Work Text:
Stevie feels free when she's at work. She's never loved to hit and run, or to kill kill kill for any kind of the high purpose, but she was a soldier, and that's what the soldier does – kill to spare the others from killing.
“How does it feel to get back to work after your compassionate leave?” Stark asks. He is still angry with her and he starts bullying when he enters the audio chat.
“Much better. You can feel it, too, if join moderate drinking program,” Stevie doesn't lose the nerve. She's happy to hear Tony's voice, to see his red flash in the sky.
Hulk is rushing through the pines. Stevie knows that because she sees trees falling, pine needles and bark exploding like shrapnel. She breathes the smell of rosin and the mold, seeing the lights in the distance.
Hydra, a monster Hercules defeated, had numerous heads. Luckily, S.H.I.E.L.D. has enough arms to defeat its HYDRA.
“Do you see the enemy, Falcon?” Stevie asks, keeping the pace. She runs, jumping over the mossy boulders, her feet silently leaping other the gurgling streams.
Natasha must be somewhere between Hulk's and Stevie's quadrants, that's the way they move. They are coming through the forest like a jigsaw, and Stevie is the lead – the Blue Leader.
Stevie jumps off the boulder and rolls on the soft, yielding ground. The outlines of the area, secluded, quiet clearing seems strangely familiar to her. The meadow is surrounded by something like small hills, casually moving left and taking cover Stevie analyzes the shape of the hills just to understand – they are not hills.
They are dugouts. Stevie's been there before, she knows the place. They took the turn, got in the clearing and right under the crossfire. May it be? She has an especially good memory for every place she's ever been.
Locations, maps, everything – she may lose the candles in her closet just because they fell down the boxes or something, but if Stevie gets somewhere just for one time, she can find the way into it for the second time as well.
Just to make sure – Stevie throws herself to the dugout, dodging the invisible fire. She's caught a bullet here, one of her first. She's caught a bullet by that wall while Dum Dum Dugan shouted the captain is bleeding.
Stevie presses herself to the wet concrete walls, her fingers running on the surface, getting round accidental snails on their journey from the mugs under Stevie's feet to the rotting tree trunk on the top of the dugout.
It's right here: the marking Dum Dum left with his hand grenade. The fragments of it flew apart in every direction, throwing the soldiers asunder. One of the fragments left a laceration on Stevie's cheek.
She remembered the faces of these two. Boy-soldiers, they were in her and Bucky's age. They looked at Stevie, furious in her red and blue, her hair red from blood, her eyes mad with all the death and destruction she saw, she stopped or she had to bring.
They were afraid. The fear was the last thing they felt in their life. The last thing they experienced was the explosion of the grenade, turning them into the stuffing. Stevie used to like sausages, but after that day, she skipped meat on the menu, though as the Proud of the Nation she was given a double-pack.
The flash of the memory is quick. Stevie takes a look at the place, trying to remember the old concrete, the mold, the crippled trucks of curled trees, the soaked ground springing under her feet. Stevie has a feeling she is standing on the open grave, but she is not afraid of the dead – she pities them too much to be afraid of them.
She loses her time. Stevie takes a brief look at her commander's watch though she already knows she needs to fasten up. She runs up the fallen rotten trunk, jumps on the top on the dugout and takes a shortcut to the secret road they need to block.
She has three, two, one – zero minutes. Stevie rips her shield from the back, she waits to hear the voices, and when she hears them, the throws the shield, hearing the familiar roar coming from the grove behind the wooden watch-tower.
London Bridge is falling down, Stevie remembers, when Hulk rushes into the watch-tower and the tower is falling into the grown. A woman in the dark suit is jumping off Hulk's bulging shoulder. Natasha decided to take a shortcut, too.
Stevie shows the way in one demanding gesture. Stark must have scanned the area, so he already knows where he is going. As Sam is with him high above, so he knows the same Stark knows, or, at least, is the first to follow him.
There is the sound of the gunfire down the road.
“S.H.I.E.L.D. takes care of them,” Stevie hears Natasha's voice in communicating device in her ear.
“Move,” Stevie says, taking her shield from the front seat of the car. What is it protruding from, Stevie doesn't put too much attention at. She's seen men's chest ripped open before though eighty years ago it was mostly the layouts in the Art class.
Stark is taking care about the gates when Hulk throws a whole truck in it. The explosion makes the ground shaking, Stevie raises up her shield and the fire and the heat pass by, though her costume is a little bit scorched on the edges.
“Bruce, in NY we need to discuss the accident prevention technique, buddy,” Tony says. Stevie comes to him, in his metallic suit he always looks alien for her. She hardly listens to his voice, there are only vibrations in her ear she manages to distinguish.
“I will need you and Natasha. Falcon, you and Hulk stay behind, I need you to control the area and to support our forces. Clear?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Sam says. Stevie has said those words before, has listened to this ma'am before. The voice, the commands, the answers – all of this she has had before, too. As well as the gates.
“I thought we might use the truck,” Natasha approaches. “We need to work fast.”
“How many men are inside?” Stevie fights her Deja Vue and loses. Last time she's been there she's been alone, full of fear, determination and readiness to die in the name of everything she ever believed, including modern art and swing.
“More than we can afford,” nobody knows the exact data. The counts are thousands of kidnapped military and civilians. It's always bad to have such news, but in case HYDRA is involved it's not just bad – it's evil.
“Tell Hulk not to use the trucks full of explosives like a master key, alright?” Tony has suffered from the explosion the least, but he hates things go wrong. Stevie understands so much about every member of her crew it gives her temporary relief.
She is not entering her memories alone. There are people there, who are her brothers in arms, partners and, most of all, friends. Even Tony, though Tony can make a war vet blush sometimes, though mostly that vet was Stevie.
“I need you all to confirm the information: there are people inside we will save. When fighting, avoid the civilians,” Stevie says. “Roger that, team Alfa?”
“Roger,” Natasha says, and Tony murmurs under his breath, “I never had a habit of hurting innocent people. All the people I ever hurt, were not innocent at all.”
Natasha slides in, hiding in the darkness, and Tony walks boldly, booming with all his iron joints. Stevie goes in the middle, asking herself why there are no guards on their posts because they've passed at least two of three posts on their way to the lab.
There's no guessing. “We have a little time,” Stevie snaps and starts running. Tony turns on his feet rockets and shoots forth like a cannon ball. Stevie grabs his hand and the musty underground air turns into the wild wind, howling, hitting Stevie right in the face.
“Ready for a boom,” Tony says, and Stevie covers her face with her arm. Another explosion burns like a sun. Stevie has no time to wait, she remembers the plan and knows she is standing before the main tasting hall.
Arm with the shield forward, she jumps into the fire, holding her breath. She stands on the upper level of the long, metallic staircase. What lies beyond her feet, is a field full of stretchers, there bounded people lie.
The smell, the moaning, the suffering. Everyone on the tables misses an arm or a leg, futuristic prostheses instead. The stubs of the limbs are dark, swell from puss, blood and gore on the stretchers, droppers and catheters make the hall smell like a slaughterhouse in summer days no matter the huge ventilators on the walls.
The second thing to get in Stevie's sight is men in civilian clothes, accompanied by black-suited HYDRA officers, hurrying from one table to another and telling the officers something, pointing out at the patients. The soldier with the loaded gun followed them, the barrel of it smoking.
The brain shot out from the head looks like a rose yogurt ice-cream. Stevie is not fond of cherry topping because she knows what else looks like cherries in vanilla yogurt.
Sorting out, that's how they call it. The weakest will be killed not to get into the victor's hands. The strangest one they'll try to transport to some of their distant bases. Sorting out, the humans, man, and woman, cut, crippled, tortured, like a bags of blood and synthetic applications.
The fury comes in a flash. It's not an anger though it's very close to it. It's more like a blessing, a state of mind Stevie knows what has to be done and does it no matter the price.
She knows there are the things what are not to be done. She trembles from her very seamy side from what she has seen, and she's the first to forget the orders. They need HYDRA scientists alive. But if they get them dead, what would it change but the redemption of everything was done down there?
When the S.H.I.E.L.D. forces come, Stevie is sitting outside the bunker. Her hair is red with blood, her uniform is soaked with it. Fury arrives with a military jeep, he wants to see it by his own eye, He wants to talk to Stevie, but Stark interferes: ignoring him, Stevie salutes him.
“You wounded?” Fury says.
“No, sir,” Stevie's voice is a bit automatic. She's lacking a nail or two on the hand she salutes with. She'll grow them back in a couple of hours she doesn't want to be conscious.
“The scientists are...” Fury knows. Stevie knows what he knows, but still he looks her into the eyes as though waiting for the explanations. There are no explanations for him this time.
“Dead, sir. They are dead.”
Stevie never calls Fury sir before. She does it because she doesn't really think what she says. She is trained to salute her superior and to call him “sir”. Fury is more of coordinator, but Stevie still calls him sir because she still sees the wounded, the tortured and the mutilated.
The German boys torn apart by the grenade don't come out of her mind.
They've saved people but they've lost the information. Natasha says she can retrieve the data from the system. Tony takes Stevie's side and says if they are not supposed to kill the sadistic bastards, they must be not Avengers, but Red Cross. In any way, Tony is pretty sure Natasha's plan will work, and Stevie asks the soldier for a cigarette.
He is young, too, his skin is black, and he as beautiful sulky eyes. “Yes, ma'am,” he says and gives Stevie the whole pack. “I need only one,” she objects dragging one white cigarette with the yellow filter.
The Legend and the Model of High Morals are not supposed to smoke, but Stevie used to take a drag or two when drawing if Bucky forgot his cigarettes at her place. Asthma has nothing to do with the cigarettes, and the cigarettes didn't make Stevie more asthmatic so sometimes she smoked, feeling extremely grown up.
Sam looks at Stevie smoking, and Stevie doesn't look at him. He never asks her why, as his understanding is very close to hers. Unfortunately, right now Stevie doesn't wand to be understood because there is a mess in her head she doesn't want to talk about.
She has no right for this. She is the Captain. She must treat herself harder than everyone. And she has just lost control because at the HYDRA base she saw exactly what she saw on the same HYDRA base eighty years ago, and this time, she couldn't stand it – and lost control, killing every HYDRA soldier and scientist in the hall.
Everyone supposes a hero to regret some things which are not that kind heroic. Stevie regrets, but not exactly what she is supposed, too. Sausages and German boys, blood on her hair and the smell of puss and gore. A bigger evil against the smaller evil, killed and tortured, there is a difference made Stevie suffer when she was younger. But she is not that kind young. She is just... sad with the way it goes.
S.H.I.E.L.D. car takes Stevie to the door of her house. She takes the bag, she nods the driver. She opens the door, climbs out the staircase and opens the door in the flat to throw the bag and on the floor and, after getting rid of the shoes, staying bare feet.
Bucky appears in the hallway silently, book in his hand, the title written in Russian. He smells with food and with home, wearing old T-shirt and sweatpants he once broke a mirror in. He is in the S.H.I.E.L.D. minor problem, he is more stable than ever though he still talks of himself as of Winter Soldier.
Being stressed out, he can be damaged by this experience. Stevie doesn't want to make him suffer, but the moment he puts away the books and approaches, Stevie says, “I killed people.”
“Me too,” he is hard to be impressed, his iron arm is shining – he must have started cleaning it with the cleaning kitchen fluid, Stevie knows Bucky has said he must try this on it.
“I killed people who were not supposed to be killed,” Stevie proceeds, “because they've done terrible things. I didn't want to, but I think it was the right choice. But how can such a choice be right or wrong?”
Bucky looks at her with no distinct expression on his face. She's talking about the things he fails to understand.
“You killed them because you chose so?” he asks in a while. He smells of rifle grease, he must be assembling and disassembling his sniper rifle before reading.
He does it all the time since the rifle is returned to him though he doesn't really need it – he remembers the body of it like a lover remembers the shapes of his beloved.
Poetry. Stevie was always told to be too poetic for a captain, to be too honest for a captain, to be too inspired for a captain. No one ever doubted she is a first-class captain, but there always were people who though Stevie should be tougher, there's no time for sentiments at war.
“Not like I chose,” Stevie fails to explain. “It was something... something came over me. I couldn't stand what I saw and I started to kill. I never felt this way before, neither in 40ies, not now. Did you ever feel the same?”
“If I ever demonstrated uncontrolled behavior, I was electrocuted.”
“Do I really can afford such things coming over me? And if it happens again, next time, I am standing next to the friend?”
“It won't happen again.”
“Why are you so sure?” Stevie raises her eyes. “What makes you feel I'm so special? I'm just a human. What was called heroism, I was always trying to do the right things, but this time, I felt like murder was the right thing.”
“Maybe because it was.”
“Murder is not a right thing. It's never a right thing.”
“Sometimes it's the shortest way.”
“Between what and what?”
“Between a goal and a target.”
“I don't... I don't know,” Stevie leans other the wall. She wants to go home, but she is already at home. The awkward feeling is so strong she is sick with it. “I don't want it to be like that. I don't want to make such choices.”
“You are a soldier. It's what soldiers do.” Bucky stands before her, and she puts her hand on his arm just to hold on to him. He is her home as well as she's his. The touch on the metal skin gives her creeps, but she needs seconds to realize it's him.
“I know who I am. And I don't like the thing I did.”
“You can't always be a hero,” he says it in a manner that makes her object.
“You talk like I'm trying, but I don't. I am what I am.”
“Yes. But still you can't always be a hero. Sometimes you chose between being a hero and doing what you think is right.”
“What is right for you?” words fly out Stevie's mouth. It's something she can't resist: she argues if she has a point. This point is sharp like a knife.
“I was the first ops of HYDRA,” Bucky tells her most commonly. “I was their hero. What they've done to me, they said they are doing for the greatest good.”
“They do?”
“Yes. When I left them, it was like leaving the right side you were on, the side with your only friends. I run away into the unknown, to the people who wanted to kill me. It felt like a right thing. HYDRA seemed a right thing, too.”
“But this is not HYDRA.”
“I killed for HYDRA, you kill for S.H.I.E.L.D. There is exactly the difference?”
“The difference is S.H.I.E.L.D. kills when there's no other way. And HYDRA's way is killing. Don't say you don't understand it. You've picked a side,” Stevie argues. She understands the point, but it's hard for her to accept that.
“I've picked a side because HYDRA lied to me.” Bucky gives her a look. He seems to have no problem with accepting this part of his past. He knows Stevie denies it, what sometimes he realized that he was doing, but he never avoids telling her about it.
It's a strange habit of telling the truth that hurts. These wounds are never healed, and Bucky seems to have especial persistence in opening it.
“You say if we never met, you would never leave them? Even if you know what they've made you do?” Stevie starts asking. She knows Bucky wouldn't stay with HYDRA even if they didn't meet on his mission.
“Probably. I was said to be the weapon of the new world, to shape the century. More than a hero – a legend.”
“And what about cryochamber and electrocution?”
“I knew my systems were imperfect. They told me it was the only way to keep me stable. I felt sick out of cryochamber if there were long periods of time. I have no reasons to argue.”
“Oh, Bucky.” Stevie sighs. Bucky doesn't even hate HYDRA – he told her he doesn't. He just rejects it, but it's not the same. How broken must one become to not even hate his torturers?
“I am not Bucky, remember?” He reminds her softly. At least, there are no broken mirrors or walls as he gets accustomed to his life and names.
“I guess, I do.” Stevie stumbles to answer.
“If you want to ask if you are a monster after killing a bunch of HYDRA people, then – not. You are not a monster. But sometimes you overestimate yourself. You are a woman like no one else. Still, at some point, you are just like everybody else.”
“Explain,” Stevie asks him. His elbow lies in her hand while he talks, but it's not the exact gesture Bucky she knew would use, but the gesture Bucky she doesn't know preferred.
Bruce says Winter Soldier takes other in him, must be. But as Winter Soldier absorbs what left of previous Bucky personality, he must change, too.
“They told me I am a superhuman and I need no human things. When I've broken free, I was so sick I hardly understood who I am. We were made super soldiers, but we remained humans, and we need all the things humans need.”
“Including hot supper?”
That's a lame joke, luckily Bucky doesn't consider it as a joke. He made a broccoli casserole for the supper. He goes shopping in his spare time to cook after Internet videos for housewives. Luckily, it's middle-class block, so they are never in need of grocery or stuff.
He takes out the casserole with his iron hand, for he needs no potholder. He also takes the plates from the cupboard, but as far they have forks, they never dinner like normal people do. Leaning over the casserole, Stevie puts broccoli covered with melted cheese in her mouth one by one. It tastes just like pizza though it's wet a bit.
“Good job,” Stevie says. She wants to compliment Bucky, Bruce says, it's important for him not to have only military habits. The casserole may be more edible, but it's not that kind bad for the first time. “I'd have it for supper next time, too.”
Sometimes Stevie thinks about the fact that Bruce is not even a psychiatrist. He is a doctor, but a doctor in Nuclear Physics, though he still understands more than S.H.I.E.L.D. psychologists. They work with PTSD and different kinds of mental traumas, but the case like Bucky's they can hardly be defined.
Bucky's survived that most people didn't, the pressure could have destroyed his personality, yet he was capable of fighting the destruction and keeping more or less sane. What psychologist can analyze such a case if modern psychology never ever worked with broken super soldiers?
“Help yourself,” Bucky chews, his hands on the table, fork in the casserole tray. “Still more challenging than a work I have now.”
“Fury won't assign you for high-leveled missions until he is sure you are okay.”
“I am okay,” Bucky takes the work and spits something like a scorched piece of plastic into his hand. “If he waits for me to be his tool, he will wait forever.”
“Of course, he doesn't,” Stevie admits Fury is cunning, but it was his cunningness what saved their lives more than once. From this point, she finds Fury reliable. “Fury is used to work with special combatants. He needs to have the whole picture of you, and yes, he worries about your progress. With full-time working load, there can be side effects.”
“I am here not waiting for side effects to come. I am master-assassin. I took S.H.I.E.L.D. side and I wait for it to test me and to find me real goals.”
“Do you feel you are ready?”
“It won't be any better for me sitting home or training at the base with Stark's toys. Eat the rest,” Bucky moves the tray to Stevie. “I'm not that hungry. Half of energy I get, I don't use.”
“No, thanks,” Stevie says thoughtfully, remembering last words Fury said to her. “ Tony and I, we had shawarma. I'm not hungry, too.”
A glance from Bucky, Stevie knows she shouldn't have said that to him. A lot of things she shouldn't tell Bucky: every single one she remembers, but her mind resist hiding things. She does nothing wrong. She doesn't want to lie or keep mum her whole life, the bigger part of it she spent frozen in ice.
“Shouldn't Tony hate you?” Bucky pulls the words. “He was the first to sending me back to cryochamber again.”
“He hates me for siding you. But we were friends.” Stevie gives most controversial answer and regrets that, but there's no chance for her to turn back. She's started it, and it's not the first their fight over her work.
They need to talk it over one way or another.
“You seem to be friends with everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D.” Bucky drops the word, and it must sound like a mere observation, but still it feels more like a reproach.
“It's because I naturally don't hate people and like to be nice.” Stevie's fingers are covered with broccoli and cheese as she grabs the fork on its teeth. She has to lick greenish creamy smudge from her hands as she is close to spoiling her blouse.
“Unlike me?” Bucky's voice is cold as ice.
“Yes, unlike you,” Stevie wants to make the things clear. “If you don't need too many friends, and it's good for you this way, it's okay. Books and rifles are not the worst friends. But I – a lot of people can call me the friend of them. I wasn't like that for whole my life, but at some point, the things changed.”
“Things changed when you became Captain America.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone wants to be Captain America's friend. All those people, they are not siding you. They are siding with your name.” Bucky says plainly, with noticeable pleasure he has from saying it that way.
“Tony has a name of his own, just like everybody in the team,” Stevie responds indignantly. The problem is not in her feelings, everything in her stands against Bucky talking of her team in that way. They can be no angels, but they are her team, and Bucky is not allowed to be so ill-mouthed about them, too.
“He wants you to be a part of his collection.” Bucky snaps at her respond. He holds the fork either like a knife or like he is going to smash it his hand like a glass, he doesn't even need his iron hand for it.
“A part of his what?” Stevie heard what he's said well, but that's how the quarrels begin: when you are said something mean, you ask to repeat it for anger to inflame your blood. Stevie understands how it works but she can't avoid it sometimes.
For example, now.
“Some collects marks. Tony collects people.” Bucky still squeezes the fork in his hand, his face is dark. Shadows are gathering, Stevie even feels like his sockets became black like he is still wearing the paint under his protective glasses.
“With his habit of making enemies...”
“He collects women,” Bucky throws the fork in the sink violently, the rumble goes through the kitchen.
“Are you insane? I would never...” Stevie's eyes are round. That's the weirdest explanation she has ever heard. Bucky doesn't think it's weird, he's angry, and as he's angry he must believe in what he says.
“He would always.”
“Are you jealous?” Bucky stands on the other side of the table. That's how in movies fights get started: somebody must throw the table into the face, smashing casserole on the wall.
“I'm pointing the facts out. You don't understand a thing.” Bucky puts his hands on the table, leaning forward. They fought only once or twice as it was the only way to release the tension.
To Stevie's shame, they fought just to make out after. An ill-natured thing. Something that shouldn't be allowed to exist but impossible to avoid. Senses entwined, feelings entwined, so ambivalent fight easily turns to be sex.
It's not how it's going to be this time. It's relieving... in a way.
“Sometimes I miss the times you were lost and insecure. At least, you were nice.” Stevie throws right into Bucky's face and he bursts out: she only adds the fuel to the flame.
“The times I was sick and you had power over me. Did you think it would last forever?”
“That's a nuisance, and you know it,” he's got her and he's got her hard. Any comparison with HYDRA touches Stevie to the heart and she yields, taking the provocation before she realizes that. “All I wanted is to help you to get better. I don't even want to listen to you anymore.”
“Where are you going now?” Bucky follows her into the hallway on the distance. Stevie's glad she hasn't changed her clothes for home outfit: she needn't going to the bedroom to pick them up. Her jeans, her blouse – everything is on. She needs only to put on her shoes.
“Nowhere you wouldn't know. May I ask you not to spy on me when I'm having a walk around the park?” Stevie turns the key in the hole. A strand of the hair falls across her face and she blows it off – once, twice. She feels like she still smells with the cigarette she had days ago. “It's my time, and you are not invited if I don't ask you to join.”
Stevie walks out of the house, her hands in the pockets. Maybe it will be better if she is really angry with Buck, but she can never be angry with him; with anyone. Anger means hatred and, she doesn't like to hate people, or, to be honest, she can't hate.
Hating means to pretend you never know the one you hate, he is a stranger to you from the moment you turn your back on him, and Bucky is no strangers for Stevie. From the moment they've met, she wanted to be with him, but in reality, it is not like she imagined that.
They argue too much. They speak different languages, they walked a long way, but they did it separately, and when they met, they were different people. A little of Bucky Barnes is left in Bucky, a bit of Stevie left in her, but they are no more just kids from Brooklyn.
They are legends, one – of never-ending glory and sacrifice, and the other one – of deathly cold coming from the shadows. The legends are destined either to inspire or to terrify, but the legends are never made to fight other Tony Stark and his stupid spicy shawarma.
Stevie crosses the street and enters the park. The sky is dim, smudges of violet and dark blue are smeared over the orange stripes of sunset. The streets are lighting up slowly and the midges are clouding slowly around the glow.
Stevie doesn't want to think about Bucky, though he pushes, and pulls her memory. She has a feeling she's made a wrong thing, the feeling gets blunted in the flat, but in the streets, it returns to her with burden inside.
A kid passing by looks at Stevie, she smiles to her just to encourage – she likes to smile to the strangers, but the girl frowns and looks away. That rarely happens. People tend not to recognize Stevie without uniform, but mostly they smile back.
The kid is just jaded, Stevie tries to calm herself and fails. The stars over the park are hardly seen, the light pollution is strong over the city. She remembers the time there were more stars, the times she knew she killed for the greater good.
What has changed then? She started from dropping on the meat because she's got enough of smoking, torn, bleeding, stuffed with shrapnel. It was easier to tell herself killing was a part of her work when she was younger. She can't explain what she does anymore with that. She doesn't even believe herself saying it, but she does.
A feeling of presence goes on her. It is slight, but recognizable. She has never been a master assassin, but there's a thing she always had since serum... changed her. The ones she cares about, she feels around. It was like that with Peggy, with Natasha, sometimes, with Tony.
It has always been this way with Bucky. She doesn't see him, doesn't notice him for he is too fast, too skillful in arts that have never been her profile. But she knows it's him. He's around her. Maybe, waiting in the bushes like in that silly song.
Or hiding in the shadows.
“I didn't ask you to go with me,” Stevie says. She still feels blue and she doesn't want to talk to him. She wants him to know that.
Bucky steps out. There was nothing, just the darkness, and now it's Bucky. The manner he makes the trick, again and again, is really creepy. She thinks she knows how his victims felt like, except she knows he is no more dangerous and doesn't do the things HYDRA made him doing.
“Why did you come?” There are little stones under her feet. She feels them through the sole, it's thin and soft. She had shoes like that in summer she applied to the Art College. They were white and soft, soon they got gray and just a little bit holey.
“I don't want you to go alone,” Bucky says in a gloomy voice. He still looks angry, though he's much calmer than in the flat. There must be magic in the fresh air. Every time they go outside, they have to calm down and, at least, try to listen to themselves.
Maybe because last time they fought in the street they had it destroyed.
“Why? Do you think I can get robbed? It was eighty years ago. I have changed a little. Or you think Stark is waiting for me for a date?”
“That's awkward.” Now Bucky understands how it sounds.
“The second thing is awkward is you. I asked you for only one thing – to sometimes listen to what I say. Why don't you do it? Just because you think I can't hurt you? I can't hurt you, that's true. but I won't stand you stalking me.”
“I know.”
“What exactly?” Stevie demands.
“That you can't hurt me. You can't hurt anyone.” Bucky says with determination. The wind is playing with his hair, the rest of it makes a short ponytail under his nape. He is still wearing the mask on the missions, that's what Fury told Stevie. She wonders, why – because he used to hide his face?
Stevie wears the mask to, but she takes it off with the first possibility she has. Mask is just like a prison cell to her. She hates to hide her face, and Bucky does it naturally.
“I killed HYDRA scientists two days ago in cold blood, absolutely conscious. I can hurt people.” Stevie states out the truth, again. Why can't Bucky understand? Just because he is so accustomed to murder death means nothing to him?
“They are no people.” The corner of Bucky's lips twitches. Stevie can't agree, there's no life that doesn't matter to her.
“Who they are then if the are no people?”
“They are no people. And they are far worse than me.” He says, taking the chewing gum from his pocket and putting a pillow into his mouth. There's broccoli between his front teeth. Stevie distantly thinks she must have it, too. Broccoli is that sticky.
“You are no worse than nobody.”
“I am a murderer. I understand that. I understand that now. But that's what I'm good at. If I am good for S.H.I.E.L.D... well, I am good for S.H.I.E.L.D. Still S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps me away from my work. How can I do anything right this way?” Bucky asks her, his jaw moving. He is so still his body language tells nothing. Only the methodical, patient chewing.
“You are good enough for anyone. But if you are not ready...” Stevie starts more gentle. She knows it aches him and she doesn't want it to ache more.
“I am.”
“Then Fury will assign you if he agrees with that.” Stevie avoids the direct answer. They are afraid of instability, but Bucky and she, they are just tired of words like PTSD or mental health issues. He is not ready yet, that's the right answer.
“Why it's not you who's up to decide?” Bucky question is sharp. Stevie has to back off.
“Because I am a soldier. And that's what soldiers do – obey the orders.”
“You are bad at it.”
“Pardon me?” That's Peggy's manner to ask, that makes everyone in the room feel uneasy and slightly ashamed of their whole existence. Pogs made the trick on Bucky, too. She managed to make him blush, but that wasn't enough to shut him up.
“That's why you are valued.”
Stevie turns away and walks up the lane. She's lost this fight and she retreats – that's a strange way to lose to the one who is even not your enemy, but Stevie doesn't know what to say in response. Bucky stands under the street light, watching her from afar. When she is a few feet forward, she tells him, “If you want to go, then go.”
At the crossing they hold hands. That happens as it happens. In a moment, Stevie's fingers touch Bucky's. When she feels it, she holds his hand, and she doesn't even know how. Because they always held hands at crossings at NY, Stevie's memory says. Bucky always held her hand for he was afraid she would faint or had a fit of asthma on it while the red light lit up.
The streets are bathing in yellow light, but there are black gaps where the light doesn't reach each other. The little shop is always open, it's good to have something like that nearby. They came there before, Stevie and Bucky when they wanted donuts, ice-cream, and chocolate. In truth, Stevie never wanted it, but Bucky always liked sweets, and sometimes it was the quickest way to raise up the moods.
Stevie never stopped astonishing how far marketing has gone. All those wrappers, boxes, packages, all those colors, enticing names, promises of wealth and fortune and nicest shapes – everything that can attract the customer.
Th days Stevie remembers advertising was a bit more moderate and mostly talked to the housewives or the real men. It was the thing she was rarely able to understand like it was no women who were not married and no men who were not smoking pipes and showing females their place under the men's feet.
You get it far too serious, Stew, that's what Bucky used to say. No, never, Stevie argued. How am I supposed to get a job as an artist if I had to earn money before the personal gallery, and all that I am supposed to do is drawing ducks in hats and adorable puppies just because it's what woman of my age is supposed to like?
It seemed never ending. It seemed, yes. Eighty more years have passed, and Stevie and Bucky are standing before the shop fridge, looking into its glassy door both at their reflection and on the packages of milk with Captain America inviting silhouette on it. So many things had changed, but one – Bucky and Stevie still hold hands, though they are a little overgrown for stupid hopeful Brooklyn kids.
Bucky turns away as Stevie catches his glance. “What do you see?” “What I don't want to see.” “And what you don't want to see?” “Me.”
Bucky turns away to the fridge with the ice-cream, and Stevie embraces him, putting her chin on his shoulder. It's rigid and cold, it is his left, metallic arm. Bucky lingers for a moment of two, next thing Stevie says is the cool touch on her spine.
They never worked it out, how to live if you are Captain America and the man you love, your best friend, few years ago was your natural enemy, and then become your abused child, a lost one to be dragged out to the light, and, after years of painful symbiosis appeared to be a separate person again.
“Chocolate?”
“Chocolate what?”
“Chocolate fudge ice-cream.”
“I don't know. Maybe an ice-cream with the taste of existential crisis.”
“There must be ice-cream with the taste of Peter Zapffe,” Bucky opens the fridge, his fingers looking over the buckets. He smells like mint, but he is chewing no more – Stevie never knows how and when he gets rid of the gum.
That must be a thing only master assassins can do. When she spits the gum into the waste-basket, there are people miles around who know about that.
“You didn't say you know Zapffe.”
“Because I didn't know him.”
“How did you know, then?”
“I liked to read when I was at HYDRA. I always felt bad without the cryochamber. Reading helped me to have my mind in shape. I found Zapffe's book in Russian once. Half of the pages were scorched and I didn't know Russian good enough so I tried to remember as much as I could. When I did, the more I learned about the language, the more I understood.”
“Oh, Bucky. Sorry for calling you that, sometimes I just can't help. I remember your name is James and you are Winter Soldier. I've never forgotten it.” Stevie hugs him, and Bucky takes her shoulders and gently unhooks her.
His eyes are so very bright. They are bright like the light under the ice, cold and breath-taking. You can see in his eyes everything: yourself, his soul, the hell of it.
“You can call me Bucky sometimes. Not on the regular basis, but you can.”
“Why?”
“Winter Soldier was with HYDRA. Maybe I need another name.” He mostly speaks to himself, hesitating, his eyes wondering on the shelf.
Uncertainness frightens him. He confesses he felt better when just taking the orders. All by himself, he sometimes feels lost.
“You can't run forever. You were Bucky, then you were Winter Soldier, and you were James Barnes, too. It's of too many names, and you are only one.”
The seller boy is looking at them. He can't hear anything from his counter, but the way they talk to each other makes him watching. Stevie's glad she is hard to recognize without her suit, and Bucky is wearing that terrible old red sweater and a glove to hide the metallic shine of his fingers.
“You don't know what it's like. There is darkness around me. To fight it, anything is good enough.”
“I felt like darkness was around me since the day they took me out the crashed plane and tried to pretend it's still 40ies. I was so alone. I wanted to cry, but suddenly I realized that was something I lost at War. I could cry no more.”
“I heard you weeping in the night. A year and a half ago. Did you cry?”
“I wept. There's something I couldn't contain.”
“About me?” He demands the answer, and Stevie gives it with no doubts.
“Yes. Still, there were no tears. I just couldn't. I still can't.”
“I'm not the man you used to know.”
“Bucky!”When he tilts his head and looks away to speak more, Stevie knows there'll be no relief.
“From the beginning, it was impossible. I have changed. It can't go this way. It isn't meant to be this way.”
“What do you want to say?”
The brightest ice. When they've found her, Stevie was so cold, she couldn't get warm even when Fury revealed to her the truth. Her flat is a warehouse of blankets because she remembers the cold.
So Bucky's eyes are: cold.
“I can't be with you, Stevie.”
“You couldn't be with me years ago,” Stevie swallows.
Terrible things happen to her faster than she realizes. Surrounded by ice-cream and fudge, she is wounded and insecure on the candy shop battlefield. “I lived with that. I can do it again. I just want to know why.”
“I was Winter Soldier. You don't know even a half of what I did. If you know, you will understand.”
“Yes, I will. But I will never stop to care about you. Maybe you don't deserve it. Maybe I don't deserve it. Maybe nobody deserves it.”
“Not you.” Bucky minces the word. When he looks her in the eyes she knows he's dying. He will be okay, he'll live; on the other hand, something in him will die.
“Sometimes I want to punch you in the face,” Stevie drops the word. She hardly understands what she is talking about. Bucky is not taking her hand. He has chosen his side. “As an artist, I can't do it, because if I do, I will spoil it. But... No matter where you go, remember – till the end of the line.”
Stevie returns home alone, with no ice-cream at all, but it's enough cold in her heart. She falls on the bed, never turning on the light. She remembers where to go even in the dark, every corner and every creaky floorboard.
She falls on the bed, her eyes closed, never taking off her clothes. She lies and thinks that sleep can't make the things better, it never did. Having the bravest heart could, but Stevie's serum heart is made of flesh and blood, and it aches just like every part of her memory.
She closes her eyes and wants to fall asleep just to go back in time and wake up when the War ended, she's wearing all her medals, returned to Brooklyn, just to walk into her old flat and find there Bucky and all her canvas. In the morning, there'll be more problems: Fury blaming her for letting Bucky go, Natasha and Clint ready for the hunt. She'll have to make things right. There's only one thing she's good for, and Stevie guesses it's not the happy healthy relationship.
It becomes heavy to breathe when the morning life is vague and thin, and the room bathes in watercolors aesthetics. The white sheets, the blanket and the red and white plaid, the lamp and the old wristwatch with Stevie's name on it, saying “From Pogs and Boys, Good Luck to our Captain”.
The light slowly turning the ceiling rose, lamellar arm across Stevie's chest.
“I can't breathe,” she says. Everything seems unreal. Is she in her bed? Is Bucky at her side? They must be lying like this for several hours for her to suffocate. And he must be sleeping really tight to forget about how heavy his arm is.
“I rarely slept with somebody those years. And nobody who could get over with my...” He stumbles to find the words. Familiar read sweater, familiar bristled cheek. Everything so familiar. It's like a fake 40ies Fury invented to lessen the shock.
“Arm,” she prompts the word, thinking about how she wakes up alone, incoming on her phone.
“Weapon,” Bucky says at the same time with her. The difference is what is the arm to her, to him is the weapon.
“Bucky, you don't even know how much I hate you,” Stevie's mouth speaks before her mind. “Why do you do it to me?”
Not a thing Captain America is supposed to say. In her dream, she has a right to ask. Whatever he does, she tolerates. Stevie asks herself is it Bucky or the way she feels what makes her so soft?
She feels it like something more. She can't turn her back on him. Sometimes she wants to slap or to punch him, but she is no turning back type. That makes her weak. That makes her strong.
“I do it to myself, too,” Bucky says quietly. Stevie would say she doesn't care, but she turns to him just to look him in the eyes.
He apologizes. It's never enough and it's not his fault, neither Stevie's. They carry their past. There's no one to blame for it's too heavy. No one but HYDRA and the way the World comes to an end.
“I don't know who I hate more: you for leaving on your own or myself for I can't stop understanding you,” Stevie confesses.
Not what Captain would say? Now she really doesn't care. It's a thing Stevie Grant Rogers says.
“You understand everyone. That's something you can't learn.”
“You've come to tell me this?”
“I've come because somebody needs to take care of you.”
“Sounds odd enough. I can carry myself.”
“Yes, you can. And you need somebody who will cover your back.”
“Am I not supposed to be protected by my love and sacred fire?” Stevie's laugh is bitter. They are both lying on the bed with their clothes on. It's the most moral way to make love: the only way Captain America is supposed to have that.
No night screams, bitten lips, no robotic arms pressing the hips into the hips. No moans, no begging, no dirty talk. Nothing: she is supposed to be the icon, not a real woman. What about her guy, he's more like a Devil for everybody else. That doesn't hurt Stevie though sometimes it makes her hard to breathe – just like his arm across her chest.
“You are supposed to be crippled by your own memory one day. Just like I was.” Bucky looks at Stevie, and she looks into the wall. The strip of sunlight soaking between the curtains stretched at it.
“Do you want to save me?”
“I want to get away from you.”
“But?”
“If I go, who will cover your back? You can't be killed, you can't be destroyed, but you need somebody to stand between you and the world.” Bucky rests on his elbow. His iron hand never gets tired or shaky, the fingers are flexible. So alike with real ones, bit made from metallic plates.
Stevie remembers kissing them. She remembers them getting into her, too. For this, Bucky warms them up in his mouth.
“Why do you think so?” Stevie tucks her hair behind her ear. Her braid is tousled. She can cut her hair like in the early forties, but she doesn't want to. Where will she do with her scrunches then? One is holding Bucky's hair together.
It's pink. He doesn't care for the color.
“It nearly killed you to save me. I want to give it back. I want to protect you from what comes next.”
“A redemption.”
“Yes.”
“We were never supposed to do anything like normal people does. We must be either blessed or cursed.” Stevie looks at Bucky. She thinks she doesn't know where he's been. He must be bleeding from his very soul to come back, a thing happens to them often those days.
“That's how the things go. They've just gone the wrong way.” Bucky shrugs his other shoulder. He smells of resin, and there's a dry leaf in his hair. He can walk the city on the rooftops, and one day Stevie asked him to show it to her.
The view was stunning. Stevie wants to see it again, she wants to take pictures. The sunrise and the sunset, soft black covering under the feet, the smell of resin and the wind. Bucky says people more often look under their feet than into the sky. One walking the rooftops can be safe for a long time.
They can't be safe up there forever. But it's right the place to breathe.
“I hope the things are right now. I remember you said – as Winter Soldier – you loved me as well as Bucky. Do you love me still?” Stevie sits on the bed, turning her face to Bucky.
He nods. It's a wolf-like manner of nodding, never turning his eyes away, only moving his head a little.
“I love you do.
“Both of you?”
“Here I'm only one.”
“And the voices in your head?”
“I hear only one. It tells me if you fall, I will be the one to blame. If I go, I can't protect you.”
“If you go, you will break my heart, James. The one that's always open. Sometimes I wish I had a heart of stone.”
“I have a heart of ice. You can have me instead.”