[oom] I'm right here beside you

[from_the_outside]

 Sleep is a joke.

It's not just the intel that she stays up sifting through, blue light straining her eyes; it's not just the coffee she drinks, trying to keep her brain sharp and her thoughts on track. 

It's time.

Minutes that slip away, that she can't get back. Hours that tick ponderously past. She lies alone in her bed and can't close her eyes because if she does, if she sleeps, it's another night gone, another night closer to the day Bucky goes back under and –

So she stays up and works. 

It means that when she waits for him in the morning to come find her before they meet with T'Challa and the others, her skin is pale and translucent and she has that sick feeling of an all-nighter, fatigue poisons running rampant through her bloodstream – but she has a list of observations from her analysis, and two mugs of coffee kept warm on the credenza: one pale with milk and sugar, the other black and as strong as her little coffee maker could handle.

Comments

[from_the_outside]

She smiles despite herself, and nods.

"Then we will all see each other again tomorrow," T'Challa says. "We will meet here again at the same time. In the meantime, I must think on what we might be willing to give...and what we are not."

He clasps his hands behind his back and nods to Sharon and Bucky, then gestures to Nakia and walks with her through the door, followed by Okoye.

Sharon waits until the door closes behind them before she grabs the chair she'd used before and sits down like someone cut her strings. "Fury," she says, half to herself. "What the hell are you playing at?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Want to know what I think?" He doesn't wait for an answer before crouching down on his heels beside her chair. "Remember when you were wondering why he hadn't contacted you, after D.C.?"

[from_the_outside]

She half turns to look at him, resting her arm on the back of the chair.

"Sure."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I think he didn't want to ask you to choose between working with him or working for Ross," he says, simply. "He didn't want to ask you to compromise your ethics. But now...."

Some of the icy blankness to his manner has faded as he says this, replaced by cool assessment.

"You're a hell of a good operative, Agent 13. Fury's not stupid. He's a lot of things, but never that."

[from_the_outside]

"Now? Now I'm compromised. And he can use that."

Maybe not her ethics. There are still some lines she won't cross.

(She thinks.)

She rests her head on her palm, looking at him with solemn eyes. "So much for bringing him up to T'Challa as an option, huh?"

As usual, Fury's two steps ahead. At least.

[nerves_of_ice]

"He can try. But you know what he's doing. In a weird way I guess that makes it a level playing field. As much of one as you get with him."

Bucky shakes his head. "He didn't have to show his hand by calling you directly. He could have strung it along, fed intel back, that kind of thing. He wanted you to know he's out there, and that he wants to work with you."

[from_the_outside]

"That's what worries me. He's not going to call me for help moving furniture."

She reaches across to shut her laptop, her hand lingering on the cover.

There's no such thing as a level playing field with Nick Fury. She's worked with him too long not to know it.

She huffs a wry breath of a laugh. "And this is him trying to be helpful."

[nerves_of_ice]

That momentary softening is gone as though it never existed.

"That worries me too." Bucky meets her eyes. "You're not trading yourself to him, Sharon. It's not worth that. We'll find another way."

[from_the_outside]

"You're right. I know you're right. I just..."

Belatedly, she realizes she's trembling, just slightly, from the force of this – this –

What is this, anger? Fear? It's been prickling under her skin since Bucky said if he knows you're sheltering the Winter Soldier, since he said extradition and she knew she'd do anything, anything at all to stop that from happening. She flexes her hand into and out of a fist, takes a deep breath. "Yes. We will."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Hey."

She's shivering, he realizes. He brushes his hand over her hair, then covers her hand with his own and squeezes, gently.

"Sharon. It's okay. It'll be okay."

[from_the_outside]

Damn, she really could have used some sleep last night. She gives him a slightly tight smile and turns her hand to squeeze his back. "Yeah."

Their notes are still on the table; she starts collecting them back into a pile. "Want another cup of coffee?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Sure," he says. He rises to his feet and waits for her.

[from_the_outside]

She gives him another half-curve of a smile and stands to pick up the laptop and notes, then heads for the door and back in the direction of her room.

"At least we got somewhere," she says, after a moment. "Hopefully Okoye's operatives will find some evidence at the previous sites."

[nerves_of_ice]

He follows her down the hallway, staying to her left as they walk. "It's progress," he agrees.

"We'll have more tomorrow, then again in a few days."

And then a couple of days after that he'll go back on ice, unless something changes. No need to worry about that now, though.

[from_the_outside]

"Right."

Tomorrow. Five days. Two weeks.

And in the middle of all that, he goes under. By the time he wakes back up, with any luck, it'll be over. Best case scenario.

(She tries not to think of how often the best case actually comes to pass.)

Back at her door, she lets them both in and puts the laptop and notes down before heading back to the little coffee maker. "We should let Steve know if Fury's getting involved," she says, watching her hands measure out the coffee. "Especially if he's going to wind out finding out about you."

Or confirming his intel. Either way.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Let Natasha manage that," he says, quietly, watching her. "Since she's the one who gave him your details to begin with."

[from_the_outside]

Who he is. To us. To me.

She grabs the pitcher and heads to the bathroom to fill it with water, glancing at him over her shoulder as she goes. "Did you tell him you're going back under?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He goes very still, all the way down to the bone.

"No." Silence hangs in the air between them for a moment. "We were talking about other things."

[from_the_outside]

She disappears into the bathroom without comment and runs the tap into the pitcher, steadfastly not looking at herself in the mirror as she does. That prickly feeling hasn't gone away; if anything, it's getting worse.

But he's not the one to take it out on. She glances at him as she comes back into the main room, before she pours the water into the coffee maker, sets the mug he'd used earlier underneath the percolator, and hits the button. "Next time you talk to him, then?" she asks.

It'll be soon. Steve will want to check in with them on this operation regardless.

[nerves_of_ice]

"We'll see," he says, a little cautiously. He's watching her more warily than before. "He knows what Shuri was planning. We talked about it before I went under the first time."

A beat of silence.

"Why?"

[from_the_outside]

She shrugs, shakes her head. "I just think he'd want to know. Be here when you come back out of it."

Which Bucky knows, of course. There's not a snowflake's chance in hell that Steve Rogers would miss this.

Turning around to lean back against the credenza as the coffee percolates, she folds her arms and gives him a faint quirk of a smile. "What've you got planned for the rest of the day?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He regards her steadily.

"Sharon."

[from_the_outside]

Her mouth presses and her arms tighten, just slightly, across her body as she meets that level gaze of his, but the coffee maker gurgles and beeps and she lifts her eyebrows as if to say saved by the bell and turns to take the mug, setting her own back under the percolator and hitting the button again. "What?"

She takes the few steps necessary to pass him the mug. "It's not a hard question. I'm going to guess...something with the goats. Or clearing more brush."

[nerves_of_ice]

He sets the mug aside on the nearest stable surface and reaches to put his fingers under her chin, tipping her face up as he meets her eyes.

Bucky doesn't say anything else, but waits, patiently.

[from_the_outside]

The thing is, she can't hold his gaze for long, because when she meets those steady, smoke-blue eyes of his, that thing starts clawing at her stomach and whispering in her ear again, saying there's no time, saying you can't let them get to him, not again, and she has to look away, down and to the side.

"Yeah," she admits. It's more of a sigh than a word. "I know. I'm trying too hard, huh?"