Work Text:
Title: Ghost Love Story.
Author: Nemesi.
Beta: self-betaed 'cuz i couldn't resist posting it
Fandom: Captain America.
Continuity: MCU. Alternate First Avengers/The Winter Soldier.
Genre: Angst. Action. Romance.
Word Count: Almost 7000.
Characters: Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, the Howling Commandos, Peggy Carter.
Pairings: Steve/Bucky.
Rating: R.
Disclaimer: Marvel owns my soul, and also all the characters and themes herein portrayed. I'm putting everything back inside Marvel's sandbox as soon as I'm done playing with their toys.
Warnings/Notes:Temporary/assumed character death. It's canon. Please bear through it with me. You probably can already imagine who is it, and how I'm making it better. It does say happy ending on the tin.
Canon-typical violence means mostly fights and explosions.
The body horror tag is there because Bucky’s severed arm makes an appearance in segment “4”. That’s the worst of it.
Horror elements/Horror novel sort of language. Blood. Gore. The fic itself is written evocatively, but is not very graphic. A bit more detailed is Cap’s “death” in the Valkyrie (segment “12”). There also *is* blood and vomit mentioned here and there.
So please, please, please proceed with caution!
And feel free to message me if you have questions you want answered before you decide whether you want to read or not. =D
Notes #2: I solemnly promise you all FLUFF in my next fic. PURE FLUFF.
Note #3: Please excuse my poor attempts at German and French. *collapses spread-eagle*
Summary: Steve Rogers wasn’t a fool.
When he heard that the 107th infantry had been decimated at Azzano, the few stragglers captured and brought in by the Germans in one of their camps, he knew - he knew - that the chances to find Bucky alive where next to none.
Steve Rogers was also, regretfully, a damn fool .
Armed with nothing but his own loyal heart, stubborn courage, a leather jacket, a crooked helmet and a stage prop, he launched himself over enemy lines and single-handedly liberated a factory, rescuing more than 400 men.
But not Bucky.
Not.
Bucky.
And then the man called "The Ghost", HYDRA's own champion, appeared.
* * * * *
My fall will be for you
My love will be in you
You were the one to cut me
So I’ll bleed forever
Nightwish - Ghost Love Score
1 - Now
When Captain America first opens his eyes in the 21st century, he searches for blue, blue eyes looking back at him.
For a warm weight against his chest.
Full lips, quirked in a smile.
Pale fingers, threaded with his own.
He finds nothing.
He screams.
2 - Then
The scream ripped through the air - a veritable howl , more animal than human. Doctor Zola stumbled and crashed against the wall, chest seizing with terror.
From the depths of the black corridor behind him, more sounds emerged - the howl soared, trembling at its peak, cut off and then started anew with renewed power, ringing across his skull, a mournful wailing, bloodcurdling in its intensity.
And then, rearing their heads along that awful sound there were a cacophony of jumbled noises - things much too heavy to be lifted being hurled, slamming and banging; small metal pieces pummeling against the floor tiles like ice welting the ground during a thunderstorm. The sound of impossible things tearing open, like the screech of ripped metal; glass shrieking and shattering, shards falling, sparks flying, walls being hit and hit and hit and hit and then exploding , under the pressure; the heavy thumps of debris battering down, and still, and still, over and above it all --
That howl .
That roaring, ripping sound of pure sorrow; spreading in the dark like wings and hitting with the force of an ice-storm, frozen globules pummeling your flesh until your livid, swollen chest constricted and drowned you in your own terror.
Doctor Zola stumbled back up to his feet, wiped the icy sweat off his forehead, scurried away just as the man with the shield and helmet came careening after him, eyes blown and blazing like a hound’s, mouth wide and still issuing that pained, frightful howl .
Doctor Zola wasn’t conscious of how he reached his master’s side, only that all of sudden, a flash of red pierced through his craze of terror, and he was safe, somehow, on the other side of a chasm from the thrashing, howling american soldier.
The words the soldier was screaming weren’t words at all, more like fragments, wrangled together into something that made sense only at times, sounds and names and places and threats , horrifying threats.
He ripped tight at the railing in front of him, and the metal bent like paper, tore, was crumpled and thrown at Zola and at the Red Skull across the distance. It sunk deep in the opposite wall with a resounding clang, as if that too was made of nothing but cardboard.
Doctor Zola signed himself with a shaking hand, muttered a prayer against the demon howling at him from the opposite catwalk, and took off scurrying after Red Skull when he gave the signal.
Behind them, below and around them, the factory exploded and burned into a sweltering inferno.
And still the American Captain howled .
3 - Now
"Bucky!” he calls, jackknifing up on the bed, reaching hands held out imploringly. “BUCKY! WHERE’S BUCKY?! BUCKY! ”
The strange woman who’d run inside the room at the sound of the Captain’s voice backs away from him, shivering like a scared bunny. Her perfectly coiffed curls bounce against her shoulders. Her mouth is a slash of red. Red like blood.
Steve sprints up, runs straight at the wall, arms held up to protect his head. The wall disintegrates under pressure. He lands in a crouch on the other side, pieces of cardboard and plaster clinging to his hair. Silence rings in his ears, loud and painful.
He looks up, eyes wide, and takes off running.
4 - Then
Steve became aware of his surroundings when a meaty hand clasped his shoulder, shaking him out of his stupor.
What little remained of the German factory was going up in smoke behind him. Towering flames licked restlessly at the sky, brightening the night sky into a bright orange, like fake daylight. Around him, men milled round and about, some cheering and shouting, some crying. Some vomiting in the bushes, some moaning in pain. The stench in the air was suffocating.
“...sorry,” the man clasping Steve’s shoulder was saying. In his daze, Steve caught only fragments of what the man was saying. But he kept repeating “sorry” every now and then, like a mantra. Sorry, sorry, sorrysorrysorry. But also: “good man”, “knew him”, “walking pneumonia”, “saved my life”, “volunteered”, “very brave”, “poor kid”, “will be missed”, “we understand”.
And then, after a long stretch of silence:
“You might want to let go, son.”
Steve was too stunned to comprehend. His head lolled back on his neck, and he glanced around. He was sitting somewhere damp. Chills ran up his spine. His legs felt as substantial as the pulp of rotten fruit. His throat hurt. He squinted at the man towering over him, eyes scanning over his rust-coloured moustache, the wet eyes, the grim face; but not taking any of it in.
“...what?”
The man had an incongruous bowler hat tilted at an angle across his brow. It bobbed slightly as he nodded down at Steve, gesturing at something Steve kept on his lap.
“We understand how you feel, son,” the man promised in a soft voice. “But you might want to let that go.”
Steve looked down.
A sticky layer of some disgusting mixture of sweat, fuel, tears and blood covered him whole. Dark sooth clung to the angles of his face, covered his hands in powdery gloves, had turned his clothes into the colour of a mourning shroud.
He had a chain curled round and round his wrist, a pair of dog tags laying against his pulse point, thudding along with it. He had a singed piece of cloth in his palm, the sad remains of a once-green uniform.
Pale, pale fingers were threaded with his other hand.
Pale fingers.
A bony, pianist’s wrist.
A hairy forearm, with that strange, star-shaped scar from a whiskey bottle that Steve could draw for memory since age 13.
The delicate, oddly pale inside of an elbow, soft like warm bread.
A corded, shapely bicep.
The round, smooth ball of a sun-kissed shoulder.
And nothing else.
With a whimper like a wounded dog’s, Steve pushed the stranger aside, threw himself at some bushes, retching up mouthfuls of acid and bile. His whole body hurt. He couldn’t breathe for the pain. He shook. It felt like he was throwing out the smashed remains of his own burning heart out of his mouth. Snot and tears streamed down his face.
He trashed and fought when strong arms tried to soothe him, to hold him down. Someone was saying “we know, we know”, several voices at once, like a choir. “We liked him too”, the voices said. “We owe him”. “He saved us”. “Poor Jimmy Boy”.
Steve had been screaming again, and he didn’t realize it until he stopped, and the ringing silence hurt his ears as bad as the explosions beforehand.
“Bucky,” Steve whispered through the burning in his throat. “Bucky. His name was… is… Bucky. ”
“Bucky Barnes,” the moustached man echoed back. “Our Sarge. ”
“Bucky,” another echoed, starting a murmur that threaded itself around Steve like a chain.
“Bucky.”
“Bucky.”
“Bucky.”
Tremblingly, Steve lifted himself up on his knees, wiping acid off his mouth.
“Bucky,” he answered. Five men stood around him in a circle, faces dirty but determined in the blood-red light.
Steve accepted the hand that reached down to clasp his own. Didn’t flinch when more hands settled on his shoulders, his arm. Consoling him. Holding him up. Giving him strength.
“I’m going after them,” he swore lowly, reveling in the fierce burn the idea of vengeance brought to his chest. “And I’m not gonna stop until all of them are dead and gone.”
He received nothing but nods in return, but they felt as sacred as an oath.
5 - Now
His bare feet pound the pavement at a speed no normal man could ever hope to achieve. His lungs barely register the strain.
The building he finds himself in reminds him of the inside of the Valkyrie: metal and glass surround him from everywhere, smooth and polished into mirror-like surfaces, sterile and alien. So cold. He almost expects to see his own breath fog right out of his mouth. To see ice crawl up out of the corner of his eyes.
People, soldiers, start running after him, ambushing him from behind corners and along wide, high-ceilinged halls.
He keeps running.
Out of the building.
Across the street.
All he hears is silence.
Inside, he’s still screaming.
6 - Then
He became the perfect weapon.
“Captain America”, they called him in the reels, in the propaganda posters, the comics. America’s sweetheart. Her brave soldier-boy.
Every piece of carefully crafted information that went overseas painted him as the perfect soldier. Not just that. A good man . As pious as he was brave. A smiling, shining example of perfection.
But amongst the Germans, he was known as Dämon der Schlachtfeld. For them, he wasn’t the rosy-cheeked, fresh faced comic-book hero they sold him as back in the USA. He was destruction personified.
When Captain America and his Howling Commandos moved, the earth trembled. The Captain’s steps sent ripples expanding around him, ever-growing rings of destruction and fear.
All his operations were swift, brutal and flashy. He liberated factories by throwing loaded tanks into their walls with his own hands. Detonated castles into dust. Destroyed villages after he’d emptied them. Burned the enemy camps. Flooded the trenches. He fought the good fight like a battering ram, pounding relentlessly against his enemy, leaving nothing but scorched earth in his wake.
This isn’t to say that he was a man without compassion. He announced his arrival, always, with fires and explosions. He spared those who surrendered, didn’t raise his hands on those who flew; he aimed at kneecaps and not at necks and hearts. He took prisoners; brought the wounded to the healers and buried the inevitable corpses.
But he made ripples.
For months and months, he made ripples.
And one day, something from the other side began to send ripples right back towards him .
。°。°。°。°。°。° 。
People started dying.
Which should be expected, in a war. But no mortal power could kill like this .
Generals, dignitaries, every person of importance that set foot in the European theatre to aid the Allied forces - they started dropping like flies. Strange accidents. Spontaneous suffocations in the night. Drowning in their bathtubs. Falls that snapped their necks clean in two.
Nothing ever suggested that theirs lives had been taken. Their rooms were closed, their possessions remained untouched. Only a strange chemical smell lingered at times, like mist from a cemetery.
Fear spread, as did the murmurs.
Any kind of help those people might have brought - was lost. The war machine took several steps back, tails tucked between its legs.
It didn’t end there.
Soon after, it was the prisoners who started dying.
Inside their cells .
Offed, with either poison, a bullet, a knife, or with the signs of a long, thin garrote tied around their throats. Most often than not, their necks were snapped. They eyes bulged out in fear.
The few who dared speak of it, had no single moniker for the killer but several, all borne out of terror. They said that the Ghost, the Geist, Der Blutiger Schatten, the Eisfaust, the Soldat had moved from the Red Skull’s side and come to collect the souls of those who dared betray HYDRA, even if it was in the secrecy of their own minds.
The Ghost was an old wives tale. He was a nightmare. Neither living nor dead, but death’s own right hand. A frightful dream. Nothing that could exist.
And yet, for every hit the Captain dealt to HYDRA, the Ghost dealt two more to the Allied forces in retaliation.
Soon enough, he started appearing on the battlefields.
A soundless wraith, lean and red mouthed, he always appeared high and far from the ground, on faraway perches or stony moulds. He was shrouded in black, muzzled and most often hooded like an executioner; the only gleam of colour on the whole of him were the unblinking pale eyes and the gloss of moonlight that covered his left arm. When he let it free, his dark hair fell in thick ropes across his shoulders and what little was visible of his face was painted with charcoal, like the Morrigu herself.
He was the death-bringer which couldn’t be banished. A thing of tremendous beauty, but frightening enough that he only needed to point a long finger across the distance for the soldiers to flee, HYDRA or Allied forces alike, shakily crossing themselves.
Captain America believed nothing of this.
The Ghost ought to be a man.
Inhumanly fast, unbearably strong, tremendously precise - but a man , nonetheless.
“He’s a human being.” Steve was saying for the nth time, as he tried to right the chair he’d broken while raging about the Ghost. If there was one topic guaranteed to make him lose his cool, it was his fabled nemesis. “He can be beaten. He can be stopped. He’s not some… some sort of modern bean sídhe !”
“Un quoi? ” Dernier muttered at Jones out of the side of his mouth. Jones opened his mouth, clicked it shut, and shrugged. Falsworth took a fortifying breath and rolled his eyes far more dramatically than the situation called for.
“An Irish female spirit who heralds death,” he explained.
“That guy ain’t no fairy lady, no matter how pretty he is,” Dugan said, shrugging when everyone goggled at him. “He’s all man, ‘s what I’m sayin’.”
“He’s human ,” Steve reiterated, anger in his countenance, stiffness in his limbs. He was always angry, nowadays. Always breathing rage, like a dragon breathes smoke. Always carrying himself like he was a bomb about to explode.
He had been angry before - he was born angry, it seemed like - and Bucky had used to be his oasis of calm in the middle of the storm, the drop of fresh water to dampen the fires in him. But now grief had stoked the ember of his anger into a monster of hunger and flames. He was forever burning. His blessed water had been taken from him.
“He wears a tactical uniform, not a shroud. He kills with a sniper rifle , not some mystical light shining from his arm .”
“HYDRA do have rifles that shoot out a blue ray of death,” Jones said, stepping back and holding his hands up in surrender when his Captain swivelled to glare at him. “I agreed on the rifle part, Cap. Just pointing out the obvious.”
Steve rubbed his face.
“Which is?”
“That he might be human and use a rifle but also have something otherworldly about him. He could be wearing a gauntlet powered from the same stuff as the rifles. In a world with deathrays and men shapeshifting after an injection, that’d be hardly surprising.”
“He’s human.”
“Not saying he isn’t--”
“But maybe… maybe he is a man-made monster, just like me.”
“You’re a man-made miracle , you mean,” Dugan corrected, squinting funnily at his Captain.
Steve grunted noncommittally in response. The chair held for a long second, two, three… then crumbled in a heap. Steve shrugged, and tossed the pieces he was still holding in the fireplace.
The flames engulfed his offerings.
And roared in pleasure.
7 - Now
This nightmare he’s woken in smells like New York.
It doesn’t quite look like New York - the skyline is all wrong, the buildings have loathsome shapes and geometries that go far beyond even his artist’s imagination. The people don’t look like New Yorkers either - the listless energy is there, as is the brogue; but the clothes are all wrong in cut, fabric; even in colour. The cacophony is similar to New York’s, but somehow, it’s the smell that sells it, to him.
New York.
He’s in New York .
And calling.
“BUCKY!”
8 - Then
Captain America met the Ghost only once, before that fateful day on the Valkyrie.
Zola, the-
(pig)
-man who-
(had taken Bucky from him, taken Bucky from him, taken Bucky, takenBucky, Buckybuckymybuckykillthismankillhimsquashhimhe’snothinghe’stakenaway MYBUCKY )
-could be considered Red Skull’s pet inventor, and father of the deathray rifles, used an high-tech Schnellzug EB912 armored train to transport equipment through bases all across Europe.
On a dreadfully snowy day, the Howling Commandos were sent out on a mission to capture Zola. They set up a watch post in the Austrian Alps, right on the edge of a stony cliff overlooking the train tracks. When the armoured train whistled by, blue-powered engines hissing like angry ghouls in the dusk, a team of three Commandos secured themselves to a zip-line and slid across the deep ravine like birds of prey.
One by one, they dropped on the top of a car near the middle of the train, and smoothly slid inside.
It should’ve been an easy op.
It should've been, but it wasn’t.
HYDRA soldiers attacked the Commandos immediately after they came inside. Soon, Steve was separated from Falsworth by a mechanical door, and he could only hope that Jones had managed to continue onwards to the locomotive as planned.
The following fight was fast, brutal - as was customary when the Captain and his Commandos engaged. It was over quickly.
Or so they thought.
A burst of static.
Zola’s panicked shrieks echoed out from a radio speaker, insistent and fastidious like wasps.
And then the mechanical door slid open on a pool of pure, pure darkness. And out stepped him, as though woven from the darkness itself.
The Ghost.
He lingered on the edge of darkness for a thoughtful moment, and then he shot, like a bullet, charging the Captain, his nemesis, his counterpart, his mission, the one he’d been created to mirror and excel and destroy .
Within moments, Captain America found that the HYDRA Ghost lived up to all the tales whispered frightfully about him.
The terrifying stillness of him, the fathomless ice of his eyes, the strength and swiftness of him, like those of an avalanche. He was frightening. And Steve was ashamed to admit…
…he was also beautiful .
Steve couldn't see much of his face, more than half of it covered by a muzzle, and the eyes dramatically rimmed with black powder. But the way he moved made Steve's throat run dry. Shivers of electricity chased up Steve's arms when they touched. He longed to hear the Ghost talk so deeply, that a strange melancholy threatened to choke him, made his eyes burn.
When Steve tossed the shield at him, the Ghost didn't turn away from the sharp edge of it, but caught it and tossed it back, letting Steve see that for all the things he'd gotten right about his enemy, on one thing he'd been painfully wrong. The Ghost did carry a rifle, and was inhumanly efficient with it. But he wore no blue-powered gauntlet.
His arm.
His whole arm.
It was made of metal .
Before Steve could recover from the surprise, the Ghost did something with his moonlight-encased arm. It whirred, it gleamed. And then discharged a tremendous energy pulse towards him.
Steve barely had time to push Falsworth away and raise his shield. He managed to deflect the blast, but was knocked aside when the blue light exploded against the side of the car, shredding it open like wet paper.
Ice particles burst inside, swirling madly in the booming wind. The Ghost’s dark hair was powdered in shimmering white and whipping like a Medusa’s when he knelt to retrieve the Captain’s shield from the floor. He hoisted it up, bounced it on his wrist a couple of times, testing the weight. Lightning dancing across his arm and shield held up, he advanced on the Captain, dark and unstoppable like the tide.
Breath catching at the sight,
(heartbreaking, Somehow, he wasn’t scary. He was so heartbreaking )
Steve swore quietly, swung his legs out and caught the Ghost in the knee, but he barely stumbled. Pushing up on his elbows, Steve somersaulted on his feet, gripped the shield with both hands and rammed it back into the Ghost’s chest, once, twice, six, ten times, knocking the breath right out of him.
He managed to wrestle the shield from the Ghost’s hand and barely danced out of the way when a knife gleamed out of nowhere, glancing against his arm. They spun in tight circles, the Ghost and the Captain, bright blue lighting following them as they moved, parting and coming together in a frenzied waltz of death.
They might’ve stayed like that, locked in combat for hours on end, if the radio system hadn’t crackled to life right at that moment. Jones’s voice burst from the high speakers, thin but unmistakable. He was commanding someone to surrender, but his demand was silenced by Zola’s high-pitched whines for help, help, my Wintersoldat , come help me!
The Ghost froze. Stood unnaturally still for a single heartbeat, and then pivoted and vaulted through the jagged hole in the hull.
Gasping, Steve rushed, stumbling, after him. The wind pushed against him like a giant’s hand, made his eyes water, his teeth clatter. Blood thundered in his ears, fast like a river fall, but he managed to lean out of the hull, heart in his throat and arms straining like bands of steel.
He caught a glimpse of the Ghost clinging to a railing outside and watched, jaw dropping open in surprise, as he Ghost glided, weightless, up the side of the car and all the way up to the roof.
He reared up and stood in the whipping snow, statuesque in his stillness, hair swirling around his head like snakes. Tilting his chin low, he looked back at Steve as if he were trying to draw his soul out from his eyes and swallow it whole.
Steve’s lungs ached, his fingers wouldn't stop shaking. His blood--
“ I can get rid of him, Cap! ”
Steve reared back, gulping down air as if he’d been drowning, and saw Falsworth fiddling with the half-melted latch that joined their car with the one behind, the one where the Ghost now stood.
Heart seizing, Steve yelled: “Monty, no !” but it was too late.
With a shriek and a tremor, the two compartments of the train detached themselves, raising a burst of sparks from the tracks underneath. Steve's half of the train speeded on across the ravine, while the Ghost's own half started shuddering to a slow, inevitable halt.
As he watched the Ghost become smaller and smaller in the distance, Steve slowly reached out towards him, instinctively, imploringly . Somehow, it only seemed natural when the Ghost reached back out towards him through the swathes of falling snow.
An ever-widening gulf separated them; and yet Steve was absurdly devastated that their hands didn't reach.
He choked back a wave of unease.
And then the snow swallowed the Ghost whole.
9 - Now
Steve reaches his limit with no warning whatsoever. One moment, he’s running. The next, all the things he’s kept at bay so long - the shock, the confusion, the strain in his muscles, the worry, the cacophony of strange noises, the ache in his chest, the nightmarishly unfamiliar grounds - they all crash down on him like a tidal wave, leaving him standing, sapped of all energy, in a circus parody of the Times Square he once knew.
Several cars as black and shiny as a beetle’s carapace screech to a halt in a wide circle around him. Doors slam open, strangely-clad agents pouring out and pointing their guns at him. Some of the civilians start moving away. Most produce strange devices from their pockets and either point them at him, or bring them to their ears and start squealing into them.
Steve is reeling; he spins around in wild circles, looking around frantically, lost like a little child in the strange city. A whimper leaves him. Less than a breath, but it carries half of his soul with it.
“ …Bucky… ”
10 - Then
Capturing Zola lead to one good thing: the man was a rat and a coward, but he did know the exact coordinates of HYDRA’s last stronghold. And his own slimy cowardice made it very easy to get the information out of him.
It was the Howling Commandos, naturally, who led the assault. Brutal, fast, efficient, showy. Like demons out hell, they stormed the base, followed by all the troops that Colonel Phillips had been able to assemble. The HYDRA soldiers fought back with the force of desperation, but the american soldiers were hundreds, and they were unstoppable.
It looked like an easy victory, but before they could celebrate, the Captain saw the Red Skull escape and board a massive skycraft bomber.
With no time to spare, the Captain ran after him, determined to end the war once and for all. He found resistance on the skycraft - a few straggling HYDRA soldiers, but nothing that could really challenge him.
Not until he reached the bridge, hot on Red Skull’s heels, and the Ghost coalesced into being from inside a low cage.
He wrenched the bars open, the metal bending under his fingers like putty, and out he stepped, chin tilted low and looking up at Steve through thick black lashes.
The sight of him arrested Steve in his path, as it had done the last time. His heart kicked up into a flurry, his body aching like under a desperate pressure.
“I see you’ve met our puppet, herr Kapitän,” Red Skull sneered, snapping Steve out of his trance. He lowered the palm he hadn’t realized he’d been straining towards the Ghost, and swallowed hard to moisten his dry mouth. “My beautiful watchdog. The single good thing herr Zola has ever achieved with his pitiful attempts at science.”
Steve shook his head, hearing strange susurrus emanating from around him, feeling them crawl their little tentacles deep in the spires of his brain. Were they coming from the Cube glowing inside the strange contraption in the cockpit?
Were they coming from the Ghost ?
Stumbling back, Steve muttered: “He’s your right hand,” and his ears rang when Red Skull laughed at him.
“He was an instrument to my ascension to power. I will make sure to give him mention in my memoirs.”
“You’re--” but Steve could go no further, because the murmurs in his head screeched up in a deafening crescendo right as the Ghost rushed him, gleaming metal hand posed in a claw.
Steve will never be quite able to recollect what happened after.
He and the Ghost came together and broke apart, kicked, punched, dodged, danced, and all the while the whining between Steve’s ears gained volume, butchering his head open like a dull blade.
The climbing tide of distorted noise came to an abrupt halt when the Red Skull, trying to put a knife in Steve’s back, was pushed backward into the Cube’s containing device. The Cube fell off with a clatter, and bolts of light spread out like sunfire in all directions. Some twirled like water around Steve, others constricted like tentacles across the Skull’s chest, and a few gathered around the Ghost’s forehead, flaring like a saint’s halo.
In the sudden, blessed quiet, Steve heard it when the Skull cursed him.
Heard it when the Skull’s hand closed around the Cube and his flesh fizzled, the acrid stench of burning filling the air.
Heard it when an immense thunder tore the air in two.
Heard the Skull scream and scream and scream as a force beyond this world sucked him onto the star-dotted darkness churning on the other side of the jagged, shimmering tear.
Heard it when the the tear stitched itself back up, and the Cube fell to the floor with a strange, amused purr, melting through layers and layers of metal, laughing all the way down until it splashed into the ocean far below.
Steve gulped down several deep breaths, sweat-drenched body buzzing with adrenaline. He turned towards the Ghost, met the ice-limned eyes glinting up at him from twin pools of deep charcoal, and drew enough air to plead:
“We don’t have to…”
But the Ghost was on him, again, roaring like a beast, eyes wild with pain, drenched hair swinging in his eyes, and each of his movements cut through the air like it was water, sending reedy murmurs to tease at the inside of Steve’s ears.
They circled each other like alley cats, bouncing against the metal walls, pivoting and turning in the air, battling back and forth, using the Ghost’s knives, the Captain’s shield, as well as their own bodies, to ram, to pound, sweat and blood staining their skin.
At one point, they crashed against the piloting stick, sending the craft nosediving towards the water. The Ghost careened backwards, hitting his head against a metal column. Shaking fingers found the edge of his shield, and Steve rammed it against the Ghost’s face, over and again, until he curled like a foetus on the floor and remained still.
Shakily, Steve ran to the control panel, but it looked destroyed beyond recognition. The stick still responded well enough, and so Steve was able to tilt the skycraft until it flew parallel to the Ocean, instead than diving towards it. Nothing else seemed to respond, not until he tried the radio, and a frantic voice burst from the other side.
“--tain! Captain! This is Morita, do you copy?”
“ Jim! ”
There was a lot of clamouring, cursing, yelling, and then Dum Dum’s voice exploded from the speaker.
“ Cap! You lucky sonnuva--you still alive in there?”
Steve grimaced, and spat out a mouthful of blood.
“Barely. Hanging in there, though.”
Falsworth was much more collected when he asked, crisp and clipped: “Schmidt?”
“Gone.” Steve hesitated, eyes flickering to where the bright rip in the air had been. “Just… gone.” He paused again. “I’m not alone, though. The Ghost’s here.”
“Oh.” Somebody whistled. Dernier laughed out something in french. Jones laughed in response and grabbed the mic. “ Oh! Your beautiful banshee there with you?”
“I NEVER SAID--”
But the people on the other side were too busy teasing him to pay attention.
“Right. It isn’t like he’s the only thing you talk about.”
“Or get heated about.”
“Or waft poetry about.”
“Oh, his moonlit-encased arm!”
“Oh, his hair like ribbons of shadow!”
“Oh, his eyes like pools in winter!”
A wave of chuckling rose and died out before Falsworth asked, in his polished posh accent:
“Do us all a favour, Captain, and take him prisoner.”
“Yeah, Stark really wants to play with him.”
“Like, REALLY. ”
“Play with his arm , mind you.”
“I don’t think he’d mind playing with the whole of him.”
A dramatic choir of gasps followed.
“Dum Dum!” The distinct sound of a hearty slap. “Take that back!”
“That sorta comment could get a man in jail!”
“They’d arrest a scientist for an healthy interest in foreign weapons?”
“ Ce n’est pas ce que tu as dit. ”
“That what I meant, though.”
“Yeah, right.”
Steve chuckled, fond and wet, eyes on the vast spread of ice that was looming closer and closer.
“Gentlemen. Sorry to cut the fun short, but I’m in a bit of a pickle.”
“ Pickle? Que voulez-vous dire? ”
“The aircraft - there’s something wrong with the console. I can’t really steer it away from its course.”
The Commandos sobered quickly.
“Give us your coordinates, we’ll find you a safe landing site,” Falsworth said.
“There’s not going to be a safe landing. But I can try and force it down.”
“I’ll get Howard on the line,” Morita cut in breathlessly. “He’ll know what to do.”
Steve licked his lips.
“There’s not enough time. This thing’s moving too fast and it’s heading for New York. The cargo’s full of bombs. I gotta put her in the water.” And even as he said it, he forced down the stick, and the aircraft gracefully tilted towards its own destruction like a falling bird.
“Captain, no. Don’t do this. We have time. We can work something out.”
“Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer a lot of people are gonna die.” The ice was rushing closer and closer. Beautifully white, sprinkled with diamond dust. The dawning sun tinged the edge of the white expanse a lovely pink and orange, such warm colours for such a dreadful land.
“Cap, I’ll get Peggy on the line. Stark. Phillips. Anyone. Just. Sit tight. Don’t do anything stupid.”
There was a clatter, a chair falling, pounding feet rushing away, a burst of static. Voices yelling for help. For Peggy.
And then.
And then .
That beloved voice came.
The most precious voice in the world.
“...Steve?”
Steve froze and then went slack, all in the space of a single heartbeat. His heart knocked painfully against his ribcage, and his breath was a spear of ice lodged in his throat.
He turned around slowly.
The muzzle was on the ground, blood-spattered and wet with saliva. Behind it, a gleaming hand, fingers splayed open. A metal arm straightening slowly at the elbow, the impression of muscle straining, interlocked plates shifting noisily.
The Ghost was climbing painfully to his feet like a drunk. His head was tilted low, the sweaty tendrils of his hair swinging in front of his face like thick vines. The barest hint of ice-blue eyes peeked from behind the dark curtain. The pink tip of a tongue darted across a soft, slack mouth.
And again, that voice like honey and gold called out to him.
“Steve?”
The Ghost staggered up, leaning against the wall for support, and tears burst unbidden from Steve’s eyes, burning like acid, blurring his sight. He refused to blink though, afraid like a child that if he were to close his eyes the dream would end, the miracle would flee.
“...Bucky?”
Bucky groaned in response, eyes shiny, cheeks glowing, panting and trembling almost as if he were in the throes of a terribly high fever.
“Steve,” he said a third time, like an incantation. And his mouth pulled into the smallest, most perfect smile in the universe. “What happened? Where are we?” and then, when a frown clouded his countenance: “I… I thought you were smaller ?”
“...I joined the army?” Steve answered back, voice tilting at the end like a question. Bucky huffed out a wet laugh, resting his head back against the wall and baring his long neck, weak on his feet like a newborn colt.
“Only you , Punk.”
And Steve could only think to say, through the tears and the silver-sweet murmurs in his ears:
“Only you, Jerk. For me, it’s always been you .”
And then they hit the ice.
11 - Now
A man with an eyepatch climbs out one of the black vehicles. With a single, regal gesture, he commands all the weapons pointed at the Captain to be lowered. He strides confidently towards the shaking, gulping Captain, his one eye roaming calculatingly across his face and body.
“You have been asleep, Captain. For a long, long time. I expect you may be confused. But please, allow us to help.”
Steve has an air about him, like a crazy, cornered animal. He forces air down into his aching lungs, swallows and swallows until his tongue comes unglued from the roof of his mouth, and asks:
“Bucky. Where’s Bucky?”
The man with the eyepatch frowns at him.
“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes,” he recites, and waits for Steve to focus on him enough to give a nod. “Of the 107th infantry. I’m sorry to say, Captain. But he died. A long time ago.”
Steve feels the scream build up in his throat.
He lets it loose.
12 - Then
When the Valkyrie hit the ice, Steve was knocked out of the pilot’s seat. He was bashed against the wall with so much force he thought his spine was about to snap. He swallowed blood, felt it slide down his nose and for a terrible moment he thought he’d drown in it.
He heard Bucky shout, and everything in him desperately wanted to reach out and go to him, but he couldn’t make up from down. The aircraft was sliding across the ice, bouncing as violently as a crazed bull. Steve was tossed around like a child’s toy, and by the sound of it, the yells and the curses, Bucky was being jostled just as badly.
As the Valkyrie skid and slid across the icy terrain, Steve could feel the tremors echo deep down into his bones, his skull, his teeth. His brain rattled, something in his ribcage felt loose and tender, and he heard several small bones snapping. It only got worse when the pointed muzzle of the Valkyrie slammed to a halt.
Unable to keep himself on his feet, Steve crumbled like a straw doll, gasping like a fish out of water. Around him, the overheated hull of the aircraft was hissing, melting itself a hole through layers of snow and ice.
Steve felt a swooping sensation at the bottom of his stomach when the Valkyrie began to sink. Icy water frothed and churned as it washed inside the bridge, bashing and rearing up against the metal walls, as black as the midnight sky.
The delicate tinkling of glass echoed in his head.
Painfully, Steve dragged himself forward, following the sound.
He found Bucky crawling out of the freezing water and towards him as well, teeth gritted against the pain.
Somehow, someway, Steve grabbed Bucky’s hand; straining, straining , he hoisted Bucky up where the water hadn’t reached yet and collapsed on his back. Wheezing in agony, Bucky dragged himself the few remaining inches, and dropped down so their sides touched. Immediately, Steve scrabbled at his back and shoulders, desperate for more contact. Reeling him even closer, Steve helped Bucky settle on his chest, a sweet, sweet burst of warmth in a world that was freezing over like the lowest circle of Hell.
Their hands searched and found one another, clasped desperately, their fingers threading together and their eyes meeting like a promise.
“It’s the end of the line, isn’t it, Punk?” Bucky whispered.
His teeth were chattering. Both his legs were broken. One of his blue, blue eyes was filling over with a red veil of blood. And yet, it was the hot breath wafting sweetly across Steve’s mouth that made his eyes prickle with tears.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair .
He’d just gotten him back . His Bucky. His dear, dear Bucky. And here he was, leaving him already, the life flickering out of his body like a candle left out in a storm.
“Bucky,” Steve sobbed. Unable to say more. “Bucky, Bucky …”
“Hush, hush Stevie,” Bucky crooned, voice husky with emotion. “I know. I always knew.” The icy water had reached their calves. It was lapping at their waists and climbing up and up and up, gnawing at their flesh like a hungry monster. And yet, impossibly, beautifully, Bucky smiled .
Bucky smiled, and stretched to offer that smile up to Steve.
Offered that smile up to Steve like a benediction, and kissed him with it.
Kissed him for one single, perfect moment that tasted like forever.
Kissed him, and then moved away to settle back onto Steve’s chest, curled like a dozing cat.
Blue, blue eyes looking back at him.
A warm weight against his chest.
Full lips, quirked in a smile.
Pale fingers, threaded with his own.
This is how Steve Rogers welcomed what he thought was his death.
He was so wrong.
13 - Now and forever
The Captain is still screaming, a long, undulating howl of despair, when all hell breaks loose around him.
The civilians notice it first and start running away, even if some still stop to point their devices further down the street for brief seconds at a time. Alarms of all kinds start to blare as vehicle after vehicle are pushed away, hoisted up, turned, tossed like feathers clear across the road. Smoke billows up from the broken cars, tongues of flames flickering through the smashed glass. Something unseen is moving downwind from the direction of the bay, same as where Steve came from, cutting a path of destruction towards the Captain.
The agents retreat and regroup, whispering harsh and clipped words inside the minuscule microphones pinned to their suits.
The man with the eyepatch straightens and touches a device in his ear. He curses at the air, and yells:
“The Soldier’s awake? And you let it out of containment?! What do you mean, destroyed it? It’s a Hulk-proofed cell, are you--”
The massive vehicle the man with the eyepatch came out of is suddenly and inexplicably vaulting in the air, sailing and crashing in a fuming crater right in front of Steve, effectively separating him from everyone else.
Most of the agents surrounding him duck for cover, confusion and fear clear on their faces, but billowing pillars of smoke soon engulf them.
Sparks and flames hiss out from the car’s broken husk. The metal groans like a wounded beast when something simply vaults over its roof, walks across the leaping tongues of flame and lands on the other side, shards of glass crunching underfoot.
Steve’s throat feels raw. It clicks uselessly a few times before he can say, for the millionth time since he awoke, say like a prayer:
“...Bucky?”
A gleaming metal hand reaches down gently towards him, fingers unfurling like a budding flower, the blood red glow of the flames dancing sweetly in the open palm. A lazy smile. And tears pool unbidden in Steve’s eyes. Emotion chokes him. It tastes like joy.
“Looks like it wasn’t quite the end of that damn line, was it Punk?”
- 終わり