[ 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]

“Not here.” It’s too quick, but he can’t help it. The conditioning stirs and he shoves it back by concentrating on information security, rather than on the revulsion he feels at turning this space into an operational one.

“Some other room. Would be better.”

[from_the_outside]

Her eyebrows flicker into a frown, but she nods. "We have plenty to choose from," she points out, and Steve stifles a quiet laugh. "Sounds like we've got our day pretty well planned out."

[nerves_of_ice]

“Maybe that big dining room?” he suggests, thinking of the table. “Plenty of room for maps. I could get started marking known sites.”

[from_the_outside]

"Sure." Sharon comes back over to take their cleared plates, bringing them to the sink. "I'll go grab them in a second. You guys go get set up."

[nerves_of_ice]

He hesitates, eyeing her preparations, but takes her at her word and tips his head toward the hall with a glance to Steve.

“Go ahead. I need to grab something from upstairs.”

[from_the_outside]

She rinses off the plates and sets them in the dishwasher, along with the mugs, then heads through the hall and moves through the house until she reaches the library. Somewhere in here, she knows, her father keeps an atlas and a collection of maps.

Once they've been retrieved, she heads into the dining room, spreading atlas and rustling paper over the table.

[nerves_of_ice]

He'd more needed a moment to himself than he'd actually needed the battered composition notebook, but he has to bring something back downstairs with him and it'll do as well as anything else. Bucky shoves the brochure from Steve's exhibit more firmly into the back of it when it starts to slide out and grabs a pen as well, then hesitates.

He allows himself to sit down and breathe, just for a second, trying to put his thoughts in some kind of order. Maybe if he treats it like a mission report it'll be easier. But should he be doing that with them? He doesn't know. He doesn't know how to operate in the world the way the man he was before the war did. He barely knows his own name.

One step at a time, he decides, and the first one is out the door of the guest room. Bucky goes back downstairs, moving in near silence, and cautiously enters the dining room.

He comes to stand by Sharon at the table and studies the display. "Where do you want me to start?"

[from_the_outside]

She straightens from where she's spreading out a map of Europe, and hands him a red marker pen. "With the ones you're sure about," she tells him. "And anything you know or remember about their personnel, security, entrances, exits. Whatever you don't remember, we'll have to get recon on."

[nerves_of_ice]

He studies the map for a few moments before placing the first mark in Sokovia, outside Novi Grad. From there he moves to France, adds a question mark at the tip of Italy, and marks a spot in Berlin.

"Most of them had a similar layout. Except for the castle," he murmurs, absent and more than a little distant. "I can try to draw it."

[from_the_outside]

"Castle?" Steve asks, leaning onto the dining table with both hands. It's a familiar stance, but one she hasn't seen from him since those days back in London.

Sharon studies the maps, mouth twisting. "Sokovia," she murmurs. "That might be tough. What kind of international jurisdiction do the Avengers have, Steve?"

[nerves_of_ice]

“That may have changed too, given everything. I guess we’re independent now,” Steve realizes. “I’ll have to talk to Tony about that too.”

“Castle,” Bucky repeats. He’s moved on to North Africa, starting with Algeria. Bucky tips his head toward Sharon in confirmation of her observation as he continues,

“Sokovia. Von Strucker’s research facility.”

[from_the_outside]

"Von Strucker," she repeats, frowning. "That sounds kind of familiar."

Maybe it's somewhere in the data Nat had leaked to the world. She'll have to start digging through those files.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Wil- no. Wolf. Wolfgang." Tension threads through him as he struggles with the pieces of memory. "Scientist. Not serum. But something."

[from_the_outside]

Steve frowns over at him. "He's experimenting on people?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky nods. “They never stopped.”

[from_the_outside]

"I wish I could say I was surprised," Steve mutters. "Any idea what he's up to? Do you remember what he was using without the serum?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He’s quiet for a few seconds. The castle in Sokovia had smelled like wet stone and blood and bleach, he recalls.

“There were rooms,” he says, slowly. “Underground. I think. Hidden. Cells. His - his subjects. People. Were in them. I didn’t - there was an argument. Whether or not to try the protocol on me. That’s why I was there.”

[from_the_outside]

She knows Steve's going through the same mix of fury and sorrow and guilt as she is, every time Bucky mentions what they put him through. But it doesn't help to get upset, and it only makes him feel worse, so they manage it as best they can with tight jaws and fisting hands. "What was the protocol?" she asks, instead of anything else. "Do you remember?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"There was a room. With an observation window." Each word is a little slow as he pieces it together, but steady and clear. "Some kind of device in it. It - it glowed. That's all I saw before they shut it down. Decided the risk of failure was too high and the loss of value if there were to be damage to the asset was unacceptable."

[from_the_outside]

"Glowed?" Sharon's focus sharpens. "Like the cube?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky looks up from the map, surprised. "It wasn't blue. But--" He frowns, thinking back.

"--but otherwise yes. Maybe. yes."

[from_the_outside]

She folds her arms and looks over to Steve. "What would that even mean?"

Steve shakes his head at them both, but he looks trouble. "I don't know," he admits. "But it can't be anything good. Loki had a staff that glowed like the cube, too. It's how he brainwashed Barton and the others."

[nerves_of_ice]

Steve has all his attention in that moment. “Where is it now?”

[from_the_outside]

Steve sighs and hangs his head for a moment, before he looks back up at Bucky. "Nat gave it to Sitwell," he says, and sucks at his teeth for a moment, frustrated.

"HYDRA's had it since then, and we had no idea."

[nerves_of_ice]

He stares at Steve some more while memories flicker, then scrabbles for the notebook he’d discarded to the side. Bucky scrawls a quick sketch of the thing he remembers seeing, with its strangely glowing gem at one end, and shoves it at them.