[oom] you don't need to save me, but would you run away with me? // Part 2

[from_the_outside]

It's a long, long week. 

All the weeks here are long. She's been exhausted since she first arrived, and it hasn't gotten any easier – she's just gotten used to it.

What she isn't used to is watching what it does to Bucky.

He keeps busy, vanishing shortly after breakfast and not reappearing until well after dark, sometimes not until close to midnight. That doesn't mean she doesn't have eyes on him – she has eyes everywhere in this city. Some of what he gets up to he tells her about. Some of it she sees or hears about.

Some she only pieces together after the fact.

For example:

Four days into his stay she sees a flurry of alerts and messages about a gang of thugs that had decided to tangle with him in a Lowtown market. The videos of him throwing them into plate glass windows and walls and storefront doors travel through Madripoor like wildfire.

And then there are the rumors. It's public knowledge he killed Cade and that he's been seen with the art dealer: what no one knows is why, and the whispers grow steadily more frenetic as the week rolls on. The general consensus seems to be that the art dealer had Cade disposed of in order to help her own climb to power. More than one person attempts to contract him for help with an unsolvable problem. No one manages to hire him. No one seems to know what he wants.

Worse is that as the power dynamic between those on the lower rung vying for Selby's position fluctuates, he deliberately allows himself to be seen more often, delves more deeply into Madripoor's seedy shadows. She doesn't understand until her security catches a would-be assassin she saw coming a mile away, and then she realizes: his involvement with her, with Cade, has painted a target on her back.

So he's decided to paint a larger one on his own.

He loses weight. She pushes breakfast and dinner at him, but he eats mechanically, hardly seems to notice. The lines drawn on his face seem carved into rock. He stops smiling except occasionally when they're alone in the middle of the night, or when his phone pings with a text from Sam.

On the fifth night, he stops sleeping. 

He wakes up from a nightmare he refuses to talk about, and for the next few days she doesn't see him sleep at all. He's catching catnaps like he used to back in the Winter Soldier days, she thinks, but she's not sure. Every day he's a little quieter, a little more grim.

Which is why it's so strange that her apartment is completely filled with flowers.

Everywhere she looks now, there they are: large, expensive bouquets in fancy vases on nearly every available surface. He's had one delivered every single day, and every day she hates herself a little more for bringing him here. Every day he tells her come home with me.

Every day she tells him I can't. And he looks at her with those determined, weary eyes, and her heart breaks a little more.

It's a little over a week after he'd first arrived that she's hosting clients again. The party hasn't even started, and she already wishes she had a drink.

(There weren't any flowers today. She wonders if that's a sign.)

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

The doctor's gone by now, he knows, as the security chief had mentioned it when he came in. He knocks anyway to give Sharon warning before he opens the door, closing and locking it behind him with his right hand with automatic, thoughtless care.

His left hand is hidden behind his back as he starts into the room. She's lying on the couch, and he crosses toward her with a tired, wry smile.

"Hey," he says, softly, and pulls the bouquet of flowers from behind his back as he draws near. The street vendor had only had a few arrangements, all clearly designed for late-night impulse purchases, but it'd been far, far better than nothing. The bouquet has a few slightly-bruised roses and tulips and some things he doesn't know, with a bunch of greenery around it all, but they're fresh and brightly colored and hopefully the gesture alone will mean something.

"I didn't want you to think I forgot."

[from_the_outside]

She's set the mask and oxygen aside and has just focused on the breathing part, and by the time he comes in and locks the door behind him, she feels like she's pretty much gotten it down. Enough that she can push herself up towards sitting as he comes in, which means that she's precisely the right height to be eye level with the small, slightly sad bouquet he presents.

So she can see it clearly. She sees the crinkled plastic wrap around the stems, the lightly bruised roses, a tulip or two whose petals have simply given up the ghost and fallen off; the baby's breath and green fronds of something she can't identify.

(She sees drops of dried blood on his hand and chunks of shattered glass caught in the rumpled sleeve of his jacket.)

Reaching slowly out, she draws the bouquet into her hands and lifts it to her face to breathe in its scent: the roses are nearly overpowering, and rose has never been her favorite scent anyway, but it doesn't matter.

He brought her flowers.

He's chased her to Madripoor, refused to leave. Killed a man. Sank willingly into the lowest dregs of this filthy world. He hasn't slept or properly eaten for days. He just chased a murderer who tried to kill every damn person in the gallery.

And he brought her flowers, because at his core there is something bright and beautiful and good and she knows, she knows, as her eyes burn and tears begin to drop onto this simple, sweet bouquet, that Madripoor will do its best to smother it.

And she, God help her: she is not willing to sacrifice him. "Okay," she says, finally, after a long, long moment. Her voice is thick and her throat is sore now for a totally different reason. "You win."

She looks up at him, finally, her eyes bright and swimming with tears. "Let's go home."

[nerves_of_ice]

Absolute shock spears through him, rooting him in place, and he stares at her as though he can't believe what he's hearing.

It's because he can't. It's so unexpected, so out of the blue, that he can't take it in; can't absorb it, can't fathom it.

Slowly, Bucky drops to his knees beside the couch, in front of her, and reaches out with his right hand to touch her cheek, feather-soft.

His fingers are trembling.

"Angel," he whispers, throat aching. "Baby, do you mean it?"

[from_the_outside]

Her laughs comes out as a sob, catching in her chest, and she turns her face into his hand to kiss his palm before she looks back at him with wet eyes and a shaky smile. "I mean it," she tells him.

She's known it since he got here, hasn't she? This is the only way to save him. He won't leave. Madripoor is killing him. So she can't stay.

She doesn't know how they'll manage it, how they'll sneak her in, what she'll do about her cover, about Madripoor, about the Power Broker... But the look in his eyes banishes every single thought except one.

They're going home.

"I mean it."

[nerves_of_ice]

He snatches her into his arms and clutches her to him, holding her tight. It's not just his fingers that are trembling now, but his whole body.

"Sharon, Sharon, baby, you won't regret it, I promise you won't, I'll make sure of it--"

Each word is thick and rough with emotion.

[from_the_outside]

He pulls her against him with the force of magnet snapping into place, and she goes without argument, without protest. She only wraps her arms around him, the bouquet still clutched in one hand, and presses her face into his neck as she pushes herself to the edge of the couch cushion so she can hold him as close as she can.

"I know," she tells him, muffled into his skin and his collar, and the tears are flowing fast and thick now, even as something in her chest cracks and turns over and begins to warm itself for the first time in six years. She laughs thickly and lifts her head to look at him, stroking his face with her free hand. "I could never regret choosing to be with you. My sweetheart."

She smiles at him, soft and aching. "I love you. Let's go home."

[nerves_of_ice]

Her tears are hot against his neck, and he cradles her closer still, as close as he can like this.

"Don't cry, baby, Sharon, please--" He realizes he's on the verge of tears himself, and chokes back a laugh as he leans in to kiss her. "I love you too. Oh god, I love you so much. We're going home. I'm taking you home."

[from_the_outside]

She hiccups another laugh and kisses him back before she has to pull away and wipe at her face and her nose with her sleeve. "It's okay," she assures him. "It's because I'm so happy."

Happy. When was the last time she was happy. She thinks of wide fields and a calm lake and a little hut full of the scent of fresh-brewed coffee.

And him. Always him.

It's like she hit a switch and that beautiful, good, golden core of him suddenly expansed like a dying star, flooded through him like a spotlight. She can hardly look at him now, he's shining so brightly.

God, she loves him so much she thinks her heart will break from it. "Yes, we are. Yes, you are."

She runs a fond thumb over his cheek. "We have to figure out how and what to do, but yes, baby. Yes. We're going home."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Yes," he whispers, as he leans into her touch, then leans in to kiss her. "We'll figure it out. We'll figure it all out."

He smiles, sudden and heartstoppingly bright, and repeats the plea he's been making all this time, just to hear her say it again - just to be sure it's not a dream.

"Come home with me, Sharon."

[from_the_outside]

Her heart wants to break all over again at that smile, at the brilliance and beauty of it. She's still clutching the bouquet; it rustles when she finally puts it down so she can cradle his face in both hands and lean in to kiss him.

"Yes," she whispers when she pulls away again. She can't stop her own smile from shining out like the sun. "Okay. I'll come home with you."

[nerves_of_ice]

He brushes her hair back, smoothing it behind her ear, and draws his fingers gently along the line of her jaw as he searches her face, as he takes in the look in her eyes, the way she's smiling.

She looks happy. Exhausted, a little frazzled by the strain of the night and her near death, but happy, and some of the weight he's been carrying this whole week lightens at the sight.

He leans in to kiss her again, then puts his left hand on the arm of the couch as he starts to shift up to sit beside her - and notices the splash of Anders' blood on his left wrist as he reaches to brace himself. Bucky grimaces at his left hand and tucks it quickly behind his back, then touches her cheek with his right hand instead.

[from_the_outside]

She wipes at her eyes and nose again as he shifts up, glancing at the way he hides his hand from her. "Here," she says, tugging at his left elbow, coaxing him to give her his hand. There's a scrap of silk on the glass table; she takes it and holds his left hand gently in hers, rubs at the dried blood with the silk held in her right.

As she cleans, her mind works at this new problem. How do they leave, how does she escape, without the hounds of Madripoor baying at her heels?

She has a kernel of an idea. She lifts his hand to breathe on it, uses the vapor to polish up the cleaned spot as she lets it turn over in her head.

[nerves_of_ice]

He stays kneeling in front of her, immobilized by the sight, by the care she's taking with him.

He doesn't say anything. He's not sure he could speak if he tried. He just watches, his eyes wide and dark.

[from_the_outside]

Once the blood is gone and the vibranium gleams dark and glossy again, she lifts his hand up and presses a kiss to it before meeting his eyes, a small smile in hers.

"There," she says, and strokes the back of his hand with her thumb, her fingers curled under his. "All better."

[nerves_of_ice]

He squeezes her fingers and raises her hand so that he can kiss her palm. His eyes close as he does.

[from_the_outside]

She strokes his cheek with her thumb and smiles again. It's a little more complicated this time, but just as sweet as before.

"I have an idea," she tells him. "About how to get away. But I don't think you're going to like it very much."

[nerves_of_ice]

He stills under her touch as the impact of her words lands and sinks in. Warily, Bucky opens his eyes and looks at her.

"What is it?"

[from_the_outside]

The look she gives him back is rueful and sympathetic.

"It'll mean faking my death again," she tells him, and then adds, wry,

"And you'll probably get blamed for it."

[nerves_of_ice]

The blow lands, sharp and unexpected.



"Me?"

[from_the_outside]

She squeezes his hand, hoping he can feel enough of it through the haptic sensors that it will be some comfort. "If I 'die,'" she says, "and you disappear, that's the most likely scenario. At least, as far as Madripoor knows."

Tugging lightly on his hand, she shifts so there's room for him to join her on the couch. She still feels light-headed and her chest hurts, but her thoughts are clear and a plan is beginning to lay itself out before her. "Come here, let me explain."

[nerves_of_ice]

He allows himself to be drawn up to sit beside her and puts his arm around her, gently, supporting her and holding her close.

"Okay," he says, on a long, weary sigh. "Tell me."

[from_the_outside]

"I know," she says, and reaches up to stroke his temple. "I'm sorry."

Once he's settled, she turns, letting one leg curl up into his lap so she can face him. "If we're going to get out of here without a host of bounty hunters on our tail," she tells him, "we need a clean break. Anders is with Mateo, right?"

She hardly waits for his acknowledgment before pushing onward, thoughts piling up almost faster than she can speak them. "I'll fire the security team for allowing the attack and hole up here. At the same time, I'll suggest to Mateo that I was the mastermind behind this attack, not Anders. I invited all my competitors to one place and set Anders up."

She watches him closely. "We'll set a bomb in the penthouse. I'll die in the blast, you'll disappear. Madripoor will think that you've been keeping an eye on me all along, maybe for the Power Broker, maybe for Mateo. That you won my trust and convinced me to fire the security team – after all, you've been dismissive of them since you got here. And that once my guard was down, you struck."

A thought hits her, and she almost smiles. "And you'd take the Danish egg on your way out, of course. As reparations."

She sits back, spreads her hands. "That gets rid of the art dealer, gives you a way to disappear and never come back, and still lets me operate as the Power Broker even outside of Madripoor."

[nerves_of_ice]

He listens in silence, doing his best to keep his expression from letting anything show, forcing himself to consider the plan she's presenting with ruthless practicality.

"Why tell Mateo you were the mastermind?" he asks. "To get him gunning for you?"

[from_the_outside]

"I won't," she tells him. "Not directly. I'll let something slip to the security team when I fire them; they'll talk and the rumor will spread. I'll nudge it along as the Power Broker, suggest that maybe Anders was in league with me. If he's still alive, he'll turn on me in a second, trying to keep himself that way. If he isn't..."

She shrugs. No great loss there. "All we need is enough of a rumor that it wouldn't be strange for someone to take me out. Especially if the Power Broker gets pissed that I almost killed his favorite."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Not 'someone.' Me."

There's something odd - something taut and edged with darkness -in his voice for a moment before he gets it back under control, cool and neutral and even.

"And with the conversation I had with Lin Chao earlier - if anyone remembers it after all this - people will believe the Winter Soldier reclaimed the Russian treasure as payment. Easily."