[oom] there are so many contradictions in all these messages we send

[from_the_outside]

Two weeks after leaving Thessaloniki, she steps off a plane at JFK and heads straight to the line of cabs waiting at arrivals. She doesn't have any luggage to wait for; everything she needs is in the tote bag she keeps slung over her shoulder.

"Downtown," she tells the driver, after sliding into the backseat. "Stark Industries offices, please."

He nods and pulls out of the line, glancing at her in the rearview. "Hey, you work for Stark? What's he like?"

She shakes her head, but there's a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Just meeting an old friend."

Bless New York City cab drivers; he doesn't ask her a damn thing after that and she can look out the window in silence to watch as the city rolls by and turn her thoughts to her next steps.

Or try to, anyway: what really happens is that she's wryly unsurprised when they only return, as they have almost every time she's had a few moments to herself to think, to the subject of Bucky Barnes. She's stopped fighting it: it's been two weeks since he vanished through the door and he's still living rent-free in her head. She knows when she's beaten.

(At this point the theme of those thoughts is a dead heat between running over and over all their conversations, the way he fights like he's a one-man wrecking ball, and how it felt when his hands landed gently on her hips, how warm he was against her.)

She hasn't tried texting the burner phone – he's almost certainly ditched it – but if she's successful in her mission, she might give it a shot anyway. She's got no other way of contacting him, and she hasn't heard from him.

The thing is, she has to be successful first, so she muses on the problem at hand and lets her thoughts move lightly and constantly, like a river. The danger is when they try to swirl in one spot for too long; that she actively stops whenever it begins. Preoccupation is one thing. Distraction is another, and she can't afford it.

The cab drops her within a block of Avengers Tower and she tightens her grip on her tote to shoulder her way through the crowd of tourists and cosplayers and off-brand street performers. Maria Hill is expecting her. Steve isn't.

Hill's office is bright and airy and very obviously civilian, but the woman behind the desk hasn't changed an iota. Sharon taps on the glass door, smiling warmly without letting it reach her eyes. "Ready to grab some lunch?"

"Absolutely." Hill pushes herself back from her work and stands, mirroring Sharon's smile right down to the sharp study in her eyes. "Let's go. We've got a lot of catching up to do."

---

Lunch goes about as Sharon expected it would. Hill has questions, but she's willing to let Sharon dissemble or outright refuse to give a straight answer in exchange for a drive full of what she knows is invaluable intelligence.

Neither of them says the name "Fury," but they don't need to. And when they're done, Sharon walks Hill back to the offices and they actually do get a little catching up done. They've never been close, but they're too similar not to respect each other. If pressed, Sharon might even say she likes Hill.

She still doesn't tell her where she got the intel, though. And Hill knows just why Sharon's accompanying her back: she's the one who contacts Steve and tells him to come to her office. And she's the one who glances politely away when Steve arrives and he and Sharon both spend a long second just staring at each other before he squares his shoulders like he's heading into a fight.

"I hear it's actually Sharon," he says, in a way that means I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed, and her stomach, which hasn't stopped flipping since he walked in, clenches.

"Yeah." She tightens her grip on the tote handle and offers him a winning smile that feels like a Hail Mary throw across three separate football fields. "I was thinking...how about getting that cup of coffee?"

---

Steve isn't anything like Hill. He's nothing like anyone she's ever known. He has a million questions, and once he's glanced at the drive and read through the note she hands him five times or more, his jaw clenching, he starts launching them at her like a pitching machine that's bound and determined to get through her swing and punch her straight in the gut.

"I don't know where he is," she says, for what feels like the hundredth time. "I don't know why he contacted me."

That's almost a lie, but not quite. But worst by far is when, after an hour or so, he finally stops asking and just slumps back into his chair, staring at the few words on the piece of paper and not even trying to hide the pain and fear and worry and loss that break across his face and don't stop. 

She can't stop herself. Just like in Thessaloniki, she gets the impulse and follows it; leans across the table to take his hand and squeeze it, totally unprepared for how it feels like running face first into a wall when his blue eyes flick up to meet hers and his hand – warm, strong, capable – squeezes hers back without hesitation.

And then he says, simply and with absolute sincerity: "Thank you, Sharon." And something tight in her chest just ruptures.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. 

Damn Bucky Barnes for putting her in this position. Damn him and his secrets and his determination to be alone. Damn Steve Rogers and all his optimism and goodness and warmth. Damn his pretty blue eyes and strong shoulders and gentle hands.

And damn herself, most of all, for getting mixed up in any of this to begin with. And especially for when Steve asks, all uncertain awkward charm, if, if she's staying long enough, she'd like to take a walk in Central Park with him before she heads back out again.

He never needs to know that she changes her flight to be able to say: yes.

Comments

[from_the_outside]

"It's a beautiful night. And if you say the word 'fine' one more time, I'm dangling you off this roof until you talk."

The words might be sharp, but whatever he says, there is worry in her eyes as she sits up, studying him intently as she tries to remember everything that's happened tonight so far.

She comes up empty. She's got nothing.

And that small smile aches just as much as her bruised ribs. "If we're going to keep doing this," she says, finally, "I need to be able to trust you. And I don't think you're telling me the truth."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm not lying to you."

Everything about him shuts down in an instant, withdrawn and wary.

"You'll have to decide for yourself if you can trust me. Most wouldn't."

[from_the_outside]

She's pushed to her knees before she knows it and reached to grab his shoulder, and though she doesn't shake him, it's only through sheer force of will.

"Bucky, stop. I don't think you're lying."

Surely he wouldn't be that stupid, and they've – they've gotten close enough not to have to worry about that, right? "I trust you. But you're not telling me something."

She's searching his face, looking for – who knows what? "Look around. What do you think this is? I care about you."

She doesn't say dummy but it's definitely implied. "And I know I did something wrong, so will you just tell me what it is so I can try to fix it?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Sharon. Please."

It's barely a whisper. He's holding himself perfectly still, save for the faint tremors that are running through him now.

I care about you, she'd said. He can't. He can't.

"You didn't do anything wrong. I swear you didn't. There's nothing for you to fix. Please."

He draws a slow, slightly ragged breath, and offers up part of it.

"You want to know why I wanted you to see that glass art?"

[from_the_outside]

She has either had to much or not nearly enough wine for this. And she needs another bulletproof vest to defend against that barely there Sharon.

Please.

It hits. Center mass. And it's only then that she realizes he's shaking, almost imperceptibly.

She doesn't know what could do that. Facing down a room of HYDRA goons hadn't. Taking apart the chair that was the instrument of his torture hadn't done it either.

But his shoulder is vibrating under her palm and she doesn't know how to make it stop.

"Yes," she says. Or tries to, anyway. It sticks in her throat and comes out as little more than the ghost of a word. "Why?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I don't really remember what it's like to hope for something. But if I did, it would look like that."

He makes himself meet her eyes. It takes incredible effort.

"Something shattered, made new."

[from_the_outside]

Very slowly, she shifts her weight to her left hip, so she's sitting facing him.

Very carefully, she lifts her hand from his shoulder and reaches to cup his jaw instead, both palms warm against his face. If it's so hard for him to look at her, she can help.

Her voice is very quiet. Even so, she can't hear the boisterous noise of the festival below at all; she's too focused on him.

"Is there something you're hoping for now?"

[nerves_of_ice]

It feels as though lightning crackles through his skin from the point where her hands cradle his face, warm and gentle.

He closes his eyes. He can't look at her. He can't do this. He can't.

"No." Still that same whisper, barely a breath of sound. "I don't hope for anything. Not any more."

[from_the_outside]

She has to think.

She's an international intelligence operative. She followed a breadcrumb of clues not even the Avengers or her own country's government could find in order to make contact with this man. She is Sharon Carter, and she can figure this out.

She has to. Because it hurts like she's broken her ribs all over again, just looking at him.

She can do this. It started when she showed him that photo. Immediately after, he'd turned businesslike and they'd begun the initial planning for the next mission. And then...

The glass. His reluctance, how he'd sidled off to the side. Which flips into the way he'd looked at her when she bought the blankets.

How could I be rude to you?

It takes a little doing, going back and forth over it all until she has a clear picture, and even then she's not sure.

What had he said?

It helps. To see him happy.

This is all wrapped up in Steve somehow, she knows it. Steve...and her? And she's beginning to get a glimmer of something that almost looks like, if not understanding, is at least the beginning of a theory.

"Bucky," she says, gently. "I think you got the wrong idea about that photo."

[nerves_of_ice]

He opens his eyes and looks at her, more than a little wary.

He doesn't say anything.

[from_the_outside]

Her hands slide a little, to the sides of his neck, and she worries her lip for a second when she meets his eyes.

"There's not," she starts, "we don't –"

Pause. She feels like she's back in junior high, and if she's wrong about this?

She'll probably just ninja off the roof herself and go on the lam because she's not sure she'd ever be able to face him again without spontaneously combusting with embarrassment. "There isn't a me and Steve. We spent maybe two hours together when I was in New York and most of it was him talking about you. And he doesn't really know me at all. Not even my last name."

She's chewing on her bottom lip; an old stress reaction from decades ago. "But you do."

They've spent, what. A grand total of three days together? But those three days were in a pressure cooker. It feels more like three years.

[nerves_of_ice]

"But he could. Get to know you, I mean." Quiet, so quiet, and steady. This time, his gaze doesn't waver, and neither does his voice. "You could get to know him."

He lifts his right hand and brushes her hair back from her face, then lets it drop, careful not to touch her any further than that.

"You know what I've done. Who I - what I am. Shattered glass. I'm a bad bet, Sharon. Steve's not. He's a good man. The best."

[from_the_outside]

"You're a good man," she insists.

Everything about him right now is so steady and level, and she feels like she's about to fly into a million pieces just at the light touch of his fingers against her hair. Her hands are shaking like dried leaves in the fall.

He's not wrong. There is something with her and Steve – or there could be. In another life, maybe.

Timing is everything. And theirs never seemed to quite match up.

Her smile flickers into and out of existence like a candle that just refuses to go out. "I don't know what's best for me, or him, or you. But I do know that I told you to stop trying to make my decisions for me."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm not making any decisions. For you, or anyone."

He starts to shakes his head, then freezes, so as not to dislodge her hands.

"Just think about it. You didn't see your face when you looked at his picture."

[from_the_outside]

The right thing to do would be to just force him to stop saying stupid things by kissing him until he forgets how to talk at all. She's sure of it. It's definitely the right thing to do, because it's the thing she wants to do most. And it would definitely work; she can see it all play out in her mind's eye.

Wasn't that the whole reason she brought him up here, manipulated a romantic picnic into being? Like this could just be a normal date, like he could be a normal guy, like she could be a normal girl and all that would matter, the only factors she would have to weigh, would be whether or not they both wanted this?

The last thing she wants to do is to take a deep breath and study his face and listen, really listen, to what he's saying.

But if she wants him to know that what she's saying is real, she has to do exactly that. She can't brush past his arguments any more than she'd want him to brush past hers. "Fine."

Goddammit. "I'll think about it."

It's probably a familiar tone, reminiscent of when he'd argued her into taking first aid first and when she'd ordered him to take a bath, but she says it and she means it.

It's harder to lift her hands away from him than it is to say the words, and she gives him a wry smile when she finally manages it.

"Can I at least come sit over there with you? No funny business. Scout's honor."

(Which might be a better, more trustworthy vow if she'd ever been a scout. But he doesn't need to know that.)

[nerves_of_ice]

He's heard that tone in her voice before, and he has to fight to keep his lips from twitching with suppressed laughter - laughter which would half be driven by the wild ride of everything that's just happened, he knows. Or rather, which hasn't happened.

Good, he thinks, and makes himself believe it. She'll take the time to reconsider. She'll get to know Steve. She'll make her choice, and it'll be the right one. Which means it won't be him, as it shouldn't.

(There's a reason he hasn't tried to contact Natasha. She has a life now, while he's a broken shell of a man. What they had once is in the past, and can't be resurrected.)

But tonight, for now, he can do this, and pretend, for just a few minutes, that things could be different.

"Sure," he says, and smiles. "Just don't fall off the roof in the process."

[from_the_outside]

"Please," she says, moving the remains of their dinner to one side and giving him an arch look. "Like you wouldn't go diving off it to save me if I did."

She's a hundred percent certain of it.

But she doesn't go anywhere near the edge of the roof. She scoots herself up to his side, braces one arm behind his back so she can lean into him and carefully, with a long, quiet sigh, lets her head come to rest on his shoulder.

"It really is a nice night," she says, softly, after a long while.

It doesn't matter that her eyes are closed. It's still the nicest night she's seen for a long while.

[nerves_of_ice]

"There's that," he agrees, without even trying to deny it.

She shifts to sit beside him, and he feels his breath catch when he realizes that she's not moving to his right side, not even considering it, as far as he can tell. She nestles her head against his left shoulder, and after a long frozen moment in which he's not entirely sure he's not dreaming, he puts his arm behind her back to support her.

It is a nice night, here in this surreal moment, sitting on a rooftop between heaven and earth.

Eventually, once the sounds of the street festival below have faded, and once his concern that she'll miss the last train back to Berlin becomes too great to ignore, he coaxes her to her feet. It doesn't take them long to pack up the remains of the picnic, or to shake the blankets out and fold them away. He thinks about trying to talk her into keeping both of them, and decides against it. Better to pick his battles.

He climbs down first, and waits for her at the bottom of the scaffolding, then walks beside her back to the train station. It takes some work to avoid the cameras, but he manages; he's had a great deal of practice, after all.

Only once the train pulls out does he fade into the shadows and out of sight.

It's a long way back to Bucharest.