Chapter Text
It was a bad night for everyone.
Sam Wilson stared up at his ceiling in DC, listening hard for creaks or footsteps in his hall, but all he heard was, at half past midnight, a low, agonized whimper from the guest room next door.
Steve Rogers tossed and turned, lost in dreams of falling. Helpless, he watched in terror as Sam plummeted to the ground, Bucky dropped through icy mountains, as Peggy (or was it Natasha?) toppled over backwards, pale hands staining red with the blood they were trying to hold into their stomachs-
Bruce stumbled into his room at midnight to find Natasha curled around his pillow, eyes empty and tired. He wrapped her up in his arms without a word, holding her until she fell into an uneasy sleep, muttering in Russian through her dreams.
Clint was awake, his wife asleep on his chest, as he watched the baby monitor on his nightstand and brooded over memories of his own mind being stolen from him.
Tony writhed his way through dreams of a ringing phone and screeching tires and Barnes's face, lit up by the headlights.
Pietro ran frantic circles around the track, so fast that to the passerby, he was all but invisible. Rhodey watched him, though Pietro did not know it. Rhodey had seen enough self-destructive assholes slamming their fists against concrete walls to know the signs, and to keep watch.
Wanda's dreams were the strangest of all, lying still and peaceful under the covers as outside the window Vision hovered in midair and counted stars.
She wandered a dark hall, through which half lit figures passed her by without seeing. One's eyes glowed bright, clear, and they met hers for a moment, narrowing in suspicion – but she was already gone, moved halfway down the hall. A large wooden door stood in front of her. She raised a hand to open it and it slid through as easily as Vision's would. The rest of her followed.
“You don't belong here.”
It was another dark room, too dark to see anything but the pale, thin face of the person who spoke to her. He was bright and clear, unlike the others, dark-haired and bony and dressed in a robe of simple green.
“No,” Wanda said. “I don't think I do.”
He paced around her, eyes scanning her calculatedly. She took the opportunity to do the same.
“Never speak first,” Natasha had told her. “You corrupt the evidence that way. Let them ask the questions, and you'd be surprised what you can learn.”
“You don't know how you got here, do you?” he said finally. Wanda gazed steadily at him.
“Do you?”
“I can guess.” He waved a hand, green light blazing behind it. “You have magic.”
“I have neural-electric interfacing and telekinesis.”
“Bah.” He swept away haughtily. “You have magic. What you don't have is control.”
Wanda followed him. “How can you tell?”
“Because you're here.” He reached a giant chair, a throne, really, and draped himself over it. It was a regal seat, but it seemed to dwarf him rather than lend him its authority. “You allowed yourself to be swept up into the currents of my mind.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I was meditating and you rudely interrupted.” He sighed and leaned forward. “What is your name, child?”
She hesitated before answering. “I am called – the Scarlet Witch.”
He scoffed. “Well. That's pretentious.”
She glared at him. “And you? What are you called?”
“The Scarlet Witch, you say? You can call me... the Emerald Trickster.”
“That's a ridiculous name.”
“So is Scarlet Witch for a girl who won't even call her powers magic.”
“Fine,” she said. “It's magic.” She stepped a little closer, unable to resist. “You understand it?”
“Of course I understand it. You ask too many questions.”
“Tell me about it. How to control it.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Why should I?”
“Because no one else ever taught me.”
He stared down from his throne, eyes studying her. “How did you come by this power?”
She shrugged. “A man in a suit came to my brother and I. He offered us a chance to make a difference. Give us powers.”
“And you took it?”
“We were orphans who had spent years on the streets, fighting for every scrap we could get. Of course we took it. He was giving us a chance to be the ones in power.” She looked up at him. “Do you know what its like to live your whole life in shadow and suddenly be offered control of the light?”
He nodded slowly, a deep sadness in his eyes. “More than you know.”
“Then you can understand,” she said. “Why we took it.”
“But the power wasn't what you thought.”
“They understood it even less than I.” She stepped closer to the throne once more. “Teach me.”
“I can't teach you,” he said.
“You're the only one I've ever met who understands it.”
“I can't teach you,” he insisted. “I'm poison. You'd be better off the way you are now?”
“Really?” she snapped, viciously. “Because I can not control any of it. I feel everything, all the time. Nothing is ever quiet anymore. I feel every hurt, every pain from my friends. I've hurt people, when I can't control it. And I- I felt my brother die!” She was crying now. She sat helplessly on the cold stone floor. “I asked for these powers, I volunteered out of vanity and pride. A belief that I could help my country defeat what I thought were its evils. And instead I signed its death warrant!” She sobbed. “I lost my brother. I lost the only thing I ever cared for and now that he's back – now he's back and I can't even trust my powers to save him!”
The room was silent except for her sobs.
“I, too, lost a brother,” the trickster said softly. “It was pain worse than death, to know that I was the cause.”
“We suffered so much,” Wanda said. “I have to make it worth something. Or at least – I have to make it end.”
There was a long pause.
“Lesson number one,” the trickster said. “You will never block it all out.”
Pietro tore into the kitchen dripping with sweat and kicking up a breeze that gusted the papers on the fridge when he stopped in front of it, yanking it open to find a beer.
“Top shelf,” a low voice said from the shadows.
Pietro cursed low and long in Romanian, turning to see Steve sitting at the table with a bottle open in front of him.
“I think you're lucky I don't speak Romanian,” Steve said dryly.
Pietro grabbed a beer and sat opposite him. “I thought you couldn't get drunk.”
Steve shrugged. “I spiked it with Thor's mead.”
Pietro nodded. “Can I have some?”
Steve passed over the flask.
“I thought you were asleep,” Pietro said after a long sip.
“I woke up,” Steve said flatly. “Why are you awake?”
Pietro shrugged. “Bad night.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“No.”
They drank more in stoic silence.
“Was it a nightmare?” Pietro said, finally. “That woke you?”
Steve nodded, staring off into his bottle. “Bucky. Always Bucky.” He sighed. “I've been having nightmares about him since I found him on that operating table in nineteen forty three.”
“I hear Wanda,” Pietro said. Steve looked up at him, surprised. “We were kept in cells. In Hydra.” Pietro spun his bottle around his finger. “Steel walls, with concrete over them. I couldn't see her. But I could hear her. Screaming.” A false, hollow smile crossed his face, a mask slid over the pain behind his eyes. “I ran myself into the wall until they had to restrain me, trying to get to her.”
“That's what you dream about?” Steve said.
“Not if I'm tired enough,” Pietro said. “So I run. I run until my feet ache and I'm about to collapse, and then I don't hear my sister's voice when I put my head down on the pillow.” He looked up at Steve. “What about you? What are your dreams?”
Steve shrugged. “Usually they're him. Falling. Other people are there too, Sam, Nat. I can never save them. He always falls off the train. And I'm left there. Hanging onto that beam.”
“That's awful,” Pietro said.
Steve stood, carried his bottle over to the recycling and chucked it in. “They're better than the ones when I'm falling.”
“Why is that?”
His eyes were clear and tortured as he looked back at Pietro. “When I fall? Bucky jumps.”
Sam woke up at five.
At least he thought he woke up. The night had blended together into a steady stream of blankness, making it almost impossible to tell the difference between dozing and lying in the dark with his eyes closed.
He got up and headed to the kitchen. There was nothing in the fridge except a bottle of orange juice, which Sam threw out with a sigh. He looked out the window to see his neighbor's lights on.
He picked up his phone and dialed her number.
“Hey, Elaine? The lights were on. I didn't wake you, did I?”
Her voice was warm over the line. “Of course not, dear. I'm an early bird. When did you get back from your bigshot superhero job?”
“Just yesterday, actually.” He closed the refrigerator with a sigh. “Listen, I need a favor.”
“Of course.”
“Can I borrow some eggs? Probably like a whole carton. And bread, too, maybe?”
“No food in the house?”
“Not a crumb.”
“Sure thing, sweetheart. I'll bring you some bacon, too.”
“Aw, Elaine-”
“It's my pleasure, dear.”
“You take good care of me.” His gaze fell on the closed door to his guest bedroom. “Hey, Elaine – do you still have that book Janice wrote about the Howling Commandos? 107 or whatever?”
“Doing some research on your boyfriend?” the old woman asked, amused.
“No, not like that. I've got a – friend, over who might like to read it.”
“Sure thing, dear. I'll bring that all over.”
“You're the best, Elaine.”
He steeled himself and then knocked on Bucky's door.
A grunt came out. Sam decided that was as close to an invitation as he was likely to get and pushed open the door.
“Hey,” he said, letting himself in. “Did you, I don't know, sleep well?”
Barnes raised his eyebrows skeptically from where he sat on the bed, fully dressed as though he hadn't even taken his clothes off to sleep. Maybe he hadn't.
“We need to get you some new clothes, at some point,” Sam said. “And probably a haircut. Or at least some shampoo.”
Barnes said nothing. Sam sighed. “Hey, I know. How bout a nice, warm shower, huh? I'll make breakfast.”
Bucky nodded slowly and rose. “Bathroom's right down the hall,” Sam said as Bucky passed him blankly. Sam waited until he heard the shower running to step into the hall himself.
The doorbell rang.
“Elaine,” he called, jogging to the front of the house, “you are a lifesaver.”
He pulled open the door and smiled down at the tiny dark-skinned woman in front of him. A cloud of gray hair and thick glasses gave her a stereotypically grandmotherly look, with the beaming grin to go with it.
“Now, Sam, I know you're busy,” she said, kissing him on both cheeks as he took the bags from her, “but three months without stopping back home? Oh, let me cook it, dear, a welcome present. You look exhausted. Pass me a frying pan?”
She began whirling through his kitchen, cracking eggs and frying bacon.
“Here's the book you wanted, by the way,” she said, dropping it into his hands. “Did you bring you-know-who?”
Sam smiled. “No, Steve's still in New York. How's Janice?”
“Still sleeping. Laziest woman alive, I always say. But still. I married her, I suppose I can't complain.”
“You know it's only five thirty, right? I think you can probably cut her some slack.”
“Pft. The sun's up, so why shouldn't I be? And you're up. And so's this young man.”
Sam whirled around in panic to see a dark figure standing in the doorway, slightly hunched, with his face hidden in shadow, but there could be no mistaking the gleam of silver beneath one sleeve.
“Hi there,” Elaine said chipperly, blithely unaware of Sam's distress. “You must be Sam's friend.”
There was a slight pause which to Sam felt like an eternity as he moved to stand between Elaine and Barnes as fast as he could, watching the other man's face stiffen with surprise and fear and then-
“Yes ma'am,” Bucky said quietly. “I'm... James.”
Elaine didn't seem to catch Bucky's slight hesitation over his name or the shock on Sam's face. “Well, you just sit yourself down and breakfast will be with you in a moment. Sam, dear? A word?”
He stepped over to her by the stove. “Is there anything untoward occurring here?” Elaine murmured, pushing the eggs around the pan.
“Elaine – of course not!”
“Good,” she said sternly. “Although I have to say. I thought you'd hit the pinnacle of manhood with Steven, but James there might give him a run for his money.” She winked. “If I played for that team...”
“I think we're all glad you don't,” Sam said, holding out a plate for her to scoop the eggs onto.
They sat down at the kitchen counter and dug in. In the warm glow of the kitchen, Bucky looked almost normal – a little gaunt, a little stubbly, but clean and slightly less – empty. He dug into breakfast with gusto, eating like a starving man, eyes locked on his plate.
“So,” Elaine said. “Sam tells me you're interested in the Howling Commandos?”
Bucky looked between her and Sam nervously, swallowing hard. “That's- that's right, ma'am.”
Elaine smiled. “Such nice manners. Well, dear, I brought over a book – gave it to Sam, right? - it'll tell you everything you want to know. My wife wrote it, you know. She was always a history buff. Grew up hearing stories about Captain America and the 107th from her uncle. She was so excited when they found him, and then Sam here brought him home for dinner – I swear, she nearly exploded with excitement.”
“I'll bet,” Bucky said, something like a smile playing along the corners of his mouth.
“Her uncle was Dum-Dum Dugan himself, you know,” Elaine said proudly. Bucky nearly spit out his eggs.
“Dugan had a niece?”
“Yes, and their families were very close. She even met Peggy Carter once. She was visiting her uncle when this commanding brunette woman barges in the door and starts berating him for something – really laying into him – and then she notices Janice and she just says-” Elaine paused, preparing herself for the punchline, “”Never, ever trust a man to do anything. Especially not this one.” And then she just walked out!”
Bucky really was smiling now. “That sure does sound like Carter.”
“Of course, Janice took that advice to heart,” Elaine said with a chuckle. “Do you want more eggs, dear? You look as though you're starving.”
“Yes, please,” Bucky said cheerfully. Sam could only lean back in his seat and marvel.
They ushered Elaine out an hour later with promises that they'd stop by for some cake sometime soon. As soon as the door was closed Sam turned to Bucky with a stare.
“Who the hell was that?” he said, shocked.
Bucky shrugged. “I don't know.” Then he smiled again, slightly crookedly, sending a trill through Sam's stomach. “I guess it was James.”