out bits of memories and match them to what she's saying now. "No wonder you - the skills test," he says, finally. "More prepared than anyone would ever have guessed."

His glance follows the play of stone through her hands. "How old were you? When you learned to shoot."

[from_the_outside]

"Most of that was my SHIELD training," she tells him. "But Aunt Peggy made damn sure I had a solid base to build on. I was taking dancing lessons for my parents in high school and martial arts lessons for her at the same time."

At his question, she chuckles, leans back on her hands. "Oh, that was a 'happy birthday, you're a teenager' present. I was thirteen, and she'd made me earn it. She had me practice taking apart and putting back together an unloaded Glock while she quizzed me on gun safety and protocols for three months beforehand until I could do it fast enough for her."

[nerves_of_ice]

He feels the faintest of smiles pull at the corners of his mouth. "She's a hell of a lady."

[from_the_outside]

"She doesn't do anything by halves," Sharon agrees. "And she was tough. She made me earn it, every step of the way. But she knew I had to be absolutely sure this was what I wanted with my life, and she knew putting me in the field meant I had to be at the absolute top of my game."

The shade of a smile flickers at the corner of her mouth. "Steve didn't test me on a third of what I can do. He knows that now."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Especially knowing when you were going to end up, for a while." He overcomes the impulse to run his fingers over the stone floor with the habit of long years.

"Did anyone ever figure out how it happened? Either time?"

[from_the_outside]

Either time. Her lashes flutter for a second as she blinks, pushing back the memories of that first awful day, the realization. "We still don't know for sure what brought me there to begin with," she says, quiet, trying to find words to tell him what she has to.

"Stark has some ideas, but they're basically the same as what we thought back then. But I think — Steve said you got hit with a blast from one of those weapons, and I'm pretty sure... I'm pretty sure what happened to you is what triggered me coming back."

[nerves_of_ice]

He was still before; now he's immobile. Bucky stares at her, eyes wide and dark as he struggles to absorb what she's telling him.

"On the train." His voice sounds rough in his own ears, and for some reason it seems like it's coming from a long way way. "When I - it blew me out the side of the car. That? It - I -- "

Pieces are trying to assemble in his head, but he doesn't like the picture. "The resonance. It - it broke it? It broke it. Breaking it sent you home."

[from_the_outside]

Never in a million years did she think she'd ever have to tell him this. "I think so."

Her voice, in contrast to his, is low and steady. She's holding herself ruthlessly under control. "From what I can tell, it happened at about the same time."

[nerves_of_ice]

He takes that in and sits with it silence for several long seconds.

When he does finally speak, each word is bitter and filled with self-loathing. "Looks like Howard should have just shot me without that damn wire cage."

It'd have been better for everyone, he's pretty sure.

[from_the_outside]

She shakes her head at him, her eyes dark and sympathetic. "He would never have done that," she murmurs. "And even if he wanted to, we would never have let him. And I— "

She breathes, tries to ground herself. "I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay with you."

[nerves_of_ice]

It rocks him, visibly so. Bucky shifts just a little, planting both hands flat against the ground, one on either side of him.

It takes him a while to find words. Any words. Even when he does, he's not sure they're the right ones, but in the face of her admission she deserves to know, doesn't she?

"I used to dream about it." Barely a breath, as if saying it any louder is too great a risk. "What it could be like. When the war was over, if. If."

[from_the_outside]

They shouldn't be here, in this cave in the woods. They should be in the field in France, or that little cottage hung with wildflowers. They should be in Brooklyn, talking about a future, instead of here in Virginia, talking about the past.

Sharon swallows, wanting more than anything to reach for him. "Do you remember any of it? What did you picture?"